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dcnativegal · 5 years ago

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Day 55 of Pandemic, & I’m sick

Monday, May 4, 2020. Day 55 of the global pandemic (declared by World Health Organization on March 11th.) We as a planet hit 3,500,000 cases today, and 250,000 deaths. There are many more than that, but the planet doesn’t have enough tests. But then, there was this announcement:

So obviously we’re in good hands. [Sarcasm alert.]

The entire planet has slowed down, such that seismologists can detect the quieting of the earth: less shuddering of industry, cars, construction. Check out the drop in electricity usage:

Here’s a bit of perspective from Instagram:

The Lesbians of Paisley have been fertile ground for viruses. Valerie is nearly recovered from the viral pneumonia she was diagnosed with on March 26 at the emergency room at Lake District Hospital. She’d begun to feel feverish and achy, with violent coughing on March 15th, 2 days after what turned into my last day in my office at the hospital’s primary care clinic, and a day and a half after we’d dined with our friends Toni, Al, Bonnie and Bruce in person, sans masks. We began 100% isolation from the outside world the minute she felt sick. She recounted the ER adventure to a friend thusly: We drove in and they have organized a system that resembles getting on a [military] base after 9-11. We sat in the pickup at the checkpoint until a somebody in protective attire had taken my temp and saturation levels and asked a bunch of questions. Then they slapped a red sticker on the dash, told us to park in the ER lot and "don't get out of the pickup." Five hours later I had donated blood and been CAT scanned. I had two pneumonia shots that were current and two flu shots, also current. They checked the blood against 14 different virus strains and came up blank. The chest showed white lungs and my saturation levels were iffy. So they used one of the tests they had been sent, gave me antibiotics (just in case) and sent me home. Took me three days to sleep off all that fun.”

Me and Griffey the poodle waited in the pickup for her. At every sound, he got up from the passenger’s seat and looked at the ER entrance where she’d disappeared. No Valerie? Back to sleep. I walked him 3 times. Hope, her RN daughter, told us that her flow through the ER was great practice in maintaining distance and perfect hygienic process through the CT scan, taking blood, even pushing her food on a tray to her. Lake Health District Hospital is prepared, and still, technically speaking, zero cases in the county.

I was so anxious about her health, her ability to breathe, that I gave up all thought of working from home. I listened to her breathing and coughing, brought her tea, and finally, asked her to write out her last will and testament. She did, and put it away. I figured, her kids are wonderful and won’t fight about stuff but, better for her to express her wishes, even if the paper wouldn’t be legally binding.

Apparently, I get the FrankenDodge (the pickup which has hit one too many deer and who’s grill is sewn together by wire). I’ll take it but I’d much rather have her.

We waited 10 days for the nasal swab results. While we waited, she got better. Never had that cytokine storm, nor that respiratory crash. Storms and crashes; pretty apt words for the medical horror of end stage COVID-19. Once her test came back negative, despite the warning of her PCP who says that nasal swabs miss between 30 and 47% of positive cases, I was able to go to town on the 10th of April, get some software downloaded onto the computer so I could work from home, and hit Safeway while wearing a mask. I also dropped off one of Valerie’s homemade masks to a friend, along with some toilet paper illustrated with Trump’s kissy face. The moment of levity was greatly appreciated.

I started feeling lousy six days after my jaunt to Lakeview (April 16th). Cough and release of gook high up in my chest. Headache. No fever. Who knows if I have COVID-19. We listen to a British gentleman, Dr. Campbell, daily, as he reviews what’s going on globally, and he interviewed a woman who had exactly my illness course, before she moved on to fever and gastrointestinal symptoms. She never got tested. Too much hassle. Which is so ridiculous, criminal really, and in the USA, a direct result of American hubris and incompetence. Fine. Anyone with any symptoms of any illness is isolated until we have a vaccine and treatment, is my prediction. I’m still feeling shitty, though better. Started taking antibiotics just in case and in the hopes of recovering SOMEDAY.

My son Jonah and his girlfriend June escaped just in time the terrible plight of New York’s COVID19 deluge of infections and hospitalizations. They’ve been in Baltimore at June’s mother’s beautiful home. He spent his 26th birthday in the basement because they were still in quarantine. See adorable picture, below. Now they’re allowed upstairs, enjoying the quiet. Apparently, writing and directing music videos is not an essential service during a pandemic, but he’s writing pitches and living off the most recent lucrative gig with Kesha, thank goodness.

One of the most moving things that is happening in the USA during this time is the 7pm clapping ritual for medical workers and first responders in New York City, in all the boroughs:

There’s a firefighter in DC who’s going to hospitals and nursing homes to play the bagpipe.

That’s where my daughter Clara lives, in DC, but right now she’s staying with a friend in Laurel, MD, since her group house dynamics are stressful and had a symptomatic guest at last report. She’s working from home to make sure the Latinx school children are getting the tutoring they need now more than ever. We worry about her husband Jose and his country, Guatemala, since there are COVID-19 cases down there, and refugees seeking asylum are being dumped there, with and without the virus. Over 700 cases in Guatemala as of today. We hope he will get to the USA this year. However, Trump referred to it as a shithole country, which doesn’t bode well.

My sister and her husband are well, thankfully. They work fulltime from home in the company of Pepper the cat and Darcy the chocolate lab. Yuuki, 25, stays there, too, mostly in their room; they are out of work and applying for unemployment. Kohji, age 28, works from home in DC and makes more money as a web designer than I ever will after 34 years as a social worker, but who’s counting. (I remember well the admonition of a field instructor back in 1987: don’t go into social work for Power, Pay or Prestige.) His girlfriend is probably out of work; she works for a nonprofit that plants trees in DC. Probably not essential work right this very minute. Makoto, 23, is out of quarantine and looking for something to do; he’ll be a senior at the University of Delaware this fall. As far as I hear on Facebook and email, the rest of the folks with whom I share DNA are well. So that’s good. I worry about my Aunt Mary Lee who is 87. But she says not to: she’s fine and her ritzy retirement community in McLean, VA is on “lockdown.”

Psychologically, in the experience of quarantine and ‘social distancing’, there’s me, and then there are my clients.

My moods go up and down, but a little further down than usual. The terror that Valerie might die of COVID-19 has passed, but I figure I will always need therapy. I have “Facebook messenger” video chats with my therapist, Darcy of Bend, every other week now, which helps. Having ‘Generalized Anxiety Disorder’ and a tendency toward major depression, I find therapy to be a corrective. A bimonthly tune up. Without it, I naturally veer toward negativity and neurosis, and a hypervigilance that served me well when I was a child, but is exhausting, overwrought and over-thought as an adult.

Psychologically, Valerie is always fine. Seriously. She was once told as a young woman by a therapist who’d tested her with the MMPI (the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) that she was outrageously and puzzlingly normal. Now that she’s feeling mostly well again from the pneumonia, she’s been tearing up the joint, fixing the sump pump that apparently keeps this little house from drifting down main street on the wetlands it’s built on. Digging out the leaves from our irrigation ditch, chopping and clearing the wood from our front yard.

The BEFORE picture:

The AFTER Picture.

And this happened one morning in March. Just a cattle drive past our front door.

Valerie’s planning a garden at her daughter’s place, which has a deer-proof fence and lots of sun up on the hill above us. A delivery of horse manure is scheduled, and the garden bed has been rototilled. Val’s granddaughter Jessica and her husband Alan are living up there now, working from home for their Portland-based gigs. They’re almost finished the 14-day quarantine since they moved down here. The new normal: anytime anyone leaves one locale for another, they disappear into strictest quarantine, not to leave their abode. Groceries are delivered to the doorstep. A recent day turned out to be Jess’ 25th birthday: I’d bought a canvas bag with a picture of a pug on it, like her dog Archie, and Valerie found something gluten free flour mix with fresh jam to give her. Birthday gatherings are suspect at the moment.

Here’s a lovely idea for quarantined birthday celebrations:

What a kind and generous offer.

Even in isolation, Val and I do socialize, on zoom. The one pictured below is church.

We ‘visit’ with our fellow parishioners from St. Luke’s on Sunday evenings. Then we say Compline together, from the Book of Common Prayer. My favorite prayer of all time is this one from that service.

Yes, shield the joyous. Because joy is fleeting.

Our writers’ group, Easy Writers, ‘meets’ on zoom every Monday now. I wrote this bit about my yarn for the prompt, ‘write something in your home that means a lot to you.’

I am doing a great deal of crochet and a little knitting.

Yarn is my comfort and my joy. It is the raw material I create blankets and scarves and hats with. My tools are hooks and needles made from wood and plastic and metal. My fingers are also my tools.

Some of the yarn is like cotton candy: spun mohair from a goat is said to have a ‘halo’ or ‘aura’ because of the gentle cloud of color you can see an inch or two away from the spun thread. Some yarn is like twine: you can see every string of ply. My favorite is merino wool and single ply. A unity of color that will not split. All for one and one for all, the fuzzy stuff is twisted and bound into a single string of strength…

My clients are stressed out. The pandemic adds a layer to the stress they were already experiencing. I listen and knit, from within the cocoon of the yarn room which my folks can see behind me. One of my clients wanders about with her phone in her hand while I get slightly dizzy. I like this kind of counseling since I get a glimpse of my clients’ homes. Reminds me a little bit of being a geriatric care manager. You can tell a lot about a person from their home. From my home you can tell that I have a lot of yarn, and I work multiple projects at a time because there are piles of them alongside my recliner.

One of the sad weights of being present for my clients is their level of estrangement for most if not all social connections, especially people with whom they share DNA. And every single one has what is called in the mental health world “complex PTSD” from multiple traumatic experiences. I sit with them, on the phone or via video. I hope to model for them what Carl Rogers called ‘unconditional positive regard.’ I breathe deeply to release my own distress at their sadness. We explore one tiny step toward reducing their isolation, the sense of trust. All during a pandemic where other people could be carrying a potentially deadly virus.

It’s no wonder I’m pawing mohair out of screen for my own comfort.

Sometimes I email clients links or articles on how to keep their spirits up, or about good things that are happening instead of the dire predictions they’re listening to or watching. There is much to share that is hopeful. I sent one to a client on creative ways to care for everyone and she shot back:

“I believe this is Liberal rhetoric.

Esp the paragraph below:

This current emergency provides the possibility for a new emergence—the birthing of a truly civil civilization dedicated to the well-being of all people and the living Earth. “

Oh well. We can’t have a truly civil civilization dedicated to the well-being of all people, now can we?

Sigh.

Brilliant writing is being penned right now, since the entire planet’s human inhabitants are barely one degree of separation away from this virus, which is apparently ‘barely alive’ and therefore hard to kill, as it spreads onward to make millions miserable and hundreds of thousands die.

I’m saving articles from The Atlantic, The NY Times, and the Washington Post, and following a historian named Heather Cox Richardson who writes a daily blog called Letters from an American. In a recent post she writes:

“The big news … has been the ‘protests’ of state governors’ stay-at-home orders and mandatory business closings to try to contain the novel coronavirus …These protests are a classic example of trying to control politics by controlling the national narrative. The protests are backed by the same conservative groups that are working for Trump’s reelection. …These are not spontaneous, grassroots protests. They are political operations designed to divert attention from the Trump administration’s poor response to the pandemic. Even more, though, they are designed to keep the American public divided so that we do not protest the extraordinary economic inequality the pandemic has highlighted.

These protests have diverted the national conversation by turning a national crisis into partisan division along the lines the Republican Party has developed since the 1980s... The change of subject protects not just Trump but also the ideology at the heart of his Republican Party. Since 1981, Republicans have argued that the economy depends on wealthy businessmen who know best how to arrange the economy—the makers-- and that it is vital to protect their interests. Under their policies, wealth in America has moved upward. The pandemic has highlighted how these policies have removed economic security for ordinary people. They cannot pay their bills, and they might well turn against an ideology that uses our tax dollars to bail out corporations while they must risk their lives to pay their rent.” [Emphasis mine]

I am so glad someone smarter than me can reveal the interconnections of what’s going on politically.

There is food for thought on Facebook and Instagram: in the guise of a rewrite of Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese, this poem.

Mary Oliver for Corona Times (after Wild Geese)

by Adrie Kusserow

You do not have to become totally zen, You do not have to use this isolation to make your marriage better, your body slimmer, your children more creative. You do not have to “maximize its benefits” By using this time to work even more, write the bestselling Corona Diaries, Or preach the gospel of ZOOM. You only have to let the soft animal of your body unlearn everything capitalism has taught you, (That you are nothing if not productive, That consumption equals happiness, That the most important unit is the single self. That you are at your best when you resemble an efficient machine). Tell me about your fictions, the ones you’ve been sold, the ones you sheepishly sell others, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world as we know it is crumbling. Meanwhile the virus is moving over the hills, suburbs, cities, farms and trailer parks. Meanwhile The News barks at you, harsh and addicting, Until the push of the remote leaves a dead quiet behind, a loneliness that hums as the heart anchors. Meanwhile a new paradigm is composing itself in our minds, Could birth at any moment if we clear some space From the same tired hegemonies. Remember, you are allowed to be still as the white birch, Stunned by what you see, Uselessly shedding your coils of paper skins Because it gives you something to do. Meanwhile, on top of everything else you are facing, Do not let capitalism coopt this moment, laying its whistles and train tracks across your weary heart. Even if your life looks nothing like the Sabbath, Your stress boa-constricting your chest. Know that your antsy kids, your terror, your shifting moods, are no less sacred than a yoga class. Whoever you are, no matter how broken, the world still has a place for you, calls to you over and over announcing your place as legit, as forgiven, even if you fail and fail and fail again. remind yourself over and over, all the swells and storms that run through your long tired body all have their place here, now in this world. It is your birthright you be held deeply, warmly, in the family of things, not one cell left in the cold.

-Adrie Kusserow

Not one cell left out in the cold. Yes.

There is so much to be grateful for. I have a place to live, and even while paying off my bankruptcy debt, I have plenty. Enough that I can make small donations here and there. Here’s one cause I found: supporting foster children who were in college and now have no place to go. (Terrible visuals for the logo: it’s “Together We Rise.”)

Soon, the nights of below freezing temperatures will pass, and both Lesbians of Paisley will be healthy at the same time. Perhaps I’ll get my Tricycle-for-Grownups serviced and toodle around for exercise. Perhaps the Stitch & Bitch knitting/crochet gatherings will resume, maybe in a park for physical distance and social connection.

And maybe I’ve already had Covid-19, and so has Valerie. Looks like 50-70% of all the people on the planet, not quite 8 billion humans so maybe 4 to 6 billion people, need to catch this thing in order to give our species herd immunity. Or WILL catch it because we have no way to stop it, only to slow the infections so that health care is not overwhelmed. We live and Love in the Time of Coronavirus, to paraphrase Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I maybe a libtard, a snowflake, a lily-livered liberal, who’s heart bleeds. But I agree with this sentiment, found on Facebook, our American ‘commons’:

Love absurdly and abundantly, my people. And wash your hands.

#covidー19

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aptplumbingsblog · 2 years ago

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How Can A Toilet Be Clogged Without A Plunger

Regardless of how hard you try, there are times when a toilet or bathroom clog is unavoidable. If this is your concern and you’re struggling to remove the clog, here is the how-to on fixing it without a plunger.

There may be times when a plunger is simply not enough to clear the blockage, if this happens, you may need to call on a professional plumber.

What Can Cause A Blocked Toilet? Toilets can block too much toilet paper from being used or flushing items.The most common cause of a clogged toilet is misuse and overuse of toilet paper. Another reason for a blocked toilet can be hair or other material (especially around the overflow pipe) that becomes stuck and can’t be flushed away. Unfortunately, some clogs need professional help, especially if it keeps occurring and you can’t get to the issue of what is causing them. To save on looking for a blocked toilet plumber in Sydney, you can call us at APT Plumbing.

Some of the reasons you may have a clogged toilet are:

Hard Water Hard water creates a nightmare for pipelines and can cause issues with pipes. Over the course of time, it’s possible for calcium, copper, and magnesium to build up, causing a white substance within the pipes. This can cause a blockage or even a slow draining problem.

Tree Root Infestation Tree roots can find the tiniest hairline crack in sewer pipes and attack and crack the pipe system. The roots feed off the nutrient rich water and grow fast inside the pipes. When this starts to happen, you will see your toilet begin to clog and in time waste will come back up the toilet as it cannot go anywhere else. A qualified Plumber can assist you and make the required leaking pipe repairs.

Flushing Foreign Objects Down The Toilet One of the main reasons a toilet can clog toilet is if there has been an object flushed down the pipes. Many property owners use “flushable” wipes, sanitary products, baby wipes and other debris down the toilet system. There is simply not enough water pressure or force to get rid of these clogs and they will build up over time. Compared to toilet paper, these items do not break down or dissolve and form a blockage. When this occurs, don’t Google for a professional plumber near me as APT Plumbers are her, we are vastly and will get to work unclogging the issue.

Worn-out Pipes Household pipes can break, crack or even break down and become crushed for many reasons. The main contributors are heavy rain, corrosion, dramatic changes in the temperature, and constant wear & tear. When pipes break down, the drainage system of the toilet slows down while not keeping up with the increasing demands of a household. This can be a cause of a blocked toilet.

Apart From A Plunger What Else Can I Use To Unclog My Toilet? Toilet systems can clog without warning. It’s suggested you should have a plunger on hand to deal with plumbing emergencies. If you don’t have a plunger on hand, it can become a real problem, but there are some effective alternatives that can assist the situation:

Dish Soap Unclogging a toilet without a plunger is hard but you could try some dish wash liquid. The soapy material assists in lubricating the blocked pipe while allowing the clogged debris to slide down effectively through the pipe. Pour approximately half a cup of soapy water into the toilet and flush. This may take several attempts to clear. If all else fails, you will need to have the toilet looked at by Skilled Plumber.

DIY Wire Hanger Into A Drain Snake There are times when a clog can be moved manually. When unclogging a toilet without a plunger, you can use the assistance of a trusty wire coat hanger. Unravel the hanger and make it straight. Pushing one side down the toilet slowly you will be able to prod the clog and keep prodding until the toilet becomes free and flows down the drain.

Hot Water If the dishwashing liquid fails to gain success, then you can try to unblock it more by adding hot water. Fill a bucket with hot water pouring directly down the drain. The force of the water can often assist in dislodging whatever may be causing the clog.

Bi-Carb Soda Mixture An alternative to soap is a natural mixture of bi-carb soda. Using one cup of bi-carb soda with two cups of vinegar directly into the toilet. The fizz from the mixture will go for approximately half an hour. If the clog doesn’t dislodge you can repeat the hot water method.

How Can You Maintain Your Toilet and Ensure It Remains Clog-Free? While trying to unclog the toilet without a plunger is one issue, keeping it unclogged for longer is the key long term.

You should try these remedies to ensure long term flushing:

Avoiding Using Harsh Cleaning Chemicals While we think chemicals for cleaning toilets are good in the long term, they can cause damage to the system. If you are going to clean your toilet, make sure it is not harsh chemicals and fully rinse it with clean water once completed, this can assist with the system to continue to work without issues.

Only Flush Three Main Things Away The only things that should be flushed down the toilet system are Pee, Poop & Paper (Toilet Paper). Regular cleaning of your toilet will assist in keeping it clean, hygienic, and clog-free for longer. A neat, clean toilet will help avoid clogs in the plumbing system.

Inspect The Inner Working Of The Toilet To make sure there is no clog in the inner workings of your toilet, you should check the toilet cistern. This can be done by removing the top of the cistern and inspecting everything thoroughly. Make sure there are no blockages and there are no cracks or leaks in the system.

When Is the Need To Call A Plumber? There comes a time when you have tried everything, and you just can’t fix the clog. When this happens, call a professional plumber near you who will be able to assist you with leaking pipe repairs. Don’t waste valuable time looking for pipe repair services in Sydney that can assist in locating the blockage with the use of a CCTV Pipe Inspection.

APT Plumbing are experts on this, and we can send a plumber straight to you to get the things investigated. We are on call 24/7 to assist with all kinds of plumbing issues that can occur in and around Sydney.

Sometimes it’s just the use of a high pressure jetter to clear the blockage.If your toilet is continually clogging then you may have a potential issue that should be inspected by a plumber. They can use a drain camera and check if there is a blockage and then work out the best way to unblock the issue.

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tilesdirectusa-blog · 5 years ago

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Should I Use Porcelain Tile in My Bathroom?

Your bathroom is in need of improvement or remodeling and you’re wondering what kind of tile you should install. Should you choose a general ceramic tile, Porcelain Bathroom Tile, or an exotic natural stone?

While the temptation is there to want to get inventive with your use of tile in the bathroom, this is generally where you want to make your decision from a more practical standpoint. Because of the high amount of moisture present in your bathroom, you want to ensure that you install tile that is designed to deal with such conditions on a regular basis.

This is where it becomes important to know what kinds of tile are available and what their different properties are. You may be under the assumption that you can install just about any kind of tile in your bathroom, and while this may be true under certain circumstances, your best bet is to choose a reliable, durable, more water-resistant tile for your bathroom.

The fact is, tiles made solely out of natural stone, for example, aren’t the best choice for bathrooms because this kind of material is more porous than ceramic tile. This means it is more apt to become stained and discolored due to prolonged exposure to moisture without the right sealant. Natural stone also tends to be colder and more slippery when wet than other kinds of tile, making it less than ideal in this situation.

Porcelain bathroom tile, on the other hand, is a hard ceramic tile made from dense clay, that holds up extremely well in wet conditions, and can withstand years of continuous use without showing signs of wear. Porcelain is also easier to clean than natural stones like marble and granite, which is important. There’s a reason why sinks and toilets are so often constructed out of porcelain. The natural water-resistance and strength of this material make it exceptionally ideal for use in your bathroom.

Where Can I Get High-Quality Porcelain Tile? One of the benefits of porcelain is that it comes in a wide variety of shapes and styles, some of which are even designed to take on the appearance of other kinds of material. There are porcelain bathroom tiles that look like natural stone slabs, elegant marble, and even wood.

The high versatility in design combined with the durability and overall utility of porcelain makes it the ultimate choice for your bathroom project. The only question is, where is the best place to find a wide selection of high-quality porcelain tile online?

For an unparalleled selection of tile and unbeatable customer service, Tiles Direct has what you’re looking for. Their online store allows you to easily browse the top manufacturers and styles all in one convenient place, as well as take advantage of some of the best prices in the industry. Contact them directly at 407-730-0025 if you have any questions about using porcelain tile in your next project, or want more detailed information on their lightning fast delivery times or other varieties of tile.

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sonyajake · 5 years ago

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A Planned Pregnancy, A Semi Planned Surgery and Some Unplanned Weight Loss

It was two years since we got married and we were attending a cousin’s wedding (one of numerous cousins). We were approached by a innocent looking middle aged woman and were asked about our procreation plans. We had no idea who the lady was but tried to brush her off without discussing our family planning measures. Her reaction was to threaten us on behalf of Lord Almighty, “You shouldn’t delay such things, God won’t give you the gift of progeny as per your convenience.” Although we were shocked by her declaration, we let it slide.

Our family planning involved waiting for two years of marriage and then starting to try for kids. So when I conceived right after we completed two years of marriage, it was a pleasant but unexpected surprise. On one hand, we were happy that unlike that lady’s prediction, God decided to bless us at our own convenience. But on the other hand, we were still unprepared for a new life to enter our lives. We found a gynecologist nearby to consult and confirm the news. Her advice when I enquired about consuming non vegetarian food was to depend more on salads and fruits and avoid non veg if possible. The pure non vegetarian in me started hating that doctor right away.

Within a week of confirming pregnancy, my struggle with nausea started. I wouldn’t use the euphemism “morning sickness” for my suffering. It was a 24 hour ordeal with me not being able to keep anything in my stomach. I was living on a diet of rice and curd or chapati and milk. Some of my favorite foods like chicken and chicken liver became my sworn enemies (I still cannot eat liver). Simultaneously I had cravings for Maggi and Chinese food which were on the no go list. Out of sheer pity, my husband used to buy these for me, hoping something would stay in my stomach. One bite, and I would rush to the restroom to throw up everything I ate from morning. We even bought a small stool to keep in the toilet so I could be more comfortable in my long vomiting sessions in there. The doctor discouraged me from medication for vomiting, which made me uncomfortable to consult with her further.

We came to know that there was a gynecologist in our neighborhood who was well known in Mumbai. We went to meet him. One check up and he told me that I have fibroids. The subsequent scan only helped to confirm two fibroids. It was quite scary because I made the mistake of Googling the issues with fibroids. Anyway, the dilapidated condition of the clinic and the fact that the doctor was male(Yes I am a bit conservative in this matter, thank you for the judgment) prompted me to find a new doctor.

By the time I had settled with my new gynecologist I had already lost almost five kilograms in the first four months of pregnancy. I had resorted to wearing thicker clothes to give me a false sense of weight gain. I was concerned that this weight loss was going to hurt my baby. My doctor helped me through this phase and ensured me that things aren’t as bad as I had thought it through in my head. It seems nausea and loss of appetite lasting throughout the pregnancy, even if not common, was not unheard of.

It was from the fifth month that I actually started gaining weight and started enjoying pregnancy (albeit with the help of nausea medicines). But by then, the next problem had started. I used to get constant pains below my chest, making it impossible for me to sit in a place for more than ten minutes. The doctor explained to me that my short stature was not allowing the uterus to expand upwards and was causing the discomfort. Consequently I had to take maternity leave from an early date (I had a desk job-what was the point of going to work if I couldn’t get any work done).

The phase of waiting for the little one to arrive had begun. My short stature also meant that I had an inadequate pelvis (pelvis not expanded enough to push out the baby). So the doctor had already informed us that it would be a planned c- section for me. I had heard stories of how a woman would be an ideal mother only if she survives labor pain. But I was never a fan of being ideal. So I felt no qualms in taking the doctor’s advice and settling for a planned caesarian. Although I was initially told that I was under the risk of early labor due to fibroids, the baby didn’t show any sign of coming out soon.

As per doctor’s advice, we had selected an apt date for the surgery and had packed our bags for admission. Two days before the planned date, while I was taking one of my early morning bathroom breaks, I felt like I had some discharge. I woke up my mother to take her expert opinion and she asked me to wait for some more time. I started spotting soon enough and I decided that it was time to wake up dear husband mine. I woke him up saying we had to get to the hospital soon. He just grumbled and wrapped his blanket tighter. Despite informing him that I had started bleeding, he didn’t seem too keen to be interrupted from his beauty sleep. Finally I had to resort to exhibiting a wiped tissue to make him understand the seriousness of the matter. We reached the hospital soon and after checking I was told that although the water had not broke, I had some infection and the surgery needs to be done soon.

An issue due to nurse duty meant that it was taking too much time for the operation theatre to get ready. By afternoon I had started experiencing labor pains and the baby’s heart beats had started declining. I heard my doctor barking orders to everyone and I was finally taken in for surgery. The baby was taken out a little after 2.30pm- a healthy little girl who resembled her father as though my uterus was a photocopying machine. All the nausea, the weight loss and pains were forgotten the moment I kissed my daughter for the first time.

I have heard people belittle women who have undergone c-section, saying they had it easy and did not have to go through labor pain. But the after surgery recovery pains undergone by caesarian mothers is no less, sometimes even worse. I have never felt any guilt for having to settle for a surgery. In fact, neither me nor my husband wanted to take any risk to chase the glory of a normal delivery. We trusted our doctor to do the right thing. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is that you have a fine and healthy baby in your arms; the mode of delivery is a trivial matter.

I survived a pregnancy with unbelievably awful nausea, weight loss, UTI, fibroids, ear infection, burnt leg due to a kitchen mishap and an almost emergency surgery. Despite all these discomforts I opted to have another child. So from my experience I can safely say: plan your pregnancies, prepare for unplanned events during pregnancy and keep your fingers crossed for all the best things to happen to you but don’t get disheartened if things turn less than ideal.

Conceive when you feel it is a good time to expand your family. Do not feel bad about taking time for yourself as a couple before deciding to add a new member to your world. Once you are pregnant, don’t allow yourself to be judged by others for the choices you make, lest you want your pregnancy memoirs to leave an ugly imprint in your mind.

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samingtonwilson · 8 years ago

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10 Things I Hate About You - Jim Kirk

Summary: The poem from 10 things i hate about you-- jim kirk edition

Warnings: language, lil angsty

A/N: a bit long once again. i seem to have a thing with the number 10 and jim kirk. huh. hope it’s not too similar to the last one. forgive any typos, i didn’t read this over too carefully. enjoy and please let me know what you think! (P.S. @star-trekkin-across-theuniverse- this is the piece i told you about)

I hate the way you talk to me, and the way you cut your hair.

There was a deep sting spreading over the skin of your inner thighs. It was as if you needed to be more aware of the angry red abrasions coloring you, as if your skin didn’t feel close to spontaneously igniting with each step you took.

Most days, you would have worn the scuffed skin with pride— you could never think there was anything to be ashamed of. But this was not one of those days. On this day, the sting served as a reminder of the shore leave you would’ve preferred to forget.

As you walked through the halls of the Enterprise, your lips clamped shut to prevent the sound of any unintended winces, you told yourself all you needed was one of Leonard’s magic balms and a good night’s sleep. You told yourself it was doctor’s orders— as if that pathetic addition to your inner monologue would result in a smile.

A few inches from the medbay entryway, you tugged on the hem of your unnecessarily bright blue uniform and took a deep breath. Normalcy, you repeated to yourself. Normalcy is all we’re after.

You inhaled the scent of antiseptic until it hit every corner of your lungs and pulled your PADD closer to your chest as you nodded in greeting to the nurses and even managed a smile when you spotted Leonard in his favorite exam room.

“Didn’t see you on the shuttle.”

You hummed as you approached his side, shrugging when he glanced in your direction. “Made it there late and had to sit with the command ensigns.”

“That explains all’a,” he motioned towards your face, “that.”

“Excuse me?” you asked with an incredulous laugh. You crossed your arms over your chest and watched as Leonard sifted through the newly restocked drawers. “What’s that mean?”

“Don’t usually look as angry as you do right now, sweetheart, that’s all.”

“Angry? I smiled at you!”

He nodded. “Looked menacing enough to have me damn near pissin’ my pants— looked like the homicidal offspring of that Khan bastard.”

“Kind,” you quipped, rolling your eyes as you looked down at the screen of your PADD. “I should go before my first appointment gets to Exam Room 1 and I’m nowhere to be found.”

“It’s Jim so I stocked your cabinet with sedatives,” Leonard winked as you slipped from the room with a weight pulling the corners of your lips downward.

You couldn’t blame him for mentioning Jim so casually. He knew you had a little crush on the man, knew the man had a little crush on you, but was blissfully unaware of what transpired as a result of these tiny crushes.

The thought had you smirking ruefully at the word itself: crush. You thought it was apt.

“You’re early,” you hated the sound of your voice as you spoke to his back. It sounded as if you’d ingested helium, as if your vocal cords shook beyond your control. But, rather than show Jim your annoyance at yourself, you offered him a smile as he faced you. A smile you hoped was not as menacing as the one you offered Leonard moments ago.

He smiled back at you. His face was bare, all of the two-week growth that painted your inner thighs gone. He’d even trimmed his hair, the soft blonde hair your fingers ruined each day of those two weeks looking brand new.

You thought he might have been eliminating traces of you. After all, the deal was two weeks— two weeks to finally tear through your lingering tension, two weeks to keep fraternization from interfering with your careers. And those two weeks ended the moment you woke up to an empty bed saturated with the scent of mint and citrus.

“No use putting off the inevitable, right?” he said, hopping onto the biobed with ease. “You have to draw my blood and I’d rather you did that when I’m running off the high of a launch.”

There was a soft pinch at the border of your throat as he spoke. Nonchalantly, composed, deprived of anything that was so imbued in his voice the last you spoke. His smile almost finished you off with its easy-breezy feel— you shook your head to yourself, though. Normalcy.

You just needed time.

“Scotty says Keenser actually picked up during shore leave.”

“Wow,” you mused, your voice soft so that any pitch issues could pass by unnoticed. “Didn’t know they made ‘em short enough.”

“You’re concerned about height?” Jim asked with a snort. He looked bright, he sounded bright. “The man’s skin is almost rock-solid, Doc! Who’s that comfortable for?”

I hate the way you drive my car, I hate it when you stare.

It took three weeks for Jim to grow tired of the mask he wore. The weight of the thick façade corroded his resolve more and more each day. In the beginning, he’d assumed the opposite. He likened his assumption to the mere exposure effect— the more he saw himself with the mask, the more he withstood the weight of it: the more likely he was to develop a habit of it, if not a liking toward.

Sadly, that ended up being untrue. His exhaustion increased almost twofold everyday, his dislike toward himself increased with the same leap. It would increase even further upon encounters with you— in his mind, you were so unaffected, so… okay. Meanwhile he stroked the bare skin of his cheeks and wished he could regrow that beard you seemed to love so much, maybe still have a part of you with him.

The exhaustion didn’t arrive alone, though; it arrived with self-loathing. He used to pride himself most on his honesty, on his willingness to go against the grain to do what was right for him and for the greater good. But he was not allowed that comfort in this situation and the loss of his comfort resulted in the thick self-loathing he’d never felt before.

There were certain things he couldn’t control. He couldn’t control the way his body changed around you. His chest would ache— a stuttering beat producing a longing he didn’t think he’d be able to withstand. And his eyes would be unable to move from you— as if he wanted to drink you in while he still could. He even kept you from away missions as it meant he could look at you more, unscathed and unharmed— he didn’t know what he’d do if you were put in harm’s way.

Because it wasn’t a two-week-thing for him. It could never be a two-week-thing for him when it came to you.

“For fuck’s sake,” you groaned as your eyes snapped forward again as if the blue you caught sight of was lethal. You nearly stumbled into Uhura as you took a step forward in the commissary queue.

She looked over her shoulder so you could meet her gaze. Her coffee brown eyes were narrowed so her long eyelashes cast a shadow over her sharp cheekbones. “Is it Kirk again?”

“I can’t go anywhere on this goddamn ship without seeing him.” You busied yourself with pulling the skin beside your fingernails. “I know he’s the captain and it’s his ship but can he stop acting like he’s the captain and it’s his ship?”

Uhura snorted. “Yet you’re still friends with him, Doc.”

You scowled at the sound of his nickname for you. “It was just two weeks of sex. If I can’t go back to being friends after that, what does it say about me?”

After a moment, Uhura’s curiosity found Jim and she stared at him with her head tilted. “He’s still looking at you.”

“I don’t care,” you scoffed. You were getting better at the indifference routine.

“Really? Then why have you been complaining about his relentless gawking for the last couple of weeks?”

“I just think it’s sad he’s settled for looking at me when there’s, like, a million stars to look at out the window. Plus, it’s impolite to gawk and his mother has probably taught him better.”

I hate your big, dumb combat boots and the way you read my mind.

You sat in Leonard’s desk chair sideways. Your legs were draped over one armrest while your back rested against the other. A glass of whiskey sat on top of your stomach, a smile of amusement over your lips as you balanced it somehow.

“I should be an acrobat.”

Jim snorted from the seat across the desk. There was a soft pink tint over the apples of his cheeks and the tip of his nose. His eyes were glassy but focused on you, almost too focused.

He had his obnoxiously heavy booted feet set atop the desk, crossed at the ankles as he held his glass of whiskey tightly between his two hands. “I’d like to see that.”

“You, of all people, Cap, should be supporting me in this endeavor. You can attest to how bendy I am.”

You saw his the electric blue of his irises flash. He hummed. “You’re still the clumsiest person I know.”

“You need to augment the pool of people you know, then,” you mumbled into your glass.

Jim had walked in on you breaking into Leonard’s liquor stash. He didn’t ask any questions upon noticing your reddened eyes and paled skin, he only fell into the seat across from you and told you to pull a glass out for him as well. He knew you needed to forget whatever caused your stuffed nose and forced you to hiccup every third word, and he would forget with you if that was what you needed.

He watched you knock back your sixth drink, his second still untouched. “You know, I can’t imagine my life without you in it. And I’m sure everyone can attest to that.”

When you snorted a laugh of disbelief, he felt as broken as you looked, your bottom lip between your teeth so it could stop shaking with unreleased sobs.

Something about what he said and something about the way he said it made your ribs shake as it hit the spot that hurt so much. “Is there some special reason you’re telling me that?”

He frowned and shrugged. “Just thought you should know.”

I hate you so much it makes me sick — it even makes me rhyme.

You groaned as you flushed the toilet filled with your stomach acid and putrid alcohol-scented upchuck. You rose from your aching knees and smeared enough toothpaste on your brush watch it ooze off the sides. It was the third time you’d gone through that routine in a span of just four hours and the sixth time you’d gone through it in the span of ten hours.

The air in your small shore leave quarters smelled stale— it carried an overpowering mixture of the alcohol leaving your pores, the mouthwash you so diligently swished, and the strawberry-like fruits you had completely forgotten about on your kitchenette counter. Your sheets were too rough— you thought the white fabric might exfoliate your skin for you unintentionally. Your mattress was too stiff— you snorted a laugh at the idea that it might have been made of limestone.

You let yourself be angry at all of that— at the scent your room carried, at the bedding that was nothing short of adequate, at the mattress that would’ve hugged you if you gave it a chance. It was certainly easier than accepting what you were truly angry about.

After all, you had no right to be jealous. Jim was yours for two weeks on a shore leave months ago. Who were you to burn at the sight of him with someone else? Who were you to feel your chest tighten, your throat pinch, and your eyes water?

So you refocused all of your negative energy. You suffocated whatever energy you could by drowning it in vodka and unleashed the remnants upon your sheets, upon your mattress, upon the strawberry-like fruits that understood the neglect you so deeply felt.

There was anger focused on yourself that you couldn’t control, though, no matter how hard you tried. Each time you looked in the mirror throughout the course of the day, you only saw how your body deceived you. You only saw the red rimming your eyes, the swelling of your features, the sadness so clearly coating your irises. You’d told yourself there was no reason to be upset, no reason to feel your heart break at such a trivial occurrence. It just seemed that you didn’t listen, that you were too far gone to listen, too angry to listen over the whoosh of blood pumping in your ears.

“I’m okay, Bones.”

He snorted from one of the four too-tall, too-straight, too-uncomfortable chairs encircling the sorry excuse for a dining table. His eyes seemed to notice all of your body’s deceit as well. “S’good thing you didn’t go into acting, sugar. You’re the most unconvincin’ —”

“Bones,” you interrupted, your voice soft. You tried to smile at him a little. “I only asked you to bring some food and maybe nausea medicine. You don’t need to play therapist. I’m fine, it’s just a small problem of mine.”

“‘Fine,’” he snorted. “You’ve looked miserable for a while, it just hasn’t come to head until now.”

He sighed and placed a large, warm hand over yours. His hazel eyes softened as he looked over you. “I’ll kill whoever it is, just name ‘em.”

You smiled easily, shaking your head. “What makes you think someone did this? I’m an independent person— I can make myself miserable without anyone’s assistance.”

I hate the way you're always right. I hate it when you lie.

“I got you something.”

You looked up from the table at which you sat, tilting your head at Jim as he slid a small paper bag under your nose. “Why?”

A frown of consideration was spread over his lips and he set his elbows atop the table. He drummed his fingers against the surface and raised his thick eyebrows, shrugging. “Figured you haven’t eaten.”

You glanced around the sparsely populated commissary— few red shirts were clustered together in the back right corner and the nurses you preferred to have by your side in the medbay were situated at the far left.

You had decided to take your break earlier— there was a higher likelihood of peaceful solitude after half a shift of performing physicals that way.

“Assumptions can be harmful, Jim.”

“Did I assume correctly?”

“Yes,” you admitted, desperately wishing the smile that pulled at your lips would quash itself. “But I’ve been feeling kind of sick lately and replicator food is hardly a good antidote—”

“It’s not replicator food.”

“So what, you’re just sneaking actual, fresh food on board now like contraband? S’not allowed.”

He flashed you a crooked smile, leaning forward so you could feel his breath caress your already warm cheeks. He watched as your eyes widened a little. “Next time you want to reprimand me for breaking the rules, Doc, try not to sound so aroused.”

You sat back in your seat, creating a wider distance between the two of you. “Cap, I’d like to see someone who doesn’t get aroused at the prospect of actual, real food on this starship— even if we’ve only been back for a day.”

You pulled a small basket of the same fruit you’d let rot on the kitchenette counter of your shore leave quarters, biting down on your lip. You looked at Jim and tilted your head. “How’d you know I like these?”

“I didn’t know,” he answered, taking one of the red berry-shaped fruits for himself. “I like them.”

The face he made as he took a bite indicated otherwise.

I hate it when you make me laugh — even worse when you make me cry.

You stepped between Jim’s legs, placing your hand against his right cheek. You tapped your finger against his skin three times and kept your eyes in the blue haze before you. You had to work hard to not crack a molar due to the strength with which you gritted your teeth.

You used your hand to turn his face and stare at the long gash that ran from below his temple to the middle of his cheek. There were several smaller cuts sprinkled over his face, disturbing the otherwise smooth surface. You had to suppress a loud and heavy sigh.

“You could be more gentle.”

You tried to focus on the beeping of the biobed monitor rather than the amusement in his voice. “You could be less of an idiot.”

“Now that’s not fair.”

“Yeah? Did someone ask you to go near volatile machinery while the ship passes through a magnetized nebular field?” you asked, narrowing your eyes at the cut as you rolled a cotton swab coated in povidone-iodine over its length. You watched as it slightly stained the surrounding skin to a deep rust color. “I would think when Scotty warns you not to and actually tells you he’s the only one authorized to handle it, you would play fair and command your ship from where you were meant to.”

He tried to turn to face you but you pushed back with more force. He clicked his tongue in reaction and you felt his jaw clench under your gloved fingertips. “I was trying to make sure there would still be a ship to command.”

“That’s what your chief engineering officer is meant for.”

“And are my physicians meant to lecture me?”

“Only when you’re being stupid,” you returned through your teeth, picking up the dermal regenerator from the biobed and firing it up once you held it to Jim’s cut.

You watched the red light work its magic, chewing the inside of your cheek in silence. Once you reached the halfway point of the scar, you let yourself glance at Jim— he looked a bit worn down, less bright than you were used to.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, almost inaudible over the regenerator’s whirring. You caught Jim’s eye as he peered at you. “I know you were only doing what you thought was right.”

He dropped his gaze, looking as far down as his held-steady head would let him. “No, you’re right. I tend to be headstrong sometimes.”

“‘Sometimes’?” you repeated with a soft smile, the chuckle leaving your lips almost foreign to you in its involuntary nature.

You sighed after a moment, switching the handheld machine off. “You have no idea how much it worries me to see you like this. Especially after I hear you’ve been interfering with engineering, you yellow shirt.”

You felt him smile.

“The last time you did that, I had watch Bones identify your body,” you added, shaking your head when you felt your throat pinch. “I am sorry if I come across a bit harsh, but it comes from a good place.”

You’d made a promise to yourself the night your jealousy led to an enormous intake of alcohol. You told yourself you wouldn’t be upset over Jim. You wouldn’t feel jealousy, sadness, anger over him as you had no right to. But, once again, it seemed that your body was betraying you as a few heavy tears fell onto your cheeks and burned the way down.

All you could do was grit your teeth and hope for it to pass.

I hate it when you're not around. And the fact that you didn't call.

Jim was moving on! Or so he told himself.

He was doing all he could to get you out of his mind. After all, you were the only thing on it for how ever many torturous months he spent convincing himself friendship was enough. And after seeing how broken you were as you patched him up, how restless you became at his very presence for the following weeks, he knew there was no way he could be around you without holding you until the frustration left your limbs, without kissing you until the fear left your eyes. So he avoided you.

He spent less time heckling Leonard in the medbay as he ran the risk of bumping into you in the stark white room. He avoided the commissary at times he knew you would be there, he chose to spend evenings in his room rather than the senior officers’ lounge, he reiterated to himself that the observation deck was off-limits. He did all he could to get you off his mind.

The problem was, though, that he couldn’t.

When you noticed his absence at first, you were a bit relieved. No more staring, no more dirty boots trudging through your quarters, no more assumptions that turned out to be annoyingly true— your body couldn’t betray you if he wasn’t around. For those first few days, you subscribed to the “out of sight, out of mind” principle. Only it failed you by the end of that week.

You noticed his absence made you think of him more. You began to pay more attention to the voices you heard around you in the commissary, hoping to pick his out of the bunch. You spent more time in Leonard’s office, bothering him until you resigned back to your post. Your body betrayed you anyway and you did all you could to ease the tightness in your chest.

The problem was, though, that you couldn’t.

But mostly I hate the way I don't hate you—

You found yourself at Jim’s door. Your hand was raised and you leaned your knuckles against the metallic surface, setting your forehead there as well.

You groaned inwardly.

You raised your hand again, knuckles at the ready… before placing them against the door once more. Not a sound could be heard.

You shook your head this time. You took your hand from the door and shook it, taking a deep breath and counting to ten. Then you counted to twenty, then thirty, then forty.

With a loud sigh and a curse under your breath, you raised your hand and rapped your knuckles against the door with a force you didn’t know you were capable of. You regretted it immediately and considered racing down the hall to slide into the safe confines of the turbolift, but stood your ground.

When the door slid open, you didn’t give yourself enough time to watch his eyes widen or his mouth fall open. You looked over his shoulder and said, “I need to tell you something.”

He moved out of the way and silently motioned for you to enter.

You fell onto his couch. You crossed your legs at the knee, then at the ankle, and once again at the knee— you settled at the knee. You twisted your fingers together.

“Is everything okay?”

The breath you’d been holding left your lips in a single gust. You took your eyes, useless with the blur of unshed tears, from your fingers to Jim’s vague form. “No.”

You blinked hard, looking away only to look back at him as he knelt before you.

He took your hands in his much larger, much warmer ones and stared up at you as if every planet he was sent to explore resided in your irises, pupils dilated enough to consume you entirely. He watched a few more tears escape the corners of your eyes and felt them burn his cheeks as they rolled down your face.

He had to clear his throat before he spoke a soft, “What’s wrong?”

“I thought what we were doing was the right thing to do,” you told him in a voice that broke more times than you’d care to admit. “But the right thing shouldn’t feel like this.”

You took a shaky breath and wiped your cheeks clean. You almost leant into one of his hands as he took it from yours and cupped one side of your face, his thumb brushing your skin lightly. “I had you for two weeks. I thought I would get it out of my system, get you out of my system— but I couldn’t. All I could think about was how stupid those people are that claim it’s better to have a little than to have none.

“I would trade those two weeks just to have you as a friend again— and I know we still are now, but it’s not the same. I used to be more comfortable around you than anyone. Now I look at you and I’m scared that you’ll see how in love I am with you and you won’t feel the same.”

Jim sat up a bit, letting his hand move from the side of your face to rest against the back of your neck. Looking at you in a way that forced your heart into your stomach, he leaned forward and brushed his lips against yours softly. He let his nose bump yours. “You have absolutely nothing to be afraid of— trust me.”

— not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.

#LISTEN. READ THIS RIGHT NOW #IT TOOK SO LONG TO WRITE #i'm crying yall what if this is so bad and im telling myself it's ok because i want to get a piece out #i had this idea and almost peed myself i was so excited to write it but when i started writing it just got away from me #whoops #jim kirk #jim kirk imagine #kirk imagine #jim kirk x reader #star trek #star trek imagine #captain kirk x reader #captain kirk imagine #imagine kirk #imagine jim kirk #kirk x reader

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mychristopherstokes66world · 6 years ago

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With the Saturday arrest of Jeffrey Epstein - who is reportedly offering to name elite pedophiles in exchange for leniency, a leaked copy of the billionaire sex predator's "little black book" may provide some insight into some very rich individuals who should be nervous right about now. he book was smuggled out of Epstein's residence by his former house manager, Alfredo Rodriguez, who was busted trying to sell it in 2009 for $50,000 - only to get caught, charged with obstruction of justice, and die in prison after 18 months from a 'long illness.' According to an FBI affidavit, Rodriguez described the address book and the information contained within it as the "Holy Grail" or "Golden Nugget" to unraveling Epstein's sprawling child-sex network. But despite having been subpoenaed for everything he had on his former boss, Rodriguez didn't share it with the FBI or Palm Beach Police Department detectives investigating Epstein. Instead, he tried to make a $50,000 score by covertly peddling the black book to one of the attorneys launching lawsuits at Epstein on behalf of his victims. -Gawker According to a 2015 Gawker article, Epstein's little black book contains hundreds of names that a hobnobbing socialite billionaire might keep on hand, however around 50 of the entries were circled by Rodriguez - "including those of many of Epstein's suspected victims and accomplices," according to the report. Some of the names in the book include: Ralph Fiennes Alec Baldwin David Blaine Jimmy Buffett Courtney Love Charlie Rose Mike Wallace Barbara Walters Ehud Barak Tony Blair David Koch John Gutfreund Prince Andrew And of course: Bill Clinton and Donald Trump About 50 of the entries, including those of many of Epstein's suspected victims and accomplices as well as Trump, Love, Barak, Dershowitz, and others, were circled by Rodriguez. >Alec Baldwin >Tony Blair >the Bronfmans >office of Bill Clinton >Alastair Campbell >Jonathan Dimbleby >John Cleese (;A;) >Minnie Driver >Duke and Duchess of York >”Elizabeth” (Queen?) >Chris Evans (0207 number, extremely overpaid BBC presenter, not the Captain America actor) >Brian Ferry >Ralph Fiennes >David Frost >Rupert Heseltine >Liz Hurley >one of the Jagger offspring >literally all of the Kennedy clan >Jemma Kidd >Henry Kissinger >Boby Kotic (Activision CEO) >Christopher Lambert (;A;) >Simon Le Bon >Doug Liman >Courtney Love >Peter Mandelson >Rupert Murdoch >Andrew Neil >Jon Peters, Hollywood mega-producer >Prince Charles >Joan Rivers >the Rothschilds >Maria Shriver >Soros >Kevin Spacey >Koo Stark >Ivana and Ivanka Trump (not Donald, though) >Chris Tucker >Bob Weinstein >Prince Michel of Yugoslavia >”Police - sergeant Robert Goldberg” >entire section devoted to “ISLAND” >John Kerry And those are just the recognisable-to-normies entries. There’s a who’s-who of financiers and high society money in there too. Jesus Christ. In addition to the names above, as well as scores of apparent underage victims in Florida, New Mexico, California, Paris, and the United Kingdom listed under the rubric of "massage," the circled entries include: Billionaire Leslie Wexner Former New Mexico Governor Bruce King Former New Mexico Governor and Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Richardson Peter Soros, the nephew of George Soros Former Miss Sweden and socialite New York City doctor Eva Andersson Dubin Some of the circled entries include additional notes—one address in New York City, for instance, is marked as an "apt. for models," and two names bear the marking "witness." You don't even have to do anything, and most people invited might even be totally unaware of the real purpose of the parties! But, sooner or later, some billionaire will get handsy, she'll escort him to a room with a hidden camera, things happen. Morning after, you strike. The fund is offshore in a tax haven (check) and nobody will see the client list (check). Of course, you don't really know anything about investing, instead making up some nonsense about currency trading (check), and nobody on Wall Street has ever traded with you (check) A $20 million wire from Billionaire X to you with no obvious reason will raise many questions, and the IRS will certainly want to know what you did to warrant it. A $5 million quarterly fee for managing $1 billion in assets? Nobody bats an eye. Because of this structure, you're extraordinarily secretive about client lists (check) because they artters or return streams ever leak (check) Occasionally you may also try this trick on other people: important political figures, mayors, prosecutors, etc. They don't invest in the fund, but it's nice to have them in your pocket. Others (academics, artists, etc.) can just be bought with money as a PR smokescreen. And the last piece of the puzzle is the evidence. You'd want it somewhere remote, but accessible: a place the US can't touch but you have an excuse to visit all the time to update. Remember that offshore fund? I bet there's a *very* interesting safe deposit box there.

this wasn't his rolodex. it was his special book; which he's old buttler was trying to peddle for 50k. probbaly is worth a lot more. >tony blair >mike bloomberg posted this one just because it has 2 wins.

this looks like a fun read. https://pt.scribd.com/document/416207833/Jeffrey-Epsteins-Little-Black-Book-Redacted#from_embed

"And there were lots of parties! I remember I ran to the bathroom of the hotel L’Hirondellein the Queen Elisabeth Street in Knokke where a party was taking place. I was breathing heavily when I crawled towards the toilet, fighting the urge to throw up. One of the men had orally raped me pushing so deeply in my throat that I had gagged, upon which he had beaten me. After a while however he had found another victim and I had taken advantage of this to flee to the bathroom. But instead of throwing up I had started to cry uncontrollably. I was taken over completely by feelings of panic, fear and helplessness and pushed myself against the cool tiles of the bathtub. The door opened. One of the abusers entered, closed the door and sat down in front of me. I tried to stop crying but the tears kept coming. It looked as if a dike had burst inside me. He caressed my hair, whispered in a soothing way that I was safe now. “Don’t be afraid little girl, I’m with you now…” And he stroked my hair, pulled me close to him. I braced myself at first, afraid to get hit again, but his hands kept caressing me. I cried against his chest and my little eight-year-old body

>eight-year-old body

was shaking against his shoulders. I put my little arms around his neck, hesitating, and cuddled up against his body. I allowed all the pain and misery to break loose. I cried as if I would never stop, clung to him like a drowning person. Then his hand went between my legs. Suddenly, without any warning, he turned me around, made me sit on all fours and raped me. He breathed heavily when he came, pushed me away, zipped his pants and left. I had turned him on by looking to him for consolation and protection."

Regina Louf, Dutroux Affair victim. Her full testimony can be found here:

>https://www.scribd.com/document/125814985/109518200-Regina-s-Story

>The book was smuggled out of Epstein's residence by his former house manager, Alfredo Rodriguez, who was busted trying to sell it in 2009 for $50,000 - only to get caught, charged with obstruction of justice, and die in prison after 18 months from a 'long illness.' This is all very tantalizing, but isn't it possible this is just an innocuous address book, 99% of the names have no knowledge of the crimes and only brief associations with Epstein, and the butler was just trying to profit?

A shill is someone whom cannot see criminal behavior based on a gradient of political partisanship. Shills are pushing a third party's (A: Me, B: You, C: not in the room) agenda loyally, while engaging in every confirmation bias known to man, while unironically (in the shill's opinion) hating Snopes.com, to whom the shill is logically identical. This isn't about Trump, or Epstein. This is about how a corrupt system has emerged, and replaced typical American values with Zionist ones, to include the kike sodomite obsession with sex, and preoccupation with perversion. Now, be sure to say some uncalled for repudiation, using every attempt to ignore this lesson. But, let it sink in, as well. Jimmy Buffett... Fifteen may get you twenty, that's all right Cause they'll be rocking and a rolling on a Livingston Saturday night https://youtu.be/X7ckBvSKG-Q https://thedevilman666.blogspot.com/https://www.facebook.com/groups/qanonreports https://twitter.com/CIACLOWN1 https://www.bitchute.com/channel/ciaclown16661/

#CIA CLOWN #RED PILL #REDPILL #ANON #HONKHONK

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mechapaadventure · 7 months ago

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Nicaragua: A Disclaimer...

I want to paint a true picture of the Nicaragua we have selected for our vacation home. It certainly is a paradise and it truly is at the edge of civilization. As such there are ‘opportunities’ to appreciate many of the things we take for granted in the United States. They are generally what we call inconveniences, but many people comment on the photos and this blog and may feel a ‘Club Med’ attitude about our project. Not so, but not so bad either!

The Roads

I guess the place to start is what could be loosely called an arterial network. The city traffic is interesting to say the least. In Managua there are traffic lights and numerous circles where multiple major arteries meet. You need to know in advance which lane to enter the circle in and how and when to exit. Hair-raising is an apt description for a first-time rotunda rider…

In Chinandega, the city closest to where we live the streets are one-way, two-way and both. There are a few two-ways that become one-ways seemingly in a random manner! It does not matter whether you are in a city or the country you have to learn to coexist with ox carts, horses pulling wagons, dogs, cattle, horseback riders, motorbikes, motorcycles, bicycle taxis, tuk-tuks, busses, pedestrians plus a wide variety of the previously named motor vehicles that are unable to achieve a speed over 30 kilometers per hour.

Now lets step outside the cities and look at the rules of the road. Busses, delivery trucks and private vehicles who feel the need, no matter what the reason, can just stop anywhere on a road. Busses seem particularly prone to stop just before the crest of a hill where you have no visibility of the road ahead and what is barreling down that road in the other direction. What the heck, life is short so why stretch it out…

Now most of the roads of Nicaragua are two-lane. Some have an occasional passing lane that is a major treat. The farther you get away from a city the lesser the roads. From Chinandega to Mechapa is about a 90-minute trip of 72 km. At the 58 km mark on a trip to Mechapa the paved surface ends! What you have to navigate is what serves as a riverbed during storms and is the roughest piece of road I have ever traversed.

The first 58 km take a little under an hour under normal conditions. The last 13 km take about 30 minutes! A four-wheel drive vehicle is recommended. We have seen mini-taxis actually traverse the road, but the ride is not an enjoyable experience. When the rains are bad the roads are worse. Last September two busses sunk down to their axles on that road and then a tractor that was trying to pull them out joined them there for a couple of days! The people who were on the busses gathered their belongings and walked the last 10 km (6 miles) to their homes in Mechapa. That is just how it is…

The word is out that the portion of the last 13 km that is not paved will be completed in the coming year (2018). With that everything changes. More traffic and Mechapa will be discovered as the gem that it is! Stay tuned; civilization is on its way…

The Standard of Living

I touched on the standard of living in Mechapa and, for that matter, much of Nicaragua earlier in the blog. It is, to our sensibility shockingly basic. To the wonderful people that live here it just how it is! I know that the kids of this area come to school every day in sparkling clean white shirts and dark pants or skirts. These kids come from homes where there is probably only a concrete wash table/sink where they hand rub and scrub every item of clothing. I would guess that there are less that 3 or 4 washing machines in this little city and the people you see in dirty clothes are only the ones who are actively working. There is great pride exhibited by the people here.

In Mechapa there are cinderblock edifices like ours and there are homes with four poles, a palm roof and black plastic stretched around the sides. When it rains, many people have standing water in their living spaces. When there is a tropical storm life can really become difficult. So you really need to excuse people when after tough times they are a little edgy. However, that is never the case. Three days of rain and wind and the people we know show up to work the following day with a great attitude, ready to go. Bless their hearts.

All that said, there are problems there. Poverty can foment many kinds of problems. There is theft and there are other problems. You cannot let the kind nature of so many people lull you into a tenuous situation. Many times over our trips to Nicaragua we have heard the stories of how twenty dollars or five thousand dollars are needed for one thing or another. It is a balancing act where you have to help people understand that you have worked for the money that you are spending in this country and it is not unlimited. Likewise we employ a property manager so that we have a 24/7/365 presence to keep our property secure.

Let’s pause for a moment and reflect on something that came to my consciousness early on in our travels to Mexico and Central America. When I see how some North Americans treat the natives of these countries poorly I become really unhappy. Lately in Nicaragua I see the same thing coming from other Nicaraguans. At Redwood Beach I saw a 12-year-old boy snapping his fingers at a server and calling out “Girl”. Unbelievable!

I came to a realization that many people should understand and make a rule of their behavior. That realization is that for the random chance of being born where and when and into the family we have we could be any person anywhere in the world! The words “common decency” come to mind…

Utilities

Looking at our property and what we have done there you would think that we had utility service for some time. Not the case. When we bought the property we paid for the installation of the electric pole and transformer that serve our property. Currently (no pun intended) electric service goes to down our road about six miles to Venecia! That said, our electric service is not consistent. During our last stay we had numerous times when power went out for periods of from minutes to hours. There were a couple of times when it was out for between eight and eleven hours. We have a generator that we fall back on it to keep the refrigerator and freezer safely cool. We will be upgrading the generator soon to support the existing needs and a new two-bedroom house that we will start on this year.

Potable city water service has been down the road to and past our house for some time. The fact that the pipe has been run does not mean that there is running water though it. The Mechapa water system cannot supply water to all of the homes and businesses they need to serve on a consistent basis. We probably have Mechapa water for a few hours per day tops. As a consequence we now have a 5,000-liter water tank on an elevated platform that can be filled by city water or pumped from our well.

During our February/March trip a meeting was called with all of the residents on the road to Venicia to voice our concerns to the water system manager. After extensive discussions, the water system will switch between three areas of the service area during specific parts of the day so that everyone will know when they will have water on a daily basis. That is not perfect, but certainly an improvement.

Specific to our property we have had a problem of insufficient water pressure. We were counseled that the original 1,500-liter water tank that we installed was not providing the pressure we needed. Our shower was barely a trickle, the toilet took five minutes to fill after flushing and the washing machine started running with half the water needed to clean clothes efficiently. We heard that the addition of a larger tank would remedy the problem. It did not. We ended up adding a pressurized water system and now the pressure in the shower will pin you against the back wall!

Cell service is a function of electrical service. When power goes out, so does cell service and by proxy internet access. Satellite service is available for television and internet, but again without electricity it is still out. Service is available from carriers Claro and Movistar and I can get about a week’s service for cell and internet access on my phone for about $3.

The People

By and large I find the people of Nicaragua to be warm and sincere. That is as far as my limited language skills allow me to experience. We continue to meet wonderful people as we move through all of our experiences in Nicaragua. Our first exposure to the citizens was at the Camino Real Hotel in Managua. It is located three minutes from the airport so our normal 9:00 pm arrival brings us to the Camino Real. The following day or second day we make the 3 ½ hour trip to Mechapa.

While staying at the hotel we told the restaurant workers about the project we were doing in Mechapa. One of the servers said the most interesting thing, she said “Thank you for helping my country”! We find most Nicaraguans to be friendly and helpful. It is like a homecoming when we return to the Camino Real. Hellos and hugs are the order of the day!

Again, it is not always that way. In 2013 our daughter Alicia and her husband Quentin were on the beach walking when a few young men confronted them. Although Alicia spoke fluent Spanish she acted as though she could not. What they were saying was that North Americans are not welcome there. Eventually they gave up and went off. There was and probably still is a nationalistic sense among a component of the population that does not like foreigners. Before you judge these Nicaraguans, remember what a number of your fellow Americans say about persons from other nations coming into our country.

The Government

As of April 24 there is a component of unrest remaining in Nicaragua after some moves that the government of Daniel Ortega proposed related to their version of social security. There was civil unrest in the larger cities with property damage and deaths resulting from the protests. Things have subsided some, but this is the first significant protest that we have seen there. Nonetheless some 60 people were killed.

None of that activity has reached the little village of Mechapa. It is too small and too far removed to have protests be meaningful. That is something we like. Unfortunately we have to shop in Chinandega which is the fifth largest city in Nicaragua with a population of just over 110,000. Since December of 2013 there have been a few protests that did nothing more than stop traffic for a while to protest the announced canal project with a Chinese businessman that has since failed.

We hope that the situation is resolved soon. There is so much at stake beyond the government raiding retirement funds. Nicaragua is in a position to become just as successful a vacation destination as Costa Rica has become. The climate, natural beauty and other resources are in place, but it takes an image of a peaceful country to make all of that work. We can only hope…

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drtanstravels · 7 years ago

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*Just a quick note, there was a problem when I saved this post while I was editing it, thus why some of the links might not work and the layout looks a bit odd, beginning at the part about visiting the hacienda that grows roses. I’ve tried, but I just can’t seem to fix it.

Chinese New Year is over for another year and this is a time that Anna and her friends, Pat and Roshini, like to get away for a little bit. If it is a trip to a resort island in Indonesia or Thailand for example, I will usually give it a miss and let them have a girls’ weekend away. However, if it is a unique once-in-a-lifetime location or event, such as our trip at around the same time last year to Denmark and Sweden in order to eat at Magnus Nilsson’s restaurant, Fäviken, then I’m just going to have to tag along.

Obviously, this most recent trip fits into the latter category, otherwise you would just be sitting there, staring at a blank webpage with a few ads on it. On this particular occasion we would be traveling to Ecuador for a trip that would take place in three parts:

A four-night train trip from Quito, high up in the Andes, down to the city of Durán in the Guayaquil area, located on the coast.

Doing a three-night cruise through the Galápagos Islands.

Spend three nights in Amsterdam, Netherlands en route back to Singapore.

Quite often I get a song stuck in my head when we are traveling so it seemed pretty apt that we were going to be spending the following two weeks in South America and I had randomly heard this song somewhere, installed the earworm and just couldn’t stop singing it for the entirety of our trip (there is an English version, but the Spanish one is more worth it just for the video alone):

That suit is giving ol’ Georgie a rather severe testicle separation in that clip! If you’re like us and don’t speak Spanish, here is the chorus in English:

Una paloma blanca I’m just a bird in the sky Una paloma blanca Over the mountain I fly No one can take my freedom away

“No one can take my freedom away,” yet ironically, that singer would probably have a reasonably difficult time legally staying in the United States at the moment. Anyway, this post is focussing on the first part of our holiday, the train journey, so a little bit of information about that particular leg of the trip from the e-mail we received from Tren Ecuador about our little rail adventure, the “Train of Wonders:”

Our journey begins in the northern Andes of Ecuador, in the valley of Otavalo, as we wind our way through traditional villages to meet craftspeople and enjoy a visit to a rose plantation. Venturing south from Quito, we travel through the famous “Avenue of the Volcanoes,” passing such giants as Cotopaxi and Chimborazo – the closest point on the planet to the sun. After a visit to the truly authentic Andean market of Guamote, we make our way to warmer climes, zig-zagging down the mythical “Devil’s Nose”. After descending the colossal Andes we enter a tropical forest world, then ride through plantations of sugar-cane, rice and cacao, to end our trip in the peaceful plains of the coastal region.

That’s quite a trek and if you’re looking at that map and wondering ‘MSNM’ refers to, it means metres above sea-level. We were all clearly most excited about the Galápagos Islands leg of our holiday (well, maybe except for Pat, but I’ll get to that in the sequel to this post), but this train ride was going to be some fun too. Besides, the night we were to first land in Quito was our seventh wedding anniversary.

Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves though, getting there is always part of the story and this occasion would be no exception.

Monday, February 12, 2018 Roshini and Pat had traveled to Quito several days before us, however, we were unable to leave until just a few minutes before midnight on Sunday because Anna was returning from a conference in Hong Kong on Sunday morning. Yup, she had already sat in a plane for four hours that day before this trip had even kicked off. Our route was supposed to be a thirteen-hour Business Class flight to Amsterdam, Netherlands, a three-hour layover in the airport, and then another 13-hour Economy flight to Quito, Ecuador. Quito is 13 hours behind Singapore so we were due to land in Ecuador at around 4:00pm local time, giving us plenty of time to get a nice anniversary dinner before catching a quiet night in preparation for the early start we had coming up the following morning. Of course, it doesn’t always work that smoothly. There were no hassles with the Singapore to Amsterdam flight, I managed to sleep for a substantial portion of it and then watched most of season nine of Curb your Enthusiasm when I woke. There weren’t any particular holdups in the Amsterdam airport either, besides not being allowed in the airport lounge due to overcrowding, despite having the appropriate pass. When it was finally time, we made our way down to the gate to board our KLM flight bound for Quito, a process which also went smoothly, but that’s where any semblance of order ended. Once we were aboard we were stuck on the tarmac as, due to the temperature in Amsterdam at the time, our plane required de-icing. Eventually, we were told that the process would be available to us in 30 minutes, an announcement after which I promptly fell asleep, only to wake again, still ground-bound with light snow sprinkling down. After being stuck on the tarmac for two hours, we finally departed. Once in the air it became almost impossible to conceive that KLM is the national airline of the Netherlands for several reasons. First of all, the flight attendants were far too large for their job. I’d previously heard rumours of how Singapore Airlines stewardesses receive only one tailored uniform and are forbidden to gain weight, a theory that is somewhat confirmed by some of the statements I’ve hand-picked from this article published in Singapore’s national newspaper, The Straits Times, and although it seems a little extreme, it is feasible to understand why:

National carrier Singapore Airlines expects its flight attendants to have a body mass index (BMI) within a certain range, and those who exceed it will be given time on the ground to get back in shape, it said.

The airline, which focuses on BMI rather than weight, said such crew members will be “given time on (the) ground to focus on their health and to receive guidance on healthy weight management”. This ensures they are able to meet the physical demands of their duties, it added.

Observers felt it was acceptable for airlines to have requirements for flight attendants to have a certain physique, in order to be able to carry out their duties.

Mr David Leong, managing director of PeopleWorldwide Consulting, said: “The aisle of the plane is constrained, and any large-bodied person will have a manoeuvrability issue along the aisle.”

That final quote from David Leong is a salient one. While some may consider suspending an employee for being overweight a tad discriminatory, it is worth noting that your ability to fit inside your workplace is one of the most important tasks you have, which I guess is why I never became a fighter pilot. Well, my size, plus the fact that I’m also kind of a pacifist who has no idea how to fly. For KLM flight attendants on the other hand, being able to walk down the aisle of the plane wasn’t a huge priority. While it’s generally accepted that the Dutch are the world’s tallest nationality, a flight attendant’s body mass index doesn’t really cut it in this case as, despite being in a healthy weight-range, they are still physically too large to do their job. On our flight to Quito there were two female flight attendants who would bump me with their thighs every time they walked past my seat without a care to give, which was approximately every 15 minutes, making it impossible to sleep. Then there was the male flight attendant whose hips were so wide that he had to to turn sideways to walk down the aisle, resulting in me getting a face-full of Dutch man-ass every time he passed. Admittedly, the crew were really nice, but their constant bumps, nudges and sideswipes got a bit much extremely quickly and remember, this was to be our second 13-hour flight of the day. Add to this the terrible food – meatballs that make the ones available at Ikea seem like the epitome of fine dining, followed by a stale microwaved pizza roll, of which Anna’s was dropped on the floor while being served to her – as well as the terrible, yet random, entertainment choices and the increasingly awful smell coming from the toilets and I was begging to get off this plane when we weren’t even half-way through.

We eventually landed at Mariscal Sucre International Airport after a grand total of 31 hours in transit, took a ride with a psychotic cab driver with a death wish for 45 minutes to the Swissotel in the Floresta area of Quito, checked in and then went for our Anniversary dinner at about 8:30pm. We found a place around the corner called Lo Nuestro for some traditional local cuisine, feasting on prawns, beef tripe stew, and black clam ceviche among other dishes, but it couldn’t be a big night though because of our early start the next morning. Besides, thanks to timezones, it had already been our anniversary for about a day-and-a-half. A few scenes from the first full day of what would become an epic trip:

A woman munching down on a chili in Amsterdam Airport Schiphol

Where we would have our anniversary dinner

Eating some great local dishes

Yup, time for bed.

Tuesday, February 13, 2018 Tuesday was to be the beginning of out trek through the Andes, but despite taking all of the necessary precautions, I still had a mild seizure in my sleep so the day is a bit of a blur. The plan was to meet our guides for the next four days, Marcelo and Alex, as well as our sidekicks on this tour in the foyer of the hotel at 7:00am and spend most of the morning on a bus, then onto a train with a few stops along the way. Getting up wasn’t particularly difficult due to jet-lag so we went and had breakfast in the hotel restaurant before meeting up with our companions on this first four-day leg of our fortnight away. Once we saw who we were traveling with, one thing became immediately clear; we would be the only people on this trip under the age of 60! This train journey has been referred to as the world’s “most challenging” railroad and our counterparts on this trip were mostly train enthusiasts and their wives, hailing mainly from Canada and the UK, as well as a couple from San Antonio, Texas. Anna, Pat, Roshini, and myself, however, were here because it just seemed like a cool thing to do and a great opportunity to cut ourselves off from the rest of the world for a bit and relax.

The first part of our bus ride was a two-hour trip north that took us to the valley of Otavalo in the Imbabura Province, the main attraction being the market that sells products made by the local people:

The indigenous Otavalo people are famous for weaving textiles, usually made of wool, which are sold at the famous Saturday market. Although the largest market is on Saturday, there is a very wide range of wares available throughout the week in the Plaza de los Ponchos, and the many local shops. The shops sell textiles such as handmade blankets, tablecloths, and much more.

During the market’s peak, almost one third of the town becomes full of stalls selling textiles, tagua nut jewelry, musical instruments, dream catchers, leather goods, fake shrunken heads, indigenous costumes, hand-painted platters and trays, purses, clothing, spices, raw foods and spools of wool. As the city has become more of a tourist attraction, many of the goods sold in the markets are mass-produced in nearby factories and sold in the market by middle-men.

We spent a substantial amount of time walking around the market and Anna is the master negotiator so she haggled her way to some bargains for us. Obviously, the market wasn’t quite as bustling on a Tuesday as to what you’d expect it to be on a Saturday, but there was still plenty of great stuff available, including the two pipes I ended up purchasing, as well as the scarf that Anna bought. I had also forgotten how small a lot of South Americans are; I’ve lived in Asia for over a decade now and, although a major stereotype about Asians is that they are short, the average native South American is tiny, as you will see, so several locals felt the urge to come and have photos taken with me in the market. Anyway, a bit of what we saw:

Looking out of one window of our hotel room…

…and the other

Anna, Pat, and Roshini hunting for bargains

A nearby mountain behind a random bus (not ours)

I bought two of the pipes on the right

Anna in front of a stall

A wine bottle inside a hoof

Before long it was time to continue our journey, this time to the San Roque Train station where we were greeted by a traditional Ecuadorian band. We boarded our train and were given lunch as we made our way down to the small town of Atuntaqui, a place I just found out is the sister city of Sunchon in North Korea! The entire area is renowned for its textiles, especially the textile market, so we all stopped off at the Museo Fabrica Imbabura [translated from Spanish]:

MUSEUM “IMBABURA TEXTILE FACTORY”: The English and German machinery that dates back to the last century (1900-1925) distributed throughout the different sections: fulling, carding, spinning, weaving, dyeing, among others, that in visit to them is impossible not to imagine going back to that time and feel a deep admiration for our ancestors, because only to understand how to raise that machinery from the port, 400 km away between coast and mountain range, under the transport conditions of that time, it must have been a epic.

We were taken on a tour of what was once the factory floor, the now-retired blue-collar Canadian men feeling the need to knock and bang on every surface to make sure it met their high structural standards. Sure, what we were told about everyday life working in the factory and looking at all of the vintage looms and machinery was interesting enough, but I wish they had’ve focussed more on these types of facts [translated from Spanish]:

The Imbabura Textile Factory operated from 1924 to 1965, the year in which it was closed after the death of one of its administrators, who was attacked by a mob of workers who claimed for their rights after they were subjected to work under a system of exploitation. There were forged several trade unionists who defended the highest rights of the working class.

That’s right, the new owner of the factory was dragged out into the street and stomped to death by the workers! We were told this by Marcelo when he was giving us the history of the factory, however, this stop off would’ve been a lot more interesting if these type of details were the focal point, as opposed to just a tidbit of information, but our Ecuadorian tour was only getting started. It was also strange, some might say perhaps even a little ironic, that inside the museum there was a picture of Fidel Castro mounted next to a photograph of John F. Kennedy. Take a look for yourself:

Me posing in front of the band at the train station

The band doing their thing

A statue out the front of the museum

A guy on an old loom doing his thing

The end result is really nice!

The toilets they used in the factory back in the day. Probably one of the many reason’s the employees revolted.

Why was this hanging next to…

this?

Soon we were back on the train and on to probably the highlight of the train tour for me. We ended up in the village of San Antonio de Ibarra, just south of the city of Ibarra. Ecuador lays on the edge of a tectonic plate, making it prone to earthquakes and volcanoes, a theme you will notice throughout our tour. A large earthquake destroyed most of Ibarra on August 16, 1868 and the city was re-settled in 1872 meaning that the public buildings and churches needed to be rebuilt. It was most likely for this reason that a lot of the religious iconography in Ecuador is hand-carved out of wood, as opposed to stone or marble, but it is almost impossible to tell the difference. In fact, the work is so good that the Pope even owns a piece:

San Antonio is famous for its wood artisans. For this is called also the Capital of wood artisans. Pope Francis, during his July 2015 visit to Ecuador, received a wood sculpture made by Jorge Villalba, born in San Antonio, as a gift.

There are dozens of these workshops throughout the town, but unfortunately, the website for the specific workshop and showroom we visited isn’t working at the moment so it is difficult to get any exact details. We were taken on a tour of the workshop that showed the many stages of making these masterpieces out of cedar. It all begins exactly as you’d expect, with a person roughly hacking away at a block with a hammer and chisel, then smoothed out with a rasp, then a file, and finally sandpaper. The arms and hands of each piece are carved separately due to the difficulty and detail involved in creating the hands, as anyone who has even tried to draw an anatomically correct hand would be aware, and attached later. The pieces are then painted and gold leaf is added before the final step in the larger pieces, the creation of the eyes. The eyes are made from the white glass of old fluorescent light tubes, moulded into shape and the pupils painted on the reverse side. The finished product is simply stunning:

Entering the workshop

For how time-consuming this must be, they churn out a lot of them

Doing work

Work in progress

An arm

A few hands

a few more pieces on the go

Almost done

Don’t worry, you’ll read about this one soon

Shroud of Turin

A finished product, san hands

The crucifixion

Several other finished pieces

We were handed a finished piece, this time a bust, to pass around and these look so much like statues carved from stone that one woman in our tour remarked, “they’re light, aren’t they?”, completely forgetting she was holding a chunk of painted wood. One of the more redneck Canadians in our group wrongly thought it would be amusing to ask if the three hooded characters (pictured, above) were of the Ku Klux Klan, a question which was met with an uncomfortable silence, then a “no,” followed by which religious figures they actually were. There’s one in every group.

After the wood-carving workshop we had a look around a train station before jumping back on the bus again and were taken to a hacienda in Cayambe that is one of the largest cultivators and exporters of roses. ‘Hacienda’ is a term you’ll be seeing a lot in this post so I guess it is best to clarify the definition first:

hacienda (n.) [hah-see-en-duh; Spanish ah-syen-dah]

A large landed estate, especially one used for farming or ranching.

The main house on such an estate.

A stock raising, mining, or manufacturing establishment in the country.

The hacienda on this particular occasion was the Hacienda la Compania, the house of which was a giant mansion from the early 19th century. We were fed some great local food and taken on a tour of the facilities, mainly a giant greenhouse where the roses are grown, but, being the day before Valentine’s Day, they were extremely busy and we couldn’t help but feel like we were in the way. Still, a quick glimpse:

Outside a church near the hacienda

Some roses inside the hacienda

And more

Anna with some roses

Roshini and Anna chowing down

Still more roses

The told us they purposely dye these ugly roses for the Chinese market

The roses never end!

At least they name them after decent bands

It had been a pretty packed day so we boarded the bus again and headed back to Quito. There were two options for accommodation on this tour, Standard or Gold class, and the four of us, as well as Jim and Charlotte, the couple from San Antonio, Texas forked out a little extra for Gold class throughout the tour. That meant on this occasion we would be spending the night at the Plaza Grande Hotel, which is described on the Tren Ecuador website as:

In the heart of Quito UNESCO World Heritage old quarter and with five centuries of history, Hotel Plaza Grande stands on the corner from the Presidential palace and is built on the lot that was originally granted to Francisco Pizarro, Governor of Peru. The original building, the first colonial house built in the newly founded city of Quito, suffered multiple renovations during its long history, being home to different wealthy families.

In the early XXth century it housed the first luxury hotel in the city. After a careful restoration it re opened its doors in 2007 offering 15 luxury suites with breathtaking views of the city’s historical quarter, a renowned restaurant, a spectacular terrace and a well-stocked cellar.

The Hotel Grande Plaza definitely didn’t disappoint and due to a combination of jet-lag and such a busy day, that extra comfort was definitely a welcome relief. We were in bed quite early, it was just a shame that we’d only be spending one night here:

Arriving back in Quito

Looking one way down the street out the front of the hotel…

…and the other

Just part of our room

Someone seems pleased

Part of the view from our balcony

looking the other way

Wednesday, February 14, 2018 It was another 7:00am start, however, getting up on time wasn’t an issue due to the joy that is jet-lag. Falling asleep the previous night wasn’t difficult for either of us, we were both exhausted, it was remaining asleep that was the problem. Anyway, we got up, had breakfast, took the bus to Quito’s Chimbacalle station, looking around the area a bit before boarding the train. We were welcomed aboard with a glass of champagne each and were briefed on what was going to happen over the course of the day, but the champagne wasn’t a particularly good option for all of us. Pat had decided not to drink so Anna had hers as well, a move she would later regret. Anna and myself had been in the Andes before when we did a trek through the mountains and then visited Machu Pichu in Peru in 2016 and Anna suffered quite badly from altitude sickness on that trip, something that didn’t really affect me for some reason. On that occasion we reached altitudes of almost 4,500 metres (14,700 feet) above sea level and although Quito isn’t quite that high, at an elevation of 2,850 metres (9,350 feet) above sea level it is still up there and is the second-highest capital city in the world, falling behind only La Paz in Bolivia. To put that in perspective, Denver, Colorado is known as “The Mile High City” and sporting teams playing there claim that the elevation impacts their performance, particularly resulting in breathing difficulties and lightheadedness. Denver is only 1,609 metres (5,280 feet) above sea level, or 56% of the altitude at which we were. After about an hour on the train, Anna began to feel sick, Pat is borderline narcoleptic, and Roshini was still jet-lagged too so the three of them all just nodded off as we made our way through the Avenue of Volcanoes until it was time for our next stop. A few of the sights from that morning:

A church near the train station

A statue nearby

Anna, myself, Pat, and Roshini in the kids’ carriage

Leaving Quito

…past a cornfield…

Making our way through the mountains…

…and into a valley

Coca tea made her feel better

Our train was equipped with a fully stocked bar, but I doubt we would be making much use of that until we were out of the mountains. Instead, especially for Anna, it would be coca tea, which is supposed to help relieve the symptoms of altitude sickness. Getting out and walking helps a little too so she’d be fine soon. Our next stop was an Andean hacienda and this one would be interesting for one particular reason — Pat never really grew up with pets so she has a bit of a phobia of animals. Essentially all animals, and this extremely rural hacienda was a giant farm so things could get quite entertaining very quickly. The hacienda was mainly used for raising llamas, but was also the home for Chagras, or Ecuadorian cowboys. These guys were pretty skilled and because it was Valentine’s Day, the first display they put on for us was to ride up and attempt to put a stick through rings which were suspended from a horizontal rope hanging overhead and then give them to the women in the group:

Roshini was one of the lucky ladies to be gifted a ring, but unfortunately she was also required to return it, a policy any recipient of those horrendous multi-cloured roses probably wishes was in place. Next up was several of the chagras roping a calf, something that must be a lot more difficult than it looks!:

We watched some other activities such as bullfighting and were then taken on a tour of the hacienda and this was definitely no new property. The walls were all made of a combination of compressed mud and straw, yet they were actually quite structurally sound, even the now-retired blue-collar Canadians agreed, and had stood the test of time, still standing perfectly today. Anna and Roshini decided to hang out with the llamas for a bit and, although she had handled the presence of animals well, Pat declined the offer to join them:

Chagras upon arrival

Let the show begin

Just thinking about llama stuff

I have wracked my brain and cannot imagine what he could be singing about besides llamas

A ring for Rosh

A few rope tricks

A group of llama farmers

Bullfighting

The hacienda from the outside

Roshini, Anna, and some llamas. No Pat, though.

Llama-skin chaps on the banister

I’m glad I don’t have to shower here

The foundation of the building

Soon we were back on the train and moving again, which meant we were sleeping again, myself included this time, prompting one of the Canadians to ask if we had had a big one the night before, but it didn’t last long. We had to stop briefly in a town while a mechanical problem on the train was fixed, possibly the shredder that mulched anything that went into the toilet once it was flushed, and had seen some people spraying each other with white foam and water in the street. Why? Because it was the end of Carnival in Ecuador and we were also given a taste of it once we were back aboard the train. But what is Carnival?

Carnival is a Catholic holiday that has blended with Andean traditions to become a huge festival. The idea is to express as much craziness as possible before the reflective period of Lent, called Cuaresma in Ecuador. Most Andean communities celebrate Carnival in a small way, with neighborhood parties and lots of troublemaking.Most of the rabble-rousing is good fun and harmless. Be prepared for lots of espuma orcarioca, party foam that will fly at the least expected moments. A more affordable option is water and many people will arm themselves with water guns or toss buckets full of water from rooftops, open windows, and doorways at passersby. The worst is the colored flour. Brightly tinted bread flour is tossed into hair and onto clothing. If you are already wet with party foam or water, the flour becomes immediate sludge, almost impossible to remove.

Drinking is just a part of Carnival. In fact, many parade participants will start drinking before the parade even begins. During the parade, it is not uncommon to find chicha de jora, a fermented drink made from corn, shared along the route. One of the more famous towns to celebrate Carnaval is Guaranda, home to the infamous white liquor called Pajaro Azul, or Blue Bird. It should come as no surprise that this town is also known for the wildest celebrations.

We were also told it was a time when labourers would get drunk, dance, don masks and anonymously prank their bosses, which is what some of the employees aboard the train did. The music started, people in devil masks handed out shots of blue bird (which the girls obviously refused), and then the partying began. I had one of the women with a toy devil try to dance with me, but when she put her arm around me, one of the horns poked me where the sun doesn’t shine. Not particularly pleasant, but I don’t enjoy dancing in general, anyway:

Coming down the aisle

Your assumptions are correct, he wasn’t the partying type

The masks are pretty cool

The doll that Roshini is holding possesses the horn that poked me

Awkward

While we were on our way, our other guide, Alex, kept talking about a section of our track that was called ‘The Devil’s Ear,’ referring to it in near mythical, hushed tones, however, it really just turned out to be simply a bridge. Somewhat anticlimactic, hopefully ‘The Devil’s Nose’ the following day would be a little more impressive, but we had our doubts.

We had one more stop for the day and that was to meet the Last Ice Merchant, a 73-year-old man by the name of Baltazar Ushca who still climbs mountains to chip off glacial ice and sell it at markets for US$5.00 for 60 lb (27.2 kg). He, and many of the locals, believe that the fossilised ice has extra vitamins and minerals, as well as the fact that it takes a lot longer to melt. A little background info:

When Baltazar Ushca started climbing Chimborazo volcano as a child with his father and younger brothers to learn the trade, almost no one knew the summit of the mighty volcano is the closest point to the sun from the center of the earth, and almost no one cared. They would get a very early morning start for a 4-hour climb to the skirts of glacier-covered Mount Chimborazo. After a day of pickaxe hard work, the ice- harvesters would take their six to eight packs per person load down to Riobamba markets. In those days Chimborazo ice was very sought after for food preservation, and also for the famous hand-made ice creams.

With the advent of ice factories and a refrigerator in every kitchen, the ice business became a too dangerous, underpaid job. One by one, the ice merchants left the mountain and found other jobs, until only Baltazar was left. Nowadays, he still climbs every Thursday and Friday with his faithful mules, to carve the ice from the flanks of Taita Chimborazo.

There was a short documentary made about him a few years back which has afforded him a a newfound fame, take a look:

It seems like a prime example of not realising your job is now obsolete, kind of like if you were still the manager of a Blockbuster Video franchise, however, thanks to the documentary, he makes most of his income from tourism and only climbs twice a week now. Uscha speaks a regional dialect, so he told his story to his daughter, who then translated it into Spanish for Marcelo, our guide, who in turn told us in English. We then got to meet Uscha and try some of the handmade ice-cream and I don’t mean to be rude, but I’d be lying if I said he didn’t smell strongly of donkey shit. As for the ice-cream, it didn’t contain any dairy, just churned ice and fruit and it had a bit of a dirt flavour as well, however, he you have to respect a guy who still works that hard at that age in job that is now redundant. You could tell that his daughter was getting a bit tired of this routine though:

Approaching our next stop

Some locals who came out to sing for us

Yes, he is standing on the same level floor as I am

The mountain he climbs for ice

Making the ice-cream, ironically in front of a freezer

Anna and yours truly with our ice-creams. We were offered seconds, but one was enough

Soon it was time to make the last leg of our trip for the day. That night we stayed in another hacienda and ate meat and seafood cooked on a hot stone while a traditional local band played. Good times.

Thursday, February 15, 2018

Another early start, this time about 6:30am. We took a stroll around our hacienda after breakfast and then boarded our train — this time led by a coal-powered steam engine known as the Black Monster– and got moving again. Today wasn’t going to be quite as crazy as previous days, we made our way through the heart of the Andes, passing colourful quinoa fields and enormous cemeteries on our way to making our first stop in the district of Colta, where Spanish conquerors made their first settlement in Ecuador, to switch over to a diesel locomotive. While we were stopped we had a look around another local market that had roasted guinea pigs and incredible looking roast pork available. I was tempted, but it was still early and our lunch was being provided at another market so I just settled for buying a traditional Ecuadorian woollen mask and then we had a look at the Iglesia de Balbanera [translated from Spanish]:

It is the main attraction of Colta, the first church built on Ecuadorian soil, so its beauty is historic. Built by the Spaniards, its style of construction is colonial, its stone façade is the only witness of its history, you can get a fantastic view of the snow-capped Chimborazo.

Apparently, and due to a plaque that stands out in Balbanera, it is believed that this temple is the oldest in the country. Although its date of creation is not known with certainty, it is presumed that it was inaugurated on August 15, 1534.

The Europeans chose this plain to build the first Catholic church of the Royal Audience of Quito, dedicated to the adoration of the Virgin Mary as a souvenir to the Abbey of the Virgin of Valvanera, in the province of Logroño of the Iberian Peninsula.

However, such construction was not the one that currently stands on the left side of the road to Riobamba, but a humble hut of adobe and stone covered with straw and torn down by the cruel earthquake of February 4, 1797, which destroyed much of Riobamba and other populations along the inter-Andean alley.

But that place was already considered “sacred”, so the villagers rebuilt the temple with beautiful architecture and delicate simplicity.

That’s right, the original church was destroyed by an earthquake over 200 years ago, but the locals decided to just put the pieces back together how they best fit in order to rebuild the church! Furthermore, according to our guides, this process has occurred more than once, hence the jumbled and non-linear look of the building’s architecture. As for the interior, it was fully equipped with the wooden sculptures we saw being crafted days earlier:

Just a portion of the enormous cemetary

Guine pigs roasting over an open fire

Damn, that pork looks tasty

The market from a distance

My new mask

Iglesia de Balbanera

The left side of the church’s entrance…

…and the right

Next we were on to one of the more fascinating stops on our tour, the Guamote market, described in our guide for the train tour as “one of the last truly indigenous markets in the Andes.” That description barely even cuts the mustard, but this one should give you a better idea:

The canton of Guamote is the most traditional region in Ecuador. 95% of the population is Indigenous (while in the whole of Ecuador it is only 25%). Guamote itself has about 5,000 inhabitants, but in the mountains surrounding Guamote another 40,000 people live in small communities.

The greatest asset of Guamote is the weekly indigenous market, one of the biggest and most traditional markets in South America. Every Thursday the people from the communities come to Guamote to sell their fruit, sheep, pigs, guinea pigs, cows, hats, clothing,…

Far away from all tourist traps, this is a market by and for indigenous people, one of the most authentic things you can see in Ecuador, and more than that, something you can really experience. This market is an adventure for all your senses, a chaos of smells, colors, sounds and impressions; and smiling and kind faces everywhere. This is the strength of Guamote: its people. The sincerity and friendliness of the people here is impressive. Despite of the big poverty that still exists here, people are very grateful and optimistic.

Upon arrival, we were told by our guide, Alex, that Guamote was pretty much a ghost town any other day of the week, not a whole lot of people live in the town itself, but is bustling on Thursdays when the market is on. It was almost impossible to believe when we saw just how busy the place was, but the crowd was also probably a little larger due to Carnival and the parade being held at the market, as well as the accompanying rodeo in a makeshift stadium built just out of town. As we entered we saw people walking pigs and sheep on leashes and we were given about half-an-hour to wander around through the stalls selling handicrafts, clothing, and food, as well as the parade, before it we were taken into a special building for lunch. Before we left for Ecuador, I had watched an episode of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations based in this country and he kept saying how good the beef tripe stew was, hence why I had it the night we arrived. It was great, but that was at a restaurant though, the one at the market seemed more “authentic” and I was tempted to try it, however, I do have somewhat of a history of getting food poisoning quite easily and our meals were already provided so I decided to give it a miss. Some people working at the market tend to get a bit offended if you take photos and don’t buy anything, but I managed to get some of those that didn’t seem to mind, as well as the parade:

Just walking my sheep

That looks like a massive pig, but people here are really small

Grillin’ some chicken feet

This little piggy went to market (shit joke, I know)

I guess we’re taking the bus from here

Anna and some fruit

Me with some different fruit

The stew I was referring to

People just milling around

A rather obedient sheep

The parade getting under way

Some dancers

More dancers

This guy went a little too hard, too fast, it was barely noon when I snuck this photo. Also, I’m fairly certain the Oakland Raiders aren’t in the NBA

The makeshift rodeo stadium as seen from the bus

As we were leaving on the bus for our next destination, Alex told us a rather interesting fact as to why the indigenous people of Ecuador wear hats and can be a tad on the nose, such as the Last Ice Merchant was, as well as why they wear hats; it was because Ecuadorians who worked in the haciendas were forbidden to shower, as it meant they intended to flirt so they wore hats to prevent the spread of lice, a tradition many still practice today.

The rest of our trip for the day was to be done by bus, except for our final stop, ‘The Devil’s Nose.’ I didn’t hold out much hope for The Devil’s Nose, due mainly to how utterly shite The Devil’s Ear was, but when we found out a little more information about the Nose, I became more optimistic:

History confirms the Devil’s Nose deserves its name. Work started in 1899, with about 3,000 Jamaicans and 1,000 Puerto Ricans brought in to work on the project. The number of men that died during construction is estimated at around 2,000 making this work pretty much a deathwish.

The goal was to connect the railroad from Quito to Guayaquil and the greatest obstacle to building the railroad was a near-vertical wall of rock, known as El Nariz del Diablo (The Devil’s Nose), which connects Alausi to Sibambe (mid-way between Quito and Cuenca). The engineering solution was to carve a series of tight switchbacks out of the rock, which allowed the train to descend 500 meters by zigzagging ahead past a junction, then backing down the next section, before going forward again to get trains down the rock face.

When it says the train descends 500 metres (1,640 feet), it doesn’t mention that it does so over a distance of just 12 km (7.5 miles). Add in the fact that The Devil’s Nose is one of, if not the most difficult train journeys and ranks in the Top 10 Most Dangerous Train Routes in the World and we could be in for a fun afternoon. We arrived at Alausi train station and took a seat in the vintage boxcars and made the stressful descent deep into the Chanchan River Gorge and back up again, taking in the cloudy, yet breathtaking scenery along the way:

Arriving in Alausi

Alausi from a distance

Pretty close to the edge

The visibility is kind of low, too

Still have quite a way to go

but it is definitely beautiful here

Heading back up

Getting higher…

We went down that mountain in a 100-year-old train!

With Alex and Marcelo

The train in which we did the trek

A giant beetle we found near the station

The Devil’s Nose was supposed to be the most frightening moment of the day, however, that turned out to be the four-hour bus ride to hacienda where we would be spending the night. We had to wind our way through a very thick fog that gave very little visibility in the mountains, some heavy rain and the aftermath of both constant landslides and mini-avalanches that left the road either partially blocked or missing and forcing us to take blind turns on the wrong side of the road, but we eventually made it. Again, Anna and Pat pretty much slept through the whole thing.

Friday, February 16, 2018

It was the final day of our tour, warranting us a well-deserved sleep-in. The hacienda we were staying at on this occasion was a cocoa bean plantation so we learnt about the harvesting of the beans, as well as the chocolate making process and got to try some pretty decent chocolate, of which Anna felt a need to buy a bunch of blocks, all while peacocks walked around the grounds (right).

After lunch we were back on the train and made our final stop before we travel over to the Galápagos Islands, our hotel in the coastal city of Guayaquil. The ride there was spent hanging out and partying with our guides and the staff aboard the train and that night, the four of us grabbed dinner and had a few drinks, the girls chatting amongst themselves while I watched the Celebrity and Rising Stars games of the NBA All-Star Weekend, bringing and end to this leg of our tour.

I would recommend the Tren Ecuador tour to anyone who is heading to South America, especially our ‘Train of Wonders’ tour. The guides are fun and knowledgeable, and the rest of the people you encounter are really helpful and friendly too.

On a side not, one interesting occurrence is that over the course of our tour, people all through Ecuador, both adults and children, got really excited when they saw the train go through their town or by their home and felt the need to wave enthusiastically, getting even more excited when you wave back:

But enough of this epic rant about our train tour, on to stage two of our holiday, the Galápagos Islands!

We packed a hell of a lot into our four-day train tour of Ecuador so I hope you have your reading glasses handy. *Just a quick note, there was a problem when I saved this post while I was editing it, thus why some of the links might not work and the layout looks a bit odd, beginning at the part about visiting the hacienda that grows roses.

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dillenwaeraa · 7 years ago

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How Will Voice Devices Affect the Future of Search?

The world of search is on the verge of massive change. The rise of voice search, the Internet of Things, and digital personal assistants are all coming together to change how we search.

Imagine a world without search boxes, without browsers, where you get one answer via voice to your search query. How will you prepare for all this change?

I asked two expert futurists, Duane Forrester (VP Industry Insights, Yext) and Brent Csutoras (Founder and CEO, Pixel Road Designs) to join me for a live video discussion of these topics. Together, we seek to show you how to position yourself now to survive and thrive in this brave new world.

Watch the video below, or scroll down to read a transcript.

youtube

Curious about how the rise of voice-powered search might impact your digital marketing? Check out these resources:

Rating the Smarts of the Digital Personal Assistants – We asked 5000 questions to Google Home, Amazon Alexa, Microsoft Cortana, Apple Siri, and Google Search. See which was best at answering basic factual questions.

The Next Big Thing: Digital Personal Assistants – Get my take on why all search marketers should be paying attention to personal digital assistants, and how they will affect SEO.

Mobile Voice Usage Trends 2018 – My survey shows how comfortable real, everyday smartphone and smart devices users are with giving voice commands to those devices in various circumstances.

Transcript

Eric: Hello everybody, this is Eric Enge with Stone Temple Consulting. I am thrilled to bring to you this “Get ready for the Voice Search Revolution” video broadcast. Say hi, Mr. Duane Forrester. (Follow Duane on Twitter)

Duane: Hello everybody.

Eric: And say hi Mr. Brent Csutoras. (Follow Brent on Twitter)

rent: Hello, hello. Excited to be here.

Eric: So the reason why it’s the three of us guys is we’ve had our own private club for a while that we call the Futurism Group, where we talk at ridiculous lengths about stupid and unreasonable things that might happen when we’re older.

Brent: They are all reasonable. They’re reasonable.

Duane: Eric, they’re reasonable because we’re just going to extend human life by another 40 years and then everything becomes fine.

Brent: I know, I still find it a horrible icebreaker that the first thing I typically say to people is, “You know, I’m never going to die.” And then they go, “Ha ha” and then I go, “No, I’m very serious.” I have no intention of ever dying, ever.

Duane: It’s probably better than you think it is Brent, because I often start conversations with, “Hey, have you heard Brent Csutoras is never going to die?”

Brent: Yes, you see. There you go.

Duane: It’s a great way to start conversations.

Eric: It is a great icebreaker for sure. Actually, what I was going to say before you guys jumped in, is that every once in a while, we’re right. And today we want to talk about something that I think we’re all convinced we’re right about. And to open it up, I’m going to share just a few slides.

Is voice device use on the rise?

So here’s market data on the adoption of voice.

I love the quote on the right here from Andrew Ng, the Chief Scientist at Baidu, who is also a brilliant machine learning person by the way, that at least 50% of searches by 2020 are going to be through images or speech, which is by itself amazing. And that ties really well into our agenda of this being a voice search conversation.

By 2020, 50% of all searches will be voice-initiated - Andrew NG of Baidu.Click To Tweet

Brent: So he’s anticipating in two years then, essentially in 2020, we would be at that place, right?

Eric: Correct.

Duane: Well, remember that quote is a couple of years old now.

Eric: That is true.

Duane: Right? I think we’re maybe three years into the five year time frame essentially.

Eric: That’s correct.

Duane: And I’ve got to be honest, from where I’m sitting, I generally think we’re pretty close to being on trend for that statement.

Eric: I agree.

Brent: I disagree, but that’s fine.

Eric: Well, look at May of 2016, right? 25% of searches on the Windows 10 taskbar are voice searches. That’s 2016.

Brent: Yes. But you also have to anticipate how many people are experimenting right now. And you always see a massive growth in any new technology with experimenters. Right now, with the number of purchases for a lot of these devices, the Google Home, the Alexa, a lot of these elements have a lot of experimental use right now.

Eric: You’re trying to say the three of us are the ones that are doing all the searches and we’re making up 50%.

Brent: Yes, exactly.

Eric: So, some data from comScore.

Half of smartphone users engaged with voice technology on their device, and many of them use the feature habitually. One in three use it daily. That’s comScore data.

Half of all smartphone users have used voice technology on their phones. 1 out of 3 use it daily (comScore data).Click To Tweet

So now we’re talking more broadly about smartphone usage, so not just voice search. We’ll talk about that in a moment.

And then here’s data from the Stone Temple study that we just published.

The dark green bars are 2017 and the lighter green bars are 2018 data. You’ll notice that the first three responses fluctuate, but everything from the fourth bar over is strongly in favor of 2018. And if you look at that, you realize that most of those are about behavior in public.

According to many data sources, the use of voice to interact with devices continues to rise.Click To Tweet

Brent: Yes. I want to know who’s doing it in the theater. Who’s that person in the theater who’s using voice…?

Duane: Why is there so much growth in the theater voice use space and in the public restroom voice use space? I’m sorry.

Eric: 25% that were, according to the survey, likely or very likely to use voice commands with their smartphone in a public restroom. My favorite way of explaining what they’re doing, is just that they’re asking: “Where’s the toilet paper?”

Duane: It was on instant delivery.

Eric: I think smart speakers are the spark that this revolution has been looking for. And I know what you were saying earlier, Brent, so I definitely want to get your take on this before we go on, but people are getting conditioned to use voice with devices through smart speakers, and there was about 45 million installed in the U.S. today. But go ahead, comment on that before I show the last one.

Is voice search ready for prime time?

Brent: I think that there’s definitely a space for people utilizing voice search, and smart speakers are a big part of that, especially in the car as well. When you have your smartphone, it becomes a voice speaker. I’ll constantly ask questions when I’m in the car because I’m driving.

I think there’s a couple things that make me feel that even though this is a huge talking point, even amongst ourselves, I don’t really buy into the timeline of this being adopted [so soon], because of the fact that, through all of my interactions, even with my children who are really the best use case of this, we’re starting to see more normal language search queries. People are less trying to do the individual keywords and they’re trying to talk to these devices like they were a real human being.

And they’re having to ask questions four or five times. I run into situations where almost every time I try to use voice search, I end up having to repeat. It doesn’t pick up fast enough, so I’m talking too quickly, and I get in half a sentence. It sends me down a rabbit hole, which now I have to figure out and most of the time my response is “ah, screw it, I’m going to look on the computer or you know what, I’ll just type it in myself.”

So, I do think that even though there’s a lot of usage and there’s a lot of experimentation, I don’t hear people like Duane talk about how he uses his smart devices and think to myself, “Man, I want to do that.” I have an Alexa right here, but I never schedule a meeting or an appointment through my voice search. I just don’t remember to do those things. And maybe the younger generation will, but I think that the inability for the technology to truly allow an engagement to happen, I think it’s going to delay this a little longer than we think it will.

Duane: I’m going to challenge Brent slightly on this. Brent I think you’re speaking of these things from a completely rational standpoint. I get it because I’ve questioned that whole thing as well.

We saw all of the numbers over the holidays of devices that were sold, and how the Echo was the number one device by a long shot. So, naturally you have all these new people that are trying this, and they’re yelling at their devices and some are succeeding, some are failing, and for some of them the novelty wears off and they don’t understand how to position it in their lives.

I think what ends up happening though is each of us individually is on our own curve, and we do find a point where we come back and say, “I haven’t used it in six months because I haven’t really felt a useful need for it. And now I’m going to try this because this appeals to me.” It’s that one moment in time of value-add in the life that immediately gets the person hooked on using it all the time. It is a precipitous cliff when you adopt this technology in your life.

So, on the other end we see the so-called millennials and Gen Z. Those folks are much more apt to adopt the new technology. Get in there, try it, play with it, do those things.

Eric: Right. I’ll tell you what was my precipitous event. I wasn’t actually that much of a user myself. My wife and I were out to dinner at a friend’s house, and they had an Alexa installed. They were already heavy users. They had already gone over the cliff. I saw them using it, and I said, “Okay, it’s time for me to get off my butt and push the envelope on how we’re using it.” And now we’ve got all kinds of things that are being controlled. We actually have both an Alexa and Google Home. We play with them both and we get lots of questions answered.

Problems with speech recognition

Brent: I’ll jump in and say that I don’t disagree. My brother, he has all his lights set up with smart technology, so we’ll be sitting there and watching a movie and he’ll go, “Hey Alexa, turn off the movie lights,” and the lights go off. And then I saw him accidentally say “master lights” instead–it was 3:00 in the morning and his wife was sleeping–and the master lights were about to go on. And so, he’s saying, “Hey Alexa, turn on master–no wait, no not master, movie.” It was funny. But my dad’s also disabled. He’s bedridden, and he uses Alexa a lot for his technology.

But I think the second side of this is not so much me hating the adoption, but it also has a lot to do with data, right? We have such a hard time right now because I want to embrace at a fully functional level a technology that’s not capable of delivering [what I’m looking for].

I think that holds me back on my personal adoption, because when I search for a song, and Alexa doesn’t have that song inside of its music inventory, then it gives me some other music; it suggests something different or it plays something different. When I tell my device I want directions to a certain place and that place is not found, then I find those pitfalls.

So, I just don’t think that in the next two years we’re going to get there fully. I feel like there’s more energy on AI and augmented reality and virtual reality as far as research and development and investment and focus.

I feel like there’s a chance that this “voice personal assist-type engagement” will morph into a different form by the time it comes to a place where it has the easy adoption, the easy interface, and the technology to really support that data.

Duane: Before we go down the…

Brent: The rabbit hole?

Duane: “Augmented reality path” we’ll call it because that is exciting. But first, there are two things that I need to call out.

One, Brent, your point about your father using assisted technologies to literally enable parts of his life is a rapidly growing segment of a user base. I don’t recall this happening before. It’s difficult to recall the number of times historically that an older generation of users has come into a new technology and then adopted it because it made their life better. I’m thinking electricity; I’m thinking the telephone. This is what we’re going to see as people’s eyesight starts to fail them as they get older and it’s harder to read. They will literally turn to these technologies.

So I think we’re going to see a very big swell from this past sales cycle that will drive us. Whether we ultimately reach 50% or not, I don’t know. I think we will, but then again, we could just as easily not.

Alexa and the low-hanging fruit of voice activation

Duane: Something that is fascinating though, and I think you guys may have picked up on this as well, the Amazon ad from the Super Bowl. Alexa’s lost her voice. I had tears in my eyes, and I watched it over and over and over again because, you know, it’s funny, it’s enjoyable, it’s well executed, it’s really well done.

But there was a subtle message in there that is not a spoken message and, it’s literally summed up in the closing moments of the ad when Alexa comes back and says, “Everybody thanks, I’ve got this.”

youtube

Effectively what Amazon is telling everyone is the minutiae of your life, the little things, connecting you with the people that matter, getting you the entertainment that you want, taking care of things in the background of your life when you’re not able to focus on them, music at a dinner event–for all of these things, we got your back. We got it. You don’t need to think about it anymore, Alexa has it.

This is fascinating to me because it makes me wonder, Brent, to your point, every time a new Skill hits, I’m running the Skill, trying something out, like finding where the edges are and what works and what doesn’t work. One of my current big beefs is every time if I ask a [third party] Skill something and I get the answer in Alexa’s voice, I want to rage at the company and tell them, “You’re missing a golden opportunity to create your own persona,” that is your brand.

Why would you let somebody else’s brand serve your brand and knowledge?” But I also think that there is a lot of opportunity here and so many times these things are very limited in what they’re doing. So, at that front end that you were talking about, Brent, I want to go whole hog on all of it, right? And I want it all and I want my life to be exponentially better and easier because that’s the promise of the technology.

We are not there, but things like that ad make me wonder about the areas that they’re calling out, that they are effectively demonstrating that they have mastery over. Is that an indication of the main areas that consumers are focused on?

Eric: Yes, I think so. It’s the layup things that they can do reasonably easily and extremely well. Brent’s comments about the issues with level of speech recognition granted, the last thing that they could afford to do is have a very thin music library. I get that they might not have the specific song that you asked for, but that’s pretty rare probably, right? They have a pretty robust library.

Duane: Eric, we should probably just admit this, right? Brent, I’m just going to come clean on behalf of Eric and I, those instances when your Alexa device fails you, that’s because Eric and I have hacked your Wi-Fi and we’re blocking the question.

Brent: Ah, I gotcha.

Eric: That music is actually in there. Those directions? We hacked those too. [Laughter]

Voice on devices is more than just search

Brent: You know what I think is really interesting though with the statement from Amazon? It’s that Amazon has done a better job in some regards at accomplishing the internet goal, right? If you think about what Google’s goal was, if you think about what Facebook’s goal was, “connect the world,” and Google’s goal is to provide information, right?

It seems that Amazon has really come in at the right time to accomplish that for people, and they’ve done that by reforming the shopping cycle. They did that right from the start with reviews. You couldn’t get a better place to actually find if a product was good than Amazon. They set the standard for same day shipping, for cheap shipping, for free shipping. They’ve set the standard for a lot of areas, and I think it’s really interesting that they’re pushing into that space and they’re taking that step.

I think another thing you touched on was the fact that as much as we as marketers think we know, it’s super important to identify storytelling. One of the studies I love says that the reason humans are successful is that we can tell stories.

Pack animals can’t communicate a story, they can’t get a sense of a standard that all wolves can live by. So they have only 20 or 30 [in their pack], and then they don’t like any other wolves, and they’ll fight to the death the minute they see them. But we have a confidence that when we walk down the street in a city we’ve never been to, that we’re going to be approached and dealt with in a certain manner because of our shared stories.

So, I think one of the things that was really important when Instagram and Snapchat and a lot of these things started coming out, and even when social media became popular, is people were saying this isn’t going to grab hold. I think it was a lesson for us to focus more on how people storytell.

So, I think that we are seeing a transition. We’re seeing video and imagery and interactions–storytelling being really the desired and the most effective form. This voice search–and we call it voice search just for the sake of calling it that–this voice interactive technology really does take us toward improving the way we story-tell and the way we hear stories in our life. I think that’s exciting.

Eric: Picking up on something you just alluded to, which is that we call this voice search because that’s what the market is calling it. But that’s not what it really is. It’s voice-activated control, or voice activated input, call it whatever you want. “Search” makes it sound like you’re just using it to do things in Google or Bing, but it’s much, much bigger than that. So, I think that that’s really important for us to keep in mind here.

Duane: I think that’s true. Just before we started we were having this debate about what’s the right name for this event. Everybody defaults to voice search. I find when I’m writing about stuff, I’m trying to avoid using the phrase voice search because that feels very limiting to me. And it’s really about so much more than just search.

Brent: Well, it was like my email to you guys before we started this call. I wrote: I know we’re supposed to talk about voice search, but I don’t really want to talk about voice search.

Duane: Exactly. But it’s fascinating because as you dive into this–and I’ve spent time with the folks at Amazon, the folks at Cortana, the folks at Google Assistant–it’s really fascinating because they do not have a focused storyline that matches with search. What they’re focused on is consumer experience, discovery, and solutions.

Search is a part of those cycles, but it’s a relatively small part of it. Then if you move your head around to that line of thinking, this is where you start understanding the conversations like persona. And we all talk persona as marketers and we think demographics, let’s put a face on the person and so on.

When one of the search engines or Amazon talks about persona, they literally talk about Cortana’s persona and how that is a reflection of the brand which is a reflection of the company. So, when I see Skills or actions fail and default to the pre-programmed Alexa or Google Assistant voice, I think it’s a missed opportunity. Why would you take that shortcut?

When you start having those conversations, you realize how broad, how wide open this space truly is. There’s so much to consider beyond the aspect of being found in search and spoken out loud. It’s why this is so important.

If you watch that Amazon ad, it goes almost immediately into visual search where the device is showing visual information alongside [the voice answer], and that’s because that’s what humans want. We are lazy. We want it to be easy. I want to ask my question out loud and be given the answer in an easy to consume form.

Where are the marketing opportunities in voice?

Brent: Eric, let me ask you a question.

Eric: Go ahead.

Brent: Obviously a lot of people who are going to be watching this [will be thinking] a reason why it ties back with voice search is because people need it to fit it into marketing agendas, right? For marketers or SEOs in these companies, what options are there in your mind to participate in voice assisted technology? Because to me, when I look at the progression of it, it seems more and more limiting and less open to anyone participating.

Eric: Well, let me give you one. Because we [Stone Temple] did this. We’ve built Actions on Google and we’ve built an Alexa Skill. We’ve done both here, and we’ve gotten them certified.

If you have Google Assistant on your phone, you can pick it up right now without installing anything else and say, “Ask Stone Temple” and then ask an SEO question. The example I always give is “what is a no index tag?” But there are hundreds of different questions programmed in there.

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As a digital marketing agency that’s not going to make anybody here, rich, right? It’s a bit of a novelty from a Stone Temple Consulting perspective, but we have clients that we’re working with that are having issues because their competitors have launched a Skill or an Action, and they’re getting a lot of adoption for their action.

Here’s the kicker, which most people don’t realize: it’s even happening to us at this point where somebody will come to a Google Assistant, pick up their phone and they’ll say, “Okay Google, what is a no index tag?” to use my same example. And the Google Assistant app will then say, “Stone Temple has an answer for that, do you want to hear it?”

So, the user doesn’t even know about the Stone Temple app, but we’re getting a good percentage of the volume of our usage of our app right now from people who have no idea that it existed.

We have a major client, I can’t say what area they’re in because it’ll become obvious too quickly who they are, but it’s a very highly visible client that has a competitor that launched an app. It’s actually on the Amazon side of things. And their competitor is getting cited in lots of these queries without the user actually knowing about the app and they are not. They feel like they’re losing real mind share.

Brent: This is all surrounding information, answers. Something I’d really like to figure out how people are addressing is pronunciation. There are so many startups where the idea is to create a unique brand identity, and they can’t call it Upwork for example, so they call it Upwirk with an “i” because they’re slick, making their cool little startup thing. They don’t care because it’s the web, and they’ll just rank and everything will be linked. And then you go into voice and nobody’s ever going to find Upwirk with an “i.” The voice search will give them the better-known Upwork with an “o.”

Duane: They could, they could. No, they could be found. And that’s the point; this is a space of early adopters. This is a wide-open area. There is a leveling of the playing field because now we’re back to things where at a large company it takes time, it’s a committee decision, legal’s gotta sign off, so to actually get the action or the Skill up and running takes a lot longer to gather the data.

A small company, Eric, for example, thinks, “We’re going to put out 150 answers to the top 150 common questions and do a quick survey. Your target number’s 150 team, so pull it together. They move forward and now they’re an active participant in this.

Eric now has the opportunity to use this in marketing, so he can use it in pitch conversations. So, if you’re in-house team needs quick answers to common questions to build presentations or train team members or whatever, you can use the Action or the Skill.

What we’re actually seeing is that, and I believe this will be the future, when we see data that’s been shared by either Google or Cortana or Amazon (when they do share, which is rare), what we tend to take away is it looks like most of the queries coming in are fresh queries; they’ve never seen them or heard them before. And that’s because of natural language.

All three of us might ask for the exact same thing slightly differently. The queries get individualized at some point and the net result is if you are an actual perfect match for that, you will be brought forward. So Upwirk will be brought forward regardless of the craziness of its name because behind these actual assistants is an app where all of that data lives in clickable scenarios.

Brent: But how does that deal with the fact where Upwork itself is a higher authority, more successful company that’s also in the space? You’re only going to get them, unless they come back and say there’s two answers for this. Would you like Upwork, the contracting site, or do you want, Upwirk, the whatever?

Eric: We don’t know how that’s going to unfold.

How do marketers optimize for voice?

Eric: I’ve got to give you this audience question because what we’re saying fits at least a little bit in the context of this discussion.

Melissa Fach asked how do you optimize for voice search. So, Brent, that ties into the question that you asked me a couple minutes ago: what are the business opportunities? She used the term voice search, but I think we can take that at least slightly liberally and include other business opportunities. But before we’re done, I want to make sure we work in some discussion about voice search itself.

Brent: At this point I think that the optimization is are you there or not there? I mean, there’s so few people really engaged in this space.

And in my opinion, a lot of what I see as the success from voice search right now is accidental. It’s just somebody’s there, and there are generally questions being asked, and so that entity is the result. Or it’s been promoted, where the companies are going out and saying we have this capability, we have this option, go and use it.

I was thinking about how companies could utilize voice search if they don’t have information to answer a professional Skill or something that’s detailed. And I thought, well, what if you had a furniture store, and people could ask, “What are the sales today at City Furniture?” Then it could spit back the current sales that it has.

So you could potentially say something like, “What’s Crazy Egg’s Apple laptop sales today?” and get a listing of products. So, that could be a way that any company could essentially start to provide some voice search, engagement.

Eric: Let’s expand upon that a little bit because this is going to tie back to the main discussion. You started it earlier, Brent, and you expanded on it, Duane: how are you addressing what the customer, the user out there wants?

For example, consider the customer experience or what they want and how much of a push we’re seeing towards using information and entertainment to build relationships with an audience and trust and brand and such. So that when they come to a point when they’re actually ready to buy something, they naturally think of you first. And I think there are a lot of the opportunities in that space for all this.

Voice optimization examples

Brent: So do any of you have any ideas or examples of actually optimizing for this right now?

Duane: Absolutely.

Brent: Go ahead.

Duane: I have six things that I believe actually make a difference. It’s funny because there was an undercurrent, a theme to all of this that I think you guys will back me up on.

It’s a bit of a challenge sometimes for a traditional SEO to wrap their head around these concepts because a lot of these things are not direct SEO. They impact the world of an SEO, an SEO has to work on these things, because they do have an impact overall in instances of choice that the engine or the providers use, whether it’s Alexa, or Google, Cortana, or Siri.

Here’s how I think this all stacks up. First off, the broader concept of digital knowledge management. I’ll use a healthcare example here.

You’ve got to identify everything that’s important about your healthcare business. The usual: name, address, phone, email, website, hours of operation. But in healthcare that would extend to doctor’s credentials, conditions treated, service providers, affiliations, payment, payment options, provider options, medical papers published and so on. You’ve got to identify all those things because then you can actually mark that stuff up in schema.

So, for me, the process is go to Schema.org, take a look at what’s available to me and then make sure I’ve got content that matches every possible option in there that’s applicable to my business. From there, I’m really solving for mobile. We’ve got the mobile-first index here. It’s on top of us; it is how people are accessing information in a predominant way today. It will have an impact on who gets chosen for a spoken answer, so you can’t look past mobile, gotta have it.

Secure, too. Secure is not a ranking signal, but this month Google is starting to flag non-secure websites in Chrome.

Brent: And when it’s not secure it links to a page that talks about viruses and Trojan horses. It’s not beautiful.

Eric: It’s really inspiring for your site if you get flagged like that, I guess.

Duane: The average consumer is just going to back the heck away from that. They’re not going to push through and educate themselves on it. So as a business you’ve got to get on top of that, and while secure may not be a traditional SEO thing, if you want to optimize for voice search and you want to show up, you have to play in there.

Is voice search an SEO concern?

Eric: But let me comment on that very briefly. To me SEO is the business of deriving more traffic from organic traffic sources, right?

Duane: Absolutely.

Eric: So does HTTPS implementation help me with that if Chrome is going to block my site [if I don’t have it]?

Duane: Yes.

Eric: To me, that makes it SEO.

Duane: Completely. No, I’m not saying this isn’t an SEO’s work. My concern is that too many SEOs believe it’s not SEO work. That’s my concern with it, and that’s wrong.

Brent: I made this statement just yesterday: when it comes to mobile, the whole concept of looking at your desktop and then considering how your mobile looks is so not 2018 and forward. At this point now I tell every client we have, “I don’t want to look at your desktop. I don’t even want to talk about your desktop. If you’re not looking at your mobile presence right now, then we’re screwed.”

Duane: It’s funny because we are literally at the point where graceful degradation has flipped over, because now your graceful degradation is on desktop not on mobile.

Brent: But I will take this back to my timeline thing. When mobile came out like what, 12 years ago? and it was the next thing, I was thinking it looks like we’re going to jump the ship on mobile. It wasn’t until about seven years later that it was all of a sudden starting to come back as a conversation.

So, I still do think that we’re way earlier than we think with voice search. I would guarantee that anybody who’s listening today as a company is thinking, outside of you saying mobile and schema, they’re thinking “I don’t know what the hell to do.”

Duane: Well, and that actually brings me to my last point because if you want to compete in this and you want to participate in this, you need to start creating Actions and Skills [for the voice devices]. You needed to start defining what your brand is in terms of your company’s persona and what that looks like.

For example, if you want to play Jeopardy on Alexa right now, you’re interacting with the voice of Alex Trebek. It’s exactly the experience that you think you’re going to have. But I can try to order a pizza from a major brand pizza company through their Skill, and they’re using the default Alexa voice. There’s a cognitive dissonance that happens because I’m thinking, “I thought I was with Alexa, and now I’m still with her. Is she ordering my pizza? I thought I was with the other business.”

Brent: And this is how much of a perfectionist Duane Forrester is. It is not good enough that you’re one of a hundred companies who is on the newest technology, but dammit, you didn’t use the right voice.

It’s the same thing I said, if I was going to give my advice right now of what you can do for voice search, it’s almost the exact same thing I said a year ago for augmented reality. Nothing. There’s nothing you can do because right now, in my opinion, they’re still testing everything and there’s no defined path for how anything is going to be resolved.

Eric: I’m going to argue with you now.

Brent: Okay, you can argue with me in two seconds though. What I would say is, I would continue to be abreast of everything that’s happening. I would read all the dev forums. I would continue to test everything. I would continue to play with everything. I would watch all the news, and I would watch for the opportunity and I would explore where I fit into the cycle, where am I going to fit into voice search so that when that really starts to break, and you start to see clear paths, you’re the first person to jump on board.

Featured snippets and voice search answers

Eric: Okay, so here’s my argument. There is something you can do, and you can do it right now, to improve your chances of showing up in response to voice queries and on a Google Home device, at least in the Google ecosystem.

Brent: Here we go.

Eric: And that is, you can learn how to get featured snippets for your site. There is a digital marketing agency called ROAST that did a small study, 600 to 800 queries, something like that. But they found that 80% of voice answers came from the featured snippet.

So, there are things you can do to increase your chances to get featured snippets. You can increase your chances of showing up by learning how to do that. There is a process for doing that.

Brent: Sure. Absolutely. I did a podcast in the past with Gary Illyes of Google, and we were talking about mobile first. Gary said, “You know, learn to write content like you approach Twitter.” I asked him, “So are you specifically saying that when we go to mobile first and actually have a more condensed, with less words, one topic on a page is going to be more ideal?” He pretty much said, “Yes, you know, you’re going to want to learn how to be more concise, you’re going to want to learn to be more specific, you’re going to want to approach your web content as being very focused for mobile users.”

And so, I think that ties into these voice answers. Yes, I know from your study that you can have a lot of content and it can still get picked. But I feel like from some of the things being said that we’re going to want to segment into more specific, concise, single-answer pages over time when it comes to a mobile first environment.

Eric: Yes, but be careful though, because you don’t want to go down the thin content path here either, where you have too few words on the page.

And I would also argue that if you’re trying to get a featured snippet, you’ll have that clean text block that states the question and then a nice clear statement of the answer. And then you think about what are the two or three most important subsidiary questions that people will ask? Are those on the page as well? Because Google wants that experience on that page. Same for Bing, and people don’t have any idea how aggressive Bing is being about featured snippets right now; they’re doing amazing work.

But in any case, they want the user to get their complete answer. Even though they asked this specific question, they do want the other pieces there too.

Duane: You know, it’s funny you say that, Eric because I’ve noticed this in my own content development work, how I have started to change. You can go back to my Bing webmaster blog and you’ll see it, right? It’s like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But now I will write in draft form, and then I pick out the question and I put it at the top and, then I create a summary answer for everything that I’ve written. And then from there I start asking myself, “What else might people be interested in?”

That does a couple of things. One if it’s immediately germane to what I’m talking about: I can extend the article and answer those other questions. In a lot of cases it becomes an obvious other article to write. That helps with content development then, because you’re thinking, “Oh, okay now I know what to write next, and there’s three more things that I have to cover on this.” Then it comes back to working with my team to figure out what’s our content calendar look like, what do our resources look like?”

Brent: Let me read you this real quick. These are Gary’s exact words:

I think you have a lot of content pages, content that you want to rank for. Content that can satisfy a user. What I see a lot on desktop sites is that there are these massive pieces of text that are partly useless and probably that’s fine from a mobile index if it’s gone.

Right? So he’s saying on the mobile side, don’t fluff it out. He goes on to say:

I do think that because the real estate on mobile devices is much smaller than on a desktop, you have to rethink your content strategy and what you put up on mobile sites versus what you have on a desktop site because people don’t read or consume content the way they do on a desktop site.

So, I do think that that’s interesting to hear that phraseology about content.

Duane: Here’s what that tells me. That tells me that when we’ve flipped to fully mobile-first indexing and that’s become our life for a year or two, the concept of a long form post or a long form content is going to start having less and less value because of the reasons you just stated. People aren’t going to consume that. They’re not going to read that on their device. We may see a resurgence in that a couple of years from now if our voice assistants are now reading these things out loud.

Brent: Sure. Like an audible.

Duane: Exactly, like a built-in native audible, like “I’m on this page, do you want me to read it? “Yes, read it out loud to me.” There we go.

Brent: Yes because in that sense, I’m going to want to hear more. I’m driving down the street and want to hear about what’s happening and I want to hear follow up pieces.

Duane: It immediately converts every single website, every page of content, every blog, it immediately converts all of those into on-demand podcasts. That’s a cool idea, it’s a cool adaptation. I’m not sure if we’ll get there. We will when we get to the point of having a digital agent. But that’s still years in the future.

Eric: Guys, we’ve get a couple more audience questions I want to make sure we get on here.

Brent: Perfect.

Will Voice Search Be Able to Use Existing Content for Answers?

Eric: Will voice search/assistant need to have a database of questions and answers specific for search, or will it index existing content/articles to find the best match?

Duane: Yes.

Eric: Yes. I was going to say it’s a three letter answer. The first letter is y and the last letter is s.

Brent: Yes to which side?

Eric: Both.

Duane: I’m going to weight it to about a 60/40 toward current content being index versus creating specific databases that target this. But I think both have value.

Eric: Right? But where the database will help you is if you establish a trusted relationship, then you will have more opportunity to potentially get pushed by the producer of the digital agent.

Duane: Would Google open up a scenario in search console where businesses could create their own API of data that Google could consume? So just like a site with annotation.

Brent: They’re already doing that.

Duane: But is it really trusted?

Brent: Well, it’s partner-based trust, right? So Google’s pulling in the non-URL data, right? So right now, you can go and put an XML into Google and you can have them index all of your data without even having a website and you can show up in Google.

Eric: Specific to this, you can go to Diagflow.com which is where you create an Action on Google, and you can enter in a database of data. And then Google tests it to see how the market responds to it. If the response is good, then they start surfacing it, and Amazon does exactly the same thing. They begin to surface it more even without the person prompting your app. So, they have a way of testing and building trust in you.

Brent: Well, I would say we’re going to continue to go through a transition of these engines and these companies wanting us to spoon feed them for a short period of time. What I would say is that I anticipate the answer to that being yes, you’re going to want to have both until the point that they just stop using the other. That’s similar to all the things that we do.

Duane: Come on Brent, that’s never happened before.

Brent: No, never, right? But I mean this is the same thing with a lot of what we do with Google, right? At a certain point SEO was truly like an intricate skill set. You checked a page to make sure there were proper H1s, H2s, everything was LSI, and make sure we have the right density. As the technology improved that became less and less important. Not that it’s not important to have, it just became more of a baseline and not so much of a science, right?

Duane: But, also the rates have changed. I mean, you’re not going to tell me the keyword density is not something that an algorithm has programmed into it. It still does. It’s a given that the importance of it is much less today.

Brent: But I think this is different. I think that when it comes to voice technology, it’s fundamentally flawed at the level of having predesigned questions and answers. I think that that is where the drawback is. And I think that the technology that’s going into researching AI and other technologies is trying to get it away from that. So, I see something where there’s a dual impact but not combined. It’s Google’s using two different scenarios and then at a certain point…

Eric: There’s a yes and a no to that. If you’re talking about information that is public domain-esque that can be thrown into a pre-existing database, that’s different from information that has to be sourced from a third party with specialized expertise. And third party specialized expertise isn’t going to go away just because we have AI, at least not anytime soon.

Brent: No but positioning whether you need to have two different sources to provide the same information, wasn’t that what the question was? Do you need to have a database that’s for serving search, and do you need to have a text for voice that serves the voice results?

I think that ultimately you’re going to need both, but not in the sense that they both have to cohesively work together. I think that, if you do that, you’re going to miss out on some of the voice technology, if you’re trying to limit yourself to what you would also go in a database, because I think that the technology is going to move past simple Q&A environments.

Eric: Yes, I agree that we’ll move past simple Q&A environments. We just have to differentiate between information that has to be sourced from a third party and information which doesn’t.

Brent: Yes, I think that’s a given.

Eric: So, there’ll be information that gets accessed through some means by which the third party makes it available, and then there’ll be information which is derived. So that’s how I see that unfolding.

Optimizing Voice Search for Local Search

Eric: Absolutely. All right, I have another audience question: What are some “don’ts” for near-me searches for local businesses.

Brent: Don’ts. Things not to do if you’re trying to show up for nearby searches. That’s very unique depending on…

Duane: Eric, was it near me or nearby?

Eric: Near me. It’s a very popular form of inquiry, right?

Duane: It is but it’s also flattening, right?

Eric: Because it’s implied now.

Brent: People get it.

Duane: Exactly. They don’t say that out loud. In fact, if it’s me, I’m questioning if I’m actually optimizing for phrases with those pieces attached to them. As soon as the search engines get a taste that consumers trust, they’ll immediately start ramping down because they can include more things, and they can do more to test more without having to be so explicit with near me. And then “me” becomes like “the.” It’s just not a part of the query.

Brent: Well, I don’t know that they’re talking about the physical query of it, I think they’re trying to say are there things that would exclude me from showing up for that query, or help me to show up in that query. Is there something that I should avoid doing that would potentially keep me excluded from being included in location search?

I think you definitely should have zip codes and identifiers in cities and states on your content. A lot of people do this mistake where they focus on just their corporate offices in New York, but we’re operating out of Florida and we want to show up in Florida, but they have no addresses in Florida. So I do think that zip codes and location qualifiers are important, to have a near me type experience.

Duane: I’m going to add in on that. To me, this is very simple: don’t take shortcuts. That’s the biggest “don’t” here. If you can mark up your content because it’s available in Schema, go do that.

Brent: Schema, Yes.

Duane: For example, don’t take the shortcut of thinking I’m only one local business or I’ve only got three locations and I don’t need to go do that, or that’s too much work or whatever. No, go do that. Because in a world where everyone else around you does it, you’re the one who sticks out for not having it and that same world is also providing all the answers that searchers need.

So, the question then is, do you want to be one of those who does the work, or do you want to take the shortcut and not do the work, and then therefore you will automatically not be one of those answers?

Brent: Well, let me throw out one warning. Nothing will cause me to dislike your brand worse than trying to manipulate the system, and I show up at an address that’s not you.

Duane: Oh, absolutely.

Brent: So that happens a lot. Companies put in addresses because they had a PO Box somewhere, and they’re going to have five or six addresses because they want to be in every city. That is a killer for the brand. Don’t do that stuff.

Final Remarks

Eric: So, guys, we’ve got four minutes left so maybe we want to go through a round of wrap up comments.

We’ve pushed this topic around in a number of different directions here today. I love talking with Brent and Duane. Our conversations always sound like this, where we have some friendly disagreement.

In this case, we have a little bit of disagreement as to how quickly this is all going to happen. We know there’s 400 million installs of Google Assistant that are active. We know there are 500 million installs of Siri that are active. That’s data from both of those companies. The sales of smart speakers are going through the roof.

I think there are big opportunities for people right now to grab some brand market share and authority by optimizing for these platforms and getting yourself out there. I urge you to consider doing it. It’s not right for everybody right now. I’ll be honest and straight up about that, but I do think you at least ought to consider it and see whether it’s right for you. Who’s next?

Brent: I wanted to let Duane have the last word.

I agree in the sense that I think that this is an important technology I really think you should pay attention to. What I worry about is that people start feeling like they have to be involved, right? It’s like, “Oh crap, I don’t want to be left behind.”

What I would say is that in this space, it’s like the example of Instagram. Everybody wanted to have an Instagram account and they had nothing visual to show, so they just started creating crap to show it. If you have something that fits for voice search right now, then you should absolutely take the steps that you can to participate with it. If you don’t, then definitely just pay attention to it.

This space is going to open up, it is going to provide an opportunity for just about everyone, so stay abreast of what’s happening in this space, what’s the technology, and start envisioning your company in that space, and then wait until you have that opportunity to make that a reality. But don’t overstress yourself and feel like you’re failing because you’re not in the space right now. It’s still very limited for the right fit at this point in my opinion.

Duane: So, I’m going to end this on a note of FOMO, Fear of Missing Out, and I’m going to give Brent props for his well thought out perspective.

My thinking on this is that if you are not a part of this now…so rewind this slightly. When I was still at Bing, I would walk on stage and tell people you need to mark up your content. That was over five years ago, and only now are we starting to see the true adoption of that. We are also facing an absolute truth that while everyone knows it, nobody talks about it, which is the average human being doesn’t need the internet full of information that we have to make the typical decisions in their daily lives.

What that actually means is we are going to be living in a world of a limited number of answers needed for any given question. So, the decades that we’ve enjoyed the internet, the expansiveness of it, and giving us all of that space and all those options, those are going to go away because consumer choice is going to narrow that down. These technologies are the beginning of it. Voice may not be for you, but you’ve got to pay attention, you’ve got to dig in now, because visual may be for you, and that’s happening now.

And then what happens with the next assistive technology? What happens when we have digital agents who are tasked with filtering out information before we even see it? Because if that agent of mine doesn’t trust your website for any reason, you are never shown to me as a consumer. Today’s work is the foundation for all of that trust in the future. So shortcuts today? Not an option.

Eric: There you go. Thank you everybody for watching our event. Let us know in the comments if you want to see more shows like this in the future. Bye everybody.

Duane: Cheers.

Brent: Thanks everyone.

from Marketing https://www.stonetemple.com/how-will-voice-devices-affect-the-future-of-search/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

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