Moo!

Great, just as I'm headed to a conference in Alberta, they find mad cow disease in...Alberta. And I had been so looking forward to the steaks.

Sooner or Later, It Starts to Add Up to Real Money...

Prince George's County's $1.8 million budget for 2004, scheduled to be adopted by the County Council tomorrow, could face deep cuts later this year -- perhaps as much as $20 million -- if Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. vetoes a package of corporate taxes passed by the General Assembly, county officials say.

--"Pr. George's Fears Veto Of Tax Bill By Ehrlich", The Washington Post, May 21, 2003, B05.

I don't know how you're going to cut $20 million from a $1.8 million budget. Maybe by tapping the $1.2 billion snow removal fund...

Tennis Elbow

Christina has posted a medical update at her site.

Five-Star Service

Well, I've just about recovered from the jetlag. I suspect my ailment last week was more contagious than food-related, as Christina has taken ill with similar symptoms. Sigh.

I just thought I'd post a little bit about the hotel I stayed at last week -- the Sofitel Victoria Warsaw.



When I travel, I have to keep within certain limits on hotel rates -- the hotel per diem. These rates can be fairly generous, but they generally constrain me from living the high life in a city's poshest digs.

When I got a list of the hotels for the Warsaw conference, I compared the rates to the per diem and discovered that I could stay at one of the four-star hotels. I was relatively happy with that -- I've stayed in three-star hotels in London, and I'd do it again, but they were a little bit sketchy. Sketchy is not something I was looking forward to in Warsaw.

I double-checked before making the hotel reservation, and lo and behold, the per diem rate had gone up by around $40. I could afford the five-star hotel (the Sofitel Victoria). I'd be staying in the lap of luxury.

Well, not really. In many ways, it was comparable to the four-star Hilton Metropole we stayed at in London last month. The Internet access in the room was a definite plus for keeping me in touch when I retreated back to my room, ill.

But somehow it didn't seem as nice. It seemed a little...dreary. I probably could have done better trying to fit under the per diem at one of the newer hotels not on the conference list.

My repeated encounters with the gift shop woman seemed to exemplify the staleness of the place. At one point, I asked for stamps to mail postcards back to the US. She asked me how many, and I counted out nine postcards I had filled out. She started tearing off the stamps, and I remembered four more postcards I had yet to fill out. Since I would need stamps for those, I said, "No, thirteen." She sighed audibly and shot me a look that seem to say, "I can't believe communism lost to you." She hadn't even finished tearing out nine stamps!

I shouldn't generalize, though. The morning I checked out, I had a few more postcards to mail. A different woman helped me out, and she even got out a sponge to moisten the stamps for me. She also gave me "priority" stickers to put on the cards, which apparently you need -- so those of you who get your postcards via steamer two months from now, you'll know who to blame (and where she works).

Melrose Place

Christina has written a review of the Melrose Hotel, where we stayed on our wedding night.

Viva Poland!

Well, at yesterday's lunch, the Qvo Vadis staff was dressed in sombreros. Odd enough. They also served something that appeared to be enchiladas. I don't generally eat enchiladas, so I didn't risk it.

Perhaps that is what put me in mind of Mexican food, though, and that evening I ended up at El Popo for dinner. The food was...interesting. Good, but unusual. The quesadillas seemed more like cheese turnovers. The flautas were served with a side of potatos and sausage...Christina assures me that this can be autentically Mexican, but I didn't sample the sausage to find out if it was chorizo.

Dinner was accompanied by a mariachi band, who seemed quite good. During their break, they wandered over to the bar and started trying to figure out how to transfer photos from one person's cell phone to another's Palm Pilot. Judging by the amount of swearing that was going on, I don't think it went well.

When it came time to depart, I ran into the small problem of not remembering where the entrance/exit was. (I eschewed the margaritas, so that wasn't the problem.) Fortunately, one of the mariachis came up to help me. Unfortunately, he started trying to help me in Polish. We settled on Spanish, and I ended up back on my way to the hotel.

Reconstruction

OK, I feel better today. I had a little food at lunch, which was the first real meal I had since Monday dinner. Still not sure if it was food poisoning or what. By the way, the restaurant's name is actually Qvo Vadis...the fact that the first thing that jumps out at you from their web site is the phrase "Mix-Erotix" is somewhat disconcerting. And yesterday and today, nobody was wearing togas...oddly disappointing.

Other than feeling incredibly sick, yesterday wasn't a total loss. It was the conference afternoon off, and I had signed up for an organized tour of Warsaw. It suffered from some of the usual downsides of bus tours...why did we get out of the bus here, but drive by there, but all in all, it wasn't bad. For some reason, only a small fraction of the conference attendees signed up, so we were actually in a Mercedes mini-bus.

Anyway, here's my impression of our tour guide:

"The Nazis destroyed that...The Nazis destroyed that...The Russians desroyed that...The Nazis destroyed that...OK, that we just didn't build right to begin with...The Nazis destroyed that..."

Seriously, though, that's unfair of me. It leaves out the most astounding part of the city, which was that after the war, they decided to built it right back again. As a result, you can stroll down streets that look hundreds of years old, but are less than 60. And it's not like a Disneyland version...everything was done for authenticity, not tourism. It displays a certain amount of stubornness..."OK, we don't really need a castle any more, but we're not going to let some jerks come into our country and burn it down."



As the World Heritage page says,

During the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944, more than 85% of Warsaw's historic centre was destroyed by Nazi troops. After the war, a five-year reconstruction campaign by its citizens resulted in today's meticulous restoration of the Old Town, with its churches, palaces and market-place. It is an outstanding example of a near-total reconstruction of a span of history covering the 13th to the 20th century.

Actually, the castle was not restored until the 1980s. One of the odd sights in the castle were busts of Washington and Jefferson, which were donated by Bush I. They were displayed like wedding gifts that a couple didn't really want, but have to leave out for fear of offending someone. (Note: we didn't get anything like that. It was all great. You shold be getting your thank you notes soon.)

Maybe it wasn't the sleep...

I'm continuing to feel iffy this morning. (I'll spare you the details.) I thought maybe it was the room service I ordered last night. But I just talked to a colleague who said that he thought he had gotten food poisoning from lunch at the conference yesterday. Great... He described the choices as "unidentifiable meat, unidentifiable meat, unidentifiable meat, unidentifiable meat..." That pretty much sums it up. The restaurant is called "Quo Vadis", and it features weird decor and a bunch of people standing around in togas -- it has this weird Caesar's Palace vibe going on.

I think I'll try to stay away from the unidentifiable meat today.

To sleep...

A year and a half ago, I said,

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.

Well, on the other side of 30, I can report that the upset stomachs still reign, though I find myself mercifully headache-free this morning. Thank goodness for small favors.

I just sort wish my sleep pattern corresponded to either Maryland or Warsaw. I'm sleeping like 8pm-1am and 4am-7am Warsaw time, which is 2pm-7pm and 10pm-1am back home. I guess that is 8 hours, though you wouldn't know it from the signals my body is giving me right now.

Anyway, you'll excuse me if I lack charming comments about my trip right now. In the mean time, enjoy Christina's weblog update.

Apology for Eating at McDonald's

I feel like I should start this out with an apology for eating at McDonald's yesterday. I'm not entirely sure of the basis for this feeling, but it's been nagging at me. Maybe I should start with a defense instead. I was hungry. My other options seemed to be room service and various hole-in-the-wall kebab places. And I wanted something cheap and quick to eat before the conference reception last night. I managed to communicate my order with the McDonalds worker, mostly because she knew some English. I got the Cordon Bleu meal, which suggested to me some lines for "Pulp Fiction II":

Vincent: And you know what they call a... a... a McChicken in Warsaw?
Jules: They don't call it a McChicken?
...
Vincent: They call it a "Cordon Bleu".

Anyway, that picture above, from the McDonald's web site is the first McDonald's to open in Poland, and the one I went to yesterday. So at least I went to a historical site. And it's the first McDonald's I've seen where they serve Red Bull.

Taxi!

The guidebook warned against hiring a taxi driver who solicited me in the Warsaw airport. No problem. Well, except for the fact that as soon as I left the terminal, I had taxi drivers swarming around me asking if I needed a taxi. I said "no", which wasn't all that convincing, since I kept standing there.

I like to look around and get my bearings on a situation before taking action. I was hoping there was something else around I could feign interest in, but there wasn't much to the area in the front of the airport. An attempt to examine the exchange rates to see how I did at the exchange near passport control led to offers of help with that. I finally just walked up to the taxi desk (as advised by the guidebook and various signs around the airport) and said "Sofitel Victoria?"

The woman behind the counter confirmed that I in fact wanted a taxi there and led me to a waiting one from one of the more reputable companies (according to the guidebook). I asked how much it would be -- she told me around 35 zloty. It ended up being 26 zloty (about 7 bucks). Plus, I got to hear One Night in Bangkok on the radio on the way.

Later, when I went out to get the GPS coordinates of the hotel (52^o 14.396' N, 21^o 00.757' E), a taxi driver stopped and asked if I needed a ride. (OK, he asked me something. I make assumptions.) I guess they have pretty agressive taxi drivers here for some reason.

More Hotel Reviews

Christina has written up a review based on our stay last month at the Hilton London Metropole. She also has a review of the Hampton Inn and Suites Providence from her visit to Rhode Island.

Hampton Inn, Clemson SC

Christina and I went to Clemson last weekend and stayed at the Hampton Inn Clemson. Read her review.

Update

One of my first posts on this weblog was about the book Bears Discover Fire. In it, I said,

OK, I admit it; I bought this book in large part for the title, and the cover (sadly not available at Amazon), which shows bears with torches.

A large version of the cover is now available here.

Books I've Read Lately

The English: A Portrait of a People

I had been meaning to read The English: A Portrait of a People before one of my trips to the UK. I finally got around to reading it during our trip there last month. I don't know that I learned anything particularly profound out of the book, but it was an entertaining companion with some interesting trivia facts.

The book centers on the question of English (as oppposed to British) national identity. The author traces a strain of anti-intellectualism and tries to tie it, along with other traits, to a concept of Englishness. I'm not sure I buy that, but some of the insights are worth thinking about, especially for a foreigner like me.

The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?

This is another book I'd been meaning to read for a while. It has a fairly provocative thesis -- that rather than trying to protect our privacy, we should demand openness from others. So if a company gets our address, we should have the right to know exactly what they are doing with it. And the home address of anyone on their board of directors.

There's a lot interesting there -- like the contrast between American fear of Big Brother and European fears of corporate privacy invasions. Brin admits that he is not an absolutist -- he wrote the book in part to counter-act what he saw as people too concerned with "how do I keep my personal information secret" and less willing to consider regulation about how the information is used.

The Two-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future

This book might as well have been subtitled "Ice Cores, Ice Cores and More Ice Cores". The author spends the first part of the book explaining how ice cores (specifically, drilling two miles deep in Greenland) can tell us about climate history. It's fairly dry stuff, but I followed along on the promise that he would use this set-up to help explain possible future climate changes.

Unfortunately, when he gets to that stuff, he doesn't go into much detail, and instead returns to the details of the ice core experiments. It's always amusing to see how someone's obessions creep in despite their best efforts, but in this case, it makes for an unsatisfying book.

Completely Off Base

My father had a letter published in the Arizona Daily Star.

Upcoming Talk

Hey, I'm giving a talk at Clemson next Friday.

Guess I'd better go write the talk.

World Heritage List

I've created a web page listing the World Heritage sites I've been to. I link to the official UNESCO page for each site, as well as to a description of my trip there, if available. I'm hoping to go back and provide descriptions of trips where not available.

While we were in England earlier this month, Christina and I visited three more sites: Bath, Stonehenge and Westminster Abbey. I've now been to 16 sites, which only leaves 714 to go! (Ha ha.)

Given how much I travel, I'd like to update and expand the travel section of my web site. I have a travel page that needs freshening.

Uh-huh, please share some more insights...

Since I had only sporadic Internet access last week, I've been catching up on my e-mail. I get e-mailed alerts of Slate's article postings. I've made it up to April 1 now, and I'm reading this analysis:

On the other hand, as the war drags on, any stifled sympathy for the American invasion will tend to evaporate. As more civilians die and more Iraqis see their "resistance" hailed across the Arab world as a watershed in the struggle against Western imperialism, the traditionally despised Saddam could gain appreciable support among his people.

--Robert Wright, The War and the Peace

Well, at least he said "could". And I'm not saying I'm a better prognosticator. But it's interesting how little value this analysis contains only eight days later. I mean, the fighting's not over, but Saddam's regime isn't exactly showing its tenacity.

Beer and Skittles

Tuesday night was spent at the Little Owl Pub for dinner. We participated in a game of skittles. No, not the candy.


When I asked what skittles were, I was told that it was like tenpin bowling, but with nine pins that were differently shaped and further apart. You get three throws to attempt to knock them down. I suppose if you knocked them all down with one of your first two balls, the pins would be reset. Between the 30-40 people we played with and the four frames bowled, this was never an issue. One time, someone did knock all nine down, but that was with ball three.

I had the most fun setting up the pins. This was certainly not automated -- the pins weren't even regular. Though they were supposed to be symmetrical, some wouldn't stand up on one side.

And yes, Christina did out-skittle me. Left handed.