A Facebook update from November 2009 (facebook.com/post.colin):

I’m spending 6 weeks in the States and I’m not eating one grain of rice the whole time!

My January 13 tweet (twitter.com/colinpost):

Life in Latin America is a daily struggle to minimize my consumption of rice.

Rice has no taste. Rice is nutritionally worthless. Rice is filler crap, the most abused filler crap in the world.

I went broke in Bogota, so I’m living and working in America for the summer. People here are always surprised at my refusal to eat rice. I didn’t have anything against rice before moving to Latin America. If you grew up in the States, you wouldn’t think anything of it because you rarely eat it. It wasn’t until about the one-year point living in Latin America that I grew weary of rice. You can’t escape it. If you eat in restaurants, then you’ll have to eat rice EVERY FUCKING DAY.

Rice tastes like nothing. If someone wanted to create a purely fuel food that eliminated all flavor in life, it would taste like rice. However, it wouldn’t be rice because rice is nutritionally worthless.

I’ve already decided that, whenever I start a family, my kids won’t eat rice more than a few times a week. I’d rather not keep it in the house. High consumption of rice may be why Colombia and other countries suck at sports on a global level. How many rice-eating countries make it to the World Cup finals? Argentina eats pasta and meat. Brazilians eat rice but also lots of steak. 2010 champion Spain is known for paella, but most Spanish cuisine does not have rice.

The only public good rice serves is in alleviating famine. It’s cheap filler crap for countries that have trouble feeding themselves. I’m not from such a country.

Nutrition Facts, 1 cup of rice (link)

Calories 193
Total Fat 1g
Total Carbohydrate 44g
Dietary Fiber 1g
Sugars 0g
Protein 4g

For every 44g of simple carbohydrates, rice has only one gram of fiber. A cup of rice contains no significant amount of vitamins or minerals save a measly 10% RDA of iron, which I don’t need given my high intake of iron-rich eggs, beef, chicken, fish, and beans. From a nutrition standpoint, the only functional reason to eat rice would be immediately after lifting weights to spike insulin. However, you’d still be better off drinking a liter of milk for the same effect PLUS protein, calcium, Vitamin D, and all the essential amino acids. (Read why Milk is the Ultimate Post-Workout Food)

Here’s a list of carbohydrates better than rice:

• Potatoes – more fiber and rich in Vitamin C
• Oats – more fiber, protein, and complex carbs for energy throughout the day.
• Beans – maybe the world’s perfect food. Complex carbs with lots of fiber and protein, plus B vitamins.
• Carrots – more fiber plus Vitamin A and beta carotene.
• Fruit – simple carbs plus fiber and lots of vitamins and minerals. And FLAVOR! See my post about the kick-ass fruit in Colombia.

I wasn’t around during the Great Depression; I only have the impression I got from American textbooks. My impression was that it was depression, a miserable time that spanned over ten years. Similar to that impression, my feel for the current economic stumble was limited to what I’d read in newspapers and among economists (In Peru, GDP growth still hasn’t dipped into the negative). This work holiday was the first time living in America during the biggest recession of my lifetime. Things were noticeably different, some in unexpected ways.

My goal and justification for 6 weeks was to earn as many US dollars as possible. Before leaving Colombia, I secured a 30 – 40 hours / week job serving and bartending at my old college employer. I also lined up retail promotional work for about 15 hours / week. Finally, I presented the same company a proposal for an e-marketing campaign (a four-figure deal), which was accepted.

So I definitely found work. In fact, I gave up all my restaurant shifts my last week because I felt I hadn’t spent enough time with family and friends.

I worked 3 long weekends doing promotions inside Costco stores, one of the more innovative retail giants in big-box capitalism. Many of the deals I saw in the States were in similar stores: Target, Walmart, etc.

The VitaMix Solution for $394.99 – This product was featured in a similar promotion to the one I was working in Costco stores, on the same days. The Solution included a big power blender, a disc and recipe book to make your own juices. VitaMix demonstrated the product and handed out samples of the juice they made. The one I tried had pineapple, carrot, spinach, strawberries, and more. It tasted excellent. The blender easily hacked through the carrot and pineapple, which weren’t chopped but simply cleaned.

I’m biased being accustomed to cultures that drink juice from a blender as opposed to a bottle or can. And the VitaMix is a big powerful blender with extras that add value, but I couldn’t help thinking they’re selling a $400 blender during the worst recession since the Great Depression. You don’t have to sell many to make a profit at that price.

¼ pound hot dog + free refill fountain drink for $1.50 – Everyday in the Costco food court: ¼ all-beef hot dog with a refillable drink for 3000 pesos? Not in Bogota. Big-box capitalism with a selection of fountain flavors, deli sauces, chopped yellow onion, and napkins in the service bar. I must’ve eaten 20 over 3 weeks.

6 lb bag of EAS protein blend for $29.99 – I stock up on protein powder In the States because it’s profanely overpriced in Latin America. In Bogota, I paid 80,000 pesos ($40) for a 2 lb tub! In St. Louis, I grabbed three 6 lb bags of EAS from Costco to fit into my luggage.

Levi’s jeans for $19.99 at Target –The Levi’s brand suffered overexposure in America during the 90s, but it’s a top quality brand internationally and especially in Latin America. I’ve seen authentic Levi’s and Wrangler jeans retail for $60 – $100. The ones I got at Target didn’t have that red tab on the butt, but they’re classic dark Levi’s nonetheless for $20.

City Museum’s best year to date was 2009 – My friends who work at the City Museum told me the fast growth from before the recession never slowed, their best year being the last one. Something had changed though. They said they’d often heard some redneck from Missouri or Southern Illinois or wherever explain his family usually goes down to Florida this time of year. But with the economy the way it is, they decided to road-trip it to St. Louis.

I noted St. Louis is an inferior good to Florida, as far as tourism’s concerned anyway. When a product sells better in a down economy, it’s defined an inferior good. Busch beer, Wal-Mart, and vacations to St. Louis are examples of inferior goods.

PBR: $2 pints at Fitz’s, $1 16 oz cans at Delmar Lounge – Pabst Blue Ribbon was always widely available on Delmar, but never at these two places. One carries the sub-premium brand on tap and the other in a 16 oz can. These two bars didn’t have PBR because they didn’t want the PBR crowd. Any increased distribution isn’t due to branding ground gained but the recession. PBR is also an inferior good.

High-end marijuana and vaporizers – My smoker friends (most aged late 20s, early 30s) have abandoned cheap marijuana. Everybody pays $50 for 1/8 ounce of bright green, super-potent marijuana. Things apparently aren’t so bad to warrant sacrifice in this category. One health-conscious friend ordered a vaporizer on eBay so he could vaporize his marijuana instead of smoking it. Vaporizers have apparently become popular in California in an apparently new legal industry sprung from the state’s legalization of medical use. This gadget provides for a smoke-free THC high.

Restaurant food costs & revenue – The restaurant where I worked had changed the burgers from an 8 oz patty to 7 oz, while standard price increases on burgers kept with inflation.

Labor costs – The same restaurant runs a much leaner operation than before. Former management subscribed to the TGIFriday’s school of using lots of staff. However, when sales are a significant percentage down from previous years, cuts must be made to stay profitable. The floor managers won a bonus by achieving their goals in cutting labor costs.

I used to work in three different positions: bartender, dairy bartender, and server. Instead of the opening bartender coming in at 10am to prepare the upstairs, at least for the winter (slow) season, they come in at 11am and the owner takes down all the chairs and makes it easy to set up quickly. The dairy bar position was where, in the winter, I got much of my grad school reading and homework done while getting paid $8 / hour. Now they’ve cut the position for Monday – Friday, servers making their own ice cream drinks (working harder but not tipping out the dairy bar). The servers are also responsible for cleaning and closing the dairy bar Sunday – Thursday nights. So in addition to adding these extra tasks to the server’s responsibilities, they also reduced the number of server hours by staggering start times for the shifts. There used to be two start-times: 10am and 4pm. The new system had so many start-times and I had three different positions to learn that I never really learned how it worked. However, when I had shifts that historically weren’t money makers, I saw that I got busy during those off-hours and ended up making good money during those hours. They trimmed all the fat they could from the shift and job tasks to get the most production as possible for the money.

Whenever the economy is back to healthy growth, the restaurant will enter the season of opportunity after having gotten stronger during the down-time. The labor costs and work environment at the restaurant taught me to look at recessions as belt-tightening seasons and opportunities to cut fat, rather than misery and depression.

Unemployment – A couple family members are out of work. Another big conclusion on recessions and their real impact on quality of life is that it’s not so bad so long as you don’t lose your job, but life’s still grand for them too.

It’s official.  I booked my flight Sunday.  I move to Bogotá April 3, after exactly one year in Peru.

I’m starting a web development business.  I’ve learned a lot about the internet from creating and maintaining this blog and from living with two computer guys.  Of everything I’ve learned, there’s one point that stands out.  Web practices in Latin America are SHIT.  It’s not just Arequipa.  It’s not just Peru.  It’s the entire Spanish web: one big backwards piece of shit.  Latin American websites use practices gringos stopped doing years ago – in some cases dating back to the nineties.  The region will need help getting caught up for at least ten years.  I’m going to help.  I don’t know how to create the web solutions per se, but I can sell them.  Creating them should be the easy part.

And I still have hoop dreams of generating money through writing, namely this blog.  You, my dear readers, suggest that I may actually be creating interesting content here.  I have a plan to enchance the interesting-ness.  There is a thriving punk scene in Bogotá.  I saw it with my own eyes.  Hundreds of Colombian punks with green mohawks and spiked collars.  You would have thought you were in NYC in the 80s if everybody weren’t brown and speaking Spanish.  I find this subculture very interesting.  How could punk be alive and well here in Latin America?  I hope to engage with these people – get to know them ala Hunter Thompson and the Hell’s Angels – and write about them on this blog.

Those are my plans to make money.  I’ll be an independent broker for the Peruvian company while launching a web development business catering to Latin American companies which have embarrassingly primitive websites.  And I’ll nurture my writing hobby.  In the short run, (ahem, cough cough) I’ll teach English to stay liquid (choke choke).  Hopefully I won’t be doing that for long.  On the bright side, I’ll be teaching professionals to whom I can sell websites.  I can also meet female students after class for more focused attention.

My brother Ryan’s coming down to help me move all my things since I only get two suitcases on the plane.  He’ll double that capacity by bringing two empty suitcases for my things and he’ll wear my clothes for his entire vacation.  He arrives March 25 for a few days in Arequipa, including my going-away party.  Then we do a few days in Lima before moving on to Bogotá.  Damien’s coming too.  He wants to stay in Bogotá for a month before going back to the Caribbean or China or who knows where.  And I’ll stay in Colombia.

Why Bogotá?  See this post.

(Play this song while reading to enhance effect)

Since deciding to move out of Beto’s, Nicolas and I found a new apartment. We signed that weekend and I just moved in today.  The apartment is CLASSIC: four-bedrooms with three bathrooms. The building’s on a guarded street off Avenida Ejercito in Cayma.  Cayma is the upscale part of Arequipa.

I have the huge master bedroom.  The main bathroom is long with imitation marble-tile floor and walls with a shower and bathtub! Before the three main bedrooms and bathroom is the dining room, furnished with a long table which seats eight and a china shelving unit (should I know what those are called?).  Before the dining room is the kitchen, which features a bar.  To one side of the kitchen is a bathroom and La Gran Sala, our long, empty living room which will serve as the dance-floor for parties.  Down the other side is a laundry room with two deep sinks, after which is the fourth bedroom and third bathroom.

The new neighborhood is just as central and maybe even more convenient.  I’ll miss living downtown in walking distance of the bars and my gym.  However, my new place is 1 – 2 blocks from a grocery store, my bank, a laundry service, a casino, a brothel, the only commercial shopping mall and cinema in town, and more.  All these places were at least a ten minute jog from my other apartment.

I have never been this excited about a new place in a long time.  While I’ve loved some old domeciles (namely my nasty U City studio and my Capitol Hill apartment with Anne-Marie), I haven’t been this excited in years.  If an apartment of mine was ever nice, I was living with Annie and knew that there wouldn’t be any wild parties.  If I was living without her, the apartment was nasty.  This apartment is huge, posh, and I’ll be living with two other young bachelors to throw killer parties with.

FEELING GOOD!!!

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Why do I want to leave home? My home is St. Louis, MO – a medium-sized, mostly suburban city in the heart of the midwest. I’ve moved away before (within the States) but I always seem to come back. It’s no secret to anyone that knows me that my distaste for St. Louis borders on hatred, and it’s a foregone conclusion that I would leave as soon as I completed my MBA.

My life here feels so boring that I seem to have gotten back into the habit of getting in trouble. I know this sounds really corny and clichè, but I feel as if I’ll be dead or in jail if I don’t get out of here. Let me explain. At the downtown St. Patrick’s Day Parade a few weeks ago, I punched three guys consecutively in a crowded bar. My cousin said one must’ve had a broken nose there was so much blood. I was so drunk I wouldn’t have recognized them if I saw them later that same night. Two days later at the Dogtown parade, my primary partner-in-crime, George, shot me with a BB gun. I hit him with a full beer. We almost traded blows. Then his Hennessy-drinking friend and I almost traded blows. Then George beat up his Hennessy-drinking friend while I held back the other Hennessy-drinkers so it would be fair. And at Delmar Lounge after my going-away party, George punched somebody and my brother kicked him in the head. He and his friends waited for us outside but nothing happened because a cop was parked right there.

I’m not sharing this because I think it’s cool. To the contrary, I hate my life. All my interesting nights are the same immature bullshit. I hate waking up hung over virtually every day. Lately, it’s a miracle if I can get some exercise in before I start drinking again. I love my friends but I don’t see them enough to stay. This town is so average, boring, and conservative. There aren’t enough interesting attitudes or ideas here to keep my mind occupied. As they say, “an idle mind is the devil’s playground.” I have a wild side and St. Louis just doesn’t offer enough to fulfill my needs in a positive way. After grad school, I assumed I would get a job in New York, Chicago, or whatever big business hub.

Plans have changed. In August 2006, I left the country for the first time and got absolutely cracked-out addicted to it. The next summer I took two more international trips. Altogether, I spent five weeks in London, Amsterdam, Lithuania, and Brazil. I went to UMSL, which was ranked eighth in the nation for International Business (tied with Georgetown). I got active in the International Business Club and AIESEC. I made friends all over the world.

Given these developments, a market research position in New York doesn’t seem like it would take advantage of the international focus of my education. Furthermore, NYC wouldn’t be as exciting as it would have two years ago. So I’ve accepted a job outside the US to (A) fully leverage my education and pursue my interest in other countries and cultures, and (B) satisfy my need for adventure.

But why Peru?

First of all, everyone has heard of globalization. The world economy of my lifetime will look much different than it did for generations before me. The traditionally rich countries’ economies will be rivaled by traditionally third-world countries. The fall on the Berlin Wall and the the Internet have resulted in an incredibly dynamic boost in human potential. Three specific regions are projected to (and already are) experience explosive growth: Asia, Eastern Europe, and South America. Given the state of the world, I want to ride the wave of this historic period in an emerging market.

But where? Hint: I speak Spanish.

Living and working in any of those three regions would obviously fulfill my need for excitement and adventure. But I wouldn’t be telling the whole story if I implied that my fluency in Spanish were the only reason that I was only looking for work in Latin America. I loved Europe, but I fell in love with Brazil. Latin culture felt so right for me. The people, the food, the music, the passion!

This is usually where someone makes a comment about the women. Yes, I have a track record of dating Latina women. It didn’t hurt the case for South America, but I’m going for the whole package. The excitement is there! I loved Europe but never got the feeling that I wanted to live there. I did get that feeling in Brazil. I don’t intend to come back. I bought a one-way ticket. I don’t know if I’ll be in Peru, but I hope to make a new life in Latin America. I even have a backup plan. In case I can’t find work in business and need money, I’ve been certified to teach English. Even uncertified English teachers are in high demand in every city of every non-English speaking country in the world.

Moving is hard. I do not underestimate the tough challenges and culture shock which lie ahead. There will be things I miss about America. I can guess what kinds of things they will be, but I don’t know for sure. I’m not forgetting that I had it pretty easy in Brazil with two Brazilian friends to cart me around. Each one had a car. Each one had educated, English-speaking friends. I didn’t have to learn streets, take public transportation, communicate in Portuguese, make my own friends, find an apartment, or any of the difficulties of moving to a new city. I’m not ignoring this. I’m not unrealistic. And I’m not afraid. I have a dream – an abstract dream of becoming a marketing professional who can facilitate international business in Latin America.