Beginning of Day 3

We're in Little Rock, Arkansas. It has finally gotten a bit colder. All the way through Florida, Alabama, and the corner of Tennessee, it was around 70 degrees, but when we arrived in Little Rock, it was in the 50s.

The trip so far has been really nice. The only upset was when I got pulled over by the Highway Patrol outside of Tallahassee, FL. There were two police cars on the right-side shoulder. One officer was busy giving someone a ticket. When we drove by, the other officer sped onto the highway and up to us with his lights flashing, so we pulled over. Office Swindle (that was actually his name!) informed me that, since 2002, there is a "Move Over" law in Florida (you have to change lanes if there is an emergency vehicle on the shoulder with flashing lights). I had some really bad excuses and forgot to say "I'm sorry, officer" and I didn't think to explain at first that we hadn't lived in Florida since 1999. He took my license and registration and went back to his patrol car. A long time passed and he came back with a clipboard in his hand. I then did my "sorry, officer" bit and explained we hadn't lived here in a long time. He said my license was registered in 2005 and then shoved the clipboard at me. At that point, there wasn't much point in trying to explain why I had that license (I had renewed my license during a visit home from England). The citation was for $136! Annoyingly, I almost did change lanes, but because the person ahead of us didn't, I thought it was OK. I certainly would have done so had I known it was a law!

Anyway, we made it to Troy, Alabama (our first stop) about an hour and a half later. Had dinner at a good little Mexican restaurant. The Hampton Inn we stayed in was really nice. Got a good night's sleep.

Day 2 went by without any problems. It was a nice drive through Alabama, across Mississippi, and through Memphis. We were on a smaller highway most of the way so there was a bit of character. Had some trouble finding a place to eat lunch because we were in a particularly undeveloped section of the country. That lost us some time.

Last night, when we finally reached the I-40 in Arkansas, it started PISSING DOWN! I don't think I have ever driven in such heavy rain. It was incredible. And a welcome rinsing of the car! It had mostly let up by the time we got close to Little Rock.

After checking in at the Holiday Inn in North Little Rock, we drove across the river to downtown Little Rock (really nice, by the way). I had read about a couple of brewpubs that were worth trying. We went to one called Boscos. The parking was a bit pricey in that area ($5), but we had a scrumptious dinner and I sampled a few of their beers.

This morning, we have a 8-9 hour tripped plotted to Amarillo, TX. I need to re-jig some of the stuff in the car so we have a bit more room and then we are going to take a quick drive through Little Rock to see what it's like in the daytime, before getting back on I-40W.

Tonight: The Big Texas Steak Ranch on Route 66 in Amarillo! Not going to try the 72 oz challenge, though!

Fixin' to leave

Kristen has just gone for a 6am run. I cheesed out on the pre- road trip exercise, though. The car is packed to the gills and we still have some more stuff to shove in there, including ourselves, so I might have to jig things around a bit.

The plan is to hit the road at 8am (knowing that it will probably be more like 9) and making it to Troy, AL by 6ish. Why Troy? No reason, really. It's just the first biggest 8-10-hours-away town on our route.

Oregon, here we come!

We've picked our route!

After some research and some advice from AAA, we have settled on our route across the country.  This one combines the relative safety (weather-wise) of the more southern routes with the interest-factor of taking a road other than the oft-travelled I-10.  We plan to do the trip in 6 days, driving 8-10 hours per day and we will leave on Wednesday, December 24th.

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We have made hotel reservations to stop over in Troy, Alabama; Little Rock, Arkansas; Amarillo, Texas; Kingman, Arizona; and Sacramento, California. Then we can hopefully make it through the pass into Oregon during daylight hours.

At this point, we do not know where we are going to go in Oregon. Kristen has yet to hear from the job she interviewed for in Salem and that's the only job lead we have at the moment. I've applied for one so far and there are a couple more I will apply for, most of them in Portland.

Possible trajectories across the country

Google's default:

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This one is interesting because we haven't really driven through any of those middle states, so it would be different scenery.  However, the weather might present a problem.  Hard to say.  Definitely depends on how quickly we need to get there.

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Less chance of snow (without taking the oft-used I-10):

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Not as direct, but still not doing the I-10 thing.  We kind of like this one.  Might be able to drive on Route 66 for part of it.

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Using I-10 going up California:

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This is the route we have usually taken when going from Florida to California.  I've driven it twice.  It goes through the widest part of Texas and, boy, is that sole-destroying.  I did put in a stop-over in Austin though, to make it more interesting.  There are some friends there we could visit.  And there's a stop-over in San Fran.  Friends there, too.  There's also people we could see in Arizona and Los Angeles, but we'd prefer to steer cleer of LA during this trip.

A stream-of-consciousness (free writing) summary of how it feels to be back -- because it's too hard to formulate this into concrete thought

Numb at first.  

Are we really staying for good?  Isn't this just a vacation?  

Warm.  Florida sunshine.  Tropical.  Food.  Unlimited icecubes.  Tumble dryer.  Amenities that we grew up with.  Thanksgiving.  Random people saying Hello.  Taco Bell.  Pollo Tropical.

Authority.  Police presence.  Immigration.  Citizenship.

Space to breathe.  Space to drive.  Opportunity.

Barack Obama.  New America.  Optimism.  Can-do attitude.  New beginning.  Rebirth.  The road ahead.  Civic duty.

Endless television.  Endless television commercials.

Relief.  All our stuff!  Driving on the right side of the road.  No cars parked in the street.  Yellow school buses.  

Going to the gym.  Suburbia.  Neighborhoods.  Yards.  Lawns.

Commerce.  Consumer freedoms.  Malls.  Giant parking lots.  Car dealerships.  

Have a nice day!

Home.

Going mobile

A couple of days ago, we starting doing a bit of research into cars.  The original plan was to rent a car to drive across the country in and then buy a car in Oregon, but a couple of things made us re-evaluate that idea.  There aren't many cars available at this time of year for a one-way rental.  And it would cost about $800-$1000, not counting the gasoline.  So we started thinking about the idea of buying a car here, which also had its hitching points.

For one, Florida has 6% sales tax (and Oregon doesn't), so that could make the car more expensive in comparison to buying one in Oregon.  However, we realized that the tax we'd pay here would probably be about as much the cost of renting a car (and that rental cost would be just money down the drain, basically).  Secondly, because we have a fair amount of crap to take with us, we would need a car that was sizable enough for that.  And this was before weighing the usual criteria for buying a car.

Speaking of which, we will most likely both have to have a car at some stage and, hopefully, strategically selected to make sure that whomever has the longest commute has the car with the best gas mileage.  If we can get away with only one car, that would be fantastic.  Not easy to arrange, but we are going to try!  Having said that, we do want to be able to do household chores and gardening which often requires some type of truck or SUV.  In that scenario, we would like to have a car and a truck.  

We started researching different types of cars, trucks, and SUVs.  The primary criteria are cost, gas mileage preferably above 20 mpg average, leather interior (for a car or SUV), all-wheel or 4-wheel drive, normal mileage, and to be honest, looks.  Because we're meticulous, list-making Virgo nerds, we made a spreadsheet with the different vehicles that fit our criteria detailing the advertised price in Florida, the Kelly Blue Book value, miles per gallon, and average cost for a similar vehicle in Oregon.  

Then we went for a drive.

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The purpose of today's expedition was to see the cars in person and possibly test drive a couple.  Just a fact-finding mission.  Not a trip to buy a car.  Vehicles we were looking out for:

- 2004-2005 Audi A4

- 2005 Volvo S60 or S40

- 2005-2006 Nissan Murano

- 2005-2006 Mercedes C280 or C240

- 2004-2007 Ford F150

- 2002-2005 Toyota Tacoma

- and others

We started off at Carmax, looking at the types of vehicles in our spreadsheet.  The MPG criterion was a very difficult one because most of the vehicles out there (in our price range) are below 20 mpg average, certainly the trucks and SUVs.  

It was also tough to decide on whether to get Kristen's car or my truck.  The car would get better gas mileage across the country and for all the running about we will need to do when we arrive, but the truck would give us much more room to haul our crap across the country and would be very helpful in the house-move(s) we would be doing.  We decided to leave it to fate to decide.  The vehicle that presented itself to us as the one would be the vehicle we would go after.

After Carmax, we drove up State Road 7 (a long road with lots of car dealerships) because there was a Volvo dealership and then an Audi dealership we wanted to check out.  On the way, we basically decided to rule out an SUV because a) we wanted a nice, safe sedan with good gas mileage as the main get-around car; and b) the "utility" vehicle should really be a truck because SUVs aren't really that great for hauling dirt, wood, etc. since they are, more often than not, to

o nice inside and don't actually have that much hauling space.  This left us to decide on getting the truck or the car.

One thing we started doing when pulling in to a dealership was that I would start the timer on my watch as soon as we got out of the car.  I would stop it when a salesman approached.  Car salespeople must have learned some manners since the last time I shopped for a car because, for the most part, it took several minutes before we were descended upon.  However, at a run-down looking Toyota dealership, it took 3 seconds.  In fact, I didn't even have a chance to start the timer!  This would end up being the start of a perfect example of the stereotypical car salesman.  We were quite bemused.

This guy was trying every trick in the book and constantly peppering us with banter and "get to know ya" questions.  I asked if they had any Toyota Tacomas.  At first, he said no but asked us to "come inside to his office".  We reluctantly agreed.  Then we sat there while he tried to convince us that we needed to buy the 2008 Toyota Tundra instead.  When he saw that we weren't biting, he said there might be a Tacoma in the back lot that just came in a couple of days before.  OK, let's go have a look.

It was a 1998.  Good-looking on the outside, but quite disgusting on the inside.  He insisted on going to get the key for it, so we waited while he take his sweet time about it.  I started it up and noticed few clouds of smoke drift by.  We tried to find out how much they were asking and he couldn't give us an answer because he needed to have his boss make the evaluation.  He talked us into driving the truck around front with him and then basically tricked me into test driving it by telling me the wrong way to the front of the lot (ooh, look... this is the exit of the dealership!).  The truck was pretty much crap.  Ran rough and was really dirty inside.  And it had about 130,000 miles on it!

When we got back to the dealership, I parked it out front and told them we had to go.  Suddenly, the manager came out and introduced himself.  At this point, someone came up behind us and said "Don't buy a car from these people.  They're cheats.  The managers are assholes.  They play good cop/bad cop" and so on.  The salespeople tried to laugh it off like "Eh?  What a nutcase, huh?"  At this point, our salesman was looking really desperate because it was clear that he couldn't reel us in.  We told him we would call in a couple of days when they had evaluate

d the truck and could give us a price.  They weren't having that!  The manager went inside right away (funny that he did the evaluation without looking at the truck) and came out a minute later saying "$4900!"  As we backed towards our car, I told him we would think it over.  Thanks for your time, etc.  We got in the car and laughed our heads off.  It felt like we were lucky to escape with our clothes on and my wallet still in my pocket.

Then we drove to the Audi dealership and had a POLAR OPPOSITE experience!

There was a 2005 Audi A4 that I had found on the internet.  We found it almost right away and had a chance to look it over before a salesman approached.  He was quite laid back and a nice guy, but we were both pretty wary at first because of the Toyota dealer.  The car looked really promising inside and out.  The sticker price was quite a bit more than what we found on the internet.  I pointed that out and he said they had lowered the price for the internet to sell the car because it had been on the lot for a little while and they were trying to make room for new stock.  Red flags would normally go up at this point (and they did) but I should add that it was a "Certified Pre-Owned" and it still had 6 months of the original warranty on it (plus the 1 year dealer warranty).  

We took it for a test drive.  And from this point, things sort of happened quite quickly.  Kristen fell in love with it and I concurred.  The price was about $7,000 below the Kelly Blue Book estimate.  It fit our criteria quite perfectly.  We had no choice.  We had to buy it.

I was able to negotiate it down by $250 (not much, but still good) and we got a good, low monthly payments financing deal with a small chunk of change paid down.  Since we weren't planning on buying anything today, we didn't have any of the pertinent information with us (insurance details, bank info, checkbook, etc.).  We got around that with a little ingenuity and due to the really awesome salesman.  That dealership is awesome!  Apparently, it's the biggest in the world.  They even have a Starbucks inside!  The service area was SPARKLING.  We might consider staying in Coral Springs just for this car dealership!  (OK, not really).

But that's how this day went!  We're car owners now.  And we're really happy with this vehicle.  No buyers remorse whatsoever.  And now we feel a bit more settled.  

It's going to be a nice drive across the country.  I might have to fight Kristen for the chance to drive for a bit!

Recovery Position

It's been almost two weeks now that we have been back in the US and we're both having trouble crystallizing our feelings about it. I've been trying to write this blog entry for about 2 hours, but I keep switching to other web pages to procrastinate. Don't get me wrong; we're really happy to be back and we are really enjoying the time off. We've been sleeping-in (a bit) and have already joined a gym. We've been doing some chores around the house and had a nice Thanksgiving. Kristen has even had a job interview (over the phone), but I guess it's still too soon to talk about it. It's still too soon to put it into words.

It's like we're in a psychic recovery position.

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Well, for now... here are some pictures from our time in Coral Springs so far.

We're baaaaack!

It's been a LONG day, but we're now back on American soil. The trip was a trouble-free (so we must be doing the right thing!).

Now time for a shower and then a good long sleep! Repatriation starts tomorrow!

Final Fleeting Images of our Life In England

The end of an era

This is it.

This is the end of our last day in England. The last day in Europe. And the last day of our 5-year stint living outside the US. We turn our ship now towards the "New World" once again. It will have changed A LOT in the 5 years we were away and we now return at the precipice of great Change. It is both immensely exciting and somewhat scary. The future is still uncertain and unpredictable, but we are looking forward to it, whatever the outcome.

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Today has been a hectic churn of activity, making our way through our To Do list. All the little things you normally need to do when moving out of a property, plus a few extra concerns that need to be taken care of when moving out of a country. Things like:

-Mail a check to the moving company (happy to report that the cost of shipping is quite a bit cheaper than the original estimate);
-Give a set of keys to the tenancy management company;
-Get rid of some furniture and the remaining contents of our pantry and refrigerator (most of this went to my work colleagues);
-Report the final meter reading to the the gas/electric company;
-Online flight check-in;
-Deposit some money (from the sale of furniture, etc.);
-Put everything back the way it was when we moved in (furnished apartment);
-Donate things to thrift shops;
-Clean the hell out of the flat.

Laced through these menial chores are lots of "lasts". The last time going to the Post Office (well, the Royal Mail Post Office). The last time riding the A bus. The last time having a shower in our horrible shower stall.

We just got back from our last dinner at our favorite restaurant in Westbourne: The Coffee Club. Before that, we stopped at our "local" for the last time and I had a last pint of real ale (Ringwood's Old Thumper from cask is just devine!). Right now, as we're packing, we're watching a last bit of British television (I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here). And I'm writing our last blog entry in England.

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We were talking about how we are feeling about this whole thing. I mean, it's quite a big deal! We've been out of the country for 5 years. Yeah, we're used to moving, so that's no big deal, but this time we're moving out of England and back into the US, a country that is familiar and foreign now. Despite all this, we feel mostly... well, numb. Like we're just moving down the street or something. It's weird. I've had a few little pangs here and there when realizing that I might not see certain people again. Or for example, when we were in the pub and I was looking at the pump clips (the emblems on the real ale pump handles), I had a mild, wistful thought that it's going to be a long time before I have that again. I guess it's the realization of losing the things you have been taking for granted. This whole thing is going to hit home in stages, I think.

Right now, we're REALLY ready to go home (that's one thing that is contributing to the ambivalent feelings), but there are things I/we are going to miss about England:

(Uh oh, another list)

-Terry Wogan's Eurovision commentary
-London
-British comedy
-Brendan Westwood (our martial arts instructor)
-The quality of their dairy products and produce
-PAL video standard
-Wagtails (one of the cutest birds on Earth!) and Jays (an elusive bird that looks like it's assembled from the parts of other birds)
-Real Ale
-Branston baked beans
-Roundabouts
-Fewer television commercials (or none at all!)
-Bournemouth (living near the sea)
-Colleagues
-And probably a fair few things we don't realize yet.

Well, it's time to unplug our internet connection, pack up this ol' laptop, and finish packing so we can get some shut-eye before catching our 6.00am bus to Heathrow tomorrow morning. Not that we'll be able to sleep very soundly!

In about 24 hours, we will have landed in Miami to start the next leg of our journey. When PROJECT: REPATRIATION kicks into gear. We will keep this blog going for as long as it takes us to fully settle into life in America. After that, who knows what will happen?

Down to the wire

We got up pretty early this morning, on our last full day in England. First, we sat in bed making a list of all the stuff we need to get done today. Now it's breakfast before we launch in to the chores.

Crazy. We're down to less than 24 hours before we get on the bus to Heathrow, leaving Westbourne forever (most likely).

Will write more later (when the dust has settled).

Two major hurdles jumped in one day

Yesterday was kind of a big day in terms of our repatriation to the US. It was my last day of work and the day the movers came to pack up all the stuff we're shipping to Portland.

My workday went by in a bewildering, frantic flash. Because I had to do one-on-one assessment (grading) with 35 students from Monday through Thursday, I didn't have any time to do all the stuff you need to do to effectively hand over your job to someone else. I had to try to pack it all into one day, which didn't really work because I had so much to do. And I had a lot of students coming by to say goodbye with various tokens of their appreciation. It was overwhelming, but really nice to get so much good feedback and know that I will be missed.

During the last couple of hours of the day I was rushing around like a headless chicken giving this stuff to that person, dropping these off in the office over there, saying bye to various colleagues, and generally fretting about all the stuff I didn't get to finish. In fact, I was the last person to leave the office because I carried on working for an hour after the college closed. My plan to leave a clean, clear desk and all the loose ends tied up had been severely downgraded to getting the bare essentials done and getting out of there.

Then I had a somewhat odd final exit of the building. Because I had decided to leave my office keys on the manager's desk, I had to lock the office from the inside and then exit from the fire escape into the back courtyard. I was in a bit of a rush because my bus was due in about 5 minutes, so I tried to cut back around the side and into the ground floor of the building so I could go out the doors nearest the bus stop, but when I got inside I discovered the main doors locked. So I had to make my way down a pitch-black corridor, past the film studios, up a small flight stairs and out another fire exit (luckily, all the fire exits in this building have non-functioning alarms), which I then had trouble closing from the outside despite the fact that EVERY other time anyone has exited from there they have to take extra precautions to make sure the door didn't latch closed if they needed to get back in that way.

Alas, I made my escape, in a hurry, and made it to the bus stop just in time to be able to wait around for the 10-minutes-late bus. Then it started to dawn on me that I am actually quite annoyed that I couldn't have a nice, calm last day saying farewell to people, walking around the campus to see things for the last time, and then leave peacefully. I suppose my exit is in keeping with the tumultuous nature of how things work there, especially on the film course. Oh well!

While all this was happening at work, Kristen was at home waiting for the movers to pack up our stuff and load it on a truck. It went quite smoothly and we actually came in under the original 180 cubic foot estimate; our stuff totaling about 120 instead. That should make it a bit cheaper. They came around 11am and it only took them 2-3 hours to finish. Now our boxes are probably sitting on a palette in London somewhere, waiting to be loaded into a shipping container bound for the Port of Los Angeles. I think it's kind of cool that our stuff is going to get on a ship and travel through the Panama Canal. Oh, the things it will see!

This flat is furnished, so when you walk around, it kind of seems like the movers haven't been here, which only adds to the illusion that we're not actually moving. We're just packing our suitcases and going on vacation.

Last night, Kristen and I met up with my (now) former colleagues and went to a couple of pubs. Not Kristen's preferred activity by any stretch of the imagination, but she relented! It was fun to pal around with them a bit and I was able to resist their attempts to get me completely smashed. Though no one vomited, it was a great display of British drunkenness on a "night out". Particularly in the second (and last) pub we went to, The Goat & Tricycle. As we were getting ready to leave, a pugilistic, drunk couple of girls started arguing with one of my colleagues (who admittedly is a bit of a shit-stirrer). They made us leave by separate entrances and then we stood outside on the sidewalk carrying on for about 15 minutes. It was a fitting end to our social life in England, except for one last thing: they're taking me paintballing on Sunday. I have heard rumors that I will be target Numero Uno, so I have a feeling I am going to have a lot of bruises and welts by the end of the day!

On Monday, Kristen is going to her campus for the last time to have a final meeting and lunch with her PhD supervisor, as well as making arrangements to have her PhD printed and bound in leather (as required by the university). We could have gotten that done a long time ago if the external examiners would have acted a bit quicker. Kristen finally heard back from one of them (an approval of her changes), but is still waiting on the second one (the one that asked for the most changes). We will probably end up having to do the printing from the US. Luckily, there is a company on the Arts Institute campus that can do it and we have enlisted the help of one of my colleagues to collect them when they are done and deliver them to the university.

Though we only have a little over three days left here, we are anxious to leave. No point hanging around here any longer!

Holy crap!

Too much to do! Much too much to do!

America [Disclaimer: Yes, we know we're cheeseballs!]

We're at the 10 days-to-go milestone now. In ten days, we will be touching down on American soil using our one-way tickets with Virgin-Atlantic. It doesn't seem that long ago that we were forlornly thinking about the 300+ days to go. Time has just flown by. This week will be no different. Not only will I be very busy at work, but we have a lot of things to do still. For one, we haven't packed a damn thing yet! That's worse than it sounds because we only have to worry about the stuff we're bringing to Florida in the four suitcases we have. Everything else that we're keeping will be packed by the moving company on Friday.

Last month was very stressful. We didn't realize how much the election was weighing on us until it was over and the huge weight lifted from our shoulders. Now, five days later, we are still stopping to marvel at this historic moment. We have just fallen in love with America again and we are just filled with hope and optimism. So much so that we might not even need Virgin-Atlantic to get back to the US -- we can just float back on our cloud of hope and pride!

I just downloaded Neil Diamond's "America". We listened to it twice this morning. It has taken on new meaning and resonance for us (see the lyrics below).


Far
We've been travelling far
Without a home
But not without a star

Free
Only want to be free
We huddle close
Hang on to a dream

On the boats and on the planes
They're coming to America
Never looking back again
They're coming to America

Home, don't it seem so far away
Oh, we're travelling light today
In the eye of the storm
In the eye of the storm

Home, to a new and a shiny place
Make our bed, and we'll say our grace
Freedom's light burning warm
Freedom's light burning warm

Everywhere around the world
They're coming to America
Every time that flag's unfurled
They're coming to America

Got a dream to take them there
They're coming to America
Got a dream they've come to share
They're coming to America

They're coming to America
They're coming to America
They're coming to America
They're coming to America
Today, today, today, today, today

My country 'tis of thee
(Today)
Sweet land of liberty
(today)
Of thee I sing
(today)
Of thee I sing
(today)

(today)

(today)

(today)

President Barrack Hussein Obama!!!

WE ARE SO RELIEVED!

After staying up to 11.30, sleeping for a couple of hours and then watching TV for another hour and then sleeping for a couple more hours, we woke up to the dawn of a new America. Kristen was still asleep, but something made me wake up at 5.00. I checked the news online and saw something about McCain's concession speech, so I rushed over and turned on the TV just in time for us to watch Obama's speech.

We're tired as hell, but floating on hope, pride, and relief. Personally, my faith in America and American politics has been completely restored (and I think the rest of the world, most of it, feels the same way).

This is so amazing.

Thank you, New America!

We Endorse Barack Obama

I'm sure that's not a big surprise!

We can't believe this day is finally here and that tomorrow we will know whether or not we will be able to move back to the US or not.

Ok, just kidding. We're moving back either way.

Tonight we will stay up as late as possible to watch the results roll in. It won't be until around 2am that any concrete information will come out. We are going to drag our mattress into the living room and put it in front of the TV so we can drift in and out of sleep while watching.

I've been "documenting" the day on a video camera I borrowed from work. Recorded some comments from students and staff. Everyone is for Obama over here. Well, pretty much the rest of the world! And the bookies over here are predicting an Obama win.



The world is watching. The world is supporting Obama. Do the right thing, America. And do it CLEANLY!

A Pressure-cooker of STRESS

It is said that moving house is one of the most stressful things a couple can do. I suppose that's true, but Kristen and I are sort of ol' pros at this now. We're practically nomads. To be sure, it's not stress-free and moving out of a country entirely adds an extra level of complication, of course. However, the practical elements of this move aren't really that complicated. For example, since this is a furnished apartment, there isn't really any furniture we have to deal with (just a table and some shelves). The only things we're taking with us are clothes, books, CDs, DVDs, a few souvenirs, and some kitchen-ware. Oh, and my beer glasses! We have selected an overseas shipping company that does all the packing. No packing stress, then. We've taken care of a lot of the other little loose ends like selling the car, notifying our utilities, and the landlord. The airline we're flying with is still in business. We've got our exit and entry strategies in place. On the relocation front, things are generally quite "sorted". BUT...

We're stressed, alright! Though not for the most obvious reasons.

*Kristen still has not gotten 100% confirmation on completing her PhD. She finished the changes that the external examiners required and sent the updated draft to them on Oct. 4th. They had "promised" that they would turn it around within 2 weeks so that she can get it printed and bound before leaving the UK. Nearly a month has gone by now and she just found out that at least one of them hasn't even looked at it yet. Very frustrating, particularly because she has been on tenterhooks since she sent it to them. Though I'm feeling pretty positive about it, she is afraid that they will want more changes.

*The US Election has us climbing the walls. There has been a steady nervous energy about it for the past couple of months. Personally, I am freaking out about it a bit. I'm slightly terrified about the events of Nov. 4th. We are going to stay up all night to watch the results and will hopefully crash in the wee hours of the morning after waking all the neighbors with howls of glee when Obama is announced victorious. If he doesn't win, I am going into a deep depression because I predict that it will be the end for the US. A McCain/Palin win will be the straw that breaks the camels back and the US will crumble irreparably within 20 years. I know, that's cynical as hell but I am as sure of this as I am sure of my need to breathe air. So, yeah... little bit of stress there!

*I made the mistake of "opening a can of worms" at work that I have been having trouble handling now because it turned out to be a bigger project than I realized: reorganizing and cataloging the archive of student films going back to the mid-Sixties. This has been keeping me from having a sound night's sleep on many occasions. So much so, that Kristen has been coming in two to three times per week for a few hours to help me with it. It's starting to get under control now, but partially due to changing tactics and lowering my expectations of achievement. My colleagues think I'm crazy because I'm spending many extra hours at work without being paid for it. Well, that's obsession for you!

*We are getting intruded upon in our apartment repeatedly. Not only do we have frequent visits by estate agents (Realtors) trying to sell the flat, but we have had to have plumbers come in to repair the boiler and now we have been forced to allow a decorator to work in our bedroom to fix the giant crack in the wall. Apparently, there were two buyers that were really interested in the flat until they saw that crack, so the landlord wants it fixed ASAP. Kristen tried her best to get the landlord to wait until after we leave but he wouldn't have it. The decorator has to come here over the course of three to four days and probably work for up to 5 hours each time. This means Kristen will have to let him in and either sit around waiting for him to finish or we just have to let him work here unattended. Neither option is one we are really thrilled with and it is really quite irritating that we have no control over who comes into our flat and when. And then there's the ever-present threat of one of the self-important old farts deciding they need to come in here for some reason.

*We have been REALLY busy over the past several weeks. There's the extended hours at work. Our exercise routines. Various social engagements. Chores and errands to do. Listing things for sale on Gumtree (and then dealing with buyers coming to pick the things up). And so on. There have been plenty of things to write blogs about, but we haven't really felt like it when we finally do have some time to spare!

*Then there are the little niggling worries about moving back to the US. What will it feel like? How heavy will the culture shock be? Will we be able to deal with the "American" way of life after getting used to the European way? What if we feel completely alienated? What if McCain is president? Is this the worst possible time to move back?

Having said that, we are SO looking forward to moving. There are 17 more days (and only 10 working days) before we go and sometimes even that is an unbearably long period of time!

---

PS - The weather is utter SHIT today. It is not only cold (that damp, bone-creaking, spirit-crushing cold that permeates the very core of your existence), but it is raining and foggy. This wouldn't be such an "insult" if we actually had a summer this year, but the weather was abysmal then, too. Our mantra is "...in Florida." For example, we'll rest in Florida. We'll be warm in Florida. We'll have time off in Florida.

Get to know Barack Obama

Today there were a bunch of interviews with people who know/have known Barack Obama. Want to get to know him a little better before you cast your vote for him on the 4th? Read the articles online from The Observer.

And while I'm at it, let me just paste in something I got from Moveon.org the other day:

TOP 5 REASONS OBAMA SUPPORTERS SHOULDN'T REST EASY

1. The polls may be wrong. This is an unprecedented election. No one knows how racism may affect what voters tell pollsters—or what they do in the voting booth. And the polls are narrowing anyway. In the last few days, John McCain has gained ground in most national polls, as his campaign has gone even more negative.

2. Dirty tricks. Republicans are already illegally purging voters from the rolls in some states. They're whipping up hysteria over ACORN to justify more challenges to new voters. Misleading flyers about the voting process have started appearing in black neighborhoods. And of course, many counties still use unsecure voting machines.

3. October surprise. In politics, 15 days is a long time. The next McCain smear could dominate the news for a week. There could be a crisis with Iran, or Bin Laden could release another tape, or worse.

4. Those who forget history... In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote after trailing by seven points in the final days of the race. In 1980, Reagan was eight points down in the polls in late October and came back to win. Races can shift—fast!

5. Landslide. Even with Barack Obama in the White House, passing universal health care and a new clean-energy policy is going to be hard. Insurance, drug and oil companies will fight us every step of the way. We need the kind of landslide that will give Barack a huge mandate.

If you agree that we shouldn't rest easy, please sign up to volunteer at your local Obama office by clicking here:

http://pol.moveon.org/obama/office.html?source=blog&id=14534-5946886-Mon3lBx&t=1

Woah

We have three more Saturdays and three more Sundays.
We have four more Mondays and four more Tuesdays.
We have three more Wednesdays and three more Thursdays and three more Fridays.
And then we're coming home.

Crazy.

We live in the UKraine

We just got back from having our first shower in over 48 hours. See... our boiler is out of order so we have no heat or hot water. This started Thursday night and will continue to be the case until at least Tuesday. A neighbor has left us her keys so we can use her shower (it's the landlady of the flat we used to live in downstairs... she basically doesn't live there anymore because she is in the process of moving in with her fiance). Lucky for us that this is the case. Otherwise, we'd be a bit stuffed because I'll be damned if we're going to ask to borrow one of the old farts' bathrooms!



Some backstory...
About half a year ago, the resident geezers complained that we had a pipe dripping outside which has made the wall wet and stained the building. We called and called the management company but never really got much response. A couple of plumbers have tried to fix it to no avail.

This lead to a revolt of sorts by the residents. They recently started a campaign of lies and lawsuit threats against our landlord. So, the plumber came out again this past Thursday. He bypassed a valve which was responsible for the leak, but warned that doing this might cause us to lose pressure and consequently have no hot water in the morning. He said to give him call if that happened. Next morning, we had to do just that because the boiler did not spring to life at 7am as it used to do. The plumber could not come until after 5pm so both of us had to go to work unshowered.

Yesterday evening, the plumber was here to work on the boiler. He installed a "pressure bulb" (the bulbous red thing in the photo) and re-routed a pipe or two. Unfortunately, after doing this, he discovered that something else was no wrong with it. Most likely a burned out electrical component. Of course, this is a part he has to order which he will not be able to do until Monday.

Fortunately, we were able to get in touch with our former landlady who happily has allowed us to use her shower this weekend. Even better, this means we can take showers with actual water pressure. Because her flat is on the ground floor, it does not suffer from the piss-poor pressure that ours does. Almost makes me wish they will NEVER be able to fix our boiler!

Oh, and another annoying piece of information. Apparently, there is a pressure-boosting pump on this site which, if switched on, would greatly improve the water pressure in the whole building. The plumber found this out when he was in our flat a week or two ago with a couple of the old "battle axes" trying to fix the leak, which at the time was thought to come from the toilet somehow. The toilet tank was very slow to fill and the old biddies wondered why. He explained that the pressure was poor. They said, "Oh, we don't have a problem" and then mentioned the pump which has never been used because "no one seems to have had a problem". Grrr! Had we known this a year ago, we might have tried to convince them to switch the damn thing on!

We must be living in an Eastern Block country or something! One of the tenets of Western civilization is good water pressure! But here we are having to do all these folksy work-arounds to make things work properly. Things like having to turn on central heating to be able to get hot water for the shower or for the kitchen sink. Or having to hang our clothing all over the apartment because there's no tumble dryer. Or needing to clear stagnant water in our shower drain by blowing through an empty toilet paper roll because the plumbing is so poorly laid that the water has to go uphill or something (when we do this, the sink and bathtub drains gurgle and spurt). Or the fact that we now have to wear a jacket or thick sweater, wool socks, and maybe a scarf INDOORS. And did you know that some buildings in the UK still use coin-operated electricity meters? It's true! There's a little box on the wall with a meter and a coin slot like those in an old-school candy machine -- the kind that you put in a coin and then turn the dial to make it go in. If you forget to keep it filled, the electricity suddenly cuts off. We haven't had to live with one of these in any of the properties we've been in, but some friends of ours did. Hilarious!

Now, I know it's in poor taste to complain about stuff like this when there are people in the world have have it 1000 times worse off. Our "difficulties" are obviously very minor in comparison. It just makes you appreciate the small conveniences in life. The things you take for granted. Something we are going to stay mindful of when re-patriating to the US, the land of gluttony and excess. Well, I suppose that's changing now, though. A positive thing to come out of this whole economic meltdown.

Change

A great article from an "elite intellectual" magazine, The New Yorker. The link to the site is above, but I've pasted it in here; highlighting the particularly salient points.

The Choice
October 13, 2008


Never in living memory has an election been more critical than the one fast approaching—that’s the quadrennial cliché, as expected as the balloons and the bombast. And yet when has it ever felt so urgently true? When have so many Americans had so clear a sense that a Presidency has—at the levels of competence, vision, and integrity—undermined the country and its ideals?

The incumbent Administration has distinguished itself for the ages. The Presidency of George W. Bush is the worst since Reconstruction, so there is no mystery about why the Republican Party—which has held dominion over the executive branch of the federal government for the past eight years and the legislative branch for most of that time—has little desire to defend its record, domestic or foreign. The only speaker at the Convention in St. Paul who uttered more than a sentence or two in support of the President was his wife, Laura. Meanwhile, the nominee, John McCain, played the part of a vaudeville illusionist, asking to be regarded as an apostle of change after years of embracing the essentials of the Bush agenda with ever-increasing ardor.

The Republican disaster begins at home. Even before taking into account whatever fantastically expensive plan eventually emerges to help rescue the financial system from Wall Street’s long-running pyramid schemes, the economic and fiscal picture is bleak. During the Bush Administration, the national debt, now approaching ten trillion dollars, has nearly doubled. Next year’s federal budget is projected to run a half-trillion-dollar deficit, a precipitous fall from the seven-hundred-billion-dollar surplus that was projected when Bill Clinton left office. Private-sector job creation has been a sixth of what it was under President Clinton. Five million people have fallen into poverty. The number of Americans without health insurance has grown by seven million, while average premiums have nearly doubled. Meanwhile, the principal domestic achievement of the Bush Administration has been to shift the relative burden of taxation from the rich to the rest. For the top one per cent of us, the Bush tax cuts are worth, on average, about a thousand dollars a week; for the bottom fifth, about a dollar and a half. The unfairness will only increase if the painful, yet necessary, effort to rescue the credit markets ends up preventing the rescue of our health-care system, our environment, and our physical, educational, and industrial infrastructure.

At the same time, a hundred and fifty thousand American troops are in Iraq and thirty-three thousand are in Afghanistan. There is still disagreement about the wisdom of overthrowing Saddam Hussein and his horrific regime, but there is no longer the slightest doubt that the Bush Administration manipulated, bullied, and lied the American public into this war and then mismanaged its prosecution in nearly every aspect. The direct costs, besides an expenditure of more than six hundred billion dollars, have included the loss of more than four thousand Americans, the wounding of thirty thousand, the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis, and the displacement of four and a half million men, women, and children. Only now, after American forces have been fighting for a year longer than they did in the Second World War, is there a glimmer of hope that the conflict in Iraq has entered a stage of fragile stability.

The indirect costs, both of the war in particular and of the Administration’s unilateralist approach to foreign policy in general, have also been immense. The torture of prisoners, authorized at the highest level, has been an ethical and a public-diplomacy catastrophe. At a moment when the global environment, the global economy, and global stability all demand a transition to new sources of energy, the United States has been a global retrograde, wasteful in its consumption and heedless in its policy. Strategically and morally, the Bush Administration has squandered the American capacity to counter the example and the swagger of its rivals. China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other illiberal states have concluded, each in its own way, that democratic principles and human rights need not be components of a stable, prosperous future. At recent meetings of the United Nations, emboldened despots like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran came to town sneering at our predicament and hailing the “end of the American era.”

The election of 2008 is the first in more than half a century in which no incumbent President or Vice-President is on the ballot. There is, however, an incumbent party, and that party has been lucky enough to find itself, apparently against the wishes of its “base,” with a nominee who evidently disliked George W. Bush before it became fashionable to do so. In South Carolina in 2000, Bush crushed John McCain with a sub-rosa primary campaign of such viciousness that McCain lashed out memorably against Bush’s Christian-right allies. So profound was McCain’s anger that in 2004 he flirted with the possibility of joining the Democratic ticket under John Kerry. Bush, who took office as a “compassionate conservative,” governed immediately as a rightist ideologue. During that first term, McCain bolstered his reputation, sometimes deserved, as a “maverick” willing to work with Democrats on such issues as normalizing relations with Vietnam, campaign-finance reform, and immigration reform. He co-sponsored, with John Edwards and Edward Kennedy, a patients’ bill of rights. In 2001 and 2003, he voted against the Bush tax cuts. With John Kerry, he co-sponsored a bill raising auto-fuel efficiency standards and, with Joseph Lieberman, a cap-and-trade regime on carbon emissions. He was one of a minority of Republicans opposed to unlimited drilling for oil and gas off America’s shores.

Since the 2004 election, however, McCain has moved remorselessly rightward in his quest for the Republican nomination. He paid obeisance to Jerry Falwell and preachers of his ilk. He abandoned immigration reform, eventually coming out against his own bill. Most shocking, McCain, who had repeatedly denounced torture under all circumstances, voted in February against a ban on the very techniques of “enhanced interrogation” that he himself once endured in Vietnam—as long as the torturers were civilians employed by the C.I.A.

On almost every issue, McCain and the Democratic Party’s nominee, Barack Obama, speak the generalized language of “reform,” but only Obama has provided a convincing, rational, and fully developed vision. McCain has abandoned his opposition to the Bush-era tax cuts and has taken up the demagogic call—in the midst of recession and Wall Street calamity, with looming crises in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—for more tax cuts. Bush’s expire in 2011. If McCain, as he has proposed, cuts taxes for corporations and estates, the benefits once more would go disproportionately to the wealthy.

In Washington, the craze for pure market triumphalism is over. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson arrived in town (via Goldman Sachs) a Republican, but it seems that he will leave a Democrat. In other words, he has come to see that the abuses that led to the current financial crisis––not least, excessive speculation on borrowed capital––can be fixed only with government regulation and oversight. McCain, who has never evinced much interest in, or knowledge of, economic questions, has had little of substance to say about the crisis. His most notable gesture of concern—a melodramatic call last month to suspend his campaign and postpone the first Presidential debate until the government bailout plan was ready—soon revealed itself as an empty diversionary tactic.

By contrast, Obama has made a serious study of the mechanics and the history of this economic disaster and of the possibilities of stimulating a recovery. Last March, in New York, in a speech notable for its depth, balance, and foresight, he said, “A complete disdain for pay-as-you-go budgeting, coupled with a generally scornful attitude towards oversight and enforcement, allowed far too many to put short-term gain ahead of long-term consequences.” Obama is committed to reforms that value not only the restoration of stability but also the protection of the vast majority of the population, which did not partake of the fruits of the binge years. He has called for greater and more programmatic regulation of the financial system; the creation of a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank, which would help reverse the decay of our roads, bridges, and mass-transit systems, and create millions of jobs; and a major investment in the green-energy sector.

On energy and global warming, Obama offers a set of forceful proposals. He supports a cap-and-trade program to reduce America’s carbon emissions by eighty per cent by 2050—an enormously ambitious goal, but one that many climate scientists say must be met if atmospheric carbon dioxide is to be kept below disastrous levels. Large emitters, like utilities, would acquire carbon allowances, and those which emit less carbon dioxide than their allotment could sell the resulting credits to those which emit more; over time, the available allowances would decline. Significantly, Obama wants to auction off the allowances; this would provide fifteen billion dollars a year for developing alternative-energy sources and creating job-training programs in green technologies. He also wants to raise federal fuel-economy standards and to require that ten per cent of America’s electricity be generated from renewable sources by 2012. Taken together, his proposals represent the most coherent and far-sighted strategy ever offered by a Presidential candidate for reducing the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels.

There was once reason to hope that McCain and Obama would have a sensible debate about energy and climate policy. McCain was one of the first Republicans in the Senate to support federal limits on carbon dioxide, and he has touted his own support for a less ambitious cap-and-trade program as evidence of his independence from the White House. But, as polls showed Americans growing jittery about gasoline prices, McCain apparently found it expedient in this area, too, to shift course. He took a dubious idea—lifting the federal moratorium on offshore oil drilling—and placed it at the very center of his campaign. Opening up America’s coastal waters to drilling would have no impact on gasoline prices in the short term, and, even over the long term, the effect, according to a recent analysis by the Department of Energy, would be “insignificant.” Such inconvenient facts, however, are waved away by a campaign that finally found its voice with the slogan “Drill, baby, drill!”
The contrast between the candidates is even sharper with respect to the third branch of government. A tense equipoise currently prevails among the Justices of the Supreme Court, where four hard-core conservatives face off against four moderate liberals. Anthony M. Kennedy is the swing vote, determining the outcome of case after case.

McCain cites Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, two reliable conservatives, as models for his own prospective appointments. If he means what he says, and if he replaces even one moderate on the current Supreme Court, then Roe v. Wade will be reversed, and states will again be allowed to impose absolute bans on abortion. McCain’s views have hardened on this issue. In 1999, he said he opposed overturning Roe; by 2006, he was saying that its demise “wouldn’t bother me any”; by 2008, he no longer supported adding rape and incest as exceptions to his party’s platform opposing abortion.

But scrapping Roe—which, after all, would leave states as free to permit abortion as to criminalize it—would be just the beginning. Given the ideological agenda that the existing conservative bloc has pursued, it’s safe to predict that affirmative action of all kinds would likely be outlawed by a McCain Court. Efforts to expand executive power, which, in recent years, certain Justices have nobly tried to resist, would likely increase. Barriers between church and state would fall; executions would soar; legal checks on corporate power would wither—all with just one new conservative nominee on the Court. And the next President is likely to make three appointments.

Obama, who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, voted against confirming not only Roberts and Alito but also several unqualified lower-court nominees. As an Illinois state senator, he won the support of prosecutors and police organizations for new protections against convicting the innocent in capital cases. While McCain voted to continue to deny habeas-corpus rights to detainees, perpetuating the Bush Administration’s regime of state-sponsored extra-legal detention, Obama took the opposite side, pushing to restore the right of all U.S.-held prisoners to a hearing. The judicial future would be safe in his care.

In the shorthand of political commentary, the Iraq war seems to leave McCain and Obama roughly even. Opposing it before the invasion, Obama had the prescience to warn of a costly and indefinite occupation and rising anti-American radicalism around the world; supporting it, McCain foresaw none of this. More recently, in early 2007 McCain risked his Presidential prospects on the proposition that five additional combat brigades could salvage a war that by then appeared hopeless. Obama, along with most of the country, had decided that it was time to cut American losses. Neither candidate’s calculations on Iraq have been as cheaply political as McCain’s repeated assertion that Obama values his career over his country; both men based their positions, right or wrong, on judgment and principle.

President Bush’s successor will inherit two wars and the realities of limited resources, flagging popular will, and the dwindling possibilities of what can be achieved by American power. McCain’s views on these subjects range from the simplistic to the unknown. In Iraq, he seeks “victory”—a word that General David Petraeus refuses to use, and one that fundamentally misrepresents the messy, open-ended nature of the conflict. As for Afghanistan, on the rare occasions when McCain mentions it he implies that the surge can be transferred directly from Iraq, which suggests that his grasp of counterinsurgency is not as firm as he insisted it was during the first Presidential debate. McCain always displays more faith in force than interest in its strategic consequences. Unlike Obama, McCain has no political strategy for either war, only the dubious hope that greater security will allow things to work out. Obama has long warned of deterioration along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and has a considered grasp of its vital importance. His strategy for both Afghanistan and Iraq shows an understanding of the role that internal politics, economics, corruption, and regional diplomacy play in wars where there is no battlefield victory.

Unimaginably painful personal experience taught McCain that war is above all a test of honor: maintain the will to fight on, be prepared to risk everything, and you will prevail. Asked during the first debate to outline “the lessons of Iraq,” McCain said, “I think the lessons of Iraq are very clear: that you cannot have a failed strategy that will then cause you to nearly lose a conflict.” A soldier’s answer––but a statesman must have a broader view of war and peace. The years ahead will demand not only determination but also diplomacy, flexibility, patience, judiciousness, and intellectual engagement. These are no more McCain’s strong suit than the current President’s. Obama, for his part, seems to know that more will be required than willpower and force to extract some advantage from the wreckage of the Bush years.
Obama is also better suited for the task of renewing the bedrock foundations of American influence. An American restoration in foreign affairs will require a commitment not only to international coöperation but also to international institutions that can address global warming, the dislocations of what will likely be a deepening global economic crisis, disease epidemics, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, and other, more traditional security challenges. Many of the Cold War-era vehicles for engagement and negotiation—the United Nations, the World Bank, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty regime, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization—are moribund, tattered, or outdated. Obama has the generational outlook that will be required to revive or reinvent these compacts. He would be the first postwar American President unencumbered by the legacies of either Munich or Vietnam.

The next President must also restore American moral credibility. Closing Guantánamo, banning all torture, and ending the Iraq war as responsibly as possible will provide a start, but only that. The modern Presidency is as much a vehicle for communication as for decision-making, and the relevant audiences are global. Obama has inspired many Americans in part because he holds up a mirror to their own idealism. His election would do no less—and likely more—overseas.

What most distinguishes the candidates, however, is character—and here, contrary to conventional wisdom, Obama is clearly the stronger of the two. Not long ago, Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager, said, “This election is not about issues. This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.” The view that this election is about personalities leaves out policy, complexity, and accountability. Even so, there’s some truth in what Davis said––but it hardly points to the conclusion that he intended.

Echoing Obama, McCain has made “change” one of his campaign mantras. But the change he has actually provided has been in himself, and it is not just a matter of altering his positions. A willingness to pander and even lie has come to define his Presidential campaign and its televised advertisements. A contemptuous duplicity, a meanness, has entered his talk on the stump—so much so that it seems obvious that, in the drive for victory, he is willing to replicate some of the same underhanded methods that defeated him eight years ago in South Carolina.

Perhaps nothing revealed McCain’s cynicism more than his choice of Sarah Palin, the former mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, who had been governor of that state for twenty-one months, as the Republican nominee for Vice-President. In the interviews she has given since her nomination, she has had difficulty uttering coherent unscripted responses about the most basic issues of the day. We are watching a candidate for Vice-President cram for her ongoing exam in elementary domestic and foreign policy. This is funny as a Tina Fey routine on “Saturday Night Live,” but as a vision of the political future it’s deeply unsettling. Palin has no business being the backup to a President of any age, much less to one who is seventy-two and in imperfect health. In choosing her, McCain committed an act of breathtaking heedlessness and irresponsibility. Obama’s choice, Joe Biden, is not without imperfections. His tongue sometimes runs in advance of his mind, providing his own fodder for late-night comedians, but there is no comparison with Palin. His deep experience in foreign affairs, the judiciary, and social policy makes him an assuring and complementary partner for Obama.

The longer the campaign goes on, the more the issues of personality and character have reflected badly on McCain. Unless appearances are very deceiving, he is impulsive, impatient, self-dramatizing, erratic, and a compulsive risk-taker. These qualities may have contributed to his usefulness as a “maverick” senator. But in a President they would be a menace.

By contrast, Obama’s transformative message is accompanied by a sense of pragmatic calm. A tropism for unity is an essential part of his character and of his campaign. It is part of what allowed him to overcome a Democratic opponent who entered the race with tremendous advantages. It is what helped him forge a political career relying both on the liberals of Hyde Park and on the political regulars of downtown Chicago. His policy preferences are distinctly liberal, but he is determined to speak to a broad range of Americans who do not necessarily share his every value or opinion. For some who oppose him, his equanimity even under the ugliest attack seems like hauteur; for some who support him, his reluctance to counterattack in the same vein seems like self-defeating detachment. Yet it is Obama’s temperament—and not McCain’s—that seems appropriate for the office both men seek and for the volatile and dangerous era in which we live. Those who dismiss his centeredness as self-centeredness or his composure as indifference are as wrong as those who mistook Eisenhower’s stolidity for denseness or Lincoln’s humor for lack of seriousness.

Nowadays, almost every politician who thinks about running for President arranges to become an author. Obama’s books are different: he wrote them. “The Audacity of Hope” (2006) is a set of policy disquisitions loosely structured around an account of his freshman year in the United States Senate. Though a campaign manifesto of sorts, it is superior to that genre’s usual blowsy pastiche of ghostwritten speeches. But it is Obama’s first book, “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance” (1995), that offers an unprecedented glimpse into the mind and heart of a potential President. Obama began writing it in his early thirties, before he was a candidate for anything. Not since Theodore Roosevelt has an American politician this close to the pinnacle of power produced such a sustained, highly personal work of literary merit before being definitively swept up by the tides of political ambition.

A Presidential election is not the awarding of a Pulitzer Prize: we elect a politician and, we hope, a statesman, not an author. But Obama’s first book is valuable in the way that it reveals his fundamental attitudes of mind and spirit. “Dreams from My Father” is an illuminating memoir not only in the substance of Obama’s own peculiarly American story but also in the qualities he brings to the telling: a formidable intelligence, emotional empathy, self-reflection, balance, and a remarkable ability to see life and the world through the eyes of people very different from himself. In common with nearly all other senators and governors of his generation, Obama does not count military service as part of his biography. But his life has been full of tests—personal, spiritual, racial, political—that bear on his preparation for great responsibility.

It is perfectly legitimate to call attention, as McCain has done, to Obama’s lack of conventional national and international policymaking experience. We, too, wish he had more of it. But office-holding is not the only kind of experience relevant to the task of leading a wildly variegated nation. Obama’s immersion in diverse human environments (Hawaii’s racial rainbow, Chicago’s racial cauldron, countercultural New York, middle-class Kansas, predominantly Muslim Indonesia), his years of organizing among the poor, his taste of corporate law and his grounding in public-interest and constitutional law—these, too, are experiences. And his books show that he has wrung from them every drop of insight and breadth of perspective they contained.

The exhaustingly, sometimes infuriatingly long campaign of 2008 (and 2007) has had at least one virtue: it has demonstrated that Obama’s intelligence and steady temperament are not just figments of the writer’s craft. He has made mistakes, to be sure. (His failure to accept McCain’s imaginative proposal for a series of unmediated joint appearances was among them.) But, on the whole, his campaign has been marked by patience, planning, discipline, organization, technological proficiency, and strategic astuteness. Obama has often looked two or three moves ahead, relatively impervious to the permanent hysteria of the hourly news cycle and the cable-news shouters. And when crisis has struck, as it did when the divisive antics of his ex-pastor threatened to bring down his campaign, he has proved equal to the moment, rescuing himself with a speech that not only drew the poison but also demonstrated a profound respect for the electorate. Although his opponents have tried to attack him as a man of “mere” words, Obama has returned eloquence to its essential place in American politics. The choice between experience and eloquence is a false one––something that Lincoln, out of office after a single term in Congress, proved in his own campaign of political and national renewal. Obama’s “mere” speeches on everything from the economy and foreign affairs to race have been at the center of his campaign and its success; if he wins, his eloquence will be central to his ability to govern.

We cannot expect one man to heal every wound, to solve every major crisis of policy. So much of the Presidency, as they say, is a matter of waking up in the morning and trying to drink from a fire hydrant. In the quiet of the Oval Office, the noise of immediate demands can be deafening. And yet Obama has precisely the temperament to shut out the noise when necessary and concentrate on the essential. The election of Obama—a man of mixed ethnicity, at once comfortable in the world and utterly representative of twenty-first-century America—would, at a stroke, reverse our country’s image abroad and refresh its spirit at home. His ascendance to the Presidency would be a symbolic culmination of the civil- and voting-rights acts of the nineteen-sixties and the century-long struggles for equality that preceded them. It could not help but say something encouraging, even exhilarating, about the country, about its dedication to tolerance and inclusiveness, about its fidelity, after all, to the values it proclaims in its textbooks. At a moment of economic calamity, international perplexity, political failure, and battered morale, America needs both uplift and realism, both change and steadiness. It needs a leader temperamentally, intellectually, and emotionally attuned to the complexities of our troubled globe. That leader’s name is Barack Obama.
—The Editors

Putting our Exit Strategy into action

We've been quiet for a while on here. Time has just been flying by! Both of us have been very busy with work. Term started for me on September 22nd and when the students return, my workload always increases by 100-fold; to the point when you can't really get much done because there are so many plates up in the air to keep spinning. Kristen has been working on her PhD changes (just finished them), doing a couple of research projects for CEMP and still volunteering at the Y. Every Friday for the past few weeks, we've just been shocked that another week has gone by. The weekends have been busy, too. Between my dad visiting, another two-day martial arts seminar, planning/executing our return to the US, keeping an eye on the election, and our usual chores, there's not much time for rest! That's why we are REALLY looking forward to our one-way flight to Florida on November 19th. It will be so nice to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas at my mom's. But before that happens, we have a lot of things to get done. Kristen and I were talking about it last night. There are so many little things that need to be planned and considered.

• Decide what we want to take with us. When we made our initial trek to Europe over 5 years ago, we came with two suitcases each. Little by little, we have amassed more belongings purchased here as well as the things we have been bringing over from our various trips back to the States. It's not a lot of stuff by American standards, but definitely enough to warrant bulk shipping. And we're still selling some things.
  
• Schedule an "inventory" appointment with the estate agent so that we can get our deposit back. Because we are flying out on the 19th in the morning, we need to leave the flat on the 18th, which means the appointment needs to be on that morning. By that point, we need to have the apartment spic-n-span and our suitcases packed so we can just walk out the door after they've checked the place. Then we're going to stay in a hotel near Heathrow that night so we can have a relatively stress-free morning on our departure day. As bad as appointments with various external parties usually go in this country, I am a little paranoid that the estate agent won't stick to it. Therefore, I'm going to be on them like a hound-dog to make sure they don't screw it up for us.
  
• We've picked an overseas "removals" (moving) company and have paid a deposit. They will come by to do a quote based on what we are going to ship. We have scheduled the collection day for November 14th (when they will come to our apartment to pack everything, put it on pallets and take it away). But it's sort of difficult to figure out what we want to ship and what we will put in our suitcases. Obviously, most of our stuff will be shipped, but which articles of clothing will we pack for Nov./Dec. in Florida (pretty mild temperatures, but sometimes a little nippy) knowing that, come January, we will be driving across country to Portland, OR through parts of the country that are going to be butt-ass cold. Which items do we not mind being without for 8-12 weeks as our belongings float across the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal, into the Pacific and then up the West coast? And what about our bed linen? And other daily-use items? We're staying here for 5 days after the removals company takes our stuff. Plus there's the futon mattress that we've put on top of the mattress that came with the flat. Do we just surreptitiously leave that behind? Or do we need to try to dump it somewhere? What if we miscalculate how much stuff to send with the shipping company and how much to pack in our suitcases? I suppose we might need to do a "dry run" of packing the suitcases to be sure.
  
• We also need to cancel all our utilities. That needs to happen fairly soon because most of them require 30 days notice.
  
• Another issue is our mail. We don't really get that much, but we need to make sure that people aren't receiving our post here long after we're gone. We'll cancel any subscriptions we can and also purchase overseas mail-forwarding from the Royal Mail. Either 3 months or 6 months.
• Set up health insurance for when we arrive in the US. No more NHS after the 19th! We will take advantage of it before we go, though. Free health check-ups and teeth check-ups.
  
• Figure out if we need to get part time jobs in Florida for the 1-2 months we're there.
• Give away/throw away condiments, spices, flour, liquor and stuff like that if we haven't used it by the time we are cleaning the flat for the last time.
• Re-hang all of the landlord's frames and artwork.
• Transfer all of our £s to the US and make sure that we will be able to close our bank account without being there. We will have to leave it open until our last paychecks go through and we receive our deposit back from the flat. Related to this, we need to cancel all direct debits.
• Take a last couple of touristy trips. Probably just up to London for a day soon. There are still a couple of places we wanted to see there. I really want to go to the Tate Modern. It's a great city, so we really just want to see it one more time and say farewell. Probably won't be there again for a very, very long time.
• Keep our fingers crossed that we won't be moving back to 4 years of McCain/Palin. Yak, gag, shiver with fright!
  

Sheeeeeee's leaving home... bye byyyyyyyyyyyyye...

Our trusty BMW has now moved on to a new owner (the guy on the right; that's his dad next to him). We were a bit nervous that we wouldn't be able to sell it and then would have to donate it or crap it or something. I had it advertised the old-fashioned way -- flyers in the windows and posted various places -- for a couple of weeks. Not a peep. Then I put it up on Gumtree. Still nothing. Finally, I put it up on Autotrader and a couple of days later, I had one buyer coming out to have a look at it and another scheduled to see it the next day. This was yesterday. The first buyer that contacted me is the guy in the picture. We agreed on a price pretty much right away and I got the exact value of the car, so we're really happy about that. He didn't have time to take care of a deposit or pay for it last night, so I gave him a "gentleman's agreement" to come back today by noon. Since I had another potential buyer on the hook, I wasn't too worried. And this morning, yet another one called about it.

Last night I had a quiet word with her and told her that she had been a great car and we are really going to miss her, but not to worry because she was going to a good home. Then I said my goodbye and walked away. Kristen would be the one closing the deal because I would be at work. We were both a bit depressed, actually. It was a great car and we have fond memories. So it was sad to see it go.

Anyway, he came by this morning and paid the full whack. He was very happy with it, so that made us feel better. I think he will take care of it at least as good as I have, if not better.

It really feels like we're leaving now. Selling the car was one of the bigger hurdles we had to jump in this process and now that's done. Weird.

Last week, we also managed to sell our filing cabinet and this 6' clothing rack we had. A few more bits and pieces still to go, but we will wait until later in October.

40 working days left at my job and 60 days before we move back.

Cringe-worthy

And this is a great spoof of the above by the fantastic LisaNova:

Matt Damon on Sarah Palin

Amazing Commentary from Keith Olbermann

Think about this today when you see the Republicans "commemorate" 9/11.



Here's the transcript:

"As promised, a Special Comment about our sad anniversary tomorrow.

Or, more correctly, what our sad anniversary tomorrow has been turned into by the presidential administration, and the current Republican candidates for President and Vice President.

This is supposed to be a day of remembrance. Remembrance of the attack, remembrance of the national unity which followed it.

Most important of all, remembrance of the dead.

But 9/11 has become a brand name. A Republican campaign slogan. Propaganda of the lowest form. 9/11 has become 9/11 with a trademark logo.

9/11 (TM) has sustained a president who long ago should have been dismissed, or impeached. It has kept him and his gang of financial and constitutional crooks in office without — literally — any visible means of support.

9/11 (TM) has made possible the greatest sleight-of-hand in our nation’s history.

The political party in office at the time of the attacks, at the local, state and national levels, the party which uniformly ignored the warnings and the presidential administration already through twenty percent of its first term and no longer wet behind the ears, have not only thus far escaped any blame for the malfeasance and criminal neglect that allowed the attacks to occur, but that presidency and that party, have managed to make it seem as if the other political party would be solely and irredeemably responsible for any similar catastrophe in the future.

Thus, Sen. McCain, were you able to accomplish a further inversion of reality at your party’s nominating convention last week.

There was the former Mayor of the City of New York, the one who took no counter-terrorism measure in his seven years in office between the first attack on the World Trade Center, and the second attack.

Nothing, except to insist, despite all advice and warning, that his Emergency Command Center be moved directly into the World Trade Center.

Yet there was this man, Sir, Rudolph Giuliani, quite succinctly dismissed as “A Noun, a Verb, and 9/11,” and repudiated even by Republican voters, transformed into the keynote speaker, Sen. McCain at your convention.

And his childish, squealing, braying, Tourette’s-like repetition of 9/11 (TM), was greeted not as conclusive evidence that he is consumed by massive guilt - hard-earned guilt, in fact but rather as some kind of political tour-de-force, an endorsement of your Vice Presidential nominee, a rookie governor , a facile and slick con artist.

The blind endorsing the bland, to a chorus of 9/11 (TM), 9/11 (TM), 9/11 (TM.)

Your ringing mindless cheer of “We’ve Kept You Safe Since Then.”While nobody asks “doesn’t then count?”

All of this, sadistically disrespecting the dead of New York, and Washington, and Shanksville. Endorsed, Sen. McCain. Exploited, Sen. McCain. Trademarked, Sen. McCain by you.

And yet of course the exact moment in which Sen. McCain’s Republicans showed the nation exactly how far they have fallen from the Better Angels of Mr. Lincoln’s Nature, came the next night.

The television networks were told that the Convention would pause, early in the evening, when children could still be watching, for a 9/11 Tribute, and they were encouraged to broadcast it.

What we got was not a tribute to the dead of 9/11, nor even a tribute to the responders, or the singularity of purpose we all felt. The Republicans gave us sociological pornography, a virtual snuff film.

Years ago, responsible television networks, to the applause of the nation, and the relief of its mental health authorities, voluntarily stopped showing the most graphic of the images of the World Trade Center, except with the strongest of warnings.

And yet, the Republicans, at their convention, having virtually seized control of the cable news operations, showed the worst of it.

This is all anyone with a conscience can show you of what the Republicans showed you. The actual collapse of the smoking towers.

A fleeting image of what might have been a victim leaping to his death from a thousand feet up. And something new. From this angle, ground-level, perfectly framed, images, of the fireball created when the second plane hit the second tower.

It was terrifying. After all its object was to terrify. Not to commemorate, not to call for unity, not to remember the dead. But to terrify.

To open again the horrible wounds, to brand the skin of this nation with the message — as hateful as the terrorists’ own, that you must vote Republican or this will happen again and you will die.

And just in case that was not enough, to also dishonestly and profanely conflate 9/11 with the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis, to stoke the flames of paranoia about another Middle Eastern Nation.

This was a 9/11 Tribute. Not to the dead, nor to the unity. But a tribute to how valuable 9/11 has been as a political tool for the Republican Party. 9/11... (TM.)

Sen. McCain, you had promised us a clean campaign. You could be Snow-White the rest of the way, Sir, yet that manipulative videotape from your convention should tar you always in the minds of decent Americans.

And still, as this seventh 9/11 (TM) approaches that, Sir, is not the worst of your contributions to the utter politicizing of a day that should be sacrosanct to all of us.

Hard to believe, but the Senator has done worse with 9/11 and the evil behind it.

We heard it last week in Minnesota, we’ve heard it off and on since January but Senator McCain said it most concisely in June.

“Look,” he said. “I know the area, I’ve been there, I know wars, I know how to win wars, and I know how to improve our capabilities so that we will capture Osama bin Laden — or put it this way, bring him to justice. We will do it. I know how to do it.”

Sen. McCain seems to be quite serious, that he and he alone, not the CIA, nor the U.S. Military, nor the current President can capture bin Laden.

Thus we must take him at his word, that this is no mere ludicrous campaign boast.

We must assume Sen. McCain truly believes he is capable of doing this, and has been capable of doing this, since last January. “We will capture Osama bin Laden… we will do it. I know how to do it.”

Well then, Senator, you’d better go and do it hadn’t you?

Because, Sir, if a man or woman in this nation, Democrat or Republican, had a clear and effective means of capturing or killing Osama bin Laden…

If that person had been advertising his claim, Senator for eight months.

But if that person not only refused to go to responsible authorities in government and advise them of this plan to catch bin Laden, but further announced he would not even begin to enact this secret plan to corral the world’s most hated man until the end of next January.

What would be your description of such an individual, Senator? Charlatan? Do-nothing? Opportunist? Sen. McCain, if you have, if you have had a means of capturing Osama bin Laden, and you do not immediately inform some responsible authority of the full scope of that plan, you are to some degree great or small aiding and abetting Osama bin Laden.

If you could assist in capturing him now, Sen. McCain, but you have chosen not to you, Sir, have helped Osama bin Laden stay free.

Free to inspire and supervise the terrorists. Free to plan or execute attacks here.

You, Sir, are blackmailing some portion of the American electorate into voting for your party, by promising to help in the capture of bin Laden only if you are made president!

I’d rather win an election than catch bin Laden! No more cynical calculation has ever been made in this nation’s history, Sir. If you lose the election, Senator, are you not going to tell the President-Elect?

Are you intending to keep this a secret until the next election and your party’s next nominee? Senator, as you and your Republicans shed your phony, crocodile, opportunistic tears tomorrow on 9/11 TM, in front of the utterly disingenuous banner “Country First,” the fact is, you have shown that it is John McCain first, and the country last.

The fact is, Sir, by holding out on your secret plan to catch bin Laden by searing those images into our collective wounded American psyche at your nomination last week, terrorists are not what you, John McCain, fight. Terrorists are what you, John McCain, use." -- Keith Olbermann