Europe - Day 1 - Arrival in Italy

Disney Theme for the Day: Benvenuto!

Having suffered the horror of watching the taxi meter tick past double the local cash I was carrying during my first trip to London years before, I was determined to have plenty of Euros this time! In spite of knowing that the arrivals area of the airport was probably the worst place to make this transaction, I paid the 11% "service" fee in exchange for the peace of mind that I wouldn't be cash-poor again! Of course, traveling with Disney, my concerns about money were groundless this time.

We were met by our first Disney escort as we waited for our luggage (waiting what seemed like hours for our bags).

Once the last piece of luggage arrived, we were on our way. Almost. Another wait (~10 minutes) was in store as we arrived at the curb. I think our driver had already left without us due to our luggage delay and was returning from dropping off the first gaggle of guests as we finally made our way outside the airport. However, we were reassured by our trusty Disney guide, Davide (dav-i-day), that our transport was on the way. So, we waited patiently. Our Mercedes van arrived at last. They loaded our many bags. And, we were on our way!

Travel through Rome is an adventure all by itself! Scooters and motorcycles lane-split (or filter, as they say in the UK). Speed limits and lanes are only a suggestion. And the traffic is dense. But, we made it into the city center without incident. The Arch of Constantine greeted our arrival, and we circumnavigated a good 120 degrees of the Coliseum in awe: a glimpse nearly 2,000 years back into history! A few more turns and a narrow street or two brought us into the vast plaza, and to the front of our hotel, the Exedra. Beautiful! Five stars, and then some!

We left our luggage behind with no thought of tipping or payment for the trip (all covered as part of the Disney tour) as James (our other Disney guide) greeted us, introduced us to a couple of our fellow adventurers, handed us a room key, and directed us to the elevator while explaining the European custom of numbering the first floor as zero ("0"). We were all amused to see that there was not only a "0" but also a floor "-1". ...must be the influence of all the great Italian mathematicians of bygone centuries. ;-)

Arrival in our Exedra hotel room left everyone in awe: Two floors with hardwood stairs, electronic lighting and drapery controls, a two-story view onto the plaza fountain, and a bathroom to make even the best U.S. hotels proud: vast space, marble tile all around, separate toilet / bidet area, dual vanity, walk-in shower and a large tub. Wow! This is not your typical European hotel! Although it was a local time around noon, we had eaten enough on the plane that the first order of business was to shower and sleep. Just a siesta, as we would join our group of 29 for dinner at 5:30PM.

Waking at 4PM, the few hours had helped us all a bit -- a welcome relief for tired eyes and bodies, after being awake since 7AM the day before..... 23 hours prior to our arrival at the hotel. The bed and pillows, again, set the benchmark for the best of the best. We were all lavishly accommodated in beds we would all have been happy to have at home. Soft but full pillows, and warm duvets covering a soft, firm mattress... like sleeping in a cloud.

We arrived at the VIP lounge dressed for dinner, collar shirt, slacks and dress shoes for me, dresses for the ladies. We were, perhaps, a trifle overdressed, but our introduction to our fellow Disney adventurers and guides was an up-scale affair with red and white wines (both quiet good), fancy and tasty aperitifs, and a range of snacks and drinks for the kids, including bottled water, both sparking and "still."

James led introductions, discussing the outline for our next nine days, and highlighting some of the key events/places we could look forward to. Davide talked about Rome, and led us through the "meet & greet." We began with introductions of each family, provided -- in most cases -- by very precocious children (including our own). But, to further break the ice, James and Davide handed out treasure-hunt-like forms with questions that would soon be answered by our fellow adventurers. I found that I was better at being interviewed than at interviewing, but met a few new people and some of the kids (Junior Adventurers). I was just a bit disappointed that after the effort to gather all that information, that we didn't each share a bit of what we learned about each other with the group... but, dinner called!

With assigned seating and the restaurant to ourselves, the Disney-experience continued. Dinner and drinks were tasty and served in an "home-style" fashion that reminded me of movies of royal dinners. The girls had earlier remarked, as chocolate strawberries were delivered to our room, that they felt like princesses. A very pleasant experience for all!

After dinner, we explored the ruins visible through the glass floors on floor "-1," then strolled around the plaza, marveling at the hotel from a distance. After sitting by the fountain for a bit, we returned to our room, anticipating sinking back into our plush beds for a much-needed night's sleep.

Europe - Day 0 - Departure for Italy

My first travel to Europe several years ago was a five-cities-in-twelve-days adventure that involved planes, trains and automobiles, four languages, and six currencies. This time, we arrived at the airport anticipating an adventure of a different sort.

Traveling with Adventures by Disney, the itinerary for this trip called for us to stay in three cities over nine days, with stops in two more cities along the way. [In fact, we would see a total of six cities and two countries before finishing our tour.]

Having packed only the day before, I had spent nearly zero-time on preparation for the trip. This was somewhat of a leap of faith, except that past experiences with Disney left little doubt that our Italian adventure would be meticulously choreographed and flawlessly produced. ...we would not be disappointed. [I wrote this while recovering from jet lag at 2:30AM, the night after our arrival. By the conclusion of the trip, we would find that "meticulously choreographed and flawlessly produced" were the perfect words... the trip couldn't have been better.]

We departed IAD in the afternoon, anticipating an arrival in Rome the next morning. For someone who has sworn "never again" about red-eyes, this was just crazy.

Our last-minute decision to upgrade to United "Economy Plus" was worth its weight in gold -- not only did we secure the extra legroom (which at 6'3", I really need) but we also were lucky to gain the entire center row on our 777 (5 seats) for the two of us.

I didn't bother trying to sleep. So, the evening/night/morning was a blur of movies on small screens, with brief intermissions to eat and read Fast Bikes. The food was passable, most notable because this was one of the rare non-business/first-class flights where we didn't have to pay for our choice of meals. After Perfect Stranger, The Waitress, Blades of Glory (the end only, thank god), Fracture (beginning and end) we made our descent into Rome with the Tyrrhenian Sea on our right.

European Adventure 2007

Back from a two week trip to Italy, Germany, and Austria with over 1,800 pictures, and experiences in 12 different cities in as many days.

We traveled with Adventures by Disney for the first leg of the trip. The weather in Italy was nearly flawless for the whole adventure, and the overall experience was just about as good as it gets. We spent time in Rome, Orvieto, Tuscany, Florence, Vatican City, and Venice.

The weather in Germany and Austria was marginal, but the purpose of our trip made up for the less-than-perfect weather. Fortunately, the clouds parted long enough during each day to support exploration of Rothenburg, Salzburg, Vienna, Berchtesgaden, and Königsee.

I'll follow-up shortly with a blow-by-blow daily diary of the grand adventure, including selected pictures.

Vacation Diaries:
Day 0 - Departure for Italy
Day 1 - Arrival in Italy
Day 2 - Rome: Arrival and Acclimation
Day 3 - Rome: Vatican City
Day 4 - The Journey to Tuscany via Orvieto, and a Tuscan welcome!
Day 5 - Tuscany: Pasta Making, the Pool and Italian Dodge Ball
Day 6 - Tuscany: Shopping in Florence
Day 7 - The Journey to Venice, the Grand Tour, and Dinner
Day 8 - Venice: Mask Making, and the Tearful Farewell
Day 9 - The Journey to Munich and Frankfurt
Day 10 - Recovery in Munich, and the Journey to Berchtesgaden via Salzburg
Day 11 - Berchtesgaden: Day Trip to Vienna
Day 12 - Berchtesgaden: a Day in Salzburg
Day 13 - The Return to Munich, and Home!

Most Played 2007

About a year ago I blogged about my iPod Top 25 Most Played list. No surprises this time, but a few on the rise, a few falling, and a couple new tracks. Overall, a great collection (I think):

Catch the Sun - Doves - Lost Souls
Par Avion - Mike + The Mechanics - Mike + The Mechanics
Erase-Rewind - The Cardigans - Gran Turismo
Muzik - Knoc-Turn'al - The Transporter Soundtrack
More Than This - The Cure - The X-Files: The Album
You Look So Fine - Garbage - Version 2.0
Claire De Lune - The Philadelphia Orchestra - Ocean's 11 Soundtrack
Atomic - Blondie - Best Of Blondie
When You Kiss Me - Shania Twain - Up! (Red Disc)
You And Your Friend - Snake River Conspiracy - Sonic Jihad
How Soon Is Now? - t.A.T.u. - 200 km/h in the Wrong Lane
The Trick Is To Keep Breathing - Garbage - Version 2.0
How Soon Is Now? - Snake River Conspiracy - Sonic Jihad
Burnin' For You - Blue Öyster Cult - Don't Fear The Reaper: The Best Of Blue Oyster Cult
All We Need Is A Dream - Cheap Trick - Lap Of Luxury
Hysteria - Def Leppard - Hysteria
Casualty - Snake River Conspiracy - Sonic Jihad
More Than Love - Snake River Conspiracy - Sonic Jihad
True Companion - Donald Fagen - Heavy Metal
It Really Doesn't Matter - Electric Light Orchestra - Zoom
A Day Without Rain - Enya - A Day Without Rain
Milk - Garbage - Garbage
My Elastic Eye - The Chemical Brothers - Come With Us
Let Me Be The One - Def Leppard - X
Hella Good - No Doubt - Rock Steady

What's your Top 25??

Blood Diamond

I'd been avoiding this movie for weeks, knowing that the subject matter would be tough to watch -- but having seen it now, I have to rate it five stars and was inspired to write my first review on NetFlix:

"Blood Diamond is a disturbing portrayal of man's inhumanity to man, balanced by the story of a father's (Djimon Hounsou) love for his family, and the redemption of a gun smuggler (Leonardo DiCaprio) who finds his true calling. Both stories are intertwined in the chaos of 1999 Sierra Leon in a way that is both terrifying and beautiful."

Blogging Again

My faithful readership has been clamouring for an update... all two, err, one of them. I've either been busy, or lazy, or both. Lots to keep up with lately:

In May, I was in Banff, Canada for the WWW2007 conference; I still owe one of my co-workers a writeup on the semantic web sessions I attended. The Fairmont hotel was spectacular: a medieval castle, with a 21st century suite for the weary traveler. I hiked four to eight miles each night, rode horseback and visited Lake Louise on Saturday for lunch at the hotel and another four mile hike. After falling twice on the ice into deep puddles in the middle of the trail, I was a bit soggy for the drive back to my hotel.

A couple weekends later, I headed to the Andrews Air Force Base Air Show. The F-18 demo was spectacular, but the F-22 demo was unbelievable -- literally, more like a dream than watching a real plane. I rode there and back; doing 80 mph I was passed by SUVs and other bikers... 495/95 is crazy!

In June, I headed to New York City for a one day conference, and then stayed through the weekend. It was great to catch up with the guys at IndustryNext on Wednesday night. Then, I was incredibly fortunate to meet some terrific people at the conference, and had a great evening out on Thursday night. Friday, my wife drove into town, arriving just before midnight. We spent the next two days touring the area, and eating way too much (Pigilla, Cafe St. Barts, Rain and more...) During my five days in town, I walked 24.7 miles! Also visited a couple art galleries, made a quick run through the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Saturday night, and then caught the American Museum of Natural History presentation of Cosmic Collisions before heading out on Sunday... truly breathtaking.

In July, we headed to Dayton, Ohio. I rode my bike for the 1,000 mile round-trip, with speeds ranging from 80 to 95 mph through the mountain highways just to keep up with the pickups and SUVs. My mantra: "ride safe - stay up!" Fortunately, nothing particularly eventful happened on the trip out. Not much on the trip back except for a stinger in my left shoulder and one sweeping left turn at 75 mph where the bike didn't want to turn in... a bad time to panic! Fortunately, my reading (and practice) paid off: passive steering (pushing into the turn) and active steering (pulling on the opposite side) brought the bike into the turn... not a good time to rely on intuition about how to turn a bike (your intuition would be wrong, and you'd run off the road at high speed). At the end, it was good to be home!

Static Friction

What about Static Friction, you say? I thought you'd never ask....

Static Friction is the measure of friction of an object against a surface when the object is, well, static, not moving. The coefficient of friction for a moving object (slipping against the surface) is less than the coefficient of static friction; that's what Anti-lock Breaking Systems (ABS) are all about.

It turns out, that the point of maximum friction is at the crisis point between static friction and kinetic friction. Here's a lovely little picture: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/frict2.html

So, decades ago, a friend, investor, co-worker and mentor who happened to really love trains, explained that locomotives were actually the first beneficiaries of early Anti-lock Breaking System technology. Control in turns is obviously not a factor. Instead, the goal with trains is to break at the point of maximum friction: the crisis point between static friction (wheels not slipping) and kinetic friction (wheels slipping). This is, of course, important to locomotives which tend to pull large numbers of incredibly heavy cars loaded with even heavier materials and goods.

Googling for "train locomotive breaking" yielded a variety of results, but no specific detail on the rail-wheel interface, or the systems responsible for adjusting breaking to optimize stopping power....

However, there's another, more novel application in widespread (relatively) use today... wait for it.

Yes! You guessed it, motorcycle racing. Specifically, MotoGP!

In MotoGP, although they do have advanced breaking systems, the novel use of static friction is in the firing sequence used to accelerate the bikes.

It turns out that under hard acceleration, the rear tire is unable to generate maximum traction, because the high speed at the interface between the tire and ground is always slipping -- it's never firmly planted. In 2006 and even more so this year, the MotoGP gurus have realized that by delaying the firing order of each piston, they can tune the application of force at the road to manage optimum traction under acceleration.

Instead of a sequence of fire-rest-fire-rest-fire-rest-fire-rest, which never gives the tire a chance to gain maximum traction, they now have tested a variety of schemes, with one of the more successful being fire-fire-fire-fire-rest-rest-rest-rest. It has got to be hard on the motor, but it helps with traction on the tire, and enables better acceleration, for some....

SpeedTV writes: "Ducati has abandoned the ‘Twin Pulse’ or ‘big bang’ firing order and gone back to their original and conventional 360 degree V4 with symmetrical firing order...’screamer’ style."

So, who says that physics can't be cool!?

Static Friction and Loop Detectors

The May 2007 issue of Motorcycle Consumer News has great coverage on loop detectors. What's a loop detector you ask? Ah! Newer drivers won't have noticed, but those of us who have been driving for a decade or two will recall a time when lights became much "smarter" -- they just seem to know when you've arrived at the intersection!

So, you've probably noticed the cuts in the pavement, in large box shapes, situated near the stop line in each lane at intersections, right? The physics geeks among us know (or at least, suspect) that these lines in the pavement are where wires are buried in order to use magnetic fields to detect the presence of cars. This is the loop detector. Or actually, this is the loop, the detector is housed in a control box on the side of the road.

The basic principle is that a current runs through the wire loop under the ground, and when a car approaches, the metal in the car, and the car's alternator disrupt that magnetic field in a way that can be measured by the equipment in the box on the side of the street (the detector).

MC News has the details from the City of Irvine, "Loop detectors are three loops of 12 or 14-gauge copper wire, buried 3" under the pavement. An electrical current is sent through the loop, making it an electromagnet. Once a car or motorcycle drives over the loop, the metal on the vehicles underside causes a disturbance in the magnetic field, tripping the detector and sending a signal to the traffic light to turn green." Lovely.

Of course, those of us who ride motorcycles know differently. The detector does a fine job of detecting the mass of cars. Not so much, with motorcycles. The rule of thumb is that revving the motor of your motorcycle will generate enough of a field to have an effect -- you may have seen the guy at the light doing this before; no, it's not just so that he sounds cool. Because those of us who ride motorcycles also know... that doesn't always work. Then, we get to sit through another cycle, or wait for a car to trip the light.

A suggested solution for motorcyclists is to attach a strong magnet to the underside of the bike to disrupt the field. No more revving, no more missed lights. But another answer is to brush up on physics, or read MC News, because it turns out that proper positioning of the motorcycle is the key to successfully disrupting the field.

I had a hell of a time in my Electromagnetic Field Theory class, so it's no wonder that I'd forgotten -- instead of sitting within a few inches of the line in the ground, I have tended to place the bike in the center of the loop. For a car, that's just fine. But, the true physicists among us (and those who have read up lately) will know that the electromagnetic field is strongest immediately adjacent to the conductor, and falls of as a function of the distance from the wire. So, the middle of the loop is just about the worst possible place to sit with a motorcycle. Near the wire, better.

Now if the crazy April weather around here would just cooperate, I'd go test the theory!

Ah! And a word of warning to all, especially those in CA: "Emergency vehicles (fire trucks, ambulances and police) are equipped with a device called an Emergency Vehicle Pre-empt Emitter, which uses either infrared signals or a strobe light to turn a signal green when rushing to a call. In Irvine, as in other cities, a cylindrical receiver sits on top of the traffic signal arm to receive these signals. ... Remember that fact when you hear a siren approaching, as the traffic light that just turned green for you may immediately turn red to let an emergency vehicle pass. Be prepared."

Beauty

...is in the eye of the beholder?

You Can Do Anything

After eight weeks of physical therapy, ending last Wednesday, my penultimate check-up went well. According to the Dr., "You Can Do Anything." I haven't put this to the test, but it's good to know. ;-)
Speaking of being able to do anything. Have you read The Secret or tapped into the flurry of media coverage surrounding the book. What do you think?