And I normally *like* Mondays!

Today I endured a few futile hours, along with their requisite bouts of frustration mixed with lack of complete understanding of why I was frustrated, at the hands of the Chilean government. I am currently renewing my temporary visa, which I understand will be a long and complicated process. However, I figured the complications would come on the "front side" of the process--- gathering the required documents ---not in the middle of it. I visited several gov't offices on Wed. Sept 10th, collecting the required documents, getting my picture taken (they want 3 photos), etc., and was actually pleased to find out that I can make the renewal application by mail. So I sent the Ministry of External Relations copies of everything they asked for, and waited for their reply. Of course on Saturday I received a nice letter stating that I needed to send in 2 more documents, neither of which were actually in the required list. Oh well.

So this morning I set off again, back to some of the same gov't offices as on the 10th of Sept, to gather anew my missing documents. I arrived at the processing office --figuring I had been disqualified for the "apply by mail" option because of my missing documents-- and waited in their 2 hour line. I finally got up to the counter, handed the agent all of my paperwork (which by now was stacking up!), and she looked through it for about 30 seconds and said I was still lacking a "legalized" copy of my diploma. I guess I had mis-interpreted "legalizado" for "official" in the letter I received Saturday. Anyway, she was very kind to ask me to step aside, collect the document, and then send everything back by mail. (In my frustration at futilely waiting in the 2-hr line, I guess I forgot to be thankful that she didn't ask me to come back and wait again in the line.)

So I went back again to another office (I'm getting pretty familiar with central Santiago by now!) to get my diploma "legalized" (still have no idea what that actually means). This time the line was short (yay!), but the agent looked at all the "funny English characters" on the document and said "Oh you'll have to go to the Chilean consulate in your country to get this legalized." So there I was, 3 hours, some sweat, good amounts of frustration, and nowhere closer to renewing my visa (which conveniently expires in 2 months 8 days). Anyway, I've sent a "plea" email to the consulate in Houston asking what I have to do to get my diploma legalized. Probably involves waiting a few weeks for the post to send, and then return, whatever they need. Then I get to return to the "nice" old man who rejected my original request and get him to "legalize" the signature of the consul. Then I can send my documents back through the post and hope they aren't rejected another time!

----------

In other news today, another bank capitulated, this one hitting much closer to home for me and my family: Wachovia. Until the mid-90s, Wachovia only existed in the mid-Atlantic. Why it decided it needed to rapidly expand into other markets, only to have its balloon popped this weekend, I guess no one will really know. In all the chaos surrounding the $700 billion bailout, no one's yet talking much about job losses. However in NC, Wachovia is a big employer, so any reductions-in-force will come as a hard pill to swallow.

Also, my laptop is refusing to run Microsoft Word correctly, even after I un- and re-installed it. I reckon I installed a conflicting device driver or something similar. Also, the "search" function in Windows Vista isn't working... it doesnt find anything! Ugh x 2.

To end on a bit of good news, I guess: I weighed in this morning at 211.2 lbs (after running of course!), which is the lowest I've weighed in probably 2 years, since the end of my stay in Barbados. And I did spend the 2 hours waiting in line this morning revising my WRF-Andes manuscript. It's coming together well, and I hope to submit it before I go to Arica on Oct 14th.

Lobbing one into the US debate, all the way from Santiago!

This morning I was pleasantly surprised to see, in the NY Times Op-Ed piece, a series of good foreign policy questions from various world leaders-- including Michelle Bachelet, the current president of Chile! An excellent series of questions that deal directly with the facts: that the USA remains a global superpower but has lost some of its leadership on issues of "justice" which include poverty, hunger, and human rights. (Implicit in the question is how our war in Iraq has damaged, at least in the mind of the president of Chile, America's standing on that stage.) Here's the quote.

Many developing countries — mine included — have made sacrifices to carry out tough economic reforms and have sought “trade and not aid.” To succeed, we need to compete on a level playing field with more developed economies. Is the United States ready to shoulder some of the burden by advocating the elimination or tempering of protectionism and subsidies? The United Nations by itself, with its faults and many achievements, does not lead. Nation-states do. American commitment and leadership is a must for effective multilateral cooperation. Will you demonstrate a renewed commitment to multilateralism and the rule of international law? Will you negotiate actively to agree on a post-Kyoto treaty on global warming and seek to join the United Nations Human Rights Council? Lastly, what would you do to regain the trust of your allies who would like to see the United States engaging in respectful dialogue and leading the way in the fight not merely against terrorism — which must be done — but also against world hunger, poverty, inequality and disease?

MICHELLE BACHELET, the president of Chile

Ode to Nathan

So yesterday (24 Sept) was my birthday, and I had a great time celebrating with my new Chilean friends. The GBU group came over to my apartment on Tuesday for dinner & cake, and my church house group had a cake for me & sang it up on Wednesday. I'll upload some pictures soon, but for now, I want to give a special shout-out to my pal Nathan, who wins the Creativity Award in his facebook message: he gave me a birthday haiku!

birthday haiku

Today is your birthday
celebrate it, ancient one!
you're almost thirty!

Nathan, thanks for your friendship & for letting me join up with you and Bob on your adventures-in-bible-study-leading last year! Also thanks for the constant reminder that about the only way I'll get the better of you in Ultimate is if I rake you in the mouth with the disk. (Of course you got your revenge... my right eye socket was bruised for a week after you pegged me!) In return for your generous poem, I offer you this sample of my own creativity:

Thank-you limerick.

There once was an athlete named Crain.
The ultimate field was his reign.
    Encouragement he gave;
    Many a match he did save;
Yet girls? For him still a bane.

God bless, my friend!!

Gettin' in on this whole economic crisis bit

Tonight I read that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or the FDIC, has taken over Washington Mutual and resold it to JPMorgan Chase. In a normal financial setting, this would have been huge news, as Washington Mutual is by far the largest main-stream bank to "go under" (as I understand it, the bank didn't actually fold, but just needed help selling itself... stay tuned to see if Washington Mutual, as it was earlier this afternoon, remains the same company... I think it's not any more.) Of course with the Congress, the White House, and candidates McCain and Obama figuring out how to throw $700 billion of US taxpayer money to plug a "collapsing dike" (as Bill O'Reilly put it tonight), the WaMu transition is largely unnoticed.

So why is it important to me? Well it turns out that I actually have a deposit account at Washington Mutual (or, as it might be, I am now a proud client of JPMorgan Chase). I'm not worried about that small CD, as it was a case of "interest rate chasing" with some funds I didn't want to put into the stock market (does anyone want to put money into the stock market now? With the threat of 20%+ losses looming? Granted the market could be at a minimum now and this might actually turn out to be a very good time to buy... but the uncertainty is still there!)

I started thinking, what is $700 billion dollars? I mean, what does it actually mean? It looks like a handful of guys (and gals... equal-opportunity bashing!) in southern Manhattan took a beautiful thing, Newtonian calculus, and screwed with it, selling worthless investments under the fancy headline of "derivaties." And now we, the 300 million-strong United States of America, have to bail them out of their "bad investments". To me the phrase "bad investments" is a euphemism: why not call it for what it is: unbridled greed? For it seems like this handful (maybe a few hundred people, plus secretaries & bureaucratic staff?) of people have lost the equivalent of:

5% of the US annual gross domestic product. That's like taking the city of Norman, OK, with its population of 100,000, and abolishing the economic activity of 5,000 of them for 2007.

1% of the *world* gross domestic product. That's the economic activity of 70,000,000 people!

Maybe some of my readers with better economic or business sense than I can offer some insight: how can 100 "traders" (gamblers?), in a few months' time, wipe out the equivalent of the annual production of 70 million people??! It's mind-boggling. I liked the analogy from McDonalds: a $700 billion bail-out is enough to buy each American 2,000 McD's apple pies. :-) As Jon Stewart joked, maybe the newly homeless could build a make-shift home out of those pies?

"Trouble at Alitalia," or, "How unions seem to be screwing everything up"

I'm not an expert in international bankruptcy laws, nor am I overly familiar with the specific situation that seems to be unfolding in Italy. From what I've read, however, the Italian state carrier, Alitalia, ("state" carrier means the Italian people/govt own 49.9% of the company) seems to be in trouble. Today it cancelled 20-30% of its flights from Rome, and the speculation is that it has run out of money to buy fuel. Given the high cost of jet fuel today, that's not an unreasonable claim. To compound the problem, (and again, this comes from what I've read) the company's 9 unions have continued to vote against any sort of "rescue" operations (mergers with Air France/KLM, purchases by consortia, etc) because such actions would result in job losses. I mean, that's all and good to want to save every possible job, but get with the program, people! If the entire company goes under, that might be just a little worse than a few thousand losses, don't ya think?!!

Anyway, it'll be interesting to follow in the coming days and weeks.

Dollar-cost average your marriage

To all my married friends & readers, and those interested in one day being married, I read this interesting article in the NY Times about finances and marriage. It contends that the number one source of strife in all marriages - as well as a major reason for divorce - is financial. It encourages people to date their "financial twin" to avoid some troubles, and for everyone else, it cautions that the pitfalls are many & that the need for communication -- specific to finances -- is essential. In fact, to put it in terms many of the NY Times' financially-savvy readers would understand, the article encouraged couples to "Dollar-cost average" their marriage. I.e., instead of waiting for the "right time" to make investments, always invest (communicate, go on dates, update budget, etc.) at frequent, regular intervals. Then after many years, the dividends would roll in.

While I'm not sure I agree with everything in the article (it's written from a purely secular standpoint, and essentially leaves out the role of wise counsel & prayer), it seems a definite starting point. What do you guys think?

"The Big Read", or, "I am above average"

My friend BethAnn (and Miles) posted this link to the "Big Read" project of the National Endowment for the Arts. It lists the greatest 100 books ever written (not sure about the order, but regardless these are classical / good / etc.) and estimates that the average adult has read 6% of these (or 6 of the 100). I've followed Miles & BethAnn and bolded the ones I've read, italicized the ones I hope to one day read, and underlined the ones I like.

Here is my take.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection -Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo


And a few more that I've read that could / should be added to the list:
MacBeth and/or Romeo & Juliet - Shakespeare
Redwall - Brian Jacques
The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck

"A day in the life"

I got this idea from my friend Francine.

Because many of my friends & readers don't live in Chile, I thought you guys might be interested in some of the details of my life in Santiago. Here's a typical weekday schedule.

6:30 a.m. Wake up, check weather online, read some of the NY Times and other interesting news & analysis stories about events of the previous days.

7:30 a.m. Run (M, W, Th) or walk (Tu, F) in Parque O'Higgins or (when walking) to Plaza Brasil. Eat a steaming bowl of oatmeal with brown sugar and cinnamon (mmmmm!)

9:00 a.m. Leave for work, arriving 3-4 minutes later, depending on how bad the traffic is. Hehehe. (When the traffic is bad, my commute can take up to 33% longer! A whole extra minute). I login to the computers and continue running and analyzing output from the WRF model.

12:00 (Wednesdays and Fridays): GBU bible study and prayer group at the university.

1:00 p.m. Lunch with colleagues from work. We nearly always go out to eat, and at $4 per outing with full table service, fresh foods (cooked that morning... none of this "fresh off the 18-wheeler and our microwave" stuff!) that include veggies & meat, who wouldn't opt for this meal?

6:30 p.m. Head back home, eat a quick yogurt, and then go for another walk to Plaza Brasil. Mondays & Fridays, stop by the supermarket for fruits, veggies, milk, and a few other odds & ends.

8:00 p.m. Prepare and eat dinner (usually one of spaghetti, vegetable soup, or chicken & mushroom soup, with string beans, potatoes, and/or broccoli).

8:30 p.m. (Wednesdays) bible study group with church.

9:30 p.m. Get ready for bed & prepare to do it all again in the morning.

So now you know a little of how my weekdays go. As you can see, I don't have a lot of scheduled interpersonal interaction, something I'm still working on (but with a steep language barrier, and perceived busyness from both me & any potential friends to hang-out with, it's proven to be harder than I thought!)

Ya viene Fiestas Patrias! (The national celebration has arrived!)

This week is the week of patriotism here in Chile! Everyone is already hanging & flying the Chilean flag, including me, I have mine tacked up on the wall :-) Thursday (18 September) is National Day, and Friday is the day of the military. During both days, the large park 3 blocks from my apartment will be full of party-makers, eating their empanadas & enjoying their beer (it's the only 2 days where it's allowed to drink beer publicly in the streets, etc... thus people have told me that this weekend will also be full of drunkards in the street... can't wait for that...) On Friday, the military participates in an afternoon of parades, marches, and bands in the park, and for the past several weeks they have been practicing in the mornings (so my a.m. jogs have been animated as I dodge the calvary, bands, regiments marching and shouting, etc, haha)

Yesterday (Saturday) they had what looked to be a dry rehearsal, with lots of groups lining up and marching into the park. My street happened to be one of their lineup spots. Here are a few photos and a video of the preparations for "Fiestas Patrias", taken outside my apartment window.

Irony & Ike

A few thoughts about Ike:

1- the storm surge will be much higher than would otherwise be expected from a strong category 2 hurricane. The NWS is expecting 15-20 feet, and it seems reasonable.

2- Shame on Fox News et al.! I get the live feed from Fox here in my cable network, and just tonight (7:40 pm EDT 12 Sept 2008) listened to the "esteemed" Geraldo Rivera (ha!) chastise people for not evacuating Galveston Island. Here's the rub: the idiot was broadcasting LIVE from the Galveston seawall. How on earth can anyone expect a full evacuation when the news media themselves converge on the very "mandatory" evacuation zones and setup camp for their ratings? Shame on you, Geraldo, for calling non-evacuees out on their decision when you are a walking talking hypocrit! Obviously the best strategy for people living in those low areas was to get out, but can you blame them for reacting to the mixed signal?

3- Hopefully the storm surge will be less than expected in Galveston and points north and east. Unfortunately it doesn't look so hopeful.

Una muy buena onda (a very good time!)

I just got back from watching Chile beat Colombia 4-0 in Estadio Nacional (national stadium). Even though we got soaked by a 15-minute downpour before the start - and I was subsequently freezing the rest of the game (recall it's still winter here!) - it was a great time! I took some videos and managed to capture 2 of Chile's 4 goals! Like the game against Brasil I attended on Sunday (which Brazil put on quite a show and won 3-0 themselves), I went to the game with my friend Cata from work, her boyfriend, and her mom. I think it's safe to assume that everyone had a much better time (despite the rains) tonight.

Enjoy the videos:

1- the entrance of El Huaso, leading the crowd in the "Chi-Chi-Chi, le-le-le, Viva Chi-le" chant.


2- the entrance of Chilean & Colombian teams.


3- GOL!!!!!!!!! Chile's first goal in the national stadium in the past 10 months! WOO HOO!


4- GOL!!!!!!!!! The aftermath of Chile's second goal (I wasn't recording when it was made), and a brief glimpse of me!


5- GOL!!!!!!!!! Chile's 4th goal in the national stadium!

My mosaic

Here is my life, according to Flickr photos.


I got this idea from Jenny, who got it from Brooklynne & Miles & Cory. Should you want to emulate, here's how:

Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr search. Using only the first page of returned images, choose your favorite and copy-&-paste each of the URL’s into the Mosaic Maker (3 columns, 4 rows).

The questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you attend?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10.What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your Flickr name.

Lots to report!

I realize that there are lots of items to discuss and so little time to discuss them. So let's get down to business.

1- My trip 2 weeks ago to Buenos Aires & Montevideo was great! I thoroughly enjoyed figuring out the crazy bus system of Buenos Aires (I took public transit to/from the airport & boat terminals), and I feel like I got to see parts of the city that aren't on the main tourist circuit. Of course I visited the requisite port, waterfront, plazas, and parks of BA, and ate lots of alfajores (like a cookie-biscuit, I guess, with gooey goodness inside!). I also toured the BA museum of art (the entry was free!) and found the tomb of Eva Peron ("Don't cry for me, Argentina").

I had lunch with a friend I met while traveling in Mendoza, Argentina, in February, and found a really great hostel full of fun people. I very highly recommend it; it really was one of the best hostels I've ever stayed in (and by now I have lots of experience!) Hostel Arrabal We went out to eat a steak dinner the first night, and stayed in and cooked stir-fry the second night. It was just the relaxing - but still fun - experience I was looking for in BA.

After 2 days in BA, I took the Buquebus ferry directly to Montevideo where I spent time chilling in the sun along the Rambla. I have to say, however, that the Uruguayos are incredibly strange with their "mate". It's a national addiction, as I saw literally hundreds of people, of all shapes, backgrounds, etc walking / driving (the bus driver too?!) with their hot water bottle in one hand, the curiously shaped mate cup in the other hand, and a smile on their face. It has to be some kind of narcotic. Hahaha. Otherwise, though, my experience in Uruguay was also tranquil, an interesting change from the chaotic life (yet still relaxed-pace... as evident from the hundreds of young people chilling in the parks) of BA. My hostel, while downtown, was much older and surrounded by belligerant homeless. Honestly I don't know what to do around those types -- one guy who I gave a coin to got mad at me after I gave him what he asked for (money) and actually - while standing in my face - threw the coin onto the roof of a nearby building. I quickly told him to leave me alone, loudly and sternly. The others were not so ridiculous, but definitely the kind of "follow you around until you give it up" beggars.

Anyway, back in the Montevideo airport, I was surprised to have to pay a $35 exit tax (ugh!), but pleased with my spanish progress when I immediately recognized the distinctly chileno accent in the waiting lounge. The LAN flights, both from Stgo to BA, and from MVD to Stgo, weren't spacious (leg room is lacking!), but they are at least new with tv screens in the backs of each economy-class seat. Why won't the US air industry adopt this strategy?

2. I already posted on Gustav, but Hanna was in its infancy early last week. Obviously it never strengthened beyond minimal category 1, but regardless still passed over my parents' place in NC with strong wind & rains. I think the piedmonts of SC, NC, and VA got between 3-6" of well-needed rain and a good reminder that TCs don't always bring death & destruction.

3. Just before Hanna passed along the mid-Atlantic coast, I actually flew up to Maryland to interview for an assistant professor position. I think the interview went really well, and at least for my part, the "fit" seems good between the dept & my interests. As is typical with university hires, I'm now waiting for the committee to evaluate the other candidates and get back to me. Stay tuned, as always!

4. Last night I joined 65,000 other Chileans in the National Stadium to watch Chile vs Brazil in soccer. The game was full of amazing plays, spectacular ball-handling, great shots-on-goal, and crowd-wowing break-aways. Too bad it was Brazil putting on the show. It was such a blow-out that Brazil's star player, Ronaldinho, was taken out early in the 2nd half to preserve his energy for Wednesday's match. The game was sad because we (a ph.d. student in the Geophysics dept, her boyfriend & her mom, and me) arrived 4 hours before the start to a stadium full of energy & festivity. We knew we were outmatched but still had hope. Brazil's skills though dashed that hope really quickly though. Oh well. Colombia comes to Santiago this coming Wednesday, and I'm going hoping for a better outcome!

5. Ike looks to be yet another strong hurricane landfall in the Gulf of Mexico. This year is shaping up to be another where US hurricane losses add up big. Obviously not to the scale of 2004 or 2005, but not like last year or 2006 where few hurricanes made landfall. Will be interesting to follow Ike.... right now looks like the upper Texas coast is the likely impact zone.

Close call!

Image from the NY Times this afternoon. Not much more surge and water would have been pouring into the industrial section.