Starting back up

Hi all,

I know something relatively close to eternity has passed since I last put something up in here, but with the usual increase of good intentions towards the end of the year (and mostly towards the start of a new year), stay tuned because I'll be doing my best to get things going again on a slightly more regular basis.

There are a couple of contradictory reasons for the recent inactivity. One of these is that I've pretty much settled in Morgantown and don't really discover too many new & noteworthy things to write about anymore. Another part is that I've been travelling throughout November (Australia) and a bit in early December (Socorro, New Mexico). While this might imply something to write about, it also means that I've been busy catching up on work, laundry, grocery-shopping and - mostly - sleep.

Now luckily I've decided to hibernate in Morgantown over Christmas and New Year, so all that catching up is (just about) done now. Also, during my travels I've come to realise that it really is hard to keep up with what everyone is doing and - something which will become much worse over the coming few years - where all my friends are located geographically as well as professionally. So short of Facebook, it's probably a good idea to keep some record of what's happening and where I'll be.

(I very nearly got convinced to finally succumb to the social pressure to joing Facebook, but the fact that the few publically available internet-spots in Sydney airport were practically continuously hogged by people stupidly, uselessly and totally-oblivious-to-anyone-else-anywhere-around-ly browsing through Facebook pictures (you know how I dislike pictures anyway. Just imagine how I dislike them when they stand between me and Gmail!), that fact got me totally turned off again. So bad luck Facebook: your addictive endorphins (or whatever substitute you might use) have not caught me even this time.)

Anyway. I'm sorry for that longish tangent.

For now: a belatedly Merry Christmas (whatever religion you might have) and all the best for 2010!

Family members building the basement

This blog was supposed to describe my coming to terms with living in the US: the differences, similarities, surprises, eye-openers and frustrations. However, until today, I've been postponing a post about one of the essentials of American culture - and one that confuses me terribly: the Founding Fathers (not my capitalisation).

Of course one would expect some level of idolatry - after all the country that gave use Hollywood is very proud of its independence, unlike countries like Australia and Canada who claim independence while being pervaded of nostalgia for Britain, clinging to an anachronistic monarchy like a toddler to its mother's apron. But idolatry isn't a sufficient description of what's going on here: the fact that you find the founding fathers everywhere (banknotes carry their images, cities, newspapers and universities carry their names) is only part of the issue: the thing that really amazes me is that everyone - without exception - seems to think them infallible and whatever side of the political divide you're on, you'll call on the founding fathers for support.

The unquestioning adoration of these guys seems ultimate. In his political manifesto ("The Audacity of Hope"), Barack Obama writes how he looks up to them and how he studied their (and Lincoln's) writings in a bid to gain insight into politics and into what course the country should take. The one thing Fox News and John Stewart (respectively the default source of news and information for the political right and left) seem to agree upon, is that the founding fathers are untouchable: you don't ridicule them, you don't evaluate them, you don't question anything about them. The independent podcast commentator Dan Carlin whose main selling point is that he is so independent that he upsets both Democrats and Republicans, does exactly the same: whatever the founding fathers wrote, is scripture and untouchable. Even - and now it's really starting to sound like a rosebud-and-moonshine-everyone-is-happy Disney film - even the ever-shocking, inexcusably obnoxious animated sitcom South Park, who drag everyone through the dirt in ways unthinkable only ten years ago, even they do not question the founding fathers. The only episode I've found where they make an appearance, states (Episode 701):

This country was founded by some of the smartest thinkers the world has ever seen.

That particular episode (broadcast on 9 April 2003) discussed the Iraq war and the way in which both pro-war and anti-war groups claim the founding fathers to be on their side. To solve this conundrum, one of the kids travels back to 1776 and hears the founding fathers debate whether their country is to be a warmongering or a peace-loving country. They decide it should be both. At this point, I would think the moral of the story could easily be that the founding fathers were only human after all and that a constitution that was set up over 200 years ago to organise a limited number of colonies focussed on manual labour and trade, that such a constitution and the people behind them, could hardly have an opinion - or any guiding thoughts for that matter - on 9/11, Al Qaeda or going to war in Iraq. Interestingly, that's not what the moral of the episode turned out to be at all: they pointed out that the government had been given the power to go to war whenever it felt the need, while the people had been given the freedom of speech to voice their anger at the government, thereby putting the blame if anything went wrong, on the president instead of on the country. Of course there could be sarcasm in there and we may not have to take this at face value: the episode could easily be interpreted to be an attack on Bush - or on rednecks or on peace-demonstrators - you could really go just about in any direction you like with this, except... it really does not criticise the founding fathers, however easy that would have been.

Seeing all these agreements and realising that the American constitution has guided this country from its humble beginnings (demanding independence because they were taxed without being represented in parliament - inhabitants of DC must see the irony in this) to two world wars and throughout the cold war as one of only two superpowers in the world - while only being amended 27 times since 1776 (12 of which were proposed before the end of the 18^th century!)... that makes me very suspicious. If apparatchiks, presidents, comedians, independents, intelligent people and idiots all agree without a single note of dissent, that really brings the 1984 feeling home to me - surely there must be something really wrong, really dangerously wrong and some horrible creature will eat me if I think of telling the wider world?

Luckily for my peace of mind, I stumbled upon Gore Vidal and the first book ("Burr") of his series on the history of the US of A. I had read the last book of that series ("The Golden Age") years ago and it painted a really positive picture of F.D. Roosevelt, so I had no reason to suspect this book would be all too critical. Yet it was. It painted Washington as in incompetent fool and most of the other founding fathers as insubstantial minions doing his bidding. It doesn't leave any room for doubt when stating that the French won the war of independence, in spite of the founding fathers, not because of them. It goes straight against everything I had always heard and in doing so, it was very much a refreshing read.

Now I guess the truth lies in the middle as it always does, because the founding fathers were human after all. However, to slightly misquote the Simpsons (Episode 144): who cares if the founding fathers weren't what we believe them to be? If it makes people happy and allows them to live in peace, then why not settle for a white lie?

Paris - simply Paris

While New York kept surprising me in not being quite what I expected, Paris didn't surprise me at all. In fact, from the very first moment onwards, the familiar style of the buildings and avenues almost made me feel a local even though I had only been to Paris once before - for a single day.

If you have trouble picturing the "familiar style" I mention, then have a look at this. It's a paiting from 1898, courtesy of Wikipedia. The charriots have been replaced by cars but apart from that, everything still looks exactly the same - and exactly the same as it looks in every movie you may ever have seen, that played in Paris. (Ratatouille and Moulin Rouge come to mind, but I'm sure there must be heaps I'm forgetting.)

It turns out this recognisable uniformity in architecture is mainly due to a massive remodelling of the city in the mid-to-late 19^th century where large parts of the city were dramatically torn down in order to reshape the city. Pulling off such an authoritarian effort sounds like the sort of extravagance that may have been typical of pre-revolutionary France, but not exactly what I expected hardly 60 years after the revolution. Yet, there is something to be said for it, because it definitely doesn't make Paris ugly.

Partly I guess that is because it would be really quite hard to make Paris look ugly. Wherever you go, whatever direction you turn to, you will stumble upon some monument, park or fascinating building. The number of sights to see and places to go really seem to be without end. (I'll admit that the subjective density of worthwhile sights might be increased by my "slightly-higher-than-average" walking pace, but even so Paris is a nice city to look at.)

Paris is also a big city. As always, I didn't fully appreciate the scale when I checked the maps to find a hostel that was near the conference venue - so between the fact that I managed to book a hotel on the opposite end of the city and the fact that the conference was conveniently organised at locations on opposite sides of the Quartier Latin, I managed to spend a lot of time walking the Parisian streets. (I cannot tell you how I delighted in having proper sidewalks again!)

Other positive things about Paris are the bins that really are everywhere and that prevent junk from littering the streets. Sadly that logic doesn't count for everything, though, since the large number of public toilets (almost though not quite as omnipresent as the bins) do not rid Paris of certain odours which I could have done without. Maybe that has something to do with the tramps (who aren't really all that prevalent but you definitely do see them sleeping on the streets), or with the nightlife which yours truly can of course not comment on. (You do know me better than that, right?)

One major annoyance is the large number of tourists. Being a foreigner myself (and lacking enough french skills to pull off pretending to be a local), I cannot say I mind noticing my barman is Scottish or Singaporese and if the first pub you hit upon turns out to be Irish and has the Ashes on the telly, who would I be to complain? (Especially not once I noticed one end of the pub to be full of Englishmen and the other half full of Aussies. Guess where I was sitting...)

But I can imagine it would start to annoy me to have people speak English to me all the time, to have to deal with unsuspecting, ignorant aliens performing random walks on your streets and sidewalks every day, not being able to take in the beautiful buildings, churches and parks without having a crowd of Nikons obscuring the view. In fact, walking up the stairs to the Sacré Cœur it's hard to notice the Basilica for the throng of visitors who meander about like cattle. In a way I guess it's interesting to realise how annoyed I can get when I find myself doing exactly as the masses - following the tracks that are laid out for me, going to see exactly what they want me to see. (I guess that annoyance and in-built nonconformity is part of what makes me a physicist rather than an accountant.)

But really, the view from the Sacré Cœur - like all the rest of Paris - is worth your while. Just beware and approach it from the back instead of the front. Saves your elbows some work.

Here is the "news"

I've just watched the only Belgian news podcast that seemed to be up-to-date (latest update on 28 July 2009). Turns out some interesting things have happened last July. For example, Hillary Clinton is still in the race for the White House, after defeating Barack Obama in Ohio:

(I'm not kidding you: see 28/07/2009 in the title? There you go.)

Also, there was an offset between the sound and vision - 7 sec at the start, 100 sec at the end. Interestingly this gave Elio Di Rupo the voice of Yves Leterme. (And now you can all check Wikipedia to figure out who on earth these two are :-P)

If ever you wonder why I don't keep track of Belgian news, you'll find me listening to BBC or NPR...

A small town in Germany

Bonn really is a small town in Germany - but a beautiful and very European small town. According to wikipedia it has around 300,000 citizens, but reliable sources told me this is mainly because Bonn was merged with a bunch of surrounding villages and towns back in the days when it was West Germany's capital city - in an attempt to make it look bigger than it really is. (Wikipedia seems to confirm this, pointing out that Bonn has doubled in population through a few mergers back in the 1960s.) So Bonn itself is not all too populated - though it's far from being in the wilderness: the trainride to Köln only takes about 10 minutes and needless to say, there is plenty of well-functioning public transport going just about anywhere. As for it being European: most of the city centre is inaccessible to cars - a pedestrian Walhalla, just what I needed. And of course you have good bread and delicious sausages - I could imagine worse things.

But as much as unexpected nostalgia reared its head in making me feel at home after years across oceans and continents, I did manage to get disappointed by what should have been one of the highlights of Germany: its beer selection.

To clarify this point at once: Germany does make many good beers. Both in Australia and the US it shouldn't be too hard to find some fine examples in support of that statement. (I have no clue how available non-Belgian beers are in Belgium, but my guess would be you'd have to try hard to find anything besides Guinness.) Yet, as it turns out, German pubs don't necessarily serve those beers. There's a bit of a selection effect in Belgian pubs as well, since most pubs are linked to a distributor and therefore only serve beers owned by a particular brewer. Even so, you're either likely to get a very wide choice in types of beer anyway, or I've been surprisingly lucky with the few Belgian pubs I've ever tried. Not so in Germany. All the non-Irish pubs I've entered (I know I'm starting to sound like I'm an alcoholic, but you'll have to believe that I'm not. It's simply astronomers on tour, ... I guess they do tend to go out for a couple every few days - what else would you do?) anyway - the non-Irish pubs I've tried all had two, maybe three - and if they're really special, even four types of beer on offer. One lager (I'm still not sure what the actual difference is between lager and pilsener), one wheat beer (weissbier), and then possibly an unfiltered beer or one that is low on alcohol. That's just about it. The pub nextdoor would have the same choice, just a different brand: it looks like this is really all they make here. No ales, stouts, pale ales, abbey beers. Nothing that has any more alcohol than, say, 5%. And this would be "Germany the nation of beer and sausages"? Good heavens.

Okay, I'm sorry - that rant went on for quite a bit longer than it should have, because on the whole it was a great place to hang around and I was sorely disappointed when late on Friday I discovered my Saturday outbound train would leave at 8am, not at noon, necessarily postponing the real sight seeing to March next year.

Finally, it obviously goes without saying that the telescope was great, impressive and beautiful all at the same time - and that I forgot to bring my camera so I don't have any pictures to show you. Again. Sigh. I really should learn that, shouldn't I? Maybe someday I will.

Leiden

(Still catching up...)

There's little to say about Leiden: it's a small, typically Dutch city, which means there is a lot of water everywhere, it's built up of many old houses that look nice from the outside (I'm sure there are quite a few that look nice on the inside too) and it's overtly bike- and pedestrian-friendly. Call it "small Amsterdam" if you like. (Now that I check Wikipedia, it seem Leiden has more than 100,000 inhabitants - so I guess there must be a quite a few stylish appartment buildings on the outskirts where I couldn't see them.)

Since most of my time in Leiden was spent working at the astronomical institute, however, I really haven't got much to say about the city at all. Except for this: it was here that I first started to feel more positive about the American tipping culture. Let me explain...


One of my former classmates from Göteborg (Roberto) has for the past several years been working for ESA in Noordwijk - and therefore been living in (or close by) Leiden. So every time I get close to the Netherlands, we agree to meet - and generally fail due to overfull agenda's, miscommunication or crashed cars. Now before I go too far on a tangent, this time we actually did meet - in a Belgian restaurant close to the centre of Leiden.

Because Roberto is Mexican - or, to be politically correct, because there was something mad going on all throughout Leiden and I had come on foot while he came by car, I made it to the restaurant about half an hour before Roberto did, so I ordered myself a beer. I'm not sure if it was the condensation on the glass, my tiredness after the walk from the hotel in Oegstgeest, or the fact that I was minding the door more than my drink, but I succeeded (for the first time in my life, I promise) to tip my glass and spill about three-quarters of a drink onto the table and chairs. Now I would have been happy to give these things a swipe before the beer gets sticky and impossible to remove, but there were no napkins and there was not a waiter in sight. Off I went to the kitchen. On the way a waiter passed me with some steaming platters, but clearly I was no more than air to him, even when I waved my hand and asked for his attention. At the kitchen door itself, I was still unable to find any waiters - or, more to the point, to be seen by any - so I uselessly returned to my seat.

After a while a waiter did show up and managed to clean up the mess. He sort of acknowledged my order for a new beer, but it took him so long to get that to me that I honestly started wondering what was happening. (Interestingly, when the bill came, it only contained one of these two beers - which I would bring down to confusion more than anything, but you never know.)

Being a Belgian restaurant, all dishes were paired up with a suggested type and brand of beer; so when Roberto finally arrived and we placed our orders, I ordered my third beer of the evening - the one to go with the dinner. Because the dinner did, of course, take a while to come out, I ended up ordering yet another (4th) beer, just to have something to do before dinner finally arrives. This fourth drink never made it to my table - and when food finally came, it came without adjoining drink, leaving me dry once again.

Long story short: I managed to order two drinks that never came, and from the two that I did get, I only paid for one. Whenever I did want to order something - or when I needed help or a cloth or napkin - there was no one to be found. Of course it was a sunny day and there were many customers, but at least when you order a drink you expect to get it, right? How else would places like these make any money?

In subsequent weeks and subsequent European countries, I would get the same feeling I got in Leiden: I would want to order something - anything - and there simply wouldn't be anyone interested: it turned out to be really hard to get these people to allow me to spend something in their establishments. In the USA, on the other hand, you generally order a single drink and it gets refilled for free (in the case of soda, at least) - in that situation I would imagine they have nothing to lose by not being around when I need a refill - and yet there they are - always right at my table whenever I want something!

I'm still not convinced obligatory tipping is the way to go, but if I compare the service I got at pretty much any place in the US (well, any place I've tried, which is limited so far to a few restaurants, bars and hotels in Morgantown, NYC, Washington DC and Charlottesville VA) to what passed for service at some places in Leiden, Leuven, Bonn and Paris,... I'm starting to see a point.


While writing the above - and through carrying myself back to the days in Leiden, I remember there was one more thing that really struck me in Leiden as well as in Belgium: the weather would be slightly warm - not even necessarily going much beyond 30C and not humid at all - and people would be complaining about it being too hot, while I didn't really understood what they were on about. Maybe people can get used to different weather - after long training in extreme conditions ;-)

Today in my mailbox

Front side:

It takes more than saying "God Bless America"

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
- 2 Chronicles 7:14

Back side:

How do you reach the households in your target market?
Try PREFERRED MAIL ADVERTISING etc...

For one, I have no clue what either side has to do with the other - and to continue, if this is targetted advertising then someone really ought to have a look at his algorithm. (I suggest checking the minus-signs...)

New York - the City that Never Sleeps

When I thought of the Big Apple in the past, I was mainly focused on the Wall Street/World Trade Center type New York where businessmen in pin-stripe suits outnumber tourists and extreme high-rise buildings of glass and steel are the fundamental building blocks so that Spider man has high hideouts to tie his webs to. In the back of my mind I did realise, of course, that there must be some other side to New York because the Cosby Show clearly does not take place in a skyscraper. I found out immediately that the CBD is indeed far from the average New York, that there is much, much more to this city and that it's all great.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, one of the first things I did in NYC was to walk straight through western Manhattan, carrying a suitcase in the mild rain, after midnight. Clearly this is a unique way of creating a first impression of a city - and a good one at that (if you can handle the late hour and like a light rain) - in the week that followed, I ventured south of Times Square (i.e. into the CBD of Spiderman and the evil bankers) only twice, and down to Times Square only about three times. Partly because the conference schedule was so terribly packed that there was no way one could find any time to see the city, partly because there's plenty to do and see in the other regions that are not shown in the movies.

Since I've mainly seen western Manhattan, let's stick with that for a moment. It is of course a busy part of a big city, but that doesn't stop most streets from being lined by trees - much in the way you see on the Cosby Show, indeed (even though that's Brooklyn and I'm talking about Manhattan). There are sidewalks (as Josh told me there would be in any decent US city) and while there are generally no bike lanes, there are quite a few bikers and they seem to be (seem to be, I haven't actually put this to the test) respected by the car drivers.

I was told that New Yorkers were always in a hurry, but as any relativistic physicist knows, velocity is a relative quantity. From my point of view there was no difference with any other city I've ever been in, I was still by far the fastest pedestrian around. I was also told New Yorkers were uncivil and maybe it's because I didn't interact with enough random people, but I didn't notice anything like that. (In fact, I could imagine random people being uncivil when interrupted on the street - in any city.) True, the one taxi driver I ran into was totally useless, unpolite and apparently in a major hurry, but that may well be a more common truth about cab drivers in general.

Two more things that stand out in a positive way are the subway system (which works incredibly well and all night long at regular intervals) and Central park, which is... Okay, let's have a bit of an introduction here: I am always very impressed if a city or town can manage to maintain (against the pressures of commercial development) some sort of green area or parkland somewhere close to the centre of the city. Most great cities have something like that: Sydney has the botanical gardens - as does Melbourne. London has (amongst others) Hyde Park, Paris has the Bois de Boulogne, Göteborg has Slottsskogen. New York's central park, though, is simply absolutely outstanding. For starters, while New York is either bigger or as big as all of the cities mentioned above, central park lies just as close or even closer to the CBD as in all of the above. Secondly, it isn't just a park - parts of it come closer to being a natural reserve than anything else - I'm not sure how to describe what I've seen from central park, but the fact that I failed every time I tried to walk across to East Manhattan, must tell you something. Also, it's not just beautiful and nearby, it's also huge. According to Wikipedia, Hyde Park has about 253 hectares, Central Park has 341. (The Bois de Boulogne is 2.5 times bigger still, but lies further from the CBD.)

Furthermore, New York has regions with very strongly varying character (some of which I've discovered along with George, so you may find some more details (and pictures!) on his blog - though I haven't found the time to read all of that myself yet): Chinatown, little Italy, Harlem, Westside, Eastside, you name it. Culturally it has a lot going on, too: besides the world renowned Broadway shows, a (seemingly) thriving underground cultural scene (reminiscent of Melbourne when seen through slightly nostalgic eyes) seems to exist. All of that really brings the city down from the sterile individualism of the masses to the close and vibrant personal level and allows you to have a good time on a much more intimate level. (I know that doesn't explain much and may actually not make any sense at all, but it's getting late here so I'm trying to tie an end to this.)

After Morgantown and (definitely) Green Bank, New York was obviously a big and sudden change and maybe that's why I started to feel, after a week, that the ever-busy hubbub started to wear me out. (Though the many late nights discussing pulsar astrophysics and God knows what more over many pints of beer in various bars across Manhattan might have had something to do with that as well.) The next two weeks I would spend in Leiden and Bonn, both much smaller cities on the other side of the Atlantic - but that's another story.

Catch-up time

And at long last I made it back to Morgantown - with a day's delay because apparently scheduling a 5-hour stopover in NY isn't quite sufficient. I didn't expect to have a 6-hour delay. Anyway. We're back.

Needless to say, a lot has happened in the past month - so much that I didn't even find a spare minute to keep you all informed (that, and the fact that access to internet doesn't come as easily as access to oxygen. Even if it might in some parts of the world, then that's most likely due to a local lack of oxygen - and besides, I certainly haven't been in those places, even if they do exist.)

But I'll make amends and try to rehash the important things in a mostly chronological order, starting with the next post. So stay tuned: with a delay of ~4 weeks, here's what I've been up to.

The Longest Day

As you all know, the summer solstice (midsummer night) is on 20/21 June. That makes yesterday the longest day.

What you may not have realised, was that yesterday was also the day I travelled from Morgantown to New York. This trip normally takes 9 hours by car or two times 1 hour by plane (change at DC). Sadly, I took the latter option.

Due to technical faults with our plane, which was still stuck somewhere in the wilds of WV, our flight to DC was four to five hours delayed. Then it was cancelled, then it was delayed again and finally it was truly cancelled.

As it turned out, we finally did get flown to DC on the next flight (which they initially claimed to be full) and from there United booked us onto a Delta flight into JFK. Sadly, though, upon arrival in Dulles airport (DC), the Delta people told us their flight was (like any other flight) heavily overbooked and so there was no way in hell that we'd get onto that flight - or any other flight - to NYC.

So back to United. The only thing they did was wave their hands in the air and say there's nothing they can do, all flights are overbooked, what do we expect them to do? (Getting us to NY would be a good start, given that we paid them to do that.)

Along with two other passengers (both Long Islanders), I then decided to rent a car and drive from DC to NY - as soon as we had lunch (which really ended up being dinner). Luckily, by the time we had had lunch, the Delta flight was also heavily delayed - which apparently resulted in some people cancelling (and going by car?) - ergo, we got a spot on the plane after all. (The plane subsequently sat around on the tarmac for an hour and a half because NY had stopped allowing planes to land or something like that, but at least we made it to NYC eventually.)

And remarkably, so did my luggage (though they've lost the baggage strap around my suitcase and they seriously destroyed my fancy Qantas baggage tag.)

Taking the airtrain and subway into the centre of the city was easy enough and I think I arrived there at around 11pm. The plane landed around 10pm which means that simply to get from Morgantown airport to JFK airport (which should reportedly be a 9-hour drive), I spend about 12 hours. Talking about flying as a fast mode of transportation!

Sadly, though, my memory deluded me when trying to track down the hostel, so I spent the next two hours dragging my suitcase through Manhattan (and through a drizzle which is too weak to be rain but persistent enough to make my glasses untransparent). At 1 am I finally arrived at the hostel. I had in the meantime tried to get a taxi to take me there, but the driver had never even heard of "youth hostels". Luckily a random passer by (at 12:30am!) did know the address.

And then of course you get the checking-in trouble. God knows why, but apparently my name had entered the system wrongly, so after they told me that a) I didn't have a booking and b) the hostel was 100% fully booked (which isn't quite what you want to hear at 1:30am after the day I've just described), it took me about half an hour to convince them I did have a booking and for them to get me a bed. At 2:30 I finally fell asleep. (Only to be woken up by the bl**dy Sun at 8 am of course. Which is the second day in a row since last night I was desperately trying to get my laptop to behave correctly again.)


On a positive note, I really, really like New York (or the West end of Manhattan at least, since that's all I've really seen so far), notwithstanding all of the above. More on that later, because now I need to get ready for the conference registration.

Link

Here's some potentially harmful information about linking in unix:

If you ever feel the need to link to a directory, say:
ln -s someDir Pointer
then when removing the link, do not use tab-complete. That means:
rm -rf Pointer/
will cause a headache: it will not delete "Pointer", but everything beyond "Pointer" - which means "someDir" and everything inside. Instead, do:
rm -rf Pointer
The slash makes a world of difference.

Also, when testing stuff with pointers, never use your home directory. And be forewarned that
ln -s ./ ~/Pointer
is _not_ equal to
ln -s `pwd` ~/Pointer

The linux-users amongst you will have figured out by now what I've been doing all day. (Besides pulling out my hair, that is.) Chances are everyone else has long since stopped reading.

On a positive note, right after I deleted everything in my homedirectory (as a matter of fact I was lucky and it got stuck halfway through - at least I've learned to stop rm when it starts to ask questions), I did finally manage to submit the paper I've been drafting for the past 9 months. So that's a relief.

Finally, I'm back in Morgantown for a day, departing to NYC tomorrow morning (where I'll be attending the Amaldi conference on gravitational waves). As much as you may not expect this, walking the streets of this little university town earlier today, it did feel like home. Slowly but truly I'm warming to this town - give it another half a year and who knows what'll happen ;-)

Quintessential Appalachia

Or, more precisely, what I think must be a quintessential view of Appalachia: hills, shacks and beautiful white houses that stand firm yet lonely in the wide landscape. (I know this particular picture shows a blue house, but trust me: it's probably the only non-white house for miles around. Not that there are many houses within miles (an average of 3 houses per km² according to Wikipedia), but you know what I mean.

This blog is inspired by the yearly trek of the WVU astro group to their summer hideout at the Green Bank Observatory. Escaping the heat of the plains, this peculiar breed of scientist withdraws to the mountains to abstain from cell phones, microwave ovens and anything wireless. Throughout the few hours drive straight down the heart of the state, the ever decreasing population makes for a clear break from the city we normally inhabit. I would never have thought of calling Morgantown a city, but officially it is and seeing some more of the state, I'm starting to put things into context.



The endpoint of our trip - in the middle of the huge (bigger than Belgium) radio quiet zone - is the Green bank telescope ('the largest fully movable dish in the world' is a 100x110 m dish, which makes it just larger than the 100m diameter Effelsberg paraboloid). Now on the one hand I find it absolutely fascinating that such a large area could be made radio quiet by law (and I'm sure you're all just as postively enthousiastic), but at the same time there is of course the harsh reality that the military doesn't necessarily need to submit to this sort of thing, so you may have a large area without television transmitters or mobile phone coverage, but that doesn't mean you haven't got RFI (radio frequency interference). I guess you can't have it all.


Sitting in the even-more-middle-of-nowhere-than-Morgantown, my silly old prejudiced self assumed I'd find the die-hard hillbilly-redneck communities one generally tries to avoid except when making a certain kind of movie. I'm happy to say I was thoroughly misguided on this front. For starters, I came across this:

a solar-powered "slow-down-school-near" sign in the very middle of the state that survives on mining coal. I'm impressed. Next I found myself sporting a T-shirt that pronounced loud and clear my support for Third World debt relief while walking the thin white line that borders the oncoming traffic from the side of the road. In a redneck backyard of a redneck state that voted Republican even in 2008 - notwithstanding the tens of astronomers who surely must have tipped the balance a bit - and which housed (as I had been told) the headquarters of the KKK, I can only blame oblivion and lack of foresight for such inappropriate clothing. As it happens, though, the easily orchestrated 'accident' didn't arrive - all that happened was that an African-American nodded approvingly from his driver's seat. Of course, it may have had nothing to do with my T-shirt, but even so. (By now I've checked the internet and for as far as I can tell WV doesn't have - and never did have - a KKK headquarters.)

The next day I went to the local shop - the kind of small, darkish shop with the squeeking door you know from your standard Western - carrying my yuppie'ish, city-folk cotton shopping bag (save on plastic - save the environment!) Or so I thought. As it turns out the city isn't nearly as far ahead of the country as I imagined: instead of denigrating looks ("what does that fancy city-boy think he's doing here"), I got an approving nod accompanied with the assurance that "many people bring their own bags these days - just think of all the plastic we're saving; ain't that great".

So in brief, I've been happily surprised about the country: my fears were ungrounded, my prejudices outdated. As a final anecdote I'll mention the walk in the woods that became slightly unpleasant and worrisome when I heard shooting in the distance. Even though I thought hunting season is in autumn, walking in camouflage (did I mention my oblivion and lack of foresight?) while people are shooting doesn't sound like a thing you would like to do - not in WV. Upon arrival at the lodge, though, it turned out there was a shooting range - well away from where I was walking, once again making me look foolish in my worry. (It's only fair to add that the only story I've ever heard of an astronomer being shot at took place in Narrabri (AUS), not in WV. On that occasion, the shooting wasn't an accident but a determined attempt at getting people of private property. I must not be the only oblivious astronomer around.)

The Long and Winding Road

Dear Joris

I'm glad to inform you that you have been approved the award of the degree of PhD.

And so the road that commenced exactly (well, exactly this Saturday) four years ago, has come to an end. (And I finally get to tick that box "Dr.")

For the die-hard amongst you, the final copy can be found here. For the less hard-core supporters, I've copied the only section you might be interested in, below - the non-scientific part of the acknowledgements, that is.

At Swinburne as in Sydney, work only goes so far in turning “survival” into “life”. Luckily there were many friends along the way, some long gone, others just arrived, who provide some comic relief to give my brain the occasional rest. Thanks therefore to my housemates: Simon, Nadia, Meg, Paul, Elaine, Thomas and Lenneke for introducing me to the best TV series I know and for the discussions and insights in subjects as varied as sub-atomic physics, Australian culture and German cuisine (though mostly sub-atomic physics). Thanks also to my fellow students and office-mates (both in Swinburne and at the ATNF): Xiao Peng, Trevor, Tim, Sarah, Paul, Nick, Natasha, Meredith, Max² , Lina, Lee, Kathryn, Jeremy, Haydon, Emily, Emil, Daniel, Chris, Caroline, Berkeley, Annie, Anneke, Andy, Alyson, Albert, Adrian and Adam for both encouraging and preventing procrastination, for lunch and dinner, for the Age Superquiz, for telling me more than I needed to hear about AFL and rugby. For poker, movies, music. For drinks and laughter. For taking me seriously, but not too seriously. For camping and hikes. For sleep-deprived comedy at 4am in the Parkes control room. And for pointing out the obvious. Apart from housemates and fellow students, the frisbee crowd provided me with an energy release that money cannot buy. Thanks for putting up with my galloping across your field, guys.

Last but not least, thanks to the people I’ve been neglecting most of all: my father, who predicted twenty years ago that I’ll become a particle physicist; my mother, who keeps on defying the Universe in her claim that Australia is a long way from Belgium; and my siblings, Kathleen & Maarten, who are in their own way close while distant. It’s the four of you - and the eighteen years I’ve lived with you in Belgium, that have provided me with the dauntless international vision that brought me to the other end of the world and with the scientific intrigue that made me want to understand the Universe and, above all, gravity.

So yeah, thanks for a couple of great years, people. As much as I'm relieved the writing is behind my back, I'm still sorry those times are past...

Have a drink!

A few weekends ago, on a Sunday around noon, I decided it would be nice to make pancakes for lunch. And what better way to enjoy waiting for the whiteish-yellow dough to turn yellowish-brown than by enjoying a beer on the side. So I grabbed a random one from the fridge and started lunch.

An hour later, as I was glad-wrapping the final few pancakes for dinner on Monday, I became aware of a slight tipsiness which didn't so much worry me as it confounded me. Maybe the milk had gone bad and was having an effect on my digestion / maybe this was the effect of a few nights of bad sleep? Maybe - no, surely it couldn't be the beer.

From a Belgian perspective, the initial interesting (and disturbing!) fact about beer in WV is that beer with more than 6% alcohol may not be sold. While this law is of course totally preposterous, meaningless and useless, it didn't bother me too much because a) I did not believe that any country other than Belgium can produce a good-tasting beer with high alcohol content and b) We happen to live 6 miles from Pennsylvania and a 45 minute drive from Maryland. (The law was most recently changed so that now it should be allowed, though the shops haven't caught up yet.)

The problem with Pennsylvania is (as I am told by the natives) that you can only buy beer by the case (or slab for you Australians - for everyone else: a 24-unit container), except for the really basic stuff like Budweiser (in which case you can buy 6-packs at bars, I'm told). So in order to get a taste of variety, Pennsylvania wouldn't be the right place to go. Hence, we teamed up with a couple of students and went on a "beer run" to Maryland. Hop across the border, buy an interesting-looking collection and hop back. As a consequence, my fridge has been filled with a quite intruiging (though currently dwindling) variety waiting to be tried ever since.

The random pick I drank while eating pancakes, happened to be a "Stoudts Triple". Now I know what you're thinking: Triple - that spells trouble. But really, the beer didn't taste like alchohol. In fact, it pretends to be a "Belgian Abbey-style Ale" and to my great surprise it smells, looks and tastes damn close to exactly that. Again, I feel a footnote is in place. Once you start paying attention, you'll find beers all over the world pretending to be "Belgian style" this or that. It's an easy trick to get sold: paste a label irrespective of whether you have anything to do with it or not. (On that topic: how many of you knew that the corporate headquarters of IKEA are in the Netherlands?) Anyway. Disappointment after disappointment has taught me to never expect a Belgian style beer to be Belgian style at all. I guess Stoudts finally proved me wrong. After checking the internet (for some reason that defies my logic, alcohol content is often not printed on the bottles or 6-packs), this specific brew was supposed to have 9% alcohol. On a Sunday at lunch with nothing but some pancakes. I guess that would explain some of the tipsiness. Joris - American Beer: 0 - 1.

But that's not where this ended. Oh no. If you thought getting drunk at noon was bad, hang on to your hat, worse is yet to come.

A week and a bit later - a quiet Tuesday evening I think it was - I sit down for my favourite passtime: reading a book with a nice beer as companion. Now since I was the only Belgian on the beer run, I felt morally obliged to buy just about all the Belgian beer that wasn't Leffe (since Leffe you can find anywhere). Consequentially, I happened to have a sampler pack of the (pretty much unheard of for all I know, but then I haven't lived in Belgium for nearly a decade) Petrus brewery - which is indeed, very Belgian.

My random pick that Tuesday evening left me with the "Aged Pale" of Petrus and to say the only positive comment I can devise, it was unlike any beer I've ever tried before. It was not, however, too different from the Slovenian apple vinegar my dad once bought in the vain hope of getting apple juice - the difference being that the Aged Pale tasted less of apple and more of vinegar. I never thought I'd see the day, but here it was: blunt and undeniably in front of me: the ultimate undrinkable (Belgian!) "beer". The struggle that went on in my head was terrifying in that it defied the only things I still believed in: the Belgian supremacy on the front of beer-making. If we cannot even have that, then what good can we do? (Well, I guess there's still chocolate?)

The dark side won. I chucked the vinegar down the sink after only the tiniest sip. And I took a Leinenkugel's 1888 Bock to replace it. Joris - American Beers: 0 - 2.


At this point I bluntly and openly admit defeat: Belgium, Germany and the Czech Republic are not the only nations in the world to make good and varied beers (though the Czech republic doesn't necessarily do that, either). The U.S.A. knows quite a bit, too. I've had some really good wheat beers (which, again, say to be "Belgian style" and in fact they may well rival Hoegaarden, especially since this latter has now been absorbed into the Death Star called "InBev" - that's right: Hoegaarden and Budweiser are owned by the same company. Disgusting, isn't it?) I've tasted "Belgian Abbey-style beer" which actually emulates exactly what it set out to emulate. I'm really, honestly surprised by the variety - the many different brands, the different types available and the quite regularly recurring fact that these things actually taste right! And on top of that, I don't even think I've yet tried any of the beers Josh and Nick told me to look out for.

Out into the wild

Last week I had two days off and finally made it into the beautiful wilderness of Appalachia:


(Yeah, I only really have two pictures to show for two days of hanging out. But then there really is no way to capture these things in boring old pictures anyway. You'll have to come and check it out yourself :-P)

On Wednesday, Anneke (Praagman - should be known to most of you) came on a flash visit and brought a car, allowing us to make it to the Coopers Rock state forest: a pearl of tranquillity (which I take it is a slightly odd wording in that pearls don't necessarily have much to do with tranquility, but let's leave it at that anyway) not too far from town. After a long and tiring walk through the temperate forest on a warm spring day, we drove back to town to visit ... the arboretum - and have another tiring walk. So yeah, there you have it - visiting me does generally involve a reasonable amount of footwork...


The next day was no less entertaining and also resulted in a healthy tiredness at the end of it: together with most of the astro-students and a couple senior staff, I participated in the inaugural astro white water rafting trip! (The fact that two of the party of nine were actually plasma physicists is a detail we'll be happy to omit.) Since cameras are of course nothing you would want to bring on such a trip, you'll have to believe me when I say I courageously took the hot spot and valiantly guided my raft through the thunderous, perilous rapids of South-Western Pennsylvania. (That's right, we actually went right across the border since that turned out to be the nearest good spot to go.)

And what do you know? We didn't capsize, I didn't fall out (even though the front seat didn't really have any hooks for my feet - or any support at all, for that matter), didn't bash my head against the rocks we glided past and I still do not regret choosing the cheapest health-care plan. All in all it was a nice experience, floating down the river through the forests, seeing the imaginary natives of centuries past sneak through the bushes in hunt for turkeys and black bears. Noticing the settlers arrive at the river - yet another obstacle to overcome. Finding a derailed railway carriage and deducing from the large trees that stand all around it, that it must have lain there for quite some time - perhaps ever since the robbers of the West - the American Ned Kellys - put up a scheme and grabbed whatever was there. Or ever since a tree came down as the train thundered past, though such realistic explanations of course don't rouse my fascination and imagination quite as much.

I must admit, the landscape here never fails to get me dreaming. It must be incredibly easy to write a historical novel about life in the Americas in times past, because the imagery is all right there: the trees, streams, mountains - granted, there's the occasional power line, but apart from that - there's so much room down here! There are so few people on such a massive continent... And so much has happened so recently!

If you think I'm losing it again, consider this: in the BeNeLux, there are on average 371 people per square kilometer. While Australia is a whole lot less dense, Melbourne sure isn't. In West-Virginia, that number is 29 - more than ten times less! On top of that, Flanders fought the French in 1302 - and we still talk about it. My little country back home has of course been the field for many other armies to fight, from Waterloo to WWII. But that's all messy warfare - one ruler comes, throws out the previous one, raids our churches, steals our art and takes whatever taxes he can before the next invader comes knocking. To my mind, Belgian history is the boring constancy that primary school history lessons are composed of.

Not so with North-America. This is the land where Winnetou once roamed the plains. The land where famished Irish built a new life on their up-and-at-them attitude. The place where strong men delivered ad-hoc justice, mounted on their fierce stallions and sporting the guns that defended the weak and harmless. This is the land where a Don Quixote could be brave and valued without needing to be mad. Forgive me for being entirely unrealistic, but it's true that America is the continent of which we read fascinating stories and see exciting movies.

Of course I know that country (which must have been much harsher and probably didn't have any of the romanticised titbits Karl May and Clint Eastwood would have us believe in) has long since disappeared: nobody lives randomly in the wild - except for campers, like everywhere else - and there are no settlers trekking through the wilderness: settlers these days have a 4WD and airplanes. But there's so much unspoiled, free, empty and (in sharp contrast to most of Australia:) livable land around here that I keep on being reminded of those stories of old - the great promised land out West. So as mad as I may be, please don't blame me for continuing to expect finding John Wayne besides a camping fire every time I see a creek or a rotting tree trunk.

Living the good life

When I first arrived in Australia in 2004, it didn't take 12 hours before I was told of the drought and reminded to keep shower time down. In subsequent years, the concept of a filled bath tub became - slowly but surely - relegated to the realm of science fiction. And it doesn't look like this was just because of the few strange people I fell in with: after nearly four years in the country, I'm just about convinced that the nation - and especially the big cities - are obsessed with saving water.

Yet, water isn't where it ends. As the elections loomed and environmental concern reached the political agenda, televisions were struck with government-funded adds that seemed to have the single purpose of making us feel guilty of using any electricity at all: switch on lights, TVs, microwaves or alarm clocks and black balloons of doom would fill your house: the CO₂ is everywhere and it will kill you. (This purpose was of course secondary to trying to convince the electorate that Howard was good for them. As good as CO₂, if you ask me.)

Such guilt-ridden consumerism (aka the idea that anything beyond sitting in a cave is bad for the Earth and will destroy your kids and grandkids if not yourself), is of course nothing new to me: one doesn't have to live in an extremist-Calvinist community to be made aware of the dreadful things we do to our planet and how this will curse us in the end. As a point of illustration, one of the few things I remember from primary school is how we were told of the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest for the dual benefit of quick gain from tropical wood sales and opening up of cheap pastures to breed McDonalds-cows. I've been ingrained by obsessive-compulsive turning off of lights, closing of dripping taps and taking trains not cars. However, environmental concerns aren't the end of this, either: the government and lobby-groups go through quite some effort to push us into the correct straightjacket: extensive advertising campaigns have left me incapable of considering driving and drinking (however little) on the same night. It's an interesting life, which is guided by reflexes of guilt.


Down here, I haven't detected much of that. In contrast to the Australian balloons of doom, here I've seen car stickers praising the merits of coal ("coal forever!") and the secretary of the interior explains on prime-time television that limiting the consumption of coal is simply not something worth thinking about. Here, people have figured out that it's so much easier to go by car than by any other means, so why wouldn't we? And if you've had a few to drink - hey, as long as you know what you're doing and you've got a big enough 'truck' to feel safe, what could go wrong?

Don't worry about long showers or filling bath tubs - in fact, the shower knob doesn't even allow me to adjust the volume of water, so maybe a full-blown bath may be more economical after all! Also, you shouldn't feel obliged to fill your kitchen with fifteen different trash bags: just put it all in a single one, it isn't really your problem what happens to it, after all - that's why you pay bills for trash collection, right?

Another one: why would you go through the effort of buying groceries, cooking and doing dishes (or, rather, filling the dish washer) every day? Eating out is cheap, yummy and fast. Surely in a time and place where time is money, you'll just pop by Subway or KFC after work? There's no need to panick about refilling your drink during dinner, either - while in Belgium the biggest cost of eating out is often that second Coke you've ordered, in the US (or at least in Morgantown), refills are free.

In fact, to come down to the most nitty-gritty details: my age-old obsession with not choking the kitchen sink is rendered worthless by the mechanical cutter-device installed underneath. Drop anything you like down the sink, if it gets stuck you simply flick the switch and along with the whirring noise, the water level will drop again.


Of course the above is a bit of a caricature: I've seen water wasted in NSW and know plenty of Belgians who wouldn't give a light switch a second thought. On top of that, I've only lived here for 3 months so the few Americans I know and an out-of-context quote from the secretary of the interior may not really paint a convincing picture. But even so, I cannot escape the feeling that the USA isn't only pervaded with a feeling of opportunity and optimism, but also of an attitude to live the good life. And take it or leave it, there's a lot to be said in favour that.

There will be delays...

A few weeks ago, I put aside my prejudices and worries and decided to spend a glorious day on a bus trip to the "unreachable" mall. I left at 2:00pm and in order to optimise the potential number of busses to catch and minimise the potential waiting time, I first biked to the bus depot in central Morgantown. According to the schedule, I should have a bus every half our there and since I arrived at 2:20pm, there should be one within 10 minutes. As it turned out, I missed one while figuring out the schedules - the 2pm bus had left 25 minutes late.


In itself that wasn't too bad. While the bus stop itself turns out to be the local dope and smoke market (never before have I witnessed two total strangers talk about cocaine addiction within 5 minutes of introducing themselves), the weather was pleasant enough, as was the nearby trail (which I keep coming back to) and the scenery on the other side of the bus station. (The picture above should bring out the early April cherry blossoms, at least that's what I think they are. That lovely spring weather has by now been replaced by heat not unworthy of Melbourne Cup day.)

After 35 minutes at the bus stop, a 25-minute delayed bus did arrive and (after having stopped for an extra 5 minutes) brought us to the mall. While I had been gone from home for an entire hour now, the busride itself only took 15 minutes. Talking about efficiency.

There are three malls in Morgantown (though "around" would be a more accurate preposition). The first mall is immediately south of the city and has died ever since Wall Mart moved out. Now the only reason to go there is because the social security administration has its office there, so you're effectively obliged to go at least once, at the very start of your stay. The second one is right across the river from where I live and the final one is where I was headed now. None of these three malls have sidewalks. None of these three are reachable by bike unless you have no sense of selfpreservation whatsoever. A bus ride to mall 2 (as we just found out) takes 15 minutes, waiting not included. A ride to mall 3 takes at least half an hour - according to the schedules, that is.

Because there are rather few stores inside town, I presume my hopes were artificially inflated for what I would find at the mall. Upon arrival, though, I was quickly put in my place. The fear of losing my way in the seven full, three half and twenty quarter floors of which any Australian shopping mall seems to be built up (in quite a few Australian shopping centres I've seen, the word "floor" doesn't make much sense: you really need a continuous scale in z-direction or an altimeter to keep track of where you are), quickly evaporated when I realised this mall wasn't much larger than the little misfit we have in Kapellen (my town in Belgium). In fact, this mall didn't even have a supermarket and therefore became even less interesting than that one.

I feel like I have to qualify my disappointment, though. The fact is that the third mall (the one across the water from me) does actually contain some interesting stores, though it only has a single bus going there, which translates into an hourly instead of half-hourly service. I got a ride there twice now and it does provide you with good shops for at least some things. The problem is, of course, getting there.

Also, as much as I may seem to complain, I really should bear in mind that Morgantown isn't the metropolis I've lived in for the past ~4 years. According to Wikipedia it has less than 30,000 inhabitants so Melbourne is literally more than a hundred times bigger. The reason why a big city like Melbourne has all its shops in the centre while tiny Morgantown has them all a 15-minute drive outside town, remains a mystery to me, though.

So, after a five-minute stroll through what I expected to be a plethora of assaults on my common sense and - more so - wallet, I'd seen it all and strolled back to the parking lot with an empty feeling and without spending a single cent. It was 3:20pm by now - I had been gone for 80 minutes and had spent a total of 5 minutes in the mall. I figured I could walk back in, maybe eat something, but the 3pm bus (which should normally arrive here by 3:15pm but was delayed by an undetermined amount of time) could arrive any minute and missing that bus would imply an extra wait of at least 30 minutes. I figured the risk of missing the bus was too large and opted to play safe and inspect the parking lot instead.


Here you have a snapshot of the parking lot. It doesn't seem to be so huge, but that is because it encircles the bean-shaped mall and therefore doesn't need a huge radius to have a surface at least twice as large as the shopping area. Smart design in that sense: it allows the fast-food eating, never-walking homo sapiens (who think of a motor cycle rather than a bicycle upon hearing the word "bike") to limit its physical activity to an absolute minimum. (And then they wonder why the dysfunctional health care absorbs a third of US taxes.) Let's move on to somehing more positive and focus on the horizon in the picture above: the softly undulating foothills of the Appalachian mountains, specked with nice white houses that undoubtedly have lovely views over the natural beauty of which this Mountain State has so much. When/if I get to the even more sparsely populated region of Green Bank, you can expect some clearer evidence, because I'm aware this picture may not cut it in itself.


The bus did arrive, eventually. If I remember correctly, it arrived at 4pm and must therefore have been close to 40 to 45 minutes late. I would ask how it's possible to get such a delay on a lazy Sunday afternoon, but given that this post comes almost a month after the event, I don't feel justified in pressing that point. Getting back to the bus stop at 4:20pm, I made it home around 4:40pm, bringing the trip total close to three hours for a 5-minute walk through the mall. Luckily these durations don't scale linearly...


In Australia, the one thing that bothered me most, was the heat. Yet, when you sign up for a couple of years down under, you really should realise it's going to be hot so complaining about it isn't really justified. In America, the single most annoying thing (in my opinion) is the absence of sidewalks and the consequential necessity of a car. This, too, is an implicit part of the deal and it would therefore be unfair if I kept focussing on that point: I knew this was going to be an issue and I've had three months to get used to it, so it really is time for me to get over it and stop whinging - unless I want to end up a pom in America (which, given my accent, I'm not too far off.) I therefore decided this will be the very last post where I'll complain about sidewalks, public transport and necessity of cars. I rest my case, the rant is over.

Before I do so, though, let me humour myself by posting one more picture from my way to the supermarket. It shows one of the few crossings across a fairly busy two-lane road (I've waited quite a while to be able to take this pictures without any cars obstructing the view). You can see the crossing on the left hand side. It leads to ~5 metres of sidewalk which... vanish into nothingness. The sidewalk isn't continued along the major road and on the sidestreet there's not even an even stretch of grass to take refuge on (the left-hand side of the side street - though not necessarily obvious from this picture - is pretty much identical to the right-hand side, which you can just make out.)


With that and apologies for the long delay in getting this post out, I'll leave you all.

Chicken Sandwich

I just had a chicken sandwich for dinner. That's right: chicken, a sandwich. Nothing more, nothing less.

This somewhat meagre dinner resulted from a combination of factors. First, my knowledge of English isn't quite perfect. It took me at least a year to figure out that "jalapeños" are the small, hot, green peppers. (Please don't get me started on the meaning of the word "peppers"!) Second, I know nearly as much about cooking as I do about pension funds - no need to ask me what the difference is between cooking, baking, frying, steaming, roasting or grilling. (Though I have a hunch about "steaming".) Third, either cooks are really bad in the US, or every single American is an outstanding cook.

The fact is that there is almost no (generally take-away) joint where they won't have you (the customer that is, not the cook) decide on everything about your meal - down to the finest details. Most of you might have experienced this at Subway: what type of bread would you like - what kind of meat would you like - cheese - toasted? - vegetables - sauce - salt? pepper? Drink? Cookie? In Sweden, the only give-away that I didn't know Swedish as well as I should, used to be my blank stare when they asked me if I wanted to take it home or eat it at the joint. At Subway (and now just about anywhere), this single blank stare inflated into a concatenation of blank stares, requests to repeat what they just asked and a total and utter indecision when faced with the choice between Swiss and Ceddar cheese. (I honestly have no clue what the difference is. All I know is that the Swiss cheese most definitely does not come from Switzerland.)

So I learned to say "A bit of everything, thanks" and subsequently, as my vocabulary and culinary knowledge grew: "A bit of everything, except jalapeños and olives, please". Last week, when ordering a hot-dog for lunch, this technique aparently didn't do. The chef (this was actually a real chef-looking guy, believe it or not) looked at me in disbelief. I started wondering how difficult this could be: just how many things could one possibly combine with a hot-dog? After a few moments of consternation, the guy luckily made his mind up and helped me out by doing what any cook in Europe would have done in the first place: following his own recipe.

Back to this evening. Originally I planned to give in to the easy and unhealthy option Burger King provides around the world: Double whopper please. No drink. Pay. Thanks. Get away. No choices, no dilemmas, no lack of information on what combinations arouse suspicion and what combinations are normal. However, Burger King being what it is, I changed plans at the very last moment and picked the unknown, more healthy-looking joint next to it. That in itself wasn't the big mistake. Replying "no" when the lady asked what more I wanted - that was the mistake. I saw her eyes widen and look at me as if I was a straightout weirdo. It may have been my general astronomer/nerd look that did it, or maybe my dishevelled hair, dripping recycled raindrops onto her counter, either way I must have made an impression that correlated with the peculiar order because she didn't ask again.

And so I ended up with a handful of lettuce and a piece of chicken in a bun. I wouldn't say it was a feast to my tastebuds, but at least it must have been more healthy than Burger King.

A walk through Star City

Giving in to popular demand once again (I'm starting to wonder where this might lead me eventually), I am, as of this week, the (proud?) owner of a digital camera. Now I am really badly trained (and minimally gifted) at taking pictures but you've asked for it (well, some of you have, anyway). I have no illusions as to capturing the West Virginian or Appalachian spirit in a series of 2D representations, but let's see what we can do. As a warm-up, I'll guide you on a walk to the "local" shop. ("Local" being defined as the closest one reachable on foot. This doesn't mean it's nearby.)

This first picture shows our living room and kitchen. You're currently standing with your back to my room and on the far side you can just see the front door. Notice the collection of empty bottles - notwithstanding my housemates being either just 21 or still younger, they've already made their parents proud...


Next we have the outside view of the complex. My room is on the far corner of the second building, top floor. In the background you can just see some hilltops which are quite representative for this region. On the right edge of the image you can see one of the greatest things about Morgantown: the trail. It's this trail which brings me straight to uni - without any encounters with cars or anything like that. In fact, things I did encounter so far include loads of runners (yes, I'll start training soon), even more birds and a single raccoon (if that's what it was, but I'm pretty sure.) No really, it's a pretty trail and I hope to get you some stunnig pictures once spring colours everything nicely green.

Next one... yeah, see what I mean about me taking pictures? I never even noticed that yellow bar running right across everything, I honestly only notice that now. Anyway, I guess you'll have to live with it.

So this picture shows you a couple of things again. Firstly, on the right, a bank. Pretty fancy, though I wonder about their credit rating. On the left is another typical American thing which I - being born and raised in densely crowded Flanders - cannot get my head around. It's a drive-in ATM. Now there are a couple of reasons I cannot figure this one out. Partly it's probably because I haven't got a car myself, but beyond that, there's the simple fact that cash doesn't seem to be of too much relevance in American society since pretty much everything can be payed for electronically. And even if you do use cash occasionally, any supermarket gives you the option to get cash out as you pay your groceries. Besides, there are walk-up ATMs at pretty much every shop anyway. Finally, I don't see why one would put all the money into building this drive-in thing and sacrifice the land - surely you're not gaining quite as much as it costs, or are you?

After half an hour's walk, we have arrived! (As with any of the pictures, click the image to get a larger view.) "Kroger" is the supermarket I'm headed for - the only complete supermarket that I can reach by bike and/or foot. (There's a smaller one in town, but they don't even sell fruit.) Right above Kroger, a green-roofed building pokes out - this is the university's sports centre. Sadly, membership costs way too much to be useful (unless you're student in which case it's free), so I won't go there. Don't get carried away by the "book exchange" - it only deals in second hand books that are on the curriculum lists. Anything else (even if it's on the same subject) doesn't seem to be present. Do notice the advertisement on the left end of the picture, though: "Get Free Incoming Calls". Apparently that's something worth advertising. Initially I though this was about some quite obscure top-level sort of service - like some blackberry carriable internet or whatever. Turns out I was wrong. In the land of the free, you pay for receiving calls. You apparently even pay for receiving sms's. Call me crazy, but I would never have thought of that.

This picture, I'll admit, doesn't really show much of interest. However, it has a huge pole with loudspeakers. This is the town's warning system. Whenever there is a storm, a fire, a cat caught up a tree, it sounds. To be perfectly honest, I don't know why it sounds, I only know that it does so, often. At least once a week and sometimes several times a day, raising the average to probably close to daily. And it's loud. I can easily hear it through the television (windows closed) even though it must be about a kilometer -if not more- away. I personally don't see the point, unless this invention dates back to pre-telephone days, when the fire brigade needed to be called to duty without current technological gadgets. However, this is the 21^st century. I would imagine they would have done away with it by now.

The second thing the picture shows (if you know what you're looking at), is the cleared hiltop across the river, on top of which the actual closest shops lie. They're probably about half as far as Kroger, as the bird flies. However, since I cannot fly, I cannot reach them. Well, not within an hour and without using a bus or a taxi, that is.

We're nearly back home, so let me close off with a quite typical view. Again, the hills in the background - do you notice the swath of treas that are cleared for a power line? Coal - and, consequently, electricity - are the main business of WV. It should therefore not be too surprising that the WV senators and representatives in DC are amongst the foremost people to oppose any anti-coal plans any administration might have. The first time I saw a number plate saying something like "we love coal", I thought I had misread. Sadly, it's a reality...

A final thing to notice, before I leave you and get dinner, is the front yards we're looking at: there are no divides. Of course, in some streets there are divides - keeping dogs and little children inside - but surprisingly few of these divides are at shoulder height or higher: they tend to be at a height that you can see your neighbour and could even have a chat. Totally unlike Belgium, that is. (Dare I say "Europe"? It probably holds for large parts if not all of Australia as well, I think.) To me, that is an interesting and slightly puzzling idea to come from the land that has pioneered individualism and capitalism for more than 60 years now. Clearly there are still plenty of sides to the American psychology that I haven't figured out - yet?

Some random news-picks

I cannot help myself but provide you with a few links of interest:

First, something about the fascinating American habit of tipping, which I'm still trying to come to terms with.

And next an odd news story from the state of Illinois (that's right: Obama-land) - reinstating Pluto as a planet. (Take that, IAU.)

Television

Television is a most important aspect of American life - or so I have always been told. Partly I can see how that would be caused by the mindboggling number of channels available - wherever I've lived so far, the default answer to "what's on television tonight" was "nothing interesting, don't even bother". But when there is a seemingly infinite supply of channels to pick from, things do change. (I've zapped through everything from 1 to 54 and gave up there. A random check showed there was still life at 102, but that might have been a duplicate.) Of course it is fundamentally a chicken-and-egg question which came first: the addiction to television or the exorbitant number of channels.

The fact is, everyone has a television. In the house I'm sharing, there's one big television in the living room - and four more, one per bedroom. That makes five televisions for four people which, on the positive side, means there is no need to fight over which channel to pick but on the negative side implies a privacy that kills most random human interaction.

Thinking back about the shared houses I've lived in over the past years, there have been two areas of the house most conducive to socialising: the kitchen and the television. Simply put, if the only television is in a common area, then anyone watching it will be open for a chat - if not during the show itself, then at least during the commercial break. Down here, these dynamics are entirely different - between the unlimited broadband internet and the private possession of a TV-set, people lock themselves in their rooms and only make fleeting appearances outside that cave.

It should therefore not be surprising that the longest event of 'sitting-around-and-chatting' we've had so far, was during a two-hour blackout a few weeks ago. Collecting the few candles we had lying around, we just managed to light the living room enough to all sit around without needing to be in the dark. We didn't quite make it to playing cards just yet, but without internet and television, we had an interesting social experiment all the same...

Public Transport (II)

I've given it one more try - to catch the bus. This time I attempted to take it in the centre of campus, where there can be no mistake about its route and where it's bound to stop anyway - if it weren't to pick up people, then at least to avoid running into the crowd of students that is always present at this location. In order to make sure I wouldn't miss an early bus, I came ten to fifteen minutes early - allowing me a thorough inspection of the wide variety of buses that do pass through: purple, gold, ... several colours came by, especially those not part of the rainbow; the red bus, however, didn't.

After waiting about 20 minutes past the bus's due time, my main problem with the system became obvious: I'd rather walk for an hour than to risk waiting 30 minutes for a 15 minute ride. Simply put: if buses aren't any more reliable than this (which they cannot really help because, unlike trains and trams, they do get stuck in traffic), then I don't see the point in taking them.

On a positive note, Morgantown has an extraordinary alternative form of transport: the PRT (or Personal Rapid Transit). These are nice little carriages that - in theory - get you to select where you want to go; and then take you there. (While awaiting my next technological advancement, you'll have to do with this for a picture.)

Like just about anything of value in Morgantown, the PRT belongs to the University (notice the WV logo on the carriages - this isn't the state logo but actually the -registered trademark- university logo). A child of its time, the PRT was first proposed in the late 1960s - and during the first year of its term, gained national financing from the Nixon administration. After six years and heaps more money than predicted, it was ready to start operations in 1975.


As if having a Republican-funded mode of public transport in the United States (not to mention WV) isn't surprising enough in its own right, the PRT further exceeds expectations by actually working. While service isn't instantaneous (the software behind the system clearly attempts to optimise something, though I haven't totally figured out what), so far I have always had a car leaving well within 15 minutes - often after no more than 5 minutes. With their own set of tracks and viaducts, these carriages are unaffected by traffic lights or competing traffic and can simply amble along at speeds up to 48 km/h (according to Wikipedia) - which makes them clearly faster than the cars stuck on the crowded roads. What's more, even after functioning in a University town for more than 30 years now, the PRT still looks good: the carriages look like they're newly painted, they have carpeting on the inside (which isn't stuffed with chewing gum and the like but is actually neat) and the windows have not (or hardly) got graffiti scratched in or painted on them. Either the students here are incredibly well-behaved, or the cameras in the stations do an incredibly good job, or the system is maintained superbly. (Probably a combination of the latter two.) Finally, using the PRT is free (for staff and students but I doubt there's anyone in this town who isn't either). The only real downside is that there are only 5 stations and about 13 km of track - so it doesn't get you everywhere.


Having said all that, I doubt I'll be seeing too much more of the PRT in days to come, since I've bought a bike on Saturday - reducing my total travel time to a third of what it used to be. (There's nothing like bicycles for commuting, is there?)

Stimulating the economy

Last week, President Obama signed the much-debated economic stimulus package into law. There's little I need to write about the specifics of it, because it's pretty likely you're all totally bored with the details you've been bombarded with over the last several months. Nevertheless, let's quickly summarise that the aim of this $787 billion deal is to get the economy going again: to encourage lending, to start and/or keep jobs, to get people to spend. (Notice 787 billion is more than three quarters of a trillion. Scientifically, it is 0.787x10¹² - that's right: ten to the twelfth power)

Anyway, now that we've spent a second in shock, let me declare that (although I'm a big fan of the New Deal and this even Newer Deal) I won't - make that I can't - participate.

There are a couple of reasons for my seemingly blatant lack of interest in the American economy but I plead innocent to all charges: as I hope you'll see, it's not my fault I'm not spending my money.

First of all, there's the West Virginia state's habit of the delayed payroll. I'm not quite sure who it applies to, though it seems to be pretty widespread amongst state-employees (possibly affecting all of them). The principle is as follows: you work two weeks, then you wait two weeks, then you get paid. I'm not quite sure where the idea originated and why on Earth people would put up with it, but hey, it's how it's done, so we roll with it.
It does mean, though, that for no less than 31 days, I had to get by on whatever I took from home - and whatever I could get off my Belgian credit card. The consequence is, of course, that I'm living cheaply. Very cheaply. No economic recovery will result from my migrating, that's for sure.

Next, there's the pension fund. This one is a bit tricky because in itself it doesn't sound bad. 6% of my wage gets placed in a fund which I cannot access until I retire (the good news is the university will double that up, effectively giving me a pension-bonus of 6%). However, I won't retire in the States - or at least, I don't think I will. So instead of staying there for the coming few decades, I'll get the accumulated funds when I leave America next year - together with the last month of (delayed) pay. In other words, the day I finish my job - the day I leave the US and go back to Europe, I'll get just about 20% of the yearly salary I signed up for - don't spend that here, go spend it in Europe.

Thirdly and finally, after living cheaply for a month, there's really no point to getting a car: I've found my way on foot, I can continue like that. Besides, if I'm only here for a relatively short while, there's really no point in getting a car once you've settled down and furnished a room and the like. Not getting a car doesn't stimulate the economy, of course: I don't pay money for a car or fuel or registration or maintentance. But there's another catch to this: without a car, I cannot reach the big shops. I've tried walking to the mall, because it's really not that far: when I walk home in the evening, I can see the lit parkings on the next hilltop. The problem, though, is that there simply isn't a sidewalk to get there - not even half a metre of dirt to separate me from the crazed stream of traffic. There is a bus, but that takes a huge detour and gets me there in an hour - no less; and there's only one bus per hour, so you end up stuck there on the freezing parking lot in the cold, wanting to go home.

The consequence is that the only good bookshop I can easily access is Amazon.com. I wouldn't have a clue where to buy CDs or shoes - or a good rain jacket by the way; luckily I did find a great umbrella. Long story short: I'm not complaining - hell no, I'll be rich by the time I leave here - but I don't get it either. I would think an obvious thing to stimulate the economy would be to make sure people can get to the shops - and to make sure they have the money they've worked for, so they can spend it. I would think it would be a lot easier to get the money where it is (or should be) than to dig astronomical holes in the federal budget. (By the way - the distance to PSR J0437-4715 is just about 5x10¹⁵ km - which is only a factor of fifty larger than the rounded-up stimulus cost in cents. So these truly are astronomical numbers.)


On the bright side, I have managed to find a copy of the New York Times. It wasn't displayed at the entrance next to all the other papers, but was standing on its own on the other side of the aisle - at the end of it, turned around the corner so no one but very attentive shoppers who happen to leave through that particular exit would notice it. Sadly for the American economy, though, I had already subscribed to the British Guardian Weekly by then.

Addiction

Now that all the official administrative stuff is organised and I have a bank account, home and an emerging daily routine, I thought the dust would settle down and I would settle in. Mostly this turned out to be correct, except for a daily uneasiness that starts to itch around 10am and reaches a climax at 11am when I simply cannot sit still anymore. First I thought it was because it was Monday, then I thought I was just getting annoyed by colleagues sending repetitive e-mails. Finally I realised what was wrong. During my last months - maybe even for close to a year - in Swinburne, sometime between 10 and 11am I would get my daily oxygen-fix by taking a little walk to get the Age - the Melbourne newspaper that is. Needless to say, in Morgantown there is no Age - but somehow the force of habit has persisted.

So I do end up going for a little walk, giving in to the cravings in search of a good-quality newspaper or an equally high-standard cup of coffee. So far, these walks haven't resulted in anything but the good old O₂ fix. The problem is not that there is no (good) coffee on campus - there's plenty of places to go - Starbucks or otherwise. The problem is that there are just way too many students - and much too few of them are in class between 10 and 11am. I honestly start to get the impression that studying in the US comes down to queueing (sorry, lining up) for a cup of coffee. However, I haven't seen many people walk around while sipping their cups (not too surprising since the latte-sipping-liberals are all supposedly in New York and Washington) so maybe it's not the student's fault, maybe it's simply that the coffee shops work too slowly. I'll let you know when I find out.

Another side to my quandary is the fact that I have trouble to find a good newspaper around. So far, I've ran all over town to find a copy of the New York Times (I've tried the Wall Street Journal on the plane - which was probably the last time I'll try that one) and I've only succeeded to locate a few vending machines - none of which are on campus. the few shops that do sell newspapers either have national papers hidden or only sell local papers. Now I'm not saying these local papers are bad - in fact the university-ran "Daily Athenaeum" is pretty good - but I'd actually prefer to know what's going on in the World - not just in Morgantown.

Granted: USA Today you can find just about anywhere. I am, however, in search of a good newspaper.