This may look political but it's not

Product placement props: My thanks to the Vice President for playing along.

Crist watch

Last spring there was the Arlen Specter watch: How long would it take the Republican senator to drop his party? In that case it was a little less than two months before he realized he could never be elected as the "Republican" senator from Pennsylvania again. The state's right-wingers were going to choose one of their own in the primary.

Now there's news that very popular Republican governor Charlie Crist is 12 points behind the right-winger favorite to be the nominee for the senate this year.

All of this may explain why Crist chose to meet Obama this Thursday when the President travels to Florida.

Mmm!

Over the past few days I've found some wonderful stories about the wonders of bacon. I can't wait to share them with you. In the meantime here's some pics from my friend Rishi:

I think it looks fabulous... God bless his artery clogged heart.

On FB he makes it clear that the corn was added "mostly for scientific and psychological reasons."

Update: Rishi needed to correct my quote. It should be "physiological" not "psychological." Apparently he was concerned eating this without corn would have the same effect as the government giving our grandparents five pounds of cheese every couple of weeks.

Oh, how I miss the nachos from those government cheese give-aways.

Quote of the day - A new talking point to get someone to pose nude

The new senator from Massachusetts posed nude for Cosmo years ago. Big(?) deal.

He credits the photo shoot as launching his career. Saying on This Week,

"If I hadn't done that... I never would have been sitting here today."

Well, good for him! I'm sure many photographers will use that line to convince their subjects to pose nude... "See? It could launch your career! You could be a senator someday!"

Delight(fully expensive) Movers

Long story short: I spent the day helping a newbie from Wisconsin get her stuff moved. Mind you, in this country helping someone move doesn't really mean lifting boxes. It's rounding up the gang of workers and getting them to the right places.

In this case the woman hired a moving company an administrator recommended. The price $450. Last year I moved 3x as much stuff for less than $75. But she didn't get completely ripped off when you consider the circumstances: These workers came all the way from Abu Dhabi (80 miles away) and did an American mover style job of carefully wrapping each piece of furniture. They even wrapped a mattress in plastic to take it for the short distance trip.
In total nine workers came; three in the truck in the top picture and six rode in this pickup.

My new friend said, "Well, I guess my lesson for the day is not to take the advice of administrators who get paid much better." Yup.

Feeling burned by the charge she asked, "Do I have to tip when I'm paying an outrageous price?"

I told her I understood the "I'm getting ripped off feeling" but the guys doing the moving make $200-$300 per month. A $5 tip per man will make their day, if not their week. She agreed.

Disturbing pics of the day

First Catherine O'Hara and Macauley Culkin reunited for the first time since Home Alone 2... and then there are these vegetables.

The Catcher in the Rye

First, a confession: I never read this novel . (At least not completely.)

Upon J.D. Salinger's death I was reminded of what made me go to Barnes & Noble and buy the book: I sat in on a teaching demonstration for a Medical Assistant instructor. After she gave her demonstration she commented that she needed to leave so she get to her son's HS where they were requiring him to read this book. (She thought this was an abomination.)

Of course, I crossed Edgewood just to buy this book I hadn't read.

Sadly, I didn't find it to be an abomination; I found it to be boring. So a young guy goes to New York City and has sex with a prostitute. Bad things happen to him. Why on earth would anyone on the right oppose that?

Into the lion's den

Obama went before House Republicans today and took questions. I caught the last part of it and thought it was amazing. I wish we had a parliamentary system where every President had to answer to the opposition. Unfortunately, the video cut out on me several times. I hope to watch the full show tomorrow. This was much more interesting than the State of the Union.

I'm sure the full video will be available later and I'll update to include a link.

Iowa City's PRIDE

Soon to be flying over the Old Capitol?

Years ago my brother announced that his daughter wouldn't be going to Iowa State because there are "too many queers there." Never mind the humorous thought of the rural/farming university for being thought of as the gay university in Iowa...

The rich irony for me is that my brother lives in Iowa City. Advocate magazine just named Iowa City the third gayest city in America!

My confederate conservative friend Matt in Atlanta may not appreciate his city (not San Francisco) winning first place.

*****

On a related note: I finally watched the State of the Union speech. It was good, but then Obama doesn't give a bad speech. Noteworthy to me was his announcement that Don't Ask, Don't Tell would be repealed this year.

Really? Why this year? Maybe it's because the ball is already rolling in the House and since it is going to happen anyway the White House wants to look like it is leading.

It is certainly not the best time. This is an election year and many supportive congressman would prefer to have this sink in for a while instead of voting in July and having ads run against them immediately. Also, last year John McCain would have been a supporter. What more cover could this young president have wanted than war hero John McCain as a supporter?!?

This year McCain is in a fight for his political life in Arizona (he'll likely lose to a far right winger) and now he doesn't support repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Gee, another one the political team at the White House blew.

GDP numbers

GDP - Gross domestic product. Think of it as all the stuff produced within the borders of the US. The top line number reported today: "The economy grew by 5.75 annual rate in the fourth quarter" sounds too good to be true. And, well, it is.

Over the past 15 months companies have been shrinking inventory very rapidly. Imagine it is July 2008 and you work for Sony. Make a guess on how many 42" LCD TV's you'll sell during the Christmas season. Then watch the bottom fall out of the economy. What will you do with your inventory of TV's? Rationally, you'd cut the price, sell all you can and slow production of new TV's.

That's what happened in every industry from October 2008 to October 2009. By October 2009 inventories shrank to a level that companies decided, "Oh, maybe we better start producing again."

That's very good news, but it also inflates the GDP number.

Take out inventories and the economy grew a 2.2% annual rate.

The number that is more important to me is the jobs report we'll get next Friday. November's numbers were too good to be true. December's were a dissapointment. I believe Wall St. has way over played this recovery. (In other words, stock prices are too high given the current economy.) The real recovery doesn't begin until jobs return. I hope next Friday's news is as a pleasant surprise like today's.

Birkat Al-Mouz

Birkat Al-Mouz is a city near the mountains in the center of Oman. It's a little over a two hour drive south of where I live in Al Ain. The city has an oasis that grows a variety of fruits & vegetables and next to the city (upper left of the picture below) is an ancient fort.

Note the Omani hats. The kandoora (robe) is very similar to what is worn in the Emirates, but the hats are uniquely Omani.

This is a view from the top of the crumbling fort. I've read that part was built in 1200 and/or 1400. All the palm trees in the distance are part of the oasis. Climbing to get this shot was treacherous. At one point I grabbed the corner of a wall to climb up only to have it crumble in my hand.

These wood rafters have become petrified over the centuries.

Water that runs off the mountains is collected and distributed via this falaj (aqua duct) system. While the fort has been abandoned the falaj is still running.

I also read that the fort was bombed by the British in the 1960's. Those damn Brits. What were they thinking when they bombed an innocent people that would never be any serious threat to them? I'm glad the US would never do anything that stupid.

Err, wait a minute...

Pass. The. Damn. Bill.

Blog post title taken from Andrew Sullivan.

I look forward to the State of the Union speech. Obama could call on House Democrats to pass the Senate bill with plans to reform the mistakes (or not, the senate bill is not bad). Or he could do some unity campaign to just pass the parts people like (totally not feasible).

Or he could ignore healthcare altogether and pivot to the economy and jobs.

I'd like to have hope but the gimmick of freezing the budget is ridiculous. It's the type of gimmick I expect from Republican administrations. It's very disappointing when it comes from my side. So, yeah, I have no idea what to expect in a couple of hours but I had better get some sleep to be up in 3 hours.

iPad

I confess: Ten years I had no idea the iPod would revolutionize the way we listen to music. I thought of it as just another MP3 player... maybe a little easier to use than most but priced too high.

I will also confess that I have no idea if the iPad will be revolutionary or just a cool gadget that only early adopters will love. I do not see people using it to type (like the picture above). Having read all I can about the product it kinda feels like a SNL skit: "It's a giant iPhone! Way too large to carry with you everywhere, but where you do, you'll be telling people you're an Apple guy. No amount of money is too much to say that."

I can imagine buying this in a year when they've come out with the updated model. I like the lightness - 1.5 pounds - and if the battery is as good as they claim - 10 hours - then I could use this to teach. (My notes are on my computer.) I won't rush out to buy one, however, because most products' first edition have flaws.

Hmm. So I am curious if any of you think this will be a success. I can see a practical application for me but if I weren't teaching I wouldn't consider this.

Congratulations Robby!

My friend Robby Marvin has been named Corridorian* of the Year. Robby has been giving a large chunk of salary to charity plus hundreds of hours of community service work. You can follow Robby's plan at the Robject.

(I'm pretty sure Corridorian is a made up word to refer to the Cedar Rapids - Iowa City Corridor.)

Oman pictures

I hope to post pictures from the trip tomorrow. Deleting all the ones of those-who-shall-not-be-named is depressing and time consuming (to figure out how to create the narrative without those pics.)

I have no idea why two 45 year old men who have been traveling together for six years would be scared of having their pictures on my blog... A blog that - without using last names - nobody who knows them would ever find, anyway.

Update: Apparently, I'm the dumb one for not knowing that from the start. It should have been as obvious as "telling someone to tie their shoes."

Blog update - posts deleted

Ann's friends - that I spent the last four days with - want no part of my blog. I have deleted posts that referred to them and when I post about the trip I will not mention them in any way.

Sadly, that will make the pics from the trip less interesting because they are in many. Had I known this at the beginning of the trip I would have shot it differently.

Amazing.

Palm tree bonfire

I'm back from the trip to Oman. On the way back we drove past these trees on fire. Ann, knowing I'm total pyro at heart, stopped so I could take pictures.

Insomnia's benefits

On this trip my insomnia has reached new heights: On the night before the trip I was up until 4AM. On the first night of the trip I went to bed by 10PM and read/tossed & turned/played sudoku until 5:30 AM.

The next night I was still awake at 3AM. As I'm sure my fellow insomniacs can understand: I want to have something positive come from a night like this. My revelation: Converting dirhams is easy: Divide by four and add 8%.

The next day I proudly exclaimed my revelation to Ann who replied with:

1. You're such a geek

2. It doesn't help me because divide by 4 and add 8% is something only geeks would understand.

She's right but I spent the better part of two hours in the middle of the night doing test runs and found that it worked with less than 1% error (usually less than .5% error)... so see? being a geek has its advantages.

*****

I first wrote this post in the hotel. It's a goal of mine to post each and every day of 2010. I have no idea why this didn't post when it should have.

Nizwa

Imagine a several hundred year fortress city with walls made of thatch, small rocks and mud. While climbing up the fortress my hand made indentations in the walls. I'll post pics when I'm back, but safe to say it's been a good start to the short vacation. Tonight we are staying at a hotel on top of a mountain. The temperature outside is 39 degrees and we have a heater in our room.

It's the first time I've turned on the since I moved to the middle east.

Not the worst news of the day

As a political geek I'm hard pressed to think of a week worse than this one. Today I got an e-mail from one of my conservative friends. The subject line read: The Dems. Without opening it I sent him this message

"I haven't opened your e-mail and probably won't until I'm back from vacation. I'm sure this will make you happy: This has been the most depressing week of my life following politics. Healthcare, Coakly, coporations can spend as much as they want to buy candidates... and now Bernanke's confirmation is in doubt? I'm sure you're loving it all."

If Obama's going to go down - a thought I didn't seriously entertain until this week - I'd like to see a Republican with a heart replace him. The Public Policy Survey has a new poll showing that for the first time a Republican that can beat Obama. The man? Mike Huckabee.