Booking

In this life that Alrica and I lead, when we talk about booking, we are usually referring to making a reservation for lodging or transportation. But here, when I title this post "Booking" I'm talking about something very different.

I read a book!

I recognize that is not entirely monumental. Quite the contrary, most people reading that sentence would shrug and say, "Um, good for you... I guess." I see why that might be your reaction. So let me elaborate on that statement.

I read a physical, hold it in your hand, ink letters printed on paper pages that you must flip by touching and separating from the next pages, book.

This, also, may seem anticlimactic to many. But in that same life described above which is shared by Alrica and me, a physical book is a luxury. Paper is heavy! Books are bulky. We are not traveling with books. So while I do get plenty of exposure to the "written" word, it is in either e-book or audiobook form. Sure, sometimes we stop by a bookstore, but we aren't planning to buy a book. Again, we'd have to carry it. We also sometimes visit public libraries, though mostly out of curiosity. The lack of books in English (and lack of permanent address with which we could get a library card) means borrowing a book is extremely improbable.

So, how do I happen to be reading a book? Well, I have a cousin.

Those of you who read about the wedding we attended a few weeks ago already know I have a cousin, multiple cousins. I do have a lot of cousins. If we limit ourselves to first cousins, I only have eight, six on my mother's side and two on my father's side. But if we consider nth cousins m-times removed, then I have way more than eight.

Stopping to think about this mathematically, if I just let n and m get large enough, a huge proportion of the people on this planet are my nth cousin m-times removed. But even limiting this to cousins that I have met, the number, while an insignificant portion of the world population, is pretty large by more localized standards.

Back to the cousin who relates to the book, who shall be called Michael. (Because his name is Michael.) This cousin is my first cousin once removed. He is the son of my first cousin (and that first cousin was at the wedding, but his son, Michael, the first cousin once removed, was not.)

Michael is a writer, though primarily not of books. His profession is as a comedy writer. He's written for a variety of companies, like Nintendo and IGN, and also a host of late-night shows and their hosts. (I feel very accomplished having used two forms of the word "host" in that sentence. Michael would probably have found a funnier way to say it.)

Point being, Michael is a brilliant writer of comedy. And while I said he is not primarily a writer of books (or in truth I said primarily not of books and I am trying to sketch this out in symbolic logic to see if in this instance those mean the same thing) he did write a book. I mean recently. Right now, he is taking a hiatus from writing for late night TV to promote his book and in an unironic twist, he will be on a late night show later this week as part of that endeavor. You can see him on Thursday, June 26 on Late Night with Seth Meyers.

In case you fear I am digging my way into a very deep rabbit hole or finding tangents to tangents, let me assure you I am not. Most of you have probably already figured out that the book I read, the physical book I read, is Michael's new book called Good Game, No Rematch. (Look, I even linked it! I'm so nice to my readers.) It's kind of a memoir going through various stages of Michael's life, but much of it is told in terms of video games. Michael is a major fan of, player of, and collector of, video games.

Personally, I am not that into video games. For example, right now on my phone I have five games, three of which came preloaded with my operating system and which I have not yet ever opened. The other two are KROPKI which is a puzzle game that you could totally play with pen and paper and Best Cryptic Crosswords, because I like the cleverness needed to solve the clues. If I have any video games saved on my laptop, they must have come with the operating system and I don't even know what they are.

The downside to my general disinterest in the antics of Mario, Sonic, and a variety of other protagonists I had never heard of before reading their names in the pages of Michael's book was that this important aspect of his memoir was esoteric to me. What was fascinating was hearing Michael's take on his life. Admitted, I wasn't around Michael much during his adult life, but in a good portion of his childhood, I would see him regularly. When he talks about his dad or mom or sister or brother, I know all of them personally. No surprise, they are also my cousins! (Okay, his mom is my cousin by marriage, cousin-in-law if you will.)

If you are into video games or comedy or video games and comedy (I could have probably saved myself words by writing video games and/or comedy, but instead I used even more words writing this parenthetical) then you might enjoy Michael's book a lot. He's very funny and I assume his obsession fueled video game anecdotes are totally on point. I have no reason to doubt him.

Regardless of the author and the themes, there was this fantastic experience of reading a book. I like e-books and audiobooks a lot. But there is something to the experience of holding a book in your hands, letting your eyes traverse the page, smelling the paper. That's a nice sensory experience to have.

The hydrant has nothing to do with the rest of this post. But look at that beauty! I couldn't resist.

Sometimes people ask me if there are things I miss by lacking the more traditional home life or being out of the United States. Usually I think about things like the huge variety of foods we can get in the States or having an entire spice rack to choose from when cooking or being able to express myself fully in the native tongue. I forget about the little experiences until they are brought back to me. But there are some of those small things that I can live without, but wouldn't it be nice... Like reading a book. A physical book.

Thanks for that, Michael.

What Democracy Looks Like

I try, in a general way, not to get too political. Certainly there are things I believe are right, like the Rule of Law or respecting human dignity, and I write about those when timely. But politics itself is too divisive. Anyone who agrees with me will nod their heads, smile, and go on thinking what they thought before. Anyone who disagrees with me will shake their heads, frown, and go on thinking what they thought before. If the movements of heads were the ultimate goal, then there would be a point to posting more about politics. But it's not, and so there isn't.

Even today, when I am going to post about the No Kings protest in Denver, I don't consider this a political blog post. But I'm sure many people would say that's exactly what it is. But for me, it is more about feeling a little bit less powerless. This is not to say I feel powerful or even empowered. Rather, I feel power-minimal without being completely powerless.

Today we attended the No Kings protest in Denver with my brother and his girlfriend. I have to say it was heartening. There were thousands of people in downtown Denver, filling the lawns from the State Capitol Building to the civic government buildings and an entire park in between. While those throngs of people had a variety of methods to express their frustrations, and probably different lists of what specifically frustrates them, at the core we were all in agreement: The current course that the United States is taking is disturbing.

Just one view of one tiny piece of the crowds

For some it is extrajudicial arrests and deportations. For some it is taking away legal status for those who followed the rules. For some it is denying equal protections under the law to all our citizens regardless of color, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation. For some it is impractical and chaotic economic policies. For some it is a huge increase in debt. For some it is using the military to intimidate protestors or take on law enforcement roles. There is plenty to choose from. But ultimately, there are a lot of things going on in America today that point toward authoritarianism, autocracy, and the erosion of democratic principles. Personally, I feel that many who took an oath to uphold the Constitution are not upholding the Constitution. And if the rule of law withers away, then everything goes with it. Without the rule of law, no one has rights, just privileges that can be revoked at any time.

Is that political? I would argue no. But there's no point in arguing about it here. Let me get back to the powerlessness topic.

When Alrica and I are traveling, we are somewhat removed from the day to day happenings in the United States. Of course, we read the news. We see what is going on in articles and pictures and videos. But we only live with the results of those actions in a secondary way. As such, there's little we can do about it. Yes, we've written to our Congressman and Senators, but nothing changed. No Congressman says, "Wow, now that I have read Erich's opinion, my entire worldview is altered." (Much the same as anyone reading this blog not finding a major paradigm shift in their outlook.)

I feel powerless. I see things changing in America (albeit from afar) and there's nothing I can do. I can't support the changes I agree with. I can't rally against the changes I disagree with. I could post more about those things in my blog, but my readership is several orders of magnitude short of the critical mass required to make much difference. That's okay, I am not looking to become an "influencer." But it does leave me feeling impotent to quell the tides of what comes across to me as authoritarianism.

Then there came today. We happen to be in America when something major is happening. So I did something. Yes, taking the broader view, I did basically nothing. I walked a few miles around downtown Denver in a huge stream of pedestrians. I carried a sign that read "Uphold the Constitution" in the middle of people with far more creative (and often far less civil) slogans. In the grand scheme of world events, my actions today will not tip any scales, nor make any scales fall off of eyes. (I'm not sure those are the same kinds of scales even.)

Making posters with Adam, Alrica, and Laura (at the camera)

And yet, today was heartening. There were thousands of people at the protest. Thousands of them, everywhere I turned. Thousands of people feeling something akin to what I feel. Thousands of people, just as powerless as me, but coming together in numbers that make our powerlessness palpable. (Side note: My daughter recently told me that "palpable" is a word that neither she nor anyone else in her generation would ever use. Why? What's wrong with palpable?)

If you multiply zero by ten-thousand, you still have zero. But if you take even a negligible positive amount and multiply it by ten-thousand, you may start to get something that isn't negligible. Take the thousands of people in Denver today making their voices heard. Literally, there were chants. One of them was perhaps most telling. Caller: "Tell me what democracy looks like." Response: "This is what democracy looks like!"

This was what democracy looks like. And that was just in Denver where our numbers made the negligible into something non-negligible. Now consider similar protests in so many other American cities, large and small. That tiny positive number is getting multiplied and multiplied. And maybe, if dreams do come true, it will wake the sleeping consciences of our elected officials. Maybe some of them will realize that people care about this. Not just any people, but the very people they are supposed to be representing. Maybe they will make some decisions not because of what other elected officials tell them to do, not because all they care about is their own re-elections, but because they want to do what is best for those people, their constituents, and the country as a whole.

Maybe not. Time will tell. But what I do know is that, for a few walking miles, for a few hours, in the midst of a lot of people, I didn't feel entirely unable to effect change. And I am very comforted to know there are so many others out there who came together and had the same experience.

I may be powerless. But I'm not alone.

Michigan, Really?

Large family gatherings can sometimes bring out the weird in people, in situations, and in life. They are great fun and wonderful times to catch up with people, get to know people you last saw when you were six, and grow closer to people you have known all your life. But strange things happen.

This past weekend was the first of the two weddings that Alrica and I are attending in our month long trip to the USA. This one was in Des Moines, Iowa. Though, even on the way to Des Moines, there were some strange happenings.

Have you ever seen a Polly Pocket vending machine. Do we need them in airports?

How did Houston become the capital of the south? Does it know it's not even the capital of Texas?

The wedding was sumptuous and gorgeous. The ceremony was touching and felt like it was about this couple, not just something generic. There was a string quartet who played magnificently. The food at the reception was wonderful, and the live band was great. They played a lot of hits from my childhood. We also had Hava Nagila for about 12 minutes, probably longer than any human needs to keep that level of energy going.

L to R: My dad, my bro, my mom, my wife, and some random guy

I am on the bride's side, so I know much, but not all, of the bride's family that attended. I didn't know anyone on the groom's side, but they were very loving and kind people. Still, I would like to relate a few incidents.

As you might imagine, Alrica and I were (and still are) curiosities. Everyone heard about the couple who just travels and doesn't have a home. That was immediately a topic of interest, which is great, you don't have to break the ice. But it did lead to a few weird comments.

At one point I was telling one of the groom's uncles about our road trip in Europe when we saw the tulips in the Netherlands. His comment was "You can see tulips in Michigan!"

I don't fully comprehend the mentally of a comment like that. You are only reading the words and you have to just guess at the tone. I got both, so let me try to parse the meaning.

Option A: Maybe this is saying the world has nothing on the good old USA. If that's his feeling, then why is he talking to me? He knows I'm traveling the world to see its highlights and wonders. Don't mellow my buzz, man.

Option B: Let's give the benefit of the doubt and say that isn't the intention. Maybe it is just saying, people don't have to travel far to see tulips, because we have them closer to home. Yes, valid point, except, before I went to Europe and rented a car, I was in Tunisia. So the Netherlands was a lot closer and more convenient than a trip to Michigan. Cross the Mediterranean or cross the Atlantic: I know the stereotype of Americans is that we don't understand geography very well, but I think everyone knows the Atlantic is a lot bigger.

Option C: Perhaps this comment was a complaint that the Netherlands is hogging all the tulip notoriety. Why should the Dutch be famous for both tulips and windmills? Why can't Michiganders get in on all the good publicity? This is entirely valid. I have to be honest, I had no idea Michigan had tulips until this comment was spoken. Okay, let me flesh that out a bit. Had I needed to hazard a guess, I would have proposed that some citizens of the Wolverine State planted some tulips in their yards or flower boxes. So I wasn't amazed to know that Michigan has tulips. But I didn't know that they had fields of them that people go look at. Now, having done some web investigation, I find that there is a tulip festival in Michigan. But do you know the name of the city in which it takes place? Holland, Michigan. Named for Holland, the section of the Netherlands that is famous for tulips! So it goes back to the Netherlands.

In another instance, I was speaking to a relative from my family. I don't think I had ever met her before. She is a generation before mine, a first cousin of my mother. We were talking about my travels and she told me I was interesting. Naturally I said, "Thank you," because, you know, I'm a courteous boy when duty calls. But it was her follow-up question that threw me. She asked, "How did you become interesting? Like, what happened to you that made you interesting?"

How do you answer a question like that? And what is the underlying assumption? Does it presuppose that I was a dullard until I performed a feat akin to kissing the Blarney Stone (which I have done) but instead of imparting glibness upon me, it imparted fascination? To be interesting, must one survive a trial by fire or possession by demons or something else exceptional and come out of the experience with a newfound soul of a raconteur?

I decided that in the paraphrased words of Shakespeare that some are born interesting, some achieve interestingocity, and some have interestingness thrust upon them. I also answered that I was in the first category, and I had always been interesting. Some kids are born with a silver spoon in their mouths. I was born with a song in my heart, a twinkle in my eyes, and an unnecessarily flowery vocabulary on my tongue. Or typing fingers. Which is all of them, except the left thumb that doesn't seem to get much keyboard action.

Another unusual experience: I got to not drive a self-driving car. My aunt, the grandmother of the bride, had just gotten her hair styled. It was raining. So I was sent to get her car, a Tesla, and bring it up to the entrance where she was waiting under cover. She slid into the passenger seat and I was driving us back to her house. Then she said, "Do you want to drive the Tesla or do you want the Tesla to drive itself home?" What kind of question is that? Of course I wanted to see how the self-driving car could do!

As the "driver" I had to keep my eyes on the road or the car would stop navigating itself. I also kept my hands on the steering wheel, though that isn't required. It felt safer to me, but I will admit, I wasn't the turning the wheel. The wheel was turning my hands. I did have to take over at the driveway and get the car into the garage. But the car did a fantastic job. It distinguished between red lights and green lights. It knew how to turn right on red. It signaled before it switched lanes. It kept to the speed limit. The technology is very impressive.

At one point, I threw caution to the wind. I danced with a much younger woman. I didn't even try to hide it. I did it right beside my wife, in the main sanctuary of the synagogue as we waited for the ceremony to start. But Alrica wasn't very jealous. My lovely dance partner was my first cousin, twice removed, and also is still an infant. She is the daughter of the maid of honor, and I was holding her so her mother could do maid of honorly duties without a baby in tow. The dancing kept her contented.

Over the five days I was in Des Moines

• I had a good old American burger
• Ate Crab Rangoon Pizza
• Enjoyed one of my favorite desserts: peanut butter balls (made by my aunt using the same recipe that my grandmother used to make)
• Gave a tag-team toast alongside my brother to the bride and groom, mirroring the tag-team toast we had given at the wedding of the bride's parents when we were teenagers
• Arranged flowers

Wait. That last one isn't entirely true. Alrica arranged, I was in charge of handing her baby's breath and green leafy things. But I was part of the flower arranging team.

I hope, after all these anecdotes and bullet points, you understand it was a pretty amazing few days in Des Moines. I ate too much, slept not enough, talked about travel with many interested parties, talked about mathematics with only one interested party, and talked about hockey in which conversation I was not interested. But hey, courteous, remember?

Onward to wedding number two!

Interview with an Umpire

We have entered the summer wedding season. This has brought Alrica and I back to the US to attend two weddings. One of them is today and the other in early July. We are only back in the states for a bit, but even the travel back was an adventure.

Knowing we would be frequently travelers, Alrica and I applied for the Global Entry Program. It is a program that, if you are approved, means much faster entry through passport control and customs when you arrive in the United States. It also includes TSA precheck, so even though air travel within the US would be infrequent, it would still be helpful.

We applied in April 2024, and the way the process works is first someone reviews your application and you get conditional approval. But that isn't complete approval. For complete approval, you need to have an interview with a Customs and Border Patrol agent at an international airport (and one of the bigger ones.)

About two days after we applied, Alrica got an email telling her she had a status change. When she checked on the CBP site, she was conditionally approved. Hooray! All she had left was to get an appointment. But we were going to have to travel to a large enough airport to do so, so Alrica decided to wait until I was approved.

We waited. And we waited. Frequently, Alrica would tell me to double check I hadn't just missed an email from the CBP. Sometimes she made me log into the CBP website to check if I had a notification. But I hadn't missed an email, and there was no notification.

Then in September 2024, we left the country. We weren't going to be at any airport with a CBP agent for a long time. It was only then (and even not right away but in November) that I was finally conditionally approved.

Why did it take Alrica two days and it took me several months? We don't know. Nothing tells you anything of that sort in the CBP notification process. I guess Alrica is a clean cut, good old American citizen, and I am a man of international infamy. Just a guess, of course.

This past Thursday, we flew from San Jose, Costa Rica to Fort Lauderdale, Florida (USA). That was only the first leg of our journey, but it was the one where we had to go through passport control. And the CBP offers interviews on arrival at most large international airports, including Fort Lauderdale. So after we got our entry into the country approved, we moved to the area where you could have interviews and sat to wait.

Here, something unexpected happened. Alrica was called up first. The man interviewing her had so many questions. Why did you wait from April 2024 until June 2025 to do the interview? Why did you enter Montenegro but never leave Montenegro? (Though her presence in Fort Lauderdale clearly indicated that she must have left Montenegro, even if Montenegro never indicated that in the passport system.) And perhaps most difficult, he asked Alrica to list all the countries she has visited in the last five years, from the most recent working backwards. If you've only been to one or two countries in that time, this is probably easy. But when you've been to twenty some countries in the last five years, it isn't even easy to do that in forward order. Harder in backward order.

He growled when she missed a country (like Canada). He growled when she mentioned a country that wasn't on his list (like Belgium, because in much of Europe, there is no border control between countries. So once you enter the Schengen region, you can travel from country to country without getting your passport scanned.) He growled when she didn't include Colombia, even though that was eight years ago, not five years ago. His comment was "close enough to five." (As a mathematician, I object to 8 being included in less than or equal to 5.)

Alrica's interview took about 30 minutes to complete. In the meantime, about halfway through her interview, I was called up to another agent. He asked me if this was my only passport, if the address on my driver's license was still valid, and if I was still an online professor for Johns Hopkins. Then he took my picture and I was approved. In and out in less than five minutes.

So maybe I am the fine upstanding citizen and Alrica is the one with some multinational intrigue that I should like to know about.

Not to keep you in suspense, we were both approved. (Eventually in the case of one of us.)