Hernandez Christmas

Christmas eve at the Hernandez house is never quiet, and this year did not disappoint. The tradition is to have a "lechon" (young pig) whole along with black beans, rice, rioja wine, and lots of screaming kids. In recent years, the lechones we've been able to get have been poor, so my mom got a 22 pound (that's almost 2 stone, brits!) fresh ham. Other than this minor change, the tradition continued with a vengeance. The grandchildren are 1, 5, 5, 6, and 7, and LOUD.

baby Kosmo... the youngest Hernandez for another 5 months

(l-r) Cora, Sam, Phoebe, and Aika at the kids' table

Of course, things were a bit uncomfortable with my dad being gone... for starters, who now sits at the head of the table? People kept trying to get me or Ethan or anybody to do it, but honestly it would have just been weird. So, Ethan and I sat on the corners and left the head space empty. The meal was great, and after, we all went into the living room to hand out presents. My mother, true to her neatly buttoned New England upbringing, had always wanted to have a nice orderly gift giving process, but my father always threw presents across the room at the kids one after another. Now that she's running the show, she tried a new approach, which didn't exactly pan out. It seems that a wild screaming pack of kids is still wild and screaming no matter how nicely you hand presents out. Oh well.

Granny doing her best to keep things orderly

After presents, the grown ups went back to the dining room for pie and cognac, another little tradition of ours. Each year, my two brothers Ethan and Eban and I all give the other two a bottle of cognac or scotch. This way, we have 6 bottles to sample and dig into while the kids run around screaming. Nice! Reba and I had brought a couple of bottles from Paris, what a pain in the ass that was. Now that you can't carry liquids on planes, this means checking bottles of booze every time you fly, and wondering which have broken each time you get to baggage claim. Plus, you get to pay overweight fees as well each time you fly: extra nice. Whatever. It was worth it in the end, as both bottles were quite tasty.

mmmmmm: tradition

Another little tradition we have is buying the kids the most obnoxious gift possible, in an attempt to annoy their parents. I kept this one alive by buying the kids a box of assorted musical instruments... tambourines, wood blocks, kazoos, etc. A highlight of the evening came as a result of Ethan's efforts in this regard: he bought all the children air powered, circular clip nerf-dart guns. Once the kids got tired of them, the adults took over, and a pretty good shootout ensued. Eban and I went commando and got Ethan with a pincer attack.

nerf attack!

The whole gang seemed to enjoy themselves, and as always, I got a huge kick out of being around the kids. Christmas is never going to be the same without Dad around, but I think that we proved that we can still have a great holiday. Merry Christmas everyone!

Ethan and Christa

Eban and Aika

Me and Kyoko

Sam and Cora wrestling... Sam got his butt kicked

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home for the holidays

We're back in Seattle now, staying with Tasha and Keith in Ballard. It's the usual whirlwind of social calls, drinks, breakfasts, etc. My old friend Carl has opened a bar with my other old friend Tim, right here in Ballard. My other old friend, Stacy, is the head chef. It's called Tiger Tail, and it's pretty classy. They're going for sort of a Asian Hipster New Ballard Old Punkers Foody Weird Drinks vibe, and I think it works pretty well. Of course, since all my Seattle friends hang out there all the time, and it's owned and operated by people I like to hang out with, it's a bit of a shoo-in for me.

Tash and I at the bar... those light fixtures are rumored to have come from Sambos

Cookie, Amy, Dan, me and Tash

Carl, working. I think even he's shocked.

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big fish!

After Reba left for Austin, I caught a hefty Redfish while out with Tony. Mom cooked him up for breakfast, and for dinner the next day! It was an awesome end to a fishing trip, I've never caught a Redfish that big before.

However, I am covered in huge swollen bug bites that are driving me crazy. This is the one thing that I really hate about Cedar Key.

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sting ray attack!

Besides the beautiful views, warm weather and chilled out lifestyles, the big attraction to cedar key is fishing. Without going into all the different game fish and areas to hunt them, lets just say that this place is angler's heaven. Yesterday we were out in fan boat fishing for Redfish, and today we were in a flat bottomed jet boat fishing for Spotted Sea Trout. Both expeditions were memorable and worth recounting.

Redfish

(Sciaenops ocellatus)

Redfish (also Red Drum) are the top inshore game fish in this area. Inshore means close to the shore in the very shallow tidal waters of the Suwanee estuary, which is made up of oyster bars, small grassy keys and endless miles of tiny waterways winding through muddy tide flats. A great way to catch Redfish is to find a tidal pond that has been temporarily isolated from the ocean by receding tides. The trouble in getting to these is that most boats can't get to these areas when the tide is out, and believe me: walking is not an option. Enter the airboat. Airboats are flat bottomed boats with an airplane engine (seriously) mounted on stilts on the back, driving a large airplane propeller. The prop never gets near the water, so the boat can run in extremely shallow water with no worry of striking bottom. Zipping along in an airboat in one or two inches of water is very common, and very useful in swampy areas. In fact, they can actually run across mud if the mud is wet enough, and we did quite a bit of this yesterday. My dad had a really cool airboat that he kept down here for fishing expeditions, and after he died, we sold it to a local guy named Jeff. Jeff and his pal Donny took Ethan, Reba and I out to get Redfish in my dad's old airboat, and applied the tidal pond strategy outlined above.

Donny and Jeff and the airboat

After 15 minutes of navigating various waterways and mudflats, we settled into a spot which was to later deliver my most productive day of fishing ever. However, before we started casting, Jeff pulled out a small boombox and played Sweet Home Alabama for us, per his and Donny's tradition. The irony of this is not lost on either Jeff or Donny, they're both from Florida, love "redneck" sports like hunting and fishing, and think it's funny as hell to play the whole thing up by turning on the Skinnard. Of course, during the week they both work for an insurance company in Gainesville, but on the weekends they head out to Cedar key and adopt a slightly more down-home lifestyle. I tried to imagine how my Oxford pals would react to this scenario: fishing from an airboat in the middle of a swamp, drinking Coors and playing Skinnard... this would be weird even to my Seattle friends! In any case, we all had a laugh and got down to fishing, and what great fishing it was! We found a spot that was so good that we hooked fish on nearly every cast, which is simply unheard of. By way of illustration, Brandon: this would be like if you went to a cheesy meat market bar in London and instead of the usual scenario, girls were fighting with each other all night long to see who got to go home with you. We got lots of little Redfish, and quite a few keepers (18"+) as well. Reba got the biggest: 21 inches. That's a lot of Redfish, friends. We probably hooked and released 50+ fish that day, and we went through all 110 bait shrimp that we brought. I've never experienced this kind of thing before, normally I spend all day getting 4 or 5 bites. Anyway, it was just awesome, and we all had a super great time. After, we all went back to Jeff's picturesque gulf side home, and watched the sunset while we barbecued and cooked Redfish. A simply awesome, unmatchable Southern USA experience.

Reba's big Redfish

riding in the airboat

Spotted Sea Trout

(Cynoscion Nebulosus)

Today, Reba and I went after Spotted Sea Trout with Tony, and old fishing buddy of my dad's. The trout are also a top local game fish, but they tend to be a littler further out from shore, still amongst the oyster bars and small keys, but out away from the mudflats and swamps. They also like the shrimp lures that we uses when pursuing Redfish. Down here, being slightly farther out, but still technically "inshore" always deliver breathtaking views. The huge blue gulf frames in the offshore keys, the shore is forested and wild looking, there's an outstanding variety of gorgeous sea birds, and you even occasionally run across porpoises hunting. On hot days (every day here) it feels so very good to step out of the boat onto an oyster bar and fish knee deep in the cool water.

inshore

Reba fishing an inshore oyster bar

Of course, ice cold lager always helps too. :) Tony is another weekend denizen of Cedar Key, he runs a lawn mowing business in Gainesville during the week, but comes out to his little island house to fish on the weekends, something he's been doing for over 30 years. He and my dad spent many many hours fishing here, and it was cool to spend some QT with Tony. Tony has a more typical flat bottomed "sled" style boat... made for running in shallows, but with a regular engine that sticks down in the water. He happens to use a "jet" engine, which looks just like a regular outboard motor, but uses a high speed water pump to move the boat instead of a propeller. This lets him run the boat in 4 or 5 inches of water or more, so this is perfect for going after trout. We caught plenty of trout, and threw lots back, even though we had enough for several dinners at the end of the day. However, the constancy of hooked fish was nowhere near where it was yesterday, even though this is probably one of the top 20 fishing days I've have. The real excitement came at the end of the day however.

Most of the fish that you can catch in these shallow waters are harmless to people, but there are 3 that can be problematic. In no particular order:

#1 - Black Tip Shark.

The grown up versions of these can get pretty big, but I've only ever caught little 2 to 3 footers inshore fishing in Cedar Key. They're really only dangerous in the same way any shark is when you pull it into your boat: they're frigging teeth with fins, and with their high speed reflexive chomping, they can take your finger right off if you put it in the wrong place.

#2 - Catfish.

These fish have spines in their fins, which are covered in a slime that can cause a painful infection if they pierce your skin. I have heard rumors of lost limbs, but have no confirmed stories.

#3 - Stingrays.

These are like any other ray, but right above their tail, they have a very sharp spike (called a spine), almost like a rigid second tail. When agitated, they wave it around and often stick it straight up. The spine itself is like a long spear point with sharp teeth pointing back away from the tip.

tip of a stingray spine

The rays also store a venom in their spine, and it is released when the spine stabs into something. Even more sinister, the teeth tend to break off inside whatever the spine pierces, and the spine itself is quite brittle and snaps off readily. The venom can cause humans to experience nausea, fatigue, headaches, fever and chills, but most often simply causes excruciating pain. Fishermen, guides, and commercial clammers all talk about how much this venom hurts, apparently it's quite shocking in it's intensity.

So guess what happened today? :)

I was standing on an oyster bar, fishing in a promising looking bit of deep water, and hooked a stingray. This is a very common happening here, and every Cedar Key fisherman has his way of dealing with extracting a hook from a wriggling ray's mouth without getting stung. Since I am a giant weenie, I err on the side of hyper caution. Here is what I do to avoid stingray issues:

* land the stingray on the dock, beach, whatever

* give it time to settle down a bit

* flip it on it's back (the mouth is on the bottom side, so the hook is always there)

* lay something wide and inanimate on the ray to keep it very still, I usually use a wide flat oar

* use pliers to very cautiously remove the hook from it's mouth

* use the oar to flip the little bastard back into the water

Alternatively, if I'm feeling like this recipe isn't going to work, I just cut the line and let the ray swim away with my lure stuck in him. I understand that hooks generally work their way out if they don't rust apart in the saltwater first, but even if my hooks kills the thing I don't care, they are nasty little beasties. Besides, the sharks will appreciate the extra chow anyway.

In any event, I landed the ray on the beach, and was beginning my meticulous procedure of hook extraction when Tony hopped out of the boat to de-hook the ray. As the guide, it is technically his responsibility to do this, so I didn't say anything. Unfortunately, Tony tried to hold the ray's spine and tail still by stomping down on it it with his rubber boot. BAD IDEA, TONY. The ray flipped his spine up at just the right moment, and Tony impaled his foot on it. He started yelling, "oh shit, he got me", etc., and then holding his rubber booted foot up, told me to "pull it out". I couldn't see the spine, so we decided to take his boot off to get a better look. This was apparently very painful, and after struggling for a few moments, we got it off. There, sticking out of the soft flesh between Tony's third and fourth toes, was 1 inch of stingray spine. Again, Tony shouted "pull it out! pull it out!" I grabbed the pliers we use for removing hooks from fish, and paused just before grabbing the spine. For a moment, I thought of those movies where some knight or cowboy or whatever gets shot with an arrow, and shouts "pull it out pull it out" to his buddy...(exciting!) then I took a breath, grabbed the spine, and pulled. Along with a good deal of blood, it came right out, but I could see where a few of the teeth had ripped out in Tony's foot. The whole thing was probably 2 inches. You could tell that he was in serious pain, and Reba and I quickly moved to call it a day. Tony, brave old salt that he is, actually wanted to fish more, because we'd really only been out for half of a proper charter at that point. Reba and I simply argued more strenuously, and Tony gave in. It was interesting and weird to watch him go through the various stages of pain as the stingray venom kicked in... whistling softly to himself, then exhaling and inhaling deeply, for a while standing and then sitting and then standing, then wincing, and finally obtaining a reserved, stoic sort of look. I have to say: Tony took it like a man.

Being unaware of the specific implications of stingray envenomation, I was worried that he might be in some greater danger. So I kept a close eye on him as we jetted back to the boat launch... but aside from the stages of pain noted above, he seemed to be fine. When asked about numbness, chills, light headedness, etc., he seemed fairly certain that he was simply in pain, nothing more. Upon reaching the ramp, Reba zipped home in the rental car to check the internet for details on stingray venom, and I stayed with Tony to help him trailer the boat, clean up, etc. During the ride home, phone calls to Reba and to a commercial clammer wise in the ways of stingray stings indicated that aside from infection and tetanus risks (typical with any puncture), pain was the only thing Tony had to worry about. Also, both sources located a method to slow the pain: soak the wound in near-scalding water for 60-90 minutes. Apparently this breaks down the venom, slowing down the increase of pain, but no not eradicating it.

In the end, we got our guide home, he soaked his foot, drank a sixer of lager, and seemed to feel marginally better. I'm going to check in on him tomorrow. Adventure on the high seas!

Tony and a Spanish Mackerel

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cedar key

What a great place this is. My parents bought a house here back in 2000 when it was a bug infested disaster. They spent a couple of years renovating and decorating, and now it's a super cool gulf of mexico vacation pad. The whole house is built up on stilts to avoid hurricane damage, as is common here... its a bit Swiss Family Robinson, it takes two flights of steps to get up to the front door! There's a screened-in deck that wraps around the whole house, a dock and a bunch of property right on the Suwanee estuary. It's just gorgeous, it's in the 70s in late November, there's ibis, pelicans and egrets everywhere, the fishing is great, and my parents spent a lot of time here. I have some great memories of this place. My dad had dreams of taking the grandkids here for fishing vacations when they got a little older, etc. etc. And of course, now that my dad is gone we have to get rid of it. :( So, Reba and I are here this week, and Ethan and my mom will come down next week, and we're going to clean the place out. It's lovely being here again, but it's certainly bittersweet knowing that we won't be back. Ah well, at least we'll get in some great fishing.

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on our way home...

Just now I'm sitting at Heathrow waiting for a delayed flight (big surprise), reading Nikki Sixx's new biography, "The Heroin Diaries". That dude was a total mess, he makes Slash look pretty well balanced! In my defense, I've also just finished Lolita by Nabakov, so I feel I've earned some more cheap gross out rock and roll reading. :) Now, I'm off to my folks' place in Florida to relax for a couple of weeks and help my mom clean out the place before she sells it. After that it's Seattle for a few weeks and then Frank's wedding in Taiwan.

What a year this has been.

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CONNECTED!

BT have finally pulled their collective head of their collective ass and given me back my internet connectivity. It's been out since October 4. Today is November 22. It turns out that it was a fault in their exchange. Life is smoother now!

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Paris

We had to fly out of Paris to go back to London for my mom's return flight and our return bus ride back up to Oxford. So, we stayed a few days to take in the sights. Mom and I went to the Louvre, and saw a lot of the basics that I missed the last time I was there (took a few days to visit Paris after my Oxford entrance interview). We saw the Winged Victory, the Venus De Milo, the Mona Lisa, and of course, a ton of other stuff. My favorite is Le Radeau de la Méduse, which besides being a cool creepy painting, is also the cover of a Pouges album.

Le Radeau de la Méduse by Théodore Géricault

Rum, Sodomy and the Lash by The Pouges

We had dinner with Kent and Marie at a great traditional restaurant called Le Petit Zinc, which is in St Germain, near the Louvre and our swell hotel, the Louvre St Anne. I've been to Paris a bunch of times now, and I have to say that I am totally over the activity of monument visiting. Another element of Paris (and France in general) which I am totally over is the striking. We managed to be there during a general strike, which included, but was not limited to the subway, trains, gas company, and university. Apparently the recently elected government wants to change the retirement age for government workers to 60, UP FROM 50. Only in France! It's funny: the French people want reform (they voted for a reform government), the government leadership want reform (they're instituting the reforms), but the government workers (drivers, professors, gas workers, etc.) don't want it, and because they are in a position of power they are able to make everyone miserable. I feel the unions are really abusing their power. I also think that if the unions push the majority of French who are either their bosses (government leadership) or sponsors (taxpayers) hard enough, the majority will simply vote to crush/eject/nullify the unions. It can't go on for ever.

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Saint Saturnin les Apt

Saint Saturnin is a small town in Luberon, which is a part of Provence between Aix and Avignon. Unless you spend a lot of time in southern France, I suppose those names shouldn't mean much, and really this is just one of a million quaint little southern Frenchy towns. It's pretty deserted because it's so late in the season, and if the layout of the house we're staying in is any indication, it's a summer type of place. Most of the restaurants and shops are closed, but we found one to have lunch in that served kickass food. Reba's on a food photography kick (thanks, Ling) so enjoy the photos.

cheese plate... there are few finer things in life

salad!

Later on we hiked up the hill to the local ruined Chateau, which appears to have had a monastery added at some point. The hill also had some old windmills, which was really cool too. I looked inside one, and all the old wooden gears are still in there, totally awesome.

view of the church at St Saturnin

mom and the windmill

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Slash (Slash with Anthony Bozza)

This book is the autobiography of Slash, lead guitarist of Guns N' Roses. The subtitle of the book is "It Seems Excessive But That Doesn't Mean It Didn't Happen", pretty accurate but really funny. While trudging through the remains of Dawkin's epic atheist rant, this was a welcome diversion. I saw this book at a Heathrow magazine store while mom and Reba and I were waiting for our flight to Paris, and decided to buy it as a "present" for Reba, of course she laughed once and refused to read it, which suited me just fine. I got started in Honfleur managed to charge through 458 pages in about 3 days. :)

Slash is clearly fairly bright, utterly uneducated, and a massive junkie. His writing isn't as "then dig THIS man, I was all like trying bang this hot chica-rella, and then this totally crazy dude busts in and: YOWZA!" as the David Lee Roth book, and it's not as gratuitously detailed as the Motley Crue biography (if I have received honest reports from my friends), but otherwise, it's about what you might think.

I feel that I should justify why I read a book like this:

1. It was just fun to read about rock stars screwing groupies, taking drugs, trashing hotel rooms, being losers, etc., especially as a change from all the HBR and SMR I've been choking down lately.

2. I naturally have an interest in rock bands and their screwed up dynamics, having spent most of my life playing in them.

3. I wanted to know the answers to a couple of basic questions: why did GNR break up, what was Axl really like, were those guys really as hardcore as they seemed to be, were those guys really as big of junkies as they seemed to be, what is Slash's real name, and what was Slash's reaction to the song lyrics where Axl famously attracted nationwide disapproval for singing a line about "police and niggers" (Slash is half black).

The answers to the above questions are, in order: because Axl is an ego-maniacal dick, an ego-maniacal dick, yes totally, yes totally, Saul Hudson, and we'll never know because it didn't come up in the book.

Of note are Slash's extensive drug and alcohol problems. A daily heroin user on and off (currently off) for years, at the height of his alcohol abuse he was drinking one half gallon of vodka per day plus shots and beer at nightclubs. The vodka started as soon as he got up, at one point he was leaving a glass of it next to his bed so he didn't have to have the shakes on the way to the kitchen in the morning. Eeesh. He also died once, ala Tommy Lee, and currently has a pacemaker at the ripe old age of 42. Weirdly, he was a competitive BMX rider as a kid, and predictably, he came from weirdo hippie artist parents who split up early and got high a lot. Finally, Slash managed to date both Savannah and Traci Lords, see page 207 for details on his experience with venereal warts.

All in all, a fun read!

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Mont Saint Michel

The Mont Saint Michel is a tidal island in the middle of the mouth of the Couesnon river, a huge estuary on the west coast of Normandy. More specifically, the Mont is a huge granite rock in the middle of a huge expanse of wet sand surrounded by salt marshes. Historically, when the tide was in, the Mont was pretty much an island, though connected to the mainland by a causeway. In recent years the estuary has silted up, and today it's more like a island in a sea of wet sand with little rivers of saltwater running everywhere. There's been a monastery on this island since the 700s, and a small town built up around it. At some point in the middle ages, a defensive wall and towers were built around the town and monastery, and now there's a fairly whimsical looking little fortress town in the middle of the bay, complete with a pointy spire and everything.

on the causeway out to the Mont

mom and me on the causeway

reba liked this one

We got here in the afternoon, checked into our hotel, and headed up to the Abbey, which is pretty breathtaking, not to mention damn windy. Those monks must have frozen their silent asses off up there. Everything on the mont is a hike up a lot of stairs, so we were a bit sweaty by the time we reached the top. The place is pretty grim, though its not clear if this is due to the monks' austerity or a by product of it's final pre-touristic role as a prison.

view of the salt marshes and mud flats from the abbey

That night, we ate at the Mere Poulard, a restaurant started in the late 19th century, and specializing in serving huge omelets. The place is famous for having had a lot of famous visitors... all sorts of royalty, movie stars, authors, French celebs I've never heard of, etc. There are autographed pictures of all these folks cramming the walls. My favorites are Omar Bradly and Ernest Hemingway. Apparently Hemingway hung out there a bunch while he was a war correspondent in the summer of 1944. The last time I ate there, in 2002, the food was just OK. I noticed that in 2003, They retained a top line French chef, who has reputedly overhauled their menu in an effort to bring the caliber of the food up to match the restaurant's fame. The meal was fine, better than before, but not as good as the last night we ate in Honfleur, and not as good as the place we ate at two days later in St Saturnine les Apt. Whatever, it's a cozy little joint out in the middle of the bay, and it's a cool place to take your wife and mom for dinner on a tour of France. Plus, I love to think of all those officers and generals cramming this place along with Hemingway back in 1944, it's must have been pretty cool back then.

dinner at the Mere Poulard

The next day we had to get to Paris and then down to Avignon and out to St Saturnine, so we left by 6AM. Brutal!

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Honfleur

Normandy

Normandy is the north western part of France. There are lots of deciduous forests, the climate is cool and wet like the Pacific Northwest, and the historical style of building includes the half timbered houses that are typically associated with tudor England. This is the place that Vikings (Normans) took over from the local French in the 900s and settled for a couple of hundred years before invading England in 1066 during what is called The Norman Conquest. Back home, the only people who have heard of this are probably history nuts, but it's a big deal for the English and the French, and considered to be a major turning point for the local history. Imagine it for a minute... the FRENCH invading somebody else. And it's England. I think that the English are still burned up about it! I really dig Normandy, partly for the great cool wet climate that is so familiar to me, but also because of the green little villages and farms everywhere. The food is damn good too. We took the bus down to Heathrow on Sunday after graduation, and stayed the night to catch a morning flight to Paris. After landing, we took a cab to Gare San Lazar to get the train to Lisiuex, a town in Normandy. From there, we caught a tram to Deaville, a cute little coastal town where we rented a car and drove to Honfleur, our final destination. Honfleur is another tiny norman coastal town, with an 18th century era port in the center of things. Basically, the port is a football field sized rectangle done in stone, with a narrow channel out to the Seine estuary and the sea. The port is surrounded on three sides by beautiful 17th, 18th and 19th century buildings in a sort of hodge podge layout that is so quaint you'd think Walt Disney designed it.

port in Honfleur

An interesting fact about Honfler is that it's right across the Seine from Le Havre, a massively built up city and port complex with dozens of cargo cranes, huge smokestacks shooting flames out the top, and one of the biggest suspension bridges in Europe. BUT, the clever people of the quaint medieval port across the water have managed to strategically place trees and parks such that Le Havre is basically hidden from view. Pretty smart, because that shit really would detract from the charm of poor little Honfleur.

Omaha

My mom has always wanted to see Omaha beach, so we drove out there one day. There's not too much there, just a really big flat beach, a few monuments, and an old pontoon from the artificial harbor the allies build to take supplies ashore during the war. If you look hard, there are a few hidden and crumbling German bunkers dotting the hillside. It's kind of a cold lonely place, but it was good for a walk on the beach.

mom and I on Omaha

Nearby is the Pointe du Hoc, which is much better preserved in terms of military stuff. This is where the US 2nd Ranger Batallion had to scale a cliff while German soldiers shot down at them. The Rangers were late landing, because of a navigational error, and so the Germans knew that an invasion was on by the time the Rangers got there. Their mission was supposed to be a sneak attack, and they got hammered for this error. There's a whole big story about this battle, but out of 225 Rangers who landed on the beach, only 90 were left at the end of the day. This place had a whole complex of gun emplacements and bunkers, and could shoot down on both Omaha and Utah beaches, and prior to the landing the allies bombed the crap out of it. The area has been under the care of the American Battle Monuments Commission since the war, and they've left all the bunkers, gun emplacements and bomb craters intact. It's exactly what you'd think a world war two cratered battlefield wasteland would look like, though I imagine that it's quite a bit greener today.

view of Omaha from Pointe du Hoc

old German bunker

this one got hit by the bombing

old German gun emplacement

US Military Graveyard

Near the town of Colleville sur Mer, there is an American military graveyard and monument where about 9000 soldiers are buried. It's a really big place, 9000 is a lot of dead guys. It's damn somber and Reba and I have been here before... it always chokes her up to visit. The rows and rows of headstones, combined with the heavy quotes about sacrifice, liberation, and freedom, etc. are pretty moving. For me, this type of language is totally insincere and unbelievable political BS when I hear it used in the context of the current Iraq fiasco, but for me, in the context of world war two, it's really moving. I admit that this may ultimately be illogical on my part. The three of us have spent a good deal of time talking about how over time, people remember only the grandeur of military leaders and forget the horrible things they have done. Caesar, William, Ferdinand and Isabella, Henry VIII, Wellington, Napoleon, etc. are looked upon today as heroes or great leaders, or at least as important and fascinating figures of their time worthy of study and a degree of admiration. However, more recent military conquerors such as Hitler and Stalin are viewed as evil mass murderers. "Mass murderer" is usually not what first comes to mind when Caesar, William or Napoleon are invoked, yet all three were just that. Following on that reasoning, is it possible to view the military exploits of the 2nd Battalion Rangers in Normandy as the bloody execution of cold US political and financial calculus? Or conversely, should we view the green zone of Baghdad as a bastion of hope and freedom for the oppressed peoples of Iraq? Looking over all this in the context of today leaves me with a bunch of questions, if I'm being intellectually honest.

endless rows of crosses, sort of reminds me of a slayer album cover I know

taking it all in

Bayeux

Bayeux is another neat little Norman town, with a great spooky old cathedral and most famously, the 230 foot, 11th century propaganda piece known as the Bayeux Tapestry. Sometime shortly after the 1066 invasion of England, unknown embroiderers put together a 3 foot tall, 191 foot long "tapestry" documenting William's invasion of England and victory over Harold Hadrada. This was a very important event in European history, maybe I can tempt Andy into expanding on this a bit via comments. Andy?? :) Bayeux is the current home of the tapestry, and has been for most of it's long history. Looking at it, a couple of things come to my mind. 1. Damn, that is a long tapestry. 2. The workmanship is really all over the place. Some of it is simply beautify and really conveys movement, energy, and passion. Other parts are totally shitty "doodle" quality work that I could probably have knocked out. 3. The view into life at the time is awesome. They show all sorts of stuff about boat building, medieval dining, battle formations, hunting pastimes, etc. etc. Really cool. 4. There must have been a lot of decapitations and amputations during that battle for them to take the time to sew so many of them into the tapestry. Creepy. 5. There's a lot of naked dudes with really big dicks in there. I really don't get that part.

mom and me at the Bayeux cathedral

At the end of each day, we would come back to Honfleur and our cozy little house. Sometimes we would go out to eat, which was great because traditional Norman food is AWESOME. Lots of seafood, cream sauces, and stuff made from apples... cider, calvados, pommeau, tartes, sauces, etc. etc. Other times, we'd just get a bunch of stuff at the market and have a hearty little Norman snack fest at home.

cider, pate, Camembert, baguette, sausages, olives, and wine... the perfect dinner

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GRADUATION

Predictably, the final day arrived in a rush.

Mom came into town on Thursday, and in the middle of giving her a tour of Merton, I got a call from a recruiter for a Friday interview in London. Friday morning, I got up at 6 to pick up my suit and (thanks to BT) go to the internet cafe to do some research on the company that was interviewing me. They're called Motability Operations, and they provide disabled people with specially outfitted cars via a UK government weekly allowance. I had a recruiter meeting in London just before we left for Greece, so my suit had spent two weeks crumpled up in a suitcase, and Reba kindly took it to the dry cleaners on Wednesday so I could pick it up on Friday and have a fresh suit for Saturday's graduation. The problem with this was that with the surprise interview, I needed to leave town very early Friday. So, I got my nice shirt, cuff links, tie, dress shoes and socks, and my sweatpants (classy, eh?) and walked up to the dry cleaners to wait for them to open at 8:30. Grabbing my suit, I then went to the cafe to change in the bathroom. The barista clearly thought I was nuts. Whatever. I made it to the train station, and then down to London without too much hassle, and after a few transfers, was at my interview early, which went well. Of course, a trip down to London is an all day affair, and this screwed up my plans to pick up my new robes. The guys at Shepard and Woodward (robe store) were very cool about this, and let me come by early Saturday morning to pick them up. The new robes are a little different than the old ones, they have embroidered arms, bigger wings, and are generally fuller. I also get a cool red hood to go with them. Don't ask how much they cost, it's just depressing to think about!

new robes!

On Saturday, I was up at 7, ran into town to pick up the new robes, came home to clean up and get dressed up in my suit and old academic robes one last time. After my dad died, my mom gave me his MIT class ring, which has an engraving of the industrious MIT beaver mascot on it, but is affectionately referred to by graduates as "the brass rat". I didn't go to MIT, so I don't wear it, and just keep it in a box with my cuff links and other stuff. But, since my dad couldn't be with me on this day, I broke my rule and wore the brass rat just this one time. It felt weird to carry that thing around knowing that he used to wear it for years, but it also seemed an appropriate confluence of my dad, me, and educational dreams. My mom even told me she was glad that I wore it. Then, wearing subfusc and my dad's ring, I walked up the meadow to Merton just the same way I had on the day of Matriculation, so long ago. The sky was clear, and I snapped a couple of cell phone photos for posterity.

Christ Church meadow on graduation day... sigh

Next, I met with the rest of Merton's graduates, about 20 of us, for the day in the New Common Room, which is the same super secret back room that we go to for 3rd deserts after high table. We got a brief lecture in what to and what not to do, and learned the all important words, "do fidem", which means "I swear" in Latin. Then, we all trooped up to the Sheldonian theater, just the same way we did for Matriculation. Note: at Oxford, you don't graduate with your school (e.g. the business school) but instead with all the people graduating from your college, in my case this is Merton. There were D.Phils (PhDs), MAs, MSCs, BSCs (BSs), and one MBA, me! Just like with Matriculation, you are allowed to wear your mortarboard (scholar's cap) in the street on the way to the ceremony, if you like. We got to the Sheldonian, and filed in. My mom and Reba were sitting up in the balcony, waving down at me.

mom at the Sheldonian

Things began with a speech by the vice chancellor about the history and meaning of the ceremony, and a warning that the rest of the day would proceed in Latin! The vice chancellor sat on a chair flanked by two proctors, with an audience of dignitaries sitting behind him on the semi circular benches. He faced down an aisle cut between two ranks of chairs, the first row of which were occupied by deans of colleges, while the rest were occupied by soon-to-be graduates. A lot of Latin, and a lot of taking off of caps followed. Part way through the ceremony, two guys with huge silver maces walk up and down the aisle past the deans, who vote to let the new batch of us graduate by remaining silent while the mace guys pass. Then, the graduates come up in various groups to stand in front of the vice chancellor, take the hand of their deans, and bow once to each of the vice chancellor and his two proctors. Next, we all filed out of the building into a side building, where the porters from the various colleges had our new robes waiting. It's traditional to pay these guys 5 pounds for the service of having your gown ready, putting it on you, and making it look straight. After this, we all lined up once again outside the main doors to go back into the theater as graduates.

lining up in the new gear

There were some other MBAs from my class in this line as well, and it was fun to chat with them about what they've been doing since leaving school etc. In the picture above, you can see some people with white fluffy hoods, they are the MAs. The MAs get a special deal in this ceremony, because they have to go up to the vice chancellor, kneel in front of him, and get tapped on the head with a bible to the words "in the name of the father, son and holy spirit" in Latin. We MBAs don't get that treatment. As we filed into the hall to applause, we stood back up in front of the vice chancellor and bowed again, swearing to uphold the values and laws of the university by saying "do fidem". Then, we filed out again, and were graduates!

The rest of the afternoon was taken up by posing for pictures in various Oxford and Merton locales, and then a lunch in the Saville room at Merton. The dean of Merton himself presented me with my degree, and took a few minutes to chat with me about my next steps, etc. Nice guy, that dean. I wonder if he'll make warden someday, I think he'd be pretty good at it.

in front of the Sheldonian

with one of the heads that inspired me to come to Oxford in the first place

at logic lane... bet there's a lot of these pictures out there

with one of the great old trees in Merton's garden

All in all, the day was lots of fun, and the culmination of a pile of hopes and dreams for me. My mom and Reba were there to support me, and all my fears of failure seemed far away and silly. Because the ceremony takes place well after school completes, and with your college instead of the MBA school, it's much less of a group activity. I really didn't know many people at the ceremony, and there were no parties or big rowdy MBA pub gatherings, so it ended up being a rather personal, reflective day. It was nice that way.

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