Weigh-in 3 for Biggest Loser: Wiener-Dog Style

Sabrina is downright svelte these days! Her latest weight is a mere 13.6 pounds, which is exactly what she was back in September before her excursion in obesity. She’s lost 4 pounds since we adopted her from Dachshund Rescue of North America in early March. That’s a whopping 23 percent loss in her body weight!

While I thought Briner the Wiener’s ideal weight would be around 12 pounds, I’m thinking now that it’s more like 13. She’s a sturdy girl, with a big chest and head, a head she loves to rest on people’s laps. Her favorite lap apparently belongs to her “Opa,” Karel, who with “Oma” Francis visited from the Netherlands a couple weeks ago. The minute he would sit on the couch, Sabrina was there, ready to snuggle.

Sabrina’s diet tips? The usual. Less food and more exercise. She loves to run on her own in the yard, and enjoys getting out for a walk, especially when she goes with sister Roxy the Doxy and gets to be led by Oma and Opa. While Roxy is the almost-perfect little heeler, Sabrina feels the need to stop and sniff at everything. Opa indulged her in these detours quite a bit. In fact, I think he kind of fell in love with Sabrina.

When I take her out, however, she can get very stubborn, running on her lead one minute and then sitting down and refusing to budge the next. It’s the oddest thing. And it’s not because she’s tired, as she’ll pop back up when she’s good and ready and start trotting about again. I think she’s just asserting herself, something I can relate to. 

Ever seen a wind-powered camper?

Below is my version of a short piece on wind-turbine maker Michael Powers that appears, with Wessel’s photo, in this month’s Ode Magazine. After it ran, someone from “Weekend America” on NPR contacted me for more information, as they might do something too. That felt validating because I’d tried to sell this story to Sierra and Audobon mags and got no reply from either. The story came to be because our group of cyclists touring in Delmarva happened to camp near Michael. Only when cycling out of the park after a two-day stay did I decide I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. So I did a quickie interview  and Wessel took photos.

Here’s the piece: 

Travelers who visit Assateague State Park in Maryland are accustomed to unusual sights, what with more than 100 wild horses freely roaming the grounds. But last summer, something manmade captured the attention of parkgoers as well. At one of the 350 campsites along two miles of the Atlantic Ocean stood a 28-foot whirring wind turbine powering the batteries of a Coleman Camper travel trailer.

Its creator was Michael Powers, who will return to the island park in late-July with an even more efficient version of his eye-grabbing contraption. Powers, who lives near Baltimore, got the idea last spring of providing power for the camper’s two 13.8-volt batteries. Having gone with his wife and three children to Assateague for many summers, he figured the island’s constant breeze would be a perfect spot for wind energy.

“As a child, my father and I built a solar water heater for our family pool. Since then, I’ve always been thinking of ways to make solar and wind power,” says Powers, who by day manages a computer engineering team. “For this project I had my own ideas but did a lot of research on the Internet.”

He first set up the turbine in his back yard, which, he notes, did not thrill his suburban neighbors. The whole thing cost about $80, which included a $34 permanent-magnet motor and a $25 rotor, both purchased on eBay. He used PVC piping for the mast instead of the usual metal so as not to attract lightening. The wind supplied enough energy to power the campers’ lights, refrigerator, oven fan, and water pump.

This year Powers plans to increase the turbine’s efficiency by using fiberglass for the blades and switching out the steel rotor for a lighter aluminum one. He’s even considering using the wind to power a fan that would blow air across an ammonia-based evaporator to provide air conditioning.

Once he sets up again at Assateague, Powers and his highly visible windmill are sure to draw another round of curious campers.

“Everyone stops to talk to me about it, including the rangers,” Powers says. “My family thought it was weird that I had this up, but they’re used to it.”

Middle Eastern hospitality in Iran

“Where they Went” by Diane Daniel
(Published April 13, 2008, in the Boston Globe)

From Di’s eyes: I liked Richard’s attitude. If more Americans traveled to places that are mysterious to them, even scary, they’d discover what he did. As Richard says of the Iranians he met: “They’re more like us than not.”

WHO: Richard Dobrow, 60, of Marblehead, Mass.

WHERE: Iran

WHEN: Three weeks in October and November

WHY: “I like to go places before they get really discovered. One sure way to do that is to pick countries that are on the tenuous list,” said Dobrow. “I‘ve always been interested in Iran because it’s Persia. It’s always been an important country. And I was interested in seeing if it was as bad as we are led to believe.”

TRAVEL PROS: Dobrow visited the country with American outfitter Geographic Expeditions. “I used them before to camp in the Libyan desert. On a trip like this you get very seasoned travelers and they tend to be politically liberal. People wanted to see for themselves what was going on in Iran.”

POLITICS ASIDE: “When people asked me what I thought about Bush, which wasn’t always complimentary, they smiled and said they felt the same way about their president. We agreed if our presidents would just get out of the way, we’d be OK,” he said. Although Iranians are accustomed to seeing European and Asian tourists, Americans are uncommon. “One man, when he found out I was American, he yelled ‘America!’ at the top of his lungs and gave me a bear hug he was so overjoyed we were visiting his country. Belgium tourists nearby snapped photos of the Iranian and American hugging.”

LAND AND AIR: The group met in Tehran and went by van and airplane to several places, including Hamadan, Kermanshah, Tabriz, Mashhad, Yazd, Shiraz, Persepolis, and Isfahan. “Tehran sits at the foot of mountains that have year-round snow. It’s a very modern city and not that interesting. At Kermanshah, we were right at the Iraqi border. They have some incredible bas reliefs.” It was there that Dobrow gave away his Red Sox cap to a young Iranian boy who had never heard of baseball.

CHANGING YOUTH: Dobrow noted differences in dress between older women, who would be covered except for their eyes, and younger ones. “They’d wear waistcoats and show their individuality with the fabric and jewelry. They came right up to you and talked to practice their English. They’d ask things like, ‘what do you think of Iranian women?’ They had their hair covered, but as little as possible.” A decade of fighting affected the male population, he said. “The Iran-Iraq war basically wiped out a generation of boys. Almost everyone I talked to had lost a son.”

AMAZING SIGHTS: Dobrow found Tabriz fascinating for its incredible carpets and its diverse population that includes tribal groups, Christians and Zoroastrians. In the desert town of Yazd, the group visited several historic caravanserai, mud and straw fort-like structures where travelers would stop to rest with their camels. “They invented all these ingenious ways to survive the desert.” In Isfahan, the country’s cultural capital, Dobrow was drawn to Imam Square, “one of the most beautiful in the world, and the second largest. On one side is a palace and on the other a mosque, with green down the middle.”

ON THE LOOKOUT: “I met only delightful people,” Dobrow said. “I was looking for a balanced view. I saw love. The economy is terrible and there are all these well-educated kids driving taxis and working at the hotels. They just want to have employment and a middle-class lifestyle. They’re more like us than not.”

When Delta dozes (and Wessel doesn’t)

Delta sent Wessel and me information via email (they called him also, but not me!) about a change in our flight schedules from Durham, NC, to Oslo, Norway next month.

“We have bolded the affected flights,” it read. Only one flight was in bold, from Atlanta to Newark, and it was only a 10-minute change. We’d booked this trip months in advance, and these kind of changes are quite typical. No biggie. I noted it and went back to work.

Unfortunately, Delta and yours truly were dozing on the job, but wide-eyed Wessel caught another, much bigger change that was not highlighted but should have been.

On the final leg of our journey home in late June, instead of our original flight leaving at 4:50 p.m. from Cincinnati to Durham it was now scheduled to depart at 3 p.m. And guess what time we were arriving into Cincinnati from Paris? At 3 p.m. Argh….

I called Delta for the low-down. Turned out the 4:50 p.m. flight had been scrubbed.

The representative, who then put us on a later flight, was not the least bit apologetic.

Me: “How did this happen?”

Delta: “The automated system put you on it.”

Me: “Well it doesn’t have very good software, then. Isn’t a human being ever involved?”

Delta: “Yes, they manually put it in a queue for review.”

Me: “So the reviewer dropped the ball?”

Delta: “Yes, I guess.”

Me: “And why wasn’t that big change highlighted on our email?”

Delta: “It was just an oversight.”

Me: “A pretty big one, I’d say.”

Delta: (nada)

So …. I guess I should have just come out and said: Can you please just apologize so I’ll feel better? But I didn’t, and she didn’t, and I just don’t get that.

The flip side to that is when I called Verizon or maybe it was American Express recently about a minor issue and they apologized so many times that I finally said, “please stop apologizing, it’s OK.” Of course their response came out of Customer Service Interaction No. 5.247 on page 184 of the manual.

Note to Big Business: We consumers don’t need a string of rehearsed apologies; we just need one or two that are heartfelt.

Meanwhile, I have a message in to Air France media relations about some of their disappointing customer-service policies. More on that coming up.

Sea treasures yield all-natural art show

Rialto Beach is a magic, mystical place, pulsating with energy from wind and waves. When we got out of the car, the pounding of the surf was almost scary. And, yes, conditions are ripe here for tsunamis. There are even signs warning of them. The beach is part of Washington state’s Olympic National Park, a sliver that hugs the coastline, while most of the park is a few miles inland. Rialto is littered with driftwood, but not the branches and limbs I’m used to from my childhood vacation days on the Outer Banks in North Carolina. While some of the wood here is smallish, much of it is huge, including whole trees that have washed down the Hoh River and other tributaries and, finally, into the Pacific Ocean.

There are fewer big ones now than there used to be, because the logging areas keep being moved. In the old days, we learned, there were a good number of hollowed out trees you could walk into! That’s no longer the case, but you can still poke your head in a few. Have you ever put your head up in a tree? It’s quite special. I love the look of rocks and pebbles being stuck in the wood with the surf. It’s like the tree is accessorizing.

All the wood and pebbles, from tiny to golf-ball size and bigger were glistening in the surf and the omnipresent rain. We walked and walked, but didn’t have time to reach the famed Hole in the Wall. Another time, perhaps.

I’ve collected heart-shaped stones for many years, and on the beach here not only did I find a perfect one, but Wessel found me a small heart of wood that is a bit of a stretch for a heart, but just qualifies. Then he found a massive one. It was so beautiful that it clearly belonged to nature, not me, so we took only photos, not the heart itself. Oh hell, the truth is that had I been driving instead of flying I would have carted the thing home. It was a beauty. But I have my two smaller samples to gaze at and relive our wonderful walk on Rialto Beach.

Seeing green at Olympic National Park

I was lucky enough to have a story assignment for Ode Magazine that took me to Olympic National Park in northwest Washington state. About Ode: I first discovered it as a reader and am now thrilled to be writing for them. It’s probably the first glossy magazine I’ve written for that totally reflects my personal ethics and political leanings, which makes it now my favorite publication to write for.

I won’t give away the story, which will be out in the July/August issue, but I’m writing a profile on someone who has a strong connection to the park. This is the sort of story Wessel would not usually accompany me on, but he was dying to come to the park as well, and who could blame him. Of course he took his usual amount of photos (like 150 a day or so) and hopefully can sell a few.

Most of our time was spent in the stunning Hoh Rain Forest , the stunning park’s most popular spot. Because it was early April and the snow had only recently stopped falling, there were very few visitors, making it all the more special. Did it rain? Of course. But we never were subjected to downpours. The most spectacular aspect of the rainforest is the green - every shade imaginable and in all shapes and sizes, from giant log covered with moss to a carpet of frilly ferns. A rainforest is such a visible place to see life and death or the form of plant birth and decay.

We hiked the Hoh River Trail, which was quite muddy at many points. We passed towering trees here in one of the Pacific Northwest’s largest old-growth forest, including Sitka spruce that topped 200 feet and were 9 feet across. Wessel was most fascinated by the “nurse logs” that give tree seedlings a place to flourish before one day rotting away. We were often walking along the Hoh itself, a large river that is rather quiet this time of year. It carries logs from the forest all the way to the Pacific, where some become driftwood on the beaches we later visited. Quite the voyage!

If your time is limited, at least walk the Hall of Mosses loop from the visitor center. In less than a mile you’ll get a good sampling of most everything the Hoh Rain Forest has to offer.

 

Deciphering rental-car ‘dialogue’

Ever since I first rented a car some 30 years ago, I’ve been doing battle with car-rental companies. I think they have some of the most blatantly unethical consumer practices in the country. (Enterprise is the only company I sort of trust.) I’ve given the industry dozens of opportunities to disprove that, but so far that hasn’t happened. Here’s a recent example:

On April 3, I rented a car through Budget at Sea-Tac (Seattle-Tacoma International Airport). Here’s part of my exchange with the Budget counter clerk regarding insurance coverage for the car.

Budget: Would you like full coverage or just on the car?
Me: What about no coverage?
Budget: So you’re declining coverage?
Me: Yes. You didn’t give that as an option, did you?
B: You’re declining coverage?
Me: Yes, but I’m asking, did you offer me that option?
B: It’s not part of my dialogue.
Me: What do you mean?
B: It’s not part of the dialogue we’re told to use.
Me: That seems wrong to not give people the option because some people would think they have to buy insurance coverage through Budget, which of course they don’t.
B: It’s not part of the dialogue.

The following week, once I was home, I followed up with Budget about this “dialogue.” Here’s the answer I received via email from corporate spokeswoman Alice Pereira:

“Budget customers always have the option to accept or decline additional coverages at the time of rental. If you were not given the option to do so, it is contrary to our company policy. We will look into the matter and take necessary steps to ensure that employees adhere to the policy.”

So, the company line is that Budget tells customers their options. Yet my clerk said he was following “the dialogue we’re told to use.” Someone somewhere is not being honest. What I fear most is that my guy (who can be tracked by my paperwork) will be reprimanded for doing what he likely was being told to do by his boss, and nothing else will happen.

I figured I’d also check with the Washington Attorney General’s office to see if Budget’s failure to give me an option of declining insurance violated any consumer laws. For that I turned to Kristin Alexander, media relations manager in the office of Attorney General Rob McKenna. Here’s what she said:

“All businesses are obligated to inform consumers about their products in a fair and non-misleading manner. If a product or service is optional, it should be represented as such. If Budget (or any similar company, for that matter) has a pattern and practice of misleading consumers to believe that they cannot decline the option of additional insurance, its practices may violate the Washington Consumer Protection Act.

“Assumptive sales techniques are common in car sales, insurance, telecommunications - situations where the seller assumes you want the additional product or service. Consumers should be alert and be willing to pose questions of salespeople who offer additional products or services in conjunction with a sale.”

So, dear readers, stay alert and please complain to the company and the authorities if you feel your rights are being violated. Let me know too!

Weigh-in Two for Biggest Loser: Wiener-Dog Style

You can see it in her walk, you can hear it in her bark; Sabrina is proud of herself. As she should be! On March 21, she weighed 17.6; on March 31, she was down to 15.2, and today, drum roll …… Sabrina weighs in at 14.4. The dawg is going down! And speaking of down, check out her amazing “downward-facing dog” yoga pose. If a dog can’t do it right, who can? (I know, I know, there’s no “right way” in yoga.)

I was a bit concerned that when we were in Washington state last week for five days that our dog-sitter, Gator (hey, it’s the South), would fatten ‘Briner the Wiener up. Gator has been known to spoil the pets a bit, though I must qualify that she is way into animal health. But the last time we returned from a long trip, even our skinny little Q-Kitty had porked out! But Gator does take her job seriously, and when I told her we were on a mission, she readily obliged. As it turned out, I was the only one to gain weight while away — a blubbery 3 pounds. Ugh.

As for Sabrina, stay tuned for more (or less?) of Biggest Loser: Wiener-Dog Style. Meanwhile, Brina has some more yoga postures to work through. You should hear her “ommmmm….”

Which airport line would you choose?

Our local airport, Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU) just became the seventh in the country to sign up for a new TSA (Transportation Security Administration) program that I think is oh so ridiculous. So does a TSA officer I spoke with before flying to Washington recently. It’s called the Diamond Self-Select Lane program.

The deal is that now some security-checkpoint lines are marked for the level of traveler — “expert,” “casual,” and “family.” Why not call the lines “I’m so savvy,” “I’m so slow” and “We’re those annoying people with kids.” Bottom line about the lines: people will go where the line is shorter. The security guy I (anonymously) chatted with said he and his co-workers think the self-selection system is useless.

Wessel and I didn’t get to witness the new lines firsthand because the program is in effect only in Terminal C and we were in Terminal A.  Get this: at RDU, there are two Terminal A buildings, one Terminal C building and NO Terminal B. What a joke. The good-for-nothing self-select lines are not in A, apparently, because the A checkpoint space is severely cramped.

An interesting local aside: while I was chatting with said TSA employee, he went off on a little tirade railing against the airport director and how “he won’t let us make improvements, even though we’d pay for them. He doesn’t like us messing with his airport.” He said the TSA wanted to take over a store space next to the checkpoint area in order to expand, on the TSA’s dime, but the director wouldn’t hear of it. According to this employee talking about Terminal A: “We have the worst security setup in the country.” Hmmm, guess I’ll pass that little nugget on to the local paper, just in case they care.

Gefeliciteerd met je verjaardag, Guido!

If you’re a regular reader, you know that the Dutchies go bonkers for their birthdays. You have to congratulate not only the birthday recepient but his or her family, extended family, and pets. OK, not pets. They don’t care so much about the pets.

Guido is my zwager, or brother-in-law, and today is his 41st birthday. He’s the baby of the three children of the Family Kok. Gefeliciteerd met je verjaardag, Guido! Gefeliciteerd met de verjaardag van Guido, familie Kok!

I can just hear you Americans chortling to yourself while saying “Yo, Guido!” Well, NL ain’t NJ, and they don’t say GWEE-do, so drop that “W” and make it GEE-do, with a hard G.

I know that Guido loves me because he allowed me to drag him around to all the cool design stores in De Negen Straatjes (the Nine Streets) district of Amsterdam a couple years ago. He enjoyed himself until about the sixth shop, then I could tell it was time to wrap things up.

Guido’s talents include writing, drawing, sculpture, and, recently, video making, which he does from his home in Arnhem. Check out some of his work here. Wessel will get to give in-person birthday greetings this weekend, when he visits his homeland for a week of work and a day of play.