thom space

If you are not all already aware, and there is really no reason you should be, the french decided overwhelmingly to defeat ratification of the European Union Constitution. The IHT had this to say about it. Basically the french far-left and far-right were able to convince enough of there country men that a EU constitution would make life miserable for them, never mind that it would bring order to what is now a hugely chaotic assemblage of treaties and enable the EU to be a real international power player with enough clout to perhaps meaningfully butt heads with Washington. But alas, Europe will remain weak and the US will continue on as an unchallenged economic and military power able to do what ever the hell she wants to. I am sure they will sort all of this out eventually, but in the mean time I hope that the chaos created by the french “no” vote brings the Euro down a few pegs so that I can afford a few more things. stupid french

I have been holding off from making an entry for the past few days because I have wanted to do so in conjunction with a few photographs, but my card reader is acting out, so I have been unable to get my pictures off of my camera, I will fix this little problem soon. Any how I have now been in Garmisch for just over one week and the time has flown by, I can imagine 18 months from now feeling like yesterday. I climbed a neat mountain the other day called the Krammerspitze which is literally just out the door from where I have my room, so it has very easy access. One of the things that I like so much about the Germans is the way they organize there services, that is to say no matter where you are you are never far away from a beer. Half way up the Krammer, which rises 4000 vertical feet from where the trail starts, is a great little resturant called St. Martins, you can hike up there and tie a few on as you over look the sun setting on the Zuegspitze (Germany’s tallest mountain at 2900 meters) right across the valley and then stumble back down the hill, or you can keep going all the way to the top where you will find another place just below the summit where you can tie a few more on. it is really great. Not to say I am drinking beer every chance I get, far from it, but I enjoy the fact the the infrastructure exists to support a life style where you could choose to take it easy and enjoy the mountains with out roughing it with a camp stove. And people really do seem to take advantage of the trail networks regardless of their age or apparent fitness level, I have see all types of people out and about on the trails so far, old people, young people, fat people , fit people, you name it they are out and enjoying the outdoor life style.

I also have made my way to a lake in Austria via my mountain bike called the Plansee, it is the picture perfect alpine experience, it is completely aqua marine, with an almost iridescent glow, set against innumerable snow capped alpine peaks. Evidently this is going to be one of the main places that I take groups on day rides for my job so it is important that I really familiarize myself with the route. Out and back from Garmisch it is nearly a 50km ride, but today we all went on an area familiarization ride and made a huge loop that was nearly 80km with about 3000 vertical feet of climbing, it was great. Riding though fields filled with thousands and thousands of blooming wildflowers is something else, and today it happened time after time after time, I think that if I try hard I will be able to get used to this, I better try hard.

Today I have done all of the things that make a person a official. I now have a DOD ID card, a bank account, and a new room all to myself. I am very happy about all three events. However I am now in the system big time, the Government most certainly has my fingerprints and they will be able to every thing there is to know about me simply by scanning a bar code, perhaps I am a little less thrilled about this development in my life, but my privacy is a small price to pay for the pay off. It is just beginning to sink in that I am in Europe and that nearly every where I would want to go is a short 8 hour train ride away, 8 hours to Paris, Berlin, Rome, Croatia, I am truly at a cross roads where nothing is out of reach.

Tomorrow is my first day of actual work, so I will finally get a chance to meet the people I will be working with and get a better idea of what my responsibilities are going to be.

The sun is shining brightly at the moment and I think that I am going to go out and take advantage of the pleasantness with my camera in hand. Stay tuned

It is my second day and I am well on my way to filling out the nearly endless paperwork necessary in getting things squared away, I only have two more days of processing. The US gov is not the most effecient thing I have ever been witness to.

I am extremely happy to be where I am right now. Today was sunny and the affect it had on the surrounding mountains was stunning. Though the town of Garmisch is only about 1600 feet the mountains rise to nearly 10000 feet with nearly no interruption, which makes for a very dramatic rise. I can’t wait until I get my topo maps and start the exploratory process, I plan on climbing everything that I can see.

It has recently come to my attention that my CONTACT page does not really contact me, I am trying to figure out the problem, but until I do please just leave a comment and I will get back to you. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Well I am officially in Germany. I arrived this morning at 11am after what felt like the quickest flight of my life, the reason I think that it felt so fast was that I literally slept 9 of the 11 hours, that is the only way to travel.

So what is Garmisch P, my new home town, like? well it is far too soon for me to tell, I have yet to do any kind of exploring, but my first impression is very positive. The building where I will be living is extremely modern in terms of its feel and I think it will be a very comfortable place to live, it quite reminiscent of a nice college dorm to be quite honest. The quick little bit that I did see of the town when I drove in this morning seemed quite nice, it is pissing rain though so it is a little hard to see the tops of the mountains which rise extremely quickly all around town.

The people I have met so far have given me a good impression as well, time will tell, but so far so good.

I am going to go out exploring right now and put my new rain jacket to the test, I do hope that it works well. I will give an update when I can.

One of my main complaints with the United States has always been my perception that affordable health insurance is not readily available to people like myself outside of a job with good benefits. Well I just came across a company advertised on Friendster named Tonik which appears to be a branch of bluecross blue shield and has full health coverage for 80 bucks a month with only a 1500$ deductible. Now I have advertised for thme, but that is okay, because I think it is a step in the right direction.

One of the things that I try my best to do most of the time is speak clearly, this is not to say I always succeed, which is why I think that this article is so appropriate. take note all of you mumble-mouth- slack-talkers. The key to having the world be a better place is mutual understanding, and the first step to understanding is speaking clearly. do your part.

According to this blog there is soon to be a subsription service blocking access to the NY times op-ed writers. Though there are quite a few of them that I feel like I can live without, I am going to be quite sad to no longer be able to read Thomas Friedman, I don’t know if I will be sad enough to pony up 50 bucks for the subsription service though. I guess the NY times might end up not being on my reading list for much longer.

I once had been in the habit of making a concerted effort to comment on the various things that I would read on the Internet, I can not recall how long it has been since this phenomenon last occurred. Well it is happening today.

This article by the New York Observer goes into the issue of why restaurants deserve, and receive the the types of reviews and corresponding stars that they do, in the context of the NY times.

An issue that is explored is the validity of giving a 4 star rating to a restaurant like MASA, which routinely will set you back 1,000$ for a two person dinner, the argument goes that at MASA the spectacle is not so much the food, but rather the display of the patrons ability to waste their money. Similarly, recently at the Essex house, which is another of the cities most expensive restaurants, there four star rating was degraded to a three stars, with the complaint being that the consistency of the pleasure of the meal was not consistent with the amount of money it all cost, the result of the downgrade in stars was the removal of the head chef.

What I am interested in is the concept that the best service and food accompanies the highest price, and moreover which comes first. While not always the case I think that it is true that the best things in life are quite often the things you pay the most money for, or at least that is the way that it is in ny city. I think that the level of service in a restaurant like Per Se (Thomas Keller’s new restaurant in the Time Warner center) which is four stars, and the level of service at the finest restaurant in Colorado, Frasca (opened last August in Boulder by four French Laundry neophytes) is not substantially different, but clearly Frasca’s prices are substantially lower than those at Per Se, and on the same note Frasca will never receive a four star rating from the times. I guess what I am getting at here is the fact that since restaurants exist in a specific time and place, how they are evaluated has to be explicitly linked to that time and place, and since the amount of money a chef can charge is a function of that time and place in which her restaurant exist, it follows that the price of the menu must be consideration in the overall evaluation of the restaurant. Which to me means that a reasonably priced place like Frasca comes much closer to the a plane of the NY elite in terms of overall quality, but it can not be evaluated on in the same terms because the place where they exist are so vastly different. The only thing that this says about Frasca is that it does not deserve a NY times 4 star rating, but it also begs the question as to why would it want one?

I hope that you like the new look. I have not had enough time to really figure out how all of this works, so I am still in the process making it all pretty. Wordpress is nice though, so I have no doubt that I will be able to have a much better web page as a result.

I am particularly happy to have a more sophisticated means of posting photography, so check out “My Photography” in the side bar and let me know what you think.