Last night, I dreamt that I was cruising on a highway through Shanghai; neon lights streaking, wind flaring, car rushing past the infinite columns that overwhelm the ancient landscape and attest to the rise of the fastest growing economy in the world. Shanghai Restoration Project, itself an awkward child embracing old and new, was pouring forth from the speakers. The millions of people who carry out their lives amongst these skyscrapers, amongst this insomnious, vibrant city... what were they doing at the moment I passed them? What were their consummate aspirations as they live out their lives? How did they contribute to the collective pool of karmic suffering and euphoria called humanity? But none of that concerned me now. I was escaping to my own inner serenity. As I drove off into the distance, wind still beating against my face, I stood up, eyes fixed on the horizon, and began to take flight.

Last night, I dreamt that we had each found our own sense of peace.

New goal for 2009: learn how to say exactly what I need to say, at the right time to say it.

And I thought Aerospace Engineering was Difficult

But I'm so glad I'm not a pilot trying to land at these airports:

http://worldaviationjournal.blogspot.com/2008/03/top-10-most-dangerous-aircraft-landings.html

(P.S. If you're bored, log into Google Earth, search one of these places, and then log into the flight simulator (version 4 or later) and try to land at them using the F-16.)

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Whew!

I've survived through another "most dreaded day of the year" intact! (with just a couple jabs from my parents how they want grandkids / jab from my grandmother on how she wants great-grandkids. Pesky family.)

Hurrah!

Ale Mary Full of Taste

Great article in the New Yorker detailing the rise of craft brewing in the United States.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/24/081124fa_fact_bilger

Notable Quotables:

"[Dogfish Head Brewery] is to Budweiser what Bouillabaisse is to fish stock."

"The King of Beers, once served in splendid isolation at many bars, is now surrounded by motley bottles with ridiculous names, like jesters at a Renaissance fair: SkullSplitter, Old Leghumper, Slam Dunkel, Troll Porter, Moose Drool, Power Tool, He’brew, and Ale Mary Full of Taste." (Reminds me also of Palin and her kids' names.)

“When a brewer says, ‘This has more hops in it than anything you’ve had in your life—are you man enough to drink it?,’ it’s sort of like a chef saying, ‘This stew has more salt in it than anything you’ve ever had—are you man enough to eat it?’ ”

"His forefathers worked hard making wine, he recently wrote, 'so that I might have the opportunity to produce a superior beverage.'"

"He made a stout with roasted chicory and St.-John’s-wort ('The world’s only antidepressant depressant,' he called it). While other brewers were dyeing their beer green for St. Patrick’s Day, Calagione brewed his with blue-green algae. 'It tasted like appetizing pond scum,' he says. 'The first sip, you were like, ‘Wow, that tasted like pond scum. But you know what? I kind of want a second sip.’ '"

"When he and Calagione aren’t making beer, they sometimes perform together at the pub as a beer-themed hip-hop duo called the Pain Relievaz (sample lyrics: 'You’re the barley virgin that my malt mill will deflour')."

“At the same time that they’re making this relatively hoppy wanna-be craft beer that exists only to confuse the consumer—so that they can be culture vultures—they are running ads that say that the darker a beer is the more impurities it has. It’s beer racism.”

"I saw signs for beers called Goat Toppler, Chicken Killer, and Old Headwrecker, Incinerator, Detonator, Skull Annihilator, and the Obamanator."

"Every beer is a brewer’s invention to some degree—a combination of ingredients that could never be found in nature. A barrel of crushed grapes, left to its own devices, can turn into a crude sort of Beaujolais nouveau. The winemaker’s job is mostly to prod the process along. That isn’t true of beer. For grain to turn into an ale or lager, it has to be malted, cooked, strained, cooked, strained, fermented in a barrel, and sometimes again in a bottle. 'Mother Nature makes wine,' Calagione likes to say. 'Brewers make beer.'"

A Black Man in the Great White City

(click on the picture for full size)

A collage of pictures taken in D.C. (mostly Georgetown store windows) celebrating Obama's victory.