The Hooded Odyssey
C ordered a zip-up hoodie in March.
She saw a woman wearing a warm-up suit in an airport and it was the nicest looking one she'd ever seen. She was able to get the brand and ordered a hoodie.
Slow-forward three months later.
After multiple emails and doubts she would ever receive anything--including wondering if the entire thing wasn't some kind of elaborate scam--it finally arrived today.
Before she tried it on, she handed it to me and I felt the fabric. No kidding, it was the softest, most comfortable hoodie I'd ever seen, and the zippers were top-quality.
Then she tried it on.
C is only 5'1" (and 1/4", she claims, though I'm doubtful), she ordered a medium, and it swallowed her. She needed one of those emergency beacons like skiers use so the emergency rescue team can reach them if they're buried in the snow.
Guess who now has the best hoodie they've ever owned that also fits perfectly? This guy.
"Should I order another one in small or extra-small?" she asked.
"Are you kidding me?" I said. "This has turned into the hoodie version of The Odyssey. You can't possibly return home without one."
The Sequel
The Summer Reading Challenge is back on.
Two years ago, Eli 23.10 proposed a reading challenge for three months over the summer (or four--I can't remember).
He calculated poorly. Reading is one of the things I can still do at peak level.
It was a knockout, and I thought that was it. Now, though, he's proposed another round, ending on October 1. He proposed a public spreadsheet to keep track of page count, but I nixed that idea. No totals until the end of the contest.
Devious. He liked it immediately.
I've added another wrinkle, too. Every so often, I'm going to send him a message with only one word: DING.
It won't happen on a consistent basis, and I won't explain what it means.
Eventually, he'll figure out it must be in reference to a certain number of pages I've read since the last DING. What will drive him crazy, though, is figuring out how many.
That should keep him busy all summer.
Drip Drip Drip
Two pages a day. Day after day after day after day.
There comes a point where writing a book drives you crazy. If it doesn't, you're probably not doing it right (not that I am, necessarily).
I've hit that point now.
I'm rewriting the third section because it no longer reflects the tone of the second section properly. The second section is the best part of the book, for now. It feels complete or very close to complete. The other parts have to be significantly adjusted to reflect that rhythm and quality.
Two pages a day.
50 pages into the third section. Things have happened. It better reflects the world of the book. It's still going to need a ton of editing.
I want to hurry it up, but I can't. Life is in the way right now, and even if it wasn't, I don't think I could go any faster. Books happen at the pace they want to, mostly. You might be able to tip the scales slightly, but not much more.
On Its Way
Eli 23.10 needed a panda by next Tuesday.
In this case, his golf clubs. A friend of his worked for a year at St. Andrew's and was told he could come and play anytime (and bring a friend).
Of course, Eli wanted to get his game in shape before he goes, and it's summer. For once, he's taking a break from working. Of course, he's playing tennis, running, climbing, and cycling in the meantime (I'm sure I forgot something), so why not play golf, too?
It all sounded so simple on paper.
I left at 2:30 yesterday to go to the storage unit to pick up his clubs. He'd paid for 56.5 pounds for the shipment (which he'd arranged to have picked up, in a thoughtful move). The bag plus clubs, though, only weighed 35.
I should have seen this coming.
He selected basically all the remaining sporting gear in the storage unit and had me pack it into the softshell golf bag case, along with the clubs.
New weight: 61.5 pounds.
The storage unit air conditioning was not designed to handle 97F outside temperatures. Usually, it's pleasantly cool inside the unit, but I was sweating buckets this time. The bag was so heavy I could barely wheel it out to the car, let alone get it into the car.
Then, when I got back home, muscling it out of the car and up to the condo. Phew.
But I wasn't done. Remember that five extra pounds? Something had to go, and I had a sneaking suspicion it was going to be his golf bag, because it was already on its last legs. We talked and he was thinking the same thing.
So I had to unload a golf travel case packed as full as Porky Pig's trunk and repack it--this time, without the golf bag inside.
That got us under the weight limit. However, this brought up a new issue: how to protect the clubs and not have them rattle around? This meant I had to bubble wrap all of the club heads, put the shafts together, bubble wrap them, and arrange everything else around them so nothing would be rattling inside.
I'm out of gas at this point. Way out of gas. It's 7, and I've been working on this for 4.5 hours straight.
I won't bore you (I probably already have) with the label and customs forms details. Just know that it was eventually completed and I dropped into bed like a bag of cement.
And that's how I sent a sporting goods warehouse to England.
The Play (a Politics post, or a War post, or whatever)
This is all very transparent.
When you tell a country you "might" bomb their nuclear sites after a two week period of "reflection," it's not like they're going to be sitting around on Day 12 going, "No need to do anything yet. We still have two days left."
Plus, the sabers have already been rattling for weeks.
Whatever enriched uranium was stored at those sites is gone. It's been gone.
The purpose of the bombing was to state "enriched uranium" and "within weeks of a nuclear weapon" (no one actually thinks that) as a pretext to continue bombing if the stockpiles weren't destroyed.
Which they weren't, of course (Vance has already told the WSJ they weren't, which is entirely predictable). This gives the U.S. the green light to continue bombing.
The actual goal here (again, which is so transparent) is regime change. And it may work, at least in terms of forcing a change in leadership. The problem is that historically when a superpower forces a regime change in the Middle East (or Africa in general), the results are unpredictable and often disastrous.
So the bombing isn't a one-off. It's an opening salvo.
All Iran has to do is look at Ukraine, who voluntarily stopped their nuclear program in exchange for security guarantees, which have proved entirely worthless. If anything, this demonstrates their need for nuclear weapons more clearly than ever before.
In sum, it's not good.
Friday Links!
Leading off this week, the story behind one of the most unforgettable photographs ever taken: ‘At one point, I stepped on a cow’s head’: Gulshan Khan on her best photograph.
This is an riveting, twisted story: The Great Pretenders.
Absolutely bizarre (and I remember this): Incredible testimonies: In the 1980s, thousands of Americans began to suspect they may have been abducted by aliens. What happened?
A tremendous read: What is Ethiopian philosophy? Riven by two competing schools of thought, the future of philosophical enquiry in Ethiopia stands at a crossroads.
This is fantastic: The Man Who Unsolved a Murder.
A medical mystery finally solved: After a series of tumors, woman’s odd-looking tongue explains everything.
Of scientific note: New dating for White Sands footprints confirms controversial theory.
From Wally, and it seems unstoppable: As grocery shortages persist, UNFI says it’s recovering from cyberattack. 1777, in case you're wondering: When music became copyrightable. I'll take a t-shirt, please: Archaeologists Are Recreating the Long-Lost Recipe for Egyptian Blue, the World’s Oldest Known Synthetic Pigment. I honestly left feeling underwhelmed, but I was in the tiniest minority: ‘It was simply mind-blowing’: readers remember seeing Star Wars for the first time.
Masters
Eli 23.10 finished the requirements for his Master's degree yesterday.
Mom 95.3 also has a Master's degree, earned around 1970. I remember her going during the summer, three days a week, for two years. It was an hour drive to Kingsville to the university. It was called Texas A&I back then.
I didn't understand then what incredible fortitude it took for Mom to spend her summer in class when she already worked so hard during the school year as a teacher. I just knew I had a babysitter who wasn't great in the making lunch department (to be fair, I was very fussy about my sandwiches).
Now there are two of us with Master's degrees. It's a nice moment.
Spuds and Duds
I cook when C has an exercise class around dinner time.
Today, we decided to have baked potatoes, and also decided to split one. She stopped in at the store and picked up one russet potato.
Seventy-eight cents.
She said it was the cheapest dinner she'd ever have (thirty-nine cents each).
I got hungry, though, and changed the plan; we each needed our own potato. So I went back to the store and tried to match the size of the original potato as closely as possible. One chance. No undo.
I put the potato on the scale and held my breath.
Seventy-nine cents.
I never had the Eye of the Tiger, but apparently I have the Eye of the Potato.
Not Based on Any Personal Experience, of Course
Is it possible to patch a substantial gash in a tire sidewall with super glue and duct tape? More specifically, to reduce the enormous rate of air loss temporarily so you can drive seven miles to a tire store?
Why, yes. It's possible.
With multiple iterations of patching.
A Protester
We did this on Saturday:
That's not my sign, but it should have been.
There were an astonishing number of people:
Over 5,000, easily, in a part of the state that leans fairly conservative.
This is the kind of thing I'd normally never do, because--as Groucho Marx so famously said--I'd never join a club that would have me as a member. But these are not normal times.
When to Be In a Hospital
I'm not in a hospital.
C gave me fascinating instruction in when to be there, though.
First, teaching hospitals generally provide better care, because there is a team of doctors for each patient instead of an individual. This isn't a hard and fast rule, but a general guideline.
In a teaching hospital, there's a hierarchy:
Attending physicians (fully licensed physicians)
Senior Residents
Residents (first year out of medical school)
Medical students (if any)
In a hospital, the residents do pre-rounds very early, followed by revisiting those patients later with a senior resident (who can point out any possible omissions by the resident). The attending physician might also attend rounds or choose to have "conference room" rounds (where the patient isn't present but all the data is reviewed).
The annual transition for these tiers usually occurs on July 1 (not everywhere, but generally). This means that if you go for an elective procedure in May, for example, everyone has been in their role for almost a year (sometimes longer). The team has also been working together for almost a year.
If you go in July, the resident is new. The senior resident was often a resident last month. The attending physician could be in his first month (though not necessarily). It's a new team that has only worked together for a few weeks.
At a non-teaching hospital--generally--the tiers are as follows:
Attending physician
Physician assistant
Nurse
C said nurses would be highly offended by those tiers because they see it as a team-based approach.
You can see the level of expertise in a non-teaching hospital is generally lower. It's not always true, but it's a good rule of thumb.
So if you need surgery and it's not time-sensitive, go in May or early June to a teaching hospital for the best care.
The Doldrums
The "doldrums" is a popular nautical term that refers to the belt around the Earth near the equator where sailing ships sometimes get stuck on windless waters.--National Ocean Service
Sailors often get stuck in the doldrums on long voyages. If you pass near the equator, I'm not sure they're even possible to avoid.
A book is, in every way, a long voyage that passes near the equator.
I'm in a place right now where I wake up every morning and work, without fail, but feel no enthusiasm for doing so. Absolutely none. It's not that I'm producing crap; I'm working effectively, and I like what I'm working with. It's just the energy is entirely missing.
This happens for almost everyone writing a book, I think. I don't see how it could be avoided. It's a long, long voyage (about five years, this time), and looking at the ocean every day is incredibly repetitive.
This is how it works, though, at least for me. I keep looking for wind, and one day--out of nowhere--there will be a fresh breeze and the sails will fill for the first time in weeks.
It will be a relief.
Lofoten Ultra-Trail (pictures)
These were all taken from the course:
Eli 23.10 finished the 24k race in five hours (I can't remember the exact time). There were two climbs of over 3,000 feet, snow up to his knees in places, treacherous terrain in general, and he loved it all.
An interesting data point he shared: his threshold heart rate is 190 (the rate beyond which lactic acid starts to form). One, it's ridiculous that his threshold is so high, but also, his heart rate was at 188 for an hour and fourteen minutes of the race. Hard, in other words.
Norway is on my bucket list, and I hope we go together someday.
Paths
When Eli 23.10 was playing 16U hockey at the AAA level, he had a teammate, a defenseman.
The kid was tall, solid, and a great skater. He had an "advisor." He was selected to play in the Nations Cup (roughly equivalent to the youth version of the Four Nations Face-Off). His parents expected him to be drafted.
Aa a 16-year-old, he signed with Michigan State. He was the first on the team to commit to a college, and it was a big deal. At least three kids on Eli's team committed to Michigan State.
After 16U, he went to the USHL (Eli tried out for USHL and NAHL teams, but didn't make it. Goalies were set before tryouts, and the other goalies were basically practice dummies). He played in the USHL for four years. FOUR YEARS. Michigan State kept telling him to stay in the USHL for one more season.
By the time he started college, at twenty, he'd already been away from home for most of his teenage years.
He didn't start college at Michigan State. No, they burned him, and burned a slew of other kids who'd committed to them as well. He did get another Division One offer, from Miami of Ohio. It wasn't ideal, but it was still Division One, so he went.
He played, but the team was bad. 18-78-10 over three years bad. He played in fewer games each season ,too. It didn't seem like much fun. Still, though, Division One hockey player. That was always the dream.
This coming season, he's a senior.
The coach cut almost everyone on the team. Including him.
He'll graduate from college when he's 24. He retired from hockey. His body hurts all the time, every day.
Eli wanted to play in Division One very, very much. A few programs had interest in him, but it was never sustained interest.
He had to give up his dream. It was crushing. Then he turned it into the best thing that ever happened to him.
Went to the University of Michigan. Played in the highest level intramural league and had a blast. Went to Oxford. Had the year of his life. Came back and graduated, then returned to Oxford for grad school. This upcoming season will be his fourth (and last). It's not the same level of hockey as Division One--not even close--but he loves playing (and his teammates). He's been in epic games he'll never forget, having moments of a lifetime.
He's still 23 and has his master's degree. He'll have a doctorate at 26.
He reminds me of David Booth.
David Booth never played a game in the NBA, even though he attended multiple training camps over the years and was often the last player cut. He wound up playing in the CBA.
Oh, and France, Venezuela, Italy, the Philippines, Greece, and Japan.
In the foreign leagues he was a star, the best player on every team. It wasn't the NBA, but it was an incredible life experience.
Eli's played in England, Austria, and Switzerland during his time at Oxford. He's been MVP of his team all three years. He's had the best time of his life, even though it wasn't the life he expected.
This is a long-winded (sorry) way of saying we should all remember that our dreams aren't static. They evolve, and with hard work, they can be better, happier dreams than the ones we started with.
I want to be the way Eli is with his dreams. I'm not, but I'm trying.
Friday Links
Leading off this week, a wonderful and touching story of an 8-year-old boy who built his own arcade: Caine's Arcade.
This is a long and fascinating read: The curse of Toumaï: an ancient skull, a disputed femur and a bitter feud over humanity’s origins.
A bizarre story: How the Nazis' top interrogator was hired to work on Disney theme parks.
This explains so much of our current political climate: Greed is costly.
An excellent read: An 80,000-year history of the tomato.
It's important reading: Why incels take the “Blackpill”—and why we should care.
A professional soccer (non-soccer) player. What a story: Carlos Kaiser (footballer).
I can't begin to describe how satisfying it is to watch this video: Watch this pro build a cabin in the woods from scratch.
Only one of hundreds of examples: Millions of People Depend on the Great Lakes’ Water Supply. Trump Decimated the Lab Protecting It.
This is the second of an impeccable four-part series on the Digital Antiquarian (it's easy to navigate to the other episodes if you wish): The End of Sierra as We Knew It, Part 2: The Scandal.
A follow-up in reference to a post I made last week: Scientists decode the universal language pattern in 40,000 stories.
From Wally, and it's delightful: What I learned from reading Harlan Ellison. This show has a surprising amount of support: Wheel of Time fans band together to save show after cancellation – petition gets over 50,000 signatures.
From Jonathon W., the trailer to a Scottish Samurai movie (you read that right): Tornado - Official Trailer.
We're number one (almost)
Grand Rapids has the worst air quality in the country today, and some of the worst air quality in the world. If it was a major city, it would be #2 in the entire world behind Dakar, Senegal (an eye-watering AQI of 190, due to dust from the Sahara desert).
Here? AQI of 161 and rising, apparently. We were going to go for a long walk and decided to move swimming up a day instead. Being underwater is the most pleasant place to be right now.
It doesn't seem there's a single place in the U.S. you can live anymore that's free of the threat of weather disaster.
The Great Retail Unwinding
One of the things I do to maximize my step count each day is to park as far away from retail locations as possible.
Today, I'd had a walk, but parked in a Meijer (essentially, Target but with more groceries) parking lot so I'd have to walk a half a mile to Jimmy John's for a sandwich.
On the way, I passed an Arby's (huge parking lot--almost empty) and a Fazoli's (fast Italian--huge parking lot, almost empty).
There are thousands and thousands of fast food parking lots that size across the country. Burger King's parking lots, in particular, are so large it's comical.
No one goes to fast food places to eat inside anymore.
A few do (particularly at McDonald's and Chic-fil-A), but mostly, everyone uses the drive-through. The current fast food hotness in terms of franchise design is economical indoor footprints (Jimmy John's, Tropical Smoothie, etc.). How do these older companies unwind the ownership of thousands of restaurant locations with huge square footage? It can't be cheap to own them, but who would want them?
In a Sim City sense, all this land has been zoned commercial, but now there's far too much commercial zoning. Yet, you can't use the dying commercial spaces for housing. Unless, I guess, you get someone to build high-density housing (multi-story apartments).
It could take decades or longer to handle this. It's an urban mess.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
It's been a long, long time since a game took my breath away, but
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 does.
The best art direction I've ever seen. Wonderful animation. Phenomenal voice acting (listen to the French with English subtitles). An entirely engrossing, haunting story.
This game didn't even have a AAA budget by today's standards. How it accomplished all this on a lower budget blows me way.
Even the combat is fun. In addition to the attacks being excellent, there's a parry system that is absolutely brilliant. The timing is tricky, as each type of enemy attacks at different speeds, but it's fun and powerful when you're able to use it.
Oh, and no map. Just think about that. In a day and age where we're handheld to death, you couldn't turn on a map if you wanted to. It's freeing, really.
I'm about ten hours in and utterly fascinated.
The Lofoten Ultra-Trail
If you'd like to gain a sense of where Eli 23.10 was running the 24K last weekend, just watch this short video:
LOFOTEN ULTRA-TRAIL: The ultimate adventure.
He was running with someone and said the race was harder than he thought. The other runner laughed and told him the course was considered the most technical trail race in the world.
He finished the race (50th out of 116) and I'll have plenty of pictures on Wednesday after I talk to him. Today is a travel day back from Norway.
His friend finished the 100-miler--and incredible feat--in 36 hours. It's a staggeringly punishing course, and barely half the runners finished. As someone who did some foolish ultra stuff around age twenty, I'm in complete awe over what he did.
