Why do we Yell in Anger?

A sage asked his followers, ‘Why people yell at each other when they are upset?’

The disciples thought for a while, ‘Because we lose our calmness,’ said one. ‘we yell for that.’

‘But, why to yell when the other person is just next to you?’ asked the sage. ‘

Isn’t it possible to speak to him or her with a soft voice? Why do you yell at a person when you’re angry?’

The disciples gave some other answers but none satisfied the sage. Finally he explained, ‘When two people are angry at each other, their hearts distance a lot. To cover that distance they must yell, to be able to hear each other. The angrier they are, the stronger they will have to yell to hear each other through that great distance.’

Then the sage asked, ‘ What happens when two people fall in love? They do not yell at each other but talk softly, why?  Their hearts are very close. The distance between them is very small.’

The sage continued, ‘When they love each other even more, what happens?

They do not speak, only whisper and they get even closer to each other in their love. Finally they even need not whisper, they only look at each other and that’s all. That is how close two people are when they love each other.’

Then the sage said, ‘When you argue do not let your hearts get distant, do not say words that distance each other more, else there will come a day when the distance is so great that you will not find the path to return.

There was also a tree top walkway. I was excited to go see it, thought it would be like canopy tours in a rainforest. Not quite, it was a walkway among some seriously tall trees, but no ziplines or monkeys or colorful birds. Too bad there’s no monkeys or exotic birds in England. That would have been cool. They did have peacocks though.

After I went to a nearby bookstore and bought two books for the flight home. I stayed up Tuesday night til 2:30, and last night til 3:15. I want to get back on Chicago time, so I need to stay awake during my flight.

Went to Waterloo station and from there went to the British Film Institute. They have thousands of digitized films. It was interesting seeing a Hitchcock film that was released both with and without sound. Also walked to the London Eye but missed closing by 3 minutes. No problem, Brady will love it there when we go back. He loves the Navy Pier ferris wheel.

Today I checked out, and put my bags in storage. Not a whole lot of time before my flight, so I went with Louisa to Trafglar Square in front of the National Gallery. Louisa is from South Africa and was in Germany for 4 months as an operetta singer for the summer. She came to England to try finding a job as a secretary, but that hadn’t been working out. So she’s busking (performing) for tips. In case you are wondering we’re just friends.

When she set up a London cop walked by. I went and sat on a stone railing when she started singing. The cop came over and asked me “do you have a permit for that?”

Me: “Me? I’m not the one singing. I just came to watch.”

He went to have a talk with her.

Some guy from Dominica came and talked to me about my implant. He seemed cool at first but started repeating himself about where he came from. The broken record thing was getting creepy so I was glad when Louisa came over.

She’d been busking for a week and a half, and other officers had just walked on by. She was convinced the problem was this guy was young and took his job too seriously.

We were in front of the National Gallery so we went in. I nothing really stood out at first but pieces from the Baroque period had intense use of light/shadows along with incredible amounts of detail.

We saw Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. I told her I don’t see what the big deal is. She gave me a huge lecture about the story and emotions behind it. Van Gogh was depressed, and you can see it in the sunflowers. The color is off and depressing, as is the arrangement. “You can never look at sunflowers the same way again.”

Good speech. I liked it. And now I like “Sunflowers” a little more. But I still think it’s overrated. I guess I don’t have an artistic soul.

When we came out, the cop was talking to three other singers – they looked like a band and sing contemporary music, not classical. Louisa went over to talk to them. She came back and said the officer was going to arrest them – they were forcing his hand. She said they were good, and when she came to sing they turned their speaker down so she could be heard. Nice. They could have turned it up to ruin the competition.

She’ll have to see what happens. She can either go back or apply for permits to sing in the Underground or Covent Gardens.

I asked her on the train ride home if she can help me say my R’s better, because I thought she’d know a thing or two as a trained singer. From there she explained to me that I (and most deaf people) talk from my throat. I actually open my throat to talk. She’s -trained- (her emphasis) to open her throat when she sings. But that’s not where the sound should come from. It’s supposed to come from the front of your mouth.

I’ve gone to quite a few speech therapists, even was married to one. They call it cul-de-sac resonance, but don’t know what’s the cause, exactly. Funny how I had to find out from an opera singer. And it’s weird I talk a little like an opera singer sings – I wish I sounded half as good.

So now I have a few things to practice.

Got back and left. It took 2 hours and 15 minutes to get to the airport instead of the hour I thought it would. It worked out but was close, especially since they hand searched my bag.

It’s starting to hit me that I have a J-O-B and have to W-O-R-K tomorrow. I get to see Brady this weekend though. I got him a diablo, I’m sure he’ll love it.

Saturday After I arrived at my hostel and checked in, I took a bus out to go dancing at “Salsacrity”. I only showed up about an hour and a half before it was over. Good dancers, live band, it was fun.

I asked the organizer how to get a cab home. She was super friendly and got a band member (Toby) to take me home. She also introduced me to the owner of the website where I found them (LondonSalsa.co.uk) so I talked to him and his girlfriend/wife for a bit. They were so pleased someone from Chicago used the site. After the dancing was over, i helped clean up a bit then went up to the Kizbomba room. Asked what kind of music they were playing. “Kizbomba.”

Oh.

Toby and his girlfriend drove me home. When we got there he wrote down all the things he thought I should do. #1 Thames River Festival (ThamesFestival.org). #2 – British Museum.

The Thames Festival takes place on the river that divides London in two. It was packed, so much that it was hard to get anywhere. I actually crossed a bridge over the Thames to go around the crowd. They had a lot of exhibits and such, food vendors and people selling kitsch.

The best was performances at the National Theater: Miss Behave, a comedienne/acrobat; and Not Another Boy Band, a trio of, well, comedians / acrobats / jugglers. Think of Will Ferrell if he could juggle, flip and such. It was raining off and on throughout the acts. I saw a guy with a sheets of newspaper over his head, so I asked if I could have the rest, just as it started raining harder. Lucky me, he gave me them.

After that I went to the film museum around the corner. It had a room where you can view thousands of film clips, some from the 1800s. I didn’t stay long but I’ll go back.

Then I went to the parade. I missed some of it, wish I didn’t. They were fantastic. Every group was lit up with spotlights, flashing LEDs, lights within the sculptures, or my favorite – ultraviolet light and fluorescent paint. They also had their own music. I happened to be near where they were reviewing the paraders. Every group stopped right in front of me.

After that was the fireworks. They set them off in synch from 4 boats on the Thames. It started a half hour late but was worth it. Great show.

I didn’t try to go home right away. The Tube / Underground / London Subway is always crowded. Wasn’t interested in being packed like a sardine. So I walked around to another bridge and enjoyed the view. Got home late, of course.

Monday I went to the British Museum. It had amazing displays of Egyptian stone carvings. Before it became politically incorrect to strip tombs/dig sites of artifacts, the French and British went to town.

The Rosetta stone was there, and I really liked their Egyptian/Assyrian collection. Also the buddhas in the Oriental collection. I actually didn’t see many exhibits because I spent so much time in these two exhibits.

I’ll go back – I asked someone who works there what her favorite part was. She said the second floor of the Egyptian exhibit. I didn’t know there was a second floor!

Rented a bike after and rode around.

I’ll admit it. The fact the Brits drive on the wrong side of the road disturbs me greatly. I follow other bikers just to be safe. Their bike rental setup is very, very cool though. Easy to use – you pay once, and you can use bikes from any station, anytime you want for 24 hours.

Tuesday (today) I’m going to Kew Gardens if the weather holds out. Then Cuban dance lessons and dancing tonight.

So I looked up a recipe and we discussed the translations. We decided to have it for lunch on Saturday.

We watched “Holland’s Got Talent.” and it was pretty good. They had breakdancers, a juggler/drummer guy, an absolute weirdo, and two violinist “cats” with an attitude.

Saturday Harm went to the market early, and got all the right stuff for crab rangoon. We then went to the Huizen Festival (they live in Huizen, a former fishing village).

Highlights:
- Cilia jumping 20 feet to a mat in an inflatable ride.
- Buying a diablo and yo yo for Brady.
- The people in traditional dress.
- Real stroopwaffels – they look exactly like flat ice cream cones but are filled with caramel. Crunchy, gooey and warm.
- Going to the steeple/bell tower of a church while the bell was ringing for 15 minutes straight. Harm and Cilia stayed partway downstairs until the bell stopped ringing so loud. I just covered my good ear and went up. It was spiral stairs then 3 staircases that were practically ladders.
- Singing flowers (you have to see a picture)

We then went back home and made the crab rangoon. They only lasted long enough to cool down. Cilia’s birthday is next week and they are planning to make them as appetizers.

I also had to fit everything I bought into my bag. At the airport they told me my bag was 2 kilos overweight. They also told me jeans are about one kilo. I moved some stuff into a shopping bag I brought for this very problem – solved. Harm drove me to the airport – I didn’t want to go.

I have a stopover in London for 4-5 days. Going to a salsa night in London tonight. A bus runs from my hotel all the way up there. I hope it’s still running at 1am, or I’ll have to take a famous London cab.

Haven’t decided what I’ll do past that. Am on the plane waiting for it to take off.

Maybe they’ll have ponies. Funhouse mirrors. Sparkly stuff. And fairies! And a little circus or two!

Their website is in Flash, which won’t run on my iPhone or the hostel computer. So I asked Harm if he could take a look at it for me. He sent me a translation that basically said it was on for thursday night.

Yes! Magical Spiegeltent, here I come!

Walked over to the Diamond Museum. They had little handheld gadgets where you type in numbers from next to the displays, and it tells you what you are looking at. They printed out the English version for me.

The story of diamonds is pretty interesting. They were first found in India. The one thing that’s most interesting wasn’t mentioned in the museum. Antwerp handles 80 or 90 percent of the raw diamonds in the world, and traditionally this was dominated by Orthodox Jews. There’s a lot of trust involved. Now 65-80% of diamonds are handled by Indians of the Jain religion. They have very similar values to the Jews and are also very culturally isolated. The Jains were willing to send raw diamonds to India or other places for finishing (at 1/5th the price) while the Jews didn’t want to send diamonds out of their sight. They are changing that now before they are completely pushed out.

Kind of interesting how it has come full circle with the Indians and diamonds.

Walked back and had lunch. Then I went riding to the northern part of the city. Saw the “Graffiti Bridge” where they had some serious artwork underneath. The skate park was next door, and it’s the best I’ve seen.

Then I went to Museum Aan De Stroom (Museum at the Stream). It is a cubical type structure with 11 stories of red brick and wavy glass. You can get to the top via escalators, one escalator for each 90 degree turn around the building. This outside view is actually free to visit.

I went to the top, looked around and took a few pictures. It had been drizzling all day, but it started pouring just as I went back inside from the roof. Ugh. I waited a bit for it to let up some, and finally rode home. Got pretty wet on the way.

I laid everything out to dry, then took a nap. When I woke up it was magical Spiegeltent time! It took awhile to get out there, had to go back out past the museum, north to the harbor area.

When I walked into the Spiegeltent they were dancing Cuban style salsa. Uh oh. I tried dancing Cubano salsa before… and the women looked at me like something was seriously wrong with me. Like my mom dropped me on my head when I was little. (No, that’s my brother. Yes he was dropped, and yes something is wrong with him. But he’s ok. Just has delusions he’s the favorite child.)

They did have other stuff I could dance to (Bachata and Merengue) and had something called Zouk, which is actually pretty cool – kind of looks like a slinky style of Rumba. The Zouk I saw at the salsa congress didn’t look anywhere near this good.

But I’m at the Spiegeltent, and it’s supposed to be magical and mirrored! There were a few hundred mirrors – all on the disco ball at the center of the tent. No other mirrors. But the tent was red velvet, the music was good, the dance floor was decent and the dancers were too. So it was a good night. Just not really magic or speigelly.

Eventually I figured out they were dancing Cuban style salsa to Cuban music and Puerto Rican style salsa to regular salsa music. I saw Leo, a Bachata instructor from the salsa congress and talked to him about it. He said it’s just a mix. Talked to the DJ because I was enjoying the Cubano music and he wrote down a play list for me. Very nice.

Got home around 1:15am and went to bed.

When I woke up I packed and went to the Vridajmarkt (Friday Market). In Madrid (Spain) I went to El Rastro (the Stain) and had a great time – it’s a monster outdoor market on Sundays. Bought 4 pairs of shoes and stuff for Brady. The Friday Market was just junk. And whats worse, they were auctioning off the junk a bit at a time. No thanks.

Went back to the trainstation and bought my tickets. Then went and loaded my bags onto the bike. Then rode around the station looking for which platform. It was two levels underground.

The guy sitting by me on the train is an economist for the United Nations. He is doing a report on how the oil wealth in his country (Ghana) should be used. It’s pretty interesting. When he gets excited hetalksreallyfastandrunshiswordstogethersoicantlipreadhim.

Should be back at Harm and Jovanka’s place just as the kids are getting home from school (3pm).

Tomorrow, London.

The hostel was nearby and single rooms were cheap so I got one. Laid out ALL my stuff to dry since I was rained on for over 4 hours. There wasn’t much ventilation though. Stuffy. (They moved me to the best room in the place this morning.). I passed out for 3 hours then went walking in the rain.

Went out walking looking for FOOD – didn’t stop to eat all day because of the rain. Bought a “big frites” (fries) with curry sauce. It should be called “Feed a family of four” fries, and hungry as I was, could barely finish half of it.

Looking out my window this morning I could see the Orthodox Jews walking or biking by on their way to work. Diamonds are supposedly a traditional occupation for them. Antwerp handles 80% of the raw diamonds in the world, there is a district by the train station exclusively for diamonds. I’m going to the diamond museum tomorrow.

Walked to Chinatown and looked around. Wanted to buy a diablo (Chinese yoyo gadget) with 2 sticks for Brady. Didn’t find it. Got groceries and went back. Scared the heck out of myself opening a bottle of sparkling cider wine, the cork exploded like a gunshot, hit the ceiling and bounced off the floor.

My rule for picking wines is 2 things – anytime I see someone buying 2+ of something, it’s probably good. And anytime I see there’s few left on the shelf, that’s also a good sign. No, I haven’t gotten drunk, the alcohol content is low. And wine is as cheap as coke and other soft drinks so why not?

Found that there is supposedly a Lindy night tomorrow at a jazz club. I only have white running shoes so I found a few vintage stores. In Belgium vintage mostly means 80s style clothes, but some 70′s and 60′s stuff too. Found leather shoes for 12 euros, but because I walked in during happy hour, they were only 6 euros – about $9. The guy who rung up my order had a poofy MacGyver haircut – think mullet with the mullet cut off – and too-tight blue adidas pants. Not blue jeans, pants. It kinda worked for him.

Went to the stores other location and found a leather coat for 25 euros – a little less than $40. Fits perfect but needs a button sewed. Sweet.

There’s chocolate stores all over so I stopped at one. Ordered every kind they had with alcohol in it. (No, I wasn’t trying to get drunk on chocolate). Yum. Also went over by the cathedral and found a hot chocolate place. Amaretto goes well in hot chocolate.

(I’m probably sounding like an alcoholic, but I haven’t even been buzzed this whole trip. So there.)

I also biked through the main shopping street. It is WEDNESDAY. And it was CROWDED at 3pm. I’d HATE to see it on the weekend.

Antwerp isn’t Holland, not as nice. But it has interesting architecture, a huge cathedral and many ornate old buildings.

Going to the diamond museum and further out in the city tomorrow. Friday I’m going to this supposedly funky market before taking a train to Amsterdam and then to Leiden to get to my buddy Harm’s place. He and Jovanka have adorable girls that laugh at me a lot.

Saturday I have a flight to London.

It poured through much of the morning, I just stayed in the water park. Most pools/parks in the US seem to close if there’s rain, but this was just a rainstorm, not a thunderstorm. I finally ran out in the rain and moved my bike to a covered “porch”. Ate breakfast, packed, put on my rain suit then left. If course it never rained the rest of the day.

I tried to take two ferries – after biking into the wind so much I was looking forward to a break. The ferries weren’t running. I did go east though, and didn’t even have to pedal for almost 1.5 miles. The difference was like sledding downhill instead of plodding up a never-ending hill.

I planned on going to a campground near a small town called De Heen. Problem was it took forever each time I went south. So I got there around 9. The campgrounds (2 different campgrounds) on my maps didn’t exist, so I was riding around looking for them.

Finally I stopped at a golf club. There was a small party going on. The waiter told me they used to have a camping there but it closed. But it would be fine if I camped outside. And they have showers I could use.

Perfect!

Turns out the showers were the style used at campgrounds, this may well be the leftovers from when they had a campground. I went to bed at 10:30 then was up by 6 and left by 7:15.

Cant believe how nice Dutch people are!

Trying to make Antwerp tonight. Harm tells me there’s a storm heading to Zeeland, and I’m at the east side of Zeeland. The wind is coming from the south, and I have to go south.

Bye!

Am at Port Zelande, a small island in the southwest of Holland. Yesterday I got pretty far and could have made it all the way here. But I wanted to make the most of this campground so I stopped early yesterday. It has a water park that’s mostly indoors. Was supposed to have hot tubs, and I’ve got saddle soreness so I was looking forward to that. The hot tubs are really just warm tubs though.

The most interesting part is their lazy river. It is kinda like a lazy river / waterfalls / waterslide combination and the water is really warm. Brady would love it here. They also have an outdoor rock climbing structure and a ramp for launching bikes into the water (flips) and buggies powered by sails or kites. Not enough wind or I’d go try the buggies.

Yesterday I reached the coast and started heading south. There was a ferry near a town called Rozenburg. There was a huge crowd waiting, and when the ferry docked, a lot of people were cheering as a bunch of bicyclists were getting off the ferry. Apparently there was a bike race in or from Spain. (My bike nut co-worker Dan told me it was a grand tour of some kind – not a race per se) I just happened to show up when 50+ riders were arriving. It took forever for them to clear out so we could board the ferry.

Yesterday’s campground was honking huge. It even had its own restaurant. My neighbor at the campsite was an electrician for the infrastructure – locks, bridges and such. He works 40 hour weeks but was on an employer sponsored weekend trip – he’s on call if something breaks. I told him I’ve only seen the locks at the Chicago river and upper Michigan – Sault St Marie. He told me in this small area alone, there’s 7 locks.

The way it works is there is a huge canal network. There’s many roads and even more bike paths (fietspads) that follow the canals. The farmers can tap into the canals to irrigate their fields. But the canal is about 6-9 feet above everything else. So boats have to be raised/lowered. There’s also drawbridges everywhere. The smallest canal requires a drawbridge for all crossings.

He came back over to lend me an adapter for the outdoor outlet. Their electric outlets are normally 2 prong and I have an adapter for that. But the 3 prong was new to me.

Gotta go my laundry is dry. I’m typing/sending this on the 4th (my birthday) but the internet is about $8 an hour – no thanks.

My rear end is sore from 7 hour days of riding. Tomorrow I’m going to a camping that has a sauna, jacuzzi and steam room to work the kinks out. Crazy that A campground would have that but I’m not complaining.

Holland is truly gorgeous. The Dutch people I talk to are amused when I explain that in the US when we make a movie, there’s someone called a location scout that has to go around to find a pretty location for shooting. In Holland, they could play darts with a map to find good locations for shooting a movie.

Geez as I was typing this the owner cane out and put a candle jar by me. Then she asked me if I wanted something to drink. Brought me a glass of red wine and wouldn’t take my money.

I love this country.

CodeIgniter recently dropped support for PHP4.  So we can expect quite a few improvements, but CodeIgniter will always be very limited.

The reason is that the whole framework is organized around the concept of a Singleton – $this.

Singletons have a very few uses, but otherwise are very, very, very bad.  Codeigniter is an example of this.

The reason is, Singletons assumes that you’re only ever going to need one – and when they’re wrong, it makes things very hard to expand.  CodeIgniter assumes you’re only going to need one controller.  And they’re wrong, of course.   Because of Singletons, Codeigniter can’t have a decent HMVC (hierarchical model-view-controller) implementation.

There are a couple libraries that claim to offer multiple controllers – Wick and Modular Extensions.  But BOTH break when you try to use any libraries that use PHP5 autoloading of models.  Ion_Auth dies if loaded in HMVC.  DataMapper DMZ dies if loaded in HMVC.

Posting on the CodeIgniter forums about wanting to load a controller within a view will get a visit from the MVC police.  “I don’t understand why you would want to…” is the most common response.

They’re idiots.

Look at any decent application or website of even moderate complexity, and you’ll see why multiple controllers are needed.

• Facebook has ads and widgets all over the page.  Some are loaded via ajax too.
• Xero has a great interface, but I pity the fool that wants to put all that in one controller.
• Piwik is a great analytics application that allows multiple dashboards, and you can rearrange the way they show.

Kohana was based on the CodeIgniter concept, but is based on the factory method, not singletons.  So apparently it can handle HMVC easily.  The two things that stop me from using it:

• Smaller user community (which means fewer people to outsource to)
• Lack of documentation.
• Lack of concern for backwards compatibility.

HMVC is the only real drawback in CodeIgniter as compared to Kohana.  Sure, the Kohana code is based PHP5 OO features while CodeIgniter is primarly PHP4 OO based.  But you can still get things done – except for HMVC.