Fear

So last weekend, my friends and I went to Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, Ohio.  Prior to this trip I hated roller coasters.  My fear of them was only surpassed by my fear of Spiders and other creepy crawlies.  So  we get to Cedar Point, and as soon as we get on the gondolas that take us to the other side of the park, I started getting that fear in the pit of my gut.  I wondered if it was fear or that really big breakfast at Denny's that would make me blow chunks.

Luckily, I was there with my twin, (not really twins, or even blood related) who dragged me on the Magnum first thing.  This coaster was wild.  I kept my eyes open, and while I almost blew chunks coming off of it (after the ride), it was highly enjoyable.  We continued on to the wooden coasters (Mean Streak, and Gemini), and then to the Millennium Force.  The Millennium Force tested all my fears, and in the end I won.  I went on many more coasters that day (including the front of the Raptor, and my favorite, the Maverick), and I never felt sick, or like I was going to die.  The only ones I refused to go on were the Dragster (due to doctors orders), and the Max Air (I had ridden it before and it was physically painful to my body to ride).   I can't wait to go back and hit up the ones I missed.

Fear is a funny thing..   It eats you up, but you just have to face it.  It's like in Green Lantern, when Hal and the gang realize that you don't live without fear, but you overcome it.  Maybe there is hope for my fear of Spiders.  (I'm obscenely arachnophobic).

Also, do you think I should repay twin by taking her to face her fear of monster trucks?

Byron Siwelnor

I'm back. Now Europe the next part.

After Vienna, the family and I went to Madrid.  There we visited my sister, who was interning there.  

In la Plaza del Sol, there was a manefestacion (protest) made up of a tent city of young adults who were protesting not having jobs or enough money to get an education.  They had been there for weeks, and the protest actually ended the day we left.  This just showed us how bad Spain's economy is currently.  Part of it can be attributed to the work day.  They start around 9am, work until lunch, have lunch for 3 hours, then work till 8 or ten.  Then they party.  

Another interesting think from Spain is how the kings are related to the Hapsburgs.  The family relationship between Austria and Spain was evident in the architecture, and grandeur of the palace.  The palace itself was the grandest, most over the top, of all the European Palaces.  (According to my dad who has seen Versailles  and many other palaces)  

Well that brings me to the end of my vacation story.  Tune in next time for real news and stuff.

18 Bicycle Mishaps - CollegeHumor Video Playlist

18 Bicycle Mishaps - CollegeHumor Video Playlist

Thank you for doing this.

We are living in a police state.

We live in a police state.  The prosecutors are going nuts.  Today on the news, I heard about a 70 year old woman was woken up in the middle of the night by some police officers knocking on her door.  She slowly went to open it (she has severe arthritis), but before she could they kicked the door down and sicked a police dog on her.  Then she was arrested and ticketed for interfering with a police officer (while she was being mauled by the K-9).  No warning was given.  The cops covered their own asses by ticketing her.  They were looking for her son, not her.  They gave her no chance to comply or help.  They released the dogs in her home.  That is not right.

http://www.freep.com/article/20110612/NEWS03/106120522/Family-s-life-unravels-claims-dad-raped-daughter
Another story involves a girl with autism with the mentality of a one year old.  "His 14-year-old daughter -- mute and autistic -- communicated only through a technique called facilitated communication (FC), a typing method in which an aide guided her hand."  This was proved to be an ineffective method by EMU and UofM.  The untrained aide reported that the girl was raped by her father and brother.  Now someone with common sense would think "did this really happen"?  The prosecutor proceeded with the case and broke up the family and imprisoned the father.  They interrogated a disabled boy saying that they knew he raped his sister and he should just admit it.  What is wrong with these people.  


I feel that there is a serious lack of judgement in the law enforcement community in several areas and this problem needs to be addressed.  


Byron Siwelnor

Europe Again

So the next morning, I tried to go to the armor and music museum again, but the place was still heavily guarded.  They also prevented me from going to the Museum of Ecclesiastic and Secular Relics.  I ended up going with my mother to St. Stephen's and we took a tour of the bell tower.   It was pretty cool.  Here's a picture of it.  I loved the way the inside is lit.  The place just felt so peaceful.  It was a truly holy place.  I also liked how the outside had gargoyles, my favorite mythical creature.  Then we went to eat, and ended up going to the globe museum.   It had a lot of globes.  It was interesting to see how the view of the world changed as science and exploration advanced.  It stormed on the way back, so we bought some umbrellas, and I found a really nice maize one.  Michigan represent.  I managed to get it back to Michigan too.

Another nice thing about the day was our good deed trail.  At the bell tower, Mom asked for a 5 cent piece to give to some kids who were trying to make a pressed penny.  They looked like she gave them a fortune:)  Later we met a woman from Florida who was hopelessly lost.  We used my skills with a map to walk her back to St. Stephens, and then showed her on a map how to find the Belvedere Museum.  It was fun, and we got to meet new people.  We also had a nice conversation with a woman from San Fransisco who was born and raised in Germany, but forgot how to speak German.  She still has a very thick German accent though.

The following day, mother and I took a tour bus to Baden bei Wien.  (Baden near Vienna)  It was a little town in the south of Austria, surrounded by the foothills of the Alps.  It was famous for its baths, and for being the inspiration and part time home for many composers.  Beethoven wrote his ninth symphony here, and Strauss, Schubert, and Mozart spent time here as well.  It was a nice town that was burned down completely in 1812.  They rebuilt the town in Biedermeier style.  Now every building that is built must be in this style.  After WWII, the Soviets occupied Baden, and only left when they were paid lots of money, and an agreement that Austria would remain neutral in the Cold War.  When they left, they took all the machinery, capital, and infrastructure that wasn't built on an immovable foundation.   It took 50 years for the first hotel to reopen in Baden because of the damage to the economy.  

On the way down to Baden we stopped at a Monastery.  It was beautiful and still operated by the Cistercian Monks.  It is the oldest continually operated monastery of the order.  It houses several Trinity columns, and a massive Romanesque church.  The Cloisters were built over several time periods, as evidenced by the pre-Gothic and Gothic arches.  (Gothic arches are pointier).  The monastery also holds the tombs of the last Badenburgs, which preceded the house of Hapsburg.  The highlight of the tour was when we mistakenly entered the church while the monks were singing.  It was the most beautiful chant I have ever heard.  It filled my heart with a sense of piece and the knowledge that God was there in the music.  Of course some idiots on the tour had to ruin it by taking pictures of the monks.  The tour guide put a stop to that right away.  Seriously, people have to have more respect in the house of God.  

Anyway this concludes my talk of Austria.  Tomorrow the beginning of Spain.  

Europe Day 2

So the second day of the trip I spent by myself.  Mom and Dad had some function to go to, so I set out on my own to discover some musical history.  I first went to the apartments Mozart lived in.  In these apartments, his second in the city, he wrote the Marage of Figaro, and the Magic Flute.  He was good friends with Hayden and composed several string quartets with him in the apartment.  He also taught students, composed, and played billiyards.  I also learned that when he died, he was not by any means poor.  He had a sizable income, however he did suffer from a gambling problem. I also learned that he lived just down the alley in an apartment when he came to Vienna.  He would look out the window at his humble beginnings for inspiration.

After Mozart's home, I went to the museum of Music, which by the way sucked.  It was mostly a museum of the Vienna Philharmonic, and a poor one at that.  I then took it upon myself to eat at Burger King, which had Big Kings and a McKing...  yeah, but hey they had free refills on Coke.  I then attempted to go see a Museum in the Hofberg dedicated to ancient musical instruments and armor.  Unfortunately there was a big protest and the cops were surrounding the museum.  I later found out from one of the officers that the European Economic Summit was happening inside, and they were discussing the economic bailout of Greece.  That was interesting to me as an economist, but I still would have preferred to see the museum.  They sure like to protest in Europe.  They even had the military protecting the summit.

Here are some pictures.  The first is Mozart's apartment.  The second is the museum with the cops barricade. That picture was taken the day before the summit started.

europe weiner and road construction and greece

So it's been a while since I last updated, because I was in Europe, and it costs like 10 euros an hour to use Swisscom's wifi.  This shall document my thoughts of that lovely continent.

My trip started with an almost ending.  I showed up with my family at the Air France ticket desk, and my ticket was not in their computer.  Eventually that snafu was fixed and we did the whole security thing and got to the gate.  While in the boarding line, I realized that I was missing the boarding pass for the trip from Paris to Vienna. That nightmare was also solved quite quickly.  After a seven and a half hour flight to Paris, my legs were dead from being stuck in the small airline seats.  I swear they must have been designed for hobbits.

We landed in Paris and found out we had a half an hour to get to the next gate.  Normally this would not be a problem, but at Charles De Gaul, it was a nightmare.  We had to clear customs and run like hell for half a day's pilgrimage to get to the next gate, going through and leaving security 3 times.  During one of the security checks, they found a bike wrench in by bag that I didn't know was there, and they started yelling in French as my parents ran off towards the plane.  I explained what it was and they let me keep it, and soon after, I caught up to the family.  We got to the gate just in time to catch our flight.  So to all the flight planners out there - Please put the gates closer together for connecting flights.

Vienna is a beautiful city.  A lot of the architecture from the 15th century has survived in old Vienna and the buildings are just breathtaking.  We arrived rather late in the day, so my dad and I went out to see some of the sights.  Our hotel had a beautiful view of Old Vienna, and it was located next to Statdpark and the Wein Canal.  We walked down the street and across the canal and saw something quite beautiful to our eyes - bike lanes.   The bike lanes were painted onto the sidewalk, and you were not allowed to walk in them (unless you had a death wish).  These lanes went all over the city.  You could even rent a bike at Statdpark from a machine for two euros.  Vienna also has a metro and a streetcar for public transportation.

The next day, my family and I set out to explore this historic city in true Lewis fashion.  We saw all we could non stop until the day was done.  We went to St. Stephan's Cathedral first.  This building was beautiful with lots of Gothic  architecture. It had gargoyles (my favorite mythical beings) on the roof and large towers.  Inside , it was full of beautiful paintings, and murals, and the light from the stained glass windows made rainbows on every surface.  The church was a work of art.

Later we went to the Imperial Apartments in the Hofberg.  The first part of the tour was a viewing of the Imperial Silver.  I never saw such grand things to eat off of.  I'd be too afraid of damaging them to eat off any of the pieces.  Their was a whole wing of the palace dedicated to displaying silver, porcelain, and gold plates, candelabras, and silverware.  Upstairs were the apartments of Emperor Frans Joseph I and his wife, Empress Elizabeth of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  These rooms were very nicely decorated and furnished, but were surprisingly low key in comparison to the Spanish palace.  Everything was beautiful and well made, but most things were not covered in gold or silver.  There was no grand throne room, but just an audience chamber with some nice chairs for the Emperor.

Finally we went to the Historical Museum and viewed their fine art portraits, and their collection of ancient Greek, roman, and Egyptian antiquities.  We also walked around viewing the town and beautiful gardens.  It was a wonderful day.

More from the vacation as well as Weiner, road construction, and Greece financial news in the coming days.