The Box

As modern commerce unfurled,
transport and manufacturing were twirled.
What I mean to say
is that they had to change ways,
for the box that changed the world


The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger
by Marc Levinson

Atlanta United FC News

Brilliant academy performance. For such a young team the U18s showed great team work, lovely strategic play. Add some speed and they have a winning formula.

And, now, we have a coach: Gerardo "Tata" Martino, who brought Argentina in to the Copa America final.

Ready for 2017

Hello Kafka my old friend...

I had to fill in a form.

In order to get a number

that would allow me to

fill in a form

in order to be registered

in a database with the same information

as the database of the original form

which matches any incorporation document/Companies House registration.

This all failed when

the second form did not recognize the information from the first form

which I re-added manually

both typing, and copying and pasting.

I phoned.

Telephone support is not allowed for specific queries.


Government, Kafka, whatever.

US Open 2016

With two of the best finals, Women's and Men's.

Respect. And yay Stan Wawrinka.

That is all.

Boats on the beach

Big props to Lake Lanier Islands resort - 45 minutes out of Atlanta and you're in another - well managed - world.

Question to the boat-owners: you were all there, sitting on your speed boats, with drinks and music and friends. And you didn't move. At all. All day. Which is what I did. On the beach. Without having to pay for a boat. So my question is: why do you have a boat?

Cleverness in search of a subject

For the series of "Sentences I like":

The list breathes satisfaction at its own supposed cleverness and profundity, but it is cleverness in search of a subject and profundity without anything to be profound about. 

The Knife Man

There once was a young Scottish farmer,
who, though neither graceful nor a charmer,
proved an in-born ability
for scientific inquiry.
Of anatomical studies, he was a reformer.

The Knife Man: Blood, Body Snatching, and the Birth of Modern Surgery

by Wendy Moore

Message to London

You are wonderful as always - lively diverse and with great theatre

However.

You could gain from figuring out your night trains. And your wifi - I should not have to register to a service to access free coffee shop wifi.

On the flip side: how has Come Dine With Me not been exported to the US yet??

AT - Southern Terminus

A hike down to the Appalachian Trail southern terminus, then up the Benton Mackay trail and around to the AT starter point. A night at Amicalola Falls Lodge. A morning hike to the waterfalls and up the AT approach trail. And home.

Grand & crumbling Rome is the chorus
for the Farneses, Orsinis, the Sforzas.
See power and might
betrayal anger and fright
of one's life under the Borgias.

City of God

by Cecelia Holland

USTA in Atlanta

That time my husband entered a USTA tournament and I channeled Marcie Tidwell and Jerry Maguire to become the perfect agent.

Sworn to Silence

A peaceful, rural locality
shaken by rash criminality.
Set amongst the Amish,
readers left astonished
by such unexpected brutality.




Sworn to Silence (Kate Burkholder #1)
by Linda Castillo

Guns N Roses

Guess who still got it?

Oh, Trumpeteurs

My initial thought, during the RNC Cruz speech, was "is he really going to give a whole speech without saying "Trump? He is really going to do it, he is really going to do it."

My second thought was "Cruz is not saying not to vote for Trump, why are all these delegates making that assumption?"

And that is all. This post is self-centered, but then the blog is called My Side of Every Story.

Good deeds

I saw a man walking down a busy, dirty city street picking up litter as he went.

Most unusual, and impressive. I wanted to shake his hand. But he had been picking up litter, so ugh.

The Singer from Memphis

Nicolaos now married and grown.
The challenge for a land not his own.
Off to discover
to whom goes the honour
of claiming the Egyptian throne

The Singer from Memphis

The latest in Gary Corby's series

A comment on all 6 books: reliable fun. Each book takes place in a different place or cultural event/setting, giving great insight to the ancient world. Corby's story-telling style is the right balance of descriptive and leisurely: the characters and places come alive but the story continues at a good pace. 

There is a strong element of humor - dare I say even satire - thrown in, as well as personality traits of historical figures that remove the distance of time and space, making them people we meet every day. 

History, satire and murder mysteries, it's a winning combo. 

My Hobbies

Include:

• Pub trivia
• A bocce league
• (Inordinate amounts of reading followed by) writing book reviews in limerick form
• Learning most FIGS languages on DuoLingo
• Making ice cream
• Walking / Hiking

It's a superficial miracle that I have any friends at all

There once was a lady from Boston
Her story was told, but not often
Along came wise Karin
Who said "This needs sharing!"
A book for you to get lost in.

The Gilded Years

by Karin Tanabe 

My apologies for the simple approach in this limerick: I have been wanting to use the classic "there once was" structure and this book afforded me the possibility. Also, full disclosure, Ocean and I are trying to find a business use for the situation in which Sharon is Karen and this was too good a chance not to use that rhyming ploy as well.

There is so much in this book - the impressive level of research is just one element to delight my nerdy little heart. The historical setting: in the 1890s some universities had started admitting African-American students, albeit generally one at a time. Vassar was not amongst these, I'm sad to report. But of course, what is race, really, in a body made up of who knows what mixes of people. (That may be my own typical anarchical view of life).

The character of Lottie Taylor is written to perfection, the reader can't help but get caught up in her spirit and friendship, feeling the whole time as the characters do that she is highly flawed but undeniably likable. She doesn't drop a beat throughout the book.

Karin also introduces the complexity of social views in America at the time. We know about racial views in the south, but she adds the contrast between north-east and west. The frontier-lands, as they were, were the most forward thinking of the time in most things social (drinking bans aside). I confess some ongoing frustration at the common (though not universal) north-eastern belief that there is "us" and then the rest of the country trailing behind. The social structures of NY and its environs, at the turn of the century, were especially strict, and I do believe that if women's lib had been left to these areas we would be wondering about it still today. Thank you Wyoming for leading the charge on that particular note (first female justice of the peace and, of course, first state to grant women's right to vote).

Iddio la creó

Ah, povera Italia.

We are out of Euro 2016. But with our heads held high.

It's a double whammy as Germany has broken our winning streak against them, great team that they are they had never beat us in a competition game. Until now. Having said that, we tied on the field. We lost in penalties after 18 shots taken. You can't call it more equal than that.

A few comments - Buffon, what a captain. Conte, I love your coaching style; coach as MVP. Pellé, too bad about the pre-penalty over-confidence, you played a terrific tournament. In the words of my passionate and wise husband: "Pellé le prende tutte!"

Grazie Azzurri, ci avete dato orgoglio nel calcio italiano.

Buying vs Renting

Alex Tabarrok on the subject. This is an excerpt though it is most of the post. Click for the whole thing.

Housing is overrated as a financial investment. First, it’s not good to have a significant share of your wealth locked into a single asset. Diversification is better and it’s easier to diversify with stocks. Second, unless you are renting the basement, houses don’t pay dividends. Stocks do. You can hope that your house will accumulate in value but don’t count on it. Indeed, you should expect that as an investment your house will appreciate less than does the stock market. You didn’t expect to get a great investment and a place to live in the meantime did you? TANSTAAFL.
Another problem with houses is that home ownership locks people to location making it harder to move for jobs. The problem is especially severe because no one likes to sell at a “loss” even when it is rational to do so. So when jobs disappear and home prices fall instead of moving, people hold on for too long just hoping that things will get better. It’s troubling that both across states in the United States and across countries higher home ownership predicts higher unemployment rates. See Does High Home-Ownership Impair the Labor Market?So why do so many people buy houses? Houses are lovely if you enjoy interior decorating, backyard barbecues and talking to your neighbors. Houses today also come bundled with a significant side asset – access to so-called public schools. One argument for school vouchers, by the way, which isn’t emphasized as much as it should be, is that vouchers would break the strong connection between where you live and what schools you attend. Poor people would have a better chance at attending good schools if schools and housing weren’t bundled together so closely