Good, well-tempered 11:50pm address by the prez, but odd set design. Being a traditionalist, I would never go with anything else but roaring fireplace and wood panelling (Ärma talu). Instead he was on the left side of the screen in a run-of-the-mill office setting, with a computer monitor (switched off) on the right. Kind of a sinister, mute presence. Could have had an interesting screensaver or solitaire, right?
I was briefly floored when Ilves said: "This may be the most complicated year of the century for Estonians." Wha? What about 194-- ah, OK, this century.
I don't know if anyone else suffers from this effect, or if only I still forget it's not the 20th century...
Well, we've entered 2009, and it looks good. All clear, I say, if those holdouts in the Western Hemisphere want to follow.
(Hmm, even blogspot refuses to accept that it's 2009, and datestamped the post Dec 31. I swear: I am in 2009, and it is OK.)
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
REVIEW: 2008
Looking back at my blog in 2008, I found about half of it unreadable. Hope it was better for everyone else, and see you in 2009!
January -- I write a classic piece on unhealthy food, and on the literary front, the rest of the year is all downhill. We pick out baby clothes and do winter sorts of things. For reasons unknown to even me, I insist adamantly that Juno be voted Best Picture.
February -- I write about the Freedom Monument and am educated by erudite readers. I endorse Obama -- Michelle, that is. In line with the national independence day, I write muckraking and insinuating pieces about politicians' pasts, which fall on either uncomfortable silence or an empty auditorium.
March -- I ponder what car we should buy, triggering a further rise in oil prices after we commit. I take a Pulitzer-winning trip to northeastern Estonia, in which I check out Russia on the other side of the Narva River and declare it to be good and peaceful.
April -- We name our prospective daughter Lorna. I write voraciously on Estonian topics, in contrast to later in the year when I let even the odious case of Hermann Goering Simm pass by without mention. The Olympic torch and Bob Dylan go on tour, but separately.
May -- Our daughter is born. As if this is not enough population pressure, I sound a call for more immigrants in the country, to a very muted response. Eurovision takes place and I don't know which was worse, Estonia or Russia. Morgan and I take an overnight trip to the countryside and, as with every other time we did this, he comes back ill.
June -- Dylan plays Helsinki. I come back charged with the spirit of the zeitgeist, but it's not clear which zeit. I put my chips on what I believe to be the future of blogging -- wiki pages. Maybe there would be less "I, I, and I"?) I spar with some dystopian peak oil writer and take a trip to Rome, where I clamour loudly for silence in the Sistine.
July -- I disappear into northern Sweden for a solo backpacking trip. We move into a more airy apartment, which unfortunately is T-shaped, and not much of an improvement on the former I-shape. It's a good month, we holiday in southern Estonia and Võsu, but a agent at a cafe ponders casting me as a drug addict, an ominous harbinger on a symbolic level.
August -- The summer saps my energy and moral compass. Russia ends the lull by invading the near abroad with an assist from Beijing, forcing me to eat hat and shout angrily (in my blog). Mark Ames calls me a know-it-all dumbfuck. (Guil-tee, asshole!) I depart with Morgan for a three-week trip to the States.
September -- In the US, I am overwhelmed by other people's desultory clutter, don't get any respite and my attitude goes south with the latitude. The best American writer of the postmodern era dies. Politicians all look like idiots, Obama still looks like a cipher. The economy explodes/recession accelerates/capitalism ends, but the USD jumps 10%.
October -- I stumble upon chatter from aliens who want America to split into pieces -- kind of like the Russian guy is saying currently, except not in such a stupid way. I vow never to join Facebook.
November -- We drive around for the hell of it to boost the economy. We look at a property in southern Estonia but it doesn't have the poku feeling of home. Obama wins and remains alive to tell about it. It snows a lot in Tallinn, I leave for Florence, run the marathon, when I get back, snow's gone.
December -- Obama apparently changes his slogan to "change you can make believe in". Wait, but he's not in office yet. Wait, but neither is Bush. Estonia tries to make the transition from autumn to winter, then thinks better of it. I join Facebook. There is a week without much work and I sit around blogging and watching films, and drinking at least one Jõuluporter every night, sometimes serving as a human Twister board for the kids. A bunch of booze gets left over from Christmas recipes that call for two tablespoons. Dilemmas, dilemmas.
SUMMARY: I thought paradigms shifted and the 20th century finally ended in 2008, but there sure was a depressing amount of the same old stuff. Things soured in late summer, erasing all the high energy of the previous months. On the whole, people got smarter, more literate and better-connected; on the other hand, it's still all about the economy, and that's stupid, especially if pursuit of growth keeps us from making the sacrifices we need to to keep the planet livable. RATING: 1.5 out of 5.
January -- I write a classic piece on unhealthy food, and on the literary front, the rest of the year is all downhill. We pick out baby clothes and do winter sorts of things. For reasons unknown to even me, I insist adamantly that Juno be voted Best Picture.
February -- I write about the Freedom Monument and am educated by erudite readers. I endorse Obama -- Michelle, that is. In line with the national independence day, I write muckraking and insinuating pieces about politicians' pasts, which fall on either uncomfortable silence or an empty auditorium.
March -- I ponder what car we should buy, triggering a further rise in oil prices after we commit. I take a Pulitzer-winning trip to northeastern Estonia, in which I check out Russia on the other side of the Narva River and declare it to be good and peaceful.
April -- We name our prospective daughter Lorna. I write voraciously on Estonian topics, in contrast to later in the year when I let even the odious case of Hermann Goering Simm pass by without mention. The Olympic torch and Bob Dylan go on tour, but separately.
May -- Our daughter is born. As if this is not enough population pressure, I sound a call for more immigrants in the country, to a very muted response. Eurovision takes place and I don't know which was worse, Estonia or Russia. Morgan and I take an overnight trip to the countryside and, as with every other time we did this, he comes back ill.
June -- Dylan plays Helsinki. I come back charged with the spirit of the zeitgeist, but it's not clear which zeit. I put my chips on what I believe to be the future of blogging -- wiki pages. Maybe there would be less "I, I, and I"?) I spar with some dystopian peak oil writer and take a trip to Rome, where I clamour loudly for silence in the Sistine.
July -- I disappear into northern Sweden for a solo backpacking trip. We move into a more airy apartment, which unfortunately is T-shaped, and not much of an improvement on the former I-shape. It's a good month, we holiday in southern Estonia and Võsu, but a agent at a cafe ponders casting me as a drug addict, an ominous harbinger on a symbolic level.
August -- The summer saps my energy and moral compass. Russia ends the lull by invading the near abroad with an assist from Beijing, forcing me to eat hat and shout angrily (in my blog). Mark Ames calls me a know-it-all dumbfuck. (Guil-tee, asshole!) I depart with Morgan for a three-week trip to the States.
September -- In the US, I am overwhelmed by other people's desultory clutter, don't get any respite and my attitude goes south with the latitude. The best American writer of the postmodern era dies. Politicians all look like idiots, Obama still looks like a cipher. The economy explodes/recession accelerates/capitalism ends, but the USD jumps 10%.
October -- I stumble upon chatter from aliens who want America to split into pieces -- kind of like the Russian guy is saying currently, except not in such a stupid way. I vow never to join Facebook.
November -- We drive around for the hell of it to boost the economy. We look at a property in southern Estonia but it doesn't have the poku feeling of home. Obama wins and remains alive to tell about it. It snows a lot in Tallinn, I leave for Florence, run the marathon, when I get back, snow's gone.
December -- Obama apparently changes his slogan to "change you can make believe in". Wait, but he's not in office yet. Wait, but neither is Bush. Estonia tries to make the transition from autumn to winter, then thinks better of it. I join Facebook. There is a week without much work and I sit around blogging and watching films, and drinking at least one Jõuluporter every night, sometimes serving as a human Twister board for the kids. A bunch of booze gets left over from Christmas recipes that call for two tablespoons. Dilemmas, dilemmas.
SUMMARY: I thought paradigms shifted and the 20th century finally ended in 2008, but there sure was a depressing amount of the same old stuff. Things soured in late summer, erasing all the high energy of the previous months. On the whole, people got smarter, more literate and better-connected; on the other hand, it's still all about the economy, and that's stupid, especially if pursuit of growth keeps us from making the sacrifices we need to to keep the planet livable. RATING: 1.5 out of 5.
Monday, December 29, 2008
The siege of G―
I don't really see any point in posting about it, after all.
I stand by what I didn't write, though -- the disproportionate reaction, the siege and sack strategy, the pretence that it is warfare, the insistence that it be private (much like a modern state execution), the preoccupation with creating an undeserved perfection and totalism, the love of death and machines -- it's all on brilliant, pornographic display, even with the journalist-free zone.
I stand by what I didn't write, though -- the disproportionate reaction, the siege and sack strategy, the pretence that it is warfare, the insistence that it be private (much like a modern state execution), the preoccupation with creating an undeserved perfection and totalism, the love of death and machines -- it's all on brilliant, pornographic display, even with the journalist-free zone.
REVIEW: Frost/Nixon; roundup
On the 13" screen last night: Frost/Nixon. It stars that guy who played Tony Blair in The Queen, and other people with winning breezy charm and bad complexions. And Quasimodo, the caricature of Nixon, who is not even a senior citizen here but for some reason moves around like FDR had he lived - or think Vito Corleone after the assassination attempt.
Wow, they'll make a movie about anything these days, won't they, and they certainly can. This film is dressed up with dramatic flair to make an awfully obscure-seeming interview series I had never heard of seem like a duel, a battle for the future of the universe's soul. Seeing the time in the .avi wind down, I was dreading anticlimax and hoped it would be like Ender's Game and it would turn out that in fact Nixon's "stunning" admission in the last round of the interview had meant the defeat for an entire civilization somewhere deep in space, just that neither dueller had been let in on that fact, but no...no such luck, the two men go their separate ways, there is a reprise of a joke involving shoes, more face time for the Queen guy's beautiful consort, and the credits roll.
In the duel, Frost and Nixon do a fair amount of hey-batter-batter-style trash-talking to each other, which is fun. Does this really go on all the time? There's even a midnight call placed by Nixon to Frost, which could not possibly have happened like that, in which he come across as a codependent and drunken Hannibal Lecter ("Are the lambs still crying? Do you have them on tape?"). In fact, I'm sure they included this strange yet crucial episode just to annoy Anthony Hopkins, who played another movie Nixon but didn't get to fuse roles there.
The just-departed Mark Felt (Deep Throat) has got to be spinning and Woodward and Bernstein beside themselves at this interloper Ron Howard for stealing their thunder and riding on their backs. So much for their own crack investigative journalism, which "only" produced a presidential resignation; it was David Frost who did the crucial part, and got Nixon to admit he made "mistakes".
I do not regret watching this movie. Besides being an enjoyable way to kill time dead, the film does have relevance. Nixon was not only a skilled pioneer at demonizing the liberal media, he had a doctrine that is basically identical to the Cheney/Bush doctrine ("anything a president does is legal"), the difference being that Bush and Cheney are unlikely to have remorse, are not tortured souls and thanks to their own lucrative brand of corruption, probably wouldn't be lured by a generous offer of money to bare their black-hole souls in front of the people.
The other interesting thing, just on passing mention, is that how odd is it that a British talk show host was the only one at the time to tackle a timely political theme. Nowadays, there's absolutely no television entertainment devoted to politics to speak of in the UK, while in America, people like Stewart and Colbert from the entertainment biz not only satirize politics nightly, but may go on to political careers themselves eventually, much like Al Franken.
Rating: Another quality illustrated work by Ron Howard and one of the best films ever with a slash in its title. I'm now looking forward to a movie about movies with slashes in their titles, especially if Howard does it. 3.5 of 5.
***
Disheartening news from the world of medicine about the link between sleep deprivation and calcification of arteries. Sure to appeal to all those young parents out there.
**
A holiday lode of entertaining posts from Coming Anarchy (the entries from Dec 24-27, I mean). Parental advisory: Apparently the site is ordinarily devoted to some guy who believes the key to keeping empire together is expansion and that war is good. In 2008, I especially enjoyed the contributor whose handle is Younghusband writing about the Tibet unrest. D'oh! Still, an interesting, interesting site.
**
Visited the Central Market yesterday. Still the #1 source for meat and potatoes and FSU/ethnic items like kinza (fresh cilantro). Vegetables, mostly domestic, seem costly. In the case of garlic, the Estonian variety is far superior to Chinese commercial, but in the case of items like cabbage (2 kroons/kg at a supermarket as opposed to 10 kroons at the marketplace, it's a more questionable call. Here are the prices at the marketplace, for general information.
Bread, black or white -- 15-20 kroons/kg ($0.60-0.85/lb)
Cheese -- entry level of about 75 kroons/kg ($3.20/lb) for the basic domestic cheese for slicing. Butter was slightly more.
Meat -- Prices from 58 kroons/kg ($2.50/lb) up for the kinds of pork cuts that Estonians like, such as blade steaks and shoulder, with prices mainly in the 60 and 70s. Homestyle (pork-beef) minced meat was as low as half that price.
Onions -- 20-40 kroons/kg.
Garlic, Estonian -- 200-300 kroons/kg.
Carrots and rutabagas -- 20-25 kroons/kg.
Potatoes -- 6-10 kroons/kg.
Beets (usually already boiled, for some reason) -- 25-30 kroons/kg.
One other note: I found the range of salted/pickled vegetables impressive, but am bothered by a side taste. I can't place it -- it is the same taste encountered in Soviet canned goods. Slightly oily flavour. It's not bad or evil but it is not a food smell. Probably fermentation. Luckily the sauerkraut doesn't have it, just the nightshades like tomatoes and peppers.
Wow, they'll make a movie about anything these days, won't they, and they certainly can. This film is dressed up with dramatic flair to make an awfully obscure-seeming interview series I had never heard of seem like a duel, a battle for the future of the universe's soul. Seeing the time in the .avi wind down, I was dreading anticlimax and hoped it would be like Ender's Game and it would turn out that in fact Nixon's "stunning" admission in the last round of the interview had meant the defeat for an entire civilization somewhere deep in space, just that neither dueller had been let in on that fact, but no...no such luck, the two men go their separate ways, there is a reprise of a joke involving shoes, more face time for the Queen guy's beautiful consort, and the credits roll.
In the duel, Frost and Nixon do a fair amount of hey-batter-batter-style trash-talking to each other, which is fun. Does this really go on all the time? There's even a midnight call placed by Nixon to Frost, which could not possibly have happened like that, in which he come across as a codependent and drunken Hannibal Lecter ("Are the lambs still crying? Do you have them on tape?"). In fact, I'm sure they included this strange yet crucial episode just to annoy Anthony Hopkins, who played another movie Nixon but didn't get to fuse roles there.
The just-departed Mark Felt (Deep Throat) has got to be spinning and Woodward and Bernstein beside themselves at this interloper Ron Howard for stealing their thunder and riding on their backs. So much for their own crack investigative journalism, which "only" produced a presidential resignation; it was David Frost who did the crucial part, and got Nixon to admit he made "mistakes".
I do not regret watching this movie. Besides being an enjoyable way to kill time dead, the film does have relevance. Nixon was not only a skilled pioneer at demonizing the liberal media, he had a doctrine that is basically identical to the Cheney/Bush doctrine ("anything a president does is legal"), the difference being that Bush and Cheney are unlikely to have remorse, are not tortured souls and thanks to their own lucrative brand of corruption, probably wouldn't be lured by a generous offer of money to bare their black-hole souls in front of the people.
The other interesting thing, just on passing mention, is that how odd is it that a British talk show host was the only one at the time to tackle a timely political theme. Nowadays, there's absolutely no television entertainment devoted to politics to speak of in the UK, while in America, people like Stewart and Colbert from the entertainment biz not only satirize politics nightly, but may go on to political careers themselves eventually, much like Al Franken.
Rating: Another quality illustrated work by Ron Howard and one of the best films ever with a slash in its title. I'm now looking forward to a movie about movies with slashes in their titles, especially if Howard does it. 3.5 of 5.
***
Disheartening news from the world of medicine about the link between sleep deprivation and calcification of arteries. Sure to appeal to all those young parents out there.
**
A holiday lode of entertaining posts from Coming Anarchy (the entries from Dec 24-27, I mean). Parental advisory: Apparently the site is ordinarily devoted to some guy who believes the key to keeping empire together is expansion and that war is good. In 2008, I especially enjoyed the contributor whose handle is Younghusband writing about the Tibet unrest. D'oh! Still, an interesting, interesting site.
**
Visited the Central Market yesterday. Still the #1 source for meat and potatoes and FSU/ethnic items like kinza (fresh cilantro). Vegetables, mostly domestic, seem costly. In the case of garlic, the Estonian variety is far superior to Chinese commercial, but in the case of items like cabbage (2 kroons/kg at a supermarket as opposed to 10 kroons at the marketplace, it's a more questionable call. Here are the prices at the marketplace, for general information.
Bread, black or white -- 15-20 kroons/kg ($0.60-0.85/lb)
Cheese -- entry level of about 75 kroons/kg ($3.20/lb) for the basic domestic cheese for slicing. Butter was slightly more.
Meat -- Prices from 58 kroons/kg ($2.50/lb) up for the kinds of pork cuts that Estonians like, such as blade steaks and shoulder, with prices mainly in the 60 and 70s. Homestyle (pork-beef) minced meat was as low as half that price.
Onions -- 20-40 kroons/kg.
Garlic, Estonian -- 200-300 kroons/kg.
Carrots and rutabagas -- 20-25 kroons/kg.
Potatoes -- 6-10 kroons/kg.
Beets (usually already boiled, for some reason) -- 25-30 kroons/kg.
One other note: I found the range of salted/pickled vegetables impressive, but am bothered by a side taste. I can't place it -- it is the same taste encountered in Soviet canned goods. Slightly oily flavour. It's not bad or evil but it is not a food smell. Probably fermentation. Luckily the sauerkraut doesn't have it, just the nightshades like tomatoes and peppers.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
CUSTOMER SERVICE CHRONICLES: The king and the bishop
Another true story, this time from the world of dentistry. In some ways, I'm sure I behaved like a right bastard. Yes, I'm chronically irritable (on account of the season and a defensiveness over having received bad service in the past). On the other hand, all I am really doing is behaving like a king and asserting my royal domain. The customer is king, and I hold that if an Estonian service provider met their monarch even a quarter of the way and provided clear information and clearly gave 100%, why, then, an equitable and just ruler would gladly go the distance with them and fill their pockets, certainly with more gold than any amount of fillings.
1. But enough apologia and preambula. I had a dentist's appointment in the Kassisaba neighbourhood of Tallinn, the lower lower town, if you will. He's supposedly a fairly good professional whom we call the Bishop (an Episcopal and not Anglican church, if you get my drift). My wife, the Queen, has always been happy with his work; on the other hand, I take my gums seriously and want thorough cleaning and on a visit to his office back in 2005 he and an assistant spent a long time cleaning one tooth and flattering the king, but did nothing at the gumline, saying there was no tartar buildup.
Now they have AirFlow, though -- the third generation of dental hygienist technology, so the Queen made an appointment for me.
I think they did a good job. They made only limited use of the ultrasonic tool and even less scrape-scrape. AirFlow is pretty smooth, though relatively messy. The spray ends up all over your face. And I had to concentrate to overcome a feeling of mild waterboarding for the second half of the cleaning.
They charged 1600 kroons, which seemed overpriced. Not that the royal treasury isn't well-endowed, but comparatively speaking: I paid $175 for a "debridement" in the US in 2002, and a debridement in that case was basically a heavy-duty two-part visit to the hygienist -- it was after a five-year break. So the Gay Bishop wants 1600 kroons for AirFlow 2x a year. Very well.
The Bishop himself wasn't there. In my experience, dentists usually at least make a cameo appearance after the hygienist finishes their work and the dentist make the final call on possible cavitation. So that created a bit of misunderstanding. I expected to meet with the Bishop.
Since they don't do X-rays at the office, I had been asked to get an X-ray from a central clinic (200 kroons) and brought the CD-ROM with me to the appointment. Again, I had the feeling of being a pageboy, but I complied.
2. There were possible cavities, so I made my next appointment. Then we proceeded to settle up.
Only then did I see the sign that their payment terminals were down. When I arrived, I had been ushered right into the dental chair and hadn't been told that they were only accepting cash. Since I don't know anyone who walks around with 1600 kroons in their pocket -- certainly not a king -- and it was almost close of business, I assumed they would give me an invoice option. Instead I was told that the accountant would be coming at 5pm to haul away the day's proceeds, and they expected me to go to an ATM, the nearest one being half-mile away. It was 4:40pm and the snow was picking up, so I found this somewhat of an imposition as well as an impugnment of the royal treasury's creditworthiness
3. So instead I walked straight home, then called them at 4:50pm saying I would have to pay by transfer, but if they were also Hansabank customers, the money would arrive instantaneously. They seemed disappointed, saying they had needed me to come back to sign something.
Now a king does not sign anything unless it is into law. What the King does insist on is a proper receipt for a transaction, even though he has one from the bank. The receipt can be delivered to him at his court by courier, or pigeon if need be.
4. Because of a schedule conflict with some visiting dignitaries, I had to cancel the next appointment at the Bishop's. I did it the morning of the same day, by e-mail, but since the Bishop had not been in touch and there had been no discussion about what I was coming in for, I figured it was not of great consequence.
The Bishop's people wrote me back, saying that they expected cancellations a few days earlier, not the same day, so they could be "able to provide emergency care to people in real pain". Something about this rubbed me the wrong way -- if someone is in real pain, wouldn't the ethical thing to do be to bump my time in any case? I am an ethical ruler. I find this sort of excuse devoid of logic -- tell me that your bottom line suffers, that it compromises your ability to stick to the treatment plan or puts my mouth at risk, but don't tell me my cancellation interferes with your ability to provide emergency care. Take it up with Hippocrates if you have a problem with that.
I said as much. I added that it went without saying that the royal treasury would compensate the missed visit according to the price list.
They then said the missed visit would cost 600 kroons. Que? I tried to figure out where they had arrived at such a figure. There was no penalty clause; in any case, I hadn't signed any sort of contract. The price list said a consultation cost 200 kroons, and that was what I offered to pay. The only thing I could find that cost 400 kroons was "compilation of a treatment plan". Was that the item? "Just come into the office," they said.
I told them I hadn't received a treatment plan. I said I hadn't heard from the dentist himself, who was supposed to call me after looking at my X-rays, which I had furnished him on CD-ROM.
They said I had to come into the clinic to have diagnostic models made, only then could the treatment plan be drawn up.
I said I needed to know which teeth have cavities in them. Could they give me that information? They said: The visit of x Dec cost 600 kroons. Just come to the office.
We had reached an impasse. They then called my Queen, I suppose to try to make me come to my senses, which further rubbed me the wrong way for being totally unprofessional. That's the kind of thing a collection agency does.
I started having second thoughts about even paying the 200 kroons for the missed consultation. If we're talking about a figure of 200 kroons, well, I paid 195 kroons for the CD-ROM that the dentist is just sitting on. Maybe I should just pay them 5 kroons until my property is returned to me. At my court. By courier, or if pigeon need be, etc etc.
1. But enough apologia and preambula. I had a dentist's appointment in the Kassisaba neighbourhood of Tallinn, the lower lower town, if you will. He's supposedly a fairly good professional whom we call the Bishop (an Episcopal and not Anglican church, if you get my drift). My wife, the Queen, has always been happy with his work; on the other hand, I take my gums seriously and want thorough cleaning and on a visit to his office back in 2005 he and an assistant spent a long time cleaning one tooth and flattering the king, but did nothing at the gumline, saying there was no tartar buildup.
Now they have AirFlow, though -- the third generation of dental hygienist technology, so the Queen made an appointment for me.
I think they did a good job. They made only limited use of the ultrasonic tool and even less scrape-scrape. AirFlow is pretty smooth, though relatively messy. The spray ends up all over your face. And I had to concentrate to overcome a feeling of mild waterboarding for the second half of the cleaning.
They charged 1600 kroons, which seemed overpriced. Not that the royal treasury isn't well-endowed, but comparatively speaking: I paid $175 for a "debridement" in the US in 2002, and a debridement in that case was basically a heavy-duty two-part visit to the hygienist -- it was after a five-year break. So the Gay Bishop wants 1600 kroons for AirFlow 2x a year. Very well.
The Bishop himself wasn't there. In my experience, dentists usually at least make a cameo appearance after the hygienist finishes their work and the dentist make the final call on possible cavitation. So that created a bit of misunderstanding. I expected to meet with the Bishop.
Since they don't do X-rays at the office, I had been asked to get an X-ray from a central clinic (200 kroons) and brought the CD-ROM with me to the appointment. Again, I had the feeling of being a pageboy, but I complied.
2. There were possible cavities, so I made my next appointment. Then we proceeded to settle up.
Only then did I see the sign that their payment terminals were down. When I arrived, I had been ushered right into the dental chair and hadn't been told that they were only accepting cash. Since I don't know anyone who walks around with 1600 kroons in their pocket -- certainly not a king -- and it was almost close of business, I assumed they would give me an invoice option. Instead I was told that the accountant would be coming at 5pm to haul away the day's proceeds, and they expected me to go to an ATM, the nearest one being half-mile away. It was 4:40pm and the snow was picking up, so I found this somewhat of an imposition as well as an impugnment of the royal treasury's creditworthiness
3. So instead I walked straight home, then called them at 4:50pm saying I would have to pay by transfer, but if they were also Hansabank customers, the money would arrive instantaneously. They seemed disappointed, saying they had needed me to come back to sign something.
Now a king does not sign anything unless it is into law. What the King does insist on is a proper receipt for a transaction, even though he has one from the bank. The receipt can be delivered to him at his court by courier, or pigeon if need be.
4. Because of a schedule conflict with some visiting dignitaries, I had to cancel the next appointment at the Bishop's. I did it the morning of the same day, by e-mail, but since the Bishop had not been in touch and there had been no discussion about what I was coming in for, I figured it was not of great consequence.
The Bishop's people wrote me back, saying that they expected cancellations a few days earlier, not the same day, so they could be "able to provide emergency care to people in real pain". Something about this rubbed me the wrong way -- if someone is in real pain, wouldn't the ethical thing to do be to bump my time in any case? I am an ethical ruler. I find this sort of excuse devoid of logic -- tell me that your bottom line suffers, that it compromises your ability to stick to the treatment plan or puts my mouth at risk, but don't tell me my cancellation interferes with your ability to provide emergency care. Take it up with Hippocrates if you have a problem with that.
I said as much. I added that it went without saying that the royal treasury would compensate the missed visit according to the price list.
They then said the missed visit would cost 600 kroons. Que? I tried to figure out where they had arrived at such a figure. There was no penalty clause; in any case, I hadn't signed any sort of contract. The price list said a consultation cost 200 kroons, and that was what I offered to pay. The only thing I could find that cost 400 kroons was "compilation of a treatment plan". Was that the item? "Just come into the office," they said.
I told them I hadn't received a treatment plan. I said I hadn't heard from the dentist himself, who was supposed to call me after looking at my X-rays, which I had furnished him on CD-ROM.
They said I had to come into the clinic to have diagnostic models made, only then could the treatment plan be drawn up.
I said I needed to know which teeth have cavities in them. Could they give me that information? They said: The visit of x Dec cost 600 kroons. Just come to the office.
We had reached an impasse. They then called my Queen, I suppose to try to make me come to my senses, which further rubbed me the wrong way for being totally unprofessional. That's the kind of thing a collection agency does.
I started having second thoughts about even paying the 200 kroons for the missed consultation. If we're talking about a figure of 200 kroons, well, I paid 195 kroons for the CD-ROM that the dentist is just sitting on. Maybe I should just pay them 5 kroons until my property is returned to me. At my court. By courier, or if pigeon need be, etc etc.
Singalong sheet: Crawford
I don’t want to grow up to be president
It just takes too damn long.
I received a Purple Heart in the War on Drugs
But that’s another song,
I just wanna head down to Crawford, Texas
‘Cause it’s summer on the president’s ranch
And spend a little time waiting for the next war
playing golf with the executive branch.
If you wanna come with me down to Crawford
Let me warn you: things might be a little weird
The first lady sits around making voodoo dolls
And pulling off their little beards
Fatherland Security is everywhere
Like the eye on a one-dollar bill
The attorney general goes around speaking in tongues
And jabbering at the hills
REFRAIN: I don’t want to grow up to be the president
I just want to dance
With Ashcroft, Mueller, Fleischer and Ridge
Down on the President’s ranch
If you’re thinking of drinking down in Crawford
Don’t expect to get too far
Making sweet talk to the margarita twins
They’ll drink you underneath the bar
Rumsfeld, he swings both ways
But he breaks too many hearts
You’d be better off drinking with Condoleezza Rice
She’s a foxy Sovietologist star.
REFRAIN: I don’t want to grow up to be the president
I just want to dance
With Condoleezza Rice and the margarita twins
Down on the president’s ranch.
The President, he don’t drink no more
But he tends the finest bar in town
But he’s known to take a sip from the top of a draft
Just so the overflow won’t trickle down
For everyone else it’s top shelf stuff
Twice-imported Cayman Island rum
If you spin it long enough tastes just like sugar cane
But it’s really pure petroleum
REFRAIN: I just wanna do shots at the President's
You know how good that crude can taste
When it’s mixed with the blood of the common man
Not a drop’ll ever go to waste.
Now after three weeks down in Crawford
Folks start looking up at the sky
Where there was a line of storm clouds a-gatherin’
Some say best take shelter inside
Somebody said there was a tornado comin
Best take shelter underground
Somebody said there was a tornado
It’ll spin you round and round
Dubya grabs a bullhorn and speaks out tall
Says “that ain’t no tornado
In fact it looks quite im-motional
which is to say it's moving kinda slow.”
“No, no, no, ain’t no tornado
In fact, peoples, I exist
That it’s just an axis of evil
Better call the exorcist.”
Well, the tornado touched down in Crawford
And it wiped it off the map
The only thing left was the underground bunker
Where the corpse of Cheney was kept
The vice president, he rose to life
Shrieking like a banshee in his tomb
“Come on boys and bring the guns;
I just hit oil down in my room.”
REFRAIN
It just takes too damn long.
I received a Purple Heart in the War on Drugs
But that’s another song,
I just wanna head down to Crawford, Texas
‘Cause it’s summer on the president’s ranch
And spend a little time waiting for the next war
playing golf with the executive branch.
If you wanna come with me down to Crawford
Let me warn you: things might be a little weird
The first lady sits around making voodoo dolls
And pulling off their little beards
Fatherland Security is everywhere
Like the eye on a one-dollar bill
The attorney general goes around speaking in tongues
And jabbering at the hills
REFRAIN: I don’t want to grow up to be the president
I just want to dance
With Ashcroft, Mueller, Fleischer and Ridge
Down on the President’s ranch
If you’re thinking of drinking down in Crawford
Don’t expect to get too far
Making sweet talk to the margarita twins
They’ll drink you underneath the bar
Rumsfeld, he swings both ways
But he breaks too many hearts
You’d be better off drinking with Condoleezza Rice
She’s a foxy Sovietologist star.
REFRAIN: I don’t want to grow up to be the president
I just want to dance
With Condoleezza Rice and the margarita twins
Down on the president’s ranch.
The President, he don’t drink no more
But he tends the finest bar in town
But he’s known to take a sip from the top of a draft
Just so the overflow won’t trickle down
For everyone else it’s top shelf stuff
Twice-imported Cayman Island rum
If you spin it long enough tastes just like sugar cane
But it’s really pure petroleum
REFRAIN: I just wanna do shots at the President's
You know how good that crude can taste
When it’s mixed with the blood of the common man
Not a drop’ll ever go to waste.
Now after three weeks down in Crawford
Folks start looking up at the sky
Where there was a line of storm clouds a-gatherin’
Some say best take shelter inside
Somebody said there was a tornado comin
Best take shelter underground
Somebody said there was a tornado
It’ll spin you round and round
Dubya grabs a bullhorn and speaks out tall
Says “that ain’t no tornado
In fact it looks quite im-motional
which is to say it's moving kinda slow.”
“No, no, no, ain’t no tornado
In fact, peoples, I exist
That it’s just an axis of evil
Better call the exorcist.”
Well, the tornado touched down in Crawford
And it wiped it off the map
The only thing left was the underground bunker
Where the corpse of Cheney was kept
The vice president, he rose to life
Shrieking like a banshee in his tomb
“Come on boys and bring the guns;
I just hit oil down in my room.”
REFRAIN
My "movie education" continues, and pretty soon I will have belatedly earned my equivalency diploma -- finally watched It's A Wonderful Life, an American Christmas classic.
I find it fascinating to watch the old actors and muse about how language has or has not changed in 60 years. This is a very well-acted film, so I felt I was getting close to the truth about mannerisms and accents back then. Apart from the use of "doggone it", which is probably "goddamn it" IRL back then anyway, not much seems too dated. Surprising. Because the way some people talked just a few decades earlier, around the turn of the century (check out some of the recordings of US Presidents on YouTube) seems extremely strange, almost as if they are speaking in reverse or at least with bushman consonants.
Above all, Jimmy Stewart is an audio dead ringer for Owen Wilson and you can also see elements of Nicolas Cage. So quirky-awkward-charming. No doubt, to me, about the possible range of people who could play George Bailey in a remake. Owen Wilson even had an attempted suicide in his own life, if it isn't in too poor taste to point that out, so he could be considered to really have studied for the role.
I didn't have many dazzling insights -- the sentimental parts have a dark edge, but it's light entertainment.
Ah yes, there was one scene from George's childhood suggesting the idea of using a shovel as a sled -- sitting on the blade and straddling the handle. I had never considered that.
Points for resourcefulness but it suggests a whole 'nother alternate reality sequence -- what if you have a bad accident and become infertile as a result and your children are never born?
The most important takeaway line -- well, it could be "no one with friends is a failure" but for each George there are tons of other folks with a more mixed record. The uncomfortable truth is that they wouldn't probably get a bailout from the community.
So how about "lasso the moon"?
Always lasso the moon. Then, swallow it and shine. Even if you're stuck in a dead-end legacy position in a small town and the years go by.
I find it fascinating to watch the old actors and muse about how language has or has not changed in 60 years. This is a very well-acted film, so I felt I was getting close to the truth about mannerisms and accents back then. Apart from the use of "doggone it", which is probably "goddamn it" IRL back then anyway, not much seems too dated. Surprising. Because the way some people talked just a few decades earlier, around the turn of the century (check out some of the recordings of US Presidents on YouTube) seems extremely strange, almost as if they are speaking in reverse or at least with bushman consonants.
Above all, Jimmy Stewart is an audio dead ringer for Owen Wilson and you can also see elements of Nicolas Cage. So quirky-awkward-charming. No doubt, to me, about the possible range of people who could play George Bailey in a remake. Owen Wilson even had an attempted suicide in his own life, if it isn't in too poor taste to point that out, so he could be considered to really have studied for the role.
I didn't have many dazzling insights -- the sentimental parts have a dark edge, but it's light entertainment.
Ah yes, there was one scene from George's childhood suggesting the idea of using a shovel as a sled -- sitting on the blade and straddling the handle. I had never considered that.
Points for resourcefulness but it suggests a whole 'nother alternate reality sequence -- what if you have a bad accident and become infertile as a result and your children are never born?
The most important takeaway line -- well, it could be "no one with friends is a failure" but for each George there are tons of other folks with a more mixed record. The uncomfortable truth is that they wouldn't probably get a bailout from the community.
So how about "lasso the moon"?
Always lasso the moon. Then, swallow it and shine. Even if you're stuck in a dead-end legacy position in a small town and the years go by.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Attention spans are getting shorter. I regularly wander off in mid-sentence for something sweet and starch
**
y to eat. This wouldn't be so bad if I were just blogging or something, but when I'm at a bank or my wife is telling me something, it can
**
be embarrassing.
**
Last date to go into a casino in Estonia without showing ID and getting entered into a creepy register: Dec. 31. I'm going, because I've never been. In the future, a trip to a casino might affect my ability to get an SMS loan and gamble that away.
Supposedly Estonian casinos are pretty depressing places and, except for the best places, only have slot machines. But get this: supposedly they have good, cheap coffee.
Stay tuned for the update and the head-to-head coffee review between Olympic Casino and Hansabank. There may be more to the comparison than meets the eye.
**
My blood is a sludge of triglycerides from holiday feasting but the ol' creativity juices are flowing. One of my ideas for the New Year: A social networking system, to be called either HaiQ or HaiCool or HiKuil. It forces you to condense your status updates into 17 syllables.
The send button is dimmed until you get the # of syllables exactly right.
It's "Twitter's more elliptical Eastern cousin."
**
Checked a blog.
Wrote comment without reading entry.
Like McLuhan said?
**
I read once that the Japanese (the most inscrutable people on Earth other than Estonians, perhaps) favour blogging about innocuous everyday things.
Screw that, though.
You all might get two cultural observations in the New Year, that's all; and those will be about foreplay or something dark.
**
It's almost New Year, and boy, is it ever going to be a great New Year -- you can feel and see the excitement in the air already. People were shooting off fireworks at 11pm (midnight at Moscow time) on Christmas Eve in Muuga. You might take that as idiocy (besides possibly hitting a sleigh with a bottle rocket, what exactly comes to a close at midnight?), or some sort of political symbolism, but I take it as a sign of "pep" and continued purchasing power. Those flashes and pops represented a lot of well-spent SMS quick loans, I'm sure.
I liked that this year the suburbs moved downtown -- you could buy your fireworks at a booth at Stockmann, Tallinn's fairly upscale department store. For some odd reason, the Helsinki branch of Stockmann didn't offer any fireworks, you know, down there between the Academic Bookstore and the gourmet foods. Weird, but what do you expect.
**
On Christmas Eve, we watched some DVDs on my in-laws' 40".
30-minute Shrek special
followed by classic Soviet cartoons
CGI FTL.
**
y to eat. This wouldn't be so bad if I were just blogging or something, but when I'm at a bank or my wife is telling me something, it can
**
be embarrassing.
**
Last date to go into a casino in Estonia without showing ID and getting entered into a creepy register: Dec. 31. I'm going, because I've never been. In the future, a trip to a casino might affect my ability to get an SMS loan and gamble that away.
Supposedly Estonian casinos are pretty depressing places and, except for the best places, only have slot machines. But get this: supposedly they have good, cheap coffee.
Stay tuned for the update and the head-to-head coffee review between Olympic Casino and Hansabank. There may be more to the comparison than meets the eye.
**
My blood is a sludge of triglycerides from holiday feasting but the ol' creativity juices are flowing. One of my ideas for the New Year: A social networking system, to be called either HaiQ or HaiCool or HiKuil. It forces you to condense your status updates into 17 syllables.
The send button is dimmed until you get the # of syllables exactly right.
It's "Twitter's more elliptical Eastern cousin."
**
Checked a blog.
Wrote comment without reading entry.
Like McLuhan said?
**
I read once that the Japanese (the most inscrutable people on Earth other than Estonians, perhaps) favour blogging about innocuous everyday things.
Screw that, though.
You all might get two cultural observations in the New Year, that's all; and those will be about foreplay or something dark.
**
It's almost New Year, and boy, is it ever going to be a great New Year -- you can feel and see the excitement in the air already. People were shooting off fireworks at 11pm (midnight at Moscow time) on Christmas Eve in Muuga. You might take that as idiocy (besides possibly hitting a sleigh with a bottle rocket, what exactly comes to a close at midnight?), or some sort of political symbolism, but I take it as a sign of "pep" and continued purchasing power. Those flashes and pops represented a lot of well-spent SMS quick loans, I'm sure.
I liked that this year the suburbs moved downtown -- you could buy your fireworks at a booth at Stockmann, Tallinn's fairly upscale department store. For some odd reason, the Helsinki branch of Stockmann didn't offer any fireworks, you know, down there between the Academic Bookstore and the gourmet foods. Weird, but what do you expect.
**
On Christmas Eve, we watched some DVDs on my in-laws' 40".
30-minute Shrek special
followed by classic Soviet cartoons
CGI FTL.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
DREAM: 2011
Today's December 23, 2011. I wake up -- I'm late for something. Then I realize I'm not, and what a good feeling it is. I kiss my wife, who is up before me. It is the anniversary of the day we met, though like most people, we have been less and less preoccupied with historical dates.
The kids, 6 and 3, self-cater during the morning hours these days -- usually Morgan gives Lorna a judo lesson and then they have breakfast while my wife wraps up the course she teaches to social workers in Hawaii over the computer.
In hindsight, buying those Lotte books really paid off in spades. The kids are really independent.
Ah, just enough time for a spot of pre-dawn exercise down by the waterfront.
As I enter the garage, I remember I lent my bike to a friend who is in Estonia -- for the Capital of Culture closing ceremonies (and the opening of the Estonian National Museum at the faithfully restored Raadi Palace in Tartu) -- so I walk. I push the button on Liivalaia and the light turns red in a couple seconds and I cross to the other side where there is a stand of the free yellow city bikes.
Near the end of Kentmanni, the city centre car-free zone starts. I return a film and a book through the slot at the US Embassy library, the machine beeps approvingly. Say what you like about the fact that the embassy is now completely human-free, it does offer a range of services, including food vending machines, and I feel safer knowing it is no longer a target.
I remember I have some food containers from yesterday in my bag and stick that through the slot, too, to be recycled. Beep.
There's definitely less black grit since the city centre car-free ordinance went into effect. For the first six months, I wandered down with a strange sense of lightness, as if a part of me was missing. Things seemed too quiet.
"Hi there," says a woman, who is sweeping her walk. I turn suspiciously, almost losing my balance -- how dare she! -- then I realize she has never seen me before, and I relax and tip my hat.
Though the bike has one, I'm not wearing a reflector, incidentally. All new cars are equipped with obstacle detection systems and big fines await drivers who don't drive slowly enough to notice people in the winter darkness.
Some people have done wonderful things with their marina plots by the Old Port. I just have a shed with a baidarka I have been building (I'm still a George Dyson fan). I don't pay anything on the site; in fact I get few kroons (in the form of a discount on my wireless invoice) from the wind and solar energy I make and sell to Eesti Energia.
When the economy went really bad in mid-2009, the question of bailing out real estate projects (including on the waterfront) came up, but before that could happen, the government resigned and the Christmas coalition (so called because of the supposed green and red elements) went to work.
For one thing, every person in Estonia got a piece of coastline -- not a right of access to waterfront, but a physical piece of the coastline on which to keep a boat, a shed -- as well as a plot of forest land.
The fury was great. I think for a month there was more threat of political violence than even in 1991. Foreign economists who had advanced the credit for all that concrete and steel were livid. Once again, many demanded immediate devaluation so they could at least buy up everything else in the country as additional security. At least that's how it was read.
Meanwhile, the plan to return state forest land to the people was, oddly enough, assailed by both environmentalists and the foreign timber company lobby.
It backfired. And something odd happened. There had long been something strange about the rhetoric used by the Estonia's governing "Christmas coalition", and one day, a columnist put his finger on it: No one in the government had never used the word "growth". No one had realized what it was until then, but the effect had been galvanic.
Pretty soon, the inborn streak of obstinacy and tenaciousness prevailed in most Estonians. It had been running in a dead heat with the streak of packrat pettiness, but now the good side prevailed, along with a kind of non-hostile xenophobia that manifested itself most often as a shrug.
The government, incredibly, held on and won the 2011 election by a landslide, even amid predictable cries of "Chavismo" and "populism". Estonians were convinced the framers of the republic would have wanted every Estonian to have a homestead in the woods and to produce good things from the soil.
The kroon was not devalued. Eventually it was floated and stayed afloat. The summer of 2010 was hot with ample rain, and so was 2011. The people kept busy. Back-to-the land movement emerged. A laid-off IT employee (among a minority) invented a sea-buckthorn-picking robot that made selling the berry profitable, even with the strong kroon. Some enterprising forest farms planted wasabi and ginseng. Ginseng futures were traded while the crop matured. The current account deficit inched toward surplus. "2010 and 2011 have been the years of voluntary and knowledge-based collectivization of our economy," said the president, adding, perhaps unnecessarily confusing some people, "and yet in no way teleologically foreordained."
***
I realize I am daydreaming, there, out on my baidarka with the still-missing gnnnels. It is still Dec. 23, 2011. It is only a kayaker's high. I return to the grey sea, only dotted here and there with houseboats, only some of them with terrariums and wind-powered light gardens.
A bit bleak -- there is a tent city aspect to the waterfront and shouldn't those houseboats probably be covered by building codes? -- but certainly this model is here to stay, it is becoming more melded with IT. The micro-efficiency is starting to compete with economy of scale. Maybe my daydream will be a reality...
I take the kayak on a sprint in the direction of Pirita, the long stretch from the Russalka monument to the hotel with no buildings in between. Just a few cars, and the quiet whisper of the light rail between the lanes of Pirita tee. And the wind on the oyster beds.
Supposedly they have really cleaned up the port water. I still don't eat too much local fish -- too much past prejudice about the state of the Baltic -- but I do enjoy some fresh fried räim from the fish market in Pirita.
The shellfish are of course not for consumption, but I do find it suspicious that oysters became widespread in Tallinn luxury restaurants around the same time (they're not sold at the market). But it's only a minority of high-rolling out-of-town businessmen, mainly from the other side of the eastern border, who seem to favour them.
The kids, 6 and 3, self-cater during the morning hours these days -- usually Morgan gives Lorna a judo lesson and then they have breakfast while my wife wraps up the course she teaches to social workers in Hawaii over the computer.
In hindsight, buying those Lotte books really paid off in spades. The kids are really independent.
Ah, just enough time for a spot of pre-dawn exercise down by the waterfront.
As I enter the garage, I remember I lent my bike to a friend who is in Estonia -- for the Capital of Culture closing ceremonies (and the opening of the Estonian National Museum at the faithfully restored Raadi Palace in Tartu) -- so I walk. I push the button on Liivalaia and the light turns red in a couple seconds and I cross to the other side where there is a stand of the free yellow city bikes.
Near the end of Kentmanni, the city centre car-free zone starts. I return a film and a book through the slot at the US Embassy library, the machine beeps approvingly. Say what you like about the fact that the embassy is now completely human-free, it does offer a range of services, including food vending machines, and I feel safer knowing it is no longer a target.
I remember I have some food containers from yesterday in my bag and stick that through the slot, too, to be recycled. Beep.
There's definitely less black grit since the city centre car-free ordinance went into effect. For the first six months, I wandered down with a strange sense of lightness, as if a part of me was missing. Things seemed too quiet.
"Hi there," says a woman, who is sweeping her walk. I turn suspiciously, almost losing my balance -- how dare she! -- then I realize she has never seen me before, and I relax and tip my hat.
Though the bike has one, I'm not wearing a reflector, incidentally. All new cars are equipped with obstacle detection systems and big fines await drivers who don't drive slowly enough to notice people in the winter darkness.
Some people have done wonderful things with their marina plots by the Old Port. I just have a shed with a baidarka I have been building (I'm still a George Dyson fan). I don't pay anything on the site; in fact I get few kroons (in the form of a discount on my wireless invoice) from the wind and solar energy I make and sell to Eesti Energia.
When the economy went really bad in mid-2009, the question of bailing out real estate projects (including on the waterfront) came up, but before that could happen, the government resigned and the Christmas coalition (so called because of the supposed green and red elements) went to work.
For one thing, every person in Estonia got a piece of coastline -- not a right of access to waterfront, but a physical piece of the coastline on which to keep a boat, a shed -- as well as a plot of forest land.
The fury was great. I think for a month there was more threat of political violence than even in 1991. Foreign economists who had advanced the credit for all that concrete and steel were livid. Once again, many demanded immediate devaluation so they could at least buy up everything else in the country as additional security. At least that's how it was read.
Meanwhile, the plan to return state forest land to the people was, oddly enough, assailed by both environmentalists and the foreign timber company lobby.
It backfired. And something odd happened. There had long been something strange about the rhetoric used by the Estonia's governing "Christmas coalition", and one day, a columnist put his finger on it: No one in the government had never used the word "growth". No one had realized what it was until then, but the effect had been galvanic.
Pretty soon, the inborn streak of obstinacy and tenaciousness prevailed in most Estonians. It had been running in a dead heat with the streak of packrat pettiness, but now the good side prevailed, along with a kind of non-hostile xenophobia that manifested itself most often as a shrug.
The government, incredibly, held on and won the 2011 election by a landslide, even amid predictable cries of "Chavismo" and "populism". Estonians were convinced the framers of the republic would have wanted every Estonian to have a homestead in the woods and to produce good things from the soil.
The kroon was not devalued. Eventually it was floated and stayed afloat. The summer of 2010 was hot with ample rain, and so was 2011. The people kept busy. Back-to-the land movement emerged. A laid-off IT employee (among a minority) invented a sea-buckthorn-picking robot that made selling the berry profitable, even with the strong kroon. Some enterprising forest farms planted wasabi and ginseng. Ginseng futures were traded while the crop matured. The current account deficit inched toward surplus. "2010 and 2011 have been the years of voluntary and knowledge-based collectivization of our economy," said the president, adding, perhaps unnecessarily confusing some people, "and yet in no way teleologically foreordained."
***
I realize I am daydreaming, there, out on my baidarka with the still-missing gnnnels. It is still Dec. 23, 2011. It is only a kayaker's high. I return to the grey sea, only dotted here and there with houseboats, only some of them with terrariums and wind-powered light gardens.
A bit bleak -- there is a tent city aspect to the waterfront and shouldn't those houseboats probably be covered by building codes? -- but certainly this model is here to stay, it is becoming more melded with IT. The micro-efficiency is starting to compete with economy of scale. Maybe my daydream will be a reality...
I take the kayak on a sprint in the direction of Pirita, the long stretch from the Russalka monument to the hotel with no buildings in between. Just a few cars, and the quiet whisper of the light rail between the lanes of Pirita tee. And the wind on the oyster beds.
Supposedly they have really cleaned up the port water. I still don't eat too much local fish -- too much past prejudice about the state of the Baltic -- but I do enjoy some fresh fried räim from the fish market in Pirita.
The shellfish are of course not for consumption, but I do find it suspicious that oysters became widespread in Tallinn luxury restaurants around the same time (they're not sold at the market). But it's only a minority of high-rolling out-of-town businessmen, mainly from the other side of the eastern border, who seem to favour them.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
ALMANAC: Solstice Sunday nexus
Time to light candles. It's past sunset in Tallinn. The solstice was earlier today, now it's Hanukkah. Many different threads coinciding on a day that is also my wife's birthday.
It seems plausible (if you go by the whispers on byways and under the golden boughs in the forest) that Jesus, or the Buddha, or the man who reminded us that the divine spark is in each one of us -- whoever he is to you -- was born today as well.
Perhaps the Romans just moved the feast a little to try to rob the holiday of some of its power, just as the Sabbath was moved to Sunday; or decided in a show of ecumenical fair-mindedness to establish one big broad-based coalition holiday for all those "unconquered" pagan suns or sons worshiped in its army -- at a safe remove from the actual solstice and its wyrd powers.
Sol Invictus, Dec. 25. We celebrate it, of course, just like most, and nothing will ever conquer its blunt logic. In one sense, it's as with anyone's birthday -- the big day itself might fall on a weekday, so you have the party a couple days later when people aren't so busy. Though there are some who would reclaim its supposed purity -- and in some sense I support them -- Christmas itself is now the most generalized thing possible, commercialism and the holy all mingling, as they have done for the longest time.
But today, Dec. 21, is the day of the old power, and it even falls on a rest day. Well, no rest for the merry old elf -- who is not Santa in his red and white uniform (what is that dye, anyway -- cochineal or something postindustrial?) but the traditional Estonian elf, and for all we know he may have elven roots, a buckskin- and fur-clad figure -- tallying not whether kids have been naughty or nice but whether they are up to speed on their folklore or at least doggerel.
In spite of what I write here, I've never been that much in touch with "pagan" traditions -- I may, like a typical male, view it more as a "women's thing", what with the fertility aspect and all. Basically I'm saying I'm scared of it. Perhaps like as it was for the Roman and other powers, I have jitters about getting in too deep, that some sort of sacrifice rather than mere gift-giving might be in order.
I think it's to be welcomed that Hanukkah also falls on this day, which in my opinion provides the most relevant narrative specifically connected with this season -- reconsecration in a dark time, and turning away from ignorance.
Redemption and rebirth take universal precedence, of course, but that's a Spring narrative. In dark days, what could be more in tune with the zeitgeist than the story of Hanukkah? Freedom has been regained but the temple is defiled with an false idol still in place, and oil supplies are running low.
In fact I feel like a Maccabee most days.
Fittingly, the 21st is also the feast of St. Thomas, who sought proof, only then believed, two things I think should not necessarily ever be mutually contradicting.
It seems plausible (if you go by the whispers on byways and under the golden boughs in the forest) that Jesus, or the Buddha, or the man who reminded us that the divine spark is in each one of us -- whoever he is to you -- was born today as well.
Perhaps the Romans just moved the feast a little to try to rob the holiday of some of its power, just as the Sabbath was moved to Sunday; or decided in a show of ecumenical fair-mindedness to establish one big broad-based coalition holiday for all those "unconquered" pagan suns or sons worshiped in its army -- at a safe remove from the actual solstice and its wyrd powers.
Sol Invictus, Dec. 25. We celebrate it, of course, just like most, and nothing will ever conquer its blunt logic. In one sense, it's as with anyone's birthday -- the big day itself might fall on a weekday, so you have the party a couple days later when people aren't so busy. Though there are some who would reclaim its supposed purity -- and in some sense I support them -- Christmas itself is now the most generalized thing possible, commercialism and the holy all mingling, as they have done for the longest time.
But today, Dec. 21, is the day of the old power, and it even falls on a rest day. Well, no rest for the merry old elf -- who is not Santa in his red and white uniform (what is that dye, anyway -- cochineal or something postindustrial?) but the traditional Estonian elf, and for all we know he may have elven roots, a buckskin- and fur-clad figure -- tallying not whether kids have been naughty or nice but whether they are up to speed on their folklore or at least doggerel.
In spite of what I write here, I've never been that much in touch with "pagan" traditions -- I may, like a typical male, view it more as a "women's thing", what with the fertility aspect and all. Basically I'm saying I'm scared of it. Perhaps like as it was for the Roman and other powers, I have jitters about getting in too deep, that some sort of sacrifice rather than mere gift-giving might be in order.
I think it's to be welcomed that Hanukkah also falls on this day, which in my opinion provides the most relevant narrative specifically connected with this season -- reconsecration in a dark time, and turning away from ignorance.
Redemption and rebirth take universal precedence, of course, but that's a Spring narrative. In dark days, what could be more in tune with the zeitgeist than the story of Hanukkah? Freedom has been regained but the temple is defiled with an false idol still in place, and oil supplies are running low.
In fact I feel like a Maccabee most days.
Fittingly, the 21st is also the feast of St. Thomas, who sought proof, only then believed, two things I think should not necessarily ever be mutually contradicting.
Friday, December 19, 2008
My mom was and is a good cook, but one thing I don't think we ever did growing up was stewed artichokes. We only ate them one way, and that was fine -- boiled until soft then stripped off the leaves one by one, dipped them in butter and finally after removing the fuzzy choke there was the heart which you chopped up in your remaining melted butter and that was the best part. The two main things were that it made milk or wine taste sweet, so everything was like dessert (kids should love them), and the other particularity was that there was always basically a big pile of cellulose left after an artichoke course, which later started seeming like a waste. Actually the flavour that is in the whole bud can be harnessed to make a rich sauce or stock.
I brought back a bunch of the thistles from Italy -- they cost 40 euro cents each at the market. I can't think of a single food item in Europe with a bigger regional markup. I've seen individual artichokes in Estonian stores, Saran-wrapped, for about 35-40 kroons, so that's a 700% margin. I quarter them, cut out the choke, dredge them and plunge them in hot oil for about 10 minutes, add onions, then get a stew going. A couple hours later you have a damn good meal -- whether you go the white route (butter, garlic, lemon and bay leaf) or red (red wine, rosemary, bit of tomato). From the vegetarian angle, people typically give props to the eggplant and mushroom as "meaty" but I'd have to say the carciofo takes the cake for full flavour. I'll try to score some more for a Lithuanian-style Xmas Eve bash.
I brought back a bunch of the thistles from Italy -- they cost 40 euro cents each at the market. I can't think of a single food item in Europe with a bigger regional markup. I've seen individual artichokes in Estonian stores, Saran-wrapped, for about 35-40 kroons, so that's a 700% margin. I quarter them, cut out the choke, dredge them and plunge them in hot oil for about 10 minutes, add onions, then get a stew going. A couple hours later you have a damn good meal -- whether you go the white route (butter, garlic, lemon and bay leaf) or red (red wine, rosemary, bit of tomato). From the vegetarian angle, people typically give props to the eggplant and mushroom as "meaty" but I'd have to say the carciofo takes the cake for full flavour. I'll try to score some more for a Lithuanian-style Xmas Eve bash.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Back from Neeruti, a landscape preserve southwest of Rakvere and ühtlasi the first road test of the winter tires.
Neeruti (in Estonian, the place name incidentally sounds perhaps like a dialysis device) is notable for being rather bumpy -- epic hero Kalevipoeg is said to have shaped the terrain here. He did this in more locations than one can count, but there is an actual statue of him in Neeruti, unlike the one in Tallinn, which was axed.
The area is also notable for a village called Paris (Pariisi küla). An obvious place for a scale model of the Eiffel Tower, but that's in Hiiumaa.
It's scenic country, in that certain primeval Estonian way, much like the Otepää area, or parts of Põlvamaa.
The day was chilly, about 23 F, but not much snow cover anywhere along the north coast. We picked up a sled in Muuga on our way out of Tallinn, and drove east looking for snow. Luckily the hoarfrost carpet started changing to old snowpack as we left the Narva highway and drove south toward Kadrina.
The secondary roads were ice-covered and I kept on forgetting this, accelerating to on the straightaways, then cursing as an unmarked curve hove into view, and not really learning, but not skidding either.
Finding the actual Neeruti reserve was a little frustrating. I still don't have a satisfactory explanation, except that maybe it's a landscape area, not a nature reserve. We passed tourist information boards promoting the charms of the lakes and hills, but they were always at the ends of what appeared to be private driveways to farms, most of them with vehicular do-not-enter signs.
I know Estonia has a version of jokamiehenoikeus, where even posted forest land is open to the public from dawn to dusk, but it still feels a pointless to walk for a kilometre across snowy kõnnumaa to a smoke from a farm, and then find a dog barking, a couple buildings, and no trails into the inviting forest. What then?
We drove around on the various roads and finally found, amid more "Eravaldus" (private property) signs, a extensive sledding and skiing area that could have been Võrumaa.
Three hours of sledding and then to Kadrina for lunch -- despite talk of depressive small towns with boarded-up post offices, here, too, as in Alatskivi, there was a nice tavern, and the post office seemed to be at the centre of the activity.
We had a lastepraad -- French fries and wieners -- a tradition on cold winter hikes started by my wife at Keila-Joa.
Neeruti (in Estonian, the place name incidentally sounds perhaps like a dialysis device) is notable for being rather bumpy -- epic hero Kalevipoeg is said to have shaped the terrain here. He did this in more locations than one can count, but there is an actual statue of him in Neeruti, unlike the one in Tallinn, which was axed.
The area is also notable for a village called Paris (Pariisi küla). An obvious place for a scale model of the Eiffel Tower, but that's in Hiiumaa.
It's scenic country, in that certain primeval Estonian way, much like the Otepää area, or parts of Põlvamaa.
The day was chilly, about 23 F, but not much snow cover anywhere along the north coast. We picked up a sled in Muuga on our way out of Tallinn, and drove east looking for snow. Luckily the hoarfrost carpet started changing to old snowpack as we left the Narva highway and drove south toward Kadrina.
The secondary roads were ice-covered and I kept on forgetting this, accelerating to on the straightaways, then cursing as an unmarked curve hove into view, and not really learning, but not skidding either.
Finding the actual Neeruti reserve was a little frustrating. I still don't have a satisfactory explanation, except that maybe it's a landscape area, not a nature reserve. We passed tourist information boards promoting the charms of the lakes and hills, but they were always at the ends of what appeared to be private driveways to farms, most of them with vehicular do-not-enter signs.
I know Estonia has a version of jokamiehenoikeus, where even posted forest land is open to the public from dawn to dusk, but it still feels a pointless to walk for a kilometre across snowy kõnnumaa to a smoke from a farm, and then find a dog barking, a couple buildings, and no trails into the inviting forest. What then?
We drove around on the various roads and finally found, amid more "Eravaldus" (private property) signs, a extensive sledding and skiing area that could have been Võrumaa.
Three hours of sledding and then to Kadrina for lunch -- despite talk of depressive small towns with boarded-up post offices, here, too, as in Alatskivi, there was a nice tavern, and the post office seemed to be at the centre of the activity.
We had a lastepraad -- French fries and wieners -- a tradition on cold winter hikes started by my wife at Keila-Joa.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Because they don't make you take them off -- not yet
Ever since Khrushchev, society has gradually been getting better at noticing when someone is removing or otherwise doing something with their shoes in public. Now we ask ourselves: Is the person about to drive a rhetorical point home? Is it to drown out the odor of the ginkgo trees in Washington, DC? Or is it to light a fuse on a dirty bomb? A snap decision is required. The possibilities are many; the consequences can be serious.
To me, the fact that this Iraqi man managed to get his shoes off and hurl not one but both of them at Bush, does not indicate that people were asleep or unsavvy. Much like how the president will wait and see how a crisis is going, the Iraqis watched the action unfold for a few seconds. Certainly none of the Iraqi cops wanted to be the first to intervene. Imagine getting caught on tape doing that -- the people in your home village seeing you foil what would be a perfect parting shot.
Unfortunately for Iraqis, Bush seemed like he was prepared for it, like Mike Mussina on a line drive up the middle. I'm impressed by his quick reflexes. Clearly whatever his problem is, it hasn't affected his motor coordination or snap risk assessment. So it probably is a moral problem. Bush even had a clever line afterwards. The guy hasn't shown up for work since August and now he's Reagan with the one-liners.
Until the shoe incident, the most serious threats faced by the president were, by my tally:
1. Pretzel incident
2. "Grenade" in Tbilisi
3. Some sort of medical procedure in which Cheney was briefly in command.
Of course, I am glad the president has survived all of them (hopefully to be tried in a couple months or years under due process) but I also salute the Iraqi man. Do you know how hard good shoes are to get, even in the Green Zone?! From the video, it appears he met the same fate as the African guy stampeded in that US Wal-Mart, so he won't be buying any though.
I only wish the Arabic -- "This is a farewell kiss, dog" -- could be translated better, or on second thought, I guess it's perfect.
Everyone has their own personal farewell kisses, I think. Some may be sincere. Some may even be French. What's yours? Mine is an mp3, which I'll post here before Jan. 20.
Of course the problem is the "ruining it for everybody" value. I foresee soft slippers handed out at press conferences from now on. Or maybe those institutional blue plastic bags we have here in Estonia.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Looks like Louis went to Rehvikoda -- and survived. I have to put up my experience, because I found the place incompetent and dishonest. I found it online, thought it would be central because of the name ("tireshop.com"). It was a random garage in Lasnamäe, and hard-to-find to boot. I had opted for a set of studded Nokia Masters that ran about 600 kroons a tire. Even though I had confirmed by e-mail several days in advance, it then turned out they did not have the exact tire size. They put in another set they assured me would work. They neglected to check their work. I paid -- stupid, right. I drove out of there, the tires rubbing against the wheel-wells. By the time I had turned around, the next customer was driving into the garage. They apologized but all they had to offer me, 45 minutes later, were a used set of Continentals from Sweden. When I asked how much money I would get back, the boss replied, "Topelttöö" (double labour), and gave me a 100-kroon note.
ADDS: This was back in November, on Tuesday, the 25th. I must have narrowly missed seeing Louis. To be honest, I cannot imagine seeing someone as sunny in that gritty and bleak Lasnamäe shop, the surrealism is extreme.
Today I took the Škoda in for its routine first maintenance -- and it cost me $250. This is basically a brand-new car, mind -- we're just being good citizens and sticking to the terms of the lease. I suppose there was a little miscommunication -- I thought the checkup was covered under the warranty.
Then they told me they would take only cash or card. As it was, I didn't have my funds configured the right way, and didn't have my credit card with me. The best they could do was give me an option of hovering while I used their computer to transfer funds. I'd like to say this kind of weirdness has something to do with approaching economic crisis, but sadly, I doubt it.
These guys had my signature consenting to the maintenance (probably they could make the price higher), and I'm also due in next week to have a scratch fixed. I'm totally in their system and unlikely to disappear. It's a modern, professional dealership. And yet this sort of treatment -- as if I'm some guy wheedling in a corner shop for credit for a beer?
There was no way I was going to consent to something like this, so I just walked out and took the trolleybus home without saying much of anything, which was probably faster than driving anyway, with Kaarli puiestee being closed.
These things are killing my spirit. What little financial advantage there is, is frittered away in the form of hidden fees and seasonal outlays such as winter tires. In Virginia, I take my 15-year old Subaru wagon in for a good reason -- brakes and a new CV boot -- and it costs about $220, and mechanic labour is expensive there.
ADDS: This was back in November, on Tuesday, the 25th. I must have narrowly missed seeing Louis. To be honest, I cannot imagine seeing someone as sunny in that gritty and bleak Lasnamäe shop, the surrealism is extreme.
Today I took the Škoda in for its routine first maintenance -- and it cost me $250. This is basically a brand-new car, mind -- we're just being good citizens and sticking to the terms of the lease. I suppose there was a little miscommunication -- I thought the checkup was covered under the warranty.
Then they told me they would take only cash or card. As it was, I didn't have my funds configured the right way, and didn't have my credit card with me. The best they could do was give me an option of hovering while I used their computer to transfer funds. I'd like to say this kind of weirdness has something to do with approaching economic crisis, but sadly, I doubt it.
These guys had my signature consenting to the maintenance (probably they could make the price higher), and I'm also due in next week to have a scratch fixed. I'm totally in their system and unlikely to disappear. It's a modern, professional dealership. And yet this sort of treatment -- as if I'm some guy wheedling in a corner shop for credit for a beer?
There was no way I was going to consent to something like this, so I just walked out and took the trolleybus home without saying much of anything, which was probably faster than driving anyway, with Kaarli puiestee being closed.
These things are killing my spirit. What little financial advantage there is, is frittered away in the form of hidden fees and seasonal outlays such as winter tires. In Virginia, I take my 15-year old Subaru wagon in for a good reason -- brakes and a new CV boot -- and it costs about $220, and mechanic labour is expensive there.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
The evolution of the dioxin-laced pork scare:
1. OMG, this imported pork has dioxin in it.
2. So does the beef, so don't knock pork for being unclean.
3. It's spread to our kindergartens and schools.
4. Why wasn't Estonian pork good enough for our kids? Globalization....
5. Wait a second -- isn't dioxin basically PCBs, anyway?
6. Yes, you're right -- Baltic Sea fish is loaded with it.
7. Ah, OK. Whew.
1. OMG, this imported pork has dioxin in it.
2. So does the beef, so don't knock pork for being unclean.
3. It's spread to our kindergartens and schools.
4. Why wasn't Estonian pork good enough for our kids? Globalization....
5. Wait a second -- isn't dioxin basically PCBs, anyway?
6. Yes, you're right -- Baltic Sea fish is loaded with it.
7. Ah, OK. Whew.
Wide world of science -- or is it?
The Tuhala witch's well just outside Tallinn is active again for the first time in three years. Don't ask me. Something about karst and artesian springs. I don't buy it.
***
Unless you are from Southeast Asia, you may find fertilized eggs in culinary contexts offputting. Nevertheless, I'm sharing. My wife boiled an egg too vigorously today and summoned forth a miracle of life. This forces us to ask: does life begin before conception?
Kris is eating his hat.
Activated Facebook ("Kris Rikken"), a couple weeks after decrying the whole concept.
Turns out there's a whole secret universe been happening. People I didn't even know had computers have rich Facebook pages. Some of them look like a...blog! They must have viewed my blog as a quaint experiment -- Kris and his printing press project.
This isn't quite "John McCain discovers a Blackberry", but it's a junior moment for me.
I must be the most fickle person in the world. After saying it was shite and another AOL, I now find I like the whole semi-permeable membrane around the Facebook system. After all, everyone in the known universe is on Facebook, so nothing is really that private. But it does mean that your Wall and the scribblings on it isn't automatically archived in Google (at least as long as Facebook and Google don't arrive at a suitable price for data sharing.)
Yeah, I like "the wall" -- halfway between a scrapbook, chat window and a blog.
I'm still a little confused -- should I add friends willy-nilly? I've got used to the Facebook lingo and its quirks quickly ("became a fan of that band? I've been a fan for years", but well (cliche alert!) I put a high price on friendship. Plus, the idiom "is friends with" is just too grade-school. I won't get used to that anytime soon. Maybe I have a problem with online intimacy. I would use the word "connection" instead, or does that sound too intrigeeriv?
Right now the folks I have up there are people I have met face to face. No, that's not true, but one is a professional contact. At the same time, none of my closest acquaintances are up there.
Seems like the Facebook interface is OK, with a lot of internal linkage, but I did find some limitations right away. I posted an album and wanted to edit the original comment for the post, but found I couldn't do it without reposting the album.
I also joined Twitter, some sort of texting network that forces you to be very concise about whatever you're doing -- 140 characters. (I haven't tried sending a tweet with the letter "õ" to see if it's only 70 characters.) Personally, I see the potential, but don't really know what to do with it yet. It almost makes me wish for a crisis, so I can run around on missions and keep people posted on my whereabouts. "Whew, found the grain cache. Anybody have some grinding stones?" That's the point, right?
Turns out there's a whole secret universe been happening. People I didn't even know had computers have rich Facebook pages. Some of them look like a...blog! They must have viewed my blog as a quaint experiment -- Kris and his printing press project.
This isn't quite "John McCain discovers a Blackberry", but it's a junior moment for me.
I must be the most fickle person in the world. After saying it was shite and another AOL, I now find I like the whole semi-permeable membrane around the Facebook system. After all, everyone in the known universe is on Facebook, so nothing is really that private. But it does mean that your Wall and the scribblings on it isn't automatically archived in Google (at least as long as Facebook and Google don't arrive at a suitable price for data sharing.)
Yeah, I like "the wall" -- halfway between a scrapbook, chat window and a blog.
I'm still a little confused -- should I add friends willy-nilly? I've got used to the Facebook lingo and its quirks quickly ("became a fan of that band? I've been a fan for years", but well (cliche alert!) I put a high price on friendship. Plus, the idiom "is friends with" is just too grade-school. I won't get used to that anytime soon. Maybe I have a problem with online intimacy. I would use the word "connection" instead, or does that sound too intrigeeriv?
Right now the folks I have up there are people I have met face to face. No, that's not true, but one is a professional contact. At the same time, none of my closest acquaintances are up there.
Seems like the Facebook interface is OK, with a lot of internal linkage, but I did find some limitations right away. I posted an album and wanted to edit the original comment for the post, but found I couldn't do it without reposting the album.
I also joined Twitter, some sort of texting network that forces you to be very concise about whatever you're doing -- 140 characters. (I haven't tried sending a tweet with the letter "õ" to see if it's only 70 characters.) Personally, I see the potential, but don't really know what to do with it yet. It almost makes me wish for a crisis, so I can run around on missions and keep people posted on my whereabouts. "Whew, found the grain cache. Anybody have some grinding stones?" That's the point, right?
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
There's been some news about the TIMSS standardized tests given to 4th graders and 8th graders -- America is concerned about its performance, but it wasn't the rout you might expect from reading other articles about how American pupils are unable to identify their own country on a map. In fact, I don't really see that very many countries have passed the US.
Estonia did really well in 2003, especially in science, but was absent this time, even though Latvia and Lithuania participated. Anyone know why? I couldn't find the reason online. In any case, the other two Baltics now have a good comparative data set for the past 12 years, whereas Estonia just has the one stellar 2003 result.
I had one other question. Fourth-grade performance rankings on the country level don't necessarily align with 8th grade performance, so would 8th grade results really indicate that the country's school-leavers are up to par? As can be seen, the problems are pretty elementary. (I missed #3, probably carelessness.)
My basic maths have really deteriorated -- I had to look up the formula for volume of a cone the other day. And I want to grow up to be a mountain engineer.
Estonia did really well in 2003, especially in science, but was absent this time, even though Latvia and Lithuania participated. Anyone know why? I couldn't find the reason online. In any case, the other two Baltics now have a good comparative data set for the past 12 years, whereas Estonia just has the one stellar 2003 result.
I had one other question. Fourth-grade performance rankings on the country level don't necessarily align with 8th grade performance, so would 8th grade results really indicate that the country's school-leavers are up to par? As can be seen, the problems are pretty elementary. (I missed #3, probably carelessness.)
My basic maths have really deteriorated -- I had to look up the formula for volume of a cone the other day. And I want to grow up to be a mountain engineer.
Monday, December 8, 2008
CALCULATION: Mountains in Estonia
Estonia has some nice monumental dumps -- the Institute of Geography's catchy name for artificial hills in the northeast that are the byproduct of oil shale mining. But if it wanted to have an actual mountain (with good downhill skiing), would this be feasible?
First of all, the basic numbers. Around 5 million tons of spent oil shale is created per year . If we assume that oil shale fly ash has a density of 667 kg per cubic metre (more than onion rings, the chart tells us, but still a lot lighter than water), that translates into a production rate of about 7.5 million cubic metres of ash per year. Remember that number.
Note that many of the existing highest mountains in Estonia are made of semi-coke, which is an intermediate byproduct that still fumes. Not only is this environmentally bad news -- "these mountains have a shape of excentric cones, dark-gray or black color, and specific smell", notes the Institute of Geography, striking a sour note for potential tourism -- and a waste of resources that can be further refined, this cancer rock is more dense than ash. So we want ash. Ash has been successfully used to build many of the northwestern US volcanoes.
For the last ten years or so, winter temperatures have fallen into a kind of entropy -- there are many days where the weather is 2-3 degrees C above freezing. Things are better in the northeast, but not by much. For a guaranteed-snow ski resort, Estonia would need to drop those temperatures by at least 2-3 degrees, so at least the top two-thirds of the pistes would be below freezing most of the time from December to March. Powder conditions should prevail.
How high? Vertical drop could be a reasonable 700 m. 1000m would be nice, and forget about those Austrian mountains with two tiers of 1000 m drops, but 700m is respectable. Many Norwegian and Swedish resorts have numbers in that range. Each rise of 1000 m represents a cooling-off of about 5 degrees C, so it would be about 3.5 degrees colder at the top of the 700m resort. It's possible that a giant solitary mountain on the north coast of Estonia would generate its own weather and catch north winds off the Gulf, so it might be chillier than that.
Inside the summit lodge things would be cozy. Oil shale would be retorted in an open hearth, naturally, adding an authentic touch to the aerie with its views of around 90 km in all directions. But let's leave interior design aspects aside.
Naturally, it would be better to build a steeper mountain in order to conserve on volume. The current hills are about 100m high and not very regular. Steep slopes would draw more experienced skiers -- there should be many black-diamond trails for advanced skiers. Slope angle should be 25-30 degrees, just below avalanche danger (35 to 45 degrees)
A 700-m-high mountain with 30-degree slopes would have a radius of just over 1.2 km. If we assume it's conical, and it doesn't have to be, total volume would thus be pi/3 x 1212 m x 1212 m x 700 m. This gives us a volume of just over one billion cubic metres -- we'll need 1,076,791,282 cu m of ash.
Oh dear. At the rate of 7.5 million cu m per year, it would mean 143.57 years of oil shale mining. There might not be enough oil shale for that. It's expected to run out in 2040.
The good news is that if we lop off just 100 m from the top of the mountain (600 m) things get considerably better -- only 90 years of oil shale mining. A 500 m mountain -- a scant 52.3 years -- is probably feasible. This could be worth shooting for, and you wouldn't be able to see Tallinn from the top anymore, which may be a plus.
Of course, if you consider that oil shale mining has been going on for more than 50 years, and then you consider how the ash is currently deposited -- scattered in a number of 100m hills, including one "mountain range" -- and that in turn that ash has ceased to be deposited at the top of the hill but only at the base -- it seems inexcusable, doesn't it? If we had focused on one hill, Estonia could already have a ski resort, not to a mention a landmark. One more bone to pick with the Russians at the reparations summit.
Two Estonias
Something less geopolitical or economic for a change -- the injustice of snowfall. It once more proves that Estonia is not "tiny", if it can be blizzarding in Tartu while Tallinn is a uniform grey and 38 degrees F.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Made me laugh
Jackpot on YouTube. Estonia tie-in: "fail" and "drunk" YouTube videos can be a great way to spend late autumn in Estonia.
First this....
then this...
First this....
then this...
Some news from the neighbourhood: Reval Cafe opened its smart-looking cafe on the corner of Pärnu mnt and Sakala, replacing what was pretty much a prefab shack across the street (picture). It's the busiest cafe I know, certainly if you count only local and not tourist traffic. It doesn't have iconic status, but I'm sure a number of business deals have gone down here -- I've heard them.
I asked the counterperson if the hut would now be demolished for a parking lot, and she said probably very earnestly.
No hope of getting a cup of espresso from a real espresso machine for one euro, of course, and the main difference I see is the sandwiches behind the counter are now wrapped in plastic and labelled (isn't progress great and necessary?) but it sure is a nice place. If you want to feel immune to recession, go here.
I asked the counterperson if the hut would now be demolished for a parking lot, and she said probably very earnestly.
No hope of getting a cup of espresso from a real espresso machine for one euro, of course, and the main difference I see is the sandwiches behind the counter are now wrapped in plastic and labelled (isn't progress great and necessary?) but it sure is a nice place. If you want to feel immune to recession, go here.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
We attended Morgan's kindergarten's Christmas bazaar. A fundraiser, with lots of arts and crafts.
Felting. You start with a tuft of carded wool and jab it repeatedly with a straight needle. Over many jabs and additions of more tufts, the wool becomes compact and turns into a fabric, a ladybug for your keyring, a flower. I would not have believed it possible -- to mould or shape with a sharp point. After getting over the somewhat sadistic nature of creating something beautiful by stabbing it with a needle thousands of times, I enjoyed it.
What was also amazing was that none of the kids jabbed themselves. Sometimes their attention wandered off and needles were waved.
There was a jõulukino on the ground floor. The room was not very dark, but the picture from the Epson projector was rich and beautiful. Many people are excited about Netbooks, 3G and other micro- and mobile things right now, but I think we may get a quality projector this year, if there's any money around.
Felting. You start with a tuft of carded wool and jab it repeatedly with a straight needle. Over many jabs and additions of more tufts, the wool becomes compact and turns into a fabric, a ladybug for your keyring, a flower. I would not have believed it possible -- to mould or shape with a sharp point. After getting over the somewhat sadistic nature of creating something beautiful by stabbing it with a needle thousands of times, I enjoyed it.
What was also amazing was that none of the kids jabbed themselves. Sometimes their attention wandered off and needles were waved.
There was a jõulukino on the ground floor. The room was not very dark, but the picture from the Epson projector was rich and beautiful. Many people are excited about Netbooks, 3G and other micro- and mobile things right now, but I think we may get a quality projector this year, if there's any money around.
Are people on crack?
I was even pondering a name change for this blog, considering the fact that we are approaching a new era under a new president -- one in which people will perhaps keep it more real and focus on essentials -- and here's a bipartisan committee warning that a terrorist strike is a virtual certainty.
Now what are we supposed to do with this information? Did they not get the memo (this is my phrase of the week) that a large aspect of terrorism is psychological? Terrorism doesn't only mean going around spraying bullets or radioactive dust, it means making people frightened at all times that there may already be radioactive dust in the air.
In Latvia, a democracy under the rule of law, a journalist can get a prison term for fuelling rumours of devaluation, but here's congressmen saying that no matter what we do, we will probably be unable to prevent the next one.
Apparently the memo is that we should continue to be scared, above all.
I tend not to be susceptible to the fear, but I have my own phobias. Driving through Norfolk. This is a city with I don't know how many naval bases and even more underwater road tunnels linking the various districts, bumper-to-bumper traffic, and absolutely no measures to secure any of them. A typical urban situation in the US, where for a while you could get arrested for wearing an anti-war T-shirt, but where otherwise Homeland Security is invisible.
I was floored when I heard that among the cabinet appointments Obama was the Secretary of Homeland Security. I can't believe he actually plans to maintain the apparatus, which is, crudely put, Bush-era garbage built on a lie. My initial reaction was disappointment -- so we're going to continue with the bullcrap, even though with the need for austerity in this recession, such agencies should be the first ones to go.
The irony is amplified when I think of the whole disconnect in the US, which someone once likened to a happy suburban family that for some unexplained reason has a corpse in the laundry room. The corpse may even be discussed at dinner -- democratically and procedurally, with a self-conscious attitude of righteousness, just like in Von Trier's Dogville. Whether it is a murdered neighbour or what exactly is never clear, but no one does anything about the corpse.
A couple years ago, polls found that a surprisingly large proportion of people in the US believed "Bush" was behind the 9/11 attacks. NB: not that the US by errors of omission brought on a dangerous situation, or failed to deal with a threat, or that the Bush administration reaped gains from the tragedy, but that the US was in on the planning of 9/11.
Who knows how the question was set up or how the respondents were misled, but in some countries, it seems to be an open secret that something dirty went on, something far more dirty than the standard definition of "dirtiness". Michael Moore flirted with lifting the veil. The conspiracy theories ran their course, and now it's over, although no one has still really done anything about the corpse, which is in an advanced state of rot, or maybe mummified in the Crawford heat.
I don't know what I believe. Probably this talk of complicity is a misuse of Occam's Razor in a deeply cynical age to justify a credible but false conclusion.
But in hindsight, the classic nature of the chain of events -- a tragedy like 9/11 used as a pretext for an unrelated agenda is disturbing, especially if you consider that acts of domestic terrorism have long been a gleam in the eye for hawkish elements in the US. In the 1960s, the National Security Council considered -- we don't know exactly how briefly -- blowing up buildings and pinning the blame on Castro. This was reported by ABC news online at one point, though you would probably need the Memory Hole to find it.
In any case, the more prosaic charges are still to be addressed -- the use of WMD to mislead the public, and the war crimes committed by private contractors with the imprimatur of the US military, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, the list goes on.
So some part of me is holding out hope that one of Obama's first moves after Jan. 20 will be to set up a commission to investigate. No, I don't want the US to turn into a South Korea where vast amounts of energy are spent on setting scores with previous administrations. But the gravity and the whole misguided nature of the actions in and against Iraq demand investigation.
Even that sociopath O.J., who was acquitted by a jury of his peers, is finally behind bars. Karma may have spoken. When will Bush's time come?
Right now I think things are leaning toward the other extreme: Obama gives people high in the last administration a full pardon. Maybe some poor schmo will be scapegoated and get a few years for a technicality.
**
Interesting lead from Paul Goble:
Vienna, December 4 – The rapid drying up of the Aral Sea in Central Asia – it is likely to completely disappear within months – has sparked new interest in the possibility that Moscow could divert Siberian river water to the region to save not only the sea but also the health and well-being of the population there.
Now I couldn't find any supporting evidence for the "matter of months" claim, but benefit of the doubt for now.
THere is an illusion -- especially with the rain forest -- that no matter how astonishing the rate of deforestation, it will never be totally gone. But the disappearance of the Aral puts us in new, uncharted territory.
Interesting looking at Google Maps layers of the Aral. The people who do "Terrain" and "Map" seem to be more optimistic that the current actual water level is just a seasonal fluctuation.
I was even pondering a name change for this blog, considering the fact that we are approaching a new era under a new president -- one in which people will perhaps keep it more real and focus on essentials -- and here's a bipartisan committee warning that a terrorist strike is a virtual certainty.
Now what are we supposed to do with this information? Did they not get the memo (this is my phrase of the week) that a large aspect of terrorism is psychological? Terrorism doesn't only mean going around spraying bullets or radioactive dust, it means making people frightened at all times that there may already be radioactive dust in the air.
In Latvia, a democracy under the rule of law, a journalist can get a prison term for fuelling rumours of devaluation, but here's congressmen saying that no matter what we do, we will probably be unable to prevent the next one.
Apparently the memo is that we should continue to be scared, above all.
I tend not to be susceptible to the fear, but I have my own phobias. Driving through Norfolk. This is a city with I don't know how many naval bases and even more underwater road tunnels linking the various districts, bumper-to-bumper traffic, and absolutely no measures to secure any of them. A typical urban situation in the US, where for a while you could get arrested for wearing an anti-war T-shirt, but where otherwise Homeland Security is invisible.
I was floored when I heard that among the cabinet appointments Obama was the Secretary of Homeland Security. I can't believe he actually plans to maintain the apparatus, which is, crudely put, Bush-era garbage built on a lie. My initial reaction was disappointment -- so we're going to continue with the bullcrap, even though with the need for austerity in this recession, such agencies should be the first ones to go.
The irony is amplified when I think of the whole disconnect in the US, which someone once likened to a happy suburban family that for some unexplained reason has a corpse in the laundry room. The corpse may even be discussed at dinner -- democratically and procedurally, with a self-conscious attitude of righteousness, just like in Von Trier's Dogville. Whether it is a murdered neighbour or what exactly is never clear, but no one does anything about the corpse.
A couple years ago, polls found that a surprisingly large proportion of people in the US believed "Bush" was behind the 9/11 attacks. NB: not that the US by errors of omission brought on a dangerous situation, or failed to deal with a threat, or that the Bush administration reaped gains from the tragedy, but that the US was in on the planning of 9/11.
Who knows how the question was set up or how the respondents were misled, but in some countries, it seems to be an open secret that something dirty went on, something far more dirty than the standard definition of "dirtiness". Michael Moore flirted with lifting the veil. The conspiracy theories ran their course, and now it's over, although no one has still really done anything about the corpse, which is in an advanced state of rot, or maybe mummified in the Crawford heat.
I don't know what I believe. Probably this talk of complicity is a misuse of Occam's Razor in a deeply cynical age to justify a credible but false conclusion.
But in hindsight, the classic nature of the chain of events -- a tragedy like 9/11 used as a pretext for an unrelated agenda is disturbing, especially if you consider that acts of domestic terrorism have long been a gleam in the eye for hawkish elements in the US. In the 1960s, the National Security Council considered -- we don't know exactly how briefly -- blowing up buildings and pinning the blame on Castro. This was reported by ABC news online at one point, though you would probably need the Memory Hole to find it.
In any case, the more prosaic charges are still to be addressed -- the use of WMD to mislead the public, and the war crimes committed by private contractors with the imprimatur of the US military, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, the list goes on.
So some part of me is holding out hope that one of Obama's first moves after Jan. 20 will be to set up a commission to investigate. No, I don't want the US to turn into a South Korea where vast amounts of energy are spent on setting scores with previous administrations. But the gravity and the whole misguided nature of the actions in and against Iraq demand investigation.
Even that sociopath O.J., who was acquitted by a jury of his peers, is finally behind bars. Karma may have spoken. When will Bush's time come?
Right now I think things are leaning toward the other extreme: Obama gives people high in the last administration a full pardon. Maybe some poor schmo will be scapegoated and get a few years for a technicality.
**
Interesting lead from Paul Goble:
Vienna, December 4 – The rapid drying up of the Aral Sea in Central Asia – it is likely to completely disappear within months – has sparked new interest in the possibility that Moscow could divert Siberian river water to the region to save not only the sea but also the health and well-being of the population there.
Now I couldn't find any supporting evidence for the "matter of months" claim, but benefit of the doubt for now.
THere is an illusion -- especially with the rain forest -- that no matter how astonishing the rate of deforestation, it will never be totally gone. But the disappearance of the Aral puts us in new, uncharted territory.
Interesting looking at Google Maps layers of the Aral. The people who do "Terrain" and "Map" seem to be more optimistic that the current actual water level is just a seasonal fluctuation.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Notes on airlines
"Going out"
I took Ryanair "going out", as they call it.
I went out to Bergamo from Tampere. Interesting cultural experience in a minor way, that Tampere. Seeing a modern-day airfield (not an airport).
The cafe level, which was on the secure side of security check, overlooked the check-in area. You could probably widen the holes in the netting (it was more like a rope curtain) and have a partner toss things to you up there. Or vice versa, toss your partner below some pastries from the cafe as he waits on line. This is the classic problem with all but the bigger airports. You never know if both sides of security check will have the same facilities.
Of course, nothing more sinister than pastry-tossing would probably happen in a place like Tampere. But an airport like Milan's Malpensa is another story. I think even the name of the airport means "Evil Thoughts" or "Bad Idea". Odd name, but there you have it. Luckily the airport has compensated with things like solid walls, to allay any malicious intentions.
But it had some bad ideas, too: like scheduling rest room cleaning for all rest rooms simultaneously, and hiring only super-territorial cleaning people. Assholes.
Security was fine, though I was disappointed that no one cared about what liquids I was carrying. Coming back, I went to considerable trouble to refrigerate olive oil so that it would be solid when I cleared security. No one gave a crap over my cleverness.
No one asked to see my boarding pass or ID either. This was curious. In fact it was like we were left on our own. I hadn't had such a feeling of being unsupervised in public places in a long time. I was taking my laptop out of my bag, and then, as I approached the crucial quandary of whether to remove it from the case as well, I felt naked. Maybe I should have just walked through the metal detector, bag and all. Paper chains, I tell you.
Finally, a cashier at duty-free asked me what my destination was. I didn't get a discount, though, when I told her it was Pyongyang. She had already done her job.
**
In terms of entertainment and eye candy, Ryanair was a garish experience. First of all, the corporate colour scheme in the cabin, involving yellowish tones with dark blue. (I said orange originally, must have been thinking about EasyJet.)
The Ryanair flight attendants on the Bergamo-Tampere route were a dour lot, it seemed like they were recruited to a man (or woman) from small provincial villages in Portugal, which is at odds with the airline's fun-loving party-hearty image. I watched our 6'4" flight attendant with hooded eyes attempting small smiles as she passed out catalogs, but you could sense the existential terror and decades of religious repression.
After years of presentable publications like SAS and Finnair, what was somewhat jarring was the style of Ryanair's in-flight magazine and other PR messages -- quite vulgar, or laddish, I thought. Lots of bathroom humor. Stuff about shagging and so forth, you know the lowbrow British thing. The "From the Editor" photograph showed CEO O'Leary riding a 747 like a bucking bronco, the defile unmistakeably phallic.
Still, this was not as jarring as seeing, in airBaltic's magazine, a picture of Spandex-clad Latvian skier Rubenis.
"Coming back"
I wasn't keen on revisiting Tampere again -- shuttle, train, ferry to Tallinn, all those connections really add up in price. So I went online with good old bookinghouse.ee to see what was available from Milan to Riga or Tallinn.
Dominating the best deals was airBaltic.
Flying Milan to Riga would have been a painful 3000 EEK, but interestingly Milan to Helsinki (using the same flight to Riga) was only 2000 EEK and Milan to Tallinn (also on the same flight to Riga) was 1800 EEK. So if you wanted to fly to Riga (and didn't have checked baggage), I suppose you would just buy a more elaborate series of connecting flights and get off at the first stop, Riga. An economist would have to explain that one to me, but I think it has something to do with globalization. Same reason why onions from the Western Hemisphere sometimes cost more than Peipsi ones.
Other than discouraging people with baggage in the hold from flying to their home city, airBaltic certainly seem to have their act in order. Friendly flight attendants, all intimating that they are having a great deal of fun, even to the point of having had a quick laugh in the lavatory, though not that they would let down their guard about your seat belt or things being in upright positions.
And airBaltic was certainly the most efficient, on time carrier I have flown (based on a sample of two lights). More on-time than Ryanair, the on-time airline.
Other than the selection of in-flight reading (all of them Latvian dailies) they seem very international. For example, their in-flight magazine abandons the usual approach of local-language articles translated into English on a 1:1 basis. airBaltic's magazine, called Baltic Outlook after the Baltic Independent's colour feature supplement/spinoff from the early 1990s, even had a small pullout section on Amsterdam. Riga is not neglected, of course -- some foreign journalists contributed
The interesting thing is that they have a lot of Tallinn content, and all of it very positive. Almost going-out-of-their-way positive.
I reflected that the only thing that would make airBaltic better would be a second hub in Tallinn. How about a merger? Well, I know what Estonians would say: no Flick-ing way.
I wonder if Ryanair, which is flexing its muscles and wants to acquire traditional carriers, has any designs on two cities it currrently doesn't fly to: Tallinn and Helsinki.
I took Ryanair "going out", as they call it.
I went out to Bergamo from Tampere. Interesting cultural experience in a minor way, that Tampere. Seeing a modern-day airfield (not an airport).
The cafe level, which was on the secure side of security check, overlooked the check-in area. You could probably widen the holes in the netting (it was more like a rope curtain) and have a partner toss things to you up there. Or vice versa, toss your partner below some pastries from the cafe as he waits on line. This is the classic problem with all but the bigger airports. You never know if both sides of security check will have the same facilities.
Of course, nothing more sinister than pastry-tossing would probably happen in a place like Tampere. But an airport like Milan's Malpensa is another story. I think even the name of the airport means "Evil Thoughts" or "Bad Idea". Odd name, but there you have it. Luckily the airport has compensated with things like solid walls, to allay any malicious intentions.
But it had some bad ideas, too: like scheduling rest room cleaning for all rest rooms simultaneously, and hiring only super-territorial cleaning people. Assholes.
Security was fine, though I was disappointed that no one cared about what liquids I was carrying. Coming back, I went to considerable trouble to refrigerate olive oil so that it would be solid when I cleared security. No one gave a crap over my cleverness.
No one asked to see my boarding pass or ID either. This was curious. In fact it was like we were left on our own. I hadn't had such a feeling of being unsupervised in public places in a long time. I was taking my laptop out of my bag, and then, as I approached the crucial quandary of whether to remove it from the case as well, I felt naked. Maybe I should have just walked through the metal detector, bag and all. Paper chains, I tell you.
Finally, a cashier at duty-free asked me what my destination was. I didn't get a discount, though, when I told her it was Pyongyang. She had already done her job.
**
In terms of entertainment and eye candy, Ryanair was a garish experience. First of all, the corporate colour scheme in the cabin, involving yellowish tones with dark blue. (I said orange originally, must have been thinking about EasyJet.)
The Ryanair flight attendants on the Bergamo-Tampere route were a dour lot, it seemed like they were recruited to a man (or woman) from small provincial villages in Portugal, which is at odds with the airline's fun-loving party-hearty image. I watched our 6'4" flight attendant with hooded eyes attempting small smiles as she passed out catalogs, but you could sense the existential terror and decades of religious repression.
After years of presentable publications like SAS and Finnair, what was somewhat jarring was the style of Ryanair's in-flight magazine and other PR messages -- quite vulgar, or laddish, I thought. Lots of bathroom humor. Stuff about shagging and so forth, you know the lowbrow British thing. The "From the Editor" photograph showed CEO O'Leary riding a 747 like a bucking bronco, the defile unmistakeably phallic.
Still, this was not as jarring as seeing, in airBaltic's magazine, a picture of Spandex-clad Latvian skier Rubenis.
"Coming back"
I wasn't keen on revisiting Tampere again -- shuttle, train, ferry to Tallinn, all those connections really add up in price. So I went online with good old bookinghouse.ee to see what was available from Milan to Riga or Tallinn.
Dominating the best deals was airBaltic.
Flying Milan to Riga would have been a painful 3000 EEK, but interestingly Milan to Helsinki (using the same flight to Riga) was only 2000 EEK and Milan to Tallinn (also on the same flight to Riga) was 1800 EEK. So if you wanted to fly to Riga (and didn't have checked baggage), I suppose you would just buy a more elaborate series of connecting flights and get off at the first stop, Riga. An economist would have to explain that one to me, but I think it has something to do with globalization. Same reason why onions from the Western Hemisphere sometimes cost more than Peipsi ones.
Other than discouraging people with baggage in the hold from flying to their home city, airBaltic certainly seem to have their act in order. Friendly flight attendants, all intimating that they are having a great deal of fun, even to the point of having had a quick laugh in the lavatory, though not that they would let down their guard about your seat belt or things being in upright positions.
And airBaltic was certainly the most efficient, on time carrier I have flown (based on a sample of two lights). More on-time than Ryanair, the on-time airline.
Other than the selection of in-flight reading (all of them Latvian dailies) they seem very international. For example, their in-flight magazine abandons the usual approach of local-language articles translated into English on a 1:1 basis. airBaltic's magazine, called Baltic Outlook after the Baltic Independent's colour feature supplement/spinoff from the early 1990s, even had a small pullout section on Amsterdam. Riga is not neglected, of course -- some foreign journalists contributed
The interesting thing is that they have a lot of Tallinn content, and all of it very positive. Almost going-out-of-their-way positive.
I reflected that the only thing that would make airBaltic better would be a second hub in Tallinn. How about a merger? Well, I know what Estonians would say: no Flick-ing way.
I wonder if Ryanair, which is flexing its muscles and wants to acquire traditional carriers, has any designs on two cities it currrently doesn't fly to: Tallinn and Helsinki.
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