Ayn Rand Con 2016: The Experience - Day 1 - Doctor Strange

“Ayn Rand Con 2016: The Experience”

11/4/16, “Doctor Strange”

Aboard DL 1945, En route LGA-ATL

The Marvel character Doctor Strange is perhaps the epitome of an Objectivist.  He lives his life in accordance with John Galt’s oath (“I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”)  He is a highly successful neurosurgeon, widely respected by his peers, and he lives a life for his own sake.  That is not to say he does not care for other people, but rather that he understands that he owes no one anything and that no one owes him anything.  He interacts with others in the way he chooses to, not because he believes society tells him he needs to do so.

He is perceived as arrogant by his peers, but his arrogance is justified, since he is never wrong.  He does what he does, not of some altruistic desire to help people, but because it makes him feel good, knowing that he is constantly striving towards excellence.  Of all the superhero characters, none would be more deserving of a spot in Galt’s Gulch than Doctor Stephen Strange.  As I make my way to Atlanta for the annual Ayn Rand Conference, I would like to focus a bit on him and how his character relates to Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism and its views on free will, which is the topic for this year’s conference.

I would first like to address the constant criticism of Objectivism and its use of the word selfishness, since it often brings to mind the idea of someone who abuses other people in order to take advantage of them.  That is not selfishness.  That is self-destructive behavior.  Selfishness is working with other people as appropriate, interacting with them in a free manner, all the while always putting yourself first.  Doctor Strange cares very much about his best friend, Doctor Palmer, as we see evidenced by the value he places on the watch she gave him, treasuring it above all of his other possessions, not because of its material value as a watch, but rather because of the love he feels towards her.  That is very selfish.

It is selfish because it makes him happy to wear that watch.  It makes him happy to embrace the way he feels about her.  The very same it is selfish for him to pursue excellence as a neurosurgeon, because it makes him happy knowing he is the best neurosurgeon in the world, that it makes him happy knowing all the lives he’s saved.  That is what Ayn Rand means when she uses the word selfish, and no other word can takes its place.  It is the way I try to live as well.

This entire Travelogue, “Where is John Galt”, is about travelling the world in that manner and trying to live my life in a completely selfish fashion.  As a superhero, when the world needs saving, Doctor Strange saves it, not because of sense of moral responsibility, but because he is a part of the world, too, and he realizes he is the only one who can save it.  He refuses to make any kind of deal with the dark lord because he refuses to sacrifice the people of the world.  He will neither sacrifice himself to others nor others to himself.  That is what it means to be selfish.  That is what it means to be John Galt.  Who is John Galt?  Well, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it is Doctor Stephen Strange.

Now, that addresses the moral philosophy, the ethics that make Doctor Strange an Objectivist, but what about the metaphysics, the view of the world itself?  In that regard, too, Doctor Strange would have made Ayn Rand proud, but that is also where I find my biggest disagreement with Objectivism and what I hope to explore at this conference.  Objectivism holds that the world has no mystical properties, that everything must be explained by the laws of science and nature.  Objectivism does not believe in the supernatural.  Why, then, am I calling the most mystical superhero of all, the quintessential Objectivist?

Well, it is because of the way he rejects what he is told when arrives at Kamar-Taj until he is given empirical proof.  Once he is given the empirical proof of the supernatural, he seeks out to learn the strict laws of these mystical powers.  He reads everything there is to read about the laws, and then he applies himself to his training the way we would expect an Objectivist to do.  However, he rejects the teachings that don’t make sense, and, while accepting the new laws of the supernatural that he has learned, he only acts in ways that make sense to him within the confines of those laws.

Spoiler alert here.  By taking this Objectivist approach, Doctor Strange is able to become the most powerful sorcerer in the world, even keeping the dark lord himself at bay as he saves the planet.  He does what no one else can do and learns how to turn back time so that he can fight the battle on his terms, and, in the end, the dark lord sees no choice but to forsake his attack on the planet so that he can escape the time loop in which Doctor Strange has ensnared them both.  It is what John Galt would have done.

Now, why then, does Objectivism believe in free will?  I suppose it is for a very similar reason that Kant believes in it, in order to allow for moral theory.  If we believe that free will does not exist, then the moral philosophy of Objectivism becomes meaningless.  However, as Doctor Strange (before his training) and I would both argue, the world consists of only material stuff, and that material stuff is controlled by the laws of science and nature.  Every cell, every atom in my body is controlled by these properties.  Every action I take is the result of how material properties affect the cells in my body.

Where, then, is the room for the idea free will, that some mystical entity called the mind can cause the cells in my body to act in a way that is not subject to the laws of physics and nature?  To argue that the mind can alter than actions of the body is, in my view, a direct affront to the most basic ideas of Objectivist’s rejection of the supernatural.  That is what I hope to learn this weekend, how Objectivism can reconcile its rejection of the supernatural with its need to hold people accountable to its moral philosophy.

Okay, so I will explore those concepts in further detail as the conference progresses, but for now, I will recount the events of Day 0.  I will actually highlight a bit the entire week.  Since I returned from the Borderlands just four days ago, it has been a surprisingly good week.  On Tuesday, I got Mel Gibson’s autograph on my Braveheart Blu-ray, which, for years, had been one of my most desired autographs.  It brought my count of signed Blu-rays of the 1990s Best Pictures winners up to 8 now.  That night, I began my Christmas season rituals by smoking my 2006 Christmas Pipe.

Wednesday night, I got Annette Bening’s autograph on American Beauty, another 1990s Best Picture winner, and made it home in time to watch what was possibly the most historic and interesting game in baseball history, the Cubs ending their 108-year World Series drought, while I smoked my 2007 Christmas Pipe.

Then, yesterday, more autographs, including none other than Viggo Mortissen, King Elessar himself.  That was the night I saw Doctor Strange with my friend, us doing our traditional dinner and movie night, eating way too much food, smoking cigars, and then seeing a movie.  Instead of our usual pizza spot, we instead went to Brother Jimmy’s BBQ.  It was glorious.  The movie, in addition to providing the material for this entry, was a delight.

I woke up this morning with no appetite, still full from last night.  I had packed last night, once more forgoing a suitcase and putting my clothes in my computer bag.  After I did everything I needed to do at the office, I lit up my usual pre-departure Cohiba, went home, got ready, changed into my suit, and took a taxi to the airport.  I still hadn’t had an appetite yet, having eaten so much for dinner last night.  I started getting hungry as I got to the airport, and we spent almost more time navigating the traffic at LGA due to the renovations than we did getting to LGA from my apartment.

After clearing security, I went to the build-your-own burger place and opted for a double cheeseburger topped with bacon, mushrooms, BBQ sauce, cheddar, and onion rings, along with freshly fried potato chips and a seltzer.  I went to the gate and ravenously ate it, completely famished from not having had a bite of food in 17 hours now.

We were soon boarding, and I found myself rather tired as we waited to take off.  We taxied for quite some time, and I think I fell asleep, waking up as they announced we had reached 10,000 feet.  I then proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close, as we will soon be making our decent, but I will write again from Atlanta.

Atlanta, Georgia

There is nothing wrong with income inequality.  It is a natural, nay, necessary part of a productive economic system.  Equal is unfair!  Why?  It is quite simple.  Income inequality is the idea that it is wrong that one person gets a much bigger piece of the pie than someone else, but that is the wrong metaphor.  There is no fixed pie.  Instead, each person is free to bake a pie as small or as large as he or she wants and is able.  Does the fact that my pie is bigger than yours mean anything, so long as you have a pie of your own that you baked on your own?  The answer is no, it doesn’t matter.  Me baking a larger pie, so long as I don’t steal flour and butter from your pantry, does not make your pie any smaller.  The size of my pie does not affect the size of your pie.  It is that simple, and that is what Dr. Yaron Brook explained tonight in his keynote speech.

This is the fourth time I have heard him speak, and it is a real treat each time.  In fact, I might even go so far as to say there is no one in the world I more enjoy hear giving a speech.  That said, I always find something on which to disagree with him, and he always brilliantly answers my question.  Tonight was no exception.

When I first met him four years ago, I asked him how he could possibly advocate a philosophy that believes we have no obligation to save an animal species from extinction.  His response?  Something like 99.99% of species that ever existed have gone extinct.  That fact that we currently find certain species to be cute doesn’t give us the right to impose environmental policy.  If people so much love the polar bears, they can buy some land in the north and establish a privately owned polar bear reserve.  Anyone who hunts polar bears on that land would be committing a crime against the land owner.  That was the moment when I came to realize that environmental protectionism should not be in the purview of the government.  I should note that air and water pollution is a specific tort against humans, a tort that can and should be punished.  “Saving the environment” is distinct from those specific torts.

The second time he was giving a speech decrying the welfare state, and I inappropriately asked a question about foreign military policy, which he sidestepped.  The third time, just a few blocks from here, this weekend last year, he was talking about the archetype of the evil businessman.  I asked why Hollywood always tries to get us to hate the businessman for being a businessman before the movie then always has him do something illegal, whether violent or fraudulent.  Without missing a beat, he explained that the liberal narrative required us to equate the shrewd businessman with the evil of violence or fraud, that that would then make it seem like all shrewd businessmen are evil.

Tonight the topic was free will.  He explained what I explained above far more elegantly than I ever could.  He talked about Warren Buffet and Lebron James that, while they were very lucky to be born where and when they were and with the specific skill set that was written into their genetic code, it was not luck alone that made them who they were.

Cue Dumbledore’s famous line from the second Harry Potter book: “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”  Yes, our abilities, along with the circumstances of our birth, play a huge role in shaping who we are, but, like Dumbledore, Dr. Brook argued that our choices are what make the difference between Lebron James and all the other people born with his ability.  I would prefer to use Michael Phelps.  It is not enough that he was born with good genes.  No, he chose to compete.  He chose to train in such an intense manner.  Maybe his natural abilities made him an athlete, but it was his choices that made him the greatest athlete of all time.

The same could be said about Doctor Strange.  He chose to pursue excellence.  He chose to make himself the greatest neurosurgeon in the world.  He chose to apply that same work ethic to become the greatest sorcerer in the multiverse.  Yes, he had abilities that few others had, but he chose to follow through on them.  That is why he was entitled to the drawer of watches, the huge apartment, and the fancy car.  He earned all of that as a neurosurgeon.  He built that, no matter what President Obama might say.

This explains how Objectivism requires free will for its moral philosophy, and Dr. Brook simply was restating what I said above.  On that point, we can all agree.  Any moral philosophy requires free will.  Otherwise, criminal justice is no different than shooting a bear for encroaching on a camp site.  We shoot the bear, not because we believe it acted in the wrong, but rather because it posed a danger, a danger that needed to be abated.  That was where I objected to Dr. Brook.

When it was my turn to ask my question, I said that he had not offered proof of free will, merely that it was necessary for Objectivism.  He answered quite simply that he was offering the economic and moral argument for the recognition of free will and that the philosophers tomorrow would have to answer those questions.  Other students asked similar questions, including one “technical question” about concepts of free will, and he always answered the same, even though these were questions that any philosophy major, including me, could have easily answered.

Then, someone thought it would be a good idea to try and clarify the earlier “technical question” for him, first explaining the four different types of free will and determinism (hard determinism, soft determinism, compatibilism, and libertarian free will), at which point Dr. Brook looked at him in such a patronizing fashion as if to say, “Yes, I know all of this, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about tonight.”  The questioner then continued by offering the names of two philosophers that he should “look into”, as they offer good philosophies of natural law.  The questioner sat down, and I thought Dr. Brook would just move on.  Nope.  He explained that those two philosophers offer good views on natural law but that they were at odds in key ways on the Objectivist view of natural law, and he mentioned a third philosopher of natural law in the process.  That’s Dr. Brook for you.  Tomorrow, I guess, we’ll hear about the philosophy of free will.

All right, so I’m a bit a disjointed here, and I need to get back to recounting today’s events in their proper order.  After I closed on the plane, we soon landed, and I made my way to the rental car area, which was a bit of a process.  My name was listed on the board, but, instead of the space number being next to my name, it was just stars.  I had to go the counter.

The agent said my license had been flagged, and I needed to call a customer service number to resolve it before they could rent to me.  Customer service had closed about an hour ago.  Huh?!?  I then asked him what I should do.  He kept saying I needed to call them on Monday and that he couldn’t rent to me until I resolved it.  I would be back in New York by Monday.  I asked him again what to do, same response.  I decided I would make it easier for him.  I asked him if I should just go to another car rental company, and he would cancel the rental.  He would not answer that.  He repeated himself again from earlier.  Now I was getting angry.  In a sharply measured voice, I told him that it was a yes or no question and repeated the question.  He said he wouldn’t give me a yes or no answer.  It reminded me of the guard from the end of Atlas Shrugged, when Dagny kept asking him if he would stand aside so that she could rescue John Galt.  He kept saying he wasn’t authorized to make that decision.  Dagny shot him.  I asked for his manager.

His manager showed me the screen, saying that it said DNR (Do Not Rent), and that they couldn’t rent to me until it was resolved with corporate.  I then asked her what to do, if I should go to another car rental company, and they would cancel the rental.  She said that was probably for the best.  I thanked her for her help and walked to Alamo.  I had a car 10 minutes later, but it was almost 7 PM now, and the schedule said “Dinner and Keynote Speech” at 7 PM.  I got stuck in traffic, and it was about 7:30 PM when I got to the hotel.

I went straight in, and I still saw a large crowd.  They were running late, and registration/check-in was still going on.  Ah, as I’m writing this, Dr. Brook just walked out to get his car from the valet.  Okay, so I got my free drink and free books, including his new book entitled “Equal is Unfair”.  I went into the hall, and I saw desserts in front of every seat.  Wait, had I missed dinner?  I sat down and asked the person next to me.  No, they hadn’t served dinner.  They just brought out the desserts first.  Huh?  Well, I had my bread and wine, followed by half of my cheesecake.  Then they brought out the main course, roast chicken, followed by the rest of my cake.

Then came the moment for which I had been waiting.  Dr. Yaron Brook got up on the stage for his keynote speech, which I outlined above.  After his speech, I took a picture with him, then went to reception to get my room key.  I went up to my room and had a coffee before coming downstairs, where I sat outside, lit up my 2008 Christmas Pipe, and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can publish it.  Curiously and not by design at all, this was the exact same Christmas Pipe I smoked here last year.  Though Atlanta, Georgia as noteworthy of a dateline as the ones under which I have previously smoked this pipe, datelines that included Vienna, Austria and Xi’an, China, it is place that always holds a special place in my heart.

The Borderlands: The Experience - Day 3 - The Return Journey

10/31/16, “The Return Journey”

En route, NYC Airporter 620

Well, there is not much left to report.  The Return Journey was almost entirely unadventurous.  This will actually probably be one of my shortest entries ever.

After I closed at Hermosillo, I headed through security with no event.  For once, I remembered to get my Sunday paper, and we were soon boarding.  We had to walk on the tarmac to our plane and board by a staircase.  I slept almost the entire way to Benito Juarez.  After we landed, I was starving, so I stopped at a 7-Eleven for hot dogs before I went to my usual spot, where I lit up an Hoyo de Monterrey and proceeded to write the preceding entry.

After I closed, I got my usual donut (or two) at Krispy Kreme by the entrance, along with an espresso.  I ate one then and saved the other for the airplane, hoping to induce a sugar crash that would help me sleep on the plane.  Security gave me some trouble about a souvenir painted rock I had gotten at Pinacate, but they let me keep it in the end.

The boarding gate was the same gate where I overslept and almost missed my flight the last time I did a two-day weekend trip to Mexico.  This time, there was no such trouble.  Overindulging, I got a churro and another espresso.  At this point, I began to fear that the espresso would negate the sugar crash.  I did not have to worry about that.  I fell asleep almost as soon as we took off, waking up as began our descent.  The flight was a little behind schedule, which meant the hard 9 AM arrival at the office was looking like an impossibility.  I would have needed to make the 7:30 AM bus for that, or else take a taxi, but the extra cost of a taxi is more than double my hourly wage, so that didn’t make sense for being less than an hour late.  We didn’t land until after 7:30 AM.  Fortunately, our gate was right by border control, and, though the customs officer grilled me pretty hard, I cleared border control with no further delay.

It was about 7:50 AM at this point, and the 8 AM bus would get me to the office by 9:30 AM.  I went to get my coffee and came back a few minutes before 8 AM, just as the bus was pulling up.  Well, it turned out that that was the 8:30 AM bus, and they had no idea what happened to the 8 AM bus.  They moved the 8:30 AM bus up to 8:15 AM, but it was still only slightly before 9 AM by the time they cycled the other terminals and left the airport, though I was still looking good for a hard 10 AM arrival at the office.  Once we left the airport, I proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close, along with closing out this trip.  Next stop: Atlanta for my annual Ayn Rand Conference, this year entitled “Live Free and Thrive”.

The Borderlands: The Experience - Day 2 - Gran Desierto

10/30/16, “Gran Desierto”

Puerto Penasco, Sonora, Mexico (El Pinacate and Gran Desierto de Altar Biospher Reserve)

A great expanse of desert spans the southwestern United States and norther Mexico, and it contains some of the most beautiful scenery in the world, both cultural, as we visited yesterday, and natural, as we are now visiting.  Throughout that entire desert, though, there are only two areas inscribed as World Heritage Sites for their natural features.  The Grand Canyon is one.  This is the other.  Framed by the Pinacate volcano shield, the Gran Desierto is one of the most beautiful landscapes I have ever seen.

There is nothing like this anywhere else in the world.  It is the stuff that makes Westerns great.  I feel like I could be in a scene out of a Sergio Leone movie.  I supposer I should be smoking a Toscano, then, instead of this Montecristo, but the Cuban will do for now.  I will soon be flying home, and I have a tight schedule to make my flight, so, once more, I just wanted to fit in a brief entry at the WHS.  I will have plenty of time at the airports and en route to go on about the magic of this region.

After I closed last night, I soon went to bed.  We both woke up ahead of schedule, and we were out the door before the alarm went off.  I slept for most of the rid, and, after about two hours, we arrived at the entrance station.  The Plaque was right there.  We paid the entrance fee and took our pictures with the Plaque.  We were tight on time, so we would have to race through to do the loop.  That we did.  It was such a beautiful drive, and, as Taylor Swift might say, this is what I came for.

We first stopped at the main crater, where I lit up my Montecristo, and we took our ceremonial pictures.  Then it was back on the road.  I didn’t think I could find the exact inscription spot, but, eventually, we found a nice pull-out with a good landscape view.  I decided that would suffice, so we took our ceremonial pictures there.  After we took our pictures, I sat down and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that we can begin The Return Journey.

Hermosillo International Airport, Sonora, Mexico (HMO)

Ah, here it is, just 36 hours after I wrote from Benito Juarez, it is time for the triumphant airport entry.  We did it.  We saw the two World Heritage Sites we meant to see, and that was all that mattered.  In four months, we will meet again to finish our adventures in Mexico and at last say, “Mexico Complete.”  For now, though, I am pleased to be able to add this airport to the long list of places around the world where I have smoked my Ardor, as I have been doing for the past eight months.  Soon, though, I will be switching to my Christmas Pipes for these entries, each of which of have their storied past of the places they’ve been smoked around the world.  I will take this time to reflect on the natural elements of this region and save the cultural elements for Benito Juarez.  As I have said, it is region unlike any other in the world.

From Texas to California, the American version has some of our most beautiful National Parks, all of which I have now visited, though some National Monuments do remain.  However, this World Heritage Site we visited today gives them a run for their money.  It was a great place to finish off my time in this region, for now at least.  I am sure I will return soon enough.  I know that I owe Taos another visit, but that is a cultural site.  I remember that morning four years ago when I went to Joshua Tree National Park.  I loved that desert landscape.  I suppose that was the beginning of my love affair with this desert region.  The trip I took with my parents a dozen years before that was more of a Western trip than a Southwest trip, but I guess that was what set it all in motion.  While the Grand Canyon is surely in the Southwest, as is Mesa Verde, I would hesitate to consider the National Parks in Utah to be part of this region.

I have trying to make this trip for so long, planning and cancelling it more than once.  Finally, at last, I have done it.  I was glad to have Roberto along, both for his companionship and because I know how hard it would have been to have done solo.  I slept more this trip in the car than I did in a bed.  I loved the stunning landscapes I saw, just as I have loved them in California and Arizona and New Mexico and Texas.  The fauna of the desert has its own beauty, but it is the mountain backdrops that I so love.

I always love the mountains, and it is why I so loved my trips to the Canadian Rockies and the Pacific Northwest.  While glaciated mountains have their own beauty, I love the desert mountains just as much.  (Cue Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice”.)  I think it is the sense of being in pristine wilderness that makes it so magical, that these landscapes seem to have been untouched since the dawn of time, that perhaps even the dinosaurs once saw these exact landscapes.  I suppose that’s all I have to say on this matter.  While it is my tradition to treat the entirety of the Return Journey as one, I will break tradition in the interest of expediency.

After I closed at the Gran Desierto, we made our way to the VC, which was an eco-friendly building, powered by its own solar panels and wind turbine.  We lit up Gurkhas, which would last quite a while, and the VC had a proper gift shop, so I got my souvenirs.  After we finished at the VC, we retrieved our Gurkhas and hit the road again.  I passed out after I finished my Gurkha, and we stopped back in Caborca for lunch, at a Chinese food buffet.

It was very cheap and surprisingly good.  While I am no stranger to eating Chinese food in Canada, this was the first time I have so indulged in Mexico.  I lit up a Graycliff after our meal, and we headed straight to the airport.  I passed out again after the Graycliff and woke up much sooner than expected, as Roberto had made great time, and we were arriving at Hermosillo.

We stopped at a gas station to fill up and clean out the car.  We also got some caffeine and sparkling water.  After that, we were soon at the airport, and we said our goodbyes, reminding each other we’d be seeing each other in four months.  That was that.  I checked in and then headed back outside, where I sat down, lit up my Ardor, and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close, as I need to soon head to security.

Benito Juarez International Airport, Federal District, Mexico (MEX)

Well, here I am, writing once more from my familiar spot at Benito Juarez, where I have now ended six trips to Mexico, about to board once more AM 400 back to Kennedy.  It is a very familiar process.  I think it is safe to say that I have now flown in and out of this airport more than I have flown in and out of any airport outside of New York.  I suppose Atlanta would be the closest contender.  Internationally, it would have to be Heathrow, which is ironic since those will be the next two places I fly after this trip.

Okay, so this would be the usual time where I reflect on my trip, but, well, I don’t really have anything on which to reflect.  I was still at Kennedy 48 hours ago, and I only spent about 30 hours on the ground in the Borderlands.  Roberto and I enjoyed our time together, and I enjoyed the food and tobacco I consumed.  That’s really all there is to say about it.  The time sites we saw, spending only an hour or so at each site, were both marvelous, and I will shortly reflect on the culture aspects of the region, but that was the heart of the trip.

To me, this trip was basically an errand run, and how do you reflect on a trip to the grocery store?  I went to the Borderlands with the intention of visiting two World Heritage Sites, and we saw both of them.  That’s all there is to say.  I have already applied the appropriate superlatives to the two sites, so I suppose the broader reflection is now in order.

I need a better name for the region instead of just calling it “the southwestern United States and northern Mexico.”  I’m going to call it the North American Desert, much the same as I call the combined region of Central America and the Caribbean, “The North American Tropics”.  Okay, so the region is laden with culture.  The most prominent, of course, being the Native American culture.  Yes, other regions of the United States have Native American cultural sites and ruins, but the ones in the North American Desert our best preserved.  I suppose that there is a simple reason for this.  Clay preserves better than wood and cloth, and lumber is not as readily available in the North American Desert as it is on the Eastern Seaboard and the Pacific Northwest.

There are also a multitude of sites various other Mesoamerican cultures, such as the Mayans and Aztecs, spread throughout Mexico and Central America.  Those ruins, and I have visited each and every one of them with a World Heritage Site inscription, are wondrous in their own right, but it is not the same as these sites in the North American Desert.  The ones inscribed as World Heritage Sites are, again, Mesa Verde, Chaco Culture (including Aztec Ruins), Taos Pueblo, and Casas Grandes (Paquime).  They all have a very similar look, and it has been wonderful to visit those sites over the past 15 or so years.  I will visit some other NPS-designated sites in this region in the years to come, but the main ones are the ones I have visited thus far.

The food here, is, of course, beyond iconic.  It has inspired two of the country’s most popular food chains (Taco Bell and Chipotle).  I love eating this food.  Meat and cheese wrapped in fried bread.  What’s not to love about that?  Fried chips with various sauces, perfect.  There is still some remnant of cowboy culture here, but it is drowned out by the imprint that Native American and Mexican culture left on the region.  I should not that I keep calling it “here”, though I am technically not “there” anymore, this airport being in Central Mexico and no longer in the desert region.

My trips in the near future will take me to islands all around the world.  Actually, the only non-island trip I will take in the next year to a place outside of the North American mainland is the second half of my Thanksgiving trip.  England, Jamaica, Australia, Hispaniola, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Iceland, Greenland, and the South Pacific are all islands.  Even my two remaining Canada trips will almost be entirely spent on islands.

The non-island trips will mostly be to coastal regions of North America, though I do have a trip to northern Texas and Oklahoma planned, along with a return to Taos.  It promises to be an exciting 10 more months before I leave for Hawaii, and I’m ready for it.  I can feel the home stretch winding down.  I will return to tradition at this point and treat the Return Journey from HMO to JFK in its entirety once I get home, so I can publish this now.

The Borderlands: The Experience - Day 1 - Casas Grandes

10/29/16, “Casas Grandes”

Benito Juarez International Airport, Federal District, Mexico

Well, here I am, beginning my trip in the same spot where my past five trips to Mexico have come to a close.  In about 40 hours, I will be back in this very spot, writing another entry.  Two Days, two World Heritage Sites, one cultural and one natural.  That’s all this trip is.  It will be a complete blitz.  Today it is the cultural site, Casas Grandes, not far outside of Ciudad Juarez.  Roberto will be meeting me here soon, and then we will fly together from here to Juarez.  Tonight, we will overnight in Puerto Penasco, then, the natural site tomorrow: El Pinacate and Gran Desierto.  After we see that site, Roberto will drop me off at the airport in Hermosillo, and I will fly back this to the airport and then to Kennedy, getting back to work by 9 AM tomorrow morning.  As I said, a blitz.

While the trip itself is short, it will not be as jam-packed as some of our other adventures.  There will be no late nights or super early mornings or racing from place to place before things close.  Instead, since we are only visiting one site per day, it will be at a much more relaxed place.  Our quest towards “Mexico Complete” is drawing down, and the land next and last one will be our most epic yet.  I don’t have else much to report, and Roberto will be here soon, so I will just wrap up.

After I closed at Kennedy, I went back to the first corridor again to get my usual overpriced ice cream bar, along with another seltzer, from the usual Turkish place I go to at Terminal 1.  The boarding process was as dysfunctional as the rest of the departure, and the line moved more slowly and erratically than I can ever remember.  I fell asleep almost as soon as we took off, waking up as we made our descent.

I headed to border control, glad to be able to skip the line with my new enrollment into the Viajero Confiable program.  It took me a bit to find out where the machines were, but, once I did, it was a relatively painless process.  I continued to clear customs and then went to the same spot where Roberto and I had breakfast at this airport just eight weeks ago, though it feels like much longer.  I even sat at the same table, in the same seat.  I got their house breakfast, along with a fried egg, and some coffee.  It was a traditional Mexican breakfast, and it was quite good.  After breakfast, I went outside to my usual spot, where I lit up a Romeo y Julieta and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close, as Roberto will be here in a few minutes.

Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico (Archaelogical Zone of Paquime)

Well, here we are, this is it.  It has been over 20 hours since I left my apartment, and we have at long last reached the first of our two destiantions.  This is the cultural one, an archaeological site that resembles so much the other similar sites I have visited in the Southwest, such as Mesa Verde, Chaco Culture, and Taos Pueblos.  I never fail to be amazed by these sites, the subtle and quaint beauty of the enchanting ruins.  Unfortunately, this is last such WHS I will visit, though I think I am missing a few similar National Park Sites in the Southwest, but those are for another time.  We are short on time, and I will reflect more properly on both the culture and nature of the Southwest (and the corresponding parts of Mexico) at the end of this trip, but I just wanted to fit in an entry here, so I will wrap it up as quicky as possible.

After I closed at Benito Juarez, I soon met Roberto, and we headed to our gate.  I picked up some more cigars at the newsstand and got a coffee, both of which were a process.  Before long, we were boarding the plane.  The seat next to me was empty, so Roberto was able to sit there, the first time we have ever flown together.  Trains and cars, yes, but never a plane.  I slept most of the flight to Ciudad Juarez (not to be confused with Benito Juarez).

When we approached our destination from overhead, it looked like there was not a single sign of civilization in sight, and the city of Juarez looked so out of place.  There was a secondary immigration control at the airport, and they gave me a hard time since my form was not stamped, due to having the Viajero Confiable program.  The airport more resembled the tiny airports I have visited in the Caribbean more than any I had seen in Mexico.  Getting the car from Hertz was another process.

We were on our way, but we were both hungry, so we stopped at an Oxxo for food and snacks.  I got a bacon-wrapped hot dog, nachos and cheese, and a seltzer, followed by a coffee.  Then it was back on the road, and I did what I do for the first long drive of every trip, put on “Red” and lit up a Davidoff Yamasa Toro.  The drive was boring and unadventurous.  I followed up the Davidoff with a Graycliff, while Roberto smoked a Gurkha, and we switched to Avril Lavigne’s “Let Go”.  Then we were at our destination.

The Plaque was right in the parking lot, so we took our picture there and looked around the museum.  We headed to the ruins, and I lit up a Canada Exclusivo Vega Robaina.  I had the inscription photo in hand, but I knew it would be no easy task to find the spot.  We wandered and wandered to no avail.  I tried going off the beaten path, but I had no luck.  I went back to find Roberto, and I then I saw it, off in the distance.

I used my spatial reasoning and determined that that had to be the right spot.  Roberto was walking right towards it, too.  I met him there and quickly confirmed it was the inscription spot.  We took our ceremonial pictures, and that was that.  I headed to a spot in the shade, in view of the inscription photo, where I sat down and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that we can head back to the museum and then get back on the road.  It will be a long drive to Puerto Penasco, and it is already late afternoon.  A very long drive.

Caborca, Sonora, Mexico

No, we didn’t make it to Puerto Penasco.  In the interest of avoiding an even later night, we called an audible.  Instead, we are staying at this lovely motel in Caborca.  I’m not being sarcastic.  This is actually a very nice hotel, and it is a shame we will be back on the road in just five hours.  Why did we call the audible?  Well, the long drive I promised turned out to be even longer than expected and much more brutal.  The biggest hurdle was these dirt road detours (due to construction on the main highway) that made the Dalton seem like an Interstate.  Add to that the plethora of trucks and buses we constantly found ourselves stuck behind, and it all made for very slow driving.

After I closed, we walked back to the museum, and I loaded up on the cheaply priced souvenirs.  From there, we headed back into town and stopped at a taco shop for lunch.  Tacos in Mexico are very different from tacos in America.  In Mexico, they give you a small tortilla (or two) laid flat with toppings, along with sauces on the side, much like a deconstructed thin-crust pizza.  I have never seen the hard shell U-shaped taco in Mexico.  I got a shrimp taco and a quesadilla, every bit as good as local Mexican food would be expected to taste.  In other words, to use my favorite phrase, quite good.

I lit up an Aroma de Cuba after lunch, and we were back on the road.  It was about 5 PM at this point.  I figured it would be a 9-hour drive to Puerto Penasco, including stops, and we would gain an hour since Sonora is an hour behind Chihuahua.  That meant, we’d get to our hotel in Puerto Penasco at 1 AM, and we could sleep until maybe 7 AM or a little later.  Roberto then informed me that Daylight Savings Time would be ending in Mexico tonight, so that meant we’d have another hour of sleep.  Well, we were wrong on all accounts.

The driving was much slower than anticipated, and Sonora does not change their clocks the same as the rest of Mexico does.  I took the wheel once we turned on to the main road to Sonora, and we were running out of daylight.  That’s when the fun began.  We encountered one of our many “detours”, which were carved-out dirt paths to work around the highway construction, very slow going.  We stopped to take some pictures of the desert at sunset, and I ditched my cigar at that point, switching to an Aging Room shortly thereafter.

We were now going through mountain passes, weaving in and out of trucks and buses.  It was not an easy drive.  If I had to do this solo, it would have been a contended for one of my five most difficult drives of all time.  I shudder to recall those disastrous nights in Yugoslavia three years ago.  Our plan was to get dinner in Agua Prieta, which is right by the border with Arizona, then continue straight to Puerto Penasco.

We gassed up in Agua Prieta, and there was a restaurant right there, but we weren’t hungry.  Besides, we just wanted to get on the road.  We got snacks and drinks at the Oxxo, along with each getting a small hot item, the price of everything shockingly cheap.  Roberto took the wheel, and I lit up an Oliva after I was done eating.  I passed out after my cigar.  When I woke up a few hours later, everything was wrong.  We had made far too little progress.  I looked at the maps and time, and I knew that going to Puerto Penasco was no longer advisable.

We called an audible.  I might have slept a little more, but not much.  In the end, we decided we would stop at Caborca, which was en route, so I lit up an Alec Bradley for the rest of the ride, which I’m still smoking now.  We could get there around 1 AM.  We’d have to be back on the road by 7 AM, though.  It meant Roberto could get his five hours of sleep, and I would get less, due to writing my entry, but I made up for it by sleeping in the car.  We called around and found a motel that could accommodate us and looked nice.

Soon enough, we arrived at this motel meant to look like a desert oasis, Hotel Posada del Desierto, which was much better than I expected.  We settled into our room, and then I came out to the pool, where I sat down and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can publish and get some sleep.  We are in the desert now, and tomorrow we will visit the protected area of the desert that has been inscribed as a WHS.

The Borderlands: The Experience - Day 0 - A Dysfunctional Departure

“The Borderlands: The Experience”

10/28/16, “A Dysfunctional Departure”

John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York (JFK)

Typically this would be the time when I right abut how familiar this departure is, that I’m flying to Mexico City on Flight Aeromexico 401 for the now fifth time, that I’m meeting up with Roberto for the now third time, that I am exploring World Heritage Sites in Mexico for the now sixth time, etc.  In fact, writing about how familiar this departure has become has itself become familiar.

Well, actually, this departure had none of the familiarity of the previous departures (find the familiar within the unfamiliar and experiencing the unfamiliar within the familiar, right?).  Instead, this has been an entirely dysfunctional departure.  With all due to that airport in the Caribbean where a fellow passenger told me that the last time he flew from that airport, people had brought cages with live chickens aboard as hand luggage, the past two hours have been far more dysfunctional.  From the coach to the airport to the security checkpoint to the newsstand where I got my soda, everything has just been dysfunctional.

It wasn’t even stressful, since I was well ahead of schedule and got to the gate with plenty of time for my entry before the flight, but it was the very dysfunction itself that bothered me.  It has been close to three weeks since I have last written, and that will be the longest gap that there will be these entries until the New Year.  Including this weekend, there are 10 weekends left in the year, and I will be travelling for 7 of them.  I have a friend coming to town for the only weekend in November I am not travelling, and I would have been going to Vegas that weekend if she wasn’t coming to town.

I will be away for the entirety of Thanksgiving week and the week between Christmas and New Year.  My travels through the end of the year will take me to four continents (including my seventh and final one), two natural wonders of the world (again, including my seventh and final), three more Olympic Stadiums (also including my final), and seven countries.  It promises to be a busy rest of the year before I sing Auld Lang Syne in Sydney and ring in the final calendar year of this five-year mission.

Okay, so Day 0, right.  Well, it was, by and large, extremely boring.  It was a slow and quiet day at the office.  Days -2 and -1 were far more interesting, but they are outside the scope of this Travelogue, though I will briefly mention them.  Day -2 (Wednesday) was closing night at the cigar shop and we had a nice little party there, a great crowd for a Wednesday.

Yesterday, Day -1, was an epic thunderstorm that served as the background for an outing with Stu.  A disappointing movie, an overindulgent dinner, and a chastisement from Live Schreiber was how that evening played out.  There were plenty of leftovers, and I brought those to the office today, intending to eat them both for lunch and dinner.  However, my coworker and I went to Subway instead, our Friday tradition.

I got my small sandwich loaded up with meat, sat down, started eating, and proceeded to spill my bottle of water.  Two people apologized to me.  Reader, this was 100% my fault.  I was holding the water, and I dropped it.  No one bumped into me.  No one distracted me.  I dropped it all on my own.  Two people apologized to me.  The first was the fellow customer who picked it up and handed it to me.  The second was the employee who mopped up the mess.  Again, these were two people who were doing me a service.  They both apologized to me.  I thanked them for their help and finished me meal.  I then lit up a Graycliff and biked up to Hunter.  I left my cigar outside class and biked back downtown as I smoked the rest of it on the way back downtown.

Though the cigar shop was closed, the workers were still packing everything up, so I was able to stand in the corner and smoke away from the cold.  I would have found more cheer in a graveyard.  Everyone was in such a bad mood.  It was so depressing, I quickly left and put my cigar in a planter by the bike docks.  I finished up at work and came back to the cigar store, which was now closed and locked, everything boxed up.  Another customer, whom I had sent a video from earlier, which didn’t go through until just then, thought people were still inside, so he showed up as I was about to walk away.  I retrieved my cigar from earlier, and we walked down Lexington Avenue together.  I headed to my apartment, and I was too tired and drained to go downtown for the Halloween party.

I watched TV for a bit before heading across the street to California Pizza Kitchen for dinner.  That was when the dysfunction began.  They sat me right next to the bar, and the waitress seemed not to understand basic English.  “Can I have some butter, please?”  “Butter.”  “Yes, butter, for the bread.  And a seltzer.”  “Seltzer?”  “Yes, please.”  “To drink?”  “Yes.”  The meal was as it always is, and I had some leftovers for Monday.

I went to my apartment and lit up my departure Cohiba.  Oh, I should mention that I can now legally bring Cuban cigars back from my travels.  This makes me happy.  Very happy.  I started to pack and realized quickly that a suitcase was overkill.  I would be arriving Saturday morning and flying home Sunday morning, which meant that all I needed to pack was my pajamas, one shirt, one pair of socks, and one pair of boxers.  I could find room in my computer bag for such a wardrobe, and I did.  Soon enough, changed into my travelling suit, and with my computer bag slung over my shoulders and nothing else, I left my apartment and biked up to Grand Central.

It was slightly past 8 PM.  The coach buses to JFK are every half-hour.  The next one was at 8:30 PM, or so they said.  It was almost 8:45 PM when it arrived.  I wasn’t pressed for time, so I didn’t really care.  I had finished my Cohiba, though, and I wished I had more of it for the wait.  When the bus came, it was a huge coach, much bigger than usual, 56 seats total.  It was just me and one other passenger.  The revenue they got from the two of us was much less than a taxi driver would get from one passenger, and these buses are much more expensive to run.

When we got to my terminal (Terminal 1), he stopped the bus, onloaded a passenger, and kept going, without making any announcement.  This despite him asking me at the start of the ride what terminal I was.  More dysfunction.  It had been such a short ride so far, about half an hour, that I thought we were still on the highway, which meant I was rather confused as to why he was onloading a passenger.  I checked Google Maps and discovered we were at Terminal 1.  Fortunately, he was able to let me off before he had gone much further.

The check-in process was relatively painless, but I was put in a middle seat.  However, due to my Delta frequent flyer status, they put me on an upgrade list.  When I went to the security checkpoint, that was when the fun began.  When I got to the checkpoint, the person in front of me took the last tray, as in the plastic trays I need to use to put my coat and laptop separate.  In other words, those are necessary for the basic function of the security checkpoint.  When I got to my turn to put my bag on the conveyer belt, the new trays still had not come out yet.  It was okay.  I had time.  I was patient.  It was just so dysfunctional.  One of the officers soon wheeled a stack of trays by me, and I reached for one, only for him to tell me that he needed to wheel the trays all the way to the end of the line, where I would need to walk to retrieve the tray and then walk back to the conveyer belt.  “Fuck that shit,” I thought to myself, and grabbed the tray anyway.  By this point, the conveyer belt had turned off, so I had to wait for it to start up again.

After the screening, I went down the usual corridor and headed towards the gate printed on my boarding pass.  “Oslo” it said.  Nope.  I checked the monitors.  The flight was now at Gate 1, a different corridor.  I headed there.  I needed a seltzer, but, that, too, proved a challenge, and the water fountain had very low pressure.  I cycled back to the first corridor to get my seltzer, and I won’t even get into how dysfunctional the cashier was there.  Eventually, I had my seltzer, and I went to my gate, where I sat down and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can publish before I get on my flight and pass out.