Sporting Clays Another little mini adventure that my good friend Dave took me on while I was in Kansas City staying with him was some sporting clay shooting We went to this really amazing course out by Lenexa Kansas with Dave s neighbor and friend Scott as well as some of Scott s friends a husband and wife duo While I had not gone sport shooting in quite some time having frequently done it in the past with my other good friend Grant I wound up doing a littler better than I thought I would The course was a relatively standard one albeit had a great variance between the normal holes designated in blue and the advanced holes designated in red We stuck to the blue path While Neo may have been conflicted we certainly we not It was the right way to go I don t think I would have done much better with my own shotgun but I am extremely partial to 20 gauge shotguns and both Dave and Scott only had 12 gauges After shooting 100 shots over 12 different blinds I wound up with a 59 meaning I had 41 misses over the course Dave did phenomenally well with 85 only 15 missed shots while his neighbor friend Scott shot an impressive 92 with just 8 misses overall It s always such am amazing sight to shoot with people who are so much better than myself as it makes me work a little harder at it Both Dave and Scott had a lot of good pointers to share with me that I d actually starting getting much better as the round went on After we wrapped up the shooting Dave and Scott took me to a delicious El Salvador restaurant unsurprisingly called El Salvadore o I have to say it was some of the best Central American food that I ve had in a long time

Understanding Soi Cowboy Before leaving for Thailand I had told a number of my friends that I would not just look into the sex industry but rather stare intently into it and see what it s actually all about I did just that I m not especially interested in it myself from a customer point of view but there is a certain mystique and fascination around how legalized prostitution works around the world I should also note that prostitution in Thailand is better categorized as not illegal rather than legal There are a host of laws that could be used to stop it from happening but the powers that be turn a blind eye to this I also want to acknowledge up front that I fully comprehend that at least some portion of the sex industry in Thailand fuels sex trafficking something I and I assume most any decent person is fervently opposed to for rather obvious reasons All told my friend and I visited six of the clubs in the Soi Cowboy area Here s some notes from the experience Firstly when you arrive at Soi Cowboy it will probably be a lot smaller than you think it is When I had seen pictures of it over the years I thought the iconic neon signs that I was seeing were the entrance to it or something like that As it turns out the street is probably only a few hundred meters long and there are maybe 20 clubs in total I m ballparking but thereabout anyways photo 633356 641658 0 center The iconic photo view of Soi Cowboy from just outside of the main street photo br style clear both The first club that we entered was Baccara This club sits on the far east end of the block and has a reputation for being one of the nicer clubs there Having been to strip clubs all over the United States the South Pacific South America and Mexico I will say that the experience here was pretty crazy and a little overwhelming The club is very small There are booths about 3 seats deep around the entirety of it with a small portion kept for the bar There is a single stage that sits in the middle of the room with a handful of poles for the girls to hang on to Above them is a glass ceiling with ladies dancing on the 2nd floor so yes you can see right up into them The most shocking difference from an American point of view is just the sheer number of women that are on stage and how it works Put very bluntly it is much more literally like a meat market than you ve likely ever heard that term used before What I mean is that at any other club I ve ever been to a single stage will be occupied by maybe two to three girls at once often times a single stage is just a single girl Not here At Baccara as with most of the clubs on the strip there were about 30 to 40 young Thai women on the stage at a time They re all wearing what is essentially a skimpy bathing bikini bathing suit but none of them on the main stage are naked not even topless There were three different groups of these women One group wore an orange outfit another wore a black outfit and the third group the upstairs group wore a kind of schoolgirl dress no doubt fulfilling some creepy old guy fantasies there The schoolgirl dressed girls were on the second floor They would be half assed dancing around on the glass floor ceiling from our point of view and after set intervals would become topless and then ultimately naked After enough time had elapsed they would go back to being dressed and then start the process over again This could be an incorrect assessment but we ultimately decided that these were the freshmen of the group Not necessarily the youngest in fact most likely not the youngest but the newer girls or less marketable girls who actually did have to get naked to keep their job They essentially just kept the whole thing stimulating Now onto the other two groups The orange and black teams would come out on stage only with their fellow teammates Thirty or so girls would march off the stage and thirty or so new girls would come back on But here s where it gets crazy they don t do anything They don t dance They don t interact with the customers hardly anyways They literally just stand on the stage and show off what they have To the meat market comment each one of them literally has a number pinned to their chest The process is as follows You see a girl that you like and so you tell the madam of the house one woman who is essentially just keeping tabs on everything in a pimp like fashion that you like number 224 This is the buying a drink phase The madam will summon girl 224 to come and sit with you and you immediately are expected to purchase her a drink Best we would tell the drink would just be a glass of cola but you re still paying about 300 baht for it about 9 00 USD You talk with the girl make sure you like her and then one of two things happens Either option one is that either you don t really like her after all or you weren t really planning to do anything with her in the first place this was our category and so after her drink is done she thanks you and goes back to the herd Or option two is that you pay for her The madam will present you with a price sheet that essentially dictates how much you would have to pay to take her back to your hotel either for an hour or for the evening The prices were about 3 000 baht about 91 USD for the hourly service or about double that for the entire evening That s it So this kind of club of which there are several of in Soi Cowboy aren t really strip clubs at all at least not in the sense that Americans think of them They are literal brothels where you are just looking at a live menu and deciding what who to pay for Again the freshman team dancing naked upstairs keeps the strip club feel alive but that s definitely not the intent of them After we left Baccara we stopped by another well known club called Crazy House It had the same methodology as Baccara It was definitely a wilder vibe and these girls would at least interact with people a little bit more on the stage I wound up slipping a few 20 baht notes about 0 60 USD into leg garters they were wearing Eventually a pair of them came and sat with me for a bit We actually had a really fun time drinking and trying to communicate in broken English and Thai but that was the extent of it Like Baccara this one also had the glass ceiling although some of the girls on the main stage would actually strip Some went topless while others were fully nude As a somewhat sad interjection it became pretty obvious which of the girls were new You could tell rather clearly that they were being told to strip down but were then lightly covering themselves with their hands and things of this nature It was subtle but easy to spot if you were looking for it The Cowboy2 Bar and Spice Girls were mostly the same kind of setup Each one of them had their own little twist to how they ran the operation but the process was the same The girls all had numbers pinned to them you selected one bought her a drink were presented with a list of payment options and then you d either send her back to the herd or leave with her There were two bars that had a very different methodology to them Afterskool Bar and Toy Bar were an entirely different beast These clubs were narrow in their design with the bar taking up one entire wall and the stage taking up the other entire bar You d essentially sit between these two elements There would only be a few girls on the stage at one time and they were stripping in the sense that you would see in America Except that they re doing a lot more than that photo 633468 641658 0 center Some of the dancers from the Afterskool Bar The one posing sat and chatted with me for awhile photo br style clear both photo 633387 641658 0 center The same girl from Afterskool whose name I unfortunately forget now photo br style clear both These girls were entirely blatant about what the purpose of your visit was There was no menu presented there was no process informal or otherwise for how the interaction happened If a girl noticed that you were looking at her long enough or perhaps if she just liked the cut of your jib she would come and talk to you Toy Bar was considerably more direct about it but they would tell you outright what they could do and would negotiate prices directly with you I suspect that the varied it based on how much they thought you could afford what you looked like and frankly just how they felt at any given moment These girls were not drinking cola but rather were getting pretty fucked up I d imagine a number of them were doing drugs but I didn t see any of this directly Cutting right to the chase a hand job in the bar would cost anywhere from 500 to 700 baht 15 to 21 USD respectively whereas a blowjob would cost anywhere from 1000 to 1500 baht 30 to 45 USD respectively You could certainly pay to take them home as well and I d imagine the prices were a little cheaper than the meat market bars but the general idea was that they would just take you somewhere in the club and you d get your time with them Again I have been to a lot of strip clubs over the years for countless different reasons ranging from bachelor parties to friends wanting to go to girlfriends wanting to see what they re all about to everywhere else in between In all of those experiences though I ve never had a woman directly proposition me for anything other than a dance To be clear you re not asked something like hey baby what are you looking for but rather shown explicit gestures of exactly what you can get Even in the Mexican border towns they re not quite that brazen It s a weird experience While I ultimately support prostitution namely as I don t think somebody should be told they cannot sell their own body I d imagine that there is an entire underbelly of creepy old men who are regular visitors to these bars many likely provide them with regular services photo 633305 641658 0 center I was highly entertained by this sign in the street photo br style clear both All in all Soi Cowboy was a ton of fun and I would highly recommend anybody checking it out but just keep in mind that it s not like going to an American strip club but rather is like entering a brothel Also bear in mind that while sex tourism is entirely fine there are certainly people there who have been trafficked This is an awful thing and so it s hard to say whether you should support the business in any way Regardless there s a world of difference between American and Thai strip clubs

Exploring Angkor Wat on a Scooter Solo Traveler After trying to do some research over the past several days about exploring Angkor Wat on your own that is to say without a guide or even a tuk tuk driver I found that the internet really doesn t have a lot of great information on it I found several people online even inquiring about where the new ticket office has been relocated to Unfortunately and per typical internet standards the common online response I ve come across seems to be an entirely different solution rather than providing an answer to the question I was asking I d honestly prefer a simple em I don t know em in place of these responses Many responses I ve read online make the suggestion em just take a tuk tuk they ll know where to go em Well obviously the tuk tuk drivers and other such guides know where to go but that s irrelevant to the question and isn t especially helpful for those people who want to explore without a guide That all stated if you re interested in exploring Angkor Wat by yourself on a scooter please read on I am delighted to share my own experience and hope some people find it useful photo 651432 656781 0 center A corner shot looking over the moat of Angkor Thom part of the Angkor Wat complex photo Having explored virtually all of the Angkor Wat complex including the many many temples throughout it I honestly can t understand why most people would use a guide or a tour group There are just so many things to see and so many places to stop and take photos that I can t imagine being tied to a group much less being at the mercy of tuk tuk drivers It s also incredibly inexpensive to go by oneself as it turns out I rented a scooter in Siem Reap for 9 USD per day more on that process in a minute I explored a bit of Angkor Wat after 5 30pm on a Saturday the temples are closed at that hour but you can drive around the complex perimeter and then spent over nine hours exploring dozens of temples on Sunday In total I spent over 15 hours exploring the place during my stay in Siem Reap Stating it very plainly this was probably the single most amazing place I ve ever explored in my entire life It was absolutely breathtaking Every stop I made was more incredible than the last one and there was a glow on my face the entire time I should note that I ve also never sweat more in my life To give an idea I drank over 4 liters of water 2 cokes and a big glass of watermelon juice and I didn t have to stop to pee one time It was hot it was humid paired with about 12 miles of walking it took a hell of a lot of energy out of me That all said the wind from riding around on the scooter was incredibly refreshing I couldn t recommend the experience more It was truly one that I ll remember forever strong style text decoration underline Renting a Scooter strong There are places all over Siem Reap that will rent a scooter to you I m sure most of the bikes are great or at least good enough but the problem I ran into is that they all want your passport to secure the scooter I assumed they just wanted to copy it but it s not that simple They hold onto it while I had their scooter Apparently this is pretty standard practice and I m sure they re mostly all on the up and up However I told them there was absolutely no way that I was going to do that and I m pretty certain that was the right move As a general rule don t ever give a strange your passport LifeLesson And yes I certainly tried to negotiate with these rental places citing that they could copy it or charge a hold to my credit card or whatever else but that s just not how they do it If I didn t part with my passport they weren t parting with their equipment I looked up various companies that you can rent from online In these cases you use a credit card but it was unclear if I would then go and pick up the bike or if they would drop it off for me As it happens I was having dinner at the a href https www tripadvisor com Restaurant_Review g297390 d12302434 Reviews Old_Delhi_Indian_Restaurant Siem_Reap_Siem_Reap_Province html Old Delhi Indian Restaurant a delicious by the way and happened to notice another shop renting scooters across the way I went into the store and inquired She initially wanted 10 USD day for the scooter but decided that she would do it for just 9 USD day Just like the other rental places the rental company did want some kind of card that she could hold on to The woman behind the counter inquired about my passport but after a short discussion said that my Texas driver s license would work too Since I couldn t care less if my driver s license was stolen while abroad really it s worthless and costs only 10 to replace at home I told her that would be fine It took maybe 5 minutes to do the paperwork She let me pick out a helmet Incidentally if you ve been around Southeast Asia then you know their standards for motorcycle helmets aren t the best I picked out the best one I could but it still lacked a face protector and shield It was slightly better than the small brain cups you so often see but only slightly photo 651148 656782 0 center An outside shot of the scooter rental place I found that didn t require my passport photo There was also no official damage form to fill out but another manager at the store looked over the bike condition with me There was some minor damage but nothing too serious As always I took photos of everything in front of the guy including the mileage and the gas level which was just shy of empty Be sure that you have the guy explain to you how to unlock and open the gas tank the under seat storage area and anything else the bike might have It s not always a intuitive as you might think photo 651314 656782 0 center My trusted scooter for exploring Angkor Wat still at the rental shop photo strong style text decoration underline Gassing up the Bike strong I m not 100 on this but pretty certain that the company just drains whatever gas is in the bikes when they get them back and keeps that for themselves They of course tell you that you ll need to go and fill the bike up and will direct you to a gas station Don t do this For starters the gas stations can be a huge pain in the ass especially if you haven t ridden around at all There are really no rules in terms of driving and cars and bikes are interweaving with each other around every turn The gas station is really no different A dozen scooters and motorcycles will pull up at random around a pump and somehow the gas attendant manages it like a craps table He won t miss a beat but unless your Cambodian is especially strong it s unlikely you ll get filled up too quickly The locals seem to get full attention I did this for my first fill up but learned there is a better way Instead head slightly off the beaten path and as you start passing shops on the side of the road you ll often see a stand out front with dirty liquor bottles In Bali these were exclusively Absolut Vodka bottles in Laos they were a mixture of bottles sometimes plastic liters of Coke but in Siem Reap they all seem to be some cheap brand of whiskey Of course none of these places are actually selling alcohol but rather selling their own variety of petrol gasoline photo 650938 656782 0 center Petrol stocked up in whiskey bottles photo photo 651900 656782 0 center Getting my scooter filled up with petrol photo I m told the bottles are filled with a slightly rougher petrol that is leftover from the refineries Presumably it s gasoline that is somewhat imperfect They work just fine but I m guessing are a little less environmentally sound Either way a single whiskey bottle s worth of petrol I m guessing 1 5 liters worth will set you back about 3 500 Riel about 0 85 It s also super fast You pull up you tell the guy what you want he breaks out a funnel and pours one of the bottles into your tank You pay You re done If you have your money ready to go the whole process takes less than a minute It s also kind of amusing to see it in action and provides cash to a local shop instead of what I assume are nationalized petrol chains A single bottle filled up my scooter about half way from empty so I was fine with this As a side note there are dozens of such stands selling gas like this between Siem Reap and the Angkor Wat compound They re far enough out that I wouldn t venture out on an empty tank but you ll definitely be able to find fuel along the way strong style text decoration underline Getting to the Ticket Office strong You would think that the ticket office would be located near the entrance to the park or at the very worst case in the middle of town but that s just not how they did it It s not near the temples nor is it especially convenient from town It s just kind of out there on its own It s even difficult to find on the map unless you know what you re looking for On Google Maps it comes up as Angkor Panorama Museum I think this museum actually exists at that location but it is also where they happen to sell the tickets to Angkor Wat To get there head north of the city on Charles de Gaulle until you get the Street 60 There will be a sign directing you to turn right and continue for 3km Do turn right Do not drive for 3km as you will overshoot the ticket office by a solid kilometer and wind up on the 60kmph section of the highway as I discovered After about 1 8km or so there will be a roundabout Go straight through the roundabout and there will be two giant buildings on your left They are not marked all that well but the first of the two buildings is the ticket office There is a small sign alongside the first building illustrating that it is the Angkor Wat ticket office but because the sign is exactly parallel with the road it s difficult to see as you re approaching Just trust it s the buildings immediately past the roundabout photo 774550 740 0 center A map showing how to get to the Angkor Wat ticket office from the center of Siem Reap photo Park your bike in the parking lot and head towards the back of the building behind the various gift shops You ll see dozens of ticket window stalls When you walk up to one of them they ll ask you if you want a 1 2 or 3 day pass to the temples I did a 1 day pass it cost 37 USD They ll take your picture and immediately print you out a custom ticket with your photo on it Keep it somewhere safe as they will definitely check it several times Also bear in mind that you re probably going to sweat a lot and it s just a paper ticket I kept mine in my a href https www amazon com Universal Waterproof JOTO CellPhone Samsung dp B00LBK7OSY ref sr_1_11 ie UTF8 qid 1508364994 sr 8 11 keywords underwater iphone bag waterproof iPhone bag case a which by the way if you don t have one of these I would highly recommend they re incredibly useful Once you get your ticket head back to the roundabout This time you ll head to the right after leaving the ticket booth parking lot left if you are considering how you originally went through the roundabout From there it s roughly another 6km or so to the park When the road eventually hits a T interesction there will be a checkpoint Show the guard your pass If you purchased a multi day he will punch a hole in one of the days This is not necessary if it s just a single day ticket Incidentally they only check westerners passes Locals are free to visit without charge Once you get to the intersection turn left You ll continue for another few kilometers driving underneath a beautiful canopy of trees and eventually paralleling the lake which ultimately serves as the moat for Angkor Wat photo 774549 740 0 center A map showing how to get from the center of town or the Angkor Wat ticket office to the actual Angkor Wat compound photo When you finally get to the Angkor Wat parking areas there is a good parking lot right next to the Blue Pumpkin Cafe It only cost me 2 000 Riels about 0 50 to park there for the day albeit I only wound up staying in that particular lot for two to three hours The parking attendant will staple a ticket onto your bike and then hand you a receipt for it Don t lose the receipt as they did ask for it later though it seemed a little stupid since I obviously had the key to my own bike It s probably not necessary but I had a lock for the bike and so I ran it through the wheel and into the frame just for peace of mind If you don t want to pay for a spot you can drive beyond the general tourist area where all of the locals are camped out on the lawn if facing the Angkor Wat entrance which will be very obvious to identify when you re out there it s to the far left of it I left my bike there for several hours on a separate trip The bike will likely have a storage compartment but beyond the helmet I don t know if I d trust leaving anything locked in it They re not especially hard to break into Once you ve explored enough of the main Angkor Wat temple your day is really just beginning Exit the parking lot where the bike is and head down the main road the one that looks to come immediately out of the front door of Angkor Wat There will be taxis and tuk tuks everywhere When you get to the first intersection turn right This will start you on your path towards Angkor Thom another absolutely breathtaking temple From there you re pretty much on your own if you have a scooter Provided you picked up a map of the facilities from the ticket office you can just navigate around and check out as many of the smaller temples as you d like I would ride up to one jump off the bike explore it for 10 20 minutes and then carry on to the next one Definitely do bring water and some snacks but there are also restaurants and vendors all throughout the park You ll not be in dire need of anything so long as you re in the compound It was really just an amazing place to be and honestly was one of the best experiences of my entire life I highly recommend it If you re in need of food or especially fuel on your way out be sure to stop in at one of the refueling huts especially if it s getting dark It s a bit of a drive back and while it s beautiful once you get past the main park area there really isn t much until you get back into Siem Reap

Fixing the Spotlight with MacBook TouchBar Anyone that has the new MacBook with the TouchBar knows that it is simply THE worst piece of hardware that Apple has ever released Anytime I get a new MacBook there is always that period of time where you have to adjust to the new keyboard The first time I ever experienced this I cursed them for changing it but I ve learned over the years that the changes are always for the better and after a week or so my brain is entirely wrapped around the new layout and it increases productivity That is simply NOT the case with the new MacBook I ve waited and waited for that eureka moment to arrive and it simply does not After reading countless blog posts on the issue it seems that I am far from the only person to experience the problems that I have One of the MANY problems that I experienced was with respect to trying to launch my spotlight For as long as I can remember this was a simple combination of Command Spacebar I specifically keep my dock as empty as possible knowing that I can pull up any program on the fly through the Spotlight Unfortunately the new Apple seems to stutter for lack of a better word More times than not I press Command Spacebar and nothing happens Usually pressing it a second time will do the trick but sometimes it takes even a third Why Why would this possibly be the case Well after some research it turns out that this has to do with Siri s functionality waiting to see if she is being called upon or not Note to Apple she isn t ever being called I just want the Spotlight to open So here s the fix ul li Open your System Preferences li li Select Siri li li The first option is Keyboard Shortcut li li Change the dropdown so that it reads Press Fn Function Space li ul Once you do this and save the system preference you ll find that the problem immediately goes away I am hoping to compile a list of such changes that are necessary to get the computer somewhat back to what it used to be but unfortunately I don t think the new MacBook is ever going to work as well as its predecessors regardless of how many tweaks I make to it

Graham Wedding Here are a few pictures from my very good friends Sunni and Preston's wedding. The wedding set was entirely designed and setup by Sunni and Preston (and some friends) and was absolutely amazing to view. The September sunset proved to be much hotter than we had expected, but all in all, the wedding was spectacular. Unfortunately the pictures didn't come out all that well namely due to the fact that it wasn't the best digital camera, and Dave hadn't yet become a professional photographer.

Spyglass Sunset This was just a nice early summer sunset that I happened to catch through a rainstorm outside of my house. My digital SLR was able to get some pretty well contrasted shots of it.

Tisa's Monte Guitar When Tisa and I had only been dating for about 2 or 3 months, I wanted to get her a cool present for her upcoming birthday on the 16th of April. She and I were frequently going to see Monte Montgomery play at the local bars in Austin and she had made some mention to me that she would like to learn to play the guitar. My idea was then to buy her a relatively inexpensive acoustic guitar and have Monte sign it for her. The plan worked rather well.

Ski Kujda 2007 - Breckenridge This was the first time that I had actually gone on this trip, but it's a well planned out vacation that Jason Kujda puts together each year. Although I only knew Eric, Charlie, Brooke, and to a lesser degree, Mr. Kujda himself, this was a fantastic trip. In hindsight I wish that I had gone skiing as I feel I've worn myself out on snowboarding, but Eric and I took to the slopes together most of the week and had a blast anyways.

Dreux's Bachelor Party Although I might be slightly biased in having planned this event, this is probably one of the better bachelor parties I've been to. Everyone met over at my Village Oaks apartment sometime around 6pm. I knew someone who was able to rent me a special party bus with a fighter jet canopy welded to the top of it. We immediately started drinking on the bus and went to pick up Dreux at his house where he was bombarded with silly string and then forced to wear a prison suit and drag around an actual ball and chain (a 16 lb bowling ball). We went to dinner at The Tilted Kilt (scantily clad women serving food), and then up north to Perfect 10 for some good stripper action. When we finally headed back towards town, we stopped in at Sherlock's on north Burnet for the remaining hour we had the bus before heading back to my apartment. Once we got there, drunk as all could be, we decided it would be a good idea to go swimming. For the most part, everything worked out pretty well although Emerson did manage to get the police to show up after pounding on the wrong apartment door (instead of mine).

Laura and Jarrod's Wedding Although I didn't know Laura or Jarrod all that well, I actually got invited to their wedding by the bride so that I could be introduced to one of her good friends, incidentally a gorgeous bridesmaid named Kelly. Although we never really went out for whatever reason, I was still flattered and had a great time at the wedding. Fortunately Emerson and Danielle were at the wedding too and so we got to have a grand old time partying together.