The luck of the Irish came a little early last night and I finally got off the schneid. 

I was beginning to wonder if I had another win in me. 

Not sure if you noticed, but I had updated yesterday’s post a couple hours before the game because I found a straight up bet on the VZ team instead of the Even Run bet.  As it turned out, I would have won either way, but the straight up bet made it more exciting to watch.  The Even bet wouldn’t really have mattered until the last inning.

I know I’ve hit the travel wall, because even after the win last night, I woke up today with zero desire to move to the next destination.  Not only that…I woke up dreaming about Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon from PTI, breaking down the Phoenix Suns. 

When you´re in South America dreaming wistfully about two bald, middle-aged dudes you know you´ve hit a wall.  I´m amazed at the people out here travelling for a year or two.  More power to them.  Two months appears to be my line of demarcation.

Don´t think I´m about to hop on a plane back to the states today or something.  There’re less than 10 days left and I’m sure I’ll get a second wind (expecially with a friend of mine–Rooney–making the trip to Colombia to join up for a few days), but just for one day, man could I have gone for 8 hours on a comfy mattress, a Starbucks, an H&H bagel and a newspaper where I can make out more than three words a page. 

And maybe even the PTI guys in the background…

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I watched the game with some Canadian guys I had met the day before, and they jumped on the VZ bandwagon once I told them that dinner and drinks were on me if they beat Puerto Rico. 

The two guys left and right of me, Ragu and Kevin, I’ve hung out a bit with and are great company.  They’re from Toronto and big Raptors fans and it was the first time on the trip I’ve been able to talk serious hoops with anyone.  Maybe that’s what got me itching for home.  I don’t think I’ve gone this long without playing a pickup game since I was 8.   Hadn’t realized how much I miss it. 

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I just remembered….I was going to talk about the CIA today.

One fascinating thing about my father’s passports is if you match up the dates he was in certain places and what was going on there at the time.  The conspiracist in me (and my mom) has always wondered if he was doing more than just working for Time-Life.  When you consider he was in Vietnam as things were heating up there and Cuba right around the Fidel revolution, not to mention a whole host of other ‘business’ trips to 60’s hotspots, you can’t help but wonder. 

I haven’t done a whole lot of research on it yet, but during that time period, apparently American international companies like Time-Life were often willing to work with the US government.  I’m not saying he was pulling James Bond hi-jinks, but information gathering?  Or liason?  Seems feasible.  I mean, you start to wonder what a guy selling ad space for Time-Life magazine is doing running around areas of Vietnam in 1964 that probably had a subscription rate of, oh, three.  Being Mexican too wouldn’t have hurt, as he wouldn’t have aroused suspicions as much as an American would.

I bring this up now, because while talking to David and Walter (the friends of his from back in the Caracas days), they offhandedly mentioned that so-and-so who was in their poker group was in US intelligence and another guy was working with a European government. 

I started asking questions and it turned out that both Walter and David had been approached about recruitment back then.  They were working in Caracas for large American companies and had extensive local connections, so were approached about doing little things like getting payoffs into the right hands, etc, etc. 

They couldn’t say for sure about Hector Senior, but seeing as all the others were either involved or had been approached about being involved…it makes you wonder.

If I have time later I’ll write out some of the dates, places and what was going on historically there at the time, so you can judge for yourself.  Also, I don’t know if I can find anything out, but when I get back to the States I plan on trying to dig a little deeper into this angle.