New Year's Eve

My last post of the year -- I'm actually surprised I posted as many as I did, even accounting for the long periods of nothingness.

The weather is cool/cold here, but clear, so I'm looking forward to a good view of the fireworks tonight. We were going to go downtown and watch them from a friend's apartment right off of Skanderbeg Square, but all of our Albanian friends kept pointing out how packed the square would be at midnight, to the point of not being able to move. So instead of going downtown at nine and not being able to leave until two a.m. or so, we're going down the street to a house which has an unobstructed view towards town, and we'll go up on the roof (three storeys) and watch from there. Sounds much better. All this presupposes that I'll still be awake, of course.

We have nothing much planned for our four-day weekend. We're off Monday too because Saturday is an Albanian holiday, so since it falls on Saturday we're off Monday.

Over the last few years I've made a pot of gumbo for my birthday, and I'm planning on doing the same this year, and maybe some red beans and rice. The problem is that there are no gumbo crabs here, nor is there any andouille. There is no substitute for gumbo crabs, and not a real substitute for andouille. But there is a very small German store here that sells kielbasa and other types of sausage, so I may have to try some for the base. I'll have a report in a couple of weeks.

A giant mall has opened in Tirana, called City Park. Not sure what all they have, but I think we're going one afternoon while we're off. They are supposed to have a very big and nice grocery store. The company is out of Slovenia. Each time a new store opens there are new products available. When we got here April of 2008 sour cream was not available, or buttermilk, or several other things. Since then I've seen sweet potatoes (only once, but I saw them), peanut butter, intermittently and not very good, Kraft mayonaise -- it says Kraft, but it's different. So a new grocery store brings hope -- vanilla extract? Cottage cheese? We'll see.

Ten years ago today I was in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, babysitting Jackson the dog while his owners were in Belize. The intervening 10 years have seen a lot of changes, not the least of which is that the Ocean Springs house washed completely away in Katrina. Cindy and I got married, completely remodeled a house, then sold it and moved to DC and now Albania. We're both enjoying our life here, and even enjoying being "homeless."

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Gezuar viten i ri!

Baku

Our trip to Baku was very restful and enjoyable for me; a lot of work for Cindy. The old part of town (Icherisheher) has been settled since the 5th Century B.C. At one time Baku produced over half of the world's oil; it is still the main source of Azeri income. Baku started producing oil commercially in the 19th century; by the turn of the century it was a wealthy place. Outside of the Old City it is Parisian architecture, laid out with parks and boulevards and French-styled buildings and fountains. Then beyond that is the Soviet part, which is pretty drab and unimaginative.

Friday afternoon the Azeri prosecutor who had been coordinating and presenting the Azerbaijan government positions took us on a tour, and this is one of the places we went. This is a good brief website for further info. http://www.sputnik.in-baku.com/inbound/atesh.html

Atashgah Temple on the Apsheron peninsula.

This is also from our Friday afternoon tour. It is a defensive position now on the outskirts of Baku. Our guide told us that when the Russians took over Azerbaijan in the 18th and 19th centuries, they tore most of these down. He said something like 30 to 40 large ones were torn down. They left this one because it is so small and they didn't feel threatened by it.

The view back towards the city and the Caspian Sea from the castle above. It overlooks some of the oilfields, which I think are pretty polluted. Not much in the way of environmental standards in the 19th Century, or during Soviet times either. Stalingrad, now back to Volgograd, is not too far north of here. The World War II battle of Stalingrad was initiated because Hitler, against the advice of his generals, decided to try to capture the Baku oil fields before he finished his capture of Moscow. Bad decision -- he lost both.
The Maiden Tower on the Caspian Sea in downtown Baku, in the Old City. This is taken from our hotel balcony restaurant, which fortunately had an inside part as well.
The new theatre. Modern plays as well as Shakespeare were on the marquee.

The minaret at one of the old mosques in the Old City. Much of the city is built with sandstone, which is carvable without a lot of difficulty, which accounts for the delicate carvings all over.

Dave on the top of the Maiden Tower. The guard wanted to take my picture; then he asked me if I had any cigarettes. When I said no, I offered him about $1 in coins, but he wouldn't take it.
Old city wall. The entire wall around the old city is still almost entirely intact. it used to extend to the Sea, but in this century the "beach" was extended a hundred meters or so and is now a long promenade.

Sharm el-Sheikh

We just returned from a little trip to Egypt over our Thanksgiving holidays. Because of three Albanian holidays and Thanksgiving and a weekend, we get six days off. So Cindy, Taylor and I went to Sharm el-Sheikh, at the very tip of the Sinai peninsula, and took life easy for a few days. Sharm used to be a quiet little fishing village, but now is a destination tourist resort, owing entirely to the spectacular coral reefs and tropical fish close by. Sharm is at the very top of the Red Sea, where it divides into the Gulf of Suez to the south and the Gulf of Aqaba to the north. The water is very, very clear. This first photo is of a small batch of coral close to the shore. It looks sort of like seaweed or something, but it is a coral bed almost to the surface.

This is also taken from the boat. The entire Sinai landscape is exceedingly desolate looking. Mt. Sinai is about 75 to 100 miles north of here. Other than the new resort city, hardly anyone lives on Sinai, and haven't for thousands of years. Since it's a peninsula it is not on the way to anywhere, there is no water, no vegetation, and few people. No wonder the Children of Israel got annoyed wandering around here.
On the boat, after a couple snorkling outings (three for Taylor; two for Cindy) recuperating.
The view from our balcony. Red Sea in the distance. Palm trees imported from somewhere. Grass -- all this stuff is imported. It reminded me of Las Vegas.
Another view of the Red Sea and Sinai. Flying over it on the way in I could see nothing green. The mountains go on for mile after mile, and nothing seems to be growing. Desalinization plants seem to provide the water.

More Lisbon/Boston Earthquake Musings

John Adams, Harvard graduate, mentioned in his diary an earthquake he felt in Braintree in 1755 -- it was a few days after the Lisbon earthquake, but before Boston knew about the Lisbon earthquake. I forget how many days after, I think a couple of weeks. Adams mentioned chimneys being damaged, among other things. I think it is an interesting tale to recount, because I think it shows just how little things have changed in 250 years.

Benjamin Franklin had conducted experiments, famous not only in America but also in Europe, demonstrating that lightning was electrical current seeking grounding to earth. He had recommended placing lightning rods on houses, church steeples, chimneys, et cetera, to intercept and channel the electricity to ground without actually hitting and destroying the houses, steeples, chimneys, and so forth. This was seen by some as a rather brazen attempt to insert human action as a mitigating effect on God's wrath, and of course caused great consternation among a certain segment of God's chosen, in this case a fundamentalist Boston preacher named John Prince. Fundamentalist is a more modern coinage -- he was just a Puritan, a spiritual descendant of Increase and Cotton Mather, famous Harvard grads and Puritan preachers, father and son on different sides of the Salem witchcraft trials. (Yes, even in the late 17th century there were autobiographies and self-serving spin, after the fact, about what one really thought of witches and the trials.)

John Prince railed against the placement of these iron points as being against God's plan. Earthquakes were God's direct intervention in the affairs of man, being sent to, a., warn us of our sinfulness and lack of adherence to God's laws, or, b., punishment for our sinfulness and lack of adherence to God's laws, or both. If you've ever listened to Pat Robertson or James Dobson, you understand John Prince. (Katrina as response to gays in New Orleans, anyone?)

John Winthrop, Harvard professor and one of John Adams more influential professors, motivated by ensuring using scientific discoveries to promote the public good, was moved to give the scientific response to Prince's sermons. (Condoms and Dr. Joycelyn Elders, anyone?) They alternated publishing pamphlets on the subject, and frankly I don't know how it all played out. I see lightning rods still, though. News of the Lisbon earthquake would have arrived during the pendency of this great lightning rod debate; maybe it ended it or intensified it. I don't know. Most likely, then as now, people went on believing what they believed, despite any sort of outside evidence.

The conflict between science and religion goes on, of course, and it is sad sometimes to realize the silliness of the arguments. Some of them take on a sort of Greek mythology aura, gods struggling with humans, with other gods, with the natural world. Sort of like John Prince. I mean, if he believed in an omnipotent God who sent earthquakes to warn and/or punish sinners, what possible shield could a lightning rod be? But people do get worked up about it.

For his part, John Adams and the major founding fathers tended to Deism; basically that God created the universe according to natural law and rules, within which we operate. You've heard it described as God winding up the clock and letting the universe play out. The founders believed it, as did Voltaire, a contemporary, whose Candide was prompted by the Lisbon earthquake. (These things have a life of their own -- Leonard Bernstein's Candide, to a libretto by Lillian Hellman, is a modern classic). Candide was about an eponymous man, Candide, whose saga contradicts the prevailing outlook of mid-18th Century Europe that the world and all that happens therein is a result of God's beneficence and master plan. Events like the Lisbon earthquake caused thinking people to question if that could really be true; and if it was true, what was the purpose of 100,000 dead Portugese (and more in other places in Portugal and Africa) Christians sitting in church? I have no way of knowing, but later in life John Adams mentioned in a slightly self-congratulatory way that he hadn't attended a church service in over 50 years, and I can't help but think (wishful thinking?) that the Lisbon earthquake weighed on his mind. Two hundred and fifty years of soul searching, from Schliermacher to Tillich and Niebuhr(s) and we're still grappling with the issue of why bad things happen to good people.

Why do bad things happen to good people? That is a serious question with which many great minds have grappled.

Here is a frivolous question, but one you can grapple with yourself: If the whole earth flooded (enough flood to cover Mt. Everest, we presume), notwithstanding where the water came from, where would it recede to?

Back From London

I'm back from London, and it
was an okay trip, but not too enjoyable, and long. So here's the
details:

Got there on All Soul's Day and had an uneventful transfer from
Heathrow to my hotel on Baker Street. All Soul's Day is one of the
more important feast days to me, for quasi-religious reasons. It was
the day in 1755 when Lisbon was destroyed by an earthquake -- a very
large earthquake, followed within the hour by a tsunami, which was in
turn followed by a great fire which burned out of control for days.
It so happened that Nov. 1 was on a Sunday in 1755, and the several
hugh cathedrals and smaller churches were full of people. Lisbon had a population of about
250,000 people, of whom about 100,000 died. The reason I think of it
often, especially on Nov. 1, is because of the effect it had on
philosophy and subsequent thinking of the enlightenment philosophers,
including our founding fathers. The obvious question was how could a
loving God do this to so many innocent people, especially in church on
a feast day? And the answer, marking a big break with entrenched
religious thinking of the day (and still with us, sad to say) is that
He didn't do anything. Most of our founding fathers didn't think God
had a lot to do with our day-to-day lives. They thought the world ran according to natural laws and God didn't intervene.

Anyway, the following day, Monday, I met the retired British Foreign
Service diplomat whose apartment in Pimlico I was renting, and settled
in, and made it to Harley Street for my two o'clock appointment with
Mr. Hadi Zambarakji, my ophthalmologist. To digress again, in England
they are Mr., not Dr., and they are consultants, not doctors.

My consultant, Mr. Zambarakji, examined my eyes and concluded I indeed
had a secondary cataract in my right eye, which he zapped with a
laser. It has recovered very nicely, and now I have 20/25 vision in
that eye. The laser didn't hurt at all. I felt nothing, and the only
thing I heard was him "pulling the trigger" 10 or 12 times.

I was scheduled for cataract surgery at 7:00 Friday morning at
Wellington Hospital at St. John's Wood, the same place I went to for
the detached retina last year. Because my Visa card had had some sort
of security restrictions placed on it, so I effectively couldn't use
it. So I spent Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday emailing my bank in
Jackson, Security in Charlotte, etc., to get my card activated. But I
was able to get enough money to pay for the doctor. I had to pay up
front for the hospital and doctor and I'll submit a claim to Blue
Cross.

Things went well after surgery; I left the hospital around noon
Friday. By Saturday morning I was having an allergic reaction to the
drops I was putting in the eye, but I didn't realize it. But by
Saturday sometime in the night I knew it wasn't right, so Sunday
morning I called and ended up going back to the hospital to see Mr. Z.
He thought I was allergic to the preservative in the drops, and
changed drops, and I started recovering. He also discovered I had
somehow gotten a scratch on the eye, which was somewhat painful. And
he said I had to stay beyond Tuesday -- I had appointments on M, W and
F, and left Saturday morning early to come back to Tirana.

My left eye is steadily improving and I think it will end up about
like the right eye. Mr. Z. said he was trying to match the left with
the right eye, and I think it will end up that way. If it does, then
I probably won't get glasses, as 20/25 seems damn near perfect to me.
I'll have to get reading/computer glasses, though.

Gunpowder Day also came while I was in London. Or Guy Fawkes Day. November 5, 1605 the plot to blow up Parliament was discovered. Now it is celebrated with fireworks, not just on November 5, but for a few days before and a few days after. I didn't venture out to see any, but I heard a lot.

The apartment was nice, and the only drawback was that the man in the adjoining apartment was obviously a Chelsea football fan, which in and of itself was of no moment; however, Chelsea had two big games while I was there, and the win over Manchester United really got him excited.

So much for London. It was cold, wet, dark -- very much like Seattle in winter.

I got back to Tirana at one, went to the wine store with Cindy on the
way back, and chilled out until we went to the Marine Ball that night.
My eye was droopy, but I enjoyed sitting at the table chilling and
talking to the people who weren't dancing. I did dance once -- I'm
sure I did an excellent job.

I've been to work two days now, and tomorrow I think I'm coming home
early to rest my eyes. Reading is a little difficult and irritates my
eyes, so I don't do a lot of it. Monday morning going through emails
was about all I did for the rest of the day.

He's Coming Home

Well, Dave has been in London since November 1 dealing with his eyes. He went up there to see what they could do for his eyes. For those of you who have (or have not) been keeping up, on his right eye, he's had a detached retina (twice) and cataract surgery. Since then, he has developed a secondary cataract on the new lens on the right eye, and all the while he was developing a cataract on the left eye. With his eye issues and the fact that his hearing is shot, he keeps saying he just needs a head transplant - but, that's another story. Anyway, he goes to London, and right off the bat, they zap the right eye (what we have been calling his bad eye) and it's doing great. A few days later, he goes to have the cataract removed from the left eye. All goes well for a time, then he has an allergic reaction to some of the drops he is using and somehow gets a scratch on his cornea. So, instead of coming home this past Tuesday, he will come tomorrow, just in time for the Marine Corps Ball. Taylor and I have eaten pizza, Chinese food, stuff from the freezer, etc. And, we have now developed an attachment to a new puppy. We have promised to let Dave name him Rover if he agrees to let us get the dog. We will see. He says he's ok - we'll see when we get a look at him.

I finally moved into this century and got a Facebook page, but have not yet convinced Dave to do so. If anyone's reading, send him a comment and let him know you're thinking about him.

Cindy

Grammar lessons unlearnt

I’m in London for eye work, and so far all I can read are the headlines. Like this one: “Chelsea sit pretty after ugly victory over United.” I thought, well, sports page, you know, they left off the “s” on sits. Then this one: “England need a back-up plan to counter their forward failings.” Why not “needs”? And then “Battling Chelsea are sitting pretty.”

I got it! Sports teams are plural! Our sports teams may or may not be plural – we would say “Yankees are sitting pretty,” but we would never say “New York need a back-up plan.”

As all of my great insights, this one are completely useless for any known constructive purpose and wholly lacking any commercial possibilities entirely. In short, it can’t be “monetized,” and if something can’t be monetized, what good are it?