Attention Deficit David

Be On The Lookout For....

A chainsaw with fake blood on it, another chainsaw without fake blood, a table saw and a generator.

They were all stolen from our garage while we were away. Oh yeah, and our bike trailer was taken too, which I think they used to haul everything else.

This stash will go nicely with the big contractor-sized garbage cans stolen last year.

Sheeps on the way to Sluis

Sheeps on the way to Sluis, originally uploaded by davidjschloss.

Luke, You Already Know Who I Am

Watching TV in Belgium today with Dutch subtitles, Abby and I discovered that the Dutch word for "father" is "vader."

That must have made Empire Strikes Back a lot less interesting for Dutch kids.

"Luke, I am your Vader"

"Yeah, I know, that's your name."

"No, no. I mean in addition to it being my name, it's also what I am to you, from a biological point of view."

"Oh, yeah, well I figured that out already, cause you know, it's your name. Gave it away a bit."

Frites ahoy!

Frites ahoy!, originally uploaded by davidjschloss.

Trouble in Capital City

Here's something I've been thinking about, in the wake of the massive drug busts and gang fights in Nyack.

In all the meetings I've ever been to about the future of Nyack, and the current situation of the village, what I usually hear is complaints about parking, high rents, lack of nice sidewalks and few things for the teens to do.

How about this one?: Someone in the 70's put projects in the middle of the village, and thought that would be a great idea.

I know very few people who ever say this: when Nyack is trying to revitalize why is there a project-style housing complex in our village?

I'm all in favor of mixed income dwellings. Shit, put up a few apartments for people that can't afford the six-to-seven-figures that houses in Nyack command and make them sustainable, attractive and connected somehow to the community and I'll help you paint them.

But the idea of concrete-block style "housing projects" is dead, as experts tend to agree that they are great place for crime patterns to develop, despite the efforts and wishes of the hard-working people who make a living there.

Why don't we get a lot of retail in Nyack? Why don't we get a lot of folks with money looking to spend it on our restaurants and our shops? Yes, it's the sidewalks, and the parking and the lights and the trees, but it's also the massive dope dealing on Franklin Street that recently resulted in the arrest of 24 people and seizing of drugs and cash. It's the specter of gang violence that's hung over Nyack's head until it broke this week leaving people stabbed and beaten in the streets and had to be quelled with a flood of cops.

In fact, the only time I ever hear the projects get mentioned at all in Village meetings is when Irv stands up and says that we can't build a parking garage next to them, as it will give the residents a bad view.

I bet if you ask the hard working parents who live there if they'd rather have a parking garage or, say no more crack dealing going on in their courtyard they'd probably go for the lack of crack. I would.

I suppose the lack of public discourse is because saying you're opposed to a major public-works housing project being located directly adjacent to the retail hub of the village makes one sound like a bigot—it sounds like you're saying you're not in favor of the people who live there.

Personally, I'm not in favor of the criminals that live there, just as I'm not in favor of criminals that live anywhere else. But really I'm not in favor of is a social-political development that fosters the continued dependance on the broken unemployment and social assistance programs in our country. I'm not in favor of any development that makes people of any income class live in small, squalid housing with little to no job training and no connection to the community.

I'm not in favor of treating people like lesser citizens because they make less money on average than most. I'm not in favor of ugly subsidized public housing that ends up fostering crime.

Maybe instead of talking about parking meters and who is going to run the marina and to what end, we should talk about how to develop sustainable housing in Nyack for ALL income classes, without making any look or feel like they are second class citizens, and without creating further blight in Nyack.

Carnival

Carnival, originally uploaded by davidjschloss.

Helmets and the peleton

When the UCI (Union Cycliste International—the governing body of the sport of cycling) began to mandate helmet use in the pro races, cyclists were up in arms. Many of the pros argued that as professionals they should be able to choose if they wanted to risk their lives for the sport. The organizers argued that having a cyclist die during an event is bad for the sport, and it's bad in general.

The organizers also argued that having pros wear helmets would make it more likely that non-pros would wear them as well. The racers cried bullshit, saying that nothing they did could influence the populace to wear helmets.

Well, that's just wrong.

Today on a nice 20-mile long bike ride in Amsterdam, Abby and I passed several thousand cyclists, and the majority of them, as is the custom here, were not wearing helmets. In fact I think it's fair to say that nearly 100-percent of the casual cyclists were sans casque. If you're wearing denim or a skirt (or a denim skirt) and riding a bike, no helmet.

But, and this is what I think is interesting, of the few dozen of cyclists on high-end road bikes who went by wearing lycra and sporting team garb, a full 80-percent were wearing helmets. This is in sharp contrast to my visit here five years ago when there were no helmets in pro cycling—there were no helmets on the people riding high-end bikes.

Clearly, the peleton's wearing of helmets has translated to that category of rider who wants to look like a pro. They're buying the gear, down to the helmet. It's certainly not a speed issue-many of these riders were going no faster than the grandmother on her trike, but they were mostly helmed.

Not sure if that will ever trickle down to any other parts of the population here, but it's an interesting observation none-the-less.

As an aside, I think it's safe to say that the average Dutch teen has more cycling acumen and skills than the more advanced rider in the U.S., and is also riding in an environment of slower speeds, vastly superior and more alert drivers and lower risk than the states, and as a result helmet use among the general population is likely less necessary—from a statistical accident point of view—than in the U.S.

In other words, people who ride bikes here do so slower, with slower traffic that obeys the laws and gives cyclists the right of way. There's a lot less to go wrong.

Die Hard with a Tulip

You'd think after the exemplary care I got from Herr Doctor Preggnantsthein yesterday that I'd have been a bit more forceful about not going back to the clinic. Really, a $150 office visit to get no treatment? I can do better just laying on the cold floor of the bathroom.

But doctors orders are doctor's orders, and the good doctor told us that I should come back to the clinic if I were to get a fever.

I got a fever.

A mild one, mind you. Just 38.7, but still, Abby got me a cab, and took me over there. This...was a mistake.

We'd figured that the quality of care could not possibly get worse during the day, perhaps the odd semi-treatment I'd received was just because they were closing and the Hippocratic oath machine was empty for the day. But no, it seems the standard of care remains the same—lousy.

We entered the clinic to be told to sit in the waiting room. So we wandered over to the big area with lots of comfortable looking chairs near reception. This is not the waiting room we were told by a nice Dutch EMT who told us to follow the signs to the waiting room. All very well and good except we don't speak Dutch.

Finally finding

the cramped icky space, we took a seat and very soon were seen by Doctor Casual, dressed in a nice turtleneck and jacket—not at all like, you know, a Doctor.

In the exam room he looked up my records from the night before and made some faces when he read the description of my condition. I see here you were very sick, he said. I'll skip over the conversation here about my bowels and vomiting and get to the point where we tell him the Doctor the night before said to come back if I got a fever. He asks what my temperature is, and then says he wants to feel my pulse. Oh, yes, you have a fever he says while touching my arm.

Uh, is that how "pulse" is supposed to work?

Then he says he'll check my abdomen again to make sure it's still not appendicitis (still not) and tells me that they don't give out antibiotics even for bacterial issues. So, no antibiotics.

He also tells us that it's not possible to get food poisoning from a good restaurant or a hotel. This is of course in a country with Mad Cow and e Colli outbreaks on occasion, so I sort of had hoped he'd have had some idea of how cross-contamination works—hell the desk staff at my hotel had a better grasp.

Did I mention that he didn't wash his hands either? But that's okay, because you can't get sick from the feces I was smart enough to cover my fingers with before entering the clinic. That'll show him.

After telling me that there's nothing he can do for me, he says either "be patient" or "be a patient." We're not sure which he said, but the general gist was "well, suck it up." Which is fine and all, and was my plan except we were told to come back here under these circumstances, and really if I were going to spend another 80 Euro I'd rather have done it with a nice meal or a prostitute over in the red light district.

We went back to the not-waiting room, where they were unable to use the printer (saying the Dutch version of "PC Load Letter?!? What the fuck is PC Load Letter" while putting paper in entirely the wrong part of the printer. There are monks sequestered in cloisters in Outer Mongolia who are more capable at putting paper in the printer.

Then she couldn't use the credit card machine, putting our card into the slot where the Dutch SmartCards go, but credit cards do NOT. So we paid cash.

While walking away it occurred to Abby and I that this could not really be a medical clinic, that the real doctors and staff must be tied up in the basement, while an international gang of criminals pretend to staff the center as they drill through the bank vault next door via the ancient bomb-cellar at canal level. They only didn't expect John McClain to come through the door with food poisoning and save the day.

Yippie Kay Ey Mother Fucker.

Bicycles, Canals and Food Poisoning

Well, what an interesting 10-hours or so it's been here in Amsterdam. Started with an upset stomach at around 7pm local time and then escalated into full-blown food poisoning. Worst I've ever had too, and that includes a bout with it in San Francisco that left me in the care of the hotel doctor, full of antibiotics and meds.

While Amsterdam has a lot of great things, one thing they are sorely lacking is a good 911 system. When one calls it, after having passed out from low blood pressure, they find you a nearby doctor to go to. That is NOT what I want. Taking a cab to a clinic when I can't stand up? Priceless.

But off to the clinic I went, where they didn't give me antibiotics, didn't have any anti-nausea drugs on hand, didn't give me fluids and mentioned that it was 11pm, and they were closing so... you don't have to vomit and poop at home, but you can't do it here.

Another cab ride back to the hotel, more moaning and laying on the cold tile floor of the bathroom. Abby's a frigging saint, running around to get me stuff, dress me, undress me, put me in bed, help me off the floor, and so on. We exchanged a few "this clinic sucks" looks as I lay under my coat on the exam table with my teeth chattering, while I was told I didn't have a fever, and that it was impossible for someone of my build to have been dehydrated enough to pass out.

Course I was, and I did.

The pregnant doctor was nice enough to shake my hand and say "good luck" while I left (not nice enough to have washed her hands anywhere). Now my body clock is off from so many hours being in a semi-conscious state, so I'm writing in the bathroom, trying not to wake up Abby.

Not exactly how I expected the vacation to go. Now I'm starving and thirsty and trying to hold out till sunrise to go get some crackers or something somewhere.

Crewing on the canals

Crewing on the canals, originally uploaded by davidjschloss.