What a blur. I can’t believe its November already.

Amman. A city built on seven hills. (Jebel=hill). Oddly enough, the largest and most majestic building in the city is the US Embassy built on a relatively flat area. I take that back, its more like a fortress. I would have taken a picture but they might have taken my head.

Amman is kind of weird. Since its built on so many hills, the roads aren’t exactly that efficiently paved. Up and down up and down we go just  to get across the city. Other times its left and right left and right only to have netted a distance of maybe a mile. However, it does produce many great views of the city scape. The city is very liberal by Arab standards with many women wearing jeans and a clubbing style shirt. Alcohol is not difficult to buy and even some kids are wearing shorts outside. Yet still, prayers are played loud through the loudspeakers (things don’t go to a halt though), men and women are still very separated, and women in burka’s can still be found. What’s odd about it is the way the traditional and the new mix into this weird dynamic where men and women talk… but they are always awkwardly clustered like a 5th grade dance. The population of wealthy Iraqi’s are astounding and I can tell that native Jordanians probably hate them.

The Roman's left their mark everywhere. Just below the Citadel sat pretty intact Roman amphitheater.

At the center of Amman sits the Citadel. Up there palace ruins, a Byzantine church, a mosque and a Temple of Hercules sit together in great harmony. Actually its weird to see all the different architecture together. A huge cistern capable of holding 250,000 gallons of water and a number of birs (wells) meant that somehow there was a lot of water on top of this hill way back in the day. The Temple of Hercules is larger than any temple in Rome and must have been grand back in the day. It is around here that Uriah the Hittite died after being sent to the front lines against the Ammonites (like Amman). I’m surprised there wasn’t a tourist spot with a sign that pointed to a mound of dirt signifying Uriah’s battlefield grave.

The Citadel at night can be pretty even though the dust in the air makes for a horribly gray and nasty looking sunset. I walked to the Citadel my last night in Amman but the place was closed. The guy let me in any way... for a small fee of course. Ha. Gotta love business outside of the west.

Amman is not an exciting city really. The real jewels are of course in Petra. I did have the best humus of my life. Makes me wonder what I’m eating here because in comparison the stuff here tastes like sawdust. I went to a few mosques and even went inside a few. You would never know that many mosques in some places of the world are havens for terror. Wasted beauty.

King Abdullah II has his face (sometimes with his beautiful wife) plastered all over the country, but his father left a legacy of fancy cars. On loan, the 1001 horsepower Bugatti. It is freaking WIDE. Behind that is a Mercedes SLR McLaren and behind that... at Ferrari California. All three are on loan by the manufacturer to spice up a very very nice classic car collection. Speaking of cars, one of my most vivid memories of Amman is my driver yelling MUSHKELAH every time a woman was driving a car. Mushkelah means problem in arabic.

King Hussein left his son a country in a rock and hard place. That rock is Israel and the hard place is every country around it. It gave most of its land up for the creation of Israel and still claims much of the west bank to this day. The west calls him a hero for his work after WWII yet many neighboring countries hate him for being a tool of the west. Now his son inherits just a mess of foreign policy. It is very easy to see why many Arabs hate Israel and the Zionist movement. More on this later… like in a month… later…

Travel with a partner, its safer. And you get to sit around and not be awkward. Or be an adventurer and travel alone. It's literally an adventure at every turn.

Traveling alone in a country is really interesting. It’s hard because there is no economy of scale, yet the possibility of having a lot of fun increases (echoed by a backpacker I met). The reason being that there is nothing holding you back from making whim decisions and spicing up a trip by killing what was planned. Requires a lot of independence though… there are times of awkward solitude and a very little backup when mistakes happen. Safety is also a concern (well not in Jordan, its safer than DC. Much safer) but looking super confused, lost, and any sign of weakness is probably a good indication that you are a good target to rip off. It’s not for everyone. Helps to be male…

More later…

Al Gore is that dot.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/health/27well.html

Interesting…

I had a 13 hour layover at the Charles De Gaulle airport so I decided to leave the airport and take a walk around Paris. Minus, Notre Dame, I tried to stay away from all tourist areas and just walked the streets of Paris for about 5 hours before I left for the airport again. I have to say Paris is just a beautiful city ruled by beautiful architecture, tiny cars, motorcycles, and bicycle sharing. My only problem was that I left Amman used to 100+ temperatures and found myself in Paris at a chilly 40.

I started the day off with an espresso in a cafe. I walked along a neighborhood of boutique women’s fashion shops owned by a large number of Asians. Then I hit the African area. Every black male in Paris seems to be dressed like Pharel/Kanye in contrast to the typical black male in America that dresses like Lil Wayne.

On the way back, I walked by the modern art museum and saw the creation of either an installation or advertisement.

The shock of the cold was insane. I couldn’t feel my hands so I eventually had to buy a scarf. The oddest thing about France was that it was easier for me to enter France than the US — and I am a US citizen.!The French border patrol said, “Bonour!” He scanned my passport, stamped and said merci. Took a minute. Coming back in the US I had to fill out a form, tell the guy where I went and get harrassed a couple times with potential instructions. The irony is great.

Them roots are bent. That's why this surgery is painful.

I wasn’t put completely to sleep so I remember the surgery. The bottom left one I felt every ounce of pain because they didn’t put the local anesthesia deep enough. I felt the RIP as it slowly dislodged from my mouth starting from the back to the front in a sort of a twisting motion. That sucked.

What sucked more was I ended up coughing my clot out and developing a dry socket on my bottom right tooth. So my bone has been exposed since Sunday. That explains why even on Vicodin + Tylenol with codeine (since Vicodin contains acetaminophen, I had the max 1000mg max dosage allowable for a person at one time), I still could not fall asleep at night from the pain. On Monday night, I was exhausted from having not slept well the night before and watched the clock change numbers all night. I finally got about 4 hours of sleep last night just out of sheer exhaustion but still had a lot of trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. My trip to the oral surgeon proved to be fruitful, they gave me some medication and I have been pain free all day. Too bad my mouth tastes like the dentist office. I even took a 3 hour nap after work. (got of early again, people keep telling me to go home because I look like a zombie) This is good.

A dry socket is supposed to be extremely painful but it only really really bothered me when I lay down. Then no medication was good enough. So yesterday around 5pm I got home but I just felt horrible. I was majorly sleep deprived, my dry socket was shooting pain around the whole area, my head hurt probably because of my jaw pain, no sleep, and hunger but I didn’t feel hungry because my body was just so confused from everything I just listed above. I had to be hungry because I didn’t eat anything so I forced myself down a bowl of noodles. Literally forced the last half of the bowl down my throat.

This has been a horrible experience.

Trash Bags

This weekend was my first MD game since I graduated. Unfortunately Ralph Friedgen forgot how to coach.

That morning Johnny asks me, is it going to rain? Of course, the weather report says it would my solution was simple: wear trash bags. So I took out 5 trash bags from my trunk and we were off on to the game. The commentators said that these “college students” were “dedicated” fans. Ironic! Neither are college students (Wei, girl in green bought us student guest tickets) and this is ET’s FIRST football game.

Awesome.

Football practice is back in action. It’s actually kind of sad when I sit and watch the girls practice. I remember in high school going to NCFC to play in REM’s first tournament back when I was in HIGH SCHOOL.

Bam

At times I feel like things haven’t changed in 6 years. That only means life is a bit more routine than I would like it to be.

First time fishing for me in 2009. I miss this.

I am sitting here waiting for the fish to bite. To the left of me sits a Korean family cooking up squid and making me hungry. A Mexican man walks by and promptly screams, “I’m hungry.” 50 feet over a group of south Asians are celebrating a few large catches. They have the best spot on the pier. The black family next to them are hoping for some of the same luck.

Jimmy and I can talk in Chinese and it’s cool beacuse everyone else is speaking somthing other than English. It’s only used to bridge the cultural gaps really. Despite the chaos from the international confernce here, it’s actually amazingly peaceful. You can hear small fish surface to eat. Sometimes the sound of a real is nice above the murmuring crowd. You can barely hear the water at this spot. Weird considering we are on the bay. To the right I can see the bay bridge and hear the vehicles. Walk 30 yards away from the pier and a million stars light the sky. Tonight, you can even see the edge of the milky way.

I am going to check on my reel now. Wish me luck!

Dear Economist,
I’m looking for “the one.” Is he out there?

Yours,
Ruth, Barcelona, Spain

Dear Ruth,

Marriage offers economies of scale in production. … husband and wife can each specialize in different skills. … I fail to see why you cannot realize these economies of scale with almost anyone. … The real question, then, is whether you can stand the person you marry enough to enjoy these efficiencies. [The economists Michele Belot and Marco Francesconi] examined data from a speed dating company … The more intriguing finding happened when pickings were scarce. Women “ticked” about 10 percent of men as worthy of further investigation, regardless of the quality of a particular crop. My conclusion: even when there is little to be lost from maintaining standards, people are very quick to lower them. My advice: do likewise.

Yours pragmatically,
The Undercover Economist

Funny, here I am considering the economic/functional advantages to marriage and I come across a random article from the Freakonomics blog that would have sent Giselle from Enchanted into therapy.

This morning I came to the sad conclusion that those who are my age place too little emphasis on the functional/economic compatibility of a couple (I guess that’s why we have parents) Instead, we mostly focus on things like spiritual maturation and loveydovey feelings – which are duly important before marriage occurs – and question why God hasn’t blessed us with a spouse when the digits start approaching the 30’s. For some, including me, the more realistic question should be, “Why do I suck?”

• Can I cook? Meh. Am I willing to cook? Honestly… not really.
• Can I clean? Yeah. Consistently? Eh. Willing? Err…
• Can I change the light bulb or fix that broken sink? Yeah. In a timely manner? Eh.
• Am I patient? Depends.
• Would I try to understand emotions? No.
• Do I listen? As long as the game is not on.
• Can I provide? I don’t know.
• Will I be on time? If the game is on.
• Will I make strong decisions? Sure, but I probably will violate the listening part.
• Will I provide/lead? I’ll drive.

Blah blah blah. I’m sure women would have a list much longer.

Anyway this all started when I saw Betsy’s ring. Hearing her talk about the wedding blows my mind regarding how difficult the whole marriage/wedding process is. I guess that’s a good thing.

I think making a bucket list is nothing more than a financially acceptable way to ease into a midlife/quarter crisis. Instead of buying a nice car at the age of 50, we hope to do something grand and adventurous to remind us that while in our youth, we did something great. I have my quarter-life crises all the time but I find no reason to build a bucket list because it is counter-adventurous for two reasons: these lists limit the realm of possibility and are too structured.

Limiting:

A bucket list is supposed to inspire by turning amazing feats on a sheet of paper into manageable bullets to cross off. This would be inspiring if what we write on these lists are great accomplishments. But are they? It is impossible for our feeble minds to truly grasp what is possible and the bucket list is nothing but a reflection of own knowledge. The truly adventurous are not satisfied with intimately knowing his own realm but expanding it outwards. I don’t think many of use even know ourselves well enough to make a bucket list that’s original and meaningful to ourselves. Instead we are borrowing off the list of others.

Structured:

By coming up with a list, we define what is in our mind is successful, but that measurement itself is often wrong. If on my bucket list was to road trip to Cali but only made it to Texas, would that trip have been unsuccessful? No, I don’t think so because the truly adventurous are not concerned with the destination, but that a difficult road was taken. My trip to Texas could have been the best trip in the world and its accomplishment should not be undermined by my original destination.

I don’t think we should be making bucket lists, we should be instead living. A recent article in the New York Times discussed an up and coming female long distance runner from the United States that has the potential to uproot the Western Africa dominance in marathon running. So much so she is considered to be the great white hope. She credits a new training regiment that helped her reach the upper echelon of competition where she threw out her training book. Instead of running set distances in her traditional regiment, she just runs. She runs until she can’t run and stops. The Ethiopians aren’t surprised, they’ve been training (and dominating) like this for years.