tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89823480769195831482024-03-05T10:47:54.331+01:00Joris@BlogJorishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17916921641191383250noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8982348076919583148.post-87594380887794817352011-07-05T20:33:00.000+02:002011-07-05T20:33:49.924+02:00Quo Vadis, Australia?About half of my time over the past three months, was spent back at the good old Parkes radio observatory. As you all know, I spent many a waking hour in that outpost of science, trying to push back the frontiers of human knowledge. It has been well over 18 months since my last visit, though, so I noticed an accumulated backlog of changes upon my return, several of which I found a bit silly and exaggerated, but more on that in a moment. <br />
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Upon my return home after my first recent trip, back in May, I filled in the observer's report, pointing out which recent changes were weird or just plain silly. However, as I generally do when asked to provide feedback, I wrote the feedback, proofread it and decided it wasn't worth the trouble, so it was scrapped before being brought to anyone's attention. Yet, this time, I wasn't getting away with it. Upon my return in June, I was kindly asked to put in an observer's report for my last trip -- which I clearly hadn't done. Once asked in such a clear and direct way, I couldn't help but bring the following to the attention of the Parkes (and general ATNF) staff and management:<br />
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<ul><cite>
I am a bit mystified by the increase in safety-related paranoia, though. In (European) cities I'm typically a fan of bike helmets but between the quarters and the tower? Really? That's just a bad joke. Also, I'm not quite sure why after all these years we have to switch to the impractical tiny plastic cups of spreads (Vegemite, Jams and peanut butter; in fact, ketchup as well) instead of the good old jars. Have people's immune systems really changed that much since the end of last century?
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Normally, no matter how inflammatory your remarks are, you're hardly ever likely to get a response because either the comments are too lame to warrant response or they're too harsh to be taken seriously. Again, this time I wasn't getting away with it -- somehow, somewhere something resonated with some people, even though officially no one seemed to agree with me. <br />
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Now before we go on, let me clarify my point to those less acquainted with the Parkes observatory. It consists of the actual radio telescope (where you spend most of your time as an astronomer), with an administration and support building right beside it. Then there is a straight road of 1 km length, at the end of which is the quarters and the gate to the outside world:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0sr5WzR_Oe86EyQjU2JrREy9j073NCMxalpWEi_cJ4LolSnDJNQ2BxgxDKhOuPeKGa7dfJDtSFBbtWLT-EOMiimfygyWEfgx08vptqAmLdiqb_wL1b6XBm0VUpiXLSstJcU44NG68crw/s1600/IMG_0360.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="400" width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0sr5WzR_Oe86EyQjU2JrREy9j073NCMxalpWEi_cJ4LolSnDJNQ2BxgxDKhOuPeKGa7dfJDtSFBbtWLT-EOMiimfygyWEfgx08vptqAmLdiqb_wL1b6XBm0VUpiXLSstJcU44NG68crw/s400/IMG_0360.jpg" /></a></div>The quarters are where a minority of the staff, as well as most (if not all) astronomers have their lunch; and it's where the astronomers spend the remaining part of their time. Given that the "Parkes Staff" sheet has 30 people on it and that most of these are brought to work in a minibus, it's easy to see that there really isn't much traffic on this straight road, especially if you discount the morning "rush" around 08:00 and the evening "rush" around 16:00. Now I admit this is not a broad road and at times (as in the picture) shadows worsen the seeing, but you have an entire kilometre to notice anything heading your way and to move aside (there's plenty of room on either side of the road to get to if you're really worried about getting hit). Moreover, even if something were to happen, you're always less than 500 m away from help. To me, who grew up riding without helmet less than two metres away from trucks doing 70km/h, this looks like something very close to the safest type of road you can get. <br />
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I know this in itself does not warrant a complaint -- which is partly why initially I didn't submit my report at all. But to me, it seems to fit in with a wider sociological shift that I <i>do</i> have problems with: the shift towards safety-related paranoia. <br />
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Within a week, I've had rather serious conversations with two different people in ATNF management, who happened to come through Parkes recently. Neither of them seemed to question the need for a bike helmet on a perfectly safe road in the least. They did take my comments seriously, though, because as one of them told me "I did propose [following your comments] to have big jars of Vegemite in the future. And I was a bit worried about us providing peanut butter because that stuff can kill people." (Or words to that effect.) So this is what my comments have come to: soon there will be no peanut butter on ATNF sites. While it is of course true that some fraction of people is hyper-allergic to peanuts and their derivatives, it is instructive to note that the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanut_allergy#Prevalence">Wikipedia section on prevalence of peanut allergy</a>, uses the phrase "Mass Psychogenic Illness", continuing to point out that in the USA <i>"about 150 people die annually from serious allergic food reactions. That’s the same number of people killed by bee stings and lightning strikes combined. About 10,000 children are hospitalized annually with traumatic brain injuries from sports, 2,000 children drown each year, and about 1,300 die in gun accidents"</i> (This text originally comes from the New York Times and the original article can be found <a href="http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/15/are-nut-bans-promoting-hysteria/">here</a>.) Furthermore, the Wikipedia page links to an article in the British Medical Journal (nowadays BMJ), which states that: "<i>Eight children younger than 16 died from food allergy between 1990 and 2000 in the UK [...] Milk caused four of the deaths and no child younger than 13 died from eating peanuts.</i>" (Original article <a href="http://www.bmj.com/content/333/7566/494.full#TBL1">here</a>.)<br />
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What is particularly fascinating about this, is that while all these rules are put in place, the response to a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudonaja">big brown snake</a> near the footpath leading away from the tower, was this:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuIK04VnzyGVDcFgzfPD3dd_sj9pYmYHM0jzSf9a7qGTvzs4QTseSVl7N5T_KWBfpsLp2-50ja7KRu-FLw84w2Zv7yzGxeyYruoblfvNTKoJav6Mp1ClZOK_Crotbh3E3Kry8uvlV21U8/s1600/IMG_0361.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="400" width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuIK04VnzyGVDcFgzfPD3dd_sj9pYmYHM0jzSf9a7qGTvzs4QTseSVl7N5T_KWBfpsLp2-50ja7KRu-FLw84w2Zv7yzGxeyYruoblfvNTKoJav6Mp1ClZOK_Crotbh3E3Kry8uvlV21U8/s400/IMG_0361.jpg" /></a></div>Until a while later the local snake expert (a local technician, as it turns out), put his head down the hole in which the snake took refuge, saying "ah yeah, I can see it, it's right there", subsequently catching it (not bare-handed, luckily) and releasing it back into the wild a few hundred metres away. (You can see some of the catch on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=2074499105100">this Facebook video</a>, though in admittedly low quality.)<br />
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Now, to be honest, as much as brown snakes (even little ones) are deadly and something us foreigners are typically not used to dealing with (while I know exactly what to do in case of a bike accident. After all, I've been there before.), I do think this sign is enough: it tells us there's a snake, so look out and don't do something stupid. Be careful. What more needs to be said? Yet, in a country speckled with flashy orange or fluorescent yellow signs warning us that the floor would be "slippery when wet", I wonder how long it will take for the safety-paranoia to reach its logical conclusion and label all doors with signs reminding us to "open door before attempting to walk through" (I'm not kidding you, someone actually walked <i>through</i> a glass door at the ATNF and had to spend a day in hospital to recover from all the glass cuts). Or even better: since we're so worried about the well-being of our staff and visitors, why don't we require them to wear diapers at all times, because they might -- God forbid -- wet themselves accidentally, which could cause a bad rash. Or safer still: why aren't we all put in straightjackets just to make sure we don't pick our nose? <br />
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My point is that you can take everything too far. When someone refuses to wear a seatbelt (in the back or elsewhere), I think they're being silly and irresponsible, but that doesn't mean we have to look out for every possible tiny little thing that might hurt us -- or someone, possibly, somehow, some day. Surely there's a middle ground and we can all just man up and be sensible. After all, we didn't use to be taken care of quite so much. Remember that not that much time has passed since Australia's population was mostly consistent of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fatal_Shore">military and poor souls</a> who were shipped here in the worst of conditions, in the dirty and disease-infested cargo holds of bulk transport ships; since the original Australian settlers <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tree_of_Man">went into the wild</a> unattended, without really knowing what they were doing. Since the immigrant Westerners <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_River">savagely fought and killed</a> off the native Aborigines and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_History_of_the_Kelly_Gang">lived a life in the bush</a>, by himself, without believing in, or paying attention to, the government or its henchmen.<br />
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I don't mean we should go back to those days of high infant mortality and lawlessness, but I do find it striking that within a century the country has made such a dramatic shift which, in a way, seems immature and self-defeating to me. I don't claim Europe has all the answers -- I definitely don't claim that -- but at least we realise it's your own responsibility to realise a wet floor is a slippery floor. After all, winter doesn't warn us when it's about to give the roads that nice smooth coating of ice, either.Jorishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17916921641191383250noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8982348076919583148.post-9362229510076672832011-01-02T12:37:00.000+01:002011-01-02T12:37:03.108+01:00Joris' pdf in 2010If I were a quantum particle, where would you place your detector in order to optimise the likelihood of detection? Not in the blogosphere, that much is clear.<br />
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I've just done some calculations and here's the probability-density-function for me in 2010:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrupdy0qffwEIlIaageOXtgld6-jk-50Y7jTpFHX03fQRF_GgjIthVEJW-WCBNcvXcUCNGokv6Dy-iJHO63QuE5Ug2kZHoOE2JAkIrEoL4uZbba9S6K9EVukoFHSAwGivtuoObzMrMZZ8/s1600/Joris2010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="400" width="392" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrupdy0qffwEIlIaageOXtgld6-jk-50Y7jTpFHX03fQRF_GgjIthVEJW-WCBNcvXcUCNGokv6Dy-iJHO63QuE5Ug2kZHoOE2JAkIrEoL4uZbba9S6K9EVukoFHSAwGivtuoObzMrMZZ8/s400/Joris2010.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Note: the scale runs from red over yellow to white; I haven't been in Canada, but I've coloured it as a representative of "the Americas" and the biggest problem in constructing this figure was figuring out a scaling that wouldn't turn everything yellow (as a consequence of which Canada looks far closer to the German red than it should be). It's amazing how similar different shades of yellow look. <br />
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It's a bit disappointingly white, this graph, but maybe one day I'll make the pdf for my life so far (on a double log scale) and then you might see some more colour. <br />
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Also, because I love numbers, so I presume you might as well: I've spent at most 55% of my days in Bonn ("at most" because it's the default and therefore absorbs any trips I've forgotten). Second was Morgantown (WV, USA) with 16% and third, also not too surprising, Effelsberg with just short of 10%. Two weeks in Leiden corresponds to a bit less than 4% and finishing the top five is Valencia with about 2.5%. Word has it 2011 won't be too different, though the Effelsberg percentage should lower somewhat and good old 'straia should make a reappearance.Jorishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17916921641191383250noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8982348076919583148.post-43939053858648567112010-12-17T17:38:00.000+01:002010-12-17T17:38:36.759+01:00And time passed...Did things happen? Sure things happened. There was the Belgo-Spanish wedding -- and half a year later the Greco-Caribbean wedding. Beaches were walked on, mountains were climbed. Facebook was joined, hundreds of e-mails were sent, more still were received. Proposals were drafted, heaps of drafts were proofread and plenty of talks were given. There were many trips to Belgium (of course), a few trips to the Netherlands and England, single trips to Sweden, Austria, Greece, Spain and -- undeniably -- through parts of Germany. Languages were learned and just as quickly forgotten, shoes were worn, glasses were broken, visitors were led astray. Kebabs were eaten, beers were drunk, trains were taken, planes were flown and cars were driven. I've walked on crutches, ran many miles and played frisbee in heat, snow, rain and ice. Tournaments were held, games were won and lost, pulsars were sought for but never found. And then there's my ever-continuing attempt at dominating an observatory all by myself, trying to spend more time in Effelsberg than ever before in Parkes. "Home" became not much beyond a shower and a bed. <br />
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And through it all, I have neglected my faithful fan-base, aka Dr. Paul Fraser in Mexico and M.Sc. Anonymous in Tamil Nadu (and the silent crowd whose existence does, so far, not survive Ockham's razor).<br />
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A month away from the two-year anniversary of this blog, I wonder if the more-than-half-a-year-long-silence should be taken as a call to action or seen as the inevitable succumbing to the inherent, self-defeating diary conflict that there is either nothing to report or no time to report on the many things that do happen.<br />
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Now I realise the start of a new year is traditionally a moment when people pick up on forgotten goals, lost promises and past intentions to steer them back onto daily life and to pick them up where once they were left. However, I am old enough now to know that new year's resolutions are more often admissions of defeat than sincere convictions of the need to act. <br />
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So let's cut some corners. Maybe it's time for me to admit that I haven't got what it takes. Unlike the people you see linked on the right-hand side of this text (and some others whom I <i>attempt</i> to follow but who don't show up for some reason I don't fully grasp), I for some reason cannot make myself write blogs regularly. <br />
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There you have it. Admission of defeat.Jorishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17916921641191383250noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8982348076919583148.post-69854149541232043692010-05-19T17:08:00.008+02:002010-05-19T18:21:57.871+02:00LuneOn Monday 12 April 2010 the generations in my family were shifted up by one: grandparents became great-grandparents; parents became grandparents; my brother became a dad and I became an uncle. Since my sister's wedding in Spain had only really finished less than 24 hours before the birth, our family was spread over at least four countries (five if you count the in-laws) so the couple had to cope on their own initially. <br /><br />By the end of the week, though, cars had been driven through France, trains had been brought in from Germany and after yet another week, when the Icelandic volcano finally abated, planes were flown in from Lithuania. Being part of a geographically challenged family if oddly fun and somehow amusing: you know there will always be someone anywhere, but you can never tell who will be where when. During the second half of April, though, we were all down at the University hospital of Leuven at one point or another. (Save my sister who'll be getting there next week.)<br /><br />Let this be a good time to update you on the marvellous trip from Bonn to Leuven, which is all but the most easily reached Belgian city from Germany. Normally I book these tickets well in advance, so I can get fast, direct trains without too much time going to waste waiting around for transfers. But because babies come regardless of our planning and because Europe became covered under a Nordic ash cloud only days after the birth, this time I bought tickets that were in high demand - and bought them last-minute. Surprisingly this didn't affect the price too much, but it did affect the time. If I had been a pessimist I would have been dismayed at having to travel twice as long. As it turned out, I was rather upbeat about the prospect of finally getting to see more than just a platform and a traintrack of some of the cities that lie along my route.<br /><br />Commencing the trip in Bonn, I'll start with a nice - and appropriate from my point of view - building that I had omitted on my previous foto-shoot: the Sterntor or <i>Star gate</i>:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZm4CKEwgzvjoEgm8x-jOFU5VsYzv6-cAYI2g0vXlb4lWSe2nSqBM6R3TVCDm1YNQs_IHemV2oVVJybaMwEUO_rIy-TZqlwneiIe1aOCCM-cMXmUvXB6nfqLIMuwQeSRyUR1-uPJ9IKaw/s1600/Sterntor.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZm4CKEwgzvjoEgm8x-jOFU5VsYzv6-cAYI2g0vXlb4lWSe2nSqBM6R3TVCDm1YNQs_IHemV2oVVJybaMwEUO_rIy-TZqlwneiIe1aOCCM-cMXmUvXB6nfqLIMuwQeSRyUR1-uPJ9IKaw/s400/Sterntor.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473002491247250194" /></a><br /><br />Depending on your source, the city in question may vary between Chicago, New York and Berlin, but the saying that Bonn is half the size of the central cemetery of city X and twice as dead, stays the same. I mostly disagree with that, of course, but there is no denying that John LeCarré's book <i>A Small Town in Germany</i> was appropriately titled for Bonn. Ergo: wherever you go from Bonn, you first go to Köln (Cologne) because in contrast to Bonn, Köln really <i>is</i> an important city with connections to the world. The most obvious landmark in Köln stands conveniently right next to the central train station: the Dom (or Cathedral).<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkd9zNC1bBJ_S4jW7OY7Gp6CdfirHzrFWUPhXZwVxTgqS-am-spu4ojT6lrSZQGA8TKLVGvv02PSZhQXHKk_zJ9qzvmdfDXeEZqBJV4EQG3tl5fGFg6BaY77d8k4gaGxGpTmpYTMKF8Mg/s1600/KolnerDom.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkd9zNC1bBJ_S4jW7OY7Gp6CdfirHzrFWUPhXZwVxTgqS-am-spu4ojT6lrSZQGA8TKLVGvv02PSZhQXHKk_zJ9qzvmdfDXeEZqBJV4EQG3tl5fGFg6BaY77d8k4gaGxGpTmpYTMKF8Mg/s400/KolnerDom.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473005711802831602" /></a><br /><br />Next stop is a lovely little city the likes of which you cannot find in North America or Oceania: Aachen lies right on the border of Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. The trouble with my stopover was that I only had about half an hour and the walk from the station to the city centre turned out to be at least 20 minutes, so this is the closest I could get:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvmx4ee5uSjTZqr6MvoiX612cwA0tz2VBKppqgzTyHdbJBq9OcVe9bZ3iWJs2vzHIcIpB0bnvuCLR3ZNbmCAH19q1jWIf1972tDGaAxzfmdxQSyKWRHurMN2Ab_hFL3GMXwMeo4ShUz10/s1600/AachenerTheater.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvmx4ee5uSjTZqr6MvoiX612cwA0tz2VBKppqgzTyHdbJBq9OcVe9bZ3iWJs2vzHIcIpB0bnvuCLR3ZNbmCAH19q1jWIf1972tDGaAxzfmdxQSyKWRHurMN2Ab_hFL3GMXwMeo4ShUz10/s400/AachenerTheater.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473006439529434146" /></a><br />The white building you see is the theater of Aachen - and behind it on the right, you can just see a spire of the Dom in the centre of the city - which must have been another 5 to 10 minutes away. <br /><br />It's been a month now since I went there and took these pictures and I suddenly remember running on the way back to the station in order to make sure I'd catch my train. Ah. Running. How nice that would be... (I must be looking forward to late June almost as much as a high school student.)<br /><br />Anyway. We'll get back to Aachen one day, but presently the train has departed for Liege, the first Belgian (Walloon) city on our trip. The station we stop at (Liege-Guillemins) is as new as can be and an architectural spectacle designed by Calatrava, who coincidentally designed about half the city where my sister now lives (Valencia, that would be). Sadly, it isn't anywhere near any interesting or beautiful part of the city so really the station is the only point of interest. Here's a view from the inside:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwfxsCG6pA5KXhRfn4ON6Z4EW1d4FpuYLAWDQoLfrWTOKem1MePuqnJsKQHF6ZW1N7vA9MOClBINJWRBl7pNdYEdI8UZPelluEtN0YiQ0Zk60FARJYoKYJXdtHSizIfK6_RJeZcXlB7wo/s1600/Guillemins.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwfxsCG6pA5KXhRfn4ON6Z4EW1d4FpuYLAWDQoLfrWTOKem1MePuqnJsKQHF6ZW1N7vA9MOClBINJWRBl7pNdYEdI8UZPelluEtN0YiQ0Zk60FARJYoKYJXdtHSizIfK6_RJeZcXlB7wo/s400/Guillemins.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473012090101128258" /></a><br />and Wikipedia has a really nice view <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Panorama_Sept_2008_modif.jpg">from the outside</a>.<br /><br />Finally, I arrived in Leuven (which probably has the most beautiful city centre of all the cities I'd visited that day, but I forgot to take pictures and went straight to the hospital) and met my godchild, Lune:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmYoPGH8sszRo2Dnsrfkeuq_isUS_JjAbdsSTTA76lS-o1Xdngvcf8vad40Z9f9zknm0b1tDi7v8FaXPv6jl-3jrc-T1V_q3txbt0hZHxnihKG7t_sj8etx2SjLvk1s8bmQz5lsECnDlo/s1600/Lune.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 362px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmYoPGH8sszRo2Dnsrfkeuq_isUS_JjAbdsSTTA76lS-o1Xdngvcf8vad40Z9f9zknm0b1tDi7v8FaXPv6jl-3jrc-T1V_q3txbt0hZHxnihKG7t_sj8etx2SjLvk1s8bmQz5lsECnDlo/s400/Lune.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5473013547413199810" /></a><br /><br />Cute, isn't she?Jorishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17916921641191383250noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8982348076919583148.post-69211111240653178572010-05-06T10:56:00.002+02:002010-05-06T11:02:13.696+02:00"Good" newsI've just come back from the MRI scan and things look much better now: the main ligament is fine but two smaller ones on the side of my foot are in trouble. This means that I can walk and lean on my foot as long as I keep it straight (or at least, that's what I've understood). It also means that the massive cast-like boot I've been carrying around for the past few days will not be needed anymore and instead I got a most unremarkable little ankle-support cast. <br /><br />I'll admit that makes me feel a bit like a fraud - going through all that trouble just to be told "keep your ankle straight for a month or two", but it doesn't take away the fact that I'm thoroughly relieved!Jorishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17916921641191383250noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8982348076919583148.post-20522958272976383462010-05-03T21:28:00.006+02:002010-05-03T21:50:26.388+02:00Out of actionTo all those who haven't noticed on Buzz or Twitter: I've been incapacitated, though a pair of crutches has come to my partial aid and is helping me move around to some degree. <br /><br />What happened was nothing other than a nice and friendly game of frisbee on a lovely (and only slightly rainy) Sunday afternoon in the park. I admit that I may have played a bit too seriously because really, you shouldn't try to catch a disk someone else is trying to catch <i>at the same time</i> (or should I?) Either way, the mid-air collision that ensued wasn't too bad in itself, but the fall back down (hello gravity! Yes, I love you too. At times.) was rather uncontrolled and so upon reaching Earth again, I must have twisted my right foot in ways unimaginable. And unrepeatable. <br /><br />It is close to 30 hours now that I haven't been able to put any pressure on my right foot - which made me ponder (amongst other things) how often the reception desks at hospitals see people hopping past on one foot... <br /><br />Once I had - with the help of some particularly friendly fellow "hurt people" - figured out how to work my way to the front of the emergency queue (with sincere apologies to my North American friends, but there is no way I was going to describe this mass as a <i>line</i>), it didn't take terribly long to get a doctor, an X-ray and a couple of crutches (allowing me to roam the hospital with a bit more dignity than before) and, eventually, a super-twenty-first-century-removable <a href="http://www.vacoped.com/">cast</a>. Thank God for German efficiency, German health-care (no offense) and Swiss (?!) engineering. (Admit it: there's no way you had predicted that last one ;-)<br /><br /><br />The X-ray luckily demonstrated that my bones were intact, so notwithstanding the pain, I'm happy about that. Whether my tendons, ligaments and similar connective tissues are also in order, is an entirely different matter still, so I'm impatiently awaiting the results of an MRI scan on Thursday morning - stay tuned.Jorishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17916921641191383250noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8982348076919583148.post-51530147118049759002010-04-18T13:06:00.009+02:002010-04-18T13:52:27.218+02:00Bonn and surroundingsIt's been a while, I know. The problem with blogs (as everyone who's ever tried to write a blog or, more conventionally, a diary) is that whenever things start happening, there is hardly any time left to write about it - and vice versa.<br /><br />But let's try and get you up to speed again.<br /><br />First, I have of course settled in Bonn by now. A bed should be imported from Belgium next weekend but I have the essentials (internet connection, sleeping bag and radio). Also, I've found a few random moments to meander through the city and absorb some nice areas. Someone asked for photos, so (thanks to my iPhone since I still cannot stomach holding a camera) here we go:<br /><br />First, Bonn's most famous inhabitant (so far):<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSJ4U2Xg5dkR6yMqkH4_9WvaoYgELEz3eEE4BIfSoZIQWt8Nh2Qa_N_p5IGSK5Hs7AAQYoHJ6atBFkc90VSfd-EAIwK1FtjyQOO2VILFhPd0n13FEkxgU1nUsj1y5tcJCjU69YtoUkSYE/s1600/Beethoven.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSJ4U2Xg5dkR6yMqkH4_9WvaoYgELEz3eEE4BIfSoZIQWt8Nh2Qa_N_p5IGSK5Hs7AAQYoHJ6atBFkc90VSfd-EAIwK1FtjyQOO2VILFhPd0n13FEkxgU1nUsj1y5tcJCjU69YtoUkSYE/s400/Beethoven.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5461433445534590242" /></a><br />That's right: Ludwig van Beethoven. (Interestingly, the "van" as opposed to "von" attests to his Flemish roots. Just thought I'd mention that in case someone had missed it.)<br /><br />Then, the house Beethoven was born in:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJIhmkmSthy_klp39XB8UOSI3Zds3qD8W6y62GSsaD_nWActQ8K5VLZ5QMBjETQxBtKL6XWAzhyphenhyphenOPFmAM2oiUGrKDnxu-rb9d887sSKaNK75V0wT0XOPKj7OdnBoBzMW5O0dEwVFtL2rY/s1600/Beethovenhaus.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJIhmkmSthy_klp39XB8UOSI3Zds3qD8W6y62GSsaD_nWActQ8K5VLZ5QMBjETQxBtKL6XWAzhyphenhyphenOPFmAM2oiUGrKDnxu-rb9d887sSKaNK75V0wT0XOPKj7OdnBoBzMW5O0dEwVFtL2rY/s400/Beethovenhaus.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5461434188302318882" /></a><br />It's the dark pinkish house in front of which you can spot some oriental tourists. In itself I doubt the house is terrifyingly interesting, but it also shows a few other fairly typical things about Bonn and Europe: the fairly narrow, car-free streets (this is Europe - most of which was built way before cars were invented) and surprising yet relaxing emptiness on Sundays: since <i>all</i> shops are closed on Sunday, there are literally no people in the centre of the city - they're all in the park or on the river bank: walking, running, biking,... relaxing and enjoying the good weather. I remember a beautiful spring weekend in Australia where to my great dismay the parks and riverbanks were virtually void of people while the shopping centre was as crowded as... the trains yesterday (but more on that later). Anyway - I like Europe, you might have noticed.<br /><br />Continuing on our tourist trip, we reach the Münster (my impression is that this word means as much as "cathedral" - but Wikipedia seems to only reluctantly admit to that, so you'll have to take my word on it):<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyMftBsMGZBfqT-rS8sheac34DLWye4lvX5ehtlyZf2ldJQ1XyaTVJm7bVBZ1JAyvieCc4lHHoe6XBWmsmlLGL8YsKto9jKBkljBW0ppaWDxE_rnvAeVCQBD0cvRmXG0RZD2Diken9e_I/s1600/Munster.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyMftBsMGZBfqT-rS8sheac34DLWye4lvX5ehtlyZf2ldJQ1XyaTVJm7bVBZ1JAyvieCc4lHHoe6XBWmsmlLGL8YsKto9jKBkljBW0ppaWDxE_rnvAeVCQBD0cvRmXG0RZD2Diken9e_I/s400/Munster.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5461436789453614130" /></a><br /><br />And of course, one of the most enjoyable things about Europe - the train station:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPpH83yuZl4C5K1dQOVp5pVeO1IY05QHk08__oPFn2IkVJPKa5EI-u1JEtDIbd8p84ZxxyAsaD9TTM9h7iNbrQ4M7NQIKKBsoxMk40hO_7Fdn_XxTIhEFu7Q0fCg9AjWSqOKbHQJ9Tzxw/s1600/Hbf.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPpH83yuZl4C5K1dQOVp5pVeO1IY05QHk08__oPFn2IkVJPKa5EI-u1JEtDIbd8p84ZxxyAsaD9TTM9h7iNbrQ4M7NQIKKBsoxMk40hO_7Fdn_XxTIhEFu7Q0fCg9AjWSqOKbHQJ9Tzxw/s400/Hbf.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5461437092747721826" /></a><br /><br />Then, the main building of the University and - right behind it - the field where I found a new and exciting frisbee group (bringing back great memories from Down Under :-)<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxftJX2391zhAAg_-lNEPh83TOo_HVpsPp8EJWgeRqf1mZZ1KKW83t_5esGWKFkiZgNQIrsO0uTYb9-FzD4VygTQxkULNEQaRo6adqmcEoaQ1t9e2Rs0cOMYeADFKMO4Cj0cUrPSUEZ-Y/s1600/Field.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxftJX2391zhAAg_-lNEPh83TOo_HVpsPp8EJWgeRqf1mZZ1KKW83t_5esGWKFkiZgNQIrsO0uTYb9-FzD4VygTQxkULNEQaRo6adqmcEoaQ1t9e2Rs0cOMYeADFKMO4Cj0cUrPSUEZ-Y/s400/Field.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5461437541703433250" /></a><br /><br />An important thing to realise (and a major difference with both Morgantown and Australia) is that everything I've shown you so far is within <i>at most</i> ten minutes walk of each other - and at my pace probably more about five minutes. This is part of the reason I still haven't bought a bike, even after seven weeks: everything is quickly and conveniently reachable by foot. So too the track along the river (which, of course, unavoidably <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilv86eDYdElHJT76Fli0eWBduGJ068ZK9nR-2p1fEhdYTSK-GTnnhQk7GamW1FQD520J-m1Y8JFx7Aj9MJMOzkFvyK3ix_5t-0GE4PA51sYLFiPu_tY9DBDnQqWgH35kAidFdwjlgRLLY/s1600-h/Theatre.JPG">reminds me of WV</a>):<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirUU2VXiuETp3QBmtVy-lP3ezRiGjMfj-zd_zHx0KUTzK6CSoyAHg0kHttOtZY6CwIx35DCArIZV1zOTom27ygaxMspphbwMoggyWVaciKr6FLKTqjqwDF0gn57J2HuOdxPSLzeCsw6RI/s1600/Track.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirUU2VXiuETp3QBmtVy-lP3ezRiGjMfj-zd_zHx0KUTzK6CSoyAHg0kHttOtZY6CwIx35DCArIZV1zOTom27ygaxMspphbwMoggyWVaciKr6FLKTqjqwDF0gn57J2HuOdxPSLzeCsw6RI/s400/Track.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5461438610508146050" /></a><br />(Note, though, that for all its width, well-maintained surface and length - I think it goes all the way to Köln and beyond - this track is <i>not</i> accessible to cars - just roller bladers, cyclists, runners and pedestrians. I'm pretty sure even motorcycles aren't allowed.)<br /><br />Along the track is a scale model of the Solar System - Saturn is close to the centre of town and the Sun is several kilometres further South, where the track merges into a great park (which is so big that I really need a bike to discover it all) with ponds, some bushes and even baseball fields! (Browsing back through previous posts I notice I didn't post a picture of the Bois de Boulogne. In fact, in my post on Paris I didn't even mention it, which is a gross omission I feel sorry for.) Anyway, it isn't the same, but somewhat reminiscent to me (having seen as little of the Rheinaue park as of the Bois de Boulogne). Also, it's a great indicator of spring:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNqAjnMNZLzegolNmkjL2KodB_0bYxllqswffwZfu46lKUdgfpoiw4yINpex8WNhLn0l8OFd7nzOUPRPXiH2ufdKiXnKRmpD-yL7Z0MTlAE9k44T8aNo-pKHFrSQ4GPdToMxcKVq2e_Dc/s1600/Spring.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNqAjnMNZLzegolNmkjL2KodB_0bYxllqswffwZfu46lKUdgfpoiw4yINpex8WNhLn0l8OFd7nzOUPRPXiH2ufdKiXnKRmpD-yL7Z0MTlAE9k44T8aNo-pKHFrSQ4GPdToMxcKVq2e_Dc/s400/Spring.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5461441430578254162" /></a><br /><br />The weekend after these pictures were taken, I went to Spain to attend my sister's wedding and before that was well and truly finished my brother and his lovely wife announced the birth of my first niece, making me a proud uncle :-)<br /><br />But more on all that in a later post - I wouldn't want to overload my faithful readers. (Besides: the weather is way too nice to write blog posts. I'm sorry!)Jorishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17916921641191383250noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8982348076919583148.post-56978080052786929382010-03-05T08:34:00.002+01:002010-03-05T08:37:48.358+01:00Flash updateJust to quickly state that <br /><ul><br /><li>Yes, I have left West Virginia.</li><br /><li>And I have arrived in Bonn, Germany.</li><br /></ul><br />However, as you can probably imagine, I am terribly busy now getting things sorted - and the internet connection in my temporary accommodation doesn't work (yet) so ... this blog will remain fairly passive for some time. <br /><br />I hope to return to some semblance of normalcy in a week or two. (Fingers crossed!)Jorishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17916921641191383250noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8982348076919583148.post-33076795143793337892010-02-14T18:55:00.008+01:002010-02-14T19:24:33.769+01:00Trenches<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEGUhTkbo2AQfARol-7E8EtnkNOP_-OBuyaSoWP4R6OZ2yV3UGEWSb24x38pVYuuUJm0DWU-HmjQtuE6Dzggri8fDUgcaf1Eq-Ns9AOdSCZi-lyIT8pQvA0bPrxr1Ib2X13OjVgxpLtOU/s1600-h/Two.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEGUhTkbo2AQfARol-7E8EtnkNOP_-OBuyaSoWP4R6OZ2yV3UGEWSb24x38pVYuuUJm0DWU-HmjQtuE6Dzggri8fDUgcaf1Eq-Ns9AOdSCZi-lyIT8pQvA0bPrxr1Ib2X13OjVgxpLtOU/s400/Two.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5438165594065075730" /></a><br />You may have heard it on the news: the entire US East coast lies idle due to a snow storm described with any list of superlatives you could think of. The reason it is the East coast and not the entire north-eastern part of the US (up to as far inland as Iowa - and since a few days back also as far south as Texas), is simply because anything that happens in the US happens in Washington, New York or California: the world could care less about West Virginia. But that doesn't mean we didn't have a whole heap of snow:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5bUm5b2LWpxh28LFMo2vNmGsbcGHKjqnqdMbCBoYLIvuVGY_zYnBoxhKCoPLkF24n5U_0CMD-fYSGhCPW0-AfhDlCHAjRL-vZioPuVVFkhSPjdXy1vIWyGH0FvUti8ELoiv1jmK0RuAM/s1600-h/zero.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5bUm5b2LWpxh28LFMo2vNmGsbcGHKjqnqdMbCBoYLIvuVGY_zYnBoxhKCoPLkF24n5U_0CMD-fYSGhCPW0-AfhDlCHAjRL-vZioPuVVFkhSPjdXy1vIWyGH0FvUti8ELoiv1jmK0RuAM/s400/zero.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5438160815663845506" /></a><br />That was home after the first night of snow. This is what the arboretum looked like:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikPSs9pqlS1KS2VR6RZxCiuTKThGBpSiMOaYPI4IdFbGXH1uUoAyqyASLc1dNrQrrvki53GZ1ZBUEQgi0WfnL8TBQnp3ekER5Ws6XUHiEzQp0A_Ayfq18Boe8pRKSyS3g6G2AbFBM4ttk/s1600-h/onehalf.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikPSs9pqlS1KS2VR6RZxCiuTKThGBpSiMOaYPI4IdFbGXH1uUoAyqyASLc1dNrQrrvki53GZ1ZBUEQgi0WfnL8TBQnp3ekER5Ws6XUHiEzQp0A_Ayfq18Boe8pRKSyS3g6G2AbFBM4ttk/s400/onehalf.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5438161057056115858" /></a><br />The trail you see pulled through the snow was - at that point - mainly drawn by the intelligent people who had invested in cross-country skis (a must-have down here, so I discovered). As you go further along the trail, though, you'll find many trees of all shapes and sizes fallen onto the track - aiding the foot of snow in making the generally hospitable trail an inaccessible way to get anywhere, regardless of your means of transportation. <br /><br />Alternative ways of getting places are not easily found, though. Car drivers first have to dig their car out of the snow and even if that works, they then have to hope their road has been plowed - because the West Virginian way of dealing with snow seems to be to close all the schools, tell people to stock up on food and hope everyone stays indoors until it all melts away. <br /><br />On those roads that do get plowed, pedestrains find themselves in awkward situations. Regardless of whether there was a sidewalk before the snow or not, after a snow plow comes through, the road is separated in two parts: one recently plowed, relatively clean (if still slippery!), car-wide section on which the cars drive, and a second part on which all the snow is heaped. The last time I stood in snow up to my knees, was when I was 12. Needless to say my knees were a bit closer to the ground back then. <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJKEYZb6NZPJ1yTiHx_10Z9Yxs8tOjiSHISEPsa0eVqcY4xP5t3J3dHcH9jJddxENFQDmB1wAAl4RuRsqjGjGLkaYFicETk9nJIN1DQBrWucrr5YFEiTWzMTZ8eaHU1Dh8FVNyyk2WNDs/s1600-h/1.5.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJKEYZb6NZPJ1yTiHx_10Z9Yxs8tOjiSHISEPsa0eVqcY4xP5t3J3dHcH9jJddxENFQDmB1wAAl4RuRsqjGjGLkaYFicETk9nJIN1DQBrWucrr5YFEiTWzMTZ8eaHU1Dh8FVNyyk2WNDs/s400/1.5.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5438163471892192898" /></a><br /><br />So pedestrians (I'm as surprised as you to find out they do exist, but in the freshly deposited snow, I finally found evidence of kindred spirits who in defiance of modern society use a mode of transportation older than humans themselves) have no choice to resort to organically building their own transportation network. On empty lots, along trails that are long snowed under, on the sides of busy roads on top of the yard of deposited snow and ice, they build their trenches in the ongoing war on winter, braving the scorn of a car-mad society that all too happily wishes to forget that parts of the stone age did make it this far.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7F0Olx3Kp2KN5BWiRNmuChX28iOjOnMnmaa6QEe2qbEdqZk77RqkU-iqM0UqKHCpIj4KwNNOcKL0my3rlLSiyI4XGGh7VmXasKEjbYzflkNCH_v_wYDcLEKXO9qReYu8yxyExmX_OiOs/s1600-h/one.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7F0Olx3Kp2KN5BWiRNmuChX28iOjOnMnmaa6QEe2qbEdqZk77RqkU-iqM0UqKHCpIj4KwNNOcKL0my3rlLSiyI4XGGh7VmXasKEjbYzflkNCH_v_wYDcLEKXO9qReYu8yxyExmX_OiOs/s400/one.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5438165357664004306" /></a>Jorishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17916921641191383250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8982348076919583148.post-78997469455288972512010-02-03T00:59:00.004+01:002010-02-03T02:12:45.657+01:00Country roads take me home...Sooner or later I had to use that title, if for no other reason than that it is the first thing most people think of when one mentions West Virginia.<br /><br />The second thing many people think of - notwithstanding it being filmed in Tennessee and set in Georgia (neither of which borders WV, by the way) - is the movie "Deliverance". I have - a few weeks ago, as it happened around Christmas time - finally watched that movie and while I guess it may be more applicable to swathes of southern West Virginia, it really doesn't strike me as anything representative of Morgantown and the one time I did go wild water rafting (admittedly just across the border in Pennsylvania) I didn't feel the least bit worried about anything Deliverance-like happening to me.<br /><br />Of course, when debunking Southern stereotypes, one should really bear in mind the closeness of Pennsylvania and - consequently - the Mason-Dixon line (which is supposed to be the official border between North and South). It is exactly 6 miles from my doorstep and so I'm far, very far away from the "deep South".<br /><br />I've been here for 12 months now (a year and a day to be precise) and I've come to appreciate the frontier-like quality of West Virginia in general and Morgantown in particular. The edge of the midwest (aka Ohio) is less than 2 hours from here, the south has officially just started, the north can be reached on foot and the North-East isn't really that far either. This means you get to meet people from quite a few different regions and as such get a fairly varied view of a substantial part of the country. <br /><br />I've also grown a liking for the small-town sides of Morgantown. While my first few months were mainly spent overcoming the culture shock that the move from a big city to a small town (which is officially a "city" regardless of my opinion) inflicted, throughout the year I've discovered some nice corners and interesting sides to small-town life. And I've grown some sort of connection to this poorest of states (depending on the metric you use, though I haven't found a metric where Mississippi doesn't come below WV so probably it's more correct to state "second-poorest"), which is partly because it has a beautiful landscape that is being destroyed for the sake of development and economic progress. Partly also because I feel bad for the state - I feel like it must have heaps of potential because of it's beautiful nature <i>and</i> its central location - the only problem seems to be that those in power either don't want to or are uncapable of changing things - in his State of the State address late last month, the governor didn't copy any of Obama's rethoric about investments in high-end communication and transport infrastructure, but went rather the opposite way: he hailed coal as "the future". <br /><br />There is an adage that goes "People elect the leaders they deserve." I'm starting to suspect this may not apply to the poor and weak. (And while we're on the subject of politics gone wrong: the supreme court has recently ruled that corporations may spend basically as much as they like on political campaigns. Between that and the two useless and counterproductive political parties that hold the strings in this country, a pessimist might claim all hope is lost.)<br /><br /><br />The reason for this somewhat retrospective post is, of course, my impending departure from this state. While there are of course reasons to look forward to my move to Bonn and Europe, leaving is always a sad thing and so for this last month I'm planning on giving a sort of hit list of the things I like most about Morgantown and West Virginia. I imagine it will be quite different from any of my previous posts, but maybe you'll like this little look at life in a town somewhere in between the Midwest, the South, the North and the Northeast.Jorishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17916921641191383250noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8982348076919583148.post-62981898618822821352010-01-24T19:37:00.008+01:002010-01-24T21:24:41.530+01:00Social TaxesGiven that the U.S.A. gained its independence primarily (or so I am told) on the grounds that it didn't want to pay any more taxes to its colonial power, it is no surprise that tax rates in the US are mostly lower than elsewhere in the Western world. (You could try and dig out some OECD numbers <a href="http://www.oecd.org/document/60/0,2340,en_2649_34533_1942460_1_1_1_1,00.html">here</a>, but I propose you simply take a look at <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Income_Taxes_By_Country.svg">this</a> graph, hoping that the Wikipedians didn't mess up.)<br /><br />While entire debates can be had on this topic (and on related politically inflammatory things like health care, public transport etc.), that isn't what I'm planning on today. What I <i>am</i> planning to talk about, is a totally different type of taxation which I would refer to as "social taxes", though it might be more generally described as "charity". <br /><br /><br />As a way of introducing the subject, have a look at this image:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZPa3gRZ3l3lAFq6lYBkZF2C35g39t-9ihHljAFTLFIBNnyKhNXubiZuCXSKTwgx9qVFEE-jXWqFmSnJvRs3slfk3nJ81Qf6g3a5E97hD7HNwckKSFUCXU-wH_YipPEleiZxAqDlXHNso/s1600-h/TrailSign.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZPa3gRZ3l3lAFq6lYBkZF2C35g39t-9ihHljAFTLFIBNnyKhNXubiZuCXSKTwgx9qVFEE-jXWqFmSnJvRs3slfk3nJ81Qf6g3a5E97hD7HNwckKSFUCXU-wH_YipPEleiZxAqDlXHNso/s400/TrailSign.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5430380350454939298" /></a><br />You can see the trail (which I've written about before), along with a "litter control" sign. These can be found all along the trail, at an average rate of about two per mile and they are effective: the people involved with these organisations (charitable organisations such as the one on the picture above, sports groups, religious groups, scouts, etc.) do make regular rounds with large trash bags, cleaning up the place - saving the West Virginian trails from the fate so many parts of Melbourne's Yarra suffer from. (Don't get me wrong: the Yarra is awesome, beautiful and a great asset to the city, but the empty cans and bottles or the plastic bags that "decorate" the Eucalyptuses in a disturbingly pervasive manner, do take some of its beauty away.)<br /><br /><br />Another thing I'll mention are the recurring pledge drives ran by the public broadcasting services. While I've been a great fan of public radio, who has spent hours, days, months listening to the likes of the BBC, Radio Sweden, ABC, NPR and, most recently, the Deutsche Welle, I have never paid a single penny for it. While I'm sure <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/metlink-to-shame-train-and-tram-fare-evaders/2005/06/28/1119724632482.html">Connex</a> would therefore define me as a thief, I never even stopped to think about it - and I don't think anyone else has, either. With NPR this is different. Every once in a while, they run a pledge drive, which implies that for the duration of a week, they will constantly remind you that making radio shows and keeping a station on the air, costs money. And they will remind you (in a nice and friendly way, I'll admit) that if the listeners don't pay up, then we're all doomed. During these selected weeks, the reminders are so prevalent that there are mornings where I find myself wondering if I simply missed the news, or if the radio was too busy asking for money to also find some time to talk about whatever happened beyond the NPR offices. <br /><br /><br />Public radio and clean paths/nature are just two things that I consider important common goods - things which we can all benefit from and for which we, consequently, should all pay. Down here things are a bit different (I refer back to the Wikimedia graph linked above): taxes are a lot lower than in much of Europe (noticed where Belgium, Sweden and Germany are on that graph?), the U.S. military is dramatically more extensive (seeing as it is fulfilling the partly self-imposed role of policeman of the world) and they spend more on health care <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_system#Cross-country_comparisons">than most (if not all) other civilised countries</a>. (I'm just picking out the military and health care because these are two of the three main spending posts, the third one being pensions.) The upshot of this is that there simply isn't much money left for a lot of things that can be funded elsewhere and that you, consequentially, call on people directly to try and sort this out. <br /><br />At first, I figure it might sound like a good idea. After all, you get to have an immediate impact on where your money goes: do you spend it on the library-support-fund, on the public radio or on the Salvation Army? It also means that you don't have to contribute financially, but could invest time instead - go clean up the trail, for example. It does, however, also mean that essential services come under threat: if there is no one to de-ice the sidewalks, then people are litterally <i>forced</i> to either risk breaking their hips, or use a car. And if some catastrophy does occur one day, I'm sure we could all agree we would rather rely on information from NPR than from either the student-run college radio or Fox News. <br /><br />Secondly, it means you get freeloaders: I can keep all my spare time to myself and don't spend a penny on any aid or support group or public service and no one will even know. Sure, to some degree you always get freeloaders - as I pointed out before, I never paid a cent to any radio station - but that was because I was a student, who didn't make any money and therefore didn't pay any taxes. But once you do start making money, avoiding taxes would be difficult and illegal, whereas avoiding contributing to charity merely gets you bad karma.Jorishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17916921641191383250noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8982348076919583148.post-87074413020975500982010-01-16T18:41:00.005+01:002010-01-16T22:05:05.798+01:00ReligionI've been meaning to write about this ever since I came down here, but refrained from it since I feared it might do more harm than good. However, there really are some fascinating differences so maybe I should stop ignoring the elephant in the room and just get it over with. Therefore, as a note of warning: whatever follows is nothing but my own, personal view on some rather general and sometimes abstract events and concepts and it is in no way meant as a personal offense to anyone. Not to anyone at all - especially no one I know.<br /><br /><br />Maybe I should start off with some background for the non-Europeans. The fact is I grew up in a religiously very simple and clear-cut place: everyone was Catholic, but no one went to Mass (except <i>maybe</i> at Christmas and if you're over 60 - old habits die hard). Those that weren't Catholic, were either clearly African immigrants or in the case of Jews they stuck to themselves and were so orthodox that there was, again, no mistaking them for anyone else. Since historically the Churches were placed in the centres of cities and towns, the church square would be used as a market place on Sundays and as a convenient parking lot during the week, though the church itself remained mostly empty. <br /><br />I was therefore not too surprised when I saw the hugely prominent parking lot next to the church in Star City - given the importance of cars in WV, it was only to be expected. The thing I did not expect was that this lot would be empty at all times except during mass. That is to say: in this town, demographically the youngest town I've ever lived in, more people go to church - <i>much</i> more people go to church - than anywhere else I've lived. And that isn't all. The other part of the equation was something I first realised in Australia.<br /><br /><br />As I said, in Belgium things are easy: there only really is one church and one religion. Everyone who goes to church, goes to the same place (and still that place is empty). In the New World, this isn't the case by far. Every group of immigrants, be it the English, the Irish, the Italians or the Germans, they all imported their own religion or rather, since these are all Christian (to keep things "simple", I'll focus on Christianity for now) they all imported their own <i>flavour</i> of a religion. And so you have heaps of churches all over the place and everyone goes to his own little church - and yet somehow (I don't know about Australia, but at least in Star City/Morgantown) they manage to get decent numbers. <br /><br />While I find this interesting from a mere mathematical point of view, religiously I don't understand it, either. Growing up in a homogeneous community, there was never really a point to wonder about whether your religion was the right one and whether it was best to follow the Roman Catholic church or if maybe Martin Luther had a point. Living in a place where the churches of different denominations are built side by side, I would think the question about which religion you adhere to and how sacred and indubitable the words from your holy book are, would certainly be put in perspective. <br /><br /><br />Having said that, a small word on Jews. Where I grew up, the only Jews I knew about where the ultra-orthodox ones who effectively lived in a ghetto somewhere on the rim of Antwerp. So you can imagine I was pretty surprised when it turned out some of my friends in Melbourne - who by any standards (and especially mine) look really normally Western - were, as a matter of fact, Jewish. The same thing happened here, of course. I knew someone for quite a while, but it's only around Christmas time that I discovered he celebrates Hanukkah instead of Christmas: I haven't found any other way to tell - there simply are no clear differences (for as far as I can see) between Christians and Jews. Or so I thought until (don't ask me how or why, I regret it already) the subject of Israel came up. I have not, so far, had the courage to figure out how prevalent support is in either Australia or the US, but it has been a <i>very</i> long time since I heard someone react with shock, horror and disbelieve (and, just maybe, a tinge of hate) after I confessed to not being a big fan of the state. <br /><br /><br />Finally, a word or two on tolerance. Last week, a proposal to legalise Gay Marriage was voted down in the New Jersey state assembly. Please do have a look at the Daily Show's clip <a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-january-12-2010/dreaded-bliss">here</a>. It has it all - the good old orthodox Jews, the conservative nuts, both sides claiming that the Founding Fathers would be on their side of the debate - they even managed to find a conspiratorial anti-Semite. The bottom line, though, is more disturbing and recalls the debate about Sarah Palin's granddaughter and the fact that she wouldn't be aborted, because in both cases the main argument (first against abortion and now against same-sex marriage) comes down to "my God says it's evil, so no one should be allowed to do it". Maybe it's just me - and I hope wholeheartedly that a majority of the university-attending church-goers would be with me on this one - but I cannot understand how in a supposedly secular, 21<sup>st</sup> century Western nation, the word of one person's God can be used in a legal argument to prevent another person from doing something.Jorishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17916921641191383250noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8982348076919583148.post-63386226007027576242010-01-07T23:26:00.003+01:002010-01-08T00:01:04.603+01:00And the cold remained...Please spare a moment to glance at this interesting article:<br /><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8445831.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8445831.stm</a>. Especially towards the end, a few good points are made - points which I've had in mind for the past month or so:<br /><ul><cite><br />"In the town Roros, in central Norway, it has been -40C the last two nights. I have not heard of schools closing and the roads are for the most free [...] Why do the English have this problem every year?[...] I drive my car normally on ice and snow."<br /></cite></ul><br />Indeed: it's an article pondering the recent cold snap across much of the Northern part of our beloved (?) Globe - and the havoc it has been wrecking on much of society - in the US as in Belgium, the Netherlands and, of course, England.<br /><br /><br />Ever since the snow started coming down in December, a regular morning feature on the radio has been the reading out of an ever-lengthening list of schools that were "delayed" or "shut". Pardon me for not understanding what a "delayed" school is, but shutting a school because there's a foot (at the very most two) of snow,... I don't get it. Surely in the land of hummers and trucks (remember, this is West Virginia, the Mountain State: your average car is <i>not</i> a VW Beetle), a few inches of snow wouldn't stop you.<br /><br />What it does stop, of course, are bicycles: needless to say the one good bike path in the county (the one right between my home and my work) turned into an ice-based scale model of the Himalayas late last year - and of course no one has cleaned it up. Now I've ridden on plenty of slippery surfaces and my balance is outstanding - in Sweden I biked a whole winter through and while I lost balance many times, I only hit the ground twice - down here, however, that doesn't work because either the snow is so thick (because noone has ever cleared any of it away) that the drag it produces literally grinds you to a halt, or because the snow has been stamped into an icy surface with much more surface area than the geoid it is imposed upon. (i.e. it's spiky instead of flat.) Keeping your balance while slipping on a flat plane of ice - however slippery - is easy. Keeping your balance on a 30° sideways slope is practically impossible.<br /><br />So my 15-minute bike ride has now become a 50-minute hike, ploughing through snow and ice and working up quite a sweat however cold the temperatures are (granted, we've hardly reached as low as -13°). On the bright side: these 50 minutes leave me plenty of time to listen to teach-yourself-German podcasts, so if winter persists, I might actually know more than "Hallo" and "Tschüß" when I do move.<br /><br />In fact, come to think of it - for all the school closures and supposed havoc reported in the news, I can hardly think of any negative side to the weather - the land looks great, it is neither too hot nor too humid, the trail is blissfully deserted,... I guess the only problem is I cannot go for runs anymore, but really I have only been provided with the perfect excuse :-)Jorishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17916921641191383250noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8982348076919583148.post-34428558863760409192010-01-01T18:53:00.006+01:002010-01-05T00:49:47.864+01:00Alcohol - statisticst turns out to be bl**dy hard to find any statistics on alcohol-related traffic deaths, but at least here's something to go by. Based on <i><a href="http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/810821.PDF">this</a></i> document (and a couple of WHO sources to which I've lost the URL), about 40% of fatalities in motor vehicle crashes in the USA are alcohol-related. (Turns out it's fairly constant whether you consider 2002, 2005 or 2006, so this is a reasonably reliable statistic.) For Europe, where drinking ages are generally much lower (if they exist at all <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_drinking_age#Europe"><i>link</i></a>) but where the limits on blood alcohol content while driving are <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunk_driving_law_by_country#Europe"><i>lower as well</i></a>(*), I found the following list of statistics on <a href="http://apps.who.int/globalatlas/includeFiles/generalIncludeFiles/listInstances.asp"><i>this WHO</i></a> webpage:<br /><br />Austria, 2001: 6.5% of fatalities; 1998: 8.5%.<br />Belgium, 2000: 10.2%; 1998: 8.9%.<br />Czech Republic, 2002: 10.5%.<br />Denmark, 2001: 26.6%; 1995: 20.2%.<br />Finland, 2005: 14.3%; 2004: 15.7%; 2002: 14.6%; 2000: 14.4%.<br />etc.<br /><br />I could go through the entire alphabet, but I guess you see my point. (I'll admit there are exceptions to this rule: France 2002: 30 to 40%; Ireland, 2000: at least 40%; Italy, 2000: 30-50%; Spain, 1998: 41%.)<br /><br /><br />I guess my point is clear by now.<br /><br />Have a great - and safe! - 2010 everyone. Happy New Year :-)<br /><br /><br />(*): ps: the link for the European statistics doesn't seem to be working. Let's see if we can remedy that. The data I show comes from this page: <a href="http://apps.who.int/globalatlas/default.asp">http://apps.who.int/globalatlas/default.asp</a>. In the right-hand box "Related Sites", click on the bottom link ("GISAH"). Confusingly, you'll find that the URL doesn't change, but the webpage does. Anyway. Now you click on the third link from the top: <a href="http://apps.who.int/globalatlas/DataQuery/default.asp">Data query to search the contents of the information system</a>, select the <i>category</i> "Harms and Consequences", the <i>topic</i> "Mortality" and <i>sub-topic</i> "Alcohol-related road traffic fatalities" (all the way down the bottom). Make sure to select a decent range of years, so you don't accidentally tick a year that didn't have any information.<br /><br />Interestingly, last time I tried this, I only got European countries. Now it has all of them - so you can verify the American ~40% and see that Australia had 31% in 1990. (After 1990 the Aussies seem to have subtly tweaked their statistics, but I'll leave that debate for now.) UK was at 15% in 2002.Jorishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17916921641191383250noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8982348076919583148.post-47071579873121208912010-01-01T18:46:00.002+01:002010-01-01T18:53:11.742+01:00Alcohol and how to (mis)use itAs a nice little attention for the holiday season, WVU provided all its employees with a useful little brochure, reminding us the university is <i>totally</i> an alcohol (and drug) free place. It lists the pains and troubles you could find yourself facing when you are found to <i>unlawfully</i> possess, use or (insert any number of verbs right here) <i>a controlled substance</i> in (or near) the workplace and goes on for no less than 20 pages (A5 or whateve the equivalent name is for a folded US letter size paper) listing the fines, detentions and obliged sessions of councelling you might attract when coming anywhere close to any of <i>these things</i>.<br /><br />Problem is, of course, that neither "unlawfully" nor "controlled substances" are clearly and univocally defined anywhere.<br /><br /><br />Anyway. The real reason for bringing this up, is that it brought to mind the fascinating and - in my mind - rediculously ambivalent relationship between the state (or, in this particular case, WVU) and alcohol. Let's, for once, start my tirade far away from home, in beautiful Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi80JCdP5lSjhLebPE1F0TqI5d3nlxpWgNYkp6HMjsjjp-lsjTIlHKjLKROkKktwBXOtLovAgYcscJS1dTOVFmvO46qW8A_3pqm_S00lz5gbJt9ictSjMSPEBHX7qCYEYvTfxJfw3Q7Vgo/s1600-h/000_0114.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi80JCdP5lSjhLebPE1F0TqI5d3nlxpWgNYkp6HMjsjjp-lsjTIlHKjLKROkKktwBXOtLovAgYcscJS1dTOVFmvO46qW8A_3pqm_S00lz5gbJt9ictSjMSPEBHX7qCYEYvTfxJfw3Q7Vgo/s400/000_0114.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5421058070233540546" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Santa Fe (depicted here is the main square at nightfall, lit by some great Christmas decorations and poorly photographed by yours truly. Adam (Deller) has many more pictures that worked out much better, but I haven't managed to get them off him yet.) is a nice, seemingly authentic and very touristy town - I would almost call it the Bruges of New Mexico, but since Bruges has been around for thousands of years and Santa Fe barely for hundreds of years,... well, okay, I guess some astronomers might find them equal.<br /><br />I had come to Santa Fe on a slight detour while travelling to Socorro on a visit to Adam and - more importantly? - the Very Large Array (VLA):<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-qnWI-HL02av1LCD5mI8mqWSATAw25hPu5w02qXW39uN-H6889A2dOkwsUEOSF9982yT7-2Exi2gPQPFSx5gvrVQc_MjComeiPlMVHYWb___GSunYjdivAI38wDDhOoZItt_J800rLEE/s1600-h/VLA.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-qnWI-HL02av1LCD5mI8mqWSATAw25hPu5w02qXW39uN-H6889A2dOkwsUEOSF9982yT7-2Exi2gPQPFSx5gvrVQc_MjComeiPlMVHYWb___GSunYjdivAI38wDDhOoZItt_J800rLEE/s400/VLA.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5421060713230913650" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Since Socorro hasn't got anything more to offer than the VLA (and a bunch of scientists), Adam had the brilliant idea to show me the capital as well in a way of - you know - reminding ourselves what civilisation looked like. Truly it was a fantastic idea and I am grateful for it, even if the town didn't like us. Sparing you a rant on all that can go wrong on a two-day visit to an artsy town, I'll stick to the first night when we attempted to go out and catch up over a beer or two.<br /><br />At the first pub we turned to (and as we later found out, probably the only pub that was still open at this late hour), the bouncer required a $5 entrance per person (fair enough, I guess?!) and demanded to see our ID. Given the fact that I'm 27 and that - ever since I regrew my mustache and goatee - I even look this old, I rarely carry my passport unless I'm about to board a plane. In West Virginia people have been sensible enough to accept my Belgian identity card which, even if it doesn't hold any official power abroad, does identify me and isn't easily forged (it has a chip in it!) In fact, I have successfully and without problem used this ID to both rent a car and cash a several hundred dollar check in WV. However, to get into this pub in Santa Fe; to be allowed to pay $5 to enter so that I could subsequently pay much more to drink beers while listening to music that would probably be so loud that the catching up we intended to do in the first place, would probably become impossible; to do that, my Belgian ID turned out inadequate because - as the bouncer put it - "they had had recent trouble with fake foreign IDs".<br /><br />I simply didn't know what to say, how to react. There's so much I couldn't grasp, couldn't understand. Do I look like I'm 20? Do I sound like I'm American? Does my ID card (with chip!) look like it might be forged? Do I look like I would imagine I should need to go through extreme forgery attempts in order to be let in to a bar? I was flabbergasted, could not figure out what his problem was. Did not understand why the bouncer of a place would stop such a thorough forgery - if indeed it had been one, which it wasn't. Surely it wasn't his job to distinguish false documents from real documents? Surely he just had to check if the date on whatever card I showed, read less than 1989 and then let me pass? Would they really shoot themselves in the foot by disallowing entrance to two guys in their upper 20s? We ended up drinking tap water over a game of cards in our hotel room.<br /><br />I'm not sure what my readers (that would be you) are thinking at this point, but the proof of age, irrespective of what you look like, is a very common thing in the US - it becomes a second nature: I show my ID card (though never my passport) without even thinking about it anymore. - But that doesn't mean it isn't hypocritical. My problem is that they're anal about checking your age but that once you turn 21, you're perfectly welcome to do whatever you please - as long as you have your ID or drivers licence (well, and as long as you're not inside university buildings). One of the most frightening things about this, is the combination of this policy with the driving culture that seems to be more common here than elsewhere. What I'm saying is that it seems to not be too uncommon to go out drinking and drive back home. After all, real men can do that, right?<br /><br />I have been told - though I've forgotten my source - that there are pressure groups intent on making alcohol consumption hard and difficult in the States and that such pressure groups could - and have - send kids into bars with fake IDs, only to get the police involved as soon as the kids manage to get served alcohol, causing the place to be closed down for serving to minors (<21s). While this would explain the reluctance of our bouncer, it does not (in my view) do anything useful. Surely it would be better for everyone if we would embark on a sensible debate about the dangers and problems of alcohol consumption, instead of making 21 some sort of magical barrier past which the sky is the limit?<br /><br />I guess my point is this: if, instead of threatening us with dismissals, fines and councelling when we turn up to work drunk, if they provided us with a simple, 1-page overview of the damage alcohol does to ones body, mind and brain - and showed the statistics of traffic accidents and deaths that involved alcohol, then maybe we can slowly move towards an understanding and towards a reasonable culture of care and responsibility.<br /><br /><br />One final example. Sometimes some of the graduate students at WVU go out for drinks - yet the non-drinkers never follow. One day I had the interesting idea of asking a teatotalling student to join us anyway, just for the social aspect of it - and that he could drink orange juice instead, for example. I was met with the same blank stares I gave the bouncer in Santa Fe and a discussion ensued on whether such a thing could be conceivable - if not in real life, then maybe in fantasy fiction. Sure: bars would have some orange juice to make cocktails, but chances were they wouldn't just squander that away on a full glass of orange juice - surely such a strange thing would be unheard of.<br /><br />In Belgium, ever since the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_campaign">Bob campaign</a> started in 1995, it is implicitly assumed that one person in each group does not drink. Or rather: drinks orange juice, water, coke, whatever non-alcoholic beverage you like. At parties, at pubs, at dancings - anywhere it has become the standard. The "Designated Driver" (aka 'Bob') has become a standard - and he isn't someone who counts his drinks and uses complex arithmetic to justify driving: he's someone who <i>doesn't</i> drink.<br /><br /><br />Of course, moving from a 21-and-you're-good mentality to a responsible voluntary abstaining for the greater good, isn't easy and takes a lot of campaigning along with some brainwashing. Be that as it may, harshly checking ID cards, trying to get pubs closed by tricking them into serving 20-year-olds and warning your employees about fines and prison sentences, are <i>definitely</i> not going to get us there. (IMHO, of course.)Jorishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17916921641191383250noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8982348076919583148.post-81862213170355014952009-12-29T15:42:00.002+01:002009-12-29T15:58:30.508+01:00Starting back upHi all,<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />(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.)<br /><br />Anyway. I'm sorry for that longish tangent. <br /><br />For now: a belatedly Merry Christmas (whatever religion you might have) and all the best for 2010!Jorishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17916921641191383250noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8982348076919583148.post-58990474390317679762009-08-25T22:04:00.004+02:002009-09-06T18:58:26.772+02:00Family members building the basementThis 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 (<i>not</i> my capitalisation).<br /><br />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 <i>really</i> 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.<br /><br />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 <a href=http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/>John Stewart</a> (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 <a href="http://www.dancarlin.com">Dan Carlin</a> 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 <a href=http://www.southparkstudios.com/>South Park</a>, 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):<br /><ul><cite>This country was founded by some of the smartest thinkers the world has ever seen.</cite></ul><br />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.<br /><br />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 <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution>amended 27 times</a> since 1776 (12 of which were proposed before the end of the 18<sup>th</sup> 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?<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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 (<a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_the_Iconoclast>Episode 144</a>): 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?Jorishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17916921641191383250noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8982348076919583148.post-45127294943753716472009-08-24T23:15:00.008+02:002009-08-25T00:44:28.213+02:00Paris - simply ParisWhile 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. <br /><br />If you have trouble picturing the "familiar style" I mention, then have a look at <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/Camille_Pissarro_002.jpg">this</a>. 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.) <br /><br />It turns out this recognisable uniformity in architecture is mainly due to a massive remodelling of the city in the mid-to-late 19<sup>th</sup> 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 <i>after</i> the revolution. Yet, there is something to be said for it, because it definitely doesn't make Paris ugly. <br /><br />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 <i>will</i> 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.)<br /><br />Paris is also a <i>big</i> 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!)<br /><br />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?)<br /><br />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...) <br /><br />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.)<br /><br />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.Jorishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17916921641191383250noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8982348076919583148.post-62383299730891775082009-08-09T15:55:00.003+02:002009-08-09T16:08:31.320+02:00Here is the "news"I've just watched the only Belgian news podcast that <i>seemed</i> 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:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGOwtwKZOeR_gSE64LLdO72MqSqT_bRUzNsfehoehDYTz9RZhPHvfYYA9ff5lK7rvGI24SRDSTFKBr-D48-3X9dkTgzHOiOWUg-8w795emPZp0PU0IXdUC5OCL1ECfG_HXq3z-n1TXCuA/s1600-h/Picture+2.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 250px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGOwtwKZOeR_gSE64LLdO72MqSqT_bRUzNsfehoehDYTz9RZhPHvfYYA9ff5lK7rvGI24SRDSTFKBr-D48-3X9dkTgzHOiOWUg-8w795emPZp0PU0IXdUC5OCL1ECfG_HXq3z-n1TXCuA/s400/Picture+2.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5367962550073966210" /></a><br />(I'm not kidding you: see 28/07/2009 in the title? There you go.)<br /><br />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)<br /><br />If ever you wonder why I don't keep track of Belgian news, you'll find me listening to BBC or NPR...Jorishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17916921641191383250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8982348076919583148.post-49531366978522962272009-08-09T01:30:00.003+02:002009-08-25T22:41:57.960+02:00A small town in GermanyBonn 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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />To clarify this point at once: Germany <i>does</i> 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 <i>serve</i> 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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.Jorishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17916921641191383250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8982348076919583148.post-67220201652328708622009-08-01T23:23:00.006+02:002009-08-02T00:12:03.178+02:00Leiden(Still catching up...)<br /><br />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.)<br /><br />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...<br /><br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.)<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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?<br /><br />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!<br /><br />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.<br /><br /><br />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 <i>can</i> get used to different weather - after long training in extreme conditions ;-)Jorishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17916921641191383250noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8982348076919583148.post-52917646356831328242009-07-31T00:23:00.002+02:002009-07-31T00:31:28.860+02:00Today in my mailboxFront side:<br /><br /><ul><cite>It takes more than saying "God Bless America"<br><br />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.<br> - 2 Chronicles 7:14</cite></ul><br /><br />Back side:<br /><br /><ul><cite>How do you reach the households in your target market?<br> Try PREFERRED MAIL ADVERTISING etc...</cite></ul><br /><br />For one, I have no clue what either side has to do with the other - and to continue, if this is <i>targetted</i> advertising then someone really ought to have a look at his algorithm. (I suggest checking the minus-signs...)Jorishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17916921641191383250noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8982348076919583148.post-36478832709894444882009-07-30T01:41:00.005+02:002009-07-30T12:48:32.035+02:00New York - the City that Never SleepsWhen 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 <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/checco/283813055/">Cosby Show</a> 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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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 (<i>seem</i> to be, I haven't actually put this to the test) respected by the car drivers.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />Two more things that stand out in a positive way are the subway system (which works incredibly well and <b>all night long</b> at <b>regular</b> 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 <i>huge</i>. 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.)<br /><br />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 <a href="http://hobbsg.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html">his blog</a> - 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.)<br /><br />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.Jorishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17916921641191383250noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8982348076919583148.post-4513305853525466152009-07-30T01:35:00.004+02:002009-07-30T01:40:27.804+02:00Catch-up timeAnd 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.<br /><br />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.)<br /><br />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.Jorishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17916921641191383250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8982348076919583148.post-62694097268580213482009-06-21T21:31:00.002+02:002009-06-21T21:45:20.465+02:00The Longest DayAs you all know, the summer solstice (midsummer night) is on 20/21 June. That makes yesterday the longest day. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.)<br /><br />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.)<br /><br />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.)<br /><br />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!<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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 <i>did</i> 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.)<br /><br /><br />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.Jorishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17916921641191383250noreply@blogger.com2