Mile
Zero

"So pretend that you're a team at Chapeaux Hat company. What does Chapeaux mean? Right, it means 'hat.' So that's kind of a double entendre."

[for literally any situation at all]
"The example I like to use here is the iPod."

"'Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.' It was Abraham Lincoln who said that."

"And I'm sure that you all are very aware of budget. You're a bank, after all."

Sometimes, especially as we've been holding job interviews, people ask me what I enjoy most about working at the World Bank. Is it the feeling of satisfaction that comes from working at a non-profit, albeit a huge and controversial institution? Is it the multicultural environment filled with brilliant and interesting people? Is it the wide-ranging nature of the issues that we get to present to the world? Is it the compensation package? Is it the big, shiny building?

Well, I say, those are all very nice. But I also really like the chocolate. Because on days like today, when our colleagues from offices in Europe or Latin America drop in at headquarters for meetings or training, they usually bring chocolate from around the world to share with the rest of us.

I'm getting spoiled.

Now that they're finally done, I've added one of the Learning Week podcasts to the audio section of my portfolio. It features Andrew Law, Head of BBC Worldwide Interactive Learning, and he talks about the impact of different formats and accessible media production on educational programs.

Although I'm not adding them to the portfolio, anyone who's interested in e-learning might also want to listen to the podcasts of David Kolb and Lorin Anderson. Kolb is one of the earliest proponents for experiential learning, and talks about its history and interaction with learning styles. Although he's arguably more important than Law, he required a lot more editing (sometimes more than 50 cuts per minute) to make his speech fully fluent. He still sounds a little odd sometimes, and I didn't want that to be a portfolio piece. Anderson was one of the academics who worked on an elaborate revision of Bloom's taxonomy in 2001. He discusses how the learning taxonomy is used for education, and also how to evaluate learning programs using these tools. It's slightly more obscure than Law's interview, but still interesting given the current emphasis on testing in education.

They have installed a solar-powered faucet in the men's room at work. I work on the second floor, in a building with eleven floors, so there are no skylights in the bathroom. Neither are there windows.

In theory, this makes more sense than you'd immediately think, because it's one of those water-conserving auto-faucets, and the solar panel means that it's powered as a side-effect of the bathroom flourescents, instead of requiring its own electrical connection.

But it's still a little odd.

Sometimes my job is simply awesome.

This is my proposed intro music for the IFC's Business Enabling Environment Newsletter, nicknamed "The Buzz." The first section serves as a theme, while the second is a musical bed for the narrator to provide an introduction (that's why it gets a little monotonous and then ends abruptly). There are still mixing errors to fix--UPDATE: corrected!--but gives some idea of what I'm trying to do. I was told to make it "newsy" and I had to have the buzzing sound somewhere.

All bass and guitar sounds were created using the Variax. The slap bass during the first half is the Stingray model, and the second half is a pickstyle Rickenbacker. I also used the 12-string model through a Sansamp PSA-1 distortion plugin for the guitar accents, where it almost creates a doubletracking effect that I really like. The thing is a recording monster.

The week of March 12 I will be in Brussels, Belgium for a conference on Improving Governance and Fighting Corruption: New Frontiers in Public-Private Partnerships. I'm not sure entirely what I'll be doing there, but right now it looks like I'll be writing summaries and status reports for the conference website, as well as possibly creating audio interviews and podcasts for those who can't attend.

I mention this partially because the extra work for this conference, as well as some exciting internal projects, explain the relative paucity of posts during the last couple of days. But primarily I mention it because, hey: I'm going to Belgium for a week, and I think that's pretty awesome. Any tips from former visitors (or, who knows, any Belgian readers) are welcome.

One of the video editors has been giving me a hard time because I'm phobic about needles, and he claims I'll need vaccinations. Against what, I'm not sure. I wasn't aware that Belgium was some kind of plague-ridden hellhole, ravaged by disease and lacking proper sanitation--or, indeed, the discoveries of fire and the wheel. At about the point that I was making a protest to that effect, my manager stopped in.

"So, you are headed off to the land of chocolate," she said, and for a second I thought: I'm also going to Switzerland?

"Does he need shots to go to Belgium?" asked my coworker. My boss simply stared at him for a minute.

"Not unless he is allergic to chocolate."

I think I can state firmly that I am not, and that this trip is sounding better and better already.

Courtesy of an East European co-worker, here is this gem of an idiom:

Double-take? You bet. It's a Bulgarian phrase meaning a terrific pain to deal with, which--while brutal--does present a certain inescapable poetry.

I'm going to be on edge for days until I can use it in a conversation.

UPDATE- Also, this is good: in response to someone "turning their back" on a person or topic, Bulgarians apparently respond with "flowers have no backs." What does it mean? Who cares!

22 pages of voiceover work to record?

I should have said I was mute at the interview.

Conversation #1 - Steffen, a project manager, walks by the office door.

Thomas: Hey, Steffen!

Steffen: (stopping to talk) Yes?

Pause.

Thomas: ... This isn't why I stopped you actually, but I just realized that I habitually yell at you while you're in the hallway instead of finding a civilized method for getting your attention. I am so respectful.

Steffen: That's why you're a model employee.

Conversation #2 - The B-SPAN Coordinator, Maria-Martina, drops in to chat.

Maria-Martina: What's the percentage of American pay that goes towards taxes?

Thomas: You mean in general? Depends on income, it's a progressive system.

MM: So about how much?

Thomas: Well, mine would be about 20%, I think, but I have to pay another 5-10% because the Bank doesn't cover my Social Security and Medicare payments.

MM: Wow. I heard that even if you work overseas, you still have to pay taxes.

Thomas: That's right. Don't you?

MM: No. I don't pay anything. And you have to pay extra.

Thomas: Huh.

MM: The World Bank must hate you.

Thomas: You said it, not me.