It's one thing to report on what one does on a vacation-type trip, it's another to really think about what happened, what the trip was about. The reporting is usually kind of shallow, but it serves a purpose in helping me remember things I might have lost over the course of time, but I'm not sure how interesting it is.
What spurred me to think about this was a brochure that I seem to have brought home called "The National Archives Experience." The brochure contains the sort of stuff one would normally find at an attraction, a map of exhibits, some verbiage on same and scattered pictures of happy visitors enjoying the premises. It just struck me as odd that they're equating a list of what there is to do with the experience itself. There are lots of things to do at the Archives, but I can tell you exactly what most people's experience is:
You walk in, you go through a metal detector, as you do pretty much anywhere you go in Washington. In fact, if I had to summarize The Washington Experience it would be a kind of serial airport security activity, except with exhibits instead of airplanes. I was pleased that they didn't need to search me when I went to Trader Joe's. After passing through security, you look for signs that say Rotunda, because that's where the famous documents are. Follow them and then find yourself in a very long line with markers like at Disney World about how long you would have to wait from any given point.
You wait in line anywhere from 15 minutes (us) to over an hour (any busier time). This gives you the opportunity to watch the provided introductory video 8 or 9 times. Eventually, they let you in with a group of around 40 people and you all make a beeline for the Declaration of Independence, then move clockwise to the Constitution while you complain that the Declaration is so faded you can't see it and that it's too dark in the room. Then maybe to the Bill of Rights if you're still interested. This takes around 15 minutes. You then go to the gift shop and buy a facsimile copy of the Declaration and then you leave.
I can assure you this is not the experience described in the brochure. I'm sure some people visit the other exhibits, but not when I was there.
Archives aside, Washington was summarized for me once by a friend who'd gone to school at GWU with "You gotta like your big white buildings." This could not be more true. After we got out of the Holocaust Museum and wanted to get lunch, the entire next square block, which is probably 3 square blocks anywhere in Philadelphia, is taken up by the Department of Agriculture building. It's very impressive, but you have a hard time convincing me that you need a building that big for anything. The Mall is other side of the street, so the area is completely barren of anything to see, do or eat. Much of downtown Washington is like that, and though I'm always a willing walker, it's a bit much to deal with a half mile walk just on the chance there might be something on the other side (especially since there might not).
Thank goodness for the Starbucks app, which though we never set foot in Starbucks, would lead us to areas where there might be something to eat or drink. As city people, this was distressing to both my daughter and me, because some level of street life is part of what defines a city. I know enough about urban planning to know that you can't have any sort of street life if there's no reason for anyone to be on the street. That's why downtown parking lots are awful, they're just dead space. Large parts of Washington are nothing but dead space for that exact reason. It's more attractive dead space than a surface parking lot, but no better in many ways.
The only pace we saw real street life was in Georgetown, which has lots of things going on at street level and the landscape is not dominated by cars. Though they do have those odd Walk/Don't Walk signals that start counting down from 50 or 60. Those are a function of wide streets, which are also not so good for street life.
Overall, I guess Washington is okay to visit. The quality of the attractions makes up for its negatives, at least for a short visit. But since I tend to divide places into "could live there" versus "couldn't live there" this would have to fall into the couldn't live there category.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Washington, Day Two
Got kind of a late start on day two. First stop was the Newseum. This is a new museum, about the news media, and it is a gem. We started off at the lower level, where we saw an exhibition of photographs by Neil Leifer, who has about 200 covers of Time and Sports Illustrated to this credit (most famous one- Ali standing over Sonny Liston after knocking him out). You then take an elevator up to the top and walk around the the atrium and down a level at a time. This seems to be the standard arrangement these days, and I think it started with the Guggenheim in New York, which spirals down in such a manner as to tempt even the most hypothetical of skateboarders.
I grew up not so much a news junkie as a newspaper junkie. Breakfast for me has always meant sitting with a daily newspaper, starting with the sports section and then moving on to whatever looks interesting. Today, for instance, the New York Times had an article about how online retailers are targeting people who have been drinking because they are more likely to impulse buy. In any event, this place was like heaven for me. It's the history of news, starting with printing presses and up through citizen journalism. In between they have hundreds of newspapers in drawers with headlines about every important story since the Civil War. I could have spent hours there and probably will some day.
They have a bunch of other cool stuff too, from a bullet-dented-but-not-penetrated armored truck that protected a journalist working in Africa, to a piece of the Berlin Wall and part of the antenna that sat atop World Trade Center building number 1 against a backdrop of dozens of newspaper front pages.
We needed food at that point, and after yesterday, when we'd walked for almost 3 miles without passing any sort of food-selling thing, (Washington is very strange that way. Many of the buildings are so huge that they block out all street life), we were concerned if we'd find something, especially since it was pouring. But fortunately, there was a Cosi across the street where we huddled and ate, during which time the rain stopped and a rainbow appeared.
From there we scurried inside the National Archives as they were closing their doors and saw the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights, things I hadn't seen since I was a kid. They're pretty badly faded but still recognizable, especially the big "We The People."
Then we spent a couple of hours in the Natural History Museum, which is always fun. Then back to drop some stuff at the hotel and then over to a place called Blues Alley. This is a small Georgetown Club that has live jazz most nights. I'd never heard of the guy who was playing. He's an 80-ish pianist who's a fixture of the DC jazz scene. He was very good and the rest of the band too, especially the guitarist. The set was too short (exactly 70 minutes, just like Yelp reviewers had said) but enjoyable.
And that was pretty much it. We had a good time with almost everything. I have a bit more to say about the hotel but will send that along tomorrow.
I grew up not so much a news junkie as a newspaper junkie. Breakfast for me has always meant sitting with a daily newspaper, starting with the sports section and then moving on to whatever looks interesting. Today, for instance, the New York Times had an article about how online retailers are targeting people who have been drinking because they are more likely to impulse buy. In any event, this place was like heaven for me. It's the history of news, starting with printing presses and up through citizen journalism. In between they have hundreds of newspapers in drawers with headlines about every important story since the Civil War. I could have spent hours there and probably will some day.
They have a bunch of other cool stuff too, from a bullet-dented-but-not-penetrated armored truck that protected a journalist working in Africa, to a piece of the Berlin Wall and part of the antenna that sat atop World Trade Center building number 1 against a backdrop of dozens of newspaper front pages.
We needed food at that point, and after yesterday, when we'd walked for almost 3 miles without passing any sort of food-selling thing, (Washington is very strange that way. Many of the buildings are so huge that they block out all street life), we were concerned if we'd find something, especially since it was pouring. But fortunately, there was a Cosi across the street where we huddled and ate, during which time the rain stopped and a rainbow appeared.
From there we scurried inside the National Archives as they were closing their doors and saw the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights, things I hadn't seen since I was a kid. They're pretty badly faded but still recognizable, especially the big "We The People."
Then we spent a couple of hours in the Natural History Museum, which is always fun. Then back to drop some stuff at the hotel and then over to a place called Blues Alley. This is a small Georgetown Club that has live jazz most nights. I'd never heard of the guy who was playing. He's an 80-ish pianist who's a fixture of the DC jazz scene. He was very good and the rest of the band too, especially the guitarist. The set was too short (exactly 70 minutes, just like Yelp reviewers had said) but enjoyable.
And that was pretty much it. We had a good time with almost everything. I have a bit more to say about the hotel but will send that along tomorrow.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Day One in Washington
I've not spent much time in Washington. I guess I have the same lack of interest as my parents, as I think we came here exactly once when I was growing up, around 1964. All I remember was the Wright Brothers plane because I was obsessed with the Wright Brothers at the time and seeing JFK's grave at Arlington Cemetery, though I also remember my father giving me hard time for being whiny while standing on line to see the grave. I came down once for a day with biz school friends, and I brought my kids down for a weekend once but nobody ever was interested in going again.
This time, I was looking for a place that was close enough to go for a short time where there was a reasonable variety of stuff to do. So here I am.
This day played out like most days we're on vacation. I get up long before anyone else in my family even thinks about it. I really can't stay in bed past 8:30, maybe 9 and the others are all happy staying in bed until 11 if not prompted to do otherwise. This is fine with me. I love my family but getting up early gives me a chance to have my own space.
Whenever we travel I go for morning walks with no particular destination or route in mind. I best way I can describe it is that I want to know where I am. Whether this is inherently interesting or not depends obviously on where we're staying. Right now we're staying in an area heavy with Embassies and not too far from Georgetown, so I headed over that way.
I've been in Georgetown, but not for many years and my memory is foggy enough that I suspect I'd been bar hopping before getting there. I'm not sure. But it's a very nice place to walk on a cold morning before the stores are open. The commercial street is varied enough that it doesn't look like a mall and the side streets are beautiful, lined with pretty old houses and brick sidewalks. It's not unlike parts of Old City in Philadelphia, but more upscale looking. The main drag exhibits the split personality of the place. It's a very upscale college area, so the stores are mostly pretty high end, like Kate Spade and MaxMara, but the food places are all pizza, pubs, and various Asian, Indian and Mexican restaurants.
On the way I crossed over a nice park alongside a stream. If it were warmer I'd have taken one of the bikes that the hotel has for guests (they also have rental bikes on the street like in Paris) but walking across was fine.
Once back my daughter arose and we headed out for a fun-filled day of looking at things about dead people. I know that sounds flip, but package together the Lincoln Memorial, followed by the Vietnam War Memorial and then the Holocaust Museum and that's a lot of dead people. Oddly enough, I enjoyed it thoroughly. The Lincoln Memorial is familiar from pictures but that sucker's big. The text of his Second Inaugural Address, one of the great speeches of the modern age, is on one of the walls and it nearly moved me to tears to read it in that spot.
As aware as I was of the building of the Vietnam War Memorial, I never had a sense for what it looked like and I was almost thrown by its scale and simplicity. Walking slowly along, seeing name after name after name, brought the entire tragedy top of mind again. I was lucky enough to have been too young to get drafted. My 18th birthday year was the last year of the dreaded draft lottery and I was assigned a number, but the war had ended, they did not draft anyone born in 1955, and they eliminated the draft soon afterward.
The Holocaust Museum was more of an immersive experience. I have some issues with the design of the place. There was some interesting and important information displays in places that were bottlenecks for the good-sized crowd and it was tough to see some things. But you can't deny the power of story and you can't not feel the weight of the horror. My family on both sides left Europe even before World War I so I have no relatives who were involved. But I certainly know plenty of people who do, and you can't feel Jewish and not feel the pain.
At this point we'd had enough death and despair and wanted to get something to eat, so we cabbed it to Georgetown, where we had lunch and then walked up and down the street and looked and occasionally shopped in stores. Finally dinner at the hotel, the highlight of which were perhaps the most amazing french fries I've ever had. The taste was the good news, the fact that they were fried in duck fat is perhaps not such good news, buit they were very delicious and I was able to eat less than half of them.
This time, I was looking for a place that was close enough to go for a short time where there was a reasonable variety of stuff to do. So here I am.
This day played out like most days we're on vacation. I get up long before anyone else in my family even thinks about it. I really can't stay in bed past 8:30, maybe 9 and the others are all happy staying in bed until 11 if not prompted to do otherwise. This is fine with me. I love my family but getting up early gives me a chance to have my own space.
Whenever we travel I go for morning walks with no particular destination or route in mind. I best way I can describe it is that I want to know where I am. Whether this is inherently interesting or not depends obviously on where we're staying. Right now we're staying in an area heavy with Embassies and not too far from Georgetown, so I headed over that way.
I've been in Georgetown, but not for many years and my memory is foggy enough that I suspect I'd been bar hopping before getting there. I'm not sure. But it's a very nice place to walk on a cold morning before the stores are open. The commercial street is varied enough that it doesn't look like a mall and the side streets are beautiful, lined with pretty old houses and brick sidewalks. It's not unlike parts of Old City in Philadelphia, but more upscale looking. The main drag exhibits the split personality of the place. It's a very upscale college area, so the stores are mostly pretty high end, like Kate Spade and MaxMara, but the food places are all pizza, pubs, and various Asian, Indian and Mexican restaurants.
On the way I crossed over a nice park alongside a stream. If it were warmer I'd have taken one of the bikes that the hotel has for guests (they also have rental bikes on the street like in Paris) but walking across was fine.
Once back my daughter arose and we headed out for a fun-filled day of looking at things about dead people. I know that sounds flip, but package together the Lincoln Memorial, followed by the Vietnam War Memorial and then the Holocaust Museum and that's a lot of dead people. Oddly enough, I enjoyed it thoroughly. The Lincoln Memorial is familiar from pictures but that sucker's big. The text of his Second Inaugural Address, one of the great speeches of the modern age, is on one of the walls and it nearly moved me to tears to read it in that spot.
As aware as I was of the building of the Vietnam War Memorial, I never had a sense for what it looked like and I was almost thrown by its scale and simplicity. Walking slowly along, seeing name after name after name, brought the entire tragedy top of mind again. I was lucky enough to have been too young to get drafted. My 18th birthday year was the last year of the dreaded draft lottery and I was assigned a number, but the war had ended, they did not draft anyone born in 1955, and they eliminated the draft soon afterward.
The Holocaust Museum was more of an immersive experience. I have some issues with the design of the place. There was some interesting and important information displays in places that were bottlenecks for the good-sized crowd and it was tough to see some things. But you can't deny the power of story and you can't not feel the weight of the horror. My family on both sides left Europe even before World War I so I have no relatives who were involved. But I certainly know plenty of people who do, and you can't feel Jewish and not feel the pain.
At this point we'd had enough death and despair and wanted to get something to eat, so we cabbed it to Georgetown, where we had lunch and then walked up and down the street and looked and occasionally shopped in stores. Finally dinner at the hotel, the highlight of which were perhaps the most amazing french fries I've ever had. The taste was the good news, the fact that they were fried in duck fat is perhaps not such good news, buit they were very delicious and I was able to eat less than half of them.
Stumbling into luxury
Once again, I'm on the road. This time I'm in Washington, DC with my older daughter, who recently finished finals.
The train trip here was easy enough and we caught a cab to the hotel. The hotel. Let me tell you about the hotel. As I usually do, I went on Tripadvisor to scout. Tripadvisor is a good site, but like any other review site you need to learn to read it properly to get the information you want. If you look at one or two reviews you can get a skewed, even inaccurate impression, and if the reports are too specific you need to evaluate them carefully. I look for commonalities, consistent themes and reports. Then I check prices.
I settled this time on a hotel called the Park Hyatt. It had great reviews, was considered to be among the best hotels in the city, and for some reason was barely more expensive than most of the other nice hotels. I have no idea why this was the case. I've stayed in Hyatt, Grand Hyatt and Hyatt Place hotels, but none of them were anything like this.
First of all, it's barely marked. There's a small lighted sign at ground level at the corner, but you'd be hard pressed to see it. There's nothing on the front of the hotel itself. I had debated reserving upgraded accommodations, but I just had a sense that if I could get rooms for less than half of what they usually cost, that the hotel might be empty enough that I could get that without having to reserve and therefore pay for it.
Happily, this proved to be the case. We were both upgraded to junior suites that connected. The rooms are made up of a living area and a sleeping area separated by a partial wall. THe living area has a desk and some comfortable chairs. The sleeping area has a bed and the usual bed-related stuff. The bathroom is huge and has one of those rain showers in an open area of one end. The closet space has enough to either stay for a week or make a complete outfit change 3 or 4 times a day for a weekend. My favorite touch is that the safe has an outlet inside so you can charge your laptop while you're out.
I'm going to skip ahead in time to give you an idea of the level of service in this place. The next day I wanted some beer to have in the room so I wouldn't have to use the motion-activated-you-lift-it you've-bought-it minibar. Normally, I would ask a hotel's front desk where I could go to get beer, but I know if I did that here that they would insist on going out and getting it for me. Oh, and my daughter said she didn't like the pillows, which are much mushier than the memory foam pillows we have at home. So I called housekeeping to ask if they had that kind of pillow and they responded, "We will get them for you and once they are in the building we shall place them in your room." Now I'm not sure that means they went out and bought us pillows, but it might.
Oh yeah, and then there's the Internet thing. One of the most infuriating things about staying in nice hotels is that, unlike a places like Hampton Inn or Motel 6, you have to pay for Wifi. There's no justification for this; making Wifi available in a hotel costs them almost nothing and yet they're perfectly comfortable charging you $10 a day for it, unless you're a high level frequent guest. So here the bellman seemed almost perturbed at the notion that we might have to pay for Internet and so brought us an access code for one computer and had the guest services person call and say not to worry that they would take the charges off the bill. This should serve notice to anyone ever staying at a nice hotel that you should ask for almost anything because they just might do it for you.
The train trip here was easy enough and we caught a cab to the hotel. The hotel. Let me tell you about the hotel. As I usually do, I went on Tripadvisor to scout. Tripadvisor is a good site, but like any other review site you need to learn to read it properly to get the information you want. If you look at one or two reviews you can get a skewed, even inaccurate impression, and if the reports are too specific you need to evaluate them carefully. I look for commonalities, consistent themes and reports. Then I check prices.
I settled this time on a hotel called the Park Hyatt. It had great reviews, was considered to be among the best hotels in the city, and for some reason was barely more expensive than most of the other nice hotels. I have no idea why this was the case. I've stayed in Hyatt, Grand Hyatt and Hyatt Place hotels, but none of them were anything like this.
First of all, it's barely marked. There's a small lighted sign at ground level at the corner, but you'd be hard pressed to see it. There's nothing on the front of the hotel itself. I had debated reserving upgraded accommodations, but I just had a sense that if I could get rooms for less than half of what they usually cost, that the hotel might be empty enough that I could get that without having to reserve and therefore pay for it.
Happily, this proved to be the case. We were both upgraded to junior suites that connected. The rooms are made up of a living area and a sleeping area separated by a partial wall. THe living area has a desk and some comfortable chairs. The sleeping area has a bed and the usual bed-related stuff. The bathroom is huge and has one of those rain showers in an open area of one end. The closet space has enough to either stay for a week or make a complete outfit change 3 or 4 times a day for a weekend. My favorite touch is that the safe has an outlet inside so you can charge your laptop while you're out.
I'm going to skip ahead in time to give you an idea of the level of service in this place. The next day I wanted some beer to have in the room so I wouldn't have to use the motion-activated-you-lift-it you've-bought-it minibar. Normally, I would ask a hotel's front desk where I could go to get beer, but I know if I did that here that they would insist on going out and getting it for me. Oh, and my daughter said she didn't like the pillows, which are much mushier than the memory foam pillows we have at home. So I called housekeeping to ask if they had that kind of pillow and they responded, "We will get them for you and once they are in the building we shall place them in your room." Now I'm not sure that means they went out and bought us pillows, but it might.
Oh yeah, and then there's the Internet thing. One of the most infuriating things about staying in nice hotels is that, unlike a places like Hampton Inn or Motel 6, you have to pay for Wifi. There's no justification for this; making Wifi available in a hotel costs them almost nothing and yet they're perfectly comfortable charging you $10 a day for it, unless you're a high level frequent guest. So here the bellman seemed almost perturbed at the notion that we might have to pay for Internet and so brought us an access code for one computer and had the guest services person call and say not to worry that they would take the charges off the bill. This should serve notice to anyone ever staying at a nice hotel that you should ask for almost anything because they just might do it for you.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Small sample size theater
When you're evaluating a baseball player, you always approach with caution even the best statistics compiled for only 50 at bats or so. Why? Because everybody knows that baseball is the game where you have 600 or 700 at-bats in a year and 50 at bats is not enough to make a judgment of how a batter will perform over an entire season.
The technical term for this is sample size error. What it means is that you don't have enough information to make a well-informed decision. With that in mind, let me tell you all about Tucson, Arizona.
Tucson looks at first glance to be in the desert but actually it rains here almost constantly. I went for a hike yesterday and I have to take my shoes off four times across little rivers (they called them "washes," that's a laugh- I got all muddy). There also signs everywhere that say Do Not Enter If Flooded. This is such good advice that I'm resolved to follow it in all circumstances, but I've never seen them anywhere else so it must flood here a lot. So why are there so many cacti around? I don't understand. It's also really cold the temperature doesn't seem to get much above 50 and it goes down into the upper 20s at night.
They also have signs everywhere saying high fire danger but I don't understand how that can be when it's raining all the time. In fact, I've not seen anything or anyone on fire since I've been here.
It's also dark almost all the time here. The sun doesn't rise until after 8 o'clock in the morning. Then it's just dark because of the cloud cover. I guess this explains why it's deserted. There are almost no people here. The hotel where I'm staying looks like it has room for 1000 people or so and yet I seem to be the only person there except for the staff.
They make all the buildings here the same color as the landscape so that you can't find them. "Where is that place?" "Make a right after the blow-slung brownish building that looks like every other building within 100 square miles." Thank God for brightly colored plastic signs or I never would have found anything.
In sum, based on my experience Tucson is nothing like what they say it is.
The technical term for this is sample size error. What it means is that you don't have enough information to make a well-informed decision. With that in mind, let me tell you all about Tucson, Arizona.
Tucson looks at first glance to be in the desert but actually it rains here almost constantly. I went for a hike yesterday and I have to take my shoes off four times across little rivers (they called them "washes," that's a laugh- I got all muddy). There also signs everywhere that say Do Not Enter If Flooded. This is such good advice that I'm resolved to follow it in all circumstances, but I've never seen them anywhere else so it must flood here a lot. So why are there so many cacti around? I don't understand. It's also really cold the temperature doesn't seem to get much above 50 and it goes down into the upper 20s at night.
They also have signs everywhere saying high fire danger but I don't understand how that can be when it's raining all the time. In fact, I've not seen anything or anyone on fire since I've been here.
It's also dark almost all the time here. The sun doesn't rise until after 8 o'clock in the morning. Then it's just dark because of the cloud cover. I guess this explains why it's deserted. There are almost no people here. The hotel where I'm staying looks like it has room for 1000 people or so and yet I seem to be the only person there except for the staff.
They make all the buildings here the same color as the landscape so that you can't find them. "Where is that place?" "Make a right after the blow-slung brownish building that looks like every other building within 100 square miles." Thank God for brightly colored plastic signs or I never would have found anything.
In sum, based on my experience Tucson is nothing like what they say it is.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Some impressions of Tucson
I'm in Tucson, Arizona doing an errand of sorts. I've never been here before. It is about as different-looking from Philadelphia as you could possibly get. Thanks to Siri, I'm writing this as I'm driving along the road called Miracle Mile. I've been down this road several times in the last couple of days and I still have no idea what the miracle part of it is. The only miraculous thing I can think of is how many strip malls they've managed to cram into a mile of road. I have yet to get into downtown Tucson. During the day today I went hiking in the mountains, and then it started to rain so I was back at the hotel mostly writing report cards.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised because so much of the construction here is new, but almost everything I see here is a chain store of some sort, including all the restaurants. I had to drive quite a ways to get dinner at a place that was not a Red Lobster or Chili's or someplace else where I could've eaten at (according to Siri, easily kidnapped) in Philadelphia. I guess the stuff that's here is the stuff that peoples want it but just how many Target's do you need? I passed three between the airport and the hotel, and it's not that far.
Tonight I went for Mexican food. I drove all the way to South Tucson to this little family type restaurant. The specialty of the house is called the President's platter in honor of Bill Clinton who had this particular meal there about 10 years ago. My parents have met Bill Clinton, who rented house in Martha's Vineyard not far from where their house is. I've not met him, but I know enough about him to know that if he ordered something for dinner that I wouldn't be able to finish it. And sure enough, it was a little bit like a tasting menu at a fancy restaurant, except that on the tasting menu they give you little bits of everything that they make. Here, they give you full size portions of everything that they make. It featured a tostada taco chili Reno a tamale and an enchilada. Fortunately, I was pretty hungry and I felt comfortable enough eating about half of it. It was good, just way way way too much food.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised because so much of the construction here is new, but almost everything I see here is a chain store of some sort, including all the restaurants. I had to drive quite a ways to get dinner at a place that was not a Red Lobster or Chili's or someplace else where I could've eaten at (according to Siri, easily kidnapped) in Philadelphia. I guess the stuff that's here is the stuff that peoples want it but just how many Target's do you need? I passed three between the airport and the hotel, and it's not that far.
Tonight I went for Mexican food. I drove all the way to South Tucson to this little family type restaurant. The specialty of the house is called the President's platter in honor of Bill Clinton who had this particular meal there about 10 years ago. My parents have met Bill Clinton, who rented house in Martha's Vineyard not far from where their house is. I've not met him, but I know enough about him to know that if he ordered something for dinner that I wouldn't be able to finish it. And sure enough, it was a little bit like a tasting menu at a fancy restaurant, except that on the tasting menu they give you little bits of everything that they make. Here, they give you full size portions of everything that they make. It featured a tostada taco chili Reno a tamale and an enchilada. Fortunately, I was pretty hungry and I felt comfortable enough eating about half of it. It was good, just way way way too much food.
Enroot
Currently sitting at the airport bar in Sky Harbor airport, the self-proclaimed "friendliest airport in America," located somewhere in the vicinity of Phoenix, Arizona. I am on my way for a short, not particularly pleasant, but necessary trip to Tucson for a couple of days. I'll add some pictures tomorrow but there's nothing to see right now. It's around 10 PM and a lot of stuff in the airport is closed. Not the bar, fortunately. The janitorial staff is wheeling big carts full of garbage around. They didn't seem particularly friendly, though I suppose it's not the same to say that the airport itself is friendly as to say the people who work there are friendly.
The bar is okay, though they don't have any munchies. How can you be in the Southwest and not have chips and salsa on the menu? Seems sacrilegious to me (and is it just me or does that word look like it's spelled funny). Fortunately, I have a bag of peanuts in my bag and am sneakily eating them with my beer.
Anyway, 5 hours from Philly to Phoenix and now another 45 minutes or so to Tucson. I could have driven, I suppose, but it's 200 miles and I just wasn't into the idea. The flight was uneventful, which is about as much as you can want from a 5-hours-in-coach experience. I spent most of it listening to music and writing report cards (due at midnight Eastern time tomorrow- gotta remember the time difference!), until they took my portable electronic devices away.
Nothing more to report. I'll have more to say tomorrow after I've explored a bit.
The bar is okay, though they don't have any munchies. How can you be in the Southwest and not have chips and salsa on the menu? Seems sacrilegious to me (and is it just me or does that word look like it's spelled funny). Fortunately, I have a bag of peanuts in my bag and am sneakily eating them with my beer.
Anyway, 5 hours from Philly to Phoenix and now another 45 minutes or so to Tucson. I could have driven, I suppose, but it's 200 miles and I just wasn't into the idea. The flight was uneventful, which is about as much as you can want from a 5-hours-in-coach experience. I spent most of it listening to music and writing report cards (due at midnight Eastern time tomorrow- gotta remember the time difference!), until they took my portable electronic devices away.
Nothing more to report. I'll have more to say tomorrow after I've explored a bit.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Near my house, they opened one of those trails that used to be railroad tracks. I went for a walk on the trail the other morning and I liked it.
I think a big reason people like these trails is that they're flat. Trains are not good at climbing hills, that's why the transcontinental railroad took so long to complete (okay, that one's long too). I remember reading somewhere that a train can only climb a 3% grade, which means for each hundred feet it goes forward if you can only go 3 feet up. This makes train rights of way pleasant for bicycling and walking, provided there are no trains there of course.
There's another reason I like it though. Nobody does anything to make their house or business look good from the train tracks. Usually it's an area that's at best neglected and at worst trashed. In the case of people's houses, your looking at their backyards from a perspective you never get if you're walking out back of your house. There are no Corinthian columns, Restoration Hardware wooden benches or porch swings or interesting stonework. Instead, you have screen doors, plastic chairs and stucco.
Not that there's anything wrong with or unusual about that. New York's City Hall was built with an impressive marble facade but a plain brownstone back because it sat on the northernmost point of the city and the time and the city fathers were sure nobody would ever have the opportunity to see the back because it was all wilderness back there. Kind of like now but with Starbucks.
Walking along the trail, it almost feels like I'm peeking into someone's private life. This was at 7AM on a cold weekend day so there was nobody in back of anyone's home, but it all seemed terribly exposed to me- no fence or anything separating the likes of me from someone else's backyard. Does that mean if I want to bail out I can just walk down someone's driveway? I think not, but there's nothing saying so. I kept looking for No Trespassing signs, but there were none to be found.
After about 20 minutes I arrived at a legit way to leave the path, at a town park. I decided to exit there and walk back home, but as soon as I started I realized that my house is up a fairly steep hill from the park. How did I get down there? I didn't notice walking downhill. I will have to try it in the other direction because if I can walk down to the park and then return without having to walk uphill, we have some serious magic going on.
I think a big reason people like these trails is that they're flat. Trains are not good at climbing hills, that's why the transcontinental railroad took so long to complete (okay, that one's long too). I remember reading somewhere that a train can only climb a 3% grade, which means for each hundred feet it goes forward if you can only go 3 feet up. This makes train rights of way pleasant for bicycling and walking, provided there are no trains there of course.
There's another reason I like it though. Nobody does anything to make their house or business look good from the train tracks. Usually it's an area that's at best neglected and at worst trashed. In the case of people's houses, your looking at their backyards from a perspective you never get if you're walking out back of your house. There are no Corinthian columns, Restoration Hardware wooden benches or porch swings or interesting stonework. Instead, you have screen doors, plastic chairs and stucco.
Not that there's anything wrong with or unusual about that. New York's City Hall was built with an impressive marble facade but a plain brownstone back because it sat on the northernmost point of the city and the time and the city fathers were sure nobody would ever have the opportunity to see the back because it was all wilderness back there. Kind of like now but with Starbucks.
Walking along the trail, it almost feels like I'm peeking into someone's private life. This was at 7AM on a cold weekend day so there was nobody in back of anyone's home, but it all seemed terribly exposed to me- no fence or anything separating the likes of me from someone else's backyard. Does that mean if I want to bail out I can just walk down someone's driveway? I think not, but there's nothing saying so. I kept looking for No Trespassing signs, but there were none to be found.
After about 20 minutes I arrived at a legit way to leave the path, at a town park. I decided to exit there and walk back home, but as soon as I started I realized that my house is up a fairly steep hill from the park. How did I get down there? I didn't notice walking downhill. I will have to try it in the other direction because if I can walk down to the park and then return without having to walk uphill, we have some serious magic going on.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Tebowmania
There's been a lot of chatter recently about Tim Tebow, the quarterback of some NFL team that I don't care about. He's put together an impressive string of comeback victories, confounding those who doubted his football ability. Of course, we'll know he's actually good when he doesn't have to keep coming back in order to win, but that's another story.
Talk about Tebow is only partially about football, though; it invariably transitions into the place of religion in sports. He's referred to as being the most devout Christian athlete and such. He's certainly the most vocal about his faith, and that's the point of the controversy, I think.Although Tebow may be as devoted as any pro athlete, I don't really believe that he's the most devout. Since there's no scale of measurement for devoutness, nor is there even any consensus as to how to measure such a thing, that's an impossible statement to make.
What Tebow does that makes him controversial, at least in my eyes, is that he uses his position as a public figure to advertise his devoutness. When he put legible-on-TV bible chapter and verse numbers on the black gook those guys where under their eyes, that was the last straw for me. Anyone that desperate to shout "Look at me!" for any reason, perhaps faith most of all, is not any kind of role model for anything good.
The funny thing is, the fact that he's not really prosthelytizing is what makes his behavior so annoying. Those verses in the black gook? It's gibberish to a decent portion of the population and an "Oh, I've got to look this up" moment for many more.
If Tebow's point is that he's a person of faith who is proud of that fact, it's prideful but maybe acceptable. If he is in any way implying that he is more successful than others because of his faith, well that's arrogant and downright insulting to almost everyone else, whatever their beliefs. So people who dislike Tebow aren't anti-religion, they're anti-braggart.
Talk about Tebow is only partially about football, though; it invariably transitions into the place of religion in sports. He's referred to as being the most devout Christian athlete and such. He's certainly the most vocal about his faith, and that's the point of the controversy, I think.Although Tebow may be as devoted as any pro athlete, I don't really believe that he's the most devout. Since there's no scale of measurement for devoutness, nor is there even any consensus as to how to measure such a thing, that's an impossible statement to make.
What Tebow does that makes him controversial, at least in my eyes, is that he uses his position as a public figure to advertise his devoutness. When he put legible-on-TV bible chapter and verse numbers on the black gook those guys where under their eyes, that was the last straw for me. Anyone that desperate to shout "Look at me!" for any reason, perhaps faith most of all, is not any kind of role model for anything good.
The funny thing is, the fact that he's not really prosthelytizing is what makes his behavior so annoying. Those verses in the black gook? It's gibberish to a decent portion of the population and an "Oh, I've got to look this up" moment for many more.
If Tebow's point is that he's a person of faith who is proud of that fact, it's prideful but maybe acceptable. If he is in any way implying that he is more successful than others because of his faith, well that's arrogant and downright insulting to almost everyone else, whatever their beliefs. So people who dislike Tebow aren't anti-religion, they're anti-braggart.
Friday, December 09, 2011
Intermissient musings
I can't think of a better opportunity to meditate on entropy than at a school band concert. Entropy is a complex topic, which is perhaps best understood as a lack of order. Everything in the universe tends toward disorder and it requires energy to keep things organized in some fashion. As an example, it requires energy for the atoms that make up your computer (or you, for that matter) require energy to stick together to form the computer. Without that energy, all of those atoms would be randomly spread throughout the universe. In a state of complete entropy, the entire universe would be made up of evenly distributed matter and energy, with nothing binding together to form anything.
That's a big topic, as you can imagine, but I'm not really concerned with that right now. I'm thinking about the school band concert. My understanding is that the purpose of a band is to play together in some arrangement in order to create music for an audience. Most of the time I simply take this for granted, but when at a school band concert, especially something called a symphonic band, which is like an orchestra with no stringed instruments except bass and lots of wind instruments, I've noticed that it takes considerable work on the part of the audience to discern music within the sounds coming from the stage.
I have a pretty discerning ear, and it almost physically hurts me when music is out of tune or tempo (or both). So one of the ways I protect myself during these concerts is to get into a meditative state where I block out the idea that it's music coming fro the stage and receive it as a conglomeration of random sounds instead, a state of musical entropy.
From that state, it becomes kind of a game called "Find the Music," where I close my eyes and try to find the music amidst the random noise in the room. This is kind of like when you leave a quarter in your pants pocket when you wash them, and then it comes loose and bangs around in the dryer. I have been in laundromats where I've need people tapping their feet to the rhythm of the quarter. It's kind of like that, except with saxophones, flutes, clarinets, french horns and trombones instead of quarters.
I know it sounds weird, but for me at least, this is really fun. It's almost calming to listen to a sustained level of noise, and then every once in a while I can discern a melody or a beat. It's strangely satisfying to find the music in the noise, the order in the entropy. So here I sit at intermission, waiting for the next game to start.
That's a big topic, as you can imagine, but I'm not really concerned with that right now. I'm thinking about the school band concert. My understanding is that the purpose of a band is to play together in some arrangement in order to create music for an audience. Most of the time I simply take this for granted, but when at a school band concert, especially something called a symphonic band, which is like an orchestra with no stringed instruments except bass and lots of wind instruments, I've noticed that it takes considerable work on the part of the audience to discern music within the sounds coming from the stage.
I have a pretty discerning ear, and it almost physically hurts me when music is out of tune or tempo (or both). So one of the ways I protect myself during these concerts is to get into a meditative state where I block out the idea that it's music coming fro the stage and receive it as a conglomeration of random sounds instead, a state of musical entropy.
From that state, it becomes kind of a game called "Find the Music," where I close my eyes and try to find the music amidst the random noise in the room. This is kind of like when you leave a quarter in your pants pocket when you wash them, and then it comes loose and bangs around in the dryer. I have been in laundromats where I've need people tapping their feet to the rhythm of the quarter. It's kind of like that, except with saxophones, flutes, clarinets, french horns and trombones instead of quarters.
I know it sounds weird, but for me at least, this is really fun. It's almost calming to listen to a sustained level of noise, and then every once in a while I can discern a melody or a beat. It's strangely satisfying to find the music in the noise, the order in the entropy. So here I sit at intermission, waiting for the next game to start.
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
Science
What is it about holiday shopping that makes people insane? Is it just that the words Christmas and Crazy come from the same Latin root? By the middle of December I want to be a shut-in, because I can't go anywhere or do anything without somebody driving crazily or walking too quickly and not noticing that they're pushing. It seems like the speed:attention ratio is just off. My current operating theory is that this temporary unhinged behavior is caused by incessant Christmas music. I call it ICM Syndrome, and its symptoms include vacant stares, anxiousness, and incessant humming.
Although there have been lots of sociological (and therefore meaningless) studies on holiday behavior, there hasn't been a lot of rigorous research done on the physiological effects. What I've read proves only that there is a moderate but noticeable shift of brain activity from the cerebral cortex and its logical thinking to the amygdalae, otherwise known as the "lizard brain" once people have been exposed to "Winter Wonderland" or "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" 10 or more times within a 4 day period. Over time, this can lead to enlargement of those lobes, possibly crowding out the logical thought centers. An extended study is needed to see if the damage is reversible.
This would be bad enough if I hadn't had the Hallelujah Chorus stuck in my head for the last week. I need a vacation.
Friday, December 02, 2011
One of the challenges of growing up is to progress from the me me me-ness of two and three-year-olds to something more nuanced as an adult. This can manifest itself in a number of ways, depending on your intelligence, your neediness, and the degree to which you are a shades-of-gray person or a black-and-white person.
You can dig into this as much as you want, but I think when it really comes down to is how much can you get over yourself. If you're someone like me who has and unnaturally high opinion of himself this can be quite a challenge, but the thing that makes it possible for me is that I have no trouble distinguishing between what is appropriate when I'm by myself versus when I'm interacting with another person.
What tends to impede getting over yourself is people's natural tendency to want to win. This is a primal urge and difficult to combat, and often manifests itself in the need to get the last word or to be RIGHT. This is typically not a useful urge. The core problem is that everyone wants to get the last word in and everyone thinks they're right. Otherwise, why bother? So going into a discussion sure of your rightness is a recipe for disaster, or at least for nastiness, and being insistent on that point only raises the stakes.
I'll get to a broader discussion of this in a moment, but I think it's best illustrated by and example, and I'll use my current job because it's unique in ways yet generalizable.
The teacher-student relationship is one with a clear authority figure. As the teacher, I have ultimate say in pretty much everything that goes into the functioning of the class. This allows me to say "because I said so, that's why" or perhaps something slightly more mature-sounding. In fact, it compels me to do so, because if I don't there's chaos. What the authority position does not do, however, is make me right. The only thing that makes me right is being right, and what's right isn't always clear. It just allows me to say, "I understand what you're saying, but the discussion's over." Of course that only works if I can refrain from saying anything else, but since I don't actually like to talk that's not too hard.
Getting back to the larger topic, I think the key to getting over yourself is listening. I've gone off before about how I think good listening is a skill that we really ought to spend more time teaching and developing, and what's needed here is two kinds of listening. First, you need to really listen to what the other person is saying an evaluate it on its own merits, not filtered through your own feelings. Second, you need to listen to yourself and get an idea of how you are sounding to others. It's all part of looking outside yourself.
In advertising there are two-plus questions that must be answered right off the bat. What am I trying to accomplish, and who am I talking to and what do they want? I am not in school to talk about math for math's sake or for my own. I am there to fulfill the needs of my students and their parents. Doing this effectively requires understanding what they want and how they expect to get it. That doesn't mean you have to do everything they want or the way they want it. What is does mean that it's not all about you and you must consider how what you do will be received.
This is very easy to say but can be very difficult to do, and it means being able to live without being right all time, but I can tell you from experience growing up as the "smart kid," being right isn't all it's cracked up to be.
You can dig into this as much as you want, but I think when it really comes down to is how much can you get over yourself. If you're someone like me who has and unnaturally high opinion of himself this can be quite a challenge, but the thing that makes it possible for me is that I have no trouble distinguishing between what is appropriate when I'm by myself versus when I'm interacting with another person.
What tends to impede getting over yourself is people's natural tendency to want to win. This is a primal urge and difficult to combat, and often manifests itself in the need to get the last word or to be RIGHT. This is typically not a useful urge. The core problem is that everyone wants to get the last word in and everyone thinks they're right. Otherwise, why bother? So going into a discussion sure of your rightness is a recipe for disaster, or at least for nastiness, and being insistent on that point only raises the stakes.
I'll get to a broader discussion of this in a moment, but I think it's best illustrated by and example, and I'll use my current job because it's unique in ways yet generalizable.
The teacher-student relationship is one with a clear authority figure. As the teacher, I have ultimate say in pretty much everything that goes into the functioning of the class. This allows me to say "because I said so, that's why" or perhaps something slightly more mature-sounding. In fact, it compels me to do so, because if I don't there's chaos. What the authority position does not do, however, is make me right. The only thing that makes me right is being right, and what's right isn't always clear. It just allows me to say, "I understand what you're saying, but the discussion's over." Of course that only works if I can refrain from saying anything else, but since I don't actually like to talk that's not too hard.
Getting back to the larger topic, I think the key to getting over yourself is listening. I've gone off before about how I think good listening is a skill that we really ought to spend more time teaching and developing, and what's needed here is two kinds of listening. First, you need to really listen to what the other person is saying an evaluate it on its own merits, not filtered through your own feelings. Second, you need to listen to yourself and get an idea of how you are sounding to others. It's all part of looking outside yourself.
In advertising there are two-plus questions that must be answered right off the bat. What am I trying to accomplish, and who am I talking to and what do they want? I am not in school to talk about math for math's sake or for my own. I am there to fulfill the needs of my students and their parents. Doing this effectively requires understanding what they want and how they expect to get it. That doesn't mean you have to do everything they want or the way they want it. What is does mean that it's not all about you and you must consider how what you do will be received.
This is very easy to say but can be very difficult to do, and it means being able to live without being right all time, but I can tell you from experience growing up as the "smart kid," being right isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Thursday, December 01, 2011
Getting the Boot
Long before Punk'd, there was a show called Candid Camera that was on TV for close to 20 years. The would lure people into odd situations and capture how they'd react (one of my favorites, they removed the engine from a car and rolled it down a hill where there was a repair shop at the bottom. The young female driver gets out and tells the mechanic that her car stalled and now won't start. He opens the hood and sees there's no engine and is amusing perplexed). I remember seeing one episode where they gave a bunch of honor students what they called a career suitability survey and then met with them individually. The student would sit at a desk across from the counselor, who would say very seriously that their carrer survey pointed very strongly toward a career as, for example, a manual laborer, dishwasher, or shepherd. The students were of course appalled.
In this spirit, I approach tonight's Class of 2013 College Kick-Off night at an area independent school. This is somewhere between exciting and terrifying for most of the people here, especially those who have a first kid going through this.
I come to this as both a second-timer and someone with fairly strong opinions along the lines of the college process being almost comically overblown. I say almost, because the stress level that goes along with the college process is anything but comical. It's difficult and occasionally heartbreaking. And of course, like most of the stuff that's wrong with life these days, it's the fault of us baby boomer parents. That being said, the kids are very invested in it and we as parents, having created this monster in the first place, must now feed the beast.
The college counselors at this school seem pretty high powered and knowledgeable. They are very earnest. They talk about how you should try to make it fun. As one of them said, "Enjoy the journey to find where your kids will spend the next 4 years," (unsaid: "before they move back home again").
The whole part about standardized testing makes me cringe. The whole process has become perverted, IMHO, though I'm at a loss to see what an alternative would be.
An interesting factoid is the huge increase in the number of applications at every college. I'm guessing this is because of a synergistic combination of boomer parent pushiness and improved technology. Since many boomers either want nothing but the best for their kids, are living vicariously through their kids, or both, they will do nothing to limit the search. The combination between the development of the Common Application, the ability to apply to a virtually limitless universe entirely online, and free access to a credit card leads to a rising number of applications per person.
Another interesting factoid is how much colleges pay the College Board for each student's name to send them mailers. What would you guess? It's 30 cents. As the counselor said, "So you know you have value."
In this spirit, I approach tonight's Class of 2013 College Kick-Off night at an area independent school. This is somewhere between exciting and terrifying for most of the people here, especially those who have a first kid going through this.
I come to this as both a second-timer and someone with fairly strong opinions along the lines of the college process being almost comically overblown. I say almost, because the stress level that goes along with the college process is anything but comical. It's difficult and occasionally heartbreaking. And of course, like most of the stuff that's wrong with life these days, it's the fault of us baby boomer parents. That being said, the kids are very invested in it and we as parents, having created this monster in the first place, must now feed the beast.
The college counselors at this school seem pretty high powered and knowledgeable. They are very earnest. They talk about how you should try to make it fun. As one of them said, "Enjoy the journey to find where your kids will spend the next 4 years," (unsaid: "before they move back home again").
The whole part about standardized testing makes me cringe. The whole process has become perverted, IMHO, though I'm at a loss to see what an alternative would be.
An interesting factoid is the huge increase in the number of applications at every college. I'm guessing this is because of a synergistic combination of boomer parent pushiness and improved technology. Since many boomers either want nothing but the best for their kids, are living vicariously through their kids, or both, they will do nothing to limit the search. The combination between the development of the Common Application, the ability to apply to a virtually limitless universe entirely online, and free access to a credit card leads to a rising number of applications per person.
Another interesting factoid is how much colleges pay the College Board for each student's name to send them mailers. What would you guess? It's 30 cents. As the counselor said, "So you know you have value."
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Meetings make me think weird stuff
One of the things we talked about in a meeting today was about people being guided by their relationship with the divine. Not that there's anything wrong with that, this being a religious school, but given the history of civilization, it seems like the type of issue that is unlikely to be workable when you are talking about about a group of more than, well, one.
A big question in this debate is, how do you incorporate atheists into this discussion? What is an atheist's relationship to the divine? I'm not exactly an atheist, but I'm not a true believer either. So what's my relationship with the divine?
I am embarrassed to admit that the best encapsulation of my religious belief is what they call The Force in Star Wars. I'm not talking about "May the Force be with you," which is just a pseudo-mystical way of saying "Have a nice day." I'm talking about the way the Force is initially described, as an energy field created by all living things, that surrounds and penetrates living beings and binds the galaxy together. George Lucas said he got the idea of the Force from another futuristic film, where it was roughly equated with God.
So it appears that I have a relationship with a roughly equated with the divine-like thing, I suppose, and I daresay that that goes for many of us who don't think of God as an old man in the sky. What's important in the original statement is being guided by that relationship, not the relationship itself. I guess that's kind of what I do, given that I try to live by a simple moral code. Since that code (and moral codes in general) revolves around my relationships with other people, rather than the divine, I can honestly say that I am guided by a sense of being part of something bigger, something that exists only because we will it to exist as living creatures.
Yes, I am aware that this makes only partial sense. I'm not very good at that spiritual philosophical logical argument construction stuff. What I am better at though is treating people the way I'd want to be treated, and trying to leave each situation I encounter better than I found it. And I can settle for that.
A big question in this debate is, how do you incorporate atheists into this discussion? What is an atheist's relationship to the divine? I'm not exactly an atheist, but I'm not a true believer either. So what's my relationship with the divine?
I am embarrassed to admit that the best encapsulation of my religious belief is what they call The Force in Star Wars. I'm not talking about "May the Force be with you," which is just a pseudo-mystical way of saying "Have a nice day." I'm talking about the way the Force is initially described, as an energy field created by all living things, that surrounds and penetrates living beings and binds the galaxy together. George Lucas said he got the idea of the Force from another futuristic film, where it was roughly equated with God.
So it appears that I have a relationship with a roughly equated with the divine-like thing, I suppose, and I daresay that that goes for many of us who don't think of God as an old man in the sky. What's important in the original statement is being guided by that relationship, not the relationship itself. I guess that's kind of what I do, given that I try to live by a simple moral code. Since that code (and moral codes in general) revolves around my relationships with other people, rather than the divine, I can honestly say that I am guided by a sense of being part of something bigger, something that exists only because we will it to exist as living creatures.
Yes, I am aware that this makes only partial sense. I'm not very good at that spiritual philosophical logical argument construction stuff. What I am better at though is treating people the way I'd want to be treated, and trying to leave each situation I encounter better than I found it. And I can settle for that.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Choir attire
We're a pretty musical family. My kids especially like to sing, and one has been bugging us for years to allow her to join a local group. And this year, now that she can drive herself to rehearsals, we've allowed her to join. She's very happy doing this and the choir is really good, and we knew there would be some level of parent involvement, but we were completely unprepared for the cultlike aspects of being a part of this.
I should have known it would be like that when I saw that they referred to the girls as "choristers." I understand that this is an actual word, but it isn't one I'd encountered in the first 55 332/365 years of my life. The first thing that started were the e-mails. They come, several times a week, with details of concerts and everything about he concerts. Then came the uniforms. Then the calendar, then a series of calendar updates, modifications and clarifications. And then the meetings (I am currently sitting in what could be called either a double meeting or one long meeting, which started at 10:30 and runs through 12:15 on Saturday morning(!)). You learn that being the parent of a chorister is a state of mind, requiring an orientation that choir is, if not the only thing, certainly the vital center of the kid's life.
Now we're in the midst of fundraising hell. Obviously, an organization needs money, so we're going from one fundraiser to the next. My favorite so far is the cookies. Somebody knows about this bakery in another city that makes cookies. They are vanilla cookies with a big gob of chocolate icing on them. The number of announcements and amount of meeting time spent on these cookies is astounding. A few weeks ago I went to (somewhat shorter) back-to-back meetings, first for the whole group, then for my kid's particular group, and then another 3 days later. There were announcements about the cookies at all 3 meetings, and it was actually scary how scripted the announcements sounded. I know that, aside from being indescribably delicious (the woman sitting next to me did not agree), the cookies "make wonderful hostess gifts" and that they "freeze wonderfully." These exact phrases also appear in multiple follow-up e-mails. I can just see the glassy eyed choristers, traipsing from neighbor to neighbor, endlessly muttering "Make. Wonderful. Hostess. Gifts. Freeze. Wonderfully."
An afternote- the cookies arrived today. They look like vanilla cookies with a lot of chocolate icing on them, come in cellophane packages with printed labels on them like supermarket cookies, and would make (based on my non-WASP limited comprehension of the phrase), completely uninspiring hostess gifts. I have no doubt that they freeze wonderfully.
I should have known it would be like that when I saw that they referred to the girls as "choristers." I understand that this is an actual word, but it isn't one I'd encountered in the first 55 332/365 years of my life. The first thing that started were the e-mails. They come, several times a week, with details of concerts and everything about he concerts. Then came the uniforms. Then the calendar, then a series of calendar updates, modifications and clarifications. And then the meetings (I am currently sitting in what could be called either a double meeting or one long meeting, which started at 10:30 and runs through 12:15 on Saturday morning(!)). You learn that being the parent of a chorister is a state of mind, requiring an orientation that choir is, if not the only thing, certainly the vital center of the kid's life.
Now we're in the midst of fundraising hell. Obviously, an organization needs money, so we're going from one fundraiser to the next. My favorite so far is the cookies. Somebody knows about this bakery in another city that makes cookies. They are vanilla cookies with a big gob of chocolate icing on them. The number of announcements and amount of meeting time spent on these cookies is astounding. A few weeks ago I went to (somewhat shorter) back-to-back meetings, first for the whole group, then for my kid's particular group, and then another 3 days later. There were announcements about the cookies at all 3 meetings, and it was actually scary how scripted the announcements sounded. I know that, aside from being indescribably delicious (the woman sitting next to me did not agree), the cookies "make wonderful hostess gifts" and that they "freeze wonderfully." These exact phrases also appear in multiple follow-up e-mails. I can just see the glassy eyed choristers, traipsing from neighbor to neighbor, endlessly muttering "Make. Wonderful. Hostess. Gifts. Freeze. Wonderfully."
An afternote- the cookies arrived today. They look like vanilla cookies with a lot of chocolate icing on them, come in cellophane packages with printed labels on them like supermarket cookies, and would make (based on my non-WASP limited comprehension of the phrase), completely uninspiring hostess gifts. I have no doubt that they freeze wonderfully.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Shmollege
I wrote this a couple of years ago for a class I was taking and think I posted it here at the time, but it seems apropos at the moment.
All over my neighborhood, city, state, country, and as far as I know, the world, there are soon-to-be-graduating high school students in a state of high anxiety, agonizing over a monumental decision. Where do I go to college next year? And of course, it's not just the students. It's their parents, friends, relatives and school guidance departments poring over facts and figures and planning visits to faraway lands (okay, I'm exaggerating- let's say rural Maine) in the search for the Right Choice. Hours of thought and thousands of dollars, all spent on the first important decision many teenagers make.
Selecting a college seems like a huge decision for a young person. After all, it's what they're going to be doing and where they're going to be for the next four years and possibly more. It's their first experience away from home, living somewhat independently, meeting new people and exploring new horizons, growing in ways nobody can imagine. For many people, it's the first time they get to choose their own path. It's the Biggest Decision Of Their Life.
Or not. Maybe it's the least important decision of their life. But how could that be? Think of it this way; the consequences of a college selection cannot be anticipated and, in fact, may never be known. Nobody can predict the ultimate results of college choice for any given person with any degree of accuracy. It's weird to think that you make this huge, exhaustively researched decision and you'll probably never know if you made the right choice. But it flows directly from the old nature versus nurture question that child psychologists argue endlessly over.
Nobody knows for sure how much of what a person turns out to be is dependent on the individual's genetic makeup and how much comes from their environment. And if we don't know that, given the wide range of parenting styles and home situations, how are you going to glean a difference from a bunch of fundamentally similar institutions? Does it matter if you go to Middlebury versus Bowdoin, Bates, Skidmore, Wesleyan, Hamilton, Kenyon, Carleton or Haverford? Even comparing any of those places to "dissimilar" types of colleges like Ohio State, or the Universities of Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Texas or Florida, could you possibly prove to me that a person's life will be fundamentally better, or even different, if they chose one versus the other?
If there are no knowable consequences to making a decision, what kind of decision is that? If you're making the choice based on its outcome, on what basis are you going to evaluate it? You simply can't, at least not in any rational kind of way. If you talk to college students, my experience is that almost everyone likes where they're going to school, whether it was their original first choice or not.
So then is it any more important than deciding what color shirt to wear today? I'm not saying that college itself is inconsequential; college is a terrific experience for most people. And I understand that there are situations, like financial considerations or ultra specialized programs, where a particular choice matters. But I'd argue that these are a small minority and in most cases the opposite is true.
I feel like my own college choice was pretty much a disaster, and my life turned out pretty good in spite of it. Was I miserable for most of the 4 years? Absolutely. Not only did I choose the "wrong college," I chose a bad major as well. I majored in psychology for a ridiculously adolescent, child of the 60's kind of reason- to "find myself." And like all my friends who tried the same thing, I failed to do so and was profoundly disappointed with psychology as a way to understand one's self.
So does that mean that it's not really such an important decision? Maybe I would have been just as miserable and immature somewhere else and pretty much nothing in my post-college life seems even remotely connected to the particular school I attended. Other big decisions, like finding a job, getting married, buying a house or having kids, give you frequent and very specific feedback as to whether or not things are working out.
However, I now look back on my professional life and find that it's been centered around advertising and teaching, two of the most psychology-oriented fields there are. And though it would be hard to find a direct path from my college self to the present, I've maintained some core personal principles and beliefs throughout, and that, I'd argue is the most important thing. Not where I chose to spend the supposedly last 4 years of my adolescence.
All over my neighborhood, city, state, country, and as far as I know, the world, there are soon-to-be-graduating high school students in a state of high anxiety, agonizing over a monumental decision. Where do I go to college next year? And of course, it's not just the students. It's their parents, friends, relatives and school guidance departments poring over facts and figures and planning visits to faraway lands (okay, I'm exaggerating- let's say rural Maine) in the search for the Right Choice. Hours of thought and thousands of dollars, all spent on the first important decision many teenagers make.
Selecting a college seems like a huge decision for a young person. After all, it's what they're going to be doing and where they're going to be for the next four years and possibly more. It's their first experience away from home, living somewhat independently, meeting new people and exploring new horizons, growing in ways nobody can imagine. For many people, it's the first time they get to choose their own path. It's the Biggest Decision Of Their Life.
Or not. Maybe it's the least important decision of their life. But how could that be? Think of it this way; the consequences of a college selection cannot be anticipated and, in fact, may never be known. Nobody can predict the ultimate results of college choice for any given person with any degree of accuracy. It's weird to think that you make this huge, exhaustively researched decision and you'll probably never know if you made the right choice. But it flows directly from the old nature versus nurture question that child psychologists argue endlessly over.
Nobody knows for sure how much of what a person turns out to be is dependent on the individual's genetic makeup and how much comes from their environment. And if we don't know that, given the wide range of parenting styles and home situations, how are you going to glean a difference from a bunch of fundamentally similar institutions? Does it matter if you go to Middlebury versus Bowdoin, Bates, Skidmore, Wesleyan, Hamilton, Kenyon, Carleton or Haverford? Even comparing any of those places to "dissimilar" types of colleges like Ohio State, or the Universities of Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Texas or Florida, could you possibly prove to me that a person's life will be fundamentally better, or even different, if they chose one versus the other?
If there are no knowable consequences to making a decision, what kind of decision is that? If you're making the choice based on its outcome, on what basis are you going to evaluate it? You simply can't, at least not in any rational kind of way. If you talk to college students, my experience is that almost everyone likes where they're going to school, whether it was their original first choice or not.
So then is it any more important than deciding what color shirt to wear today? I'm not saying that college itself is inconsequential; college is a terrific experience for most people. And I understand that there are situations, like financial considerations or ultra specialized programs, where a particular choice matters. But I'd argue that these are a small minority and in most cases the opposite is true.
I feel like my own college choice was pretty much a disaster, and my life turned out pretty good in spite of it. Was I miserable for most of the 4 years? Absolutely. Not only did I choose the "wrong college," I chose a bad major as well. I majored in psychology for a ridiculously adolescent, child of the 60's kind of reason- to "find myself." And like all my friends who tried the same thing, I failed to do so and was profoundly disappointed with psychology as a way to understand one's self.
So does that mean that it's not really such an important decision? Maybe I would have been just as miserable and immature somewhere else and pretty much nothing in my post-college life seems even remotely connected to the particular school I attended. Other big decisions, like finding a job, getting married, buying a house or having kids, give you frequent and very specific feedback as to whether or not things are working out.
However, I now look back on my professional life and find that it's been centered around advertising and teaching, two of the most psychology-oriented fields there are. And though it would be hard to find a direct path from my college self to the present, I've maintained some core personal principles and beliefs throughout, and that, I'd argue is the most important thing. Not where I chose to spend the supposedly last 4 years of my adolescence.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Testing, 1 2 3
People around here hate and fear tests. I never hated tests when I was in school. I mean, I didn't like them or anything, but tests have the wonderful characteristic of finality. They're done when they are over, completely out of your control. This distinguishes them from papers, which are never done until you actually write them, and so I constructed my college course load around courses that had final tests rather than papers. (It should be noted that I got through my 4 years of college without turning a single paper in on time, so perhaps I'm not the best judge of the advisability of these things).
Thinking back on it, this really doesn't reflect well on my outlook at the time. Of course, I was 18, so to even refer to myself as having an outlook is probably giving myself too much credit. But what I mean is that I preferred to depend on outside influences to guide my life, rather than trying to guide it myself. This ultimately led to my college graduation being like the final scene in The Candidate, where Robert Redford, originally selected to run for office because they couldn't find anybody legit to run against and opponent who seemed unbeatable, actually wins the election. He's sitting in the back of a limo with his advisors, with his supporters roaring approval outside and he looks at his manager with a stricken look on his face and says, "Now what do I do?" Except it's so noisy the guy can't hear him, so he mouths the question again, "Now what do I do?" And that's how the movie ends. I still remember that lost feeling in the movie and my graduation.
I'm not sure that's the way you want your life to go necessarily. You can take a pretty winding path to get to where you want to go, as I did. But on the other hand, there's something wonderful about taking each day, each moment, as its own, without imposing some kind of structure on it. There's a great passage in one of the Pooh books (I was thinking of Pooh because, having mentioned that I'd once answered the question "Who would you want to play you in the movie of your life?" with Bugs Bunny, someone asked me today which Winnie the Pooh character I thought I was most like), where Piglet asks Pooh, "What's the first thing you think about when you wake up in the morning?" Pooh replies, "I think, what's for breakfast?" Piglet then says "I think, what exciting thing will happen to me today?" Pooh thinks for a moment and says simply, "It's the same thing."
It's one thing to embrace the moment. I understand that it's another thing entirely to embrace taking a test. And adolescents have a tendency to magnify the importance of these assessment points, none of which really make even a miniscule difference in the way the rest of their lives will unfold. However, the test will come and go, and you will still be here and you will still be the same person. If that's not reassuring in some fundamental way, you might reexamine the way you're approaching your life.
And, by the way, I don't think I ever saw myself in any of the Pooh characters, which is okay by me since I don't think the actual Christopher Robin (Milne) saw very much of himself in them either. I have, however, seen Christopher Robin's own stuffed animals, which were, and may still be, on display in a glass case in the children's section of a nondescript midtown Manhattan library. They look very much like the drawings in the books.
Thinking back on it, this really doesn't reflect well on my outlook at the time. Of course, I was 18, so to even refer to myself as having an outlook is probably giving myself too much credit. But what I mean is that I preferred to depend on outside influences to guide my life, rather than trying to guide it myself. This ultimately led to my college graduation being like the final scene in The Candidate, where Robert Redford, originally selected to run for office because they couldn't find anybody legit to run against and opponent who seemed unbeatable, actually wins the election. He's sitting in the back of a limo with his advisors, with his supporters roaring approval outside and he looks at his manager with a stricken look on his face and says, "Now what do I do?" Except it's so noisy the guy can't hear him, so he mouths the question again, "Now what do I do?" And that's how the movie ends. I still remember that lost feeling in the movie and my graduation.
I'm not sure that's the way you want your life to go necessarily. You can take a pretty winding path to get to where you want to go, as I did. But on the other hand, there's something wonderful about taking each day, each moment, as its own, without imposing some kind of structure on it. There's a great passage in one of the Pooh books (I was thinking of Pooh because, having mentioned that I'd once answered the question "Who would you want to play you in the movie of your life?" with Bugs Bunny, someone asked me today which Winnie the Pooh character I thought I was most like), where Piglet asks Pooh, "What's the first thing you think about when you wake up in the morning?" Pooh replies, "I think, what's for breakfast?" Piglet then says "I think, what exciting thing will happen to me today?" Pooh thinks for a moment and says simply, "It's the same thing."
It's one thing to embrace the moment. I understand that it's another thing entirely to embrace taking a test. And adolescents have a tendency to magnify the importance of these assessment points, none of which really make even a miniscule difference in the way the rest of their lives will unfold. However, the test will come and go, and you will still be here and you will still be the same person. If that's not reassuring in some fundamental way, you might reexamine the way you're approaching your life.
And, by the way, I don't think I ever saw myself in any of the Pooh characters, which is okay by me since I don't think the actual Christopher Robin (Milne) saw very much of himself in them either. I have, however, seen Christopher Robin's own stuffed animals, which were, and may still be, on display in a glass case in the children's section of a nondescript midtown Manhattan library. They look very much like the drawings in the books.
Check this out
This amazing video was shot from the International Space Station.
Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.
Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.
Here’s a list of the shooting locations, in order of appearance:
1. Aurora Borealis Pass over the United States at Night
2. Aurora Borealis and eastern United States at Night
3. Aurora Australis from Madagascar to southwest of Australia
4. Aurora Australis south of Australia
5. Northwest coast of United States to Central South America at Night
6. Aurora Australis from the Southern to the Northern Pacific Ocean
7. Halfway around the World
8. Night Pass over Central Africa and the Middle East
9. Evening Pass over the Sahara Desert and the Middle East
10. Pass over Canada and Central United States at Night
11. Pass over Southern California to Hudson Bay
12. Islands in the Philippine Sea at Night
13. Pass over Eastern Asia to Philippine Sea and Guam
14. Views of the Mideast at Night
15. Night Pass over Mediterranean Sea
16. Aurora Borealis and the United States at Night
17. Aurora Australis over Indian Ocean
18. Eastern Europe to Southeastern Asia at Night
Friday, November 11, 2011
Phoneyness
How much to you think a new iPhone costs? Let's say 32 gb, the middle level. $299, right? Wrong! A 32gb iPhone 4S costs $749. You can get one for $299 from your cell phone provider, but only in exchange for your signing a 2 year contract, obligating you to a monthly service fee which ranges, depending on your service level, from $70 to around $250 per month.
In other words, the cell phone companies make so much money off your monthly service fee that they consider it smart to discount your phone by $450. That's nearly $40 per mont over the 2 years.
So-called loss leaders are nothing new. A big discount on a popular item or two to lure people into a store? Classic retail sales technique. The first company to make big money off selling equipment for less than cost was Polaroid, which is no longer around.
Polaroid made the first instant cameras. Most cameras took pictures on film that had to be carried or mailed to a processing lab for developing and printing. This took anywhere from a few hours to several days. But a guy named Edwin Land invented a camera whose film contained its own developing chemicals, allowing pictures to appear within a minute or so. This was a one-of-a-kind thing and amazing, but expensive. But because Land and his company Polaroid made both the cameras and the film, they hit on the idea of selling the camera for less than what it cost to make and then making their money off the film. So lots of little profits instead of one big one.
Polaroid's out of business because digital camera technology made it obsolete, but they were very profitable for a long time. The most prevalent example of this strategy today is ink-jet printers. The printers themselves are sold at a price below cost, and the money is made on the ink. That's why they tell you not to refill the cartridges.
Cell phone subsidies, as they're called, are a similar tactic and here's how absurd it gets. Someone in my family has a phone that's a lemon. It's never worked right, the battery dies quickly, it's lousy. But it's not due for upgrade until next March and we just can't live with it anymore. So I went to the Verizon web site and saw that the phone cost $749 and was not pleased. So today I went to the Verizon store and I learned something. It's cheaper to get a whole new phone line and pay for 2 years of service with the discounted phone than it is to just buy the damned phone. Not just cheaper, more than $200 cheaper. How about that?
So now I have an extra phone line, which I don't even know the number for. It just seems wrong. What if someone calls? Should I pick up?
In other words, the cell phone companies make so much money off your monthly service fee that they consider it smart to discount your phone by $450. That's nearly $40 per mont over the 2 years.
So-called loss leaders are nothing new. A big discount on a popular item or two to lure people into a store? Classic retail sales technique. The first company to make big money off selling equipment for less than cost was Polaroid, which is no longer around.
Polaroid made the first instant cameras. Most cameras took pictures on film that had to be carried or mailed to a processing lab for developing and printing. This took anywhere from a few hours to several days. But a guy named Edwin Land invented a camera whose film contained its own developing chemicals, allowing pictures to appear within a minute or so. This was a one-of-a-kind thing and amazing, but expensive. But because Land and his company Polaroid made both the cameras and the film, they hit on the idea of selling the camera for less than what it cost to make and then making their money off the film. So lots of little profits instead of one big one.
Polaroid's out of business because digital camera technology made it obsolete, but they were very profitable for a long time. The most prevalent example of this strategy today is ink-jet printers. The printers themselves are sold at a price below cost, and the money is made on the ink. That's why they tell you not to refill the cartridges.
Cell phone subsidies, as they're called, are a similar tactic and here's how absurd it gets. Someone in my family has a phone that's a lemon. It's never worked right, the battery dies quickly, it's lousy. But it's not due for upgrade until next March and we just can't live with it anymore. So I went to the Verizon web site and saw that the phone cost $749 and was not pleased. So today I went to the Verizon store and I learned something. It's cheaper to get a whole new phone line and pay for 2 years of service with the discounted phone than it is to just buy the damned phone. Not just cheaper, more than $200 cheaper. How about that?
So now I have an extra phone line, which I don't even know the number for. It just seems wrong. What if someone calls? Should I pick up?
Tuesday, November 08, 2011
I'm guessing you can drive yourself crazy
After taking a peek at the election results so far, I have only one question. Can anyone explain to me why, in Montgomery County, is the Republican candidate for Recorder of Deeds is leading by 2000 votes while the Democratic candidate for Register of Wills is leading by an almost identical margin? Who is splitting their votes like that?
Oh, and what it a prothonotary? Bad enough I'm voting for candidates I know next to nothing about without having to vote for an office that I don't know what it is. It's some kind of notary? Like the guy at the Mailroom USA who verifies documents and puts an official-looking stamp on them?
Oh, and what it a prothonotary? Bad enough I'm voting for candidates I know next to nothing about without having to vote for an office that I don't know what it is. It's some kind of notary? Like the guy at the Mailroom USA who verifies documents and puts an official-looking stamp on them?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)