A Trip to the Old West (+South?)

05. June 2010 · 1 comment · Categories: Daily Life, Travels · Tags: ,

PullmanCity (16)A week or so ago, Sarah and I were in the local mall, and we noticed a poster for an old west town not far from Regensburg. There is a lot of that sort of thing in Arizona, as you can imagine, so I was intrigued to see what the Germans would make of it. Today was another sunny day (that’s two in like two months!) so we headed out.

Pullman City is just south of the Bavarian Forest national Park and about an hour away from us. The first thing I noticed when we got there was that there was a surprising amount of people dressed up (like SERIOUSLY dressed up). At first, I thought it was employees heading in, but I quickly realized that these were visitors. That is definitely different than the places I have been to in the US.

The little Main Street part of town was a bit of a hodgepodge of old west/old Dixie/Civil War/pre-revolutionary frontier town. This was mostly based on the array of costumes people were sporting. Of course, modern County music was blasting over the speakers and the one-man mariachi band sang from a list of songs that actually were Mexican (or Bavarian) and songs about the Bayou….. It was a little confusing but entertaining at the same time. We ate at the Mexican place – when will I ever learn to NEVER order Mexican food in Germany? Although, admittedly, for chicken (curry) tacos, they weren’t too bad.

PullmanCity (4)With all of the people and excitement, Clair was bouncing off the walls. Her favorite things by far were petting the horses tied up in front of the one building and going up and down some stairs. She almost exploded when she discovered the play grounds. I suspect that in a couple of years, she may enjoy other aspects of the place.

Anyway, it was fun to see what the “Old West” means to the Germans. It almost reminded me of the Renaissance fair with all of the enthusiasts in costume, but one big difference is that no one in costume interacted with us. From Virginia to Arizona, whenever there are people at a time-period kind of park, there is always the creepiness of actors in costume interacting with you. I was kind of expecting that this time, but the enthusiasts just kind of did their own thing. In fact, one section of the town is a little camp that has been constructed by local enthusiasts who used their own funds to construct it. Some of them were sitting in from of their buildings by a fire just hanging out pretending to be living from any time between 1776ish to 1900 (as far as I could tell).

The place is actually on a plot of land that has cabins and tents you can rent. The camping is away from the main street and in a bit of a park. We were thinking of renting a cabin one night with some friends and their kids. It is the kind of place that the kids would LOVE (you can rent ponies and go on carriage rides & pan for gold!), and sitting around a camp fire next to a cabin sounds like a good ides right now. I have a feeling that finding a free cabin this summer will be tough. The place was packed today, and it seems quite popular in general.

I feel like I discovered a little piece of German subculture today, and that is always fun. As an aside, they have some rodeo events here too. There are stables where over night guests can park their horses. They had a team pinning event going on when we arrived. Next time my brother comes to visit and brings his cowboy hat, I finally know where to take him!

Here are a few photos. We spent a lot of time walking ad chasing Clair, so we didn’t take too many.

Life without China

26. January 2010 · 3 comments · Categories: In the News, Politics, Random Stuff · Tags: , ,

I don’t mean life without the country of China. Every once in a while, I come across news stories that get very little press about some horrendous acts carried out by the Chinese government against it’s people. It goes beyond internet censorship that does get a lot of press, interestingly, to the point of what I would call mass murder. Often women are bear the brunt of these harshest of these acts. I won’t go into details here about the stories, but these stories usually touch me deeply every time.

Fast forward to my perfect little life (compared to, say, the life of someone living in rural China). I look at the bottom of my coffee cup to the inevitable stamp “made in China.” From clothes, to dishes, to furniture, so much of it is made in China, and my consumption, in some part, contributes to suffering of the Chinese people. I can’t do much about the top-end politics of how my countries interacts with the emerging super power, but I can do something about my habits of consumption.

I am somewhat aware of where the stuff I buy comes from. I have a mix of things that were a bit more expensive because they were made in Germany or Western Europe with explicit mention about the conditions in which they were produced, and I also have a lot of things made in China. I’d like to decrease that second part until I can live with the idea of contributing to the government of China. I also realize that things are less black and white than painted here (as Chinese prosperity grows, there may be more chances for people there to win their freedoms, etc), but I still want to cut back on consuming Chinese made products.

Any ideas out there? I find that, generally, buying less stuff is a good start, and when I have to buy stuff, I have to read really carefully. I used to think that sticking with major brands helped, but it doesn’t anymore. That little ‘made in China’ stamp has a way of sneaking in there when I thought I have bought something from elsewhere. Has anyone had success in this? It would be nice if they had something similar to ‘conflict-free’ diamonds for Chinese products.

As an aside, I saw a headline about some video the Glenn Beck is promoting about the ‘truth’ behind communism. Apparently, he thinks it is a big secret that Stalin was probably the worst mass murderer in history and the Che Guevara was an actual violent revolutionary. Long story short, from what I saw, the video kind of implied that communism is really bad and that the liberals (AKA Obama and elitists) have been trying to spread lies that communism is great and that Stalin is a hero!!!! OK, that last bit may just be my cynical extrapolation of where the video goes, but you get the idea. Anyway, I was thinking about the people this video was marketed toward (I suspect I am not one of them), and I wonder if the video will inspire them to take a similar stand against Chinese products since China is the largest communist regime ever. Will crazy-eyes Beck try to raise a boycott against Wallmart and most other discount retails who thrive off of Chinese imports? That would be an interesting twist. I suspect it will most likely be blamed on Obama and no one will be asked to sacrifice their cheap stuff, but it could happen.

Professional behavior – am I expecting too much from our leaders?

08. October 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: In the News, Random Stuff · Tags: ,

There is a video making the rounds on the interwebs showing Nancy Pelosi standing with Harry Reid. People are laughing/analyzing her body language with regard to what he is saying. I watched the video, and I think people may be missing the point. In the video, Reid puts his arm around her as he is making his point, and she is obviously NOT OK with that contact and discretely moves away from him. Reid, on the other hand has the body language of the good husband, standing with his quiet wife at his side, making an announcement to the kids.

Wasn’t Bush’s shoulder massage to Angela Merkel enough of a gaff for male politicians to remind themselves to keep their hands off of the women they work with (at the very least, in a public setting)!!! You can see by Merkel and Pelosi’s reactions that it is awkward situation for a professional woman to be in because they obviously don’t want these men touching them but telling them to keep their f$*#ing hands to themselves is kind of strong reaction (and possibly a bit over the top during a press conference, though it would undoubtedly grab headlines).

I have worked with many, many men (sometimes for long hours in close quarters), and the men I work with don’t put their hands on my body when we are working with the exception of a hand shake when we meet (there was an exception of a creepy old professor who is a slime bag and was confronted for his grabby, grabby hands). Is that too much to expect? Am I missing something? I worked with my good friend Brian for a couple of years. We worked together daily, traveled around the country together, and became friends, but when we were working, we were working! I can’t imagine him putting his arm around me during a meeting as he makes a point about a decision we made. Why doesn’t anyone in the media think it’s strange when male politicians are overly familiar with their female counterparts??

I have to give Michelle Obama some props for ardently sticking out her hand to Sillvio Berlusconi rather than letting him kiss her! I guess she could have guessed that unwanted contact was coming and headed it off. It is the times that socially awkward men catch you off guard in front of an audience that are harder to deal with.

It’s so rare to see..

07. September 2009 · 2 comments · Categories: Politics · Tags:

A real policy Wonk in and elected office. Al Franken is one of the few (most of the others get very little press because no one likes to listen to them drone on and on about policy). One of his Wonky talents, apparently, is to be able to draw a very good likeness of the US from memory. I’m sure I can dig up the original with audio, but for the time being, here is a nice party trick.

Who knew Noonan was so thoughtful?

10. July 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: In the News, Politics · Tags: ,

So, I thought Sarah Palin should be left alone because her odd press conference kind of hinted that her and her family needed that. Then, she called all the major networks to come down to the lake where her family seemed to be retreating and continued to expand on the gobbly-gook that she gives as an explanation of her actions. I couldn’t really defend her right to privacy after that – she just seemed to be asking for it.

Surprisingly, I found an article by Peggy Noonan about the whole Palin phenomenon that I actually completely agree with. That was a bit surprising considering that Noonan comes off as a bit of a raving maniac quite often, but that is usually when she is on TV speaking. Perhaps she writes more coherently than she speaks, but it is nice to read words from a rather right-wing spokes person that is thoughtful, intelligent, reflective, and dare I say, “elitist”?

OK, back to your regularly scheduled blogging.

My Generation in the government

20. February 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Politics · Tags:

If you haven’t already, I recommend checking out whitehouse.gov and recovery.gov (the site used to track and solicit feedback on the TARP legislation – if you want to know where your money is going, check it out). I love the sites because, for the first time that I am aware of, it is very clear that tech-savvy ‘youngsters’ are putting the face on our government.

The whitehouse, Congress and all Executive Branch Agencies (EBA) have websites, but for the most part, they are rather uninteresting and difficult to navigate – I must admit that NASA has some good stuff though. Even with NASA, I usually find info through Google a lot easier than searching the NASA site itself. The two new sites coming out of the whitehouse, however, are simple and easy to use. Given all of the bureaucratic loops that must be jumped through in order to publish anything for the government, the look, feel and timeliness of the website is even more impressive. They, for example, have announcements from yesterday! Having tried to get some info up in an unnamed EBA, that seems amazing to me.

As far as content of these sites, I find it really nice for getting my eyes on presidential memoranda and Executive Orders – I find that sometimes the media hasn’t even done this much when reporting on them. The recovery site has a nice time line for the implementation of the TARP and some general info on how it will be distributed. Both sites have running blogs that are updated almost daily with the changes and input from the people setting policies. This is Awesome! Previously, there were no blogs (ie. no first hand accounts made publicly accessible in a timely manner), and if you wanted to find documents on the policy coming directly out of the Whitehouse, there wasn’t such a simple way to get it. It was all available before, but now it is much more accessible.

Yay for the Whitehouse techies!! And props to the puppet master who knows enough about the importance of staying connected in today’s world to fight for his Blackberry.

a stimulating surprise

16. February 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Cool Science, Health experiments, Politics · Tags: , ,

I, like all of our Congressional representatives back home, wasn’t able to read all 1,000 (and some) pages of the stimulus bill that was just passed so I missed a lot of details. I was impressed to learn that evidence-based medicine will be getting a boost. I never even knew this issue existed until my first job in DC at the National Academies of Science where a colleague of mine was working on a study looking at the lack of evidence-based procedures in medicine.

Until then, I kind of assumed that doctors prescribed a certain treatment because it is the best treatment for the patient. It turns out, there is very little information on which treatments are best for almost any procedure because there has been little to no funding to cross compare treatments. You can find information on how effective one particular technique is on a set of patients, but you can’t evaluate how much better the outcomes are compared to a completely different protocol. In some cases ineffective or overly invasive treatments can create even more problems for patients.

I know, from personal experience, sometimes surgeries are recommended for problems that can be resolved much more simply in some instances (shoulder surgery and gall bladder surgery – to name two that I have experience with). I am not saying that doctors try to hide therapies from patients – I don’t buy into conspiracies because I know too many good doctors and researchers. I do think that doctors themselves have limited information on alternative treatments because they have learned from people who are really good at doing what they do and haven’t distracted themselves with alternatives. Plus, like I said, the studies just don’t exist for the most part because no one is paying for them. If, for example, I need my shattered wrist put back together (that was a bad year), I want the woman who knows nothing more than how to put wrists back together really, really, really well (hopefully that one will be on call when I land in the emergency room).

In my own experience with a shoulder injury (I have had to see a lot of doctors in my life – head, wrist, shoulders, neck, sternum…….) I also found the lack of information on less-invasive therapies a bit frustrating. The specialist I went to for a shoulder injury kind of laughed at me and bet that the physical therapy that I requested would fail – he said, “I’ll see you in six months for the surgery.” He begrudgingly gave me a referral so my insurance would cover it, but I had to push for it and endure a bit of ridicule. The only reason I even thought about alternatives to surgery was because of some knowledgeable therapists I met through the yoga community. If I didn’t know those people, I would not have had the confidence to seek out alternatives. When I came back six months later with a happy, healthy shoulder, the doctor was impressed, but one shouldn’t have to push as hard as I did to get referral for the cheaper, and possibly better, treatment.

I think this part of the stimulus package is a great long term investment to help in the larger problem with health care expenses – not to mention that is may save lives and improve the quality of life for many patients. The implementation will be a long, sticky process, but at least the funding will be there to get the ball rolling on a long overdue issue in health care.

Just thought I’d share……. I get all riled up about health care stuff.

Hilarious – watch until the end

28. January 2009 · 1 comment · Categories: Politics, Random Stuff · Tags: ,

What would Reagan think?

26. January 2009 · Write a comment · Categories: Politics · Tags: ,

from this article written by one of Reagan’s staff back on the day. It is meant to discount the way many in the GOP have hijacked Reagan’s name to justify their anti-government rhetoric.

Reagan, who spent 16 years in government, actually said this:

“In the present crisis,” referring specifically to the high taxes and high levels of federal spending that had marked the Carter administration, “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” He then went on to say: “Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it’s not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work.” Government, he said, “must provide opportunity.” He was not rejecting government, he was calling — as Barack Obama did Tuesday — for better management of government, for wiser decisions.

There is another nice quote in there – “Certitude is the enemy of wisdom.” I’ll have to remember that one. It is at the heart of scientific thought.

The Moment

20. January 2009 · 3 comments · Categories: In the News, Inspiration, Politics · Tags: ,

Expat in germany

Clair and I watched Obama become President! CNN had this thing where they asked people at the inauguration to take a photo of ‘The Moment’ and send it to them. We aren’t there, but I took a photo of the moment from here. Clair must have liked what Obama had to say because she made a big poo during his speech! Then she cried when Bush lifted off in the helicopter – maybe she is a Republican!

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