Odd Man Out

I've just returned from vacation in Maine and Boston, a two-week trip that accounts for my longest period sans computer in years. Yes, it was hard.

So M and I made a loop through Maine up to the Grand Lake Stream, returning along the coast and ending in Boston. We stayed at a number of B&Bs and ate all over the place. So here's my collection of advice and endorsements on the off chance anyone is interested in a New England vacation.

First, of the B&Bs, all were pretty good. We didn't hit any disappointments. Our favorite was the Peacock House in Lubec, Maine. Lubec and neighboring Campobello Island are beautiful and well worth a visit. Peacock House is well-kept, clean and comfortable. Breakfast was simple but tasty, consisting of a fruit salad, sausage quiche and muffin. On a side note, Campobello is actually in New Brunswick, Canada; you must pass customs to go over, and is notable for a having been the summer home of Franklin Roosevelt. If FDR were running today, would Republicans tease him for being "cosmopolitan" and unAmerican? Lubec also has the Quoddy Head lighthouse, which marks the easternmost point in the US. We had dinner at the easternmost pub in the US.

Behind Peacock House, I would place Nonesuch Farm, outside Bangor Maine. It is considerably more rustic, consisting of one of those rambling New England farmhouses that's undergone two centuries of chaotic additions. It's also an actual farm. There were sheep outside my window, and the innkeeper apologetically let me know the sheep would probably wake us up at 6AM, which they did. Still it was very clean and pleasant and sported the best breakfast we had during our trip. It was in a single course and was composed of fruit, muffins, waffles and optional whipped cream (real), blueberry sausage (surprisingly good) and ideologically pure bacon.

The highlight of the trip, for me, was a two-day stay at Weatherby's at the Grand Lake Stream. It's a rustic lodge about two hundred yards from the Grand Lake Stream. For those not in the know, the waters thereabouts are legendary for landlocked salmon and smallmouth bass fishing. Now this place is an actual sportsman's lodge. It's comfortable but rustic. You stay in one of several cabins on the property and eat in the lodge dining room. You won't see any overstuffed chairs, nor elegant nouvelle cuisine. The beds are not especially comfortable. The cabins are simple. The food is simple. Things are clean and uncomplicated; I don't mean this as a euphemism for "primitive." There's indoor plumbing and running, hot water.

The place exists because of the fishing, which is stellar. I went out one day with a guide (Jeff, the current proprietor of Weatherby's, which is one of the oldest sporting lodges in the US) to the St. Croix River. The St. Croix runs between Maine and Canada, a wide, moderately-paced river stained Earl-Grey tea brown by tannins. We fished most of the day, from maybe 8AM to 4PM, catching quite a few smallmouth bass, several on the large side. In fact, I hit the "20-inch club" twice that day (only the second to do it this year), once with a 23-inch pickerel and again with a 20.5-inch bass. We also caught plenty of chubs, some surprisingly large. Jeff fed a couple of those to the bald eagles that hung around, which is a hell of a thing to behold.

If you're interested at all, I recommend Weatherby's highly. Pay for a guide. It's worth it. Weatherby's does cater to new and even first-time anglers, although the bulk of their clients are old hands. Most have been there before. In the fall, they also arrange guides for hunting birds, bear, deer and moose. I have no idea if they have firearms for rental, although they certainly have plenty of fishing tackle that can be rented and/or borrowed. Check into it.

Avoid Salem, MA. M was interested in seeing it because of the whole witch trial thing but the witch-related sights all sit deep in the most irritating tourist schlockery possible. Beautiful architecture, but otherwise a waste of time. The House of Seven Gables is there, inspiration for the Hawthorne novel, and is moderately interesting. That's the best thing I can point out.

In Boston, Mike's Pastries is worth a visit. It sits in the North End, Little Italy really, and sells a wide variety of really nice pastries. The ricotta chocolate chip cannoli was especially good.

The only real problem with the vacation is that I must now absorb several megabytes of text in order to become current again. I note that Donald posted extensively while I was away...

With reference to my post on lifecasting, and my intense dislike thereof, I stand by my general point. It's an absurd waste of time promulgated by narcissists of the first rank.

However, regarding Frank's site specifically, I believe I have misunderstood the intent of his photo collage. I thought it was the beginning of yet another exercise in self love out on the net. It turns out, according to Frank, that it was merely a family-friends-oriented photo set and not the beginning of a lifecasting project as such. I therefore retract the negative opinion that was specifically directed at Frank. I called him a narcissist, but his blog does not support the charge.

Sorry.

I hadn't seen the men play beach volleyball, but Kyle's correct. Their outfits are distinctly less revealing than the womens' outfits.

Seems a little silly doesn't it? A bikini or some sort of unitard would seem to be the most practical clothing. Why not have men so attired? It'd be reasonably popular among the female and nontraditional male viewers. Or if not popular, then at least not unpopular.

Is it some kind of weird fashion statement. Is it supposed to resemble the volleyball scene from Top Gun?

As with nearly everything important or interesting in life, there's a Seinfeld reference for this. It's Elaine, explaining why naked Jerry in the apartment is not a good idea: "The female body is a work of art. The male body is utilitarian. It's for gettin' around. It's like a Jeep."

Michael Phelps. Is anyone else getting a little tired of the 8-Golds story? I think it's a shame the quest for 8 has become the prime story of these Games. First, it overshadows the other athletes, the swimmers particularly. Natalie Coughlin defended her 100m backstroke gold medal. Not much airtime for Natalie, even though she's by far the most attractive swimmer in the fold. Second, Phelps has had an incredible career. No matter what happens, he'll leave these Games as the most Gold-heavy Olympian ever. Yet one gets the sense that we'll all be disappointed if he doesn't win 8 this year (as I write, he has 5). It's a shame that one could have such a brilliant career and yet leave under a cloud of disappointment.

Eros. Alive and well at these games (thank god). Womens' Beach Volleyball is really putting asses in seats in Beijing. Apparently the Chinese are quite taken with the spectacle of tall women in next to no clothing playing volleyball. Of course, many of these sporting events have a shade of sublimated eroticism about them. Aside from W's B Vball, you see this particularly in gymnastics. For male and female athletes alike, the camera lingers on bulging muscles and skintight uniforms and vaguely sexual movements. It's a little disturbing when applied to tiny, prepubescent girls, but on the other hand it's powerful when applied to someone like Alicia Sacramone, who is 20 and the most visibly post-pubescent gymnast I've ever seen (I'm talking about women of course; all the men are legal). I'm putting her on my Athletic Dream Girls list next to Katarina Witt.

Questionable Practices. Returning to Womens' Gymnastics, there's no way you're going to get me to believe that all the Chinese gymnasts are 16, which has been the minimum age for about 10 years now. Apparently there's some evidence they're younger though the Chinese government has furnished "documentation" to show they're eligible. I just can't believe it. Some of those girls don't look 12 to me. I note also that the judging seems to favor the Chinese. In my, admittedly inexpert, view, some of the scores for American gymnasts (esp. Liukin's bars and beam scores) were oddly low. Bela Karolyi himself, long retired from coaching, mentioned to Bob "Mr. Treacle" Costas that he couldn't understand where some of the point deductions were coming from.

NBC. Once again US coverage blows. I've mostly been watching the Canadian coverage, which is vastly superior. They don't just show snippets featuring Americans and they cover events many Americans are probably unaware of. Yesterday there was a story about Womens' Trap shooting and last weekend I watched the Korean Womens' Archery team kick ass. They fully covered the medal for that guy from Togo (sorry guy). And of course, there are the completely sappy interludes and personal stories that NBC covers in nauseating detail. I don't mind catching some personal data on the athletes, but I want it reasonably short and lacking the pathos. Thankfully, the sappiness is now being monitored by slate.com. Their geeks have tapped the closed-captioning feeds and are scoring sappiness based on the frequency of words, such as "pride" and "mother", that function as sap indicators. Check it out.

On short notice I was sent to receive training in New York last week. My instructors' office is on Park Ave S, in the Gramercy neighborhood. My hotel was just west of 6th, making technically the Chelsea district.

Now I just learned all this Manhattan neighborhood stuff in response to some of the people I was forced to abide. They were fetishistic about their NY neighborhood names. In my brief week, I witnessed two full-blown arguments, requiring outsiders to adjudicate, about whether a particular location was in neighborhood X or Y (e.g. is Times Square in Midtown or at the edge of the Garment District?). These were walking stereotype New Yorkers. I didn't expect them to exist, really, but there are NY natives who sincerely regard Manhattan as the wellspring of all taste and sophistication--at least in this country. And they're not at all shy about denouncing whereever-it-is-you-come-from in favor of the city that never sleeps.

As an outsider, I don't share their assumptions. I actually have some complaints. First, the city DOES sleep. Yes, there are clubs open to all hours, but a surprisingly large proportion of the city is closed by 6PM. All the really interesting museums are closed at or before 6PM. If you're, let's say, in class all day, you can forget about seeing the American Museum of Natural History.

Second, the city is really filthy outside the sections trod by the tourist hordes. On my AM journey to class I walked down entire blocks that were literally strewn with garbage. Yes, actual garbage was piled up all over the place, producing a semi-toxic miasma in the morning humidity. The stink was rivaled only by the tiny "dog park" section of Madison Square Park, which I cut through to reach Park Ave.

Third, I have my doubts about New Yorkers' food tastes. I am something of a foodie (Donald himself once described me as "decadent") so I was excited to eat in NY. I wanted a breakfast. Where to go? Ya gotta hit the Cafeteria on 7th. It's open 24 hours. My cousin once saw Mariah Carey there. Well, the Cafeteria on 7th could be charitably described as mediocre. My eggs and bacon were undercooked (I said 'crisp' damn it) and the potatoes were reminiscent of chunky french fries that had been cut up and reheated with some paprika for color. The coffee was weak and a little too cool. There are at least a dozen places in Seattle that can do better for about half the price. New Yorker, when you journey to Seattle, try the Hi-Spot. You'll be embarrassed to mention the Cafeteria ever again.

And so it was with most of the places I was directed to eat. Now I grant you that I didn't eat at any of the very famous restaurants. Perhaps they're great. Still, I expect a city to have plenty of quality food even if it's not world famous. I was generally disappointed.

In fairness, I did have lunch at a French place called La Express (Park Ave and, maybe 19th?) which served a quite nice Tuna salad Nicoise. Also, the Saju Bistro, slightly north and east of Times Square served my cousins and I a nice dinner. My hanger steak au poivre was excellent. (The famous Carmine's had a 1.5 hour table wait, so we went elsewhere.)

Fourth, Times Square is off-putting. It's Disney. It's basically a giant, uncovered mall with junk shops, tourist items, and suburban wasteland food outlets like 'Ruby Tuesday' and 'TGI Friday.'

On the other hand, there's no denying NY has some beautiful buildings. The 30Rock building is amazing lit up at night and the nearby cathedrals are likewise stunning. Also impressive--Donald will cringe--is the NY 5th Ave Apple store. That is a damn nice-looking store.

For all that New York didn't thrill me, I will go back sooner or later to see the various museums and such I wasn't able to reach. I'm sure there's more food to sample too. And for the record, many New Yorkers were normal and reasonable. It's the ones that aren't that stand out.

Oh, on the stargazing, we did see part of Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana's caravan (now there's a postmodern existence for you, being almost indistinguishable from your character). I also saw Ellen Muth ("George" from "Dead Like Me") just north of Madison Square Park. She was in a conversation so I didn't interrupt to fawn over her, even though I really loved that show.

The geeky among us will be aware of Amazon.com's S3 service, which basically provides metered storage in Amazon's massive data centers. In conjunction with their "compute cloud" (EC2) it allows developers to get web applications running without paying for server hardware or rackspace. It's pretty cheap too. A small commercial setup could be had for $50/month for storage, bandwidth and virtual machine image in the compute cloud. Cool.

So I've been looking at S3 and EC2 for a while, just out of interest, but have never gotten round to doing anything about it. Now comes an outfit called JungleDisk. They provide a client application that connects directly to S3, essentially using S3 as pure backup storage space.

It's just about perfect. While some elements of the user interface will need tweaking to accomodate non-geeks, the application is functional and fast. It runs on Mac, Linux and Windows (and for an additional $1/mo, there's a pure web interface) and can be installed on any number of computers--or on a USB key. It allows users to get at their, optionally encrypted, files from pretty much anywhere.

The cost is pretty reasonable, $20 for the JungleDisk application itself, plus monthly storage and bandwidth fees. Those rates, at this writing, are $0.10/GB storage and $0.15/GB bandwidth. So to upload and store 100GB of data, such as photos and an iTunes library, it'd cost $25 and $10/month thereafter. I call that pretty reasonable considering the value of the things I'm backing up. And I'm safe from normal domestic worries such as theft, house fire and so forth. While I'm capable of installing backup hardware myself, it'd cost a lot more than that to do a good job and I'd still be responsible for maintenance. I'm just as happy to rely on the economy of scale Amazon relies upon.