One week from now I’ll be flying somewhere over Greenland on my way to Seattle! I’m stoked. Gonna be fun. I’m hoping I can make some progress on my paper writing while in the air. I had a talk yesterday with a professor I know about whether a part time PhD, building off of my paper, could be something for me. He asked me to write down what I think I need to make a PhD worth it. It’s mostly about agency for me, which is good because part timers don’t have to deal with anyone’s crap but do have access to all the resources that a top notch university has available. Which is alluring, for sure. But I also feel like I need to figure out what my personal mission or goal is, at least for the coming years. I feel like I need a solid answer to the question “what do I really want to do” in order to decide whether to pursue a position or not.
- My son is going to graduate from High School! (it was touch and go there for a while) - My other son's team is in the state finals for rugby tonight. - I just bought tickets to see a band I really like at Red Rocks. (I have a pretty strict "no concert policy" but I made an exception because red rocks) - I backed Mike's kickstarter project because MATH AND PUZZLES AND ART - I think I'm shopping for a car... but I'm being very lazy about it. - Work has been.... really difficult for several weeks, but it's looking up (I think) I'll put today in the "win" column
a few reasons I suppose, from the trivial like parking is almost always a hassle to basically... the smoke, the weed, drunk asshole spilling their beers on me and not respecting personal space or seat numbers... but I think my biggest concern is I drop the money to listen to Artist X... but I end up getting to listen to drunk asshole next to me howl along with every song - and I'm not talking about when there's an appropriate "sing-a-long" moment with the crowd - I'm talking about just terrible drunk singing/shouting. It irks me to pay that much money to have to sit or stand next to drunk assholes. I'd most often rather listen to a nice live recording on my hi-fi. maybe I'm just a grumpy old man.
Security is pretty strict about smoking in Portland. I haven't seen anyone get away with smoking anything for more than a minute in years. I'll mostly only see shows at venues that have excellent sound. I hate shows downtown. Most the venues have shitty sound and finding parking is a drag. When I see a quiet show and some girl is talking over the whole thing about what she's going to do this weekend I lose my shit. I only see one or two shows a year now a days, getting up at 5 am makes late nights a drag. One nice thing about Portland is that most shows end before 11 pm. I saw Billy Bragg when I was offered a free ticket, it was a good show by a guy I wasn't very familiar with and I saw John Maus twice because he's great and is also my wife's favorite artist.
I graduate college in 8 days. Last week of exams. Like veen, I'm stoked for a trip westward. I think the trip might also serve as part of the larger ritual of graduation and transition from college. Trips West tend to do that. Have the summer planned planned to a first approximation. I'll be training gymnastics at a high level about 10-16 hours a week (for free! perkz). I will also be paid to coach at all levels at the same gym for about 25-30 hours a week. There are several pockets of 4-5 hours during the week that I will fill with the Udemy courses in Python. The goal was to save up money so that I could--if accepted and assuming I still really like the idea after a summer of getting my feet wet--attend Lambda school in late September in a 9-month intensive program in their data science track while not having to work. Unfortunately, even with the generous amount the gym is paying me, I don't think I'll be able to save up enough. Which means I'll have to get creative in the fall. On the one hand, I'm frustrated. Even though I'm graduating I'm deciding to put off having substantial income for another year. On the other, I think if coding works out, I could be set up really well for the future. It's not even that tough a decision to make; just have to tighten the belt for a bit more.
Ohh, gymnastics is cool! Are you planning to compete in any capacity or is it just for fun?
Just for fun, although I've been known to compete. There's a friendly, low-stakes association that permits anyone of any skill level to compete at any of the association's meets (meets are the competitions where two or more teams compete events). If my school continues to travel to these meets, I'll hitch a ride with them and show 'em what I got :)
Couldnt bring myself to keep going to my mindless factory job printing circuit boards. I ended up worked 2 days of my 2 week notice. Im gonna use the time to take photos, study for my A+ cert and go over a jewelry repair manual in preperation for my new job. What is the opinion of people here on two weeks notice? Im feel bad about not sticking it out but rationalize it as shorting a company that was generous enough to offer me benefiets for 20% of my monthly take home.
I applied for a bunch of research-centred PhD programmes/positions that aren't directly tied to universities. There are surprisingly many of those posted by various governmental agencies looking for physicists, definitely more than what I saw last year, which is one of few good surprises I had over the last few months. This weekend I'll start working on submissions to the Polish Academy of Sciences and similar institutes, which is painstaking, but hopefully worth all the years of effort. That's where I'd like to end up working anyway, but it's best to cover as many bases as possible. Had to double my hours at the carwash to make sure I'll have enough money for this summer, which is starting to take its toll. I'm fairly certain that I developed some sort of skin allergy to the crap we handle, but it's not like I'm in a position to look for something better. At least this time I planned things in such a way that I might catch some break around August, so that's nice. Also, Organic Chemistry is the only course I ever took where my grade from labs is significantly better from theory. Feels weird.
I can respect that. I don’t think I would want to make it myself, I think it smells weird and is probably really weird while being made, and I will gladly pay the nice folks at the soap place to handle that for me. They also make other nice smells that I buy for the bathroom sink.
Making basic soap is fairly easy, and ingredients are widely accessible: lye (sodium hydroxide), oil (olive, coconut, any will do but will affect hardness) and water (distilled/deionized). 80g lye, 200g water (distilled/deionized <- this is very important for boring chemistry reasons), 100g of coconut oil, 500g of olive oil are great as a starting base because it's close to most of the store-bought soaps while having an excess of oil (meaning you don't need to worry too much about pH or purify it further). Add lye to water, mix with oils until you'll get a consistency of thick batter (this is when you can put dyes or essential oils or other optional additives, like salt, poppy seeds or antibacterial compounds based on silver), drop into moulds and wait about a day or two. Afterwards, remove from moulds and put somewhere to dry, flip sides about once a week. Waiting time varies and depends on humidity and bar sizes, but it tends to be around five weeks. The smell during production isn't too much of a concern or problem, though I might be desensitised to odd chemical odours. I wouldn't fuss with making my own soaps if it wasn't oddly fun, though. There's still about a fifth left from the batch I made in autumn, which is kinda comforting: no matter what, there's some soap left. ;)
I'm glad you found it interesting, though real wisdom manifests as at least double-checking any chemistry you'll find on the net, common sense, and staying on the side of caution. In the case of soap-making, it basically boils down to watching out for splashes, having some eye protection and keeping it away from aluminium (reacts to produce hydrogen gas). Lye will also affect wood, so it's best to do the entire process in/with glass, ceramic or resistant plastic implements and containers, aim for sturdy. Also, here's one lesson I learned three minutes too late a few years ago: dissolving lye can make your solution hot enough to significantly deform PET bottles, up to the point of making small cracks, even though it doesn't react chemically with it. That said, if you have questions or would like to know more, feel free to ask here or via private message. It's a fun project with plenty of room for experimentation, so I hope I didn't discourage anyone.
SUBHEADINGS Cardiac Rehab Had a nice consult/intake appointment with exercise physiology. Apparently I've been absolutely mauling myself with exercise for no reason. I am supposed to be doing just enough to elevate my heart rate without making me feel super shitty. Apparently it's not a good habit to exercise to the point of agony. Huh. Food Summer produce rawks. If you're not taking advantage already you are sorely missing out. My latest craze is taking all the stuff I would normally throw on a sheet pan and grilling it instead. An example from the other night - Grilled Miso Veggies -Multi-color carrots, cut right down the middle, like so. I leave the tops on cuz it looks pretty. -1 Large Sweet Onion, cut into roughly 2cm tall rings -1 Large Eggplant, cut into spears or disks or oblongs. Either way, salt it heavily and give it a minimum of 30 min on a plate covered in paper towel to drain before you do anything else it. I hated eggplant because I never prepped it properly before cooking. -Zucchini or Summer Squash to taste, cut into spears -White/blonde miso 3-4 tablespoons, other miso works, I like this stuff for veggies because it's tangy and umami and a little bitter almost without being musky like darker miso can be. -Sesame oil, 2 teaspoons ish Don't use too much -Olive oil or other neutral ish oil 3-4 tablespoons. Sometimes you need a bit more, that's fine. -Kosher salt, to taste, heavy on the eggplant for nasty liquid extraction purposes -Black pepper, to taste -Garlic powder, to taste, maybe 2-3 teaspoons SUB-SUBHEADING - INSTRUCTIONS 1. Chop your veggies starting with the eggplant (And salting the eggplant! Both sides!) 2. Mix all non veggie ingredients in a small bowl. It should form a loose paste/liquid mix. The oil and miso likely won't fully combine and that's totally fine. 3. Preheat the grill, medium high, keep it under 450 degrees freedom units 4. Apply miso/oil/spice mixture to veggies. I carefully put the sliced onions at the bottom of a big mixing bowl then put everything else on top. After dumping the miso/oil mix onto the veg I usually just use my hands and mix everything very gently, trying to keep things in the same shape they were to start with. You could also sit there with a brush and do each cut piece individually. 4. Grill veggies to taste. I check on them about every 2-3 minutes and flip them a few times gently. Usually leave the sections of onion ring alone as much as possible and flip them only once to maintain integrity. 5. Eat! I've also chopped this all up into smaller pieces and tossed it with green veggies, rice wine vinegar and the remaining oil/miso into a super delicious salad. Other variations would include like ginger, mustard powder or cumin into the spices, and apply this to literally every vegetable that is sturdy enough to make it to the grill.
Yesterday I went for a swim in the river for the first time this year. It is now officially summer. I am honestly going around quite giddy at the fact that it's warm out, and I can go swimming outside. So life is good. I am looking forward to spending hours beside the river reading, listening to podcasts and drawing. In weird news - a tree that I last year needed a rope to climb on to and didn't reach the water from was this year under water and at about the same level as my head. Can a tree sink? Is that a thing that can happen? The water level is about the same - maybe even lower - but large parts of the tree is just... under water?
I'm so intrigued by your sinking tree! I guess that could happen if there was a significant change in the riverbank. Sometimes in areas affected by earthquakes there are a bunch of petrified trees that somehow remain standing despite drastic changes in the surface they're growing on (on the order of meters). Maybe it was once perched on a big rock that somehow got dislodged? Ice is a pretty powerful force when it comes to changes in the ground. In any case, yay for the first swim of summer!! Everything's so green and bright now, I can't wait for my local water bodies to be warm enough for that first swim!
I don't know really? The place looks the same to me, except that the tree is like, more than a meter lower than before? the majority of the tree is still above water, but a whole big branch that was above the water before is now below it.. The tree is still alive and looks stable enough so I am just very confused about the whole thing. I noticed that the tree seemed very low earlier but I couldn't really get in the water and investigate until now.
'Sup 'ski? Typing this comment out on a Raspberry Pi hooked to the big screen right now. Checking out all the programming languages and development options makes me depressed at how little I coded after high school. But that's my own fault. There's about a week left until I fly away and get on a cruise ship. Which is great, because I'm basically the opposite of the kind of person that goes on a cruise. I used to have no idea what I wanted to do with my life but I'm finding that deep down I really do know, it just requires a boatload of courage. Being an artist comes to mind. I'm going to make a music video, it's just I'm not willing to abandon math and science pursuits completely to do so.
Spent the weekend in Midtown Manhattan and Coney Island, with a bunch of rugby buddies seeing my favorite team play. Early in the season there was some sort of scheduling snafu, and the game got moved to Saturday - which was beautiful, warm, and sunny - and Sunday was rainy, windy, and a great day to explore the interior spaces in Manhattan. (I didn't want to leave Eataly ever.) Yesterday I got to finally take Edward Tufte's day-long course on The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. I've owned and fawned over his books for over 25 years, so I was pretty excited to finally see him speak in person. It was.... not what I expected. I had hoped for a lot of practical I took this terrible graph, and made it beautiful by doing X, Y, and Z type of information. But his talk was very little of that, and more of the philosophy of where good data and beautiful visualizations come from. Which is really the truth. If you are adding borders and fonts and images and colors and other bullshit, you clearly have either bad data or a bad story. Design will not cover for poor data or communication skills. So the more diligent you are about your data, and the better the story it tells, then the visualization really has no way to BE bad. It was not what I expected. But it was probably - in the long run - what I actually needed. Oh. And he despises PowerPoint. (But then, who doesn't?) His reasoning is that it makes it very hard to present good data, simply. There are always geegaws and widgets and spinny shit trying to distract the viewer from the shit sandwich that is PowerPoint's built-in limitations. Turns out that Tufte and Bezos worked together on Bezos' interesting and highly effective meeting culture. Now I am back at work and SLAMMED with work. Everything absolutely exploded while I am gone, and I have been responding to emails from 7:AM to 12:45 (now) without a break, and can just see the light. I was supposed to be getting ACTUAL WORK done today. Not emails. So now I have been back for exactly 5:45, and am more than a day behind schedule. Sheesh.
I did this yesterday: https://cbsloc.al/2Hox14K tonight we are co-hosting a party in Woodside. StJohn you should come out. I’m tired. I have an inguinal hernia. I’m way out of shape. Super fat. Yoga starts May 21st.
Hey, you're on the teevy! Congratulations, you looked great -- I hope the yoga helps you feel great too. I don't mind getting older, but I wish it didn't hurt as much as it does. My knees are fucked. Don't suppose you've got any o' them stem cells I keep hearing so much about? Just shoot 'em straight into my kneecaps. I wish I could come party with you, but I moved away from San Francisco late last year. I was getting super depressed in that city, and the change of scene has been amazing. I finally have an apartment that's big enough to have a bed in it. A bed, I say!
Very nice to hear from you St. John. Where are you at now? I travel often and would welcome the chance to catch up in person. Re your knees. I completely understand. And the key is to bank your stem cells now so you can use them to treat your knees when you’re 60, 70, 80 years old. You think they’re fucked now?? Just wait. -Sorry to be a bummer. I was at the party last night and several long time Bay Area peeps said they’re either moving or looking to move. They also find the city depressing. I think we are passed peak SF. There is an exodus. Enjoy that Bed!
Yeah, I don't have any regrets about my ten years in SF, but I don't have any regrets about moving either. It was time, and I know a lot of other people are feeling the same way. A lot of my friends had already been forced out or left on their own. When I moved there it was a city that people move to, but now it's a city that people escape from. I'll PM you so we can catch up properly next time we're both in the same city!
I'm sorry to hear about the hernia. Those aren't any fun. I don't want to give medical advice, because that's the role of doctors and all, but I would say that when you talk to a surgeon about addressing it, you have a good talk about options and especially the risks. I know someone who had an inguinal hernia and had it repaired with a mesh. They eventually started suffering from chronic pain and all, to the point where it's affected their employment and mental health. From what they've shared with me, it has not been an easy ride for them.
More dreams and in wait they sleep. Until they wake, I sow til times reap A better way to save and keep. A diamond ring is all I want to keep. I dream and dream and dream and dream- But all I want is what time will come to speak. You cannot put a price on fidelity. I cannot ask of my future husband to push for engagement so soon, but... I still dream.