Dangerous Meddling

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//Disclaimer
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 Before anyone gets mad, yes, I did actually read SOPA.  Admittedly I didn't understand all of it, but I got a fair amount.  I was not about to get politically involved without knowing the details from the source.  So if you disagree, that's fine, but don't try and go the route of "you've just been brainwashed by [insert something here]."  If you would like to read SOPA, here is the official copy of the bill:  link
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 I try very hard to avoid discussing politics via electronic means.  Simply put, I find it horrifically ineffective since people tend to be "bold" (aka. combative and disrespectful) when they can hide behind either the mask of anonymity or don't have to confront their opposition face to face.  That being said, I've been very politically involved these past few weeks thanks to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and it's Senate counterpart, the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011 (PIPA).  These two bills were introduced in an effort to combat the very real issue of online piracy which, as it turns out, is extremely difficult to stop (surprise!).

Now what about these bills has me up in arms you ask?  The fact that they grant the media industry power to censor the web within US borders, grant the US Government power to attack any group that provides means to bypass filters (you know, like the ones used by democratic activists to bypass Internet filtering methods in countries like China and Iran), will cripple the internet, inhibit the growth of new companies, and prohibit the spread of new ideas... all without even denting the pirating world.  Sound scary?  It is.  But what is even more frightening is that the bills author, congressman Lamar Smith, and the supporters refuse to listen to the tech industry giants (Google, Facebook, Amazon, Wikipedia, YouTube, PayPal, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Reddit, Twitter, Yahoo!, and literally hundreds of other major players in the data communications world) when they come out in open opposition saying that these bills would destroy the internet as we know it.
 
But don't worry.  Smith assures us all that those companies don't know what they are talking about.


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// How it Works
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As I've talked with people about computers, one thing I've realized is that most people see the computer as, what programmers call, a Black Box.  That is to say, they see what goes into the box, they see what comes out of the box, and they have no idea what happens inside the box.  To understand what these bills are trying to do, it would be helpful to understand a little bit about what is going on behind the scenes as you use the internet.  Lets go to the very basics:

One of Facebook's server rooms

Everything you see online is physically located somewhere in the world.  Every photo you've uploaded to Facebook is stored on a server, which--for our purposes here--we will define as a gigantic hard drive that knows how to talk to other computers.  In order to access those pictures of your friends cat, your computer has to go to the server, ask for them nicely, and the server has to agree to give it to you.

How does this communication between computer and server happen?  Well, if I asked you to go to Facebook's website (and thereby connect to Facebook's servers), how would you do it?  Odds are pretty good that you'd open up your favorite browser and type in, "www.facebook.com".  But did you know that, to your computer, asking it to find "www.facebook.com" is a lot like me asking you to meet me at my friend Jordan's house?  Do you know where Jordan's house is?  Probably not.  But what if I asked you to meet me at 48 South 300 West  Provo, UT?  Ah, now you could do it!  (FYI, that is the address of the Provo police station, so the joke is on you if you had some evil plan to rob my wonderful friend).  The difference is, for the first one you just had a name.  The second one, you actually had an address! Servers have addresses to! It's called an IP address.  An IP address is a unique series of numbers associated with a single server.  You've probably seen them before.  They look like this: 192.168.0.1.  THAT is how your computer is talking with the server.

Your computer gets this address by looking it up in a giant internet phonebook called a DNS Server.  You tell it the name of a place, it looks up the name and remembers the address.

Summary: 

www.facebook.com = name.  69.171.229.16 = address. (Actually, you can even open up a new window and type "http://69.171.229.16" and watch the magic happen).

 *Phew*!  Ok, now that you're a computer expert, you can understand one of the biggest problems with SOPA.

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//SOPA and You
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At it's core, SOPA's purpose is to cut off funding to "rouge sites" (sites that allegedly "engage in, enable or facilitate" infringement or "allegedly [are] taking or have taken steps to 'avoid confirming a high probability' of infringement") and to have them removed from the DNS Server (the phonebook from above).  This, in theory, will stop downloaders from getting to the files... only it won't.  Remember how you could get to Facebook by typing in the IP address directly?  Yep, same thing will work to get around these censorship blocks.  As long as someone somewhere is willing to share the IP address with downloaders (who, by the way, tend to be fairly tech savvy), they'll be able to get the files all the same.  Like I said before, it won't even dent the pirating world.  That being said lets look at what it could do if the MPAA decided to use the full power granted to them by SOPA:

Any website that provides access to copyrighted material is labeled as a rouge site.

That isn't my photo and I didn't ask for permission to use it.  Am I worried about it?  Not right now, no.  But lets pretend somebody had a blog that was being used to organize protests against Warner Brothers because... I don't know, it's discovered that they are responsible for the financial meltdown or something.  WB has the right and power to label www.blogger.com as a rouge site since they haven't been doing enough to stop me from posting such images.  *poof* The next time you go to check your blog (a blog that had nothing to do with my dubious practice of posting Harry Potter pictures AND had nothing to do with the protest), you're greeted with a screen like this:

The only way for you to get to Blogger is through the IP address.  Do you know what that address is?  Didn't think so.  Whats more, if WB sends a notice to Bloggers bank, the bank has 5 days to freeze Bloggers accounts completely.  Sure, Blogger could file a counter-notice, but good luck planning a sound legal defense in 5 days.

Any website that allows user contributions is at risk of being labeled a rouge site.  All it takes is for someone to feel that the website "isn't doing enough" to stop the links from being posted or goods from being sold.  A single judge issues the order (no trial by the way) and the site is wiped from existence to all who don't know it's actual address.  Do you think the early YouTube would have survived this?  I really doubt it!  To the right judge places like the early Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, and YouTube would all have looked like pirate havens.  SOPA supporters assure us that companies won't take advantage of this power to... oh I don't know, target competition...  Yet the bill hasn't even passed and Craigslist is already on the chopping block.  As it turns out, Monster--the company that makes ridiculously overpriced cables-- considers it a rouge site because people are selling their used cables.  That makes Craigslist an unauthorized distributor.

And this is all where it starts.  Who knows where it will go in a few years, or where other countries will take it while following in our footsteps.  This isn't a game.  We are honestly considering handing over the power to censor what information we have available to us! You know what the worst part of censorship is?  Neither do the people in Iran, China, or Syria (which, by the way, use this very same DNS blacklisting technique to filter the web).

And the problems go on, by the way.  This bill fiddles with the very design of the internet.  That is one of the reasons why Kaspersky Labs (one of the major anti-virus developers) is opposed to it; they claim it will open up a host of major issues that current software doesn't defend against.

Ok.  I've got to stop before I get too worked up here!  Bottom line?  Although I believe companies have the right to go after pirates and those who distribute illegal warez, I am adamantly opposed to the methods suggested to do so here.  I consider this the equivalent of using a howitzer to remove a sliver.  The damage caused by the bill will far outweigh any possible benefits it brings.  I hope you'll all read more about SOPA, form your own opinion, and share that opinion with your congressional representative.

For more information about SOPA (from the oposition side), you're welcome to visit www.americancensorship.org 

The Microsoft Interview

Yep, believe it or not, I haven't forgotten that this blog exists.  I don't write very often since (I don't know if you know this) I'm not terribly exciting in this phase of my life.  As a matter of fact, all I really do is school...  but I always know that, in the event that I want to shout the mundane and uneventful details of my day into the empty echos of cyberspace, I have a blog.

Cynical?  Perhaps overly so.  I really do have exciting and fun moments!  Just not ones that most people care to hear about!  However, one particular event, my final round interview with Microsoft, has sparked the interest of several other job seekers. I'm always happy to talk with people about the experience, but I thought perhaps it would be more efficient to give an account of what happened here, and then if they have other questions, we can drill straight to them rather than working through all of this!

After speaking with a recruiter at the BYU career fair and an on campus interview, I got a call from the Microsoft HQ in Seattle offering to fly me out to Seattle for an interview for an intern position.  I was thrilled with the offer and gladly accepted.  I arrived in Seattle in the morning, eager to start.

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//The Night Before the Storm...
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Naive fool.  He doesn't know yet...

After spending the day waiting to get into my hotel room (an unfortunate byproduct of my flight arriving at 11:00 and not being able to check in till 3:00), I was looking forward to starting the interviewing process.  Strangely enough, I've always liked interviews (odd, I know.  I blame theater, but I have no proof), but this one was different.  This time.... it definitely wasn't excited anticipation.  It was more terrified!  You see this interview, this one was real.  All the other ones were theoretical, but now I was starting to position myself for a career (another frightening thought in and of itself!).  And, on top of that, I knew I was going to have to program without the crutch of a development environment (think of it as spell check for code).  I couldn't expect little squiggle marks reminding me that I just forgot to put a semicolon in or warning notes showing that I've created a variable I don't use in the code (which usually means I spelled something wrong somewhere).  I could expect nothing but the cold, semi-reflective surface staring unforgivingly back.  Yes my friends... at it's very heart, a whiteboard is cruel and unforgiving at best.

I was relieved when 6:30 rolled around since that was when I was instructed to meet with the other candidates in the hotel lobby.  I knew that once I got going, things would be just fine.  The instructions we'd been given were to wait in the lobby until someone came to get us, at which point, we'd walk to a nearby restaurant for dinner.  I entered the lobby at precisely 6:30 (Pünktlichkeit ist die Höflichkeit der Könige) and quickly discovered that I was perhaps a little overdressed in my slacks and colored button up shirt (no tie).  Which, actually, is perfect for me.  Standard rule of mine, always look slightly better than the person to your left (but never better than person across from you, but we won't get into that now).  As I would later learn, Microsoft was serious when they said "wear what you feel comfortable in."  You really want to wear jeans?  Ok.  You won't be the only one sporting those at the interview.  Prefer the power suit?  That's fine too (though you might hear a few funny remarks about your "shiny new recruit" smell).  Really, they want to see what you can do, not what you can wear.  But now I'm on a tangent... lets get back.

It was facinating to talk with all the different candidates in the room.  Nobody was even remotely similar to anyone else!  We had people from Harvard, MIT, random community colleges, BYU (yours truly), people with no official schooling at all, people who had been working for years, and people who had never worked before!  It was interesting since, it seemed, Microsoft didn't seem to care where you came from, just as long as you could do what they asked.  While that certainly makes sense, it was great to actually see.

Eventually, someone came and got us and our group of around 40 people walked over to a nearby bar.  Microsoft had rented out the back room (complete with a few Xbox kinects and 4 lanes of bowling) and pretty much set us loose.  We all went and got some food from a buffet and joked around with each other and a few Microsoft employees (not the recruiters).  Basically, the goal of the night was to let us relax since, obviously, we were all pretty stressed about the coming day!  We were also given a folder containing details of our interviews for tomorrow (what group we were interviewing for and when our rounds of interviews started).


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//The Interviews
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Pretty much

The next morning, we met at 7:00 in the hotel lobby.  We were driven to the Microsoft campus--which is basically a small city-- in what can only be described as a party bus.  Seriously.  The walls of the bus were lined with a single leather bench and there was music and lights.  Naturally, there wasn't a lot of partying on the way to the interviews, but we all did have a pretty good laugh.  Everyone in the bus was interviewing for the same team I was (Microsoft Business Solutions) and, funny enough, none of us really knew what that actually was.  We laughed and talked all the way to the campus, at which point we were ushered into a large conference room where breakfast was available.  We ate while waiting for the interviews to start.  I could help but be impressed at the general sense of comradeship.  We weren't directly competing with each other, since there are plenty of positions available at Microsoft (as it turns out, they're pretty big), so there was little to no hostility.

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//Interview 1
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Interviews were scheduled to start at 8:00, and they more or less did.  Each of the four interviews was to last 45 min. and there was then a 15 min. break between them.  My first interview was with a very pleasant man who talked with me about things I had put on my resume.  He got quite a kick out of my experience as a theatrical lighting technician and asked a few questions about it, asking me to diagram how it works.  When we finished, he walked me back to the conference room where I waited with the other candidates for the next round.

I'll tell you, those 15 min. between each interview were filled with more geeky jokes than I've heard in my life!  I guess that is to be expected when you stick 15 programmers together in a room, but dang!  And what made it somewhat sad... I actually understood and laughed at them.  What corner have I turned?

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//Interview 2
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The second interview was a little more challenging.  I was given a marker and asked a series of brain teaser questions.  This kind of question:

"Four men want to cross a bridge. They all begin on the same side. It is night, and they have only one flashlight with them. At most two men can cross the bridge at a time, and any party who crosses, either one or two people, must have the flashlight with them.

The flashlight must be walked back and forth: it cannot be thrown, etc. Each man walks at a different speed. A pair must walk together at the speed of the slower man. Man 1 needs 1 minute to cross the bridge, man 2 needs 2 minutes, man 3 needs 5 minutes, and man 4 needs 10 minutes.

What is the fastest time all 4 men can cross the bridge?"

Ever done that one?  I'll give you a hint, it isn't the answer you initially want to give.  I answered 4 of those questions and then started writing some database queries in SQL with databases my interviewer drew up on the board.  All in all, a more difficult interview, but fun none the less.

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//Interview 3
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This was the real coding interview.  As soon as I sat down, the interviewer handed me a marker and asked me a few questions which targeted different data structures and sorting methods.  I knew I wasn't coming up with the fastest sorting algorithm since, hey, I've never had a class where we talked about them--one of the difficulties with an Isys degree, we don't focus on programming as much as a CS major-- but I knew that my code would work... eventually.  After I finished writing my code on the board, the interviewer stared at the code and said, "Yes.  That does answer my question.  Now can you make it infinitely scalable?"  I looked at my code and realized that the way I had written it made scaling about as hard as chopping a tree down with a herring.  Dang!  So I started rewriting it for a while until the interviewer eventually said, "ok, I see where you're going with it," and handed me a new problem.
This problem wasn't coding per se... it was a code design question.  He asked me to design an elevator, complete with classes and method calls (although obviously lacking the actual coding for the methods).  That went fairly well and we ended with a few more questions about my resueme.

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//Interview 4
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This was the final round interview with the hiring manager.  We talked a lot about what I wanted to do with Microsoft and where I saw myself in the company.  It was a good interview, but honestly  probably the hardest one.

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//The Aftermath
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After the interviews were done, we were all driven to Microsoft's recruiting building and fed lunch with everyone who had interviewed for any of the Microsoft groups.  We waited in a pretty cool room, complete with marshmallow chairs, xboxes, and a Windows Surface.  We all kind of played around until each of us, one by one, were pulled into a room and handed their decision.


I sat in the rather uncomfortable chair and smiled my prettiest smile.  The recruiter explained what a great tribute it was to make it this far and that the interviewers like this and that about me, but that I had not been selected for an internship.  She then explained that I had the option of going back out to the large group room and hanging out with everyone else, or I could sneak out the side door where there was a black SUV waiting to take me back to the hotel.  I actually almost laughed because... well... it just reminded me of something I had seen before...

Microsoft was reimbursing travel, food, and sight seeing expenses, so after the interviews were done I went out to see Seattle with a group of other candidates.  Some of us had gotten positions, others not, but we all still had a blast together.  After all was said and done, I really enjoyed my interview experience.  I came out learning a lot and had a ton of fun doing it.  And now I look forward to next time, when I'll be more prepared and ready!

Fall

I must say that Fall is probably my favorite time of year as far as the "outdoors" goes. It will come as no surprise to most of you that the outdoors and I have never really been the best of friends-- we're more like the two guys that pass each other in the hall and offer the ritualistic head nod in acknowledgment that, yes, the other one exists and, yes, we each can see the other. We may even occasionally toss in some unintelligible noise-- symbolizing an even greater trust. But the fall, for some reason, always seems to be the mediator between me and the wild, untameable outdoors. Maybe its because normal people stop playing sports-- leaving the practce of that terrible habit to the hopelessly addicted (yeah... the ones who shoved me into lockers in 6th grade). Or maybe its because the temperature is ideal, calling for a long sleeve shirt and pants-- which coincidentally happens to be my favorite attire. Or maybe it's purely psychological nostalgia, after all, that is when musical practices in high school were hitting their peak, and my internal clock could have oriented itself to that. I don't know, and frankly I don't really care! But whatever the reason, I love it! The cooler weather, scarves and light jackets, brightly colored mountains, the soft satisfying *crunch* of leaves under your feet... they all contribute to the overall feeling of serenity. Serenity which, truth be told, I really really need in this crazy college life of study all day and half the night (speaking of which, did you know there are TWO 5:00?!)

This particular fall has been less eventful than I would have preferred; however, there have been a few odd developments that are worth mentioning. For example, I seem to have developed an odd respect and fascination for art. I know! Me, art? Not that I've ever been opposed to the practice; however, I've never been one to really spend much time analyzing a painted work. If it was pretty, good, if not, bad. Symbolism was only interesting if it was obvious enough that I didn't have to think too hard about it. However, now it seems that trying to decifer possible meanings is more entertaining.

Now before you get to worried about this new splash of culture, it is worth noting that I don't think a ripped apart fridge that has been glued back together and stuck on a dead chicken qualifies as art. Therefore, my actual definition of art remains the same: If I can do it, it isn't art. Anyway, you can click on either of these two paintings to make it a lot bigger and more interesting. Feel free to ponder!

Not Art.
Just wanted to make sure we're clear on this before we move on. Ok, got it? Good.

Exciting development #2: I'm actually starting to get my voice back. If you look back to a post I had about 6 months ago (I've only got about 8 posts, so that shouldn't be too taxing of a task), I mentioned having all but lost the ability to sing. Well, having joined the BYU Concert Choir, I've been able to start the retraining process and I'm pretty darn excited with the results! That's not to say that I'm back to where I once was, control is still somewhat of an issue, but there is a smidgeett of light out ahead. What does that mean? It means I should eat celebratory ice-cream (which really is what anything means when I want ice-cream... which is always). We had the pretty rocking awesome experience of singing with the BYU Orchestra and the Kings Singers in concert a few weeks ago and I think it was one of the most fun things I've done in a long time (even though we only sang with the Kings Singers for about 15 min.).

There are other things that are worth mentioning... but frankly I need to start studying for the two midterms I have this week. If I don't, I guarantee I'm going to fail! So goodbye fall. I'll miss you and see you next year. *sniff* *sniff*

Although now that I think about it...

The complicated movements of life

Well, I haven't actually published a post in forever, so I thought I had better do that now. The funny thing is, I've actually been actively writing things. I literally have 12 drafts of different subjects almost ready to go, and yet I know I never will actually post them. Part of that is because some of the things are just for me, others I finally deemed too cynical for the public eye (I have a pretty funny post about math here that I think wins the cynical award of the century), and others I can't remember enough of the details to make worthwhile. But this particular post I think is important enough that I'll try to put it together. Its not much of a fun one, but rather one of the posts I had originally intended for myself. Its still not organized to the extent that I'm happy with it (and a large portion of that is because I'm trying to put together too many thoughts into one post), but I'm starting to realize that it never will be. So go back in time with me to when this post started about 2 months ago:

Have you ever just sat down and thought about the series of events that led you to where you are now? Or maybe just thought about the people that helped get you there? Now that was a rhetorical question and I know that all of you have, at some point or another, but in the last few weeks I've been thinking a lot about life in general. How sometimes you find yourself wrapped in a dream, sitting on cloud nine, and everything is yours for the taking. Other times its so completely unfair that you catch yourself looking to the heavens and quaking with anger at the injustice of it all. Life is really a funny thing.

This chain of thought is usually one that I only explore while I'm

driving late at night, on a semi-empty road, with the radio off. That seems to be my "deep pondering" time, and usually I don't really share anything I think about during those hours, but a series of events in t he last little while have led me to think a lot more about the deeper meanings of existence in general and have caused me to marvel at the complicated movement of life. I'm speaking primarily of the death of my dear grandmother contrasted with the birth of my second nephew. Then toss into the mix my parents return, the youngest kid leaving the house, my older sister starting an occupation, and me caught somewhere in the middle trying to figure out which way is up and where I want to be in life, and you've got enough major life changes to cause even the most oblivious people to ponder.

What is life? Why are we here? Is there a grand and overarching plan or are we simply the result of happenstance? These questions were ones I dealt with every day as a missionary and ones that I believe everyone in existence has at one point or another thought about. Will we see the ones we love again after they have passed on? Is there really a reason for why I'm here or am I just another dot in time, soon to be forgotten and everything I've ever done being worthless? These questions truly can tear the soul apart, and the sadder experiences of a mission are watching them do just that to others. But the funny thing is, that even though I told so many people about how life works and why, in times of change or heightened emotional stress, I start to ask myself the same questions. Lucky for me, I planned ahead and wrote tons of things down in journals and notebooks for those times where the light seems to draw itself back just a little.

I want to start out by saying that, yes, there is a plan. Yes, there is a reason. No, you're not alone, and yes you do matter. Even though this is my favorite gospel topic, I won't dwell too much on this here. But I will say that before this life we lived with our Heavenly Father. We learned from him and, I'm willing to wager, also from one another. We agreed to come down to this earth to be tested in return for the blessing of a physical body. Here on this earth we are granted a specific amount of time to learn and grow, to progress physically, spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. Eventually, the time comes where our earthly existence comes to and end and we die; however, because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, death will not be permanent nor does it need to be frightening. After all, this life is merely a small stepping stone into eternity.

It is natural to fear death or to worry about what comes later. There is little in this world that is more frightening than not knowing what is around the next corner. But because God loves us, we know that life continues and will only get better. I look at life kind of like I view my high school experience. I loved high school! I loved the friends I had, the activities I was involved in, the parties, the school work, all of it. When it came to an end, I was heart broken. It was all I had ever known and all the sudden it was done. I didn't know what to do, and was worried that I would never really be as happy as I had been up to that point. If I only had known what would come later! Each chapter in our life brings new challenges and new experiences, however I've noticed that they seem to continually be getting better!

I look back at the past few years of my life, and the lives of my family, and see the drastic change that has come about in such a short period of time. In the last three years my oldest sister has had her second and third child, my little sister graduated from high school, my older sister graduated from college and is now starting a career, my parents have been living abroad for 3 years directing the missionary work in Thailand, and I've served 2 missions which contrast each other so sharply that it's difficult to find many of similarities. All of these events have changed who we are and how we think. They shaped us into who we are today and will play a major role in how we turn out tomorrow.

I'm so grateful for the chances we have been able to take in the last little while and for the lessons we've learned from them. I'm grateful for the people in my life who have led me to where I am today. I'm grateful for the guidance of a loving Heavenly Father who whispers that everything will work out, even if I don't currently understand how. I'm so glad that I have been taught and understand the Plan of God, that I know what the purpose of life is and that families can be eternal. I'm glad that life doesn't have to be a scary and unwelcome place; someone is controlling things. Although its not easy, its nice to know its not supposed to be. It never was.

Its because of the difficult times that we enjoy the best.

Chang Mai Part 2

Ok, if you're just joining us here, you're probably wondering why this is labeled "part 2." Use logic and I bet you'll figure it out... or just scroll down to the next post. Once you've read part 1, then you can come join us up here.

Have you ever had the desire to fly? I know I sure have. The sensation of soaring up through the clouds, the only worry is whether or not you're in restricted airspace... But sadly, we humans-- like so many other creatures--aren't really meant for flight. But, we can look to other animals to see how they cope with this restriction. For example: the mighty Gibbon.

Now, for the general population, the term "gibbon" isn't really a word (unless you're making fun of some gimp with a ribbon! Yeah, ok, that was so much funnier before my fingers completed the typing), but for a very select few, Gibbon refers to a type of monkey. The Gibbons "fly" from tree to tree just like any monkey flys, which really isnt' flying at all-- its jumping. Now my mere mortal arms-- though impressively powerful by human standards, aren't really strong enough to grab onto a limb and launch myself anywhere successfully (except perhaps to the ground), so we decided that, in order to achieve roughly the same experience, zip-lining was our best option. Thus the expirience of "Flight of the Gibbons" began.

The Flight of the Gibbons" is basically a tree-top tour of the jungle. We got hooked into a harness and then zip-lined from treetop to treetop. It was SO fun! And these treetops weren't the tops of little trees. At its highest point, we were zip-lining 300 meters above the ground! In order to control our speed, they gave us pieces of bamboo that were shaped like a "V" and we would pull them down on the cable to break until we were going an acceptable speed to land on the next platform. I'm telling you, way way fun.

Finally, like is always the case, our vacation came to an end. We packed our bags, hopped in a Tuk-Tuk, and headed for the train station. We were dead tired, and looking forward to being able to sleep on the 13 hour ride back to Bangkok. We were pretty optimistic about it, I mean really, what could be worse than the train ride we had getting here?! It just HAD to be better! Right? ...right?

Once again, we ended up at the train station a full hour early (somehow we were really bad at guessing how long it takes to drive places) and, once again, the train was 2 hours late. SO 3 hours later, the train FINALLY pulls into the station. We grabbed all our bags and ran to get in line so we could board the train and find places for all our luggage. It ended up working perfectly! We were directly in front of the door, 1st in line! We stood back as all the passengers got off the train, just waiting for the "go" signal to board. People stopped getting out of the train, and we stood there, every muscle tense and ready... and then the cleaning people started getting on the train and loading new food on (similar to airplane food if you're wondering). Ok, I guess that makes sense. They worked at this for about 30 minutes or so. Finally, everything seemed like it was about ready when... the train pulled away. I stood there watching it start to move thinking to myself, "we did not just miss that..." We waited for three and a half stupid hours and it just left us?! I looked around to make sure we weren't the only people still on the platform, and realized the train left everyone! Nobody else seemed too concerned about it (except the other group of white people who couldn't speak Thai) so I figured something must be going on. A nice old lady, sensing our confusion, smiled and said, "U-turn. Train u-turn." Oh, ok, its just turing around! Phew! I was worried! So I watched the track to know when the train was coming back... and I watched... and watched... one hour later, it finally putters into view (at which point I just want to say I think I can turn a train around faster). We finally got on and placed ourselves in our seats, luggage safely above us. And, as luck would have it, this time the AC worked (See the previous post if you think that seems like an odd thing to notice)! Now the bad thing... the stinken air-conditioning REALLY REALLY WORKED.

This was a night train, so the temperature wasn't really all that uncomfortable to begin with, but this AC was turned on full blast. And I'm not at all exaggerating when I say I have NEVER been so unbelievably cold in my entire life. That includes a rather unfortunate snow-caving adventure with the boy scouts ("snow caves are warm" they said...). They gave us these "blankets" (aka. bath towels) to keep warm. So I'm sitting there wrapped in a towel, just shivering uncontrollably. Finally it dawned on me that my mother, in all her motherly wisdom, made me take my dads sweatshirt with me on the trip! She may have actually saved my life by doing so (so kids, listen to you're mothers)! I got up and pulled the too large sweatshirt over me (at the same time that Michelle was going through her suitcase putting on another shirt, two paris of socks, pulling a skirt on over her jeans...). After another 20 min. or so, I lost feeling in my legs and decided that I had to somehow warm them up. I resorted to curling up in a little ball, pulling the sweater over my knees, pulling my arms into the sweater-- bringing the sleaves with them to make sure no warm air could get out--, pulling my head into the sweater, and grabbing the hood and pulling it inside--effectively sealing off the outside air. I wish I had a picture of me like that actually... there I was, a little frozen ball, trying to balance on my seat as the train jerked back and forth, shivering uncontrollably.

After a few hours, I decided I HAD to somehow warm up a little and get blood flowing through my body or I wouldn't make the 13 hour trip back. So I stood up and ran to the space in between the car, staying there and allowing the night air to warm me up a little. After 15 minutes, I turned to face the blizzard once again. What I saw as I walked back to my seat, I will never forget! It looked almost exactly like a WWII refugee camp you would see on a movie. Groups of people with "blankets" pulled up over their heads, huddled closely together, just shivering and obviously miserable. You could almost see the shrapnel scarred tents surrounding everyone, each person seemingly clinging to survival. It was at that point I realized, dang, if I'm cold how are the Thais doing!? I just had to start laughing! It was so crazy! After nearly baking to death on the train down, there I was, in a tropical climate, freezing to death on the way back! The irony was just too much!

Oh... and to top it off, my tray table still didn't work. Grrrrrr....

Chang Mai part 1

Ok, so I guess you're all wondering what the heck I've been doing and why I haven't been updating it here... well I don't actually have a very good excuse other than I lost the cable to my hard drive and, thus, have been unable to get any photos... and lets face it, a blog without photos is like a poodle without the puffy ball on its tail! Anyway, I'm going to try and quickly finish the Thailand adventure experience, then I'll move on to my life now.

**Note** I have no clue why all the photos on my blog are skewed when I post them, but if you click on the title of the blog entry, they will go to normal size. However, then in retaliation for you forcing them to full size, they decide to place themselves in a different layout on the page... grrrrr.... I don't know why.

Michelle, Whitney, and I were SO excited! Our big trip was coming up, a trip to the beautiful tourist city of Chang Mai. We had been excited for this trip for months, and finally we were packing our bags! There was a big list of things we wanted to do. Elephants, rafting, temples, and to top it all off, zip lining! Now we, being the well organized and well prepared individuals that we are, didn't have any reservations for hotels or a specific list of where we could do cool things once we were in the city, but we had plans.

In order to save money, we decided to take the train from Bangkok, a 13 hour journey. I though about my "long" trips from Graz to Vienna on trains, or even Vienna to Munich, and told everyone to trust me, trains were actually quite pleasant. And to ensure our pleasantry, we paid an extra 200 baht (6 bucks) for an airconditioned tran car. Our bags were packed with books and cards, where could it go wrong?
---8:00 A.M.---- One hour before scheduled departure please note, all times are approximate and may be 100% fabricated... but the intervals are close to being right :)
We ran out the door and into our taxi, instructing him to rush to the train station. We theoretically only needed 45 min. or so to get there, and our train left at 9:00, but we didn't want to take any chances! In Bangkok, when traffic hits it hits hard and you're not going anywhere!

---8:15 A.M.--- 45 min. before scheduled departureWe pull into the train station (dang it!). Somehow we made remarkable time and ended up 45 min. early for our train. Ok... well no big deal, I've been early for trains before, its not so bad. And truth be told, in Germany its really not that bad. Just anoying. But, and it was at this moment that I started noticing this, trains in Germany and trains in Thailand are two VERY diffrent things. Kind of like comparing an apple with a duck. For starters, our train station was 100% outdoors, in 90 degree weather. Oh, and add on the fact that our platform was facing the sun with no shade. So for about an hour we sat baking in the hot thai sun, just dripping with sweat and praying that the train would be early.

--9:15-- 15 min. after scheduled departure
In the misirable hot thai sun, we weren't really the most patient people in the world, and the fact that our train was late didn't help us at all. We realized that they had been saying things over the intercom every once and a while in Thai, and thought to ourselves that maybe, just maybe, they had reported that the train was late. I went up to the ticket booth to investigate and, yep, it was delayed. By how much? One hour. New departure time: 10:15

--10:20-- 1 hr. 15 min. after scheduled departure time
Still no train. At this point we had been sitting in the sun for a little over 2 hours and were ready to die. Once again, went to check, once again, another hour delay. New time: 11:15

--11:15-- 2 hr. after scheduled departure time
Our train pulls in! Yay!! Now please note, this stupid train was two hours late, and we were one hour early, which means that if we had been baking in the hot thai sun (with no shade) for three hours. Had we been cookies in an oven, we would have already burst into flames and set the fire alarm off. Just wanted to point that out. We were SO looking forward to that air conditioned car we paid for! We hopped in the train and found places to stick our bags while everyone awkwardly watched us (3 white people... we kinda stuck out). As we took our seat we noticed that we were located directly underneath the air conditioning! Sweat! Everyone else just had simple fans above them which, I guess circulate the cold air throught the car. What luck!

Or rather, what would have been great luck... had the stupid air conditioning worked. But no... no not on our car. Which translates to everyone on the car having a fan above thier heads, except for three rows... one row behind us, and one infront. 13 hours on a really really hot train. And these trains are not like German or Austrian trains. No... these are like the red headed step child of the knock offs of the Austrian train family. I was expecting a nice, semi-quiet ride, smoothly gliding down the tracks. What we got, was something somewhat similar to the wild mouse roller coaser at Lagoon. Ok... ok so thats an exageration, it wasn't THAT bad, but it was NOT by any means a smooth or quiet ride. And to make it worse, there was a big, old aisian woman (sounds mean doesn't it... a larger, elderly woman from Asia) sitting next to me who decided I didn't need any personal space at all. And by "at all" I mean that, as she leaned over to talk with someone a few rows away, she used the inside of my thigh as a resting place for her hand... and she started patting... Wasn't quite sure how to handel that... And to top it off, my tray table didn't work. *sniff* Oh, and to make things even more bizzar, about 15 min. outside of our destination we hit someone. Yep thats right, the train hit a car. We just heard it scrape against the side of the cart and then the train stopped and ambulances came. But after about 30 min. we started going again.
Wow, that was long! I think I'll break this into 2 parts to make it more reader friendly.

Ok, part 2 :)

Chang Mai was so cool! After we arrived (and after finding a hotel) we talked with a member of the church who worked as a tour guide living in Chang Mai. With his help, we were able to have two great days seeing some "standard" sites. The first day we went to a bunch of factories (or workshops) and watched them make paper umbrellas, lacker carvings, silk... and so on. It was really pretty neat to see them make all this by hand, but I don't think my writing skills are quite up to par to make it sound exciting, so I'll leave it at that.

Then we went to a Thai wat (Temple) that was really very cool... unfortunatly I can't remember the name of it, but-- as you can see in the picture-- it had lots of stairs leading up to it. At the top there were some cool statues and bells and stuff, but nothing that would really be worth writing down for you to read!

The second day we went to an elephant training camp to ride elephants. It was really a lot of fun. Luckily, the seats on top of the animals were only designed for 2 people, so I ended up getting

the chance to tame the beast all by myself. As it turns out, I'm quite an elephant racer because, not only did I beat the girls to our destination, I was able to overtake the German group in front of us... and then the french group in front of them... ok, so I had no control and I think the driver on the elephant's head must have been excited for lunch or something, but in any case I moved way faster than Michelle and Whitney.

Then we went to a snake farm where the lack of precautionary measures was highly unsettling and so so funny! Not only were the snakes in the show within grabbing distance, the "snake charmers" actually led some of the snakes into the audience because they thought it was funny (oh, and that snake they led to us attacked Whitney's bag. Yep, it struck right next to our feet). Not to mention the fact that one of the snakes broke free! It was funny to watch the chaos as they scrambled to try and catch it before it got 100% into the wild.

Next we went to the butterfly farm. For those of you who get the chance to come to Thailand, don't go to the butterfly farm. It sucks. Maybe 20 butterflies, all the same kind.

To end the day, we went to the hill tribe villages. There were three different tribes who lived in

these villages, each one with their own traditions. One of them gauged their ears really big, one of them I don't remember, and the other one put rings around their necks to stretch them out. They were also pretty neat to see, but my favorite part was these two little boys who climbed to the top of the hill and then rode their tricycle type things down at mach speeds! It was so great to watch, they were having SO much fun!

Ok, this is actually getting way too long, so I'm going to stop here and type the rest later! But make sure to come back, because the next post deals with me getting about as close to being Tarzan as I ever will, the most miserable train ride in the history of the world, and... uh... more stuff.

One of those moments

Every once and a while, you get the opportunity to sit back and think, "You know, that wasn't really a very smart move." Other times, this realization doesn't come quietly as you sit and ponder... but rather it hits you in the face so hard, that you catch yourself looking around to see if anyone else around you noticed. These moments, although rare, usually come after particularly stupid moves or when someone clearly walked all over you without you even seeing it.

Michelle, Whitney, and I decided that we were not going to waste our limited time here in Thailand, we were going to see all we could! So, it came as no surprise to anyone when, soon after our arrival, we sat down to organize our first adventure. We wanted something easy to find, seeing as how asking people for directions wasn't an option-- not just because that would break every man-code there is, but also because my Thai isn't quite as good as my Latin (Et tu, Brute?). That hindrance left us with the major tourist areas. After a short discussion, we decided that there was no better place to start, than the famous Grand Palace.

The Grand Palace is an amazing complex that used to house the royal family (the current king lives else where) located in downtown Bangkok. We got up early in the morning and prepared ourselves for the fun filled day ahead. Noi (the mission home's housekeeper) wrote instructions down explaining how to get home onto a piece of paper that we could give a Taxi driver (thus preventing us from dying a slow and painful death, being forced to wander lost in a major city), and called a taxi for us. After she explained to the driver where we wanted to go, Michelle, Whitney, and I hopped in excited and ready.

As we stepped out of our taxi, which had stopped along the wall surrounding the Grand Palace, we quickly realized that we had no idea where we were supposed to go. The taxi had indeed stopped in front of a gate, however there were several guards in full military attire (complete with assault rifles) standing there, which-- surprise surprise-- kinda gave us a moment of hesitation. Lucky for us, a man, sensing our hesitation, came up to us and asked, in broken English, if we needed to buy our entrance tickets. He pointed us toward what appeared to be another gate some 200 yards down the wall. We thanked the man and started walking down the wall, the whole time I thought, "Man I'm so glad people here are ready to help the stupid tourists!" I had no idea.

As we made it about 2/3 of the way, another man came up to us. "You looking for entrance tickets?" "Yeah we are!" "Oh, not open now. Closed. Lunch. Don't open till 1:30. Sorry." I checked my watch. 12:30. Dang. Talk about bad timing! Now what would we do?! We were stuck with no way of knowing whats in the area! The man, sensing our disappointment, said, "You seen giant Buddha?" "Um... no. Where is that?" "Oh close c lose! One, two min. I show you!" He ran over to a Tuk-Tuk driver and spoke with him (in Thai). The driver reached under his seat and pulled out a map, which he gave to our good Samaritan. He then went on to show us that, it was indeed, pretty close (although in all honesty, I now realize we had no good point of reference. We had no idea how far it was). "I get Tuk-Tuk for you. Cheap, 20 Baht!" He talked with the driver from whom he had taken the map, then turned to us and said, "20 Baht, he take you there and back." It was a great deal! 20 Baht (about $0.75) How could we say no?!

We soon found ourselves zipping through the streets of Bangkok in our new ride, the Tuk-Tu k. Our driver could speak a little English and, upon hearing that we were American, immediately pulled out a poster that said "Obama" in big letters (I'm still amazed that other countries are so interested in our countries government). He was really excited to show it to us! We kinda chu ckled and talked with him a little as we rode. After a few min. we arrived at our destination and, as we pulled in, the driver said, "You take as long as you want. I wait here. Take time. Long as you want. I wait." That made me a little nervous because, 20 Baht is really a steal of deal on a Tuk-tuk, and I thought maybe he was planning to rip us off. He waits here for 3 hours and then charges us $300 for the time... but after trying to make it clear (through charades mostly) that he would only get 20 baht regardless of if he waited or not, we decided he understood and went to the giant Buddha.

It was... exactly as the name suggests. A giant s tatue of Buddha. Not much to tell you there... it was neat to see. Anyway, after about 40 min. we went back to our Tuk-Tuk, half expecting him to be gone. But, just as he had said, he was ther e waiting for us. We climbed into the Tuk-tuk, and our driver climbed out saying that he had to go to the bathroom first. Hard to argue with that! So we sat there for a min or so, until our itchy shutter fingers got the best of us. We started trying to get a picture of the three of us. Some random guy who was sitting next to us saw, what must have been a comical sight, and asked if he could take the picture for us. He took a few pictures and then started talking to us. He told us about himself and that he had a son in New York, he was a doctor... blah blah.... then he asked how long we would be in Thailand. After we told him 3 months, he asked if we had already been to the Tourist Authority of Thailand. We hadn't. He told us about how important it was that we do that so we could use our time here to see everything we could! That talk went on for quite some time until our driver came back. Our doctor friend said, "Oh, I'll tell the driver to take you to the TAT now! Its nearby!" "Oh no, we want to get back to the Grand Palace now." "Oh, you can, but it's closed right now for a special ceremony with the monks." "... really?" "Yep. Should I tell him to take you? Yeah, I'll tell him." Well, since the Grand Palace was still closed we might as well go to the T.A.T. We could get some pamphlets or something... although something was fishy...

Once again we found ourselves zipping through the streets of Bangkok in our Tuk-Tuk. Cutting buses off, swerving in and out of oncoming traffic... I'm just grateful to be alive. We drove for what seemed like a very long time, but finally made it to the T.A.T. We didn't learn too much there and it ended up being a waste of time. Ok, time to go back. Even if the Palace was closed, we could look at stores in the area or something. We told our driver and off we went. We drove for what seemed like forever, going down all these funny little alleys and back roads (the whole time I found myself thinking, "if he stops and tries to jump us... what do I do..."). After what seemed like an eternity, we pulled to a stop in front of another T.A.T. Uh... communication error? We just talked with one... don't really need another. We told him we didn't want to be here and there was this awkward moment where we all just sat there. Finally, he got it and dejectedly started the Tuk-tuk back up. "But first you go Thai Fashion, ok?" Uh... what? No! Grand Palace! We kept saying Grand Palace, he ke

pt saying Thai Fashion (which we figured out was a tailor shop), we didn't want suits cut, he didn't want to go to the palace without this detour... what the heck was going on!? "Just stay 5 min. 5 min. ok?" "NO!" Finally he sighed, "5 min. for me. I get gas." Suddenly it clicked. The whole day, we'd been worked over!

He got gas coupons for taking tourists to the T.A.T, this tailor shop, and the big Buddha! Everyone we had talked to since getting out of our taxi had been in on it! The helpful man directing us to the "ticket booth," the good Samaritan, the doctor, everyone had been placed to keep us moving smoothly from site to site. As we put it all together, we just laughed! We were so stupid! The Grand Palace closed for lunch?! Did w

e honestly fall for that?! We finally agreed to go to Thai fashion, just because they had worked us so well that they deserved it! 5 min. in and out. Then we went back to the Grand Palace and went through the gate (past the military guards) and got to see that as well.

In all honesty, I'm so glad we fell for the nutorious "Tuk-Tuk scam." It ended up being a lot of fun! We got to zip around downtown Bangkok and see all these things along the road that we never would have seen otherwise, and got a 2 hour Tuk-tuk ride for 20 baht! We were just 3 stupid Americans who had one heck of a day!