Saket Vora

I picked up a book at the Air & Space Museum last Sunday called Two Sides of the Moon: Our Story of the Cold War Space Race, by Dave Scott and Alexei Leonov.

This attracted me because I had never done much reading about the Soviet space program and my opinion of Dave Scott as an astronaut has grown since From the Earth to the Moon was released. Scott flew on Gemini 8, Apollo 9, and Apollo 15. He was the 7th man to step foot on the moon and their mission on the moon was the first to include the Lunar Rover. Alexei Leonov was the first man to perform a space walk, rose to be one of the most highly respected and brilliant cosmonauts in the Soviet Union, and later commanded the Soviet side of the Apollo-Soyuz joint mission, where an American crew and Russian crew met each other in space for the first time.

As some of you may know, I’m an unabashed spaceflight nut with a keen interest in early American spaceflight. For years my walls have been covered with photos from the moon missions. During middle school, I must have read a dozen books on the subject, so it felt good to get back into this subject.

Scott and Leonov alternate telling their respective stories, keeping in step with each other on a common timeline. They begin with their remarkably different childhoods and upbringings. Scott always had wanted to follow his father’s footsteps and be a pilot. His father was in the Air Force and moved around some. Leonov dreamed of being an artist, but was enchanted with being a pilot when a Soviet pilot visited his apartment complex when he was young. Ultimately, when the top art school in Moscow proved too costly to attend, he enrolled into the top pilot academy instead. Leonov is frank about the stark difference that growing up in the Communist Soviet Union entailed. When he was a child his father was labeled an ‘enemy of the state’ and his large family lost everything except the clothes on their back. They joined his uncle and eleven people shared a single room apartment for 2 years, with Leonov sleeping on the floor under a bed. He barely had shoes to wear in the frigid Russian winters.

As the book rogresses into their early piloting years, the reader begins to see the many similarities they shared. Leonov was part of the first group of Russians to be selected for cosmonaut training, and his perspective of the Soviet space program and the lives of the other astronauts are illuminating. Here, and in later parts of the book, I particularly enjoyed seeing how different the cosmonaut training and daily lives were compared to the American astronauts. Leonov was amazed at how the Americans ate whatever and whenever they wanted, and how they had no regular physical training. The cosmonauts, on the other hand, were under a strict diet and intensive physical regime. The quality of living between the two astronaut corps was interesting as well.

A strength of Two Sides of the Moon is that the feelings, thoughts, and opinions of Scott and Leonov come across as honest and immediate. We see them when the Soviets score a new achievement, and when America takes the lead. In the second half, David Scott’s sections are longer and more detailed, understandly so because of his Apollo 9 and Apollo 15 experiences, both extremely difficult and challenging missions. Leonov describes how the untimely death of Sergei Pavelovich Korolev, the brilliant engineer and ‘Chief Architect’ of the Soviet space program, was a fatal blow to their momentum. Poor decisions and ineffective management spelled doom for Russian’s shoot to the moon.

The book also describes the times that the Americans and Soviets met each other, at conferences or joint meetings. Their interactions were fun to read, because of the mutual respect they had for each other and the humorous encounters with the other’s cultures. The Americans would sometimes not show up for breakfast or dinner, though the Russians had carefully planned every minute of the day. Nor did they care much for a late breakfast of raw sturgeon and vodka either. Leonov, on his first visit to America, was amazed at how American could buy whatever they wanted wherever they wanted. The American astronauts had far more freedoms than their Soviet counterparts.

Two Sides of the Moon is an engaging and informative read and I highly recommend it those interested in this subject. For those looking for an introductory look into the Apollo space program, I recommend Andrew Chaiken’s A Man on the Moon

I spent the whole day Saturday getting a new photo gallery system for this website up and running, and I’ve very pleased with the results. All my pictures from Europe, my summer, and even my family’s pictures can now be viewed here: http://www.saketvora.com/gallery

As I was configuring the program, a wonderful open-source project called Gallery2, I discovered that someone had written a Google Maps plug-in for the photo gallery. This is something I have been wanting to do for over a year, and now it is finally implemented!

Click on the preview below to check out the travel map with photo album links.

Soon I hope to replace the travel’s section of this website with an embedded map like this, but we’ll see.

This evening I went with Ross and Dan to the rec center and we played basketball for over 2.5 horus. It was a lot of fun. My shot was on and off throughout the night, and I gotta learn how to play more physical and stuff, but I was able to swish a game-winning shot from behind the three-point line. That felt good. :)

This entire week the four of us (me, Kristy, Michelle, and Konstantin) have been taking measurements of our amplifiers with a VNA — which stands for Vector Network Analyzer. This device basically sends a given amount of power into the input of the amplifier and measures the power coming out of the device. It more complicated than that, but that is the general idea. The test procedure requires one to be fairly meticulous and patient, and new problems arose every time we tried taking measurements. From bad calibrations to a thunderstorm that reset all the instruments, from buggy computer programs to incorrect formulas, we’ve learned a lot this week. Things are definitely picking up for us, because we have only about 3 weeks left perform the experiments before we enter into full-time data analysis and paper/presentation writing mode. I’ve been leaving the lab lately at past 7pm.

We played Ultimate Frisbee on Wednesday, which felt good except for the heat and humidity. I missed some easy catches, but overall it was good. Konstantin was jackknifed by Amanda, which was a sight to see. There is a MERIT/TREND Basketball tournament in the works as well, so I need to start practicing my shot again.

I spent a few hours in the library on Tuesday looking through graduate school rankings. I want to devote a few hours each week to looking into graduate schools and getting ready to apply for national scholarships and fellowships.

I was planning on heading into Washington, D.C. tomorrow but it looks to be raining the whole weekend. Tomorrow morning at 11 a.m. is the Germany vs. Sweden match, so I’ll watch that. Go Sweden!

CAROLINA HURRICANES

Those who know me are aware of my interest in the mixing of religion and politics. I am also quite fond of the history surrounding the founding of this country; in particular the Founding Fathers. As geeky as it sounds, I have spent many hours reading, pondering, and discussing their remarkable and inspiring accomplishment. The recent surge of political and social activism by the evangelical Christian movement, particularly in the area of science education, revealed that the basis of their stance is that America was founded as a ‘Christian’ nation. This notion contrasted to my previous understanding of the who the Founding Fathers were, so I decided to go further investigate their claim.

I recently completed two works on the subject; The American Gospel by Jon Meacham and Faiths of the Founding Fathers, by David Holmes. American Gospel is a recent work and primarily discusses the influence of religion in the way the Founders went about creating a new nation. The concept of a ‘public religion’ is central to how the Founders addressed the issue of religion. It is important to understand that though all the men were raised in families that belonged to Christian churches, the Founders were not typical ‘Christians’ as a Christian is understood today. The teaches of the Enlightenment and the religion philosophy of Deism was very much in vogue and key figures such as Jefferson, Madison, Washington, Franklin, and later Monroe followed Deistic traditions which placed the highest importance in the use of reason and rational thought. Thus, they were skeptical in the divinity of Christ, the notion of the Trinity, and rejected many of the elaborate rituals that permeated the churches. Jefferson went so far as to take scissors and a razor to his Bible and remove all supernatural or divine references to Christ. The Founders, many of whom were involved in Masonic society, believed in a more general ‘God of Nature’, and referred to this entity as the Creator, Divine Architect, Supreme Being, etc. They believed that this God was the source of fundamental human rights and freedoms and that freedom from tyranny of all sorts was worth fighting for. They valued and respected religion (except Tom Paine, the author of Common Sense and The Age of Reason), for its role in providing people a framework of morals and lessons to lead good lives; many considered the teachings of Christ to be perhaps the best of these moral frameworks. The Founders believed strongly in good works being more important than just pure faith in a savior.

American Gospel points to several instances early in the life of our country that weakens the notion that America was founded as a Christian nation. These are particularly intriguing because of their proximity to the Founding Fathers and the direct legacy of their thoughts and opinions. After discussing the founding of the nation, Meacham moves on to role that ‘public religion’ played at several key points in the history of the United States, with an eye towards the 20th century such as civil rights movement, the Cold War, and the rise of the evangelical Christian movement. The ‘under God’ part of the Pledge of Allegiance and the the ‘In God We Trust’ phrase found on our currency was introduced after World War II by a Congress eager to counter the ‘godless’ Communists. Meacham’s treatment of these eras are not as satisfying as the Founding, and this is the main weakness of this work. However, a comprehensive set of primary sources are included in an appendix so readers can examine the letters, speeches, and texts written by the Founders for themselves.

Faiths of the Founding Fathers by David Holmes immediately establishes itself as a more scholarly work than Meacham’s more contemporary fare. The language, writing style, and historical overview set the tone early on with a detailed look at the various churches and religion groups that were scattered around the original Colonies. Holmes guides the reader as if he was giving a tour of colonial America. Several pages are devoted to explaining the Anglican traditions in America and one of the most in-depth treatments of Deism I’ve ever seen in a book. As the title suggests, Holmes focuses entirely on the religious faiths of six principle founding figures: Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe. Holmes carefully describes the religious upbringing of each figure, the nature and extent of their church attendance (and painstaking noting which particular churches they attended), as well as key religious opinions or writings they made. Logically, Holmes uses the actual actions and works of the Founders to judge their religion opinions and not merely the associations they kept on paper or in public. Holmes also examines the religion traditions and participating of the Founder’s wives and families for further clues to the faiths of the Founding Fathers. Holmes ultimately concludes that none of the Founding Fathers, save for John Adams (later in life) and John Jay would be considered an orthodox Christian. Towards the end of the book Holmes go on to profile modern presidents such as Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II.

These books reject the notion that America was founded as a ‘Christian’ nation with an emphasis on perserving solely Christian values and perspectives. Evangelical Christians should look to other sources of justification than conscript the Founding Fathers to their cause.

Things are picking up at the lab. There will be four traveling wave tubes being used between the four us (one for Konstantin and I, one for Kristy, and two for Michelle). Each of us will have to start taking lots of measurements on each of them, and we’ll get started with that today but especially next week.

Konstantin and I watched the last 30 minutes of the Saudi Arabia and Tunisia World Cup match. Exciting plays near the end, as a legendary Saudi Arabian soccer player who came out of retirement scored a go-ahead breakaway goal in the 84th minute but then Tunisia got a header in at the 93rd minute to tie.

After work we all went out to the fraternity court fields and played a great game of Ultimate frisbee. I was frustrated because my arms were still very sore (I couldn’t make a full extension without hurting) and thus I couldn’t throw well or attack the frisbee. Some other guys from around Leonardtown joined us (so many different summer programs going on here!) including one club team player. It was a fun game, and I look forward to making it a regular weekly event.

The Hurricanes game was devastating….let’s hope we can finish this up on Saturday. Sigh.

Anyway, we’re about to leave for a field trip to NIST – the National Institute for Standards and Technology.

I’ve been procrastinating on getting a nice photo gallery system up and running on this site. My apologies for that. In the meantime, just wanted to alert you to three galleries I have up at the moment. Click the links to check them out.

University of Maryland-College Park Campus

Orioles Game at Camden Yards

Nationals Game at RFK Stadium

Last Friday went great – a truly fun-filled day. John had to skip our team meeting cause he was working on a presentation to the department, so Kristy, Michelle, Konstantin, and I filled each other in on what we were doing. We ended up attending his presentation (joined by Jeremy), which was certainly related to our project. Another faculty member did a presentation on her topic, which was studying injection effects of interference into multi-layer boards. She created a lot of really great MATLAB simulations and animations showing how interference injected into a board can ripple through the various layers. We left at 1pm to go to teh picnic, and arrived when it was already going on. They had a full University catered food table, and the quality was pretty good. I had a veggie burger while others chowed down on burgers and hot dogs. Much to our delight, they had frisbees there. We started throwing a frisbee around and soon got a crowd going for a game of Ultimate. John our professor even came by and was throwing the football around and playing Ultimate with us. He brought a soccer ball so after a short break we went out a played a game of soccer. It started winding down at around 4:30 or so we took Dan’s car back to the apartments. I realized en route I forgot my cell phone so I headed back to the grounds but it wasn’t there; no worries — someone brought it back to the apartments.

Matt mentioned a Nationals-Phillies game tonight that he and Mark (Who is from Philadelphia) were going to. I joined them and at around 6pm we walked over to the Metro station. Konstantin and Tal also came along. We were going to meet Mark’s high school buddy who is working this summer at the NRC in DC there. As we came out of the Metro at RFK, it was pouring down rain. We walked in the rain and Mark’s friend was waiting for us with the tickets at the stadium. They were just $7 each.

RFK isn’t as nice as Camden Yards, because it’s a temporary baseball stadium that used to be where the Redskins play. They had a tarp over the field and we had to wait over 1.5 hours until they finally got the game started. I joined Mark and his buddy in rooting for the Phillies while Matt, Konstantin, and Tal rooted for the Nationals. It was probably less than half-filled, probably due to the World Cup starting and the rain. I thought the Nationals Mascot, Screech the Eagle, was adorable.

He was incredibly fat for an eagle, and kept dancing around. There was also an Indian family there, with their grandmother in a sari. Bizarre. Some high school choir group sang the National Anthem and they ended up sitting directly in front of us. The Nationals broke out during the middle of the game but then the Phillies hammered them in the 8th to tie the game. The game went into extra innings, and it wasn’t until the bottom of the 12th when the Nationals finally scored. It was a really really close play too. Runners on 1st and 2nd, and a base hit to right field. The fielder got it and hurled it to the plate, but the runner was just half a second too fast and he made it safe.

I was already tired before heading to the baseball game, and we didn’t get back home until nearly 1pm or so. But nonetheless, it was a really fun time.

Today we had the two single rooms in the apartment fill up, and two unique additions they are. One is another Ross, from UMD-Baltimore County and the other is Michael from NC State. When he came in I swore I recognized him, and it wasn’t until we introduced each other that we realized that we had dinner once when I joined Greg and Ben for a crew-dinner at Fountain Dining hall. Michael was a coxswain for the NCSU Crew team for a while. Both are physics students doing a summer internship for the NASA Goddard Research Institute.

It’s a nice day outside and I bought a Frisbee, so I’m going to go break it in.

I heard about this extraordinary book earlier this spring from my friend Mike Lee, who told me about its interesting premise and the quality in which the material was presented. Over the course of the semester, I heard mention of it by more people and felt it would be a worthy book to tackle first this summer. After all, I had never taken an anthropology or history course in college, and the last time I studied biology was in the 9th grade of high school.

Guns, Germs, and Steel is written by Dr. Jared Diamond, professor of geography at UCLA. Dr. Diamond has had many years of field experience in Polynesia (New Guinea in particular) and elsewhere around the world. The book attempts to answer a strikingly fundamental question about ‘how things became the way they are’ (to borrow a theme from the excellent book Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn). How did it come to be that the people of Europe and Asia (Eurasia) to dominate the world so thoroughly in technology and economy? Why, despite being the birthplace of Homo sapiens, is so much of Africa devastatingly poor and unstable. How is it that the Spaniards and Englishmen who first arrived in the New World brandished fire-arms, steel armor and weaponry, while the natives they found still fought with spears and bows & arrows? It is such an intriguing question to ask and explore!

Some people before have attributed Eurasian’s dominance, particularly that of Europe, to such factors such as the mental or biological superiority of the Caucasian race or Judeo-Christian tradition. Dr. Diamond reaches farther back into human history and convincingly presents the case that environmental and geographical differences between the habitats of people around the world, already in place thousands or tens of thousands of years ago, instead explain ‘how things came to be’. This explanation may seem un-interesting on the surface, but the strength of Guns, Germs, and Steel is the lucid and powerful presentation of information that was often a great surprise to me. Also, Dr. Diamond writes with a very comfortable style; the book’s language features a good example of how presenting information need not be a dry and textbookish exercise.

The book first covers the basics of how and when the human species began spreading out of Africa and across the continents. The next main area concerns plant domestication and the resulting effects and consequences of domesticating plants. It is hear that many of the eye-opening facts begin to occur. One finds that the Fertile Crescent naturally featured an enormous variety of critical plants that were suitable for domestication while the other continents had poor native selections. Despite the amazing farm productivity of the American heartland, one realizes that all those successful plants were not domesticated in the US. With a dearth of suitable or worthwhile plants available for domestication, early human societies naturally sought hunter-gatherer lifestyles that better matched the environmental and geographical characteristics of their surroundings. Dr. Diamond also discusses what advances can be had once a sedentary lifestyle that produces an excess of food is reached (specialization of labor, cities, writing, etc.).

The book then goes on to discuss animal domestication. Once again, I was startled to learn about this. Diamond goes over what qualities make for a large animal suitable for domestication. Native to Eurasia were horses, goats, cows, and sheep. Despite the vivid images of Indian horsemen on the Great Plains, horses nor goats nor cows nor sheep existed natively in North America! In South America, the alpaca or llama was somewhat available, but none of the large common domesticated animals that Eurasia had. In Africa, despite its image as the big game continent, actually has a very poor selection of large animals that are suitable for domestication. Without these animals, early human populations could not utilize them as a source of power in tilling fields, operating machinery, or obtaining milk and other ingredients. Such animals were critical steps in helping to establish civilizations. In addition, nearly all the major human diseases have first cousins in the animal kingdom. As animal domestication began and humans went into more close contact with the animals, outbreaks of mutated diseases afflicted human populations but also resulted in immunities to them. Having been dealt an environmental hand sorely lacking in available animals for domestication, the peoples of other continents had less avenues to develop the kind of resistance and immunity to these diseases than the Europeans so thus the widepread dying of the Native American populations to disease.

For those interested in the historical development of gun and steel technology, do not be fooled by the book’s title; neither topic is explored with the except of a paragraph mentioning gunpowder’s origin in medieval China. Plants, Animals, and Germs might be a more suitable title. Regardless, Diamond goes on to explore a few more ways how geography has affected the course of human history. A particularly illuminating example is when he contrasts the human empires of China versus Europe. The geography of China allowed for easier conquest by a single group, so as a result what we consider modern China actually became unified in the 2nd century B.C. The European continent however, with its mountain ranges, lengthy coastline and several peninsulas, and rivers allowed for a variety of empires to form and reign over smaller geographical areas, thus the French, Spanish, Italian, English, Prussian, etc. empires that continously fought each other for control. While China’s early unification might have aided it in conquering adjacent lands, it was also a disadvantage. In Europe, the actions of a single emperor or society based upon short-term political, monetary, or social goals did little to prevent a new idea from being hatched at all. Diamond mentions the roll-out of electric lighting in England as an example. The gas companies in England at the time enjoyed their street lighting contracts. When the electric street lighting system was introduced as an alternative, they lobbied aggressively against it to protect their interests. Other European countries that lacked a powerful gas company lobby adopted electric street lighting. Once it was implemented, more and more societies across Europe started using it too and finally the climate in England became receptive to electric street lighting. One could replace ‘electric street lighting’ with a multitude of other ideas, innovations, and advances and the idea is equally valid. On the other hand, if the government of an enormous unified country decides on a course of action based on similar personal, financial, or political short-term factors, there are no nearby alternatives where that idea could prove itself. Diamond mentions an instance when an incumbent Chinese regime was associated with massive shipbuilding efforts was defeated by an opposition party. The opposition party, eager to show its differences with the incumbent, took an anti-shipbuilding stance, and once in power dismantled the shipyards. As a result, China no longer had the means to continue innovating and improving ship designs and technology. It’s interesting what can be both strengths and disadvantages.

My edition of the book included a 2003 afterword by Diamond. I was interested to see how people in the business, political, and organizational research fields have expanded on the ideas presented in this book. In furthering exploring the difference that the diversity of societies in Europe created a climate that was arguably better for cultivating innovation across the continent, businesses are looking into how they can best organize their various divisions and groups to emulate the same idea. How much should a single company march in lock-stop? If separate divisions are given more autonomy, maybe they can generate better more efficient processes that can then spread to other divisions. It’s very interesting. My sister was showing me her history book and how it actually mentioned why the agricultural revolution happened in the Fertile Crecent due to a high number of viable candidates that naturally grew there. This book was published in 2004, and when I looked in the references section of the chapter, I saw Guns, Germs, and Steel listed there. So the ideas of this book are already entering the textbook literature.

I highly recommend this book to everyone, regardless of your field of study, your background, or your profession. Enjoy it.

I went to my first major league baseball game today at Camden Yards in downtown Baltimore, one of the premier ballparks in the country. I got a ticket courtesy of Jim Anderson and Pete Wehr, two colleagues of mine from last summer’s internship at Progress Energy. They will be attending a two-day conference in Washington, D.C. but they flew up a day early to catch the game, which featured the Baltimore Orioles versus the New York Yankees. Pete is a Yankee fan after growing up in the north, and Jim and I follow the path of rooting for any team that beats the Yankees.

As I headed out to Baltimore, I saw that it was a beautiful day. The sun was shining with some scattered clouds, temperature in the mid 70s, and very little humidity. I ended up circling downtown Baltimore and heading down south again on I-95 while trying to find parking, so I had to give it literally another pass and this time parked without trouble. I toured the area around Camden Yards while I waited for Pete and Jim to arrive. You see, their flight this morning was canceled and they ended up going up each on a different carrier. It was a screwy morning, but they finally made it up there. Jim had been able to score some great seats for the game. We were in left field just to the left of the foul pole.

Camden Yards is a great looking ballpark. The field was in top-condition and it seemed like everyone had a great view of the action. We got inside during the 4th period. The Orioles were already in the lead with a score of like 7-0. Apparently the Yankees had a lot of players down from injuries. I munched on some cracker-jacks (like the song) and later even had a cold beverage with Jim and Pete.

The Orioles ended up winning it, much to Pete’s chagrin. After we got out of the ballpark we walked over to the Inner Harbor. It was an incredible day and the harbor looked great. We had dinner on the waterfront, and I caught up with some on-goings at Progress Energy. There was definitely some recruitment stuff going on, too.

Jim and Pete dropped me off at my car before heading back to Washington, D.C. I headed too back to College Park on I-95, but I messed up the College Park exit for the second time. You follow I-495 West but then have to stay on the left side, not the right side. So I got turned around a bit, but came across a Safeway and picked up some vegetables. I’ll use them for some chinese stir-fry tomorrow.

On Friday, I dashed back to my apartment so I could leave as early as possible to Philadelphia, where Radiohead (one of my favorite bands) was playing that night. I managed to hit the road at around 4pm and arrived there at 7pm. This was my first visit to the city of brotherly love since elementary school. The venue for the show was the Tower Theatre in Upper Darby, which lies just on the westerly edge of proper Philadelphia.

I soon met up with my good friend Donny Katz and two of his friends from New Jersey, Chris and Chris S. (for Scarpa). They are roommates at Rutgers University, where Chris studies business and Chris S. studies history. We headed over to a nearby pizza parlor for a bite to eat before the show. We were simply buzzing with excitement about the show; my three companions have an effervescent adoration of Radiohead that never falls into an oft-encountered state of blind obsession with any given band. They understand the uniqueness and masterful skill of the band, from the musical composition of the songs (they are musicians) to the context and influence of factors both societal and personal of the songs. Compared to them, I am a honest ‘newbie’ – my deep interest in Radiohead only began to snowball last summer. Nonetheless, Chris and Chris welcomed my presence warmly without prejudice and I immediately enjoyed their company.

The show started after 9pm and I could see with anxious anticipation that the road crew were setting up snare drums in the front that is an indicator of the song There There, which ranks as one of my most favorite songs. At long last, Radiohead took the stage amidst raucous cheers and launched into what would ultimately be a wonderful setlist.

The band tried out many of their new songs, which have a softer and Bends-ish feel to them. The treats for me in particular were There There, Paranoid Android, Dollars and Cents, I Might Be Wrong, and of course, Let Down. Other highlights included the National Anthem, Arpeggi, and Idioteque. Let Down was really special because it is one of the band’s most beautiful songs, has rarely been played lived after 8 years, but also (I learned from Chris and Donny) that it itself is notoriously difficult to play. The song features three unique guitar parts and each follow different time signatures.

Unlike most other songs in which bandmembers and gauge whether they are synched properly by listening to each others beats, Let Down apparently forces the band to forge ahead on their own with intense concentration through what must be quite disorienting to play. The end result however is a magnificently complex and layered melody which was a thrill to hear live.

The only downside of the night was that I happened to be standing next to a belligerant drunkard. This man, who consumed five beers in just over an hour, repeatedly tried talking with me during the songs. When he saw me taking some photos, he asked that I email me them and proceeded on reciting his email address. Wanting to enjoy the show, I leaned over and told him that “we’ll talk after the show”. Being drunk, he apparently mis-interpreted my sincerity as a brush-off, and started cursing at me. When Donny asked me what was up and I told him, the Drunk’s irritation spread to Donny as well. After the show, I turned my bank to this guy and followed my companions out of the balcony. The entire time the Drunk cursed us and berated us. I was not going to let this idiot ruin what was a great evening, so I simply ignored him completely (also, I’m not very confrontational and there is that whole ahimsa tradition by Gandhi). My companions stuck up for me, and things started to get a little heated when the Drunk actually shoved Donny a bit. He even started taunting us with yells of ’see you outside!’ The security guards in the lobby must have taken notice of the Drunk’s exceedingly belligerent manner towards us, because I heard behind me a remarkably soften tone when he asked me again to send me his pictures. Annoyed and hoping to end this ridiculous episode, I asked for clarification of the email domain and the Drunk had to actually ask his friend. We finally ducked out of a side exit into pouring rain. The rain was welcomed however after the hot theatre. It was immensely gratifying to hear behind me the confident words of support from Chris, Chris S., and Donny during that whole affair. When Chris S. marveled at how they always manage to sit next to the only belligerent drunk in the venue, I said it was karma. You see, over dinner Donny and Chris told me about the bad luck that surrounds Street Spirit (Fade Out), the closing song to the Bend’s album. Donny once listened to it in the morning and that afternoon his bike was stolen. Chris listened to it on the morning of September 11th. And I had listened to it on the drive up to Philadelphia. Needless to say, it is now off my song rotation!

After arriving at Donny’s apartment we dryed a bit and discussed the amazing show we were just witness to. Spirits were high . We convinced Donny to skip his early morning crew practice (who wants to row in the pouring rain?) and then at around 1am walked back out in the rain to a pizza place that Chris S. once stumbled across some time ago. It was a small store but was busy because it was one of the rare pizza parlors that also sold beer. Donny explained to me that in Philadelphia and New Jersey there are only a limited number of alcohol selling licenses and that such restaurants are very rare. There were two refrigerators, approximately the size that one might find in a small gas station mart, with a decidely remarkable selection of import beers. I spotted four different kinds of Paulaner, Leffe Belgian blonde (nonexistant in my local grocery stores), a Bavarian brand I have yet to see in the States, and the venerable Weihenstephaner Hefe-Weisse. What I could only find in a specialty store was found here in the most unlikely of places! So for our second meal of that evening, we huddled still wet around a small table eating greasy feel-good pizza enjoying a fine beverage.

I loved it.

The next morning I woke up early (a good habit I suppose) on the futon in Donny’s room and had breakfast with Donny as he prepared for his Rotary Scholarship interview. He came back at around 12pm by which time Chris and Chris S. had gotten ready. We walked over the Marathon Grill, which sits at the edge of the University of Pennsylvania’s campus for lunch and to meet with one of Donny’s other friends from high school, Randy, who attends UPenn’s and is pursuing a double degree at the Wharton School of Business as well as Nursing. On a whim, Donny remarked how we could order one of their chocolate chip cookie dough pancakes as an appetizier; an idea that was quickly agreed upon by everywhere. Randy was going to be in town for a week, and over lunch he told us more about UPenn and what he is studying. After lunch, we asked Randy if he could show us the esteemed and famous Wharton School of Business. Randy generously gave us a great walking tour of the entire UPenn campus. He showed us the whole Wharton building with its eye-opening facilities, such as individually heated italian leather lecture room seats and specially imported Indian hardwood. The power of alumni was on display as well, with nearly all the numerous study rooms and lecture halls named after someone. UPenn is the oldest university in the country (Harvard and William & Mary were started as single discipline colleges) and its founder was Ben Franklin. The campus, though being nearly in the shadow of the imposing Philadelphia skyscrapers, still retains a very ‘university’ feel to it. Much appreciation to Randy for taking several hours of his day to show us around the campus. I bid farewell to Donny and my two new friends Chris and Chris upon return to the apartment and began driving back to Maryland at around 4:30pm. This time it only took me about 2 hours.

My trip to Philadelphia proved to be quite a memorable experience. I never expected to have such a fulfilling and enjoyable time there — just goes to show what a difference interesting company can make!

GO HURRICANES! The Carolina Hurricanes won Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals tonight with a score of 3-2 against the Buffalo Sabres. Ross and I (joined later by Konstantin) watched it at the Cornerstone Grill near our apartment. Great game, great win! Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals begins on Monday and we’re going to win it this year! Go Canes!