Better than caffeine

Something I was thinking about last week is whether anger can ever do good. Most philosophers and practitioners of religion would say no, but it's hard to argue with the short-term results.

Take, for example, #24 -- Kobe Bryant. Last week the man was on a tear about one thing after another: the Lakers' losses, accusations of playing dirty, rumors that he was talking to a college player about going pro with a little help from Nike, &c. &c. (The LA Times called the situation "Kobe gone wild".)

But regardless of what was happening in Kobe's head, here's what happened to Kobe's game: He morphed into a one-man scoring machine the likes of which hadn't been seen since Wilt Chamberlain. As Marc Stein noted in his column on ESPN.com:

The Los Angeles Lakes have cemented their strategy for the rest of their season.

Pray for rage.

Find a way, in other words, to keep the game's greatest singular talent flat-out fuming.

Kobe has been openly angry for about a week....

The real volume, though, is in the point totals.

Sixty-five against Portland.

Fifty against Minnesota.

Sixty more Thursday night in a 121-119 triumph over the hapless Memphis Grizzlies.

I haven't seen a guy play this well when he's mad since John McEnroe went 82-3 in the 1984 tennis season.

I guess you could ask questions like What's this doing to Kobe's teammates' morale? or Is this a long-term solution? or even Is Kobe any happier? But the answers seem irrelevant.

From personal experience, I know nothing motivates you like a burst of anger. I mean, you'll go bats**t and supernova for a while -- and afterward you'll be tired and possibly regret some of the things you did like p**s people off -- but in the short-term you'll definitely get s**t done.

The real problem with anger is that it's hard to control and nearly impossible to direct. But somewhere in the course of evolution, or the Mind of God, or the fate of the stars, we picked up the ability to get angry, so why not use it once in a while? As if drinking water that's been passed through the grinds of the roasted seed from a cherry-like plant originally from Ethiopia is any more natural! Let's not forget the root of the word "organic" is "organ" and, really, what could be more organic than using the juice your own adrenals pump out?

My friend Silvio

Around eight o'clock last night, the prospect of having another Saltine cracker out of the lab stash lost all appeal and I found myself yearning for pizza.

The weather's been so nice here in Ann Arbor lately, I didn't have to think twice about it. Down the stairs, out the door, and onto my bike I went, pedaling in the direction of Central Campus.

I was on my way to Silvio's, my favorite place for Italian pie since it opened a couple of years ago. I go three or four times a week and probably drop more coin there than at any other place in town. Every night I know there's going to be a nice spread and I know that spread's going to have something I like.

On the bike I started picturing what might be on the spread tonight. Maybe the margherita -- with its thin wisps of fresh mozzarella and basil. Or the Siciliana -- a no-cheese pizza that still manages to bite you with the tang of its capers and anchovy. That hussy. Or maybe an arugula -- piled high with the mustard green the Romans practically worshiped along with a few shards of prosciutto and Romano. And if I was really lucky, there'd be a seafood pizza and I'd soon be looking at clams, shrimp, and tuna on a sea of tomato sauce and crushed garlic.

I swerved to miss a group of kids milling about on the sidewalk. Outta the way! Comin' through!

When I finally got to Silvio's, I ran into disappointment itself: The doors were shut and a sign in front said "Closed for private party". On the other side of the glass, two dozen people were sitting, laughing, eating. My stomach complained.

Behind the counter and through the order window, I saw Silvio. He saw me, and I shrugged my shoulders.

But then he did something I won't soon forget: He waved me to the back. I opened the door, slipped past the party people, and proceeded behind the counter and through the swinging shutters into the kitchen.

Silvio Medoro is a big guy from the old country with a broad grin and thick fingers. He's got a talent for making great pizza and the patience to do it everyday for twelve hours. It didn't take long for us to become friends, and on more than a few occasions I've sat down with him, talked family or Italy or anything else that might have struck us on a slow night, and stayed long after I finished my usual two or three slices. One night I even delivered pizza for him -- okay, it was just for an hour, but his wife was sick and the man wanted to get home to see her. How can you argue with that?

In the kitchen Silvio asked if I wanted something to eat. I said yes, and he asked what I wanted as he lifted the lids on three stacked pizza boxes sitting on the counter, one after another. In the second box I saw something I was hoping for: margherita. He asked how many slices I wanted -- two? three? -- and I said two was fine. He scooped out two slices and slid them into the oven.

I'm not exactly sure what I was feeling at that moment but as close as I can tell, it was a mix of gratitude and utter cool. I've been back here before -- that hour I delivered pizza for Silvio -- but somehow this time seemed different. It's like I was sitting in his house. I offered to pay -- I knew two slices of margherita cost about four bucks -- but he turned me down.

Silvio took the two slices out of the oven and handed them to me on a paper plate. I took a seat on a wooden box and started eating. Silvio leaned up against a sink, thought for a moment, then started telling me the news of the day: The air conditioner had broken, and the guy who usually fixed it wasn't answering his phone. In fact, the phone number seemed to redirect to an automated message from the phone company. Had I ever heard of such a thing? He dialed the number and had me listen to the message.

Suddenly Silvio remembered he had people out front and disappeared to check on them. When he came back, he was holding two paper cups. He walked over and handed one to me. Red wine. Grazie, I said. He replied, Salute. It's about as beautiful a moment as two grown men can share.

The last surprise of the night was seeing Silvio's wife. She walked in from the front -- either I'd missed her earlier or she'd just arrived -- and I took a moment to look at her. I knew she'd been in and out of the hospital recently, but that night she looked as vivacious as I remember her: Her dark eyes were flashing against her auburn skin, she was smiling, and she was flitting from one corner of the kitchen to the other.

I asked how she was doing, and she said fine. I asked if she was still doing the desserts, and she said yes, everything in front. Then she walked over to a counter-top, and a tray covered in something baked and golden came out of nowhere -- a cake made with farm cheese, she informed me. She pointed to another tray sitting on the stove -- that one's ricotta cheese, she said, a little sweeter than the farm cheese.

Knife out, she began slicing up one cake then the other. She asked if I'd like a piece, and I answered yes. She turned around and handed me a slice of ricotta cake as big as a paperback book. Grazie, I said again. She replied, Prego. Seeing that Silvio's disappeared out front again, I began gathering my things to say goodbye and leave.

As I walked out after the final ciao, cake in hand, I had one thought left: how fortunate I was to know these people.

Alternative view from the bike (not as scary as it looks)

View from the bike (sunset and a biker I almost hit while taking this picture)

Medical Center Henge

You might already know that yesterday was the first full day of spring.

And you might know too that on that day the sun rises due east and sets due west.

And -- bonus round -- you might have heard that Stonehenge and a few other ancient monuments act as giant solar calendars that line up just so on the vernal and autumnal equinoxes.

Looking out the nearest lab window yesterday, I noticed a little Henge effect of my own.


I took this just a few minutes before the sun worked its way into the lower right hand corner of my field of view and disappeared completely. Whatever that little nub is out there -- see it to the left of the smokestack-looking column? -- that marks due west from my window. And that means out there lies whatever else is 42 degrees and 16 minutes north latitude, including:

Rockford, IL
Sioux City, IA
Medford, OR
Muroran, Japan (on Hokkaido)
Najin, North Korea
Chifeng, China
Nomgon, Mongolia

If you keep going until you're exactly halfway around the world at the same latitutde -- as far as you can get before you start coming back around -- you reach a spot in the Tien Shan Mountains, extreme western China, just a hundred miles or so from the Kazakhstan border. At the moment I snapped this picture, someone there might have been watching the sun as well, except rising due east.

I don't mean to sound as if I'm high, but it's a beautiful idea.

Why we have radio

Here in the lab this evening everyone else has finally gone home, meaning I can now crank up the stereo with impunity. I've currently got it set to radio, and the first thing coming out are these lyrics which you might be familiar with:

Life is too short so love the one you got
'cause you might get run over or you might get shot

Never start no static, I just get it off my chest
Never had to battle with no bulletproof vest

Take a small example, take a tip from me
Take all of your money and give it up to charity

Love is what I got....

I've had a thing for this song since it first came out in 1997, and it gained special meaning for me in 2001. That year -- the last that I taught -- I had one advanced class, an Algebra II class made up mostly of juniors. A great, great group of kids: mature, chill, focused. I treated them like they were an honors class, and they responded like one.

Anyway, one afternoon -- spontaneously as far as I could tell -- one, two, then the rest burst into song, and that song happened to be this one, "What I Got" by Sublime. Being good kids, they bleeped themselves out when they got to the drug references. And being still a teacher, I couldn't just condone long periods of song when there was work to do. But inside I knew they were happy, and that made me happy as well. I remembered how quickly the pendulum could swing from one emotion to the other at that age, and inside I hoped that the atmosphere I'd made was one where they felt, on average, happy and safe. I probably let them sing for longer than I should have.

Here in the lab, the song's now over. Another one's started up, and I've got more work to do myself tonight. But, God, I hope those kids -- wherever they are tonight -- are okay.

Weather or not

Wednesday night / Thursday morning brought snow and hazy skies.

I walked out of my apartment and was greeted by this scene creepily reminiscent of 2005's War of the Worlds. Except with snow. And no tripod monster robots with disintegrating ray guns.

But it's okay, really. Spring, I know you'll come around.

Fire in the sky

Yesterday afternoon I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and go for a long bike ride. Well, relatively long.

Most real bike enthusiasts would frown on anything less than a 30-mile ride. But then again, most real bike enthusiasts are on road bikes that cost hundreds to thousands of dollars and take well-paved roads with little to no traffic on them. Makes for a ride that's perfectly safe, sanitized, and respectable. Like a Zingerman's sandwich.

But I prefer my rides a little more "real-world" -- dodging car and foot traffic, cutting on sidewalks and street shoulders, through the occasional gravelly construction site. Whatever gets me from A to B. I'm on the mountain bike I was gifted last summer, a non-branded thing that's too big for me, but I've put hundreds of miles on it by now and know it like an outgrowth. I trust it more than I do most people these days.

Yesterday afternoon I took the bike to Ypsilanti, spent a couple hours out there, and then decided to head back around 7. I knew sunset was coming around 7:30 p.m. and were I playing it safe, I would have headed back earlier. But I admit -- I like the risks that come with biking in near-twilight to darkness. Did I mention I keep forgetting to buy head and tail lights for the bike?

I was coming around the bend on East Huron River Drive that splits Washtenaw Community College from St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, still outside Ann Arbor city limits, when I noticed two things. First, how dark the sky was getting. And second, how hungry and tired I was. I'd stopped by Taco Boy on Golfside to get chicken tacos for dinner, and the styrofoam container was swinging from the handlebars, suspended in a plastic take-out bag. Car lights came up from behind me and to my left, and I thought about the five or so miles I had left to go to get home. I felt the familiar twinge of strain in the middle of my front quads that comes when I pick a destination too far.

In the middle of the bend I looked back over my right shoulder, from the direction of the disappearing twilight to the glim of the St. Joe parking lot. I'm still not sure what I saw next. A fireball? A meteor? Clearly one larger object with a long fiery tail and a second, smaller object off to the first's side. No noise, just fire in the sky. Just for a second. And then gone, like it extinguished when it reached the tree line, maybe fifty feet up. Did anyone else see that? I stopped pedaling. A UM Public Safety car came around the bend but kept going.

At the risk of sounding cliche, I know what I saw. I turned the bike around and headed into the St. Joe parking lot. I was looking left and right, to the landscaped trees within the campus as well as to the unmaintained trees beyond. I was looking at the ground, hoping to see something glowing. Meteor finds are rare, but I knew there was one out there somewhere, fresh.

I looked for about ten minutes, trying to rouse myself out of the stupor the cold, dark, and hunger were beginning to set upon me, but found nothing. By now only a thin streak of blue illumed the horizon to the west, and I turned toward it and made my way home. By 8:30, 8:45, in complete darkness, I made it home. So tired, I stripped down to next to nothing and collapsed on the floor. The chicken tacos were still sitting on the kitchen counter.

Chicken tacos at Taqueria La Loma, one of my three favorite meals in Washtenaw County

Nerding out

This post is mainly for the bioinformatics-inclined among my readership. For you others, rest assured I'll be back to my usual folderol and drivel by the next post.

Last night I was having coffee with CS, ostensibly so that we could both work on our theses. But no sooner do we get to talking about our short vacations out of town than we get to looking at CS' pictures and the considerably fewer pictures that I took (which are all on the blog, by the way).

CS observes, "You look a lot like your mom."

This is news to me, and I don't think about it again until I'm brushing my teeth this morning. And as I'm looking in the mirror, I'm thinking things like: Are my eyes more like my mom's or my dad's? My nose, my ears? How about this nearsightedness?

Then I get to thinking about bioinformatics (my graduate program, to you uninitiated) and I start wondering whether we (meaning all of us, humanity) will someday be able to say exactly what percentage we're of our mothers and what percentage our fathers. Who knows, maybe Craig Venter's already done this done for himself. After all, the man had his own genome sequenced. Who's to say he didn't do it for his parents too?

But beyond figuring out whether each of us is more our mother's child or our father's, an even more exciting prospect to me seems to be this: Can we reconstruct the sequence of events that occurred during meiosis down to the sequence-level? (Apologies for using "sequence" twice in that sentence, but I'm guessing you know the difference.) You know, be able to say crossover happened here, or mutation happened here, or -- oh look -- a thymine dimer.

I'm not sure if there's a bigger scientific objective here than the "oh cool" factor, but who wouldn't want to know what gametes got picked out of mom and dad to make him or her? Alright, I'm done nerding out for today. Back to the regularly scheduled program.

Reality only slightly less shady

... than imagined.

Some weekends I'll be looking for parking west of Main Street here in Ann Arbor and pass First Street, the western edge of downtown. Needing to turn around, I'll take the first right off Huron I see into a parking lot for what appears to be a car wash. In fact, it's the parking lot for a building behind the car wash, a trailer-looking structure with always a few characters loitering around outside and the only illumination a neon sign up top written in Korean.

What kind of front business is this? I'd wonder. Let's not forget that it was only a few months ago that AAPD busted five -- yes, five -- Asian spa-fronting brothels.

A few minutes of sleuthing on the Internet later, I found out that this trailer-looking structure is in fact a legitimate business. Or does a very good job appearing to be so. The other writing on the sign -- which I suppose I overlook each time I tear out of the parking lot as quickly as possible -- is in English: "Blue Karaoke". According to their website, there are nine rooms within which can be rented by the hour.

Uh huh. I'm still dubious.

Laid over in La Guardia (cont'd)

Laid over in La Guardia

Waiting for my flight at DFW with a lot of time to spare

Out with the parents

Ever since I first went away to college, I've had great ambitions for every trip home. Books to read, papers to write, work to catch up on, work to preempt: There really was no limit to the amount of stuff I always envisioned I could do with a few days' retreat to the cocoon of my upbringing.

This trip has been no exception.

Inevitably, though, something comes up. Distractions abound. And rather than hit that sweet spot of productivity I remember from past years -- when late at night I'd turn out all the lights in my room, save for the desk lamp, and imagine myself the legacy of medieval scribes working by candlelight -- I end up accomplishing less than I set out to do.

Last night the occasion for distraction was a meeting of National Taiwan University Dallas-area alumni. My dad's a member.

Despite my protestations earlier in the day -- which actually found a receptive audience in my dad -- my mom eventually coaxed me into going. I forget sometimes how busy my parents are when I'm not around. I also forget how eager they are to show off their children.

At these events, particularly the ones that happen outside of the holiday season, I see some familiar faces (my parents' friends, mainly), say hello (in English), eat what's put in front of me, and do my best to be the pleasant, conversant son I imagine my parents want. After a while, though, my interest always seems to wane. I speak and understand only vestiges of Taiwanese -- words related to food, transit, and education mostly -- and the program is inevitably in this language or, worse yet, Mandarin.

But I've learned to cope and find my own point of interest in these gatherings. I realize these men, my dad included, are the possible genetic futures that await me. Then I look around and think: Who among you are the most likely to be me? Will I have your complexion? Wear the same gold-rimmed glasses as you, down to the bifocal lenses? And will I talk about the same things: stocks, your kids, what we're doing to keep our blood pressure down? Or will I turn out completely different?

I looked to my left, at my dad, and snapped a picture. He was staring off in the distance.


I looked to my right, at my mom, and did the same. She was talking animatedly about something.


I ate the rest of my dinner and excused myself to go home early.

The 50% principle

I'm back in Texas for the weekend -- just to spend a few days in a warm place, truth be told -- and I had the chance to visit with an old friend, former teacher, and one-time colleague of mine, CW. Altogether I've known her for 17 years, meaning that if you picked a moment at random out of the 30 years that I've been alive, chances are I'd have known her then. There's something special about friends you can say that about, friends you've known greater than half your life, be you a year old or a hundred. Call it the 50% principle.

I try to call CW at least once or twice a year and visit her whenever I'm here in Texas and school is in session. That usually works out to once every three or four years. This time around, I was lucky enough to have one of those chances.

Stepping into the old high school this afternoon, all the feelings I've associated with this place come rushing back as if someone were riffing through a flip book in my head. The times I was a student here, between 1990 and 1994. The year I taught algebra here, 2000-2001. Even the times before I ever stepped foot in this building -- growing up a mile behind the school, I'd hear the band practicing early on humid fall mornings when my mom would open the patio door to let the air in. And then that bittersweet day in the spring of 2001 when I packed away my teaching materials for possibly the last time, took down my posters, and turned out the lights and closed the door on my classroom -- my classroom.

I don't regret leaving the classroom -- I had to get on with my own schooling, after all -- but I'd regret not being able to teach again in some capacity and never feeling that satisfaction that comes with closing the circle.

I've known this for some time now, but it became especially clear as I was talking with CW this afternoon. I guess that's one benefit to having friends on the 50% principle: They've known you long enough to serve as mirrors in which you see your past selves. You see your present self as well, and if all goes well, the best of your future selves too.

As CW and I walked out to her car so she could give me a ride home, I turned back to snap a picture.


I didn't want to forget.