Hot Pink Maken Yes

My prediction about the War of 1812 is coming true

2010-09-28T22:57:00.001-04:00

When I visited a War of 1812 cemetery in Buffalo this summer, I predicted that the US wouldn’t made a big deal out of the war’s bicentennial a la 1976 – the war’s historical legacy is too mixed and too fuzzy for that. Most Americans can’t even tell you what the war was about.

Anyway, my prediction appears to be coming true… and the Canadians have noticed.

A quick stop in Buffalo post-Memorial Day

2010-06-02T00:01:00.001-04:00

I had to travel to Alliston, Ontario (not too far from Toronto in terms of distance) over Memorial Day weekend for a conference. I took the Friday prior to the weekend off so D and R and I would get at least 2 days together as a family, and we were fortunate enough to get some great weather – sunny, 70s, etc.

Sunday I packed my bags and flew to Buffalo. From Buffalo I rented a car and drove to Alliston (about 2 hrs and 45 minutes, but thanks to picking the slowest possible line at the Queenstown-Lewiston bridge border crossing it took another 30 minutes to make it to my destination). Why not just fly into Toronto and save the drive? Good question. As it turns out, flying to Toronto was 4x the cost of flying to Buffalo, and that was flying indirectly, too. If I wanted to go direct, it would have cost me $2000 vs. $300 for Buffalo. No, I did not mistype the zeroes in that last sentence. Pearson is just one of the most expensive airports around, and for the third time this year I’ve chosen to get to Ontario via Buffalo rather than fly directly there.

Anyway, the conference was fine; it turns out that you don’t need to get far outside Toronto (the 3rd-largest metropolitan area in North America) to find it looking a lot like my old home in central California: fairly flat, lots of farmland, low population density, and a shiny new Wal-Mart rising up out of nowhere.

Today, I left Alliston just before 1 PM and made great time back to the border. Since my flight wasn’t for four more hours, and Buffalo is pretty easy to get around, I decided to visit a few historical sites. I already had my mind set on visiting a site that had caught my eye via Google Maps the last time I was searching for the Buffalo Airport: a cemetery dedicated to the War of 1812, hidden behind the airport itself on Aero Drive. I’ve always been fascinated with older cemeteries in general, but this had the added allure of (1) being convenient to my final destination of the airport and (2) since I’d missed Memorial Day while at my conference in Canada, I could pay my respects here instead.

But sitting at Customs waiting to cross the border, I realized I had more time than I had planned, and I could probably do more than just visit the 1812 cemetery. I decided to I’d try to locate something I’ve wanted to see for many years: the marker identifying the spot where President McKinley was fatally shot in 1901. I knew this was in Buffalo, and thanks to my BlackBerry and Google, I was able to find an address for my GPS pretty quickly.

As it turned out, you didn’t need to stray far from the hightway (which I had to take en route to the airport anyway) to find the right spot. McKinley was shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz in the Temple of Music, a grand but temporary structure built for the Pan-American Exposition, a world’s fair-type event held in Buffalo that year. Here’s a panoramic nighttime view of the buildings as they were at the Exposition:

President McKinley was conducting a meet-n-greet with the public when he was shot by Czolgosz; he survived the shooting but died of infection a week later while staying at the home of the Exposition’s director.

This area looks a lot different today – in fact, it’s a residential neighborhood. Fordham Drive – where the marker is located – is a totally unremarkable, middle-class street, part of a development of similar-looking streets and homes. In fact, were it not for Google, I probably never would have found the marker, which is a plaque affixed to a stone in the narrow, grassy center strip of Fordham drive.

Here are two shots of the marker-up close. The only camera I had with me today was my BlackBerry, so unfortunately the photos aren’t great, but the marker is legible in the second photo.

President McKinley is a pretty forgotten president today – for starters, he’s overshadowed by his Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt, who took the oath of office in a Buffalo mansion after McKinley died – but it’s obvious that at the time his death was a big deal, and monuments to him (statues, etc.) can be found all over the country. A major one is right in front of Buffalo’s City Hall. In fact, just by searching the web I’m inclined to believe that there are more McKinley-related monuments around the US than their are monuments/memorials to President Kennedy. This makes sense: the Spanish-American War was a big moment, culturally and politically, for the United States and its emergence as a world power in the 20th century, and McKinley led that effort. And McKinley was the 3rd President to die by an assassin’s bullet in 36 years – this must have been traumatic for the nation. Nonetheless, McKinley is not really honored or revered today. By comparison, Dealey Plaza (which I visited in 2008) is preserved pretty much as it was in 1963, and it’s also the site of a large, popular museum dedicated to Kennedy’s assassination. In President Lincoln’s case, while Ford’s Theatre was converted into an office building shortly after his assassination in 1865, it was finally “restored” in 1968 and is now a popular historic site, as is the home across the street where he died a few hours after being shot. For Kennedy and Lincoln, these sites act as pseudo (if macabre) shrines where modern-day visitors can learn a bit more about each President and pay their respects. No such luck for McKinley; not only were the Pan-American buildings all torn down two months after his death, but even the building where he convalesced and died was torn down to build a parking lot in the 1950s. (Similar fates befell spots associated with President Garfield’s fatal shooting). Probably thousands of people drive by the McKinley marker each month and have no idea that it’s there. Meanwhile, the house where Roosevelt took the oath of office is preserved as a national historic site!

From Fordham Drive, I headed back to the airport to visit the War of 1812 cemetery. It wasn’t hard to find; it’s on a winding, narrow road behind the airport, sandwiched in between a number of nondescript industrial and/or city-owned facilities.

I had learned ahead of time that the cemetery contains 205 American and British war dead who had met their fates in a nearby military hospital c. 1814-15. Almost all died of dysentery and diarrhea. Thanks to the miracles of modern medicine – and especially antibiotics – we forget how the biggest killer in war used to be infection, not wounds. Even in the Civil War and WWI, disease and infection took a tremendous toll on fighting forces, turning even minor wounds into death sentences for thousands of young men. The quality of medical care didn’t matter; Presidents Garfield and McKinley both died of wounds and resulting infections that modern medicine could have patched-up quickly. One historian thinks Garfield could have been back to work the very next day had he been shot today. Instead, he spent 3 months slowly dying of terrible infections.

The cemetery is small and nicely kept by the Buffalo Historical Society, although it’s clear right away that this must have been used as a mass grave; individual graves are not marked. Instead, white crosses are placed haphazardly throughout the cemetery, each with an American and British flag placed adjacent (with one Canadian flag at the entrance to the cemetery, as shown above). Judging by other photos I found, I’m guessing these flags were placed for Memorial Day, or at least very recently.

It’s a small cemetery; I took this photo near the outer fence looking back towards the road.

I was glad to see this cemetery so well-maintained. It could have easily been forgotten about in the aftermath of the war.

What was the “War of 1812”* about? We learned about this in high school, but it didn’t make much sense then and it doesn’t really now, either. Unlike the Revolution or the Civil War, it’s not a war that figures much into the modern American narrative, and unlike those wars you can’t explain it with one sentence. The Revolution: “We want independence.” Civil War: “Slavery is bad”. War of 1812: “The British were mistreating sailors and we thought Britain was arming Indians and Britain was fighting France and we were considering conquering Canada and…”.

* A misnomer, as the war ran from 1812-1815.

In the end, the war resulted in no territorial gains and didn’t do much to resolve the grievances that sparked it. As a teenager, I once spent a day sightseeing in San Francisco with a nice Canadian couple, one of whom was a history teacher. He explained to me that Americans don’t like to talk about the War of 1812 because we lost it. I also learned then that Canadians believe that the war was primarily about conquering Canada (though contemporary American sources indicate that the US likely wanted to capture Canadian territory to use as bargaining chips with the UK, not to keep), and that their successful effort (as a British colony) to repel us was instrumental in forging Canadian’s identity and ultimate independence. Wikipedia has decent pages discussing some of the war’s causes and its outcomes.

Anyway, other than giving us future presidents Andrew Jackson and William Henry Harrison and the “Star-Spangled Banner”, looking back almost two hundred years later it’s hard to see how the War of 1812 changed anything, other than fill this cemetery and many others. I wonder what sort of commemorations we’ll see over 2012-2015, as the 200th anniversary of key dates and battles from the “War of 1812” come around. I don’t expect it will be like 1976 again.

In the meantime, this Memorial Day, it made me glad to see these soldiers commemorated with new flags and fresh flowers.

May 22-23: Final weekend in Vietnam

2010-05-24T11:43:00.000-04:00

Originally posted at the Boston University Executive MBA 2010 Capstone Trip blog.

I'm writing my final post for the EMBA blog from Needham, Massachusetts. Yes, I'm back home, following 24+ hours of plane travel that took me from Saigon to Logan Airport. I was accompanied by about half of EMBA. The rest of the class chose to stay on in the area, or in Vietnam, in several cases joined by their respective spouses.

Our last weekend in Saigon was (mostly) about being tourists and only about being students for a few final hours on Saturday afternoon.

The day began with most of us spread out across the city for some serious… shopping. Turns out Saigon is a lot like Canal Street in downtown Manhattan, filled with thousands and thousands of designer knock-offs available for consumers with tight budgets. Several of us trekked a mile or so to the Bien Than market, a mega-block size building containing thousands of individual vendors and their booths.

Pictures from my camera don't do justice to the sheer size of this particular market, with countless narrow aisles packed with merchandise from floor to ceiling. And all types of merchandise – clothing, luggage, food, jewelry, watches, etc. etc. Only one rule applied: Every price was negotiable. If the vendor tells you she wants 600,000 VND for a Burberry wallet (roughly $30), you can almost definitely get it for 200,000 VND or less. If you're not comfortable converting dollars to VND, no worries – she can do it, even if the only words in English she can say are "dollar", "best quality", and "buy from me". She'll also produce a calculator to help make the negotiation faster and easier to understand. If she won't drop the price to 200,000 for you, just walk away: you'll likely find the same item elsewhere in the market, or she'll quickly drop the price to 200,000. But caveat emptor: What you're buying is fake, and probably a low-quality fake at that. For example, I brought a vendor down from $10 to $5 for a used English-language paperback book published by Random House. It was wrapped in plastic, but looked real enough to my eyes. Upon unwrapping, I discovered that the binding and cover were genuine enough, but the book itself was a low-quality photocopy of the real thing – even the photo pages were poor photocopies. So much for my 50% price break. Likewise, a "leather" wallet I picked-up is, upon closer inspection, definitely vinyl, and cheap vinyl at that. A similar item would likely never sell on Canal Street.

My complaints aside, most of my classmates were happier/more successful with their purchases, loading up roughly four dozen (total) "genuine" Rolexes and other similar watches, for example. Two of those "genuine" watches stopped working less than 24 hours after purchase, but I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

Heading back from the market on foot, we saw Dan and Ken seeking alternate transportation. At least they are wearing helmets!

My only disappointment today is that I had hoped to make my way down to Saigon's Chinatown – supposedly the largest in the world – to visit a church known as Cha Tam, or the Church of St. Francis Xavier (see photo, not mine), which in addition to be a stunning church c. 1900 – you can find photos all over the Internet –played a key role in the 1963 coup that overthrew South Vietnam's president. The coup is generally seen as a major turning point, unintentionally deepening US involvement in Vietnam to a tremendous degree. The coup has hung over countless debates about US interventions abroad in the 47 years since; you can be certain that someone in the White House is thinking about Ngo Diem and the '63 coup when they worry about Hamid Karzaitoday.

Unfortunately, despite my eagerness to make the trip, it turned out that Chinatown was a whopping 40 minutes by taxi from our hotel. Given all of our time in buses this week –and that there was a good chance the taxi (or the taxi back) would lack AC in the 90F weather – I couldn't bring myself to make the trip. Now I've got another reason to go back to Saigon sometime.

In the afternoon, EMBA gathered for our last official academic activity: our final presentations. Each team was tasked with presenting to Professors Suarez, Menezes, and Russo on our conclusions from the trip, specifically focusing on our observations during the trip, how we'd modify our original business plan in light of those observations, and whether we still believed our plan was viable. After our presentations, the faculty quizzed us on our assumptions and conclusions. It was interesting to see how comfortable and in-command each team had become of their plans: their strengths, their weaknesses, and everything in between. We concluded the presentations, not surprisingly, with a round of applause and cheering. The next time we'll all meet as students will be for graduation.

Post-presentations, we put on our best duds and headed a few blocks away to the Mandarin, a beautiful, five-story restaurant where we occupied an entire floor. It was a great dinner, capped with some student awards and birthday wishes for Dan A. (seen here taking his own photos).

To our surprise, the well-regarded restaurant was right in the middle of Saigon's unusually well-regulated "red light" district – essentially, countless brothels disguised as trendy bars lining both sides of a small street (sorry, no photos!).

Sunday was our last day in Vietnam. Some members of the class who had previously done the Mekong Delta trip chose to take the tunnel trip – I guess they read my previous write-up! – and the rest of us occupied ourselves with more shopping or (in my case) wandering around the city on foot. As I passed the Notre-Dame Cathedral (across from the Central Saigon Post Office), I saw 3 weddings in progress.

Finally, it was off the airport to start the long trip home – from Ho ChiMinh City to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to Vancouver, Vancouver to JFK, and JFK to Logan.

While I am looking forward to seeing my family and friends and drinking clean tap water again, I am sure I am going to miss my trip to Vietnam, and especially the people with whom I took the trip. It was not only amazing 10 days abroad, but an amazing 17 months in EMBA.

I'll leave you with this photo of EMBA relaxing in the Ho Chi Minh airport prior to take off, watching… "Tom & Jerry". Thanks for following the blog.

May 21: Second day of site visits in Ho Chi Minh City

2010-05-21T11:30:00.000-04:00

Originally posted at the Boston University Executive MBA 2010 Capstone Trip blog.

Friday was our final day of site visits in Ho Chi Minh City. We confined ourselves to only two visits today, and for good reason: both were large facilities on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City, requiring about 4 hours of total time in the buses.

Our first trip (roughly 90 minutes) took us to one of the largest, if not the largest, shoe manufacturing plants in the world. Operated by a South Korean company, HWASEUNG, who operates plants from China to Detroit, it manufactures 1.45 million shoes each month. Yes, 1.45 million shoes – sneakers, specifically. That's a lot of feet. It's also a lot of plant – 1.6 million square feet – on 4.2 million square feet of land. And it's a lot of employees: 16,000. More on this in a minute...

We met first with Ky Lee, the head manager of the plant, who graciously hosted the entire class in their new, air-conditioned, state-of-the-art offices. We were joined by Ky's son, Hundee, who is applying to BU with the intention of attending next year! Clearly a smart young man. We were also joined by several people who report to Ky directly, from a variety of different countries (European and Asian).

After sharing a short video presentation on HWASEUNG's worldwide operations, Ky and his team spoke about the aims, goals, and output of the Vietnamese plant. This led to quite a few questions from our class- so many that it pushed back our next event, the factory tour, by about fifteen minutes. Normally, this wouldn't be a big issue, but when your tour starts by walking down the same road several thousand people used to reach the cafeteria right around lunch time, you've got a big traffic jam on your hands.

Fortunately, the plant's workers seemed to enjoy seeing us as much as we enjoyed seeing them, and the delay wasn't significant. Once we got through the crowds, we traveled through multiple parts of the production process, seeing some truly gargantuan, modern facilities.

One common refrain we've heard from Vietnamese plant owners is that they get tired of hearing Westerners assume every southeast Asian plant is run by child/prison/slave labor. We were all fairly impressed with the conditions at HWASEUNG's plant, which was clean, well-lit, modern, and filled with employees who were ready to smile and make eye-contact while still displaying a high degree of concentration on their work. We also saw on on-site clinic providing healthcare and a modern cafeteria. The factory floors were not air-conditioned, but even in the US that's not too unusual. All of the design/planning offices were fairly cool.

However, you couldn't help but notice that most employees on the factory floor were young women, and while you did see men, they were much more likely to be in managerial roles.

Our hosts told us that the average factory employee makes $120 USD per month, inclusive of overtime, which (back of the envelope) works out to about $0.60/hour. We heard conflicting information on whether or not these jobs were highly sought by women in Vietnam, but they did seem like safer, better-paying opportunities than, say, farming in the rice patties or selling flowers in the streets of Hanoi, but even in our conversations with multiple people both in and outside of the factory, there wasn't a clear consensus on that. What we did hear over and over is that the Vietnamese were generally happy to have the foreign investment and plant development, and looked forward to the factory's planned ramp-up to 1.6 million shoes per month later this year.

We left the plant and headed off for lunch. At this point, still essentially in the countryside (though technically the outskirts of HCMC), our guide warned us four times that the restaurant we'd be visiting for lunch was not used to serving Westerners and that it may differ from our previous eating experiences in Vietnam. We didn't think this was promising, but the restaurant turned out to be fantastic, serving a giant, well-cooked, diverse meal in a modern, air-conditioned restaurant – complete with multiple flat-screen TVs playing some sort of Victoria's Secret-themed reality marathon!

From there, it was on to our final site visit of the trip: Intel. Intel is in the process of making the largest foreign direct investment in Vietnam ever: $1 billion USD. We had the opportunity to visit their brand-new, state-of-the-art plant, which opened its doors in July 2009.

After arriving, we were treated to an in-depth presentation that helped us to understand exactly why Intel had chosen Vietnam. In short: The Vietnamese government made an offer Intel couldn't refuse, beating lesser (and less eager) offers from India and China. And it was clear that Vietnam's government had gone to huge efforts to help Intel, helping them develop proper power and waste water facilities for their 500,000 square foot facility. With only 400 employees today (9% of whom are expats), they plan to be at full capacity of 4000 employees within 3-5 years, and will start officially shipping chipsets in July of this year. However, Intel was also clear about the challenges they've faced, notably in recruiting qualified engineers in Vietnam, despite the company's formidable internal education and training offerings. For example, right now every engineer is shipped to an Intel facility outside Vietnam for training, and every employee receives English language training, as Intel's official language is English.

Touring Intel's giant (but still mostly empty) offices, we were impressed by how much Intel in Vietnam looks exactly like Intel in Santa Clara – same cubes, same chairs, same breakout rooms ("Play", "Moms", "War Room", etc.), same language. And our hosts stressed that Intel would make all of the same benefits available to employees in Vietnam as they did to employees elsewhere in the world. It's clear that Intel is not a company looking to adapt to Vietnam's local environment as much as they are importing an entire ecosystem into Vietnam. Like HWASEUNG, they are building a profitable, productive mini-state in the far reaches of HCMC offering thousands of employment opportunities for the local workforce.

Finally, touring Intel's production floor (no photos allowed!) we learned all about the challenges of developing a clean-room for chipset manufacture. With a clean room that is eight (American!) football fields long, Intel could not find the expertise required for the construction in-country and choose to bring a Japanese contracting firm in instead – something else with which the government immediately agreed.

It was time to head back to Saigon and a good debrief with Professors Menezes, Suarez, and Russo at the Caravelle. Our teams then met individually to prepare for our final (really final!) presentations on Saturday, and then headed to dinner on the town. Many in the class wound-up, in all places, at the Hard Rock Café in Saigon. Yes, you read that right – the Hard Rock Café. I've never visited one before, but I'm pretty sure it followed the US model closely: classic Rock memorabilia, American burgers and beer, and rock-n-roll music. One thing I'm sure other Hard Rock Cafes don't have is an all-Vietnamese band performing surprisingly good covers of "Highway to Hell", "Sweet Child O' Mine", "Paradise City", and (wait for it) "Stairway to Heaven", and I'm pretty sure I saw about half of EMBA dancing at one point… if only I could find pictures to prove it…!

Tomorrow: A few hours for shopping in Saigon, and our final Capstone presentations.

May 20: First day of site visits in Ho Chi Minh City

2010-05-20T11:26:00.000-04:00

Originally posted at the Boston University Executive MBA 2010 Capstone Trip blog.

Our first full day of site visits in Ho Chi Minh City didn't take us far from downtown Saigon and the area of our hotel, but the incessant heat and humidity here made our buses seem a little less extravagant.

Our first stop was at Family Medical Practice of Ho Chi Minh City, the sister organization to the FMP we had visited a few days before in Hanoi. Compared to Hanoi, the HCMC office was larger, busier, and like Hanoi it was seemingly as modern and well-kept as any equal-sized American medical office. We had an opportunity to meet with several medical staff and tour the facility extensively.

The biggest difference between our time at FMP in Hanoi and HCMC was that we had an opportunity for Q&A with Dr. Rafi Kot, the Israeli expatriate who first came to Vietnam with a German NGO in the 1980s and went on to found FMP. Dr. Kot spoke passionately and at length about the challenges, rewards, and future of FMP and similar high-end, highly targeted medical service offerings in a country where so much of the infrastructure (physical and human) for better medicine simply doesn't exist today. He reminded many in our class of Michael Brosowski, the founder of Blue Dragon in Hanoi, in that it was clear that Dr. Kot's clarity of vision and will were key factors in building FMP in Vietnam, and that without them it would be a very different organization (if it existed at all).

From FMP, it was on to a lunchtime panel with Dragon Capital at a restaurant not far from our hotel. Dragon Capital is the largest foreign portfolio investment firm in Vietnam today and had provided some guidance to my own EMBA team while we were developing our Capstone plan over the spring. Established in 1994, today Dragon Capital has assets under management of over $1.2 billion US dollars. For our panel, Dragon brought four senior members of their team. Dragon kicked-off the event with a presentation about Dragon's investments and strategy in Vietnam today, as well as many of the things they must contend with in order to be successful in such an immature capital market. For example, they regularly worry about volatility in multiple internal currency markets, including the Vietnamese Dong, the US dollar, and gold – more on this later. They also worry about interest rates that can change wildly at government whim and cited a recent jump from 8% to 16% as a good example.

After their presentation, Dragon had an opportunity to hear from EMBA, as they graciously agreed to hear brief pitches of each EMBA team's Capstone plan and provide instant feedback. Needless to say, this was a huge opportunity for each team to have their idea reviewed by people with far, far more experience in the markets of Vietnam today, and Dragon obliged with some sharp, thoughtful, on-topic feedback.
From lunch, it was back to the hotel and time for another panel. This time, it was one focused on the tourism industry in Vietnam, and was graciously hosted by John Gardner, General Manager of the Caravelle Hotel (where we are staying in Saigon). John joined the panel itself, as did multiple players in developing and promoting tourism in Vietnam. In the audience were not only students of EMBA and faculty but also local press, government, and other parties interested in how the tourism industry in Vietnam is adapting to a growing market today and where it might be headed.

The next 90 minutes generated many conversations among participants, as the panel answered questions about the greatest need in Vietnam's tourism market today (better customer service!), the inability/unwillingness of the Vietnamese government to help promote tourism, Vietnam's growing tourist trade but unusually low return rates, and other topics. It was clear by the end that a wealth of opportunities are waiting for willing entrepreneurs.

Afterwards, I chose to end the day – along with 10 other classmates – at a nice restaurant across town called (get ready for it) New York Steakhouse. (Believe it or not, after a week of Vietnamese food, having the opportunity to eat steak and mashed potatoes seems like a good idea). The meal was delicious and the company good, but it ended – like many group meals here have – with lots of messing around with currency. While Vietnam has its own currency (the Vietnamese Dong, or VND) the US dollar (USD) is widely used and accepted and sometimes even preferred here, provided the US bills are crisp and you're not a stickler for exact change. For really big transactions – homes, property, etc. – the Vietnamese prefer to trade in gold pieces purchased from jewelers. Our meal didn't require gold, thankfully, but even trying to sort out the bill when individuals were trying to pay with VND or USD required about 15 minutes.

Even after we'd spent 15 minutes sorting it out, we still needed help from the restaurant to confirm we'd done our currency conversions properly.

May 19: Sightseeing in Saigon

2010-05-19T11:16:00.000-04:00

Originally posted at the Boston University Executive MBA 2010 Capstone Trip blog.

We got an early start on Wednesday, May 19, our first day in Saigon, which was dedicated to sightseeing in a few small groups. We were joined by our guide from Destination Asia, Dzung. A real student of Vietnamese and US history, he added tremendous amounts of context and colorful detail to everything we would see and do during the day.

EMBA had two choices for sightseeing in the AM: a boat trip on the Mekong Delta or a visit to the infamous Cu Chi Tunnels. Neither were close to central Saigon, so it was a one-or-the-other proposition. I chose to head to Cu Chi tunnels with 12 classmates and Professor Menezes. The trip out took a little under 2 hours, with crawling morning Saigon traffic turning to speedier highways outside the city and finally slower rural roads through farms, rice patties, and rubber plantations as we got closer to Cu Chi district (technically the outermost limits of Ho Chi Minh City). Dzung entertained us for the first hour of the trip with stories about the changing perceptions of the Vietnamese with regard to the US, capitalism, and other topics, and also pointed out interesting sights (some related to the "American War") along the way.

We got to Cu Chi around 10 AM. Cu Chi is a giant, complex network of tunnels dug initially by Vietnamese farmers in the late 1940s but expanded significantly in the 1960s by the Viet Cong as a way to hide from American forces. The finished network was incredibly complex, with living quarters, wells, meeting rooms, and more.

But more amazing than the facilities built into the network were the tunnels themselves. Long, durable, winding, and extraordinarily narrow and claustrophobic, the Viet Cong would travel for hundreds of miles to evade US tanks, infantry, and bombs. Several tunnels have been widened for tourist access by 4-10" inches; even so, as various members of EMBA made our way through them, our shoulders pressed against both sides of the tunnel. The original un-widened) tunnel entrances remain tough to find, and only certain body types can make it through their entrances.

US forces made multiple efforts to destroy the tunnels during the war, heavily bombing the area (B-52 bomb craters are visible everywhere) and coating it Agent Orange In fact, most of the trees you see today are non-native species introduced in the 1990s to try to reforest an area still polluted with chemical leftovers. Despite all of this, the US never managed to significantly disrupt the tunnel network, and an extensive network of gruesome booby traps – many made by carefully disassembling and reusing live but undetonated US ordnance dropped on the area – kept Gis from ever getting too close. In short, the Cu Chi tunnels were the ultimate low-cost disruptor.

It was at Cu Chi where we witnessed perhaps Vietnam's greatest capitalist triumph to date: A shooting range for tourists featuring weapons captured from American forces. Yes, here, in this wilderness area dotted with signs of America's failure (e.g., the hulk of a blown-out Abrams tank we passed) and no doubt the site of many wounds or fatalities for young Americans, you come across a large gift shop and snack bar with an adjoining shooting range where for only a few thousand Dong you can fire M-60s, M-16s, etc., as many tourists we saw were doing (including some of our own). To put this in perspective, can you imagine a shooting range and snack bar on the Pearl Harbor Memorial?

After lunch on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City, we headed next to the Reunification Palace. This is the former Presidential Palace of South Vietnam from 1954-1975, and it was here on April 30, 1975 that North Vietnamese tanks broke through the gates and South Vietnam ceased to exist. The building and grounds have been carefully maintained since then, including the original furnishings and the war command center in the basement levels.

It's a popular tourist site for foreigners and Vietnamese alike. In fact, while we were touring, we saw an elderly group of Vietnamese men, many in combat fatigues and wearing medals, in the company of their extended families on their own tour. Dzung explained that they were Viet Cong and North Vietnamese veterans.

From the Palace, we headed over the Museum of Vietnamese History. On the way, we passed the site of the US Consulate. Until the mid-1990s, this compound contained the remains of the US embassy, which was abandoned by the US and occupied by North Vietnam in April of 1975, and remained as a testament to America's failure in the war for decades afterwards (and a popular local attraction). In 1996, at the request of the US, Vietnam demolished the old building and allowed the US to build a new consulate. Still, we did not see any US flags flying, and a Vietnamese memorial honoring the Tet Offensive of March 1968 (during which the embassy was briefly captured) stands conspicuously in front.

The Museum of Vietnamese History was not something I had planned to see in Saigon, but it was definitely worth the visit. It's laid out chronologically starting around 400,000 BC (!) but moves quickly through the last two centuries of Vietnamese history. Short version of Vietnam's history: Conquered, re-conquered, and re-conquered again every few centuries by every major Asian power. Massive confluence of different cultures, religions, styles of writing, etc. Only since 1975 has Vietnam been truly independent. Our final stop of the day was the Saigon Central Post Office, built by the Eiffel Company in the early 20^th century, when Vietnam was a French colony. It's a large, beautiful, active building often mistaken (understandably) for a rail station.

But more interesting, at least to me, is that by standing in front of the post office, you can see the Pittman Apartments. Never heard of them? You might not have, but you've undoubtedly seen them in this famous photo by Hubert Van Es, a photo that can still put that "sinking" feeling into the chest of any American (even one who, like me, was too young to remember the event when it happened).

It's not possible to take a photo of the Pittman Apartments from the same angle seen in the original photo today, thanks to all of the development in Saigon. All you can get is this photo of the top of an unremarkable, unattractive, aging apartment complex completely dwarfed by signs of Vietnam's rapid economic growth.

Our tour having ended, I headed out for a cup of coffee before heading back to the hotel and finally out to a great dinner at a local restaurant with a dozen classmates and Professor Russo. I wound-up buying an Americano at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (yes, the California chain) and walking past Dolce & Gabbana, Versace, and Louis Vuitton on the way there. Yes, in Saigon.

May 18: Second day of site visits in Hanoi

2010-05-18T11:12:00.000-04:00

Originally posted at the Boston University Executive MBA 2010 Capstone Trip blog.

Tuesday, May 18^th was our last day in Hanoi. Things started early with a trip to PayNet, an internet startup focused on electronic payments, including online and pay-by-mobile phone. In many ways, PayNet looked familiar to an American audience, with a large, young staff sprawled across makeshift offices occupying several floors of a building: the classic dotcom.

Like a US dotcom, they've amassed a variety of funding sources and some early successes, but they also have some challenges a dotcom with a similar focus in wouldn't encounter in the US. Namely, in a country where less than a quarter of the population is "banked" (i.e., has a bank account), getting acceptance of virtual cash transactions is a significant barrier to success. Most transactions in Vietnam are conducted in cash (or, for larger transactions – property, homes, etc. – in gold!). Only recently has government policy started pushing larger companies towards a direct deposit method as part of a broader tax reform policy. While this bodes well for long-term acceptance of electronic payment, it also represents a threat to PayNet, as the new government initiative also puts debit cards in thousands of hands across the country – and creates a direct competitor to PayNet's offering.

After an enjoyable hour at PayNet, we headed out for our next visit, but had an interesting detour along the way. We stopped at the side of Truc Bach Lake, a large, scenic lake in central Hanoi. In October of 1967, the A-4E Skyhawk being piloted by future-Senator John McCain was shot down during a bombing mission, and McCain parachuted into Truc Bach. He was badly injured when ejecting, nearly drowned in the lake, and after being pulled to safety by local Vietnamese he was beaten and bayoneted. The Vietnamese have marked this spot with a memorial detailing McCain's crash, and – if the interpretation we received is correct – taking great pride in capturing him. McCain was prominent at the time as the son of the current Commander-in-Chief of Naval Forces in Europe (and soon to be named to that position in the Pacific) and no doubt a prized prisoner for North Vietnam.

To me, the interesting thing about this marker wasn't that it existed, but that it appeared to be in relatively poor shape. Unlike the pristinely kept monuments to Ho Chi Minh we had seen two days earlier, the McCain marker was surrounded by litter and visibly eroding. There's no doubt the Vietnamese had originally erected this marker as one of pride, but I found myself wondering whether it wasn't inconvenient for them these days, when Senator McCain has played such an important role in normalizing US-Vietnamese relations and Vietnam seems to work hard to downplay the "American War" when working with tourists, business people, and other Americans. I found myself thinking of Nelson's Column, in Montreal. If you've been to Old Montreal, you've seen Nelson's Column, which was erected in 1809 to honor Admiral Horatio Nelson, who died in the Battle of Trafalgar – when a British fleet defeated a French fleet – a century earlier. In the century that had elapsed since the battle, however, England had captured "New France", and there's no doubt that it was at least a little culturally insensitive to put this giant monument to someone who engineered a famous French defeat in the middle of a predominantly French-speaking city. Two hundred years hasn't made the Column any more popular. Today, Nelson's Column looks distinctly unloved, surrounded by a heavy, wrought-iron gate to deter vandals, with weeds growing everywhere and the weather having taken its toll. It's too notable to dismantle, but suggesting that Montreal renovate it would only antagonize local passions. I suspect the McCain marker falls into this category, too, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear that future American tourists find it in an even more degraded state. It's a symbol of Vietnam's past, not their future.

After our stop by the lake, we headed on to the Family Medical Practice, located in a Hanoi neighborhood dominated by diplomats and their families. Founded by an Israeli expatriate over a decade ago and staffed heavily with foreign doctors, FMP provides 24-hour clinic-level medical services in a manner and facility that would look very familiar to someone from the US or Europe. It was a dramatic shift from the hospital we had visited the day before. Not surprisingly, FMP provides services not offered or compensated by the state in Vietnam, and caters primarily to expatriates, their families, and wealthier Vietnamese. They also have a clinic in Ho Chi Minh City that we plan to visit in several days. Anyhow, there was no end to EMBA questions at FMP, and the staff graciously spoke with us for well over an hour about the challenges of practicing and delivering medicine in modern Vietnam. Even with FMP, most persons of means in Vietnam still travel to Singapore for major medical attention. The staff also discussed the challenges of creating and staffing a startup medical service there, and how they might expand to provide more services as Vietnam grows wealthier, making their care more affordable to a broader group of people.

On our way out, we saw a young bride and groom getting their pictures taken on the street!

Next up was lunch, where we had the chance to host and hear from the American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam, along with representatives from several US companies operating in Vietnam, including Morgan Stanley, ExxonMobil, and Emerson Electric. The Chamber representatives graciously answered our many questions about doing business in Vietnam today and how it has changed over the last few years. They spoke in depth in a few areas of interest that our sites visits had magnified – most notably infrastructure, corruption, and what it was like to be an expat with a family in Vietnam today.

Our last stop of the day was the Hanoi Stock Exchange. Founded only in the last few years, the HNX (and its sister exchange in Ho Chi Minh City) allows Vietnamese companies to become owned and traded publicly. While only listing several hundred companies today, the exchange has grown quickly, primarily as a way for companies to improve their capital position. EMBA toured the HSE's temporary facilities (their permanent location, across from the Hanoi Opera House, is currently under renovation) and had ample opportunity to learn more about the exchange. While it's a far cry from the NYSE today, HNX is another sign of a rapidly changing economic climate in Vietnam.

We made a last pit-stop at the hotel for an animated debrief of the day's site visits led by Professor Fernando Suarez before heading to the airport and catching an 8:30 PM flight to Ho Chi Minh City. Somewhat to our surprise, the Vietnam National flight was on a well-appointed and staffed Airbus 330, a significantly bigger and more modern flight than the one that had brought so many of us over from Hong Kong a few days earlier. We landed in Ho Chi Minh City 2 hours later, met our tour guides, and boarded our buses for the city. Immediately, we noticed the substantially better (and saner) road networks of the city and its surroundings when compared to what we'd seen in Hanoi.

Fact of the day: "Ho Chi Minh City" refers to a large, expanded metropolitan area, and it's made up of many individual districts. The central district is still called Saigon, but you'll find that most Vietnamese refer to the entire city of Saigon, regardless of what the signage says.

Tomorrow: Touring Saigon!

May 17: First day of site visits in Hanoi

2010-05-17T11:06:00.000-04:00

Originally posted at the Boston University Executive MBA 2010 Capstone Trip blog.

Monday, May 17, was our first day of site visits, and a very full day for EMBA 22.

We started the day early with a visit by Donald Nay, the commercial attaché for the US Consulate in Vietnam, who joined us for breakfast at the hotel. Donald started by telling us his story: turns out he is a BU grad himself whose mother grew up in Jamaica Plain and his father in Dedham. In many ways, Donald's story perfectly mirrors America's involvement in Vietnam over the last half-century. His father served in Vietnam from 1964-1965. In the early 1980s, Donald and his wife interviewed thousands of Vietnamese refugees ("boat people"). Two decades later, he found himself working for the Department of Commerce in Vietnam. Donald had lot of interesting information to share with our class about current trade-related developments between the US and Vietnam and added some insight and background on current US trade initiatives in Vietnam during the coming years. He also reminded us about Vietnam's recent economic history: the failures of the centrally-planned post-1975 economy, the famine of 1988, and then the growth of economic development in the 1990s and 2000s. Since 2000, trade with the United States alone has grown by seventeen-fold. Counterfeiting, corruption, and poor infrastructure (more on this later) remain serious problems, but with a tech-savvy, young population (75% born after the "American War"), and plenty of low-cost labor, Vietnam holds lots of promise for future development.

After breakfast, we packed into our two buses (colorfully named "Bus 1" and "Bus 2") and headed to our first official site visit at Blue Dragon. If we haven't mentioned it already, traffic in Hanoi has to be seen to be believed. Thousands of motorcyclists parry openly with cars, buses, and other vehicles on often-tight, winding roads. The motorcyclists seem to show no fear and very little respect for traffic lights and other posted signage. We learned quickly that waiting on the corner for people to stop is a non-starter; you just need to boldly stride into traffic and show no fear! The motorcyclists aren't the only offenders, as we learned on our way to Blue Dragon. Both Bus 1 and Bus 2 executed 3-lane-blocking turns to get into a tiny side street on the way to our designation, with various members of the Destination Asia team bravely blocking and re-routing traffic.

Blue Dragon is an NGO devoted to saving the street kids of Vietnam, particularly in major cities. Founded by Michael Brosowski, an Australian expatriate, since 2004 Blue Dragon has helped hundreds of Vietnamese children get back on the right track, whether to school, work, or drug rehab. They provide education and social work right in their center. Michael went into detail explaining how Blue Dragon had been established, the barriers they had faced in getting off the ground, and what restrictions they struggle with today. We also heard from some of his (Vietnamese) staff and some of the now-young adults for whom Blue Dragon had been a lifesaver. The entire class came away impressed by the dedication of the staff and work they are doing every single day despite considerable barriers (financial, staffing, and slow initial government acceptance, among others).

Next up was Breath of Life, a company that develops customized, clinical solutions to reduce neonatal mortality and morbidity in developing countries. Today, we saw them work on a CPAP device used to help premature infants breath while their own lungs are given time to develop and breath on their own. Luciano Moccia, the International Coordinator at Breath of Life, helped us tour the offices where developers, technicians, and office administrators work to help build and distribute these machines across Vietnam, with an already impressive list of hospitals using them. Luciano explained that the introduction of these CPAP machines had reduced infant mortality rates in Vietnam's neonatal wards from 30% to 10%. Breath of Life makes them available for $2300.

In some ways, what Breath of Life was doing seemed high-tech, but in other ways – for example, when we walked through their tiny, hot, assembly workshop – it seemed extremely low-tech. It was a good example of low-cost innovation using very hand-assembled basic circuit board technology, but several classmates with manufacturing backgrounds noted that you would never see similar equipment being made in a tiny, nonstandard shop like this in the US.

On the other hand… perhaps it was the earlier day's trip to various sites associated with the "American War", but talking about infants with "respiratory distress syndrome" got me thinking about the most famous American baby to die of RDS during the time of that war, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy. Born only five weeks premature in August of 1963 (and weighing four and a half pounds), Patrick lived only 2 days before succumbing to his breathing difficulties. The devices Breath of Life are making for the hospitals of Vietnam may seem simple (and cheap) to Westerners now, but less than 50 years ago, when the wealthiest nation of earth couldn't save the most prominent infant in America, they would have seemed like science fiction. It probably doesn't need to be said by an American trying to learn more about capitalism in 2010 by visiting Vietnam(!), but the world changes very quickly.

From Breath of Life, we headed over to the National Hospital of Pediatrics in Hanoi to see the CPAP devices in action. Upon arrival, it was clear that the hospital, while large, was in no way comparable to a US hospital. We were all struck by the overcrowding – 150 premature babies were in incubators designed for only 90 – and by the understaffing, with only 4 or 5 nurses visible in the entire ward, and finally by the overall hygiene standards, with open doors and windows and otherwise reusable plastic medical components being washed in unsterilized environments for quick reuse. Despite the presence of some modern lifesaving technology thanks to Breath of Life, Vietnam's state medical system is not something you would see in a developed country.

On the positive side, we did see signs of new development, with a brand-new ward taking shape next door.

From the hospital, we stopped for a great lunch at Le Tonkin before getting back into our buses for a longer trip out into the countryside to visit Ford Motor Company's plant in Vietnam. (Ford in Vietnam… what would former President of Ford Motor Company Robert McNamara think??) Ford has an enormous piece of property in the countryside with a small manufacturing plant, built in the mid-1990s. Through this plant, Ford has captured roughly 5% of the domestic car market, selling over 8,000 new vehicles in 2009. The automotive industry in Vietnam is really in its infancy; Ford's 5% is out of total sales of 120,000 new vehicles in a country of 80+ million, and that has to be measured against motorcycle sales of 13 million in the same year. Unfortunately for Ford, they don't sell motorcycles (the ones you see in the photo below are in the employee parking lot). Nonetheless, the Finance Director (who spoke with us for over an hour) was optimistic about Ford's prospects and their new "One Car" world strategy. We also had an opportunity to tour Ford's production plant extensively in the company of several plant managers, although unfortunately (but understandably) we were not permitted to take pictures. On the plus side, we did get to wear stylish Ford-blue hardhats and safety goggles.

After our visit, we headed back for Hanoi and a terrific debrief with Professor Melvyn Menenzes. The daily debrief gives us an opportunity to share and compare our learning for the day- both personally and professionally – and to discuss what if any impact today's visits had on our Capstone business plans. One item every team cited was the unbelievably poor state of infrastructure everywhere we looked; in a country where every other citizen seemed to have a cell phone, a Starbucks-like coffee chain appears on every other corner, and authorized Apple dealers could be found throughout the city, you'd see wiring like this everywhere you looked (sometimes worse), poorly maintained roads, etc. It was clear to everyone that infrastructure concerns were directly affecting each of the groups we had visited during the day (we even witnessed a blackout at Breath of Life).

After our debrief EMBA headed out for a self-directed last night out on the town. About half of us went to Quan Ngon for a big, fast, inexpensive dinner not far from the hotel before heading out for one last night on the town in Hanoi. Tomorrow, we'll spend one more day in the city before catching an evening flight to Ho Chi Minh City and the second half of our trip.

Bonus picture: A shot of beautiful of Hoan Keim Lake, not far from our hotel, taken from the roof deck of the Cityview Café. ($4 for 4 local beers – not bad!)

May 14-16: The flight(s) over and sightseeing in Hanoi

2010-05-16T11:03:00.000-04:00

Originally posted at the Boston University Executive MBA 2010 Capstone Trip blog.

Friday and Saturday (May 14-15) were both taken up by traveling. Roughly half of EMBA 22 chose the same set of flights from Boston to NYC via Jet Blue, and then NYC to Hong Kong via Cathay Pacific. Checking-in for that second flight led to this exchange for me at the ticket counter at JFK:

Airline agent: Your seat will be 62A. This is a window seat. Is that OK?
Me: Hey, if I have to sit through a 12-hour flight, a window seat is perfect. *
Airline agent: 15 hours.
Me: What?
Airline agent: Not 12 hours, 15 hours.
Me: Oh.

*This is sincere. I really do like window seats.

We left JFK around 10 AM and spent the next 15 hours at 30,000+ feet. Interestingly, east coast flights to Hong Kong travel over the north pole, making for some stunning scenery in northern Canada and Alaska. Believe it or not, 15 hours didn’t seem that long as long as you managed to watch a few movies, read, sleep, and chat with your EMBA classmates.

It helped that Cathay Pacific has some pretty comfortable seats, decent food, and screens in the back of every seat with a healthy supply of movies, recent TV, and music.

We landed in Hong Kong around 2 PM local time. The Hong Kong airport, built in the last few years, is enormous, comfortable, and full of exotic dining options.

After a four-hour layover, it was on to DragonAir, which brought us to Hanoi in just under 2 hours. We arrived around 7 PM local time (Hanoi being 11 hours ahead of Boston). The Hanoi airport looks a lot like many mid-size US airports, complete with many ATMs (including a Citibank), ads for mobile phones, flowers, etc. Interestingly, the Customs agent gave less scrutiny to my passport and visa than I typically get when I fly to Toronto (or fly back from Toronto), asking not a single question.

At the airport, we were met by a guide from Destination Asia, the tour agency working with EMBA, who quickly got us to a bus and into downtown Hanoi, roughly 30 minutes from the airport. Although it was nighttime, this was our first chance to look around Vietnam, which appeared (from the highway) to be a hodgepodge of the modern and the pre-modern, with rice patties mixed with 50s-style apartment houses, small merchants, and countless motorbikes. The last item probably made the biggest impression as we observed the very loose adherence to posted traffic signals by motorcyclists, people on scooters, motorists, and truck drivers alike. It was also amazing to see multiple people riding a single moped or motorbike – sometimes a couple, sometimes a family of four. Adults often (but not always) wear helmets; children (sometimes as young as 18 months, it seems) never do.

We checked into our very nice hotel (the Moevenpick Hotel, in downtown Hanoi, a five-star hotel) and settled in for the night.

Sunday, May 16 was dedicated to sightseeing. One obligatory sight for all tourists is the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, featuring… the embalmed body of Ho Chi Minh! Uncle Ho was the leader of Vietnam’s push for independence throughout the 20th century; he died (of natural causes) in 1969. His embalmed body has been on public display a la Lenin ever since. Despite arriving before 9 AM, thousands of people were already lined-up to visit his tomb. Fortunately, line management was fast – we were through in about an hour – but you can only see about 1/20th of the line (perhaps less) in this photo.

After the tomb, we also visited a museum dedicated to his life and the Temple of Literature, parts of which date back to 1070. Our guides provided a great sense of Vietnam’s long history and a better understanding of Vietnam’s pride at finally being free of foreign influence after a century of foreign domination (Chinese, French, and finally American). But they also stressed how the Vietnamese bear no ill will towards Americans today; as one said, “We forgive, but we don’t forget.”
Finally, we visited the “Hanoi Hilton”, the infamous prison that housed American pilots (including future Senator John McCain) during the Vietnam War. Prior to the “American War”, the French had used the prison to torture Vietnamese dissidents for over 50 years. It was a sobering visit for all of us. Interesting, most of the prison has been torn down in recent years, replaced by a giant office tower.

After a return to the hotel to change and wash-up, EMBA headed out for dinner, where we celebrated some milestone birthdays for Nick and Sally. A great first day.

May 11: Getting ready for Vietnam

2010-05-11T10:57:00.000-04:00

Originally posted at the Boston University Executive MBA 2010 Capstone Trip blog.

EMBA 22 is furiously packing, planning, and generally getting things in order for our upcoming trip to Vietnam. While we can't report from Vietnam yet (though a few adventurous classmates are already out touring neighboring countries like Thailand and China), we did want to provide some quick background, namely, "Why Vietnam?"

This question has resonance for all of EMBA, but especially for me, as my father-in-law never tires of telling me, "I spent the 1960s trying to stay out of Vietnam... why would you go there voluntarily?!"

It's a good question, but fortunately there's a great answer: When it comes to economic development in the "developing world", Vietnam is a role model for other nations. Vietnam has one of the fastest-growing, most vibrant economies in the world, with average GDP growth of 7% for the last few years and two-thirds of the population under the age of 35. While nominally a communist country, Vietnam's government has taken steps in recent years to liberalize their economy, including major tax reforms since 2006 and joining the WTO (World Trade Organization) in 2007. These actions have helped bring in numerous foreign companies as well as engendered growth in the local economy for Vietnamese entrepreneurs. We'll be meeting some of the key players in both the local and international economies during our upcoming trip, including Intel, Ford, and several NGOs.

In many ways, Vietnam is copying the model carried out so successfully by China over the last few decades, which used foreign investment and know-how to develop their own infrastructure and workforce. In fact, by 2015, it is projected that Vietnam's per capita income will have doubled from 2008 levels to almost equal that of China's -- a remarkable turn of events.

It's back to packing for EMBA now, but we look forward to providing more updates as our trip gets underway.

The last two years in 6 paragraphs

2010-05-10T20:49:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since we've posted, but a lot has happened in the past two years. D and I bought a house in the suburbs and started new jobs shortly after arriving in the Boston area. More importantly, in October 2009 we had our first child, a girl! Here she is a few days ago, looking thoughtful. Isn't she adorable?!?!

Yes, it's been a great two years.

I thought it was time to post again as I'm at the tail-end of my first major trip since our US cross-country tour of '08. For the past seventeen months, I've been a student of Boston University's Executive MBA program (EMBA). Earning an MBA has been on my to-do list for the last few years, but it took a while to find the right time and the right program. Upon arriving in Boston in the summer of '08, I started looking around and wound-up choosing BU for a few reasons. I applied and was accepted and have spent the last year and a half attending class every other Friday and Saturday as well as spending a few solid weeks on campus.

For the final project in EMBA, known as the "Capstone" project, EMBA students research an economy in the "developing" world and build a business plan intended to take advantage of some aspect of that country's economy - for manufacturing, marketing, selling services in-country, export, etc. Finally, after presenting our plans to local venture capital and angel investors in the Boston area, we travel to the country we researched to see how well our observations match our previous research and assumptions. Previous EMBA classes have gone to Eastern Europe, China, etc. We went to Vietnam.

Since May 14th, I have been traveling around Vietnam (specifically Hanoi, the capital, and Ho Chi Minh City), and tonight I'll start the long trip home along with about half of my 37 classmates (some classmates are staying on in the area -either in Vietnam or Hong Kong, Singapore, or China - often with their spouses). In the meantime, I've spent the last week writing blog posts on each day's activities for the "official" BU EMBA blog. For posterity's sake -- since I don't have login/editing/posting rights to the EMBA account directly -- I am going to re-post all of my Vietnam trip entries on this blog, too. Some of them are a bit dry -- for the sake of the class, I wanted to make sure I described each day in some detail -- but my own observations are sprinkled throughout.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading about my trip. I've backdated the Blogspot entries, starting today, in order to make them match the actual event's date. I hope it's not too confusing.

We love that dirty water

2008-04-16T22:58:00.000-04:00

4,150 miles. That's what the trip odometer reads on our trusty Corolla, now parked outside my parents' house in a suburb of Boston. Our trip -- relocating from the San Joaquin Valley in sunny California to the greater Boston area -- is at an end.

We started our last day by leaving Philadelphia around 10 AM and stopping in New Haven for lunch around 2 PM. D and I met at Yale back in 1995, when we were both undergraduates, and we haven't been on campus since a reunion for D's class in 2003. In fact, it's the longest either of us have been away from Yale since we first enrolled as freshman. There were a few surprises waiting for us on campus. Yale continues be active in renovating several parts of campus, and several additions surprised us, like the new mini-gothic structure used as an entrance for Cross Campus Library (CCL). Wait, as I look for info on this renovation, I see that it's now called the Bass Library. (I used to half-joke that the library was named for Wilbur Lucius Cross. Well, that unfunny joke is now even less funny).

We had lunch at "Wall St. Pizza", formerly Naples. The name has changed, the walls have been painted bright colors, but the pizza remains the same (a good thing). Our booth featured an (original?) map of the Yale campus c. 1933 that was interesting to examine and discuss while we ate our "awesome" pizza, in D's words. [D's note: Let me reiterate... AWESOME pizza, same as ever.]

After spending some time walking around campus -- and marveling over how schlubby Yale students look when compared to the Vanderbilt students we had seen in Nashville a few days ago -- D and I got back in the car and drove the final stretch to Boston, just in time to hit some tolerable rush-hour traffic.

Now we're at my parents' house for a few weeks (at least) while they continue to process of moving out of this house (their residence since 1966) and into their new home across town, and D and I look for a house of our own.

It's safe to say that both D and I consider our cross-country trip a big success. We met lots of people, saw wonders natural & historical, ate some great meals, and had some good conversations. We've already started planning out our next (slightly smaller!) trip when the opportunity presents itself, covering western Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Virginia.

We'll keep this blog going, though probably not with daily entries. Still, stay tuned....

No graves today... almost...

2008-04-15T21:33:00.000-04:00

For our last morning in Richmond, we made our way down Monument Avenue to visit the Poe Museum. As it turns out, the building housing the Poe Museum is attached to the Old Stone House, which purports to be the oldest existing home in Richmond, built in 1754. Poe never lived there, but he most likely visited as a boy. Every home Poe did inhabit while he grew-up in Richmond has long since been demolished, although parts of one of his boyhood homes are on display in the museum (his boyhood bed, some bricks from his office downtown, etc).

The museum was just OK. There were a few decent exhibits, and some of Poe's original writing is on display. However, a substantial portion of the museum and central garden (pictured here) were under renovation, meaning many things were inaccessible out of what was, in total, a fairly small collection.

Neither D or I realized how important a writer Poe was in American literary history, however, and the museum did a good job of painting that picture. Considering that he died relatively young, he produced a great deal of innovative work starting at an early age. We both left the museum resolving to read more Poe. It's also been interesting to see -- over the course of this trip, and our own lives in places like NYC and Philadelphia -- how many places in the US have a claim to Poe based on where he lived and worked (he was even stationed at Fort Moultrie for a bit).

After the museum, we needed to get on the road for Philadelphia, but before we did -- and seeing as how we were already in the Shockoe Slip neighborhood, at the base of Church Hill (which you'll recall we climbed yesterday) -- we decided to locate one more spot. Browsing the web while writing last night's blog entry, I'd learned about a train tunnel that used to run through Church Hill, built in the early 1870s. Part of the tunnel collapsed during rehabilitation work in 1925, burying a train and several day workers inside. Successive efforts to the rescue or salvage the bodies and the train resulted in further cave-ins, so the tunnel was sealed-off in 1926. In 2006, some exploratory efforts were made to locate the train and determine the feasibility of recovering the train and missing bodies; the issue remains unresolved. We did manage to find the sealed tunnel entrance, although this photo (taken with my mobile phone, as I forgot our camera in the car) isn't great. If it were better, you'd see that the only thing written on the sealed entrance is "1926". A better photo is available here.

It's spooky to think that Church Hill, while crowned with the church cemetery we visited yesterday, is also the unintentional internment site for those day workers. Nowadays, no company could just "lose" a few workers in a tunnel collapse and decide to seal it off, rather than excavate until the bodies were found. At the very least, there'd be lots of ongoing media attention.

And with that... it was off the Philadelphia. The drive was boring, as we'd expected, although Sheila's decision to take us straight through DC (rather than around the Beltway) meant we got a half-decent view of some our capital's monuments while we sat in traffic.

We got to Philadelphia (and a great home cooked meal) around 7:30 PM. Tomorrow, we're off to Boston. Amazingly, and with very mixed feelings, our trip is just about at an end.

Richmond? Why would you go to... Richmond?

2008-04-14T22:13:00.000-04:00

On Sunday morning, we woke-up and headed into Charleston again for a brief post-wedding brunch with the extended family. Afterwards, we drove into downtown Charleston and parked just north of Marion Square Park, a beautiful patch of green in the center of town. The visual highlight of the park is a tall pillar topped with a statue of John C. Calhoun, who was born in South Carolina and served in a number of public offices at both the state and national level. While he died in 1850, he was a huge hero for the Confederacy thanks to his pro-slavery and "states' rights" stances through the first half of the 19th century. That's why he's got the monument here. He also knew how to take a great crazy picture.

Elsewhere in the park is a relatively new, tasteful, modern Holocaust memorial, dedicated to (and naming) many of the European Jews who fled before or during the Second World War to settle in South Carolina. This led me to consider the fact that Charleston was the heart of the slave trade in the antebellum period and how unusual it is that the Holocaust -- which occurred half-a-world-away -- merits a memorial in Charleston's most prominent public space, but no similar memorial is present for the thousands (millions?) of African-Americans who were enslaved here for over two hundred years. Wouldn't you be surprised to find a memorial to African-Americans enslaved in the US in the middle of a German city?

Of course, I couldn't resist dragging D on a foot trip through the older parts of Charleston in order to find St. Philip's churchyard, where Calhoun (and many of his family members) are buried. D was a good sport.

After finding Calhoun -- and the closest Starbucks, which in true Starbucks style was exactly 1 block from the next Starbucks -- we were on our way to Richmond, some 6 hours away.

The wedding we attended this past weekend was infested with UVA graduates, several of whom had lived in Richmond before or after college. What we heard from most of them was: "Why would you go to Richmond?", or perhaps "I guess if you need to stop somewhere for a night, you can do worse than Richmond." So we weren't expecting much.

As it turns out, Richmond is terrific. First, we're staying at a great bed-n-breakfast, located in the Carytown neighborhood, called the Museum District Bed & Breakfast. It's a huge, beautiful house (and carriage house, where we are staying) built in 1922 and only recently renovated and converted into a B&B. The owner, Anna Currence, runs a friendly, professional business here and has really made us feel at home. D and I have stayed at B&Bs all over the country, but this place is a cut above the norm (and at a very reasonable rate, too).

D picked this B&B because it's close to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Unfortunately, as it turns out, the museum is closed Mondays and Tuesdays, so we'll have to miss it. Instead, we started the morning by heading to our next destination: The Edgar Allan Poe Museum. Oh, wait, that's closed on Mondays, too. No worries; D is an attorney, and wants to see John Marshall's house, now also a museum. So we open our guide book for directions and... also closed Mondays.

Here's what we did do: We logged over 20,000 steps (D's note: My feet hurt), starting by walking up Church Hill to see the old, wooden church where Patrick Henry gave his famous speech and Poe's mother is buried. There are also great views from the church of the surrounding areas. Then we headed down to the center of Richmond to see the so-called "Confederate White House", the mansion that served as Jefferson Davis' headquarters during the Civil War. It's located next to the Museum of the Confederacy, which we toured first. The museum is OK; the house is quite interesting. It's mostly intact from its Confederate days, and contains quite a few of its original furnishings. As it turns out, President Lincoln visited it a few days after Davis fled (in the closing days of the war) and only a few weeks before Lincoln was assassinated. Our tour guide was extremely knowledgeable and passionate about his subject, but a real piece of work: He paced constantly while speaking, spoke quickly, and did not make eye contact with anyone on the tour. I desperately want to write him and give him some compliments along with some mild constructive criticism, but D says I can't...

It vaguely irked me that everyone working at the museum and the house calls it just "the White House" and kept calling Davis "the President". (Also, the house is clearly gray, not white).

After a stop for lunch, we caught a cab over to Hollywood Cemetery. Our B&B had told us about this and gave us a booklet detailing the cemetery's history and some of its more illustrious occupants and grave markers. Among others, the cemetery contains the graves of President John Tyler, President James Monroe, and Jefferson Davis. That's Tyler's pictured here. In 1841, Tyler was the first Vice-President to become President upon the death of an elected President; one of his nicknames was "Your Accidency". He later played an active role in the Confederate government, the only US President to do so. (Later in the day, D began singing the words "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too" to the tune of T. Rex's "Metal Guru").

Elsewhere in the cemetery, we located Davis' fairly large, scenic plot, surrounded by various family members (most of whom are children who died premature deaths).

Our last stop was a huge pyramid built as a memorial to Confederate soldiers, and surrounded by many Confederate graves -- some 18,000 in total throughout the cemetery.

There are also many new internments at Hollywood -- quite a few. One stone caught our eye as we walked back towards the entrance.

Tomorrow, it's on to Philadelphia, and then to Boston. Hard to believe it, but this trip is almost over.

Clyde Moultrie Dangerfield would be proud

2008-04-13T01:15:00.000-04:00

We've been in Charleston, South Carolina for the past 2 days for a wedding on D's side of the family. We have kept busy with family events, but we've been able to see some parts of the city, too.

On Friday morning, I drove out to Charleston's small airport to retrieve my brother-in-law. The airport really is small - almost as small as FAT. Afterwards, we headed down to Patriots Point, overlooking the harbor, which is loaded with various military-themed memorials, including the USS Yorktown and the Cold War Memorial, an interesting replica of a submarine half-submerged into land. Patriots Point is also one of two places on the harbor where you can catch a boat out to Fort Sumter, the starting point of the Civil War. More on Fort Sumter in a bit.

Friday afternoon, we all headed into downtown Charleston. It's a beautiful, historic, well-preserved city bounded on 3 sides by water. We took a 90 minute bus tour of the city courtesy of "Doin' the Charleston" Tours. The tour used a combination of driving around with an on-board TV showing media relevant to each location we visited (mansion, historic site, street scene, etc). The tour guide, Marvin (who is pictured on the homepage) definitely knew his Charleston history; he also wasn't shy to tell you his political/historical/everything agenda and point of view (McCain = good, Gore = P.T. Barnum, Fort Sumter tour = waste of money, tipping Marvin = very good, etc.).

While touring through Charleston, I noticed an unusual obelisk in one of the parks. This was not mentioned on the tour, so I asked Marvin about it. He told us the story of the USS Hobson, which was accidentally sunk during military maneuvers in 1952 with great loss of life.

Saturday, we decided to follow Marvin's advice and skip the Fort Sumter tour (which involves taking a boat out to the tiny fort, now mostly ruins). Instead, we headed down to Sullivan's Island to see Fort Moultrie. The Fort was actively used from pre-Revolutionary time through 1947, undergoing numerous upgrades, and coming under attack twice during it's active life (once during the American Revolution, and once during the Civil War). Today, it's been converted into a museum, with different sections of the fort designed to replicate how it looked in different time periods. From the fort, you also have a great view of the harbor, with Fort Sumter in the distance. You can see it to the right of D here. Overall, Moultrie was a good value -- we learned quite a bit -- and we couldn't help but enjoy the fantastic weather. Afterward, we managed to snag a seat at Poe's Tavern, named for Edgar Allan Poe, who evidently was stationed at Fort Moultrie from 1827-1828.

In the evening, we attended the wedding itself, which was held at Alhambra Hall in Mt. Pleasant. The setting was against the harbor, and in addition to a steady flow of tourist and commercial shipping in the background (and a darkening sky that thankfully did not open up on an outdoor service), we could also see Fort Sumter. In the same way that weddings in Manhattan try to get wedding party photos with either Central Park, assorted iconic buildings, or the Statue of Liberty in the background, I'm guessing that weddings in Charleston try to get Sumter in the background. You can see it just to the left of the wedding party (and to the left of the big ship that moved quickly across the horizon).

While it wasn't our wedding, we couldn't resist a picture of ourselves here, either.

Tomorrow, we're planning to get a few more hours in downtown Charleston, and then it's on to Richmond, Virginia.

Another day, another hotel chain

2008-04-10T22:26:00.000-04:00

With a bit of sorrow, we left Nashville -- which we loved -- and headed on for South Carolina today and a family wedding. Roughly, this meant some 9 hours of driving, but we managed to break it up with lunch at the Clingman Cafe in Asheville, North Carolina, in the up-and-coming River Arts District. I've been to Asheville a few times in the last few years, mostly for business, and I think it's a picturesque, interesting place to visit (and presumably live), but I had not been anywhere near the Rivers Arts area before. It looks like a lot of empty warehouses, but bit by bit, they are being filled with new businesses.

After five hours of driving, we were fortunate to make it to the Clingman Cafe before it closed at 4:30 PM. The food, and coffee, was great. Afterwards, we got back in the car and made it to Mt. Pleasant, just outside Charleston, around 8:40 PM.

So, not much to report today. We made no non-essential stops along our way. We started at a Holiday Inn Select, and wound-up at a Marriott Residence Inn. To make up for today's lack of eventfulness, we'll share a few photos and thoughts from previous days. For example, here's our encounter with a very tall woodsman on the campus of Northern Arizona University (NAU) a week ago. We'd asked for directions to the "Muffler Man" in a Flagstaff grocery store...

D&P: "Excuse me, how do we get to the Walkup Skydome at Northern Arizona University?"
Grocery store employee: "Where?"
D&P: "We're trying to get to Northern Arizona University."
GSE: "I don't know where that is."
D&P: "Oh, OK, thanks an---"
GSE: "Wait... do you mean NAU?!"

Here are some Native American ruins we saw in Arizona, not far from the Grand Canyon. These were built by the Lomatki over 800 years ago, and abandoned for reasons unknown c. 1250. Amazing, somewhat spooky, and beautiful to see in the setting sun.

And here's P in Sun Studios with the original microphone (so they told us) used for recordings by Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, et al., some fifty years ago.

(D's note: Yeah... pretty much what he said. Also, I want to note that we just arrived in Mt. Pleasant only to find out that my dad, in his 60s, now has a soul patch. Pretty cool. Also, the aforementioned Marriott Residence Inn makes great chocolate chip cookies. And yes, it's been that slow of a news day, folks.)

So now we'll end with the Top 6 Things We're Already Missing about California:

1. Our neighbors;

2. Our cousins and college friends scattered around the California coast;

3. The lack of humidity (although D's hair is quite happy to have the humidity, thank you very much) and the great weather overall;

4. The eucalyptus trees on the drive to Carmel (actually, we're just missing the ability to drive to the Carmel/Monterey area, period);

5. P's former coworkers. And while we're thinking of that...

6. Buffalo spaghetti

Honorable mention: Rasputin Music. P made two dire observations when he came to Fresno: That (1) Tower was the closest thing to a "hip" record store in the entire San Joaquin Valley, and (2) Tower was going out of business (ok, that second thing was national, not just local, but still...). It's like the old WC Fields joke about 1st prize being a week in Philadelphia, and 2nd prize being two weeks in Philadelphia -- it was bad enough that Tower was the hip record store, but then to have it go out of business... (D's note: I don't like this reference.) So it was Fresno's saving grace to have Rasputin Music, a Bay Area chain, move into Tower's vacant shell in short order and provide a decent place to find music for our final year in California. It also served as a destination for the less desirable CDs in our collection prior to our move.

The Tennessee Two

2008-04-09T22:39:00.000-04:00

Thanks to poor internet connectivity at the Holiday Inn Select we're staying at, we weren't able to post last night. So you'll have to endure two days of our trip at once. Fortunately, they were both fairly low-key days, especially a 2-hour stopover at the Coin Express laundromat on 21st street in Nashville today (recommended!) with our coffee and a copy of the New York Times. It was like being back in Brooklyn.

Yesterday morning, we spent our last two hours in Memphis hitting a few sites associated with the American Civil War, or, if you're a monument in the South mentioning the Civil War, the "War Between the States". As it turns out, Confederate Park was located directly across from our hotel, overlooking the mighty Mississippi river. The site marks an important spot for the Second Battle of Memphis, in 1864, when Confederate forces briefly took the city. A large plaque installed by the "Confederate Dames" in 1909 details this battle -- making specific mention of the Union generals who hid or fled during the battle -- and also mentions the First Battle of Memphis, in which Union naval forces crushed the South's navy... although you need to read between the lines to figure this out. The South is full of plaques and parks like this, honoring Confederate victories and valor etc., mostly installed between 1890 and 1930 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. This was the period when the South did a fantastic job of retroactively winning the Civil War -- or rather, winning its memory -- by rewriting the way the war was remembered. In short, this meant establishing that (1) both sides fought in the Civil War for noble and glorious reasons (and not for the preservation of slavery, even though it was added as a specific right in the hastily-assembled Confederate Constitution), and (2) both sides must surely agree that Reconstruction was a misguided and corrupt enterprise. By the 1950s, historians started to question this approach, leading to a trickle (and later of flood) of books arguing that the Civil War was not necessarily a noble undertaking for either side, and that Reconstruction wasn't all bad by any means. Still, the Southern view of the Civil War and its aftermath lives on, thanks to monuments like the one of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Confederate Park (noted as a "True American Patriot" on the monument pictured above) and the successful addition of anti-northern terms like "carpetbagger" and "scalawag" to our vocabulary -- terms still being taught without an explanation of possible bias when I was in high school in the early 1990s.

From Confederate Park, we headed to Nathan Bedford Forrest park, something we had to see to believe. Sure enough, in the center of Memphis -- a city that is 61% African-American -- is a park named for the hero of the Second Battle of Memphis, but also the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan (although his defenders argue that he really tried to disband the Klan...). Underneath this equestrian statue of Forrest are his mortal remains.

After this, we hopped in the car and headed for Nashville. At 3 hours, it seemed like a mercifully short drive in our trip. Along the way, we detoured to Franklin, a small community about 30 miles outside Nashville, with beautifully-preserved old homes and a walkable, high-end town center.

We arrived in Nashville around 3 PM. Here's what we discovered quickly: Nashville, while definitely the home of country music, is also a hip, East Coast kind of place, with lots of construction, renovation, and innovation visible most places we went. We stayed across from Centennial Park and its famous replica of the Parthenon (modeled on the Parthenon before the Ottomans managed to accidentially destroy it, and 7th Earl of Elgin made off with its statues).

We had dinner (both last night and tonight) in Hillsboro Village, an active part of town near the Vanderbilt campus. (I got accepted to Vanderbilt, but did not attend -- a good thing, or else I would not have met D). We also wound-up having breakfast there today at the excellent Pancake Pantry after the aforementioned respite at the laundromat up the road.

This afternoon, I managed to drag D over to Tennessee's capitol building so we could visit the grave of American's 11th President, James K. Polk. D and I met in college through a pseudo-political debating society that chiefly consisted of members trying to publicly create the most absurd debate arguments possible while clandestinely circulating alcohol around the room in new and innovative ways. President Polk was the patron saint of our organization, because (1) he fulfilled all of his campaign platform promises, and (2) more importantly, there was an eponymously named, very wordy They Might Be Giants b-side (later remade for one of their albums) that detailed Polk's career. We took a few pictures at Polk's grave site (including this "Hey! Look who we found!" one), apparently raising the suspicion of a capitol guard who eyed us curiously until we left. Our guess is that President Polk doesn't get a lot of visitors these days.

We also passed statues (but not the mortal remains) of Presidents Andrew Jackson and Andrew Johnson (the two Drews?) on the grounds before coming across this interesting statue of Alvin York, a hero of the First World War who single-handedly killed 28 Germans and took another 128 prisoner in the closing days of the war.

We also passed the War Memorial Building, built to honor WWI veterans, and surrounded by later memorials to the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam. The base of the Korean monument was marked with the words, "Where Communistic Military Aggression Was Defeated", an accurate but awkward way of describing the Korean War. (A similar claim is absent, unfortunately, from the nearby Vietnam War memorial).

(D's note: If it looks like P dragged me all around Nashville looking at relatively boring monuments, well, that's because he did. But I love him anyway. And he agreed to join me after dinner Tuesday night at the Douglas Corner Cafe for open mic night, for which I love him even more. If you're ever in Nashville on a Tuesday night, head on over to this place (though probably best not to walk there... we did - a nearly 3 mile walk - and it's not in the best neighborhood). No cover, $5 beers, and singer-songwriters that were really good (mostly). In general, it was really nice to just chill in Nashville. We did not go to any museums and, monuments aside, we spent most of our time just strolling around Vanderbilt University and its environs. Ahhh, to be a college student again. I especially liked sitting next to a neo-hippie undergrad at breakfast and overhearing him exclaim: "I agree God blesses America, but what about all the other countries? I mean, dude, God loves Iraqis, too!" Loved it.)

Tuesday's step count: 13,000+.
Wednesday: 17,000+.

Tomorrow, we'll be trying to catch-up with the Olympic torch. Or, driving to Charleston. One or the other.

Walking in Memphis

2008-04-07T23:16:00.000-04:00

A very full day today in Memphis, topped off by watching the Memphis/Kansas game on Beale Street and now back in our hotel room.

We started our morning by getting back in the car and driving about 15 minutes to Elvis Presley Boulevard and Graceland. Graceland was Elvis Presley's home from 1958 until his death and claims to be the second-most visited private residence in the US after the White House. There's no question that it's a giant tourist attraction as we approach; the estate owns a huge plot of land across the street from Graceland's 13 acres containing multiple shops, restaurants, a hotel ("The Heartbreak Hotel", of course), a giant parking lot, and housing items like Elvis' converted 100 passenger jet (how they got that down Elvis Presley Boulevard, who knows).

We park in the lot ($8) which is quite empty, not surprisingly for a Monday morning. We have three tickets options for tours: Mansion (the low-end option), Platinum, and "VIP". We opt for the Mansion tour only, which still runs us close to $50 with a AAA discount. It's an audio tour; this is mandatory. Everyone is given headsets. Shortly afterwards, we board a shuttle which takes us... across the street and up a driveway to the front of Graceland. The "shuttle" trip takes about 1 minute.

We wait for a few minutes outside Graceland before a young man gives us the rules: No video or audio recording, no flash. Oh yeah, the house was built in 1939 and sold to Elvis in 1958. That is all of the Graceland-specific history we'll get on the tour; the rest of the tour consists of:

1. See how Elvis had the place decorated when he died in 1977;

2. See Elvis gold records and memorabilia;

3. Hear a few anecdotes on the audio tour, courtesy of Elvis and Lisa Marie. Outside of the young man at the front door, no other staff at Graceland will offer up any piece of information (nor do they seem to want you to ask). You either know it already because you're a big Elvis fan, or you hear it in the audio tour, or... that's it.

Not surprisingly, Elvis' decorating taste in the mid-70s turns out to be garish. [D: I want to give the guy a break, considering his decorating taste was frozen in 1977. But wow... a mirrored basement? Geometric-print carpet in the kitchen? Green shag carpet... on the walls??? Seriously, the picture on the left was BY FAR the most tasteful in the house. Enough said]. The house is also surprisingly small, although the external buildings -- converted into offices, rec space, a racquetball court, etc., add to the overall square footage.

The tour finally culminates in the "Meditation Garden", which now contains the graves of Elvis, his parents, and his paternal grandmother, who outlived her son, daughter-in-law, and grandson. As we arrive at this mini-cemetery, it occurs to us that the house gives us no sense at all of who Elvis was or what he was like. Not that it's easy to get in touch with historic, almost mythical public figures, but being at his house as he left it in 1977, you might expect some sense of who he was or what he was like. Instead, it feels empty. Buddy Holly's small gravesite in that rural small-town cemetery 2 days ago was much more moving. Instead, milling past the graves, D and I can only remark that Vernon Presley (Elvis' Dad) signed the epitaph on Glady's grave, adding "BY: VERNON PRESLEY" at the bottom of the marker.

The tour over for us non-Platinum or VIP types, we avoid spending too much money in the multiple Graceland gift shops (that's right... there are several), get back in the car and head back to our hotel to drop off the car. We'll spend the rest of the day on foot, racking up 16,000 steps today.

After a quick lunch, we head down Union Street for Sun Studios. Sun is the spot where Sam Phillips discovered and produced loads of talented performers in the mid-to-late 1950s, including Elvis (his first recordings), Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, and countless lesser-known but talented performers. I'm wary of some reconstructed, non-authentic replica of the "original" Sun Studio, but lo and behold, the studio is basically intact. Memphis' spotty economic history allowed the studio to sit mostly vacant for decades (ever since Phillips moved Sun to a larger space a few blocks away in the late 1960s) before being turned into a lucrative tourist draw. Our tour guide, a young fellow named Slim who never removes his sunglasses, is engaging and knowledgeable -- a refreshing change from Graceland -- and even though the tour encompasses a grand total of 2 rooms (3 if you count the tiny original reception area) it lasts about 45 minutes and covers quite a bit of ground. D and I both enjoy it a great deal, and we stick around at the end to buy a few souvenirs in the shop/snack bar attached to the studio. We agree that Sun's legacy is helped by several great logos.

The whole Sun experience makes me want to dig my Sun Records box set out, but of course it's packed on a truck somewhere crossing the US, and I'll have to wait to hear the handful of Sun tracks on my iPod tomorrow during our next drive.

[D: Sun was awesome, one of my favorite stops so far. I really got goosebumps standing in that room where Johnny Cash and Elvis recorded, goosebumps that didn't come at all in Graceland. Plus, the folks at Sun (staff and visitors) were by far hipper, younger, and, frankly, thinner than the folks at Graceland. (There's a reason why they need a shuttle at Graceland just to get across the street.) At Sun, and while walking around downtown Memphis and interacting with Memphis locals, it occurs to me that for the first time on our trip, possibly even for the first time since we moved to California, I feel at home. Part of it is the weather -- there's that humidity that I wasn't really missing! -- and part of it is that Memphis, with its history, music and struggles to keep the inner city from falling into complete blight, reminds me a lot of the Philly I knew while growing up. The closer I look, the more I realize how much life there is in Memphis, and I found myself really rooting for the city to complete its revitalization. (Not to mention genuinely rooting for the Tigers to win... it was a sad, sad night.) I think Memphis gets short shrift. Particularly if you are a fan of blues, soul, R&B or early rock 'n' roll, you MUST come here. I don't know if we'll ever get back, but there's still a fair bit more to see (the STAX museum in particular).]

We cut over a few blocks to walk back to downtown Memphis on Beale Street; this takes us past a few Tennessee historical markers, including a few for Robert R. Church and his offspring. We'd never heard of Church before. Turns out, he was a very wealthy ex-slave (the first black millionaire in the South) who helped improve the city of Memphis at a time when segregation was rampant; his work was carried on by his descendants, including his son, a powerful Republican(!) leader in the days before the civil rights movement.

Speaking of which, our next major stop was the National Civil Rights Museum. The museum is based in the former Lorraine Motel, the spot where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in April, 1968. It's very moving to stand outside the museum and look at the balcony where King was killed, marked by a wreath all of these years. D and I both spent quite a bit of time looking at the former motel, silently.

The 40th anniversary of his assassination was 3 days ago, so the museum has been busier than usual with visitors and media. The museum traces the history of the civil rights movement in the US from 1619 until MLK's murder; it does so with countless signs, placards, visual aides, multimedia pieces, and large items like a vintage coffee shop counter, a replica of a bombed-out bus, etc., culminating in the rooms King and his associates stayed in during his final days. In fact, while we only had 2 hours to spend at the museum, there was so much to read and look at on the walls that we easily could have spent 4-5 hours there trying to soak everything in. Most Americans of our age learn about the civil rights movement in high school history classes, and we get a highly abbreviated version at best. The real story is much longer, involves thousands of people, and was more violent than people our age generally realize. It wasn't just about President Johnson signing some bills, or the Supreme Court ruling on Brown vs. the Board of Education. It was about millions of lives over hundreds of years. And -- seeing more than a few people wearing t-shirts juxtaposing Dr. King's image with that of Senator Barack Obama -- it's clear that many feel the civil rights struggle hasn't ended. D took a picture of this sticker affixed to a pole in front of the museum:
[D: A quick note about the Lorraine Motel. Having just come from Dealey Plaza, and having waxed philosophical about JFK's murder on and off for the past 24-hours, I assumed the Lorraine Motel would seem to have less of an impact. Totally the opposite. What you realize while you're staring at the balcony before Room 306 is that unlike JFK and RFK, who were essentially killed by crazy nut-jobs... no matter how much those nut-jobs and others have tried to assign deeper motive to those killings, MLK Jr. was killed out of pure hatred. Hatred for a man simply because he was a different color and wanted equal rights. It's not only moving, sad and horrifying... but it's shameful. Though many, including P, have pointed out that at the time of his death, King's influence was waning, and that if it had continued its decline he might have ended up like Jesse Jackson - somewhat marginalized - I can't help but think that this was the biggest loss of the '60s. As I watch people of all races interacting -- offering to take each others' pictures in front of the motel, walking side-by-side through the museum -- I take solace in the fact that, though civil rights issues clearly still exist, race relations have come a long way in large part because of what King did.]

After the museum, it was back to the hotel for a break, then on to dinner on Beale Street. Suffice to say, our day was a lot better than the Tigers'. Tomorrow, we're off to Nashville.

From Dallas to Memphis

2008-04-07T00:29:00.000-04:00

We woke up relatively early today to make our way, by foot, over to Dealey Plaza, a short walk from our hotel. In the same way when we visited Honolulu at the tail end of our Hawaiian honeymoon some years ago and only visited Pearl Harbor, our only goal in Dallas was to visit the site of President Kennedy's assassination in 1963 and the assassin's perch/workplace at the Texas Book Depository, the top of which has now been converted into the Sixth Floor Museum (the lower levels are now used by Dallas County; oddly, the first sign you see when entering the building is a posting of the Texas legal code that forbids you from bringing concealed weapons into a workplace, even though they are legal to conceal elsewhere in Texas).

When we arrived at the Plaza on foot, both D and I had the same reaction we've had at other historical sites: it's a lot smaller than you think. It's the same reaction I had when I first saw Wall Street years ago: this is it? In fact, Dealey Plaza, located next to a major freeway overpass, seems like an afterthought to downtown Dallas, and as we learned in the Museum, it was one of the least-well attended portions of the motorcade that day. It looks much as it did in November of 1963, with only a few minor modifications (noted elsewhere on the web by assassination aficionados) to lighting, signage, and foliage. At first, we thought the large white structures surrounding the Plaza were built as a tribute to JFK; in fact, they are a WPA construct from the 1930s and are quite visible in photos taken on November 22, 1963; we've just never noticed them before. Apparently, this is a common reaction of visitors to the site. The structures do appear to be in poor shape, however.

The other surprising aspect of Dealey Plaza is that Elm Street is still an active motorway, with many cars cruising along and under the overpass at speeds of 40 mph and more as we watched. More than a few tourists put themselves in harm's way crossing the street to separate sides of the Plaza as cars whizzed by; no doubt, crossing the street is made more tempting by the presence of an "X" painted on the roadway in the approximate location where President Kennedy was hit by the fatal shot.

[D's note: For those of you who knew me as a teenager, you can imagine what it meant to me to be in Dealey Plaza. (And for those of you who didn't know me, let's just say there was life before Sydney Pollack.) The Plaza and the Sixth Floor Museum, see below, were incredibly moving and sad. And it was bizarre to see "the grassy knoll" up close and realize that it was just a little patch of grass just aside the Book Depository; you realize that anyone who was standing in Dealey Plaza could not have accurately determined, once they even realized what they just heard, that gunshots came from the grassy knoll as opposed to the Book Depository. I can't imagine driving past this site on a regular basis, as many in Dallas seem to do, without thinking about the murder of a man 13 years before I was even born. P and I were waxing philosophical for the rest of the afternoon after visiting this...]

After spending time looking around the Plaza -- and, of course, up towards the former Book Depository -- we made our way to the Sixth Floor Museum. The Museum, opened in 1989, is a beautifully assembled, chronological exhibit that summarizes President Kennedy's life and career, culminating in that fateful final day in Dallas, and then leading into the resulting pursuit, arrest, and murder of Oswald, and the decades of subsequent re-investigations into the assassination by various government agencies and congressional committees. The Museum pays respectful attention to many of the conspiracy theories out there, but does lend itself strongly to the belief that, at the very least, Oswald was the only person shooting at JFK that day. There's even a re-creation of the sniper's nest Oswald created for himself in the window, and you can essentially look down on Elm St. from the same perspective he did 45 years ago.

[D's note: Yeah, looking out the window is rather freaky. It really does appear to have been an easy shot, and it's incredible to think that anyone would be allowed up there during the President's motorcade, let alone someone who owned firearms. As P mentions below, it is, harrowingly, not at all difficult to imagine how Oswald could have pulled this off. On the other hand, it's very difficult to imagine that any one person could be filled with enough demons to want to do this, and maybe that explains why so many people insist that more than one person was involved. I like thinking of it that way, as opposed to assuming that so many people who believe in vast conspiracies are just plain ignorant. On that note, however, I was surprised to hear a young woman, probably about 20, remark that she thought President Kennedy's wife was pretty and then ask whatever happened to her after the murder. WHAT???? Can anyone not know who Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was??? Well, since I'm in a forgiving mood, I'll assume she was actually a very mature looking 8-year old.]

During my visit to the museum, I was reminded of something my grandfather said many years ago: That if Adolph Hitler had visited the US in the 1930s, he would have seen our cities, our cars, and our wealth, and he never would have started WWII. D and I had a similar thought: If every Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorist visited Dealey Plaza, half of the conspiracy theories out there would dissolve. Looking at the sniper's nest, looking at Oswald's history (including a failed assassination attempt on right-wing general Edwin Walker a few months earlier), looking at the small size of Dealey Plaza, and Kennedy's relative lack of security that day, it just wasn't that hard for Oswald to do what he did. He had means and opportunity. As a Frontline piece back in 2003 put it, Kennedy just had the bad luck to drive by a building where a man with a rifle had the desire to shoot at him.

Which brings me to my second reaction while visiting the Museum: The Dallas police really botched the handling of Oswald. They probably wouldn't have apprehended Oswald at all had he not been foolish enough to (1) leave evidence everywhere and (2) kill police officer J.D. Tippit as he raced to get away from the scene. Then, unbelievably, they trotted him out for a press conference in the basement of the police station at midnight on November 23rd. He hadn't even been assigned counsel. Finally, they couldn't manage to keep the press out of the police station all weekend following the assassination; this made it all too easy for Jack Ruby to hang around and shoot Oswald on Sunday morning when it was convenient to do so.

OK, this isn't a JFK assassination blog, it's our travel blog, so I need to move on. Besides, there are too many interesting or moving aspects of the Museum to discuss here -- suffice to say, if you're in Dallas, this is absolutely worth two hours of your time. We made one last stop in the gift shop and bought a magnet with the image seen at right. (Side note: As I write this in our hotel room in Memphis, Senator Ted Kennedy is on TV speaking at a rally for Senator Obama today. How strange it must be to be Ted Kennedy. By the time you are 36, four of your siblings have died -- two the victims of high-profile assassinations -- and you've barely survived a plane crash yourself. A year later, your brother's dream of putting a man on the moon comes true just as you, at the very least, fail to prevent the death of a young woman and leave a dark shadow hanging over the rest of your long and otherwise fairly distinguished career. If Ted Kennedy had died in that plane crash in 1964, imagine how differently he'd be thought of now. Likewise, if Vice-President Richard Nixon had been elected President in 1960 and killed in Dallas in 1963, imagine how differently he'd be thought of now).

After a quick lunch, D and I finally hit the road for Memphis. Unlike the country roads of Texas yesterday, we were on major highways the entire way -- efficient, but not charming. Our only detours were for a needlessly long side-trip to Starbucks just outside of Dallas courtesy of Sheila and a stop for dinner in Carlisle, Arkansas at the excellent Nick's Bar-B-Q and Catfish. There are signs for it on the highway. Oh, we also stopped at a Wal-Mart in Arkansas. I mean, how could we not?

[D's note: Unbelievably, P has forgotten to mention what's been keeping us sane in the car on our 5-hour driving stints: an audiobook of Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation. We downloaded it on iTunes because it was the only thing we could agree on (P wanting something history-oriented, me wanting something that wasn't so soporifically dry that I'd end up driving us off the road). It really had nothing to do with the fact that we were going to visit the place where Kennedy was killed, honest. Anyway, it's a very entertaining book. And I am very thankful that Sarah Vowell isn't the least bit attractive, or else I'm fairly certain P would declare her his soulmate and leave me somewhere in an Arkansan swamp.] [P's note: Sarah, ignore D. If you're out there -- call me!]

Now there's a documentary on about Martin Luther King, Jr., on TV, who was assassinated forty years ago this past Friday...

A few graves on the way to Texas

2008-04-06T00:05:00.000-04:00

Yes, 11 hours of driving today. Maybe more. But we broke it up with a few interesting stops along the way. When you're traversing this stretch of the US, you'll take anything you can find that qualifies as "interesting", since most of the terrain looks like this.

After an early start, we made our first significant stop on Route 60 at the Billy the Kid Museum in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. You may not have known that William Henry McCarty, aka Billy the Kid, was shot and killed and buried in Fort Sumner, but just try driving anywhere near Fort Sumner and you'll know soon enough, thanks to historical markers and giant billboards.

The Museum is run by Don Sweet and his wife, and Don wasted no time in telling us that the museum was opened in 1950 by his father and had been run as a family business ever since. He also mentioned that dear ol' Dad had originally opened the museum as the "Fort Sumner Museum", but changed it after 90 days to the "Billy the Kid Museum". What Don didn't tell us is that five miles down the road, adjacent to the actual gravesite of Billy the Kid, is another Billy the Kid Museum... anyway, admission to Don's museum was $5 and, all things considered, it was probably worth it. The museum contains a decent amount of Kid-related memorabilia from the past century, as well as one of his rifles and a few other relics of the age. Of course, the problem with a Billy the Kid museum is that there isn't much to the life of Billy the Kid; his inflated reputation as a killer of 21 men and an expert marksman was really made posthumously by Sheriff Pat Garrett, the man who shot him dead. He was only 21 years old when he died -- not much time for legacy-building. Or maybe it is, as we'll learn later in the day.

After leaving the museum (which starts out strong, but -- as another sign of the thinness of Kid history -- degrades into a very generic "Western" museum with things like old saddles, old typwriters(?), a two-headed calf, etc), we headed five miles down the road to the Kid's grave. We'd learned in the Museum that the actual site of Billy the Kid's grave is somewhat of an open question, but at least since 1940 a marker has been in place of where he was generally agreed to have been interred in 1881. Subsequently, that marker has been stolen several times, leading to its current location inside two concentric cages.

After New Mexico, it was on to Texas. We fully expected western Texas to be big and open, but... we may have underestimated how big and open. Huge expanses of empty land (some being farmed, some lying fallow) were occasionally dotted with tiny outposts of humanity. We saw at least a dozen small towns (Jacksboro, Olney, Jean, Seymour, etc) that made our old hometown of Reedley, California, look like a metropolis, consisting more of empty, boarded-up storefronts and nondescript empty buildings possibly meant for agricultural or industrial use, but more often just in an advance state of decay, than anything else (how's that for a run-on sentence?).

We did, however, enjoy our stop in Lubbock. Lubbock is town of 200,000, but its chief claim to fame is as the hometown of Charles Hardin "Buddy" Holly. The town is home to several modern monuments to Buddy. We made our first stop at the Buddy Holly Center, a small, well-designed, well-organized museum. Buddy was only 22 when he died, but he left behind far more than Billy the Kid -- proof that age doesn't tie directly to legacy. He was only professionally active for a few years, but his output was significant, and his growth as a songwriter was evident even over that brief time. Perhaps more than any other premature rock-n-roll death, Buddy's begs the question of where his career would have taken him in the 1960s or beyond. Some argue today that he would have gone on to challenge the Beatles for artistic adventuresome in that decade. It's an interesting idea, and walking around the Center, we certainly couldn't help wondering what would have become of Buddy had he lived past 1959. Perhaps Buddy's legacy is a beneficiary of his early death. One of Buddy's friends was Waylon Jennings (from nearby Littlefield, Texas), who was even a member of his backup band during that fateful final tour. Looking at photos from that tour, Waylon appears as a clean-cut, professional performer cut from the same cloth as Holly. But a documentary being screened in one room of the museum had a late middle-age Waylon on-screen several times, sporting sunglasses, a sleeveless denim shirt, and a mullet. Would this have been Buddy's appearance had he made it to 50? Would his early recordings and appearance appear anomalous and quaint decades later, like those early photos of Roy Orbison or Willie Nelson, perhaps with just those few early hit records to his name? Would he be touring the oldies circuit by the late 1960s, like so many other early rock-n-roll pioneers?

Our original plan was to leave the museum early enough to spend a few hours in Fort Worth before getting to Dallas for the night. After consulting with Sheila, our new travel companion, we realized this wasn't realistic. Instead, we spent some extra time in Lubbock seeking out the Lubbock City Cemetary. We found it quickly, and right inside the entrance, we found Buddy's grave. His parents are buried to either side of him. You'll notice that pilgrims have left guitar picks and pennies on the marker.

Finally, back in the car. We arrived in Dallas around 10 PM. My initial impression is that Dallas has the charm of Los Angeles combined with the architecture of Las Vegas sans the strip. I'll have a better perspective after we've walked around tomorrow.

Our day in Santa Fe

2008-04-05T00:44:00.000-04:00

We took a break from endless driving to spend a full day in Santa Fe today. The city is beautiful -- completely built in the old Spanish colonial/adobe style. In fact, everything looks this way -- from the smallest hovels to the plethora of government buildings to every single hotel (chain or otherwise). Here's a good example - one of the bigger hotels.

There is a lot of history in Santa Fe -- witness the mural detailing the tale of the old Santa Fe Trail at our hotel above D's head -- but even more than history, Santa Fe is rich in... galleries. Seemingly endless rows of art galleries selling a mixture of artwork, quasi-artifacts, and tourist tsochkes trading on the region's mix of Spanish, Indian, and frontier history. If I need to buy, say, socks, I'd be out of luck here, but if I needed a portrait/icon of the Virgin Mary rendered in Spanish colonial style c. 1790 I would have a wealth of options.

We made a few planned stops today and did a lot of walking -- in excess of 15,000 steps. We started our day at the SITE gallery, where we saw a series of installations by an Icelandic artist (a resident of Santa Fe since 1980) known as Steina. The installations were all fairly interesting, but the clingy docent and our empty stomachs didn't combine well. I was more fascinated with the gallery being built right next door by a company called "Sarcon", which sounds like the name of a corporation run by a madman in a superhero movie who is secretly bent on world domination and is using his company to, say, build missile launchers under the guise of constructing boxy art galleries.

After SITE we made our way to downtown Sante Fe for breakfast at Cafe Pasqual's, which was crowded for good reason. We then made our way (by car) up to Museum Hill, overlooking some beautiful private homes in the surrounding hills. While there, we visited the Museum of International Folk Art and the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art.

Afterwards, we spent hours wandering around downtown Santa Fe, which in addition to its many adobe buildings, also has the street layout (and street width) of an Old World Spanish town. Streets are often just wider than a single lane, and sometimes switch freely from one-way to two-way and back again within a few blocks. We saw the San Miguel Mission Church, which dates from 1610 and is the oldest extant church in the US. Pretty amazing.

We also saw the Loretto Chapel, which boasts a spiral staircase which apparently should not be able to exist from an engineering perspective, but does ("as seen on Unsolved Mysteries!", a sign outside boasts). We paid $2.50 per person to see this staircase. If you go to Santa Fe, do not spend money on this. I took one look at it and knew my engineer father could debunk this in minutes; as it turns out, the good people at Snopes have already done it for him.

Finally, we made our way to a small bookstore across town; along the way, we visited with a few dour but interesting wooden figures in a small park by the river. I don't know why D looks so down in this photo...

She cheered up once I entered the shot.

On to Dallas by way of Lubbock and the Buddy Holly Museum tomorrow -- 11 hours of driving!

On our way to Boston, Day Three

2008-04-04T01:00:00.000-04:00

Hard to believe that we were in California only 60 hours ago, and now, some 1000+ miles later, we're in Santa Fe.

Here's the story so far: We've taken up permanent residence in a concrete wigwam village located on "historic" Route 66 in Holbrook, Arizona. We traded our Corolla for something a little more classic.

OK, so that's a bit of a stretch. We have seen an awful lot of Route 66, however, which was once a thriving tourist corridor across the southwest. Today, highway 40 has replaced most of it -- much more efficient, but less lively. Large parts of Route 66 still exist, but they are fairly run-down and only occasionally do you come across something as entertaining as a concrete wigwam village. Most of it consists of stores selling trinkets (Indian jewelry, petrified wood, etc).

We also managed to get to one of the few truly awesome sights in the US: The Grand Canyon.

Describing the Grand Canyon is not easy. It reminds me of how I felt when I first saw Venice (in Italy, not LA): You can't believe that a place like this truly exists, even when you see it with your own eyes. It's gargantuan, endless, breath-taking, etc. It takes hours and hours just to drive around, much less hike it (which we didn't have time for, but I would love to do some day -- is my brother reading this?). Not surprisingly, even a century ago entrepreneurial Americans were finding ways to capitalize on the canyon as a tourist attraction.

Here's another view to give you some idea of the scale of the place:

Apparently, April is a slow tourist time at the canyon. The drive up was easy, but even on a "slow" day, parking took some time, and there were decent-sized crowds milling around.

Two people commented on D's "Red Sox" cap -- one positively, one negatively. It's like being back on the East Coast already.

One of our first stops on our trip (telling our story a bit backwards here) was at the famous Baghdad Cafe in Newberry Springs, California. They made a movie about this place, although neither of us have ever seen it. The cafe is also on Route 66. Other sites in Newberry Springs include... well, not much.

We met this guy at the Baghdad Cafe. He was the only employee there when we were there. Here are three things we learned about him during our brief visit:

1. He attended MIT.

2. He spends most of the year working as a repo man making $1,000 per day. The rest of the year, he's apparently a short-order cook in Newberry Springs.

3. He goes by the names "Keystone", "Philip (with one "L") Andrew", and (wait for it), "Shaggy".

4. He flies private planes, landing at some of the most difficult airstrips in the world.

Sorry, that's four things.

[D's edit: I have no idea if this guy was for real, but he was incredibly entertaining and he made a mean buffalo burger.]

We've seen more amazing scenery along the way than we can do justice in words. More pictures later. Unfortunately, we've also seen more depressing Indian reservations than we ever knew existed -- a seemingly endless supply of trailer parks and run-down or nonoperative cars by the side of the highway, mixed with signs for casinos, signs for "REAL INDIAN JEWELRY! NEXT EXIT", and "Navajo Travel Centers", which look exactly like Howard Johnson's highway stops everywhere else in the US, except signs outside the "Travel Center" state that they have "Certificate of Authenticity" so you know they are run by real Navajos (I think).

That's all for now -- we've got a full day in Santa Fe planned for tomorrow.

[D: I'll add just a few notes here. We left Reedley in a whirlwind and are missing folks already (T-man, the vintage car photo - plus more to come - is for you!!!). 24-hours after leaving we were on our way up 180 to the Grand Canyon, stopping to take pictures in front of Mt. Humphrey's and cursing the RV going 10-miles under the speed limit in front of us. As P mentioned above, the Grand Canyon was simply awesome. As were the buildings built throughout the park in the early 20th century by Mary Colter (see link for her work). We walked a huge chunk of the Rim Trail - 15,000+ steps! - and then, completely bushed, took the free shuttle bus back to the Visitor's Center. On the way back to our hotel, we stopped at some Indian ruins that were very cool, and particularly striking as the sun set. The next morning we headed out of Flagstaff for Santa Fe, but not before 1) purchasing a GPS system that has since become P's favorite new toy; and 2) taking a detour to view ancient cliff dwellings at Walnut Canyon. On our way to Sante Fe we stopped to take pictures of giant cartoon dinosaurs by the highway, marveled at both the breathtaking scenery and heart-breaking poverty of Northern Arizona and Eastern New Mexico, and ate authentic Mexican food at a Taco Bell on the outskirts of Gallup, NM (yeah, we're not proud). Now I am THRILLED to be in Santa Fe... more on that later.]

Q: The Winged Serpent

2007-11-12T01:59:00.000-05:00

I've wanted to see this movie since I read an article about screenwriter/director Larry Cohen in the New Yorker a few years ago. Thanks to Netflix, we finally did, and I wasn't disappointed -- it was the B-movie for which I had hoped, combining my favorite things in a movie: Iconic locations (the Chrysler Building), stop-motion dinosaurs, oddball actors, and a reasonable running time. (No one likes a self-important movie). D liked it, too.

Sadly, we chose to top this off with a truly awful episode of Dr. Who. P.

Bloomie for POTUS

2007-11-05T23:07:00.000-05:00

When I was 16 years old, I had my Jewish confirmation in the sanctuary of Main Line Reform Temple. We were all supposed to give speeches during the ceremony, and, being the politically-obsessed geek that I was in high school, I stood up and gave a speech about how we should all take our responsibility to vote seriously (ironic, since I couldn't do so for another two years). I also threw in a word or two about how great Arlen Spector was; I was working on his primary campaign at the time, trying to ensure he beat the pants off an opponent who authored the infamous Pennsylvania Abortion Law and who insisted that a woman who is raped cannot get pregnant because her brain defensively secretes an enzyme that eats the fetus. (And that dude's wife was a nurse!) After my speech, my rabbi emphasized that each member of the confirmation class had written his or her own speech. Later, a curmudgeonly old guy was kind enough to inform me that the rabbi had said this so as not to appear to be endorsing a candidate and thus risk losing the synagogue's charitable status. I'm not sure this would actually happen - there is such a thing as free speech in this country, even inside a synagogue. But nevertheless, ever since then I have been a little bit more reticent to share my political beliefs with a large group of strangers.

Well, here goes... MICHAEL BLOOMBERG FOR PRESIDENT! C'mon Mike, you know you wanna! [And here, dear friends, I digress from saying terrible things about a certain other NYC mayor currently dreaming about 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Just in case Bloomie does run, I wouldn't want to disqualify myself from getting a job with his campaign due to a blogosphere indiscretion that no one but H and my mother-in-law will read anyway.] Anyway, I really do think he's the best candidate out there: smart, independent, creative, fiscally responsible, committed to the environment, pragmatic in the best sense of the word. If any one politician deserves credit for pulling NYC out of its post-9/11 doldrums - and for protecting it from further harm ever since - it's Bloomberg. He may decide not to run - hey, remember I said the guy was smart? - but for now, I'm still keeping hope alive.

In other news... the Cheshire Lodge in St. Louis is quite the trip. Like somebody decided to stage a Shakespearean play in Dr. Frankenstein's castle. But that's pretty much all you're gonna get from me, because I waited too long to pen the sequel to the last post and now the moment has passed. SORRY! You can check it out for yourself for less than $100/night.

Also, I can honestly recommend TWO new movies out now - how often does that happen? MICHAEL CLAYTON was fantastic. I had very high expectations for a movie written by Tony Gilroy that starred both George Clooney and Sydney Pollack, and this one did not disappoint. But the even bigger surprise (though not necessarily the superior of the two movies) was GONE BABY GONE. Good acting, plot twists I didn't see coming... and it was directed by Ben Affleck!?! Now, I was never one to disparage good ol' Ben in the first place. Probably because 1) I never actually saw any of his crappy movies, only the early good ones; 2) he's hot; 3) he seems relatively intelligent and has both a sense of humor and a good grasp of politics; 4) he's hot; and 5) he had the good sense to trade in the old Jennifer for a much newer and improved model. But I really didn't expect this. I mean, every so often I would tear myself away from the movie to think: "really? Affleck did this? You go, Affleck!" Or even: "take that, Matt Damon!" -- D

Sox Sweep

2007-10-29T01:49:00.000-04:00

Woo hoo!! I wore my Red Sox hat all over St. Louis this weekend, and I have to say St. Louisians were waaaaaaaaaay more polite about it than those assholes I used to encounter in NYC. P and I watched Game 4 tonight, laughing with AL about how, for the first time in the history of the world, P watched more World Series games than he did. Finally, a legitimate win for Mr. Sports.

As for St. Louis, I owe it an apology. Remember those asshole New Yorkers I referenced not three lines ago? Well, I'm kinda one myself. And one of the main symptoms of the "Asshole New Yorker" syndrome is that you assume all other cities are completely worthless. Obviously there are some exceptions. I just didn't expect St. Louis to be one of them. I was totally wrong. Now granted, I did not go into the downtown area. (I could see the St. Louis Arch from my hotel - the Cheshire Lodge... more on that later - and felt no need to get closer.) But P and I had a great time wandering around the Clayton and Central West End areas.

Day 1 we headed straight for the New Cathedral. The mosaics there are breathtaking. I have never been to the great basilicas of Europe, but this certainly put anything I've ever seen in the US to shame. We then did a 180 and went to have brunch at the leading Jewish deli in town, Kopperman's. (I'll call it a Jewish deli, mainly because they served knishes, cheese blintzes w/sour cream AND whitefish... though at the waitress' suggestion I tried the less bony smoked trout, and I was not disappointed. But this place is NOT kosher, no matter what their marketing says. I mean, they served eggs benedict for god's sake! I'm not complaining; it drove me crazy that I couldn't order a milkshake with my corned beef sandwhich at the Second Avenue Deli. But c'mon... ) I loved this place, with its red walls, large-scale P.T. Barnum artwork and scratchy Ragtime soundtrack. We sat in the window, looking out on red brick neo-Tudors, wrought-iron fences and English-style gardens. And especially as it had just rained, the whole Central West End seemed to have that Europe-by-way-of-Woody Allen-movie flavor that always tugs at my heart. Add in the antique stores, art galleries, cupcake bakery and awesome independent bookstore, and P and I were hooked! We even called a realtor to inquire about a huge house for sale directly opposite the deli, on one of the lovely, tree-lined residential streets that itself was fitted with a wrought-iron fence. Newly renovated 3-story, 5 bedroom/4 bath with pool and hot tub for under $1 million. We were nearly sold, even without the knowledge that the house was currently being rented by one of "the Blues" (whatever the hell that is). But couldn't figure out how we would explain to friends and family that we were moving to St. Louis on a whim. They already think we're crazy.

Later that day we want to L's wedding. The ceremony was held in the chapel of the Student Catholic Center at Washington University. It was really beautiful, presided over by a Jesuit priest - a family friend of the groom's - who had been flown over from Dublin for the occasion. His lilt was so soft it made me tingle, the same way my Mysticism professor's did at Yale. (Yes, I took Christian Mysticism. I thought it would be an enjoyable gut class. It was very enjoyable... especially since the elvish professor's voice seemed to put me in a meditative trance. But I seem to remember getting a crap grade... well, by Yale standards anyway. Maybe I was too much of a neurotic Jew to truly "get" it.) L looked beautiful. Afterwards we walked to the reception in Forest Park. The best wedding band, ever! I could not stop dancing. Even at the end of the night, when my feet hurt and my eyes were closing involuntarily, I had to get up for Proud Mary (as did AW, who was quite the boogier... ). The whole "Motown Review" thing was excellent.

Okay, it's almost midnight and I am exhausted. Tales from Washington University, the St. Louis Zoo, and the craziest, campiest hotel this side of Transylvania will have to wait until tomorrow.

Oh, and one more thing... GO SOX!!! (Please don't hate me, dear Philly family.) -- D

Raisins

2007-10-25T01:53:00.000-04:00

One of the nice things about living in this part of rural America is the fresh fruit. Obviously we don't have that year round. But we do have raisins year round. The closest "tourist attraction" near us is the Sunmaid Raisin Factory. Since 9/11 you can't take a tour of food processing facilities, but you can visit the Factory Store, which has tons of gourmet treats and, yes, lots and lots of raisins. I tell you this in part because I really do enjoy their raisins (particularly the ones dipped in dark chocolate). But also because it leads me to my favorite story of the week...

Since J was away the beginning of the week on a business trip, we invited H to bring the kids by before dinner Tuesday night for some play time. The kids were playing around the piano when I noticed what looked like a golden raisin on the carpet. I was about to pick it up when I realized what it was... T-man's pull-ups had overloaded and he was dropping some loads on the carpet! Okay, you know I am ready to have kids when not only did I not mind, but I actually found it adorable. Not that I am extending an open invitation to come over and poop on my floor. But hey, shit happens. (Sorry... I so clearly had to go for that one.) And it's a rental.

We're off to St. Louis bright and early tomorrow morning for L's wedding. -- D

More outtakes from rural America

2007-10-24T13:57:00.001-04:00

Back from Carmel, and we had a chance to see Hillary Clinton speak on Monday in our area. I have no strong political opinions going into this election, but I got to be a VIP at this event (thanks to a connection D has) and I'm not working this week, so hey, why not. As I suspected, the bar for being a VIP is pretty low. Anyway. She spoke at a big city high school in our area, and was preceded by every local Democrat of any prominence, past or present. Oh, and by every high school performing organization you can imagine -- band, choir, flag and rifle corp, cheerleaders, Junior ROTC, you name it. You have to wonder if this is the most difficult part of campaigning -- the mind-numbing sameness of all of it.

Interestingly, the speaker preceding/introducing Hillary (Dolores Huerta) made references to Kerry, Gore, Bobby Kennedy, FDR, Ted Kennedy, but not Bill Clinton. OK, maybe not so surprising. More surprising is that she spent time talking about Nancy Pelosi and Eleanor Roosevelt, but never mentioned that California has two female Senators as well...

Hillary was hoarse, but her stump speech was reasonably engaging. A few awkward references to farmers were thrown in for local benefit, making me wonder how many farmers were attending political rallies on Monday mornings. From the look of the crowd of 3000+, maybe 1 or 2. Hillary talked about what it was like being a woman running for President, and said she was heartened by the number of mothers bringing their school-age daughters to see her, as well as 90+ women who had been born in the days before the 19th amendment.
Well, of course: Who else has the time to attend political rallies besides stay-at-home parents and retirees?

D and I are still catching up on our Doctor Who episodes. Most recently, "The Idiot's Lantern", a fairly strong episode. -- P

Okey Dokey Artichokey

2007-10-21T01:50:00.000-04:00

Well, it's finally happened... we're starting a blog! And we're doing it from Carmel, where it's been a two-artichoke day. This may be the last time we write together. (P is convinced that if we insist on writing everything together, we'll never post anything.) But we're both here right now. Because really, what is there to do in Carmel after 10pm apart from start a blog while watching old Will & Grace reruns? (P would want you all to know that it's really me watching the Will & Grace rerun.) Thanks to H for inspiring us to get going on this blog (and for restoring my sanity). -- D

Our first blog and we're already including shout-outs? Is that what the internet has come to? Remember when it was about "push technology" and ActiveX? Anyway, Carmel is great, and we've been here quite a few times in the past few years. Small, well-placed, relaxing, and beautiful. Generally good weather. But mainly relaxation is the reason for coming down here. Certainly not shopping, unless you like trendy art, in which case, this place is for you! There's about a 1:1 ratio of art galleries to actual citizens of Carmel. And in 3 years of visiting, it seems like a lot of the art hasn't been sold... well, tomorrow it's off to see the Carmel Mission. We've been there before; it's an interesting piece of California history, and the burial place of Father Serra (who is memorialized in various places around the state). He founded quite a few of the 20 missions that dot California's coast, and while neither D nor I are Catholic, we admire those folks who would willing spend their lives trekking 20 miles at a time to get from mission to mission for years and years on end... D thinks we should start a hostel-like network along El Camino Real, the 19th-century road that connects all of these missions, and convince modern adventure travelers to make the trek themselves. Or, religious fanatics. My guess is that the former won't need to see more than 3 missions before wanting to do something else (they all begin to look the same pretty quickly) and the latter would rather drive than walk. Perhaps they'd walk it in the Holy Land, but not when In-N-Out is only a few miles away.

I'm taking the whole week off -- my first entire week off in 2 years since moving to R. "You're not really taking it off," says D, which is probably accurate. Stay tuned. -- P