Sign Language St. Pattie's with a Side of Beef

There are certain things that you think are completely normal while growing up, until you try to explain it to a friend from another country. St. Patrick's Day is one of those things.

When you're a kid you wear some green clothing and maybe eat a green-frosted cupcake. The holiday only takes on a bit more significance once you hit that tender age of 21 (or maybe 18, or maybe 15 depending on your hard coreness) and realize, "Wow, there's an entire holiday surrounding drinking". Suddenly, you might still wear a green sweater, but the focus becomes taking down Irish Car Bombs, pints of Guinness, and graduating from cupcakes to corned beef and cabbage.

It's 2011, I'm back in the US, and back in NYC, a land where St. Pattie's Day is serious business. Often called "amateur hour" by self-proclaimed serious drinkers due to the hordes of ill-trained drunks roaming the streets, from as early as 10am in Midtown you can see people stumbling around.

Wandering through the mess and looking for a place to eat with a friend, I remembered a new concept that can only exist in my fair city: the nearby Bowery Poetry Club recently began serving much buzzed about Roast Beef sandwiches....and trust me, they are just plain amazing.

There are two things I have to bring up about this. First, why? How? What the fuck? How does a place where I'd previously seen the most intense spoken word...where the hip and intellectual emoted on rape and racism...how does a poetry club decide it would get in the beef business?

Secondly, and I guess less of a wtf moment, when did "Boston style roast beef" become a concept? I do remember Kelly's Roast Beef in Boston, and thought they did make a great sandwich, but was this enough to coin an entire genre of food? I'm proud of my hometown for many things, but is this for real or is this some cynical marketing ploy (yes, the MBA in me has become somewhat suspect of all things business)?

We sat down and ordered. As we waited for the piles of thinly sliced beef, melted che

ese, horseradish, mustard, bbq sauce, and an awesomely branded bun, we decided to check out what was going on in the stage area of the venue. I walked up to a curtained area, where a man who probably says he is not a hipster, thus cementing his credentials as a hipster, told me "Sign language poetry slam, $4 cover".

He said this without a hint of irony or absurdity. Yes, there was a sign language poetry slam. I peeked in and was just too overwhelmed by the combination of things going on at this given moment and didn't have the wherewithal to take any footage for you so all I can give you is a generic Youtube clip.

I acknowledge this story is a bit rambling. It's a bit, to use my favorite word in the English, random. However, coming across a sign language poetry slam + while seeking out a Boston style roast beef sandwich + on St. Patrick's day = my kind of bliss.

Glassesblogging - Countdown to Lasik

"It's like suddenly seeing the world in HD" - my roommate.

Is the term "four eyes" still an insult? Has anyone avoided a punch in the face with the ol' "you wouldn't hit a guy with glasses" line recently? Is the librarian look still sexy or has it not been since the world realized Lisa Loeb was over 40?

Back at work only six weeks and as my vision became more and more blurred, the realization became clearer and clearer: I needed glasses. I went to the optometrist and this was instantly confirmed. Farsighted with astigmatism and a +1 power (I'm not even sure if that's the correct way to say it as I'm new to being a 'glasses guy').

My whole family has glasses, with my dad and sister both having had them since a very young age. I had always kind of enjoyed the fact that even though I was no Goose or Maverick, I could technically be a fighter pilot at least in terms of vision. The sight of people who wore contacts actually touching their eyeballs completely freaked me out.

Well, they arrived this afternoon and I'm wearing them as we speak. I'm still not terribly excited about this development as coupled with back problems of the past, it's yet another symptom of eight years of sitting at a desk.

The bright side however is, I can now sit in a Think Coffee shop and ponder really, really deep things. I can talk about how I'm not hipster but make people secretly think "that guy must be hipster" all the while actually convincing myself I'm hipster. Finally, I can already picture at work now someone coming up to me and yelling "what do you know about the the Consultative Assembly and legislative process in the House of Saud?" and when I respond "um, I work on the business side of the news" their natural response will be "But...but, you have glasses! You must know."

These are the only logical things that can happen in this brave new world I have entered.

Life Officially After Trading

It's been nearly five months since the last post. Another few weeks in South Africa, two months in France, and a final two months in Southeast Asia, concluded my world tour. After the whirlwind that was, in the ultimate deja vu (not sure if that is the correct usage of the term), I'm sitting on a Bolt Bus heading from Boston to NYC. The next few days I'll spend crashing on a friends couch and looking for an apartment. After that...it's back to work after almost exactly two years. It was January 22nd, 2009 that I last sat in an office and paid homage to the corporate overlords. On January 23rd, 2011 it'll be back to work....

This time it will be a little bit different. I named this blog Life After Trading even though I had no idea exactly where I'd turn up post-MBA. Well....I'll be starting a job with a startup group within the Financial Times called FT Tilt as their Commercial Director. Those who have known me for a while know my longtime obsession with the new media world. Whether it's writing this blog, somehow letting Arianna Huffington and Matt Drudge affect my daily mood, or trying to get myself on a food blog discussing the midtown lunch scene. I'm amazed to have found an opportunity that somehow lets me stay in the world of financial markets while moving into the new media side of things (and more specifically "news new media" if that's even a term).

It's been a ridiculous two years. Life as a severance kid took me places I'd never been before. I wandered all around daytime New York City, had a mohawk and a mustache for about a day each, tried learning Mandarin, I traveled the world, I had the first major medical disaster of my life, lived in four different continents, became okay with Jason Mraz (within reason people...within reason), gave up on Mandarin but learned a whole new form of English, went into the Heart of Darkness, and finally managed to come out with a MBA that in my B-school programmed mind, fully justifies the time off on my resume.

As I hit my 30s it's be a whole new challenge....and at least until I fail spectacularly in a blaze of glory, it truly will be a life after trading (cue the music from the end of Layla by Derek and the Dominoes).

Dangerous Quantities of Biltong

I don't consider vegetarianism a disease...just an ill-conceived life choice. I sometimes feel bad thinking this way, considering my Indian roots, but meat is just so damn good. If dinner is being served, no matter how good the starches and vegetables look, my eyes and stomach are waiting for the real deal.

South Africa has introduced me to a whole new level of meat happiness: Biltong. It's basically beef jerky on steroids. The beef jerky you find in the US is usually leathery and bland (disclaimer: I still like it for long road trips for some odd reason) and I had always wondered, "Can they make the beef jerky experience just a little bit closer to consuming cooked meat?"

Ladies and gentlemen, South Africa has answered this question. Biltong is a cured, dried, and often spiced preparation of various meats (usually beef, but also ostrich and kudu out here). In the process, not only do they use much thicker cuts of meat, but the inclusion of vinegar in the drying process creates a product that balances chewiness and softness in the absolute perfect combination. Some of the cuts even retain a little bit of somewhat dried fat on them, which might sound a bit disgusting, but adds this insanely good texture and taste. You basically feel like you're eating a great piece of steak, on the go.

It gets even more decadent. The other day I was introduced to 'rare beef biltong'. They somehow dry the outside of the meat while keeping the center a sandwich roast-beef dark red, that amazingly is just dried enough that it doesn't need to be refrigerated. Combining this with a glass of local Pinotage (a spicy wine from a grape unique to South Africa) makes you feel like you've discovered a Zagat's guide to the African bush.

Safari Randomness

In my former life as a trader, there were sometimes over-the-top steak dinners that resulted in what I call the "meat sweats". That feeling where you don't really feel overly full or nauseous, but you wake up in middle of the night just feel uneasy as you kind of feel your body digesting. It was interesting to see that apparently I eat meat in a similar manner to lions, as we found a lion who had a half-eaten buffalo next to him absolutely in pain. He was breathing hard and just on his back with a huge tummy, rolling around. He looked completely content and awful at the same time.

The different animal collective nouns are absolutely insane. By this I mean the word for a group, i.e. herd of elephant or pride of lions. Some amazing ones I had never heard of were:journey of giraffe, tribe of baboons, murder of crows, crash of hippopotami, clan of hyenas,leap of leopards, and troop of monkeys. I now can imagine the conversation that spawned Animal Collective's band name.

The most common animals around were the Impalas. They're a type of antelope that somehow, someone from Chevy heard of back in the day. It was almost ritual that on everyone's first day of safari, they'd get really excited when they saw a group of these pretty boys, and everyone else would kind of roll their eyes.

Apparently they're called the "McDonalds of the bush" for a few reasons:

1) They actually have what looks to be a big 'M' tattooed on their backsides

2) They're so common that they're basically the low-quality, easily accessible "game" for people on safari

3) They actually are the easiest prey for lions and leopards. They can barely fight back and are so plentiful that predators can easily take out a few in any given attack.

My favorite random fact: Rhinos penises are actually "recurved" meaning that it kinda curves back through their legs. This allows them to spray pee backwards to mark their territory. Both rangers I came across made the exact same awful joke when pointing this fact out (in both safaris we observed them reverse-spraying)…saying "it took me a few weeks to learn how to do it myself!" Hey-o!

Apparently when female buffalos are ready to mate, they will actually mount another female to demonstrate to the male that they are ready…not dissimilar from a drunk, heterosexual coed making out with another girl at a party (I am using the term 'coed' because I am now over 30).

Hippos used to hold the title of the killer of the most humans for years until very recently in South Africa. Lions have taken over due to a very random geopolitical development. Illegal immigrants from Mozambique apparently have been flooding over the border and the least guarded route is through Kruger National Park. They cross in middle of the night to avoid rangers, but unfortunately lion's are mainly nocturnal hunters. Unfortunate.

Rangers and trackers speak to each other in a mix of Sangaan, Zulu, and English. Leopards are called "ingwey" and a lion is an "ingala", while a male is "madodo" and female is "mufazi". The entire time they'd be speaking to each other about what they thought might be around and say things like "mufazi ingwey on bellway peak chasing madodo kudwa". I feel like I now understand the lyrics to the opening song in Lion King.

Where Cargo Pants Are Still Okay

I want to begin this entry with the disclaimer that I've never been a particularly outdoorsy guy. I've definitely never tried hunting. I always suspected that bird watching was just a cover for child molesters. Even factoring all this in, the experience of an African safari is up there as one of the most amazing of my life.

What exactly constitutes a South African safari? It seems like it should be obvious but I wasn't completely sure what I was getting myself into. The objective is to see or find "game", a term that I thought was only used in hunting. In South Africa, there's a collective called the "Big Five" that's made up of lions, leopards, rhinos, elephants, and buffalo. The more of these you see, the "better the game" in a given area. One evening we saw a leopard eating an impala (a type of antelope) that had dragged the body up into a tree to protect it from hyenas and was busy ripping into it. That game would definitely be considered lekker (an all-purpose South Africanism for "very cool", "tasty", or even "sexy").

There are two ways to do a safari in the Kruger National Park area in South Africa: one is to "self-drive" around the park. I attempted this for one morning and considering I was flying solo, between trying to concentrate on driving and having absolutely no clue what I was looking for, I didn't see much game.

The other way is to book a stay with a Private Game Reserve. North of the park, there are large plots of land owned by resort-type lodges. After the self-drive disaster, I booked a few nights and am eternally glad I did. I'll post later about the specific lodges, but basically, you wake up around 5:30am for the morning game drive. You load up on a large, open land cruiser that's outfitted to seat up to 9 passengers in addition to the driver and a 'tracker'. You then drive around all morning 'tracking game'.

The whole tracker concept was absurd and amazing at the same time. I went to two different lodges during my stay, and both times the tracker was a local African who grew up in a surrounding village or town, giving them a solid knowledge of the bush. As you drive around, the tracker is seated up in front of the vehicle on this extension seat thing. The coolest part was he'll coolly sit up there as we're driving around, and occasionally, when none of the passengers would notice anything, make a little rightward hand flick and the driver would stop. Without fail, there would be a lion or some other game hiding between trees or hidden in tall grass. Often he'll tell the ranger to stop driving when he sees tracks in the dirt and then inspect those tracks to decide where to head next. When the sun went down, he'd shine a spotlight around and sometimes spot animals just by the reflection of their eyes.

Cruising around with Tracker Gideon and Ranger Chase

The one main rule, which still blows my mind, is you have to absolutely stay seated the entire time. Apparently, the animals are used to seeing the shape and hearing the sounds of the land cruiser with seated passengers from birth so are not threatened at all by it. If you're to stand up, and especially if you get out of the vehicle, then you're just a human and it's dinnertime if they're hungry or threatened.

I seriously cannot describe how crazy it is when you're about four feet from a lion ripping apart a buffalo, or even a leopard stalking in the grass hunting a kudu (another antelope). There are moments you even begin to be convinced that the animals are somehow in on itand are taking a cut. However, we were about ten feet from an elephant at one point who suddenly turned around towards us and snorted a few times and stuck his ears out. The ranger absolutely floored it in reverse and later told us that is a definite sign of an impending charge, and that occasionally the animals do charge if a ranger is careless. Enjoy.

After the morning drive, you eat a huge breakfast and then chill out for a few hours. They have optional "bush walks" where a ranger will take you around on foot to parts deemed safe to walk and talk about plants and animals. I went on one which featured Jeffrey, an African ranger, who was extremely animated and somewhat incomprehensible. As we walked he kept telling stories about animals attacking irresponsible rangers and tourists and then would laugh heartily at the end of each one.

After a smaller lunch, you head out for the sunset drive that lasts for another 3-4 hours. The experience is similar to the morning one, but you see certain animals more frequently and in different situations. An added benefit of the evening drive was as the sun is setting, the ranger finds a relatively open field and parks. You jump out and they set up a table contraption attached to the land cruiser. It's 'Puza' time. Apparently, 'puza' is a term for drinking/drinks and can be used as a verb or noun. They'll pull out a bunch of booze and some biltong and other snacks and you puza as the sun sets, before heading out for another hour or so. (Fun Fact: Apparently liquor brands will sponsor nights like "Puza Thursdays" at bars and clubs in cities)

After the sunset drive, you have a large dinner in a fairly communal setting. I have to say, you can only imagine the cast of characters you'll meet at one of these. Throw in a bunch of wine and the conversations were absolutely unreal.

As I mentioned above, I generally don't crave the outdoors (I did live in New York City for over seven years) but the safari experience is something I'd recommend to everyone. Seeing animals like lions and rhinos from mere feet away is something you can barely process. Even driving around in the open land cruiser through the bush was somehow relaxing. It's a pain in the ass getting out here and the whole experience isn't exactly budget, but I'd strongly, strongly recommend everyone at some point in their lives to experience an African safari.

The Time Has Come

It is undeniable that women have been subject to centuries of patriarchal oppression. The glass ceiling continues to be broken, but we are decades away from true equality. However, there is one space in which men have secretly coveted the life of a woman: society encouraging her to carry a purse.

Social mores have dictated that a man with a handbag or purse is simply unacceptable. Somehow, there is a fine line between a hip, cool, smaller messenger bag and a ridiculous, absurd, man purse; a fine, gay line. This seemingly trivial distinction has caused years of pain for men. The more technology progresses, the more devices we must carry. From the patrician in the Middle Ages who had a set of really big-ass keys, to the modern man who has keys, a wallet, phones, blackberrys, and iPods all tucked into his pockets. Jeans get tighter but the objects needed to carry around become more plentiful.

In 2005 I thought there was a moment where I thought I would be forced to take the plunge into manhandbags. I had a phone, a blackberry for work, an ipod, and a wallet (or money clip, being the trader that I was)….my denim was just not equipped for such an arsenal. The advent of the iPhone saved me from this pain by consolidating devices, but I never gave up the dream. During these years the gays and the hipsters have made futile efforts at executing the manbag, but never with great success.

Now…it is time. When Steve Jobs says the iPad will change everything, it really will. After a few weeks with my iPad, I want to take it everywhere with me, whether for a day of school or a casual trip to a café. At the size of a slightly larger book you definitely don't need a backpack or even messenger bag, but it doesn't stand a chance of fitting in your pockets (maybe in a pair of Cross Colors from the early 90s). It needs something in the middle, and that middle ground is the man purse. While a self-professed Apple fanboy, I genuinely believe tablet PCs will become the standard. It really, truly is time for the man purse.