Beer mystery solved

There was a story in my home town newspaper about what can happen when scientists set out to solve important issues. An article entitled, "The Von Newmann Relation Generalized to Coarsening of Three-dimensional Microstructures," answers the question of why does beer foam dissipate? Mmmmm beer. The article was published in Nature, a prestigious, or in the words of the reporter, a "hotshot science journal." The article of course deals with beer foam or bubbles as one of many problems that material scientists need to deal with. Here is the actual formula given in the article.

Travel = Food

I don't know about other people but when I travel I like to try local cuisine. Sometimes this includes fast food from different cultures. My brother and sister-in-law were craving Subway when we hit a mall in Singapore but I just couldn't bring myself to eat there. Across the way there was a restaurant called Mos Burger. Intrigued I wandered over and stared at their menu board trying to interpret the difference between a Takumi Burger and a Spicy Cheeseburger. The helpful lady at the counter pointed at a picture menu that told me what the burgers were. Each burger had an animal icon for the meat choice. I ordered a riceburger thinking that it would be similar to a veggie burger here in North America conveniently ignoring the Chicken icon next to it.

They custom make the burgers for you so the process took a little longer than Subway and by the time I returned to our table with my order my family was pretty much finished. I unwrapped my burger and I was suprised by the rice patties that formed the bun part of the burger. A chicken patty and some teriyaki sauce completed the sandwich. I don't know if these "buns" are completely gluten free but I was impressed with the idea of using rice this way. The rice burger was delicious and it is with great sadness that I find they don't have franchises here in the States.

Another voice of sanity is stilled

Kurt Vonnegut has died and I wondered what his thoughts on the Bush regime were. Here are some pungent words from Wikipedia about Vonnegut's view of the current political situation.

"By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East?" he wrote. "Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas in December."

I remember watching Slaughterhouse Five as a film and thinking that whomever wrote this must have been on drugs. Really good drugs. My friend Duncan is a huge fan which caused me to become even more curious about him.

I hope that this generation finds a voice this distinctive and eloquent.

Apologies

I am sorry that I have been absent from my blog. There have been several reasons that I haven't posted recently. Some are work related, some are personal, and the primary reason is that I just returned from a long needed holiday to visit family in the Far East. After I returned from Singapore last weekend I went into a little bit of a funk. It strikes me that every time I return to the United States I am feeling a little more reluctance to return to my life here.

Once upon a time my institution had meetings where librarians could meet and discuss what we perceived to be recruitment and retention problems. I remember bringing up home sickness as something that affected retention. This was after I had been here a whole six months so it wasn't a personal sense of missing my home but rather recognition that those of us who have chosen to relocate for work don't have the same connections that many of our other coworkers take for granted.

Ironically, before I was dealt a professional disappointment I was actually thinking about creating a more permanent home here in Houston for myself. Now, I feel disconnected from my workplace after returning from an extended holiday and in truth I am feeling quite lonely. I have some choices to make in the immediate future and I am not sure if I am in the correct state of mind to be making them. Since I moved to Houston over 5 years ago, I have lost touch with some people while holding other friends close to me even with the distances involved. My family is spread all over the world and I know that many of my coworkers and friends in Houston have become my de facto family.

So how to resolve this enuie? As a librarian my first impulse is to research the problem, and I located some interesting articles on expatriate adjustments. Attachment theory when applied to immigrant groups in Immigration from an Attachment Perspective by Yolanda van Ecke suggests that, "we like to explore, as long as we have a secure base to which to return." I was once criticized for taking too much holiday time by a supervisor. I don't know if this person could understand or recognize that without my twice a year visits home I don't know if I could have stayed this long.

This isn't something that will be resolved quickly or easily but perhaps this is the road that I need to explore at this point in time.