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[US Promotion] I would like to celebrate Thanksgiving by gifting you all books!

UPDATE: More books added by siffis and West1234567890 further down
If are late coming across this post then do not worry you can still message me your email for a book.
To celebrate my day off today and Thanksgiving tomorrow I would like to gift my audiobooks.
In order to recieve a free audiobook gift just message me any title (below) along with your email address. If you have not recieved a gift before then you will get the audiobook for free. More details here and here. I am in the US market (but I hear from Canada and UK that it still works).
Books crossed out are not available.
TITLE - AUTHOR (Ordered by author)
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siffis has generously offered to include his collection. If you like any of the books below then message directly.
​
West1234567890 [Also added additional books below](https://www.reddit.com/audible/comments/k0s76n/us_promotion_i_would_like_to_celebrate/gdlwylu?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
submitted by BooksAreBelongToUs to audible [link] [comments]

Are Short-sellers targeting SPACs?

![Image](https://vhinny-public-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/img/6e9507eb-3260-4893-8c34-e4113ab0e93d)
Special Acquisition Companies may be attracting a bevy of investors, but there is one kind that they would love to turn away – short sellers. It seems SPACs are the target for short-sellers who are peering through the company’s fundamentals for cracks. Last year, a total number of 6 SPACs were targeted by short-sellers.
Earlier this week, Hindenburg Research released a publication. It accused Clover Health, the health-tech startup backed by prominent venture capitalist and so-called King of SPACs, Chamath Palihapitiya.
Hindenburg alleged that Clover Health “and its Wall Street celebrity promoter misled investors about critical aspects of Clover’s business in the run-up to the company’s SPAC go-public transaction last month.”
The report accuses the Nasdaq-listed Clover Health of failing to disclose “that its business model and its software offering, called the Clover Assistant, are under active investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ), which is investigating at least 12 issues ranging from kickbacks to marketing practices to undisclosed third-party deals,
This is not the first SPAC that would be the target of Hindenburg research. Last year, EV maker Nikola was the subject of a blistering report that accused ousted CEO Trevor Milton of exaggerating the EV truck's technology. This lead to Milton’s removal as chairman and CEO of Nikola.
Andrew Left’s Citron Research poked at Luminar Technologies, saying it is “not even a casino stock. You can actually win at a casino. It is more of a ‘sucker’s game.’ Before that, Kerrisdale Capital Management took on Tattooed Chef, a $1.2 billion packaged food company that also went public via a SPAC. Other SPAC backed companies such as Akazoo and Triterras Fintech Quintessential Capital were also targets of short-sellers.
One reason which has been given for the flurry of attacks has to do with the nature of the SPACs themselves. The SPAC structure incentives — which typically include free shares for their founders — can lead to bad deals. Also, companies going public through SPACs do not undergo the same rigor as they would have been subjected to thorough traditional IPOs. This has lead to investment firms buying unprofitable companies at overvalued quotations.
Though they may be picking up speed, SPAC shorts have paled compared to the number of SPAC deals out there. Last year was a record year for SPACs, and the trend is expected to continue this year. However, investors should conduct due diligence and not depend on one narrative to make investment decisions.
Thanks for reading!
Checkout bullticker's page for more.
submitted by BasaliumSchrink to RedditTickers [link] [comments]

Working Wise or Wizardly Working: how magic items affect the world

Magic items. Objects imbued with magic in order to make them better, or even gain a completely different function. But apparently the only places they exist are in monster hoards and adventurers' backpacks.
Realistically however, everyone wants things that are better at what they do. And eventually, people get what they want.
Today i will go over some objects that are useful outside of the context of adventuring, as well as how they might change the world around them. I will not mention artifacts, since those are one-of-a-kind objects with pre-established locations, usage, etc.
While the topic has always existed, Tasha's Cauldron has added a few interesting toys to our proverbial tool box, which makes this as good a time as any to take a look and
Much like in the Spells and Society post, the rarer an item the more amazingly powerful it must be to be worthy of mention. Actually i recommend reading that post before this one. Since a lot of magic items just allow you to cast spells for free, knowing which spells alter the world gives a good idea of which items can do the same.

Uncommon

+1 tools.
That's right, +1 tools. Not +1 weapons.
Consider a guard. How much of his time is actually spent fighting? A minute every other day? That's not getting a lot of use out of his sword. Even a soldier spends weeks marching, or months guarding a fort, and then only fights for a few minutes or hours. Even if a guard has a superb weapon that doubles his combat effectiveness, it only makes him 1% or 2% better at being a guard[1]. Given a choice of uncommon item, any guard and most soldiers would rather have a Weapon of Warning to prevent being backstabbed, ambushed or caught off-guard.
Now consider a lumberjack or miner. They spend several hours a day hitting trees and rocks. An enchanted axe, saw or pickaxe would see continuous use in their hands. Not only that, magic items are also described as being "at least as durable as a nonmagical item of its kind. Most magic items, other than potions and scrolls, have resistance to all damage". This means the +1 pickaxe would be far, far more resilient to wear and tear than a mundane one, potentially being passed down for generations. And with your miners and lumberjacks being more efficient, you need less of them. Which in turn means you get to have more guards.
Another noteworthy thing here is adamantine items. They deal automatic critical damage to objects and are much harder to destroy. In other words, they're great at chopping trees and ores, bending hot metal, cutting cloth, plowing a field, etc. All while having a fraction of the wear and tear.
​
Bags of Holding, Handy Haversacks and Portable Holes.
AKA your transporty boyes.
The bag of holding is an old favorite among players, and the reason is obvious: it has a million uses.
Most adventurers use it for carrying all their junk. The bad guys in the original Baldurs Gate game used bags of holding to smuggle whole shipments to and from their iron mine base with just one guy. One of my players once put a huge boulder in it, then flew up and dropped the boulder on an enemy transport ship. And let us not forget the classic Arrowhead of Total Destruction.
All of these are perfectly valid uses. Smuggling a small object is easier than smuggling a large object. Dropping huge objects from a high place turns anything that flies into a siege weapon. And the Arrowhead, while expensive, can deal with very large threats that could level a city.
But honestly, every merchant is a smuggler at heart. After all, as long as brigands roam the roads, there will always be a need to hide your valuables in an extraplanar space small enough to fit any orifice. Not only that, the bag allows you to dump a cart entirely and just ride to your destination much faster (and therefore, more safely).
Of course not every merchant can afford a bag of holding, so this brings about an interesting topic of inequality in your campaign. Some merchants can go from A to B faster and more safely on a horse, while the majority must go with a bull-drawn cart that is slow and vulnerable. And bags of holding don't even require attunement, so once you have one and your income soars you can get another, and another... Its a serious rich-get-richer situation, and you risk running all the mundane merchants out of business.
​
Broom of Flying.
I'm gonna start this one with saying that brooms of flying and carpets of flying are overpowered. They are consistently better than items of similar rarity that provide the same benefit, like boots and wings of flying. The reason here is, in my humble opinion, the same reason why Fireball deals more damage than any 3rd level spell and most 5th level ones: its iconic.
As for the item itself, its pretty much a permanent flying speed of 50 while carrying up to 200lbs, or 30ft. speed while carrying 201-400lbs. Its a deliveryboy's dream... except not.
You see, the broom of flying isn't just a hoverbike, its also a drone. You say the command word, and it flies up to a mile a way. Say it again, it comes back. In other words, the crazy wizard in his tower can just tie some money and a note on the broom and send it to a shop, then call it back once the shopkeeper has tied the groceries to it. Poor delivery boy just lost his job.
But wait, there's more! If the broom can fly on its own, can it plow a field? Can it spin an "animal" traction mill? The answer is: yes. But there's no reason to use magic where a common animal would do, unless its a crazy high magic setting or something.
​
Decanter of Endless Water
I think anyone can see how infinite water is broken as fuck[2]. But that's not all. By speaking the command word and pulling the lid, you can cause 30 gallons (136.4 litres) of water to pour out with enough force to push a 200 pound object 15 feet. This action can be repeated every turn (6 seconds), since a decanter of endless water has no limit on how often it can be used.
So a decanter is not just infinite water, but also infinite energy provided you have enough technology to build a mill. Even more energy if you activate the decanter in a high place and use gravity to give those 30 gallons even more potential.
Do keep in mind however that in 5e there must be someone using their action to activate it every turn. In previous editions however one could leave the decanter open and it would pour water constantly.
​
Hat of Disguise
This wee cap is not game-breaking for its great usefulness, but rather for its ability to fuck the world up. Any charlatan with a Hat of Disguise can walk into a bank, guild, ship, etc. and pretend to be anyone. Sure it doesn't happen often, but when it happens the crime spree is enormous. And while there are ways to work around disguised criminals, the fact people have to work around it is an issue in and of itself.
Societies based on trust pretty much can't function. Does everyone sign everything? Do people start using IDs? Do organizations start using items or employing animals that can see through illusions? Is there an industry for door frames that detect illusions?
Even without the hat, Disguise Self is still a 1st level spell. Yet somehow the sourcebooks have no mention of how the world might adapt to the idea that you can't trust people to be who they seem to be. And if anyone with access to 1st-level spells can walk up to the king without difficulties, you wont have kings for long.
​
Ring of Mind Shielding
A great item, if you're an asshole. Keeps people from sensing your evil alignment, keeps them from reading your evil thoughts, keeps pesky zones of truth from sensing your lies, and it even makes itself invisible so nobody can notice you're wearing the "i am evil" ring. It even keeps your immortal soul from going into eternal damnation!
One thing i always think of soul-trapping items is that they're a good way for evil people to avoid the afterlife. If you're good, you want to go to Celestia, Elysium, Arborea or Ysgard. Yet if you're evil, being stuck in a ring and talking to its wearer might be better than Baator, Carceri or the Abyss.
​
Sending Stones
Another classic, unfortunately the stones were nerfed and now can only Send to each other once a day.
Still, long range communication is nothing to scoff at. And while hiring someone to Send for you is cheaper, the stones provide more privacy and can be sent to far off corners of the world where you can't afford to station a caster full time.
Expect each mayor or baron to have one of these, while someone in the capital answers their "calls". Something of a royal secretary if you will. While magic items are expensive, shaving days off of your disaster response time can be the difference between having a kingdom and having ruins.

Rare

Bag of Beans
An often overlooked item, the BoB is crazy powerful. It has 3d4 beans, each of which can trigger a random effect. Notably they have a 10% chance of creating a random potion that lasts 30 days, a 10% chance of creating 1d4+3 eggs that can permanently raise an attribute by 1[3], a 9% chance of spawning a full on pyramid with a mummy lord and appropriate loot[4], and a 1% chance of leading anywhere.
Why bother with tomes when you can get twice as many stats from a bag of beans?
​
Helm of Teleportation.
1d3 castings of Teleport every day, plain and simple. That means 9 people can travel about 14 times in a week[5].
That's a lot of potential trading to be had for sure, but why stop there?
Say your kingdom spent tons of time and money training and equipping an elite unit. You wouldn't want them to spend 80% of their time on the road and 20% solving issues right? One rare item can make your 9-men unit five times more efficient.
Adventurers are in much the same boat: small group, lots of capital invested into their gear and training, yet they somehow spend most of their time going back and forth between adventures (until level 9 if they have a bard, sorcerer or wizard in the party, past 9 if they don't). It honestly amazes me that the Helm of Teleportation is not listed more often as a must-have party item.
​
Manuals/Tomes
For those unaware: there are 3 manuals and 3 tomes in the game, each increases an attribute by 2 when used and then loses its magic for 100 years.
The #1 item on any adventurer's to-get list, the existence of the tomes raises far more questions than answers. Who makes these? Why are they not mass produced? Can i get a magically accelerated demiplane, throw the books in and recharge them in a fraction of the time? Why do people not abuse the f*** out of them?
And when i mean abuse, i mean make smart use of them. Say a kingdom has, over the course of generations, acquired 5 or so tomes. Then the ruler reads them and becomes super smart/wise/popular. That sounds like the sort of thing that would make the whole realm prosper. Do it on an elven/dwarven kingdom and the ruler can read his tomes multiple times, granting him a godlike mind.
And that's without considering the idea of immortals. Or even high level druids. Any lich or vampire could become insanely powerful, not only from being able to use each tome a dozen times, but also from having eons to look for more or even craft them[6].
One thing i really like about tomes is watching the party decide what to do with them after spending the magic. Do they auction the books? Trade with some elf for favors? Give it to a friendly vampire?

Very rare

Candle of Invocation
For 4 hours clerics and druid of the proper alignment within 30ft can cast 1st level spells without using spell slots. In other words, crazy amounts of healing. Pop one after a battle and in a few minutes your whole army will be ready for more. Or pop it during a battle, and have the Healing Word the crap out of your troops from a safe-ish distance.
​
Carpet of flying, Peregrine Mask
Carpets of flying function much like brooms of flying, except they are faster or carry more weight (depending on size). They would be a strict upgrade, except they lack the drone function the broom has.
A peregrine mask provides a flying speed of 60, but has no carrying capacity. That means if you have a Powerful Build or a similar feature it can actually carry more than the carpets.
​
Cauldron of Rebirth
If there's one thing Tasha's Cauldron has brought us, its this cauldron.
It has some minor uses for scrying making potions, but here's the deal breaker: you put a corpse in the cauldron, fill it with 10gp worth of salt (200lbs.) and it casts Raise Dead on the creature.
Resurrection normally costs 500gp. worth of diamonds. With the cauldron it costs 10gp worth of salt. Sure there's a one week cooldown, but who cares? I see two scenarios here: either a resurrection every week is more than the local demand, or less than the local demand.
If its more than the demand, that means everyone who dies of unnatural causes and has 10gp to spare gets resurrected.
If its less than the demand, that means you're raising one person every 7 days. Depending on how high the demand is you could be making as much as 500gp a week, or 26k a year. Considering that the DMG says a Very Rare magic item costs 10.000-50.000 gold, the cauldron can pay for itself in under two years. Even if the math is way off for some reason, it is still crazy strong.
Honestly, this should be an artifact. Or at least have some heavy downside. The idea that someone over at Wizards of the Coast read this and said "Ah yes, 10gp resurrection, perfectly fine" simply boggles the mind.
​
Crystalline Chronicle
Speaking of items that make things cheap, 1d3 times a day this spellbook allows you to cast a wizard spell without material components of up to 100gp.
That means two spells on average, so let's take a look at a few good options: Continual Flame[7], Magic Circle (exactly 100!), Stoneskin (100!), Teleportation Circle and Astral Projection.
The ones that stand out here are Continual Flame and Teleportation Circle. Both cost 50 and have a huge demand in the world. Where a permanent TP circle would normally consume 18.250gp worth of materials over a year, it will now cost nothing[8].

Legendary

Staff of the Magi
This is, i think, the most powerful item in the game.
Has a bunch of charges, yadda yadda, here's the important part:
  1. When someone else casts a spell on you, you can use a reaction to absorb the spell. The staff then gains charges equal to the level of the spell it just ate.
  2. It can cast Plane Shift for 7 charges.
This means on an average day you get 16 charges, or two Plane Shifts, from the natural charge generation. But what if you could have someone cast spells on you without spending spell slots?
There are several monsters who can cast spells at will, too many to list. But there are also a few ways for players to do it. The first that comes to mind is the level 18 Wizard feature Spell Mastery, allowing any 2nd level spell. There's also the level 15 invocation Shroud of Shadow that allows infinite casts of Invisibility. Either case allows a duo to have infinite Plane Shifts a day, which is really powerful.
As usual, trade comes to mind. But with infinite charges you might as well start a tourism agency or a hotel and/or casino that brings in people from all planes. Yet what few people realize is that Plane Shift can be used offensively in order to permanently banish anyone to any plane. Infinite save-or-die effects.
You could also just settle for a fuckton of Shifts instead of infinite, and use a warlock or four-elements monk to convert their short rest resources into charges for the staff.
Now think of the possibilities and plot hooks. Mad king banishing dissidents, Red Queen style. Alternative death sentence. A high level wizard/warlock stranded somewhere because the guy who was attuned to the staff died or got separated from him. Random archdemon bringing an army to the Material Plane a couple demons a minute.

Notable mentions

These are items i left out, but which i will get yelled at in the comments if i "forget" about them.
​
Anything that creates energy
The truth is that a lot of magic items can do that. Fire for heating things, wind or water for pushing things, etc. For an energy source to be noteworthy it has to provide a considerable amount of continuous energy, without charges or daily limitations. Otherwise you might as well just use a regular water mill or a bull.
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Alchemy Jug (uncommon)
It creates an amount of a liquid (beer, honey, etc) every day. It does nothing that cannot be done by an amount of workers, and for it to be world-altering we'd have to go into a lengthy math argument of how many labor hours of a bee farmer are needed to make a gallon of honey, and how that compares to the initial investment of hiring a wizard to make the item.
As a general rule, if something can be done mundanely it will be done mundanely. Let the casters focus on stuff where they have an infinite comparative advantage, like flying stuff, teleportation, resurrection, etc.
​
Cap of Water Breathing (uncommon)
It allows you to breathe underwater indefinitely. Can be great if you have important stuff to do underwater, and might enable interaction with sentient water folk. But in and of itself, not a world-altering item.
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Horseshoes of Speed (rare)
Essentially +30 speed for hooved creatures, without requiring attunement. Honestly this item does not really fit this list, but i just thought the idea of pegasi flying real fast with these was worth mentioning. Sure a helm of teleportation outclasses it entirely for travel, but that's not useful in combat.
And i really want to play a centaur monk with these some day. Unfortunately the item description specifically says you have to have four equipped to benefit, so don't even think about it you satyrs and tieflings out there.
​
Lyre of Building (rare)
At a glance this looks like a regular magic items, with nothing too weird about it. Until you look at its spell selection and notice you can cast them as an action.
Mending normally takes a minute to cast, with the lyre its an action, and you can do it at will even without knowing the spell.
Fabricate takes ten minutes to cast, with the lyre its an action. That means once a day you can turn the ground under an enemy into a spiky cage, his sword into sword parts, etc. Until the lyre came about the only way to instantly cast fabricate was with a Wish, and that is a pretty good combat use of the 9th level spell.

Conclusion

To be quite frank, a lot of these item uses are a little niche and wont work in every setting. Then again, that that is never the goal with these posts. I hope i have provided you with at least a few interesting plot hooks and other crazy ideas, whether to amaze your players or ruin your DM's plans.

Notes

[1] There is a notable exception however. If your kingdom has a group dedicated to fighting monsters, some of which are resistant to nonmagic damage, then those guys should be prioritized. Not only does the +1 weapon double their damage output in this scenario, it also prevents your kingdom from losing special soldiers that are very expensive to train and replace.
[2] Stuff like constant abuse of Decanters of Endless Water are why in my setting there is a doomsayer cult that believes the world will be flooded some day. As they say it, every time someone activates a decanter, magically creates water, creates food and water, opens a portal to the Plane of Water, etc; the amount of water in the world rises just a bit. Given enough time, everything will be flooded by it. Unless someone like, puts a Sphere of Annihilation by the shore or something. But nobody said the cult has to be right.
[3] The bag has 3d4 beans. Each bean has a 10% chance of spawning 1d4+3 eggs. That means 7.5*0.1*5.5 = 4.125 raised stats, on average. Sure I'm assuming you'll pass the DC20 save every time, but with proper preparation its quite doable. Be near a paladin, get bardicly inspired, have someone cast Resistance, find ways to reroll a failed save, etc. Since the eggs last forever, you have all the time in the world to stack the saving throw in your favor. Or just use Portents.
[4] The mummy lord could have anything, even another bag of beans!
[5] Someone will say "but what about the chance of going off target? What if nobody has teleportation circles?" To that person i say: associated object. Get a pebble every time you're in a region, and you wont need a circle. Buy a bit of silk and you can teleport to any place along the silk road. Buy a used horseshoe and you can go all over the country. Now I'm just imagining this badass-looking special-ops soldier, clad in the finest plate, wielding a blazing blade, his cloak cackling thunder... and with a rusty-ass horseshoe tied to his helmet.
[6] And thus is born the legend of Swolomon the Buff. He was once a base vampire, who got stuck in a tomb for 4000 years with nothing but a Manual of Bodily Health and a Manual of Gainly Exercise. Now he's... selling supplements or something.
[7] See On Spells and Society linked at the top for why there's a near infinite demand for Continual Flame.
[8] You can even make two circles at a time, but there's some math about it. You have 3 charges, use 2, so you should always be with one to spare. Until you roll a 1 on the d3, and then its gone. After that whenever you roll a 1 without first rolling a 3 you'll have to pay the 50gp or let the circle go to waste. In other words, you'd be paying roughly 1/6 of the regular cost.
submitted by DungeonMercenary to DnDBehindTheScreen [link] [comments]

Respect T'Challa, the Black Panther (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

"The Black Panther has been a protector of Wakanda for generations. A mantle passed from warrior to warrior. Now because your friend murdered my father, I also wear the mantle of king. So I ask you, as both warrior and king, how long do you think you can keep your friend safe from me?"
Born to King T'Chaka, T'Challa was raised in the public eye as the next in line to lead Wakanda, one of the poorest nations on earth with a strange lack of trade or diplomatic ties to any other country. In reality, Wakanda's isolationist policies were used to disguise how advanced their society was from the rest of the world due to the abundance of vibranium it was founded upon, and T'Challa didn't only inherit the throne from his father but also the mantle of the Black Panther: A figure that protected the country with physicals enhanced by a herb grown only within its borders. Accepting this role shortly before Tony Stark publicly announced he was Iron Man, the Black Panther didn't appear to the rest of the world until the bombing of a UN meeting left T'Chaka dead. Following his experiences uncovering the plot of Helmut Zemo, as well as coming to understand Killmonger's views when he attempted a hostile takeover of Wakanda, T'Challa renounced his predecessor's methods, opening Wakanda up to share its technology with the world.

Legend

Movies

CW - Captain America: Civil War BP - Black Panther IW - Avengers: Infinity War End - Avengers: Endgame

Other Sources

BPP - Black Panther Prelude

Heart-Shaped Herb

As with all Black Panthers before him, T'Challa gains his enhanced physicals through consumption of the heart-shaped herb, a plant exclusive to Wakanda through the vibranium meteorite spreading its metal throughout the soil and affecting its plant life. It is consumed through being crushed into a liquid, after which the consumer needs to be completely buried (usually sand, though in this example snow is used). For a brief period, the consumer is sent to the Ancestral Plane, where they can commune with their deceased relatives. Following this, they emerge from their burial in a brief panicked state with enhanced physicals. In this example, T'Challa was comatose and minutes away for death if not for the snow around him, and was healed by the experience.BP
This power can be painfully stripped of a user through the consumption of an unknown liquid. While the powers can usually be regained through repeating the above process, Killmonger ordered the heart-shaped herbs destroyed upon becoming king, so should his Black Panther abilities be removed once more he would not be able to get them back.BP

Strength

Striking

Cutting

Leaping

Other

Durability - Suitless

Durability - Original Habit

Blunt Force

Other

Durability - New Habit

An upgrade to his suit design created by Shuri given to him in Black Panther. This version is noted to be able to store kinetic energy to later discharge, which may further reduce damage dealt to him by attacks on top of the durability his old suit gave him.BP

Blunt Force

Other

Speed

Reaction

Movement

Skill

Panther Habit Abilities

Kinetic Energy

Other

Other Equipment

"Wakanda forever!"
submitted by rangernumberx to respectthreads [link] [comments]

2000 Mile Roadtrip from LA to Colorado. First long road trip (Pics) 😊

I never write blogs or long posts but I just went on an amazing trip with my M3 LR RWD and wanted to share. I bought this car 2 years ago and due to work travel and COVID I only have 13K miles on the odometer.
An opportunity arose due to my friend getting married in Colorado and I’ve never been to any of the national parks in the desert south west so I decided to make a rod trip out of it!
I drove from the LA area to Bryce Canyon and stayed a few days, then to Moab UT for a night, then to Durango CO for 3 nights then home through New Mexico & Arizona. Story and Pics follow.
I left around 8am and drove to Bryce. It's a 530 mile trip and took ~9 hours. I roughly mapped out the trip via ABRP with conservative settings to get an idea of the trip and made sure to stay at hotels that had destination chargers. My first and most range anxiety stop was at Primm, NV. The car said from the start I'd arrive at 7%. If you’ve done this drive from LA after Baker there is a large uphill incline followed by a long decline to state line. Going up the hill I had less range than the distance to destination. My wife was super nervous as was I. I drafted behind a semi which BTW I'm not even sure I did properly as I don’t know how to actually draft LOL. Anyway coming down the hill I regen’ed almost the entire way and arrive with 6% and 19m range. I should have just realized and trusted the car from the beginning.
This was a pic during the moments of stress
https://i.imgur.com/lm6SMgG.jpg
So hot…so many fires along the way
https://i.imgur.com/n8OlGTH.jpg
Me charging in Primm, NV at 118 ambient. 130+ Kw
https://imgur.com/0oWgO2J.jpg
We had lunch in the casino and headed on to St George UT. Since my wife was super nervous about range from the prior stop she asked we top off in Vegas so we did. This downtown charger was in a weird place with nothing around. We stopped for only 5 mins since there was nothing around, but it never mattered since we arrived at St George with ~105 of range
https://imgur.com/1iE65bn.jpg
St George, UT was a challenge. It was so hot that day the heading across the NV desert my car registered in at 119F.
https://imgur.com/2Ppo7o4.jpg
When I arrived in St George I had 104 miles and there was a line at the charger. I had to wait 15 mins then realized why there was a line. The car told me to charge for 20 mins but it took over an hour with ~30Kw max charge speed. It wasn’t just me as other cars were there a long as me and the line grew. I guess it was the heat...it was blazing hot although I charged in Primm at 118F and had no problems.
This was the only ‘annoyance’ in charging but we made the best of it and I made it to Bryce which is a large elevation gain with 29% SOC...i guess I waited too long in the St George heat and that slow 30Kw 😊
We stayed at the Bryce Canyon Best Western. They had 4 chargers. No problems although one of them requires you to park in a no parking spot to make the cable reach. Bryce is ~8-9K feet so the temp was cooler. Still hot with highs in the 90s. I’ve didn’t know that any state had an 80mph speed limit but Utah does!
https://imgur.com/80kIrn2.jpg
This is the part where we deviate from the car a bit. Stayed 3 days. Hiked and road horses. Amazing place...breath taking
https://imgur.com/ZZpClbt.jpg
https://imgur.com/TGM6CzI.jpg
https://imgur.com/a5bAOVA.jpg
https://imgur.com/oXgFycB.jpg
From Bryce we headed to Moab and stopped at Green River which was a great charging station with a very good local restaurant across the street.
https://i.imgur.com/q9cICow.jpg
Moab was very hot ~110F, but Arches national park was as expected. I figured I’d be able to drive through get out for a few mins, take it in, and get back into the car. I was able to do that. Camp Mode was awesome for this 😊 Yeah yeah I know there are hikes and things I could have done but I wouldn’t be in this trip if it weren’t for the wedding so the time of year and temps were just part of the coincidence of me even having driven here in the first place.
https://i.imgur.com/KHyxV4p.jpg
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In Moab we went to a winery after an amazing drive along the Colorado river. I knew Utah had strict laws on drinking but man this was a let down if you like to relax and have a drink. I knew something was up with the tasting was $1 per person. The drive was amazing though and that’s what matters
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Finally, the wedding! I wish we had more time on Moab but alas we woke up and headed to Durango. In Durango our hotel had 4 destination chargers and no problems finding an open spot. We stayed at the Double Tree which was a amazing hotel on the local river.
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Downtown Durango was very cool. Lots of small locals shops and a great Winery named Four Leaves
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This is an Aerial shot of the historic narrow gauge train depot
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Durango was beautiful and we took this awesome historic train ride from Durango to Silverton. This ride is 9 hours pre-COVID but only 3 now due to 50% capacity and the financial ability of the entire run. It was still amazing.
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Oh and we couriered the bride’s vale all the way to the wedding!
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After 3 days in Durango having a great time with friends, we headed home through New Mexico and Arizona. Coming into New Mexico from Colorado put us in the Navajo Indian Reservation. Talk about a depressing place. The landscape was ugly, the roads were bad, and there were “don't drink and drive signs” all over the place including the do not enter signs all over the media separated highway which suggests a lot of people go flying down a divided highway the wrong way.
We stopped to charge in Gallup, NM which is a skip. There is nothing in walking distance at all. That said charging was fast!
https://i.imgur.com/YMrJjet.jpg
We also stopped at Holbrook, AZ. We didn’t need to charge but were hungry an there is a Burger King there. Now off to Flagstaff where we spent a night and hit local bars which was fun as it’s a college town. We charged at the super charger which is in the hotel parking lot we stayed in and then woke up to head home the next day.
On the way home we stopped in Needles, CA just past the border. I suppose I forgot to take a pic because I can’t find one but it’s a good spot at a Dairy Queen which fortunately in this blazing hot place has partial shade on the chargers depending on on time of today you go. I was there about 9:30am
From there we headed to Barstow which requires a solid charge as the elevation gain is ~4K feet and it’s one of the most desolate drives I’ve ever done. There is absolutely nothing out in the Mojave desert except blazing heat and sand. Running out of charge or breaking down out here would suck. It was ~150 miles and I used 250 miles of range to achieve it but I arrived with plenty.
Charging in Barstow was nice. They have 12 stations and shade. There are several places to eat in a short walking distance.
https://i.imgur.com/JNmsVmM.jpg
From there I was home in 90 mins!
This was a great trip and while my wife didn’t really understand why i didn't want to fly for me in addition to seeing these amazing national parks I wanted to see what it was like to drive an EV thousands of miles and frankly as I mentioned at the beginning I’ve had this car 2 years with only 13K miles and I wanted to road trip away from this COVID isolation. The trip was amazing, the car is amazing. A few closing thoughts
1 - Charging is not slower than pumping gas. Yeah filling the tank takes 5 mins, and charging takes 15-30 mins but depending on the situation but after driving for hundreds of miles for multiple hours getting out to get a drink, stretch, grab a bite to eat is what I would have naturally done anyway and the time at the stop felt totally normal.
2 - The issue in St George was an anomaly IMO. It was almost 120 degrees ambient and the charger was busy.
3 - The trip was super smooth and EAP relieves a lot of driving fatigue. I don’t know how to explain it but using EAP makes you far less fatigued than normal driving. I was able to stretch my legs, enjoy some scenery, and overall feel more after each leg of the trip.
4 - Lastly…..it’s amazing to me that we have technology that can hurl me across the desert in 100+ temps at 85mpg for hundreds of miles in luxury all using a battery!! I hope you all enjoyed reading this. I enjoyed writing it.
submitted by Bottomsup99 to TeslaModel3 [link] [comments]

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/r/QOTSA Official Band of the Week 8: ARCTIC MONKEYS

So yeah, I threw a TON of shade at our Frigid Ape friends last week (but maybe not as much as I did at Meg White - but she deserves it. She knows what she did.) So if you had not guessed it already, this week we will focus on Alex Turner and some other guys. Yes, you might say that we have come crawling back to them. I even contemplated telephoning them after I was imbibing.
Yes, I only made that call while I was somewhat elevated.
It is rumored that these Wintry Orangutans may have established a taco-exporting lunar base (it actually had a high local Yelp rating, or so I’ve heard). Yes, these Chilled Hominids are our focus. They have 7 Brit Awards and 6 studio albums. (Side note: Robbie Williams has 18 Brit Awards so I’m pretty sure you can buy them at the airport kiosk.) They also, according to reliable sources, appear handsome on surfaces upon which you rhythmically gyrate.
They are this week’s featured artist.
About Them
One of the defining characteristics of JHo and the Boys can also be found with this group of Frosty Baboons: They never make the same record twice. Consequently, they are tough to define. They are a mash-up of influences and styles and each new album veers off in wildly different directions. Are you dressed up in a jean jacket with lots of buttons? You’ll love their sometimes Indie vibe. Just smoked a bowl? Yep, they have that desert groove. Feel like a night out with the lads? Their earlier, more up-tempo stuff is for you. Thinking more Billy Joel/Elton John? Yes, they have piano-based music. Want hip-hop?
Screw you, I did the Run the Jewels post already. Go back there.
These Bitter Mandrils hail from Sheffield, England. The band was formed in 2002 between a group of close friends. They initially had Andy Nicholson on bass, but after a series of conflicts on a North American tour, he got the boot. His replacement was Yellam’o Salochin - or as he’s better known, Nicholas O’Malley. The other core members of the band are Jamie Cook on guitar, Matt Helders on drums, and the one and only Alex Turner on just about everything (but most typically the microphone).
Although initially lacking in confidence, Turner would soon be pushed to the front of the band for his way with words. The reason for this would eventually become clear, as Turner revealed in 2013 that all band members are actually Alex Turner. Lets not deal with that Game of Thrones-esque plot twist yet though.
Stylistically, these guys are about as British as they come. You know how when people from England sing, they almost always sound like they have no accent? Turner is the exception. No, I don’t mean that he’s like John Lydon from The Sex Pistols, because part of that band’s rebellion was to sound quintessentially British instead of like manufactured pop. And no, I don’t mean that he is like Liam Gallagher from Oasis, because let’s face it, that guy barely sings anyway.
In his early work, Turner decided to double-down on his roots and perform his songs with his regional dialect. You can literally hear the Sheffield twang in his music, and the band would exemplify this British charm in all the tracks leading up to their first album.
After much practice, and several gigs, the band recorded some demos and began handing them out for free at their concerts. This eighteen song collection, dubbed Beneath the Boardwalk, would garner them a fair bit of fame, and was soon popping up on various file sharing and social media websites. That’s right. The number one lesson you need to take away from this is: if you want to get famous, MySpace is the way (even though they didn't even make their own page).
Soon they released an EP named Five Minutes with Arctic Monkeys on their own label. The success of this led to them playing the Reading and Leeds festival, where they drew an unusually large crowd for such an “unknown” band. In 2005 they signed with Domino Records, and released their debut single I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor to great success, reaching No. 1 on the UK singles chart.
By September of the same year, the band’s first album, Whatever People Say I am, That’s What I’m Not was done. Upon release, it became the fastest selling debut album in UK history, with over 360,000 copies sold in the first week. This album was (and still is) the epitome of British indie punk, and is pretty much the national anthem of North England night clubbers. No, not that kind of clubbers - clearly, I mean something more like this.
After this album, and a few singles / short EPs, “Who The Fuck Are Arctic Monkeys?” was the question on everyone’s mind.
This was answered in the release of their follow up album, Favourite Worst Nightmare (2007), which also hit No. 1 on the charts shortly after release. Much like it’s predecessor, it drips with Sheffield character, but in a slightly different manner. The song writing on this record gives a range between blistering speed and raw emotion. Tracks like Do Me a Favour and 505 demonstrate prowess and dexterity in Turner’s writing, and hinted at darker, more serious tones for the band’s future.
This came to fruition on what some may view as the band’s most important record: Humbug (2009). Our boy Josh took the young lads under his wing, producing and co-writing this album in the one and only Rancho de la Luna. When you listen to it, it shows. This record is dark, moody, and full of beautifully weird metaphors and winding riffs. There is still a good amount of energy in this album, seen in tracks like Pretty Visitors, but the dark moody undertones of the desert are strongly on display in songs like The Jeweller’s Hands and My Propeller. All in all, this album was one that saw an amazing level of evolution in the band’s song writing (and I swear, all that Josh touches turns to gold.)
Oh and this album also soared to No.1 on release. Go figure.
A few years later, they released the album Suck It and See (2011), a record that was a pure ray of sunshine compared to Humbug. The album features a considerably lighter sound, not that it lacks that signature Turner flair, but the tracks generally lean towards a slightly more accessible sound. All in all, it’s still a great album, and an important step in their musical development. Also, please expect to see somebody write a 4 page essay on why Brick By Brick is the best song they have ever written over on their subreddit by next week.
Oh and it also reached No.1 on release. Noticing a trend maybe?
Anyway, these Glacial Lemurs then released that squiggles album in 2013. It became marginally popular. Something something also reached No. 1, something something popular in America, something something Alex Turner’s greaser haircut was SO cool and I want it back. It is also worth noting that our boy Ginger Elvis made a cameo on this record (so I mean, it’s gotta be cool).
Moving on, their most recent album saw Turner embark on a Taco-Powered mission to the Moon. Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino (2018) was originally going to be released as a Turner solo album. However, upon hearing it, his band mates decided to join in and make it into a fully fledged Numb Chimpanzees record. Moon-Tacos can be persuasive.
This album is chock full of alluring and idiosyncratic lyrics that conjure up wonderfully unique aesthetics. It has a laid back, piano-centric melancholy feel that is found nowhere else in their discography. It is so different from their previous albums that many have mixed views on it, but in my opinion, it’s the ultimate grower - I only started enjoying it on maybe the 5th listen. Overall I give it a solid 80% (unheard of, I know!)
Oh and of course, it also hit No. 1.
And notice how I never returned to that Game of Thrones Plot twist? Yep, just like the final season. No, I am not bitter...why do you ask?
That puts a neat bow on their discography, give or take their numerous B-Sides, which are a whole other rabbit hole. I have also neglected some other important Alex Turner records, such as Submarine (his only solo album) and both albums by The Last Shadow Puppets, which are also important stylistic stepping stones for the band. This also explains why Alex Turner’s shoulders are so strong, since he has to carry Miles Kane’s career on both of these records.
All in all, Turner is also a lot like our very own Baby Duck in that he has done multiple projects with multiple artists above and beyond his core band. A self-described “control freak” and reluctant frontman - yet he seems possessed by a desire to constantly explore, create and collaborate on new music.
There’s nothing quite like these Arctic Monkeys, even if their name is really easy to mess up.
Links to QOTSA
Queens of the Stone Age and our featured Polar Simians first met at a rather disappointing gig in Houston in 2007. Josh described them as a ”down-to-earth, earnest group of people that grew up together and somehow made a bubble to protect themselves from the explosion that is their band.” He also remarked that, ”They’ve been playing this most dangerous game of changing every record and reaching like a rock climber for the next grip.”
It is clear that Josh saw his own musical journey reflected in the band, so much so that Homme co-produced and co-wrote their 2009 third studio album, Humbug. That album was recorded in large part out at Rancho de la Luna. Queens have even done a cover version of Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?
Alex Turner did guest vocals on If I Had a Tail. Josh reciprocated by doing guest vocals on Knee Socks. During the recording of AM, Turner said of Josh: ”He came down and sort of got us out of a little rut. It’s just fun, it’s friends, extended family now...His contribution to our record is really exciting, it’s probably my favourite.” Josh has stated about Turner that ”he has a special gift for the gab” and that Matt Helders is ”one of the best drummers in rock ‘n’ roll.” Helders joined Josh, Dean Fertita and Iggy Pop to record Post Pop Depression at Rancho de la Luna in 2015.
Their Music
Fluorescent Adolescent
R U Mine?
Brick by Brick
505
Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?
Knee Socks
Pretty Visitors
I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor
Mardy Bum
Four Out Of Five
Show Them Some Love
/arcticmonkeys
Previous Posts
Tool
Alice in Chains
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
Rage Against the Machine
Soundgarden
Run the Jewels
Royal Blood
submitted by House_of_Suns to qotsa [link] [comments]

Respect Percy Jackson (Percy Jackson and the Olympians/Heroes of Olympus) [New Update]

The Lightning Thief=TLT Sea of Monsters=SOM The Titan’s Curse=TTC Battle of the Labyrinth=BOTL The Last Olympian=TLO The Singer of Apollo=TSOA The Sword of Hades=TSOH The Stolen Chariot=TSC The staff of Hermes=TSH The demigod diaries=TDD The Diary of Luke Castellan=DOLC The Lost Hero=TLH The Son of Neptune=SON The Mark of Athena=MOA The House of Hades=HOH The Blood of Olympus=BOO Demigods of Olympus: An Interactive Adventure=DOA The Son of Sobek=SOS The Staff of Serapis=TSOS The Crown of Ptolemy=COP The Hidden Oracle=THO The Tyrant’s Tomb=TTT Percy Jackson Greek Gods=GG Percy Jackson Greek Heroes=GH

Demigod traits

Weapon

Anaklusmos/riptide is a 3 ft long sword with a leaf shaped blade. Made of celestial bronze that harms the divine and monstrous beings of the world along with mortals if the mortal is important enough such as Setne and Carter Kane, and it can even cut down ghouls and ghosts. It’s disguised as a pen that always returns to him and durable enough to survive full submersion in lava

Strength/striking

Lifting strength

Combat Speed

Scaling to a son of Athena * -Zane dodging the charge of a leonte that was fast enough to move down a hall as a flash of yellow, and move across an office in a flash DOA pg.25,42 * -Scaling to Annabeth who could dodge Kelli HOH ch.15 * -Who’s one of the fastest characters we’ve seen in the universe. She’s fast enough to blitz Rachel before riptide can even switch to sword form after being uncapped. BOTL ch.14 And from the lightning thief that it only takes half a second for the sword form to release, but Kelli moves faster * -Leo doing a backward somersault to dodge large rocks thrown at him at super speeds. TLH ch.43 * -Piper coming up from below a ridge to move fast enough to to be a blur of turquoise and black TLO ch.42 * -Jason deflecting lightning in a fight with a ventus he was tagged when he wasn’t ready to fight, so thishad nothing to do with being a son of Zeus cause he can be affected by lightning, This one needs context cause you could argue against it * -but venti are storm spirits. In PJO nature spirits obviously make up nature. From trees spirits to river spirits,they have humanoid forms, but are also literally a tree or river or flower. For this venti named Dylan his true form is a literal storm cloud along with the other venti that comes with him. Venti are literal thunderstorms because they are the thunderclouds. It’s not the same as characters like avatar characters that can generate lightning cause in this case the lighting is being generated by the actual cloud. * -Besides that feat he did dodge a charge of a venti who are fast enough to move only a little slower than Arion who’s supersonic BOO ch. 59

Movement speed

Only faster than above average mortals * - Ran 10 yards before Bianca could say anything. TTC ch.6 * - human magician in good shape struggling to keep up SOS pg.9 * - outpaced Sadie while holding a heavy object, COP pg.12 * - Apollo who had been turned mortal couldn’t keep up with Percy and Meg THO pg. 57

Durability/Endurance

Agility

Mist control

The mist is the uppermost layer of the Duat which is the realm of magic. It’s the reason mortals don’t see anything out of the ordinary when dealing with the magical. Someone who can control it can alter memories, appearances, summon weapons, make creatures to fight for you, hide objects even if they’re directly in-front of you, create illusions, and teleport. Though he’s not very good at it Percy has shown the ability to make small illusions and hide in plain sight

Magic

Heat resistance

Magic resistance

Mental defense

Intelligence

Combat feats

Percy vs Ares * - Although Ares wasn’t taking him seriously it’s still impressive for a week trained 12 y/o especially since Ares seems to have battle precog because he knew where Percy was attacking before he even did it. Also shows how his adhd lets him see how his opponents tense, so he knows where the attack is gonna come from. TLT pg.341-344 * - After a year he’s considered one of the best swordsman in the last hundred years, cabins of super humans don’t work him out and he wishes he could fight the war gods cabins SOM ch.6 * - Curse Percy vs. Minotaur TLO ch.11 * - Against Carter he showed to be quick and strong, and while it was completely one-sided, he still told Carter he did better against him than most others SOS pg.5-6 * -Beating up the 1st and 2nd cohort of Camp Jupiter. Lots of rolling and flipping showing a very active and athletic fighting style SON ch.12 * -Easily beats Magnus,son of Frey, in hand to hand combat TSTD ch.1 While Magnus isn’t much of a fighter, he’s still capable of ripping a 20 ft. long lamppost out the ground and jump 60 ft. vertically. Percy’s trained in unarmed combat at Camp and this is one of the few times he does

Will

Aegis feats
Important to note that- while using his powers does drain him over time, the amount he's drained is pretty overstated. His storm powers are the only ones that drain him, in the way that he'll feel physically tired from it, but being to able to use his water powers at a high level is never affected especially considering his best feat occured after prolonged use of his storm powers.

Hydrokinesis

Water healing

Water amp

Hydrogenesis

Strom Generation

Geokinesis

Other powers

Wolf stare

A glare he learned from his mama wolf Lupa that scares people. It’s kinda like his bat-glare
● Scares a gang SON ch. 16 ● Makes Leo,a fellow demigod, tremble MOA pg.46 ● Scares Piper BOO ch.19

Animal friends

Curse of Achilles

user gains invulnerability, increased fighting prowess, but one weak spot that can only be pierced, and even a nick is enough to kill

Avatar mode

Percy merged with the Egyptian vulture goddess Nekhbet granting him a few more abilities
submitted by younbthear to respectthreads [link] [comments]

OBLIGATORY FILLER MATERIAL – Just take a hard left at Daeseong-dong…5

Continuing
“Hey, Viv!”, I say, as we’re all being shuttled onto the bus which will take us to our hotel, “Toss me one of those miniatures, if you please. Yeah. Of course, Vodka’ll do. It’s bloody dusty round these parts.”
Viv chuckles and asks if anyone else wants anything. He’s a consummate scrounger and somehow sweet-talked a demure and pulchritudinous female Air China cabin attendant out of her phone number, Email address, and a case of 100 airline liquor miniatures.
That he looks like a marginally graying version of Robert Mitchum in his heyday and speaks fluent Dutch, French, and Italian might explain his success. I mean, a guy with four ex-wives can’t be all wrong, right?
He’s a definite outlier in this crowd. We could be characterized as a batch of aging natural geoscientists who collectively, sans Viv, add up to an approximate eight on the “Looker” scale. Besides the years, the mileage, the climatic, and industrial ravages, it’s a good thing we all have expansive personalities, as most of us are dreadful enough to make a buzzard barf.
But, save for Viv, no one presently here is on the make. Oh, sure; we’ll all sweet talk some fair nubile into a free drink or a double when we really ordered a regular drink, but we’re all married, most terminally, that is, over 35 years and counting. The odd thing is that save and except for Viv, none of us married folk had ever been divorced.
That is strange, considering that the global divorce rate hovers around 50%, and we are often called to be apart from kith and kin for prolonged periods. However, we are always faithful and committed to our marital units and those vows we spoke all those many long decades ago.
But, hey, we’re all seriously male and not anywhere near dead; and there’s no penalty for just looking, right?
Continuing.
We’re all loaded on a pre-war, not certain which war, by the way, bus which stank of fish, kimchee, and diesel fuel. We really don’t care even a tiny, iotic amount. It’s free transport, we’re tired of traveling, and not keen on walking any further than we absolutely have to.
Viv has been passing out boozy little liquor miniatures, and I’ve been handing out cigars since I bought a metric shitload back in Dubai Duty-Free and somehow got them all through customs.
We didn’t light up, as there was neither a driver nor handler present. So, we figured we’d all just wait on the cigars, and concentrate on having a little ground-level “Welcome to Best Korea” party until the powers that be got their collective shit together and provided drivers, herders, and handlers.
We sat there for 15 long minutes. Being the international ambassadors of amity and insobriety, we started making noises like “Hey! Where’s our fucking driver?” and “I am Doctor Academician! Of All State Russian Geological Survey! How dare you make me wait? ”
Suddenly, a couple of characters in ill-fitting gray suits and fake Rays Bans are outside the bus having a collective meltdown. Somehow, someone fucked up and put us on a ‘regular’ bus and not the ‘VIP’ bus. In other words, we got to see what the locals really got to ride around Pyongyang on instead of our supposed to be impressed by the bus that wasn’t there; but was now just arriving.
A spanking new purple-and-chrome Mercedes long-haul bus shows up. It even has our group name emblazoned above the placard that normally tells where the bus is headed or who it is for: “’국제 석유 지질 과학 연합’ [Gugje Seog-yu Jijil Gwahag Yeonhab] or ‘International Union of Petroleum Geological Sciences’”.
We are brusquely ordered off our present bus and into the opulent, obviously bespoke, bright yellow faux-leather interior Mercedes-Benz Tourismo RH M. It’s so new and so obviously a ploy to get us to think that all things here are so new and opulent, it even smells of that new car, ah, bus, aroma.
“Well, we’ll take care of that soon enough”, I muse, as the bus is equipped with ashtrays and we’re going on the scenic route to our hotel, which is only 25 or so kilometers from the airport. However, it was announced that it’ll take us about 2 hours to get to our hotel since we need to see the city in its best light and get a feeling for the town if we should ever find ourselves lost and alone.
We all know what’s going on. They’re getting our rooms ‘ready’ for our arrival and need some extra time to make sure everything’s all wired in and transmitting properly.
“Guys”, I muse to our new handlers, “I’ve been to the Soviet Union, pre-wall fall. I stayed in places where I was definitely among the first westerners ever to grace their porticos. We’re a busload of natural scientists, of eight different nationalities, covering the economic spectrum from staunch capitalism to sociable socialism to hard-core communism. You even think for a second we’re going to spill any beans about anything you’d find interesting or useful? Think again.”
In fact, it would become a running joke between us all to see what sort of fake bombshells we could drop into the normal conversation what would give the listener’s the greatest case of the jibblies.
But for now, our bags were all loaded into the cargo compartment of this very, very nice, I must admit, mode of conveyance. Our handlers: ‘Yuk’, ‘No’, ‘Man’, and ‘Kong’, are all seated upfront and please with their latest tally of bodies. We have a couple of shady fellow travelers with the knock-off Ray-Bans and shiny gray suits that just appeared out of the woodwork in the back, seated by the loo, watching over all of us, and we’re going on a fucking city tour, whether we like it or not.
We’re all present and accounted for. Let’s keep our camera in our bags for the time being as the drinking and smoking lights had just been lit as the bus fired up its new German-engineered and machined precision diesel engine.
The bus rumbled to life and after a moment or two of checking that all dials, gauges, and indicators were where they were supposed to be; without so much as a cursory glance, we pulled out into traffic.
Except there was none.
Not another bus, pushbike, tap-tap, scooter, car, truck, hover-board, or motorcycle in sight.
Nothing.
Seems we were a big deal. They shut down the main drag so we wouldn’t be encumbered by such proletariat things like traffic jams or people-things cluttering the roadway, clambering for a look at the Western scientific cadre.
So, away we whizzed, sans traffic and into the very belly of the beast, and onward; eventually, towards our hotel.
Our handlers were very kind to point out passing scenes of interest.
“Look, look! There’s the Potong River. Notice all the lovely birds, ‘eh what? See the Norwegian Blue? Beautiful plumage!”
“See here, look. Here’s the Taedong River. Many forms of fish in the river. Maybe we’ll see some fishermen. If you like, we can stop, and ask them about today’s catch.”
We all declined, as we were certain that the fish the ‘random fisherman’ we’d talk to was flown in fresh from elsewhere earlier in the day.
Besides, we were comfortable. We had our drinks, our cigars, and we were leaving the driving to someone else.
After being driven around the city and seeing all the wonderful monuments, like the faux Arch of Triumph, which looks exactly unlike its namesake Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile in Paris.
The Arch of Reunification, a monument to the goal of a reunified Korea, which, by necessity, is unfinished. Then there’s the Tomb of King Tongmyŏng, where people are lining up, just dying’ to get in.
Finally, we all called for our hotel, the Yanggakdo, after yet another mausoleum, the Kumsusan Memorial Palace of the Sun.
Arches or tombs. Such a stunning array of monuments and places of less than moderate interest.
We were interested in Mirae Scientists street (Future Scientists street). It is a street in a newly developed area in Pyongyang to house scientific institutions of the Kim Chaek University of Technology and its employees. But we were told that it was too late, there was not much there to see, we needed to express written permission to visit, and we’d be going there tomorrow or next week.
We wheel into the parking lot of the Yanggakdo Hotel and are immediately unimpressed by the pseudo-Baroque concrete fiasco that appears to stand, wobbly, before us. It’s a page right out of the Soviet Construction-For-The-Masses Handbook. A cold, gray concrete edifice with multitudes of seemingly little, tiny windows. A perfect metaphor for our travels thus far; look at the expansiveness of Best Korean wonders, through this pinhole.
However, we judged too soon. We were told to go inside and check-in, whilst our luggage would be de-bussed for us and handled by the expertly efficient hotel staff. The lobby was opulent, tastefully laid out in earth tones of facades of veneers of marble, granite, some garnet-mica schist, if my hand lens doesn’t lie, some Prepaleozoic anatectic migmatite, displaying intricate and intense plication, xenoliths, and graphic delineation of minerals by segregation through melting points. There was a gigantic well-appointed and well kept up aquarium, complete with snuffling sharks and nuclear-submarine sized groupers.
Very handsome indeed. Impressions increasing slightly.
Then we see that there’s a bloody casino on the bottom floor of the hotel, several bars interspersed throughout the hotel, and karaoke, of which I’m not terribly fond, but some of my European counterparts almost swooned at the prospect. There are a large pool and weight rooms/gymnasia, saunas and places to relax outside of one’s room, but still under the watchful eye of the thousands of ill-concealed video cameras at every turn.
“Covert surveillance” may be a thing in Best Korea, but it’s a practice still leaves a lot to be desired. The Eastern Siberian Russians back before the wall fell were more covert with their obvious button audio microphones woven into the fabric covering the headboard of your Intourist bed than the Best Koreans here. Their cameras were ‘disguised’ as flower arrangements, overhead lights, and speakers inexplicably placed into things like standing ashtrays, refuse bins, and randomly placed holes in the wall.
The floors were all covered with exquisite what looked to be hand-woven rugs of most vibrant crimson and gold; the usual Communistic colors. Always with some sort of floral pattern or pattern that’s supposed to be reflective of nature, as I was told. Evidently, for workers to remember what nature was as they don’t get out much with 14 to 16 hours workdays here in the Worker’s Paradise.
Enough of the travelogue; we all wander up to the front desk, and each with their own passport in hand, request our reserved rooms. We supposed that we would all have rooms on different floors as the reservations were made, expired, re-made, juggled, rebooked, allowed to expire, re-jiggered, and finally formalized a scant week before we left the UK.
Nope. No such luck. We were all on the 39th floor. The place boasts 47 floors, of which, the top floor is a revolving restaurant. Evidently, food tastes better when you’re rotating.
However, it won’t spin unless you first buy a drink.
We had that thing whirling like a NASA centrifuge after its discovery the second night.
Yeah, all 12 of us are bivouacked on the 39th floor. A floor with approximately 30 rooms.
I guess we could have played “Room Roulette” and see who got which room and who’s luggage. Or we could switch every day or two to drive our handlers nuts. Or, we could just take our assigned rooms, which were conveniently located one empty room apart.
Meaning, no one had adjoining rooms. Why? Fuck if I know. We didn’t spend much time in our rooms, and that time was either sleeping or showering. We’d all meet at the bar, casino, restaurant, karaoke, bowling alley (all three lanes) or actual meeting rooms every once in a while when we thought we should get together and compare notes. It was the most inexplicable situation.
Plus, we spent an inordinate amount of time waiting on the fucking elevators to take us to our room. These elevators, and if you think you’re going to get a batch of aging senior scientists to schlep it up 39 floor’s worth of stairs, think again; are the slowest elevators in the civilized world. And that was the consensus of scientists representing not only Europe and North America, but Russia as well. 15-25 minutes added to each journey, up or down; stopping on every floor, except 5, on the way down..
Jesus Q. Fuck, dudes. If you can’t construct a bleedin’ elevator that works better than those at the Sozvezdie Medveditsy Guest House in Lesosibirsk, Eastern Siberia; then I suggest you seriously rethink your plans for world domination and new world order.
Grako and Erwin once, while waiting for the fucking elevator, figured out that we were earning some US$25 each just to wait for the lift to arrive and take us to our rooms. Every day. Sometimes several times per day.
With that, we all agreed to toss our “waiting time” funds into a kitty and on our last day of captivity here, blow it all in the hotel casino. Whatever became of that would be donated to the Koreans we thought most deserving of our largesse.
Would it be our handlers? How about the Korean Scientists we’d be meeting? The affable and most accommodating concierge? Or that plucky little Korean charwoman who was always on our floor and kept everything spotless, right down to our freshly laundered and pressed field clothes and newly polished field boots; done without our requesting or knowledge?
Only time would tell.
It could be a fortune or it could be bupkiss. Just like our expectations of the Heavenly Kingdom where we were currently sequestered.
As it was, with our official protestations, they kept only photocopies of our passports as we roundly refused and threatened a full-scale karaoke battle right here in the lobby if they didn’t relinquish our passports immediately. I had broken out my nastiest cigar and was primed to offend.
With that, we all had our keys and trooped over to the elevators for our first, of many, inexplicable waits. We made many uncharitable and potentially nasty remarks about the Anti-Western posters that made up some of the wall décor. Once we finally made it to our floor, we all fanned out to find our rooms. Viv found his first and was quite pleased to report to the rest of us that there was a “Welcome” basket in his room.
We all hoped that we would be receiving one a well.
I was in room 3914; which I considered a close call, but later only wondered as there was no 3913. Upon entering, I saw it was 1980s Hotel 6 opulent, but with an excellent over-city view. True it was late, dark, and the city was only somewhat lit up; I was looking forward to the view of the town in full daylight.
The room had a ‘king’ bed; that is if the king in question was Tutankhamen, the stubby, Egyptian boy king. The bed had no mattress pad and no box spring but it was hard enough for my liking. Many of my compatriots didn’t agree and complained bitterly. They eventually received thin mattress pads for all their kvetching.
There was an ancient Japanese color television, which only had 2 English language channels - Al Jazeera and the BBC, which was on a dated news loop. Watching the local channel is amusing though; the ads for ‘personal enhancements’ were hilarious, even without understanding a word of the language.
There were a couple of chairs and a low table, built-in dresser drawers for our clothes, a rusty and probably unusable room safe with corroded batteries, a small table built out of the wall that would serve as my travel office, and would-you-believe, a rotary telephone; how’s that for nostalgia?
There was an old-model radio built into the nightstand next to the bed. I was very surprised to find it not only received AM, FM but shortwave as well. I had brought along a pair of Bose headphones and during some rainy down days, spent many fun-filled, and I mean that sincerely, hours DXing from the comfort of my ‘enormous’ king bed.
Beyond that, the room was very nondescript. Like any other of the millions of rooms in hotels around the world that unlike here, aren’t claiming a 5-star rating. I mean, it was clean, if not a little long in the tooth. But didn’t smell too terrible, even after I took care of that with my Camacho offerings. It was utilitarian, everything worked, even the water pressure, which surprisingly could strip off layers of one’s skin if you weren’t careful.
The bathroom, though no Jacuzzi, had a large enough bathtub for the occasional soaking period. Western accouterments in the bathroom were also welcome additions. My knees can’t handle the traditional squat-holes any longer.
There were an electric teapot and several brands of tea, but no coffee. A quick “Gee! I sure wish I had some coffee!” to the four walls and damned if 30 minutes later, a porter didn’t arrive to replenish my tea and courtesy in-room coffee…
There was a small Japanese brand in-room refrigerator which I thought might house a mini-bar. Oh, no! It was actually a complimentary larder stocked with all sorts of Best Korean goodies. Multiple cans of Taedonggang beer. Several bottles of Pyongyang Soju, in various flavors ranging anywhere from 16.8 to 53 percent alcohol by volume. My fridge was skewed towards the right-hand side of the bell curve; the more heavy-duty boozy side.
Evidently, my reputation had preceded me again.
There was a selection of German-style wheat beers from the Taedonggang Brewery and the more familiar ales, steam beers, and lagers. There were some imported beers like Heineken, Bavaria, Pils, a couple of Japanese brands: Asahi and Kirin, and something called ‘Hello Beer’ from Singapore.
There were also ‘sampler’ bottles of Apricot Pit wine, and a couple of high-alcohol fruity liquors made from constituents such as apple or pear, and mushrooms. There were also special medicinal liquors like ‘Rason’s Seal Penis Liquor’.
That is going home with me unopened.
There were a couple of bottles of local sake, called Chonju. Finally, there was a couple ‘samplers’ of homemade alcohol known as Makkoli. Plus there was something called ‘Corn Grotto’, which for the life of me, looks and tastes much like a very passable Kentucky Sippin’ Bourbon.
I put our concierge on instant danger money the very next day. He’s yet to source me more than a fifth of the stuff so far.
I found that there is a popular drink here which mirrors the Yorsch of Mother Russia. Beer and soju can be mixed to create *somaek’; a foamy, frothy, funky drink of many flavors, depending on the soju chosen.
Is ethnoimbibology at thing? The science of how different cultures drink and the effects of drinking culture on different societies. If not, now I have another Ph.D. to pursue after I endow a chair at some likely Asian university.
Anyways, in everyone’s room was a “welcome” basket, just chock full of Best Korean goodies. Postcards, stamps, ads for coin sets, stamp proofs and other goodies that could be purchased at the hotel. There was a field notebook, which I thought was a very nice addition, newspapers, cookies, crackers, biscuits, candies, fruit drinks, and some fresh fruit; although tamarind chewies and durian chips aren’t on my list of personal favorites.
There were a couple of tour books, just chock full of staged photos. These were very nice as well, as so far, we haven’t had much time for shopping outside of government stores or smaller family-run shops in town or out in the boonies.
A few of us were hungry and decided to see what the hotel had to offer room service-wise.
Bupkiss.
But, they did have a selection of restaurants. There is a Chinese restaurant, a European restaurant, and a Korean restaurant on site but they all serve the same food...a Best Korean attempt at western food. And it was weird being the only ones in the restaurant even though it was fully staffed.
We grazed lightly and decided to do some late-night perambulations around our hotel. Our handlers admonished us to stay within the confines of the hotel, or see them if it was absolutely necessary to go walkabout. In the hotel, we were on our own.
We found that there were tunnels in the hotel’s basement. The basement tunnels were a real bonus. There’s a bar with pool tables, a karaoke room, bowling, and a massage parlor, where I was beaten and pummeled into submission by tiny, diminutive, little Korean lassies fully 1/5th my size.
It was wonderful.
There was a hairdresser’s, who were completely befuddled by my shoulder-length silver-gray locks and full gray Grizzly Adams beard. They did provide a lovely shampoo/cranial massage though for the equivalent of US$2.
There were a couple of shops selling Chinese goods rather than local stuff, which was sort of disappointing, a cold noodle bar, and another casino. No shops selling Korean Communist propaganda posters, as I wanted to augment my Soviet-era collection. Perhaps I’ll find something in-country later on.
We were shocked to find that the casino had WiFi that was uncensored and we were able to access; after a fee of liquor miniatures and a cigar or two. We were supposed to have access to the global internet, not local intranet, from the universities that we would be visiting. However, all of that was under the heavily squinting eyes of handlers and guys in shiny suits wearing fake Ray-Bans.
I still had my secret satellite internet lash-up available, but that was iffy, a pain in the ass to set up, and ridiculously expensive. However, it did work on the 39th floor and the times I used it instead of wandering down to the tunnels, no one appeared to be the wiser. Thus far.
So typically, we’d just head to the basement casino with our laptops, iPads, and phones. Bam! Robert’s your Sister’s Husband, we could connect more-or-less free with the outside world; hence how you are reading this now.
Herro! “Yes, I’d sure like another beer. This time a porter, if you please.”
The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain. Or the more they put into locks, the easier they are to pick.
Besides, we were told we’d have access to unfettered and free internet. OK, so we just found it for ourselves. Whaddya expect? We’re scientists, motherfucker, back off.
Ahem.
Back to reality.
The breakfast buffet the next morning had a wide choice of Asian and Western food, although the choices seemed to be the same every day. The main event was to beat the Chinese tourists to the egg station every morning. Breakfast always included fried eggs, a limited selection of pork, kippered fish, potatoes, rice, fruit, and a very Titanium-dioxide-white white bread
After a while, I took to going to the small market behind the lobby, buying some imported Chinese or Japanese nibbly bits and heading to the tunnels for a few breakfast beers before the long hard day’s work. It took almost a week, but I gained the trust of some of the workers in the tunnels and they showed me the on-site microbrewery at the hotel. It produced very passable, and very, very cheap beers of several varieties.
Liquid bread. Beer. Is there nothing it can’t do?
After breakfast our first day at the hotel, we were told to meet in the Conference Room “Il-sung” as we were going to have a ‘Welcome foreign imperialist scientists’ introduction and indoctrination.
Besides our handlers and the shiny-suit squad, there were several Korean folks we didn’t recognize. These were students, scientists, and scholars from the Kim Chaek University of Technology, Kim Il-sung University, the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology; all hailing from Pyongyang, and the University of Geology from North Hwanghae Province.
“Oh, marvelous”, Erlen remarked, “It’s going to be a bloody Chautauqua. We’ll be here all day.”
“Well”, I replied, “It could be worse. We could be on a bus headed off on another unscheduled road trip.”
As we found our seats, our Korean counterparts were busily setting up portable screens, like the ones your grandfather had for showing his 2.1 Googleplex worth of travel slides every Christmas or Thanksgiving get-together. They had a couple of ancient Chinese brand laptops that could have doubled for body armor, they were so thick and heavy.
While they fiddled with running cords for the overhead projectors and 16mm film projector; yes, it was going to be movie time as well, the hotel’s restaurant folks wheeled in carts laden with scones, cupcakes, and other sweet sorts of bakery. Another cart was wheeled in with pump-pots of hot water, tea, and coffee. Usual scientific meeting fare.
There was one final cart that made the day bearable. It held a pony keg of hotel micro-brewed beer on ice, with several dozen frosty mugs available for all who wanted to partake.
There were instantly 12 mugs that were spoken for.
I grabbed a cold beer and wandered around the conference room, sipping beer, chewing on an unlit cigar, and just trying to be pleasant to our hosts and their scientific guests. I was surprised when one North Korean professor, who spoke amazingly British-tinged English, offered me a light for my cigar.
“Is smoking allowed here?” I asked.
“Allowed?” he laughed heartily, “My good man, it’s practically a prerequisite.”
“Here then”, I said, offering him a nice, unctuous Camacho, “Try one of mine.”
Dr. P'ung Kwang-Seon of the North Korean University of Geology became my instant and lifelong friend at that moment.
We had a very nice chat, much to the chagrin of the gray suit cadre, who could hear what we were talking about, but probably didn’t understand anything beyond every 8th word.
After a while, we were asked to take our seats, after refreshing our drinks, and introduced to the group of Korean geoscientists we’d be interacting with during our stay here in Best Korea.
I tried to record every name, but between the students, other scholars, and professors from the various universities, I decided I’d ask for a list of participants once the day had worn on. After all, they had all our names, references, and resumes if the thick folio they kept referring to was any indication.
There were a couple of hours of introductions, as every one of the Korean geoscientists there introduced themselves, mostly through translators, told of their personal area of specialty, and their latest work.
Most were what would be considered geoscientists, but oddly enough, not one that you would consider a petroleum geoscientist, however tangentially.
There were geomorphologists, structural geologists, petrologists, mineralogists, marine geologists, engineering geologists, and seismologists. However, there were no stratigraphers, sedimentologists, paleontologists, or geochemists. We were all geoscientists, but apart from the obvious Korean:English disparity, it was as if we spoke different scientific languages as well.
That would be our first hurdle to overcome.
They had no oil industry here; none whatsoever, therefore why one would bother with the geosciences that fed directly into petroleum? That, in and of itself, would make it difficult to explore for oil in the country. Couple that with the fact that they’re so insular, think their version of ‘science’ is the best, at least that’s the official line, and think all other’s ‘science’ is capitalistic, substandard, and inferior doesn’t bode well for your country discovering anything either oily or gassy.
We were having another conclave around the beer keg, ack, err…a ‘coffee break’ and I mentioned this fact to my scientific colleagues.
“Guys”, I need input here, “We’re going to get precisely nowhere if they won’t even acknowledge that they have major problems from the start.”
Ivan replies, “Very true. I’ve seen this before back home. You get a group so entrenched in their own little corner of science, they can’t even accept or acknowledge that others exist. Not only exist but actually know more about a certain problem than do you.”
Dax joins the fray, “Sure, that’s very true, but who’s going to tell them this unfortunate fact? They could take that as a personal, national, and global insult. Imagine you’re at an international conference and a bunch of foreigners walk in just to tell you you’ve been doing it all wrong for the last 75 years.”
I add, “Remember, though. These characters are scientists as well. I think it’ll be a good measure of seeing what sort of science and scientist we’re dealing with here. If they are truly researchers, they’ll listen to and evaluate what we say as for veracity and accuracy. If they’re just a bunch of Commie goons; no offense, Comrade Academician Ivan, they’ll get all pissed off, kick us out, and we get to go home and enjoy our triple Force Majeure pay.”
Ivan walks over and deliberately steps on the toes of my newly polished field boots.
“In Soviet Russia, field boots walk on YOU.” He laughs in his heavily inflected, and scary, Soviet-era speech…
“Yes, I agree”, Joon adds, “But who is going to address this issue with our hosts? Perhaps one of our Russian comrades, as they are, or were, more politically aligned with our Korean friends and perhaps best understand the issue?”
Ack speaks up, grinning maniacally, “No, I disagree. We should have the one person here who so encapsulates the ideologies and political leanings that they love to hate here so much. You know; the quiet, diminutive, and soft-spoken North American…”
Dax recoils, “Oh, no! I’m not going out in front of this mob of ornery Orientals…”
I smile wanly and tell Dax to cool out.
“Relax, Dax. They’re talking about me.”
“Oh, yes”, a collective group of voices replies, “Yes. Let out fearless Team Leader break the bad news to our Eastern Colleagues. That way we can gauge their reactions to being bounced around scientifically by a member of the Evil Capitalist Cartel.”
“OK”, I reply, “I’ll do it. But be forewarned, my fine feathered fiends. I get stuck on a topic that’s not precisely my bailiwick, I’m going to throw your ass to the wolves. Remember, we’re all in this together.”
Whoops, and catcalls were reduced to mumbles and ‘Aw, fucks.’.
Chautauqua resumption was called and I asked for the floor.
It was a bit off the agenda, but since they’ve been chewing the air for the last several hours, they understood it would be appropriate for us to at least try and get a word in edgewise.
I downed my beer, and grabbed a fresh one as what I was going to say was going to be harsh, cut-and-dried, and rather pointed. But delivered in a pleasant manner.
I hoped.
This all had to be filtered through a series of translators, one for general conversational Korean and another for the more technical and scientific transliterations. I realized I was going to be up here for a while. So, I brought a cigar.
One way or another, I was going to deliver our pronouncements and hell, I may as well be comfortable while doing it.
.
“Greetings and felicitations, my Eastern Colleagues. Let me first say how nice it is to be here in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as part of the ….”
I’m going to fast-forward through all the flowery bullshit and introductory happiness; I’ll going to just cut to the guts of the matter.
“…Now, you do know why there has been virtually no oil, gas nor any other hydrocarbon related deposit discovered here in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea?” I asked by way of a rhetorical question.
I sipped my beer and lit my cigar. In for a chon, in for a won.
I let the buzzing subside on the side of our eastern counterparts.
“Because, and please do not take this as insulting or derogatory, but as a statement of irrefutable fact, no one with the proper training nor experience has been looking. You’re historically guilty of applying the science incorrectly and letting dogma and politics guide your search, instead of the scientific method and the facts. Geology, like all natural science, is just as truth based on the facts for a capitalist as it is for a communist. Reality is not influenced by your beliefs, be they scientific or political, secular or spiritual, ‘trusted’ rather than ‘thought’; any more than by your wish that it wouldn’t rain today during a raging thunderstorm.”
Little Boy over Hiroshima was dropped with less effect.
Our Democratic People's Republic of Korea colleagues erupted into a chaotic mixture of stuttering, internecine yelling, accusations, and sputtering.
Calling for decorum, I figured that since I was this far gone, I may as well push the plunger all the way to the bottom.
“Gentlemen, I do not denigrate the science of geology as taught and practiced here in Best Korea.” I actually said that, sort of a slip of the tongue. Continuing, “However, one would not fish for Bluefin tuna from a rowboat in a pond with a fly rod. One does not hunt bear in the city with a slingshot. Just as one doesn’t search for oil and gas with mining engineers, geomorphologists, and seismologists.”
I let that sink in and after the translation, they calmed a bit and wanted to hear the rest of what I had to say. I could sense a couple was less than thrilled with what I had to say, but forging onward…
“One fishes for Bluefin tuna in the deep ocean with huge rods, reels and a specialist boat captained by someone with deep experience in hunting the elusive fish. One hunts bear in the proper environment, the taiga or forest, with the proper tools and guided by one with the education, learnedness, and experience to know how to make the hunt come out successful.”
Hit them with some analogies they can relate to and digest. Now, go for the carotid.
“Just like one does not hunt oil and gas without stratigraphers, sedimentologists, geophysicists, petrophysicists, and other oil and gas experts who have the education, experience, and knowledge to know where to look. Knowing which environment looks most conductive to hide your quarry, if you’ll pardon the pun, and how best to find them, the guys who know how to corral and de-risk them once you find them, and the engineers and technologists who know how to bring them to the surface so they can be utilized.”
They had stopped being irritated and were listening in rapt attention.
“My colleagues and I have spent the last few days going over, in detail the geology of your country. There is nothing we can see that would preclude the development, entrapment, and preservation of economic quantities of oil and gas. Ture, the geology is quite complex as is the structural history of the entire peninsula. That’s one other thing you will have to accept. Geology doesn’t give the tiniest shit about political boundaries. One must look at the big picture, and that doesn’t stop at some man-made borders. Ignore that fact at your peril, because if you continue to view the geology here as not existing across political boundaries, you are preadapting yourself for failure.”
Drs. Ivan, Volna, and Morse make certain that everyone sees the ex-Soviets agreeing with the bushy-bearded, cigar-chomping American capitalist.
“So,” I said, hoping to bring this little spit-balling session to a fortuitous close, “If we can have an agreement; scientific agreement, on these points, then I am certain we can find a way forward with not only this discussion but the program we can devise for the best Korean (notice phase shift?) geologists to take the project forward both scientifically soundly and economically successful.”
My North Korean counterpart gets up from his seat in the conference room, goes to the keg, taps a couple of beers and walks up to the podium where I was standing.
“Thank you, Dr. Rocknocker, for saying what needed to be said”, he spoke in perfect English as he handed me a beer.
I grinned and gratefully accepted the beer.
“Why, Dr. Chang Kwang-Su”, I said, as that was his name, “You old fraud. You do speak English; and very well, I must add.”
“Yes, almost all of us do”, he relayed, “But, as you said, we are most reserved. We were more or less under orders of the ‘most illustrious’, to play coy, and act as if we spoke no English.”
“I see.” I said, “I’ve worked in several FSU countries as well as Russia and saw that there as well. I guess old habits die hard.”
“That they do, Doctor.”, he replied, “But, we must now tell you the truth. We knew exactly what you said is true, and we agree. We are not as totally insulated from the outside world as some suspect.”
“Well, I was going on what your superiors related to us. Like the police that had all their toilets stolen, I had nothing else to go on.” I replied.
“Ah, ha! Quite!”, he chuckled, “We had long suspected that we were lacking in certain areas of scholarship. What you said cements that fact as it was an independent conclusion. We can now present that to our superiors with the caveat that unless we bolster work and training in these areas, the hunt of hydrocarbon resources here will be for naught.”
“I am relieved”, I said, truthfully. “I was slightly concerned that some might take umbrage to being told their science is not up to specifications. I tried to be the bearer of that bad news but deliver it gently. Here, I find you need that to use that as a truncheon to smack one’s boss upside the head and tell him that an upgrade is required. And fast.”
“Ah, so”, he replies, “We are in total agreement. Now that is out of the way, we would appreciate it if you’d help in designing a course of study for up and coming local geoscientists. Then, we can go forward with a great plan to search for oil and gas here in…Korea. Correct?”
“Absolutely”, I remarked, “You’ve got over 400 man-years of science and exploration expertise here in this room alone. Let’s shoot for the moon, so to speak. Let’s get you up to speed on scientific journals and articles that are available out there in all of academia and industry. Let’s get you communicating on a global basis. Let’s prove that you can talk science with global scientists and still not have it affect your political or nationalistic aspirations one little bit. Let’s see if we can drag you, figuratively speaking, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century.”
“Doctor”, Dr. Chang remarked, “You are the embodiment of what we were always told what Americans are. Brash, loud, confident, and evil. Except for evil, you are American as we were led to believe.”
“Hey, I take that as a compliment”, I exclaim. “You think that’s bad, I’ve got a bunch of earnest Europeans, raucous Russians, and a couple of cagey Canadians on my side as well. Before we’re finished here, we’ll have you ordering hachee, dining on Caldo Verde, snacking on salmiakki, drinking Russkaya vodka with Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, eating poutine, and rooting for the Packers.”
“Doctor, I don’t know what half of that means, but I hope it comes to pass. It sounds most fascinating.” Dr. Chang chuckles.
The rest of the day was spent with various groups crystallizing and breaking off from the main crowd; then reforming as different groups. This was good, as it showed an interest across not only national borders but across ideologies and scientific specialties.
Most everyone here spoke English with some degree of fluency, so the translators were called in only occasionally.
I made certain they were included in everything that transpired that day. I want everyone to feel ‘part of the team’. How better to show the classlessness of Western science to include everyone in on both sides of every discussion and activity?
To be continued…
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