Monday, August 29, 2011

Opulence and Indulgence



Moments before boarding my plane to Las Vegas Friday I texted my two step-brothers the enduring quote from Swingers that reflects the anticipatory thrill of an impending Vegas adventure: “Vegas, baby, Vegas!”  Dutifully, they responded independently with another Swingers classic, “You are so money, Mikey!”  Ironically, on the long drive to Vegas the characters repeat the Vegas Baby Vegas line in an exhausted daze.  This rapid fade of enthusiasm as the physical demands of the city are faced provide a useful foreshadowing to our weekend. 


Kristi and I boarded the plane, ready for a split weekend: half as a romantic get-away and half as the bachelor party for step –brother Steve (GoBlue!).  On the plane I watched the new Vegas classic, The Hangover, which was considerably funnier the second time, especially en route for a bachelor party!  We arrived to oppressive heat rushing us inside to settle into our rooms (after a quick stop at In n’ Out, of course!).  I had a room at the Aria, one of the hotels in the new City Center Complex.  City Center was an audacious and poorly-timed real estate venture that opened in late 2008 – yeah, that 2008.  It was partially funded by Dubai World, the investment company for the Dubai Government that defaulted on its debt and sought restructuring in late 2009 because of . . . wait for it . . . over-building of ambitious real estate projects!


Three years later, City Center is almost completely open (notable exception: a condominium tower that still sits empty and now slated for demolition, having never hosted a single tenant) and the hotels and shopping are doing quite well.  Financial disasters aside, the architects and engineers involved managed to create one of the most stunning works of modern urban architecture the world has ever seen.  The look is sleek, futuristic, and organic.  Although the complex’s expanse widely outstripped the need when it opening, a nod has been given toward sustainable construction; most of the buildings there are gold LEED certified.  I was most interested in its reputation for public art, one of the most valuable collections anywhere (and most of it on 24 hour permanent display).


The art did not disappoint.  My favorite piece is a set of swirling water vortexes in the shopping plaza, Crystals.  The installation consists of a dozen plexiglass tubes that intermittently fill with water and a whirlpool, giving the impression of a small army of tornadoes rising from the floor.  We also discovered that the Aria creates work of art daily in their restaurants.  Dinner Friday night was at Sage, an American-nouveau cuisine restaurant by Chef Shawn McClain.  We enjoyed a tasting menu that included heirloom tomatoes, oysters, pork belly, scallops, and a peanut butter chocolate torte.  You can see the menu here: http://www.arialasvegas.com/files/dining/Sage-Signature-79.pdf.  They paired my dishes with Belgian beer, including draught selections of Duvel and Chimay.  I can safely say it was one of the 5 best meals of my entire life.  Pure epicurean Heaven. 

Dinner was followed by taking in Ka at the MGM, one of the seven permanent Cirque-du-Soleil shows in Las Vegas (do you remember when Cirque-du-Soleil was a little-known avante garde touring troupe from Montreal pitching a tent on Santa Monica beach?  Times have changed . . .)  Ka was outstanding, possibly as good as “O”, their water-themed show at Bellagio and the standard by which all Cirque shows should be measured.  A unique twist for Ka (aside from the stunning rotating stage that floats and is capable of 360˚ rotations) is that it actually has a recognizable plot, a rarity among Cirque productions. 

Late Friday, I was able to join 5 other underdog poolers at Marquee, the latest nightclub to be saddled with the “hottest club in Vegas” tag.  Judging by the hordes of twentysomethings in club wear gathered outside the velvet ropes, the Millennials have swallowed the hype.  We were escorted to a reserved cabana on the outdoor pool level of the club, provided bottle service with magnums of Grey Goose, and were encouraged to mingle and flirt with dozens of bachelorette parties.   I realize I am not the designated generational target audience for this experience, but I find it difficult to make small talk and meet new people while extended House redux mixes of REM, New Order, and Journey (yes, Journey- you read that correctly) are piped into my ears at a brain-melting 100 dB. 

Saturday began late, as it often does in Las Vegas.  We had a nice lunch at a Tapas restaurant with a friend from Medical School, then wandered off to the tables to pass the time.  Normally, I would curl up in a corner of the sports book with a  bucket of beers, but the football season had not yet started.  That didn’t stop ESPN from broadcasting football, however.  The geniuses in Bristol think it’s really cool to use the weekend before college football to show dozens of high school games.  Let’s think about this: high school football.  Played in Texas.  In August.  Now most of the time I am just a dumb ER doc.  But to be completely fair I am an expert in a couple of things: X-men comic books, James Bond movies, and heat-related illnesses.  Broadcasting high school football on national television in August is horribly irresponsible.  Every year, football players get into trouble with heat.  Although all athletes (from baseball players to RAGBRAI riders) are vulnerable to heat illness, football players are especially so because of several factors.  1) They wear 30 pounds of armor and cover their entire head with a heat-trapping dome.  2) The nature of the sport breeds a counter-adaptive machismo to push yourselves harder to not be “wussy” and drink water.  3) Football practice starts in August and the players experience the peak of environmental heat before they have acclimatized.  After exerting oneself in a hot environment for 2 weeks, the body is capable of undergoing physiologic changes to cope with the temperature easier.  Many football players enter full-contact practice before acclimatization.  The deaths that occur annually in football players occur in August.  And they usually occur in high school players. 
By broadcasting these games, ESPN has created a perverse incentive toward playing and practicing in unsafe environments. 

This sport was meant to be played in the Autumn, when the air is crisp and the leaves are gold. 


The season is finally here poolers!


Fight On,
Hans

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

My Favorite Things


“When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I’m feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things and then I don’t feel
So bad . .  .”
Rogers and Hammerstein, Sound of Music

When the weather is unbearable, when I’ve been working so many so many shifts I can’t remember the last time I ate a meal sitting down, and when the extent of conversations with my wife are emails, it helps me to remember my favorite things.  Naturally, my first most favorite things are the people I love and live with: Kristi, Sophie, and my two wonderful dogs.  But I must admit to a few material items I really can’t live without. 

What make something special?  What is it about an item that imparts value?

Both the form and the function.  If a chair is mind-blowing comfy, but looks like crap (ie Frasier’s dad’s recliner), you wouldn’t want it in your house.  The Cuisinart is a beautiful device that is helpful for certain recipes, but it is so cumbersome to use and such a pain to clean I refer to it as the “infernal device”.   A perfect tool not only does it job, but it looks like a work of art while doing it.
After reflecting on this for some time, I came up with short list of possessions that make me truly happy.   When I’ve had enough of this busy academic medicine life and run off to the Caribbean to run a combination acute care clinic and rum bar, these are the first objects that going in the bag:

1) Whiskey stones: Milled in Vermont from non-pourous soapstone, this dandy little cubes sit in my freezer until they are called upon to chill yet not dilute my whisky (or rum or bourbon . . .).  Enjoy a wee dram of the Highland’s finest with these and you are truly having a “scotch on the rocks!”


2) Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, the Collector’s Edition published by Houghton Mifflin: Put simply, this is the greatest printing ever of the greatest book ever.  Tolkien’s masterpiece established an archetype for fantasy; it is the first time that elves, men, dwarves, halflings, and orcs are put together in the same world.  It literally created a genre.  There couldn’t have been Dungeons & Dragons or World of Warcraft without it.  Besides that, it is 1216 pages of pure epic poetry.  Invent a multiracial fantasy world for the first time with its own mythology?  Sure, no problem.  Invent not one but two unique languages with their own alphabets and syntax (elvish script and dwarven runes)?  OK, it took a little effort, but that’s just for flavor text.  But do all that AND compose the entire story into a melodic rhythm that echoes hauntingly off each page?  Genius. 


3) Shun Chef Knife:  About 700 years ago, the Japanese figured out a way to make really, really strong steel.  Instead of simply pounding the metal into the proper shape, the metal is folded and hammered out.  Then folded again.  And again.  According to legend, this was done 200 times by the greatest sword smiths of the feudal age (think Hattori Hanzo from Kill Bill).  This knife is made the same way.  Yes, that’s right- I have a kitchen knife worthy of being held by a samurai warrior.  A little bit of bushido for the chopping block.  Hell yeah!  Ok- in reality, the knife is not made in same way as samurai swords, but it is similar and the thought counts.  This knife is so sharp I owned it for exactly 5 minutes before cutting myself with it.  This knife makes any recipe an adventure!


4) Specialized Allez Model Road Bicycle: This isn’t exactly Lance Armstrong quality here.  When I bought it, I asked the bike store for an “entry level road bike”.  Although expensive, it was on the low end of what road bikes can cost.  That doesn’t matter.  The important thing is that it represents my first real road bike.  For the last 10 years I had been riding a mountain bike.  Before that, in college and med school, I had used roller blades to get around.  Therefore, this is my first road bike since I rode a 10 speed Schwinn to high school.  I discovered that bike technology has advanced quite a bit in 20 years!  I am constantly amazed by this machine’s efficiency: it is light as a feather and it carries me along like I am flying.  It almost make climbing hills fun.  Almost.  I am definitely happier on days I get to ride my bike to work.



5) The Pathfinder Game Core Rulebook by Paizo Publishing, 1st Printing, Signed by the authors:  This one may need a bit of explaining. But it’s an explanation you don’t really want to know.  You may not think this is cool and that’s OK- this is my list of favorite things.  Go make your own.  Let’s just keep it simple: I have played Dungeons & Dragons for most of my life; I first picked up the game in its really early days, around 1980.  The game has gone through many changes over the years and now the trend is to change the rule structure about every 5 years, forcing fans to buy all new books.  Paizo, an independent publisher and having no copyrights to the D & D name, said, “Enough!” and created their own game based on the third iteration of the D & D rules.  The cool thing is that they created a beautiful book with amazing art that is really fun to read.  And the weird thing is that their crazy plan actually worked.  The veteran players all dumped brand name D & D like a bad habit and we are all playing Pathfinder now.  As of last year, Pathfinder has more players than D & D.  So there, evil publishing empire.  Way to stick it to the man.  Oh, and I have the first printing of the book that sold out in a few days.  And I have it signed by the creators.  I rock. 


6) Olive Wood Risotto Spatula:   I picked up this baby in a Hill town in Tuscany on our family vacation there in 2008.  This photo is the whole family enjoying an afternoon break in the hil town of Valpaia (that's young Sophie sitting on Kristi's lap).  Valpaia is a "factory town" where everyone works for the local Chianti winery.  Every evening that week we cooked together in the villa and drank an entire case of local wine (not Sophie).  Now, picking up my Italian spatula, I am transported back to that amazing week.  The texture and warmth of the wood is comforting - rustic and elegant at the same time.  Besides the nostalgia, I simply prefer to use a wooden spatula.  There may be more advanced tools in the kitchen, but I am solidly old-tech on this one.  It just turns the food exactly the way I want it!


7) Apple iPad and custom case: Anything I write to describe the coolness factor of the iPad is a superlative.  The sheer technological sexiness of this device is widely accepted and unquestioned.  Steve Jobs can rest easily in the knowledge that he changed computing forever.  Now that the web has matured into a part of daily life, Apple has made a friendly little window to put anywhere and peer into the cyber-universe that lies mere electrons beyond our touch.  You know those moments in sci-fi movies when the characters are handed an electronic pad to read a report?  Yeah- we do that now.  The future is here.  To take it just one step further, I commissioned a lady at the local farmer’s market to design and make a custom case for me, decorated with an antique street map of Paris.  Once people saw it, they wanted one too.  Now she can’t keep any iPad case in stock.  Order yours today!


These items make for a very pleasant afternoon of riding, reading, cooking, drinking, and watching movies.  To this list I should add one more favorite thing: College Football.  The underdog pool is only two weeks away.  Get ready, Dogs!

Fight On,
Hans