Look below or click here for an update on my first day in Mexico. It gives a lot more background on the paintball picture, why I went, and how I wound up on a roof drinking 40’s of Mexican beer.
…and all I got was shot in the face with a paintball.
Seriously, there’s much more, but this was the most bizarre retreat I’ve been on. Fun, and with awesome people, but bizarre.
Postscript: Wednesday, September 14
I suppose I should explain what this is all about. My trip to Mexico was meant to help the local program office there transition to a full-fledged WRI office, something that’s been in the works for months now. Along with this transition we’ve been working on updating the brand for that program. We’ve been going in circles over this for a year, as the original brand was not well received by the country offices and visually it was imbalanced.
My job is to intermediary between the D.C. office and the Mexico office, who are spearheading this rebranding exercise on behalf of the other country offices. We were negotiating my travel dates for months, dependent on the external agency’s schedule and our own approval schedule, so what was originally meant for August dragged out into September, and into my teaching schedule. Here is where having class once on Wednesday really screwed me. I booked flights leaving early on Thursday and returning on Tuesday, attempting to get there and back with as much time in country as possible.
What I was not aware of, and was not made clear to me, was what we were actually to be doing on the days I was here. I hoped for two solid days of work and workshops, where the staff could pick my brain as much as possible to help the transition. I hoped to meet the branding agency, so that the voices on the phone were more than voices. And I hoped to shoot video of programs in country so that we’d have new footage to work with.
When I got to the hotel on Thursday, I found out they were all leaving the office to play paintball and do a team-building day. I debated on whether or not to join them, as I didn’t pack any paintball-ready clothes to wear and knew my boss was expecting, um, work to be happening.
Because the trip was coming in the middle of a lot of projects, I got comfortable in the hotel and worked from 3 until about 10, stopping to talk to the girls and go find some dinner. Ultimately, after talking it through with Jen, I decided to go with them and play, bringing a camera and a healthy sense of adventure.
I got to the office at 9 on the nose and met the whole team with a dopey-sounding, “Hola! I’m Bill from D.C.!” I dropped off my camera bag (better for something to happen to it in the office than in my hotel room) and followed everyone outside to the bus, where we boarded for the trip north.
The venue was up in the hills outside the main city between a petting zoo and a cement block factory. We got off the bus and sat in plastic chairs while a nice man explained what we were going to do in Spanish. Then we split up into teams and did some warmup tasks: practicing with a paintball gun, solving a jigsaw puzzle as a team, stacking cans as a dexterity test, and trust falls. Yes, my first trust fall was in a field in Mexico.
Then we suited up for our adventure. The first team to suit simply wore a vest protector and helmets, but our team, who followed them, all collectively saw the wisdom in wearing coveralls, the vest, and a helmet. I got worried when all the teams put their vests on the same way, but smarter heads suggested one team flip them so that black was on the outside. Thus, we were the Manos Negros, or Black Hands. I was a little alarmed to find that our scratched facemasks were only semi-opaque and did not cover the neck. Having played paintball before, where the groom got shot in the Adam’s apple two days before his wedding, I knew this could be dangerous.
The referees went over the rules, the details of which went over my head, but I was already familiar with the basics. They then led us to the field, where multiple obstacles in varying formations separated the two sides, including a hollow wooden helicopter, a downed plane, and a pseudo-storefront. My new friend Miguel, who had been conferring with me on gear selection, explained our team’s strategy to me (shoot the other team) and we scoped out our side of the field to see where the best areas of fire were. We found that every depression held ankle-deep mud, and hoped it wasn’t runoff from the petting zoo.
The game itself was fun. I’ve enjoyed paintball in the past, and even though my gun looked and shot like it had been run over with our tour bus, I took out two of the other team’s players. Most of my time was spent ducking behind obstacles as everyone yelled in Spanish around me; it’s disorienting to be playing a team sport and not be able to communicate with anyone. In hindsight I should have asked Miguel what left, right, forward and back were in Spanish, but I would have forgotten that in two minutes anyway.
Somebody worked up our right side and finally got me on the shoulder and back, so I raised my gun and walked off. Our team lost by two players in the end, but we played a full 10 minutes and I only had about 15 balls left.
Several of our team limped off the field with paintball injuries; two men had been shot in the neck enough to draw blood, one woman was hit on the top of her head, and several others had circular bruises. We recharged our guns, refilled the ammunition, got some water, and then regrouped against another team. The second game was much like the first; this time I took out three of the other team’s players before getting shot square in the center of my mask.
After we returned all of our rental gear we walked up to the roof of the building, which was set up as a patio, and watched as different teams did presentations about WRI’s projects. The idea was for each team to research and develop a 10-minute explanation of the project so that they could familiarize the rest of the office as to what WRI does. They all did an excellent job, and even though my Spanish is weak I knew and could follow almost all of what they were presenting.
After this, we scarfed down some food, then hopped on the bus and headed back. There is a reason the transport program was founded in Mexico 11 years ago; it took us about 45 minutes to crawl back to the office through the traffic.
Once we were there the group invited me to stay for drinks and karaoke, so I popped a the Mexican equivalent of a 40 of Leon and got on their wireless network to call home. We gathered on the roof of the building which overlooks Coyoacan plaza, a beautiful outdoor park, and talked about the day and our experience. In the park, people laughed and played, music from the market and the smell of fried dough wafted up to us, and we enjoyed a cool breeze as the sun set.
I drifted in and out of conversations in English with different groups of people and enjoyed myself listening to them talk in rapid-fire Spanish, picking out words and phrases here and there. It was surprising to me that by the end of the day it was a lot more familiar and I could pick out sentences and phrases that made sense. When I felt myself flagging at about 9:30, I called for an Uber and headed back to the hotel, tired and peckish, and found that the smell of the petting zoo was coming with me.
The final date has been a long time coming, but I’m going to be packing this weekend for a trip to Mexico City. This one is on a lot shorter notice than the others, and I’m going to be doing a lot of winging it while I’m there, but due to my teaching schedule I’ll have two days in Mexico City on the company’s dime (wish that could have been London, honestly). This month’s schedule looks absolutely bonkers, actually–I teach next Wednesday, fly out Thursday morning, fly back out Tuesday evening, work from home Wednesday, and teach Wednesday evening. There are a lot of logistical issues to work out (gotta book my flight, for example) but this is going to be interesting.
After comparing rates and details with three different lenders, we’ve got a lender lined up to refi the house. Now I’ve got to get the ball rolling before I leave the country…
I’m back in one piece from London, which was an excellent trip. The flight over was long but uneventful, and I got in at 9:30PM. After waiting for an hour in the passport line, I got my bag, found a cab, and made my way to the hotel, a swanky, tidy little place in St. James, one street off of Picadilly.
The two biggest worries I had about the trip, getting to the rental shop and getting the gear back to the hotel, were accomplished with little time to spare. This involved my first ride on the tube, a transfer, and a disorienting stroll through Euston Station to find the rental shop. Somewhere along the way I got the idea that Ox should be doing a travelogue and I started snapping pictures of him for Finn. Once I made it to the shop, the rep was super helpful and got me squared away with everything I needed as well as a car back to the hotel.
There I humped all the gear up the stairs and into the conference room we’d booked. After some scheduling changes, we had one interviewee ready to shoot, so with the help of two of my colleagues we pushed all the tables to the side, set up a black backdrop, two lights, and three cameras, and shot the interview.
Then it was time to break everything back down and go get a bite to eat. I love the people who invited me to come on this trip, so our adventure into the Theatre District was eye-opening and filled with laughter. We settled on a Chinese restaurant where my friend Austin picked three dishes to try and we settled in to some Tiger beer.
Back at the hotel, we did a final pre-summit run of show meeting, I got all the cameras synced, and then hit the rack.
The next morning Austin and I grabbed as much breakfast as we could manage, then loaded all the gear from our rooms to the lobby, where we were met by the man with the car. So, to add to my list of surreal life experiences, I was driven to the gate of the English Foreign & Commonwealth Offices, in a suit, in a Land Rover. However, due to a last-minute mixup, our car wasn’t cleared to drive through security to the main doors, so we had to carry all of the camera gear down King Charles Street, through the courtyard, and up the stairs to the venue. Luckily the team came down to help and we made it all in one trip.
The whole building is immense and just as elaborate and detailed as you might imagine, every inch filled with carved hardwood, marble flooring, and artwork of all sizes and shapes. We were escorted by line-of-sight guards, who made sure we didn’t wander about in the building, so there was no exploration to be had.
We were using the The Locarno Suite, which was designed to host large dinners held by the Foreign Secretary in 1858, and it is breathtaking in its size and scope. It’s set up in an L-shape, with the Reception Room and Conference Room joined by a smaller, square Dining Room that’s twice the size of the footprint of my house. We set up our camera rig in the far back corner of the Reception Room next to a grand piano, and because we’d practiced the night before we had the whole thing built out in about a half an hour. I’d just gotten the last camera dialed in when we had our first interview, and we were off from there. We got a total of nine people to sit for us, including former Mexican President Felipe Calderon, and all of them were excellent. Between video shoots I took the long lens and shot stills of the meeting itself, as well as the group shot of the entire conference, which was exhilarating and excellent practice. The room was noisy and it was hard to control the lighting, but I think we’ve got something decent to start with.
By about 4:30 we’d gotten our last subject to sit for us, so we broke down the kit and they called a car for me. We hauled all of the gear back out of the building and down the steps in the opposite direction, and got there just as the car was pulling up. My driver turned out to be a fascinating Briton by way of Jamaica, who I wound up having a long and insightful conversation with about Brexit, immigration, and world events. He helped me get the gear out of the car, bring it back to the rental desk, and waited for me outside while the paperwork was completed. This was all unplanned but extremely appreciated, because I hadn’t calculated the number of hours one sits in London traffic, and if I’d done it on Thursday morning, I would have lost 3/4 of my free day to it.
Returning to the hotel, I changed into some jeans and set out to find something to eat nearby, as I’d only had breakfast and some disappointingly unappetizing sandwiches at the venue. I finally settled on Byron for a “proper hamburger” and started in on Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch.
Thursday I had all to myself, so after I reorganized my lodging situation (canceling the hotel I’d booked across the river and booking one more night in the 4-star I was already in at a lower group rate in order to avoid having to relocate) I filled up on breakfast and set out to the west for St. James’ Park and Buckingham Palace. As it turned out, I got there about an hour before the Changing of the Guard, but people had already queued up for the event and clogged the gates and sidewalk. Oh, the selfie sticks.
I stuck around to see the Horse Guards come through and then walked back towards the park until I heard the strains of the theme from Dallas being played by a band. Curious, I followed the sound until I came upon the Wellington Barracks, where the regimental band finished and then started playing Sir Duke. Next to them, the new detachment was forming up and making ready. I walked back over Birdcage Walk and found an empty section of railing on Spur Road. I only had to wait about five minutes before they formed up and marched out the gate and past me, only feet away.
Satisfied, I walked back through the park towards the Foreign & Commonwealth building, walked up the steps past Churchill’s War Room (the line was way too long) and onto Parliament Street, where I was faced with Big Ben and throngs of tourists pointing their iPhones and iPads skyward. By a stroke of luck I was walking past at exactly noon so I got to experience the sound of the Westminster Chimes at ground zero, which was awesome.
Walking across the bridge, I ducked photo opportunities until I reached the other side, then set up Ox for his shots. Here I paused to make a plan. Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace were mobbed with people, so I knew St Paul’s Cathedral and the Tower would be too. I decided to walk further south to visit the Imperial War Museum, which I gambled would be quieter, and also have public restrooms, because I’d had a lot of coffee that morning.
The IWM did not disappoint. As it happened, I was there the day before the centennial of the Battle of the Somme, so there was a docent who gave a talk about the history. Then I walked the floors to see what there was. The museum has an impressive and compact collection of exhibits, including one of the original trucks from the Long Range Desert Group, a survivor Spitfire from the Battle of Britain, and a life ring from the Lusitania. I spent about two hours touring the museum and then decided to head east along the Thames, figuring I might be able to make it to the Tate Modern.
It was a longer walk than I thought, but the Tate was worth the distance. It’s a magnificent museum in terms of size and collection; after figuring out how to get into the galleries, I spent another two and a half hours there, basically until they kicked me out. I didn’t get to see the Tanks or view London from the roof, but I’m happy with what I did see.
At that point I had to turn around and start for home, so I retraced my steps along the river and crossed the Jubilee Bridge to Charing Cross and followed it up to Trafalgar Square for another picture op with Ox.
Returning to the hotel, I met up with some folks from the summit and followed them deep into the heart of Soho for dinner at a tiny little tapas place on a side street. There we ate and drank until 9:30, when the management kicked us out because they had reservations for the table. We wandered the streets looking for a pub and found the Star and Garter, where the Portugal/Poland game was playing, and enjoyed more drinks and conversation. I knew I had an early start the next morning, and the tiny voice in my head was telling me to call it a night, but I wound up drinking in the hotel with the crew until 3AM.
Friday morning I woke with a slight hangover and a sour stomach–on top of which I shoveled coffee and an English breakfast–got my gear sorted, and was checked out by 11AM. I had lunch plans with a couple of guys from the studio who produced our last institutional video, so I hopped a cab and made my way back across the bridge. They have a lovely space with lots of light in a quiet neighborhood, and walked me up to a nearby pub which serves a delicious French-English lunch. We chatted about Brexit and work and video, drank a pint, tried a Scotch Egg (fookin’ delicious), and had a great time catching up until I had to bail out for the airport. They were kind enough to call me an Uber, and even paid for it, which was super nice (I owe the studio a fine bottle of whisky) and then I spent an hour and a half in London traffic crawling towards Heathrow. We sat in stop-and-go traffic on the M4 until magically everyone decided they’d had enough sitting and just started driving. Once I was at the airport I hustled through security, bought Finn a stuffed bear, took a piss, and boarded my plane in record time.
All of the stuff I was worried about and losing sleep over–the logistics, travel arrangements, getting gear from one place to the next, scheduling, communication–it all worked out almost flawlessly.
London treated me very well, and I hope I can bring the girls back with me next time.
I got an email late Tuesday with the subject line “Grab your umbrella and a dour attitude”, which meant that the stars have aligned for me to travel to London at the end of this month on business. I’m going to be shooting video for a series of interviews about the New Climate Economy. We’re planning on a 3-camera shoot in front of a backdrop, and then adding animation in post-production. I’m a wee bit nervous because I’m going to rent a bunch of gear in London and handle the logistics myself, and I have no idea what the inside of the venue looks like (so there’s no advance scouting). It could mean that I’m recording the former President of Mexico in a coat closet. But, London! Video production! I can’t wait.
Friday evening we were invited to a friends’ birthday party with a standing invitation to bring an instrument and jam with the host. I’d known about this party for a couple of weeks, and I was nervous to join in, especially after we arrived and I heard the guys playing. There was an older guy playing drums in a flailing Buddy Rich style, an excellent keyboardist who was doing double duty holding the bass line down, a guitarist, and a saxophone player who was staggeringly good. I hung out for a while, drank a few beers, and when I had my liquid courage, I got my bass and amp from the car and set up.
They were taking a short break, but everybody assembled again and the drummer asked me to lay something down. Nervously, I started a very basic figure and the whole band picked it up. From then on out, we played whatever anyone could think of, from improv noodling to a couple of songs– Sympathy for the Devil was fun as hell to play, and I was just locking into the groove of Stevie Wonder’s I Wish when it wound down. It was exhilarating, and when another guy sat down at the drums, I found his style easier to lock in with. Three hours later, by the time we had to leave, my right index and pointer fingers were numb but I had so much fun I didn’t care. A bunch of the players walked up and thanked me for sitting in, something I wasn’t expecting but very much appreciated, and all I did was gush back at them in awe. I don’t know if he’s thinking of doing that as a regular event, but I’d love to learn some standards and go back to play again. And I’m definitely going to pick up the Stevie Wonder songbook, because that was fun as hell to play.
The shutters are now installed on our front windows. The only thing left to do after priming and painting them was to get full sets of hinges, and I’d pulled four off of our existing windows. Not looking forward to another day on the ladder, we took a drive back down to Second Chance and I dug through their boxes to find only one complete shutter hinge. On a hunch, I walked back to the shutter section and hunted around until I found a pair of shutters with the hinges I needed (male hinges with intact pins) and bought them both. By 5:30 that evening all four shutters were hung, and the house looks much better, if I do admit.
Because we got a late start Saturday morning, Finley and I missed most of the yard sales in the neighborhood, but we did look at one that was right down the street. Sitting on a barstool I saw a beat up Emerson 544 radio and offered the lady $10 for it, which she took. The woodwork on the face is in rough shape, but the rounded shell is still OK, and I think I can find a way to make a new dial cover for it. So, for the first time in years, I’ve got another radio to work on.
In other musical news, Finn had her second piano recital on Sunday afternoon in the church across the street. She did really well as the 4th of about twelve kids to play, and Bear brought Auntie Christi to listen as well.
Jen and I are at the end of our semester, and making plans for the fall term. The final crit went well, and the work everyone showed was strong compared to where we started. We had a good discussion at the end on how to make the syllabus better for the next class, and I got a lot of good general feedback that will help in the future.
The syllabus we developed was very strong, but we’ve found places where we can make it better and add detail. Through the course of the term, we found our students need more background on conceptual thinking and a refresher on how to write. Conceptual thinking is a hard thing to describe and an even harder thing to teach. Knowing what not to say is more important than giving specific directions in order to point a student in the right direction. It came as a surprise to everyone in the classroom that the outline we had them develop was the single most important part of their assignment, and the process of synthesizing and organizing information was met with resistance at first. Jen and I developed a workshop where we split the class into groups and had them develop outlines together, which helped them deconstruct the problem and arrive at solutions together.
I was scheduled to teach the same class again, at the same time, until last week, when they offered to switch it with a senior level branding and identity class. Jen and I talked it over, and I accepted. It’s offered once a week on Wednesdays for four hours, which could be a nice change in schedule from the previous three semesters. The syllabus is very old, apparently, so I’ll be spending time updating it over the summer to include modern requirements and concepts.
Meanwhile, I’ve been focused on launching the first online report for WRI, which has spent a long time gestating and a short time birthing. I’ve been working on the template since last fall and revising the online workflow to complement our print workflow, but actually building something always highlights the flaws. It goes live tomorrow, and I’m pretty confident in the state it’s in.
That’s Jane Goodall introducing AFR100, the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative, which is working to restore 100 million hectares of degraded and deforested landscapes by 2030. That logo is something I put together in the leadup to COP21 last month. I came up with the solution during the initial kickoff meeting, and fooled with it for a couple of weeks until I had the right balance of positive and negative spaces.
WRI is modernizing its 10-year-old offices in order to accommodate the multitude of new hires we’ve taken on. When I first came on board, I had a spacious office of my own, which I shared with a pair of file cabinets and tons of photography and video equipment. When we hired a web content manager and a graphic designer, I traded my oversized office for a smaller one so they could double up with room to spare. I’ve been in that office ever since, and I’ve grown to like it. I knew, however, it wouldn’t last forever.
Yesterday I packed all of my gear into about ten large crates, slapped labels on them, and walked out the door. On Monday they should all be stacked in a smaller office on the other side of my floor, which I’ll be sharing with my graphic designer for eight weeks. Then we move somewhere else for the next eight weeks while our new offices are completed, and we’ll finally be home–in an open floorplan. This doesn’t bother me as much as other people, who (presumably) have never worked in that environment before, but I’ll miss the ability to shut my door to shut out the people who come to bother me every fifteen minutes.
We’re all coughing here at the Lockardugan house. It seems to be something allergy related, at least for Finn, who has been on a one-two punch of Zyrtec and a nasal spray to knock back a horrible pneumatic-sounding cough. Jen started with a sore throat last week. My throat started hurting last Sunday and has developed into a serious cough and a two-octave drop in my voice. Zyrtec seems to be helping me too.
I finished the front walk last weekend, after a couple of weeks off. A quick tug with the tow strap hooked to the Scout made short work of the tall hedges on either side of the concrete, and the rest of the brick went in pretty easily. I had a bunch from this batch crack pretty easily, so I may need to make a return trip to Second Chance in the spring to replace them, or use commercial brick instead. Either way, I’m glad to have that done before the snow flies.
Yesterday I woke up at 4AM local time (8PM EST) and couldn’t get back to sleep, after only 5 hours’ rest. I got showered, polished, and loaded up with gear to travel by bus to the far end of Saadiyat Island for the first day of the Eye on Earth summit. The bus ride was painful because I kept swiveling my neck to see Abu Dhabi out the windows as we drove; everything looks new, and construction cranes are everywhere. It’s fascinating to look at, and I was lucky to have a new acquaintance to point out the highlights; we ran parallel to the Sheikh Zayad Bridge, passed by miles of newly planted mangroves, and saw the Capital Gate building off in the distance.
I wasn’t clear on my hotel’s breakfast arrangements (it is, in fact, free), so I waited to get to the conference for food and coffee, which was fiscally sound but tactically dumb. I had to wait on line to get my ID, every moment of which my stomach complained about. Once I was downstairs, I got situated and gulped down some basic pastries minutes before the opening ceremony began.
The conference has been excellent so far; the speakers are all first-rate and the work is excellent. I spent most of it mapping out sightlines and settings to prep for our launch events, shooting a WRI speaker, and meeting people. At about 3PM I was dead on my feet, so a colleague and I ordered some coffee and recharged. Ahhh, strong Arab coffee.
Wednesday will be more intense, involving a lot of shooting and possibly some interviews, the location for which I haven’t nailed down yet.
This morning I woke up at 4AM again and laid in bed for an hour, planning to get up and outside to record the call to prayer at 5, but I missed it by 10 minutes. By the time I was downstairs it had ended.