Fun with idioms

At least temporarily, I’ve decided not to avoid idioms any more. In fact, when the opportunity arises, we’ve been having a bit of fun with them at work lately. In the last two days, this has featured the following:

1. Beat you like a red-headed step-child
2. Fair-haired son
3. Don’t give a rat’s ass
4. Pee in your cornflakes

Personal Artillery

While the French have a modern-day reputation as being militarily incompetent, they have made some very important contributions to what we consider to be modern day military structures. As with many historically influential aspects of French grandeur, this particular one dates back to Louis the 14th. Louis is generally less well known for his military campaigns, as they were mostly inconclusive. While not so great at reforming the territorial landscape, they were great for producing lots of wounded soldiers.

Up to that point, armies were largely made up of soldiers for hire and conscripts. If you were wounded that was your tough luck. Louis changed that by introducing some modern day improvements, such as veteran’s benefits. In particular, he started a retirement home/hospital in the middle of what is now downtown Paris. This structure has been expanded upon and aggrandized and now holds the main French military museum and the tomb of Napoleon. It’s truly an impressive structure and a very interesting museum. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in those aspects of history.

Some of the armaments they have on display date from the 1700s, including some fascinating examples of cannon from that time period. Back in 2002, Mary Ann and I happened across this piece, which I think my sister will appreciate.



This one might be of more general interest. Do you suppose this was the old-time equivalent of painting pin-up girls on bombers in WWII?



Incidentally, Louis went to great lengths to honor the war wounded. He in order to show the great esteem in which he held them, he had a chapel built in the facility where he would go to mass with the ex-troops. However, he needed to be conscious of his image, and not mingle too closely with the commoners. He found the perfect balance by building a huge altar piece in the middle of the chapel, with the vets on one side, and him on the other. Technically, he was at mass with them, but none of them could actually see him. Therefore, all conditions were met, and everyone went home happy.

This move towards honoring the troops made a big impression on the French and other armies in Europe, and started a shift towards providing for soldiers after the war was over. The French really took to this idea. Even today, veterans are clearly listed as having priority for reserved seats on the metro over a whole list of other folks, including the elderly and pregnant women.

I find honesty very attractive

Which is why I think this conversation I had with Mary Ann this morning quite amusing:

Me: So I had this really weird nightmare last night, that had…

So, that was pretty weird wasn’t it? I think it could make a good senior film project for some feminist film student somewhere.

Mary Ann: Yeah. It could also be really great material for a session with a psychiatrist.

Me: Thanks for your support.

Saida

In an effort to enjoy Lebanon a bit more, we decided to do something that I always enjoy… Archeological frolicking! Although we have been to Sidon numerous times, we haven’t yet been to the Sea Castle. While I often notice that most of Lebanon’s historical treasures aren’t very well protected, the Sea Castle is an exception. Not only do they have a ticket booth and a fence, they have given it that little added bit of protection that can only come by never actually opening the gates.

The ticket booth seems to be staffed on a complex rhythm synchronized to the flight patterns of migratory fruit bats. No ripe bananas, no ticket, and that’s the way it is. Fortunately, the bats were flying that morning, so we were able to get in. I did notice with some amusement, that the booth attendant was adamant that the admission price was 4,500LL, but the price on the ticket was clearly printed as 4,000LL. Whatever. If it keeps the bats happy, I’m happy.

I find this castle to be one of the more interesting crusader establishments in Lebanon. It was built in the 13th century to help fortify the city and its port against all those nasty, evil Muslims who had conspired to be there before them. Of course, to be fair the Muslims stole it from the Greeks, who happened to be there before them, who stole it from the Persians, who happened to be there before them, who stole it from the Phoenicians, who happened to be there before them, who stole it from the Neolithic natives who really were there first. That being said, the Phoenicians were committing terrible violations of animal rights against the indigenous population of murex snails to steal their purple dye, so the Phoenicians had it coming.



As with most crusader establishments, it was low on art, and high on defensibility. Still though, some flourishes were visible.





Among the favorite crusader techniques was the embedding of slices of Roman columns to reinforce the walls.



One thing I hadn’t seen before was a rather creative use of marble columns as moldings in door jams. Doubtless this did a great job of keeping out the draft and raising the resale value of the property.



As we were there during high tide on a windy day there were some exhilarating waves breaking against the seaside boundary of the castle. We took some great video and interior pictures, but I’m not posting any of it here because of all the plotting, identity thieving weirdos who read this blog. No, I don’t mean you.

Anyway, I did get a bit cranky over one aspect of heritage management. If you really care about preserving your history, why would you leave iron cannon out in an area that is constantly receiving salt water spray from the ocean? Wouldn’t you think that a tad likely to shorten the lifespan?



I realize that once they build up a rust crust that they are fairly stable, but still. If you don’t want to be nice to them, I’ll be more than happy to take one off your hands. I’ll just wait until the migratory bats of moved on, back my 12 year old car down the causeway, pop one in the trunk, and you’ll never even know I was there…

Don't blink...

Danielle would like to say that taking pictures of babies with the red-eye reduction flash setting causes certain side-effects.

My own laser gun!

I want one!

"...burns holes in most materials."

I just love products with disclaimers like:

"This is a dangerous Class IV laser project and requires initial purchase of plans including our hazardous equipment affidavit that must be signed before purchase of the actual system. "

Still though, $1,750.00 for the out-of-the-box version is a bit steep. But hey, isn't it worth it to blast holes in your living room walls with your own laser gun?

Bwahahahahaha

Traveling man

I'm quite glad to be back with my family here in Beirut, but there have been a few issues. Ever since my trip, Stella has been having some problems:

1. She now requires reassurance when going to bed that I'm going to be there when she wakes up.
2. Mary Ann told me that Stella ran out her room crying that she was afraid tigers during the second week I was gone.
3. Stella is now very concerned about Monsters and doesn't want us to close the door to her room at night.
   

I can't make any clear causative case between my leaving and all these symptoms suddenly occuring. They might only be coincident. I doubt it though. Stella and I have a very close relationship, and me being gone for two weeks was a huge rock to drop in her pond. I've never been gone before at this. I suspect these things are happening because her world got rocked and that's causing her stress.

I'm concerned that things are going to get back to normal just in time for me to leave again. Still though, I can't just not take any business trips because it will disrupt her...

Let the therapy bills commence.

Anti-blogging

I’ve been think about starting a non-public section of this blog where I would share more personal information, pictures, and some of my more snarky opinions. Access would be given on an individual basis to people I know personally. Do any of you have an opinion on that idea?

Expat sum-up

This trip to the US had some real surprises for me. I had thought about tracking how I was reacting to America each day of the trip. However, the whole daily blogging thing got derailed fairly quickly. Instead, I’ve tossed together a kind of retrospective graph showing my desire (on a 1-10 scale) of moving back.



At the start of things, I wasn’t really that hot on the idea of moving back. That started to change toward the end of the first week, based on several key circumstances:

1. Spending time with my sister and her new husband
2. Seeing the kind of life I would likely have if I went back
3. Shellie
4. Reconnecting with all the family on my father's side
   

The first one is obvious, so I won’t go into that. The second one refers to me scouting out what it would be like if we moved back to Charlotte. Positive things included grass for Stella to play on, neighborhoods with happy children, and how generally easy it was to get things done. The incessant driving culture was a clear negative.

The third one needs a bit more explination. Shellie is a close friend of Terra’s who gave some hercluean efforts in keeping things going with the wedding arrangements. Two main things really impressed me about her life. First, they were a great demo of what I would want my family to be like if we moved back. Her family is about the same size as mine, her husband’s career is very similar to mine, and she has a really great life. Not Norman Rockwell perfect, but warts and all, a great thing. Except for the dog, that definitely has to go. Second, Shellie and her husband have really been going the extra mile to help out Terra and her husband through the whole dating and getting married process. That’s really nice of her, except for one thing.

That’s my job.

Shellie, you’re great, but I have to kill you now. No offense?

So anyway, Shelllie is personally responsible for the peak at day 8.

Things started to taper off again when I really started thinking about what it would be like several years down the road if we moved back. Would I start to find it boring after the first ~8 months? Would I start missing the international life? What if three months after moving there Terra’s new husband decided that he hated my kids for being the fantastic people they are and there was some big row?

Incidentally, we get that a lot. My kids are cuter, smarter, and more articulate that everyone else’s on the planet. Most people who meet them just decide to give up and not bother having children since they can’t possibly compete with mine. It’s a serious risk, but I digress.

These questions didn’t take the Moving Desirability index back down to 0, but it did take a hit. For the rest of the week, when I was spending time with the rest of my family, the index started to rise again. It peaked after my visit to some long-time friends in my hometown. By the end of the second week, it was back up into the plane ticket buying range.

This was cured by actually getting on a plane and reminding myself of how much I hate flying across the planet.

Days 15-17 consist of my gradually adjusting time zones, sleeping schedules, and telling Mary Ann all the stories of what happened during my trip. I finally finished up with this on day 18. Since that time, Mary Ann has put about 80% of her votes behind returning to the States. I’ll invite her to add her thoughts into the comments section if she wants to.

So, that’s how the visit impacted my views on future plans. I’ll be interested to see how things pan out as I get a little more established back into my life here. I’m planning on a nice excursion to Saida this weekend to try and get back into the Lebanese swing of things.

We’ll see.

Finally!

The weather in Beirut is cold enough that I can walk to work without needing to change out of a t-shirt when I arrive.

On the other hand, my now useless folding technique for getting a dress shirt to survive for 30 minutes in a backpack might earn me a patent.

#1 Quote

Today is my first day back at work, and the most frequent (non-work related) remark I have heard is:

"You look younger!"

Back in Beirut

It was a long flight, but fairly anti-climactic. I'm back, the luggage seems to have survived, and it's time to go fall into bed.

Bonding

After the wedding, we went to a baby shower for one of my sisters. In between all the gift opening and girly stuff, my niece and I hung out in the back yard making lion noises.

Nooooooo

Now that I've been consorting with family and friends back in the homeland, I've noticed some Soutern accent tinges creeping into my speech. I find this odd since I lived there for 10 years without any issues. Weird.

Frolicking

I've had a full day of fun and excitement in the great land of the US, but not a whole lot of time for pithy and enlightening posting. So, I've compromised by taking pictures of things I thought were interesting.



This display area was in the lobby of my sister's new apartment complex. I find the one lonely little cookie strangely amusing.



One dramatic change to the American scene since my last visit is the number of flags. There seems to have been a real merchandizing of the patriotism concept. A close second to the number of flags that have sprouted up are the number of eagle images.



Apparently, my soon to be brother in law has a thing for eagles, and has them all over the place. This is the top of his bookcase. The nice thing about letting picture speak for themselves, is that I can't get in trouble for what commentary I add =)

Update

I've arrived in America, and things are going well. I expect to be able to post a decent sized item soon, but for now, here is the quote of the day from my sister:

"I hate this apartment with a deep and abiding passion that transcends the ages."

Yup, this is my family =)

Salmon

In just two short hours, I'm off to the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave for two weeks. I wonder how much it has changed since my last trip...

Mary Ann and the girls will be staying back in Beirut, which I don't like at all. This will be the longest I have been away since we had kids. I'll probably be going nuts by the second day.

Anyway, got to go pack.

Better at math than language apparently

I went to the bank yesterday, only to be faced with this mind-bender from their rack of pamphlets:



What does this even mean?

Mary Ann suggested they were renting out a time machine so you could go back to the moment of your conception and break things up. On the other hand, maybe they have stepped up their campaign of annoying their customers through bad service to now include actively promoting the elimination of their customers.

In any case, we can clearly see from the picture that the product is obviously aimed at the huge and thriving market of Lebanese families adopting Irish babies.

Anyway, here is the Arabic side of the flier. Maybe someone who speaks Arabic could offer a clue as to how the translation went so badly.

Foreigners are so demanding

Foreign Students in Russia: “Stop Killing Us”

Stupid foreigners coming into the country with all their crazy demands. Honestly, I don’t know why Russia puts up with this sort of complaining.

Ungrateful little weasels marching around with slogans like:

“Stop Killing Us”
“Let Us Live”
“We Want to Live”

Honestly! Who do they think they are?

Fortunately, the mayor was on the case, confidently reassuring the protestors:

“Students have been killed and will be killed. We are trying hard, but there isn’t much we can do about it…”

Useful, yet not overtly geeky

I’ve decided that I need to buy a watch. Generally speaking, I hate watches, rings and so forth, but there’s a little problem. Mary Ann is getting a bit tired of me asking her what time it is.

The problem is that while I’m at work, I can just look at my computer if I want to know the time. This is quite convenient as I am generally looking at the computer anyway, so I just have to divert my eyes about 3 degrees downward. That’s the kind of effort I think is appropriate for finding out what time it is.

Somewhat inconveniently for both of us, when I am not around a computer, I am generally around Mary Ann. As she already owns a watch, she then inheirits the time-announcer functions.

All this brings me around to the watch-buying project. I think I’m leaning toward the one on the left. What do you folks think?

Interesting times

All right, so I haven’t been blogging a whole lot lately. Lest you think I am loosing bloggish steam, let me assure you that I’m not. It’s just that the most interesting things going on in my life are all un-bloggable. Loads of interesting stuff at work, etc. etc. Unfortunately, I can’t really comment on the security measures, other than to say that I’m quite positively impressed.

Along those lines, I would like to announce that I have solved Lebanon’s electricity problems. With the upcoming UN report into Hariri’s assisnation, pretty much everyone I’ve talked to in this country is wired out of their minds with stress. All we need to do organize teams of these people to take turns sticking a power cable in their mouths to put all this extra energy into the power grid.

Voila!

Endless and abundant electricity created out of cheap and widely available anxiety.

What a sense of humor!

In the computer world, there’s a lot of chatter these days on whether or not the US should continue to administer the Internet, or whether or not it should be done by an international organization (presumably the UN). It’s a contentious issue, because it involves some complex technological issues as well as the diplomatic ones. Fortunately, we citizens of the world can turn to that fair and balanced source of truth, The Guardian, which offers this insight:

It will be officially raised at a UN summit of world leaders next month and, faced with international consensus, there is little the US government can do but acquiesce.

Hahahahahaha!

That’s a good one.

I wonder if anyone over at the Guardian has actually been reading the news for the last couple of years.

Fortunately, there is a kernel of truth from one of the experts quoted in the article:

"The idea of the council is so vague. It's not clear to me that governments know what to do about anything at this stage apart from get in the way of things that other people do."

Oh, so very true.

Discovery

One of the neat things about being a parent is seeing your kids experience and understand things for the first time. Along those lines, Stella had a eureka experience on Friday, when she discovered that if she plays around in the bathtub for too long, her fingertips get all shrively. At first she was very concerned about this effect, but after a lecture on hydrological qualities of the epidermis, she calmed right down.

Going Round the Twist

I’ve held off posting this content for the last week because I’ve realized that is really isn’t all that ground-breaking. It’s a pretty clear disillusionment cycle kind of thing. On the other hand, it goes a long way to describing why I don’t really agree with people processing through stages 1-3, which amounts to about 95% of people out there.

The process constitutes the following phases:

American is Best

This is the flag-waving, unquestioning acceptance that America is the most splendiferous country in the world. This tends to be the default self-perception of most Americans.

What do you mean we’re not the best?

For whatever reason, a closer examination of the facts puts some blots on the snazzy picture. Maybe a lot of blots. For me, this phase happened when I lived in France and spent many an enchanting hour debating/defending the relative merits of America. To an unfortunately large extent, I drank the Kool-aid.

America sucks

For some reason, an enormous number of phase 2 Americans get stuck in this phase. To some degree I think it becomes fashionable to show off how much you think America sucks, because the more critical you are, the more enlightened you are. A friend of mine referred to this in hindsight as his ‘Euro-snob phase’. For me, this culminated in doing extensive research on giving up my American citizenship. Highly stupid.

Hey wait, America is kind of good.

Hmmm, maybe America is the best, but then again, maybe not. A lot depends on how you measure it. I don’t often agree with Paul Krugman, but he has made a good point about comparisons between American and European systems. If you want a lavish social safety net and an inert foreign policy you aren’t likely to be happy with America.

Personally, this whole process has ended up with what I believe to be a much more balanced view of America. There are so many good things about America and American culture that I didn’t appreciate until I was better able to contrast them with other systems.

Whether you ultimately like or dislike America, one thing is true. No other country in the world has a greater ability to transform this planet or a greater potential for good.

Because Mao likes cats

I know I really shouldn’t be finding happiness in this sort of story, but how can I not smile at writing like this:

Regarded as symbols of bourgeois decadence during the Mao era and only fit for the dinner table, dogs have become increasingly fashionable as pets in China in recent years.

I think all despotic regimes should have at least one item in their political platform that is both condemned and edible at the same time. On the other hand, clubbing dogs to death in front of their owners in the middle of the street strikes me as a bit much. Couldn’t they at least be sent to doggy forced labor camps, or trained as a special K9 brigade of the Red Guard? Perhaps used to invade Taiwan…

Tweak

For some reason or another, I have a muscle spasm in my left eyebrow. This is giving me that sexy deranged look that’s so popular in professional circles.

Maybe I should just tell people that it’s a side effect of reading the news too much.

What would the world do without Mormons?

First, it was Philo Farnsworth inventing the television. Now, it’s Lynn Ogden inventing carbonated yogurt.

Glerb

This has been the week of death for electronics in our house. It started off with Stella accidentally pouring water on my cell phone. The, the video camera’s motor went bad. The computer keeps getting progressively more and more flaky with each passing week. I think it’s building up to the grand finale when the warranty expires in a few weeks. Further, the door that holds the batteries in the still camera has almost completely broken off, so that’s just a matter of time.

The Amish lifestyle is starting to look appealing.

Way with words

One of the benefits of working in this particular region is the charming way in which the governmental officials speak to each other. How about this little gem from the Iraqi Interior Minister:

Iraq will not accept "a Bedouin on a camel teaching us about human rights and democracy."

Oh really?

Perhaps you might prefer a Texan in a helicopter...



Some other choice snippets:

"Let them give the right to their women to at least drive cars. Their women are deprived of their rights while the women in our country are equal to men."

He also called the Saudis "tyrants who think they are king and God, and they name their countries after their families."

Review of The Last Star Fighter

Can’t say I’d recommend The Last Starfighter. Are you shocked? Does it surprise you? I can’t help but dissect movies the way I would a book or a painting or a symphony. The best examples of all of these are the ones that give me something to work with. Starfighter didn’t.

I can, however, praise the film on two counts. That’s right. I found two things to appreciate.

1. The beginning really had me going. Despite some mediocre performances by the leads, I really was interested in this young man’s future. I was engaged in the story all the way up until the Ferrari-minivan showed up.

2. Costumes were dead-on right. The good guys wear matte finish suits with nice contrasting color details to let you know that they have souls and depth. Plus, they look vaguely human which curries our sympathy all the more. Not the bad guys. Their glossy, solid color (orange--ewww) uniforms give them all the personality of a storm trooper, and about that much individuality. They drool, ooze, and are otherwise repulsive. The evil villainous traitor wears black eyeliner. Eyeliner on men = evildoer, which is simple enough.

Here’s a plot summary:
Teenager dreams of getting out of his trailer park and doing something with his life, but spends all his time playing video games (and is therefore really good at it). One day, a stranger lures him into his Ferrari-minivan and informs him that the video game was designed to locate gifted intergalactic warriors, and whisks him off to the join the fray. Said teenager isn’t sure that is what he wants to do with his life, and while he is having second thoughts back on Earth, the intergalactic elite are massacred in one fell swoop. It then becomes clear that if the galaxy is to remain free for democracy our hero must rise to the occasion and fight the entire enemy fleet single-handedly. Upon saving the galaxy, he returns to his trailer park, triumphant, to say good bye to mom, and pick up his girlfriend. They return to distant worlds to devote their lives to restoring the defenses of the good guys.

--Mary Ann