Departure - Off to Boston

Country: U.S. - Elevation: 6,289 Feet - Maximum Pitch: 90 Degrees - Highest Sustained Winds: 231 mph - Latitude: 44 degrees N

03.07.15 Departure - Off to Boston

Spring Break! One of the perks of being a professor is lots of holidays. If you include my 4 Spring Breaks as an Undergrad, 8 during my Masters and PhD years, and now 14 as a Professor, this is my 26th. Instead of heading to the beach, I've opted to hit the slopes the last few years and have been blessed with great conditions each time. I've only flown over Maine and New Hampshire and look forward to exploring the coast today and tomorrow. To get to Mount Washington, we chose to fly into Boston and rent a car. If you've been paying attention to the weather, you're probably aware that New England has been hit hard with snow and cold. This is obviously good for skiing, but bad for travel.

It's about a 2.5 hour drive from Boston to the White Mountains - if you're totally lame and like to drive directly to places. Kimberly and I decided to build in an extra day before and after our stay at the Mount Washington Resort to explore other parts of New England. We don't really have a plan for the first night, other than driving north along I-95 toward Portland, Maine. This will add a couple of hours to the drive, but allow us to enjoy some authentic chowder and lobster bisque. We are both interested in seeing Portsmouth, Kennebunkport, and Portland.

We learned in Ecuador that neither of us was a stickler for rigid agenda, so we're going to play it by ear. At this point, all we have are 5 nights reserved at the Mount Washington Resort for Sunday-Friday. The picture below is the resort in Bretton Woods where we'll be staying with the White Mountains in the background. It's a pretty nice hotel with a lot of interesting history. Built in 1902, it hosted the 1944 Bretton Woods Financial Conference, which established the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, laid the groundwork for what would become the World Trade Organization, and, more importantly, established the U.S. Dollar as the world's reserve currency. In addition to contributing to the New World Order, Bretton Woods has a cool ski resort to explore during our 5 days there.

Regardless of where we stay Saturday night, we will work our way from Portland to Bretton Woods via Hwy 302 on Sunday. It is a little more scenic and it takes us through Conway, NH which is the last decent sized town prior to entering the White Mountain National Forest.

I have been talking to Synnott Mountain Guides and hired a guide to work with me and Kimberly on Mount Washington. Up until a few weeks ago, I was planning to go it alone, but due to the heavy snow fall and bitterly cold temperatures, it seemed prudent to bring someone along who knew the mountain. Mark Synnott founded the company and is one of the top rock climbers in the world. He's currently working with Alex Honnold for the North Face Climbing Team doing some amazing first ascents and pushing the envelope of rock climbing and free soloing. Alex is famous for his low key personality and death-defying climbs in Yosemite. Here's a picture of him doing what he does. In case you are wondering, "free solo" means no ropes. He's that good.

I was hoping to have a chance to meet Mark, but he's currently out West, doing some work for National Geographic. Nevertheless, Synnott has many accomplished guides and I'm looking forward to working with them. Another adventurer I'd like to meet someday is Tradd Dakota. Not only does he have one of the best names ever, he's lives life the way you're supposed to - his way. Like Alex, he's low-key about what he does, and like Mark, he's a trail blazer and

hard to catch up with. A few years ago, a friend of mine from Utah arranged a 6-day, remote fly-fishing expedition in Montana. Apparently Tradd was going to be in the area, but life got in the way and I was unable to join them. From what I hear, they killed it. While I'm on the subject, here's a picture of me fly fishing on the Nantahala River a while ago. I only caught one small trout, but that's not really why I like to fish.

Geek Notes

Some Economics and History:

The Bretton Woods System was ratified in July of 1944 by most of the 44 Allied countries that sent Delegates to the Bretton Woods Conference at the Mount Washington Resort. The Soviet Union refused to accept the U.S. dollar as the de facto reserve currency, and withheld its support of the system, which constituted one of the first provocations of what would become the Cold War. The delegation from Great Britain was led by John Maynard Keynes who was the father of macroeconomics and kind of a big deal for economists.

The delegate from the Philippines was Colonel Andrés Soriano y Roxas, which is pretty much irrelevant on every level but one. He was appointed by President Sergio Osmeña and served as Finance Minister in his administration (1944-1946). It was President Osmeña who triumphantly returned to the Philippines in 1944/45 with General Douglas MacArthur, fulfilling MacArthur's famous, "I shall return" proclamation. So what does that matter? Kimberly is President Sergio Osmeña's great great granddaughter. I told you leadership ran in her family and that I would tell you many interesting things about her during our trip. Just wait until you hear about her new job...

The primary purpose of the Bretton Woods System was to stabilize the global economy with a modified gold standard (making the U.S. dollar the global currency backstop via a fixed exchange rate regime - since the U.S. owned 67% of the world's gold at the time). The Great Depression had caused world-wide financial problems and the Bretton Woods System was designed to prevent another global financial collapse and currency war. When President Nixon unilaterally eliminated the Bretton Woods System in 1971, the dollar became the pure fiat currency that it is today and was left as the sole foundation of the global currency system. It got off to a shaky start with U.S. stagflation during the 1970s and early 1980s. But by the mid-1980s, a combination of tight monetary policy and expansionary fiscal policy, fixed the U.S. economy, and restored the dollar by finally "breaking the back" of inflation. There's a lot more to it than that, but you will fall asleep if I keep going.

Some Conspiracy Theories:

I mentioned the New World Order, which is a favorite theme of conspiracy theorists. Basically, they charge that the Bretton Woods System was part of some evil cabal's plan to take over the world. It was officially called the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, and as mentioned above, created the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and parts of the World Trade Organization. That's too many scary sounding words for the nut-jobs to resist I guess. They claim also that going off the Bretton Woods System allowed the evil Banksters to steal all of the gold held by the Federal Reserve. Who do they think we are? Russia?

Recently, Germany asked for their gold back (Since the 1950s, we held it for them, because it doesn't matter where it is and it can be risky and expensive to move). We told them not to worry about it, that it was safe. They said, "No, we really want it back and we'd like to inspect it first hand." We told them, "No, it was safe and would be better if they just trusted us - for security reasons." Eventually we agreed to send it back... in secret over the next 7 years or so. Estimates are that about 50 of their 700 tons of gold have been returned to them - though most of that may have come from France. The conspiracy theorists think we're sending them gold plated tungsten, if anything at all. I report, you decide.

Some Grammar:

You may have noticed I used a somewhat awkward sounding phrase when I mentioned that Kimberly and I were not "sticklers for rigid agenda," instead of "agendas," or "sticklers for a rigid agenda." That's because the word "agenda," just like the similar word "data," is plural. That's how I used it and why it sounded odd. The singular is agendum (datum). No one uses it that way much anymore, but you should still use plural verb conjugations with the word "data." It's perfectly acceptable to use agenda as a singular noun, but technically, a group of single agendum items are called agenda.

The word "agenda" is also a gerund. Gerunds are verbs that get turned into nouns as in "Skiing is a fun sport." Most grammar books say that all gerunds end in "ing." Not true. Agendum is an exception. Agere is the Latin root that means "to do." So Agenda are listings of things to do.