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.