Thoughts?

Here is the thing about failure: Once it starts, once that ineffable losing streak begins to weave its path into your day-to-day fate, you never again regain the sense of invincibility that you once had. Every teenaged boy is a bristling ball of security. No matter how abused or down-trodden, no matter how self-conscious or needy in most respects, no teenager ever thinks of himself as anything other than invincible and eternal. Sure, there are the death fantasies and there are the moments of horror about complexion or school-yard cruelty, but the fact remains, hope and life are still intertwined in inexorable affinity.

There is a point however, usually sometime in the mid-to-late twenties, when the inherent flaws and perfectly honed responses that family, friends and community have built into the individual, when failure begins to raise its ugly head. There is no way to avoid it totally. Some people can manage to make it into their thirties; usually they have money or phenomenal looks to back them up, some magical charm that keeps them safe from the inevitable, without facing up to the evil visage of their own self-defeating nature.

When it comes, it crushes. There is nothing like a true failure, a failure in career, in love, in friendship or general denial of the boons and graces that life has granted hitherto. It is the end, quite simply the end of childhood. It is not the beginning of adulthood, merely the end of the previous, grace-filled state. Failure doesn’t make one a man. Failure can hone a person’s manhood, but it does not create, ex nihilo, manhood.

That is what failure does not do; let’s talk about what it does. It steals, even if you give yourself to your failings, even if you have granted failure every possible advantage and license, it still steals the sense of value that you had a right to. It steals it away and while you may regain this or that sense of self, or this or that sense of worth, you can never regain the sense of value, inherent value and pride that you held beforehand. In some cases this is a good thing. Inflated sense of worth is a negative attribute and failure is the comeuppance of the arrogant soul. But it is a cruel lesson learned.

One might find, as I confess to having found, that later in life, after the failure of youth and after the hard won and oft referred to struggle to regain self-worth, that any minor failing, and minor falling out or disagreement, any minor ruffle in the otherwise placid surface of day to day life causes me to question everything I hold dear. I am not a man, I am not of value, I am not capable, I am not intelligent, I am not worthy or worthwhile. I am merely a failure.

Each time I reach this conclusion, each time I fail, I have to re-fight the battles of my nature and my upbringing and regain the sound footing that tells me that I am a man, that I have value, that I am capable, intelligent, worthy and worthwhile. But each time, that victory, once won, is less sweet. It is tinged, each time, by a greater and greater knowledge of how tenuous, how easily lost the ground is. The battles are less difficult to win, the points less difficult to score, because in each battle I better know the ground recovered. But that makes the ground worth less and less. And I am not becoming MORE of a man, etc. each time. I am remaining, sustaining a manhood. My value does not increase, but the value of holding onto it decreases. It is a losing battle, in the face of failure.

Just as pain is a supposedly necessary part of physical existence, failure is a necessary part of the emotional makeup of a man. But just as pain is also attached to destructive forces and the deterioration of the body, so failure is the anathema of success. And it is a poison that once tasted is forever a part of the self.

Too Clever By Half?

The Bodies Exhibit, Washington DC

The exhibit is held at the too-modern for words Newseum at The Dome in Rosslyn. The locale is extremely futuristic as befits this post-modern, post-moral, post-mortem. The rather stark entrance-way leads directly to the stark-raving coat-check fellow, who rambles semi-coherently about flash photography. Then up the stairs to the Will-Call window and a quick stop at the trivia-festooned bathrooms. (Hint: Toes is the correct answer.)

The exhibit itself: It starts out with a whimper. From behind a small partition you emerge into the soft light of a scapula and the first of the eerily standing corpses. The lighting is subdued, bringing out the brown of the epicanthically-folded, oddly taxiderm-ish eye on the plasticine'd cadaver. The initial reaction is one of stressless shock. It hasn't sunk in yet that there are former human beings posed around. You still have your vaguely clinical detachment, as you move to the second room, noticing that the trivia motif has continued, that the lighting now shows anatomic structures on the walls and that your mind insists that they are only patterns. That's when two things strike you, hard: the flesh is shiny, wet-looking, too biological to be detached from; the second is the tiny, blood-red bug trapped in the case with the sagittal section of the brain and skull. It's moving about, Escher-like, with the maggot assurance that there is food somewhere. You insist to yourself that it is old-fashioned, archaic, to be grossed-out. You try as hard as you can not to imagine it eating anything... That's when you enter the room of the disembodied flesh and your gorge starts seriously to rise.

If you've ever seen the Texas Chainsaw Massacre II, there's an immediate reference, but it sends you reeling into horror terminology and becomes one more thing to repress...

Past partition after partition, past the respiratory system, some grisly hearts and the absurd anti-smoking section, you stumble half-heartedly. The question of the participant's willingness keeps rearing up, but it's not till you move downstairs that the force of it shocks, literally shocks your system.

In a series of jars, preserved like berries at Grandma's house, are succeeding stages of fetal development. All questions of willingness, voluntary participation or free will dissolve at the recognition of the miniature fingers, toes, eyes and hearts. The increasingly manic trivia proclaims the beginning of the heartbeat and the helpfulness of the placenta. To be fair, you can side-step this room, but it doesn't make the room not exist and you no longer have any desire to be fair.

The final room contains a lab-coated museum worker to offer a scholarly benediction, to point out the scientific value and natural wonder of what you have just seen. Like an apologist at an abattoir she directs your gaze around the dissected Asian bodies that haven't already shocked you. A stronger stomach than yours would have been quaking by now, and you are feeling sick to death of it. The crowd around her, in a religio-scientific rapture excoriates our, "insane morality," for holding us back from performing this act on our own. And one can't help but reflect on the other horrors that have been encouraged in the name of science.

If this seems a breathless, or an over-excited review, it is only because perspective has not yet been reached. It is an artful exhibit, well set up, cleverly controlled and brilliantly propagandized, but one can't help but lose perspective in the host of unanswered moral dilemmas that no one in the room seemed even slightly bothered by.

The Coolest Place on Earth

Wired has this article today. I am envious to end all envious. It's all very well not to covet your neighbors whatnot, but they never mentioned a library in the text...

Random Thoughts on Many Things

I have no particular thing I wish to express today. I have lots of little things that have popped up and been considered.

• Sarah Palin/Tina Fey: Ok, I love, love, love Tina Fey. Margaret and I are huge fans of her work and especially 30 Rock. I can't help but think that there is a really strange convergence of events that bring her and Palin to the forefront of pop-consciousness. Normally our parodic instincts give us people who look nothing like the political figure they are mocking. Chevy Chase and Gerald Ford? Dana Carvey and Bush Senior? Nothing like each other. Phil Hartman as Bill Clinton was close, but Phil Hartman could have played Mary Tyler Moore convincingly, so that's not going to fly. But from the moment Palin was announced, all I could think was that Tine Fey was going to do a drop dead perfect Palin. And sure enough, she does. Seriously though, how does that work? Did McCain pick Palin with Fey in mind or what? How did they work that out? (And, to be fair, the first sketch, with Amy Poehler as Hillary, was so funny that I almost choked.)
  
• This election: I am not excited about anyone in it. If Obama wins I think that my life will change virtually not at all. I know a lot of conservatives that are convinced that he will be a death-knell for individual liberties in the US, but I think that since the Bail-Out Bill gives the IRS permanent powers for undercover operations indicates that there are very few individual liberties to take away. What the hell is Obama gonna do? NKVD powers for the IRS are about as evil a set of circumstances as I can imagine and I really doubt that there is anything else out there. Will he make abortion more legal? Will he legalize pedophilia? Probably not. The only issue I can think of that might be in the danger zone is Israel, and from what I am reading Israel is about ready to take a swing at Iran, at which point it doesn't matter who is in charge, we're probably not along for the ride. This election seems like a circus, which makes me think that it doesn't matter. It's a show and the actual powers that run the USA probably have it on as another opiate for the masses. Who is actually running? There are two old guard players with equal experience in saying insane things that you have to hope they don't mean. McCain and Biden. There are two inexperienced, hopefully well-intentioned but seemingly kind of dumb outsiders, Obama and Palin. Either way, it seems like we're getting the same choice. I am not convinced that voting matters this time, and the fact that MTV and Rolling Stone insist that it DOES matter makes it seem all the more unlikely.
• OJ Simpson: Man, that sucks. You really had to think that you could get away with anything, didn't you? I mean, let's face it, you walk away from a double homicide, you figure you're untouchable. Who'd have thought that some minor vigilantism would bite you in the ass?
• Books: I think that I have read every book on the entire island of Okinawa. I am going crazy. Thankfully Margaret got a job and our income is about to reach a level where I can buy books again. Amazon is about to get a payday. I need to read something new!
  
• My Brother Drew: He might get to come visit Okinawa for an extended stay. Certain personal issues in his life are leading to his needing a vacation. I am looking forward to seeing him, if it works out, more than I can say. Margaret and I talk about him all the time now. Everything we see we interpret through the likely Drew response to it. It is a safe bet that we end up laughing.
• I had this strange experience at 3:30 this morning. I was fast asleep and heard this screaming sound. It kind of reminded me of that old alarm clock we used to have that had a high-pitched whine as the alarm. I got up, to check the house. When I got up Margaret woke up and heard it, and she thought that it was some strange Japanese noise and that there was no way it was in the house. I walked out to the computer desk and one of my external hard drives was screaming, and I reached out to touch it, but just before my
  fingers hit it, it stopped. And it never started again. But then I was awake till about half an hour before it was time to wake up. So I slept in a little, which is unusual for me.

I can't think of anything else that I need to talk about. Thoughts?

Apparently the final update...

The Google Phone arrives.

It is a little more expensive than was indicated, and without the great bandwidth deal that has apparently been kiboshed by Congress the data package isn't as wonderful as was projected, but it still sounds worth it. It's cheaper than the iPhone, by about $20. The data package isn't too bad, though the whole thing is less exciting than I was projecting it could be.

And Google is now starting to be considered evil in its own right, which... talk about a bummer.

Petra Out Rocks Jackson

Petra Hayden, formerly of the awesome That Dog, and more recently to be found singing with the best band in the known universe: The Decemberists, has recently not released this.

It is wonderful, especially wonderful since she does all the parts. Every part of it is pure Petra Hayden. Enjoy.

Scary and Awful, but it makes me laugh. Problem?

http://www.wnbc.com/news/17450126/detail.html

The part I like best is that there was a big group of sex offenders living together. Boy, what would one of their parties be like? I'll bet their TV schedule really throws off demographic trends. "Why is there a huge viewership for Barney re-runs in prime time?" I'd love to go to one of these houses where there are 5 or more sex offenders who dress and act like they are children or pretend to be the grandparents of 30 year olds posing as children. Talk about bizarre. John Waters needs to make this his next film. Also, one of them is named Stiffler? How is that even possible in the world? A sex offender named Stiffler? Life imitating art or art imitating life?

I just love this place.

This place I have never been to rocks my socks off.

Some Dark Thoughts

Margaret and I watched Dark Knight for the sort of second time last night. We have a copy that we can watch at home, (Homeland Security, come and get us.) and we watched it once with some friends the weekend it came out in the US, but we were playing with a two-year old most of the movie and didn't really see much of it.

We came to a couple of conclusions about the movie, and the new Batman franchise in general.

Conclusion 1.) Margaret REALLY doesn't like the Rachel Dawes character. I am not sure if it's that she really wants Batman to love her instead of whoever is playing Dawes. I thought at first that it was an anti-Katie Holmes impulse, and let's face it, who could blame her if it were. But it turns out that it isn't that. She dislike Maggie Gyllenhall just as much. (Did I spell that wrong? It's her fault for having an unpronounceable and confusing name. I decree that the new spelling.)

Conclusion 2.) It really is too bad that no one will get to be The Joker ever again. It's a great role and Heath Ledger OWNS it. I know, everyone and their brother has said that already, but I haven't seen any of my brothers say it yet, so I get to be everyone and they get to be my brothers.

Conclusion 3.) This is kind of a two-fer. See, it seems to me that they need a good bad guy for the next one, and lets face it, there will be a next one. And when Margaret and I were talking about the Batman Rogue's Gallery we agreed that The Riddler is a good choice, if they could un-Jim Carrey him. And then we noticed that everyone in Dark Knight, when they want to be scary, talks in a gravelly voice. Now, who can you think of who talks in a gravelly voice and would be PERFECT for The Riddler? Damn Skippy! Will Arnett! GOB is the perfect Riddler. He could resurrect his theme song. The Final Countdown is a wonderful Riddler theme. He could do his magic tricks, totally in character. Man, Tony Hale could even come in and be his sidekick. It would be like when they were going to bury GOB alive. They could dance and stuff. Arnett could do gravelly voice and Hale could do the Ledger falsetto. Can anyone deny that this is brilliant? Speak up!

As Frank So Elegantly Puts It: Booze

Above you can see the treasure trove of alcoholic splendor that came back North with us. Now, that last post, my "Love Of Whiskey" post, got some negative comments. People said that I can't claim to be a whiskey lover if I don't drink Scotch. Well, let me tell you something, I CAN call myself a whiskey lover and not drink Scotch. I just did.

And another thing, all of this Scotch nonsense. I don't like Scotch. I never really have. There are times when I will drink it and think, "Hmm, not so bad." But there has never been a time I've imbibed and said, "That was the stuff!"

People who love Scotch are like people who love J.D. Salinger. J.D. Salinger is respected, he's the old guard and some of the things that I really like to read have come about because of people who were inspired by J.D. Salinger, but honestly, he leaves me cold. I half like "A Perfect Day for Bananafish", but then *SPOILER* Seymour kills himself in the end. Now to me, a really great character that you really come to love shouldn't blow his brains out just when you're sold. But then, I guess I am not the genius that people say Salinger is.

At any rate, the analogy holds. People respect Scotch, it's the old guard of the alcohol shelf, and I really like bourbon which is the American version of Scotch.

The thing is, peat tastes like dirt. I really don't like that wildly over-hyped peat flavor. It does nothing for me. And I think that it is unpatriotic. It's just an excuse to put down the US at the expense of European hegemony. I understand that a lot of people are really pro-Europe, but I am not. Tom says that all the good Europeans left and came to America, and I think that I agree more and more.

So I say, drink bourbon, the Patriotic choice.

One of my Favorite Things

I just heard today that a friend of mine from Hospital Corps School is in Okinawa. He's a good guy and I'm really, really looking forward to seeing him, but the result of his arrival on island is that I am thinking nostalgically.

There was a time, before I joined the Navy, when I drank a lot. I still drink a pretty good amount, but at the time I'd had a severe setback in life and drinking masked the pain a little bit. It got to be egregious. But it did give me the chance to get a little taste for whiskey.

When I started drinking whiskey I was a Jack Daniel's man. Now, Jack Daniel's is a good, workman-like whiskey. It's been described as a wild-man's drink, but I think that it is really more of an immature man's drink. I still drink it when I can't get anything else, there is a big bottle of it on my counter at home right now, but it is not my favorite.

In an effort to change up the sort of whiskey I was drinking I tried a few old-school favorites. I think that I was inspired by a trip to Florida to move my great-aunt's things up to the good old Cleveland area. Aunt Mae had a stash of old whiskey, I have no idea when she started buying it or when she thought she was going to drink all of it, but there were bottles and bottles of supposedly 12 year old whiskeys that had been bought in the 1960's. Even a Canadian Club turns into a golden brown drink of the gods when aged for 50-some years. My brother Frank and I began to sample and mix drinks, when we got back, not on the drive up, and gained a little bit of a useless education. We knew what bottles of obsolete brand whiskey could be stored in a closet for 50 years and still taste wonderful, and which ones would turn. I haven't found a good outlet for this knowledge yet, but someday I'm sure I will.

I bought a bottle of Canadian Club a week or so ago and realized, without the extra closet time, it's not really worth drinking. I tried mixing it with Coke, to mask the revolting taste, but neither Coke nor anything else worked. The verdict: Except for wonderful advertisements and the occasional great-aunt-aged bottle, Canadian Club is worthless.

There was also a bottle that was shaped like a patriotic figure from history, but it was not clear which Founding Father had lent his image to an obscure and obsolete brand of whiskey. Whichever one he was, Hurrah for Him! That bottle, seemingly corked during the American Revolution, was a delicious, if slightly treacly concoction. I believe that Frank still has the bottle, though since it was two moves back for him, I may be wrong.

I bought a bottle of Cutty Sark a few years back and developed a strict rule, no blended whiskeys. I'll drink a mash bourbon any and every day of the week, and I do. But pass me a blended whiskey and I will shudder and pass it on. The sickly sweet taste of these evil demon liquors makes them unpalatable and unlikely as anything other than industrial cleaners.

But what this is really all about is a little story that Acosta, the friend I mentioned way back at the beginning, put me in mind of.

I joined the Navy in March 2005. I went to boot camp from March till May. I don't know about everyone's Navy experience, but I didn't have a lick of alcohol for that whole time. Now, I don't know if you were paying attention back at the beginning, but I was a pretty serious drinker in the time before that. After the 8 weeks of boot camp and another week or so waiting to have clothes and a place to go, I took a Friday night, all alone, and took the train into downtown Chicago.

I'd been to Chicago once before, a long time before, and it hadn't struck me as a drinking town. Most places didn't when I was 9. But getting off the train in the center of the city, all I could think about was the possibility of a thick cut glass, ice cubes, a steady hand to pour and the warm, sharp taste of Maker's Mark. I thought about it while I looked at the Sears Tower. I thought about it while I avoided drunk classmates. I thought about it as I entered and left Millennium Park and I thought about it as I straddled a bench at a little Italian bistro near where I started my journey. I had exactly 2 hours and I planned to spend both of them getting drunk on the long-lost elixir.

The bartender was an Italian woman of a certain age. Now, with most women of a certain age I am able to employ a charm that borders on mind-control. I can't explain it. If I ever had the looks to be a gigolo, I'd have been one of the best. But as it is I usually used it to charm girlfriend's Mothers or improve my tips when I was a server. But due to some sort of Nature/Nurture imbalance, Italian women are my kryptonite. They do not respond to my charms. They are not in on my allure. I am not like Mama used to make, I am Ragu.

This was a seemingly negative turn of events and I looked around for a second to see if there was an open table. Sure enough, there was. I ordered my first Maker's Mark and took a long, slow sip.

The taste was as exquisite as I remembered. So smooth, so effervescent. Like some sort of alcoholic spring water, like the beverage version of a Mother's hug. I settled into the warmth like settling into a favorite chair. The spirals of flavor and smoky enjoyment danced on my palate. A friend once described it as, "It's like licking the inside of a light socket, but it tastes better."

I got the table and a cute little waitress. (At least, I think she was a cute little waitress. Not having had a drink for 8 weeks turns a tolerance from whatever it was to 11 year old boy. My one sip of whiskey had set me along a dangerous path. At two hours I had woefully over-estimated the time it would take. Two minutes in and I was Bertie Wooster on Boat Race night.) I ordered Chicken Parm, on the assumption that it can't really be ruined. I suspect that it was not really a great meal, but I couldn't actually tell you one way or the other. By the time it came I was on my second Maker's, this time with club soda, and I was dead to other sensory input.

I dated a girl once who called whiskey and soda, "The Ocean." As in, "What are you drinking, another Ocean?" Given my newly nautical career I liked the ring of this nickname and I ordered another round of The Ocean for myself. Apparently there is a Chicagoan drink called The Ocean. Perhaps it is not a Chicago local, just a speciality of that particular bistro, but it was an evil little mixture. I think that they use linseed oil, lacquer thinner and kerosene. Maybe they had a dash of vermouth, for taste. It was AWFUL. I drank it quickly, drank some water, and asked for another Makers, this time with soda.

I don't really remember getting back to base.

I must have done it on time, I never got into any trouble. I must have made it through the gate without indicating my advanced state of inebriation. I must have paid for both my meal and the train back to the School. Beyond that, I remember waking up the following afternoon with my head screeching and pinging, my back wracked with spasms and my eyes glowing like one of the X-Men.

It didn't do anything to diminish my love of Maker's Mark, still my favorite tipple. It didn't sour me on Chicago and it didn't make me slow my roll there, either. Whiskey is the one drink I've ever had that remains sick and hangover proof. I've given up brands of beer, I've given up gin, I've given up vodka, but I'll stick to Bourbon till I die.

And then I met this:
I have four bottles of this. I want to send a couple of them to the States, but it is apparently illegal. I'll find some way before I leave, but for now I am just trying to get the courage to try it.

Has anyone out there ever tasted this? Is it good? How does it compare to Maker's Mark?

Pet Issue = Big Issue

I think there might be some misunderstanding here.

First of all let me say that the people who commented are all my family. At least, as nearly as I can tell.

Second, and I don't want to be argumentative, the population control thing is silly. The homosexual population of the world, in spite of whatever popularity it seems to hold currently or will over time, seems pretty stable at about 7-10% of the population. Now admittedly, as the population grows, that number is bigger, but that won't have much to do with keeping the population from expanding. I know that's a pretty light point in the responses, but let me just throw that out there.

Third, and it probably ought to have been first, let me say that I meant no offense whatsoever and I think/hope that I can say why offense taken at that last post is not really right. I apologize for hurting any feelings, and especially familial ones.

Let me re-state my case a little more carefully, it hinges on a few key points:

1: Evolution is a true.
2: Homosexuality is genetic.
3: Evolution is progressive, by which I mean that it take beings from less to more complex structures over time.

Now, I don't necessarily believe ANY of those points. I think that the third one is the closest to anything I could say was actually true, but since I don't know if I buy point 1, then 3 is probably moot.

If 1,2, and 3 ARE true, then it's a shaky place to be. And I bring it up only because I had this thought process years ago, and since then I read articles like the one mentioned in Slate.

Please, everyone go read that Slate article, and if possible the article in the June 2008 issue of Psychology Today, "The Darwinian Logic of Homosexuality" on page 89. It's a pretty good article and the researchers are Italian, so that's our hot buttons right there, as a family.

They are interesting articles that make interesting points AND they kind of allude to the points I made above as putting one on a shaky philosophical ground.

I also appreciate that there was very little personal mud slung, since I am a blot on the family escutcheon and probably deserve more mud slung my way than I generally get.

Things I am NOT doing in either of these posts:
Suggesting that I have a reason for homosexuality.
Suggesting anything at all about ACTUAL sexuality.
Saying anything that should be cause for offense.

I tried to make it clear that that is NOT what I wanted to do. The article and my response to it are only there to say that there is this kind of logical danger that one can get into when presupposing these things.

Let me say these following things and then I'll go back to a passive role for a while:

1.) Obviously I have some family that is gay.
2.) I love them, every one of them. There is no member of my family that I do not love and do not wish I could see more often.
3.) I am probably the least successful of the people who are responding to me, so probably the other people should start blogging. I'll read what you blog, I promise.
4.) I don't blame anyone for anything in my life and would be surprised to hear that others are blaming their parents/friends/family for theirs.
5.) Can't we all just get along?
6.) The logic is there in the points, but it is really the points that have to be argued with at that point.
7.) 7 is my favorite number because when Grandpa Pitrone wanted us to pick a number between 1 and 10, he was always thinking of 7. Sorry Frank, I knew and you didn't.

So, to those of you reading that I love, I love you and I am sorry if I hurt your feelings, I didn't mean to. Please, while you're here, go look at the other things I have on here. There's some good stuff about Okinawa and in my Flickr site there is good stuff about Cambodia.

I'll take the spanking now. Whattaya got?

One of my Pet Issues

The wonderful Slate magazine, purveyor of articles that help me procrastinate and waste the oceans on time the Navy wants me to waste, has a neat article about one of my favorite issues. Is there some sort of explanation from an evolutionary standpoint, for homosexuality? It seems like there can't possibly be one. But Slate says that there is.

To be honest, I read an article about this in Psychology Today, or something such magazine, and I thought it was pretty unlikely, but this Slate article makes the case seem a little more plausible.

I tend to think that homosexuality is more of an inclination than a genetic predisposition, but I am willing to be wrong on that and am always looking for the information that proves the subject. (Though when I say that I am looking for it I really mean that I am reading things when I notice them and then think about whether I believe if they are true.)

The issue that I have always had is something along these lines:
Suppose evolution is true and evolution moves from less complex to more complex.
Suppose homosexuals can't reproduce, and as couples they can't. There are sperm banks and donated ovums and what have you, but that's going to be a hard sell evolutionarily. (Or a hard cell?)
Suppose as is so frequently suggested, that homosexuality is genetic.
Supposing all this, homosexuality seems to be some sort of negative, non-productive mutation. And if that is the case, don't we almost have a Survival of the Fittest right to get rid of them?

(The following paragraph was in the original post, a so-called friend of mine decided to be an asshole and erase it when he had access to my computer and is about to be stricken from my life. I apologize to anyone who read this post and was offended, it was not my intention and without this paragraph it is a very real possibility.)

I am not suggesting that we OUGHT to get rid of homosexuals at all. There is no reason, other than the case outlined above, which rests on some tenuous assumptions, to do so. All I am saying is that the assumptions above seem to be popular with a lot of people and when put together in that light... well, they don't look the best.

So, while I am always looking for an answer to this question, I do not currently have one. That Slate's article suggests that there is one makes me momentarily fascinated. But then I read the article and it is firmly speculative and further, it sounds like stretching to accept a point. I mean, it sounds kind of like someone had the same line of reasoning that I had, and then came up with anything that they could think of to deny it. And I almost approve of just doing that, but at the same time, it seems like poor science. It might be great science and the two articles I read might simply be poorly written or poorly reasoned, but they seem like poor science to me.

Thoughts?

That Gorgeous Blue Planet

"Our planet is a blue planet: over seventy percent of it is covered by the sea. The Pacific Ocean alone covers half the globe. You can fly across it non-stop for twelve hours and still see nothing more than a speck of land. This series will reveal the complete natural history of our ocean planet, from its familiar shores to the mysteries of its deepest seas."

– David Attenborough, from episode one

This remarkable documentary series took over five years to make and is well worth the 8 hours it takes to watch. Margaret and I have been watching it in 2 episode installments over the last several days and have enjoyed every moment of it. (I did intersperse a few of Attenborough's Life In The Undergrowth episodes, about insects. Margaret was not as fascinated by these.)

They actually discovered species while filming this. They discovered things about the way different species live and act. There were DISCOVERIES in the filming of this. I am fascinated that it's even possible to do that.

The Deep Sea episode is a standout to me, and we watched it the day before we swam in our ocean and found hundreds of little jellyfish. It was momentarily disconcerting, but we picked them up and played with them to no ill effect. (Though when I picked up a really big one, using a hand that had cuts on it, it felt like electric shocks all up and down my arm. Really, really cool.) We saw a bunch of Japanese kids throwing jellyfish at each other and went to look at the lot of them.

That's about what they looked like. They were really cool and made us feel like we are impervious to all jellyfish stings. (We suppose we might not be, but are acting on the assumption that we are, until proved otherwise.)

The big fear here is the Box jellyfish, which is perfectly see-through and really, really dangerous. Supposedly they don't happen in our bay very often, but they do happen sometimes, so keep your eyes peeled, etc. We're pretty confident that they can't hurt us, though.

The Question...

"But who drives around with their laptop in their car?"

The Answer: "I don't know, but I'm willing to start."

In Defense Of Donalds

Certain Donalds have been doing dirt to the name. I don't want to point any fingers, but I thought about a few of the Donalds that I've known and I thought that perhaps a tribute might be in order. So, in my personal chronology:

"Uncle" Don Navatsyk:

When I was very young, my parents were young too. They belonged to a church full of young people in a small town in Ohio. The church was very close-knit and familial. Many of the young people had kids, and many others were sort of looking to get married. It was, in my mind looking back and from stories I've been told, a little like Melrose Place with a church instead of the titular locale. (And television executives reading right now, that's my idea!) Don't get me wrong, it was a lot... churchier, but you know what I mean. At any rate, the kids were encouraged to call the adults "Uncle" and "Aunt." So, Uncle Don. Uncle Don is the father of one of my best friends ever. When his daughter Julie and I were growing up there was talk that we would get married some day. (A close escape for her.)

Don Navatsyk is still, to this day, the worship leader at the church and he is one of the most exuberant worship leaders I've ever seen. He jumps around, waves his arms, sings and hollers. In most specifics, he is like an older, male cheerleader. (Cheerleader for the Lord. Once again TV executives, MY IDEA!) One of the funniest things about this is that if you call him at his house on any given day of the week, even on Sunday after his performance, you will hear the a voice from a tomb. He seems to expend all the energy a body could ever possess on his Sunday singing jags. My friends and I used to call his house a lot, back when I was in high-school. The conversations would go something like this:

Sprightly Teenager's Voice: Hello! Can I talk to Julie or Gail?
Sepulchral Voice, Like A Ghoul On Quaaludes: No, they are out.
Slightly More Nervous Teenager Voice: Well, how are you then, uh, sir?
Sepulchral Voice, Now Even LESS Enthusiastic: Goodbye.

But that paints him in a less than glorious light, which is inaccurate. That's not how we really saw him. He was the Dad of a couple girls that were widely admired as the coolest and prettiest around. (I suppose later generations of young guys felt the same way about his younger daughters, but they were too young for me to feel that way.) He was an exciting teacher in the Sunday School and other classes/Bible studies we went to with him. He was also a coach for a lot of high-school ball things, but I wasn't a part of that either.

He was this great, funny, wildly enthusiastic on occasion, fellow to know. He is still a family friend and I still think about him on a pretty regular basis. He is the guy who got me interested in St. Peter, as a guy and as a role-model.

Donald #2: Donald Shumer

Donald Shumer was a great, great guy. I dated his daughter for a while and was a family hanger-on for even longer.

When I was 19 I met Abigail Shumer and really, really liked her. A couple months after I met her, she lived a few hours away, I went to visit her and her family. My friends Dave Michelson and John Stewart came with me, and we whiled away an incredibly flirtatious evening under the watchful, and ever so kind gaze of Donald Shumer. Though it was a lot more self-consciously sexual than how I imagine the old timey courting scene, it was in some ways very similar. Don Shumer made sure nothing untoward happened and we all acted like what we imagined adults would act like in similar circumstances. (At 30 I can say, without too much fear, adults don't act anything like I did at 16. Adults breathe and blink, but other than that, there is no basis for comparison.) Even so, Don Shumer allowed us all to act like fools and never made us feel that he was not looking out for our best interests.

Over time I had a real relationship with is daughter, I dropped out of college in an attempt to make that relationship more real and I even ended up moving to his town for a protacted period of misery after the inevitable break-up. Through all of this, and through later disasters and embarrassments, Don Shumer never was anything other than kindness personified. He helped me, even let me work in his shop for a while when I lived there. (Though that was disastrous, having ingested nothing other than cigarettes and coffee for a couple days prior I passed out, almost at the lathe. I made it out of the shop just in time to pass out in his house. He helped me to a bed and his wife, the inestimable Carol, fed me wheatgrass juice. (Don't ask me why that was what she fed me, there are reasons and they are complicated.)

I am eternally indebted to the man. Throughout the whole time he invariably passed on wisdom, and since I wasn't related to him I was at least willing to listen. When, later on, another of his daughters married a very close friend of mine it helped to cement my relationship with his family. He passed on a while ago, complications with cancer and a backhoe, but he will always be a shining example to me of what a man can be and of a man I wish I could be like. Alex Gardner and I, the son-in-law and close friend, used to intone his name as a gold standard of excellenc: "Don!"

Donald #3: Donald Landies

Now, this one is a lot of fun. Uncle Donji is one of my favorite people that I've ever worked with. He's passionate and irrational. He's explosive and given to wild bouts of exaggeration and wildness. He is thoughtful and enjoys nothing more than sitting and playing a recorder on his lunch break. He is, in a nutshell, the kind of guy I can hang out with.

I started working with Don Landies after I had suffered a major life set-back and his deep and intimate knowledge of the inner workings of life setbacks was my lifesaver. I had no job, was living out of a suitcase and scored a job for John Stewart's dad, painting for a small painting company in Cleveland. My first few weeks there I never met Don. I suppose that I knew him from my past, his family and mine go way back, and I know I helped him move once when I was in my teens. But I didn't know the guy.

I first worked with him on a job where my position as the young guy on the job was indisputable. I forget what that position is like, now that I am in the military and it is never the case for me. But when I think back, it's a great thing to be. The young guy on a job, particularly in the trades, is a dog's body job. Run to get coffee, run to get lunch, sand that wall. There is no responsibility and no need to worry. Every mistake will be dealt with, provided there are not too many mistakes. It's a great time and there is ample opportunity to sand while talking to people.

And boy, can Don talk! I think that I have never spent more hours on a job site with my mouth working, and if you know me, you know that's saying a lot. Don Landies has done every stupid thing I have ever done, and then some. He and I can compare experiences from now till we are no longer able to experience anymore.

I probably think about Don Landies once every couple days. I don't know a man better able to coin and capture phrases, and I use Don phrases every day.

While tapping one's head: "Not Just A Hatrack!"
When leaving anywhere: "It's Been All Hats And Horns."

I resurrected the old "Uncle" gag for him and he became my Uncle Don. He'd call me O, which no one has done since I was a baby. I loved it. A couple of times we had the opportunity to work, just the two of us, at a job site. These times were amazing, we'd talk about every boneheaded thing ever done. It was like some kind of boneheaded endurance course. Between the two of us it was as if there had never been a boneheaded thing that hadn't been done. David Sedaris says, in his latest book, that there are times when the things you haven't done are the only things that leave you able to be a human. He says that it gets bad when it gets down to murderers, but even they must be able to say, "I've never killed anyone, WITH A HAMMER." That was the kind of talk Don and I would have.

All of this, this whole thing, to say that I like Donalds, they are A-OK with me. If you know a Donald, go out and give him a hug.

Bob Dylan Said It Best...

In an awesome and ironic twist of fate my Roomba just knocked down the only broom in the house and pushed it into the screendoor. I am proud to have such a forward thinking and zealous Roomba, though I worry what it will do with Margaret. It is not used to her and her return may spark some jealousy issues. So far Roomba and I have developed a really pleasant and friendly working relationship, but the voice that the Roomba uses to tell me things about itself sometimes makes me think that it thinks that we are more than just friends.

Oh, and Bob Dylan termed it a Simple Twist of Fate, and I recommend looking into that.

A Few Comments Regarding Woot.com and Roombas

First of all, Woot.com is the coolest thing in the whole world. Second of all, so is out new, incredibly cheap Roomba. Both are the best ever. Also, owning a robot makes me feel powerful...

Cambodian Kiddery

This little girl was my favorite. She was SO brave. All the other Cambodian kids were terrified of us, but she just came right up and played. After 2 days of her playing with us, the other kids got comfortable. Also, I think she looks like she could be a Malich. Is there a Cambodian Malich clan? I gave her her first taste ever of peanut butter, which was awesome. It was only MRE peanut butter, which isn't the greatest, but she was amazed by it.

This is the first girl's sister, I think. They were always together and I frequently saw this one, I assume the elder, tell the younger not to do X or Y. It is only an assumption, my Khmer never got very good.

This girl was one of the prettiest, but her smile was not the best.

I never really knew this guy. He did a lot of pull-ups, though.

More News For Everyone

Y'all, So there I was, straddling a 20 year old boy…, wait, that sounds wrong. So there I was, wrapped around a 20 year old on a moped… no, not better. So there was this moped. I'll start at the beginning:

Last night, after a day of boring typing and a fence-line shower, we decided to go and get dinner. There was talk that the place we usually go to, The Cambodian Cheers, was out of food. The last time we were there they only had organ meats from some animal. Supposedly it was from several different animals, but we're not convinced. It wasn't liver, it might have been heart, but there were a lot of valves and it tasted a little like… well, it was a bit tripe-ish, with some liver-y consistency and heart grittyness. I guess it could have been a little of each. No one wanted to hazard a guess what animal or animals the bits were from.

I think that we've come as a huge boost to the local economy. It will be sad for them tomorrow when we pack up and leave. I'm trying to feel sorry for them, but the thought of a real, hot, clean shower is my only focus. At any rate, we stopped at Noggin's Cambodia, but they said they only had, "a little bit of beef."

Take it from me, a little bit of meat here is the same thing as, "It's passed beyond gamey and into completely unrecognizable as food. It's a kind of cow jelly now, with hair." We had heard that there was another place up the road and to the left, so a group of six intrepid gourmets took off in the direction that some random person had pointed.

We started our trek with good spirits and every hope of eventual dinner. Had we but known the horrors that awaited us… We started to think we might have bitten off more than we could chew when we realized that there is no signage in Cambodia. Finding a restaurant here is a matter of seeing which houses have more plastic chairs in them than the others. It's not an exact science, but it tends to work. For instance, we all saw the restaurant as we passed it, but since it was on the right instead of the left, we figured we must be wrong.

We ran into many, many people on the trek. A few of them told us that there was indeed a restaurant on this road, but further up than we had gone. One fellow who spoke middling English told us that it was 100 or 200 Meh ahead of us. We took this as a good sign, until someone pointed out that we have no idea what a meh is. Someone else took this dispiriting moment to say that mile, when abbreviated, is mi. Mi could be pronounce meh. 100-200 miles seems pretty far to go to get to a restaurant of dubious merits, but we struggled on in the hopes that meh were actually meters.

When we'd gone another kilometer we started to doubt the veracity of the meh rule. Plus, it was getting dark and the people on the street no longer even understood the universal, "Hello!" At some point we realized that the road ahead of us had no light whatsoever. One of the main requirements for food preparation, we surmised, is the ability to see. So we turned around. Now the people knew "Hello!" but we were too tired to call it with our former vim. It was a long trek back. Not all of us made it to the restaurant we'd passed the same. It was our own version of the Ho Chi Mihn trail. As we trudged, heart-sick and foot-sore, back towards the camp, one of the RCAF doctors popped out of a hovel on the WRONG SIDE of the road and told us that this was the restaurant we'd been searching for.

We entered the glorious peace of the restaurant and found seats. Gombio almost sat on a baby, but they scooped him, er… the baby, up and ran him to another seat. We all collapsed into out chairs and tried to sort out ordering food. Fortunately for us the RCAF Dr. helped us get our order straight. When it came to ordering beers, all we wanted was cold and in a bottle. We asked for Angkor Beers, but they only had cans. We were willing to go with anything else, but they only wanted to give us Angkor, since we'd asked. Cambodians can be remarkably hard-nosed when it comes to Angkor Beer, apparently. They insisted it was possible, if we were willing to pay, to get Angkor. We WERE willing to pay, so we whipped round and tried to give them the money, but no, it was not that sort of deal.

One of us would take the money, with the kid who was going, and pay for the beer at the shop. Guess who was the only one to volunteer? His name starts with O. So I followed the kid out of the restaurant, over to his moped and when I realized that we wouldn't be walking I got a little nervous. I mean, roads are things that happen to other people in Cambodia.

The road here would barely be called a path in the US. Wealthier folks have this sort of "road" through their gardens where I come from. To be flying down one of these roads, strapped to a kid, legs flung out in front in the hopes that my feet would not touch the ground left me feeling forklempt. Thoughts like: "Dying for a beer, eh?" And: "How exactly will I explain my violent injury to Margaret?"

By the way, at this point I'd like to interject that there are photos up at flickr.com/photos/cip08 Feel free to go and take a gander, when you get the opportunity.

We drove over potholes that don't really do justice to the term pothole. They were more like kettle holes, tureen holes, holes that if they were pot, then were cannibal pot. Upon arrival at the little shop that was going to sell us our beer we found them all out of Angkor Bottles, so we took a case of cans and went back to get dinner. Once again, as the little moped ramped up through the gears and the thousands of tiny, blood-sucking, itch-inducing midges splattered against my teeth, I thought: Does anyone need beer this badly?

After we'd been back at the restaurant 10 minutes I was finally calm enough to sit down at the table. It took quite a while because my heart hadn't made it back into my body. Do you remember the cartoons where the cat falls asleep next to the dog and when they return to their bodies they get mixed up? My heart felt a bit like that. As if the speed of the moped taking off had left my interior person up the road at the shoppette.

Dinner was quite good and on the walk home, after finishing our case of beers, we all, including the female, stopped in the bushes for a pee. We had a patient today complaining of salty urine. I'll let you all ruminate on that one for a while. Today we're mostly packing up, seeing a few patients, trying to get rid of our remaining medicines. If we can get rid of all the meds sooner, we can be done sooner. The moment there are no more meds, we can start taking down the tents. When we're done taking down the tents we can pre-stage the gear to put on the trucks tomorrow. When we're done pre-staging then we're just waiting to get the closing ceremony over with in the morning and onto the bus to the pretence of civilization that is Siem Reap. More to come, but we're closing on the end. There is Angkor Wat and the flight home. I haven't got the passport photo that I am apparently supposed to have, so I might be stuck here. But hopefully not, and hopefully you'll see the rest of the story here, instead of on Drudge Report.

Another One to Everyone

Have you ever had a really bad hangover? Have you ever had a really bad hangover and then had to sit in oppressive heat and take blood pressures of smelly people all day? How about this one, have you ever had a really bad hangover, had to spend the day taking smelly blood pressures and then had the tent you are under collapse over you? Welcome to my Friday!

Thursday night was a celebration of sorts. Dr. J, our veddy British doctor, was leaving us on Friday morning and we were sending him off in Cambodian high-style. By which I mean, there were almost clean plates to eat off of and people who had had the foresight to bring their own booze from home broke it out. The misty, finger stained glasses at the restaurant were the perfect counterpoint to our fine Scotch whiskey, and in true Navy style we shot the two fingers of 22 year aged Glen Fiddich. Then the good Dr. broke out his private stash of Bacardi and we got down to a serious goodbye. It was in the midst of telling a story that I realized that my tongue was no longer under my control, and it was then that my friend Thompson and I decided to stumble back to out tents.

Have you ever slept on a spinning cot before? It is most unpleasant. The normal discomforts of camping are nothing until they are combined by a really good, beer, scotch, rum-drunk. I may have thrown up some rice, organ meats, random unidentified vegetables, the four massive Angkor beers I'd had before the scotch and then all the liquor I've ever seen. I may have thrown them up into a water bottle. It may have been an unfortunate water bottle to discover when I woke up in the morning. And when I say it may have been these things, I guess I mean it was so. Not that I am trying to duck responsibility for my actions or anything, I genuinely made the incredibly foolish choices that led to this miserable end, but there were extenuating circumstances… I really hadn't liked being sober the day before.

That morning started at about 0230. After having voided my entire body cavity at about 1030 I fell into a fitful and feverish doze. At 0230 one of the other fellows in my tent lost his iPod earbuds and blasted the rest of the tent with the supremely restful sounds of Minor Threat, or perhaps it was Social Distortion. At any rate, the group that played had a name that brings to mind the overthrow of governments by violent means. They are a loud, obnoxious, spirit-rending musical group and they were played at decibel levels that explain this fellow's general inability to hear orders when shouted at him. Finally we resolved the earbud issue and fell back into the snooze that had been formerly denied.

Within 40 minutes the local roosters started crowing, their internal alarm apparently set several time zones to the left of their actual location. When they ceased crowing the rise of the sun in Alabama there was a scant 20 minutes of rest before some spirited Cambodian mistook our tents for the home away from home of American Idol. He burst into frenzied song for 40 or more minutes, during which time I lay in a stupor of illness and fever. While I prayed that the singing would cease so that I could once more pretend that sleep was possible I envisioned a massacre. I saw myself wielding a bloodied machete, with the blood of a thousand roosters and all amateur vocalists, the world over, staining its blade. If I had had a machete, and had not been so given over to ensuring my continued breathing by intense concentration, what a legend I could have been.

When the local Cambodian William Hung finally ceased his endless rendition of "She Bangs Cambodia" I allowed my breathing to take over and slept the 10 minutes that the local populace allowed before their early morning horn and Caribbean steel drum chorus took over the musical duties. Might as well try to sleep at CBGBs. I wrestled myself from my mosquito netting and stumbled around in the remains of my dinner while using baby-wipes to clean the more egregious filth from the floor and my body. After a miserable shave and morning toilet I ate some MRE bread and jam for breakfast, drank some luke-warm bottled water and started taking morning vital signs.

The Cambodian people are not regular bathers. I have had experience with people who rarely bathe. The detainees in Guantanamo Bay are not, as a rule, the most hygienic of men. This did not particularly bother. They have a spicy smell, those detainees, they are a human curry. A rich mélange of spices and bodily oils. Afghanistani people are the spice of life, however evil and insane they may be. Cambodians, on the other hand, are like an armpit. Perhaps like an armpit that has not learned to adequately wipe its bottom, if your mind can conceive of such tortured anatomy. There is something in their odor that makes one wish for almost any other scent. Pure toilet filth has it over Cambodian peasant in the pure toilet filth is a distinct smell, not a mixture of foulnesses. Perhaps I overstate this, but there is truth in it.

Take this unpleasantness on top of already being filthily sick and repulsed by one's own smells and the day becomes an unpleasant admixture of nausea. It's also impressive how, in a country absolutely rife with skin diseases, parasites, amputated limbs, gross deformities and dengue fever there is daily someone who combines all of these features into so startling a visage that comment is forced from you. In so much as there are general unfortunates and general combinations, and the wearying morass of humanity parades before you without pulling one up short for comment, the ones that really stand out stand out in such a grotesque way. Your hand, reaching for their wrist to check the pulse, draws back in horror and then, nerve overcoming distaste, returning to the sore-encrusted member and squeezing for the heart-thumping pulse. All the while your mind screams for release and your hand shivers at the oozing pustules that are in its grasp. The milky, dessicated eyes that stare, unlevel, out of the too cheerful face, the toothless, rotten gum-landscape of their mouth. Unforgettable, and yet always topped within the day by some horror more grotesque. Dr Treves would have been beside himself here, so many discoveries for the Academy. The poor elephant man would have been only one in a crowd.

Miserable hang-over days are the longest ones, and it proved so on Friday. Though I was sitting next to my dear friend Thompson I still failed to appreciate the day as I have hitherto. Misery, heat, sweat, despair, the four horsemen of a Cambodian hang-over.

In the early afternoon a wind kicked up. When I say a wind kicked up I want you to imagine a scene from Pecos Bill, the tornado that Bill roped and rode was not less forceful than the wind that kicked the patient waiting-area tent off the ground and dropped it back onto the poor Cambodians awaiting treatment. In the second of time I had to react I started towards the people who were being endangered, which I will always feel was a heroic impulse, but our LT called us all to leave the tent area. In the moment of hesitation I was lost and by the time I had turned back to help, all help had already been rendered. I was only able to assist in the tent remediation, and even that I was not much use. My friend Thompson managed to give a local woman heart failure when he scooped her up from her peaceful seat and carried her bodily out of the imagined harm's way. She was never in any danger other than death by Thompson, but he wasn't to know.

After the eventual re-setting up of the tent there were many quiet hours of vital signs, punctuated by kids with large upper arms, friendly babies, pretty girls, and the occasional semi-human golem. We saw 987 patients on Friday and it was a long, long day. When the patients were finally gone we all had a medication sorting party until around 8, at which point I took my fence-line shower, read some Paul Johnson and collapsed into bed. The day over, I could finally reflect. Never again, I decided, never again. I don't care how many British doctors are leaving my life forever, I'm not mixing 151 and Glen Fiddich for anyone. And let that be a lesson to all of you. Much love as always and more to come.

Cambodia

To the whole damned lot of you: Well, it's just past the half way point of this Cambodia trip that I'm sure you've been curious about. What? You didn't even know I was going to Cambodia? Well, I've been here 6 days and I have about 5 more to go. It's been a heck of a visit and I have to say that while I might be willing to return to a tourist center, I will not be looking to return to Th'mir Pouk any time soon. The kids are really cute, but cute kids do not a wonderful experience make. I don't care what you've heard to the contrary.

We left from Kadena Air Force Base on Okinawa on Friday the 25th. It was a reasonably pleasant flight over. Only about 4 hours in the air, turbulence-free. We arrive just outside of Siem Reap at about 1100. The airport will be featured on Flickr, when I eventually get back to civilization. It's two hours different, so it was 1300 our time, and we were getting hungry. We'd eaten at about 0430, at Kadena, from a hotbox van; one of those driving junk food things that you see on union job sites. Unpleasant food for unpleasant people, we wolfed it down. We had to do a whole bunch of work at the airport, not the normal customs things, but loading and unloading our own luggage and equipment, getting it all onto trucks.

I almost passed out from something very like heatstroke. It was a close run thing. We started moving these large, flat metal pallets which were very, very hot and I started to get woozy. I stumbled over to a grassy knoll and upchucked. Unpleasant. They gave me some water and made me sit down for a while. I got a little better and it was time to head to the hotel. We drove around, looking at the wandering cows and the incredible number of Buddha statues everywhere.

The squalor, even in the relatively cosmopolitan Siem Reap, was intense. People sitting in filth, cooking in filth, hell, cooking filth in filth, it was depressing. We got to our hotel, which I can't recall the name of, but you'll see it on Flickr and I recommend it if you are planning trip to Cambodia. It is probably the most luxurious place I've ever been or even seen in real life. The photos can't possibly do justice to the feeling of exotic comfort. From the shrine in the lobby to the 50 channels on the TV in the room, there is nothing you can recognize as Western. I watched a kids show about Krishna and a band of demons. All with live action actors and not one thing that happened made sense. Possibly the best 20 minutes in front of a TV ever spent. The salt-water pool is a delight, warm as a baby's bath and so salty that it puts the ocean to shame. The actual hygiene issues involved with a salt-water pool are questionable, but it felt too good to care. The bathroom in the hotel room… I have been without a bathroom for several days now and so I hesitate to let flow the incredible details that seems so fresh in my mind. Let it simply be said that the torrent of complimentary details cannot hope to match the torrent of water that needles into your pliant skin in the shower. I didn't take a bath, figuring I'd hold out till I really want one, i.e. when I get back from my dirt bath. It was a good choice, I have no doubt that the bathroom will once again wow me, but holding off makes the expectation much greater. I don't know what I've missed. I have to imagine that it's great.After a few hours at the hotel, without eating anything, though I did drink my first Angkor Beer, we all met up to go with the Non-Government Operators (NGOs henceforth) for dinner.

Siem Reap at night is impossible to imagine. I told Margaret that it was like something out of Deerhunter, and that's true, but it's so much stranger than that. Being in Cambodia at night is like living a PJ O'Rourke essay. (This is HIGH praise, from me. Coming from other people it might be a negative position. I suppose you'll have to go read some PJ and then decide for yourself.) We went to dinner at a place called Dead Fish. I had heard about this place before I came. Each table is on a separate level, for privacy. It's a neat system, though it really wastes a lot of space. We fit 30 people around a long table on a high level and half of them never got the food they ordered. I felt their pain, I never got my seconds. The food was very good. Kind of like Thai food, which I like very much, but a little spicier, or differently spice. Like when Mom puts too much cinnamon in the chili. You still know it's chili, but the taste is just different. At any rate, the food was tasty, but not filling. There were crocodiles inside the restaurant that you could feed fish for $.50. We didn't do it, but we watched a French couple do it. They seemed to be really happy doing it. We were just happy watching the crocodiles eat the fish. There was a floor show of traditional Cambodian ceremonial dancing, which I thought was dull. Then there was a couple of overweight American kids who came out and sang 90's hits. Since I am all about 90's hits, this went over big with me. My loud clapping irritated them, though. (They have no appreciation of virility in tourists.)

After dinner we decided, and when I say we, I mean my friend Cranston whose bank I am while we're here, to go to Bar Street. It's this crazy little street with lots of , wait for it, bars. It's cordoned off by police, though. They make sure that none of the little kids who beg can come onto the street and beg from you. The first place we went to was called The Temple. Again, there are Flickr images coming, but it was a cool place. We hung out there for a couple hours. We met a guy who works for Homeland Security, which was cool. He was drunk and said some things he probably shouldn't have, unless they were lies. But it was fun all the same. Then Thompson met up with this girl named Annie. At least, I'm guessing that's how she spells it. She pronounced it Annie. She took us to another place.

This other place was off Bar Street and a lot less… it was a whore bar. Apparently Annie asked for no money at the end of the evening and Thompson still has his passport and both kidneys, so maybe she just likes to hang out there, but it was something else. They don't have strip clubs here, it's not acceptable behavior. They DO have dancers though. These young girls who act like they are about 8, but look like they are older, if you see what I mean, dance around fully clothed; at least, fully clothed for them. The big question of the night was which of them were actually men in drag, it's shockingly difficult to tell with your basic Occidental face. I was coerced into a little dancing with one of them, but it was my usual awkward dancing and I think she got the worst of it. It got a lot of Cambodian laughs, but was not successful as a form of seduction, on either of our part. We stayed there for a while, until I finally was just done.

I gathered up half our party and took off, back to the hotel. We had to be up at 0445, so being out passed 1100 wasn't on for me. As it was, I got to sleep at almost 0100. I was sleepy when we got up the next day and boarded our bus for Th'Mir Pouk. This turned out to be a bad move on my part. Roads are something that happen to other people in Cambodia. The basic design of a road here is a pothole with no paving for miles. Several times I thought my coccyx was going to be fused to the metal of my seat. Most unpleasant. After 5 hours of miserable driving we finally found ourselves at the appointed place. Now, a few of you might have heard that we'd be performing our medicine inside of a Buddhist temple, and indeed, that was the plan. However, it turned out that our advance party had counted its chickens before they hatched and we were not going to be able to use the temple.

We are using the local governor's compound, instead. This is a little bit of a blessing, as it means that there are police around all the time and we don't have to set up our own guard system. That's nice because it means that we can sleep all night, instead of only in shifts. The downside is that there is no way to keep people out. (Don't ask me why not. There are gates and everything, and did I mention police? Yeah, I have no idea how that works. At any rate, it's a pretty nice place. Not great in so far as normal amenities that we enjoy in the West. The toilets are all bucket affairs. After you do your business and bag your toilet paper/baby wipes, you take a bucket of water and pour it down the spout until it finally flushes. Not pleasant. There is no shower capability. We use bottles of water and the back fence line.

Directions for a water bottle shower: Take 3 or 4 bottles of water, wear skimpy shorts, dump one bottle all over yourself, get every area wet. Soap up, don't drop the soap in the dirt! Use the other bottles to rinse the soap off after you drop it in the dirt, walk, covered in soap, back to the tent with the water and get more so that you can rinse off. Endure the taunting yells of your friends, also catcalls. Repeat every other day, when your own stink overwhelms you. Take care to avoid random dogs, chickens, children and Cambodian locals who would like trip you, watch you shower, or just plain lounge near you.

It took us most of the early afternoon to set up our tents and when we finished there were already 200+ locals outside, just waiting to be seen. So we took the late afternoon to see patients. I did vital signs at the start. It was fun. We had to see the 200+ before dark, so we had to move really quickly. The vital signs team had to keep ahead of the triage officer who had to keep ahead of the doctors who had to try not to overload the pharmacy. It was a mildly complicated process, and I enjoyed it. We ate our MRE dinner and went to bed, exhausted. In fact, I Think it might have been the most exhausted I've been in years, probably since boot camp. I did not dream. Wake up a little before 0600 and for many an MRE breakfast. Your intrepid author managed to go without food, though. MREs are foul at the best of times and not to be countenanced first thing in the AM. I require a soothing cup of tea and perhaps a quiet period of reading and a contemplative poop. These, unfortunately, are not an option in the field. I settled for sitting and making fun of my fellow early-morning risers.

A full day of seeing patients, I think we saw over 700 that first full day. The vitals team and I learned a bit of Cambodian and I entertained the crowd at lunchtime with all the hand motions and faces I could think of. The "living hand" thing didn't go over as well as it always did with me, but then I would be the first to admit that I lack the stage presence of a Chico Marx or a Bruce Campbell. The kids here, as I said, are adorable. Utterly, utterly adorable. I think that there is something in the water here though. The little girls are unutterably gorgeous, as young teenagers they have a grace that is not found in Western teenagers. But by the time they are in their mid-twenties they look like life is over for them. I was saying the other day that if this is how everyone used to age, in the old days, then no wonder they married so young. It's shocking, honestly. I have seen a couple of twenty-something girls who are still pretty, but there is a feeling of tenuous timing, as if their days are numbered and everyone knows it.

Several days went just like that, showers when possible, the bucket toilet, vital signs and vital signs and vital signs. We are all ripe, the smell in the tent where the enlisted guys sleep is something like what you'd imagine medieval moat to smell like. Spirits are pretty high though. We are all getting along well. There are two restaurants nearby. We have adopted one of them as our home away from home. I go every other night. We have Angkor Beers and Lohk Lahk. (Or it might be Lahk Lohk, we have not had a satisfactory explanation.) We ate frogs there the other night and bugs that they caught around the lamps. It was pretty special. The fruit! That's what I needed to tell you about. First of all, you have never had a real mango. I don't care where you think you had a mango, you're wrong. Real mangoes are sold, hot off the tree, at stands on the side of the road in Cambodia. And there are mangostines, I have no idea if that is the correct spelling, but they are delicious. There are many different kinds of things that are similar to gnapes. I guess frogs don't count as fruit, but those were good too. So far every growing thing we've eaten has blown us… away. At any rate, like I say, there will be more coming, there is still half a story to tell and part of it will take place in Siem Reap. Hopefully some of it will also be taking place at Angkor Wat. There will be photos and fun details for people in specific. Look forward to more.

That guy is a doggone legend

Ok, so I never read the book. I am slightly ashamed to be reviewing this whole thing based on the information I have, but I read a comic book adaptation of the book. It was pretty good, it was by Steve Niles and I liked it pretty well. I have no idea how it turns out in the book, really.

I just read wikipedia's article on the subject and it quotes Stephen King as saying that if Richard Matheson didn't exist, he wouldn't either. Obviously Matheson has a lot more to answer for than the several poorly made attempts at filming his original vision. I suppose we can't take him to trial for creating Stephen King, but I can always dream of the day that someone is punished for that crime.

The book is pretty tense, well like I say, the comic adaptation was pretty tense. The way the main character's neighbors were on to him from the first and just waited and haunted him was a good setup. The antagonistic relationship with his former buddy on the block made me really pleased and reminded me of when I used to fight with our next-door neighbors, the Rayles. Nice kids, two girls and little boy. I can remember beating the boy up, sitting on his chest and punching him. I think he'd bitten me. Anyways, a belated sorry to Bobby Rayle and I hope that he never becomes a vampire and hangs around outside my house for revenge.

I also liked how much he drank in the book. It appealed to the lush in me. I also thought that it made a lot of sense. If all my neighbors were camping out in front of my house every night I'd probably want to get pretty trashed as well. My current neighbors are mostly Okinawan and I think that if they became vampires it'd be pretty terrifying. I'm not sure I'd be able to tell if they were vampires or not. They already hang out behind the house all night, how would I be able to tell if they were also eating people? They left a dead goat in my backyard last week. I mean, what would the signs and symptoms of vampirism be, and how would they be different. This is the sort of dilemma that culture shock brings.

My point, and I genuinely DO have a point, is that this particular movie version is pretty rotten. I liked how scary bits of it were, and I liked the first 25 minutes a whole, whole lot. But then little things started to bug me. Why was Emma Thompson in this movie? Why did the vampires look like CGI monsters? What's the satirical value of monsters that are nothing like people? Useless. And what the hell is the whole thing with the heroic value of Bob Marley? How nonsense is that? Bob Marley? Is Hollywood really scraping the bottom of the barrel for heroes or what? I have no idea what album it was that Will Smith claims is the best album ever, but since it is a Bob Marley album I have to say that I suspect he is wrong. Not only wrong, but wildly, hilariously inaccurately wrong.

There is a great scene, really scary and intense, where he is driving around and sees someone standing in the road. It's great, the whole scene that follows is wonderful. But it is ruined by the stupid CGI effects that look ridiculous, no matter how many time we see them. They look like they are Beowulf's cousins that suffer from alopecia. It's just sad.

Vern said that he waited through the whole movie for Will Smith to say something like, "Why's it always gotta be a black man gets eaten by the vampires?!" And while it wasn't quite THAT bad, I saw what he meant. I think that Will Smith, while I will always love him for his Fresh Prince shtick, both in his albums and his TV show, has kind of painted himself into a corner as an actor. It's too bad, as I think that he is pretty good, but just like Keannu Reeves always appears to be about to say, "Dude!" Will Smith always seems like he is about to try to out Martin Lawrence Martin Lawrence.

Access Woes

Have you ever used Microsoft Access? It is making me frustrated. Or, to put it another way, These Pretzels Are Making Me THIRSTY!

I'm working on a database, well on creating a database, that needs to be able to do approximately everything for an entire battalion of people. Boy, is it a pain in the tuchus. I am not the most technically proficient guy in the world. I'm ok. I have some amount of skill. I can figure things out and I used to be able to make startling leaps that denied all actual knowledge in my head. ("What does this mean, Pitrone?" "Umm, it means that when you were 7 years old you were able to stand on your head?" "How did you know that!?")

Unfortunately, as I get older I find that my ability to make ridiculous leaps is waning. So now I am relying on my native cunning and what skills I have squirreled away over the years. It is not enough.

So if you're out there reading and you have lots of Access ability and want to help out your country and your blogger, please get in touch.