2008: A Brief Year in Review

Let’s see.  What happened this year?  Quite a bit actually.

According to my 2008 annual report from Dopplr, I traveled 189,838 km (52% of the distance to the moon) to achieve an average “personal velocity” of 21.8 km/hr over the year.  And that doesn’t count my Nike Training Log totals for 133 runs (572 mi over 81 hrs 31 min).  I spent many, many hours coaching soccer, playing soccer, watching soccer or talking about soccer, but I still love it.  I shut down my business and opened up a new career chapter.  Bought a house, sold a house, then refinanced a house.  Hosted a family reunion for 13 and a Thanksgiving dinner for 13.  Crested 500 business connections in LinkedIn and 170 friends in Facebook.  Watched my investment portfolio crater, then shifted gears to take advantage of the market opportunity.  Grew my MP3 collection to more than 4,300 tracks (with many, many more CDs yet to rip) and converted 722 35mm slides to digital images.  I shoveled, mowed, mulched, weed whacked and leaf blowed a whole bunch.  Posted a rather lame 27 times on this blog.  Gotta do better than every other week in 2009, but not exactly off to a blazing start, am I?  I did fire up rockymtnfuller.com, so that has to count for something.

Anyway, a busy year with another on the way.

Now, I leave you with this: JibJab’s usual irreverent compilation of recent events encapsulated in their short film entitled What a @#$% Year! 2008.

Drambuie Unboxing

Aged Malt Whiskies, Spiced Honey and other Secret Stuff

Over 250 years ago, Captain John Mackinnon helped Bonnie Prince Charlie escape from his pursuers on the Isle of Skye. His reward was to be entrusted with the recipe for Drambuie, which has been handed down through the generations and remains a closely guarded secret by the Mackinnon family to this day.

Weel may we a’ be,
Ill may we never see;
Here’s to the King
And the gude companie.

Through good fortune not unlike that bestowed upon John as he rescued Charlie, I received this Christmas a fine bottle of the sweet nectar that is Drambuie.  Truth be told, I asked for it and thusly did receive from my wise older sister Kris.  I am forever in her debt or at least in her debt until I’ve finished the bottle. Shouldn’t take too long.

Micro Movie Magic

If you’ve been reading my blog lately, you know I’ve spent a lot of time in the air this year. Since I always ride in coach and there’s no room for my 6’3” body to work with a laptop, I end up reading or watching movies whenever I’m not sleeping. In terms of films, both South African Airways and Delta Air Lines have pretty good in-flight entertainment systems with individual on-demand video systems.  As a result, I count 26 movies watched in the air this year. I thought I’d devote a post to movie reviews. However, since they have little tiny screens on airplanes, these are just little tiny reviews. Enjoy.

1. Juno: A quirky perspective on teen pregnancy.
2. Beowulf: All CGI. Angelina Jolie’s digital instance is pretty awesome.
3. Atonement: A little depressing. My one chick flick for the year.
4. We Own the Night: Not buying Marky Mark and Joaquin Phoenix as brothers, but there’s a really unsual car chase in a rain storm. I love car chases!
5. Knocked Up: Incredibly funny. Seth Rogan is great and Katherine Heigl is very sweet.
6. Dan in Real Life: Oops. Another chick flick. With Steve Carrell and Dana Cook, I expected it to be really funny, but this is a serious movie. Still pretty good.
7. Cloverfield: Not sure I’d see it again since the outcome is spoiled now, but everyone should see it once. Good, clean monster movie fun.
8. I Am Legend: A better kind of zombie movie. Check it out.
9. Jumper: Just okay. Don’t expect Anakin to wield any light sabres in this one.
10. Into the Wild: I gave up. Sean Penn goes overboard with the artistic stuff. I did like Vince Vaughn as the leader of a gypsy harvest combine crew.
11. Charlie Wilson’s War: Surprisingly good. I don’t agree politically with the real Charlie Wilson, but the movie was a lot of fun.
12. Elizabeth – The Golden Age: I fell asleep.
13. National Treasure – Book of Secrets: How can Nicolas Cage play this kid-friendly, quasi action hero role, then go off to another movie where he’s a complete psycho? Whatever. A good addition to the Nat T franchise.  And it has a car chase!
14. Gone Baby Gone: I usually hate this kind of “kid in peril” movie. But it had a lot of twists and turns and I enjoy Ed Harris (who was also in NT: BoS).
15. Semi Pro: Goofy. Silly. Prototypical Will Ferrell.
16. Be Kind Rewind: This is an odd little film. It was shot to look like a home movie which is funny given the plotline. The movie is a little Weird Science and a lot something else.
17. The Bank Job: Jason Statham is cool. Typecast, but cool. I can imagine him playing David Beckham in a soccer biopic.
18. Drillbit Taylor: Owen Wilson is slipping a bit. Just okay.
19. I, Robot: An oldie, but goodie, as they say. High quality sci-fi is a weakness of mine. This is almost as good as Minority Report.  And it has trucks-full-of-robots-chasing-a-car chase!
20. An Inconvenient Truth: Way better than I expected. The scariest part of this film is that it was made by a politician with clarity and who seemed to make sense. The situation must be much worse than it appears for that to have happened.  But no car chases.
21. Leatherheads: George Clooney and Renée Zellweger try a wee bit too hard to have chemistry, but it’s not every day someone makes a football movie from this era. Good for a view.
22. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Another favorite classic. I need to go to Wudan school.
23. 21: The book was better.
24. Master & Commander – The Far Side of the World: The next best thing to a car chase is a 19th century round-the-world tall ship chase.
25. 10,000 BC: I didn’t realize that in ancient Egypt there were massive mountain ranges full of mastodons, vast jungles with super sized flightless vultures AND the giant deserts you normally associate with the region (plus you could pretty easily walk across all this terrain in a few days), but it’s right here on film.
26. Vantage Point: This movie is good up until about the 4th run through of the assassination sequence from a different point-of-view, then it started to get a bit repetitive (literally).  Still it’s not bad.  And there’s a great car chase through the streets of Mexico City (the movie was “set” in Salamanca but not “shot” there).

Howzit? Howzit!

Back in Jo’burg. Again. Land of opportunity. Land of malls. It’s like southern California the way everyday commerce revolves around the malls in this city. Sandton City, Rosebank, Cresta, Clearwater and other malls seem to dominate social activities.  Most of the restaurants are in the malls.  Many of the grocery stores are in the malls.  There are flea markets in the malls.  Even liquor stores are in the malls.  Go to the mall or go home.

Anyway, I am lacking in recent posts, but I simply haven’t had time to write nor much of interest to write about.  I’m hopeful this will be the last trip for a long while as I am tired of airplanes.  With travel for work and vacation, the end of next week will mark a six week stretch during which I will have slept four nights in airplane seats against only five in my bed at home and flown 42,212 miles (across United, Delta and Southwest… bummer).  Strange way to live.

On the upside, spring is arriving in SA.  Today it’s a sunny, clear, crisp Saturday.  There are some noisy Hadada Ibis in the garden.  Dawn breaks at about 6:15am and I’ve been able to get back to running in the morning, which is good for my health and sanity.  I ran 4mi this morning, then walked another 3mi hitting a couple shopping centers to complete some errands.  There’s Beijing 2008 Olympics coverage on the TV and the South Africa v Argentina rugby match will be on shortly, so I’m getting a much needed sports fix.

Hopefully, I will be posting more regularly going foward.  Thanks for the patience, iyakubonana (Xhosa) and totsiens (Afrikaans).

(Il)logical Routing

I’ve been to South Africa four times this year with a fifth trip planned for this month. It’s been an interesting time and I’ve learned a fair amount about emerging market business, politics and culture. Still, the first thing most people ask when I tell them where I’ve been traveling is: “How do you get there, anyway?” Weird. Few start with questions about game parks or Jo’burg’s tough reputation or weather; those questions come later.

Most of the time, people go straight to the process and wonder about the state of global air transportation. So, to lay it out for all, here’s my experience thus far.  First, I’ve not done it twice the same way.  I’ve flown into O.R. Tambo International Airport on South African Airways and Delta Air Lines, and will soon add Air France to that list, but the routing has been different each time:

• DEN ATL DKR JNB -> JNB DKR ATL DEN (9710 miles / 15620 km)
• DEN IAD JNB -> JNB DKR IAD DEN (9590 miles / 15440 km)
• DEN LHR JNB -> JNB LHR DEN (10290 miles / 16560 km)
• DEN JFK DKR JNB -> JNB DKR JFK CVG DEN (9590 miles / 15440 km)

Coming Attraction!

• DEN JFK CDG JNB -> JNB CDG JFK DEN (10670 miles / 17180 km)

Flights from the US almost invariably stop in Dakar, Senegal.  Flights from Europe go straight through.  The eastbound trans-Atlantic flights are overnights, the westbound are daytime flights.  Southbound flights from Europe to Jo’burg are usually daytime and northbound at night.  Trans-African flights are typically the same as the Europe legs, heading south in the day and north at night.  But there are exceptions: the trip I made through London had overnight flights for 3 of the 4 legs.  Best to have a neck pillow and get used to sleeping in coach airplane seats if you need to fly like this often.  And plan to spend a minimum of 24 hours in transit which can stretch to well over 30 hours if you have bad connections (like my next trip which will have no less than 18.5 hours of layovers for the round trip).

The best?  For me, it has to be United Airlines to IAD and South African Airways from their, racking up miles on Star Alliance the whole way, but the tickets aren’t necessarily the cheapest that way, hence the variety of routes and airlines.

*UPDATE 23.Jul.08* Umm.  Yeah.  So going via CDG is not so great if you have the itinerary I had, which included a MASSIVE layover at JFK on the way home: took me 36 hours from aircraft door close in Jo’burg to door open in Denver.  Suboptimal to say the least.

On Connectivity and Missed Connections

I find myself this morning sitting in Concourse A at Cincinnati / N Kentucky International Airport awaiting my flight home. There was a bit of weather here yesterday afternoon, causing my Delta Airlines flight from New York, NY to divert to Louisville, KY. By the time the weather cleared and we arrived in Cincy, my flight had departed and there were no other flights to get me home last night. Thus an already long trip home from Jo’burg was extended by another 16 hours or so. Such is life in the country with the most advanced transportation and technology infrastructure in the world. Or is that a fallacy?

Case in point: WiFi connectivity at JFK International Airport. This is one of the busiest airports in America with 47.8m passengers passing through in 2007 alone and the 8th busiest in the world in 2007. Yet, only 1 of its 8 terminals (Terminal 4… the International terminal) has WiFi connectivity available. Surprising, eh? Since I wasn’t in that terminal, I tried to use my T-Mobile SIM to connect to the Internet. For my effort, I received a measly 115k connection that eventually quit working. When I’m in South Africa, I almost always have a 3G network connection that’s 3 to 4x that speed. And it works: I use it all day long when I’m there.

Further, in terms of air transportation, I have traveled to South Africa 3 times this year via South African Airways. I have flown via London Heathrow, Washington Dulles and New York JFK. Each time, my flight has departed and arrived (coming and going) within 5 to 10 minutes of schedule, making me a very satisfied SAA customer.

So, what’s the punchline here? Not sure other than my personal experience of late is that America’s infrastructure superiority isn’t what it used to be. It’s still extremely good, don’t get me wrong, but there are a few holes. I wonder what’s causing this? Any ideas out there?

BTW… If you find yourself stuck in Cincy, I can recommend the Cincinnati Airport Marriott. Reasonable rates, nice decor, decent restaurant and a 5 minute shuttle ride from the airport.

A Perspective on Africa

This weekend I am returning to Johannesburg for my fourth visit of 2008. Hopefully, this time will be no different than in the past, but one wonders what might be different with the recent and on-going xenophobic violence. I generally don’t blog about politics (particularly when it’s politics outside the US), and I won’t pretend to really comprehend what’s happening in South Africa right now, but I will say that it’s a real shame.

From my superficial perspective, South Africa appears to be a country that’s really trying to change, embrace diversity and elevate the entire population. The people are genuine and friendly and the outlook is bright.

So before going all alarmist, consider that the situation there, now, is not unlike other recent incidents of this nature elsewhere when troubles were initiated by a relatively small group of individuals attempting to push their agenda through vigilante means:

• 1992: Los Angeles Riots following the Rodney King verdict which, inexplicably, included racially motivated attacks on Korean immigrants
• 2005: France Civil Unrest following the deaths of two teenage immigrants in a poor Paris suburb which included violence in poor, ethnic neighborhoods across France

While the reasons and back story for these incidents are different, they have the common thread of the people taking matters into their own hands when the government fails to recognize and diffuse tensions. This is the challenge of an open, democratic society.

For the uninitiated, the thinking on the current South African unrest is probably: “Eh. Typical. This is Africa, right?” To those that know better, this is an often unfortunate consequence of progress. If you look at the 250 year time line of America as it made it’s way from a racially divided, colonial economy up until today, you will find a history marked by violence every step of the way. In the beginning, Europeans must have viewed America as a wild, violent country (some still do, I suppose) much like Americans often view the developing world today.

Tagging South Africa specifically, and Africa in general, as an uncivilized, dangerous place is over-simplifying the situation. Recognize the colonial era for the super-majority of African nations ended within the last 100 years. As recently as 1914, only Ethiopia and Liberia were sovereign nations, with independence coming for over 80% of Africa since 1960.

From my perspective, Africa as a whole seems to be doing as well, or better than, America did in its first 50 years of independence. Infrastructure is going in all over the continent; the economies are vibrant and growing quickly; the people are energetic. And despite all the obstacles of poverty, disease, weak education systems and volatile political systems, Africans are figuring it out and doing so very quickly.

I love living in America and I’m proud to be an American, but we should should look, listen and learn before speaking. If you have the opportunity, I encourage you to visit and experience the region for yourself as it will be enlightening, I guarantee it.

End of soap box speech. I’m already planning my next post and I assure my miniscule readership that it will be a bit more lighthearted. Thanks for indulging a rare diatribe on my part.

Jo’burg Running

As part of what’s becoming a recurring theme, I bring you some information on running while traveling for business. This time, my footfalls occurred in Johannesburg. I made a pair of trips to South Africa between late last month and earlier this month. Both times, I stayed in outlying western neighborhoods: Fairland and Northcliff. This part of Jo’burg is mostly residential and very green. It’s also rather hilly which provides for some pretty good work outs when you figure in the already high elevation of the area.

While in Fairland, I generally stayed within the residential area near my B&B which is bounded by Seventh Ave and Ninth Ave to the north / south and Smit St and Weltevreden Rd to the west / east. This is a pretty quiet area with fairly wide, low traffic streets. I didn’t stray too far primarily because none of the streets are straight and with all the hills, houses and trees, spotting landmarks is challenging (and remembering all the street names is tricky). Plus, I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to be out and about despite various people I met insisting it was perfectly safe: the day after my arrival a shootout occurred nearby between armed security forces and home invaders which resulted in the tragic death of a 12 year old girl named Emily Williams. Needless to say, I kept my eyes open.

The next trip, I ventured out a little further while staying at a different B&B in Northcliff. This neighborhood shares its name with the rock outcropping it has been built upon and around.

After a little planning and scribbling some street names on a scrap of paper, I began exploring to the south of my B&B, each morning climbing further up the maze of switchback streets leading to the top of 1,807m Northcliff (aka Aasvoëls Kop). Eventually, I ended up with a route I call Northcliff Out n’ Back which includes about ~150m of vertical to reach the top (plus the same going back down). This is a great run, if you like hills, and the views from the top are fantastic. Give it a try if you find yourself in the area.

Jo’burg Mornings

For the past six mornings, I’ve woken up at sunrise and listened to the sounds of unfamiliar birds. Noisier. Bigger. More tropical. I’m in Johannesburg, South Africa this week and next (then most likely back again for a while longer after going home for a week). I’m here for business, but I won’t waste any time describing that. Instead, I’ll just comment on a few things I’ve learned thus far.

For starters, it’s a long trip: nearly 9,600 miles and 24 hours total travel time from Denver if you go on Delta (which is via Atlanta and Dakar, Senegal). This is about twice what it normally takes me to get to London. It’ll be a bit longer going back even as we’ll be flying against the jet stream. Africa is a a big place… it took as long to fly from Dakar to Johannesburg as it did across the Atlantic from Atlanta to Dakar. I guess that shouldn’t surprise me, but it’s nothing I’ve ever thought about until this past weekend when I made the trip here.

Johannesburg is a study in contrasts, both surprising and stereotypical at the same time. Jo’burg (as the locals call it… or sometimes Josey) sits at an elevation in excess of 5,500′, which was unexpected. Unlike Denver where the elevation doesn’t seem to moderate summer temperatures and 100+ is common, summer here usually means upper 70s. Very pleasant and not very humid. Obviously, it’s summer here as I’m some 1,800mi south of the equator. Winters are similarly mild. The city was founded in the 1880s as part of the Witwatersrand gold rush, not unlike Denver’s founding in the 1850s. There are literally hundreds of thousands of transplanted trees and the terrain is rather hilly to the west of the city center: it reminds me a little of Redding, CA.

I was also surprised by certain similarities between here and America. I’ve eaten burgers and pizza more than once each. The newspapers are written in American English vs UK English (spelling, vernacular, etc). I turned the radio on the other evening and out came The Fray’s ubiquitous song “Over My Head”. With the current exchange rate of about 7.6 South African Rand to the US Dollar, prices for food and fuel are both close to what you see in some of the less expensive parts of the US.

But Johannesburg remains caught in its post-apartheid “recalibration”. The division between “have” and “have not” seems to be distinct. This is not to say division along racial lines as there appear to be plenty of people of color in the “have” category. Rather, it’s whether or not you can afford a car and a home in one of the areas that used to be predominantly white before the lifting of apartheid. And hired help: I’m staying in an upper middle class area, certainly not the top echelon, but still everyone seems to have a gardener. So high levels of economic disparity remain.

There’s also no mass transit to speak of other than the pervasive mini-vans shuttling people around, so acquiring and getting to higher paying jobs appears to be part of the challenge. No one seems to be out much at night, especially during the week: most shops close by 6 or 7pm and restaurants by 8 or 9pm. Apparently, this is driven by safety concerns. In fact, most restaurants in are in malls which I suppose is to take advantage of security at those locations where there are often toll booth-style gates to access parking lots and there are folks patrolling lots on foot watching for car break-ins.

Still, despite the challenges, South Africa (and the continent in general) is on the grow. Infrastructure projects are occurring everywhere you look, improving communications and transportation dramatically. It’s also a great mixing pot: there are 11 official languages recognized in this country alone and many more that are unofficial. Each day, the people I’m working with speak in English, French, Hebrew, Afrikaans, various Indian dialects and a variety of Bantu languages. Bantu is a family of over 500 (!) different languages which are spoken primarily in the southern part of Africa. Lucky for me, English is the common ground or I’d be in deep trouble communicating.

I am staying in a B&B since there aren’t many hotels in this area. The proprietors are a Rhodesian woman (Rhodesia is now known as Zimbabwe) and a German man. The place is very nice and very large. It sits on an acre right in the Fairland part of Jo’burg. However, it has a 10-12′ stucco wall around it with concertina wire strung around the inside edge. There’s a big steel gate securing the entrance. I was given a remote control for the gate upon my arrival as part of check-in (not quite the same as a card key for a hotel room door). Augmenting the physical security is a Pekinese and a pair of gorgeous female Rottweilers. Very secure, but something I’m unaccustomed to. BTW… the B&B is called Rockridge Manor. If you’re ever in need of accommodations in Jo’burg, I can highly recommend it.

So far, the other guests have included a German man and another American. Next week will be a couple more Germans, yet another American and apparently a production crew from an Indian film studio. Should be interesting. Having three American guests in two weeks has been unusual lately: the proprietors said visitors from America dropped off radically after 9/11, but have finally begun to pick up again.

Today is Saturday and I have some work to do, but tomorrow I’ll have an opportunity to explore a little, get some authentic African food and perhaps find some more to write about.

2007: A Brief Year in Review

On the Eve of my 38th New Year, I find myself camped out in a Scooter’s Coffeehouse in Bellevue, NE catching up on e-mails and pondering what the next 365 days will bring. It’s been an interesting year with family time spent, a business venture built, new friends made, old friends found, soccer seasons played, frequent flyer miles accrued, road trips executed, coffee drank, XM radio enjoyed, pounds gained and lost, miles run, chores completed, more dark hair converted to gray and blogs written. And a bunch of other stuff I can’t remember right now (I was up until 2:00am last night enjoying a few barley pops with my father-in-law Bob).

What will happen in 2008? Hopefully, more of the same. I’ve enjoyed life in the last year tremendously and cannot wait to see what’s next. To my loyal readers (all 3 of you!), I’d like to wish the best of luck in 2008 and may one day always be better, at least in some little way, than the next.

And I leave you with this: JibJab’s usual irreverent compilation of recent events encapsulated in their short film entitled In 2007.