ChipSmith

Hong Kong Trip Part VI

2009-02-10T23:41:00.009-06:00

I actually wrote most of this post back in February in the weeks after I got home. It sat as a draft in blogger mocking me any time I thought about blogging. I needed to finish it up before writing about anything else, right? And then Facebook got in the way. I only have a certain amount of time to spend online, and Facebook started to suck up all of that.

Tonight, however, I need to write and Facebook just isn't going to cut it. So, I am going to consolidate the last couple of days of my trip into one post and send it out into the ether so that I won't feel guilty about writing what I really want to write tonight.

The highlight from Thursday was our trip to Stanley. The vast majority of my time in Hong Kong was spent on the north side of the island. I only ventured across the Victoria Harbor into Kowloon once (excluding passing through on my way to and from the airport). Stanley is on the southern end of Hong Kong Island, so getting there involved driving through different scenery. Despite being one of the most densely populated areas in the world, only about 25% of the territory's landmass is developed. The rest, some of which we drove through to get to Stanley, is too steep to build upon.

Buildings in Repulse Bay at the foot of the mountains. The structure under the green tarps is under construction. That's bamboo scaffolding surrounding what is doubtless a very modern building.

Stanley is probably best know for its open-air market. The deals one can get from bargaining with the merchants attract both tourists and locals. Most of the gifts and souvenirs I brought back home were found here. We also had wonderful Dim Sum in Stanley.

The boardwalk at Stanley

I spent Friday morning with Monte and Finn in the park at Quarry Bay. There are quite a few parks in Hong Kong. The mountainous part of the territories are largely nature reserves, but the urban areas do have many parks. The largest section of the one in Quarry Bay runs along the harbor, but there are many other smaller sections that wind between highways and parking lots and apartment building. Some of these sections are connected by footbridges, others are noncontiguous and can be reached by walking a few blocks on the sidewalks.

On this walk, it was remarkable that so many people in the park were exercising. Many were doing tai chi, some with swords or fans, some were jogging, and other were making seemingly random movements (like raising their arms or squatting in a, um, non-graceful manner) . It was rare in my time in Hong Kong to see anyone who was overweight. To get anywhere, you need to walk. Despite the quantity of dumplings that I ate during my trip, I lost 6-7 pounds. In a lot of ways, this kind of urban lifestyle can be much healthier than my current life in the suburbs.

Tai Chi in Quarry Bay

On Friday evening, we met up with one of Matt's colleague, Tuan, and took the ferry over to Kowloon. At 8:00pm every evening with good weather, there is a "Symphony of Lights" on both sides of the Victoria Harbor. The best view is from the promenade at Tsim Sha Tsui. It was interesting, but not worth a special trip to be at TST at 8:00. If you go and want to take pictures, be sure to arrive early so you can set up your tripod.

It was crowded at TST.

While in Kowloon, we found a Vietnamese restaurant. Tuan, who is a Vietnamese-American, helped us order, but it must not have been particularly memorable because I remember Tuan and I trying to talk about The Wire without spoiling Matt and Monte more than I remember the food.

Kowloon at night.

And then, on Saturday morning, I started my flight home. Sniff.

Before my trip, I knew I would love spending time with Monte and Matt and Finn. I did not expect to love being in Hong Kong as much as I did. I am planning to return before they move back to the States. There is more to explore, more to photograph (and I'm a much better photographer today than I was on this trip), and much more to eat!

The rest of the pictures from my trip can be found on my flickr site .

Hong Kong Trip Part V

2009-02-05T08:41:00.010-06:00

We switched things up a bit on Wednesday morning. Rather than venturing out of my own while Finn napped, we talked with my parents on Skype.

Talking to Grandma and Grandpa

Skype is just one of the biggest differences between my sister's 2 year stint in Hong Kong and the 2 years my parents lived in Hong Kong before I was born. My parents talked to my grandmother once on the phone during those 2 years, and she had to save up for that phone call. Monte, Matt, and Finn videoconference with us and with Matt's family almost weekly for free. I was not surprised to see that Finn's teeth were coming in because I saw them on Skype a week before my visit.

Most of Wednesday was spent on Victoria Peak. We grabbed some sandwiches before catching the tram and picnicked up at the top. I'm told that the pollution was low and the visibility was pretty good for the winter.

This is a relatively clear day in Hong Kong during February

During the winter, winds from out of the north bring China's pollution to Hong Kong, but a combination of the Chinese New Year and the global economic downturn have shuttered enough factories recently to make a visible difference in air quality.

For the first time on my visit, I actually got a bit chilly. The wind was strong on the north side of the peak, so it felt good to step into a Pacific Coffee after our walk. This place had the best view of any coffeehouse I've ever visited. Many a Sunday afternoon are spent with Monte and Finn walking around the peak while Matt is grading papers at this Pacific Coffee.

Finn is scheming how to get his hands on his Momma's mocha.

On the way home from Victoria Peak, we stopped at the Chestnut man's cart near their apartment for some roasted chestnuts and a sweet potato. The chestnuts smell great, nice and smokey, but the taste leaves something to be desired. The sweet potato, on the other hand, was magnificent.

Monte has plans to start a food blog about cooking in a cramped kitchen. Their apartment has forced her to be creative. This former professional baker now is reduced to two burners, one toaster oven, a microwave, and a rice cooker. Oh, and the washing machine/clothes dryer (an all-in-one machine) is also in the kitchen.

Yes, this is the entire kitchen. I was standing with my back against the door to take this picture.

A good cook is never at the mercy of their equipment, and sure enough she has been able to create wonderful meals here. Dinner on this night was something one might expect from a Hong Kong kitchen; pork dumplings, slaw, tea.

Ummmmm, pork dumplings!

Dessert was brownies steamed using the rice cooker. They were almost like a dense chocolate pudding, only better. We ate our steamed brownies while watching the first episode of season 3 of the Greatest-Show-In-The-History-Of-Television. This is Matt and Monte's first time through The Wire, so I had a hard time avoiding giving them spoilers as we discussed the episode. It was a great way to end the day.

The rest of the pictures from my trip can be found on my flickr site .

Hong Kong Trip Part IV

2009-02-04T04:45:00.009-06:00

Tuesday started out with some more exploring on my own. I went back to Marble Street, which is lined with stall selling all kinds of things. Of course, I was most interested in the food.

Produce, fish, meat, and all kinds of dried things (mushrooms, seafood, beans, teas, etc.) were everywhere. No American health inspector would eat any of this food. Some of the concerns I would share (meat being butchered right next to produce guarantees cross contamination) and others I would not (the lack of refrigeration of the raw meat is not an issue when the meat is butchered in the morning, sold in the afternoon, and cooked in the evening - bacteria need more time than that to grow to the levels that cause illness) The butchers who were smoking while cutting the meat did gross me out a bit.

After my wanderings, I met up with Monte and Finn for a trip to the midlevels. We rode a doubledecker bus (why don't we use doubledeckers in the US? It would double the capacity of each bus. Are there too many low overpasses in our urban areas?). Finn had a music class after lunch, so I set off to see the antique shops on Hollywood Road. I have a few things to buy for gifts and for my house, but I decided to wait until our visit to the Stanley market tomorrow. I can easily return to Hollywood Road on Friday.

One of the interesting things about this part of Hong Kong is the outdoor escalators. I must say that if I lived in Hong Kong, I would lose weight despite all of the dumplings I would eat. You walk everywhere, and even with outdoor escalators, there are countless stairs to climb. It has been rare to see anyone here who is overweight, even among the wealthy.

After dinner, Matt had an ultimate frisbee practice near Causeway Bay. I headed over there with him, stopping for some fries, and then checked out the nightlife (no, Janet, not that kind of nightlife). The streets were full on this Tuesday evening with students and young office workers and a few tourists.

The main activity was shopping, not drinking. The Times Square Shopping Mall has 8 stories of shopping and a crazy number of stores. For as huge as the mall is (close to a million square feet of shopping plus another million of office space) each individual store was quite small in comparison to US malls.

I did a ton of walking on Tuesday, so I was rather exhausted by 10:30. Jet lag has not been much of a problem. I have been going to bed and waking up earlier than I ever do back the states, but that just puts me more on the schedule of a normal person. I'm afraid that the return home will be more difficult in terms of my sleep schedule.

The rest of the pictures from my trip can be found on my flickr site .

Hong Kong Trip Part III

2009-02-02T09:30:00.004-06:00

Today was a bit busier. First, of course, was the Super Bowl. I followed the first half of the game online while eating breakfast with Monte and Finn, and then headed out on my own to watch the second half in a Steelers bar (which meant I did not see this play live). The Steelers bar, however, did not turn out to have any actual Steelers' fans. The other people in this bar were rooting for the Cardinals, but none of them had any long standing allegiance to the team. It was a low key atmosphere until the last 3 or 4 minutes.

I came prepared to help Finn cheer for the right team.

After the good guys won their 6th Super Bowl, I explored the Central District. It turns out I'm not even close to being fashionable enough to shop in the Central District. Shopping is something of the national pastime in Hong Kong, so it is taken very seriously. I was walking around wearing my Steelers t-shirt and shorts (the weather has been fantastic - highs in the low 70's and sunny!) surrounded by folks dressed like models buying extraordinarily expensive clothes and jewelry. I quickly headed to more comfortable ground.

Hong Kong Park was wonderful. I took a lot of pictures in the Aviary and around the man-made pond, and then joined Monte for lunch at the Lock Cha Tea House inside the park. We had two amazing teas (one was a silver needle white tea, and the other was a red tea that was smokey) and a table full of vegetarian dim sum.

Turnip cakes, wasabi pea cakes, mushroom dumpling, and fried noodles. Yum!

The waiter explained the process and ceremony of preparing the two teas. It was fascinating to watch. Rather than my usual approach to food or drink of trying to savor every last drop, his approach was more extravagant. The tea pots were often filled to overflowing, tea was poured over the outside of the pot, and cups were filled and then dumped out. If I routinely drank tea that good, I could get used to the extravagant approach! Even the 10th or 11th cup was just as good as the first.

Monte and I returned to the apartment around the same time that Matt got home from school. The rest of the day was spent playing with Finn, eating curry, editing pictures, and watching The Hustle.

The rest of the pictures from my trip can be found on my flickr site .

Hong Kong Trip Part II

2009-02-02T08:49:00.006-06:00

So much for my hope to blog daily. I was just too tired on Sunday night, so I'll double up tonight.

Sunday was a rather lazy day. We woke up early but stuck around the apartment in the morning. Finn's mornings tend to be a series of eating, playing for about half an hour, and napping. That's a nice life, huh? Around lunchtime we ventured out for some local exploring.

When the stroller is completely covered so that he cannot see anything interesting, Finn sleeps while he's out on a walk. After stopping for one of Matt's favorite waffles, we headed down Marble Street, which is lined on both sides with all sorts of vendors.

Monte buying some fruit.

Next we walked over to Victoria Park. This large urban park is the one of the places where Hong Kong's many helpers (live-in nannies and housemaids) spend their one day off per week. These women are often from the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Nepal, Thailand and Sri Lanka. One of the biggest adjustments for Monte has been figuring out what to think about the role of these helpers.

After dim sum, we returned home. Monte napped while the boys went to the apartment building's playroom. The rest of the day was spent eating and conversing.

The rest of the pictures from my trip can be found on my flickr site.

Hong Kong Trip Part I

2009-01-31T10:38:00.010-06:00

I made it. The 24 hour trip was rather uneventful, which is exactly what you want. I saw two sunrises (and would have seen two sunsets if I had the shade on my window pulled up at the right time). We actually took an eastbound flight path, over Greenland, the Artic, Russia, and China. The long leg of the flight was slightly delayed due to a software problem with the in-flight entertainment system. Heaven forbid we fly across the globe without being able to watch plenty of movies. Nobody else was sitting in my row of three seats, so I was able stretch out and lie down.

Matt and Monte met me at the airport. The trip on the train to the island and their apartment reminded me that as much as I like Kansas City, and I do, it is not even close to being a world-class city. The public transportation, the crowds, the immense size, the energy on the sidewalks. It reminded me of being in New York City. I love it. And I could smell the sea.

I think I will be able to sleep tonight on something like a Hong Kong schedule. We don't have much planned for tomorrow; lunch, exploring their North Point neighborhood, visiting a park. I think I will be doing a lot of walking (and climbing of stairs) this week, which is good because I plan to do a lot of eating.

The rest of the pictures from my trip can be found on my flickr site.

Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson's Prayer

2009-01-19T23:29:00.003-06:00

Many have heard about the various "prayer controversies" surrounding the inauguration. In the midst of arguing about who signals what to whom, it might be easy to overlook the content of the various prayers. Bishop Robinson gave the invocation at Sunday's pre-inaugural concert "We Are One." (Transcript below.)

Here is what he said as reported at KC Star TV critic Aaron Barnhart's blog. (The stricken lines were in the original text but were not uttered by Robinson at the event.)

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will...

Bless us with tears - tears for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women in many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless this nation with anger - anger at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort - at the easy, simplistic "answers" we've preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and our world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience - and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be "fixed" anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility - open to understanding that our own needs as a nation must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance - replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity - remembering that every religion's God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years. Inspire him with Lincoln's reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy's ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King's dream of a nation for ALL people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words. We will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters' childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we're asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand - that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

Amen.

Sunday Dinners

2009-01-12T08:55:00.006-06:00

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, since last October I have been making Sunday dinner each week at my church. We have a Taize-style service in the evening at 5:00, dinner at 6:00, and usually some kind of class at 7:00. Between now and Lent, the class is a book discussion.

I usually plan and shop for the meals, but I have a great team of other volunteers who help me cook each week. Janet calls herself my sous chef, even though she has more experience in a professional kitchen than I do. She makes the desserts each week, always has great suggestions, and when things do not go as expected she is the one with whom I brainstorm. As you will read below, I was very glad she was helping last night! Rick and Sally are one of those couples who kind of stay in the background at a church, but they make things happen. It's great to have them helping weekly. One of the things that Sally does is coordinate a rotating group of other volunteers so that we usually have about 6 people in the kitchen each week.

We make sure that these dinners are not standard church potluck meals. No tuna hotdish or jello with unidentified pieces of fruit when I'm cooking! Last night, our Spanish menu was suppose to be tapas, a mixed green and citrus salad, paella, a flourless orange/almond cake, and sangria.

On weeks when there is a class following the dinner, we have average a crowd of about 25. That's a great size to cook for. It is enough to get some savings from buying ingredients wholesale, it is not hard to adapt either catering or home recipes for that size, it is not too big to serve everything buffet style in one shot, and 2-3 hours is enough time for the prep work and cooking.

So last night we were expecting between 25-30 and 45 showed up. Some people come to the service and stay for dinner. Some come for dinner and stay for the class. A few just come for the dinner. We never know just how many we need to feed until about 5 minutes before it is time to serve. One of the ways that I know I am suppose to be feeding people at this point in my life is that I enjoy the adrenalin rush that comes when we realized the crowd was at least 50% larger than expected and we don't have enough food. Time to improvise!

The first thing we did was to serve the food in courses. When people slow down, they don't eat as much. That also gave us some extra time.

Course #1 was the tapas (Janet made almond-stuffed dates wrapped in bacon and she marinated some olives), the salad, and the sangria. There was not anything we could about the tapas. I buy mesclun greens by the case, so we had enough greens to double up on the salad. We had also prepared a non-alcoholic version of sangria (a.k.a. fruit punch) but being an Episcopal church, nobody wanted that! The priests had several bottles of wine stashed somewhere in the building (I don't think we raided the communion wine) so we were able to turn the non-alcoholic sangria into the real thing. That's kind of like turning water into wine, right?

Course #2 was the paella. I made a large paella with shellfish and a second one with just chicken and chorizo for anyone with shellfish allergies. (OK, here's a confession. Part of the reason we served the meal in courses is that the shellfish paella was took too long to cook and was not quite ready at 6:00. It had to do with the size of the pan and the layout of the stove)

Everyone was able to get at least a small serving of paella (and they left much of the soccarat - the crusty brown rice that sticks to the bottom of the pan - so Janet and I was able to eat the best part of the paella while cleaning up!)

Course #3 was pasta. Janet had made a bolognese sauce last week to keep in reserve, so we defrosted it and served it with pasta. We don't always keep a backup in the freezer, but I think we will from now on!

The dessert course involved a series of improvisations from Janet. She took her two orange/almond cakes and stretched them by serving it in ice cream sundae glasses. She topped it with an orange sauce and some cream she whipped with cinnamon. As soon as we realized how large the crowd was, she hurried over to the grocery store to buy some ice cream. It was also served in sundae glasses topped with a chocolate espresso sauce she threw together like it was nothing. Between those two desserts, everyone who wanted to break their New Year's diet resolution was able to do so.

Man of Constant Sorrow

2009-01-11T10:04:00.000-06:00

10 Most Recently Played in my iTunes

2009-01-04T22:04:00.004-06:00

It's been a long time since I've done one of these posts. It used to be a staple of my Sunday night blogging. Here's what I've been listening to recently:

1. Through My Father's Eyes - Dusty Brown - Dusty Brown
2. She Towers Above - Alejandro Escovedo - More Miles Than Money - Live, 1994-1996
3. How My Heart Behaves - Feist - The Reminder
4. All My Love Is Gone - Lyle Lovett - Joshua Judges Ruth
5. Jersey Girl - Tom Waits - Heartattack and Vine
6. Always Now - Willie Nelson - Moment Of Forever
7. West - Lucinda Williams - West
8. Over You Again - Willie Nelson - Moment Of Forever
9. Drunken Angel - Lucinda Williams - Car Wheels On A Gravel Road
10. Arizona - Alejandro Escovedo - The Boxing Mirror

The first song is by one of my college roommates. I've mentioned Dusty before, when I wrote about how I was first introduced to Tom Waits. We spent many evenings during our sophomore year hanging out with our other roommate Joe, our friend Vin, a couple of guitars and Dusty's harmonica. All three of those guys have more musical talent than I, so it was always great to listen and occasionally sing along.

I've recently joined Facebook, which is how I found out that Dusty released an album this past summer. (Go here to listen, and then to to buy!) I knew that he was a part of a comedy group, but this is a serious album. The song in my list above, Through My Father's Eyes, is great. Without falling into bitterness, it is about the loss of growing up without a father. I hear a sense of forgiveness that does not downplay the cost of the decisions that father made. There is a maturity to those lyrics that is surprising for a debut album. I'd definitely be a fan even if I didn't spend a year stepping over his dirty underwear every time I got out of bed.

Porterhouse Steaks

2008-12-28T20:45:00.003-06:00

Partly because of my high cholesterol and partly for environmental reasons, I don't eat a lot of beef these days. Since it is a rare part of my diet, I only want to eat excellent beef. A porterhouse steak from Peter Luger's Steak House in Brooklyn, for example. The NY Times has a short article today about Peter Luger's, accompanied by this multimedia feature. Be sure to click on the full screen link.

Buy Lance Snacks

2008-12-28T20:26:00.003-06:00

It can be hard to believe, but every once in a while a corporation does the right thing.

According to CNN, in the middle of December, the Archway bakery in Ashland, Ohio was suddenly closed by the private equity firm that owned it. 300 workers lost their jobs just a few weeks before Christmas. That's the unsurprising bad news.

The good news is that Lance Snacks, which makes vending machine snacks like peanut butter crackers and Cream Cheese and Chives on Captain's Wafers (all too often my lunch in college consisted of various Lance crackers, especially the CC&CoCW) bought the bakery at an auction and have already reopened it. They hired back 60 of the workers, and hope to hire the rest by the end of 2009.

Not only did they reopen the bakery and rehire some of the workers, they also gave all 300 of the former employees a $1,500 gift card.

David Singer, CEO of Lance, says the gift cards were a way of letting Ashland know the new owners are different. "We wouldn't do it willy-nilly," Singer says. "We do want to make money. But this is the pool of folks that we intend to hire. We just wanted to let them know who we were."
The 60 workers rehired so far are earning their previous salary and retained their seniority. They also were provided health insurance from day one.

It seems it is possible to treat workers with respect.

Hat tip to Don Lindich

Lime-cello

2008-12-15T20:33:00.005-06:00

2 friends.
3 microplane graters.
20 pounds of limes.

The day after Thanksgiving, I followed up my limoncello experiment (the limoncello was good, a bit too sweet, but still good) by starting a batch of lime-cello.

The only recipe I could find online was at LimoncelloQuest, a blog describing itself as "a personal pilgrimage to create the perfect Limoncello." Ben made a half batch with only 10 limes and vodka, and although he reported that he was pleased with the distinctly lime flavor, the color of the finished liquor was almost indistinguishable from the limoncello.

I took Ben's basic technique for limoncello of filtering the Everclear multiple times but greatly increased the amount of lime zest. In fact, the zest produced by 20 pounds of limes could not be covered by 750 ml of Everclear, so I had to add a bottle of vodka to the initial infusion. With that much zest (and using grain alcohol) I don't think there will be any issue with the color of the limecello being pale. As you can see, right now it is an extremely dark green, almost black.

Big thanks to Suzanne and Kristy for helping with the major task of zesting all of those limes! Oh yeah, if anyone needs some frozen lime juice, I'm your man.

My poor, neglected blog

2008-12-14T20:34:00.015-06:00

It's been over a month without any activity on my blog. Sigh.

In the past month...

I felt proud to be an American. I think part of the reason I have not been writing much (or even reading other blogs) is that after the election I felt a huge sense of relief. Before the election, I felt like I had to know everything I could about the world of politics on a daily basis because some new horrible thing might be happening. Beginning on January 20, adults will be back in the White House.

Four years ago, when we re-elected a president who we knew authorized torture, I think I was depressed for weeks. I could not believe what we had done. It only took a couple of years for the American public to really understand what kind of president Bush has been, but the reasons his approval ratings have been at record lows were all evident four years ago. Obama has a lot of crap to undo.
The National Bureau of Economic Research officially announced that we have been in a recession.
I have tried to buy a house. At the moment, it looks like I need to start over.
I bought a new camera. My old one ended up getting something stuck inside the lens, so there was a mark on the right side of every picture. You can see an example below.

I looked into getting the camera repaired, but it would have cost about $200 just for the shop to open it up and clean it. Not only would there be no guarantee that the $200 would actually fix the problem, but it could take up to 8 weeks for me to get the camera back. That would be cutting it too close to my trip to Hong Kong, so I bit the bullet and got a SLR. I hope to have lots of practice with it before my trip. Here's an action shot of the puppy from my first practice session.
I've been making dinner every Sunday night at my church this fall. It's been a great experience. I'll be writing more about these dinners in the future.
It's Advent! My favorite time of year music-wise has arrived. I rarely listen to classical music, but that changes in December. Today we did Lessons & Carols at church, which included some pretty tough pieces. I have not participated in Christmas Eve services at my church before, but based on the music we are preparing, it should be amazing.

I'm a sap

2008-11-03T23:19:00.003-06:00

While my ex would never imagine using a word to describe me that implies being overly sentimental, there are times when it fits. Tears sometimes come to my eyes during TV shows (The Wire, or Smash's last episode on Friday Night Lights for example) She would call me a political junkie, so it might not be as surprising to know that there have been events during the Presidential campaign that have put me in a sentimental mood.

There was this story from a medical student in Evansville, Indiana about her experience with early voting.

For me the most moving moment came when the family in front of me, comprising probably 4 generations of voters (including an 18 year old girl voting for her first time and a 90-something hunched-over grandmother), got their turn to vote. When the old woman left the voting booth she made it about halfway to the door before collapsing in a nearby chair, where she began weeping uncontrollably. When we rushed over to help we realized that she wasn't in trouble at all but she had not truly believed, until she left the booth, that she would ever live long enough to cast a vote for an African-American for president.

Or this story, about a 109 year old Amanda Jones in Texas who cast her absentee ballot for Obama last week. What's amazing about her story, besides the fact that she 109 years old, is that her father was a slave. This woman, who just voted for an African American for President, is the daughter of a slave. That's unbelievable.

Jones' father herded sheep as a slave until he was 12, according to the family, and once he was freed, he was a farmer who raised cows, hogs and turkeys on land he owned. Her mother was born right after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, Joyce Jones said. The family owned more than 100 acres of land in Cedar Creek at one point, she said.

Amanda Jones' father urged her to exercise her right to vote, despite discriminatory practices at the polls and poll taxes meant to keep black and poor people from voting. Those practices were outlawed for federal elections with the 24th Amendment in 1964, but not for state and local races in Texas until 1966.

Amanda Jones says she cast her first presidential vote for Franklin Roosevelt, but she doesn't recall which of his four terms that was. When she did vote, she paid a poll tax, her daughters said. That she is able, for the first time, to vote for a black presidential nominee for free fills her with joy, Jones said.

It's almost a cliche to say that America's original sin was slavery. For all of our history we have struggled with either the fact of slavery or the aftermath of slavery. We still have a few people with us who only have to look one branch up their family tree to find either a slave or a slave owner. My parents were born into an America without a Voting Rights Act, and one in which Obama's parents' marriage would have been illegal in some states.

While that might seem like ancient history, and we have made a lot of progress during my parents' lifetime, we are far from moving past our original sin. An Obama presidency will not mean that we have put our racial troubles behind us, but it will be a step in the direction. I hope that it will mean race becomes a topic of conversation for white America.

Obama's race is not the reason I became a supporter (I originally was most intriuged by his approach to foreign policy) but it a significant part of his appeal. Unfortunately, the historic nature of his campaign is not the only thing during this election that brought a tear to my eye.

I heard this afternoon that Obama's grandmother had died late Sunday night. It seems unfair that this woman who spent much of Obama's teen years raising him would not quite live to see tomorrow night, when I'm sure that Obama will wish to hear her voice. I'll quote Andrew Sullivan's reaction to this news.

Obama was so right to make sure he spent time with her before she passed on. But what an emotional blow on election eve for the candidate from Illinois. He has survived this campaign with remarkable emotional maturity and self-control. I just wish this didn't have to add to it. None of his parents will witness tomorrow. But somewhere my faith teaches me: they know already. Maybe Toot couldn't wait for the actual results. Maybe she's now a few steps ahead even of Chuck Todd. May she rest in peace. She did good.

Take a look at this picture of Obama taken as he spoke with a North Carolina crowd about his grandmother this afternoon.

"Senator Biden is now my homeboy"

2008-10-29T22:24:00.001-05:00

My intention is not to turn my blog into a list of YouTube videos, but I couldn't resist this.

Hat tip to Ezra Klein.

Down to The Wire

2008-10-29T00:02:00.002-05:00

Lester! Marlo! Kima! Chris! Carver! Cutty!

Voting

2008-10-27T11:45:00.009-05:00

I arrived at one of the early voting locations 30 minutes before the polls opened.

The voting location was at the far right.

The line went around the corner and stretched 1/3 of the way down the length of the mall.

Go Obama!

Dogs are Great!

2008-10-10T22:45:00.002-05:00

This video is titled " My Dogs greeting me after returning from 14 months in Iraq."

Hat Tip to Andrew Sullivan

How I Met Your Mother

2008-10-06T20:10:00.003-05:00

The fall TV season began a few weeks ago. I've been enjoying a bunch of returning shows like "Dexter," "Pushing Daisies," "Chuck," and "The Office." A show that I just started watching last year is "How I Met Your Mother."

HIMYM is one of those shows ("Lost" is another one) that would have been completely different had it been written prior to TIVO, TV shows on DVD, and the ability to stream shows online. The writers of HIMYM are focused on continuity to an extent that would be superfluous if the audience did not have an easy way to watch multiple episodes back to back or to easily rewatch an episode from earlier in the season or from a prior season. Jokes are set up in one episode, with the payoff not coming for months.

I like the way this demonstrates writers' respect for the audience. I also simply like the characters. I just don't watch TV shows unless I enjoy spending time with the characters. Jason Segal (previously seen in several of Judd Apatow TV shows, such as the brilliant "Freaks and Geeks, and movies) plays Marshall, who is the focus of last week's episode. The clip below is Marshall's ode to the perfect hamburger (which, as I've previously written, can be found at Tessaro's in Pittsburgh.)

The Economic Mess

2008-09-18T22:53:00.000-05:00

The current meltdown, as far as I understand, has several causes. One of those causes, with which I have personal knowledge, is the way that financial institutions securitized debts. This basically means that they combined a whole bunch of different loans into one package and turn it into a bond. People, like me, can buy the bond and earn interest on it as the debt is paid back. My financial advisor got me into some of these mortgage backed securities earlier this decade. (I ended up selling them before the housing market bubble burst, so I didn't lose anything)

The problem is that there is no way to tell how much of the debt that has been securitized is "good debt" and how much is "bad debt." If 75% of the mortgages that were in the mortgage backed security that I owned were "good," (meaning the mortgages were taken out my people who were qualified and able to pay it off) but 25% were "bad" (subprime mortgages or mortgages taken out by people who would be unable to pay if their adjustable rate spiked), then it's likely that I would have lost a big chunk of my investment if I had not sold when I did. (BTW, I did not sell because I realized that I was in an unwise investment. The timing of that decision had more to do with dumb luck.)

Bob Kuttner has the best overview that I found of our current situation, and several proposed regulations that would prevent a repeat of this meltdown in the future. Check it out.

Obama's Accomplishments, US Senate Edition

2008-09-18T21:55:00.001-05:00

Now I'll move to Obama's time in US Senate. His most significant accomplishment is without a doubt his work with Dick Lugar (R) on securing nuclear weapons in the former USSR.

During the 2004 campaign, although neither candidate emphasized their plans related to the issue, both Bush and Kerry agreed that nuclear proliferation was the most pressing national security risk the US faced. I don't think anything has changed regarding its importance.

Obama caught Lugar's eye because he was talking about loose nukes during his Senate campaign, even though it is hardly a traditional campaign issue. Obama didn't care that Lugar was a Republican, he understood that Lugar was the foremost expert in the Senate on this issue, so he decided to learn as much as possible from Lugar. He ended up taking former Senator Sam Nunn's role in cosponsoring legislation with Lugar. It was just this past June, despite being in the middle of the presidential campaign, that the Lugar-Obama nonproliferation initiative secured funding from the Appropriations Committee.

Obama also worked with Lugar on a different kind of national security issue, avian flu.

He also taken the lead in ethics legislation, which when it was passed in early 2007, was described as "the strongest ethics legislation to emerge from Congress yet." When it comes to dealing with the abuse of earmarks, Obama was instrumental in the passage of The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, allowing citizens to easily find out what their legislators are doing. (Maybe now that he has selected Palin, McCain will come to understand that earmarks are not all bad. Most of our aid to Israel comes in the form of earmarks, and surely McCain does not want to cut those) It is worth noting that Obama teamed up with Sen Coburn (R) on the transparency bill, and just a few months ago they introducing a new bill strengthening the 2006 law.

This new bill gives a great example of the kind of bipartisanship Obama practices. Obama and Coburn has been working on this bill for a while. McCain had nothing to do with the crafting of this bill, and Coburn admits that it was his fault for not inviting McCain's participation. When they were ready to introduce the bill, McCain's people started scrambling to get his name added as a sponsor of the bill. They thought it would be a political liability if McCain's name was nowhere to be found on the bill since ethics reform is central to his campaign. Rather than take partisan advantage of the situation in the middle of the Presidential election, Obama welcomed McCain's co-sponsorship. It was a good bill, so Obama did not let electoral concerns get in the way of passing the bill.

You can find Obama's response to Katrina here. He has authored a number of bills to support veterans.

It is important to note that during Obama's first two years in the Senate, the D's were the minority party. The last two years, the R's have set records when it comes to the use of the filibuster. (The previous record was 61 filibusters in a two year Senate term. The Republicans only needed one year to break that) Under any circumstances, Obama has taken the lead on passage of a lot of legislation for a first term Senator, but it is an even more impressive record when you consider the obstructions he faced.

Looking over the legislation he is responsible for, it is striking how much of it is not the kind that gets lots of press. They are important bills, sometimes they are quite wonkish, but not at all the kind of legislation that a politician seeking "celebrity" would pursue. This is especially true of the bills Obama has proposed, but have not passed yet. His technology proposals, further ethics reform, regulating genetic testing, reducing medical malpractice the right way, etc. all fit the wonky, non-sexy pattern.

Hilzoy, who blogs both at The Washington Monthly and at Obsidian Wings, has been compiling a list of legislation sponsored by either Obama or McCain during the 109th and 110the Congress (the two when both of them have been in the Senate) Here is the list of legislation that they sponsored. Here is the list of bills and amendments they each cosponsored in the 109th Congress. Here is the list of bills and amendments they each cosponsored in the 110th Congress. I have not looked through all of these lists in detail yet, but they would be helpful to anyone wanting to compare their legislative accomplishments from the past 4 years. They would probably work great as a sleep aid, as well.

I am impressed with Obama's accomplishments but more excited by his forward looking policy proposals. His record of bipartisanship, and the manner in which he is conducting his campaign, makes me optimistic that he would have success in implementing those ideas.

Obama's Accomplishments, Pre-US Senate edition

2008-09-18T21:45:00.000-05:00

Continuing with posts adapted from the politics forum at artsandfaith.com, here is my response to those who wonder what Obama has ever accomplished.

First, I would point to his presidency of the Harvard Law Review and teaching Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago. While those two accomplishment are not directly related to governing, they do demonstrate both intellectual curiosity and a deep, sophisticated understanding of the constitution. Many of the problems with the Bush presidency stem directly from a lack of intellectual curiosity and a dismissal of the constitution.

While he has a number of legislative accomplishments during his time in Illinois, the one that I think is the most significant is the bill requiring the police to videotape interrogations and confessions. It was not only the passage of the bill that was important, but the way he got it passed.

First, he believed that too many confessions were being coerced out of suspects and sometimes the coercion ventured into violence. His solution was rather simple; videotape both the interrogations and the confessions. Then there would be no question about what happens to suspects.

The biggest problem he faced was that the bill was initially opposed by the police. Normally that would make such a bill dead in the water. Democrats are scared to death of being tarred as soft on crime, so they have no motivation to support something that the police oppose. Republicans often are automatically "tough on crime" and also have no desire to cross the police.

So he did what I think Obama does best. He listened. He spent a lot of time with police officers and worked to understand their concerns. He supported some other bills that they wanted to pass. He helped them understand that videotaping both interrogations and confessions would protect suspects AND the police officers involved in questioning (good cops would not get lumped in with crooked cops, the video would protect them from false accusations of brutality, etc.)

He won over the police, won over the Republicans, and got the measure passed overwhelmingly (the vote in the Senate was 35-0) While being a state issue, carefully thinking through issues dealing with confessions and false confessions and abusing suspects certainly pertains to the national stage these days, doesn't it?

Here is a fuller description of how Obama's leadership led to the passage of the videotaping bill.

Another accomplishment while in the Illinois legislature was the passage of what the Washington Post called "the most ambitious campaign reform in nearly 25 years, making Illinois one of the best in the nation on campaign finance disclosure." Each party selected one member to represent their party. He was new in the state Senate, and the Democrats were in the minority then, but he was the D's point person.

There are more things he did in Illinois (and the criticism of Obama for voting "present" demonstrates a lack of understanding how the state legislature works in Illinois) but this is long enough and there is a lot more to talk about from the past four years in the US Senate.

Why I Like Obama

2008-09-18T21:19:00.003-05:00

I am very active in an online politics discussion forum at artsandfaith.com Some of the time that I use to spend blogging, I've been spending there talking about the upcoming election. I decided to ought to adapt some of what I've posted there for my blog. I wrote the following in February of 2007, well before he began running for President. I pretty much still agree with everything that I wrote back then.

Like most of the country, I first became aware of Obama when he gave the speech at the Democratic convention. The things that everybody talks about impressed me; his comfort talking about his faith, his eloquence, that he comes across as "authentic." After he was elected, I watched a handful of Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on CSPAN. Almost without exception, he asked the best, most intelligent, most relevant questions. (Maybe his questions seemed that way to me because they were the questions I was wondering about) What made them stand out was that they came across as genuine questions that were asked to help him and the committee better understand the issue - not to score a political point.

At that point I subscribed to his weekly podcast, in which he spends about 8-10 minutes talking about a particular issue the Senate is dealing with that week or a piece of legislation that he will be sponsoring. It will occasionally include recordings of speeches he gives. One that I remember was given at the Council on Foreign Relations about Iraq, probably in the middle of 2005. Although he made it clear that he had been against the invasion in the first place, he talked about American responsibility to the Iraqis now that we were there. He talked about the need for a counter insurgency strategy (like the one that Gen. Petraeus is now trying to implement) back before the civil war became entrenched and when such a strategy had a chance of success. He's been right on the most important issue facing the US over the past several years and the reasons he's been right are just as important to me.

He has surrounded himself with experts like Samantha Powers and he learns from them. I've read interviews with his staff who say that when someone like Powers comes in to give him a briefing on Darfur, within 10 minutes he's digested all that they've said and has asked a half dozen questions that get right to the heart of the matter. Often one or two of the questions will cause the expert to have to consider an issue in a new light and necessitate them going back to do further research. They feel inspired and invigorated by the questions, instead of belittled like Rumsfeld's briefers.

I also respect the story he tells about a letter he received from pro-life doctor during his Senate campaign. The doctor told him that some of the language his campaign was using to describe people who are pro-life was dismissive and offensive. Obama looked at the language and agreed with the letter. He apologized to the writer and changed the language. He did not change his position on abortion, but when he recognized that he was doing something disrespectful towards those he disagreed with, he changed.

He attended Rick Warren's conference on AIDS despite opposition from those on the far right and the far left. Despite disagreeing with most of those attending the conference on the issue of abortion, he did not let that stop him from working together on an issue they did agree upon. He worked with John McCain on ethics reform and Tom Coburn (!) on legislation to bring more transparency to the Federal budget. Even though Obama is most definitely a political liberal, he does not let partisan power games be an obstacle to good policy.

I like his positions on the economy, health care, Iraq, al Qaeda, homeland security, energy, guns, network neutrality, and immigration. It is easy enough to find more info about those things.

I think that restoring America's soft power in the world will be one of the most important tasks of our next president, and Obama would be uniquely suited for that. I agree with President Palmer in 24, Muslim citizens of the US and moderate Muslims throughout the world are our most important allies in the GWOT. Restoring the idea that America stands for freedom, democracy, fairness, and opportunity, and against things like torture, privilege, and bullying might not win over any of the radicals, but it will help to keep Muslims from becoming radicalized and support the moderates in the struggle within Islam. A president with a funny name, brown skin, who has lived in the country with the largest Muslim population in the world, is treated like a rock star in Africa, and opposes torture should have more soft power than most. Of course, none of the those things about his background are in and of themselves qualifications to be President, but are more like the icing on the cake.

Notes From An Escalator

2008-09-18T09:46:00.002-05:00

Not only is my sister an accomplished chef, she's also a great writer. So subscribe to the RSS feed of her new blog about life in Hong Kong!

John McCain Gets BarackRoll'd

2008-09-16T23:39:00.002-05:00

For anyone who is less of a nerd than I am, and needs an explanation of the concept of "Rickrolling," read this.

Slacktivist

2008-09-15T21:17:00.003-05:00

Fred Clark is the author of a great blog called Slacktivist. It is best known for Fred's weekly analysis of the Left Behind books, sometimes only covering a couple of pages. He describes both the poor theology and the terrible writing of LaHaye and Jenkins.

Today, he looked into the future to share with us a news story that is sure to be written next week featuring McCain campaign manager Rick Davis.

... Davis, visibly shaken and with tears in his eyes, reiterated the McCain campaign's demand for an apology.
"Thousands of older Americans suffer from this same condition," Davis said. "So when Mr. Obama says, 'Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining' this is a vicious slur not only on Sen. McCain, but also on tens of millions of older Americans."

Obama, for his part, insisted his comment had not been intended as a personal attack on his Republican rival.

"I don't see how that can be taken as ageist," Obama said. "It's a colloquialism, something my grandmother used to say back in Kansas. And anyway I didn't even know until today that Sen. McCain suffered from this condition."

"John McCain was a POW," Davis reminded reporters. "Leave John McCain aloooooooooone!"

Asked if he would have chosen his words more carefully had he known about his opponent's condition, Obama shrugged. "Depends," he said.

This prompted further demands for an apology ...

Lipstick

2008-09-10T22:41:00.001-05:00

It is a shame that Obama needs to take time to say this, but he says what needs to be said.

Obama on the Constitution

2008-09-09T22:25:00.002-05:00

I like how Obama has the appropriate attitude towards today's Republican party. It is a mix of amusement and dismissal. That's different than being dismissive of every Republican. But the party, which cheered Bush casually throwing out what Obama correctly describes as "the foundation of Anglo-American law," deserves scorn. And Palin's jeering at Obama's support for habeas corpus (to applause, I might add) during the Republican Convention, also deserves scorn.

"The reason that you have this principle is not to be soft on terrorism. It's because that's who we are. That's what we're protecting. Don't mock the Constitution. Don't make fun of it. Don't suggest that it's not American to abide by what the founding fathers set up. It's worked pretty well for over 200 years."

Spelling

2008-09-08T13:30:00.001-05:00

Some of you know about my spelling "ability," or lack thereof. One of the reasons I use Firefox is the built-in spell checker. So I loved this video.

Hat tip to Matthew Yglesis.

RNC

2008-09-06T22:59:00.000-05:00

Here is some more good commentary on the RNC.

The Conventions & The Election

2008-09-06T21:33:00.004-05:00

My sister asked me to write about my thoughts on the Republican National Convention last week. Tom Toles did a better job summarizing the message from the RNC than I could. Take a look at his editorial cartoon from this week.

It sounds to me like McCain's campaign has decided to forget about their attempt to draw in undecided, independent, and conservative Democratic voters. It's all about the base of the Republican party now. The choice of Sarah Palin for VP has excited religious conservatives and NRA members, but you cannot call yourself a Maverick while kowtowing to the conservative base of your party. A convention that mocked community organizers and featured repeated chanting of "Drill, Baby, Drill!" seems happy to write off voters younger than 40.

With the two convention completed, in some ways the real election has started. Casual voters will start to pay attention now. The first debate is on September 30. Polls still don't mean very much and are not worth paying attention to until October. The fundamentals, like the state of the economy and the fact of Republican incumbency, still point to an Obama victory.

I think the biggest wildcard is Iraq. If there continues to be relative stability (and by relative, I mean something less than total civil war) then it might not be too much of a factor. But if things change, either towards more open civil war or towards actual political reconciliation, then who knows? If it gets obviously worse, will undecided and weakly committed voters blame the Republicans or will they decide that McCain's "experience" makes him the best person to deal with the problem? If it gets obviously better, will those same voters give McCain credit for advocating the surge, or will they decide Iraq does not matter and focus just on the economy?

Obama has been saying, most recently in his speech at the Democratic National Convention, that he welcomes a debate with McCain on foreign policy. This is great news for lots of reasons, but from an electoral standpoint, it will show the public that he is better on Iraq whether things there take a turn for the better or the worse.

The Decembrists

2008-09-06T20:47:00.004-05:00

The years that I lived in Washington were a dark period for me as it relates to music. With one notable exception, I did not discover any new artists (I knew of Alejandro when I moved to WA but only became a fan when a friend gave me tickets to see him live in Seattle) and I rarely listened to the music that I already owned. One of the Northwest's bands that I missed out on is The Decembrists.

Last weekend, when I was watching Mad Men (the best show on TV right now - if you haven't seen it, go rent season 1. There are some uneven moments and times when the novelties of life in the late 1950's pulls you out of the story, but they have really hit their stride in season 2) the opening sequence was set to The Decembrist's song "The Infanta." The song is captivating.

Since then, I've been trying to familiarize myself with this interesting band. Like one of my favorite musicians from college, Bill Mallonee, the songwriter is a bit of a history buff. "The Infanta" is about the birth of a Spanish princess in 1824. Another new favorite of mine is "When the War Came." Here is what frontman Colin Meloy said about the song.

The last great book I read was Hunger by Elise Blackwell. It’s about the siege of Leningrad in World War II, and there was a botanical institute. During the siege, which lasted a long time, the entire population were starving, but all of the botanists in the institute swore themselves to protect the catalog of seeds and plants and things, from not only a starving population, but also from themselves. It’s pretty amazing.

The Infanta

When The War Came

Restaurants

2008-09-04T20:11:00.003-05:00

I wish I had the time (and money!) to do restaurant reviews. What a great job, although if a newspaper or magazine is paying you to review places, you have to make multiples trips to restaurants you don't like. I think I could live with that, though. Since I don't write restaurant reviews, I'll just write a note about a couple of places I went in the past week.

Over Labor Day weekend I was at Blue Grotto, a new pizza place in Brookside. It was the best pizza I've had since moving back to KC, although that's not saying much. These are artisan, wood fired pizzas with a light, slightly crackly crust. My favorite was a prosciutto with red onions and asiago cheese. The salsiccia was great, too. The only problem was slow service, but I was with a group that gave off we're-going-to-hang-out-here-all-night vibes.

On Tuesday, I met a friend at a little Italian restaurant also in Brookside, La Cucina Di Mamma. This place is a part of Bella Napoli, the Italian market and deli. I had a special, pasta alla puttanesca. It was not as spicy as puttansecas that I've made or had elsewhere. The anchovy was the dominate flavor, but it was not too much. I'd order it again. I don't know very much about Italian wines, so I can't really judge the wine list. We got one of the least expensive bottles, and it was a good weeknight-type red that worked just fine with our meals. The price was great, too. Our two entrees, the wine, and the tip came to about $50.

Both places are worth checking out. I'm sure I'll be back at both of them in the future.

The Olympics

2008-08-25T22:39:00.003-05:00

I ended up watching much more of the Olympics than I ever expected (part of it might be because I got an HDTV in the middle of the Games) I can't remember the last time I ever watched consecutive days of the Olympics, much less several hours a night.

That said, I come away quite ambivalent about the event. James Fallows, a journalist for The Atlantic Monthly that I highly respect who in the midst of a several years long stint in China, said on The News Hour that they were good for China and the world because they made China feel good. He believes that a confident China is a good neighbor and world citizen, and the times when China has caused the most problems for the rest of the world has been when they feel they have lost face.

One of the sports columnist from The Washington Post, Thomas Boswell, has a less historical perspective that still resonates with me. His wrap-up column on the Olympics ends this way.

In decades at The Post, this is the first event I've covered at which I was certain that the main point of the exercise was to co-opt the Western media, including NBC, with a splendidly pretty, sparsely attended, completely controlled sports event inside a quasi-military compound. We had little alternative but to be a conduit for happy-Olympics, progressive-China propaganda. I suspect it worked.

Everything that met my eye at every venue was perfect. Everybody smiled. Everybody pretended to speak English. Until you got past "hello." Everyone was helpful until you went one inch past where you were supposed to go. Then, arms sprang out to stop you. Everywhere you went, even alone at 2 a.m., you felt completely safe. Because every hundred feet there were a pair of guards -- at attention in the middle of the night.

As sports spectacles go, I've never seen one more efficiently or soullessly executed than this one. I have no idea where they put the real people for 17 days, but I felt like Jim Carrey in "The Truman Show." Where's Ed Harris saying: "Truman is going to turn left on Main Street: Cue the smiling girl and the hearty hot dog vendor."

The family that's always perfect in public is the one you worry about. What's going on under the surface? The complete lack of dissent here -- not one person could get a permit to use the designated Olympic "protest area," though some were detained for trying -- has an eloquence of its own.

As for the Chinese people, I like them a lot. But they've been through so many purges and plagues, cultural revolutions and great leaps forward, followed by the whipsaw from socialism to "rich is good," that I think they're happy to toe the societal line. This decade, it's entrepreneurial capitalism -- hyper-boom phase. We'll see how they like the bust part. It's probably coming.

China has, by every account, made incredible material progress in the last 25 years. This city, merely one of several in China that now rivals New York and Los Angeles for size and wealth, isn't going to do anything but continue to grow. The 21st century will, no doubt, be a vast improvement on the last few awful ones here.

Nonetheless, I'll leave here more concerned about China's future, and its impact on those around it, than the future of the United States. Part of that is probably xenophobia, though I've spent a lifetime repeating, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

Some of it, however, is my suspicion that the cycles of capitalism and the inflexibility of authoritarian regimes make for a spectacularly happy marriage in the virtuous-cycle good times, but perhaps an ugly partnership in the inevitable bad periods.

China got aboard the free-market love train at roughly the time -- in the early 1980s -- that worldwide capitalism hit one of its long secular hot streaks that frequently last 15 to 20 years. Money couldn't wait to invest itself here. Let's see how the Party enjoys its first secular bear market.

Politics

2008-08-24T16:15:00.004-05:00

With the political conventions beginning this week, the Presidential campaign is entering the phase when the general public starts to pay attention. I have not written about politics nearly as much as I've been thinking about it, but I image as we get closer to November I'll be writing more of those thoughts here.

The New York Times Magazine published a great article about Obama's economic policy today. It's long, but worth reading. My short summary will do no justice to Obama's approach, but here it goes anyway.

“The market is the best mechanism ever invented for efficiently allocating resources to maximize production,” Obama told me. “And I also think that there is a connection between the freedom of the marketplace and freedom more generally.” But, he continued, “there are certain things the market doesn’t automatically do.”

When an Obama presidency would interfere in the market, the above quote will provide guidance. Where does he think the market fails? The fact that over the past couple of decades workers have not benefited from the great gains in efficiency and wealth. The fact that the market is fundamentally incapable to dealing with a non-commodity like health care. The fact that the big business, like the oil industry or banking or big pharma, rely on huge government susbsidies and knowledge that the government will bail them out if they screw up. The fact that the market does not reflect the true costs, both economic and environmental, of a carbon-based energy policy.

This article mention that Tax Policy Center's analysis and comparison of Obama's and McCain's tax plans. I don't know why Obama has not been focused on this, but I hope it is a major part of his campaign following the convention for purely political reasons. Much of the country believes that McCain is a tax cutter and Obama is a tax raiser. They think that their tax bill will be smaller under McCain than under Obama. This only true for the top 20% of the country. For the vast majority of us, McCain's proposal will leave up with a higher tax burden than Obama. For 80% of the country, Obama is the tax cutter.

Be Okay

2008-08-23T22:50:00.005-05:00

At the kitchen where I work, we listen to satellite radio. There is AAA station that we all like, and it actually plays many of the artists that are in my iTunes playlists, but they so make some weird choices. They play Bruce Cockburn, but most of the time the Cockburn song they play is from 1984, "If I Had A Rocket Launcher." Either they are trying to make a political statement or they never listened to his 9 more recent albums. And even though one of the benefits from satellite radio is suppose to be their much broader playlist than traditional radio, this station occasionally gets stuck in a rut.

A couple of weeks ago it was a John Mellencamp rut. They played two straight weeks of Melloncamp. That's right, 14 days, from the John Cougar days, then the John Cougar Mellencamp days, and finally the John Mellencamp days. They did a Sheryl Crow week earlier in the year, but at least that week was largely Crow acting as the DJ and choosing other artist's music to play. I could tolerate Crow the DJ, but two weeks of Mellencamp is two weeks too many.

This past week, the rut they fell into was with one song. I heard the same song, "Be Okay," three times in the same day. It was catchy and I could not get the chorus ("I just want to be okay, be okay, be okay, I just want to be okay...) out of my head. That night I tried to find out more about the song and discovered that it was recorded by Ingrid Michaelson.

Michaelson is one of those indie artist who is experimenting with new ways to make a living in the music world. Early on, she relied on her myspace page as well as lots of performance in coffeeshops. Her first big break was when three of her songs were used on "Grey's Anatomy" (a guilty pleasure of mine) The producers of "Grey's Anatomy" asked her to write a song specifically for the show, and it was prominently played during closing moments of the 2007 season finale. Last fall, Old Navy used one of her songs ("The Way I Am") in a commercial.

It used to be that music fans worries about their favorite arists, like Bob Dylan or The Who, "selling out." Today, in part to avoid the artistic compromises that come from signing with a music label, even indie artists are using TV shows and commercials as a way to spread their music. It has worked for Michaelson.

All of this post is mostly an excuse to post this video of Michaelson displaying her knowledge of pop culture from the year 1990. I bet her concerts are fun.

Polls

2008-08-14T22:17:00.003-05:00

From now until election day in November, we will be inundated with polling data. The unfortunate thing is that much of that data tells us very little of significance. One of the reasons for this is that the media rarely reports the intensity of the opinion being expressed by those being polled. Remember how prior to the Iraqi invasion, there were media reports that a majority of Americans were in favor of going to war. David Moore, a former Vice President of the Gallup Organization and Managing Editor of the Gallup Poll, explains why it is not that simple while he is guest blogging at The Washington Monthly.

In a February 2003 poll, Gallup asked a standard version of the question that all the other pollsters asked, and like the other polls, found a substantial majority in favor of the war — 59 percent to 38 percent, a 21-point margin. Only 3 percent said they did not have an opinion. However, as part of a special experiment which I helped design (as a senior editor of the Gallup Poll), the standard question was followed up with another, which essentially asked if people really cared that their opinions might prevail. And the results here revealed a very different public from the one that has come to dominate conventional wisdom.
To people who said they favored the war, we asked if they would be upset if the government did not send troops to Iraq. And to people who opposed the war, we asked if they would be upset if the government did send troops. Just over half of the supposed supporters and a fifth of the opponents said they would not be upset if their opinions were ignored.

The net result: Only 29 percent of Americans supported the war and said they would be upset if it didn't come about, while 30 percent were opposed to the war and said they would be upset if it did occur. Another 38 percent, who had just expressed an opinion either for or against the proposed invasion, said they would not be upset if the government did the opposite of what they had just opined. Add to this number the 3 percent who initially expressed no opinion, and that makes 41 percent who didn't care one way or the other.
What this experiment revealed was that instead of a war-hungry public, Americans were evenly divided over whether to go to war — three in ten in favor, three in ten opposed, with a plurality willing to do whatever the political leaders thought best.

There is a similar phenomenon is the polls that are so widely reported about the election. Moore explains that almost every poll about the 2008 presidential election asks who the respondent would vote for if the election were held today. Of course, the election is not going to be held today. Many people know today who they will vote for in November, but many simply have not thought about the election very closely. They answer the pollster's question, but they don't considered themselves committed to any particular candidate. Moore talks about what the latest CBS News Poll tells us about the size of this group of voters.

The CBS poll also asks the standard polling industry's forced-choice question, who would you vote for it the election were held today, and it found 13 percent undecided. But the poll followed up the standard question by asking whether voters who had selected a candidate had made up their minds, "or is it still too early to say for sure?" The results of that question show 39 percent of voters still uncommitted, three times the original number CBS found, and almost eight times what the Gallup tracking poll reports.

If 39% of voters are still undecided, it sheds a different light on the fact that Obama has maintained about a 5% lead over McCain ever since Clinton conceded the primary.

Running Update

2008-08-11T20:51:00.002-05:00

My running update is that I have not been running much. I did not exercise much while Monte was in town, and since then I have been riding my bike. Last week I rode with Greg and Peggie one night, by myself another (after which I figured out how to patch an inner tube) and then yesterday Greg and I went on a long ride. This afternoon I rode for about 2 hours.

I do want to keep up with the running. I think that doing a couple of runs and a couple of bike rides a week would be a nice balance.

Tattoo

2008-08-09T12:17:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned a few days ago, I was recently looking for pictures of food related tattoos. I have thought about getting a tattoo for years, but last summer decided that it was time. I was in the midst of some major life changes and thought that a tattoo might be one way to mark, literally, both what was new in my life and what was consistent.

I wanted an image that would tie my previous church-based career with the new food-based direction I was taking. The connection is closer than it might appear at first glance. Food images are all over the Bible. Focusing just on the New Testament, there is Jesus' first miracle of turning water into wine at a wedding feast, feeding the crowds with the fish and the loaves, the Last Supper, and Jesus' post-resurrection appearance on the road to Emmaus when the disciples don't recognize him until he breaks bread. One of the most consistent images of heaven throughout the Bible is that of a great feast.

These images pop up so often for a reason. Eating with another person is incredibly important. It is hard to imagine the most important occasions in life, like weddings and funerals, without food being present. Kids whose families eat dinner together on a regular basis are socially and emotionally healthier than kids whose families do not eat together. In my time doing youth ministry, I experienced how important eating together is for teenagers to form a sense of community. Eating together, somehow, opens us up to what God wants to happen in our relationships.

For me, the move to feeding people physically is not far removed from putting them into a position to be fed spiritually. But coming up with the right image to capture all that was tough. I was going to have this tattoo for the rest of my life, so I wanted to be sure about it.

I played around with images of bread and wine, but was never really happy with what I came up with. Something about that just did not seem right. At the Easter Vigil this spring, the stating of the cultural mandate (for more about what this "cultural mandate" is all about, check this out) from the Genesis reading jumped out to me. "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it..." The idea that part of the reason for our existence on earth is to be fruitful (obviously this is not limited to having lots of children) has long been an important part of what it means to me to be a Christian.

There are all kinds of things that we encounter in our lives that are full of potential (artistic talent, tomato seeds, ideas about how to build a house) but need to be cultivated by our active involvement. One of the things I love about cooking is finding an incredible ingredient, like a Copper River Salmon, and figuring out how to bring forth every bit of its potential to be an amazing meal. That's one way to put the cultural mandate into action.

So back to the tattoo. The command to "be fruitful" got me thinking about images again. I couldn't exactly figure how a tattoo of a seed would look any different from a freckle, and when I searched for images of a tattoo of an apple, most of what I found was people who had tattooed themselves with the Apple Computer logo. I'm writing this on my MacBook and I own 2 iPods, but there was no way I was going to put something that looks like the logo of a company, even one that I like as much as Apple, on my body.

Then I returned to the idea of bread and wine, the most significant food images in Christendom. The processes of turning wheat into bread and grapes into wine are both incredibly simple, yet in the hands of great artists they end up with incredibly complex flavors and textures. Master bakers and winemakers reflect God's creativity when they are fruitful with their talent and with the fruit of the fields.

I knew I had my image after discussing this with my sister and brother-in-law. Monte pointed out that the grain of wheat must be cracked and the grape must be crushed for them to reach their potential. Cracked and crushed are not bad descriptions of the past two years of my life. One image that refers to my old life, my new life, and hints at the journey from the old to the new. Perfect.

I found some pictures online, took them to several tattoo parlors until I found an artist that felt "right," had him combine the pictures into one unified image, and walked away with this on my left calf.

91% Male

2008-08-07T23:09:00.004-05:00

All the cool blogs today have been linking to this nifty tool that uses your web browsing history and makes a prediction as to your gender. Since I want to be one of the cool blogs, too, I just had to join in. According to my history (I have Firefox set to keep 90 days of history), there is a 91% likelihood that I am male.

What the author of this little javascript script did was have your browser to find out which of the Quantcast top 10,000 sites you have visited and examined the male to female ratio of the users of those sites. Basically, the websites I visit are mostly read by men (news, politics, sports were the one with the highest ratio) The places I visited that are mostly read by women were shopping sites (amazon, various airline sites, etc)

Food Blog

2008-08-04T15:20:00.003-05:00

I've been reading Chef Matt's blog, Deglazed, since the end of last year. I stumbled across it when I was looking for pictures of food related tattoos (this is what I found at his blog). Matt had always been an amateur cook with a career as a web designer when he decided to take the plunge of attending cooking school and working towards becoming a professional chef. He also happens to be a good writer.

The reason for this post is that Chef Matt commented on my Dr. Horrible post (if you didn't watch Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, you can still download it on iTunes) I wanted to thank him publicly for my new favorite Margarita Recipe. His margarita is definitely hardcore - I don't think I've ever had a drink that was as tart as this one. I sometimes make some modification; instead of TripleSec, I've substituted a few drops of orange oil and a shot of my limoncello. Next time you are in the mood for a margarita, give Chef Matt's recipe a try. If you don't think you will like an extremely tart margarita, just add a bit of a simple syrup.

It's Been a Long Time

2008-08-04T15:10:00.006-05:00

Once you stop posting to your blog on a daily basis, it's tough to start up again. I hope to get back to posting on a regular basis.

It was great to have Monte, Matt, and Finn in town for about a week. We unloaded a moving truck's worth of their stuff into my parent's basement, ate a lot of good food, watched the Finn channel, and hung out. Of course, we needed to take some family pictures before they started their great adventure.

They landed in Hong Kong over the weekend, and apparently Finn quite content on the flight. We talked over Skype after they got to their hotel. The Skype connection was amazing, even better than when I've used Skype to talk to friends in the US. The video and audio were totally in sync. The only problem we had was when Matt's computer went to sleep.

Dr. Horrible

2008-07-16T00:18:00.003-05:00

My sister, brother-in-law, and nephew arrived in town today, so there won't be much blog activity for the next week or so. To tide you over (since I know there are maybe one of two of you that actually read this thing on a regular basis) I must link to Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, which started on Tuesday. My understanding of its origin is that during the writer's strike, Joss Whedon was playing around with ideas on how to distribute content online. The resulting three part, 40 minute musical comedy is off to a good start. It features Neil Patrick Harris (if you only know of him from Doogie Howser, then you don't know him. He is a legitimate Broadway star and has an Emmy nomination for his current show How I Met Your Mother), Nathan Fillion (who worked with Whedon on Firefly and Serenity) and Felicia Day (who worked with Whedon on Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Go check out Dr. Horrible, and be sure to stick with it past the opening bit where he's reading emails. Once the music starts, it gets much better.

Missing The Office?

2008-07-13T21:36:00.003-05:00

New webisodes for The Office have started at the NBC website. It looks like they will focus on Kevin's gambling debt. The first episode is below.

Your Food Footprint

2008-07-13T15:42:00.003-05:00

There are lots of reasons to eat locally produced food but in my mind the most important one is the taste. Another important factor is the potential for locally produced food to have less of an environmental impact than food that has been shipped across the country or over the ocean. Unfortunately, it's not always easy to tell how much carbon has been released by the production of the food we eat. From the fertilizers (which are often petroleum based) to tractors and combines, to the trucks and trains and ships that transport the food, a lot of carbon based fuel is burned to get that loaf of bread or fresh salad on your table.

One of the worst offenders is beef, especially grain-fed beef. Two researchers from CMU's Engineering school's Public Policy department published research this spring that suggested that changing only one day per week's meat and dairy-based calories to chicken, fish, or vegetables would have about the same impact on greenhouse gases as shifting to an entirely locally produced diet. That's how bad beef is for the environment. Here is an excerpt from an article about their research:

Weber and colleague Scott Matthews, also of Carnegie Mellon, conducted a life-cycle assessment of greenhouse gases emitted during all stages of growing and transporting food consumed in the U.S. They found that transportation creates only 11% of the 8.1 metric tons (t) of greenhouse gases (in CO₂ equivalents) that an average U.S. household generates annually as a result of food consumption. The agricultural and industrial practices that go into growing and harvesting food are responsible for most (83%) of its greenhouse gas emissions.

For perspective, food accounts for 13% of every U.S. household's 60 t share of total U.S. emissions; this includes industrial and other emissions outside the home. By comparison, driving a car that gets 25 miles per gallon of gasoline for 12,000 miles per year (the U.S. average) produces about 4.4 t of CO₂. Switching to a totally local diet is equivalent to driving about 1000 miles less per year, Weber says.

Driving less and using more fuel efficient vehicles are obviously important parts of dealing with climate change, but eating less beef is more important by several orders of magnitude. A nice side benefit is the healthier heart you end up with if you replace beef with more vegetables and whole grains in your diet.

From a public policy perspective, I think that a carbon tax is probably the best way to encourage more intelligent choices by the public. Eating beef has a large cost to the environment associated with it that is largely hidden to the public. A carbon tax would capture the cost to the environment from growing the grain (fertilizers, transportation, etc.) that feeds the cattle as well as the environment costs of transporting the beef. Grass-fed beef would become less expensive relative to grain-fed beef.

When choosing what to eat, the items that do more damage to the environment ought to cost more. Often the relative price difference of our food reflects the power of different lobbies (the corn lobby is why high fructose corn syrup is so cheap, and therefore why it is in so much of our food) as much as anything else. If the price of food included the cost to the environment, then consumers could make more informed choices.

July Recipe

2008-07-13T00:26:00.003-05:00

(Each month, I include a recipe in the monthly newsletter for the kitchen where I work. These recipes need to complement the entrees on our menu that particular month, and are targeted towards our average customer. That means it needs to be simple, require little active prep work, and use only the most basic ingredients. Here is what we published in July.)

The zucchini plants in my backyard are full of blossoms, so soon I will be able to eat squash for breakfast, lunch, and dinner 7 days a week! My favorite way to prepare zucchini is on the grill. As in roasting, grilling vegetables requires little fat, making it heart-healthy, and brings out the vegetable's inherent sweetness.

Whether you are using summer squash, sweet potatoes, onions, corn, eggplant, peppers, or new potatoes, there are a few rules of thumb:

Cut the vegetable so that it can be placed along the grates of your grill without falling into the fire. For skinny vegetables like zucchini or sweet potatoes, cut them into long spears. For round vegetables like onions or eggplant, use thick discs. (A skewer through the side of the onion slices will help keep it from falling through the grates) Whatever shape you use, make sure the pieces are thick, ½ to ¾ of an inch.

Lightly brush the cut side of the vegetable with olive oil. You can season the oil with salt and pepper, garlic, rosemary, or any dried herb, but plain olive oil works great on its own.

For corn, peel all but the innermost, transparent layer of the husk off. Trim the silk off the end of the corn. There is no need to oil the husk or wrap it in foil (which will steam the corn instead of cooking it with direct heat)

Use a medium-hot fire. The density of the vegetable will determine the length of time they will need to cook. Potatoes and onions will take the longest (10-12 minutes, turning once) while zucchini or peppers are a bit quicker (8-10 minutes, turning once). Corn also takes 10-12 minutes, but it needs to be turned every 1-2 minutes.

So the next time you are firing up the grill for some Carne Asada, Grilled Blackened Salmon, or Raspberry BBQ chicken, fix your sides at the same time, on the same grill!

The Wayback Machine

2008-07-12T00:13:00.005-05:00

On Wednesday, the girl with whom I attended my senior prom stopped by the kitchen where I work. Kathy was in town visiting her parents. Her sister-in-law, Sarah (who also was a member of our graduating class) works with me at the kitchen and suggested that Kathy should come in to say "hello." She reminded me that this cooking thing with me goes way back. For our prom, I cooked as elegant a dinner as is possible for an 18 year old boy to make.

It was fun to hear about Kathy and her husband. She had pictures of their kids (all 4 of them!) with her. Kathy and I got to know each other through music (she played bass in the orchestra while I played tuba - the bass instruments always stuck together!) She somehow finds time to teach a couple of strings classes a week at her kids' school.

Then today, my best friend from childhood showed up in the comments on my post about the Colorado trip. I guess it shows how out of touch I am, but I thought KC was still living in Asia. It turns out that he's back in Overland Park. It will be great to see him, and his family, again.

I wonder who from my past will show up next!

Colorado

2008-07-09T22:40:00.003-05:00

The hiking was great, at least when I wasn't worried about lightening. There were a few times when it was closer than I would have liked. The set of pictures can be found here.

On the road

2008-07-04T09:30:00.003-05:00

Yesterday afternoon, after stopping for a Local Burger (this time I went with Elk), I drove about 2/3's of the way to Colorado. The bugs sounded like rain against my windshield in Western Kansas near dusk. I think I need a paint scraper to clean the front of my truck.

After a quick stop at the REI in Denver this morning (they are having a sale this week) it will be on the mountains. My goal is to bring back pictures of wildflowers.

10 Most Recently Played in my iTunes

2008-07-02T00:12:00.002-05:00

Swallows of San Juan - Alejandro Escovedo - Real Animal
Chip N' Tony - Alejandro Escovedo - Real Animal
Chelsea Hotel '78 - Alejandro Escovedo - Real Animal
Sister Lost Soul - Alejandro Escovedo - Real Animal
Smoke - Alejandro Escovedo - Real Animal
Sensitive Boys - Alejandro Escovedo - Real Animal
Golden Bear - Alejandro Escovedo - Real Animal
Hollywood Hills - Alejandro Escovedo - Real Animal
Slow Down - Alejandro Escovedo - Real Animal
Nuns Song - Alejandro Escovedo - Real Animal

No surprise that I've been listening to Real Animal a lot recently. The ballads on this album (Swallows of San Juan, Hollywood Hills, Golden Bear, Sensitive Boys, Slow Down) are some of my favorites. Occasionally the backing vocals are a bit smaltzy for my taste, which is kind of funny to have on an album that is nostalgic for Alejandro's punk days. I can't wait to hear these songs performed live.

Wizards v Real Salt Lake

2008-06-29T12:58:00.007-05:00

Last night I attended my first Wizards' game at their temporary home in a minor league baseball park. While not ideal, it was a much better venue for soccer than Arrowhead Stadium. The weather was ideal, the result (1-0) was long overdue for the Wizards who had not won in 8 games, and the soccer was rather attractive. Both teams attacked agressively, if not effectively. The goal came off a Davey Arnuad free kick in the 90th minute and was deflected in off a Real Salt Lake defender's head. It still counts, though.

Davey Arnaud sets up the game winning free kick.

KC's Claudio Lopez, who played for Argentina's World Cup team in both 1998 and 2002, follows RSL's Kyle Beckerman, who has played for the US national team.

The rest of the pictures I took at the game can be found on flickr.

Cocktails

2008-06-25T20:23:00.003-05:00

I'm not much a mixed drinks kind of guy. I like wine, I like Scotch, I like cider. My opinion usually is that if I am going to drink alcohol, I want it to be good enough alcohol that it doesn't need added sugar or juice or soda, etc.

The Dining & Wine section of the New York Times has a "Special Drinks Issue" today that looks at cocktails and includes quite a few recipes. Given my lack of interest in cocktails, I have not read any of them. I did, however, read Mark Bittman's column about the cocktail.

Bittman write The Minimalist column for the Times, and the name of his column describes his approach to mixed drinks.

Look at the pattern — you might call it the basic recipe — of these drinks, many of which might be grouped as “sours”: they combine liquor with water (usually in the form of ice), a sour flavoring (usually citrus juice) and a sweetener (simple syrup, or something more expensive and flavorful, like Cointreau). You might add a splash of soda or, if you like, fruit juice, which gets you into beachcomber or cosmo territory.
Master this pattern and you can mix hundreds of cocktails at home without a book or recipe. For me, most cocktails look like this: A stiff pour of alcohol, say a quarter cup, over ice; very little sweetener, a teaspoon or at the most two; a tablespoon or more of lime juice (which I find more refreshing than lemon juice); and, if suitable, a garnish like mint (which I chop), or an orange slice. Not only can the proportions change to your taste, they should.
The parallels with cooking are clear. You can start with good ingredients, or not. You can start with someone else’s recipe (on which there are usually a score or more variations) or make the cocktail your own. The point — and this clearly comes from the perspective of cook, not bartender — is this: Why not make cocktails from scratch, ignoring the names and acknowledging your preferences? Why not treat the margarita like a dish of pasta with tomatoes, assuming a few given ingredients but varying them according to your taste?

That's the kind of approach to a cocktail that I could get behind. Sometimes ingredients that are great on their own, also taste wonderful or even better in combination with other great ingredients. Certainly the same could be true with different alcohols. The mixed-drinks = pasta-with-a-sauce analogy makes a lot sense to me.

Real Animal...

2008-06-24T22:40:00.003-05:00

...is here. I picked up (actually I downloaded) Alejandro Escovedo's latest, which was released today. I've listen through 1.5 times. It's good. The Alejandro albums with which I am most familiar are from the late 90's through today, so this one shows a bit of a new side of Alejandro to me. I dig his alt-country stuff from the past decade, but this one goes back to his punk and rock roots.

My first impression is that the things about Alejandro's music that I love are definitely present. Melody might not be his strong suit, but his arrangements (particularly the use of strings) are wonderful. I think I will need to listen a few more times before having anything more insightful to say.

The video below is of Alejandro talking about Real Animal.

Boot Camp

2008-06-23T16:10:00.007-05:00

The weekend before last, I took Leo to the Stoll Park dog park. It took him about 30 minutes to find the 8-inch deep mudpit in the wooded area of the park. This was mud that was full of decaying organic matter. He was a disgusting mess.

Yesterday, it took him about 5 minutes to find the same mudpit. Since he loves to include any person he can find in the best game in the entire world (throwing a tennis ball for Leo to fetch) I needed to put him on the leash immediately or every person at the park would have also been covered in mud. I was meeting a friend there so that our dogs could play together. While all the other dogs got to frolic and sniff each other to their hearts content, Leo had to stay within the 20 feet radius of me afforded by his retractable leash.

This picture was taken a few years ago in Washington, but it gives you an idea of what Leo looked like each of the past two weekends!

This morning I took him to the dog park at Shawnee Mission Park so that he could swim in the lake. He did not get muddy, but his behavior was disappointing. After only throwing the ball into the water twice, he decided to swim along the shore, picking up other dogs' tennis balls until he ended up about 20 yards beyond the dog park boundary. He was standing on the shore, surrounded by about 5 tennis balls, wagging his tail, wondering why I didn't climb over the brush (or go for a swim myself) to get to him and continue our game.

He finally came back over to me (only bringing 3 of the tennis balls - fortunately dog parks are full of stray tennis balls. The victims of his theft had plenty of other balls with which to play) I let him swim for a couple more minutes, but the next time he made a move to swim away from me, I decided it was time to go home.

I picked up some training size dog treats this afternoon, so doggie boot camp will begin tonight. Leo does enjoy working on his commands (come, down, heel, stay, go to bed, etc.) He has trouble staying in the "sit" position for more than 4 or 5 seconds because of the arthritis in his knees, but when he is "down" he can "stay" just fine. I hope that a couple of weeks of two-a-days will get him back to more polite behavior when we visit the dog parks.

I know that this is my fault. I ought to have him practice his commands a few times a week to keep them fresh in his mind. After boot camp is over, I'll need to be sure that we don't slack off again.

Random tidbits

2008-06-17T00:45:00.012-05:00

I've been in a blogging slump recently. Here are a few things I should have written about more extensively.

It turns out that I like bikes. My friends Greg and Peggie are into mountain biking. They have told me on several occasions that they think I also would like mountain biking. While Greg was out of town this past weekend, I borrowed his bike. Because of the recent rain, the mountain biking trails at Shawnee Mission Park were closed, so we rode on paved trails. I liked it. Now I'm checking out craigslist to see if I can find a decent, cheap mountain bike of my own. I wish I had done this while I still lived in Washington. The logging roads near my house would have a perfect place for a beginner to ride.
Obama is still great. There is a reason why this politician with center-left policy proposals is attractive to conservatives. Here is what he had to say about Father's Day.
George Bush loses his third Supreme Court ruling in a row over his detainee policy in Boumediene v. Bush. While I do have some questions about how the Constitution should apply to non-US citizens, most of the criticism of this decision has been of the "now the bad guys are going to eat our children" variety. What the Supreme Court actually decided was the Bush Administration does have to show some just cause for holding the detainees. What those critics of this decision miss is how Guantanamo Bay not only is an example of extreme immorality on behalf of the US, but it also weakens our national security. The traditional conservative George Will wrote today about how the right to petition for a writ of habeas corpus, which the Supreme Court upheld in its decision, is so fundamental to our entire system of government. I frequently disagree with Will, but other than his crack about McCain-Feingold, I wholeheartedly agree with every word in his column.
...No state power is more fearsome than the power to imprison. Hence the habeas right has been at the heart of the centuries-long struggle to constrain governments, a struggle in which the greatest event was the writing of America's Constitution, which limits Congress's power to revoke habeas corpus to periods of rebellion or invasion. Is it, as McCain suggests, indefensible to conclude that Congress exceeded its authority when, with the Military Commissions Act (2006), it withdrew any federal court jurisdiction over the detainees' habeas claims?

As the conservative and libertarian Cato Institute argued in its amicus brief in support of the petitioning detainees, habeas, in the context of U.S. constitutional law, "is a separation of powers principle" involving the judicial and executive branches. The latter cannot be the only judge of its own judgment...
The McClatchy newspapers, whose reporters have consistently provided the most thorough investigation of the Bush Adminstation's foreign policy since 9/11, is in the midst of a series about Guantanamo Bay.
An eight-month McClatchy investigation of the detention system created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has found that the U.S. imprisoned innocent men, subjected them to abuse, stripped them of their legal rights and allowed Islamic militants to turn the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba into a school for jihad.
It is depressing to read, but explains why the Supreme Court decision in Boumediene v. Bush is actually a step towards improving US national security. It is almost impossible to successfully wage a counter-insurgency operation in Afghanistan against the Taliban and al Qaead while we continue to hold and torture innocent Afghanis. If Bush has to respond to a writ of habeas corpus, then perhaps we would finally begin (after years!!) the process of sorting between the innocent and those who truly are terrorists and would be a continued threat if they were released.

BBQ, Beer, and the Blues

2008-06-08T22:36:00.005-05:00

During the last weekend in May, some friends from Washington came to town for a visit. Peggie and Greg moved to Kansas City just after I did last fall, while Chuck and Sheila live in Olympia. We all played volleyball together for a couple of years.

Me, Chuck, Sheila, Peggie, Greg

Chuck was wise enough to know that a trip to Kansas City just wouldn't be complete with having some BBQ and listening to some blues. Sunday night we decided to do both at BB's Lawnside BBQ. The BBQ was just okay (ever since I started doing my own burnt ends about 6 or 7 years ago, I haven't been happy with any that I've had in a restaurant) but they served Boulevard Beer and the music was fun. I think that Peggie, Greg and I will probably make more trips to BB's Lawnside.

I don't have many pictures of the weekend because I either forgot to bring my camera along, or when I did remember the batteries were dead. The few that I do have can be see here.

Is a Cylon Running for President?

2008-06-08T21:42:00.002-05:00

Found at metamerist.

Alejandro

2008-06-07T22:37:00.005-05:00

The Pitch (KC's weekly alternative paper) previewed Alejandro's show this afternoon at the Wakarusa festival in Lawrence. He played early enough in the afternoon that I could not make due to work.

When you watch Alejandro Escovedo live, you can be pretty sure you're watching the best band in America that night. His usual lineup often includes violin and cello in addition to a typical five-piece band. Escovedo's musicians move from the desperate, quiet spaces between lovers in the wee hours to dark urban soundscapes, incorporating strings from Lou Reed's Street Hassle and often climaxing the show with the Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog." Escovedo manages to take the musical and lyrical guts of the greatest Mott the Hoople song (or that of any other band that makes rock sound like it just might save your life) and cross them with his own unabashedly intimate and defiant vision. The Boxing Mirror was his first release after the illness that almost took his life a few years back, but his new one, Real Animal (due June 24, co-written with Chuck Prophet), is the album of an artist reborn. (D.A.)

Just a few weeks until I can get my hands on Real Animal. I can't wait. Here's video of Alejandro performing the Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog" that was mention above.

This video, while it's quality is lacking even by YouTube standards, gives you a feel of the softer side of a live Alejandro experience.

10 Most Recently Played in my iTunes

2008-06-07T22:08:00.002-05:00

I usually exclude any podcasts that I've listened to in these lists, so this weekend I thought I would list in order the podcasts that I listen to most frequently.

Left, Right, and Center
World Cafe's Words and Music
This American Life
Washington Week (and the Washington Week Webcast Extra)
The Brian Leher Show
The Leonard Lopate Show
The Splendid Table
NPR Driveway Moments
Fresh Air with Terry Gross
On the Media

It's interesting that all of these podcasts are originally either radio or TV shows. I do occasionally listen to some podcasts that originated as podcasts (The Mac Observer's Mac Geek Gab, The New York Times' World View, the US National Soccer Team's official podcast, Paste Magazine's Culture Club, Barack Obama's weekly podcast during his first year and a half or so in the Senate, the podcasts for Lost and Battlestar Galactica) but podcasts are mostly a more convenient way for me to access traditional media.

When I lived in Washington, I listened to podcasts a lot more because of how much time I spent driving to work and at least one or two trips to Olympia each week. Today my commute is 5 minutes and the furthest I drive on a regular basis is to the downtown Costco every couple of weeks. That means that it is almost alway music playing on my truck's ipod.

June Recipe

2008-06-07T22:05:00.001-05:00

(Each month, I include a recipe in the monthly newsletter for the kitchen where I work. These recipes need to complement the entrees on our menu that particular month, and are targeted towards our average customer. That means it needs to be simple, require little active prep work, and use only the most basic ingredients. Here is what we published in June.)

Summer is the time for grilled meats, cool drinks, and picnics. What picnic is complete without a potato salad? Try this twist on the summertime tradition by using sweet potatoes in place of the traditional russet or red potatoes. Sweet potatoes are full of fiber, complex carbohydrates, protein, vitamins A (in the form of beta carotene) and C, iron, and calcium. Besides, they are naturally sweet and taste great. This salad will work well with any of our grilled entrees.

Sweet Potato Salad

4 large sweet potatoes, diced into 1/2 inch cubes
3 green onions, cut into 1/4 inch slices
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
3/4 cup cider vinegar
2 teaspoons honey
Salt and pepper
1/4 cup coarsely chopped flat-leaf parsley

Bring water to boil in a large pot. Add sweet potatoes and 1 teaspoon salt and cook until potatoes are tender but still offer considerable resistance when pierced with fork, about 8 minutes. Drain, rinse with cold water, drain again, and set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together olive oil, the mustard, vinegar, and honey. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Add potatoes, green onions, and parsley and toss until potatoes are well coated. Serve at room temperature or chilled.

More Initiative Games

2008-06-07T21:48:00.004-05:00

The day after this incident occurred, we received a phone call at the kitchen. The conversation went something like this:

Caller: Do you ever do team building activities?

Me: Well, we just had one yesterday.
Me (what I'm thinking): We just had our first one ever yesterday.

Caller: Wow, great! What do you typically do for those activities?

Me: Yesterday the group who came had their own facilitator. They formed two different teams and had different obstacles to overcome as they assembled each entree. The obstacles were things like only one team member could see the recipe, and they had to communicate the instructions to the rest of their team using charades. Others involved making their entrees blindfolded or with the groups hands tied together.
Me (what I'm thinking): Typically?!? All we did yesterday was set up the stations and let the professional run the show.

Caller: Oh, that's perfect - much better than the ideas I had. Can I bring 5 of my employees to your kitchen next week and have you facilitate the activities?

Me: Let me check our schedule.
Me (what I'm thinking): Did I just rejoin Residence Life?

Next Friday we are hosting this group and I'm facilitating the games. I though I had left organizing group games behind after leaving both my job as an RA and my various youth and family ministry jobs. It's interesting that the part of my former career that I always felt was one of the most superficial things I did (leading group games) is now turning up in my new food career.

Initiative Games

2008-06-03T22:15:00.004-05:00

I spent one year in college as an Resident Assistant. The picture that most people have of an RA (living in a single on a long hall in a dorm room, holding social events for residents, building "team spirit," enforcing anti-alcohol rules, resolving roommate disputes, etc.) is not at all what my job involved. I was one of three RA's in an off-campus apartment building in which CMU leased rooms. Our apartments were interspersed among other residents, from other students to senior citizens.

Most of my residents were upperclassmen who wanted to get away from the typical dorm experience. They did not want to attend social events, they had more privacy in their apartments than a resident of a dorm would have, and they chose their roommates.

All of us RA's for the various off-campus apartments were a bit of a breed apart. We had a different approach to the cheerleading, rah-rah style that typified Residence Life. But one of the biggest differences was our attitude towards "team-building" or "initiative" games.

We hated them.

Whether it was RA training, or Freshmen orientation, or just a normal staff meeting, ResLife could not seem to do anything doing some kind relay race or a trust fall or untying a human knot. Now, I understand that those games have some value the first dozen or so times one plays them, but I had more than my share of those before finishing high school. The off-campus apartment RA's never made our residents play a game to help them bond with each other.

So it was amusing to see a group come into the kitchen today and do some of those same team-building games, and enjoy them.

We got a phone call at about 1:00 from the president of TeamSynergy, a consulting company that does team building events for businesses. They had planned to bring the staff of a local church to one of our competitors for a cooking event, but they just found out that the other kitchen did not have enough food (I don't know how you schedule an event and first, don't order the food to be able to hold the event, and second, why they could not walk across their parking lot to buy what they lacked at the grocery store) He was wondering if there was any way they we could host their event 30 minutes later.

"Of course," the owner said. So we did. It was a little bit like our own team-building game to try to prepare for this event with only 30 minutes notice.

The timing was actually good for us, as we had finished most of our major prep work for week and the kitchen was well stocked. Because it was our major prep day, the owner and I had two other employees in the kitchen to help us clean and set-up three stations for the groups to use making their entrees. We used every bit of those 30 minutes to get ready, but it did all come together. The biggest problem with this impromptu event was that I didn't get a chance to have lunch until around 4pm.

So there I was, being reminded of my days as an RA, watching team building games being combined with cooking. In one team, only one person was allowed to read the recipe and she had to use charades to communicate to the rest of the group how to make the entree. In another, the four team member had to tie their arms and hands together before starting to work on their entree. There were blindfolds, that old initiative game standby, involved in another group.

It sure seemed like these ladies had never played these kinds of games before. They fell into all of the usual traps (the quiet member had the right answer but was ignored, impatience led the group to overlook the simple directions, one person on the team would just start out on their own without regard to the rest of the team, etc.) but sure had fun doing it! The day was a good reminder to me that these things have value, even if they seem old and tired to me.

Posnanaski's Greatest Day in Sportwriting

2008-06-02T17:03:00.004-05:00

This post is what really convinced me that Posnanski is a great writer, even though he writes about baseball too much. It has everything; a historic event, multiple tangents, pop culture references.

So, this was at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. I mentioned here earlier that the Olympics are like nothing else in sports journalism. You become entirely and inexplicably consumed by the Games, especially at the Summer Olympics where there are always about twenty different things going on at once. It really is hard to explain the absurd enormity being in the middle of it all. From home, I always thought, the Olympics seemed pretty big. But when you are there, diving is like the World Series, water polo is like the Super Bowl, rhythmic gymnastics is like the Masters. Yes, from afar these are still diving, water polo and rhythmic gymnastics … but there, at the heart of it, you are blinded to perspective. You are bumping shoulders with reporters and fans from pretty much every country in the world. You are surrounded by sellout crowds, including many people who may have actually paid a scalper a lot of money to see that day’s beach volleyball match. You are talking only to athletes who have DEDICATED THEIR ENTIRE LIVES to be their for that one moment. You are also pretty much shut off from pennant races and NFL training camps and golf majors and presidential news and anything else that might be distracting. You are living, breathing, drinking, sleeping Olympics. It is everything.*

*I’ve always thought that after three weeks of Olympic immersion, reporters would blindly kill after being shown the Queen of Diamonds.

So, with that background, it was the day of the gold medal baseball game. Tommy Lasorda was manager of that team, you might recall. I wanted to go somewhere else. It wasn’t personal. We had someone going to the game, and I had already written about Lasorda and that team, and anyway — I don’t like baseball at the Olympics. I don’t like tennis at the Olympics. For a while they were trying to add golf — I’m glad they didn’t. I like it when the Olympics are CLEARLY the most important event in your sport.

So, I was looking for something cool to write about — this is a big thing at the Olympics.

You need to read the rest of his post to see what he found to write about.

Sports Night

2008-06-02T16:53:00.002-05:00

The Posnanski column and blog postings about the Lester no-hitter reminds me of the pilot episode of Sports Night when Casey calls his son late at night to tell him turn on the TV. Sports Night is the story about a small, struggling cable sports show that faces constant pressure from the network to increase their ratings. In the pilot, a suit (J.J.) from the network gives the anchors (Dan and Casey) and producers (Dana and Natalie) notes on their upcoming broadcast and objects to one of their planned stories.

Dana rather pleasantly asks what J.J.'s concerns are. "Who is Ntozake Nelson?"

Natalie explains that Nelson is a South African distance runner, 15,000 meters. He led protests against the white majority.

J.J. says, "That's swell, but..."

but Natalie won't let him cut her off and says, "He was beaten up and thrown in jail. His legs were broken and the doctor said he'd never walk without a cane. He's 41 years old and guess what he's doing tonight," says Natalie.

"It doesn't matter since I've already changed the channel," says J.J.

The race takes places just before the broadcast. As Dan and Casey are preparing to go on the air, they are told to run into the newsroom.

On the monitors is the long-distance race -- there's one runner far ahead of the pack. Anyone want to guess who's winning? The entire staff is rapt, watching the screens. Lucky Dan showed up, because no one thought to turn on the audio until he screeched for it, while Casey starts saying, "That time can't be right!"

As the race enters the final moments, everyone starts cheering Nelson on. Casey looks around and runs to a phone and calls Charlie (who had to be woken up by Lisa -- I don't see this custody arrangement changing any time soon). Isaac looks over and spies Casey rushing into the meeting room where it's quieter.

"Charlie! It's Dad! Did you finish all your homework?" Wha? (To his credit, Casey makes a "why did I ask that?" gesture.) Casey tells Charlie to turn on the TV ("My channel," says Casey. I liked that). He tells Charlie who the runner is. "I'll call you tomorrow and tell you all about it, but for now you just watch him run. He's not doing much, he's just running faster than any man has ever run before."

He then tells Charlie he's going to be on air soon, and Charlie can stay up to watch the beginning of the show ("if Mom says it's okay") but when he gives Charlie the special signal (aw!), he has to turn off the TV. Casey's voice breaks a little as he says, "I love you too, Charlie."

(Quote is from the Television Without Pity recap)

I think that sports brings out my inner sap. Rewatching that episode, having come to "know" the character of Casey, my eyes start to water while he's on the phone with his son.

Why I'm a Sports Fan

2008-06-02T16:34:00.007-05:00

One of the things that impresses me about Posnanski is that he captures what I love about sports, even when he's writing about something as boring as baseball (which he does way too much)

Last week, the Royals were involved in the losing end of a no-hitter. Here's a portion of the column Posnanski wrote following the game.

There are not many places in the world that are quieter than the losing clubhouse after a no-hitter. Everyone speaks in whispers. Televisions are dark. The stereo is mute. Kansas City’s Billy Butler, the 22-year-old kid from Florida who loves nothing more than talking and swinging bats at incoming fastballs, shakes his head.

“He didn’t make any mistakes,” he murmurs.

And to the next question: “He didn’t make any mistakes,” he murmurs again.

He is Jon Lester of the Boston Red Sox, who on a cold and windy Monday night against the Royals became the first left-hander in more than 50 years to throw a no-hitter at Fenway Park. He also became the first pitcher to no-hit the Royals since 1973, when Nolan Ryan was young and threw 100 mph. He also sparked tears of joy through Fenway Park because just 19 months ago, Jon Lester was checked out by doctors because of some sharp back pain, and he was told that he had lymphoma. They told him it was treatable. They could not tell him that he would ever be a Major League pitcher again.

“God willing … we beat it, we got it under control, we’ll start thinking about baseball, back to pitching,” he told reporters then. “Until we do that, we’ve got a long road ahead.”

From there — from a fight for his life — to here, Monday, raw night, packed stadium, harsh wind, everyone’s hearts in their throats. He threw 130 pitches, the last his fastest of the night, maybe the fastest of his life, a 96-mph fastball, high and away and rising. Kansas City’s Alberto Callaspo waved the bat helplessly.

That’s when the loudest sound that 37,000 or so people can make detonated, a World Series-clinching sound, a Secretariat thundering down the stretch sound, a birdie putt to win the Masters sound. Catcher Jason Varitek charged the mound to jump on Lester. Red Sox players rushed in from all directions. Fans all over the park unfolded their cell phones and called someone — anyone — to say they were here. They are still here. Outside the losing clubhouse, a half hour after the last pitch, they’re still talking into cell phones, still hugging and laughing and asking each other, “Can you believe it?”

The following is from his blog about the no-hitter.

One of the best parts about being a sports fan is that moment before the moment when you know something remarkable is about to happen. This feeling comes over you. It’s not something that you can easily explain, but you sense that someone is about to hit a home run, or you feel a game-winning touchdown drive is going to happen, or sense that this rush will lead to a spectacular goal, or you know even before the ball leaves the players’ hands that it will swish through.

I’m not talking here about the logical side of the brain at work — that’s different. Sure, a pitcher gets what appears to be the third out of the inning, a fielder drops the ball, you see the pitcher stomping around, you watch him mope his way to a 3-1 count against Papi or Albert or Thomenator, and yeah, it’s not hard to predict what very well might come next. You are a Cleveland Browns or Kansas City Chiefs fan or Denver Broncos fan or, well, really anyone, and John Elway gets the ball with the game on the line in the final minutes, yeah, that’s not not a hard prediction either.

No, here I’m talking about sensing something that isn’t logical, isn’t easily accessible, something that comes from a deeper place, that reservoir of all your feelings as a sports fan...

...And as I left Fenway Park, I thought again about that feeling I had, that feeling you get sometimes as a sports fan, that feeling that “Hey, I’m going to see something unforgettable.” Truth is, most of the time, the feeling dies inside you because unforgettable things don’t happen very often. Here’s the great thing, though. Sometimes, they do.

Lester's story is one of those inspiring things you come across in the sports world. Cancer survivor surrounded by doubts that he could ever play again who accomplishes something extraordinarily rare. In one simple game, you have the elements of good drama; interesting characters, conflict, internal and external obstacles, joy, and a resolution.

Sports Writing

2008-06-02T15:47:00.004-05:00

When I wrote about Battlestar Galactica, I mentioned the idea that I don't care as much about the genre of a TV show as I do about whether or not the shows tells a good story. I feel the same way about writing in general. I'll read pretty much anything that Malcolm Gladwell writes, from articles about ketchup to IQ and race.

Joe Posnanski is a sports columnist for the Kansas City Star. While living in both Pittsburgh and in Washington, I routinely read the Star's sports coverage online as a way to keep up with the Chiefs and the Wizards. I had always enjoyed reading Posnanski's columns (he's won multiple awards from the Associated Press Sports Editors) but I really started to appreciate how good he is when I started reading his blog a couple of months ago. He's so good that occasionally even his posts about baseball are interesting.

When I first wrote this, it ended up being this really, really long post with multiple quotes about showing how Posnanski (and the show Sports Night) capture what I love about sports. I decided that it would be much easier to break it up into multiple posts.

Trailer for New Joss Whedon Show

2008-06-02T09:59:00.002-05:00

Dolls

Looming Robot Menance, Part V

2008-05-28T23:26:00.006-05:00

My alma mater is up to it again. Apparently researchers from CMU and Pitt have taught monkeys to control robot arms with their brains.

Two monkeys with tiny sensors in their brains have learned to control a mechanical arm with just their thoughts, using it to reach for and grab food and even to adjust for the size and stickiness of morsels when necessary, scientists reported on Wednesday...

...just beneath the monkeys’ skulls, the scientists implanted a grid about the size of a large freckle. It sat on the motor cortex, over a patch of cells known to signal arm and hand movements. The grid held 100 tiny electrodes, each connecting to a single neuron, its wires running out of the brain and to a computer.

The computer was programmed to analyze the collective firing of these 100 motor neurons, translate that sum into an electronic command and send it instantaneously to the arm, which was mounted flush with the left shoulder.

The scientists used the computer to help the monkeys move the arm at first, essentially teaching them with biofeedback.

After several days, the monkeys needed no help. They sat stationary in a chair, repeatedly manipulating the arm with their brain to reach out and grab grapes, marshmallows and other nuggets dangled in front of them. The snacks reached the mouths about two-thirds of the time — an impressive rate, compared with earlier work...

...On several occasions, a monkey kept its claw open on the way back, with the food stuck to one finger. At other times, a monkey moved the arm to lick the fingers clean or to push a bit of food into its mouth while ignoring a newly presented morsel.

The animals were apparently freelancing, discovering new uses for the arm, showing “displays of embodiment that would never be seen in a virtual environment,” the researchers wrote.

There is video of one of the monkeys at the NY Times website.

Baby in Black

2008-05-27T22:31:00.007-05:00

My parents were the first couple among their group of friends in Georgia to have a baby, so I was "adopted" by some of them. Mel and Debbie, in particular, spent a lot of time with me. It was Mel who introduced me to the joys of Saturday morning cartoons and old school country music. I've heard stories about him perching me on the center console in the front seat of his car so that I would be close to the radio. We would both sing along as loud as possible with artists such as The Stanley Brothers and Johnny Cash. I don't know if I've listened to The Stanley Brothers since then (although anyone who has seen O Brother, Where Art Thou? or listened to the soundtrack is familiar with the surviving brother, Ralph) but Cash stuck.

In the spirit of Mel, I figure that I should take some responsibility for shaping Finn's musical influences; hence my gift of the Cash onsie. I don't need to worry that Finn's life will lack music as it plays a big role in both of his parents' lives. Matt has an absolutely beautiful voice, but he's a tenor. I know he likes to sing Johnny Cash tunes to Finn, but to do Cash justice you gotta have that big resonance in your voice. Not that I am half the singer that Matt is (or Cash), but I am a bass. As you can see below, Finn is happy for me to help out.

Running Update

2008-05-26T13:47:00.003-05:00

Well, I did my first organized run this morning. Despite the threat of thunderstorms, the weather wasn't too bad. There was some light sprinkles both before and after the run, but not during. I felt fine, and ran at pretty much my normal pace. After the first 200 yards or so, the crowd thinned out enough that I wasn't worried about running into anyone, or anyone running into me.

I noticed that about a third of the runners were wearing headphones. I had thought that was bad form for these kinds of races (the sign-up forms had everyone explicitly agree to not wear them) It didn't seem to be an issue, but I think the threat of poor weather held the turn-out down. Maybe it's a bigger deal with larger crowds?

Next up is a longer run with more hills. I have more work to do to get ready for that!

Therapeutic Blogging

2008-05-26T13:29:00.005-05:00

Scientific American has an article about blogging becoming a focus on study.

Self-medication may be the reason the blogosphere has taken off. Scientists (and writers) have long known about the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. But besides serving as a stress-coping mechanism, expressive writing produces many physiological benefits. Research shows that it improves memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral load in AIDS patients, and even speeds healing after surgery. A study in the February issue of the Oncologist reports that cancer patients who engaged in expressive writing just before treatment felt markedly better, mentally and physically, as compared with patients who did not.

I think better when I'm writing. I am better able to clarify my thoughts and feelings when I try to express them "on paper" (actually, almost all of my writing is down on my computer, but it doesn't sound right to say I'm expressing my thoughts "in pixels," does it?) than at just about any other time. I've had times when I didn't know what I thought about something until I sat down and spent some time trying to write about it. The way that writing in general, and also of blogging, has been a form of self-medication for me is in self-discovery. I don't know about the physiological benefits, but I do understand myself better from my writing.

Maybe it's time to give playwriting another crack. Of all of the creative writing I did in college, playwriting was the most satisfying. I've had a few premises in the back of my mind the past couple of years, but never worked on them. None of those ideas interest me much anymore, but I think I'll be on the lookout for the kernel of a story that could be told on stage.

Baz Luhrmann's New Film

2008-05-26T13:23:00.002-05:00

Baz Luhrmann, director of Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet, and Moulin Rouge, has a new film scheduled to be released in November. The trailer can be seen here.

More Alejandro

2008-05-26T13:16:00.003-05:00

Paste Magazine published an interview with Alejandro about his new album. You could go read it on their site, but if you read the same interview at Alejandro's own website you can listen to three of the songs from "Real Animal." Here's the intro to the interview:

Although he's yet to cross into his sixth decade, it seems like Alejandro Escovedo has lived enough life to fill a century of lyric booklets. After a harrowing battle with Hepatitis C left him vomiting blood at the side of the stage in Arizona, the Austin-based musician gave up the rock-star lifestyle and delved into his near-death experience on 2006's brooding, John Cale-produced, critically-acclaimed album The Boxing Mirror. Escovedo's ninth solo offering, the upcoming Real Animal, chronicles the glory days of Escovedo's colorful journey, starting when he was a young California punk enraptured by glam rock and continuing through to when he settled down in Texas and began his solo career. In a neat turn of events, Real Animal was produced by the man who helmed so many of Escovedo's favorite records, the legendary Tony Visconti (T. Rex, Bowie, Morrissey...to name just a few). Paste spoke to Escovedo on the eve of South By Southwest, where he was preparing to perform Real Animal in its entirety with cowriter Chuck Prophet.

Aggressive Foreign Policy Doesn't Have to be Stupid

2008-05-26T13:05:00.003-05:00

Some of the talk about Obama's popularity being a generational thing does not sound too convincing. His ability to forcefully respond to the intellectually bankrupt Republican approach to foreign policy equating "toughness," however, does seem to have an generational element. He was too young for Vietnam, which might have something to do with why he doesn't feel the need to apologize for not being pro-war all the time. Michael Tomasky illustrates an example of this in The Guardian. Before this section of the article, he described Bush's claim that Democrats like Obama were appeasers who would have rolled over and given all of Europe to Hitler.

John McCain, that same Thursday morning, was giving a speech in part about the need to move beyond the partisan bickering of the last decade. Within an hour or two, following Bush's lead, McCain attacked Obama: "What does he want to talk about with Ahmadinejad, who said Israel is a stinking corpse?" The Obama campaign emailed reporters accusing Bush of launching "a false political attack".
Now here's the important part. In the past two presidential campaigns, that's where this would have ended. The Democrat "responded" for the record, but somewhat perfunctorily, while the Republicans got their point across: the Democrats are appeasers, the Democratic nominee wants to talk to terrorists and he won't keep the country safe.
Game, set, match. This is how Bush built margins of trust with voters over Al Gore and John Kerry on national-security questions. Invoke appeasement of Hitler, toss in Israel's safety: this is exactly the kind of thing that sent Gore and Kerry running for the hills. Even Bill Clinton, who knew better how to return a punch, would have tried to change the subject back to the economy.
But the current version of the story ends differently. Last Friday, in South Dakota, Obama gave an extended and aggressive press conference in which he hit back hard. Bush and McCain, he told Americans, "are trying to fool you. They're trying to scare you. And they're not telling you the truth." He ticked off the lies that were told about Iraq and the benefits that would redound from making war there, noting that not one of the promises had come to pass.
The headline that afternoon on the influential blog of Mark Halperin, of Time magazine, conveyed the takeaway: "Bam!! Bop!!!! Bash!!"

10 Most Recently Played in my iTunes

2008-05-26T11:37:00.005-05:00

Send Me On My Way - Rusted Root - 03/30/05 Boston
Back To The Earth - Rusted Root - 03/30/05 Boston
Blue Diamonds - Rusted Root - 03/30/05 Boston
Ecstasy - Rusted Root - 03/30/05 Boston
Powderfinger @ - Rusted Root - 03/30/05 Boston
Weave - Rusted Root - 03/30/05 Boston
Cruel Sun - Rusted Root - 03/30/05 Boston
Too Much - Rusted Root - 03/30/05 Boston
Heaven - Rusted Root - 03/30/05 Boston
Cat Turned Blue - Rusted Root - 03/30/05 Boston

Occasionally, I listen to an actual album instead of one my various playlists. Yesterday I was applying polyurethane to the hardwood floors my dad and I have been refinishing, and a Rusted Root concert seemed like an appropriate soundtrack.

Rusted Root was probably my favorite "local" band when I lived in Pittsburgh. CMU hosted a number of concerts during my years on campus, and Rusted Root was the best (The Mighty, Mighty Bosstones were great during my freshman year, but my enjoyment of that concert probably had more to do with the girl with whom I attended the show!)

Okay, just one thing

2008-05-21T22:30:00.004-05:00

Last Sunday, the KC Star published a long cartoon by local artist Travis Fox reminiscing about summers in Kansas City as a kid. I'm guessing that Fox is close to the same age as I am, because there were several sections that immediately felt familiar, particularly Worlds of Fun, Royals Games (in the 1980's the Royals were great and I was actually a baseball fan back then - I never worried about foul balls, though) and Cool Crest.

Check it out!

Update

2008-05-21T22:19:00.003-05:00

Ever since I visit Finn, Matt & Monte, I have not been writing here much. I doubt that will change this week, even though I have a backlog of things I want to blog about.

The owner of the kitchen where I work had a horrible weekend. Last Friday he had to put the family dog to sleep. Then on Saturday night, his 53 year old brother had a heart attack and died. When I talked to him on the phone Sunday afternoon, he sounded like he was in a bit of shock. I'm sure I would have sounded the same. He's spending this week in California with his family, which leaves me in charge of the kitchen this week.

So far, things have gone really well. I'm not too worried about the rest of the week, either, but it does take more energy being the "decider" for everything. All in all, its one more good experience to have in preparation for my future food related endeavors. I just wish it did not come about under such sad circumstances.

Soccer

2008-05-13T22:51:00.004-05:00

When I lived in Pittsburgh, Karl, a friend from college, played on an adult indoor soccer team. One time when his team was shorthanded, he asked me and two other college buddies to play with them. I think I feel confident saying that all three of us overestimated our level of fitness. At the time I was playing basketball with teenagers a couple of times a week at work, so I thought I would be okay. I was wrong.

If you are not familiar with indoor soccer, it is played on a field the size of an ice hockey rink with each team fielding 5 players plus a goalie. Ideally each team has at least 10 field payers so that any one person is only on the field for a 4 or 5 minutes shift. You are basically sprinting the entire time you are on the field, so you need to take frequent breaks (unlike outdoor soccer whose larger field and greater number of players mean you are constantly jogging with the occasional sprint - allowing you to pace yourself much easier)

Even with the three of us joining Karl's team, there were only a couple of subs. It was brutal. Not only was the opponent in good shape, but they were all skilled players. Let's just say it was a good thing there was a large trash can right next to the field. There was puking and pulled muscles and generalized humiliation all around.

Fortunately, I had a much better experience tonight when I joined a pickup game at a nearby park. The vast majority of the players were between 25-35 year old, were in decent shape, and had obviously been playing quite a bit. I did fine. Any observer would not have needed much time to pick me out as the guy who had not played any soccer for several years, but the running I have been doing over past few months served me well.

My touch was way off, and I badly misjudged several balls in the air, but I did feel like I was able to "see" the game. There were a number of times when I could anticipate a play developing, and knew where I wanted to put the ball to make that happen, but my feet just couldn't execute what my mind told them to do. After an hour or so, I was able to make a few nice passes.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun to get back on a soccer field. I hope to make this a regular thing on Tuesdays, and would love to find another game to join on the weekend. I hope that by playing consistently I can regain some of my touch on the ball. I'm sure I will be sore tomorrow (running sideways, backwards, and the kicking all use different muscles than what are used by simply jogging) and I have a nice little bruise on my left heel. A significant part of my motivation for the jogging was so that I could play soccer again and enjoy it, and I've accomplished that!

One of the fun things about these pickup games is that the players are from all over the world. Of the 17 or 18 guys who showed up tonight, countries represented on the field included the UK, Jamaica, Turkey, and at least one Central American county.

Metabolism

2008-05-12T23:30:00.002-05:00

Leo needed to go to the vet today for updating vaccines and to get him on Frontline for ticks. (On Sunday I found two ticks on him even though he had only been in the backyard or on walks in the neighborhood recently - I'll spare you the photos of those nasty things)

I talked to the vet about how he has gained some weight over the past 6 weeks or so. She said that since he is about 4 and 1/2 years old, his metabolism is probably starting to slow down, just like what happens with us when we hit our 30's. She wasn't worried about his weight, but didn't want him to gain any more. So, since he's been getting a decent amount of exercise since the weather has warmed up, it's less food for Leo. Sorry guy, I guess you know how I feel.

10 Most Recently Played in my iTunes

2008-05-11T21:54:00.003-05:00

Request Line - Blackeyed Peas - Bridging the Gap
Radio Nowhere - Bruce Springsteen - Magic
Tip Of My Tongue - The Choir - Orphans Of God (Disc 2)
Right Here, Right Now - Fatboy Slim - You've Come a Long Way, Baby
Don't Let The Man Get You Down - Fatboy Slim - The Greatest Hits
Wonderful Night - Fatboy Slim - SXSW 2005 Showcasing Artist
I'm Not Afraid - Fleming & John - Delusions Of Grandeur
A Place Called Love - Fleming & John - Delusions Of Grandeur
Hung Up - Madonna - Confessions On a Dance Floor (Deluxe Version)
Dance My Pain Away - Rod Lee - The Wire...and all the pieces matter

I just synced my running ipod, so these songs are from my "Running" playlist. I particularly like "Don't Let The Man Get You Down," because in college I would have been counted as one of the "long haired freaky people."

Running Update

2008-05-11T21:48:00.002-05:00

The Hospital Hill Run is less than a month away, so this afternoon I added hills to my run.

Hills suck.

The Looming Robot Menace, Part IV

2008-05-08T23:16:00.003-05:00

So now the Army is pursuing research into creating tiny robots. Think of a swarm of insect sized robots that go into places you cannot, or do not want, to send a human. They would collect intel and send it back to human soldiers.

So now we are working on robots to control limbs, to drive autonomously, carry military gear off road, to act like George Bush, and now to swarm like insects and gather intelligence. Great.

I suppose I should point out that while my series of posts about robots are tongue-in-cheek, I also believe that there are some real concerns. Not that the robots will rebel and overthrow their human masters, but rather about how easy it seems to be to accept new technology uncritically. Just because something is new or cool, does not necessarily mean it is good. I'm no technophobe, but not a technophile either. Things like email and text messaging change the way we communicate. Some of that is positive and some is not, and if we simply uncritically accept the changes then it will be almost impossible to accentuate the positive aspects while minimizing the negative.

I'm back

2008-05-08T23:11:00.003-05:00

I had a wonderful trip to New Hampshire. There was much eating and carrying Finn and taking pictures (some to be seen on Flickr with more to come) and a few naps and even some singing.

My weekend plans...

2008-05-03T10:36:00.002-05:00

...involve being a pillow for my nephew, Finn.

Soccer

2008-04-30T22:04:00.002-05:00

Ever wonder what it's like to play world class soccer? The perspective of a player working his way up through several teams and facing off against the world's best. From a Nike commercial.

May Recipe

2008-04-29T23:01:00.002-05:00

(Each month, I include a recipe in the monthly newsletter for the kitchen where I work. These recipes need to complement the entrees on our menu that particular month, and are targeted towards our average customer. That means it needs to be simple, require little active prep work, and use only the most basic ingredients. For May, it is not a recipe, but a technique. You can find all of the recipes from that newsletter by clicking on the Recipe label.)

Grilling 101

May is a great time of year to get the grill out, clean it up, and get a fire going. A number of the entrees on our May menu can be grilled, so here are a few things to remember to get the best results.

Your heat source. Whether you are using a gas grill or charcoal, you will want to have one part of the grill hot and another part of the grill medium hot. After preheating the grill (for at least 15 minutes on a gas grill and 30 minutes with charcoal), hold your hand about 5 inches above the grill and count how long you can comfortably hold it there. If it's only 2 seconds, you have a hot grill. If it's 3-4 seconds, then you have a medium hot grill.

Your grill grates. Clean grates will keep last night's meal from flavoring tonight's, and will keep your food from sticking. After preheating the grill, scrape all of the residue off the grates with a metal grill brush. Then oil the grates with vegetable oil. Using tongs, dip a wad of paper towels into a small bowl of oil, then rub the paper towels over the hot grates (wait until the towels stop dripping - you don't want oil to drip right into the fire!) Oil the grates immediately before adding the food.

Your food. Start your chops, chicken, or steak over the hottest part of the fire. After 2-3 minutes, depending on the thickness of the meat, flip it (you want to see grill marks, and the meat should release from the grates. If it sticks, wait another 60 seconds and try again) using tongs. A spatula works too, but avoid using a fork. You want to keep all of the delicious juices inside the meat, not dripping into the fire. Give the second side about the same amount of time, then flip it once more, moving the meat to the cooler part of the grill. (If at any time while the meat is on the hot part of the fire there are flare-ups, you should move the meat to the cooler side of the grill) If you rotate the meat about 60 degree, you will end up with nice diamond shaped grill marks. Again, give the first side another 2-3 minutes, and then flip it a final time.

When is it done? The only way to be sure is with an instant read thermometer. Pick up the meat with your tongs and insert the thermometer through the side of the meat until most of the shaft in is the meat (unless you have an electronic thermometer - then you want the tip to be in the center of the piece of meat) Check the label on your entree to see the minimum temperature required for your entree. Because grills have hot spots and drafts, you need to check each chop or chicken breast - don't assume that they will all be done at exactly the same time.

Enjoy!

97% Safe

2008-04-28T23:01:00.000-05:00

I received the results from my ServSafe certification class I took a couple of weeks ago. It's not a terribly impressive result. Anyone who graduated from High School ought to be able to pass this. There were important things on the test, things that anyone working with food needs to have memorized - such as the optimal conditions for bacterial growth and minimum recommended cooking temperature for various foods. There were also things on the test that I really don't think I need to have memorized.

I don't need to know off the top of my head whether a shellfish poisoning likely came from saxitoxin, brevetoxin, or domoic acid, particularly if I know that I can find out within a minute or two. Our short term memory has a limited capacity, and it takes work to move info from short term to long term memory.

One of the ways that the world has changed recently is that the value of being able to find information has increased. With so much information available on the web, knowing how to find the exact piece of information you need is critical. And while the "information superhighway" has put a vast amount of information at our fingertips, but it has also placed an equally (if not greater) amount of junk at our disposal as well. Knowing how to use a google search (or when google is not the right tool to use to find the info you need) is a skill that has real value.

I think I sometimes take this for granted, but then someone will ask me how to find a particular website. I don't usually bother to memorize an exact url, so I can't give them the answer that they think they need. I would just search for it, but usually the person with the question has already tried that. Various tips about how to use google help somewhat, but they assume you know which words to use. All the Boolean operators in the world won't help if the words you use are vague or you don't use enough words.

I imagine web search optimization (for the people doing the searches, not for people trying to drive traffic to their website) will become a standard part of school curriculum. I remember being in elementary school and learning how to use the card catalog and to understand the Dewey decimal system in a library. Learning how to use to a search engine, and then how to evaluate the results of your search, are just as important now.

Running Update

2008-04-27T12:58:00.003-05:00

I'm still running, and I can tell that I'm slowly getting in better shape. Yesterday I did the 5K route near my house and only needed to stop to walk once. I think that I'm going to sign up to do the Hospital Hill 5K in six weeks. As it's name implies, there will be a lot more elevation gain on that run than what I'm currently doing. I could do a flat 5K without walking really soon, so doing Hospital Hill will provide a bit more of a challenge for my first official 5K. Since I hate the heat, I doubt I will add too many miles this summer, but I will find a 10K to do in the fall. I think having some events lined up will help my motivation to keep running.

I don't think I would start running barefoot, but this article in New York Magazine certainly has some food for thought. I've always liked to go barefoot as much as possible, and this article verifies my suspicion that it is healthy to do so. It's been years since I had a pair of Gazelles, but they weren't like this photo that accompanied the article.

10 Most Recently Played in my iTunes

2008-04-26T22:43:00.003-05:00

Air Mail Special - Ella Fitzgerald - First Lady Of Song [Disc 1]
Don't Be That Way - Ella Fitzgerald - First Lady Of Song [Disc 3]
A Fine Romance - Ella Fitzgerald - First Lady Of Song [Disc 3]
Save Me - Nina Simone - The Very Best Of Volume 2
Flamenco Sketches - Miles Davis - Kind Of Blue
All Blues - Miles Davis - Kind Of Blue
Arizona - Alejandro Escovedo - The Boxing Mirror
Pyramid Of Tears - Alejandro Escovedo - Gravity [Live] [Disc 2]
Go Ahead - Alicia Keys - As I Am
Rehab - Amy Winehouse - Back To Black Ltd. Ed. Reissue

I don't have as much to say about this list tonight. There's some jazz on it. As a Kansas City native, I feel like I ought to know more about jazz than I do. The few times that I've gone to a jazz club, I've been mesmerized. Some of the folks at Arts & Faith had some suggestions for those looking to explore jazz, which I why I picked up the Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone.

The Looming Robot Menace, part III

2008-04-23T23:01:00.004-05:00

All of the robot posts were really just an excuse to talk about Battlestar Galactica. If the only Battlestar Galactica that comes to mind for you is the cheesy late 70's Star Wars wanna-be, then you might be pleasantly surprised by the new version. From the wikipedia page:

The new Battlestar Galactica departs from the original in several ways. In terms of style and storytelling, it rejects the traditional televised science fiction styles of Star Trek (after which the original Battlestar Galactica series was conceived) in favor of what executive producer Ronald D. Moore calls "naturalistic science fiction". The new series emphasizes character drama in an edgy survivalist setting and has many of the characteristics of military science fiction, shedding the light-hearted action/adventure style of the original show. Among plot differences, the key characters of Starbuck and Boomer have been recast as female roles. The Cylons are the creation of Man and a new breed of Cylon models now imitate humanoid appearance down to the cellular level.
Ronald D. Moore tackled the re-imagining with realism in mind, portraying the show's heroes as being part of a "flawed" humanity, and drawing inspiration from the September 11, 2001 attacks and their aftermath. In the re-imagined series, many characters struggle with deep personal flaws; for example, Adama and his son have a profoundly dysfunctional relationship while Colonel Tigh is an alcoholic. Their enemy is one capable of living amongst them unnoticed and willing to carry out suicide attacks, allowing an exploration of moral and ethical issues brought up by the War on Terrorism. The show has dealt with Cylon and human suicide bombers, the torture of prisoners, and a struggle motivated by intense religious differences. To add to this realism, the creative direction also redesigned Galactica with a decidedly 'retro' submarine look, approximating the function of an aircraft carrier, using bullets and missiles instead of directed-energy weapons such as lasers.

I like the show for the political and religious themes, as well as the fascinating characters. I normally don't consider myself a fan of science fiction because I have never had any interest in Star Trek. Of course I grew up with Star Wars, loved Firefly and Serenity, and now watch BSG obsessively. (I wish that George Lucas had sought out either of the guys behind these shows, Joss Whedon with Firefly/Serenity or Ronald D. Moore with BSG, to get involved with the Star Wars prequels. Moore could have done much more with the politics that bogged the prequels down, and Whedon did a better job than Lucas in the original Star Wars of referencing the style of an old Western - and he definitely gets the Hans Solo wiseass sense of humor)

Maybe I am not so influenced by genre as I am by a good story. If a show has interesting, flawed characters, who are in believable relationships, who face real dilemmas, and the story is told with a minimum level of technical proficiency, I'll give it a chance no matter the genre. Since BSG does all of those things well, with politics and religion thrown in for good measure!

The other thing we learn from BSG is that part of what makes the looming robot menace so scary is that the robots will rule over us in the manner of the George W Bush presidency, but with space ships.

The Looming Robot Menace, part II

2008-04-23T22:45:00.003-05:00

Writing about robots is a good excuse to link to that video that was going around a few week ago of the "Big Dog," which the Pentagon is funding in hopes that it could used as pack mule for soldiers.

Did anyone else feel sorry for the thing when it was kicked or when it was slipping on the ice? Our ability to anthropomorphize just about anything is amazing.

Anyway, I writing about these robots because of the looming robot menace. Surely these researchers watched the Terminator movies as kids or teenagers, and I image many of them might watch the reimagined Battlestar Galactica that is currently on the SciFi channel. Unfortunately, they must not be taking these shows seriously. First, we teach robots how to drive cars, then how to carry military gear off road, and now we working on teaching them how control limbs just like humans do. Creating Skynet or a Cylon is not too far off.

The Looming Robot Menace, part I

2008-04-23T22:25:00.004-05:00

Continuing with my earlier post about robotic research, I was reminded of the Hummer that was driven around campus when I was in school. CMU's robotics department was busy teaching a computer how to drive. A friend of mine who was a doctoral candidate in the Computer Science Department told me all about the use of neural networks and the theory behind this approach to artificial intelligence.

From what I remember, the Hummer had all sorts of input devices, mostly video cameras I believes, that recorded reams of data while a human drove the vehicle. The computer would look all of the data that was recorded, for example, when the human stopped the vehicle. At first, there would be no way for the computer to determine which data was significant, and which was not. The next time the vehicle stopped, however, that data could be compared to the data from the first stop. And so on and so on. Eventually patterns could be detected (like every time the video camera recorded an image of a red octagon with the white letter "STOP" on, it the human stopped the vehicle, therefore the computer could "learn" that a stop sign was consistent with the human stopping the vehicle)

The robotics department was pretty good at this, and last fall won a $2 million prize from DARPA in what to date has been the most prestigious robot race, the Urban Challenge.

The grounds of the former George Air Force Base in Victorville, CA, served as a mock city that the robots had to navigate. The course consisted of 60 miles of roads and parking lots and took about six hours to complete. The whole time, the robotic cars needed to obey traffic laws and avoid both cars driven by professional stunt drivers and the other robots on the course.

While DARPA is interested in autonomous vehicles for military purposes, obviously, the technology will likely be used to eventually add safety features to consumer cars.

I Got Mad Skillz, Yo!

2008-04-23T22:14:00.003-05:00

Thursday is going to be a busy day at work. We are catering a lunch for 90 people at a financial company where we plan to start a business delivery program. It's a bit intimidating as we have never catered anything this big before. In addition to the lunch, tomorrow night we will host an open house for the 5th grade class at local elementary school (the school that I attended as a whippersnapper) This will kickoff a fundraiser we are doing with the school.

It felt like we racing all day to prep for tomorrow while also doing all of the regular work that comes along on a Wednesday. I spent the first hour and a half of the day mincing herbs and chopping green onions. Last November, when I started this job, it would have taken me twice as long (and my arm and wrist would have been quite sore) to do all of that chopping. I had not noticed along the way that my knife skills had improved as much as they have. Now, I'm certainly not as fast as I would need to be if I worked in a busy kitchen for a nice restaurant, but it's nice to see progress!

New album for Alejandro Escovedo!

2008-04-20T17:34:00.003-05:00

From his website:

NEW YORK, April 17 /PRNewswire/ — REAL ANIMAL Alejandro Escovedo’s 9th solo album and follow-up to 2006’s critically-acclaimed THE BOXING MIRROR will be released in-stores and online June 24, 2008. A limited edition double vinyl release featuring two bonus tracks: “In Love Again” and a cover of the Stooges “I Got a Right” will be released on June 10, 2008. Produced by Tony Visconti (David Bowie, T.Rex, Thin Lizzy), REAL ANIMAL is a collective journey through Escovedo’s various musical incarnations from punk rock to string quintets and is as introspective as it is retrospective. “The inspiration for this record really is my life in music and the characters that I have known in and throughout that life. It’s also about how music helped me survive that life,” Escovedo said. Recorded at Saint Claire Studios in Lexington, KY, REAL ANIMAL features a band of frequent collaborators, including David Pulkingham (guitar), Josh Gravelin (bass), Hector Munoz (drums), Susan Voelz (violin), Brian Standefer (cello) and Chuck Prophet (guitar).
The 13 original tracks on REAL ANIMAL unravel Escovedo’s musical autobiography while presenting him as a masterful American musician, whose palette encompasses eloquent string quintets and shattering blasts of punk rock. From his early days in the punk scene of San Francisco (”Nuns Song”) to chaotic times living at the Chelsea Hotel alongside Sid & Nancy (”Chelsea Hotel ‘78″) through his pioneering alt-country days with Rank & File (”Chip n’ Tony”), REAL ANIMAL weaves a vivid tale of music as well as characters met, played with and lost along the way (”Sister Lost Soul” and “Sensitive Boys”). The punk-infused track “Real as an Animal” is an homage to Stooges’ front man Iggy Pop — one of the many influential artists that hit home with Escovedo — while “Golden Bear”, a song named after a local music club in Huntington Beach, CA where Escovedo spent his teen years, has a haunting and melodic reference to his near-death battle with Hepatitis-C.

I just migh get my wish

2008-04-20T00:45:00.003-05:00

I've written about how nice it would be to hook a computer up to my brain and be able to download thoughts directly to my blog. It seems that some researchers in Japan are working on a technology that could be adapted to do this. Their idea is to place sensors directly on the brain so that the disabled could control robotic limbs with their thoughts. Recruiting volunteer test subject has been a challenge in this endeavor.

Although brain waves can be measured from outside the scalp, a stronger, more accurate signal can be obtained by placing sensors directly on the brain — but that requires open-skull surgery, making it more difficult to recruit volunteer test subjects.

This research is a long, long way from the intended application, much less what I would want to do with it. But I think that needing to do open skull surgery will remain an obstacle for this phase of the project!

10 Most Recently Played in my iTunes

2008-04-19T23:11:00.003-05:00

Dance My Pain Away - Rod Lee - The Wire...and all the pieces matter
Brandy Alexander - Feist - The Reminder
Friend of Mine - Lily Allen - Alright, Still
Turkish Song Of The Damned - The Pogues - The Definitive Collection
Greenville - Emmylou Harris and Lucinda Williams - Emmylou Harris Duets
Over You Again - Willie Nelson - Moment Of Forever
Terry's Song - Bruce Springsteen - Magic
The House Of The Rising Sun - Nina Simone - The Very Best Of Volume 2
Joy - Lucinda Williams - Car Wheels On A Gravel Road
Broken Butterflies - Lucinda Williams - Essence

I can't believe that I resumed blogging for several months now without mentioning the greatest show in the history of television, The Wire, which came to an end this spring. The soundtrack of The Wire is as notable for including favorites snippets of dialog on the show as it is for the music. I'm sure I'll write more about The Wire in the future, but in the meantime I would commend this reflection on the show that was published at the great TV/Movie blog The House Next Door. Some of the best popular culture criticism out there can be found on this blog. This particular article talks about what The Wire might mean for the future of visual story-telling.

...Simon and his collaborators have hoisted the medium of film onto their backs and marched it into the territory previously inhabited by Tolstoy, Melville and Dickens, the greatest of the long-form storytellers.

The achievements of The Wire suggest that the two-hour American-standard-length film only scratches the surface of what the medium can actually do. And it does so with none of the diluting effect that some might expect would come from breaking up a 13-hour film into individual episodes. The experience of watching The Wire is precisely the same as reading Anna Karenina. We do it by sandwiching its chapters in between the chapters of our own lives. We read a chunk, we live a chunk, and each enriches the other.

I've long thought that the best movies were comparable to short fiction, but it required a television show to accomplish the things that a novel can do. The Wire is exhibit A that great television indeed is comparable to the novel. (Others that have done this were also on HBO, like The Sopranos and Deadwood) David Simon, the creative force behind The Wire, used one plotlines in the last season to tease the critics who compared his show to the work of Dickens, but the comparison is apt.

Live Music

2008-04-18T21:41:00.005-05:00

Brooks Williams is an incredible acoustic guitarist. I've seen him live a couple of times and have always been blown away. Since he is based in New England and I have not been able to go to one of his concerts in over a decade, I wondered if I'd be able to see him the first weekend in May when I go to New Hampshire (to see my nephew) So I headed over his website a few days ago to see if he was playing anywhere that weekend. The good news is that he is performing on Friday, May 2. The bad news is that he is playing in Lawrence, Kansas, just 30 miles away from where I live, but 1445 miles from where I will be that night. Damn!

The night before, May 1, Steve Earle will be in Lawrence, but that would be a late night right before an early flight. I'll have to think about that one.

There are a couple of shows this summer that have peaked my interest. Both Alejandro Escovedo and Emmylou Harris are playing at the Wakarusa Festival (in Lawrence) this June. I've never seen Emmylou live, but Alejandro performed the most transcendent live concert I have ever seen a couple of years ago at the Tractor Tavern in Seattle. He was with a five piece rock band plus a string quartet. This video is from a few weeks ago during SXSW.

The more acoustic side of Alejandro can heard here or here.

Feist will also be in the Midwest this summer. She's doing a free concert in Omaha on Saturday, July 12 and then will be at Starlight in Kansas City on the 13th. I imagine it would be a better musical experience in Kansas City (and with the price of gas it wouldn't be any more expensive than a road trip to Omaha) but I have a cousin who lives in Omaha. It would be fun to hang out up there. I don't know anything about Sarah's taste in music, but a free concert is a free concert.

I really need to learn more about local musicians in Kansas City. I've been hankerin' for some live music, but I don't know enough about whose worth seeing around here.

That's What You Gotta Do

2008-04-17T23:00:00.001-05:00

I have never made any contribution to a political campaign (other than voting) before. Never stuck a sign in my lawn, never volunteered to help out at phone bank, never made a donation. Partly that's because I'm lazy and would prefer to spout off rather than getting up off of butt and doing something, but mostly it's because I've never been very enthusiastic about the candidate I was supporting. My votes have often been about opposing candidates who I thought would do damage to the country (or state or city, depending on the election).

Tonight, however, I made a donation. I guess it took last night's debate to sufficiently motivate me, even though I have been enthusiastic about Obama for a long time. I did not see the entire thing, but the parts that I did catch were so disappointing. It took 45 minutes before a single question came up about policy. 45 minutes. Instead, the questions dealt with serious issues such as wearing a flag pin on one's lapel as a sign of patriotism, and whether or not Obama loves America more than Rev. Wright. I had to check to see if I was watching a debate sponsored by ABC, or by The Onion.

Now, I know that in the fall Obama will be faced with this kind of inanity. It is a staple of Republican campaigns. He will be called an out-of-touch elitist because all Democrats, no matter who they are or what their background, are called that by the party that has nominated a Bush for president four times. His patriotism will be questioned, not because anyone who is informed actually believes Obama might not care about his country very much, but because he is a Democrat and therefore his patriotism is automatically suspect. I get that.

One thing that I like about Obama is that I think he makes those engaging in those attacks look small. Like some dirt that just needs to be brushed off your shoulder.

I think he makes a good point that Clinton is engaging in this negative focus on posturing because "that's the lesson she learned when the Republicans were doing that same thing to her back in the 1990's." I'd like to try to leave that stuff back in the 90's.

Lucinda Williams

2008-04-16T22:40:00.003-05:00

Lucinda Williams is a great musical friend to have while going through a divorce. She has songs that fit many of the different and conflicting emotions that swirl about in those times. If you are not familiar with Williams, click on the names of some of the songs I list. It will take you to Last.fm where you can stream, in most cases, the entire song. She is a very bluesy alt-country singer songwriter who has a very sultry voice. (The Editor - everyone knows you have unusual taste in vocalists, so why should anyone pay attention to a description like that from you? I don't know, but speaking of my unusual taste in vocalists, I recently imported out an old Iris Dement album into iTunes - I love her voice!)

Lucinda's catalog includes the bitter and angry songs, like Joy (I don't want you anymore, cause you took my joy. I don't want you anymore, you took my joy. You took my joy, I want it back. You took my joy, I want it back!) and Wrap My Head Around That.

There's the painful songs, like Everything Has Changed, Still I Long For Your Kiss, and Can't Let Go. There are songs like Reason to Cry that are about trying to understand your ex.

She has a song that for a long time I thought fit with the angry songs, Changed the Lock, but now I'm not so sure. I metaphorically did a lot of the things in that song, not from a place of anger but from the need to move on (both in a practical sense and in an emotional sense)

I changed the lock on my front door so you can't see me anymore
And you can't come inside my house, and you can't lie down on my couch
I changed the lock on my front door

I changed the number on my phone so you can't call me up at home
And you can't say those things to me that make me fall down on my knees
I changed the number on my phone

I changed the kind of car I drive so you can't see me when I go by
And you can't chase me up the street, and you can't knock me off of my feet
I changed the kind of car I drive

I changed the kind of clothes I wear so you can't see me anywhere
And you can't spot me in a crowd, and you can't call my name out loud
I changed the kind of clothes I wear

I changed the tracks underneath the train so you can't find me again
And you can't trace my path, and you can't hear my laugh
I changed the tracks underneath the train

I changed the name of this town so you can't follow me down
And you can't touch me like before, and you can't make me want you more
I changed the name of this town

There's the song that I wanted to hear a friend sing to me during the painful times, Are You Alright? I was blessed to have a couple of friends who did express the sentiment of this song to me on a frequent basis last summer. Thanks Dave and Audrey!

There's a song that perfectly expresses what I image the meeting would be like if I ran into my ex in a grocery store or at a bar, Out of Touch.

One in particular that I listened to a lot was Learning How to Live, which is about realizing the need most to the next part of your life even before you are really able to start.

And then there is the song I listened to tonight, while walking Leo, which started me down this path of thinking about Lucinda Williams. Unsuffer Me is about getting to the place when you realize that you are not obsessing about your ex all the time. You might have noticed that it has been days since you even thought about her at all. You realize that what you miss is not exactly your ex, but rather you miss being connected to another person. You miss intimacy, but not necessarily intimacy with your her.

...unsuffer me
take away the pain
unbruise, unbloody
wash away the stain

surround my heartbeat
with your fingertips
unbound my feet
untie my wrists

come into my world
of loneliness
and wickedness
and bitterness
anoint my head
with your sweet kiss
my joy is dead
I long for bliss

I long for knowledge
whisper in my ear
undo my logic, undo my fear
unsuffer me