A swiftly tilting planetarium

DID YOU KNOW? Experimental rain prevention techniques were used prior to the 2008 Olympic opening ceremonies.


I'm really sorry about the lack of bloggery lately. Rest assured that it's not for a lack of interesting things happening in my life, but just a bit of reorganizing my priorities. Which is interesting, given my response (pictured above) to the question "What is your career and how would it be helpful in establishing a moon colony?" at the Adler Planetarium.


I don't want to say that the Adler Planetarium was my favorite part of Chicago, but... it totally was. I mean, I love planetariums, so it already had that going for it. I guess the most topical thing to compare it to would be Olympic diving, where the dive has some sort of difficulty multiplier that makes it possible to score thousands and thousands of points. Planetariums for me are like twelve flips and a double twist starting from a handstand.


The Shedd Aquarium was pretty sweet, too. We saw a really sad-looking komodo dragon, a really happy-looking beluga, and this crab, from my darkest nightmares. I didn't calculate all the numbers exactly, but I think it might have been cheaper for us to buy an a combination pass to visit the aquarium, planetarium, and related attractions


That is, it might have been cheaper if it hadn't been Target Free Second Tuesdays at the Field Museum, which made our visit full of damn weiner kids but still totally worth it. "Free second Tuesday?" asked Ruth. "Because I thought it was still Winsday." Most days in our trip after this ended up being Winsdays. We saw some really great things, including some Chinese foot-binding shoes, a biodiversity exhibit, a tree-sized sloth, this deer-looking thing, a prehistoric beaver, and a unicorn.

Also regarding my darkest nightmares, I had this dream a few weeks that Mahmoud Ahmedinejad was going to kill Ruth while she was eating falafel, which is just implausible for so many reasons, but this fact worked its way into our inside jokes for a while and also into the improvisation at Chicago's Second City. It was timely, but it wasn't the best improv act of the night (in my opinion, that was the one motivated by Ruth's fear of finding an apartment)--heck, it wasn't even as good as them having to act out the word "tittilate" in charades, at my suggestion. What can I say? They asked for a three-syllable demonstrative verb that was kind of dirty. "Tittilate!" she said. "From this gentleman right here, who is going to be giving me his number right after the show." Too bad I had to check out early and run (literally) to Greyhound.


Speaking of irrational fears, I am still deathly afraid of ferris wheels, but managed to steady my trembling hands for long enough to take this picture out of the window of one of them. I also took a picture of the ferris wheel rules, and I'm not sure why that seemed so absurd at the time, but it was. I actually like this picture better than the ones I took off the top floor of the Hancock Tower, which are nice, but kind of dark and unable to convey the breathtaking infinity of streetlights all around you.


I was going to put that picture up just for the heck of it, but I much prefer this picture of Ruth and I with the Bob Newhart statue. Oh man. I was so excited. I only saw it from the back at first and I was already like, "I want a picture with this statue" and then I saw the face and I was like "OH MY GOD IT'S BOB NEWHART!" drawing the attention of many, many onlookers, but not quite as many as when Ruth was posing with the statue and telling him a story of how I take too long relieving myself in the bathroom. Anyway, I felt as much joy seeing the statue as I felt sadness upon discovering that Suzanne Pleshette died, which I feel is kind of a beautiful symmetry.


My two favorite pictures from Chicago both come from Ruth's camera; I feel bad stepping on her toes, but I don't know when she's going to blog again and I just need to round out this entry. I had hoped to round it out with an Oprah visit or, less ambitiously, a Jerry Springer visit, but whatever--getting kicked into a bottomless pit is just about as cool as scoring last-minute Oprah tickets.


And oh my, now we're going to Cedar Point, because you're saying to yourself, "Midwest Wedding Explosion seems cool, but what it's really missing is police involvement."

Blame Canada

DID YOU KNOW? Detroit has a really fascinating mile road system.

Sometimes entry titles just fall into place; personally, I think my greatest achievement in this field was "A Waffle House is not a Waffle Home," a meditation of geographic diversity and severing ties to your hometown when you get to MIT.

Because, indeed--blame Canada. As I mentioned in my previous entry, I was almost late for a wedding at which I was playing the processional music, and seriously, it's all Canada's fault. Sure, they did some good things, like exchanging Canadian and American dollars at parity and having a giant chess set and letting us pick through used bottlecaps while we watched the crazy crazy saga of Kwame Kilpatrick in prison, but seriously, Canada? You almost ruined a wedding.


After achieving our goal of having a beer in a foreign country before noon and taking this picture, Ruthie and I took this sweet picture and then embarked on a journey to find the nearest stop for the Tunnel Bus, basically the only piece of public transit that will get you from Windsor, Canada to Detroit, United States. Unfortunately, the currency exchange lady was mistaken in her directions to the bus stop and we watched it speed by just one stop away from our friendly waiting place. "Whatever," we collectively decided, "The bus comes every twenty minutes, and we have two more hours before the wedding." Indeed, there were two more buses out of Detroit that would get us back to the hotel with ample time to shower, shave, and change before the wedding. All we had to do was board the tunnel bus and make the connection.

And for real? An hour and twenty minutes. That's how long we waited after finding the actual bus stop, which amounted to a laminated piece of paper taped to a trash can. Seriously, Canada? What is wrong with you? All I know is that I'm not moving to Canada if John McCain or Mike Huckabee or Voldemort or whoever wins a presidential election. Germany, maybe--at least the Bahn runs on time--but no way it's going to be Canada.

After an interminable conversation about fast food, gay marriage, and unemployment on the bus out of Detroit, the rest of the day went by pretty much without incident. We sped out of the hotel unshowered, with just half an hour to spare and made it to the wedding about 5 minutes late, and Shannon thoughtfully helped me tape my piano music to the electric keyboard. Wearing her wedding dress and carrying the bouquet. "Shannon! No!" I yelled, out of my mouth that was still a little bit bloody because I had shaved in the car.


Playing the piano in public for the first time in five years was kind of a cathartic moment for me, and it went okay--not without errors and not really reflecting the fifty hours of practice I put in, but generally rhythmic enough that the party was indeed able to process down the aisle. I played The Blue Danube, the closing credits music from Star Wars Episode IV, and the Wedding March, which I mixed with Bohemian Rhapsody at the end because I had noting to lose at that point, already thrown off a little by the photographers and the wind and the flower girls tossing roses onto the keyboard. The mother of the groom did end up thanking me for my adequate playing abilities, and you know, that's good enough for me.

But, you know, weddings aren't really about the catharses experienced by tardy unshowered piano players, are they?

I'm really tempted to put up another MITblog entry because seriously, if you want to talk about an MIT wedding, this was an MIT wedding done right. Beyond the Star Wars/2001 overtones of the processional music...


1) Thomas did his vows in Chinese, to spontaneous applause.


2) The ringbearer was a radio-controlled robot designed and built by Shannon and Thomas together.


3) The cake was Mars, with a blowtorched-sugar redspot and bride/groom astronauts. This is a tribute to Shannon and Thomas meeting as officers in Mars Society.

Seriously, that's an MIT wedding. And it was beautiful, just beautiful all around, except my piano playing--maybe my favorite part was an old Chinese tradition where the bride and groom serve tea to their newly-minted in-laws and call them "mom" and "dad." The tea was somehow forgotten in the crazy busy wedding preparations, but it was still beautiful, and something I might even have to incorporate into my own wedding, which I think will be some kind of massive barbecue at this point.


No, actually the best part was Lynn's toast, which actually made me laugh and cry. It started off slow, and then gathered steam as she talked about how stupid Mars exploration was--"There's no water. And what are you going to talk about? Some rocks you found?" I mean, that's really Lynn's greatest gift, is making fun of people. Also nicknames. Anyway, she concluded with an anecdote in which she asked Shannon whether she'd really be willing to give up her entire family here on Earth to spend the rest of her life alone with Thomas Coffee on Mars. Shannon replied that yes, for the good of the human race, she would live alone with Thomas on Mars for the rest of their lives together.

You're crying right now, aren't you?

But yeah, like I said, a fantastic wedding. There was even a chocolate fountain, which just moves it from a ten to a ten-plus in my book. Sorry that I almost missed it. Luckily, it couldn't have started without me. Whatever. Blame Canada.


Of course, I'm also looking forward to Ruthie's wedding, which will no doubt be catered by Chick-Fil-A.

Too much to count

DID YOU KNOW? The tallest roller coaster in the world, Kingda Ka in New Jersey, needs to have three tiers of signal lights because it's an aviation hazard.

I realized today that I will say "bless you" to someone when they sneeze but not "God bless you" and I don't know what this really says about me and my views on religion or linguistics. I realized this on the BART ride home from Midwest Wedding Explosion. This dude kept sneezing but in any event I decided not to say anything to him because he had earbuds in and also he was watching a movie on his iPod video and laughing at it, and generally I resent people who appear to be having more fun than I am.

But yes, Midwest Wedding Explosion is over and oh dear it is going to take a long time to blog. It kind of started out fine and then just kept growing more and more and more bizarre. Frank O. Gehry-themed improv, getting picked up by a police car in Sandusky, Ohio, waking up in a car in Iowa, and gay cage clubbing in Milwaukee--honestly, by the time you've done all that, almost missing a wedding because the last bus out of Canada was late seems like small stuff.

It all culminated with meeting the son of George Kell, my high school musical director, at a brewery in Milwaukee, and seriously, I was so excited about this that I texted Sam's Mom to tell her this, concluding that Midwest Wedding Explosion had officially become "the best vacation ever." And considering that I count my three months working for Bayer as a single three-month-long paid vacation throughout most of Western Europe, that's kind of someting. Her reply came today:

Haven't you met him before? I know I've met him at least twice. I'm glad you're having a great vacation. If there's anybody who deserves to have a great vacation, it's you.

Please be careful.

Thanks, Sam's Mom. I did. And I will.

Be back soon

DID YOU KNOW? According to Harold McGee, who is one of the smartest people ever, trust me, you can make ice cream in a bag.

I didn't take as many pictures at the Gilroy Garlic Festival as Ruthie did, but I feel like the ones I did take were pretty representative. My subjects were simply given the instruction "be garlic."





And I feel like that's a good place to stop before Midwest Wedding Explosion--pictures of people being garlic and making peace with Andy Rooney, who no doubt would have balked at the curry I just ate for breakfast. It was kind of a "use up every ingredient you currently own" thing, so we're looking at zucchini, green beans, bok choy, and carrots flavored with onions, garlic, tons of ginger, turmeric, cumin, curry leaves, kaffir lime leaves, peanut butter, cilantro, mint, and scallions. It turned out pretty fantastic. Now I am dancing to Devendra's "Carmensita" while scrubbing down our stove, and this is also fantastic.

But all this is nothing before the metaphorical Galactus of enjoyment that will be Midwest Wedding Explosion. See you on August 18.

I'm mad and that's a fact

DID YOU KNOW? The word "globster" is a thing.

Actually, that's a total lie. I am not mad at all. I was mad for a little while, but now I'm kind of over it.

Who was I mad at? Andy Rooney.

Watch this video.

I really wanted to embed it, but apparently demand for embedded Andy Rooney videos is so high that I would totally crash all of CBS's servers if I did that, so you'll just have to click on the link above.

Okay, so basically I was watching 60 Minutes the other night (confirming that Ruthie and I really don't need cable television, when that's the only thing we've used it for this entire week) an I found out that Andy Rooney is upset that things like raspberry iced tea and vinegar potato chips and bacon salt exist in this world and wants to destroy them. So, you know, it's Andy Rooney. What's my problem?

First of all, his premise makes no sense. It's not like regular potato chips or regular iced tea no longer exist in this world, and it's not like the flavors he's talking about are that bizarre anyway. You know, like cherry and vanilla together. And anyway, he kind of disqualifies himself as an epicure at the beginning of the piece when he notes that even the classic combination of peanut butter with jelly is too startling for his palate. Seriously, I can sympathize with Sam's Mom when she goes into a restaurant and asks for an iced tea and all they have is mint iced tea and they don't tell her that when she's ordering, but at least she eats PB&J. I think.

Okay, second, he's just making stuff up in the video. Why do low-fat things cost less? Because you have to remove fat from things that already contain fat. That takes time. And energy. And fat-removing equipment. And therefore money. Are bees really making honey faster than we can eat it? I mean, probably not, because they're all mysteriously dying, but kudzu is also growing faster than we can eat it, yet kudzu jelly mustard has yet to become as widespread as honey mustard. He also suggests that hazelnuts are cheaper than coffee and that's why they're added to coffee, just as a filler, which, you know, is impressive in that totally ignores both physical science and economics.

So at first I was thinking that I was mad just because Andy Rooney gets to go on television--on a respected news program, no less--and literally just make stuff up for five minutes and get paid for it. You know, that's kind of lame. But really, deep down, that's not the main reason I was mad at Andy Rooney. The main reason is that the first example he uses in his piece is Vanilla Coke. And I mean, again, he makes no sense, because vanilla is already a flavoring in coke, so if you want your Coke to taste like Coke then it also must taste like vanilla, but anyway, seriously Andy Rooney, you almost spewed the Vanilla Coke you inadvertently bought across the room? What is wrong with you?

Vanilla Coke is the most delicious beverage that the Coca-Cola Company has ever produced, ever; my heart broke when it was discontinued in 2005 (the reintroduced Coca-Cola Vanilla is not a suitable replacement) and one of the things I was most anticipating about my trip to Germany last summer was that they still make Vanilla Coke there, and that it's made with sugar, which by my estimation is, indeed, the single greatest liquid achievement ever produced my mankind. So what really made me most angry about this Andy Rooney report was the implication that Andy Rooney knows where to get Vanilla Coke and even though he hates Vanilla Coke he's not sharing.

But then I did some research, and now I am not mad at Andy Rooney anymore.

First of all, take look at Wikipedia. Andy Rooney is old. Like, not just Madonna old (she turns 50 next week) but actually geriatric. Seriously. Like, he's 89. Dang. I mean, dang. That's old. He is so old that he could not even be featured on this website. I'm pretty impressed that he's actually still on television. I'm willing to give him some credit just for that. Even Bob Barker called it quits at what, 82? Snaps for Andy Rooney. Just finding out he was old, I became a little less mad at him.

And apparently at some point in his career, you know, when he was reporting on World War II, he was actually pretty good at being a journalist. He was one of six American reporters on the first American bombing raid over Germany. That's pretty impressive. Andy Rooney was apparently very credible and talented at some point. And, you know, just because of that, and just because he is currently 89 years old, if he wants to go on television for five minutes a week and literally make things up in his 89-year-old head and yell them at a camera, I'm willing to cut him some slack. Just because, you know, he's Andy Rooney, and it looks like if anybody has earned that right, it's Andy Rooney.

Finally, when I checked out the transcript of his piece just to make sure that I was accurately reporting on all of the bizarre flavor combinations he described, such as sour cream and onions, I discovered that the piece was originally broadcast on April 27, 2003. Back then Andy Rooney was a mere 84 years old, but more importantly, Vanilla Coke was still commercially available in the United States and at the height of its popularity. So that's when I stopped being mad at Andy Rooney: when I realized that he did not have a secret hoard of Vanilla Coke in a warehouse somewhere that he was keeping out of public hands just because he feared it would be too damaging to the fabric of America.

The more you know. God, I feel like Paul when he sees that French soldier's corpse in a ditch in All Quiet on the Western Front. Hopefully Andy Rooney is not offended by the comparison.

No cause for concern

DID YOU KNOW? Via Wikipedia, regarding the town my grandmother lives in: "On 1813, Thomas Walker, a politician, was scheduled to vote on whether Jonestown or Lebanon should become the county seat of Lebanon County. But on the day of the vote two men from the Lebanon faction took Walker to the Buck Hotel (still open and located in the main square of Jonestown) and kept buying him rum until he was too intoxicated to vote. As a result, Lebanon won by a vote and is now home to the county courthouse."

Not that I don't give Sam's Mom a reason for concern--during our weekly phone call yesterday I revealed to her that our trip through the Midwest was now going to include a road trip to Austin, MN (now revised to include Mason City, IA), that I'm running a marathon in October, and that I have varicoceles. But of particular concern to her was my hilarious anecdote about how I woke up in my favorite shirt and noticed that itw as being "eaten through by acid" and still managed to turn the day around into one of the best that I've had in Oakland so far.

So, I mean, you know, poor choice of words. Precision of language, Jonah. I noticed some purple stains on my favorite shirt on Friday afternoon and assumed they were from the blueberries that I had been eating in my Super Granola that morning. So I was unconcerned. I almost licked them off. Luckily, I did not. The next morning I woke up to discover that there was a tiny hole in the shirt where each purple stain had been, and touching the stains only caused the shirt to crumble like a good pie crust. I was kind of sad.

But really, "eaten through by acid" was a misnomer. Destroyed, yes, but not by acid, because I didn't use any acid in lab on Friday. Right now my forensic analysis suggests that I actually spilled some cellulase on it--dangerous to the one hundred percent cotton shirt, but, thankfully, not so much to my skin. Unfortunately, I hadn't come up with this by the time I was finished talking to Sam's Mom on the phone. Say what you mean, but it don't mean a thing.

Anyway, still, my shirt was eaten, metaphorically, by some kind of chemical compound, and I remained inconsolable. My plan was to head over to Goodwill that afternoon to find a cheap yet appropriate frame for the picture, which remained undamaged and which I seriously think is one of the great pieces of artistic expression of our generation.

But then Ruthie woke up and was all, "Pillow cover!" and I was like "Hmmm. That's the ticket." So a quick trip to Cheeseboard (Ruth's first time, with an outstanding representative nectarines and mozzarella), a double chocolate cookie (available only for one hour per week in Cheeseboard's bakery), another awesome goodwill painting, three $8 t-shirts, some gardening, a trip to the drugstore, a dinner party, and Bloodcar later, we started on our finest collaborative creation. Lo, less than 24 hours after finding my favorite shirt destroyed by enzymatic degradationon its surface (kind of the point of my research, now that I think about it), I had helped to construct a new favorite pillow.



Honestly, a total collaboration, but mostly Ruthie's doing--she c0nceptualized the initial idea, found the fabric mere seconds after I made the macabre suggestion of "some kind of kitty fabric" and did most of the sewing, although I was somewhat able to redeem myself from the B- that Ms. Weber gave me on my purse-sewing project in 8th grade (which has long been disputed by Sam's Mom) with some interior stitching that seems to be holding up pretty well. But yeah, all I provided was a little sweatshop labor and the original clumsiness that destroyed the shirt in the first place.

And the best part is that Ruthie e-mailed Threadless today and found out that it's totally legal to make pillows out of destroyed Threadless shirts and perhaps even to sell them at a profit. See, Sam's Mom? No cause for concern. Because now I am going to be filthy rich.