Welcome to the page of Keith Alan McCall.

Yep, yet another personal web page... No, I didn't spell-check anything.

 

Here are the times around the globe, at the time this page was loaded: West Coast, USA = 04:00 PM , East Coast, USA = 07:00 PM , Denmark = 01:00 AM , China = 07:00 AM . Daylight savings time is observed in both Denmark and the US, with the time adjustments being made on dates separated by a few weeks. China does not observe daylight savings time. I need to fix things to account for the new daylight savings times, but I have not done this yet.

Random Quote

Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.
- Winston Churchill

Blog text. Unfiltered mind-dump.

080713 Davis, CA
As part of my general clean-up, I've been going through all the old stuff I have lying around and deciding whether or not I really need to keep it or if I should dispose of it (to Good Will, recycling, or trash). One of the things I hit on recently was a small breast pocket-sized publication of the Charter of the United Nations and Statute of the International Court of Justice. I remember getting involved in the Model U.N. in highschool and the feeling of optimism about the world knowing that there was a United Nations organization and an International Court of Justice existing, with full and active support from my government, designed to promote justice and equality, and to punish abuses...

This was many years before my government started refusing to pay it's membership dues, called the Geneva Conventions "quaint and antiquated", and began refusing to recognize the International Court of Justice for fear of having our military called before it for war crimes and torture. Now I look at the little booklet and see nothing but tarnished dreams; it recalls a time when, despite lapses and flaws, my country still tried to be one of the good guys. Now, it seems our government spends it's time trying to justify the application of strength rather than strengthening the application of justice.

The booklet has gone into the recycling bin. When my nation once again subscribes to the ideals contained within that booklet, I will write to the U.N. and request another copy. With any luck, that time will come sooner than I currently think.

080709 Davis, CA
Oh, meetings, what ever would I do with all my time if I didn't have to attend meetings? Well, at least I used my last meeting to plan my next experiment and write a haiku or two. I'll share one now... It's a somewhat brutal, but honest observation of one of the other meeting attendees.

Lively eyes, quick smile.
Face like ten years of bad luck.
Sweet but ugly girl.

As an aside, I'll mention that the woman in question is happily married; personality matters far more than advertisments would have one believe.

080704 Davis, CA
Happy 4th of July! Rather than bludgeon you over the head with politics, this time I have decided to just give a patriotic quote or two. I won't even decry the latest (highly questionable) claims of Executive Privilige by the Vice President's office! Now for the patriotic quotes:

The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.
-Patrick Henry

It was our own moral failure and not any accident of chance, that while preserving the appearance of the Republic we lost its reality.
-Marcus Tullius Cicero

OK, so Cicero was not an early American patriot like Henry, but he was a patriot for his own country. Now, on to talking about barbecues... Sorta.

A number of things lately have reminded me that modern civilization is an awfully thin patina. One of these reminders was at a barbecue. People were sitting around talking about cooking tips for ribs and the conversation wandered around to salt. There was some debate about sea salt versus kosher salt versus your standard iodized salt.

What got to me was this: 1) Not one of the people were using any discussion of composition or atoms. There was not one whit of science in their attempt to discuss sodium cloride. 2) Even though they did not know the formal names of the principles they invoked when discussing why one salt might be better than another, I recognized well the principles they invoked. The claim that rock salt was born from the earth and would bring with it the flavor of dirt (invoked along with the claim that sea salt would bring no contaminating tastes as it was born from water) is clearly an invocation of the Law of Contagion (one of the Laws of Hermetic Magic). Other discussions about salt wandered into invoking the Law of Sympathy.

I pointed out a few things (e.g. kosher salt is just a larger particle size but otherwise compositionally identical to standard table salt, other than the trace of potassium iodide typically added to table salt), but in general, the group was uninterested in any discussion that used a scientific world view; the associations they'd worked out (unknowingly) using the principles of magic were far more emotionally satisfying. Sigh.

On a side note, it was sort of interesting to attend the barbecue as a vegetarian; there was almost nothing provided that I could eat other than chips and salsa; the apetizers were various bacon-wrapped grilled vegetables. I'm used to it by now, so I had brought my own snacks (mixed nuts - for the protein), side dish (potato salad, without the ham that had been added to the potato salad someone else had brought), and items for the grill (veggie burgers). The host felt kind of bad about it and, as I was leaving, said "Next time, I'll make sure there is something you can eat." I responded with what I honestly believe: "Please, there is no need to do that. After all, why should my choices inconvenience you?"

Yeah, it's a bummer when there is nothing I can eat, but then again I chose to restrict my diet and I can always choose to unrestrict it. It is not a medical condition or something forced on me. So, I see no reason to push the inconvenience of my choice off on someone else, e.g. making a host make two versions of a dish, one vegetarian and one not. On the other hand, if it is a case where there is no inconvenience to someone else, e.g. when ordering a dozen pizzas it is easy to make sure at least one of them has no meat on it, then it does seem thoughtless if twelve out of twelve pizzas are meat pizzas.

080628 Davis, CA
Today, it's story time. This story requires a bit of background information. The first bit of background information is that my company has on-site canteens / cafeterias at every site except Davis; the Davis site was too small when it was first built to justify a canteen and now we don't have the space on-site. To make up for this lack of on-site cheap food, the Davis site has lunch brought in every Wednesday as an ongoing benefit. Normally, there are a selection of meat dishes and one vegetarian option... You have to be fast to get any of the vegetarian option; just enough is ordered to serve about eight to ten people, the site has twelve vegetarians, and many of the 90+ meat eaters take "just a little" of the vegetarian option "just to taste it". The second bit of background information is that my company has been focused on being Green / Sustainable ever since it was first founded, running lots of internal programs, involving itself in environmental collaboration, and winning various environmental recognition awards.

Now, the story: Recently, there was a big PR push in the company where all the canteens / cafeterias at the worldwide sites went entirely vegetarian for the day. At lunchtime, there were note-cards set out that read "You have just saved the planet for a CO2 emission that is equivalent to driving 20 kilometers / 12.5 miles in your car. Just by avoiding meat at lunch today!" I was looking forward to seeing several vegetarian options. I was standing in the lunch line and the only vegetarian item available was a baked potato (sour cream and bacon bits were the available toppings). There were five trays of fish, a bowl of antipasto (made of various cured meats, with olives and peppers) and an empty tray that had once held some fried eggplant (reportedly, just enough for the first ten people in line). I walked through the line, turned up my nose at the dry foil-wrapped rocks (i.e. the badly baked potatoes) and ended up having passed through the line with my plate still empty. Waiting for me, were two of the other vegetarians, also standing there with empty plates. We waited for two more of the vegetarians to walk through with empty plates and then we all left to find something to eat at the nearby shopping mall.

I stopped by to chat with the secretary who had ordered the lunch, to see if there was some sort of misunderstanding... Perhaps the vegetarian lunch was being advertised, but was actually going to be delivered on another day? No; that was it. I asked about the large piles of fish, suggesting that fish were commonly believed to have spinal cords and be motile rather than having leaves and root systems and be sessile, all of which perhaps suggested that fish were not, indeed, vegetables? She said that she asked someone if fish was OK and the person (not a vegetarian) claimed that "lots of vegetarians eat fish"... Huh. You'd think that the eyes and spinal cord would make the assignment of fish to the Animal Kingdom pretty clear, but I guess it's more complex than I'd have thought. Thus ended the "vegetarian" lunch at my site.

080624 Davis, CA
Lack of time, lack of interesting things worth posting, and computer problems taking the site down have conspired to result in no posts lately. Still, I've not abandoned this thing entirely; a new post or two will be up shortly.

080531 Davis, CA
At work, as part of a team-building exercise, we all took a short Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test and then met in groups to go over what that might mean about communication style preferences. I've done these personality tests before and I expected no surprises... I was mostly right.

I was about 80-90% correct in my guesses of other people's "types", but one of the excercises gave me a surprise; it made me sad. You see, we divided up into two sets - people with scores toward the "Sensation" (S) end of the spectrum versus people with scores toward the "Intuition" (I) end of the spectrum. Each group was given a Red Delicious apple and told to make a list describing everything they could think of describing the object.

I was with the "Intuition" group. We came up with the following: Red, Ovoid, Wax-coated, Shiny, Slightly aromatic, Crunchy, Of the Kingdom Plantae, Contains seeds, High sugar and water content fruit, Frequent teacher's gift, Symbolic of youth (in Norse Mythology), Symbolic of (forbidden) knowledge or loss of innocence (in Christian religious symbolism), A source of both food (sauce, pies, raw) and drink (cider), Useful for demonstrating gravity (e.g. Newton).

The "Sensation" group came up with the following: Red, Round, Has a stem, Has five bumps on the bottom, Has a sticker on it saying it came from Washington State. (Note: Our apple didn't have a sticker.)

This made me sad for them. Yeah, I knew going into the exercise that people who rate more on the S end tend to focus on concrete details and those on the I end tend to follow abstrations and broad associations, but I was kind of shocked by the paucity of the "Sensation" group's list; they didn't even use all five senses - no attempt to smell it, no mentioning how Red Delicious apples taste, just saying "Red" while ignoring the waxy sheen, the yellow highlights, the brown stem, etc. It was just a short, uninteresting, and incomplete listing of the primary concrete features.

And that was what made me sad for them - to think that that little list was all they got out of seeing an apple. It seemed to me that their world must be such an empty, impoverished place compared to the world of someone who is drawing connections and associations between everything. Heck, it's an impoverished world even compared to the world of someone who lacks associations, but embraces the full spectrum of concrete details offered by a simple apple.

Disclaimer: I'm not making any claimes about "S-type" people in general; my observation is limited to the individuals involved in this particular exercise. Also, one could argue "Perhaps they were just doing a half-assed job on the description because they thought the exercise was a waste of time". However, these same people were full participants in exercises both before and after that one, where other traits were emphasized, so I tend to think that was all that they got out of looking at that apple. It makes me glad I'm me and not them.

080511 Davis, CA
Since my mother is spending at least part of Mother's Day at Rochester's Lilac Festival, I sent her a quick haiku for for Mother's Day:

Blue petal bundles,
Sweet smells lend grace to the air,
It's lilac season.

I'm spending the day on piddly chores; laundry, house-cleaning, etc. The thing is, for the last year or so, I've been going through every last scrap in every last box, figuring out what to keep and what to toss. A lot of the boxes are full of papers; a mixture of old bills, cards from friends, pictures, and notes. This stuff takes rather a long time to go through since some of the scraps are things I consider definitely worth saving. E.g. in the middle of a pile of very old (paid) bills was a small scrap of paper containing several haiku I'd written while hiking in the White Mountains with my parents:

Ridge trail underfoot
sun-dappled, moss-encrusted
bones of the mountain.

The sky is so close
the trees carefully grow short
for fear of touching.

Mica flecks twinkle
nestled in black mountain loam
stars beneath my feet.

Fall, Moriah Trail,
grey swath through emerald moss.
Mountain's bones laid bare.

Cool evening wind.
Too many miles til Imp Shelter.
Fear amidst beauty.

Seeing those brought it all back. The White Mountains were absolutely beautiful. It was a really nice trip and one that I'd like to repeat. The last one was written when we'd been going slowly during a day-long climb. The trail was narrow and, if we didn't make it to the shelter we were to camp at, there was no safe camp site along the way; it was either shear drops or wet, swampy hollow. The evening wind had picked up a little early and it smelled like cold rain. My weather senses were like a warning bell tolling; something in the feel of the atmosphere said "rain and lightning on the way" and I could just picture us having to scramble up slick rocks in the dark as rain lashed down. My mother is a one-speed hiker; all my pressuring in the world was not going to change her pace, especially since her knee was troubling her. I ended up ranging well ahead of my parents, scouting out those places where the trail became unclear (mostly when topping a rocky crest) and making arrows out of piles of pebbles to ensure no lost time hunting the trail again. I'd wait in the lee of a rock (out of the cold wind) with a view of the lower trail until I saw them and then I'd jog up the trail to again locate and clarify any unclear parts of the trail.

We made Imp Shelter in twilight, ahead of the rain. Yes, we all had ponchos and such, but rain slows you down, slickens the trail, and chills you. When hiking, I have a deep respect for the weather. With dark coming, none of us with headlamps, and the trail frequently being steep scrambles or near sizable drops, I was taking things very seriously. My mother, on the other hand, had spent the last few hours enjoying the hike without any warning bells going off in her head; the fading light was pretty and the cool, moist breeze was refreshing (whereas for me both of these said "Danger! Hurry up!"), so, with this discontinuity in attitude, she thought it was funny how serious I was - serious about the rain, serious about immediately putting on warm clothes the moment we stopped moving, and very serious about my father eating some carbohydrates ASAP, after my father mentioned feeling "warm/cold" and "not hungry". I've been in that state; if you haul a pack up a mountain and don't feel hungry afterward, then that's a sign your body is badly out of whack due to exhaustion and you need to do the right things (get warmth and food) right away or feel extremely ill later that night.

And that is why the last of those rediscovered haiku has the final line "Fear amidst beauty." Anyway, the little scrap with the cribbed, barely legible haiku brought it all back, the trip, the beauty of the trail, the happenings, etc. And that is why I have been so careful as I discard the vast majority of the papers despite the constant temptation to just pitch an entire box of assorted junk into the recycling bins.

Hm. I'll have to see if my parents are game for another hiking trip in the White Mountains. I really do want to go again.

080510 Davis, CA
Today, I was thinking a bit about bicycle culture. There have been several articles lately in the local papers talking about how Davis is a sort of bicycle-friendly oasis in a car dominated country. It is true that Davis is very bicycle-friendly, with plenty of bike racks near all the stores and restaurants, wide bicycle lanes on all the roads, bicycle only paths and bridges over the freeway, etc. Another advantage is that Davis itself is tiny; nothing in Davis is a very long distance from everything else.

And yet, the trend even in Davis is toward more and more cars. As more people move into the area, none of the new people are from bike-dominated areas, so the new people may start biking on a regular basis, but if they need to do laundry or pick up groceries, they will drive rather than haul things on a bike. If the weather is not pleasant (too hot, too cold, too windy, etc.), then they are likely to switch back to the car. I, too, am guilty of this. It is simply because bicycle culture, that is the culture in which the bicycle is the primary mode of transportation rather than the fair weather option, is dead except for a few scattered individuals and isolated pockets like Davis.

Much like species need a critical population mass to survive, microcultural elements like what I've been calling bicycle culture need a critical number of participants to be self-reinforcing. Traffic is getting worse in Davis. It's a small town designed to encourage the use of the bicycle (relatively few public parking spaces for the population) and yet the number of cars puttering around Davis has been markedly increasing in the last few years while the number of bicycles has been slowly falling. Despite the weather becoming very nice, I have noticed that there seem to be more and more cars circling for parking spots and the radius of streets with cars parked on all available curb space has been increasing with people parking further and further from city center and then walking in.

This is not a good sign for the health of bicycle culture in this, one of the remaining pockets where it appeared to have a viable density.

080506 Davis, CA
I've been a bit grumpy lately and it took me a bit to figure out why; I've been going through withdrawal. Not for caffeine or for drugs, but for music. You see, when I sent my iPod off for repair a while back, it stayed fixed for a few weeks and then the (new) drive went and failed. The repairs were still under warranty, so I just sent the unit back and the repair service gave it another try. However, the repair service kept the unit for a long-ish burn-in and testing period to make sure the unit would continue to function, which is all well and good.

However, this means I've been without portable music for the first time in several years. I've now been feeling how much I used this to help me do boring daily tasks. Folding laundry and doing bills and such is much less dull when done to a bit of calypso music. Needing to sit down and label 500 tubes and make up a large series of reactions flies by with a bit of dance music.

I've now spent several weeks without music to shield me from the daily drudgery and I don't like it. I just got notification that the repair service is returning my (again) repaired iPod to me - it is in the mail now. And not a moment too soon; I was on the verge of buying a little iPod Shuffle to tide me over until the larger unit could return to its duty of protecting me from monotony.

080427 Davis, CA
Well, we are nearing the time when once again, our Glorious Leader is mailing us a minor pittance of our own money back in an attempt to buy our favor. I was griping about it recently, muttering "Keep the 300 bucks and give me my EPA enforcement back!" when a co-worker challenged me on it, claiming all tax cuts were good. I explained my position to him and I thought you might be interested in it as well, so here you go.

Why I'm in favor of higher taxes: For the sake of the poor and the middle class, the very same groups referenced by the people in favor of tax cuts... Let me explain; each and every one of the tax cuts passed in the last 8 years has been found to reduce the tax burden primarily on the top 10% income bracket and businesses. As tax income to the state and federal governments has gone down, the various government levels have been forced to cut budgets.

Those in favor of tax cuts claim that this has simply been "trimming the fat". Independent evaluators and internal governmental reporting agrees that this is not the case; the percent of money lost in bureaucracy has remained about the same while the total amount of money has shrunk. As the total pool of money has shrunk, several classes of governmental activities have been reduced to a larger degree than other activities. Those activities bearing the brunt of the cuts are education, infrastructure maintenance, and regulatory investigation. So, the cost of public colleges has gone up, class sizes have gone up, teachers' pay has stagnated, more roads are being designated toll roads, parks maintenance is decreased, camping fees are up, larger pollution and public health problems are occurring (since they are not caught as early), and public safety is more at risk (you have to take off your shoes before boarding the plane that hasn't been safety inspected in years).

So, in exchange for a very minor decrease in tax payments, the poor and middle classes are now paying more for worse education, paying more to drive on crappier roads, paying more to vacation cheaply (national and local parks), are more likely to be exposed to higher levels of pollution or food contamination, etc. I haven't even mentioned the slashed government R n D programs that mean there is less money being put into helping the nation have a more energy efficient, healthier, more pollution free future.

I just wish the tax cuts came with an "environmental" impact statement, listing the true historical impacts of these cuts rather than being wrapped in promises and the flag. Polls have repeatedly shown that people are willing to embrace higher taxes, if they know the funds are going to supporting education and protective agencies (public health and the EPA). And yet, giving the people the opposite of what they want is considered good (because it can be wrapped in oversimplifications) and giving people quality education and public protection is considered bad (because this is a "tax and spend" policy; never mind that it is something most people seem to want, when not made into a simplistic blurb). Sigh.

080406 Davis, CA
Someone recently asked for two things: 1) links to some of the random unusual music I've mentioned lately and 2) information on how on earth I find this stuff. So, what follows are a pile of links to the official web sites of Faun, Valravn, Asynje, Virelai, Qntal, Irfan, Corvus Corax, Estampie, and VNV Nation. Most of these web sites have music links on them and many of these groups have streaming music on either the official site or on the group's MySpace page. In answer to how on earth I find these odd groups, I do two things: 1) I purchase eclectic compilations and then hunt down complete albums by the artists I consider interesting and 2) I expand my "search space" by using tools like Tune Glue or Music Map to find other obscure artists with qualities similar to those artists I have found before. Oh, Tune Glue is not totally intuitive; typing in the artist's name just gives you a little button in the center of the screen, containing the artist's name. You have to click that button in order to show the web of related artists.

080402 Davis, CA
I picked up a new CD... Much like the last CD, the shipping cost as much as the CD itself, since it came from the Faroe Islands. The last one was a Pagan Goth CD (by Faun, sung entirely in German) and this one is the first album by Valravn. They do very old Danish folk ballads on old instruments with some modern synth and instrumentation. Interesting stuff. "Hedebys" hooks you from the first couplet: "I den første drøm jeg fik, Den døde mand han til mig gik"... Yeah, with snappy stuff like that, I'm sure you are asking yourself "Man, why doesn't Amazon carry that?".

Well, Amazon doesn't carry Valravn, but I'm happy to tell you that Amazon does carry stuff like Faun; just fire up the web browser, and go to Amazon, er, no, not www.amazon.com (they don't have Faun CDs), you want the European one, er, no, not www.amazon.dk, it doesn't exist and it just redirects you www.amazon.co.uk (they don't have Faun CDs either), try www.amazon.de. Yeah, now you're cooking! Next, just register for this site (it doesn't share information with the US Amazon site, so you'll need to navigate the registration anew, entirely in German), and you are minutes away from being able to order your own copy of a Faun CD or even a "Harry Potter und der Orden des Phönix (der fünften Harry Potter-Verfilmung)" DVD. Of course, shipping costs will be very hefty and the dollar is not doing so well just now...

And that's my little story to show that the growth of the internet has not entirely ended the balkanization of the world. Even that massively successful modern marvel known as Amazon is not Amazon-World; it is divided into Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, and even an Amazon CN (called 卓越亚马逊), all with different account information, different products for sale, etc. Language remains the key needed to unlock the world. Still, technology makes that key a lot easier. I freakin' love the "Translate this page" button that Google provides for pages that come up in foreign languages.

Right. Enough of this post. I'm going back to listening to Valravn.

080331 Davis, CA
Annnd, it's gone. The local progressive talk radio station (1240 AM) has switched formats (renaming itself "Praise!") and gone over to an all-gospel music format. That was the last progressive talk radio station in this area. A recent newspaper article covering the format switch analyzed the collapse of progressive talk radio stations in northern California and found that they tended not to last very long (other than a single station in San Francisco). Interestingly enough, their listening audiences were usually of similar size to successful, long-lasting conservative talk radio stations. The difference came down to advertising money; businesses were simply not advertising on the progressive talk radio stations. The article did not discuss why advertising money stayed away from large progressive talk radio audiences and would go instead to smaller conservative talk radio audiences, but the result was the same as if there were a deliberate boycott of left-leaning stations; talk radio, even in left-leaning California, is the provence of the right wing. Sigh.

Oh, I should be clear; I don't think there is any sort of deliberate boycott. I'm guessing it's a combination of factors including assumptions from marketing folks that progressive talk radio would be a bad venue on which to attempt to sell the high-profit margin things that are often hawked on talk radio, with the context adding (unwanted) perception to the items - e.g. (gas guzzling) SUVs, (blood) diamonds, (unhealthy junk) fast food. Also, there is the fact that progressive talk radio has reporting that is critical of major shopping chains (e.g. Walmart, McDonalds). Still, I think it is unfortunate to see the diversity of opinion being expressed in broadcast decreasing.

080319 Davis, CA
Yea! I got my iPod back! And speaking about listening to things, I've been a bit schizophrenic in my radio listening: I listen both to the local conservative talk radio station (1380 AM, KTKZ) and to the local progressive talk radio station (1240 AM, KSAC). You might not be surprised to hear that there are several points of similarity, with each having at least one commentator who over-uses sound effects in an attempt to mock their opponents (Laura Ingram or Stephanie Miller), at least one who attempts a genial moderate pose despite their strong stance to one side or the other (Mike Gallagher or Mike Malloy), etc., and commentators on both stations tend to use similar rhetorical tricks to be pursuasive; repetition, quoting opponents out of context, and ad hominem attacks. Still, I listen to both as a fast, full-spectrum encapsulation of the current political buzz.

The differences (beyond politics) are also somewhat interesting. Based on the ads run, the listeners of 1380 AM are semi-funtamentalist Christian church-goers who happen to be desperate for loans and forclosure avoidance advice. Based on the ads run, the listeners of 1240 AM are outdoorsy pet owners who love clipping coupons. When listening to either station, I tend to like hearing the "moderate" commentators more. For example, the conservative station carries Dennis Miller's call-in show. I don't agree with him politically, but he tends to have thought about the issues and avoid most logically invalid cheap shots.

I also like occasionally talking politics with a fellow at work who is pretty far to the right. He dismisses Dennis Miller as "Conservative for Hollywood, but that ain't sayin' much" and rants about how this country has wandered so far to the Left over the last seven years. Here's a quote of his response when I asked for the evidence that the country had been drifting to the Left: "It has become acceptible to talk about nationalizing health care! That's Communism! Communism! The Democrats are putting Communists forward as candidates and people are taking them seriously!" I was sort of thinking the repeated rounds of tax cuts and curtailed social services, unfunded national parks, disaster relief funds left with zero budget etc., was evidence that the "caretaker government" model had been pretty well ripped to shreds, but, then again, Mike did have a point; the democrats were not being burned in effigy as they properly should be for talking about health care for the poor. It's always a lesson in perspective when I talk to Mike.

080313 Davis, CA
Lately, I really don't do anything other than work and excercise, which makes for really dull blog entries, which means I don't put anything here for long periods. Two weekends ago, I went to the CD release party by a local punk rock Star Trek tribute band, Warp 11. They played a really great set; high energy and enough songs that I was impressed by their endurance almost as much as by their playing.

Last week, the music died. I'm in an office with three other people. To shut out phone conversations, etc., I tend to put in earphones and have quiet music playing whenever I need to focus. Then, last Monday, my nice earphones (really expensive Shure earbuds) failed. They were well out of warranty and failure was not unexpected, since they had been used heavily and toted everywhere for the last three years, still it was kind of a bummer. So, I brought in my backup earphones (old ones that came with my iPod), but that day they cracked and fell apart. I glued the case back together and they worked just fine, but my iPod harddrive (which had started to show signs of trouble) finally failed. Sigh. Clearly, I was not meant to have portable music that week.

I looked at buying another iPod (they have 80GB iPods now), but I really couldn't justify an upgrade. With a 40 GB iPod, it took me two years to listen to everything on there a minimum of two times each. At 80 GB, I could fit almost all the music I own on it, but it would probably take me two years just to listen to everything once. So, I went for the cheapest, most sensible choice and just mailed the dead iPod off to have a new harddrive put in. As much as I wanted to use this as an excuse to buy expensive new toys, there is no need for it; repairing the old expensive toy just made too much sense.

One nice thing brightened up the no-portable-music week; a friend from China visited and brought me some beautiful calligraphy of two famous Ci poems from the time of the Northern Song Dynasty. They were carved into stones outside of Xian, China, and my friend bought some really nice rubbings of the stones. They are:
Nien nu chiao - The Battle of Red Cliff (念奴娇 赤壁怀古). 念奴娇 (Niànnújiāo) is the poem name, sometimes known by it's first line: 大江东去 (Dàjiāngdōngqù, Eastward flows the Yangtze River) by Su Dongpo (aka Su Shi)
and
满江红 (The river runs red) by 岳飞 (Yue Fei)

I looked around on the internet and found good translations of both poems. 大江东去 is really lovely. I really like the last lines: 人生如梦 (A man's life passes like a dream) 一尊还酹江月 (Pour out a cup then, to the river, and to the moon.) The other poem, 满江红, is full of anger and passion. It was the last writing of a (falsely accused) general being recalled by the emperor to be executed as a traitor.

Anyway, it's neat stuff and without my friend's gift I'd never have been introduced to Ci poetry.

080220 Davis, CA
Oh, you've probably already figured it out, but the lack of posts lately is because work is eating me alive. I've got two projects in the start-up phase. This means that nothing is worked out very well (welcome to basic research, where we work on the edge of what is known) and none of it is ready to hand off to the research assistants with whom I'm currently working. So, each day is packed with trying to set things up well enough that the two lab assistants can run some productive experiments, then trouble-shooting all the bits I'd not taken into account yet, then redesigning the experiments when they go home, then coming in early the next morning to nail down the new version so we can do it all over again. Keeping three people productively busy while we are still roughing out the experiments is taking all my free time and mental energy.

It's interesting and enjoyable, but I won't have any slack time until we have the experiments all roughed out and humming along. At that time, the lab assistants will be able to crank through the experiments on their own and I can back off and just do the data analysis.

080217 Davis, CA
Man, skiing is fun. I hit the slopes from lifts-open to lifts-close. By about 2:30, I could feel the flexing of individual strands of muscle in my upper thighs, but regular exercise meant that I had the endurance to finish the day strong, rather than with shaking legs (like I finished my first day of skiing last year), even as the fire of muscle fatique spread across my upper thighs.

For some reason, I'd been under the impression that everyone without kids approached skiing the way I do (hit the slopes hard and keep hitting 'em till night forces you off the slopes). Because of that, I have been assuming regular skiers must be pretty fit and have great endurance.

I was up at the cabin with a couple of coworkers who were all regular skiers. These very fit regular skers (who also rollerblade, run marathons, and bike long distances regularly) were somewhat agast at the idea of opening and closing the mountain, much less doing it a couple of days in a row. Their typical plan is to hit the slopes in the morning, have a relaxing lunch, get in a few more runs, and be off the mountain by 2:00-2:30 so as to leave plenty of time for lounging and recovering. Me, I tend to eat an energy bar at the summit (for the nice view), finishing the bar over the course of 2-3 runs, so as to avoid loosing valuable slope time. No wonder they find a skiing weekend relaxing while I find it an experience requiring a recovery day.

With their example, I decided to let sanity prevail the next day; I skied the moring and left as afternoon crowding set in on the slopes, driving home while the sun was high and the traffic was light. A shower and a nap later and I felt tired, but pretty good. Sure, I could have packed in more skiing, but this was good.

080210 Davis, CA
As you might have expected from the lack of blog posts, I've (still) been quite busy lately. One of the time commitments has been something good; I've been getting exercise on a regular basis, but that is an extra ~6 hours a week less free time for typing away at the blog. I guess the most interesting thing I've done lately was that I went to the Chinese New Year's celebration in Sacramento on Saturday (it's now the Year of the Earth Rat). For good and for ill, it was a true community celebration; local arts and crafts, local performers, etc. The good part was that it was very much a community event. The bad part was that it was very much a community event; the singing could optimistically be described as "adequate", the juggling act only dropped their balls occasionally, etc. It was like going to watch your neighbors' kids doing a martial arts demonstration... Because that was exactly what it was, rather than some sort of tourist event.

080127 Davis, CA
Oof. I started two weeks ago with several aspirations. One was to do a blog post from Denmark. The other was to complete a report for work, thinking I'd have time in the evenings while in Denmark. As it is, I am catching my breath only now. Hot diggity dang am I tired.

The week before last, I was in Denmark for a company Tech meeting. I flew out Sunday the 13th and arrived there Monday the 14th (2 hr Sacramento to Seattle + 3 hrs delay + 10 hrs Seattle to København + 9 hr time difference = 24 hrs), without having been able to sleep on the plane. From the time I arrived until the day before I left, it was a continuous series of meetings with 8:30 AM start times and often ending with small group dinners out until 9-10 PM. Since these were technical meetings bringing together key people from around the world, it was a rare opportunity to hunt down all these people face-to-face. So, I didn't skip anything and I abused caffeine pretty heavily all week. By the end of the week I was feeling pretty haggard. On my one day off while in Denmark, I ended up just walking around København for about four hours to sight-see, before going back to the hotel to pack up and go to bed early.

Danish winter did not seem as bad as the Danes had claimed. Yes, it was wet, cold, windy, cloudy, and dark, but it was not as extreme or as depressing and awful as I'd been led to expect. Then again, there is a big difference in the psychological impact of experiencing it for one week versus experiencing it for three months.

I flew back from København on the 20th, arriving home by 11 PM California time (after having been awake for the last 23 hrs). The leg of the trip from København to Seattle was really neat. We took the short route; NW from København, arcing over Greenland and crossing the polar ice-cap to come diagonally NE to SW over Canada. Because we were chasing the sun west, with a northern arc, the sun seemed to set and then sit just below the horizon as a spectacular crimson fire all across the curve of the horizon. We flew for hours, viewing the western sky all aflame above ice glittering with ruby and gold reflections, until our southern travel brought the sun back above the horizon again. Even with all my traveling, I'm still not tired of looking out airplane windows.

In any case, despite the late return, lack of sleep, and the jet-lag, I was back in at work bright and early Monday morning and I had a very busy week back... With the result that my first day off (the 26th) was spent unconscious, other than a brief period from 3 PM to 8 PM.

Today, I feel more human... Like a tired human, but still human. I have no idea what time my biological clock thinks it is. I've spent that last week forcing myself onto California time, but I still tend to get very tired by ~6-7 PM and feel relatively wakeful by midnight. Eh, c'est la vie. I'm glad I got to attend the tech meeting despite the exhaustion.

080112 Davis, CA
Just a quick note. I'm about to head to Danmark for a tech conference. I'll be there for just under a week. As I'm throwing together a few things in a suitcase, I'm feeling pretty good about it; I already have the right plugs for my electronics (computer, iPod, and phone), a phone chip that will work in Denmark (it's the one I bought in Poland), and some Danish Kroner ($) and transit cards (subway tokens). It is going to be dark, cold, and sleeting for most of the week I'll be there, but I'm really looking forward to seeing my old coworkers again. Also, I have to admit feeling vaguely self-satisfied that I've got this travel thing down. Foreign country, foreign language, no problem. Sweet.

080104 Davis, CA
Sorry for the lack of updates lately. I've been quite overwhelmed, with several work things due at the close of December, travel for Christmas vacation, and several work things due before I go to a Technology Conference in København, Danmark, on the 13th of this month. While visiting with my parents over Christmas, they reminded me that I had apparently failed to post the pictures from my trip to Poland to my picture gallery. I now have those pictures posted (on page two of the listing of galleries), although the photos are in semi-random order and largely without comments.

When posting the pictures, I noticed something; the galleries on page one of the album all had been viewed numerous times. The galleries on the second page had been viewed only once each (by me as I was posting them), even though two of those galleries were from my trip to China, with some great pictures from my visit to Suzhou and points south of there. Ah, well. I guess I should have pointed out before that there was a second page of galleries available.

The only other bit of news I can add before getting back to work is to mention that, as presents for my nephews and niece, I wrote them some short stories. It seemed like a good way to give a personal gift, without contributing to clutter in their parents' houses. I posted the kid's short stories here.

Page Last Modified: 2008 07 13, 19:06:12

 

 

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