Effortless

I recently received an e-mail that, because of its wonderful mastery of the English language, I feel obligated to quote here for you. In full, the text reads:

We are efforting to get to you and get a linux server to run you over. Are you on ubuntu? That's what we currently support.

“Efforting?”

Now I know what you're thinking: it's not very fair to make fun of people who are still learning English. That is, unless they're named “Bob McTavier.&rdquo

And that, of course, brings me to the dismal state of English in modern America. I don't so much mind getting “run over” by a Linux server; it's a much better way to go than watching campaign ads. (Side note: why did we waterboard the people we captured in Afghanistan? If we'd forced them to pay attention to the last election, they would have begged for mercy and it would have all been legal.)

But do we really need to verbize all our nouns? This guy certainly seems to think so.

Without further ado, here is the letter I wrote back:

Dear McTavierator:

Thank u for effortizating you're effort's. I just want to loop ur e-mail so we can acquisition end-to-end agreement on the critical paradigm and synergize the tactical detail's.

Do you have groupwide competencies on ubuntu? I ask because you have a fantastic team-based opportunitation here. If you can tractionize your marketeering with dispatch, I am confidenting we will wind up win-winning together.

I'm still waiting for the response.

Oops, excuse me: responsification.

A New Laptop

When we decided to spend a year in New Zealand, my wife told me she needed a new laptop. I gotta love her logic. It went something like this: “You have a laptop. I need a computer, and I don't like your laptop because it's not a Mac. So you have to buy me a laptop.”

I pointed out that we could probably get a used Mac once we arrived, for much cheaper than a shiny new laptop. Nothing doing. “My sister has a Mac laptop with wireless networking and a built-in video camera. If I had one of those, I could talk to her on iChat. I could talk to everybody on iChat. I could talk to you on iChat.”

I pointed out that, since I don't have a Mac, I don't have anything that starts with a lowercase “i”. Hell, my computer doesn't even have icons. iCons?

Then I pointed out that a desktop was much cheaper, and she really didn't need the portability of a laptop. “Yes, I do! I could use it on the plane! And I could sit in the garden and work!”

So off we went to the computer store to buy a Mac laptop. $2000 later, she had a big smile on her face. So did the guy who sold it to us. Hey, two out of three ain't bad.

Of course, she didn't use it on the plane. She started watching an in-flight movie and fell asleep in the middle. When we got to New Zealand, though, she started blogging and e-mailing like crazy. Too bad we didn't have an Internet connection.

Of course, it was my fault when she clicked “send” and the computer responded by sticking its tongue out at her. (You gotta admire those Apple engineers; who else would build a computer with special hardware for insulting newbies?) I called up the phone company; they said it was the power company's fault. I called the power company and they blamed the phone company. I called the phone people back, and they said it was probably the garbage collection service. So I threw the stupid laptop in the trash, which should have solved everything, but the trash people said it was in the wrong bin (it's an Apple, so I put it with “food”) and made me take it back.

Eventually I got the Internet thing straightened out and my wife was happy—for a few days. But then we decided the laptop needed some accessories. The trackpad is clumsy and hurts my fingers, so we got a USB mouse. Then somebody told me that she shouldn't actually use the battery, since using it ruins it (huh?), so she started keeping the machine plugged in. She needed to print, so we acquired a USB printer and plugged that in. She needed to make copies, so we added a scanner. The screen was too small; no problem, just hook up an external monitor. Keyboard a bit cramped? Full-sized ones are readily available. Oops, we aren't backing it up: better add an external drive.

So here we are with the nice new laptop. We don't use the battery, the keyboard, the mouse, or the screen. She had a fight with her sister, and nobody else she knows uses iChat, so we don't do video. There are seventy-three wires coming out the back of the thing, so we never move it off the desk for fear we won't be able to hook it back up correctly. And none of us has figured out how to watch a movie, because with all the wires we can't find the slot the DVD goes into.

But she promises to send me an e-mail while we're on the flight home.

Rocks

Okay, I admit it. My wife is weird.

When we were planning our spring vacation (that's now, for you boring Northern Hemisphere types) she told me that we would be going to see rocks. Yup, that's right. New Zealand is filled with stunning mountain vistas, exotic birds, gorgeous pastoral countryside, charming villages, intriguing Maori culture, and of course lots and lots (and LOTS!) of sheep. But would we visit any of those? Hah! Not when there are rocks to be seen.

“I get it!” you're thinking, “His wife's a geologist.” Nope, sorry, not even close. She's just strange. She read about these rocks in a guidebook, and she's determined to see them.

“They're round!” she says. I yawn. “But they're ROUND ROCKS! They're boulders!”

You can imagine my excitement.

Whenever we go on vacation, I wind up driving. This is because my wife is so afraid of the highway that she drives with her eyes closed; I can only let her go for four or five miles before I get nervous and take over. So when we got to the place where the rocks were, I was in control of the car. All I had to do was to keep going straight and we'd handily miss another boring tourist attraction. And there was beer in the next town.

Naturally, we went to see the rocks.

I'm a big boy, so I can confess that I was wrong. I had expected to see a few boring round boulders. Instead, I saw a lot of boring round boulders, surrounded by tourists eagerly snapping pictures. For this I'm paying $150/night to stay in a hotel?

A couple of days later, we explored the Vanished World Trail, which is mostly a scenic drive through towns so small that the only business is the local pub (that's MY kind of town!). Occasionally you'll spot a sign that's keyed to a guide brochure that you buy for an outrageous price (I think it was $20 NZ, which is about the same as the cost of a pack of gum over here), stop, get out, and hike to see something that's usually not worth the walk. Then you get back in the car, try to wipe the sheep dung off your shoes, and do it all over again.

One of the stops was called the Elephant Rocks. Hoo, boy, here we go again. This is gonna be like one of those tortillas with Jesus on them: some random rock formation that drives enthusiasts wild while the rest of us roll our eyes.

Since I was in control of the car again, I had no choice except to stop. There was nothing around except sheep pasture, not interesting enough to be worth even the blink of an eye. So off we hiked.

Well, when we got there the view was pretty impressive (note the person at center right):

One of the rocks looks just like me:

And okay, one kind of looks like an elephant:

Yup, I'll admit that it was pretty cool. But I'm still not letting my daughter bring any of those danged rocks home in her luggage.

Penguins

One of the most popular tourist sights in New Zealand is penguins. “What?” you might say, “Penguins like ice-covered places, not sheep ranches!” But it turns out that penguins also like their summer vacations, and so the beaches here are covered with cute birds who spend their days fishing, squawking, and sipping drinks with little umbrellas in them.

To see the penguins, you can pay a tour guide $40 NZ a head (about $1.28 US before the recession, or $1,024 now) to take you over to the beach by bus or boat. Or, if you have incredible navigational skills, you can head to the beach all by yourself (hint: it's by the water).

So off we went. One handy thing about New Zealand is that it's surrounded by water, so it doesn't actually matter which direction you drive. We chose to go south, on the theory that it was towards Antarctica. We had trouble finding what we were looking for, but we still had a wonderful time passing through picturesque villages with names like Geraldine (motto: “We're not a Flip Wilson joke”), Waikouaiti (motto: “If you can pronounce it, you're welcome to live here”) and Long Beach (motto: “How'd we get here? We thought we were in California!”). Eventually, when we reached Dunedin, we figured out that we should turn left, at which point we promptly careened to the end of the pier and nearly fell into the ocean. It was there all the time! Who would have thought?

It turns out that in Dunedin, “little blue” penguins hang out at the Albatross Centre (New Zealanders can't spell for squat). Yes, that's right: you can't reliably find albatrosses there, but the penguins show up like clockwork—if your clock runs really, really slow. They come ashore at dusk and sleep on the rocks. (Penguins are not the smartest birds in the world. Why don't they use the nice soft sand? Or check into a hotel? New Zealand has some really nice hotels.)

But when we got there, there wasn't a penguin to be found. Instead, everybody spent several hours watching seagulls, who apparently think it's the most fun thing in the world to float around in the water doing nothing. Call them the backyard pool owners of the animal world. Every once in a while they would all take off for no apparent reason, circle, and come right back. It was kind of like watching NASCAR, except without beer. And NASCAR is quieter.

When it got dark, all the other people gave up and went home. Even the seagulls decided this was a stupid idea. But our family was gonna spot those little waddlers, dammit, even if it killed us. (Given the temperature, that was going to happen pretty soon.) Not that we were likely to see them at this point, since it was now as dark as the inside of…no, I'm not going there.

But suddenly, an hour after sunset, a lone penguin popped up on the shore. At least I think it was a penguin. It was so dark that it might have been James Bond in a wet suit; all I'm certain of is that he was wearing a tuxedo and carrying a Walther PPK, a beautiful lady penguin, and a martini with a little umbrella in it. I got a photo:

He was followed (I think) by a bunch of assassin penguins, but I swear he just vanished into thin air:

But our patience had paid off; we had seen real penguins—if “seen” is defined very, very loosely.

When we got home, we went to the Antarctic Centre (I told you Kiwis can't spell) and paid $40 each to watch the staff feed little blue penguins. But I don't think they were real penguins, because not a single one was wearing a bow tie.

Watching the Tides

When we moved to New Zealand, we rented a house that has a wonderful view of the local bay. Because of that view, I've been able to observe all sorts of fascinating natural phenomena, such as birds, weather patterns, and sunbathers. (The latter get most of my attention, since I'm interested in figuring out why the heck the average New Zealander starts running around in skimpy clothing whenever the temperature rises far enough to be called merely “freezing” instead of “OMG my nose just fell off.” And I consider it my duty to examine the best-looking ones closely to see if they are actually developing tans.)

One of the things I've been watching is the tide. Scientists tell us that tides are caused by the moon's gravity, which supposedly sucks the water toward it like some kind of giant teenager downing a milkshake. Balderdash. It only takes a few hours of watching to disprove that theory, because the tides go in and out even when the moon isn't there. How you gonna explain that, Mr. Smarty-Pants Scientist? Huh? I suppose you're going to try to snow us by concocting some complicated explanation involving arcane mathematical symbols that don't actually mean anything, like “plus signs” and “numbers.” That won't work with me.

Nope, it's simply not possible that the moon causes tides. In fact, I've come to the conclusion that there's a much simpler explanation: toilets. Think about it: everybody gets up in the morning, flushes the toilet, and takes a shower, all at the same time. That's zillions of gallons of water zipping through the pipes. And where does all that “used” water go? Into the ocean, of course. So naturally, the ocean rises. It stands to reason. Then everybody goes to work, and the water all drains out into a big hole near Guatemala. (If you visit Guatemala, you can actually take tours to see the hole. They put an immense strainer over it a couple of years ago, so it's safe. Really.)

But I digress. What's especially interesting about our bay is that it empties out completely at low tide. Every day we start with this beautiful, pristine harbor unsullied by man or beast (except for the seagull poop, of course). Then the tide goes out and we get to look at what amounts to a swamp, except without trees or poisonous snakes.

This poses an interesting problem for the sailboats scattered around the harbor. When the tide comes in, there's lots of pretty water to sail on. When it goes out, though, they end up stuck wherever they happen to be, balanced precariously on the sticky-downy thing that sailboats have on their bottom. Then the tide comes in, and they sail a few more feet until the water disappears again.

The New Zealanders don't seem to be bothered by this difficulty, though. When the boat gets stuck, they just hop out, wade to shore, and order a beer. Pretty clever, those Kiwis! (Though I do wonder why they don't just stay in the bar in the first place.)

Coming soon: how surfers cause tsunamis by falling into the water.

Earthquake!

You may have heard that New Zealand had an earthquake recently.

Imagine what it's like: it's 4:00 in the morning. You are sound asleep, snug under a warm blanket, dreaming of the kind of people who exist only in shampoo commercials. Suddenly an enormously loud noise startles you awake. The bed is shaking, the house is shuddering, and in your half-aware confusion you struggle to figure out what's wrong. Without quite understanding why, you leap into a doorway and brace yourself against the frame. Only then do you realize the horrible truth: your spouse is snoring again.

So you go back to bed and try to get some shut-eye before dawn. But pretty soon the shaking starts again, and this time it's the Real Thing. So you do what you do best: pull the covers over your head and pretend it's not happening—which is about the stupidest thing you could do because what if the house collapsed? Or your spouse woke up and accused you of snoring?

Somewhere in the middle of the “event” the power goes out. You know this despite the wee hour because you always keep a Winnie-the-Pooh night light burning, and now it doesn't work. Now that things are really serious, you jump out of bed and start banging the light against the wall, with no effect. You become aware of the rest of your family; you can hear screaming, whimpering, and sobbing. Fortunately, at just about this point the whole thing stops.

Sweating, overcome with relief, you look up to see your daughter standing in the hall, looking at you with an odd expression. “Daddy?” she asks calmly, “Why were you making all those noises? You woke me up.”

“Oh, just planning a quick vacation, honey.” And without missing a beat, you toss her in the car and drive north as fast as you can.

Anything to escape that snoring.

Anybody Would Be Sleepy

Someone asked me why I'm a sleepy professor.

On first blush, that would officially fall into the “dumb question” category. Professors are well known to be a bunch of arrogant, droning, boring twits. They put everybody else to sleep; why is it surprising that they do the same to themselves?

Of course, that's not the only issue. In fact, it's more my daughter's fault. Well, really we should blame it on my wife. (Anybody but me!) You see, my wife decided my daughter was old enough that she could stay up until 10 PM. This was based on some mysterious reasoning understandable only to mothers who work on the theory that kids learn responsibility by being treated like adults. Huh? My parents thought we should learn responsibility by being whipped. With chains. That's how we used to do it in my day.

So the kid goes to bed at 10. Except that “goes to bed” is defined as “starts moseying in the general direction of the bedroom.” And it's my job to brush her hair, which is about fourteen feet long and which, on a daily basis, turns into a tangle that makes a mangrove swamp look orderly. On a good day, I get done by midnight. And then I usually have some work to get done. And after that, there's the necessary channel surfing personal development. So even if my first class starts at 10 AM, I have a good excuse for being sleepy, right? Especially when your subject is as tedious as mine. I could put a meth freak to sleep.

That's why what happened last week is so shocking. I think I must have eaten something weird, because I suddenly decided to get up before dawn to take pictures of the sunrise. And I did. I dragged myself out of bed, bundled up against the freezing cold, and drove to the top of the mountain in the dark, feeling mighty proud of myself. That is, until I saw the guy walking his dog—in shorts. And then there was the old geezer out for a run, heading uphill. What's with these people? Why do they put so much effort into making me look bad?

To top it off, there were the two bicyclists who appeared at the summit just as the sun rose, wearing helmet lamps bright enough to light a runway and coming from a direction that meant they must have already been out in those temperatures for a couple of hours. Showoffs.

But I had the last laugh. I got a pretty nice picture of the rising sun hitting the mountains, which (almost) made it all worth it (click for a bigger version):

And on the way back, I ran over the geezer.

Cycling

I have a confession to make. It's a shameful secret, one that I've tried to keep hidden for decades, but it's time to finally come clean. Maybe then I can overcome my problem and make a fresh start.

So here it is: I like to get dressed up in slinky skin-tight outfits. Sometimes they're mostly black, sometimes they're colorful. A lot of the time they show skin—lots and lots of skin. And then I go out and display myself to the world.

Yes, it's true. I'm a cyclist.

Those of you who don't share my addiction may wonder exactly why any sane person would dress in clothes that don't look good even on a 20-year-old supermodel, climb on a flimsy hunk of aluminum, and risk his life doing mortal combat with maniacs in SUVs. Well, wonder no more, because the answer is staring you in the face: we're stupid.

You might think, based on your childhood experience with a $30 Stingray that was handed down from your big sister (complete with pink tassels on the handgrips) and eventually stolen by the school bully, that riding a bike is an easy, fun, and inexpensive way to get exercise. Right. The modern cyclist needs a machine that costs at least $2000 (and that's for the cheapskates—the big spenders can drop that much for a single wheel). Then he has to buy those fancy clothes to prove that he is an “experienced cyclist” who is willing to spend tons of money on frivolities.

Of course, he also has to buy an expensive helmet to protect his head in case of accident (remind me again why it's a good idea to engage in a sport that endangers your life?). Even his gloves and socks are special.

And then there are the shoes. Watch a cyclist get off his bike sometime. Look at how he walks. He can't! Because he's wearing “cycling shoes” that cost more than your Grandma Minnie's pacemaker. And what's special about them? Well, they make it impossible to walk, which is critical because it makes him feel special. Plus, when he's on the bike they clamp his feet onto the pedals.

That's right. Serious cyclists can't take their feet off the pedals! So what happens when they get to a traffic light? Simple: they fall over. If you hang out in hotbeds of cycling, like France, you'll often find huge heaps of bike riders by the side of the road, struggling to get up like a bunch of cockroaches. French drivers are used to this; they just toss a few granola bars into the pile of Lycra as they go past. In America, though, we usually shift into four-wheel drive and go straight over.

We cyclists will have the last laugh, though. Because we know that cycling is one of the healthiest sports around. If you want proof, just look at Lance Armstrong: he took up cycling and beat cancer. And not just any cancer either; it was testicular cancer. How about that, tough guy? You think your big ol' Hummer is gonna save you from the knife? Uh-uh. You wanna survive, you gotta be tough. You gotta snap yourself into some Spandex, clip your feet onto the pedals, and ride. Ride hundreds of miles every day, up enormous mountains, rain or shine, in the heat and in the cold. Build up those leg muscles, expand those lungs.

But don't expect me to be out there with you, because I figured that one out a long time ago. Nowadays, I dress up in the fancy clothes, tell the wife I'll be back in a few hours, and hide the bike in the garage. Then I drive to the pub.

What, you think I'm dumb or something?

Culture Shock

The other day, somebody asked me what my biggest culture shock was on coming to New Zealand. I was stumped for an answer, because the truth is that there hasn't been a big shock, just a series of little ones.

Some of the different ways of doing things are expected, such as the Kiwi penchant for driving on the left side of the road. I have been trying, without success, to get them to change over to the right side by the simple expedient of driving on the right whenever possible. (It's obvious that they're doing things wrong, because if the left side were the right side, we wouldn't call it the left side, we'd call it the right side, right? It's obviously right that we should drive on the right or the English language wouldn't use “right” to mean right. You don't hear people going around saying things like “You got 23 answers left on that test” or “Left on!” or even “Lefty tighty righty loosey,” which doesn't even rhyme. Really, would we have ever invented rhyming English if “left” meant right? No, of course not.)

Anyway, everybody knows about that whole driving-on-the-wrong-side thing, the goofy spellings, and the incomprehensible accents (“Oil tyke the Oll Blecks at sivin tyo one” apparently means something here, though I haven't quite figured out what). It turns out that it's the little things that really get you.

For example, every single wall outlet in the entire country has a cute little switch on it. When you plug something in, you're supposed to turn the switch on (did I mention that down is on?) and then switch it off when you unplug. Apparently nobody ever figured out that unplugging something disconnects the electricity, so there's no need to turn it off separately. So the New Zealanders spend their lives going around, flipping these little switches that have absolutely no effect whatsoever. I guess it makes them feel safe or something. But try plugging in your run-down laptop to charge it up, only to come back an hour later to find it dead because you left the switch on last night and some helpful soul turned off the danged switch FOR YOU and you didn't notice. I guess they think the electricity is going leak out on the ground if they don't turn it off.

Speaking of electrical things, light bulbs are fun too. There's not just one size, there's regular, mini, extra-mini, and probably super-duper-ultra-teeny-mini (also known as “invisible”). When a bulb burns out, you have to take it to the store and then spend 45 minutes finding the section for the proper size before you can even think about wattage. Then you take it home and find out that you still can't change the bulb because the socket is bayonet style (what the heck is that?) instead of a simple screw. So you go back, get a nice efficient compact fluorescent (have I mentioned the electricity prices?) with the right size, mount, and wattage, only to discover that it still won't go in the stupid fixture because the socket is old and the bulb isn't quite long enough. So, in the dark, you fall off the chair you're using for a ladder and sprain your ankle. But that's OK, because New Zealanders are super-friendly, so you can be sure you'll have somebody to chat with in the ER.

And then there are the spoons. You wouldn't think that something as simple as a spoon could possibly give cultural problems, right?

Wrong.

New Zealand offers spoons in two sizes: too small, and too large. A teaspoon here is just slightly bigger than a swizzle stick. Apparently its purpose is to stir things, not to put sugar in your tea or (heaven forbid) lift cereal to your mouth to eat it. But the only other size in our house is something that can be best described as a serving spoon. For all of New York City. The only way to eat with this spoon is to climb on the edge and dip your face in.

Fine, so we went shopping today and bought some new spoons. The package was labeled “dessert spoons,” so we were sure we had purchased a sensible size. Only when we got home, we discovered that we could pour an entire bottle of beer into one spoon without spilling. That's OK, though, because the next time I get pulled over I can truthfully tell the officer that I only had seven spoonfuls.

Only he won't understand me because I didn't say “sivin.”

Freezing in New Zealand

We've been in New Zealand for almost two weeks now. So far, our trip seems to have had three themes: high prices, especially for food; lack of Internet access (thus the slow updates on this blog); and cold.

New Zealand, as you may have noticed, is in the Southern Hemisphere. That means that we flew from July heat into the deepest part of winter. During a cold snap. To a city that has been described as “like England in the 1950's.” How does that translate? Try this: primitive heating technology, outrageous energy costs, in a country famous for its wool production.

It's not that the Kiwis don't believe in heat. It's just that they think ice is pretty cozy stuff. You can see them on the roads, riding bicycles in the rain when it's 33 degrees Fahrenheit. You see them in their homes, wearing wool hats and coats. You see them in the town square, soaking up the one square inch of feeble sunshine that shines through the window between noon and 1 PM.

On our first night in a two-room motel suite, the dinky little electric heater would come on for 30 seconds and blow enough lukewarm air to maybe keep a small closet warm, then shut off for two or three minutes. When we woke up in the morning, it was 57 degrees. Really. We debated taking the drinks out of the fridge so that they would be colder. When we tried to take a shower, we had to kick out the cute little penguins who were ice-skating there.

After a few days, we left the motel and moved to our cousin's gorgeous retirement home overlooking a bay. This house has been completely remodeled and upgraded, with all the latest stuff. Sure enough, it has heaters that actually work. Only if you turn one on, you are spending approximately $30/minute, so we left them off and enjoyed the view. Of the fog. When night fell, we huddled under blankets and ate dinner in front of the TV. We didn't actually watch anything, though, since turning the thing on would have used up another $100.

When I got to my new job, I was pleased to discover that I had an office that was heated to a nice comfortable level—if you're wearing three layers of wool. And it had no computer. Or phone. Or even a chair. But hey, there were pens and a pad to doodle on while I waited for those things to show up. I drew a picture of a palm tree on a nice desert island. When I came back later, the leaves had fallen off the palm and it was wearing a wool sweater of its own.

Despite all the cold, it's nice here in New Zealand. The people are friendly, the buses run on time, and the food has been delicious. Everybody says this is an unusually cold winter, and spring is coming. So really, even if it sounds like I'm complaining, I'm not.

I just wish somebody would show me where the thermostat for the outdoors is.

Luggage Fees

Anybody who has ever taken “unusual” luggage on an airplane knows the terror involved in arriving at the checkin counter. Airlines are always looking for ways to make flying more difficult; they figure that if they can scare all the passengers into staying home, they won't have to pay the pilots and they'll make more money. But if you do fly, you can count on it that the rules for everything will be arbitrary, changed at the whim of the guy sweeping the lobby floor, and (above all) expensive.

So when I decided to take my bicycle to New Zealand, my wife immediately started treating me like I needed a session with a psychiatrist. (Which is odd, because I'm hardly rational under the best of circumstances. But she normally ignores that particular foible.) After a Web search, I discovered the Air Caddy, a remarkable bit of cardboard that I'm pleased to recommend highly. (I also recommend buying the optional wheels; I didn't and regret it.) My only complaint is that it didn't arrive with an expert to put it together; I spent about 95 hours on the project before I finally figured out that tab B actually should go in slot B (who would have thought?).

When the Big Day arrived, we stuffed our twelve bags and the bike box (sideways, which didn't bother it at all) into a shuttle and headed to the airport. When we started unloading, the people behind the V Australia checkin counter started pointing and laughing at the pile we were making—until we headed their way, at which point they ran for the back room rather than have to deal with our pile of stuff. All except one nice lady who took one look at the bike and asked, “Where did you get that box?”

Oh, great. It's not an airline-approved box. Of course not. The airline ones are made of cereal cartons pasted together with Post-It notes, require you to disassemble the bike down to the ball bearings, and offer the baggage handlers seventeen different ways to bend your carbon-fiber frame, smash your aerodynamic wheels, and ruin your expensive derailleur. In fact, they come with how-to-crush instructions printed on the side.

So when she questioned my box, my heart sank. Would she refuse to let it go on the plane? Would she charge me more than the value of my bike? Would she leap over the counter and beat me to death with it? One thing was certain: life was going to be very, very bad.

But no. It turned out that she has a bike of her own and thought my box looked robust. I told her (truthfully) that it had been tested with a 3000-pound load, which impressed her even more than my biceps. Both of 'em. She smiled, went out of her way to charge me less than she could have, and made everything good. She was even cheerful about the other twelve bags, each of which was packed to exactly the legal limit. (My understanding is that if you have an overweight bag, they charge you a substantial fee and then push your stuff out the door when you are somewhere over the Pacific.)

We carefully didn't mention our pockets, which were also packed with heavy things. These days, it takes planning to outsmart an airline.

Missing Cat

Our cat disappeared on Friday.

Before I go further, I should tell you that the ending is happy. But it made me think a bit. (I can hear all you smart-alecks right now: “Think? A professor? When did this start?” Just shut up, all right? I'll have you know that I think on a daily basis. In fact, I think I'll have a beer right now, just to prove how thoughtful I am. So there.)

The interesting thing about our two cats is that they're not all that interesting. In many ways, they're more like gerbils. They hardly purr, they hardly cuddle, they hardly do anything except poop and sleep. And they're afraid of almost everything—especially monsters, which come in many forms: loud noises, strange cats, strange humans, vacuum cleaners (of course), and wealthy politicians. (OK, I made that last one up. I'm the one who's scared of politicians. But the cats ought to be scared of them.)

Nevertheless, we love our cats; we found that out Friday. The gray one has been sick, and we needed to take her to the vet for a shot. But we were also on the last day before we headed to New Zealand. (I sometimes think that pets plan these things. “Oh, they're going on a trip, huh? And they can barely afford it? Perfect! I'll eat some grass, barf on the rug, and then keel over barely breathing so they'll have to rush me to the vet and spend $750 to find out I'm actually healthy. Then they won't have the money to buy the tickets for Wizarding World. Heh, heh. Serves 'em right.”)

Anyway, we had scheduled the day carefully. Carpet cleaners at ten, house cleaners after that, vet at 2:30. We would (try to) put the cat in the carrier at 2:00, to be sure that we had enough time to catch her.

Only the house cleaners showed up at 1:55 and promptly plugged the vacuum in. So both cats dashed outside. Then the gardeners arrived with their leaf blower. It was the perfect storm of monsters.

Now anybody who has ever been owned by a cat knows that Harry Potter's invisibility cloak has nothing on cats. When a feline wants to hide, it will vanish into thin air. You can look in all the favorite spots, you can call it, you can put food out, you can even pretend not to care. It doesn't matter. The Air Force really screwed up when they spent a billion dollars on the B-1 stealth bomber. If they had simply put a cat in the pilot seat of a Cessna, all the enemy fighters in the world wouldn't have been able to find it.

2:10. No cat. 2:15. Still no cat. 2:20. We call the vet, who generously tells us they close at 6, just bring her over when you find her. 3:00. No cat.

At this point I should mention that this particular cat is not what you'd call smart. In fact, calling her stupid would be a compliment. She normally wanders around the house, trying to remember where the food is. If she encounters a half-open door, instead of pulling it open with her paw like a normal cat, she stands up against it, dog-fashion, latching it irreversibly shut. Stupid? She's so dumb she could be a politician. Well, almost.

So I'm really ticked that she has outsmarted me.

3:30. No cat. 4:00. We go over to the neighbors for a farewell drink. Surely the cat will get over her fear and return while we're gone, right? Riiiiiiight.

I'll spare you the blow-by-blow. At 5:30, I phoned the vet and rescheduled for Saturday (praise be to all vets who are open on weekends!). At 10:00, I called the cats for dinner. The gray one is a pig; she is always right there at the first hint of food. Not this time.

That's when I realized how illogical we can be about our pets. We were due to leave—for a year—in less than 24 hours, and our cat—our non-cuddling, non-purring, disastrously stupid cat—was missing. What to do? Obviously, one of us would have to stay behind until she was found. How much would it cost to change the ticket? $2000? $3000? How much hassle would it be to live in our now-empty house, waiting for the cat to come back? How long would we wait before we gave up and admitted that she would never return? How come I couldn't hear the snickering just outside my door, as the danged cat relished my agony and punished me for having hired the monsters in the first place?

But finally, just after midnight, I looked up and there she was, busily munching on the food I had left out. “Who, me? Is there something wrong?”

No, my darling cat. Nothing at all. I'm just relieved that I'm not going to fly to New Zealand full of guilt for letting my cat die.

And I'm going to ask the vet to use the biggest needle he has.

Packing

One of the better aspects of an academic job is that every seven years you take a sabbatical to step back from the rat race, rejuvenate, and think up new ideas. Or, as is more common in reality, to finally catch up on some of the sleep you've missed over the previous decade.

Some professors take their sabbaticals at home, where they have the advantage of knowing which store has the best beer prices. But there's always the risk that some clueless jerk (i.e., your boss), will call you up with a question and interrupt your nap. So I much prefer to go far, far away. The moon would be a cool choice, but tickets are still a bit pricey so instead we picked New Zealand, which is much like the moon except that it's wetter and greener, has more oxygen, and is filled with millions of friendly sheep who will give you the wool off their backs if you're cold. Which is good, because in July, cold is New Zealand's middle name.

Everybody who hears we're moving to New Zealand has the same one-word reaction: “Wow!” Somehow, the country has gained a reputation as the most gorgeous place on the planet. Never mind that it's closer to Antarctica than Seattle is to Chicago. Never mind that some parts get OVER 21 FEET OF RAIN EVERY YEAR. Never mind that the Maoris named it “The Land of the Long White Cloud.” (Actually, that's the shortened version; the true name is “The Land of the Long White Cloud that Always Makes it Cold and Rainy But My Brother-in-Law's Neighbor's Cousin Claims She Saw the Sun Once When She Was a Girl.”) Ever since The Lord of the Rings came out, everybody is in love with New Zealand. So they're hugely envious of our upcoming trip. (Little do they know that LOTR was shot mostly in a studio in Burbank, using a backdrop based on a photograph taken on March 3rd, 1953, which was the only entirely sunny day New Zealand has had since World War II.)

Well, here's the truth about moving to another country for a year: getting there is absolute hell. There are a million things to take care of: renting the house out, buying airline tickets, packing your stuff, researching airline luggage charges, painting over the hole your kid's head made in the wall, discovering that the airline considers a jacket to be a piece of luggage (really), arguing with your wife about whether to sell your Manny Ramirez bobblehead doll that you never displayed because you're angry at Manny over the steroids thing, figuring out who's going to take care of the cats, paying an extra $300 per person for a plane seat that's not inside the toilet, getting visas, finding a place to live…the list only seems endless because it is endless.

But probably the most (not!) fun comes when it's time to pack your bags. The airline will check two 35-pound suitcases per person. So everything you need to live for a year has to be reduced to 70 pounds. And that's where our daughter comes in.

You see, our daughter has three great passions: horses, books, and rocks. So naturally she has her own idea of a good packing list. She is currently making piles of things to take with her. She has six sets of riding boots, four helmets, and several pairs of special pants. Meanwhile, for personal items, she has one pair of pajamas, one pair of jeans, two shirts, and a toothbrush. I tried to suggest that she might want to bring a dress for special occasions, and got the eye roll that only a twelve-year-old can give. But she understands that the book list has to be limited, so she has pared it down to just 1200 essential volumes, from Good Night Moon to Richard Feynman's 3-volume Lectures on Physics. After I assured her that New Zealand has discovered the concept of the library, she promised to put aside another 400 before we leave.

The rock collection is another matter. Every time we go on vacation, she finds a pretty rock to bring home. In fact, she does that every time we go to the park, the store, or even the local landfill. She collects rocks from everywhere, fully convinced that they are the most wonderful and valuable thing since the Hope Diamond. And she will not under any circumstances agree that the rocks could be left safely behind for a year. “What if burglars break in? Huh, Dad? What then? I'd lose them all!” This last word is uttered in that rising tone that kids reserve for the most dire situations in life (the ones that arise on a daily, if not hourly, basis).

I point out that New Zealand probably has rocks of its own. I point out that one of the airlines charges $5.75/pound (really) for excess baggage. I point out that the mythical burglars are probably interested in something more portable and valuable than rocks gathered from the street. This last comment is a huge mistake; the girl immediately bursts into tears at my insult to her years of careful sifting through beaches and gravel pits. In the end, I agree that she can bring “a few” along.

So we'll arrive at the airport with our six suitcases and six carry-ons, each packed to the brim, and one of them is going to be way overweight. I lost that part of the battle. But my daughter will be happy. And the Manny Ramirez bobblehead will be tucked away safely, protected on all sides by nice, strong rocks.

Gardening

My wife loves to garden.

This is not a bad thing, despite the fact that she grows only ornamental plants and refuses to cultivate the One True Vegetable (white corn, if you're curious). When we bought our house, the yard looked something like the worst parts of Afghanistan, only scarier. After just a few years and $20,000 in seeds, it looks more like the Florida Everglades…only scarier.

No, seriously, we have a beautiful yard. It's so gorgeous that last year it was on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. Foreign dignitaries drop by to have their photographs taken next to our modest pond, which is based on the fountains at Versailles (though a bit larger). I'd link to the Google satellite image, but they blocked it because so many people were gawking that it clogged their servers.

That's all pretty cool. Not everyone can live in a showpiece house with a showpiece garden and a showpiece family. I wish I could claim that I do, but I manage to clutter up the house so it looks more like Skid Row right before a big police sweep. Still, the garden makes a nice refuge from all that.

The problem is, my wife seems to think that a garden should contain a bunch of things that actually grow. And although I didn't realize it when we moved in, growing things requires water.

“So what?” you ask. “Isn't that what sprinklers are for?”

Me too. Not realizing that this marks us as indelibly, hopelessly, cluelessly male. Because sprinklers aren't the right way to water plants. Not if you're a true gardener with a thumb so green that it puts Amazon parrots to shame. Not if you have, um…envy.

No, the true gardener waters everything by hand.

So what's the big deal about that? Why not just let my wife have her fun? If she wants to squirt plants, or write her name in the snow, that's her business, right? She says it relaxes her. A relaxed wife is Good with a capital G. Go for it, honey!

Sounds sensible. Except that this is a woman who has no concept of the term "water damage." Never mind that she grew up in rainy, foggy San Francisco and spent a decade living in sunny Seattle (well, it was sunny the day she foolishly decided to move there). Never mind that if you left a lawn chair or a marble statue out for three days in one of those places, it would immediately develop mold and start to stink like a car salesman's promises. Never mind the arm's-length list of possessions that were destroyed by mist the first day she arrived in the Pacific Northwest. Never mind that she's developed a habit where every day, summer and winter, she leaves the bathroom window open “to let the steam out” despite the fact that we live in a broiling semi-desert and our house is so dry that even the sponges are cracked. All those learning experiences are instantly forgotten when she gets hold of a hose.

So here's what my summer weekends are like: I get up, grab the newspaper and a glass of juice, and wander out to the patio to soak up (and I use the term advisedly) a bit of sun. Spreading the paper out to my favorite section (the kiddie pages), I settle down and take a sip.

Suddenly, behind me, there is the familiar hiss of a nozzle.

Before I can react, the paper is sopping and my juice glass is full of water. You see, my wife's aim isn't so hot. And, more important, she just doesn't care. In her world, water is this magic stuff that appears from nowhere without any apparent source or reason. If it lands on plants it makes them grow; if it lands somewhere else it just evaporates. It can't possibly cause any damage, because it's “The stuff of life.”

So I sit there, dripping, with my breakfast ruined and a torn newspaper leaking ink onto my hands. And without missing a beat, I take the situation in hand like the commanding patriarch I am:

“Sweetie? Could you bring me the shampoo?”

A Professor's Life

Ah, professors. Those lucky dogs, sitting around all day, smoking their pipes. Every once in a while they get up in front of a class, spout some complete nonsense that only a college student would believe, then retire to their offices surrounded by admiring coeds. In summer they work on their tans and complain about how the administration misunderstands them.

What a life!

Well, I'm here to tell you that the above picture is completely and utterly wrong. I'm a real professor, and I work on my tan in the winter, too.

To be fair, there are a few minor drawbacks to the job—the parents who threaten to sue over a grade, the committees formed to decide what color to paint the restrooms, the frosh who is certain World War II started in 1927 because he read it on a blog—but it has its perks, too. Outside the NFL, how many people suffer from grass stains as an occupational hazard? How many factories are so pretty that people walk their dogs there every evening? (Oh wait...ewwwwwwwww...maybe that's not so great after all.)

To give you an idea of how wonderful your life would be if only you had answered one of those “Ph.D. for life experience!” ads in your inbox instead of wasting your time browsing blogs, here's a typical day in the life of a typical professor:

6:15 AM. The alarm goes off. The professor, having been up until 3 the night before, rolls over and ignores it. His wife gets up and takes the kids to school.

9:00 AM. The professor wakes with a start. Quickly doing the arithmetic in his head, he calculates that he has had 7 hours of sleep and is ready for another exciting day of critical thinking. Full of new ideas, he rushes into the bathroom and brushes his teeth with shaving soap left over from the one and only time he decided to go without a beard. (This professor never discards anything. Ever.)

9:05 AM. Suddenly, he remembers that he has a 9:15 meeting this morning. With his boss. And it takes 15 minutes to get to campus. Fortunately, nobody cares if professors smell bad, because the students smell worse. Besides, his boss is elected by the other professors. And he can't actually do anything if our hero is late.

The professor makes coffee.

9:30 AM. The prof arrives at the meeting with an insincere apology in hand. His boss isn't there yet. He memorizes the apology for future use.

10:30 AM. With the meeting over and nothing actually accomplished, the prof returns to his office to hold scheduled office hours. Wise and experienced, he always schedules office hours at times when students are unlikely to be available. He whiles away the time by grading a few quizzes. The worst answers will be e-mailed to other faculty so they can laugh at the students behind their backs. The best ones get saved as the answer key.

What, you thought he knew the answers?

11:00 AM. The “office hours” were only half an hour; now it's time for the first class. Preparing a good lecture takes a lot of time (usually two to five hours per in-class hour). But this guy has a system: a quiz will take 15 minutes, which he can stretch to 20 by generously allowing a bit of extra time for latecomers. Then he'll discuss the upcoming test (“Will we be allowed to use pencils?” is good for a five-minute explanation of why only ink is acceptable) and take a brief side journey into last night's episode of “American Idol.”

Some lecture slides downloaded from the Internet will fill the rest of the time, especially because he'll spend a lot of it trying to figure out what the equations mean. But who cares? It's a private college; these kids must be rich. They probably all have trust funds. They should give him a cut. Or at least donate an endowed chair to the college in his name. Who do they think they are, anyway? Damn snotnoses.

12:00 PM. Lunch is an important committee meeting. Every college has a few committees that do real work, such as deciding which students are doing so badly that they should flunk out. But the professor in charge of the dartboard forgot to bring it, and the administrator in charge of bribes left her list in the office. So everybody spends the hour arguing whether the cafeteria food is even worse than last year.

2:00 PM. Returning to his office, the professor spots a student heading his way. He quickly decides that it's the perfect time to wander through campus and think deep thoughts, and ducks back outside before he has to answer a question.

Close call!

3:30 PM. The afternoon class is a seminar on the applied biology of psychological linear algebra, with applications to the ideological niceties of quantum physics in Bollywood films. This is a perfect course because nobody understands what the hell the title means, so the prof can just let the students argue about whether World of Warcraft is more fun than Modern Warfare II. He soon falls asleep and gets one hour closer to the rest he thought he had had all along.

5:00 PM. Returning to his office, the professor realizes that he has forgotten the research paper that he had promised to send to a journal editor by today. Cutting and pasting from random files on his computer, he produces something that looks coherent and sends it off. Hopefully, the guy won't notice.

6:30 PM. The prof heads home and settles down to study the latest discoveries in his field. The tome he is wading through today is destined to become a classic: G. Larson's “Beyond the Far Side.”

8:00 PM. Time for some relaxation. Our hero channel-surfs for 90 minutes, driving his wife crazy, before putting the kids to bed.

He doesn't notice that he actually tucked them away under the bed, but that's OK. The Larson treatise has convinced him there aren't any monsters there.

10:00 PM. Back to work. This is the quiet time when the professor can get a lot done and be ready for the upcoming day. He begins by checking his e-mail, then spends an hour on YouTube. That leads him to an insightful Dave Barry satire and some important thoughts from Jon Stewart.

2:00 AM. OK, now we really have to buckle down. The professor spends an hour refining the equation he came up with last night at about this same time. Unfortunately, he hasn't yet noticed that he's actually working on the receipt from his wife's last trip to the grocery store.

3:00 AM. Exhausted but proud of the day's accomplishments, the professor decides he had better get some sleep, since he has an appointment tomorrow at 8 AM. A quick mental calculation reveals that if he goes to bed right now, he can sleep a full eight hours, get up at 7:30, and still make it on time.

He sets the alarm for noon.