McMurdo rental in Istanbul fixes neon screwdriver
I hope that you find yourself in a beautiful garden on a sunny, warm (but not hot) day full of happiness and good cheer. Here, Nazy and I are beginning to prepare for our forthcoming trip to the United States. We’ll stop for a few days in New York and then head out to California where, by some miracle, all three of our offspring currently reside.
Darius is, of course, the miracle. He’s in California taking the Tango Challenge at Mitra & Stefan’s Oxygen Tango School. He’s also working on research papers with colleagues at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). And, he’s been known to cat-sit for Melika and Tom.
“Doesn’t that keep him too busy?” Nazy asked.
“Well.. it might be easier if UCSB was in Los Angeles, like Oxygen Tango.”
“But then it would be UCLA.”
“Why is Darius the ‘miracle’?”
“He’s in a reasonably normal location. Last summer he was in China and Indonesia.”
“I thought it was Ethiopia and Mozambique.”
“I believe that was during winter - or maybe spring.”
“California is..”
“... still unusual?”
“ ... more normal. He didn’t want to be in the Middle East during the summer. So he chose America.” Nazy reported.
“I’m glad he didn’t choose Washington, DC, or Atlanta. Those would be hotter than Beirut.” I said.
“I know. And Los Angeles is safer than Beirut.”
“You think so?” I replied.
“Of course. No one is firing rockets across the border.”
“And,” I continued, “there are no machine guns in the...”
“None?”
“Okay, already! Only a few (sub)machine guns in LA.”
“Do you think Darius wants to go back to Beirut, Dan?”
“I know he does. But he also said that he could use the University’s partnership program to spend a year in Saudi Arabia. He said that they pay very well.”
“They have to pay well. No one would voluntarily live there.”
“Well..”
“And I certainly wouldn’t visit him if he moved there.”
“Luckily, his UCSB collaborator had a different suggestion: He said that Darius needed to get into a more influential and mainstream university.”
“Great news, Dan.” Nazy exclaimed. “Can he find a job at ETH in Zurich? Or, MIT, CalTech, Stanford..”
“Well, he’s going to put himself on the market. But he’s looking at a University in Istanbul.”
“Istanbul?”
“It’s a beautiful, booming city.”
“Maybe he’ll consider it - since you didn’t make the suggestion, Dan. By the way, have you arranged the rental car for our California trip?”
“It’s the high season, my dear. Car rentals are expensive. But I’ve asked Darius to use his unmatched search skills to find us a ‘great deal’.”
“You asked Darius?”
“He always finds good deals.”
“But often with strangely complex routings or requirements.”
“Yep! He may find something for $3/day - provided that we collect the car in Elko, Nevada and drop it off at McMurdo Station.”
“McMurdo?”
“It’s in Antarctica.”
“Remind him to get the ‘unlimited mileage’ option, Dan.”
Here in Zurich, I’ve been taking the opportunity to re-read the classics. I’ve finished “A Tale of Two Cities”
“Zurich and Hanover?” Nazy asked. “Los Angeles and Santa Barbara?”
“That was the best of questions and the worst of questions.”
“Dan..”
“It is a far, far better thing, I do..”
“It would be far, far better if you fixed the drawer in the kitchen cabinet.”
“What’s wrong with the drawer?” I asked.
“It’s broken, Dan. You assembled it incorrectly.”
“Really? I wasn’t the one who kept pulling it open and pushing it shut. You broke it.”
“Did you assemble a drawer that couldn’t be used?”
“It is broken. And it broke when you opened it,’ I replied, ignoring the question. “I conclude ipso facto, e pluribus unum, caveat emptor and habeas corpus that..”
“Latin, Dan? That’s the moral equivalent of a confession. Take this screwdriver and..”
“... there is no need to continue with graphic descriptions,” I interrupted. “I don’t want to hear about what I should do with the screw driver,” I thought.
“Do you want me to help?”
“Nazy! I am an engineer - a graduate of Georgia Tech. I do not need help. Just brace that drawer while I..”
On a different topic. The tsunami in Japan highlighted the folly of nuclear reactor designs that don’t include an ‘off-switch’. (When something went wrong, the reactors could not be shut down - so they exploded instead) A recent report highlighted the cozy collusion of government, the utility and regulators:, a triad that fostered complacency and heightened risk. But what about large banks that provide the capital needed to make capitalism work. In the last few years, we’ve seen them construct “designed to fail” products (shamelessly peddled to their customers). They’ve touted IPO prices for saps, eh, investors while simultaneously conveying differing information to insiders. They helped Grεεce cook the books. They emasculated financial regulators by preaching the benefits of the competitive free market while simultaneously colluding to fiddle interest rates. They embarked on trades so complicated and risky that they can’t be unwound - i.e. no ‘off-switch’. People reacted to the Japanese crisis by demanding that nuclear reactors be shut down. Do these banks realize the risks they’re taking? Or do the assume that people are too stupid to figure out what’s going on?
And finally, Mitra, responded to last week’s picture of the ‘sneakers’. (Recapped here.) I noted that she would have liked these in 1993. She responded:
Official retraction: I stand corrected.
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