Amman

A few surprises:

1. Propane tanks for stoves and heaters are delivered around by a truck that plays music, like an Ice Cream Truck
2. Less people smoke cigarettes than I would have immagined
3. In Turkey, the social greeting between men was a kiss on each cheek, it's less common here, but it's done for family
4. There was snow on the ground at a house I visited, I knew it was colder and it flurried when I arrived, but it's maybe 10 deg F colder than I expected. I'm glad I brought a pair of long underwear
5. Taxi are extremely cheap, it cost $1 USD for a 10 minute taxi ride. A partial reason for this is that the bus system is unreliable and there is no metro (currently).

Flight to Amman

rand new

My sister rented a car and drove down to Philadelphia to attend my Philadelphia Going-Away Party and help me move some things.

Many things were not ready to leave and a friend stayed until 3 AM helping pack things. After a full day of packing on Wednesday, we left Philadelphia at 4pm--my sister had hoped to make it in New York by 9AM.

My sister took a nap and I left at 8 for my New York Going-Away Party. Instead of using a map to find the proper subway route, I relied on my phone to give me transit directions. I read that it said to take the F train and to get off at the "Christopher Street" station (it probably didn't actually say this). I turned on the "Number One Party School" Episode of This American Life about Penn State. I'm glad I didn't go to that school like my parents encouraged me, listen to the episode to find out why.

I was listening for the "Christopher Street" Station. It never came. Pretty soon the trained looped back east and crossed into Brooklyn. I got off. There wasn't any other lines going to that station so I got back on a train headed east. I then hopped on a Manhattan-bound train at the next stop and got off at Fulton/Broadway-Nassau and got on the 3. Unfortunately, the 3 did not stop at Chistopher Street and I had to get off and get on a Brooklyn Bound 1 train at the 3's next stop.

I arrived at Fat Cat (Billiards) in West Village sometime around 9:30. My party was supposed to begin at 9pm and some people were already waiting for me there.

Fat Cat was a cool place, it's was the right atmosphere I was looking for. They have ping-pong, billiards, and board games. Live Jazz played the night we were there. PBRs were $3. We were able to get enough chairs together to match the size of our party, but it would have been better to reserve space ahead of time. I actually called a few nights before, but it was at 3am and they weren't taking reservations there.

I'm glad everyone attened and that different groups of friends and my sister could all meet each other.


The next day I slept in and packed up and rearranged some things I had moved to my sister's apartment.

I had a lot of things packed to go to Jordan, a large suitcaseful, a backpack, and a shoulder-bag. My sister gave me money and a phone number to take a Town Car from Jackson Heights to Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR). After packing my things, I decided to try taking public transportation and pocketing the money. I made it to near the subway and a Town Car honked at me and I asked him how much it was to EWR, the number he quoted was less than the number given by my sister's prefered livery company, so I gave in.



During my hour-or-so-long ride from the East-Side (Queens) of the NYC metro to the West-Side (New Jersey), I decided to forgo listening to my iPod or making phone calls and make conversation with my driver. My driver was originally from Lahore, Pakistan, he moved to Brooklyn 8 years ago and Jackson Heights a few years ago. He liked Brooklyn much better, I think he said he lived in a largely-Hasidic neighborhood. It was much quieter and cheaper than Jackson Heights.

The electronic check-in didn't like my Continental One-Pass number. I didn't get a reminder phone call or "it's time to check in" email, did I actually purchase a ticket? Fortunately, the Orbitz-purchased ticket which consided of a Continental leg to Heathrow and a BMI flight to Amman, just wasn't linked to my OnePass number the way a Continental-purchased ticket would be. Continental had to "take ownership" of the ticket and process it. I they printed my boarding pass.

I weighed my suitcase, it was 49 pounds. The limit was 50. This wasn't the first time that has happened to me, although I have learned to pack light over the years... many of the things in the suitcase were things I will be giving away or leaving in Jordan. I watched "Citizen Kane" (1941), "Bullitt" (1968). I first watched "Law Abiding Citizen" (2009), but after 10 minutes I found it stupid and fast-forwarded through most of the scenes not showing Philadelphia.

St. David's Peninsula, Wales from my window:


The 9:20pm flight to Heathrow was 2/3-full and on a Boeing 757. I've never flown transatlantic on a plane so small. The 757 is a mid-sized narrow-body (one aisle) airplane, the size of a plane I would fly to a second-tier US city from a large city.

I arrived at Heathrow and almost went through immigration until the immigration officer told me I didn't need to (although, if my layover were longer, I would have). I went to Terminal 1 and used my computer and got online via Boingo.

The 12:50 BMI flight to Amman was 2/3 full. It was a b It didn't look like a flight to the Middle East at first blush, meaning there weren't many people whose region of origin could be easily determined by their appearance. From a cursatory glance at the Visa line when I arrived, there were a large amount of vistors to Jordan on the flight. Somewhere in the middle of the flight it occured to me that I only had $14 USD in my wallet. I started worrying about the cost of a visa. The visa for Turkey was $20, if I recalled correctly. I hoped that there would be an ATM before immigration and customs. Arriving at Amman's Queen Alia International Aiport, I saw there were none. Fortunately, the cash exchange place had a visa sign... but they would not take my bank card. I gave them $14 and I got 10JD back. The visa cost 10 JD.

The "Prime Minister's Question"-ification of the State of The Union Address

I fully support the "Prime Minister's Question"-ification of the State of The Union Address by Pres. Obama last night. The President expressed many emotions, directly attacked and mocked his political opposition, and joked and whatnot. Perhaps the change in tone is a result of the last time he addressed a join session of congress, when Rep. Joe Wilson broke decorum and yelled "YOU LIE".

For those unfamiliar with the weekly "Question Time" that the British PM has to endure in front of a lively opposition:

music industry

49 year ago, the #1 single in America was "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" by the Shirelles, the first single to top the charts by an All-Girls group. It was co-written by an 18-year-old Carole King in the famous Brill Building and was her first hit.





The current #1 record in America is independently distributed, which means a guy in an Astro Van goes around and delivers it to "record stores". A dozen other "independent" records have topped the charts. The best selling album of last decade was by a band that broke up in 1970, The Beatles. 10 years ago I had to do a "History Day" project for school on the subject of "inventions that changed the world". I chose Napster and peer-to-peer file sharing. Without Napster, it's unlikely the mp3 player would have viable, the iPod would have released, or the iTunes store would have been created. The History Day judges didn't select my project to move on to the regional competition.



Now read this December 18th Article from Variety by Christopher Morris: Music sales took a hit: Piracy, technology send sales model back to the '50s ...

Someone teleported through time from the early 1950s to 2009 would find a music business curiously similar to the landscape of 60 years ago... Department stores (Walmart, Target) dominating the market. A singles-driven industry. Pop music dominating radio. TV musical talent shows all the rage.

But as the '00s dawned, a Pandora's box opened when computer-savvy college student Shawn Fanning's website Napster allowed users to share compressed MP3 music files -- at no charge. Napster was eventually knocked down by the courts (and absorbed by a major label), but other illegal Internet file-sharing services sprang up to replace it.
...
Labels had snuffed the physical single in the '90s... Consumers, who had long believed CDs were overpriced and packed with filler, embraced the MP3 -- either legally or illegally -- as the "new single."

Within a year of opening in 2003, the iTunes store sold 100-million tracks.
I think my position from a decade ago was vindicated.

Top 20 films of the Naughties

Top 20 Films of the Naughties

1. There Will Be Blood 2007 ...a touching father-son story, the "Mr. Holland's Opus" of the 00s
   
2. The Royal Tanenbaums 2001 ..."Vámonos, amigos," he whispered, and threw the busted leather flintcraw over the loose weave of the saddlecock. And they rode on in the friscalating dusklight.
3. No Country for Old Men 2007 ...A Western set in 1980 with no soundtrack. Call it, friendo
   
4. The Last King of Scotland 2006 ...historical fiction done right
   
5. The Prestige 2006 ...few can leave watching this film without remembering it
   
6. A Serious Man 2009 ... I'm a serious man, Larry.
7. (500) Days of Summer 2009 ...best film about a relationship
   
8. O Brother Where Art Thou? 2000 ...the Coen brothers stage an epic in the depression-era Deep South and pull off an entertaining, memorable, funny, well-made movie. Its soundtrack started a Bluegrass revival
   
9. Thank You For Smoking 2006 ...a movie that actually upsets mainstream conventions
   
10. Good Bye Lenin! 2003 ...not everybody in East Germany eagerly embraced the collapse of their state. A well-told story about an elaborate farce put on by a son for his mother.
    
11. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou 2004 ...Vivid, funny, brilliantly crafted with an elaborate cut-away set, this film is definitely one of Wes Anderson's best and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
12. Gran Torino 2008 ...learning to love your neighbors
    
13. The Incredibles 2004 ...the best CGI-animated film to-date
    
14. Waltz with Bashir 2008 ...an Israeli animated film which takes on serious issues and war in a serious way that few other animated films have
    
15. Grizzly Man 2005 ...man is man and bear is bear and never the twain shall meet
    
16. The Departed 2006 ...Southie culture of violence done right (versus "Boondock Saints"), well-made American adaptation of Hong Kong's Internal Affairs (2002)
    
17. Idiocracy 2006 ...an accurate portrayal of our dystopian future, Mike Judge's next film directed after "Office Space", it unfortunately only released in seven cities
    
18. About Schmidt 2002 ...you retire, your wife dies... (just like in Gran Torino) what's next? What's life? Alexander Payne's About Schmidt tackles many of the issues of examining a life without being sanctimonious, patronizing, and insufferable (i.e. American Beauty).
    
19. Road to Perdition 2002 ...best mob movie of the 00s, well made, well told, Paul Newman's last film.
    
20. Cloverfield 2008 ...nearly the entire film is shot as if it were on a camcorder and it actually pulls it off without seeming derivative of Blair Witch. Clever, exhilarating, and well paced.
    

Honorable Mention: Avatar, The Illusionist, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Casino Royale, Blow, City of God (Cidade de Deus), Coffee and Cigarettes, The Squid and the Whale, Cast Away, Lost in Translation, A History of Violence, High Fidelity, The Queen, Batman Begins, The March of the Penguins, The Fog of War, Minority Report, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Appaloosa, For Your Consideration, Team America: World Police

Have yet to see: Downfall, Adaptation, Spirited Away, A Mighty Wind, Hotel Rwanda, The Man Who Wasn't There, Valkerie, My Winnipeg, 12:08 East of Bucharest, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Day, Sideways, Enemy At the Gates, No Direction Home, Man on Wire, Bowling for Columbine, A Long Night's Journey Into Day, Vanilla Sky, Momento, Broken Flowers, Million Dollar Baby, Letters from Iwo Jima, I'm Not There, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Nixon/Frost, The Wrestler, Dave Chappelle's Block Party, Death at a Funeral, Death to Smoochy, A Scanner Darkly, Dirty Pretty Things, Churchill: The Hollywood Years, Pan's Labrynth, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Avetar, Everything Is Illuminated, Fast Food Nation, Flags of Our Fathers, 8 Mile, Gangs of New York, Good Night and Good Luck, Helvetica, Infamous, Little Miss Sunshine, Love in the time of Cholera, Bridge of San Luis Rey, Me Myself & Irene, Mean Girls, Memoirs of a Geisha, Requiem for a Dream, Stranger than Fiction, Running with Scissors, Syriana, Taken, Mulholland Drive, My Kid Could Paint That, School for Scoundrels, The Night We Call it a Day, Adeventureland,Thirteen Days, La Vie en Rose, Volver, Babel, The Wendell Baker Story, Welcome to Pyongyang Animal Park, Who The #$&% Is Jackson Pollock, Y tu mamá también, Dogville, The Lives of Others, Punch-Drunk Love, Gosford Park, Capturing the Friedmans, Inland Empire, Before Sunset, Yi Yi, Cache (Hidden)

...next I will tackle the best comedies and the most overrated films of the past decade

the Friendship Express

I finished my internship in Izmir and visited Istanbul for a few days. On my last day I checked out of my place and headed for the famous train station, well famous because of Agatha Christi's novels at least. I had purchased a ticket on the "Filia Express" (Friendship Express) the night before. The train was to depart at 9pm for Thessaloniki (Salonika), Greece.



And so I arrived at the train station Sunday morning with my heavy backpack, all checked out and ready to put my luggage in a locker or check it. The lockers at the station were ample, my large pack could fit in the smallest of them. The lockers however, were not fuctioning, or at least I could not figure out how to opperate them. Either the machine that locks them and dispenses the ticket was broken or something else was wrong. I asked a number of people at the station including the information booth and no one seemed to know who I could speak with to help me with them. Very frustrating. Lugging a giagantic and quite heavy backpack to art museums and whatnot is not something I enjoy doing.

The train left at 9pm. I had read online that it would leave at 8pm and arrive in Thessaloniki at 8am, this was not accurate. The train ride was very comfortable and I got a good night's rest in my compartment. My only issue was the power outlet, which kept on cutting in and out.

In Turkey

I have been in Turkey since December 16th.
The first flight from Corpus to Houston was delayed due to rain, the Lufthansa flight from Houston was held up for a few hours and only after German Shepards searched the 747 and the passenger queue. I missed my conecting flight from Frankfurt to Munich and instead found a direct flight with Sun Express. I arrived in Turkey and left the terminal to look for a payphone to call my contact. There were no pay phones outside so I had to go explain why I was returning and went through security. After finding a payphone I discovered that they do not take cash or coins. Most stores were closed but I finally found one who sold me a phone card. I spent a good deal of time dialing my contact's number with no luck, finally, the woman who sold me the card helped me use the pay phone and I finaly told my friend I arrived.

Finding the proper bus downtown also involved asking a number of people... it seems that less people speak English than the impression that I got from what I had read. Nevertheless, I wound up downtown and my friend boarded the coach to find me after I failed to get off at the proper stop. The End.

untitled

"S-U-P just sent me a message!"
-my father

I've got an internship

I have an internship in İzmir, Turkey and I'm flying there on Monday. It's certainly a relief, as I was supposed to start co-oping (interning) three months ago. I was trying to get an internship in Mumbai (Bombay), but in light of the recent terrorist attacks, it's a mixed blessing I did not (I still would like to go).

It's either a rare coincidence or destiny to get an internship in that city. I've been staying with my folks for the past 2-1/2 months and while I type this I am sitting a few feet away from a ships portrait of my great-great-great-great grandfather's ship, the bark/barque Scio, in İzmir, then called Smyrna. My fourth great grandfather was a New England sea captain in the 1840s and 50s until his untimely death to scurvy, in 1849 he organized a company of miners, 49ers, from Beverly, Massachusetts around Cape Horn to the mouth of the Sacramento River in California for the Gold Rush; the ship returned to Beverly with gold. In 1855 the three-masted 429-ton Scio was built in Bath, Maine with Patterson as master and partner. My family has a ship's portait of the ship from the following year in Symrna Bay (İzmir) done by an Italian living there. Capt. Patterson died of scurvy less than two years later.
I will post a picture of the ship's portrait when I take a picture of it

Trip to Mexico

Whenever I am down visiting Corpus, my father always suggests visiting Mexico. I've been trying to secure financing to visit my friends who are working in Mexico City, but I have been less than successful in that endeavor. Last weekend my folks decided that the next best thing would be to cross the border and arbitrarily walk around. So the afternoon of "Black Friday", we drove down to Brownsville, Texas.

We parked the car in a parking lot in Browsville and joined the hundreds of people crossing the border into Matamoros, Mexico. We paid the 50 cent bridge toll and walked across the bridge only to stop before we physically crossed the Rio Grande because the garage called my father with information about his car. There were a number of people who appeared to be returning to Mexico from Brownsville with shopping bags, but we were the only easily-identifiable tourists crossing the bridge.

Bienvenidos a Mexico, we made it, my mother warned us all to turn off our phones because there were people under the bridge that would steal our numbers, whatever that means. Someone told her that, at least, about the horrible cell phone trolls who live under the bridge.

We went straight through customs and immigration, no one stamped our passport or asked to see it. ...if we were going further into Mexico we would have needed to acquired tourist visas, but at this border they assume you are either a Mexican citizen or a day-tripper. As we walked further into Mexico we saw this miles-long backup to the US border and were thankful we did not take our car.

We got to a tourist map and then I asked what the plan was. We had no plan, and my mother did not want to take my Mexico guidebook in her handbag, so we had no idea what we were doing. I said we should walk to the plaza. My parents assumed there would be all sorts of attractions conveniently located along the river. As we walked a block into the city we started getting hustled by Taxi drivers for rides, a man claiming to be a guide came up to us offering his services and his abilities to get us a Taxi. He had a laminated ID-card around his neck, you can't counterfeit something like that! So we got a Taxi and he took us to the market.

The market sold all the famous trinkets that Mexico is famous for, Sombreros, silver, maracas, leather, wool ponchos, hammocks, et cetera. My mother bought a tacky silver wall crucifix and I bought a set of maracas with "Mexico" painted on them. We were brought around to every vendor in the tourist market, we saw no other shoppers. Although it was near closing time, it was Black Friday and apparently, according to our guide and the vendors, we were the only tourists in the entire city all day.

We then ate at a local restarant, I had some very good fajitas and some Tecate (beer). I practiced my Spanish with our guide, I remember a lot more than I thought I would.


We took a Taxi back to the border and then walked across. At the US border, they inspected our passports but did not stamp them.

After nixing the idea to stay in South Padre, we drove home.