Training Log Archive: barb

25 C, breezy.

Hard to get out of bed in spite of all the sleep.

I don't actually train these days but I think about it a lot.

I suppose even the tiny little jogging forays would not be as likely to happen were it not for the AP addiction.

Nasty long board meeting starts tonight.

Started reading New Yorker article about Khan, Iran and nuclear technology trafficking. In transit here I read a book by a young woman who spent around 5 years in the CIA. I'm mildly surprised that she can report some of what she does report, in terms of contacts she made abroad. Must be that these were safe examples to report. It was depressing, though - the unthinking and even enthusiastic CIA support for stupid blundering foreign acts of aggression, the lameness of the other case-agents-in-training, the institutional unwillingness to recruit agents "compromised" by having had any meaningful contact with "terrorist" organizations (so... how do you get useful information, then?). ... She had to do some night orienteering in her training at the Farm. I was envious of that part. Actually, most of the Farm training sounded like fun. I guess this "training" entry has enough keywords to attraction some outside attention.

The program chair of this conference is originally from maybe Serbo-Croatia. He lives in a neighborhood here in Brazil where all his neighbors had fortified their houses: big walls topped with broken glass and electric barbed wire fences. He thought that was silly and so did not take the same precautions, modeling for his neighbors that one does not need to be so ruled by fear. Half a year ago, some guys broke into his house and held him, his mother and his daughter hostage until he came up with some money. They took his TV too. The hardest part was apparently restraining his aging mother, who I think doesn't even speak Portuguese, from trying to clobber the attackers. She was pissed. His house is now fortified.

C • the farm 2

In honor of attending this conference, I'll refer readers to what remains my favorite Intelligent Design cartoon of all time.

C • doonesbury 1

27 C.

Still, it's something.

On my third caipirinha...

Muggy, 24C. Lots of people walking along the boardwalk; a few joggers. Trucks of coconuts being delivered to the beach refreshment stands.

29 C, muggy. Along the beach boardwalk. Felt slightly ill, possibly from eating too many nuts (travel food); the city smells didn't help.

I am in the middle of a 14-hour layover in Sao Paolo, between two ovenight flights (from Dulles and to Fortaleza). My only exercise has been pushing my luggage cart around the airport to get the lay of the land.

I picked up a travel guide to Brazil at Dulles. It says that under no circumstances should a woman travel alone in Brazil, if it can possibly be helped. It also talks about robberies and muggings in some detail. Like, a scout hangs around a taxi stand, identifies a vulnerable target (eg single female), radios ahead to motorcycle thugs, who pull the taxi over at gunpoint. It is recommended that I put my cash in my underwear. Yuk. So anyway, I decided not to leave the airport here in Sao Paolo. Anyway, I can not recheck my bags until just before the next flight, and it is cool and rainy outside. Instead I reviewed a paper on using multiple species' gene expression data to improve the identification of previously unknown genes in a biological pathway. bleah.

Since I am feeling edgy anyway, I will share this Random Swiss Matterhorn photo of the day, sighted at an apothecary on Zermatt's Bahnhofstrasse:

Work commute.

Desperate last few hours of work & packing before leaving for Brazil. Except I'm hanging out on AP instead. The WOC Sprint discussion thread is Very Exciting.

Random Swiss photo of the day - a two-pronged cloud floating above the Castor and Pollux peaks:

As I flew out of Boston, I looked out the window and some pattern-recognition trigger went off in my head; I realized I was looking at the island I visited with the Graham and Parks primary school class. It was just like in our pictures and maps and model - but there it was for real.

A lovely bike ride, in two pieces, there and back, with coffee in between. This was a great way to start my morning, in high contrast to other, recent, mornings of sloth and procrastination. I arrived at work with my brain working pretty well. Though throwing my keys in the garbage can at Dunkin Donuts was not so bright. Kind of like getting lost on the way to an orienteering meet?

Riding on big roads with rush-hour traffic was good for developing some detachment about life and death.

C • keys 2

Random Swiss photo of the day: from the cemetery where a bunch of (untimely) dead climbers are buried:



Yes, that appears to be Jesus on a cross except the cross is an ice pick, and he's got a rope too.