Jamie Wakefield

Did you know we're moving back to Vermont? Movers come tomorrow. The apartment will have paper plates, two computers, a bed and a couch. For four days before we fly home. Internet right now is through what's known as a "hotspot" on Wendy's iPhone, which, through 3G, provides internet access. Since we have exceeded our limit on fast internet bandwidth speed, we're stuck with dial-up like internet access. Hence, very few updates. Quick rambles: We will be home late the 17th. The little dog is starting to show signs of age, his hearing seems gone and the four flights of steps are murder on him. He will be happy to be home to the green green grass of Vermont and four steps to get inside the house. Wendy quit reading "A Dance with Dragons" yesterday. I don't blame her one bit. Shame on you George "Robert Jordan" Martin. (Please sir, in your next book can you stop focusing so much on peeing, torture, whining and food? Thanks.) ...

I am at the post office in Madrid. I need to mail back my contracts to my new employer in Vermont. Everything is ready, I just need a stamp. The little dog is panting at my feet trying to sniff the woman next to me who has no wish to be sniffed. Since the ticket machine is broken I ask (as is Spanish custom) "Who is last?" A priest tells me he is. The next person comes in, asks who is last and I assent that I am. He is a beefy guy, a little taller than me, slight gut, black hair turning to grey, muscled but not enormous. Ten minutes go by and the same woman is still at one of the two open windows. I look to the guy who came in behind me and roll my eyes. "For the love of God," he says. "I know. Incredible." That was a mistake. The little dog is lying on the marble floor, clearly thinking we are at the vet and a rectal exam is coming his way soon so he is panting in distress. Five minutes later my beefy friend is throwing a fit, cursing and swearing, blamin...

* Lorelei told me I would not get any responses to "My Wife the Spy part III" because it is too scary. It looks like she is right. I'm glad she is out of that business now. * There is not a day that goes by that we do not think "I cannot wait to start our new life in Vermont. I cannot wait to have one home. I cannot wait to have a yard, a king sized bed, a lack of construction every morning, a gym where people understand etiquette and air conditioning and customer service and... etc." *We will miss Spain, don't get me wrong, but our time here is done for the moment. *After a five year wait, GRRM new novel is a huge disappointment to me. GRRM is the guy who wrote the book and HBO series "A Game of Thrones" both of which are excellent. This is the best way to explain how I feel: There is another fantasy series called "The Wheel of Time." Go look at the reviews on Amazon for books 5-10 of that series by Robert Jordan. The author of those boo...

Wendy is contacted by a huge company (they're in the news a lot lately including last week's issue of Time magazine) who she has done work for before. 'Hi Wendy, How are you? Good. So, what we want this time is an investigation into two people. They want us to design a hundred million dollar project for them. The problem is, they don't seem to have any money, no previous projects, and no history of business because their company was started only six months ago. We need you to verify that they are legit." "No problem." Wendy contacts the home office and they put her in contact with a German spy. When I say spy, I don't mean it in the way Wendy is a spy, I mean it in the James Bond, gadgets, surveillance, trained in hand to hand combat kind of spy. Wendy is put in touch with him and she details what she needs. Four weeks go by and things seem to be going well. She is getting regular updates and brief reports. The spy doesn't work alone, he has an as...

The high temperature in Madrid is a hundred degrees (F) every day this week. Monday I went out running at three p.m., essentially noon here in Madrid, the height of the heat. I ran down our hill, through the park to Principio Pio, down to the river, across the bridge, alongside the river, across the bridge again and up the hill. I wanted to get to the stoplight that ends the park and is halfway up the hill to our apartment. I had to look down at the sidewalk and ignore how far I had to go in order to make it. The entire run the dry heat of Madrid burned my lungs as I sucked in air, thin with oxygen. I'm so extreme aren't I? Um, no. Let me explain. I thrive on such weather. I have always run in the most insane conditions. When I was nineteen and a friend of mine was about to enter the military, I joined him on an extensive program designed to get him ready for basic training. It focused on push-ups and running. He was going to join in early spring so our regiment was in a bitter...

So, we're investigating... America has no companies doing nuclear. No new nuclear engineers. All the guys that used to do that are 60+ because of the current opinion about nuclear in the US right now. So, another country, of the five we're looking at, doesn't have the intelligence, infrastructure or technological base to do anything this company wants. Their computers and engineering are almost stone age. Another country has no nuclear. The country doing the most solar is... Spain. (Who we're not supposed to investigate.) Wendy puts me and the intern (the wonderful Diana) on search duty. Investigate the other countries. Investigate the US for thermal solar, co-generation and other tech the client is looking for. And so the search begins. This is harder than you might think. It takes me a week to grasp it, and another week to teach Diana. "No, they do solar, not thermal solar." "Yes, they have pictures of generators, but they build and sell them, they don...

I asked my wife permission to tell this story. Why? Because she’s a spy. Don’t tell anyone! People constantly ask you what you do. I’m a writer, and a computer tech. That encapsulates me. Wendy’s story is a little harder to explain and always confuses people. When she gets done explaining people generally say ”So, you’re a spy?” “No!” She protests. Yes, I nod. Wendy came to Madrid to work for a company that does competitive intelligence. They have some operatives in the field, they contact companies and say “Anything you need to know about the competition?” In a very general sense, things like that. Like I said, it’s tough to pin down. I really can’t go into all of the challenges she/I faced with her business because… well, because. Let me just give you a few examples that I find fascinating. Wendy came to Spain with essentially no training, no idea what she as getting into, no idea what the job would entail. In nine months she had contacts with the biggest companies in...

My father is terrified of flying. Much like I was a lifetime ago. He conquered that fear for us. We have desperately wanted them to come to Madrid to experience what we have lived for the past four years, and this week, they finally did. And they got it. They really, really, GOT it. Do you know how that feels to us? "Let us introduce you to all these things that we love. If you don't love them, that's okay, but we want you to experience it." They were in awe. Just like I was when I first came here (book link on the side, hint, hint.) They loved the people, the architecture, the food, the history, the living statues, all of it. We wanted to take them to a seafood restaurant and order a cold seafood platter and a hot seafood platter but it's so different than American seafood. Percebes, and crab guts and cigala and shrimp and all cold with no cocktail sauce. Also a hot seafood plate with shrimp and cigala grilled with salt and olive oil. Clean and natural and delici...

I’ve heard about Mallorca since I’ve been in Spain. Almost as famous as Ibeza, it is one of the nearby Spanish islands in the Mediterranean and a popular vacation spot for Germans, British and Spaniards. Pictures of Mallorca show the sandy beaches, the resort towns and the towering cliffs. One guidebook I read described tourism as so popular that agriculture was becoming a nuisance. I did a lot of research on this place and got the mental picture of it being much like Lanzarote turned out to be. Sure, there is a long Coney Island like strip with bad tourist food, but good, possibly crowded beaches that stretch forever into the distance. I pictured bike paths, a long sidewalk for walking above but next to the beach and then the hidden gems, the little known coves, the special old style restaurants that don’t cater to the hordes of tourists but serve authentic island food. From the descriptions I’ve read, lots of towns fit this description on the island, the most prominent one being Pa...

I detailed my experience with the wonderful Manta Diving in Lanzarote here , and people asked for a picture. I finally found one of my instructor and her boyfriend, Wendy's refresher course instructor. Really nice people and I recommend learning scuba from them to anyone going on holiday to this island. And, if you haven't read the entry I talk about here, you should. I think it's one of my more interesting pieces.

Wendy has shown me some truly magical places. She did not nurture a love of new places in me, all she had to do was 1) make me fall in love with her, 2) have me visit and 3) show me the wonder known as Madrid. That was all it took for me to realize “you know nothing Jon Snow.” It awakened in me a longing to see and do more. To finally quit avoiding sunlight, playing video games and believing everything I needed to see was on my TV, and everything I needed to eat was at Hannafords. As I have mentioned so many times before, I did not know I needed these new things, but I did. And in the wonderful five years that we have been together she has shown me places that, when I see them, feel like a ray of bright sunshine on my soul. We have been on a staggering number of trips together. Almost all of them have been amazing, enriching experiences. But we still had never been to the one place that I actually have always wanted to visit, ever since I was a child. Venice. As a child, I tho...