Read Ink

Hong Kong is beautiful

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry) — Mon, 28 May 2012 07:39:00 +0000

After a day wandering around Kowloon with some visiting Friends of The Blog--in the expert care of Mrs. Blog, who has a knack for finding awesome places within awesome places--we wound up on the waterfront. (After having a cocktail at a great harbor-side bar that, guess what,

Mrs. Blog found.)

It happened to be a beautiful evening. That just magnified the impressive qualities of the Hong Kong skyline. There is something about it, about the way the outlines of some buildings disappear, leaving just columns of glittering lights, and the way other buildings jostle each other with unusual shapes. And behind all of this, of course, floats the darkness of the mountains in the center of Hong Kong island.

It's so pretty that even a Neanderthal like me can get a pretty good shot with his phone:

Not pictured: refreshing breeze, scent of saltwater.

OK, OK, so it was a little blurry.

But anyway, because this is Hong Kong, of COURSE it wasn't just a skyline we were looking at. It was a skyline with a light show.

The show goes on every night at 8 p.m., complete with music pumped out on both sides of Victoria Harbor. I'll be honest, it seemed a little... extraneous. But it was cool to see it as a tourist in my own city, knowing that the skyline--and the music, narration and dancing lights--will always be right down the street.

Rain

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry) — Wed, 16 May 2012 07:39:00 +0000

Maybe it has something to do with growing up on the plains, where summer storms are plentiful, powerful, and visible from a long way off, but I have always found myself soothed or even oddly moved by a good deluge. Rain snick-snicking on an umbrella is a treat (unless you are trying to carry a bunch of things and stay dry at the same time); the white noise of a nighttime shower is a relaxing blanket when you’re trying to sleep (unless you suddenly remember you left the windows in your car open). Waiting out a rainstorm at a baseball stadium, an excuse to enjoy a beer, a hotdog and a cooling breeze in the middle of August. Laughing as you get caught in a downpour with someone you love.

The first short story I ever sold was called “Rain,” and the protagonist sought solace from his current situation—caught in the teeth of a steamy, jungle-based South American war—in the memories of childhood rainstorms.

Needless to say, it rains all the time here. Sometimes it’s annoying, like when I forget my umbrella or was planning to spend the day doing something outside.

But a lot of the time I find it stirs a sort of quiet contemplation.

Lightning flashes over the hills of Kowloon at night. A maelstrom of rain turns the air over the harbor opaque. A morning storm wakes me up with thunder and apocalyptically gray skies, and after pouring some coffee, I watch the rain pummel the pavement 13 stories down.

Yeah. There’s no telling why, exactly, I feel this way about heavy rain. But here in Hong Kong, I’m glad I do.

A visit from the People's Liberation Army

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry) — Mon, 14 May 2012 14:21:00 +0000

Several times recently, I have joked about how neat... or at least interesting... or at least nerdy it was to be so near to the biggest military aviation rollout in recent years. A J-20 flyby would be epic; I still remember how blown away I was the first time I saw the F-117 and B-2 in the air.

So what happened today as I sat at my desk, innocently reading a story about the euro zone's imminent collapse? The Chinese military showed up.

First came these:

The buzz begins.

It's hard to tell from a cellphone shot, but I'm pretty sure these have the two crewmen sitting one behind the other in staggered cockpits, which would make it either a Z-10 or the fancy, new Z-19. The camo pattern makes me think we're looking at land-based helos, plus I don't know whether that model is used at sea anyway.

Then came these:

... and gets bigger.

There were two of them, and they looked pretty convincingly like Type 0-37II guided missile corvettes. Just stone cold steamin' along through Victoria Harbor. Those two guys were followed by two of these:

Oil tanks? Or just tank tanks?

At first these looked like tankers, carrying fuel to resupply warships on longer voyages. But a co-worker found this, and I have to agree that they do look pretty similar, especially if you examine the aft half of the ship. So perhaps it's a landing craft. And finally, bringing up the rear, was this guy:

Mystery at sea.

I have no idea what this is. Looks like a catamaran, but it is not one of China's newer, much-publicized fast missile boats. There seems to be maybe a helipad on the aft deck? I dunno. It's almost like a yacht with a military paint job.

In any event, they motored past going west, then about 30 minutes later, came back the other way. And then the Admiral's Yacht, which you have to admit would be a good bar name, came back heading west again. And then it parked. So maybe the good folks of the somewhat hilariously named People's Liberation Army Navy were just doing some sightseeing. But whatever they were up to, I definitely enjoyed the view.*

*which was pretty impressive, despite the unimpressive quality of my cellphone shots

Ask an offensively sweaty gweilo anything

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry) — Fri, 11 May 2012 10:43:00 +0000

As summer approaches on the little subtropical island upon which I now live, temperatures are rising. They are not now, nor will they ever get to be what I call “Abu Dhabi hot,” which is in the range of 115 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit. But Hong Kong is subtropical—that’s why there is so much lush vegetation everywhere—and that means enough humidity to make a guy like me perspire in the act of tying my shoe.

And because I am generally much bigger than the locals, that means I am a large pillar of sweat walking among them, riding the MTR with them and crowding onto a ding-ding with them. Contact is assured, and assuredly unpleasant for them. I’m sure they were wondering what the deal was (Did he just run a marathon? Does he have a high fever?), and that has led me to write this, the first of an occasional series in which I, the offensively sweaty gweilo, answer these types of questions, asked and unasked. So without further ado, let me mop my brow and begin.

Q: Dear Offensively Sweaty Gweilo,

Why are you sweating all over this ding-ding? There is a pleasant breeze, you’re wearing short sleeves and sitting still. Help me understand this.

A: Ah, you probably saw me on Thursday. You see, Mrs. Blog and I (who is a gweilo, but most certainly not an offensive one in any way) were doing some painting. And as the bedroom neared completion, we realized that we needed one more liter of this very specific Sudan Sand color. So, long story short, I walked all over our neighborhood, then the next neighborhood over, and finally two MTR stops away to get the right stuff. And, well, motion generates heat. It’s not an excuse, it’s an explanation. Sorry if I slimed you.

Q: Dear OSG,

I, a native Hong Konger, walk everywhere. There is great public transportation and the city is full of places to go. Yet I manage not to collapse into a puddle of saltwater. What’s the deal?

A: Well, I have a theory. You know how you will sometimes frustrate me by meandering along the sidewalk when I am in a hurry to get somewhere? I think you’re walking more slowly, consciously or not, to save energy and thus get less hot. I, on the other hand, bounce along on my freakishly long legs and get my metabolism all worked up. So maybe if I worked a little harder at going native, I could work a little less hard at not dripping sweat.

Q: Hey, OSG,

When I get hot, I just take off my shirt. You have probably seen me in the market, on the street, riding a motorcycle and in the mall. It’s a good solution.

A: And a fine solution it is. I have no problem doing this when I am, say, working around the house or playing basketball. But there’s something a little odd about being in a shopping mall without your shirt that I can’t get past—sorry. (Although I did once go to a New Zealand grocery store barefoot.)

Q: Dear OSG,

Since you are so comically oversized, do you ever have problems with the dimensions of everyday life here?

A: Hey, thanks for the non-sweat-related question. And the answer is yes. The ding-ding, for instance, has a ceiling that is probably about six feet tall. Maybe a little less. Which means if I’m not sitting on one of the benches, my neck is bowed down like a sad giraffe. The MTR is fine, except for the doorways—I have to duck about an inch. I was in a bank the other day in which all the employee-only doors looked to me like secret passages, with a height of no more than 5-foot-10. Having said all that, this is a city filled with people of all shapes and sizes, so it’s not usually a huge inconvenience. Except shoes. I haven’t laid eyes on a pair of size 15s since I left the U.S.

And that’s it for this installment! Thanks for writing in, and as always, the Offensively Sweaty Gweilo will be happy to answer all your burning questions… just as soon as he has a nice, cold glass of water.

The good news is, we have a couch

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry) — Wed, 09 May 2012 14:23:00 +0000

I realize that this has been an exceptionally long dry spell of posting, even for a guy who has been known to skip town for a few weeks at a time.

The thing is, life has been busy. Busier than it has been in a long time.

For one thing, Mrs. Blog and I are in the midst of the biggest nesting endeavor ever. In Abu Dhabi, a place that always felt oddly temporary to us--and the millions of other imported workers--we were content to furnish out place in the yellow-and-blue wonderland that is Ikea. It was cheap, smartly designed and gave us an L-shaped sofa that turned into a guest bed. Hooray for Swedish innovation.

But everyone else in the country had roughly the same idea, remember. So inevitably, no matter whose house we were visiting, we inevitably encountered some of the same Ikea influences that shaped our own living space. (Our orange living room, blue bedroom and pink office, however, were singular and awesome. Have I ever told you about how we picked out the colors over Skype, with me in the 'Dhabs and Mrs. Blog in the Windy City?)

Hong Kong, whatever your intentions are when you arrive, feels like a much more permanent place. It has a reason to be. For thousands of years before the British showed up to colonize, the islands were dotted with fishing villages; the sea and a safe harbor made it a good place to live. Much later, after China decided it did not want much to do with the rest of the world, Hong Kong became an obvious and successful conduit for trade. As a place that was "almost" China, it had a foot in both worlds.

Which brings us to our apartment. It is fairly large by Hong Kong standards. It was also mostly devoid of furniture by any standard. But we made a decision, a pact--we would not use Ikea furniture. Sure, it was one-tenth the price of other stuff and you could see every bit of it in a showroom. But if you go there for anything other than meatballs (or hot dogs--enormously popular at the Hong Kong Ikea), you can't miss the fact that a pulsating throng of other people are attracted to those same qualities.

Hong Kong has permanence. So should our furniture.

That has led to treks all around Hong Kong trying to track down an elusive couch or coffee table. Mrs. Blog has deployed her considerable design instincts and invested even more time on her own in the hunt. It has been a slow process, but it has brought us interesting pieces like these rearrangeable shelves, which may or may not remind you of a certain Slavic video game:

Try as I might, though, I can't remember the theme music.

So that has been a big part of our life, eating not just time for blogging--sorry, Dear Reader--but other stuff like seeing giant Buddhas on mountaintops. Don't worry, though, that's on our agenda.

I also have a job here. It's a good job, editing for a big, international media organization whose stories are read by millions worldwide. It has given me a face-to-face introduction to the global news cycle, which went something like this:

Hi, I'm Gerry.

GLOBAL NEWS CYCLE

Hi, I'm the global news cycle.

Nice to meet you. So tell me a little bit about yourself--

GNC

It's always overnight someplace. Which means the readers there are asleep. Which means they will wake up and see the news that someone else sees before they go to bed. Big election in California? Los Angelenos will see the preliminary results on the evening news and maybe the full story in the next day's paper. Hong Kongers--if they care about California elections at all--will get the full story online during their work day and get analysis in the morning paper. A story that starts in Hong Kong will be read last in California; a story that starts in New York will be read last in Hong Kong.

Hey, I didn't say it was a gripping conversation. But it's tough to wrap your head around, at least at first.

The job also meant at least dipping my toe into a lot of different skill sets. I have been editor of the sports section, editor of the business section, early news guy, late news guy, copy editor, deputy this and that... pretty much everything but Chief Coffeemaker, a title currently held by the office Nespresso machine.

Now I'm settling into a more steady role as a business editor. And this is a new thing for me. I filled my notebooks with hard news as a reporter, and as an editor I seldom came across a story with arcane terms like "basis points," "three-year money" and "Sachinidis" in close proximity. Or at all. But Hong Kong has changed all that, and I am enjoying it immensely.

This is the center of the financial universe at the moment, at least in terms of news. Everything that happens in China affects the rest of the world; there are too many people buying and manufacturing things there for their actions to go ignored. A tiny change in a key interest rate affects how many people borrow money, and how much money they borrow affects how much they spend, and that affects how many iPhones Apple sells. I am helping tell stories with nuts-and-bolts cores, and draping them with flesh that anyone, anywhere, can consume and appreciate.

Plus, insinuations of zombieism aside, check out the view from my office window:

A little of everything: sailboat racing, barges and tugboats, with a cruise ship watching.

And that brings us back to one of the major effects of all this nesting, learning and exploring. I haven't had much time to blog. Or, on some days, even take a deep breath. But here's the thing, the silver lining in this storm of activity: It means when I do sit down to write--and I have an office to write in now--my brain is nearly overflowing with new experiences that, whether I know it or not, are begging to be let onto the page.

Which is just a long-winded way of saying, "Don't worry, I'm going to blog more. Sorry about that."

Bamboo: it's what's for everything

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry) — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 14:45:00 +0000

I realize that the image of bamboo is invariably linked with Asia. But I have been surprised at the prevalence and seeming indestructibility of the wood in just about every heavy-duty application you could think of in Hong Kong.

There's our cutting board, which, despite aggressive cutting and repeated washing, shows no signs of being anything other than sturdy. There's our steamer, which can sit on pretty much any hot surface and not burn. Water (and obviously steam) don't seem to bother it either.

And there's the scaffolding. Our neighbor is having some work done on her windows, so the workmen have set up a complex web of bamboo around her place, about 150 feet in the air. Out of respect for her privacy, I won't post any pictures. But as impressive as it is, it pales in comparison to this...

Big.

... or even this.

Biggest bamboo.

So there you go. In New York, they use steel. In Hong Kong, they use (and re-use!) bamboo. But in both cases, I guess you can't argue with the results. But until you can stir-fry steel and eat it with pork, I think bamboo comes out ahead.

The future is right next door

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 14:39:00 +0000

Used to be, I would read about something happening in China and it would seem impossibly far away. Now I see that there is a second J-20, and I think hey, this is in my neighborhood.

Not actually next door.

Of course, "next door" in a big place like China means a lot of things. My neighborhood is nowhere near a military airfield. And it's not at all clear that the J-20 is the future of anything except cool-looking prototypes. But there is no question that I am in a different world now--a world where the building across the harbor flashes the weather forecast on a 200-foot billboard, escalator handrails are sanitized once an hour, and a mysterious stealth fighter is rolled out for all the world's cell phone cameras to see.

What March Madness looks like from the other side of the planet

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry) — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 14:54:00 +0000

On Sunday night in the U.S., Kansas and North Carolina played in the Elite Eight of the NCAA basketball tournament.

On Monday morning, I watched the game live.

Right now, Hong Kong is 12 hours ahead of the east coast, meaning a 4 p.m. tipoff in St. Louis equals a 5 a.m. alarm clock for me. It's a little surreal. Hong Kong is a bustling place; some nights it doesn't seem to sleep. But by 5 a.m. on a workday, it's pretty quiet. As I set up my laptop in our living room, nothing was moving outside except the gentle waves on Victoria Harbor.

It was an exciting game. Yet at this hour, and with Mrs. Blog fast asleep in another room, yelling, cursing or even whacking my forehead was a bit to boisterous. I resorted to sending frustrated e-mails to friends in the U.S. who were watching the game too.

If you squint really hard at the upper-right-hand corner, you can see me in my living room.

But the quiet was also helpful. During timeouts, I could look out the window at the lights across the harbor, watch the sunrise start to paint the edges of the sky, and take a deep breath. (It also helped that I planned to go back to bed after the game, meaning no coffee and a lower heart rate)

In the end, Kansas pulled off the upset, beating a UNC team with perhaps a half-dozen future NBA players on its roster. And as the sun rose, I took a deep breath and smiled: KU was going back to the Final Four.

Of course, that means I'll be awake again early on Sunday morning.

A dream crashes to earth

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 13:49:00 +0000

Last week, I saw a video of what appeared to be a guy living out the fantasy of every aviation dork: he strapped on wings, started flapping, and took off. I was ready to post, in glowing terms, about what that meant to this particular aviation dork.

But then I learned another bit of information: the whole thing was staged.

Bummer. Because as you can see above, the (CGI) stunt looked pretty awesome. Oh, well. It's only a matter of time, right? Until then, a guy can dream.

Movin' on in

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry) — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 15:25:00 +0000

At this point, I have been in Hong Kong a month. Some things have been remarkably easy--getting our HKID cards, for instance, was not only free, but literally just a matter of waiting in a couple of lines. Other things have been joyous discoveries, like realizing that not only is the Thai place across the street better than any Thai you've had in the last three years (looking at you here, Abu Dhabi), but a meal costs less than a U.S. movie ticket.

There has been plenty of exploration, both literal and metaphorical. Mrs. Blog and I have literally been from one end of the island to the other, plus a few extra islands, and most of the travel was in search of a couch.

Our original living room seating, before we got a couple of chairs (not pictured).

That proved somewhat frustrating. It's not that there aren't lots of furniture stores, but more that the couch we wanted did not seem to exist at a price that would not look out of place on a new car. Then we found one, but it wouldn't fit in our elevator. Eventually we bought a custom-made piece, which sounds extravagant but really isn't, because everything is made in China.

And wait a second, that's where we are! So problem solved.

But living in China--even the Special Administrative Region, which is quite special indeed--is not without its challenges. Shopping for anything, not just couches, can be an adventure if you go at the wrong time. And basically, "wrong time" means "anytime when most people are not at work. Go at noon on a Saturday and you just might find yourself surrounded by a few thousand of Hong Kong's 7 million people.

Throwing elbows for... sponges, I think.

The good news for us, though, is that we have several grocery stores, malls and markets within a 10-minute walk of our front door. In fact, with minimal effort we could get inside one mall without ever going outside.

Abu Dhabi had a lot of malls, too, though, so I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea. It's not like these malls were created because people needed places to go. It's more like almost every doorway at street level leads to a shop anyway, so it makes sense to concentrate them in massive vertical spaces. Hong Kong is a hive of commerce.

That said, it's also a city that knows how to have a good time. The food here is phenomenal--we ate at the world's cheapest Michelin-starred restaurant the other afternoon, spending perhaps US$20 for a dozen delicious dim sum dishes. There are bars all over the place. And a massive race track in the middle of the city, at which we spent an evening enjoying cold beer and colder luck.

Foreground: horses. Background: skyline. Not pictured: HK$10 bet on a losing horse.

To sum up: Hong Kong is an amazing place, with all the energy, excitement and frustrations of a big city. We're right in the middle of things, even if our apartment is not. And when we finally DO get that couch, we'll have something to look at:

Victoria Harbor, and behind it, Kowloon side.

The continuing saga of the not-so-secret J-20

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 09:51:00 +0000

Mrs. Blog and I are settling into our Hong Kong penthouse in the sky (OK, apartment halfway up a high-rise), which is excellent news and something I plan to write about when I have a bit more time. The NCAA tournament is about to start, too, which is also excellent news and a sign that I am about to trade some sleep time for basketball time—thanks a lot, guy who invented time zones.

All this settling in, though, means I now have a tiny bit of time for one of my favorite pursuits: gawking at airplanes.

That’s the new Chinese J-20. It really does look like a movie prop, doesn’t it? Slick. Although the more experts have gotten to look at it, the less stealthy it would seem to be. Check out the size of those big, radar-reflectin’ canards!

What's in a name?

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry) — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 08:02:00 +0000

The answer really depends on what you're looking for. If you're like me, and just got assigned a Chinese name on your business card, you're looking for the characters that make up that name. A simple proposition, right? Yeah, there it is on Google, "most commonly used Cantonese characters"… oh, wait, there are 3,000 of them.

Google translate: also no help.

This is no knock on Google; Chinese is an enormously complex langauge with characters rooted in all kinds of things, from direct visual representation of their meanings to phono-semantic compounds, which I'll let you go ahead and look up on Wikipedia. There does not seem to be an easy way to translate a proper name, even though all the characters in my name allegedly mean something.

And since the Internet has failed me and I only have a printed version, I guess I'm left with simply describing it to you.

In Chinese, my name is (Cross With an Upward Carat Next to Upside-Down Capital T With Small Extra Crossbar Halfway Up) (Cross With No Top and Upward Carat and Apostrophe Next to Top Hat With Two Stripes) (Gently Curved Upward Slash Crossed by Upside-Down, Backwards Capital L).

Pleased to meet you.

Making a splash

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 10:50:00 +0000

Mrs. Blog and I enjoyed a leisurely walk through Victoria Park this afternoon, soaking up some Sunday sunshine on my last day before I start my new job. Our destination was a small pond in a corner of the park--surrounded today by strollers and picnickers--designated for… racing remote-controlled boats.

And not graceful sailboats, either. Souped-up powerboats that zip around the course so fast they toss a spray of water onto giggling passers-by. At one point there were five guys with boats there, but because they were always taking them out to fine tune (or repair), only two craft were ever in the water at the same time.

I told you they were fast. And I told you they had to be fixed a lot… like that boat that suddenly stopped running at the end of the video. That led to this:

Rescue mission.

And while he was fixing his boat, another racer showed up with something a bit slower, but definitely showier. Note the helicopter on the aft deck, complete with spinning rotors:

Note to readers: A remote-controlled aircraft carrier or battleship would make a great birthday present. Just saying'.

Oh, the places I've been

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 03:14:00 +0000

Good morning, Readers of the Blog. You have no doubt noticed yet another gap in my writing in this space. That's because Mrs. Blog and I pulled up stakes (i.e., checked out of our hotel in Abu Dhabi) and left the Big Sand for the Big City.

I'm typing this in Hong Kong. Specifically, in a serviced apartment in a neighborhood called Causeway Bay. Outside is a sea of people and neon, and I love it.

We're going to the sheep restaurant because it has such a great sign.

But it was a winding road to get here, people. From the 'Dhabs, we made a four-day trip to Beirut--an amazing, cosmopolitan place in which bulletholes and RPG-riddled buildings share streets with upscale boutiques and bars. Then it was back on tourist visas to Abu Dhabi for a couple of days. Then it was Doha for a half-day (nice museum, terrible taxi service, frustrating airport), then Hong Kong for the Chinese New Year.

Boom. (photo courtesy Mrs. Blog)

And THEN we went to New Zealand for two weeks for a much-delayed honeymoon. We visited some dear friends, I jumped off a bridge, we cruised through an unspoiled fjord that looked straight out of a Peter Jackson movie, we hiked up to a glacier face, we kayaked in the waters of the Tasman Sea, we rode a jetboat.

For those of you keeping score, the day we arrived in New Zealand we had been to five countries in a week. That's a personal record that I don't think I'll ever break.

Now we're settling down to the business of starting work and finding an apartment. We spent nearly eight hours pounding the pavement with a property agent yesterday, and although we arrived home with achy feet, our heads were also full of plans, dreams and furniture layouts.

We might be staying in one place for a bit, but the adventure continues.

Return of the Misc Box

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 07:19:00 +0000

As I described here, when we left Chicago, all of our careful packing ended with a pile of relatively unrelated items and an empty box. If we couldn't think of anyplace else it belonged, it went in that container: the Misc Box.

Now, as we leave Abu Dhabi, we are left with another Misc Box. (note: the boxes are smaller this time, so there are actually two)

Packing it is a matter of necessity. We can't take everything in suitcases, we don't need everything with us before we find an apartment, so it makes sense to ship it and store it. That's the only consideration.

But I wonder what they will be like to unpack? Will we be wondering why there are a handful of wall socket adapters, some playing cards and a bag of garam masala tucked into a springform pan? Will we be excited as we pull out a game we had forgotten about? Unfurl a poster we were thrilled to find?

I don't know the answer. But I can't wait to find out.

What would you do?

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 07:36:00 +0000

People living in the UAE consider it very safe. Violent crime is minimal and, for the most part, limited to the rather dismal industrial areas and prefab cities where "laborers," i.e., construction workers, are housed in massive, cramped barracks.

The main reason for this is that the justice system is horribly out of whack and you don't want to get caught up in it, even if you're innocent. If you're guilty (or found guilty), even some of the most minor offenses, like shoplifting, can get you deported. And for most of the blue-collar folks here--in other words, the have-nots, those most likely to commit theft--that's an economic death sentence, as their home countries offer worse wages, worse living conditions and fewer opportunities.

So what would you do if this happened to you?

Paying the taxi, I realised I'd left my wallet in the car. I called the girl at the service centre and headed back to Al Habtoor. I was laughing and joking with her as we got to the car together and I picked up my wallet, which had been relieved of its cash contents, about Dhs400 in all.

It didn't sink in at all until later. Someone had actually taken money from my car. To those of you living elsewhere, this will come as no surprise, you're probably sitting there thinking, 'Like, obviously, duh' and I appreciate why you would. But I live in one of the safest places in the world. We're all of us on the hog's back here, from labourers through to CEOs we're all in the UAE because we're better off than we would be back at home. Any criminal conviction, once you've done your time in El Slammer, means getting sent home and so crime, for the vast majority of us, doesn't pay.

The service centre manager was, I was told, investigating. After a while, he'd drawn a blank and, well, that was sort of that, really. I asked him to call the police. He said they wouldn't do anything, he'd had experience of this sort of thing before. I insisted. He refused. I pointed out it was his secure area, his employee and his responsibility. He said they had internal procedures and he couldn't call the police. I asked him to escalate to someone who could call the police and he ignored me. It all got a little heated. It wasn't really about Dhs400 by now, but about someone who had chosen to steal from me. I called the police myself. After ringing out twice, the 999 number answered. I had tried calling police HQ, but they didn't answer at all. You do wonder sometimes.

The CID chap turned up, a young chap in a baseball cap and dishdash. The service centre manager and I explained (he had no English) and he nodded sagely and took my ID, borrowing a pen and piece of paper from the manager to write down my details. Watching him, I was strongly reminded of our friend captain Mohammed filling out Paul's charge sheet in Olives, his tongue stuck out in concentration...

At this point one of the service staff popped in and put a wad of money on the manager's desk and murmered a name. I got the impression the staff had taken matters into their own hands - nobody really wants CID snooping around their workplace asking awkward questions. The culprit was called for - the most stupid thief imaginable - the man whose job it was to drive the cars around to the storage area prior to work commencing. He had already been through 20 minutes of questioning with the manager before the police were called and had professed his innocence. Now he broke down and pleaded for mercy.

On the one hand, you have been robbed. Dh400 is about US$100, not a ton of money but not trivial either. And there is principle to consider as well; no one likes the idea of a wrongdoer simply getting away with it.

On the other hand, in the U.S. stealing $100 would be a misdemeanor. The offender gets a fine, maybe some community service. Jail time is not likely unless they are wanted for some other crime too. To me, that's appropriate. It's punishment commensurate with the severity of the theft. In the UAE, as we see above, that guy is getting tossed out of the country, whether he winds up in court or not. I'm not sure I would want that on my conscience.

It actually reminds me of something that happened to me and Mrs. Blog the last time we were in the World's Greatest City. While walking back to our hotel on Michigan Avenue, a commotion broke out at a sidewalk restaurant ahead of us. A young man came sprinting out of the crowd, followed by cries of, "Stop that guy! He stole my phone!" I and a couple of other people who happened to be in front of him kind of corralled him and kept him from running. The woman whose phone had been jacked ran up and yelled at him. We let go of his arms and he gave the phone back.

And then everyone kind of unconsciously took a step back as the woman continued to berate him. He apologized, she shouted one last obscenity at him, and then he jogged away.

No one stopped him. Why? Again, I think it is that feeling that maybe holding this guy and calling the police might be a bit too much. He stole something, he got caught, end of story. I'm not sure that was the right thing to do, but collectively, that's what everyone apparently decided. If it happened again--or, more important, if Mrs. Blog or I were the person whose phone had been stolen--I might do things differently and get the police involved.

But here, having seen the way the police and courts operate, I think I would be predisposed toward not allowing them to punish someone for a minor theft. Right or wrong, I think I would rather get my money back and leave it at that. Justice may or may not have been served, but my life would barely be affected by losing Dh400, and it seems disproportionate to ruin someone else's life as a result.

Now you see it, now you... never saw it

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:27:00 +0000

As I put it to Friend of the Blog Chris, it's gratifying to see that science has finally caught up with our imaginations. The science experiment I'm about to describe is pretty mind-bending, and I admit I don't totally understand the science behind it. (Although, it should be noted, that's fair because Dammit, Jim, I'm a writer, not a scientist.)

But wow, is this ever intriguing. I haven't read the original journal article, but based on what I have seen elsewhere, it works something like this: by slowing the speed of light from an event by passing it through a denser material but leaving the light from the event's surroundings unchanged, you can make it seem as though that event never happened.

The entire experiment occurred inside a fiber optics cable. Researchers passed a beam of green light down the cable, and had it move through a lens that split the light into two frequencies, one moving slowly and the other faster. As that was happening, they shot a red laser through the beams. Since the laser “shooting” occurred during a teeny, tiny time gap, it was imperceptible.

My questions--again, writer, not scientist--revolve around what happens to the light from the event itself. Yes, it is slowed down, but it is not eliminated. Doesn't it arrive at the viewer at some point? Does that create some kind of a weird double-image later in time?

In any event, the same article quoted above notes, using present technology it would take a device more than 18,000 miles long to mask an event lasting one second. But still. Think of how many one-second events have changed history: a gunshot, a kiss, a word. This wouldn't let you alter events, exactly, but it would obviously do a number on how they were perceived.

The imagination boggles. Which, I guess, is great if you're a writer... or, it seems, a scientist.

Happy New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 05:22:00 +0000

Well, Friends of the Blog, the holidays have slowed down my posting frequency. I hope you'll understand, and I'll try to illustrate my reasons with pictures if possible.

Christmas is an interesting affair here in the UAE. The malls and big stores are onboard with the holiday 100 percent--hey, it's another reason to spend money! The halls are all decked with boughs of fake holly, massive Christmas trees are erected, banners are hung from the rafters with care, and so on. The mall next to our current hotel digs even had a Santa, and there was always at least a small line of kids waiting to have their picture taken and tell him all about that Red Ryder BB gun they really, really wanted.

But of course, when you're 7,500 miles from home, there is still one crucial thing missing: family. (and snow, if you're into that kind of thing) No long table laden with turkey, no bowl games--yeah, even the crappy pre-New Year's games--no pretending that pair of socks from Aunt Doris really IS the most exciting gift anyone has ever received.

Although I do love a good pair of socks. I have big feet. But anyway.

When you're an expat, you have to make do. You're in unusual surroundings… do something unusual! So naturally we all planned a bowling party in honor of Jesus' birthday at the only alley in town that serves beer. And, as luck would have it, they catered in a turkey dinner too. Win-win-win. What about presents? you ask. Well, we also did a draw-a-number-and-pick-a-gift Secret Santa. That's how I wound up with this lovely ceramic coffee cup:

I love coffee and I love my name. Perfect!

Christmas weekend in general was pretty amazing, too. We had a fantastic brunch on the 23rd that ended up at one of the new beach clubs on Abu Dhabi's newest and betest island, Saadiyat. Saadiyat means "happiness," by the way, and although I have strong suspicions (sorry, Sheikh Mo) that most of its grand plans won't amount to anything, you can see why sitting on a beach out there might make a guy happy:

The sun sets on my last December 23 ever in the UAE.

Christmas Eve was another great get-together at another friend's house, filled with food, fun and Doyle-made Brandy Alexanders. There were Christmas crackers…

Filled with bad jokes and a crown.

… and fond holiday wishes. Also a fair amount of conversation about the caption to the sunset photo.

After nearly three years here, we're leaving the UAE. The National has led us to some tremendous experiences, and we have gotten to explore a region that most people we know will never visit. Fjords in Oman, cave dwellings in Turkey, pyramids in Egypt, ancient cities in Jordan--the list of once-in-a-lifetime type moments is long.

But we're ready to leave desert life, despite some really amazing winters (just LOOK at that sunset photo), behind. So in January, we're hopping a flight to Hong Kong. It's bigger, it's greener and perhaps most important, it's where my next job is, as an editor at what most people consider the leading international newspaper in the world. The move heralds another fascinating step in our lives since I left the Tribune.

Both Mrs. Blog and I are excited about seeing what Hong Kong, China and greater Asia have to offer. Just being in reach of amazing dim sum is enough to bring a smile to my face. There are going to be challenges--it is a tremendously crowded region, and Hong Kong is 95 percent Chinese, meaning there is a much higher language barrier than we're used to--but overcoming them will, I think, be part of the fun.

It will be sad to say goodbye to the good friends we have made here. But moving to Hong Kong means our new year is starting out with a bang--just the way the Chinese like it.

Here's to your 2012 getting off to a colorful, exciting, amazing start. Happy New Year!

It's Christmas Eve, babe (again)

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 03:02:00 +0000

This is quite a happy--and eventful--Christmas for Mrs. Blog and I. But that doesn't mean Read Ink will stray from its holiday traditions:

Merry Christmas!

Slightly underqualified

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 10:43:00 +0000

My dream job is hiring right now. Unfortunately, I fall short in a few key areas, like having 1,000 hours of jet aircraft flight time and a degree in engineering, medicine or technology.

On the bright side, I'm the right height and have perfect vision.

I am of course talking about the Astronaut Candidate position being advertised on the government jobs Web site right now.

You get to take cool pictures like this if you get the job.

The Guy Sitting Next to Me is of the opinion of, "How hard a job is that, anyway? All they're doing is just sitting there." That of course is not true, but even if it were, being an astronaut would be the best... desk job... ever.

Remember when stealth technology was mysterious?

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 07:23:00 +0000

Now it's available for export. Lockheed Martin has agreed to sell Japan 42 of its almost-ready-to-mass-produce F-35 Lightning II multirole aircraft. The F-35 is stealthier than any other production aircraft in the world besides the F-22, and has other fascinating capabilities, like an electro-optical helmet-mounted display that lets the pilot literally look through the bottom and sides of the plane. Neat stuff, and I'm happy Japan is replacing its F-4s with such a capable piece of hardware.

But it makes me think back to the 1980s, when stealth technology basically sounded like science fiction (although the first prototypes were flying in the 70s) and no one knew exactly what it looked like until the F-117 made its debut. And what a debut: The Nighthawk looked like no other aircraft before it (and no other aircraft since)... almost alien, and definitely impressive.

Lookin' sharp. Literally.

Now it is horribly outdated and retired. And its limitations--slow, no air-to-air capability to speak of, blind spots in onboard sensors--have been addressed, and then some, by the Raptor, the world's most advanced fighter.

The biggest sign that the technology has come a long way, and continues to advance in secret, is that the U.S. is building a stealth airframe that has been approved for export. By the end of the decade, the U.S., Britain, Japan and probably South Korea, among others, will all be flying various iterations of the Lightning II. Yes, they are staunch U.S. allies and it is hardly a threat to national security to ensure they have high-tech hardware.

But it also means the U.S., whose Air Force top brass has long adhered to the doctrine that it "never wants to be in a fair fight," has something better up its sleeve.

Can't wait to see it.

When I was 18, it was a very busy year

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 07:34:00 +0000

For reasons that aren't worth explaining, I just got a copy of my university transcript. I graduated longer ago than I like to think about, so there is a fair amount of stuff that I simply had forgotten about.

Taking 18 hours a semester? Yep--I remember that. The excellent feeling at the start of my last semester when I realized I only needed 13 to graduate and could relax? Also a clear memory.

No problem remembering this, either.

Fundamentals of Physical Anthropology and Elements of Sociology? Not so much. Which is a shame, because I know I learned stuff in those classes, even if I can't remember who taught them.

Not surprisingly, the classes I remember most are the ones in my majors: journalism and philosophy. I have stayed in touch with many of the professors and students in those areas. But there are others that jump out at me as well--Greek and Roman Mythology, for instance, was a fascinating class and very difficult to get into. And although I have forgotten some of the physical attributes of the gods that once made it possible for me to identify them in statue form, there is a lot of stuff that remains tucked in my brain cells. I also remember sitting next to Friend (and eventual Best Man) of the blog Nhan. We were both kind of shocked at how much we enjoyed the class.

Anyway, as far as trips down memory lane go, this one was pretty good. But mostly it shines a light on just how far I have come and how many amazing things have happened to me since then. And it also makes me happy I never have to take Symbolic Logic ever again.

That's no moon, that's a...

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 11:46:00 +0000

More proof that if you look into space long enough, you're bound to spot something interesting. A NASA/U.S. Navy mission to keep tabs on the Sun's solar flares (using satellites called STEREO A and B) took this video:

Hmmmm. (to see the original, not-so-X-Filed version, go here)

As Gizmodo puts it,

The video shows a coronal mass ejection coming from the Sun and reaching the planet Mercury. Coronal mass ejections are massive explosions of solar wind, radiation and magnetic fields that go well beyond the solar corona, deep into space. They are so big that sometimes they reach Earth.

You can see the gigantic solar wave reaching Mercury but, just as it goes through, something else becomes visible: a very angular shape that seems to be formed by two separate objects joined together. It looks as if the CME wave reveals a volume on impact, interacting with it.

You know, like a cloaked Klingon Bird of Prey being uncovered by the Sun's radioactive fury.

So, digital artifact or planet-sized spaceship? I know which one I want the answer to be. Perhaps it came from our newly discovered sister planet....

There's no place like... wait a second

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 11:41:00 +0000

It was only a matter of time. Scientists say they have found what might be a true "Goldilocks planet," perfectly positioned around a star so that it's the right temperature for liquid water. It's also sized appropriately for human use--approximately 2.4 times the size of Earth, but there's no telling at this point how dense it is. Nor do we know, at this point, what the composition of its atmosphere is.

The newly confirmed planet, Kepler-22b, is the smallest yet found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a star similar to our sun. The planet is about 2.4 times the radius of Earth. Scientists don't yet know if Kepler-22b has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition, but its discovery is a step closer to finding Earth-like planets.

Previous research hinted at the existence of near-Earth-size planets in habitable zones, but clear confirmation proved elusive. Two other small planets orbiting stars smaller and cooler than our sun recently were confirmed on the very edges of the habitable zone, with orbits more closely resembling those of Venus and Mars.

"This is a major milestone on the road to finding Earth's twin," said Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Kepler's results continue to demonstrate the importance of NASA's science missions, which aim to answer some of the biggest questions about our place in the universe."

Keep in mind, this is 600 light years away. That means if there IS anyone on that planet, and they happen to be looking in our directions, they won't pick up any, say, radio signals for another 500 years.

But it's a start. And an intriguing one at that. There are likely to be many, many planets like this, and if we look at enough of them, we might end up with a Sparrow moment.

Wouldn't you prefer a nice game of chess?

noreply@blogger.com (Gerry) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 07:57:00 +0000

All games involve solving problems. Sometimes it's just you and some cards, trying to figure out how to get all the suits lined up in order as you play Solitaire.

Sometimes it's you and another person, matching wits as you try to create obstacles for their pieces while simultaneously marching yours into your home base. That's backgammon.

Yet other times, you're talking about dozens of people, all of whom can be utilized in different ways to get an advantage in either advancing or stopping a ball from moving down the field. That's football.

But these days, mostly thanks to the Internet, there are games that involve thousands of people trying to solve a problem. Sometimes it is something as straightforward as an online role-playing or combat games. Other times it is a so-called "alternate reality game," where participants interact in the real world to reach an objective, often the solution to a mystery. Think of it as a Host A Murder dinner party with a million guests.

Those types of challenges can be fun. But they can also be productive. Much as projects like SETI@home use thousands or millions of computers to analyze data, having multitudes of people analyzing a problem can lead to a quick solution.

For instance, how long do you think it would take one person to put this paper-based Humpty Dumpty back together again?

Word spaghetti, served al dente.

DARPA--an increasingly often-cited agency on Read Ink--took the picture above to the masses, offering a US$50,000 prize for whoever could accurately piece back together five shredded documents in roughly one month.

They got a winner, too (solutions here). Some of the 9,000-ish entrants used brute force, simply having a whole bunch of people sifting through strips of paper. But the victorious team created an algorithm that essentially compared all the strips to one another and generated a "probability of fit" score. That meant the human operator could ignore pieces with a low score and examine only the ones that were likely to go next to each other.

And it still took a month to solve.

But besides being an interesting challenge, it is also an effective way to solve a bigger problem. Need a method? Consult the masses. DARPA essentially paid US$50,000 to solve a meta-problem that probably would have taken millions of dollars to examine with a smaller team of dedicated researchers.

And because this is a writing blog, I should of course note the impact this will have on the world's thriller authors. Need your spy to destroy some documents? Better have her burn them... otherwise, no secret is safe.