The Six Mistakes of Man

My breakfast cereal had a fun facts flyer in it that fell out this morning while I was pouring it. The flyer was very literate. Here's a fun fact that it had.

Cicero, the Roman statesman and philosopher, wrote some 2000 years ago:

The Six Mistakes of Man

• The delusion that personal gain is made by crushing others.
  
• The tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed or corrected.
  
• Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it.
  
• Refusing to set aside trivial preferences.
  
• Neglecting development and refinement of the mind, and not acquiring the habit of reading and studying.
  
• Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.
  

My, how we have progressed in 2000 years!

Thank you Hubbards Bugs 'n' Mud cereal.

Rings Around Uranus

For a Yankee Swap on Christmas Eve, I bought a bottle of New Zealand hot sauce called, "Rings Around Uranus." It's a habenero sauce. I hope that I don't get it.

The Gong Show

It's been ages since I lasted posted to my blog. I've been busy and been procrastinating. It's more of the latter than the former. There's so much to add. My friend Ray came to visit for two weeks and we, along with Margee and Sandra, hiked the Milford Track. I'll get to these stories later. I'll have a lot of time this weekend with Christmas and no plans except to watch a lot of movies with my sister.

We had a statistics seminar this morning titled, "A Likelihood-Based Analysis for Relaxing the Exclusion Restriction in Randomized Experiments with Imperfect Compliance." I wanted to leave after the first fifteen minutes but I like the guy who organizes the seminars and I didn't want to offend him. Plus, the speaker went over by 15 minutes. If I ever run the seminars again, like I did one year at the University of Washington, I will install a gong. Anytime someone wants to end the seminar, we can put it out of misery.

As to what the title of the seminar meant, I sort of understood it. I always found this quote by Einstein pompous,

Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.

I'm sure that he could do mathematics faster than all of us.

Show Day Part 1

Here's my attempt at live blogging. It's a holiday in Canterbury today. On tv, on New Zealand's "Today" show, there's a string quartet playing ABBA's greatest hits. I'm heading to the Canterbury A&P Show in a few minutes. I'm going with a vistor to the math department. She's cute, but only speaks hungarian. The omens portend a great day.

Tekapo Whitewater Course

Yesterday I kayaked the Tekapo Whitewater Course. Meridian Energy built the course as a concession to damning the Tekapo River. I paddled the class II part above the course, the course one and a half times, and the play wave at the beginning numerous times. That's one of the better photos of the wave flipping me over. The half time for the course came when we pulled out in the middle. I lost my helmet on the last rapid when I did the whole course. My helmet and myself were stranded in a minor whirlpool. I was able to collect the helmet and throw it to shore. I tried to put it back on but I was going to flip. The first hole on the course would always flip me, but I didn't swim. My right hand paddle roll has become rock solid.

The course is decidedly low-tech. You can see Shaun and Ross shutting the gates to block the water in the second photo. I can't imagine that in the US one would shut the gates by hand. The lawsuits from accidents would be immense.

The river runs from Lake Tekapo that is well known for a historic church on its shores.

Chance News 21

The latest edition of Chance News was posted two days ago. There are some tricky probability questions, even more difficult than the Monte Hall problem, in this edition. One revolves around implicit assumptions about a prior distribution, even though the article doesn’t explicitly say so.

It's time to clear a little of my mental closet. I've added links to three new blogs on the right. They're slightly nontraditional, but I enjoy almost every article. In one of them, I am Facing Foreclosure, the author's losing it. I hope for the best, but it makes for great reading. The problem with most blogs is that there's nothing ongoing. Most people want to talk about something that's better suited in book form. For example, there's very little new each week about how to market a start-up company.

Ray is visiting me for the last two weeks of November. We're scheduled to hike the Milford Track and scuba dive. I've never dived before and hope that I won't be attack by a giant squid. I hoped to visit a friend in Manila in early December, but that trip has fallen through. The trip would've been too short for too much money. I can refocus on traveling to northern Australia and Japan.

G for Guy

I'm back in New Zealand. My trip to California was fun but very tiring. Sleeping on sofas for a week will do that to me.

I scheduled my return for Friday, the 3rd of November, but Matt was recording a show in Wellington that Friday night. Or so I thought, because he was actually recording two shows with another on Saturday. I changed my flight to New Zealand so that I'd be in Wellington on the 3rd and leave early on Sunday, the 5th. Both shows were a lot of fun and I sold merchandise. As you can see, I got a tee shirt. I only sold 2 shirts for both gigs. Since I flew out early Sunday, I stayed up all night after the Saturday show. If I knew about the Saturday show, I'd have taken a later plane to Christchurch.

Wellington had fireworks on Saturday night for Guy Fawkes Day. I can't figure out why this is a holiday. I had a room in backpackers to get away from the craziness of the concert prep and I watched the fireworks from there. Sunday night Margee and I went to the fireworks at the New Brighton pier in Christchurch. The show was well suited for the venue, because they launched fireworks from the side of the pier into the water.

Away from New Zealand

I'm in Los Angeles right now. This blog ain't called "A Massachusetts Yankee in California," so I won't be posting until I return to Christchurch on Sunday.

Labour Day

It's Labour Day in New Zealand. I'm currently in Wellington chilling with Matt, my DJ friend, and his wife, Hiona. The weather in Wellington is terrible, as it usually is when I visit. I've been hanging out at their apartment watching movies and napping. On Friday, we went to see the play Hiona produced, Nga Tangata Toa, and Matt spin records at a local club.

Ghost Walk

Last night, Margee and I went on the Ghost Walk at the Arts Centre. It's housed in the old campus of the University of Canterbury. We toured the gothic study halls as our guide regaled us with stories of the university's past. Unfortunately, the history of Christchurch and New Zealand is completely unsordid. We were given battery-powered lanterns to carry as we wandered around the buildings. The actor leading the tour spoke too haughtily and choppily. He included the story of the two girls who killed their mother and whose story is the basis of Heavenly Creatures. I don't think they were connected to the university. There were some nice touches. An accomplice would move a doll to different locations for us to encounter. We'd see the accomplice's face peering from empty rooms. The tour ended weirdly with the guide faking a nosebleed and leaving us alone in the basement. Then nothing happened.

I haven't been in a Halloween mood this fall because, like duh, it's spring here. The days are getting longer and I'm thinking of the beach. Next Wednesday from 6-9 pm PST, the radio show The Roadhouse on KEXP is having its annual Halloween special. You can listen the show over the web and I highly recommend it. The music's scary enough to play in the background as the trick-or-treaters visit. The selection's range from old gospel dirges to modern rock, like Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and The White Stripes. There's nothing freakier than Tom Waits singing What's He Building?

And the final bit on Halloween in this update. On Wednesday, we had another movie night in the math department. We watched On the Beach and Donnie Darko. I've wanted to see Donnie Darko since my last year in LA. I'd occasionally hang out with a group of people trying to break into the movie industry for whom Donnie Darko was the best movie ever made. Actually, they were fairly movie illiterate, if I recall correctly. Complete non sequitur. Why is The Shawshank Redemption number 2 on IMDBs best 250 movies of all time? I guess I'm out of touch or The Wisdom of the Crowds is completely and utterly wrong.

Astrolabe Chardonnay 2005

This week's wine comes from Astrolabe Wines. Again, it was a wine promoted by my wine store and was on sale. It was very good. It has no wood flavors and tasted of strawberries. The berry flavor implies that it was sweet, but it wasn’t. I don't know what foods I'd pair it with. I wouldn't want it for desert, and it probably doesn't go well with fish.

The Pretentious and the Crass

Last Saturday was a study in contrasts. During the day, I toured the SCAPE 2006 installations around Christchurch and at night I went to the stock car races at the Woodford Glen Speedway.

The highfalutin magazines I read, The New Yorker and Wallpaper, claim that the only interesting art show in New Zealand is the SCAPE biennial held in Christchurch. I was excited to see it happen while I was here. I emailed about volunteering but never passed the stage where they asked for my resume. The short of the story was that the art was terrible. For example, we have the first two photos. We see that the artist left the storage shed from his grandmother's house in the middle of downtown Christchurch. Ok. We can go inside and see what the artist has made. Instead of something interesting, like compost pasted to walls and ceiling or gaudy, neon-pink paint or a wax sculpture of Jimmy Hoffa, we get the parallel mirror effect. This was cool when I was 8 and saw it at the AB Jamboree. To generalize from this and other exhibits, 50% of modern art is crap. The artists are more involved with the lifestyle rather than honing their skills. One gets people attaching mirrors to walls when there is no skill. 25% is virtuosic but boring. I find the last 25% enthralling. The Mass MOCA in North Adams, MA always has outstanding exhibits. You never know which group most of the art in the exhibit belongs to and that 's half the fun.

A few grad students and I went to the speedway that night. The Australian grad student went to the races weekly while growing up. I once went to Thunder Road in Barre, VT while I was an undergrad. It's fun. The cars are loud and there are accidents. The street stocks are the craziest. The evening ended with a 30-car demolition derby using cars from the Undy 500. The motor sports club would install 5-way restraints into your undy car if you wanted to participate. First prize was 50 12-packs of beer. Woodford Glen has a dirt track that they watered down and made slick. The Volvo in the pack did very well. Movie crashes are more dramatic than what we witnessed. We're watching On the Beach tonight in the math department because it has an auto race, and stunningly, the Aussie grad student has never heard of it.

The low brow won on this Saturday. Let's see if the high brow can recuperate.

Start of Social Polo

I believe that my first game of summer league is tonight. Today the weather is dark and cloudy with a chance of rain and the people in the league like to cancel. There was a game last Tuesday, but I was away in Palmerston North for the Allan Wilson Centre meeting. We don't have formal teams. We split the players for pick-up games.

I never wrote about the climatic game for fifth place in winter league. We lost 9-3 to Bottoms Up. Oh well. My season's stats were two goals, numerous assists, a crappy save percentage, and one swim. I want to practice shooting because the Boston team needs another scorer. I posted a photo of the Uni's A-grade team in our more natural environment. From left to right, it's James, Mark, Shaun, Sam, Ross, me, and Nick.

The Beginning of the End

I realize that on this blog I rarely talk about my work. It's all about travel and adventures. I've been tying together lots of open ends from my job in the University of Washington Statistics Department. I've written a book chapter for Gene Essentiality: Protocols and Bioinformatics. I submitted a paper about the chapter to a bioinformatics conference in Hong Kong. The paper was rejected which bummed me out. I finished analyzing the bird data in R Bleiweis. (1998) Fossil gap analysis supports early Tertiary origin of trophically diverse avian orders. Geology, 26: 323—326. I am so happy that the last one is done because I spent a lot of time trying to draw conclusions that weren't supported by the data. I wrote a grant for funding next year from the Werner-Gren Institute. Surprisingly, I haven't heard back from them. I'm cleaning up my gene essentiality paper and working on new branching process theory.

But alas, this is the end of my academic career. It hasn't been working out and it's time to move on. Like last fall was the most important time for the work that I'd do in New Zealand, right now is the most important of prepping for a job in the US. In addition to preparation, I'll be traveling. I can't leave any stone unturned. Next week I'll be back in Los Angeles for a friend's 40th birthday. Ray is visiting in late November. Margee is talking about celebrating New Year's in Sydney. My last paycheck is March 8th. This trip is not over by a long shot.

Vino Pino

This week's wine is Vino Pino, a pinot noir made especially for my wine shop, Vino Fino. It was bottled in 2003 somewhere in central Otago. It was very good with chocolate overtones. I think that it will be hard to find it in the US.

Two weeks ago, I went to the International Winemakers Roadshow held at the Grand Chancellor Hotel in the Central City. I was really good but I drank irresponsibly and haven't wanted a drink since. The best two vintners were Seresin Estate and Te Mata Estate. I guess that I won't be subscribing to the magazine Modern Drunkard anytime soon.

I'm trying a new editor for this entry, WriteToMyBlog. Usually I use Word and copy and paste into Blogger. This program hides the HTML tags from me, which I don't like. Call me old school or a writer of too many LaTeX documents. WriteToMyBlog adds an extra space after hyperlinks. I think that I will go back to my copy and paste method. I need to see what the final post will look like before I publish it.

Rafting the Rangitata

On Saturday, Margee and I rafted the Rangitata River with the company Rangitata Rafts. The recreation centre at the university organized the trip. The river had a couple of class V drops. We sat in front because we had experience from doing a trip on the Concord River. The first photo is of the Concord. Maybe, we lied a little about how well we could paddle. The trip went by without incident and was almost sedate. Only one person in our boat swam while we were surfing a wave and I was able to pull her back in.

Riding on the bus back to Christchurch, I thought a lot about a rafting trip I did 20 years ago. One of the three readers of this blog went with me. I hadn't thought about that trip in ages and I was surprised how much I remembered. Our final river back then was the New River Gorge that also had two class V rapids. The rapids on the Rangitata weren't as scary. On the New, I remember hitting a wave on one class V rapid that sent our raft completely vertical. Also, I almost fell out on the other class V rapid.
On another river back then, the Youghiogheny River, the rafting companies would send out scores of boats and none had a guide. It was absolute carnage through the rapids, as many rafts would flip. The guides would stand on the shore and throw ropes to the swimmers. People are much more concerned about safety these days.

Chance News 20

It's been released here.

The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

Tonight is American movie night in the graduate student lounge. We're watching This is Spinal Tap and Slap Shot at my recommendation. The first is about a British rock-and-roll band and the second is about a Canadian hockey team. Neither of which reflects the US of A. I suggested Spinal Tap because the grad students would often talk about a band of nobodies assembled by a radio station. The mock band will release its third album soon. The Brown Album. Please. I don't recall why Slap Shot will be viewed. I think that we talked about local sports such as Aussie rules football, rugby league, baseball, lacrosse, and ice hockey. I can't think of a rugby movie. It's too hard to decide what the best baseball movie is, but the best ice hockey movie by far is Slap Shot. I know that they'll find Spinal Tap funny, but I don't remember Slap Shot clearly.

Unfortunately, if the students want immersion in modern American culture, neither of the movies will do as well as Talladega Nights. Or at least presenting what a Yankee thinks of the south. My sister and I went last night and were in hysterics. I don't think the Kiwis understood half of the jokes. Why is being thrown out of an Applebees funny? It's the funniest Will Ferrell movie I've seen. My favorite part was when Ricky Bobby had to face his fear. The movie also pokes fun at my favorite movie of all time.

Whitewater Kayaking

Last Saturday and three Saturdays ago on the ninth, I went kayaking on Hurunui River, which is about 2 hours north of Christchurch. I hadn't been whitewater kayaking in two years since the spring of 2004 when I was last in Seattle. I went with people associated with the University Canterbury Canoe Club.

I paddled very well on the first trip. I only rolled once and had little problems with the rapids. I was in a big creek boat with lots of stability and lots of volume. The second trip I didn't paddle as well. I was in a tiny play boat with no back support. I rolled countless times and swam once in the gorge. The gorge is class III part of the river. I swam because I was stuck in a hole and the foamy water makes rolling difficult. I don't know why my roll still fails one time in twenty. To top it off, I was verging on hypothermia at the end of the run. The swim was mild. I held onto my paddle and another easily retreived the boat. I was on shore quickly.

River kayaking is one of the more frustrating sports to learn. Differences in athletic ability and metal attitude are magnified. Some people learn to roll on their first try and never miss another one. Some don't learn until their one thousandth attempt. The consequences of missing a roll and rolling are radically different. You can guess which type of person usually goes on in this sport. I like to think that rolling a kayak is tied into the challenges that I face in my research and in my social life. I know in theory that to break out of a hole while you're up-side-down look for the "green" or flowing water. Putting a paddle into it will pop you out. Plus, the average human can hold their breath much longer than the intermediate kayaker waits to pull their skirt. Why can't I execute in practice?

Last Saturday evening, I went out to bars with the kayakers. We started at the Dux-De-Lux, went to the Rockpool, and finished at the Treehouse. Again, the difference between theory and practice haunted me. Very late in the evening at the Treehouse, some in our group wanted to sing Sweet Caroline and they wanted me to come on stage with them. They knew that I was from Boston and had seen a Red Sox game or two. I whimped out. In theory, it would've been fun, but in practice, I was too shy. I like this quote that I read on someone's email signature once,

In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they're different.

Skiing in September

I always find it amazing how far I can fall behind on things. The articles that I want to post on my blog are building up. I haven't even written about my trip to Napier and that was on the 15th of July. To my detriment, I don't adhere to my self-imposed daily publishing schedule.

Two weeks ago from tomorrow, September 7, I went skiing at Mt Hutt with a graduate student, Dan, and another graduate student's brother and sister, Tom and Ruth. I borrowed a season pass so I only paid for gas and rental skis. The day was gorgeous, as you can see in the photo of Dan and me. The scenery was spectacular and those are the Canterbury Plains in the background. But the terrain was rather blah. The lift lines were short, but we used only one lift. There weren't many ways to go down the mountain. We tried one extremely steep trail. I didn't ski it well, because it required some aggressive jump turns. If I had done the turns at the beginning, it would've been easier. Like most things in life, a little aggression pays off.

As you can tell from the tone of this post, I'm not an avid skier. However, now I can say I've skied the southern hemisphere and skied in September.

Murderball

On Saturday, my youngest sister, Margee, and I went to the finals of the World Wheelchair Rugby Championships being held in Christchurch. It was the USA versus New Zealand. I don't think there's another sport in which New Zealand will battle the USA for the championship of the world. There might be a few rowing events. The US won 29 to 26, of course. Wheelchair rugby was the subject of the movie Murderball, and we saw the USA star player who was featured in the documentary and on the poster on the IMDB site.

We wanted to dress up and be rowdy Americans. I don't have any red, white, and blue clothes. I belted the national anthem and we joined in with the almost continuous USA chants. I think that the USA supporters were louder than the NZ supporters. Westpac arena was small but it was almost full. Many wore black. I snagged a water bottle that was tossed into the crowd at halftime.

The game closest to wheelchair rugby is canoe polo. I use one sport you don't know to describe another sport you don't know. It's the perfect analogy. They can pass the ball forward, ram each other, and are confined to a vehicle that you must sit in. Wheelchairs move like kayaks too. Team USA missed only one pass the entire game. The Wheel Blacks only three. My kayak polo team could learn something from them. The Wheel Blacks had two strong players and the US used more subs. Players are given a disability rating between 0.5 and 3.5 with 0.5 being the most disabled, and the four on the floor can have a most a total rating of 8. You get one point for a touchdown.

How to Succeed in Evil

I'm hooked on an Internet radio show that Jon recommended, How to Succeed in Evil. It's the story of how a consultant for super villains goes into business for himself. I like the writing a lot and here are my favorite lines so far.

Edwin didn't bother to explain that there would be no next time. A plan that relied on the extraordinary acts of one person was not a good plan. Edwin was a little ashamed that he couldn't have come up with something better. Edwin desired that all his machinations be inexorable, rather than spectacular. He did not mean to seize glory but, rather, crush it out of circumstance, as an anaconda kills its prey.

How to Succeed in Evil, Episode 4. Patrick Mclean

Canterbury Gliding Club

A few weeks ago, I received a cryptic message from the head of the math department about an open house at the Canterbury Gliding Club. They offered $40 winch launches on Father's Day. (In New Zealand, Father's Day is on September 3rd).

I drove to their airstrip in Hororata in the morning. I didn't know what a winch a launch was. I arrived at 11 am and was the first nonmember to show. For a winch launch, they place a winch at the end of the runway and it drags the glider along at a fast pace, launching the glider to 1,500 feet. The flight lasts 2 to 3 minutes. However, they didn't have the winch, so the head of the club said they'd do plane launches that would bring you to 1,500 feet for $40. The usual price for an introductory flight was $135. I jumped at the opportunity.

I had a blast with the flight. It started with me and another member dragging the glider from the shed to the runway using a minivan. The first time we pulled the glider, the rope snapped off, because we had left the parking brake on. Another glider landed while the pilot was showing me the controls. The glider slammed into the ground. I asked if all landings were that hard, and the pilot said that one was particularly bad.

I sat in the front seat and the pilot behind. It was exciting being pulled by the plane. I took a lot of photos in the air. At one point, the pilot asked if I could find the runway. I couldn't. I could've kept my hands on the controls as long as I didn't interfere with the pilot, but I was into the photography. I included two photos of the Canterbury Plains. I attempted to upload the video of the landing, but Blogger wouldn't accept it.

Kumeu River Village Chardonnay

This week I tried a very nice chardonnay from the Kumeu River Wines. It's dry and not woody. I had trouble discerning flavors in this one because I think it was too cold. I kept the bottle in the fridge. We'll call it subtle.

Nature's Science Bloggers

Again, this is another post that I meant to write a while back and it's a rant that's not about New Zealand. About two months ago, Nature published a list of the top 50 science blogs. The rankings were based on their Technorati ranking and were required to be written by a practicing scientist. I followed all 50 blogs using an RSS feed reader, Newsgator. (RSS readers and social bookmarking sites, such as del.icio.us, are the biggest improvements to the web since Google.)

I was disappointed by the quality of most of the science blogs. Most were about the scientist's cats or regurgitations of The Panda's Thumb or Pharyngula. My criterion for judging is solely focus. From BlogPire's success, I extrapolate that focus is what separates the good from the bad. Here's my list of the 13 most useless of Nature's top 50 science blogs in alphabetical order.

• A Blog Around the Clock
  
• A Questionable Authority
  
• blog.bioethics.net
  
• Deltoid
  
• Living the Scientific Life
  
• Mike the Mad Biologist
  
• Stranger Fruit
  
• The Daily Transcript
  
• The Disgruntled Chemist
  
• The Quantum Pontiff
  
• Thoughts from Kansas
  
• Three-Toed Sloth
  
• Uncertain Principles
  

I feel that some of these might not be on Nature's list. Oh well, no time to check. I'm politically aligned with most of these blogs, but there're better political blogs out there, Think Progress for one.

Two science blogs stood out from the rest.

• Good Math, Bad Math
  
• John Hawks Anthropology Weblog
  

Signing off from the 1.6 millionth most rambling blog.

Gentleman in the Water

Yesterday, I woke to the sound of water flowing. The noise came from my neighbor's apartment and the carpet at the end of my hall next to his abode was soaked. I had experienced this before in Seattle, when the neighbor's water heater overflowed and flooded my place. The puddle looked similar, but smaller.

I ran over and banged on my neighbor's door. He answered and his responses were ludicrous. I told him about the sound of water flowing, and he said that the Avon rivers flowed and we lived in a marsh. I asked if one of his faucets was broken and he joked, "Faucet? Faucet? Force it. No, I didn't force my washing machine." I was annoyed but kept it to myself. And then he said, "Oh, my car, it's gone." We stood on his porch, I looked, and it wasn't there. I asked if he wanted to call the police, but he declined. Because of other conversations from the weekend, I thought that he was on a bender. I thought that he had left his car at a friend's house. I left not wanting to provoke him. The water noise had stopped when I returned to my place.


After my shower, he stopped by. I pointed out the water and he said that his bathroom, kitchen, and washing machine were on the far side of the apartment away from my hallway. I agreed. At this point, I thought it was a freak incident and I would check on the situation in the evening after school.


Curiosity got the better of me, and I left school at 4. When I returned home, I heard the water running again and the pool had drastically increased in size. I called the landlord because I thought a pipe had burst somewhere. Soaked carpets must be dried immediately or else they're destroyed. My landlord stopped by in hour and went to visit the neighbor. The neighbor wasn't there and my landlord let himself in. The neighbor had trashed his apartment, blocked the drains in the sinks, and left the water running. That caused the pool. His apartment looked like the hotel scene in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. My landlord called the police, who then notified the neighbor's brother, who later stopped by. The brother said that the neighbor is mentally ill, but the condition can be treated with medication. He must have stopped taking his medication over the weekend. He was arrested earlier in the day and was at a hospital now.

I cross my fingers and hope that's the last of it. I feel mildly guilty that I recognized that something was up and I didn't do something sooner, but my neighbor needed help that was far beyond what I could offer. The damage to his apartment, apart from the cosmetic, appears to minimal. I hope that the hospital is able to help and he didn't damage himself. It sucks that he'll have to move when he's in such a state, but he needs to live with people who care about him rather than living by himself. The photos are of the pile of carpet we removed from my apartment and the bare floor where the carpet was.

Google Ad

I finally got the Google Ad to mention wine after two months of trying. Now watch it mention Google after this post.

Gunn Estate Unoaked Chardonnay

I've had the worst luck trying to ski in New Zealand. Today I'm supposed to be at Porter Heights on a trip with the Recreation Centre at the university. However this morning, I received a text message on my cell phone stating that the trip was cancelled due to "Gale force winds expected all day." This gives me time to do spring-cleaning, buy groceries, and finish the answer sheet for my students.

I'm in the midst of having lunch. It's pretentious. I'm having nan, salami, young leyden cheese, and next weeks wine. I stopped by the butchers, the wine shop I discovered last week, and the Indian supermarket this morning. The wine shop has to be one of the better ones in Christchurch because it was busy at 11 am on a Saturday morning.

This week's wine is good and I don't feel that I gave it a fair shot. It's Gunn Estate 2005 unoaked chardonnay from Gisborne. I must start to describe the flavors to become a better connoisseur. This wine tasted like a decent chardonnay. I like my chardonnay to be as antiseptic as possible and this was. Tree flavor is too much for most whites, but some reds can handle it.

Dunedin

Last weekend, I visited Dunedin. It's the closest city to Christchurch at 360 km. Wellington might be closer. It's 350 km to Picton, which takes you west of Wellington, but then there is a 5-hour ferry ride. I kept hearing about neat things that I could do in Dunedin and the pressure of the "To See" list finally overwhelmed me.

My travel companions were Mareike and Bhalchandra. Tops on my agenda were to tour the Speight's Brewery and to visit Larnach Castle. We left Saturday morning at 7:15. On route 1 that connects the cities, we stopped at the Moeraki Boulders. The boulders were almost spherical and the first photo is of me standing on one. I don't believe they know what geological process created them.


I was scheduled for the 2 pm tour at the brewery and we arrived in Dunedin with plenty of time. Mareike and Bhalchandra didn't have reservations, and we were lucky because a large group, who did have reservations, didn't show up. A brewery is fundamentally boring and Speight's was no exception. It was gravity driven meaning that you pour water in the top, on the roof, and beer comes out the bottom. It was closed for the weekend, so there was no action on the brewing floors. We didn't see the bottle machinery so we couldn't reenact the opening of Laverne and Shirley. The second photo is of our tour guide in front of a fermenting vat. However, the reason for a brewery tour is to taste their samples at the end. Of the cheap New Zealand brews, I like Speight's the best. There were six flavors for us to sample and the tour guide let us pour our own. We had little glasses, and I drank a circuit. A television in the tasting room looped through all the Southern Man commercials ever made. It's a well-known ad campaign in New Zealand with two stereotypical cowboys.

Saturday and Sunday night, we stayed at the Elm Lodge Backpackers on a hill overlooking the Octagon and the harbor. We had a private room with three beds. The hostel was clean, and the garden had a hot tub. On Saturday night, we visited the most popular student bar, the Captain Cook Tavern, but it was dead because it was spring break.

On Sunday, we puttered around the Otago Peninsula. Mareike wanted to see penguins. We learned that you wouldn't see them until later in the early evening. We walked around Larnach Castle. It wasn't as big as I imagined. I think the mansions in Newport, RI, are larger. The castle is one of the better-known haunted locations in New Zealand. I would've taken more photos, except there were numerous "DO NOT TAKE PHOTOS" signs posted throughout. The third photo is of ballroom that was supposed to be the most haunted part of the castle. As usual, I see nothing unusual.

The penguins were the highlight of the trip. We tried the free penguin viewing location first, but there were numerous sea lions lounging around the beach. We figured the penguins wouldn't be coming ashore that evening. We caught the 4:15 tour at Penguin Place, a habitat restoration on a farmer's land for the yellow-eyed penguin. They're traditionally antisocial, but one modeled for the last photo. You hiked through trenches to blinds to observe them come to shore after a day of fishing. We also saw blue penguins asleep in their shelters.

Sunday night we went to the observatory where the Dunedin Astronomical Society opened the observatory telescope for the public and set-up large homemade telescopes for viewing celestial objects. I learned how to find the South Pole in the heavens, saw the reddest star in the sky, and observed the moons of Jupiter.

On Monday, we drove through the Catlins. Lonely Planet called it a rain forest and it was too tame for my taste. There were lots of sheep pastures. I've regretted not visiting the Hoh Rainforest on the Olympic Peninsula when I lived in Seattle. So get out and see your local attractions.

Lost to That Good Team 10-3

We finished the season without a victory. I scored but didn't do much otherwise. Klaas played again and we only had five players. There are two games left, one friendly and the last is the battle for 5th place. I don't know which team we'll be playing.

I enjoyed the regular season and I believe that my teammates did too. I was in a little bit over my head but I think that I improved a lot.

Last night I played on the University B team. We lost 9 to 6. I had a very nice goal and should've taken things more seriously. I gently lofted my first shot over the net rather than firing hard. I didn't think that I could play goalie or score because I play in a higher league. One of the players liked goalie so I didn't play. Again, there were only 5 players. We had a high school player who was like a tank. You could throw the ball in his general area and he would get it and dribble down the side. With a minute left, one of our players stayed at the other end to cherry pick. I blocked the opponent's pass with my paddle while playing defense. One of our guys picked up the ball, passed to the tank, who passed to the cherry picker. The cherry picker almost missed the open net with his shot. It was the nicest goal of the season.

Breakfast in Christchurch

I've wanted to do this post for a while. I enjoy eating breakfast at diners and I believe it started with attending the Diner Tour run by the Cabin and Trail club at Dartmouth. In college, we'd eat a different diner in the Upper Valley each week. I've continued the tradition in Christchurch. Each weekend, I try a different restaurant but recently I've settled on a couple of places. Here are my rankings of breakfast in Christchurch.

1. Drexels – Their subtitle is "All American Breakfast" and it's the closest I've come to an American diner in New Zealand. It's even more American than the Denny franchises here. Their breakfast is the best. The waffles can't be beat and the sausages are closest to the American style. They are the only place that features filter coffee and they constantly refill your cup. The photo is of their exterior.
   
   
2. Megawatt Cafe – It has the largest selection of breakfast foods of any restaurant in Christchurch. I particularly like their German breakfast with a pretzel and spaetzel. I haven't braved the Japanese breakfast with teriyaki fish. I guess they cater to the international crowd being across the street from a large hostel. My first time the water that’s served in bottles was frozen. My other gripe is that they are closed on Sundays. They have a good mixed drink menu that I want to try during some happy hour.
   
   
3. C1 Espresso – Their food and coffee quality should qualify them for second best in Christchurch. However, I've had problems with the kitchen being closed or not working properly. Two times I've walked out without ordering. They have the hippest clientele. They serve the best breakfast burrito and it's vegetarian. Plus, they subscribe to cool magazines, and I get my monthly Wallpaper fix there.
   
   
4. Vivace Café – The coffee is the best. Vivace is a brand that served at many places around town and the roast is not as severe as Starbucks. They are the best at brewing this brand. They have the widest selection of espresso drinks. I like the corn fritters and the chocolate covered espresso beans that are served with the espresso drinks.
   
   
5. The Herb Centre Café – It doubles as an herb and vitamin store and it's the closest eatery to my apartment. The baristas are extremely friendly. I had pancakes with yogurt and honey that were very good. When the weather warms, I want to try their pasta with dried tomatoes and basil.
   
   
6. Mondo – Half of the eating area is in a furniture store. I had eggs benedict with smoked salmon.
   
   
7. The Globe Cafe – It's next door to Mondo and I might have confused the two names. It's busy and cosy.
   
   
8. The Bohemian Café – It's the second closest to my apartment. I had orange flavored French toast that was good. I also watched the quarterfinal of Germany versus Italy and the finals of the World Cup there.
   
   
9. Victoria's Cafe – It has the second largest variety of breakfast food. I had two massive sausages that weren't very good. It has a lot of kitschy items such as inflatable furniture and velvet wall hangings. I was the only one eating there and the sun shines brightly through the big windows making reading a chore.
   
   
10. Stir – It's not great but not bad. I had eggs benedict.
    
    
11. The Java Cafe – Again, it's mediocre. I had the Kiwi Big Breakfast, which is a standard breakfast item on most menus in Christchurch. It consists of eggs, toast, hash browns, bacon, and sausage. It's too much breakfast meat and I don't like the typical kiwi sausage. Also, the hash browns are like tater tots, which, again, is standard.
    
    
12. The Cathedral Cafe – I ate another Kiwi Big Breakfast here. The food is bland and they cater to the tourists. It's attached to the Cathedral.
    
    
13. The Honey Pot Cafe – This was my only truly awful breakfast experience. I had a Kiwi Big Breakfast and tasted like methane. They need to fix their stove. It's been recommended to me as a place to go. Maybe, I'll give it a second chance but probably not. There are too many other places to try.
    

Lost to Bottom's Up 6-2

I spent the last three days traveling to Dunedin and seeing the Otago Peninsula. There'll be more on that trip shortly. Last Tuesday, we continued our losing ways against Bottom's Up. A biomath student, Klaas, played his first game with us. I asked him to play, because we anticipated only 4 players showing up, and as predicted, there were five of us. He did well. He plays with a B grade team organized by the Canterbury Whitewater Canoe Club.

He reciprocated the invitation and I played on Wednesday in the pick-up game created by the University B team forfeiting. It's spring break at the University and all students who live in the dorms must clear out. I played against his team, The Unsubmersibles, with the riff-raff from the Inn Team. My pick-up team won 8-6. I was a little unfair to them because I played goalie the entire third period. The score was 8-6 at the start of the third and they didn't have the velocity or the accuracy in shooting to beat my paddle. The league rules are that A-side players shouldn't score or play goalie in B-side games. I also scored a goal. Hey, I was tired of losing and, as I've said earlier, I'm having athletic success in this sport. That is something I've seldom had before and I that entitles me to gloat a little.

Tonight is our final regular season game. Even if we don't win, we'll head to Chats to spend our trivia night winnings. Wish us luck.

Meggs Green Ginger Wine

I broke my rule that the wines I'd evaluate would be made in New Zealand. I was too intrigued with the bottle of Meggs Green Ginger Wine from NSW Australia to pass it up. My review of this wine is "Don't." It's syrupy sweet and I can't put my finger on what it tastes like, but it's familiar like a musty sweater. Bad Manischewitz comes to mind, but it doesn't have any grape flavor. Some mysteries are probably left mysteries. And don't even think of getting a hangover from this wine. You will hate it more than tequilla.

The photo is from the glass walkway connecting Ballentynes department store with the central bus terminal. I'm looking down Colombo St at the Banks Pennisula, the hills. I chose this shot because it's the closest I have to my new package store Vino Fino. I found the most interesting shops on Durham St, an Indian supermarket, a Christmas tree shop, and the wine shop. I haven't bought anything yet, but perused the selection on Friday afternoon while walking to the Rialto to watch "The Host." A large number of older clientele was shopping and I'm convinced it's the place to buy. They had a huge selection of Canterbury red wine.

Jon won my guess which movies I will see contest. He had an unfair advantage and went to see Thank You for Smoking at his suggestion. It's very good. He will get something "All Black."

Lost to The 7 Dwarves 11-2

My kayak polo team is defeated. We've lost the will the win. We only had 5 players on Tuesday night and we weren't into it. Our structure was terrible. I had a great assist on a pass to our interior player who pumped the ball into the net. Other than that, it was the same problems. We've no transition defense and are making sloppy passes.

Today, I went to a protest at the City Council building on Tuam St to save the Waimak river. The Waimak flows to the south of the city and it's a huge, branching beast. The plan is to divert almost all the flow for irrigation for farmers. The intent is to allow 10 cm of flow for paddlers. That will be a bony ride. Many paddlers attended but the protest was short and uninspired. It lasted 35 minutes. It appears that more political pressure is needed on the City Councilors to come forth with a plan that accommodates multiple uses of the river. How people will fish in 10 cm of water, I don't know.

The photo is of two players, Jean and Emily, on the University's women kayak polo team. I don't know who the woman is on the right except that she is a University student who came along with us.

Technorati Ranking

I looked at this blog's Technorati ranking for the first time. I'm ranked 1,621,369. Way to go you one million six hundred twenty thousand three hundred sixty eight blogs! I mean to keep a once-a-day publication schedule. I wonder if I can achieve the lowest rank of all blogs that keep a once-a-day publication schedule. It's time to update once a day.

Lost to Nemesis 12-4

Last Tuesday, we played our first kayak polo game in three weeks. We played the women's team and believed that we had a chance. They have one player on the "Paddleferns," New Zealand's national team. The World Cup of Kayak Polo was in Amsterdam last week. The New Zealand women came in second to Germany. The USA did poorly. The men came in last of 25 countries, the under 21s last of 15 teams, and the women 17th of 23 teams. I know a couple of the US women players and that's a tough result for them.

Back to us. Nemesis was missing their best player and their coach who throws the ball in for a quick fast break. Victory is a possibility. Unfortunately, their remaining players were more disciplined than we expected and we don't cover on the break. Bad transition defense kills us. There were lots of close in shots on their part. I let in two easy shots while playing net. I play net much better in the states. They must shoot better than we do. Then I took two ill-advised shots at the end.

Unlike most things in my life, I can clearly see what kind of player I want to be. I want to move my kayak like Putt my canoeing coach back in college, to have the court presence of Leonard, a player in Seattle, and stability skills of the secretary of the UKC at UW while I was there. The last always gave the counterintuitive advice that your head is the first thing in the water and the last out.

Now it's time for my dirty old man moment of the week. As I gathered my kayak and gear from the side of the pool, I noticed that one of our opponents was changing. She had a towel wrapped around her waist and wore a blouse. I fumbled around some more with the gear and looked up again. She had the towel in her hands and her underwear was bright red with the word FLIRT written in capital block letters across the rear. Oh well. I guess that kind of underwear is designed to be seen.

Mr Asia

Today's question is: Who is Mr Asia? I picked up a local bulletin titled "Deadline" from the Real Groovy record store this morning. A photo exhibition in Dunedin motivates a rambling article on the Moyle Muldoon affair from the 70s and 80s. The article is impossible follow, but I can glean that it's about heroin trafficking, members of parliament, and Radio Hauraki. I should have a clearer grasp of what happened once I read the Wikipedia article on the radio station. The most mysterious character is Mr Asia who reappears throughout the article. I have no idea who this refers to, but I like the nickname. The other alias I like is "The Bookie from Te Puke." I hope Te Puke rhymes with bookie but I think it rhymes with buka. It's another piece of history that I'll have to ask the New Zealanders about.

Google Ad

I am failing at getting the Google ad to link to a winemaker. Right now it's linking to a New Zealand hotel and rental car site which is better than the job site it was linking to last week.

Squawking Magpie

This week's wine was Squawking Magpie's pinot gris and it was very good. I saw an advertisement for a different variety of Squawking Magpie -- I believe their pinot noir -- which proclaimed it won a recent competition in New Zealand. The pinot gris tasted like cherries and was very dry. The winery is in Hawkes Bay and it's too bad that I won't return to the east coast of the north island.

NZ Film Festival (Part I)

I had a quiet weekend. August is dreary in Christchurch because it’s dark, cold, and damp. Plus, I purposely don’t ski or snowboard because I’d have to buy or rent equipment and pay for lift tickets, which are too expensive on my budget. I am saving for four big trips starting at the end of October.

The New Zealand Film Festival began last Thursday, August 3rd. It travels from city to city. I didn’t look at the other cities, but Christchurch has a very good line up. I settled on seeing six movies. The first three played on Saturday and Sunday. I saw Dave Chappelle’s Block Party, An Inconvenient Truth, and Shortbus. I haven’t been to a theater in a long time, and it was fun to go again. All three films were very good.

Block Party documents a concert that Chappelle hosts on a street in Brooklyn. It appeared to be close to where my friends Jon and Dara live. He spends a lot of money on the performers and keeps it secret from the media. Also, he invites many people from his hometown, Dayton, OH, to attend. I could tell the director wanted a dramatic arc from Daytonians. He interviewed many before the concert and only a couple afterward. Probably, most didn’t say anything interesting. Life doesn’t work as a dramatic arc which makes the good documentaries fascinating. The concert footage was great and Chappelle is a very nice person.

An Inconvenient Truth has Al Gore presenting the case for global warming. It centers on a slide show he gives while he tours. His presentation was straight out of an Edward Tufte textbook -- very convincing. I haven’t doubted global warming for a while, but his movie is a kick in the rear. One promising place to start is this article. Why couldn’t Al Gore be like he is in the movie during the 2000 presidential campaign? The answer is marketing. He would’ve been eaten alive by the Bush machine.

Finally, I saw Shortbus the same day I saw An Inconvenient Truth. I sent a list of all the films playing to my friend Chris who is the film critic at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Yes, I have my own personal hotline to Ebert and Roeper. His recommendation for this movie was the strongest even though he hasn’t seen it yet. It generated a lot of buzz at the Cannes Film Festival. I thank him for his recommendation, because it was a lot fun. A word of warning: It’s the most sexually explicit movie that I’ve seen. It portrayed sex and sexuality as fun whereas most other movies treat it as a downer. Granted some of the acts are questionable with the specter of HIV. What’s funny is this movie looked like it was shot in Jon and Dara’s neighborhood too. I’ll have to visit them when I return to the US.

To make the post unwieldy in length, here is the list of what’s playing during the festival. If you come closest to guessing which other three movies I’ll see, you’ll win a prize (something all black).

A Lion in the House
A Scanner Darkly
American Hardcore
An Inconvenient Truth
Animation for Kids
Animation Now! (2006)
Ans Westra: Private Journeys/Public Signposts
Ballets Russes
Black Gold
Black Sun
Brick
C.R.A.Z.Y.
China Blue
Dave Chappelle’s Block Party
Departure & Return
Drawing Restraint 9
Factotum
Fateless
Friends With Money
Heading South
His Big White Self
Homegrown: Love and Other Catastrophes
Homegrown: Works on Film
Homegrown: Works on Video
How Much Do You Love Me?
Into Great Silence
Jindabyne
Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple
Keane
KZ
L'Enfer
Lonesome Jim
loudQUIETloud: A Film about the Pixies
Matthew Barney: No Restraint
Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company
Metal: A Headbanger's Journey
Mohammad Hossain's Intensive Care
Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont
No More Heroes
Offside
OilCrash - A Crude Awakening
Once in a Lifetime
Saratan
ScaredSacred
Shortbus
Sketches of Frank Gehry
Ten Canoes
Thank You For Smoking
The Aura
The Cave of the Yellow Dog
The Child
The Digital Space (2006)
The Heart of the Game
The Host
The Last Resort
The Method
The New World
The Passenger
The Road to Guantánamo
The Science of Sleep
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
The Valet
The Waimate Conspiracy
The White Masai
The White Planet
The Wind That Shakes the Barley
Time & Tide
Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
Wah-Wah
Water
Waves
Who Killed the Electric Car?
Whole New Thing
49 Up
51 Birch Street

Chance News 19

As the email from Laurie Snell said this morning,

Chance News 19 is finished and available here: http://chance.dartmouth.edu/chancewiki/index.php/Chance_News_19.

Enjoy! (It's not as good as the last one.)

ArXiv Submission

I posted my first paper to the preprint service ArXiv. You can download the paper here. Many mathematicians use this site, and it's become something that if you understood all that mathematics on it then you would be a top notch mathematician. This is akin to R and top notch statisticians.

Posting to ArXiv is a real chore. Their documentation is poor and verges on nasty, and using TeXShop on my Mac wasn't helpful. If you need to use, TeXShop and submit a paper with figures to ArXiv, here are my hints:

• Save all your figures as both pdf and eps (Encapsulated PostScript). The Mac doesn't have a native PostScript driver and plays well only with pdf. Hence, TeXShop use a version of TeX call pdfTeX.
  
• ArXiv doesn't run pdfTeX so it won't compile your TeXShop paper with pdf figures. It won't accept anything in pdf that looks like it could be made with LaTeX and it might only compile TeX with eps figures, even though the online documentation says that it handles most figure formats. Also, ArXiv will try TeX before LaTeX, so if your paper won't compile, the first error message will read ``Undefined control sequence: \documentclass{article}." I almost blew a gasket on reading that error message.
  
• Even if you use the graphicx package, TeXShop won't recognize or handle .eps files.
  
• There is another version of LaTeX in your Terminal. Use this one and it will compile eps figures when you use the graphicx package. It's tedious to redo the formatting on the figures, and the only dvi reader you have is in TeXShop. You must keep reopening the dvi file manually.
  

My last gripe is about the Mac. I've enjoyed my PowerBook more than any pc I've owned, however using unux software on it through the Terminal or Fink feels like I'm using the 1998 copy of Redhat linux from Russia that I used on my computer in Los Angeles. It works, but a Commodore 64 was more comfortable to use. I will buy a cheap desktop and put Ubuntu on it when I return to the US.

Christchurch's Sesquicentennial

I've been present for three sesquicentennial's that I know of: California's, Seattle's, and now Christchurch's that was celebrated on Saturday. I went to nothing formal for California's except that all the license plates that year were inscribed with "Sesquicentennial 150 Years." Once you watch Waiting for Guffman the meaning of the word is burned into your memory. Seattle's passed in Seattle's traditional style without anything happening except a newspaper editorial whining that nothing was happening. Christchurch's was celebrated with a 150 metre carrot cake at Cathedral Square.

There were speeches by the mayor, the spiritual leader of the local iwi, and the Anglican bishop. The mayor said that it was a day of celebration like when Marie Antoinette exclaimed, "Let them eat cake." I didn't know if I wanted to be at the celebration after that comment because I think she was beheaded three days later. My head is still on but it's only been two days. A local celebrity called "The Wizard" cast a spell on the cake. He dresses as Gandalf and is in all the tourist guides. I hadn't seen him yet. The emcee, who I saw at "Starry Night" in the summer, warned us that the cake had walnuts and if you were allergic to nuts you shouldn't eat it. That would've lost the town's coffers in the US with all the lawsuits the nuts would've brought. The cake was moist, dense, and yummy. Usually free food at events like this is terrible.

They also had a "Tram Jam" to see how many people could fit in a Christchurch trolley. I thought that it would be like stuffing people in a phone booth, but the event was more sedate. 176 people were able to comfortably get on a tram.

Picker's Plonk

I tried a bottle of pinot noir from the Marlborough region last week called Picker's Plonk. I don't know what plonk means in the context of wine, but it was not flavorful. It was easy going down but bland. I think that I need to go for more expensive pinot noirs to have them be good.

I am reading a good book at the moment called Extreme Weather Events by Tim Jones. He's a New Zealander who lives in Wellington. The book is a collection of his short stories about the dystopia we face if global warming achieves its worst case scenario. The stories are sad and bleak but why would they be anything different.

Radio Miracle

My car radio died on the way to Wanaka. I heard the pop of a capacitor discharge, and then it went dead in the next half-hour. On the way to school, it came back on this morning. We'll see how long it lasts. I find it annoying that probably only a 50 cent capacitor needs to be replaced. I don't have the know-how or tools to fix it, and it will cost at least 50 dollars for someone who does. As I sat in my silent car on my return trip for Wanaka, I reflected on my lack of skills. I know how to drive a standard, but that's about it. It would be neat to learn to cook well, read wiring diagrams, garden, play the guitar , etc. I will set some goals for when I turn 40.

Willowbank Wildlife Reserve

I went to Willowbank on Friday, July 7th. Ramona, a biomath visitor, was returning to Germany on Sunday and did a last minute splurge of activities that she wanted to do but hadn't. One activity was to see a Maori show. We could do three activities at Willowbank: See the Maori show, eat a Maori dinner, and view the wildlife. Mareike in our group was a vegetarian, which eliminated the dinner, so we did the other two.

The Maoris required a chief to lead the audience to the venue and be invited in. The guide selected me the chief. I lead the group and was at the front as we walked around the grounds. At one point, I stood on a bridge, little streams crossed the reserve, and waited while a Maori performed an intimidation haka with a bo staff. The guide instructed me not to laugh. I picked up the offering fern and we were invited to the next stage. The chief could kick the fern away and there would be war, but I didn't know that was an option. At the next stage, I did the nose rubbing welcome with the chief. Then we sat down and the show started. I sat in the chief's chair. There was a spot for my date, but I was there single.

The show reminded me of my imagination of performances at a luau. To say hello in Maori, it's "Akora." I was tempted to say "Aloha." They sang the Hokee-Pokee in Maori, danced, and performed a haka. The show was fun. They invited people on the stage at the end to take photos with the performers. That's where the top blog photo is from. The woman on my left is Mareike. The room was dusty that caused all the dots on the photo. We weren't summoning the ancestral spirits.

The walk to see the animals was fun too. The photo to the left is of me with a kia, the alpine parrot. Rumor has it that they are mischievous and will torment hikers. They like to deflate tires, steal glasses, and drop rocks on cabins where people are sleeping. This one didn't want her photo taken. The kiwi pavilion was open air. You could see the kiwis running around in their pens and touch them if that were allowed. Willowbank finds eggs, hatches the chicks, and releases them once big enough. The kiwis are mainly killed as juveniles by the invasive predatory mammals. I also saw a tuataro. It appears Willowbank is doing good work, and once I begin to tithe again, I will donate money.

The ultimate kiwi experience weekend didn't end on Friday night. I attended the All Blacks-Wallabies test match at Jade Stadium on Saturday. I bought a surprisingly good seat, on the fifty-yard line by the tunnel where the players enter the field. I went by myself and had a single seat next to a father and son. The people behind me said that the US rugby side was improving and that they played the Maori side recently. The US lost 64 to zero. Rugby is interesting and I will watch the All Blacks-Wallabies game again this weekend. I don't care for line outs and feel that if any team had one of the good US running backs, Tomlinson, Holmes, etc, they would be unstoppable. Dante Hall would be a the greatest rugby player ever.

The game was fun but uneventful. The All Blacks won convincingly. I walked to the game and stopped by the Fitzgerald Arms Tavern on the way. They had a special on DB and I bought a 6 dollar jug to skull. Maybe not in one gulp, but it's hard to have a more kiwi weekend.

Dartmouth Mini-Reunion

I've had three outstanding weekends in a row. I think that this is a direct correlation to giving up on the soccer team that I was playing on. One can play soccer anywhere, but one can't visit New Zealand anywhere. I must spend the next three days writing about them.

This past weekend, I attended the Dartmouth mini-reunion at the Wanaka Stonehouse. The listing was meant to be a joke in the last email message from our class council, but I decided to call them on it. Jaime and Anna Kate were amenable. Only two 96s attended the reunion. There are very few alumni in New Zealand. Anna Kate is a '99. Jaime is on the right in the photo.

I drove to Wanaka on Saturday. It's a five-and-half hour drive. On the way, I stopped at a salmon farm outside of Twizel and bought smoked salmon. We had hors d'oeuvre and dinner and watched the All Blacks beat the Springboks. I spent the night in the guest room and drove back to Christchurch on Sunday. The weather was spectacular as you can see in photo. It was a lot of driving but I didn't want to spend much money because I will do a lot of traveling starting at the end of October.

I didn't really know Jaime in college. We have a good friend in common, Nate, and we lived in the same dorm freshmen year. He rowed crew, which would've sucked up a lot of his time. We hit it off well. Dartmouth has many cultish aspects, and I generally hit it off well with other alumni.

Nelson Wine

I have the worst time controlling what the Google advertisement displays. This week I tried a wine with a generic label, black text on white that read, "Nelson. Pinot Noir. 2004. Specially prepared for the Liquor Mill" with a bar code. Try to find that brand in the US. It cost $14 and was pretty good. It was flavorful without going over-the-top in tannins. Whether the people in Sideways would find in palatable is another debate.

No Kayak Polo for Three Weeks

What will I do with myself? They are repairing the pool we play in. Meanwhile, here is a link to photos taken of Wednesday night's competition. I head to Wanaka this Saturday because of a joke in an email. I received an email from the 96 Dartmouth Council that there would be mini-reunions last weekend. We had our big ten year last summer. The last mini-reunion listed in the email was suppose to take place at the Wanaka Stonehouse in New Zealand. I believe that me and one of the hosts at the Stonehouse are the only 96s in the country. I still haven't written about my last two weekends, but I was in Napier last weekend. I called the Stonehouse, and we are doing the reunion this weekend.

Getting it on

I'm about a week late and a dollar short with this post. About a week and a half ago, the blogging world was all a chatter about a study coauthored by a Dartmouth professor titled "Money, Sex and Happiness: An Empirical Study." (I noticed that the date on the pdf is 2003. Maybe I am not as late as think I am.)

It caught my eye because I don't work on any topic as nearly as exciting as this. I submitted a paper titled "Estimating the Number of Essential Genes in a Random Transposon Library" to a conference in Hong Kong on Friday. I know of only one other person who works on this topic and none of my citations were from before 2004. I submitted to the Hong Kong conference to get fast turn around on the review and, if accepted, have dim sum at the Luk Yu Teahouse. A journal would be nice, but we'll see what the next step is once the review comes back.

Back to the paper. Mathematically, I understand how one equates a monetary value to sex. It's differences in the log odds ratio in the logistic regression. I can't make the step metaphorically. What does it really mean that having sex once a week rather than once a month is equivalent to having extra $50,000 a year? I posted a photo of my bedroom along with the text while thinking about this. It's so drafty in my apartment that I think I would want the money. Actually, I wonder what the monetary equivalent to insulation is in Christchurch if one were to run the exact same study. At the end of the university mag Canta that came out today I find these answers to the question "How cold should a flat be before you turn on the heaters?"

• Turn them on anyway.
  
• When it's colder inside your flat than outside your flat.
  
• As cold as Mr Freeze's place is.
  
• Negative ten degrees black.
  

Maybe a buck twenty five.

Book Review

I finished the book Mind Wide Open by Steven Johnson. It was one of the better books that I've read in a long time. I didn't know what was happening in the field of neuroscience and even though the book was not technical, I became very excited. I was intrigued by the brain being bathed in drugs. I've wondered why different illegal drugs have different addiction profiles and having different brain chemistry would lead to different drug effects. I am excited to find the baseline functioning for my brain. There will be no alcohol and limited caffeine intake for the next few weeks.

Lost to Petals 9-4

We lost our kayak polo game again last night. We were victorious though on two fronts.

First, Petals hasn't lost a game this season and they only tied once. They have at least one ex-national team player. We confounded them in the first period by playing our best polo of the season. The first period should have ended with us in the lead 2-1 except we didn't kill the last minute and we turned the ball over leading to a score. Petals was frustrated and became chippier as the game wore on. I don't know how much I contributed because I irrationally fear going over. That attitude leads to tentative play. Plus, I was being guarded by a big, Maori, ex-national team player. That shut me down. I finally have a modicum of success as an athlete playing this game.

Second, we won trivia night at the bar we usually have drinks at after the game. I arrived late because I was the timekeeper for the next one. My teammates had answered all the questions correctly in the first round. It was match the celebrity to their sunglasses. Their guess for the baffler question, which unfolds as a series of hints, was correct after the first one, "I am a year." 1963. I was able to dominate the entertainment round by answering such questions as:

1. What was Princess Grace's maiden name? Kelly
   
2. Who won best actor for his role in To Kill a Mockingbird? Gregory Peck
   
3. Who won best supporting actor for his role in Unforgiven? Gene Hackman
   

Of course, when I asked my sister at the cafe today, she answered them correctly too. Actually, these are probably things you know if you're from the US. The prize for winning trivia night was a 50 dollar bar tab. I guess that when money is on the line my team does better.

I play on a soccer team too and the contrast between the two teams couldn't be greater. I showed up at the game ten minutes late last week because no one bothered to tell me where the game was being held. The field was changed from what was written in the paper. Then I didn't play. Granted, I missed the previous three weeks traveling to the US, but we are a low level team. The referee ended the game ten minutes early due to the amount of criticism from our players. There are better things to do in New Zealand than ensuring that I'm at every game with these guys. I'm not a weatherman but I know which way the wind is blowing. Margee says I should get my money back, but I don't feel like going to the effort.

Cute Statz Video

Chance News has a link to a cute video about statistics. The content is lite, but fun nevertheless. I want an F statistic bling-bling. Unfortunately, it shows how isolated I've become in my career though. I can only think of two colleagues that I would be comfortable sharing this video with.

Chance News 18

It was posted this morning here. It's the best periodical about statistics that I've found.

Lost to That Good Team 12-6

What a frustrating lost last night. We have been falling apart in the third period and last night was no exception. We knew that the game was going to be tough because we anticipated that only five players would show. Four of us did and the the fifth, Jamie who has played on the New Zealand under 18 team, was AWOL. We picked up a fifth player Nigel who played in the game prior to us. For the first two periods we played very well. I scored our first goal on a two-hand shot off the far post at a tight angle. We were tied 4-4 going into the third period and then they racked up 8 goals on us. I had a spectacular misfire in the third period. I cocked my arm to shoot and the ball slipped from my hand behind me 6 feet. I was slow in turning around. They scooped the ball, went on the fast break, and scored. I will play more conservatively in the third period next week to prevent a melt down. We should form a tight group and hand the ball from player to player. Let the other team attempt to break that apart. There are infinite permutations of how one can approach the game that with players who are fast to adjust we could try some weird approaches. I am still mastering my camera which is why the photo is so blurry. The photo is from the game after ours three weeks ago.

Blog Advertising

I turned on Google's AdSense out of curiosity (and to pay for my heat). I went to dinner with five ex-Affinnova employees during my visit to Massachusetts. One has created a blog empire and is doing very well. He was interviewed by the Wallstreet Journal recently. His hook is that a blog must be a vehicle for advertising and if he can corner the information market on a type of product, then he will do very well. Cornering the market on information about my adventures in New Zealand will not make a lot of money but that will still be the focus of my blog.

I will talk about products once a week and the product that I will specialize in is New Zealand wine. I will pick up a new brand at the grocery store. I bought a bottle of Villa Maria Merlot-Cabernet Sauvignon from Hawke's Bay. Strangely, it prominently featured awards that it won on the label and the fact that it was recommended by Cuisine Magazine. My truism of if it needs advertising, you don't need it holds true for this brand. It's very drinkable but very bland. Hawke's Bay appears to be the Charles Shaw (two buck chuck) region of New Zealand. Most New Zealand products are priced exorbitantly high and it's cheaper to go with Australian products. Makes sense since New Zealand's population is small. You can't make big money on small margins here.

The Beauty of Winter

On the other hand, there are some very beautiful buildings in Christchurch. We had a dusting of snow at the end of June and I went out to snap photos. Here's what I think is the best one. This sculpture is by the cathedral at the center of the city.

Queen Victoria declared that Christchurch be a city in the 1850s so that the good people of the Canterbury plains could build a cathedral. As all the tourist literature says, one can't have a cathedral without a city. Christchurch was the first city incorporated in the New Zealand.

The Challenge of Winter

I live two blocks from the city center but yet I have to go outside my back door to use the toilet. In this photo, I tried to capture the scope of the problem but I couldn't back up far enough to get a good shot. There's a wall behind me separating our property from the neighbors. That's the back door to my kitchen to the right.

June was the coldest one of the past 30 years. I spent $100 heating my apartment and I was only here for 2 weeks. I hate to see what my July electric bill will be. We are off to a cold start and I'll have to do a better job of keeping the electricity in check. I already turn the heater off when I'm not around during the day and have sealed off my living room.

My apartment was built in the 1890s when tuberculosis was a public health crisis. The prevailing theory of the time was to ventilate the buildings. My living room has a 20 foot high ceiling with a window that encompasses the entire height of the room. Wish me luck and I hope that I don't come down with an illness that forces me to visit the toilet often. I think that I will move in with my sister if that happens.

Friend's Article in Slate

My friend, Chris, who is the chief film critic at the Ft Worth Star-Telegram had an article published on Slate.com yesterday. You can read it here. He brings up good points but the subject matter of his review is controversial.

The Beginning of the Second Half

I feel that most important part of a timed game is the beginning of the second half. (What about hockey?) You've made your halftime adjustments. If you are ahead, you can go for the jugular. If you are behind, you can try to jump on your opponent. The New England Patriots are the masters of halftime adjustments. Apparently, Belichick can dictate what needs to be done and players execute.

Today, in my postdoc, I am starting the second half. I returned to Christchurch yesterday at 10 in the morning. I don't mind the flight from LA to NZ because the routine is handled well. You always fly overnight. They serve dinner, turn out the lights, turn on the lights, and feed you breakfast. We even had dinner when the Qantas flight left LAX at 10 pm.

My supervisor is out of town until August 6th. I plan to use this time to get every loose end from Washington and USC tied up to move to the next step in each of my projects.

This morning I had kayak polo practice and after practice I usually go to McDonald's at the Riccarton Mall. I ran into one of my teammates. He's a freshman, and I believe that he said that he works there. He was waiting impatiently for someone and eventually left my table. As I left, he was sitting at another table with a female employee. I wonder if she's his girlfriend. I found the episode cute. Coming from the Boston club where I am one of the youngest players to playing with people fresh out of high school is refreshing. It reminded me of summer jobs and being an undergraduate again.

A Vacation from a Vacation

I am a little slow posting as usual. I read an article recently while cruising the disreputable parts of the web about how persistently keeping a journal will turn you into a genius. Methinks they have inverted cause and effect or suffer from insufficient sample size.

I shouldn't call my year in Christchurch a vacation, but it doesn't feel like the grind of work that I experienced in Boston or Seattle. Presently, I am not in New Zealand and am visiting my parents in Massachusetts. I leave for LA next Monday, the 26th, and return to Christchurch on the 27th. The weather in MA has been superb compared to the rainy/haily/snowy weather my youngest sister, Margee, says that we have in Christchurch. I am affected by the amount of day light and getting away from the shortest day of the year helps my psyche. I feel good but a little stuffed up from allergies.

My trip has been low key. I played kayak polo with the Boston Club a few times. The biggest improvement in my game has been greater confidence. The fine skills will come with more. The club is hurting for members because a lot of people have left and no new players have joined. I believe it's questionable whether the men will field a team for nationals this year. If you want to play, meet them on Spy Pond in Arlington on Sundays at 3. They have all the gear and are extremely nice folks.

I went to dinner last night with Affinnova and ex-Affinnova colleagues. What a smart and interesting group of people. One has went on to making a living by blogging, another is interviewing with Google, and a third designs artificial intelligence systems for the military. I have never seen a place churn through talent like Affinnova does. It sounds as though Affinnova is limping along and rehashing old ideas that haven't worked before. I don't understand how the company keeps going but querying my acquaintances for when they thought it fold the most common answer was "Never." It's like the US trade deficit: How does money keep appearing? I don't malign the company though. It's premise is as they say "R/evolutionary." Affinnova came into my life at the right time and I left it at the right time.

I worry that the US doesn't feel foreign to me. Travel should change your perspective from what I have read. Maybe the Canterbury plains are too much like the Midwest. Maybe the global corporations are furthering their stranglehold on every aspect of every person's life. There are significant challenges facing the US and I don't like a lot of what we've become. I feel that I would have seen this even if I stayed home. I am glad that my taxes are going to New Zealand rather than the US. There will be time to try to change stuff once I return.

Betting on the Queen's Birthday

I wandered this morning looking for activities specific to the Queen's Birthday. Not much. I heard the cathedral bells ringing but arrived at the square too late. I stopped by the Holy Grail, the largest sports bar in Christchurch, to watch the second half of the Brazil-All Whites match. Brazil dominated but that was to be expected. I was inspired to head next door to the sports book and bet on the World Cup. I have action on the USA winning Group E, Ballack winning the Golden Boot, and the Netherlands winning it all. I figure that it will be almost like home games for the Netherlands so I will be rooting with thousands of people in the stands as I watch on TV. Go Orange!

Christchurch Elector

It's official. I received a letter from the New Zealand Registrar stating, "You are now enrolled as an elector for the General electorate of Christchurch Central." (Emphasis theirs) A month ago, I received letter from the registrar that was adamant that I enroll and that it was illegal not to. I have suffrage. I wonder if I have to be a citizen? Oh well, we'll see how long this farce can last. I actually like our member of parliament, Tim Barnett. A local high-end gossip magazine that I read, Avenues, had a nice article about him two months ago. He talked about principles from liberation theology which was refreshing. I like my Massachusetts representative, Edward Markey, a lot too.

Last Photo of the Opera House

This is the last photo of the opera house that I will post. This one turned out the best from my photos in Australia. I was on the ferry heading to the zoo.

Always Ask the Person with the Big Camera

The two photos in this post were taking by fellow tourists. I asked a man who was using a large, expensive camera to snap the top one here. I like the composition a lot. Plus the light was really good at this time of day.

The photo on the bottom is a different story. I don't know what the tourist here was looking at. Probably the sun. Granted, I shouldn't have taken this photo with the sun in the background.

Once I am more settled, I will look into getting another camera. I am pushing the limits of this one and skipping many shots that I don't think will work.

Lost to That Good Team 5-2

My kayak polo team lost its fifth game in a row to that That Good Team. I had an awful stint in goal where I let in two shots that I shouldn't have. My confidence in the boat is improving and we are improving as a team. I think that in one of the next few games we'll erupt and destroy one of our opponents. Our paddlers too good plus we have the youth advantage. I am by far the oldest player on our team. Paddling with 18-year-olds is whipping me into shape.

Since kayak polo is an obscure sport, I posted one of the few photos that I have of me playing. This was taken at a tournament in North Carolina in November when I was playing with the Boston club. I am the one in the blue boat, number 3 in black. I didn't take the photo and you can find more pictures here. I hope that I am not breaking any copyright laws.