MORE TRAVAILS, 2008

PARIS

We always fly into Paris, just to root around in all it’s history and to determine which Boulevards Baron Haussman cut through the city in 1850. We visited Rue Montorguil, the pedestrian street that’s been a market for centuries. This gives us a couple of days to decompress our jet lag. We make our rounds in our neighborhood on the left bank, to a Fromagerie, le Alimentation (Fruits), le Nicolas (Wine), un patissarie for baggette and fab desserts, head back to our hotel D’Orsay, and have a little dinner in our room.  I take the opportunity to do my Tai Chi in deserted street in front of the Hotel  at 7 AM.

MARSEILLE

Vieux Port

On our way to Marseille, I was eagerly looking forward to stopping at the Museo de Legion Etrangere, in Aubane, on the way to Aix in Provence. These towns look small on the very detailed maps we use but the’re a mess to enter. First of all you have to find the Office of Tourisme, which is generally by the gare, but not always. Sometimes there are signs that direct you to the Office, where you try to find a parking space. They gave us a map of the town and directions to the Foreign Legion. On the other side of town we finally found it, only to find they are closed on Thursday! Awww! I was so looking forward to seeing Capitan D’Anjou’s wooden hand there. He was killed in the famous battle of Camerone, Mexico, where 60 Legionaires fought off several thousand Federales, dying valiantly to the last man.
    Well, on to Aix, where Joy tried to find her soap shop, so she can load us up with some heavy gifts for a  few thousand of our close friends. Unfortunately, the shop had closed, probably replaced by another Gucci. However, I did find a shop totally devoted to Converse All Star tennis shoes. Probably a fashion I started years ago.

Soap factory

  We usually had lunch at Le Deux Garcons, but we were not real starved so we stopped for crepes at a small sidewalk café.
   On to Marseille, to La Residence, our favorite hotel on the Vieux Port.  We settled in on the seventh floor where we spend endless hours on the deck watching the shenanigans of the French on boats and cars. We were here with the Dodson’s a while back, and it turned out they were celebrating the founding of Marseille 2500 years ago. Try that on for a bit of history! Seems the Greeks got here first while setting out colonies all over the Med. We found a small soap factory, La Savonaire, that Joy had seen on TV (Samantha Brown). We bought so much soap that they gave us a tour. Most of the machines were over a hundred years old but built so massive they are still working fine. They don’t build ‘em like that, anymore.
BLANKENBERGE, HOLLAND

Italian resuarant

  We flew on Ryan Air up to Brussels, but next time we’ll do our math. The short flights around Europe are pretty cheap (80E), but the airports are always way out, there is always a baggage surcharge (200E for us this time!). Maybe back to the train (If they aren’t on strike!). Our ship to Edinburgh goes out near here so we stayed a couple of days in this seaside town. .

Our stateroom

EDINBURGH
  We boarded a huge ferry for an overnight trip Scotland. No huge waves on the North Sea, just a great lightning storm during the night. Checked into the Hotel Premier Inn - 85 Pounds ($170) new, no phone, no minibar, no coffee maker, no coffee. Had to get up and go next door to a restaurant for breakfast, about $20 each for a buffet. Found out later we could get a $6 continental breakfast.
 Visited the Queen’s ship, Britannia. Recently decommissioned. The incredible waste of resources is mind boggling. You had an admiral to run 250 crew. These folks would sail around the world to visit all her domains, review the fleets and all that, but really, was any of it necessary? Not to me, anyway. Even more pathetic was the dukes job, probably all make work shit, which he could do in his very own little play office.
FALKIRK WHEEL

Falkirk Wheel

  The main reason we came up to Scotland was to see this jewel of the world’s engineering projects.   Recently regenerated two old canals, replacing 11 locks at this place with a fabulous wheel. A pretty far out concept, with lots of really sticky problems to solve, all done in about 3 years. The first canal ran from sea to sea yet was only 172 km across Scotland. What’s that? Like Sonoma County? When your boat gets to the top, you go thru a tunnel under the Antonione Wall, Romes’ way to keep out the bloody Scots to the north. These Scots must have been real buggers if the Romans couldn’t suppress them.

Firth of Forth Bridge

FIRTH OF FORTH RAIL BRIDGE
  The 1890 engineering feat. At the time , it  was comparable to our flight to the moon.
This is a monstrous structure, consisting of huge steel tubes 12' in diameter. The term “Like painting the Forth Bridge” meant a job that would never be finished. However, the Brooklyn Bridge (suspension) was completed in 1883 but was not subject to the huge winds of the Forth. Also the Forth’s span is greater at 1710' vs. 1595'  for the Brooklyn. 63 workers died during construction. About the average for the time. No worker’s compensation there.
 We specifically took the ferry from Holland in order to come in under the bridge.
 Our first order of the day when we arrive at a new town is find a good Italian restaurant. We found Prezzo right next door and had a few meals there. Our waiter was a large fellow from Estonia (Wherever that is). He had great accent so we told him he looked like a movie actor playing a Russian in a James Bond movie. He said he had done a couple of bit parts.
   Salade Caprese, Ministrone soup with a bottle of Pogobonsi Chianti.

  The first day in Scotland, after visiting  Falkirk, we started walking up to the Royal Mile, where all the goodies are in Edinburgh (Pubs, Scotch tasting, etc..) About halfway up my body began to fall apart with a tremendous pain in my back. We had to abort and get back to our hotel so I could writhe in pain lying down. After a couple of hours I began to feel OK. We had no idea what happened , thought it might be my back was out. Next day we got into the pub so Joy could have real Fish & Chips. After waiting a long time and finally getting a table, I was so ill we had to leave immediately. We found a cab, back to the hotel to writhe around a bit.  By the next evening, after several hours of agony, Joy got a cab to the Royal Infirmary emergency room. The first nurse I talked to said “Have you ever had Kidney stones?”. That made us feel better right away as I had no idea what the hell was wrong with me. After several tests the young woman doctor said I should get an x-ray to see where the stone was. This was at one AM & we had to get to the airport in a few hours so I checked out. Guess what? Even though this was Scotland, they didn’t charge me! (Unknown tourist). But they also didn’t give any pain pills.

AMSTERDAM

 By the time we flew to Amsterdam, checked into our houseboat “Donna Teresa”on the De Costa Gracht canal, I had more attacks and pretty much in pain on this nice modern houseboat. By the time we left after a few days we realized I should have gone to a hospital there.

   Beautiful women, hair and skirts flying, zipping along the boulevards and traffic, are all over the place.  Nobody wears a helmet, except they might put one on a little kid. Most bikes are rattly old things as theft is a major industry there. Bikes have the right of way. Any accident with a bike, the taxi or car is automatically responsible. Unlike here, where motorists try to run down anyone on a mere bike.

Our hotel window

  We trained over to Delft, Holland,  dropped our bags at the Museum hotel, got a taxi over to a hospital. In contrast to Scotland, the first place they took me was to the finance dept., where they relieved me of 250 Euros ($390). Had an x-ray, saw a doc who gave me pain pill prescription. By this time it was getting close to store closing time (5:00 in Holland) so we went back to old town to find an Apotheek. This first one we were directed to had just moved. We got to the other one just as they were closing the steel shutters. We stood around flustered and defeated until a lady showed us the after hours window that was open. Finally had my stuff! This was fortunate as I had another attack the next morning, but the drug got the pain to a bearable level. Well, I had always wondered about what happened when you had to get to a hospital in Europe.
  Our hotel was a major chain with all modern rooms and baths. However, no phone, no minibar, no coffee maker ($240!). Worse, there are no restaurants in town open before 9 AM.  We at least like to have coffee at 7 AM but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet. The hotel did have a nice breakfast buffet for $30 that opened at 8 AM. Talk about a captive audience! We finally frequented a coffee house called  “Stads Koffyhuis” on a canal, great coffee and pastry (Apple something with Slagroom (Whipped cream) & ice cream). We were always the first one’s there.  They employed a local retard lady to stuff silverware into a paper pocket.

   Time to return to France. Took a train to Brussels, then one to Lille, where we got a Hertz car to drive down to Honfluer, just across the Seine from La Havre. We were so ill the last time we were here (a terrible cough) we wanted to be here again, after all, this is Calvados country. It’s a wonderful old medievil town, our hotel was built about 1650, but the rooms are super modern.  The old buidings surround the Le Veaux Port (Old Port), a major port in the old days, the explorer Champlian began all his trips to the new world from here, discovering Quebec and lakes. I finally found a restaurant that served frog legs (Grenvilles), something I hadn’t had since a ten year old in Iowa. I caught my own then, however.
    In our hotels, I always like to study the fire exiting drawing to see how the owners installed bathrooms when plumbing was finally introduced. It used to be pretty basic, as all you needed was an intricate winding stairway in the back of the building, even when it was four or five stories. Usually a lift was installed about a hundred years ago that fit inside the winding stair. Of course, the lift is only 18 inches wide by about three feet. One person with bags can squeeze in.
    Visited the Margolis Calvados Distillery nearby.  They had an interesting museum with a lot of old tools used in the process. Once you get the apples fermented, it’s pretty much like making cognac. Use column stills or copper pot stills, depending on the quality you are looking for.  The first product is cider, which has various grades, usually about 5% alcohol. A nice, refreshing drink that isn’t as filling as beer.
 It gets pretty confusing when traveling around different countries, although it certainly is easier with most using the Euro (Except the Scots). Don’t have to count up the thousands of Lire any more for a glass of wine. One has to remember what the platform is called at the train station. For instance. Is it a Voi? A Spoor? Your train car is one thing, also a seat. How do you buy a ticket for a tram? Sometimes in a tobacco shop. Don’t forget to punch your ticket in the yellow box when you get on the tram or before boarding a train. Tipping is different , too. France usually is included in the price of dinner. But Holland and Scotland want tips as an extra. About the time you learn it, it’s time to move on.
   These countries we were visiting all had great water in cafes, but do you think I could get Joy from buying two bottles of the stuff per day? At 1.5 Euros x 2 = $4.5/day = $210
per trip! She thinks she has unlimited funds, I guess.


Pompideau Center  - Paris

  After Honfluer we trained to Paris, where we had an excellent dinner at the Trocadero called, Café du Man, on the terrace overlooking the Eiffel tower across the Seine. This was in memorium of our wedding in Greece twenty years ago. We both had a teriaki chicken, I had a bowl of mashed potatoes (It’s hard to find potatoes in France), Joy needed two deserts to finish off.    When it gets dark (about ten) they light up the tower with a Micky Mouse light show for ten minutes. It looks better with just the regular lighting.   It always amazes me to see how many stupid tourists are shooting the Paris panorama of miles around (from the top of the tower) while using their flash that illuminates about 20 feet.  And this is during the day all day long.

To be continued….

MEGA WIND

The European Union has set their sights on renewable energy to the tune of 20% of all generation to be in place by 2020. Therefore, there is a rush to build offshore wind farms on the North Sea off Belgium, Holland, Denmark & Germany. They're talking like 17,000 turbines, which keep getting bigger and bigger. Like I mean huge. How about blades that are 3oo feet and more in diameter? Monopiles, (the support shaft) are as large as 7 m.(21' to you metric illiterates) in diameter and 200 feet tall. The turmine on top of all this is the size of a house. So how do you build these behemoths that can be 100 miles offshore in 150 feet of water? Why you call up IHC Merwede in Holland and order a huge seaworthy working platform. The latest version, called Neptune, can carry and install a complete turbine in a round trip from port in about 15 days, with accomodations for 60 workers.

Take a look at the photo . The large platform is neptune working with a smaller earlier model. They float out there under their own power, set down the legs and jack up the whole thing to be clear of waves. They have already set the tower and turbine nacelle. Note the rotor blade laying on deck which goes up last. The platform has a heavy duty crane that can easily lift the 316 ton nacelle, even double that.

Not to worry, bird lovers, the rotors turn so slow no one is going to get hurt. When completed, the field shown, will generate electricity for 600,000 people. Well, if you don't have any dams, what are you gonna do?

THIS BLOG UNDER CONSTRUCTION

 

(Thought I’d revisit some old notes of some early trips we took to Europe. This one before the Euro and ATM machines for easy money. These are some bits from my future e-book "TRAVAILS WITH LAMONT"))

Neophytes in Paris Mar 29, 1988

Arrived at Paris Orly Sud from SFO late in day so walked over to Orly Hilton and got a room for the nite. Drank up all the stuff in the minibar plus a bottle of good French champagne for you know who. In the morning caught the Air France bus to Invalides, where we started dragging our bags around for blocks (big blocks) as we were looking for Tourist Office at 127 Champs Elysees. I figured with that address it would be in the first block. Wrong!

   We ended up struggling up the entire Champs (Joy bitching all the while) as the numbers are the number of buildings, not shops. Once there, it was just a matter of time before they found us a two star hotel in Montemarrte district. Armed with directions we found the outstanding Paris Metro (Underground) and zipped off in the wrong direction. After a couple of transfers we got back on track and to our hotel, a small eighteenth century three story place called L'Ermitage, run by a nice couple who nearly spoke English. This near Sacre Cour cathedral on Rue Lamarck.
   The Paris Metro is a very clean, efficient system, venders and musicians set up in the interconnecting tunnels and amplify all over the place, classical to rock to reggae. Lots of rain in Paris. We got soaked the next day running around to American Express and Galleries Lafayette so Joy can buy a sweater as she is freezing ass. The store has a marvelous stained glass dome, maybe 100 feet in diameter and the space is five stories high. Also found a travel agent and bought Cooks Train Schedules which was indispensable throughout the trip. (Brentanos Bookstore showed us books on cooking). After many false tries we found Bank of Lyons to cash Joy’s Visa card, this being before ATMs. This place also has a great three story central space with curlicue cast iron pinned connections trussed framing and another glass dome .
   Stopped at Little Italy Restaurant near hotel for some good lasagne and wine. As the infamous Moulin Rouge was nearby we tried to find it but failed. French are very much into good jazz which you hear everywhere. We are nearly starving here as we can't read the menus and everything seems to be meat. Did find a good Vietnamese Vege restaurant (Buddha) and pigged out there on Blvd Montpanarse. Joy finally had to buy a big bag with rollers (Like Shers that I said would be ridiculous on cobblestones) but seems to work for her as she is dragging around twice the weight that I am. The French are totally into throwing all their trash on the ground as every morning the clean-up crews start out with their little green trucks, little green mechanical sweepers with the workers of course dressed in green jumpsuits carrying of course nice green brooms to clean up all the crap everyone tossed the previous day. The Trash cans are like our ugly black ones except they are a nice chocolate brown with bright orange lids (or bright blue or green) each with a neat address label on the side.
   Walked thru the Tuilleries Gardens to the Louvre and watched the workers putting the finishing touches on the glass pyramid in the center of the old courtyard. It's a masterful addition to the whole place. I. M. Pei has done it again. Naturally some of the world's great pieces are here including the Mona Lisa , which didn't get me excited at all as I have seen her so many times in print. Of course, she is surrounded by a 1" thick bulletproof glass partition. There are always several painters in the galleries copying the old masters, most of them very good.
   Next day to Notre Dame cathedral. Pretty impressive rose window as the thing is huge. They purportedly have a small fragment of the cross that Christ was hung on as well as the nails. Riiiight! Found a great crepery, had one with apple brandy and apples,(Crepe Normand). great! Walked thru a small alley street that was all Greek restaurants, breaking dishes on the floor and the whole thing. Went to Le Gare to reserve our seats on the TGV train.
   Our hotel, L’Ermitage, cost about 300 Francs ($60) per day including a fine breakfast tray each morning at our door on the third floor. The hotel is owned by a french woman, Maggie, and her German husband who speaks no English. The building is a couple of hundred years old and purportedly built by one of Napoleon’s doctors. Bonny must have had a dozen doctors as we heard this several times. First off we found the nearest Italian restaurant as we ate mostly pizza and pasta in Europe. This is due to the complexities and cost of French cuisine. Montmarte is crowned by a strange bulbous domed church, Sacre Cour, a late 19^th century effort. Constructed of white stone, it is visible from all over Paris. Since we were near the infamous Moulon Rouge of Lautrec fame we walked all around looking for it but got lost. But we did discover the new public toilets being installed all over France. They are of prefab concrete and stainless steel and cost half a Franc. Clean, no grafitti, cool jazz music, one person at a time. When finished, the whole interior flushes automatically.
   Across the street from the church is a gathering place for youths from all over the world, playing musical instruments, singing and carrying on. We got totally soaked in the rain running around to find the American Express office but with my cape and beret, Joy her umbrella managed OK.
   Up next morning early, to metro and caught the train to Marseille. All the fast trains are eighteen cars long with a bullet engine on each end. 165 mph and a very smooth ride. interiors all glass partitions. Had an expensive lunch from the bar car (Beer, salad, cheese sandwich). Arrived in Marseille but tourist office closed for two hours so we had a beer and hung out till the opened and sent us to a hotel overlooking the Old Port. Hotel Residence put us on the fourth floor with a balcony overlooking the whole scene. This was a 15th century port with great old forts at the entrance but now strictly for yachts and fishing boats. On the way a young black man asked if he could help and showed us the way, asked to carry Joys bag but she wouldn’t let go of it as she was suspicious, but he seemed genuinely helpful, invited us for dinner at his place but we didn’t go, liked what we were doing. Finally nice and warm here. We spend hours on our balcony watching the crazy French drivers on the streets below. They'll block all lanes and then drive on other side forcing oncoming traffic almost on the sidewalk. All the trucks and buses here are absolutely beautiful. Everyone has small cars here and the French all have yellow headlights, nobody seemed to know why.
   Walked around the 12th cent. forts at the entrance to the Old Port, then up about a thousand stairs to the highest hill with a church called Notre Dame du Gard, a real climb with Joy of course bitching all the way. The church seemed to be dedicated to lots of shipwrecks and plane crashes of WW 2. With all these parishioner dying at sea, makes me wonder if their God has been on the job.
   The walk down was a breeze, passing an old American tank as a small reminder that war was hell. Walked through streets with marvelous vege and fruit market.
   The fish market begins early each morning on the quay below our hotel. How about a floppy live sculpin or octopus? We found a great pizza place across the port from us. Each day we buy a couple of bottles of wine for $3 and bread and cheese, then we spend hours watching these people drive, park and carry on from our balcony overlooking the entire scene.
   Went down to the quay and caught a small boat to Chateau d’If, the miserable fort/dungeon that the count of Monte Christo spent so many years incarcerated in Duma’s story. However, due to the heavy seas, we couldn’t land at the dock so just continued on to the nearby larger island that has been developed with some very well designed condominiums over shops and restaurant (Mixed use!). Right adjacent to the new buildings was a well preserved very small Greek temple, dating from the original Greek colonists around 500 BC. The seas were so bad I was challenged to even stand up and move around. Joy sat paralyze all the time clinging to a stanchion so hard she left a permanent impression on the steel .She was too scared to throw up.
   Next day we took a Metro, streetcar, then bus to see Corbusier’s Cite’, built about 1953. Sitting on high ‘pilotis’, about 15 floors of residential apartments, with a commercial level sandwiched in about half way up. We had a pleasant lunch on a narrow out door deck overlooking the town. All exposed concrete structure showing off the form boards. Naturally, a few bright colors here and there a la Corbu.
   Off to the beach via bus. Took a swim at the ‘Plage’ , always fun as you really float due to the high salt content in the Mediterranean. Even better, there were lots of young things lying about topless. I guess Nice isn’t the only Mecca for voyeurs. I tried to get Joy to take her top off and show these kids some real tit but she was too bashful. I changed out of my wet Speedo bikini on the beach a la French style. Caught the bus back to La Residence and more Pizza and wine. Ah! Marseille! Viva la France!

To be continued....

METRIPHOBIA

A LOST CAUSE

Just finished “World in the Balance” by Robert Crease, as I have been so frustrated that we in the U.S. Can't use the metric system & wanted to really get down and find out why.

It seems such a system is nothing new as it was considered in 1791. The French were the instigators of such a system. Even then, they determined there were three ways to set a measurement;

1 The length of a one second pendulum

2 ¼ of the earth's equator.

3 A portion of the meridian running thru Paris. e.i., the basic unit length would be based on a ten millionth part of the meridian.

Meter is from the Greek “metron” or measure.

One universal and unchanging standard would be the meter (or tenths of) to be cubed in order to hold water (distilled at the temperature of melting ice.) (Perrier?). But it had to be a measure found in nature, so when a standard was lost of damaged they could be replaced.

Of course, the French went overboard at first - made clock time decimated in 10 hour days, 100 minute hours, 100 second minutes, which actually worked for ten years. They also got off to a clean start with the year 1793 replaced with the year one. Just like the Mohammedans.

Copies of a meter were placed all over Paris and two are left. I'll find the one on Place Vendome and report back to you in the spring.

In 1999 the 327 million Mars Orbiter disintregrated as it approached Mars because its engineers mixed up meters and feet!

In 1790, a Mr. Dombry was sent to America with a meter and a cube (a litre?). Just as he neared Philadelphia, a storm sent his ship to the Antilles, a French colony. He was arrested and imprisoned. During a riot he was pushed off a rampart into the water, resulting in a bad fever. However, the govenor finally recognized him, put him on another ship to America. But a British privateer took him hostage and imprisoned him in the British colony of Montserat, where he died. But the cargo was auctioned and someone sent the meter and kilogram to the U.S., but never sent it to the U.S. Congress.

As each colony determined it's own weights and measures, the Articles of confederation (1777) gave congress the right of “fixing standards of weights and measures”. Since no action was taken on this, we just borrowed the British standards. Madison at least got the coinage system into a decimal system by 1786, too bad he thought we needed pennies, or maybe you could buy something for a penny in those days.

Strangely after all this thinking and agonizing, the metric system is very similar to the units of measure used in Mesopotamia about five thousand years ago. (That would be Iraq). Where 1 meter = 1 Mesopatanian step, 1 litre=1 Meso. Bowl, etc. By 1880 half the world's population used the new system. But not us! An early attempt in US was in the 1920's by a group of pesky women, The General Federation of Women's Clubs. It failed, unfortunately.

Part of our reluctance to change (other than our arrogance and smugness) was the cost of changing all our steel, lumber, screws, etc. was just too much for some. Another roadblock was put up by some religionists who had a very strong lobby. “We have to defend our Native Anglo-Saxon metrology which derives from the God-designed metrology of Isreal and found in the great pyramid of Giza”

Meanwhile, the IS (System Internationale) is still refining the definition of a meter. In addition to the speed of light, we could use Plank's Constant, An elementary charge, Boltzmann's Constant or Avagdro's Number. Take your pick.

Mean meanwhile, we remain the only industrialized nation without the Metric system, along with Liberia and Burma.

MY PREVIOUS LIVES

Although I have claimed to be an atheist, I have toyed with the concept of re-incarnation, or the living of multiple lives (Let’s leave god out of this). Otherwise, how do you explain that one kid of six can write his first opera or concerto in contrast to the kid who comes into the world a veritable cretin vegetable.(Maybe he was a vegetable in his previous life ?).  I have always espoused the concept that “Life is not fair” to my kids , but, I’m beginning to believe it really might be fair.
   First of all, we can assume that our life here is merely a play and  we identify with the main character (me) and the idea that each of us wrote our own life score In order to work off the ‘bad’ and good karma. I’ve always believed that ‘Heaven” and ‘Hell’ are nowhere else, but on this earthly plane. In addition, we are really fair in dealing out our rewards (good and bad), no cheating here!.
Aside from all that, I thought I would make a guess of what some of my previous lives were. Let’s follow the concept that each soul (Yes, some entity has got to carry through all these lives) is born (Baby soul) and has to go through all the lives of everything on earth, (Don’t blame me, I didn’t invent this system). It’s hard to know where to begin, but say we start out with being a micro-organism, then a plant, then an insect to fish, bird, animal and finally, man, the grand show!
Now all this could take quite some time, as according to the old Rishi's of India we have to go through 84 Lacs (or 8,400,000 years) until we get to a point we’re ready to get out of here alive. (But not before tossing off our human bodies, which are only good for about 100 years or so).
  I haven’t verified this yet, but if there are 3 million plant species, 2,700,000 insect species, 1,400,000 bird species, 400,000 water creatures and a scad of land animals, like man, I have to get going to get thru all this.
    I thought I would begin this quest as a rotifer, the micro bug that has the only rotating axle in nature.  However, they only live for a few seconds, but we’ve a long way to go. I don’t like worms or snakes so I skip those but I can see myself as a clam or abalone, for say 25 years? If I have to do a reptile , a turtle would be okay as he carries his house around on his back. (First kind of architectural interest).  I can definitely see my ant incarnation, hard working workaholics. Fruit fly? Only takes a few days for a lifetime, but always hanging around someone’s wine glass. Maybe we start as a plant, being a visual organic life (but then, the entire earth is an organic life form that is born, matures with all kinds of virus (Us!) Living on it for a brief period, then it dies) But I digress. What about lichen? Don’t they eat granite? I better leave off this line of thought and get back to my long, miserable, life stream. Anyway, where was I? I would be in the water about now , a couple of million years and  millions of species later,
    I’m probably a good microscopic plankton now, before working my way up to fighting  a giant squid,  for  a battle of life and death as a giant sperm whale (200 years lifespan, unless I lose?). It’s getting messy, as here I am in an animal (air breathing) creature, yet can’t even walk on solid ground.  
   I’m going to take a break from all this and get back to you later.
 
BOOK REVIEW
  And we all thought Franklin and Jefferson were able to convince the French to help us beat the crap out of The Brits in the revolutionary War of 1774 to 1784. Read Joel Richard Pauls’ “UNLIKELY ALLIES” and you’ll find there were three men (well, maybe) who jigged and joggled around the French aristocracy to get money and cannons to us when France didn’t exactly want it known they were helping us as they had just signed a treaty with Britain after losing the Seven years war. Silas Deane, a Connecticut merchant and member of congress was sent to persuade the King to help us with war materials and officers. Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, an inventor and playwright (he wrote “The Barber of Seville”) and the unlikly Chevalier d’Eon, a diplomat, soldier and sometime spy who may or may not been a woman.
History is soo entertaining!

VIDEO ALERT
“Dangerous Beauty”, 1998, (with Rufus Sewell, who played an Italian inspector in  ‘Z”). Jacqueline Bisset teaches her daughter how to be a successful courtesan after she figured out a convent wasn’t for her. A plethera of nipples, lots of tits and a couple of fine asses!

JUNE

                                                                                                                               JULY 1, 2012


BOOK REVIEW
Robert Lewis Stevenson was famous because he lived in a small cabin on Mt. Helena in Calistoga. But I bet you didn’t know he was part of a famous engineering-contracting family in Scotland. The Lighthouse Stevenson’s designed & built the earliest lighthouse around the incredible Scottish coat, which harbors the most inhospitable waters in any coast, bar none. They began in the early 1700's to build these 100 foot stone towers on little spits of stone that were barely above water at high tide way out on the high seas. These early ones were lit by candles! But they did work with Fresnel later on when he was experimenting with glass lenses. How would you like to be a light keeper on one of these, when storms would send solid water (not just spume) over the top of these, sometimes breaking the heavy glass. Written very ably by Bella Bathurst.

BOOK REVIEW
The Hunger Games. Forget it.

FINALLY AN INVESTOR
Since we sold our cabin on Donner Summit, I had some ready cash to invest so I chose to help out a young carpenter in Mariakani, Kenya, near Mombasa. Stanley asked for a loan of $1,000 in order to buy lumber, nails & tools. I’m not going to hold my breath for a repayment of my $25 but glad to help a fellow builder. It’s through a non-profit called Kiva and they contract with substantial local groups throughout the world to monitor the money, somehow.

VIDEO ALERT
I just came across some BBC videos called “Shakespeare Retold” and they are a hoot. Once you get through the English accent and can understand what they’re saying, it is better than Elizabethian. They took some real liberties re-telling, However, as “Much Ado about Nothing” takes place in a British TV station where anchors are the main characters. Not to be outdone, “Macbeth” is set in a three star Michelin restaurant kitchen. “Taming of The Shrew” is on the way. That could be set in my kitchen, come to think about it.

POLITICAL TRIVIA
Has anybody mentioned the really weird thing that almost all polititians wear a tiny American Flag on their lapel these days? When did that start and what does it signify? Is the implication that you are not a patriot if you haven’t got your pin on? SOMETHING IS SICK ABOUT THIS. Didn’t the Germans all have a little Lightning zig zag on their collars to signify their duty to der Fatherland? Are we all sheep & cattle?

BOOK REVUE
Reasons to Kill (Why Americans Choose War) by Richard Rubinstein. You probably haven’t thought much about it, but do you know it’s a Federal Law that each major sports event is preceded by the mass singing of our National Anthem? We must face the flag, take off all hats, right hands over the heart, robustly sing out with the black fat lady, while military jets fly overhead (Well, maybe not at basketball games). People of other nations have a strong affection for their nations, but few experience the quasi-religios nationalism that makes supporting wars a patriotic duty. Looking at our list of wars - Mexico, Spain (Remember the Maine!”), Germany ‘17, Germany ‘41, Vietnam, North Korea, Grenada, (Grenada?), Iraq, Afganistan, etc., And why we took up the gauntlet is enlightening, as the author is a “Conflict Resolution” person who has sat on boards where nations try to find other ways than war to solve their differences. U.S presidents elected as peace candidates have led the nation into bloody overseas conflicts. Repeatedly, wars deemed necessary and prudent have been shown in retrospect to be avoidable. Yet, all the while, we profess to be a peace loving country.

A NEW SAVINGS & LOAN OPENED UP IN SANTA ROSA

Jesus saves!

THIS JUST IN!

A British insurance company has designed a stair lift for dogs that are too fat to climb the stairs.


TO THINK ABOUT
Is the current Japanese bible (King James) still translated into a pre-victorian language?

How do you say thou in Nipponese?


MARCUS AURELIUS

Here was the emperor of the Roman Empire at it’s height, b. 161 - d. 180 AD.

How many kings, presidents, premiers do you know of who gave thoughts to the following ideas. Are we making any progress 2,000 years later? From his writings; Meditations.

“ Regard the universe as one living being, have one substance and one soul, and observe how all things act with one movement; and how all things co-operate as the causes of all that exists; observe, too, the continuous spinning of the thread and the single texture of the web.

Time is like a river made up of events that happen, and a violent stream; for as soon as a thing has appeared it is carried away, and another comes in its place; and this will be carried away too.

Consider yourself to be dead, and to have completed your life up to the present time, then live out according to nature the remainder which is allowed you.

Love only that which happens to you and is woven with the thread of your destiny. For what is more suited to your needs?

That which has died does not drop out of the universe. If it stays here, it also changes here, and is dissolved into its proper parts, which are elements of the universe and of your self. And these too change, and murmur not.

Clear from your mind the many useless things which disturb you, for they lie entirely in your opinion, and you will then gain for yourself ample space by comprehending the whole universe in your mind, and by contemplating the eternity of time, and observing the rapid change of each thing, how short is the time from birth to its dissolution, and the illimitable time before its birth as well as the equally boundless time after its dissolution.

Consider that before long you will be nobody and nowhere, nor will any of the things exist which you now see, nor any of those who are now living. For all things are formed by nature to change and to be turned and to perish in order that other things in continuous succession may exist.

And when Socrates (480 BC) endeavored to bring these facts to light and deliver men from the rule of demons, the demons compassed his death as an athiest and profane person, on the charge that “he was introducing new divinities”.

Hence we are called atheists.(180 AD) And we confess we are atheists so far as gods of this sort are concerned, but not with regard to the most true God, the Father of righteousness and temperance and other virtues”.
(He was not a Christian but didn’t hassle them much).

MONEY AGAIN

MAY 1, 2012




THE ELUSIVE AMERICAN DOLLAR COIN

I don’t know whether to be outraged or chagrined. After all my ranting about the lack of a dollar coin, I just found out that , oh yeah, we have been minting a small dollar coin since 2005, called “The Presidential Coin”.. However, since the general public (me) don’t know about it, they are being stockpiled in vaults the size of soccer fields to the tune of a billion coins. (That kind of equals a Billion dollars?). What disturbs me most is that we as a nation have become so complacent and so over-democritized that we are falling behind other nations, our money system merely one aspect of it. We already had a dollar coin with an Indian maiden on it ( with a peace-pipe on the back) probably celebrating our occupation and annihilation of the native population when we grabbed their lands. (Come on, they lost the damn war!).

A couple of idiot legislators had this great idea that we Americans would really embrace the concept of a coin “honoring” all our presidents. Instead of re-energizing our mint, we should just fire the whole damn Department, send someone over to Belgium & Holland to take a crash course in how to set up a monetary system. We have to get rid of our old , excess baggage and enter into the 21st century, with an updated contemporary concept of the everyday use of money. It is such a terrible feeling to see articles of our ‘design’ process for money. We start with a committee of morons that give pathetic directions to a group of artists, they all submit designs, in the appropriate lame manner, then the ‘chosen’ one is laboriously sculpted by some old geezer in the back room who has been doing micro reliefs all his miserable life, until the result is an unrealistic profile of some president or an Indian maiden. By the way, what ever happened to Sacajewa when Lewis & Clark were through with her?

We think we are being so Tre Nouveau!

Didn’t we have a Kennedy dollar coin (or a fifty cent piece?) a while back? I remember when I was doing a lot of work in Las Vegas, these were used on slot machines, probably the only possible use due to it’s weight and size. Anyway, our lawgivers & makers are totally directionless concerning our money. Why is it someone says, “Hey, look at Europe “(The United States of Europe). They sat down and hired a design group to do a complete overhaul of the system. Some groups already had determined the denominations: 500,100, 50, 20, 10 of paper, no. not paper, but polypropylene polymer, then small, light coins of 2, 1, .50, .20, .10, .05, .02 & .01. OK, they are not perfect. How they ever decided on a two cent & one cent piece is a grand mystery to me. Everyone knows they’re losers. Who needs them? First of all, we have to wrest the decisions from the Drug Agencies and get back to the $1000 & $500 dollar bill. Has anyone noticed that as the money gets more worthless, the smaller denominations our bills become?

Meanwhile, in the E.U., the chosen designer designs the piece by computer, using the latest technology to design and manufacture the product. All bills are related in theme but diverse in details. Colors are bright and vibrant, anti-counterfitting methods plus various sizes so the blind can figure it out. But most of all, you do not ask the group of potential users what they think about it all (Over-democritazation). That’s why you hire designers!

After all this, you do an educational program with a changeover date. This gives laundromats, vending machines, parking meters, buses, etc. time to ramp up to receive these large but small coins (& therefore fewer to handle). But, please, let’s forge ahead of the Europeans and delete the penny, Everyone knows it is not a viable coin.

Once we are using the new money system, I will present you with an essay regarding the design of the U.S. flag (The worst one on earth!).





WONDERFUL BLATHERINGS FROM OMAR KHAYYAM



Into this universe, and Why not knowing,

Nor Whence, like willy-nilly flowing:

And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,

I now not Whither, willy-nilly blowing.



What, without asking, hither hurried Whence?

And, without asking, Whither hurried hence!

Ah, contrite Heav’n endowed us with the vine

To drug memory of that insolence!



(How do you say “Willy-nilly in Arabic?)



DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME

We were staying in a Locando near Lucca, Italy, and as always, were looking for a good Italian Ristorante ( no matter where we are in Europe) and our concierge recommended Georgeos’. We found it next to an old chateau, (where we stayed in a later trip) in an on old winery building, divided into several large rooms, each one of which had a large medallion painted on the wall, denoting a prize for a certain vintage of the defunct winery, none later than 1885. The staff was young and attentive, especially when we ordered a good bottle of red wine (probably about $25 or 30,000 Lire). Before too long, our sommelier came out pushing a rolley cart containing all her paraphernalia. First, of course, she shows us the bottle to be assured it was what we ordered. She expertly pulled the cork, laid it down on the foil cap she had removed so we could feel, look and smell the cork. So far so good! She now lights the candle, and decants the wine into an elegant glass decanter vessel, but looking thru the bottle to the candle to view and interrupt any lees that might occur in our bottle. Okay, we’re getting close here!. Next, she pours a bit of the ruby light into a proper wine glass for the type of wine, but not for me to taste, oh no! She has to be assured that everything has gone proper before ever turning this bottle over to me, the mere consumer of it. Swirling, sniffing and finally tasting, she assures us with a nod that we are indeed, on track. She blows out the candle, pours a dab into my glass, waits patiently while I inspect, swirl, sniff, taste and nod my approval with an ingratiating smile, which sets into motion the grand finale, pouring the proper amount into our glasses. She sets the bottle down on our table and trundles away on another quest for the imperfect bottle.

CASIO
Finally bought a new watch, in anticipation of traveling to Europe in the Spring (forget it!). I haven’t used my calculator keyboard on my old Casio for a while so I opted for just the basic Casio, but importantly, has two time modes. Also a stopwatch, alarm. Also important, is the fact it is waterproof to 50 meters (150 feet?). That’s important for me when I fall into the ten foot deep locks on the canal boat we rent. Amazingly, the watch only cost $23, with a Ten Year Battery. Last year my old watch band broke & it cost me $25 to replace it (the band) as they don’t sell them anymore at Long’s. I’m absolutely amazed that stores still sell any watches at all, with everyone using iphones (except me). I’ll never understand why all the expensive watches ($5,000 !!) Still are analog. Must be a nostalgia thing.

I’M A CONTRACTOR & I’M O.K.
I recently got my contractor license out of limbo (Limbo is a place you go between Heaven & Purgatory). I had to get my original license in 1965 when no builders would bid on my “Clamshell” house in South Laguna. My company, “Master Builders” was a faster way for me to loose money than just doing architecture. Anyway, I had it on inactive status for the last few years but now, since there isn’t much design work, I am building a house for my friend, Sher in Santa Rosa. Talk about “This Old House”. This 400 SF house was built in 1880 for a large family. But now we are adding 1400 SF so that one or two people can be comfortable. With my expert organizational skills we are on budget & on schedule, after we finally plodded thru the frustrating seven month long battle with the local Hysterical Cultural Board, who are the smallest collection of No Nothings in Santa Rosa. In cases like this, it is much cheaper to tear down the entire structure & rebuild it with new materials. But NO!, these materials, (which are not much older than me, by the way), are sacred to these history huggers. So we are taking it apart piece by piece and putting in new stuff (like foundations). Although old styles are not exactly my bag, it is fun to build places like this. After all, my whole life has been changing a piece of crap into a silk purse. See my front renovation of the Jack London Saloon in Glen Ellen, or my Atelier One Art Studios here in Graton, or.... (I don’t have enough time to list them all). Sher is taking a stop motion video of the process which will be fun to watch.

BOOK REPORT
I just finished “A Brief History of the Human Race’ for the 2nd time & I must share an item with my illustrious readers. This book is fairly small but is intensely interesting. One of the cultures that kind of let civilization slide by them were the Australian Aborigines. They were still living as hunter-gatherers just like the early folks of Europe about 15,000 years ago. Anyway, one might wonder how they kept track of not marrying a relative (Like some of the British Royals!) Wouldn’t you?
Well, here’s how one tribe did it. The Aranda Tribe had two numbers ‘one & ‘two’. From that they would use a form of binary arithmetic to count further, like ‘two & one’ (three) ‘two & two’ was four. After that it was ‘many’. To prevent inbreeding, groups were divided into different ‘Totems’, named for a plant or something. Each tribe had two totems(or moietys, as they called them), Say they called them 0 and 1. one had to marry out of your moiety, assigning the children to the moiety of the father . Seemed simple enough. But, no, they went on to divide each moiety into two sections. These sections had names. But each moiety was divided further into sections 00 and 01, moiety 1 into 10 and 11. Reformulated, the marriage rule now required that a person in a given section of one moiety marry into a corresponding section of the other:

In other words, 00 into 10, 01 into 11, and vice versa. A child was placed in the same moiety as the father, but in the other section of it. For example, if the father was in section 00, the child was in section 01. It actually went on to subdivide into a third digit, but my brain just went on overload. There is one final nicety about all these rules. Other tribes had different systems, and believe it or not, they had a way to figure it all out. Goddamn primitive savages!
Just imagine, when we find bones & shards of ancient people, we have no idea that tthey could have such a complex life style.

VIDEO ALERT
This is a fun documentary adventure into a deliciously cutthroat Meilleur Ouvier de France, the legendary French pastry competition, to capture the fascinating account of what it takes to be the best patissier. It also shows you how different we are from the French, as their president Sarkosy is involved in the awards. Can you imagine Obama doing that?

DESIGN
Dieter Rams, an Industrial Designer for Braun & others, made a list of the
10 commandments of Design.
Good design is; innovative
makes a product useful
Is aesthetic
makes a product understandable
unabtrusive
honest
thorough, down to last detail
environmentally friendly
as little design as possible

I would like to add: Simplicity is the mark of the Master Craftsman.
Also: Form is a result of function (Except in current Starchitect projects).

BAALBEK

BAALBEK
Every once in a while I look at my file of Baalbek, an ancient Roman ruin located in Lebanon, inland from Beirut. The Romans were able to build big but this temple is HUGE. The largest of the temples there, Temple of Jupiter, was a mind-boggling structure. Only six columns have survived but their scale is preposterous. It was built about the time of the Christian era and contains the largest building stones in the world. Look at the picture of the six remaining columns, note there is a portion of a stone missing in the frieze, but on the next picture, see the size of just that piece that had fallen out. Today no one has any idea how they moved and erected these stones. In addition, the giant stones that the base is composed are even larger. Some weigh 1400 tons (2,800,000 pounds.)

SUMMITEERING
I’ve climbed them all. Everest, K2, Mont Blanc, The Eiger, The Pamirs, Patagonia, Lassen. It all began when I soloed Mt. Lassen (11,000 ft) in California. Although I found myself rock scrambling the last 100 feet, I realized I should have a companion, at least to report my death and recover my battered body if came to that. Well, in truth, the rest of my climbing was accomplished in my mind, safely seated in a comfy chair in my living room, with a glass of wine (Or at least an espresso) by my side. I’ve done the North Face of the Eiger (The Wall of Death) probably three times, always fascinated by the unusual venue; a comfy Swiss hotel near the base with a view of the entire face, thru large telescopes on the terrace, giving the guests a close up view of the bodies hanging and twisting in the wind for several years, due to the utter impossibility for anyone being able to get near enough to cut the poor bastard down. When one does opt for the quick and direct method down, falling thousands of feet, bouncing around on icy outcrops, until all that’s left at the bottom is a limb-less body to bury in the nearby graveyard, which has a special area for the climbers (kind of a little square plot).
I’ve struggled and froze my way to the top of Everest with the first to stand atop even without oxygen bottles. Remember, at 30,000 feet, it’s as high as the 747 you fly to Paris on. The book “Into Thin Air” is a double entendre about lack of oxygen and stepping off into a 10,000 foot void, usually a fatal move. I’ve summited all the above and followed all the climbers as well as all the rescue parties that sometimes needed rescuing themselves.
I never liked getting up at midnight, trying to make breakfast, do bathroom duty at -40 degrees and trying to get to the summit before 1:00 PM, exulting for several seconds, before getting back down to your tent before dark or you will be dead if you spend the night out.
Yet, the Eiger is my favorite. They keep track of how many die on the wall each year in the attempt to find a “new route” up the bloody slab.

MONEY DESIGN
I just received remuneration for a right to replicate my famous mahogony adjustable chair that was featured in my show at the Laguna Beach Art Museum a few years ago. Carsten, who lives in Germany, is a talented woodworker who made the replicas of chairs & table that I had designed in the ‘60's for the show. I asked him to send me ten Euros so I wouldn’t lose my copyright, He sent me a ten Euro coin that Germany minted recently. This one is based on the Bauhaus and is typical of the high calibre of European designers. I don’t know why, but Carsten says it worth about 50 Euros now. We can’t even mint a dollar coin that doesn’t weigh a ton. But this weighs just .6 oz. (18 gr) which is only like carrying three quarters. And it’s elegant!