Underground Railroad

When you think of the underground railroad, one of the places that comes to mind is Upstate New York. Harriet Tubman lived most of her adult life outside of Syracuse and many escaped slaves passed through the area on their way to freedom in Canada. When you think about a more literal underground railroad, you have to think of New York City and its hundreds of miles of subterranean railway. I was unaware of this until I saw a poster for a screening of The End of the Line in the men's room at Clark's Ale House, but the city of Rochester, New York used to have a subway system. As the documentary states, Rochester is the smallest American city to ever build and abandon a subway system. I'm not exactly sure why the abandonment disclaimer is included. Is there a smaller city that has yet to abandon it's subway system? Were cities like Boston or San Francisco smaller when they built their subways than Rochester was when it built its subway in 1927? I'm not going to make it to the screening of The End of the Line, since it's out in a suburb of Rochester, but I'd really like to see it sometime.

The Minutemen

I don't often agree with Cal Thomas, but I do give him credit for saying what he thinks, even if what he's thinking doesn't necessarily jive with what prominent conservatives are thinking. He takes on illegal immigration in his latest column. Thomas argues that illegal immigration is destroying our history, language, culture, and faith. I don't really buy into this argument at all. I don't see why social conservatives have any reason to be appalled by the culture and faith of most illegal immigrants. Most of them are coming into the US from heavily Catholic countries where so-called traditional family values are very strong. Language is a common concern of a lot of people. The anti immigration camp likes to tell stories about how immigrants from Latin America are not making any effort to learn English, while people who favor some sort of immigration reform generally downplay this figure and assert that almost all immigrant children are fluent in English. It is true that current immigrants to the US, either legal or illegal, are much more likely to retain their native language and perhaps other aspects of their native cultures than the immigrants from the early 20th century. My maternal grandmother doesn't know a lick of Polish, despite the fact that her parents settled in the US only a few years before she was born. Today's first-generation immigrants are more likely to be bilingual. I think that this is a good thing and I have seen no evidence that retention of native languages diminishes anyone's ability to integrate into American culture.

It's really hard for me to get behind the idea that the current wave of immigration that is going on is any different than any of the others that have cascaded across the US over the past 200 years. People have been getting worked up about immigration ever since people who looked, spoke, or prayed slightly differently than the majority started showing up en masse on our shores. In all cases to date, those worries have proven to be unfounded. I don't think that the US is in any danger of seeing street riots like the kind that have been spreading across France. Our culture is somehow uniquely designed to accept immigrants from around the world and at all socioeconomic levels and turn them into Americans. Until you can convince me that the great American sausage-making machine is broken, I'm going to have trouble buying into any of these arguments.

Rock n' Roll, Part 3

Garry Glitter, who's stadium anthem "Rock n' Roll, Part 2" is still a fixture at sporting events around the world, is in trouble with the law again. From the looks of it, Glitter's underage sex habit has once again gotten the best of him. So far, I don't think there have been any calls to yank "Rock n' Roll, Part 2" off of the public address systems of the world. I think that's the right idea. I think music should be judged based on the merits of the song alone. Some might argue that the more we listen to "Rock n' Roll, Part 2", the more royalties Glitter has to finance his deviant lifestyle. I would argue that if Glitter is in fact a pedophile, he'd still be one even if had no money. I think that if someone decided to launch of boycott of stadiums that play "Rock n' Roll, Part 2", they would certainly raise awareness of Garry Glitter, who is far from a household name despite the ubiquity of his song. As the old saying goes, there is no such thing as bad publicity, so a move like that would probably actually help him out.

The Degifter That Keeps On Giving

I found this story very interesting. Basically, a guy who donated $100 to Syracuse mayor Matt Driscoll's re-election campaign committee now wants to degift that money. The article really doesn't really explain why he wants to degift the money. It says that he is disappointed by Driscoll's performance. If that's the case, he probably should have tried to degift this donation before Driscoll was re-elected last week.

I can't image that there is really any legal basis for this action. Once you donate money to an organization, I don't think you have any legal recourse if you later decide that your donation wasn't such a great idea. You certainly have a legal recourse if the organization to whom you donated doesn't use the money in the way that they said they would, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

The kicker is that this guy has already successfully degifted a $550 donation that he made to Driscoll's campaign last year. I have no idea why Driscoll would have accepted another campaign donation from this guy after that incident. I'm sure that the only reason the campaign refunded his gifts was to shut him up. If there is a nationwide do not accept donations from list, hopefully, Strodel's name is on it.

Snow Day

We got our first snowfall last night. They are calling for another 1-3" before it's all done. I have to say that I do enjoy the snow, despite all of the problems that it can cause.

Paradigm Shift

Every one in a while, you come across something that really changes the way you see and understand events in the world. These kind of moments may make some people feel uncomfortable, but I have always welcomed them and the new understanding that they have brought me. It seems like I've been experiencing a lot of these events lately. Perhaps I have the blogosphere to thank for this. Today's moment came from the Christian Science Monitor, via Andrew Sullivan. In this opinion piece, Bruce Bawer offers up an explanation for the unrest in France. The arguments he makes are mostly things that I have heard before, but he puts them together in a way that really changed my perception of European societies and race relations.

I had always had this notion that race relations were largely an American problem. Western European societies didn't seem to have these kinds of problems. I was familiar with all of the black entertainers who left segregated America to play to packed houses in European capitals, and assumed that Europeans must have a more enlightened attitude towards race relations than us. Over the years, my opinions about these things have become more nuanced, but I kept falling back to this baseline in the absence of any evidence to the contrary. The riots in France and the terrorist bombings in London have really opened up a new window into the state of racial and cultural relations in Europe.

As an American, I find the situation in Europe hard to understand. I've met Americans who hail from all over the world, many of whom have maintained various aspects of their native cultures. I've visited ethnic neighborhoods in many American cities where I couldn't read a lot of the signs or understand most of the people were saying, but I've never felt like I was in some strange land. Even if European countries decide to become more accepting of foreigners than they currently are, I don't see how any of them could be as accepting as America simply because our culture has been built on the idea of welcoming immigrants from around the world and turning them into Americans for so long.

The interesting and scary part of the situation in Europe is that a not insignificant portion of the Muslim population wishes to be segregated. I'm not sure how much of this is due to the fact that they know that not even their children will be considered full-fledged citizens of their adopted country and how much is due to their desire for religious purity. The riots in France look similar to the waves of urban riots that spread across this country during the late 1960s. There does not appear to be an accompanying non-violent civil rights movement within the Muslim communities of Europe. This surplus of rage and deficit of hope does not bode well for anyone.

The steps that European countries take to deal with this problem will shed a lot of light on the ongoing debate over the root causes of terrorism in the Muslim community. Will support dry up for radical clerics in Europe if young Muslim immigrants start to join the workforces and civil societies of their new homelands as some have suggested? Will it take a movement of reformers from within the Muslim community to redefine what it means to be a Muslim in Europe to put an end to the radicalization and self-segregation? Will European countries give up and close up their borders before either of these possibilities is allowed to run its course?

Radiator Days

I took this picture on Sunday in Boston. This is the first used radiator dealership I've ever come across. This picture really shows what is great about digital photography. Before digital photography, I would've been much more reluctant to take a picture of a bunch of radiators, or some whimsical graffiti, or an unintentionally hilarious billboard, or a whole list of other things that don't seem worthy of preserving on film. Now that I don't have to worry about wasting film on seemingly trivial things, I can snap away at anything that catches my attention. I have found that the pictures I enjoy the most aren't always the ones that seemed like great pictures when I took them. Every once in a while, I get lucky and manage to take a beautiful shot of an iconic building, mountain, body of water, etc. Everything else is pretty hit-or-miss, even when the subject is something spectacular. I often enjoy pictures that capture something unexpected and even unintentional more than yet another mediocre shot of the Grand Canyon. The radiator dealership certainly falls into this category. The danger, of course, is that I'll stop taking pictures of anything but oddities.

Shock the Monkey

I heard about this on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me this weekend. It's a service that for the low fee of $10, will call you or anybody else and make monkey noises over the phone. I'm not really surprised that such a service is available, but $10 seems like a pretty high price to pay someone to make monkey sounds over the phone. You're not even talking to a real monkey, after all. Of course, if their service starts to get popular, you know someone is going to create an offshore monkey phone callcenter so they can undercut monkeyphonecall.com on price.

Missing the Point

I have been reading about conservative religious groups organizing boycotts for at least the past fifteen years. I can't recall any of their campaigns actually hurting the companies that they have targeted or persuading them to change their policies. I'm only mentioning their latest campaign because this one hits a little bit closer to home. The latest target of their ire is the American Girl doll company, because of a $50,000 donation that they made to the Girls, Inc. charity to support science, math, and athletic programs. While I'm sure that their are some religious conservatives who are opposed to educating girls, the main reason that they have organized their latest boycott is because Girls, Inc. is pro-choice and accepting of homosexuals.

Michelle is involved with the local chapter of Girls, Inc. Fortunately, none of this nonsense has affected their chapter. I doubt that this boycott is going to have any effect on American Girl or Girls, Inc. The religious right is remarkably adept at manufacturing outrage and at missing the point, but this seems like a stretch even by their standards. A multi-billion dollar company (American Girl is part of Mattel) donates a pittance to a charity that spends the overwhelming majority of its time and money helping young girls develop academic, personal, and leadership skills and the religious right is up in arms over a couple statements on their website that conflict with their religious beliefs.

If you're looking to stick it to the religious right and you have some young girls on your holiday shopping list, you may want to head over to your nearest American Girl authorized retailer.

Extreme Makeover

If you're a Blogger blogger, and you're looking for a way to spruce up your blog, check out Blogger Templates. That's where I found the cool new look for Data Janitor. They have a lot of cheesy templates available, but there are some pretty neat looking ones as well. In case you're curious, I choose the Powell Street template.

You Do Not Want to be Odor

I haven't posted in a while, so I'm going to take a couple of minutes to weigh in on an issue that I'm pretending not to care about, namely, the Terrell Owens saga. I'm not going to feign outrage over his actions, nor am I going to criticize the Eagles, his agent, the media, society, the NFL, or anyone else. I am going to criticize Right Guard deodorant for their stupid commercial where a bunch of college-aged guys are playing the fabled playground game "Red Rover" with Owens. In their version of the game, the human chain represents Right Guard Xtreme Sport Deodorant and Owens represents odor. I have no problem with their analogy, however hackneyed it may be, but in order to call Owens into their game, they yell out: "Red Rover, Red Rover, send T.O. over." This sentence difficult to speak, and listen to for that matter, due to the glottal stops between T, O, and over. It also breaks the rhythm of the classic Red Rover call.

The canonical form of the Red Rover call is "Red Rover, Red Rover, Send (two-syllable name) right over." Had they stuck with this form and called out "... send T.O. right over" it would be easier to say (assuming they removed glottal stop between T and O) and in the proper form. If they felt that they needed to deviate from the standard form, saying "send Terrell over" or "send Owens over" would have been better alternatives from a rhythmic standpoint. Of course, they had to say T.O. because T.O. is not just a nickname, it's a brand and the commercial was as much an advertisement for T.O. as it was for deodorant.

The Derek Zoolander Centre For Kids for Can't Read Good

Former NHL head coach Jacques Demers, who guided the Montreal Canadiens to the Stanley Cup in 1993, admitted today that he never learned how to read. The details of Demers illiteracy are spelled out in his new biography. One interesting detail is how Demers, who is originally from Montreal and speaks both French and English, used his bilingualism as a way to hide his illiteracy. When someone asked him to read something in English, he would decline and say he's better at reading French, and vice versa. Francophone visitors can read more here.

Tip o' the toque: Dusty Young

If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote, They Would Have Given Us Candidates

This weekend, I saw someone driving around town with a sign on their car promoting a candidate for Congress. I was surprised to see this since this is not a congressional election year and because in last year's congressional election, the representative for the 25th district in New York ran without any major party opposition. I checked out the website of the putative Democratic candidate for Congress, Ken Howland today. I can't say that I was very impressed with Howland's resume, website or positions. His editing skills, however, are the most troubling. He copied Michael Bednarik's position on the war in Iraq verbatim from the Bednarik for Congress 2006 website, including the following sentence:

By promoting national defense rather than international offense, Badnarik would bring home our troops from the over 130 countries where the U.S. Military currently maintains a presence, and subsequently secure America more than any current plan offered by the Democrats and Republicans.

Had Howland been smart enough to change 'Bednarik' to 'Howland', I never would have noticed this. There may be some more content copied over from Bednarik's website. The "Our Positions" sidebar has a lot of the same topics as the Bednarik's sidebar. Of course, Howland's positions don't link to anything, so perhaps he's working on copying some more of Bednarik's content over to his site.

Happy Halloween

Have a flippin' sweet Halloween. May all of your wildest dreams come true.

Cabbage Night

Have a happy Devil's Night.

The Fall Classic

As my friend MDS pointed out to me today, the past two times that I have visited him and gone to see a baseball game, the home team has gone on to win the World Series. It is perhaps even more amazing that over the past six seasons, I have attended a total of seven major league baseball games, and in four out of those seven games, one of the teams playing has gone on to win the World Series. Here's my record, World Series champs in bold.

2000
New York Yankees at Detroit

20001
Arizona at Kansas City

2002
Baltimore at Anaheim
Texas at Boston

2003
Seattle at Kansas City

2004
Seattle at Detroit

2005
Los Angeles Dodgers at Chicago White Sox

Ancient Creature of the Deep

Tonight's episode of Nova dealt with the coelacanth, that mysterious creature of the deep thought to be extinct until one was discovered in South Africa in the 1930s. I have been a fan of the coelacanth ever since I first learned about it in elementary school. Nova dealt briefly with the social implications of the coelacanth, which I found very intriguing. The internal organs of the first coelacanth were discarded before the fish was positively identified by Dr. J.L.B. Smith. Smith made it his life's work to find another coelacanth and spread leaflets up the East African coast promising a reward for any fisherman who can haul in a coelcanth so he could begin dissecting the animal and seeing if it really was the so-called missing link. When he received word of a coelacanth found in the remote Comoros Islands in 1952, he knew that the only way to get the fish back to South Africa for successful dissection was to charter an airplane. His request eventually reached Prime Minister D.F. Malan, who approved a military charter to retrieve the fish. Malan was an ordained minister and a professed creationist who had any number of reasons to deny Smith's request, but in the end, he calculated that national pride was at stake at allowed Smith to risk an international incident and go to the then French-controlled Comoros Islands to retrieve the fish. Since then, many more coelacanths have been captured and dissected and scientists have learned a great deal about evolution from this so-called living fossil, but Smith's pioneering work led the way and captured the imagination of the world. Malan was an ultra-nationalist and one of the architects of South Africa's apartheid program. If he was able to see that advancing the cause of science was good for his country, despite the fact that it conflicted with some of his personal beliefs, perhaps there is still hope for our political leaders.

Market Economy

On our last day in Seattle, we headed downtown. We started at Pioneer Square, which wasn't too crowded when we arrived around 11 in the morning. We stopped off at the Seattle unit of the Klondike Gold Rush historical center. The Alaska Gold Rush seems like it was an incredibly futile adventure, even in comparison to other gold rushes. It cost the men about $3000 a head (in 1890's money) to make the long and dangerous trek up to Alaska. By the time they arrived, most of the gold had already been claimed. The gold rush was instrumental in the development of the city of Seattle, however. By outfitting the prospectors and cashing out the lucky few who stuck it rich, Seattle began its transformation to the commercial capitol of the Pacific Northwest during the great Alaska gold rush.

After Pioneer Square, we headed over to Pike's Market. We grabbed some lunch and some coffee at the world's first Starbucks. While I was waiting for my coffee, I wondered if anyone in Seattle has ever boycotted Starbucks under the guise of supporting local coffee shops. I also contemplated the concept of the urban market. Pike's Market probably the second most famous tourist attraction in Seattle. Almost every city in the world has some kind of outdoor food market, but only certain ones have become tourist attractions. Why are some outdoor markets famous the world over and others unknown even to most of the inhabitants of the city in which they are located? The world may never know. When you think about it, a food market is a pretty weird tourist attraction. Who buys fresh produce, fish, and meat when they are on vacation? All of these markets sell enough souveniers, packaged foods, and meals that tourists can find plenty of things to spend their money on. I love visiting markets when I travel, and I even get a kick out of visiting grocery stores when I'm away from home, especially in foreign countries. The strange thing is I never go to the market when I'm at home. I've never lived in a town with a market as famous as the one in Seattle, but I've rarely visited the markets in any of the places where I've lived. Case in point, the Syracuse downtown farmer's market is only a couple of blocks from my office, yet I have never paid it a visit.



We went down to the waterfront after lunch and took a cruise around Elliot Bay. The cruise didn't offer any spectatular views of the bay, but it was very informitive. We cruised over by the port and got to watch a freighter getting processed. The tour guide gave us a quick overview of intermodal shipping, which isn't the kind of thing you usually hear about when you're on vacation, but I found it very interesting, seeing as I'm something of a transportation and shipping geek. As a geek, I was already aware that Seattle is closer to east Asia than any other port city in the continental US, but the tour guide was kind enough to mention it for the rest of the passengers.



After the cruise, we headed back to the market to pick up some salmon. We didn't get to see them throw any fish while we were there, but it was pretty neat to watch them fillet the fish that we bought in about 30 seconds. We took the fish back home and made some delicious sushi and sashimi out of it, which we enjoyed for dinner that night.



On Monday morning, our hosts were kind enough to drop us off at the airport before heading to work. We finally caught a glimpse of Mt. Rainer on the way to the airport. Even with at least half of the peak obscured by clouds, it still looked breathtaking. When we checked in for our flight, the gate agent asked if we would be willing to take a later flight home via Atlanta in exchange for two $400 vouchers since our flight was potentially oversold. This would've meant getting home after midnight instead of 9pm, but for $800, how could we refuse? Having never been in a position to accept denied boarding compensation, I was fairly excited, but in the end, the oversell didn't materialize and we went out on our originally scheduled flight.

What's the Matter with South Carolina?

One of the things that we kept hearing after last year's presidential election was how the fastest growing states (both in terms of economy and population) voted overwhelmingly for Republicans, while most of the stagnant states went to the Democrats. Some pundits see this as a sign that the Republican party will only keep growing in strength, but I have a slightly different take on it, a take that seems to have been validated in South Carolina. If the so-called red states continue to outpace their blue counterparts in economic development, they will continue to draw population from them, which will most likely dilute their Republican majorities. I'm not predicting the South Carolina is going to vote for Hillary in '08, but the influx of blue staters will probably change the kinds of campaigns that candidates of both parties run in South Carolina.

Intelligent Dog Design

Mike Peters, editorial cartoonist and the author of Mother Goose and Grimm, weighed in on the intelligent design debate yesterday.



It's basically a re-hash of the "if intelligent design is true, how do you explain ______ (insert name of stupid person)?" joke/argument. I agree with the Peters' view, but I don't find his latest salvo in the ongoing war between cats and dogs to be all that humorous or insightful.

It did make me think about intelligent design and dogs, however. I'm kind of surprised we haven't heard ID proponents using dogs to explain their "theory". With the exception of humans, domestic dogs are probably the most widely dispersed mammal on the face on the earth. They can be trained to do all kinds of chores that are useful to humans. Dogs, being man's best friend and all, probably understand human emotions better than any other animal. It would be easy to look at all of this and declare that because dogs are such a useful companion for so many people, they must have been designed by an intelligent being.

B.C. Two-Hander

The Seattle Trip, Part 3



On Saturday, we headed up to Vancouver, B.C. to pay a visit to Michelle's aunt, grandmother, and cousin. We arrived around noontime and met everyone in Richmond, a suburb of Vancouver. Suburb might not be the correct term, because Richmond is actually something of a suburban Chinatown. I've been to a few other suburban Chinatowns before, and they are pretty interesting. They take the look and feel of an urban ethnic neighborhood and apply it to the suburban strip mall. One of Toronto's Chinese suburbs, Markham, even has its own multi-story full-enclosed Asian shopping mall.

We all met up for Dim Sum at Kirin Seafood Restuarant. The Dim Sum experience at Kirin is fairly upscale. They don't have waiters pushing around carts and calling out dishes as they pass each table like a peanut vendor at a baseball game. The decor was definitely several notches above your average Chinese restaurant, with nice tablecloths, carpets, and wood paneled walls. The food was very good, though the selection was somewhat limited, at first. We were told that three of the dishes we ordered: turnip cake, rice porridge, and egg custard, three dishes that I thought were pretty much standard Dim Sum fare, weren't available. In the end, they managed to bring us the egg custard and the rice porridge. The egg custard was delicious and easily the freshest I have ever eaten. It was still warm and soft when it arrived at the table.

After Dim Sum, we all headed to the Capilano Fish Hatchery, located just north of downtown Vancouver in North Vancouver. Vancouver is an amazing city, and I will hopefully get to spend a lot more time wandering around it sometime. Unfortunately, it lacks a north/south freeway, so driving through it takes forever. Still, if you don't have enough time to stop and enjoy Vancouver, at least you can get an idea of what the city has to offer. The southern part of the city has kilometer after kilometer of interesting shops and restaurants along Granville St. As you get closer to downtown, the view of English Bay, high-rise apartment towers, and the mountains to the north overwhelm your view. The compact and lively downtown abruptly turns into Stanley Park, a beautiful and heavily wooded urban park that covers the entire peninsula that sticks out into the bay on the northern edge of Vancouver.

The fish hatchery was interesting. Prior to my visit, I thought a fish hatchery was a place where fish were farmed for human consumption, but that's not really what goes on. Fish hatcheries actually capture fish that are on the verge of spawning (in this case, salmon) and take over for the fish, removing the eggs from the females and fertilizing them with the sperm from the males. They take care of the baby fish until they are ready to go out on their own, then they release them into the river and they swim out and live their lives in the ocean, then come back to the river when its time to spawn. The whole idea behind this is to increase the survival rate of the offspring, thereby increasing the number of adult salmon swimming around in the ocean and eventually, into the stomachs of grizzly bears or sushi connoisseurs.

The highlight of the hatchery visit for me was my new t-shirt. I have developed a strong appreciation of the art of the indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest and I've been looking for a t-shirt that depicts some of their artwork for a while.



After the hatchery, we visited the Capilano Suspension Bridge and Park. This place is basically a tourist trap, but the suspension bridge is pretty neat, though not really worth the price of admission. The bridge is a footbridge that spans the width of the Capilano Canyon. It's no place for those who are afraid of heights, and the bridge sways enough that you almost think that you are taking your life into your own hands as you walk across it, even though it's perfectly safe. The other main attraction was a set of walkways that allow you to walk around the forest 20-30 feet above the ground.





We then headed back to Seattle. Fortunately, the traffic was much lighter going though Vancouver on the way back. On the way into Vancouver, we saw some Toyota Prius taxicabs, which I took as more evidence that Vancouver is a pretty hip and innovative kind of city. On the way back, we saw a Toyoya Prius taxi with rims and a drop-down LCD screen for the passengers. Next time you need to arrive in style in the Vancouver area, look no further than Coquitlam Taxi.



We got back to Seattle around 8pm, had some dinner, and headed back to Fremont for some drinks at a bar called Norm's. Norm's is cool because it's a dog-themed bar, it's smoke-free, and it has some good beers. Of course, almost every bar in the Pacific Northwest has good beers. I enjoyed a Deschutes Brewing Co. Black Butte Porter. One of the unfortunate parts of this trip was it allowed me to taste the beers that I haven't tasted in several years, since it's hard to find a lot of craft beers outside of the area in which they are brewed. Beers like Black Butte and Full Sail Amber Ale had been elevated to ambrosia-like status in my mind, since I remember enjoying them in Oregon six years ago and I haven't tasted them since then. In actuality, they are very good beers, but they didn't overwhelm my taste buds as much as I had hoped. In their defense, I didn't manage to have either one drawn from a tap while I was in Seattle. I've always found that draught beers taste better than bottled beers, providing that the draught is being drawn from a fresh keg.

Java Memory Allocation Myths

IBM developerWorks has a great article about modern JVM memory allocation performance. While early versions of the JVM were notoriously slow, the 1.4.2 HotSpot VM new Object() code path is faster than even the best C malloc implementations. J2SE 6 has support for escape analysis, which is an interesting technique for optimizing memory allocation by detecting objects that can be allocated on the stack or even in registers.

She's Having a Baby

A woman in Arkansas has just given birth to her 16th child in 18 years. Four of those kids are twins, so that means that she's gone into labor 14 times in the past 18 years, or roughly once every 15 and a half months. If you figure nine months of per pregnancy, it means that she has been pregnant for about ten and a half of the past 18 years. All of the kids have first names that begin with the letter J, just like dear old Dad. The mother is only 39 years old and has gone on the record saying that she'll be willing to accept more pregnancies if the Lord decides that it's in the cards, so she'll probably keep on popping them out until she reaches menopause or her uterus explodes, whichever comes first.

The ironic twist is that Michelle has a co-worker with the same name as the father (different spelling) who absolutely loathes kids.

Wrapped Up

Part of the reason for our recent trip to Seattle was to visit the Salish Lodge and Spa. Our wedding gift from our hosts, Melissa and Brian, was a treatment at this spa, located about thirty miles east of Seattle. This was my first visit to a spa, so I didn't really know what to expect. Upon our arrival, the receptionist showed us to the locker rooms, but didn't really explain what we were supposed to do. In my locker, I found a robe and slippers so I figured that I should change, but I wasn't sure what I was supposed to wear under the robe, if anything. I asked the receptionist, and she told me to wear whatever I was comfortable with. That didn't really answer my question, so I just left my boxers on to be safe.

The treatment started with a foot washing and massage, then we got onto beds covered with a mylar sheet and had mud from the dead sea rubbed all over our bodies. A strategically placed towel kept our private areas under wraps, so the boxers were not actually needed. After getting covered in mud, we were then wrapped up in the mylar and towels and they put on some heat pads to keep us nice and warm. As we basked in our mud cocoons, they gave us a nice scalp massage and washed our hair with some sort of peppermint shampoo. This was probably my favorite part. The peppermint was really strong and I loved the way it made my scalp tingle.

I wish they would have kept us in our cocoons a little longer, because it felt really nice and relaxing. We rinsed off the mud and peppermint shampoo, then got back onto the beds and got full-body massages with hot stones. The stones were pretty neat, though they didn't retain their heat very long.

On the whole, I enjoyed the mud wrap experience, but it's not something that I'll be rushing out to do again anytime soon.

The spa is located at the top of Snoqualmie Falls. As you can see by this photo, the falls are spectacular.



There is a short but steep trail that goes from lodge down to the bottom of the falls, which we hiked after our visit to the spa. The water was rushing over the falls so quickly and forcefully that the cloud of mist that formed where the water hitting the river below made it feel like it was raining at the downwind observation deck that was located above the top of the falls.

I was always amazed by the vegetation you see in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. The ground is covered in ferns and the tall trees have moss growing up their trunks and out onto their branches.



Moss growing up the sides of trees is not all that impressive, I suppose, but it always reminds of the beautiful forests of Pacific Northwest.

We made it down to the bottom of the falls, but the view from the observation deck wasn't so great. Had we climbed off of the boardwalk and down to the river, as we were advised not to do, we would've had a better view, but there was some kind of fashion shoot was going on when we got there. We couldn't really tell what it was for. There were two models, one guy and one girl, but as Michelle noted, they were smiling too much to be real fashion models.

North by Northwest

We took a long weekend and headed out to Seattle last Thursday. I was very excited, I really fell in love with the Pacific Northwest when I spent the summer of '99 in Portland. This was my first visit to the region since leaving Portland, and while I had been to Seattle before, I only spent about a day there.

We stayed with Michelle's sister and her boyfriend, who live in a house in the Wallingford neighborhood, which is a few miles north of downtown. On a clear day, their front yard affords you with views of the Seattle skyline, the Cascade Mountains, and the Olympic Mountains. There aren't too many clear days in Seattle this time of year, but we managed to catch a glimpse of all three during our visit.

On Friday morning, we all headed up the street from breakfast at a place called Julio's. I ordered huevos rancheros, which I found somewhat uninspired, but nourishing. After breakfast, our hosts went to work and we walked down the street to the Gas Works Park.



The gas works was once used by the city to convert coal into natural gas, but is no longer operational. Instead of tearing down all of the machinery, they decided to preserve some of it and turn the land into a park. It gives the park a really cool post-apocalyptic look. The park is located on the shore of Lake Union and offers some great views of downtown Seattle.

From the gas works, we headed over to Fremont, which is supposedly Seattle's funky, ex-hippie neighborhood. It definitely had that kind of vibe going on, though not as much as I would have expected.

They have their own spaceship in Fremont



They also have a troll under a bridge, which is pretty funky



Fremont is also the self-proclaimed center of the universe, in case you weren't aware

It also features a huge statue of Lenin, which is more than the People's Republic of Cambridge can say. Still, I would have expected a town where you will see multiple VW microbusses on the road every day to have a little bit more substantial and eclectic counterculture haven. I didn't notice a single head shop or Marxist bookstore in our walk around Fremont.

Of course, what Fremont lacked in loony left weirdness, it made up for in hospitality. I made a purchase at Jive Time, a small used record store, and the clerk was without a doubt the least-jaded used record store clerk I have ever come across. He actually seemed happy that I wandered into his store and paid $8 for a used copy of a CD that I just noticed is selling for $23.99 at Amazon.

Up next: A visit to the spa.

The Big Least

How bad is Big East football this year? Consider this quote from Bob Snyder's column in yesterday's Post-Standard:

Of seven I-A teams still winless this season, three - UB, Army, Florida Atlantic - have been the foils for 31 percent of the Big East's I-A victories.

Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood

Acerbic Detroit Free Press sports columnist Drew Sharp does not always make very convincing arguments, but his constant criticism of everyone in the Detroit sports scene, especially the underachieving Lions, proves the old adage about a stopped clock; if you keep doing the same thing over and over, you'll eventually look like you know what you're talking about. He called Charles Rogers out for being indifferent, immature, and a colossal waste of time, money, and a number two draft pick in his column today, just hours before the news of Rogers' four game suspension for violating the NFL's substance abuse policy hit the wire. Charles Rogers has made it clear by his actions on and off the field that he wants to challenge Reggie Rogers for the title of the worst player the Lions have ever drafted whose last name is Rogers.

Yay, Big Guy!

I watched the Michigan-Michigan State football game on Saturday more attentively than most I watch most football games, not necessarily for the game itself, but for the commentary. A couple of weeks ago, I learned about the Brent Musburger Drinking Game, and I found it to be hillarious. Michigan-Michigan State was the first Musburger-announced game I watched since learning the rules of the game, so my ears were on high alert for any number of Musburger-isms. While I was disappointed that I never heard him utter the phrase: "Gary, my man" (though I did hear a "Garry, my friend" - not sure if this counts), I loved the way he called the fumble that MSU's defensive tackle Domata Peko returned for a touchdown. Musburger let out a "Go, big guy!" when Peko crossed the 10 yard line with one man to beat and exclaimed "Yay, big guy!" after Peko hurdled the last Michigan defender into the end zone.

I don't know why I'm mentioning this, other than I found it hillarious at the time and still find it quite amusing. Perhaps Musburger is looking for a second career as a cheerleading coach? Yaaaaaaaaaay Big Guy! I think the lesson for all sportscasters, especially the ones who work on TV, is that when you don't have anything useful to say, it's better to just be quiet and let the pictures on screen do the talking.

Growing Family

We are proud to announce our new car, a 2005 Toyota Prius. We took delivery of the 175 inch, 2890 pound bundle of joy on Friday after work. Mother and the as yet unnamed car are resting and doing fine.

Iconoclastic Title

Without a doubt, the coolest title for any religious leader in the world today is that of His Holiness Bartholomew I, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. He could be thought of as the Pope of the Eastern Orthodox communion, but that analogy may not be entirely apt. I don't know that he has as much power over the church as the Pope. He's probably more like the Archbishop of Canteburry, in that he is the spiritual leader for a group of closely related religions. I did a little more reseach on the Patriach of Constantinople and learned that his full title is actually His Most Divine All-Holiness the Archbishop of Constantinople New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch. I'd like to see his business cards.

Charlie Don't Surf

If your CD collection has a gaping hole between Manfred Mann and Marilyn Manson, your prayers have been answered. ESP Disk, the seminal 1960s record label that cut to wax many of the first recorded statements of free jazz pioneers, has started reissuing their catalog on CD. I didn't know that ESP Disk got into rock and pop music after the original free jazz movement started to fizzle out in the late 60s, so I was surprised to see a reissue from 1974 by none other than Charles Manson. I already knew that Manson is, like many psychopaths, a failed artist, but I never knew anyone ever released any of his music. All royalties from the purchase of Charlie's album go to the son of one of his victims. No word on when any of the tracks from "Lie" will be available on iTunes.

Giant Squid

It was reported a couple of days ago that a team of Japanese scientists have captured a giant squid for the first time (on video, that is). I've been fascinated by the giant squid ever since I saw the remains of a giant squid tentacle on display at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum as a young boy. The squid that was captured on video was a mere 26 feet long, which is small, at least by giant squid standards.

County Line

I've been listening to an album entitled "Field Recordings from the Cook County Water Table" by Brokeback. It's a cool recording, but that's not why I'm mentioning it. It just dawned on my that the first county that was able to identify, with the exception of the county where I grew up, was Cook County. I'm pretty sure that I learned where Cook Country was located (in Illinois, encompassing all of the city of Chicago and some outlying areas, in case anyone wasn't aware) from an episode of Punky Brewster, but I'm not entirely sure. I seem to remember an episode where Punky had to go to the hospital. Before cutting to a shot of Punky in her hospital bed, they showed some stock footage of a hospital in Chicago that had Cook County somewhere in its name. I don't have any other interesting stories for how I came to learn the names of any other counties. By the time The O.C. began its run, I already knew where Orange County, CA was. Of course, I've never actually watched the show, so it wouldn't have helped me anyway.

US Error Ways

I' m a bit of an armchair aviation analyst, so here's my unsolicited view on the US Airways/America West merger. US Airways is strong on the east coast and almost nonexistent elsewhere. America West is strong in the southwest and almost nonexistent elsewhere. Unfortunately, I think that the new airline is less than the sum of its parts. Neither airline has a significant presense in the center of the country. Without a hub or focus operation somewhere between Pittsburgh and Phoenix, it's going to be hard to cater to business travelers in a large section of the country, except on routes to their hubs in Philadelphia, Charlotte, Las Vegas, and Phoenix (and possibly, Boston, New York, Pittsburgh, and Ft. Lauderdale, current US Airways focus cities).

This leads me to believe that the new airline is going to focus on point-to-point traffic between key markets and their hubs and focus cities on the east coast and in the southwest. Cherry-picking routes that are popular with business and/or leisure travelers is a technique that all of the low-cost carriers have exploited to some extent. While there are probably still some routes that have the potential to make some good money, most of these routes are already covered by Southwest, jetBlue, AirTran, and even the other legacy carriers. This me-too approach is unlikely to pay dividends for US Airways.

In my opinion, US Airways most valuable asset is not their slots at LaGuardia or Reagan National, it's their east coast feeder system. There are numerous small to medium sized towns from Maine to Florida where US is either the only carrier to the dominant carrier. For the most part, these airports do not fit into the low-cost carrier's business models. US Airways can operate in these towns without having to compete airlines like Southwest, who will drive down prices.

Finally, there is the question of what will happen to US Airways international network. The major carriers have been focusing most of their expansion plans on international routes because they have a better chance at making money on them then in the oversaturated domestic market. US Airways hasn't announced any new international flights or destinations, so I would assume that they are planning on maintaining their current routes. Without acquiring any new equipment, their prospects for overseas expansion are very limited, which will prevent them from getting an additional boost from international expansion.

This isn't the first time US Airways has purchased a low-cost carrier based on the west coast. Back in the late 1980s, US Airways, then known as USAir, purchased California-based Pacific Southwest Airlines in the middle of an acquisition binge. Within a few years, they had dismantled almost all of their west coast network. I don't know if this merger is going to work out any better.

Coffee Talk

Remeber back in the late 90s when a lot of people thought that Starbucks and Bill G. were trying to take over the world? Those days are long gone, of course. Old habits die hard, however. Syracuse is not the hippest town on earth, and if you don't believe me, think about this, downtown Syracuse got its first Starbucks coffee shop a couple of months ago. I visited this store yesterday for the first time. I'm not coffee or caffiene addict, but I like to have a cup of coffee a couple times a week. My coffee shop of choice has always been Freedom of Espresso, a local joint right across the street from the new Starbucks. While I have managed to suppress my Starbucks-hating reflex, I never really considered crossing the street. I took the moral high ground by telling myself that I like the coffee at Freedom better, it's cheaper, etc., but really, I had no idea if any of this was true.

Yesterday's visit to Starbucks pretty much confirmed what I already knew. Their coffee tastes good. Of course, I don't think it's too difficult to make a cup of coffee that tastes good. As long as you're make it strong, don't use any stale ingredients, and don't put in any flavored syrups, it's pretty hard to make a bad tasting cup of coffee. My two complaints are the same that I have about every Starbucks I've ever visited; their "small" size is too big and they serve their coffee too hot. Freedom of Espresso's small size is actually small, and the coffee is not so hot that you have to let it cool down for a few minutes before drinking it. Plus it's cheaper.

While I'm on the topic of coffee, I have to say that while I didn't think Kicking and Screaming was that great of a film, it has two redeeming qualities. The first one is the way it used coffee to symbolize of Phil's [ Will Ferrell ] descent into madness. The second was a better than expected acting performance by Mike Ditka. I still wouldn't pay money to see if (I saw it on a flight), but if you do see it, at least you've got coffee and da coach to look forward to.

Take My Wife, Please

One thing that I've always found mildly annoying is the way people refer to members of their family using phrases like: "my wife", "my brother", "my son", etc. in the presense of people who already know the real names of these people. This seems to happen the most in work environments. I once had a boss who always referred to his wife by her name, but always referred to his children chronologically (my oldest, my youngest, etc.) He had more than two kids though, so it often made things kind of clumsy, i.e. "I was at my second-oldest's soccer game last night..." Now that I'm married, I'm trying not to fall into this habit, but it's hard. I've broken this rule at least once on my blog, though I don't know if I everyone who reads this is on a first name basis with my wife (Michelle). So far, I'm one for two today at work.

Hated Music

Paul Flahetry / Chris Corsano Duo
Metropolis Book Shoppe - North Syracuse, NY
Wednesday, September 21st

The sax and drums duo could be considered the string quartet of free jazz. Like the string quartet, the sax and drums duo focuses on the most important instruments in the genre. I'll admit that I am biased in favor of reed instruments, but I think it's fairly obvious that the saxophone is the most important instrument in free jazz. The sax can really tap into a range of sounds, colors, and emotions that can only be topped by the human voice, in my opinion. Free jazz appeals to listeners on such a visceral level that it only makes sense that the saxophone is its sharpest tool.

Flaherty definitely draws his inspiration from the first generation of free jazz saxophonists. He alternated between the alto and tenor horns tonight. He played both with a big sound and a lot of vibrato, but not a lot of resonance. His notes didn't hang around. He played most of the night at full steam, but showed an impressive amount of lyricsm the few times that he explored more placid sonic terrain.

Corsano's drumming was even more aggressive than Flaherty's playing. He too showed his softer side with some really interesting effects, including a lot of bowed cymbals and something similar to the metal "bowls" that I've seen guys like Tatsuya Nakatani use, which brought some eastern influence into some of the music.

While I enjoyed the show, I wouldn't rate it as one of the better concerts I've ever seen. The free improv sax and drums duo is probably one of the more challenging musical contexts you can work in. If the players are not on the same page, it's going to be pretty obvious. To make matters worse, everyone in the audience is going to be comparing your stuff to the classics of the genre while they listen. These guys put on a great show, but the music was a little bit too one-dimensional and the communication between them wasn't always as strong as it could have been.

Honeymoon('s Over) in Vegas

My wife was out in Las Vegas this weekend. She saw a lot of newly married couples, as one would expect. One of couples that she saw was actually two couples, twin sisters who got married at the same time. She didn't find this incredibly shocking, but I can't stop thinking about it. How do you think that they managed to pull it off? I guess it's possible that it was a big coincidence; twin sisters happened to get engaged at about the same time and decided to get married together. I guess that is possible, but it doesn't seem too likely. I wonder how their husbands (who did not appear to be twins) felt about the whole thing. When the first guy proposed, did his girlfriend accept his proposal but tell him that they were going to have to wait for her sister to fall in love and get engaged before they could start planning their wedding? I guess I will never know, but I wish all four of them the best.

The other newlywed story that she told me involved a couple who, while still in their wedding attire, got into a profanity-laced argument in front of a hotel/casino on the strip. Arguments are part of any healthy relationship, of course, but you would hope that a newly married couple could manage to make it at least a couple of days before dropping f-bombs on each other in public.

I would love to see a study of couples who tie the knot in Vegas and see how their divorce rates compare to couples who get married in more traditional venues. My guess is that it would probably be about the same, but who knows.

Taxpayer Pride

All this talk about the estate tax has made me think that maybe what this country needs is a little bit more taxpayer pride. I'm not joking (entirely), so hear me out. For as long as I can remember, we've been listening to politicians tell us how stupid the government is and how taxes are for suckers. I can't help but think that this has something to do with all of the negative sentiment against the estate tax harbored by people who have little to no chance of ever being affected by it. Americans have shown that they overwhelmingly favor some of the trappings of a welfare state, as long as they don't have to pay for it. Who knows where we would stand if we knew the true cost/benefit breakdown? Maybe some taxpayer pride can help us figure that out.

I remember visiting a friend in Washington, DC several years ago. We visited several of the Smithsonian Museums (or should I say, Smithsonians Museum?). As we were leaving the National Air and Space Museum, I made a quip about our tax dollars at work. In this case, I didn't mean it in the usual pejorative sense. I meant this is a great museum and I'm glad that our some of our tax dollars are used to fund it and all visitors can enjoy it free of charge. My friend, who has no conservative leanings whatsoever, didn't pick up the taxpayer pride that I was exuding and accused me of being a Republican or perhaps something even worse. If dyed-in-the-wool liberals can't appreciate taxpayer pride, I don't know who can. Still, there may be hope. P.J. O'Rourke, America's best (only?) conservative satirist had a good idea during a public radio pledge drive a few years back. He suggested that liberal listeners (and what other kind of public radio listeners are there?) look at their pledge as a tax on intelligence. They are obviously more intelligent than other people because they listen to public radio and they obviously love taxes because they are liberals, so its a win-win situation. Politicians love to appeal to our vanity, and while there are a lot of people who will probably never be receptive to a taxpayer pride message, there are plenty of voting demographic du jours (indoor soccer moms?) waiting to be told how to think about any number of issues.

Eventually, taxpayers are going to have to face the facts. Tax dollars aren't just funding the Cadillacs for welfare moms initiative, 24-hour abortion clinics, and other much-derided social programs. They actually fund some things that a majority of Americans support. I'm not expecting any taxpayer pride to show itself until some of these more acceptable and vital uses or tax dollars are put in jeopardy. Our current economic situation makes it very likely that we're going to be faced with a temporary refund adjustment sometime in the not-too-distant future. When that day comes, we'll see how much taxpayer pride we truly have.

Death and Taxes

I read an op-ed piece written by Bill Gates Sr. and Chuck Collins about the proposed repeal of the estate tax. The debate about the estate tax is very interesting. Pro-estate tax people, like Gates Sr., often cite statistics about how most Americans will never accumulate enough wealth to be subjected to the estate tax. This is true, but I think it's missing the point. The point is, should the government be taxing the estates of the wealthy? Should I manage to amass a significant fortune, I don't plan on leaving my heirs with a big pile of cash so they can sit around and do nothing. I think a lot of people share this sentiment, but I don't know if this is something that the government should try and legislate. Besides, the wealthy can always manage to find ways around the tax code and unless the tax rate is raised to 100%, people with large enough fortunes will still be able to leave significant sums of money to their heirs.

Gates Sr.'s claim that the repeal of the estate tax would cripple our nation's charitable sector strikes me as somewhat alarmist. It may be true that some people donate large sums of money to charities to avoid paying estate taxes, but I think the majority of wealthy donors would donate their money even if there was no estate tax. Gates Sr.'s saves his best point for the end. I agree that there are far too many successful people who say "only in America" out of one side of their mouth while bristling at the suggestion of paying taxes to cover the expenses that it takes to make keep our economic engine running. Which brings me to my final point, I hate debates about taxation. We've gotten to the point where candidates can promise to slash taxes and maintain or increase the level of government services with impunity. I'm no fan of excessive taxation, but it does take money to keep this place running smoothly. In the estate tax debate as with all tax debates, I will that there were more people in the government and in society looking at the big picture so we might be able to reach an informed decision.

Student Athlete

Say what you will about Skip Bayless, but he does make some good points in this piece about Bob Stoops' threat to bench star running back Adrian Peterson for violations of the OU student athlete class attendance policy. I don't really agree with Bayless' argument that the academic success of his players should be of no concern to Stoops or any other football coach, but it is nice to hear someone who is not afraid to call major college football what it really is, a farm system for the NFL.

Personally, I commend Stoops for taking a harder line with his players regarding classroom attendance and enforcing it uniformly. Most of the players on even the top college football teams will never play football professionally. Even college football superstars like Peterson don't always pan out once they reach the big leagues. By flaunting the rules that his coach laid down for the team, Peterson is showing NFL teams that he may be lacking in maturity and/or good judgement. Perhaps this disciplinary action or the threat of it will teach him a valuable lesson.

Bayless seems to imply that Stoops is already on shaky ground with the OU faithful and he should be more worried about his job security than his student athletes. Like any other coach at a football mad school, Stoops could get fired for anything from having a losing season to making the wrong decision about a two-point conversion. If OU cans him for taking academics too seriously, it will only reinforce Bayless' argument and make university presidents look even more hypocritical. I think that a lot of schools realize that coaches who actually care about their players are better in the long run, even if that means they will make decisions that sometimes enrage the faithful.

Wirtschaftsblunder

Andrew Sullivan linked to this article about Germany's economic woes from today's Guardian. It's an interesting piece, especially when you contrast it with the cover story from the August 18th issue of the Economist, entitled Germany's Surprising Economy. It's not that the two stories totally contradict each other, the Economist is comparing Germany's current economic situation with where it has been over the past five years, while the Guardian is comparing Germany's post-reunification economic situation with the heyday of the Wirtschaftswunder. Both articles do a good job identifying the challenges that the economies of Western Europe, and to a lesser extent, the US are or will soon be facing. The Guardian piece is summed up nicely by a comment from German journalist Arno Widmann:

...the generation of '68 had begun their political careers hating the bourgeois complacency of the old West Germany; then, just when they realised it was one of the nearest things to a workers' paradise the world has ever seen, it was over.

Radio Days

In case you weren't aware, there is a company like AC Nielson that surveys the radio listening habits of Americans. That company, Arbitron, contacted me about a month ago and asked me if I would be interested in participating in the survey. As it turns out, I happen to be a bigger fan of radio than most people under the age of 87, so I was thrilled. They sent me a log book to keep track of everything I listened to on the radio for a week. My week ended yesterday, and I have to say that keeping track of everything you listen to on the radio is a total pain. Heisenberg noted that you can't observe any physical phenomenon without affecting it in some way, and what's true for quantum physics is true for radio surveys.

The biggest problem is that I, like most people, do most of my radio listening in the car. It's very difficult, not to mention dangerous, to try and write down which radio stations you've been listening to while driving, especially if you frequently change the station. I don't tend to do much signal surfing while driving, but I completely abstained from it this past week since it would've been a bookkeeping nightmare. In a couple of cases, I just turned off the radio since I didn't want to have to bother trying to remember what I was listening to and when I listened to it.

Based on the multiple phone calls I received from Arbitron before and during the survey, I have a feeling that they have trouble getting people to complete the surveys. They kept calling me and asking if I had any questions and if they could count on me to finish my survey and send it back to them in a timely manner.

Artificial Intelligence

Today's Non Sequitur jumps into the intelligent design debate once again. It's Wiley's best and most humorous statement regarding the ID movement to date, in my opinion. For a lot more on the battle between ID and evolution, check out the blog that my good friend MDS publishes.

Muskrat Love

We went up Wellesley Island State Park in the 1000 Islands yesterday. It's a great little state park. We're into hiking, but most NY state parks that we've been to don't have a lot to offer in the way of hikes. Wellesley Island has eight miles of trails, which doesn't seem like too much, but the trails are all very nice. It's good for a day of hiking. It also features a pond with an active beaver community. We saw the dam and a lot of chewed up tree stumps, but didn't run into any beavers. We did come across a muskrat as we were walking around the pond and managed to snap a couple of good photos of him before he ran away.

Roll the Dice

Dice.com, a high-tech job search website has a number of banner ads floating around that use code snippets to look cute and appeal to their target demographic, presumably. I'm willing to grant them some artistic license here, but one of the ads is really abusing the concept, in my opinion.



For those not well-versed in modern programming languages, here's what's happening. The first line basically says if a variable named "salary_sucks" is set to true, execute the code inside of the {}'s. So in this case, if your salary sucks, point your web broswer over to http://www.dice.com and look for a better job. That makes sense. The problem is the else clause. If your salary does not suck, Dice is telling you to suck it up. Why would you need to suck it up if you already have a job that pays well? Perhaps this would make more sense:


if ($salary_sucks) {
  if ($has_the_initiative_to_look_for_a_new_job) {
    // Go to Dice...
  } else {
    suck_it_up();
  }
}

Fire Into Music

Jazz Central - Syracuse, NY
Wednesday, September 7th

I had a chance to check out the Fire Into Music ensemble last night, an all-star lineup consisting of Steve Swell, Jemeel Moondoc, Hamid Drake and William Parker. This was also my first chance to check out the relatively new Jazz Central venue. The place is pretty nice. The room is a lot wider than it is deep, which gives it a strange feel, but puts you right up next to the musicians which is always good. I feel like the best place to listen to beautiful improvised music is in a space that is either just as beautiful or just as improvised as the music itself. Jazz Central is neither, but when it comes to performance spaces, beggars can't be choosers.

I don't know if I've ever been so impressed by a rhythm section as I was at last night's concert. I must admit to some bias here. I'm a huge fan of Drake's work and for my money, he's the best drummer on the scene today. Parker is also very high on my list, so I'm not surprised that these guys blew me away once again. Drake was in especially fine form. He played a solo in the first set that totally blew me away. Part of the reason the rhythm section was so impressive was because the horns were a little bit disappointing. The quartet was really stretching out in the first set and I think that their reach my have exceeded their grasp. Moondoc and Swell were doing some very interesting ensemble playing, but when they soloed, the music just seemed to lose some of its energy. Drake and Parker were doing all kinds of things, changing the rhythms and even jumping into a Caribbean kind of beat for a while underneath the solos.

The band came out in the second set and really sounded a lot more together. I don't know if they just needed to get warmed up or if it was because the material that they played in the second half was a little bit more linear. Once the second set got off the ground, the group started inviting audience members who had participated in a workshop the night before up to the stage. It was pretty neat and if my chops were in better shape, I would've brought my horn along. Of course, the quality and cohesiveness of the ensemble wasn't so great. I would've liked to have heard the quartet play a little bit more in the second set without the extra players. Still, it was really great to see everyone up on stage making music and having a great time. There aren't too many musical acts that invite people from the crowd up on stage to jam with them during a concert. As the evening was coming to an end, Moondoc's cell phone started ringing. Without missing a beat, he answered the call, and shouted "I'm in the middle of a gig! Call me back later!" Most professional musicians would be mortified by the idea of jamming with a bunch of guys from the crowd and answering calls on a cell phone during a concert. These guys loved it, and they made some amazing music in the process.

Don't Call it a Comeback

Reports of Lance Armstrong's retirement from professional cycling appear to have been greatly exaggerated. According to team director Johan Bruyneel, Lance is going to be training with the team this winter and is contemplating riding in next year's Tour de France. Apparently, he's mad as hell about the doping allegations published in L'Equipe and he's not going to take it anymore. I really don't mind if Lance decides to ride the Tour until he drops dead, I just wish pro athletes would stop announcing their retirement amid great fanfare only to renege on their promise a couple months later.

The Ironic Curtain

The Red Wings lost their bid to re-sign one of their top young players, Pavel Datsyuk. Datsyuk has signed with a team in Siberia, presumably because they are able to pay him more than the Wings, whose free-spending ways have been curtailed by the NHL's new salary cap. I hope the irony isn't lost on Datsyuk that he is leaving America to come back to Russia, where teams aren't encumbered by so many economic restrictions. Of course, maybe the real reason is that he decided he would rather live in Siberia than Detroit.

All kidding aside, I'm not trying to trash the NHL salary cap here. It's preventing my favorite team, the Red Wings, from executing their win at all costs strategy, which was better than the Rangers' lose at all costs strategy, but it really hasn't been paying dividends for a number of years. The Wings kept adding overpriced veterans who rarely performed up to their potential, if at all, instead of trying to integrate young talent into their core. I'm sad to see Datsyuk go because he was one of the few young guys they have who has shown flashes of brilliance. The fact that he's going to Russia makes the loss a little easier to stomach and it also makes his salary demands look even more unreasonable. I think Datsyuk is going to be a great player and I hope that the Wings can somehow hold onto him when and if he decides to come back to the NHL.

Alerting the Comics Code Authority

I'm really stuck on this whole comic strip criticism thread. Lately, I've been perplexed by a lesser-known comic strip called 9 Chickweed Lane. I was almost positive that the main storyline in the comic strip over the past few months had centered around Edda's relationship with her gay roommate, Seth. The thing I couldn't understand was how a comic strip could include an openly gay character and even feature his partner (Mark) from time to time without drawing any flack from the usual commentators. The problem is, 9 Chickweed Lane is so oblique that I often can't make sense out of it, so I wasn't sure if I wasn't misreading the whole thing. Over the past month or so, they have really been working this subplot, so there is no longer any doubt about the Seth's sexual orientation.

Of course, there is no need for anyone to be up in arms over this. The comics page, however, has a history of conservatism bordering on idiocy. Consider the outcry when Luann started menstruating. Or when Lawrence in For Better or For Worse came out of the closet. My guess is that the reason there is no outcry today is because 9 Chickweed Lane is not a very well-known comic strip. Also, the way that the relationship between Seth and Mark is portrayed is a bit too nuanced for the people who usually lead these kind of campaigns to pick up on.

Calvinism

The discussion thread on my post about the comics centered around that classic comic strip Calvin & Hobbes. It turned out to be a rather timely discussion. I learned today that Universal Press Syndicate is going to be re-runing classic Calvin & Hobbes comic strips through the end of this year. This article has the scoop, along with some details about the history of the strip and some speculation about what the reclusive Bill Watterson has been up to over the past ten years.

How to Get Rich Without Really Trying

The Syracuse Post-Standard published an interesting story yesterday about the ramifications that the new NHL salary cap is having in its primary feeder league, the AHL. In order to prevent teams from stashing high-priced star players in the minor leagues to avoid going over the salary cap, the NHL has instituted a rule that any AHL player earning more than $75,000 a year must clear re-entry waivers if recalled by his NHL parent team. Should another team claim him, the team that called him up loses the player AND has to pay half of his salary. According to the article, some players are exempt from waivers, but it doesn't explain what qualifies a player for this exemption, other than it typically applies only to younger players.

This rule change has prompted AHL veterans who are used to pulling down six figure paychecks to consider taking a pay cut to get down to the $75K cutoff and presumably, improve their chances of getting called up to the big leagues. I was surprised to learn that players in the AHL made so much money. I thought that the compensation structure for all sporting leagues was you make virtually nothing until you make the big leagues, and then immediately begin making big money. According to this article, the average AHL salary is around $50,000/year. According to this source, the minmum minor league salary for baseball player who has played a day in the majors is $52,600. It seems like the hockey players are getting the better end of the deal here, since I'm guessing that even on a triple-A baseball team, most of the players haven't played a day in the big leagues. These numbers could be way off, but the Post-Standard article made it sound like it's pretty common for AHL veterans, especially those with some NHL experience, to pull down six figures. Disregarding big leaguers doing a rehab stint down on the farm, I can't imagine anyone other than hot prospects (Drew Henson, anyone) making that kind of scratch in triple-A ball.

Things that go Bump in the Night

Just when you thought the level of political discourse in this country couldn't get any lower, along comes a book that tries drag children into the whole red vs. blue debate. Help! Mom! There are Liberals Under My Bed is the story of two brothers, Tommy and Lou, whose dreams of lemonade stand entrepreneurship are quashed by Senators Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton. The cover art is absolutely priceless. I'm surprised its taken this long for this book to be published, after all, Daddy's Roommate came out (pun intended) 14 years ago.

The Essence of Blogging

Sticking with the comics theme, Doonesbury has really gotten to the essense of blogging this week. Read the strips from yesterday and today and see for yourself. I've decided to take the high road and not publish a review of the Krispy Kreme donut of the month. I still can't figure out what is so great about Krispy Kreme donuts anyway. I'm not donut conoisseur, but if you ask me, they are no better, and possibly, worse than your average, run-of-the-mill donut.

Comic Strip Live

I started reading newspapers when I was about six years old. At first, the only thing I read were the comics. Nowadays, I read much more of the newspaper, but I still read the comics, unless I happen to be reading one of those papers that is too "sophistcated" to have a comics section. I can't say that I find many of the comics entertaining, but I can't stop reading them, even the ones that I find completely idiotic. Two such comics are Garfield and Blondie. It's a well-known fact that Garfield is not funny. The thing that annoys me about Garfield, besides its continued existence, is the visual laziness of it. Take today's installment for example. The drawing of Garfield never changes in any of the seven panels. Neither the background nor the telephone changes in any of the seven panels as well. The only thing that changes is John's facial expression and hands. I have found that most Garfield comic strips follow a similar pattern. Garfield would be more entertaining if Jim Davis ditched all of the dialog and plot structure and turned the comic into Hocus Focus.

From a visual standpoint, Blondie is much richer than Garfield, but the storyline is just as idiotic. Loyal readers of the comics know that this year is the 75th anniversary of the Dagwood & Blondie comic strip. The comic strip has obviously had to change over the past 75 years to keep pace with the modern world, but the way that it has changed has been somewhat nonsensical. Blondie joined the ranks of liberated women when she opened her own catering company maybe ten years ago. Dagwood goes to work in a carpool (perhaps in response to the oil shocks of the 1970s), but he's still the connsummate 1950s company man with his bow ties and his abusive, tyranical boss. In today's very special 75th anniversary comic, we see Dagwood in full 1950s dad mode sitting on his favorite chair watching TV with his loyal dog. The next panels show his sexpot daughter Cookie dressed up like a porn star answering a phone call from the President, who makes a cameo along with the first lady in the final panel. If we're going to be stuck reading about the exploits of Dagwood & Blondie for another 75 years, I hope they can manage to decide which decade that want to live in and stick with it.

Timmy Can You Hear Me?

The news out of Allen Park is that the Lions have just signed former U of Hawaii QB Timmy Chang. Chang is the most prolific passer in NCAA history, whether he was throwing the ball to his teammates or the opposition. Despite these gaudy statistics, he's currently number five on the Lions depth chart. I don't expect that Chang has a future with the Lions or any other NFL team (though the media is very desirous to see an Asian-American quarterback do well). The only reason I even mention this is because he just seems like the kind of QB that eternally fickle Lions fans would really get behind once Harrington, Garcia, et al get into a tough spot.

Grizzly Adams

Acclaimed German director Werner Herzog has a new documentary entitled Grizzly Man. I haven't seen it yet, but I'm very interested. It's the story of Timothy Treadwell, a man who lived with, studied, and advocated for the grizzly bears of Alaska, until he was mauled to death by one of them. I'm fascinated by all bear species, and I'm especially fascinated by the grizzly. They are very noble animals who have an amazing amount of intelligence and physical strength. While I hope to never encounter a grizzly in the wild, grizzly attacks on humans are quite rare. Treadwell set up an advocacy group called Grizzy People before his death that is continuing his work.

Weekly Radio Address

I have always been sort of fascinated with the idea of the President's weekly radio address. First of all, it's a radio address. When was the last time a breaking story was first reported on radio? Pearl Harbor? Second of all, it happens on Saturday morning, quite possibly the worst time of the week to broadcast anything. I have no idea why the weekly radio address had endured to this day. The ultimate indictment of the weekly radio address is that the few times that I have actually been listening to a radio station that aired the address on a Saturday morning, I've changed the channel. If someone like me, who professes so much interest in the weekly radio address can't stand to listen to it even once, it makes me wonder if anyone williningly listens to the President's weekly radio address. In case you're wondering why I'm talking about the weekly radio address, this week's issue of The Onion has a great send-up of the President's weekly radio address.

Not Ready for Some Football

I have to admin that I feel Steve Rushin's pain. His piece in this week's Sports Illustrated, My Football Failure (registration required), details his shame over his lack of love for the NFL. While I still consider myself a fan of professional football, I find it to be completely overhyped. I liked the NFL better when it was cool to ignore the preseason and players didn't get fined for failing to wear NFL-licensed apparel in public. I'm a much bigger fan of the college game. I like the college game for its imperfections. I think the games are more exciting because the players and coaches are more likely to make a dumb decision than their professional counterparts. Everyone bemoans the lack of a true national championship in college football, but it doesn't really bother me. Division I-A college football is an inherently unfair landscape. I'm happy to watch teams like Oklahoma, USC, Michigan, and nearly every college in the states of Texas and Florida slug it out for the national title while at the same time watching my Purdue Boilermakers fight it out for respectibility in the Big 10 and a win on New Year's Day. So if you see me out on the street on a Sunday afternoon this autumn, it's not because I hate the NFL. I just need to get away from it for a few hours sometimes.

The Goose is Loose

As astute reader MDS pointed out, the reason I went two weeks without updating my blog was because I was busy getting married. As far as I know, everyone who reads this blog knows me personally so they were already aware of this, but perhaps there are some lurkers out there. I will have more to say about this and our lovely honeymoon in the tropical paradise of Maui. Until then, here's a great photo of the aforementioned MDS chasing away some pesky geese so the happy couple could be photographed in peace.

Move On

By request, here is the story of my moving scam. In 2001, I moved from Austin to Boston and I hired a moving company to move my stuff. This was my first mistake, seeing as I didn't really own anything of value. I could have sold or given away all of my possesions and re-purchased them in Boston for less money than it would have cost to move them. My second mistake was failing to due much due dilligence when selecting a moving company. I would up hiring this company called All State Van Lines. The first problem was they failed to show up on the assigned pick-up date. I called their office all day and never got an answer. They finally called me that evening and assured me that they would be there to pick up my stuff the next day. They showed up the next day and picked everything up, but the plot suddenly twisted when the paperwork that I received was from a company called U.S. Movers, not the All State Van Lines company who I had booked the move through. They apparently had subcontracted out the move and failed to tell me.

From there, things kept getting worse. The 10 day estimate they gave me for my move to be completed turned into 32 days. For most of that time, I was constantly trying to get though to someone at U.S. Movers who could tell me where my stuff was and when it would be arriving, usually to no avail. When the movers finally showed up, all of my stuff looked like it had been dropped out of airplane at 20,000 feet. They lost one of my items (a filing cabinet), which I filed a lost item claim for which was never addressed. I wrote complaints to both All State Van Lines and U.S. Movers, neither of which was ever addressed. I should have pursued this matter futher, but I was more upset with myself for entrusting a company to move my earthly possessions without doing proper due dilligence beforehand.

As it turns out U.S. Movers (Brooklyn, NY) is blacklisted on Moving Scam. I can't not recommend this company enough. The blacklist on Moving Scam is quite daunting, but there are some good movers out there. When my then-girlfriend (now wife) relocated to Syracuse from Boston, her company paid for her relocation and we were both very impressed with the moving company who handled the move. The company is Clark & Reid and they are based in Billerica, MA. I think they are a local outfit, but if you ever need to move to or from New England, I would recommend looking into them.

Public Service Announcement

I learned about this website today. I haven't looked into it too much, but it seems reputable and I have no reason to distrust the person who told me about it. Like the creator of this site, I was once the victim of a moving scam. I haven't hired a moving company since then, though I now have way too much stuff to move again on my own, so this website will hopefully help me out the next time I move. I forgot the name of the moving company that scammed me, so I'll have to check my records tonight to see if they are blacklisted on this site.

Why?

The Detroit sports theme du jour keeps on rolling, only this news is as upsetting as my last post was uplifting.

Stevie Wonder

Like a lot of Red Wings fans, I can't really imagine the team without Steve Yzerman. He made his NHL debut two days after my 7th birthday and he's been wearing the same jersey ever since. Fortunately, we have another year to wait before having to ponder the idea of a Red Wings team sans #19. This is great news. I spent the whole NHL lock-out worried that the final on-ice memory of Yzerman's career would be taking a puck to eye socket in game five of the 2004 Detroit-Calgary playoff series.

Baby Elephant Walk

The Asian elephant population of Syracuse went up by one yesterday. I can't remember ever seeing pictures of a newborn elephant before, but they are pretty neat. I've never actually been to the zoo here, but it sounds like a pretty good facility, especially for a smaller city. The baby elephant may look small, but he already weighs in at 345 lbs.