My new place is quite nice.  Come Friday I even got a taste of the neighbors playing horribly bass-ridden techno into the night.  I had succeeded in reading a slue of papers from the 2004 Mont Pelerin Society (essential illuminati) meeting until about four in the morning when, as I tried to sleep (and I am very tolerant in these moments, Friday is a night of celebration and by no means am I here to cramp anyones culture) and couldn't, I figured I might as well dance.

Appropriately, to some foul techno version of California Dreaming, I put on my shoes and, as my stated goals on this trip are either to become kidnapped or married, head down the block.  It was only about 100 paces later and a neck wrenching triangle or two before I had determined that the party was behind a very high wall with no discriminate entrance. 

This is when, if my true goals were the aforementioned and I was a true diehard nightlifer, I would have stepped back, gathered some inertia and done a Jackie Chan-style wall-scaling entrance and awed either my future captors or my future wife.

This was not the case however.  Instead, regarding my dark-street-like status and realizing that the California Dreaming song had now ended (this would make my entrance all the less novel, even inopportune perhaps since it was once again clear that I dont even like this type of music) I retreated to another yet-unstated goal of the trip (perhaps even a more realistic one), devouring a wealth of marvelous economic literature.

After an hour more of drowning the bass in air-conditioner motor and bluegrass (yeah, the hoedown converted me) I emerged to realize it was once again silent (minus the air-conditioner motor, but this sound is like that of mosquitoes at dusk for a family that lives on Lake Michigan I would presume).  One doesn't even need sheets to fall asleep in the humidity down here.  Asi es.

Two train ticket from New York to Philadelphia cost $35.00.  Amanda and I paid it.  But that I guess is not interesting.

My friends across Southern Europe had different interpretations of their public transportation systems.  Let me give you a list of our trips savings:

But here comes the catch, the grand equilibrator (Yes, I’ve tactfully hidden information from you).

Some people play Bingo or go to the Horse Track.  I ride public transportation while in foreign countries (trail off with Hawaii Five-O type music).

A re-posting of a recent letter that I sent to family and friends.

Well into the new year, so much has changed and I just wanted to pause a moment, greet you with a note, and share a few stories (likely with too many references to economics!).

Two years ago I moved out to the mysterious land of Virginia (where people introduce themselves with their full name). It's no California, but it was good enough for Thomas Jefferson and has turned out to be quite good to me. I have benefit from good company, plenty of opportunities, and, pleasantly, an enjoyable dance scene (where I have lead only one, fortunate, relationship-commencing, knee injury).

Up until this past October I worked at the Institute for Humane Studies. My main responsibility was to manage our globalization education project which included maintaining a website and directing several summer seminars on the topic. The job gave me the opportunity to work with several top notch faculty members and hundreds of bright, enthusiastic students. In the process, I have increased my fondness of teaching basic economic principles and developed a strong interest in alternatives to our traditional methods of education.

In the spirit of education, this past Fall greeted me with some new opportunities. I made it over to Switzerland for a one week conference on sustainability. I won't hazard a guess as to whether I will remember the bike rides through the Alps or my hosts' Malthusian diatribes with more clarity, though if I were to recommend a memorable experience, the way the layers of clouds pattern the valley below Braunwald is indeed striking.

On my return, and with my blessing, it was decided that we cancel the globalization project I was working on. It's a challenging decision to terminate something you have worked hard to make succeed, yet my economics training never fails to remind me that if you can't increase the value of the resources you are using, you are best to let those resources find a higher valued use elsewhere. The shocking part came as I realized half of my job was contingent on this decision.

While it is only human nature to be somewhat frustrated at the occurrence of unexpected change, I responded in another way only something as savvy as human nature could suggest: I didn't sleep for three days. After a handful of conversations with close friends (and with myself), somewhere between insomnia and bliss, it became clear that I too was a misallocated resource and due for some new goals.

Programming, animation, web design: they all got put on the top of my list. I started training in a variety of internet technologies and began the process of beginning my own information design business aptly titled: Information is Beautiful. And it is. (Nicely, the seminar half of my job at IHS is also still on my plate.)

In a year or so, I'm sure I will have a few more stories to share. I'm sure they will be full of romance, intrigue, and the struggles and triumphs of a protagonist and his trade.

In the meantime, I wish you many beautiful days. I hope you are in good health and spending time with the people and pursuits that you love. Let me know if you will be in Virginia in the near future and I promise I won't geek out (too much) about productivity blogs, the wonders of Javascript libraries, Edward Tufte, or Settlers of Catan.

Along with a Scottish anarchist with a sharpened umbrella, we left Barcelona.  A good stay.  Please check out my visually imprecise, yet emotionally cordial pictures of Gaudis Casa Battllo.

I would also like to mention that they sell chickens - yes, real live chickensin the streets of Barcelona at 10 o'clock at night.  I am unsure where anyone who purchases a chicken in this city might keep it, as I am unsure of what type of farmer traffic frequents downtown Barcelona (the last time I checked the full-grown chicken wasn’t much the pet you give to a child on his birthday).  Though, contrary to the presumed falsity of most urban legends, I am sure they sell chickens.

Lyon, France.  Jean welcomed Amanda and I as we descended from the bus, greeted us warmly and treated us to our first metro ride a la Parisiansans ticket.

It was 6:00am by the time we reached Jeans apartment, late enough to get a wink of sleep (as the bus isnѕt always conducive to a full nights sleep) and early enough for a two-hour breakfast and some catching up.  We drank tea from bowls as it is done and as Jean head off for work, Amanda and I slept from 8am to 4pm and then went for breakfast again.  This time, croissant and pain au chocolat, or what was left of the pickings at this hour.

We met Jean back at his place after work, and along with his brother, had a Lyonese feast of quenelle, gnocchi, roquefort and friends, wine, cava (the Spanish bubbly), a homemade vodka, and chocolate.

The phrase at the end of the clip reads:

    Pa-ri-zek /puh-ree-zeck/ n : a little stump.  You know, when you cut down a tree:     what you have left.

This is how a nice Czech girl once explained me the meaning of our last name.  It is only fitting for the abridged (in length and in frames-per-second) story I share with you here.  It is the story for the season and a story of the journey my family took this year in order to fill our living room with pine needles.

So, without further ado: Christmas Tree Hunt 2004

It is only a specimen of the video's original quality but byte-brevity is necessary from this remote land-line that I work.  Happy Holidays.

Arlington County is not one for much decency.  For example, everyone in Arlington is required to have a safety inspection every year and place an ugly, half-crooked sticker in the middle of their front windshield to prove they have done so.  Apparently, they promptly come sneaking around the day that these stickers expire to issue tickets.

I have been here for a month.  I found a nice place and, ever since I moved in, I have been parking in a spot right in front of my house along the street.  This is why it surprised me when I woke up this past week with a parking ticket on my car.

Confused, I looked to confirm that there weren't any "No Parking" signs that had gone unnoticed, but my memories of a sign-free street were untrue.  My parking spot sat cowering in the wake of a spotless, new "No Parking" sign.  Funny.  The base of the signpost even exhibited freshly turned dirt and city project markings.  The pictures may help you visualize the "funniness" of this moment.

My favorite part is that on the back of the sign, the date and time at which it was installed are sharpied on.  The day was the same day that I received my ticket, twelve hours prior.

And so, unsuspectingly, as I returned from a pleasant day at work and an enjoyable evening of swing dancing, and forgot to check for new parking regulations posted in the spot where I had been parking for over a month straight, I had signed up for trouble.

Ill let you know how my modest contention letter fares.  I admit my illegality and ask for the simple decency of information before unnecessary monetary punishment.  Even the San Jose State bicycle dictators have been courteous enough to place a warning on students bicycles before blindly ticketing them for laws that came into effect within the last 12 hours of the day. 

On a more subtle note of how SJSU bike laws are like the US foreign policy with Cuba, I can defer you to one of my many unpublished letters to the editor.

Dear Campus Police,

Kindly, this past week, you warned the campus bicyclers of their boundaries.  And in appreciation of this altruistic behavior, I wish to help you understand why your actions are superfluous.

The prohibition of victimless crimes leads to deadweight loss (please, come over to the Economics department and I will be happy to explain this to you with fancy graphs and mathematical equations).  That is, by enforcement of your law, there is a portion of the net social benefit that neither you the policeman, nor us, the bicyclers, can attain.

Prohibition also leads to the reduction in the quality of a product, or in this case, the act of riding a bike.  For example, these restrictions will not deter bicyclers from biking innocently to where they need to study, it will only give them incentive to bike faster and more surreptitiously, leading to an increase in fatalities (or small scrapes) and a decrease in the attention they lend to operating their bicycles with efficiency.

Furthermore, the transfer of revenue from the bicycler's pocket to the campus' will place a financial burden on the average bicycler.  In the long run, the quality of the bikes we own will diminish because over time we will have less revenue to invest in their upkeep and maneuverability.

Also, I wish to comment on the placement of various bike racks that incite us bikers to inflict harm upon ourselves.  These bike racks are located in areas that we cannot legally access on our bike.  This is much like Americas immigration policy with Cuba.  We place an inhibiting trade embargo (no bicycling laws) on their country (campus).  It is extremely dangerous to cross the Florida Straits (space between ok zone and bike rack).  Yet, if the Cubans (the bikers) arrive on US land (the bike rack) they are given citizenship (allowed to park their bike).

These revenue-accruing acts that you are paid to carry out originated in medieval England.  The King learned that the punishment of victimless crimes was a great method to gain revenue.  These crimes were defined as acts that disturbed the Kings peace and permitted the sheriff to collect a fine.

I am aware we have only an interim King at the moment, though maybe you could explain to him, as I have to you, the negative externalities that arise from your duties.  Perhaps he will recognize your ingenuity and relieve you of such education-intrusive decisions.

Sincerely,

A concerned biker

Within the next 4 months, I hope for everyone's benefit, I will try to learn to talk in pixels (or at least learn to hear in pixels).  Until then, I hope the scattered-quality photos in the photo albums section will do.

My fascination with Fall continues.  Fall and iron-bar-laden hiking trails.  These Eastern trees are merely teasing us at the moment.  Perhaps they are more concerned with dodging hurricanes, though under such stressful conditions, my scientific urges lead me to believe their leaves would be changing in droves--the equivalent of blushing or turning white in fear.

Amanda and I just finished up a short jaunt through Acadia National Park in Maine.  Despite the parks peculiar shape (a conjunction of privately donated lands), there were plenty of spectacular trail-like continuums to enjoy.  We found a couple non-technical climbing trails to be the best of them.  These were essentially teetering trails up modest granite cliffs and ledges.  The trails were strung together with iron handrails and ladders where gravity would naturally get the best of the not-really-rock-climber tourists like myself.

A new toy, or should I speculatively say, life-saving piece of technology which accompanied our ascent was a handheld GPS (global positioning system).  This machine, at a casual speed, tells you your current longitude and latitude amongst other neat, if not essentially unessential information.  Amanda humored my intrigue with grace, yet I must boast that, on more than one occasion after a hike, the GPS helped us find our way back to the trailhead parking lot.

More humbly, I will also admit that there were numerous occasions where, while globally disoriented and locally perplexed, Amanda found the way to where we needed to go before that darn GPS even finished turning on.

Next, my sights are set on places where we will more likely get lost for more than a few minutes, where foreign language will confuse and misdirect us, where directions may come in awkward finger-point fashion: Southern Europe.  I will continue to bear the GPS (maybe sometimes turning it on a little ahead of time), and amongst friends and foreign lands, I will report back on my success.

Despite a bagel-fire and a surreptitious and aggressive sprinkler system, I am still welcome here in Madrid and feeling quite nostalgic.

Isabel (my flatmate while in Madrid) is putting Amanda and I up in her very fashionable flat (I hope to provide an unsatisfying visual soon, though, in the meantime, a quick spin through the nearest IKEA (pronounced 'ee-kay-uh') peppered with stippled paraphernalia from a Lichtenstein exhibit should suffice).  The flat is downtown in the Alonzo Martinez area, which provides us good company with her and Bruno, and easy access to most all we could wish to visit.

As we walked around Madrid these past two days, the memories came rushing back to me--the drums in the park; the long, slow, chat-full walks; the cars parked in the middle of one way street with no driver inside and a chorus of horns shortly behind; the near-mulleted hipsters; and our server picking his nose as we awaited our order.

Even though Isabel cooked a spectacular Spanish dish of seaweed and carrots our first night here, such strange foods to my Bay Arean palate like tortilla patata (Spanish omelet), morcilla (blood sausage), tapas, cafe cubanos and mojitos are filling my days.  I notice myself trying to get tired of each of them so when I return I will not have unachievable longings.  Yet I have had no success thus far.

And we continue.  Off to see Lichtenstein or whoever replaced him.  And maybe some chocolate and churros, or two.

My vision is to be able to tell you of all the marvellous places I am finding and re-finding, and give their longitude and latitude, to upload pictures with real space/time coordinates (within 26 feet or so), and finally, to include the direction you should face!  Perhaps utopic, though i am just a common dreamer.

Madrid is still the encantador.  Between the de novo ambience of Cafe La Palma and the constipated woopie-cusion seats you can try shoes on from in the Camper outlet store, I am continuously amazed.

I also discovered a trick I would like to share with any of you not so hot on classical art (perhaps a ‘dirty trick’ for those of you who are) yet nonetheless fancy peeking at what all the hype is about. 

Short for time, Amanda and I swung by the Museo del Prado just to get a postcard (and as a second hint for abridged tourism: the gift shop is often a good place to start if you are unsure you want to purchase a ticket to enter a museum or not).  We learned, to my poor recollection, that the gift shop is in the center of the musem and they will let you in for 20 minutes, without a ticket, to tend to any shopping impulses on premise.

Noticing their fault in not recognizing our intentions to speed through the museum at some uncanny pace, we entered the gift shop and precariously bought the first thing that looked like it might satisfy my intended goal.  Maintaining regular breathing techniques, we purchased the postcard an quickly, not haphazardly, began our 17 minute ‘free’ tour of the museum!

In this 17 minutes, albeit a tad rushed, we enjoyed works by Goya, Velazquez and even my favorite work in the musem, The Garden of Earthly Delights, by Hieronymus Bosch.

Also, all of our museum viewing has lead me to a philisophical question--or maybe just a curator-istic one:  How do they choose what color to paint the museum walls?  Any insights into this mystery would be greatly appreciated.

If any of you have read the Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown mentions that in Da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper, Da Vinci put a wine glass at every seat as opposed to just one single goblet as Sophie Nevu (who’s voice is awful in the book-on-tape version) guesses, the holy grail.  For some reason (and my unfamiliarity with the topic may come shining through right here) Da Vinci is apparently trying to reveal the true nature of the grail within these nuances in his art.

I just wanted to mention I saw a painting of the Last Supper from the same time period as Da Vinci where there was also a wine glass in front of each person at the table.  Maybe Da Vinci wasn’t the only one onto such secrets after all!

At a more recent supper, which also was a final supper to our stay in Madrid, I must openly commend someone who many of you may never meet: Chef Santi.  I had the pleasure of knowing Santi as an In-House Chef my last stay in Madrid, but it was many interests above food that brought us together in the first place.  Music such as the Tindersticks and Los Nios Gusanos stoked our bond and drinks like the Venezuelan Cacique and the Red frizzante cemented it.

Regardless, food once again was the centerpeice in the weaving together of our interests (and talents).  Even though I begged for the purple rice dish, Santi prepared us a fabulous plate of wide noodles and farfalle with the choice of a verdant Cinqueterra pesto or Spinach-a-la-Santi on the side.  During the preparation, Mar, from the entertainment division, cultured our Italian travel palates with stories of their travels through the Northern end of the Pasta-land.  Dinner led to more stories and discoveries(!) such as the origin of surfing and the ice cream brindis (cheers, salute… what the heck is the verb for this!?).

While some nights should never end, others are bookended with a bus ticket that leaves at midnight.  We pulled ourselves from sharing new music and waking the neighbors with drums and ran for the vacation home!  Yes, the vacation home is a Volkswagon bus.  I think the 1989 model. (Westfalia?  It said California on the side.)

With charismatic farewells, the bus was soon to bring us no sleep and to Barcelona.

In the many homes in which we have stayed, I have come to believe that IKEA may be the Tupperware phase of home furnishing.  Or maybe it is something much bigger.

Frameless beads with headboards, bookshelves, miniature beanbag chairs and placemats with holsters for the silverware have all served as tools in the houses in which we have stayed, and they have all been from IKEA. 

Does this IKEA phenomena only appear in life on the cusp of ones studies and the work world, or is it much deeper than this?  I must admit my sample set is quite biased: friends from college who are now working.  I am about to start working. The lone fact that my family has a barn-full of salvageable dusty things (and this comment makes no assumptions of the quality or orderliness of said barn; it is an excellent, well ordered barn with the potential for horses and is currently being slabbed, a project that I cannot wait to see) may label me in another furnishing group, yet I must also admit that this sample set has invoked a small fear in me.  Am I also about to acquire grave instincts to start ravaging the nearest IKEA?