Sentence of Dave

META-Meta-meta

John Scalzi's novel Redshirts begins as a schlocky and ersatz Star Trek style space opera, but if you're familiar with Scalzi's satirical sci-fi humor then the encounters with ice sharks and Borgovian ground worms don't really hold water . . . and the book soon dives into meta-sci-fi, meta-fiction, meta-narrative, meta-characters, meta-plotlines, and the metaphysical . . . I would say that the meat of the book is more fun, it's totally wacky sci-fi (and sci-fi parody) and the three codas are more philosophical (and also-- surprisingly-- a little touching) and if you're a sci-fi fan looking for something fun and funny then this is the book for you (and if you don't know what the title means-- I didn't-- then check out this video . . . but it's a spoiler).

META-Meta-meta

No Where to Go But Up (Down?)

I'm trying to improve my mile time, and I just ran my baseline timed mile (and I'm so sweaty that I'm barely able to type-- it's humid) and while my Runkeeper said I kept a 7:58 pace, I'm pretty sure it took me 8:04 to run the four laps around the track . . . so now I've got to do six weeks or so of long runs and speedwork, and see if I can knock my time down; I think I'll be able to do it, because I'm tipping the scales at a post-double-vacation 195 pounds, so if I lose a few pounds-- which I inevitably will-- I will naturally cut some time from my mile time (perhaps 2.5 seconds per pound).

Go East Young Man

Peter Frankopan's The Silk Roads: A New History of the World resets the default narrative of world history, with Western Europe as the main character, and instead places the Mediterranean Sea at the center of the story; he argues that the most significant dynamic force in the last two thousand years has been the trade routes that connect the East and the West; this web of interconnected cities, ports, and trading hubs allowed for the flow of goods, services, ideas, religions, conflict, disease, technology, and tactics . . . his book combats what Edward Said termed "orientalism," the presumption that the Middle East and beyond is inscrutable and exotic, a place that lies outside of time, space, progress, and Western logic; the book is comprehensive, starting with the spread of Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism along the Silk Roads (before 600 A.D.) and ending with the West's modern political misadventures in Iran Iraq, and Afghanistan, and the economic rise of China, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, and Uzbekistan . . . over here in the West, we've got to strap ourselves in for a new world order, with the East becoming more significant than ever-- both economically and politically-- the British Ministry of Defense sums it up tidily: the period of time until 2040 "will be a time of transition" with challenges such as "the reality of a changing climate, rapid population growth, resource scarcity, resurgence in ideology, and shifts in power from West to East."

Go East Young Man

The Mountains of Kentucky?

Last night was my first night sleeping at home in a while . . . we were on two vacations, back-to-back, and while they were both epic and excellent, it was good to wake up early to a quiet house; I did have a weird dream last night, and while I normally never talk about dreams, the significance of this one is so obvious that I have to summarize it-- but I won't go into all the surreal and stupid details: the dream began mirroring reality, we arrived home from our two vacations but then it veered into the absurd . . . I totally forgot we had planned another trip, we were heading to the mountain of Kentucky-- are there mountains in Kentucky?-- and it was going to be a ten hour drive and then there was a lot more driving during the vacation, and we had to pack lots of winter clothes, and there was snow . . . and I was really upset that I had planned another vacation after two straight vacations, and this vacation was pretty much all driving, in the mountains . . . and I'll readily admit that this is a real first-world-problem dream, where the monster under the bed is a vacation.

The Mountains of Kentucky?

Trust My Kids: Head into the Spider-Verse

My kids have been telling me to watch this animated movie where a bunch of oddball spider-folks from different dimensions fight a behemoth-sized villain named Kingpin-- they said it's even better than The Incredibles-- and they were right . . . it's just come on Netflix so we watched it together at the beach (they did offer some helpful commentary, as they've both seen it multiple times) and, despite the clunky title, Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse is top-notch, it's artistically beautiful and dynamic, at times it's quite deep and emotional, it's very funny, and the voice acting is awesome.

Trust My Kids: Head into the Spider-Verse

Running: Yuck

I do a great deal of exercise: basketball, soccer, tennis, rollerblading, biking, lifting, calisthenics, dog-walking, beach-cart pulling, stone-stealing, rock-pilfering, etcetera . . . but I have not done a great deal of straight ahead running of late and so-- in order to empathize with my children, who are both playing high school soccer and will be doing a lot of running this summer (the goal for varsity players is to run a 6:15 mile) I am trying to improve my mile time; I have yet to run a timed mile, but I'm guessing it will be around 8 minutes, but I've done a couple of runs at the beach and it's been brutal; I got a little Runkeeper app on my phone, ran for 33 minutes a few days ago, and today I did some dreaded intervals (6 x 200) and when I get home I'm going to go to the track and get a baseline number and then see if I can improve it by the end of the summer-- to do this, apparently you need to run long and slow at least once a week and you need to do intervals once a week-- the rest of the time you can exercise how you wish; I don't know if anyone else has had this experience, but I'm a really active person, despite this, running just kicks my ass, it's totally different than any other exercise-- I played basketball for two hours a couple days ago with my brother and the cousins and that wasn't as hard as running for 30 minutes, time becomes distorted and torturous when you're running . . . I once ran a marathon, so I'm assuming it will come back to me, get easier, but if it doesn't, then I guess I'll take up golf.

Running: Yuck

Cat-egorical Imperatives

Two rules I should learn sometime:

1) never do my wife's laundry;

2) never give my wife advice on how to toss a corn-hole beanbag.

Cat-egorical Imperatives

Two rules I should learn sometime:

1) never do my wife's laundry;

2) never give my wife advice on how to toss a corn-hole beanbag.

Bonus Features!

I just noticed today that my backpack has a secret waterproof string bag-- attached to the inside of the pack with a string!-- and then my brother's girlfriend pointed out that our new beach cart has a secret side pouch and velcro tie that srves as an umbrella holster; I will utilize both these bonus features tomorrow.

Bonus Features!

The Wrong Ratio

Aristotle would have been critical of our usage of time today: this morning we played tennis for an hour and then we watched tennis on TV for five hours, the Federer/Djokovich Wimbledon final was both awesome and interminable but we certainly didn't need to rush home to watch it.

The Wrong Ratio

From the Pacific to the Atlantic (which seems pretty pacific)

My family heroically conquered the ultimate first world problem yesterday-- we got back from an epic adventure in Central America and then managed-- on a one day turnaround-- to repack and head to the Jersey shore; while both trips have saltwater in common, this vacation couldn't be more different than our previous one: our trip to Costa Rica was all about nuclear family togetherness, fifteen action-packed days of it, but now that we've moved from the warm waters of the tropical Pacific to the brisk sea breezes coming off the Atlantic, I no longer have to keep track of my wife and children-- they might be at the beach, they might be at the arcade, they might be eating hot dogs and ice cream, they might be at the surf shop . . . I don't know nor do I care; this trip is about extended family interaction . . . or lack thereof; I ran the beach this morning, alone, and then went rollerblading-- wearing my new visor-- and I was alone, of course, no one in their right mind would come anywhere near me, then I went swimming all by my lonesome; we had some family time with my brother and all the kids while we watched Wimbledon, and now I'm on my own again-- alone in this big beach house, napping, reading a book about the spread of trade and religion on the silk road, and getting a little anxious because I've been left to my own devices and that has happened in weeks.

From the Pacific to the Atlantic (which seems pretty pacific)

Read Educated and Get Educated

While it's hard to think much more than "The horror! The horror!" while you're reading Tara Westbrook's memoir Educated-- the tale of a girl (barely) raised and (barely) homeschooled by a fanatically religious, preparing-for-the-apocalypse, fighting Big Medicine, scrapmetal-baron nutjob of a dad; while she is mercilessly manipulated and bullied by her older brother, and mainly left to fend for herself by a brainwashed, homeopathic midwife mom . . . the twists and turns of Westover's life and-- more importantly-- her mind, as she confronts the reality beyond the mountains of Idaho are wild, awkward, painful, and nearly beyond belief, but despite her lack of formal education, she makes her way to BYU, then on to Trinity College, Cambridge, where-- after a pit stop at Harvard-- she finally earns her doctorate in historiography; I'm not sure which tales of violence, fanaticism, and familial neglect to take with a grain of salt, and in the end, neither does Westover-- and that is the real theme of the book: Westover gets her degree is historiography, as she is interested in who gets to tell the story-- history is written by the winners, the losers, the monks, the fanatics, the believers, the scientists, the laity, and the skeptics . . . and this is what the book is, an investigation into the murky recesses of memory, whether it be the mundane details of a dysfunctional family, a family where memory is controlled by one ranting biased zealot . . . or whether it is the influence of various cultures and religions on the evolution of the family unit in America, the subject of Westover's doctoral thesis: “The Family, Morality, and Social Science in Anglo-American Cooperative Thought, 1813-1890,” in which she synthesizes Mormonism-- which is often ignored-- into the bigger narrative; in the end, while this book is a scandalous, tell-all page-turner, it becomes more than that because Westover is so smart, and so weird, and so obsessive, and so candid and sincere . . . a must read for all of us East Coast agnostics.

Read Educated and Get Educated

We Are Home (and the Natives are Back to Their Usual Antics)

I'm going to do an informative post with pictures about our trip to Costa Rica, in case anyone is heading to places we went-- but the trip was incredible and went very smoothly, despite our (generally) impulsive, impractical and incompetent children; today we are preparing for another vacation-- a trip to the Jersey shore with my extended family-- and so I was running some errands and on my way home-- just as I turned onto the far end of my road-- I saw two children sprinting awkwardly down the street, sprinting awkwardly because they were wearing pool slides, and then I noticed that they were my children and I asked what they were doing: why are you sprinting? why are you wearing pool slides? and they said that they got so wrapped up in their chores that they forgot about their barbershop appointments and now they were rushing there-- they both had 12:30 appointments and it was 12:36, but the barbershop is a good mile from our house so I grabbed them and gave them a ride and advised them next time to take their bikes, not rush out of the house in pool slides, or even better, keep tabs on the time, and then when I got home, I took in the situation and surmised that they weren't wrapped up with doing chores, they were wrapped up selling old toys on eBay . . . and so while I am proud of my children for not doing anything rash and stupid while navigating the jungles, hot springs and rugged coastline of Costa Rica, I have to recognize the fact that we are back in Jersey and they are returning to their native ways ( and so am I, as I totally forgot the overarching laundry rule, which is: do NOT do my wife's laundry . . . I threw it in, with good intentions, and shrunk some stuff and tie-dyed some other stuff . . . then the kids and I miscommunicated about a ride and they ran to the wrong person's house in the rain before figuring out the situation . . . we are definitely back home).

We Are Home (and the Natives are Back to Their Usual Antics)

Nosara: Keep Your Eyes on the Road, Your hands Upon the Wheel (if you can)

There is so much to see in Nosara, but if you are driving, it's hard to look up from the pothole strewn gravel and rock roads; the drive from Samara is an hour of bumpy winding coastal back roads and then you hit the rough stuff, but it's well worth it; I'm not sure which is better, the wildlife or the people watching-- my son Alex would say it's the surfing, and the surfing is great, especially on Playa Guiones, the giant scenic beach with endless breaks; I rented a board and rode a few waves along with my son, until my sternum got sore, then I just enjoyed the scenery: super-toned expat yoga/surfer women . . . I've never seen more perfect bodies in my life; perhaps these folks-- like Lady Gaga-- fly in to Nosara, as there is a tiny airstrip; it's quite a collection of people, we went to a outdoor charity lunch bonanza for the firemen of Nosara, because the French lady who owned Villa Mango, the bed and breakfast we stayed at, was married to a Costa Rican fireman, and so we really saw the local crowd; Costa Rican couples and entrepeneurs; expat retirees, surfers, business people; and wealthy folks just enjoying the situation (there was an especially entertaining group of four hot middle-aged women getting drunk and acting like they were in Eat Pray Love) and the Villa Mango is highly recommended: you can walk to Playa Pelada, the teak and guanacaste tree deck is beautiful, and we saw loads of monkeys from the porch and the pool; there is also a semi-tame coati who has been hanging out for a few months, you can hand feed him and he naps on the couch; the dog doesn't even bother him; while Alex and I were surfing, Catherine and Ian went kayaking up the Nosara river into the mangroves, and they saw black iguanas, Halloween crabs, lots of rare birds and Catherine even got a quick glimpse of a saltwater croc; the food was excellent, especially at El Chivo and Al Chile, where we got a close up view of a hummingbird ( Alex took a pic with his phone that rivals my owl) so despite the bad roads, a great place.

Nosara: Keep Your Eyes on the Road, Your hands Upon the Wheel (if you can)

They Live in Pairs? Excellent . . .

I woke up early this morning, tip-toed into the bathroom-- as we are all sleeping in one room at the Villa Mango-- and was confronted by a Costa Rican scorpion . . . so I flattened it with my sandal; it happened to be on the bath mat when I did the flattening, so I dragged it out of the way but left it out so my wife and kids can see it when they wake up; I just looked up the species and apparently the sting is painful but not deadly, the only disconcerting thing is that, according to this site, they live in pairs, so if you see one then the other one is probably nearby . . . I am up on the veranda listening to the birds and monkeys as I write this, perhaps soon I will hear a scream from our room below (either when my family sees the dead scorpion or when they encounter the irate partner).

They Live in Pairs? Excellent . . .

No Crocs But A Plethora of Sea Slugs

Our last day in Samara we went in search of megafauna and drove down a dirt road to Playa Buena Vista-- a primitive driftwood covered beach across an estuary reputed to contain saltwater crocs; I watched a local net fisherman wade across and followed him and I was not eaten by a croc, but my wife and kids were having none of it and occupied themselves on the rocks while I investigated the beach and river mouth; no crocs to speak of so we headed back to the tidepools of Samara and found colorful dories, triggerfish, loaches, eels and sea slugs-- intriguing but minifauna, not megafauna . . . however, on the way home from dinner we encountered Costa Rica's largest amphibian: the giant marine toad (also known as the cane toad).

No Crocs But A Plethora of Sea Slugs

Can I Look At It? No . . .

A few days ago I thought Samara beach was the most beautiful and idyllic spot in the entire world: warm water, a fantastic view, soft sand, a two mile horseshoe shaped black sand beach protected by a coral reef so the waves are groovy for both surfing and swimming . . . but then everyone said we had to drive 7 kilometers south to Playa Carillo because THAT was the most amazing, uncrowded and picturesque beach in Costa Rica-- and they were right; Playa Carrillo is an undeveloped four mile horseshoe with even softer sand, even more palm trees for shade, even nicer water for swimming and barely any people BUT a local guy told us about a super secret beach called Playa Ezquerda, you have to drive a dirt road, hike through the jungle and then descend some dilapidated and dangerous cocrete steps down a cliff-- long ago someone planned on building something here but stopped after making the steps; so we followed the instructions-- Alex almost got run over by a stray horse-- and we made it to the most superb beach and there were only two lovely young locals there, sunbathing in bikinis, and the cliff shaded the beach and the tidepools were full of tropical fish, weird sea stars, sea slugs, and lots of other creatures . . . but I'm not sure where this ends-- perhaps a beach in the spirit of Nigel Tufnel's special guitar that he has never played and won't even let Marti DeBergi look at, a beach so wonderful that you can't even go to it; on this same theme, we've seen some monkeys on this trip, but this morning in the tree across from our window we saw a baby monkey . . . the only thing better than that is two baby monkeys.

Can I Look At It? No . . .

Moonball Fire Ant Justice League

Despite us urging him not to do it, Alex tried to bounce Ian's moonball off the thick palm tree next to the infinity pool, the plan being to bounce it back into the pool, but the shot was near impossible and the ball ricocheted off the big tree and then caromed off a little tree and shot into the jungle; Alex tried to retrieve the ball, but was karmically stung by a horde of fire ants, a deserved and entertaining punishment for his impulsiveness; we also took a lovely boat ride and saw Ridley turtles mating, caught a small, brightly colored dorado fish, and rode next to countless tropical spotted dolphins, most at close range and many breaching . . . but who wants to hear about that stuff?

Moonball Fire Ant Justice League

Glasshouse

If I were a free person in the 27th century cosmic war crime prison of Glasshouse, the Charles Stross sci-fi mindbender I just finished, I'd probably use a T Gate assembler to back myself up, then create a duplicate version of myself, have my duplicate write this sentence while my other self took a stroll on the beach, then merge the two neural nets into one version of me that contained both sets of memories . . . but before any of that, you have to solve Curious Yellow and the polity; a good fast read, as long as you don't get bogged down in the technical jargon; an exponentially advanced and precocious baby of The Matrix and Inception.

Glasshouse

Samara

We made good time on the long and winding road to Samara-- no student protests, luckily, as there were major delays in San Jose and at the airport; the drive around Lake Arenal was beautiful, the road snaked up and down through small villages, including one with a German bakery with delicious stuff full of coconut and honey, and there were windy heights with views of the lake and the surrounding windmills and lots of one way bridges; Alex assumed shotgun/navigator for the second half of the ride and heroically hooked up the AUX cable to my phone so we could listen to music but soon after he directed me onto a back road which led directly into a river and a failed river crossing voids the car insurance-- so though we rented a 4wD Daihatsu Rush, an amazing light stripped down SUV-- I turned it around and took the paved route; a few hours later we made it to paradise . . . our Airbnb condo has an absurd view of the horseshoe shaped Samara beach, the water is warm, the kids took a surf lesson and caught countless waves, we hiked to the tidepools, ate fish and drank beers at the restaurants on the sand, found a Mexican joint that makes incredible beer, etc etc . . . once you get to Samara there's not much to say, it's a safe relatively undeveloped tropical beach town at the edge of the jungle, sheltered by a reef, and the beer is cheap and the surf instructors are excellent . . . my wife says it's the Highland Park of Costa Rica, it's small and very chill and you can walk everwhere but I think it's a little better because the 84 degree ocean water is nicer than the Raritan.

Samara

Monkey Beats Ant

Yesterday we finally saw a monkey, while we were hiking at Mirador el Silencio-- a private nature reserve which I highly recommend because the admission is supercheap and because we saw a spider monkey swinging through the dense jungle, doing all kinds of monkey antics, and then the trail ascends out of the jungle into the cloud forest and finally ends at the 1968 lava field, where it is cold and cloudy-- a real winner of a place and we were the only people there so we had all the trails to ourselves for the three plus hours it took to navigate them; we then got snacks, plantain and yucca chips, and then descended the 500 steps the the La Fortuna Waterfall, an epic tumbling cascade of cold water that plunges straight out of the jungle; we swam in the river below the main falls, in a plethora of pacu, then we ate lunch and headed back to Los Lagos to enjoy the pools; we ran into the supernice one upper again and talked sports, we learned he was Tracy McGrady's point guard in high school and has his contact in his cell phone and then after a bit more one upping he left and we talked to some professional sporting parents from California who were so successful at raising up their giant atletic progeny that they didn't need to one up-- they talked strategy and made us feel like amateurs: their oldest son just got a full golf scholarship to Illinois and got endorsed by Foot Joy and Titleist and they retained their younger son once and were planning on doing it again so he could excel at football; both kids did not attend public school, instead they did sport specific schooling and these parents pursued all sorts of scholarships and funding, pretty wild and way out of our league; then as we were walking back to our cabana, the one upper drove by and yelled some amazing one upmanship info out the window: "I heard Soda La Hormiga, The Ant, has the best food around! Eight dollars a plate! A local guy told me . . ." and he drove off and we actually considered going there but first we needed gas and the station in town ran out so we had to wait in a line out of town and then La Hormiga was closing so we went to another place and it's a good thing because we saw the one upper's wife at breakfast and she said her son got sick from the food and it was lucky we didn't follow her husband's advice and then we sat next to them while we ate and the one upper mapped our route to Samara on his phone for us.

Monkey Beats Ant

1.5 Kilometers is more than 1 kilometer

We went ziplining down the mountain yesterday-- this was the first time for me but my wife and kids did it in the Poconos; however, they said our first "practice" run was much longer than the longest run back home; the lines got longer and longer, one of the was a kilometer, we zoomed over the La Fortuna waterfall and a deep jungle chasm before plunging into the bush . . . a little scary but mainly exhilarating and certainly big fun, we did 12 lines in all and there was lots of hiking through the cloud forest, our guide said he once saw a jaguar while riding one of the lines during the early morning safety check; after lunch at a local joint we returned back to the spring fed pools and water slides and our boys made friends with some kids from Florida; their dad was a friendly very eell traveled businessman and accomplished surfer, he had lots of information about Costa Rica but he was something of a one-upper; his family had gone rappelling down a waterfall in the morning and when we told him we went ziplining he said that the only place to go was around the mountain in Monte Verde because they have a 1.5 km line, which is .5 longer than one kilometer; he also told us where the BEST surfing wave is in Costa Rica, it's near where we are headed but not exactly where we are headed . . . he said the place we are going is good, but not the best, and then -- I'm not making this up-- he told us they were headed out for pizza, and he had made reservations at the best pizza place, Cafe Mediteraneo, and ee told him we had great pizza at Anchio-- which was true, it was better than most pizza in the states-- and he said he heard that was good but not as good as the place they were headed . . . I have to stress he was supernice about all this and I was probably setting him up a bit and he might have amiably one upped a bit more if his son hadn't wiped out on the wet stairs and hit his head and scraped his elbow (I did not mention to him that my kids were running on the stairs with his kid and did NOT fall, because one upping something like that is kind of mean).

1.5 Kilometers is more than 1 kilometer

We went ziplining down the mountain yesterday-- this was the first time for me but my wife and kids did it in the Poconos; however, they said our first "practice" run was much longer than the longest run back home; the lines got longer and longer, one of the was a kilometer, we zoomed over the La Fortuna waterfall and a deep jungle chasm before plunging into the bush . . . a little scary but mainly exhilarating and certainly big fun, we did 12 lines in all and there was lots of hiking through the cloud forest, our guide said he once saw a jaguar while riding one of the lines during the early morning safety check; after lunch at a local joint we returned back to the spring fed pools and water slides and our boys made friends with some kids from Florida; their dad was a friendly very well traveled businessman and accomplished surfer, he had lots of information about Costa Rica but he was something of a one-upper; his family had gone rappelling down a waterfall in the morning and when we told him we went ziplining he said that the only place to go was around the mountain in Monte Verde because they have a 1.5 km line, which is .5 longer than one kilometer; he also told us where the BEST surfing wave is in Costa Rica, it's near where we are headed but not exactly where we are headed . . . he said the place we are going is good, but not the best, and then -- I'm not making this up-- he told us they were headed out for pizza, and he had made reservations at the best pizza place, Cafe Mediteraneo, and ee told him we had great pizza at Anchio-- which was true, it was better than most pizza in the states-- and he said he heard that was good but not as good as the place they were headed . . . I have to stress he was supernice about all this and I was probably setting him up a bit and he might have amiably one upped a bit more if his son hadn't wiped out on the wet stairs and hit his head and scraped his elbow (I did not mention to him that my kids were running on the stairs with his kid and did NOT fall, because one upping something like that is kind of mean).

From Rustic to Resort

Full disclosure: we would have avoided waiting hours in Chilamate for the student protests to dissipate if I wouldn't have been "one hundred percent sure" that the way to Arenal was via Puerto Viejo-- I was a bit turned around in regards to my mental map and did not check Waze-- so by the time we figured out, or I should say my wife and kids figured out, that we were headed the wrong direction it was too late and our route was blocked; but we made it to the Arenal volcano region before dark, the road was smooth, the kids slept, and we stopped at the Iguana Bridge, from which we spotted some iguanas and a colorful Jesus Christ lizard-- they are so bright that when you see them, you exclaim "jesus christ!" And they can also run on top of the water; we experienced some cognitive dissonance when we got to Los Lagos resort, as we had been staying in a ramshackle open air joint that was slowly being engulfed by the rain forest and Los Lagos is an impeccably manicured collection of cabanas climbing Arenal and has several beautiful pools of various temperatures, fed by volcanic hot springs, a bunch of waterslides-- some dangerous and one full of scalding hot water-- a bridge you can jump off, a wet bar in a giant hot pool-- I had a local Costa Rican pale ale called Toro that was delicious and a general upscale family resort vibe; we hiked all around the volcano yesterday, the lesser traveled Peninsula trail down to the lake was particularly excellent, we saw turquoise hummingbirds, Montezuma orondolas, giant magpie jays, the broad billed mot mot, and others we could not identify and then we hiked the main loop to the old lava from 1992 and climbed the the viewpoint where we saw a pitcher plant but could not see the volcano-- apparently , because this is the cloud forest, you rarely see the volcano, though it is looming right above the trail and the resorts; the kids asked a lot of questions and it made me realize I don't have the slightest idea how volcanoes work, this one is still active so you can't get close but I'm not sure if there is lava right inside it or you need a shift in tectonic plates to send some magma out; I will do some research; anyway, after four hours of jungle and lava hiking, we stopped in La Fortuna for a giant meal at the Rainforest Cafe-- a little local joint not to confused with the bigger ersatz Rainforest Bar on the main drag; the food was great and filling, I had the casada lunch plate with tilapia and Alex had the same with steak, casadas are usually around five or six dollars and come with rice, beans and several sides, Catherine had fried plantain chips and guacamole and an empanada and Ian had two empanadas, and the empanadas were huge, three times the size of one at home-- so we have been only eating two meals a day here, both places provided enormous breakfasts with lodging and then we get so stuffed at late lunch that we having been eating dinner; while food isn't dirt cheap here, at the local places it is inexpensive and Imperial beer is always two dollars and we really love the typical meals and no one has had stomach issues-- aside from when I ate a bunch of very spicy pickled peppers from a glass jar-- I will also say that after a long day of hiking, it's really nice to relax in a hot spring fed pool, it's bizarre-- there's a bunch of these resorts on the way to Arenal and they all have infinite hot water; I am also enjoying the AC, but I can't stress how nice the weather is, we haven't worn sunblock yet; also, when Catherine ran out to get our laundry and some coffee, the road was all stopped up so we parked and just above the road, on an exposed branch, was the most active sloth I've ever seen, climbing around, grabbing stuff, all in full view and we finally got a view of the volcano just before dark, the clouds cleared for a moment and the cone was visible, minutes later it was gone, shrouded in gray.

Costa Ricans Back In

I'm tired and there's too much to report today . . . I will do a full summary tomorrow, but you'll be happy to know we discovered the source of the awful stink and it wasn't emanating from my person, it was entrenched in my hat-- so I washed it; also, Costa Ricans always back their cars into parking spots-- perhaps to make quick escapes from lava amd flash floods-- so if you want to look like a local and avoid having someone break into your car, back it in.

Protesta el Jefe

We did our last excursion in the Chilamate region this morning, or so we thought-- we took a hike in the spectacular Tirimbina Wildlife Refuge; first we crossed 264 meter hanging bridge to get to the east side of the Sarapiqui River and then we climbed into the dense forest, I was the only one totally decked out for the jungle, wearing pants tucked into my socks and longsleeves, which was a good idea because of the numerous bullet ants on the trees and the trail, my kids had on shortsleeves and Catherine was wearing Capri pants so they were lucky to avoid being stung; Ian also miraculously spotted the bullet ant's favorite prey, the glass winged butterfly, which was pretty much wearing a cloak of invisibility, aside from a red blotch below its transparent wings; Ian has great eyes and also picked out tiny frogs and other little creatures but Ian's most incredible sighting of the day was a large viper just below the trail-- it was either a fer de lance or a hog nosed viper-- and he also found a smaller one ON the trail nearby, I moved it off the trail with a stick before it sank its teeth into my wife's exposed leg; I will post the video soon enough; the rest of the hike we were surrounded by howler monkeys but saw none, but we did see a pair of Marail guans, which might be relatively rare and then when we headed back to the Eco Retreat to check out, but we ran into a student protest blocking the road so we took a bunch of pothole strewn back roads and circumnavigated it and then when we checked out we ran into the same protest, a vague movement against the new president and we couldn't get to the highway so we ate and it rained spectacularly so we figured the protesters had given up but they didn't and there is no other way to go to get to Arenal so we retreated back to the Eco Retreat and we are stuck here indefinitely, waiting for the protest to end, but it may be a while because apparently it is teachers and students, and the teacher's union-- who have been fomenting strikes and protest quite often-- are not to be trifled with.

Rainy Day in the Rain Forest

Serious rain last night and this morning in Chilamate, which was a good thing for both the jungle and our river rafting trip-- we charged down the Sarapiqui, which was flowing fast due to the downpour; lots of big rapids and we also plummeted over a smallish waterfall; Catherine was the only member of our group to fall out of the raft, I got to play the chivalrous hero and pull her back in; when we stopped for a rest, everyone jumped off a cliff into the river, even the tentative Belgian couple that accompanied us in the raft; I can't stress enough how pleasant the weather is, the humidity isn't as bad as New Jersey and the rain is keeping things cool, at some points on the rafting trip we were even chilly and last night we slept under the sheets (and mosquito netting); on the river we saw lots of birds, by the lodge we found a couple of enormous rhinoceros beetles, and the kids apparently found a red-eyed tree frog in our bedroom while we were at the lodge, they used a towel and Ian's sock to capture it and return it to the rain forest; we then at a huge and delicious meal at Rancho Magallanes: roast chicken, pork loin, fried plantains and black bean dip and Imperial, of course; then Ian and I took a nap and Alex and Catherine got lost in the jungle, I went out looking for them but turned around when it started raining, they had crossed several rickety bridges when my wife realized it might get dark-- it gets dark at 6 pm here because we are close to the equator-- so they jogged it in and my wife grabbed s celebratory beer from the shared fridge . . . it's raining again as I write this and we are relaxing the the airy main area, which is connected by covered walkways to all the rooms and cabins and hostel, the Chilamate Eco Resort is a great place to be when it's raining.

The Jungle: Day 2

Long day in Chilamate so this sentence is going to be rambling and utilitarian; we slept through a 6.1 earthquake, had the best breakfast ever at the Chilamate Eco Lodge-- pineapple and papaya tasted better and different than at home, spicy sausage, some kind of apple bread, rice and beans, Costa Rican coffee, and lots of other treats-- then we took a morning hike with Carmela, a college student and aspiring naturalist and saw baby herons, flycatchers, toucans, kingfishers, hummingbirds, poison dart frogs, and many other birds and it rained like we were in the rain forest, then we went to the Sarapiqui swimming hole and I swam out into the coursing river while the kids mastered a rather scary impromptu rope swing, then lunch at a local place: rice, beans, chicken, chuleta de tilapia, yucca, a giant chalupa, then we went to a little grocery store for snacks and beer and I had a very awkward conversation in Spanish with the cashier about the whereabouts of an ATM and my fucking kids-- who take Spanish-- were of no use but the ATM turned out to be just outside the door and then we went on an astounding chocolate tour and tasted and saw the entire process, we cracked the fruits, sucked on the sour flesh, ate the bitter center, smelled and ate roasted chocolate, ate pure chocolate mashed into paste, drank pure chocolate and water, and learned to taste the difference between hand made and industrial . . . chocolate will never be the same, and then we saw a sloth in a tree and two great green macaws and now we are headed back to river to swim and I should point out we have no screens on our windows in our incredibly spacious top floor of the rambling eco lodge and while we can hear the howler monkeys and know they are just beyond our porch, we still have not seen one.

Welcome to the Jungle

At 3 am this morning we took an uber to Newark airport, then a flight to Ft. Lauderdale-- which was delayed-- then we just caught the connector and flew to San Jose, Costa Rica, rented a car, and drove several hours north, through the volcanic mountains and the cloud forest-- we saw a coati-- and, 14 hours later, we finally made it to the rain forest and saw a toucan (but the highlight of the trip was the Claro guy at WalMart, who helped me set up Costa Rican sim cards in our phones for 45 minutes . . . nicest guy I've ever met while traveling).

Ian Chose the Former, Then Had to Deal With The Latter

If you've got a broken toenail that is painful to the touch and needs removing, is it better if you do the clipping yourself or should you let someone else do pare it?

There's Sick and Then There's Dopesick

Beth Macy's book Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company That Addicted America puts a human face on addiction, recovery, prescription drug abuse, and the many paths that lead to heroin addiction-- the book pulls no punches and shows that culpability for the epidemic is myriad:

at the root is Purdue and their practices of unnecessarily flooding the market-- especially the rural market-- with millions of pills that put people in the throes of addiction;

our byzantine healthcare system that has no real plan on how to quell the epidemic;

the misguided notion that twelve step and twenty-eight day programs can realistically combat morphine addiction;

the ongoing and senseless debate about Medically Assisted Treatment-- some Puritanical folks don't think you should combat addiction with drugs, even though MAT is the option that works the best;

the places hit the worst are the places that were hit the worst by the crumbling economy, the places with the highest unemployment rates and the most physically demanding jobs;

Trump's public policy hasn't addressed the healthcare side of this issue;

the dopesickness;

etcetera . . .

Macy does not paint a pretty scene out in western Virginia, but her main point is that anyone can become addicted-- it's not the result of some deep-set character flaw that leads the lowest of the low into this life, these aren't the bottom feeders of society that would have succumbed to some other vice . . . opioid addicts can be the most successful, the most charming, the most professional people, but once they go down this road-- which four out of five times starts with prescribed medication-- then it is very difficult to turn back, and it will take all the resources of our families, communities, churches, temples, health care workers, doctors, drug companies, and government to turn the tide of opioid addiction-- the book is a must read, along with Sam Quinones Dreamland . . . while Quinones explains the big picture, the entire macro-system of how pills and heroin are distributed, Macy zooms in and details the individual lives affected by the crisis-- how the parents, families, and community leaders in the hot zone are fighting the drug companies, the healthcare system, and the morphine molecule, fighting on behalf of the addicted and the recovering, but mainly fighting for the overdosed and the dead.

Lesson Learned?

I thought I learned this lesson many years ago, in college, when I ate at the Wendy's Superbar before an intramural football game and put in a very poor performance at cornerback, but when Ian insisted he wanted Chipotle before his soccer game yesterday-- and he said he only wanted a bowl, not a burrito-- I agreed . . . but apparently a bowl full of rice, barbacoa meat, and sour cream does not sit well when you're playing left mid on a wide field.

Curds . . . Yum?

Last night we tried some new things from Deli Garden: two types of chicken korma-- one was peppery and the other one had some coconut in it . . . a korma is "a mildly spiced Indian curry dish of meat or fish marinated in yogurt or curds," which sounds kind of weird, but it was quite tasty . . . Stacey and Ed made the call, which is why it's nice to order Indian food with lots of people, because then you try new things-- if I googled the definition of korma and saw the word "curds" I definitely wouldn't have put the order in.

I Want to Say One Word to You: Shame

My town has banned plastic bags and while this feels like a good thing, there are actually a number of problems with this small step toward sustainability-- when plastic bags are banned, sales of heavy trash bags go up, and producing paper bags and canvas totes may be even worse for the environment than manufacturing those little lightweight plastic bags-- but I will say this about the ban: it's got me thinking and feeling shame . . . yesterday on my way home from acupuncture, I stopped at the grocery store to grab some seltzer (I'm trying to drink less beer and I like my tequila with a splash of lime seltzer) and I forgot to bring one of our reusable reusable canvas tote bags, so I had to ask for a paper bag-- shame!-- and then I took a look at what I was buying and it was flavored bubbly water . . . inside plastic-- shame!-- and just before I stopped at Stop & Shop, I went through the Dunkin' Donuts drive-thru and got an iced coffee-- normally I go inside and refill my reusable cup, but it was raining and I was lazy, so my coffee came in a plastic cup with the Yankees logo on it (Made for Pinstripe Pride) accompanied by a plastic straw -- shame upon shame!-- and while it's going to be tough to change all these little habits, the first step is recognizing them (and realizing that if I were more of a man, I wouldn't need to cut my tequila with flavored bubbly water).

Trump's Re-election Rally: A Reality Check for Liberals

I was very wrong when I thought that Donald Trump-- laughingstock and punchline, bankrupt buffoon-- could never be elected president; I tried to understand, I read this George Saunders piece and lots of other stuff, but now I realize that a lot of this reporting was biased, reported by folks that didn't take Trump seriously; now we know the truth, and though it took xenophobia, Russian meddling, fake news, conspiracy theories, character assassination and some outright racism, Trump figured out how to win . . . and he very well may win again; The Daily covered Trump's Re-election Rally and they didn't cherry-pick the gaffes and bumbling, instead they played masterful clips of Trump playing the crowd, making them feel special, making them feel like Trump is their way inside a corrupt system-- and then they talked to Trump supporters-- and not the insane, angry folk-- they talked to calm, rational people who love his agenda, people who want a wall, people who don't like immigrants, people who don't want gun reform or abortion, people who love the fact that Trump is appointing pro-life and conservative judges, people who don't believe a word of the "liberal fake-news media" . . . people who bought William Barr's pre-spin on the Mueller Report, people who are informed, but informed by totally different sources than I generally peruse (despite the fact that The Week tries to cover the liberal and conservative perspective, they don't go deep and weird enough on the conservative side) and so I feel very indebted to the New York Times for painting a more accurate picture of a Trump rally, he is a force to contend with and his supporters believe in Trump and believe in what he stands for . . . I find this shocking, but if you go 17:45 seconds in, when Trump has the audience cheer for what slogan and theme he should promote in this election, you can see why these people love him, his populism, his eschewing of political correctness, and his ability to say what people want to hear-- whether it's true or not-- so while I'm rooting for intellect over rhetoric, for Elizabeth Warren's thought out plans, her statistics and logic and ideas, I'm probably very stupid for rooting for this, for thinking that brains can defeat Trump's emotional brawn . . . anyway, listen to the podcast and tell me what you think.

First World Solutions . . .

If there were some sort of Emmy or Tony for HVAC guys, I would award it to Steve Maruscsak Heating & Cooling-- not only did they come in with the lowest bid (and highly recommended) to install a ductless mini-split, but they also sorted out an insane mess of electrical problems (which caused some electronic problems) and got our AC up and running today; in other good news, our dog was well-behaved around the guys while they finished the install, and our son is feeling better and his bloodwork seems to be okay-- although they are still checking for Lyme's . . . which makes me nervous, because it was Lyme's diseases that canceled this Costa Rica trip last year- our old dog Sirius came down with a bad case, which ruined his kidneys and eventually killed him-- but he had another tick disease on top of that one and Ian's symptoms sound more like a virus or bad growing pains . . . so let me end this rambling nonsense and get back to brushing up on my (nonexistent) Spanish.

When It Rains, It Pours (But We've Got Good Sewers)

A day full of First World Problems: torrential downpours, a sick child, a visit to the doctor, a visit to the blood lab, a broken ductless mini-split, a visit to the orthodontist, baffled HVAC guys, faulty wiring from the last ductless mini-split install, a school cooking project, a broken color printer, a visit to the bicycle repair shop, a canceled orthodontist appointment because of a sick child, worries about a sick child and an imminent soccer tournament and an imminent Costa Rican vacation, blood lab results (negative on most everything bad but still checking for Lyme's and mono) but the hope is that tomorrow will bring some First World Solutions . . . a SIM card to fix the ductless mini-split, and perhaps a flu diagnosis and some drugs to fix the sore child, my wife has a color printer at work, etc.

The 70's: I Lived Through Them But Don't Remember Much

David Frum's book How We Got Here: The 70's . . . The Decade That Brought You Modern Life-- For Better or Worse takes a "conservative" look at the decade when the radical ideas of the '60s completely permeated American life, but it's an older brand of conservatism, one of "pragmatism, character, reciprocity, stoicism, manliness, hardness, vengeance, strictness, and responsibility"-- not the new corrupt, Machiavellian Trump/McConnell version-- so Frum acknowledges that great progress was made in many areas of human rights and expressiveness, but he also takes a hard look at the costs; Frum begins by running through the crime, the corruption, the many many scandals-- Watergate was the tip if the iceberg-- and the secrets: the Pentagon Papers, the revelations about JFK (wiretapping MLK) and Lyndon Johnson (starting the Vietnam War over the Tonkin incident) and Nixon, of course-- and the many many more from Tuskegee to plots with the Mafia and CIA to overthrow Castro, and J. Edgar Hoover and the CIA working without oversight, the FBI monitoring many many Americans-- often at the president's behest-- scandal upon scandal, crime upon crime-- this is when 60 Minutes was the number one program and for good reason . . . it made me realize that I grew up in the hangover of this tumultuous decade, the Reagan years-- so I missed out on all the fun, the sex and drugs and new age lingo, the superstition and narcissism and disco-- my generation got AIDS and video games and Reaganomics-- but we also got free markets and deregulation (for good and bad) and missed out on crime and terrorism and gas-lines and horrible inflation and general paranoia . . . Frum blames the turmoil of the 1970's, the terrorism, the smashing of values, the conflict of a demilitarized children vs. their militarized parents, on three things-- the Vietnam War, desegregation, and inflation . . . and while he acknowledges that many things in America were worse in the past-- the racism, redlining, the homogeneous society, the lack of economic creativity, the treatment of the environment-- he also takes the pragmatic conservative position that family and employment, and things like loyalty and conformity gave a purpose to many poor and embattled people, and that assimilation instead of fragmentation, while oppressing diversity, does help with order .. . the 70's was when modern America emerged, technological, diverse, environmentally conscious, litigious, regulated, rights-oriented . . . and while the pendulum may have occasionally swung back, the 70's moved the nexus and so "the past never returns, no matter how lovely it was-- but onward, away from the follies and triumphs of the 1970s and toward something new: new vices, new virtues, new sins-- and new progress."

Dave Endorses Elizabeth Warren!

Last presidential election, I was so frightened by a Donald Trump Presidency that I broke from my normal silliness of always voting for the Green Party and endorsed Hillary Clinton-- I listened to a great interview with her on The Weeds and tried my best to contrast her policies with Trump; I wrote all this down and I'm certain my thoughts had absolutely no effect on the election or anyone's voting choice-- if you're reading this, I'm probably preaching to the choir, and the few people I know that did vote for Trump did so because they loathed Hillary Clinton and couldn't separate the person from the policy; now The Weeds has done an in depth interview with Elizabeth Warren and I really like everything she says: she wants to fight corruption and lobbying; she wants to tax the biggest fortunes in the country and use the money for childcare and college debt and early childhood education and the opioid crisis; she truly believes that there is an enormous wealth gap and that a thinner and thinner slice of the population is being represented by political power; she is critical of Wall Street speculation; she promises to stop mining and frakking on federal lands and believes that climate change is something needs to be addressed; she believes in the power of government agencies-- the agencies that Trump has crippled and gutted-- such as the EPA and the Consumer Financial Protection Agency she is interested in Medicare for all; she does not lean Democratic Socialist, in fact she identifies herself as a Democratic Capitalist-- which makes me happy-- Warren believes in the power of markets as long as there are clear rules and arbiters; but Warren does not believe markets belong in public education and healthcare; she has ideas about zoning and redlining and housing; she's a nerd (her book recommendation is Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty . . . which I enjoyed but never finished, it's voluminous) and basically I thought she was super-smart, well-spoken, has a real purpose and plan, and reflects the ideas and values that I respect and that should work for the vast majority of Americans . . . of course, I thought the same thing about Hillary Clinton's policies, so take this with a grain of salt, but I'm giving her my full endorsement and not going to bother learning about any of the other twenty-three Democratic candidates (and I suggest you do the same . . . and I wish I could just blithely vote for the Green Party, but that ship has sailed).

Bless these Beanbags

Yesterday was the end of the year picnic (my partner and I performed well in the annual corn-hole tourney-- we double lost in the finals because it was double elimination and we hadn't lost all afternoon . . . we had previously beaten this team 21-0 but we choked with it all on the line . . . perhaps it was all the donated Victory beer or maybe it was divine retribution for dropping my partner from last year-- Chantal-- and picking up Kristyn-- a sporty softball coach from another department, causing everyone in my department to root against me) and now we're off to my cousin's ordination . . . so perhaps next year, if we make to the finals again, I can pray and the Big Man will give some extra consideration.

Fourteen Years of Home Ownership and Ian

My younger son turned fourteen today and his birthday also commemorates the approximate purchase of our current home-- and what a fourteenth year of home ownership it's been; this year we had to replace our washer/dryer, our dishwasher, our ductless mini-split air-conditioner, the ceiling tiles in the basement, and our dog . . . and speaking of dogs, I had a miraculous revelation on the way back from Ian's birthday dinner at Shanghai Dumpling (which was a miracle in itself: no wait!) and this revelation occurred while we were discussing our eventual return from our trip to Costa Rica and just how insanely happy our dog will be upon this return-- if and when we do actually return-- and so I told Ian about my favorite moment in the Odyssey, when Odysseus returns home in disguise after being gone for twenty-years of epic adventures and he runs into his dog Argos, who was obviously a pup when he left Ithaca, and-- despite the disguise-- Argos recognizes his master and dies of happiness . . . and it always struck me as odd that a dog would live for 20+ years, as that's highly unlikely, but I just recognized that this is an ancient Greek dog, and so it was probably not bred very much, unlike our genetically stunted purebreds of present times, so it was closer to a wolf than a dog and had a much longer lifespan.

An Ominous Jazz Heuristic

My rule-of-thumb for jazz is this: if there are lyrics, it probably sucks . . . and this holds true for a song I heard on WBGO this afternoon, Rosemary Clooney singing "If Swing Goes, I Go Too" . . . on top of the lousy lyrics, this song has the added irony of negating itself, the song actually wills itself out of existence-- making it all the more odd that WBGO continues to play it-- because Clooney claims that she can live without breakfast and polkas and soap operas, but if swing music falls out of favor, then she'll just up and die, which she did-- swing music faded (aside from a brief revival spearheaded by the Squirrel Nut Zippers) and Clooney lived up to her promise and kicked the bucket in time with her favorite music, she lived from 1928 until 2002-- and this is a grim reminder of just how ephemeral pop music is, the sounds you just can't imagine living without-- whether it's The Cure or Black Flag or The Beach Boys or Hector Berlioz-- they will soon pass from favor, then be regarded as antiquated, and finally disappear from the public consciousness entirely.

If You Haven't Seen HBO's Chernobyl, I Sentence Thee To The Exclusion Zone

Everyone in my office is talking about the HBO show Chernobyl, and while I tried to avoid it-- I watched a few minutes of the first episode and found it unbearably grim-- the tidal wave of acclaim and the fact that my kids were interested in a historical docudrama swayed me; I ended it up loving it, of course-- especially the scene where the filthy miners all touch the clean and dapper Ministry of Coal, and my kids love the show as well, or I should say that they love to yell at the show-- which is understandable, as folks informed and uninformed alike are behaving so cavalierly around enormous amounts of radiation and, equally frustrating, the Russian government is more concerned with information control, propaganda, and secrecy than the welfare of it's own people (the Russians are not particularly happy with this portrayal) and while I generally can't stomach watching medical disasters, this show is so good that I've gotten inured to all the melting skin-- it's a little like The Walking Dead in that regard-- and my family even survived (and partly enjoyed) the episode that mainly concerned itself with animal control, i.e. the packs of radioactive dogs that needed to be shot and disposed of (during that section, instead of yelling at the screen, my kids yelled at our dog, commanding her not to watch, lest she be traumatized).

Dave is Not a Vet (But He Played One This Morning)

Lola sprained her wrist chasing squirrels this morning-- or that's what I arrived at after a thorough inspection of her front leg and paw . . . at least I think it's her wrist . . . it's on her front left leg, so it's probably her wrist, not her ankle-- it bends like a wrist-- and it would make sense that dogs have two wrists and two ankles, that's the way it looks . . . but some quadrupeds have four wrists-- monkeys?-- and some have four ankles: rhinos?

Trump: Ahead of the Curve on this One

While I'm generally loath to admit our Colander-in-chief has any sort of strategic vision for our country, I think he might be ahead of the curve on Weaponized Interdependence; this is the down-side to globalization and both economists and politicians -- especially Trump-- are starting to explore the ramifications and tactics of an interdependent world, a world where countries were pushed by globally competitive free-markets and institutions like the IMF and the World Bank to specialize in what they could produce as efficiently and cheaply as possible and sell it on the world market-- this was supposed to limit warfare-- countries that trade together don't want to blow each other up-- but now countries are recognizing that belligerence can be enacted by disrupting supply chains, enacting tariffs, and banning certain technologies . . . a nice example of this is the battle between the U.S. and China over Huawei cell phone chipsets . . . I don't fully understand this battle, all I know is it sounds petty, detrimental to consumers and workers, and a black mark on diplomacy . . . but Trump seems to have a real handle on this tactic, so kudos to him.

Tupperware Tetris

Each and every school day, my wife makes lunch for the boys and me: these lunches are generally healthy, delicious, and various, and I am the envy of all my colleagues; this is no easy task, and while she is counting down the days to summer-- when she finally gets a break from the early morning prep routine-- she is finishing the year strong; yesterday she prepared an especially elaborate cooler of food for me to consumer over the course of the day . . . there was hummus and snap peas (fresh from her garden) for snack, along with a container of cherries, and then for the main dish, a taco salad with fresh beets and greens-- along with all the accoutrements . . . grated cheese and salsa and taco meat, all in their own separate containers; in fact, there were so many different plastic containers that once I finished my meal, I couldn't figure out how to get them back inside my compartmentalized lunch cooler-- there was absolutely no way to fit them all, it was like a clown car . . . seven containers and two ice packs popped out but there was no way they were all getting back inside; I called my boss from her office and told her I would be unable to teach for the rest of the day, as the problem looked insoluble, but she wasn't particularly moved by my dilemma-- she told me to go find a math teacher to help me-- but after much persistent wedging and shoving, I finally got them all back inside and transported them back home so my wife could do it all over again . . . and I'd like to dedicate this sentence to my wife and her lunches (we just had our 19 year anniversary, so she's been doing this for a LONG time).

My Older Son Was of Use

Yesterday, with the help of my older son, I replaced the hydraulic hatch supports on my Toyota van-- there was only one moment of panic, when Alex did something weird to the ball joint-socket . . . but he was able to hold up the tailgate-- which is quite heavy-- and I was able to pry the hinges loose with a flat-head screwdriver and slip the balls in the sockets and now the back hatch of my van is no longer a death-trap dull guillotine.

O Woe is Me . . . But You've Got to Be Cruel to Be Kind

We were in Act IV of Hamlet today, right after Hamlet blindly slaughters Polonius, chops up his body, and scatters the pieces in the castle-- Hamlet is then confronted about this grisly situation, and he glibly explains to King Claudius that "Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots," and so I played the bit of The Lion King when Mufasa explains to Simba about the whole "Circle of Life" and asked what Mufasa skips-- it's all the decay and decomposition-- and we got to talking about maggots for a moment and I told them a college tale about when my buddy Rob put a half-eaten roast beef sandwich on a filthy table, threw a newspaper over it, and there it remained . . . and two weeks later, when I picked up the newspaper-- looking for the crossword puzzle-- instead of a roll full of roast beef, there was now a roll full of writhing maggots; one of the students said, "They grew there because of the meat, right?" and a few other students seemed to agree with this hypothesis, so I had to stop the presses, press pause on the teaching of literature, and start teaching science-- luckily, another student had paid attention in Bio class and explained to the class that the Theory of Spontaneous Generation had been refuted in the 19th century and that we now know that mice don't magically spring from bales of hay and maggots are the larval form of flies.

O Woe is Me . . . But You've Got to Be Cruel to Be Kind

Dave Reads a Book and Is Annoying About It (Volume 2,435)

It only took me two days to read James Clear's book Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones . . . oddly, while I was reading the book, I kept feeling that I should get up off the couch and start implementing his methods to improve my life . . . I will do a longer post on his philosophy and methodology and how I immediately started utilizing his ideas, but I'm too tired to do so right now because we had a lovely but exhausting "non-instructional" day at my high school to celebrate the Relay for Life cancer walk-- there was volleyball and frisbee and corn-hole and football and spike-ball and kickball and plenty of walking around the track in the sun, but before the outdoor events began we had to do some goofy icebreaker activities in our morning classes: a rock paper scissors tournament (I lost) and a discussion exercise in which you had to write an open-ended question on a notecard and swap with people; the James Clear book was on my mind and I was feeling particularly annoying and didactic, so my question was: If you did not spend all your free-time on your cell-phone, what amazing abilities would you possess?

Serendipitous Mechanical Failure

Our ductless mini-split died the other day, but I'm considering lack of AC on our ground floor "practice" for our forthcoming trip to Costa Rica-- I've probably got such a good mindset because:

#1) we're lucky enough to be going on a trip to Costa Rica;

#2) our ductless mini-split is 21 years old;

#3) the weather has been unusually decent;

#4) I'm also enjoying the lack of AC in my classroom at school . . . I thought it would be the opposite, because all my colleagues in the English Department teach on the second floor and they finally received AC window units this year, so I thought I would be insanely jealous and angry, but their air-conditioners aren't working all that well: they are loud and the filters are already filthy and my buddy Kevin is claiming he got sick from yelling over top of his and breathing in the dirt-ridden air . . . so I'm happy -- for the time being-- opening the windows and adjusting to the warm weather (which isn't particularly warm yet).

What's Wrong With Wearing a Visor?

A visor keeps the sun out of your eyes AND lets your head breathe . . . so why all the disdain?

I Finished . . . Where is My Parade?

I'm hoping to write a longer review of this literary adventure over at Park the Bus, but I'd still like to formally announce that I have finished reading Death's End, the mega-epic conclusion of Cixin Liu's sci-fi trilogy that began with The Three Body Problem . . . this was some challenging reading for me-- while I love reading about science, I'm certainly not science-minded . . . I got straight D's in chemistry-- the series actually begins historically, with the news of an impending alien invasion, told from a Chinese point of view during the Cultural Revolution but by the end of book Liu is delving deep into quantum physics; in book two-- The Dark Forest-- the narrative forays into the game theory of diplomatic tactics in the wider universe (which is not pretty) and book three-- Death's End-- is a tour-de-force of both style and imagination (there are a sequence of lush and symbolic fairy tales nested in the middle of the novel, plenty of hard sci-fi, memorable characters and conflict, and-- finally-- a wild and surreal meta-physical journey to the end of time and space) and while this is aspirational reading and it took me a long time to finish, I still recommend the series (but sadly, confetti did NOT shoot out of the book when I completed the final page).

Lola vs Eastern Box Turtle

Our dog Lola might have some Rhodesian Ridgeback in her (or she might not) but the way she squares off against this Eastern Box Turtle is certainly indicative of her lion hunting heritage.

Oh Yeah! More (Relative) Bragging

H.L. Mencken is the genius who actually discovered the Theory of Relativity, when he famously remarked that “A man's satisfaction with his salary depends on whether he makes more than his wife's sister's husband," and while I wish I could be more abstract and metaphysical-- like Einstein-- Mencken's characterization is far more accurate; so I was incredibly pleased to find out that on the list of the 50 New Jersey schools with the best SAT scores, my town (Highland Park) came in at number 14, which is incredible and kind of strange because we're a very diverse town with a wide variety of economic situations and we don't offer all that much in the way of AP classes at our high school (because we're small) and what was especially pleasing-- as Mencken predicted-- is the fact that we came in ahead of the school that I teach at (East Brunswick, 24 on the list) and East Brunswick is an academic powerhouse that offers a plethora of AP classes (some kids take five of them in one year!) and we also came in just ahead of Chatham, which is a relatively homogenous and quite wealthy town that is the home of several of my friends (and one particular star commenter) and while I'm not sure why this is so and it doesn't make any sense, it still makes me feel good (in a relative way, of course).

Not So Humblebrag (Wait for It)

While I'm really proud of my son Alex-- he's in 9th grade and he's not so big (I think he's just starting to hit puberty) and he really scrapped his way up the tennis ladder this season (despite chipping his thumb playing goalie for his travel team) and-- because of injuries and school trips-- he got to play in a number of varsity matches; Highland Park is a tiny school but we have an exceptional tennis squad, so in the county we play in the highest division (Red) against the biggest and best schools and this prepared us for the state tournament, where we play schools our size-- and for the first time in eight years they won the entire state in their group (Group 1) and while Alex traveled to those matches, he didn't play-- but this enabled the team to play in the Tournament of Champions against the winners of all the groups and because of an injury, Alex got to play second doubles-- and while the entire team got beaten soundly, they played well and Alex learned a great deal-- but I'm most proud of myself, because I trained both my kids-- despite the fact that I'm not a tennis instructor and I didn't even play high school tennis (although my brother played in college, which has helped) and over the weekend, I analyzed Alex's serve and fixed it, and he said he served really well today and the only time they won was when he was serving . . . so while I can't figure out if I'm more proud of Alex for his skill and tenacity or myself for my patience, accurate practice hitting, and ability to glean tennis information from YouTube, this is a good problem to have (I just wish I could give myself a lesson and smooth out my own two-handed backhand).

Our Dog is Not a Lion Killer

When we went to the shelter to adopt our dog Lola, the caretaker claimed she was a Rhodesian Ridgeback mix . . . and this sounded awesome to me, as they are athletic dogs that were used to track lions-- but now that I've seen a few real Rhodesian Ridgebacks (and had a Ridgeback owner tell me that Lola is "zero percent" Rhodesian) and studied photos of other dogs, I'm fairly certainly that she's a Pit Bull Lab mix-- which is a good thing to be-- and she might even have a bit of Mexican Street Dog in her (a very very coveted and prestigious breed of dog).

Honey, I Shrunk the TV?

A Samsung 56 inch DLP

On Saturday morning, my son and I carried our 56 inch Samsung DLP big screen TV out of the basement and put it to the curb -- the TV still works, but there's a number of white dots propagating across the screen and to fix this you have to replace the chipset, which is expensive-- and the big Samsung TV sat at the curb all day Saturday and Sunday-- no one grabbed it-- and then Sunday afternoon we went to my parents for dinner and when we returned, the big TV was gone . . . but there was a little TV left in it's place! . . . so either someone picked up the little TV off of a curb and then saw our TV and was like: that TV is bigger! and so they switched TVs or perhaps they took our big TV and brought it home and then realized they had no place to put their little TV and so they drove back and put it on our lawn . . . it's a real mystery and one that will probably never be solved, but whatever the reason, it made the whole family laugh really hard.

The ol' switcheroo