Aaron Winborn

Diana and I woke up early morning on the 5th of November to head out to an American Cafe in the Wudaokou area of Beijing, China. When we arrived the place was already packed with other Americans (as well as others from around the world) to watch the poll results. Diana and I had both cast our ballots weeks ago in our registered state of New York thus our votes were already counted.

It was really nice to be amongst the company of other Americans that were anxiously awaiting the poll results. We cheered, applauded, sang Americana songs and came together as Americans. We even applauded John McCain's speech; which I think was quite good.

The title and the video somewhat say it all, if you're unfamiliar with sniper alley check out the wikipedia article.

I probably don't need to write how important it is for every citizen in America to vote. Elections and voting is one of the primary elements that make America great. Even though Diana and I are several thousand miles away from our country it does not stop us from voting. We registered and then cast our ballots using the old-fashioned write in method. Fed-Ex is incredibly awesome and has a program called "Express your vote". American expats living in China are able to send their ballots for free.

I'm not exactly sure why its free as Fed-Ex runs this same program in other countries but as a pay-for service (about 20USD usually, which isn't bad). I will say that I'm extremely happy that they offered this service because I do *not*.. let me repeat this I do NOT trust the Chinese Post Office to deliver an American ballot. The post office opens every letter, box, package, everything in or out so I don't trust them to not tamper with my vote. I hope they change this outright invasion of privacy but their country their rules; I'm but a guest. Fortunately Fed-Ex came to the rescue. Tracking number confirmed our votes were received about two weeks prior to the elections.

Every day I come across something that reminds me that I'm in China and that things are different here. This evening as I was returning home I came across a woman burning a pile of paper on the sidewalk. Just behind her was a teenage girl crouching near the edge of the street consoling an older gentleman whom was doubled over sobbing quietly. I realized that the woman stoking the fire must have been the mother thus completely the family. Each of their faces was somber and you could tell they were in mourning.

Burning piles of paper is very common practice in China. Typically it is paper money or paper representations of other material objects being burnt as a way to send it to the deceased such that they may enjoy their after life. Tomb sweeping day (清明节) is the time of year when almost the whole of China performs this ritual but it is not unusual to see it during other times of the year often on the deceased birthday. Its entirely possible that the person they were mourning has passed on years before although their expressions seemed to reflect something much more recent.

It was a somber reminder of what life is as I walked home from a long day of working and planning in my head what work I was going to do once I got home. Instead of working I uploaded this short video.

European churches are awesome.

A high ranking Turkish official was killed during a war on the soil of Belgrade, Serbia. Serbia contacted Turkey and offered the land on which the General lay as a permanent memorial to him. Turkey accepted and the 3-meter square piece of land became Turkish territory.

wow... for me, an American, it was a surreal experience.

Farmers market in Szeged, Hungary. I love me some farmers' markets.

I really do like farmers markets.

Those Hungarians.. they know how to rap.. how to get down! Hey the man had the bawls to get up on stage and sing, that has to be honored.

Reposting from dembot.com.... time is of the essence.

*URGENT**

cc: Lance Armstrong, President Bill Clinton, Senator John Kerry, Senator Tom Harkin, Senator Ted Kennedy, Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach (Head of FDA)

Mr. Mullen, my name is Andrew Baron and my father Frederick (61 yrs. old), has final stage multiple myeloma has been recommended the drug Tysabri as a last chance effort for life.

Please read this carefully.

Last Thursday, his doctors at the Mayo Clinic determined that he may only have about 24-48 hours to live.

In what can only be defined as a miracle in timing, a few days ago, one of his doctors who has been studying his tumor cells in the lab for years found an antibody with an exact match: Tysabri which is manufactured by your company, Biogen Idec. In the test tube, it attached to the antigens on the surface of the tumor 100%.

Though the drug has never been used before in this way, and because time is running out, the head of the FDA, Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach has granted special approval for use of the drug for this purpose but you have personally decided “no”.

Lance Armstrong, who you spoke with on Friday, has also pleaded with you to say “yes” to my father, but you personally said “no”.

President Bill Clinton, Senator John Kerry, Senator John Harkin, Senator Ted Kennedy, Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach and others who you spoke with on Friday and again yesterday on Monday have all pleaded with you to say “yes”, assuring you that there would be no legal risk and no negative consequences to your company if something went wrong, but you continue to say “no”.

If this drug was rare, scarce, or if people were waiting in line to obtain it, we would not be expecting any privileges. But the drug is readily available, cheap and even sitting in our clinic’s pharmacy just 6 floors below us right now… . All we need is for you to just say “yes” to save his life.

I’m the CEO of my company so I can appreciate the pressure of doing what’s best for your company. Is denying my father access the best thing for your company? How could it be? What’s the risk? 

What is the justification? No one knows. We have gotten back reports from everyone that spoke with you and others at your company and they do not see any justification as to why. All I know is “No because no”.

The very best doctors in the entire world from the Mayo clinic which is one of the most experienced treatment centers in the world have recommended this drug to save my father’s life and it’s the only thing known that could work.

After you refused on Friday, the doctors decided that they must do something, and resorted to another antibody called Campath which is working to prolong his life.

Please Mr. Mullen, there is no time left. There is no justification. Just say yes. 

To anyone else who reads this: Please help! My father is a saint who has given his life and his resources to better humanity. He has spent his entire life seeking to protect the rights of others from harmful death and has spent an enormous amount of money and time in helping to shape our government to protect the rights of people everywhere. He is a philanthropist at heart. 

1. Call Mr. Mullen or anyone at Biogen and ask them to please say yes (or provide a justification for whynot). Speak with anyone in the company in any department that you can find: http://www.biogenidec.com/site/contact.html

2. Contact an elected official and plea with them to call Biogen to seek approval:

http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

3. We have been searching all over the world for international options and continue to look for a country that we could fly to to obtain and administer the drug. Do you know of anywhere that we could go? So far we have found that by law, Biogen controls use in every country that the drug is distributed in.

4. Do you know of any options in alternative medicine?

5. Do you know how we can obtain this drug?

Please comment here, email me at andrew@rocketboom.com or post and discuss here:http://friendfeed.com/rooms/myeloma

We are trying to figure out what to do.

Sadly my time in Hungary has come to an end and the real world has started to flood in :(. I'm flying from Budapest to Paris then Paris to Beijing today and will be home tomorrow morning. I have a ton of videos (16) to upload but that's for another day. Today is for checking email and making myself tired in order to sleep on the plane.

oh man that was a long train ride. Going from Sarajevo to Budapest is not the best method, actually I think its quite bad. Almost anything would have been better than taking the one train out of Sarajevo that leaves at 7:14am goes up to Croatia, then over to Serbia then up to Hungary. 12 full hours of sitting in a cabin staring out at the countryside. To be honest the first few hours were pretty cool as the Bosnian countryside is pretty cool looking, Croatia too and Serbia but to be brutually honest they all look the same. After all its just a political boundary.

I have just about 36 hours in Budapest to see everything I didn't see the first time. Here's to running arond town!

My train left Belgrade at 10:30am. I wasn't very happy about losing a day in travels from Belgrade to Sarajevo but I didn't really have a choice in the matter. I could either take the train or the bus. The bus left at 11am and arrived at 11pm the train left at 10:30am and arrived at 9:30pm at least the train was a bit smoother. Not wanting to miss the once a day train out of Belgrade I arrived at the train station at 9:00am and proceeded to do what every tourist does about to leave a country, I spent the remaining cash I had on anything that looked somewhat interesting; which mainly consisted of breads ;) . 

The train was typical old European style. It didn't look particularly fast nor modern and it had probably had spare parts that were older than me and my parents. It crawled out of Serbia inching along and stopping every 30 or 45 minutes. We only made 5 stops from Belgrade to the Serbian border but I felt as though we made 50. The Serbian countryside is very pretty covered with corn fields and sunflowers that are all dried out in the sun and ready for harvesting. Corn is mainly grown for cornmeal thus the stalks were still in the ground and dying/drying in the hot sun. 

After six hours we arrived at Strizivojna-Vrpoljie the transfer point over to Bosnia-Herzegovina. Before arrival my passport was checked and I was stamped out of Serbia, I also had to pass customs while on the train (quite convenient). Once in Strizivojna-Vrpoljie I got off the train with four others all of which were foreigners. One German, one Swiss, two British and I. We were all headed for the same place. 

There was a difference of about 45 minutes between the trains and the station was so small that there was no attendant. 20 minutes past and a train entered the station and all of us stood up for it. Rushing over to the train we showed them our tickets only for them to tell us that it was the wrong train. We all sit back down and waited. After another 15 minutes or so a small engine came putting down the train tracks. Behind it was a single train car. This was our train. 

We were all taken a bit by surprise as we had thought a destination such as Sarajevo would have a decent sized train traveling to it but well.. there is history here. The five of us boarded the "train" and occupied half the car. OK not literally but if felt as though this was the case. The next six hours passed rather quickly. The countryside was pretty and the closer we got to Sarajevo the hillier and more "mountainous" it became. It was a pretty and nice relaxing ride. 

Landing in Sarajevo was slightly surreal as the station was very empty. While on the train I found out that none of the foreigners had made hotel/hostel reservations and we were all "winging" it. It was good to hear that I wasn't the only one. At the station most of the foreigners went directly to the hostel booking office that was located in the main station. I decided to make my life harder and headed out of the station into the town. 

Outside the station I ran into the German and Swiss gentlemen that I had met in Strizivojna-Vrpolje. They were pouring over a map and trying to decide which route to walk in order to find a hostel or hotel. A gentleman approached us all and asked us if we had accommodations to which we instinctually replied "yes". After some discourse we found out he was about to start walking home and it was situated in the middle of town. We could follow if we wanted to. We look at each other and just shrugged in sort of "why not" manner. The guy seemed nice and harmless enough. I means its only Sarajevo what fighting ever happened in Sarajevo. 

It turned that the guy was actually quite a nice. A 60+ retired sports instructor that just likes to talk. As we walked he told us about the Holiday Inn were the foreign journalist stayed during the war, he pointed out the various embassies, lots of the famous churches and so on. The most interesting though was when he walked us by the infamous "Sniper Alley" where the bullet holes still remain on the churches, building and apartments. He pointed down at the ground where large mortar shells had landed and spewed shrapnel everywhere and pointed to where that shrapnel ended up. 

The walk to his house walked right down the war path in the middle of town, he turned out to be an amazing guide. Later in the evening he walked us down to the Latin bridge where Franz Ferdinand was shot triggering WWI and then over to the large mosque in the center of town. He showed us the drinking wells, a local Bosnian restaurant where we could eat good Bosnian food for less than 2 Euros and eventually dropped us off at a Turkish cafe. The two guys and I ended our night smoking a Hookah and sipping on very nice Turkish tea. 

So far its been 3 hours in Sarajevo and its amazing.  

Around midnight on my first night in Hungary I was aggressively propositioned by a woman in need.... of something.