Mom & Dad, Are We There Yet?

Me and/or my 2 siblings: Mom and Dad, are we there yet?

Mom and/or Dad (sometimes simultaneously): You ask me that one more time and I am turning this car around NOW! And I REALLY mean it this time!

When all of this started, I do not know what I envisioned but I am pretty sure that I was not planning on this lasting for as long as it has. This being COE-VID. [Side note: I have a friend who has somehow made it 2 words and she has hand gestures to go with it.] We are now coming up on 7 months into this very frustrating situation and I am guessing we have another year to go before things remotely get back to whatever “normal” will be “post-COE-VID”. It’s tempting to ask the question “are we there yet” or even “are we ALMOST there yet” but that seems to be a fruitless exercise at this stage for a variety of reasons. So off we go as life goes on….

I hope this finds all of you and your loved ones relatively happy, healthy (in all facets) and sane. If you are not in a good place for whatever reason, then PLEASE REACH OUT TO ME NOW and I WILL HELP! Remember that “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”

How are we doing and managing COE-VID? As regular readers of this space know, we tend to be, uhm, very sports oriented and don’t get into episodic TV. Given that it took awhile for the respective professional sports leagues to figure out how they were going to manage player safety with competition, Marc and I needed to figure out a new post-dinner strategy. And I definitely needed to create a hard barrier between work and personal given the long-term work from home situation.

One day, Marc just compiled a list of shows that he thought might be interesting to check out. We came up with a plan where he would pick a show to watch and we would watch a season, I would pick a show and then we would jointly pick a show that we were interested in. Rotate through until we finished the series. It’s been entertaining as it’s been years since I cared about a show on an episode-by-episode basis. The plan has somewhat worked out.

Marc’s choices, which have actually all been very good, were Altered Carbon (I liked 1st season better than 2nd), The Umbrella Academy (I liked the 2nd season better than the 1st), The Americans (about to start season 5 and Keri Russell might be one of the more underrated actresses of our day), Veep (as much as I love and adore JLD, I had to stop as it was making me think of reality too much), Dear White People (overall very good) and I’m probably missing something else. Next up is Watchmen.

The ones we choose together tend to be cooking or travel related. We’ve watched Ugly Delicious, The Chef Show and Great British Bake Off. GBBO has LOADS of seasons so it is going to take awhile to get through all of them. But I actually like GBBO the best of all of the cooking shows that I have ever watched. The drama is purely about the end product and if the cake will collapse or not. It’s not about manufacturing BS between the competitors. We tried to get into Somebody Feed Phil and we both found it rather annoying. Loved Salt, Fat, Acid and Heat, but technically that was pre-COE-VID.

I’m still doing the podcast thing and I continue to suffer from having too many on my rotation. This one by Scott Galloway on “Algorithms and the Threat to Democracy” was a really good listen. The podcast subjects are mostly a mix of sports, entrepreneurship, fitness/health, tech/product, food and news. Many of them crossover into some of those other lanes. I’d say my faves are as follows:

• Sports (The Old Man & The Three with JJ Redick, Laughter Permitted with Julie Foudy, 30 for 30 from ESPN and Bill Simmons from The Ringer - the ‘Parent Corner’ segments are definitely humorous, especially to this non-parent)

• Entrepreneurship (How I Built This with Guy Raz and Founded & Funded from Madrona Venture Group)

• Fitness/Health (The Ready State with Juliet and Kelly Starrett, Doctor’s Farmacy with Mark Hyman and The Mind Muscle Project with Raph and Lach)

• Tech/Product (a16z from Andreessen Horowitz and Product Talk from Products That Count)

• Food (Eater’s Digest from Eater and Foodcast from Bon Appetit)

• News (Next Question with Katie Couric, Modern Ruhles with Stephanie Ruhle, The Prof G Show from Scott Galloway and Pivot with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway)

Most of the time, I am listening to pods while I am working out as long as I am not doing some intense cardio where I need to be laser focused on my pace and my timing like my OPEX “Pain/Gain/Sustain” style workouts. Those efforts, plus my weightlifting prescribed by our coach, have also been a savior for me on all fronts.

Other things (outside of work) that we have been doing to stay sane while not being able to entertain as much as we typically do is hike where possible, The recent smoke and fires over a good chunk of the month have been a real bummer as September is typically a nice weather month in the Pacific Northwest. Fortunately we have been getting out for hikes and walks here and there, so that has been helpful mentally and emotionally for me.

I’ve been trying some other things like taking a couple of online classes, which I’ll get into more detail about at a later date. I also attempted to bake, which is not something I typically do. Regular readers of this space know that the other Chez Beck household member tends to do those things and he does them REALLY, REALLY WELL! Too much GBBO, me thinks.

Bringing it all back to “Mom & Dad, are we there yet?”, I think we’re about 1/3 of the way through this. So that means being really focused on how I can ensure I get the right amount of sleep, not work too much and not stress too much about things beyond my control. Making that clean break from my office upstairs to downstairs to the kitchen and family room to relax definitely helps with me winding down before bed. Yes, I realize that I am lucky that I have that space. All of the above activities help with that. I’ll close out with, once again, if you are struggling and think you need help, please ask.

Time To Cash In Those “Chits”

Becky Sauerbrunn paying homage awhile back….

What an absolute gutting way to end the work week. I am certainly not going to be articulating anything new or original on Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her legacy. I did enjoy this piece on her workout.

It’s tempting to delve into what her passing will do to an already polarized electorate ramping up for an election that already had pretty high stakes, but it is not something I am interested in at this point. The other thing is that if anyone actually purports to know what is going to happen between now and January 20th, 2021, I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.

I’ll focus on what I can do. I may not live in a state with something “major” at play (swing state for President or a flippable Senate race), but I know I have the ability to contribute in ways that expand beyond writing a check. COVID has forced us to be brutal about our choices and how we prioritize different aspects of our way of life. I have saved up a lot of “chits” over the past 6+ months.

I’m ready to cash them in. How about you? To kick things off, we are going to open a bottle of wine that personified RBG - a Shafer “Relentless” Syrah.

PS — “I can’t” is not a phrase that exists at this point in time.

Super Diva

What September 11th Means To Me

19 years ago today, ~3000 people were killed, including a friend of mine, and many more have passed away since as a result of what happened at the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and in Shanksville, PA.

I was there and maybe some of you were as well. Below is my story from a year later after the attacks. The last paragraph obviously resonates a bit differently than in previous years given today’s circumstances with COVID and the events of 2020 in general. But the last 3 sentences still apply.

9/11 - A Year Later (9/11/02)

Many of you have been e-mailing or calling to see how I am doing today. I am grateful for your concern. I started typing something up for myself, but figured maybe it might be more therapeutic (and easier) for me to share this with you.

Well some days you just wake up and don't know what to think. This is one of those days. I decided not to go into work because I felt as if I would be re-tracing every step that I took that day and to be in the actual place where I saw it all happen was going to be too much for me today. But even with not being in the office, I still am re-tracing my steps at various points throughout that day, which included seeing the 2nd plane hit one of the towers and then watching that same tower fall to the ground not long after.

I also remember how happy was a few days earlier celebrating a big milestone. I was surrounded by close friends at Artisanal and spent the day with my folks at the US Open on a gorgeous day. I thought to myself that life was good. I spent the next day with my family at Luger's and continued to think life was good. After 9/11/01, I remember thinking how grateful I was that I was smart enough to know how good I had it (and still do).

Part of me still feels like it's not possible that this could have happened. Like it does not seem real even though I know it's real every day I go to work. The whole thing just seems so unfathomable - even a year later. I think a lot of us are just checking up on each other - many of my friends work on Wall Street, so many of us just remember what it was like to be "there" in addition to the loss of any family and/or friends. I'll never forget the fear that my family and my friends had when no one knew where I was for about 3-4 hours, and how panicked people sounded on my voice mail or on my hotmail account. I remember spending most of the next 24-48 hours responding to people as much as I could because they did not even know the difference between the WTC and the WFC. I was so exhausted and I think it took weeks for me to get back on regular sleeping pattern. I had to stop watching the news because the images on screen were being replaced with the ones I saw with my own eyes. 

At the time I was living in the Village, you looked downtown and you just saw tragedy and despair - and that is an under-rated description. You knew it was a beautiful day, but you couldn't see it because all you saw was smoke. You looked uptown and the city looked as defiant as ever. We had an extraordinary run of good weather in the following weeks and when you looked in the direction of the Empire State Building, you never would have known what happened. Seeing the walls of missing people ads was gut-wrenching. Most of the pictures had the missing person with a child, grandchild or spouse/partner. I cannot imagine the anguish of those families.

In the months following 9/11/01, my company laid off 10,000 people. The rumors lingered for about 2.5 months, which made an already bad situation worse. A strong chance existed that I would be one of them. I was not, but good friends of mine were. Working in an office that overlooked Ground Zero recovery efforts was difficult to put it mildly. Smelling the burning was not only unhealthy physically, but mentally and emotionally. And then they restored work emails from the morning of 9/11 on a random day 2+ months later. Reading everyone being panicked about my whereabouts on 9/11 literally made me puke into the garbage pail next to my desk. Yeah, the suit I was wearing that day went into the trash. Didn't need the reminder.

When 2001 ended, I was happy to move on to another year. The nightmares eventually stopped but I still hear certain airplane engines or helicopters that remind me of the sound that I heard just before the second plane hit. 4 images are forever embedded in my head from that morning - the impact of the 2nd plane, people falling from the towers, people running for their lives when the 1st tower collapsed (I did not see that one actually collapse but I heard it) and finally the 2nd tower collapsing. I doubt they will ever leave my memory. It all feels like a bad action movie all over again. 

One time I went to a party that happened to be on the same floor as the 1st apartment we sought refuge in (before 8 or 9 of my colleagues came back to my apartment to use my landline since none of the cell towers were working). I felt a bit uneasy and some of the memories came back. I stayed and toughed it out. (2021 ed note: Do not take this as advice. Do not tough it out. Get professional help) I still have trouble watching news related to this event. When I was in London recently, a commemorative special came on and the channel was changed immediately. 

But I also think of some humorous things that happened since then. As I mentioned before, 8 or 9 colleagues of mine took refuge at my apartment in the West Village. What I did not say is that most of them were very senior managers within Research (Managing Director level for those of you familiar with Wall Street) and they were in my shoebox apartment on Bedford Street. So we had a reception with Rudolph Guiliani a few months ago and a number of people who were in my apartment that day were at the reception with their spouses (2016 ed note: this was pre-crazy Guiliani). I was introduced on more than one occasion as 'the girl who let us camp out at her apartment and use the phones'. It was humorous because those anecdotes happened on separate occasions with a friend witnessing it each time.

So when this anniversary came around, I started to really dig deep, as they say, and think about how I felt on the days leading up to this day and the day itself. I constantly remind myself how lucky I am. I think I take the time to tell the people in my life who are close to me how much they mean to me. So many people that morning did not and will regret it for the rest of their lives. I am keeping perspective or at least trying to. As one friend recently reminded me, we had very little difference between the people in the WTC and WFC - we all went to work that day on a glorious Tuesday morning in September.  I just had the benefit of location that morning and that was it. But that small benefit saved my life…. along with quickly evacuating.

I'd like to make one thing clear though - while the tone of this e-mail has been somber, I am one of the lucky ones. Make no mistake about that. I have been able to resume my life as it was pre-9/11/01.  Many people have not for a variety of reasons. Some people, who maybe did not lose anyone per se, can't ride the subway - they get panic attacks. Little things that you take for granted are suddenly not so little. My life is good and 2002 on the whole has treated me quite well. I was in Australia for the wedding of 2 close friends in January, plus spent some time sailing in New Zealand and the Greek Islands. One of the gents on my trip to the Greek Islands, Marc, has encouraged me to stop and to smell the flowers a bit more. I was able to leverage a business trip in August and meet up with him in 3 different cities on the weekends, plus I'm planning on meeting him in Switzerland in October. (2006 ed note: I married the guy) Marc's a good guy and I consider myself lucky that he happened to be on my boat for the same amount of time I was onboard. So things are good for me and I'm not complaining.

They say every generation has their 'where were you when.....'.  For our parents, it was probably JFK's assassination.  For ours, let's hope it's this because something worse happening is just unthinkable to me.  So instead of waiting for something else to happen, I'm going to make my life happen on my terms.  Here is hoping that you are all doing the same. Own your shit - plain and simple.

PS — RIP Vinnie Bag O'Doughnuts.

Marc and I on Patmos (Dodecanese Islands, Greece)

Fitness Routine Disrupted? Now What?

Out and about on a walkabout in the Pacific Northwest.

Given what has taken place with COVID-19, many people are unable to leverage their gym, athletic facilities (e.g., swimming pools, tennis courts) or other place for fitness. State and local governments have taken steps to keep critical businesses open, and fitness facilities do not qualify. I’m not saying it wasn’t the right call, but fitness is definitely a stress reliever for many and now folks are trying to figure out an alternative.

Some folks are lucky to have something at home, whether it is Peloton, treadmill, dumbbells, elliptical, etc. Marc and I are fortunate to have an ‘at home’ option. We do some of our own programming but also have help from our trainer, who is fabulous. Given the recent stretch of good weather in Seattle, I have been taking the opportunity to take a meeting or two per day while on a walk, which has helped my state of mind immensely.

Last Sunday and today, Marc and I were lucky to get out on a hike with enough space to do social distancing….. most of the time. If someone is coming up the trail and you’re coming down, and the path is narrow, that makes it a tad more challenging. But everyone has been positive and people are working through it.

I have received some questions for ideas on home workout pointers. I’ll certainly share a few things that I have done without having any equipment, but I’ll also recommend these articles on OPEX and on WSJ. If you’re able to pick up a pair of adjustable dumbbells (Bowflex makes a good pair and they take up very little room) and/or bands (Rogue makes great quality ones), your range of exercises increases exponentially.

My sister told me Peloton is giving away 90-day free trials to their app. I have heard great things about Aaptiv as an app to use. Our trainer just told us about Stryde, which is cycling-based. I’m guessing some of you know of other alternatives that people can try out. Post in the comments.

OK on to the workout ideas that I have done on the road (outside of going on a run). All you need is a watch that counts on seconds to do this or you can find an app (we use SmartWOD):

• Every minute on the minute, do 8 burpees for 20 minutes. The goal is to have a little bit of rest per minute before the next minute arrives. Trust me when I tell you that you will be sweating. You do not need any equipment, except a watch.

• For 20 minutes, do a continuous loop of 10 sit-ups, 10 push-ups, 10 air squats and 10 alternating lunges. If you’re struggling with your push-up, check out this link on how to build the strength to do them.

• Use the above movements and complete a “Grand Slam” tabata style workout. A tabata is 8 rounds of :20 seconds of work/:10 seconds of rest. After each tabata, do a plank (form counts). So your 1st tabata is sit-ups for 8 rounds and then a plank. Then you do 8 rounds of push-ups and then a plank. Continue on….

• 5 rounds for time of 100m run, 10 jumping squats, 10 split jumps, 10 v-ups, 10 burpees. Rest 2 minutes after each round. Increase pace per round.

** NOTE: I am not a doctor, nor do I have any active certifications around fitness, so please check with your medical professional if you have not been exercising as of late before you try the above.

If you have suggestions, please post in the comments. We’re all in this together and just remember: you’ll never walk alone.

Day 18: Armenia, Salento, Cocora (Colombia)

Colombians eat/celebrate with family on Christmas Eve and open presents at midnight and often stay up all night drinking. Then they like to go out for lunch, dinner, movies etc to escape mess of a house on Christmas day. Many are also apparently severely hung over. So we started our full day a little early in an attempt to beat crowds by 11am and later.

While driving to Salento, we went by former house of Carlos Lehder Rivas and heard how he flew drugs over an island in the Caribbean then power boated it to Miami. And then when extradited to the US how he attempted to take down everyone including Pablo Escobar. And then the crazy stuff Escobar did to avoid extradition by offering to build his own prison to avoid being turned over to the United States.

We then learned about the Juan Valdez coffee character and how the first guy portraying a farmer from Colombia was neither a farmer nor a Colombian but rather a foreign actor.

We hired a Willys Jeep in Salento to take us to Cocora with our guide. Our Jeep was from 1954 and had the engine rebuilt once. The ones that have all original parts are worth over $30k because they are beloved.

Hike over 500 meters in altitude gain to Finca la Montaña ending at 2860M (9400ft) early enough in day to be ahead of the crowds and with some gorgeous weather with great view of Morogacho at the top across a valley. This view happens less than 5x per month. Then we hiked back down taking about 2.5 hours total for high altitude hike.

I told our guide, Guillermo, over lunch about eating ants and worms the other day in Bogota and he said he could not do that. I also told him about the Coloma coffee liqueur and he said that and one other one are good and he'd show me as we walked through town. So we went into a store while walking the main street toward Plaza Bolivar and he pointed it out. The proprietor offered a taste of another one that was sweeter but not as good in my mind. Then she offered Jill and I a small chocolate piece. Jill ate it to discover coffee bean inside and made the greatest face that had me and Guillermo laughing so hard.

During lunch our guide also told us about one of the great wonders of Colombia that nobody knows about that he wants to visit. It's the Caño Cristales - the river of five colors. It looks amazing but getting there isn't easy and only colorful part of the year (July-September). First you fly from Bogota to Villavicencio then another plane to La Macarena then a guide can potentially take you the rest of the way which might be multi-hour hike. But wow. Just read more about it.

We went to Jesus Martin coffee shop for coffee. This guy really started the good coffee revolution in Colombia for locals. The country was exporting basically everything and keeping the crap locally and he wanted Colombians to also enjoy the good stuff.

We had dinner with Kyra and her mom Adele who we spoke with this morning. I noticed last night that Kyra got up more than once to visit the chocolate table while we were still halfway through our meal. I was starting to think some chocolate needed to be saved for ME! So I told them this morning I was worried about the chocolate supply and found out that she lives in Gig Harbor (near Seattle). At the end of our meal just as we finished dessert, one of the candle torches by our table blew up and in slow motion I watched the fireball in the air flying toward Jill and I'm just thinking "don't land on Jill, don't land on Jill". It landed between her and the person at the table behind us. I was relieved there was no "stop, drop, roll" necessary. But we all got up and I moved us into the courtyard away from the other 5-8 candles. Staff even told us that this happens from time to time. Yikes!

Day 15: Galápagos Islands (Isla Baltra) —> Guayaquil, Ecuador —> Bogotá, Colombia.

Today is mostly a long travel day. Bags were pretty much packed for phase 3 of ‘Operation Cincuenta’ last night. Got up, had breakfast, enjoyed the last views of the islands, chatted with our new friends, and then we all took our final zodiac ride to land to head to the airport. The lounge at the Baltra airport was a hot, sticky mess. We were joking around with our fellow passengers. A few were continuing on with their adventures. Most were heading home. 

When we got to Baltra on 12/15, we were immediately told that the WiFi on the boat didn’t work. I got in touch with 5 groups of people immediately to tell them how to reach us in the event of an emergency and that was it. And when I was able to re-engage on 12/21 after we docked in town for a day of tortoise watching and an afternoon of shopping, nothing had changed in the world. 

I mean - the political situation is still a cluster. My New York Giants still suck. I’m still getting the crap kicked out of me in my weekly pick ‘em NFL pool. Nothing new. Yes, lots of drama going on in the world and stuff did happen this week that I would have normally kept tabs on, but did it matter when I reconnected 7 days later? The lack of internet also caused something amazing - people actually engaging with each other. WTF? Mind blown! Anyway.....

For Marc and I, the size of the ship was perfect. 40+ passengers — so not overwhelming in terms of lining up for excursions, food, or whatever. You were able to get to know your fellow travelers and also have your own downtime, if you chose to do that. We had a pretty social boat and people mingled about even if they came on with a group. The bar *MIGHT HAVE* been running so low on provisions that the crew needed to restock when we got to Santa Cruz on Friday to get us through the last night of the cruise. Don’t judge.

In addition to celebrating Marc’s 50th birthday, we had a couple celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary with their daughter and their son-in-law. Another couple was celebrating their 35th anniversary. All goes to show you that you should always embrace the positive and “eat the damned cupcake”. Good role models for the Becks’.

So we landed in Guayaquil, and had about 3 hours before our next flight to Bogotá. The lounge here was an utter oasis compared to the one in Baltra. Air-conditioning, plenty of chargers, decent WiFi to upload the 600+ pics we took in the Galápagos and a shower, which was lovely since we were literally landing in Bogotá and heading straight to dinner. 

When Marc and I landed in Bogotá and while taking the car service into the city, I was struck by the Christmas lights that were up all over the place. John, one of the guys from our trip, gave us a heads-up about this and he was right. It was really pretty. Based on what I was able to discern in the dark about the skyline, I was excited to see what the city looked like during the day knowing it is surrounded by the Andes.

We had dinner at Restaurante Leo, which came highly recommended. Let’s just say that

while the food was very good, it was definitely on the esoteric side. Literally bugs and worms esoteric. The kitchen offered Marc an opportunity to see the worms up close after he said the momojoy dish “wasn’t bad” and he politely declined. While at dinner, a couple got engaged and we applauded. Our server informed us that the gentleman is a regular at the restaurant and is a native English speaker. Most of the back of the house staff come out to congratulate the happy couple. His new fiancée speaks Spanish. Neither knows more than maybe 500+ words in the other language. Whatever works, right?

That said, Marc had a local coffee liqueur at dinner that we literally started investigating while still at the restaurant if we could get it at home. If not, clothes are going to be left in Colombia to make room in our luggage. Make no mistake about that! Tonight is also the night that we start the 15-day cycle for our malaria pills, which I am not looking forward to. I’ve heard nothing but unpleasant side effects when taking these pills. Let’s hope these are kept at a minimum for the both of us.

Day 7: Quito, Ecuador.

Today Marc and I got off to an early start because we were going to be heading south of Quito to Cotopaxi National Park to hike near the Cotopaxi Volcano. For context, Quito is situated at an altitude of 9350 feet so that’s pretty high for the Becks’. Our travel medicine clinic advised us to bring altitude sickness pills for this part of the trip and a future part of the trip. Due to some of the other meds we will be taking (i.e., malaria pills at a minimum), we were hoping that because our stay in Quito is relatively brief that we could skip them for this component of the trip. 

Marc and I met our guide, Carlos (wearing a Yankees hat so I knew we would get on just fine), at the park entrance and he took us to a few sites along the way to head up to where we would do our walk. The weather definitely improved from a viewing perspective as the morning progressed. We saw other volcanoes such as Rumiñawi and Sincholagua, as well as Laguna Limpiopungo. You can still see lava rocks from the 1877 eruption along the way to Cotopaxi.

Cotopaxi tops out at 19,347 feet and is the tallest active volcano in the world. It is part of the Andes mountain range. For comparison, Rainier tops out at 14,411 feet. The parking lot for the Cotopaxi Volcano itself is at ~15,000 feet. Maybe the highest altitude I had hiked previously was around 10,000+ feet.

Given how high the summit is, people who are climbing to the top generally get to the park a few days early to acclimatize themselves. We did not have that option. Our goal was to hike to the refugio from the parking lot. This refugio is the last point hikers can take shelter before they attempt to summit Cotopaxi. The hike was less than a mile and went up 1000+ feet.

The only catch for what seemed to be a short hike was that we were starting at 14,765 feet and hiking to 15,960 feet where the Refugio Jose Rivas was located. It was cold. I still had a decent amount of layers and felt slightly “Michelin-man” like. Truthfully, were not as properly prepared as we should have been from a clothing perspective. That added to the challenge of being at such a high altitude. 

I took lots of breaks, and did a fair amount of huffing and puffing but we made it there in roughly 50 minutes. I was gassed and I definitely felt the altitude. Of course, I forgot the aforementioned altitude sickness pills and left them at the hotel. DUH! Lonely Planet called this hike a ‘lung buster’ and, yeah, that would be an accurate way to describe it!

Fortunately we took plenty of pics on the way up because as we were coming down, Cotopaxi definitely started to hide behind some clouds. I also saw a guide with a Red Sox hat - glad he wasn’t our guide! We decided that we were going to skip lunch and have our driver, Mario, take us from Cotopaxi straight to the “Old Town” area of Quito. 

As Marc mentioned yesterday, traffic in Quito (and in Lima, for that matter) is pretty bad during the day, especially at rush hour. Since both cities do not have any kind of real mass transit, everyone drives or takes a taxi, which is essentially the same as driving. You also get to breathe in lots of toxic fumes while sitting in traffic. So we timed our return to Quito for the middle of the day to avoid traffic, which still was pretty bad by US standards (yes, even Seattle standards). 

Mario walked us around “Old Town”, which had some impressive architecture. We started at Plaza Grande, which has the Presidential Palace and the Metropolitan Cathedral. We then walked to the Iglesia de la Compania de Jesus, which had some pretty jaw dropping designs on the ceilings and the walls. Construction on the church began in 1605 and didn’t finish until almost 1800. We also walked through the Iglesia y Convento de San Francisco.

Then we checked out Casa del Alabado. The focus of this place is around pre-Columbian

(not Colombian) artifacts. Some of them were made as far back as 4000 BC! The artistry and handiwork on these items really blew us away, especially the detail on the really small pieces (think the size of your thumb). We have all of the pics, along with some descriptions on Dropbox here.

Walking back to the car in the public garage, we kept hearing car alarms going off. I don’t even know if people really pay attention to car alarms anymore. I feel like 20 years ago (when I was living in NYC), they went off so much that people just were desensitized to them. But they go off constantly. As a matter of fact, we had car alarms going off constantly near our hotel until about 3am last night!

On the way back to the hotel with Mario, I observed that Quito has their own version of “squeegee guys” - anyone who lived in NYC in the 80s/early 90s knows what I am talking about. We saw lots of people selling various things like fruit and water along the side of the road, but then we saw one guy who was juggling machetes in a “very liberal way”, which was a Marc quote. Go figure. 

We did some laundry (yay for upgrades that have a washer/dryer in the room), packed and had dinner at Zazu. Excellent local ingredients that were well prepared and great service. Tried some wine from Ecuador, which was good and a first for us. I submitted my football picks for the next 2 weeks and hope that the lack of a working injury report won’t kill me any more than when I do have one to reference in my “pick’em pool”.

Marc and I are ready to head off to the next phase of our adventure, which is the main event for Operation Cincuenta - the Galapagos. We may have internet. We may not. In the event we don’t post for the next week, we will stockpile our posts and upload them when we are back on land. 

Day 6: Lima, Peru --> Quito, Ecuador

Crazy drive through neighborhoods with hired driver from hotel. He knew where he was going and how to avoid backups by getting off main road for sketchy side areas. But definitely most aggressive driver we've had and slightly scary to experience although having watched several days of traffic not completely on the extreme. Good news when we got to airport his company has special entrance right to the front door. Taxis go with crazy regular traffic jam into lot.

Line to check bags had less people waiting than total places to check it. Super fast! Then international boarding line was about the same - straight through ticket/passport check then maybe 10 people putting bags on belt in front of us. I was amazed given we didn't have TSA pre check option.

This photo was taken at the GPS equator at 4:03 pm. Check out the shadow! You’ll read about GPS precise location and the magnetic location (we visited both - they’re only a few hundred meters apart).

Flight was maybe 85% full with empty seat next to us and clouds covering view of the Andes most of the way (sad for the window viewer in me). Jill found us some Priority Pass food for free (thanks Jill & Amex Platinum) before boarding. Restaurant was right next to our gate and we both chose a decent sandwich. Then we were offered a "coffee break" sandwich on board while flying which was nowhere near as good but I took one and basically ate the ham/cheese inside but left most of the bread alone.

Mario picked us up to take us to Mitad del Mundo - Middle of the World, Equatorial Line. The area next to the Lima airport is chaotic. The area next to Quito is perfectly paved roads and a sense of order.

We started at the reservation that has the digital gps latitude of 00°00'00" and learned a lot on tour there taking lots of fun photos. They stamped our passports at the end of the tour with a special stamp. Then we went to the magnetic monument area built by the French a while ago retaking photos of "the line" and structure for the second time. I preferred the first spot perhaps because of the tour although she shared depressing stuff like head shrinking and fish that swim into your urethra if you piss while swimming in the amazon river. She further enhanced the tour by telling us that when men died they'd be buried in pottery that was burned and if the wife was alive, she was buried with him alive. Very uplifting.

Getting to the hotel around 5:30 as well as going to dinner at 7:30 basically involved sitting in traffic for over an hour to go maybe 3 miles. And you get to breathe high quality exhaust the entire time. Welcome to peak traffic hours.

We went to Osaka for dinner in the traffic. It took us a while to decompress, but the food was delicious. I got a beef nikudito and pork belly main while Jill ordered several items to try and seemed to enjoy them all. Then I got a chocolate volcano dessert that was a good ending.

Day 5: Lima, Peru.

We started out the day with a tour of Pachacamac, which are Incan ruins just outside of the city limits of Lima. On the way out to the site, our guide, Ursula, explained about how bad the traffic is in the city and how it can take her almost 2 hours to go under 20km from her house to where all of the hotels are on a given weekday. We also spent a fair bit of time talking about all of the amazing food to take in while in Lima. She encouraged us to come back to Peru and visit other regions of the country as their cuisine is very different and just as wonderful. Let’s just say I concur.

During the drive, we also talked about the recent elections from Sunday and how mandatory voting has pros and cons. A con is that many people do not care to get educated about the candidates and/or the issues, so they just vote for “whatever is easiest” so they don’t get a fine from the government. We also discussed the complicated legacy of Alberto Fujimori, the former President of Peru, who made a lot of tough choices that benefitted the people of Peru but also got the corruption bug in the latter part of his tenure.



We arrived at Pachacamac and walked around the various archeological sites that have been unearthed to date. The site was first settled around A.D. 200 and was named after the "Earth Maker" creator god. It flourished for about 1,300 years until the Spanish invaded. We saw pyramids, which are not in the style of the Egyptian ones that most people think of when they hear that word. The main pyramid that we were able to walk around was the “Temple of the Sun”, which has sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean.

After walking around that location, Ursula took Marc and I down to the Recinto de Mamacones. The area was an enclosed space in which the prettiest young girls would be trained to be either the wives of nobility, sort of nuns and lastly sacrificial offerings. We saw some men working on drawing sketches of Incan artifacts that had been recently unearthed, which was pretty cool to observe.

We headed back to the car and drove back into Lima, where Marc and I were going to be dropped off for lunch for traditional Peruvian chicken. Yesterday I called “an audible”  our lunch plans for today after Ellie, our guide from a couple of days ago, started talking about Peruvian chicken. I couldn’t believe I didn’t make the connection for our trip because our neighbor makes Peruvian chicken and it is one of my favorites (she actually made it for my birthday this year!). And based on Marc’s epic performance on eating lots of seafood yesterday both at lunch and at dinner and admitting it was “pretty good”, I figured he deserved a break from creatures of the sea. So I switched our reservation to a chicken place recommended by Lourdes, our guide from the food tour on Sunday.

Ursula somehow encountered very little traffic on the way back into town, so Marc and I went for a walk in a residential neighborhood called San Borja with lots of greenways and parks. It was a bit humid but it was nice to still be on our feet and see a different section of Lima. We then got to lunch at Don Tito’s and the roasted Peruvian chicken was epic. The sauces, including the one with aji chiles, did not disappoint. The place had a great atmosphere and I think we were the only non-locals in there and based on our lack of Spanish speaking skills, we were fortunate that the menu is very simple. LOL.

After lunch, it was good that we had about a 40 minute walk back to the hotel. After getting most of our packing done, I decided to head to the gym to torture myself some more. Of course, we then had to test out some of the chocolate that we made yesterday. It’s not easy being us but we try to persevere in these circumstances.

Dinner tonight was at Rafael in the Miraflores neighborhood. Marc and I decided to go “a la carte” as opposed to the “tasting menu” track, and we were rewarded for that choice. We both enjoyed all of our dishes, although Marc said that Sunday’s version of the “arroz con pato” was a tad better than what he had tonight. So we spent time analyzing the differences between the two so I could attempt to replicate whatever he thought was awesome at home. 

We also sat next to a lovely couple from Lima who said that Rafael was their fave restaurant and gave us some pro tips on dessert. I also really appreciated it how when I asked the server for a reco between the ceviche and the tiradito dishes that he didn’t hesitate and chose the former. Plus Marc had some unique choices for rum and I had the opportunity to enjoy a Malamado dessert wine from Zuccardi in Mendoza (for newer members of this blog, Marc and I are very “pro-Zuccardi” - here is why). All in all, a fun evening.  

We are sad to be leaving Lima but we are excited for the next phase of Operation Cincuenta. Plus I have some great inspiration for cooking at home! Thanks for tuning in so far!

For more pics, please click here.

Day 2: Lima, Peru

We got out of the airport with bags and into the hotel faster than we expected. We got a decent amount of sleep before getting a small breakfast at the hotel. We were going on a food tour at 9:30am so we had to save room....

We started in Barranco at a church built when the Spanish first came. The roof of the church was destroyed in the 1940 earthquake that the government has promised to restore. Our guide, Lourdes, said “they’re working on it”, which is about how it looks. We then walked across the “Bridge of Sighs” while holding hands and our breath. Legend has it that is you make a wish and make it across without taking a breath with your beloved, it will come true. We took some more photos and went for a coffee tasting.

Tostaduria Bisetti selects and roasts their own beans on site. I had an Americano and we got Jill a Mochachino with Peruvian chocolate so she could taste. Jill doesn’t drink coffee so I finished mine and most of hers. We did more walking on Barranco and then went into a place for a shake. It has a Peruvian fruit called lúcuma along with ice cream and sugar. It was fairly tasty!

We used the toilet here since our next stop would be the market and it’s much cleaner here. While Jill was away, I talked to Lourdes about awareness of thieves. She said that they are so good they can unzip a backpack and take something without you noticing. She said someone took her wallet from her front pocket and she did not notice it. She called this “manos de mantequilla”. Hands of butter. So smooth.

We then went to the market. We looked at a veggie stand for a while inspecting at least 10 different types of potatoes. We saw many other veggies with variations including black corn and a white corn with HUGE kernels. We learned there are about 3000 varieties of quinoa grown here although only a few are actually known on the market. We were also shown a bunch of fresh seafood and fish caught today. We then hung out at a fruit stand for a while learning about several variations of some fruits and even saw some raw cacao that with some work could become chocolate with the stuff on the inside. We were then given forks and bowls of several fruits to try. One had this gooey seed stuff we were told not to chew - just scoop onto fork and swallow it.

We then over to Miraflores to do two things: 1. learn how to make a Pisco Sour and 2. learn how to make a ceviche. For the Pisco Sour, it’s important to note that today is ‘Election Day’ in Peru. This means no alcohol is allowed to be served through Monday morning so I’m not naming where we went. We got there before the lunch hour so the staff showed us how to make them and then we got to make our own! It was fun AND foamy good!

Once we got that down, we sat down at a table and made our own ceviche with assistance from the chef. We then ate the “appetizer” and it was good. We still had lunch to eat.

Lunch was at Huaca Puallana right next to some Incan ruins. The restaurant is helping to unearth then somewhat. We had a great chicken dish along with  guinea pig (tastes like chicken) and beef heart (a little tough, but not bad). Of course, they then cleared our plates and then brought out 4 different dessert cups like a shake/ice cream. A couple of them had fruit that were good. 3 of them had some or a lot of chocolate! 

It was all so well balanced and tasty - we were so full..... Great way to start the trip in a food city which I’m sure Jill will be talking about in detail over the next several days.

After this food tour, we headed back to the hotel to rest and digest. Eventually I swam in the pool for about 25 minutes and Jill worked out in the gym.

For dinner we went to La Rosa Nautica - the same owner as the place the tour happened to take us for lunch as our final stop. They had a Perry Como & Frank Sinatra Christmas music on a 10 song repeat loop. We heard it at least 3 times and we weren’t really there that long since the voting prevented ordering a bottle of wine. Jill ordered a ceviche starter and a seafood main while I got a pasta dish in a cheese sauce and Arroz con Pato. That duck was a superb Peruvian dish. Jill’s main came first which kind of confused us and the other dish never came. By the time we got the staff to understand what was missing we realized we had eaten so much today that we should just get back to the hotel. We had eaten 2 days worth of food in a single day.

For more pics, please click here.

Day 1: Seattle —> LAX —> Lima.

This post won’t win any awards for excitement as it was a travel day but I’ll lay the ground work for this latest iteration of ‘Marc and Jill take on a different geographic location’.

Marc and I got up at 3:30am (PT) to catch the 1st leg of our trip to LAX. Other than having to check a bag for the first time in almost 2 years, it was pretty uneventful. LAX is an adventure on a good day when you need to transfer, and it was good we had plenty of time. We landed in a “satellite terminal” and took off from a different “satellite terminal”. In that time, Marc really prepped for the long haul flight by finding all of the chocolate in the lounge. I’m guessing no one is shocked by this behavior.

The flight to Lima was just under 8.5 hours and landed on time, which was amazing based on previous flight history (yay internet!). Then I figured landing at midnight, going through Immigration, picking up checked bags (did they make it?), passing Customs and finding our car service would be a goat rodeo on to its own. I couldn’t have been more wrong. From when we landed until when we were in the car, it took 30 minutes. WHICH. WAS. AMAZING.

We got to the hotel, scored an upgrade with great views and pretty much crashed..... after Marc had some more chocolate that the hotel left for us as a welcome gift. Oh, and we were informed last night that no alcohol is allowed to be served anywhere in the country through Monday morning because of national elections happening on Sunday (tomorrow). Uh, what? This is a thing?

So we will be in Lima through Thursday, and then off to Quito for a couple of days before heading off to the Galápagos Islands for a week. Then we head to Colombia where we will be hitting Bogota, the Coffee Region and the Amazonas province. We’re going to have a little bit of everything on this trip in terms of scenery, culture, food, beverage, climate, etc. We’ll be doing some hiking and hopefully meetIng up with friends in Bogota. That said, the goal is to come back with most of the meds that comprise the “walking pharmacy” in my pack.

Thanks for tuning in. And we have discovered the hard way that Google hasn’t made any significant updates to Blogger in years, so updates from the road will be a challenge.... looking at app options now.

Contrary to Popular Belief, Napa and Sonoma Are Open For Business....

Some of you may be aware that Marc and I used to make wine under the name Purple Teeth Cellars. While we did shut it down to pursue other interests, we still value and cherish the relationships that we developed with winemakers, vineyard owners, restauranteurs, sommeliers, etc. 

In light of the recent fires in Napa and in Sonoma, Marc and I decided to take a quick jaunt down to the area. We knew the fires had hit during their busiest season of the year for tourists, and had read many of those businesses were hurting due to an unexpected loss in revenues both from visitors and from lost harvests.

Certain areas experienced devastation and the fires exacerbated an already fragile housing ecosystem in the area for residents, but businesses were definitely up and running. While we only visited a couple of wineries while we were in the area, most wineries were open for business. Same for the restaurants. We caught the end of the season of seeing colors on the vines, which was a pleasant surprise. It was actually quite picturesque in early December and the weather was perfect for a hike in the area. OK, I did squeeze in a visit to CrossFit as well [duh - have to burn off the amazing food and wine].

The main problem that we heard from local residents was that business was so slow, which was leading to restaurants laying off workers at times when they should have been throwing money in the bank - servers to meat cutters to dishwashers, as an example. By people canceling trips and not visiting the area, many SMALL businesses experienced an unfortunate trickle-down effect. People are not buying wine on visits because no one is visiting. Then tasting room staffs need to be let go. Things like that.

And while no one prompted me to post this, I'll just say that I believe that the people in Napa and in Sonoma would LOVE IT if you would consider visiting during their "off-season". When your small business is severely curtailed during the busiest season of the year, it can mean the difference between staying afloat and going under. The weather is still nicer than in most places in the US during this time of year and prices are going to be pretty reasonable to stay, to eat and to drink than during "high-season". 

So please consider a visit and I am sure you will be on the receiving end of some awesome hospitality and gratitude.

Happy Holidays!

Trying to Suck Less and Challenge Myself More.

Trying to suck less....

Sometimes you just get complacent in life. It could be at home, at work, with your family/friends, etc. It happens and what do you do to combat it so you suck less when the need arises for you to "step up"?

Just over 2 months ago, I read an article on LinkedIn's CEO (Jeff Weiner) talking about it's recent stock price drop. Within that article was a video of the talk in which Jeff Weiner talks about the pace of change in technology aka "the 4th industrial revolution". 

"Historically when there are new innovations, it creates new opportunities, new levels of productivity, new jobs that are created. Historically, though, the rate of change was much slower. People had plenty of time to retrain and retool to take on these new opportunities. Today? Not the case. The world has never seen innovation moving at this rate and is outstripping our ability to train the workforce for the jobs that 'are' and 'will be', and not just the jobs that once were."

Now he was talking about it in terms of LinkedIn's value in the marketplace, but I had a different takeaway. Mine was around my current skillset and what did I need to learn now to position me for the next phase of my career. 

So in taking what Jeff W. said, I thought about 2 tangential areas related to Product Management - human-centered design (HCD) and data science. You see more and more job postings around user experience designers and data scientists, and I feel as though they are playing larger roles in helping to launch great products. 

Human Centered Design

The HCD course was free, which was a bonus, and took place online over 7 weeks. What was also attractive about it was that the course was being offered in partnership with IDEO.org, which is a known leader in HCD.

I wouldn't say HCD came naturally, but it was much easier for me to learn and apply the content without tons of extra study outside of the coursework. Much of the interviewing involved in HCD was similar to the type of work I do as a Product Manager. I had teammates from New York and Brazil, and we completed our project around "Products and Services for the 70-year old". It was a relevant challenge for me, given that my folks are in that demographic. I enjoyed the work and the people I partnered with on the project. 

Data Science Specialization

The Data Science Specialization was not free, but it was attractively priced. It actually is a group of 9 online courses plus a final project. This certificate program was being offered via Coursera through Johns Hopkins - Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHU).

With the exception of the 1st course, all of the coursework required programming in "R". Programming, software engineering, writing code, whatever you want to call it.... not my thing. I'm married to someone that does that very well for a living. I might work in tech, but lots of roles exist that do not require you to "write code". 

Troubleshooting Mom and Dad's PC and mobile phones

Here we are... outside of the proverbial comfort zone. Marc doesn't know "R", so while he could have learned it to help me out, I decided to just tell him about my progress and not ask for help on general "coding stuff". Does such a thing exist?

I created a Github site (please go easy on my coding skills), completed assignments, used coding tools and leveraged sites such as Stack Overflow. Thank goodness for that site!

The programming work brought on a fair amount of apprehension and dread. The course would say that the assignment should take 30 minutes. Well, I took on average of 3 hours per submission. The pic just above is a good indicator of my frustration while completing these.

Part of the Coursera model is that you "grade" your classmates (after you complete your assignment) so you get a scoring rubric to use for evaluation. When I compared my submissions to my classmates, some of them really exceeded the expectations of the assignment. I just tried to focus on hitting the minimum requirements of the exercise.

With the exception of one assignment, I passed each one on the 1st try. You would think that would build some confidence. But I still always worried about if I passed it once I submitted my work. 

Do I see myself coding much as a result of this work? Nah. I learned that while I enjoy working with engineers and have always respected their talent, I do not enjoy programming. Banging my head against my keyboard while trying to troubleshoot code because I didn't leave a space in the right place in the syntax... NOT FUN.

I found out that I passed my final project and received my certificate from JHU/Coursera. It was a huge relief. It also taught me that I could push myself to do something that is very much not in my comfort area, stick with it and see it though to completion. So I'll give myself a pat on the back for sucking less and challenging myself more. Onwards and upwards.

If You're Not Willing To Inspect, You Can't Expect

I heard the quote at a yoga workshop I took today. Sometimes I will hear quotes and truthfully, they won't resonate with me too much. It's probably more of a slight against me than about the quote. This one did strike a chord with me.

Yeah, it can seem hokey to the many cynics in my life but if you think about it - when have you been able to proactively make impactful changes to your life without taking a hard look in the proverbial mirror? 

The past 12 months have been challenging for me on every front. Personally, professionally and everything in between. It's required me to take some time to look within and see how I can be better. Better as a wife, an aunt, a sister, a friend, a professional and any other role that I have. Getting focused on what matters. Yoga and running have helped quite a bit. Our friends have been awesome. Family members have stepped up. But I found another ally in the aim to be more introspective - reading books.

I find that reading books helps with those kinds of efforts because it requires a focus that reading current events, social media, etc. does not. And I am a current events junkie so it takes a fair amount of restraint to not check to see the latest and the greatest happenings locally, domestically and abroad. That said, the events of the past year have required me to focus and look within more than I can ever remember. It wasn't easy and most of it was not fun or enjoyable.

One of the first things I decided as part of this new chapter is that I was going to significantly reduce multitasking. I started this around 11 months ago after an overwhelming amount of evidence started coming out that multitasking actually makes you LESS productive. The focus on reading books more recently has reminded me that I do have the ability to focus and to concentrate on the critical things in my life that need to be done. 

As I was trying to assess what my next professional move was going to be (outside of consulting for small businesses), I was recommended to read Steve Blank's "The Four Steps to Epiphany". Given that I have been a co-founder 2x and have consulted on and off for a number of years, I was stunned that I hadn't read this sooner. I don't know if it made me feel better but it reinforced why certain decisions were flawed from the start in both endeavors. Let's just say that it was a HUGE EYE OPENER for me and if you're thinking about starting your own business, you should read it. 

On a similar theme, I follow a number of entrepreneurs on Twitter including Ben Horowitz of a16z, a venture capital firm in the Bay Area. I enjoy his tweets and blog posts. When I found out he recently wrote a book called "The Hard Thing About Hard Things", I knew I needed to read it. He wrote very candidly about some of his biggest lessons learned and all of the warning signals he missed as he was making critical decisions. And this past year has been about making hard decisions and yes, some collateral damage resulted which is unfortunate.

A recent read included "On The Edge" by Alison Levine, which recounts her experiences climbing Mount Everest and ties in some leadership lessons. It helped that I had read "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer a number of years ago and then saw the recent movie "Everest" which was based on the same events of 1996 but from a different perspective. As far as quick reads go, "Into Thin Air" was one of them but it was good to get a different perspective of events by Beck Weathers, who was with Krakauer on that ill-fated expedition. 

Another fast paced read included "Orange Is The New Black". OK, I am probably one of the last people in the world to read this book but it was enjoyable and more so because a great friend gifted it to me when I broke my hand a couple of years ago and needed some reading material. I am only sorry that it took me so long to get to it. No, I don't watch the TV show and nor do I plan to. But I did find the book entertaining.

Awhile back, one of my running buddies asked if I had read "The Boys In The Boat" by Daniel James Brown. I mistakenly said yes thinking that they were talking about "The Amateurs" by David Halberstam, which I had read 2 or 3 years ago. Both were about rowing and competing for the US Olympic team but in different eras. 

Halberstam's book was very good. His books were very high quality. I particularly enjoyed "The Teammates", which discussed the friendship of 4 teammates from the Boston Red Sox (yes, this New York Yankees fan just wrote that) - Bobby Doerr, Dominic DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, and Ted Williams, who remained close for 60+ years. I'm fairly confident you wouldn't see professional sports players roadtripping today as these boys did, which is what was documented in the book. 

Speaking of the Red Sox, a couple of years ago I read Terry Francona's "Francona: The Red Sox Years", which he wrote with Dan Shaughnessy of 'The Boston Globe. Why did I read a book on the manager of the Red Sox team that crushed me in 2004? I like Francona and can't believe the amount of BS he put up with when managing those teams. He always seemed gracious and thankful that in spite of the crap that he thought he was the luckiest guy around.

I finally got around to reading the book by Brown while we were in Santa Barbara last weekend. Absolutely loved it. It made me sad following the story of the main character and his upbringing. It made me happy how much he was determined to overcome the many challenges he faced. Pick it up, download it to your e-reader or borrow it from your library when you have time. The research done for "The Boys In The Boat" was impeccable and was hard not to appreciate as the story unfolded in the book.

In different ways, all of these books have reinforced what I heard in my yoga workshop today about basically looking within before having any expectations - whether of myself or of others. Taking the time to bring life's insanity "down a few pips" by reading helps me get more calm and focus on the goals I have set for myself. I know that being a bit more introspective has helped me achieve some of those goals and am hoping that it will continue to be rewarding for me on all fronts.

WWC 2015 vs. 1999 - Differences.

The town where Lisa and I grew up was very soccer crazy. Most kids played in the local league growing up at one time or another. I never even gave it a thought that it would be possible to make a living as a soccer player. Then 1999 changed the game for so many, and it looks like 2015 is the result of all of the hard work of the '99ers.

We recently had the opportunity to attend the Women's World Cup Final in Vancouver, Canada - a quick drive from Seattle. Lisa, my sister, and I have been working on this for just over a year and while good planning always helps, we had some luck along the way. This luck manifested itself with the USWNT making it to the final and then being right above the goal where they would score their 1st 4 goals.

The game was shocking in a good way, given how the 1st 20 minutes or so played out. The crowd was at 95%+ USA fans and it was loud. In short, it was awesome. We rented a house in Kitsilano, just outside of the main downtown core, which made it easy to walk in and out of the city. Marc and I even went to yoga at a sibling studio of the one we go to in Seattle. How times have changed (at least until Marc is back to 100%)!

I thought it was worth discussing the differences between what my viewing experience was in 1999, when Lisa and I attending the opening match for the USWNT in NJ and watched the final in a bar in NYC, and what it was over this past month in 2015.

In 1999, it's safe to say that the players were marketed as "All American girls" in the sense that they were pretty, athletic and feminine. A couple were mothers so they were deemed "the ultimate soccer moms", which was good. Most of the attendees I saw in person or on TV were either people like me (women who played when they were younger or current playing in rec leagues) or young girls who were currently playing soccer in youth leagues. 

The only men you typically saw (outside of the WWC final at the Rose Bowl) were likely fathers taking their daughters to matches. I am pretty sure that no men's clothes were available for sale for the Women's World Cup. The market wasn't there. When Lisa, Keri (a long-time friend of ours) and I watched that final in 1999 at that bar, we had one TV on the match. The other TVs were on MLB and other assorted sports going on that day. By the time the match went into OT, 90% of the TVs had been shifted to watch USA vs. CHN. And it was loud. Unfortunately that momentum did not translate to success in a US professional league for women.

Fast forward to 2015 - 16 years later. If you go to the Nike website, you can buy men's and boy's gear that commemorate the US Women's National Team. This is definitely progress. The other major observation was the demographic of attendees of the USA matches. Many, many more men. Lots of boys. The American Outlaws have had huge showings at USWNT matches and it was no different at the final. They are awesome.

On our current WNT, we have stars who are openly gay and no one seems to care. This is fabulous. We have the Moms, which is great. What is even better is that a new focus is in play that the women are talented players with tremendous athleticism and skill. Yes, we have players who are capitalizing on their looks to snag more endorsement deals. Given the pay disparity between men and women for the World Cup, I have no issue with that. But those players who may not have received endorsement deals in 1999 are starting to receive them now (Abby Wambach). And those players are role models to the youngsters playing on local teams. Everyone is different and it's ok to embrace who you are.

The women's game is growing. Parity is improving. You saw England and Australia make great runs this year, and many of those players have other jobs (READ: non-soccer) that help pay the bills. Here's hoping that the success this past month translates into improved compensation and more opportunities for those ladies.

Oh and we had a great time with the #teamof8 in Vancouver. Many much needed laughs. 

Malbec, Mojitos, Monica Lewinsky, Savings Crisis=Gender Crisis, #HeForShe, Women Being "Likeable" and Homeless Youth

Things have been busy in Beck land since our return from #PatagoniaCaminada. While most of this post deals with mostly current events that are fairly serious, we consider ourselves lucky that we get to learn more about these issues and asked how we can contribute towards fixing these problems.

We had to consume the final wine we picked up at duty-free in Argentina when we had to dump Argentine pesos, so we had a Malbec tasting with some friends the other night comparing ones from Mendoza (Argentina) to the US. It was fun and then I tried to recreate an Argentine Mojito that we had at Oviedo in Buenos Aires. I am not a mixologist, so while the creation was ok, it needs some work on my end. Of course, we paired the Malbecs with steak because that seemed to be very Argentine!

I had the opportunity to attend 2 events last week that really hammered home the importance of being genuine when presenting to an audience. The 2nd one was for an organization that I was previously heavily involved with and have gone through a significant reboot. It was Sallie Krawcheck, the Chairwoman of Ellevate, that hammered the point home of the savings crisis being a gender crisis.

The basics - women earn less then men, women outlive men, and women do not earn social security contributions by being a "stay at home mom". Ellevate, formerly 85 Broads, is trying to change the dialogue about this and I am pretty excited about it. It seems timely given other initiatives around giving women more of a voice. I heard Sallie speak on Friday morning and she was candid, self-deprecating and thoughtful in her responses to questions from the small gathering. I was absolutely pumped after meeting her!

Currently we have the Ellen Pao lawsuit against one of the oldest and most respected venture capital firms out there. Much of the testimony is around "how likeable" Ms. Pao is and that the feedback was she was either too pushy or didn't speak up enough in meetings. It's a common problem for women but the concern is that will male dominated industries shy away from hiring women so they don't have to deal with being more respectful to members of the opposite sex? This is in spite of evidence that companies perform better with women in senior executive positions. Remember when Obama said to Hillary in their early debates that "You're likeable enough, Hillary"? Does someone want to define "likeable" as a characteristic for a performance evaluation?

Speaking of the Clintons, the first victim of cyberbullying - Monica Lewinsky - gave a FANTASTIC TED talk on bullying. Admittedly, I mocked her back in the day and in looking back, not a proud moment for me. She talked about why she decided to speak out now and one of the people she mentioned was Tyler Clementi, a young man who committed suicide because of cyberbullying by his college roommate.

Emma Watson continues to put herself out there around testifying at the United Nations for the "#HeForShe" initiative. She continues to draw many kudos for her advocacy to change the dialogue. Clearly her social activism from being Hermonie Granger has translated into something much more significant.

The other event I went to last week was for YouthCare, one of the top non-profits in the Pacific Northwest. They focus on teen homelessness, which is a significant problem here. Many reasons exist for this and I had the opportunity to learn about this issue in more detail in co-founding and being the Executive Director of Upower. I wish it was "just homelessness" but it expands to so many other areas, including sexual exploitation to children as young as 12 years old. 

YouthCare arranged for a surprise guest speaker to talk to the 1300+ people in attendance at the luncheon. He is better known as Macklemore, but also known locally as Ben Haggerty. Like Sallie Krawcheck, his remarks were candid, self-deprecating and thoughtful about his own struggles and his luck with his family being instrumental in changing his life for the better. He talked about how many of the youth served by YouthCare do not have that system and why the work they do is so important. More needs to be done and we'll leave it at that.

One of my goals from when we returned from #PatagoniaCaminada was to read more books and not be consumed by the 24-hour newscycle. Last week, I finished "All The Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr. Well I started it last week and I couldn't put it down so it was finished in about 4 days. It's fiction but anyone who has read any non-fiction works from that timeframe can do some extrapolation on their own. Get it on your Kindle or at the library if you haven't read it already.

Celebrating Int'l Women's Day -- Margaret Thatcher: From Grantham to the Falklands.

Much of life comes back to "The Godfather" so I'll start this post with:

"I believe in America. America has made my fortune."

I'm proud and thankful to be an American. I was before 'PatagoniaCaminada' but my pride increased during this past adventure. The rural scenery was fantastic but it's nice to be able to drink water from the tap and have an abundant supply of toilet paper for starters.

The flip side of being in a somewhat remote part of the world was the luxury of minimal internet access, which we used to post daily updates on our adventures in South America. It also allowed me to focus on not drinking out of the proverbial "firehose" of current events and actually read some books.

It's something I hope to carry throughout 2015 because I really enjoyed focusing on the story at hand for a change.

On the trip, I managed to finish 4.5 books. The last one was dense, full of detail and took awhile to get through. It wasn't for lack of interest. The book, "Margaret Thatcher: From Grantham to the Falklands" by Charles Moore, had so much information that you had to read and re-read due to the access the author had. I decided to pick a book on this topic due to our visit Patagonia and the Falklands War wounds still being fresh in the minds of the Argentines in the area. My interest was piqued after watching an episode of "Top Gear" and remembering it was still serious business the last time I was in Argentina in 1998 (the Falklands War was in 1982 in case you didn't know).

Before I had a chance to read the book, I asked our Argentine guides throughout our visit about their thoughts on the Falklands. Most said that it was a desperate attempt by General Galtieri to divert attention from many of the problems associated with his military dictatorship. All were sad that a fair amount of men who were not officially part of the military were ordered were to fight. Many of those men were killed and their families were never given proper respect afterwards. Protests continue to this day every week in specific locations, especially in Buenos Aires in front of where President Kirchner works.

The gist of what happened in the Falklands War was that Argentina tried to reclaim those islands from Great Britain. Margaret Thatcher, who was the Prime Minister of Great Britain at the time, basically said "no way" and sent in troops to get them back. She didn't have a ton of support when she made that gutsy call in the early 80s.

When Baroness Thatcher passed away, I posted on Facebook that she was "a person who was less concerned about keeping her job as opposed to doing her job. This quality is something that pretty much every politician in the US lacks." I will modify 'politician' to 'elected official'. We continue to see evidence of sustained "schmuckitude" (trademark pending) from our elected officials on every level. But citizens, including me, continue to believe in America and trips like the one we just took reinforce my gratitude of living in a democracy.

My thoughts on the book are that it was meticulously researched, which is why it took so long for me to finish. The mindsets of key decision makers during critical times during Baroness Thatcher's career were amazing to follow. I was overwhelmed by how much sourcing Mr. Moore did to ensure he had a comprehensive way to tell the story. Disclaimer: It was an authorized biography and he had an agreement with her that he would not publish it while she was alive. 

While I learned a bit about her during the film "The Iron Lady", I feel the movie gave her the short end by choosing to focus on her dementia as opposed to the many barriers she broke down on the way to becoming Prime Minister as well as the decisions she had to make. Many despised her politics, but she had a true "courage of her convictions" and loved Great Britain.

Until today, I had no idea about 'International Women's Day'. I finished Moore's book this morning about one of the most controversial elected leaders in history, who happens to be a woman. An unexpected coincidence. After reading the book, I am even more impressed with what Baroness Thatcher dealt with on her rise to being Prime Minister as well as when she was PM. I am fairly confident that she would likely be horrified about the concept of 'International Women's Day' based on everything I have read about her.

Here's my beef with days like 'International Women's Day', 'Mother's Day' or whatever the current trend in social media with 'World Chocolate Day' (sorry, darling):


"How about trying to celebrate the things that matter to you everyday (like your mother for example)? Why do you need Facebook, Hallmark, Twitter, etc. to celebrate these things?"

I'd really like to see a day when we don't need to celebrate 'International Women's Day'. How about just celebrating meaningful contributions from everyone? Or treating all leaders the same, regardless of their gender. 

I am not naive. Prejudice exists. Just look at the Ellen Pao suit against Kleiner Perkins. Be aggressive but don't be forceful and a bunch of other contradictory sexist crap. But women would be better served if all sexes were treated equally and we didn't need a call out for a specific day (IWD). If a person accomplishes something great, celebrate them. If a person commits a horrible offense against society (President Christina Kirchner of Argentina), prosecute them. 

With respect to President Kirchner, everything that I have read about her and the situation currently dominating news in Argentina has been anything but complimentary. Yes, she is a woman but my hope that as an elected official in a "democracy" that she is treated in the same way as a man. Almost everyone in Argentina suspects something very nefarious is involved with the death of Alberto Nisman and that she had something to do with it. And sadly, everyone we talked to in Argentina doesn't think the real truth will come out with respect to the entire history related to the bombing that Nisman was investigating. This is why I continue to be thankful to be American.

[Rant over.]

By the way, we did take some notes on wine tasting. I'll post those and notes on other books read over the course of the trip in a few days.

25 Feb: Parque Nacional Torres Del Paine (CHI).

The good news is that Marc was feeling good after yesterday's hike. But he didn't want to push his luck, so he opted out of today's hike. I put him "to work" writing out some postcards and getting a bunch of our photos uploaded to Dropbox since we finally had a decent WiFi connection in our hotel. What a good sport! Below is the view from our hotel room.... not bad, eh?

Last night, the group unanimously decided to take it "easy" and not get up early to catch a ferry to hike in one of the valleys in the park. Since joining the tour, we had hiked almost 100 miles and we were pretty beat, plus the ferry schedule extends the day even more.

Claudio and Muti, our guides, picked out a new route for us to hike to that gave us a great view of the Paine Massif, the Paine Horns and a really pretty waterfall. The weather was partly cloudy but we still had some nice glimpses from Cerro Condor and also saw some condors (fancy that!).

We headed back to the hotel and found Marc chilling out while enjoying the view from lunch. Everyone is starting to think about their next adventure, so different ideas and suggestions were tossed around by the group. Marc and I are probably the least travelled of the bunch, which says a lot about how much our group has travelled around the globe!

I spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening finishing my latest read "Business Adventures" by John Cook. I was looking for books to read so I decided to see some of the latest recos from Bill Gates and it was on it. Some of the stories are pretty interesting and many are from the 60s/70s, yet it is amazing how history seems to repeat itself.

Our gang splits up after Friday and we have really enjoyed getting to know these folks. They have all been low drama and fun to be around. Everyone just naturally has offered to share or help when someone forgot something at home, etc. Marc and I are the youngest by a wide margin, but we have been blown away by the fitness levels of our fellow mates. Actually their fitness probably tops most Americans, forget about people in their age bracket (veteran members of AARP). It's inspiring (their fitness) and sad (the general lack of physicall fitness of many Americans).

The group reconvened to talk about the activities for tomorrow and we voted to spend more time in a town called Puerto Natales, which is supposed to be pretty and surrounded by the Andes and water. The weather forecast continues to look good, so hopefully that works out for us.

16 Feb: Ushuaia (ARG) --> Faro del Fin du Mundo (ARG) --> Ushuaia (ARG).

Warning: We have a long one here - all for good reasons, we promise. And a pro travel tip towards the end.

We woke up to find that it had snowed on the glacier that we had hiked up yesterday. I know that most of our readers are in the Northern Hemisphere where snow is normal this time of year, but it is summer where we are. We were told that even though we are 600 short miles to Antarctica that this was abnormal.

Our schedule had us booked for a boat tour of the Beagle Channel. It was unseasonably cold and wet, plus the boat was late. Not a whole lot of reasons for optimism. About 30 minutes into the ride, the skies cleared to showcase clear blue with snowcapped Andes in the background. Score! What stunning landscape! Our guide for the boat trip spoke excellent English. I asked her where she learned the language and she said it was from watching the show "Friends". Whatever works because she was handling all sorts of questions without any problems.

We were cruising on the Beagle Channel, which splits up Chile and Argentina, while connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. Ushuaia is roughly halfway in the channel. One of our stops was to "Faro del Fin du Mundo", which translates to something like "the end of the world". Along the way, we saw sea lions, cormorants and kelp geese. Fun fact about the comorants is that if the female decides that she doesn't like her male mate that she "can fire him" while the male doesn't have that same option. Interesting concept.

It remained pretty clear as we headed back to town, so we have a ton of amazing pictures from the cruise. For lunch, I had more of the centolla but with a local preparation called 'Fuegian' which had paprika and bechamel. Yum! Lots of local seafood in Ushuaia, so I am taking advantage before we head back inland. After we lunch, we met our hiking guide for the afternoon in Tierra del Fuego (TdF) National Park.

Martin, our guide, has spent a few summers in Seattle. Small world, eh? He has done plenty of local hikes, told us about how he loves Walrus & Carpenter and El Gaucho. As we start hiking, he tells us about watching the Fremont Solistice Parade. Then Martin tells us that he got out of a parking ticket that he received at REI by explaining to the City of Seattle that he is from a small village in Argentina where penguins roam the streets. Apparently it worked. Marc and I were laughing a lot at this stage. We're clearly in the world of "You Can't Make This Stuff Up".

The border between Argentina and Chile is pretty tight in this area, so while we didn't venture into Chile, we learned that one side of Cerro Condor is in Argentina and the other is in Chile. We hiked up to the end of the Pan-American Highway, which starts in Alaska and goes almost 18000 kilometers! Guess we have to go to the other end at some point. Martin explained that the area of Tierra del Fuego started out as a prison colony for Argentina, similar to Tassie in Australia. That said, they never sold prison uniforms as souvenirs in Tassie as they did here. Weird.

As Marc mentioned yesterday, we weren't expecting a challenging hike yesterday and were caught a little flat footed without our trekking poles. I have new ones for this trip but 'Frick' and 'Frack' from the Australian Walkabout are back for fun and adventure. The new trekking poles have been christened 'Lucy' and 'Ethel'. You will be seeing them a bunch over the next 10-12 days.

The southern provinces in Argentina have a complicated history due to the Islas Malvnias conflict with Great Britain and the zig-zag border with Chile. Martin explained some of it as we traversed 6+ miles of the park. Then he starts talking about how early we eat dinner in Seattle. Basically his routine was eating dinner with friends at 6:30pm and then calling Pagliacci Pizza for a delivery at 10pm since they are the only ones who deliver "that late" in Seattle.

Given Marc's history as a Gaucho from UCSB, he has been very keen to hear more authentic stories about Argentine Gauchos. He asked Martin about it, who responds with telling us about a festival that is like a "Gaucho Lollapalooza". Ha! We hadn't heard that festival name in a LONG time (yep, we're old). More laughs. Sadly, we had to say goodbye to Martin as we went off to dinner but promised to keep in touch in the event he is back in Seattle. I should have added that both of us tried the local Argentine bevvie of mate (mah-tay) today. Not bad but I prefer tea and Marc will probably stick to coffee.

We grabbed dinner at a highly recommended place called Kaupe and I tried a new fish called hake served ceviche style. Very tasty. Marc had a epic dessert by his standards, which of course involved dulce de leche. I agree - it was really good and I am not a caramel fan. We tasted our 1st Syrah from Zonda Valley and we also had a dessert wine made from Malbec grapes, which makes sense since we are in Argentina.

The restaurant summoned us a taxi and the lesson to be learned here is that when you are traveling in a region where you do not speak the local language, you should learn how locals pronounce the name of the hotel you are staying at. We went back and forth with our very nice taxi driver because we misplaced the stationery that had the hotel's name and address. Finally I pointed up the hill in the direction of the hotel and said the name again along with "ascenscio". Maybe that was a Harry Potter magic command? Who knows, but it worked. [Late update: it was - oops.] We were back at the hotel in under 10 minutes.

What a fun day all around.