Travel Jobs: Promoting Conventions

This weekend in Reno I did the following:

- Talked to two models, who happened to enjoy late night blackjack almost as much as me (one of whom posed for Playboy).
- Had a meaningful discussion with Chuck Yeager, the man to first break the sound barrier
- Watched Tom Selleck buy an Alaskan hunting knife, while his bodyguards warded off potential photographers
- Woke up to snowy morning runs
- Worked 12-hour shifts for five days with no breaks for lunch… or anything else
- Got paid a considerable amount, with lodging, meals, and travel included in expense

“Sands Convention Center @ CES 2008″, TigerDirect.com

How exactly did this happen? Well, as many of you know, I am now back stateside after my travels in New Zealand looking for work. I was staying with the family for a few days after the holidays ended, doing my typical web searches in favor of writing travel articles for Vagabondish, Matador, and Iloho (yeah, I really should play catchup; I have about ten unfinished files just sitting on my desktop): Craigslist gigs in Dallas, Craigslist jobs in Austin, and Gaijinpot jobs in Japan. The usual gigs popped up: tutoring opportunities, moving jobs, and one ad written in all caps, requesting labor to help set up a booth at the Dallas Safari Club convention. Surprisingly, there was no email address, just a contact number. Half expecting it to be a scam, I called the number on Skype, left a message, and didn’t hear from them for a week.

Long story short, I was called the day before to pick someone up at the airport, set up a jewelry booth at the Dallas Convention Center, worked sales at the event for three days, broke down the booth, and was called to fly into LA, drive their supplies to Reno, and stay in a casino hotel for a week for one of the biggest conventions in the country, the Safari Club International.

Jobs like these, that allow one to travel from show to show, are not exactly rare, but usually restricted to certain kinds of people: women who are attractive enough to work as tradeshow models, the businesses themselves, and local talent (which usually means no traveling). The fact that I’ve been lucky enough to land a position and see the western US on someone else’s dime is pretty sweet, but I have to admit, I’m feeling that I’m working harder, not smarter…

The pay is decent ($1200 last show, about $15/hr with meals, lodging and gas included), but I was working incredibly hard and not moving around as much as I’d have liked. As strange as it sounds, I’d rather have a little less money for a lot more activity, so I don’t feel so full of pent up energy at the end of a workday. Running before and afterwards helps, but it’s just not enough. I bet I’m still gaining weight (enough to keep me out of the league of those Playboy models ), and to top it off, my boss is walking a fine line between obsessive and pure evil.

Still, these shows are an interesting choice for the traveler looking to rake in a little dough. As I’ve discovered, you can pocket a bit more if the company advances you for lodging and you choose to stay with Couchsurfers.

Off to Tucson for a big gem show, then back to Texas for a bit. Peace.

Travel Jobs: World Ventures

Sorry for my lack of posts as of late; I am back in the states after my working holiday in New Zealand, and will be looking for jobs in Japan, Taiwan, and Peru starting sometime in the next several months. Whenever I’m home, I always tend to fly into Dallas, then migrate south to Austin, home of great Mexican food, good people, and Town Lake running trail, the best place to train for a marathon.

As always, my job search in the US begins (and usually ends) with Craigslist. This one ad caught me completely off guard, a seemingly perfect match:

Swim with the dolphins. Cliff dive in Costa Rica. See the Great Wall of China. Zipline through the Amazon. Taste kiwi in New Zealand. See the Glaciers of Alaska. You no longer have to sit in a cubicle at work and stare at a computer screen to see pictures of exotic places. Come play with us and make a living, well… living.

A FEW REQUIREMENTS:
If $750,000 in annual income after two years sounds “unrealistic”, this is not the company for you. If you do not like hard work and lack a desire to help people or sense of humor, our company is not for you. If you know you can sell like nobody’s business, are well-liked by others, want to retire earlier and travel to earn a living, we want to hear from you.

Sounds great, right? A chance to work in a moderately stable position, earn money, and stay in the travel industry.

Maybe it was my ignorance in sales. Maybe I’ve just been out of the working world for too long. Either way, I was not prepared for when I arrived at the designated interview time and place, sports coat snug on my shoulders, hiking boots on my feet instead of loafers, and arrived to a single man using the stereotypical 80’s sales voice and spouting rehearsed line after rehearsed line extolling the virtues of World Ventures.

At first glance, it all sounded pretty good: put in the hours, develop your sales’ skills, receive benefits including free travel. The only problem? World Ventures is nothing more than a glorified pyramid scheme. Ok, maybe not in the strictest sense: the income isn’t solely based on me getting friends and family to sign up for the same system and pay a fee, but also on selling travel packages. Still, the rep in Austin couldn’t have been a better salesman for such a lousy product, the whole time expressing the urgency of me signing up to sell for them ($100 one time fee plus $10/month… for ME to work). Even told me if I waited a few hours, it would be money lost. What a crock.

Here’s how this would have worked. Sign up. Pay money. Become an official representative of World Ventures. Now spend the rest of your days convincing others to sign up to be a part of the program. Let me be clear: not selling vacation deals. Getting others to sign up for the program.

Strike one for applying to travel jobs. I’ll be reporting on some conventions I’m working around the midwest soon. Stay tuned.

Gambling to Travel

I know there have been numerous articles on the subject, and there’s really no point in writing about this ex post facto, as the perception of the gambler is significantly different than the perception of the non-gambler, even if they happen to be the same person. Of course it seems ridiculous to throw $500 down on a stupid game, but it’s the risk that’s the thrill: the promise of money. That in itself makes Vegas as much of an adventure city as Queenstown. I don’t know exactly where I’m going with this… let me just state my experiences thus far.

“Blackjack!”, banspy

I have an addictive personality, no doubt about that. When I see one episode of a TV show I love (or am even moderately interested in) for the first time, I feel compelled to see every episode every created, then wait for the new ones to come out. If I have 24 Dr. Peppers in my apartment, you can rest assured they won’t last the night; as a corollary, if I only have one, I don’t really feel the need to rush out and buy more… if they’re there, I’ll drink them, if not, I’m satisfied with what I have. And if there is a casino nearby, I don’t know when to walk away. Not until my bank account is drained and I’m left with twitching hands and this empty feeling in my soul, as though I knew doing something so stupid would come back to bite me, and I have no one to blame but myself.

About seven months after I turned 21, a friend of my brother offered to take me as his guest to the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas. Of course I was thrilled to have the chance to see the city and actually try blackjack in casino play. Brought $200 with me for spending money and none of it came back. Of course, I really didn’t know what I was doing.

Over the course of a few years, I’ve made trips to Lake Charles, Louisiana, one of the closest places to gamble from Austin. I can clearly remember my birthday/graduation/friend’s wedding celebration there… had two $1000 chips (bigger and orange, btw) for the first time in my life after splitting aces on an $80 bet, and told myself around 2 AM “you know, I really should just go to sleep and keep my winnings. But, for some unknown reason, I’m going to stay and ‘have fun.’” Of course it sounds stupid, but to the gambler, it makes perfect sense. Why else do perfectly rational people riffle through their pockets for another $20 to throw out and make up for the lost $650? And when that’s gone, they keep looking for more.

Weekends in Auckland, with its Skycity Casino, just make things more interesting. I lost about $560 in Queenstown between the Skycity Casino and Wharf Casino over two nights. When my parents flew out of Auckland they gave me the last few Kiwi dollars they had on hand, which, of course, I used over at the blackjack table without thinking twice. $40 somehow became $1800.

How is that? Well, besides the obvious luck, New Zealand casinos have a really good side bet for blackjack: perfect pairs. Say you place a $10 bet and a six of diamonds and six of hearts come down. A lousy hand to hit 21, but a pair payout of 12 to 1: $120. Had they been two six of diamonds… 25 to 1. Colored pairs, mixed pairs, and perfect pairs. My secret weapon, whatever that means.

I had about $1400 from my winnings that weekend (spend on food and such, no loss) when I returned to Auckland to hear the Dalai Lama speak. All that quickly went up to $4600 Friday night with the right combination of perfect pairs and dealer busts: a fun night, filled with drinks, encouragement around the table, and praise for my “skill”. Yeah, right. I may know what I’m doing, but 99% of it is luck.

Let me be clear: all this cash was in my pocket from 2 AM – 3:30 PM Sunday. If the banks were open, I could have simply wired it. But no… such an opportunity was not to be missed. Two hours before my bus leaves, and I decide to head back in to shore up my winnings with another few thousands. For a time, I was right: $4600 became $5800… then my greed got the best of me and I returned to $400. Just like that. Gone, taken piece by piece out of my pocket. I missed my bus, had to pay for another one, and ended up being dropped off in the rain and dark. Granted, that still might have happened even if I had been holding $6000 in my pocket, but somehow, the environment seemed to echo my own feelings.

Even though I have just as much money (in fact, a bit more) as that when I started, I feel almost hollow. It’s not like I simply went in and earned a hundred dollars. I won thousands… and lost thousands. So why do I feel as though I’m worse off that I was?

I felt like talking to the monks when I returned, and brought up the issue of gambling. The Buddha abhorred gamblers, and considered getting out of debt to be a very noble pursuit. The monk told me it was good that I had lost big, because had I won and stayed ahead, it would just have reinforced the idea that gambling is a reliable source of income; winning would encourage me to lose more in the future. This certainly was the case in April, when I returned with a few thousand dollars from the Skycity Casino, only to lose most of it in Indian Casinos across the Oklahoma border. And why? Because I thought I could get more, because I wasn’t satisfied with what I had.

I hear from many travelers who supplement their income or even support their travels with online gambling… any stories from readers?

The Pressure to Hear English

I take being surrounded by English speakers for granted. I imagine I’d feel completely liberated in one way if I were to return to Japan and begin my life with the Japanese people, but, in a far more accurate way, I’m slowly forgetting what it’s like to be in the language minority (never mind my white face; that’s a talk for another time).

“Shibuya in Action”, digika

Of course I had outings with Americans, Kiwis, English, Aussies, Canadians, even the occasional Jamaican… but 90% of the time, the Japanese language was my sole source of communication with others. I can just imagine my typical evening after AEON hours:

1. Finish my office paperwork and bid coworkers farewell with the customary “otsu kare sama deshita“. Emerge from the building on a cold winter’s night, just opposite a gas station.

2. I might pass a student, a kid, or a random passerby. Perhaps a friendly “konbanwa“.

3. Lawson convenience store for my usual turkey and pasta bento, with a heated bottle of green tea. Do I want it heated? Hai, shite kudasai. Any chopsticks with that? Hai, ippun o kudasai. Arigatou gozaimasu.

4. Finish the walk to my apartment building. I’ll probably catch another tenant in the elevator:

“Ahhh… Kimura-san. Ogenki desu ka?”
(I’m fine, Turner-san. How are you?)
“Genki des yo. Oyasumi nasai.”

Only when I’m back in my cramped 6-tatami mat quarters do I truly relax. After all, the internet is language neutral, though I’m sure most would agree English dominates. And this is a light, carefree evening. Imagine a full day of all Japanese. Now imagine a week. A month. A year. Five years…

There’s more to living abroad than embracing a different culture and being comfortable with your changing environment; the pressure of communicating in a foreign language builds up inside your brain without any realization. After all, you’re in Japan! An amazing, exciting experience! Who wouldn’t trade places with you?

I love Japan and I love traveling, but I get tired. There are long stretches when I wouldn’t wish to be anywhere else on the planet, but there are also plenty of times when I would give my heart and soul to be surrounded by countrymen who understand my words, my upbringing, my way of thinking. How did I combat this in Japan, once I had learned to live well?

GetHiroshima Classifieds and Events

Hiroshima doesn’t exactly have the largest population of foreign residents in Japan, but there is a sizable number… enough to warrant the publication of a online resource for expats: GetHiroshima. Culture salons, 10Ks, Japanese wanting friends… I even got replies for a Texas Hold ‘Em group; we were soon meeting once a month for a nice cash game.

Nightclubs and Bars

I admit it, I went downtown many Saturday nights in effort not to hook up with random Japanese girls, but just to sit at the bar of an Irish pub and listen to background conversations… in English. Call me a language whore.

Blog Searches

By using Google Blogsearch, I was able to find many expats in my general area, and learn a great deal about them and their travel experience. You never know who’s reading.

I followed these same techniques in Kagoshima, and found the prefecture’s JET participants had a decent Facebook page; without that, I never would have ended up volunteering at an orphanage in Aira or cycling all the way around Sakurajima for the first time.

Everyone has their own ways of coping with this pressure of feeling like you’re the only one on the planet. Lost in Translation was such a success for showing this through film. Sometimes you do have to travel halfway around the planet… to come full circle.

My Deadly Sin of Choice

Gluttony. It isn’t necessarily restricted to the delights of chocolate, sugar, sweets, spices, and savory. Rather, this particular sin focuses on the carnal pleasures of all experiences.

I know, I know: you’d think by this point, my studies on Buddhism would have alerted me to the fact that the path to enlightenment and true happiness lies not in indulging in sensual pleasure or depriving yourself to the point of an ascetic, but rather finding the middle path. Well, it has… but it has yet to hit home for me.

“GLUTTONY (Seven Deadly Sins)”, Eloquence and Decadence

I understand the Buddhist reasoning behind this belief, I really do, but the thing is… well…

I like the thrill of doubling down on an 8 when the dealer is showing a 7 and hoping for that 10 card. I like throwing my last $20 on the table; when you’ve got nothing to lose, why not risk it to gain everything?

I like to stop and smell the roses.

Gluttony, avarice, wrath, sloth, lust, pride, envy… which is most prominent in you?

My Religion

That which is impenetrable to us really exists. Behind the secrets of nature remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything we can comprehend is my religion.
- Albert Einstein

After going head-to-head with a commenter of Can Christianity Be Rescued From Fundamentalist Christians? and tweeting a lot on my latest Dawkins’ read, I thought I’d give this topic a shot. Excuse me if I’m not too eloquent this evening; I’d be happy to clear up anything left unmentioned in the comments.

“Tree of Truth”, h.koppdelaney

In the time before time before time – well, as far back as age 4, anyway – I attended Canyon Creek Day School, attached to Canyon Creek Presbyterian Church in Plano, Texas. Naturally, my memories from this period aren’t the most reliable, but I clearly recall the importance my parents placed on me coming to church every Sunday. As for myself, I found myself less interested in what the minister was saying and more focused on the end of the service, when the kids would be allowed to get first grabs at the leftover communion bread (always after the carbs, I know). I guess Christ would probably have felt like tearing himself into pieces if he could have seen what we did to his “body” without any regard for the significance. Come to think of it, I wonder why the church even allowed this… While the adults seemed to focus on talk of being a good Christian and the history in the Bible, I couldn’t have cared less – what kid would? My favorite way to pass the time with “grown up talk” was to take one of the offering pencils and write on the back of the donation envelopes; my parents eventually caught onto this little distraction and started taking the pencils away, but I couldn’t help myself: what was the big deal, the big secret? What was so important my parents make sure I know every Sunday morning?

I know I was born into a privileged life. My mother and father weren’t rich, but they made sure I had the best education possible: a private, nondenominational, co-ed school in suburban Dallas. By 2nd grade, my views on religion were pretty much in line with my parents’, though lacking a certain depth: going to church is just something you have to do… other than that, they weren’t over the top with talks of “fire and brimstone” when I misbehaved, nor the delights of heaven as a reward for my smiley face sticker on my writing exercises. Again, I was only 8 years old; I believed whatever my parents told me as reality, and thus far, they had yet to fill in the blanks on a lot of religious questions. Still, if you had asked me back then, I probably would have affirmed the existence of God and following his path as the only means to salvation. Although the idea of heaven sounded… well, heavenly, I can remember feeling a little uncertain about the afterlife, what it meant to die – after all, if I died, I’d just go to heaven, right? So why not just kill myself (unfamiliar with the suicide clause)? Surely heaven is better than here? Good thing I decided to stick around.

So, one late morning in my usual social studies class, I was first introduced to the idea of evolution. The first contradiction I had ever heard to religious doctrine (other than a few logical questions surrounding the existence of God). And how exactly did this come about?

Teacher: …now, I know what you’re thinking: you read the Bible, and God made men and women. No, no, no. You see, all of us came from apes…

Much of this is pieced from memories, but the “no, no, no” stands out; that’s exactly how my 2nd grade teacher discounted religious history, throwing it from his mind as if it were nonsense.

I guess that really was where it all started for me. My teacher provided logical answers to my questions. The Bible provided confusion, uncertainty. Guess which one I chose? Several years later, and I was posting quotes on my bedroom door for my parents to read before they woke me for church, quotes highlighting the evils of forced religious beliefs – though I wasn’t an atheist, I knew I didn’t want to be told what to believe, and being told to go to church was tantamount to that. If you had asked me, I probably would have said I was an atheist, if only to rebel. In my heart of hearts, I probably still believed in a higher power, but going against the fold is what every normal teenager aspires to do.

In the case of religion, however, I saw where my “beliefs” were taking me: isolation. My school was probably 2/3rds Jewish, the rest a smattering of Christians, Muslims, Hindus (didn’t really come up, but I can see it now). Talks of anything anti-religion just resulted in a shouting match with my father, and looks of pity from my mother, so I learned to keep my mouth shut. Fake it. Go to church when the situation called for it. Not say a word. If I had spoken out enough, I probably wouldn’t have been in the Boy Scouts to reach the Eagle rank: atheists, or even non-Christians, are generally not allowed (sidenote: I know there are plenty of Jewish scouts and those of other faiths, but Scouting essentially established itself as a private organization based on Christian beliefs; try getting the “God and Country” insignia as a Muslim).

As a rule, I probably kept this silent behavior up the longest; for some reason, people don’t like it when you poke holes in the logic of their sacred books. It’s better to just smile and nod rather than disagree, keep your opinion to yourself when it comes to something so polarized. After all, you can’t change the minds of some people. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence or painfully simple reasoning, they just won’t listen. If I were to have a public debate with a Christian fundamentalist, my opening statement would be something like:

“Welcome. I should point out, if you wish to continue, that at any point during these talks, I’m willing to admit everything I’ve ever known and believed in is wrong, should you convince me with proper reasoning and evidence. Can you say the same?”

What fundamentalist could?

“We believe in evolution because the evidence supports it, and we would abandon it overnight if new evidence arose to disprove it. No real fundamentalist would ever say anything like that.”
The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins

Though all this talk is very much anti-religion, I have to point out that I’m probably not an atheist by Dawkins’ standards. I couldn’t really think of any appropriate label until I started reading up on Einstein’s take on religion, as well as those of American’s founding fathers. All had to maintain a semblance of established religious beliefs in a world that wasn’t ready to hear otherwise, I guess that still isn’t ready (we may have elected an African-American president, but would you have voted for an atheist? Oh, the horror!)

For me, following the ideas in established religious texts like the Bible, the Koran, the Book of Mormon, etc, is a complete and total waste of time. Moderates pick and choose which stories to consider in forming a foundation of morality, and fundamentalists’ virtues are so screwed up by following the texts literally they have become the subject of ridicule and pity by the mainstream (thank God, so to speak): e.g. murdering workers at abortion clinics, starting holy wars, suicide bombers, attacking homosexuals. Keeping an open mind is a fair choice, but unlike Dawkins, I don’t believe everything should be confined to what we can see and hear, what we can base on scientific findings. I do like the “prime mover” argument: like it or not, something started the universe. Maybe it was God. Maybe it wasn’t. But I can tell you right now, no one has a clue one way or the other, nor are we likely to anytime soon. In that respect, I believe that there may have been something or someone to jump-start existence; I don’t believe it is a man in a white beard listening to everyone’s thoughts and tallying their actions to be judged after death. Death is just as big a mystery, one, again, we are not any closer to solving.

I know I’m leaving more questions than statements, but that’s entirely the point. My religion is about the power of the mind, just as Einstein’s was. Leaving a part of the universe open to mystery and interpretation. Having everything so quantifiable, as Dawkins suggests, really takes the poetry out of life. So I suppose no western religion really fits that criteria. As Sam Harris said in The End of Faith, just try to find something in the Bible comparable to the Buddha’s teachings… impossible. Buddhism and most eastern religions utilize the oldest tool available for study: the mind, and how best to reach its potential. Although I live on a traditional Theravada monastery in New Zealand, I don’t bow to the Buddha statue as a believer would to an idol. Nor do I follow all the tenets of the monastic code. But I am here academically, studying the words of the Buddha and how he believes one can become aware of past lives and escaping rebirth.

Is this the only answer, Buddhism? Hardly. But it fits the bill better than anything I have yet encountered. I’m all for expanding scientific knowledge and looking for “the meaning of everything”, but I believe (there’s that word again) that the pursuit of such things is in itself more valuable than the answers. Maybe there really is a human soul, something we will into existence by consciousness alone; maybe there is a kind of “God”, who snapped her fingers to create the universe; maybe this is all a dream in the mind of a really fat kid, and once he wakes up, we’ll no longer exist, and he’ll have a craving for ice cream.

Your thoughts?

The Lost Years

An event that I would have assumed spelled the destruction of the universe and the end of all life on Earth has happened to me. I guess I should have seen it coming; I’m 27, my high school classmates are 26 or 27, and every day on Facebook, I see some reference to marriage: an engagement, a fancy proposal, wedding pictures, children being born, honeymoon plans…

Father and Son © WisDoc

A friend of mine who I would have pegged as the last person on Earth to get married has… – no, he didn’t tie the knot – but he actually started talking about it, considering the fact that he’s 26 and not dating anyone seriously. This buddy of mine is on the fast track in Los Angeles: zipped over there straight after high school without looking back, landed a job as a sound engineer with a great label, and spends his time commuting between the UK and the states. Not too bad a gig.

I guess you could say the same about me. I graduated from university, made my way to Japan for a few years, volunteered in Thailand, did walkabouts in New Zealand, lived on a Buddhist monastery, skydived over Mt. Doom, ate blowfish without dying (not likely, anyway), beat the bad buys, loved the maidens fair…

But I still feel as though I’m giving up on a great deal, on the potential wife and kids who don’t quite exist… yet. On the other hand, after experiencing life with some WWOOFing hosts this week and remembering just how a 2- and 6-year-old behave 24/7 (screaming; nonstop screaming), I wonder if the only reason people get married and have kids in the first place is maybe they’re just not thinking about it. Running on emotion alone, not planning to start a family, just having things fall where they may. Maybe that’s why I’ve heard more low-income, less intelligent couples have children. Maybe I’m wrong; like I said, I am a novice.

Both scenarios scare me. A life with no life, no privacy, no hygiene, no freedom… and a life alone. This doesn’t even necessarily take travel out of the equation, but those with kids certainly have to think twice about where they’ll go and what they’ll do. I don’t. I can accidently walk into an active volcano and feel completely guilt-free about my actions; after all, no one is following close at my heels.

I guess I’m looking too far ahead. I’ve dated plenty of women, but I’ve never met someone with whom I would want to spent a few months, let alone a lifetime. Why must I be so picky? Because now women who aren’t the least bit interested in travel have no appeal for me, mentally (let’s ignore the physical aspect for the moment). Women who aren’t up to date on world affairs and curious about the history and issues of the nation which they occupy have nothing to offer me in the long term. Women who haven’t quit their jobs on the spur of the moment, continue to do crazy things in the middle of the night, run because it feels like it’s what we’re meant to run, or looked at a guy and thought about more than his clothes and haircut, mean nothing to me. I probably couldn’t hold myself to similar standards from the other side.

The bottom line is: these things really didn’t concern me at all when I was 24. Not so much when I was 25 and 26. But time is creeping up, and it almost feels as though I have to make a conscious choice, an intention to continue living as I have been, or make a concentrated effort to try and meet someone and find my future. 27 is a weird age; it seems as though I’ve come so far from being a kid, when in actuality so little time has passed. I’ll just have to keep in mind:

- I can’t measure my worth in the eyes of others
- I’m still growing; maybe I will reach the point where I completely want to be someone else

In any case… I’m in Wanganui for another few days; will leave to check out a cherry blossom festival in Palmerston North on Saturday. That’s right – the Japanese influence is neverending.