To Boldy Go...

A quick pause in my musings about our European holiday for a few words about the future of space exploration. President Bush made some bold statements about what American science should focus on for the next few decades in space. In short, he wants to shut down the shuttle program in 2010, put men back on the moon by 2020 for more than just a few days, and even send men to Mars.

So I've admitted to being a space junkie a couple of times already, and I'll say it again. The idea of a frantic push to new frontiers excites me, but I'm not really sure what to make of this just yet. The moment a person sets foot back on the moon or on Mars for the first time, we'll probably look back in hindsight and think very highly of Bush and his boldness. Right now, however, there are many questions yet to be answered.

So while I've got some politically cynical thinking behind this, I'll reserve that for the moment. Looking at Bush's proposal more closely, and you realize that most of this bold move is setting up future adminstrations to fund it. For the time being, only $1 billion more dollars will be pumped into NASA. While that's a lot of money that could used for many other things, it's not really much when you consider that a "simple" robotic explorer can cost $500 million. The rest of the funding for this program would be shifted from existing programs. Most likely, money will go from programs supporting robotic exploration. So things like the Mars Explorer would be put to the side in order to develop not just a mission to the moon, but a new space vehicle.

I personally am amazed by the unmanned missions that NASA has been sending out. It's mind blowing to consider the amount of information that can be gathered from so far out with a few robotic instruments. Manned missions are clearly more about ego than about scientific discovery, but they're still quite important achievements in the progress of mankind.

So I've got some reservations about this. I'll be interested to see what falls to the wayside in order to fund manned missions. I'll also be interested to see what shape the new manned vehicles take. We may no longer has re-useable spacecraft like the shuttle; we may go back to rockets and men packed into pods - 21st Century versions of the Apollo rockets. Who knows. I'm definitely interested to learn more.

BBC Asian Network

So after returning to the States, I've been listening to the BBC Asian Network just about every day. A friend had recommended it to me and I'm glad he mentioned it. The Asian Network isn't just a portal of Indian related news, it's the BBC's radio channel for anything and everything Asian (Indians to the rest of us). I've been listening to Adil Ray mostly.

What I still can't get over is the accent. I'm used to desis with a certain accent (either American or Indian) and British Asians sound like every other Brit out there. What throws me for a loop through is when they bust out some desi slang. In any case, Adil Ray has an enjoyable show. It's a mix of bhangra, hip-hop, and Asian culture along with lots of humor. Above, what interests me most is getting a feel for young Asian viewpoints in the UK. I feel like I know what many of the American Desi and the Indian Desi POV's are, but I've only got assumptions about the British Asian POV. These radio programs have definitely helped get a deeper insight into the young British Asian.

The Asian Network has a lot of radio programs available for listening, both live and archived. In general, the Beeb has a tremendous amount of programming available with a few mouse clicks. So if you're looking for interesting radio programming, go to the BBC Radio Website to see what they've got running.

This post, will, of course, lead me into some words about England and our time there. As I've promised, I'm trying to keep things short(er) so I'll leave those musings for a another post.

Movie Backdrop

So I realized that my post-by-post account of Europe is taking longer than the actual trip. So I promise to wrap this stuff up sm">PoucoHumilde@htomail.com e diga em 10 linhas porque você merece 1 dessas 6 vagas. Boa sorte!milde@htomail.com e diga em 10 linhas porque você merece 1 dessas 6 vagas. Boa sorte!

Scheming Our Way Across the Border

So I realized that my post-by-post account of Europe is taking longer than the actual trip. So I promise to wrap this stuff up soon. A few more posts and I'm out. Promise.

Switzerland came highly recommended by many people. The problem was that most of these rec's came from our parents and friends' parents. Figuring that the old folk would be more into the strictly tourist thing, we kept out stay in Switzerland to a day and half. Little did we know that everything we had heard about the country was true...and more. Seriously, the place looked surreal. Just too perfect. Every city seems to be situated on a lake and the vistas are just unbelievable.

Of course, things are always too good to be perfect so here's the deal: Save up before you go to Switzerland. We're talking US$20 for a medium Pizza Hut pizza. We're talking US$10 for a value meal. And believe it or not, we're talking an extra 10 cents for every ketchup package. And that's just the fast food! Sticket shock doesn't even describe how all of our jaws dropped when we saw how much everything costs. But we were there for a short time so we dealt with it. We found a great place which is also found in Canada and on the East Coast: Marché. Great buffet with a wide range of items to let us get a feel for swiss cooking.

So the thing that's too good to be perfect? Border Crossings.

As I mentioned earlier, we had a Mercedes M-Class rental. Now, this SUV is a phat ride and fun to drive, but it's a 5-seater. And there were six of us. We had originally requested a "people mover" (that's what they call our mini-vans over there) which could seat 7. That would leave more than enough room for us and our voluminous luggage. Even though we had confirmed this people-mover the day before, we ended up with this Mercedes. We managed to fit luggage and bodies into the car and got moving. While crowded, the luxury and the slightly-more-space-than-expected made it manageable. We realized that our SUV even had a text-based navigation system. Sweet!

Until we reached the Swiss border in Geneva.

The border patrol agents immediately pulled us over and asked for our passports. At first it seemed like a cursory check since we didn't speak French very well and our SUV was packed. But then they asked for the car's registration. Uh Oh. Luckily we found the registration. But then agent immediately honed in on the fact that our car was meant for only 5 people, not 6. I didn't even think that car registration listed that information. But in Germany, cars come with that info. And in Switzerland it matters.

So Gustaf (or Pierre or whatever the dude's name was) asks his boss about this. They go into the office and in the meantime, we start scheming about what to do. The whole time, the apprentice agent is standing right next to the car listening in. Anyways, Pierre tells us we can't pass, we try to make him understand that it wasn't out fault that we got a 5-seater, yada, yada. End result, he makes us turn back and we're worried.

We wander around town for a while trying to find the local rental office as well as the tram to cross the border on foot. We figured we'd fool the agents by having two of us cross the border on foot then following behind in the car. Then we'd meet in Geneva proper. Even though the border agent had suggested two people stepping out from the car and going by train, we still felt like we'd be getting away from something by just meeting up in Geneva and driving illegally with 6.

So the whole maneuver took 2 hours of planning and it turns out the border agents didn't really care too much. They asked the walkers a few questions. They looked inside the car a couple of times to make sure there were no more than 5 inside. And that's it. No running for safety across the border. No arguing. No bullets. No worries.

Our only remaing worry: Getting back across the border into France on our way back to Paris! We figured we'd scheme our way back into France, but it turns out that our lovely Mercedes lead the way. The nav system in the car was so perfect (most of the time) that we even named the girl: Sophie.

We figured out that Basel would be a good city to cross back into the border since the city itself exists in France, Switzerland, and Germany. And if there's any walking across the border, it would be better to do so in a town rather than on the freeway. After programming Sophie to find a border crossing she not only found one for us, she found a tiny one where there were no agents. No agents=no fuss. Good stuff.

So even though I promised to wrap things up quickly, I've written a hell of a lot...really, I'm trying. I'm just to wordy!

A Little Bit of Ireland In...France's Chateaux Region??

So it's pretty common to find Irish Pubs in odd places. Afterall, the lore of Irish beer and drinking makes it an easy theme to choose for a pub. Of course, finding one in the middle of Tours, France is something I never thought I'd write about.

Tours is the traditional starting point for any sightseeing of France's famed chateaux. It's at the heart of the Loire Valley, which is where most of the most famous palaces are. It's also very close to the Loire River. We got in rather late to Tours due to a little trouble getting our rental car in Paris and some extra sightseeing in Orleans (from Joan of Arc fame). So after checking into an Etap Hotel for the first time (read about the hotel chain in a previous post) and driving through Tours for a bit, we decided to eat at the first decent place we could find that was still open (keep in mind it was Christmas Night). We ended up at an Irish Pub/Restaurant. The food (all French) was all right and the beer wasn't really Irish. There were more Belgian brews and not a single Irish one on tap! Nevertheless I braved Guinness from a non-draught bottle (not BRILLIANT!) as well as a pretty decent Beligan wheat brew. I'll go on at length about Guinness when I write about our London happenings. For right now, I'll just mention that the drop off between an EXTRA-cold Guinness draught and a non-draught bottle of the same is litterly stunning. I'm telling you, even the Raydahz didn't have such a steep drop off this season.

What topped the night off though was that the place was playing the latest U2 live DVD and had it pumping on TVs and speakers all over. What's more, the proprieters were really into the DVD and were grooving to it as much as we were. So even though the food and drink weren't Irish, at least their heart was in the right place.

With that we headed back to our first night at an Etap Hotel with visions of Bono over dinner and palacial estates over the next day.

The Chateaux are truly amazing. Even in the overcast, windy, and generally dreary conditions in which we saw them, they were still quite a feast for the eyes. Granted, nothing we saw was as awe-inspiring as walking through the entrance to the grouds of the Taj Mahal. But the intricacy of work, the meticulously cared-for gardens, and the sense of history in the buildings was worth the journey to France. I can only imagine how impressive the chateaux are in better weather. The only consolation we had during our viewing was that the grounds were fairly empty. Going during peak tourist season must be a madhouse. We only had the chance to see three estates: Villandry, Azay-le-Rideau, and Chambord. Villandry was quaint yet impressive since it was filled with replica furniture and the gardens were beautiful (in the winter no less!). I think Villandry was my fave since it's kept in good condition and the stream they had going through the gardens was really novel. Azay-le-Rideau is one of those fairy-tale type castles which you could imagine in a bedtime story. It's pretty small, yet with the moat around it, quite beautiful. The ground were open, but the inside was not, so we did a quick walk around the grounds and headed off. Chambord was just immense and freezing cold since it lacked any furniture or decoration inside - the stone architechture made the cold all the worse.

In any case, driving through all the side roads and little towns along the way made the trip all the more unique. Renting a car to drive around was definitely worth the trouble. If you're ever visiting Paris and have a couple of days, Tours is only a 2-3 hrs drive away and the chateaux are all over. It's definitely a unique weekend journey if you have the time, especially if you've seen most of the touristy Paris sites.

Paris and The Da Vinci Code

As I had mentioned before, this was the third time I've been to Paris. The previous two times had been for business, but I had still done many of the touristy things in the evenings. This time we were able to spend all day out without anything to worry about except the cold and our health. I've been in Paris enough to have a visual memory of many of the places throughout the city including the crepe stands I like as well as the shops with the best souvenir prices.

So reading The Da Vinci Code was interesting since much of it is set in Paris. Throughout many parts of the novel, you can find exacting details about specific spots in Paris. I only began reading the novel after we had already left Paris for our driving trip around France and Switzerland, but I remembered enough to visualize the spots and try to double check whether the author was referring to spots correctly.

Other than the Paris connection, The Da Vinci Code is a pretty engrossing novel. It's far from the "great literature of our times", but it keeps you interested. I suspect much of the popularity of this work arises from its fact-based criticality of the Catholic Church and its opression of women. Now, I don't know how much of the history presented about the Church in this novel is exactly true and how much is "based on a true story" (the forward mentions that all of the information is factual), but just the idea that so much effort could be put into hiding facts so that The Church can retain its power is quite intriguing. I'm sure every other reader has been engrossed by this as well. And depending on one's ties, reading the novel means getting all worked up about its blasephemous nature, getting all excited to see a "scientific" and historic approach to debunking the Church, or it means shurgging with a little smirk. I was of the smirking kind while reading. Interesting stuff, but I don't have much vested interest in either debunking the Church or supporting it. I am always intrigued by historical/factual connections to religious texts so The Holy Grail is usually something I'll perk up for, but in the end I don't really care either way about what it means for "believers"

In any case, it's quite easy to see why this novel has been so popular. Religious controversy, a romantic city, and "made for movies" style of writing.

As for Paris, well, we were able to get one day of sun when we returned to Paris after our driving trip. It was nice to see the streets lit up by a warming sun. It was also nice to see many streets decked out in Christmas lights the whole time we were there. Even though I'm not Christian, I still find that the holiday festivities bring a smile to my face.

As for our antics in Paris? Well, we were pretty tame while in the City of Lights. I think we were so busy doing the touristy things that we were too tired at the end of the day to really get into any trouble - even going to the Buddha Bar was a very chill experience. The real antics started when we got in the car (a phat Mercedes M-Class) and we had time to let our feet rest and our mouths run (after 5 days of it, we got pretty good at ghetto-speak). But while in Paris, I think we were all just trying to take in the romantic mood. Our friends got engaged on our first day there - a proposal on a walking bridge spanning the Seine and scheming by the group took the proposee by surprise. We still don't know what exactly she said, but we do know there was much crying and putting-on-of-ring. If that didn't make the rest of the time in Paris romantic, I don't know what could.

Of course, those romantic times were filled with wind chill, runny noses, smelly metro tunnels, lots of hot chocolate, and strong cafe creme. Romantic indeed.

I'm Feeling Lucky

Have you ever clicked the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button on Google? You get some interesting results for your search. Sometimes I feel like a lot of the people who end up on my blog are clicking that. The hit tracker I've got at the bottom of the page not only counts how many people visit the site, it also tracks where they've come from. So I can tell if someone came from my friend's blog or if they came from Google or Yahoo or whatever. If they come from a seach engine, the URL will usually tell what the person searched for. So since I'm such a geek, I look at all this stuff on the hit tracker website constantly and it's worth a few laughs and a few shrugs. I get a lot of "Narrator" or "What is a Narrator?" searches from Germany and France for some reason - they should use the Google glossary or m-w.com. Others, however, are more interesting...

• "Donations Mandy Moore helps with or is involved with" - This makes me wonder about Google since I mentioned Mandy Moore's name only once many weeks ago and it had nothing to do with her charity work. Whatever else the case may be, tick one hit for The Narrator! :)


• "cure remix Pictures of you HP commercial" - Besides the generic "narrator" searches, this is the most common search. I think I end up fourth or fifth on the results. Not bad!


• "desi party studio 54 nyc" - Again, this makes me wonder about Google. I think I mention "Desi" a few times, but nothing about Studio 54. Hmm...maybe Google knows I walked by Studio 54 on New Year's night at like 3am in a daze while trying to stay up for our flight back to SFO?


• "lyrics to lebron nike ad" - Google, google, google...are you really IPOing? Maybe I should wager against Google and spread the word about these crap search results. I don't think I've even mentioned Lebron and Nike...or have I? Again, Google may know more about me than I do.


• "majic Johnson hiv" - This is how the person spelled Magic's name. Since I've written about Magic and AIDS, I'll let this one go. But I can't let the searcher off scot free. The person used ATT's website to search for this. Who the hell uses ATT to search?

I won't bore you with more searches. This is the culled list from just the past week. If you want more, holla.

Packing light

So rather than talk about each of our hijinx one by one, I thought I'd write a bit about things to consider when visiting Europe. One of the first things to think about when you get off the plane would be lodging. Obviously, you first want to figure out how the hell you're getting to your hotel, but let's leave that for another post, since we took just about every method known to man to get from the airport and back.

I think European hotels are the reason everyone packs so light. If the size of the rooms don't convince you, then the width of the hallways will. My friend wrote about not being able to enter a store in the UK because of the size of his backpack. The same thing applies to hotels.

Thay ain't no space in the mutha!

Going to Europe means rolling your clothes (literally) and wondering just how many pairs of socks and boxers you really need. Anything too big, and you'll be bumping into people at every turn. Forget about getting into elevators, walking through hallways, or finding space to unpack in your hotel room. Being that it was pretty cold, we had to take extra warm clothes, but we still somehow managed to pack everything for two into one roller bag. Of course, the laptop, camera equipment, and other junk added to the burden.

It's the polar opposite of travelling to India. Going to India means tracking down the biggest damned suitcases in the state and somehow fitting 70 pounds of gifts in each one. It means weighing each bag to ensure you've filled it to the max. No sense in leaving an ounce behind, afterall, you've paid a grand for the ticket so you may as well take advantage of it. Anytime I pass by Indians at airline check-in counters I fully except to see trolleys loaded with 6, 8 or even more behemoth suitcases - two for each traveller, including the baby and the parakeet. Of course, I'm quite guilty of this too, but of late, our trips to India have involved a lot less luggage.

So back to the lecture at hand...

If you haven't gotten the idea yet, things in Europe are small. Very small. Of course the cars and streets are exceedingly small. But so are the hotels. A room with enough space to walk back and forth without bumping shoulders with your companion is a gift. Don't even ask about having room to feel at home. You'll only get that if you shell out a couple of bills a night.

Keep it in mind next time you're planning a trip to the Continent.

Tidbits

After clicking "Post & Publish" on my last post, some things that popped through my mind:

• Mars - If you haven't been keeping track, Mars is the lastest hot spot destination for all things mechanical. We were in Europe when the British Beagle 2 landed (or more correctly, was lost) on Mars. It's funny because the chief of that mission was very much like the quirky Brit gentleman I had imagined. He really took pride in his work and was proper in a British way, but he didn't bother with being too professional at every moment. NASA's Rover just landed yesterday and the emotions are quite different. If you've read my blog for a while, you know how much of a space junkie I am. So seeing two completely different sides of space exploration was rather interesting for me.


• Beer - I was lucky enough to enjoy some extra cold Guinness along with some other brews while in London. I was surprised not to find any Newcastle, especially since it's an English brew. In any case, if you're looking for a reason to visit England, the Guinness should rank high on your list.


• Britney - Somehow, I imagine Britney is huddled up in the corner of her suite right now wondering what happened. I won't go on since the poor girl is obviously trying to figure out who she is and where she goes from here.


• Etap Hotels - If you're looking to save money while traveling in Europe, Etap is definitely a good, albeit Spartan way to go. The rooms are clean, relatively comfortable, and easy to reserve. Of course, if you don't like using airplane bathrooms, then you're in for some fun. The toilet & shower are separate and they pre-fab so opening the door to either is like stepping into a 747 lavatory. At least they're clean though. We stayed in these hotels for several days while driving through France & Switzerland. Each time I was rightly amazed at the efficiency of these places. Quite the experience.

Obviously, there's much more to come.

Back in the Saddle

So I was expecting to post blogs like a madman once I got back, but I've found that blogging has taken a backseat to getting the rest of my life back in order. Not surprisingly, things like sleep, paying bills, and New Year's wishes have taken a higher priority.

In any case, hope you all had a wonderful holiday season. I had hoped to have a log of all of my antics in Europe already posted here, but alas, it'll take some time to put it up. I'll try to put up the choice moments over the next few days.

One comment before I move on...French people don't wish anyone a Joyeaux Noel (Merry Christmas) for some reason. They're remarkably un-merry. Considering that every small town in France seems to have street lights and xmas fairs, the people don't really wish you a Merry Christmas or anything. The most you get is Joyeaux Fetes (Happy Holidays) on signs, but nobody wishes anyone else, which seems about right since it's more generic and less religious. In high school French class, however, I was lead to believe that the French are all about Christmas with extra traditions, festivities, etc. Whatever the case may be, I found the Britsh to be much more openly friendly and the Swiss to be quite helpful when asking for directions. The French...well, there were a few times where we received the cold shoulder even though we attempted to speak in French.

Then of course, there's the elderly French ladies. I opened the door for a grandma type and I received the nicest "C'est Tres Gentile" I had ever heard. I guess she's holding out while the rest of the French scowl in the cold. Here's to old French ladies and their niceties! :)

I'll leave you with those tidbits for now. I'm working on a photo album so I'll get that posted online soon and leave the URL here. As for a minute-by-minute account of our European Vacation? Don't worry...it's coming, albeit in very condense format. Happy New Year!

Vous pouvez me trouver dans le club

Hello from Paris!

I've been way to lazy to enter an internet cafe since we left the Bay Area so here I am in Paris on a rainy afternoon taking a break from all the walking. By the way...the title translates to "You can find me in the Club"

Being the extra witty fellow I am I was going to post from London with the title "You can find me in the Pub". You now know why I'm not a comedian or a speech writer.

Paris is not too much different from last time except for the cost. With the dollar very weak against the Euro and general inflation, I'm now paying over $5 for a crepe when it used to be $2.50! And London? Forget about London if you're on a budget. It's a very cool city and I really enjoyed it, but I was running to the ATM every chance I got.

To this point, London has been the better of the two cities. The people are much nicer, the weather was better and the Guinness was as expected. Bath was a great time too, but not long enough. We only got one night there since we had trouble with our car rental and we didn't get onto the road until about 12:30. We did however get to stop by Windsor Castle and Stonehenge.

As for Paris...well it's Paris. It's a beautiful city and quite romantic. This is the third time I've been here, so we've been trying to find new things to do and see. Buddhe Bar is nice and could certainly do well in the Bay Area. Of course, paying $15 for a mojito won't work in the Bay Area, but if you do it just right, we can charge $10 ;)

Since I'm in Paris, I won't stay in this cyber cafe too long...time to do more French things. Like eat crepes, drink cocktails with funny straws, and translate rap songs into French. Ahh Paris!

Tha O f'ing C

That's "The O.C." for all of you who didn't get it. No I'm not talking about the TV show (although it seems to be on everyone's mind nowadays)

I'm working from Irvine today since we dropped by SoCal for the weekend. Lemme tell you, the ability to work from so many different offices is great! For those that don't know, Irvine is one of the larger cities in Orange County. And for those that don't know, it borders the rich cities in O.C. like Newport, Laguna, etc.

Every time I work outta here, my friend and I can't stop counting the number of kick-ass cars we find on the roads. There are so many that we lose count just over lunch. It's not just lowly 3 series Bimmers and C-class Benzes. Anything less than a S500 and you're slumming. Seriously, it's common to see S600's, SL600's, CL600's and in every color of the rainbow. The real hard job here is keeping up with all the extra these people have on their cars...AMG, Brabus...damn I don't even know most of the other stuff.

This is just an extension of the LA car culture that many people may already know about. When driving down the 5 freeway, once you get to about Burbank you start noticing the difference from NorCal. You may not see as many nice cars as in Irvine, Newport, etc, but so many of the cars you see are kept in great condition. Nice sparkling wheels, lowered suspension, etc, etc. In NorCal you don't normally see this stuff except on the little pocket rockets that people race on weekends. In SoCal, everyone and their grannie has after-market wheels. That's one nice thing about not living in SoCal any more...I can be lazy about upkeep on my car and not be embarrassed. But once I'm down in SoCal, I start to notice the peeling paint on my hood, the scratches all over, etc, etc.

I'll definitely write more about the SoCal/NorCal differences soon. I rant much less about it now since I've been living in the Bay Area for almost 4 years now, but I'm still an Angeleno at heart and it just takes a few days back in SoCal to get my juices flowing. The Laker game on tonight will only help get my riled up. Watch out!

As a side note, we're heading off to Europe next Tuesday so I'll likely not be posting too often. Being the nerd that I am, I'm taking my laptop just so I can download pics off my digicam, but I doubt I'll be going online too much. I'll try to keep track of anything interesting that happens to us along the way.

Pandemic

I neglected to mention World AIDS Day earlier this week. I actually didn't think too much of it until bedtime when I was flipping channels and came across a show on VH1. I won't even comment about why this show was on Vh1 rather than MTV (actually, MTV didn't seem to give a damn even though the younger audience watching MTV should learn more about AIDS).

In any case, the VH1 show focused on some of the latest numbers about the spread of AIDS. However, it mainly focused on the points in time when people were forced to deal with AIDS in some way or other. Ranging from Rock Hudson and the shock of Hollywood to Majic Johnson and the shock of athletes. While the show was interesting, it didn't do justice to the seriousness of what AIDS is doing to much of the world.

Before proceeding, I should mention that for years I had thought that AIDS would be less serious than more common diseases in the 3rd World like malaria (which actually affects many more people every year). Over the past couple of years, however, I've come to realize that AIDS really could devastate entire populations in less than a decade. But rather than talk about these generalities, I encourage you all to read what the Economist has written. It's very frank words for a population that may be sick of hearing about AIDS.

This is a free article:
Help at Last

Unfortunately these articles are only for subscribers, but drop by a newstand if you get a chance and read these relatively short articles:
A Mixed Prognosis
Lifting the Veil

The most alarming thing about AIDS right now is that it literally will prevent an entire generation of children from prospering. Here's a rather devastating excerpt:

Governments everywhere should look at Africa and tremble. In some countries, more than half the population will still die of AIDS. All of Africa's famines are now AIDS-related: hungry people lack the strength to fight off sickness, sick people lack the strength to grow food, and dead parents cannot teach their children how to farm. Other regions can avoid this, but they must act now. The rewards will come slowly; it will be years before current investments make a dent in HIV prevalence, let alone the death rate. The worst is yet to come

I could say much more about the possible affect of AIDS if it is not addressed in significant ways in the next few years. The brightest spot seems to be South Africa, where after years of denying that HIV even causes AIDS, they have developed a very realistic and comprehensive plan to get medication to a large portion of the population. The size & smarts of this program dwarfs anything that has been planned previously and it should give us all hope.

Thanksgiving dirt

A friend has left a comment asking for more details about Thanksgiving dinner. Well, I don't want to diss too much on the family mainly because they are actually very kind at heart and were gracious hosts. The description in my previous post was mainly to get some smiles from readers :) In any case, though, it is all true...and as my man Homer J. Simpson so rightly pointed out, "It's funny because it's true"

As for ADD & ADHD, well, I'll admit that I'm very skeptical when it comes to behavioral problems, especially with children. That's not to say there isn't some valid biochemical imbalance in such children, but many times, I really wonder if the medical & psychiatric fields have not gone too far in defining diseases and conditions and looking for a drug to solve every little problem. Before I say anything else, I should mention that I don't have children myself and I haven't had to care for children with ADD (perhaps if I had such experience, my thoughts would be very different).

In the case of these two children, I suppose taking the ADD drugs helps the whole family's life (not to mention the childrens' teachers' lives) easier and a bit more calm, but this weekend was a prime example of one of the downsides. These children don't take the drugs on weekends (including the whole long weekend) and it really showed since these boys just couldn't stop running around, spitting while munching on food, etc.

I feel like many times doctors and patients are looking for quick outs and look for a way to treat the "problem". I can only imagine how tough it is to care for two growing boys who are very hyperactive and can't keep their attention on anything, but I really feel like call this a disorder and giving the children drugs to calm them down is the wrong way to go.

First of all, such diagnoses imply that this condition is out of the norm of society. Aren't most young boys hyperactive? Does the rest of the world rely on drugs to address such problems or do they think it's a normal part of growing up?

Second of all, using a drug to make the problem go away isn't really solving the problem, it's just masking it. As far as I know, these drugs don't help to alter chemical imbalances permanently, they just temporarily calm the children down, don't they?

One of the issues with this is that taking the drugs helps the children to focus on school work etc. That may be true, but at the same time, shouldn't parents & teachers work with the children to help them focus and learn? Like I said, I haven't really dealt too much with ADD/ADHD children so I don't know how difficult they are to handle.

Overall I feel ADD/ADHD is one of those things that modern science and society have unecessarily deemed to be nusuances. Who knows, if I have to care for children who are excessively hyperactive and can't focus, I may resort to calling it ADD/ADHD and giving them drugs. At this point, however, I can't really see the validity.

I'd love to hear everyone else thoughts on this, especially from anyone familiar with caring for anyone with ADD/ADHD.

Mile High and Light Headed

Happy Thanksgiving folks. Yes, a bit late (as usual for me), but nevertheless, hope you all were able to spend time with family and friends.

We got back from a weekend trip in Denver to visit some family. Neither of us had been there so it was definitely an interesting trip. Among other things, we had Thanksgiving dinner at the house of a dysfunctional family (not my family, but friends of the family we stayed with), we did a bit of snowboarding in rather icey conditions, and we drank a lot of water.

As usual, let me bore you with details...without being too specific...I don't want to get tagged for talking about people that may know me :)

Dinner was actually quite fun. Two children with A.D.D., a very friendly rottweiler, a grandpa who races cars and lives in a double-wide, and a generally dis-combobulated aunt. Now if that doesn't make for a barrel of fun, I don't know what would. Thank God we're not related to them! In all seriousness though, I'm not too familiar with the goings-on in "American" familes. Since we grew up in an Indian household, we never really celebrated Thanksgiving. While I've had thanksgiving dinner at friends' houses before and even made the dinner with roommates, I've never had a formal t-giving dinner. The familial interactions were definitely jacked up in this case, but it was an interesting day nonetheless.

Snowboarding was rather disappointing. I was looking forward to some great snow since it had just stormed in Denver the weekend before. I figured it would be great to get in some smooth runs and teach my wife on soft powder. Unfortunately, most of the snow had hardened and some was really too icey. While I got in some decent boarding, I was slipping and skidding way too much to have fun. And my wife? Let's just say that hard snow is a really pain in the ass. Literally. Luckily, she still had fun and we'll be heading to Tahoe soon enough to try and get some powder.

On the climate front, let me tell you, Denver is really a mile high. It's really dry air. It's really thin air. I couldn't get enough water all weekend. I always felt a little sleepy and lightheaded (well, that could have been the drinking too). I was happy to come back to sea level and a little humidity in the bay area.

Oh, and visiting the family? Well, it's always fun to spend time with these folk. Since they recently moved to Denver it was nice to see their new home and their new life away from SoCal.

Overall, a good time was had by all. Now...onto the planning the rest of the holidays.