Ah, People.

I forget how much time I spend avoiding the General Public. I teach at a small private school. A lot of the things I attend are small events, among friends. I live in a highly touristed area, but I generally avoid the main resort areas.

So it's a shock to the system to spend Independence Day at Universal CityWalk.


First, bringing a baby to a movie? What? At least they left the theatre when he or she started to get fussy, but when did it become de rigeur to even conceive of bringing the child to a movie in the first place? If one can't get a babysitter, one just doesn't go out! I know that may come off as harsh, particularly from someone who does not yet have children, but I certainly recognize that parenthood will bring with it some changes to our priorities, routines, and ways of doing things. Apparently, I'm the only one. Of course, I like to think my opinion is not entirely selfish - certainly if someone has their infant with them, they are not getting their full enjoyment out of the movie, and movie tickets are expensive enough as it is.

Second, if you're going to take pictures of fireworks, please turn your flash off. All you're doing is blinding the people around you, and your images will not turn out well at all.

Third, even at a theme park, the moving sidewalks are not rides. Continue walking, or else move over to the side, please.

Finally, Orlando doesn't have the strongest metropolitan personality, given its history, but it's unfortunate that tourists who visit may never see anything other than Disney and (heaven forbid!) International Drive. Disney is very good at what it does, but I-Drive might very well be a special circle of hell. It's painfully overprocessed, inorganic, and packaged tourist crap. I realize central Florida doesn't have much in the way of cultural experiences, when compared to, say, New York City or Seattle or Monterey, but they do exist. I promise.

More Miscellany

This is a horribly undignified way to die.

I passed this accident scene on I-95 Monday afternoon. Seeing the pancaked cars in the median, I was horrified at how grisly this accident had to be to flatten cars like that! So you can imagine my relief and surprise at learning that the overturned trailer was simply hauling compacted cars...


This is tasty stuff. Try it and tell me you don't agree.

Mixed Berries with Balsamic-Red Wine Reduction

3 parts balsamic vinegar
1 part red wine
1 part sugar
Splash of vanilla
Lemon zest

Combine balsamic, wine, and sugar. Simmer until reduced and syrupy (you can do this in the microwave - it takes a fraction of the time as it does on the stovetop and doesn't gas your house with vinegar fumes). Cool, then add vanilla and zest. Pour over a mixture of strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Or eat it right away. No matter.

Assorted Brainings

Look. I only have a couple months of summer, which afford me the fun and privilege of getting mail from the mailbox. I'm tired of crappy mail. So send me stuff already. Postcard, letter, a box of socks, I don't care. Just something better than junk mail and bills, please.


Call me simple, but these always make me smile. I can't explain it, they just do.

[By the way, try a google image search for those things if you don't know what they're really called. Fun times ensue.]


And will someone tell me why white and silver cars are so popular? They're so boring - like the guys on the assembly line let them roll off without being painted.


This might be all for today. I just got home from South Florida and there is reading I want to do. But I might give in and go rent a couple movies I have had on my to-watch list for months. Specifically, Children of Men and Notes on a Scandal (the book was excellent).

Surprises

I think surprises are only entertaining when you're the one doing the surprising. It's incredibly disorienting for the person being surprised. You know, deception under the guise of fun.

Let me back up. I mean, I have never completely understood the point of a surprise party. It's only a surprise party for the surprisee for about five seconds. After that, it's just a regular party. And that seems like an awful lot of work for less than ten seconds payoff. However, I suppose that the whole surprise "game" is fun for the people involved. But the surprise can get derailed in so many places that it's almost impossible to actually keep it a surprise. I'd really like to see data about what percentage of surprise parties are, in fact, surprises for the surprisee. "No, I really had no idea!" - riiiiight. In fact, surprise parties lead me to believe that the government must not be keeping big secrets like the JFK-assassination-and-september-11-
were-really-orchestrated-by-the-government, because seriously, if a group of people can't keep a simple party under wraps without accidentally blabbing details, how can people keep anything else secret?

Okay, so anyhow, maybe I've been thinking about this all wrong. Maybe the real point of the Surprise Party isn't really the surprisee. Maybe the point of the surprise is for the surprisers to have some fun. The surprisee's reaction is secondary. And if that's the case, then maybe I'm okay with surprise parties after all. Because if the surprisee's reaction is the primary motivation, there's a lot riding on that. Too much. But if it's really about the anticipation and planning for the guests, then maybe that's not so bad.

That is a nice segue into some notes I've made this week:

"I love the ideas of things more than the things themselves. Or the anticipation of an event more than I enjoy the event. I see the potential in people - perhaps more than I see the people themselves. Hence my frustrations when people, events, situations do not live up to my extraordinarily high expectations. Or is it just that they are simply different from my expectations? That they neither exceed nor fall short of my expectations - they're just different. And in so doing, I guess I don't really think of this as a negative thing. Because my anticipation of things and my expectations of people always always remain remarkably high.

Is this a terminal case of idealism?"

The Confessor Confesses

Nobody puts Baby in a corner.

Shingles and windows and doors, oh my!

Bathtubs, too, even. :)














Click the picture to see more.

Is It Summer Yet?

Why, yes it is. I'm finally done with my silly education classes. Yay!

Why, in this age of teacher shortages, is getting certified to teach such an annoying process? Particularly for career-changers. I don't understand. I would think it would be smart to streamline the process as much as possible, in order to attract more teachers from other fields; there are a lot of us out here, and we're getting discouraged. And, you know, maybe fast-track those of us with masters degrees and graduate teaching experience? But hey, I don't run a state department of education. Of course, if I did, I'd start exempting teachers who can pass the professional-education certification exam from taking 12 credit hours in undergraduate education courses. Or else take a good look at the validity of an exam that someone can pass, having never taken any education courses.


We got out early today, and as I walked out to the parking lot, I saw a Bloodmobile. I'm a regular donor, but I'm usually pretty borderline when it comes to iron; I've resorted to iron supplements ahead of blood drives at school. Anyhow, since this one caught me by surprise, I figured I'd easily fail that crit test. AGAIN. But! My little blood drop sank all the way to the bottom of the copper (II) sulfate solution on its own! They didn't even have to centrifuge it. For, like, the first time *ever*, I think. Sweet. :)


I'm off to find a lilliko'i chiffon pie recipe...

What the French, Toast?

This gum commercial wouldn't be nearly as funny if I hadn't routinely used "son of a biscuit!" in my youth. :)

Turning US History Upside Down

First, when did I become a coffee snob? Has to be the influence of the espresso bar at Mosaic. Tried McDonalds' (I know, I know, but I was game...) new iced coffee this morning. An iced latte it ain't. I don't recommend the swill at all. It was thinner than water and I would question the "vanilla" flavor. But I will give it props for the lack of Starbucks overroastedness.


Second, I'm going to revisit a topic I began thinking about (well, I guess for you, who live outside my head, it's really a visit, not a revisit. Sorry.) three weeks ago. It's borderline tl;dr, but hey, this is my blog, so too bad. I was in an Educational Psychology course, and the prof gave us an interesting exercise. I think it was to illustrate the difference between convergent and divergent thinking, but the topic of the exercise itself was fascinating. Maybe I missed the point, but it was my most engaged forty minutes all week. :) It's so fun to ponder historical what-ifs! The more you consider possibilities, the more you see how one minor change affects so much else.

The prompt he gave us was simply, "How would the United States be different if it had been settled from the West Coast instead of the East Coast?" and he let us run with it. So I present my collection of thoughts...


First thing we have to do is make some basic assumptions. I assume the following:

• Major settlement takes place at roughly the same time frame as did actual settlement from the east.
• Settlers arriving on the West Coast would be arriving from lands across the Pacific. Another interesting option would be to explore European settlement, but with opposite geography for whatever reason. More controlled variables. Another day, perhaps.

Okay. First off, the reasons for settlers arriving on western shores would be different from those of whom arrived from the east. Europeans had certain motives for coming to North America: expansion of empires, plunder of resources - mother Europe was beginning to get crowded, after all, and new lands offered new resources - and escape from religious persecution. I think the third (escape from religious persecution) would be virtually eliminated in the case of colonization from Asia or the Pacific. Population density was not as great as in European cities, and the drive to find more natural resources because their own were being depleted doesn't seem very strong, either. Empire-building would probably have been a decent motive for trans-Pacific exploration. Also, I think there is always a segment of any population that is going to think "it's gotta be better elsewhere," so I think you'd have people interested in going to a new world; on the whole, though, their motivations would be quite different.

Geography would definitely drive the development of any "United States", if it were to even form in the first place.

I think we'd have had much slower progression of settlers arriving on these shores, as well as slower progression of the frontier eastward. You encounter pretty rough terrain as you go east from the coast. There are fewer navigable rivers. The Pacific is a big ocean to successfully cross. Long overwater routes for news, supplies, more settlers would preclude European-style colonies. Might independence have come sooner? And under very different circumstances? Would they have arrived on the presumption that they were developing a new state with no ties to their former government? Those explorers that did indeed make it to North America would be pretty hardy and intrepid (survival of the fittest: discoverers' Darwinism). Perhaps that would serve them well in eastward expansion, what with the deserts and mountains they'd encounter.

We would certainly not have the agrarian society that we had at the outset of this country. The opportunities for subsistence farming would be limited to valleys. The Central Valley of California is used for major agribusiness now, but it is heavily dependent upon irrigation, and settlers may or may not have been equipped to deal with that. The crops that provided colonists with cash - tobacco, cotton, etc - would have been very different in the west. Would we have seen export of wine - the grapes for which grow quite successfully along the Pacific coast? Asian cultures don't have the history of viticulture that Europeans do, however, so perhaps they would not have exploited this.

The geographical distribution of settlements - and eventually cities - would be markedly different. The ability to spread out across the land is relatively limited. The eastern frontier runs up against inhospitable land pretty quickly, with relatively few freshwater sources. I think this would make for more isolated communities along the west coast. This would likely result in a less cohesive union of states, which raises the question about the existence of the United States at all. We might have a continent more like Europe with separate, independent states. Would there be a strong need for a central seat of government and unified colonies? To say nothing of the idea of democracy. More on that later. Mountains and vast areas of empty terrain would likely slow the deployment of technology like electricity, the telegraph, and railways in connecting outposts.

Lack of religious motivation for settlement would certainly color the population of the continent. We'd see far less Victorian prudishness. Would there be such an emphasis on the family unit? Women and children would have a large sea to cross, and if the point of the settlements on the continent were for the export of resources, would there be a "need" for families, or just able-bodied men? Would criminals be sent to mine the land, in similar fashion to Australia? Would they stay and settle, or would they put in some time and then return home? The education system would be quite different in that case. More apprenticeships, perhaps, with less religious-based education?

The west coast enjoys a more constant climate. Settlers would not experience the harsh eastern winters that fell so many east-coast colonists - unless they ventured into the mountains too late in the season. The growing season is much longer, too, though, so that might change the arrivers' dependence on the native population ("I know we were a bit brusque at first... but do you have any food?") (1) . How does a different race of people interact with natives? Asians are removed from the influence of John Locke and divine right. Would different settlers desire the independence from an oppressive monarchy; would they even have the oppressive monarchy controlling things from across the ocean? Again, would independence have been a foregone conclusion? Do we have African slavery? Class systems? The very idea of democracy (2) as a viable form of governance?

I run the risk here of trying to fit a presumably dominant Asian culture into the Western European model of USA-making. Settling North America with a completely different set of people changes everything. It's remarkably hard to completely remove myself from the context of the founding of this country.

While I'm digressing here, I should add that I really respect the pioneer spirit on which this country was expanded. I mean, the thought of packing up everything and leaving the life you know, hoping that life out west somewhere would be better - that's pretty incredible. I've been hiking for a few hours with just a backpack, and I can't imagine the trepidation I'd have about carting my possessions and family across unknown terrain for months on end, towards a very uncertain future. I think I'd have looked at the first major river west of New England and said, "Yep - this looks pretty good right here." But to cross 14000-foot mountain ranges, not knowing what's beyond them? Good on them.

If we presume that settlement from the eastern side of North America is inevitable and takes place simultaneously, that sets up potential conflict between parties expanding toward the center. Would there be fights over the fertile prairies for agricultural lands? How do native populations factor into this - a three-way war between west, east, and central? With nowhere else to go, would this create nations out of tribes, as opposed to relegating them to parts farther and farther west? The western settlers might have a greater motivation to gain central territory for land to grow food, and perhaps for control of rivers that drain to the Gulf or Atlantic. With silver and gold, the provenance of which is western rock, westerners would be pretty rich from what they could pull out of the ground. Would that cause easterners to have their eyes on conquering western people? Of course, that would influence the decision for independence from the European monarchy and their wealth.

(1) Eddie Izzard
(2) or, at least, a constitutional republic

Okay, that's what I have so far. And I'm just a scientist (well, one with a minor in history...), so if you have any ideas to add, critique, challenge, please do.

It Actually Looks Like a House!

Turns out that a construction crew can build something that resembles a house in a pretty short period of time. I was totally impressed to see a roof when we got back. The slab was barely dry to the touch when we left.

Um. See the thing in the distance, to the right of our garage? Yeah, that's totally the tower at MCO. :)

I'm Justifying My Attitude with Jet Lag

To the bookstore clerk at the campus where I have the distinct displeasure to sit through an introductory education class this week:


I spent six years at university, earning two degrees. I know full well how a !#@%ing college bookstore works, thankyouverymuch.

I am aware that a used book would have a bright yellow "USED" sticker on it; I just wanted to know whether you had any used books you hadn't yet put out on the shelf. I don't very much appreciate you crabbing to your coworker - in front of me - about how you've heard the same question twenty times this morning, either. Just take my credit card and overcharge me for my #&*% book already.

< /cranky >

To Market, To Market

Went to a farmer's market yesterday. Fascinating collection of fruits and vegetables - I wish I'd had a kitchen! Oh, and it made me miss the Monterey Farmer's Market so much. Orlando, sadly, just doesn't have a good market scene. They have farmer's markets daily in Kauai - and it isn't like the island is all that big, so it would be easy to hit one every day. Reason #651 to move there.

Anyhow, they had a couple "booths" with fresh coconuts. Yay! I'm playing fast and loose with the terminology there. They were pickup trucks with the beds full of coconuts, backed into the the stall, with a big gruff machete-wielding guy (well, would you be anything other than gruff if you had a machete in your hands?) who would violently hack away at a coconut, stab a hole in it, and give you a straw so you could suck up the water from inside. Then, when you were finished drinking, you'd hand it back to him, he'd whack away at it with his gigantic knife, cut it in half, scrape out the flesh and hand it back to you so you could eat. I mean, how these guys have all their fingers - that's skill. So of course I got one. But we took off before I finished sucking down the liquid. Which made for fun back at the hotel when I slipped my coconut into a trash bag, went out to the balcony and started thwacking my coconut against the concrete. A bit too satisfying an activity, to be perfectly honest.

Bought a bag of fresh lychees, too. Seriously, who was the first to check these things out? To look at them, all red and spiny, it would take me a while to figure out that just under that peel is some super tasty goodness. Which leads me to wonder about the first people to figure out that certain things are, in fact, food. I mean, a potato? Dig up a root from the ground and eat it? But they're marvelous! I've got to give it up for people with a sufficiently intrepid spirit to be the first one to try eating something. Because I'd be watching everyone else, and only after they didn't collapse would I give it a go. It wasn't all that long ago that tomatoes were assumed poisonous because of the plants to which they are related. Don't get me started on the dude who figured out bread. Or coffee. To quote a friend: pluck a bean off a tree, cook it, grind it, soak it in boiling water, throw away the bean and drink the water? Seriously, who thinks of these things?

Anyhow. Back to the lychees. Hawaii has some strict agricultural restrictions, and I can't blame them. It's always amusing to see the "Agricultural Amnesty Bins" as you deplane at HNL. :) So we went to the market the day before we left, which meant I had about 18h to put away my bag o' lychees because I wasn't going to be able to take them with me. While I was waiting for Brian to return the rental car, I ended up scarfing down most of them at the airport, just outside the USDA inspection station (not completely unlike a smoker huddled just outside the doorway of a building or something). I guess the ephemeral nature of Hawaiian fruit just adds to its appeal.

And just so you know, I don't think an entire fresh coconut is meant to be eaten in one sitting, at least for our mainlander stomachs. Just trust me on that...

Yes, Meat Candy

So far, Kauai has been a pretty good food island. Every meal we've eaten has been tasty - which is pretty impressive, considering this is a tiny isle and the offerings are somewhat slim. Well, we've been aided by this book, but so far, everything has indeed been ono. Yesterday, we ate lunch at a little steakhouse and I had the Kau Kau Tin Lunch. Rice, kim chee, teriyaki beef, and shrimp and vegetable tempura packaged into stacked tins like sugar plantation workers' lunches of days gone by. Man, was the food tasty! Actually, the tempura was a little soggy, but all was forgiven with the teri beef. It had a nice smoky note, and the sauce was sweet. And the smallest pieces were little crunchy caramelized bits very much like meat candy. Yum!

I've had shave ice (apricot, coconut, and lilliko'i) over mac nut ice cream, lilliko'i (passion fruit) chiffon pie, coconut and lilliko'i ice cream. (Do you notice a theme - lilliko'i is ono!) We have had lots of kalua pig (shredded slow-cooked pork with sea salt), and not nearly enough seafood. My Japanese food craving has almost been completely satisfied. I could do with some sushi, though. Hawaiians love their Spam, and I'm seriously contemplating finding a place that serves Spam rolls. The guidebook says it exists... Anyhow, a couple nights ago, I had a tasty dinner called chicken hekka - chicken, glass noodles, tofu, green onions, bean sprouts, and mushrooms - plus rice, somen salad, and some sort of vinegary cabbage dish that tasted vaguely of anise. I haven't any idea what it was called.

And there's been macadamia-crusted salmon, chocolate-covered macadamia nuts, macadamia nut shortbread, honey-roasted macadamia nuts. I need to remember to try mac nuts in my banana-coconut bread recipe when I get back home. They're pretty tasty on top of ice cream desserts, too. :)

I wonder why tropical fruit is so tooth-numbingly sweet. Like, what's the biochemical reaction that causes such intense sweetness in fruit grown in the tropics? Bananas, guava, lychees, sugar cane, etc - they have a different quality, a richness, almost, from mid-latitude fruits like apples, grapes, peaches. I'm going to have to research this.

There's a fruit stand on the north side of the island that I'm dying to get to. Maybe this afternoon.

It's now later. We went to the fruit stand, and I got myself some lilliko'i syrup (thinking mac nut pancakes when we get home...) and some apple bananas (like regular bananas, but smaller and with a bit of a tang). I was hoping for some fresh coconut, but there was none to be had. In retrospect, I should have snarfed up some fresh lychees. Perhaps we'll head back that way tomorrow. We had a lovely lunch, though not stellar like our others. The bar has been set pretty high, after all. Brian had a piece of chocolate cake, which, while tasty, I'm of the opinion that when in Rome (or in Hanalei)... so I opted for the shave ice down the road. Mmmm - very fine shave, like eating snow. I'll give you one guess as to the flavor I chose. :)

ATC FYI

For those of you playing at home, the answers are

Procedural control,
Flight plan comparisons by ARTCC controllers, and
Self-navigation by GPS.


Hm. Seems kinda laissez-faire to me. But I guess busy routes like the North Atlantic are close enough for contact with Iceland ATC.

Burn, Baby, Burn

Trust me when I tell you that forgoing SPF for 20 minutes at noon at 20 degrees latitude just days before the summer solstice, just to get a "base tan" started is so not a good idea, even though it may seem like one at the time.

An even worse idea is doing this to your shoulders and then carrying a backpack on them for three days straight.

Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid...

The Confessor Confesses

Checking In

Darn. It sounds like there's more activity at the volcano than there has been recently, but it's still a 6-8h hike over hummocky lava fields to get to it. Oh well. I suppose that means we'll just have to come back! :)

Flying into Kona is like landing on the moon. It's otherworldly. The airport is in the midst of a lava bed and all you see surrounding the runway is rock. We flew Aloha Airlines from Oahu to The Big Island. Now, all I can think about is this. But I think, oh that was a long time ago, and it was due to metal fatigue on an old plane. Comforting thought until our plane pulls up, and it's a 737 that's easily as old as I am. :-/ I hope we're taking Hawaiian Airlines back over...

And check out that retro livery on this Aloha plane! --->

Speaking of planes, we had quite the long flight from the mainland (no "short hop" from LAX like we took when we lived on the west coast!) to ponder matters of aviation.

About 5h into our flight to HNL, the sheer absurdity of air travel hit me. I mean, when you really think about it, airplanes are completely preposterous. You strap yourself into a tin can, pump it full of air, go trundling at breakneck speed down a long path until the plane basically lifts off on its own volition, and somehow, you manage to come down safely on this tiny island in the middle of the Pacific. Which raises a question I need to research - who's responsible for air-traffic control over international waters? I mean, the guys up front are talking to people in Jacksonville after they take off from Orlando, but after you get out of Los Angeles's airspace, to whom are they talking then? I wondered the same thing on our trip to Europe last year, and I just realized I never found out the answer.

I like to be divorced from the operation of my aircraft, and I have to say that a 767 does not disappoint. Takeoff and landings are so smooth. Our 757 from MCO-IAH was comparably shaky through quite a bit of Gulf turbulence. But the 767 just muscles its way through the air with little regard to the vagaries of wind. Well done, Boeing. Well done.

Just so you know, winglets can make even a 737 look sexy. AmIright?

I had forgotten just how delicious Hawaii smells. Plumeria and ocean and tropical fruit. Yum.

I had a very irresponsible sun day yesterday (no sunscreen for an hour just after noon at 20 degrees north - all in the act of trying to get a tan started). I'm a bit pink, but overall not bad. I promise to be more responsible tomorrow!

Well, that's all the random thoughts for today. Will post more whenever I have extended internet access again, and who knows when that might be!

The Volcano Answers??

Maybe you should be careful, what you ask of a volcano...

From the USGS Eruption Status Updates Page:

"NPS eruption crew report from the coast for Monday afternoon: "Great" surface flow activity is reported at the base of the pali and Royal Gardens subdivision on the eastern side of the flow field. A steam plume could be seen from the Poupou entry by day."

Hmmmm...! :)

A view like this would be asking too much, right? -->

Letter to a Volcano

Dear Kilauea Volcano,

It would be incredibly swell to hike to a surface flow of lava while I'm on vacation. If you could kindly arrange this, that would be super keen.

Sincerely,
Jennifer

The Confessor Confesses