Diametrically Opposite

I was in Miami Beach for the 2009 IDSA international conference a couple of weeks ago and had a few hours to experience this playground of the rich and famous. I was staying in a small hotel in the Art Deco district and when I wasn't at the conference, I had the opportunity to walk along the beach and the main "drag" (Collins Ave.).





Exotic cars and obviously well-heeled folks could be seen at every corner.
As I interpreted the various sights and sounds, it became obvious that people came here from all over the world to play and to be seen. And many others came to see them, to admire them.


The beaches were truly beautiful and walking there in the early morning the sight was surreal - plus the heat+humidity were still tolerable in those early hours.
This was also the time when another contingent of Miami Beach residents could be seen.
They seemed to exist in the periphery - while there were quite a few of them, they weren't always visible, or so obvious, during the day.
They could not be missed in the early morning hours however.
Sleeping on benches, beside the lifeguard shacks, beneath the Palm trees, or even right on the beach's sand.
Before the hustle and bustle of the new day caused them to seek refuge elsewhere.


All of them human beings, all co-existing on the same narrow sliver of sand at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean.
Two groups which appear to be on diametrically opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum.

Ancestral Thoughts

Appropriation of Statues

We fashion statues with materials
from statues fashioned
by other older craftsmen,
we fashion poems with words
from poems written
in other times by other poets,
we fashion lives with feelings, events
that other people before us
had experienced.
We appropriate works, modify
plans, change perspectives
invent something new
fashion things entirely ours
always leaving traces
of an earlier origin.
We go on putting our names
beside other names
even those
that we'd like to erase.

Titos Patrikios (1928 - )

I happened upon this poem in the book my father gave me this summer (A Century of Greek Poetry 1900-2000, Bilingual Edition). I was thinking of the statue of Makrygiannis (above) which I photographed close to the Acropolis Metro stop this summer after visiting the New Acropolis Museum.

Speaking of the museum, when the Persians sacked ancient Athens in 480 BC, the previous temples built upon the rock of the Acropolis were destroyed and their remains were later used by the Athenians to build the foundations of the classic temples and the defensive walls around the Acropolis. Pieces of many wonderful statues and earlier works have been unearthed and can be seen on display in the New Acropolis Museum.

Back to Makrygiannis (1797-1864) - he was a Greek merchant, military officer, politician and author, best known today for his Memoirs. Starting from humble origins, he joined the Greek struggle for independence, achieving the rank of general and leading his men to notable victories. Following Greek independence, he had a tumultuous public career, playing a prominent part in the granting of the first Constitution of the Kingdom of Greece and later being sentenced to death and pardoned (Wikipedia).

He was uneducated, yet he did some pretty amazing things in his time and the whole area at the base of the Acropolis is today called Makrygianni (hence the statue). He used his common sense and the bits and pieces he picked-up along the way; ancestral thoughts and works that were put to new use - a lesson well worth remembering.

Education

My son moves-in at his dormitory at the University of Pittsburgh next week. Freshmen get to move-in a week ahead of all the other students, to familiarize themselves with the campus.

The University of Pittsburgh (aka Pitt) mascot is the Panther - all their athletic teams are called the Panthers. This statue of a Panther is located outside the Pitt Student Union on Forbes Ave.

University education - the next step towards broadening a young person's horizons and moving beyond the basics taught in high school.

He gets a chance to explore options and focus on what he feels is important - to make-up his mind about what matters.

I wish him the wisdom to chose clearly.

Burning Rubber

My car failed the annual safety and emissions inspection.
The tires were too worn-out ...
Might it be that the wide tires my car requires wear-out too soon?
I certainly don't feel like I am pushing the car to its limits, driving aggressively and all that.

- The stock Michelin MXV tires lasted about a year-and-a-half (13,670 miles).
- Then I bought a set of Avon Tech M550 tyres (British spelling) - they lasted one year and one month (8,380 miles) - AVOID these tires at all costs!
- The third set I bought were a set of Yokohama Avid H4S tires - they lasted one year and nine months (15,470 miles).
- Now I just bought the fourth set - they are Michelin Pilot A/S Plus tires - all this on a car that is four-and-a-half years old and has a total of only 37,520 miles on the odometer!

The tires seem to be wearing-out much too fast under what I can only describe as "normal" driving conditions.
My guess is that the tire manufacturers have figured-out how to make their tires wear-out faster, so that the drivers will need to replace them more often.
I'll apologize if I sound like a conspiracy theorist -- I think the proof I supplied above speaks for itself.

How to Say it

My first blog entry ... what to write?
Explore my motivation to create a blog perhaps.
Well, that is easy - to record some random thoughts, to help make some sense of all the varied inputs, to leave some breadcrumbs which might help me find the way.

I looked-up the U2 song "One" today, prompted by a post from my cousin Stavroula, and discovered the Mary J Blige version on YouTube. While I had heard the U2 version of this song many times before, I was riveted by this particular performance. This performance was different, this one made it past my ears and the auditory apparatus in my head, this performance went deeper.
I felt there was such emotion in this recording and I thought of the title for this first blog entry - I thought, they found out "How to Say it", how to connect with me.

But before I forget, I need to present a disclaimer (I work too much with attorneys): the thoughts presented here are solely my own and are not associated, nor do they represent positions held by my employer