What's News?

I am sort of a news junkie. I read wire stories, check CNN, The Washington Post and The New York Times frequently, listen to news radio and NPR. But I've found I end up scanning the headlines, but reading very few of the actual stories.

Why? After years of paying attention to the news, I've become a bit jaded about what actually matters. Most stories are repetitions of what I've already heard, stories that most people knew were coming, or variations on the same theme.

Let's look at the current Reuters headlines.

• Carter Meets Castro for Talks on Landmark Visit -- Once you get beyond the statement, "Jimmy Carter's going to Cuba," there's not much information there.
  
• Israel's Likud Vote Further Blow to Peace Talks -- Oh, and they were doing so well before. It's somewhat interesting from an Israeli political standpoint that Sharon, who is generally a hard-liner, opposed the resolution against a Palestinian state. Other than that, I'm not sure what any of this signfies.
  
• Jordanian King Says Mideast Crisis Bolsters Bin Laden -- Well, everybody's entitled to their opinion, even if it's obvious. This is one of these stories that gets reported because of who says it. I am confident that a month from now nobody will remember this story. When you come down to it, "Mideast Crisis Bolsters Bin Laden" is a significant story, but this isn't.
  
• Powell, Ivanov Back Arms Accord Before Summit -- So the US and Russia are reducing their nuclear arsenals? No? Well they're talking about it at a summit? No? They're preparing to talk about actually doing something? Good work. (And I mean that.) But wake me when we get there.
  
• G8 Justice Ministers Focus on Terrorism, Crime -- I spend far too much of my life in meetings; I can pass on reading about other peoples'.
  
• British Assisted Suicide Campaigner Dies -- This actually seems like it might be interesting if I were British or had a strong opinion about euthenasia -- well, it would probably require both.
  
• First Lady Setting Out Solo for Europe -- I can't even think of a reason why this might be interesting, so it's hard to explain why it doesn't interest me.
  
• Firefighters Battle Huge Fire North of Los Angeles -- This actually strikes my attention, since Christina, Janie (Christina's sister) and I are going to LA in a few weeks. If it keeps up, I'll have to get more details.
  
• Tea Builds Bone Density, Taiwanese Study Finds -- Well, since I don't like tea, this isn't going to make me increase my tea intake. Hmm, come to think of it, I'm not 100% sure I need denser bones. Maybe it's a good thing I don't drink tea.
  
• 'Spider-Man' Swings Past $200 Million at Box Office -- Well, since it made so much last weekend, this is one of those stories the writer can write on Friday, then come back from a long weekend and fill in the details.
  

I guess my point is that none of these stories gives me a more complete understanding of the universe around me -- a tall order, but that's why I pay attention to the news these days. What I'm really looking for is the unexpected -- Israelis and Palestinians making peace, Finns and Swedes fighting a war, a cure for cancer...

Often times, though, these stories aren't on the front page. Perhaps the most interesting story I read today was on page A17 of today's Post. "Egyptian Radicals Veering Away From Violence." "Egyptian Radicals Denounce America" makes the catchier story, but this is more compelling. If we don't want things to get really ugly, we need to see a trend towards moderation in the Middle East. As I type that, I realize how obvious it sounds. Good; that means it's probably true. So it's worth watching this to see if it's a trend -- from the article, "veering" seems a bit of an exaggeration, but this is about a trend that could make a difference.

While finding the link for that article, I ran across several others from the Post that bear reading. There's an article about fears of "belt-bombers" in the US -- that'll keep me up tonight. There's an article about an arrest in the US that may be related to the Sept. 9 slaying of Gen. Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of the Northern Alliance -- kind of freaky that an American postal worker may be involved, but it's heartening that investigators are making progress. That's one of the reasons I, and a lot of others, I'm sure, turn on the news these days -- to see if the good guys are catching the bad guys. Keep your fingers crossed. The article about people upset about DC's new Grand Prix race is pretty interesting too. It brings together a few things that I keep an eye on -- attempts to revitalize the DC economy, the high-handedness of these attempts toward local citizens, the general whininess of local citizens...

I guess as I get bombarded with 24-hour news, the what, when and where is so easily available that I barely need to read the stories. What I really am looking for is the whys and what ifs.

Auction Fever

Well, my laptop is fixed, so I'm posting again from the comfort of the couch.

Christina and I went to an auction today with Martin and Jeanene. Martin's boss had suggested it as a good place to get furniture deals. Martin and Jeanene need furniture for the house they're planning to purchase, and Christina likes a good auction. Me? I thought it would be fun to take the excursion.

Christina required more convincing to go along that I expected. After a very confusing conversation, we determined that I had forwarded her a message that contained two very different discussions. Martin's message about the auction was preceded by a note from Ben lamenting the departure of Ron Wilson, hockey coach. If you read the message without context (as Christina did), it sounded a lot like we were heading to Ron Wilson's estate sale. Christina was less than enthused about bidding on a bunch of sports memorabilia. Once we cleared that up, she was 100% on board.

We met Martin and Jeanene this morning at Dunkin' Donuts and followed them to Northern Virginia, where the auction house was located. There was a brief preview period where we wandered around and looked at stuff before the auction proper began. I was a little surprised to hear the traditional auctioneer 200-word-a-minute style used, but after a while I got used to it.

The strategy they used here was to auction off only furniture (to make room for more stuff) or items people requested to bid on (which made sure that nothing went without bids). Martin and Jeanene ended up with a 1920s-era bedroom suite and a grandfather-type clock. Christina asked for bidding on some carnival glass and a nice wooden box, but bidding on that quickly went beyond what she was willing to pay (although she said the winning bidders still got very good deals). I had the honor of having my request be the last item of the auction -- once the auction assistant realized that I was asking to bid on some old beer bottles, not trying to order a beer from him. The auctioneer held up the beer, asked for a $1 bid, got mine, and then yelled "sold" without taking any more bids. Well, I'm happy.

Martin and Jeanene needed a couple of trips to get all their new furniture home. We helped by transporting a nightstand (or end table or something), which Martin'll pick up later. I put it away in my dining room. Christina put a towel over it to protect it -- ostensibly from spills, but actually if it sits there too long, I might get used to how nice it looks.

Spider-Man

Christina and I went to see Spider-Man on opening night last Friday. It was a very enjoyable movie. Only once the movie had started did I realize just how familiar I was with the Spider-Man "myth". Because of this familiarity, I was particularly sensitive to the "liberties" taken in the making of the movie. First of all, having Spider-Man's web shooters be organic rather than mechanical was clearly a bad idea. I mean what's the point about making a big deal of Peter Parker's scientific brilliance if you're not going to have him use said genius to construct web-shooters? "Gee, I'm a science whiz. I think I'll get a job as a news photographer."

Beyond that, though, I can't complain too much. In the movie, he's at Columbia University when he gets bitten by the genetically-engineered spider. Looking through an old comic book history I forgot I had, I discovered he was on a field trip at some weird corporation when he got bitten by the radioactive spider. The venue wasn't important, and the switch in type of spider was probably a smart updating. Interestingly, in Ultimate Spider-Man, Marvel's updating of the legend, he gets bitten in an Osborn Industries lab. I've read the first 20 issues of the new book on-line, and it's very well done.

So I guess what felt the most awkward about the movie was other "updating" -- stuff that seemed done to make it seem "hip". For example, Peter Parker is early on seen hanging out in a mall food court. It seemed to make Spider-Man seem "2002" (or, frankly, "1992"), rather than the timeless legend I had in my mind.

Well, as I mentioned, I had this history of Spider-Man (c. 1991) upstairs. Boy, did that disabuse me of the notion that Spider-Man was ever timeless. In the original comic book, at one point Harry Osborn gets strung out on LSD. At another point, one of Peter Parker's buddies comes back from 'Nam and starts having flashbacks. Comic books have always struggled to stay relevant to modern youth. In the old comic book, Uncle Ben lived through the Depression. In the new one, he met Aunt May after spending time on a commune. Times change, the details change, but the movie (and comic book) show that the story endures, and endures well. I'll be looking forward to the sequel.

Separate but Equal

So the Bush administration is making it easier for public schools to segregate students by gender. Arrgh.

I might be able to buy the rationale that the federal government shouldn't be prohibiting the local governments from determining the form of education that they provide. But if you think federalism is the motivating principle for this administration, I hope you're enjoying your medical marijuana. After all, if it's not the federal government's business to encourage or discourage this sort of thing, why are they offering $3 million for pilot programs? Oh, that's right, to encourage it.

So that leaves the real justification:

Advocates, supported by a growing body of research, say encouraging single-sex schools offers the promise of benefiting both boys and girls, some of whom do better in such settings.

First, the obligatory inflammatory racial analogy. If research showed that segregating students by race raised their test scores, should we do it? Of course not.

Dividing up students by gender (or by race) encourages them to think of students in the other school as "the other". OK, great, the boys aren't causing trouble in class to impress the girls. (This is what I heard someone on NPR give as justification for single-sex classes.) So when they eventually encounter the opposite sex outside of class -- after school, in college, in the workplace -- they will act with dignity and restraint? Of course not. They'll be even worse, because they have little experience handling themselves in mixed company. These educators are following the current public school fad of making sure that problems happen on somebody else's watch.

When I was in college, I made sure to end up on a co-ed floor in the dorm. Why? Increased opportunities for debauchery? Not really. In fact, the all-male floors frequently had visits by women -- especially during the drunken weekend parties. Strangely enough, the co-ed floors had a lower incidence of that sort of immaturity.

Look, I realize that many people have had positive experiences in single-sex educational situations. I don't propose that the government step in and prevent private or parochial schools from operating that way. But when the government itself starts dividing people up by gender, it sets an ugly precedent. What's next? If the boys are distracted by the girls -- well, that would only be true of the straight boys and girls, right? Wouldn't the gay boys be twice as distracted in an all-boys school. Follow the logic and you end up with Arundel High School for Lesbians. (OK, maybe not. But doesn't that sound like it could be on Cinemax?)

I've lost track of my main point here, which is that separate schools for boys and girls may be slightly better at teaching math and reading (though I have my doubts). But implicitly they're going to be worse at preparing them for a gender-integrated society.

A Moment on the Earth

The low posting output lately is due to a glitch with posting to my web hosting service (hopefully, that'll get fixed, I'll get a work-around, or I'll change providers) and the fact that my laptop is in the shop.

I recently finished A Moment on the Earth, by Gregg Easterbrook. This is a long book, but I'm glad I made it through. Easterbrook's main thesis is that the environment is in good shape, but that this is a result of environmental regulation, so we should be interested in more of it. It's somewhat counter-intuitive -- or rather, it shows how counter-intuitive the two main poles in environmental debate are -- "The sky is falling, despite all the environmental legislation that's passed," or, "Everything we've done to clean up the planet has been enough. Let's just leave it at that."

I mention the thesis partially because a simple web search turned up some severe misunderstandings. For example, from this page,

His central thesis is: "...even for all their failings, market forces and a self-interest stake in forests are the best system for assuring responsible behavior, as they confer voluntary reasons to protect the land." (403) By implication, there is no longer any role for governmental regulation?

Hmm, well, most authors don't state their thesis on page 403. Reading the first part of the book, I noticed that Easterbrook expressed his general like of government regulation. In fact, he thought the good example government regulation set by getting results on environmental cleanup could be used to push government regulation in other spheres. The quote above has to do with the superiority of government regulations that make it worth people's while to comply. For example (mine, not Easterbrook's), littering is illegal pretty much everywhere. And, most places, the roadsides are strewn with bottles and cans. But when I lived in Michigan, I hardly ever saw litter of that type. Why? The 10-cent bottle deposit (made famous by Seinfeld).

I also found this page:

He denies such obvious truths as the fact that insects are becoming resistant to pesticides, asserts that "nothing Carson forecast in Silent Spring has come to pass," and boasts of the increase in raptors without noting that this was due to the banning of DDT.

Wow. Let's see. He mentions that insects are becoming resistant to pesticides, and mentions that the increase in raptors happened after DDT was banned.

I'm not quite sure what about the book provokes such strong reactions from people who clearly haven't read it all the way through. I found it to be a level-headed examination of the state of the environment. I didn't always agree with it, but it made a lot more sense than doomsday predictions or the let-'em-pollute crowd.

The Gambler

I was doing a Google search for Christina's pen name when I discovered that two more of her gambling articles had been published. One is about Vegas buffets (mmm), and the other about using credit cards for Internet gambling.

Plane Insanity

I just finished reading Plane Insanity, subtitled "A Flight Attendant's Tales of Sex, Rage and Queasiness at 30,000 Feet." I'd actually read a number of his columns at Salon.com, so much of the book seemed familiar to me.

Still, it was fun to compare the absolutely awful or outrageous situations Hester and his passengers experienced with the tamer flying life I have seen. Sex, rage and queasiness sums his book up pretty well. There's also some interesting information on the life of an airline employee, but mostly it's just entertaining fluff about the more ridiculous flights. His writing style is a little bit weak -- thick with cliches like "as if Scotty had just beamed me down from the U.S.S. Enterprise", to pick a passage at random.

4 out of 5 stars.

Forsythia

Last year, Christina went to work on the forsythia bush by my garage. She pruned it and predicted that it would look much better this year as a result. She took a picture last year so we'd have some basis to compare. Well, we took a picture again this year, and the difference is fairly impressive.

Passport Stamps

I have previously discussed the stamp I get in my passport when entering the UK. A British reader writes, in part,

i would really like to see what the heathrow stamp looks like cus being from the uk when i re enter the country they don't stamp me i just wonder through,so i was wondering if you could maybe scan me your stamps(heathrow)

Happy to oblige!

Here is the stamp I used to get:



And here's the one that keeps my hand out of the public till:



Sorry for the poor quality of the images, but they correspond to poor originals. The UK seems to use the cheapest ink imaginable.

Roughly equivalent to a poke in the eye

The other day while trying to restrain Teddy when Mickey came to the door, I banged my head into the wall. The result isn't always easy to notice, especially when I have my glasses on and I kind of squint, but here's what the shiner looks like...

SERMON 2002

I recently attended the SERMON 2002 mathematics conference. (SERMON stands for "South East Regional Meeting On Numbers" in case you're wondering.)

There's a photo album from this conference now on-line. There's a picture of me near the lower right (s7.jpg). Unfortunately, I can't link to it directly, but that's me with Dave Penniston and Ken Ono.

Season Pass

I've got my TiVo set up with a number of "season passes" to automatically record all episodes of a particular show. Here's what I've been watching.

1. Six Feet Under -- new season this weekend!
2. The Simpsons -- I've managed to catch up on most of the episodes this way.
3. Redskins -- This is a keyword search that's useful during football season to pick up all the Redskins shows.
4. The Sopranos -- I'm getting to see Season Two while we wait for Season Four.
5. Enterprise -- The latest Star Trek series. I'm also taping the episodes and sending them to a friend stationed in the UK.
6. Undeclared -- I really enjoy this college comedy by the creator of "Freaks and Geeks". I hope it gets renewed.
7. Friends
8. Futurama -- I heard it got cancelled, which is a shame.
9. King of the Hill
10. The Tick -- Cancelled. I don't know whether they have any more episodes left to show.
11. Malcolm in the Middle -- I originally started recording this at Christina's request, but I've come to enjoy it myself.
12. Pardon the Interruption -- Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon, two Washington Post columnists, sit around and talk about sports. It's replaced all other sports news on TV for me.
13. Dennis Miller Live -- He's better on HBO than on MNF.
14. NewsRadio -- I've watched all but 1 or 2 episodes on A&E reruns. I'll delete this soon.
15. "Sex and the City" -- Another one for Christina.
16. Movies & Opposite Sex -- This is a keyword wishlist designed to tape the movie "The Opposite of Sex". Unfortunately, all it has picked up so far is the commercial version and The Opposite Sex and How to Live with Them".
17. Movies & "Paint Your Wagon" -- Christina wants me to see this; again, it's just picked up the commercial version.
18. Saturday Night Live -- These days it mostly involves just watching the opening sketch and "Weekend Update".
19. Voyager Equinox -- Christina and I watched Star Trek: Voyager one evening. It was an episode that had been taped as a TiVo "suggestion". It was really interesting, but at the end we found out it was part one of two. Unfortunately, TiVo hadn't taped part two, so we're waiting for it to come on again.
20. Movies & "Time Bandits" -- It's coming on BBC America; I may put up with the commercials for this one.

Phone Bill

I enjoyed having my laptop with me on this trip. I could check my e-mail and read news stories on the web from the comfort of my hotel room and not waste time during the day or have to go out to an Internet café. I checked the phone to see if there was a per-call charge, but there was no indication of that there or in the guest services directory. They have to post that sort of thing, so I figured I was OK. However, just in case there was a per-call charge, I would stay connected rather than disconnecting and making multiple calls.

Oops. When I went to check out today, I found out that the charge was $.75/call+$.10/minute beyond 15 minutes. I had quite a substantial charge on my bill. When I protested that the rates were not posted anywhere, they offered to cut the bill in half for me. I figured that was reasonably fair -- since it was probably close to what I would have used if I had known the rate structure. You know -- if you make 4 15-minute calls, it's $3, but 1 60-minute call is $5.25. Also, I would not have left the connection up while I was in the shower and such. Actually, I probably would have spent far less than half the money, but I'm really not thrilled with arguing with people about stuff like this. I'll know if I stay there next time. And I guess the next time I bring my laptop, I'll double check what the charges are in advance.

Airport Insecurity

This time when I traveled, my bag was crammed full of all sorts of gizmos. I had to take out the laptop to go through the X-ray separately, but there remained my CD-rom drive, cell phone, GPS receiver, digital camera and assorted cables. So when it took a little bit longer to come out of the X-ray machine, I was not surprised. The security screener asked if I had something like a belt buckle in there. I shrugged, since I have no idea what looks like a belt buckle when x-rayed. The connector for the CD-ROM? Who knows? She asked if she could look through my bag, and I waited patiently.

And waited. She looked through someone else's bag and then wandered off. It was tempting to just walk away. I mean, they seemed to have forgotten about me. Then again, I could see that this was the sort of thing that gets terminals evacuated. They'd turn around to look for me, I'd be gone, and we'd all be on the cover of Newsweek. (Or at least a story on CNN.) So I kept waiting, until finally I got fed up and called out, "Excuse me -- you said you wanted to search my bag." At this point, the woman turned around and said, "No, that bag's OK." Now, maybe I had just misunderstood what she was asking me -- although someone who was there at the same time interpreted things the same way. But I think I have a better understanding of these intermittent incidents where somebody "slips through security" -- the security person gets distracted, the traveler has no idea what's going on & figures it's OK to leave. Oh, well; at least it worked out, and I'm on my flight to Chicago right now.

Trillion

My advisor talked about a trillion on NPR this morning. If you have the appropriate software installed, you can click on the previous link to listen.



That’s a Wrap

For our pre-Super Bowl entertainment, Christina and I went into DC to the National Gallery of Art to hear a talk by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Christo, you may have heard of. He’s the artist who “wrapped” the Reichstag in plastic in the ‘90s. Jeanne-Claude is his “partner” – I assume they’re married, but with these artists you can never be sure. She introduced his talk and concluded by saying she reserved the right to interrupt from time to time during the talk, which she did. I only had a nodding acquaintance with his work. What he does tends to make the news during the periods of time his work exists, so it flits across the public consciousness. He makes all of his money by selling conceptual drawings of his planned projects. And it’s apparently a lot of money. He spent tens of millions of it on just one project – giant umbrellas placed on the landscape in Japan and California. That’s one of the cool things about their work – they fund it all themselves. You can say what you want about their work – but at least you’re not paying for it. And it does have the virtue of being quite pretty to look at.



Jeanne-Claude’s interruptions frequently were to take objection with media characterization of their work as entirely devoted to “wrapping”. She said that the last time they started a “wrapping” project was in 1975. (Because of the time it takes to plan and to get approval for the projects, it sometimes takes decades to see them.) She pointed to “Valley Curtain”, where they had hung a sheet of fabric across a valley and emphasized that the valley was in no way “wrapped”.

One question in my mind that was answered by the talk was on the environmental impact of the works. They use only “industrial” fabrics that are designed to go on crops and similar things. So they’re presumably all OK for putting on landscapes without harming the wildlife. (Although one of the umbrellas did blow over and kill somebody.)

The two unfinished projects that they were concentrating on were “The Gates” and “The River”. “The Gates” is designed to be 26 miles of metal gates with hanging fabric to go on the walkways of Central Park. They proposed it around 1980, but it was rejected, and they didn’t seem too optimistic about getting approval for it in the near term. “The River” involves sheets of fabric to be draped above a river in the American West. I can’t remember which river they ended up settling on, but it’s the one that runs alongside US-50 and the transcontinental railroad. They seem to have gotten the necessary approval for it, but it’s still in the planning stages and a few years off.

We ended up leaving during the question and answer session. First of all, people were asking fairly pretentious questions. (Except Christina.) Secondly, we were sitting next to a really smelly woman. Finally, of course, there was a Super Bowl to get to.

Remember the 80s

DirecTV recently revamped its pricing plans. My previous plan, which gave me the “standard” satellite stations, the local channels and HBO/Cinemax would actually be more under the new scheme, although I was “grandfathered” in. I noticed, however, that I could save money by switching the new plan and dropping Cinemax. It was included with the old plan along with HBO, but I never really watched it (heck, I only got HBO to watch the Sopranos, though I’ve come to enjoy a lot of other stuff on there).

With the money I saved, I could add the “Family Plan” channels and still come out $3/month cheaper. The family plan channels included some stuff I had no interest in, such as soap operas and kids shows. But it also included a few that I did, particularly Discovery Civilization. They show “Lonely Planet,” my favorite travel show. When I activated the new service, little was I prepared for the wonder that was VH1 Classic. I miss the old days of MTV showing videos. I watch MTV2 from time to time, since they do nothing but show videos. But I don’t like a lot of the artists they show. The TiVo comes in handy at times like these, since I can tape a couple of hours of videos and fast-forward through stuff I don’t like. Unfortunately, I end up fast-forwarding through most of the videos. With VH1 Classic, on the other hand, they have a show devoted entirely to the 80s. I can just set that baby up to record and then enjoy minimal fast-forwarding. Timbuk3! George Michael! Depeche Mode! They’re all back ruling the dial just like they were 15 years ago. Ah, technology. Ah, nostalgia.

Window Pain

Somebody broke into my garage. Well, at least, I assume that’s what happened. Teddy and I were returning from our walk yesterday morning when I noticed that the back window of my garage had been removed and was neatly propped up against the outside wall. Now, I don’t really understand why the garage has a window. I guess it makes it a little bit easier to find stuff inside when it’s light out, though opening the garage door tends to take care of that. In any case, it was pretty easy to bend back the nails and open the garage door. Nothing was missing, so my hypothesis was that the would-be burglar either got scared off by someone approaching or decided my valuables weren’t so valuable. “Hey, a bike...oh, it’s a Huffy.” “Great, two old lawnmowers...oh, they’re electric.” This is all speculation...for all I know it was some kids looking for a new clubhouse. Or a nail rusted through, the window fell out of its own accord, and someone wandering by decided to prop it up. OK, the last one is a little far-fetched, which is why I called the police. A cop was over pretty quickly, but the paucity of evidence didn’t give him much to go on. He did have the good suggestion that until I could replace the window with something sturdier, I should use screws to re-attach the window. So, Ben, Steve and I preceded our D&D session with a bit of handy-man work. If somebody really wants to get in, they will, but hopefully the new handiwork will deter whatever lazy thieves we seem to have operating in University Park.

Flying High

I’m composing this at 34000 feet. Part of the excitement of using my new laptop, I suppose. I promise all my entries won’t be so self-referential, but for now I’m enjoying my new toys. They want you to hold off on using laptops until you reach 10000 feet. How was I to determine this? Using my GPS, of course. That’s where the aforementioned 34000 feet figure came. Sadly, I couldn’t determine our speed...apparently there’s some sort of maximum built into the device to prevent you from using it actually to fly a plane. I was pleased with how well the receiver picked up the satellites through the airplane window. Yet another reason to pick a window seat. (The other two being not getting bumped by beverage carts and not being climbed over by people who need to use the lavatory. Oh, yeah, and the view.) [As I was typing, my colleague “Bill” was bumped in the elbow by a beverage cart.]

Close, but no Cigar

I came home today to the Michigan-Illinois basketball game on my TiVo. Michigan's basketball program hasn't done very well since they cleaned up the program, so I didn't have high hopes for the Wolverines versus the 14th-ranked Illini. But I figured I could fast-forward through the parts where Michigan was behind by more than a basket or two. I expected to be through with the game in a few minutes. To my surprise, Michigan took an early lead and hung in there most of the game. Sadly, the operative word is "most". They ended up falling 68-60. Oh, well.

Tacos Grantham

I made Tacos Grantham on Monday (with Christina's assistance). I spent some amount of time looking for the recipe. As a service to my readers, and so that when I can't find it next time, I'll know where to look, I'm posting the recipe here.

The Recipe

1 lb. ground beef

1/3 C chopped onion

1/3 C chopped green pepper

one 8 oz. can tomato paste

1/3 C water

1 clove garlic, minced (or powdered)

1 1/2 t salt

2 t oregano

1/4 t cayenne powder

1 t vinegar

Brown meat in frying pan; add remaining ingredients. Cover; simmer at least 10 minutes. Serve with corn tortillas and lettuce, tomatoes, onion, cheese, etc.


No doubt the recipe has some other origin, but I'm claiming the recipe for my family under eminent domain.

Home Insecurity

My house was visited by the fire and police department this morning. Sound like trouble? No, actually just false alarms. Well, maybe I should do something about it. Oh, wait, I had a new alarm system installed. This morning. Which is what caused the false alarms.

Because of all the false alarms and how sick ADT was of coming out to repair my system, they offered to upgrade mine cheap. Good. It seemed like a simple thing, except the guy was here all morning trying to take care of it. At one point I heard him talking to someone, and I assumed he had to call another ADT guy for assistance. Nope; it was the fire department. He explained to him that he had been unable to get the system on “test”. About 15 minutes later, there was a knock at the door. I assumed it was my next door neighbor wondering about the fire trucks. Nope; it was the police department, responding to a silent alarm. The ADT guy popped out and explained what was going on. Hopefully now that the new system is in, false alarms will be a thing of the past. They always seem to happen when I travel across the country, and I'm going to do that again on Sunday.

Freshly fallen shroud

Well, I was home from work this morning (explanation later), so I was able to capture these unexpected flurries.

More Goldenstreet

Christina's article about credit card companies and Internet gambling is now up.

Good Eats

Christina has an article at GoldenStreet.com about Las Vegas buffets.

Laptop

I'm typing this right now at the Quizno's in Bowie as I have lunch. I managed to pick up a new laptop for a bargain price, thanks to my friend Martin, whose company is going through rough times, and found itself with more laptops than it had a need for. So it decided to sell off the surplus, Martin hooked me up, and here I am. Unfortunately, I won't be able to post this from here (no Internet access at Quizno's).

All I've really done so far is charge the battery and attempt to install Ski Resort Tycoon II. Unfortunately, that game crashes (I need to update some things on this system, no doubt), which is why I'm typing up a weblog entry rather than designing ski slopes with my lunch. I'm looking forward to a few other handy uses of this machine, especially when I travel. Once I get the cable that connects my new GPS to the serial port, I'll be in fine shape for navigating on the road. Also, I'm looking forward to doing much of my computing from the comfort of my couch while checking out stuff on TV. Unfortunately, I need to get an electrician in there to install grounded outlets near the couch, so I'll be running an extension cord across the room. (Along with a phone cord, until I get the wireless network up and running.)

Well, I'm finished with lunch, so it's time to shut this down and head back to work.

Update

Hey, it worked. I'm now at home on the couch posting this while watching the BBC News. Cool.

Ski Liberty

Christina and I went skiing on Monday at Liberty. We had a good time and were happily skiing one of the blue (intermediate) slopes by day's end. We did have some...interesting experiences on the chairlift, which I related in this discussion topic on the DCSki web site.

Family Dollar

In case you're wondering, this Family Dollar is 3 miles from my house. Weird.

Mandala

The talk at the National Gallery was good, and the lunch at Jaleo was delicious. The endive with orange and goat cheese was particularly good. But more about those later.

We ended the excursion by watching the closing ceremony for today's portion of a creation of a sand painting. Tibetan monks are working to create a mandala -- a sand sculpture -- to aid in healing in the aftermath of September 11th. We got to see them working on it -- I hate to say this, but the pictures hardly do it justice. Then they held a chant -- an end of the day meditation. An interesting day -- when else am I going to get a chance to see Tibetan Buddhist meditation? I think that's a good way to get myself out of bed when I don't feel like getting up -- who knows what I'll see today? Maybe Tibetan Buddhist monks meditating after creating an intricate sand sculpture. You can read more about the mandala here.

Happy Birthday to Me

Hey, it's my birthday today. I'm in the second year of a tradition of taking the day off and going into DC as a tourist. Today the plans are to head to the National Gallery of Art and hear a talk, have lunch at Jaleo, and then head somewhere else. I haven't decided yet, but then it's my birthday, so it's my decision, eh?

More Snow Pictures

Let It Snow

The first snow of the season is here, and this is the view out my back yard.

Westwood

I'm at a conference at UCLA right now. I'm enjoying this visit. The weather is quite nice. I realized on my way out here that I had never actually been to LA before. I had been through the area driving to and from Berkeley and San Diego. I had been to a football game in Pasadena. But this was my first visit to Los Angeles proper. (Disclaimer: I'm not 100% sure I'm in LA proper right now; I haven't checked municipal boundaries.)

Anyway, UCLA is located right on the edge of something called "Westwood Village". My hotel is on the other side.



I was mostly familiar with "Westwood" through the radio network Westwood One. But it turns out that it's a neighborhood of shops, restaurants and offices that's much more traditionally urban than I expected from Los Angeles. I mean, this is the land of the highway, right? But after getting off the 405, I found I didn't have a lot of need for the car. So it's mostly been sitting (at $18/day) in the hotel parking garage. Today, I got tired of walking, so tack on an additional $6 to park on campus.

Anyway, I head back tomorrow, but I just wanted to say that UCLA is definitely a cool place to be for a conference. Great weather, many restaurants within walking distance...what more could I ask for?

At Snowshoe

We had a fun 3-day trip to Snowshoe. Winter came late this year, so we only got one day to ski. But we made our own fun, and it was a nice opportunity to "get away from it all." I figure it was the first vacation from work I took that didn't involve somebody's wedding, or bunking at somebody's house.

Snowshoe as a resort was not exactly ready for visitors. The person who checked us in needed help to do so, the staff told conflicting stories about the availability of night skiing, the snack bar person had to ask for help ringing people up, a waitress was unfamiliar with the menu, the ski instructor didn't know what to do with our lesson tickets, etc. Each thing was minor, but it added up to an overall impression. Also, you'd think the lack of snow would lead them to arrange more activities, but the new aquatic center did not open until the day we left, and the comedy club opened up right after Christmas.

The snow itself they didn't have much control over. (Well, except for the fact that they made it, but they couldn't start until the week of our visit due to unseasonable temperatures.) As a result, they only had one trail top to bottom. (And one at the Silver Creek area, which we should have visited, but didn't.) After a few runs on the very crowded bunny slope, we headed to the top-to-bottom trail. Unfortunately, it was icy and not all beginner (green) terrain. More unfortunately, all the idiots on the mountain were zooming down it. (Not strictly true: some guy in a Jaguars jacket backed into me while we were in the lift line on the easy slope. Later, we saw him fall over trying to walk in the snack bar door.)

Here's something I realized: most people zooming down the mountain weren't good skiers. They just didn't know how to stop.

After a 2^nd discouraging run down the mountain, Christina and I decided we needed a lesson to bring our skills close to where they were last season. It was a pretty good two-hour long affair, but by the end we were exhausted. The night skiing question was moot. On my last run on the bunny slope, my goal was to exercise all my newly acquired technique, but I ended up as the recipient of a snowboard in the shin. So I skied the last half straight toward the lodge yelling, "Ow."

The two best things that Snowshoe did were Saturday night fireworks and dinner at the Junction. But the overall best thing about the trip was hanging out with friends and throwing our cares to the wind.

Merry Christmas from Arizona

Merry Christmas from my parents' house outside of Tucson. We had a nice day. We opened lots of presents, then we had a nice dinner with my Aunt Pam and Uncle Bill. Earl and Claudia were over for a while.

My trip out wasn't too bad. I got to the general vicinity of BWI slightly more than 2 hours before my flight was scheduled to depart. The BWI parking radio station advised me that satellite parking was closed, and I was to head to the BWI rail station for "overflow parking". The roadside signs, by contrast, pointed me towards the Gold Lot. I chose the Gold Lot. Oops. Gold Lot closed. So I turned around, parked at the rail lot and took the shuttle to the terminal.



For this trip, I forsook United, my airline of choice, for the less expensive flight on Northwest. I consoled myself by using most of my remaining Northwest frequent flier miles to upgrade the outbound portion of my trip to first class. This seemed an even better idea after I heard the horror stories of long waits at BWI -- at least I would be able to get in the first class line. I needn't have worried. There was one person in the regular check-in line, and none in the first class line.

So I had 1.5 hours to wait for my flight. As I lined up to take advantage of early first class boarding privleges, I attracted the attention of a security screener who thought I was in line for an extra search. Upon discovering that I wasn't, she selected me for a "random" search. I can't complain about being singled out; I just hope they also perform searches on people they have to walk a bit farther to get to. I know I have a right to a same-sex frisker, but she explained he had "wandered off" to another airline. Whatever. I'm not sure which gender would be more invasive, but it was a mild frisk in any case.

So I boarded the flight not with the early first class boarding, but with everybody else. As I settled into my seat, I noticed there was some unusual amount of to-ing and fro-ing with one or more of the passengers, but didn't take much notice of it as I started to nod off. After we had pulled away from the gate, the captain announced that a passenger had been removed from the plane after she had gotten "contraband" past security and assured us that all of her luggage had been removed from the plane. OK...

The rest of the trip proceeded without incident, unless you consider taking 45 minutes to get my luggage an "incident". Both the flight out of BWI and the connecting flight from Minneapolis to Phoenix landed ahead of schedule. I used the flights to finish reading Fellowship of the Ring, in preparation for seeing the movie.

Random Task

Well, I'm back from West Virginia, and what has happened in my absence? Nothing much, except...what the? Somebody tried to blow up a transatlantic flight?



Am I the only one who thought, paraphrasing Austin Powers, "Who tries to blow up a shoe? Honestly! You fight like a woman!"

Off to Snowshoe

Christina and I are heading off today to Snowshoe Mountain in West Virginia where we'll meet up with my fellow Georgia alum Margaret and her husband Derrell. It's supposed to be the best ski resort in the Mid-Atlantic. Only...there's not a lot of snow this year. So the slopes aren't open yet. They project opening some very limited terrain on Saturday, so I guess we'll get to enjoy that. And Snowshoe is supposed to be a lot of fun off the slopes, too, so...we'll see.

I did get to do some skiing last Thursday at Afton Alps, which is supposed to be one of the better ski areas in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area. They were also just getting into gear for the season, so it involved skiing over some barely covered grass at times, and through the snow-making equipment. Fortunately, it was a cheap experience. $15 got me a lift ticket, and another $15 procured rental equipment, with a free lesson thrown in. In keeping with their theme, the lesson was given by a 15-year-old.

No, I'm exaggerating. He wasn't that old. Still, I figured he could ski a lot better than me, and I tried to behave as I would have wanted someone to if I had taught them math at that age. He was a better teacher than I would have been, but then again I probably knew more about math at that age than he did about skiing, so let's call it a draw. His advice helped me get back into the swing of things for the season, and get the most out of the limited terrain -- let's face it, even with all the slopes open, the Twin Cities don't provide an excess of vertical distance to ski.

So as we head off, I ponder this story.

Federal authorities investigating anthrax attacks that have killed five people are examining the activities of a senior research scientist who was twice fired from a company that produces the deadly bacterium, ABC News reported on Wednesday.

Citing federal authorities, the network said the scientist, once employed at the Battelle Company, a secret anthrax-producing facility in Columbus, Ohio, made a threat to use anthrax in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Sounds promising, no? But somewhere out there Richard Jewell is saying, "Not so fast..."

Notes on the News

There are a few news stories that have caught my eye in recent days that I thought I'd say something about.

Americans Enjoying Balmy Weather

No I'm not. This AP article talks about this week's unseasonably warm temperatures. I'd just like to go on record as saying that what I dislike about winter isn't the cold temperatures (as long as my heat is working). It's the short days. The warm weather does nothing about that. I had hoped to offset the depressing sight of coming out of work to a darkened parking lot by the excitement of being able to go skiing. Not yet, at least.

September 11th Fund helps AIDS, arts groups

"A loan of $33,000 went to the Institute for the Development of Earth Awareness, a $25,000 loan to a modern dance group, Jennifer Muller, and a $6,000 grant for the arts group 3 Legged Dog."

"Another criticism of the fund is that it appears to be in no rush to give away the $337 million it has raised. To date it has given away $51 million, or 15 percent of what it raised.
The group said that it has no timetable for giving away the rest and that it will continue to evaluate requests and disburse the money based on what it sees as the needs of victims and their communities."
---CNN story

The "and their communities" part is a pretty big loophole, isn't it? Some of the victims were from my town; should we ask for a new playground set at the elementary school? I'm not saying that the money isn't going to worthy causes. Most, if not all, undoubtedly is. But when people gave money to this fund, I don't think that's where they expected it to go. To me, it's sort of sad, but you have to watch what charities, even the well-intentioned ones, do with your donations. Otherwise you may get a bad taste in your mouth at the end.

I got a little bit worried when they were collecting money and never gave an estimate of how much money they'd need. If there's "extra" money, I'd rather decide myself how to fund it. I thought about sending my tax "rebate" to Sept. 11th funds, but ended up splitting it between Habitat for Humanity and the DC Area Food Bank instead. I figure with the economic disruptions to the local tourist industry, they can use it.

Leaders of Divided Cyprus Move Toward a Settlement

That's cool. It sounds like the European Union is pushing the Greek and Turkish sides towards a settlement.
When I was there in '94, I bought a can of Coke, I decided I'd open up and drink when Cyprus was reunited. That's going to be one old Coke. Also, while my parents and I enjoyed seeing most of the south (Greek) part of the island, I decided there wasn't enough to see to merit a return trip...unless the north was opened. (You can take a separate trip there, but since nobody but Turkey recognizes the north as a separate country, that's a dodgy enterprise.)

There are a lot of obstacles to reunification. I'm not popping the tab on the Coke or booking flights just yet. But I'm glad to see they're making progress.

Ashcroft Defends Anti-Terrorism Steps

Hoo boy. What to say about Ashcroft's testimonty yesterday? When I first heard it, I felt it was outrageous enough to be included here for criticism. Fortunately, other people have already done so. I'll just quote them and add, "What a jerk."

"As someone who was actually prepared to listen to Attorney General John Ashcroft's defense of military tribunals and other security measures, I have to say that I was completely disgusted by his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday....the very worst of it was the way that the attorney general cast defenders of civil liberties as witting or unwitting traitors."
---Jacob Weisberg, Slate

Have some of Mr. Ashcroft's critics exaggerated the danger to liberty? Have they -- have we? -- been wrong in some judgments? You'd have to be awfully arrogant, or foolish, or both, to deny the possibility. But if American political history stands for one solitary point it is that democratic debate is good and makes the country stronger...Mr. Ashcroft may not like the criticism. But his job is to defend dissent, not to use the moral authority of his office to discourage people from participating in one of the most fundamental obligations of citizenship.
---The Washington Post

Theft

I wish I had something more pleasant to post, but the big news is that Christina's apartment got broken into yesterday. Sigh. What a world we live in.

Sanctimonious Frauds

I know disliking and demonizing the other team is part and parcel of any good rivalry, and I certainly still smart from a Michigan loss or two to Notre Dame. But the puffery Notre Dame boosters engage in is particularly galling and makes them more insufferable than other bastions of evil.


So I allowed myself a little schadenfreude to hear about the firing of Bob Davie, their football coach, a few days after I heard him say,

``It's not true. I believe in Notre Dame and its integrity and honesty. It might happen somewhere else, but not here. It's the first time I've been confronted with it. That story is not true.''

Let me emphasize this. Notre Dame has no more "integrity and honesty" than any other college football program. The main thing that makes it have less (since Lou Holtz left, anyway) is the pretension that it has more.

Think Notre Dame has trouble because academics matter so much there? Here is how much it factored in the decision to fire Bob Davie:

The players posted the two highest semester grade-point averages the past two semesters of any other team since the school started keeping track in 1990, and the team was honored by the American Football Coaches Association for having a 100 percent graduation rate last year.

As the Chicago Tribune's Rick Morrissey puts it:

Left to its own devices, the Irish Nation would ask for 4.0 grade-point averages and 4.3 speed, though not in that order, and on second thought, never mind the GPAs.

CR-V pictures

I posted some pictures of me with the CR-V that Christina took on Saturday for those of you who would like to see more detail than in the one above.

I Heard the News Today, Oh Boy

I have a certain amount of difficulty waking up in the morning. One of the ways I try to trick myself into getting up is by having the alarm on the TV go off. The idea is that I'll get absorbed in whatever news story is being reported and wake up while watching it. In recent months, that hasn't always worked. "Reports of another anthrax infection" is the sort of news story that makes me want to pull the covers over my head and go back to sleep.

This morning I woke to a reporter on Headline News saying something about people going to going to somebody's star on the Walk of Fame. Uh, oh, I thought, a celebrity has died. Then I heard the anchor say something about "Harrison" and I had a brief, but intense worry about Harrison Ford. Of course, I soon learned that former Beatle George Harrison had died. How sad. I was too young to understand the impact that John Lennon's death had on people (but enough of a news-watcher to wonder why it was pre-empting all other coverage), but I see the sadness here. I thought I remembered that he had denied having a relapse of cancer last summer, and I thought, "Well, guess that wasn't true." Of course, it was nobody else's business, so I feel he was entitled to say whatever he wanted, but then I looked it up and I was wrong.

"In July 2001, he released a statement asking fans not to worry about reports that he was still battling cancer."

Looks like I misinterpreted that. Now it makes sense; he just didn't want people to worry about him. And I find that very touching.

Very Interesting...

``It seems the attacker ... wanted to force through an increase in the budget for U.S. research on biological weapons.''

Here's an interesting article about who might be behind the anthrax attacks. I was floating a similar theory about a month or so ago. I mentioned it to Christina, and she sorta remembers it, but I unfortunately don't have any more corroboration.

New Car

Woo-hoo! I bought a new car. Details to follow.



(Mine's silver.)

Thanksgiving

I was going to post a summary of our Thanksgiving in North Carolina, but thankfully Christina did so today and saved me the trouble.

The World Has Changed

So I wake up this morning to the headline Japanese war effort sets sail. I know they're our allies. They surrendered to us 27 years before I was born. Maybe there are too many World War Two movies out there. But a little piece of me went, "Uh oh," before realizing this was a good thing. I think.



Anyway, I've been wondering a lot lately what headlines I'm going to wake up to. Part of me scans the news every morning for "Bin Laden's Body Found in Cave Rubble" or "Bastard Who Was Mailing Anthrax Found and Strung up By Thumbs." I mean, those have to be the top two, right? But I wonder. Anticipation is a tricky thing. The news lately turns out to be so different that what we expect. Sometimes for the worse..."94-year-old woman dies of anthrax". Sometimes for the better..."Taliban run screaming like little girls." So it's not that I'm pessimistic. I think there will be a day with a great headline. I just have to wonder if it'll be any less surprising than finding out that the Japanese navy is setting sail for a war zone again...

Liar, Liar Pants on Fire

So baseball is talking about getting rid of my beloved Twins. This is apalling on so many levels.

• First is the dismantling of the Twins. Sure, take the team of my childhood and rip them up without so much as a further thought. It's like the Mayflowers in the middle of the night moving the Colts out of Baltimore or the Browns going the other way. (Though that loss was just temporary.) And for what? Because the owner is tired of running the team and wants the cash to retire? The Twins are a decent team, and they've shown the ability to draw fans when the franchise doesn't put a joke of a team on the field.
  
  
• "There exists no prospective market . . . [for an] economically viable franchise for next season." Ahem. Looking around me, I see one. The nation's capital (or Northern Virginia, if they must) can easily support a team. As I heard someone point out, the idea that it would detract from Baltimore is a red herring. Hire an accountant. Figure out the value of the Orioles before and after. Pay Peter Angelos the difference, plus a bonus if he'll just shut up. It'll be a lot less that the $500 million they're talking about giving to the Twins and Expos to go away.
  
  
• The offer to expand other teams' rosters to make up for the jobs lost is a joke. It makes sense for a couple of hours (at least to me), then falls apart. If you play a numbers game, the total number of jobs goes up. But what ends up happening? You eliminate 8 starting non-pitcher jobs (9 if you have a designated hitter), and 4 or so pitchers who start on a regular basis. Even on a "small market" team like the Twins, that's a lot of million-dollar jobs. And you create 2 jobs per team at the end of the bench, where the guys are lucky to be earning $200K/year. Now, I don't have a lot of sympathy for the athletes, but it's appalling that the owners would present this as a "fair deal."
  
  

I could go on, but the point is that sports is supposed to be fun. If they get rid of the Twins, baseball will be about as much fun as watching Scrooge McDuck count his money. If so, good bye and good riddance from this Twins fan. I'd rather watch arena football.

Hail to the Redskins

I went to the Redskins game today and watched them beat the Seahawks 27-14. It was a lot of fun, especially since the Redskins dominated the game. George's uncle had an extra ticket, so I went with George, his uncle and some guys they know. George's uncle has had season tickets for 45 years. He said the first tickets he bought were $19.90 for a season's worth (6) tickets. He bought them with his paper money while he was in high school. People like him are why I don't hold out much hope of moving off the season ticket waiting list any time soon.

I took the digital camera Christina won in a radio station contest recently. I didn't get many opportunities for pictures, and not all of them turned out, but the above is from where we parked, and below is from our seats.

Trick or Treat

Well, the trick-or-treaters have come and gone for the evening. It could be my imagination, but I think there were fewer of them this year. Maybe everybody's just scared. As a result, I have much candy left over.

This year's crop of trick-or-treaters seemed nice enough. I'm generally too busy doling out the candy to judge the merits of the costumes, but I'm certain able to judge the kids' etiquette.

Here, for public edification is my list of trick-or-treating no-nos.
DON'T

• Just shove your treat bag at me wordlessly. It's called "trick-or-treating" for a reason. Say "trick-or-treat", accept the candy, say "thank you" and move on. I'm not a cafeteria employee or something. (And you should say "thank you" to them, too.)
  I did have a couple of kids tonight who not only didn't say anything, but they didn't even present their trick or treat bag. Poor kids; I think they were just shy.
  
  
  
  
• Try to grab the treats out of my bowl. I'm not naive enough to think that letting kids pick candy out themselves will result in anything but one kid taking half the bowl. So don't come up and try to grab it when I don't offer your choice. I had one kid who, dissatisfied with the Junior Mints I had given him along with his lollipop, put them back, started to grab for some Nerds while saying, "Can I trade..." I cut him off with "no", but let him keep the lollipop. Should have kept the Junior Mints, kid, you could have traded it for something. (Upon hearing this story, Christina chastised me for being "mean" to the kid. I countered I was just doling out valuable life lessons.) By the way, making candy requests is OK. ("Ooh, can I have a lollipop?")
  
  
• Collect for UNICEF. It's trick-or-treat, not trick-or-money. Didn't get any of those, but I'm just warning you.
  
  
• Go door-to-door without a costume. Apparently this is a cool thing to do for the junior high school set. Ooh, I can get candy without having to degrade myself by dressing up. Well, guess what kids, dressing up is fun, and you're missing out by going as "kid in a sweatshirt."
  
  

That's about all I have to complain about for now. Have fun, and don't get sick on all that candy.

Hail to the Victors

Yep, I'm still here, just haven't felt a lot like posting. Partially, not travelling around has left me feeling like I have a lot of time to finish my tale of my trip to Britain. I will finish that story eventually, but since I took a trip of a different sort yesterday, I thought I'd talk about that now.

I got the opportunity to buy some tickets to the Michigan-Penn State game from the UM club of Washington, DC. So I invited Christina, arranged to have Teddy walked in the evening, and headed out to State College, PA.

State College is, according to Yahoo! Maps, about 4 hours away from Christina's in Laurel. (For those of you who are interested in such stuff we took I-95 to I-695 to I-83 to US-322.) In reality, the trip was no more than three-and-a-half hours, which got us there around 2. The trip was mostly uneventful, but for a while I was worried because I hadn't double-checked that the game really started at 3:30, and not earlier. Fortunately, Christina was able to check the Washington Post sports section and confirm what my single-checking had indicated. The leaves were starting to change color on the drive. That was pretty. And for those of you who are interested in this stuff, Pennsylvania has now re-numbered its road exits to correspond to mile markers. Thank goodness! Georgia switched a few years back, and it was about time.

We had plenty of time to walk almost all the way around the stadium looking for our section, wait patiently to get in, find our seats, and get some mediocre hot dogs. Our concession bill came to a reasonable $10.50. Not wanting a lot of bills in change, I gave the guy $21. This mental arithmetic stumped him. Sigh.

The game itself was a lot of fun. We waited to sing the national anthem, because we were told ABC was now airing it live. After that, and some firing up from the Michigan travel band, which was seated nearby, the kickoff began. Michigan performed well on offense, at least until it was time to score touchdowns. They failed to convert on a fourth down early in the game, and then settled for a couple of field goals to lead 6-0 late in the half.



But with the clock running low, Michigan managed to put together an 80-yard-drive to take a 13-0 lead going into halftime. The halftime show appeared to be some sort of salute to "My Fair Lady", so I headed for the restrooms. Let me tell you, I have not seen a worse laid-out stadium in my lifetime. One direction there was a crush of people leading the stands, the other direction was practically empty. I took the other direction and looped around. I thought I was home free when I saw the restrooms, but that was the women's restroom. The men's was on the other side of a snack bar. Who puts the snack bar in the middle of the restroom area? Men headed for the restroom pushed by the snack lines to reach the bathroom. By the time I was making it back to my seats 20 minutes later, Michigan was finishing off another touchdown drive that was to provide the last points of the game.

The rest of the game was still fun. The fans tried to interfere with each other's cheers. Michigan fans would cheer "Go Blue" and the PSU fans would add "And White!" (Though there soon stopped being enough PSU fans around to be heard.) Penn State fans would start the "We Are...Penn State" cheer with "We Are..." and Michigan fans would supply "0-3". Late in the game, I yelled "0-4" and got a bunch of people converted over to that. Also, when they announced the scores of other games, I yelled "What about Slippery Rock?" (At UM games, it was a tradition to announce the Slippery Rock score, and cheer SRU. I, of course, didn't know any of the other Michigan fans, but it was nice to share an "in joke" with them.)

The game was soon over, and Penn State had been shut out at home for the first time since 1965. I felt sorry for them, and for Joe Paterno, their coach. He entered this season needing only one win to tie Bear Bryant as college football's winningest coach, and he may not get it. Still, I was glad to see a Wolverine win, especially after so many Redskin losses this year.

The many fans leaving early did nothing to prevent a much more time-consuming exit. State College is in the middle of nowhere in the mountains, which means that the 2 and 4 lane roads leaving it get overwhelmed by the 107,879 fans in attendance. (Though that number has to be ticket sales -- there were a lot of empty seats.) And of course, the State of Pennsylvania had decided to do construction. I guess I can't make fun of it too much -- when we hit Baltimore, two lanes of I-95 south had been closed down just as fans were leaving Camden Yards and Cal Ripken's last game. The trip back ended up taking about 3 more hours than the trip up.

All in all the day was a lot of fun, though if I do it again, I may just stay overnight.

My Trip Began With Flight 2

Darn those time changes. Despite getting to sleep pretty late last night, my body decided to get me up wide awake at 6 this morning.

Anyway, "Bill", co-worker A and I left on a shuttle from work on Friday the 7th. Because of potential traffic delays, we were put on a shuttle at 3 for a 7:45 flight. We got to Dulles a little after 4. That gave us mucho time to kill. Fortunately, Bill is a Red Carpet Club member, and he can bring two guests.

The Red Carpet Club is an oasis United provides in the airport to its customers who pay for the privilege. It has comfy chairs, free sodas and munchies, free local phone calls, and perhaps most importantly, a quiet air that harkens back to a more refined era of air travel. So we sat there for a couple of hours. A and I read; Bill used his laptop. Then I ran out to McDonalds to get hopefully-mad-cow-free beef for the last time in a while.

My verdict on the Red Carpet Club -- it's nice. But I have a pretty good ability to find a secluded spot in the airport and tune everything else out. Once, when I was a kid, I was waiting for a bus at a playground with a whole busload of other kids. I was sitting on a swing or something reading a book. When I looked up, I noticed the bus had arrived and all the other kids had gotten on and were now yelling at me to hurry up. Which is to say with my nose in a book, which it usually is while waiting at an airport, I can't tell the difference between the Red Carpet Lounge and an unused gate I've wandered off to. Besides, next year with my Premier Executive (50,000 mile) status, I'll be able to use the Red Carpet Lounge when traveling internationally. But I can definitely see the attraction of the place.

So then it was time to board. We were on United Flight 2, which is United's round-the-world flight. It's the counter-clockwise version -- from Santa's perspective, at least. It goes Dulles to London to Delhi to Singapore to Hong Kong to Los Angeles and back to Dulles again. We were only on it for one hop, but there were a number of Indians on it for 2. (I sneaked a peek at their boarding passes.) Economy Plus and its 6 inches of extra leg room did not exist on this flight, and foolishly I put my carry-on luggage under the seat in front of me and reduced my leg room a bit more. Last time for that. I've learned my lesson, and I think there's going to be a lot more room in the overhead bins in coming years.

And so it was across the Atlantic for the most light-hearted flight I'll be taking for some time.

Buying a Shirt in London

Well, I'm back. More on that later.

So after I posted the last entry, I went off in search of a new shirt. We had gone down Earl's Court to get mediocre tapas Thursday night, so I figured the commercial district there must also have a clothing store, right? I think in America I would have been OK -- in America, everybody sells t-shirts. "Try Our Mediocre Tapas" or some such. And at the very least, there would be an intermingling of stores. But no, in London, they specialize. I walked block after block, with the only thing even close being a women's clothing store. I stopped into a bookstore. I bet in the US, you could get t-shirts at Borders. But at the Waterstone's, no such luck.

Finally, I came to a store that looked like it might sell shirts. As I ducked inside, I gradually realized that it was a gay sex shop. I mean, the sign on the wall that said "sex shop" was one clue. Then the pictures of buff men was the other. And the shirts were just way too expensive. Especially for a style I was not going to wear more than once.

Finally, in desperation, I ducked into a Mailboxes, Etc. and asked where I could buy shirts. The guy suggested High Street Kensington, but said it was about a 20 minute walk, and it was 5:40. He wasn't sure if the stores closed at 6. Uh-oh. So I walked a block north, went to the Earl's Court Underground Station, and took it a stop to Kensington High Street. It was almost 6 when I got there (but my feet thanked me). And the tube stop led out right to a Marks & Spencer that was open 'til 8. Whew.

So I got a shirt much more my style, for a third the price. Good. Then I walked back to the hotel (should have taken the tube again), and met F for dinner. We went to a pub. It was the same pub I had fish & chips for lunch, but I thought I could avoid being repetitive by ordering the lasagna. No dice; they were out of the sauce. So I ended up ordering curry, the 4th time I had Indian food on this trip.(Hey, what am I going to eat? English food? Not unless it's breakfast.) Tip: if you order Indian food, order it from Indians, not Englishmen.

I got up early this morning for my flight. Everything was more or less normal. There were those men with guns. As with last year, I got the extra hassle treatment when checking in, only now everyone got it. And I got a quick frisk thrown in.

The flight back was reassuringly mundane, mostly. You know, cramped seating, Smelly Guy sitting next to me. We did have to circle New York for a while because, presumably, of air traffic delays. That allowed the captain excessive time to point out Manhattan to people on both sides of the plane. "It's still on fire; you can see the smoke covering the lower part of the island." I don't think it's still on fire.

When we landed, everybody clapped. Then the flight attendant said, "Welcome to America; God Bless America," and we all clapped again.

Oops

I called United and was told I needed to go to Heathrow to get my ticket re-issued. So, after a few phone calls back home and a satisfying lunch of fish and chips, I took the long Tube ride out there. When I got there, the ticket line was suprisingly short. After the 6 individuals in front of me were helped, I stepped up and was told that my flight was, in fact, going to take off. Did I still want to be on it? Well, yes, except for the fact that all of my luggage was back at the hotel. The guy apologized, and said that he'd put me on a flight tomorrow. That was pretty cool, especially since I thought they were booked up until next Thursday. "Aisle or window?" he then asked me. Wow, guess they have more seats than I thought. So I got my window seat, and will be attempting to leave again tomorrow. This time I'm not calling first. Look here if you want to see the flight status.

On the way back to the Underground, I walked a few feet away from security forces carrying rifles. That was fairly jolting.

So now I have to buy a clean shirt for tomorrow. (I have clean everything else for one day.) I think I can handle that.

Stuck Here for a While

I called United this morning to see if I should show up for my flight, and they told me it was canceled. That's not what their web site is saying right now, but that doesn't matter as I've been re-booked. I'm sure if the flight does go out, somebody with a more pressing need to get back will get my seat. In general, I realize my cares aren't such big ones in times like these, but they're what occupy my time, so they're what I'll write about.

You never want to have a conversation with an airline agent that includes her asking the question, "Have you ever heard of this airline?" I had (Sabena). But they had cancelled tomorrow's flight from Brussels that she was trying to get me on, so that attempt failed, as did a previous one to get me out on a United flight out of Munich. She started asking about Austrian Airlines, at which point I enquired whether I could get a US carrier.

Well, not any time soon. I may have a reservation on a United/British Midlands codeshare out of Manchester Monday. And I have a back-up on a United flight out of London on Thursday. My current plan is that if I can confirm (as well as possible) my flight out of Manchester, I'll take the train up there tomorrow (Sunday) and leave from there. Right now I've got a reservation on a Lufthansa/British Midlands codeshare from London to Manchester Monday at 7 AM. I really don't want to take that, since I'll have to get to Heathrow between 3-4 AM. And the transfer will just make the whole process worse.

So I'm hanging out and seeing what is going on.

Last Night In England?

Well, I headed to St. Paul's Cathedral. Stood with the crowd outside and listened to the broadcast of the service. I was moved when they played the Star-Spangled Banner. I sang along; nobody else within earshot seemed to know the words. Then again, they all knew the words to the Lord's Prayer. One guy behind me knew most of the words to the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and he had a pretty good singing voice. I sang along with "America the Beautiful", but everybody else seemed to be singing different words.

Then I took off for the Tower of London. I had planned on visiting that all along, and so I thought I'd finally take it in. It was really neat for a history buff, even if the treatment was a bit Disnified. The "Beefeater" tour really helped me get oriented in the place, but he acted a little bit too much like a cartoon character for my taste. Ah, well. Then I got to go through the White Tower, which was the original fortress started by William the Conquerer. It was a little awesome walking in what had been the home to English monarchs for a few hundred years. And it was interesting seeing how the building had been used over the years. One of those uses was as an armory, so they had a lot of historical weapons on display.

Then I went off to see the Crown Jewels. It seemed kinda silly, but obligatory. Nevertheless, I was impressed. I actually found myself letting out an involuntary whistle. I didn't know people really did that. After that, I saw the Medieval Palace, the Bloody Tower, and the Wall Walk. All worthwhile, although again, the reconstructions of some of them seemed a bit hokey.

But I'm glad I got some garden-variety tourism in with all that's going on. I tried to call United to make sure I was still on my flight tomorrow, but I couldn't get through. I can't tell if that was because they were busy or because I couldn't figure out the phones. Keep your fingers crossed.

Other's People's Thoughts

Well, Friday morning and I'm back at the cybercafe. I have hundreds of messages to sort through. That's what I get for signing up for all those "news alert" services. I think I've gone through them and gotten all of the e-mail from people not knowing where I was and concerned about me. In a little bit, I'm going to try to go to St. Paul's Cathedral. There's a memorial service there at noon. I know I won't be allowed in -- the Queen and such are going to attend. But it seems like some sort of show of support by being outside.

Christina has posted some thoughts about the changed world we now live in. Jeanene has some thoughts from Tuesday.

It's Raining In London

I'm back from dinner. Medicore tapas recommended by the Lonely Planet London guidebook. The first three dishes we ordered -- chicken, chorizo & mussels -- all came in more or less the same red sauce. For seconds, we had a hard time finding something that didn't involve red sauce. That was the squid rings & Spanish omelet. I'm not a huge fan of squid, but I prefer it served fried than our other alternative. I don't know what was "Spanish" about the omlette. It was certainly not as good as the English breakfast I turned down this morning.

In my early 20s, I could stay up all night w/ no consequence beyond sleepiness the next day. Now, as I near the end of my 20s, I find myself unable to cut into my 8 hours of sleep much w/o getting headaches and upset stomachs. Blech. Eventually I was fine, though. Also, I'm running out of my allergy nasal spray; should have checked that more closely before coming over here. Ah, well, with decongestant and antihistamine, I'll make it.

Wish I had something more coherent to say than whining. Ah, well.

On A Lighter Note...

Christina had another article published at exawin.com. This one's about whether a strategy book can help your gambling.

In London

Hi. I'm in London, which is a weird time to be at a time like this. I had been out in a more rural portion of England, and I have to admit I was a bit jolted when we were driving in and I saw skyscrapers for the first time. They've always made me a bit nervous, but they never seemed as malign as now.

Anyway, some colleagues and I checked into a fairly nice hotel in South Kensington. I guess work'll be picking up the tab; I don't know. I don't much care, but I have to have something to worry about that I can do something about. In the short term. For a while I was obsessing over the stupid hotel reservation I had at a place in London that doesn't seem to exist. More on that later, perhaps. I'm tempted to write up the earlier portions of my trip over here, because I figure people need a good diversion right about now. Who knows?

Anyway, I'm supposed to be on a flight back on Saturday. I'm a little bit optimistic that it'll go. I mean, it sounds like they may start tomorrow, so things should be getting back to "normal" by Saturday, right? But who knows. I'm saying that a lot. If I don't get out Saturday, it'll probably be a long time. Someone who had a flight today is now scheduled to go out on Tuesday. Guess I'd be in line behind him if things get messed up.

I probably won't have much to say directly about recent events. If you know me and you're reading this, I'll probably be talking to you in person. If not, well, what do you want to know what I think?

I miss my country.

The Las Vegas Wedding

Christina just had a short article published on Vegas weddings.

Vegas Pictures

I've posted some pictures from the trip to Las Vegas. Also, see the collections by Jeanene and George. (About half of the pictures in my album were e-mailed to me by Martin; I posted the ones that didn't make it to Jeanene's page.)

[As of Dec. 2004, George's link no longer works.]

Wedding Bells

Finally, it was time for Martin & Jeanene's wedding. I must admit I was more choked up by the ceremony than I expected. I could see what a special moment it was for the two of them to have all these people that they cared about together at once. And the look of pure bliss on Martin's face when Jeanene walked down the aisle was priceless.

The wedding was not strongly themed. Jeanene had on a lovely dress that she had made herself. The girls were in medieval costume, but Jeanene's son was in a tux, not armor. The minister was probably the one in the strongest get-up -- it wouldn't have entirely shocked me for him to say, "Of course I can cast the marriage spell; I am a third-level cleric." But he didn't, and the ceremony was short and sweet.

Afterwards, we all moved to the reception room. Basically, we hung out for a few hours, drank, ate and danced. Or did some approximation of dancing, as the pictures will no doubt reveal. The reception was small and intimate, and we got to spend a little time talking to the newlyweds. That was nice; at some weddings, you just sorta glimpse the couple across the room.

Afterwards, it was back to play the plastic horses. I think the happy couple was supposed to arrive at some point, but Christina and I were both exhausted. We had an early flight the next morning, so we called it a night.

The next morning we were woken up by a call from George, who had won most of his money back, and wanted to spend it on breakfast for people. Unfortunately, we had to catch our flight, so we packed and took a taxi to the airport. When we got there, they said our flight from Denver to Dulles had had a change of plane, so we couldn't get our seat assignment until we got to Denver.

I don't want to sully this with a litany of complaints, but the rest of the trip home involved a mechanical delay, not being given seat assignments until the last minute, another plane change (to an even smaller plane) at the last minute because the mechanical problem cropped up again, a rush for seats on the new plane, and the jetway getting stuck when we finally landed in Dulles 3 hours late. Not the worst flight experience I've had, but it was up there.

Anyway, Vegas was cool. The main point of the trip was, of course, the wedding. And it was neat to be a part of that special moment. Vegas itself was more fun than I've experienced in the past. Since then, Christina and I have mused about going back. Probably someday...but not until I learn how to count cards.

Shoe Shine

Well, before I head off to London next Friday, I should really finish up the story of last month's trip to Vegas. That leaves me with Saturday to tell about.



We got up and made our first destination Walgreen's to pick up some sundries for the bride and ourselves. Unfortunately, there isn't a line of taxis outside Walgreen's, like there is with more tony Vegas locations. So we then hoofed it over to the Luxor, where we dropped off the sundries at the bell desk for Jeanene.



The Luxor is, to my opinion, the most distinctly themed of Vegas' casinos. I mean, the whole thing is a giant pyramid, for heaven's sakes. Faux-Egyptian stuff is everywhere. I think if and when I make it back to Vegas, I'd like to stay there for the whole kitschy experience. (Though the margarita glass in the shape of the Statue of Liberty from New York, New York is right up there.)

We made our way through the line at the buffet to meet up with our friends. The line was fairly long, although you could bypass it if you were a "VIP". We weren't. The food was pretty good, and for 1/2 the price of the Paris one, I probably shouldn't complain. Still, I think I could eat at that Paris one every day for the week. I couldn't say the same for the Luxor.

We counted at least three separate bride/groom pairs at the buffet. To me, it's sort of sad to have the reception to your wedding at the buffet. It's even sadder that they weren't allowed to go through the "VIP" line.



Then we walked over to Mandalay Bay, at what is currently the southerly terminus of the Strip. It's a nice casino -- I can see why Circus Circus renamed itself after this, their latest property. The sports book was as nice and large as advertised. I should have made my bet on Michigan there; they had better odds than the Excalibur. Always comparison shop, I guess. I really wanted to see Zen Sum, since we weren't going to get a chance to eat there. The guidebook said, "diners sit at a counter and pick tasty plates of dim sum from a conveyer belt." How cool is that? Apparently, not cool enough, 'cause it was closed. Its successor restaurant fortunately retained the "futuristic restroom area"; I'll have to give that a closer look on another visit. We walked through the casino to the shark exhibit, but upon finding out they wanted actual money, I decided we might as well head back to the Excalibur.

So we went back. I played the plastic horses for a bit while Christina started to get ready for the wedding. Then I started to get ready. With about an hour to go, I figured I had enough time to get my shoes shined before the wedding. So I went downstairs to the casino floor. On my way down, I realized that I had failed to pack a tie, so I wandered through the gift shops until I located a nice gold one.

Then it was off to find the shoe shine stand. After directions from some casino employees of varying helpfulness (including one who claimed they didn't have a shoe shine stand), I made my way over. The guy invited me to have a seat, and asked me if I wanted "the full treatment". These shoes have been living in the back of my closet for quite some time, so I said, "Sure." The guy was quite a showman, talking about the necessity of proper shoe care and the ethic of doing a good job. He explained that the shoes needed dyed at least once a year. So he did this and that with them, rubbed some dye on, took them off my feet, and set them on fire.

Yes, set them on fire. At about this point, John Giglio came wandering by to use the restroom. I tried waving at him, but his eyes were transfixed by the flaming footwear and he failed entirely to notice my presence. Only when exiting did he notice me. He asked me if I was going to have my shoes set on fire. I explained that I already did, and the shoe shine guy explained to John how this was much better than the "New York shine" John may have been used to.

At some point, the guy asked me what my shoe size was. After I told him, he mentioned that a customer had given him a pair of shoes of that size, but they didn't fit him. This seemed odd, but I was in a bit of a hurry, so I just played along. Later, of course, the guy tried to get me to try on the shoes. I reminded him that I was in a hurry. The weird sense I was about to be dragged into some shoe scam, along with the fact that the guy never explained how much more "the full treatment" was than a regular shine balanced against the entertainment value of the experience and what was really a great shine ended up having me leave him a good, but not great, tip. His entire manner deflated when he saw my enjoyment wasn't going to translate into an extra $10.

I tried to call Christina to let her know that the tie excursion and shoe fire was making me run late, but my cell phone wouldn't work on the casino floor. I tried calling from a hotel phone, but there was no answer. I rushed back up to get my jacket, and as I popped out of the elevator, she stuck her head out of another. She was understandably concerned that I had just gone ahead to the wedding without her. At this point, I began to realize I couldn't close the top button on my shirt. After much exertion, we ended up buying a safety pin at the sundries cart and making due. With mere moments to spare, we headed off to the Excalibur wedding chapel. Fortunately, the previous wedding had not concluded, and Martin and Jeanene's ceremony had not gotten started.

Well, that's enough for now. The exciting conclusion soon...