What are your jeans doing today?

[LandoCal126]

Father's Day my pops and I took a stroll through the North Beach Festival...

Typical Festival Food Signage...

I have loved the chalk drawings since I was little...

The Crowd...

Was on Broadway and my eye is always drawn...

Comstock Saloon. Never been but looks a bit cheese...

Chess...

Art...

Home...

*Bonus Pic* - Went to check out Revolver yesterday and in the back they have an art gallery. The artist being featured is Adriana Atema. Her work in this show was focused on Bruce Lee...

[pomata]

the food was really great

the cook guy is Valerio, he really smokes a lot ofweeds, he such a nice guy

also, a herd of cows ran on the beach while we were eating but I had no time to take a pic

I'm havin fun

[k4727]

Packing for a 5 week trip to barcelona, hopefully ill be on sufu from there

[ah_long]

me and my fd decided to go to NYC for a day trip today.. Pardon me for the crappy iphone pictures

took the 6:30am flight from Toronto to La Guardia

when we got there, she went to her sample sale and I went to BiG to get my T5-002 hemmed a lil bit shorter as well as to try on the fit of the Eternal 811 to make sure I got the right size

day started off with a cup cake... what is two bite size is actually half a bit size.. but mmm.. red velvet cupcake

more eating.. I love this taco joint

then I went to BiG.. after that I saw some American workers.. they've changed so much in the past century..

got myself a cold latte

took the subway to meet my fd @ the rock centre

went to shake shack for the first time.. easily the best burger I had in my life time.. definitely going to go back when I'm doing my section of the Burgus World Tour..

time to go home.. stupid weather caused a 1 hour delay.. didn't arrive back into Toronto until 11:30pm

and of course... to make this denim related.. WAYWT

Uniqlo

Redmoon

ALD Belt

Mr. Fat iPhone pouch..

G-Shock

T5-002

RW875

[dkatz]

^ I love the idea of flying from Toronto to NYC for a "day trip" - bad ass!

Pomota- where are you vacationing?

a. khan- have an awesome time! I look forward to pictures and stories!

Still have some more catch-up to play from my field-time for the baseline, but this week I'm in Mukono for the "Training of Trainers" in which we are training the people who will go out to our sample population and deliver the financial education curriculum I've developed.

Our partner organization - an NGO which specializes in (among other things) teach people how to teach and interact with youth on sensitive topics - is leading the training, and I'm sitting on the side, keeping an ear tuned in and doing some other work, mostly writing the STATA code to do the random assignment of study participants into treatment and control groups. Woo!

To-be trainers hard at work, getting experience in what it's like being a participant

My work-space at the bottom-left

They freaking LOVE these "energizer" and "team-building" activities!

They're usually pretty entertaining to watch.

Stepped outside for a moment to make a couple phone calls - gotta get all the logistics for the roll-out of the intervention set up. I hate logistics!

No hair no beard! (No one recognizes me! I had a friend introduce himself to me and a couple co-workers think I was a new staffer!)

locally-made shirt from kitenge fabric

Unlucky belt

Tellason Strummer

Mount's Bay

[beatle]

seriously , ah_long - now I am super hungry...

[tvshooter]

660's are gonna be chillin inside the house today. way too humid and hot today in VA

bonus pic**

[dkatz]

^ can't rep, but I love the photo of the jeans next to the vintage jukebox? radio? - great use of jeans as decor!

[pomata]

sup dkatz I'm in sardinia

I woke up late and had breakfast

and later I rented a windsurf

as you can see I was very annoyed to leave my denim alone

[entropy kid]

sup dkatz I'm in sardinia

Was clear from bottarga and myrto. Isn't it blasting hot there?

[pomata]

^no it isn't. the mistral has been blowing quite strong in these days

[-Z-]

not today, but here are some leftover shots from the other day that I snipped.

real reason for this post is to give props to pomata, dkatz, ah_long, and everybody who's posted in the last few pages...prime stuff gents.

[selaviso]

creepy face in the corner

[beatle]

being happy

[Guest I LOVE LFC]

23/6/2010

Daughters 2nd birthday today. We went to chester zoo. Weather was nice and she loved seeing the animals.

The Mrs and Shiloh

Stood round the Lion enclosure for 15 minutes, they didn't do anything except sleep, haha

Literally 12 seconds after getting her in the car.......We gave her the pick of the zoo shop, she decided on a Gorilla, haha. It suits her well as she is a little brute!

Best pressie of the day...

Got home and measured my Flat Heads up for the great fellas at OOE YOFUKUTEN.......

Then that was me off to the boozer with the lads for the rest of the day ready for the footy and one of my mates' last bevy before he goes back to Afghanistan on Friday, no pictures I'm afraid, too drunk.

[GBOB]

Looks like a lovely day out, I LOVE LFC. I agree, the new strip looks good, who's she having on the back?

[pomata]

a few pics from this morning

the ipod I stole from my mom has only a dozen of songs from the 60s. I forgot to upload my stuff on it. it's not that bad though

sea

sufu

I'm getting ready for Italia's match now hoping we won't be as pathetic as the last one. cheers

[aho]

^pomata, my regards on the Italy game....

[ranonranonarat]

^^ awwwww the result sucks, i was really rooting for italy this world cup. i've always liked teams with a history of a solid back four.

well, heres a quick update.

me and my jeans went out today to get an article done about weird food.

weird food brought me to this chinese restaurant that served all kinds of weird food. here is one of them, fried ants. yes fuck, fried ants. was a little apprehensive at first because i dont like these critters and although they didn't taste as bad as i expected, they didn't taste good either. if you're wondering how they taste like, well they taste EXACTLY like how they look. antsy. apparently eating these were supposed to help you "expel poison", get more black hair (??), helps with arthritis (mabbe i should recommend this to corter). i dont believe in any of it but had to try it for the sake of the article.

had fried scorpion as well. although it was just 1 scorpion, the taste was a little stronger than that of ants. no idea how to describe it, but it had this strong taste which i can't think of anything similar to. in short, it taste just as bad as what you think scorpion juice tastes like. sucks.

not much happened after the tasting session. had to get home to mull over work and write another article. till tomorrow!

[redX]

thas some dope food!

[dkatz]

Damn LFC, your little girl is adorable! Glad you showed her a good day =)

If she wants to see some more active lions, she can come visit me and we'll go safari-ing!

And hooray! First ranonaranonarat post that DIDN'T make me hungry. VERY not hungry. Are you a journalist??

Well, today I spent most of in meetings - meeting a new potential deputy country director, working out logistics for project implementation launch, and having a semi-formal launching meeting to discuss next-steps on my NEXT fucking project (mother of crap I need a vacation).

But (continuing to play catch-up from my time in the field overseeing the survey), a couple weeks ago....

Still in Arua. This is what cassava looks like when it's on its way to becoming cassava flour:

Definitely wanted to steal this little guy and take him home, though I'm not totally sure whether the desire was in based more in his adorableness or his potential for resulting in a delicious breakfast side-dish

(also what's with the nose-nail? I'm all about piercings, but... ow!)

My workspace for an afternoon

shirt made in Bangkok

Tellason Strummer

Freeman

I made the mistake of chuckling and commenting on "Saturday is holly" within earshot of the matatu driver, and was rewarded by a long diatribe (which I immediately tuned out) about some Bible passage something something about Saturday something being holy. I didn't even get around to mentioning that Saturday isn't a plant.

Soooo after leaving this club, the day turned interesting: the enumerators pretty much threatened to strike.

Hooray for first-hand experiences with labor disputes!

Needless to say, I was already a bit underwhelmed with the enumerators' performance. After both teams failed to mobilize their second clubs of the day, I decided that we'd have to work at least a half-day the next day to make up for it, rather than taking the day off as they'd planned. I didn't decide this (just) because I'm a jerk - they'd had several 1-club days and, frankly, we just didn't have the money to extend the baseline any more. And there's the (sad) concern that some enumerators could be trying to work slowly so that they'd only cover one club a day so that the job would, in effect, be extended, meaning they make more money.

Mind you, also, that by this point I had not had more than a few hours at a time off in six weeks, so I wasn't terribly sympathetic to the complaint that they'd worked for nine days straight.

Welllll, regardless they weren't too pleased with my decision. Actually, the consensus response was (and I paraphrase), "we're not working tomorrow". Or, more verbosely, "we're not going to work tomorrow even if you tell us we have to work tomorrow."

On the down-side, I was pretty miffed, and seeing all sorts of horrific budgetary catastrophes in my mind's eye. On the up-side, I got an accidental part-day off! Hooray!

At least the nice waitress at the hotel facilitated my desire to cry out my woes into dinner by having food ready for me when I arrived... without me even realizing I was hungry. She apparently picked up on my affinity for salad and avocado (and rice and "cow peas"):

(I think the waitress liked me)

I started my day "off" with some survey-review and a dosa for breakfast at a mediocre local Indian place:

and then went for a walk, and was reminded that my sense of humor has not matured beyond peri-pubescence

A friend had told me about some nice hotel just outside of town with a pool... called White Castle (teehee), so I decided to have a look-see. And I decided to try a new means of transportation.

There's nothing to make you feel like a lazy, overindulged, exploitative Westerner quite like paying somebody to transport your lazy, overindulged, exploitative Western butt using their own physical labor:

So I made myself feel better like any good lazy, overindulged, exploitative Westerner would: I overpaid and gave him the rest of my water.

Apparently school was letting out:

(more in a few moments...)

[dkatz]

And White Castle turned out to be quite nice

I sat by the pool to review surveys in the good company of a lousy beer and some ground-nuts (you may know them as "peanuts")

but Unfortunately it wasn't quite pool weather, so I had a stroll and a lay down instead, and reviewed some surveys (shock of shocks)

AND I FOUND A BUG!!

Huh...?

So it was good to have a day at least not seeing any enumerators, and not spending ALL of reviewing surveys.

For the rest of my time in Arua, I mostly tried to hang in the background, with the dual goals of allowing/forcing the team leaders and auditors to take more control and authority (which they did, admirably!) and in order to ensure enumerators' fear/resentment of me subside a bit.

Though apparently the enumerators continued to ask the team leaders every day when I'd be leaving. Hah!

And generally, after that day, the enumerators really did step up and start doing a significantly better job! So much for my disbelief in negative reinforcement...

We did decide to fire one enumerator, but while his replacement was en route via bus, one of the other enumerators' children was injured and she needed to leave. Sooo the guy who was supposed to replace the problem-enumerator instead replaced a dang good one. Alas.

A couple more pictures from Arua:

Who needs church bells when you've got a metal rod and an old rusty car-wheel hanging from a tree branch with rope?

While waiting for the rest of a clubs' respondents to arrive, the enumerators do a bit of cassava shopping:

and we ate some fruit from the bush. If I understood correctly, the oil from the seeds is "shea oil" (as in shea butter?). Kinda tasted like very sweet avocado

I appreciate the sentiment, posted in a copy-shop:

[dkatz]

Had a wander in Arua market

On the way back from a club the next day(?), I passed the Congo border. Look, you can almost see the lawlessness over there!

Technology!

Fortunately, I resisted the urge to go have a look-see at the DRC.

I got so excited the first time I saw one of these signs, only to have my boss laugh at me and ask if they didn't call cross-walks "Zebra Crossings" in the US also. Damn fun-hating Germans...

Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of it, but probably the single best thing about Arua was this little down-an-alley hole-in-the-wall Ethiopian restaurant where I discovered a full delicious meal, an ice-cold beer and a hefty tip set me back... 8000 Shillings, or about $3.50. AWESOME. I ate there three nights in a row.

The next morning I decided to reward the enumerators for their hard work by... leaving.

Back to Kampala I went, then to next check in on the Mukono teams. More as soon as I can...

Oh wait, one other lovely thing which I just today realized must have happened in the dry, dusty dirt of Arua, in which I foolishly wore sandals.

One of these little suckers decided my big toe was juuuust the right kinda place to raise a family:

Fortunately I noticed it before it got this bad:

and hatched its babies

After doing some digging with my pocket knife, and squeezing to get the eggs out, it doesn't look so bad!

Needless to say I'm thinking I'll delay my arrival at the training tomorrow morning to instead stop by a health clinic and make sure I completed the jigger-abortion in my toe.

[Guest I LOVE LFC]

Looks like a lovely day out, I LOVE LFC. I agree, the new strip looks good, who's she having on the back?

Think it will just be her name, not worth risking a Gerrard or Torres as they may not be there:(

[roy6]

. . . .

[pomata]

^pomata, my regards on the Italy game....

which fuckin game are you talkin about? I don't know. I've been sunbathing all the time today

[ranonranonarat]

FUCK dkatz. that is fucking gross. insects laying eggs and shit in your foot and you squeezing the fuck eggs out of them. damn, it just made my day. i've seen the same thing happen to a friend and she didn't notice it and the damn thing swelled up to the size of golf balls. freaky as fuck. oh and im not a journalist, just a student doing communication studies and one of my modules is "journalism" so there you go. i could eat the fuck out of those eggs from your foot after today's ant/scorpion meal.

thanks roy, appreciate it!

UH OH POMATA.

[zeen]

err i just lost my appetite for breakfast.

[grouse_allergy]

dkats, somehow I'm more traumatized by how far back you had to cut your toenail than I am by the jiggers.

[riff]

FUCK dkatz. that is fucking gross. insects laying eggs and shit in your foot and you squeezing the fuck eggs out of them. damn, it just made my day. i've seen the same thing happen to a friend and she didn't notice it and the damn thing swelled up to the size of golf balls. freaky as fuck..

So. Totally. Gross.

Who's in to contribute to the Dkatz White's boot fund? I think we need to keep our buddy safe out there.