bats: no vacancy

Zurich is, like most old european cities, full of churches. Of course, I have not met anyone who goes to church here. Well maybe Frau Prossner (see blog: Die Washe), she must probably the only way to stay alive as an old woman alone in an apartment. Let's just say that it is highly unlikely that I will be hanging with the church going type during our time here.

So anyway, the peeps I have met don't seem to notice how profound it is to suddenly have the whole city filled with the sound of hundreds (thousands?) of massive church bells clanging away.

I think that there is some sort of state funding of the church(s). Someone told me if I happen to make any money here and pay taxes, part of the process is that you are asked what church you belong to and a portion of that goes to that church. There is naturally a form to fill out if you are an atheist and they will refund the money to you.

Anyway, there are a lot of churches here. Periodically the decide to ring their bells. It makes quite the racket. Suddenly you look up from whatever you are doing--and realize that the normally quiet Zurich night is not so quiet. Opening the window is to envelop yourself in a truly surround sound experience. Zurich is in a Valley, it is very densely populated and there is a church within spitting distance of every citizen. I guess it made sense before the age of the car and the auto. You gotta get out of the house, you gotta go meet a chick to do the whole life thing before it is over and you are in the grave. 'Fore electric lights and flugzeugs, this ain't no party, this ain't no disco, I ain't messin around, you get your but down to the local community center and get busy. That meant the church.

Right. So the Swiss seem to be very much into the waste-not want-not kind of mindset. Makes a lot of sense. Bunch of mountain people, no natural resources, surrounded by at best begrudging allies, it is probably better to make do with what you got. The recycling rate here is something simply awe inspiring. Voluntarily, these folks bundle up and schlep down to the local center: glass-three colors-sorted, paper, two types-sorted, PET plastic, batteries-all types, milk containers, compost, vegetable oil, mineral oil, metal, compost, fabric as well as a bunch of stuff that is on a list on the inside of our cupboard if you want to take a look and can read german.

So, since the Roman times, these swiss have been building churches and at each church you have a minimum of 8-10 bells in the belfry. Each bell has been crafted with that special old world knowledge that means that somehow the great, great, great, grandfather of the bellmaker can reach down, wop the poor bellmaking yop on the side of the head and tell him to add that 1.5% of silicon to the bronze at just the right moment in the casting process to make the bell ring like a, ring like a, well you know. So let's just say each bell has its own note as well as its complement of overtones and undertones. I know that bells do this as I once invited a musician down to help tune the bells on a piece that I was working on (www.zacharycoffin.com/belltower) and learned all about the possible sound waves, overtones, undertones and more. At some point, as my eyes started to cross, he mercifully proclaimed that my arbitrary slicing of the gas tanks quite melodic and we left them as they were, but I digress.

Anyway, now that we are well into the 21st century, have airplanes, cell phones and the internet, Zurich has a whole hell of a lot of churches and even more bells. Well waste not want not, and if these churches are going to get a state subsidy, they better damn well earn their keep.

So, on the quarter hour, you get a single chime (maybe two). On the half hour a double with maybe an extra bell or three thrown in for harmony. On the hour, you get several chimes with several bells of different tones. It is actually quite nice, particularly when you are walking home drunk, reminds you to check the clock on your cell phone and figure out how much trouble you will be in come morning.

Saturday at 6pm when the stores all closed two hours ago (by law) and YOU should already be at home cooking dinner so that you can get to bed early and go to church they ring from about 5:47 til 6:03 just in case you didn't get the fucking message.

Sunday morning, because you should have already gotten up, fed the cows, made breakfast, mopped the floor, dressed the kids and are half way to the lords house, they start banging away at those bells at some ungodly (or maybe I should say godly) period of time before 7 and don't stop until way after it seems rational to do so. Thankfully I have only experienced this on a rational level once or twice, otherwise having drunk enough and stayed up late enough to happily incorporate this madness into the already overstuffed nightlife that I call my dreams (something I inherited from my mother). Let's just say that the Swiss are not inclined to let a resource go unused and the only bats that could live in these belfries must be quite deaf.

Maybe it is all part of some very sophisticated bell maintenance program designed to keep the bell makers in business, but let me tell you, come a significant event, like: Christmas Eve, the marking of our Christ be art thou in heaven, King of Kings, Saviour of our souls the churches do their very best to crack each and every bell in the town of Zurich. It is absolute bedlam, it goes on for what seems like hours. The whole town is filled with the sound of very nicely tuned bells being bashed randomly, repeatedly and with absolute abandon. I wonder if they let the lunatics out of the asylum and promise them a a cherry pie and a new pair of lederhosen if they can just break one of those bells. The valley is filled with a cacophony of sound, and it just seems to go on for ever.

It is actually quite wonderful. I wish they did that in America. The only church bells I know of in Atlanta are recordings broadcast with large loudspeakers in the belfry. Lame. I think when I go back to the good ole US of A and figure out where to settle down, I am would like to build me a belfry, stock it with bells and periodically bash the hell out out em, why not?

Die Wasche

Ok,

So the Swiss are serious about the laundry. Well, they are serious about a lot of things, but on the domestic front, laundry is one serious fucking issue.

Here is the deal. Public laundromats are rare and based on an unscientific sampling (of one), nasty, expensive and poorly maintained. Must not be much money in it. Every apartment building here seems to have a special room in the basement with a washing machine. They do not use dryers, at least in the ones that we have been in, instead they have a bunch of lines strung to hang dry.

The better places have a dehumidifier and fan arrangement that dries the laundry quite quickly. Other places (the one we are in now) just have the lines strung up, so in a damp winter it is at least two days til dry.

So the entire building has the use of the laundry room, but there is no interest in sharing it. Times and dates are assigned for each apartment and a schedule is posted in the laundry room. Woe unto you if you:

1) Do laundry out of turn.
2) Leave any sort of mess.
3) Forget to turn off the water, turn off the power, clean the filter in the base of the machine, forget to leave the little drawer for the detergent in the closed position.
4) Leave laundry up past your alloted time because it is not dry yet.

There must have, at some time in the past, been a nationwide rash of laundry theives, or maybe laundry perverts, because there is a key for every laundry room that hangs on an appropriate hook. When it is your turn, you are supposed to take the key and lock the door. This prevents anyone from stealing your tighty whiteys or sniffing your panties, which is clearly a risk in the safest, most law abiding country I have ever visited.

Based on another unscientific sample, if you are over 45, you will probably take the key and lock the door, thereby protecting the family jewels or something. Younger people generally could care less and tend to be much looser about doing laundry out of turn.

In every place we have stayed, laundry has been a big deal. It was the biggest deal when we spent a month in Hönng. At this place they had all the bells and whistles, and I would feel quite comfortable eating off the floor. Spotlessly clean. So we came in like typically clueless Americans (in our defense, we had just gotten here and had no clue). In this place, 8 apartments shared the wash room. So things were strict. You have from 6pm the night before until 6pm the evening of your turn to get yo shit washed.

The first wash, I was late getting the drying laundry out. It made sense to me, yeah the stuff was on the line, but we were only taking a small portion of the room and it was really close to dry, needed maybe another hour. The washers here are super slow, so it was at least an hour before a load could be done. No dice, we get a knock on the door. I tried to explain my position in my pidgen german, but I was told in no uncertain terms to get my nasty cloth out now so that the woman whose turn it was could "let me do my thing" which sounded really funny when she said it in english.

The second time, Jill did the down comforters, as Sofia had a little incident. She neglected to clean up some feathers and the filter on the machine. We get another knock on the door. This time at 7am.

So now we have moved into a new place, the wash room is shared by only 4 apartments, which makes it easier, but the schedule is set up so you have half a week every other week. Well, everyother week is pretty tough when a) you have been traveling for the last week, your clothes are dirty and you missed the first turn cause of the schedule. b) you arrived here in suitcases that you took on the plane and only have enough underware and socks for about 8 days. c) you have a very active 1 year old, who is growing out of half her clothes, is fascinated with ink pens and anything else dirty and has no real control of bladder or poop functions which leads to "incidents".

Well, since we actually have a lease and are here in this place on an official level, I made it my mission to bring about some changes.

The big deal is Frau Prousser who has lived on the second floor for the past 30I years. Not only does this woman have nothing to do, and thus is in your business all the time but she expects her wash days every other week to remain completely unchanged. She also speaks no english.

We had just moved in after travelling to Venice and staying in another apartment. We managed to get some wash done, but a week into the deal we were in pretty desperate shape. The laundry door was locked, someone had the key, we were recycling underware, not a good scene. So I talked to the woman whose turn it was (a perfectly reasonable couple underneath us who have yet to complain about Sofia slamming heavy objects on the floor randomly and late) and she said she was almost done and we could step in on her turn and get our laundry done.

Great, saved by the bell. So I am down there like the dutiful Hausmann that I have become and doing laundry. Frau Prousser comes down to chat, and we try to find some common ground. I suggest, since the end of the year is coming, that we need to change some things. Maybe a little bit of flexibility, maybe we could share the room on occasion or something.

She doesn't like this and complains to the neighbors. So now the neighbors are up in arms, worried that she will complain to the landlord. Typically American, complaints to the landlord scare me about as much as bannana pudding, which is to say not much. Now Frau Prousser's complaint is not based on anything other than the perception that we might do something wrong. Of course, in between loads, we had neglected to leave the little detergent drawer open, which is a serious offense in the world of Frau Prousser. Why she is going into the laundry room when it isn't her turn is anybodies guess, nonetheless, she complained to the neighbors, who felt is so serious that they had to come with a bottle of wine to discuss the serious situation developing in Die Wasche.

Ok, whatever, groovy. We got our laundry done, we have some stuff still hanging in the room, but by now it has moved into our turn and we would even have the right to take the bloody key and stop Frau Prousser from sniffing our underware. The old woman comes and knocks on our door and wants to make sure that come mid-day tomorrow when our turn is over (more than 24 hours away at this point) that we would have our shit out of the laundry room.

She was very insistant and repeated several times to make up for my bad german, how important it was that she have the laundry all to herself exactly as scheduled at noon. Man, they even complain if they think you might do something wrong, and they are not bashful about telling you. The Swiss are all about "trust but verify".

Right on.

Zürich, maybe transport is key

We have now been in Zürich for two months. So maybe I can say that I am getting a feel for the city. We will be here til mid summer, so my thoughts and feelings are sure to change.

A few observations:

OK, lets get to the meat of the situation. Zürich is boring.

Now that we are past that, what is going on here? A city of half-million. Situated on a large natural lake on the Limmats river which is the drain from the lake (fed by snowmelt) this seems somehow unique to me, but all old europe cities had to have some sort of water reason for being, I guess.

Dead smack in the center of Europe, but not a part of the EU. Seperate currency completely surrounded by the EU. The trains here go everywhere. I guess the planes go everywhere, but I have yet to leave by air, so I don't know yet.

Seems to be a population boom going on here. Little fuckers everywhere. And it is not just because I have a little fucker of my own. There are a lot of em here. Not sure the demographic reasons at this time, but my unscientific poll tells me that the Zürichers are feeling comfortable enough about their lives to have a population positive amount of screamers to bundle up and trundle out into the snow.

My wife, Jill, is studying at the major technical university here. Lots of foreigners, and they all seem to be hustling for some angle to stay. Many of them, it seems, are being actively tossed out by the very effecient swiss border patrol, or whatever long german word that department is. Why? Why do they want to stay so?

The weather sucks. Day after day of grey, snow mixed with rain. The valley that defines Zürich also creates a very low ceiling. Mitigates the worst of winter, but seriously socks you into the grey. For many of the same reasons, plus being in the center of industrialized Europe, the air quality is nothing to write home about either.

Maybe it is because the public transit system is to die for.

When I first got here, I looked at the transit map: http://www.zvv.ch/fahrplan_liniennetzplan1.asp

And saw noodles. A complex difficult system. Now that I have been here, I see that it is an insanely dense system built on an old, old plan that can get you around town with staggering swiftness.

Ok, whatever you say, how does this affect you in your everyday life. so this is a quick description of an afternoon of a Hausmann:

I take my daughter to Kinderkrippe. I step out of the house at 1:40pm. I walk 7 minutes to Bucheggplatz. Wait 4 minutes and catch the 69 to Milchbuch, I am lucky, this bus is the bomb, it is the latest by Neoplan http://www.man-mn.de/en/Coaches/ProductsSolutions/City_buses/Lions_City/Entry.jsp
and now that I traveling with this kid carriage called a stroller, three steps into a bus are a total pain in the ass. This new bus rocks. Boom and boom, I am into or out of the bus in a flash. The bus makes a 3 minute trip to Milchbuch, and I walk a path to the kinderkrippe.

5 more minutes, and I am free, drop the kid off at the kinderkrippe, and away I go.

I am back to catch either the 72 or the 69 back to bucheggplatz. I go back to the crib. Take care of laundry, and email, go shopping right down the street and come back with nearly 200chf of stuff. It is the xmas season, so I am gonna buy some food. On the way, I recycle three colors of glass and a few PET bottles, all conviently located near the the bus stop.

So now it is 4:50pm. I have to pick up Sofia at or before 5:55 or there is hell to pay at Swiss daycare. I don't know what exactly would happen, but my knees tremble at the thought of being there after 5:55. The Swiss have no problem telling you when you fuck up. Reticence to bitch doesn't seem to be a part of the culture.

So I take a chance. Leave the flat, walk two blocks, catch the 46 to a totally different part of town, boom, go to a wine merchant and buy a case of wine that I know is good. On the way there, see a bike shop and stop in to buy a bottle of oil... lose 4 minutes. Now it is 5:13. Catch the 46 back, when I am back at the Bahnhof Wipkingin, stop in at the local store to get some plants. Hustle up the street and drop the wine and plants in the laundry room to avoid the three story climb to the flat. Now it is 5:32

Walk back to Bucheggplatz, hop on the 69 and I am back to pick up Sofia by 5:50pm.

Zürich rocks. In less than an hour I moved all over town, took care of all kinds of stuff and did not piss off the kinderkrippe.

Maybe transport is one of the keys to civilized life. In addition, I have lost nearly 10kilos in the past two months.

on parenthood

So here I am in Switzerland. I got a 14 month daughter, she is a lot of work, (need link here to flikr album "Sofia and support crew"). My wife got the gig for us to be here, and now the time is now that she has to produce. She is in the thick of it. That means that I am doing childcare from morn til about 9 or 10pm lately. We have a wonderful 12 hours, three 4 hour afternoons per week of glorious Swiss daycare, praise be. Please note that 12 hours is woefully short of a standard 40 hour workweek and a far cry from the normal obsessed 52 hour week of which I subscribe to when actually working-- well maybe.

So my good buddy, Eric http://www.stamen.com sets up this blog "cause I have so much time to ramble" so ramble I shall. Starting with an excerpt of an email, that I shall promptly forward to his wife (Nikki):

*dear eric* "The funny thing, to me, is that you think that stay at home dad means I actually have time to ramble. It is full time work, and to be honest, interesting but not particularly stimulating intellectually. The moments that I have to actually put something in writing are limited. But I will try. It is after midnight and she just got to bed.

Time.

Here is the cold hard truth here buddy. It is great having a kid, but the first couple of years are a total mind fuck time suck.

When you have munchkins, which you must, because they are soooooooo cute and will eventually be much smarter and stronger than you, one of you will have to drop out of normal life and take care of the sucker(s). If it is Nikki, probably, then YOU should help with the load. Now that I am full time care giver, I see that women have had a bum deal for a long, long time. The work never stops. -- of course I am doing it with style, waking at 10am, smoking, shopping and cooking fine meals cause I seem to be landing these commissions to spin rocks--go figure-- smoking more, and taking the kid to kinderkrippe. -- but it IS relentless and yet somehow relentlessly inane.

Doing it in Switzerland is fun. At least the sheer "otherness" keeps the monotony at bay. I would be out of my mind with boredom if I understood the language.

If we have another kid, I really hope I have the cash for two au-pairs.

LOOP: Law Officer Oversight Project

At Burning Man over the past few years I have personally dealt with two friends who were subjected to an illegal search and busted for small quantities of personal substances. I have heard tales of many more instances of Cops crossing the constitutional line. We live in a constitutional republic and have rights that are above whoever happens to be in power or happens to be wearing a badge. I feel that it is time to push back. Thus, I would like to present the first draft of:



LOOP: Law Officer Oversight Project

Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in the presence of law enforcement in Black Rock City. With this has come numerous reports of officer misconduct, unlawful and unconstitutional searches and arrests.

The idea of LOOP is to build an open-source system designed to bring accountability and oversight to this branch of our government that is there to Serve and Protect.

The basic idea of LOOP is to create a centralized location, both physical and virtual to act as a clearinghouse of information on the activities of the branches of law enforcement that are present at Burning Man.

The goals would be to:

1. Compile listings of the names and ID number of all government Enforcement Officers at Burning Man.
2. Compile all arrest reports/ citations at Burning Man. This can be done by filing FOIA act requests en mass to the appropriate agency.
3. Compile all first person accounts of Law Enforcement activity during the existence of Black Rock City, ideally these will be in the form of depositions under oath, as soon as possible after the incident.
4. Track individual officers and cross reference their activity to ascertain if "justice is blind" or if patterns exist that suggest otherwise.
5. Track the different agencies and cross reference their actions during the event.
6. File FOIA requests on all activities, phone logs, email logs, radio transmission logs of these agencies.
7. Compare these with eyewitness accounts and depositions to compare veracity of accounts.
8. Act as a clearinghouse of information to aid in the legal defense of the citizens of Black Rock City, particularly those being prosecuted for engaging in victimless crimes.
9. Work in a completely open-source manner.
10. To maintain truthfulness, ethical conduct and respect for the US Constitution.

What is needed for LOOP:

Physical presence at Burning Man:

Small trailer to use as office and file storage. This should be placed on either the first or second loop road where all the BM infrastructure is located. It will need:

Secure server and grid power.
Shade structure and waiting area with couches and chairs.
Cool drinks and water.
Secure and lockable file cabinets, maybe (ideally) work paperless with a double redundant server system in disparate locations. Hanky-panky in the middle of the night is always a possibility, auto wireless backup to a server in an undisclosed location within BRC would be close to impossible to tamper with.
Desks, chairs, AC.
Staffing during business hours.
Lawyer available to take depositions on a regular scheduled basis.

Potential Structure:

The key is to build the project "wide and shallow". Use open source as a model to avoid burdening any one person with too much work. Strive towards a robust structure that is not dependent on any individual. This would avoid the "founder's burn-out/obsession syndrome" and put the project above any accusations of political gain.

Use a wiki type system as the fundamental backbone of the project. Design it to be robust and tamperproof from the beginning with secure server access and a rotating team of administrators that have "god power" over the wiki, i.e. root access and ability to make changes without tracking. The nature of this project will guarantee that information, contents and maybe the server itself will appear in open court. The methods used and systems built must be above reproach.

Structure: It might be possible to use the three branch model for this project:

Executive: There should be an executive, one (or more?) person(s) must be elected to make the quick decisions required of any project. The executive must be held to account by the other branches. The executive makes the final decision and tries to carry out the mandate of the council. Reports back to the council with success and failure. Has oversight over Fundraising and PR.

Council: Largest group. Serves as the legislature, charged with coming up with the ways means and hows. Absorbs all new ideas, new workers, defines new committees. Disburses tasks to the various committees, forms new ones when necessary.

Ethics/Legal: Serves as oversight, functions as the judicial branch to ensure that things are done properly, legally and ethically. Direct oversight over the legal department. Must have a balance of individuals, with no more than half (60%?? 75%??) being members of the bar.

All branches should focus on reducing and redacting the wiki to make it clearer and more organized. This helps bring new volunteers up to speed rapidly and attempts to avoid repeating information and mistakes.

Possible Committees/Departments:

Legal: Research relevant law issues. Create a code of conduct and help with staffing the legal department. Develop a standard operating procedure for any encounters with Law Enforcement by LOOP volunteers. Develop a standardized deposition routine that is most likely to withstand challenge in court.

Operations: Set up systems for tracking the activities of law enforcement. Coordinate volunteers for observation, video documentation, reconnaissance and more. Work closely with IT department to create a robust, transparent and useful information system, distributing the required tasks across a large number of people. Build simple, open source methods to coordinate volunteer activity. Build and staff the desert office.

Information Technology: Develop technological ways to track the activities of Law Enforcement. This can be in the form of RADAR, Field agents two way communication, GPS, radio monitoring and any other means necessary. Design of information collation systems that allow a web interface to track patterns of activity both in real time and historically. Launch this information as an open-source document on the web as a historical record to aid future research.

Education: Educate the Citizens of Black Rock City on their legal rights. Educate Law Officers of their responsibilities. Train LOOP volunteers for the task of monitoring Law Enforcement.

Public Relations: One of the most effective tools in a democratic society is knowledge. Informing the citizens of BRC of the services offered by LOOP is mission critical. This should include promo's on all the radio stations, inclusion in the survival guide, regular mention and request for help in JackRabbitSpeaks, news organizations and more.

Accounting: Keep the books, keep em clean and keep them open.

Fundraising: Even with a completely volunteer organization, there are always costs. Raising the money necessary to work with a minimum of hassle and time for the individuals involved is critical to maintain morale. Often the cheapest route is the one that is most painful and disillusioning, accept that mistakes will be made and attempt to raise a little extra to make up for them.

Zach & Sofia in Venice, with floods

Zach & Sofia in Venice, with floods
Originally uploaded by rodenbeck1.

See how easy it is?

Why Venice real estate will be a good investment:

Early draft.

1) The city was the most important city in the world for close to a 1000 years, accordingly, the buildings that were built and the sheer splendor of the place is extraordinary. Other than a causeway and a parking lot, there are no automobiles. No other city on earth uses water and foot paths exclusively in this manner. Geographically it is a totally unique place on earth.

2) is is rather nasty right now because of the regular flooding mixed with the canal system as sewer system.... and the leftover heavy industry of the industrial revolution around the lagoon.

2) Venice currently floods often, when it does, it is a total mess. It will continue to do so until the MOSE project is complete, about 8 years from now, 10 to be safe 12 to be Italian. The MOSE project is brilliant and should protect the city for a couple of hundred years of global warming and the predicted rise of the oceans. The design still allows the lagoon to be flushed by tidal and river action, which is critical.

3) The place is crawling with tourists, providing ready avenues for rental income from a property, particularly in peak season. This is both good and bad, but hey..... It probably isn't that hard to avoid them if you lived there.

4) When the Mose project is complete, it will change everything. Suddenly the inability to plan for the future because of the constant flooding, the city will be able to focus on being beautiful and restoring itself as a living antique.

5) Along with the MOSE project there are parallel projects that are underway that will affect the quality of living: A new sewer system that pumps the funky to the mainland to be treated. A new deep water port that will remove the need to bring in large tankers into the lagoon, reducing the risk of major accident.

6) Italy is currently kind of poor, but is part of the EU, and is ruled by law. The Euro will become very strong eventually and Europe will protect Venice, it is a treasure.

7) The coming information economy will mean a lot of people who can live anywhere with highspeed internet. Thus, they will be much more able to choose where to live. Venice is beautiful, if it smelled good, didn't have to wade to work all winter, and you could make a living there, why not live in such an amazing place? The complexity of the city would lend itself to endless interesting walks and with an influx of hipsters, cool parties.

8) This means that there will probably be a realestate boom in approximatly 10-15 years. It is already the playground of the rich, it will become more so when things stabilize and the information economy becomes more dominant. The time to get in is about 5-7 years from now, the flooding will still be a real problem, but the end in sight.