Caribou Barbie or "Drill, baby, drill!" (updated)

The women recently referred to as "Moose Milf" in a Seattle newspaper cartoon made it on stage! The Vice Presidential debate is over just now, but unfortunately it was not as entertaining as Obama and McCain last week.

Part of the reason is, that Joe Biden doesn't have the rhetoric ability Obama has to talk about senate related issues without sounding boring. Another huge part is, that Sarah Palin got about 10 hours of training before the debate and as a consequence did not answer the questions. Instead she chose to emphasise (in almost every single answer), how well she has done in ALASKA. No offense barbie - but Alaska is not all of America quite yet.

I won't dwell on the issue further, but will release you with a collection of my favorite Palin quotes from the debate:

“Hey, can I call you Joe?”

“How long have I been in this? Like five weeks?”
“I have a very diverse family”
“we need flexibility in 'no child left behind'”
“you third-graders out there get extra credit for watching this debate”

For a nice "summary" of the debate, see below. Everyone who has seen the debate will LOVE this!

SSA and SAM

As of tomorrow, I will finally be a SOMEBODY, after being a NOBODY for more than a month now.

how come my position changes? I applied for a Social Security Number today. This one number is your legitimizaiton for everything in this country. You may, as of the date of issueing, be only a number in the system, BUT... this number makes you part of the system. This number enables you to take a job, to deal with banks and other officials and businesses on a decent basis.

After completing another trail through American bureaucracy, it was time for some Art.

Every first Thursday of the month, Seattle has the "First Thursday Art Walk". Galleries on Pioneer Squeer open up, there is a little art market AND, the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) has free admission. So I went! ("and if I had a hammer...")

The hammering man of the Seattle Art Museum

Although their European/Asian collection is neglegible, their African and Native American collections are pretty interesting. The Contemporary American art is also very inspiring.

It is no comparison to either the large art Museums in London or New York, but it is a really nice art museum. I will have to come back with more time to get into the Native American collection.

Mt. Baker, home of the Grizzly

On Sunday I had another chance to witness Washington's beautiful landscape. After almost three hours of driving, we arrived at Mount Baker to hike the Lake Ann trail that features a beautiful reflection lake at the end.

But first we had to cross bear country!

We managed to keep our legs from shaking and marched steadily through the beautiful hidden valley of lingering death through bear claws.

At the lake we hasted to kill all our food so it wouldn't attract the bears and jumped and screamed, as we had heard this would scare of the furry creatures.

By the time we got back, close to the car, we heard a deep growling through the forest only to discover that it had been quite a while since we had food and that our stomaches were grumbling.

We had successfully managed not to be killed by any bears. In fact, we had not seen any wildlife at all. Too bad!

Washington Lake Bicircle

Seattle is a city of many different faces. Not only are there mountains and valleys, plains and temperate rainforest, there is also salt as well as sweet water.

One of the sweet water lakes in Seattle is Lake Washington and Saturday was the day we were going to circle it (well, almost).

After initial problems, the only remaining cyclists, Sudip and me headed out for the tour.

Soon after the start, Sudip made contact with the local concrete, but that didn't keep him from going on.

After reaching the initial goal of Marymoore Park, we did not go back as we had planned, but went on and circled Lake Sammamish, all the way to Isaquah (yes, Indian tribes are around here ;-)).

On the way back, we crossed the I 90 that goes over Lake Washington on a floating bridge that has a beautiful view of Mount Rainier. By the end, we had completed 63 miles of bicycling.

On Sunday there will be another hike in Snoqualmie National Forest. Looking forward to it!

Obama vs. the guy who brought us Palin

After attending Department Orientation and the party afterwards (seriously, shrimp and wine at 3 pm in the afternoon?), I went to witness part of American history ;-):

It was 6 pm when the two opponents faced each other, watched live by millions of people all over the world (plus the few politically interested Americans).



In the undergraduate library, the staff had set up a beamer and so everybody who wanted could come by, grap some snacks and drinks and watch the debate together with like-minded people (which in Seattle basically means non-Republicans).
The room was packed and people were having a lot of fun. It was like going out to the movies... with popcorn and laughs... and afterwards you talk about the actors' performance.

I'm looking forward to next Thursday, which promises to be funny, since the two potential Vice Presidents will meet each other on screen.

Tune in at 6 pm Pacific Standard Time (nine hours back ;-))

Bottom Line:
Why don't we have this at home?

Excuse me, is this where I teach?

It had come earlier than anyone had feared and it crashed down upon all of us like a lightning:

The first day of school! After weeks of fun we had to get serious... ("why so serious?")

After I had my first class, it was pretty clear that I had to drop one of my courses, because I would simply not be able to handle the workload of three courses. The only question remaining was: which class.

So I went through three classes that day (boy, what a day!)

My first was International Conflict, a class in the undergraduate level (for all those without a Bachelor degree). The discussion session revealed that it would be an incredible amount of work. Some of the issues seemed to be a repition of what I had done before. And the real killer: that class is scheduled Tuesday through Friday, every day! Not a good standing in the challenge of my courses. By the end of the day it was clear that this course had to go. See you in Spring International Conflict.

The other classes were not less work, but somehow "Ideologies of Space" and "Science Fiction, Colonialism and Racial Representation" (what a combo!) did trigger my interest more. Not to speak of the professors:

My Science Fiction guy basically consists of black and metal, sometimes combined. Especially noteworthy is his bracelet. He wears a bike chain (sic!) on his right wrist. Funny about that: sometimes he looks at it like it was a watch. Maybe he uses the different links to calculate the time on his own planet ;-).

Even more interesting and eccentric is my other professor. He is totally confused ("excuse me, is this where I teach?") and has a bad tendency of forgetting everything (how congenial!). His whole air and looks scream "Ballard" or "Captn Ahab", while his hair is rather related to Medusa in Greek Mythology.

I am looking forward to both classes and I have a feeling that they are going to challenge me in oh so many different ways.

After a long day of school, one has to get his mind off the serious issues of this world (like Science fiction and whale fiction), so it sometimes helps to watch the people who are still left on campus.

I have not yet found out, if they are rehearsing to take over the slow motion indsutry, if they are wannabe breakdancers who didn't make it in New York or if they are just practicing their capoeira moves ;-)

Diving 21+

Monday was a crappy day for most of us.

As we have tried so many different sports before, we went for "diving" that night.

Dive Bars like Earl's offer a variety of choices to dive in... self-pitty, Jaegermeister, Long Island Ice Tea, frustration, self-denial, Bacardi coke and loss of memory to just name a few.

They tend to hire barristas who have lost their glasses OR have their glasses on, but had to many glasses themselves... OR who have been in medical school and instead of mixing drinks, they mix desinfectants that they spice up with a few drops of something with taste.

A few impressions will have to be enough. Nobody remembers anymore than that about this night anyway.

"Authentic" German Beer ;-)