Traditional Florida

My first airplane trip was on a family vacation to St. Augustine, Florida, probably in 1960 or so. We flew down on a Carvaelle jet, two engine pods at the back rather than under the wings, a very cool step up from the prop planes of the time.  We stayed right on the beach in a two-story hotel embracing a freshwater swimming pool: I remember a lot of pink and coral colors.

Treasure Island beaches, outside of Tampa, haven’t changed much since those days.

 

The Thunderbird Resort is a funky throwback, 50-ish room deor, a smell of warm molds and cold air conditioning, a kitchenette with hotplate burners and a stainless steel sink.  The two story hotel wraps around a deep blue pool, open at the ends to the ocean.  Miami-Vice pastel colors dominate.  Patrons are a blend of young families and older retirees. (‘Funny that I think of them as ‘older’ now, rather than just ‘old’.)

But it all works in a comfortable / nostalgic sort of way.

Beyond the resort, Treasure Island is lined with low-rise hotels and beach houses on the ocean side of highway A1A, local restaurants and beach shops on the leeward side of the street.  The whole thing is lined with palm trees, ornamented with gardens, and very much on a human scale. It invites walking, exploring, discovering.

 

South, towards Clearwater (Spring Home Of The Phillies), contemporary high-rises crowd the shore, a high wall blocking off the ocean and the sunshine.  Gates and guards are the norm to protect the residents from visitors.  Across A1A, strip malls line the road with chain restaurants and national housewares stores.  Nobody walks the streets: there’s only the comfortably familiar and safe.

 

Deceptively safe.

Artificial intelligence researchers  reduce product selection and purchasing transactions to template scripts that we execute unconsciously from years of practice.  Years of expatriate life have replaced my New World scripts with Old World ones, and this trip I felt wholly out of sync.

The McDonalds breakfast menu was a maze: McMuffin, McBiscuit, McGriddle.  In trying to ask about the differences, I accidently ordered all three.  Two of them were horrible.

I bought a bottle of wine in Target, the clerk asked to see my driver’s license.  I played it straight an handed over the US version.  She inspected the birthdate, then scanned the 2D bar code on the back. All of my personal information into their databases.  “What if I didn’t let you scan the code?”  Then you wouldn’t be allowed to buy alcohol.  ‘Frightening both ways.

So it went: Ruby’s restaurant, a bank deposit, a booking change with Delta.  Each had new steps, unfamiliar checks, a different script.

Some things change in a few years; other’s don’t change for decades.  Americans still fly to Florida in jets.

And they still drive on the ‘wrong’ side of the road…

Tilting at Europe

While I was in the United States, both presidential candidates gave major speeches on June 14 about the economy while campaigning in Ohio. What was striking to me is how both men chose Europe as their cautionary example, even though they were making exactly opposite points.

President Obama called for a growth agenda, led by government investment in training and infrastructure.

In the fall of 2008 a financial crisis plunged the world into the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Throughout history it has typically taken countries up to 10 years to recover from financial crises of this magnitude. Today the economies of many European countries still aren’t growing and their unemployment rate averages around 11 percent.

But here in the United States, Americans showed their grit and showed their determination.  We acted fast.  And our economy started growing again six months after I took office and it has continued to grow for the last three years.

He has warned that too much austerity weakens demand and increases unemployment, creating a downward spiral as seen in Europe.  England is what could happen if the Republicans win.

Governor Romney drew the opposite conclusions.

President Obama has us on a path to become more and more like Europe, with bigger and bigger government taking more and more from the American people, directing our lives and telling us how to run our enterprises.

You want four more years of that? You call that forward? That's forward over a cliff. That's forward on the way to Greece.

Romney often draws comparisons to Europe, saying “This President takes his inspiration from the capitals of Europe; we look to the cities and small towns of America.”

There is a lot of windmill tilting going on here, both sides selectively using facts to build an imaginary enemy they can slay.  And, ironically, Mitt’s policy proposals put him much closer to European austerity programs than Barack’s.  This hasn’t gone un-noticed in the press either.

And, after a flirtation with austerity economics, there is a growing consensus in Europe that forcing government cutbacks and free market policies onto weak economies pushes them further into recession.  Voters in Europe are also rebelling, turfing out business-oriented leaders in Greece, Italy, France, and the Netherlands.

It’s kind of a laboratory for what might happen along either road, or to either candidate.

So, then as Europe turns towards growth policies, should Obama follow; should Romney flinch?

This is what troubles me:

If you believe we live in an age of abundance, then you should support growth policies. 

If you believe we live in an age of limits, you should support austerity.

The simple fact is that both candidates are putting forward policies that directly conflict with their convictions about the times we live in.

Our White House should reflect the best of who we are, not the worst of what Europe has become.

But what becomes of America when policies are all about windmills and not about reality.

Adding passport pages

With all of the recent travel (50,000 air miles already this year), it’s not surprising that the passport is getting a bit crowded.  I tried to get additional pages inserted while I was in the US, but they require me to send or drop off the passport for several days.  So I headed up to Amsterdam today to get things taken care of.

The Amsterdam embassy is one of the most unfriendliest places on the planet.  Not because of the building, a rambling Dutch mansion at the corner of Museumplien across from the van Gogh museum.  Nor because of (most of) the staff, who are unfailingly polite.  The problem is the procedures, which far surpass anything that the TSA dreamed up for airports.

It begins with the website.  Nobody is admitted without an appointment, which must be made online.  the instructions (page after page) say to follow links for getting a new passport in order to add pages, leading to totally inappropriate forms.  Scheduling is tight, it’s best to book at least a week in advance.  All appointment confirmations and forms  must  be printed prior to arriving at the embassy.

People without appointments or documents are turned away.  Those arriving late may be turned away.

The entry is being reconstructed, so the temporary gate is around the park-side of the building: a massive automatic gate with a raspy intercom.  The guard asked everyone to show their cell phones, turn them on, turn them off, disassemble them, and let him swab each one.  Then they were confiscated. 

And that was only the first step.

After dealing with TSA monthly, I' know the drill.  I put everything into a bag that I left with the gate guard, everyone else had bags searched and anything suspicious being confiscated.  As a rule, don’t take any electronics with you.  The guard said he wished there were more like me – I’ll take it as a compliment although he might have been doing an irony check.

There are two more layers of security to pass through before being admitted to the embassy, where there’s another line to the windows.  I ran into trouble immediately.

The web site has the forms: if you don’t bring one you risk losing your slot and delaying others, the clerk chided, giving me a form and sending me to the back of the line.  Honestly, of five people asking for new pages, nobody had located the form on the web site, so we all circulated.

That will be 86 dollars or 60 euros.  I beamed, having remembered to bring cash.

We don’t give change: didn’t you read the web site?  We take US credit cards; no debit cards.

It’s only 9:30 am: I can only imagine how she feels by noon.

Another line has formed at the exit: the guard is nowhere to be seen and the call buttons are disconnected.  People trying to get to work are starting to panic.  The same single-file, one-at a time procession operates in reverse to leave, first through the gatehouse, then at the gate.  Only full-body scanners are missing.

Back again at 2:30 to pick up the finished product – more of the same procedure: getting in, sorting things at the window, exiting.  The car parked at the Q-Park is accumulating time at 5 euros per hour.

Still, I seemed to be doing better than the folks who had lost passports (desperation) and those waiting to get documents notarized (resignation).  $50 a page for notary services (and bring two witnesses)!

The embassy, heavily fenced, decorated with cameras, ringed with guards, feels and acts like it’s under siege – kind of sad that the country puts that face towards the rest of the world.

Their product is a bit haphazard too…

Expatriate evensong

I’ve commented before that expat gatherings make for lively and insightful conversation.  Everyone has seen a lot and knows the landscape, has a sharp eye and open attitude to cross-cultural differences, and has a wry sense of humor for senseless and petty impediments.

First-world corruption is paying someone to do what they aren’t supposed to do; third-world is paying for what they should do, commented the diplomat as he poured some wine.  A vigorous debate on political morality followed.

 

The German strasse means any road, whereas straat is only for a road with bordering buildings, otherwise it’s a weg, observed the architect, munching pizza and prompting a lively debate about the differences between avenues, ways, lanes, alleys, and pavements in the US, UK and Netherlands.

 

Nations with a colonial history produce better diplomats than nations without one, asserted the historian over coffee.  The virtues of Dutch trading posts vs. British colonies was discussed.  I think that Europeans cite history like Americans tell family stories: there is nothing abstract about it.

 

Barack Obama is a socialist in the European reform Marxism tradition, asserts Forbes, in what passes for informed dinner-table opinion in the US.  ‘Hard to have an intelligent discussion about the election no matter what angle we started.

 

I took a stroll through the summer evening afterwards, enjoying the soft lighting, the laughter in the café’s, the  music flowing out of the bars.   It’s still delightful, remarkable.

 

Americans need to be a bit more cosmopolitan, less xenophobic, more good-natured as we debate social, political, and economic issues. We miss out on a lot of interesting ideas and practical wisdom by bashing “Old Europe” without going to look and pausing to listen.

Renewals

This has been a week for tripping over the renewals of my public documents, as I contact various government agencies to try to straighten out my official paperwork.

The IND has sent me all of the paperwork to renew my residence permit in the Netherlands for the coming year. Last time it took 9 months to clear in February, yet they issue the permit from the anniversary date in August.  That means I had my valid permit for four months before the application process starts again.

Yet another reason to get that Dutch certificate for Permanent (along with avoiding  the yearly 300 euro filing fee.)

Similarly, my UK work permit expires in January and needs an application filed for a one-year renewal.  Given the cutbacks in the number of Tier 1 visas available, I don’t want to lose this.

So far, no response from my immigration service in London though.

My US passport , valid for a decade more, is running out of pages for visa stamps.  I had one set inserted at the embassy in Amsterdam, apparently you are allowed two before needing to replace the passport.  Normally renewals are simple: fill in the DS82 form, send your passport with money and it comes back in a few weeks.

Bad news if I have to be outside the us during that period, so it means negotiating with the embassy in London, Brussels, or Amsterdam.  Easy to get more pages, but difficult if I need to replace the passport, as I can’t travel during the processing.

And there’s the matter of preserving UK Tier 1 permit in the passport: so far the immigration service is silent.

Finally, and best of all, I discovered at the car rental counter that my Washington State driver’s license had expired on my birthday last month.  They let me rent the car using my Dutch driving license, but that required taking full insurance, doubling the price of the rental.

I tried to renew on-line but the form told me to go see their office.  I did, paying my $25 and getting a new picture.  And I got a notice of a suspended or revoked Illinois driver’s license: I need to clear that citation in 45 days or lose my Washington license.

I lived in Illinois until 1982, and so this citation is 30 years old.  I talked to the Peoria County Courthouse who confirmed that the matter was “dismissed” decades ago.  However, since it wasn’t “vacated”, I owe $70 to reinstate the license.

I haven’t lived in Illinois for 30 years.and so I haven’t needed an Illinois license.  The traffic court computers were recently networked nationwide so that old fines could be cleared.  And I was one of them,.  There  is no appeals process, and $70 feels too small to retain a lawyer.  The only way to remove the fine is to have Peoria amend the paperwork to vacate the case, the case file is long gone (it was for an expired car tab) but Peoria agreed to send a not to the State to see what they could do.

It’s all feeling quite insane, and becoming somewhat time consuming.

Geen euthanasie alsjeblieft

For the past week, the Dutch press has been buzzing about comments made by Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum of February 3.  I don’t think that the story got a lot of coverage in the US: the Dutch coverage was actually more enjoyable.  Accompanied by video, it’s reminiscent of the infamous Bill O’Reilly Amsterdam rant from three years ago

Santorum related how involuntary euthanasia had become common in Dutch hospitals and now accounts for 5% of all deaths. The situation has become so bad that the elderly are fleeing to find care abroad; those who remain in the Netherlands have taken to wearing bracelets begging care providers not to euthanize them.

It is completely false, of course, voluntary euthanasia has been legal since 2002 and currently accounts for 2% of all deaths.  The law provides for layers of review and a waiting period and, while there have been occasional cases where the rules were not followed (9 among over 2500 euthanasias in 2010), doctors can be charged with murder if the rules are not followed.

The Dutch press reacted with a range from amusement to outrage. The Ministry of Health issued a statement that such bracelets did not exist. Parliamentarians demanded an apology.  Newspapers asked why Americans would vote for someone so unqualified to be a world leader.

For me, it’s a difficult thing to explain in conversations.  I always struggle with how to rationalize right-wing fantasies of death panels and European socialism to Dutch friends.  Parochialism, misplaced exceptionalism, audience pandering: those are the obvious antecedents.  But I do think that there’s something more fundamental involved.

It is a confusion of conviction with belief.

We all have convictions, deeply held statements of how we think that the world should be.  We all want health, peace, prosperity, opportunity.  And we look for ways that we can change the world for the better, aligned with those convictions.

Looking for thing to change, we work from beliefs, deeply held statements about how the world is. 

In many cases, and especially in this one, a good story just reinforces beliefs.  And that, in turn, bolsters convictions and justifies actions: it becomes campaign policy.

I don’t know how to change wrong-headed beliefs.   Objective news reporting, peer reviewed science, evidence-based medicine are all under attack because they run counter to people’s beliefs.  Indeed, the culture wars are all about a perception that institutions are trying to change convictions by assaulting belief, that critical thinking corrupts values.

And that is the belief that needs to change.

Snow, Dutch, and the IB

I saw the first word on the US news services, then the BBC picked up the story.  Seattle, a maritime city that usually gets a dusting of snow for a day before it gets washed off in rain the next day, was in for a storm.  It’s been over 20 years since the last snowfall like this: it always meant toppled rhodies, downed power lines, and cancelled school and work schedules.  This year was no exception.  The good news is that the 7KW gas generator we installed after the 2007 storms forges through the worst weather, and there are no kids in school any more (although Karen still teaches) .

As predicted, six to 14 inches fell, depending on wind patterns, and the city ground to a halt.  The best story came from my neighbor, Mike: Today, as I was snowboarding, my dog was chasing me. We collided. We rushed him to the vet. Now he's in a cast. That's right. My dog is in a cast due to a snowboarding accident.

We haven’t seen any snow in either Maastricht or Cambridge so far this season.  The Alps are buried, having a wonderful ski season this year and burying the higher villages, but it hasn’t drifted north through the low countries at all.  So, rather than skidding through the streets as I was last year at this time, I’ve been gradually wrapping up engineering and in-town activities, catching up with friends in the evenings.  There have been several new arrivals over the holidays and it’s delightful to get to meet the new family members – hard to believe that mine were ever this small.

I’ve also taken inspiration from the IamExpat post Yes! 2012 can bring fluent Dutch!  The core of the article is that you have to build and keep momentum.  That means daily practice, not weekly, and sustaining it over months.  I have the materials at hand, I have to pass by the end of the year to keep my promise to the Gemeente who is paying for my lessons and the opportunity to nail the permanent residency.  (Side story –happy ending: After 7 months, IND has finally sent me the letter to come to Eindhoven and pick up the new card from my 2011 visa renewal). 

So I’m spending an hour or so a day streaking through the end of the Rosetta course that I was given three months to finish.  It’s hard to learn vocabulary and grammar only by example, but with a word book and grammar book at my side, I’m deeply enmeshed with subordinate clauses, word order, and tenses this week.

I’ve also found a great set of podcasts on the RNW (Radio Nederland Wereldomroep) site.  Klare Taal is particularly good; I access it through the exercise bike (which has web access built in) or download it to my music player each day.

And the Welkom in Nederland book arrived, the vocabulary is pretty basic, so there’s no problem with reading and picking up the ideas. They match a lot of my experiences anyway (except for taking kids to “zit op” basisschool and middelbare school - they don’t “studeert aan” school until they get to the University).

So, it’s moving ahead well.  The only issue is that an hour or two spend on Dutch is an hour or two away from something else: the day is a zero-sum schedule.  “Prioritize” doesn’t mean “Finding what to do first”, it means “Letting go of what I won’t have time to do.”  I used to hate it when our corporate VP told me “Dave,Strategic Planning is deciding what not to do.”, but I’m finding that there’s some truth in it after all.

=====================

Separately, while thumbing the news, I found that the International Baccalaureate program is the latest institution to come under conservative attack in the US.  The IB program, available to qualified students in many public districts, intended to “develop the intellectual, personal, emotional and social skills to live, learn and work in a rapidly globalizing world.”  No less a newsmagazine than US News and World Report has determined that critic al thinking and cultural awareness “Undermines US Founding Principles”.

A curriculum crafted in Europe, with a decidedly non-American and non-Judeo-Christian outlook on the world…not merely to impart knowledge or teach thinking skills, but rather to develop "citizens of the world" with "universal human values."… —presumably including activities not endorsed by the United States.

I think I need to stick with the weather pages.  Or MasterChef.

The European straw man

It’s always interesting to immerse back into the turbulence of US media after months away.  The economy is Topic One on the news and talk shows, television and radio, money or politics.  And, whether looking behind for reasons or ahead for alternatives, the next sentence is always the same.

With the Eurozone teetering on the brink of collapse…

Although I think it’s a comfort for Americans to believe that they are weathering a storm gusting in from across the ocean, it seems like more myth and distraction than cause-and-effect.

The worst outcomes of the Eurozone crisis leads to some form of restructuring or abandonment of the euro as a common currency, not the bankruptcy of Europe as a whole or the fall of its sovereign nations.  There will still be European production, consumers, financial centers, and governments.  Border controls may re-emerge, economic buffers proliferate, and local regulators re-assert, but it’s more likely to be a painful adjustment than a total collapse.

And, despite the scenes of riots against imposed austerity programs and the rotation of prime ministers throughout the southern margins of the Union, no country is descending into anarchy or civil war.  The trains still run (perhaps a bit more grimy and irregular), the banks are all open (although quick to impose a new fee at every turn), and the grocers and shops are filled with goods (and shoppers who are buying them).  There’s  frustration and apprehension, but not widespread privation.

…a consequence of socialist economic policies…

At home, politicians have developed a shorthand that links Europe Collapse to Socialism to Obama.  The links are forged from stimulus spending, healthcare reform, and bank bailouts, all policies demonstrated to have failed on the Continent.

Only they haven’t.  Bank breakups in the Netherlands have eliminated “Too Big To Fail” institutions without harming competitiveness.  Universal mandates and cost controls result in my paying$150 per month for Dutch health insurance (In the US I pay $2500 per month, more than my daughter’s college bill).  Interest rates on Dutch bonds is 2.1%, Germany 1.8%; unemployment is 5%, and they retain their AAA bond rating.

Still, Europe remains a favorite target this campaign season.

“We have a choice in America to be remaining a merit-based opportunity society that follows the Constitution, or to follow the path of Europe. And I'm the guy who believes in the former. I believe America got it right. I believe Europe got it wrong. I believe America must remain the leader of the world. . . . I am absolutely committed to an American century. I see this as an American century."  -- Mitt Romney,  WSJ, 24/12/11

I think that if the US were to simply acknowledge and address both our problems and potential honestly, we could accomplish far more. “What cathedrals will our generation build?” asked one commentator: Where has American confidence gone, our willingness to come together as a nation to take on a task larger than ourselves?  In science, art, infrastructure, economics, production, the US has always been outward looking, optimistic, free to take the best and adapt the rest from global cultures, giving back products and ideas that change the world, and ultimately to create a virtuous circle of success.

Returning home, I see a surly shifting of blame, loss of confidence in institutions, hoarding of resources, and division of people by class, geography, and party.  There are an astounding number of unchallenged untruths being told. 

And how stupid is that?  Very.

Pundits and politicians erect simple straw men as convenient rationalizations for genuine hardships and inequalities.  But the world isn’t really anything like the one they depict.

As a start, don’t believe any of the straw men illustrated on this page.

We are the 1%

I visited San Francisco a week ago for a mixture of business and pleasure:  a few friends had asked if I would consider joining a new business venture and my son was completing his training leading to his deployment to Afghanistan.  It was an enjoyable visit in all regards, with time for good meals, serious conversations, and a nice mental stretch in a great city.

There was even time available to visit the ‘people’s park’ of the Occupy Wall Street movement down by the ferry terminal.  Which, reflecting on the 1%, inevitably got me thinking…

-----------

The Small Business Administration reports that there are 6 million businesses registered in the United States: about 600,000 are formed each year and about 540,000 die.  The difference, 60,000 successful businesses, represents 1% of the total number of employers.  Odds are long against any new business succeeding: I believe that funding, talent, commitment, persistence, and focus are key elements that determine success. 

Since joining the ranks of entrepreneurs three years ago, I’ve wondered about how to increase the 1% odds in my favor.  On the one hand, hard work on a single idea is crucial: making the most of every opportunity and accomplishing as much as possible each day.  On the other, I mitigate risk by spreading myself across several different opportunities, diversified roles, products, and geographies that make up a varied portfolio of self-investments.  

AT, the new SF business, is an example of going broader rather than deeper.  It’s made up of people that I know well, coming together 'around an idea that makes great “back-of’ the-envelope” economic sense.  Everyone is good at what they do and respects what the others contribute.  The early work is funded; the conversations are generative.  It feels like a winner.

Nothing in my broad, early portfolio of five ventures takes a lot of my time or resources, so I can play my part in all of them within a day each week and wait see what develops.  Then, when one hits, I’ve doubled down fast and hard to push that success ahead.  Two ventures currently demand that level of effort, and both are responding wonderfully.

One day I want to model whether I’m reducing or increasing my overall risk with this strategy – it would be unfortunate if I am making more work and increasing my meltdown potential.  It already makes for very full days (and weekends), but has the virtue of keeping focus on my most productive ventures. 

I’ve also been able to claim salary as things ramp up, based on the contribution of prior sweat equity during the embryonic portfolio stage.  Hopefully, the broad strategy also pays off with at least one large equity exit, sometime soon.

-----------

The United States has 1.6 million active servicepeople, 5.1 per thousand, suggesting that around 1% of families have sons and daughters in the military. Ours has no military tradition, so it’s been a learning experience since ‘Liam joined the Air Force three years ago.  Karen and I are both proud of what he does as a surveillance specialist, yet worried about the risks he takes as an active combat participant.

I’m still reconciling the contradictory impulses, conversations with family and friends elicit a similar mix of concerned patriotism.  Discussing it, there’s not the sense of a moral calling so much as a task that needs doing with reluctantly good reasons for doing it.

Still, we all are delighted that he is excelling in a job that he enjoys so much, and it was wonderful to see him before he goes.

-----------

Occupy Wall Street makes much of the struggle between the 99% and the 1%.   I’m sympathetic to their cause: the Tea Party has been a discouraging mix of selfishness, short-sightedness, and intolerance, and I’ve longed for a counterweight.  Near the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco, I found the local encampment (staked out by a large group of police), and stopped in to see what it was all about.

Unfortunately, this group was completely incoherent.  More street fair than political statement, the signs railed against oil, government, money, the Fed, global trade, Wall Street, school cuts, banks, and the media.  It made me realize how broad the problems are, how frustrated people get, but didn’t suggest that the opposition has found cohesion, direction, or goals.  Right-wing talkers sneer at the protesters lack of unity and length of hair, and, from what I saw, they do make easy targets.

But there is underlying truth.  I’ve been reading Jeffrey Sachs book, The Price of Civilization, and the issues are clear and well-understood (and nicely enumerated by the Financial Times in their review):  Stagnant wages, diminished savings, rising inequality, and declining health and social program effectiveness, exacerbated by the pernicious view that “government is the problem”, mismanaged  globalisation of labor, and the corrupting influence of big business and big money on politics and media.   An accurate and coherent description of the problem could lead to constructive discussion of solutions. 

But this is not the group that can carry that banner.  A pity.

Flossing the deck

Homes in the Pacific Northwest often have decks behind them, wooden platforms used for lounging and entertaining.   On sunny days they, mine is a favored spot for sitting in the sun and reading and enjoying the surrounding forest; on summer evenings, it’s a spot for dinner and conversation with friends.  I think that decks are mainly featured alongside wood houses in damp climates, where patios are impractical.

Unfortunately, decks accumulate dirt, moss, and mold.  After a couple of winters, the wood becomes dark and mottled and the whole surface becomes slick after rain and grey in sun.  Cleaning and staining the deck has to be done during warm months when you can be assured of several days of cool, dry weather.  It usually means a day of pressure washing, a couple days of drying, and a day of staining and sealing the wood.

It’s a huge chore.

This time around, we wanted to avoid pressure washing, since it’s expensive and damages the wood.  The “This Old House” DIY video suggested using a biodegradable cleaner instead, characterizing the job as “Somewhat easy, the work is a bit tedious, but not all that difficult”. Great.  So we set to work yesterday with a hand sprayer, brush, a sponge, and determination.

One thing that the video missed is the need to clean out the pine needles and muck that builds up between the slats of the deck.  So, the first job is to take a knife and run it between the boards, lifting out the junk, then using a blower to get rid of the debris.  I call this ‘Flossing the Deck', and it’s a hands-and-knees couple of hours for everyone,crawling along the slats and digging at stubborn clogs.

Once that was done, we started spraying on the cleaner.  I quickly learned that slower is better- waving the wand over the surface neither coats the wood completely or densely enough.  I also experimented with spreading the stuff using a sponge, but it cut the effectiveness significantly.  The best result was to slowly coat a three-by-three patch, wait 5 minutes, scrub it with a brush, then wash it off with water.  Blonde wood shone through like sun breaking between clouds (lower circle, above).

The difficulty is that decks are huge, and it takes a lot of 3x3 patches to cover the expanse.  Eight hours the first day; four the second before we had the entire deck was cleaned.

The constant rinsing also makes the moss slippery – I took a half dozen full-out flat-on-the-back falls. I tried rubber-soled boat shoes but it made absolutely no difference .

Among other ingredients, the spray cleaner contains bleach, so my clothes suffered.  The jeans, in particular, look like a 60’s remnant, white tie-dye patterns scattered along the outside of both legs.

But now it’s all done and looks great.  The video recommends putting down an anti-fungal boric acid solution, but there’s not a store in town that sells the stuff in the quantities needed for any reasonable price.  So I think we go straight to a stain / varnish combination after the drying ends.

The whole process was watched over by a bird nesting under the eaves.  She stayed calm despite all of the thumping and spraying – I had to break from time to time to allow her to get in and out.

There is always a lot of work to do on the house when I’m back in the US, fixing appliances and cleaning the garage, restoring the deck or picking out flooring.  I’ve gotten most of the shopping done, picking up provisions for myself and my fellow expats, and have gotten around to most of the people that I needed to see while I was here. 

Two days left: I’m behind on Dutch but keeping up with the businesses thanks to being awake early with jet lag.  Doing okay, although the muscle soreness is starting to settle in.  The (occasional) joys of (distant) home ownership…

Saturday’s reflections

I’ve moved from Seattle to Boulder for a few days, attending the Heart Rhythm Society conference at the Denver Convention Center.  It’s the major show for doctors who treat arrhythmic disorders of the heart, and it’s been fun catching up with the science and with colleagues.

The Wall Street Journal greeted me with an editorial column that reinforce my comments on the negative implications that “European Style” carries in the US.  Titled “The We’re-Not-Europe” Party, it focuses on lessons of the Greek fiscal crisis:

For Americans, this has been a two-week cram course in what not to be if you hope to have a vibrant future. What was once an unfocused criticism of Mr. Obama and the Democrats, that they are nudging America toward a European-style social-market economy, came to awful life in the panicked, stricken faces of Europe's leadership.

It concludes “the American people (should) avoid and oppose any policy that makes us more like them and less like us.”  Yike.

There are things that I like and things that I don’t about living in Europe, but its been, overall, a place that works on a daily basis, a society with better balance in life, an economy that is capable of significant technical and social innovation, even if business interests have to be subordinate to national interests. It isn’t anarchy or decay; it isn’t, really, socialism.  Its a pity that the pundits and politicians, stretching to make a point, distort the reality so badly.

Beyond that, a typical week back in the US, noticing the usual differences:

• How few people smoke (or ride bikes)
• How quick evening meals are: half the time of the European repast (and in quantity)
• How shallow the news is, whether print or television
• How big the vegetable sections of the supermarkets are
• How cheap the gas (still) is
• How much noise the Republicans (still) make about nothing (and who, besides the media, is still listening?)
• How people think that the economy has turned the corner (although their own situation hasn’t)
• How car navigation systems are still a novelty (even though the amount of driving is vastly greater)
• How people are increasingly concluding that the stock market is rigged (especially after the 1000 point drop and rebound, a sense that oops, you weren’t supposed to see that…)
• How much people dislike BP and distrust what it’s doing to cap the week (although a poll shows that Goldman Sachs is still only half as popular as BP)

From here to there

I’m slowly making the adjustment, getting my mind out off the space of the British village of Barrington (left) and into the Pacific Northwest village of Woodinville (right).

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, maybe not so much of a stretch.

Apart from the scenery (and the language), though, there are real changes that I always notice throughout the daily pace and balance of life.  Drivers are more aggressive in the US, although it might be just that the vehicles are so much bigger.  The price of gas is well below the magic $4/gal (0.75 euro per liter) threshold where Americans change their driving habits, so I suppose it’s no surprise that there are still so many Ram Chargers and Suburbans on the road.

I’ve made the rounds of the shopping and the medical services, provisioning the closet, kitchen, and medicine cabinet back home.  There’s just nothing back in the Netherlands to compare to a Costco: vast selection / low bulk pricing.  The suitcase is stuffed; It’s funny what I end up missing.

People’s hot questions this trip concern the effect of Greek financial troubles on the euro.  Will they default, how low will the euro go, are there lessons for the US.  It was a bit surprising, i thought the questions would be about the UK elections (zero local interest in that) or the summer vacation season (less than zero interest).

I’m not sure why it’s bubbled up so high.  The news shows blame the recent gyrations in the stock market on uncertainty about the euro.  Conservative talk show hosts proclaim it a cautionary example of where Obama is taking the country (‘Are they unionists or socialists?’), Business interests are eying the prospects for improving exports (bad: a weak euro makes US goods more expensive, and Europeans don’t have savings or wages to buy luxury goods).

This trip was to be with my daughter for her foot surgery, a variation on my procedure last summer.  She had it done at Children’s Hospital, a wonderful facility north of the city which does wonderful work on the wide spectrum of pediatric illnesses and inherited disorders.  A much more maternal facility than the hard-charging adult centers I frequent, it is delightfully furnished and thoroughly equipped using local philanthropy from the Gates Foundation and others.  (Insert reflections on public / private health care systems here: I’m still sorting my feelings)

The surgery was done yesterday morning, and she came through fine. She popped out high-fiving the nurse that she hadn’t died: the delightful side of operative narcotics.  She was thoroughly sick for the next twelve hours, though.  The drugs giveth; the drugs taketh.