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The Georgia (Atlanta) Aquarium

This week we traveled to Atlanta for the HIMSS2010 conference. HIMSS is the largest healthcare technology tradeshow in the world, and Sentry has been exhibitor for the past two years. I usually go a day early to assist in any way I can, but The Wife and I were able to steal away for a few hours to visit the Georgia Aquarium, located just a block or two away from the Omni Hotel at the CNN Center, where we stayed.

The Wife and I are big fans of the Chatanooga Aquarium (the worlds largest prior to the completion of the Atlanta aquarium), and still the world’s largest freshwater marine exhibit. Overall, we felt like the Tennessee Aquarium was probably superior in its aesthetics and the variety of marine life you could see, along with the design of the exhibits. The Georgia aquarium is much more kid friendly, with the exhibits all looping back to a main room in case you need food, restrooms, or a rest, but some of the exhibits don’t really give you a good view of the animals, or are small, or are positioned so that it’s hard to fight your way through a large crowd. The pod-style design of the Atlanta floorplan also means crowds aren’t linear like they are on the “River Walk” style of the Chatanooga exhibits, so you can feel very claustrophobic at times. Full disclosure: we went on a Sunday afternoon in Atlanta, and I think we visited on a Friday during the day in Chatanooga.

But.

The Atlanta Aquarium has a “Behind the Scene Tour” which lets you pay 40 bucks to get a tour behind all the exhibits and it was phenomenal.  The guided tour takes roughly an hour, and you’re in a small group that walks backstage and sees the medical facilities, kitchens for preparing fish food, the generators and pumps that help regulate water chemicals and cleanse the tanks, and topside of the world’s largest saltwater tank, home to several whales harks and a manta ray.  You also can see how a lot of the exhibits are put together and view the top of the coral reef display.  Pictures are allowed, and this opportunity really moves the Atlanta aquarium ahead of Chatanooga in my view.

These are some iPhone pictures that I managed to take while on the tour – enjoy!

Country Driving – A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory

I first heard about Peter Hessler’s book “Oracle Bones” from my mom.  She was reading through it and enjoying it immensely, and she recommended it profusely.  I promptly ignored her for a year, until I managed to read a corroborating review from somewhere.  I picked up both of his books at the time, “River Town” and “Oracle Bones”, and the more I read of them, the more I was both annoyed and delighted.  Delighted because the books are some of the best  from a foreign author regarding modern China, and annoyed because I had always dreamed of someday writing a book about my experiences, and I realized that Hessler had, well, written the book I wanted to write.  So much for that (and sorry mom!).

I should note that before reading Hessler, I had almost zero interest in the travel literature genre, but he helped interest me in several other books by the likes of Paul Theroux (Riding the Iron Rooster) and even several Chinese authors such as Ma Jian or Gao Xingjian.

Hessler also writes for the New Yorker, and while I was in Beijing for the 2008 Olympics, he wrote a great piece for that magazine that reminded me why I enjoy his perspective so much.  I was therefore very excited when I got an email (again from my mom) telling me about his newest book, “Country Driving”, which again focuses on modern China and it’s rapid industrialization.

While “River Town” was set in the mid to late nineties, and “Oracle Bones” in the early 2000s, “Country Driving” is set in a span from roughly 2002 through 2008.  It’s divided into three sections, one details his trip by car along the Great Wall, one focuses on rural living in a town outside of Beijing, and the last takes place in a booming Special Economic Zone in Southern China.

Hessler is unique among most journalists covering China in that he speaks fluent Chinese (this was essentially a matter of survival while spending two years as one of two foreigners in a Chinese city), and that he both appreciates the context of China (history, literature, politics) and the people.  Culturally, there is much that can be mocked about China, and many foreigners focus on these nits that differentiate China from the West to their own detriment, and one of the things I like most about Hessler’s writing is he manages to poke fun at some of the more amusing aspects while still maintaining a deep respect for the country and its people.  He also manages to not romanticize China’s poverty or lament it’s rapid modernization like many foreign observers tend to do, instead, he strikes an engaging balance of description, context, humor and human interest.

For a glimpse into China’s complexities from a richly personal point of view, I recommend any of Hessler’s books.  To appreciate how rapid China’s rise has been since the mid nineties, read all three in order.  There is no other author today who writes as well or as thoughtfully about China.

VMWare Fusion 3 and Windows 7

I recently upgrade VMWare Fusion to version 3.  VMWare has steadily increased the stability and featureset of this product, and I appreciated it how they gave us early adopters free upgrades to version 2, but I guess that all ended recently.

One really cool new feature is something I stumbled upon after I upgraded my hard drive to a new 500GB spindle on my laptop, and partitioned my Macbook Pro to install Windows 7 via Bootcamp.  After fighting with Crossover Games for roughly 3 months trying to get Team Fortress 2 to not crash 15 minutes into the game, I was ready to succumb and admit defeat.  TF2 is one of the slower loading games (in my opinion) and I was tired of crashing out during Sentry Data System’s weekly TF2 bouts each Friday night because it messes up your stats.  At least, that’s what I’m telling everyone.

Anyway, apparently VMWare Fusion can boot up a Bootcamp partition within the emulator, which I find to be really really useful and it’s one of those features that should be there, but you never expect it to be implemented.  My first few attempts didn’t work, but I did manage to track down a registry hack (http://communities.vmware.com/thread/80060) that worked like a charm.