... that's the best way I can describe the relationship I have with my feet. I can still mostly feel them, but it's like they're disconnected. It leads to constant balance adjustments, and you can imagine what it's like trying to stand or walk in the dark, imagine doing that with stilts!

It is still a really odd sensation to feel something and not know where you feel it. Imagine feeling something and realizing that the sensation is coming from something 4 feet away from you. Yeah, it is that weird.

I don't know how many times I have tried to move one of my legs only to find out I can't. The reason is because I had crossed my legs and there was a leg on top of the one I wanted to move.

Ah, nothing beats fun with MS...

Just a quick follow up on my dining in the nearby Brookfield Plaza... I tried out Tippy's taco house. How best to describe it? It isn't as good as Baja Fresh, but they have Taco Bell prices and the food is worlds better than that! I had a burrito, taco, and some guacamole. Good for a fast food place, and the Mexican lime soda I had was really good too.

Went to the Korean place with a friend and I'm still not sure if I like Korean food. This was the third time I've tried Korean food. The prices were higher than the other places, but I had a dumpling soup that was pretty good. It's not that I didn't like it, but I'm not sure if there was anything to draw me back in. I might try to find a more knowledgeable Korean foodie and head up to Annandale, it's supposed to be a Korean food haven.

Went back to Ravi's kabob place, this time for kabobs. I dunno, I guess they were pretty good, but I don't think they were as good as the Afghan place. Speaking of which...

The Afghan kabob place was a madhouse for lunch, it was much busier than any of the other places seemed to be. That boded well for the food, even if I had to wait a bit. It was a great lunch. The chicken kabobs were amazing, not so sure about the shami (ground meat) kabobs. I had a mound of rice, some potatoes, and great bread, you can't complain about the portions that's for sure! Ravi's kabobs (the Pakistani place) just didn't have as much flavor even if the sides were just as good. Cooking over charcoal like the Afghan place does makes a big difference in the taste, for the better. I need to try out some of the Afghan place's non kabob fare to compare to Ravi's one of these days.

Today I tried the Indian/French Bakery place for lunch. The buffet didn't actually have a lot on it, but what I tried was really good. Butter chicken, chicken tandoori, some sort of curry chicken, rice, potatoes masala, eggplant masala, naan, it was all really good. Plus it was only 8 bucks for the buffet! I'll be going back there, it might even become like my Indian place in Yemen, one of my more frequent places to eat...

So I still haven't tried the Vietnamese place, the other (buffet) Pakistani place, the Chinese place, or the pizza place yet. Updates will come soonish I'm pretty sure...

This was a speech given on national television, can you guess who it was? What are the odds that a speech like this would be made today?

"This idea that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man’s age-old dream — the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order — or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, “The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.”

The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose."

It's an excellent point and I think I'll use it as a launching point for a couple of posts on political economy. That is, the rational choices people make in the world of politics. Those will follow in the next couple of weeks.

My first purchase as an Apple employee was an iPod touch. A 32GB one to be exact. I am beyond happy with it. Not only does it make sitting on the train much easier, it's really helping me out at work. No really! I constantly use the calculator, and I jot down various notes that help me out as I talk to customers.

It has also helped with my internet situation. Since my only regular internet connection is at work, I have been taking my laptop in every day to do my online stuff. No longer. Now I just take my iPod in. I can do my email and facebook stuff pretty easily with it. It has also allowed me to keep up with my podcasts. I don't keep my itunes library on my laptop's hard drive, it's just too big. That meant that when I wanted to get the latest editions of my podcasts, I would have to take my computer and my external hard drive into the library along with the necessary cables, power cords, etc. Now I can download the latest ones on my ipod and then sync them to my music library when I get home. I had no luck researching that little scenario before I got it, so now everyone else can know about this!

I'm just dipping my toes into the apps ocean. So far, my favorite apps are the facebook one, stanza, and bejeweled. Stanza in particular is an amazing program. With it, you get an excellent ebook reader and easy access to thousands and thousands of free books. I need to find a good blogging app, does anyone out there have any suggestions? My favorite blogging program (Marsedit) hasn't shown any interest in making an iPhone/iPod version.

I'm already plotting my next purchase. I've got my eye on the new 27" quad core iMac that will be coming out in November. Not sure when I'll be able to afford it, but I will have one eventually. To see the new Imacs is to covet them. No really, they are stunningly beautiful, Apple has really outdone itself this time. It will also serve as my TV. It'll be about the right size for my smallish room. All it takes is some time to save for it, I hope I won't go too crazy in the meantime...

I'm happy to report that I am doing quite well at work. It wasn't obvious that I'd be able to do it at all really, but everything has been fine. As a matter of fact, I have gotten to the point where I am hardly sitting down at all during the course of my day. Granted, I still stay away from the stairs as much as possible, and I do get to sit with the occasional customer, but I'm really happy about my improvement.

It's also good on another level. It had been looking as though I had a progressive form of MS. I came home and got worse, then stayed there. There's no telling what caused my improvement, MS is such an inscrutable thing. It could be the supplement regimen I've been on (fish oil, vitamin D, magnesium, calcium, and a good multivitamin), it could be the forced exercise at work, or it could just be the nature of the disease itself. Since it was most likely a combination of things that caused the disease, it's probably also a combination of things that have lead to my improvement.

I'll say this though, just getting up every day and being forced to deal with it has helped immensely. Living at home with mom was a necessary thing, and was a Godsend at the time, but I think getting out on my own has been the best thing I could have done. Here, I have to get up on my employer's schedule, stand and walk, carry groceries, figure out transportation, etc. I have precious little time to obsess about my condition like I did before. I've also been shown how things are possible, even if a bit of a pain in the ass.

All in all, I think getting out and living has been as much a part of the improvement as anything else. I'm feeling good, and I'm feeling useful. Let's hope that'll keep me going for quite a while!

I recently caught up with a friend of mine that I had originally met in Yemen. She's the rare breed of person that really enjoys my econ writings and she's encouraging me to keep at it. She's also encouraging me to apply to the State department, but more on that later...

Here's the thing, I haven't been writing much recently, and it feels nice not being so negative all the time. I had originally thought that this particular administration was the root cause of all of my angst, but that really isn't fair. I was just as upset with Dubya's reign, and I'm sure that I will be as upset with anyone else that comes and would have been as upset with any previous administration. I have to keep reminding myself that administrations do what they do not for economic reasons, but for political ones. I also have to keep reminding myself that good economic policies won't benefit any particular group (even if the population as a whole benefits) and so will never gain any political traction.

Politics is, and will always be, a trading of privileges and powers. If you spend any time at all wallowing in it and have a conscience you will get angry. The only politicians I could ever hope to support and be positive about are ones that advocate the lessening of government influence and it's unlikely that anyone like that will be in the news any time soon.

So I will continue to write about economics, but I am going to try really hard not to get sucked into the political end of things. That's not a promise, but I really am going to try...

All I had left in my larder was saltines and salad dressing, so food shopping was in my future. The problem was that I was also ravenously hungry and nothing spells a really expensive trip than going food shopping on an empty stomach, so I decided to check out some of the local restaurants. Purely in order to save money of course...

I went up to Brookfield plaza and went to Ravi's kabob house III. I had kabobs on the brain but when I went in, the place smelled really good and I decided to get something Chicken Jalfrezi. It was a chicken and peppers thing in a tomato sauce. Of course that sauce was amazing, turns out it was a Pakistani dish, my American palette couldn't differentiate it from an Indian one, but it was amazing.

I took a tour around the shopping center and took a proper inventory. There was Tippy's taco house, La Hacienda, an Afghan kabob house,a Korean place, a Vietnamese place, a pizza place, a Chinese place, another Pakistani place, and a south Indian/French bakery. Don't laugh, the eclair was quite good.

Tippy's Taco house was a fast food joint, there were a bunch of people chowing down in there of all different ethnicities. Mexican fast food can be decent, they even have taco kits you can cook back home! I might give them a try.

La Hacienda bills itself as a sports bar, it's windows are all blacked out and there's sound equipment in there, looks like there's also dancing and whatnot. It bills itself as a Salvadoran/Mexican place. Doubt I'll ever eat there, but maybe carry out, the menu looks pretty good.

The Afghan kabob lace has even less atmosphere than a typical strip mall place, but he cooks over charcoal, so that has some promise. I think it's pretty much all kabobs there, one oddity is that they have the nicest take out menus of anyone there in the mall.

Nobody in the Korean place would give me the time of day, but it looks good, there were only Koreans there, and each table had a mysterious metal door in the middle of it. It looked like a pretty nice place though. I wonder what it costs, I hope it's in the same ball park as the other places.

The vietnamese place also only had Vietnamese folks in there, it bills itself as a bar and restaurant, looks it too. It smelled good in there.

I'm less than hopeful about the pizza place. They had posters up of pizzas that any Yemeni would think looked delicious, but they looked pretty bad to these American eyes. I wonder if they are catering to the Pakistani and Indian crowd? I dunno, maybe they are just using stock photos for their posters and menus, but really, they looked really bad.

The Chinese place seemed to be the typical dreary Chinese take out. I'll probably try it at some point, but I don't expect much.

I can't figure out the other Pakistani place. It featured a buffet which makes me suspicious, and it also was filled with tacky lacquer furniture, it screamed EXOTIC EAST!!!!! a little too loudly. Plus, the waitress was a south east asian, clearly hired help as opposed to the family business vibe the other places gave off. Still, the place was filled with what looked like Pakistanis, and the menu is making me think they may be the real deal, I might try some of their stuff via take out.

The South Indian/bakery place was also a buffet affair, and it has a definite cafeteria vibe to it. The food actually looked good though, and that's saying something, buffet food always tends to be rather icky. Place was filled with Indians and/or Pakistanis, so that bodes well too. Like I said before, the eclair I had was good, and the other baked goods looked really good too. I'll give them a try one of these days.

So there was all of that plus two pakistani grocers (one with a halal butcher) and a Korean one as well in this one shopping center. I haven't even gone to the other Afghan and Pakistani places in the neighborhood, plus there's a Hard times cafe here too. Maybe it's a good thing I don't have enough money to eat out all the time, I'd weigh a ton!!

I informed my insurance company of my new address. I didn't expect any problems, I stayed inside the state after all. Well, today I got a letter informing me that I have moved outside of their coverage area. What is their coverage area? According to the letter they sent me, it is, "... (the state of) Virginia, excluding the city of Fairfax, the town of Vienna, and the area east of Route 123." WTF? How arbitrary is that? I am being directed towards another blue cross organization to continue my coverage.

This is exactly the kind of nonsense that helps keep costs high. It's bad enough that insurance companies can't compete across stat lines, but inside a state? Really? What is the possible benefit to me of limiting me to certain companies? The answer of course is that there isn't one. I'm sure that what is happening is that there are benefits that are mandated in this area that my previous company didn't want to offer. Even though I am guaranteed coverage with the new company and I don't need to undergo an exam, I am willing to bet that the new coverage will be more expensive than my previous one. Grrrrr...

Why is our insurance market like this? Better yet, why is the federal government trying to fix problems without addressing this one? Why don't the feds actually use the commerce clause the way it was intended and make the market for insurance like any other market? The answer is money of course, insurance companies will fight that move tooth and nail. The current legislation is going to pad their pockets even more. Free us from this disjointed and idiotic system!!!!!

For the longest time, I've been telling people that I've essentially given up on fiction. And it's mostly true, the vast majority of movies do not interest me in the slightest, and the idea of picking up a novel rarely seems like a worthwhile thing. It has been nonfiction for me for quite a while. Econ, language, audio, computers, photography, optics, etc. have captured my attention for quite a while.

I do have favorite novels, and they are all of the highest pedigree of course. Orwell, Borges, Heller, Vonnegut, Dickens, Rand, Nabakov, Salanger, etc. all line my shelves. So why is it that my one weakness for fiction involves Dr. Who?

It's true, I continue to devour all things in the Who universe. I've seen all of the TV shows save the second doctor. That spans from about 1965 (I think) to this past summer. That's a lot of shows. A lot of them are pretty bad too, but I watched them. I have found the audio plays from Big Finish to actually be of a more consistent quality. There are a ton of those too. I have listened to 107 of those now.

Today, I learned that the BBC has some ebook versions of some Doctor Who novels on it's site. I read one tonight. Sigh, it looks like I'll be reading more of them in the future...

I plan on continuing to acquire more Big Finish Doctor Who plays (and related audio plays like the Bernice Summerfield stories, the companion Chronicles, and the Galifrey stories) and now it looks like I'll be adding various books to the collection too. God help me.

So what is it that appeals to me so much? I wish I knew. It is fun, but I don't know why I am able to throw myself into these and not be able to tolerate most other fiction. This is hardly great literature, but I can't get enough. Luckily for me, the is a vast quantity of stuff out there, I'll never run out.

I noticed how incongruous this is for me just tonight. I'll be puzzling over this for a little while, probably while listening to "Assassin in the Limelight," my newest audio drama....

How many times have you heard that they don't build cars like they used to? All I can say is thank God for that. This video is illuminating, check out the differences in the inside during the crash.

I still doesn't have any internet at the house. This means that I've been checking in at work during my breaks. On my days off I go to the library and use their internet. I've been doing well at work, but I'm just not in the right frame of mind to write at work. That's why you haven't heard from me recently, but I'm going to try to put some stuff up on my days off. Stay tuned!

So Roman Polanski was arrested by Swiss authorities while he was on the way to some awards ceremony. There has been an outstanding warrent for his arrest in the US for decades. I had head about it, but I never really knew the details, I figured it was one of those sordid Hollywood things that was morally ambiguous on both sides.

Well since his arrest, I've read some of the details, and frankly I'm shocked that it has taken this long to get him in jail. It turns out that what he was arrested for taking a 13 year old girl someplace, getting her drunk, drugging her with quaaludes and then anally raping her. Here's the kicker, he has already been convicted. He plead guilty, he skipped out on sentencing. Why a violent criminal was released before sentencing is beyond me.

The French culture minister is shocked that Polanski was picked up after all these years, and on the way for an award too! Polanski is also upset that this has been done "to" him. Everything about this crime reeks of excess and privilege, the "outrage" seems to be all about someone of his stature being treated as a common criminal. He's a rapist, he drugged a 13 year old in order to rape her. He plead guilty to it. He has had plenty of freedom, it's abut time he gets some jail time for his crime. Let's all hope that the extradition from Switzerland goes smoothly.

I've been pretty busy recently. It's nice being back at work, especially at a place I like so much!:-) I'll be off on friday, I'll try to put some stuff up then.

I have two ways to get to work. I could either drive or take public transportation. A round trip drive will cost me about $4 vs $6 round trip for public transportation. Naturally, I'd drive at that price, it doesn't make much sense to do it any other way.

But now I'll be getting a $100 subsidy towards public transportation. That changes things a bit. If I drive every day (assuming a 20 day work month) I would pay $80 a month in commuting costs. $100 would buy me 16 days of public transportation. If I used the subsidy for 16 days and drove the remaining 4, I would only spend $16 a month in commuting costs.

See what just happened? The total cost of my commute actually went up from $80 to $112 even though my out of pocket expenses went down from $80 to $16. Someone is still paying the whole cost and that cost went up. Also keep in mind that $16 is what it "costs" me to take public transportation, but that isn't an accurate figure for the total cost of using public transport. Subways, busses, etc. are all heavily subsidized with tax dollars. So the total cost has gone up by a lot more, but the exact figure is hidden.

Imagine if everyone did this, as a whole, we would be paying more for commuting than we need to. Whenever someone else pays for our stuff, consuming more and more expensive services is the logical thing to do. The key is that the extra costs do get paid for, they are just hidden in things like taxes, diminished wages, or increased premiums. If you want to keep expenses low as a whole, it is important for the consumer to bear the brunt of the costs.

This is a general concept that has all sorts of applications. Thank goodness straight subsidies aren't all that common in our day to day life. Splitting bills evenly, health insurance, and even cash for clunkers all share some similarities with the subsidy model. When we craft policies, we need to watch out for things that make it rational to consume more and with more expense. We all end up paying when we screw that up.

I know that a lot of you consider me to be an Apple "expert." Let me tell you, there is a ton to learn, even about stuff that I'm pretty comfortable with. We went over several things that I use ALL the time, and I learned new stuff. Folks here REALLY know their stuff. It keeps you humble, believe me. I guess I'll just have to play around with stuff some more, that's not so bad:-)

Just finished up my second day of training for Apple and I gotta say, I'm pumped. Strange as it may seem, I'm actually more excited about the services than the hardware at this point.

Don't get me wrong, the hardware is still cool as all get out, but you can only sell cool things for so long before selling them is no longer a thrill. In addition to being surrounded by really cool hardware, I will be selling, and hopefully doing, all sorts of training. That's the difference between an Apple store and just about any other store out there. They (I guess that at some point I should start saying WE) put the emphasis on educating people, not selling per se. When people understand how much they can do, once they understand that they do not have to be intimidated by their computer, you've really helped them.

A lot of people look down at working retail. When retail is done right though, you can really get a lot out of it. Helping people feels good, giving them the understanding of technology and all of its uses feels great.

Can you tell I'm pumped about this? I got this feeling once in a while when working at Penn, I'm really excited to go to a place that expects this as a normal occurrence. Liking your job is awfully nice:-)

For those of you not familiar with where I live, allow me to fill you in. I live Springfield, a suburb of Washington DC. Drive due south on 395 and you'll hit it. Actually, drive south on 495 (in either direction), 95, or 395 and you'll hit it. The locals call the nexus of all of these interstates "the mixing bowl." As far as I can tell, it is why Springfield exists at all. They have done a good job in making the traffic flow better so the mixing bowl isn't as bad as its reputation has been.

So being close to all of those interstates makes getting anywhere you'd want to go in the NoVA area pretty easy. It's also the end of the blue line of the metro. I live about a mile from that. The blue line gives me a straight shot into the District, and more importantly, to Pentagon city where I work.

Springfield seems to have inherited or extended the low rent areas of South Arlington and Annandale. That makes for nicer rent payments, but there are some issues. I don't have to worry about the schools, but I'm sure they're not as good as they are in Falls Church, Fairfax, etc. I have the impression that crime is higher as well, but I haven't experienced any. The good thing about this is that I live with a bunch of immigrants. That's good? Sure it is. I got used to a lot of ethnic diversity when I was in Yemen and it's nice to get back to that.

Consider this. Both of my neighbors are from muslim countries (Afghanistan and some other, unidentified country). This means that they are much less likely to have a dog. That's nothing but a plus in my book! In my experience, immigrant communities tend to be hard working and down to earth, and my current neighborhood seems to fit that to a tee.

Of course the real reason you want to live in an immigrant rich area is for the food. I went up to the local strip mall today and Holy ethnic dining Bat Man! There were Indian, South Indian, Thai, and several kabob places (with the innovative names of Kabob house II and Kabob house III). That, along with several latin grocery stores makes me wonder what else is around this area. If I ever make enough money to go out to eat again, I'll be eating well!

So I'm digging the new place so far. It's cheap, it's convenient, it has good food, what else can you ask for in a place to live?

So like I said, my neighbors on each side are muslims and are clearly immigrants. I've made the effort to wish them a happy Ramadan in Arabic hoping that we can start up a conversation. One of them just smiled and waved as he went in. I got the distinct impression that he doesn't know Arabic. I briefly talked with the patriarch on the other side. He doesn't know Arabic and his English is spotty. I did find out that he's from Afghanistan.

While I was sitting on my stoop looking for a wireless signal, a much younger guy came up to the door of the Afghan neighbor and I wished him a happy Ramadan. He saw me using my computer and we struck up a conversation. I was going crazy trying to track down a wireless signal that wasn't mine, it turns out that he wants someone to set up a wireless network, so we struck up a deal. I'll set up his wireless system and he'll let me use it. Now that's a good deal!

Setting up the router is no big deal really. I'm a little worried about setting up his computer, but I'm sure I can muddle through, even if it's windows. Things are looking good... maybe I'll get to try one of their Ramadan Samosas too!:-)

My first night and day at the new place went by without incident. Happily, the place is pretty quiet, I slept like a baby. My housemates (so far) are decent enough. Living here reminds me of my time in Yemen a bit. There is an Afghan family to one side of me and on the other is an Arabic family from an as yet unidentified place. One of my current housemates is from El Salvador and the other is from Nicaragua. There will be a Bolivian family moving in as well in a couple of months. I love all of the international elements here, maybe I'll pick up some Spanish as well as get to practice my Arabic...

I love the location, the bus stop is literally right around the corner and I think that even I can make the walk to the metro in good weather. There is plenty of shopping and restaurants along the bus line (along Backlick road) and everything is pretty convenient.

Mom has left her car up here until I can bring it down. I'm of two minds on the car. Yes, it is handy. On the other hand, I am on a serious austerity budget and it isn't clear to me that I can afford car insurance, gas, taxes, etc. right now. The other ironic thing is that it is easier to walk back from the bus stop than it is to walk back from where I end up parking the car. Parking spaces are at a t here, come back at night and you might be in for a bit of a hike.

I still need to get some basic stuff to make living here easy. Stuff like salt and pepper shakers, a spoon, a plate, etc. I'll round those things up over the next couple of days. Tomorrow, I get familiar with the bus routes...

Everything went very smoothly, well almost everything. Kelly, Pat, mom and Rick helped me move into the new place. Thank God they were there. There was no way on earth I could have gotten my bed out of Rick's place and up into my new place without their help. So all my stuff is now there and I am going to spend my first night there tonight!

The only hiccup occurred when I gave my landlord my check. He looked down and pointed out that my checks still said "First Union" on them. First Union was bought out by Wachovia something like 6 years ago. Obviously, I don't write checks very often... I'll get some new ones from the now Wells Fargo bank that I use.

My new place doesn't have internet just yet so I'll be offline for a little while. I'll go up to the library and get online in the nearish future. Till then, I'll be learning the bus lines and starting my new job!!! I'll post news when I have it.