The good, the bad and the road

Our day of days lasted for ten days. The last week and a half we have driven 4000 kilometers. We’ve eaten with proletarian truck drivers and pretentious urbanites, ridden vast stretches of highway and tiny alleyways in the city, slept at motor hotels with the caravan royalties and crashed in hostels with 19 year old backpackers.

Our trip started in Vancouver heading south. The first stop was Seattle where we picked up our car, a blue Hyundai Accent or Blue Lightning if you will. A medium size sedan by our standards, a go-cart size micro-machine by American standards. From Seattle we headed for Portland, spending the night right outside the city where motels are cheap and restaurants are made for hungry truck drivers.

From Portland we took the scenic but slower Highway 101 along the coast stopping only once before we came to the wine district Napa valley in northern California. Napa is a gorgeous place eight hours north of San Francisco. The whole district looks like a postcard, it’s absolutely stunning and makes you want to become a vegan and live there forever. The Swedish firecracker and I checked out wineries and enjoyed more then one glass of northern California’s finest attribute; red whine.

From Napa we headed to Salinas, birthplace of John Steinbeck. Having read everything Don Steinbeck has written except his shopping lists, my expectations were high.

The majority of his books take place in the Salinas valley, so driving though this part of the country I found my self keeping an eye out for Pilon or Jesus Maria or any other of the epic characters Don Steinbeck so perfectly has portrayed. To my disappointment the only people I met were gas station attendants and waitresses.
The National Steinbeck museum was ok, but nothing compared to what his legacy is through the books he has written.



From Salinas Blue Lightning took us to San Francisco, landing us in a hostel in the middle of town. Coming from Highway 101 to city traffic nearly killed me from stress, we scarcely avoiding being towed for parking in the commercial zone. However I learned that the secret to persuading the parking attendant to not tow you is to speak poor English with a heavy Norwegian accent combined with plain old begging. It evokes sympathy from even the most hardened civil servant.

From San Francisco Interstate 5 carried us to Los Angeles, the city all un-pretty things go to die. LA has close to no charm and is so huge and spread out it takes away your will to live. Coming from beautiful San Fran, LA looks like the city that fell out of the ugly tree hitting every branch on its way down. Weird place not worth spending too much time in, but still a cool place to have visited.

After fleeing from purgatory our schedule was getting tight and we had three days to drive 2000 kilometers. We headed north on Interstate 5 making it all the way to Seattle in record time. The marathon driving gave us a bonus day in Seattle and we stayed at hotel so cool it could make Winston chill; the Ace Hotel. Seattle is a lot like Vancouver with friendly people, not so friendly climate compared to California, some great concept restaurants and a laidback west coast vibe.


Yesterday we arrived back in Vancouver with a suitcase full of dirty laundry, sore asses from sitting in Blue Lightning for ten days and more cool experiences then we had hoped for. Ten years after reading Kerouac’s “On the road” for the first time, I’ve got my own little part of the American road and wouldn’t you know, road tripping is the only way to go. Who knew it would be the day of days?

Here for the road

The Swedish firecracker and I are now in the middle of nowhere somewhere between Portland Oregon and San Francisco. The small town we are camped up in is one of many almost identical towns along coast highway 101. The vast empty spaces of southern Oregon and northern Californian apparently allow people to spread the little towns out as wide as possible. Every place you stop is build up by blocks and square streets. In the smallest town, where their might be 1500 inhabitants, there are maybe fifteen gas stations, ten fast-food joints and the obligatory antique shop. Everywhere you find these gad damn antique shops. Something’s are not meant to be sold twice.

Our trusted car works like a charm and encourages us to adapt a real American lifestyle; we drive absolutely everywhere. We pretty much haven’t walked anywhere (not that you can in this with these distances) since we left Vancouver two days ago. Well, when in Rome.

Tomorrow we head for the wine districts north of San Francisco in hope of good wine, great food and fantastically sophisticated conversation over to many bottles of red.

Endless potential and other terrible things

Starting a project is often a challenging ordeal. A groups will more often the not experience first hand that the flip side of creativity and freedom is frustration and the sense of being overwhelmed. Don’t get me wrong, there are few things in project work more sought after and desired then free hands, endless possibilities and encouraging clients. But when push comes to shove and the work is about to begin, it can be hard to find out what the hell your pushing, how to push it and in which direction the thing is moving.
No self respecting KaosPilot will ever admit that they secretly want a narrow project that the client has predefined. But sometimes late at night in the dark with the curtains drawn, we think “hey, wouldn’t it be nice to be an accountant?”
I’m willing to put money on that damn near every member of my project group has had a moment like that the last week. We have kick started a project that holds such potential and have such undefined frames and limitations, that it could beat you into submission and make you come back for more. Thank god.

Besides work, we have had our first party. The “KaosPilots have landed” party was on Friday and filled Homebase to the rim with customer, newfound friends and passersby. The show included a traditional blessing of the office, several speeches and the KP airhostess greeting. Great fun, great people, great welcome, great vibe.

Descending before landing

Yesterday we had our first meeting with what will be our home base and offices. We occupy the first floor of a building on Cordova Street. The building is located in the absolute poorest neighborhood I Vancouver. This become apparent to us when one of VC one million homeless people decided to camp out next to our entrance. Furthermore the area has the largest concentration of HIV and Hepatitis C in North America.

The building is called the Stanley hotel and was at some point in the distant past, a decent hotel. The building is owned by the province, but pending a plan of what do to with it, has been left decaying for many years. In short our floor looked like shit.


The challenge, seeing as KaosPilotes don’t have the privilege of calling anything a problem, is for us to get the place presentable before Tuesday. The budged is nothing worth mentioning so we started doing what be do best, raising funds (begging, borrowing & stealing). The neighborhood is friendly though and we ended up getting a lot of stuff that will come in handy. We even have an Army Navy Shop right across the street. Spread out on three floors you can get anything from plumbing to women’s shoes.


But all work and no play makes you grumpy and bitter. Taking that into consideration we have somehow found the time to check out a few of the local bars. A funny experience was forcing our Irish team manager to come with us to an “Irish” bar. His national pride nearly coma in the way of the endeavor, but me managed to persuade him. Though to out disappointment there were neither leper cons nor river dancing there.

Who knew it would be the day of days?

A new day in the City of Rain, as I now know Vancouver is called by the locals. The jetlag is forcing into the role as an early bird, which is profoundly against my nature. I’m sure anyone that knows me or has met me before lunch is struggling to believe that I wake up before noon, but it’s a fact. 06.00 today. Jesus.

The plan today is to defy the rain and check out china town. Vancouver has a huge amount of Chinese immigrants, originating all the way back from when they built the railroad here. It seems like every other person you see on the street is Asian, looking forward to check out their turf in on of the world’s biggest china towns.


Last night, after having a beer with a bunch of people from the team, the Swedish firecracker and me accidentally went to a burger place called Dennys. Denny’s looks like something out of a tarantino movie and gives you the vibe that any second some desperado will come storming though the door, guns blazing with a vengeance. Our waiter, Helmut (!), did a hell of a job keeping up appearances for us and the couple celebrating Valentines Day in the both next to us. The really funny part though was that the food believe it or not was great. Vesla (Sweden’s pride an joy) ate a French toast that could make you believe in god and I had a serious burger that required a machete to eat.

The day of days started early.

Arriving in Vancouver yesterday, I am now dealing with the aftermath of jetlag, franticly trying to remember how much Canadian dollars are worth and enjoying your new gorgeous apartment in the middle of downtown Vancouver.

After leaving our luggage at the apartment last night P and me went on a small recon trip in the neighborhood. We landed at a semi-shady bar dinking pitchers of beer and eating ridiculously huge bowls of nachos. We already feel like we belong on the American continent.

Waking up at 05.00 (!) today I realized that jetlag can be a pain in the ass, but on the bright side I’ve never woke up that early on my own. Ever. Guess it’s a good thing to take advantage of the day, getting a head start on enjoying the City of Glass.