Another inauguration

A bell rang and a professor got his puffy hat

Today I went to the inauguration of a friend of a friend. This inauguration was for a professorship. Here making full professor is a much bigger thing than in the States. It is comparable to getting an endowed chair in the US.



So Franz, a boyhood friend of my friend Taco, today gave his inaugural address for his professorship in the history of science at the University of Leiden. It was lovely and I even understood about a third of the talk. Unfortunately it was not a continuous third, but more like every third word. There was a nice party after the talk.

Killer ducks update

So the killer ducks from the last post are coots. Thanks Linda! A collection of coots, when u spreekt Amerikaanse, is a cover. Beware the cover of coots.

Leiden to Delft

I am a rotten photographer

But that doesn't stop me from trying.  Mr friend Taco thought the ride from Leiden to Delft might be boring.  I assured him it was not and that it was quite pretty.  

So this past Monday I took the camera and randomly took pictures as I held the camera in my hand and rode.  I started just outside Leiden and kept snapping right into Delft.  I then mounted the camera on my handlebars for the ride home in the evening, but gave up because they were all motion-blurred.  I left a few of those at the end.  I am afraid I did not make my point very well and may have confirmed his worries instead.  

Video

I still maintain it is a lovely ride.  Twentyfive km through horse farms, and wild preserves, and a yacht club/goat farm, and small cities.   The goat farm/yacht club had a sign advertising goat meat and mutton next to the pen.  I thought that was just adding insult to injury.  I hope they have the decency not to teach the animals to read.

It was about -1 when I started and only got up to around +1 or +2 so the ice was quite thin, but stayed on many to the canals.  There's a picture of some ducks breaking a little trail through the ice with their feet.  It was pretty funny to watch.

Here is a quicktime video of the photos.

Stills here.

Killer ducks

I see packs (ok flocks maybe) of these black birds with ivory beaks.  I asked Thomas if he knew what they were.  He told me, but I have now forgotten.  I have forgotten because my brain was overloaded with his warning that they are quite aggressive.  I'll be sure to pack my holy hand grenade of antioch.

Civilization

The thing you might notice is that the bike road is everywhere well maintained.  This is not some nature preserve, sight-seeing trail.  This is how people get around. It's how I go to work in Delft.  This is the norm.  The voting population demands well maintained bike roads.  They get salted long before the car roads.  My second week here, they closed the A4 for a bit because of the ice, but the bike trails were salted.

Stan Lee makes road policy

With great power comes great responsibility.

In the country, the road is wide enough for a car and two bikes to pass.  Cars are allowed but in a reversal of the perverse US policy, bikes always have the priority.  Imagine that, the guy in a two ton (or here more likely one ton) killing machine bears a greater burden of responsibility  than the guy on a fifteen kg bike.  Country speed limits are typically 50 kph , sometimes 60 kph, and usually in town it drops to 30 kph.  

If there is a bike-car collision it is almost invariably the legal fault of the car.  This policy has a noticeable effect on driving habits.  I have not yet been given the old right hook here ( a driver passes on the left then makes a quick right turn cutting off the biker).  It is an almost daily occurrence for me in the States. 

A fly in the ointment

The one thing I object to here is that small motorcycles (aka scooters) are mostly treated like bikes and are allowed on the bike-only trails.    Little old ladies and sensible folk are fine, but there is often some teenager zipping along at well over the speed limit and menacing the rest of the trail users.  I don't know why these vehicles are not treated the same as full-sized motorcycles since most of them will go a good 80 or 100 kph and could easily hold their own on regular roads (not the superhighways).  I never see any policing of these guys, so there is a bit of wild-west attitude.  Occasionally there is a recognition of the insanity and scooters are signaled to the main road.

Word of the day

begrijp.  Understand.  Ik niet u begrijp.  A.u.b. sprekt u langzaam.  I don't understand you.  Please speak slowly.  

Slow Sunday

Bikes of the day

Mine.

In orange you will see my go-fast bike. It's very light, short of wheelbase, quick-steering, and the handlebars sit several centimeters below the saddle. I immediately notice a change of a few mm in the positions of the seat or handbars. Specifically, it has a custom lugged steel frame, Dura Ace drivetrain and components, Brooks Swallow saddle, and 28mm Continental road tires. It's comfy and when I'm in decent shape I can (solo) average 31 kph in low wind over 100km. I did not bring this one with me and I miss it.

In white you can see my commuter/light-touring/randonneur. It's a Surly Cross-Check frame. It's fairly heavy. The handlebars sit level with the seat. the wheel-base is a bit longer. I have racks mounted front and back. I have the Nitto Noodle bars and like them. I have the Shimano Nexus 8 speed internally geared hub. It's a nice drivetrain, but really, really heavy. I run Conti CountryRide 37mm tires. I've got the Planet Bike Cascadia fenders. They're nice and long for good puddle protection. The racks are Surly's Nice Racks. They're powder-coated cromoly and just bullet -proof. I usually hang Ortleib Office bags on the back. Unloaded, the white bike gives up about 2 kph to the orange one and with loaded office bags, another 2 kph. It's very comfy, giving a fairly up-right position on the tops and a decent tuck in the drops. I'm using the HubBub adaptor to mount the shifter. I've read complaints, but I have made it work pretty well. Getting it set properly is key. I used a bit of the leather bar wrap on the end of the HubBub to help snug it.

The Surly works well in all the situations you'd use a Dutch bike and it has the advantage of being fast and comfy for longer rides (to Delft and back for instance). The one place that it fails is at the train station. I couldn't bring myself to leave this bike at the train station. It's not the theft that worries me. It's not very hard to be much more secure than the rest of the Dutch bikes. The problem is that people at the bike parking stalls have no respect for bikes. They literally shove them in any which way they can. For going to the train-stations, one must really have a cheap bike to which one is not in the least emotionally attached.

Sugino BB warning

One word of warning: I went with Sugino cranks and the matching Sugino BB. The BB had a bearing failure quite recently after only 1000 km. I won't be buying Sugino again soon.

Gotchaday

Adoption bonus

Gotchaday is the extra holiday you get when you have an adopted child.

One year ago today we got Leif. Here are the boys on 24 January 2008. It seems like we've always had him. Ethan claims he can't remember not having a brother.

To celebrate we had chinese food from Eethuis Li, our new favorite local dive, and cake.

Tired boy

We drove Leif to exhaustion at the market today.

Big old church

Here's a big old church because you're supposed to take pictures of big old churches in Europe. It's Hooglandse Kerk here in Leiden. To tell you the truth, I get more excited about small old houses. It changes one's perspective to walk into a 16th century house that is not an historical landmark but just in use. You can be born live a full life and die on time scales that are short in the consciousness of the local people.

Word of the day

Eergisteren.  The day before yesterday.  

Vandaag morgen gisteren en overmorgen vandaag eergisteren zal geweest worden.  Tomorrow today will be yesterday and the day after tomorrow today will be the day before yesterday.

See the word from a couple of posts back.  

Last inauguration post

OK.  I listened to the speech at my desk today and was struck by the Shakespearean overtones.  The NY Times ran a piece a couple of days ago noting that the President's celebrated communication skills spring from a love of literature and reading.  Indeed.  The speech has been called prosaic by Obama standards.   Perhaps, but check out the closing paragraph.  He claims to be paraphrasing Washington,

in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents

but I thought I could hear in the tempo and the tone

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

BHO, the sun of York? Perhaps he's not the messiah but Ra the sun god?

There's also a hint of the old ``Once more unto the breach dear friends..." perhaps Barry channeling Harry? Hey, it's a bit bloodthirsty, but a great charging speech.

Also note the reference in the next line to ``what storms may come'' an echo from Hamlet's``what dreams may come.'' Hamlet was not having happy thoughts and the dreams were those of an imagined afterlife. Likewise, Richard's warm words for his brother, the ``sun of York'' were uttered while plotting his overthrow. Perhaps I'm overanalyzing a bit, but that's pretty dreary stuff. There is, I suppose, an enormous mess to clean up. It was fun to watch W sit there and listen to his administration being eviscerated in the inaugural address though.

I believe

I am pretty sure Ted Kennedy died yesterday and the new president called him back. That's what I'm telling them over here anyway.

Word of the day

Haag.  Woods, forest, or hunting grounds.  As in s'Graven Haag, the Duke's forest that became Den Haag, known in the english world as the Hague.  It was never incorporated as a city  and today the parliment meets in the old hunting lodge. 

Factoid

 I finally figured out why I can't hear the difference between g and ch: there is none.  Apparently though, the guttural  g, which is the most distintcive of sounds in Dutch and is easily apparent as a hacking, coughing sound, is sometimes simply made silent.  I gain new respect for the twisted world of english pronunciation everyday.

The big day

Put the weight down, see what it feels like to walk unburdened

Any strength athlete can tell you that the best part of the farmer's walk is the feeling of lightness for the first few steps after you put the weight down.  Eight years is a long time to carry such a heavy load of stupidity and craziness.  Tomorrow, I will be at least two centimeters taller.  

We had a nice small party at our house in Leiden, I'm glad we did something to commemorate the moment.  

BHO is the first openly intellectual president since Wilson

OK, he's African-American, and yes, it's a big first.  I think that it is at least as improbable and more important in the long run that he is an uncloseted, openly-practicing, proud intellectual.  I really don't think we've seen that since Wilson.  Even FDR was not much of an intellectual.  Clinton was, but he hid it (perhaps wisely) behind the veneer of the Bubba persona.  Hoover might have been, but he was such a failure, nobody really wants to think about him.  So, I too feel like at last I have somebody who represents me in my little subgroup.  He's one of us, one of the academy.  The promised land indeed.

I hope the American people are reconnecting with the idea that important leadership positions should be held by well-qualified people.  You know, people who know stuff and like to think and reason and learn new things.  The incurious guy down the street with drug and alcohol induced neurological disorders impeding his language faculties, his gait, and his facial expressions might not be the preferred choice anymore.  

Word of the day

Overmorgen.  The day after tomorrow.  Most things in Dutch are longer to write or say than their English counterparts.  This is a nice exception.  One word for four.  Ik ga berijden mijn fiets morgen en overmorgen.  I am going to ride my bike tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.  

I think we should invent a new english word, overmorrow, to mean this.  Ethan reinvented a new english word himself recently: yesternight.  It's a real word already and he uses it correctly, but I really don't think he heard it anywhere, he just constructed it on the false assumption that language is rational.  

 

Words and deeds

So I thought I would be more inclined to write political screeds than I have been. There are already so many loudly held opinions of every variety it doesn't seem worth it.

Except today. And tomorrow, I expect.


I have had the distinct pleasure of voting for Barack H Obama four times now. He's spoken at my university and represented me in the Senate. I am not immune to the messianic fervor that surrounds him. I actually believe it a little.

On this side of the world, and I expect just about every where outside the USA, there is a buzz in the air. Like standing next to a van de Graaff generator just before it arcs. You can feel a bit of a tingle and you know that something beautiful and brilliant and awesome is about to happen.

With this in mind, I bring you the following excerpt from a speech we should all know well:

We are caught in war, wanting peace. We are torn by division, wanting unity. We see around us empty lives, wanting fulfillment. We see tasks that need doing, waiting for hands to do them.

To a crisis of the spirit, we need an answer of the spirit.

To find that answer, we need only look within ourselves.

When we listen to "the better angels of our nature," we find that they celebrate the simple things, the basic things—such as goodness, decency, love, kindness.

Greatness comes in simple trappings.

The simple things are the ones most needed today if we are to surmount what divides us, and cement what unites us.

To lower our voices would be a simple thing.

In these difficult years, America has suffered from a fever of words; from inflated rhetoric that promises more than it can deliver; from angry rhetoric that fans discontents into hatreds; from bombastic rhetoric that postures instead of persuading.

We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another—until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.

For its part, government will listen. We will strive to listen in new ways—to the voices of quiet anguish, the voices that speak without words, the voices of the heart—to the injured voices, the anxious voices, the voices that have despaired of being heard.

Those who have been left out, we will try to bring in.

Those left behind, we will help to catch up.

For all of our people, we will set as our goal the decent order that makes progress possible and our lives secure.

As we reach toward our hopes, our task is to build on what has gone before—not turning away from the old, but turning toward the new.

In this past third of a century, government has passed more laws, spent more money, initiated more programs, than in all our previous history.

In pursuing our goals of full employment, better housing, excellence in education; in rebuilding our cities and improving our rural areas; in protecting our environment and enhancing the quality of life—in all these and more, we will and must press urgently forward.

We shall plan now for the day when our wealth can be transferred from the destruction of war abroad to the urgent needs of our people at home.

So, BHO? NO! Richard F**ing Nixon, first inaugural address. A man who ran TWICE on an antiwar platform and pledged openness and reform in government.  How in the name of all that is good and decent can a man run on an antiwar platform in a reelection campaign?  As we have again had demonstrated over the last eight shameful, torturous, cognitively-dissonant years, we get the government we deserve.

Let's give our new president time and leeway, but let's not forget to hold him to his promise and his promises. Let's not accept a Nixonian Janus.  Let's not be happy with Clintonian nonfailure.  Let's demand the greatness we see is possible.

Ok. I'm putting the soapbox away for a bit.

Word of the day

Blij.  Happy.  We would be happy to see you.  Wij zouden blij om u te zien.  I learned this word after being told that gelukkig was a bit archaic, a bit like merry in english.  You might say ``Merry Christmas" or ``Gelukkig nieuwjaar" but you wouldn't be merry to see someone.