Signs of Spring

Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Just one day after the rains that finally washed away most of the remaining ice and snow and there are already tulip sprouts.

A week ago, there was still a 3-foot tall snowbank; a snowbank which had been in place since mid-December and which was probably taller than me after the storm we got in February.

I'm assuming that these sprouts didn't grow three inches overnight, which means that they were already sprouting into the ice before the rains melted it away.

...which is still pretty damn cool.

Running Observations for Late March

I did my long run today, squeezed in between social engagements for the SOOTTAD farewell tour. I strongly considered pushing it out until tomorrow and just doing a shorter run today, but a quick look at the weather forecast (low 40s and rain, rain, rain) convinced me that I should just suck it up to do it today when it was sunny and supposed to approach 50°F. Just a few quick observations on the run:

• Despite it being a beautiful spring day in the high 40s, I was happy to have worn my wind pants and brought my glove-liners. It may have reached 50°, but it definitely drops a few degrees in the shade and feels cooler with the wind. It also cools quickly in the afternoon as the sun descends.
• I don't think I stuffed myself silly or anything, but apparently 2 hours is not a sufficient amount of time to properly digest the tasty Sichuan treats we ate for brunch. 20 minutes into the run and I'm burping little flashbacks which, not suprisingly, are not particularly enjoyable.
• The snow is mostly gone, leaving a lot of winter detritus along the side of the road -- faded beer cans and plastic bottles mostly. It's not clear whether they're being dumped by pedestrian drinkers or getting tossed out of car windows.
• The reservoir is still a sea of white, covered by a (hopefully thinning) layer of ice.
• I counted passenger vehicles on this Easter Sunday. (I'll post more details about this soon, hopefully.) Total count: 13 SUVs, 0 Pickups, 6 Vans/Wagons, 18 Cars. It felt like there were fewer SUVs than usual, but I'll get a better idea as I collect more data.
• Saw a Bush/Cheney sticker on a stationwagon that passed me. I observe two thoughts that pop into my head almost immediately:
  1. How could you vote for them?! You live in freaking Massachusetts fer cryin' out loud and should recognize the benefits (education, income, services) from living in the liberal oasis that is the Commonwealth. (Or maybe not. As I write this, I realize that these things are likely don't-cares to Bush/Cheney voters.)
  2. Damn, even in "li'brul" Massachusetts we have people who voted for these guys. I'm a freak, and it's only a matter of time before it won't even be safe to live HERE.
• Last 400 yards before the 10 mile mark (and the end of the run) and I see a cute indie-rock looking chick dressed mostly in black, walking in my direction on the sidewalk across the street. Gee, I didn't think we had that demographic in the neighborhood... Oh, it's the SOOTTAD! Heh, cool.

Take your Chinese medicine...

Fellow tour members being diagnosed.

I was reminded of my trip to China when I saw this post at chineseamericanprincess.com.

That's how it works -- I don't sit around and just decide to reminisce about the trip; I'm usually just minding my own business and I'll see something that just kind of triggers the way-back machine.

Anyway, when we were in Beijing, we signed up for tour that visited the Ming Tombs and a section of the Great Wall. As with all tours, it included lunch, but also a few side trips that were designed to "educate" the visitor about various aspects of Chinese culture. On our tour (from Hell) of Hangzhou, we received a presentation about the production of tea (with an opportunity to buy some of the super-grade-A-superior-awesome tea that we had just tasted). On our Beijing city tour, we went to a pearl center and another tea house, both with informative presentations and plentiful shopping opportunities afterwards.

So, on the Tomb/Wall tour, we visited a jade store information center and something like "the National Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine."

At the Institute, we were first led into a reception area with several display cases which provided information about various aspects of Chinese medicine, the history of the Institute, as well as several accounts (with photographs) of Chairman Mao being successfully treated for different ailments in his later life. We get taken upstairs into a small room where we hear a brief presentation and are then told that we can have an evaluation performed by one of their top practitioners, if we are so inclined.

I should say now, I do believe in this stuff, at least to a certain extent. I believe that as a system, the body operates as a whole and that it is possible for it to manifest problems in ways that go beyond what can be observed via X-rays, MRIs or blood tests. And I certainly don't believe that there's anything particularly magical about Western medicine. That is, just because we use science and technology to develop our drugs, I don't assume that they're necessarily superior to substances found in nature -- herbs, critters or what have you. Ironic use of the word, I know, considering the common (although potentially diminishing) Western view of eastern medicine as being largely based in superstition. That it's effectively believing in magic. And as far as drugs go, I'm really no fan of pills, whether they're from Glaxo-Squabb-Merl-Co or some herbal supplement. But I'm getting ahead of myself. (And I realize that it seems like I'm fixating on the drug-thing, but the reason for that will become clear shortly.)

Anyway, I sit down, and after giving the obligatory duibuqi, wo shi meiguoren (sorry, I'm an American), we get down to business through the translator. From across the table, the doctor takes my wrists in his hands and checks my pulse, sitting quietly for a few moments. [I have a friend up in Vermont who practices eastern medicine and who's done this with me, and explained it... but sadly, most of the details have faded. What I do remember is that they're checking multiple pulses (that I think are tied to different organs); checking quality, checking strength.] He asks me (through the translator) if I have any back pain. I say yes. He tells me that it's because my kidneys are weak. (Funny, I thought it was because I have two herniated discs between some of my lumbar vertebrae.) He then marks a piece of paper in front of him and passes it to me to read. He's marked two paragraphs on it and the translator explains that they describe the appropriate herbal remedies that I can take to cure my problem.

And, of course, at this point in the story, you're probably wondering to yourself, "Gee, where on earth is he going to be able to get these obscure traditional herbs?" (All together now...)

Where can you get them? Planet Ten! Right here!
When can I get them? Real Soon! Right now!

So, they told me that I should get a month's worth of their special, concentrated herbal supplement (not available in stores!) and I would be all better. A month's worth of these supplements turned out to be two bottles that my crappy long-term memory is telling me would cost 1000RMB a bottle, or roughly US$240. Um, yeah. Like, no job. Not so much with the disposable income at this point. Not to mention that I don't like spending large sums of money without some careful consideration. And maybe it was 1000RMB for the two, but I'm pretty sure it was for each bottle, because I remember it still costing over a hundred bucks when the translator helpfully suggested that I just buy half the dose. (and get half better?)

She tried another tack:

It is your health, after all. Can you put a value on that? Isn't that worth the money?

Well, yeah.

But, taking pills? Wrong sell. Maybe they're just trying to appeal to the Western market. Or just human nature. We naturally gravitate to the quick fix, the easy, the accessible. Sure, I can change how I do things. Sure I can do it the hard way, the long way. But why should I, if I don't have to?

At our core, we're lazy -- it's what drives us to optimize processes, to become more efficient.

I guess I was hoping they'd tell me why my kidneys were bad. Is it something I'm eating? Something I'm doing? What was wrong with them? What can I do to make things better? It seemed to me that if there was something wrong with my kidneys, something made them that way. And even if one month of pills would make them better, wouldn't whatever it was that made them bad in the first place just make them bad again? [I'd put a nice little analogy in right here, but frankly, I'm feeling a little lazy and not coming up with anything that seems sufficiently engaging or amusing. And I want to publish this post sooner rather than later. Feel free to come up with something on your own. Sorry.]

I guess I was just a little disappointed. It felt like Western medicine with Chinese characteristics. (Although admittedly, I may have just been over-reacting to the pill meme.)

And then there's context -- I suspect that in general, I'd be much more inclined to believe somebody when they aren't trying to sell me something.

So, me and my bad kidneys took a pass.

The End

Alright, now I gotta go pee.

Huh...

Speaking of peeing, I'd just like to note that when I spell-checked this post, it wanted to change "herniated" to "urinated."

Sorry, I just found that amusing.

And this is a bad thing?

Headline: Commercial Leaves Kids Too Scared to Watch TV [Reuters]

There's something in the air...

You'd have to figure with all the snow we've gotten over the last few days, weeks, months, that Spring has GOT to be right around the corner. We've had a few days over 40, and that's always a good start, especially after getting 8-10 inches of wet snow on Saturday. But that's not it. No, there's something else. And actually, I wouldn't really call it a sign of spring, but I guess my brain is just making free associations -- nature's rebirth, birds and flowers, new beginnings.

People are getting married.

The march of progress is inescapable -- I got my first evite to a wedding a few weeks ago, from my friends H & J. It was just a save-the-date, but still kind of amusing. (It also asked for my meal choice -- salmon, chicken or mushroom risotto.) And practical -- a heads-up before they got the actual invitations in hand, addressed and in the mail. And, I knew they were getting married this summer, so it wasn't like it was a surprise or anything.

As opposed to hearing about the engagement of some frisbee friends, B & C, at a party on Saturday.

Or the phone call I got last night from my friend V, when he told me that he had just bought a car, and oh, by the way, he and M had just gotten married.

And then finding out about Matt and Amy by reading Matt's blog this morning.

Yep, there's something in the air.

Me? I think I might've caught a bug -- my throat's feeling a little scratchy today. And my girlfriend is moving to Chicago.

I don't want this to come off the wrong way. I admit to being pretty cynical sometimes, but I AM genuinely happy for all the previously mentioned couples. And things between me and the SOOTTAD are still really good, other than not wanting to think about the logistics of living 1,000 miles apart, and dealing with the visceral "she's leaving me" response.

But sometimes I feel like the one guy who bought the [insert wicked cool thing that everyone loves] when it was first released and had the battery explode when I turned it on. The only guy to fall off a Segway? Um. No, maybe not. But you get the idea.

Or, to use my favorite analogy, it's like David Wilcox's Big Blue Poodle (from Live Songs & Stories):

I'm tryin' to find my way to some club, and somebody will have told me, "oh, you just drive straight on such-and-such, and you see the..." y'know, something ridiculous: "you see the HUGE BLUE POODLE, and then you CAN'T MISS IT... and then you turn right and..."

...and I'm thinkin' to myself: "now, I've been driving now, and driving and driving... and I have only one landmark to go by. What if I... missed it?" And you know they said you can't miss it (which is the kiss of death) so what if I'm just driving into oblivion, and I'll just drive for the rest of my life, you know?

And the reason why it bugs me... Y'know, it's no big deal -- I can make it to the club, I can skip the sound check. I'll find it, eventually.

It's only bad directions.

It bugs me on a metaphorical level, because it's just too much like life.

Y'know, like as a kid when you're asking people "well how do you know... when it's true love?"

What do they always say?

"Oh, you'll know, you'll know."

Well, y'know, that's like saying "you can't miss it." It's the KISS OF DEATH, y'know...

...you just imagine you're 96 years old: "No, I'm holding out for the big blue poodle... They said it was on the road here, 'I can't miss it...'"

To follow through with the analogy, you could say that I've already made the turn at the big blue poodle. Except that, well, it turned out that it wasn't actually the big blue poodle.

I kinda jumped the gun... y'know? I didn't want to miss it... And, well... at the time, it seemed kinda poodle-like. But well, y'know, maybe it was really, uh, like a big shrubbery. Or a rock or something that kinda looked like a poodle? Y'know, from the right angle it might have looked like some kind of dog or something. Ok -- so maybe it was a big rock that might have been shaped more like a fish. And it was red. But I coulda sworn there was a sign next to it that said that it was a blue poodle. (Ok, maybe it said I was a poodle. It's been a while, it's hard to remember the details.)

And I wasn't entirely sure there really were any poodles on this road, so I figured it was close enough, you know?

So anyway, it took me a few years to get back on the road.

A few years ago and a few years later, I thought I might have really found the poodle -- so I turned... but there wasn't actually a turn off. And when I got the car back on the road, I noticed something up ahead and pulled up to it to figure out what it was.

I'm pretty sure it's blue, but you know -- what if what we call "blue" is actually perceived as a different color by different people? So, if I could look at something I think is "blue" with someone else's eyes, it would look... "orange," except they'd call it "blue" because it's always been "blue" to them. Then is it really blue? (So maybe it's orange. Or aqua. Or cyan. WTF is cyan, anyway?) And I think it's a poodle. Well, a dog, probably. But what if it's really a puli or something? And is it big enough? "Big" is a pretty subjective word. . . .

Yeah, so I've been here a while, but I really don't want to mess this up again. Of course, there's more than one way to mess this up. Yeah, we're good like that.

So maybe that's a little backstory, perhaps more than was necessary, which we can set aside so we can move on to more important things.

Things like: congratulations Matt and Amy! Congratulations H, J, V, M, B, C, and all the A to Z's that I've forgotten or haven't heard from yet. Congratulations, good luck, well wishes and happy thoughts to all of you.

Really.

I hope to see you all soon, with my own poodle.

Finished

Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

Boston's Run to Remember Half-Marathon, March 13, 2005.

Started a little slower than I had originally planned, but ended up finishing around where I wanted to be. Chip time: 1:45:19.

Next up: Big Lake Half Marathon on May 7th.

But I'll probably take a few days off before starting up again.

Google, you fail me.

I've been a advocate of Google for quite a while. I'm generally not the early-adopter type, and I certainly hadn't picked up on Google when they first went beta or anything (I'm just not that plugged in), but I did start using it in the fall of '99 when I heard some buzz on it and I noticed a friend and coworker using it at the office. It was hard not to: it stood head and shoulders above the competition at the time, and y'know, not being Microsoft is always a plus in my book.

So I was trying to find some information to an animated short that I had seen at an animation festival at the Coolidge a few years ago. I think it was a flash animation that had two kids sitting across each other discussing the merits of their cup-o-noodles that they were eating. I figured I'd find something, but no such luck. I actually remember having this same problem when I was trying to write about ramen last August. Eventually I figured I could just link to my original post, but Blogger (also owned by Google now) was acting up, so I was having a hard time finding the original post from the editing index.

So of course, I tried to google it.

And found... nothing.

WTF, yo?

Ok, so I realize that there's a lot of chaff in the blogosphere. You'll even find "blogs" now that are basically just being used as link farms, presumably trying to increase their search ranking by saturating the pages with link after link after link to porn, consumer sites, erectile dysfunction meds, ad promotion, porn, insurance, porn, and, well, porn. So I totally expect the search engines to do some kind of filtering to try to keep this stuff under control and maintain the relevancy of their search results.

I realize that there are very few people that read this blog who haven't stumbled on it by accident following the "next blog" link on the header of all the free Blogspot blogs out there. Still, this was annoying. I felt so, well, not relevant.

Hello, my name is Chopped Liver. Pleased to meet you.

So fine. We'll ditch the general search for references to the animated short and just do a search on my blog.

See? I'm being specific now. I'm not putting on airs about how important I think my opinions are. I just want to find something on my blog. Someone else might want to do that, right?

Nope.

If you do a search on "grey matter gruel" and just about any other noun, you either get the "tough noogies" page, or if you're lucky, you'll get a link to a page that links here. So I google:

"grey matter gruel" cup o' noodles - Nothing
"grey matter gruel" noodles - Nothing
"grey matter gruel" animation - Matt's page
"grey matter gruel" ramen - Matt 's page and the Bostonite webring

No such problem on Yahoo-exclamation-point or AltaVista. Dogpile and Webcrawler (apparently, both search aggregators) only find the top page. Oh, and nothing on MSN. Congratulations Microsoft, looks like you're in good company.

Ok, I think I see the pattern, after having some success with "running," "movie," "manhattan," "chinese," and "hoops." It looks like they stopped indexing the archives sometime in early 2004. (Geez, I am such a nerd.)

C'mon Google, you guys are smart -- you can do better than this. Or are you going to be like every other company that started out sharp and innovative and cool that just grew too much for their own good and got lazy and complacent?

The pitfalls of contentment

A few months ago, I wrote a post about appreciating the things that I had going for me.

The cynical me has always tried to keep expectations low, because when it comes right down to it, if things don't work out, at least you won't be disappointed. But I've been trying to ignore him, Mr. Negativity, of late. And thus I've attempted to venture forth into the new frontier, the new millennium as it were. The new and improved me -- confident, centered, hopeful, positive. (I mean, let's not be stupid: there's no sense in unnecessarily walking under anvils or driving behind piano movers. Living next door to bomb factories. But really, there's no need to expect the worst.)

So despite everything that had been going on at the time -- the upcoming presidential election, discontent at work, and just a general malaise -- I came to the conclusion that things were Ok. I might have been in a rut, but I really had nothing to complain about. I took a step back and said to myself, "Y'know, self? Life is good."

And six months later, Bush has been reelected, I've lost my job, and as of yesterday, my girlfriend, the SOOTTAD, has accepted a new job in Chicago and will be moving there in the next few weeks.

Bah.

This immediately makes me think of two things:

1. I really ought to get around to signing up for my COBRA benefits before the NEXT BAD THING happens.

2. Maybe I shouldn't feel too accepting and content with what I've got now, lest something even more catastrophic happen to try and get me to readjust my perspective yet again.

I mean, it's not like the world has come to an end. We'll get through this. But I have to say -- I really don't like this game.

E-mail Anger Management

A helpful lesson in communication skills from zeFrank. [via Yi]

Anti-Atkins

Milk? No.

Chicken? Beef? No and no.

Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

This is our freaky, starch-loving kitty licking the breadcrumbs off my sandwich plate.

He will also eat mashed potatoes.

Meditate on this

I keep forgetting that running is a form of meditation for me.

It's been far to easy to think of it only as training, therapeutic maintenance for my back, and more recently as a mood enhancement.

It also doesn't click when I'm running with other people or when I'm running at the gym. Ugh, the gym. At the gym, my brain is all over the place: I'm thinking about my pace, the time; I'm concentrating on adjusting my stride to the infernal machine; I'm watching my mileage, the clock, other people, the TV. There are just too many distractions. And it's intentional, because you're trying to distract your brain, because it's just so damn boring. Just go, do your thing, get it over with, and get the hell out of there. If people try to exercise more (say, for a New Year's resolution) by joining a gym, it's no surprise to me that so many people don't stick with it. It drives me crazy, and I LIKE exercising.

No, it can only be a meditation when it's solo, outside, preferably on quiet roads or through the woods.

I had forgotten, until yesterday.

It was cold. I didn't really want to go out, but I hadn't run all weekend; two days off since the long run on Friday.

I'd been thinking about a class from the previous day. It's a class that focuses on people skills, taught in the context of the therapeutic relationship, but which has broader application in developing general communication skills and self-awareness. For the most part, the class has been enjoyable, but some of the discussion and exercises in Sunday's class (on self-awareness and finding the core self), didn't jive and had left me a bit frustrated.

And so that's where my head was when I went on this run.

Well no -- I was probably spending more time dwelling on how I didn't really feel like going out in the cold, but that I needed to put some miles in, and that being outside would be better than being in the gym.

Probably high 20s, headphones on (MP3 player in an inner layer). Just wanting to get the damn thing over with.

And sometime around mile 3, past the busy intersection by the hotels and the 'Co and the Despot, past the last traffic light, with the reservoir on my right and the woods on my left, I find my rhythm.

There's a mindfulness to it. Breathing, moving.

Breathe in, breathe out. Left foot, right foot. Arms swing. A gentle pendulum twist between the shoulders and hips. The road passing underneath. And just you inside your head.

I found my core. Connections between memories and thoughts. It was good, but I'll spare you the details.

Running IS exercise. But it's also mindfulness of your breath, of your body. There's discipline and dedication*. And hopefully clarity of thought.

In the most recent issue of National Geographic, there's a photo of a Buddhist monk chanting under the frigid waters of a waterfall in Japan. I thought it was a cool picture, but I remember thinking that, in the pursuit of a more spiritual self, I probably drew the line somewhere well before standing beneath a torrent of freezing water.

But I will run. (Although I'm thankful I've only had to run in the rain once this season so far.)

* I found an article that discusses the difference between discipline and dedication on the Runner's World site. Check it out. As a dedicated, but fairly undisciplined runner, I found it an interesting and valuable way of looking at things.

Of Dinosaurs, Radio Shack, and a bit about Capitalism

"Wow, look! A dinosaur!"

We were having brunch a few weeks ago, after playing snow disc under clear skies with temperatures running in the high 40s; the Milkman was referring to my cell phone.

I took a certain amount of pride in my old Audiovox CDM-9000, which I'd had for almost 5 years. It's never been a priority for me to have the latest, greatest, gee-whiz new-fangled doo-dad. When I bought my PDA (a B&W Handspring Visor Edge) over 3 years ago, it was right around the time they had discontinued making it. I've had my stereo amp and tuner since college (if they were people, they'd be allowed to vote by now), and they were refurbished models when I bought them. I'd been looking for a new cell phone, but it was hard to justify since the one I already had was working just fine. The buttons were starting to go, but overall I couldn't complain: it got good signal and I'd never really had any problems with it. (And there's that whole trying not to spend money because I still don't have a job thing.) I hadn't really NEEDED a new phone.

You'll notice that I wrote a lot of that in the past tense.

And that would be because the Milkman's little comment was apparently something of a harbinger of doom. Pretty much the next day, my phone died.

So it really was time to get a new cellphone.

The problem is that I'm pretty picky about the features I've wanted in a new phone, and Verizon seems to be determined not to offer the combination I've been looking for. For what it's worth, I wanted a tri-mode phone, clamshell, with an LCD display on the outside, and NO CAMERA.

I mean, how hard is that?

Hard enough apparently.

The sticking point seems to be the camera. They're pretty much ubiquitous these days, and while I think it's pretty nifty that it's A PHONE AND A CAMERA (AT THE SAME TIME!!!), when it comes right down to it, I don't need it. Just like I don't need mobile web. Or video on demand. (Crikey, I don't even use video on demand IN MY FREAKING HOUSE!)

I don't want it. I don't need it. And I sure as hell don't want to need it.

I'd been checking the Verizon website on a fairly regular basis after learning that they would offer up to a $100 credit on a new phone to existing customers. But the selection has always been fairly limited*.

Ok, the selection sucked.

So I figured I'd just be stuck with my old phone for the rest of my natural life.

And then I walked into the Radio Shack at the Fresh Pond Mall.

I had been in the area for a required DUA seminar at the Career Source and wandered in to try and find a replacement battery for a cordless (landline) phone.

Let me now state for the record here that I've always held a wee bit of contempt for Radio Shack. Just a deep-seated visceral response probably rooted in an ancient Apple ][+ versus TRS(trash)-80 rivalry and memories of lame electronics kits and crappy alkaline batteries. I admit that it's fairly irrational, but there it is. And it hasn't been helped by a few recent experiences where the service has been uninspiring to say the least.

Let's take my original attempt at finding the replacement battery as an example.

I had originally looked for the battery at a Shack down on Main Street in Waltham. I don't find the stores particularly well organized, but I manage to find the rechargeable phone batteries. Unfortunately, they don't seem to be in any particular order and they all seem to be based on phone models and, silly me, I just wrote down the specs and part number of the BATTERY. (And did I mention that even if you know the phone model number, the phone model information is printed on the back of the package, so you have to pull the package off the rack to see if it's the right one?) I go through them anyway, hoping to pattern match on the voltage and current, checking to see if it fits a Panasonic phone (for any model), but no luck. So I go talk to the guy behind the counter (after he helps two other people in the store).

I have to bring in the phone, he tells me. I ask him again just to make sure I was hearing him right (I was), and then left, too dumbfounded to ask why he couldn't somehow, maybe, look it up, like, on a computer or something.

Yeah, I'm not so fond of the Shack. In my head, I think of them as the Scrap. Or, Radio Crap.

So back to Fresh Pond. I walk into the store, fully expecting to be disappointed when I'm asked if I need any help and I tell him about the battery I'm looking for. And he just walks over to the rack and hands it to me. And then says something to the effect of: "I think this is the one you want, but I'll double-check on the computer." Huh, a computer. Who'da thunk it? I'm amazed at the technological advances they've made in the last week. So cool, I get my battery. After I pay, I look over the cell phones before I head out. (I find it odd that the Shack sells cell phones, but whatever. It's particularly interesting that the other Shack in Waltham that's in the mini-mall down the street is just 2-3 storefronts down from an actual Verizon store. And while I'm on the subject, does anyone else think that these brick and mortar corporate cell phone stores are stupid? Especially when they probably have better accessibility through these 3rd party resellers? Like Radio Shack?) The sales guy notices me looking and asks again if I need any help. I tell him no, Verizon never has the phone I'm looking for, but I usually check just for shits and giggles. He asks what I'm looking for, I give him the list, and then he points out two (not one, but TWO) phones that are the droids I'm looking for.

"Are you sure they're tri-mode?" I ask.
"Yup," he says.

Huh, again. I file this information away (since I'm still trying to be circumspect about my spending), thank him and leave.

So when my phone dies, I go through the motions and check the Verizon site, and then hit Fresh Pond the next day.

Different guy, just as helpful. He pulls out the phones so I can actually play with them. Gives me the scoop on their features, but also brings up their specs on a computer in the store. And then leaves me alone so I can figure out what I want to do. I end up with the Motorola v260, and it'll cost me 30 bucks if I renew my contract with Verizon for 2 years. Yeah, cool, whatever. I've stuck with them for over 5 years. I like my plan. Sure, no problem.

Well, no. To get the phone, I have to upgrade my plan, otherwise I have to pay $200 for the phone.

I'm kind of attached to my phone plan. For 35 bucks (plus taxes, fees and assorted reaming charges), I get 150 minutes (low in the grand scheme of phone plans, but perfectly adequate for me) in the USA OneRate plan, which they don't offer anymore, and should not be confused with their America's Choice plan that they're trying to force down everyone's throat. It means there are NO roaming charges, anywhere in the country. It's a really simple coverage/rate map, too. You take a map of the U.S. and just color the whole thing in. I like it. Simple. And it's nice to not have to worry if you're gonna have coverage or be charged for roaming** (which I can never seem figure out exactly how much they're charging).

So I'm not happy about being forced into changing my plan, but the guy convinces me that their National SingleRate plan (which also isn't officially being offered anymore) is basically the same plan that I used to have. Ok. Sold. I'm annoyed with Verizon, but close enough. And hey, new phone.

And that night, I remember that my plan had a promotional (for as long as I had the plan) service of unlimited free weekend minutes. I'm worried again. Did I lose my weekend minutes? The next morning, I call to find out the scoop, expecting the worst. Nope. I still have my weekend minutes, and actually my plan didn't get changed*** at all. It should have been changed, but since it wasn't, they're not going to muck with it. (SCORE! Fresh Pond Radio Shack, you ROCK!)

And then he tries to sell me on the America's Choice plan.

*sigh*

So I go over my standard story about how I don't need that many minutes, and I like not having to worry about coverage and roaming charges in some of the random places I end up, like in the middle of the Mojave desert or obscure parts of New Hampshire or the wilds of Western Mass. That I don't think the Choice plan is the plan for me. And I think I mention that I'm annoyed that they keep changing the plans and are trying to get me to switch. And then he tells me that Verizon is only TRYING TO HELP THE CUSTOMER. . . .

I'm sorry, did you just hear my eyes roll?

It's funny, I had this crazy idea that big companies basically did things to make money. And pretty much as much money as possible. (Of course, preferably in such a way that they can show a nice constant growth trajectory in revenue to make the zombies on Wall Street all collectively soil themselves.)

I mean, I'm sure that a company wouldn't stop doing something that happened to help a customer so long as it wasn't directly getting in the way of the prime directive of making more money. But let's face it: if there were no repercussions for a company to make money by, I dunno, cutting off people's arms to be sold to their next door neighbor, I'm pretty sure it'd happen. In fact, I expect the stockholders would probably demand it. I'm sure there are exception, but as a general rule, I expect a large company to help the customer only because it benefits the company, whether it be to build loyalty, to improve the company's image, to avoid the threat of regulation (Not like that's going to happen these days), or whatever.

I was listening to Marketplace on NPR the other day, and one of the listener letters was complaining about how Verizon was investing in premium services (such as V-CAST) rather then improving their basic services.

Well, Duh.

There is this false idea that capitalism and the spirit of competition will just make everything better. Sure, in some markets you can get price competition, but there will also be competition in quality and service. And even then, there are dependencies: true competition, market saturation, resource availability. And what about companies that are trying to (required to) grow revenue? When stock price and market perception (read: the focus on revenue growth) trumps stability, you get companies emphasizing new features over core service, and cost reduction (like "encouraging" your customer base to switch to internal network plans), especially when you start approaching market saturation.

I find the idea particularly frightening when you start talking about health care and health insurance, where the discussion seems to focus on costs, but the reality is that there is more than one degree of freedom. Competition can reduce costs, but you can't assume that the quality of the care and service will remain fixed. Differentiation and competition will occur on both cost AND quality. And if you can't afford basic health care, you can just suck it up, and hope some band-aids and aspirin will be enough. Sure, you get what you pay for, and if you can't afford to pay: too bad, so sad.

How about an insurance company that's always watching the bottom line, decides that you're high risk (Smoker? Eat fatty foods? Family history of cancer?) so they either charge you an astronomical premium, or just flat out refuse coverage. How well does that idea sit with you? Or what about...

Um, right. I was talking about my new cell phone.

Sorry...

It's got a cool ring though, did I mention that?

*According to a Verizon rep that I talked to (at their store in the Burlington mall), they're pretty picky about qualifying phones which, while possibly providing better reliability and coverage, severely limits their selection. He also said that they tended to only order limited stock because they didn't want to get stuck with a bunch of older models because people were more interested in the latest new thing. (Thus: lots of camera phones; no old, boring tri-mode phones.)

**Since all of this happened, Verizon has changed their America's Choice plan to have no roaming charges. (As is typical, this happens about 2 weeks after I have to deal with the new phone/new phone plan thing.) But they still don't have full national coverage, so I can only assume that you just won't get signal in those areas.

***I've since received a monthly statement and a new contract in the mail that both seem to suggests that I'm only getting free weekend airtime as a special 2-month promotion and that I'm going to be charged $10 a month for the service. I've called Verizon's customer service yet again, and they seem to think that the paperwork is wrong and I really do have free weekend minutes at no additional charge. But I'm not going to believe it until I get my May statement and I don't see any extra charges.

Cold enough

It's not like today was the coldest day that I've ever gone running. According to Weather Underground, it was a balmy 27°F.

Ok, I wasn't exactly happy about it, but like I said, it's been worse.

But it was cold enough, at least for my MP3 player*, that after being outside for a little over an hour, it decided that it'd had enough and started making a loud annoying buzzing noise through the headphones instead of playing music, and completely ignored all the buttons and switches, including the power switch.

I had to pull the battery to make it stop.

Stupid winter.

*Yes, it was the cold. When I replaced the battery, the player reset and then after about a minute or two, it started buzzing again. I jiggled the battery again and moved it from an outside pocket on my fleece pullover to a pocket inside my windpants and it seemed to behave for the rest of the run.

Running errands

It's been a while since I've been out of the house on my own for more than a couple of hours. Usually it's just a short trip to the gym, to the store. Little trips, usually just one destination with maybe a stop on the way home, two to three hours tops.

Today, I had a list. Of lists. Doctor's office, groceries, supplies for school* (starting this week), supplies for Noodlefest (Saturday).

* Yep, I officially signed up for massage therapy school. (Technically muscular therapy school, although I find I keep saying it the other way. Habit, I guess.) Definitely a change in gears that I'm looking forward to, but not yet a complete life change, since school is only part-time (Wednesday evenings and all day Sundays for the next two years) and I expect that I'll probably end up back in engineering in the near term.

I left the house around 10am and headed to the Doctor's office to get a health certification signed that was needed for school. TB test negative -- whoo-hoo! Ahem. Right. You know... There just isn't a lot going on these days...

Anyway, I hit the 'Co to pick up a few things and to see about getting some sheets and hand towels to be used with the massage table. Good deal on the hand towels (12@$13.99+tax), but (surprise, surprise) they only had queen, king and CA-king sized sheet sets. It is the 'Co, after all. But I was looking for twin sheets since I was trying to reduce washer/dryer loads.

So, off to Bed, Bath and Beyond in Burlington where I scored two twin sheet sets for 10 bucks a piece. Interestingly, they were sold out of actual white sheets, so I ended up with ivory sheets. Whatever. While there, I noticed a Trader Joe's conveniently located right next door. The SOOTTAD has been talking about going to TJ's to find affordable organic groceries, so I gave her a call, put together yet another list and picked up a few things there as well.

Heading back to 128, I'm trying to think of the best way to get to Allston, also realizing that it's around 1pm and I'm getting hungry. 128/95 is kind of funny, being a loop around the city of Boston, so the stretch around Burlington goes either East (North) or West-Southwest (South), so in order to get to Allston (Southeast), I figured I'd head East (North) to I-93, head south into town and then pop out to Allston, figuring it'd be easier that backtracking West (South) on 128 and then navigating all manner of roads to wiggle my way into town. (Seriously, look at the map) And best of all, I could stop in Chinatown to grab some cheap eats for lunch and maybe hit a bakery to get extra treats. A good plan on the eats (four bucks for a bowl of wonton noodle soup), not so good on the baked goods -- all the bakeries are closed because of the Lunar New Year. (Xin nian kuai le, BTW.)

So over to the Soopah 88. Much meat and starch were acquired. (Annoyingly, but not surprisingly, there was limited availability of quality noodles of the preferred brand. I resorted to secondary supplies, but even then, we may need to supplement on Saturday.) Garlic and leafy greens were also unacceptable, so I resolved to hit to the Wagon Wheel before heading home.

But first back to CostCo, because I noticed that the beef was cheaper there. It's almost 4pm, and there are lines now. Ugh. I should have bought it earlier when I had the chance. And hey, I've been driving around with milk and chicken from TJ's in my trunk for the last 3 hours. Good thing it's only in the mid-30s today.

Last stop is the Wheel, and even though I know it's only a 10 minute side trip, I just want to be home now. I'm done -- I surrender. Shopping day is over.

And then I realize that I've only been out-and-about for 6 hours or so, and I can't understand what I'm complaining about. It's not like I'm stuck at the office for 8, 10, 12 hours. It's pathetic, really. What a lazy. sack. of. shit.

So I suck it up, hit the Wheel, and head home.

4:30pm. Mission accomplished, but hardly an accomplishment.

And of course, once everything is put away (more or less), I'm on the couch and pretty much out for the count.

Represent

"Honestly, I can't tell you how much easier it is to squeeze votes out of these freshmen (lawmakers) or money out of big donors when they think if they say 'no,' I'm going to put a horse head in their bed or something."

--House Majority Leader TOM DELAY

Yeah, that's just what I want to hear coming from one of our country's leading Congressional representatives.

Not.

Yes, I understand the realities of contemporary politics, but speaking so bluntly about strong-arming votes and soliciting (demanding?) money seems so egregiously counter to the notion that these guys are maintaining the cogs and gears of our democracy. (Democracy, an abstraction of the concept of equality -- that somehow we are all equal, and thus should all have a voice. It seems like fairness should somehow fit in there somewhere, but I realize that that's a long dead fantasy.)

He's a Congressman, a Representative. I think representative, and I wonder, "is he really REPRESENTING us?" (For now, separating out the fact that he's technically the representative of a district in Texas). I think represent and I think "looking out for us; looking out for our interests." Is he really doing that?

And then my cynical side says, "no, he represents like a symbol, the way a symbol represents an idea or a larger concept." (Sometimes I wonder if there really is another side. I suppose that would be the blissfully ignorant side.) So perhaps in that way, I can flip the word on its head. And I see it. He represents us, alright. He represents the national temperament of a country that seems to value and believe in bullying others into agreeing with you and encouraging unbridled greed.

But that's just my perspective, I guess. It's how the rhetoric sounds coming out of Washington, it's how economic policies look to me, the energy policy, foreign policy. How much of that translates to the day-to-day living of the NASCAR dad or soccer mom (or Enron exec) in middle America (conscious or subconscious), I'll never know.

Another thing about the gym...

I may have mentioned this before, but I really hate gyms. I've never been into weight training (despite brief dalliances associated with a few fruitless attempts to put on some muscle mass and some requisite courses of physical therapy), and conceptually, treadmills (and really, all cardio machines) just seem like glorified hamster wheels. And I'd much rather be outside.

At least in the general sense.

But when it's 7°F outside, with a -15° windchill, or the roads and sidewalks are covered with ice or slush (or the snowbanks have just completely absorbed the sidewalks and shoulders), sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. I still don't like it, but it's better than being hit by a car or pulling a muscle slipping on the ice.

But today I found another, specific, reason why I don't like working out at the gym.

The smell.

And I don't mean just the general stuffiness of running inside, although that's certainly true as well. No, I'm talking about having to work out next to a specific person that smells. Stinks. Reeks.

Unfortunately, I didn't figure this out until I'd already been on the treadmill for a few minutes. I guess it just wafted over from a change in air currents, a shift in stride (out of the corner of my eye, I could see him regularly readjusting his shirt), or maybe he just put out waves of stink -- like oceanic tides, or solar flares. But by the time I noticed, I felt like it was too late to move and restart my workout elsewhere.

Outside, you could just pass the person, or maybe just turn off onto another road or trail. But in the gym, you're stuck, not even a gentle cross-breeze providing respite. I'd catch the readout on his machine -- 2 miles, 3 miles, 20 minutes, 30. How long is he going to stay on there? I found myself trying Jedi mind tricks to get him to leave:

You're tired, you want to go home now. You could really use a V8. You think you left the stove on, maybe you should go and check.

Actually, I don't think I was that level-headed. I think it was more like:

Finish your run. Finish you run. Please go. Please, finish your run. Oh God, please go away. Go away. Please. Go. Away. Now.

I do have to admire his commitment to his workout, because he just kept going and going and going. Around mile 4 (my 2nd mile), he hit some buttons on the treadmill, slowed down and got off. And inside, I leapt for joy.

And then he came back and started a new workout program.

Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!

After more than a half an hour he finally left.

I don't think it was a hygiene problem, but maybe just some kind of body chemistry thing -- the guy could probably take a shower every 15 minutes, and the second he started working out and breaking a sweat, the waves of odor would just come pouring out with it. Or maybe he just didn't do his laundry regularly.

Answers unknown, but maybe that'll learn me to take a little more time selecting an available treadmill.

And leave me wishing for warmer weather and better road conditions.

Absence

You'd almost think that I made some kind of New Year's resolution to cut down on my blogging or something given my posting frequency lately. No such thing, though. I don't actually subscribe to the New Year's resolution thing at all, really. But I haven't felt like there's been anything worth writing about recently.

Sure, there's plenty going on in the world, but I continue to find most newsworthy items that I hear about (despite not reading much news, watching TV or listening to the radio) exceedingly depressing. (e.g. the second inauguration, the new Attorney General candidate) And, of course, all that no-news-reading, no-TV-watching, no-radio-listening does generally limit what I'm exposed to.

[As an aside, mentioning my limited exposure to information does make me think about the general importance of having access to information, which leads to the larger thought process about the access to, and the quantity and quality of the information that we get. But that, too, leads to a very long discussion about how the access to and control of information (be it newspapers, books, television, the internet, word-of-mouth, or whatever) shapes perception, knowledge, "the facts." And that, or course, leads inevitably back to politics. And it makes me tired just thinking about thinking about it.

[ As an aside to the aside, the idea that your perception of reality can be shaped by the limited information you have available to you first hit home for me back in high school when I read Robert Heinlein's Job: A Comedy of Justice. It's a point well-taken when the liberal and conservative sides of the Blogosphere are talking about some topic and it seems like they're actually talking about different issues that exist on completely different planets. I think I need to reread it. Especially after reading this synopsis, it seems (sadly) more relevant to current events these days. ] ]

But I think things have also been shadowed by the trip to China. And yet, I haven't been able to get myself to write much about China either. I think part of it is because the trip was so overwhelming that it's hard to know where to start. But it may also have had something to do with catching a cold on the second to last day in Beijing, and then trying to recover from that and the massive jetlag during four straight grey and rainy days (and nights) in Los Angeles. I think I heard something about it being the most rain they've received in recorded history. The camping trip was a bust -- we never made it out because we figured the roads and trails were going to be flooded. I have to admit that I would have liked to have seen Afton Canyon raging with water, but it was probably best to have an excuse to just stay home and rest.

But that break has made it hard to get back into writing. I expect I'll get to it eventually, but right now it's just not flowing.

So I guess this post is just going to be about how I haven't been able to write about anything. Boy, that's pretty embarrassing.

More proof that people are bad

The domain name of my shell hosting company apparently got hijacked sometime over the weekend. Here's what was on the main page of their relocated site:

Status as of Sun Jan 16 14:00:56 EST 2005

Panix's main domain name, panix.com, has been hijacked by parties unknown. The ownership of panix.com was moved to a company in Australia, the actual DNS records were moved to a company in the United Kingdom, and panix.com's mail has been redirected to yet another company in Canada. Panix staff are currently working around the clock to recover our domain, but this may take until Monday, due to the time differences and difficulties in reaching responsible parties over the weekend.

For most customers, accesses to Panix using the panix.com domain will not work or will end up at a false site. Since the Internet domain name system is distributed, some network providers still have the correct information in their name servers, but this could change at any moment.

As a temporary workaround, you can use the panix.net domain in place of panix.com. In other words, if you're trying to log onto "shell.panix.com" or see your mail at "mail.panix.com," use "shell.panix.net" or "mail.panix.net" instead. However, you should only change the names of hosts that you connect to or your return address: the name you use to login to our mail servers, username@panix.com, should stay the same.

Mail to username@panix.com is currently being redirected to the false site, and should be considered lost or compromised if it does not arrive in your Panix mailbox. If you have online accounts that authenticate via email address, you might wish to protect them against fraud by changing that address to your username "@panix.net".

So if you're wondering why my email is bouncing, that would be it. I'm temporarily rerouting email to the new panix.net domain through our own domain (the one where the gallery resides), so if you want, you can switch over to the same userid that I have at panix, only at the other domain or switch over to panix.net yourself. But hopefully the administrators will get things straightened out soon enough.

Bah.

Oh, and BTW, if it wasn't obvious, I'm back home in New England, but still getting back into the swing of things. Hopefully I'll get around to posting more soon.

Traveling

On a very, very few occasions, I've had the following conversation:

Them: Hey, nice to meet you. So where you from?
Me: San Fernando valley. Y'know: Southern California.
Them: No, I mean where are you really from? You know, are you Chinese? Japanese?

And usually I just tell them that my parents are originally from China, and I leave it at that. But inside, it kinda bugs me. Really, I know it's just curiosity about family backgrounds, chit chat, getting to know you. It should be more annoying than anything, like if my last name was "O'brien" and the first question out of somebody's mouth was: "So, you Irish?" But that isn't the case, and I know that I've always had something of a neurotic streak in me, and that I've always been hypersensitive about being different, of standing out in the crowd. (I'm tall, it comes with the territory.)

So in my head, sometimes I take it the wrong way. I hear accusations that I'm a foreigner. That I don't belong here. And I just want to say: "No, I'm an American. I was born here. I live here. I'VE NEVER EVEN BEEN THERE! I'VE NEVER EVEN BEEN TO CHINA, FER CRYIN' OUT LOUD!"

And now all that's out the window now.

...because I'm going to China. T-minus 6 hours and counting. W00t!

My mom and I are heading to Shanghai for a week, and then hopping up to Beijing for another few days before heading back to the States. As mentioned, it'll be the first time over there for me, and the first time back for my mom in probably more than 40 years. Should be cool.

Of course, trying to avoid the political commentary here, but I thought I'd mention that it's been an interesting experience reading the travel guides about Shanghai which all give an overview of the city's history. The Paris of the Orient, Shanghai was a city largely partitioned up into concessions by multiple imperial powers (England, the United States and France) for much of the second half of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, each concession wholly administrated by a foreign power. But I'll leave the analogizing and conclusion drawing as an exercise to the reader.

* * *

Anyway, when we get back, the SOOTTAD is going to fly out to L.A. (pretty much day of) and we'll spend a few days hiking in the desert. AND THEN, some Korean BBQ in Vegas, catching another Cirque show and then finally back to Boston. I'm usually better about leaving some breathing room between activities, but there was a lot of cross-coordination that was needed on this one (the SOOTTAD almost immediately gets back on a plane to go to a dance thing in Florida), and we wanted to get it all in, so it couldn't be helped.

And I figure I've got some free time afterward, so I'll just rest up once I'm back home.

Running in LA; observations

Nobody walks in L.A.... unless they have to.

But people do run. And not just crazy out-of-town people who are visiting their folks for the holidays. I've even seen them. (Maybe two or three, but it is the Valley after all.) While I was running, of course.

A nice change, running outside in shorts and a T-shirt again; clear skies every day so far.

My first run was in the late afternoon, the day I flew in. I see nasturtiums (ours frosted over more than a month ago). I smell roses, I smell... wood smoke? I see the smoke from the chimney and smile when I think about what I'm wearing as I pass by outside. It's 60 degrees and the skies are a deep blue as we approach dusk. The same thought hits me as a run by a house bedecked with Christmas lights -- I catch a glimpse of a living room full of holiday spirit: the tree, lights and decorations, a warm cozy picture that seems somewhat out of place amidst the citrus trees and palms. And then it gets dark and the temperature drops about 15 degrees and I'm not quite as amused. I forgot how quickly it cooled off out here. I occasionally hit pockets of warm air and wonder if it's been trapped by the geography or it's just car exhaust.

The next day I run in the late morning. It's gotta be in the 70s, with a moderate wind. Longer run, different roads. More traffic during the day, but I also see more runners than the previous night. The smell of car exhaust ebbs and flows with the traffic and wind, but I catch other scents as I pass their sources: pizza from the take-out place, more flowers, pine trees ... and Christmas flocking (in pastel yellows, pinks and purples, iew) at the tree lot, water as I cross the Los Angeles River in all it's paved glory (although I do notice they added a walking path along one of it's "banks").

A run in L.A. is a run through my childhood.

I run by my old elementary school, maybe a mile and a half from the house. For some reason, it still surprises me how little has changed. The mural mosaic on the main office that went up when I was in 4th grade (made up of drawings by the students, none of them mine), is still there. The buildings. The grassy slope with the semi-circular concrete benches. The playground, now with the addition of a few trailers (temp-to-perm classrooms?) and the basketball courts relocated, but the handball courts (wall) still standing. The separate kindergarten building and playground is the same except for the sandbox which has been replaced with that space-age black rubber stuff. The tree just outside (under which I shat myself while I sat waiting for class to start because I was too shy to ask for permission to be let into the building to use the bathroom) is still there too.

I get to the park where we used to watch fireworks on the fourth, until it's demise after Prop 13. The "Land of Oz," a cool maze-like structure within a giant sandbox area (before the sterile suspended bridges and spiral slides became the norm), great for tag and hide-and-seek games, full of screaming, spastic children, and piss and feces -- gone. (The 3-story giant robot with tube-slides for arms at the other park I used to go to is also no more.) Basketball courts migrated to the other side of the main building, which is currently under construction. (What is it with the basketball courts anyway?) But I recognize the baseball diamonds where I played T-ball, anchoring the corners of the field where I could never get my kite to do anything but cartwheel along the turf. I run the "track" that encircles them, just packed dirt and gravel like it's always been, and pass the soccer fields and the separate little league diamonds. I run by the trees lining the fields, under which we'd eat the tart orange slices brought by somebody's mom (probably from oranges from their own backyards) after games, back before there were "Soccer Moms" or minivans or SUVs, or worries about mortgage payments, unemployment (mine or anybody else's), or "homeland security."

Some things change, some things stay the same.

* * *

A few other observations:

• The air quality seems much better than it's been on my last couple of visits. I don't know whether it's a seasonal thing, or because it's been cooler, or if the winds have been carrying the smog out of the valley, or it really is just better, but the runs haven't been bad at all. I'm coughing a bit more than when I first got here (I sound just like my Dad sometimes), but at least I haven't felt that constricted and uncomfortable feeling in my lungs that I've experienced in the past. Dad's been taking the train recently; I suppose if other Southern Californians are taking advantage of the mass transit options even a few days a week, maybe the air around here really is getting better.

• almost everyone I see is wearing sunglasses. Hey, it's sunny. The runners almost uniformly are wearing headphones, too. Running it their own private worlds, to their own soundtracks. Actually, on the one overcast day I've seen since I've been out here, everyone is still wearing sunglasses, even the older folks on their morning constitutionals. Headphones on, but still occasionally reciprocating a wave hello.