Category: Misc

A heating/cooling unit is mounted to the ceiling above my head. It is responsible for the climate both in my office and in a suite of offices next door. The thermostat to control the shared unit is not in my office, but next door. To access it I need to leave and lock my own office, unlock the suite next door, remember the combo for the inner hallway door, and then use yet another key to get into the office where the thermostat is mounted. That’s four doors. It’s like I work at Get Smart HQ.

Did I mention that the heating unit above my head sounds like a jet taking off? Well, not quite, but it’s very loud. Loud to the point where it’s hard to concentrate when it’s on. Loud enough that I’d rather heat and cool myself with sweaters and shorts, windows and doors. Because the people next door don’t have to hear it, they apparently don’t feel the same. They’d rather turn it up. Turn it way up. Turn it up to an ungodly (and utterly wasteful) 78 degrees. No typo.

Did I mention that there’s seldom anyone in the office next door? It’s used by visiting scholars and for special projects, and most of the time when I go in, there’s no one there. On the other hand, I’m at work most of the time.

Despite the fact that people are seldom there, someone has been going in and turning the heat up to 78 and disappearing. I walk into my office, it’s roasting and loud. Do the Get Smart thing, turn it down to 68, return to my desk.

An hour later I hear it go on again. When I go over I never see anyone. So I decided to leave a note. A really nice note. Not a nasty note, but an honest note, with my name and phone number. Ring me up. Let’s talk. I posted the note. An hour later I heard the jet taking off. Went next door. The thermostat was on 75.

I guess this means war.

Update: My “war” found its way to administration. They are going to address the issue by sealing the thermostat in a plastic shell that no one can touch, not even me. The temp will be locked at a comfortable and energy-friendly 68 degrees.

From habit, I still eat meals sized for a 25-year-old man. But lately I’ve found that being full takes such a toll on me. I sit for an hour after dinner, eyes heavy as all energy is funneled toward digestion. It’s as if I get full at the drop of a hat, and it takes forever to become un-full again.

I remember years ago in a pranayama yoga class learning from an Indian yogi about an expression that translates something like, “When done eating, your belly should be half full of food, a quarter full of water, and a quarter full of nothing at all.” I am taking this as my new maxim. No more eating to fullness. There’s such a fine line between fullness and gluttony, and it’s really not necessary, especially for those of us with sedentary jobs.

Since healing up from the busted arm, I’ve ridden with a fluorescent orange safety vest while bicycling. The first couple of days, felt like a total dork. All “cool” goes straight out the window. Trade that in for becoming kinda sorta visible to cars. I use that word with caveat and caution, as I still proceed with the assumption that i am el hombre invisible. Nevertheless, there is this unfamiliar phenomenon: cars come to a complete stop 20 feet away, motion me through the intersection. I never know whether they think I’m law enforcement or “something official-like” on account of the vest, or simply that the vest brings out the dormant courteous driver in some people. But there’s no question it makes a difference in the way cars treat me. I also use a super-spazmodo LED flasher on the seatpost now, which arrests vision from the rear at 50 paces.

Bike aside, my whole attitude toward traffic is permanently altered. Since Matthew’s death, my accident, Mike’s accident, and the eerie confluence of accidents that have affected so many friends and family over the past year, I drive like an old lady. Smell death and damage around every corner. See every merging car as an incoming 2,000-lb smart bomb. Have no lingering youthful sense of invulnerability. Feel lucky to arrive at any destination intact. Freak at every arrogant cell phone using, fast-food-eating, lipstick-applying, radio-twiddling, inattentive driver.

If only people knew what a thin razor’s edge they ride at every moment on the road. An edge that grows thinner with every passing year, as culture accelerates, population explodes, courtesy vanishes.

I think of Matthew every day when I slip that vest over my head.

I have presta valves on my bicycle tires. This morning went to put some air in the rear. When I removed the adapter, it took the core of the valve stem out with it. The little brass stem went rocketing across the garage and hit the back wall, scary projectile. Heard it, couldn’t see it. Tire deflated in two seconds flat, no pun intended. Walked to work. Over lunch discovered that the one bike shop within walking distance of UC Berkeley has closed down.

I never thought there were corners in time
‘Till I was told to stand in one.
— Grace Slick

In the middle of the first big jschool event of the season, a weeklong conference on Covering Infectious Diseases, most of which we’re webcasting. As usual, being run ragged — 13 hour day yesterday, endless logistics, schlepping and setting up equipment, managing details, etc. Exhausted already.

Funny story last night during a presentation by the head of the Center for Disease Control’s West Nile Virus division, Lyle Petersen… who ignored his own advice (stood outside at dusk without his DEET) and contracted West Nile himself, thus making himself even more of an expert than he already was. He left town right afterwards. Journalists tried to look him up to cover the irony, but there were two Lyle Petersens in the phone book, and the other Lyle Petersen had coincidentally died shortly before. Many journalists called the wrong house, and ended up talking to the wife of the dead guy. “He’s dead!” she told them. And so the story spiralled.

birdhouse hosting is pleased to host orvilleschell.com.

Orville Schell is the Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley. He is also the author of 14 books — nine about China, including “Virtual Tibet,” “Mandate of Heaven,” and “Discos and Democracy” – Dean Schell has also written widely about Asia and other topics for Wired, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, Harper’s, Newsweek and other national magazines. He is the recipient of Guggenheim, an Alicia Patterson Foundation fellowship, a Harvard/Stanford Shorenstein Award and numerous writing prizes. Dean Schell has also served as correspondent and consultant for several PBS “Frontline” documentaries as well as an Emmy award-winning program on China for CBS’ “60 Minutes.”

It’s been more than a year since I posted How Our OS X Rollout Was Hamstrung, on how the absence of a free version of Pro Tools for OS X was preventing the Berkeley J-School’s multimedia lab program from making the jump from OS 9 to X. The issue was that Pro Tools Free wouldn’t run in Classic mode, and we didn’t want our students dual-booting. We’re finally making the switch. And we had to dump Pro Tools to do it. Follow-up story at my ORA blog.

I think this has been the saddest summer of my life. The weight of it all caught up with me today.

First there was Matthew’s death in June, which shook all of us to the core and has consumed a tremendous amount of emotional energy since.

Then something horrific happened to one of our grad students. Her mother had requested a restraining order placed on her father. The judge denied the request. Later, the father showed up, got into an argument with the mother, and ended up shooting and killing the 10-year-old brother and then himself. I can’t even imagine how an experience like this would affect a soul.

A few weeks later, the aunt of a co-worker — a woman who had helped raise her from a pipsqueak — borrowed an unfamiliar car (a pickup) and rolled it with some of the extended family inside. The aunt died, and others inside were horribly wounded. The young boy is still undergoing excruciating procedures to stretch his remaining skin up onto areas of his body that have none.

Then there was my mishap — a tiny event and insignificant repercussions in comparison, but it echoed Matthew’s experience so closely — car-on-bike, uninsured motorist — that it served as a poignant reminder of how blessed and lucky we all are to be alive from moment to moment. It’s all so fleeting. Matthew went under his car, I went over mine. He’s dead and I’m alive. Sounds glib, but that’s about what it comes down to. And physically, even though a fractured arm is small in comparison, it took the wind out of the summer’s sails. This wonderful new house, and I was not able to launch into any projects, not even able to mow the lawn. Robbed of some of the joy of the first months of home ownership. Put every project on the list on hold. Doubled the length of my commute. Made typing two-handed impossible. Made it hard to help with Miles. Just screwed everything up.

The universe wasn’t finished with us. While on a photo trek in Kashmir, the husband of one of our photography teachers was broadsided in a San Francisco intersection (car-on-car). He had to be pulled from the wreckage with the Jaws of Life, and is recovering slowly.

This morning, I woke up actually depressed about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s decision to enter the race for governor. Not depressed about him per se, just depressed that there are so many people out there that think this is a good idea. So star-struck that they can’t see how idiotic it is to want a leader who has never served in politics. That this actually seems not just okay, but desirable to people. About what Schwarzenegger’s image means in the collective unconscious — think of his movie rolls – and that this is what the collective consciousness actually wants. I should be able to laugh about it, write it off as the cartoon that it is — but I can’t, because it’s not. It’s real. And it’s fscking depressing.

Amy has been saying recently how depressing it is to take Miles into the city. To see the aggression of drivers all around, to see Miles fascinated with the shit left behind by homeless people, to see the rudeness and coldness and disconnectedness. She talks about second-guessing our decision to stay in an urban area rather than packing off to somewhere more rural, and I know exactly what she means. In contrast to Miles’ pure, unadulterated joy and innocence, this uglyness we’ve become so jaded to somehow gets … unjaded.

So I’m walking home from BART meditating on all of this, wondering where it’s all going and how we fit into it all and how to reclaim happiness, when I see something very surreal. Ahead of me on the sidewalk there seems to be a short woman packing a large doll into a garbage can. Only it’s not going in very well. I get closer. What I at first thought was the “doll” comes out from behind the can. Her face is bent, distorted. Her arms are tiny, with misshapen hands about where your elbows are. She kind of waddle/hunches, rather than walks. Then the other woman, red-haired, who had had her back to me, turns around. She’s the same height. Her face and body are similarly distorted, but different. Her face is stretched taught, as if made of plastic. I am caught in that uncomfortable space of wanting to stare but knowing I can’t. I smile at one of them. She is expressionless. They go back in the house. Are they sisters? Or just comrades? Thalidomide babies? It doesn’t matter. Their daily lives are painful in a way few of us can imagine.

I was shaken by the encounter, and trembled the rest of the way home. When I saw Amy, I just broke down. Cried. The sadness of the world just imploded on me, had been building all summer.

I am lucky to be alive, healthy. Most of us are. Enjoy your body, your health. Enjoy the hell out of them. Ultimately, they are fleeting. Regard cars with the utmost distrust, whether you’re in them or outside them. And above all, be kind to others. Increase the love.

Doc found another fracture in my wrist – one he didn’t spot the first time around. Not uncommon to miss them, apparently (I’m amazed they can see fractures on x-rays at all — so subtle). While I’m able to to type two-handed now, I still can barely move a spoon into my mouth – anything remotely resembling twisting the wrist is painful. The frustration mounts, ready for life to return to normal. Want to work on the house, change diapers, push the stroller, throw Miles up in the air, run away and join the circus.

Disclosure: Wrist pictured is not my own.