The Tide IS Changing!

... At least in Maine coastal towns right near my hometown of Edgecomb. From the Associated Press on October 30, 2008:

BOOTHBAY HARBOR, Maine -- Meteorologists are baffled by rapid tidal changes along the Maine coast, which damaged some boats and piers.

Witnesses say low tide turned and became high within a matter of minutes on Tuesday afternoon. The changes occurred six or seven times. The National Weather Service says reports from several locations indicated that water levels fell and rose from 4 feet to as much as 12 feet during the event.

In a public information statement, the weather service says the cause "remains a mystery and may never be known."

It said significant rapid rises and falls in tide levels were observed around 3 p.m. in Boothbay Harbor, Southport and Bristol. The statement said rapid surges can be caused by the underwater movement of land, most often due to an earthquake, or due to slumping of sediments along a steep canyon or shelf, but no earthquakes were reported in the area Tuesday.
A similar event occurred on Jan. 9, 1926, in Bass Harbor, the statement said.

Best online comment (via Wooden Boat magazine's online forum): Maybe Obama changed the tide?

Thank you, BrianW.

Favorite new word: Seiche

Boo

Don't know why I haven't posted lately. Maybe it's the economic turmoil. Scary enough, but Halloween was pretty darn scary in my 'hood. The Greenwich Village Halloween parade lures thousands of people from god only knows where to my neighborhood, and half of them end up on my stoop. And I caught four French people (guys and gals) peeing in my building's garbage area. Mon dieu!

Best costume: a simple Barack Obama mask, grinning from ear to oversized ear, atop the head of a very unsmiling tall black guy. Odd and cool at the same time. Pictured, left: friend F. and werewolves on Bleecker Street.

Embarassing Moments and Transport Layers

First for me: forgetting how to spell the word "embarassing" (still not 100% sure). Then Googling it and getting so many funny responses that I forgot what my own hilarious tale would have been... So, my findings. Not linked, so that you too can search for other people's embarassing moments and be amused. Note: according to one source, the top embarassing things are: shyness, baldness, acne, and sex. Phew. I'm doing kinda okay. Top Google results (omitting YouTube for obvious reasons):

How to escape embarassing situations by using your mobile phone. ...

Information and excerpts from the book to help you deal with health problems that are difficult to discuss, including shyness, baldness, acne, and sex.

Embarassing. Victory_2_tiny by mlmintampa on Sep 27, 2008 4:11 PM EDT in Football. My head is literally fuming. I feel heat coming off my head right now. ...

Oct 9, 2008 ... Google just rolled out a new set of ads making the total number of ad-based revenue streams roughly equal to.

The last one I do link to as it looks kinda interesting (no, I didn't read the whole thing).

Anyway, today's topic as I read to W. at Lighthouse International was "Transport Layers." Which, for you uninformed means: a group of methods and protocols within a layered architecture of network components, within which it is responsible for encapsulating application data blocks into datagrams (packets) suitable for transfer to the network infrastructure for transmission to the destination host, or managing the reverse transaction by abstracting network datagrams and delivering them to an application. Such protocol are also referred to as "transport protocols."*

Got it? Good.

* Thank you, Wikipedia, for explaining it, like 68% better and more succinctly than the poor dude's 1994 textbook.

Eggs

I boiled my first egg ever today. I'm so very proud.

Sunny Saturdays [w/ video]

Sunny Saturdays are not my cup of tea. Too ... wide open and relentlessly ... upbeat. I know the burden's on me to fill up that time, to breathe and explore and for god's sake get some fresh air and sunlight. Well. I'd prefer a rainy, windswept day with a book any time.

Anyway, I DID have plenty to do, starting with getting up to 59th and Lex before 10 am to volunteer at Lighthouse International, the leading nonprofit resource organization for the visually impaired. I love the place... it oozes goodness, somehow, proximity to Bloomingdale's notwithstanding. Light, modern, airy, the building welcomed me back after a long hiatus.

Obviously, any volunteer work will provide a sense of having done something right and good. I lucked out, though, and also got to meet a cool guy and learn some stuff about Internet protocols. Two hours of reading a textbook on all things Internet just flew by. Today we focused on SMTP, POP3 and IMAP, syntax over Telnet, getting into P2P file-sharing (Napster through Gnutella only). The guy, W., is a very bright, relatively young African American grad student at Brooklyn Polytech. He has some sight but not enough for reading. He's been essentially blind since age 10. He lives in Brooklyn and has a really long commute to the Lighthouse. He's not sure what he's going to do with his graduate degree. He may teach but thinks that might have its own challenges and annoyances. He has beautiful eyes.

Later, I got my hair cut.

Below, a slice of what seemed like possibly tens or hundreds of skateboarders zipping down Broadway. In traffic.

Fish in a Barrel

So I'm a week behind. I think I'll always be a week behind, after last week. Meaning, I (and everyone else) has sort of lost time... at least in terms of our 2 and 5 and 10 year plans, thanks to the clowns on Wall Street and in Washington.

Anyway, I caught the Intrepid museum ship on her way back to her berth alongside Manhattan. Kinda historic and kinda cool to see in person, if fleetingly.

Weekend highlights included watching In Bruges (great small funny movie -- and I'll watch anything with Ralph Fiennes in it. Plus that Colin Farrell is exquisitely amusing when he plays dumb). A low point was seeing Religulous with S. It was Michael Moore lite... and -- somehow apropos -- shooting fish in a barrel. Making fun of religious fanatics is waaaaay too easy. And this just after what I felt was the best Real Time I'd seen, with Alec Baldwin, Gary Shandling and Christiane Amanpour. Great stuff. Catch it if you can...

Frog Legs and Watermelon Soup

Wednesday night found me at a cocktail reception for the Museum of Arts & Design (what a great acronym!) on Columbus Circle with Stash. Now that makes it sounds like I have a life, doesn't it? Well... the jury's still out on that one.

Last night I was out until the wee hours with E.B. after a concert -- Jackopierce, a nice harmonizing guitar-playing duo, a smidge too country-sounding for me but easy on the ear and enthusiastic and sweet -- and then a nice dinner and wine at a little French bistro in the bustling Meatpacking District (with B&T'ers and transvestites and youngsters and omg I'm so old :) I had frog legs with watermelon soup. Seriously.

To celebrate dropping another size (yay) I ate a piece of Joe's pizza while watching the first show of this season's ER this rainy afternoon. Tragedy! Makai Pfeiffer's character died on the operating table. {{sob}} Okay, maybe I'm not so old. Maybe I'm actually incredibly immature. So be it. He's a hot tamale and ER won't be the same without him.

Tonight I watch the debate. Since I missed it last night. It won't be easy, even having heard what I've heard so far. That McCain is being considered as a viable candidate for our President, along with that joke from Alaska, hurts my heart. It actually hurts to imagine that our country is so damnably messed up that there are people who want more of what we've gone through in the last eight years. To imagine that actually happening is, well, unthinkable. As I've said before, I don't talk about politics much here, since there are so many more articulate people out there on the subject. Maybe it's time to do some talking anyway. Stay tuned.

Back in the real world

Spent yesterday on the flip side of the neighborhood street fair, assisting neighbor Ann at a table at the popular 10th Street Fair. It's an interesting position, deciding how you're going to sell -- friendly? Hard sell? Ignore people until they want a price or have a question? I mostly went with the latter. Street fairs (like extended stoop sales, not the ubiquitous smoothies and socks affairs) attract the most interesting people. I met a few, including a guy who got really riled that a videotape of A Streetcar Named Desire demanded $3 not $2.

 As a buyer, I got in a tiff with an obnoxious and possibly insane woman over a very cool jewelry set (clear marbles set in thin black metal as 2 necklaces, a ring and drop earrings). Right before I claimed them, she grabbed an earring and said she wanted it and the ring and then dropped it and pretended she couldn't find it. The seller agreed that I was the first to claim the set and then the woman offered me $100 for it. I declined and got the hell away from her. Captured below: the coat I coveted. I watched from across the street all day (a plush, rose-colored fake-fur Fendi) and kept thinking I'd buy it -- and then suddenly Sarah, who had been volunteering with me -- was wearing it. She who hesitates... loses the fake-fur Fendi. Oh well.

Sailing off Meganisi

Okay, I'm lost when it comes to posting videos. But I tried. Here's one. Click on "watch in high quality" under controls, otherwise it looks bad.

I'm Hungry

It's funny -- I was posting my lame Greece videos on YouTube and stumbled across this one, at Yanni's restaurant in Paxos. We were right there! Same guy! Same restaurant! Like it was yesterday...

Notes on Greece sailing trip

Travel tales -- unless you're a Paul Theroux or a Bruce Chatwin or a Henry Miller, etc. etc. -- are like dreams: no one REALLY wants to hear them. The best tellings come out in dribs and drabs, detail by detail over a lifetime of recounting. So I'll keep it short. Pictures here.

I chose to go to Greece on somewhat of a whim -- an email from a stranger in NYC about a sailing opportunity in the Greek islands. I'll give you a few highlights but not everything here. I won't talk about my traveling companions much but can tell you I learned from them and am grateful. I learned that I'd rather travel alone. No indictment implied, just the certainly that I'm at my best with companions who, like me, have an insatiable curiosity about others, about history, politics, literature and who can talk all night with passion and yet know exactly when to enjoy the silence. Notes:

• Greece in early September is hot. HOT HOT HOT HOT. The kind of hot that makes your face sweat and rivulets run down your back.
• Athens is sprawling and not terribly pleasant, with pockets of wonderfulness. The view of the Acropolis is everything it's made out to be: indelibly memorable and not to be missed at night.
• We took a bus across Greece to the Ionian and it was fine. One bathroom stop in 5 hours -- loved that! The bus station in Athens is like bus stations the world over: sad and dirty and fume-filled and confusing but this one had stray dogs to look at and the best coffee we had in Greece, bar none.
• In the tiny town of Vounitsa, we had to ask for a ride from a stranger who had wild hair and was covered in grease (ha). He turned out to be educated, bright and sanguine and a lovely man who drove us 14 kilometers and refused our money when we reached our port town.
• Our sailboat at Vounakis on the Ionian Sea was lined up with twenty or thirty or forty cookie-cutter boats and I didn't -- and never did -- feel its soul. I'm spoiled by a lifetime of learning appreciation for the "authentic" from my parents and carried with me an unfortunate sense of loathing for the fiberglass, everything-automatic, overly electronically-equipped vessel.
• Our one night in the port was a blast. After the rest of the crew (who had rented a car for the ride to Vounakis) left us (E. and I) I befriended two chaps from Manchester on a nearby boat who were finishing their own adventure (as part of a flotilla of sailboats -- something I'd not heard of). We spent most of the night with them, met the rest of their friendly flotilla-mates and generally drank too much and had more fun than I've had in nearly a year. Cheers, Philip and Patrick from Manchester -- and thank you.
• Our crew was eclectic and generally kind. Our conversations (for the 3 nights I spent on the boat) were completely forgettable. No books, no politics, no poetry.
• We got in some sailing and it was great. We averaged a paltry 3 knots, unfortunately, and had to motor, mostly, to our first stop, at the beautiful island of Meganisi.
• Swimming was a highlight: the water was warm and clear and an otherworldly blue (cobalt and seaglass green). Unfortunately, it was too warm for me (not refreshing, really) and the amazing cobalt blue reminded me of 2000 Flushes from my childhood.
• I left the boat at the island of Paxos (where I also left my heart). I needed to go to Corfu (had always had a thing in my head for the island) and the crew was experiencing some dissent and I was too hot and needed some downtime. I figured this out after a hot hike up the highest hill to a lighthouse that I couldn't access (Greek Army/Navy, I was told). I had meandered up, up, up and found myself gazing at the ancient olive trees and the winding paths and zigzagging stone walls and felt an incredible peace for the first time since leaving New York.
• Corfu. I felt very much at home there, despite the heat. It's an amazing place, with an Old Town like most Old Towns that charmed immediately. Our hotel, Hotel Astron, was perfect: not too expensive but newly renovated with a cool marble lobby and even cooler room looking out to the sea and the New Fort. I highly recommend it.
• A highlight of Corfu for me was a solitary afternoon. I decided to visit Kanoni, mentioned in The Colossus of Maroussi by Henry Miller which I had been re-reading (or trying to). Another was a late night of wine and music near the top of the New Fort with a couple of local boys.
• After 2 nights in Corfu, we flew back to Athens to start our long trip home. We had a scary time in the taxi on the way from the airport to our hotel near the Acropolis: the car died, right in the middle of a tunnel, with a blind turn behind us, motorcycles and Mac trucks whizzing by at 90 miles an hour. I really thought there was a good chance we'd be killed. But we weren't.
• The flight from Athens to JFK is an appalling 10.5 hours. I can't recommend Delta for a trip this long (horrible in-flight entertainment, so-so food, expensive drinks).
• Finally, I don't know that I'll ever set foot in Athens again but plan to (god willing) return to both Corfu and Paxos in the off season one day soon. Yassou!

Paxos

Walked alone up the hills above Lakka harbor on the wonderful island
of Paxos. The hills are covered with winding 4' stone walls and olive
trees. Very "Secret Garden" looking." Lighthouse at the top was my
destination. I made it.

Spartakhori

Best fish in tiny Spartakhori harbor, Meganisi (southern Ionian) after
hours-long swim. Heading north toward Anti-Paxos,Paxoi, Corfu..Dolphin
following. Many thx to FD (for my healthy mindset), Cleo (great Athens
tips), JT for helping me pack and keeping me sane), M and L for being
shanghai-ed into watching cats.C - wish you were here...and a happy
shout-out to P from Manchester for making first night in port such a
blast.Filia!

Athens!

I'm surprised to see mountains. I may be hallucinating. Good landing..
Itchy eyes.

Off to Greece

In a hot cab to JFK.Thank you JT for helping me pack. Bye, cats.