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.

Powered by Zoundry

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.

Powered by Zoundry

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!

Powered by Zoundry

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.

Powered by Zoundry

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

Powered by Zoundry

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!

Powered by Zoundry

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!

Powered by Zoundry

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

Powered by Zoundry

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.

Powered by Zoundry

Back in the OX1 again

Recap

I've just made it back to the OX1, to find that dear British Telecom has broken my home internet connection, and so I'm a coffee shop bum again! I've just had a chance to upload my pictures and stories from the Santorini, Athens, and Rome portions of our trip. Check them out here:

santorini life

byebye santorini!

rome - the greatest city on earth

pompeii

a note on roman bird shit

Next we head off to France with mom, then back to the OX1 for a few days before heading to the states.

A New Cape

My formal Oxford graduation is this weekend, and I have to get a new cape! You can rent or buy these things, and of course they're absurdly expensive to buy. But I've decided that I want my son/daugter to play dressup in daddy's Oxford robes someday. Maybe it will encourage them to follow in my footsteps, though I hope not as circuitously. And maybe, without so much smoke inhalation. :)

mba style graduation gown

Visitors To This Site

Finally, I wanted to say that I check recent visitors at sitemeter and can see (sort of) where people are visiting this site from. I have to admit that it kind of choked me up today, thinking of all my dear friends and family around the world that keep checking in to see how we're doing. All I see is the city, and sometimes institution that the visitor came from, and all I can do is guess who you are. But I have a pretty good idea...

seattle (aubeta.net) - Ethan or Eban

santa-cruz.ca.us - Laura

austin - Gabe and Katy

barcelona - Eric and Angie

melbourne - Andrew and Claudia

hong kong - hmmm... Ashton? Frank?

It makes me really happy to see you all visiting. Send comments I love to hear from you!

Powered by Zoundry