Playing the Ponies

After we got back to the Excalibur, I met up with George and Ben to bet on horse racing. No, not real horses. That would be silly. I'm only talking about the best game they have in Vegas -- the Derby. The Derby consists of a miniature racetrack around which plastic horses move. Since this is the Excalibur, the jockeys are all knights. (At the Luxor, they race camels. At Caesars' Palace, chariots. At the Imperial Palace, horses. The Imperial Palace is kind of boring.) The racetrack area is decorated with all sorts of painted fantasy miniatures. My friends and I discovered that we had painted some of them. (Actually, Ben called me up in the middle of the night to tell me that. But that's another story.) Anyway, when the horses reset, odds flash up for any of the 10 possible combos of 5 horses to finish 1-2 (in whatever order). You plunk your quarters in the machine and root for your horse(s) as they jostle around the track. (A strategy I found helpful was to put a quarter on each pair involving one particular horse, thus reducing the complexity of my rooting.) I mostly involved betting on long shots. Even if they didn't win, it was only a quarter a bet, which took place every minute or two. And they brought us free drinks. (Which was a reason why the simplicity in betting was a bonus.)

We played that a while, and then it was time to get ready for dinner at the Monte Carlo. Instead of a traditional rehearsal dinner, Martin and Jeanene's families were having a dinner for the people who were in town Friday night. Very cool. So we got together with others headed over there, and hopped into a taxi to the Monte Carlo. The Monte Carlo is supposed to be a "quieter and classier place" and it seemed to be, as we headed to our destination.



We met up with the happy couple and their families in the Monte Carlo Pub & Brewery. It was a pretty fun place, as microbreweries tend to be. And it was nice to see the families in place, though I had to confess to Martin's mother (a library employee) that I had lost the guidebook. Gasp. That, and much else, was soon forgotten as we ordered enormous quantities of beer. The giant cylinders of beer towered over the table, and Ben and Steve soon became engaged in a bet (this is Vegas, remember) over which one would be finished first. I was proud and am now a little embarrassed to say that the one on our end finished first.



I engaged with a conversation with John Giglio about the meaning of modern art. Poor John. He just got into Vegas, and here he was serving as the designated artist for a bunch of drunk people (hey, it wasn't just me). But he did help give me insight into some of the things I saw on my visit to the Tate Modern last year. With respect to things like Duchamp's toilet seat, he pointed out that it was part of a conversation on the nature of art. That conversation may not involve me, and that may raise the question of why it was in a public exhibition. But that didn't mean what I saw wasn't art. Secondly, although he pointed out the futility of denying something as art (what are you going to do, argue with the artist?), he said people shouldn't be afraid to criticize what they thought of as bad art. Cool. Then we toured the pool (much better than Excalibur's) before being asked to leave and enjoyed the convivial company.

After the party wound down, we took the monorail up to the Bellagio. The Bellagio is one of the swank joints on the Strip and it showed. Our first stop was the conservatory. Filled with beautiful plants, it was what Christina called "the only real thing in Las Vegas". After a brief walk there, we were off to our next stop.



Continuing my art lesson for the evening, we headed over to the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art. Actually, instead of the permanent "for sale" collection that the gallery opened with, it now showcases a series of exhibits. The exhibit currently there is Steve Martin's collection of art. Yes, that Steve Martin. He's got a good bit of money, and has used it to collect some very nice "Modern and Contemporary" paintings. A drawing by Picasso, a Lichtenstein piece...these were some interesting works. One artist I was introduced to through this work was David Hockney, a Brit who transplanted to California. It was weird because after I saw this exhibit, he seemed to pop up everywhere...in Bill Bryson's Britain book I was reading, in a weblog I read... I don't know if it was because I started with the Tate Modern, but I've really gotten interested in modern art.

I did manage to set off the alarms at one point when I pointed a bit too closely (in their opinion) at one of the paintings. Maybe the best part was the audio tour. First of all, I love those audio sticks where you punch in a number and somebody tells you about the painting. Second, the "someone" in this case was Steve Martin. How cool was that?

Anyway, after touring the collection, we were too tired to make it downtown with Ben & co. for more gambling, so we headed back to the Excalibur. (I was awakened a few hours later with the news about the painted miniatures.)

Paris, Las Vegas

One of the tricks of getting around in Las Vegas is knowing which casinos are owned by the same companies. See, there's not very efficient public transportation on the Strip. There's buses. There's a trolley system, which was hard to find and when Christina did find it, she said it took forever. But if you want modern mass transportation, you have to content yourself with going between casinos in the same "family."

Friday morning we got up finally hungry. We wanted to try one of the better buffets in town, so we decided to head to the Paris casino. The taxi line at the Excalibur looked way too long, so we crossed the street to the MGM Grand. Well, maybe that wasn't the most efficient choice. The MGM Grand is huge -- it's the biggest hotel in the world, and the casino itself is cavernous. After working our way to the back of the property, we waited for a few minutes in the baking heat for the tram to Bally's. After a short journey via the backs of the casino's, we arrived to Bally's, our destination. Sort of.

You see, instead of getting a permit to build a new casino for Paris, Bally's (well, actually the people who own the rights to the name "Bally's", but never mind because it only gets more confusing) got a permit to build Paris as an extension to Bally's. So wandering through the Bally's casino and asking three or four people for directions got us pointed in the direction of the Paris hall o' shops (with the appropriate French motif and a very similar fake sky to the Venetian). After a brief wait in line, and forking over $20/person, we were ready for the best food we'd have in Las Vegas.

Wow. Here's my recommendation. If you're ever in Vegas, go to the Paris buffet. But don't eat for 24 hours ahead of the time. Everything was delicious, but it was hard for me to stuff it all in my face. Especially by the time we got to dessert. I guess Paris suffers in some reviews compared to other buffets because of the lack of variety of the food (most of it is French-themed), but oh is it good. I was a little bit turned off by the sight of people lining up to pile 20 or so shrimps on their plate -- especially because they missed the scrumptious salmon right next to it. I can't praise this food enough.

After lunch, we headed back to Bally's, where we played the slots and video poker machines briefly. Christina inexplicably turned down an offer of a free drink, and then we were on our way back to Excalibur via the MGM Grand.

Bachelor Party

After lunch, we went over to Treasure Island to pick up Christina's Cirque du Soleil ticket. She was going to see "Mystere" that evening while I went out with the guys for Martin's bachelor party.

After that, we wandered over to the Venetian. The Venetian is really wild. First of all, it's one of the Strip's swankiest addresses. Second, the Venice theme is really done over the top. They have a canal. Indoors. On the second floor. We wandered around the canal and the impossibly expensive shops for a while, took a few pictures, and then headed back to the Excalibur.

Next on our agenda was the Excalibur's pool. It was, as pools go, not great. As things that are not pools go, it was pretty cool, since after all, it was a pool. But it never reached four feet in depth, and it was swarming with screaming kids. The slide was kind of cool, but the line was a bit long (and I was the oldest guy there w/o a kid in tow.)

By then, it seemed time to meet up with the guys for the bachelor party. I called Ben and arranged to meet them at the San Remo buffet. I still wasn't hungry after lunch. By the time I got there, they had finished their meal, and Martin was back at the craps table. Apparently I just missed him loudly proclaiming the beauty of ham. Then we met up, and Martin and Steve, not suprisingly, decided they were worn out and needed naps. George was going to play the nickel slots, and since I wanted to join him, I went over to join the San Remo slots club.

I guess it's a good idea to join the slots club, because if you play enough, you get free stuff. Also, if you play a table game, they use the card to record your complimentary stuff. The form asked a lot of nosy questions, like my phone number, but fortunately they didn't object when I left that blank. Unfortunately, when I got back, George had lost his $2 at the slots, so it was time to head to the Excalibur. (I never did make it back to the San Remo.)

There, I joined their club (and got Christina a card for good measure) before we headed to the tables. First up, George, Ben and I took a look at the craps table. I used my knowledge of probability to outline why certain bets that they were told were bad were, in fact, bad bets. Ben described craps as a fast paced game that could have you losing or winning money very quickly. Since I wasn't really interested in risking a whole lot of money, we headed to the blackjack tables instead.

I started with $100 and mostly took my cues from Ben as to when to hit or stand. Eventually I began to pick up on general rules, though I guess I really should study the strategy more carefully if I plan to play much in the future. The guy (pit boss?) came over and told us he couldn't comp us unless we bet $10/hand rather than the minimum $5/hand. I wasn't really interested in comps, but Ben and George upped to $10. The guy ended up mixing up my card with George's, which was pretty cool, except for the fact that I don't think he ended up trying to give George anything. Oh, well. Anyway, after a while I was up $80, and it was time to gather Martin, Steve and Paul for the serious part of the bachelor party festivities.

I guess I'm supposed to adhere to some sort of "code of silence" about the activities of the bachelor party. Just as well; I don't have much interesting to say. The evening ended for me when Paul and I, after playing pool for a while, couldn't find anybody else to meet back up with, and headed back to the hotel.

Lunch at the Palm

The next morning we got up and took a cab to the Imperial Palace. The Imperial Palace houses the Auto Collection, which Christina really wanted to see. The guidebook said that admission was $7, or free with a coupon from the casino. Seeing this, I think, "Why would the casino give us a coupon? Let's pay the $7." Christina, on the other hand, thinks, "Where can we get the free coupons?" So she -- get this -- asks people. And gets the free coupons. Huh. Well, live and learn.



So we spent an hour or so looking at some really cool cars. My favorite, I think, was the popemobile. Certain cars were less impressive -- ooh, it's a Chevy Impala. Ooh, this car was owned by Tom Jones. Or Elvis. OK, that is pretty cool. Elvis' Caddy. Best of all, the cars were all for sale (this is Vegas, after all), so we could dream about hitting it big and driving home in one cool ride. Sadly, that didn't happen, so I don't have to worry about where to park the popemobile. (In case you're wondering what the pope is doing these days w/o the popemobile, this was a specially modified Land Rover solely used for his visit to England.)

I'm going to get all sorts of hits from people searching for "popemobile" now, aren't I?



After that, it was across the street to Caesars Palace for lunch. We had a lot of trouble getting into Caesars Palace. No, not the dress code (this is Las Vegas). Rather, all the construction that they have going on. After a while, we made our way in and through the casino (the number one rule of Vegas is that you have to go through the casino to get anywhere) to the Forum, their set of shops. I'm not sure who comes to Las Vegas to go shopping -- people with too much money, I guess. Which describes Las Vegas' favorite visitors in general.



We headed to The Palm. Now, I've eaten better food -- I ate better food elsewhere on this trip -- but I'm not sure I've eaten in a restaurant with better service. The staff was very attentive, but they made us feel very welcome. Usually, I would say "nice restaurant" + "good service" = "me feeling uncomfortable." But these guys were great, and served the most ridiculously large quantities of food imaginable. I couldn't even finish my giant hamburger, and I wasn't hungry for the next 20-odd hours. An offhand remark by Christina about her birthday led to the staff bringing out a slice of cheesecake with a candle on it and singing "Happy Birthday". All in all, a great time, and perhaps the highlight of the day for me.

Casa Grande Pictures

I've posted some pictures from my trip to Casa Grande National Monument.

They're available in a Yahoo! Photos album.

New York, New York

Well, I'm back and starting to recover after a few fun-filled days in Las Vegas for Martin and Jeanene's wedding. I actually cut myself off from e-mail and the Web for 4 days, so I'll try to post recaps in the upcoming days.

The flight out on Wednesday was thankfully uneventful. I fell asleep for most of it, while Christina watched Shrek. (The only event of note was something I failed to realize until the next day -- I left the Las Vegas guide I had checked out from the library in the pocket of the seat in front of me.) We got there more or less on time just before midnight, which enabled me to wish Christina a Happy Birthday while we were waiting at the baggage carousel.

After collecting our bags, we hopped into a cab to the Excalibur, our hotel. My guidebook says that Excalibur not only is designed for kids, but seems "to be both designed and assembled by children." I think that's overly harsh. The medieval theme is cute, if a bit grating after a while. And I've had far worse experiences in Holiday Inns. Moreover, the price was very nice, especially compared to what the neighboring hotels/casinos/resorts/whatever were charging.

After checking in, we were hungry. Christina tends not to eat much before flying, and I hadn't had a lot that day myself. So at 1 in the morning (4 Eastern Time), we headed to one of the few restaurants the guide recommended that was still open -- America in the New York, New York casino/hotel. We walked on a bridge across the street separating the two establishments.

The NY, NY casino looks pretty interesting from the outside. The "building" consists of the Manhattan skyline squashed together, with the Statue of Liberty (wearing an ESPN SportsZone jersey during our visit) thrown in for good measure. We headed straight for America, which in and of itself is rather visually compelling. It has a huge (90 ft by 20 ft) 3D map of the US hanging up over the restaurant. Fittingly for Christina's birthday, we sat under Texas. (She was born there.) They were running a crab legs & steak special, for which we both eagerly opted. The food was pretty good (much better than I remembed from America in Union Station), and the service was somnewhat indifferent. The highlight of the meal for me was the 32 oz. raspberry margarita...or rather the souvenir cup it came in (for only $4 extra). This plastic container is in the shape of the Statue of Liberty. It's so tacky. It's so Vegas. Perfect.

Having filled our stomachs, we headed back to the Excalibur to rest up for the day of celebration to come.

University of Virginia

As part of my continuing goal of visiting World Heritage sites, before meeting my friends, I headed to the University of Virginia, one-half of a World Heritage site. OK, maybe less than one-half, but I would have had to get up earlier in the day to visit Monticello. That, as well as counting the site as visited, will have to wait for a later visit. Which will definitely come this winter during ski season. (I did visit Monticello during 8^th grade, but I'm not counting that, mostly as incentive to make another visit.)

I got to UVa right after the 11 am tour was to begin, but I had some amount of difficulty finding the Rotunda. So I fell in with a tour that was transpiring on the Lawn. At first, I thought the tour guide needed more education, as she referred to the "Academical Village", but I eventually realized that this must be the term that Jefferson, for whatever reason must have used. Unfortunately, shortly into the tour, I realized that this was a tour for prospective students and their families, and when the tour became less interesting that the cement some construction workers were pouring, it was time to jump ship.

So back to the Rotunda. Entering the Rotunda at roughly 11:30, there was a tour just beginning (which is not what the schedule indicated). Anyway, it was a pretty cool tour. The Rotunda was originally the library, and I don't know how many times I heard about the significance of Jefferson's making the library the center of his university (as opposed to the chapel). I also learned that after a fire, the interior (which did not survive the fire) was substantially rebuilt to accomodate more books. After the library moved out in the 1930s, the Rotunda was mostly empty until the 1970s when it was restored. So now it mostly holds meetings, such as their equivalent of a board of regents, or dissertation defenses. I don't know what it says that a building with mostly ceremonial function is now the center of the university. But I do know that it would have been cool having a dissertation defense in such a historical building, as opposed to the one I had mine in at an older university.

Anyway, it was interesting seeing what Jefferson wanted in a university, especially after my recent reading of that John Adams biography. The tour guide spoke with reverence about Jefferson's designs for the Rotunda, but I started to imagine him yelling at the construction workers (slaves?) if the crenellations weren't done just right. Hmm.

Traveling Uncle John

[I went to Charlottesville yesterday to visit friends from grad school. The following story was written in honor of my visit by their 2 3/4 year old daughter and her grandmother. I have preserved the original spelling to maintain the artistic integrity of the piece. -- Jon]

TRAVELING UNCLE JOHN

By Amelia Clark and her grandmother JO

Uncle John is tall and has dark hair. He lives in Washington, D.C. Uncle John works for Uncle Sam and he does a lot of traveling.

One day Uncle John had a very busy day traveling. He flew in a plane from Washington to New York City. When he arrived, he was very hungry so Uncle John had a hot dog with mustard and catsup. When he finished his work, he flew from New York City to Miami, Florida.

When he arrived, he was very hungry so Uncle John had a hot dog with mustard and catsup. That made TWO hot dogs. When he finished his work, he flew from Miami to Valdosta, Georgia. That man does a lot of traveling, doesn't he?

When he arrived, he was very hungry so Uncle John had a hot dog with mustard and catsup. That made THREE hot dogs. When he finished his work, he flew from Valdosta back to his home in Washington, D.C.

When he arrived home, Uncle John was very, very tired and hungry. But, he was happy, happy to be home. He took off his shoes and went to his kitchen at home. "I am sooooo hungry, but I do NOT want another hot dog." So, he had a can of soup with some crackers.

Uncle John then put on his pajamas. His pajamas had little red and blue planes all over them. Uncle John then went to bed because had had a long day and was very tired.

Where do you think Uncle John will travel tomorrow? Do you think he will eat more hot dogs?

July 2001

The Running Mate

I recently finished Joe Klein's The Running Mate. This is the sequel to Primary Colors, which I read during my trip to Belgium last year.

The Running Mate never quite made the splash that Primary Colors did. It's easy to see why. Primary Colors was a roman à clef about the 1992 Clinton campaign. To my mind, it captured the strengths and weaknesses of Bill and Hillary Clinton in a way that led more insight than a stack of newspaper and magazine profiles. The Running Mate is about a different cast of characters, primarily a Senator who is a Vietnam Veteran. Klein says at the end that Charlie Martin is inspired by the six Vietnam veterans who serve in the Senate. But it's not just one -- though you can see a lot of John McCain in Martin, this book doesn't give you a lot of insight into McCain. Primary Colors was a novel about politics. This is a love story with a political setting. Joe Klein's strengths lie in writing about politics.

One thing that struck me while reading the book was how scandal in Washington has become a routine thing. The many fictional scandals in the book all seemed familiar -- everybody has particular roles to play; there are pre-set means of spinning facts, managing the press, etc. I guess with Chandra Levy in the news, this fact stares us in the face. But it's amazing how much of what goes on in politics is completely orthogonal to the task of governing the country.

Stoney's

We went to Broomes Island to Stoney's for crabs and other seafood last night. Winter, normally a hard season for me to put up with, went easier this year, due to my newfound enthusiasm for skiing. Now it's summer, and I find myself looking forward to ski season. How, then, to get through the summer?

Crabs, of course! A few weeks ago, we went to Cantler's Riverside Inn in Annapolis. In the past few years, I've generally eaten steamed crabs maybe once or twice a year. That means that when I eat them, I sort of recall how to do so, but not really. So I expend a lot of effort for a little bit of crab meat, and by the last crab I've sort of got the hang of it. Well, this year I determined to eat more crabs and develop my crab-cracking skills. (Such a noble pursuit!)

Unfortunately, this is one of the worst seasons for crabs in memory. Stoney's was selling medium crabs for $36/dozen. We ordered half a dozen, and thankfully, they messed up and brought us a dozen (while charging for half). There's not a lot of meat on the mediums (compounding the work/meat ratio problem), but I could feel my skills picking up as I enjoyed the crab meat. Then I had Stoney's enormous crab cake sandwich. It's recommended as the best in the area by The Washington Post. The only place I've had better crab cakes is the Captain's Galley in Crisfield -- and that's quite a drive for some crab cakes.

By the way, directions were hard to find on-line, so if you ever find yourself looking to get some good crabs and/or crab cakes in a scenic waterfront location in Southern Maryland, here's what you do. Take Route 2 South or Route 4 South (they merge). Make a right on Broomes Island Road (MD-264), and follow that practically to the end before making a left on Oyster House Road (it's a loop). Stoney's should be hard to miss.

John Adams

I finished reading David McCullough's new biography of John Adams. I enjoyed it greatly, and it's helped solidify where my sympathies in early American history lie.

I had never really liked American history growing up, and as a consequence I hadn't really studied it that much beyond what was required of me. In particular, I took no American history in college. As I've grown a little older (and perhaps wiser), I've become more interested in my country's history. I've tried to remedy my gap in knowledge by going back and reading books, specifically biographies, relating to American history. Originally the plan had me moving roughly chronologically through American history, but I got stuck somewhere near the Civil War -- there was that biography of Grant I never finished. As it turned out, the readings I did about early American statesmen -- Washington, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Daniel Webster and more -- developed in me an interest in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in America independent of my original study plan.

So I picked up this latest biography. McCullough devotes some amount of effort to puffing up Adams at the expense of Jefferson. In many cases, he scores good points. Particularly devastating, in my mind, are the reactions the two of them to the French Revolution. Adams, quite early on, realized, "This is going to get out of hand." Jefferson, by contrast, was still cheering it on while the streets of Paris were running red with blood.

It is popular to avoid taking sides in historical disputes of long ago. After all, the people of two hundred years ago lived in an age with its own set of values. Their quarrels are not ours. Some of them may hold views that we find abhorrent today, but we must judge them in the context of their era. True. But some of them were, so to speak, on the right side of history. Jefferson, Jackson, and many of the anti-Federalists were slaveholders. Jefferson famously wrote against slavery ("I tremble from my country when I reflect that God is just."), yet continued to practice it. John and Abagail Adams did not own slaves, and their son John Quincy became an ardent abolitionist.

The Federalists had the foresight to see what a strong national government (as opposed to a collection of strong state governments) could do. If the anti-Federalists had won the historical battle of ideas, we could forget about a Federal Reserve, an Interstate Highway System, and possibly even a strong military. Granted, the Federalists had their flaws. They could be elitists, and Jefferson and Jackson played a great role in making American a more egalitarian society. But I think the next time someone asks me which political party I favor, I'll tell them I vote Whig.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

I may have only been to 7 World Heritage sites, but I've now been to baseball games in 8 of the 30 major league parks. Baltimore, Cincinnati, Oakland, San Diego, Boston, Minnesota, Toronto, and now Arizona. I like to attend sporting events as part of my tourism. It's fun, and it gives me the chance to see how people in a particular area enjoy their sports.

Well, in Arizona they enjoy it in a brand-new baseball stadium with a retractable roof. You might think the roof was there to keep out the heat. Maybe it does keep out the worst of the summer sun in the day, but at night they are generally content to put the top down and run the air conditioning full blast. Generally. But last night was during monsoon season, so they kept the roof closed up just in case. The windows, though, were a nice touch and gave the place less of a closed-in feeling than other domed stadia I've been to. Before the sun set, I could see the mountains in the distance; that was pretty cool.

Other than that, though it was a nice stadium, I didn't get the sense of a lot of character. It had the famous swimming pool, but we were on the opposite side, and it looked smaller than I'm used to seeing it on TV. It had all sorts of special sections -- restaurants, picnic areas, etc. Each had its own corporate sponsor. We were seated in the "Infiniti Diamond" section. To get to your seats, you went through a special restaurant area -- which held no great attraction for us, as we stuffed ourselves with Indian food at my aunt and uncle's prior to the game. Once seated, we were not beset by vendors, but rather had a chance to order food from the restaurant from our seats -- with a 18% service charge included.

The game itself was entertaining. The Diamondbacks were fairly hapless, not scoring until the bottom of the 9th. (Good thing we stayed.) The Athletics put together a reasonable offensive performance, and there was a nice mixture of entertaining hits and skilled defense. And so after 2 hours and 45 minutes, we headed back to my aunt and uncle's to pick up my parents' dog, and started back through the desert home.

Casa Grande

It's not every day in this country that you get to see the ruins of a 700-year-old building. But today was one of those days. We were supposed to go to Kitt Peak National Observatory last night to take part in their Nightly Observing Program. But monsoon season came early, so they canceled on us.

I still felt a need to get in a certain amount of tourism on this visit, however, so I selected Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, and my parents and I drove there today. Casa Grande was built by the Hohokam people, who occupied this area for almost two millenia before fading away around 1450. Nobody is quite sure what happened to them, but I was personally relieved that the white man can't be blamed for this one.

In 1694, Father Eusebio Kino passed by and named the ruins "Casa Grande." According to the Pima Indians who lived nearby, the people who used to live there were "all used up" or "ho-ho-kam". And thus the Hohokam got their name. Over the next couple of centuries, travelers drew closer to the ruins, with a rail line within 20 miles and a stagecoach path practically bumping up against it. However, it appears that there were only about a dozen years of serious danger (and some vandalism) for the ruins before Benjamin Harrison issued an executive order making it a National Monument. In the intervening years, they've built a canopy to protect it from the elements.

There's not a lot to see. The Park Service web site says that you should allow about an hour to look through the visitor center and to walk around the ruins, and that seems about right. The building is a shell, with detailed features hard to make out. You can see the holes in the walls that allow the sun to shine through exactly on the summer solstice (or mark other astronomical events). But the main thing to do is wander around marveling at the fact that there were people building multi-story buildings, playing ball games and building irrigation canals many, many years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. And, of course, enjoy the desert vistas.

World Heritage Update

• Casa Grande is not a World Heritage site (yet), but it is on the U.S.' provisional list.
  
• Martin has been to 9 World Heritage sites. Ken writes that he's been to 4, but his wife has made it to 12.
  
• The 13 sites that Bryson mentioned as meeting all 4 of UNESCO's criteria for inclusion as natural World Heritage sites are the Great Barrier Reef (Australia), the Tasmanian Wilderness (Australia), the Wet Tropics of Queensland (Australia), Shark Bay (Australia), Talamanca Range-La Amistad Reserves/ La Amistad National Park (Costa Rica/Panama), Galapagos (Ecuador), Te Wahipounamu (New Zealand), Lake Baikal (Russia), Vallée de Mai (Seychelles), Yellowstone (USA), the Grand Canyon (USA), the Great Smoky Mountains (USA), and Canaima (Venezuela). Since his book was published, Gunung Mulu National Park (Malaysia) has also been added. Pretty impressive list.

World Heritage

"Of the five hundred or so sites on the planet that qualify for World Heritage status (that is, a site of global historical or biological significance), only thirteen satisfy all four of UNESCO's criteria for listing, and of those special thirteen places, four--almost a third--are to be found in Australia."
--Bill Bryson, In a Sunburned Country, pp. 204-5.

I came across this sentence in my reading yesterday, and it has intrigued me. For one thing, how many World Heritage sites have I been to? I took a look at the list and counted. I've been quite the world traveler of late, so I thought I'd accumulate a pretty fair total.

Seven. That's all. (I'm only counting ones I've been to since I graduated from college. If I counted back to eighth grade and before, I might be able to add one or two others.) They are Brugge (Belgium), Paphos (Cyprus), Suomenlinna (Finland), Durham Cathedral (UK), Fountains Abbey (UK), Hadrian's Wall (UK), Edinburgh (UK).

Any notion of using this as a tourism checklist is scotched by a number of factors: the size of the list (690 properties), the rate at which new properties are added to the list (61 last year), and the location of some of them (e.g., Iran, Iraq, Libya). Still, it helps identify places of universally recognized interest, and I probably will make an effort to see more and more of them in my travels.

I find it somewhat funny that none of the places I've been is in the US. The National Park Service does maintain a list of places it would like to have as World Heritage sites; I've been to a handful of those.

Let's get interactive for a change. How many World Heritage sites have you been to? I'm curious. Drop me an e-mail and let me know. (It's not too hard to go through the list, since you can skip over countries you've never been to.)

As for the original Bryson quote that led me down this path, I think it's in error. There are 4 criteria for being named as natural sites. The Great Barrier Reef is one of the Australian sites he describes as meeting all 4 criteria. But of the 690 sites, 529 are cultural, 138 are natural and 23 are mixed. So I think it would be closer to say that of the 138 natural ones, only thirteen satisfy all 4 criteria (though even that I haven't verified).

Upgrade

Greetings from Arizona, where I'm spending the 4th with my parents. The flights out were amazingly uneventful. Amazing to me, at least, after I almost got stranded overnight in Minneapolis -- or Chicago -- a couple of weeks ago.

My flight from BWI to O'Hare went fine. The plane was full -- I guess a lot of leisure travelers, like me, are taking advantage of the holiday to get in an extra day of vacation without using up annual leave at work. The flight took off on time, and landed with half an hour to go before boarding was supposed to begin for the flight to Phoenix.

When about 45 minutes passed, I was a little nervous. But then they started to board. I was able to get on right away, by virtue of an upgrade to First Class. United gives its Premier frequent fliers 4 500-mile upgrade coupons for every 10000 miles we fly. You redeem enough coupons to cover your flight and hope there are seats left. As "Bill" has pointed out, that means that if you play your cards right, you fly in first class roughly 1 out of every 5 flights. Playing your cards right, for me, meant not being willing to use 1000 upgrade miles for the 621 mile flight from Baltimore to Chicago, but using 1500 miles for the 1440 mile trip from Chicago to Phoenix. Apparently, a mere Premier member often has difficulty using the upgrades, but I think most of the high-miles road warrior were at home for the holiday.

When I sat down in 1st class, it was next to an 11-ish-year-old boy. Pretty soon a woman came up to me and asked if I would change seats so they could sit together. Ordinary, I'm extremely accomodating to such requests but I looked at my window seat, and the aisle seat she was offering me. I said that I'd really had my heart set on the window seat, but if she couldn't find somebody else, I'd make the switch. She soon came back to tell the boy that the guy next to her was willing to trade seats with him. At this point, however, he decided that life was good where he was, so he stayed put. Which made me all the happier I hadn't agreed to switch.

On the way out here, I read In A Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson. I'm planning to be in Australia a year from now for a conference, so I've decide to start learning more about the Land Down Under in order to plan my stay there. I'll probably take a week or so off before or after the conference to travel around, and a travelogue seemed more promising a way of learning what parts of this vast country are worth visiting than merely perusing a guidebook. This book certainly helped me get a feel for the country and its sights. Bryson's writing style is interesting...wry and thoughtful.

A.I.

We saw A.I. at the Rio in Gaithersburg yesterday after lunch at the Hamburger Hamlet. I had never been to the HH before, and they did produce a fine hamburger. After living in University Park for 3 years, Gaithersburg's sort of jarringly outer-suburban. But it's pleasant, I'll give it that.

In general, I enjoyed A.I., though it wasn't spectacularly good. I wonder what Kubrick would have done with it. (Though after having seen Eyes Wide Shut, I no longer believe in his infallibility. Oh, yeah, and Barry Lyndon, too.)

Warning, a spoiler or two in the review ahead.

In a word, I found the whole thing pretty creepy...can you imagine having Haley Joel Osment as your kid? I would have dumped him in the woods even if he were the real one. Cree-py.

The plot ambles on, exploring this 21st (?) century post-global-warming society. It will from time to time take big leaps. Sometimes those leaps require a certain suspension of disbelief. (Don't the future police choppers have LoJack?) But mostly it's just a fairly interesting story with fairly distant characters and pretty cool special effects.

The original story upon which this is based is on-line here. Apparently there are two other sequel stories which also figure into the plotting of the movie, but I haven't seen them. Although Kubrick and Spielberg changed a number of things from the story (I'm disappointed that they got rid of the tapeworm -- that was one of the more believable parts of the story), the movie did have the feel of a science fiction story. Most SF movies feel to me more like some other genre -- typically western or thriller -- transplated into "the future." A.I. fell more into the speculative fiction genre I'm used to reading.

Anyway, 3 stars out of 5.

There is an interesting Washington Post article about Osment today. He sounds like a bright, interesting kid. But creepy.

Zardoz

I have seen the future and it doesn't work

Take Sean Connery. Put him in a ponytail, sideburns, a fu manchu mustache, and...oh, yes, a loincloth. Add a giant flying stone head. Make 2293 look strikingly like 1974 (when the movie was made). You probably couldn't get anything as messed up as Zardoz, the movie we watched last night.

The year is 2293. This giant stone head (Zardoz) tells people (Brutals) that guns are good and penises are bad. The people go out at kill other Brutals who have been reproducing. But lately, Zardoz has been getting his Exterminators to make the Brutals agricultural workers. Why is this? Well, you see, Zardoz is actually the creation of an Eternal who lives in a Vortex (where the women often frolic topless), and you see, some of the Eternals have become Apathetics, and the Eternals need food for them.

All this was going well and good (huh? it was? what?), until Zed (Sean Connery) enters the picture. An Exterminator, he kills the guy behind Zardoz (don't worry; he's an Eternal, he'll be back) and rides the giant stone head to a Vortex. Well, once that happens, life in the Vortex will never be the same, as Eternals alternately employ Zed as their flunky, lover, and executioner. There's also some trippy stuff with crystals. Who am I kidding? It's all trippy.

It's worth seeing if only for the overwhelming feeling of, "What is Sean Connery doing in this movie?" and "Why didn't Mystery Science Theater 3000 ever do this movie?" Oy. According to something Fox Movie Channel scrolled across the screen, Stanley Kubrick served as an advisor on this film. You think between him and Sean Connery, they could have prevented it from seeing the light of day again...

Pi

"Something's going on. It has to do with that number. There's an answer in that number."

Ah, how often have I said something similar? Well, probably not very often, which is why the movie Pi didn't, shall we say, speak to me as a mathematician. On a superficial level, it's cool to see some similarities between a movie protagonist and oneself. Hey, he's a number theorist? I'm a number theorist! Hey, he works with computers? I work with computers! Hey, he's trying to figure out the essential patterns in the stock market to predict exactly what it will do the next day? I own stock! Hey, he plays Go? I know people who play Go!

As you can see, the parallels break down at a certain point. True, the mathematics in here is slightly less flawed than in Sneakers or Good Will Hunting. But to a certain extent that's because there's less attempt at detail here. I didn't feel like I was watching a movie about mathematics; I felt like I was watching a movie about a crazy guy who worked on mathematics.

And that's about it. The movie is rather thinly plotted. Max thinks he can find patterns in the chaos; so too do two groups -- one is some sinister goverment or financial organization, the other a group of Hasidic Jews. He tries, they pursue him. There are a lot of scenes of flashing lights and dissonant noise. They didn't do too much for me.

All in all, it's got some intriguing scenes and themes, but to me it felt like an unpolished, although talent-driven, "art school" flick more than anything.

Sailing

In a half-hearted effort to provide some continuity, I'm providing aliases for my co-workers who are mentioned here more than once. This entry involves "Bill", who previously appeared as the host of a Goldpocket event. "Bill" asked me a few weeks ago if I was interested in going sailing that evening. I had much going on, making my life very hectic, so I had to decline. But on Wednesday he invited me again, and armed with 24 hours of notice, I decided to give it a shot. Part of the enticement was my job description: "ballast". I figured it would be fun getting out onto the water and watching everybody else do the work.

Unfortunately, those plans were altered somewhat due to the reduced crew size. The crew consisted of Bill, me and someone else who had sailed twice before. So we stopped off for supplies and headed to the water.

Fortunately, my role was reduced to doing fairly straightforward things under direction. "Let this line out." These tasks were complicated slightly by the fact that on a boat, everything has a different name. Ropes become lines. Left becomes port. I decided that in days of yore, sailors spent a significant portion of their time at sea, so there was no good reason for them to be able to communicate efficiently with landlubbers. These days, people who sail just like the lingo. I had to revise that opinion later when I realized that the terms "port" and "starboard" avoided questions such as "Do you mean my left or the boat's left?" at crucial junctions.

The Compromise left the pier at around 6, in time for the 6:36 start time of the race. Thursday nights in Annapolis are when "J-class" boats race. There are three classes that race -- J-22, J-24 and J-80. J-22s are 22 feet long, J-24s are 24 feet long, and J-80s are, of course, 80 decimeters long. We were in a J-24. And of course, we had no chance of winning. I am proud to say we completed the race without collisions, and we hoisted the spinnaker without incident. I am mainly proud to say "hoisted the spinnaker". I think "hoist" is the appropriate term.

At first, I was somewhat bothered by the amount of effort needed to sail the boat. I mean, how is this relaxing if you're constantly doing things with the jib sheet or boom vang or whatever these things are? But as I got comfortable with my main task (letting one line out and pulling another in during the tacking maneuver), I realized that for people who knew what they were doing, all of the tasks likely took on an air of ritual that was probably pretty cool. But given the relative inexperience of our "crew", the light winds kept things from getting too interesting. And Bill was good at letting us know what we needed to do when (while avoiding the other boats).

As I mentioned earlier, we had no chance of winning. As a matter of fact, we came in dead last. We successfully reset the spinnaker for a second race, but alas, the light wind meant that there was not time for another. So we slowly made our way back to the dock, tied up the Compromise, put away the sails and disembarked.

All in all, a nice, relaxing yet entertaining evening. I learned a little about sailing, didn't get hit by the boom, and hopefully I'll get a chance to do that again some time.

The Microsoft Interview

Today's Microsoft ruling reminded me of a story someone told me about a job interview he had at Microsoft. This was circa 1992. During the interview, they asked him a number of questions to determine whether he was clever enough to work there. One of them was, "Why is there no eject button on VCR remote controls?" He was proud of himself for knowing the answer. "Because if you're going to eject a tape, you're going to have to get up anyway to do anything with it, so it's unnecessary." Microsoft was pleased with his quick-wittedness, and he got the job.

Two things bothered me about this question and expected answer. One, there are VCR remote controls with eject buttons. (My parents had one at the time, and I thought it was great.) Two, there are valid reasons to want to eject a tape without wanting getting up. For example, you may have just taped something really good that you want to be sure not to tape over accidentally. Eject the tape, and your chances of doing that drop. Also, many VCRs take several seconds to eject a tape (I don't know, maybe they're checking to make sure they're not playing it at the time). By ejecting the tape from the comfort of your seat, it'll be all ready to put away when you get up there.

This story, to my mind, foreshadows a lot of Microsoft's behavior, in the courtroom or in the marketplace. They have the twin attitudes of "We're right, regardless of reality" and "We know what's best for the consumer." That's what makes a lot of their software annoying to use, despite the neat stuff it sometimes contains.