Mark L. Van Name's Blog, page 178

Is this the best travel jacket in the world?

I'm referring to the Revolution jacket from SCOTTEVEST, which some preliminary research suggested might indeed be just the travel jacket I'm seeking.  What do you think?  Do you know of a better option?

I'm seeking something lightweight but warm enough to layer with a shirt during walks on my sabbatical.  Having lots of pockets is a plus, and compressing into a small space is definitely good.

Ideas, anyone?

Food truck Wednesday nights return

When the weather is warm enough, each Wednesday night in the street between Fullsteam and Motorco, a few food trucks gather and pull to them a crowd of students, runners, hipsters, Durham lovers, old people--you name it, any people who feel like eating and socializing in the cool night air.  Parlour and Pie Pushers are almost always there, and other food trucks come from time to time. 

These two food trucks have stayed away during the winter, but they decided to emerge this first week of March.  Joining them was KoKyu.  The weather was really too cold for eating outside, but many of us showed up anyway, bought some slices, and huddled in the warmth of Fullsteam, which generously lets folks stay inside.  As cold as I was, I was happy to be there.  (I'll be even happier when the weather turns warm.)  The pizza was delicious, and the ice cream heavenly. 

If I'm in town and you want to catch me on a Wednesday night, that's often where I'll be. 

Guess where I'll be Saturday night?

If you follow local concert venues, then this one is easy:  I'll be at the Lincoln Theater seeing these guys.


Yeah, that's right:  the Gaslight Anthem is coming to town.  I am psyched!

How can I not love lyrics like these, which speak perfectly to me:

Let it out, let me in, take a hold of my hand
There's nothing like another soul that's been cut up the same
And did you want to drive without a word in between?
I can understand, you need a minute to breathe
And to sew up the seams after all this defeat
All this defeat

 Oh, you'd like another video?  How about this relatively new one, which stars Elisha Cuthbert?



If you're in town, you should not miss this band.

Tesla Motors is haunting me

I almost bought a Tesla Model S Signature electric car last November.  I had decided that if I could get one of the first batch, I would do it, insane as the purchase would be.  Gina worked long and hard to make it happen, and she and a Tesla rep in California finally did. 

I backed out.

I did so for lots of reasons, but quite a few had to do with concerns about the company.

I did my best to make peace with the decision.  I was doing okay until I first saw one on the road in Silicon Valley, and then a few months later got to sit in my friend Ralph's.  Damn, that is a sweet, sweet car.

Still, I resisted. The wait time shot up to multiple months, and I made peace again with the decision. 

On the last night of TEDActive, Bill and I stood around a small outdoor dinner table with several fine folks, including a Tesla rep from Denver.  He offered great responses to all of my concerns.  He even said the wait time for a Model S Performance--basically, the Signature model without the name plate and the maroon color, which I did not want--was down to a month. 

Foolishly, tonight I configured one online.  Even with the recent price increase, it was cheaper than the Signature model (though still insanely expensive, of course), and it is now available in blue, my favorite car color.

I continue to resist.  I continue to try to make peace with the decision.

Wow, though, is that an amazing car.

Hotel bathroom wars

My pal and fellow writer John Lambshead observed in a comment to
I like to customize my space.  I want things the way I want them, and I figure if I'm paying for the space, as I am in a hotel room, I should be free to customize it within reason.  (I do not think I should tear down pictures or make other destructive changes to spaces I do not own.)

So, when I check into a hotel room where I will be staying for more than a night, as I walk through the room and set up my stuff, I make a lot of small adjustments.  Turn the the TV to face the bed.  Arrange the work desk to accommodate my laptop, tablet, phone, charging gear, and so on.  Put my current book on the bedside table.  Put my toiletries to the left of the sink (the right-side sink if there are two) and arrange the daily items in order of use (toothbrush, toothpaste, Q-tip, deodorant, brush, comb).  And so on.

Yes, as I said, I want things the way I want them.  More to the point, though, I do these things for two very good reasons:  to maximize efficiency in the morning, when I am always both rushing and likely to be muzzy-headed from lack of sleep, and to minimize the likelihood of me forgetting or screwing up anything important. 

Hotel staffs clearly do not like people like me, particularly in the bathroom.  When I return to my room after a day of work or, as this past week, TED sessions, my carefully constructed bathroom order is always different.  The trash can is back where they want it, not where it was.  All my toiletries are rearranged, as if the toiletries good fairy had come in the day.  And so on.  They remake my world. 

If by this point you feel you have waded long enough in a pool of potentially contagious OCD weirdness, I don't blame you, but I do disagree.  I don't consider it OCD; I consider it efficient. 

Of course, I would. 

Anyway, I hate that hotel staffs do this.  It costs them time, and then it costs me time.  I know it's a small thing, but with as little as I've been able to sleep for these past several years, I begrudge every senseless waste of even a few minutes, because I could be sleeping during those minutes.


I could, of course, just give in, accept their ordering, and move on.

Yeah, right.  That's not going to happen.  I feel I am in the right, and my setups are more efficient for me, so I continue to restore things to their proper places.

And my friends continue to laugh at me.

On the road again: TEDActive, day 7

Travel days are seldom fun.  Today wasn't awful, but it definitely didn't start out fun.

I worked in my room up to the minute that I had to leave to check out.  Before I turned to putting away my computer and its power supply, I wheeled my large suitcase to a spot near the room's door and opened the door.  This way, I'd be able to move quickly as soon as I packed the computer stuff in my backpack.

A housekeeper's head appeared in the doorway.  "You leave?" she said.

"In five minutes or less," I said.

She started to pull the door shut.

"Please leave it open," I said.

"Okay," she said.

She closed it. 

At checkout, I asked for a zero-balance receipt, a common request from business travelers.  The woman behind the counter handed me a receipt and said, "We'll charge your card later."

It was not a zero-balance receipt, which I need so I can submit my expenses for reimbursement.  So, I asked again, this time suggesting she charge my card now.  She consulted with a manager and learned that, yes, she could charge me now; in fact, as the manager pointed out, she should have done that in the first place.

The cab ride took a bit longer than the advertised time, but we reached the airport about an hour and five minutes before take-off time.  No problem; PSP is a small airport.

Only one person was working the American counter, and she moved only slightly faster than molasses flowing uphill.  Ten minutes later, I, the only person in the priority line, got to check in.

Still, no worries yet.  A quick dash through security, and then I'd be able to buy some water and lunch to take on the plane.

No such luck.  Security was backed up beyond its normal maximum of five winding aisles and most of the way to baggage claim.  Everyone in the line was nice, but everyone was also on edge.

Forty minutes later, fifteen minutes before departure time, I exited the security area in time to hear the last call for my flight.  I dashed to my gate, handed the woman at the boarding station my boarding pass, and...it failed to scan.

That's when the good news started.  I'd been upgraded, which is why my previous seat assignment no longer passed the machine's muster; another person was in that seat.

On the flight to ORD, I was lucky enough to have a salad with chicken for lunch, drink all the water and Diet Coke I wanted, and work nearly the entire flight.  I can ask no more from a flight.

In ORD, dinner was a bottle of water and a fairly lame "Tuscan" sandwich from a mediocre place in the G terminal.  They can't all be winners.

The second flight was on a commuter jet, so we were all in small seats with no bandwidth.  Nonetheless, I was able to work and read, and the flight attendant, a man with the most annoying voice I've heard in some years, served me Diet Coke, so I can't really complain.

I'm home now and glad to be here. 

No more trips until my sabbatical!

On the road again: TEDActive, day 6

We had only two sessions today, as is the TED tradition.  In the first, we heard 
Jim Flynn discuss why IQ scores have risen so much over the last hundred yearsJared Diamond talk about the many lessons we could learn from more traditional, older societiesDaniel Ogilvie explore how early in our lives we come to believe in the existence of a souland many more good and interesting TED talks.

The one that touched me the most was Joshua Prager's very personal tale of tracking down and talking with the man who caused the traffic accident that broke Prager's neck and changed his body--and his life--forever.  

The presentation that intrigued me the most was Dan Pallotta's discussion of why and how we are doing the wrong things with our not-for-profit organizations.  He persuasively argued for higher compensation for their staff and far less attention on their overhead.

Julia Sweeney's satirical TED wrap-up was hilarious while hitting mighty close to home on more than a few talks.

Chris Anderson closed the show with Eric Whitacre conducting his composition, Cloud Burst, with both a choir standing in front of him and one joining via Skype live from something like 35 different countries.  It was beautiful.

After the sessions ended, we enjoyed lunch around the pool, and then we dispersed, the TEDActive physical community once more transformed into a virtual one.

Next year:  Whistler.

On the road again: TEDActive, day 5

The talks today were in general the weakest thus far, except when they weren't.  None was bad, mind you, and none was useless.  I learned at least a little something from all of them. 

A few of today's presentations were particularly intriguing, and two--the final two--were so moving that they brought nearly the entire  audience to its feet.

Among the more routine but still very interesting talks, I'll single out two.  Sydney radio host and math lover Adam Spencer made everyone laugh even as he communicated his genuine love of numbers in a talk that at its core was just an extended bit about large prime numbers. Anas Aremeyaw Anas, wearing a mask to protect his real identity, showed the power of undercover, investigative journalism.

In the penultimate presentation, Hyeonseo Lee, a young North Korean woman who escaped that country and later helped her family escape, recounted, at times with obvious pain, what led her to escape from her homeland and what happened after she did.  Touching, terrifying, troubling, and incredibly moving, Lee moved us all. 

In the final performance of the day, poet Shane Koyczan stood and with passion and heart and fire and vulnerability and above all strength shared with us a poem that started with his youth and that ultimately included the amazing piece you can listen to (and see an animated version of) at the To This Day Project.  When he finished, we all leapt to our feet.  Go listen to this poem.  When his TED talk goes live, as I hope it will, listen to it.  It's a sad tale of what so many of us go through as children, and it's an uplifting testimony to what we can be, what we all can be, if we can learn to love ourselves and to ignore the horrible lessons that bullies and thoughtless adults and mean kids tried to teach us. 

Do not miss this poem.  Listen to it, then read it on his site.

On the road again: TEDActive, day 4

Today was the kind of day that makes me keep coming back to TED.  Not all of the talks were great--in fact, some were weak--but so many were wonderful that I left the last session filled with ideas and exhilarated at having heard so many excellent presentations. 

Before I mention a few of today's talks, though, I want to point you to the talk from this year's TEDPrize winner, Sugata Mitra:  check it out here.  I'll be very curious to see the results after he's set up his school in the cloud. 

Now, back to today.  Let me just skip through a few of the many notable presentations. 

The TED organizers portrayed Amanda Palmer's talk as being about making digital content free and asking fans to support artists on a patronage basis, but what she really discussed was the connection between artist and fan, the truly personal connection, and the power it brings to both parties. 

I lack the dance vocabulary to understand fully the performance that Rich and Tone Talayega choreographed and had performed for us, but I found it mesmerizing.  

Leyla Acaroglu debunked a great deal of environmental folklore and pointed out that if we really want to help the environment, we have to consider the full lifecycles of our goods--and fundamentally reduce our consumption.

Ron Finley discussed his efforts to grow food in small gardens on public land in South Central LA.  He was forceful, strong, funny, and persuasive. 

Allan Savory fascinated us with his presentation on desertification and his experiments that suggest that the best cure is through the careful management of huge herds of grazing, roaming livestock--quite in contradiction to conventional wisdom. 

We saw young scientists--high-schoolers--doing amazing work, artists, and many others. 

The best talk of the day, though, was from Lawrence Lessig.  He discussed a huge American problem:  the unreasonable influence of a very small number of Americans on elections today.  He pointed out that 132 Americans gave 60% of the money that went to SuperPACs.  This is a problem, he noted, that we can and should fix.  I hope we do. 

On the road again: TEDActive, day 3

Before I dive into today's events, I owe you a few happy snaps.  Let's start with the view as you step out of my room, turn left, and face the main part of the resort. 

(As always, click on an image to see a larger one.)
Yeah, it's beautiful here. 

The TED swag bag is also a requirement.  This year, they offered four different bags.  I arrived too late to get the Techie bag--it was gone before we reached the resort--so I opted for the Creative one. 



Again, not too shabby. 

The main room where we gather for the talks is a nifty space, as you can see in this photo as we were all rushing to our seats for this morning's pre-session discussions. 


One of the treats of the morning was a bit of traditional Indian dance and then a bit of Bollywood dancing from a tremendously talented Indian woman whose name I am embarrassed to admit I did not get.  After she got the audience going, the TEDActive hosts asked her to come on stage and lead all those interested in a short Bollywood number.  Here's the result. 


Lunch today was outside in the Quad, with food courtesy of three food trucks. 


Again, not too shabby on the scenery front. 

For dinner, we rode buses into old La Quinta and ate from a selection of half a dozen food trucks, while a Cuban band we'd seen from Long Beach played live for us. 


Dessert was courtesy of a cupcake food truck.  I particularly enjoyed the Food Network award-winning bacon cupcake. 


Yeah, no matter what you may think, it was tasty.  Of course, to make sure it wasn't a fluke, I also tried the double-chocolate; I felt I owed it to all of you to make sure multiple cupcakes were good.

Okay, enough of the pictures.  Don't expect any more from me; I just owed you some.

Today's talks ran the gamut from one that wandered relatively pointlessly through many good ones to a few that really touched me in different ways.  The musical performances were also interesting, with Beardyman being fun and interesting but the young Sleepy Man Banjo Boys (the Mizzone brothers from New Jersey; they're 15, 14, and 10, and the ten-year-old banjo wizard is the star) just stealing the show with wonderful bluegrass. 

The cumulative effect of the talks is more interesting to me today than any single talk:  I come away tired but exhilarated, thrilled to have had the time to think about so many different topics in so many different ways. 

Two themes spanned many talks:  how to help the bottom 20 (or greater) economic percent of the U.S. and the world, and how to fix education, a challenge that is related to the first theme. 

As a father of a twenty-two-year-old daughter and a son about to turn twenty, I was also quite interested in what clinical psychologist Meg Jay had to say.  (I don't want to use this forum in any way to try to direct advice to my kids, so I hope they don't think I am.)  Her basic tenet was that thirty is not the new twenty, that instead the twenties are a key time for developing yourself.  She argued that the twenty-somethings should develop identity capital now, that the urban tribe is over-rated, and that the time to pick your family is now.  Interesting stuff, and she presented it compellingly. 

The talk that most touched my heart was by a TED staffer, Lisa Bu.  Staff don't normally give talks, but she had done a version of this at a TED retreat, and after hearing it, they put her on stage.  I'm glad they did.  She talked about how books and her love of reading saved her, and she argued for reading related books in pairs.  She also had one of my favorite lines of TED so far, which I will attempt to quote here but will probably have at least slightly wrong:

Coming true is not the only purpose of a dream. Getting in touch with where dreams come from, where happiness comes from, where passion comes from, is also the purpose of a dream.

I love that.  I sincerely and deeply do. 

Near the end of the day, they awarded the TED Prize to Sugata Mitra, an Indian educator who has done amazing things simply by leaving computers lying around for poor kids to experiment with.  When his talk goes online, definitely check it out.

I could go on and on, but the sessions start early, and I need some sleep. 

In closing, though, I want to say this.  I rarely socialize at TEDActive.  I am one of the older people here.  I don't feel like I belong (of course, I never do).  I wander around feeling alienated and out of place and wishing I knew how to fit in (which is also the norm).  No single talk utterly blew me away.

And I already want to come back next year. 

That, for me, is perhaps the biggest magic trick of TED/TEDActive.