David McNett (Nugget)

Kicked ass in NYC -- FlightAware office went from sticky floors to up and running in 6 days flat. Left to sounds of bustling activity and enthusiasm. I do love The City® and our new space within.

COA450 puts me back at "chaos" dinnertime tonight.

I'll be in NYC from the 20th through the 28th, setting up FlightAware's New York office. My schedule looks to be organic and reactionary, mostly arranged around the various delivery and telco install dates that we've lined up. I'm definitely up for drinks and shenanigans with all my local peeps. Let me know your schedules and what nights work best for you.

It sounds like I miss ivo at EWR by about an hour on Tuesday, too. Pity.

Tonight I finished off the last bottle of VB we bought in New Zealand that decibel45 decided to haul back in his luggage for some unknown reason. As I sipped I stumbled across a link to The Ghost Map, a book by Steven Johnson which contains this little gem:

The search for unpolluted drinking water is as old as civilization itself. As soon as there were mass human settlements, waterborne diseases like dysentery became a crucial population bottleneck. For much of human history, the solution to this chronic public-health issue was not purifying the water supply. The solution was to drink alcohol. In a community lacking pure-water supplies, the closest thing to "pure" fluid was alcohol. Whatever health risks were posed by beer (and later wine) in the early days of agrarian settlements were more than offset by alcohol's antibacterial properties. Dying of cirrhosis of the liver in your forties was better than dying of dysentery in your twenties.

Many genetically minded historians believe that the confluence of urban living and the discovery of alcohol created a massive selection pressure on the genes of all humans who abandoned the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Alcohol, after all, is a deadly poison and notoriously addictive. To digest large quantities of it, you need to be able to boost production of enzymes called alcohol dehydrogenases, a trait regulated by a set of genes on chromosome four in human DNA. Many early agrarians lacked that trait, and thus were genetically incapable of "holding their liquor". Consequently, many of them died childless at an early age, either from alcohol abuse or from waterborne diseases.

Over generations, the gene pool or the first farmers became increasingly dominated by individuals who could drink beer on a regular basis. Most of the world's population today is made up of descendants of those early beer drinkers, and we have largely inherited their genetic tolerance for alcohol. (The same is true of lactose tolerance, which went from a rare genetic trait to the mainstream among the descendants of the herders, thanks to the domestication of livestock.)

The descendants of hunter-gatherers -- like many Native Americans or Australian Aborigines -- were never forced through this genetic bottleneck, and so today they show disproportionate rates of alcoholism. The chronic drinking problem in Native American populations has been blamed on everything from the weak "Indian constitution" to the humiliating abuses of the U.S. reservation system. But their alcohol intolerance most likely has another explanation: their ancestors didn't live in towns.

Grab a sixer of Shiner, uncork a bottle of Cab, or pour yourself a shot of Maker's -- enjoy -- it's evolution in action.

Continuing with my long-standing tradition of overcomplicating every aspect of my life until it makes my head ache, I've been putting off booking my travel for ghewgill and amyrtw's wedding next month. I had four or five goals for the trip which all required that everything solidify at the exact same moment for it to not become a catastrophe -- always a brittle scenario.

( Yesterday I managed to sort it all out and I'm really thrilled with the final itinerary )

smells like red hots -- yum.

Among the sundries in the mini-bar in my hotel there is a First Aid Kit, a Sewing Kit, and an "Intimacy Kit." Your $4.50 buys you 2 prophylactics, 1 package lubricating jelly, and 2 obstetrical towelettes, neatly shrinkwrapped with a nice vague logo on the front. If that doesn't put you in the mood I don't know what will.

I went for the short can of pringles and a bottle of water instead.

Enjoying SFO but looking forward to the flight back to Austin tomorrow afternoon.

We woke up at the crack of dawn to catch our 6:45a flight out of Austin. Monica's mother graciously offered to drive us to the airport, to save us the expense of airport parking. About halfway to the airport, still groggy and half asleep, I realized I'd left my eyeglasses on the dresser at home. Dang. Normally I'd just cope without my glasses -- as long as I'm not driving I don't really need my glasses. We didn't have time to turn back and get them in either case.

As we sat on the plane awaiting pushback, though, I realized that I'd be miserable without my glasses at the show on Saturday night. I got us good tickets, but they're not that good. The Odd Couple would be The Blurred Couple. I called poor deebs (still not even 6:45a yet) but he didn't pick up. I fired off a hopeful SMS as they were closing the cabin door, explaining my dilemma and asking for help.

When we arrived in Newark, I turned on my phone and was thrilled to see that dbaker had called around and found a place that could do one-day turnaround eye tests (I don't know my prescription) and glasses. He'd also helpfully scheduled an apointment for me and provided directions. Clearly dbaker travel services concierge kicks AmEx's ass all day long. Thanks deebs!

We took the AirTrain in to Penn Station and walked to the hotel (up near Times Square). When we arrived, though, they didn't have our room ready. As compensation they upgraded us to a Suite and held our bags until 3p when we could get into the room. I swear, this hotel room is larger than every other hotel room I've ever had in New York -- combined. We walked around a bit, ate some lunch, headed up to our room and then right back out the door to LensCrafters.

I got my eye test (no dilation, whew) and picked out some frames I liked. My new glasses are a bit more trendy than my old ones. I like them, but I'll have to see if they "stick". We killed time for an hour in Greenwich Village and picked up my finished glasses. Took the subway up and walked back to the hotel. There's nothing quite like walking up out of the NYC subway to see the crowd in Times Square crowded around televisions proclaiming a credible threat of terrorism in the NYC subway. Creepy.

On the up-side, though, just as we reached the hotel we ran into Alton Brown walking down the street. We gushed a bit and got pictures. Quite cool.

Dannybrain will arrive in the city sometime around 8pm, so we're going to relax in the room for a bit and then meet him for a late dinner and drinks.