The Word Chemist

2012-01-14T20:04:00.000-05:00

Well, heck. Here is a photo I took on December 9. If it looks like not a lot has changed since my last posting in August, you're right. Apparently, a subcontractor was cutting corners, and the thickness of the concrete was not up to industry standards at several places on the top level. Completion of the transit center has been delayed "indefinitely". Here are a couple of links to articles in the Washington Post:

Silver Spring Transit Hub Gets Another Delay (Jan. 10)

Silver Spring Transit Center Delayed Indefinitely (Jan. 13)

Silver Spring Transit Center, work still in progress

2011-08-27T20:55:00.000-04:00

It's been quite a while since my last batch of photos of the Silver Spring Transit Center project. Here's an update (5 photos, taken panorama style, panning left to right).

2011-08-05T11:24:00.000-04:00

I just realized that it's been over a year since I've updated my blog. (Bad blogger!) Just to maintain continuity, I'm posting an oldie but goodie, with some updates and a spelling correction (I'll let you find it on your own).

Editing has been a big part of my livelihood for about 15 years now. Certain words and phrases have the power to trigger my gag reflex. Many of those words and phrases appear with distressing frequency in business communications. As a cry for mercy, I am sharing links to three blog posts (one of them mine) as a guide to words and phrases that you must NEVER EVER EVER EVER USE! I'M NOT KIDDING! DON'T MAKE ME DO A GLOBAL SEARCH AND REPLACE ON YOUR DOCUMENT!! (whew, I got a little carried away there for a moment)

http://www.ragan.com/Main/Articles/42556.aspx
http://www.ragan.com/Main/Articles/43415.aspx

http://wordchemist.blogspot.com/2009/09/controlled-verbiage-act.html
Sunday, September 27, 2009
The Controlled Verbiage Act
by Nancy McGuire

I'm a word person, and it bothers me when words are misused, over-used, used to obscure the speaker's intent, or otherwise abused. Here in the United States, we have a Controlled Substances Act, which classifies various drugs according to their medical uses and potential for addictiveness or abuse. Perhaps we need a Controlled Verbiage Act to regulate the use of certain words with a high potential for abuse.

The lowest level of enforcement would be reserved for words that are often misused, but you more or less know what the speaker meant. Examples would be the interchangeable use of "lay" and "lie", "effect" and "affect", "flaunt" and "flout". These are the Schedule IV words. They may be used by lay people without a prescription, but word processing programs should come equipped with directions for usage and warnings of the potential side effects when these words are not used as directed.

Moving on up the list, we have the Schedule III words. These can be used to convey a thought, but they have a high potential for overuse, even addiction. In addition, their misuse may do damage to the rest of the language by setting precedents for sloppiness and fuzzy thinking. Business writing is rife with Schedule III words and phrases. "At the end of the day", "at this point in time", "capturing value", you know the genre. Language-damaging words include such "verbed" nouns as "resulted", "impacted", and the abominable "architected". Throw in such commonly used, but unhelpful, words as "utilize". These words should be kept behind the counter at the editor's shop, and those wishing to use them should present some form of identification and sign a statement that these words are being used in a satirical fashion, as dialogue in a work of fiction or a stage play, as a direct quotation in a news story or documentary, or in professionally-written linguistic performance art.

Schedule II words have legitimate linguistic uses, but they are almost universally misused when placed in the hands of amateurs. These words include "enormity", "comprise", "quantum", and other impressive-sounding but poorly understood terms. When these words are misused, the reader can be left wondering whether the author meant to say that the new shopping mall is a disgrace and an abomination, or merely that it is very large.

Schedule I words have no use other than to demean, disgrace, or belittle other people or to suggest acts of violence or subjugation. You know what these words are. I'm not going to repeat them here.

Living in a state of blessedness

2010-08-02T12:52:00.000-04:00

Over the last several weeks, some pretty terrible things have happened in my life -- the rapid decline and death of my mother, my sister's luggage taking an unscheduled trip to Dallas, coming home to water damage in my apartment (which somehow emerged unscathed from the earthquake and storms). What I remember most, though, is the overwhelming outpouring of kindness, concern, and help from so many friends.

At Landsun Homes in Carlsbad NM where Mom was staying, the hospice staff, nurses, aides, and housekeeper constantly looked in on us and were so diligent in keeping Mom comfortable in her last weeks. They also took care of my sister and me. Trays of cookies, fruit, coffee, and tea, would magically appear as we sat by Mom's bedside. One of the health care aides took our laundry home with her, washed and folded it, and brought it back to us the next day. Before and after our trip to Carlsbad, one of Mom's friends hosted us in her house in Roswell, fed us, and even slept on her couch so that one of us could be in the guest room and one in her bedroom. The Landsun Homes chaplain drove 70 miles to Roswell to be at Mom's memorial service, even though it was the same day as the monthly group remembrance service at Landsun, and a family member of his had just gone into hospice care that week. The choir director at Mom's church in Roswell put out the word, and more than 40 choir members took time out of their work day (and during the choir's summer break) to do a quick rehearsal before the memorial service and sing a very difficult anthem that was one of Mom's favorites. My employer sent flowers (and hasn't complained about my taking almost 3 weeks off work). The minister, funeral home director, cemetery staff, and the company that makes the headstones all walked us through the process with so much kindness and efficiency. A friend of ours picked up the tab for dinner and drinks for a whole table full of us on Saturday. Two of my friends drove 10 hours from Mesa, Arizona, to be at the memorial service and spend some time with us afterward. High school classmates whom I have not seen in over 20 years showed up to pay their respects and spend some time with us.

I got back home last night around midnight, and the woman at the front desk (who knows all about who is who in the condo) stopped me and let me know that my upstairs neighbor's AC unit had leaked water into my apartment but that my friends had mopped up and moved some of my computer peripherals to safety. One of those friends had been caring for my plants while I was gone. Three of them came in on Sunday to put meals in my fridge and a huge bouquet of flowers on my table, and they discovered the leak. They had alerted the front office so that the leak could be fixed immediately. Nothing was damaged that cannot be replaced, and once things dry out completely, the maintenance folks will make the drywall repairs, and I will see if my printer and scanner still work.

Because of the constant support of our whole network of friends and family, my sister and I had the time and energy we needed to cope with Mom's last days and death. We were close before, but during this time we really depended on each other to do what we needed to do and keep each other company. There is a concept in Ethical Culture called the Ethical Manifold, which describes the interconnected nature of all people and things, and the unique part that each of us plays in shaping the world. If this isn't an illustration of the Ethical Manifold at its best, I don't know what is.

News from the Silver Spring Transit Center

2010-06-25T11:13:00.000-04:00

The big hole in the ground now has what appears to be a forest of rebar sticking out in one area. Dare we hope for actual construction before the two-year anniversary in September?

Silver Spring Transit Center now has a gravel pile

2010-04-10T17:09:00.004-04:00

After a long hiatus, here are a couple more photos of the hole in the ground that is the Paul Sarbanes Transit Center in Silver Spring. You will notice that a gravel pile feature has been added. As a reminder, groundbreaking for this project was September 2008, just over a year and a half ago.

Arguments vs. Fights

2010-02-03T12:58:00.002-05:00

Words of wisdom from "Thinking with Flying Logic" by Robert McNally. This was passed along to me by my co-worker John Forbes.

"When we think of an argument, many of us envision scowls, angry gesticulation, and yelling. We imagine petty name-calling, a parade of unforgiven grievances, and other emotional power plays. Most importantly, we imagine arguing to get our way— to show that we are right and others are wrong. But such an interaction is not an argument— it is a fight. In a fight there may be winners, but there will certainly be losers, and injuries for all.

A real argument is a shared search for truth. In an honorable argument people can still be passionate, but they follow the rules of logic just as drivers follow the rules of the road. And even though people approach a situation from different perspectives and with different preconceptions, the positions they take should be seen as suggestions that are ultimately intended as win-win, even if they initially fall far short. Indeed, even such flat statements as, 'We’ll get along fine as soon as you learn to do things my way,' hint at a common objective: getting along.

When argument is viewed as a search for truth, it becomes possible to see adapting one’s position to new information and ideas not as weak or wishy-washy, but as a challenge to which only a mature, strong, and honorable person can rise. More pragmatically, all sides can begin to look forward to not merely getting their way, but getting something better in the form of a win-win solution."

Digging a Bigger Hole

2010-01-06T21:27:00.003-05:00

The excavation crew is back at it at the Silver Spring Transit Center site. Lots of equipment coming and going, most of the digging was happening near the MARC platform this morning (the end farthest from Wayne Avenue). The big pit continues to expand.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-25T18:13:00.002-05:00

I'm taking a breather (but not a complete break) from the Silver Spring Transit Center photo blog. All visible activity has halted as a result of the two feet of snow that blanketed our fair city last week. I rather doubt that anything of note will be happening over the holidays, so I will start up again in January, weather permitting. In the meantime, stay warm, enjoy your families and friends. All the very best wishes to you all for the year ahead.

Signs of Life at Silver Spring Transit Center (again)

2009-12-15T20:45:00.005-05:00

Activity at the Silver Spring Transit Center and Mud Hole seems to be picking up in a more visible way lately. The noise level was definitely up this morning. From the sound of it, they were breaking up a layer of rock or concrete using one of those big drop-hammer machines. The latest batch of photos, which I took yesterday, show the hole getting deeper and the retaining wall getting bigger.

The Washington Post finally had something to say on the matter. Dr. Gridlock's page in Sunday's paper showed the grass-covered slopes from a few months ago (print issue only, apparently) and a drawing of what the completed project is supposed to look like. The article basically recapped what the bloggers have been telling you for months -- the project is behind schedule, and much of the activity (relocating utility lines, removing contaminated soil) has been the kind that is not easily visible from the street. Things will probably get noisier over the next several months, when the rock blasting starts. The hole will grow to roughly twice the size of what it was this summer, according to the Post article, which quotes David Dise, director of Montgomery County's Department of General Services. "Once the excavation is done, you're going to see it spring out of the ground," Dise said, referring to the bus plaza and other buildings planned for the center. I hope he's right. At the pace things are moving now, I keep having to check the date stamps on my photos to make sure I'm posting the right ones from week to week.

Silver Spring Transit Center, the Dig Continues

2009-12-09T20:40:00.005-05:00

Another week, a bigger hole in the ground. What else can I say?
If you have just started reading this blog, here is a summary of the most useful links so far:
An October 21, 2009 article from the Silver Spring Gazette, which estimates completion of the project in February 2011. The article cites utility line relocations as the source of the delay.

An October 27, 2009 blog posting from the Silver Spring Penguin adds petrochemical cleanup from a former fuel storage facility, and naturally occurring asbestos to the mix.

A YouTube contributor known as "obz3rv3r" has posted several time-lapse photo sequences of the evolution of the hole in the ground, spanning from June through early November 2009.

But basically, it's still just a big hole in the ground.

Silver Spring Transit Center, More Photos

2009-12-01T21:46:00.004-05:00

I'm back in town and I managed to take several photos of the Silver Spring Transit Center-to-be this morning. Lots of digging in the dirt and trucks going back and forth. It's still a big hole in the ground, but most of the grass is gone from the slopes and there does seem to be a lot of activity. Which is more than I can say for the various municipal and county websites that are supposed to be keeping us current on this project.

I somehow missed an October posting from the Silver Spring Penguin that goes into some detail on the toxic petrochemicals and naturally occurring asbestos that had to be dealt with during excavation.

Here's a November 11 blog posting with some interesting info on how the Purple Line fits into the whole scheme of things.

Silver Spring Transit Center photo blog hiatus

2009-11-12T09:55:00.003-05:00

I won't be able to take my weekly photos of the Silver Spring Transit Center/mud hole for the next couple of weeks. My intention is to take this back up at the end of the month. In the meantime, please feel free to post a link to your own photos in the comments section.

Signs of Life at Silver Spring Transit Center

2009-11-11T22:09:00.004-05:00

November 10, 2009. The Silver Spring Transit Center is abuzz with activity. Excavators, trucks, construction workers. Not much going on November 11, but it's also been raining all day today and the site is a mud pit. The photos here are from Nov. 10.

Silver Spring Transit Center Weekly Update

2009-11-03T19:01:00.004-05:00

This week's update on the Silver Spring Transit Center:
Photos above taken Monday, November 2, 2009, about 8:45 AM

Ground breaking for the project: September 2008

YouTube poster obs3rv3r has an updated video, dated November 2, 2009. This appears to be a series of still pictures showing a couple of earth movers doing...well, something.

Montgomery County's project web page,still has Update #20 on its Status link, last updated March 16, 2009

Silver Spring Transit Center, still has one entry and one photo, last updated March 8, 2009

Silver Spring Downtown, still has the same posting with artist's conceptions of how the finished product will look, and the verbiage about starting the project is still in the future tense.

The Silver Spring Gazette's article of October 21 is still the most recent, and by far the most helpful information. A search of their website turns up nothing newer than this.

Silver Spring Transit Center Plods Along

2009-10-29T19:19:00.007-04:00

So what exactly is the deal with the Paul Sarbanes Transit Center in Silver Spring? More than a year after groundbreaking, we have a big muddy hole in the ground, with lush grass growing up the sides. Every now and then, you see a back hoe pawing listlessly, moving a little bit of dirt from here to there. Not a lot of progress for one year's work. If you do some serious Googling, you find that the construction company had to move a lot of utility lines that they hadn't planned on. Thus, the delay. Apparently, they have been very busy all this time, but all the activity has been underground. And things are "really going to pop" very soon, according to a recent article in the Silver Spring Gazette. We'll see. In the meantime, here are some useful and not-so-useful links, plus a few pictures that I took from the Metro platform on October 26, 2009, around 9AM.

Montgomery County's project web page, last updated March 16, 2009

Silver Spring Transit Center, a one-entry, one-photo blog, last updated March 8, 2009
Silver Spring Downtown, a local civic-pride-type website states: "Construction on improvements for the area for temporary bus operations during construction will start in the Fall of 2006. Construction on the Transit Center project will start in June of 2007." Note the use of the future tense. Actual groundbreaking date: September 2008.
More recently, someone with a username of obs3rv3r posted a YouTube video showing weekly photos spanning June to September 2009. Just so you can see how truly slowly this thing is moving.
The Silver Spring Gazette has the most recent, and by far the most helpful information. Their article is dated Oct. 21, 2009. The adjective they use is "plodding".

Point Counterpoint on Health Insurance Reform

2009-10-05T10:26:00.003-04:00

Someone named M.B. McLaughlin just posted a very good point-by-point analysis of health care reform options in today's Washington Post online. This was in response to Louisiana governor Bobby Jindahl's op-ed piece, in which he basically says the Democrats are full of poo, then offers his own plan, which basically mimics what the Democrats have been saying all along on some points, and mixes in a few Republican articles of faith (e.g., tort reform) so he doesn't look too blue-state, and makes a couple of claims about what Americans want that don't seem to be backed up by any facts whatsoever. Jindahl is like someone who shows up to a meeting two hours late, takes the floor, and proceeds to blather on about things that were already discussed before he showed up.

Here's Jindahl's op-ed: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/04/AR2009100402003.html
McLaughlin's response is below, just so you don't have to slog through pages and pages of online comments.

mbmclaughlin wrote:
This is a point by point response to Gov. Jindal's ideas (which, incidentally, would have better served everyone if they had been presented six or sevent months ago when we first started talking about health care reform).

-- Voluntary purchasing pools: This is one of Obama's ideas and is already in the Democratic health proposals in the form of insurance exchanges.

-- Portability: Allowing policies to cross state lines would ensure a "race to the bottom" that would gut all of the useful regulations that insurers are currently forced to comply with... things like covering mammograms, insulin, and smoking cessation materials and programs. If insurers cared about getting their policy holder's healthier, they would already "make more investments in prevention and in managing chronic conditions." The fact is that it's cheaper to drop people for misspelling something on a form than it is to cover them and it's easier to raise their rates so high they can't afford it than it is to treat chronic conditions.

-- Lawsuit reform: Every study I've seen says that lawsuits add no more than 1-2% to the cost of health care. Small price to pay when you consider that there are doctors out there who amputate the wrong limbs, leave sponges and surgical tools in people, and do all sort of other horribly incompetent things that maim and kill people. A better plan would be to develop basic, standard practices that doctors should follow for certain common procedures. Things like always have patients who require non-emergency surgery shower and scrub with antibacterial soap before the procedure, always wash your hands, and do a simple blood sugar test on patients with a family history of diabetes at least once a year.

-- Require coverage of preexisting conditions: Good, excellent, and it's already in the Democratic health proposals.

-- Transparency and payment reform: A majority of consumers get health coverage through their employer and thus only care about their copays. Most consumers are so busy with finding jobs, keeping jobs, making meals, getting the car fixed, paying bills, going to school, keeping an eye on the kids, and the myriad of other things that occupy modern daily life that even if the prospect of reviewing hundreds and hundreds of pages of efficiency studies and billing detail minutiae were exciting they wouldn't have time for it. Insurers should be making sure that the system works. But again, it's cheaper to just drop expensive patients than it is to question the details and try to save money.

-- Electronic medical records: Sounds good, as long as the system used is a secure one like the ATM network and not some insecure thing like most "online" systems. Also, how will you pay for it? Will our taxes go up or will it be another unfunded mandate that gets watered down due to lobbyists?

-- Tax-free health savings accounts: These are fine provided that you're well-to-do and can afford one. But the amount of record-keeping they entail makes them almost not worth it. Have you ever tried finding receipts for aspirin you bought a month ago? And what about the large amount of pointless medical care and purchases that happen at the end of each year as people who have these HSAs rush to try to spend the leftover money that disappears on Jan. 1? These are actually one of those nice ideas that work out rather terribly. We'd be better off giving everyone an extra $2,500 on their standard deduction. It wouldn't force people to buy care they don't need and penalize them if they lose some old, grease-stained receipt.

-- Reward healthy lifestyle choices: Sounds good. Why aren't insurers doing this already? Of course the only way to make them do it would be to mandate that they do it. Which I personally have no problem with but I expect many Republicans might.

-- Cover young adults: This seems like a good idea though young adults whose parents don't have health insurance won't benefit from it. Nor will many young adults who are in college. College's like to force really cheap, horrible "gulag" plans on students. Many insurers will refuse to cover children who have other insurance. Why not give young adults the option to buy in to Medicare?

-- Refundable tax credits (for the uninsured and those who would benefit from greater flexibility of coverage): Why is it OK to force people to buy insurance from private companies and anathema to allow them the option of buying it from the government? Why can't American families be given the choice of getting health insurance protection from our gov't? We get protection against invasion, crime, and fire from the government and those all seem to work just fine. How is it that we continue to support a for-profit health insurance system? The profits come from denying care to people. Every time they have to provide treatment, they lose money and their profits go down. Isn't it immoral to profit off of making people sicker and refusing treatment to sick people?
10/5/2009 1:26:38 AM

Getting what you pay for and paying for what you get

2009-10-04T15:26:00.004-04:00

This link goes to a blog posting entitled "How to Hire (Scam) a Writer" . The posting is a couple of years old, but it still applies, and it applies to writers in just about any situation, not just freelance web writers.

http://allfreelancewriting.com/2007/07/10/web-writing/how-to-hire-scam-a-writer/

The whole focus on mass quantity production, short turnaround times, rock-bottom pay, and 24 x 7 availability guarantees that you won't be getting a writer's best work. What in the world would make you think otherwise?

A little techno-fix

2009-09-28T09:56:00.001-04:00

OK, Linda suggested that the way I can get my thumbnail-sized logo to post on my FaceBook page is to put it into a blog post. So here it is.

The Controlled Verbiage Act

2009-09-27T17:50:00.004-04:00

I'm a word person, and it bothers me when words are misused, over-used, used to obscure the speaker's intent, or otherwise abused. Here in the United States, we have a Controlled Substances Act, which classifies various drugs according to their medical uses and potential for addictiveness or abuse. Perhaps we need a Controlled Verbiage Act to regulate the use of certain words with a high potential for abuse.

The lowest level of enforcement would be reserved for words that are often misused, but you more or less know what the speaker meant. Examples would be the interchangeable use of "lay" and "lie", "effect" and "affect", "flaunt" and "flaut". These are the Schedule IV words. They may be used by lay people without a prescription, but word processing programs should come equipped with directions for usage and warnings of the potential side effects when these words are not used as directed.

Moving on up the list, we have the Schedule III words. These can be used to convey a thought, but they have a high potential for overuse, even addiction. In addition, their misuse may do damage to the rest of the language by setting precedents for sloppiness and fuzzy thinking. Business writing is rife with Schedule III words and phrases. "At the end of the day", "at this point in time", "capturing value", you know the genre. Language-damaging words include such "verbed" nouns as "resulted", "impacted", and the abominable "architected". Throw in such commonly used, but unhelpful, words as "utilize". These words should be kept behind the counter at the editor's shop, and those wishing to use them should present some form of identification and sign a statement that these words are being used in a satirical fashion, as dialogue in a work of fiction or a stage play, as a direct quotation in a news story or documentary, or in professionally-written linguistic performance art.

Schedule II words have legitimate linguistic uses, but they are almost universally misused when placed in the hands of amateurs. These words include "enormity", "comprise", "quantum", and other impressive-sounding but poorly understood terms. When these words are misused, the reader can be left wondering whether the author meant to say that the new shopping mall is a disgrace and an abomination, or merely that it is very large.

Schedule I words have no use other than to demean, disgrace, or belittle other people or to suggest acts of violence or subjugation. You know what these words are. I'm not going to repeat them here.

Decluttering Project

2009-08-09T19:15:00.003-04:00

The decluttering lady has come and gone (and her bill showed up on the credit card statement I got yesterday). The Salvation Army truck has come and gone, taking a good bit of my excess stuff. And I spent a good part of this weekend finding the proper little niches for all the stuff that hadn't found homes yet. As usual, it took 80% of the time to find places for that last 20% of the stuff. But I feel like I can breathe now. Here are some before-and-after photos.

And wouldn't you know. Just as I was finishing the project (the living room/writers studio part), my good friend, The Other Nancy M, invited me to lunch today to remind me that I had agreed to co-author a book with her. The project will find the writer, as Rachel Carson said. So -- in a couple of weeks, we will start regular biweekly meetings. The goal is to be finished by next Spring.

And of course, I have a zillion ideas for op-eds, and all I need to do is pick one and write the darned thing. And send it to the mentor program at the Op-Ed project to have it vetted and help me shop it around for publication.

But now, I have a space that is conducive to doing that sort of thing, so I have no more excuses. And I got word today that the Washington Ethical Society is starting a concerted effort to form and support a community of creative people, which is something I have been talking about in the abstract for a few years now. So it looks like the Universe is taking me seriously and removing my reasons to remain stuck, one by one. And that's a good thing.

Train wrecks and prison breaks

2009-08-07T20:52:00.004-04:00

TGIF. It's been over a month since the train wreck in June, and things are still not back to normal. August promises to be a month of switch repairs and track work. Commuting takes up more time these days, and I'm wearier when I get home. Nothing like those folks who hit the road at 5AM, thankfully, but the trek to and from the paying job takes close to three hours out of my day these days. I read my friends' Facebook postings about mid-day trips to the pool and dropping by the sculpture garden after work for a quick jazz concert and I get a little envious. But I also remember my friends who have been out of work for over a year (and yes, I know more than one such person), and I think that I can put up with the interminable commute to the cubie farm a little bit longer. But I'm plotting my escape.

So Happy to Be Home

2009-06-22T22:11:00.002-04:00

No postings for a month, and here I'm doing two in one day. I am so grateful, relieved, and dog-tired, but I am home safe and sound. Earlier this evening I had no clue what was waiting for me after I left the office. Here's what the email notice said:
(ID 55699) Disruption at Fort Totten. Trains are turning back at Brookland-CUA & Silver Spring due to a police situation outside of Fort Totten station. Shuttle bus service has been established.

Actually, the message above is from 9:30 tonight, but it's the same message that I saw at about 5:30, as I was getting ready to pack up and leave the office. I didn't know until a couple of hours later that "disruption" meant that around 5 PM one train rear-ended another one with so much force that the back train rode up over the front train, ripping out the floor. Six people are dead, about 70 injured. My normal 1-hour commute took almost 3.5 hours, and it involved two trains, a hike through the District of Columbia to try and find a bus that could squeeze in another few people, a 7-mile bus ride that took the better part of an hour, and a one-mile bus ride that took about 15 minutes (instead of the usual 5-7).

In situations like this, one's fellow commuters are somehow friendlier and chattier, even if we are all tired and stressed out. Something about all being on the lifeboat together brings out the camaraderie. I ran into my upstairs neighbor during my quest for a Metro bus, and somehow she was reminded of a bus trip to a Beatles concert in Philadelphia, which piqued the interest of a fellow bus rider we had never met before. We also picked up bits of the crash story from people who were getting cell phone updates from their friends and families. We learned that the S9 express bus starts out at 13th and I Street -- wish we had known this before, this kind of information is pure gold to those of us who rely on public transportation. But I will know this next time. I hope there isn't a next time, but I know there will be.

In any case, my neighbor Yvonne and I got home with nothing worse than a case of tired feet. I am thankful to be home. It could have been so much worse.

Citizen Journalism in Iran

2009-06-22T13:53:00.003-04:00

This link to "Super-filtered #IranElection info for the easily overwhelmed" was given in a blog posting from the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit journalism organization:
http://iran.robinsloan.com

Here's the blog posting:
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=165524

The page is set up dashboard-fashion a la Google News. It's mostly Tweets and photos from sources that the page's author (Robin Sloan of Current TV) deems reliable. It's an interesting approach to a situation where the story is huge and happening fast, but there are no professional journalists on the scene to verify observations, ask questions, or provide context.

One especially poignant 40-second video clip making the rounds shows a young woman bleeding to death on the street, as frantic bystanders try to save her. Who was she? What actually happened to her? What was she doing before she was injured? Who shot the video and what was their purpose in showing us this? No one seems to know, it's just raw emotion with few facts.

This whole citizen journalism thing is changing the political landscape -- how can a dictator lie to the world when he has thousands of cell phone cameras broadcasting live coverage? At the same time, those of us on the outside have to evaluate what we are seeing and try to make some sense of all the changing, conflicting, overlapping information that comes pouring in. I am so curious to find out how we will be getting our news 10 years from now.

Mystery Plant (continued)

2009-05-18T14:40:00.002-04:00

Best guess so far: purple salvia, aka purple rain (see: Prince), purple sage (as in, Riders Of The). And apparently this stuff has psychoactive effects, although I don't plan to test this. More along the lines of spiritual enlightenment as opposed to acid trips. If the birds and squirrels start acting strange, maybe I can post some photos of that.

Mystery Flower

2009-05-18T13:35:00.003-04:00

Does anyone know what the purple flowering plant is in the picture here? The blue flowers are lobelia. I got these at a plant nursery the other day, and I really like the purple flowers. The flowers are kind of bell-shaped and they go up the stem. It's hard to see that from this angle. The plant didn't have any sort of identification, and no one else seemed to know either.

Pictures from the New Mexico, Texas trip

2009-05-16T21:11:00.002-04:00

http://picasaweb.google.com/wordchemist.photos/NewMexicoAndTexas2009?feat=directlink

My pictures from the New Mexico/Texas trip are at the link above. A few of them are embedded in earlier postings on this blog. Enjoy!

Home Again

2009-05-10T16:51:00.003-04:00

Mission accomplished, home again safe and sound. Enjoying a quiet afternoon with the Sunday paper before going back to cubicle-land tomorrow. Linda and I spent way too much time on the road, but we saw cousins and aunts that we hadn't seen in decades and we re-acquainted ourselves with the vast arid landscape that is eastern New Mexico and western Texas. That place was home for so long, but I needed a map on several occasions before the old memory kicked in.

We spent a couple of days in Lubbock, with a half-day trip to Amarillo in the middle. So much hasn't changed but some things are very different. Much of the old student ghetto east of Texas Tech has been converted into upscale apartments, but my old place on 2nd and Ave. X is still there, with not much more renovation than a good coat of paint on the outside, and my old dorm looks exactly the same.

The trip home was one of those local-bus Southwest flights that started in Dallas, then hopped over to Lubbock where Linda and I caught the plane. A couple of parabolic hops put us into Albuquerque, then Denver, where Linda and I parted ways. She headed off to Seattle, and I stayed on the plane for the last two-hour hop to Baltimore. The plane was at least half empty, something I hadn't seen in a long time. We were 20 minutes early getting into BWI (another unfamiliar experience), and the luggage hit the belt in baggage claim in record time. Probably because there were so few of us on the flight. I was home by about half past midnight, a good hour earlier than I expected.

So I'm home today, easing myself back into the everyday world. Pictures to come.

More pix

2009-05-06T17:14:00.004-04:00

Carlsbad NM, looking across the Pecos River from a little park
just west of Landsun Homes, where Mom lives.

Prickly pear cactus.

This aqueduct was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1939.
It spans the Pecos River and Westridge Road (foreground)
on the northern edge of Carlsbad.

email feeds

2009-05-06T11:41:00.003-04:00

I'm e-mailing new blog posts to my blog followers. If you want to be taken off this list, please email me and let me know. If you want to be added, let me know too. I have "syndication" turned on for this blog, so you should be able to get RSS feeds. Let me know if you can't, and I will noodle around with the settings some more.

More notes from NM

2009-05-06T11:19:00.002-04:00

News from southern New Mexico. Mom is doing about the same as when we saw her last year. She does seem to recognize both of us, but she mostly stares out at something that only she can see.

We took a day trip north to Roswell yesterday. Saw a long-time friend of Mom's who lives on a farm just south of town, and she gave us some news. Her neighbor just down the road and the neighbor's business partner own the horse that won the Kentucky Derby. Front page news locally!

Cinco de Mayo libations with old friends and new at Pecos Flavors, a wine and gourmet shop (in Roswell!!) owned by one of my sister's high school classmates. A touch of class in the old home town. Wrapped up the evening at Peppers restaurant, then closed the place down at 10PM. Some things never change. Had to dash for the car before they rolled up the sidewalks on us.

Weather: warm at night, blazing hot in the day (up to 100 deg. today -- that's Fahrenheit).

Pictures to come.

More pix

2009-05-03T22:50:00.003-04:00

More Albuquerque photos: a light post stands out against a typically gorgeous NM sky, and a couple of large sculpture pieces near the Bernalillo County Courthouse.

On the Road Again

2009-05-03T22:35:00.005-04:00

Greetings from sunny New Mexico. Linda and I flew to Albuquerque from our respective Washingtons (the state for her, the District for me), and had a great time with friends last night. We arrived on the only chilly rainy day predicted for this week, but we also got a great rainbow with the Sandia Mountains for a backdrop. This morning, it was breakfast burritos at The Frontier (well known to Tony Hillerman fans) with more friends, plus a couple of repeats from last night. A brief photo shoot downtown, stopping for just a bit to peek in at the Cinco de Mayo street festival near the convention center. Then it was on the road, south on I-25, past the bosques and vineyards. Turned left at San Antonio, NM, home of the first Hilton Hotel and the ever-popular Owl Bar. Went east through Capitan (home of Smokey Bear) and Lincoln (where Billy the Kid was shot). The central part of the state looks very parched. Made it to Carlsbad by early evening, and now we're catching up on email and just generally taking it easy.

Tweet 1

2009-03-11T10:47:00.002-04:00

Judging from some of the thought-free, haven’t-read/heard-this-all-the-way-through replies that I have gotten to what I thought were some fairly succinct

Tweet 2

2009-03-11T10:47:00.001-04:00

list postings, emails, instructions, and even restaurant orders, I’m wondering if people are losing their capacity to process thoughts more than one

Tweet 3

2009-03-11T10:46:00.000-04:00

Tweet in length.

It's OK to Play

2009-03-05T20:45:00.004-05:00

Every now and then, I get an aha! moment. Not always at the most convenient times, but worth capturing and remembering even so. I got one of those last night as I was reading myself to sleep, and it woke me up again like a persistent toddler about 5AM today. And now, here it is almost 9PM and the idea still sounds good to me, so I'm passing it along to you.

I'm in an extended conversation these days with some fairly serous, highly educated folks, who want to nurture and develop their creative talents. Some do it for their own pleasure, and some as a way of expressing their deep, important capital-T Truths to those who come after them. The pleasure folks seem happy with craft projects and dabbling and just enjoying things in general. The capital-T Truth people are a bit disdainful of the whole thing, because you see, they are past that childlike stage and they must devote their time to perfecting their art. All that inner child stuff and writing with your non-dominant hand and representing your dreams in sand trays is all right if you are a blocked artist, or a mere hobbyist, or a beginner. Once you get past that stage, there is serious business to be done.

The aha! came as I was reading David Jauss' "Alone With All That Could Happen". The third chapter -- the one that talks about rhythm and flow. He starts out talking about the writing techniques of varying one's sentence lengths and cadences to influence the pace and fluence of the story, then moves on to the pacing and flow of chapters, sections, entire books. It's the kind of stuff that makes you want to go back to that short story with the ending that doesn't quite work and diagram it to death to see what's wrong with the danged thing.

But then. Jauss starts talking about the "musical unconscious". Stories that exist in a sort of pre-verbal language before the words form around them. Writers walking around going, "aah. aah." because the story has an aah in it, but they don't know if it's a cat or a camera or a hammer. Apparently, he has some scientific studies to back this up. The mind is equipped with an inborn "assembly language" (to lapse into computer-speak), an internal operating code that requires an interface to translate it into English, or French, or Navajo. A rhythm that you recognize but can't quite articulate.

And that's why we dabble and play and indulge the goofy thoughts, odd sound effects, warped observations, Dali-esque dream sequences. These are a way of speaking with and listening to the pre-verbal utterances that come from so deep within that we aren't even aware of it most of the time. Didn't you ever wonder why your best story ideas came at the oddest times and places? Why the title of someone else's play turns into your very different novella. Why your neighbor's whiskey bottle collection in his living room window grabs you by the lapels and forces you to remember something you dreamed 3 years earlier. Why that poem or book chapter seemed to write itself, relegating you to the role of stenographer?

Haven't you ever read prose where the technique was flawless, but it seemed flat, lifeless, derivative? The author has Tolkien's technique down cold, but the writing doesn't draw you into that magical world. The whole thing has a paint-by-numbers feel to it, and you can see the bits of technique poking out like outlines on a badly doctored photograph. Like a Beatles tribute band that gets all the notes right, but doesn't make you wanna dance like John, Paul, George, and Ringo did. Skim through the editors' preferences in Writer's Market and count how many times the phrase "writing class" is used in a snarky way.

No, technique and polishing and crafting all come later. You start with the 3AM idea, the bit of a song stuck in your head, the "aah, aah", the drumming of your pencil on your desktop. You go with the goofy, the skewed, the "where am I going with this". And you let it grow unhindered until it's strong enough to withstand your pruning and trimming. Would you prune a half-inch seedling?

Yes, you can try to emulate the masters. Learn from their success. By all means. But if you don't start with your very own inspiration, anything you do will look like a knock-off. They said it first, and they said it better. You start with your own stuff, and even if what you wind up with is a little rough around the edges, it's yours. Go back and look at those masters. Didn't they speak with their own voices? Wasn't that what made them great?

Toldja So

2009-02-18T20:13:00.003-05:00

So I've seen some reader comments in the WaPo (as we call the Washington Post around here) saying that your average Joe could have told you years ago that the whole economic system was too messed up to hold together. Your daddy may have been a blue-collar working stiff, but he worked at the same job his whole adult life, and retired with a solid pension and enough savings to give his kids a small inheritance. Nowadays, both Joe and his wife Jane work full time just to keep up with the payments on the credit card bills. If there's something left over, they put it into their 401(k) or their kids' college fund and hope the market doesn't take a nose dive when the time comes for them to draw on those funds. Joe and Jane could lose their jobs for any reason or no reason at all, and a hospital visit or a hike in their mortgage payments could send their household finances into a tailspin. If the whole global economy depends on overstretched American consumers like Joe and Jane and everyone they know, why are you surprised that the whole thing is falling apart now?

On the other hand, an editorial writer for another publication (whose name escapes me now) thinks this kind of thinking is just Democrat gloating over the mess those darned Republicans have made. He calls it the flip side of the Republican gloating during the heyday of Newt Gingrich, and those eight years of you-know-who that just ended last month.

This doesn't feel like gloating, though. In order to gloat, you have to be standing outside the mess looking in. Unfortunately, there's no ground to stand on right now that is outside this global mess. If you're going to indulge in schadenfreude, there has to be some freude. Otherwise, it's just schade, and we're all pretty much knee-deep in schade right now and sinking fast. No, this feels more like Jeremiah warning of dire things and getting thrown down a well for his efforts. Jeremiah was just as broken-hearted as everyone else when he turned out to be right.

We still have a few die-hards on both sides of the aisle in Congress and on the talk radio shows (and apparently one guy who is keeping my sister's print shop afloat by spending scads of money printing up anti-Obama stickers). They throw parties when they are up and throw tantrums when they are down. Most of the rest of us are rolling up our sleeves and picking up our mops and buckets. We were right, we saw this coming, you didn't listen, but we're all in this mess together, so we might as well start cleaning things up. Maybe you'll listen next time, but we rather doubt it.

Are we Safe Yet?

2009-01-31T13:41:00.003-05:00

Over the last several years, we have put up with an awful lot in the name of keeping us safe. Especially in the DC metro area, we have concrete barriers and security checkpoints enough to outfit a military base. So are we safer?

Let's see. There haven't been any more airplanes crashing into high-rise office buildings, true. But there was that one lulu of a flood in New Orleans, and that collapsed bridge in Minneapolis, and let's not forget all the good folks who won't be coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Al Qaeda hasn't been able to demolish our way of life, true. But greedy bankers, corporate executives, and crooked politicians have that base covered pretty well. It's getting harder and harder to stay in the shrinking middle class these days, what with all the cutbacks and layoffs and life savings evaporating into the ether. And the next few generations will get to share in the fun as they try to keep up with the interest payments on all that debt.

Bottom line: whether you get blown up by a terrorist, or go to an early grave because you can't pay for good health care, or crash to a watery death because the bridge rusts out from underneath your car, you're just as dead one way as another.

I'm just sayin'...

Travel Journal, Part 7

2009-01-18T15:19:00.003-05:00

January 1, 2009. Boa Ano Novo!
We started the new year by finishing up our packing while we washed sheets and towels and tidied up the condo. We left for Lisbon shortly after noon, and made the drive in alternating drizzle and downpour.

Close to Lisbon, the highway split, one way going to the south of Lisbon and one way going north. Since we hadn't had to choose a direction on our trip to Almancil, we weren't sure which way to choose, and in the few seconds we had to make a decision, we stayed on the main highway going to the south side. Oops. Wrong choice.

So Carole drove and I tried to navigate, using a map with markings that seemed to bear no relation to the signs we saw along the way. Things were getting tense, since we were supposed to meet a man from the rental car company at the airport at 3:00 so we could drop the car off. We didn't have cell phones, and we had no idea how long it would take us to find the airport from where we were.

I saw a highway on the map that followed the Rio Tejo and would lead us to an airport access road -- at least we would have the river to keep us oriented. But we couldn't see how to get onto this road, and we wound up downtown. Most of the shops were closed for the holiday. The upside of things being quasi-deserted was that found a parking space close to a public phone. Carole called the rental car company, and the man we were supposed to meet said not to worry if we were late. He had to stay at the airport until about 7:00 anyhow. I used the time to try and find our location on the map, and find a route to get ourselves back on track. I thought for sure we had it -- turn at this traffic circle, look for that park. But up ahead was a sign that said "buses only", and we had to make a turn onto a tiny street that had only a few inches of clearance between our tiny Fiat and the cars parked along both sides of the street. Carole's nerves were frayed, and my stomach was tight. Where were we?

Don't ask me how, but we pressed on ahead and found ourselves looking at the Rio Tejo, and the highway that I had tried to get us on in the first place! We headed north, keeping the river on our right, and by that time, we were starting to see signs pointing toward the airport. We made it into the airport entrance without further incident. Oh no! Were we supposed to go to terminal 1 or 2? We followed the road toward the "departures" level, as we had been told to do, and we reached terminal 1 first. There was the man from Rentauto, waving us in! What a relief. (Note that this company, which has no on-site office, had sent a man in on New Year's Day to take care of a few individual customers, and he recognized our average-looking little gray car as we were driving in. You don't get that kind of service in the States.)

We finished the paperwork for the rental car, transferred our bags to a taxi, and let someone else do the driving for a change. The driver gave me a look like "so?" when I told him "Hotel Turim Lisboa", but he seemed slightly mollified when I gave him the address in Portugese. Rua Felipe Folque vinte. The driver was not Mr. Chatty, and he was a very aggressive driver, but he did know where he was going. We got to our hotel in 15 minutes. The hotel was on a quiet side street near Edward VII Park, not the ultra-narrow kind of street, but small enough to have almost no traffic.

The hotel desk clerk spoke very good English -- apparently, this hotel is well known to tourists from Britain, Germany, and Spain. He checked us in, and after conferring with the maintenance man, recommended a nearby restaurant -- Antonio's -- that would be open on New Year's Day. Our room was quite large by European standards, more like an average-sized American hotel room. After a bit of head-scratching, we found that the way you turn the lights (and the rest of the electricity) on is to put your room key card into a slot by the door. That's one way to make sure you don't leave all the lights on when you're not in the room. The lights in the hall outside were motion-activated, another energy-saving measure.

We walked the couple of blocks to Antonio's and had a simple, filling dinner. Back at the hotel, it was still early, so we stopped into the hotel bar for a glass of wine and a chat with the bartender, then called it a night.

January 2. The weather went from drizzle to downpour and back to drizzle all day. No matter, this was our one day in Lisbon (at least, our one day when we weren't exploring downtown totally lost and stressed out). We set out on foot along the limestone mosaic sidewalks. (The sidewalks in the Algarve were mosaics, too.) This helps on a rainy day, since the water drains into the sand between the stone chips.

Another Lisbon sight that reminded us of the Algarve: many apartments had small inflatable Santa figures attached to their balcony railings, climbing up the outside of the railings like a second-story man.

We walked from the hotel to the Baixa, the central shopping region, and site of many historical buildings, near the riverfront. We took a quick espresso break (and got out of the rain for a moment) at a tiny shop next to a police station. The two tiny tables wedged in next to the shop window must have been designed for hobbits. Certainly not zaftig Americans. Police officers wandered in and out, chatting up the shopkeeper. The only thing that was missing was a rack of doughnuts. Some things are the same all over.

As we were taking in the sights around the Praca do Comercio, Carole spotted a tram that was just loading up people for a tour. We got the last two seats, and we welcomed a chance to dry out a bit while touring the city. We plugged in our headphones, tuned to Channel 2 for English, and off we went.

I couldn't get positioned well for photos, and I was more interested in listening to the tour narration anyway, so no photos of this part of our day. We saw churches and museums, residential neighborhoods built in the Pombaline style after the 1755 earthquake, elegant tilework, narrow streets. Very narrow streets. At one point, the tram driver had to stop and ring her bell to summon a driver who had parked his car at a slight angle, protruding about a foot into the street. Clearance was so tight that the trolley couldn't get past. Luckily, the man was close by, and he repositioned his car. At another place, the driver had to slow the tram to a crawl as she skootched the tram around a parked car, with only inches to spare. Everyone on the tram was watching nervously, and we let out an audible group sigh of relief when she made it past. I didn't know you could skootch a tram car, but apparently you can.

We had a late lunch at the Cafe Nicola, very famous locally, with a long history. Art deco decor (1930s remodeling) co-existed with the 18th-century statues and oil paintings. The waiter was very amused to have a couple of Americans as customers, and he teased us, asking if we wanted the whole swordfish or only a single serving.

We slogged around a while more, and bought some souvenirs. A man was selling CDs of fado music from an antique van that had been converted into a traveling shop. We each bought a "best of" CD by Amalia Rodrigues, an icon of Portugese fado music who died in 1999. Then we headed back to the hotel.

We arrived at the hotel around 5:00 PM, just as the clouds were beginning to part and the sun was shining through. Wouldn't you just know it. Dinner at the little restaurant across the street, and an evening of suitcase-packing.

January 3. The taxi arrived at the hotel right on time. After a white-knuckle ride to the airport (I swear we must have been airborne a few times), we checked in for our flight. The flight was uneventful, and we got back to Newark about 2:30 -- a half hour early. Eric showed up right at 3:00, and we regaled him with tales of our adventures on the way back to Carole's house. I stayed at Carole's place that night, making amends to her poor neglected kitties (yeah right -- the cat sitter treated them very well) and catching up on what little chit-chat we had left in us after two weeks.

January 4. On the road again. A big car crash tied up traffic outside Wilmington, but otherwise the trip went smoothly. Back home around 3PM. My Christmas cactus was in full bloom, as if to welcome me back.

Travel Journal, Part 6

2009-01-17T22:13:00.003-05:00

December 31. We spent our last day in Almancil taking it easy. It rained off and on all day. Coffee and bolo (cake) for pequen almoco (breakfast) at a tiny coffee shop, a stop at the Western Union to check email, a stroll around the neighborhood. Lunch at Gamboa's, the same place we went on our first day in Almancil. The owner recognized us and gave us a warm handshake. Spent the afternoon packing our bags, napping, reading (I got most of the way through Julia Cameron's "Walking in the World" over the course of our trip).

Dinner at Ferriera's, the restaurant run by the Brazilian lady. It was New Year's Eve, and we didn't have reservations, but she remembered us and she had an open table. She had prepared a very elegant multicourse dinner that night, and some of the patrons were dressed in their holiday finery. We hadn't brought any realy dressy clothing, but we did our best, and we fit in with some of the more casually dressed patrons. We enjoyed a lovely dinner, and we left fairly early so we could make a last visit to Rumours.

There wasn't much going on at Rumours, but we sat at the bar and ordered drinks. A Portugese man sat next to us at the bar. He kept staring at us, but he never did try to talk to us. Another Portugese man, there with a couple of buddies, struck up a conversation, mostly with Carole (I had trouble following the conversation over the music). He had long, graying hair, and half of his teeth were missing, but he spoke passable English and he seemed very knowledgeable about American politics. We couldn't convince him that Los Angeles wasn't the capital of California, but he knew about Nixon and Reagan, and he had been following this year's election race. But the guy was sloshed, so the conversation was a little erratic. The bartender (who owned the bar with his sister, the one we talked to the other night) stopped by a couple of times to see if the guy was pestering us, but he seemed pretty harmless. I saw a schoolteacher and her son, expats from Newcastle (UK) we had talked to a couple of nights before. She was there with a couple of friends, and I wandered over to join their conversation. One of her friends went over to the karaoke machine, where he was joined by the bartender. They struck up an off-key version of "American Pie" and they were joined by Carole's toothless Portugese friend. The schoolteacher's other friend was visiting from Sunderland, a coastal town southeast of Newcastle. He thought it was a great novelty to be talking to Americans while he was in the Algarve. We all talked together until the bar closed, around 11:00.

We went back to the condo and watched part of "Blazing Saddles" on the TV movie channel (Portugese subtitles), then we went out on the balcony to watch the New Year's fireworks. There was supposed to be a big show on the Quarteira bridge, to the south of us, and I think that's what we saw. It was kind of an odd effect, seeing distant fireworks filtered through fog.

Happy 2009! Tomorrow, we drive to Lisbon.

Travel Journal, Part 5

2009-01-15T19:25:00.002-05:00

December 29. Today's trip: Sagres, The End Of The World. The sky was cloudy as we headed to the westernmost corner of Portugal. The clouds grew very heavy, but the rain managed to hold off until we had finished our visit. This made for some very dramatic scenes: sheer cliffs with the waves crashing far below and the clouds looming overhead, the sun shining on the water a mile or so out to sea. It wasn't hard to find the Forteleza Sagres: just follow the signs and then head for the gigantic stone wall directly ahead. The wall encloses a large courtyard, mostly empty except for a few buildings, a church, a monument to Henry the Navigator (who assembled a group of cartographers here, although the school for navigators appears to be just a legend), a circle of stones on the ground forming a huge compass rose, and the disembodied stone head of an argonaut statue. On the leeward side of Sagres Point is a harbor, with hotels and a beach.

Between the courtyard and the sea is a wide stretch of open ground, full of heavily weathered, light-colored, hole-ridden rocks that look like lava. The rocky field looks like an alien boneyard, with various kinds of plants growing among the stones -- succulents, sea thrift, thistles, and some kind of tiny yellow flower. Seagulls allowed the tourists to get close, but not too close. Old cannons pointed out to sea, their iron barrels weathered and flaking to the point where they looked like they were made of wood.

After our visit to the Forteleza, we drove around the town of Sagres. We found a post office, a souvenir shop, and a tiny restaurant, where we had a mid-afternoon lunch. We headed back east, somehow missed a turn right around Lagos and wound up heading west again. After trying to right ourselves several times, we decided to give up on taking the local highway back -- it was getting dark anyway -- and we got onto the freeway and headed back to Almancil. Dinner was more of our purchases from Sunday's farmers market. We made a quick trip to the Western Union office to check our email, then called it a day.

December 30. This was the sunniest day we had seen for a while, although a few gray clouds still lingered. We got onto the A22 and headed east to Spain. Crossing the Rio Guadiana border was uneventful, no more hassle than crossing a state line in the US. The bridge was very modern-looking, with tall triangular supports that suggested the form of sails. As we crossed over into Spain, the scenery was less seacoast and more agricultural. We saw fields with acres of white plastic shelters that looked like quonset huts, protecting rows of small green plants with white flowers. Strawberries? We couldn't tell from the road.

We turned off the highway near Huelva, and followed a side road to the beach at Punta Umbria. Along the way, the trees had the stylized look of Art Nouveau prints. The beach was solidly covered with seashells, like a crunchy carpet. Some people were flying a kite that looked like a parasail from a distance. We stayed a while and watched the waves, the seagulls, a man contemplating the scenery.

We got back onto the road and drove through park-like forests and upscale resort developments. We explored a resort area called Cartaya, then found our way back to the main highway, and headed back west over the border to Portugal.

We got onto the N125 at the border towns of Castro Marim and Vila Real de Santo Antonio and drove as far as Tavira. There, we stopped and visited the Plaza do Republico in the center of town, and walked along the Gilao river for a while. The walkways and streets were covered with the same cobblestones, and what we thought was an interesting striped-stone walkway along the side of the plaza turned out to be an indication of where the cars were supposed to drive. I guess you were just supposed to know that -- or you would find out soon enough when a car honked its horn at you. The side streets were very narrow, and some of them had stone steps. The streets reminded me of the streets you see in the James Bond movies where the car is driving down a flight of steps or navigating a street with just an inch or two of clearance on either side. I was very glad to be on foot.

We explored the old walled city (8th century Phoenician) and made a brief visit to the Igreja do Misericordia (church). Inside, blue and white picture tiles reached halfway up the walls, and there was an ornate gold altarpiece.

Nearby, an old stone wall that looked like a very small castle enclosed a wonderful little garden. Plaques identified the various plants: bouganvila, hibiscus, poinsetta, blue nightshade, banana plants. Cactus plants grew between the stones of the castle walls. Narrow stone steps went to the top of the parapet, which overlooked white stucco houses with red tile roofs.

We looked around a couple of craft stores, then headed home. We got to Faro right around rush hour, almost wound up in that hospital parking lot that messed us up the first time, got out of the traffic circle one exit too soon, and took an unplanned tour of an industrial section of town. We finally righted ourselves and got back to Almancil without further incident.

Problems seeing my pix? Please write in.

2009-01-14T09:50:00.002-05:00

A couple of you have told me that you weren't able to access the pictures from the links in my blog. I am not able to duplicate this problem (even when I'm not logged in to my account), and several people have been able to see my pictures just fine. I would like to find and fix any problems on my side of things, so if you can't see my pictures, please post a comment (if you have an account), or send me an email (nmcguire@wordchemist.com) with the following information.
1. Copy and paste the link you used and the date of the blog posting where the link appeared. If you can capture the URL from this link, put that in too.
2. Copy and paste the URL that you got when you followed the bad link -- this should appear in the narrow box at the top of the web page.
3. Tell me (briefly) what web page said when you followed the bad link -- page not found? you don't have privilege to access this page? etc.

In the meantime, you should be able to access my pictures through the main album page (again, tell me if you can't):
http://picasaweb.google.com/wordchemist.photos

Travel Journal, Part 4

2009-01-12T20:01:00.003-05:00

December 27, Saturday. The morning was cloudy, but not cold. We drove to the Igreja do Sao Lourenco (Church of St. Lawrence), just a little east of Almancil. Augie and Gia were married in this church, and they recommended it as a must-see. The church was smaller than we had expected, but the interior was absolutely stunning. You'll have to take my word for it because we were not allowed to take pictures inside. The entire interior of the church was covered with blue and white tiles with exquisitely detailed pictures of scenes from the life of St. Lawrence. Here's a tile picture from the outside of the church. The grill you see in the background depicts the fact that St. Lawrence was tied to a grill and (shudder) slowly roasted alive for failing to recant his beliefs.

A gold-covered altar piece at the front of the church reached toward the high domed ceiling. Statues occupied several tiers, with St. Michael standing at the top. Very celestial-looking. Outside the church, Carole and I had a nice conversation with a visiting Scotsman named Lawrence and his wife.

We drove north to Loule, then walked through a narrow litte market street just south of the Sao Sebastiao Municipal Court (if my Portugese translation is correct). After wandering around Loule for a bit, we headed further north into the hills, toward a little town called Querenca.

The villages tucked away in the trees along the way were lovely. We made another Portugese discovery that might be worth emulating in the States: the smaller towns have traffic lights that only turn red if you are speeding. Portugal has a reputation for fast drivers, and they are using every innovation they can think of to slow people down. In any case, it was a very scenic and leisurely drive through the hillside towns. We drove as far as we dared, not really knowing where we were or how much farther up in the hills the road went. As it turned out, we could have reached a major highway had we gone a little farther, but the clouds were getting rather dark and not all of the streets were paved. We found ourselves on a very narrow street in Querenca, and we managed to follow it around and through a church driveway until we got back onto the main road in the direction of Loule.

We got back to Almancil about 2:30 PM and explored a bit more of the neighborhood before it started to sprinkle. That night, we went back to the Rumours Sports Bar for a drink before dinner, then to O Sagrado de Aoho restaurant for a cod dinner. By the time we finished dinner, the rain was coming down steadily, and we had left our rain gear at the condo. By the time we got back, we were pretty well soaked. Luckily, it still wasn't too cold.

December 28. We woke up early, intending to drive across the border to Spain that day, but it was misty outside and not a particularly good day for sightseeing. As the morning went on, the mist became a steady rain. We went a block down the street to the Western Union office and caught up on our e-mail.

Later that morning, we saw canopy tents in the vacant lot on the other side of the park. People were coming from that direction, carrying shopping bags. We grabbed our rain gear and wandered over. The Sunday farmer's market was in full swing by the time we got there, mud and all. You could get just about anything, from fresh produce and artisanal cheeses to sox and undies or kitchen utensils. We bought oranges, figs, cashews, radishes, bread, and cheese -- then went home and feasted. The oranges, which still had leaves attached, were some of the best I have ever had.

The sun came out in the afternoon, so we took the car south toward Quarteira. We wandered around lost in Vale dos Lobos, which is a haven for multimillionaires. You could practically smell the money. After we finally found the way out (presumably, all the chauffeurs already know their way around and have no need of street signs), we went back to Faro. We decided to explore the Old Town -- very old town. As in 8th century BC Phoenician old town. The walls surrounding the town were ancient-looking, and the limestone mosaic streets inside the walls were narrow and winding. Storks had built nests on the rooftops. Storks are very large birds -- it's easy to imagine them carrying babies in bundles. We don't have them in the States, so this was like seeing a fairy tale come to life.

On our way out, we saw a sign for a catamaran tour of the Ria Formosa. This was an opportunity that was too good to pass up. We paid our 20 euros each and took our seats along with the English, Belgian, and Portugese tourists. The tour guide repeated all of his explanations in Portugese, French, and English so we would all know what was going on. We left port at high tide, and you could see just the tops of the islands. Gray herons, sandwich terns, oyster catchers, white egrets, and cormorants covered the islands, waiting for the tide to go out so they could fish the shallows. The catamaran only had a half-meter draft, and the pilot knew the complicated path between the submerged islands.

We went ashore at a barrier island that had been evacuated (by humans) and set aside as a wildlife sanctuary in 1987. People were not allowed to live or camp there, but there was a visitor's center and a few shacks where fishermen could store their gear. Across a narrow inlet was another barrier island that had a small village. We spent half an hour wandering the beach on the Mediterranean side. The waves were quite high -- these barrier islands saved the city of Faro from the tsunami that followed the 1755 earthquake, and you could clearly see how much calmer the sea was on the other side of the island.

The sun was going down as we headed back toward Faro. The pilot let a 9-year-old girl, the daughter of Portugese expats on a visit from their home in Switzerland, drive the boat until we got well into the area with the sand bars, then he took over again. By the time we got off the boat, the Christmas lights were on in all the streets -- bells, stars, ribbons. A display in a tent showed a miniature version of Bethlehem, with the manger scene and villagers going about their business. A creche scene in the nearby park had life-sized statues.

Back in Almancil, the only place open on a Sunday night was a British fish and chips place. They didn't usually open on Sunday nights, but they were expecting a large football crowd that never materialized. Carole and I just about doubled their business for the evening. We went across the street to the sports pub, had our beers, and chatted with the owner while we watched more darts tournaments on the telly.

Farmer's market, Phoenician castles, Moorish ruins, bird watching, and darts on the telly. Not bad for one day.

Pictures!

2009-01-11T19:44:00.003-05:00

I finally figured out how to get Picasaweb linked to iPhoto on my Mac! (Not that it was all that difficult, but I'm new at this.)
So now I have photos to go with my travel journal. Here's the link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/wordchemist.photos

I will be uploading more photos as I update the travel journal. Enjoy!

Travel Journal, Part 3

2009-01-11T15:35:00.003-05:00

Boxing day, December 26. We headed west on N125, then north to Silves to see the castle and cathedral. On the way, we passed acres of orange groves, and a whole series of fruit stands selling fresh oranges. We also saw young women, each one standing alone near where the side roads met the highway, apparently waiting for a ride. They all had very short skirts and high-heeled knee boots. Some were talking on cell phones. It seemed an odd place to practice the world's oldest trade, but we couldn't imagine farmers dressing like that. We also saw older women in long dresses, big babushka scarves, and heavy shoes -- more along the lines of what we had pictured as rural folk.

The Silves castle, which was occupied by Moors and Catholics at various times, is made of red stone, and the design is very blocky. (The tour book I have compares it to a Lego fortress.) You can walk around the parapet of the castle wall and look down at the archaeological dig sites in the center. Look the other way, and you get a good view of the town below. Silves is an eclectic mix of upscale new buildings and very old row houses that sit right up against some very narrow streets. Orange and lemon groves stand between the castle and some very large, new houses.

Close by is the cathedral, which wasn't open that day. We stopped for lunch at the Cafe do Se (cathedral cafe), a small al fresco snack bar operated by a very taciturn Englishman. We asked where he was from. His mum, he said.

Then it was on to Portomao, where we walked along the Praia da Rocha (Rock Beach). This is a sandy beach, and you reach it by walking down a very long flight of steep wooden steps that go down the face of a cliff. On the parts of the cliff that aren't completely vertical, giant agave plants and colorful wildflowers grow. The steeper parts are bare stone, yellow-ocher and burnt umber. The cliffs appear to be volcanic tuff, and if you stood too close, you would get a shower of fine sand falling in your hair. Steep-sided rocks jutted from the water and the beach, and the waves would wash over the smaller ones -- very dramatic. One of the larger rocks, about 25-30 feet high, was surrounded by water, and a lone fisherman stood on top with his (very long) line in the water. I have no idea how he got up there.

We left the beach, and drove aimlessly around the narrow old streets of Portomao until we found a parking lot and a large villiage square. At the Cafe Ingles, we found almond tarts, espresso, and (yes!) free maps of the Old Town area. We wandered a bit more on foot, got lost again, then found our way back to the car. We found the highway toward Faro more by luck than anything else, missed the entrance to the N125, and wound up going home on the A22 freeway, which was ok because it was starting to get dark. We found our way back to the condo, remembering where to turn by the kind of Christmas lights on each street.

That night, we treated ourselves to a "real" dinner at the Figueira Restaurante nearby. We got there a little before they opened, not knowing that the restaurants around there never open until 7PM, but the owner saw us and welcomed us inside. We sat in the lounge area, drinking red wine and looking at the menu until our table was ready. For a while, we had the whole restaurant to ourselves. The owner, a very friendly Brazilian lady, was a wonderful host. After a wonderful sea bass dinner, she treated us to a wonderful drink made from amarghuinha (an almond liqueur) and fresh lemon juice, served ice-cold.

As we walked back to the condo, we heard a loud voice coming from the park, and we saw a couple of police cars with their lights going. We weren't sure if this was something we should stay away from or satisfy our curiosity and check it out. Curiosity won out, and we were treated to the sight of about a hundred people of all ages processing by candlelight. The voice we heard belonged to a priest chanting the rosary over a PA system. Toward the end of the procession, several men carried a statue of Our Lady of Fatima on a platform, and other marchers carried a banner to honor Sao Lourenco (St. Lawrence). We watched them go past, through the traffic circle (no cars were out night) toward the Igreja Sao Lourenco (Church of St. Lawrence) a couple of miles away. Later, we found out that this procession was a seven-day affair, and they visited all of the churches in the area.

Then it was back to the condo to rest up for another day.

Travel Journal, Part 2

2009-01-10T10:58:00.002-05:00

Bom Natal! Slept in until 9:30, got a nice hot shower and a nice pequen almoco (breakfast). The condo kitchen had a microwave-toaster combination that really saved on counter space. I'm going to have to see if I can find one of those here in the States. The morning clouds dispersed, and it was a beautiful sunny day.

It was my turn to drive the Fiat, and it took some getting used to. Carole and I both had the typical American driver's ed experience, and neither one of us can drive a manual transmission car worth beans. The Fiat had automatic transmission (after a fashion), but you had to think like a stickshift driver. No parking gear, so you had to remember to set (and unset!) the parking brake. And if you're stopped at the top of a hill, keep your foot on the brake until you're actually starting to move forward, or else you'll roll backward! After a few days, we both got used to driving the car, so no more teeth-jarring stops or nail-biting gear shifts while entering a crowded traffic circle.

Speaking of traffic circles, I really like the way the Portugese do traffic circles. They mark their circles with big, simple signs, and everybody knows you're supposed to yield to the traffic in the circle. You don't get these lines of traffic braiding in and out, trying to figure out which lane to get in, like you do in Washington DC. Of course, this was during the off-season, when there was very little traffic and most of the folks were local. There's no telling what the circles are like at the height of tourist season. But the Brits have circles too, so maybe they have this thing mastered.

So anyway, I was behind the wheel of the Fiat today, and we headed east on the N125 (the local highway that parallels the larger freeway-style highway along the south coast). We went through Faro, the capital city of the Algarve, and went on to Olhao. (There's supposed to be a tilde over the a, but I'm in no mood to do a bunch of HTML coding right now. The name is pronounced ole-YOW.) We found a beach access road that led to a marina and what appeared to be a large indoor market. This being Christmas Day, most everything was closed. But we did find a snack bar (this region is big on snack bars, and they use the English term) and got sandwiches for lunch (8 euros for the both of us!). A fair number of people were sitting outside at the bistro tables, having their espresso and enjoying the sunshine.

Near the promenade and the shops was a waterside park, with a carousel that had foreign-looking imitations of American cartoon characters instead of horses -- Mickey Mouse, Sylvester and Tweety, Fred Flinstone, etc. Little kids were riding the carousel, which was playing familiar-sounding carousel music.

Heading back west, we turned off onto a beach access road that went through a posh residential neighborhood. It looked like one of those golf-course retirement communities in the States. Not as over-the-top as the mansions that we saw farther west (more on that later), but very prosperous looking nevertheless. Lots of medium-sized white stucco houses with red tile roofs, surrounded by palm trees. To the south of the residential area was a road that ran along a marshy area, with the ocean beyond. In one spot, a lot of cars were parked along the side of the road, and there was a walkway heading south. We decided to investigate.

A path led to a wooden bridge across a stretch of water, and onto a barrier island, a part of the Ria Formosa area that protects this stretch of the mainland from the waves of the Mediterranean. (The Ria Formosa saved the city of Faro from the worst of the tsunami following the 1755 earthquake, which wiped out a good bit of coastal Portugal.)

We came to a wooden shelter, under which was an open-sided train with wooden benches. A man sat on the train platform, watching us impassively. A walkway ran alongside the train tracks, but we couldn't figure out how to get to it. Finally, the man pointed to the steps down to the walkway and we set off to see what we could see. We had gotten a fair distance down the walkway, when the train passed us. I'm guessing that the man we saw earlier was driving the train, but I didn't see for sure. We hadn't thought to ask if the train was running that day, we just assumed it wasn't. No matter. Somewhere along the walkway, I saw a sign that said Pedras d'El Rei, so I assume that's where we were (it's a barrier island just south of Tavira). At the end of the walkway was a beach, with a boardwalk and shops (closed). We watched the ocean and soaked in the sunshine for quite a while. The beach wasn't crowded, but quite a few people had come out to sit with their books, walk their dogs, and just generally enjoy a very pleasant day. As we walked back toward the road, another train came by, presumably taking people to the beach to watch the sunset.

We headed back toward Almancil, and made a wrong exit from a traffic circle in Faro, ending up in the hospital parking lot. Something had gone wrong up ahead, and a long line of cars just sat there, not moving. People came in behind us, and the road was one-way, so there was no going forward or backward. After what seemed an eternity, and cars backed up all the way back to the traffic circle, someone at the back of the line finally backed up into the circle (brave move!), allowing the rest of us to back out and right ourselves. We took the most promising looking exit off the circle, and found ourselves heading north toward Loule (accent mark over the e). We didn't think that was right, so we backtracked to that same circle in Faro and went around once again, carefully avoiding the hospital parking lot. We couldn't find any exit that looked even half right, except the one we had just taken, so we headed toward Loule and hoped for the best. As it turns out, that was exactly the right exit to take, and we should have just gone on a little further. Some force there is that watches over ditzy tourists, and we made it back to the condo safe and sound.

We wrapped up the day by seeing what there was on TV. One station showed American movies with Portugese subtitles. We also found a show that runs amateur video clips -- some funny, some just scary (car crashes and the like). Another show we came to like was called "No ha crise", which means something like "No problem". It's like Candid Camera, only funnier. The host spoke Portugese, but a lot of the clips appeared to come from Canada.

All in all, not a bad way to spend Christmas.

Travel Journal, Part 1

2009-01-09T19:03:00.003-05:00

It's been a month since my last posting, and part of the reason is that I have been noodling about the Algarve for a couple of weeks. (I was looking for a chance to use that phrase!) The vacation included a traveling companion (Carole) and a car (Fiat), but not a computer (except a couple of sessions at the Western Union office when it was pouring down rain -- more on that later). So my next few postings will be a slightly edited version of my travel journal. Pictures to come -- when I can figure out how I want to post the darned things.

December 23: I drove to Carole's house in New Jersey. We had tea and conversation with Giselda, Carole's neighbor and wife of Augustino. We're going to be staying in Augie and Gia's condo in Almancil, Portugal. This is the kind of opportunity that seems to only happen to other people, so when they very graciously offered to let us spend the winter holidays in their summer home, how could we refuse? Our good buddy Eric drove us to Newark Airport and after a very long wait to get past the one TSA person working the international security checkpoint (what was up with that???), the adventure began.

Winter is the off-season for most tourists to the south of Portugal, so pretty much everyone on the plane was going home for the holidays. Not much English being spoken on the plane, and Carole and I looked a bit out of place with our Anglo-Saxon faces. The couple across the aisle from us had a bichon frise/poodle (bidoodle?) that was the best behaved little doggie I've ever seen on a plane.

When we touched down in Lisbon Airport, it was 6 AM on December 24, local time. Apparently, it's customary for all the passengers to applaud the pilot upon landing, even if the flight was uneventful. That's a pretty cool job perk!

Our bags arrived safely too, and the guy from the rental car company was waiting for us. So far so good. Augie had printed detailed maps for us to find our way out of town, and Carole took the first turn driving the little Fiat. We found our way onto the highway and headed south through the morning fog. The countryside was hilly, with trees scattered here and there. Flocks of white sheep and herds of butterscotch-colored cows grazed, totally oblivious to us.

As we got closer to the Algarve region, the hills got higher and the trees got thicker. Also, the freeway exits got fewer and farther between. This turned out to be a problem, because the fuel gauge in the Fiat was in the red zone near "E". It turns out that the F was on the left side, and the E was on the right side, so what we thought was an almost full tank of gas leaving Lisbon was actually nowhere near full. Oops. We finally found an exit and asked the lady at the toll booth where we could find a gas station. Luckily, "diesel" is the same in English and Portugese, and she told us where to turn to find a small town, Sao Bartolomeu de Messines, with a gas station. Would it be open? It turns out that Sao Bart was very small, and the attendant spoke no English at all. Our few Portugese words and a lot of pantomime got the message across, and we soon had a full tank of diesel. For the record, the cheap diesel was running about a euro a liter.

We finally made it to Almancil about 11:00. Finding the condo was a combination of Carole's good memory (Augie showed her photos of the condo and the surrounding neighborhood) and just dumb luck. The Portugese are not big on street signs, preferring to put street names on pretty tile insets in buildings and walls, when they bother at all. We knew that the condo was across from a park at the city center, and Almancil is not very big, so we did manage to find the place. The building was very new -- it was built on land that used to belong to Gia's family, and they still owned part of the building. The condo was large -- two levels, four bedrooms and three baths, plus a spacious living room and kitchen.

We spent some time putting our things away, then ventured out to explore the surroundings. The sun was shining, and our sweaters were definitely not necessary. An old building, which looked like it might have been a barn or a stable, occupied the back part of the lot, along with some orange trees in full fruit. That and some very old stone walls were what was left of what must have been Gia's family's farm. Nearby, a man watched over a donkey and a cart. As we got closer, we noticed that a small group of people had set up camp in a vacant lot. We had been told that there were gypsies in the area -- Roma, the real deal.

We found a restaurant that Augie and Gia recommended, Gamboa's, just down the street. This place has a seven-euro lunch, which was very filling and good. Lots of working people come there, as evidenced by overalls with landscaping company logos and paint-splattered pants. Walking around, we noticed a lot of new construction, and some of it looked to be just sitting there partially completed. A lot of the condos had "se vende" (for sale) signs. We wondered if Almancil had been hit by the same kind of real estate crash that is plaguing the US.

We went to the little market down the street to get supplies in case nothing was open on Christmas. The market was familiar and not, at the same time. Bread and cheese and meat, but different kinds and different brands. A lot of English tourists and expats come to the Algarve, so the market carried a fairly good selection of items to appeal to Brits, as well as the local Portugese necessities.

The condo was very definitely set up for summer -- lots of tile and marble kept the place very cold. No matter. Augie and Gia had just installed high-tech room heaters, and the weather outside was right around 20C (something like high 60s F). So we turned on the heaters to take the chill off, and everything was fine for a little while, until all the power went off in the condo. OK, so we checked the breakers, but they were all still on. Plus, we had no hot water.

We didn't want to spend a week and a half freezing in the dark, and we had no idea what to do next. Luckily, Augie and Gia had given us the phone number of Augie's brother Ysidros, who lived nearby. We had no cell phones (big mistake not getting phones that would work in Europe), so we walked to an area with a lot of shops and found a phone booth. Ysidros couldn't break away from work right away, so he sent his co-worker out to help us. He didn't have any more luck than we did, so Ysidros drove out from Faro to help us. Both of these men were very gracious, and fluent in English (yay!). It's such a relief to have someone to rescue you when you're in an unfamiliar place and you don't know what to do. Very soon, we had our electricity back, and the gas was turned on for hot water and the stove. Word to the wise, when your main breaker will only go up to 15KW, you don't want to be acting like an American and heating all of your rooms at once.

By this time, the sun was going down, and the Christmas lights went on outside. Each street had a different light display: red and white stars and snowflakes on our street, tree shapes on the next street, and pine branches on the street beyond that. Atop a building on the other side of the park was a white shooting star, which we would later see repeated over many public creches. (Portugal has no hang-ups about putting manger scenes in the public parks.) That shooting star was to become my little talisman, the last thing I saw out my window at night and the first thing I saw in the pale morning light.

We weren't in the mood to spend our first evening abroad in the condo, so Carole and I headed down the street to see what was open on Christmas Eve. Not much. We wound up in Rumours Sports Bar, a hangout for British expats. The kitchen was closed, but the bartender took pity on us and made us toasteds, aka grilled cheese sandwiches. That and a beer made a very nice dinner. We watched the darts championships on the telly and chatted with a couple of the regulars.

Given that we had been up for a day and a half with no real sleep to speak of, Carole and I were pretty much wiped out by 8PM. And so to bed. (to be continued...)

All meds, all the time

2008-12-10T13:53:00.004-05:00

Some thoughts on how "science news" is turning into health and medical "news you can use":

I suspect that there is a feedback loop that runs between pharmaceutical companies and medical institutions promoting their products, the desires and anxieties of consumers regarding their physical limiations and imperfections, and our elected representatives and government agencies responding to constituent pressures. More demand drives greater supply, which fuels more demand.

I'm certainly interested in health and medical articles, but I'm also concerned about sustainable energy sources, responsible manufacturing practices, buildings that withstand earthquakes and hurricanes, and bioweapon sensors in public places, among many other things. One example of a neglected topic is "clean coal technology", which was bandied about in numerous press conferences by staffers for the Obama, Clinton, and McCain campaigns. I saw maybe one or two articles in the consumer press that talked about what this term actually referred to and what the state of the art was for this technology. Another example: several years ago, I attended a conference in Washington DC on a major federal initiative establishing nanotechnology research centers at several of the national labs. When I picked up my press pass at the registration desk, the conference organizers came out to greet me personally -- apparently, I was the only media person who bothered to show up.

Ask your non-scientific friends and neighbors if they have heard about good and bad cholesterol, dietary antioxidants, and Botox parties. Now ask them if they know about the pilot projects in several cities where parts of the existing electrical grids were replaced by superconducting cables.

I'm just sayin'...

On a related note, check out this commentary in Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/456702a.html

The title is "Towards responsible use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by the healthy". Here's a sample sentence from the article:
"The drugs just reviewed, along with newer technologies such as brain stimulation and prosthetic brain chips, should be viewed in the same general category as education, good health habits, and information technology — ways that our uniquely innovative species tries to improve itself."

So how long before you have to start using these drugs just to stay competent at your job? What happens to your career if you can't afford your "enhancement" meds? What if you just want to be your own natural self? Go rent the movie "Gattica" and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Back on the Radar Screen

2008-12-07T15:46:00.002-05:00

The last month or so, I've been either working overtime or recovering from working overtime. Two conferences, bracketing Thanksgiving week, left me wishing I was rich enough to retire from the rat race and just spend my time blogging and writing novels. Someone has to pay my mortgage, so retirement will have to wait. And the novels will have to wait until I figure out a way to make enough time and energy to get the creative juices going again. So for now, blogging it is. I've got two followers now (an overnight doubling of my fan club!).

I'm going to try my hand at summarizing science articles for the general public in this space. If all goes well, I'll continue this theme, interspersed with the general musings that you have all come to know and love (well, Todd and Linda anyway). I did the science writing thing professionally a few years ago, and as soon as I figure out how to make enough money to stay afloat, I'm going to go back to that full-time again. Tell all your friends.

Politics and Poplar Trees

2008-11-09T14:26:00.002-05:00

When I was growing up, we had a Carolina poplar tree in our back yard, planted by the general contractor who built our house. The little tree with the broomstick-sized trunk grew into by far the tallest thing in the neighborhood, and my Dad couldn't put his arms all the way around the trunk. The tree was a good landmark for telling people how to get to my house. It was also a target for lightning. When I was away at college, the tree took a direct hit during a thunderstorm, making a loud BOOM and showering the whole back yard with bark fragments. Afterward, the tree looked ok, but there was always the danger that it would fall and crush our house. My parents hired professionals to come take the tree down. It took all day, with five different trucks coming and going out of our yard, and all kinds of ropes and pulleys. They didn't so much cut the tree down as they dismantled it. Right down to the stump shredder at the very end. But the tree, which had occupied that spot for 15-plus years, wasn't going without a fight. Its root system spanned the neighborhood, and for months afterward, the roots sent up little shoots that would get caught in your lawnmower blades and fly up and hit you in the face.

That's how I see the aftermath of this week's election. You had two political parties that served their purpose for a while, but they had gotten so gridlocked and corrupt that they threatened to completely collapse and take the rest of us with them. The election took out many of the most damaged parts of the executive and legislative branches. But the daily op-eds are like little sprouts coming out of the entrenched roots of this old rotten tree. All these pundits can talk about is how their party used the wrong tactics, and how they can position themselves better so they can get power back into their own hands as soon as possible. You don't hear them talking about how we can all work together to rebuild our nation. Oh no. They are just looking to get back on top. Well, it's time to get out the stump shredder and the lawnmower and make sure that this old rotten tree is completely gone so that whatever we put in its place has a chance to do some good.

What Kind of American?

2008-11-08T20:15:00.002-05:00

During the last nasty days of the 2008 campaign season, we learned that some of us are not "real" Americans. Apparently, if you live in a city, don't vote Republican, and have no idea how to field dress a moose, you are somehow less of a citizen than those good solid folks who have to drive at least ten miles to get to the nearest shopping mall. It got even more interesting when a poster to a left-leaning email group that I follow started a discussion about African Americans and European Americans. Another poster objected to the term "European American" -- the person thought it was absurd to refer to an entire continent for one's heritage when you probably knew what country your ancestors came from. African Americans, on the other hand, could claim an entire continent as their point of origin because slavery had erased all evidence of their country of origin.

This doesn't quite sit right either. Unless your family came to the US fairly recently, you probably have ancestors from a wide smattering of nations, European and otherwise, and many African Americans have a very good idea where their ancestors came from. The bigger question is -- is this really relevant anymore? I could call myself Caucasian, a term no longer restricted to people whose ancestors are from the Caucasus. I could call myself white, but I'm really kind of a pinkish beige, and parts of me get quite tan in the summer. Many of my ancestors came over here before there was a United States of America, but calling myself a Native American has misleading connotations. Why not just call myself an American and be done with it? For that matter, why not just call myself a human being? Does nationality do anything besides divide and antagonize people?

Oh what a beautiful morning

2008-11-05T09:36:00.002-05:00

The results are in, and we have a new President-elect. The old divide-and-conquer strategy didn't work. People weren't so much scared of a guy with a funny name as they were worried about the way ahead. Survival skills gained in a Vietnamese prison camp or on the Alaskan tundra were not deemed as relevant to running our nation as community organizing skills gained on the south side of Chicago. There is not a "real" America and a "fake" America, there is only the United States of America. Please, please let us stop flinging mud at each other, roll up our sleeves, and get busy working TOGETHER to rebuild the good things that have been damaged and destroyed in recent years. Yes, we can.

So Now We Wait...

2008-11-04T16:49:00.003-05:00

I arrived at my polling place at 7:15 this morning -- a civic sacrifice of significant proportions for this night person. I had intended to arrive at about 6:45 or so, but that was just too much to ask. Apparently, anyone who arrived at 7:00, when the polls opened, had the same one-hour wait that I did. Which is truly amazing, since the line stretched halfway down the block, down one hall inside the elementary school, down another hall, took a u-turn and snaked back down those same two halls, and only then did you get inside the school cafeteria where you could sign in and actually vote. Kudos to the poll workers who kept things running so smoothly. Montgomery County Maryland is firmly in the Obama camp, but we had four ballot questions to decide as well, plus our folks in the House of Representatives and a smattering of judges and school board members. Today was the last hurrah for touch screen-only balloting in our county. We will go to optically scanned paper ballots in 2010. After today's vote, we will know whether we can vote early (instead of merely absentee) next time as well. Just seeing all those good folks lined up to cast their votes this morning made it worth the wait. It's 5:00 PM, and the first exit poll results should be trickling out just about now. So now, we watch and wait...

Sound Bites and Still Pix

2008-11-01T11:42:00.002-04:00

On October 18, The Washington Post published a very brief comment I made about a photograph in one of their Metro section articles. The comment appeared on their Saturday "Free For All" page, which is where they publish readers' grammatical nitpicks, complaints about coverage (or lack thereof), and comments on the appropriateness of photos. Here's what my comment looked like after the editors got through with it:

Packing Them In
Megan Greenwell's article on churches in Prince George's County ["Still Flocking to Prince George's," Religion, Oct. 11] was accompanied by a large photo of First Baptist Church of Glenarden's sanctuary filled with people. Clearly visible was a bright pink slide on one of the projection screens, with the message "Let's talk about Sex." Humorous, yes, but irrelevant to the focus of the story. Was this the best shot your photographer could come up with?
[end]

I thought that captured it pretty well, since the article itself was about people who had moved away from Prince George's County, but still attended their old churches out of a continued sense of connection to their community. The photo made it look as though the church was using sensational topics to draw people in.

In today's Post Free For All section, Robert Braxton of Fairfax writes:
Sects in the Church

In my opinion, Post readers go overboard in second-guessing the selection of photographs to print. The latest example was the letter from Nancy McGuire ["Packing Them In," Free for All, Oct. 18]. In a culture where unplanned pregnancy among teenagers remains a problem, I fail to see humor in a screen projecting the words "Let's talk about sex." And anyone bothered by that in a church must be unfamiliar with the biblical directive "know thy wife."

Besides, have not churches always dealt in sects?
[end]

I actually agree with Mr. Braxton's point about the need for such conversations, but that wasn't really the point I was making. Did Mr. Braxton not read carefully, was he just using my comment as a springboard for his own, or was my point really not clear?

Magical Thinking and the Vanishing Middle Class

2008-10-28T22:25:00.005-04:00

This current economic upheaval got me to thinking about how hard it's gotten to live a middle class life lately. As is often the case, one thought ties in with another, and this particular thought latched itself onto a ballot issue that Maryland residents will be voting on next Tuesday -- do we want the state to install thousands of slot machines to raise revenue for our schools, save the horse racing industry, and keep those gambling dollars in-state?

I'll explain. When I was growing up in the sixties, it was relatively easy to get a good solid job without an advanced degree, and to hold that job until you were ready to retire -- with a proper pension, of course. You didn't have to aspire to a six-figure salary or put in a 60-hour workweek just to keep the wolf away from the door. If you were the ambitious type, you could start out working in the company mailroom, work your way up the company ladder, and go as high as your talents and temperament would allow.

That doesn't seem to be the case any more. Many of the people I know are one pink slip or one medical crisis away from the edge. Many of my friends owe a year's salary or more for credit card bills, medical bills, car payments, you name it. And not all of them are out-of-control spenders. Employees are considered disposable commodities, and if the stock market tanks just when you were planning to retire, you can watch your 401(k) vanish before your very eyes.

Here's where the slot machines come in. My theory is that when people feel helpless and out of control, they turn to magical thinking. Maryland is in need of some serious tax money right now, and they are hoping to get it from folks who are hoping against all evidence that they are going to hit that one big win that is going to put them on easy street. Or at least pay off a few bills. When all your other options are in the dumpster, gambling starts to look pretty good.

You see a lot of magical thinking going on with all the "reality shows" on television. Contestants perform in talent contests, eat worms, bicycle across New Guinea, whatever, trying to win that million-dollar prize. Some of them are quite good, but others make you wonder what the heck they were thinking when they signed up. They all want that big chance at fame, that wad of money, whatever that one big thing is that will get them out of their humdrum everyday lives.

Magical thinking takes over when there's no clear path to lead you upward. That path has been slowly but surely erased over the last 30 years. Remember "rightsizing" and "flattening the organization" from the 1980s? The organizations didn't really flatten so much as they raised the top levels, lowered the bottom levels, and shaved the supporting pillars between the two levels until they were pencil-thin. With no middle levels, you either had to be born at the top, get incredibly lucky, or work like a maniac to make that one big leap. Don't even think about settling down in a nice mid-level job -- those jobs are a vanishing breed. Come to think of it, don't even think about settling, period. Because that pink slip may come at any time. When your whole future is looking like a crapshoot, buying those lottery tickets and playing those slot machines starts to look less and less irrational.

My hope is that once these financial castles in the air have finally crashed down to earth, we can all get busy and start building solid foundations again. Real people making real stuff and earning real incomes so that they can pay real money for the things they really need. Is this idea any more hopelessly naive than the idea of building an entire society on debts, derivatives, and slot machines?

And so it begins...

2008-10-27T23:12:00.000-04:00

You've read my philosophical musings on the Washington Ethical Society email chat list (or not). you've been moved to write my editor about the scintillating articles I've written for Chemical Innovation, Today's Chemist at Work, and Modern Drug Discovery (or not). You've checked the "me too" box 'neath my pithy comments about numerous articles in the Washington Post online (or not). And now, you're reading the very first blog posting on The Word Chemist. Can you feel the magic? Maybe a tiny exotherm? A slight increase in your entropy?

Blogging was one of those things that I've been meaning to do for a while, but did I really have anything to say that hasn't been said in all the other squillion and one other blogs out there? Perhaps not, but it's all in the way you say it, isn't it? I was actually trying to resurrect a dusty old legacy Blogspot account (pre-Google) so that I could post a comment on my sister's blog, Still Designing Stuff. I got stuck in screen-cycle hell and the only way out was to start completely from scratch, which inolved setting up my own blog, which involved creating an initial posting, so here I am.

To follow: assorted detritus from an ever so slightly left of center mid-generation baby-boomer, living ever so slightly outside our nation's capital. (Our nation being the USA, for all my many fans around the globe.) And so it begins...