Winner of the 2005 "Good Victim" Award

Subject:	Cash!
Time:	4:30 pm.

The Netherlands isn't big on credit cards, and even less on American credit cards where you swipe your card somewhere and then sign a piece of paper. So I usually use a lot of cash when I come here.

But my ATM card was a bit the worse for wear - I should have replaced it before the trip, but that just isn't the sort of thing one thinks about. So I got a couple hundred euros out at the airport, and the card crinkled a bit, but worked fine. Second try, the card got stuck in the machine, which, according to good banking practice, seized it and destroyed it. So I have been trying to get cash ever since.

American Express gave me an emergency, one-use-only PIN for my AMEX card. That ATM machine would only give 200 Euros at a time, so that's what I've got for my remaining 9 days.

I went out to eat with my work colleagues on Thursday night - great! I'll pay with a credit card, and they can give me cash. Except the restaurant didn't take credit cards. None at all, of any kind. So I paid cash.

My bank says that I can go into any banking center, with two forms of ID, and get a cash advance from a credit card. Except that Dutch banks no longer have cashiers; everything happens through ATM machines. So not in a Dutch bank. The Postbank has cashiers, but they aren't a bank.

So let's try Western Union. I tried to wire myself money over the web. But the security questions they ask involved transactions that happened in some cases seven years and two household moves ago - I don't remember the details. I also think they might have had one of them wrong. Once you miss the security questions, you have to walk into a Western Union branch (in the US, of course), to establish your identity.

AMEX can still help me; they can get emergency cash to one of their centers. The nearest one is somewhere out past Oosterpark. Not so very far away, but a trek that I don't want to have to do.

I'll see just how far these 200 will take me. Maybe I'll take to buying things from shops and selling them to passers-by for cash.

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Subject:	Recursion R Us
Time:	9:43 pm.

This afternoon, I stood in my apartment, looking for signs of the production of the movie that was shot there. The scene in particular that I was thinking of was one where the protagonist in the film is standing in his apartment - which was filmed in my apartment - looking for signs of a movie that was shot there (here).

He found them; I didn't. Good thing, too, if you know how the movie (either one) ends.

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Subject:	Weekend
Time:	8:46 am.

The East Bay Frontrunners had an excursion to Seattle for the weekend. Lots of fun times, including a surprise meetup with

susandennis. What a charmer! Seattle is still set in the fitness craze of the 70's and 80's; there were a dozen running clubs, with hundreds of runners, at the lake where we met. The Seattle Frontrunners alone contributed 80 or so to the crowd (and this was a 'light turnout', due to competing scheduling!)

I have wondered on several occasions why I see races being won by men over 35 or even over 40 with times that my 29 year old self would have considered to be a training pace. Where are all the 20-somethings who can run like we did when I was 20? Now I know. They are in Seattle.

Some funny photos were taken over the weekend - if I get ahold of them, I'll post them here (or maybe on FB)

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Subject:	Zany life in Oakland
Time:	8:13 am.

Oh yeah, another one bites the dust. People shoot at each other all the time around here. Police helicopters are common as birds.

But this time it isn't a gang member shooting a rival, or someone who didn't make the payment on their crack habit. It is a sweet, 97-year old woman who was killed in her home for no apparent reason.

Reading the story, I figured out which building it was. Then I saw a photo that confirmed it. You can't quite see my front door in the background. My building is two doors away. I have friends in this building.

I always figured that it was so difficult to get into the big apartment buildings that they would be the last place that this sort of attack would happen. But the Van Buren is pretty secure; you can't get in the front door without assistance, and you can't move around in the elevators without a code. But it happened here anyway. My building is less secure in many ways (but more so in one way; my building is built around an interior court; you can't move anywhere without being visible to absolutely everyone).

Most of the time it is a nice neighborhood, by the lake, with friendly neighbors and lovely streets. But every once in a while, we hear about this.

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Subject:	Simpler
Time:	6:50 am.

It was a simpler time - you were doing a series of postdocs in Switzerland, being paid good money to think deep thoughts about shallow things - or maybe the other way around. You were dating a student at the VU who lived in a crummy apartment in Amsterdam. You would miss the occasional Friday at work to get the cheap weekend train fares through Germany. You were both introspective and naive enough to think you knew what you wanted to achieve in life. You could even put it into words! Still young enough to be indestructible.

Now you juggle a stuck mortgage in a far-off city, joining the ranks of the over-under-employed, either having a job that follows you on vacation or having to follow a job. The crummy apartment building was condemned years ago. On her own day, the Queen watches as her subjects die in an attack meant for her.

Hmmm . . . was it a mistake to put De Wittenstraat on the route of my morning run?

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Subject:	Am I in a movie, or something?
Time:	10:48 am.

The ways in which things happen make me wonder sometime.

Several months ago, I organized a vacation for myself. The plan: visit my ex-Father-in-law (in Holland), while attending the Queen's Day celebration which happens on my own birthday (April 30). This wasn't easy; with Queen's Day being a national holiday, and xFIL being a busy man, I had to schedule his time (just before the celebration) many months in advance.

I just got off the phone with him. Everything was set - arrive on April 27, spend two nights there, then go on to Amsterdam in plenty of time for Queen's day during the day on April 29. Smooth as silk.

A bit too smooth, actually. Too smooth indeed.

Exactly as I was hanging up the phone, I get a Skype message from one of my firm's partners. "We were invited back by BGA for their million-dollar RFP. We do a two-day demo, and if it is good enough, we win the business!" This has potential to be the largest contract the company has ever seen.

When is the two day demo? Well, April 27-28, of course.

~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~

As it happens, quite surprisingly, xFIL has time free after Queen's Day (but not on the weekend), so if I stay over the weekend, and then come down to visit him the following week, I can still make it all happen.

But the cost of the flight just went up by at least $1500. And I can't get any value for the miles on my usual carrier (because then the cost went up by $10,000).

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Subject:	Presidio 10
Time:	3:15 pm.

Well, it has been two full weeks since my ankle magically got better. The club decided to enter the Presidio 10K as a team. The rules of the team competition say that more bodies is an advantage (some number of seconds off your team's top five total time, for each runner you bring out). I figured I could walk if I had to - walking seems therapeutic anyway.

But I didn't have to walk. I felt terribly out of shape - my quads were aching through much of the (quite slow) race. But I finished the race without aggravating the injury - so I feel that the run was a success. That's two miles further than I have run since the injury, so it was pushing it a bit just to run at all. But I had a good time out with the club. I felt like I had done a full day's activities - run, socialized, gone out to eat, seen some spectacular views - and the clock said 11:50 when I got back home.

Spent a lot of time this afternoon sleeping. But the sun is still up - I'll have time to do more stuff this afternoon!

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Time:

11:16 pm.

A Rochester institution is a barbecue joint called the dinosaur. Last night's trick told me that the ribs and the fried green tomatoes are not to be missed. Only today, my customer told me about this place, just two blocks (in an oddball direction) from my hotel.

I dropped in and ordered tonight's special. Two tenderloin medallions plus a quarter rack of ribs, two side dishes for $15.95. Yes, life is inexpensive here in Rochester.

A live band started playing at 10:00. The youngest fellow in this swing / classic rock band must have been over 50 - no wonder they play at the Dinosaur! But this dinosaur loves that sort of music, so I hung around for a bit.

The drunk guy a the table next to me asked one of the hot chicks at the bar to dance, and proceeded to bump her around the dance floor. I asked the woman who was with her to dance. Jitterbug. I love Jitterbug, and I'm good at it. So was she. We had a great time.

I went to my seat at the bar to sit down, when the first woman - who also happened to have a figure like Raquel Welch in her young days - basically insisted that I dance with her. But this was a slow dance - a smokey jazz number. I protested a bit that we didn't know each other that well, but she pshawed that away. It was pretty clear that she was comfortable dancing cheek to cheek with a perfect stranger. At some point, I thought it might make sense to tell her,

"I bat for the other team."

"Yeah, I figured. It's a lot more fun, isn't it, when you can just dance, and not worry about all that sex stuff?"

I was very popular with the women. The drunk straight guy kept looking at me funny, as if to wonder why I got to rub up against those Welch boobies for a whole slow dance, while he had to boogie on his own, or have women sort of cringe when he touched them.

Not something for every night of the week, but a fun way to spend Wednesday.

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Subject:	20 years back
Time:	10:56 pm.

I decided to go to an English Country Dance here in Rochester tonight, following a suggestion on facebook. As I was dancing up the line for the first dance after I arrived, I noticed a familiar face coming down the line. Veree Woodbridge. Her husband worked with my dad for man years, and Veree and I had danced together in Columbus back in the 80's. We figured it out - we probably saw one another 9 years ago at a memorial event in Columbus that I attended (as did Veree), and before that, probably in 1990. Nearly 20 years ago.

It was fun catching up. And for in-the-know readers, yes, she knows Fred.

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Time:

10:41 am.

I'm going to cheat on this. I asked

bender772 to interview me, and I'm going to answer, but I'm not going to offer to interview anyone else.

1. Of all the cities you've lived, which did you enjoy living in the most?

It's a toss-up, but I think I have to go with Boston. It doesn't have quite the provincial charm of Berne, or the shocking convenience of Zurich, or the slutty griminess of San Francisco (and I don't quite live there, anyway). But it has a bit of all of those things, and some amazing culture - high culture (symphony, ballet, arts), folk culture (center of the contra dance world), and even some pretty good low culture. And I actually like having four seasons.

2. Roughly how many copies of your book have sold so far?

First printing was 2500, and it has sold out. Well, that's cheating a bit - the first couple hundred were freebies to the press, and to our personal friends, and so on.

3. What's your favorite drink?

Green tea. Not the horrid stuff you get in teabags at most coffeeshops in the US (don't even get me started about how Starbucks abuses tea), but the real Japanese stuff. Preferably made in Japan, where they seem to be able to get everything just right with no effort (sort of like coffee in Italy). I can brew quite a good approximation at home using stuff I got from Little Tokyo.

4. NoCal or SoCal?

Okay, I just mentioned Little Tokyo, which is SoCal, but I go with NoCal. I really never got the hang of LA, and I think of San Diego as a sort of theme park anyway. There are some streets in San Francisco that are just very comforting. And the Big Gay Flag at Castro and Market never fails to impress me.

5. What was your best sexual experience?

If I answered this, I'd have to put this on my sex filter. So that's a separate post.

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Subject:	Dawn of the Deans
Time:	11:44 am.

I normally go for several years without encountering another person named Dean. I was surprised, in fact, last year when a Dean happened to attend one of my classes.

I was again surprised a couple weeks ago, when I was at a party at one of my favorite watering holes, and I met a man named Dean. He was also surprised - it had been a couple years for him, too.

Then we were both flabbergasted - we met another Dean. That's three Deans at the same party. This has never happened to any of us.

So I went to a bar last night in Milwaukee, and introduced myself to the barman. He replied that one of his bartenders was also named Dean, but that he had left earlier. Later that evening, a fellow came in who was known to many at the bar, and went by the name of Dean. I figured this was the bartender - but no! This was yet another Dean. Then the bartender came back, and the three Deans sat for a while chatting at the bar.

Twice in one month, at a party with two other Deans. Never happened before, but now twice in one month.

We will be massing for an attack any day now.

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Subject:	Still searching?
Time:	11:17 am.

The 'riots' last night (well, the riot police were out, so it must be a riot, right?) seemed to have ended by 10:30 when I came home, but the helicopters were still searching for something anyway.

It is now 11:20, and the helicopters are still there. In fact, they are hovering right over my patio. I guess it's time for nude sunbathing.

Or maybe not - I think they might have guns.

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