FIELDTRIP! Flea Market on the Elbe

One last FIELDTRIP! before I leave you. On Saturdays when we have nothing else to do, Jake and I like to visit this flea market on the bank of the Elbe River, just a few blocks upstream of the Old City.



I'm a fan of looking at old junk no matter where I am. But it's particularly interesting in a different country, especially one with a recent history as fascinating as East Germany's.

You've got some World War I stuff ...

The World in Flames

Although that stuff is a little harder to come by. And, of course, you've got loads of World War II stuff.


Notice the placement of the price sticker on the notebook. Vendors go to great lengths to hide all the swastikas behind stickers or tape because, since WWII, with some artistic and educational exceptions, it is illegal to publicly display a swastika — and the punishments are stiff: up to three years in the slammer. But since the WWII paraphernalia at flea markets here is so abundant, and so plastered with the now-taboo symbol, there are always bound to be a couple here and there that get missed.


The flea market also, always, has plenty of communist-era stuff. Like this picture of Lenin.

Lenin-magnification:

And stuff like this ...


And this GDR military belt I bought for my younger brother, Ford. The symbol of the GDR was the hammer and compass, not to be confused with Russia's hammer and sickle.


But really, there's just no end to the strange delights.

Zeppelin World Travel

Power supplies from the 1950s (the kind of thing Jake likes to look at)

Here's a little gem Jake picked up during a recent visit.


He calls this little military-issue bag his "Indiana Jones" bag.

I call it his man purse. You know, tomayto, tomahto.

Kidding, I actually think it's cool and masculine and am delighted that I no longer have to carry his wallet in my purse when his butt gets tired.

This lady we saw from the tram leaving the flea market one Saturday apparently also made a golden find:


Jazzy-magnification:


This was my golden find:

German man-gams. Mmmmm.

Well, have a great week, kids. I want you all to be on your best behavior for the babysitter. Your father and I will be back soon with plenty of fun souvenirs for you from our trip. I'll miss you.



Love,
JEM

Auf Wiedersehen, Drydens.

This handsome couple is Jake's sis Laura and her husband John. They just spent two days with us here in Dresden and are at this moment on the road to Salzburg, Austria. We wish them a wonderful stay in Europe and thank them from the depths of our bratwurst-clogged hearts for coming to see us out here.


You guys are welcome back any time.



JEM

It's My Party ...

In honor of the silver anniversary of my birth, you are all hereby justified in engaging in one or more of the following JEM-approved activities tomorrow, Aug. 15, 2008, to memorialize the occasion:

1. Go out to breakfast at a diner with a name that's the possessive form of some person's first name (i.e. Denny's, Angie's, etc.). Order Belgian waffles with strawberries and whipped cream with a side of bacon.

2. Go to a zoo, paying special tribute to any sea otters, giraffes, camels or tortoises you may encounter therein.

3. Go see "The Dark Knight". Again.

4. Take a nap.

5. Eat/drink a really thick Reese's Peanut Butter Cup milkshake.

6. Go for a drive with the windows down while rocking out to this, this, this, this or this.

What will I be doing to commemorate the occasion, you ask? Oh, I'm just going to hop a night train to Paris. France.

No, seriously. Here are the tickets.

After Paris, we're going to Amsterdam. We embark next Wednesday.

What? You didn't get to go to Paris for your birthday? Well, better luck next year, SUCKAHS!!!



JEM

The Mind of My Jake

There are a lot of benefits to marrying a geek. Prominent among them are that he can fix virtually anything and that he can build incredible gadgets that make life more convenient. (He once built us our very own DVR from scratch, but that's another story for another day.)

But one of the things that I love most about my geek husband is that his brain never turns off. He is a thinker who never tires of learning, which is something that struck me at first as a little bit OCD, but which I now find incredibly admirable and hope eventually will rub off on me. Nothing is too big or too mundane for him to tackle in his constant pursuit of information. His mental science and technology database is staggering, but his interests venture far beyond that. He carries with him a baffling knowledge of Greek mythology, thanks to a one-time childhood obsession, and can also give you a brief history of the advent of the hamburger. (The meat patty was apparently invented by Genghis Khan. Who knew?) His vast knowledge base makes him a terrifying opponent in Trivial Pursuit and once prompted a friend to say that if Jake confessed to being an android, he actually wouldn't be surprised.

My point here being: Jake's brain is a fascinating place. That's why I'm recommending his blog, chlorine.tumblr.com, which is less online diary and more stream-of-consciousness snapshot album. He usually updates multiple times a day, and his almost wordless posts offer links to scientific breakthroughs and other quirky and interesting tidbits, scriptural passages, and images he likes ranging from Renaissance art to modern architecture to Rita Hayworth.

One running feature is his slashaikus, which are haikus created from the text of slashdot (a premier science and technology blog) articles. Jake recently wrote a computer program as an experiment that constantly combs the site for five-syllable-seven-syllable-five-syllable word combinations. It automatically compiles the results, and Jake sorts through them and posts his favorites, which are equal parts hilarious and profound — but all weird.

So anyway, check it out. You'll feel smarter. I always do.



JEM

O Canada!

A couple of weeks ago, Jake returned to our home continent to participate in the 2008 Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology conference in Toronto.

The conference, which is put on annually by the International Society for Computational Biology, was held this year in a conference center with all the charm and intimacy of an underground Soviet fallout bunker.

Feeding time for the refugees of science.

During the conference, Jake had the opportunity to present some of his recent research with a poster titled, "Pathway Prediction with eQTL and Gene Interaction Networks". (*shrug* Hey, don't look at me. I just share the man's bed.)

He said it was his most productive conference poster session to date, which means that a lot of people were interested in his research and wanted to hear more.

Can you spot the Jake?

Bing!

Occasionally Jake was able to leave the conference center and do fun things. Like stay in this totally lux hotel room:


and walk down the street where he had previously done battle with Combine soldiers in an academic mod of his favorite video game Half Life 2, which was based in Toronto.


He also visited Toronto's lovely mall:


and saw this great car with grass growing out of it.


Jake sat down with AD to discuss his feelings after his first visit to the United States' sister-land.

American Dresdner: So, how did you find Toronto?
Jake J. Michaelson: My general impression was that I was more impressed than I expected to be.
AD: Can you expound?
JJM: It was by far the most ethnically diverse place I have ever visited to the point of almost being overwhelming. The dynamic range of ethnicity and culture is just wider than anything I've ever experienced before. You almost get the feeling that every ethnicity that exists on planet Earth is equally represented among the whole population.
AD: Did being in Canada feel like being in the U.S. again?
JJM: Almost. For one thing, a vast majority of the people were speaking English in an accent identical to my own. There were American cars. There was an American feel in the way that buildings were constructed. Streets were perpendicular. Lots of parking lots and asphalt.
AD: What was different?
JJM: The fact that everything has to be written in French as well as English was probably the most overtly different thing.
AD: You expressed to JEM that you experienced a degree of "reverse culture shock". Can you explain that?
JJM: For one thing, I was surprised at how few people smoked. I noticed that I looked at things from a German/European critical eye. Many of the buildings looked like they had flimsy construction. There was way too much water in the toilet bowls. The fact that tax is added on top of the advertised price was annoying. And I found people's over-abundant friendliness artificial and off-putting.
AD: Americans are going to hate you guys when you come home.
JJM: We'll hate them right back. Keep the transatlantic tradition alive.
AD: Since you spend a lot of time preparing and presenting posters at scientific conferences, can you explain to our non-scientist readers what the purpose of a "poster session" is?
JJM: You remember your science fair when you're in elementary school? It's basically a glorified version of that, but a lot more boring. There are no live exhibits of experiments. Instead there's much more wordy jargon on the posters.
AD: Can you give us a basic idea of what your poster this time around was about?
JJM: No.
AD: Well, that's terribly accommodating of you.
JJM: It's not my fault, there's just no basic way of explaining it. It's not possible. Here's my short abstract: A network analysis method is presented and applied to expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) data. The method is designed to overcome weaknesses of eQTL analysis, including noise, false positives, and a lack of molecular context. Results show improvement in recapitulating pathway members, compared to conventional eQTL approaches.
AD: I think I speak for all AD readers when I say, "Dazzling." I also understand you brought a couple of surprises back for JEM.
JJM: That's right.



AD: You sure know how to treat a girl.

JEM Performs "Life on Mars?" LIVE!!!

Yet another enlightening glimpse into what it is, exactly, that I do with all my time — Exhibit D: Learn David Bowie songs on the guitar.


Life on Mars from jake michaelson on Vimeo.

OK, now I can move on with my life. And now we can stop talking about '70s glamrock. At least for a couple of days.



JEM

P.S. If you thought Freddie Mercury's spandex jumpsuit was upsetting, you really shouldn't watch this.

Dr. Glamrock

If there was any news last weekend that was more brain-splatteringly awesome than this, I certainly didn't hear about it.


Apparently Brian May, guitarist and founding member of '70s glamrock giants Queen, just published his DOCTORAL THESIS IN ASTROPHYSICS. He actually received his doctorate last August and shortly thereafter accepted the appointment of chancellor for Liverpool John Moores University.


You may now take a moment to scrape up your face, which no doubt just melted onto the floor as a result of learning this news.

Dr. May, this one's for you: