All is well in Taichung.  I will post more when I finally feel like I don’t need to be doing something else.

Look at the date.  Happy Birthday.  Letter in hand and smile on face.

It's official

end

First of all, I have to apologize to all of you dedicated followers of the patchesweaver.com blog.  For the past 6 months (wow, really?), I have adopted a one-track mindset and a healthy case of tunnel vision.  I have been living under a rock up here and have only come out from my self imposed isolation to run, drink an occasional beer[s] with friends, and to meister it up every day.  This monk-like approach to the daily grind has afforded me the ability to get quite a bit done.  I have to say, I’ve been working my ass off.

The fruits of my labor?  A one way plane ticket to Taipei on June 15th.  I am proud to announce that patchesweaver v2.0 will be released shortly thereafter.

It's official

So for the details:

The Taiwanese government kindly extends the opportunity to study ANYTHING at ANY of their schools to ALL foreigners for AL[most] free.   There are 2 scholarships that they offer, one is for learning the Mandarin language, and the other is for pursuing a graduate degree.  I have chosen to do the first one.  The scholarship includes tuition, housing, and living expenses.  Not a bad deal if you ask me.

I’ve been awarded 9 months and have chosen to do summer school out of pocket.  1 full year of full time Mandarin study.  Nose to the grindstone and brain melting through my nostrils.

As for the school, it is in a cheap/artsy area, has one of the best architecture programs in Taiwan, and is conveniently a little more than a half an hour from Melissa’s house and job.  This is all good.  I’ve already set up an appointment to meet with the chair of architecture.  Vamos a ver que dice.

I’m going to go over and live in a private ensuite (hole in the wall apartment) for the first month or until Melissa and I find a place.

For those of you who would  like to point out that this seems like a crazy plan, please hold that thought for a moment, you are not alone… I’d have to say that I agree with you.  However, moving to Guatemala without having a job or even a solid plan beyond the first few months (or even weeks… wait… or days) was also a crazy plan.  Yet, behold, it was absolutely without a doubt one of the greatest experiences of my life.  With the GT experience tucked tightly under my Q40 counterfeit Nike mercado belt, I have to humbly admit that I have learned a thing or two.  This time around I have done my homework and plan to come out of the gate running.  I can’t wait.

So that’s that.  T minus 2 weeks.

For those of you who’d like to hang out before I peace out for an indefinite amount of time to the opposite side of the world, please email me and we’ll work something out.  I plan to get into NYC on the 11th.  I fly on the 15th.  Let me know.

We’re working on my boss’s house.  It’s a small beach house on Nantucket.  I’m excited to see it when we’re done.  It seems like an awesome project.  We’re starting with an original house, moving it closer to the beach, putting it on stilts, gut renovating it, and then building an addition.  Pretty cool.  And we’re shooting to get it LEED certified to boot.

The project manager just had a client meeting today.  I guess it’s a bit different when the client is your boss.  Anyways, they’re fast tracking the project.  My boss is a busy man.  I’ve only seen him for a grand total of about 10 minutes.  He’s going to be out of the area for a few weeks, so we basically had to scramble and put an entire CD set together in a week.  When the PM handed me the redlines for the plan, they were almost solid red.  One of the guys I work with was walking by and was like “Oh my God, it looks like somebody was murdered on that sheet”.

So ya, the financial pipeline has finally been turned on again.  Good good.

Woodmeister Master Builders.  http://www.woodmeister.com/

I went on a tour of the shop about a month ago.  The place is HUGE.  A bunch of offices surrounding an 80,000 sq/ft woodshop.  “Master builders”… not just a creative name, this place is for real.  Stairs for instance… they have an entire stair department… headed by a certified master stair builder. The spray “booth” alone is way bigger than the entire pratt wooshop… probably by about 4 times.  A CNC machine the size of a Uhaul truck and a ventilation system that stands like a silo on the exterior of the building… you get the idea.

I went in the first time with no promise of work.  I went for the tour, dropped my resume, and waited for the call to say I had the job.  No call came.  I finally heard back about two weeks later.  The head of HR called with a list of questions.  “Do you have CD experience? Rate your Autocad skills from 1-10, etc, etc. “  They were just doing a preliminary call to screen all of the applicants… No job yet… I then was called about 3 weeks later and asked to come in for an interview.  The interview was at 10.  I started work around 11:00.  Lose the tie, hurry up, and start running before you hit the ground.

Woodmeister does not exactly have an architecture department.  We (yes, I’m part of the crew now) have what is called the “design department”.  We act as consultants to designers and help them get their vague designs detailed and built.  As consultants, I’m actually surprised by how much work we do.  We make up drawing sets, space layouts, presentation boards,  specs, etc etc… all to the faint sound of the woodshop on the other side of the wall.

I am working as a temp at the moment.  I’ve been told by many people that this was the design department’s only way to get somebody through the door without freaking out the people in charge of the financial side of the operation.  Temporary until proven necessary.  This is the idea.  By the look of things, I’ll be busy for quite a while.  I’ve been told that I’ll be thrown on a bunch of projects over the next few weeks.

So that’s that.  Trabajo al fin.

Dedicating yourself full time to getting a job is consuming in every sense of the word.  Nose to the grindwheel.  And it’s a rollercoaster.  uPS aNd dOWns.  Interview went well?  Don’t get your hopes up… the higher you are the harder you fall.

I finally had it widdled down to 2 promising jobs.  Bartending at a fancy pants steak house and working in patient services at a hospital.  I’d been working on both of them for quite a while.  Two interviews at each.  Each interview separated by a few weeks.  About a month invested in both application processes.  I even had to register online and take an hour long questionnaire for the hospital job.   For $13/hr.  Wow.

So the bartending interviews go well.  I meet the manager and the owner.  I ask about how the bar is at night.  They tell me to swing by, grab a beer, and scope the place out.  Of course I do it.  The owner even personally walks me over to her other restaurant across the street to introduce me to the bartenders over there.  Good sign?  I thought so.

Thank you for taking the time to interview for the bartending position. It was a pleasure to meet with you.

Unfortunately, we have selected another candidate whose background, skills and work experience better mirror the needs of the bar at this time. However, we would be pleased to keep your resume on file and will review it should another, similar opening arise.

We are honored that you chose to apply and wish you only the best in your future job search efforts.

No dice.  Mierda.  What next?  I was banking on this.  I had already applied to every place I could think of.

I no sooner begin climbing out of the frustration and get a call from the head of HR at Woodmeister.  “Can you come to an interview tomorrow?”  Does a bear shit in the woods?  I’ll be there with bells on.

Mexican bar tending came to an end this past Thursday.  I didn’t necessarily quit and  I wasn’t necessarily fired.  It was more of a mutual agreement between my boss and myself.  We both arrived at the same conclusion… that maybe this job wasn’t the best fit for me and that maybe I wasn’t the best fit for the job.  To be capable of working at this bar alone on a busy night, one must be a bilingual, bartending superhero force with a big fat zero readout showing up on the ADD charts.  Though the farthest linear distance one can possibly be from the computer (while behind the bar) is 8′, it is almost impossible to walk this in a straight line.  The tiny 8′ distance that it takes to walk from a customer who has just ordered to the computer that refuses to cooperate is infinite.  Time and space instantly distort to a limitless wasteland where one is endlessly blasted with additional orders, requests for more napkins, attempts at beginning a conversation, etc.  This makes it very hard to keep track of everything while keeping everybody, including your boss, happy.

So anyways…. this mutual agreement came about after I was, as one could rightfully interpret it, seriously demoted to the status of, not a waiter, but a busboy.  After being thrown into the waters of an overwhelmingly crowded bar 3 weeks in a row and finding that it isn’t possible to shake presidente margaritas and tread water simultaneously, my boss decided that I needed a bit more training.  He felt that the best way for me to learn to put orders into the computers and learn the fundamental ingredients of each plate was to have absolutely no contact with either of these and deliver silverware, waters, and nachos to all of the tables instead.  Being the good sport that I attempt to be, I said that I would give it a shot.  I did it for one night.

“Why are you bussing Brian… you didn’t like bar-tending??”  This was the curious question that I was asked by the majority of the waitstaff.

Although bussing has secretly been a long held aspiration of mine, I simply replied that I was told that I needed more training and that I was going to possibly be a waiter in the future (which is what I had been told).  Needless to say, I was not rolling in dough by night’s end.  The amount of money that I was “raking in” took me back to my early highschool days.  Even with the complimentary financial nostalgia that came included with the position, it still wasn’t worth staying.

And look, this is what it all comes down to… I’m not trying to put myself up on a pedestal here, but hey, I have a five year degree folks.  I need to have some self respect.  This was the big internal struggle… and it really was.  Do I leave a job to have no job?  Tough it out?  If I leave am I giving up?  Bob Dylan once said in one of his early songs, “a dollar a day is work”.  Well… the jury’s still out on this one.  I guess it’s easier to say when you have a guitar in your hands… not a nacho basket.

So I’m no longer working at the Mexican restaurant.  All in all it was a good experience.  I’m just glad that it was a temporary one…

Anyways, so we’re starting over again.  It’s a new year and a new map.

Friday; the night that signifies the end of the work-week and beginning of the weekend.  What do people tend to do on their Friday night?  Go to the bar.

In contrast to the majority of the world’s workforce, I am now probably one of the few who do NOT look forward to this special day.  Why you ask?  Because Fridays at work suck. First of all, Friday has become my Wednesday, and it is without a doubt the busiest and craziest day at the restaurant.  While the more seasoned waitstaff welcome the busier night, I have remained generally unexcited (to say the least) about this day.

I have finely honed my skills of tending a decently busy bar solo to a point of acceptable mediocrity.  I have risen to the level of being able to chitchat with the costumers while cutting limes, shaking drinks, doing orders for the waiters, and washing glasses.  The computer still tends to be an uncooperative asshole more often than not, but we have more or less settled our differences and have learned to coexist.  I have found that I feel much more at ease and am starting to feel semi-comfortable behind the bar…  and then it all goes out the window once Friday comes around.

And the customer is always right… even when he has an outburst at the assistant manager because his son’s sopapillas took “15″ (when it was more like 7) minutes to prepare and then proceeds to walk out without paying… Why such a long wait?  Hey, nobody told me I needed to cut and pass the tortillas to the cook.   And I just want to clarify, a plate of sopapillas is not at the forefront of my priorities when I’m being inundated with orders, requests, complaints, and criticism.

Gotta tell ya, bar tending is pretty tough.

I drove around all day, and finally, on my way home through Holden stopping at a computer shop to ask for a job, I decided to walk across the street and ask at a Mexican cantina/restuarante.  I could hear the Spanish even before I saw the people speaking it.  Awesome.

Playa del Carmen. Image complements of Google Maps.

La Playa del Carmen website (definitely check this out… and wait for the music):        http://www.restaurantplayadelcarmen.com/

I knew I was going to like it when, after waiting for the owner to arrive, I saw that the owner’s wife had gotten an order from a waiter.  “Do you know how to make an apple martini?” she asks me in Spanish. “Si” I say.  The bartender then looked at me and was like, “Ya, but we don’t have any apple pucker, I think we can probably use a little Midori”.  After this little brainstorming session, the owner’s wife pulls out a bottle of apple juice and says, “I think we can probably use a little of this, what do you think?”… “Hmm, probably a little dangerous” I respond, and then look at the bartender “Right?”… he nods… and then she just pours it in anyways.  (she tries it) “I think its good”… (she hands it to the bartender and he tries) “Ummm… no”

I started last Thursday and am working all nights except Mondays and Tuesdays.  I caught it perfectly because the owner had already scheduled a certification class for his employees prior to me ever even walking into the place.  I dropped $25 bucks and became certified to serve alcohol in MA on my first day of work.  Not too bad.

I had two days of training and am now manning the bar solo.  This is both good and bad.  It’s way better for tips but means alot of running around.  I’ve been working in a near continuous state of confusion so far but have slowly felt things getting clearer.  “Despierta Brian… despierta!” This is Tapate’s (the other bar tender) favorite line now…  (wake up Brian, wake up!).  I’m going to give it about a week and then I think I’ll be ok.  It’s a great bar to learn in because I only need to know how to make about 8 drinks.  Everybody buys the margaritas anyways.

This is perfect little gig because everybody here works in Spanish.  Before I left Guatemala, Chinita (Otto’s aunt) was like, “So Brian, I guess the next time we see you you’ll be fat and your Spanish is going to suck”.  This was a gentle reminder to continue practicing my Spanish and to continue cultivating all of the intestinal flora and fauna that I picked up in Guatemala.  This job is one step in the direction of having my Spanish not suck.  I don’t know about the fat part yet, but this place is good, it’s just like working in Guatemala, I am the only gringo (except for 1 of the waitresses).  I only work nights, so I still have the entire day to keep applying to and/or have another job.  This is my next project.  I’ve been applying for a desk job at hospitals.  Dual jobs-where-I-speak-Spanish would be really nice.  We’ll see what happens.

So ya, stop by for a goldfish bowl of the “El presidente” margarita.   I’d recommend dropping in on a Thursday so you can catch the Mariachis and see how many sombreros you can wear at once.