Success

"Mack the Knife" by Ella Fitzgerald

Boule Bread Recipe

It's amazing how easy and delicious this recipe is. Once you get the hang of it, you'll probably ask yourself why you ever bought bread from a store in the first place.

Ingredients
- 1 1/2 Tbs, instant yeast
- 1 1/2 Tbs, kosher or sea salt (1 Tb table salt is okay)
- 6 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour (for even better results, use bread flour)

1. In a large container, pour yeast and salt into 3 cups wrist-warm water.
2. Stir in flour, mixing with a large wooden spoon for 1-2 minutes. The mixture should be consistent, but not necessarily pretty.
3. Cover, but gas will be produced so do not seal airtight. I usually just put a large dish over my bowl.
4. Let the dough rise at room temperature for 2 hours or just stick in the fridge overnight. You can refrigerate the dough for up to two weeks, adding a few drops of water if the dough becomes very dry.
4. When ready to bake, sprinkle flour on your hands and on top of the dough so it's not too sticky, and cut off a large handful. The size really doesn't matter much.
5. Hold the dough at the bottom with both hands. Stretch the dough with your hands, pulling from the top and stuffing the excess under the bottom. Rotate the dough 45 degrees each time you do this. The top should look neat and stretched. It should take no more than 1 minute.
6. Flour a cookie sheet and rest the dough on it for 40 minutes.
7. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. (Use an oven thermometer to verify the temperature and give yourself at least 20 minutes to preheat if you're using a pizza stone.)
8. After resting, reshape the dough if you want -- you can flatten it, make it more oval-shaped, or just leave it as a big round ball. Dust the top of the dough with an abundant amount of flour to achieve a 'gluten cloak.' Slash top with serrated bread knife 2-3 times.
9. Stick the dough into the oven. I slide the dough onto a hot pizza stone, but you can just stick the cookie sheet in the oven if you don't have one.
10. Immediately open the broiler, and pour 1 cup of water into the broiler pan and shut oven quickly to trap the steam. This prevents the bread crust from getting too hard.
11. Bake for 30 minutes. The crust should be brown and your kitchen should smell delicious.
12. Let the bread cool on a rack before cutting -- it still isn't finished cooking!
13. Once the bread has completely cooled, slice with a bread knife and enjoy!

Adapted from the recipe in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

Fear the Boom and Bust

A rap battle between two dead economists, J.M. Keynes and F.A. Hayek:

Integrity

Tiny Vessels by "Death Cab for Cutie"

Haiti Earthquake

This morning, I received a touching message from a Haitian-American friend. I'd like to share some of it with you:

I have felt paralyzed this week: frozen, far away, unable to do anything but watch, wait, and call my family. I wish I had the expertise to be of service, to be of some use. I given up on T.V. it makes me feel more distant, and voyeuristic. I'm tired of the Anderson Coopers of the media trying to give "great coverage." Done with the same shocking picture plastered on every website. There are 2 million stories to tell and somehow every news agency is focusing on the same two. A couple of of exceptions: The Miami Herald has been better than most, The Lede Blog at the New York Times has had constant updates and links, and most impressively and heroically is the Haitian newspaper Le Nouveliste: their website is amazing (http://www.lenouvelliste.com/, in French and Kreyol) the videos are the most enlightening videos I have seen yet: the city appears remarkably calm, and he goes to many parts of the city. As opposed to the CNN super close ups of horror, Le Nouveliste is showing the real Haitian response: firm, calm, and reasonable. Watch the videos! They play one after another and he interviews priests, people leaving the city, and gives coverage to the new reality of living in Pap (Port-au-Prince). Even if you don't understand Kreyol it is the best out there. He interviews several Haitian students leading the search rescue at Quisqueya University (where my uncle was a professor), no foreigners and they saved and delivered to medical services 14 students. The interviewer asks him who was helping him, and he answers matter of factly: "Zami'm"- my friends.

Many of you I'm sure have already donated, and I thank you for you thoughtfulness. Right now the most urgent need is money, and organizations like the Red Cross, Catholic Relief Services, and Partners in Health are the on the ground and working hard. The last two in particular have resources and people distributed throughout the country, an important factor as many Haitian are leaving Port-au-Prince for the the interior.

I ask that you consider encouraging your community to sponsor a Haitian Church as Haiti rebuilds. Haiti is a very religious country and has lost many of it places of worship: from the great Catholic Cathedral of the capitol to small store front evangelical churches, the people will need places to share in the blessings that must follow such tragedy.
As grandmother used to say: Men anpil chay pa lou- Where hands are many, the harvest is not heavy.

How to Deter Criminals: Swift, Certain and Mild Punishment

Classical deterrence theory has long held that the threat of a mild punishment imposed reliably and immediately has a much greater deterrent effect than the threat of a severe punishment that is delayed and uncertain. Recent work in behavioral economics has helped to explain this phenomenon: people are more sensitive to the immediate than the slightly deferred future and focus more on how likely an outcome is than how bad it is.

“If you can get people to behave by threatening them credibly, you’ll need less actual punishment than if you let them run wild and punish only occasionally,” says Mark A. R. Kleiman.

Read the full article in the New York Times Magazine here. It's a fascinating read.

MLK Day: Letter from a Birmingham Jail

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

Read the full text here.

Channel Islands National Park Trip Report

If you find yourself stuck in busy Los Angeles, the Channel Islands make a great day trip. They are located just miles away from the coast of Southern California and are free to visit, as long as you secure transportation to and from the island.

For $88, I reserved a pair of tickets a week in advance with the park's official boat concessionaire, Island Packers. Just one day before our scheduled departure, though, an employee from Island Packers called to inform us the trip to Anacapa Island was canceled. According to the employee, the cancelation was due to rough waters, but I suspect the real reason was due to low turnout. Fortunately, we were able to transfer our reservations for a day trip to Santa Cruz Island instead.

On Tuesday morning, we set out from the harbor in Ventura, California with about 20 other passengers. After a pleasant hour-long boat ride, we landed at Scorpion Ranch on the eastern tip of Santa Cruz. We ate our packed lunches on the beach, and then set out for a five-mile hike to Potato Harbor. The trail hugged the steep coastal cliffs of the island.

Although the views were great, I was really hoping to spot wildlife found only on these islands, especially the island fox. Even though we found numerous fox scat along the hiking trail, we didn't see any island foxes during our 5-hour stay on Santa Cruz. I learned later that overnight campers have the best chance of spotting these foot-long critters, because they often come out of their burrows at dusk.

I left Santa Cruz a bit disappointed, but we were lucky to experience plenty of marine wildlife on the boat ride back to shore. First, we encountered several migrating gray whales. Every winter, these mammals travel along the Pacific coast to warm and sunny Baja California. Interestingly, they travel in pods of three -- typically, two males and one female -- because the males need assistance to mate with their female partners. As our tour guide put it, "it's hard to have sex without any limbs."

We were also lucky enough to encounter a pod of playful dolphins on the way back as well. The captain slowed the boat down, waiting to arouse the curiosity of the dolphins. Then, he'd gun the boat at full speed -- 20 knots -- and the dolphins would race alongside us.

NDT: Using a Gravitational Tractor to Prevent a Meteor Strike

"You know the solar system's a shooting gallery. And Earth, many people don't know, plows through several hundred tons of meteors a day. So, the range of these that could hit us is huge.

Apophis – that was discovered in December 2004. It's an asteroid about the size of the Rose Bowl. If the Rose Bowl – imagine that as kind of like an eggcup, and you place something in it to hold it, that's about how big that asteroid is. That's not too shabby – that one, if it hits, it'll do some serious damage.

The first calculation showed that there was a real chance it could hit Earth in the year 2029 on April 13th. Which, by the way, happens to be a Friday.

As the months went by we had better orbital data and we determined that no, it will not hit us April 13th 2029, but it will come very close. It will come closer than Earth's orbiting communication satellites. It'll be the biggest, closest thing we've ever seen in the history of history. It'd be visible from northern Europe and it's basically – think of it as a shot across our bow. The universe saying, "I'll miss you this time, but I'll give you another chance to try to deflect me."

What many people, we have top sort of engineers and dynamicists working on – one problem, which is – involves what we call a gravitational tractor. A kind of a tractor beam where you send up a spaceship, bring it close to the asteroid, but not touch it, and you sort of park it there. And what I mean by – both of these are moving through space so when I say park, I mean you match velocities with the asteroid. And their mutual gravity will want to attract them to each other. And as they drift, you say, no, I'm not going to let that happen. So, you put on the little retro rockets on the rocket to prevent them from colliding. The act of doing that effectively tugs the asteroid out of harm's way. Because all you really want to do is move it so that it will not hit Earth in its trajectory. It'll still be out there, its orbit will still cross the orbit of the Earth, but you've lived to enjoy another day."

Neill DeGrasse Tyson on the radio show, Living on Earth. Listen to the show or read the full transcript here.

San Francisco

Bird Action Photos

Click on the images to view in a larger size.






Photographs by Christine Hansen, Rob Palmer, and Nick Dunlop.

Branding is Bullsh*t

Last week, my eyeglasses broke and I reluctantly scotch taped them back together. I had no other choice; my disposable contact lenses ran out months ago and I didn't have a spare pair. With my new (and less than improved) look, I was worried about being seen in public. Those grade school fears crept into the back of my head; I worried that people were going to label me dweeb.

Eventually I manned up, went out, and realized that no one cared. Even if they did, they didn't treat me any differently. Okay, I'll probably need to get a new pair of glasses before I go to a job interview or take my girlfriend to a fancy night out on the town; but in most situations, such a blemish is going to go unnoticed. Pop culture projects an image of perfection that almost all of us find alluring; in all likelihood, we aspire towards perfection ourselves. But, in reality, we (and everyone else) are already flawed in millions of countless ways. And, often, it's going to go unnoticed to just about everyone else if you display just one more flaw to the world.

Granted, I've garnered a bit of immunity from my childhood. Despite years of pleading, I didn't get my first pair of jeans until the 6th grade -- and they were powder blue Lee jeans. When everyone was just getting over the Reebok Pumps and moving onto Nike Airs, my mother bought me a pair of Spaldings from Bradlees. But these devastating setbacks in my childhood actually did teach me a lesson. Sooner or later, people are going to get to know you and judge you for who you are. You best go out, find the good people, and stick with them.

It's a lesson that often bears repeating. In my third year of teaching, I broke my nose and had to wear a giant shiny metal plate that obscured much of my face. I was worried I was going to be harassed by my students, but after just five to ten minutes, my 8th grade students didn't care either. After two weeks, none of them even noticed when I finally removed the plate.

When I went about hunting for a cheap pair of frames this week, I was grateful to learn that Walmart offered eyeglass frames for $9. My current pair had cost more than $200 and lasted less than two years. I wasn't going to invest 20 times more for a pair of designer glasses -- what difference would it make, when people don't even notice anyway?

These differences in price reveal the unconscious power of branding. Smokers pay $2 more for a pack of Marlboro's, kids pay premium prices for Air Jordan sneakers, and the myopic pay $100 for a pair of Nascar or Randy Jackson glasses at Walmart or $300 for a pair of Gucci or Guess glasses at Cohen's Fashion Optical rather than suffer the unbearable cost of wearing discount frames. But are these fears real or just imagined?

Maybe I'd feel a bit differently if my self-image was predicated more on my looks. It's probably true that devastatingly beautiful men and women are treated different by society, and enjoy privileges that the other 99.99% of us lack. But eventually, even the beautiful get old and wrinkled, so it's probably best not to get caught up in one's own physical perfection.

When I was teaching middle school, the biggest diss was to insult a boy's sneakers. My first year teaching, I had a cocksure student named Ruben. He was smart, popular, and at the top of his class both academically and socially. But when he got into an argument with a girl in the school yard, she mocked his sneakers for being dirty. In the moment, he took the criticism in stride, but later I saw him licking his fingers and rubbing his red and white Air Jordans clean like a wounded animal.

We pay a premium to preempt these attacks on our individual psyches. Corporate branding prays on the insecure members of our society. We invest in brand names to associate ourselves with the powerful affluent members of our society and distance ourselves from the powerless poor. But, in the end, we're just spending money to fool ourselves.

Pinnacles National Monument

On Tuesday, December 29, Jess and I drove from Monterey to Pinnacles National Monument. We had spent the last few days hiking and biking along the coast and were looking forward to a change of pace, from taking in endless beautiful ocean views on the central coast to scrambling up talus and chimney rock to spot the elusive and extremely rare California condor in the central valley.

After driving south on Hwy 101 from Salinas, we entered the park via Hwy 146 through its west entrance. Even though Pinnacles' main attraction, Bear Gulch Caves, is located near the the park's other entrance, the west and east entrances are not connected, and driving to the east side of the park would have taken an additional two hours on unpaved one-lane roads. Although I was disappointed to be missing the park's main attraction, the lack of a through-road was in fact a fortuitous sign -- the remoteness of the park means less traffic and more hiking trails and wildlife.

We planned the trip to Pinnacles in order to spot a California condor. We first saw the California Condor (spp. Gymnogyps californianus) a few months ago at the San Diego Zoo and were both impressed. This giant vulture has a wing span of 10 ft. -- they are the largest flying land bird in North America -- and a featherless noggin so it doesn't get too mussed up when it pokes its head in the guts of a dead carcass. It can fly 100 miles per day and live up to 60 years in the wild. Before the arrival of Western settlers, the California condor could be found throughout the US, from as far as California to Florida and Massachussetts. After its numbers dwindled to just 23 in 1981-82, the condor has made a modest comeback -- currently there are over 300 condors, with 90 living in the California wilderness.

Unfortunately, Jess and I weren't lucky enough to spot any condors. In hind sight, we probably had the best chance of seeing a condor in Big Sur, when we saw a researcher holding a giant antenna off a cliff near Hwy 1. Afterwards, we realized she was probably trying to track one of the condors, because they are all radio collared. Nevertheless, we were lucky to enjoy some fun hiking and great views on the Condor Gulch, High Peaks, and Balcony Cliffs trails. The highlight was definitely scrambling over, under, and between wedged rocks in the eery darkness of the Balconies Caves.

West Coast Wish List

After a few months of desperately waiting, I finally landed an interview at a medical school. It's Albert Einstein back in the Bronx. I'm thrilled and excited at the prospect of returning back home and reuniting with my family and friends in New York. But, it also means that my stay in California may be nearly over.

So here's a list of a few goals I'm setting for myself before I leave:
- Visit all of California's National Parks and Mounuments.
- Hang glide in the mountains with the Berkeley Hang Gliding Club. Get my Hang 3 rating.
- Summit three of the 14,000+ ft. peaks in California including either Mt. Shasta or Mt. Whitney.
- Backpack across at least 20 miles of the West Coast, John Muir, or Pacific Coast Trails.
- Spot a California condor and quail in the wild.
- Drive or hitchhike up to Alaska in the summer.
- Complete a sub 3:30 marathon.
- Run my first ultramarathon.
- Join a CSA and learn how to cook without relying on recipes.
- Stop relying on a car if I'm traveling less than 30 miles. Walk, bike, or use public transit instead.
- Go cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, or downhill skiing at Lake Tahoe.
- Hike all of the top-rated trails in Tom Stienstra and Ann Marie Brown's book California Hiking.
- Hike through one of Utah's slot canyons.
- Hop on a freight train.

Admittedly, I'd be thrilled to complete half of these adventures and remain healthy and intact. Hopefully, I'll have some progress to report back in a few months!

Flying off the 600 ft. Hill

Here's a video of my first flight off the 600 ft. hill in over 10 months. I remember being scared (more than usual) for several reasons:
1) My friend Anthony mounted his HD camcorder on my glider for the first time, and I was a bit worried it might affect the glider's performance.
2) I was flying a new approach to the landing zone; making a 90 degree turn from the south instead of the typical west approach.
3) I was launching off the 600 ft. hill unassisted. Anthony had already flown off the 600 ft. hill moments before, and our flight instructor Barry was launching other students off the 300 ft. hill. That meant I had to make my own judgments and decisions on launch -- always a hairy proposition.



It ended being a pretty good flight. I ended up putting my knee on the base tube to bring the Pulse down as fast as I could, but I blew past the spot (the orange cones at the end) anyway. Lots of fun, can't way to do it again and fly off the top of the mountain at 1750 ft!

Hummingbird Diving

On Sunday, Bing, Jess and I went for a 6 mile hike up and down the Montara Mountain / Brooks Creek trail in San Pedro Valley Park. Set in Pacifica, a small coastal town just south of San Francisco, the peak of Mt. Montara offers impressive 360 degree views of the Pacific Ocean to the west, Santa Cruz mountain range to the south, Mt. Diablo to the east, and Mt. Tamalpais to the north. (Unfortunately, I don't have any photographs. Just take my word for it, or hit the trail yourself on a clear day and see for yourself.)

The most interesting part of the trip, though, happened during the ascent. We noticed a tiny hummingbird repeatedly flying in a peculiar pattern: climbing 60 feet, then diving straight down kamikaze style before pulling back up at the last second. When we approached, the hummingbird continued its flight plan unaltered, just barely grazing the top of our heads. It must have repeated this flight plan over 15-20 times in the few minutes we stood watching.

After a brief internet search back home, I learned that we were witnessing a common sight along the coast of California during the early winter months. Anna's hummingbirds (spp. Calypte anna) begin nesting at this time, and males perform these dives as courtship displays to impress their potential female mates.

Interestingly, UC Berkeley researcher CJ Clark recently learned that the randy pilot flares its tail at the bottom of its dive, not only to prevent it crashing to the ground (with a force of 9 g's), but to create a loud chirping sound that attracts females.



Stop motion photography demonstrates the crazy things a little guy will do for a little love. Play on, playa, play on.