March 10, 2008
Where it Happened
A couple of out-of-town friends who've spent time here in the Southern Part of Heaven have been asking about precisely where last week's tragedy happened. Above is a photo of the very spot (below is a map pinpointing it: look for the little yellow figure). I drove by it the other day and based on the location of a pile of flowers, I suspect Eve Carson died near the mailboxes in the left-center of the photo.
If you visit the spot it is very hard to believe that what happened there did indeed occur. It is such a pretty and peaceful little corner of the world.
I have a feeling that this one is going to leave a lingering scar on Chapel Hill.
Posted by dag at 10:24 AM | Comments (1)
March 4, 2008
A Little Comic Relief
Posted by dag at 9:18 PM | Comments (0)
October 2, 2007
The Heat is On
Today's NY Times has an article about disappearing arctic ice that includes a really shocking map of ice coverage in recent years. Meanwhile, the latest edition of National Geographic contains a graphic suggesting that we may be in for a pretty rough ride regardless of what we do at this point. Nonetheless, the same issue contains temperature and precipitation maps that have a clear implication: major wine producing areas will likely be threatened by climactic (where Pinot is involved, my mind can sometimes get away from me) climate change.
Time to panic.
Update: This and this provide some indication of just how bad it has gotten around here recently.
Posted by dag at 12:28 PM | Comments (2)
September 27, 2007
Testing
Another test post.
Posted by dag at 6:28 PM | Comments (0)
Testing
Another test post.
Posted by dag at 6:28 PM | Comments (1)
July 12, 2007
Sissinghurst Castle
The other day I saw a piece on one of the HD PBS channels (I believe it is a program about properties in the UK Historical Trust) about Sissinghurst Castle and, lo and behold, the NY Times offers an article about it in today's edition. Visiting this place, a property crafted by the truly bizarre Vita Sackville-West (the vaguely Bloomsbury set-esque writer) and her equally odd if somewhat more discrete husband Harold Nicholson, is going to be added to my lifetime "To Do" list.
Posted by dag at 12:23 PM
May 6, 2007
Spokane
I have gotten something like 60 visitors from Spokane in the past week or two. Is there something in a recent post that is germane to Spokane?
Posted by dag at 4:29 PM
April 20, 2007
Greco-Roman Art at the Met
Well, it has been some time since I've posted. Part of the reason is that things have been very busy in neck of the woods, and partly I, like most other Americans, have been rather transfixed by events at Virginia Tech. As a tonic in such times, I would recommend the Met's new, and stunning, Greco-Roman art display. A particularly enjoyable feature of the NYTimes article to which I like is an interactive component that allows you to visit the gallery from your computer.
Posted by dag at 10:43 AM
March 15, 2007
Aaah, screw you guys...
I took the South Park Personality Quiz. There was a certain terrible inevitability to the result:
Posted by dag at 7:25 PM
March 6, 2007
The Origins of the Species
The NY Times has an interesting article summarizing recent genetic and linguistic evidence regarding the origins of the peoples of the British Isles. Before proceeding to its major points, let me briefly and roughly summarize my understanding of the traditional story of the peopling of the British Isles:
In the beginning, a few Neolithic types wandered in from God knows where when the glaciers retreated from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Then came the Celts, who may or may not have completely replaced that original population, but certainly displaced their culture. It is not clear whether the Celts came before, during or after the introduction of agriculture. It is also not clear just what the heck was a Celt.
Then came the Romans, who had some influence on the native gene pool but not much (and then only in the places they succeeded in subduing, and it turns out that back then the Irish and Scots were tough nuts to crack). Hence, modern English people really do not look like Italians, except when they do (that's how it goes with "stylized facts" on this subject).
Then came catastrophe: the Angles and the Saxons. They came from Scanda...etherlands and largely displaced the native population of Britain. Perhaps even more tragically, they displaced the beautiful Italian culinary heritage the Romans had planted in Britain, in the process laying the foundation for that atrocity known today as English cuisine.
They had little effect on the peoples of the places where the Romano Celtic types found secure refuge from them (namely Scotland, Ireland and Wales). There is, and believe me when I say this, a direct link from the status quo that emerged at this time to the music today of bands ranging from The Cranberries to the Dropkick Murphys. This is the only possible explanation for The Clash.
Another important aspect of the Anglo-Saxon invasion was the birth of English, which was clearly a hybrid of the languages the Angles and Saxons spoke. Uhhh, wherever it is they came from and whatever it is they spoke, the linguistic evidence is obviously as a clear as day on this point. Obviously.
Next were the Vikings, who made the Angles and Saxons seem civilized. These were angry people. (Today we would say that they had fundamental self-esteem problems that could only be solved with Ritalin.) However, after laying the cultural foundation for the Mosh Pit and sprinkling their seed throughout the British Isles, they turned their attention to building the Ikea empire and the military (if not ergonomic) threat they presented largely subsided.
Finally, the Normans came. The Normans were kind of like the Anglo-Saxons, but after a semester or two at Wharton. They were vicious. They were ferocious. They were ruthless in their acquisition of wealth. They would have embraced spreadsheets, had they been available. Above all, they were corporate.
The Normans brought many Romance words (but little of the structure or romance of the Romance languages) into English. They also laid the foundations for a political order that has proven remarkably resilient: in one form or another, by one pathway or another, it has wended down through history to eventually form the basis of my neighborhood's Homeowners Association (we even have our own Magna Carta, ominously referred to as the Covenant). They contributed to the native gene pool as well, but did not undertake the kind of genocide we associate with the Angles or Saxons. That would have been sub-optimal from a profit maximization perspective.
Put this all together, toss in a dash of the odd African slave, captured Moor, fleeing Spaniard, disgruntled Dutchman, etc. etc., shake well and you get: the Spice Girls.
This old consensus story is starting to crumble, and this article highlights many major recent findings:
1. The Irish, English, Welsh and Scots are overwhelmingly similar in their genetic origins.
2. The bulk of their roots trace to Iberians who arrived at the end of the last Ice Age, possibly 16,000 years ago (but likely no more recently than the early Neolithic period).
3. The invaders (Celts (?), Romans, Angles, Saxons, Vikings and Normans) left some, but not much, genetic legacy beyond this base. Even in the most heavily invader-trodden areas of the British Isles, the population today overwhelmingly traces its roots back to these early settlers. (And even in those areas, the debate is really over how small a minority of the genetic ancestry of today's inhabitants come from post-Roman invaders.)
4. English may not be from Western German (the branch to which the Angle and Saxon languages supposedly belonged) after all. It may in fact have branched off from the German tree before Roman times, making it a pre-Roman language already present in the British Isles. At the time of Julius Caesar, an early proto-English may have been spoken in some parts of what we today call England, with Celtic (whatever that means) languages prevailing elsewhere.
5. Rosie O'Donnell's genes cannot be linked to any known modern human lineage. The only conclusion one can reach is that she is that result of some horribly botched experiment based on the early work of Watson and Crick. It would seem that back then our scientific reach exceeded our scientific grasp.
Posted by dag at 9:48 AM
March 5, 2007
Holy Crap
Today I have received 250 (250!) spam messages.
Posted by dag at 5:42 PM
February 19, 2007
Sons of the Emerald Isle
Last night I watched Scorcese's The Departed. On balance a successful film, it kept me tuned in for the full ride. One difference between this version and the earlier film from Hong Kong which inspired it is that the gang lord, in this instance Jack Nicholson's homage to Whitey Bulger, was far more center stage. A review will be forthcoming shortly.
But for now I want to share this zinger from the film: Freud said that the Irish are the only people "impervious to psychoanalysis".
Posted by dag at 11:02 AM
February 4, 2007
The Superbowl: A Review
Another disappointing Super Bowl has ended. A brief review:
1. The game itself was not very interesting. The Bears offense never got going and their defense, never convincing against the Peyton Manning Experience, just wore out at some point. And the Peyton Manning Experience, while steady and assured, was certainly not exciting: it felt like they were just making sausage out there.
2. Prince's half-time show was dumb and incoherent. I didn't need to hear songs like "Purple Rain" and "Proud Mary" blended into one another.
3. The commercials were just not funny. Occasionally there was some promise ("Connectile Dysfunction" was an interesting nub of an idea, the Cheryl Crowe add started out promising ("Trouble began immediately, when she realized she would actually have to use the product she was endorsing"), etc.) but even in these cases the joke quickly fizzled.
I gave up by 9pm EST and turned to HBO's Rome. The adventures of Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo seemed more promising. Now its time for 30 minutes of putting practice and then bed.
Posted by dag at 10:37 PM
Resolution
After a brief but intense period of personal inner-struggle, I have converged to a resolution: my sympathies this evening will lie with the Peyton Manning Experience.
Update: Ever wonder what happens to the champion caps and t-shirts made for the loosing side?
Posted by dag at 2:40 PM | Comments (0)
February 2, 2007
On the Nose
Can someone tell me the various meanings of the term "on the nose"? I knew it could mean "precisely" (eg "we won $20 on the nose"), but I've now seen it used in a few other contexts where that definition makes no sense. Here is an example from the Frasier episode "Taking Liberties", in which Frasier has a butler named Ferguson (with thanks from the Frasier Transcripts:
Frasier opens the newspaper.
Frasier: Dear God!
Martin: What's wrong?
Frasier: That politicking Alan Murchie has just been elected president of the opera board!
Martin: Yeah, I'll never forget where I was when I heard the news.
Frasier: This pinhead is president, I can't even get on the board!
Ferguson: And what will you be sending to congratulate Mr. Murchie, sir?
Frasier: Curses and epithets is all he'll get from me!
Ferguson: Quite right. However, a well-chosen gift might draw the eye of Mr. Murchie as he considers a replacement for his now- vacant seat on the board.
Martin gives Frasier a "not bad" look.
Frasier: Well, if it'll make you happy, Ferguson, let's send him a bottle of Chateau Belle Veux.
Ferguson: If I may, sir, I'm overheard Mr. Murchie speak fondly of the family villa in Umbria. He may consider a wine from that region especially thoughtful.
Martin gives Frasier another look.
Frasier: It's a little on the nose, but fine.
In this setting, does on the nose mean, perhaps, "a bit too obvious", "lacking subtlety", etc.?
Posted by dag at 10:57 PM | Comments (0)
January 25, 2007
A Window Onto 300 Million Years Ago
CNN has some pretty spectacular pictures from a rare sighting of the Frilled Shark (which is considered ancient because, like the Coelacanth, it has been essentially unchanged for hundreds of millions of years). Some images:
Posted by dag at 8:57 AM | Comments (0)
January 19, 2007
Storm Names
In Germany you can name a weather system for a fee:
The name Kyrill stems from a German practice of naming weather systems. Anyone may name one, for a fee. Naming a high-pressure system costs $385, while low-pressure systems, which are more common, go for $256. Three siblings paid to name this system as a 65th birthday gift for their father, not knowing that it would grow into a fierce storm.
Posted by dag at 9:30 AM | Comments (0)
January 18, 2007
Hey God: You Really, Really Like Me! (The Blizzard of '07 Edition)
This morning we awoke to something we haven't seen in years here in the Southern Part of Heaven: snow!!!
I know that we don't exactly live in the snow belt, but the absence of the white stuff for three to four years now just wasn't normal. And today we are redeemed. A pic (with more at Flickr):
I know, I know: not exactly a blizzard, actually. But still its something (and, as per usual, twice what WRAL predicted). Enough to force the usual 350 closings and 1800 fender benders that, on actuarial average, our area will experience with such an event.
Posted by dag at 7:45 AM | Comments (1)
January 9, 2007
Descent into Madden...ess
Via the Good Rabbi, we have the following from the guy who brought you Bush and Clinton:
Posted by dag at 11:02 AM | Comments (0)
December 26, 2006
The Rise and Fall of an Empire
I found this cool graphic on Wikipedia:
I can't find its original location, and so do not link directly.
Posted by dag at 9:17 AM | Comments (0)
November 26, 2006
Chuck Amato
Ok, OK: I had a lot to say about the Wolfpack Bosies when they drove Sendek out of town.
That was possibly the dumbest personnel move a university has ever made in any context. The subsequent search for a replacement showed up the hubris of the idiots who drove Coach Sendek from Raleigh: NC State is nowhere near the plum spot they thought it was, in large part because of the negative vibes created by Herb's treatment.
Given a generally incredibly weak recruiting position (he inherited a program that I would argue was in the opening phases of a death spiral) compounded by the competition from the two 800 lb gorillas down I-40, I thought Herb did an amazing job rebuilding State. The fans hated his Princeton thing, but through it he made the best of a weak hand and was steadily rebuilding State in the process, setbacks (eg Josh "I'm a moron" Powell bolting early) and all notwithstanding. It should have told them something that Duke and the Heels weren't crazy about NC State's Princeton thing either.
The truth is that the larger picture on Sendek was clear, and their misguided rage backfired. They could not get any of the big names that they predicted would be begging for the position. And the reason is simple: you don't get to be a big name coach by drinking the kind of Kool Aid that sustains most Pack fans. The free agent big dogs knew that the expectations of the Pack's rabid Wolves were wholly unrealistic, and that Sendek had essentially maximized the progress of the program at every phase of his tenure there. They knew they had no "miracle" answer Sendek had been unable to offer, and hence wisely decided to avoid the Wolf pit.
Let's face it, a team that made the NCAAs for, what was it, five years in a row (?), will now be lucky to make the NITs in two years time.
But all that is now done. The question before the Pack now is: whither Chuck?
With an overall record of 49-37 (25-31 in the ACC), a useful reference for Chuck might be UNC's recently departed John Bunting (27-45 overall, I believe). On paper, Bunting certainly looks worse than Amato. However, I think that two factors must be accounted for in any comparison:
1. Chuck inherited some awesome recruits. Most importantly, he had Philip Rivers, who I believe was an O'Cain recruit (rapid Pack fans should feel free to set me straight if I'm wrong about that).
2. I think it is fair to say that, overall, Bunting's teams have played a far more punishing non-conference schedule than Amato's squads.
Once you factor these two things in, I'm not sure that Amato really is any better than Bunting. The direct Celebrity Death Matches between the two in the post-Philip Rivers era certainly suggest that Amato is no better.
If we assume that UNC did indeed make the right move by dropping Bunting, I think the Pack would be doing the right thing by chucking Chuck. After all, Sendek was a far better basketball coach than Amato has proven on the gridiron (to the extent that you can compare such apples and oranges), and they had no problem tossing Herb.
Update: Another important question is that of trend. Here the Herb-Chuck distinction becomes even more glaring: by virtually any yardstick of performance, Herb's teams were getting better and better with time.
The same cannot be said of post-Philip Rivers Pack football.
Posted by dag at 3:41 PM | Comments (0)
November 15, 2006
Chevron
That's our cool scientific term for the day: chevron.
Posted by dag at 1:30 PM | Comments (0)
November 9, 2006
Ed Bradley
Ed Bradley, the 60 Minutes correspondent, has died at the age of 65.
This one hurts. He was one the last good guys.
Posted by dag at 1:53 PM | Comments (0)
October 31, 2006
Ulysses
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
-Tennyson
Posted by dag at 12:56 PM | Comments (0)
October 24, 2006
Quote of the Day
"True glory consists of doing what deserves to be written, and writing what deserves to be read".
-Pliny the Elder
Posted by dag at 7:22 PM | Comments (0)
October 15, 2006
Changes
A few announcements:
1. I deleted some comments. Sorry about that.
2. I have decided to require registration to post comments. Sorry again, but the issue is that I am getting really sick of deleting all of these junk comments.
Posted by dag at 9:32 PM | Comments (0)
October 9, 2006
A Request Honored
The Good Rabbi and others have recently asked how it is that I get stable and accessible links to the New York Times. I use the NY Times link generator, available here.
Posted by dag at 2:16 PM | Comments (0)
September 30, 2006
Iron Man
I tried taking an on-line super-hero personality test. The results:
Your results:
You are Iron Man
| Inventor. Businessman. Genius. |
Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz
Posted by dag at 3:29 PM | Comments (0)
September 27, 2006
Done
For the past two months, I have been working feversihly on a National Insitutes of Health R01 grant application, all the while also pushing papers forward and putting out the inevitable fires.
This morning the grant went out the door. There is always a weird feel to this moment. We've entered the eye of the storm, and the feverish editing, double-checking, etc. of even just yesterday is replaced by....calm. Silence. The great Still.
Depending on how long the first round of review takes, we could be in the eye for some time. There are some little things to do (eg further, more slow-paced editing for greater efficiency to find space to address inevitable reviewers' comments). But for now, all we can do is wait.
Posted by dag at 10:57 AM | Comments (0)
September 18, 2006
And You Thought Your Last Move Was Tough
Today's NY Times has an article hinting that a big move may be in the works: there is talk of shifting the Mississippi River to help the Louisiana coastline, which has suffered terribly since the levee system emerged in the 19th century, in the process depriving the coast of most of the sediment that had revitalized it for millenia. I think that events like Katrina have moved this from an abstract notion to a practical possibility meriting serious consideration. But it isn't just Katrina: the massive Mississippi floods of 13 years ago still loom large in the time frame over which river planning unfolds (not quite geological time, but this is not as straightforward a matter as building a car dealership). Of course, there is a problem (isn't there always?). The levees were put there for a reason: to reduce the amplitude of what had been the roller coaster of life and commerce along the river. I agree that, in the long run, the levee system has probably been an unmitigated environmental disaster. But in the shorter term, life on a less regulated river will mean just one thing: buckle up.
Posted by dag at 10:27 PM | Comments (0)
August 25, 2006
The Secret of Lucky Jack's Success
One of the enduring questions of the great age of sail (say, the 18th through early 19th centuries) is why the British navy was so successful.
The British navy of that era had no obvious advantage in terms of ship numbers, quality or technology over their shifting cast of continental naval opponents. And they relied on several sets of tactics that, at least on the face of it, placed them at something of a disadvantage.
For instance, virtually alone among the navies of the great powers of the age, the British navy attempted wherever possible to "seize the weather gauge" in naval engagements. What this meant in practice is that the British attempted to be upwind of their opponents. On the face of it, this involves two major disadvantages against one rather minor advantage. The first disadvantage is that either ship in the engagment would be pushed down to the wind, but the ship without the weather gauge be leaning away from the ship with the weather gauge, whereas the ship with the weather guage would be leaning toward the one without it. The ship without the weather gauge could thus open their lowest gun ports on the side of the ship that would be engaged in the action. The ship with the weather gauge would not be able to do so if winds were at all strong or seas at all heavy. Thus the ship without the weather gauge would be able to bring more guns to bear. The other disadvantage, of course, is that square rigged ships of the era had only a limited ability to sail into the wind. The ship without the weather gauge thus had more options in terms of disengaging if the fight went badly for them. Against these disadvantages, the ship with the weather gauge had a certain small advantage in terms of range (because it was firing with, rather than into, the wind). However, this advantage could be quickly eroded if the winds (as was likely) caused the ship with the weather gauge to close on the one without it.*
Nonetheless, despite their lack of physical advantage and seemingly strange tactical choices, the British navy of that era was essentially dominant. There are certainly hints regarding this success. For instance, various sources suggest that the British naval gunnery was superior in practice: they got off far more shots to each one the French fired. This hints at superior training, but why did this difference emerge?
Well, dear readers, in a fascinating paper that I have run across on the web, Douglas Allen offers a creative answer: the British navy got the balance of monitoring and incentives for captains and admirals right. As a result, they had the better trained crews (in terms of fighting skills), their ships were at sea more often (and thus, top to bottom, they were deeper in terms of the human capital of seamanship) and they were more likely to pursue the fight, and to do so to the finish. This is a really neat, approachable and fun read that examines the British navy (and other navies of the age) as a firm. The secret to Jack Aubrey's success, Allen would argue, is that he served in the firm that had done a better job overcoming the principal-agent problems created by the circumstances of naval warfare of the era.
* I should add that in fact the weather gauge did have one important advantage: without it it would be hard to seize the tactical initiative. Thus, the ship with the weather gauge had greater latitude in terms of deciding whether to engage an opponent without it. So, if you were really determined to fight, the weather gauge was desirable. But that all goes back to incentives, doesn't it? Why were the British so eager to fight, and so confident of victory, even when seemingly outmatched?
Posted by dag at 3:44 PM | Comments (0)
August 24, 2006
Good Night, Chapel Hill?
Let me preface this post with a disclaimer: I'm not going anywhere soon.
Nonetheless, in the past few months I have been thinking more and more about a potential change of scenery in my not-too-distant future. I have lived in Chapel Hill for a dozen years. That's a long time, and the urge to try something new is growing. This is probably partly spurred on by watching friends like Justin, who have embarked on new adventures in new places. Fortunately, when the vibes just get too bad to manage, I can listen to Iris Dement's "Our Town" 60 or 70 times to get myself into a nostalgic frame of mind for Chapel Hill (which, for God's sake, I haven't even left yet, but never mind that : I need a cure for what ails me and not logical consistency).
Posted by dag at 12:37 PM | Comments (0)
August 19, 2006
Another Random Saturday Night
10:29pm
Activity: Working on an NIH R01 grant.
Listening: To Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Nikolaus Harnoncourt's stunning Beethoven Piano Concertos 1-5.
Drinking: Sherry, specifically Fernando de Castillo's Palo Cortado. Maybe I'll have a snifter of Poir William on the backporch before turning in.
Later on: Don't know. I might start Julia Child's My Life in France or Thomas Ricks's Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. I might also watch an episode or two from my new DVD of the first season of HBO's Rome.
Whimsical notion of the moment: Wouldn't it be great if they re-made I, Claudius using modern digital filming and sound and the stunning sets from HBO's Rome? Philip Seymour Hoffman would be a perfect choice for Claudius.
Craving: Foie gras and .... Chicken McNuggets.
Posted by dag at 10:28 PM | Comments (0)
July 26, 2006
Alive and Disgraceful
All: I am alive. Sorry for the infrequent posts. I am juggling 2 NIH R01 grants and 5 papers right now, so I'm pretty much at the head explosion point. I'll start posting again soon.
-DAG
Posted by dag at 2:19 PM | Comments (2)
July 6, 2006
Reflections on an Island
I decided to re-post this from the old blog. It originally ran last summer.
Admittedly, this has been a slow month at Aging Disgracefully (but for the occasional rant about the Supreme Court). I spent the month (one day shy of four weeks, to be precise) on Oahu island. I've actually been living at the Aston Waikiki Sunset on...well, Waikiki. The beach is only two blocks away. I've learned and seen alot in Hawaii, and now have some advice, thoughts, anecdotes, misguidance, etc. to share:
1. Do not stay in Waikiki or at the the Aston Waikiki Sunset.
Let's tackle the latter first. The Aston Waikiki Sunset is certainly no dump, but neither is it a crisply efficient business hotel, and you feel it from almost the outset. I arrived 15 minutes before check-in time and was a bit surprised when they told me that I could not check in until check-in time. Most hotels I've been to are friendly and accomodating in this regard (at least compared with their tone when they later learn what I have done with the room). But, they were within their rights (as they got to define them) to deny me. No question about that. But when I was still waiting an hour after check-in time, I finally got sort of aggressive about it. I explained my position. You could tell that they felt they were confronted with a pretty typical specimen of male Haole (non-Hawaiian resident, especially white) asshole. But their position is really fairly ridiculous: this is Hawaii. People arrive here at the bitter end of a 5-11 hour flight, depending on where one started. And most of the flight options, at least as they were presented to me when I was trying to book for this excursion, arrive in the late morning to early afternoon. It isn't reasonable to ask people to spend their first 3 to 5 hours in Hawaii sitting in the hotel lobby, especially in light of the fact that the alchohol on the flight ran out before we even left the North American landmass. I found that this awkward beginning generally set the tone. At one point I went to the front desk to pick up my laundry (they don't pick up and drop off in the room) and actually had to pressure the girl on duty there to keep looking until she finally found all of my items. She kept protesting that she knew of no one registered to the hotel named Savage Henry, and anyway I was sweating so much she wondered if I had contracted the plague. On a more everyday basis, the elevator situation ranges from tolerable to nightmare. My longest wait for an elevator down was close to 15 minutes. If I had known that I would've walked down the 21 flights. Finally, I am supposed to get free parking at their deck and, while I've never been hassled about that, I certainly have had an impossible time finding a spot again when I have gone out in the evenings: they let the general public visiting Waikiki park in their deck for a fee. The trouble is that they do so with no regard for their commitment to maintain spots for the guests with whom they have some sort of parking arrangement. And regard for commitments means something much to me. Not much. But certainly something. Not a dump by any means compared with some of the places I've stayed, the Aston Waikiki Sunset stills musters only a C+ as US hotels go.
Waikiki itself is beautiful-or at least it clearly once was. It is no wonder they chose this as the spot for the main beach that would draw in the crowds. But therein lies the whole problem: Waikiki is a hiddeously over-developed tourist trap. A few lean years and it would start to distinctively resemble the seedier parts of Myrtle Beach, SC. It is very plastic and affected, and hence unsurprisingly a major draw for Japanese tourists. (Update: As the Good Rabbi noted in a phone call last night, Waikiki basically is the Japanese Myrtle Beach.) In fact, this place has a Japanese flavor well beyond what I have been able to pick up anywhere else on Oahu. But you don't come here for a Japanese flavor: you go to Japan for that. You come to Hawaii for a Hawaiian flavor.
2. So let me recommend some alternatives. First, if you are in the Waikiki area, the beaches at the foot of Diamond Head are far less crowded, and I felt just as beatiful. Second, get on the H1 heading East out of Honolulu. It eventually meanders through Hawaii Kai and becomes a two lane highway before reaching Hanuama Bay, which is just stunning. Even more stunning are the cliffside lookout points just a few miles beyond (you cannot miss them). You have never seen an ocean so blue. At the last of these (I think it is called the Halona Blowhole...the cliffs die out just beyond and there is a beach), you can actually climb down to walk the base of the cliffs as spectacular waves crash in all around you-just ask one of the locals where the trail down is. Third, if I ever come here on vacation with the wife, I am heading not for Waikiki or the Southern Shores, but instead for the North Shore. Let me particularly recommend Hale'Iwa. To find it, locate Turtle Bay on a map, near the Northern tip of Oahu. Then continue down the coast on the west side of the island. You can't miss it. It is this comparatively small, sleepy surfer town with a vaguely beach bohemian feel. It is just as beautiful a setting as Waikiki (in my not so humble opinion) and it feels like Hawaii should feel. In Hale'iwa, you will find a quiet little corner of this stunning island where you can do some swimming, lie out on the deck with some beautiful girl and maybe drink some great wine, chilled just so, and throw a few steaks on the fire as evening approaches.
3. The food has been good, but I've been a little bit surprised that I haven't been amazed, especially in light of the very high end restraunts we have visited. I think the star thus far would have to be a terrine of sashimi, a wasibi and avocado "mayonaise" and crispy noodles that I had at Alan Wong's, a pricey but quite nice place on South King Street in Honolulu, not far from the Ala Moana mall. Alan Wong's also has a truly superior wine list (though I have been nowhere with a wine list as commanding as Fearrington House or Il Palio in Chapel Hill). It was there that I finally got to try a Whitcraft Pinot, which was simply gorgeous.
4. Visit the lookout on the Pale highway where King Kamehameha won his final battle to capture Oahu. It has to be one of the most beautiful vistas in the world. You look out on a serene Hawaiian valley, then past Kailua and onto an immense, and immensely beautiful, tract of the Pacific Ocean. If I had to die anywhere, that place would certainly be in contention for the location of my final exit.
5. There are so many beautiful girls in Hawaii, and this is a land of bikinis. There are many women, white, asian, polynesian,... with perfect cocoa colored skin covering bodies that are...well, just about perfect themselves. Unfortunately, an incredibly large number of them have defiled those beautiful bodies with tatooes that are ugly and stupid. Now, I don't mind the occasional nicely done tribal tatoo on that sexy little stretch of real estate on the lower back. And I really liked many of the traditional Polynesian tattoos that I have seen during my month in Oahu. Unfortunately, however, these were the exceptions. For instance, on the lower backs of girls here I have seen the following:
"Since 1984" in an absurdly flurished cursive. I guess that is supposed to tell me she is 21 years old.
"Precious" in a bizarre gothic-style font.
"Bitch", in the same script. No need to point that out to me with a tattoo. Five minutes into speaking with her it would probably become self-evident. Try someday explaining a tattoo like that to your kid.
Finally, and worst of all, I sat at Waikiki beach and saw this beautiful girl, I suspect she was Korean-American but I am not sure, saunter up near me to settle down for an afternoon of maintaining her glowing hue. She had an hour glass figure, perfect breasts, a flat but pierced belly, ...aaah. However, as she settled down her towel, she turned around, in the process revealing a back that was covered with a tatoo of a hula girl and parrot set against an island tropical backdrop that looked like some awful thing a young US Navy sailor of the "Greatest Generation Ever" vintage might have gotten, along with the clap, during some long and ugly night in some humpy-hump dive in newly liberated Manila!! What the hell was she thinking?!? That sight just set me off on the worst kind of ugly ride.
6. Make sure to study the maps of Honolulu and Waikiki carefully before you arrive. There are three reasons for this. First, many of the streets are named for prominent indigenous Hawaiians, and their names can be a bit tough to handle at first. The more familiar you are with them in advance, the better. (The king who united Hawaii in 1795 was named Kamehameha-not exactly as straightforward to the Western ear as Richard the Lionhearted.) Second, Oahu's streets are generally terribly marked. The signs are small, faded and often obscurely placed. Third, Honolulu has alot of strange driving restrictions. For instance, they basically do not allow left turns off of Kapiolani to get into the Ala Moana mall. The better aquainted you are with the streets the more easily you will be able to adjust to these delightful and unexpected little twists.
7. Hawaii is somewhat suprisingly provincial. Before I visited, I assumed that such a cross-roads of the Pacific would have a real international flair, but it really doesn't feel that way when you get there. It is basically a rather inward-looking, primarily Asian American blue collar place (imagine if the show Roseanne had been populated by Asians). The local press is completely absorbed by local events, and when they do take note of some international event, it is generally only in so much as there is a "Hawaii Connection". In terms of this provinciality, it felt in fact as if I had never left home.
8. Be prepared for one major disappointment (if you a history buff like me, anyway): very little of ancient Polynesian society remains on Oahu. For instance, as you look out from the Pale highway lookout, you can see the remnants of an ancient Hawaiian fish pen along the coast, and a sign tells you that the valley below leading up to Kailua was a major population center for "pre-contact" Oahu. However, on repeated drives criss-crossing the valley, I could find no obvious evidence of ancient Hawaii, and no signs pointed the way to ancient remains. My guidebook offered little guidance in this respect either. A major let down since, while visiting Hawaii, some of us would like to experience some kind of physical connection to the Hawaiians: to see a place and know that they had lived there and left some kind of enduring mark. I know that some of you might be wondering what I am expecting to see: after all, didn't the ancient Hawaiians live more or less in grass huts. Well, in many cases yes. But they also had elaborate rock ritual sanctuaries, built large irrigation systems using lava stones, etc. Where are the remains of this stuff?
Posted by dag at 1:00 PM | TrackBack
June 28, 2006
A tropical storm ends, a hurricane approaches
Over the last two days we have been drenched by some kind of tropical system that appears to have begun its life, or at least spent considerable time relaxing, off the Atlantic coast of Florida. Now I won't have to water the lawn again for a good week.
On the other hand, a hurricane approacheth: the Good Rabbi will be here in a bit more than 24 hours, and then all sorts of bad craziness will set in. I'm already starting to get the bad shakes from The Fear. Fortunately, he got me a great bottle of armagnac, so I'll have some means of controlling it.
Last Saturday night I sat in the tub having a cold soak and reading the latest Atlantic Monthly (the one with Zarqawi on the cover). There were two particularly interesting articles. First, there was an American journalist's journey into the heart of darkness in pursuit of the Monster of Florence. You've probably never heard of the Monster, but he has had a cultural impact on you: his example, and that of the bumbling cops who pursued him, helped a young Thomas Harris develop his vision for the saga of Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lector.
The other interesting article was a review of the new Phaidon Design Classics which, I anticipate, will do for design porn what Thomas Keller's books have done for food porn.
Posted by dag at 10:45 AM
June 21, 2006
Mystery Music
The other day I heard a clip from this on the radio. It took me a minute to place it: the opening theme from the HBO series Six Feet Under. In searching for it, I learned that it was composed by Thomas Newman, the same guy that came up with the score for HBO's Angels in America.
That is all.
Oh yeah: I set up a Flickr account for those who are interested. You can guess my user name.
UPDATE: I almost forgot to share this amazing panorama of Machu Picchu.
UPDATE # 2: Yes, yes, I didn't have enough material for a decent post and so have thrown together some odds and ends.
Posted by dag at 10:37 PM | Comments (0)
Something to look forward to
In other news, Hurricane Yaneev will make landfall in North Carolina sometime on the evening of Thursday the 29th. Shortly after his arrival all sorts of bad craziness, or at the very least incompetent grilling, should commence.
He is currently visiting his various wine suppliers in the DC area trying to find me bottles of Poire William and Armagnac, with perhaps just a dash of Russiz Superiore Tocai Friulano thrown in as well. No doubt he'll spot something down here that he can't get up there.
What a fractured little national wine and spirits market we have in Dubya's America.
Posted by dag at 12:09 PM | Comments (1)
Where is Lord Stanley's Cup?
Is it in in, uh, Edmonton? Noooo.
Well, then where could it be?, you might ask.
As well you should....
IT'S HERE ON TOBACCO ROAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was one of those kids who grew up in a northern town, playing the Holy Game on a pond.
If you had told me at age 10 that my local NHL team would win the Stanley cup during my 34th year, I'd have told you that I was delighted to hear it.
If you had gone on to tell me that this would happen while I lived in Durham, NC, I would have been rendered speechless.
Posted by dag at 12:03 PM | Comments (2)
June 15, 2006
The Vortex
I just ran across an article about a giant ocean vortex off the Australia coast that is sucking up heat and marine life. Weird. I wonder if this happens often.
Posted by dag at 3:26 PM | Comments (0)
June 13, 2006
The old to-do list
One of these days I need to visit the Phuket Marriott (image linked from Medmusings' Flickr account). For some weird reason, its aesthetic scheme somehow reminds me of the Suzhou Sheraton, which remains one of the coolest hotels I've ever visited (Suzhou's not too shabby either).
Posted by dag at 10:16 PM | Comments (0)
June 1, 2006
Right now
The day is done. Listening to Sigur Ros's Staralfur as I pack to go.
Time to go home.
Posted by dag at 4:46 PM | Comments (0)
May 11, 2006
Calling All Police Buffs
Did you know that you can follow the Seattle 911 traffic online? Is there any other city out there for which this is true?
Posted by dag at 10:25 AM | Comments (0)
April 29, 2006
Right now...
I am sitting in my office, looking out on my garden, working on a revise and resubmit, listening to Beethoven's 6th (and eyeing my latest purchase, Peter Wispelwey & Dejan Lazic's wonderful Beethoven Sonatas and Variations to put on next), contemplating the 2003 Bordeaux I bought this morning (damn they have been slow to trickle in), enjoying a beautiful day with autumnal air (a moment I will no doubt long for by late July), thinking of the cedar plank salmon on the menu for this evening, ....to steal a bit from Marquez, I am just taking in the final brilliance of a day that will never, through all eternity, be repeated.
Posted by dag at 12:51 PM | Comments (0)
April 14, 2006
The Gospel of Judas
Last night on television I watched the National Geographic special on the Gospel of Judas. While I do have my critical reactions to what I saw (tell me you did not see that coming), let me begin by providing an overview of the program, which essentially had two narrative tracks. The first was an examination of the story of the actual physical codex on which the only known copy of the Gospel of Judas was written. It is a leather-bound papyrus manuscript discovered most likely by an Egyptian grave robber in the late 1970s. From there it experiences a long and winding path of sales and theft as it wends its way through the rather shadowy art and antiquities world. Finally, it tells the story of its restoration and of the "Dream Team" that verified its authenticity. ("If the gospel does not fit, you must dismiss it".)
The other track explores the content of the gospel itself. In it Judas emerges not as a betrayor to be condemned for all ages, but as the disciple closest to Jesus and most capable of understanding his kingdom. At the last supper, Jesus calls him aside and says to him
you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.
In other words, Judas was simply doing the bidding of Jesus. He was chosen for this task because he alone among the disciples was worthy because he was capable of seeing the secrets of Jesus's kingdom. Jesus revealed these to Judas by way of compensation for the fact that his name would be despised for all time for turning Jesus in to the Roman and Jewish authorities, which was the major downside to his accepting that gig.
I guess I should mention two other tracks, one which tells the story of how the early Church "streamlined" the new testament down to a core set of Gospels, and the other which tells us of the role of the Judas story as told in those core gospels in fomenting anti-Semitic violence over the centuries.
And now for my reactions:
1. This should have been two documentaries and not one. The first and second tracks deserve separate treatment, in part because they are so complex and in part because only one of the two will interest most viewers. I personally could care less about the work of restorers (how much do you want to know about the econometric methods I would use to conclude that we can't afford the Medicare drug benefit?). I also felt that in terms of dramatic engagement the first track is better tackled by stories like "The Red Violin". Nor is the first track particularly enlightening: anyone familiar with the sordid stories behind alot of the looted "Nazi" art knows that the art and antiquities world is rather murky (and that is putting it charitably).
2. The documentary approaches the emergence of this codex as a shocking new development that will "shatter" the faith of some. That is a bit of over-dramatization on their part. Put simply, this gospel is not news (not if you have spent any time learning about the early history of Christianity). This interpretation of Judas's actions is one that I heard in religion classes growing up Catholic, and in the more advanced of those classes I learned of the existence of the "other gospels" that Irenaeus of Lyons tried to have supressed, including a Gospel of Judas essentially along the lines of the one discovered. (I have always marvelled at the fact that the Catholic church, which generally forbids inquiry, taught me the early history of Christianity in such an open and matter-of-fact manner.) And Irenaeus is not some obscure weirdo only a learned and equally weird few would know about. He was a central figure in the early church (I would argue that he played a big role in establishing many aspects of the Catholic church's identity that continue to this day) and perhaps the main reason the New Testament rests on history's most famous boy band, comprised of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And in any case he lived at a central place and time in history: if you were a Christian in classical times, Lyon in the second half of the second century AD was a very special, and harrowing, time and place. Even if you haven't heard of Irenaeus, most of you who grew up Catholic (and many, many others who subscribe to other Christian traditions) must have heard the story of the martyrdom of Blandina in Lyon in 177 AD.
3. The documentary is part of an increasingly popular effort to point out an awkward truth that most modern Christian sects, Catholicism included, have generally done their level best to avoid acknowledging: the modern New Testament (whichever version you subscribe to) is not, from a historical standpoint, Jesus version 1.0. Try more like Jesus version 18.2 (even within its own vein of Christian tradition). Pushing this hackneyed analogy further, there were many competing early Christian operating systems and file formats, even in a particular time and place (eg Gnosticism). There were many different traditions surrounding the Messiah in the early Christian landscape, and the current New Testament emerged as the widely adopted version of events in part because its promoters successfully sold their product while suppressing the competition. That doesn't make it better or more true: it makes it the best marketed version. I think a little perspective on this point by some of the more "strict constructionist" modern fundamentalist Christians would go a long way toward improving our world and advancing some kind of serious semblance of a fellowship of man, at least in the Christian-dominated corners of our planet. On the other hand, I also admit that, as is so often the case when an othrodoxy is successfully intellectually shattered, this revelation has also opened the door to a great deal of silliness that actually makes you almost (almost) long for the days of doctrinal narrowness (people, the Priory of Sion is a complete fiction: there is no real evidence behind either The Holy Blood, The Holy Grail or The DaVinci Code). The realization that the world is complex and that there was more than one good faith version of events should not elevate patent con jobs to respectability.
4. I felt the attempts by some Christian figures to dismiss the Gospel of Judas in one fashion or another ("I don't neeeeeed more than what the four gospels provide" one particularly small and self-righteous pastor proclaimed) were so silly and intellectually bankrupt that they make it painfully obvious that, in fact, they really are not sure what lies at the core of their faith and in any case, whatever it is, that faith hangs by a thread. When I was still religious (and probably on some level I still am) I struggled long with the question of what was at the core of the New Testament: what was the real message? For instance, anyone even remotely familiar with Rome, the Roman outlook on the larger world and its governance, the place of Judea within the Roman world, the kind of men Rome sent to govern difficult places like Judea, Pilate's place in Roman society and his reputation, etc. will have a very time accepting without some kind of serious critical hesitation the New Testament Pilate. Put simply, neither the characterization of Pilate or his choices and behavior at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus are likely historically accurate. But does that really matter from the standpoint of accepting the core message of Jesus? Similarly, what difference does an alternative intepretation of Judas make to that core message, expect perhaps to finally give us something new to listen to in church???
Posted by dag at 9:45 AM | Comments (0)
April 8, 2006
The Cost of the Path Taken, and Those Not Taken
The Economist has an interesting article this week considering the costs of the Iraq war (registration required). The article, which comes against the backdrop of a variety of recent (and sometimes eye-popping) estimates of the costs of the war, is interesting for two reasons:
1. It provides some sense of why it can be so hard to forecast things like the cost of the Iraq war, or even correctly gauge the costs already incurred.
2. It considers the costs of the likely alternatives to war (ie an ongoing and increasingly challenging exercise in containment). This is an important exercise. The projected costs of the war have prompted a great deal of (in some instances useful) debate about whether the war was justified. But in any such debate, it is important to recognize that the most realistic alternatives to war were not cost free. Indeed, they may, depending on events (ahh, events, dear reader, events), have been quite costly, for the US and Iraq.
Posted by dag at 5:41 PM
April 2, 2006
Herb Has Left The Building
On WRAL TV's local news broadcast last night, they asked the sportscaster about NC State's prospects for recruiting another coach. He tried to be diplomatic, but his basic skepticism was clear:
Though he thinks that State will eventually get someone decent, it may be alot harder than the Pack faithful think. Ten years ago they might have had an easier time getting someone top notch, but the atmosphere there now is probably something that will give many prospective coaches pause.
Translation:
They are going to have to write one big fat check to get anyone nearly as good as Herb. Who wants to come play for this Greek chorus of spoiled, delusional and vicious assholes?
Look, if you go to the online discussions of Sendek's departure, it is clear that there are alot of reasonable State fans out there who see things as they actually are. But looking at the overall picture, State fans have to realize that as a group they themselves are a real impediment to the program's success. Among them, there is a small but vocal minority who are so vicious you have to wonder whether they have psychological problems. Then there is a much broader group who are more diplomatic, but have bought into the Big Lie: of a mythological earlier era of solid dominance on the hardwood. Against that backdrop, they feel that Sendek is a mediocrity who can never return them to the dizzying heights. The reality, of course, is that State has had some strong years, but nothing like the sustained dominance of Carolina and Duke, and the program was in a definite downward trajectory when Sendek took over (the only even halfway decent player they could get in those years was Kenny Inge, whose strength on the hardwood was based more on his being a Lord of the Sith than a great athlete). Against that backdrop, Sendek's record is clearer: a very strong coach, who patiently and cleanly built a solid foundation on much higher ground than he found the program and from which NC State would have gradually ascended to the next level of the game. But now the fans behavior has cost them this really good coach and will soon, I suspect, really start to hurt recruting as well. Who would even want to play at a place like State???
(Perhaps even worse, a careful reading of the comments suggests that if Sendek had simply been a loudmouthed and demonstrative asshole (as opposed to the gentleman that he is), but with the same record, he might not have faced nearly as much criticism from the Pack faithful.)
State should be competitve with Duke and UNC. The fans need to realize that the atmosphere their delusions create is at least as big a part of the problem as anything going on at the top.
Update: Here are some useful thoughts on Sendek and his legacy. Some State fans have written me, fewer have posted comments, that clearly demonstrate an emotional reaction to my emotional reaction to Sendek's departure. You might ask why I have been so moved. On a competitive level, I did not like Sendek: he was building a program that I knew would slowly but surely become a royal thorn in the collective Tar Heel ass. But as a competitor, I really respected him. He did what he did with real class (it is a sign of character, not a failure of one, when you do not mark every game, as K does, with an unbroken string of foul-mouthed attempts to lobby the refs). I basically think that Wolf Pack crowd who drove hom out did so unjustly, showing no class themselves and punishing someone who had, unlike them, to live in the real world (and not some fantasy "when we were giants" bubble) and did so with dignity and success, on and off the court. Never, I think , has a program been less deserving of its coach than NC State's was of Sendek. Unless by dint of a scandalous salary offer the school can buy its way out the hole its fans have put it in with their stupidity, you are about to reap what you have sown, and find out what State basketball was really like on the eve of Sendek's arrival.
Posted by dag at 9:00 AM | Comments (2)
April 1, 2006
Alas, poor Hal! We knew Him Briefly
Today's obituary is for Hal the Coyote, who gave New Yorkers just the smallest and sweetest taste of L.A.'s primetime live police chase culture with his own little romp around Central Park. One has to say that his was a good, if brief, life, complete with his own Warholian 15 minutes. (So how does one turn Andy Warhol into an adjective?)
Posted by dag at 12:55 PM | Comments (0)
March 30, 2006
Terrible
This mornings news brings the following. The homepage for this zoo is here. I used to volunteer at a place like this (the Carnivore Preservation Trust). These sorts of organizations really do very good work and often rescue animals that have gotten the rawest possible deal from us. If you are looking for a place to plough a few bucks for charity, I suspect that in the wake of the fire this place really, really needs your help.
Posted by dag at 9:40 AM | Comments (0)
Captured
The other day, while writing the post Space Quest, I ran into a problem: getting a decent, reasonable sized (ie not .bmp format), stable and workable screen capture from the episode. I was trying to get such a workable version of a particular image (seen above) from my "Frasier" first season DVD. I was unable to do it, but then I was trying to rely on print screen. I ended up briefly surfing to find a few images from the episode on the web. Well, this morning I made one of my frequent visits to Justinsomnia where he offered the following for getting good quick screen captures:
How to capture a screenshot with Windows Media Player: press CTRL+i during playback
I put it to the test and the above image, a nice, stable, small and manageable jpeg, is the result. Thanks Justin!
Posted by dag at 9:15 AM | Comments (1)
March 29, 2006
An Ever-Turning World
Today I undertook a dreaded mission: the periodic cleaning out of my bookmarks. Still, it sometimes brings on a fond remembrance of things past, such as the period in time where I was following the construction of the Turning Torso. Why can't Santiago Calatrava turn his energies toward the American south? If something like that came up around here, I would kill for a 2500-3000 square foot apartment above the 15th floor.
Posted by dag at 1:58 PM | Comments (0)
March 28, 2006
A bellweather
Here is one small barometer of future power at the college level of the Holy game. Its always hard to judge who will pan out at this point (that's why I refer to it as a small barometer). But still, from this vantage point anyway UNC is lookin' pretty good.
Posted by dag at 10:49 PM | Comments (0)
Duke exits the field
Wow, this situation with the Duke Lacrosse team is getting serious.
Posted by dag at 8:17 PM | Comments (0)
March 27, 2006
A Real Man's Revolution
Since my little incident last month, I have grown a beard. (And why have I done this? Even I can't answer that question.) Is it possible that, for the first time in my life, I am actually at the leading edge of fashion?
Well, probably not.
Posted by dag at 2:57 PM | Comments (0)
March 26, 2006
Space Quest
Some of you may be wondering how things are going with my in-laws living with us. Its been 5 weeks now. They are rather traditional Vietnamese people, and I was a kid who had difficulty with the boundaries and structure of a rather socially liberal white family.
At times I feel like I am in an endless real-life version of the classic (and second) Frasier episode, "Space Quest". In it, Frasier must adjust to life with his, uh, culturally different father and Daphne, the psychic Manchester-born home health care worker who cheerfully regales Frasier and his father with endless stories of her childhood in a deranged family.
I have to say, however, that in general it has gone surprisingly smoothly. They have added this different sort of energy to our house. Maybe theirs isn't the lifestyle I've chosen, but they have added something strange and likable to the rythm of our lives anyway. I think I will actually miss them when they are gone. I guess that is the same conclusion that Frasier eventually reached about his father and Daphne.
Posted by dag at 12:08 PM | Comments (0)
Where have I been?
I realize that it has been a long, long time since I have posted. In part that reflects the fact that a lot has happened.
At the time that I wrote my last post, I was experiencing a slight shortness of breath. In the hours and days after writing it, the shortness of breath, which I had until then attributed to a chest cold, worsened to the point that even a jackass like me had to face the fact that something was happening. The moment of clarity came one morning when I woke up and things had worsened to the point where I was out of breath just going from my bed to the bathroom.
My wife and I travelled to Duke University emergency room, where they performed a series of tests, scans, etc. and quickly delivered a verdict: massive and imminently life threatening pulmonary embolisms. Pulmonary embolisms are blood clots in the lungs that usually originated in your lower body. The problem is that they block the path (ie the pulmonary arterial system) by which blood is pumped from the right side of your heart to your lungs. I was very quickly administered a thrombolytic, or clot dissolving drug, called tPA. The catch is that tPA sometimes does not work and sometimes causes ghastly side effects (like brain hemorage).
I was extremely lucky. Within three hours I went from a situation referred to as hemodynamic instability (where your heart is about to fail from having to fight so hard against the situation created by the clots) to essentially normal (in fact, quite healthy) vital signs.* An ecstatic doctor came into my room to inform me "those embolisms are his-to-ry!". While others have reacted as well to tPA, I am certainly in the group that responds the best. As one internal medicine attending put it later "you are sort of a poster child for tPA". I was probably saved by several factors. My clots were likely new and sort of messy and disorganized (rendering them more vulnerable to tPA) and it would seem that I have a pretty strong heart and large pulmonary arterial system. I was released from the hospital about 48 hours after admission, which is apparently unusually quick.
In the weeks since, I have been on blood thinners that prevent new clots from forming, or old ones from getting any bigger. The search is on for a cause, as well as any baseline factors that may have pre-disposed me to getting these. The verdict so far seems to be that a "perfect storm" of factors likely created the embolisms. The most important proximate reason they occurred was long-haul air travel, followed immediately by a long car ride to and from Rochester, NY to pick up my in-laws. Additionally, just before leaving South Asia, I became very sick, which likely dehydrated me, exacerbating the situation. Finally, I was exhausted on the return flights, and slept like the dead for about 12 hours on the flight from Bangkok to London. (Usually I get up and walk around a lot during such flights.) Because I am big (6'2-3" tall) I have little room even in business class seats and hence essentially sat motionless for 12 hours, which is a good way to get yourself some huge clots that might embolize (travel to your lungs).
Curiously, I appear to have no genetic predisposition to these things (at least to the extent that they have been able to identify such pre-disposing genetic factors). So my experience should be a warning to all: long-haul travel, particularly air travel (where you are subjected to a low oxygen, dry atmosphere in the cabin), puts everyone at risk. The doctors at Duke told me that they think this phenomenon (serious leg and pelvis clots or embolisms after long-haul flights) is much more common that any of the statistics suggest. When I first arrived with my symptoms at the emergency room, they asked me a battery of questions, and later told me that from the moment they learned of my recent travel they were pretty sure that I had pulmonary embolisms.
Don't take the lesson of my experience lightly: I am a lucky bastard. Many, many people in my situation (yes, even young people) have died. I was saved by a number of factors (my type of clots and their vulnerability to tPA, a strong cardiovascular system, etc.). A few weeks after I left Duke hospital, an otherwise healthy 30 year old female resident at another hospital (she is, or rather was, a few degrees of separation from me; details withheld to protect privacy) died of an embolism that may have arisen due to minor recent surgery.
Do not make the incredibly idiotic decision that I did: to try to ignore or "ride out" symptoms that I knew were highly unusual for me. Get thee to a doctor: with embolisms, as with many other things, the sooner they get their hands on you the better the prognosis.
As if my wife had not gone through enough, we had to more or less immediately turn from my situation to her father's: he had come down here for a heart operation. Fortunately, after several bumps in the road, he is back at our house and recovering well.
So that is what has been going on with me.
*It took 2 hours to administer the tPA. As they began administering it, I knew that everything, and I mean everything, rested on the course of the next few hours. One of things they do just before adminsitering tPA is to get exact instructions from you about the lengths they should go to to revive you should your heart fail. (I later learned that, perhaps especially with someone my age, they will go to great lengths to try to re-start my heart, should it fail, to steal some time to give tPA a chance to work.) You could tell that the doctors, while not pressuring me at all, wanted permission to go to whatever lengths were necessary to save me. That is not a choice you are prepared to have put to you at age 33.
I tried to remain stoic. But I confess that the next 3 hours (from when tPA was administered to when the doctors essentially declared victory) were the longest of my life, and I have never before felt the degree of relief that I did when the doctors entered my room and their body language alone said it all: the embolisms had been no match for tPA.
Posted by dag at 9:04 AM | Comments (0)
February 23, 2006
Great Quote
"We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are." -Talmud
Posted by dag at 8:47 AM | Comments (0)
February 21, 2006
Hello Again
It has been a while since I have made any real post. In part this reflects a bunch of travel (to Bangladesh, Thailand and, in transit, the UK). It also reflects our latest domestic change: my in-laws have arrived and will be staying with us for a few months.
We picked them up in western New York this weekend, driving up and back. We did, of course, choose the first weekend where any kind of winter weather has shown up there. Fortunately, this didn't really hamper our 12 hour drives each way.
So far, the arrangement is working out alright. But it has left me too busy to do much posting. That should change by this weekend.
Posted by dag at 10:24 PM | Comments (0)
December 26, 2005
Paradise
Sitting here in my glorious (did I mention glorious?) overstuffed leather chair; some wonderful, free range, gamey roast duck down the hatch; sipping a nice, aggressive cab; contemplating a well-seasoned cuban (cigar, not gorgeous, cocoa toned, glorious, curvacious, "Day Light Come and Hell No I Don't Wanna Go Home" woman...but...if you could oblige me...without letting the wife know, of course...) and a brandy later on in the evening....I haven't done much of any work in a week...approaching nirvana...disjoint, fractured, pointless, run-on sentence...don't care...
Posted by dag at 8:10 PM | Comments (2)
December 16, 2005
A tough month
I realize that my bloggin has slowed a bit in the last few weeks. But there were reasons (there always are). For one thing, I was out of the country on what turned out to be a tough trip from which I am only now sort of getting myself sorted out.
The holidays are coming (has Hannukah already gotten going?). This Christmas should be a quiet time for the wife and I. I am looking forward to a low-key day followed shortly by the arrival of my parents for a visit that will span a few days on either side of New Year's Eve. And then a new year begins...
Somehow, despite the good things that have happened this year, I am left feeling a bit depressed and possessed of perhaps a touch of foreboding about the coming year. I don't know why.
Posted by dag at 10:54 AM | Comments (3)
November 8, 2005
Not too shabby
My blog is worth $564.54.
How much is your blog worth?
And to think: this blog is only a couple of weeks old.
Any takers?
Posted by dag at 1:24 PM
November 7, 2005
I Need Therapy
Every so often I venture out of the rarefied (and comparatively safe) world of classical music to take in something more pop. But tonight I flipped to Bai Ling's rendition of "Like a Virgin" on VH1's program "But Can They Sing?" and I am left so traumatized that only months of the most punishing exposure to the most extreme work by Mahler and Wagner can possibly restore my equilibrium.
EXPLICIT WARNING: Bai Ling, a shameless (I settled on 'shameless' after a long debate between that and 'pathetic') self-promoter whose only real talent is being semi-clothed and whose biggest film credit (if you can call it that) to date is "My Baby's Daddy" (the film that no doubt left Michael Imperioli wishing he was indeed Christopher Moltisanti, the Sopranos mob soldier for whom whacking his agent would be a viable option, in real life), actually made the cut after the first round. I'm not sure what this proves-and don't really want to find out-but what you need to know is that she will apparently sing Blondie's "Call Me" on the next episode. Be very, very careful about casually flipping to VH1 in the next week or two.
Posted by dag at 7:21 PM | Comments (2)
October 30, 2005
The Lawn, Part MCMLX....
I spent today watering the lawn. Basically, I spent the entire day watering the lawn.
When I moved into this house, I had this vision of Sunday afternoons in an overstuffed leather chair, sipping some (wine/port/cognac/21 year old Glenfiddich Special Reserve aged in rum barrels....mmmmmmmmmmmmm, 21 year old Glenfiddich Special Reserve aged in rum barrels) and reading a book, some wonderful piece on the stereo (let me recommend Pierre-Laurent Aimard's truly refreshing rendition of Beethoven's Piano Concertos Nos. 1-5)...
No, no wait: this is the actual, as opposed to fantasy, life of the disgracefully aging gentleman. I spent the entire day watering the lawn. Why? Because, as I have learned (more than I have ever wanted to) about new lawns in this part of the South, they demand extra (extra) special care to grow. After all, the soil is clay, compacted and, of course (because every cake needs a frosting), we're in a drought...
Why am I writing this? I had to actually live it. Back to the fantasy life:...
Posted by dag at 10:13 PM | Comments (2)
October 27, 2005
New Blog
After a great deal of careful thinking, I have decided to bring back Aging Disgracefully.
I needed a hiatus, and have decided that Aging Disgracefully needs a new focus. Out with the current events, politics and economics: I want a refuge from all of that. I think I will now focus more on the whole lifetsyle of a disgracefully aging gentleman. Initially, the last incarnation of Aging Disgraceully had achieved some balance between its various focus areas, but somehow I drifted away from that as time passed. Therefore, I want to re-focus more specifically on the key elements that make my daily life work (and not work). As part of this, I have added a new section (My Growing-and Alarming-Attraction to Pottery Barn) to document the ongoing saga that has been our new home, including my frightening forays into my metrosexual side as I make decisions about things like interior decoration (not that there's anything wrong with that). In the next few weeks my new posts will be mingled with old ones that seemed particularly relevant to the new focus.
Though this is just the latest incarnation of Aging Disgracefully, it still it feels like a new beginning. Once again, I'm moved to quote verse:
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;
Labour and rest, that equal periods keep;
"Obedient slumbers that can wake and weep;"
Desires compos'd, affections ever ev'n,
Tears that delight, and sighs that waft to Heav'n.
Grace shines around her with serenest beams,
And whisp'ring angels prompt her golden dreams.
For her th' unfading rose of Eden blooms,
And wings of seraphs shed divine perfumes,
For her the Spouse prepares the bridal ring,
For her white virgins hymeneals sing,
To sounds of heav'nly harps she dies away,
And melts in visions of eternal day.
-Alexander Pope
Posted by dag at 8:05 PM