Archives for category: Travel

Asterix and Obelix and Traumatic Brain Injury

15. June 2011 //

A team of neurosurgeons out of Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf have completed a comprehensive study on traumatic brain injury in the Asterix comics. I know this because they wrote a paper about it and had it published. The title of their paper is “Traumatic brain injuries in illustrated literature: experience from a series of over 700 head injuries in the Asterix comic books”. The publisher is the European journal of neurosurgery, Acta Neurochirurgica, the official journal of the European Association of Neurosurgical Societies (EANS). They publish papers on clinical neurosurgery: including diagnostic techniques, operative surgery, postoperative treatment and results.

And on at least one occasion they publish galgenhumor.

I have not read Asterix in twenty years or so. I remember them as being very funny. I first encountered the comic while living in Germany. I mostly read English and German translations. But there was a time when I tried my hand at reading the native French edition of the book as a way of supplementing my French coursework at the Tübinger Volkshochschule. That was funny, too.

(For different reasons. No, je ne veux pas besprechen.)

Now I want to get my hands on this paper. If it is anything like the abstract, I’m sure I’m going to find it hilarious.

Abstract
Background: The goal of the present study was to analyze the epidemiology and specific risk factors of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in the Asterix illustrated comic books. Among the illustrated literature, TBI is a predominating injury pattern.

Methods: A retrospective analysis of TBI in all 34 Asterix comic books was performed by examining the initial neurological status and signs of TBI. Clinical data were correlated to information regarding the trauma mechanism, the sociocultural background of victims and offenders, and the circumstances of the traumata, to identify specific risk factors.

Results: Seven hundred and four TBIs were identified. The majority of persons involved were adult and male. The major cause of trauma was assault (98.8%). Traumata were classified to be severe in over 50% (GCS 3–8). Different neurological deficits and signs of basal skull fractures were identified. Although over half of head-injury victims had a severe initial impairment of consciousness, no case of death or permanent neurological deficit was found. The largest group of head-injured characters was constituted by Romans (63.9%), while Gauls caused nearly 90% of the TBIs. A helmet had been worn by 70.5% of victims but had been lost in the vast majority of cases (87.7%). In 83% of cases, TBIs were caused under the influence of a doping agent called “the magic potion”.

Conclusions: Although over half of patients had an initially severe impairment of consciousness after TBI, no permanent deficit could be found. Roman nationality, hypoglossal paresis, lost helmet, and ingestion of the magic potion were significantly correlated with severe initial impairment of consciousness (p ≤ 0.05).

Links

PubMed entry for the paper
SpringerLink entry for the paper

Categories Books, Health, Travel

Preposterous Las Vegas

By Sean

1. February 2011 //

Now that Whirl and I are snowbound at home under the blanket of the 2011 Groundhog Day blizzard, I’ll see if I can’t piece together the threads, fragments, snippets and fabrications into some sort of interesting narrative about our sixth annual trip to Las Vegas. In case you’re curious, we already have have 9 inches of snow, 40-50 mph winds, whiteout conditions, 15-25 foot waves on Lake Michigan, lightning and thunder. Thunder. In a snowstorm. I saw the lightning with my own eyes. The thunder was eerily muffled by the snow. Predictions are for 3″ to 4″ per hour from now until 5 AM Wednesday morning. So, let it snow. I can’t stop it, I might as well appreciate it.

As we have for the past two years, we stayed at the Flamingo in the middle of the Las Vegas strip. This year I started collecting bits of observation about our stay there. We’ve noticed there is something a little peculiar about the music that constantly plays throughout the casinos. A particular songs will repeat with uncanny frequency. The song is often older — 15 or 20 years past its prime — once popular, but not one I would consider a particularly impressive classic. This ad-hoc themesong is recognizably dated. The first song to strike us in this way several years ago was Tom Cochrane‘s “Life Is a Highway“. This year we set about actively looking for the themesong. We came up with three candidate songs:

Berlin, “No More Words”
Naked Eyes, “Promises Promises”
Roxette, “The Look”

I was partial to naming the Roxette song as our themesong. The other two had strong arguments supporting them. All three meet the requirements and I personally heard all three of these mostly forgettable melodies at least three times in three different places around the Strip.

The other element I began tracking began with less preparation. I was inspired by a spontaneous conversation that erupted in front of Steamboat and me as we made our way across the casino floor. We were following a group of four girls who were walking in two groups of two. Each of the four women was dressed in the requisite Las Vegas nightclub uniform: the little black dress or its variation the little black miniskirt paired with a shiny silk blouse. Requisite too-high heels and a tiny clutch finish the ensemble. The forward pair were making a path through the mingling crowd, and it was the latter two that we unintentionally overheard. I should correct that statement. One of the two was rather despondant. Her head was down. She did not make eye contact. Her companion, walking beside her and perhaps a halfstep behind, was ostensibly comforting the other woman. The speaking voice was cool, uninflected — almost mechanical — as it chanted.

You’re sexy. You’re beautiful. You’re totally rockin’ that outfit.

It struck me as the sort of ironic environmental commentary one might hear while running around Las Venturas while playing Grand Theft Auto. I bust out laughing. I couldn’t help it. The unsympathetic, detached tone contrasting so vibrantly with the constructed projection of a particular look and persona.

I began to collect a few more snippets of overheard conversation from around the Flamingo. Here they are, ripped of any context and stripped of intentional irony:

“Dude, are those Flamingos?”
“Rawhide cleavage.”
“Well, I guess I can’t see your cleft lip from behind.”

Other random encounters included a long conversation at the craps table about the probabilties and strategies of betting against the shooter, witnessing someone win a $9000 jackpot on a slot machine, and discussing the probable meaning of a typo-laden text message on a woman’s phone. (I agreed, it did seem like her boyfriend was asking her if she wanted a burger and fries even if the text itself looked closer to “gurger nad frips.”)

Besides the typical gambling on poker, pai gow and craps, we took in a few new things this time around that we haven’t enjoyed on previous trips. Bitsy and I designed a team jersey for all of us. The jersey included a logo, nicknames and numbers. We all wore them boarding the plane, and from time to time throughout the weekend while in Las Vegas. It was goofy and frivolous, but fun. It also made it very simple to find each other on the casino floor. Hurricane‘s mother, Sibyl, celebrated her birthday with us on Friday. We combined that event with an idea AK and I had had after his trip to Dallas late last year. We went to Tom Colicchio‘s restaurant, craftsteak. Bitsy and I had agreed to try one of the tasting menus. And after a bit of discussion we recruited T. to our plan. With that phalanx in place, we quickly set about convincing the rest of our table to try the same. And as a result we had one of the best meals I have ever had. We enjoyed five different cuts of wagyu beef, delicious appetizers, sides and more than a dozen different deserts. The entire experience lasted almost four hours: from the scotch before dinner to the final cup of coffee at the end. It was an incredible way to spend an evening. Bitsy and I agreed that it would be a fine thing to incorporate into future Las Vegas trips.

niqui, Whirl and I enjoyed fantastic sushi one night. I went to have delicious Thai and Vietnamese food with Bitsy, T., AK and niqui. And I could not pass up the opportunity to return to Hash House A Go Go for breakfast. I failed to finish the crispy hand hammered pork tenderloin benedict even after our waiter challenged me to do so. He’d only served one person that day who had successfully joined the clean plate club with that dish. If I had succeeded, he would have bought my breakfast, and a t-shirt. I didn’t make it.

The Flamingo added a brewery to the property since last year: Sin City Brewing Company. Saturday night I proposed to Steamboat that we grab some of their fresh-brewed beer and enjoy them outside for a couple hours. That turned into a makeshift gathering around a firepit and extended far beyond what I had originally intended. Plastic cups, beer from kegs, a fire, outside. It reminded me of a party from twenty years ago. Except with much better beer. And I’m not twenty.

Earlier Saturday I joined Steamboat, AK and T. on their second trip to the Las Vegas Gun Range and Firearm Center. I haven’t been to a range in many years — perhaps I should consider this a special time machine side trip. We fired a number of weapons including a M-16, a Desert Eagle .50ae, a HK MP5, a HK USP Tactical .45 suppressed, a Carl Gustav M/45 SMG, and a 12 gauge semiautomatic tactical shotgun. I was the only one of my friends who had done any shooting of any real significance. They were very excited about the experience and I had as much fun firing rounds as I did shooting photographs of them.

Our last night in town we headed down to Fremont street. AK and niqui had never been there, so we showed them around the older casinos, gambled a bit. I hadn’t been downtown for a couple years. Some things had changed — most notably the addition of a zipline running the length of Fremont Street above the pedway. Smokes took the plunge and rode the line before we departed to pack up and come home the next morning.

But on our last night, after encountering more than my fair share, I got to thinking about a potential collective noun for a group of douchebags. Suggestions included: affliction, clot, flush, hemorrhage, purge and smear. We reached agreement on the term: hemorrhage. So there you have it: a hemmorrhage of douchebags. Coming to a casino near you.

Preposterous.

Categories Friends, Travel

Dedicated Follower of Fashion

By Sean

6. June 2010 //

They seek him here, they seek him there,
His clothes are loud, but never square.
It will make or break him so he’s got to buy the best,
Cause he’s a dedicated follower of fashion.

For the second day in a row I’ve had some time to get out and explore this little corner of the City of Angels. Up until today, I’ve spent most of my exploration opportunities in Little Tokyo just to the southwest of me. My last trip out I made an evening’s photowalk on Bunker Hill for a couple hours. But beyond that I’ve pretty much contained myself to Little Tokyo and a couple blocks into the Old Historic Downtown area.

Today I decided to venture further on foot and made my way down Los Angeles Street through the Fashion District. I should have brought my camera with me; I didn’t think to grab it. I’d intended just to go out and find a cafe to get some breakfast and read my book. But I can, at times, become easily distracted and the blocks and blocks of storefronts beckoned me to come explore. So the camera lingered behind at the hotel and I ventured in.

View Larger Map

I started the morning at the Lost Souls Cafe. This small cafe tucked back inside an alleyway off 4th Street reminded me a great deal of a couple of my favorite cafes in Chicago: the old Gourmand of Printer’s Row, now closed; and the No Exit Cafe in Roger’s Park. I understand that this place often has live music and sometimes serves as a gallery for local artists working out of the converted lofts in the historic district. This sleepy Sunday morning there were just a handful of people there enjoying a cup of coffee, reading the newspaper or video-chatting on their MacBooks. It’s a rough open-loft space with the mechanical infrastructure of the building exposed: duct work, fire sprinkler systems. Breakfast was nothing particularly spectacular, but certainly sufficient. The coffee was excellent. — I spoke with a couple of patrons who had ordered this big purple milkshake looking drink and learned that was also a house specialty. The Ube shake composed of yams, ice cream and milk and topped with a big dollop of whipped cream. Apparently they’re quite delicious. I may just have to go back and try one before I leave.

I stayed for a while and read my book while sipping my coffee. When finished, I headed out into the warm afternoon with no particular destination in mind. I turned right onto Los Angeles Street and started heading southeast. Soon I was swallowed up in the Fashion District proper. I’m trying to come up with ways of describing this area. The sidewalks are lined with narrow storefronts selling all kinds of suits, handbags, perfume, lingerie and accessories. For blocks and blocks. I just kept walking, guessing what might be in the next shop. I saw suits of every color and design: leather, suede, pinstripe, seersucker, denim. Italian suits with shiny threads. Heavily embroidered shirts and jeans. The sidewalks started out fairly quiet, but the further I moved into the district the more people crowded around. By the time I got to the true heart of the district, Santee Alley, it was shoulder-to-shoulder as far as I could see.

I thought the prices were extremely competitive. Some shops were selling suits with the offer: buy one get two free. Shoes of every kind imaginable. It was a fashion mall that stretched probably eight blocks long and three blocks wide. Right downtown. I’ve never seen anything like it. But I have to say, if you’re looking for west coast style you’ll find it here, and it will not be like any mall you’ve ever visited.

Last night I had dinner at Shabu Shabu House in Little Tokyo. During my last visit to Los Angeles, I mentioned seeing a number of Japanese restaurants advertising shabu shabu to my child bride. We did a little digging to determine what that was all about and learned something about this particular style of Japanese cooking. I didn’t get a chance to try it while I was out here last time but Whirl, Spencer, Templar and I found a place in Chicago offering it, Cocoro Restaurant, and gave it a go back home.

It wasn’t two weeks after I returned from Los Angeles that Kevin Pang did a feature in the Chicago Tribune, “The Chinese guy’s guide to eating in Chinatown”. Toward the end of the article he talks about hot pot cooking and recommends a couple places to try it, one Chinese and one Japanese.

This trip I promised myself that I would give shabu shabu a try out here. Nick Solares wrote a detailed review about Shabu Shabu House for Serious Eats and describes the meal like this:

In Japanese, “shabu shabu” literally translates to “swish swish” and refers to the technique employed in preparing the dish. You take razor thin slices of beef and submerge them into a pot of boiling water—it cooks almost instantly. The beef is accompanied by an assortment of vegetables, noodles, and tofu that are also cooked in the water and served over rice.

I arrived just as the restaurant was opening and there was already a crowd of 50 to 60 people waiting. The restaurant only has 24 seats. I met the owner, Yoshinobu Maruyama. He was quite congenial. I put my name on the list and waited patiently. About 40 minutes later I sat down to eat. The wait was well worth it. Delicious food, fun atmosphere. Maruyama helped me mix the various sauces and get me settled into how to go about eating this dish. It was a great dinner. An excellent finish to a much-needed day of relaxation.

And now I’m off in search of place to watch Game Five of the Stanley Cup Finals. It’s scheduled against Game Two of the NBA Finals between the Lakers and the Celtics. I may have to put somebody into the boards to get control of the puck– err, TV.

Categories Travel

This Is the Place

By Sean

5. June 2010 //

This is the place
There is no place
Quite like this place
Anywhere near this place
So this must be the place

Those words are written in large black lettering above the front entrance of the Nickel Diner. It’s where I had breakfast this morning, my third visit. I ate a breakfast and a dinner here the last time my number came up for the foreign services tour of duty in Los Angeles. I can find no fault with the sign’s reasoning or the conclusion. Breakfast consisted of a bacon-crusted, maple-glazed homemade doughnut and hot black coffee. After my first full night of uninterrupted sleep and no unwelcome monsters lurking for me in the Dark Woods of Email that doughnut was a welcome — and delicious — respite.

I’m back in Los Angeles for another week. I won’t go into a lot of whinging about how the work part of the trip is going other than to say that the workload has significantly cut into my exploration time. At least so far.

Last night was relaxing despite the sports outcome. I broke out of the office at a reasonable hour and made my way to Big Wangs at Grand and 8th to watch Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Down 4-1 entering the third period, the Blackhawks mounted a valiant surge to pull within one goal with four minutes left. A Flyer empty-netter in the final 30 seconds sealed the deal for Philadelphia. The series is now tied at two each. I was the only Blackhawks fan in the bar. The Lakers won the first game of the NBA finals Thursday and I haven’t gotten the impression that most Angelenos have much interest in this year’s Stanley Cup. I walked in wearing my Brent Seabrook sweater and asked where they were going to show the game. The staff — some sporting Flyers t-shirts — were quite accommodating and turned on two 60″ HDTVs for the pregame. By the time the puck dropped I was surrounded by eight 60″ HDTVs and two giant HD projection screens all playing the game. Aside from the aforementioned Flyer-friendly staff, there were about a dozen Flyers fans watching the game, too. I struck up a congenial conversation with their ringleader. He turned out to be a comedian from south Jersey who’d moved to LA about six years ago after another five-year stint in Las Vegas. It’s true. You can look it up.

Wednesday night I resorted to old school measures to follow the game. Well, high-tech old school. I was stuck at work at the Times with no access to a TV (let alone a TV with Versus). So I streamed the trusty WGN-AM radio broadcast to my computer and listened that way. But despite my throwback to old time hockey appreciation, the Blackhawks fell to the Flyers in overtime: 4-3.

But to close on an upbeat note, Whirl informed me that one of my photographs of the 2009 Dragon Boat Races in Ping Tom Park was finally published in the guide in this week’s edition of Time Out Chicago. I even got paid real folding money for it. Given the number of photography and movie shoots I’ve been seeing on the streets of Los Angeles at night this week that little bit of success has got me thinking. Maybe it’s not too late to be a star!

Categories Photography, Travel

Omakase

By Sean

29. March 2010 //

The word I was looking for last night was omakase. I walked into the sushi bar and tried to express my desire to have the chef pick what he thought I might like and I failed. I don’t know if it was language, or nerves or something else. In the end I ended up ordering à la carte. And while I was not disappointed, I felt like I had missed something essential in my sushi experience. This is not to say that last night’s dinner was poor by any stretch. I just really wanted to try something new. I flubbed it for not knowing how to ask for what I wanted. I wanted omakase.

Tonight I corrected that mistake. After conferring with my child bride back home on the previous evening’s adventure in eating, she suggested that I find another restaurant and try again. So I gave myself a mulligan. Tonight I chose Sushi-Gen just a couple blocks away from my hotel in Little Tokyo. The experience was unforgettable.

I joke that I’m an adventurous eater: I will try anything. Once. — The key is that last word once. If I’ve tried something and not liked it, I make no promises to retry it. But I do like to try new things. I’ve discovered all kinds of fascinating foods through this attitude, sushi among them. Often when I try new sushi it is on the recommendation of someone with whom I’m eating. Or I’m part of a big party and I can pick and choose from a huge variety of offerings. In the first case, I have a relationship with the other person. He knows me at least a little bit and has some idea of what I might like or dislike. In the second case, there is so much food that has been ordered that I’m making the decisions for myself in much the same way I would have had I just ordered from the menu. Eating omakase is a different experience. Eating omakase alone in a city a couple thousand miles from home is even moreso. — Or at least it was for me.

It was just the chef and me. He would prepare something, serve it and wait for a reaction. I would give some sort of response — often an expression of disbelief at just how good the last item was. And then he would go on to something even more surprising. It was an ongoing dialogue about food, even though we didn’t speak very much to one another. I was far too busy eating to be bothered with the niceties of smalltalk. His food was absolutely delicious.

As we progressed through the evening, we started talking a bit more about other things. He asked where I was from and what I was doing in Los Angeles. I told him about my work at The Times and that led to the inevitable discussions about corporate solvency and the demise of the newspaper. I learned that he had been a sushi chef for thirty years. He introduced me to the owner. We talked about my sushi experience in Chicago and he gracefully contrasted the traditional preparations made at Sushi-Gen to the types of dishes found elsewhere. I attempted to compliment him on the elegance of what he had put together and described it as “simple”. He shook his head and corrected me with a single word: traditional. I finally understood.

For those of you who are interested in such things here is a list my chef prepared for me: Muzuku with Nagaimo (Cold Seaweed Soup with Mountain Yam), Toro (Fatty Tuna), Buri Toro (Yellowtail Belly), Kanpachi (Amberjack), Uni (Sea Urchin), Aji (Horse Mackerel), Ama Ebi (Sweet Shrimp with Head), Tai (Red Snapper), Ohyo (Pacific Halibut), Maguro (Bluefin Tuna), Hamachi (Yellowtail), Spicy Tuna Roll.

Omakase. Entrust.

Categories Travel

Off In Lalaland

By Sean

28. March 2010 //

I’m four days into my week-long foreign exchange program to Lalaland. Work has sent me to Los Angeles to learn the facilities of The Times and assist with operational support here. While the primary focus of the trip has been work, I have had some opportunities to explore, and that’s always something I enjoy doing. I have been to LA once before in my life. When I was in fifth grade my family took a week long road trip from Colorado out to California for Spring Break. We visited Universal Studios, Disneyland, and Sea World. I was ten; my sister was nine.

So, almost thirty years later I’m wandering around Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles and trying to understand the signs I see in the Japanese mall. I was looking for a particular sushi bar. I got distracted by something shiny. In this case it was a video game arcade completely outfitted with Japanese games — most of which I’d never heard of before. The arcade was from another time and place, sandwiched between a Japanese version of GNC called “SUPER HEALTH” and “Max Karaoke”.

If you’re curious, I did finally find Sushi Go 55 — the place I was looking for — bellied up to the bar and enjoyed some of the best sushi I have ever had. This little shop, tucked away and out of sight rivaled any sushi I have had from Chicago, to San Francisco to Vancouver. This place was delicious. Small, quiet, unpretentious. Just great fish, perfectly prepared.

And it was not the first delicious place I have discovered since being here. A few other notable meals include:

Nickel Diner: I ran across this place while exploring the historic downtown area of Los Angeles. A number of warehouses, commercial spaces and office buildings being converted to upscale lofts in the past five years or so in an attempt to revitalize this historic area of the city. The process has met with mixed success. The bottom falling out of the real estate market has made things challenging and a number of these loft conversions are now being sold at auction. But scattered in and among this developing (or redeveloping) area are a number of galleries, bookstores, bars, clubs and restraunts. I went in for dinner two nights ago and went back for breakfast today.

Spitz: Another chance discovery, this one on Thursday night. Spitz serves Turkish Döner kebabs — an old favorite of mine, first discovered as a cheap, delicious meal perfect for penniless students, during my time in Berlin. This happening joint was a nice tribute to what I remembered.

Fisherman’s Outlet: My coworkers took me here for lunch on Friday. That was probably not our most carefully thought-out ideas, given that it was a Friday during lent and Fisherman’s Outlet draws a large Catholic audience. The place was hopping! Giant plates of fresh fried fish, french fries, crab cakes and all sorts of other things that ooze “I’m not healthy for you, but I’m damned delicious.”

My last recommendation is not someplace where I’ve gone to eat — although they do serve food. The Edison strikes me as a cocktail lounge. The main attraction of The Edison to me is the ambiance. The Edison retains many of the architectural and mechanical artifacts from its history as Los Angeles’ first private power plant. The place is dark; the primary visible lighting are these intense fixtures of large incandescent filament bulbs. Combine that with remixed period music and the pervasive projection of artistically colorized, obscure black and white films and you have a post-modern art deco wonder world.

Yesterday I met up with one of my friends, Vern, whom I have not seen since the summer after we graduated high school. He’s been living in Los Angeles for the past fourteen years and took me around some of the sites of the city I hadn’t been able to reach on foot — and then out to Redondo Beach where he lives. We had some lunch and beer and took in a couple of the NCAA basketball games before he brought me back downtown. We caught up with what each other has been doing, although I admit it is difficult to summarize twenty years of life into an afternoon. I take my hat off to all the storytellers working in this town. And speaking of storytellers, on the way back Vern drove me through Bel Air, Beverley Hills and down the Sunset Strip, where I got to a chance to see a little bit of place wihere the magic happens.

I’ve been fortunate that the Times downtown office is only two blocks away from the Walt Disney Concert Hall designed by Frank Gehry. I’ve wanted to see the Hall since learning of it, and I’ve gotten a chance to tour the outside of it and take some photographs. Last night was particularly interesting, as a very light fog and a bright gibbous moon combined to give me an intriguing secondary element with which to to work.

While I was walking around I came across a professional photo shoot out on one of the quiet downtown streets. They had — what looked like to me — an ambitious set up: a huge carbon graphite arm hooked under the car they were shooting served as the mount for a medium-format camera. There were lights and gels and a water truck to spray the asphalt for that proper glow. To take the shots they used long exposures while the primary technician slowly pulled the car down the street. With the camera physically attached to the car and a long exposure they were able to provide a controlled sense of motion blur behind the car and generate a compelling sense of movement. The raw photographs were dumped immediately to an editor’s workstation for retouching. I chatted with one of the grips assisting with the process for a few minutes. He was a film student and this was his first professional shoot as well.

I’m here for another three days before heading back to Chicago on Wednesday. We’ll see how these last few episodes unfold.

Categories Photography, Travel

Persistence of Dreams

By Sean

3. February 2010 //

Five years have gone by since my brain injury. Five years. I’m more than a little amazed it has been that long. I mean, I know it has been that long, and I know I’ve been talking about it for the entire time. This journal is proof of that, if nothing else. The earliest entries chronicle the first few weeks and months after my emergence from the coma. I’ve tended to return to thinking about that injury around its anniversary. I don’t think that’s terribly unusual. I take stock of where I am today and try and compare to how I was feeling five years ago. And then there are the flights of fancy where I imagine some alternate timeline in which the injury never took place. I try to draw comparisons and form conclusions across that divide. As you might imagine, it doesn’t work out very well. My time traveling skills are fairly restricted. Fortunately that restriction keeps me more-or-less safe from paradox.

For the past five years my friends and I have traveled to Las Vegas on the anniversary of my injury. We drink. We gamble. We eat too much. We stay up too late. Generally we leave our responsibilities at home and enjoy the moment. This year was no different in that respect. We did have a smaller group out of Chicago than in years past: T., Smokes, Stingo, Sabz, Bitsy, Whirl and I were joined by some special guests. Frank and Shane joined us from the City of Angels. Whirl’s cousin, Ani, was coincidentally in Las Vegas organizing a conference at the Mirage for her company. And Bitsy’s friend, Jeanine, who lives in Las Vegas, came down to the Strip to hang out with us for at least some of the time.

As for gambling, I scratched that itch with some healthy doses of pai gow poker, craps and limit hold ‘em. The highlight of my gambling this trip was the five hour session at the Bellagio playing low stakes pai gow. The fact that at the end of the marathon I walked away from the table up nearly double what I wagered is just gravy. What made this such a fun experience were our two dealers, Reza and Jeff. Whirl, Smokes, T., Sabz and I commandeered a five seat pai gow bonus table. Normally pai gow poker seats six. This version we found at the Bellagio featured a community dragon hand played the house way, limiting the number of actual players to five maximum. Anyone playing could decide to bet on the communal dragon hand as well. This differs from how the dragon hand is offered and played normally. In a more typical version of pai gow the dragon hand is only offered when there is an empty seat at the table and the dragon hand is played with a rotating right of first refusal. The dealer offers the hand sequentially around the table. If you want to play it, you match your original bet and set the second hand any way you desire within the restrictions of the game. At our table, with a maximum of five players the dragon hand was always available. You just had to bet. And everyone that bet, was betting on the same hand against the house. It was a nice twist.

I enjoy pai gow because it is such a social game. It plays slowly with a lot of pushes where neither the player nor the dealer win the hand. And players can help each other with strategy and advise on how to play. The actions of one player have no effect on the actions of other players. (This is true of many table games, but there are far too many perceptions and superstitions surrounding games like blackjack to act otherwise.) In pai gow you cannot “steal someone else’s ace”, for example. Whether this actually changes the probabilities or not is irrelevant. Perception and superstition are king and queen in gambling.

So. The five of us belly up to the table at the Bellagio and proceed to play and play and play. The afternoon starts slow, and we strike up a congenial conversation with our dealers. Over the course of the next five hours they would teach us strategies to pai gow, how to play banker and let us in on some of their collected stories in Las Vegas. Reza has been a dealer with MGM Mirage for twenty-two years. He’s dealt at the Golden Nugget, the Mirage and the Bellagio among others. Each time Steve Wynn would open a new casino, Reza would move to the new flagship. He amazed us with his ability to read seven card hands displayed for mere fractions of a second. MGM Mirage often deployed him to deal with high maintenance players. He would deal for 40 minute stretches and then take a 20 minute break. His relief was a phlegmatic dealer named Jeff. Jeff was the dealer who instructed Whirl and Smokes on the rewards and pitfalls of playing banker in pai gow and offered particular advice on just when to split pairs.

The two of them had plenty of stories of their experiences working as dealers at the Bellagio and elsewhere. They were always discreet, never compromising the identities of their customers or relating events that were particularly incriminating. Two of the most memorable stories concerned the particular characteristics of high rollers. One story detailed how the Bellagio appeased a particular baccarat player. The unnamed high roller could not suffer the clicking noise emitted when cards were pulled from the shoe. The Bellagio staff constructed a special shoe that did not click, and keeps it in storage just for this player. Another story was from some years ago at an unnamed casino when the largest chips on the floor were valued at $20000. A high roller was playing blackjack at $120000 a hand and had animatedly (and inadvertently) spilled the tray belonging to one of the cocktail waitresses. Drinks go everywhere. It’s a mess. The player brusquely asked the waitress what her mortgage was. She responded with the monthly payment value and was rejoined with: “No. That’s not what I asked. How much is your mortgage.” She thought for a moment and then told him it was $93000. The player immediately grabbed a stack of five of these $20000 chips and tips the waitress. This caused an uproar in the casino. The casino demanded that all markers be paid before tips were paid out. The casino refused to cash the waitress’ chips. The amount of money this player had dropped at the casino over the years was astronomical and eventually the casino saw reason and reached a passable resolution. The waitress ended up having to pay taxes on the tip, but she kept the money. The casino kept the player.

The recurring theme with these stories was that Las Vegas holds a magnifying glass to the the personalities that come there. People do not fundamentally change when they visit; instead the become that much more of who they are already. Kind people grow kinder; meanness becomes moreso. I appreciate this observation more and more as I think on it.

I coached Sabz and T. at craps, one of my other favorite games. Craps is the polar opposite of pai gow. Fast-paced, hectic action. Highly volatile, craps runs on streaks. I’m still not sure what that says about me that I count the slow-paced leisurely game of pai gow and the frenetic chaos of craps as two of my favorites.

The third game I played for any significant length of time was Texas Hold ‘em poker. I played in one tournament, and spent the rest of my time playing cash games. This year I avoided no-limit hold ‘em and opted for the limit tables as a change of pace. I did well. Not “big money” well, but well enough that I could pay for dinner and a show with my winnings. A couple of notable moments came while playing at the Flamingo. Smokes and Whirl were playing on the table next to me. Smokes has a singular laugh. For those of us who know him, it’s a beacon. We can always find him anywhere in the casino. It cuts through the noise of the slot machines, the cheers of the craps tables and the clatter of the roulette wheel. My poker table noticed it as well. I explained to them that it belonged to my friend and when Smokes came over to talk to me later, I introduced him to his fan club. Smokes has a way of making friends wherever he goes. That’s one of the things I love about him.

The other poker story reminded me that there’s always someone playing an angle, even among the low-rollers like me. I’d been playing limit hold ‘em for a few hours, mostly unsuccessfully. My head was still above water, but I wasn’t making much headway and was starting to consider going and doing something else. Getting schooled on the improper use of the term “set” for what is accurately described as “trips” hadn’t helped my self-esteem and likely had gotten my thoughts of departure started. A woman sat down and flashed her platinum players club card to the dealer. He read her name and keyed her into the table. As the dealer handed the players club card back, he asked if she was Vietnamese. She said she was and asked the dealer how he knew. He stated her last name, pronouncing it correctly: Nguyen. The player feigned shock. Shock at two things: one, the dealer had pronounced her name correctly; and two, that he had drawn the conclusion that it was a Vietnamese name. At this point our dealer, Rock, pointed out that Scotty Nguyen is one of the best-known professional poker players currently active: a five-time WSOP bracelet winner, including the 1998 main event. Scott Nguyen is also from Vietnam. While Ms. Ngyuen sat there shuffling stacks of 8-10 chips simultaneously in each hand and claiming complete ignorance, I quietly packed up and headed for places east. Of course she’d never heard of Scotty Nguyen. That’s just absurd. — Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

In years past our group has consisted of a number of friends who enjoy buffets. We’ve been to several of the top buffets in Las Vegas. But after a while, I have to admit that all buffets start to blend together and none of them leave me particularly satisfied. This year the vocal buffet-goers were unable to join us, and we set out on a new direction with food. Whirl enjoys breakfast and did some research on some of the best breakfasts in Las Vegas. She found it. One of the most incredible breakfast experiences I’ve ever had was the chicken and waffles at Hash House a Go-Go at Imperial Palace. Sage fried chicken stacked with bacon waffles, hot maple caramel reduction and crowned with fried leeks. Truly a breakfast of champions.

One of my other fascinations with Las Vegas — besides food and gambling — is how it continues to reinvent itself architecturally. In December 2009, several key elements of the huge CityCenter development officially opened. We were able to visit the Aria casino and the Crystals entertainment and retail complex. I attempted to photograph some of this development from various perspectives. I’m uncertain of my success. The project is immense, the largest privately funded construction project in the United States, costing over $11B. While touring the spaces and dodging a Porsche 997 GT3 and a Ferarri F430, I happened into the Dale Chihuly Gallery at Aria. Whirl reminded me several times this trip about how much I appreciate Dale Chihuly’s art. He is one of my favorite artists. He had pieces at the Museum of Science and Industry a few years ago as part of “The Glass Experience”. The 1997 documentary Inspirations takes a in-depth look at his particular creative process.

Like our experience at the Bellagio, the gallery was empty. I had the place to myself, having arrived just a couple hours before closing. I made the faux pas of asking the curator of the gallery, “Do you mind if I shoot?” “Shoot?” he repeated back to me skeptically, throwing a glance to the glass sculpture that surrounded us. “Yeah. Shoot,” I start, then pause and turn crimson. “With my camera,” I attempt to explain hastily, punctuating with very nervous laughter. Earlier in the evening, I’d been asked to move along by security in The Crystals while trying to shoot the Grand Staircase. The gallery curator was much more congenial and finally let me off the hook with a well-intended caution to consider a less alarming verb when talking about photography around glass. I couldn’t help but remember Sean Connery’s line in Hunting for Red October: “Most things in here do not react well to bullets.”

I stayed in the Chihuly gallery until closing. I spoke at length with the curators about the pieces — all of which are also for sale, if you’re interested. We also talked about “Fiori di Como” the 2000-piece installation that forms the ceiling of the Bellagio lobby. I learned that the glass weighs over 40000 pounds, with an additional 10000 pounds of steel armature to support it. It continues to amaze me how Las Vegas can make this sort of fantastic artwork available to be experienced. The next day I had a similar experience as I spent a few minutes talking to Jennifer, the curator of the Richard MacDonald gallery at the Bellagio. MacDonald’s sculpture is inspired by the human form and the broad range of human emotion. MacDonald had been commissioned by Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté to create several pieces inspired by the circus. I did not have my camera with me at the time, however some of the exhibit is available online.

As a cap to the trip, Whirl and I took in the Cirque du Soleil show Mystère at Treasure Island. I have seen several shows over the past years and this one was quite impressive. We both had a great time taking in some breathtaking performances.

So now I head back to the real world, refreshed, relaxed and inspired. After five years of hard-fought reflection, I suspect that’s exactly as it should be.

Tags Brain Injury

Categories Photography, Travel

Berkeley Trip 2009

By Sean

7. November 2009 //

Vacation this fall consisted of a trip to northern California. Many of Whirl‘s family members live in the area. We stayed in Oakland with Whirl‘s cousin, Ani. Nancy and Ray drove from southwestern Colorado to spend the week, staying with Nancy‘s sister Cynthia in Berkeley. Aside from getting together with family — something that does not happen as often as it once did for either Whirl or me — the trip’s other objective was the retrieval of Whirl’s possessions left behind when she moved to Chicago almost fifteen years ago. When Whirl moved to Chicago she packed up everything she could into a few big suitcases and we boarded a plane. Everything else ended up in a storage shed outside Santa Rosa. Where it waited, patiently, for us to return someday and move it with us. This was the mid-90s. Now it’s almost 2010, and we still haven’t retrieved it.

So, with the storage facility prices growing regularly, the service level declining by equal measure, and the value of the items in the shed potentially diminishing due to pest infestation, flooding, theft or any number of other variables we decided to finally clean out the storage shed, rid ourselves of a regular bill and finally bring those things of value back to Chicago. It is our home after all.

Opening the shed was something like opening a time capsule. Books, collectibles, clothes from the 80s — including a whole wardrobe of bridesmaid dresses Whirl wore for nearly a dozen weddings throughout the late 80s and early 90s. In short order, Nancy, Ray, Whirl, Cynthia and I separated items we wished to keep from those we could do without. The former we packed up and shipped to Chicago. The latter we threw in the back of Ani’s pickup truck and drove to the Santa Rosa Goodwill.

The trip included a lot of games, laughter and visits. Besides the trip to Santa Rosa, we headed across the rickety Bay Bridge into San Francisco for the day to visit the de Young Museum and the Academy of Sciences.

We took a couple cameras to document the opening of the storage shed, and I got some portraits of the family and our trip into San Francisco.

In the end we shipped sixteen fifty-pound boxes back to Chicago, almost entirely full of books — including some rare first editions — and thousands of comic books. The post office worker was bemusedly surprised when we showed up with the shipment. The packages will take up to two weeks to make it across the country, but after fifteen years, another two weeks isn’t really significant. Making our house more of a home is.

Categories Family, Travel

Anniversary at Starved Rock

By Sean

3. August 2009 //

This past weekend Whirl and I celebrated our eleventh anniversary at Starved Rock State Park outside Utica, Illinois. I have been to Starved Rock several times but I had not been back to the park since college and I don’t recall ever spending the night there. We stayed in the historic lodge (a lodge that is currently celebrating its 70th anniversary) and spent much of our time on the park trails exploring. We took the opportunity to haul a bunch of our photography gear with us and I am quite pleased with the results of having done so. (Even if my back is a little annoyed with me for asking it to lug that stuff up and down the canyons).

We had mostly great weather — comfortable temperatures and lots of sun — for most of our stay. Saturday afternoon was rainy and we stayed indoors after a leisurely morning exploration of Illinois Canyon at the far east end of the park. The rest of the time we tromped around the trails unencumbered by computers or cell phones or other people. It was a great opportunity for us to just spend time with each other doing something we both enjoy. And doing it together.

The Lodge was bustling with activity. At least three weddings, and two major family reunions happened while we were there. One of the women working the front desk remarked that they were booked solid through the end of September and had been steadily busy most of the summer.

As far as wildlife, we were far too late to see the famous Bald Eagles that winter above the Lock and Dam on the Illinois River. But we did see plenty of other animals. Dozens of Great Blue Herons, scores of Double-crested Cormorants, rough-winged swallows, chipping sparrows, wild turkeys, an Egret, deer (complete with a spotted yearling fawn), blue birds, Indigo Buntings, blue-gray gnatcatchers, and what we’re pretty sure was a muskrat swimming along the riverbank. Perhaps the most surprising sighting for me were these huge pods of American White Pelicans traveling west down the Illinois River. On Sunday we perched on Eagle Overlook above the Lock and Dam and watched as pod after pod flew by in formation. Most of the groupings were ten to twenty birds in size, with the largest grouping number well over fifty birds. Over the course of a couple hours we must have seen two hundred pelicans flying west along the river. Spiders, dragonflies and damselflies were out in force feeding on mosquitoes. The spiders provided particularly intriguing opportunities for macro photography.

If you’ve never been to Starved Rock State Park, I highly recommend visiting. It is a wonderful little oasis in the middle of the state.

Categories Family, Photography, Travel

Washington DC Trip

By Sean

11. June 2009 //

This past week work sent me on a trip to Washington DC. I went to assist with the relocation of the news bureau and to there and to perform some network changes on Capitol Hill. I have not been back to Washington DC since I was a very small child. When I say very small, I mean two years old. My parents have pictures and stories of me visiting the various sights around the city. But my memories are much fuzzier. I think I remember it raining once. Maybe I was just crying. Who knows.

Anyway, so I flew into Dulles on Sunday night and met up with Jim at Union Station Monday morning. I went early to take a few pictures. I wasn’t sure how much time, if any, I was going to have to do anything remotely touristy, so I just packed a little camera for some snapshots. I must say Washington DC’s Union Station trumps Chicago’s Union Station by quite a margin. It’s an impressive piece of architecture and serves as a hub for by Amtrak, MARC and VRE commuter railroads, and the Washington Metro transit system. Chicago’s own architect Daniel Burnham designed the station in the Beaux-Arts style. It opened in 1908.

From there we hiked over to Capitol Hill and obtained visitor credentials for me. I gained access to the Senate Press Gallery workspace and telecommunications attic above. While we waited for the Senate IT personnel to arrive and escort us up to our equipment, Jim gave me a quick tour of the Capitol. Jim showed me the rotunda, Statuary Hall and the Old Supreme Court Chambers before we met up with the Senate technician. Our equipment is mounted in the attic above the press galleries. To get there we had to walk up a very narrow brick spiral staircase past the “Wall of Shame”. The righthand wall of the staircase is littered with grafitti of names and dates. In my quick trip by the oldest dates I saw were from 1936. Jim informed me later that the wall is named the way it is as you do not want to get caught writing on it: so of course lots of people try.

We spent the rest of the day working on the logistics of the office move. Tuesday and Wednesday were much the same, moving back and forth between the old and the new offices and working out details. I had some specific technical things I needed to accomplish to get the network up and running in the new space. That went well and then I assisted Jim with the myriad little details that go into moving an office of this size and complexity. Long, hot days, with not much in the way of sightseeing breaks. We did take a few minutes to go up onto the roof of the old bureau and look out over the city Tuesday afternoon.

Washington has height restrictions on the buildings. There are no skyscrapers. Nothing can obstruct the view of the Capitol. The result is that there aren’t any buildings much over 10 stories. That gives the city a distinctive feel. A park can effectively wipe out the feeling that you’re in the middle of a city as the trees block the view of all the buildings. Nothing rises above them.

I had some delicious crabcakes — the signature DC dish. I drank a beer at the Post Pub across the street from the Washington Post. And I came to the conclusion that no one is actually from Washington DC. Everyone there is actually from somewhere else, often another continent.

All in all, it was a good trip. Hot and humid, couple of thunderstorms, lots of work. I got to see several of the people I worked with last summer during the political conventions and I got a brief glimpse of the nation’s capitol after thirty-plus years of being away.

Categories Media, Travel

Asterix and Obelix and Traumatic Brain Injury

Preposterous Las Vegas

Dedicated Follower of Fashion

This Is the Place

Omakase

Off In Lalaland

Persistence of Dreams

Berkeley Trip 2009

Anniversary at Starved Rock

Washington DC Trip

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