Lorne-to-be-wild

Three things I have never done: Take a vacation with my son (Luke), take a vacation (without an excuse of traveling to a conference or business meeting) during the school year (since becoming a college professor), take a vacation in (or even go to) the Caribbean. I managed to kill all three of those birds with one stone this past weekend.

Luke and I set off early last Thursday morning (5 AM) for a long day of travel, arriving at Piarco International Airport on Trinidad at about 10:30 PM via a change of planes in Miami. By the time we arrived at our hotel (more like a B & B – Forty Winks is in a small inner suburb of Port of Spain called Newtown, is very central to a lot of interesting locations and restaurants and is run by a very nice, helpful and kind proprietor, Pam, and her small staff) in our rented car it was near midnight. We debated whether to rent a car. First of all, public transport is very cheap on Trinidad. Second, they drive on the left side of the road – English style. Third, we were not sure of the parking situation at the hotel. We checked and found that parking was not a problem, which eliminated concern #3. As for #1, it was going to cost about $80 for a taxi to and from the airport to the hotel, and we thought that we could add a lot of convenience to our travels with our own car. We decided we could deal with #2 (which we did quite well save for tending to edge too close to the left hand side of the street, and since sometimes the roads are narrowed by parked cars and other times they end abruptly on the left, that made for some hair-raising moments). We also debated whether to go to Tobago, the other main island of Trinidad and Tobago, but decided it was too much of a hassle even though it entails just a short and reasonably-priced return flight.

For such a small country (although it is quite populated – over 1.3 million people), Trinidad and Tobago has a lot going for it. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the country is its music: calypso, soca, pan, and parang are all versions of music that are Trinibagian, and the steel drum instrument (the pan) was invented by the Trinbagians. There are competitions among various musical groups from all over the country, with the stiffest being among the steel bands, who maintain their own panyards. Trinidad and Tobago has one of the most amazing Carnival celebrations in the world. The main element of the celebration is the parade and it is composed of members of mas camps, which create themes for each Carnival including elaborate costumes. Like the panyards, the mas camps are located around, but mainly in Port of Spain (the capital).

Trinidad and Tobago also boast some tasty foods with the most earthy being the roti (a stew either wrapped in a paratha – Indian flat bread – or served separately with pieces of paratha and named bus-up-shut because the pieces look like a torn shirt) and the “bake and shark” a fishburger, per se, although the bake is much more than a hamburger bun and the fish is shark (but sometimes cod). Bake and shark is a meal featured at the beaches.

One thing we did not know when we planned the trip is that Friday, the first full day we were there, was a national holiday to mark the end of the Hindu Diwali festival. Forty percent of Trinbagians are of Indian descent (and another forty percent are of African descent), so the Hindu traditions are well-recognized just like the Christian traditions of Carnival and Christmas. Diwali featured a long weekend, which meant that many shops and restaurants were closed for most of our stay. But, that made traffic less of a problem for us.

Some interesting things we did included making visits to two beautiful beaches: Manzanilla on the southeast coast and Maracas Bay on the north coast; climbing (by car we admit) up to Fort George, which produced incredible views of Port of Spain and its suburbs; viewing Caroni Bird Sanctuary, which features the incredibly stunning Scarlett Ibis, the country’s national bird; and driving around much of the island and seeing a few interesting sites perhaps the most notable being the Lion’s House in Chaguanas (which is where Nobel Laureate V. S. Naipaul grew up and is the setting for his great novel “A House for Mr. Biswas”). We also visited the national cricket stadium (Queen’s Park Oval), the main soccer and track stadium (Hasely Crawford Stadium), and saw some parang and soca entertainers.

The economy in Trinidad and Tobago is boosted by the fact that the country has oil and thus making it the richest of the Caribbean countries. It was easy to see that the economy is going strong. There was a significant amount of new construction taking place, especially in and around Port of Spain. I was surprised at how expensive it was to eat in a sit-down restaurant, especially in relation to average incomes; the price of a meal was no different than it would be in the USA.

I highly recommend Trinidad and Tobago as a place to visit. November is one of the rainiest months there, but also a time when air fares are low. We got a little rain, but the temperatures were mild day and night, although it was a bit humid at times. I uploaded some pictures from our trip for your viewing (pleasure).

I had the opportunity to travel to India (specifically Bangalore – its official name is Bengaluru – in the State of Karnataka in the south of the country), and while the time I would be able to spend there was short, I felt compelled to make my first visit to that somewhat mysterious country. My traveling companion was my colleague, Terry Ryan. We had a one-day business meeting, and had time to be tourists for two days. Terry did not bring his camera since I “always” bring mine, but unfortunately, mine conked out before we arrived. Our friend, Ravi, brought his camera one day, so we did get some pictures (a sample of which I posted via Picasa).

Spending three days in a place that takes a day to travel to is a major challenge. Internal clocks get out-of-whack quickly what with a 12.5-hour time change (when its 8 AM here, it is 8:30 PM in Bangalore), and just when one starts to adjust that clock, it gets thrown out-of-whack again. Combine those perturbations with having to sit on an airplane for literally two days, and you can see that this was not an easy trip in terms of its effects on my body, especially for a person like me, who tends to exercise almost every day. In Bangalore, there was little opportunity to do more than sit in a car, visit a restaurant or tourist site, and get right back in the car for the next item on the itinerary. I’m still fighting the effects of the double jet lag.

You can read about the “technical” details of the Bangalore and Mysore (a smaller city to the south, which we also visited), so I will not bore you with those items here. I recommend starting your reading with the articles about these two cities in WikiTravel. Instead, I will provide some observations about what I saw.>

First was the fact that while Bangalore is about the same size as Hong Kong in terms of population, it is spectacularly low-rise by comparison. Perhaps I didn’t see enough of the city to make a fair comparison, but I noticed only a few tall buildings. These seemed to be very new and geared toward the wealthy.

Second were the traffic patterns. As far as I could tell, drivers do not think about “lanes of traffic”. Instead, they think about the road as a conduit, so the traffic jams seem to be caused by everyone trying to vie for limited space when a road narrows rather than only sheer volume (although there is lots of that). Moreover, since there are multiple modes of transport from buses to trucks to vans to cars to auto-rickshaws (three-wheeler taxis) to motorbikes to the odd animal-drawn cart, and these travel at different speeds (the cars and vans are faster than the trucks and busses which are faster than the auto-rickshaws and motorbikes), the pecking order is that the faster vehicles try to get past the slower ones, but the slower ones don’t really want to give up their ability to get through the conduit. This leads to lots of honking of horns and chaotic bunching of vehicles. Another thing that happens is that vehicles do not pass through uncontrolled intersections in an orderly manner. Drivers make the assumption that they have the right-of-way through the intersection, and the only reason they will slow down or stop is if the vehicle coming along at the same time is bigger. So a motorbike will come to an abrupt stop as an auto-rickshaw enters an intersection in a perpendicular direction, and an auto-rickshaw will stop for a car, and so forth. Moreover, all vehicles tend to just pull out of drives without hesitation.

Third was the disparity not only between the ways that people live, but also the way in which the public infrastructure is not synchronized. The first disparity is pretty easy to explain and is well-known about India: people who are living from hand to mouth are scattered among those living at a middle or upper class standard. In Bangalore, which is probably the most prosperous city in India, it seemed like there were a good number of people living at a reasonably decent standard, and fewer who seemed to be living in somewhat dire circumstances. The other disparity is that there is no consistent melding of infrastructure. That is, while there are a lot of paved roads and some sidewalks, most roads are not necessarily framed by sidewalks – so there is a strip of dirt between many roadways and the buildings that line them. And, since they get a lot of rain in Bangalore, this strip is often muddy. Or even if the strip had been paved at one time, it is not maintained so that the curbs and sidewalks seem to be crumbling away. Of course, both of these disparities are noticeable in other developing countries that I have visited.

Fourth was the women’s clothing. It is colorful and bright and almost always women wear traditional dress — saris. Men dress rather simply; for most part they wear a shirt and a pair of pants. Terry and I were invited to attend a wedding. The level of dress was even more spectacular among the women and more formal for the men.

Fifth was the food. South Indian food features mainly vegetarian dishes, which was perfect for both Terry (a complete vegetarian) and me (a 95% complete vegetarian). Clearly we did not get to sample the full range of dishes available, and mainly ate the more snack-oriented/breakfast dishes such as dosas, sambars and idlis along with tasty chutneys, all typically served on and in stainless steel dishes. We only drank bottled water and no liquor. Most of the chutneys were somewhat spicy, but Karnataka spicing is supposedly not quite as hot as in the food of other South Indian states.

Finally there is the fact that cows essentially roam around at will. There are not a great number of these large animals around, but there is one along nearly every street. Typically, they just lie along the side of a road, and sometimes they graze from heaps of old flowers or grass, and sometimes they wander into the street. I did not see anyone hassling any cow. Oh, and there are lots of stray dogs visible all over the cityscape. I guess there are lots of cats and monkeys, too, but I saw no monkeys and only one cat. However, Ravi told us that monkeys sometimes come into his kitchen looking for food.

I have not updated my music knowledge much over the past 20 years. I used to be quite well-versed in modern/rock music, but once I had children there was no room for extra “noise” in my life. I don’t mean that music or children just make noise. Rather, it is that I have a very hard time concentrating on multiple tasks. If I’m listening to music, I can’t do much else other than some administrative chores (like editing my blog). But over the past few years I have started to listen to music again. I reacquired a few of my favorite “albums” from the past as CDs since almost all of my music was on LPs and a few tapes.

Recently, one of my friends told me how much he enjoyed finding interesting music on YouTube. So, I began to look for music there, on occasion, which brings me to the subject of this post. Turns out that when I’m in the mood for music, I’m always in the mood to listen to “The Kinks”. (Oh, I listen to other music, but I’m always attracted to Kinks songs.) Ray Davies (pronounced Davis – I didn’t know that until recently watching a YouTube clip about the Kinks) is the lead song writer and singer of the group. I like almost all of his songs, especially his ballads. Most of his songs are framed as stories that are social and political commentaries and at the same time angst-filled love songs. I especially like how he mixes these themes. A number of Kinks albums are theme-based. I also like most of the songs written by his brother, Dave, who typically contributed one or two songs per album.

I’ve had the privilege of seeing “The Kinks” perform live twice. The first was in London in 1974 at a theater where the group performed one of its concept albums, “Preservation”. Then in 1989 I saw them at the Universal Amphitheatre (now called Gibson Amphitheatre at Universal Walk) where they were promoting their newly released album “UK Jive”. Ray is really animated in concert as you can see from some of the live videos on YouTube. And, he almost always had a feud going with Dave, so in both concerts I saw, when Dave sang one his songs Ray would leave the stage. Go figure.

Most critics argue that the early Kinks albums are their best, and maybe they are right, but as noted above, I like all of their albums. I guarantee that there is a catchy ballad, and probably two, on every one of them. The most recognized song by The Kinks is surely “Lola”, which is still one of my very favorites of their songs. And, then perhaps people have heard “All Day and All of the Night” and/or “You Really Got Me”. It is hard for me to say what my most favorite Kinks song is, but I’ll say it is “Celluloid Heroes”. You can only find a few of the less-known ballads on YouTube, but a couple worth listening to, I think, are “Days” and “Scattered” from one of the last Kinks albums.

I encourage you to listen to their songs. (I suggest you ignore YouTube versions that are “covers”.) The best piece of advice is to listen at least twice to any Kinks song. I don’t know how many times I bought a Kinks album and after listening to it the first and even the second time I would be ready to through it away. Then one or two of the tunes would begin to percolate in my head and I would go back for another listen, and then another, and another, and of course, I’m still listening.

Yesterday reminded me of the most frustrating of my days as a programmer. I was going through some activities on my test (WordPress) blog site in preparation for class, and twice I ran into frustrations. First, it was in trying to embed a video in a blog entry. Somehow, the code for embedding was corrupted after saving the post. It happened over and over. I finally came to the conclusion (which may be right or wrong) that if I just saved the post once, and did not edit it again, all would be well. This is unsatisfying because it is always nice to be able to edit a post when one desires to do so.

The second frustration came when I installed a plugin to create an administration menu at the top of the blog page. The menu is normally hidden in an administration panel. After following the instructions, I either got no menu or a menu represented as a bullet list. Eventually I tested it with Firefox (since I normally use IE7 because Firefox is not compatible with XP Tablet) and it worked. Then I tested it on another machine and it worked. I came to the conclusion that it must be something about XP Tablet. But, this morning, when I tried again on IE7, it worked. So, I have no explanation for what was happening.

Which reminded me of two days of hell when I was programming in the early 1980s. I was working via a terminal and writing code on an IBM 370 and was writing code in FORTRAN, BASIC and IBM’s EXEC 2 scripting language. I can’t recall which language I was using, but the code I had written would not execute properly. I went through it (what seemed like a million times) line by line, word by word and letter by letter, but could not explain why there was a bug. I am not the greatest programmer, and typically make silly coding errors, but no matter how hard I tried to see the apparent error, I could not. Eventually, late in day two, I decided to look at the bytemap of the code. Lo and behold, one of the characters that displayed as a normal character was represented by a different bit sequence than the one I had expected to be there! I was “that close” to giving up. In hindsight, another strategy would have been to literally retype the entire program.

By the way, I’ve realized that when playing with changes to WordPress, I should simply close the browser and reopen it after every change.

I stumbled on StumbleUpon by visiting Kathleen Fitzpatrick’s blog (Planned Obsolescence). At the end of each blog post she includes buttons that allow you to “bookmark” her post to social bookmarking/networking sites such as Digg, Technorati, and StumbleUpon. In fact, StumbleUpon is designed so that one can find new websites without having to depend on one’s favorite sites to highlight them. It has many features that are similar to other social bookmarking sites. It is easy to argue that its unique feature is its “stumble on” button, which when pressed opens a new web page. It is still unclear to me exactly what causes a particular web page to display, but I think it has to do with a person’s individual interests (that you can set up in your profile/preferences) and (perhaps) the interests of friends. And the displayed page is almost certainly one of the bookmarked (thumb up = “I like it”) pages already selected by StumbleUpon users. Apparently, more than 3.4 million people have accounts on this site so that seems to make for lots of stumbling.

Once you have registered with the site, and set up your profile (you pretty much have to set some profile parameters, which is probably a good idea since this helps the stumbling process) you can browse existing lists of bookmarks (categorized by websites, people, and video). You can always press the “stumble on” button to display a web page. As noted, you can mark a page with the “thumb up”, and you can tag and comment on (blog) pages. The recommendation is that one should mark higher level pages rather than lower levels ones. I’m guessing here, but perhaps an example is that if you were looking at my web site, and you liked my list of publications, you should mark my main page rather than the publications page. (There is also a “thumb down” button that allows you to indicate that you are not interested in a particular site and similar types.) And, you can “discover” your own pages, which means that when you give a thumb up to a page that has not been previously marked that way. Your suggestion is then submitted for approval (I guess when others stumble on it). Users also get a “stumbler ranking”, but it was unclear to me exactly how that is calculated or how it is indicated to other users.

Here is an example of how the stumbling process worked for me: I gave a thumb up to a video by Weird Al Jankovic (“ebay”). Then I pressed the Stumble On button, which displayed “Call the future”. Then I pressed the button again, and the next page was “Meteora, Greece” (I can’t link it now). One more press got me to “Speedtest”, which seemed to be quite useful.

Some other interesting features include a toolbar that contains the various buttons and a tools menu, tag clouds, groups (I have not figured out how to use these), and code snippets for page sharing. You actually get your own web space – mine is http://olfmanl.stumbleupon.com/. Of course, you can, so to speak, stumble on other sites by looking at the pages of other users – these become available, for example, when you recommend a site that someone else has already reviewed.

Some concerns I have: The site is not especially easy to navigate, at least when getting started. If I was not intent on reviewing the site, I probably would have stopped dealing with it almost immediately. But, a little leg work paid off. The help section is in the form of a FAQ, and it is not complete. The default preferences are a bit strange, so it is important to check all the settings. The profile themes are not very interesting. And, for some reason, the password I entered on signing up was not accepted. The site sent me its own password via email.

So, is there any useful value in being exposed, on a semi-random basis, to web pages that others have recommended? The idea of using an individual’s preferences and the recommendations of those with similar preferences is worthwhile, I think. Clearly, the number of StumbleUpon users seems to validate that this is an approach people like. Like any web-based application, one has to commit to using it on a regular basis to determine if value is really being delivered.

I never understood professional cycling of the road race variety until I happened to start watching the coverage of the Tour de France provided by two incredibly talented television commentators, Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen some years ago. It was a fluke of sorts because after acquiring satellite TV service, I was able to watch a channel called OLN (Outdoor Life Network) that has since changed its name to Versus. OLN had daily coverage of the Tour, and since I was very much into Spinning at the time, I began to watch. I had seen Al Trautwig’s segments on Olympic road racing in previous years, and just didn’t get it. I like Al Trautwig, but he is not a cycling expert; Liggett and Sherwen are – they make the sport understandable and interesting. Even with the controversies about doping and drug taking in the sport, I have become a great fan. I learned that road racing is a team sport rather than an individual sport, and then it all made sense.

So, when I made plans for our trip to Paris this summer, and these involved a stopover in London, I realized that my time had come. I would get a chance to watch a stage of the Tour, the Grand Depart, up close and personal. Better yet, I would get a chance to watch a time trial stage, and so would be able to see each rider go through the course individually. There are three types of stages in professional road racing: flat stages, mountain stages and time trials (individual and team).

When you watch a flat stage, you get to see the beauty of the peleton (the huge group of riders that stay together and can generate incredible speeds on the flat roads) as it flashes by, or you get to watch a bunch sprint at the very end of the stage. But that is just about all you see. It takes about 30 seconds to a minute and that is that.

When watch a mountain stage, and you are able to place yourself near the top of a big climb, you get more face time with the riders. A couple of riders lead the pack, the very best climbers select themselves into another group following close behind, then stragglers begin to pass by, and sometime later a small peleton passes by with the nonclimbers (mainly sprinters and their setup men).

When you watch a time trial, you get the most face time with the riders (although this is relative because they come whizzing by at high speed). In an individual time trial, riders depart at one-minute intervals (sometimes the final group of riders depart at two-minute intervals), and so you see them pass by every minute or so. (In a team time trial, the teams depart in intervals of about three minutes, and you get to see 20 or so teams, in mini-peletons, pass by.)

So I scheduled us to be in London on July 7, the day of the prologue time trial through the streets of Central London. The start time for the first rider to depart the starting gate was 3 PM. I positioned myself along a barrier about half-way round the 7.9 km course on South Carriage Drive at 12:45. I made sure not to drink anything after 10 AM. (This was not the best decision given that the day was quite warm, but I usually keep myself well-hydrated so I figured a few hours without water would not be detrimental.) I had no intention of leaving my perfect spot.

A neat thing about this prologue time trial is that it is was a circuit so the riders were warming up by circling around numerous times. Since I was there to see the sheer speed of the riders, this was an extra thrill. Eventually the parade of advertising cars and vans passed by and then the race started. About 3:05 the first rider came into sight. Each rider is fronted by a motorcyclist (a policeman), then comes the rider and then a team car (to service the rider if he has a mechanical problem) and possibly another motorcycle with a cameraman. About a minute later the next rider arrived, and so forth. I marked the time of the first rider, and then I could tell whether the next riders were faster or slower and by how much. I stood beside a nice gentleman who was a cycling enthusiast (but also noted that he was fan or rowing and opera). We chatted throughout, and along with my timing of all 189 riders, the 5.5 hours of standing and watching seemed to go by quite quickly.

I had everything figured out except for bringing backup batteries for my camera. Sure enough the batteries ran out just before the race started. I did manage to get a few pictures, and have posted them here.

I literally love the Paris Metro. I am fascinated by its efficiency, convenience, and cleanliness. I rode it about four times a day when I was in Paris this summer. I rode on all but one of its 16 lines (of lines 1-14, 3bis and 7bis, the only one I did not ride was the latter)!

Our apartment was a 4-minute walk from the Villiers station, which houses platforms for both lines 2 and 3 — two of the oldest. The entrance to the station is a relatively short set of stairs, and the entrance to the platforms is just a few paces away. Each platform is just another few paces and another short staircase away. Nearly every time we arrived at a platform a train was arriving or just a minute away. On returning to the station we were often able to step off the train right near the staircase.

The Metro has an excellent web site that allows one to specify an exact starting and ending address, and it returns the travel time of each segment, including walking to and from the stations, walking to and from the platforms, transfer time between trains, and total journey time. You can also specify when you want to depart, and the application will tell you when the next train will be departing. You can also check the times of previous and next trains, and shortest walking time vs. shortest overall time.

The Metro is relatively cheap. A day pass costs 5.5 euro, and a book of 10 individual ride tickets (including transfers to other Metro trains and RER trains – RER is the regional train system whereas the Metro is the city train system) costs 11.1 euro.

I’m back! My blogging hiatus is as inexplicable as my periods of regular posting. Anyway, …

When I’m at home, I don’t sleep enough, but when I’m traveling I often sleep more than enough! I guess it all balances out. At home I’m always focused on work. Often I bring work home (so to speak) but it takes me until late in the evening to get motivated to do it. So I stay up until midnight or so. And, I normally get up at 5 or 6. I do sleep longer most weekends, but my average sleeping time is probably 6 hours per night. The consequences (as most people who know me can tell you) are that I tend to fall asleep in meetings or doze off when reading or watching TV.

When traveling, I’m more likely to get 8 hours sleep per night. But, I do nap, too. Since I don’t travel more than a few weeks per year, I suppose my overall sleep average is less than the 8 hours per day that I probably should be getting. Or, maybe I need less than 8 hours. 

Paris is expensive, although perhaps not more expensive, on average, compared to Southern California (meantime, London is quite a bit more expensive than either). Like Southern California, Paris is a Mecca for tourists, and as such, one would expect high prices, especially for tourist-focused activities. So, it was quite surprising to find that a number of museums in Paris are free! We visited three of these: the Petit Palais (one of two buildings constructed for the 1900 Universal Exposition (Expo) – the other is the Grand Palais across the street – it has been completely restored, and is a spectacular building), the Cognacq-Jay (a small but nifty museum featuring eighteenth century art), and the Carnavalet (a museum about the history of Paris). One might expect that they would be of lesser quality than the museums that charge an entrance fee, but that was not the case. I’ve posted a few pictures.

The other museums that we went to were the Cluny (home of the tapestries that are the subject of the book, “The Lady and the Unicorn”), the Maillol (named after and containing a great assortment of art works by an artist that I had barely known about, as well as by other artists who were his contemporaries), the Rodin (this man was incredibly prodigious; the gardens are quite beautiful, too), the Natural History (Great Hall of Evolution – this is a massive display of animals set in an amazing building, including a huge representation of major species lined up like they were being loaded onto or taken off Noah’s Ark), and the Orsay (which I wrote about in an earlier post). We also went to see the Church of Ste. Chapelle, which has amazing stained glass windows, and Church of St. Sulpice (actually Darlene went but I didn’t), which is the site of one of the scenes in “The DaVinci Code”. But (so there), I went to the PC Museum at the top of the Grand Arch and Darlene didn’t! You might ask why we didn’t go to the Louvre, the Pompidou Center, or the Museum of Modern Art to name a few. The answer: We had been to all of these in the past and wanted to expand our museum horizons.

We had to wait a few minutes to get into most of the museums, but the delays were minor. While I mentioned that the Petit Palais, the Hall of Evolution and the Orsay are housed in spectacular buildings, the other museums are also in wonderful architectural spaces. You can get a museum pass in Paris, but it only makes sense if you plan to visit about three museums per day, and/or if you don’t want to wait in line to enter.

One of the interesting aspects of the party I attended in Sens was the fact that a few of the party-goers were linked by the fact that they had played on the French national amateur soccer 1963-64 champion team, which was from Sens. One of the players was my host, Jean. Two others, along with their wives, were also there. Sadly, a fourth player had died 10 years ago, but his wife attended the party. The wives had become close friends as they supported their husbands’ exploits. They showed us a newspaper story recalling the championship season. The men were young and very handsome back then. For the most part they have not aged too gracefully over 45 years. I read through the story, trying to apply my limited knowledge of French to get something from it (remember, no one spoke English, so they could only tell me what happened in French, but my ability to comprehend spoken French is even worse than my ability to read French). From what I could gather, the team won some dramatic games on their way to the championship. I wish I could have watched them play.