Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America by Eugene Robinson

Eugene Robinson is a Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist for the Washington Post. I heard an interview with him on NPR's Fresh Air and I immediately went out and bought his new book, Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America.

I have to admit I didn't grow up knowing a lot of black Americans, and Portland, Oregon is not exactly a hot bed of racial diversity, so it was very interesting to read the insights of an expert. This is a very easy book to read and there are just enough personal stories scattered among the statistics and facts to keep the pages turning.

In a nutshell, Robinson proposes that there is no longer a unified black America, or any one person, ala Martin Luther King or Jesse Jackson that speaks for black people. He presents a very persuasive case that black America has splintered into four distinct entities. First, there are the transcendent elites such as Oprah, Vernon Jordon, Tiger Woods and the like who are among the most powerful people in the US. There is the fast growing middle class that are attaining the American dream, living in nice neighborhoods, running their own businesses, and sending their kids to good colleges. There are two groups of emerging populations, children of bi-racial marriages such as President Obama, who still see themselves as black, and a huge influx of African immigrants, who's children are going to ivy-league schools at a higher rate than white or Asians. Lastly there are the abandoned, or as my friend J White says, the folks left in the hood.

Robinson does a great job explaining how we got to this splintering, and what it might mean for the country in the long run, but the real tragedy and the area of biggest concern are the abandoned. Why are so many black Americans still stuck in poverty, when all around them others are advancing to the middle class and beyond? What can we do to make a difference? If these questions interest you, you will find this to be a great read.

Bamboo Sushi

I am excited to say, there is great sushi on the east side.

Bamboo Sushi is the first certified, sustainable sushi restaurant in the world, which is pretty impressive. They also only use hormone free, organic, grass fed, American kobe grade beef. So you start to like this place as soon as you sit down and the good news is it only gets better. The food, the drinks and the service are all great.

Let's start with the drinks. Bamboo has an amazingly impressive sake list, but I would highly recommend you try the Shōchū. It is a distilled beverage native to Japan, most commonly distilled from barley, sweet potatoes, or rice. Usually it contains 25% alcohol by volume (weaker than whiskey or vodka but stronger than wine and sake), but I think theirs contained 35% alcohol. I got the sweet potato version and it was very smooth; I would suggest on the rocks.

Now to the important stuff, the sushi. The salmon and special trout nigiri were excellent. We also tried a couple of specialty house rolls. The highway 35 - red crab mixed with spicy sesame aioli, avocado, cucumber and asparagus, rolled and topped with sake poached pears, eel sauce, tempura crunchies and tobiko was amazing as was the California sunset- a California roll topped with spicy tuna, spicy mayonnaise, and tempura crunchies.

I can't say enough about how much we enjoyed our meal and how nice our server was. I only wish they took reservations, then it would be perfect.

Kings of Leon - Come Around Sundown

As you already know, I am a huge Kings of Leon fan, so it should come as no surprise that I have been eagerly awaiting the release of their latest record Come Around Sundown. I have been listening to it for a while now and I just realized I have not posted a review.

Following up their smash hit record Only by the Night, would seem like a daunting task, but to hear the band tell it they were not concerned. “The funny thing is that Only by the Night was the first album we approached with the attitude of not trying to make a popular record. We just made the record we wanted to make and it ended up being our best-selling album. So for this new one, I don’t think any of us were thinking we had to make a record that would stand next to Only by the Night. We definitely didn't want to go in there and make a record out of fear that it wouldn't be as big.”

This record covers more ground than any of their records to date. The band explores everything from gospel to country to the big rock sound you would expect. It also brings back the garage rock sound that fans of their first studio records will remember, while songs like "The Face" will keep new fans comfortable.

The band began to record this new record in February 2010, only a few months after finishing a two year tour for Only By The Night. Their plan was to take a year off and do nothing, but..."we got bored. It was like, ‘You guys want to get together and rehearse some stuff in case we have a show?’ That always turns into new ideas and it only takes two or three to get us so excited that we think we could potentially start another record.”

Good thing they did, Come Around Sundown is a great contribution to the bands catalog and it would have sucked to have to wait another year or two for new music.

The Oregon Golfers

I am posting this video again because it just won an "Excellence" award at the Portland Ad Show - The Rosies. Enjoy, and come spend your money in Oregon.

Monster Attack

I saw this crazy car decoration today and I have to share. The dinosaur and action figures are glued to the car, not placed there by some kid.

Neighborhood Food Cart

Most people have probably heard about the food cart craze here in Portland, but if you haven't check out this clip from the Food Channel.



I am not sure I can call this a restaurant review, but we finally stopped at the SE Belmont and 43rd food cart pod, which seems to be named after the sign outside that reads "Good Food Here." The sign speaks truth. We got an amazing pulled pork dinner from Namu, a stand that specializes in Hawaiian/Korean dishes. As with all the food carts, they have a very limited menu so what they do, they do well. The Pork and the cucumber salad were delicious and the servings were plentiful.

The pod has about eight to ten stands, serving everything from breakfast to burgers to a place called Creme de la Creme that only makes creme brulee. You could easily eat here every day for a week and be happy. They also have a tented area so you can eat in comfort in the Portland winter. Check out the link below for a full listing of all the stands, menus, hours, directions, etc.

Good Food Here
SE Belmont and 43rd

The Most Amazing Graph Ever

Planet Money produces a radio show for NPR that attempts to simplify economics for the non-econ majors among us, who are interested in understanding what a credit default swap is, why Ireland has gone broke, and how economic aid is or is not helping Haiti. They do a great job of taking complicated economic theories and making them understandable in an entertaining way. You can download their twice weekly podcast from NPR.com or listen for them on NPR news shows.

They also have a great blog that is updated regularly and it is there that I found the most amzing graph ever. This is a 4 minute video that tracks the world's countries economic growth versus their life expectancies. You can see the incredible increase in both since the 1890's, very positive stuff.

How Income Inequality Effects What We Eat

A week or so ago I wrote a short post about income inequality and it seems to be a sticky issue. This week I was reading an article about the "food divide" when I found more evidence of how income differences are effecting us here in America.

Among the lowest quintile of American families, mean household income has held relatively steady between $10,000 and $13,000 for the past two decades; among the highest, income has jumped 20 percent to $170,800... Whole Foods—the upscale grocery chain recently reported a 58 percent increase in its quarterly profits—while the number of Americans on food stamps has surged by 58.5 percent over the last three years.

The article Divided we Eat, was in the 11/22 edition of Newsweek, and you can read it on their website. The story is quite compelling, and basically outlines how wealthier people can afford to eat better than poor people (and by better, I mean healthier).

While food prices overall rose about 25 percent, the most nutritious foods (red peppers, raw oysters, spinach, mustard greens, romaine lettuce) rose 29 percent, while the least nutritious foods (white sugar, hard candy, jelly beans, and cola) rose just 16 percent.

This is probably not a surprise, but what is a surprise is how government programs reinforce the problem. There are also some creative solutions out there that local governments are coming up with to help, like making your food stamps worth more if you use them at a farmers market. Another interesting finding is how Americans think of food versus other countries, most notably France. If you have ever been to France you know they have quite an incredible foodie culture, but did you also know they all tend to eat lunch at exactly the same time (and they see it as a time for social interaction, not a time to provide nutrition):

In surveys, (researchers) found no single time of day (or night) when Americans predictably sit together and eat. By contrast, 54 percent of the French dine at 12:30 each day. Only 9.5 percent of the French are obese.

In case you are wondering, more than 30% of Americans and 17% of American children are obese. And obesity is more prevalent among the poor than the rich. The USDA found that people on food stamps are more likely to be obese than those who are not. One of my favorite food writers, Michael Pollan puts it in succinct terms, “Essentially, we have a system where wealthy farmers feed the poor crap and poor farmers feed the wealthy high-quality food.”

So, I will leave you with the most startling paragraph in the article, and the reason I can't stop thinking about income inequality:

According to studies led by British epidemiologist Kate Pickett, obesity rates are highest in developed countries with the greatest income disparities. America is among the most obese of nations; Japan, with its relatively low income inequality, is the thinnest.

I am glad that is over

If you are a University of Texas football fan, this has been a long and painful year. The misery ended with a well fought, but mistake prone loss to in-state rival Texas A+M. This game was a microcosm of the entire season. The Longhorns gave-away four turnovers, they had stupid penalties at the worst times, and the ball never seemed to bounce their way. The coup de grace came on the final play of the game. UT got the score to within seven and forced the Aggies to punt with a few seconds left. Instead of fielding the punt, they let it drop and the referees run the clock out as the players stood around wondering what was going on.

There seemed to be a lot of people standing around wondering what was going on this year. Coach Mac Brown did not have an explanation for the Longhorns reversal of fortune, going from the national championship game to 5-7 in one year. All the players on the team were highly recruited and all the coaches who put together a 13-1 season last year were still there.

So, what happened? There is no doubt the coaches attempt to become a running team was a bust. We didn't have the offensive line for it and the receivers not only didn't do a great job of blocking, they didn't master the fundamentals of catching either. There are a lot of opinions and I don't think anyone really wants to hear mine, but I have one theory that I have not heard elsewhere. The team and coaches never seemed to be focused on the opponent of the day. After the first two losses there was talk of still winning 10 games or still winning the Big 12 South. After a few more losses all the talk was of getting bowl eligible and getting the 13 extra practices. Don't get me wrong, we needed those 13 extra practices, but I don't think a bunch of teenage kids are motivated to win by the thought of more practice. I never heard the coaches talk about what they were going to do to beat OU or A+M. The years UT has done well, there was no looking ahead. The coaches only talked about the next game, they didn't talk about 10 wins, or national championships; they talked about what they had to do to beat Iowa State, even if they were a terrible team.

To get on back on track, the coaches need to spend the next nine months thinking about how they are going to beat Rice on Sept. 3rd, 2011, not how to get back to winning 10 games a year.

Wartorn 1861-2010

Wartorn 1861-2010 documents America's battle with the mental injuries our soldiers have suffered from the Civil War, when it was called hysteria, to the current Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The official diagnosis is now Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but it was called shell shock in WWI and battle fatigue in WWII. The only consistency is how poorly the military and the US government have treated soldiers with mental injuries.

The film opens with the reading of a letter from a gung ho, young Union soldier to a friend back home, who calls the 100 or soldiers who are going home due to hysteria or melancholia, cowards. Over the course of the next couple of years, the letters from this same soldier, become more and more dark and it becomes obvious he is suffering deeply from what he has seen and done. After he is sent home, his friends are so concerned about him they won't allow him to go hunting with them. Unfortunately, they leave him alone with his gun and he takes his own life.

From here we see the pattern repeated over and over again. Parents, wives and other family members plead for help from the VA to save their returning soldiers from themselves. The stories are heartbreaking and infuriating. Executive Producer Jame Gadolfini does a great job interviewing current soldiers and the medical staff who are trying to change the protocall in the armed forces, making it easier to get help.

This is an extremely powerful film, and while it is not the feel good movie of the year, it is well worth your time.

Texas A+M vs. UT

Texas A+M is an all male college located in Bryan/College Station, Texas, which are the worst two towns in Texas put together to make one even crappier city.

They have many strange traditions at TAMU, like having a small portion of the student body dress up as World War I reenactors every day and parade around the campus waving their swords. At TAMU you are supposed to greet other students by saying "Howdy." If you don't do this, they assume you are a visitor from the University of Texas and they beat the snot out of you for not being polite. They also build a large bonfire every year before their big football game against the University of Texas. This is the one thing they know how to build, but unfortunately it frequently falls down, sometimes with lethal consequences.

Another strange tradition is that their fight song is all about beating the University of Texas, and they sing it no matter who they are playing. This can be confusing to out of state visitors who are often heard saying, "maybe they would be playing better if they knew they were playing Ohio State and not UT." It's also strange that they are called aggies, but their mascot is a small sheltie dog. Maybe they are trying to deny their history and would be embarrassed to have the all-male cheerleaders dressed as auto mechanics (in case you didn't know the A+M stands for auto mechanics).

While they started as a school for auto mechanics, TAMU has also branched out into landscape services and animal husbandry. They also have a campus in Galveston, on the Texas coast, that trains people to clean aquariums and sell small fish. They don't call their alumni, graduates; they refer to them as "Former Students," this is probably due to the low graduation rate.

Over the years, aggies have been the but of many jokes, which is unfortunate that more abuse is piled on top of people that have already made a bad college choice. On top of being academically inferior they are also not very good at sports. TAMU's biggest football rivalry is with the University of Texas, but it seems to be a very one sided rivalry as UT leads the series 75-36-5. This year however, it looks like the tea-sips (this is how graduates of the University of Texas prefer the aggies refer to their academic and societal betters) are venerable. Usually a win against the "varsity" is enough to make an aggies year and save an embattled coach. This year it is the other way around, and it's the Longhorns that are desperate for a win to earn a bowl game and avoid a loosing season.

Unfortunately it is not looking good for the home team today, and it is very possible there might be a big crowd of future farm hands and auto mechanics out on 6th street in Austin tonight looking for women to celebrate their sporting achievement with.

Blinded by Science

For years I have heard about the evils of the AMA from chiropractors and dietitians, and sometimes doctors have done themselves a disservice by barely listening in consultations and only offering up a drug or surgical solutions to problems. But I am not here to tell you to avoid doctors or not to use antibiotics when you need them. The advances in medicine over the last 100 years are mind boggling and almost all of us know someone who's life was saved by a great doctor. What I would like to advocate for is some balance from the AMA. Doctors can be a skeptical bunch (it took them years to believe that sterilizing their hands before surgery could stop infections) but they need to see that there may be alternatives other than drugs and surgery.

The NY Times article Epilepsy’s Big, Fat Miracle chronicles the story of a writer who's son has epilepsy. The child was experiencing as many as 130 seizures a day. These are not the kind of seizures where you fall to the ground and convulse, but they are very debilitating. The kid blacks out for a few seconds at a time, making it hard for him to learn to read, watch a movie, ride a bike, swim or do just about any other kid activity. The family tried almost every drug available, but the side effects were terrible and the seizures continued. Finally they heard about an alternative dietary treatment that made a huge difference. The idea is to put the body in ketosis, where you drastically reduce the amount of carbs you take in and the body begins to burn fat. Amazingly this has an antiepileptic effect and reduced the child's seizures by 80%. The problem is the diet is very hard to maintain. The mother in the family had quit her job so she can take care of her son full time. The hope is that after two years on this diet and a reduced drug regimen the child will be seizure free and able to return to a regular diet.

All this is to make a point. The doctors in this story were initially very resistant to look at diet as a course of treatment. I imagine it seemed too simple to them or not worthy of their scientific training, but now over 100 hospitals offer this treatment. The ironic thing is that dietary treatments are not even a new idea:

In the 1930s, three scientists won a Nobel Prize for discovering that a substance in raw liver cured pernicious anemia, a disease that was almost always fatal. Eight Nobels were awarded just for work related to vitamins. And, it turns out, the ketogenic diet was developed back in the early part of the last century, too, only to disappear from medical literature for two generations.

The article goes on to suggest there may be dietary regimens that can help in Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and cancer, as tumors need glucose to grow and there is very little sugar in a keto diet. It is already reducing tumors in test mice. How ironic would it be it after all the ridicule he took in the 1990's if Dr. Atkins was right?

10th Annual Pie Contest

If you are a regular reader, you know our boss Dan Wieden prefers pie to cake, so every year for the last 10 years we have had a pie making contest. There are seven categories and anyone in the agency can enter as many pies as they like. Judges pick the category winners which then go to the winners table where Dan picks the overall winner. One lucky baker wins a trip to NY for two, and gets bragging rights for a year. This year Michele Lefore, the head of the studio, won with her banana cream pie. Unfortunately I didn't get to taste it was gobbled up by the time I could find a plate and get to the table.


This year we had a new addition to the pie making contest, pie throwing. Several of the the big wigs at the agency, as well as an IT person, the girl who always bugs you for your time sheet, and a couple of others lined up to get a pie in the face from the highest bidder. We raised over $3500, which the agency matched, so we donated over $7000 to the mission for Thanksgiving dinners.

Found Watch

Today I found a watch out on the street. At first I thought I had a real find, but I realized when I picked it up it was probably abandoned. I showed it to some of the girls at work and they described it as "a watch a women who works in a nail salon would wear." I don't think that is a compliment.


My friend Susan found a watch on the side of the road when she was a kid and it turns out is was a $10,000 Patek Phillippe (and that is 1980's prices). When I find a watch it's made in china and worth $15.

Spirit of '77

Spirit of '77 is the latest offering from the folks who brought us Clyde Common and Olympic Provisions and it is what you would imagine these folks would do if they were challenged with creating a sports bar for a show on HGTV. Only, it's real. The name celebrates the Trailblazers national championship in 1977 and it is located just down the street from the Rose Garden, where the Blazers play.

It has all the trappings of a good sports bar, a really big TV screen, a coupe of big TVs, a great bar, pop-a-shot basketball and a Foosball table. The difference is that the beer offerings are a little more upscale and the food is a lot better than any other sports bar in town.

I was there with a large group and one of the owners, so we got to sample a lot of the menu. Must haves include, the fried baked potato in aioli, which are really good jo jo's, the mini ribs, the hush puppies with a killer jalapeno jam, and awesome boiled eggs with Russian dressing (deviled eggs). As an entree I had the chicken pot stew which was amazing. Other folks really enjoyed the fish sandwich, the patty melt and the chop chop salad. All the portions were very reasonable and not over sized.

After we ate we all had fun playing pop-a-shot (I came in second). I think this would be a great place to watch a game and I am looking forward to returning on a weekend. They are open 11 am- 12 am on weekdays and 9 am - 12 am on weekends when they have a breakfast menu 9 am - noon.

Spirit of '77
500 NE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd.
Portland, OR 97232
(503) 232-9977

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris

David Sedaris is one of my favorite writers and it is always great to hear him reading one of his stories on NPR, but lately I have felt he was running out of things to talk about. He has pretty much strip-mined his early years and his family for all the good stories and the life of a middle aged gay couple living in France was starting to wear a little thin. Luckily he has now turned to animal stories. Stories that would be benign if told with human characters, but are seriously funny when played out with animals.

The illustrations by Ian Falconer are a great compliment to these short absurdest tales. I won't go into any of them in particular, but I will relay a joke that Sedaris told on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart that conveys the tone of the book.

A man answers the door and notices a snail on the stoop. The snail asks the man, "would you be interested in buy any life insurance?" The man reaches down, picks up the snail and flicks it out into the street. Two years later the man gets a knock on the door. When he answers he sees the snail, who looks up at him and says, "what the hell was that about?"

Gearhart Golf Links

This weekend I played in a Nike Golf outing at the Gearhart Golf Links on the Oregon coast. Opened in 1892 as 3 holes across the sand dunes, it is the oldest course in the northwest and after Tokatee Golf Club in central Oregon, my favorite municipal course in the state.



In 1901, at the hands of Marshall Kinney, Gearhart was officially opened as a 9 hole course. In 1913-1915 Gearhart grew to 18 holes and began a long heritage as one of the state's premiere golf venues. Between1926 and 1935 the course underwent a series of changes including a redesign by Chandler Egan resulting in the layout which remains relatively unchanged.

It is a little tight on some of the fairways, so you have to be careful in the summer that you don't get hit by a wayward drive. Luckily there are not as many people out there in November, so I felt pretty safe. The course is short, playing 6218 yards from the back tees, with a 71.3 rating and a 134 slope, but we didn't get any roll with the amount of rain we have had lately. There are some challenging holes, number five demands a precise second shot to a very small green with water on the left and the 18th hole is 581 yards uphill with a small green tucked back in the corner, which makes it hard to reach in two, even for big hitters.

They also have a nice clubhouse called The Sandtrap which is run by McMenamins. It has been redesigned since they took it over, so it has the flavor of many of their other pubs. They have a great deck, which is the perfect place for a beer after your round in the summer. The food and beer is great, but as with all McMenamins the service is pretty slow.

I know it is a little out of the way, but this is a great course to include on your Oregon golf tour.

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

With a title like A Short History of Nearly Everything, you might think that Bill Bryson has bit off more than he can chew, but you will be pleasantly surprised how readable it is. Much of what Bryson covers are things you would have learned in a good undergraduate program, but have forgotten over the years.

The book covers general sciences topics such as chemistry, paleontology, astronomy, and particle physics. Bryson explores time from the Big Bang to the discovery of quantum mechanics, via evolution and geology, to try to answer big questions like how old is the earth? Where did humans come from? And what are our chances of being around for a while?

Bryson is a great story teller who keeps you interested in some pretty dry topics by weaving in the stories of the people who made the discoveries, such as Edwin Hubble, Isaac Newton, and Albert Einstein. The biggest take away for me as I read this book was how little we actually know about the planet we live on, and how many mistakes we have made in trying to explain it over the years. Another interesting thing is how shaky some of our trusted theories are. For example, no one knows why Denver is a mile high. It has no tectonic plates under it, pushing it up like the mountains do. It is basically a mystery.

If this kind of thing interests you, you will love this book. For me it was a great opportunity to ponder all the things I really should have taken a little more time to think about in college.

The Millennium Series Movies

The first two books of Stieg Larsson's Millennium series, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire are now out on DVD and On Demand. I am sure these films are already being remade with America actors, but I'll stick with the Swedish versions. I am not going to apologize for liking these books. I understand they are not great literature, but they were a lot of fun to read, and somehow I get a little bit of pleasure not seeing them Hollywoodized.

The Swedish films are dark and the casting is excellent. Lisbeth Salander is not a star, she is flat chested and a little scary looking. Mikael Blomkvist is rumpled and looks his age. In fact, almost everyone in these two movies looks like a real person not an actor. The two directors have also stayed very close to the story. Some elements have been simplified, but the storyline is all there.

Before I saw the film, I heard a review that made me laugh, but as I was watching the movie I couldn't believe how much it captured the difference between Hollywood and foreign films. At the end of the second book, Lisabeth Salander is in a fight for her life. Meanwhile Blomkvist has figured out where she is and has to make his way out into the countryside to save her. For the next several minutes, we see Salander getting shot, hitting her father over the head with an axe, and trying to kill her brother as Blomkvist puts on his seat belt, gets caught in traffic and all but stops at a drive-through Starbucks on his way to save her.

If you enjoyed the books, make sure you see the Swedish version of the films before Hollywood gets to them.

Income Inequality reaches all time highs

Do you worry about income inequality as much as I do? Probably not, because ultimately everyone wishes they were rich and they really don't care how much of the wealth is held by the richest Americans as long as they can one day be among them. I also know this topic is unlikely to gain much traction as income redistribution is a "socialist" concept to most Republicans. But just as it looked like all hope was lost, there is some new research that suggests that when the income gap between rich and poor becomes too large it can actually hurt the economy.

In an interesting op-ed piece in the NY Times, titled Our Banana Republic, Nicholas D. Kristof points out that the United States now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana. As evidence: the richest 1% of Americans now take home almost 24% of income, up from almost 9% in 1976. If that doesn't surprise you, try this: from 1980 to 2005, more than 80% of the total increase in American incomes went to the richest 1 percent.

OK, so those are just some boring statistics that show the rich are getting much richer while the rest of us are treading water. What's the problem? The problem is that these mega-rich folks are buying bigger houses, fancier cars, and putting caviar on everything while the folks on the next rung down are going into serious debt trying to keep up. Credit card companies and mortgage brokers took advantage of this increasing need for credit and before you know it, we have a full blown financial crisis.

As we are now realizing, the average American has seen real income decrease over the last 20 years and like the government, we have been financing our flat screen TVs with the hope that our house prices would always go up and we'd some how never have to pay more than the minimum payment on our credit cards.

You can read the research by Robert H. Frank of Cornell University, Adam Seth Levine of Vanderbilt University, and Oege Dijk of the European University Institute at the Social Science Research Network. They looked at census data for the 50 states and the 100 most populous counties in America, and found that places where inequality increased the most also endured the greatest surges in bankruptcies and divorces.

Another disturbing statistic to close - the last time America saw such a large income inequality was in the years preceding the Great Depression. Something to think about as we debate extending the Bush tax cuts for the richest Americans.

Flu Shot

I got a flu shot today. I was hesitant to get it, because the last time I got a shot (over 10 years ago) I got the flu. Before that I never got the flu, so I was convinced that I got it due to the shot. Now after a lot of research, I see that I was wrong and that is virtually impossible to get the flu from the shot. So hopefully I will flu free this year and the pain I am feeling in my arm right now will be worth it.

Muirfield. Home of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers

One of the highlights of my trip to Scotland last month was getting to play golf at Muirfiled for the first time. Muirfield is one of the five oldest golf clubs in Scotland, founded in 1744 in Leith, and probably one of the most exclusive. It is home to the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers and lays claim to having written the original 13 rules of golf before turning over governance of the game to the R&A in St. Andrews.

Located just outside of Edinburgh in East Lothian, Muirfield runs along the same coast line as the great Gullane and Luffness Golf Courses. It has been home to the Open Championship fifteen times (and will host it again in 2013), as well as many amateur championships and the 1973 Ryder Cup. The course was originally laid out by Tom Morris in 1891. In 1923, 50 acres were purchased north of the course and course designer Harry Colt introduced 14 new holes. His design included two loops of nine holes, one played within the other in the opposite direction, so the direction of the wind changes on nearly every hole. Most of the changes since then have been to extend the tees back to account for the improvements in equipment to keep Muirfield on the Open rota. One recent change, that is very evident, is the lengthening of the tee on number nine. They actually had to knock down the wall that surrounds the course to move the tee 25-30 yards further back. They also added a new bunker to catch the pros, but all the members are hitting into it off their forward tees.

The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers prefer to play two-ball match play, or what we refer to as alternate shot here in the U.S. A morning round is easily completed in two or two and a half hours, followed by a large lunch and cocktails, then a second round of golf in the afternoon. As visitors we were allowed to play our own ball, which was a treat. You never know when you'll get to play there again, so it was great to get to see and play the entire course. And it is a great course. It is a classic links layout running along the coast with amazing views of Fife across the Firth of Fourth. The rough is very high and can make it very hard to find wayward shots. There are also a lot of bunkers that are extremely steep and almost always result in a stroke added to the scorecard. Good players are well rewarded for being long and straight off the tee.

Contrary to popular belief, women are allowed to play Muirfield as guests, but there are no lady members and no mixed facilities in the clubhouse. Dogs are also allowed on the course. Above is a picture of our playing companion Rocket.

After you play, you change into a jacket and tie and enjoy a large lunch. We had a two hour drive back to St. Andrews, so there was no drinking for us, but there is one famous story I can't resist repeating. Supposedly one of the members was pulled over on his way home one evening after being at the club and administered a breathalyzer. Much to his surprise he passed. He was surprised because he had just finished off several large drinks before getting in the car and by rights, knew he should be on his way to jail. He immediately headed back to the club and accused the bartender of watering down the drinks, which he indeed was doing, and was fired on the spot.

If you are a golf lover, you should make plans to play Muirfield on your next Scottish golf adventure. Luckily I played with a member, so it didn't cost me anything, but the course is open to visitors on Tuesdays and Thursdays for £190 ($315) for one round and £240 ($400) for two rounds on the day.

Metrovino

Last week I got an e-mail from Genoa, one of my favorite restaurants, and they suggested I vote for them for restaurant of the year. When I got to the choices, I was embarrassed to see that I had not been to a few of the other choices. This weekend, we started to rectify that.

Metrovino is a hot new place in the Pearl District, that is dedicated to pairing great wine with great food. They use an Enomatic wine system and a Perlage sparkling system, to keep over 80 wines and champagnes fresh for 30 days so they can serve them all by the taste, glass or bottle. We started with a great glass of champagne, the Dama del Rovere, which was very reasonably priced. I had the salmon tare tare to begin with, which was great, but strangely it was served with onion rings, which did not go together, but were great separately. Barbara had the escargot, which was good, but had a strange almond crust. We both opted for the rib eye for our entree which was a mistake. Both steaks were very fatty and a little chewy. The only savior was the amazing potato fingers in horse radish and the chantrelle mushrooms.

We paired the entree with "The Heavyweight" wine flight, tastes of an '04 Eyrie, DDO Laurene, and a Beaux Freres for $28. I have to say they were all amazing, but when we went to order a glass they were all over $30 a glass, so we opted for a less expensive Bordeaux, the Chateau Croix Mouton at $12.

Metrovino is a very nice space, the service is great, but I am sad to say it is way too expensive for the quality of food we had. If I were to go there again, I would try the bar menu, which is not served in the main restaurant.

Dinner 5:30 PM nightly.

Metrovino
1139 Northwest 11th Avenue
Portland, OR 97209-3469
(503) 517-7778

I'm Back

Since we last talked I took a little vacation to Scotland, played a lot of golf and now that I've been back at work for a week, it's time to start blabbing again.

On a Break

I am taking a short break. Hope to see you again soon.

Tiger Woos hits the camera again

You may remember that we had Tiger Woods hit the camera in a TV commercial we made a few years back. It was an amazing feat in that he was easily 100 yards away from the camera and the lens was maybe 6" x 12". This time he did not do it on purpose. At the Ryder Cup last week he shanked a shot directly at a camera man, who got this great picture just before it hit the camera.


My favorite part of this picture is the guy on the right hand side with the big mustache and cigar. He has become a minor Internet celebrity.

The Social Network

I just got back from seeing The Social Network, the new David Fincher movie about Facebook and the first thing I want to do is get off Facebook. It is an understatement to say that this movie does not paint any of the participants in a good light, and founder Mark Zuckerberg comes across as the biggest a-hole of them all.

The story is pretty simple. A young hacker named Mark Zuckerberg comes up with the idea of connecting people through a social network, basically linking college facebook pages to more and more people so you can share information and become friends. The problem is, it may not have been his idea and he may have screwed a few people along the way. The story is told in retrospect as Zuckerberg gives testimony in two lawsuits that have been filed against him. He is portrayed as a know-it-all jerk, who ironically can not maintain a friendship in real life, but there is no doubt he is a genius. Justin Timberlake takes a great turn as a-hole number two, or Sean Parker the inventor of Napster, who shows up as the slightly older guy who has been through it all before and wants to help Zuckerman succeed, or make sure Parker makes some money this time around.

If you are at all dialed into the 21st century this is a must see film. It is very well written by Aaron Sorkin and beautifully directed by David Fincher. It is much more than the facebook story, it is a great film.

Budgeting

The number one reason small businesses go under is lack of budgeting. People put all their money into getting the business started and they have not put anything aside to keep the business running or to cover the costs if something goes wrong. Home owners do the same thing. They scape together everything they can to make the down payment on the house, then, to take an example that is close to home, they are in a terrible bind when the water heater goes out the month after they move in.

When I was in high school and then again in college, we all had to take a personal finance class. With the budget cuts and the focus on standardized tests, I have heard that most schools have eliminated these classes. This is a shame. I am always amazed that we hire people to manage millions of dollars worth of business and they can't even balance their own check book or they are FedExing their check to American Express to get it there on time. I have worked with a lot of really smart people over the years, much smarter than me, but many of them didn't understand that paying the minimum on their credit card will take 20 years to pay it off, or how much they could afford to pay for rent. I always feel really old when I do this, but if someone asks me a financial question, I like to get them to work out a simple budget and most of them are amazed to learn they are way over extended. Usually I can help them work out a plan to get them out of debit and saving some money within one year. Attached is my simple starter budget to see what your monthly costs are versus your income.

Once you've done this, you need to think about big one-time costs, like property taxes, etc. and make sure you are saving money to cover them. I also like to take out my weekly "allowance" in cash. If you take out a standard amount every Monday to cover lunch, coffee, drinks, etc., you'll know if you can get out on Saturday night or not by what's left in your pocket. A little discipline goes a long way.

Grocery Shopping

I like grocery shopping. I like to make a list and go down all the aisles checking off the stuff I need. I have gone as far as creating a list of all the things we normally buy and put them in order for easier shopping. It took a couple of trial runs to get things in the right place, but now shopping is pretty easy. Some things are not in the place you might fist suspect. For instance Velveeta is not in the cheese aisle as it is a processed food, so you find it over by the mac and cheese. Another interesting one is sunflower seeds. I thought they would be by the nuts, but they are in the candy aisle. I also wonder why all the organic and "natural" stuff is together in one section versus having it out on the regular aisles. Maybe it's so the greenies can get everything they need and get out without being contaminated by the regular stuff.

The only problem with my list is if the grocery store moves something, then I have to realign my list. I also am kind of committed to the one Fred Meyer on Glisan that I have set up my list for as every store is a little different.

My Trip to Al-Qaeda

My Trip to Al-Qaeda is a documentary based on Lawrence Wright's one man play of the same name. It chronicles fundamentalist Islam's rise to power and explores Wright's struggle to maintain his objectivity as a journalist writing about Islamic terror in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Looming Tower.

Lawrence lived for a time in the middle east and has extensive knowledge of the players in the world of radical Islam. He also wrote the screenplay for a movie called The Siege that came out in 1998. This is pertinent because it was a precursor to 9/11. In the story, the US government has abducted an Islamic religious leader, which leads to New York City becoming the target of escalating terrorist attacks. As the bombings continue, the US government responds by declaring martial law, and torturing captives. Sound familiar? Needless to say, it was not very popular among the Muslim community and a group of radicals blew up a Hard Rock cafe in South Africa in response to the movie trailer, because one of the stars, Bruce Willis, was a partner in the restaurant. A 12 year-old girl died as a result.

This is only one of the stories Lawrence tells in the movie. Another explores his relationship with the brother of Osama bin Laden, who became a source for Lawrence and was questionably linked to the 9/11 bombings through phone records. Before he could clear his name (or not) he was murdered.

This movie has been attacked from all sides. Muslims feel like they are unfairly portrayed as radicals. Conservatives will say Lawrence is an apologist and liberals will cringe at his admission of wanting to take out some of these people he was reporting on. Still it is an interesting insight into what the US is up against if we ever hope to end the fighting in the middle east.

Ankle One Week Later

It has been just over a week since I fell an hurt my ankle in Ft. Worth. I have tried as much as possible to rest it and keep it wrapped with the Ace bandage. So far I have felt improvement every day and I even started back at yoga although I don't have very good range of motion yet. On Monday I started to see a lot of bruising, but that has gone away now.

On the way to lunch today, I had a set back. I tripped on the stairs at Nike and turned over my ankle. It hurt almost as badly as the first time although it was a pretty slight twist. I was able to walk again after sitting a few minutes, but it was a painful for the rest of the day.


I have noticed that the ankle is getting stiff from not working out, so I have begun to try to improve the range of motion by bending it more and lifting my toes when I am standing. Hopefully this will help avoid any long-term damage.

The Big Short by Michael Lewis

At one point in The Big Short, the author Michael Lewis reflects back on his first book about the financial industry, Lairs Poker, and thinks how innocent the deception seemed then versus what he was trying to get his arms around in 2007. It's a little like the trailer for the new Wall Street movie staring Michael Douglas, where he says, "someone once said, 'greed is good' now it's legal." The 1980's greed of Wall Street in Lairs Poker seems so innocent now, but it is also the genesis of everything that went wrong in the financial meltdown of 2007.

At the end of The Big Short, Lewis has lunch with his old boss at Soloman Brothers, this is the man who took the brokerage public. At one point he seems to admit this was the beginning of the end, when the brokerages stopped gambling their own money and started gambling with the shareholders money. Since they had a lot less to loose, the risks got completely out of control. This book is a little hard to follow if you don't understand the world of big finance. However, Lewis does a great job of walking you through what was happening and you quickly learn that most people who were involved had no clue what was going on either. Here is the bottom line. At some point in the 2000's it became way too easy to get a home loan. Sub-prime hit the basement with lairs loans, where you didn't have to provide any proof that you had a job, and as soon as you got your first loan you could take out the equity on the (raising) house value and buy a second investment property. The banks didn't care because they sold the loans to financial companies like Bear Sterns and Goldman Sacks who sold them off as bonds or the now infamous collateralize debt obligation (CDO). From here on it gets a little complicated, as no one really knows how to value the CDOs, and the ratings companies don't their jobs to protect the consumer, and the house of cards gets ever higher.

Despite the press reports, there are a few smart people that figured out what was going on, and while everyone one else was betting that house prices could only go up, they bet the other side. The best part about this book is that these few smart people are all interesting characters and their stories are amazing. I know this is hard to believe, but you will not want this book to end. It is truly a great read.

Little Big Burger

Micah Camden, owner of Beast, Fats, Yakuza and DOC, has just opened Little Big Burger in the Pearl District and lines are already out the door and down the block. His burger at Yakuza (Kobe beef and goat cheese with fried, chile-spiked, truffle-scented potatoes) has been voted one of the best in Portland, so this shouldn't come as a surprise.


The Little Big Burger is a mini Yakuza burger, or what Camden calls a "mega slider." The formula includes Oregon's Highland Oak beef topped with your choice of cheese and chopped onions, on a Grand Central Bakery bun, for $3.75. The menu is limited to four items: the burger ($3.25), fries ($2.75), sodas ($1.57), and floats ($3.50). There is also a veggie burger ($3.50). I think they hope to add beer soon. The interior is a bright fast-food-inspired atmosphere with white and red colors, that fills up very fast at lunch.


The burgers are very tasty, you should plan on getting two if you are hungry, and the fries are great. Even though they were overwhelmed with people, the service was good and we didn't have to wait very long for our burger.

11 AM - close, 7 days a week.

Little Big Burger
122 NW 10th Ave.
Portland, OR 97209
503- 274-9009

New Drain

As some of you may remember, we had a bad flood last spring. Water got under the house and flooded the water heater and did some pretty serious damage. When I tried to file a claim against the city, they called it an extraordinary aquatic event and did not accept any blame despite the fact that a city engineer found two drains blocked uphill from our house. My hope is that this will not happen again and today I think the city took a big step in helping out by putting a new drain outside our driveway where the majority of the water collects.

Purple Panthers 3, Hot Shots 4

I took my niece Sophie to her soccer game today, but unfortunately I was not a good luck charm as they lost 3-4. Sophie played pretty well, but her team does not have a good goal keeper which makes a big difference. I thought the coaching was pretty bad, but then I realized it is hard to get second graders to listen for more than 10 seconds. The biggest problem was that they all run to the ball in a swarm, so the ball never really goes anywhere. One of the other teams coaches obviously understood this as he had one girl always stand on the other side of the goal from the swarm. The couple of times the ball squirted out she had a wide open shot on goal.

Ankle, day three

The ankle is still sore, but I am walking better. I got an Ace bandage that is helping a lot. It also helps to keep it elevated.

Lanny's Alta Cocina Mexicana

Here's another great Ft. Worth restaurant recommendation for you, Lanny's Alta Cocina Mexicana on 7th street, out by the Montgomery Park building. This seems to be a happening area in Ft. Worth with a lot of nice places to eat, museums, etc. Lanny's is not the kind of place you'll find without a recommendation, as it is small and you have to be in the know to hear about it. Luckily one of my clients recommended it to us.

The have a small menu with tapas, soups and salads, and a half dozen entrees. We tried the civeche, the tamales and the scallops with lobster and mango salsa to start and they were all delicious. The cucumber and tomato salad was also very nice. The star of the entrees was the carne asada which came with bacon wrapped asparagus and risotto. The halibut, lamb and duck were also very good, but the salmon got a mediocre review. None of us were brave enough to order the kobe beef ribeye at $12 an ounce. We finished it off with some great deserts, I can highly recommend the key lime cheesecake made with goat cheese.

The service is fantastic at Lanny's and they have a great wine list that we needed some help with. We started out with a nice cava, Spanish champagne, and then moved on to a couple of Argentinian malbecks. The margaritas are also excellent.


Lanny's Alta Cocina
Place page
3405 W. 7th Street
Fort Worth, TX 76107
(817) 850-9996

Ankle, day two

Day two of RICE, but not so much rest as I have had to walk around a lot for work, some icing, compression from the Ace bandage, and a little elevation when I can sit down. It is still super swollen, but a lot better than yesterday.

Fall down, go boom.

Yesterday I was walking out of the hitting bay down in Ft. Worth and I somehow twisted my ankle and fell down some concrete stairs. I have been practicing RICE - rest, ice, compression and elevation. Elevation is the hardest one as I have been trying to sleep with my foot up.

Reata Restaurant

If you are looking for steak in Ft. Worth, Reata is a great alternative to Del Frisco's which is super expensive. Reata is just expensive. I had an amazing chicken fried steak, and the rest of the crew were happy with with their steaks. They also had a very nice sea bass. None of us were brave enough to try the buffao steaks, but I will if I come back.

The service is great, all the waiters dress like cowboys and they have a nice wine list. Make sure you leave room for deserts, as they have an amazing tray to choose from. I can recommend the pecan pie with Bluebell ice cream and the banana pudding.

Reata Restaurant
310 Houston St,
Fort Worth, TX
(817) 336-1009

Rangers Game

Tonight we went to see the Texas Rangers play the New York Yankees at The Ballpark in Arlington. It was a super hot evening, but luckily we got a seat in the shade. The overhang also helped us as it started to pour down rain in the fifth inning. GW Bush was there, but he let during the rain delay. The game got going again at 10:30 p.m., but then the Yankees started making pitching changes every batter and the game bogged down. We decide to leave in the seventh and unfortunately for us, we missed Mariano Rivera blowing a save in the ninth (a once in a lifetime event).

Sleeping on the Bus

I guess this person had a busy long weekend. She did not seem very happy about going to work this morning. Personally I am too paranoid to fall asleep on the bus. One, you could touch your head, or worse your face, to something really gross; two, you might miss your stop; or three someone could think you are venerable and touch you or steal something from you. Not a good idea.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Edgar Wright is the director that brought us the amazing films Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, so the question is, what happens when he gets Hollywood money to make a film? The answer is a really good movie that is over the top in an entirely different way.

The thing that hits you right away about Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is the graphics. The movie is based on a graphic novel by Bryan Lee O'Malley and many of those graphic elements are animated into the movie, so, the fight scenes have "thwacks!" and "Oooffs" and when people kiss animated hearts come out of their mouths. This would be disconcerting if I hadn't heard an interview with the director about how he wanted to take everything to the extreme. And he does take everything to the extreme.

The basic premise is that Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a 20-something looser living in a very small apartment with a roommate that owns everything in it. He falls in love with Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and to keep her, he has to defeat her seven evil exes. These encounters become more and more perilous and Scott Pilgrim's life gets pretty complicated. The fight scenes are pure fantasy and can be jarring. Wright suggests we think of them as songs in a musical, but instead of breaking into song the characters break into video game like fight sequences.

Normally I wouldn't enjoy this kind of movie, but with a little warning of what I was getting into I was able to enjoy it a lot more. It is a funny and entertaining farce.

Rumpole of the Bailey by John Mortimer

Once again I have to thank my Dad for the book of the month thing he gave me several years ago. I still get books, not every month, but at least five to seven a year. This month I got Rumpole of the Bailey by John Mortimer. It is a compilation of several stories that was also a very popular TV series on the BBC from 1975-1992. Unfortunately I had never heard of Rumpole before, but now I am hooked.

Rumpole is an aging barrister who specializes in criminal cases in London's Old Bailey. First it is important to know what a barrister is, because I didn't. In the Britain most lawyers are solicitors and they are much like what we think of as lawyers in the US. However, when you go to court in Britain, a barrister is the person who works with a solicitor to advocate for you in front of a judge and jury.

Rumpole is quite a colorful barrister who will take any case and who's motto is "never plead guilty." While he loves his wife, she is fondly referred to as "She who must be obeyed," he also spends a lot of time after work in the wine bar talking law. He has a lot of funny stories and has amassed a great history of cases over the years. He is a man of principles, but these principles are more likely to be appreciated by the murderers, safe-crackers and petty thieves he represents than the "learned gentlemen" he works with.

Rumpole of the Bailey is a great look back at the transition England went through in the 70's and 80's as the old upper crust fell gave way to hippies, punks, and yuppies.

Hurricane Katrina

Unfortunately it seems to take an anniversary to bring attention back to big issues here in the US, and hurricane Katrina is no different. For the last two or three years we have not heard much from the media on the progress in New Orleans. After the Saints won the Super Bowl, it was like that took care of everything, redemption was given. However, a little scratching below the surface reveals that all is not right in the Crescent City and that there is still a lot of work to do.

There were a lot of news reports from New Orleans this week, but there are two shows that are must see:

Spike Lee has just put out a great follow up to his original documentary, When the Levees Broke, called, If God is Willing and da Creek Don't Rise. He revisits many of the people in the original film and also looks forward at how the BP oil spill could further hold back the recovery. This four hour epic may be a little too far reaching, but it is amazing who Lee got access to, most amazing was the interview with Michael "Brownie" Brown. To hear his side of the FEMA story alone was worth watching.

Some residents of New Orleans will be caring literal scars as well as the mental scars they endured during the flooding. No show brings this to life better than the August 25th edition of PBS's Frontline: Law and Disorder. Frontline, ProPublica and the New Orleans Times-Picayune investigate several questionable shootings by police in the days following Hurricane Katrina, raising new questions about the actions of some officers, and their command structure, during the aftermath of the storm. I walked away from this show thinking Governor Kathleen Blanco and Mayor Ray Nagan should be tried for murder, when they gave the order that looters could be shot.

Lucky

Ever dream of winning the lottery? You may change your opinion after you see the new HBO documentary, Lucky.

Director Jeffery Blitz of Spellbound fame, takes us around America meeting several "lucky" winners and discovering how the money changed their life. This film follows the lives of several big money winners and one hopeful. We meet Quang, a Vietnamese immigrant who won $22 million as part of a eight way contingent at work. James, a down and out man who spent his last $3 on a Powerball ticket and won $5 million. Kristine and Steve, a nice middle-class American couple who won $110 million. Robert, a math professor who despite knowing the odds, still plays and wins $22 million. Buddy, a local hero who won $16 million. And finally Verna, who spends up to $100 a day playing the lotto and after 30 years has still not had a big payday.

What is the one thing that holds these people together? At some point in the movie, despite many great things that the money has brought them, they all say, "I wish I had never won." Some people do better than others in the long run, but no one gets away without their life charging significantly. the saddest story is Buddy, who's family literally tries to kill him to get his money.

Bridge Up

In Portland we have 12 major bridges that get you from the west side of town over to the east side. Many of them are really beautiful, and a couple are kind of not. On any given day you can cross the bridge three or four times without thinking too much about it. Then of course there is the one time you are in a real hurry and the bridge is up causing traffic to come to a stand still. This is a small price to pay to have theses beautiful old bridges, but it is strange how it only happens when you are already late.

.

Greenberg

In Greenberg, one of my, I'll watch any film he makes guys, Ben Stiller, takes on the role of Roger Greenberg, a 40-year-old man who has recently suffered a nervous breakdown and is now trying to "do nothing." He has returned to L.A., where he grew up to housesit for his rich brother, who is on a long vacation with his family in Vietnam. Greenberg meets his brother's assistant, Florence (Greta Gerwig), and begins a bizarrely awkward romance with her. He also reconnects with his old band mates, who are still bitter about a record deal that Roger ruined 15 years ago. Rhys Ifans, is a scene stealer, playing Ivan, Roger's best fiend who despite Roger being a complete a-hole, still goes out of his way to help him. While trying not to start a relationship with Florence, Roger also attempts to date Beth (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a divorced old girlfriend, but she laughingly rejects him.

While Roger is housesitting, his brother's dog becomes sick, forcing Roger to take responsibility for his care, but it is pretty obvious Roger is barely able to take care of himself. He is very neurotic and does not recognize any flaws in himself. This reaches a comic climax when his niece returns to the house and throws a wild party.

Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel by Gary Shteyngart

You would think I would have learned by now that it is Terry Gross' job to make books sound good when she interviews the author on her show Fresh Air. As I was listening, I thought Super Sad True Love Story sounded a little too far fetched for me, but it did not stop me from picking it up at a recent trip to Powell's Books. I am glad I read it, but what others see as great satire, I thought was an author trying way too hard. The line between poignant and absurd is thin and I would rather stay in the side of poignant.

In Gary Shteyngart's futuristic New York, the dollar has been been replaced by the Chinese yuan as the currency of choice, American has been reduced to a one party police state that is always on high security alert, and people are constantly judged by their credit score and their hottness or f-ability rating. Lenny Abramov is the middle-aged protagonist with a good credit score, but an embarrassingly low Male Hotness rating. He has fallen in love with the very young Eunice Park, who's hottness score helps boost Lenny's just by standing next to him. Lenny works for the Post-Human Services division of the Staatling-Wapachung Corporation, selling people eternal life, and while he would also like to live for ever, his love for Eunice takes over his ambitions. Just as Lenny seems to be getting things together the US experiences a "rupture" and is taken over by the world's economic powers and split up Berlin style post WW II.

As I said earlier, the book is funny, but Shteyngart takes everything to the extreme. A little more subtlety would have made this book much more readable.