Lance Armstrong and NYC Marathon

The commentary at the end of this clip is amusing:

Armstrong ended the marathon at 2:46:43 (13 minutes faster than his prior year's finish).

Shawshank Redemption, Revisited

This story reminded me of one of the epic films of our time:

"All they found of him was a muddy set of prison clothes, a bar of soap, and an old rock hammer, damn near worn down to the knub. I remember thinking it would take a man 600 years to tunnel through the wall with it. Ol' Andy made it in less than twenty."

Obama and Primary Voting, part II

A brief excerpt from one of my experiences has been posted over at Andrew Sullivan's blog. You can find it here.

Obama Primary Voting

Barack's going to get the Democratic nod, I think. He's statistically tied with Hillary in Iowa and trending strongly upward there, whereas Edwards and Clinton both have been stagnant in the polls for quite some time. Obama's supporters are more likely to caucus than those of the other candidates, as well.

Then, you turn to New Hampshire and see the same thing occurring in the Granite State, with Obama starting to trend strongly upwards there, as well. Judging by the Pollster data alone, it appears that his support stems directly from Clinton dissidents (and Gore supporters, many of whom I assume initially supported Hillary):

The GOP version of Barack is, of course, Huckabee, who is going to lock up the GOP nomination fairly soon. His polling patterns directly duplicate Obama's, except those patterns are even more dramatic in the case of the former Arkansas governor.

The race then turns to Huckabee v. Obama; Obama carries (and strongly) the female vote, along with the typical Democratic states, and he makes substantial inroads into the swing states. Regarding voting demographics: I'm guessing he'll carry everything up to and including 40 and 50 year olds. The under 30 crowd is going to be a complete wash for him, and I think that group will be fairly mobilized. Obama's going to be declared President in 2008, barring any catastrophic revelations. I'm now on the record, let's see if I call it as accurately as the 2004 election.

It Must Be Finals Time

I heard a "THUMP" while studying for finals last evening at the Wells Library. I looked to my right and saw the following:

It's a little blurry because I took the picture with the iSight camera on my MacBook Pro and was in the process of turning the computer when the camera snapped. The young lady stayed in this position for about six or seven minutes.

Night Shifts and Cancer

I'm listening to NPR right now. They're interviewing an AP writer about a recent report that ties night shifts to an increased risk of cancer.

The interviewer just asked the AP writer something along the lines of: "Do you think this report will have a large impact in the business world, or do you think it will be largely ignored?"

AP writer: "I think it will have a huge impact on the business community."

My response? Righhhhhhhtttt. This report's not going to have a significant impact at all, unless the government steps in.

Reined In

(Photo - MATT DETRICH / The Star)

Pretty good weekend for football.

Colts lose to Pats - the arrogant Colts fans on campus have to realize they can't run their mouths 24/7.
Adrian Peterson throws down a monster game - Billy, you guys have something special up north.
The Pack wins - hey the Bears had a bye, I had to cheer for my number 2 team.
IU gets 6 - we'll need one more to truly be bowl eligible, but hopefully that will come against Northwestern this weekend, and/or Purdue after that (I'll be there).
Drew Brees continued to redeem himself after a terrible start this season - my fantasy team is finally reaching its potential.
Notre Dame loses to the Navy Midshipmen - probably my favorite aspect of this weekend. The talking point among the Irish fans has been the poor quality recruits that Ty Willingham had and that Charlie Weis has inherited. Well guess what? No matter how poor those recruits were, they were better than Navy's. The Irish were out-coached.

Space

The Guardian just released a report covering the work spaces and studies of various writers. After passing over most of the pictures, I think David Lodge (top) and Mark Haddon possess the rooms that I would be most inclined to include in my own home:




Haddon's room strikes me as being incredibly personable: the wood floor, the doors at the end of the room, the art, the odd light fixture. His chair is also intriguing. My only concern is it seems to be a very warm feeling space, and I would most likely have difficulties remaining awake while burning the midnight oils. It also strikes me as being somewhat dim. I'd pop a few lights in there, brighten it up. That would help with the whole issue of warmth, as well. But I find the prospect of walking out those doors and finding a garden of some sort is incredibly tempting.

Lodge's space is all about business, and I despise the floor. Other than that, though, it seems incredibly well-suited to churning out pages upon pages of essays, or perhaps opening up the Biochem book. I love the windows and the overhead adjustable lights. The bookcase being situated behind the desk is also a nice touch - it opens up the space a bit. If it were my space, I'd ditch the telephone.

I'll post a picture of my own space some time soon, perhaps a 'before' and 'after' cleaning picture, as well. Obviously, it doesn't even approach the level of these spaces, but I suppose that's part of the dreams we possess as students.

Because Fall is Here

"I lie in thick grasses covered with sun and listen to the music made there."
-Janisse Ray, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood

(Photo from Luzern, Switzerland)

Interviews, etc.

I never seem to blog.

Interviews for medical school have been going well - visiting the various schools and programs is enjoyable. Seeing various parts of the country that I've never been to before has also been a treat. It's also interesting to notice the different types of students the various schools attract. My method, though, has been to schedule one interview per week, on a Wednesday. Last week I had a visit scheduled on Tuesday, followed by another trip on Wednesday. Five flights in three days, followed by English papers on Thursday and a Biochemistry exam on Friday. It's tiring, but enjoyable.

Fall seems to be knocking on the door, as well - I can't wait for the trees to change in Bloomington.

The following photo is from a trip Britt and I took to McCormick's Creek toward the end of summer.

Cute

So, I'm kind of itching to blog again.

A Little Something Going In The Blog...

Billy Collins, with animation

I stumbled across some of his poetry on YouTube; here's one of my favorites.

SPIN

Check it out:

Backpacking Home

After three months of pasta, new types of courses, 12 countries, and immersion in countries where the best I could often hope for was to pick out single words in other languages, I'm back in the States.

After the conclusion of my academic program on April 24th, I packed up my belongings in three cases: my checked bag, my carry-on, and a small backpack. The first two were to remain in Firenze until it was time for me to depart from Europe. The third would accompany me as I traveled through Western and Central Europe (Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany again, France, Belgium, the Netherlands).

It's really quite amazing how being forced to live out of a backpack, along with a short time span, can force an individual to pursue certain actions. For example, I decided against spending the night in hostels or hotels, opting instead to remain on sleeper trains. By doing so, I could explore a location for a full day, head to a train station, sleep, and arise in an entirely different nation. It also meant that shaving would be a luxury, as the water from faucets on sleeper trains is less than desirable and would likely have dire consequences if mixed with razor burn. Second, sleeper trains don't include showers. Enough said.

High points of my backpacking experience were numerous, but a few particularly stand out in my mind:

1) Time in Germany with Sue, Sebastian, and Sue's family. Sue was an exchange student while Brittany was in high school, and her hometown is located in southern Germany. We stayed at her home for a weekend, eating well-cooked German meals and enjoying breakfasts on a porch overlooking a valley in which gliders noiselessly circled, riding the drafts of a warm spring time morning.

2) Vienna with Billy and Petra; Billy (a link to his blog is on the right) was a friend of ours from the Firenze program; his girlfriend Petra was studying in Vienna for a few weeks after the conclusion of our semester. We met up with them in Vienna, and they pointed out some interesting tidbits about the often stunning architecture present in Austria.

3) Krakow. I had low expectations for my 3/4 homeland, expectations that were diminished primarily by the opinions of Americans traveling or residing in Germany. Those expectations were wonderfully exceeded by a city that was surprisingly clean, with a low number of tourists, a large number of backpackers, and enough churches and walking paths to occupy an entire day (which, if not for a visit to Auschwitz, they would have accomplished). The cheap prices of basic goods in Poland also can't be beat.

4) Paris. Say what you will about the French, but I do believe that they have the best large city in Europe, at least from what I've seen. I wasn't overly impressed by London, which is a somewhat blasphemous statement for an American student to make, but Paris has everything London does, yet it offers more fun and excitement. Plus, it's more beautiful, extravagant, and clean than the British cultural center. London has the National Gallery and the Tate; Paris has the Louvre. London has Big Ben; Paris has the Eiffel Tower. And so on and so forth...

Thoughts on some of the other locations I visited:

1) My visit to Auschwitz was not as emotionally challenging as I expected - it felt more like a ghost town than the terrible facility that we read about in horror. There were three primary death camps set up by the Germans, along with 40 subcamps, in the area; the first of which, the most famous of the three and the one that I decided to visit, was nearly completely destroyed by the Nazis as the Allied marches placed the camps in imminent danger of being located and documented. This resulted in the camp being nearly completely dismantled in certain portions (for example, the gas chambers no longer contained the infamous shower heads). Auschwitz II, which was larger and located up the road from Auschwitz I, is supposedly much larger and emotionally charging. This isn't to say that Auschwitz is not worth a visit. Rather, it's probably a good idea to spend an hour or two at the first camp and then follow this visit with a trip to Auschwitz II. I missed out on the second camp, and I regret not being able to see it.

2) Prague had a nice international feel to it, with more European tourists floating around the town than there were Czechs. They were very few Americans. Even so, it still felt as if the city had sold-out, ever so slightly, to tourism and lost some of its charm (this charm was still present in Krakow, and visiting the latter city back-to-back with Prague made this evident).

3) Belgium and the Netherlands were OK to look at, but we didn't really do all that much in either one (commuted through one, slept in the other).

It's nearly 2 AM and I'm tired. Goodnight.

An Explanation Is In Order...

For my lack of both blogging and photos.

The first month I was here in Firenze, my Dell Inspiron 1150, which I've had since my freshman year at IU, crashed. The screen went black, even though the components could be heard engaging (although very quietly, and the fan didn't seem to be working). Two weeks before I left for Italy, my hard drive crashed, so I had just replaced the hard drive on the laptop, and had a feeling this new problem was slightly more serious.

Turns out, the motherboard was toast. So for the past few months, I haven't had a computer of my own, and Brittany's laptop can't upload pictures due to a busted USB port. So all my pictures are on other computers, and it takes upwards of three to four hours to load my full-sized photos on Yahoo. So I haven't uploaded anything.

This lack of computing hardware also may be blamed for my lack of blogging. Granted, we have access to the Net here at school, but I hate blogging on public computers in a crowded room. It's hard to concentrate, and access to the hardware is limited.

I have three more weeks here in Florence, and then I'll be backpacking across Europe for ten days. When I return, I'll promptly order a Apple MacBook Pro laptop (I've had enough of Dells, PCs, and all my friends love their Macs. So I'm going to make the switch, especially now that I can run Windows on a Mac - even though I doubt I will, given the raves about OS X).

That's all for now.

Long time, Little blog

Quite a bit has happened since my last post, but I'll try to be brief.

Since the span between January 19th and February 21st, I've visited the following cities:

Fiesole
Pisa (Leaning Tower, Cathedral of Pisa)
Lucca (inside of the walls)
Rome (primarily the Vatican City)
Sienna (Cathedral of Sienna, the main square)
San Gimignano

I've also visited the following places in Florence:

The Piazza of Michelangelo, which overlooks the city of Florence (all those postcard shots of the city you see are taken from this Piazza)
The Academy
Santa Croce
San Lorenzo Leather Market
Pitti Palace
The Uffizi Gallery
The Bargello Museum
The Medici Palace

Which has exposed me to the following artists and their works:

Michelangelo (David, Tondo Doni, Bacchus, Pieta, Julius II tomb, Dome of St. Peter's, Saint Matthew, The Prisoners, ...)
Donatello (Marble David, Bronze David, Saint George, Cavalcanti Annunciation)
Cimabue (Majesty of Saint Trinita, Santa Croce Crucifix)
Giotto (All Saints Madonna, Stigmata, Death of St. Francis, Baroncelli Polypthic)
Boticelli (Madonna del Magnificat, Birth of Venus, Primavera)
Verrocchio w/ Leonardo (Baptism of Christ)
Leonardo da Vinci (Annunciation, Adoration of the Magi)
Brunelleschi and Ghiberti's Baptistry Panels

and other places that I can't remember off the top of my head right now.

But that it's for now, because I'm at school and they're closing down for the evening...

Photos, Take 2

Here they are:

http://new.photos.yahoo.com/bucky_159/

There are plenty more to load, but these are better than the Flickr albums.

Photos

I've posted some photos of my trip thus far at my Flickr website.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/74033623@N00

There are a ton more, but Flickr will only let me load a maximum of 200 on a free account (which is what I have, for the moment). My apologies, as well, for the fact that some of them are sideways. They shouldn't be, and I don't have time to correct them because I'm writing this in an Internet cafe and would prefer to remedy the problem when I'm not being charged €2,00 an hour.

I hope all is well, I'll update in a few days.

Settling Into Florence, Night One

After we arrived in Firenze (Florence, I will use them interchangeably), our buses dropped us off in a section of town on the West Side, and we started the process of hailing taxis for the trips to our apartments. Lorenzo, the director of the study abroad center (CAPA) I am studying at, was in charge of hailing the cabs, and the process was a long and by no means smooth process. There was a sizeable fashion show in Florence on the night of our arrival, and most of the cabs were busy catering to the throngs of people exiting from the show (we arrived late in the evening). We knew who we would be housed with, and my two roommates, Jeff and JP, and I patiently waited for a taxi, while most of the female students were shuttled off first. We eventually hailed a small Fiat cab, dumped our luggage in the back, and the luggage that didn't fit was nestled in our laps.

My first experience in Italian traffic, aside from the bus, was an enjoyable one. Cars, scooters, and bikes travel inches away from each other, and traffic generally moves very smoothly. Cab drivers in Italy are paid extremely well, and there is no need to tip them - the process of becoming a cab driver is extremely political, with the cost of a cab license being in the six figures. So, if you know somebody, you can be a cab driver and earn good wages. If you don't have connections, you find other means of employment.

We were dropped off outside our apartment, and our landlord and his wife were waiting for us. Neither spoke English well, but the wife could understand very basic phrases. Our Italian was not good enough to effectively communicate, so they showed us around our apartment, and we conversed in a mixture of Italian, Spanish, and English. They were friendly folks, and explained to us that the most important rule was to keep quiet, as the people in our building wake early and need every bit of their sleep.

Our apartment is nice. It's a two bedroom, one bath, with a nice kitchen, a balcony, and another small balcony. We have expansive windows overlooking the street below, and a rustic-looking, Tuscan-styled living room with very comfortable colors on the wall. To reach the apartment, you climb a winding staircase, key open a wrought-iron, antique door, and climb some more steps. The staircase has windows that remind me of portholes, which allow views of the outside from the stairwell. I'll post pictures of the apartment on a photo-sharing website soon.

The landlord also left us a small assortment of groceries and a nice bottle of wine for our first night in the apartment; we wanted a meal, however, so we embarked in search of a restaurant.

A significant difference between Italy and America is the availability of restaurants open late into the evening, and we had difficulty locating a suitable location for dinner. We headed into a local pizzicheria for directions. A pizzicheria is referred to as a 'bar' in Italy, but it's very little like the bars in America. The name 'bar' derives from the fact that, yes, there is a bar with a server, but he or she serves different versions of coffee. The place resembles Starbucks, except there are no seats or scenesters, it's tiny (with room for maybe 15 people packed together), and people are very quiet. You can also order a small pastry, and they provide beer and wine, but very few people drink beer at the pizzicherias. Italians in general seem to drink very little beer, a refreshing difference from America. Heineken is, hands down, the most readily available brand.

Anyways, Jeff asked a local where a restaurant was in English, but the man didn't understand what he meant. Jeff doesn't know Italian, so he resorted to his Spanish skills: "Donde es el restaurante?". JP and I walked away laughing; it was obvious that the locals were quite amused by his lingual abilities. Regardless, a local girl caught the gist of his statement, and gave us directions to a small pizzeria down the street. We had some delicious calzones for €5,00 apiece, headed home, and fell asleep, getting ready for our first full day in Firenze.

Amsterdam, Rome, initial entry into Firenze

My flight from Amsterdam to da Vinci airport in Rome was on a much smaller jet, which I believe they refer to as a city-hopper here. The flight flew right through the heart of the Alps, and I snapped a few pictures, here's two of them (the current header picture is another one I took):

The approach to Rome was underwhelming. Rome's an expansive city, but da Vinci is situated well outside of the major urban area, and it's very isolated by open ground. I even joked that it seemed as if we were touching down somewhere in the American heartland, and da Vinci was also significantly older than the Amsterdam international airport. Amsterdam had a much more contemporary design, whereas da Vinci resembled a quintessential airport from the 60s or 70s: lots of matte metal and a slightly confusing layout. It also was much more reserved in terms of technology, with a lack of large screen TVs, computers, and other technological items of that sort.

We met some folks from our overseas study program, and the approximately 60 students in the Florence program loaded their belongings onto two buses that basically resembled the Italian versions of Greyhounds in the States. Most of the students had a carry-on on wheels and a larger checked bag. Some of the girls had an additional checked bag. I had my laptop case.

The bus ride was about 4.5 hours long, and I slept for most of the trip. I had only gained 5 hours of sleep on the flight from Chicago to Amsterdam, and I knew that jet-lag would kick in when we settled down in Florence.

I woke up with about 45 minutes left in the bus trip; Italian traffic actually isn't as bad as people told me, and there seems to be many unstated rules of the road. Horns are used extensively, but I didn't observe any incidents of road rage. Generally, vehicles tend to move smoothly, and drivers are intelligent on the road.

Our entry in Florence was through the back part of the city; we entered on the south side of the Arno, the older section of town, but the exit from the highway was on the southwest corner of town, which is lower than the rest of Florence. Consequently, we were robbed of any type of breathtaking view of Firenze during our initial minutes in the city. There were a decent number of hotels most Americans are familiar with: a Holiday Inn, a Hilton, etc, an interesting observation I made before being dropped off to catch a taxi to my apartment.

Chicago -> Amsterdam

Ciao! I'm behind on posting, so I'll provide a quick recap of my flight from Chicago to Amsterdam on this past Thursday evening. To keep a long story short, I was fairly busy during my last few days in the States, in between finding housing for next school year, taking care of resources (Student ID cards, luggage, Italian dictionary, haircut, etc.) I needed and/or wanted before leaving for Florence, and just trying to enjoy whatever time I had left in America. So most of my packing was put off until Wednesday night, and I finished at about 5 in the morning. On Thursday, Dad and I left Hebron and arrived at about 12:30 at the airport; my flight would leave at 4:30, and Northwest Airlines recommended I arrive three hours earlier since security for an international flight may have been a little tenuous (I tacked on an extra hour just to be safe). Anyways, Dad and I decided that we'd just pull up to the proper terminal for the flight, I'd get out, we'd say our goodbyes, and he'd head on home - there would be no need for him to remain at the airport late, just to see me through security, and then have to drive home on the interstate at night.

Our plan worked well, except that the minute Dad drove off, I realized my wallet (containing all my debit/credit cards, international student id, driver's license, and a small amount of cash) was on the floor of the Ranger! To make things worse, Dad wasn't answering his cell phone. There was no way I could miss my flight, I decided - so I would just use my passport to get through my flights (I wouldn't need ID, as long as there were no problems with my passport), and then I would have my family mail my wallet to me in Firenze.

Thankfully, Dad called me a short while later on his phone to see how things were going. I frantically explained to him to turn around and drop off my wallet. It took him a while to locate the proper terminal, and for me to make my way back through security, but we were able to transfer the precious item with about thirty minutes to spare before my departure. Disaster averted!

The flight itself was a breeze - it was a 6 hour, 45 minute trip, which was actually about 1 hour, 45 minutes shorter than predicted due to a strong westerly tailwind. There wasn't really much to see; about twenty minutes after we lifted off, the sun set and heavy cloud cover resulted in city lights being completely masked. The plane traveled over Newfoundland, the Atlantic, and the middle portion of the UK - the UK was very, very dark, and we were only able to see a small city that was very dimly lit. Our approach into Amsterdam was interesting; the city looks very, very spread out from above, and very flat. The lights on the streets are much more distant from each other than, say, the streets would be in Chicago or Denver, or most modern American cities. Our landing was surprisingly smooth.

We landed in Amsterdam very early, somewhere near 5:00 AM or 6:00 AM local time. The airport had a very eerie feeling about it; the people seemed tired very tired due to the early hour, and the airport was fairly deserted. There was also a very palpable feeling of being in a foreign land, even though it was an international airport. The few people that were up spoke no English; they also had an inclination to speak very quietly. We Americans are surprisingly loud, something that is very evident abroad. I purchased a citrus drink at the airport grocery for €2,35, since the plane cabin had left my mouth dry. For the next two or three hours Britt and I relaxed at a vacant tropical-themed bar, watching the locals filter in for early morning flights until it was time for our flight to depart for the da Vinci airport in Rome.

Here's an example of some local art in Amsterdam:

See my next post for my recap of my arrival in Italy.