A Fun, Temporary Job

Starting October 16th, I started working as a contracted courier carrying manufacturing parts, made in Lincoln, to factories in Europe and North Africa.

Trips: 6
2-Casablanca, Morroco
1-Tangier, Morroco
1-Porto, Portugal
1-Paris, France
1-Tunis, Tunisia

Countries Visited: 4
'New' Countries Visited: 3
Languages Spoken Within These Cities: French, Arabic, and Portuguese.
Words Spoken By Me In These Languages: oui, bonjour, merci, merci beaucoup, si vous plait, bon, bom dia, and obrigado.
Travel Time: Equivalent of 15 days
Total Time Spent On-The-Ground (Excluding Airport Customs & Checking-In): 60 hours mostly overnight
City Views: 1 Tour of Tangier
Movies Watched on Planes: Terminator (Huge Disappointment), Star Trek (Good), Coco Before Chanel (Pretty Good), Hurt Locker (Excellent but didn't get to finish), State of Play (I really liked), Julie and Julia (Good), Ugly Truth (Ugly Truth is Not Good), Great Buck Howard (Good), Hangover (Really Funny), and Taking of Pelham 123 (So-So).
Frequent Flier Miles Gained: American-2,420 but haggling over another 6,000, United -19,132, and Delta-17,667. I am missing some other mileage, but every leg is through a different carrier so tough to keep track AND hold them accountable.
Other Carriers Flown: Royal Air Maroc, TunisAir, SAS

Younger Siblings

In my family, some of the younger ones would just lick the salt off chips and put them back into the bag. And I, on more than one occasion, put a soggy chip into my mouth.

My New Grey Suit

Moral Sentiments and Material Interests

"The behavioral sciences have traditionally offered two contrasting explanations of cooperation. One, favored by sociologists and anthropologists, considers the willingness to subordinate self-interest to the needs of the social group to be part of human nature. Another, favored by economists and biologists, treats cooperation as the result of the interaction of selfish agents maximizing their long-term individual material interests. Moral Sentiments and Material Interests argues that a significant fraction of people fit neither of these stereotypes. Rather, they are conditional cooperators and altruistic punishers. We show that a high level of cooperation can be attained when social groups have a sufficient fraction of such types, which we call strong reciprocators, and we draw implications of this phenomenon for political philosophy and social policy."

Page xi.

Talk about a page-turner!!!! I'm on page 85 and this book is extremely fascinating! The book is a 'reader', with each chapter written by different authors exploring the results of their research; research that may supplant classical economic theory by taking into account real human behavior both observed in the field and in experiments. Some chapters include: The Natural History of Human Food Sharing and Cooperation, The Economics of Strong Reciprocity, The Evolution of Altruistic Punishment, and Policies That Crowd out Reciprocity and Collective Action.

This book was referenced in a previous blog post because of a magazine article that referenced and quoted the book and I was so intrigued I had to purchase it; I have not been disappointed.

Second Day; Overheard at Village Inn

Waitress (Shouting from across the restaurant): Hey 'Matt', you want to be a server today?

Matt: Why, you one short today?

Waitress: Yeah, 'Julie' tore a ligament in her uterus and won't be here.

Overheard At Village Inn

Waitress: How is the Hollandaise sauce this morning?

Patron: It is a little watery, but the flavor is good.

Waitress: Maybe it is because they don't know how to make it.

Are You Allowed To Put GPS Tracking Devices...

In your airline bags so that when they misplace/lose the bag, you can tell them exactly where it is?