Author: Isaac

    The NY Times had a great article in it this last
sunday. You can find it here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/17/weekinreview/17bawer.html?oref=login
You have to register, but it’s free and it’s well worth it for the
read. It talks about Norway and how they see themselves as the richest
country on Earth vs. economic reality.  Norway is known for far
reaching social programs, welfare systems, and really really high
taxes. The upside to this sort of system is that there is little in the
way of abject poverty in that country. The downsides include an
inefficient workforce, low annual growth in the economy, and among the
lowest in purchasing power in the developed world. It’s pretty clear
that the typical Nowigen really has to watch their budget, getting a
pizza delivered will run the equivilent of $45! The US in comparison
offers an abundence of economic freedom, our purchasing power is among
the highest out there.
    Is Norway’s system a good trade off? I dunno, my gut
feeling is that it isn’t. Want to help poor people? Then make sure the
economy is strong. I can’t help but think that economies like Norway
and France will eventually collapse due to massive inefficiencies and
little to no growth over a long period of time. In the meantime, all
the people in those countries are not able to live the way they would
like to… The title of the article is “We’re Rich and You’re not…”
and I’d be happy to email it to you if you’d like, it’s good reading!

Isaac

    My new Peanuts book is here. They are reprinting
every peanuts strip ever made, in chronological order. This is the
third book, it covers from 1955 to 1956. He wrote the strip until 2002!
It’ll be a while till they’re finished. The book (along with a Bob
Marley DVD) is my “reward” for spending so much freaking money on my
Amazon card. The trip will put me well on my way towards another
reward…

Isaac

    If you’re curious, I’ve put up a couple of approved
pictures of my cousin Beth in my gallery on my home page. While we were
in the doctor’s office waiting for Beth to be seen, a lady with a
really cute kid came in. He was funny, he had two words to use, “Nana”
for banana, and DA! for everything else. The funniest thing was how he
would point to everything in the magazine she was reading and yell out
definitively “DA!” He knew exactly what everything was, it was DA! I got
a kick out of it…
    I went to church with Beth. I hadn’t been to a
Catholic service in quite some time. I was reminded of how much
emphasis the Church puts on the supernatural and how little the
Protestant faiths do in comparison. The main event of the Mass is
communion, in the Catholic churches this is not a symbolic event, the
wine and bread become the body and blood of Christ (through
transubstantiation). This seriously weirds many people out, but I see a
real symbolic purpose to having rituals like this in the Catholic
churches. It is a strong reminder of how other-worldly the whole thing
is. Most Protestant churches are happy to talk about what God did, what
Jesus did, the Apostles, the prophets, etc. without really acknowledging
how out there all of that stuff is. I don’t mean out there as far as
believability (faith is a funny thing), but out there in the sense that
it has little to do with day to day life. By having a super natural
event every service, the Catholic churches are emphazizing a connection
to the more mystical, less tangible realm of thinking and experience.
It’s an interesting approach, I think that it forms one of the stronger
divisions between how Protestants and Catholics approach religion.
    The trip cost me a bit more than I was anticipating,
but that’s ok, it was worth it. The side effect of that will be that
I’ll be working more hours at Penn. SIGH, I guess I should look on the
bright side, if I’m busy making money, I’m less likely to buy stupid
shit when I’m bored… We’ll see how it goes.

Isaac

    I’ve been eating all the same things I used to in
college. You know, subs, pizza, wings, etc. I feel like shit. I know
I’ve put on a couple of pounds and I have zero energy. At least I’m not
eating at the same hours I used to, I think that might kill me these
days.

Isaac

    Well, Beth had a relapse of paratonsilatitus… or
something like that. Basicly she had to have an abcess in her throat
lanced and drained. Needless to say, she’s in no mood for even talking
let alone going out and having fun. I hope she’s sleeping well, it’s
about the best thing to do right now… SIGH, I’d do just about
anything to make her feel better, but of course there isn’t anything I
can do. Yes, I already got her some flowers, she appreciates the
gesture, but it doesn’t actually improve her situation.
    This kind of put a damper on my day. I also had what
I consider the worst Chinese food I’ve ever eaten. It was at a place
called King Buffet. I know, I know, what did I expect? Well, I was
expecting cheap Chinese buffet food, but this was taken to a whole
other level. Even the Wonton soup was bad. The only worse “Chinese”
food I ever had was when I made the mistake of orddering the “Chinese
stir fry” at a truckstop in Kingman Arizona. I’m willing to forgive
them since it was a truckstop and anyone that is stupid enough to order
Chinese food there deserves what they get. This place on the other hand
billed itself as a Chinese place. SOme would say that I shouldn’t
complain since I could have gotten a weeks worth of food for 6 bucks,
but I think I was overcharged. I’m in no mood to do much of anything.
Think I’ll have a final (formally) Rogan’s pizza and a pint of Purity
Ice cream tonight while watching a game… I leave tomorrow, I’m going
to make an attempt at using my large format cameras on the way out of
dodge, but we’ll see. Be back in the DC area on wed.

Isaac

    I have had no desire to take pictures so far this
trip. I managed to get off a dozen shots of my favorite subject (my
cousin Beth), but I have not unloaded the large format gear at all. I
have been having fun just going places and seeing things, it hasn’t
occured to me to get the cameras out, even my 35mm ones. I was kind of
hoping that going back to where my photo fever started would spark me
again… Since I’ll mostly be on my own tomorrow, I’m going to make the
concerted effort to shoot some, I’ll let you know how it goes…

Isaac

    God I miss this place… It feels as good as ever to be up here. There are some places that I just feel right
in. The DC area isn’t one of them, but Ithaca sure is. This trip has
started the whole “There has to be something I can do here for a
living” thought process again. SIGH, as usual, there doesn’t really
seem to be anything up here for me, maybe if I looked harder…
    The place has gone through some changes. Rt. 13 is
unrecognizable it is so built up. There is now a Walmart, a super
Kmart, Lowe’s, Bed bath and Beyond, Barnes and Noble, etc strung all
along Rt. 13 from Wegman’s an North. Speaking of Wegman’s, it’s moved.
Remember how it used to be right next to Topps? Well, there is now a
Barnes and Noble and Bed bath, etc there where Wegman’s used to be.
This completely freaked me out when I first looked for W’s. They have
moved a little bit further away into a massive new store. There is no
more Rogan’s. I about cried when I heard this, but there is now a place
called King’s subs and Franco’s Italian resturant where Rogan’s used to
be, the pizza is the same (thank God), but I don’t know about the rest
of the food… Both Joe’s and Little Joe’s are gone. Rt. 13 south of
Wegman’s is now separated into one way streets. The Woolworth’s
building has been torn down and something else is going up…
    Surprisingly, I had no problem getting around town.
Those of you who suffered through me driving you around back then will
not believe this, but I have not gotten turned around once, even with
the new traffic patterns. I have even got Cornell and collegetown
mostly figured out, and I rarely went up there when I was going to
school here…
    Binghamton is mostly the same, although I’m not sure
if it has become noticably more run down or I’m just not used to it any
more. They tore down my wharehouse. It was the old Lander’s cosmetic
wharehouse, and I loved the inside of it dearly… I’m happy to report
that the buildings on the other side of the tracks from the old
Lander’s buildings are now being used. I went to both Sharkey’s and the
Little venice, and I plan on going back to the Little Venice on my way
out of town… I scored a Jascha Heifetz album with some digging at the big thrift store in Owego. It’s a bach album, both the Sonata No. 1 and the Partita No. 2 (a personal favorite of mine) are on there. Like all thrift store albums, this one needs a little scrubbing, but it looks like it’s in good shape other than that. My main place for buying old records is gone. It was a little purple shack in Johnson City run by a dirty old man. He sold both used records and old copies of Hustler, Penthouse, etc. 10 years ago, that was a viable business. Nowadays the used market for LPs has dried up and people that want dirty pictures go to the internet…Tomorrow will be my last day up here, Sob…. Beth has
classes tomorrow, so i won’t be able to spend as much time with her as
I have been these last couple of days, it’s been great seeing her.
Since she doesn’t have a car, she rarely gets off campus. It was great
to show her the various falls and local haunts off of the Cornell
campus. It’s going to be tough going back to work…

Isaac

    I’m in my hotel room in Ithaca right now. Things
have changed quite a bit, at leat along Rt. 13 (Elmira Rd.). There used
to be Wegman’s and Tops, and that was about it. There is now a Walmart,
A Lowes, an enormous (looks like 2 stories) Hollywood video. There are
now strip malls all along the main drag… Oh, and “Deaf Child Blvd.”
is no longer. The street is still there (that incredibly narrow one way
street on the way to Wegman’s), but they have taken down the “Deaf
Child” sign. It’s now just like any other street… They did change the
traffic pattern at the end of the street though, you are no longer
supposed to make that slight left to take the short cut to Wegman’s.
I’ll get a better feel for the place tomorrow when I do some real
looking during the day.
    I stopped in Binghamton along the way. Checked out 9
Serrall ave, my grandmother’s former home. It looked pretty good, they
seem to be taking care of the place. Downtown looked a little more run
down, it’s just a general feeling, but maybe it’s that I’m no longer
used to it. The big news is that they tore down my wharhouse! This was
the old Lander’s cosmetic wharehouse. It had a beautiful, enormous
mosiac tiled floor and really dramatic decorated colums inside. It must
have been used as a ballroom or something. The main building is still
there. It has a a beauftiful, old fashioned elevator (the kind with the
sliding scissor doors) surrounded by a marble staircase with brass
handrails. It’s really pretty, too bad nobody gets to see it. Ate at
Little Venice, it was as good as I remember… I was looking for
Sharky’s but couldn’t find it. Where are (were?) they? If worse comes
to worse, I can get my speedies at Pancho’s, but I always preferred
Sharky’s… I’ll let you guys know what Ithaca has turned into
tomorrow…

Isaac

OK, I’ve got a better looking site up now. Right now it has the same
content as the old one but I hope to add some more essays in the coming
weeks. Here’s the address:

www.homepage.mac.com/isaacc7/

That last backslash is important, the site won’t load without it. I
think this is just some .mac wackiness. I’d recommend getting to the
blog through the home page, that way you’ll see if there’s been
anything added. I promise I will add stuff at a fairly regular basis. I
have rough drafts of “A Crash Course in Coasian Economics”, “In Defense
of Ugly Pictures”, and, “What Camera Should I Get?” With any luck,
they’ll start appearing on the site within a week or so.

Isaac

    The pain has started again… As a Chicago Cubs fan,
I am looking forward to another season of agony as they manage to
squash my dreams yet again… But I’m glad the season is underway. It
was a long winter without any hockey. Plus I now know spring is here
and summer is on the way!
    I’ll be going up to Ithaca on thursday to go on the
“Isaac feels old” tour… Actually, I’ll be hanging out with my cousin
and taking pictures. I’ll also be pigging out on all the food I miss so
much. Hopefully my jeans will still fit when I get back. I’m already
enjoying not working, today was the last day on the job until next
thursday. Ah freedom! I’ll have internet access in my hotel room, so
I’ll try to post if something interesting comes up.

Isaac