I'm back

I started using w.bloggar so that I wouldn't lose posts, only to have w.bloggar eat my last post, and then crash my computer. Taking no chances, I am rewriting it this time in WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS, still one of the best Word Processors anyone has ever emitted. They don't make software like they used to.

OK - what did I say? Ah yes. I am back home, back in that icy, snowy city Ottawa. It always takes some adjusting coming back into the cold.

On our last full day in San Diego, we heard Bill Gates speak. of course, it is fascinating to listen to him talk about where he sees the business software industry right now. He emphasizes how a lot of companies keep a lot of their important information in unstructured data - loose Excel and Word docs, and even hand written post-it notes. Their vision right now is focused on this convergence of structured and unstructured data, and it is starting to show in some of their business products.

Bill Gates is anunimposing man. He is slight, he hunches over, and when he is sitting and talking, is surprisingly reminiscent of Kermit the frog. That said, when he talks, it was not too difficult to see that he does possess a certain greatness, and is not a historicalfigure by accident.

This became apparent in the question and answer session at the end, when one of his Vice Presidents got him off-topic and talked about random stuff. He described for us what his vision was when he first started Microsoft, and how even today, he's never really wavered from that vision. He also talked about why he's picked the philanthropic pursuits he has, which are two - high school education in the US and world health.

In both cases, he is very results oriented. He is quite critical of the state of High School education in the US, pointing out how in the early grades, the US has top-ranked students, but how by high school, American high school students are middle-of-the-pack mediocre. He didn't get political, but clearly he feels thatfunding is part, but not all, of the issue (he notes that many countries with better results spend less.) He is keenly aware of how difficult the problem will be to solve, since the solution has to be coordinated across state governments.

His focus on world health derives from two simple desires. Now that he has kids, he sees no reason why children in poor countries should not have the same opportunities for well-being as his own children. And he feels that health crises are the most significant inequity between the hemispheres, and the major obstacle in the way of prosperity in poor countries. He notes that the diseases ravaging the third world, such as Malaria and AIDs, are diseases that either don't exist for us (Malaria), or are at least carefully managed in the first world.

One of his foundation's priorities at the moment is helping to work to prevent the spread of AIDs in India. Although the disease is only beginning to penetrate that country, because of India's huge population, that's already more than ten million people. He says we cannot afford to let that potential time bomb explode.


After Gates' speech, we DID go to Tijuana. It is a remarkably easy thing to do. We hopped on a trolley (really more like Light Rail or a Subway), and took the blue line to the Mexican border.

The end of the United States is, quite fittingly, a mall. There is a McDonald's and other stores there, at the last stop of the trolley, and the mall's backwall, barricades the two countries, although a pedestrian bridge crosses them.

We boarded a bus that goes over to Mexico, and it cost us $1.75 a person. We could not even tell where one country ended and the next began - there was no real sign that I could see (other than colourful 'MEXICO' somewhere after the border) and ourfirst sight was a Costco.

We didn't pass through any customs. Instead, the bus let us out just shy of the huge arch where Tijuana begins. We walked up to Revoluccione Blvd and took our pictures under the arch - proof of our courage.

As we walked down Revoluccione, merchants on the rather well-appointed street hustled us hard, trying to get us into their stores. Since I actually planned to get some of my shopping done here, I relented at one place. I bought my wife an Aztec calendar. Two other guys in our party bought a gold chain and a fake Rolex, after spending a half hour talking the vendor down.

While they were doing this, the rest of us went into a Mexican restaurant. You can't go into Mexico and not eat Mexican food! I discovered I actually have a rudimentary facility in Spanish as I ordered. Spanish is a lot like French, and my time in the Cursillo movement gave me a few words and an idea of how to pronounce words I read. (Because of that similarity, I actually can read Spanish fairly easily.)

So I ordered a chicken (pollo) burrito, and ate some of the very spicy salsa, as I watched Mexico's soccer team take on Venezuela in a broadcast from Los Angeles on the TV.

After we left, some guys in the party... well... let their inner eighteen year old out. By this point the stores had closed. Now the hustlers trying to get us into their venues were hawking strip clubs. One of them offered a "Donkey show." As we wandered down the street, I couldn't help but notice how... North American the street seemed. Having only seen Mexico in movies, I must admit I pictured adobe clay buildings, peasant girls, and men in sombreros.

This was a street with KFCs, bustling nightclubs, Domino's pizza, and Subway subs. Some Mexican guy walked by me with a bucket of KFC under his arm.

After a ways, the inner eighteen year old overwhelmed some of the guys with us. They headed into a strip club (whose sign announced 'FAMILY RESTAURANT.') I resolutely declined to go in. As interesting as this trip had been, however lacking in spirituality, it was still Lent, and I had kept my disciplines. Not that there's ever really a Catholic time to enter a strip bar, a place that degrades women and makes desperate losers out of men. No way was I going into such a place.

A couple of guys, worried about leaving me outside on the street alone (which would have been fine by me), stayed out with me. We went across the street, and sat on a restaurant patio, sipping cokes. A few minutes later, after the novelty wore off, our companions stumbled out.

We went back shortly after this. We took a taxi back to the border, and as we got out, we had to walk over people sleeping there, with merchandise laid out all in front of them. I found a nice crucifix for a friend, and said to one of them, "Combieno?" She told me eight. Instinctively knowing how Mexicans bargain, I said, "cinquo?" She wouldn't budge, and I realized I was a wealthy westerner negotiating with someone who had nothing. Ashamed of myself, I gladly paid the full price.

As we walked back, it struck me how different this border was. Whereas the US guards on our border glare at us, as they try and see if we're secretly Arabs or something. Here they laughingly waved us through, smirking good naturedly at the trinkets we'd bought.

After the short tunnel, we emerged in the very different world of San Diego. I'm very happy to be home with my family. And quite humbled to have seen a little more of the world. it is a strange and beautiful place, from its venal to enlightened aspects.