The Tale of Two Stadiums

When we travel, we always take in a baseball game or two if we can. This summer we were in Chicago for a wedding. Normally, we'd take in a Cubs game but they were out of town. We could have went to see the White Sox, but since I have no interest in ever visiting that park again, we chose not to.When looking at the baseball landscape in Chicago, on the north side, you've got one of baseball's gems, Wrigley Field and on the south side you have Guaranteed Rate Field which is horrendous.

You have to wonder if the people who designed the White Sox stadium ever watched a game in person before they put pen to paper. Built in 1991, it was built before the new wave of great new ballparks that started with Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Oriole Park was built in 1992 and started the trend of great new ballparks. The White Sox missed the wave. The stairs are so steep at this park, the one time I visited in the late 90's, I almost got vertigo walking to my seat. It is a big pile of concrete with no character or charm. Not only that, but you get the impression that the people running the show really don't get it. The music between innings is so loud you have to yell at each other to converse. By the fifth inning I had a head ache. Contrast this with the melodious organ at Fenway which is not only entertaining but relaxing. So when visiting Chicago and you want take in a game, unless you want vertigo and a headache, check out Wrigley. It has maintained its charm since it was built over a hundred years ago. It doesn't change its name every few years either. I generally just call the White Sox stadium, White Sox stadium because I lose track of their field naming rights.

The tale of two stadiums I am writing about is not the Chicago parks, but the two parks we visited on our drive home from Chicago, Progressive Field in Cleveland (to see the Red Sox) and PNC Park in Pittsburgh (to see the Cubs).

Cleveland: As a Red Sox fan since the mid-70's I remember watching games at Cleveland (via television) which must have had only a few hundred fans there.They were a perennial last place team and kinda of a joke. They have had really turned things around since then. Jacob's Field being built in 1993 has a lot to do with this. Going to a game is enjoyable so people are more likely go ... imagine that!  More people going means more money to the team, therefore they can get better players and build a stronger farm system etc. It was commonly referred to as The Jake and still is even though Progressive Insurance bought the naming rights in 2008 and renamed it Progressive Field. I find the name ironic.

If this is your team logo, you have no business using the word "progressive" in any capacity.

So I won't be calling it the Jake or Progressive Field, I will be calling Regressive Field.

I could point out here that the team decided not to use Chief Wahoo anymore but many of the fans still do so. They wear shirts with this symbol and some of them have slogans like "Save Chief Wahoo."  You can name your team after groups of people. For example, the Minnesota football team is called the Vikings and the Boston basketball team is called the Celtics ... this is because there are a lot of Norwegians in Minnesota and a lot of Irish in Boston. To my knowledge, not a lot of Native Americans in Cleveland. Also, neither Norwegians nor Irish were hunted to near extinction by the US population and our government. Norwegians did not have their land invaded and stolen, weren't round up at gun point and marched into concentration camps called "reservations." The experience of the Irish immigrant is not great in this country but the government never handed out rewards for the scalps of the Irish. So it is really dickish for a team, in 2019,  to be named the Indians, and guess what, by extension, you are a dick if you wear this logo. Many people already call them The Tribe. Why not rename them? Oh that's right, you are not renaming the team... because you are a dick.This makes total sense.

With this in mind, you can guess, I didn't go into Regressive Field to see my Red Sox with a very positive attitude. The park is quite beautiful. We went to two games. The first game we went to we had good seats between home plate and the Red Sox dugout. These were very expensive. The ticket prices are jacked when the Red Sox are in town. The second game we bought the day of the game so we bought tickets in the nose bleeds and they were quite nice. The picture below is was taken from those seats. We were in the second to the last row.

The park itself was perfect. Nothing wrong with it. Not quite as nice as Comerica Park in Detroit or the Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, but it is a gorgeous park. It is a lot nicer than the White Sox mess and a better experience than the new Yankee Stadium or Montreal's Big O. If you are a fan of baseball and in Cleveland, it is definitely worth seeing.

Most of the things I didn't like about the experience had nothing to do with the building.  The capacity is almost 43,000 and it was only about half full. At the time, they were in a pennant race, tied for first place and another contending team was visiting. You think there would be more fans there. Like the White Sox stadium, it is incredibly loud. Not only the music between innings, but the words "make some noise" were constantly being flashed on the jumbotron. It was loud visually, not just auditory. I've never been to a park where the fans had to be prompted to be loud. Normally, they are loud because they are at the game. Do you see the pinkish/purplish lights in my photo? Those lights were constantly flashing throughout the game.

These fans were not Yankee-fan-rude, but they were pretty rude. Chris Sale started the first game for the Red Sox and he pitched very well.  When he left the game, they booed him. This is another thing I've never seen. This is baseball, a civilized game, a game for gentlemen. A great pitcher like Sale leaves the game, you cheer for him. We do it at Fenway, I expect fans on the road to do as well. I've seen Red Sox fans stand and clap for Yankees if they performed well. Even Yankee fans would cheer for Sale if he pitched a gem like he did. But again, since the fans at Cleveland are dicks, I guess my expectations were too high. No wonder they haven't won a World Series since since 1948. What players would stay here with such poor sportsmanship in the stands.

The team is complicit in this as well. When the Red Sox made a great play, it wasn't shown on the jumbotron. Only good plays by Cleveland are shown on the jumbotron. Again, I've never seen this before. Kinda petty! If I'm ever in Cleveland again, I will not be returning to Regressive Field.  On my way out of town, someone tried to steal my bike off of my bike rack on my car. This has never happened before either. Eh! Return to Cleveland! But why?

Pittsburgh: The difference between these two cities couldn't be wider.  While Cleveland is flat and beside a Great Lake, Pittsburgh is hilly at the convergence of three major rivers. They are only a few hours apart. Pittsburgh's hills gives it some character and makes it picturesque. PNC Park opened in 2001 and of the new parks, it is the nicest I've visited. As you can see by my picture, it is in downtown like the old parks. It is also on the Alleghany River so it has a river walk that is open to the fans before the rest of the park.

It seems like the people who run this park, just get it. They understand the fan experience unlike Regressive Field or White Sox stadium. They understand what an enjoyable experience is like at the park. The music isn't too loud and occasionally had some traditionally organ music. The fans are friendly and the place was packed. This is a last place team. The jumbotron has some fun things on it, but it wasn't overwhelming. They portrayed the Pirates players in comic book art form on the second time through the order. On the third time through the batting order, they were portrayed as Legos.  Unlike Cleveland, it is very jovial environment at PNC park. We were rooting for the visiting Cubs, but the fans were still quite friendly. The great tickets we had, behind home plate were relatively cheap. We may stop into Pittsburgh again and again. We go to Chicago enough and it is a nice stop (a small detour) along the way.

At both games we went to they played this take on the Pirate of the Caribbean in the bottom of the ninth:

Very entertaining.

I still have a lot of parks to get all 30 in. By the time I get them all in, I am sure there will be newer ones to get to. Perhaps there will be a new park in Vegas or Portland Oregon on the horizon if expansion comes as it is expected. Here is my list of the Major League parks I have visited in order of favorite to least favorite:
Fenway in Boston
Wrigley in Chicago
PNC in Pittsburgh
Comerica in Detroit
Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati
Oriole Park in Camden Yards, Baltimore
Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia
old Yankee Stadium in NYC
Kaufman Stadium in Kansas City
Rogers Centre (was named SkyDome when I visited) in Toronto
Petco Park in San Diego
Shea Stadium in NYC
new Yankee Stadium in NYC
Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia
Guaranteed Rate Field (called Comiskey Park when I visited) in Chicago
Kingdome in Seattle
Olympic Stadium in Montreal

Orange Donald's The Wall

Perhaps we should be grateful for the current government shutoff for it will help bring Trump down. Democrats are winning this standoff. It is another example of Trump's incompetence and of how out of touch with reality he is. He still has no idea how Washington works. To play with the metaphor, all in all it is "just another brick in the wall." It will be nice to see him brought down either via an election in 2020 or an impeachment. This nonsense will be a big part of his undoing.

We already have a border wall covering parts of our southern border. The US border with Mexico is 1,954 miles in which 580 miles are covered either by a border wall or fencing. From the east, the fencing starts in Brownsville, Texas (on the Gulf of Mexico) and ends in San Diego, California where it juts out into the Pacific Ocean surf. It has some obvious gaps along the way which are monitored by cameras, sensors and other surveillance equipment. From Brownsville to Del Rio, Texas is border fencing (about 300 miles) and then it stops because the Rio Grande River is too marshy or there are mountains. The Rio Grande is no longer the border after El Paso, since it comes southeast down from the Rockies and it no longer runs west to east. There are about 400 miles without fencing in between Del Rio and El Paso. Is this the spot where Trump wants to put his wall?  Why? Are Central American families trudging through the mud of the Rio Grande or climbing over the mountains of Big Bend National Park? This is nonsense.

Vehicle barriers are in highly populated areas. Vehicles once drove over the border importing drugs. The barrier was built in the 1990's and has barbed wire around it to prevent people from going through the cracks. This is what the vehicle barrier looks like:

The fencing looks awful lot like a wall to me so whether this is a a wall or just fencing seems to be a moot point:

The conclusion I get from looking at the maps and photos is that our government is shut down so that our president can pay for a $5 billion wall in marshy, mountainous or desert areas that are already impassable. A concrete wall from San Diego to Brownsville is not only a bad idea to help solve our immigration problem, it would be a disaster for the environment. Access to the river is the only water supply for miles. Putting up a barrier simply kill the wildlife.

For a video tour of the border check out this link from USA Today. Click on the arrows on the map from right to left (east to west) for the video tour via helicopter. This is very educational. The closest I've ever been to the Mexican border is a brief visit to the Padre Islands so I am totally clueless about this area of the country.

Illegal immigration is not a big problem. Undocumented workers usually become model citizens and commit less crimes (on average) than people who were born here. There may be a few that are "rapists and murderers" like our President says, but for the most part, they are good people, running away from horrendous conditions, looking for a place to live peacefully and away from the violence of their homeland. If you are concerned about violence, perhaps we should deport more citizens because, on average, we commit more crime, violent or otherwise.

Trump has not made a logical case for expanding the existing wall which would be very expensive, time consuming and seemingly impossible/impractical in some areas. It is obvious why he hasn't made the case because there is no logical case for it. It is mere fear mongering, jingoism and dog-whistle racism. His own party controlled both houses of Congress for the first two years of his administration. If they thought it was a good idea they would have approved the funding, but they kept telling him to wait, kicking the can to the Democrats. Now that the Democrats control the House, he wants to play chicken with every one's lives. Our food supply is susceptible to tampering because the FDA is diminished, we are less safe because the TSA is diminished, the guards at our Federal prisons are working double shifts without pay, our National Parks are being trashed and our Federal employees are in dire straits with no idea when their next pay check is coming.  Trump, once again, is a national embarrassment.

Picks of the Year: 2018

Two dates hang over us separated by a hyphen. Our year of birth and our year of death. It is on the hyphen is where all the fun happens. Congratulations to everyone reading this. The date after the hyphen will at least be 2019, hopefully much higher.

2018 was a pretty shitty year in regards to history. The stock market has been a roller coaster ride, our president has been as bad as ever, school shootings are still plentiful and our environmental problems are escalating, but it is was still a pretty good year for me and my immediate family.

In March, we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary and had a group of friends and family over for a bonfire. In October, we took a trip to Boston to see the Red Sox play the first playoff game of the season and they not only won the game we attended, but they won the World Series, fourth time in the 21st century.

We lost our electricity for three days in November and we are currently without a fridge (for two weeks now). A new one is delivered on Thursday morning. 

Favorite Trip:
We had our first tropical vacation this year with a week in the Dominican Republic. A resort vacations are not our style, but it was incredibly relaxing. I'm not sure if I will ever go to resort again, but I enjoyed it. Staying one place during a vacation and not exploring isn't exactly what I am used to nor to my liking. 

We also had road trips to Kansas City to see the Red Sox with a stop in Chicago to see my wife's family and the Cubs. We went to Clearwater, Florida for a week with visits to Virginia and Baltimore to see friends. I had a business trip to Vegas which I hate and we went into Boston to see the Sox a couple of times. 

Media:
Best New Podcast:

I discovered a handful of new pod casts this year: 

• Retropod - a short history podcast by Washington Post
• The Indicator by Planet Money - a short economic podcast where they dissect a number                                                      from the economy
• This Song - a radio station out of Austin TX, KUTX, talks to musicians about a song that                                                     inspired them. 
• By the Book - these two woman read a self help book and for a month live by it. It is very                                                     funny. 
• Pod Dylan - One Bob Dylan song is dissected
• The Great Albums - One great rock album is dissected. 
• Everything Is Alive - an interview with an inanimate object. 

Everything Is Alive is my favorite new podcast. It is put out by producers of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. It is hysterical. They usually have comedians playing the objects. They interview a lamppost, a subway seat, a grain of sand, an elevator etc. 

Best Book I read this year:

I read the following books this year:

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nahisi Coates (audio book)
Lamb: The Gospel According to BIff, Christ's Childhood Pal - Christopher Moore
Because They Wanted To - Mary Gaitskill
A Man Called Ove - Fredrik Bachman
Grunt by Mary Roach
The Rising Plague by Brad Spellberg
A Prayer for Owen Meaney by John Irving (reread)
Var the Stick by Piers Anthony
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman (currently reading)

I didn't meet my goal of twelve books. Lamb was probably my favorite. Not often does a book make me laugh out loud. His writing reminded me of Tom Robbins. 

Favorite Movie I Saw in a Theater: 

I saw the following movies in the theater this year: 

Vice, Boy Erased, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Crazy Rich Asians, Won't You Be My Neighbor, Sorry to Bother You, RBG, Deadpool II, Avengers: Infinity War, The Post and BlackKKlansman. 

The Avengers movie might be my favorite in that I don't think I've ever been as shocked as I was by the ending. Overall, it was not a great year for movies.

Favorite new TV show: 

My wife and I just started rewatching ER from the very beginning on Hulu. We are pleasantly surprised how much the show holds up. We tried to watch St. Elsewhere and it didn't hold up at all. We are on season 2 of ER now and plan on bingeing all the way to the end. Maybe we'll finish by the end of 2019. 

In the meantime, I discovered a lot of new shows in 2018.  

Among them are:  Big Mouth, Star Trek: Discovery, The Marvelous Mrs Maizel, Homecoming, Jack Ryan, The Haunting of Hill House, Goliath, Humans, American Gods, The Rain, Safe, Disenchantment, Bodyguard, Ken Burns' Vietnam, Maniac, The Sinner, The Secret City, Collateral, Lost in Space, Requiem, Seven Seconds, The End of the Fucking World, Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams, Absentia, Victoria and Fleabag. 

Hands down, my favorite is The Marvelous Mrs. Maizel on Amazon. A Jewish housewife in 1950's NYC delves into stand up comedy. It is a treat for fans of comedy, history and drama. Big Mouth on Netflix is probably my second favorite, cringe-worthy, but fantastic comedy.

Favorite Albums:
I bought seven albums/CDs from 2018. I went fairly mellow this year. My favorite has to be John Prine's "The Tree of Forgiveness."  Yes, John Prine is still alive and putting out some of his best music. His lyrics are as witty and poignant as ever. 

Here are the albums:
"Secularia" by Eliza Gilkyson
"Free Yourself Up" by Lake Street Dive
"Everyday Life, Everyday People" by Slightly Stoopid
"The Deconstruction" by Eels
"By the Way, I Forgive You" by Brandi Carlile 
"All the Things That I Did, All the Things I Didn't Do" by Milk Carton Kids
"The Tree of Forgiveness" by John Prine

Favorite Songs:
I have 247 MP3 songs from 2018. Below is a list of some of my favorites. If I have to pick a favorite, which is difficult, I have to pick "Fire Drills" by Dessa. I don't often pick a hip-hop songs as the best but this one is truly great. I might have to go back to 2005 when I last picked a hip-hop song with Mood Ruff's "Rocketship."  

Favorite new songs of the year.
"Bloodless" Andrew Bird
"The Mother" Brandi Carlile
"Under the Wheels" Calexico
"My Old Man" Chuck Auerbach
"Crack the Case" Dawes
"On and On" Dead Horses
"Fire Drills" Dessa
"The Deconstruction" and "Rusty Pipes" The Eels
"Egg & Daughter Nite, Lincoln Nebraska, 1967 (Crazy Bone)" John Prine
"Summer's End" John Prine
"Beverly" Low Cut Connie
"Hey Mama" Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats
"Baby Don't Leave Me Alone With My Thoughts" Lake Street Dive
"Hell-on" Neko Case
"Desire" Ought
"One More Night" Slightly Stoopid
"Choosing Sides" Benjamin Lazar Davis
"Wild" Molly Burch
"Things I Learned" Motel Mirrors
"Glass Jar" Tristen
"Your Dog" Soccer Mommy
"Lay Low" Gretchen Peters

Enjoy 2019. I'll be here. 

The Resort Vacation

When we were younger, the vacations that my wife and I went on were extremely cheap. They usually involved a road trip and a tent. Even our honeymoon was a road trip from Boston to Montana up to Canada's Jasper National Park and then back home across Canada. These were great times. Now we have more cash we are still not extravagant travelers. It wasn't until this year that we actually went to an all-inclusive resort.

Living in Vermont now, I like to take a vacation in warmer climes. In January or February we like to take a road trip south to Florida, Georgia, Alabama or Arkansas and we usually take our dogs.  We have had some bad luck weather-wise on some of these trips. We had a cold rainy week on Tybee Island. We even had snow in Alabama. We were getting in a little tired of this. We decided this year to go some place really warm. We had reward points towards a vacation on our credit card and we found a reasonable flight from Montreal to the Dominican Republic. So we booked the resort vacation, at the Iberostar in Punta Cana. We even discovered a good deal with Montreal hotels near the airport. If you stay the night, before your morning flight, you can park at the hotel for free for the week. It is so much cheaper than parking at the airport.

I'll be nice:
Before I trash the place let me say some nice things about the experience.  I don't think I have ever been more relaxed after a vacation. So this ultimately is a very good thing. I have been home for a week and I don't feel a tinge of stress. Each day we slept late, had a descent buffet breakfast, then went for a morning swim in the ocean, sat on the beach spending the next few hours reading and drinking cocktails being delivered to us, we moved to the pool in the afternoon, swam and then continued to read.  Then we went to dinner.  Evenings were spent low key, walking the beach, playing cards at a bar or losing a small amount of money at the casino.

Sounds nice doesn't it? It was. For the most part we really enjoyed ourselves and had some good couple time. All the staff members were really nice and we only met one group of guests that annoyed us. That might be a record. It was 82 degrees F most of the week. It rained towards the end of the week but when it did rain, it torrential rained for a few minutes, but then cleared up again. One day we left the beach because of the wind.

Our best day was a half day excursion we ended up paying for. Punta Cana is all resorts lining the shoreline of northeastern Hispaniola. We took a bus from our resort to a catamaran that had about 35 people all from different resorts. The boat brought us to an area to snorkel. For those of us who didn't want to snorkel, we had an open bar. We got very drunk with some strangers. Made friends with a gay couple from Toronto. It was a good time.

We paid for the excursion by sitting through a sales pitch for us to buy a ten year package in their resort. We had no interest in this and they didn't pressure us. They gave us a $100.00 voucher and we used it to pay for the excursion, plus another $30.00 out of our pocket.  Just a couple hours of our day wasted on the pitch but it wasn't so bad and worth the voucher.

Not so fast:
You can't complain about a week in sun can you? I can. It was a matter of isolation and lack of variety. I have already said that this was our first resort vacation. I found a little confining. I like to explore an area. When you stay at a resort, you don't get to see or to know the place you are visiting. I've been to the DR and I don't feel like I have. Other than what I saw from the cab from the airport and the beach, I haven't really seen it. We considered renting a car, but didn't want to spend any more money. I felt restless and grew tired of the 10 acres or so that was our resort.

Perhaps I've become a bit snobbish when it comes to food, because I live in the foodie paradise of Burlington VT, but the food wasn't very good.  Each meal we had a buffet with a wide variety of food but it is same wide variety all week. Iberostar has five themed restaurant that we can eat at each once while we were there: Asian, American, seafood, French and Mexican. Other than the French restaurant, none of them were very good. That's right, I've had better Mexican food in Vermont.  The food was very disappointing.

I am not a big drinker but an open bar meant that I drank more than usual. This was a new experience for me but we quickly figured out that that the drinks were not very strong. A mojito or margarita at the resort did not taste like the same drink at home. I was going to drink beer, but there was only one beer available, Presidente, a local beer.  It is okay but not great. It tastes like Budweiser without the aluminum aftertaste. I am used to having about twenty micro brews available to me. Again variety would have been nice. We ended up drinking a lot of sangria because it goes well with the beach and it was the only drink we could find that had a good kick to it.

When I travel internationally, I like getting exposed to the culture I am visiting. When visiting Portugal, I like to hear fado music etc. I heard some meringue music in the DR, but not a lot of it. Most of what I heard seemed like latin pop with a very loud bass drum beat ... let me emphasize LOUD. They blasted something most of the day at the pool. At one point I couldn't hear my book on mp3. It was pretty annoying.  You could even hear it on the beach. We had to walk to the far end of the beach to get away from it.

The duplex we stayed in was basic. We were in the spa package so we were next to the spa and had access to it whenever we wanted. It is a very poor planning that they put the spa rooms near the performance stage. So the people who are there to relax, also had live music blasting in their rooms until late at night.  We had the television blasting over the Olivia Newton John covers. Not relaxing.

Our television didn't work for three days. We asked for it to be fixed three times. The internet didn't work at all. We had to go to the dining hall or the beach to use the net. Also, every time our maid came in the room she blasted the AC and we came back to a room in a deep freeze.

Conclusion:
I am not a resort person. I like paying for my room and not having it cleaned until after I leave. I like adventuring, going on quests for food and seeing the land. I don't like being trapped in one place being forced to listen to bad music and to eat sub par food. The confinement was relaxing, so if you want to only relax, perhaps this is for you.

The United Viral Video - A Guide to the Situation

Do you ever see a commercial on television that is so disconnected with reality that cognitive dissonance sets in? What you are watching is so completely incongruous to your experience that it causing you confusion. An example of this is those Discover credit card commercials that claim that they are so pleasant to deal with that is like talking to an old friend. I had a Discover card for a short time and it was an awful experience. They had some of the worst customer service and the amount of junk mail, spam and telemarketing that I received increased astronomically. The card was accepted virtually no where. Their main source of revenue must be selling the names of their customers. They treat you like an old friend? Ya, maybe one that you severed ties with years ago because they're an asshole. So yes, I get confused by their commercials. It is so obviously a lie, like listening to Trump talk, I have to shake them off. Shudder! I have the same feeling when I see United Airlines slogan ... "Fly the friendly skies."

It almost seems like companies like Discover and United Airlines have to over-compensating for their biggest failings ... a lot like when Trump says, "No one treats ladies with more respect than me" or "Hispanics love me." We know they are lying. United's customer service is the worst of any airline I have flown on and I have heard even worse stories about them from friends. So when the viral video came out of the United passenger being removed from a flight, no one was surprised. No one that flies a lot anyway. I would stop using them, but when you live in an area with a small airport like I do (with only four airlines), often you don't have a lot of choices. Only four airlines service the Burlington airport. If I'm flying to Chicago, which I do often, I'm probably taking United.

If you are one of those people that has never flown or hasn't done it very often, you must be thinking "What the fuck!" when you saw this video. The rest of us feel that way also, but there is an explanation for this situation and it is not entirely United's fault. I, in no way, want to seem like I am apologizing for the United. I am a little tired of this story but now that the fervor has died down, I can see it with some perspective. Let's exercise this beast.

Why do airlines overbook? What is passenger bumping? Why is it a good thing? Airlines overbook their flights. This is for a good reason. Many passengers just don't show up for flights, whether it is traffic that made them late for a flight, they forgot about it, got lost on the way to the airport, got very sick and even, died. Overbooking prevents the plane from being empty or half empty when it flies. Operating a 747 is extremely expensive. If a flight is mostly empty and the plane or crew is not needed at the next airport, your flight is going to be cancelled. Keeping a flight reasonably full keeps costs down. This is one of the reasons flying is so much cheaper than it was decades ago. They'd fly a half empty plane and eat the cost. Airlines now are very good at predicting how many people aren't going to show up and they overbook accordingly. Usually it isn't a problem.

United Flight 3411 wasn't overbooked but it had no empty seats. This is only a problem if the airlines needs seats for their employees to get to another airport. In this case, there was a flight in Louisville, Kentucky that needed a crew, four people - pilot, navigator and two flight attendants. They needed to get from Chicago to Louisville for a flight leaving that airport. If there are no seats available, which isn't that rare, airlines look for volunteers to get bumped. Bumped means that you get placed on the next flight available to your destination, you don't have to pay for that flight because you already paid, you get offered a voucher for another flight and if you have to stay overnight, you usually get a hotel stay for free. A good deal! When I was younger and poorer, my wife and I used to do this intentionally. We ended up getting vouchers for our next vacation a number of times. United Flight 3411 offered a $400.00 voucher to their passengers while they were already boarded on the plane.  No one bit, so they offered a $800.00 voucher ... still no bites. It was at this point, that United does a lottery and forces people off the plane. Four people are chosen randomly.

As you can see, United's procedures for bumping passengers is awful. This is expected because pretty much every customer service experience I've ever had with United has been bad. Most airlines bump passengers when they are in the terminal at least an hour before the flight boards. Asking for volunteers after they have been settled into their seat is just dumb. Delta Airlines actually asks passengers when they check-in whether they are open to being bumped. Very smart! So if they need to bump someone, they seek the people who agreed to it already. I have not yet had a bad experience with Delta by the way. To go further as to how ridiculous United is, to tell someone they have to get off the plane after they have waited, boarded, squeezed their bag into the overhead and then settled into seat is just moronic. Why anyone thought this was a good idea I don't know. I'm surprised something like this hasn't happened before now.

Don't get me wrong, United is not 100% to blame for this situation. As F. Scott Fitzgerald says in The Great Gatsby, "it takes two to make an accident." The guy who got booted takes a lot of this blame. I won't use his real name, lets call him Dr. Douche Bag, for short Dr. Bag. Here are some thoughts about him:
      1) For one, when you are in an airport, especially post-911, when people in authority come up to you tell you to leave your seat, you get up and leave. Tensions are high in the airports, don't be defiant, don't be proud, say "yes, sir" or "yes, ma'am" and do what you are told. Even if there is an injustice happening, which there wasn't, don't resist it, because if you don't, things are going to get worse and probably fast. People who work at airports are stressed out! Don't push them, if you do, then you are the problem, not them. This guy was flailing his arms and berating the police when they showed up. Not a good idea. They have enough shit they have to deal with than to deal with your shit.
       2) Dr. Bag was holding up a flight, when he resists leaving a plane means everyone is held up. Not just everyone on his flight. But everyone else down the line as well. The flight crew on your flight may have another flight, the extra flight crew definitely has another flight and the plane that you are may be needed for another flight. How selfish are you that you think your schedule should hold up all these people? Bummer! You were chosen in the random lottery. Adults deal with these things. Throwing a temper tantrum is not how adults deal with this situation.
        3) Dr. Bag claims that he has patients to see in the morning. Guess what? Everyone on that plane had something to do the next morning. That's why United was not able to get volunteers. Louisville is a four hour drive from Chicago. He could have rented a car and been home a short time after midnight. If he didn't want to drive, a bus from Chicago to Louisville is about seven hours trip. He could have napped on the bus and gotten home late and still seen patients in the morning. He could have spent the night in Chicago, at United's expense, gotten a voucher and caught the 7:35am flight the next morning that arrives in Louisville at 9:35am. He could have gotten most of his morning schedule in. 

Misnomers: Social media exploded after this incident. So much so that I really got sick of it. There were so many more important things happening including a couple of shootings and some innocent people killed by chemical weapons not too long before this incident. In the current political moment, the mobs that gather on social media love victims. One victim is easier to comprehend than hundreds or thousands, especially one caught on video.  Lets talk about what social media got wrong:
      1) This is not racist. Because he is from Chinese and Vietnamese descent, some have jumped to the conclusion that this is racism. That's right, whenever anything happens to anyone that isn't white, racism is the cause. But there is zero proof of this. Four people were chosen to leave the plane: Dr. Douche Bag, his wife and another couple. I have been googling like mad to find out what the race was of these three people but I have found nothing. I am willing to bet that the other couple is white, mostly because if they weren't, then everyone that is claiming racism would be using that as an example. I don't know the race of his wife, but please note, she left the plane quietly. United uses a computer generated algorithm that searches for the passenger manifest for people who don't have kids, don't have disabilities or connecting flights etc. So it isn't exactly random but it doesn't search for people with Asian last names either. I haven't looked at the code, but in my 20 plus years as a software engineer and analyst, I cannot imagine anyone writing code that searches for Asian people to be booted from planes. This is just nonsense, paranoia and grandstanding. It only goes to show how far our society has jumped the shark on this subject.
       2) The same people who are calling this racism are also stating that the doctor is 69 years old and shouldn't be asked to leave the plane. I find this ironic in that the people hopping on the racism wagon are being ageist. What? Because he's 69, he cannot be bumped from a plane?  Too frail to wander the airport? Really? Hillary Clinton is 69, Bernie Sanders is 75 and Donald Trump is 70 ... it seems that the nation is okay with a person in their 70's running the country ... but United is awful to bump a 70 year old from their flight.
       3) Social media gets a lot of things wrong, because people are ignorant often mouthing off about things they know nothing about. Often they don't read articles, only the headlines and respond emotionally. One of things I saw people saying was that it was United employees pulling this guy from his seat. This isn't true. They were O'Hare Airport police and there were four of them. These people are paid to keep everyone safe at the airport and I am glad they are there.
       4) He is bleeding, but he wasn't hit by the police. He was bleeding because he swung his arm, lost balance and fell hitting his head on the armrest. The images in the video are powerful but as usual, they don't tell the whole story.
       5) The title "doctor" commands a lot of respect. When people see a doctor being dragged from an airplane, they are bit more peeved than usual. But this doctor is well known to the locals of Louisville and not for being respectful. In 2005, he was found guilty of dealing drugs, trading drugs for sex and lost his license. He just gained his license back in 2015. So whether he needed to see patients in the morning ... maybe ... maybe not. But respectful doctor ... eh, probably not.

The short of it, if you are asked to get off a flight and you really need to be home the next day, well ... it is probably a good plan to get off the plane and rent a car, or take the early flight in the morning. Unless you are a media whore, that is probably your best bet to get home without the drama.

Picks of 2016

Regardless of this year's suckitude, I do still have my picks of the year.

MEDIA:
Best book I read in 2016:
All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doeer was probably my favorite book this year.  I 've read some really great books this year: Lafayette In the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell, The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin, Dead Wake by Erik Larson, The March by E.L. Doctorow and The Manticore by Robertson Davies. The Doerr book is definitely my favorite and I haven't even finished it yet.  Even though, I am getting a little tired of the WW II era, the book still captures me with some really fantastic writing. It tells the story of two young people, one blind French girl and an orphaned German boy. Their stories are told in parallel as their worlds are crushed around them. I am relishing every page.

Favorite new movie: 
Arrival was my favorite new movie this year.  Some other favorites were The Big Short, Deadpool, Doctor Strange, A Man Called Ove, Manchester By the Sea and Florence Foster Jenkins. These are very different films but Arrival was definitely my favorite. It reminded me of Contact or 2001: A Space Odyssey in that it was a real science fiction, unlike Star Wars which is more like an action film in space. When you watch Arrival, you get the feeling that there is something going that you don't understand. Halfway through the film you start figuring it out and by the end, your mind is blown because the story is very different than what you thought. I need to watch it again now that I know what I know.

Favorite new TV show:

I've watch some great television this year: The Exorcist, Paranoid, Glitch, The Get Down, Stranger Things, Maron, Roadies, One Mississippi, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and This Is Us. My favorite is probably The Get Down which is a Netflix show about the early days of hip hop. It is full of great music without the nonsense of a musical. It is edgy but really sweet simultaneously. One of the things I like most about the show is that the child characters are really well developed. They are not your usual one dimensional children that you usually see on television and the young actors are up for it.

Two shows really surprised me The Exorcist and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. I didn't expect anyone to make a decent show of the classic horror film The Exorcist, but it is actually a very good show. They captured the creepiness of the classic while also sustaining a story throughout the season. I am not a believer in demons and such, but still, I find this all very intriguing and good story telling. Also, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is hysterical. I don't like musicals at all, but I guess, musicals that laugh at musicals is fine. Regardless, it is very entertaining and the star, Rachel Bloom, is a joy to watch.

Favorite quote:
"When you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything," our future president. I don't really like this quote, but I think it best describes where we are as a nation ... not in a good place.

Favorite new podcast :
I've tried several new podcasts this year but most of them didn't cut it and I have unsubscribed. Among them are: Red Sox Beat Podcast, FiveThirtyEight Elections, What the Crime?, Dogsmarts and Rolling Stone Music Now.

I've found a few that I continue to listen to: Revisionist History, Radio Lab's More Perfect, the New Yorker Radio Hour, Next New England, You Must Remember This and Slate's Trumpcast. 

Trumpcast is probably my favorite. It not only keeps you up on the doings of the orange douche-nozzle, but they are funny. The best part is when they have a Trump impersonator read his tweets of the week. 

MUSIC:
Best concert I attended: 
The best concert I went to was Brandi Carlyle at the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont. This is my favorite local venue and she put on a great show. I didn't go to a lot of shows this year, mostly because my wife is in graduate school again and she doesn't have time. I hope to go to more in 2017.

Best album:  
I bought some great new albums this year, in MP3 format of course. I bought Ray Lamontagne's "Ouroboros," Avett Brother's "True Sadness," David Bowie's last album "Black Star," Andrew Bird's "Are You Serious," Rachel Yamagata's "Tightrope Walker," "A Monolith of Phobos" by The Claypool Lennon Delirium, "Human Performance" by the Parquet Courts and the soundtrack to "Roadies." I enjoyed all of them except for the Ray Lamontagne album, mostly because it is not what I expected from him. He usually delivers some decent bluesy pop songs but instead, he experimented and like many experiments, it failed.

It is difficult for me to pick a favorite out of all these, but since I have to pick one, I pick Andrew Bird's "Are You Serious." The lyrics are solid and the musical orchestration is phenomenal. 
 

Favorite new songs: 
I have 191 mp3 files of songs from 2016.

Here are some of my favorites:
"I Wish I Was Sober" by Frightened Rabbit
"Roma Fade," "The New Saint Jude" and "Capsized" by Andrew Bird
"Smithsonian," "I Wish I Was ..." and "Mama, I Don't Believe" by The Avett Brothers
"Golden Age" by Chris Staple
"No River" by Esmé Patterson
"Let Me Get There" by Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions
"Call Off Your Dogs" by Lake Street Dive
"Berlin Got Blurry" by the Parquet Courts
"Water" by Ra Ra Riot and Rostam
"Over" by Rachel Yamagata
"Open Your Eyes" by School of Seven Bells
"Quiet Americans" by Shearwater
"Cricket and the Genie" by The Claypool Lennon Delirium
"In Bloom" by Sturgill Simpson
"Hands of Time" by Margo Price
"Beautiful Strangers" by Kevin Morby
"Rican Beach" by Hurray for the Riff Raff
"Atomic Number" by case/lang/veirs

Since I have to pick a favorite, I pick "Smithsonian" by the Avett Brothers. I find the tune addictive and the lyrics very assuming. 

OTHER STUFF:
Favorite discovery of the year: 

The Library of Congress is DC is perhaps the most beautiful building in the United States. The building alone is a good enough reason to visit. But then you get to see some of the most amazing books. There is a copy of the Guttenberg Bible, an original copy of Common Sense and Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass." It is a really impressive place. You also get to see the remainder of Thomas Jefferson's personal library that he donated.

Best trip: 
Our trip to Arizona was definitely our best trip, to see the Cubs in Spring Training, especially since this was the team that won the World Series. The Cactus League is such a better experience than the Grapefruit League in Florida. All the games in Arizona are a short drive from each other, around Phoenix, as opposed to Florida, which is all over the state. We got a close up look at all the Cubs' rookies and actually got to meet their manager Joe Madden (see my wife below getting a ball signed). We also met some old time greats like Bill Buckner, Fergie Jenkins and Lee Smith. Lee Smith was a lot of fun. He laughed at me when I told him the Red Sox were going to the playoffs.  Jokes on him!

We also took a week long visit to Portland Maine, with our niece, mostly kayaking, walking our dog on the beach, eating out, minor league baseball and visiting friends. All other trips this year were relatively local: Boston (for Fenway), Rhode Island, Connecticut and Montreal.

The American Interstate Highway System

On family road trips when I was a kid, I would sit up front with my dad. While he was driving, I'd ask him questions about his driving and the road ... why he was putting his directional on or why the yellow line in the road was double sometimes and sometimes not solid.  I would often keep track of state license plates. I'd get excited if I saw one from Alaska or British Columbia. I learned the rules of the road, how to read a map and basically, how to love the road. Also, I learned a few things that I probably shouldn't have like when to high-beam someone or throw them the finger, but most of the stuff I learned was useful. When I see families on road trips now with their DVD players in the car or the kids all looking at their electronic devices, I wonder what is being lost on the American road trip.  I also worry ... what kind of drivers are we producing. I see the results already. They can't even drive without looking at their screens. It is purely an anecdotal observation, but it seems that about half the drivers don't even know the rules of the road. Driving fast in the left lane, passing on the left, not knowing the rules of right-of-way, these aspects of driving seem to be getting lost on the future generation. Maybe, it just won't matter if we're all using self-driving cars soon.

I also mourn the death of downtime. To be alone with your thoughts, staring out the window as the road goes by, the world enfolds ... is this not where creativity is born? Is the lack of boredom producing non-creative adults? That is where creativity comes from is it not, our boredom? If we are never bored, where does the creativity go?

Today, the day I started this blog entry, is the anniversary of our numbered highway system. In 1926, a standardization of numbering highways was adapted. But people don't even understand that. When I was grad school, my favorite class was one of the most challenging. We had to read a novel each week and then write a short story in the style of the novel. We also had to read all our classmates short stories and give feedback each week.  I read a lot that year. I was probably the oldest person in this class. One of the better writers in this class wrote a story based in Texas. In the story, he mentioned Interstate 95 (I95). During the feedback session, I pointed out to him that I95 didn't go through Texas. He said, "How do you know?" I explained to him that there is only one I95 and it runs from Maine to Florida, nowhere near Texas. It occurred to me that most of the people in the class, some very intelligent young people, had no clue about the American highway system.

The US's interstate highway system got underway after the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1957 was passed under President Eisenhower, a Republican president in an era when Republicans weren't against using government to actually get things done. This was attempted a few times before but some other priorities, like World Wars, got in the way. Eisenhower was inspired by a cross country trip he made in a military convoy that took 56 days driving 10 hours a day. This was obviously too long from a military standpoint. If he were attacked on one of the coasts, we would need to get reinforcements cross country quicker than that. Developing the interstate system would also have practical uses for leisure and business. Its construction was considered complete in 1992, but even then parts of interstates 95 and 70 were not contiguous.

Here are some simple rules that will help you on a road trip on the US interstates:

• Odd numbered routes run north to south (like 95 and 5).  Even numbers run East to West (like 90 and 70). 
• The numbers run from low to high from West to East with I-5 being on the West Coast running through California, Oregon and Washington State and I-95, as mentioned earlier, runs the entire East Coast. Obviously, if you are driving on one of the I-50's, you are in the middle of the country like Interstate 55 which runs from the Mississippi delta to Chicago.
• Higher numbers are in north and lower in the south. Interstate 10 runs from Santa Monica, California to Jacksonville, Florida where it connects to Interstate 95. I90 connects Seattle to Boston (or as they call it in Boston ... the Mass Pike). I've driven on most of this highway.
• The major routes are below 100.  
• When the hundred digit is odd (which is called a spur), it connects two major cities or economic centers. Interstate 195 (which connects to Interstate 95) in Providence goes east to Cape Cod and ends. 395 connects Washington DC with Richmond, Virginia.
• When the hundred digit is an even number, a circumferential, it goes around major cities. 295 goes around Boston. 495 does an event bigger loop around the city and 287 goes around New York City. 

Route 90 is longest at over 3,000 miles. The shortest interstate is interstate 73 which is a little over 12 miles and is entirely within the state of North Carolina which begs the question, why is it an interstate? 

I love our interstate highway system. It is easy to use and allows me and my wife to take road trips across this beautiful country which is one of the joys of my life. I can't imagine how long and complicated driving cross country would be before our interstates. But like all change, it comes with both good and bad and some unexpected consequences  Some cities were unscathed by interstate development, like Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the super highways were developed far way and didn't cut through the city.  Or like Providence, Rhode Island where the highways followed an already existing barrier (like the Providence River).  But some cities were devastated by the highway plowing through their town like I-84 cutting Hartford in half, knocking down mostly homes of African Americans. A similar thing happened to Charlotte, NC, Jacksonville, FL and Birmingham, AL. Some of these cities have never recovered. Some entire neighborhoods were flattened. This hasn't only affected black neighborhoods. The City of Boston used to have a West End. It was mostly an Italian and Jewish neighborhood; this is where actor/photographer Leonard Nimoy hails from. In the 1950's it was destroyed to make way for I-93. The neighborhood still exists but it is mostly commercial buildings now.  If you bought a house to be near your church, when they build a highway between the two with no on-ramp, you were out of luck. Blight ensued. Then the wealthy used these same highways to flee the city and to commute from the suburbs they left it with even bigger problems, no tax bases.

This is something think about when you are looking out the window, not your smart phone screen, on a road trip through an American city. When we look out upon an urban landscape which is mostly blight, just remind yourself, this was done for your convenience. With Trump coming into office, who seems to have little interest in infrastructure, don't expect it to get any better any time soon. 

Arizona: Likes and Dislikes

Earlier this year, my wife and I vacationed in Arizona. We spent a week going to Spring Training baseball games, enjoying the weather and took a nice side trip to New Mexico simply because we had never been there. I have been to Arizona before and it is a beautiful place. It is one of those places, like Las Vegas, that I experience a little bit of guilt when visiting because they are environmental scourges. Because the weather is so hot, it seems that everyone has a pool. Because there are so many pools, the desert now has humidity. That old argument that it is "a dry heat" is getting less and less accurate. Like every other environmental problem, there are just too many people living there now. Regardless, I enjoyed my vacation.

We spent a weekend in Tucson and the rest of the week in Phoenix. I saw bike lanes all over the place in both cities. They are both very flat so commuting via bike seems like a really good option for locals. Also, the traffic in both towns were not bad at all and this is the busy time, with half of the major league teams packing the fans in for Spring Training. Having lived in Boston, my idea of what bad traffic is might be twisted, but for the size of the cities, I was impressed. Phoenix is a grid so it is easy to get around, like New York, the streets are numbered.  We were staying off of 18th Street in a Homeaway home which was a short drive to Sloan Park. The only difficulty we had was that there was an 18th Place, a dead end street, on the side of 18th Street. We kept driving into the dead end street when we saw it.  Why do city do this?  If a street falls into between 18th and 19th, couldn't they just name it 18.5 Street or anything other than 18th Place. They definitely don't do these things with tourists in mind.  But the highway was very pretty. Even the on ramps had South Western style paintings on them.  Just a short drive out of the city, you can get to some really gorgeous dessert landscapes.

Arizona knows how to do baseball right. I've been to Florida for Spring Training to see the Red Sox and I have to say that the Arizona experience is much better. In Florida all the parks are spread apart, some of them several hours from each other. You could spend your Spring Training vacation in the car if you go to Florida. But in Arizona (the Cactus League), they are all in or around Phoenix, a short drive from each other. Some of the facilities are shared. For example, the Peoria Sports Complex is shared by the San Diego Padres and Seattle Mariners.  These facilities are huge. We spent all of our baseball time at Sloan Park watching the Cubs. We saw about five games in both good and bad seats.  Each day was a joy.  

My wife is on a 50 states before she is 50 kick. She turns 50 years old next year so I don't think she is going to make it. She has about six to go. The deal is: she has to sleep in each state. We were so close to New Mexico so we went for a road trip so that she could get NM off of her list. We took a road trip to Silver City NM, spent the night and went to visit Gila National Park in the morning. The drive in the park alone was worth it. Beautiful! We did a hike up the ancient cliff dwellings in the park.

Whenever I visit someplace, I always wonder if I could live here. There are definitely somethings about Arizona that I would like. The hot dry weather is very appealing.  But there are some things I don't think I would like at all.  One thing is the uniformity. If not for the numbered streets and the GPS, I would have gotten very lost. Most streets look like every other street. We repeatedly saw the same box stores and the same chains. The city doesn't have a lot of character. I have lived in New England my whole life. The character is definitely something that I would miss if I left. Every street looks different, the roads twist and turn and the buildings are by no means uniform. 

The worse thing about the place was the crime. We visited some of my wife's relatives when we were there, a lot of them. Every single one of them talked about how their houses were robbed and had many deadbolts on their doors. One of her cousins said he was car jacked twice. We left our car unlocked once, for about five minutes while we were checking in, and our GPS was stolen from our car. It was old and we use the Waze app on our phone most of the time anway so we didn't care much. I have never had any such problems any place I have lived in New England. I can deal with the New England weather, but feeling unsafe .... not something I can deal with.  

This Year's Picks: 2015

The past few years, on Facebook, I have published my list of picks of the year in various media categories. I spend a lot of time putting it together and I usually don't get any comments and very few likes, so I figured why not create a blog post where it can get even less attention.

MEDIA:
Best book I read in 2015:
I did not read many books in 2015.   This is mostly because when we went to Paris, I decided to read a French classic.  Since I loved The Three Musketeers as a kid, I decided to read The Count of Monte Cristo.   I didn't realize what a tome it is. It is huge. I haven't finished it yet. Because of this, I haven't read many books. My favorite of the short list, was probably Ironweed by William Kennedy. I have mentioned before in this blog, that I love first person narratives. This narrative is of an alcoholic vagrant in Depression Era Albany, NY. His return to town is cluttered by his hallucinations which is confusing at first, but is very satisfying once you figure out what is going on.

Favorite new movie: It is difficult to pick my favorite movie of the year, mostly because I see so many. I am limiting my pick to movies I saw in the theater. For this I have to pick Spotlight. Growing up as a Catholic in the Boston area, this film really hit home for me. It is about the pedophile scandal in the Catholic church and how Boston Globe's Spotlight team of investigative journalists researched the story. The term "Based on a True Story" has become a joke these days. This film had the journalists involved in the film making to make sure it was accurate. It was more concentrated on investigative journalism rather than the crime they were researching which makes it easier to watch. It is probably the best film about investigative reporting, not just since All The President's Men, but ever. In an era where news organizations are getting leaner and leaner due the economic reality of the industry, this is an important film for everyone to see.

I'd like to point out that I did not see Trainwreck in the theater. If I had I might be picking it. I watched it at home which is too bad because a good comedy is the best in the theater among strangers. We'll see how it does at the Oscars which usually ignores comedies, even sophisticated comedies like this.

Favorite new TV show: If you like the show Louie but find it too dark and depressing, you might like Netflix's Master of One. Like Louis C. K.'s character, the main character in Master of One, Dev (portrayed by Aziz Ansari) is a single man living in New York looking for love. He is a struggling actor of Indian descent, also struggling with stereo-types in a comical tasteful way. Ansari is a joy and extremely positive. The show is very creative. One episode, called "Mornings," shows a year of pivotal mornings in his relationship with his new girl friend. There are a lot of great new television shows, this is my favorite. 

favorite quote: Bernie Sanders

Favorite new podcast : I am currently subscribed to too many Podcasts. I end up deleting a lot. I have discovered a lot of new good ones. Serial became the most popular podcast ever this year. I enjoyed but it wasn't my favorite. Some of my favorites are Pitch (about the science of music), Between the Liner Notes (about the music industry), Note To Self (technology), Waking Up with Sam Harris (atheist intellectual talk), Slate's Amicus with Dahlia Lithwick (Supreme Court) and NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour.

My favorite, though, is another Slate podcast called Whistlestop. This is by one of my favorite journalists, John Dickerson, who is a panelist on Slate's Political Gabfest and is now the moderator of CBS's Face the Nation. Whistlestop dissects American elections from the past. My wife and I listen to this one together. It is perfect for anyone that is politically active and likes history. They are only about a half hour long and are incredibly interesting and told in an entertaining, jocular manner. I hope John continues doing it since his schedule must be insane.

MUSIC:
Best concert I attended:  If I had to pick the worst album of the year, I would have to pick Neil Young's new album The Monsanto Years. There are some good tunes on the album but overall, it is just a political tirade. It seems like he forgot how to write a song. He might have just copied and pasted a bunch of Internet comments and set them music to it. But his show at the Essex Fairground, here in Vermont, was spectacular. The show opened with Norah Jones' new band, Puss n' Boots, who was great as well. Vermont was the only US state that he had never played in, so now he's done all 50. He's welcome to come back because he was great.

I went to several other shows this year: The Great Lake Swimmers, The Decemberists, The Old Crow Medicine Show, Joshua Radin, Cary Brothers, Rachael Yamagata, Richard Shindell, Redbird, Max Creek, They Might Be Giants, Kat Wright and Peter Mulvey.  Not bad for someone who lives in Vermont.

Best album:  I only bought six albums this year that were new (released in 2015), those by Neil Young, The Decemberists, Alabama Shakes, Joshua Radin, Wilco and Brandi Carlile. (The Neil Young and Wilco album were free). I love them all other than the aforementioned Neil Young album. My favorite has to be The Decemberists' What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World. They are one of my favorite newish bands. They put out concept albums which is a rarity these days. The album seems to be about personal conflict and the change you go through to made adjustments to an increasingly untenable world. The title of the album comes from one of the songs, "12/17/12," which is in response to President Obama's speech after the Sandy Hook shootings ... acknowledge the horror and be thankful for what you have going forward. Colin Meloy, the lead singer and principal songwriter, recently became a father so pathos over the state of world is all over this album.
 

Favorite new song: I have 190 mp3 files (songs) on my hard drive that were released this year.  iTunes says that it would take me 11 hours and 57 minutes to listen to them straight through. I have a lot of favorites, the list is below. If I have to pick one, I would pick "Mantra" by Keller Williams which is a contemporary bluegrass song about having difficulties meditating because your mind really wanders.

Here is the rest:
"Escape" by Blackalicious
"Atoms Never Die" by Adam Levy
"Let's All Stay in Tonight" by Blimp Rock
"Pedestrian At Best" by Courtney Bartnett
"Lake Song" by the Decemberists
"Old Friend" by Joshua Radin
"Pine Away" by Martin Sexton
"Getting Ready to Get Down" by Josh Ritter
"The Early Days" by Old Man Luedecke
"Don't Want To Fight No More" Alabama Shakes
"Heroes and Songs" by Brandi Carlile
"Winning Streak" by Glen Hansard
"Downtown" by Whitehorse

About half of these performers, I have never heard of until this year.



OTHER STUFF:
Favorite discovery of the year:  I got the Tile for Xmas. This is a little tile you can attach to your keys or put in your wallet, that beeps if you lose it. It is connected to your smart phone.  How cool!

Favorite New App: 
When we go into Burlington, parking is difficult sometimes. Since the city has implemented the ParkMobile app on their parking meters, it has gotten a lot easier. You park, type your zone (which is on the meter) on your phone, specify the time and it pays via Paypal etc. It takes about a second to do. No searching for change. 
 
Best trip:  I took a few trips this year. I went to Alabama and Kentucky in February. I had a business trip to New York, a Red Sox trip to Boston, a short trip to Canada and a Cubs trip to Chicago. Need I say that my trip to Paris was my best trip. Since I already blogged about it, do I need to say more?

Comparing my Paris and Spain Trips

Last year's trip to Spain was a blur, quick and hectic. This year when we went to Paris, to celebrate my 50th birthday, it was well planned and longer in duration. One of the few things I can say about both of them, Europe is awesome and beautiful and her people are friendly. I am not sure why anyone would spend a cent on a Disney vacation, when Europe is so close, especially for anyone on the East Coast like us.

I don't go to Europe often. If I had more money, I would remedy this. I've only been on that continent four times. It is not cheap, but with the Euro not doing so well, it is a pretty good time to go. If Greece pulls out of the Europe Union, which it might shortly, expect the Euro to crash and this becomes an affordable trip for anyone not in the EU, provided that non-EU currencies don't go along with it. My first trip to Europe was to the western half of Ireland (the Ring of Kerry, Galway, Killarney, etc.) for an in-law's wedding. This was a great trip with no problems with language. The greatest challenge was driving on the left hand side of the road with our rental. I caught a bug, a Europe travel bug. I loved it. In 2007, we took a river cruise on the Danube that went from Prague in the Czech Republic through Germany and Austria and ended in Budapest, Hungary. It was one of the best times I've ever had. Last year's Spain trip and this month's Paris trips are only other times I've been.

It is difficult to compare these two trips because they were so very different. Spain was coastal so we rented a car and hit many towns and cities while in Paris, we stayed in one city and took the Metro. Spain was spontaneous and short while Paris was well planned and twice as long.

Spain: Last summer my wife and I were contacted by a single friend who received a week of free time at a time share in Spain. She had no one to go with and since it had two bed rooms and she is friendly with both of us, she asked us to accompany her. We took the opportunity, she picked the city and we paid for the rent-a-car. The car and flight were the big costs, the food wasn't so much because we had a kitchen. We were there for only a week. From the apartment's porch we could see the Mediterranean Sea, but we were atop a huge hill. There was little close to us, with no coffee maker in the apartment, I had to drive to get coffee. We were in the Costa de Sol (translate to the Coast of the Sun) which is aptly named. It is quite beautiful.  It is in the Andalusia region near the stunning city of Malaga which I heard pronounced about ten different ways. We drove up and down the highway all week going to different spots, a couple of days were just beach stop. We had a great time, but it was tiring. Driving in Spain sucks.

Paris: When I was pondering what I wanted for my 50th birthday. We thought of some material goods, like I've thinking of buying a scooter, but the idea of going to Paris for a week seemed so much more appealing and special. We learned from our trip to Spain last Summer that a week was too short of a trip. By the time you recover from jet lag, half of your week is done. So we stayed for ten days. Renting a car was out. I don't want to drive in Europe again if I can avoid it. We decided to stay one place the whole ten days and do day trips from a home base. France is famous for their mass transit system, so we did everything we wanted to do via train, metro and walking.

We stayed in Montmatre which meant nothing to me until I visited. It is a gorgeous urban neighborhood in Paris famous for its big hill with the Basilica at the top. It is home to the Moulin Rouge and the neighborhood where they filmed, Amélie , one of my favorite French films. It is also famous for all the artists that lived there like Picasso and Dali. We found the apartment on HomeAway.com, a web site which has served us well. We haven't yet had a bad experience and have used it about a half dozen times. The apartment was small like most Paris apartments. When we pulled the couch out for a friend, we had to move the kitchen table. Its smallness didn't matter. This was basically just a place to sleep and eat, a home-base. It was perfectly situated on two major Metro lines. When we stepped out of our front door (see above), we were surrounded by cafes and bakeries. Each morning we planned our day's adventure over breakfast.

The Two Complaints I Hear About Paris:
Our experience of Paris couldn't have been better. The two complaints I've heard the most was the rudeness of the people and dirtiness of the city (namely, lots of dog shit).  We didn't have any problem with rudeness. It is a large city and we expect a certain level of "urban flair," but Paris is no more rude than New York or Boston. Most of the residents (non-service people) that we talked to were very pleasant and downright enjoyable to talk to. One guy started talking to me on the Metro because he noticed we were playing the same game on our phones, Two Dots. Between his broken English and my very poor French, we talked a while about the game. Compared to the stone-faces I get on the Boston T, this was downright joyous. My guess, is that the people who complain about Paris being rude, aren't very good tourists. They are probably are rude themselves. Probably the same people who complain about Montreal being rude.

On my last trip to Manhattan, I stayed in a neighborhood that had a dog shit problem. You really had to watch where you walked, the sidewalks were very gross. This is what I expected from Paris. In the ten days I spent in Paris, I think I saw only one pile of shit and it was on the side of a trashcan. Apparently, this really was a problem at one point. It has been illegal to not pick up after your dog in since 1982 but they just started to enforce it. This NPR story covers it well.  I guessed, I timed my trip well. Bon voyage sans excrement! (something like that).

The Best Of Paris:
Our experience is that the best of Paris are the smaller things. The Louvre was okay, but we preferred the smaller museums like the D'Orsay Museum which is in a spectacular old train station. Of the museums we visited, we enjoyed the Musée de l'Orangerie and the Rodin Museum more. While the Louvre was overwhelming and extremely crowded even on a Wednesday, these other museums were intimate and not so crowded. The L'Orangerie is mostly Impressionistic paintings with two room size circular Monet paintings. You stood in the middle of these paintings surrounded by them. Because the Rodin Museum is mostly sculptures, most of his work is in a garden. We were there on a beautiful Summer day and we got to see of his major work, The Thinker, The Kiss and The Gates of Hell.

We bought a couple of five day Museum Passes that covered the entrance to all of these including a pass to a short boat cruise on the Seine and a double-decker bus tour around the city. It also covered the Metro for those days. We did the math and we saved about $50 by buying the pass. You also got to go to the front of the line with the pass. Our friend, Julia from Germany, who used to be our foreign exchange student, stayed with us for a few days. She got into all the museums for free because she is a student in the European Union. Gotta love Europe!

Like the museums, the smaller cathedrals were more interesting. Notre Dame was spectacular but we enjoyed the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris  (Sacré-Cœur Basilica) and Ste. Chappelle more.

The Basilica is atop of the highest hill in Paris and just a short walk from our apartment. Ste. Chappelle, which is on the same island in the Seine as Notre Dame, is unique in its architecture. You are not going to see anything else like it. This might be that when I planned to go the Notre Dame, I knew what to expect, while these other two were completely foreign to me.

In addition to all the museums and cathedrals, we did a lot of eating. Every meal was amazing. We went up the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, walked along the Seine, went down into the Catacombs, visited a couple of historic cemeteries and even went to the zoo. We walked a total of 55 miles in ten days. So if you are planning a trip to Paris (a city of stairs), try to go with someone with which you are comfortable reciprocating foot massages.