Well, I'm back in Aruba again. And the project has totally changed, at least my role in it. I’m now working on transition to refinery employees. That was scheduled for late fall but we’ve moved that up. The plan is that I will have to travel less if I can get the refinery people up to speed now so they can do some of the work now instead of waiting till next year.
I also won’t be making those grueling presentations to the population. I told the refinery leadership in the beginning that they shouldn’t put an outsider up there in front of their employees to tell them how they have to change the way they do their business. But the fact that they let me deliver the news anyway is so typically Aruban (feckless, non-confrontational, etc.). But now I'm freed up to do some of the higher level things that are languishing because I was spending too much of my time while I'm here in front of people.
Anyway, I have to say that I’ve been to the mountaintop. For the first time, I upgraded to first class (my mileage let me do it for $150) for the trip down here. It’s an amazing difference. I could have flown to China and been all right with it.
I spent a week in New Orleans right after I got home last time. It was a good mini-project that I finished in about 75 hours (half the work was done at the office and at home). Ate a LOT of crawfish…peak of the season, priced right, available everywhere.
And I have to confess something…I made my first trip to a strip club. I had never been to one and didn’t even know I was going into it until I was there. We (a couple of guys working on the project and me) went to Bourbon St. and went into some blues and some jazz clubs. Every one of them had a one or two drink minimum so when they came around telling us to drink or leave, we left and went to the next one. The problem was that you really couldn’t tell what one club was from the sidewalk. The sidewalk was covered and the signs were on top of the cover. All we did was go door to door. Any way, one of the guys said “You’re gonna see something in here,” and we went in to this non-descript joint. I should’ve gotten suspicious when they actually carded all of us. Then we walked through a door and I looked up and there were 2 girls dancing on the stage…naked except for a g-string. It was more than a little sad. None of them was over 25 years old and getting a pretty rough start in life. It’s amazing what those girls will do for a couple of bucks…and it’s amazing what some guys will pay a few bucks for. I gotta admit that those girls were pretty athletic. They could climb 20 feet up those brass poles upside down and naked and go through three different dance moves on the way down…gotta appreciate that athleticism.
One girl, about 20 years old, came and sat beside me and tried to make small talk. After a few minutes, I looked at her and said “You need to know that I have 3 daughters older than you and $12 in my pocket.” That was it. She scurried back to the bar.
The creepy part was the bouncers. They kept coming up to the table and saying that they could get us anything we wanted…anything. Then they just stood there and waited for us to ask for, well, anything. None of us asked, but I don’t think they were talking about foie gras with truffle oil…I’m just saying.
When we left, I walked out into the street and looked up at the sign to see what this joint was called. The sign said “Hustler’s Barely Legal”. Alas, my cherry was popped.
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