What are your jeans doing today?

[Paul T]

We need more proper car shots like this. I love the 2002 (I miss my dad's K70, which boasted the same 70s cool). +rep.

[superscore]

went to the bay to try paddle boarding for the first time:

Laird Hamilton Steeze!!!!

[simon626]

It's 2:30 AM

Snuck out to my car for a stoag while the family was asleep.

Sat in the middle of the road the entire length of the smoke.

Any of you guys do that before?

[pomata]

[s3lam]

Today was a good day to take off the winter rims. Gave them a thorough wash and a quick wax. As you can see I spilled some wax on my left leg. My LVC47's are pretty filthy right now and have been designated as my "housework" jeans until I wash them

Just finished stacking them in the basement and are now officially "stored away" for the summer.

[pr0ximity]

Sat in the middle of the road the entire length of the smoke.

Any of you guys do that before?

Going to do this sometime.

[ninetynine]

This is boring but I'm just trying to get back into updating.

Went to banana king and got some shakes and empanadas

I got one Chicken, one Beef and a Banana shake. That's a Chorizo Arepa on the right

Then we went and chilled at my boy Ryans apartment

Chilled out and played NHL hitz

Boring I know, next update will be better I promise.

[riff]

Hey Catchforusthefoxes! Nice to have the creator of this threak back!

[ninetynine]

Thanks riff! I look forward to getting some good updates in now that I'm getting back into it.

This thread really took off btw, I'm stoked.

[weirdnjfan1]

Went to class and walk around campus in the rain all day. From my waist down both my front and back got soaked, almost like a post wash soak. The combs on back of my leg are defined now.

[LandoCal126]

BULLSHIT!

Had a meeting and this was one of the many cool things in this guys office...

Went to my boys house for a minute. He has a pretty cool collection of footwear...

Saw this and thought of my Reebok "Pumps" and that they need to make a WAYWT appearance.

Grabbed some lunch...

Solidified some travel details/ accommodations for Vinneus and Meow to this...

Took a walk...

That's all folks...

[Dchill]

Good stuff Lando, I wanna see your kick collection.

[-Z-]

got in a great round of golf today. windy, but manageable. the black and blue tees weren't mowed yet (course just opened last week) so i got 1,000 or so yards cut off. benefit of playing from the white tee box...hehehehe.

set up.

no better ball, ever.

after impact. i didn't realize i was torquing my left leg that much, surprised it doesn't hurt more often. form is sloppy, need to transfer more weight...oh well.

[dkatz]

Fiiiiiiinally got out to the field a little bit on Monday and Tuesda - spent the days field pretesting the survey for one of my projects in Rakai district, a few hours Southwest from Kampala.

7am on Monday, I met up with one of our enumerators and found the bus headed the right direction. 5 hours to Rakai, but funfortunately I had pleeeeeenty to keep me occupied. I had spent all (ALL) weekend tearing the survey apart, and it had yet to be rebuilt. So I set up my office for the morning:

Arrived in Kyotera, the main town in Rakai, found a decent hotel, and we struck out. We pretty much just operated by walking up to people on the street and asking if we could have a few minutes of their time. It's amazing, if someone did that to me at home, I'd pretty much give them the finger and tell them to put there [insert convex body-part] right into their [insert concave body-part], unless they're gonna buy me lunch. But here, people loooove to answer completely uninteresting questions for way too much time!

Surveyed until 7:30, discussed the survey 'til 10, hunted around for some food (Passover in Uganda means eating a whoooooole lotta matoke - steamed green bananas), and I tore apart and rebuilt the survey until about 1am.

Exhausted as shit by the end of the day.

Ate some comfort-snacks (plaintain chips... mmm...), watched a few minutes of English Premier League

and crashed the hell out on an uncomfortable mattress for a few hours.

Tuesday. Up at 7. Breakfast. Hopped in a "taxi" (a car operating as a mini-bus, along a set route - in Kampala they're minivans but in most of the rest of the country they're smaller cars):

with 7 of my best friends (4 across the front, including the driver) to Rakai town.

A funny dynamic- Rakai town is the district capital, yet a sleepy little country town by comparison to Kyotera. I'd been to Kyotera once before, to do some focus group discussions in November. I'm a fan. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it just feels... home-y.

Aaaaand back to pretesting. Since we'd spent most of Monday pretesting with more urban, shop-keeper-type folk, we focused on farm-type-folk on Tuesday. Sitting on a straw mat, in the dappled sunlight filtering through racks of drying tobacco, learning about why a young mother deals with money the way she does, as her 2-year old son sits on her lap, playing with her mobile phone and staring at me with wide eyes... moments that redeem the daily bullshit of Kampala.

Around 4 or 4:30 we decided it was time to start heading back. We found a taxi and I wound up crammed halfway between the front and back seats, and just as I was chuckling to myself about the fact that the driver would turn the engine off during any down-hill chunk of road, and noticing how low the fuel-gauge was, the engine sputtered and died. My Ugandan enumerator suggested we just start walking, since Kyotera was only a few kilometers away.

And so we walked

I love how green this country is (when you get out of Kampala, at least...)

Finally a boda-boda (motorcycle-taxi) driver transporting a small sack of grain on the front of his motorbike pulled up and agreed to take us the last couple kilometers for 1000 shillings (~$0.50).

*Note: collar popped to ward off equatorial sun.

Back through Kyotera

Caught a taxi in Kyotera and made it to Masaka town in no time. Found the taxi park and hopped in a taxi (a Kampala-style minivan) headed to Kampala.

Fortunately I again had diversion- I spent most of the 45 minute wait on the phone, with my country director skyping from Kampala, a colleague on her phone in her office in Jinja (eastern Uganda) and a Senior Economist of the Boston Fed - one of the Principle Investigators for the project - on his phone on a train in Connecticut. One of the more frustrating phone calls of my life.

Somehow, and I can't even begin to explain why, what should have been about a 2 hour drive back to Kampala wound up being a solid 4 hours. Even the Ugandans started getting frustrated for the hour - mostly because they missed the first bit of the Manchester United game (Uganda is OBSESSED with English Premier League football). Finally, exhausted, butt-sore from the padding-less taxi seat, and cramped from being squished in the back of the taxi, we made it back to Kampala taxi park. Hopped a boda-boda, and home around 11:30.

Aaaaand had a frenetically busy day today. I'll be crawling to Friday... when I'll be going to Lake Bunyonyi in the West to relax on a little island for 4 days with some friends! Couldn't come soon enough.

[-Z-]

must spread...however, that was the best post in weeks here yo.

[Paul T]

must spread...however, that was the best post in weeks here yo.

agreed. +rep.

[fardin]

right, awesome post, +rep. unfortunatly munich won yesterday. hope some of you guys dont hate me for that now. i know markus wont.

by teh way dkatz did you ever get the uganda lees? or more infos on the project?

[m0t3d]

Just one crappy iPhone pic because my jeans and I are stuck at home recovering from getting all four of my wisdom teeth taken out.

Waiting for the new maps to be downloaded for CODMW2.

[borkborkbork]

@daktz, what do you do? economist? anthropologist?

[dkatz]

Thanks for rep all. I'll try to post similarly whenever I manage to make it out to the field. Unfortunately I wind up spending most of my time in Kampala, managing my research team remotely, since I've always got meetings and shit I need to attend to.

Having said that, I'm actually going to get to take some days off from work this weekend (gasp!) and get the hell outta town. Bringing my dslr!

by teh way dkatz did you ever get the uganda lees? or more infos on the project?

Nah, unfortunately. They actually keep not selling on ebay and the seller keeps re-listing. They're listed at $100 + $27 shipping (from Japan).

I haven't bought because a) I'm worried they'd be too big (I'm a size 28 in SExDBxS09 - granted I'd like something a bit fuller for my next pair, but the Lee's are 32) and it's hard to justify spending serious money on much of anything, given how little I make!

(I did some quick math the other day because I'm a masochist and I'd say I'm making about 1/4 the money per hour in this job as I did working as a waiter... and working about 10 times as hard)

@daktz, what do you do? economist? anthropologist?

Short answer is that I do "research". Slightly longer answer: I work for an international organization that conducts impact assessments of development projects. We basically link academics (mostly economists from top American universities) with implementing development organizations around the world. We'll partner with local NGOs, international NGOs (such as the World Bank), local government, microfinance banks, or any other organization that wants to conduct some sort of development project, and we will design and implement a project with them that allows us to conduct an academically rigorous evaluation of whether it works - usually using randomized controlled trials as an experimental method.

So I was hired to run 2 of these projects on the ground here in Uganda. And most of the time I am an absolute fucking head-case with stress! Workin' my ass off...

[borkborkbork]

@DKatz - is it 3IE? If so: Keep up the good work!!

[dkatz]

^ Nah, not 3IE, though I did just recently receive some documentation from them on reporting impact evaluations that I've been meaning to read.

I'd rather not say what organization. I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to figure out, but I'd rather not my participation on sufu be in any way construed as an official representation of my organization or some shit. Nawmean?

[almostnice]

got myself a nice little easterpresent:

perfect cashbox for any denimhead.

Lets fight it!

[ninetynine]

Hey hey, today was really nice so I decided to do an update:

Dad needed me to run an errand for him on my day off so I got in my car as soon as I rolled out of bed.

Popped in one of my favorite CDs and got going

Stopped in at whole foods

Kombucha

and beer (my favorite)

Here's what I got: Lemonade, Kombucha, Teany (it's Mobys tea company, do you guys have it outside the tri state area) and a beer to review later on http://electricmoleskine.blogspot.com

Started a new (actual) moleskine yesterday

Sat with an Iced Coffee (black, no sugar) and wrote about a few things.

I have Gray tie dye socks today (all of my socks are silly/ ridiculous looking)

Back to running the errand, headed to the big blue box to pick up some bed slats for my dad (but who cares about that)

cont...

[ninetynine]

After that I went my favorite place to eat

http://quillysgourmetsliders.com/

This is Steve, he runs the place and makes pretty much everything from scratch.

I got falafel sliders and they are awesome:

Then I went to the park and collected my thoughts (new jersey isn't ALL crap haha)

Found a shady tree to sit under and unwind

Haven't shown my face in awhile (probably because I'm a nerd)

Copied down a few thoughts and headed home

Headed out to fill up the propane tank... we're gonna grill a few steaks tonight.

[morse9443]

welcome back catchforusthefoxes, what a monster you created with this thread man:cool:

[Paul T]

Escape from the city

Hit a deadline Monday and promised myself if I made it I'd bunk off for the today. So, I enticed my mate Carl, internationally famous to his eternal shame as a designer of prog rock sleeves (for Marillion, hahha!) away from his Mac. We went to a town called Rochester, out in Kent, lots of dockyards, military bases etc.

History lesson #1: Dartford station platform.

THis is where Keith Richards noticed an old friend of his from primary school, Mick Jagger, and a bunch of cool records, Chuck Berry etc under his arm. THey chatted. Ended up forming a band.

We walked thru from Strood. For some bizarre reason, there's a Russian submarine there, rusting away quietly.

THe high street is classic old town, all dating from the 1500s when the royal navy got going. Full of fantastic book shops.

Charles Dickens lived nearby. For the last 10 years of his life, he wrote all of his novels etc in a chalet in his garden. THis chalet. I wish I had one like this in my garden.

THe cathedral is classic NOrman - building started around 1090, most of it was completed by around 1400. THe doorway, and these chunky pillars, are from the earliest part of the building.

THe cathedral and the castle have kept their period fittings. Not the pubs, though. Carl told me a couple here would have bands on from the 70s... Tracy Emin and her then boyfriend Billy Childish lived here in the 70s or 80s... but since then they've cleaned the whole thing up and the pubs are pretty damn boring. Beer was acceptable, nothing too staggering.

THe NOrmans started building a castle the same year as Hastings, 1066, in timber. They built an improved stone version a couple of decades later.

[Paul T]

several hours later, on our way back to the train station. THis is the Medway looking north - where the river bends arcs was the site of the Shorts factory - they made huge flying boats, liek the Short Sunderland, which would roll on a huge ramp down to the river to take off. THe factory is gone, but the ramp's just about visible, sloping into the river just after the bend.

Oops, nearly forgot the denim shot. These SDA are five months old, you can tell how the look really worn, can't you? Opposite is a plain carry bag in LVC's new cotton duck.

Nearly home... off the train, we walked back home over Blackheath, one of London's last open spaces - this was where most armies would gather before attacking the city. Watt Tyler and 50,000 followers assembled here for the peasants' revolt. THere's a great pub on the edge. We walked thruy a massive thunderstorm, now the sun's out once more.

On our way over the heath, I bumped into a local I'd met a couple of times before - Seamus, played piano with Madness in the early days, then later with Iggy, more recently Paul Weller and now the Madness reunion. I persuaded him into the pub.

THe gf called me at 6.30 to make sure I"d be back at 8.00 to pick up the nipper. Of course I will be back, I assured her. Oops. THey have Green King IPA here, a better pint than the Kentish beer, the Landlord and the Peroni we'd tried earlier in the day.

Carl got an irate phonecall and ran off around 7. I realised I was late when it was dark. Back home over Blackheath - in the distance you can see the Rangers house - Goerge IV's wife stayed there after her hubby threw her out, and they're erecting a circus tent just on the right.

MAde it home only half an hour late. Stopped in my local to check out their London Porter. Well worth the detour. Picked up the nipper a few 60s comic books with war stories. So, I'll be doing my best almost nice impression over the weekend. Altogether now "Donner und blitzen!"

[map111158]

catchforusthefoxes is that Dunkerhook? My hometown is Paramus.

[DoitsuJin]

catchforusthefoxes is that Dunkerhook? My hometown is Paramus.

off topic but me too