Topper's TravelsTopper Kain's blog. Topper Kain is a world-famous kazoo player and traditional norwegian food chef. He wants you to use the comments. Saturday, July 17, 2010I really will write more about my vacation, but one of the things I've been busy doing is helping out Therese with her dog acessory business. We are selling really cool light up dog collar at http://www.dogqndme.biz and on Amazon. The products are really cool. Here is Tchaps wearing one of the collars, notice that it lights up on two channels instead of one.
.: posted by Topper 9:48 AMMonday, July 12, 2010Huh, 1.5 years since I posted. Didn't think it had been quite that long...--------- I just got back from vacation in France in Germany with Jen and Kelley. It was a blast- we saw the sights of Paris, the chateaux of the Loire, the beer gardens and river surfing (more on that later) in Munich, the medieval town of Rothenburg, and the once divided city of Berlin. -------- Travel adventures: Just getting around proved to be quite an adventure. I flew out by myself Friday morning, 6/25/2010 from Seattle to Paris via Charlotte, NC. The Seattle-Charlotte leg was fine, and I engjoyed the Charlotte airport's good BBQ, Nascar themed stores and white rocking chairs. On the Charlotte-Paris leg however someone got sick and they had to ask if there was a doctor on board. I tried to sleep but US Airways really agressively hawks their duty free items and they kept waking me up... I took the train (RER) in from the airport to Paris and then promptely got lost looking for the hotel. Oh well Travelling from Paris to Amboise: I wanted to stop in Blois to see Chambord (a very big very famous chateux). The plan was stop at the station and leave our baggage in the locker then take a cab to Chambord. We took the train from Paris to Blois (which was supposed to be direct but I think something went wrong with the trian and we had to switch). We arrived in Blois on time and went drop off our luggage when to my suprise we discovered- Blois has no luggage lockers! Doh! Seriously, it was the only station we went to that didn't. We then proceeded to take the wrong train from Blois (it bypassed Amboise without stopping) so we got to see the Tours train station... Amboise to Munich: The route was Amboise to Paris, Paris to Stutgart, and Stutgart to Munch. Amboise to Paris train went smoothly. Paris to Stutgart took 90 minutes longer than it was supposed to, panicing us because we thought there was no train from Stutgart to Paris later that night. However, there was indeed several late trains and we made it to Munich that night. Munich to Rotenburg: The route was Munich to Augsburg, Augsburg to Treichlensomething, Treichlensomething to Steinach, and Steinach to Rothenburg. There was a major accident at the rail station in Augsburg (several liquid cars were flipped over and tore up when we passed) and the lines to the main station (where we were supposed to catch our train) were shutdown. A nice german woman told use we needed to take a bus from the station we stopped at to the main station. We saw the city of Augsburg by un-airconditioned city bus and when we arrived we were promptly told by a Deutsche Bahn official to get back on the bus and go to back to the station we had just left. When we got there thing were a mess. The train we needed was overfull, absolutely brimming with people. We needed to push our way on with many pieces of luggage. They then annouced that the train was being rerouted away from our stop, so we had to push our way back off. The DB people changed their mind again, so we got back on, and finally decided that the packed train was not going to our stop after all, causing us to finishing annoying the Germans by once again forcing our way back to the platform. They Germans were good humored about it though, the once we pushed past the most just started laughing at our pathetic sight. Finally, the DB people annouced that the overfull train was (finally) leaving and that there was a train waiting to take the other people to our destinination, but they didn't have an engineer to drive it. Sigh... Once we finally got out of Augsburg we were a little worried, because our hotel's check-in closed at 9p, and we would get to Rothenburg at like 8:50 with no problems. We got there, sent Jen running ahead, and got checked in with 5 minutes to spare. Rothenburg to Berlin: Just missed the hourly train from Rothenburg by like 2 minutes. Went Rothenburg-Steinach-Hanover?-Berlin. Nothing particularly interesting, except the Berlin train was late and we once again had a 9p check-in time which we worried about missing. Berlin to Paris: The big Kahuna. Route was Berlin-Mannheim-Paris. However, the Berlin-Mannheim train was delayed over two hours en-route and we badly missed our train, which was the last of the day. The DB people told us to disembark in Frankfurt instead of Mannheim and catch the first train of the day to the Paris Est station (leaving 6a, arriving 9:49a) on Saturday. They were nice enough (as there were legally obligated) to put us up in a hotel that night in Frankfurt (side note- Frankfurts red light district is right next to the train station and is a little scary). The problem was that the girls had to catch a 10:10a train at a different station in Paris in order to catch a ferry to Ireland and I knew that all of the following trains were full. We got to Paris on time and rushed across town via the Metro to the other station. We didn't even come close to making it. Thankfully, the conductor of the next TGV train the girls needed to take let them on even though it was completely full. Flight back: Once again they needed a doctor for someone on the plane from Paris to Charlotte. At this point I'm convinced I'm unlucky and a little afraid of my next flight. I have a long layover in Charlotte, watch the Netherlands lose to Spain in the world cup final, and then have an uneventful flight back to Seattle. But just when I thought I was done with travel mishaps, I managed to leave my cellphone in the taxi. Sigh. I had to drive to taxi office to pick it up. I think I'm going to stay home this week :) Overall though, a blast, more to come. .: posted by Topper 9:43 AMTuesday, September 23, 2008Despite the high pitch screams coming out of everybody Paulson, Obama, McCain, and Company, we are not in crisis, only our financial sector is. Unemployment is at 6.1%, high compared to the last 3 or 4 years, but around average for a recession for the last 50 years- and certainaly a far cry from the 70's. The stock market, while rattled, currently is around where it should be if it actually grew at the same rate as the US economy for the last 15 years (IE- the 90's bubble never REALLY popped...) Housing prices are down 20%, but then again they had skyrocketed something like 100% since 2000. What is happenning is a market correction and a downturn in the business cycle. The liquidity crisis does need some solution, but the answer should involve shareholders, executives, and companies losing their shirts on bad, dumb loans, not the US government. I like the suggestion that we follow the Swedish / Fannie Mae plan and demand equity in any company that wants to participate in the bailout.Overall the recent crisis has been an embarassment for the "free-market" republican party. I'm going crazy here over in my libertarian wing. .: posted by Topper 10:33 AMTuesday, February 19, 2008I would still like Huckabee to just go away (although keeping the Republicans in the news while at the same time not actually causing real controversy could be valuable in the general election, I'm not sure Huckabee will turn around and support McCain come convention time), that's not why I'm writing today.I'm writing today because Pakistan held elections and the dominant party lost. Be some people's definition (see the book "Democracy and Development") that is all that is needed to establish a country as a democracy. We'll see if the election results hold, but I kind of think they will. This news made me happy, as it gives more evidence to my senior thesis- President Bush, despite all his other flaws, is and has been serious about supporting the emergence of democracy, even when it has meant damaging "our" guy. So kudos to Pakistanis for their election, kudos to PPP for winning, and kudos to Musharraf for allowing it to happen (mostly), and kudos to Bush for not getting in the way. Now just leave, please. I'm tired of hearing the democrats complain and not have (m)any comebacks. .: posted by Topper 9:50 AMTuesday, February 12, 2008Go away huckabee..: posted by Topper 12:04 PMWednesday, August 29, 2007Damn this cool:http://www.flashearth.com/ Of course if you want directions you should goto http://maps.live.com, but still. .: posted by Topper 3:48 PMFriday, August 10, 2007Canada and Russia are getting all hot and bothered over resources in the north poleExcuse me, don't all North pole resources belong to it's indigenous people .: posted by Topper 1:59 PMThursday, June 07, 2007I must say, I am disappointed that the Dems pushed through a new stem cell law. I have a serious problem with the government spending money that results in the destruction of human embryos. I'm not positive if these embryos are human life or not, but the fact that I am not means that I must err on the side of caution and oppose their destruction as murder.Honestly, I don't see the need to federally fund embryonic stem cell research. It seems like everyone else is doing it, so why does the federal government need to? The advances in adult stem cell research in the US has been very interesting and could potentially be more rewarding, espicially if the US gets a leg up on the rest of the world. I know, I know, embryonic looks "more promising," but in the first serious bioethics debate of the 21st century lets err on the side of caution, espicially when the downside is so low. .: posted by Topper 5:08 PMSaturday, April 07, 2007So I didn't know this before, but apparently Barrack Obama's full name is Barrack Hussein Obama. I wonder if there is a chance in hell that anyone would have voted for a guy named Ivan Adolf Stalin in the 1950's... Maybe....: posted by Topper 4:12 AMThursday, April 05, 2007I was browsing the WASL science standards will waiting for a phone interview and I must say that I'm more than a little disappointed. As I could attest to from my experience in the Washington State school system, science education is heavy on what I call the "fluff" sciences, geography and biology, rather than the useful (and math heavy) sciences of physics, chemistry, and engineering(I'd say computer science too, but I have a bias it could be under math).In particular, I'm bothered (and boggled) by the sample 10th grade "science" test. It was entirely biology based. Although the experimental part of it was fine (a table of numbers is a table of numbers) the multiple-choice questions were purely biology based. More when I get more time... .: posted by Topper 12:35 PMSunday, April 01, 2007Pages Written on my Thesis: 37 (Up from 23 this morning!)Number of those pages actually acceptable: 34 Mininmum required: 40 Recommended: 60 chapters written: 1.9 minimum needed: 4 left to do: Finish the chapter I wrote tonite Come up with one more idea for a chapter to describe miscellanious things I've been looking at. write 20 more pages this week Find a way to work Jack Bauer, the TMNT, and maybe borat into this thesis. This is how I feel: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=804 .: posted by Topper 6:08 AMMonday, February 12, 2007Is Harvard having a female president really news? The Ivies already have a 50/50 gender split, and the Claremonts are 80% women. Is it really news that a woman can be a university president?And really, doesn't it seem creepy that the first women president of Harvard is named "Dr. Faust?" .: posted by Topper 11:45 AMTuesday, February 06, 2007On the Watada trail: Lt. Watada should be convicted and punished. While I'm the last one to say a person should leave their morals at the door when volunteering for military duty what Lt. Watada is doing is wrong.While the legality of the war of the 2003 war is still debated (I think the US did not need UN authorization to attack, and even if it did, the US was still authorized under the 1990 Desert Storm resolution), the legality of the occupation should not be. The UN authorized the US and the UK as occupying powers in October 2003 (http://www.casi.org.uk/info/scriraq.html). Thus, the US occupation of Iraq is undoubtably legal under international law. This does not mean that the US has free reign in Iraq. Indeed, the conduct of some US forces in the Iraq occupation has been illegal, under both domestic and international laws. However, Lt. Watada is not claiming that sexual humilating prisoners is an illegal order, he is claiming that going to Iraq in general is an illegal order. As I said before, I don't believe a soldier should hang up his conscious for the duration. However, allowing soldiers to refuse orders must be done very, very carefully. I don't think many Americans (or even westerners, for that matter) realize how truly amazing our system of civilian control of the military is. Every time a soldier refuses an order from a civilian (as is essentially the case with Lt. Watada), Americans should be wary. While it is quite possible for a civilian to issue an illegal order (I believe some in the civilian government have already), the military must err on the side of executing the order when in doubt, lest our military men become too used to ignoring the civilians. .: posted by Topper 10:34 PMFriday, February 02, 2007On the whole aqua teen hunger force thing in Boston:Just out of curiousity, why on earth would islamo-fascist terrorists place bombs that blinking space aliens flicking people off? Wouldn't they, you know, place the bombs in normal looking pieces of trash or maybe bags and then blow them up killing people? If they were to advertise their bomb, wouldn't it at least have a reference to Islam? Seriously, this is retarded. Just fine Turner for litttering or something, move on, and tell them next time to leave contact information on the glowing thingies. .: posted by Topper 2:49 AMTuesday, January 30, 2007http://www.commutesolutions.org/calc.htmInteresting link for the “true cost of driving.” According to akitsap transit pamphlet that was sent me, the total operating cost of a passenger only ferry trip is about $9.00. This means that to transport one person on a passenger only ferry, the operating cost is $9.00 Google maps says the driving distance from Bremerton to Seattle is 65 miles. The two estimates I have generated for per mile driving costs of a Toyota Avalon are $0.24 per mile and $0.168 per mile. This means that cost of a driving trip to Seattle costs between $11 and $16 dollars. That even if you paid the full price of travel both ways, taking the ferry would still be cheaper than driving for an individual. Now this doesn’t even take into account the $5 bridge toll, the costs to society of driving, the cost of getting to the ferry dock, or the time savings/loss of taking a ferry, but I’m betting that the cost of driving just goes up. My full write-up: Using as estimates: 2 Cents per mile for deprecation , based on the decrease in blue book value for a 1999 Toyoya Avalon from 10,000 to 160,000 miles) 10.6 cents/mile for Fuel and oil, based on a a $30 oil change ($30/3000miles = 1 cent/mile) and a 25 mpg car taking $2.40/gal gas ($2.40/gal / 25 mpg = 9.6 cents) 5.9 cents per mile maintenance and tires (I’m taking this on faith from the website, but it seems about right) 5 cents per mile accidents (again on faith, but it seems about right) Total cost of driving to individual: $0.24 per mile $0.24/mile * 65 miles = $15.6 per trip to Seattle in a car. This varies slightly with the mileage and expense of the car. AAA’s national estimate for driving costs is lower than this estimate at 16.8 cents, but reflects fuel prices that are cheaper than Washington state and does not include accident costs or per mile deprecation. Still, $0.168 * 65 = $10.92 per trip. That means that the cost TO THE INDIVIDUAL for taking the ferry is less than that of driving. This does not even factor in societal benefits, which according to http://www.commutesolutions.org/calc.htm is around $0.33 per mile (I dispute these numbers and say it most properly calculated at around $0.20 per mile, but this is still HUGE). An interesting things that I noted in this policy analysis: Although it is cheaper for an individual to take the passenger only ferry than drive by themselves, it is NOT cheaper for even a two person carpool to switch to the ferry, even though it is likely that this switch would still have societal benefit. This indicates that there should be some mechanism by which to encourage groups of people to ride the ferry together. The car ferry does this imperfectly by only charging per car on the way to Seattle, but the passenger ferry has no mechanism for this. On way to do this is to use electronic fare cards instead of paper tickets and to allow the grouping of fare cards: a fare card can belong to a group of maybe up to 5 people, and if they board the same sailing they receive a reduced per person rate. .: posted by Topper 2:32 PMMonday, January 15, 2007Quote from a grad with a BA in... something:"It's like, wow, I was just studying the cultural history of aborigines and now I'm looking at jobs where the main duties are answering the phone and typing.' " I mean really, you didn't see this coming? .: posted by Topper 11:27 AMWednesday, September 20, 2006I'm hardly a bleeding heart, but every time I read about the US's situation after Afghanistan and before Iraq I'm struck with how bad an idea the Iraq war really was. I'll admit, I kind of supported it at the time. I was sold on the "It will be easy" arguements, the idea that Saddam really probably did have WMD or at least a program, that that crazy fucker would have used them, and that removing an insane muderous jackass from power was just thing to to do.Additionally I understand that Iraq was a client state to Russia, China, and France, our three greatest rivals in the world. I also understand how much oil we COULD have gotten out of Iraq. However, the facts on the ground say that the US would now be in a better position had we never gone into Iraq. While I understand the political impossibility of this, just THINK what would have happened had we spent all the money we are spending on Iraq on alternative energy R&D in the US. More jobs, more technology, the investment in capital inside the US. Internationally we would not appear bogged down and would not be letting our position in the Caspian, Central Asia, and elsewhere slip. Overall, it was just a bad idea. How we get out of I do not know. .: posted by Topper 2:09 PMFriday, September 08, 2006I just watched a couple episodes of the TV show Numb3rs. I love this show. If you haven't heard of it it's about an FBI agent and his genius, crime solving math professor younger brother. Now the reason I got into the show was it actually had decent math and starred a, well, cool geek. The believable math thing lasted about two episodes. The reason why I still watch it, and love it, is because what it really is is an exploration of male familial relations.Seriously, the best parts of this mathematician fights crime show are the moments at home between the two brothers and thier dad. The episode I just watched dealt with guilt over parental attention. Most touch on the subject how two people from the same family can end up with very different personalities, jobs, etc., but they are still family. Besides How I Met Your Mother, I cannot think of another show on TV for which it is easier to connect with the main characters. It's wonderful. .: posted by Topper 3:53 AMSaturday, July 29, 2006Despite not ever posting on here, I am still not dead. I'm just in Carson City, NV. That's right, I came out here to be with my GF, Jen, working at an automotive test center. It's alright, but Carson City and Reno are making me appreciate real cities.I've been watching a lot of CNN about the Lebanon war. I think I've got a solution: the Israeli's and the Palestinians flip a coin, heads Israel gets the Levant, tails the Palestinians do. The loser gets an equivalent amount of land in the Dakotas. There's just Injun's there anyways, they won't mind, right??? Anyways, I'm not dead, but I don't want to write anymore. .: posted by Topper 12:36 PMMonday, May 15, 2006Today the HMC c/o 2006 graduated. While I don't mind coming back next year that much, I do regret not experiencing graduation with all the '06ers. No offense to my 2007 friends, but I have been I have felt so honored and priveleged to know everyone who graduated this year. You are all great friends, dedicated, interesting, and wonderful people.I'm profoundly sad that the class of 2006 has now passed into the history of Harvey Mudd. While I know that my assocation with many of you will continue, it will be much less frequent and much less reliable. All of you keep in touch. .: posted by Topper 3:09 AM |
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