I think I'll stop drinking Soda

This article describes what happens in your body when you drink a coke. Awesome!

Holiday Travels

Tomorrow I head to the East Coast for over a week, staying at my mom's while my brother and sister are there, too. I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone for more than a few days this time, and seeing all the extended family is a huge added bonus. Christmas has turned from a time when I was a kid, to be excited about what I might be getting, to being (close to) an adult, and being much more excited about what I'll be giving and the people I'll be spending time with. It'll be great, to be sure, but with so many of my relatives infirm in some way or other, I hope it doesn't end up being too much of a hassle for them and those closest to them. There's also a good possibility that it will be the last family gathering of its kind for the same reasons, so it seems important to really enjoy it to the fullest. I especially love our family's Christmas Eve II, where we all sing carols in harmony. And trust me, with as much musical talent as everyone in this family has, it's really something to hear. Yay Christmas! Excited!

It's actually there!

My brain, that is. So for some of you who doubt at times, here's proof!

I took part in a cognitive psychology experiment a few weeks ago, and volunteered to get my noggin scanned for about forty five minutes in a fMRI. It was simple word-association thing, where you had to respond to various random nouns flashed up on a screen with the first verb that came to mind. It's kinda cool. Aside from this image, I've also got three movies - one on each cartesian axis - moving slice by slice through my head. Really cool, if you ask me. Though I do look kind of strange, even without that huge chunk taken out of my head.

December 7th, 1941

Just a reminder that today is Pearl Harbor Day - a time to reflect on the atrocities that men willfully inflict on each other under the exonerating moniker of "War."

What's so immensely sad, beyond the loss of thousands of unique lives, is the thought that somewhere people got together and supposedly justified the horrible pain, suffering, and death they knew they were about to cause. And today, if anything, should be a day to remember, and be outraged that this sort of abhorrent justification is still going strong all over the world.

Research Sucks

Yeah. That's about it. With no publishable new data in nearly a year, two papers still sitting unedited on my advisor's desk since March, various parts of my setup not working, multiple projects to try (again and again) but none of which I think will work (or are even worth the time,) pressure to graduate by May (HAH!) and a complete lack of interest in my research topic (mine or anyone else's,) my research is not a high-point in my life right now, to put it euphemistically. It also occurs to me that even with an eventual PhD, there's a complete dearth of skills or knowledge that I've really acquired over the last four-plus years that make me more marketable in a job hunt. Unless I stay in academia, which I'm loathe to do, this has basically been at best a respite from the real world, and more likely a huge waste of time that I could have spent furthering other, more long-lasting and useful goals. The fun of it all is that there are about five different projects, all basically related, that I have at the moment. None of them seems likely to succeed, and none of them interests me in the least. There's no chance that I'm going to have enough data to graduate by May, even if one project miraculously does work, so where do I find my motivation to stay in lab ten hours a day to ensure that I eventually will get some useful data? I think I need a motivational kick in the ass, or I may as well just leave now.

Thanksgiving in LA

And I'm here! On the busiest travel day of the year, I arrived at the airport and got to my gate in fewer than ten minutes. Of course, then I had to wait for nearly two hours before even boarding the plane, but honestly, it was much better than getting all stressed and not waiting.

So now I'm in LA at the kick-arse abode of my bro and sis, and we're making mac and cheese (with hot-dogs, of course) for a bit-o-dinner. Our mac-fu is strong! That, and we're all pretty tired, and it's going to take real stamina to get through the marathon of food that Matt has planned for the big Turkey day. So sleep tonight is paramount. But tomorrow - tomorrow we party till the cows come home!!!

Gotta love Fox News

When they start attacking animated kids movies, you know something's got them pretty defensive. But heavens, why should they be on the defensive? The Right is right, and they never have to defend their own - it's better to lash out wildly in the panic-stricken throws of defeat than to try to actually change anything.

Busy Weekend

Gorgeous weather and great people made for a fantastic weekend, perfect for this time of year right before everything gets hectic and stressful. Friday after work was an alumni association sponsored "Red beans and Rice" event with free beer and food - Impossible to for any grad student to pass up. Unfortunately, a bunch of people apparently had some adverse reactions to the food and were sick for a while, but it made for a nice, relaxing Friday night.

On Saturday afternoon, April and I went to the annual Art Crawl downtown, where local artists open their studios to the general public and everyone mills around between the thirty or so galleries spread out around the north end of downtown. It was perfect weather for walking and there were some really interesting pieces, but there was so much that we couldn't possibly see it all in the time we had. We probably hit about ten places, most displaying multiple artists, and got a bite to eat in the middle at a neat little cafe before heading up 290 where April was helping host a couples baby shower for a good friend of hers. That was a lot of fun - got to meet lots of great people and get entertained by a precious ten month old tottering around the place.

Afterwards, we still had lots to do, seeing as it was Dharmpal's birthday on Saturday. We couldn't let that slip by unnoticed, no matter how much he wanted us to. A bunch of people hit up the Kelvin Arms, and with many three wise men consumed, ghost stories told, and erotic photohunt played, we shut down the bar before parting ways for the evening, some a little the worse for wear than others. Pics to follow once I can steal them from April.

Sunday was a great lazy morning in a warm comfy bed - always a favorite - before finally seeing Borat with April and her labmate Andre in the afternoon. Meh. It was about what I expected, which is to say I really wasn't that excited to see it. But hey, it seems that it has effectively killed all the Borat-speak that has permeated a lot of witty, comedic banter lately. Thank god.

So that's it for now. I'm excited about going to LA for Thanksgiving this year. I can't wait to see everyone, even though it will be for such a short time. Turkey, here I come!

Happy Birthday

to Julie! I've somehow managed to miss it by a day or more for years now, but not this time. And even though we hardly ever get to see each other, the long distance between NYC and Houston won't keep you from my thoughts. So here's a brief 'best wishes' to one of the most creative, talented, and all-around coolest girls I have the pleasure of knowing. Happy Birthday, Julie!






(and yes, she's standing on a bench in this picture :)

Today's the day...

VOTE!!!

For the love of god and (more importantly) country, get off your ass.

End of an Era

Well, Dr. Trionfi (a.k.a. Aaron, my roommate since May 2004) is leaving for Albuquerque today. He's been probably the best roommate I've had, and I'll certainly miss him. I hope everything at Sandia goes great for him, though I have no doubt he'll own the place by the end of the year. So not that he'll need it, but good luck, Aaron!

Now, anybody need a place to live in Houston? I've got a lovely 2/2 condo near the med center with an empty room, and I hear the guy who lives there isn't a total jerk.

Halloween Fun

Just a quick post. The GSA party on Saturday was lots of fun, as was volleyball before that (we won!) Here's just a single pic of April as Ariel and me in my ghetto legoman costume. I'm actually pretty pleased with how it came out with only two hours work on it. What you can't see is the "Lego" sign on my back, those little holes that all legomen have in the backs of their legs, curved yellow C-shaped hands (that sucked anyway) and April's mermaid fins. Trust me, it's all there.

Job Search Starts

So I got an email from McKinsey & Company yesterday asking if I could come to the first round of interviews in Atlanta on Tuesday. Guess they don't feel the need to give us much warning. Of course I'm going, but I'm kinda freaking out about the whole thing. I have this way of starting things without really understanding the immensity of the situation until I'm pretty far in. And I've done it again. Anyway, Tuesday is just part one of a potential three, and it's at least 4 hours long, consisting, most importantly, of a 60-minute test to get a feel for how well you'd perform in a consulting position. Hrm. And there are a bunch of "practice" case studies that will actually count. I guess the whole thing from beginning to end is just one big test, but it's interesting going from the relatively laid-back style of being a graduate student to the fast-paced, high stress, top-tier consulting world. Boy oh boy this is going to be fun!

Happy Birthday, Matt!

My biggest of big brothers (okay, the only-est of my only brothers, too) turns 30 today!!! Happy Birthday, you old fart! A guy I've always looked up to even once I grew taller than him, he's always been a trailblazer I've tried to follow and a great friend I can count on. It's done me good to have him as an older brother, and I would certainly be a different person today without him in the picture. While his influence isn't as strong now that we're separated by some thirteen hundred miles or so, his importance to me has only grown. They say life starts at thirty, but I think his really started at thirteen. He figured out long before most people that there's no point in waiting - you have to make things happen yourself. So here's to the first thirty years of your long life to come, bro! I look forward to being a part of it.

Big Brother or Impotent Imposition?

This story about the steps taken to monitor children in a Houston school district has me thinking. First, how successful are these systems at actually stopping someone from committing another violent crime once he's set his mind to it? Most of these things have been meticulously planned, and it doesn't seem that constant monitoring would really help that much. Surveillance would get faster response times if implemented correctly, but alone it isn't a preventative measure.

Once you get into restricting who can go where, things get more secure, but they also quickly descend to that Orwellian level where personal freedom could be easily ignored "for their own good." When I have kids (I know, I know, god forbid) I won't want random people able to walk into their schools unchallenged, but I also don't want them to be lulled into forfeiting their civil liberties. I don't know the answer. But I do wonder how children today growing up with this kind of surveillance in schools will view future impositions by other governing bodies. Will they be more likely to allow constant, imposing surveillance in their jobs, their cars, on their cell phones and emails, or by their government? Will constant surveillance at a young age inure them to threats on their civil liberties later in life? It seems likely, but maybe, just maybe, it would create the opposite effect and produce a backlash once their kids are able to vote. Of course, that's giving people a lot of credit, and while I'm prone to give children a hell of a lot more credit than most adults, I guess I'm still a pessimist at the moment.

And the Nobel goes to...

Another American! So far, the first four Nobel Prizes - Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, and Economics - have all gone to six Americans. With only the Literature and Peace prizes left, could it be a sweep for the US?

Mad Props!

The Eagles beat Green Bay! Of course, looking at the injury reports, I don't know how long they'll be able to keep it up, but they're off to a pretty good start. And did anyone see how the Bears absolutely crushed the Seahawks? Where'd that come from?

In other news, my labmate and friend Dharmpal isn't getting the credit he deserves for his single pixel camera research, which is currently garnering national attention for Rice. I know the role, so I'm giving him a shoutout here and a reminder with the news links that he's the one responsible for making the hardware work. You go, man! We'll graduate someday!

It's Go Time!

I've always wanted to say that.

But seriously - the Eagles on Monday Night Football! Woot! I'm only going to be at my Valhalla shift for a very short while tonight so I can run back to the 51" widescreen HDTV at my house and watch Green Bay get eviscerated in HD. Now that's my idea of a good time!

Fucking Cowards

In the face of extremism of any sort that intends to incite fear - of violent reprisal, bodily harm, societal marginalization, restrictions of freedoms, or other threats to basic human rights - among any and all opposition, either from the extremists themselves or a "common enemy," the moderate, free-thinking remainder (and majority) of society has an outstanding obligation to itself and its future to refuse to be cowed by or give in to the outrageous demands of the fear-mongering vocal minority.

The decision by a Berlin opera house to cancel a show deemed insulting to Muslims is yet another cowardly step away from basic human freedoms. Granted, it's a travesty that individuals may have legitimate reason to fear for their lives if they happen to offend a group of religious whackos bent on ignorant misinterpretation of what is otherwise a peaceful and societally benefical doctrine, but the fact that they cave before even the threat of a threat smacks of incredible cowardice that sends a message of weak-kneed submission to a group of people already binging on the fear of the world. In general, I don't believe in offending people for no reason, but willfully restricting your own freedom of expression is right up there on my shit-list with the violent actions of those who would forcefully do it for you. If the moderates of the world don't grow a pair and realize that nutjobs are always going to find something to get riled up and violent about - that to submit to oppression is to actively support it - then this type of extremist adolescent behavior is only going to increase. And why not? It's working, isn't it? Fear is silencing opposing viewpoints - the cornerstone of productive dialogue - and it's not just happening abroad. The world doesn't need any more fucking cowards.

Mandatory and Useless Update # 28

I'm really not sure about the number, but the last one was 27, so it seems to fit if you subscribe to the whole numerical order thing, which I occasionally spurn for the more random and unfortunately spurious numerical disorder thing. Hey, it's easier.

So there's not much new and exciting to report. No recent trips to Mexico, no substantially life-changing events, no eureka moments of self-revelation or research insights. Things plod along as usual, though the end of summer is finally peaking its head over the horizon. Today's the first day since early spring (wait... did we even have spring this year?) that I've had to wear my full leather motorcycle jacket. Marvelous! It will probably be too hot for it come lunch time, but riding home last night in my mesh jacket around midnight was a decidedly cold experience. That is, if I'm remembering that feeling correctly. It's been so long since I've felt an absence of sweltering heat while outside that I'm not sure I'm using the term correctly. Cold? I believe that's what it was.

Ironic, isn't it, that I chose to write about some nice cool weather on the day the news screams about the earth being the hotter than anytime in the last 12,000 years. If the temperature raises another 1 degree C, it will match the hottest era in the last million years. Now, how can scientists tell, within a single degree, how hot it was a million years ago? I know different techniques can provide estimates, but a single degree over a million years? How!?! I'd like to find out.

Another great day for the RIAA

Gotta love when people who owe you money can't find you. Oh well, at least they tried, right? Right?

Lake Chapala region

My crappy little black photoshop lines are the majority of the routes we rode while in Mexico. I'm still trying to find a decent map or satellite image of Santa Maria del Oro, which is off the bottom of this map. but it doesn't seem to exist.

Back from Mexico!

And it was fantastic! The Lake Chapala area is just beautiful, nestled in the mountains with fantastic weather all year 'round. April's parent's house is great - spectacular view and location, especially for riding motorcycles - and her parents were incredible hosts. Her dad and I put probably 600 miles on the Kawasaki KLR 650s that he has - mostly in the first few days, too. The roads are great for this kind of dual-sport bike. Major highways (except for the toll roads) are two-lane, pothole-ridden playgrounds for anything with as much suspension travel as these things have (10+ inches!) And the speedbumps - sorry, topes - are everywhere. Where cars have to slow to a crawl to cross these monsterous road-hazards, we were flying over them at 50+ mph, or using them as passing zones in the busier areas. I don't really have the time to go into nearly enough detail to do the trip even the most trivial justice, but I've at least got some pictures up on my googlepage. It was a fun-filled trip, and I hope I have time to fill in some details later, but for now, this will have to suffice.

Olbermann: 1, Rumsfeld: Idiot

Actually, I'd like to go into negative points, but that's just being petty. : )

While I'll admit that Keith Olbermann is often over the top on how he adresses certain issues, I generally agree with his sentiments. Here is a clip from his 8/30/06 show in response to Rumsfeld's abhorrent speech to the American Legion that everyone should watch, again and again, if necessary.

Mexico!

I can hardly contain my excitement. In less than a week, April and I are leaving for her parent's place outside Guadalajara! Not counting the tourist destination of Cozumel, I've never been to Mexico before. It's going to be a nice, relaxing trip, from what I can gather, which is absolutely perfect. It will be especially nice to just veg with April since grad school usually keeps us pretty busy. While I do like activity-centered trips, I'm really in need of a good block of unstructured, unrestricted, unhurried time. And it's a fantastic bonus that it's going to be in Mexico. As an added super-bonus, April's dad has some dual-sports that we're planning to ride in the mountains around Lake Chapala. While I'm really looking forward to it, it will be my first time going off road on two wheels so I'm a little wary of doing something stupid and dumping the bike. Not really worried - but it has crossed my mind. Gotta go down to lab now. More later.

Mandatory and Useless Update #27

Nothing much to post about, but once again, it's been so long that I feel compelled to write something, no matter how banal and pointless. I'm looking forward to a fun weekend of parties, movies, and maybe some relaxing in there somewhere. Oh yeah, and sleep. Lots of sleep. Maybe I'll hit the pool for a while, in an attempt to get rid of this grad-student pallor that smacks of cave-dweller. Oh yeah, and I recently had to update my personal profile for this blog - noting that I'm no longer a fourth year grad student. Scary. All the first years have been arriving this week - classes start Monday, not that it matters to me anymore - which really drives home that I've already been here a full four years. Even scarrier is that I have to plan on graduating in less than a year, and I have no clue what do do with myself afterwards. I'm open to suggestion! Here I am, in my 5th year of graduate school, without the slightest clue what I want to do after graduation. I mean, I've been in school continuously for 22 years, if you count nursery school. (Hey, it's got "school" in the name. It's got to count!) So really, I'd love to hear some suggestions. Based on the number of readers I have, I'll probably end up with 2 more ideas of what to do with my life than I have at the moment. Hey. Better than nothing. And if anyone suggests "tree" I'll still take it into consideration. Well, maybe. This isn't a halloween costume, after all.

Nothing, really

Nothing much to report, though it's been so long since I've updated I'm feeling the urge. Research is going along slowly, as usual. Actually, there hasn't been any real progress in a while, so I guess "slowly" is just a euphamism for "nowhere." Yeah, that's more to the point. Research is going nowhere, just as usual.

It seems to have gotten really really hot here the past few days. Now, I know it's kinda hot in Houston to begin with, but it seems that this summer had lost a lot of its bite save for a few days here and there. And then this week came in and kicked me in the gut with size 13 combat boots. I nearly hurled. Just walking 100 yards to Valhalla to get lunch gets me all nasty and sweaty in a ways I don't really want to describe to the public. Of course, the fact that I ride a black big-twin sportbike in jeans, a black (but well-ventilated) synthetic and leather jacket, big fat helmet, and gloves to boot (but no boots) kinda makes it worse. But I'd rather sweat than leave a lot of my skin on the road in case of a wreck. I've definitely got the sweating part down these last few days. I'd started to wonder if I've just gotten used to Houston summers at last, but then I realized that this isn't the kind of heat and humidity (it really is the humidity) that you can "get used to," anymore than you can get used to breathing sea water.

Zion National Park

So I've finally posted some pictures on my silly little googlepage under the recent events part. Honestly, my brother's pictures are much better, so if you want to see good pics, go to his blog.

k... so it won't let me upload any pics to this post at the moment. grr.

Mini-Vacation

Last week I took off Friday for LA, where my mom was visiting my brother and sister. After getting to the bitchin house in the Hollywood Hills around 11, we headed to Zuma beach for the rest of the afternoon. Awesome. Matt and I (and even mom a little) hit the near-perfect waves for hours of body-surfing and a good deal of sun.

Saturday morning we left for Las Vegas with mom, Matt, and Casey. Though we hadn't reserved rooms in advance, it worked out for the best in the end, and we got to see a lot of cool hotels while we looked. I didn't gamble much, and we spent most of our time in New York, New York that night. Earlier in the day the three of us (sans mom) went up to the top of the Stratosphere, where Casey and I rode the Big Shot, the worlds highest thrill ride. I've forgotten how much I love that adrenaline rush. Fantastic!

Sunday started with still more traveling, this time out of Nevada, through a corner of Arizona, and all the way to South-Western Utah and Zion National Park. I can't say enough about the grandiosity of Zion, and the pictures, while pretty good, don't nearly do it justice. Let me just say that if you've never been there, you need to go. Hell, I need to go again, and it wasn't even a week ago that I left.

We three kiddies got there around noon and got a good hotel - the Bumbleberry just outside the park entrance. After we shuttled in, we went on a 5+ hour walk / wade through the somewhat swollen Virgin river and the Narrows at the end of the canyon. With 500-800 foot cliffs on both sides, often only a few yards apart, every corner brought about another breathtaking view. The thunder shortly after we'd turned around, just shy of 3 hours into the narrows, had me worrying about flash floods nearly the whole trip back, but luckily the rain wasn't heavy enough to worry about. At least till after we were out of the narrows. The next day, after a few wonderful nighttime thunderstorms, the already muddy river looked like chocolate milk, and the narrows were closed. We chose a good order, it seems.

Monday morning after a nice breakfast at the Bumbleberry restaurant, we did a two-mile, 1500+ foot climb (and descent, duh) to Angel's landing. Again, words won't suffice, and pictures can't quite do it justice, but at least the pictures are quick. The last climb was the best, with chains attached to the rock face so we wouldn't go tumbling down the 1000 foot cliffs on either side of the "trail." At one point there was only about 4 feet between vertical cliffs on both sides - basically a path between certain and unavoidable death.

After a quick bite to eat, and with already tired legs, we hiked up to the emerald pools in the short time we had before we had to leave for LA - 6.5 hours away. We didn't get to see the lower pool, and the upper was definately cooler than the middle. We got rained on again on the way back, but it really wasn't too bad after a long, hot day hiking in the sun. After meeting up with mom again in Vegas, we got back to LA after midnight and had a good sleep. Tuesday was all about Emily's birthday - my little sister's 23! holy crap! We saw Miami Vice (better than I thought it'd be) and generally just hung out. Unfortunately I had to come back to Houston on Wednesday, but a short trip was much better than none at all. And many thanks to mom who made it all possible. It was great seeing my family - something I've been lucky enough to do twice so far this year. Of course, it made me realize how much I love, and how much I really want more vacation time soon. If only money grew on trees!

Irksome

Two news-items I just couldn't pass up this morning:

BBC news says that Kazaa will become a legal music downloading service, and has also agreed to pay an over $100m compensation to the record industry. First of all, I always thought that kazaa and other p2p services were legal downloading services. The entire claim that they're responsible for piracy is ridiculous. Sure, they help it, but why not go after the companies that make recordable media, too? Or even hard drives? It's all just a big, frantic money-grab by an archaic industry run by a bunch of lazy, rich, innovation-allergic men frightened into paralysis of potential change.

Secondly, this article is so incredibly shallow that the extent of the details about the >$100m payoff is that it's going to the "record industry." Come on, BBC. Where are the important questions? Instead of following the money trail, the article just illustrates just how far up the establishment's ass the authors nose really is. I can practically smell the stench of digested musicians through my computer.

A bit of googling shows that the payoff goes to Universal Music, Sony BMG, EMI Group Plc and Warner Music Group in Los Angeles and Australia.

The second news item would be that a court has upheld the long-time practice of invasive searches without suspicion at US borders, applying in this case to your hard drive. The 9th circuit court of appeals has ruled that border control agents can search through your computer at any time and for any reason. Actually, border control agents can search anyone or anything without any evidence or suspicion of wrongdoing. This, surprisingly enough to me, upholds a supreme court ruling that effectively ignores the heart of the fourth amendment at US borders. Apparently our country doesn't really start until you're some arbitrary distance inside it that isn't deemed a part of the border.

In other, more personal news, I'm off to LA tomorrow morning for a few days with the fam. I'm really excited about the whole thing. Not only are we all going to be in one place at one time, for a few days, at least, but we're going to Las Vegas and probably Zion National Park, too! It looks to be a lot of fun, as long as I get my paycheck when I'm supposed to. I have to say that I've got enough bills at the moment that I really shouldn't be going on this trip, (no, really) but I'm also in desperate need for a break from Houston and my research crap. When things don't work for day after day, and week after week proceeding into months on end, the stress level really starts to get to me. Anyway, LA, here I come!

Epitome of Awesomeness

I just have to say how awesome it is that my mom - former nursery-school teacher mom who has sung "Wake up Little Pilgrims" every Thanksgiving I can remember and still insists that "jackass" isn't foul language - has a motorcycle. I mean, effin A, man. My mom rocks hard like that. Way to go Mom!! I think next she's getting some tattoo of like a killer bald eagle with sharp talons fighting a wolverine or something. Or maybe a Liger. That would be totally sweet. Now, just to make sure that my mom isn't more hardcore than me (it might be a futile attempt, seeing as I am a physics geek - I'm wearing a Penny Arcade shirt today, for god's sake) I'm going to have to pick up a nasty drug habit and, like, kill somebody or something. Don't make me kill someone, mom! Please!

Good Dog

I'll miss Tera. She was a great companion and friend - more than just a pet. I'm sorry I wasn't there when she had to go. I'm not very good at these things, and my brother says it better.

Talk about Ridiculous

An advertising executive has been jailed because his company produced an ad for an online gambling site - a site that is perfectly legal in its own country, but is apparently of the type that the US government is trying very hard to crack down on. Wow. Good thing we're being protected from all those scary advertising executives. Thanks, uncle Sam - now I can sleep better at night.

Manic Mechanic

My car's in bad shape. A year ago I replaced the entire air conditioning system. Before that the brake lines (all of them) and master cylinder were replaced. A few months ago I had to recharge the coolant because most of it had leaked out. Two weeks ago I had to replace the alternator. This weekend a friend was borrowing the car to carry heavy wood flooring and had a massive blowout on 610. The tire, rim, and hubcap are completely trashed. The wrecker driver who had to get him out of the left emergency lane was apparently incompetent and smashed up the rear quarterpanel.

I finally got my bike back. After seven (7!) weeks. It looks like it should. I'm still waiting for about $300 from the insurance company. I've got to pay for the remaining $500 after that, some of which is for stuff that needed to be done anyway, e.g. brake pads. Total cost for all the cosmetic damage and repairs? Keep in mind that the bike never even fell completely over.

$2300.

I feel like I'm in a horrible mastercard commercial:

Gas for the trip to Austin: $35
Helmet, Gloves, and Riding Jacket: $700
Dairy Queen sundae on the way: $4
Watching your motorcycle being mangled in the parking lot: Priceless (but really $2300 and seven weeks - not exactly free.)

Or... it could go something like this for the past nine weeks:

Medical bills that your insurance doesn't feel like paying anymore: $530
Semester fees and premium for said crappy insurance: $850
Bike repairs that the other insurance doesn't feel like paying: $200
Motorcycle insurance: $200
Car repairs while your bike is in the shop: $600
Car insurance: $500
Previous medical bills over the past seven months: $3000+


Getting your Ph.D. and getting the hell out of Grad School to make real money: ...

I have no idea, actually. Sure would be nice.

Christ, I need to start dealing crack or something. I mean, find a legal source of additional income.

San Francisco de Asis

Apparently I didn't feel like doing much work today, so here's another photoshop project. This is an authentic adobe church, San Francisco de Asis, a little way outside Taos, NM. For the few people who may have read this blog from its inception, you may remember the original picture from my posts about my summer vaction around Santa Fe.

Again check out my googlepage for the before and after comparison.

Name that Place

While this may be incredibly easy for some people I know, I doubt anyone else will be able to figure it out. It's getting to be about that time of year, so I thought it would be appropriate to post a pic. The first person to get it right wins absolutely nothing!!!

Route 66 Junker

No rants today, I promise. Instead, here's my latest photoshop project. As always, click on the pic for the full version.

To see a before and after, go to my googlepage.

Money Grubbing

F*(|{ the FCC.

If you've read this blog before, then you know how much I love the FCC, especially with Washington's renewed puritanical obsession over broadcast indecency standards. Keep in mind that there's no actual list of forbidden words or phrases, acts or images. Nothing is specifically forbidden, but it doesn't need to be when we'll willingly over-censor ourselves to avoid the increasingly obscene fines that the FCC now has the power to levy. Part of free speech is the freedom to push the limits of decency so that new ideas can find their way into the public discourse more readily.

Granted, requesting previously aired tapes of sporting events isn't exactly restricting the flow of new ideas, but who can tell the effect it will have when there is no more live television? What really gets me, though, is the fact that they're combing tapes long after they've aired. After the tenfold increase in indecency fines our friends in Washington just pushed through, it's going to be extremely hard to convince me that this isn't just a money-grabbing scheme. I'd be interested to learn where these fines go, as well; I mean where the money actually goes, too. I won't accept the official word any more.

On the opposite side of the censorship argument, I'm actually in support of the plug being pulled on high school valedictorian Brittany McComb's graduation speech on account of excessive religious content. The graduation and therefore the speech was sponsored by a public school, as such the school is obliged to adhere to the separation of church and state and cannot endorse religious proselytizing. I mean, really - the girl's speech was already edited and approved by the school before graduation, like any graduation speech, and she chose to deviate from her approved script. I happen to think that excessive religious references are obscene. Let's broadcast the speech and get the FCC involved!!

The reason that I bring this up now, and not earlier, is that I read comics every day as a part of my lunch break, and came across Mallard Fillmore this week, which I often enjoy. I say often because I think that Bruce Tinsley really missed this one.

It's really a clear-cut case of a public school knowing that it can't legally sponsor religious speech, and enforcing the rule that McComb tried to dodge. I guess if you call yourself a conservative, though, you're obliged to hate the ACLU and everything it does. Ah, I love independent thinkers.

New York, New York

In another sad day for equality and basic human rights, New York's highest court yesterday ruled that gay marriage is illegal in that state. Also yesterday, Georgia reinstated a gay-marriage ban. Now among the more than forty states that have specific laws restricting marriage to only a man and a woman, New York and Georgia are only further evidence of the backsliding of equality and basic rights in this country that has been accelerating since 2001. While New York's ruling didn't instate any new laws, it was only an official interpretation of the language of that state's constitution, the effect is similar. Now the debate will be carried to the state's lawmakers, where little hope resides for a new bill that actually equalizes marriage rights for all people.

Highlighted by the language of the majority's ruling, however, is the only marginally defensible facade for those opposed to real equality in marriage. While the idea of gay marriage seems to make most people uncomfortable, those who actively oppose it tend to enshroud their true motivations in the insubstantial fabric of nobility and morality in the face of an overwhelming onslaught against their way of life. Face it, stemming from the same roots as xenophobia, racism, misoneism, and miscegenation laws, the deep-seated reasons most people oppose gay marriage are fear and ignorance - a powerful combination that helped our anscestors stay alive and propogate the species through so many dangerous milennia. But we don't have those types of dangers anymore, and until a completely unknown alien species lands on our planet, that type of animalistic instinct to immediately mistrust that with which we're unfamiliar only serves to stagnate the progress of the human race. For the lazy religious argument - god says it's a sin, so I don't have to make up my own mind - it's also a sin to let your god-given intelligence and rationality to be overwhelmed by the animalistic side of human nature. Our ability to control animalistic impulses or instincts like lust, violence, hatred and fear, is what keeps us from sinning - or in my definition, what actually separates us from animals. And while there are plenty of people who are convinced that gay marriage is actually a threat, and have used their faculties to come to and defend this position, I'm convinced that it's all still born of the instinctual fear of change. I know how easy it is to convince myself of something I want to believe, and how hard it is to accept that I'm wrong. It's even harder still to re-evaluate long-held beliefs that we want to uphold, but it's also extremely important to be able to do so. If it's not difficult, it's probably not worth doing.

While I understand and sympathize with those who've convinced themselves that forbidding gay marriage is truly in the best interest of our society - they're completely wrong, but I know how hard it is to re-evaluate arguments that prevent an uncomfortable self-realization - I find it absolutely hilarious when people call the movement for gay marriage rights an attack or onslaught against their way of life. Dear god, arm yourselves! Here come the gays to kill your children and redecorate your livingroom! Protecting family values sounds so noble, so irrefutably right, that basically all you need to do is spout that line in a debate, and all your problems are solved. You don't hate families, do you? (You probably hate America, too!) But really, how much of an effect will legalizing gay marriage have on the average Joe Republican with his W bumper sticker still adorning the back of his Ford? Does Joe even know a gay couple? Has he ever had the nerve to have a real conversation with someone with a different sexual orientation? Like the magic eight-ball, my sources say no. So how the hell is a minority element of the population (2-10% in most estimates) going to wage war on the values and beliefs of the other 90+% of the American public? Not good odds, if you really want to start something. On top of that, all this assumes that the values of the average modern American family are something worth protecting. Let's take a brief look at some numbers.

Nearly 50% of marriages end in divorce. While that's arguable based on statistical nuance, a conservative number is 41%. The latest US provisional estimate from the National Center for Health Statistics has the per capita divorce rate at 0.38%. Since divorces have to involve 2 people, the reality is that 76 of every 1000 people in 2003 got divorced. That's everyone - not just those who were married. That's not including California, Colorado, Indiana, or Louisana.

According to the US Census Bureau, 23.2% of women who gave birth in 2000-2003 were below the poverty level. The rates of married women versus single women was 12.2% versus 50%. That means that nearly one in four children in America starts life at or below the poverty level. Additionally, 29% of the women who gave birth in 2000-2003 were unmarried.

In 2004, 11.9 of every 1000 children were reported and documented victims of abuse or neglect according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. Also that year, 1,490 children died from abuse or neglect.

These types of family values seem to be the types of things we should be waging war against - not protecting. While an estimated 1 in 10 people are gay, nearly 1 in 4 children are born into poverty. For anyone who can count, that's obviously a much higher percent (especially if you take into account that children - 0-18 years - make up a much smaller percentage of the population than those who are aware of their sexual orientation, lets say 18-76 years.) If anyone actually believes that gay marriage is more threatening to America's children and strong family values, I wonder if they can count.

So in reality, are people really that worried about gay marriage eroding family values and changing their way of life? Maybe, but they wouldn't be if they stopped to think about it. More likely, gay marriage opponents simply haven't taken the time to really evaluate the reasons they don't support true equality, and instead hide behind the arguments set up for them by a small and vocal minority of self-deceiving thinkers. It's so much easier to spout unoriginal rhetoric than to come up with your own ideas. It's much more comfortable. After all, change isn't always comfortable, and it almost always leads to the unknown. We've evolved to fear and fight the unknown, but now it's keeping us from evolving further. Equlality is only a theory until it's truly put into practice.

You want customer service? Go f*#& yourself. How's that?

First let me start by saying that flicman's post helped spark today's rant.

Telecoms, car insurance companies, and potentially worst of all, health insurance companies - these businesses hide behind their size in order to make it nearly impossible to speak to anyone with any sort of accountability. I can't tell you how many times I've heard "I'm sorry sir, there's nothing I can do" followed up by some sort of line about company policy. That, and it's complete bullshit. They're not sorry at all. And neither are their supervisors, or their supervisors' supervisors. They want you to think that no one short of the god-damned CEO can make any sort of real decisions, and even then not without approval of the board and majority stock holders. Bullshit. My health insurance company has decided to throw back hundreds of dollars of physical therapy bills to me that they decided not to pay - and this is after I've already paid my share - but no one, not a single useless person I've talked to, has any helpful information to give me about why this is, or how I can go about arguing these additional charges. But as useless as these customer service reps are, it's not necessarily their fault. Most times the companies are structured that way to intentionally make it nearly impossible to argue or change anything the consumer disagrees with.

I recently talked with AT&T (formerly SBC) about an incomprehensible phone and internet bill that had miraculously nearly doubled last month, and while the rep was very friendly and helpful, informed me that he has a much more complete version of my bill, and that customers aren't allowed to get a copy of that easy-to-understand summary. Is that not one of the more devious and screwed up things in customer service? I mean, I'm a phucking physicist and I couldn't make sense of a goddamn telephone and internet bill, even once the charges were explained to me. Without talking to the rep with the complete bill and account history, there was no way I could be sure about the reason certain charges were included in the bill, or even what months they were for, in some cases. Intentional obfuscation in billing and customer service pisses me off to no end.

Unfortunately, it's not just large companies that manage to make a joke out of customer service. I have had my motorcycle at a mechanic's shop - arguably the best motorcycle mechanic in Houston - for nearly four weeks for minor repairs and paint, and have yet to receive a single call from them. I've initiated every instance of contact, often days after I was promised a call or some sort of information about cost, delays, and paint colors. Obviously when someone who's working for your money promises to call back, it seems that it would be a good business practice to actually do it. But what the hell, once someone has information on you and can threaten your credit or withhold your property, basic manners and good business practices go out the window. And for years, in companies big and small, I've seen no evidence to disprove that customer service is dead.

...Eternally Wars

Like the signature on an apocalyptic love letter, the message that the Bush administration has been driving into the psyche of the American public is that the "War on Terror" is an ongoing battle that justifies any government action deemed necessary to guarantee the safety of American citizens around the globe. Don't do anything that could possibly compromise any of those "protective" measures, either - and of course don't question them - or you're personally threatening American lives. I see so many inherent problems in this line of thinking that I just don't know where to start. Fear-inciting governments? Gross abuses of power? Multiple intelligence leaks? Irresponsible blame-shifting? The devaluation of non-American lives? So I'll start with what incited today's rant, instead.

Friday's New York Times story (similarly in the LA Times and the Wall Street Journal) disclosed a secret CIA program operating since shortly after 9/11/2001 that collects confidential financial records and data maintained by a Belgian cooperative said to be a nerve center for international banking. Needless to say, Bush and other supporters of Big Brother government are righteously pissed, with Representative King (R-NY) calling for criminal investigations of the NY and LA Times as well as the WSJ. While of course the administration claims that everything that they're doing is simply for the good of the American public and entirely legal, you have to question why, exactly, officials directly involved in the exposed programs would have strong enough discomfort about the programs' legality and oversight to take such risks as talking with the media. I know that mainstream media is all about generating hype and controversy, but there's got to be a lot of truth in this story for everyone to be so upset about it.

This brings me to the first point that everyone's talking about, so I'll just touch on it briefly. What constitutes irresponsible reporting, and how does the public's right to know - a basic tenet of democracy and effectively freedom of speech - measure up to the government's power's and responsibility to defend the public from threats? All I'm going to say is that in my opinion, a public isn't worth defending that would gladly forefit it's rights of information to support that safety. While I'd rather be the farmer than the sheep, I'd rather still we all were famers with no sheep to sheer, and full knowledge of all the wolves and other threats that surround and infuse us. That's a bit corny, but you get the idea.

On to the appropriately-placed second point. This Swift story is the second exposure of questionable (to put it euphemistically) practices by intelligence and security agencies under the auspices of finding and tracking terrorists and their organizations. Of course these methods aren't going to work as well if everyone knows about them, but I highly doubt that they then become entirely useless. More importantly, what was viewed by many of the nearly 20 unnamed officials to speak with the NY Times as an initially necessary yet temporary measure after 9/11 has turned into a permanent practice, even though its implementation was based partly on the president's emergency economic powers. Is the U.S. still in a time of emergency? I don’t think so. You must have a strange definition of the word if you think we are. Are we still under threat? Of course. Have there been two years since the inception of our nation that there hasn’t been a threat of some sort or another? No.

The question is, then, how much of a threat is the country under, and does it warrant the kind of sugar-coated gross abuses of power that the government sells as doctrine every chance it gets? The culture of fear that has been shoved down our throats since 9/11 has now just become a part of our daily diet. Yes, yes, of course there’s a horrible omnipresent terrorist threat that will kill us all if our big brother government doesn’t use all it’s available powers (and some formerly illegal ones, but he said they’re legal now so it’s okay) to protect us – but only if we’re supportive American citizens. We’ve heard it all a million times before. Now shut up and let me get back to watching American Idol. Do whatever you need to do – just don’t interrupt me.

(The whole Ameri-centric-ness-ocity-ism-ness of the majority of public statements also really bugs me, but as I’ve already tried to cram about 5 essays worth of topics into one increasingly lengthy rant, I’ll have to get to it later.)

So, before I prematurely wrap up this unfortunately long rant, let me find my way back to the title. All this fear-based governance has been with us so long already, that it’s becoming a bore. While that usually spells the end of a movement for the increasingly ADHD American public, it seems that the practices will continue, unfortunately. All that’s going to change is the fervor and frequency of the fear-based battle cry of justification. What has me thinking about all this is the number of times you hear the President and his administration saying that we’re at war. Most of the time, the topic is terrorism, but the war they reference is in Iraq. The “War on Terror” is a war just as much as the “War on Drugs” is a war. Calling it a war is almost comically arrogant. Which one is deadlier? Illegal drugs have killed so many more people than terrorists, yet no president has ever even asked for emergency powers during that war. Based on the Bush administration, Reagan should have been exercising emergency executive privileges in order to protect American lives from the unprecedented threat of illegal drugs. Is this “war” on terror that much different? It’s just as futile, just as unending, and is being approached in a manner that is just as stupid as the “war” on drugs. It’s not going to end, especially if the current administration and the prevailing right-wing power base have anything to say about it. War is good for those in power, and as long as we continue to sit on our butts and accept everything we’re fed, It’ll be

Eternally Wars,
AJ

U.S. Decency Standards - What the F@&!!

In a blatant attempt to boost waning support from the religious and conservative right, the Bush administration has taken another big step down the increasingly steep slope to decidedly undemocratic media censorship. Welcome to Iran, ladies and gentlemen. While increasing fines for indecent material on the few completely regulated sections of the media spectrum might not seem like such a big deal - and it may not be at the moment - it portends a scary future where comedy sketches about Jesus killing Santa Clause are fined into oblivion. This is a post that I started last week, but never had the time to finish. You get the general, though incomplete, idea, and I've got many, many other things to rant about.

Another Photoshop Project

While this one doesn't look as drastically different as the first two, (see a comparison) it was certainly a lot more complicated. It seems I'm learning a thing or two, as well, though I'd still call it a hack job by some standards.

Beginning Photoshop

So like most of you, I'm sure, I have a bunch of pictures that I've taken that didn't turn out exactly the way I'd planned for one reason or another. Maybe the colors didn't come out as vibrantly as they seemed originally, or the background is way too dark or the foreground is washed out. Things like this seem to ruin a good portion of my pictures - granted, I use my little 2MP ghetto digicam - and I'm always a little disappointed when a picture I've set up and actually thought about before snapping comes out looking like crap. So, you get the idea. Here are a couple of my first quick attempts at photoshop-alterations to my crappy little digicam pics. More to follow, I hope, with improvements.

Gay Marriage

I tend to disagree with most things Lou Dobbs says - he can really be a pompous windbag - but at least the main idea of this cnn article gets it right, even if he never even mentions that the idea itself is just a bad one. I mean, a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage is horrible in even the best of times - it doesn't take other, more "important" issues to make it wrong. It just is. Period. The mere idea of writing fear- and ignorance-based discrimination into our Constitution is insulting to the ideals and individuals that have driven progress over the last two hundred thirty years, and changed our country from a slave-holding colony run by rich male landowners, to a nominally equality-based democracy with the power to change the world. I, for one, am against letting elected officials use that power to undo over two hundred years of social and idealogical progress for their own archaic, personal belief - be it in morality dictated by a higher power or the innate right of those with power to impose their will on the world.

To give credit to Dobbs, though, the main idea of his article is that any wedge issue, gay marriage in this case, is just insulting to the american public when there's so much more going on that might actually be resolved. Wedge issues, even important ones like this, are basically only ever used as tools of political maneuvering. I mean, no one expects this to get the 2/3 vote. No one. Forget that it's a bad idea to begin with, it's just a huge waste of time.

Obligatory Post

Now, I'm fully aware of just how arbitrary our current calendar system is, but it's still kinda cool to point out that today is 6/6/6. I mean, just because some dead guy decided to graduate the passage of the sun around the earth (everything was geocentric back then) into more than five months guarantees that we'll have 6/6/6 at least once a century. But what if a month was 73 days long instead? Arbitrary choice? Yes! But at least each month has the same number of days. Also, there'd never be a sixth month, and so we'd never get to glibly note the passage of 6/6/6, no matter what century. Gotta love arbitrary gradations.

200+ horsepower on 2 wheels

... seems a little out of my league. Okay, a lot out of my league. I hardly ever put the 120+ horsepower of my bike to use, and it's a hell of lot heavier than this Ducati. With a US MSRP of $65,000, I don't think I'll have to worry about that any time soon, though. Egads, that makes me want to go to a track day.

Really want to rant

... but I'm too tired at the moment. In the meantime, get a taste of some similar feelings by reading this wonderful rant. Those who are easily offended, fiercely southern, extremely right wing, or have no sense of humor (funny how those tend to go together) should probably abstain. Or sod off. I don't really care.

Sailing, camping, riding, and broken bikes - Austin

An event-filled weekend road-trip started Friday with a 180 mile ride up 290 with Chris (proud owner of a sweet Ducati 750 Monster) to Lake Travis just outside Austin. April and her dad had a two-day sailing race from the Austin Yacht Club, and a whole group of people went along and made it a fun two days of camping and hanging out on the lake. About 30 miles from Austin, though, the weekend took a decidedly bad turn before it even got started when a guy in a pickup knocked my bike over in a Dairy Queen parking lot. I have no idea how he did't see it, but at least he was helpful and nice, and paid for the minimum repairs it needed to be road-worthy so I could at least finish the trip to Austin. Even though the damage doesn't show up so well in the pics, it'll probably be about a grand in repairs when I can get it into a shop, so he gave me his insurance information and a sincere apology. It certainly made me feel better - what would I have done if he were a complete jerk, or just simply left the scene? The left turn signal was ripped off, front air intake broken, fairing bent and cracked, windscreen support bent, windscreen split, mirrors bent, and one sticking straight up in the air. I could have ridden it, but pieces were literally falling off. It's nice he paid for the immediate repairs and was so helpful about everything. Still, my bike was (and still is) all kinds of messed up and it's just going to be a headache getting the insurance crap all sorted out.

But back to the weekend. Friday night was too hot to get much sleep (at least for an insomniac like me) and left me too tired Saturday to get down to Devil's backbone (about halfway to San Antonio - not insignificant on my quite-uncomfortable sportbike seat) where the roads seem custom made for motorcycles. So Chris and I explored some of the roads between Friday's and Saturday's camp grounds, and found that Lime Creek road is one fo the best in the area. Take a close look at the local map to get an idea of just how insanely winding that road is, with its multiple 15mph curves and fantastic hills. Egads, I want to live in Austin!

Saturday night brought a pretty good storm, soaking a bunch of stuff in the tents thanks to the crazy changes in the wind's direction. At one point I thought the stakes weren't going to hold the wind was so strong. So after another near-sleepless night in the tent and looking at nearly 200 miles back to Houston that evening, the day's ride was a modest 60 mile round-trip to marble falls along 1431 - another great road if there's no traffic. All in all, the weekend was a good time, and I'd do it again, though with a couple of key changes. April and her dad came in 2nd both days, so there's a good chance that they won the overall race, though we're not sure. I'll be sure to update about getting my bike fixed, and post some pics of the weekend soon.

Social and Science Update

Egads, it's been another long while since I've updated this thing. At least it's not completely defunct yet, I suppose. So this weekend was just about completely full of fun. I actually don't know if the laws of phunsics allows for a higher concentration of joviality. The highlights were a 250 mile ride up past Navasota with Chris on Saturday, a bar-hopping night out that evening for Christina's birthday with a bunch of BioEs, and a big 'ol grill and chill event around the pool with many of the same people (and many other people as well) as the previous evening. Sunday's grilling event saw nearly 25 burgers, pounds of chicken and other meats, various veggies, and two or so cases of beer consumed in the four plus hours that people mingled. The grilling and chilling groups pretty much stayed by their respective areas, with the un-heated jacuzzi providing a base for most with bathing suits, except for the rare emergence prompted by the sultry scents wafting off the grills. (We actually had 2 going simultaneously by the end.) It was a complete success, if I do say so myself, though I'll probably do things a little differently next time - and not for another month or so I'd wager.

In other news, this month's issue of National Geographic Magazine has a decent-sized article on nanotechnology. This is pretty cool since it's what I study, but made even better (for me, at least) by the fact that it focuses a lot of attention to work done here at Rice University. There are a bunch of faculty and a few grad students mentioned, and my work on nanocars is even mentioned briefly, with one of my images appearing thumbnail-sized in a little blurb. So please allow me a moment to be excited that my name even appears in print in National Geographic - albeit as a photo-credit in really tiny print at the bottom of the page - before pointing out that no one ever reads those names. Next step - getting my name in full-sized text.

Research Update

Things are going so incredibly slowly in my research efforts, mainly due to my dosing valve. Basically I have to get some rather fragile (can't sublimate) molecules onto a surface from a solution, but I want to keep the surface as clean as possible in the meantime. For this, I want to deposit the molecules in a high vacuum environment. What I've been doing up to this point is to use a valve with a tiny orifice that is electronically actuated and capable of fully opening and closing in fewer than 5 miliseconds. This has succeeded so far in keeping my substrate much cleaner than when depositing in air. The problem now is that the valve isn't closing properly after I dose the solution. What this means is two-fold. First, the pressure in the prep chamber is much higher than is should be, getting the surface dirty and basically negating the benefits of using the valve in the first place. Second, if the pressure doesn't get back down to low enough pressures, I can't put my sample back into the UHV chamber to scan, meaning I have a brand new sample that I can't get to the microscope. AAARGH!! Like a steering wheel in a pirate's pants, it's drivin' me nuts. Pretty soon I'm going to have to go back to depositing in air and looking for a cleaner solvent. Of course, we've ordered a new valve that won't get here for another 5 weeks, but if it's not working now, why should a new one work any longer than this one did? Basically I have to devise a completely new way of depositing these molecules (nanocars, dimers, and a ton of other molecules the Tour lab has synthesized) in a high vacuum environment. It would be helpful to have a proper prep chamber, but we're talking over a hundred grand, easily, and probably a month's work to attach an entirely new section to the UHV chamber. All this means I'm getting really skeptical about my ability to get enough quality data to graduate in a year. Horseshit. I'm just going to have to work my ass off.

Emily's Graduated!

Congratulations to my little sister, who, I must add, is finished with school at least an entire year before her big brother!

It was great to see everyone this weekend - Mom, Joel, sister, bro and his girlfriend - for a family get-together in Syracuse, albeit a very short one. There was lots of driving and little sleeping, but it was all for the best, since I haven't seen everyone since December, and don't know when I'll see everyone together again, at least till next December (I hope.) I can't believe that my little baby sister is all grown up, going out into the real world to find her place of prominence. I know she'll do fantastically at whatever she decides to do, but I'm not without a little brotherly concern for all the changes and challenges she's about to come up against. Knowing her, though, she'll breeze through them all and make my worries look absolutely silly in hindsight. Congratulations, Emily, and good luck in LA!

I miss you, Dad. Same today as every day, just more pronounced. Six years seems like a day, sometimes.

Another day older

Heck, another year older, if you think people only age when their birthdays come around. No specific milestone this year, no nice, convenient numbers involved, (last year I turned 25 (5*5) on 5/5/5 - how cool is that) but it sure was nice weather this morning. Nothing out of the ordinary today, just a normal work day, but I'll probably go out with a few friends tonight - starting at Valhalla around 8 and probably moving to Volcano and maybe Brian O'neal's after that. If that's anywhere near you, come on out and help me celebrate another year in the life of me!

Weekend Ride

I finally got out of the city for a decent weekend ride again. I don't think I've done that in over a year! Even though it was only about 200 miles, it was still a good time. I really need to do that more often.

Jonah and I didn't start til nearly noon, so I was worried about the heat. Luckily, it was incredibly comfortable riding weather till the last half of the ride back, when even 80mph winds couldn't keep me cool. The map shows our approximate route, since at that scale the smaller roads aren't visible on the map. Green is for gas stops and blue is where we had lunch in Montgomery. I can't believe the difference that highway driving makes for my gas mileage. Even with the last fifteen miles being in the city, I got about 50% better mileage out of the last half of the ride than I normally do in day-to-day riding.

We detoured along a new road to test it out, but it ended up about 8 miles of gravel after the first half mile of pavement. Bad news for bikes. Even so, it was fun, if a little nerve-wracking, and we made it the entire day without any incidents.

As usual, click on the pics for larger versions.

Not dead yet

Though yesterday I thought I would come close. I had some sort of flu or virus and ended up losing six pounds over 24 hours. For those who know me, that's a pretty big deal. I mean, I'm worried about lost brain matter at the moment, because I really don't have many other places to lose the weight. Chop off a foot, maybe, because that's about an equivalent amount.

Anyway, I'm feeling much better today, but still really weak and annoyed. I hate being sick, and Houston seems to have made it a much more regular occurrence than anywhere else I've lived. Damn dirty city and it's abhorrent air quality.

Haven't updated in a week

... and I don't know why, really. Lots has been going on, but I'm not really in a mood to recap. Let me just make this a promise to blog about the new things that are happening, then. And a recommendation to go see Thank You for Smoking. It was really good - entertaining and still made you think - and while I'm just about as anti-big tobacco as you can get, I can honestly say I don't think it was over the top in either direction.

So I'll try to blog about some more interesting stuff from now on. Lots is happening, though I'm beginning to wonder what to share and what to keep to myself, since I probably know most of the readers here, and certainly most of the regular readers. Site Meter is good for that, though it's still a guessing game.

Plaques for ridiculous things

This morning I got to read a letter originally sent to the principle investigator of my research project (Nanocars,(.pdf) as I've mentioned before) from the publishers of my first paper, the American Chemical Society, or just ACS. Among more than thirty other journals, they also publish the journal Nano Letters, where we submitted our paper in October. Apparently that article was downloaded more times in the two months it was available in 2005 than any other article in any other ACS publication for that entire year! Now that's just ridiculous. And so is the fact that I got a plaque because of that. Still, it's kindof cool, partly because I haven't gotten a plaque for anything in yearly 4 years, and partly because now there's something to hang on the walls in my office. Click on the pic for a higher-resolution image.

Good Weekend

Sunday was a great day. Went to an Aeros game with a bunch of people from BioE. The game itself was really great - down to the last 16 seconds in sudden death overtime and the home team won! It's obviously minor-league (not that I could even stay upright on ice-skates) but still a bunch of fun, especially with a rowdy crowd insulting the other team. I hope the goalie couldn't hear everything, or else has developed a very thick skin to that sort of thing, which he undoubtedly has. Still - funny as hell. A bit of pizza afterwards at Two Rows was a good time, as well.

Yesterday and today involves writing and revising a rough draft of another paper I'm putting together for publication. I'll get back in the lab eventually, I swear.

Lazy Saturday

Not much going on today. I sat out by the pool reading for about an hour - probably 15 minutes too long, judging by the pink hue of my chest. Still, it was perfect weather, so it was hard to come in. The TV's gone kaput - can't even call for a repair till Monday - so I'm doing more than just watching the tube all day, which is good. It's way too easy to just get sucked into a video game or show and throw away a perfectly good weekend.

There's a party tonight that roomie and I will probably go to, and it seems like it will be populated by a bunch of the people we saw out last night. Fun night all in all, but apparently I dodged a bullet since 3 or 4 people have come down with a stomache virus and been out of commission all day. Hooray for not being sick!

100th Post!!!

Throw me a party! Not that this is any great milestone, so I'm putting up something completely random from my early days online (1996, actually) just to show that the irrelevance of my postings hasn't changed in ten years.

An old man once stopped me on the street and asked where I thought I was going. After getting over the initial shock of this total stranger asking such a random and accusatory question, I replied "Home." He looked me straight in the eye and said,"Well, aren't we all?"

That's just something I wrote for an old, old webpage of mine in high school. I googled my pseudonym and found a bunch of this old crap. Gosh, I was a weird kid.

Hooray for the irrelevant 100th post!

Science and Intelligent Design, 1st Attempt

I have no problems with people who think the entire universe was created by some omnipotent being of extreme intelligence in his own image, as a big joke, or in any other way that we mere mortals can't possibly comprehend. It's a theory, and as a theory is just as valid as any other. It doesn't have nearly the supporting evidence or solid grounding in logic as other theories, including the theory of evolution, the theory of the big bang, or many other scientific theories, but then again its like calling a horse a man and trying to make it wear your pants. Okay, maybe not. But it is trying to get a belief-based theory to fit into the lexicon and framework of the scientific method - which is the exact antithesis of a belief-based system.

Beliefs have no place in a process that was specifically designed to eliminate them in favor of factual evidence. That's just the way it is - by definition. There is no inherent value-judgment placed on the scientific method, it was simply designed to do a specific thing for a specific goal, and it does so, by design, without allowance for different methods of interpretation. It is, itself, a strict method of interpreting and learning about the world we live in within a single, rigid framework. I happen to think about most of my world within that framework. I like the idea of being able to make predictions based on gathered data, evidence, and proven hypotheses, as it helps keep me healthy and alive better than any other framework I've considered.


What I do have a problem with is people like Johnny Hart, creator and author of the wildly popular and widely-syndicated comic B.C. While this comic is hardly the most annoying thing for a scientist to come across in the realm of the God vs. Science debates, (an issue that itself is annoyingly narrow-minded, but more on that later) it is yet another seemingly willful attempt to obfuscate and dilute the actual definition and meaning of science in favor of completely non-scientific views - an action that is aggravating not because it tries to undermine my own personal view of the universe, but because it seems to be based in the ignorant and intellectually lazy assumption that the scientific framework erodes the validity of any faith-based system. (Ask anyone who knows me. Almost nothing bugs me more than willfully ignorant people who don't think for themselves.) My main problem with the entire intelligent design push is that it tries to claim itself a position in scientific discourse, particularly in public schools. While its intellectual and philosophical merits may be debated, and I think they should be, it simply doesn't fit within the framework rigidly designed by the scientific method, and by the definition of such, the theory of intelligent design is not science.

A few summarizing points:

1. There is absolutely no need for Science and Belief to be mutually exclusive.
2. Things that have their foundations based completely on faith cannot be called science, simply by the definition of the terms.
3. Varying frameworks for the interpretation and understanding of reality can be logically argued against each other for their effectiveness in a particular task (e.g. the survival of the species,) but theories from varying frameworks can't. It's like trying to argue in two completely different languages, and is equally pointless. (This is the major problem that arises by trying to claim that one religion is the "right" religion.)

Unfortunately, while everyone that I know uses the basic world-view framework of the scientific method, even the most religious of my friends, the illogical and unpredictable aspects of human nature will always throw a monkey wrench in any attempts to live strictly by the scientific method, so the above three points are, themselves, effectively hopeless. That doesn't mean, however, that we shouldn't try to at least understand them.

Hump day

And it's not a bad one, all told. The weather's gorgeous, I've got a great sandwich leftover from yesterday for lunch (which means I won't be spending any money, too) and my boss is out of town. How could it get any better? Hmm... I'll work on it and let you know. In case you don't really know me, by far the greatest of the three things here is the boss being out of town. Hip-hip...

Delay is gone!

Thank God the man has finally stepped down. Delay is representative of the worst kind of poltician, and it's nice to know that sometimes things can be corrected even when they seem so far gone as to be nearly hopeless.

Weekend Update, Archibald Style

So Atlanta was a great time, albeit a bit too short. The CNN center on Saturday was a really neat experience. The tour shows you the actual news-room floors, and the live broadcasts going on below. It's definately a touristy approach, but is still lots of fun. Chris, Marley and I went through for the hour, as Aunt Sue wasn't up to the 8 floors of stairs we had to cover. She's doing a lot better than only a month ago, according to Chris, which is good to know, since she's still having a bit of discomfort with too much walking due to her bulging disks in her lower back. Oiy. The Georgia Aquarium was also a great time - my favorite part was the huge open-ocean tank at the end, with the absolutely gigantic (I'd guess about 100ft wide by 50ft high) clear acrylic viewing wall giving a fantastic panorama of the thousands of fish, and even the two whale-sharks. Awe-inspiring. Sunday was a lazy day reading and chilling by the hot-tub before I had to go pack and leave for the plane. A huge thanks to Chris for flying me out and back in business class - probably saving me at least an hour in the Atlanta airport and untold stress and leg-fatigue. Extra room on a flight is simply devine, especially for my 6'6" frame.

In Atlanta!

I got in yetsteday around 2 and went with Chris from the airport to grab a late lunch at Houston's. Ironic, or just good food? He then had some work to finish up so I got to see the his office and meet a bunch of coworkers, as well as get a quick tour of some of the radio and TV studio space. Pretty cool if you ask me. All I could think was that Emily would really appreciate a bunch of the stuff I saw, and even know what the hell most of it was. After that we headed home through some pretty bad traffic. Chris and Angela's house is fantastic. I've got the run of the basement "man cave," which is bigger than my entire place in Houston. Today we're planning on going to the aquarium, so that should be fun. Aunt Sue's doing much better, Marley's huge, and Chris and Angela both look and seem to be doing great. I don't want to be too antisocial so that's all for now.

Atlanta Tomorrow

... and I'm not even packed yet. Maybe I'll get up early and try to get everything done before Jonah picks me up at 9. I'm excited to see Chris, Angela, and Marley tomorrow, with the added bonus of Aunt Sue as well! Updates to follow, I'm sure.

Stupid humor between brothers

20:58:21) Flicman: you got hacked!
(20:58:41) Flicman: jealous ex girlfriend!
(20:58:50) archibaldq: heh. wouldn't that suck. hacked for like 5 emails.
(20:59:19) archibaldq: hmm... ex girlfriends
(21:00:01) archibaldq: about as far from hackers as you can get, without being a retarded inuit left on an iceflow
(21:00:34) Flicman: well, didn't you date one of those too?
(21:01:06) archibaldq: yeah. but only for a day. albeit an arctic day.
(21:01:23) Flicman: i heard it was a torrid affair.
(21:02:00) archibaldq: it was a torroidal affair. she really liked donuts.
(21:02:17) Flicman: heeheehee
(21:02:21) Flicman: you have a PROBLEM.
(21:02:25) Flicman: honestly
(21:02:38) archibaldq: a fat, retarded eskimo problem, apparently