No Rest for the Weary (Houston Edition)

(November 11th-16th) As you may have surmised from the title of this post, shortly after returning from my marathon I was off again, this time back across the pond to Houston.  Somehow the middle of my trip to Oxford had already passed me by, a theme that has been fairly constant throughout my time in England.

Every year I attend the IMECE conference, so it's become an event that I look forward to as I catch up with colleagues, make new acquaintances, get to hear myself talk about my research in front of semi-captive audiences, and of course all of the other fluff associated with visiting a different city (such as new running trails, restaurants, cultural events to take in, etc.).

I must admit, Houston was a bit odd this year as most of my colleagues showed up towards the middle of the conference if they showed up at all.  That left a few days of taking in Houston during my spare time alone...though little did I know that that was really going to be the only time that I would have to take Houston in.

My first day in Houston was pretty much the only chance that I had to eat out.  Starved for authentic South-Western food, I found myself wandering into Irma's Southwest Grill.  It managed to do the trick.  One thing that impressed me about the meal, though, was the lentil and black bean soup.  A little spicy and flavored sublimely.  At least compared to what I had been eating in England and Germany. 

Salsas (two types!), guacamole, and tortilla chips!  Oh how I missed thee.

  

 

Tamales and real iced tea?  Oh, it was good to be back in the states.  Oddly enough, the one thing that I didn't photograph was the lentil and black bean soup...

That night, having a bit of time to kill, I decided to head off to the Houston Rockets game since I could see the arena from my hotel room.

How could I resist?  After all, basketball games were something I always enjoyed seeing as a kid growing up in DC.  And, amazingly, the game wasn't sold out even though the defending champions, the Miami Heat, were coming to town. 

I really did like that view from my hotel room, oddly enough.

As you can see, lots of empty seats...so strange.  But I didn't complain about getting to see the likes of LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, Ray Allen, and the Rocket's own James Harden.  I'm still shocked that OKC traded him away.  Two nights later I found myself heading the same way again.  My good friend from grad school, Annie Tangpong, had arrived mid-week and wanted to take in a game too.  So, being an old pro at getting tickets quickly and easily, we headed off to see the Rockets play the New Orleans Hornets.

And yep, that's James "The Beard" Harden taking free throws with Anthony Davis in the low post.

As you can see above, Annie is nowhere near as big as Yao Ming.  The Rocket's arena had a lot of interactive areas for fans...very neat to see as I can't remember the Cap Center (later US Airways Arena) ever having anything of the like.

Anyways, that's pretty much it for Houston...well, that and 30 miles of running through Buffalo Bayou park and other, less pleasant neighborhoods.  Lot's of work really which I shall not go into detail about here.

Next up: Another Layover in New Mexico!  In the mean time, somehow I'm only one month behind...how did that happen?!

Heartbroken

(December 14th) As news continues to trickle in about the tragedy that transpired in Newtown, my heart is broken piece by piece.  Even as an adult, I wrestle with the question of why?  Why was this allowed to happen?  How could these tragedies...Columbine, Aurora, and Virginia Tech (where several of my colleagues died) to name just a few of the many that we've seen in recent years...happen?

I don't pretend to struggle with the question of 'How could God allow this?' as that is clearly, to me, not the issue (no matter what you believe in, the premise that we have free will lays blame squarely upon us, unless you're expecting divine intervention...).  No.  Rather, i struggle with the concept of how do we, as a society, allow this to happen?

It's tempting to fill this space with a monologue against our lax gun control laws (after all, who out there is surprised to hear that I'm for more stringent gun control laws), but I shall endeavor to not go too far into this.  I understand that people desire a method to hunt, to protect themselves (though the question of 'from whom are you trying to protect yourself with an automatic rifle' does flash through my mind), and to collect.

I don't, however, understand why we need such powerful weapons to fill each of these gaps?  I don't understand why we have a system that makes it easy for psychologically disturbed individuals (not always easy to tell, but rather apparent in the case of Virginia Tech and Aurora) to easily acquire high powered weapons (and that is what they are, weapons in the very purest sense of the word...semi-automatic assault rifles, smoke grenades, etc.).  I don't understand why we make guns easily accessible to minors.

The concepts of responsibility seem to be lacking at several stages in this process.  Do I think that we must drastically scale back what's available to be sold and owned?  No.  I fear that that might be an over reaction of sorts.  Do I think that we should revisit our gun control laws, place some controls, require more responsibility and registration, and limit what and how much is sold?  To some extent, yes.  As I mentioned above, why do we need to own automatic or semi-automatic guns and rifles?

I understand our constitutional right to bear arms in order to protect ourselves and our state.  That constitutional right also spells out that a well prepared militia is instrumental in protecting our nation.  Times have changed though.  Back when the constitution was written, we were actively warring against Native Americans, French, Spanish, and the British.  We were in the midst of a revolutionary war, in which all citizens of the state were needed to rise up and throw off what we perceived to be a yoke of oppression, whether in an organized or guerrilla style campaign. 

Times have changed.  Are we presently worried, though, of our families being scalped while on the homestead or taking goods to town?  Of course not, that very notion now seems silly and offensive on many levels.  Are we worried about the red coats coming again?  No!  (Though some may argue that it's rational to fear another type of red, but in this day and age, an all out war such as that would be ridiculous and detrimental to all parties involved).  So then why do we need a well armed plebeian militia above and beyond our national guard and our military?

Do we still have a right to protect ourselves and our family?  Of course...but in order to do so, how much do you really need to protect yourself from a home invasion?  An automatic pistol?  Two?  Ten?  A semi-automatic rifle?  There are reasonable limits to be placed here that rational thought could help us arrive at.  Sadly, this seems to not be employed.  I hear some of the arguments for lax gun control equivocating the ownership of a bushmaster to that of a Ferrari.  Why own one?  Because it's completely different and more fun/exotic than your run of the mill car.  Well, by that logic, why not allow legalization of drugs?  Ecstasy is more exotic than your run of the mill Advil.  Or how about nuclear hand grenades (sadly, such a thing did exist at one point)?  They're much more exotic than a rat trap...

For people that feel that their rights are infringed upon by not being able to use these types of weapons, why not allow for them to be available under strict control at gun ranges.  Heck, you could even imagine installing a safety device that disarmed the gun if taken off premises and sprayed you with paint (much like anti-theft devices in stores or grocery cart locking mechanisms).

Speaking of rights, what about my right to feel safe and secure?  Do I feel safe when I see a non-police officer walking around with a gun visible?  No.  Do I feel safe when I think of a student carrying a gun on to campus, a right that the NRA is fighting for?  No!  I should be allowed to feel safe where I live, where I work, and where I eat and shop.  For that right to be infringed upon because one or two individuals feel that their constitutional right to bear arms supersedes our right to feel safe and secure is sad.

Events such as the Trayvon Martin killing could be avoided.  If we're sincere about enforcing safety, then why take a lethal weapon to a non-life threatening situation when a Taser or rubber bullets would suffice instead?  Seriously, why?  I'm not saying that this is the solution...there're too many things to consider by far for it to be that simple, but baby steps.

I can only dream that one day, the horrors that we've collectively experienced, with our children being shot in a presumably safe environment of education, are but a distant nightmare.



Edit: In closing, an exert from Slate: Could this shooting be the one that shakes us out of our deadly paralysis about the twin problems of limitless access to guns and untreated mental illness?

In the United States, we’re divided, and we have no universal basic knowledge of weapons. We make it incredibly easy to buy the kind of weapons that shoot and shoot again instantly, but we don’t search people at the doors of schools or malls or movie theaters, and we don’t post armed guards in these places. We have the guns without the safety checks. We call that freedom. We invoke the current Supreme Court’s understanding of the Second Amendment right to bear arms. Lower courts strike down bans on carrying concealed weapons, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit did last Tuesday, eliminating an Illinois law.

The cost of this definition of freedom is too high: That’s the point advocates for gun control make, over and over again. If this lesson sunk in, maybe we’d take seriously the results in Australia, where a massacre of 35 people led to a 1996 ban on semi-automatic and automatic rifles and shotguns. (Adam Lanza had the first, according to reports.) Australia also started a mandatory buy-back program for the weapons it banned. A drop in the firearm homicide rate and the firearm suicide rate followed, according to some research. There are other, smaller fixes, a by now familiar list: Bring back the ban on assault weapons, which Congress allowed to expire in 2004. Ban the sale of rapid-fire ammunition. Quit letting people buy weapons at gun shows without background checks. That alone could help keep guns out of the hands of some people who are mentally ill and not getting treated.

Edit 2: More documented evidence relating increased gun control to declines in gun homicide rates for those of you out there that think it won't make any difference for some reason...

The Haunted Halls of Oxford

(October 31st) All Hallows Eve, and all is not quiet.  As our ghost tour guide dons his best macabre persona, none of us are convinced.  The school girls are giggling, the adults are discussing what might be more frightening: the tour guide's acting, or that we're all playing along, and my housemate Alex and I are rolling our eyes at yet another unbelievable tale.  But, somewhere in the midst of the yarns pulled forth comes a thread or two of reality.

Queen's Lane, once site of a boarding house that was payed by the crown for each child they tended.  This boarding house, it seems, had a nasty habit of letting the children die, then disposing of the evidence by burying the bodies in the walls.  Years later, when this old church building was renovated, the skeletons, dozens of them, were discovered.  Our tour guide tried to convince us that the alley we were walking down was now haunted by the spirits of those children, but we didn't buy it, until we took a picture of a strange, flickering light...

In a series of photographs, that blue light moved from one end of the alley to the other.  I'm not sure what to make of it, but at the time I just thought of it as strange.  Several weeks later, when I was seeing Fred off in the wee hours of the morning, I decided to start my daily run by heading up Queen's Lane.  Immediately after turning down the alley, the air grew cold and still, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and sounds of children (at six in the morning, well before sun rise), echoed off the high walls.  My mind quickly flashed back to this tale from Halloween, and I've yet to revisit that alley while alone in the dark.

But, that's not the only haunting that I shall endeavor to not explain.  Oxford has a rich history dating back over a thousand years.  The celebration of Halloween and All Souls Day, whether from the Christian or Druid perspective, is pervasive in the life of the city.

Halloween at St. Edmund's Hall.

And just as the celebration of these days is integral to the city, so to are the stories of ghosts permeating these walls.  On my first visit to Christ Church, in particular to the hall where the Harry Potter dining scenes were filmed, I snapped this photograph:

Here, students are enjoying dinner on the left, but what I'd like to bring your attention to is the man walking in the aisle on the right.  Look at the second and third lamps on that table, and you might see him.  When I took this photo, I was in the process of taking several shots in a row as I found the right light levels for my camera.  In each of the photos, the man is visible as you see him above, that is hardly visible at all.  I'm confident that what you see isn't an artifact of someone quickly walking through my photo and just barely showing up as no one else has this quality to them, but make of it what you will. I've not sought out any information about hauntings of this hall.

My last encounter with ghosts is much closer to home.  Fred, Alex, and Mannu, if you're reading this you should stop now.  Seriously.

Unbeknownst to my housemates, there is a haunting in Bear Lane.  As I'm frequently known to be in the kitchen cooking every night, I've come to notice something odd during my time here.  At first I dismissed it as some strange sound that I wasn't paying attention to while cooking, but after a few weeks I realized that the sound I kept hearing was of a horse walking through the streets.  Clip-clop clip-clop.  Only that our kitchen opens onto a courtyard, on the other side of which is a street too narrow for a horse-drawn carriage to go along.  After a few more weeks of being cognizant of this sound, I began to notice another trend: it came at the same time every night.  Repeatably, while cleaning up from cooking around 10:30, the sound of this horse walking by outside would be heard.  As I know that there were no horses in the courtyard, nor on the street on the far side of the buildings behind us, I'll leave it to you to draw what conclusions you might.

What we can all agree upon, though, is that Oxford is full of a rich, and at times bloody, history.  And while some things may have perfectly reasonable explanations by skeptical science, there are those things that still challenge my own skeptical view of such matters.

The Frankfurt Fiasco

(October 26th-29th) The calamity in Germany and what was to become my European marathon debacle.  Not that I'm done talking about Oxford, but I'd like to put the events detailed below past me as soon as possible.

For those of you that had been keeping up with me prior to my journey overseas, you probably were well aware of how excited I was to be running in a European marathon, an event more than an order of magnitude larger than the next largest race I've ever participated in, and more than two orders of magnitude (that's 100 times!) larger in size than my last marathon.  It was, to put it succinctly, a completely different experience.

The week building up to the marathon was filled to the brim with bad omens, not the least of which was coming down with a high fever and persistent chest cold that I somehow managed to shed by the day before the marathon.  My dear, sweet housemate Fred even tried to talk me out of going...but, being the stubborn Brake that I am, I reasoned that I've run while sicker and managed to not kill myself before, so this shouldn't be too bad.

Finally, the day arrived for me to fly to Germany.  As I got off of the bus in Heathrow, I quickly discovered that I had overlooked one small detail: my passport was sitting in a drawer back in Oxford. 

Well, %@#&$!

At that point, the only course of action that I saw was to get back on the bus to Oxford (another 1.5 hour bus ride), run into my flat and grab my passport, then back out to catch the same bus as it turned around for the trip back to Heathrow (another 1.5 hours).  Good thing that I had gotten to the airport insanely early the first time, but nonetheless, that's a bit of stress and 4.5 hours of riding the bus.  Ugh.

All was not yet well though.  It turns out that during those three hours of going to Oxford and back, my flight was postponed (good since I was now running late), then canceled (not so good).  The skies outside were clear, and it was a cold, but sunny and otherwise pleasant fall afternoon.  Personally, I couldn't fathom why my flight, along with some 90% of the other flights, was canceled.  One look at the customer service line, though, told me that I was in trouble as it was approximately three hours long.  There'd be no way that I could wait through that line and get onto the next departing flight, which still had seats.  So, I did what I had to do to talk to an agent and get on the flight.  Let's leave it at that.

All was still not yet well though.  After grabbing a quick bite to eat and heading over to my gate, I discovered that when it came time to board, the flight was instead canceled.  Rather inexplicably.  I still, to this day, have no idea why.  Because we had already gone through security into the international terminal, they required us to exit through customs.  Well, that was a fun line to wait through, only to encounter the customs agent that didn't understand that I hadn't left the United Kingdoms yet, so I had no incoming flight or previous port of origin to declare...it took a bit, but eventually her superiors were able to confirm that I was telling the truth about my flight being canceled and being sent down here.  After clearing customs, my next stop was customer service.  Remember that line that I was telling you about before?  It was now a few thousand people long (after all, an entire day's worth of flights had been canceled for no obvious reason), and would take approximately 10 hours to get through if the staff decided to work overtime and stay late helping out the night shift.  To top matters off, when I finally caught someone's attention after standing in line for half an hour, I was told that the soonest they could get me on a plane to Frankfurt was Wednesday.

Well, %@#&$!

However, if I were to get there by some other means, then they would reimburse me (still waiting on that...).  So, after 4.5 hours of bus rides, three hours of standing in lines, and another couple hours of just waiting, I decided to head home to Oxford (bringing the total time on the bus to six hours for the day) and regroup.

Take two, Saturday.  If you can't fly, why not take the train?  I'll give you two reasons why: a. it's more expensive than flying, and b. it takes the entire day to do what you could do in an hour on a plane.  Other than that, I don't have too many complaints.  On a whim I decided to catch a slightly earlier bus than I needed for the train that I had picked out.  That should give me some time to lounge about in the train station.  When I got there, though, I was told that the train schedule was slightly different than what I looked up online, and there was a chance that I could make a train departing in a few minutes.  Great! I thought...so, bought my tickets (well, ticket, I had to buy the next one in Brussels where I changed trains as the Germans are, apparently, rather strict about their ticket sales), sprinted to customs/security, was found by someone that was taking the last call for my train, then escorted to the front of the line, then up a service elevator and directly on to my train as it was leaving.  I've never literally had to run to catch a train before, but this was almost Hollywood-esque timing.

The train itself was uneventful enough, except for the fact that as soon as we cleared the Chunnel, everything was covered in snow.  (Didn't I mention that this was overfilled with bad omens?)  Brussels was my first stop on the train, where I learned that the schedule was actually what I had looked up, and I now had a four hour layover until my train left for Frankfurt.

So, I did what comes naturally, I spent two hours hiking around the city.  Lot's of pretty sites to see there, but I kinda feel like I saw everything that I need to see in Brussels now (which I know isn't true, but just no desire to have to go back due to the sentiments related to this weekend).

The grounds by the Porte de Hal (Hallepoort), one of several towers that stood at the edge of the ancient city of Brussels.

A closer view of the Porte de Hal.

Stop number two: Justitiepaleis, the Brussels Palace of Justice, behind which there was this war monument, Monument A la Gloire de l'Infanterie Belge.  The climb up to this monument and the palace gave an astounding view of the city, worth the treck.  For those of you that don't like walking, there's an elevator conveniently located to be an eyesore on any photos that I might've taken.

Step three was a small little grocer where I picked up fruit to eat in the morning before the race, after which I set out to see the Church of Notre-Dame de la Chapelle.

Even more so than in Oxford, I found Brussels to be filled with strange juxtapositions.  Take the Brigittinenkapel above.  The old chapel had a building straight out of a modern art gallery appended to its side like a cancerous growth.  

At that point, it was time to head back to the train station, but not before taking in a few art installations.  Above, a giant megaphone that you could climb a set of stairs to yell into.  My favorite, though, is next:

Yes, that's Hulk Hogan in his latest role as 'Super Toilet Paper Man!'  Never again shall a toilet stall goer be left stranded without any sanitary paper for the Hulkster will come to your rescue.

Much like you, I never expected to be writing this extensively about Brussels.  But, fortunately, my train to Frankfurt was not canceled.  I managed to enjoy a few sights through the train windows before the vale of darkness descended upon us, most notably the cathedral of Cologne:

Late that evening, I finally made it into Frankfurt, where I proceeded to pass out in my bed out of exhaustion.  I think I got some food in transit, but I've no documentation of it one way or another.  The next morning came all too quickly, and with it the marathon.

I don't make a practice of trying to do races in 30 degree weather with strong winds while wearing only a t-shirt and shorts, but I fear that I had no real choice this day.  After a few miles, I did warm up, and was more or less comfortable for the duration of the race, except for the fact that my body decided to revolt against the idea of running in general.

The race started off well enough, I hit my goals for the first 30 km...I had conservatively decided to only aim for every 5 km to be raced in about 20 minutes...well slower than my training indicated, but I felt like that should be a reasonable precaution given the week that I had.  Around the halfway mark, though, I could feel signs of things falling apart.  Up until then, it had been glorious.  My legs were moving smoothly, running was effortless, and I was enjoying the sun.  But, come the marker for kilometer 25, things took a bit of a dive.  My legs started feeling sluggish, and soon it was all I could do to will them to keep moving.  The thought of stopping and stretching crossed my mind even, almost unheard of for me in a race, but I managed to will it away knowing that once I stopped, moving again would be inordinately difficult.  

Come kilometer 35, I hit the wall.  Between the illness, the travel stress, and everything else, I didn't just hit the wall, but was quite blindsided by the wall being toppled onto me.  The last 12 kilometers of that race, something I should've ran in about 48-49 minutes in a tired state, took nearly an hour.  To see a chance to have a big personal best (by about 6 minutes) evaporate and result in me missing that PR by about 3 minutes was frustrating.  Knowing that there was nothing that I could do to will my body back on track was heart breaking.

In retrospect, I should be happy.  After all, it's not every day that Herr Doktor Professor Brake (the Germans are quite proud of titles apparently) runs a sub-three hour marathon, but to know that through mile 18 I was on pace for a 2:40 marathon and that all of the long weeks of intense training, early morning track workouts, and diligence when I could have been staying warm in bed instead left me due to one unfortunately timed bad week was a wrenching, bitter experience.  One that still lingers on.  I'm optimistic that this will serve as a good experience and motivator for my next marathon, but until I run the race that I knew I was capable of running in Frankfurt, I'll have a difficult time leaving this experience behind me.

Not the best I've looked in a race, I'll admit.  While some people were happy to finish in under three hours, I was just glad to be done running.  The walk through the freezing cold back to my hotel, though, was an unexpected difficulty.

At the very least, I can say that I saw all of Frankfurt that I needed to see.  Not many pictures since I saw most of it while running, but I'll leave you with two from my last night in Frankfurt, which I spent haphazardly wandering through the virtually deserted touristy districts:

Upon close inspection, you can see that the Occupy Frankfurt movement is still alive...maybe not well, but alive.  At least with where they're situated, they can listen to the opera music that streams out of the opera house across the street...

Above: the old opera house, different than the opera house by the Occupy Frankfurt entrenchment, but much more impressive in a classical architecture sense.

Next up: Halloween in Oxford.