Travel hell, 2nd Edition

As planned, I didn't go to sleep on Sunday night. I stayed up packing to try and make sure that I could sleep just the right amount at just the right time on the plane to avoid any jetlag. Unfortunately, the RER B(a metro line in Paris) had otehr ideas, and was delayed over 40 minutes getting me to the airport on Monday morning. I, and about 15 others on my flight, were turned away from the check-in counter, told it was too late. They wouldn't even let us try to get through security and to the gate.

I was put on standby for a flight an hour later that would have gotten me to OR roughly the same time. At 1pm Paris time, I waved to the plane as it left the gate, full, leaving myself and 5 or 6 other standby passengers stranded as Continental shut down for the day, telling us to come back 7 am the next morning to try to fly out on standby again. Rather than go back to my apartment, a 1.5 hour journey by public transportation, with no guarantee I'd make it back to the airport on time the next morning, I decided to tough out Aeroport Charles de Gaulle and make it my home for the next day and night.

Two of the other passengers, Adrienne and Ed, who were grad students on the way back to Houston(my connecting flight to PDX) from vacation and some neuroscience conferences in Brussels, chatted me up a while, but they ended up taking off to a hotel nearby. However, Cesar, a Mexican citizen trying to get back to Chihuahua via the same flight I missed, was planning the same thing as me, so we decided to team up to improve our odds of taming the fierce environment that we soon realized is probably the worst airport in all of Europe.

CDG is enormous. It takes an hour to walk from one end of the terminal to the other, and there are 3 terminals, each connected by a monorail sorta thing. Yet, every space is cramped. You can barely get two luggage carts abreast at most places, and the gates have seating for about 10% of the capacity of today's transatlantic jets. The airport was built for a time when it was a hub for many small flights, and is not suited for today's model of far fewer, far larger flights. Every chair in the airport is made of metal, with no padding. They practically all have armrests, making laying down impossible. Cesar and I managed to find a metal bench that looked more comfortable than the rest, but it was far from any electrical outlets, so we waited until no one was looking, and carried it about 20 meters to some outlets so we could charge our laptops(switching off on a power adapter I bought from an airport store--neither of us though to bring one, because we both expeted to be in North America before we'd have to charge). We bivouaced there, confident we had found the most optimal setup in the entire airport. This was a sentiment I confirmed throughout the night, as my wanderings int he terminal showed me dark visions of stranded business travellers in rumpled suits, heads tilted at unnatural angles trying to get comfortable on chairs designed to be implements of torture rather than welcoming waiting areas.

I played guitar for a while, opening up my case and making a sign that said:

Stranded!

Airport food too expensive!!

Please Help!!!!

A few people tossed me a few Euros, but airport crowds really aren't too sympathetic. At any rate, it was a good time, and Cesar sang along with some of the songs he knew(notably, Louie Louie, which also got the most grins from passersby).

Once I had collected a few Euros, I went off in search of food. Dining spots are few and far between at CDG. There aren't a lot of restaurants, their food is poor quality and expensive, and they close very early. I ate McDonalds there, something I haven't done in 15 years, because there just wasn't anything else available. It was awful and I think I'll avoid it for another 15 years. However, when I got hungry again around 11pm(as the McD's was my only meal that day), I was disappoitned to realize that even McDonald's had closed. I went everywhere in the terminal, a 2 hour trek for sustenance, but found nothing open. The airport was officially dead. I returned to the metal bench, where Cesar was watching one of my DVDs on his laptop. I broke out a clif bar I had in my backpack for just such an emergency. Cesar also shared a big bag of roasted peanuts he had acquired earlier. Mmm, dinner.

Bored out of my mind at midnight(did I mention that Wi-Fi cost 20 Euros, or about $30 USD for a 24 hour connection? I decided it wasn't worth it, which limited the ability of my computer to entertain me), I wandered over to a large group of French youths, looking to be mostly around 18-25. One of them had a classical guitar he was strumming on, so I asked him first if he spoke English, and when the reply came back negative, I asked in French if he'd like to jam. He nodded, so I brought over my guitar, and we played together for at least a couple of hours. I found out the group, mostly high school students from Bordeaux, was on some sort of humanitarian mission to Madagascar, and the other guy paying the guitar is about to finish up French law school himself. I told him a law student in the US, and we talked about what were interested in a little bit, though the depth of the conversation was limited by my french skillz(or lack thereof). At any rate, they were entertaining, and helped me kill time until around 5 am, when the nearly two days without sleep caught up with me and I had to catch just a quick nap. I was fully aware that if I slept even a little more than 2 hours that I'd probably miss my flight, but my eyes just wouldn't stay open.

Fortunately, I woke up on time, made my flight, got to Newark, and sprinted through customs and to my gate, barely making my 45 minute connection. 5 minutes later, none other than Ed and Adrienne, the couple who also mised the original Houston flight due to the Paris Metro, arrived ont he plane, red in the face and out of breath. They had the seats next to me, and seemed as relieved as I was to be on th plane. We laughed at the coincidence, and I congratulated them for making the connection. They were very nice and quite interesting, so we talked most of the flight, except for the 1.5 hours when Blades of Glory was playing as the inflight film(which was hilarious despite the tiny screen and the messed-up airplane audio). When I finally got O houston, I was excited for some good tex-mex, but disheartened to discover the worst airport burrito ever. I mad my connextion to PDX without problems. And after my mad dash in Newark, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my baggage actually made it, intact and with no delays, to my final destination. Apparently a baggage handler was running as fast as me. A festivus miracle.

Anyways, the rest of my trip has been great--I rented a car to drive into PDX, then spent a night at the bars with a bunch of old AEPi's, then went back to Seth's pad where I'm staying and we hung out until late, getting into one of those crazy conversations about life and the universe that only seem to happen when you meet an old friend after too long. I drove down to Eugene and stopped by LogicTools and Hillel before spending the evening with Brittany, then back up to Portland. On Wednesday, I had breakfast with Lach in P-town before driving down to Redmond.

I'm here to kick ass and chew gum. Fortunately, I've still got lots of gum.

Sacre-Coeur, 23 June 2007.

_______

I've been writing a lot more lately, and its making me feel very nostalgic about the website I put up when I was at Wasatch Academy. It feels good to be writing, kind of cathartic. Just putting something onto the screen is somehow liberating.

Enough about that: I'm heading back to OR for Felice, my sister's, wedding in eight hours, and I'm pretty excited to go back to the states for a bit. Even better is the fact that I'll have a few days of vacation, something that hasn't happened since Spring Break. At the end of the school year, I finished the writing competitionon a Thursday, packed up my apartment and flew out on Friday, arrived in Paris Saturday evening, and started work on Monday at 8am. Been going strong since. Needless to say, I'll be glad for the break.

Also very cool, I'll get to see a few people who I haven't for ages when I stay in Portland for a couple nights.

Right now, I'm contemplating an all nighter. It's 4am in Paris now, and my flight leaves at 12:55.pm If I go to sleep when I get to my seat, it will be 4am in Oregon. I can sleep for 7 or so hours, then wake up 3/4 of the way through the flight to Houston, at about 11am, OR time. Then, if I land in OR and don't go to bed until midnight or so, I should be able to get a full night's sleep and wake up without any jetlag. We'll see if it works.

Gotta finish up my packing, so I suppose I'll do that when I'm finished with this post. I'm stoked to be going back to Oregon for a while.

______________

And now, some pseudo-political nonsense:

On the Need for Marijuana Law Reform

The United States prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s and early 1930s resulted in large economic and social costs to the country at large. There were two primary effects of that prohibitions which severely undermined the American economy:

1) A vast amount of taxable income went unreported. As a result, it was not collected. This reduced operating revenue for the Federal and state governments.

2) The organized crime associated with bootlegging caused its own set of losses: First, there were significant policing costs--having to enforce prohibition meant diverting cops to that task and taking them off the street and preventing violent crimes. Further, the criminal organizations responsible for the majority of the bootlegging also perpetrated a variety of additional crimes which both increased the policing requirement(and further reduced funds and manpower available for other tasks) and came at a very high social cost as well.

The prohibition of marijuana is fundamentally similar to prior prohibitions of alcohol. There are related ideological roots and legal precedents. And there are similar associated costs, both economic and social.

Repealing current Federal marijuana laws would have the following beneficial effects:

1) It will allow states to decide how to regulate sales of marijuana, including complete bans if they wish. Allowing states to act as 'laboratories of government,' and try out new policies to determine their effects, the best solutions will eventually emerge. Further, by allowing states to determine whether or not to allow the drug, American citizens will be given better opportunities to live in areas with laws they agree with, thus maximizing choice in what kinds of places they want to live.

2) By heavily taxing marijuana, the Federal government could create a significant revenue source. This is money that could be used for pressing national concerns: education, healthcare, scientific research(from NASA to the National Insitutes of Health to the National Science Foundation), and other badly needed social services.

3) We could free valuable Federal police manpower to deal with more pressing national security needs. This would result in a significant boost to the effort in the war on terror. Further, by legalizing marijuana and allowing it to be sold and grown legitimately, we would take away a major source of funding from the criminal organizations(terrorist or otherwise) that profit from the marijuana prohibition.

The war on drugs has come at a significant cost to our country. Countless individuals have been jailed or otherwise severely penalized for growing marijuana and selling it. The systemic costs of supporting an overcrowded jail system full of non-violent offenders are a drain on resources badly needed elsewhere. We must repeal Federal marijuana laws, allow states to choose whether to proscribe or simply enforce age limits, and we must tax it, turning it from a resource-drain into a source of revenue.
______________

And now a random rant:

The stupid bitch of the week award goes to....
The Checkout Lady in the Express Lane of the Monoprix on Rue de Courcelles

Having never even heard the word efficiency(or, for that matter, efficacité), it's no surprise that this stupid bitch was totally inept. All the other lines were flying by--people with baskets full of groceries were moving far quicker than the sad few in the express line. But I stayed there, thinking that the short line in front of me would soon end. But it was interminable.

There were 3 people in front of me when I got in line. It took the checkout lady 10 minutes to get through the first two. At least three of her coworkers came and talked to her while she worked. And she had to stop everything to respond. She wasn't scanning or making change while they spoke to her--the act of speaking exhausted her mental resources. I inched closer. The line grew longer behind me. The woman ahead of me had 8 items, which she put onto the conveyer. The idiotic checkout lady scanned one at a time, very slowly, putting down the scanning gun between each item as she grabbed the next. Not only was she completely unable to multitask, she even lacked the ability to process single threads at any decent rate. I was the next in line. After the stupid bitch of the week spent 4 minutes checking out a woman paying cash for less than 10 items, I stepped up. I put down my single bottle of wine, and prepared to pay. I'm not going to go into the mind-numbing boringness of standing there: suffice it to say, it was just more of the same. How it could take her 3 minutes to complete the transaction, I will never understand.

Granted, 17 minutes isn't a lot of time, but having to waste it standing in line just because she was too retarded to do her insanely simple job really pisses me off.

I'm not bitter. I just think she should be fired. And possibly imprisoned.

______________

And now, a long time ago in a galaxy far far away:


Tie Fighter: |-o-|
Advanced Tie Fighter: (-0-)
Tie Bomber: (-o-0-)
Darth Vader's Tie Fighter: <-o->

X-Wing: >=[^]=<
Y-Wing: Y (lol)

Light Saber: =*========[&/&:::::]
Doubled-edged light saber: =*=======[:::::&*&::]=======+=

@-_-@ Princess Leia

Kinda Like This, Only Darker

Place de la Concorde
Photo: J.M. Schomburg


I walk down the corridor, my flashlight focused ahead, illuminating an elliptical path before me. All else is dakrness. As I proceed, a faint light emerges. It slowly becomes larger, and merges with my flashlight's pale beam, revealing itself to be a kind of doorway. It is the only egress as the corridor tapers ever narrower into a the circular portal. The aperture inches closer as I proceed, and it is surrounded by two statues, whose features become clearer as I approach.

On the right side, a mother and child, sculpted from stone of the purest white, with deposits of some sparkling crystal--a glowing, shimmering spectre. The mother looks tenderly down at the child, swaddled, content, a serene and edified look on its own tiny face.

And on the left: the god Bacchus, towering, a crown of laurels made entirely of grapes leaves. A barrel of the finest wine is slung over his shoulder, his huge chest and visage frozen in a perpetual laugh the likes of which no mortal could conjure.

I step through the open door into a courtyard. Directly in my path is a looming marble obelisk. I continue towards it. The pale light from the moon above reflects off its pallid surface; dark blue veins course through the stone. Shadow upon shadow.

I am halfway there. Behind me, there is nothing. To the left of me, a void. To the right, a deep chasm. I dare not look down. My gaze focuses intently on the pyramidal tip of the monolith, and the faintly visible hieroglyphics covering its surface.

I walk three times around the monument, and sit before it. I breathe.

A light flashes in the East.

I exhale.

metaphysical musings of a mellow mind meditating on a momentous mellifluous mural

Musée Marmottan Monet

And now some pseudo-scientific nonsense:

Space-time: an intricate relationship between physical distance and the amount of time it takes to get there.

The Universe's outer limits are defined by how far away light could travel from us in any direction. In this sense, it appears boundless--what could possibly happen to light along the way to make it stop? As far as we know, only a powerful enough gravitational force could ever stop a photon traveling through space(Excepting impact with a solid mass). So in a relativistic sense, the 'knowable' universe is strictly limited in a physical sense by the speed of light, and thereby the speed of the fastest possible information that could reach us.

Just a thought.

And now some pseudo-religious nonsense:

I. In the beginning, there was not much at all.

II. As time progressed, it became quite apparent that 'not much at all' is a little boring.

III. There was light. It emanated from every direction at once, in every direction at once. Everywhere it went it encountered space--it was as if an enormous gravitational pull that had constrained it--not for ages, not for aeons, but for a true, endless infinity, for there was no time before the light--was sudenly released. Immense energy flowed everywhere--to wheres that hadn't even existed a moment before.

IV. As light encountered light it became matter. Purest energy condensed, at first boiling hot into plasma, and slowly, slowly, into swirling masses that begot their own gravitational pull. All of the energy that existed before the Event became, in this way, reconcentrated throughout a newly constituted space-time continuum, and achieved its own light--the bright light of fusion, which, even still, was far paler than the light of the Event itself.

V. With time these stars became out of balance. The resources within them withered--Hydrogen turned to Helium, and Helium into Carbon, and so on, until finally, the very souls of the stars became so corrupt with heavy, immalleable iron, that they consumed themselves, and expired in enormous blasts. The cataclysms resulted in the complete destruction of the being of the stars, but each produced a light far greater than at any other moment in the stars' history, yet a light still far inferior to the first Event.

VI. And these heavier elements eventually recoalesced, forming their own bodies--bodies which could not live without the light of nearby stars. There was one of these bodies in particular, a swirling globe of iron, its core a fiery forge, yet one still far less intense as the cores of the forbearer stars, and is immeasurably less intense than the Event. It's outer crust cooled by the vacuum of space nearby--hydrogen and oxygen formed together to create water.

VII. The perfect mix of chemicals existed, inspiration hit, and life began. And life contained within it a fire, but a fire that burned far dimmer than the core of its planet progenitor. Immeasurably paler than the star that gave it energy on which to exist. And infinitely paler than the Event itself, the precondition for all of space-time.

VIII. This life began to effect the planet around it. It consumed some chemicals. It excreted others. And slowly, slowly, the thinnest, topmost layer changed--it became more and more habitable, and more and more lifeforms emerged--adapting from prior organisms into more and more complex ones. Self-replicating protein strands. Mitochondrian. Prokaryotes. Eukaryotes. Protozoans. Plankton. Multicellular organisms. Algae. Metazoans. Trilobites. Fish. Insects. Amphibians. Ferns. Insects. Reptiles. Dinosaurs. Birds. Viruses. Mammals. Primates. And humans.

IX. And within every human burns a fire. A fire, like all animals', far paler than the Earth's own, even more so compared to the stars, and infinitesimal compared to that which created it. Yet within every human is a fire that apprehends, and that reaches out to understand the universe around it. An intelligence which in its own way, though physically dim, specklike, shines far brighter than anything before it, save only the Event itself.

Alternate ending:

IX. And humans are a vaguely interesting species that really haven't done anything that cosmically significant at all, but have managed to cause some pretty ridiculous problems for themselves in their own little neighborhood.


In other news, Paris is still fun, and I've started a Flickr Account where I'll be uploading some pics.

And now, a roflcopter:

========+:::+========  \
    _ ____l___          --0-- 
   /O/  ___  0\_         _o  \                  
  (=   /_AM__   \_______/ /
(-:_________________lol__/
         \  \
    \____|__|_____

It's actually way faster than it looks.

Bon Soir from Paris

[Repost from http://leitnerinterns.blogpost.com]

It's been far too long since my last post, but I've been so absorbed at work, and at play, trying to live the life of a Parisian, that I've almost come to think that the world I left behind in NYC is simply an illusion.

But to snap back into reality for a moment--here is a glimpse into my life:

The OECD has been amazing to work with. It is a truly ideal setting, with an enormous staff of inspired, forward-thinking, internationally diverse, and talented individuals. There is a true sense that we are all working towards something great--despite wide divergence on the subject matter and focus within the different directorates and divisions of the organization. The building is located in la Défense, the major business district just outside of the city proper--an area of looming glass skyscrapers and modern art surrounding a plaza that looks like something out of a science fiction movie. Each day I work among the throngs of Parisian businessmen(and women!), the center of Paris' economic life and the locus of its productive workforce--a purposefully constructed business district which is far more focused than in any other city I have ever visited.


I have been placed in the Science, Technology, and Industry Directorate, in the Information Communications Technology division, one of the larger divisions within OECD. The division is responsible for tracking and analyzing the worldwide progress of technical development, and what firms, governments, and universities are doing in the field. I am working on the IT Outlook 2008--which is a biannual report detailing a wealth of data on the ICT industry and is one of the preeminent primary sources for statistical data in the field as well as an invaluable, and influential, tool for policy makers. My assignment right now is twofold--I'll be writing a module in the ITO that examines the emerging technologies that are currently being researched worldwide, and what their impact will be, especially in the developing world. A subsection of this module will be a report on the advancements in 'green' technology, and this will likely also be developed into a standalone paper a bit more in-depth than what will be published in the ITO. So far, it's been research, research, research, and while it's very challenging, it's incredibly stimulating--and quite intriguing to think that the work I'm doing now may have an impact on future policy.

Besides work, Paris has been treating me well--I bought a motorscooter so I can get around like a Parisian(i.e. very fast, and always *this close* to being run over by a taxi). I've managed to visit quite a few of the city's amazing parks, including the gorgeous Parc des Buttes Chaumont. I'm enjoying the free time of summer by going running everyday in the nearby Parc Monceau. I spent an amazing evening with two Canadians and an Australian who were passing through Paris, sitting on the steps of La Basilique du Sacré Coeur, drinking red wine and listening to the musicians who bring their guitars there every night. Sadly, however, my own guitar did not make it to Paris in one piece. It was completely destroyed when British Airways finally delivered it to me a day and a half late. The pictures are too frightful to post. However, that devastating turn of events quickly became an opportunity for me to visit the famed Rue de Douai, near Pigalle, an amazing street in the heart of Paris with guitar shop after guitar shop--literally over 30 of them within less than a kilometer. A guitar lover's paradise. I bought myself a new one, and I can happily report that there is nothing quite as enjoyable as playing a guitar on a park bench in Paris in the summer.

Finally, I've made friends with a group of French students who have all just finished lycée. They are helping me with my French and I'm helping them improve their already impressive English. Last week, they took me to an enormous outdoor fête at Parc du Champ-de-Mars, the large greenspace underneath and behind la Tour Eiffel. Tens of thousands of French high school students gathered there, drinking, shouting, dancing, and generally partying as they celebrated the end of le bac, the high school exit exam. It was incredible. That night, I also managed to perfect my French accent on the phrase "Ouru de vous rencontre," or "Nice to meet you," as I moved around the crowd and shared in the massive jubiliation of the Parisian youth until early in the morning.

This is, in a nutshell, my Paris experience thus far, and I eagerly await more. To Leitner scholars and dear readers--be well. À bientôt.