Almost every time he got off the bus for the past month and a half, Jacob started his afternoon in the same way. Before toys, before his trains and his toy bus, before anything indoors, he went for our cats. Here he is, cradling his favorite, Tigger: Laura and I both grew up around cats. We had been talking about kittens, and shortly after we got engaged, one of my relatives offered us some free kittens. We went to his place one evening and selected two of them one calico and one tiger-colored. Since what is now my place will soon be our place, they came to live with me. Our cats were one of the first things we did to prepare for our lives together. Oliver wanted to name them some rather impractical sentence-long names ( The Cat Who Always Likes To Run ), so Laura and I suggested some names from one of their favorite books: Tigger and Roo. They both liked the names, but Oliver thought they should be called Tigger the Digger and Roo the Runner . Never mind that they were just 6 weeks old at the time, and not really old enough to either dig or run. Here s Oliver with Roo, the day after the kittens arrived here. I have always had outside cats, both because I m allergic to cats so I need them to be outside, and because they sometimes literally quiver with joy of being outdoors. Tigger and Roo often chased insects, wrestled with each other, ran up (and slowly came back down) trees, and just loved the outside. Sometimes, I have taken my laptop and wireless headset and work from the back porch. The kittens climb up my jeans, inspect the laptop, and once Roo even fell asleep on my lap at one of those times. Jacob has been particularly attached to Tigger, calling him my very best friend. When Jacob picks him up after school, Tigger often purrs while cradled in Jacob s arms, and Jacob comments that Tigger loves me. Oh dad, he knows I am his friend! The kittens have been growing, and becoming more and more comfortable with their home in the country. Whenever I go outside, it isn t long before there are two energetic kittens near my feet, running back and forth, sometimes being very difficult to avoid stepping on. I call and I see little heads looking at me, from up in a tree, or peeking out from the grain elevator door, or from under the grill. They stare for just a second, and then start running, sometimes comically crashing into something in their haste. Yesterday when I went to give them food, I called and no cats came. I was concerned, and walked around the yard, but at some point either they come or they don t. Yesterday afternoon, just after the bus dropped off Jacob, I discovered Tigger on the ground, motionless. Once Jacob was in the house, I went to investigate, and found Tigger was dead. As I was moving his body, I saw Roo was dead, too. Both apparently from some sort of sudden physical injury a bit mysterious, because neither of them were at a place where they had ever gone before. While all this was happening, I had to also think about how I was going to tell the boys about this. I tried to minimize what he could see, Jacob had caught an unavoidable glimpse of Tigger as we were walking back from the bus, but didn t know exactly what had happened. He waited in the house, and when I came back, asked me if Tigger was dead. I said he was. Jacob started crying, saying, Oh Dad, I am so sad , and reached up for a hug. I picked him up and held him, then sat down on the couch and let him curl up on my lap. I could quite honestly let him know he wasn t alone, telling him I am sad, too. Oliver arrived not long after, and he too was sad, though not as much as Jacob. Both boys pretty soon wanted to see them. I decided this was important for them for closure, and to understand, so while they waited in the house, I went back out to arrange the kittens to hide their faces, the part that looks most unnatural after they die. The boys and I walked out to where I put them, then I carried both of them the last few feet. We stood a little ways back close enough to see who was there, far enough to not get too much detail and they were both sniffling. I tried to put voice to the occasion, saying, Goodbye, Tigger and Roo. We love you. Oliver asked if they could hear us. I said No, but I told them what I felt like anyway. Jacob, through tears, said, Dad, maybe they are in heaven now. We went back inside. Jacob said, Oh dad, I am so sad. This is the saddest day of my life. My heart is breaking. Hearing a 7-year-old say that isn t exactly easy for a dad. Pretty soon he was thinking of sort of comfort activities to do, saying I think I would feel better if we did So they decided to watch a favorite TV program. Jacob asked if Laura knew yet, and when I said no, he got his take-charge voice and said, Dad, you will start the TV show for us. While we are watching, you will send Laura an email to tell her about Tigger and Roo. OK? What could I say, it wasn t a bad idea. Pretty soon both boys were talking and laughing. It was Big Truck Night last night, at a town about half an hour away. It s an annual event we were already planning to attend, where all sorts of Big Trucks firetrucks, school bus, combine, bucket truck, cement truck, etc show up and are open for kids to climb in and explore. It s always a highlight for them. They played and sang happily as we drove, excitedly opened and closed the big door on the school bus and yelled All Aboard! from the top of the combine. We ate dinner, and drove back home. When we got home, Jacob mentioned the cats again, in a sort of matter-of-fact way, and also wanted to make sure he knew Laura had got the message. A person never wakes up expecting to have to dump a bowl of un-eaten cat food, or to give an impromptu cat funeral for little boys. As it was happening, I wished they hadn t been around right then. But in retrospect, I am glad they were. They had been part of life for those kittens, and it is only right that they could be included in being part of death. They got visual closure this way, and will never wonder if the cats are coming back someday. They had a chance to say goodbye. Here is how I remember the kittens.

The above two pictures show me holding a Samsung Galaxy S3 which has a 4.8 display in my left hand and a Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 which has a 4.0 display in my right hand. I am holding both phones in a manner that allows me to touch the top opposite corner with my thumb the position I need for one-handed phone use. The Xperia X10 can be completely enclosed by my hand, when I have a bottom corner resting in my palm it won t slide down while the Galaxy S3 can slide. Also one thing I didn t realise before having the pictures taken is that my posture is quite different when using the two phones. With the Galaxy S3 my wrist is clearly bent and this seems more likely to cause me to have more problems with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome [1]. I haven t had any serious problems with CTS for the last 2.5 years but I have had minor problems that suggest that I will have to be careful about my posture for the rest of my life. So it seems that a 4.8 phone is just too big for ideal one-handed use (grasping the vertical phone from the bottom). As I had CTS problems with my left hand I will try to use my new phone with my right hand as much as possible. Also I can reach further than the width of the phone screen when I grasp it from the side, so for me a size of about 5.2 would be better than the 4.8 of the Galaxy S3. It s quite likely that the Samsung Galaxy Note with it s 5.3 screen would be a better device for me to grasp from the side. But the Galaxy Note 2 might be a little too large for me. Note that I am only considering ways of holding the device that permit full operation. Anything that involves changing position for different uses or occasionally using two hands for a mostly one-hand operation doesn t count. The above picture is of me holding a 7 Android tablet (which I have just returned to Aldi [2]). When holding it from the sides I can reach more than half the screen with one hand so it seems that the ideal size for a tablet to be held in two hands for me would be 8 or even a little larger. A tablet larger than that could only be properly used if resting on my lap or a desk so for me 8 is the size that differentiates things which can be strictly used as tablets (holding with two hands and using thumbs for input) and things which are more like Netbooks (on desk typing). Ideal Device Sizes for people based on Height I am about 190cm tall. If we assume that height and hand size are strongly correlated then we can look at median heights of various age groups and determine what might be a good device size. I am also assuming that everyone wants to have the largest possible device, but some people have other criteria such as the size of their pockets. For me it s 8 tablet, 5.2 side-grip phone, and 4 bottom-grip phone. I used data from a chart of the average heights of American boys [3] and a chart of the average heights of American girls [4] to determine what size devices might suit children of various ages. Note that before the age of 12 the height of boys and girls is near enough to identical.

Device	Two Hand Tablet Use	Phone Grasp from Side	Phone Grasp from Below
7 tablet	14yo boy or 17yo girl	noone	noone
Galaxy Note 5.3	10yo	95th percentile 17yo boy	noone
Galaxy S3 4.8	6yo	17yo boy or 95th percentile 17yo girl	almost noone
Galaxy S and iPhone 5 4.0	3yo	10yo	95th percentile 17yo boy
iPhone 4 3.5	noone	8yo	14yo boy or 16yo girl

One thing that particularly interests me is the educational use of Android devices for children. As few people buy new phones and tablets for young children that largely means that children borrow devices from their parents or are given older phones when relatives no longer need them. So it seems that if all other things are equal then an adult might choose a phone with a 4.8 display to allow it to be used as a tablet by children in the 6-10 age range. Conclusion It seems that the iPhone 4 is a good size for one-handed use by women of average height. By the standards of the people who don t regard gripping a phone from below as a significant feature the iPhone 4 would be designed for the hand of an 8yo. By any standards all iPhones other than the iPhone 5 were not the ideal size for most adults to use maybe they are well designed to fit in a pocket while unused. Charles Stross criticised the iPhone because it s too small to be seen well by people with poor vision [5], he also makes many other interesting points about the use of phones and I recommend reading his article (and the rest of his blog). The common tablet size of 7 seems like it might be ideal for women to hold with both hands, but for men of average height a 7.5 tablet might be better suited, it sounds like a small difference but it changes button size (good for people with thicker fingers) and allows displaying more data at once (15% greater screen area). Of course if you want to use a tablet on a desk then something much bigger would be better, maybe 12 or 14 . I think that there is a real market for 14 tablets that are designed to be carried around the home or office and then used on a table or lap which differs from the tablets that are designed to be more portable. There is also the use case of holding the phone in one hand while typing with the other which I haven t considered in this post. I don t think it s interesting because in that case almost everyone will find that the limitation is the size of their pockets and the size of an object that can be held to one s face for a phone call not the size of their hands. I ve previously written about my search for Geeky jeans and the ability to put a 7 tablet in my jeans pocket [6]. So I think that pocket size isn t a phone selection issue for men. The fact that women s clothing tends to have tiny pockets is another issue, if someone knows of a good analysis of phone size vs pockets in women s clothes then please let me know.

• [1] http://etbe.coker.com.au/2010/06/16/carpal-tunnel-getting-better/
• [2] http://etbe.coker.com.au/2012/12/10/returning-aldi-tablet/
• [3] http://www.halls.md/on/boys-height-w.htm
• [4] http://www.halls.md/chart/girls-height-w.htm
• [5] http://tinyurl.com/3c4kqh5
• [6] http://etbe.coker.com.au/2012/11/17/geeky-jeans/

It s likely that most people make things like comfort, style, and price the main criteria when purchasing clothes. But there are other things that can be more important such as the ability to fit a phone in the pocket. My last pair of jeans was from Rivers (one of the more affordable Australian clothing stores which also has online sales) [1]. They were the long leg version and have front pockets that are 28cm deep (measured from the bottom of the pocket to the lowest part of the lip) and 15cm wide (a 15cm ruler will barely fit sideways in the pocket). I ve just got some new jeans from Rivers which are the regular leg length, they have front pockets which are 21cm deep and slightly more than 16cm wide. The old pair could fit a Nexus 7 tablet in the front pocket. The new pair should more easily fit such a tablet in the pocket but it might be less comfortable to walk with the tablet in the pocket. I don t plan to try using my front pocket for a tablet (I d be more likely to use a backpack or my Scott e vest [2]), but a Galaxy Note 2 (which is about the largest device that most people would want in their pocket) would fit nicely. I find the Rivers jeans to be quite comfortable and I like the way they look. They also only cost $25 online or $30 in the store. When I bought my first pair before I even had a 4 phone they were good value and they will be even better value early next year when I get a bigger phone. Even though Rivers jeans may wear out faster than more expensive brands, for $30 it s easy to just buy a few pairs at a time. During an email discussion of geeky clothing the issue of women s clothes having fewer and smaller pockets was raised. Unfortunately I didn t think to measure the pockets in women s jeans when I was at the Rivers to discover whether they have big pockets too. I ll do that next time I m in the area.

• [1] http://rivers.com.au/
• [2] http://www.scottevest.com/

I read a translated poem about Russia being "the Motherland" and its vast bosom years ago. Having driven through a significant part of it, I can agree on the "vast" part... Also, as I am on a train and without access to the Internet, I will refrain from linking to a lot of pages; sorry. (Turns out I am posting this a week later, but I will still not link to stuff now; no time). Russia in general

• All receipts you receive are torn before you get them; this is most likely due to the old Soviet voucher system, more on that below.
• Russia was hot with temperatures ranging from 27 to 32 degrees Celsius between Moscow and Ulan Ude.
• There aren't a lot of pedestrians bridges, but a lot of pedestrian tunnels. The sides of those tunnels are packed with tiny shops, often only two meters wide and 50-70 cm deep. Everything from stockings to candy over glasses to flowers and watches is being sold through a tiny window by some poor woman who somehow managed to get in there.
• Toilet brushes stand in water. In Germany, that's a sure sign of a really dirty toilet; in Russia, it's the thing to do. If you are lucky, there's blue cleaning stuff added to the water. If not, it will still have color. You are free to guess which.
• Queuing is war.

Moscow Sights Kreml Our remaining time in Moscow was spent with touring the usual suspects; the Kreml is a lot less impressive in real life, the Red Square is tiny when compared to the stories I heard about it and the Chapel ofi St. Basil is even more colorful and impressive in real life. Lenin's body was inaccessible because workers built seats for the May 9th parade to the left and the right of it and they apparently thought it would be a good idea to block access to one of the main tourist attractions while doing so. A river tour of Moscow was a nice cool-off and we got to see quite a few things. We managed to see the weekly military parade within the Kreml grounds, but it was mostly pomp and little substance. The National Treasure which you can access with an extra ticket within the Kreml grounds is nice, but less impressive than the tourist guides would make you believe. That being said... There's another museum within the museum and.... Whoah... Tourists pay extra, visitors go through the only non-security-theater check I encountered in Russia, guards are armed, people can only enter and leave in batches, and the stuff which is presented is mind-boggling. Disregarding the fist-to-calf-sized chunks of gold and platinum which are still in their original form directly from the mine, there is real, actual treasure galore. Little heaps of uncut and cut diamonds, an outline of Russia filled with cut diamonds and other random "we have this stuff" displays can be found as well. Then, you have various tiaras and other jewellery made from various gems. Not incorporating, but largely made of. All that pales in comparison to the crown, royal apple, scepter, etc. It's hard to put the amount of tiny multi-colored light points that shine at you into words. I was just standing there, swaying back and forth to catch the moving pattern of pinpoints. It's said that this collection is equalled only by the ones in the Tower of London and the one Shaw of Iran had and boy do I believe it. TV Tower Getting up there was funny. The old-style Soviet queuing system was used:

• Go to a counter to tell an attendant what you want; receive stub
• Go to another counter, hand over stub to another attendant, pay for what you want; receive voucher
• Go to third counter, hand over voucher; receive ticket for tower The whole thing was made even more absurd by the fact that counter one was in the middle, counter two to the right and counter three to the left. As Russians do not believe in queuing and everybody just tries to get in first, this made for a nice little exercise.

"Security" for approaching the tower was multi-level, the guards see you approach along a long walkway way in advance and the main guard shed had several small cabins separated by thick glass. So good so menacing. But in a twist that would make Bizarro and Garry Larson proud, I was required, by means of metal detector gate, metal detector wand and even an x-ray machine to remove every shred of metal and other hard objects from myself and the camera bag and put them onto a table. Once I was without anything except my clothes and the bag was completely empty, I could pass. Everything I had had to remove was just laying there, not inspected in the least, for me to stuff back into pockets and bag and to take with me. This "everything" included a Spot Messenger 2 with lots of green and red blinky lights. The guard did not even glance and it. Security theater? Security theater. The view from 364 meters down on Moscow was nice, but there was a lot of Smog so I couldn't see very far. Jumping on the glass floor while looking down was a lot of fun, though. Subway to Thiefing I bet Christopher Nolan rode the subway in Moscow at least once. That unnerving sound you hear during several key scenes in "The Dark Knight"? Two thirds of all subways make the same sound while moving. Also, I had an encounter with a pickpocket down there; very classical, too. Guy approaches quickly, talks loudly and sounds as if it's really important (in Russian... duh... that's sure to keep me interested). His approach made me turn and protect my left leg pocket automatically, most likely marking the target for the tiny woman standing behind me. Now, I have to tell you something about my usual travel layout. As my normal pockets are very deep, it looks as if their content was in the leg pocket. Plus, there's an extra, hidden leg pocket where I keep the passports and train tickets. The outermost leg pocket is protected by a velcro flap, but it contains nothing of value; usually the appropriate phrasebook, local map, maybe a tissue or chewing gum. Due to this layering, the outermost pocket looks as if it's full to the brim with stuff. Also, I took pains to make it a habit to protect said leg pocket with my hand, nothing else. This looks as if that's the target, but what I am actually doing is protect my normal pocket with my forearm. The right side is different, but the most easily accessibly pocket always holds some small change. I pay from that stash but my actual wallet is well out of reach. Anyway, once the guy ran off, talking to several others, most likely marking all them for the actual pickpockets, I wanted to enter the subway. While the Russian-style queuing took place, I felt an unusual tug at the velcro flap. I looked down and saw a tiny woman to the left of me with a jacket held over her right side with the left arm; I look up to check no one is trying to steal from my permanently assigned female, feel another tug, look the woman into the eyes, look up again and around me, look down again and she is gone. All that took maybe three seconds and I had boarded the subway after an additional two. In hindsight, it makes sense to choose the time of entry for attack. It's crowded, you are being pushed around, and once you are in the subway, it will start moving more or less immediately while the thief remains in the station. In this case, she would only have gotten a grubby map of Moscow's subway and an English-Russian phrasebook, but she got nothing at all. Moscow-Novosibirsk Where to begin... If you think a few hours on a train are a long time, try over fifty hours. Things get so bad, you start getting land-sick while not in a moving train. You even start missing the familiar tunk-cachunk, tunk-cachunk, tunk-cachunk... of driving over rails with gaps in them when you are not moving. The defining element of the Trans-Siberian Railway are birch trees. And birch trees. And then more birch trees. You would not believe how many birch trees there are. This is made "worse" by the way the Russian Railway protects their rails. Left and right of the track, there's a cleared area of maybe ten to twenty meters, sometimes as little as three. Outside of that, they plant ten to twenty meters of birch trees, presumably to catch snow during winter. Beyond that protective perimeter, there's the normal landscape.As a result, on top of the near endless stretches of birch woods, you see most if not all scenery through a layer of birch trees. You get sick sick of birch trees after a few hours and you see them for days on end. Bullet points to save myself some typing and you some reading...

• More than a thousand kilometers without a single hill. Flat as a pan.
• The whole route is powered by electricity. No diesel engines in sight.
• Many stations are little more than a heap of smoothed gravel, bordered by some wooden planks. Some stations have obviously been built by locals and are even less well-defined.
• You can see people in the middle of nowhere, walking along the railway tracks. At first this seemed counter-intuitive, but most if not all roads out there are dirt tracks. As there seems to be standing water across a third of Russia, this dirt is turned into mud. After walking maybe twenty meters across a parking lot, I had to scrape a heavy, thick cake of black earth from my soles. The railway is the only functioning footpath those people have. Many people even build shoddy bridges towards the tracks from their homes, obviously preferring to walk along the tracks over walking through the village.
• Railway crossings along the Trans-Siberian route, no matter how tiny, have a small cabin beside them. While the train passes, there's one guy or gal standing in said cabin, holding a yellow stick vertically out towards the train. Sometimes, you have not seen any living thing, other than birch trees, for twenty minutes and there, in the middle of nowhere right beside a dirt track, there's someone holding a stick out towards the train. Weird.
• Railway crossings of paved roads will always have two steel plates coming out of the ground, angled towards oncoming traffic on each side. This may not stop a heavy truck at full speed, but a car will disintegrate on these barriers without touching a passing train.
• The railways is important for Russia. Two parallel tracks cut across the whole country, transporting everything back and forth. Where "everything" means mostly coal and birch wood, I guess.
• All freight trains are usually 70 tanker waggons or 100 box waggons long, but you see the odd 100 tanker waggons, as well. You have more than enough time and opportunity to count them and then some.
• There are supposedly women at every station, selling what they cook at home. Unfortunately, this was only true for two stations. The things we did manage to get were very nice; I do wonder why anyone would offer (or buy) cooked and peeled potatoes, though.
• Every waggon has its own hot-water stove. They are powered by coal. Yep, you have a coal fire burning in every single waggon on the Trans-Siberian.

Novosibirsk The non-existent hostel We arrived at ~0200 local and made our way to the hostel we had booked a room with. Walking to the correct address, we saw several signs but they all turned out to be for a police station and some other state agency. We walked back, forth, double-checked, triple-checked: no hostel. We then walked around the building through some not-quite-nice back alleys, but other than a few entries to private flats, there was nothing. Thankfully, the booking slip included a number which we called and after at least twenty rings (no kidding), when I had given up and wanted to hang up, it stopped ringing. Dead silence. After maybe ten seconds, someone started talking in Russian. I asked him if he spoke English and told him that we could not find the hostel. He mumbled something about being sorry and that we should wait, he would come down. Fast forward a minute or two and someone walked towards us. Again, he mumbled about being sorry, that the hostel "did not work" at the moment and that we would need to sleep in his private apartment. He ushered us into some back alley entrance, into his flat, and proceeded to remove the sheets from the couch on which he had slept; after putting on new sheets, we had our "hostel" bed, ready to sleep on. We briefly considered if he would murder us in our sleep, but him and me even got to talking a bit. Over cheese, sausage and rum (at 0300), he admitted that the hostel did not exist and he merely planned to turn his flat into a hostel for the summer while he and his family moved into their summer house (the Russian term of which escapes me, at the moment) in the countryside. He had accepted our reservation as he thought he would be finished by that time. He did not even get started, though. While he sent us an overbooking notice through booking.com two days before, we were on the train at that time, so... booking.com even called him to check what happenend to us as we did not book another place through them. Good customer service/protection, that. Next morning, he didn't even want to take our money (we paid anyway) and, as a means of compensation, drove us into the city in the morning and to a train museum well outside the city limits, one of the fabled scientist cities, and a large lake which everyone in Novosibirsk claims is an ocean, in the afternoon. Foreigners, foreigners! All in all, Novosibirsk was relatively uneventful, safe for one bizarre episode. We took our lunch in a local fast food joint (why do all the good stories happen there, and not at the various truly local places?) and threw the cashier our well-rehearsed "Niet Russkie; anglisky?" with phrasebook in hand and he actually understood a few words of English (beef, chicken, fries). We told him, in our worst Russian, that we are from Germany wished him a nice day and went to sit down. A few minutes later, a girl approached us, literally hopping from one foot to the other and wringing her hands. She told us that the cashier had told her that we spoke English and if it would be OK if she talked to us. We suspected some sort of elaborate ruse, but went with it. Turns out, she had English at school and really wanted someone to practice English on. Two young men passed our table and exchanged a few words with her, sitting down out of sight. When she told us that she had to leave now but if it would be OK if the two boys joined us we suspected a ruse yet again. But those two were law students, one with a minor in English and one with a minor in German; both of them also extremely nervous, asking us if we would talk to them. When they had to leave, they told us that the three of them worked at the burger joint and that their shift was just about to start when the news that foreigners were here spread amongst staff like wildfire. The girl stopped by several times in between cleaning tables, getting in a sentence or two before being cussed at by her supervisor. All in all, this took about twenty minutes and seeing three people so nervous and grateful to talk with us felt beyond absurd. On the other hand, not a single traveller we met even considered stopping in Novosibirsk during their transit so there really does seem to be a shortage of non-Russians there. Weird, and memorable. Novosibirsk-Irkutsk

• Birch trees.
• Lots of burnt underwood, presumably to prevent larger fires.
• Birch trees.
• Sticky, stuffy, 30+ degree waggon with windows that could be opened but which were locked (this is why I always carry a Swisstool with me).
• Birch trees.

Irkutsk / Listvianka / Lake Baikal Listvianka Aah, lake Baikal... the oldest and deepest lake on Earth which holds a fifth of the global non-salt water reserves; a must-see in my book. Quad tours at break-neck speeds, dry-suit diving with Russian regulators, walking barefoot in between and across drift ice that made its way onto the shorei, and extended hiking around the lake's coast... All of which I could not do because I was ill and had to spend two solid days in bed. The draft from the open window in between Novosibirsk and Irkutsk was enough to give me a rather bad cold which peaked at Lake Baikal. Still, the area was lovely and we were glad to be out of a train and able to unpack our stuff without having to repack immediately for once. I am not sure where my current losing streak with regards to diving is coming from (Grimsey, diving north of the Arctic circle with birds that plummet into the water and hunt fish: Only guy who does this is on the Icelandic mainland that day; Svalbard, diving north of the Arctic circle in permanent darkness: The few people who do this privately did not reply while I was there; Baikal, oldest, deepest, largest lake on Earth: ill), but I will most likely return to Russia for a week of ice diving in Lake Baikal next winter or the one after that. As an aside, I saw several people walking to Lake Baikal with buckets to get their water. Other people got it from a well which was still half frozen. If you have running water consider yourself lucky... Irkutsk Nice city, largely uneventful. The farther east you get within Russia, the more normal women look. In Moscow, just as in Paris, they are way over-dressed and even service personnel will walk with high heels. Thankfully, I don't have to wear heels, but for the other males out there: Walking and standing in these things hurts and thus most if not all people who stand and walk for a living have flat shoes. We happened upon preparations for a military parade, complete with cordon, viewing podests, at least half a dozen TV cameras etc, but were not sure if it would start soon enough for us to catch our train.We asked someone who told us it would start at 2100 local, at 1945 local it seemed about to start, and sure enough at 1955 sharp, the whole thing went under way. About a dozen groups of 50-100 people each, all in their own, respective uniforms stood against one side of a cordoned-off street and several higher-ups on the other side. Two highest-ups shouted into microphones and the throng of people on the other side shouted back answers. Then, the two highest-ups stood in the back of a jeep each and drove past said throng, stopping in front of each group, shouting into microphones mounted in the back of the jeeps and the groups shouted back once again. After that, all groups marched around the make-shift plaza once, saluting the higher ups. Once they were done, and they took ages, two trucks drove by with soldiers jumping out of the moving trucks and moving into crouching positions. They ran around in a circle a few times and engaged in pretend hand-to-hand combat. I am sure they are skilled at whatever style they wanted to show, but they were overdoing things so badly, they were funny, not imposing. When they jumped over some barriers, the barriers fell to pieces and everyone scrambled to make it look as if that was part of the show. While carrying off the gear, it fell into further pieces which was even more funny. An armoured personnel carrier ended the show; several tougher looking guys jumped off of that one and their mock combat involved fully automatic fire (of blanks), several flashbangs, smoke grenades and, to top things off, the machine gun mounted on the APC moving down the opposing team with blanks. I never witnessed a "real" military parade in person but this one was somewhat disappointing. On the one hand, there was a distinct lack of ballistic missile carriers and tanks like you see in movies, documentaries and games, on the other hand, the whole thing had a make-do feeling to it. The cordoning police had designated spots to stand on, yet walked around. They were standing to attention, yet checking their cell phones. Several people in one uniformed group were wearing track suits and jeans. Another uniformed guy had a grocery bag with him; yet another one was carrying a huge water bottle. Bikers zig-zagged through the cordon and when the whole show was just about to wrap up the police finally started putting up barriers around the unmoving pedestrians, not blocking the bikers. One little girl was standing well within the cordoned area, watching with big eyes and after she did not react to the police talking to her, they just built the barriers in a curve around her. And to top it all off, some guy with a cane walked all through the parade with his personal camcorder, trying to direct the whole show while being ignored by everyone. Still, I am sure he managed to mess up some otherwise perfectly good TV scenes. Irkutsk-Russian border

• Diesel-powered trains.
• Single track most of the time with frequent stops to let other trains pass.
• Distinctively less developed cities, stations, streets, and other infrastructure along the road.
• 32+ degrees in our waggon.
• The train attendant was extremely unfriendly and just generally miserable even by Russian standards.
  • No toilet paper or towels at all on toilets.
  • While the other attendants made a point of presenting themselves well, he shuffled around in slacks all the time (not bad per se, but Russia is big on uniforms, so...)
  • He took all our tickets and stubs (including the ones not from this part of the journey) and kept them without comment. After we asked for them several times, he barked at us that we would get them back before Ulan Bator. Why? No idea...
  • He refused to let us exit the train during the very few stops. We were unable to exit through other waggons as the connecting door was locked. Being stuck in a train sucks.
• Border and customs took NINE HOURS!!! Stuck in blistering heat without a breeze, without access to a toilet, just waiting for bureaucracy to go its way. I checked all doors, we were locked into said waggon and there were no 'break glass to leave in emergency' windows. Especially nice as there's a coal fire burning in the hot-water stove and the whole train is plastered with warning signs about fire and what to do. In our case, presumably, burn to death; preferably without disturbing the attendant.
• The Russian stamp for entering Russia (by plane) has a plane on it, the departure one a train.
• The Russian side of the border is built like a fortress. There are several towers and bridges over the rails so trains can be checked from above, and reinforced holes dug into the ground in which soldiers stand and check the train from below.

TL;DR 3000 kilometers of birch trees

I wrote a lot about our trip to Europe here, and I had a few more comments to share. I had a great time there. It was fun to stay with people, and it was also fun to explore cities on our own. I am eager to be able to go back. Communication
I ll admit I wasn t sure how I d do there. I speak only a little German, and no Czech at all. I have never been in a situation in which I don t speak the dominant language, and this is probably typical for Americans. (I m not going to count the few exceptions of eating at small Mexican restaurants in the USA where the staff speaks little English, as it s not really the same experience to be in that situation for an hour or two.) I was most apprehensive about our time in Berlin and Prague. In those cities, we didn t know anyone. And, although I speak a little German, I speak no Czech at all. In the end, though, it all worked out fine. I never saw anyone get frustrated with us for our lack of language knowledge, and we also never got rattled. With patience and a bit of ingenuity, we figured things out in every different situation. I feel a sense of accomplishment from that, and I think it s left me more ready to travel in the future. And, I d also have to say, that was one of the most interesting lessons of the trip: how two people that don t share a common language can still communicate. It might be slow, but it s also rewarding and easier than I might ever have thought. I remember particularly buying a couple of fragile carved wood souvenirs at the Zeidler Holzkunst (wood art) shop in the Altes Rathaus in Leipzig (Seiffener Volkskunsterzeugnisse was on the window). The shopkeeper spoke no English. We were interested in some rather fragile items, and I wanted to ask her if she could pack it in a box. I didn t know the German words for pack or box . So after a couple seconds thought, I realized I knew how to tell her, in German, that we re from America. And then I asked, Can you? (in German) and gestured for a square box, figuring maybe she d put it together that we d need to pack it well to take it home with us. Success. She quickly produced a box, and asked if that s what we wanted. A few minutes later, a bit of pointing towards the glass case communicated what we wanted to buy. It took a little longer than it would have from someone that spoke English, but this was more rewarding in the end. The train station in Prague was another challenge. It didn t have nearly as much English signage as other train stations we d been in. We did a little wondering around, and some educated guesses, and a brief English conversation in a bank, we eventually found an ATM, a place to change the big bills for smaller ones, and a Metro ticket shop that was open. Clothes Many Americans, and American travel books, suggest not wearing jeans and tennis shoes in Europe. Many commented that people dressed more formally in Europe. That advice appeared to be rather wrong, especially in L beck, where it appeared that many people dressed less formally than in the USA. As we went south and east, we saw fewer jeans, but still they were rather common. Our biggest blunder here was probably the shoes that we brought for Terah. She brought some shoes that looked nice, but weren t very good for walking. She wound up with some painful blisters on her feet, and wished she had just brought her regular tennis shoes. Luggage and Packing We try to travel light when we can. All of our luggage for the entire trip fit into two carryon-size suitcases, though we sometimes separated some items out into a backpack for ease of use in airports/airplanes. This worked out about right. We did laundry once in Germany so we didn t have to pack enough clothes for the entire trip. As far as electronics go, we brought along an international GSM phone from onesimcard.com, my Droid (which could use Wifi but not GSM), Terah s iPod Touch, a GPS, my digital camera, and a laptop. That also was about right. We used the Droid to call back to Indiana to check on the boys, using SIP over WiFi for free calling via Google Voice. The laptop is a small one, so didn t add a lot of weight or bulk. It was nice to have to check out maps and Facebook. The GPS was somewhat less useful than I had anticipated. I had pre-loaded it with street-level maps of most of Europe, and also put on it points in Berlin that had been suggested to us. The transit maps were really more useful most places, especially when combined with a detailed street-level map. In Berlin, though, the detail on the street-level map from our hotel was somewhat lacking, so the GPS came in handy. It was also nice to quickly be able to see where the nearest S-Bahn and U-Bahn stops were, then cross-referencing with our transit map to figure out how to get where we wanted to go. One night in Leipzig, after a concert at the Gewandhaus, we made a couple of wrong turns on our way to a tram stop. The GPS would have saved us 15 minutes of walking had we brought it along, but we figured it out with our street map and it wasn t really a problem. Rick Steves is a big advocate of money belts when traveling. These are a belt with a zippered pouch, and are worn under your pants (though over your shirt, if it s tucked in). The idea is that it s hard to pickpocket. He suggests having a days worth of cash in a front pocket, and passports and larger bills in the money belt. We brought one but never used it. I kept small cash in my pocket, and we kept passports and my wallet (with larger bills) in Terah s purse, which was on a strap around her neck, zippered shut, and held under her arm. We had no problems. I tend not to keep my wallet in my back pocket even when traveling in the USA. Also, the hotels we stayed in had safes, and the residences were of course plenty safe, so we had no problem leaving valuables there. I brought only a single lens for my Digital Rebel XTi, a 28mm fixed lens that is small and light. That was just fine, and I was happy to have a fixed lens for photography in dark churches. Also, I wouldn t have wanted to carry around a bulky zoom lens all over. We sometimes took the camera with us, and sometimes not. In Berlin in particular, we just left it in the hotel room. I figured (correctly) that there would be plenty of photos on Flickr of the sites we were visiting, and we could just enjoy the time a little better if we weren t worrying about a camera too. But I was glad to have it along. Transportation The transportation systems in the cities we visited felt more, well, balanced than they often are in the USA. It s not that there weren t busy car-filled avenues, but more that there were also quiet shopping streets where cars were banned. Cars often seemed to be more of an option than a necessity, and not always the best option at that. Public transportation was common, as were pedestrian routes and bicycle lanes. The only American city I ve visited that felt even close to this approach was Portland, OR. I wish we adopted it more often here. I also admire the German intercity rail service, operated by Deutsche Bahn. You can get all over the country pretty quickly. The trains we rode on were quiet, smooth, and timely. I wish we had that kind of service in more parts of the USA.

Over the years far too many years I have occasionally chronicled the slow death of my mother, a death of mind, personality, really person that comes with Alzheimers. She has officially had the illness for 7 years now but had symptoms prior to this time, in the form of perceptual disturbances that are the defining feature of the rare type of Alzheimers she has, Benson s syndrome. As her illness progressed and we saw her doctors they would always ask: what other illnesses or health problems does Vera have? And I would answer none. Without fail and almost immediately, the inquiring doctor would respond back none? often with a slightly raised eyebrow, the one word uttered not to challenge the veracity of my answer, but used instead to convey another meaning, often bathed in some mixture of compassion and pity. It was an acknowledgement of the future that awaited us, basically stating with no other illness, this is going to be on heck of long and difficult haul of a life experience, which has indeed been the case. However, after nearly two years of being bed bound in a nursing home, physical health problems are now creeping in and my mother is descending into different type of hell, especially since she can no longer communicate the physical pain she might be in. The words she knows are few: no and a few other words (she likes to tell people they are loco and indeed I can only imagine how true this accusation of crazy is given that we are keeping her alive against her wishes). Her consistent and persistent wailing, agitation and crying do of course communicate the depth of suffering this being the hardest thing to bear witness to. She does have periods of calm, coaxed in part by the drugs she is given but these are not enough to override the pain she and we feel. About two months ago, her body started to give, the first problem being a fracture that led to significant internal bleeding and required a blood transfusion and a brace she is still wearing. A few weeks ago when I was visiting her, she basically developed these black and red welts on the bottom of her feet in a manner of two days, so instead of boarding a plane to NYC, I took her to the emergency room and stayed a full week while she was pumped with intravenous antibiotics. At first, doctors thought it might be gangrene, which was mortifying mostly because of all the associations that come with it. The doctors determined that it was not in fact gangrene but that she has a bone infection technically called osteomyelitis a tricky condition to treat that requires at minimum 45 days of IV antibiotics. The hospital/doctors who had originally determined she would stay there for her treatment, changed their mind unexpectedly and announced their intention to ship her to a long-term care facility, which in theory we were not opposed to, except for the fact that it is very far from where my sister lives, and also it is a facility we had not verified for ourselves. On top of it, we knew she had a legal right stay in the hospital (though some doctors informed us otherwise). We preferred the hospital because it is so close to our house, we would be able to hire someone to visit her when my sister is at work, and we suspect that she will have additional complications from 45 days of IV abx so why not stick around and receive treatment and care from the same internist who had been nothing but a great doctor. The story took a turn toward the surreal when the infectious disease doctor decided to release her to her nursing home with a treatment of oral antibiotics, even though every single doctor we saw from the emergency room doctor to the weekend internist who subs for her regular doctor, repeatedly informed us the only treatment is IV antibiotics for at least 45 days, possibly more (which is the normal treatment protocol).
Since so many people don t know how to maneuver complaints and take action in hospitals, doctors and other staff can exploit this to make medically dogdy decisions (which happened in fact when a feeding tube was put into my mom, but that is another long story I don t think I ever wrote about here). I am sure also that some doctor s are less willing to take questionable action with certain patients depending on the class and background of their family members but I bet the first impression I give off to doctors, to invoke Erving Goffman s work on self-presentation, is not someone willing to take swift action. In the hospital, I have the sense that most doctors don t take me all that seriously, probably thinking that I am 5 foot slacker/artistic type that I admittedly do look like as I dress in jeans, a hoodie and a winter cap because the hospitals are so effing, ridiculously cold in PR (and I can t help my height nor the fact that I look 24 or so). So it usually comes as a surprise when I bring out my mind ninja tactics developed over years of being and thinking like an academic, whose craft is research, whose passion is arguing, and for some of us who are politically inclined, who love the challenge of righting wrongs. So when this happened I contacted lawyer-friends, talked to the social worker and promptly complained to the head of client services/ombudsperson and made a stink but of a very particular sort: it was packaged in massive tact. I was very deferential (especially since those folks have nothing to do with the mess, they are there to help and are your allies), repeatedly pointed out how the doctor s decision amounts to medical negligence, and made it clear that I was willing to take action, leave my work if need be and get my ass down there, and casually mention how in the 5 hours between their decision and my phone calls, I have already taken action (how I have contacted lawyers on the island, etc). Needless to say, the hospital decided that my mom is staying put in the hospital and I am relieved. But this solace is only of the tiniest sort. I am still reeling from the absurdity of her condition and her suffering. She is only alive because of a feeding tube that I am opposed to, her state of being a modern day zombie that in reality, or at least from my perspective perpetuates her suffering. For this reason, truth be told and at one level relieved that her body is finally failing, that there is a chance, a light at the end of this lonely, now horrific tunnel that her life will end sooner than later. This, however, makes it no easier emotionally nor ethically as it is my mother who must journey alone through significant pain and suffering as her body now goes elsewhere a journey we can watch in person yet are powerless in its face.

Over the years far too many years I have occasionally chronicled the slow death of my mother, a death of mind, personality, really person that comes with Alzheimers. She has officially had the illness for 7 years now but had symptoms prior to this time, in the form of perceptual disturbances that are the defining feature of the rare type of Alzheimers she has, Benson s syndrome. As her illness progressed and we saw her doctors they would always ask: what other illnesses or health problems does Vera have? And I would answer none. Without fail and almost immediately, the inquiring doctor would respond back none? often with a slightly raised eyebrow, the one word uttered not to challenge the veracity of my answer, but used instead to convey another meaning, often bathed in some mixture of compassion and pity. It was an acknowledgement of the future that awaited us, basically stating with no other illness, this is going to be on heck of long and difficult haul of a life experience, which has indeed been the case. However, after nearly two years of being bed bound in a nursing home, physical health problems are now creeping in and my mother is descending into different type of hell, especially since she can no longer communicate the physical pain she might be in. The words she knows are few: no and a few other words (she likes to tell people they are loco and indeed I can only imagine how true this accusation of crazy is given that we are keeping her alive against her wishes). Her consistent and persistent wailing, agitation and crying do of course communicate the depth of suffering this being the hardest thing to bear witness to. She does have periods of calm, coaxed in part by the drugs she is given but these are not enough to override the pain she and we feel. About two months ago, her body started to give, the first problem being a fracture that led to significant internal bleeding and required a blood transfusion and a brace she is still wearing. A few weeks ago when I was visiting her, she basically developed these black and red welts on the bottom of her feet in a manner of two days, so instead of boarding a plane to NYC, I took her to the emergency room and stayed a full week while she was pumped with intravenous antibiotics. At first, doctors thought it might be gangrene, which was mortifying mostly because of all the associations that come with it. The doctors determined that it was not in fact gangrene but that she has a bone infection technically called osteomyelitis a tricky condition to treat that requires at minimum 45 days of IV antibiotics. The hospital/doctors who had originally determined she would stay there for her treatment, changed their mind unexpectedly and announced their intention to ship her to a long-term care facility, which in theory we were not opposed to, except for the fact that it is very far from where my sister lives, and also it is a facility we had not verified for ourselves. On top of it, we knew she had a legal right stay in the hospital (though some doctors informed us otherwise). We preferred the hospital because it is so close to our house, we would be able to hire someone to visit her when my sister is at work, and we suspect that she will have additional complications from 45 days of IV abx so why not stick around and receive treatment and care from the same internist who had been nothing but a great doctor. The story took a turn toward the surreal when the infectious disease doctor decided to release her to her nursing home with a treatment of oral antibiotics, even though every single doctor we saw from the emergency room doctor to the weekend internist who subs for her regular doctor, repeatedly informed us the only treatment is IV antibiotics for at least 45 days, possibly more (which is the normal treatment protocol).
Since so many people don t know how to maneuver complaints and take action in hospitals, doctors and other staff can exploit this to make medically dogdy decisions (which happened in fact when a feeding tube was put into my mom, but that is another long story I don t think I ever wrote about here). I am sure also that some doctor s are less willing to take questionable action with certain patients depending on the class and background of their family members but I bet the first impression I give off to doctors, to invoke Erving Goffman s work on self-presentation, is not someone willing to take swift action. In the hospital, I have the sense that most doctors don t take me all that seriously, probably thinking that I am 5 foot slacker/artistic type that I admittedly do look like as I dress in jeans, a hoodie and a winter cap because the hospitals are so effing, ridiculously cold in PR (and I can t help my height nor the fact that I look 24 or so). So it usually comes as a surprise when I bring out my mind ninja tactics developed over years of being and thinking like an academic, whose craft is research, whose passion is arguing, and for some of us who are politically inclined, who love the challenge of righting wrongs. So when this happened I contacted lawyer-friends, talked to the social worker and promptly complained to the head of client services/ombudsperson and made a stink but of a very particular sort: it was packaged in massive tact. I was very deferential (especially since those folks have nothing to do with the mess, they are there to help and are your allies), repeatedly pointed out how the doctor s decision amounts to medical negligence, and made it clear that I was willing to take action, leave my work if need be and get my ass down there, and casually mention how in the 5 hours between their decision and my phone calls, I have already taken action (how I have contacted lawyers on the island, etc). Needless to say, the hospital decided that my mom is staying put in the hospital and I am relieved. But this solace is only of the tiniest sort. I am still reeling from the absurdity of her condition and her suffering. She is only alive because of a feeding tube that I am opposed to, her state of being a modern day zombie that in reality, or at least from my perspective perpetuates her suffering. For this reason, truth be told and at one level relieved that her body is finally failing, that there is a chance, a light at the end of this lonely, now horrific tunnel that her life will end sooner than later. This, however, makes it no easier emotionally nor ethically as it is my mother who must journey alone through significant pain and suffering as her body now goes elsewhere a journey we can watch in person yet are powerless in its face.

The large cat sniffs the planter. Your houscat snarls! Your housecat hits.
   -- --........                   Tools
    *.( -.. ...                    l - A blessed +1 laptop named gnu
  % /.. ..' 'f**                   Armor
  .....+...f..**                   j - blue jeans
  # @.. ..                        t - t-shirt
  ----------                       s - socks of warmth +2

When an afternoon on the sun room begins to look like this, I swear off nethack for a few more months.

I tend to dress quite casually - unless there's a good reason to do otherwise I'll be in jeans and a t-shirt, or something similar. I'm comfortable in it and I take the view point that in general people shouldn't be making assumptions based on what I'm wearing. Of course they do, and while this can be infuriating at times it can also be amusing. The man at the RBoS who witnessed me signing the personal DD guarantee form for Black Cat obviously couldn't reconcile my appearance with what I was there to do, for example.

I'd never thought about this from the other side until a few weeks ago. I spoke to someone who explained how difficult it had become to conduct business meetings with other companies with the increased level of business casual. In fact on occasion different branches of the same company that he'd be meeting with would have different dress codes, so he'd go to something involving casual dress in the morning and something with full business suit attire in the afternoon and end up feeling over or under dressed.

This isn't likely to make me change my own behaviour in the immediate future (I don't have to interact with external parties as part of my current job). It did help me realise that there was another explanation for awkward behaviour when I'm my usual scruffy self that wasn't just about judging on appearances though.

(All of the above blatantly obvious once you think about it, but it took that conversation for me to do so.)

There are some things you just wouldn't want to do without living in the country in Kansas.

A lot of rock on your driveway.

A good view of the sunset.

Neighbors with tractors.

Some way to get rid of trash and recycling.

Some friendly outdoor cats.

That last item is there because there are a few things you would really love to do without:

Mice.

Rats.

Pack rats.

Other assorted rodents.

Now, although we were adopted by a stray cat not too long ago, he is really the skittish, wondering hobo type of cat. Sometimes he's around, sometimes he's not. We'd really like more of a 24/7 rodent patrol. Plus we can't ever get close enough to Sneaky to play with him.

So on Labor Day, I brought home two cats from my parents place: Hudson and Nash. Both are yellow. Neither of them were really accustomed to a car carrier, and though the trip is less than 15 minutes, were quite scared by the end of it.

We normally pen up outside cats for the first few days so that they can identify with a new home, then let them roam free. So we decided to take them in to the grain elevator and let them roam in there for a little while. This is a big old wood structure about 80 years old. It has two stories, and a series of wooden grain bins built into the first floor.

We took the cats, in their carriers, into one of those bins, closed the door, and then let them out. Both were scared, but one of them calmed down quickly, and was soon happily playing with shoelaces, purring loudly, and generally wanting to be held.

The other made a run for it. He couldn't get out the door, but, well, he managed to climb up the wall. Up and out of the grain bin, and another jump or two and he was in the second story of the building -- no doubt finding a lovely cat-sized place to hide.

We eventually closed up the elevator as best we could, and left for the evening.

Tuesday morning, we saw only the smaller cat around. By the afternoon, Terah saw the older cat prowling around in the yard. That's one thing about 80-year-old farm buildings: they can't keep cats in or out. A cat will find a way in, or a way out, if it wants.

By now, they're playing outside and love it. They still like to go inside, and Hudson -- the older cat -- will let me get within about 5 feet of him. Nash tries to not let me get more than 5 feet away, and has climbed most of the way up my jeans using his claws by now.

When we're not outside, we can see them prowling about outside. Sometimes they'll see something -- maybe a cricket or a mouse -- and they'll crouch down, tail moving excitedly, ready to pounce. They don't really play with each other, but they stay close by.

All of this is great, but it comes with a price: I no longer have an excuse to avoid cleaning the rat droppings out of the elevator, because they won't just reappear within a month anymore.

I just read an interesting post about proposed new laws in the US prohibiting exposing underpants [1]. This is not a new thing and is part of a debate that has been taking place in many countries since the trend of “hip hop” saggy pants. The first thing that occurs to me is to wonder what the difference really is between underpants and bathers. It seems to me that bathers are simply underpants that don’t turn transparent when they get wet (and which are made of materials that don’t degrade easily when exposed to sea water, UV light, and chlorinated water from swimming pools. So it seems that unless there is some clear legal difference between bathers and underpants such laws will not be effective. Could an underwear company produce products that are essentially the same as it’s regular products but which say “swimming attire” on the label to allow it’s customers to escape silly laws? In fact why not label all underwear as “swimming attire” just in case? Would the prudes who object to a glimpse of underwear want police to go checking the labels of underwear to determine if they are permitted to be seen? The fascist trend in first-world countries is already quite bad, I don’t think we want to add underpants inspection to the list of police powers. Also it should be noted that a small portion of the police officers are corrupt, the idea of corrupt cops inspecting underpants is really not appealing… It would be possible to define any clothes worn under other clothes as “underwear”, but this has problems too. For example when I was younger I used to often wear jeans over my bathers when on the way to/from a beach (often there were no adequate facilities for changing clothes near a beach). If I was to wear jeans over my bathers while walking to a beach could I get booked for showing a small section of my bathers over the top of my jeans - and then legally entirely display my bathers while swimming? Of course there are legal nude beaches in many localities, but blurring the distinction between a regular beach and a nude beach by permitting activity that would be “indecent exposure” on all beaches seems likely to have results that would not make the prudes happy. The next logical implication of laws against exposing underpants is that they encourage wearing smaller underpants. My experience is that it is impossible to wear boxer-shorts without them being exposed above the top of my jeans. Should I be essentially prohibited from wearing boxer shorts because of the risk that if my shirt is not tucked in then someone might catch a glimpse of my underwear? Now if “underwear” was defined to be “anything work beneath the outer layer of clothes” then what about the situation of having multiple layers of clothes? For example when an athlete who wears a track-suit over shorts, are those shorts “underwear”? If so do they cease being “underwear” once the track-suit is removed? Is there a race condition [2] where an athlete can wear shorts on the track, a track-suit on the bench, but they have to remove the track-suit as fast as possible because they are committing indecent exposure while removing the track-suit? If underwear is defined as being the innermost layer of clothing, then what of the practice of “free-balling” (the practice of a man wearing a track-suit with no underpants) and the Scottish tradition of “nothing is worn under the kilt”? Can a track-suit or kilt be defined as underwear? If so how would it be enforced, would police look up the kilts of all men to ensure that the kilt is not the underwear? As for “plumber’s crack” the only solution seems to be to compel plumbers to wear overalls. Of course then plumbers would increase their rates to cover the expense and inconvenience involved in a forced change of attire. I think that most people would prefer to hire a cheap plumber who shows some “crack” than an expensive plumber.

• [1] http://vatul.net/blog/index.php/1831/


• [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_condition

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I've had a series of post-surgery firsts in the past few days... Some of them good:

My first wriggling into a pair of jeans.

My first walks outside without my walker.

My first couple of stairs.

Some of them less good:

My first setback - It seems that 1.5km is too far for me to walk with the walker. I pulled a muscle in my back. I'm almost back to 100% after a couple of days, but I got to discover a new class of opiates.

My first family emergency - My father had a heart attack. He seems to be okay, he's in Kamloops hospital now, and will transfer to Vernon next week for the Angiogram. Information on bypass versus blood thinners waits on that (as does going home versus transfering to Vancouver). This is apparently the same sort of thing that killed my grandfather in his 30's. So there's two concerns:

1) My dad: Medtech is better than it was back then, and they're monitoring him in-hospital. So, I'm optimistic. While I can't find this in the Wikipedia article, I'm generally under the impression that once you make it to the hospital, you're probably fine and that deaths from heart attacks are from people who do things like sit around and wait to see if they'll feel better.

2) Me: Hopefully the exercising, non-smoking, vegan thing is enough to mitigate this. Aside from my recent taking of steroids and opiates for my back, I've generally treated my body well, and I'll find out if I should be doing further things or monitoring to stay away from this one.

And, well, there it is.

Between February 29 and March 4, 2008 I attended the Sage Days 8, hosted at the Enthought headquarters in Austin, Texas. This was my 5th time in the USA and it was a marvelous experience, as with all my visits in the states.

As usual, I had some adventures in Atlanta, that interested readers can find at the end of this post. Anyway, on the Austin's airport I met Peter and his wife Crystal, Fernando, Benjamin, Jarrod, Eric and Clement. We went to have a dinner and then me and Clement were staying at Peter's house:



You can see the neighbor's cat and Peter's dog Trinity behind the window. The next day we went to Enthought, that was providing us with a breakfast and a lunch each day - and it was delicious. After the breakfast, we gathered in the room and introduced ourselves. Enthought rents 3/4 of the 21th floor in the Bank of America building, so when I looked left I saw:



When I looked behind I saw:



and in front of me, I saw all the participants (I took photos of all participants together with names). As you can see, there were really good people in there, like Travis (creator of NumPy), William (main author of Sage), Eric (CEO of Enthought), Fernando (author of IPython), Jarrod (the release manager of SciPy), Michael (the release manager of Sage) etc. See also the Fernando's welcome speech and the video of each of us introducting himself.

The views from the windows are terrific. I enjoyed working on each of the 4 sides of the skyscraper with completely different scenery, or when the sun is going down, that's also very cool.

We spent the whole Friday doing presentations, some of which you can find here. Then we went to Eric's house to have a big dinner together.

On Saturday, Sunday and Monday we were all hacking on many different things. I joined Fernando, Benjamin, Brian and Stefan on ipython1, Travis was implementing a new type (gmp integer) in NumPy, William wrote a manipulate command in Sage, Eric did the same in Traits, Gary and Michael implemented parallel testing of Sage, ...

On Tuesday we had final status reports and people left in the afternoon. In the evening we went with Clement to have a dinner and then we visited some bars on the 6th street, having a beer in each.

On Wednesday I visited John and Roy from the Computational Fluid Dynamics Lab at the University of Texas, Austin, who wrote the libMesh library, that I extensively used and also created a Debian package of. It was very influential to see the libMesh "from behind", also John and Roy are cool people (not mentioning the Debian tradition of having good relations with upstream:). Then I visited some professors at the same campus, after which I went into the Capitol and then I took the bus to the Barton Creek Square Mall to buy some ipods and jeans, so that I can say I have jeans from Texas. BTW, the ipod works excellent in Debian - I plugged it in and it just shows on my Gnome desktop. It's true that naively dragging mp3 files on it didn't make it play, but these instructions made it work.

On Thursday I fixed the remaining release blockers in SymPy and made a new release. In the evening, I am going to meet Aswin, he also uses SciPy and also is a friend of Kumar, who is now maintaining python-numpy and python-scipy Debian packages with me (Kumar also knows Prabhu, the author of Mayavi2 hosted at Enthought, so it's all connected).

Anyway, the whole workshop was an excellent experience for me. I learned a lot of new things and being able to speak with people who wrote tools that I use almost everyday is important. We also extensively discussed the future of all the projects (Sage, SciPy, NumPy, IPython, Cython, SymPy). See my summarizing email to the SymPy mailinglist.

Another thing, that I find very interesting is that Microsoft is financing the windows port of Sage, that will make basically anything that uses Python/Cython/C/Fortran very easy to install on windows (just a spkg package in sage). I find it really cool that MS is not only supporting but even financing a truly opensource project.

Finally the promised adventure in Atlanta: we took off the Prague airport on February 28th with a 2 hours delay (due to some paperwork as we were told by the captain). As I had 3 hours in Atlanta for the connection to Austin and I had to go through immigration, it was clear that I'll miss it. But I was not surprised, last time I was flying through Atlanta, they canceled my flight to LA completely. We arrived in Atlanta an hour and a half before my departure, then I was waiting for about an hour at immigration, it was incredibly slow. When I had around 20 min to departure, I had to ask people standing in front of me if they let me in, they were very nice and did. I was leaving immigration 10 min to my departure, then I was running to get my luggage and myself through customs and screening, it was 5 min to my departure when I ran down to the display with departure times. Then I was sprinting like hell to the terminal D to only see the clerk doing some final paperwork with all the people already boarded and the jetway door shut. After a little persuading he let me in too, fortunately there was still one seat left, so I made it. You can imagine my pleasant surprise in Austin when I discovered, that my luggage made it too, considering that I handed it to the Atlanta's airport personnel exactly 10 min prior the departure.

Some people have been asking about the weather in Melbourne in late-January in terms of what to wear for Linux.Conf.Au. It is probably impossible to predict weather for a particular day this far ahead. But predicting a range for the week is not difficult. I think that you should expect at least one day that is really hot with a peak of 37C or more and reasonable humidity with a possibility of another two days the same or similar. A day with a peak of 42C or more is not unlikely over the course of a week. You should expect a range of temperatures, one or two days that are reasonably cool with a maximum of 25C would not be unexpected. Some heavy rain in short bursts is a possibility (based on the past few weeks - prior to that there was little rain and it’s possible that there may be some time without rain again), there is probably no need for a rain-coat if you have the option of waiting ~30 mins for the rain to pass before going outside. I expect that if there is any rain at a time when conference delegates are about to go out somewhere then things will be delayed. I suggest that you wear jeans while on the plane but expect to wear shorts for your entire time in Australia. A t-shirt is a reasonable option but if you plan to be outside much then wear a long-sleeved shirt. As I don’t expect to be doing much work in traditional offices in the near future I’m wearing business shirts when I go outside, long sleeves with a collar is good for protecting against sun-burn and as they are light they keep me cool (t-shirts are tighter and thicker and keep you hot). However when at LCA I will be wearing t-shirts that I designed (which should be well suited to being inside and I don’t plan to do much outside during that week). A Scott e Vest [1] is a good thing to wear. It has heaps of pockets for your electronic gear, is reasonably light, and can be worn on top of a t-shirt. The Scott company also sells a TEC shirt which is a long-sleeved shirt with plenty of pockets. I’ve had a Scott e Vest for a number of years and I might have to get myself a TEC shirt.

• [1] http://www.scottevest.com/

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Currently at GUADEC. We had the joint OpenedHand/Collabora party last night, which explains the headache I guess. Also I'm glad I bought spare jeans because somehow a glass of Pimms managed to get all over them. I also saw KDE 4 running today. Best quote: Well at least maximise works. Alex's GVFS talk was good this morning, I totally love it and can't wait for it to land in glib. The file monitoring API alone makes me want to have Alex's babies (but it appears I've been beaten to it). I've already written an application using libgio, which was amazingly simple. It's a shame that so many people were asking questions during the talk instead of waiting until the end, because he had to skip the last few slides.

Suppposedly, card number five in the Tarot is the Hierophant, described as “someone who interprets secret knowledge” and representing concepts such as “conformity” and “group identification”. Not that any of that is related to this “five things you don’t know about me” meme, for which I’ve apparently been tagged by both Pia and Tony. And since I wouldn’t want to be accused of being either cool or vanity lacking here’s some from me.

• I used to be a regular bit-part actor in school plays and musicals; I was in the school choir for four years in high school too. I tried getting back into it once during uni, but didn’t really have the time or interest, so I’m just left with going to the occassional show and watching these days. Of course, when they’re as spectacular as Woman in White that’s not much of a problem…
• For quite a while, my favourite food was lamb’s brains, crumbed and fried with a white sauce. I’m quite fond of offal, also known as “variety meats” apparently, in general really – I’m not really persuaded by the “it’s morally wrong to eat animals” thing, but I figure if you’re going to anyway, it makes sense to not be wasteful about it. Kidneys are pretty awesome too; though liver seems to get boring before you’ve finished eating it. I’ve never tried haggis; but I suspect that’ll change before the next DebConf is over…
• Prior to getting an 486sx33 that eventually ran Linux, I used to be an Amiga geek. As an Aussie Amigoid, that meant reading the Australian Commodore and Amiga Review (edited by Andy Farrell), and eventually when I became really elite, subscribing to Megadisc, a monthly magazine on floppy disk, which included useful programs, reviews, letters, and all sorts of interesting things. My first published C progream was included on one of the issues – it was a teensy little app for people with hard disks that would see if you had a Megadisc in the drive, then open up a dialog box so you could choose a directory to copy the disk too, and not have to worry about seek times and such. Unfortunately I was new enough at the whole “C” thing that I wasn’t sure how to make a new directory myself, and decided to just expect the user to use the “New Dir” button in the standard Amiga dialog box for that. Which would have been fine if I hadn’t also gone to the trouble of helpfully emptying the selected directory so the user wouldn’t end up with two Megadiscs in the same place. Put the two together, and evidently you end up with Megadisc’s editor, Tim Strachan, calling you at 9am the morning after publication and telling you how someone had tried it out and it had started deleting all the files on the hard drive. Ooops. With the Amiga dying out and the rise of the internet, it looks like Tim’s now more into alternative health products than computers.
• On the Friday before flying down to Canberra to be Rusty’s wingman for a meeting with the Attorney-General’s department I had my first motorbike accident – not making a turn on a wet road at night just near home, hitting the asphalt and the gutter. I came out of it with some torn jeans and a grazed knee, a banged hand that needed icing, a nice bruise on my side, and a bike that ended up taking aaaages to get fixed and ridable again. Happily it’s gotten another couple of thousand k’s on the odometer since then.
• In the couple of days before I head to Sydney for the 2007 edition of the fantabulous linux.conf.au I’ll be moving from my unit in Toowong to a house in Highgate Hill. Clinton and I will be sharing the upstairs, while the downstairs will be turned into a granny-flat for my parents for when they decide to stay in the city. The theory is it’ll be an investment over the longer term, with the idea being to try building some townhouses in the rather large backyard and sub-dividing. Should be fun!

Let’s see, I’ll tag: vocalist extraordinaire James, companionable carnivore Pat, sometime C hacker David, fellow motorcyclist Sez, and future housemate Clinton.

This evening, three Japanese people including me will get on an airplane to Toronto. After staying one night, we'll go to Mexico. See you in MX! ... I saw Jesus's report from Mexico. Well, I haven't any shorts. I have optimistic view to wear with jeans, because Japanese summer is very hot also (30C-35C) and many Japanese usually still wear jeans, long pants, or even business suit(!)

On friday the 5th I started my trip to MX. I am assisting to Debconf 6 from the very first day, so that I can help the local team (at least with translations and such). I arrived to the airport early, so that I didnt have to suffer last minute stress if I see that the line is way too long and I have too little time to catch the plane. It all started fine (well, I forgot my keys at home when taking the dog for a walk, but I managed to reach my girlfriend and she came back to open the door for me). I must be the worst traveler in the world, since I seem to be causing only problems. Or maybe is that I question too many things that are the status quo and seem reasonable for other people. From the begining. It was check-in time, and the lady ask me about my hand luggage. I mentioned that since my friends were going to be waiting for me at the airport for almost 2 hours, I had prepared all my stuff so that I was not carrying anything dangerous in my two backpacks. Heck, I even left behind the regular tools that I carry with me, including the nail scissors,... The lady said it was not possible. "Sir, you can only carry 8 kilos of hand luggage". I looked around and saw people with lighter bags, but bulkier than mine. "Sorry, but, what is the reason? My luggage is smaller that the regular luggage, and I just need to get out asap". "Security reasons, sir". "Could you describe those reasons?". "... ... (surprise face) Security, sir. I would like to travel with my 20 kilos os luggage with me, sir". Yeah, sure. I am happy about that. I dont recall going away for such an extended period with such an small amount of things. When did all this madness start? Well, she did not manage to give me any reason why I could not take my things with me, but she got her sweet revenge. She put me on the back of the plane, with a guy who had at least 50k more on than I, although we both paid the same price for the ticket. I wonder where the security reasons are then, for those 50k... (Mental note: add to the travel checklist not to EVER forget deodorant and to take a shower before leaving home. Two showers. I had enough torture with the guy beside me...) The nice part of the flight was that for the first time i traveled on a Jet. Boy, is nice. Landed in Germany. The plane went to park on the backyard of the airport. We had a long 10min trip back to the terminal. The check-in for the plane to MX was a full hour set in advance, so that the HUGE amount of people that fits on one of those 747 had the time to show (for the 10th time) the passport. But looking aroung one wonders again where those security reasons not to let me carry my 8 kilos of luggage are: people around me had bought nearly their year salary on duty free stuff that wights more than 15k. Oh, boy, now I am confused. Is it so that someone has decided to add a rule in the name of security at some point after 11/9 and they forgot why? What difference does it make to get the luggage with 8 kilos from outside the terminal than from inside? As a side note, one can see that mexicans still keep much of the Spanish attitude. The speaker goes on, a man speaks in German and explains that people with children will board before anyone else. Nobody has understood anything, but they are already piling before the boarding gate. Once the man speaks in English, only the ones who dont understand English still await impatientily at the gate, mostly disturbing the check-in procedure for the flight, which will probably be delayed because of that. The second part of the trip was a bit more relaxed... I will skip the story about the looks-like-it-is-not-her-day flight attendant who could not understand a shit, and will only mention that when she served me a light coke and I handed her the empty can for dispossal, she gave me another full can with a face of "take-this-and-shut-up,dont-you-see-i-am-not-having-a-good-day?". I did not know Mexico was in the south hemisphere. At least that was the reason given for the satellite-linked internet only working the first three hours, although we were flying through Greenland, Canada, USA and Mexico's gulf for the 12h of flight, and Mexico IS on the (using the lonstanding critizised convention of not putting the map upside-down and say that is the right possition) north side. After landing it was a bit of rush, until I had to wait for my luggage, which of course came after waiting for almost 40min (Revenge of the Check-in Lady, take three... hi, if you read me). The people who create those inmigration forms MUST have short names. They have a big horizontal box with small vertical lines on the boxes to put your data trying to force you to put every character of your name in one small designated area. So there you go: "J E S U S _ D A N I E L _ C L I M E" That's right. Not even my first surname fits. Forget the second. This are the times that a friend of mine comes to mind: Enrique Garcia-Villarubia Gomez-Limon (Hi, if you read me). After all this I went out to find Amaya and h01ger waiting for me. We met Ganneff, Stockholm, Sam and Jeroen, and Damog, along with Agi, were coming right after picking up the van. We put Ganneff and Stockholm on a taxi and sent them to Oaxtepec, and left the airport for some dinner. Mexico is BIG, BIG, BIG. After driving for more than half an hour we got to a bridge from where you could see the city lights. And still, they were covering the horizon. HUGE. That realization is something I have not digested yet. Some local beers and tacos made the end of the night and we headed to Hector's place, where we were going to spend the night. From a not so negative point of view, the whole experience has been positive, and enlightening, to say it mildly. The food is mostly spicy. It could burn hell. Amaya is trying to get use to it by eating an insane amount of hot stuff but I refuse to do so. For the scared (hi, helix) I have not managed to get anything from the tap water. So nobody is dead, yet, although rumor has it that some are in comas. The net is here, although the roundtrip values are not very exciting. Mao has visited already the place, and said it is here to stay. Summary for the ones to come: this is HOT. I mean, really HOT. Forget your long jeans and bring shorts, even if you dont like to show your legs, sun screen cream, t-shirts, deodorant, swimming suit, and keep a bottle of water all the time with you. Food is served at a more sensible time than in Finland: 02:00h and 20:00h. See you in MX.