All the Old Paintings on the Tomb, They Do the Sand Dance, Don'tcha Know

I made it to Egypt this month. My employer, Microwize Technology, now has a team working in Cairo, and our CEO promised the rest of the management team and me late last year that if we hit a particular milestone in sales this year, he'd take us to Egypt (well, those of us who don't already live there). We did, and he did!

It was great to meet in person many of my Egyptian colleagues, and to check out the gorgeous office space we have in a modern area in Cairo. We got to see some incredible beaches, from El Alamein and Alexandria on the Mediterranean to Sharm El Sheikh on the Red Sea. We admired the exhibits and the mummies at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization. We also cruised down the Nile River and visited several ancient temples and the Valley of the Kings along the way, with time for a hot air balloon ride in Luxor (what a view!) and a sailboat ride from Aswan to lunch at BenBen Hotel. And of course we went to the Giza pyramid complex, where I got to ride a camel.

I enjoyed all of it, the amazing views and the terrific food and the fantastic weather (16 sunny days with no rain? yes, please... and yes, I did return to the US with a tan), the camaraderie, the chance to run my fingers across hieroglyphs carved over 3,000 years ago and to dip those same fingers in the waters of the Nile. I've always been interested in ancient history, and to set foot in places that were so pivotal to Egyptian, Greek, and Roman history, to Amenhotep III and Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, left me feeling awestruck.

Modern Egypt is quite the marvel itself. There is a lot of construction going on, with infrastructure and improved transit a goal of the government. (Traffic in Cairo and Alexandria is, it's, well...) The 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, better known as COP27, is taking place in Sharm El Sheikh next month. Don't worry, guys, I turned off all the lights and water faucets before I left. Of course, none of this really masks the fact that the country's human rights record and freedom of expression leave a lot to be desired, or the fact that its president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, is a retired military officer autocrat intolerant of dissent.

Speaking of retired military officer autocrats intolerant of dissent, Brazil's version, Jair Bolsonaro, will hopefully have his grip finally peeled away from the country's neck in tomorrow's election. His mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic, his disinterest in the Amazon rainforest and its indigenous population, and his ignorant yet inflammatory rhetoric have led him to be nicknamed the "Trump of the Tropics." I don't know that his opponent, Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva (no relation), can right the ship, but I have much more faith in him as a leader and as a human being. Yes, he was found guilty of corruption and money laundering, but the convictions were later annulled and the Supreme Court ruled that the judge who oversaw his corruption trial was biased. Even with that recent history, he's the preferable candidate to someone who admires Brazil's former military dictatorship. #ForaBolsonaro!

The reports of Twitter's becoming a free-for-all hellscape have been greatly exaggerated. I am wary, to be sure; Elon Musk is capricious and prickly. But all the pearl-clutching and running for the exits is just silly, and even if he did want to burn it to the ground, that doesn't mean that he'd be able to do so. I'm not deleting my account(s) anytime soon. Let's just wait it out and see what happens, shall we?

So bummed to hear about Jerry Lee Lewis' passing yesterday. We shared a birthdate, and I actually got to see him do a show at B.B. King Blues Club & Grill on our mutual birthday in 2017. The Killer was another prickly man, and hardly a hero, but few could rock a piano, or embody rock 'n roll, like Jerry Lee.

All right, if you'll excuse me, I've got to get back to watching episodes of "iZombie" and "Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities."

You Won't Believe What Happens Next!

Yeah, I know... but I swear that every word is true.

I was supposed to fly to Brazil on Friday the 8th. My mom has to go every year in January, for reasons of pension and Brazilian bureaucracy, and the last few years I've gone with her. Normally I enjoy visiting Brazil; it's a beautiful country and I've got family there. This year, I wasn't looking forward to the trip so much, but eventually I booked our flights...

...and found out, near the end of 2020, that we would in fact need to have negative COVID test results in order to enter Brazil. From tests taken within 72 hours of the flight. And because it seemed damned near impossible to take an RT-PCR test and be guaranteed results within 72 hours, I foolishly scheduled us for rapid (antigen) tests on Wednesday and Thursday. They came back negative (lucky me, I actually had a rapid and an RT-PCR test done at the clinic I visited, though the results of the latter took significantly longer than 72 hours to come back), but in the meantime I realized I'd made a mistake.

Frantically searching for somewhere that could guarantee PCR test results in time, I learned about XpresCheck, right in Newark International Airport, which had a rapid test that was molecular like the PCR test, and not an antigen test like the usual rapid tests. I was dubious, and so I called United Airlines for guidance, and was told that yes, negative results from this test would be acceptable for international travel. And so I scheduled us to get tested again, on Friday afternoon several hours before the flight, and these tests were neither covered by insurance nor inexpensive.

We got to the airport and headed to XpresCheck in Terminal B. Upon being informed that we were taking the test in order to travel to Brazil, the staff (to their credit) expressed skepticism that this test would be acceptable and urged me to confirm with United again. And so I did, with a 16-minute phone call during which I asked twice if I would be able to travel to Brazil with negative results from XpresCheck's NAAT molecular test, and was assured that I would because it was basically the same kind of test as the RT-PCR. So we paid and took our tests and got our negative results.

And were denied check-in by United, because the test results did not specifically state that we'd taken RT-PCR tests. I was angry and confused; the first round of tests were my fault, but this time I'd checked twice with the airline and was told twice that XpresCheck's test, performed right at the airport, would be fine. We had to leave EWR, and after more desperate searching online, I found a lab that would guarantee RT-PCR test results within 48 hours. Called 'em to make sure, then scheduled us to be tested on Saturday, and rescheduled the flight for Monday the 11th. (For those keeping score at home, this was now my fourth COVID test in four days.) We got the results in under 24 hours, in fact, and could've traveled Sunday night had I known, but at any rate, we set out for the airport again on Monday afternoon in a Lyft...

...which was totaled ten minutes later by a driver who most likely crossed over two or three lanes of traffic in a hurry and probably didn't even see us until it was too late. (Her car was totaled, too.) Our driver's airbag deployed, and she didn't seem to be injured. The right side of my mom's chest was hurt, probably because of the seatbelt, and she had trouble breathing in the minute or two after the accident. My own right side was sore, and I'm fairly certain I bumped my head, though not enough to leave a mark or bump; maybe ten minutes later, when I realized that my right forearm was also feeling some pain, I checked and found a shallow gash almost two inches long near the elbow.

The local police showed up quickly, and after a report was written up, the county sheriff's officers drove us (in the back, but sans handcuffs) a short distance away to a convenience store, so I could summon another Lyft (the accident happened under an overpass on a busy roadway). We did eventually make it to the airport, with plenty of time, and got through check-in and security with no further issues. And made it to Brazil.

We had fewer days there than we'd counted on, but then neither of us exactly intended to do a lot of sightseeing or travel, in light of the COVID-19 situation in Brazil being about as bad as it is in the US. One thing that surprised me, pleasantly, was how the vast majority of people I saw in Ponta Grossa were wearing masks, both indoors and out. We did get to spend some time with some family. My mom, still in pain from the accident, got an X-ray taken, which seemed to indicate that everything's fine. We didn't have any dramatic issues on the way back to the US this past Friday, fortunately, and even the Uber ride to the airport in Curitiba (Lyft hasn't made it to Brazil yet) was fine. We squeaked in just a few days before a negative RT-PCR test requirement goes into effect for entering the US (beginning tomorrow). We've both still got some leftover pain after the Lyftpocalypse, but mine is subsiding slowly, and mom will see her doctor if it's not better soon. After some quarantining, of course.

How was your January?

On Brazil and Christmas and the Album You Haven't Been Waiting For

Groot says, "Happy holidays!" Groot also feels that this would be an ideal time of year for you to buy my new double album, I'll Live.

Groot made me take seven photos before finally being happy with one

Christmas isn't usually the happiest time of year for me, but family and friends help me stumble my way through it. Thanks in advance. I've written two songs, "Christmas Lonely" and "The Discontent of My Winter," about feeling cold and abandoned during the holidays... and they're both available on I'll Live, which you can purchase from iTunes or Google Play or CD Baby. Yes, that was a shameless self-promotion. I may have released the album due to my own creative urges, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't like to sell some copies and to have other people hear it. If you're interested in a CD copy, I've got a bunch, so let me know!

I recently spent three weeks in Brazil, and I have to say I had a blast, and I'm so, so glad I got to see and spend time with family on both my mom's and my dad's sides. Despite mom breaking her foot after we'd only been there a week (true story), she was only slowed down, not stopped; of course, she ended up staying in Curitiba and not coming to Rio for two days with me as planned... but I did enough walking and eating and drinking (and getting sunburned) for the two of us. I even made it to the top of Corcovado, though visibility was poor and so was my timing; I ended up just missing my flight back to Curitiba!

I was not ready to head back to the States after twenty days. My aunts and uncle and cousins and everyone were so good to us, in Curitiba and in Ponta Grossa, and there were still so many more I didn't get to see... and more caipirinhas to drink! But I suspect it won't take another 15 years for me to go back again, and while I probably won't get to stay as long next time, I can hopefully see some places I didn't get to see this time around.

Speaking of seeing, the pictures from Brazil are all uploaded to the Gallery... of Death! and there are a lot of them! (Sorry, Facebook, but I'm just not going to post all my pics with you.) OK, I've fallen behind on actually captioning the Gallery pics... but they start with the one of the Universidade do Paraná, captioned "Curitiba, Paraná, Brasil." Take a look!