CogentPassion by Timmy G

Food for thought: global warming

2012-01-27T19:10:00.000-05:00

Today's WSJ has a strong editorial cosigned by 16 scientists regarding global warming. I'll just say that it asks a number of important questions and it would be very worthwhile to have a deeper debate on this issue.

Whatever your stance is on global warming, this article is worth a read.

Carticel implant recovery @ 6 months

2012-01-25T19:58:00.000-05:00

In connection with yesterday's post celebrating my first post-knee surgery bike ride, I thought it would be worthwhile to post a six-month post-surgery update.

In general, my knee health is good and improving. Knee strength in my surgery leg has reached the levels of my "good" leg (as measured by knee extension and leg press exercises), and I haven't walked with assistance of any kind in more than two months. I have also reduced the amount of time wearing my unloader knee brace from all waking hours to half time (plus during any physical activity.)

I would not say that I am walking normally, but probably @ 80% of a normal gait.

I am a little concerned about two things that may be related:

1) the bruise on the interior of my repaired knee continues, though it is somewhat less intense than when presented to my doc two months ago.

2) I do not have any persistent knee pain - even during demanding activity, like climbing stairs, but I do have intermittent pain on the inside of my repaired knee when I put mild torque on my repaired knee. (i.e. when I turn on this knee, typically counter-clockwise, even when wearing the knee brace.)

#1 and #2 are probably connected.

I am very conscious on the condition, so being smart I am only likely to experience this sort of pain once or twice a day, and the pain goes as quick as it comes. It does make me wonder if the implantation has some sort of flaw (or if the doc missed a spot), which is mentally challenging, but still too early to tell.

I seem to avoid or minimize this torsional knee pain when I take the precaution of mildly "popping" my knee into alignment, which is accomplished by taking all weight off of my leg and performing a very slight clockwise turn of my leg.

I have increased the attention I pay to lateral knee exercises (of which there aren't a lot), and I'll check in with my Doc again next month, and I'll be eager to hear what he thinks about this.

In general, though, I am still improving, and experienced my first totally pain-free day last week. I do find that their are daily limits to the amount of activity that I can handle, but this has been on a continuous upswing since getting rid of my crutches in early November.

(I really only experienced this on days with substantial walking, such as touring in Europe late last year, and moving between business meetings in Boston this month.)

Looking forward, I am really, really excited about biking season, and have told my baseball team that I aim to be playing with them again this summer, which means my recovery is right on track, though right now, the thought of running is painful. (Maybe that's my age, and not my knee speaking.)

Please feel free to get in contact via email or the comments section if you have any questions about life with Carticel, or the recovery process.

1st post-surgery bike ride

2012-01-24T16:54:00.001-05:00

Even though it is mid-January, it is 62 degrees here in Virginia, so I closed my laptop early to hop on my bike for the first outdoor bike ride since my knee surgery 6 months ago.

I never left the low gears on my bike but that might have more to do with the extra weight around my belly than the knee surgery.

~10 miles in ~ 45 minutes - 13mph versus 16-17 pre-surgery pace, though usually over much hillier roads.

(I should mention that I was cleared to ride outside a month ago, but between the cold weather, and the doctor's order that I stay off of hills, I didn't get to ride until today.)

More great quotes…..

2011-12-12T17:51:00.000-05:00

“A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.” - John Maxwell

“You’ll seldom experience regret for anything that you’ve done. It is what you haven’t done that will torment you. The message, therefore, is clear. Do it! Develop an appreciation for the present moment. Seize every second of your life and savor it” - Unknown

“There are three qualities a leader must exemplify to build trust: competence, connection, and character.” - John Maxwell

A lot more great leadership & motivational quotes here: http://sourcesofinsight.com/john-maxwell-quotes/

And, as a bonus, a clever take on the Euro financial crisis, courtesy of Tyler Cowen's Marginal Revolution.

Myhrvold: Subsidies Stymie Wind, Solar Innovation - Bloomberg

2011-11-28T21:52:00.001-05:00

For the first time that I've seen so cogently explained, Nathan Myrvold (former Microsoft CTO) lists the flaws and conflicts inherent in our current energy policy. He points out a more efficient and effective way to both develop new energy technologies and balance energy production between existing and alternative technologies.

It's a short article and worth a read.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-27/energy-subsidies-stymie-wind-solar-innovation-nathan-myhrvold.html

Burn Fat Faster with Vitamin D

2011-11-27T18:28:00.000-05:00

Saving a link for myself that might be helpful to you: vitamin D has a broad and deep impact on health, and vitamin D daily recommendations for people like me (40+ and overweight) are multiples greater than previously thought (3,000 IUs daily vs 600.) I Ned to check the content of my daily multi-vitamin and perhaps supplement with vit D tabs. Also: this is one more good reason to start the day with milk & cereal.

http://www.menshealth.com/weight-loss/burn-fat-fast

Quote worth sharing

2011-11-21T11:57:00.001-05:00

"The secret of success is to understand the point of view of others." - Henry Ford

Carticel recovery @ four months

2011-11-17T18:59:00.001-05:00

I reached my four month anniversary two weeks ago, and to celebrate, I decided to absolutely abuse my new knee.

(The decision was more like "I've got some business travel to do in Europe. What if I used my spare time to do a walking tour of wherever I happen to be, and count on only needing regular sleep to recover?")

Before further explanation, let me catch up on the last two months: I transitioned from my full-length leg brace (ankle to thigh) to a much smaller unloader brace which I wear only when awake. The smaller brace allows complete freedom of movement, and as I learned, is firstly for protection, not recuperation. (In other words, it is designed to keep you from doing anything stupid, whether intentional or accidental.)

Along with the new brace, I have graduated from mentored physical therapy to a self-guided physical therapy program, also graduating from increasing range of motion to increasing strength. My typical routine is a 5-10 minute cardio warm-up followed by a series of lifts - leg extensions, leg press, hamstring lifts, and thigh abduction/adduction, finished with a cardio session of 20-30 minutes either stationary cycle or elliptical. (Though typically shorter intervals with the elliptical.)

I alternated every day between the above lifting routine, and aquatic sessions - 15-20 minutes of chest-deep movement exercises and up to a mile of lap swimming. I highly, highly recommend having an aquatic component, btw.

I thought I had a complete approach, but I was reminded at my four-month check in that I need to continue the leg lifts with ankle weights in addition to the gym & pool work.

For the last month or so it has been very exciting to see increases in leg strength. The progress has been obvious just looking at my weight lifts, and by my speed and strength in the pool. Also, by and large, I have been pain-free even during my most aggressive workouts, though plenty of times I have rapidly fallen asleep on my couch following a good workout.

I have also weened myself off of the pain meds, including ibuprofen (Advil), which I'll take 1-2 times per week.

On to my 4-month update:

So, at four months, my doc, Dr. Zaslav, was very happy with my status. No problems, good flexibility and good strength. I won't see him for another 4 months, and in the interim I am allowed to wind down my use of the unloader knee brace, and wind up outdoor cycling - though only on flat ground, and without standing up on the pedals. (I need to wear the brace while cycling or working out any way except swimming.)

The only item of interest at my 4-month check-in is a minor discoloration (bruise-like) on the inside of my knee, roughly corresponding to the site where the carticel was implanted. The discoloration ebbs in intensity, seemingly depending on how intense my use of the knee was that day. The doc didn't know what this might be - he'd never seen this phenomenon before, so we didn't take any action or curtail my workouts. Has anybody else had this discoloration?

Your host @ the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, November, 2011. Can you guess which leg has the brace on?

To celebrate, I flew off to France, Scotland, and London. (OK, it wasn't a celebration so much as a necessary work trip.) I did manage to spend time walking around some of these great places (and I'll post some picture highlights in a subsequent post).

I was fully mindful of my knee health, and always intend to let my knee determine the duration and pace of touring. However, I completely forgot the advice I received post-surgery: always stay ahead of the pain.

I would set off from my hotel with the intention of stopping mid-walk for a stop at a cafe or Starbucks no more than every hour or so. I was pretty faithful to this approach, but inevitably, I'd get tired before I found a cafe, or have to walk a bit further than expected. In retrospect, I should have had the intention of stopping every 45 minutes, but be prepared to go an hour (if it takes 15 more minutes to find a cafe), instead going an hour, and sometimes struggling to an hour and 15 minutes.

I found myself being able to go less and less far between breaks, but typically didn't realize it until my limits were only 10 minutes or three blocks between rests. (At one point, I was down to resting between blocks.)

To make matters worse, my overnight rest cycles were about the same as they had been at home. I should have budgeted an extra hour on touring days.

There was a mild knock-on effect - I found myself lagging in a few of my business meetings. One meeting - scheduled to go two hours - rant to almost 4 hours. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was absolutely pooped by the start of hour 3, and found myself getting a little bit silly in the meetings. Hopefully I didn't make the wrong impression.

The other negative is that once I made it home, I took three days off from my physical therapy routine. Not good, but definitely necessary.

A couple of observations/ideas/advice for Carticel patients:

-Very important: get a good seat on your flights. I scored an exit row seat with plenty of legroom for both long flights. I really didn't have any problems in-flight or post-flight as a result. If I hadn't scored, I probably would have been worse off, and being squeezed into a seat with less legroom would have certainly gotten in my head.

(Incidentally, my doc offered to write a prescription for business class seating, but as a consultant, the price of the trip came right out of my pocket, and I wasn't about to pay $3,500 more to make the trip.)

-Don't underestimate the walking mileage that you'll rack up in the airports. Always, always take the elevator if available - that walk to the gate or bus stop is always longer than you think.

-Consider taxi rides instead of subway/metro travel. I tended to get all-day passes for the metro/Underground, which certainly encouraged me to ride between tour destinations, instead of walking (which was smart), but eventually you'll have subway journeys with long walks to transfer, or plenty of stairs. The taxis are definitely more expensive but an investment in knee health.

-Dial down your touring ambitions and be smarter than me when it comes to knowing your limits. By the time I got back to my hotel room, all I could do was crash for the day or night. I lucked into hotels with good fitness facilities (including in one case a pool), but never did any PT as I was too pooped.

-Do NOT backpack - used wheeled suitcases! The last thing you need as a recovering patient is 25 or 35 more pounds of stress on your knee.

-I am extremely thankful that my trip wasn't a month earlier (month 3). I don't think I could have made it.

My final verdict on the trip will be determined by my strength tests tomorrow, when I'll learn if I grew stronger, or atrophied while traveling. For now, though, it is off to the gym for me!

I hope this update is helpful. As always, please feel free to ask me any questions in the comments section or via email.

Tips and advice for Carticel patients to be

2011-08-21T23:48:00.000-04:00

While Carticel and A.C.I. (autologous chondrocyte implantation) surgery is now ~15 years old, there is still a lack of non-Genzyme originated patient info out there. I've previously covered some of my experience online:

Knee surgery update (initial knee surgery & cartilage harvesting)

Carticel patient experience (pt 1 of 3)

Carticel patient status update (@ week 6)

To anyone considering or just beginning their Carticel experience I’d offer the following points for consideration:

Tips & Insights

1) 1) Your most valuable item is your green, ring-bound rehabilitation guide. There’s a very good chance that your rehab center has never seen a Carticel patient. There’s a good chance as well that your therapist will see “A.C.I.” and think “ACL.” To combat this, share your green rehab guide guide, or better yet, get more than one copy so that you have one too.

2) 2)Get clarity on how your protocol changes with time and progress. Surprisingly, there’s not a ton of precision on when a patient progresses into a different protocol. Can you sleep without a brace at week 4 or is it week 5? Do you get off crutches at week 6 or 8? It’s fluid – get firm, clear instruction from your doc/your doc’s physician’s assistant/physical therapist.

3) 3) Just like protocols were sometimes confusing, I sometimes got confusing and contradictory advice on simple things, like how to put my leg brace on. For instance, I was first told directly that the brace should be snapped in order from top (pelvis) to bottom (ankle). I found that the brace would tend to drift down my leg. Four weeks in, my physical therapist (my 4^th different one) suggested a different order: when putting my leg brace on, it seemed that snapping the braces on in one particular order produced the best results. Mine has 4 ‘bands,’ which I’ll label from my ankle to my pelvis 1 through 4. I got the best results locking #2 first, followed by #1, #3, then finally #4.

4) 4) Since the Carticel cells are frozen once fully grown in anticipation of shipping for surgery, the scheduling of the implantation surgery is elective. I considered surgery during the winter holidays, or perhaps in the quietest part of winter, with the thought that these times were most conducive to sitting around, and basically doing nothing more demanding than rehab. I ultimately chose to operate immediately (July, after a late March harvesting of cells) mostly due to an interest in getting better sooner rather than later, but it had a benefit that I hadn’t anticipated: it was the time of the year to wear shorts. As I realized, long pants aren’t really a good option for the first month or so post-surgery, so consider having your surgery during a warm month.

5) 5) I’d suggest relying on a walker instead of crutches for the first month or so. Walkers are a bit slower and less mobile, but far more stable. I’d say that while on crutches, I’d have at least one “whoopsie” incident a day where I might have to apply significant (if momentary) pressure on my sore leg. Not fun. In contrast, walkers are very, very low risk. Also: you can drape a bag over an arm of the walker in order to carry books & gizmos with you.

6) 6) Get an iPad. You’ll be spending LOADS of time just sitting around recuperating. You’ll be in need of mindless distractions or entertainment. I picked up a second-hand iPad for ~$225 and it was worth every penny during my recovery. I also used the iPad to gauge my health: I play backgammon and pre-surgery was beating the computer probably 3 out of 4 times on average. During the first ~3 weeks, my success rate against the computer was ~50/50, with some prolonged periods where I lost more than half my games against the computer, corresponding (on reflection) with the times where I was most exhausted or in pain. I’m happy to report that I’m back to normal, winning ~75% of my games.

Carticel patient status update

2011-08-18T18:07:00.000-04:00

Today I am celebrating the 6-week anniversary of my A.C.I. surgery. I am currently mobile via crutches and walker. I am wearing a brace during the day, but sleeping without one. I attend physical therapy 3X/week, and exercise at home on the off days according to plans made by my therapist.

There is very little pain, and at this point, very little need for painkillers. I pop 2-3 ibuproferen tabs 2-3X per day, and that’s it. I also ice my knee a few times a day.

My biggest problem to date has been sore muscles in my “good” leg. Twice I’ve pulled calf muscles when hopping – once climbing stairs, and once hopping without crutches. The second time I pulled the calf muscle was accompanied by an audible “pop.” I’ve talked to my PT about it, and she says that the soreness is temporary, and that I ought to stretch daily and before relying on a cold muscle.

The current expectation is that I’ll be off crutches permanently in ~4 weeks, with initial crutch-free re-training beginning in 2 weeks.

Unfortunately, this means I lost a race with my 1-year old niece to see who would walk first. I challenged her in early July, and just this week she took her first repeated steps.

Other than that, things have been good.

Please feel free to send me any questions about my Carticel experience via email here.

Carticel patient experience

2011-07-30T00:41:00.001-04:00

One of the highest traffic pages on my blog has been my posts detailing my 2011 knee surgery(s) and recovery. Since those postings in March and April, respectively, I have had a second surgery on my knee to implant Carticel chondrocytes (in other words, to plant new knee cartilage like planting new grass sod.)

By popular demand, then, here's the continuation of my experience and some tips/thoughts for anyone about to have or considering this surgery.

As a refresher/background: I'm an early 40's semi-athletic male who began experiencing frequent and serious knee pain in my left knee in the summer of 2010, most pronounced when distance running. My initial diagnosis was a torn meniscus, and I underwent directed physical therapy to strengthen surrounding muscles to compensate.

Fast forward six months, and during arthroscopic surgery to debride the meniscus, my doc realized the true nature of my knee problem: a large amount of articular cartilage damage on my left knee. More details and pictures are here.

During the March 2011 (first) surgery, my orthopedic surgeon harvested some of my knee cartilage for a second procedure: implantation of new cartilage grown up in a lab from the cartilage harvested in March. This surgery for me took place in July, 2011 and I am now in the midst of recovering and following the Carticel post-op protocols.

My Carticel story begins just after my March surgery. My local orthopedist (Dr. Grant, of Charlottesville, VA) and his office and surgical teams were absolutely top-notch through my first surgery and recovery, but Dr. Grant suggested that my condition would benefit from seeing a specialist in Richmond, VA, Dr. Kenneth Zaslav.

I was lucky to find good care and treatment from Dr. Grant & team. My luck continued with the introduction to Dr. Zaslav: he's a rockstar in his area. He was one of the first physicians in America to perform the implantation surgery, so he's one of the most experienced, and he was the lead author of the defining academic study of such procedures (a study of ~150 Carticel patients over four years.)

Dr. Zaslav confirmed Dr. Grant's prognosis and suggested two possible courses of action:

1) periodic injections of Synvisc - a fluid that provides knee lubrication - though only for about six months before dissipating and thus requiring another shot. Oh, and the regular synvisc shots are fairly expensive and very serious, nasty shots.

2) implantation of Carticel tissue. (I'll use the terms 'tissue' and 'cartilage' in lieu of the more accurate term "autologous chondrocytes." Technically, what's implanted is a mish-mash of cells that by 9-12 months takes root and form cartilage.)

Carticel has the advantage of a high permanent success rate (~80%), but is high-cost, and has a long and demanding rehab protocol.

I had already done plenty of research and was already leaning towards Carticel, and speaking with Zaslav increased my confidence in Carticel. Within days of the meeting, I had made my decision and set the wheels in motion. A tentative surgical date was set for early July (~8 weeks from my meeting with Zaslav). The next order of business was to get approval from my insurance company to cover a large portion of the therapy. Upon approval, word would be sent to Genzyme to begin growing my cells for implantation - a 4-6 week process.

Zaslav's staff is used to wrestling with insurance companies, and they took the lead on gaining approval from Anthem Insurance. Also heavily involved in this process is Genzyme.

Unfortunately, this process - expected to take 10-15 business days - took ~5 weeks. (Apparently due to a paperwork snafu.)

My biggest complaint from my entire Carticel expereince is from this period. The process and progress is not transparent at all. While I heard from my doctor's office through the process that approval was imminent and that there was no reason to change my impending surgery date, after the first ~3 weeks of waiting, I had little confidence in such a positive outcome. Not only did I worry about payment and surgical plans in flux, but I was very, very worried that my cells being grown by Genzyme could be hurt hurt in some way by a hasty growth cycle, impacting my ability to make a good recovery.

After all approvals were garnered, a rush of paperwork occurred. I think I paid full attention to the details, permissioning, etc., but the haste of the paperwork, the legalese, and the lack of hand-holding was a shock.

But, ultimately, we went forward on the original surgery date, with no restrictions. My cells were ready, and I was ready.

In my next post, I'll detail what came next.

Something I've been thinking about....(gov't consolidation)

2011-06-08T20:21:00.001-04:00

Today's WSJ has an interesting article about how the governor of Michigan is pushing Michigan municipalities to consolidate. His point is that his state doesn't need 1,800 different units of government in the state. He isn't trying to consolidate the power in his office, but rather just trying to reduce the cost of government. (How many accounting departments are needed in Michigan, for example.)

(here comes a rant)

I've been thinking about this same thing since hearing that here in Virginia, county lines were originally drawn in the 1600's based on how far one could ride on a horse in one day. This makes for counties with ginormous populations (Fairfax, with 1.1M people) and tiny populations (Highland County, with just 2,510 people, which is adjacent to a county with only 4,500 people.) Now that we've drive cars instead of horses, shouldn't we reinvent the definition of a county?

I see the potential efficiencies, but it turns out they are overstated or illusory. (See the financial detail in the WSJ article.)

Local governance is always best, and highly appreciated by most, as the WSJ article describes that only 27 of 105 consolidation ballot initiatives have passed in the last 100 years.

I mention this issue as I think there's a lot of lessons for us to apply in other policy areas. In this era of progressivism, there are a never ending stream of new top-level (often Federal) policies, plans, or departments to instigate a desired change propelled by the efficiency argument. Two quick examples - among many - are the Obamacare iniitative and the entire Department of Education.

In both cases, local control is being subsumed by progressive programs, with the sponsors saying not only do they know what's best for you, but they can apply their brilliance more inexpensively than the local solution. Unfortunately, as the consolidation example illustrates, the reality is that the plans are rarely better, and seldom economicaly beneficial. Think about that the next time someone in a faraway place comes along with a plan to cure whatever ill is on the front page of the papers.

(rant over)

Study: Politicians Are Abnormally Good Stock Pickers. Hmmmm....

2011-05-25T23:22:00.000-04:00

House representatives are up +6% annually over the market in a study of 16,000 trades over 16 years. Senators were even better.

+6%/yr is ludicrous performance. How can it be that people who can't balance the budget can pick winning stocks?

Hmmmm........is it that they're trading on insider info, steering federal spending towards their favorite stocks, or getting 'hot tips' whispered in their ear?

Another picture show n' tell

2011-05-19T00:42:00.000-04:00

Here's one of my favorite shots from my frequent trips into the Blue Ridge mountains. This particular shot is a view southeast from Calvary Rocks in the Shenandoah National Park. (Click to enlarge)

Even today, I can't tell definitively how many ridges are in this picture. Infinity might not be inaccurate.

The view is accessed from the Riprap Trail - one of my favorites having done it at least 3 times (including at least 1 full 10 mile circuit where I saw 6 different black bears, getting to within ~50 feet of a family of bears, as you can see in this pic:

Picture time!

2011-04-21T11:35:00.000-04:00

Here's another of my semi-regular postings of interesting pictures. As always, you can click on the picture for a larger view.

Today's pictures are from Stockholm, Sweden, and they show how incredibly photographic the city is.

With so much of the city surrounded by water, the locals must have been tempted to use some of it for public art, such as this scene in front of the legislature in 2005. It's a brilliant way to spice up an otherwise boring lagoon.

Earlier in the day I was on a hill overlooking a schoolyard. Most every exposed flat area in the schoolyard was painted with a short phrase in English, which I thought was very weird to see in Sweden, especially since there was no commonality shared by the phrases.

I thought the phrase shown in this picture was a very interesting and perhaps educational choice. One other was "Wish you were here," which I assume was inspired by a Pink Floyd song.

Finally, here's one of my favorite images from my trip to Stockholm. It is practically impossible to take a bad picture in Stockholm.

Obama: incendiary rhetoric bad for you, good for me

2011-04-15T11:41:00.000-04:00

This is worth re-blogging. From ABC News White House correspondent Jake Tapper's blog:

President Obama at the GOP House retreat, January 2010:

“We're not going to be able to do anything about any of these entitlements if what we do is characterize whatever proposals are put out there as, ‘Well, you know, that's -- the other party's being irresponsible. The other party is trying to hurt our senior citizens. That the other party is doing X, Y, Z.”

President Obama today (4/13, while introducing his budget proposal):

“One vision has been championed by Republicans in the House of Representatives and embraced by several of their party’s presidential candidates…This is a vision that says up to 50 million Americans have to lose their health insurance in order for us to reduce the deficit. And who are those 50 million Americans? Many are someone’s grandparents who wouldn’t be able afford nursing home care without Medicaid. Many are poor children. Some are middle-class families who have children with autism or Down’s syndrome. Some are kids with disabilities so severe that they require 24-hour care. These are the Americans we’d be telling to fend for themselves.”

I don't begrudge politicians for posturing, exaggeration (50 million Americans?) or even for talking out of both sides of their mouth, but the blatantly provacative and exploitative use of Down's syndrome kids and autistic kids is disgusting, as is the attempt to smear the R's as insensitive to these causes. So much for the notion that Obama was a uniter and not a divider.

Knee surgery update

2011-04-12T20:18:00.002-04:00

“When was your accident?”

I was in my 2-week post-surgical follow-up with my doctor (Dr. Grant)’s ace PA (physician assistant) Vince. He was reviewing pictures from my knee surgery, which was the first time that we had seen real images of my damaged knee.

“Accident? Huh?” I answered.

Vince explained that he was wondering what had happened to so colossally mess-up my knee. I realized what he meant because I had been asked it before. Nobody 40 years old should have this level of cartilage damage without being in some sort of accident.

“Oh, I wasn’t in an accident. But I played catcher for 30 years.”

Vince was startled, but managed to say “Really? That might do it.”

Vince did the 2-week post-op review, and I was lucky to receive rave reviews* – little swelling, good range of motion, and no infections or other complications. There is very little scaring and I’m allowed to resume normal activities “as tolerated,” except I must avoid high impact activities like running.

Though the surgery was a success, the reason for avoiding impact activities can be seen in some of the surgical pictures as seen through the arthroscope during surgery.

Originally, we thought that I had a simple meniscus tear prompting a couple of months of physical therapy to strengthen the surrounding muscles. A few months later, an MRI indicated a slight degradation of my articular cartilage. The pictures, though, showed twice as many areas of cartilage degradation, each many times larger than reported on my MRI.

A little bit on articular cartilage, or chondyle: it’s the very slippery material on the front of the femur at the knee joint that allows smooth and easy bending of knees. How slippery? Cartilage on cartilage rubbing is 10X more slippery than ice rubbing on ice. The articular cartilage is ~4mm thick, and mine had worn to the bone, resulting in arthritis. Yes, I’m a 40 year old with arthritis, but hopefully not for long.

Knee parts:

Copied from http://www.orthspec.com/articular_cartilage_injury.htm

Side view of a cartilage “divot:" (Click on any picture for a larger view).

(Each white area is cartilage, each tan area is bone.)

To repair the “divots” in my knee cartilage, I’ll be going in for another knee surgery (autologous cartilage implantation) in a few months to have new cartilage laid into the gaps – like laying sod or filling a pothole. Just like after laying sod, I’m not allowed any movement for 6-7 weeks post-surgery that could rip up the newly laid cartilage.

Because the replacement cartilage will be frozen for shipment to Virginia, I can choose the schedule for the implantation surgery, so as to schedule when 6-7 weeks of downtime might be convenient. My two thoughts here are to either proceed as soon as possible (likely early June implantation, back on my feet by late July) or to delay until next winter, when I wouldn’t mind being couch-bound and unathletic for 2 months. What would you do?

* For the great 2-week review I have to thank my parents for taking care of me post-surgery and Move Better physical therapy for the post-op rehab.

Sharing some photos

2011-04-05T20:04:00.001-04:00

Since I enjoy photography and have now enabled some graphics-intense ways to view this blog, I'll be posting some of my most favorite or most fun pictures from time to time.

Today's entry was shot in a parking garage in Luebeck, Germany in 2007. I was zipping around Germany with my buddy Kevin when we decided to visit the Christmas Market in the small but very cool Baltic city of Luebeck in north central Germany. The Aldstadt (Old City) is an island in the middle of a river and pedestrian only, so we parked on the outskirts, where we witnessed the locals' sense of humor.

Libya: zero to quagmire in under 30 days.

2011-04-02T18:29:00.001-04:00

I just finished reading an excellent article on the politics of the Libya intervention (erm, kinetic action), by Victor Davis Hanson ("President Obama’s Ten Libyan Paradoxes"
here.) Hanson - a historian and classicist does a great job of illustrating the pickle that we (the US & NATO) are now in.

There aren't many favorable possible outcomes, and the likelihood of them occurring are very small. Consider the top-level possible outcomes:

1. MQ (Moammar Quadaffi) is deposed. A democratic secular government results.
2. MQ is deposed. An Islamic theocracy results.
3. MQ stays in power across all of Libya.
4. Libya splits - MQ continues to rule western Libya.
5. Total chaos.

The fact that only one outcome is truly favorable isn't what bothers me - these scenarios are not easy to control, nor is it easy to define a win. What bothers me is that Obama's strategy has left us exposed to all possible outcomes while pulling off the rare feat of both dirtying our hands with the military action and tying our hands beyond it.

I just can't see many (any) scenarios where we don't escalate anti-MQ activities in the event that MQ hangs on.

I'm also bothered by the context and precedent of the US intervention. Is Obama saying that we should have intervened during the Prague Spring in 1968 (a popular uprising against a dictator who used a modern military on protesters)? If Obama were the King or PM of the UK in 1861, would he have declared a "no sail zone" around the Union states at the beginning of the Civil War? (i.e. aid rebels by neutering the technological & military advantage of the status quo government.)

As for the context, the Obama rationale is to act in Libya to avoid a Rwanda-level genocide. This is of course plausible, but reacting in response to the worst case scenario rather than the most likely or most desired outcome is very poor governance.

Libya itself is small potatoes in the geopolitical world, so what happens on the ground there isn't something to stress about until US actions reach the level of Iraq (boots on the ground.) However, we SHOULD be worried about how other global powers might play this situation. What if China, in a bid to undermine US credibility, negotiated a peace agreement in Libya whereby the rebels get the east of Libya, while MQ gets Tripoli and the west?

This would of course stop (or postpone) the bloodshed, but would leave an enormous amount of egg on Obama's face as the outcome would deliver the necessary peace but directly in contrast to Obama's assertion that MQ "has to go" in order for peace. What happens the next time Obama (or any future US president) asserts that a regime or nation must change behavior?

Introducing new blog formats

2011-04-01T17:59:00.000-04:00

Blogger has enabled new blogging formats perfect for reading via devices with non-traditional form factors (tablets, phones.) CogentPassion can you be viewed using these alternate feeds:

Timeslide
Flipcard (my favorite style, and a great way to get a concise view of many posts. Also perfect if you use Flipboard for the iPad, I expect.)
Mosaic
Sidebar
Snapshot

4 of these 5 styles are very graphic-oriented, which will probably make me want to increase the graphic content of this blog.

Let me know if you have a favorite among these new styles.

MJH Outpatient Surgery & Dr. Grant: two thumbs up!

2011-03-28T17:57:00.002-04:00

Last week I had arthroscopic surgery performed on my left knee by Dr. Grant of Albemarle Orthopaedics at the Martha Jefferson Outpatient Surgery Center. I am now 5 days post-surgery and stunned at the ease and quality of the surgery, care, and facilities.

I first went to Dr. Grant in early fall 2010, though the injury was noticeable months before (I stupidly ran three triathlons on it before giving in to the pain.) I found Dr. Grant's practice through blind luck: I had been calling for an appointment at UVA's Sports Medicine practice, but after three days without a callback to schedule an appointment, I did a search online for local orthopaedists and stumbled onto Dr. Grant's web site.

My initial diagnosis last fall was a torn meniscus - a straighforward injury with non-surgical therapy - and was prescribed a cortisone shot and physical therapy at Move Better Physical Therapy in order to strengthen muscles near the meniscus to compensate.

The knee pain continued and a January cortisone shot had almost no effect. This lead to an MRI for my knee, and the finding that I had a chondral displacement, specifically that I had a roughly 10mm x 10mm area of my chondral cartilage completely missing, with significant deterioration of the remaining cartilage. This injury is typical only in the elderly - it's an accumulated injury. At one point, I was asked if I had an injury that precipitated this, as I was very, very young for this diagnosis. I answered no, but that I had played catcher in baseball for approximately 30 years. The response: "That'll do it."

So I had an osteoarthritic condition which would only get worse with time, severely limiting my mobility, fitness, and quality of life. (No more running or biking for me.) Treatment options were 1) treatment with euflexxa (an injectable acid) to artificially lubricate my knee, 2) simple chondral debridement (arthroscopic clean-up of the messy cartilage. No permanent improvement resulting, but likely less pain and greater mobility), 3) surgical procedures to regrow/replace cartilage (more on this later), or 4) full knee replacement.

I immediately ruled out the full knee replacement, and began researching option#1. Euflexxa was appealing, but had 2 problems: it only treated the symptoms (i.e. the knee problem never went away - it would just hurt less frequently), and each injection provided benefit for only 2-4 months at a time, meaning that I would become a Euflexxa junkie - also bad because Euflexxa is expensive.

So surgery was the answer. The options, were simple clean-up (chondral debridement - a clear preference, though it's long term benefits are debatable), micro-fracture surgery to encourage growth of new cartilage, the "OATS Procedure" (another, more intense way to encourage cartilage growth), or
autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI).

ACI is an amazing surgery - a portion of the injured cartilage is collected then sent to a lab in Boston to be grown into a larger piece of cartilage for re-implantation. This procedure is still new and quite expensive, but ideal for "young, healthy patients with medium to large sized damage to cartilage."

An indication of my extreme interest in my knee health is that even though ACI and the other knee procedures are expensive, I never blinked an eye at the financial commitment. (ACI alone is $20-35,000k. I'm pretty sure that I'll end up paying 20% of the final bill, but it is definitely worth it.)

The unnerving thing about surgery is that the most effective treatment option can't be determined until the surgeon sees the injury up close - in surgery. Surgery involves general anesthesia, so I could not participate in choosing the treatment while Dr. Grant was operating on my knee. I was more freaked out by this than the notion of undergoing surgery (with all of its' risks) or being knocked out. I guess I like to be in control.

The day of surgery came, and while I was nervous, it was a fantastic experience from start to finish.

To begin with, I was instructed to mark which knee was NOT to be operated on - a low tech, but effective step. I also had to go 12 hours without food or water, which was darn hard.

Martha Jefferson's outpatient facility is just a few years old and modern in every way. Given the lobby receptionist, my intake felt more like was visiting someone's business offices than I was about to undergo a medical procedure.

The day unfolded as I had been told to expect - except where MJH and the team exceeded expectations. For example, I had been told that the recovery from anesthesia would take 2-3 hours. However, I was conscious and eating animal crackers 45 minutes post-surgery. Dr. Don Mathes - my anesthetist - was an absolute maestro - verbally walking me thru the procedure, then delivering me on the other side quickly and with absolutely no nausea or side effects.

Dr. Grant was fantastic (as expected) on the day of surgery, and received high marks from someone who would know - my Mom.

My Mom just retired from a 40+ year career as an OR nurse in an outpatient surgery center very similar to MJH and was able to appraise the MJH facility and team (excellent), and got her peer's appraisal of Dr. Grant prior to my surgery. (From one nurse to another, my Mom was pulled aside and told that Dr. Grant was excellent. (You'd be surprised how often the nurse appraisal is "that Doc isn't very good," or "Dr. ______ is the one you want to see." A nurse's appraisal is worth any 100 other reviews.)

I have nothing but high praise for everyone else who worked on me that day. I wish I had a full list of the team that worked on me, but unfortunately I can only go by memory (hazy, due to the anesthesia). The two additional names that standout are Maggie Lebo (who prepped me for surgery), and Judy, an R.N. who screened me and walked me through the procedures.

I'm now 5 days post-surgery and feeling great. I used crutches and pain killers for the first 4 days post-surgery, but I am fully ambulatory (though tender) and have already had 2 physical therapy sessions.

I am under orders to take it easy for the next month. (I haven't even tried to climb a flight of stairs yet) and won't be allowed to bike or swim for about three weeks. In about 10 days I will see Dr. Grant for the post-surgery analysis. My hope is that the chondral debridement (clean-up) will be enough to get me back to pre-injury health, but it is probably 75% certain that I will undergo an additional surgery in 2-3 months to re-implant the replacement cartilage (ACI.) Unfortunately this is going to mess with my cycling and baseball goals this spring/summer, but I know that I will appreciate my improved knee health in the long term.

I'll also increase my appreciation for the US health care system. Politicians keep creating one-size fits all healthcare solutions, but my improved knee health (and overall experience) is only possible (and available at a reasonable price) through specialization. Instead of an expensive hospital stay, I was in and out in ~2 hours, and was able to benefit from the expertise of an orthopedics specialist.

Political solutions like Obamacare are firmly aligned against specialist practices. For example, there are all kinds of regulations against physician-ownership of outpatient facilities, and intense regulation of outpatient competition through things like "certificate of need" legislation. (In Florida, for example, you can not open a new hospital or surgical facility unless the nearby hospitals sign-off that there is a need for additional surgical capacity. In practice, this squishes competition.)

This most often takes the form of a big hospital lobbying to stop the permitting of a specialized center, such as for heart surgery. Heart surgery is fairly profitable for a large hospital, but a specialized (focused) center will deliver better results at a lower price. The big hospital fears that eventually the focused heart center will take customers away, raising the fixed price of all of the healthcare they deliver (e.g. still paying for the costs of establishing their heart center.)

In much the same spirit, my therapy was only possible due to R&D incented by the American healthcare system and profit motive. Only ~10,000 patients have had my surgery so far, and this would not be possible without clinicians mindful of adopting new, advanced procedures (due to the pressure of market competition, rather than the status quo of nationalized healthcare), and my ACI therapy would not be possible without the R&D and regulatory effort by Genzyme (an American biotech company.)

The regulatory pressures (as from Obamacare) combine to make our healthcare more expensive and less effective as possible. There are additional dimensions to the US system that I experienced that will make for another post (for example, I was ~3 weeks from decision to surgery. In Canada or the UK, I'd be lucky to experience 3 months from decision to surgery), but suffice to say, I had an excellent experience with Dr. Grant, his team, MJH, and the US healthcare system.

Two different tsunami stories of huge magnitude

2011-03-14T00:06:00.001-04:00

Something about the Japan tsunami and quake that blew me away: as reported by CNN, the quake moved the main island of Japan 8 feet and moved the Earth's axis 4 inches. This was caused by the 18-meter (~59 foot) movement of two tectonic plates off of Japan. Unbelievable, as is this picture:

(My guess is that the airbase didn't have enough pilots on duty to move the plane in advance of the tsunami.)

and.....

Apparently, researchers believe that Atlantis has been found (in Spain), and that Atlantis was the victim of.....you guessed it, a tsunami

Things to ponder......

2011-02-24T13:02:00.000-05:00

-Col. Qadaffi, Libya's ruler, has been in power for 41 years. Why is he still a Colonel?

You'd think that dictators can promote themselves to any position that they want. Does he not think his performance has been promotion worthy in 41 years?

Launching two new blogs.....

2011-02-21T18:34:00.000-05:00

I've launched two new blogs just for fun:

Apple B.S. - business-oriented commentary on Apple. I've been a hard-core Apple fan for a decade, and enjoy playing along with the company's product and strategy development.

Molecular Future - biotech and more specifically genomics commentary from a guy in the business. A successor to my Xcovery biotech business blog of 5 years ago that still generates consistent traffic.

Please check 'em out and forward any hints/tips/ideas to improve my blogs. Oh, and click on an ad too!

No way I'm missing the next revolution.

2011-02-12T18:59:00.001-05:00

Congratulations, Egypt! You've done something amazing and wonderful and we all look forward to your future as a vibrant democracy. (Not so sure about the vibrant part. Per capita GDP is ~ $2,700, and the government employs 39% of the workforce. Can a young democracy make the hard changes in spending required to grow?)

Egypt has also served to reinvigorate our appreciation of liberty.

Liberty lacks in appreciation for many reasons, but happily the overall international trend is very positive. We can add Egypt to the list of "color" revolutions just in this last decade, joining the Ukraine, Yugoslavia (Serbia), Georgia, Lebanon, and Tunisia in regime change. Iraq (purple) and Iran (green) are also cited as color revolutions. I don't think this long term trend has been considered much in the US.

What these countries also have in common - along with the former Eastern Bloc in the late '80's/early '90s - is that they are revolutions that I only saw on TV.

I was in college when the Berlin Wall fell (Oct 1989?). I remember a fellow student @ W&L who, realizing the monumental importance of the event (and the fun of partying with reuniting Germans), quickly booked a plane ticket to Germany, and witnessed history for a few days before returning back to campus.

I didn't have then the means, the appreciation or even the passport to do something similar, but the idea of doing so has stuck with me through all of the revolutions since. When the protests started in Egypt, I realized that I had the resources to just hop on a plane to go experience history, but made too many excuses not to go. ("What, take a week off? I can't.....)

How cool would it be to be in Cairo right now? After seeing the events unfold in Egypt, I'm more motivated than ever to witness the next revolution in person. When the next one breaks, I'm going!*

(If you're a friend who might be interested in joining me when the time comes, let's talk. I also want to hear from any friends who might have already witnessed history in this way. (Tom D?))

Only an expensive plane ticket and skipping out on some ongoing US obligations (like a job or family) are remotely good excuses not to go.

As for the plane ticket, I've got >200,000 frequent flyer miles, and even if I have to spend some cash, what good is it for if not to partake in events like a revolution?

As for obligations, I think we all overstate the importance of our day-to-day obligations. There aren't too many jobs that can't do without you for a week, and we all have too many events or connections that we overvalue. (I think I could safely skip a UVa football or basketball home game.)

So, I'm going to the next one. Hold me to it.

Here's my short list of exciting possibilities for the location of the next 'color revolution':

Belarus
Burma
China
Cuba
Iran
Russia
Syria
Venezuela
and a couple of piddly African (Zimbabwe?) and Middle Eastern countries.

My guess is that I'll be traveling to Minsk, Belarus next. (Which is exciting because it is already on my "wanna go there list.") Unfortunately, I don't see the big ones (China, Russia, or Cuba) revolting soon. But we can hope.

* I reserve the right to skip piddly revolutions (Yemen?) and revolutions in sparsely populated, uninteresting countries (Algeria?)

Just to stir the pot a bit: besides the Egyptians themselves (winners) and other Middle East regimes (losers), who are the other winners and losers:

Winners:

George W. Bush - I'm still not a fan, but maybe he was on to something in the Middle East.

Israel - they are rightfully nervous with the change as Mubarak - in spite of his other faults - represented stability in a region short on it. I still think that over the long term, Israel will be safer with a democracy as a neighbor that a dictator.

The west's security/war on Jihad - what if - sensing domestic opportunity - the jihadists shift their attention from the Great Satan (us) to their local monarchs, dictators, and oppressors? Could (for example) al qaieda shift effort from trying to strike at the west (London bombings, etc.) to trying to dethrone the House of Saud?

Losers:

Obama foreign policy - I thought the Obama administration struck the right tone during the 18 days of protests in Egypt, but Egypt still represents a faulty policy, and underscores the failure of supporting the Iranians in revolt in 2009.

Remember, Obama chose Egypt as the place to deliver his initial entreaties to Islam just after taking office in 2009. His message - as I recall - was basically "We're not as bad as the last 8 years have made you think, and I want to work with you." Noble thoughts, but they can't begin to compare with more directed foreign policies by prior American leaders. (Think Reagan's "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.") (Sure, Obama's Cairo speech wasn't the setting to crank up the rhetoric, but Obama's accomodative speech and his policy in the Middle East over the last 2 years are similar.)

Obama missed a chance when the Iranian people protested in 2009. The administration took a position of non-interference in order to establish a new relationship with the crazy people running Iran. I definitely believe that a full-blown revolution in Iran faltered in 2009 because of a lack of public support by the USA due to intentional diplomatic insouciance. (Not the first time that this has happened - GW Bush left the Iraqi Kurds hanging when they tried to revolt against Saddam Hussein following the first Gulf War.)

The lesson here is that when we identify 100% bad regimes (such as Iran, or the Soviet Union), public accommodation in any form is to dilute our foreign policy goals and diminish US values. (In essence, we tacitly support and play down to the level of the regime.)

Along those lines: The US' ability to learn lessons and adapt foreign policies. We have a really bad habit of tolerating anti-democratic allies. While the outcome in Egypt in 2011 is far more positive than Iran in 1979 (much more like Ferdinand Marcos & the Philippines in the late '80's), we still made the same mistake: holding our nose and backing a bad guy because of short-term geopolitical considerations.

Sometimes this makes sense when small progress can be seen over time, as in South Korea, where the US backed a military-led government, as the country "matured" into the vibrant democracy it is today. However, Mubarak never liberalized at all over 30 years. (He kept emergency laws in place all 30 years.)

The good news is that there aren't too many other current examples of the US tolerating local dictators in order to support US geopolitical interests. All I can think of are the countries neighboring Afghanistan - the former Soviet "-stans," and Pakistan. (Where the government is less dictatorial than dysfunctional.)

Washington DC Triathlon

2010-12-10T02:27:00.002-05:00

(post from June 2010 previously lost in the ether)

I had a blast this past weekend celebrating my 40th birthday and racing in the Washington DC triathlon.

I'm pretty happy with my race performance - I beat all of my goal times, though my performance was hampered by knee sprain bad enough to make me walk gingerly for more than a week.

Results:

Swim (800m/half-mile): 16:06 - top quartile overall - 277th of out 1141 competitors (27 of 78 in my age group.)

Bike (20k/12.4 miles): 40:37 - top half - 504 out of 1141 competitors (47 of 78 in my age group.)

Run (6.7k/4.2 miles): 49:00 - Bad. How bad? Ummm, I beat only 6 guys in my age group.

Thru two-thirds of the race (swim + bike), I was 47th of 78 in my age group, and in the top half of all competitors (502 of 1141).

Here's a collection of pictures of the D. C. triathlon.

Tim Gallagher pardoned by Obama!

2010-12-09T19:38:00.000-05:00

More here.

OK, so it's really not me - I'm not 58, don't live in Texas, and don't have a cocaine conviction, but it was fun to write the headline.

This came up when I was doing a routine check of how traffic arrives at my blog. I saw that someone in Holland came to my site after a search on "Timmy Gallagher Obama." My first thought was the my insightful political commentary must carry alot of weight in Europe (ha!), but a quick search revealed the news of Obama's pardon.

This story also reminded me of the time the DMV mixed my records up with another Tim Gallagher. It was quite a shock to learn that I had warrants out for me in states that I've never been to!

(while the DMV episode wasn't fun, it beats the heck out of identity theft.)

more proof that Ben Franklin was spot on...

2010-12-09T19:21:00.000-05:00

Just saw this quote from Franklin and thought it worth repeating:

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” —Benjamin Franklin

2010 Election observations from a non-politician

2010-11-03T01:09:00.001-04:00

I enjoy watching the results pour in on election night, and always imagine myself as one of the political commentators on CNN, seated between Paul Begala and David Gergen. The reporting teams at CNN and the other networks do a good job of setting the headlines ("Republican wave sweeps Congress"), but tend to lack deeper analysis, so here's my deeper observations on the 2010 elections.

1. The most important man in Congress is now.....Joe Lieberman. As of this writing, which party will control the Senate is unclear, but the outcome will certainly be close, meaning that a 1-Senator swing will be enough to deliver or sink important legislation. There are already rumors that Lieberman might caucus with the R's, and he has the credibility and gravitas to work across party lines even if he stays with the D's. Legislation coming from the D's will need to be within Lieberman's comfort zone ideologically in order to move forward, and likewise, bills coming from the R's will be seeking to pick off Lieberman's support. In short, Lieberman will likely be the deciding vote.

2. Republican candidate diversity augers well for the future. Completely underreported is how the R-party has introduced more attractive candidates who aren't white males. Think of the most prominent R-candidates nationally (not all will win, but they're the people you recognize): Angle, Fiorina, Haley, McMahon, O'Donnell, Rubio, Whitman - all diverse. What you might not know are the regionally recognizable diverse R-candidates who won or are in a tight race: Ayotte (NH sen), Allen West (FL-22), Tim Scott (SC-1), Susana Martinez (NM-gov), Jan Brewer (AZ-gov). Even before all results are in, the Republicans can boast the first Latina governor (Martinez), the first woman Indian-American governor (Haley), (joining Bobby Jindal as Republican Indian-American govs), and at least 2 new African-American representatives.

3. The most significant thing to happen tonight was Marco Rubio's senate win in Florida. Not only is Rubio the Tea Party ideology personified, Rubio represents a fresh face for Republicans, a future national candidate, a foundation for the R's in Florida for perhaps the next 36 years and a clear connection with the Hispanic voters. In short, Marco Rubio = Barack Obama, circa 2006, as this WSJ article suggests. Confirming this notion is the attention that Bill Clinton paid to the Florida senate race last week, trying to get the Democrat to drop out of the race to block Rubio. Say what you want about Clinton the President, but he is a tremendous politician, and he realizes the long term implications for his party with Rubio's success.

4. The trajectory of the Tea Party movement was boosted by the results. Critics say that the Tea Party is a novelty of this election cycle, and expect it to fade away, much like Ross Perot after 1992, but I believe that their accomplishments in only two years of existence suggests long term success. For all of the effort by mainstream politicians and media to marginalize the Tea Party (and let's be honest, O'Donnell and Angle beg to be marginalized), I'd say that the Tea Party has been wildly successful in their first try. I expect that the Tea Party will better vet their candidates in the next election cycle, and there will be less embarrassments (O'Donnell) and more candidates with broad appeal (Rubio, Rand Paul.) The only thing that can curb the rise of the Tea Party is if the D's or R's can deliver a balanced budget amendment or other legislation to institutionalize the Tea Party's core issue, fiscal restraint.

Plus, two predictions:

1. Neither the R's or D's will really "get" the implications of the 2010 elections. Despite their statements on election night, the R's will continue to believe that voters chose R's, rather than voting against D's. The R's in Congress will poll the Tea Party's platform points, co-opt the 3 or 4 that sound best, then hope the Tea Party goes away. Meanwhile the D's will believe in the delusional excuses that they're trotting out. Both parties are congenitally disposed to believe that the party elites are leading the nation, but in reality, they're following the unwashed masses.

2. Obama will not meaningfully move to the right and will face a challenge in the 2012 D primary from Hillary Clinton. These is nothing in Obama's political history to suggest that he seeks, learns from, and integrates feedback, and, if his first two years are indicative, he views legislative compromise as something to be avoided. Obama is a practitioner of hardball politics - play hard, and deal when necessary to get the votes. (Case in point: it was more expedient to offer Ben Nelson the "Cornhusker Kickback" (and similar offers to others) then to change the HC legislation to gain compromise.) Also, when under political stress, Obama's default mode is to demonize the opposition (think about how he has wailed on insurance companies, oil companies, banks, and special interests, when advantageous to the legislation at hand), rather than seek a mutually satisfactory outcome. This instinct -while common in politics - is unproductive in a split Congress.

I think Obama will seek non-economic left/progressive issues that have better than average appeal in the general populace, and use these issues as a wedge against R's. (For example, I think Obama will try to make immigration a prominent issue.) The R's will retreat to "Just say no mode," and the country will suffer. The combination of Obama's hard left policies, and not much political progress due to the stalemate in Congress will enable Hillary Clinton to run to the right of Obama (but still left of center).

Obama in Charlottesville: thoughts and observations

2010-10-30T09:43:00.003-04:00

Background: Obama was in Charlottesville to support incumbent Representative Democrat Tom Perriello in his re-election campaign against Robert Hurt in Virginia’s 5^th District (VA-5). Perriello came to office in 2008, riding Obama’s coattails to beat a long time Republican incumbent by~ 700 votes. Since the 2008 election pundits on both sides have recognized that the VA-5 race 2010 is a key battleground, testing both the approval of Obama’s policies, and seeing if a normally Republican district had undergone a long-term change. Polls suggest that Perriello trails Hurt by 6-10%, with Obama’s visit testing his ability to impact the race.

(Author’s background: I’m an independent voter, leaning Libertarian (i.e. towards economic conservatism and mildly liberal social policies, though abhorring progressivism.) I voted for Perriello in 2008, but will be voting for Hurt in 2010. See the bottom of this post for my voting rationale.)

-Obama gave a very good, positive speech, heavy on the change theme, definitely exciting his base and the crowd. Discussion of the Obama administration’s accomplishments/achievements/initiatives were surprisingly light. I didn’t feel like he was trying to sell any new or old programs, but rather to appeal to people with his vision. My guess is that this is Obama’s comfort zone, and what the crowd really wanted to hear, rather than a pitch for expanded infrastructure investment (for example).

Quick observations:

-He spoke for a solid half-hour off of a telepromptr.

-1 mention of Iraq, no mention of Afghanistan, no mention of terrorism (odd, given the news of the day (Yemen)).

-There was zero name calling and almost no jabs aimed at “the other party.” No Republicans were named in the speech (though he did make a reference to the Minority Leader). A couple of references were made to ‘special interests.’

-Obama listed several reasons why the US is in the dumps economically, but I do not believe he named any of the actual, substantive causes. (Fannie Mae…….) Several times he made reference how the economic crisis was due to Republican policies. Almost as many times Obama pointedly stated that there would have been a second Great Depression if he hadn’t taken the necessary steps. (Like TARP, though that word was definitely not used.)

-Side note: Obama used first-person personal pronouns exclusively – “I avoided another Great Depression,” and “I put into effect a $2,500 tuition tax credit.” I can’t recall when he referred to “We,” or “our efforts.” Some would like the fact that he's taking ownership of the issues and outcomes, while some would say that this is another example of the cult of the presidency.

-No mention of the payback and financial return of the bank bailout. I guess that issue is nuclear.

-Obama definitely did NOT directly tie the 2010 election to his. As in “a vote for Tom is a vote for me.” This message was present, though unstated.

-There was a bit of demagoguery aimed at insurance companies, banks, and big business. Whatever makes you feel better, buddy………

-There was repeated of mention of the need to vote for Perriello to continue the change started in 2008, but the change was largely abstract, and there was never really any allusion to a tangible outcome or benefit for voters or America. (As an counterexample, it could have been “In 2011, we want to change _______, and we need Tom’s vote to make the change happen.”) To me, this is equivalent to a salesman making a pitch, but never asking for the business. It might also be an either an indication that the Obama administration doesn’t really have any idea of where to go to next, or an admission that the agenda is likely to change with the new Congress, and it might not be Obama’s agenda to write.

-On the other hand, Perriello, who preceded the President, sounded like Santa Claus handing out gifts from a goody bag, the repeated theme being “I helped bring 1,800 green jobs to Charlottesville…. I got a $2,500 tuition tax credit approved, which is now being used by X# of people in our district……” His argument was basically vote for me and you’ll all get more goodies worth more in value than what you’re giving up in taxes. (Not hard when the Federal government spends ~35% more than tax revenue taken in.)

-Estimated attendance at the event by the Cville Fire Marshal: 9,000 in the pavilion, 3,000 outside (where I was). I don’t think Fire Marshals are selected for their math skills, as these are pretty badly inflated –various websites and press releases list the capacity of the Pavilion at (alternatively) 900, 1,100, or 3,500 people. I’d say of those figures, 3,500 is most reasonable, though a bit high. If you get rid of aisles, and pack people in, I could see it getting to ~5,000 people inside. I was in the first 20 feet of the area outside the Pavilion, and had the sense that there were a lot of people behind me, but because of the dark and the narrowness of the Downtown Mall, I couldn’t estimate what that total was, though based on how easy my post-rally walk from Downtown Mall was, I can’t believe there were 3,000 people outside the Pavilion, nor 12,000 people alongside or behind me overall.

-My spot for the rally was just a few feet away from the Free Speech Wall on the Downtown Mall – pretty close in. Nonetheless, I never actually saw the President as I was still ~800 feet away from the stage. Luckily, the sound system was turned up for Obama’s speech, so the event was still electrifying.

-Security was nowhere near as prominent as I expected. Sure, there were Uniformed Secret Service to go along with city and county police, as well as plain clothes Secret Service traveling with the President, but security personnel and procedures did not seem out of line with the event. After the speech I waited around to see the Presidential motorcade which was very exciting, but not as overwhelming as I guessed. The whole entourage returning to the Charlottesville airport was ~7 cars, including State Police. I always had assumed that Presidents traveled with a long tail (everything from a physician to guys carrying briefcases with nuclear launch codes), but it looked more like a family outing – albeit one with armored Chevy Suburbans and a police escort.

A few other surprises to me:

-I stood in a pack of several hundred people and at the peak of pre-speech anticipation, I heard a few feet away from me a tiny dog yapping his brains out. Who brings a dog to a political rally, and who puts that dog on the ground in the forest of attendees?

-The Uniformed Secret Service agents looked only slightly more alert and physically imposing than shopping mall rent-a-cops.

-I never saw a protester of any variety, and never even saw campaign signs of any flavor. A few people wore Perriello stickers, but that’s it.

-Having Air Force One fly overhead is undeniably cool. We didn't get the real 747 AF One but rather a twin-engine 757 or 767. Glad I didn't go to the airport (my other choice) expecting to see the big bird, and miss this event.

The crowd was enthusiastic and impressive in its’ commitment. Some started queuing in the morning (Obama went on around 8pm). I talked with some folks who as of 7pm had been in line for 1.5 hours and they not only didn’t have a prayer of getting in, I wouldn’t be surprised if they never even got within sight of the Pavilion (if they stayed in line.) My guess is that is if you weren’t in line 3.5 hours before the event, you weren’t getting in.

The biggest roar was in support of the healthcare bill.

I noticed from conversations around me that a good percentage of the attendees were from out of the area - maybe 20-30% of the crowd around me based on questions about where the good restaurants were, or overheard cellphone conversations. With such a high out-of-area presence, one might wonder how effective the rally was for Perriello in VA-5. I guess we’ll find out this Tuesday.

My voting rationale: IMHO, Perriello has done a good job servicing the district, and has certainly put his all towards the job. He’s the rare Democrat in 2010 running on the Obama record, which his voting supported, instead of trying to run from it, to Tom’s credit.

But this means that the VA-5 election is a referendum on Obama’s Presidency, which I am frankly very, very disappointed in, in just about every dimension. (I’ll save my analysis & opinion of the Obama administration for another post.)

Perriello is also an underwhelming character. As a progressive he has all of the solutions for everything but too naïve and ineffective to realize that most of the solutions are either impractical and uneconomic, driven by special interests, or ideas selected for their appearance rather than their effectiveness. He voted in step with his party on all of the major issues, and there’s every indication that when he didn’t, it was with the blessing of the Speaker & Majority Whip.

Perriello’s peer in shortcomings is his opponent, Robert Hurt. I’d like to provide a strong list of Hurt’s positives, but instead I’d say that he is generally underwhelming, and too blindly partisan. His main attribute: that he isn’t Tom Perriello.

Thought of the day:

2010-10-21T17:24:00.002-04:00

“It’s nice to elect the right people, but that isn’t the way you solve things. The way you solve things is by making it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right things.” - Milton Friedman.

What's wrong with this picture?

2010-09-14T20:53:00.000-04:00

I picked up today's WSJ and noticed front page stories about:

-a large state-owned financial institution and the actions of it's government overseers.

-a President promising openness and fair treatment for foreign investors

-a plan to rejuvenate a nation's economy by eliminating 500,000 government jobs and instead relying on the private sector to drive economic growth.

One of these stories was about the free-market United States, while the other two were about Communist countries (China and Cuba). Can you guys which was which?

(Yeah, China's President is promising openness and Cuba is cutting 500,000 government jobs. All the while the US government's slice of the economy continues to grow, and our economy posts anemic growth.)

So you think you had a bad day.....

2010-07-28T20:00:00.002-04:00

An F-18 stalled and crashed while making a low pass over an airfield in Canada. The pilot ejected just in time, and whole experience was caught on film and video (more pics and full video available here.)

The pilot was hospitalized but survived. (I remember reading that the rocket ejection seats are so powerful that pilots who eject have their spines compressed by a few inches, an effect which lasts a few days.)

Doesn't this look like fun?

2010-06-03T00:46:00.005-04:00

I finished my first triathlon of the year, a sprint triathlon at the YMCA in Richmond's Shady Grove area, and, as luck would have it, about two miles from my sister's house.

The tri was a 300M indoor swim, a 20K bike ride, and a 5K run. All in all, I'm pretty happy with my effort. I beat my goal time by about 3 minutes (total time of 1 hour 23 minutes 56 seconds), with my swim time exactly as targeted, a minute quicker in transition#1, and two minutes better than targeted on the bike. The run wasn't fun, and I can definitely improve, but I pretty much hit my goal time for that portion of the event.

Relative to the rest of the competition, I was in the top 30-40% of all competitors on the swim and the top 20-30% on the bike, meaning I was definitely in the top third going into the run, where I either laid an egg or performed as expected, depending on your point of view. End result: I finished 19th of 28 in the Clydesdale category (>200lbs, all ages), and 297th of 493 finishers.

I've continued my training, as I have two more triathlons in June. I expect to perform at least as well in the swim and bike, and to pick up significant time in the run. My two races this month include:

- a very cool (but long) race in Washington that finishes at the steps of the US Capital, and includes a swim in the Potomac, and a bike leg in front of the White House.

-the Charlottesville Sprint Tri, a repeat of the event that was my first triathlon ever.

Doesn't this look like fun?

Pics from the annual spring training trip this past weekend

2010-03-25T16:06:00.001-04:00

This year in Florida. To view the album, click here.

A couple off interesting things.....

2010-03-09T11:21:00.002-05:00

First, check out this chart of true government debt levels ad consider its' implications. It's become accepted based on the work of Reinhart and Rogoff that real problems occur once government debt exceeds 90% of GDP, based on a measure of government debt outstanding.

However, the US government has made a variety of long-term promises (mostly mortgage guarantees (Fannie & Freddie) and health care for retirees and federal employees) that dwarf the amount of outstanding debt. As you can see in the chart, the US is basically "next in line" after Greece, prompting one of my favorite authors, Niall Ferguson to predict a Greece-type crisis for America, while another writer that I admire, Martin Wolf, argues otherwise. The Ferguson-Wolf debate is summarized here.

(I think Wolf is more in the right, meaning that government will just print whatever money is necessary to cover the debt. Unfortunately, this means certain inflation.)

Other interesting things that I've read recently:

The earthquake in Chile moved the city of Concepcion 10 feet! I find this absolutely incredible. Imagine the force required to an entire city 10 feet to the west!

The phenomenon was observed all across the continent. Even Buenos Aires - 800 miles from the Quake's epicenter - moved an inch.

Last interesting fact of the day (I can't find the story online): Google (and it's businesses, like YouTube) currently accounts for 10% of all internet traffic. I'm both stunned and gratified by this number. Stunned that any companyhas so much market share in such a large space, and gratified, because this figure proves the distributed nature of the internet and that even at 10%, Google is not in any position to dominate.

Post-storm view of Mr. Jefferson's Rotunda

2010-02-23T00:37:00.001-05:00

With temps reaching the 50's this weekend, conditions were ideal for a long, long walk around Charlottesville. Here's a quick view of the Rotunda and The Lawn at UVA taken during my walk and 16 days post-snowstorm.....

Why we kiss.....

2010-02-13T23:09:00.000-05:00

I really enjoy it when pop culture and biology intersect. Just in time for Valentine's Day, a technical but understandable explanation of the biological roots of kissing.

No one knows for sure, but one guess is that we kiss because that's how some of our ape ancestors fed each other!

Another guess is that it is how women biologically screen their potential mates. The theory is that at a subconscious level, women are looking for mates with different immune responses than their own, making their offspring sturdier, and that this information (MHC complex) is detectable via kiss.

Any and all of these explanations might be scientists reaching too far, but they're all technically plausible.

Another timely Jefferson quote.....

2010-01-25T16:10:00.002-05:00

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies." TJ.

The guy was well ahead of his time.....

Timely Thomas Jefferson quote....

2010-01-24T12:17:00.000-05:00

"We have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious."-- Thomas Jefferson

MLK's "I have a dream" @ Lincoln Memorial in 2010

2010-01-18T12:02:00.003-05:00

To get you in the mood for today's holiday: something I lucked into
this weekend when visiting the Lincoln Memorial in DC:

Coming back from SF via DC, I spent part of Saturday roaming the National Mall and lucked into a Park Sevice program honoring MLK. After an informative lecture about MLK and the rally where he delivered the "I have a dream" speech, the Park Service ranger - speaking to the group of us assembled on the Lincoln Memorial steps, stepped back, asked us to imagine what it was like that day, then played the most powerful part of the speech.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGISjVK_ziE

Scenic view of San Francisco from Twin Peaks

2010-01-15T01:29:00.002-05:00

Quick little vid of view from San Francisco's Twin Peaks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqhjfucrwrg

Obama:business::oil:water

2009-11-25T19:36:00.001-05:00

One thing about the Obama administration that has torqued me up is the negative attitude towards business - in just 10 months, he's railed about the evil insurance industry and the horrible bankers, taken aim at credit card companies, promoted an anti-industry cap and trade policy, nationalized the car industry, and demonized the pharmaceutical and hospital industries while he tries to remake 1/6th of the US economy.

But now, it all makes sense to me after seeing some recent analysis from JP Morgan. Check out this graphic from JP Morgan showing the %age of cabinet officers with private sector experience since the Teddy Roosevelt administration.

(full explanation here. (American Enterprise blog.))

This is troublesome on 3 levels:

1) There's no business expertise around Obama to provide real world advice or context for the challenge of getting the economy going. (In fact, this may be why all of the White House rhetoric is around "jobs" and not "economic growth." While jobs and economic growth are often synonymous, the difference is that dictators and deficit-spending politicians can create jobs out of thin air by fiat, but can't make an economy grow without good ideas and expereinced managers to make them happen.)

Without real-world experience to advise Obama, count on more programs that are selected because they sound good politically or test well in focus groups, but don't do a darn net thing economically, like cash for clunkers or the proposed employee hiring tax credit.

2) You are who you surround yourself with. Seeing that only a fraction of people around Obama have ever held a real job makes me think that he's surrounded by sycophants, lifelong politicians, and issues-oriented hangers-on. Prior to their cabinet positions, these people specialized in 1 thing: getting elected. This is great if you're up for re-election in 2012, but truly terrible for the those of us who aren't. These aren't the folks who will make the best decisions for America, but will ultimately make decisions that are best for them and their political career, because it is what they have been doing for decades.

3) This is more evidence that Obama highly values the political elite ruling class, and undervalues the working class. Case in point: Obama made 3 different nominations for the Secretary of Commerce (Bill Richardson (fmr gov of NM), Sen Judd Gregg, and ultimately Gary Locke (fmr gov of WA). You'd think that the at least one of the three nominees for COMMERCE of all positions would come from the business world - either immediately, or recently, but no, all three are career politicians. Based on the composition of Obama's leadership team, when it comes time to talk about stimulus ideas, do you think he's going to hear the best ideas, or the best politically motivated ideas? Will we get the ideas that make our economy better, or the ones that get us in the best shape in late 2012, when Obama stands for re-election?

Since winning the election a year ago, I haven't posted anything critical of Obama. There's some things that Obama has done that I've liked and others that I haven't, but I fervently hope that he is generally successful. With the approach to date, and the roster of talent that we see, I don't think it likely - he'll be made vulnerable by plainly liberal policies and undone by a poor economy. I hope even the most strident Obama advocate would agree that the Obama administration would be more effective with more people on his team who have worked in the real world, and less reliance on career political class and unicorn chasers.

More cool stuff.....

2009-11-18T23:26:00.000-05:00

Check out these kitesurfers jumping over a huge pier during a storm off of England. It's absolutely crazy!

Next up: some mind-blowing statistics from Worldometers.info. Did you know that every day the world expands by ~220,000 people? (It's like adding another Dallas-Fort Worth to the world every month.) Or did you know that 3X as many people will die this year due to smoking as will die from HIV/AIDS?
(Hat tip to ScienceRoll for pointing out this site.)

Finally: 35 insanely cool pictures of the Martian landscape like the one below hosted at the incomparable "Big Picture" blog at Boston.com. (You should have this in your RSS reader or check their picture compilations at least twice a week.)

(when I first saw this, I couldn't tell if it was an ink stain, a person's tattoo, or shift desert sands, but it's really Mars.)

Whither Facebook

2009-10-30T01:18:00.000-04:00

I joined Facebook this week in order to receive some free iTunes music. Of course, EVERYBODY is already on Facebook, so in just a little while I was hooked up with about 40 friends, and have had the full Facebook experience for the last few days.

I thought that I had been missing out - that I was missing tons of fun, and that I would discover loads of long lost friends and contacts. So far, I just don't get it. Facebook seems to me to be an endless stream of 2 things - parents posting pictures of their kids, and people posting inane page updates like what they just ate, what their day has been like or this one: "I need one more Firebomb!! Does anyone have one that they can give me?" (someone playing a game called Mafia Wars).

(As an aside, can anyone tell me why it makes sense to make your profile photo a picture of your 5-year old, or your pet chihuahua?)

I'd also read in some industry journals that Facebook thinks there is much more to their business than simply hosting pictures and facilitating blog-type postings. Like competing against Google in search.

I really don't see it. Facebook isn't anything special, and unless something amazing happens in the next few weeks, I think Facebook - for me at least - will be a once-a-month check-in kind of thing.

Grab bag with more cool stuff.

2009-10-30T00:44:00.007-04:00

Here's a quote worth reading and couple of great articles to make up for my Facebook-like natterings:

Quote:

"This is the issue...... Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man’s age-old dream — the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order — or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, “The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.”

The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose."

Is that Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul or Jeff Flake critiquing the Obama governing philosophy? Nope, it's from 1964, also known as the beginning of the Great Society. This quote was delivered as part of a larger, very prominent speech written and delivered by none other than Ronald Reagan in support of Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign. As CATO points out, today is the 45th anniversary of the speech, and it is as relevant today, as it was then.

2 articles worth your time:

Everything You Know About China Is Wrong

and

The Long Road to Indecision

If you're an Obama fan, this article tracks the evolution of the US Af-Pak strategy. If you're not an Obama fan, you'll read this as 7 months of dawdling, indecision, and confusion.

At the least, it is clear at this stage that Obama is waiting for the US elections next week before announcing his decision on McChrystal's request. No matter which way he goes, he'll disappoint a large number of people. I just wonder if the the stalling ight be costing lives.

How to pick your religion......

2009-10-29T00:22:00.000-04:00

Check out this hilarious flow chart to help you select your next religion. Who knew the keys to finding spiritual bliss were your attitude towards hummus and bacon.

(Original found here: the Friendly Atheist.)

Cool stuff....

2009-10-19T22:18:00.002-04:00

Stuff so cool I just had to share:

A map of every space mission in the last 50 years. National Geographic plotted every previous and current space exploration mission. My favorite part is the "mileage" gauge at the bottom of the graphic. (Hat tip to Instapundit and Popular Science for linking to Nat Geo.) http://www.flickr.com/photos/adamcrowe/4002050596/sizes/o/

The Geography of Jobs - a very cool graphic showing where job growth and decline occurred in the US from 2004-2009. If you mentally overlay local economic models, you can come to some cool conclusions For example. Texas grows and Michigan shrinks. I wonder if that might have something to do with low taxes vs. high, and right-to-work vs. high unionization. Or, draw your own conclusions.....

Finally, check out this SNL skit where Barack Obama transform into "Rock Obama," featuring Charlottesville resident Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson ripping off the arm of Senator Mitch McConnell, and throwing Sen Max Baucus out a White House window. It's good for a chuckle, but I think SNL missed out on a chance for an even funnier skit.

Triathlon results

2009-10-12T12:27:00.005-04:00

Yesterday I ran my second triathlon, the Richmond Sprint Triathlon (quarter mile pool swim, 20K bike ride, and 5K run.) I'm very happy with my time, though I also see lots of room for improvement.

Overall, I finished 306th out of 529 finishers. This breaks down as:

(italics represent figures for the whole field)

Swim: 7:59, good for 156th overall out of 529 - i really screwed up my breathing by the second lap. I can take 30 to 45 seconds off this next time. (Median time: 8:57; best time: 5:09.)

Transition 1 (swim to bike): 4:57 seconds - it didn't seem that long, but the result is terrible - I was the 455th of 529) in transition. You can't imagine how hard it is to put a tight long sleeve shirt over a wet body! (Also, the transition included a quarter mile run from the pool to my bike, while wet, in low 50's temps, barefoot, and with only my trunks on. Not fun.) (Median time: 4:18; best time: 1:36.)

Bike: 41:29, good for 164th overall (of 529), in spite of the fact that I dropped my water bottle on an uphill climb, costing me at least a minute while I turned around, picked it up, and regained momentum. (Median time: 44:41; best time 29:48).

Through the bike stage, I was 179th of 529 - the top third of all competitors.

Transition 2 (bike to run): 2:29 (470th of 529)- again, really stinky, considering all I had to do was rack my bike, take off my helmet, and put on my running shoes. I did decide to stretch briefly. (Median time: 1:33; best time: 0:41.)

Run: 34:47 (436 of 529). Good news, bad news here. My legs felt soooo heavy coming off the bike. With additional training, I know I can take at least five minutes off this time. Good news is that I took about 2.5 minutes off of my 5K time in my first triathlon. (Median time: 28:41; best time: 17:45)

(So, if I just did the median transition times, didn't drop my water bottle on the bike, and ran at my potential (~29 mins), I'd cut 8:22 off my time, which would have been good for 184th lace (of 529.))

But considering how the triathlon field skews towards younger competitors (average age is probably 26 or 27 - I'm 39), and considering how I don't exactly have a triathlete's body, I'm much happier when looking at my results in my competition category - "Clydesdales," which is for anybody over 200 pounds (I'm ~235.)

My ranks in the Clydesdale grouping:

Overall: 12th of 23
Swim: 3rd of 23
Bike: 9th of 23 (shoulda been 6th without the water bottle drop)
Run: 19th of 23

So look for me next year finishing in the top 35% overall. I'm definitely going to do this race again next year, and incorporate all of the improvements listed above.

Colorado picture highlights are up

2009-10-12T01:29:00.002-04:00

I've posted the ~20 or so best pictures from my recent trip to Denver and Colorado Springs, Colorado. You can't help but take good pictures with scenery this nice.

Here's my earlier sumary of the weekend that explains the bellydancing that spawned this picture.....

Best of Montenegro pictures

2009-10-09T11:35:00.001-04:00

Here's ~25 highlight pics from my 3 days in Montenegro last month.

Here's my previous posts on Montenegro.

Up until 3 months ago, if you'd asked me about the country of Montenegro, I would have said it was the name of a fictitious country on some TV show, like the place where Jack Bauer's enemies come from. The country popped up on my radar screen because I was aiming to visit Croatia, and Dubrovnik was definitely a must-stop. Seeing another country just 30 miles south*, I thought it might be cool to pick up one more passport stamp, and inflate my "countries visited" total by one.

(* 30 miles = about a 3 hour bus ride each way.)

But the more research I did, the more appealing Montenegro became. Dramatic mountain views. Ancient fortress cities. Fantastic beaches.

So I was intrigued to the point where I traded a few days potentially on Croatian islands for 3 days/2 nights in Montenegro. While I know the extra Croatian days would have been spectacular, I definitely made the right move in visiting Montenegro.

My base for Montenegro was the town of Budva, which is at the center of a 20-mile stretch of coast called the Budva Riviera (BR). The BR had something like 10 different beaches each connected by walking trails and regular buses. Each beach had it's own personality - crowded or not, sandy or rocky, secluded or busy, quiet or noisy - from power boats or disco music, etc.

The one constant no matter which beach I was on was that the setting was unbelievable - clear blue waters, big mountains, and interesting coves, castles, and islands to look out onto.

Also constant through my time in Montenegro was the feeling that I was an outsider. During my 3 days in country, I never heard another American or British voice, and while I could occasionally order food in English, the dominant language and culture was definitely Eastern European - mainly Serbian and Russian. (Russian investors have been buying up Montenegro properties including the entire island of Sveti Stefan. Probably half of all expensive cars that I saw had Russian license plates.) The result is that Montenegro is now a package tour destination for well-off Muscovites, and most commercial signs have both Latin and Cyrillic characters. (I'd typically see hand-written chalk menus written firstly in Latin-ized Serbian and secondly in Cyrillic Serbian or Russian, with no English available.)

But for all of the tourism and inward investment, Montenegro still has many aspects of a 3rd world country, though I suspect this won't last long. All roads are 2-lane roads in the entire country, and journeys that look on a map like 10 minutes are actually 40. There's also a lot of reliance on buses, and they don't behave like Greyhounds here in the USA.

I took a bus trip from Budva to Kotor, a walled city at the end of a bay surrounded by fjords. Total distance was about 18 miles, but the ride took an hour, as we picked up and dropped off randomly along the way. This route went right past the airport, so I decided to take the same bus to the airport the next day, even though the airport wasn't a scheduled stop. (My cab from the airport cost 30 Euros, so the 2 Euro bus fare was a big reason to try.)

I got on the bus (a shortened bus, or mini-bus) at the scheduled time and took a seat on the left side to get some great views as we traveled northwest along the coast then inland. Each bus in Eastern Europe has a staff of 2: a driver and a person collecting fares. You meet the driver when you put your bag in the bus' cargo area, as he personally pockets 1 or 2 Euros. Neither wear any kind of uniform, so it was a surprise a few minutes later when a regularly dressed woman walked up to me and asked me to pay her.

I'd prepared for this, so I busted out my best Serbian and said "Bilini aerodromo" - "near airport." She nodded, took my 2 Euros, and we were off.

I'd ridden the route before, so I had a good idea of when the airport was coming up, so I was really surprised, and ready to go into shock when we drove right past it!

I had plenty of time for my flight, and I always had the contingency of getting to the bus' destination (Kotor) and taxiing to the airport (or even walking - it would have been about 2 miles, though no fun with a backpack), so I wasn't panic'ed so much as disappointed that my communication skills stunk.

Luckily, though, the bus skidded to a stop at the first intersection past the airport at a dirt road about a half-mile past the airport. I hopped off, and within 20 minutes was in the terminal where I saw this quintessential Eastern European scene - 5 clocks, none of which was accurate!

Clocks and transportation aside, Montenegro far exceeded my expectations and I'd recommend to anybody heading to Dubrovnik to add a multiple day visit to their agenda.

Link to my Montenegro photo gallery.

Colorado weekend: Kevin & Kristen get married with bellydancers, while Tim falls in love too.

2009-10-06T01:45:00.004-04:00

I’m just back from three days in Colorado for a good buddy’s wedding. Here’s some highlights:

The wedding was in Colorado Springs, but I wanted to see Denver for the first time and wanted to fly direct, so I booked a non-stop from Washington to Denver, but United had other plans: my non-stop had a ~2 hour layover in Chicago (mechanical difficulties). It all worked out for the better though, as we were all given $250 vouchers towards a future United flight (my ticket only cost $244, so I technically made a profit!)

I was worried that this layover might be a bad omen, but it was the only wrinkle in the entire trip.

Colorado in the fall is fantastic, though with weather that can only be described as “variable.” This was really hammered home when we met for the wedding rehearsal Saturday late afternoon, outdoors, at the Garden of the Gods park in Colorado Springs, where Kevin and Kristen picked out a truly awesome setting for their wedding. The airtemp was 50 degrees for the rehearsal, but winds probably chopped that down to 40….and then the sun dipped behind the mountains. This made for a very quick rehearsal.

With the wedding the next morning @ 10am, I thought the vows would be drowned out by chattering teeth, but the wind was non-existent, and the sun was shining (though clouds covered the park an hour earlier.) The end result was this fantastic scene:

(Though the weather was fine for those of us wearing a suit, I can’t help but wonder if Kristen’s arms got frostbitten.)

A reception followed, which was lots of fun, and included something that I had never seen at a wedding before: bellydancers! (See below for photographic proof.) (Kristen has bellydanced for years, and asked a friend/colleague to put on a show during the reception. I’m no bellydancing expert, but I was really impressed when she started balancing a sword on her forehead while dancing. I was so inspired that I tried the same thing with a steak knife and was lucky I didn't accidentally carve my up my lips.)

When not involved with wedding stuff, I set out to see and experience Colorado. One stop was the US Olympic Training Center, where I found a sale on “Chicago 2016” Olympic merchandise. I wonder why……

Next priority was to find some good Mexican food. (Didn’t you know that Colorado has a huge Mexican presence?) I looked up a highly-rated Mexican restaurant a few miles out of town, and rolled up to find it closed. At this point, I was about a third of the way to Pueblo, CO, so I decided to go the distance, motivated by the chance to see ancient Indian pueblos (ancient Indian homes carved into the side of the mountains), and because I was told that the land turned to desert just 30 miles south of Colorado Springs.

Funny enough, there are no pueblos in Pueblo, Colorado, and the one pueblo in Colorado Springs was built about 60 years ago, so it’s Williamsburg-fake. But I did manage to find something truly amazing: green chile!

I was still on my quest for Mexican food when I arrived in Pueblo. Using my iPhone I found a hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant (Rita's Mexican food), and took a chance and went in. Visually, the restaurant wasn’t much, but it was exactly what I was looking for – a restaurant run by a single family for 25 years, with Mom behind the cash register, son in the kitchen, and daughter taking orders. The signs – hand written – included “Cash only – no credit cards,” which is a sure sign that you’ve found a hole in the wall.

I ordered the special of the day off the chalkboard – a bean burrito/chicken enchilada combo with green chile. Not that I knew what green chile was, but when you’re exploring a hole-in-the-wall, you go with the special of the day.

I also ordered a side of chicarons – something that I’d never heard of, so I decided to try. Turns out chicarons are thum-sized deep-fried hardened bacon fat, or something like that. I tried about 3 bites and pushed it aside.

When my combo arrived, I didn’t see any food, but instead my plate was a lake of slime green gravy. I waited for a minute to see if another plate was coming, or if they’d gotten the order wrong.

No help arrived, so I dipped my fork in tentatively, and hit burrito. The first bite was 1/3 burrito and 2/3rds sauce. I braced myself for super spiciness or a foul taste. Instead, I tasted something amazing, - smooth, mildly spiced, very warm, lightly pork-flavored sauce that wasn’t quite gravy, and wasn’t quite soup. It was a like a party in my mouth (as Ken Griffey would say) and I was instantly in love.

I could have easily pushed aside the food and just lapped up the green chile – it was that good. It turns out that green chile is a specialty of the Pueblo area (and New Mexico). The green chiles are farmed in Pueblo, CO and New Mexico, and stewed with a variety of other spices to make something that is pure heaven. I’m hooked, and will be on the lookout for “New Mexico style” Mexican food, and green chile.

Anybody else ever have green chile, and can recommend a good source (restaurant or recipe?)

U2 in Charlottesville!

2009-10-05T02:04:00.004-04:00

NOW UPDATED WITH EVEN BETTER VIDEO (SEE BELOW)

I'd love to write some high-brow (i.e. overly intelligent), wordy review of the U2 show in Charlottesville. You know, something that you'd read in Rolling Stone - someone writing 1000 words to make something sound bigger and better than it really is or was.

But I can't, because there is no adequate way to describe how amazing U2 was in concert. Instead, I'm so blown away that I'm reduced to short words, like "Wow." Just wow.

It was practically a religious experience.

The music sounded great, the band's showmanship and energy were strong, and the stage, lightshow, and video accompaniment was just incredible.

The show was one of the best that I've ever seen. Which got me to thinking about the top shows that I've seen. Without ranking these shows, I'd say that these shows were in the same class as U2:

Red Hot Chilli Peppers/Pearl Jam (doublebill, around 1998)- unbelievable energy and showmanship by both bands.

The Police (2008) - as they say in Scotland, pure dead brilliant.

Bruce Springsteen (2007) - I can't believe I waited this long to see Bruce.

Midnight Oil (1994) - one of their songs is "Power and the Passion," which I'd say just about sums up the band that night.

Fighting Gravity (1989-1992 - any night they played in my fraternity basement.)

Live (1995) - whatever happened to these guys?

(I think I might need to broaden my musical horizons - all of my top bands are from the 80's and 90's.)

U2: view from my seat....

2009-10-01T20:45:00.000-04:00

I went to Serbia so you don't have to!

2009-09-30T23:30:00.006-04:00

Serbia highlights are up (click this).

As a refresher, here's the best of my posts from Serbia:
Belgrade: a balmy 97 degrees.
It's 1979 here in Belgrade! (or why Belgrade=Pittsburgh)
Belgrade bomb damage....
Which makes this picture understandable
Belgrade wrap-up

First stop on my tour of the Balkans was Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, the former capital of the former Yugoslavia, and center of all things Serbdom. (Just to show you how life is determined by perspective, before this trip I wouldn't have listed Serbs as a dedicated identity group when compared to groups with great scale, like the Chinese, or greater historical impact, like the Scots. But the Serbs think they're the big deal of the neighborhood, which partly explains why chunks of their city had been obliterated by airstrikes by real big deals- the USA and NATO.)

Visiting Belgrade on a trip to Europe is a bit like coming to the USA and visiting Roanoke, VA - notable, but far exceed by other destinations in interest and attraction. My time in Belgrade, Serbia was limited to ~24 hours, which was just about the right amount of time. Belgrade wasn't a bad place, but compared to my beach destinations, I wouldn't have wanted to spend more time in Serbia.

Belgrade has 1 impressive site to see for any traveler in the area - the Kalemegdan, a large, almost 1,200 year old fortress overlooking where the Danube and Sava rivers. Not only is the fortress impressive when viewed and toured, it also provides some dramatic views. There's also some quirks - the fortress also hosts a local basketball club ("KK Partizan") and a tennis club who's clay courts are located in the fortress' now unused moats.

Besides the Kalemegdan, my other recollections of Belgrade are war damage (covered in an earlier post), and impressions of the people.

My friend Scott H has posited that the Koreans are the toughest people on Earth. He might be right, but I'd also nominate the Serbs as toughest, and they might edge the Koreans with their advantage in meanness. Perhaps it is the fact that life in Serb is hard - it's a poor country after all. Or perhaps it was the fact that most Serbs still seemed to wear the war on their faces, or perhaps because of the anti-NATO protest, I got the distinct impression that most Serbs still consider themselves superior to the other Balkan inhabitants, and that it would make most Serbs very happy to be at conflict again, against the Catholic Croatians, Bosnian Muslims, the Kosovars, the Albanians, the Bulgarians, or perhaps the Turks. (This is especially true compared to the people I saw and met in Bosnia, Croatia, and Montenegro.) The Serbs definitely all carry around a chip on their shoulder, but this isn't crazy, since the country has purportedly never, ever been at peace for 50 continuous years since the dawn of civilization.

At this point, though, Serb aggression is cultural, as is evident while tripping around town. In Belgrade, I didn't see any statues to great statesmen, but rather people with swords or guns drawn, as you can see here and here.

Click here to see the picture highlights of Belgrade, Serbia.
.

U2 in Charlottesville!

2009-09-30T23:00:00.003-04:00

U2 plays at UVA's football stadium tomorrow night (cuz, you know, Charlottesville has a lot in common with other U2 stops like Paris, London, and New York.) Reports about the U2 show have described the set-up as massive, so I drove by the stadium today, and they're right, even understating things.

The picture below doesn't do the set-up justice. The stage is about 40% of the total area of the field, and taller than the stadium. The light and sound looks to be amazing (notice the multi-colored stripes in the middle of the picture? It's a massive circular video board that descends from the "roof" of the stage.)

Reviews from earlier stops are very positive. It should be a good time - I can't wait to see the show!

Here's what the full-on set-up looked like at a previous show.....

Best of Bosnia pics now up!

2009-09-24T02:11:00.002-04:00

I've collected my favorite photos from Bosnia & Hercegovina (including Sarajevo and Mostar.) You can see them in my gallery here. (And click "My Gallery" to access all of the other pictures that I have published online.)

Bosnia is a mess. There's no other way about it.

There are constant reminders of the war - damaged buildings, and damaged people. There's a lot of money being spent by the EU to return life to normal, but modern weapons can create a lot of damage with not much effort, and with something like 5,000 mortar rounds hitting Sarajevo alone, you begin to understand why the place is still a mess 14 years later. (You see "Paid for by the EU" signs on every new building, but as I mentioned before, I think this is guilt money trying to make up for the fact that the EU and its' members just sat around while Yugoslavia imploded and genocide followed.)

(Btw: one other takeaway from Sarajevo is that the city is probably the single worst place on the planet to be caught in during a siege due to the city's topography. The city is long and thin, and paralleled by mountain ranges that meet at one end enclosing the city. (Imagine a canoe. Sarajevo runs along the canoe floor, with the "bad guys" positioned above the canoe walls.) There wasn't a single point in the city that wasn't reachable by snipers, and for much of the war, there was only one source of fresh water, making daily life like living in a shooting gallery.)

But, the country has some positives that made me glad to have visited:

- the people were very friendly, both to me, and to each other. I can't tell you how many times I saw a car stop so that the driver could pop out to loudly say hello to someone walking on the sidewalk. It was amazing how these dour, gray, scruffy folks would light up when they saw a friend or acquaintance.

-the cafe culture in Bosnia is unbelievable, especially in Sarajevo. In Sarajevo, there's a street in the center of the town (Branilaca Sarajeva) that is just one cafe after another, up and down every alley, in every variety possible, full at almost every hour of the day. There were Turkish coffee cafes, Viennese cafes, small cafes, large cafes, even a cafe named after Bill Gates (see the pic in the gallery).

-there's a very relaxed attitude in Bosnia. The vibe was something combining a deep tradition of cafe culture combined with a healthy appreciation for being alive after the civil war, twisted with a lazy work ethic from the communist era.

I think that vibe was responsible for a crazy scene that I saw around a chess board.

It was about 1pm on a Wednesday in the center of Sarajevo, and aside from the wait-staff at the cafes, I don't think a single person was actually at work. I wandered into a farmer's market in a city square, whereupon I heard lots of shouting. Expecting some demonstration, or even one ethnic group screaming at another, I headed towards the crowd, and found.....a chess match.

There was a roughly 20x20 chess board painted on the concrete, with chess pieces about knee high. Two guys in their late 40's were playing by walking from piece to piece around the board.

The chess board was surrounded on all sides by between 60-75 spectators, all men and tending towards retirees, but still with 15-20 guys who you would think would ordinarily be at work. None of the participants or spectators looked anything like a Chess Master.

What was most amzing about the scene though, was the intensity of the crowd. Roughly half were intensely quiet, with a hand under their chin thinking about the last or next move.

The other half of the audience was just as engaged by the match, but much, much more vocal. I don't know exactly what they were saying, but it appeared to be a mix of criticism and suggestions for chess moves.

Either way, I'll always remember this scene from Sarajevo.

One other favorite Bosnia scene occurred back home in Charlottesville. We are fortunate to have in Charlottesville a bakery/cafe run by a Bosnian family (the "Balkan Bakery.") On Saturdays, the family sells Bosnian food at the farmer's market. (The market has similar booths for Hungarian, French, Mexican, and Salvadoran foods. I'm a HUGE fan of the taco stand, with the tortillas made right in front of you.)

In general, Yugoslavian food is pretty basic, and not something you hunger for, but after Saturday morning's 30 mile bike ride, I would have even eaten cevapcici again.

So, I walked past the Bosnian bakery stand Saturday AM and my eyes lock in on the burek (imagine the combination of a flaky pastry like philo with a pot pie and you get the idea.) Just for fun, I ordered in Bosnian "Zelim jeden burek, molim."

The woman behind the table lit up like I saw other people do all over Sarajevo, and for a few minutes, I was back in Bosnia.

Link to best of Bosnia pictures.

Best of Munich

2009-09-21T19:34:00.004-04:00

I finished sorting and editing my pictures from Europe this weekend and cut ~160 pictures out of 700. I'll be rolling out the highlights on a stop-by-stop basis, starting today with Munich, Germany. You can see the Munich Highlights here. (Besides the regular Munich highlights, you can also see the Munich Michael Jackson memorial.)

Munich was not only a fun place to visit, but also an opportunity to catch up with my sister Kathy and her husband Dave (vacationing in southern Germany and Austria), and a fraternity brother, Tom "Woody" Day, that I hadn't seen since about 1998.

Tom is originally from Nebraska, and was tagged with the nickname Woody about 10 seconds after arriving at W&L. (Remember the Woody Harrelson character on cheers?) Woody has been living in Munich since graduating from UVA's law school, and was an outstanding tour guide, delivering all of the essentials for touring Munich: interesting sights, local culture, and the best biergartens, like where the picture below was shot, in a biergarten connected to the Bavarian parliament.

We were less than three weeks early for Oktoberfest, so we missed it, but now I've got a reason to go back. Until then, these pictures of Oktoberfest from the Boston Globe's "Big Picture" column will have to do.

Funny enough, I just caught up with Tom this weekend, making it two meetings in 3 weeks after non in 10 years. Tom and his Ukrainian girlfriend Lena flew into Virginia to watch his Nebraska Cornhuskers play Virginia Tech. The game didn't turn out well for the Huskers, but we had a very fun night in Lexington, reliving out college days, and ending up drinking cheap beer in our fraternity house at 1:30 in the morning.

First slug of picture highlights from Yugoslavia

2009-09-17T00:22:00.009-04:00

I'm about a third of the way through evaluating and editing my pics, which isn't as fast as I thought, but 700 pics x 1 minute editing each = 11 hours of work.

But HERE is the fruits of the effort to date - my best 20 shots out of about 300 pictures examined at that point. The pics look good so far.

Also....it's not quite travel oriented, since I live in this town, but here's 16 Things to Love about Charlottesville in Fall. All I have to say is "Amen!"

Finally, here's one more picture from he Yugoslavia/Germany trip......(click for larger image)

Thanks! (and more to come)

2009-09-11T15:43:00.002-04:00

I'm back from my rambles, with more stories and >700 pictures. I'll be sorting through the best over the weekend and will post a gallery of these with stories as soon as I can, as well as some thoughts from the trip, and personal takeaways.

(I'll also be spending this weekend fighting jet lag, watching UVA get their butt kicked by TCU on the football field, as well as some biking and prepping for the last triathlon of the year in what should be perfect weather.)

In the meantime, I'd like to thank you for following my adventures and keeping me company with emails and blog comments.

Cheers,

Tim

Almost home: Philly!

2009-09-11T15:24:00.001-04:00

So, you're in Philadelphia, just off of a 9 hour transatlantic flight across 6 times zones, you've got a raging head cold, and are sluggish from the time change. You have a 4 hour layover before finally making it home, 22 hours after waking up, so what would you do?

A) straggle to your connecting gate and rest
B) mindlessly wander the terminal looking for a legit cheesesteak.
C) do a 2-hour power-tour of the City of Brotherly Love.

I went with option "C" of course, and capped my mini-visit with a trip up the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum, Rocky-style. The film recap is below.

Surfing in Munich!?!

2009-09-09T00:42:00.003-04:00

Munich, Germany is >500 miles away from the ocean, but that doesn't mean you can't go surfing, right in the heart of the city.

Check out this vid of surfers on a river running thru the Englischer
Gartens, Munich's version of Central Park.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1wHO2d0NP0

Munich street music

2009-09-08T16:34:00.003-04:00

Here's the first of 2 vids of Munich street performers I saw on my
way back to my hotel from the bier halle. Both groups drew about 40
spectators, played some great, and made we wonder if this is street
music, how good is the club music?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi5TTAi6F1o

Pan of Munich skyline from top of St. Peter church at the Marienplatz

2009-09-08T16:24:00.002-04:00

Back in the USA, home of the brave and the free bandwidth, it's time
to post some vids from the last few days....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZS0WCMqkW8

Greetings from Munich!

2009-09-08T04:44:00.001-04:00

Here's an appearance In the Augustiner Bier Halle in the Munich Alstadt with my sister Kathy and her husband Dave DeWitt.

I also had the good fortune while in Munich to reconnect with Tom Day, a college buddy living in Munich (and Garmisch-Partikirchen, and Jersey City, and NYC, and Nebraska....)

Munich Marienplatz

2009-09-08T04:38:00.001-04:00

Ground level view.....outstanding city

"Cold Drinks" in Dubrovnik

2009-09-06T11:25:00.002-04:00

Here's a view into the legendary cafe/bar "Cold Drinks," in Dubrovnik.
Cold Drinks is cool and memorable for several reasons:
-it is located on a cliff OUTSIDE the city wall on the SEA side.
-it has the most unbelievable views
-it is low key and relaxed
-it has no advertising in any city maps or handouts. The only thing
distinguishing the business is the small wooden sign "Cold Drinks"
that you see in the firs few seconds of the vid
-it is literally a hole in the wall!
You may not appreciate it from the video, but the seating area
literally drops off into the sea. I guess they have different
liability laws for bars in Croatia!
I wouldn't have known about it unless told by a friend (thx, Dana!)
and some Chicagoans that I met in Korcula 2 days earlier.
You have to see the place to believe it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeowrMA1pgU

One last view of Dubrovnik

2009-09-06T03:39:00.001-04:00

Amazing city.......(click to enlarge)

Better version of a prior picture

2009-09-06T03:38:00.001-04:00

Another Kodak moment!

2009-09-05T06:27:00.000-04:00

View of island of Lokrum from high above Dubrovnik's walls.

Stuck in rain in DBV

2009-09-05T06:25:00.000-04:00

In the midst of walking the city walls, the rain that has been
threatening all day has arrived. The weather canceled sea kayaking
this morning as well, which was a bummer, but once I saw the sea
today, completely the right call.

Walking the walls of the city is the highlight of the trip so far (and
that's saying alot.) I snapped the shot below at the beginning of the
walk, pre-rain. It's a view into the city from the high walls, down
the main street of the city, or Stradun.

Am hoping the weather breaks soon....

Quick pan of Dubrovnik from above at Sunset

2009-09-05T03:47:00.002-04:00

Panoramic view of Dubrovnik on YouTube shot yesterday at sunset......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOnaSkb-dNc

Inside Dubrovnik

2009-09-05T03:43:00.000-04:00

View of cafe-lined Stradun

Quick scene inside Dubrovnik

2009-09-05T03:41:00.002-04:00

While waiting for my tour to start in 20 minutes.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ-LB6YoptA

Catching up from Bosnia & Croatia

2009-09-04T17:28:00.001-04:00

A couple of stories:

I was on my way from Sarajevo to the Croatian coast, with a quick
stopover in Mostar. Before hopping the bus, I had to visit the
bathroom-usually not a challenge, especially since most WCs have
pictographs of a man or a woman to help you choose no matter what.

Well, this being Bosnia, where there are still faded signs in
prominent places for the 1984 Winter Olympics (meaning signage isn't a
high priority for Sarajevo), all I had to go on were signs for
"muski," (on the left) or "zenski" (for the room on the right.)

Before I finish the story, which would you guess was the Men's room?
Why did you guess that one?

I tentatively moved towards muski, on the simple notion that muski
began with the same letter as "Men's." never mind how this approach
wouldn't work in say France (Garcons). I lightly pushed open the door
half expecting a Bosnian women to start screaming. I lucked out - the
room was empty. Still this was no sign that I made the right choice,
so I stepped in. My "muski" guess turned out to be right, so now I
know at least one extra word of Serbo-Croatian.

Sarajevo & Mostar: fascinating, depressing, and hopelessly screwed up
(that's the summary for the cities AND my travel plans!)

Had planned on a third of a day in Sarajevo, one third in Mostar, and
the rest being spend traveling and at the coast in Croatia, however,
things didn't go according to plan.

I saw Sarajevo-interesting, but not enough to justify much more than
~3hrs, then Mostar, worth about half that, but unfortunately my host
town for 15 hours more than that.

Upon arrivng in Mostar, after a breathtaking ride through the Dinaric
Alps (mtns), our bus was swarmed with elderly ladies offerings rooms.
Though not interested, I ended up speaking with Nina, mostly because
she wouldn't take no for an answer.

I broke away from Nina, toured the city, and ~2hrs later went back to
the station (shared by buses & trains). The first person who saw me
was Nina, who said the train was 2 hours late, and asked if i wanted
her room yet. 2 hrs? (btw: there is only 2 trains per day each way) I
could wait that delay out with some more touring, though at that point
i had seen enough shot-up buildings. (reminder why so much
destruction: though a strategically unimportant town, all 3 armies
wanted to prove a point on this town, stretched over 3 yrs.)

I came back an hour or so later (10pm). No Nina, and only 2 people in
the whole station - a really, really old lady waiting to take the
train, and the starion master, who I quickly established didn't speak
any English. We pantomimed a bit, and established that the train was
100 minutes late.

An hour later, same routine with the stationmaster. He says "no news,"
or at least I think that's what he said. At this point, i'm starting
to weigh my options. Then, help arrives.

Sanel, a Bosniak (Muslim) was waiting for people to arrive on my
train. He heard the train MIGHT be in at 1am, but he was giving up,
and oh, by the way, did I happen to want to rent a room for the night?

I quickly weighed the options (1. Night in trainstation, 2. 3am
arrival in Croatia, 3. Find a room on my own, or 4. Take a chance on
Sanel).

Less than 2 minutes after meeting him, was on my way to his car, and
this paid off just like the last time I took a random chance on a
boarding situation (remember that, Jason H?(Munich))

Sanel spoke good English, and we chatted for what must have been an
hour. Got all kinds of stories about the War (he was 7yrs old at the
start), and all kinds of stories about how Mostar functions or doesn't
function.

Like those bombed out houses. The EU has made available a ton of
reconstruction $$$$ - the EU's way of cleansing guilt by saying "sorry
we didn't do anything to stop the genocide. How about some new storm
windows to make you feel better?"

Problem is, the owners of the bombed out buildings fled town during
the war, and refuse to return. (Can you blame them, especially if
their old neighborhood has changed ethnicities?(= living among the
'enemy')). The EU refuses to let any $$$ be spent on buildings not
owner-occupied, so the result is a half-bombed out town, and a
continuing cycle of depression. (btw: Sanel's place had been burned to
a shell during the war. Except for one area that he kept like that as
a reminder, you'd never know.

So the next morning Sanel drove me to the station, where the morning
train was on-time, and I was on my way to Croatia, though half a day
late, thus costing me a shot at visiting Hvar Island. Still, my next 2
stops, Orebic and Korcula were well worth it.

Notes from DBV

2009-09-04T17:12:00.000-04:00

While i wait for my washing machine to finish.....

In Dubrovnik (DBV) today....amazing, amazing city....will start the
morning off sea-kayaking around the city walls. No Ms. Universe, which
would have been a good story, but this tour is better....am staying in
a sobe (private room) with huge views, 100yds from the water. Would
love to claim credit for this, but it was the luck of the draw. By
this I mean when our bus pulled in today, we were swarmed by 40-50
grandmas, each offering a room in their house. It was like being
swarmed by munchkins. I paired off with one, asked a few questions (of
which only location was the only intelligent thing that I asked), and
struck a deal. I did this mostly for the fun of it, because I had
planned to splurge on a hotel in DBV.

Walked around the Old City tonite. Must confess it was good to be back
in a mainstream world, with lots of English spoken. (General rule: in
the popular, touristy areas, conditions are almost like America, while
some places (like Ploce, or Mostar) were pretty much 3rd world. Most
of my trip so far has been 'in between' those 2 poles.

Still can't get a cold drink, though. For some reason, this continent
doesn't serve drinks at anything but room temps, and without ice. I
can't tell you how many times I've taken a break from the 95 degree
temps, only to have an 80 degree beverage. Hopefully the solution is a
bar here in DBV called "Cold Drinks." I hope to catch it tomorrow
afternoon.

Ah, Dubrovnik!

2009-09-04T12:49:00.000-04:00

View leaving Korcula

2009-09-04T08:04:00.000-04:00

Breakfast: 23 kuna ($4), view: priceless!

2009-09-04T08:03:00.000-04:00

I got up early today to walk the fortress of Korcula (built about 700
years ago, and birthplace of Marco Polo (this was then Italian
territory.)

I wandered by a grocery store and picked up this feast: a bottle of
blood orange juice, cherry yogurt, and fresh cherry struedel (cherries
(visinj) are a local speciality).

2 minutes later I was at the fortress wall, and feasted. The struedel
was amazing, as was the view across to Orebic, though as you can see
the weather wasn't great.

Cloud ceiling was about 1,000 feet, which is great weather if you are
a grape in one of the local vineyards scaling the mountains, but I'm
not, so I am changing plans.

Today would have been a day split among biking the vineyards,
snorkeling, and the beach, but instead I am heading to Dubrovnik a
little ahead of schedule. Talking with some other tourists and friends
(thanks, Dana!), though, I'm certain that I'll enjoy the extra time in
Dubrovnik.

Should have plenty of time on the trip to Dubrovnik to write a big
update with some good stories- more coming soon.

Orebic at sunset

2009-09-03T13:30:00.000-04:00

I'm onboard the ferry to Korcula and had time to take this quick shot
of the fishing village of Orebic while the boat was loading.

I originally planned to quickly pass thru Orebic, but I liked it so
much I stayed for the day. As you can tell from the photo (remember to
click on the pic for a bigger shot) Orebic is stunning. It is also
friendly, and low-key, yet with loads to do - i wish i had had the
time to rent a bike to see more. I'm definitely marking Orebic down
for a repeat visit.

Next: a 15 minute ferry crossing at sunset to the ancient walled city
of Korcula.

My lunch time view

2009-09-03T09:13:00.002-04:00

Quick view from the only restaurant near the beach at Trstenica (on the Adriatic sea, town of Orebic, just across the channel from Korcula.)

Quote from waiter: "we haf pivo (beer) and hamburgers. Which you like?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZw10H1j2jU

Mostar

2009-09-02T12:04:00.000-04:00

Here's the famous Stari Most ("Old Bridge"). For almost 500 years the
bridge was the longest & highest single arch bridge, and was widely
known for uniting the Bosnian Muslims who lived on one side of the
river, with the Catholic Croats who lived on the other side.

You can probably guess where this is going: the bridge was destroyed
by the Croats in the civil war in the 90's.

Mostar is both scenic and depressing. The Old Town surrounding the
bridge is a sight to see. However, the rest of Mostar is still war
ravaged. I'd estimate that 1 in 4 buildings have war scars, and about
1 in 8 totally destroyed. The tourist maps show the location of the
front lines, but you really don't need a map to tell.

Next up: I hop a train to the coast in an hour. Tomoorow should be
beachy, with some snorkeling too.

One funny thing: as I sit here in a cafe under the bridge, the cafe
stereo is playing American country music. (a welcome respite from the
Michael Jackson-athon prior to this.)

Here's where World War I started

2009-09-02T05:47:00.000-04:00

On this bridge in 1914, Serb Gavrilo Princip assasinated an Austrian-
Hungarian Archduke, thus starting WWI.

The Archduke had already had one attempt on his life made earlier that
day, yet he continued to ride in an open-top car when Princip got him
and his wife.

Incidentally, Princip is accorded hero status here.

Sarajevo

2009-09-01T17:40:00.000-04:00

When planning my trip, I almost skipped Sarajevo - what could be
special about a city the same size as Richmond, VA, but evry guidebook
sqid that Sarajevo was special and shouldn't be skipped.

So with that in mind, i arrived today at 9:45at night. Everyone that
I saw on my flight and in the airport looked worse for wear and that
they had had a hard life.

Within 2 minutes from the airport I saw the first war-damaged building
(though that building was the exception.)

After checking in, I wandered around the Bascarija (Old Town-imagine
Georgetown x 2) for an hour to wind down and within 2 minutes saw 2
mosques and my first group of women wearing burqas (head to toe
Islamic dress, with only eyes showing).

But here's the amazing thing that changed my impression of Sarajevo:
for every burqa-clad or head scarf-wearing woman there was a Paris
Hilton-look-alike, and they were hanging out together, chatting and
laughing.

I'd describe the mood in Bascarija as festive, bordering on jubilant,
quite a surprise for a Tuesday night. I'd guess there was about 50
packed cafes and bars in just a few square blocks (mostly cafes). I
was too tired to partake, but enjoyed the brief view into what makes
Sarajevo special.

Outside my room in Sarajevo

2009-09-01T17:19:00.001-04:00

Montenegro wrap-up

2009-09-01T14:39:00.000-04:00

So my outbound plane is here, so I feel safe that i'm on my way out of
Montenegro tonight, which almost too bad since I really enjoyed
Montenegro.

The physical beauty of this place can't be fully appreciated in the
pics - you can't believe the views in every direction. If i get back,
I'll be sure to rent a car to see more of the country.

The highlight for me were the beaches. For 2 days i beach-hopped
spending an hour or two on a beach or in the water, the hiking for 10
minutes to the next beach and doing it again. Each afternoon I would
stop roaming, pick one beach and spend the rest of the day in a lounge
chair under an umbrella.

In contrast to back home, the beaches are very thin - no more than 100
ft from the water to the end of the beach. There are no waves, so the
beach activities are much like a lake's (jet skis, paddleboats, and
for the first time that i've ever seen, water polo.) Not much else is
different, except the safety regulations are more lax. I never heard a
llfeguard's whistle, and the jet skis were so fast that I think they
weren't speed governed, like in the US. We're way too safety conscious
in the US. We could learn from the Montenegrins on this.

The people were nice, but in most cases, not exactly customer-
oriented. I had a few intersting conversations, though, such as with
Juras the cabbie, who's first question was what religion I am. (I'm
inferring here, but I suspect this is still a central question in this
very mixed and very conflicted land.) Luckily we had the same answer,
so I didn't get dumped alongside the road.

I chatted with Nick, the Australian who owns the Kangaroo hotel.
According to him, much of the travel to Budva is Russian package
vacation trippers. I'd also add that I saw alot of expensive cars with
Russia license plates in Budva.

So, I was in the great minority, but still managed to get along,
partly beCause the beach experience is universal. Budva had a long
paved "boardwalk," or riva (not to be confused with what they have in
Richmond, the Rivah.) on the riva was a summer scene repeated
everywhere, families withkids wandering from amusement rides to games
to food stands. The only difference, besides he accents was some
obvious substitutions - Italian gelato instead ofice cream, for example.

All in all, as you might guess from the pictures, Montenegro was
spectacular, and well worth the trip.

Speaking of trip, I'm making it to Sarajevo tonight - boarding just
started, so I gotta go.

It really doesn't get much better than this.....

2009-09-01T14:12:00.000-04:00

Budva, Montenegro

Also meant to add:

2009-09-01T12:36:00.001-04:00

You can click on the pictures to get much bigger versions of each of
these pictures....

Blog update/status

2009-09-01T12:30:00.000-04:00

Took a look at the blog last night for the first time. Apologies are
in order for two things, some bad typos, which usually came when
bouncing along in a bus on a Montenegran road, and for bad formatting
making some of the entries hard to follow.

I think that I have the formatting squared away, but can't promise
less typos.

Also, comments are always appreciated - just click the little pencil
icon.

Thanks for reading along.

May have used up all of my travel karma....

2009-09-01T12:25:00.002-04:00

So here's the situation: I'm sitting in the Tivat (Montenegro) airport, with the first leg of my flight to Sarajevo to begin in a half hour, connecting thru Belgrade. Once I make it to Belgrade, I have a 45 minute connection. Problem: the JAT Airways (Yugoslav flag carrier) couldn't print my connecting ticket, and I'm not sure why.

This might be something handled easily when I connect, but there's a huge downside ifnot: there's only one flight a day to Sarajevo. (for a country that broke apart, you'd think therewould be more intra-country flights, but I guess that tells you how much distaste there remains.

For example, there are no flights between Belgrade and Zagreb, two national capitals located as far apart as Boston and DC, distance wise.

So, if I make the connection, I get a happy face. If not, big time sad face- I'd spend 24 more hours in Belgrade and some more interesting part of my trip would have to be skipped.

But things have gone well today otherwise. I'll sum up today's activities in another email.

Kangaroo Hotel: Sweet!

2009-08-31T16:41:00.002-04:00

My original plan for staying 2 days in Budva was to find a room in a local's house which the guidebooks said would be €15-20/nt. But I found a stupendous deal at a fantastic hotel, the Kangaroo Hotel. (the owner, Nick is Australian, thus further proving a law of traveling: always find the Aussies!)

The Kangaroo, @$39/nt is a steal. Centrally located in town and about 300 yds from the beach, the Kangaroo is modern (built 2005), and, as the video linked below indicates, has some great views.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysKd3dWF-LI

View of Sveti Stefan

2009-08-31T14:52:00.002-04:00

Sveti Stefan (Saint Stephen) is an island hotel 6 miles south of Budva, where I am staying. The island - a walled city - is connected to the mainland via a thin causeway. (Budva is connected to Sveti Stefan by a circulating bus coming every 10 minutes.)

The entire island has been converted to luxury hotels, with the top rooms going for $1500 pernight, or roughly $1461 per night more than I am paying (more on that later.)

Non-guests can tour the island for $7, but I was more interested in beaching, so I beachhopped on the way back to Budva. Over the 6 miles, there's probably 12-15 distinct beaches, each with their own
personality. Some were sand beaches, some pebble, some played loud disco music, some....no, they all played disco.

All in all, though, the beach experience was comparable to back home, except for the language, and the speedos.

I was very impressed with the beaches, weather, and sea today. Conditions could not have been any better - clear sky, 90 degrees (low humidity) and water so ckear that i could see the bottom no matter how far i swam out.

I had a great time today. It is gonna be hard for the Croatian beach experience to top this.

Milocer Beach

2009-08-31T14:39:00.001-04:00

Part of the stretch of beaches between Budva and Sveti Stefan.

Today's beach

2009-08-31T14:38:00.001-04:00

Here's the beach that I camped out on for a few hours. By 3pm I was
worried that I might have gotten too much sun, so I headed to Kotor.

The unbelievable town of Kotor

2009-08-31T14:36:00.002-04:00

Kotor, 30 minutes inland from Budva, is a walled city at the end of a fjord, leaving the city surrounded on 3 sides by steep mountains.

High above the city is a fortress used to defend the city (and where the residents fled when bad guys came to town.) I climbed up to the fortress (on a trail), and snapped this photo along the way.

On the tarmac in Montenegro

2009-08-30T16:47:00.002-04:00

Photo of the day

2009-08-30T16:46:00.002-04:00

Parts of a USAF stealth fighter blown to bits over Serbia in 1999 in a Belgrade
museum.

Belgrade wrap-up

2009-08-30T16:34:00.001-04:00

Am in Belgrade airport waiting for flight to Montenegro with a few thoughts:

-some countries have multiple official languages, like Switzerland. Serbia has multiple official alphabets (for the same language). I'd say 50% of signs were in Cyrillic (like Russian), while the remainder were in Latin (like ours) or outright English. What meager amount of Serbian that picked up for the trip was toast once the writing was in Cyrillic.

-There's no row#13 on my plane (I'm in #14.)

-guidebook tidbit: Serbia was a possession of Turkey for 500 years until 1867. I kinda see why they are very, very nationalistic, as measured by how many flags, signs, and traditional clothes that you see.

-dined well today. Wandered into the Skadarskija area of Belgrade, an area with old cobble streets dating back hundreds of years. Found a restaurant and ordered something off of the grill menu ("grill" was the only word that I could translate.)

But I figured you can't go wrong with anything grilled, and I wasn't disappointed - the main course was a frisbee sized and shaped piece of beef (gurmanesh vjelvasic(?)). I chased it with a salad of cabbage, lettuce, very fresh tomato and cucumber. Also tried the rakia, a local fruit brandy/jet fuel (waiter's suggestion) -wow!

The Yugoslavian cuisine is 90% grill, 10% stew. Every entree on every menu is in one of these 2 categories, which is great, until you realize that Yugoslavian cuisine hit its' apex just after the invention of fire.

But I like grilled foods so I am much happier than if I happened to be in India.

One other good thing about the cuisine: all food is local, organic, and free range. It's not a movement, it's just how things are grown here.

Finally, one experience that sums up Serbia: I had a Serbian salad the othe night (Srpska salate). I dug into it and enjoyed the first bite of tomato, cuke, and onion. Then the next bite. Then HOLY $@$)$&!!!!! Who put the Hungarian wax (hot, white) pepper in my salad?

I mention this not for culinary reasons, but because this is the perfect analogy for Belgrade -90% harmless, looking no different that any other Eastern European city, but also 10% don't-take-it-for-granted ka-BOOM!

Next stop: Budva, Montenegro, a beach town on the Adriatic Sea. Posting might be light, as I plan a beach day tomorrow.

Which makes this pic understandable...

2009-08-30T08:29:00.001-04:00

I saw this protest in one of the main squares. The banner says, basically "butt out NATO."

update: my friend Dana translates the sign as "Stop NATO Fascism."

That the locals are anti-NATO makes sense, but accompanying the banner was a photo exhibit with English translations detailing NATO atrocities in the Balkans, even intimating that we were collaborating with Muslin extremists. More troubling was the fact that many people stopped and read the exhibits with much seriosness. I wish I could have understood what they were saying to each other.

Exterior redecoration courtesy of NATO & USAF

2009-08-30T08:25:00.002-04:00

It's 10 years on, but you can't miss the signs of NATO bombing here in Belgrade. This is the former Ministry of Defense. (Actually half of the former MoD - this half used to be connected across the street to an identical building, all now bombed out.)

This building was located in the heart of Belgrade, and next to many other government buildings. Thanks to smart bombs, there did not appear to be any damage to any other surrounding area buildings.

What's odd about this building, though not visible in the picture, is that the building is under armed guard by the Army 24 hours a day. I was a bit afraid that the guard might confiscate my camera, so all of my pictures of this building were taken on the sly.