News and Views

We are buying a new house.

No, we are not moving; Derek is. We are buying a 3 bedroom house near the university, and Derek and two friends will rent it from us. Derek will probably get a good break on the rent… 😉

I’m a little nervous buying right now, with the housing market down and all the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac problems, but hopefully the market is near a bottom, and hopefully these mortgage issues will get resolved well before we want to sell. The house is much cheaper than it would have been a couple of years ago, but much more than 5 years ago.

Details:
1608 Sq. Ft
3 Bedrooms/2 Baths
Single Level block construction
Recently remodeled — very new looking inside.
Grass front and back (in need of mowing and water)
No pool

I hope the neighbors don’t hate me for bringing college students onto their nice quiet street…

Microsoft released some windows patches last night that don’t cooperate well with ZoneAlarm firewall software. The result was that millions of people woke up this morning and were unable to access the internet.

If this happened to you, here are some workarounds.

(Of course, this is assuming you were at least able to connect to read this…)

After traveling more than 30 hours, Derek finally got home Tuesday night just before midnight. He went from Moscow to Warsaw, then his flight from Warsaw to Chicago was 2 hours late and he missed his connection. They put him on another flight to Phoenix, but that was 2 hours delayed. But he finally made it, and is slowly converting to MST.

Welcome home Derek!

Devon has been working as an Intern for Spectra Sensors, doing programming, for 3 months. They just offered him a full-time job, which he is considering. Looks like a good offer. He’s a little disappointed that he isn’t doing something with his Physics degree, but he enjoys the work. Grad school Fall 2009 is still an option, so this may be for only a year.

Gisele and I are also slowly adjusting to local time. I wake up most mornings around 5 am, but since I often get up about then anyway to play basketball, that’s not too bad.

We all just wish we could have brought the weather with us (high 60’s to low 70’s).

After completing projects at Intel, we had to prepare a “post mortem”. It doesn’t mean that anything died, but rather is a summary of what we learned, what went right, what went wrong, and recommendations for future projects. Here’s my post mortem of our recently completed Baltic Cruise.

You don’t have to gain weight on a cruise.
The general expectation is that with all the good food and leisure time, you will always put on pounds on a a cruise. I actually lost 2 pounds. Gisele thinks it’s because when I am at home I like to snack a lot — potato chips, popcorn, etc, while sitting in front of the TV. I think the only between-meal snack I had on the whole trip was the chocolates they put on the pillow at night. I think it also helped that our days were filled with tours, and lunch was almost an after-thought — sometimes skipped, always minimal. Running up the stairs to get to meals and other events I’m sure helped keep my heart and lungs in shape, but probably didn’t contribute to weight loss.

However, I didn’t scrimp on dinner. I usually ate everything they served, including the rich desserts. Dinners were almost always excellent.

Research the ports before you leave home
We got on ship not knowing much about what to expect at the ports. The result was that we bought an expensive tour in almost every port. Other people who had done their homework knew when it was just as good to walk into town and tour on your own, or arrange a local (much cheaper) tour in town. I don’t know which are the best websites to use, but I will find out before we go next time.

The mini-PC was great
I took my eee PC along on the cruise and found it very useful. Because it is so small and light, I didn’t even notice it in my backpack when we went ashore. In most towns you can find unencrypted WiFi to get connected. Since we were on scheduled tours I didn’t get a lot of opportunity to use it in this way, except in a couple of towns.

On the ship, it was also very useful to have a laptop. The ship sold internet access at $.75/minute over a very slow satellite connection. If you used their internet cafe, it would typically cost you $10 – $15 by the time you got connected, downloaded your email, read, wrote and sent replies. With your own laptop, you can connect wirelessly, download email, and immediately disconnect. This usually took about 2 minutes ($1.50). Then you can write replies at your leisure, marking them all as “Send Later”, to go out the next time you connect. The same with blog postings. Prepare them in a text editor, then when you connect just cut and paste into the edit window on your blog. If you need to read a web page, bring it up when you are connected, then either save it as an html page, or just keep the browser open after you disconnect. Using all these tricks, my internet charges were only about $45 for the whole cruise, vs. the $100 or more it would have been (or just not used internet at all).

If you’re going to be spending a lot of time in airports, you might want to by a subscription to one of the wireless networks. All airports have WiFi, but it’s almost never free. A subscription to Boingo, for example, costs about $22/month, and gives you unlimited access, available at most airports. I did not do this, since our airport time was limited.

Cabin Choice
On both of our recent cruises we have had a balcony cabin. We loved having the balcony as a private place to sit and enjoy the scenery, or read, or nap. However we talked with other passengers who considered it a waste of money, since “you spend so little time in your cabin on a cruise”. I will admit that on this cruise, as on the Alaska cruise we took a couple of years ago, it was often too cold and windy to sit outside for long, but we still enjoyed it and would do it again. I don’t think the extra cost is unreasonable; as I recall an extra $100 or so per person. Next best would be a cabin with a window, and finally an inside cabin. Again, we think the balcony adds a lot to the experience.

Nickels and Dimes
If you are very disciplined, you can really do a cruise without spending more than the initial payment. But it’s hard! Besides the outrageously-priced tours ($50 – $400), there are charges for specialty coffees (espresso, latte, etc), soft drinks, internet, photos, and the high-priced shops onboard.

On our previous cruise, at the end there was an opportunity to leave a tip for the crew, and designate a specific tip for a specific crewman that you wanted to especially reward. On this trip (Princess) at the end of the cruise when the itemized bill came, there was a $10.50 charge per person per day. If you had read the fine print on the pre-cruise info it mentioned this, and stated that it was an optional item, and that you could designate how much, if any, you wished to tip. But I bet very few people read that carefully or went to the trouble to “opt out”. It left a bad taste in my mouth. Tips are supposed to be a show of your appreciation for excellent service. If you are going to include it in the bill, why not just increase the price of the cruise, pay the staff better, and institute a “no tip” policy. I know why they don’t, but I still don’t like it.

The ship “strongly recommended” that we buy a transfer to the airport from them on our arrival in Copenhagen. They said that taxi service was very limited. So we spent $50 apiece for a 20-minute bus ride to the airport. On our way down to get the bus we saw about 10 taxis queued up waiting for passengers. A taxi trip would have cost about $30 total, so we wasted around $60. It’s true that the cruise provided private airline check-in, which was worth a little, but not that big a deal.

Tours and other Activities
The main activities we participated in were the shore tours. My favorite tour by far was the bike ride in Helsinki. They were simple, one-speed bikes with raised handlebars, but they rolled really smoothly and were very easy to drive. It was a delightful way to see the town.

Gisele also enjoyed the bike ride, much more than she expected to. I think her favorite tours, though, were those where we had an opportunity to shop. Most of the “shopping” places were tourist shops. However, that free time in town was also an opportunity to seek out a coffee shop, perhaps with WiFi, or wander the nearby streets.

If you go to the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, try to arrange a tour on a Monday. As I mentioned in a previous blog, on Mondays the museum is closed to the public except the organized cruise ship tours, and was much less crowded.

I played a little blackjack in the ship’s casino. Before you play any of their games, read the writing on the table to be sure it follows standard rules. I stepped into one “Blackjack” game and found out after losing $20 that it followed quite different rules than normal 21. Should have paid attention!

The shows were pretty good. There was a magician who performed standard disappearing lady tricks. Not very exciting but he was a pretty good showman. There were singers, jugglers, and the Russian Dancers were very good. Most disappointing was the “singing sensation from Australia”. I suffered through 45 minutes of her adding heavy tremolo to almost every note out of her mouth. That constant vibrato gets on my nerves, but Gisele thought she was OK.

I won a few “Princess” luggage tags playing Trivia. They were often pretty hard questions; nobody ever got them all right, but a few times I got on a team that won. It was fun. Except the one time they asked “What happens to the level of water in a glass when the ice melts?” Any one who has studied freshman physics knows that the water level stays the same, but they erroneously gave the answer that it goes down. When I confronted the host later on, she said, “Of course it goes down — when ice melts it contracts so it takes up less space.” I couldn’t convince her otherwise from theory, so I did the experiment in my room and took pictures to document. I showed them to her later, but she was still pretty non-committal. There were other questions where the answers were debatable, but this one was so obviously wrong that I couldn’t let it rest.

There was a lecture on “Longitude” by a college professor. Having read the book, I didn’t learn anything new, but after the lecture we went up on deck and all got to look through a sextant. It was quite interesting.

There were lots of lectures on the destinations, and other points of interest, such as Faberge Eggs, amber (80% of which comes from a small region of the Baltic), diamonds, etc.

So the advice from all this is to look for interesting events and try to see as many as you are comfortable with. Most of the shows are good, and you can learn a lot.

Summary:
Plan ahead, read up on your destinations, watch your money, and have fun. Participate in as many things as you have energy and interest for. Watch your waist line.

We arrived in Oslo, Norway early this morning after a little rougher than normal night. It’s probably because the ocean south of Oslo is not as protected as most of the Baltic is; there’s a straight shot to the North Atlantic for one stretch.

Oslo has a concentrated downtown, like most cities, but the subarbs seem to be very spread out, with houses dotting the hills all around. Oslo is located at the end of a long fjord (narrow inlet from the sea). In many fjords the mountains rise dramatically out of the sea surrounding a narrow inlet, but the Oslo fjord is wide with gentle hills around. That’s probably why it makes a good port and location for a city.

We went to the Maritime Museum today. The guide seemed most interested in showing us a ship that a Norwegian explorer had taken into the Artic between Russia and the pole, and it was pretty interesting. But I begged off from the rest of her talk and went next door on my own to the Kon Tiki exhibition. That was really neat. Two of Thor Heyerdahl’s boats are there — the Kon Tiki and the Ra II. There was also a copy of one of the Easter Island statues — Heyerdahl created a cast from plaster of paris, then duplicated the statue here in Norway. This was all fascinating. I remember reading Kon Tiki, his account of his expedition, and being very interested both in his theories and the adventure.

As I recall, recent DNA testing has either proved or (I think) disproved his theories, that Polynesians might have come from South America. But that doesn’t diminish his accomplishments.

Roald Amundsen was also represented some at the museum — he also is a national hero, of course.

To get to the museum we “sailed” on a 120-year old sailing ship (retrofit with a diesel engine, of course…) for about an hour across and around the fjord, which except for the interminable throbbing of the engine was very pleasant. It would have been nicer to have done it under sail power, but I guess less reliable for a tour on a strict schedule.

The cruise ship left port mid-afternoon bound for Copenhagen. We disembark at 7:15 in the morning, off to the airport, then back to hot, hot Tempe. It’s been a nice cruise. We wish the kids could have enjoyed it with us, but I guess we have to get used to traveling without them sometimes.

I’m sitting on a park bench in Gdansk, Poland right now, leeching someone’s wireless signal. This is a little out of order, and I’ll write later about Estonia.

Gdansk is the main port city for Poland. The shipyard was huge. The cruise ship tied up next to the naval shipyard, where I saw lots of military ships and even a submarine.

Gdansk was almost completely destroyed in WWII. They have rebuilt most of it, and done their best to rebuild the ancient parts to be just like they were before the war. It’s nice, but you feel like you are not really seeing the original. Kind of like looking at a replica of a great painting. You can appreciate the original, but know you’re not really seeing it.

I’ve seen the first beggers of the trip here, in the touristy areas. I also saw a little girl (8?) standing in the square hacking out the same simple melody on an accordian, over and over again, with a small can in front of her. I was sitting in a cafe nearby, and was almost ready to give her some money to stop playing.

Back on the ship tonight, then two days to Oslo, Norway.

Time to go.

I had this post all prepared last night, but I couldn’t get connected on the ship. I shut down my laptop without thinking about it and lost it all.
I’m now sitting in a coffee shop in Estonia that has free WiFi. This mini-PC has really come in handy!

After I posted Monday night, we went to a show on the ship. A troupe of Russian dancers came on board and performed for us. It was quite nice; a mixture of traditional and modern dancing and singing.

Tuesday we went to see the Peterhof Fountains. They are a part of one of the palaces of Peter the Great. The fountains are quite magnificent, with lots of guilded statues. Well worth seeing. On the way back to the cruise ship we rode on a hydrofoil boat. I believe that was the fastest I’ve gone on the water, though Richard’s ski boat may have been faster. It wasn’t as big, though.

Tallin, Estonia is a beautiful town on the Baltic shore of Estonia. I don’t know much about Estonia. Apparently the people are related to the Finns. The languages are said to be similar. They have a history of being occupied, first by Sweden, then Russia, then Germany, then Russia, then Germany, then Russia again… They have been independent since the break up of the Soviet Union in 1991. The population of the whole country is only a little over 1 million. Tallin is a small city, but very modern and clean. It is a very old city, with castles and churches from around the year 1200. Very nice — I wish we had more time here, though if we did Gisele would probably use it to shop more. She is at the open-air market square right now as I write this.

We are leaving here at noon, then on to Gdansk, Poland tomorrow.

Today was our first day at St. Petersburg. We were concerned when the tour tickets we had bought hadn’t arrived last night. This morning I had to scurry around finding tour agents, and they finally made us duplicate tickets. Then about an hour later, the original tickets showed up at our room. I’m guessing the were delivered to the wrong cabin, and they then forwarded them to us.

It’s more complicated visiting Russia than the Scandinavian countries we have been to. If you want to wander around on your own you have to have a visa, and to get a visa you have to have a letter of invitation from the government. Needles to say, we didn’t have these things. The only other option is a guided tour, so that’s what we did.

Today we saw the Hermitage. If you remember from Derek’s blog, the Hermitage is closed on Mondays. However, they opened it up just for the Princess Cruise guests. That means instead of thousands of people pressing and pushing, there were just a few hundred in the whole museum. The guides kept exclaiming about how lucky we were to be able to see everything so easily. I was able to walk into some of the rooms and be the only one there viewing the priceless works of art. Paintings by Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Da Vinci, Monet, Picasso, etc. etc., and sculptures by Michelangelo, Rodin, etc. It is really quite impressive. It seems that the works are not as protected as they are at the Louvre. You can walk right up to most of them and could touch if you dared to violate the rules, but I was a good boy!

Tomorrow we are going to the Peterhoff Palace and Fountains. I have seen pictures, but don’t know too much about this. I guess I will know more by tomorrow.

We are probably eating way too much, and not exercising enough, though I try to use the stairs as much as possible. Our room is on the 10th deck, and meals either the 6th or 15th, so we get a little exercise every time we go to eat, but certainly not enough to burn off the calories we are taking in.

We haven’t seen Derek, and I’m sure we won’t be able to. It’s just too difficult with the visa requirements. He can roam freely, but we can’t and trying to hook up with him is just about impossible.

Today was lots of fun. We rode bikes around the city. It was about a 10 mile ride, and took about 3 hours, so it was a leisurely pace. Gisele was a little aprehensive, especially after the bad experience we had riding bikes in Peru (steep mountain path), but it turned out very well and she was glad she went. It rained briefly during the ride, but we were prepared with rain coats. We barely got them on before the rain was over. The high for the day was about 65 degrees; perfect bike riding weather as far as I am concerned.

Helsinki has lots of bike paths, almost always separated from the city traffic so you feel pretty safe riding around. I didn’t notice as many bikes on the street here as in Copenhagen, but there were lots more than you would see in a US city. It is a great way to see the city; much better than from a tour bus.

In Denmark and Sweden I could sometimes read the signs. Swedish, Norwegian and Danish are all apparently Germanic languages, as is English, and in fact those three Scandinavian peoples can usually understand each other. But Finnish is completely different, and I had no idea what I was reading anywhere. I understand that it is more closely related to Hungarian.

Tomorrow is St. Petersburg, but we put off buying tour tickets so long that we are not sure we will be able to go into town. Russia won’t let tourists without a visa enter the country unless they are part of an official tour. We’ll get up in the morning assuming we have tickets and see what happens. Since we will be here two days, there’s a chance we will be able to get in the second day even if we can’t the first.

Internet connections on the ship are very expensive; 75 cents per minute, and it’s through a satellite so it is barely faster than dial-up. Fortunately I have my eee mini-PC, so I can compose everything first, then connect for just 1-2 minutes to do downloads and uploads. If I had to use their computers I would be over $50 by now, I’m sure.

I’d like to make a big entry, but internet is very expensive on the ship.

We toured Stockholm today. All the usual comments — beautiful city, etc., etc. We also went out to a small, ancient village in the countryside. Today is the biggest holiday of the year in Sweden, the summer solstice. Everyone takes off work and heads for the countryside, so streets were empty, shops closed.

Tomorrow Gisele and I will take a bike tour of Helsinki. We hope it doesn’t rain.