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The Sedaris Conundrum

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Seals Can Do That

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I sit on an exercise ball when I write.  They are cheaper than chairs, they supposedly work your core, they discourage slouching (though I manage), and they are super fun.  One day I was sitting on my ball, with writer's block, and I thought to myself, "I think seals can walk on balls. Seals have flippers.  Legs are better at walking than flippers.  I should be able to walk on my ball well enough to move around the room."  Figuring that bipedal walking may be a tall order, I endeavored to crawl on my exercise ball to move around the room.

One of the tricks to this hobby is that you move in the opposite direction as you crawl, i.e. crawling forwards makes the ball roll backwards.  Obviously, rolling in the direction you are looking is easier, but crawling backwards is actually quite cumbersome, especially on top of an exercise ball.  While practicing, cursing my horrible balance, I realized that seals do not walk on balls, but balance balls on their noses.  While this seems more reasonable, it also seems boring, so I persevered with the crawling.

I can now roll forwards, backwards and side-to-side with reasonable grace.  I am having a difficult time with turning, but I think it will come with practice.  Unfortunately, crawling around my living room on a ball is only fun for so long, and I had reached that point.  Luckily, Sarah showed up with her exercise ball, that she sits on to write.  Rolling evolved to battles.

Battling on a ball is a short lived game, where the objective is to knock the other from their ball.  After a great deal of giggling, postulating rules and objectives, and comically falling off of balls, I was reminded of an xkcd where a stick figure fills her(?) apartment with play-pen balls (http://xkcd.com/150/).  The idea in this comic is that as "grown-ups" we get to decide what it means to be grown-ups.

It seems that I should start deciding what it means to be grown-up.  I look at the traditional model; marriage, house, car, dog, kids, etc., and while there are certainly aspects of that life that are at times appealing (owning a home), I don't want it, and I don't know if I ever did.  Many of the decisions I have made in my life have been based on what other people define as being an adult.  For example, my brother and his wife have a house, steady jobs, and a cat.  I am thankful for their stability (and generosity), as I relied on them for support during my divorce.  The stability they have, and I do not, often makes me feel like I am not grown-up.  That I have a facade of age, but I am unchanging, repeating the same mistakes, and an ever bigger fraud.

Obviously, I need to redefine what it means to be a grown-up for me.  The life I most want is not the life of a "grown-up," but is the life that suits me.  I want a ball-pit (actually I don't, but metaphorically) because it will be fun for me.  I want to live life without a track, and I do not want the interview-question cliched five-year plan.  Where do I see myself in five years?  Hopefully doing something interesting and fun, and that is it.  Maybe I will start answering interview questions that way.  Even if I do not, I can plan to not-plan my life.

How does a not-plan work in the marriage model, it did not seem to.  When I look back at my marriage, we (I?) never really seemed to like the forever concept.  Our wedding bands were two small bands side-by-side to represent that we were two people, living two lives, that touched closely and always.  While some may view this as a poor take on marriage, it should be noted that many works of science fiction have marriage as fixed-term contracts, and Mexico City is, apparently, considering adopting some form of this to curb divorce rates.  In the end, Corinne wanted more than two lives touching, with a stable future, with kids and white picket fences separating her from the world.  I wanted the world (and her as my partner to explore it).

I was recently asked if coming to New Zealand was a way for me to heal from my divorce.  Maybe it was.  Maybe though, my divorce was a way to heal from my marriage.  Maybe my definition of being a grown-up is  living the life that comes to me, experiencing love and loss, and following the whims of my wandering mind.

In this, I am reminded of Dr. Who.  The Doctor does not plan his voyages through time and space (in fact it seems he cannot).  While some writers suggest that this is The Doctor's choice, it often seems like chaos is the nature of the fabric of space and time that the TARDIS travels upon.  While The Doctor is frequently haunted by lonely spells, and guilt over the risk he exposes his companions to, he does choose to continue to experience whatever lies outside his blue box.

In my definition of being a grown-up, I will decide that it means knowing the consequences of experiencing an awfully big world, with companions that may come and go, but will always be a part of you.  I will loose people who are close to me as they grow-up more traditional ways, but they probably have not ever battled for the infinite glory of finding brief happiness in an exercise ball battle...

And, even a seal can do that.

The Fellowship Breaks

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I Didn't Even See Them

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I have not done any research into this, but I imagine a common statement made after a collision is, “I didn't even see them.” I was once backed into in a left turn lane at an intersection, the woman who backed into me said something like that. The statement also seems pretty obvious, presumably, if one sees something, they are unlikely to run into it. It seems cyclists have taken this idea, and endeavored to be hyper-visible.

Just under 10% of the employees at GNS bike to work. Of those who do, I am the only one who does not wear hi-viz safety gear. Road bikers here wear hi-viz vests and helmets here. Yet, the only commuting collision that has happened at GNS recently was when a trucker rear-ended a car turning into the access road. The trucker reported that he looked down to shift, and didn't even see them.

If, the root cause of motorists not seeing the things they run into is truly the visibility of the object, then black cars should be illegal, and we should all be driving around in vehicles that are bright orange with flashing lights (firetrucks?). But, we aren't. Cars have headlamps, taillights and reflectors, which is considered sufficient. Motorists do run into other cars, but if every car was hi-viz, it would loose its meaning. Wrapping vehicles in orange, chartreuse, reflectors and flashing lights is saved for vehicles that are not normally on the road.

Construction workers also wear hi-viz, but like the emergency vehicles, they are not part of normal driving. While construction and maintenance crews likely work on the roads most days, they are generally not part of most motorist's daily drive. In other words, they “do not belong” on the road from the viewpoint of the motorist. Cyclists, on the other hand, do.

The first issue with cyclists wearing hi-viz is that it implies to motorists that bikes do not belong. That bikes, like construction workers and emergency vehicles, are a special case. Motorists will never “see” cyclists as long as cyclists are not viewed as a legitimate part of traffic by motorists, lawmakers and police officers. As long as the consensus exists that cyclists are not part of normal traffic, and cyclists further the idea by wearing hi-viz, motorists will not respect cyclists.

The second, and probably larger issue of wearing hi-viz, is that it does not work. I have ridden with other cyclists who are wearing hi-viz, and two cyclists, one in hi-viz, one not, does not affect how close motorists come to you. I have watched cars pass me, then pass another cyclist wearing hi-viz, and they pass at the same distance. Motorists drive the way they drive, no matter what a cyclist wears. Close passers pass close, cell phone users text and talk, and drunk and drowsy drivers are drunk and drowsy. A piece of bright orange fabric does not change the person behind the wheel.  

Minutiae

More pictures have been posted to my Picasa site, and the new Faux Social page is nearly set (I'm still debating a few things, we'll call it a beta version).  Preview it if you are interested, and comment on the new format if you like or dislike it.  Check it out at fauxsocial.blogspot.com.

Some folks have apparently been wondering what has been happening in my life, and, well, I think a recent xkcd captures what I go through when I try to work with most people.  This, is a stick-figure drawn glimpse of my life:  http://www.xkcd.com/974/.  In my defense, I usually can access my "fuck it, and get it done" response when it counts, but I hate going back through shoddy work, so I take the time to try to make the work being done at present good enough that I will not want to hurl feces at myself in a year or two.

Upcoming posts will probably include random topics such as balancing on exercise balls, the merits of high-vis clothing, and identifying hazards, but I may grow tired of those topics before I finish writing anything of consequence.

Faux Social Update

Faux Social's URL is currently brian-aillaud.blogspot.com.  In the coming weeks the blog will migrate to fauxsocial.blogspot.com, and will get a new look.  The content of Faux Social will likely shift a bit with this change, but since Faux Social lacks focus, that may not be entirely noticeable to anyone but me.

For anyone out there with lots of time on their hands, and in need of focus, fo.sci is a new blog by Sean Mulcahy (fosci.blogspot.com).  His one post is nerdy and fun, and I recommend it.  Hopefully more will follow.

Comments

In listening to All Songs Considered podcasts (I have very nearly listened to every episode), I have noticed that they ask for listener comments, frequently. I get occasional comments on photos, but not many. I essentially never get comments on my blog posts. I have come to realize that I also rarely ask for reader comments. So, here it is, a shameless request for comments.

If you enjoy Faux Social, comment on my posts. Agree or disagree? Have your own thoughts about a subject? I want to hear them! Want more of a certain kind of post, or less of a kind of post, let me know. I will try to oblige. Obviously, I have to travel to have more travel posts. Once I get home internet, a plethora of pictures will be posted, which seems to generate the most interest. Regardless, let me know you are out there, otherwise it becomes simply anti-social for me to sit at home writing.

You can read minds?

I seem to never be full. Should I eat a big restaurant dinner and feel stuffed, by the time I walk home, I am almost always cruising for a snack. My biggest weakness seems to be sweets. As a joke a group of grad students at UNLV did put the remainder of a chocolate cake in front of me, just to see if it was true that I never stop eating chocolate. After plowing through it, I went home for a snack, of chocolate.

Obviously, if I am ever to have abs like Gerard Butler's (which starred in the movie 300, with Gerard playing a supporting role), I must curb my insatiable sweet tooth. The simple solution is to eat less, but finding moderation is not easy for me (or anyone?). I was eating a lot of fruit, to healthfully satiate the sweet tooth, but 1.5 kilos of oranges/day left me lusting after chocolate. Since gluttony in one food does not seem to address the issue, I tried to quit overeating cold turkey. This, as any diet expert will tell you, leads to binge eating, or essentially, no change.

I go through cycles of these attempts. In general, the most successful diet for me is carrots (yes, back to the gluttony scheme). I have, in the name of controlling appetite, eaten up to 5 lbs of carrots a day. The average is about two pounds when I am powering through carrots. Even with eating more carrots than a horse can dream of, the abs do not come, but I do eat less other foods. As I write this I am looking at a demolished box of cookies, wishing it was a bag of carrots that I had just eaten as a “snack.”

My inability to curb my eating has given me a strange respect for anorexia. Yes, it is bad. Yes, it is an illness. Yes, yes, yes, but think of it in terms of will power! Imagine if you could apply that will power in a healthy, constructive way. We would all have Gerard Butler's abs! Not necessarily be a bad thing. The eating disorder I do not understand is bulimia.

I just ate a box of cookies. They were delicious, actually they weren't. They were pretty crappy cookies, and if logic played a role in this I would have just saved them for when my pantry is bare. The cookies will probably be a big part of my dinner, and if not, then they will be a big part of my waistline. Either way, I get my money's worth. If, I were bulimic, and purged them, I could guiltlessly eat a more delicious food item. But! I did not enjoy eating them, and I would probably not enjoy vomiting them. I would thus double my dissatisfaction with the cookies, and not be able to count them as usable calories. I would also have to pay money for the new item, which probably would not make up for the vomiting and bad cookies, and I might overeat that food too, and have to purge again. Bulimia just seems like flushing money down the toilet, which I would classify as not a “disorder,” but crazy.

To deal with my physical fitness, having ruled out bulimia (I am not that crazy), anorexia (not enough will power), overeating “healthy” foods, and moderation, my only option now seems gluttony in exercise, which I suppose I am all for. My holdup is now inertia. I have something of a routine. I get up, get ready for work, ride my bike to work, work, ride my bike home, eat dinner, read, write, then go to bed. I would like to add a swim in the morning, a run in the evening, and yoga before bed. It is totally doable. The swimming requires a wet suit, so it will probably be a run in the morning, and a ride in the evening, a long yoga practice, or a strength/calisthenics session. Regardless, spending more time exercising is reasonable, if I can change my routine to accommodate it.

Like building shiny new abs, getting into the new routine will take time, but it is a goal. It has been recommended that I should train for an event, maybe the Taupo Ironman, but I do not know if I need to enter a race just to motivate. However, if I ever do an event, it might as well be a tri-, and if I enter a tri- it might as well be an Ironman. After all, if I swim a couple of miles, then ride 100 miles, it seems the best way to address an insatiable hunger, would be to run a marathon.

RWC + Classic Autos

--Note: This was written on 29 October 2011, thus "today" refers to that date, not the date of posting.--

Over the six weeks of the Rugby World Cup I asked people what would happen if New Zealand did not win. The first response was economic recession and an increase in family violence. Each additional person I asked gave the same response. I assumed it was just a national joke, then I saw the sign. The other day, I ran past a billboard sponsored by the New Zealand Police urging Kiwis to “blow the whistle” on family violence. Apparently, when the All Blacks loose, there really is a surge in family violence! Maybe that is true of all sports, but Rugby (and all other sports) are not worth it! It blows my mind, but then again, maybe that is why all the girls were dolled up for the finals, “you can hit me, or...”

Today, under the billboard was a yellow 1978 Mini Clubman LE for sale (the billboard is in a field on Highway 1 where people sell vehicles). I like the Volkswagen Kombi vans, and the 70's era body style is decidedly the best looking. Perhaps the only vehicle better looking than those vans is the classic Mini (maybe classic vehicle in my price range that is better looking...). The car is tiny, yellow and black (like my 1976 Schwinn Le Tour), and in good shape. I am feeling committed to living car free as long as I do not need one, but cars like that definitely make it hard for me to stick it out.

Psychiatrists

A frequent theme in the TV show House is that patients lie. Maybe not a theme, maybe a mantra of Dr. House's, that is usually part of the flourish that makes the show work. Without the lie, the writers of the show would generally not have the gotcha moment. I have no doubt that most patients do lie to their physicians, after all, it is much easier to present the person we want to be, rather than the person we actually are. While I have much to say about physicians, they are only slightly related to this post.

A recent Science Friday was about the movie, book and case history source material of Sybil. I think I may have seen some clips of Sybil, but I have not watched the movie, or read the book. I also have not listened to the Science Friday because listening to the people who call into radio shows is like putting a cheese grater to my intellect, and I come out of listening to a Science Friday 3 IQ points lower than going into it. So, full disclosure, I do not really know what I am talking about when I refer to the specifics of the impetus for writing this post. Thus, I will attempt to not reference them very much.

In the Science Friday, apparently, psychiatrists and/or psychologists have their knickers in a twist because some new analyses have been published about Sybil (the person who inspired the story, not the movie). Further, the case is frequently used as an example of a mental health clinician becoming too involved in a case, and lost objective assessment. This makes me wonder, does one necessarily want objective assessment in a mental health clinician?

Everyone would probably benefit from talking to a psychiatrist (I will henceforth lump all mental health clinicians into one label, I will try to stick with psychiatrist). Emotions are complicated, and often times we are limited by who we feel comfortable talking to about our most complex emotions. Even still, I have no interest in speaking with a psychiatrist. How can I acknowledge the potential benefit, but have no interest in engaging in some sort of therapy? I have a hypothesis, but no answer.

Imagine going into a job interview, and telling the interview committee about yourself in earnest. You would never get a job. They want to hear how well you can sell yourself, and the committee attempts to get a glimpse of who you are by analyzing how you present yourself. The committee is not being honest with you either. The committee never starts the interview with the problems of the company, and they dance around them when you hit tender topics. I see going to a psychiatrist as a variation on the same theme.

I picture (though I have never done it) going to a person who will take loads of personal information about you, that clearly identifies you, then talking to you about your problems. What are they doing? They are sitting over there judging you! You have voluntarily given someone power over you (the opinion of a psychiatrist can affect your ability to obtain visas, job offers, security clearances, etc.), then are both expected (from their perspective) and required (to get effective treatment) to tell them the truth. Will this person act as an emotionally attached friend who wants the best for you? No, their goal is to maintain objective assessment! Why would any sane person want to find themselves in this situation?

How many movies have been created where the sane are assumed insane because they do not accept the benefit of telling/admitting their problems to someone who has power over them? Countless, I imagine. I know that people are more likely to talk to friends about some issues. I have some friends that I feel comfortable telling everything/anything to. Without them, I would be lost much more than I am, but they are feeling their way through life with equal uncertainty as I, which is probably one of the reasons that I am attracted to their friendship. These friends are dear, and helpful, and committed to what is best for me, but, they do not know what they are doing when it comes to assessing my true mental health, and they are usually just as lost when it comes to what to do to find happiness in life. So what about the other side? What if there was a trained person who did not know you, kept no records, and only made recommendations to you, i.e. no power over you, would you be likely to tell them the truth?

I wouldn't.

At first when I started wondering these things I began thinking about a scene in the movie Demolition Man with Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes (my mind works this way, in absolute honesty). In the scene, Wesley Snipes' character wants to use a public computer terminal that looks much like a payphone (I guess they did not see smart phones coming). The terminal is in use by a person engaged in conversation with the computer where the computer is asking the person questions, and the person is lamenting that lately they just don't feel happy, and doubts their self-worth. I think Snipes then throws them into a bush, which is a bit of fun for us to watch. In the dystopian universe of Demolition Man it is unlikely that this would be anonymous, but it could be. My anonymous psychiatrist is a person, rather than a computer, but operates in much the same way. I wonder if I would talk to this person, and while I think I would be more likely to talk to a person who was anonymous, I still probably would stick to silence.

Once every two weeks or so Wayne walks through my building. Wayne is an employee of a contractor who provides support to employees. Apparently, one may speak to Wayne about anything, confidentially. GNS provides this service to keep employee's “happy.” I am too cynical to see it that way. I see it as GNS sending a goon around to spy on the employee's mental health, so I generally try to politely avoid talking to Wayne.

Wayne is the anonymous psychiatrist! He is the service that I imagine, he is the human version of the Demolition Man computer. Yet my base assumption is to not trust him with my troubles. I do not trust him because he is interested, yet not invested. In the same way that I do not trust the psychiatrist. Which means I will only trust someone with my emotions who is emotionally invested in me, which, for me, invalidates the entire ethos of the psychiatric profession.

Spreadsheets and Climate Data

I enjoy creating spreadsheets. I like seeing data organized, and I like to compare the numbers in ways that give me new understanding, or quantify what I may have felt like I already knew. I currently have two spreadsheets active “just for fun.” I will share one here, the other is a work in progress (I am converting lights in my home to compact florescent lights to save power, and I am quantifying how much power I am saving, this activity is limited by budget and availability). The spreadsheet I will share is climate data for Taupo, Vancouver and Seattle.

The motivation for comparing climate data for these three cities is that in the two months I have been in Taupo, it seems that the weather in Seattle and Vancouver is generally better than the weather I have experienced here. This observation was met with a cacophony of arguments by my coworkers rejecting my sound observations of the weather. Some of these co-workers have lived in Vancouver, or Cascadia. Some have only visited, but they all agreed that Taupo has great weather, and Seattle and Vancouver have insufferable weather. The only thing that can be done in such situations is to get on Wikipedia, find some climate data, and prove a large group of people wrong.

Taupo has terrible weather. Were this an academic paper, it would be entitled; “An analysis of climate data for Vancouver, Canada, Seattle, USA, and Taupo, New Zealand to assess favorability for habitation and bicycle commuting.” After the location maps, the first figure that showed climate data would be referred to as something like this: “While Seattle, the Vancouver airport (YVR), and the Vancouver central business district (CBD) have rainier months than Taupo, climate data suggest that Seattle and Vancouver have either comparable climates to Taupo, or better, i.e. Taupo has terrible weather (Fig. 1).” I would normally want to leave it at that, enough said, but in order to celebrate how fantastically correct I am, I'll continue to belabor the point.

Figure 1:  Taupo has terrible weather.

First, a bit on how I went about this, other than copying data from Wikipedia. The value I initially wanted was the number of days that it rains in each city, but it seems whoever compiled the climate data for Wikipedia for Taupo lacked this information. In fact, they seem to have lacked a great deal of information. Owing to the fact that I am lazy, or do not really care, or something along those lines, I have not attempted to find more complete data. I decided that three numbers could capture the climate, average daily high by month, average daily low by month, and average daily precipitation by month. Today it occurred to me that average wind speed (while riding straight into strong winds) would be a useful addition, oh well. Next, I reorganized the months by winter solstice, whereby month 1 is January in the Northern Hemisphere, and July in the Southern Hemisphere, and month 12 is December in the Northern Hemisphere and June in the Southern Hemisphere. Finally, I plotted a scatter plot with all of the data. Then, the fun began (the “fun” being realizing how right I was, the traditional fun started with opening Open Office Calc).

All three cities have a similar amount of seasonality when it comes to temperature. Taupo tends to have the highest average daily high. The daily low is closer, but frequently lower in Taupo. For the bicycle commuter, this is an important number. I rarely commute during the hottest part of the day, though I do often commute to work before the sun has heated the air, and the night's cold is still lingering in the gullies along my route. Thus, for the bicycle commuter, the lowest lows are not made up for by the highest highs. Further, for favorability for habitation, I would argue that while an outside temperature of 72 is probably ideal, a narrow temperature range is also very important. Given two cities, one with a high of 87 and low of 57, and one with a high of 65 and low of 55, I would take 65 and 55. A third city with high of 90 and low of 80 would also be more favorable than the first city. The average temperature in the first city is an ideal 72, but at almost 90 during the heat of the day residents will want to be wearing shorts, running fans or air conditioners, and drinking a cool beverage on a shady veranda at noon. In the mornings, evenings and nights the temperature drops below sixty, and the residents will want to wear long pants and a jacket, running heaters in their homes, and cuddling under blankets at night. This means that they have to carry a change of clothes to be comfortable, and pay to both heat and cool their homes. In the second and third cities, the residents plan on a temperature, grab a jacket, or an ice water, and go about their day. In this way, both Seattle and Vancouver have nicer temperatures than Taupo.

Perhaps the most important number is precipitation. Rain can be dressed for, much like any other weather. It can feel oppressive, but like anything else, a little prior planning, and you can be reasonably comfortable in the rain. Vancouverites have to deal with the most rain overall, and Seattleites the least. In both of those cities, residents can expect months 1, 10, 11 and 12 to be rainier than in Taupo. Vancouverites have to deal with the rainiest month 2 as well (Seattle and Taupo tie for second). For these four/five months, it is much rainier. The Seattleite and Vancouverite must plan for rain most days. They will, accordingly, adjust their attire to a winter wardrobe. The resident of Taupo must have the wet and dry wardrobe ready throughout the year! During months 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 (the majority of the year) the Kiwi will endure more rain, and, like the other five months, must have at the ready wet and dry weather clothing!

This post may come across as very negative, but it is not necessarily meant to be so. I did not ever feel that the weather in Seattle or Vancouver was “terrible,” it was difficult to go from sun everyday, to cloudy many days, but it was not terrible. The use of the world terrible is mostly in response to my co-workers' indignant, “Vancouver (and/or Seattle) has terrible weather.” Thus, if the Pacific Northwest has terrible weather, then it follows that Taupo has terrible weather, since it is worse here. Kiwis need not worry though, because they definitely have Ketchikan beat.

Rugby World Cup

I am at home writing.  While I do this, 4 of 5 residents of Taupo (Taupons?) are down the street for the Rugby World Cup (notably being played in Auckland, not down the street).  It is a big deal here.  Rugby may seem like just football with no forward passes, but it is like hockey in Canada - basically more popular than heroine in a methadone clinic.  I can hear every single play from the crowd's reaction.

I walked around a bit to check it out, and see if I could spot someone I knew to be social for a bit.  I was unsuccessful at running into someone, and in finding something to keep me out on the town.  Most people are enjoying the festivities in groups where the women have worn trendy, revealing outfits fitting of clubbing to entice their blokes, and their men have worn All Blacks jerseys and jeans, the average Tuesday attire.

The Best Cars, or Some Good Ones Anyway

I have driven most of the vehicles at work now, in addition to driving all of the personal, rental and work vehicles I have encountered in the past, and it seems that I can makes some generalizations after years of driving. I could just lay down the generalizations, but that would not be much fun to write, and it certainly would not be much fun to read. I will start with the oldest observation, I do not like Toyotas.

I know, I know, Toyota lovers are aghast with disbelief. I liked my parent's 1981 Toyota Corolla Wagon. It had the loveable early '80s squariness, it was fuel efficient, it was utilitarian, and, though I have not confirmed the price, it probably had a utilitarian price tag, which, along with quality, is one of the ways that the Japanese automakers surpassed the Big Three. It is true that the quality thing seems to remain in today's Toyota cars, which is a definite plus. However, new Toyotas are dripping with sleek lines, but they are not sleek. The interiors are constructed of so much cheap ugly plastic that it feels like you can start sympathizing with Barbie, waiting inside of disposable packaging on your way to your destination. I do not like that Toyota has linked off-road and towing capabilities with luxury fittings on the inside (e.g. leather seats). I also do not like how the starter motors sound. That may be petty, but I do not like it. I dislike the sound of Chevrolet starters even more, they kind of sound like turning a running car over mixed with fingernails on a chalkboard. Lastly, I do not like the price tag that Toyota has inflated the cost of their vehicles to. When I was last shopping for cars, a similarly loaded Yaris and MINI Cooper were the same price. The Yaris might be a better car, but I simply cannot justify $20,000 on a Yaris.

It will come as no surprise that I dislike Chevrolet/GM/GMC/Pontiac. They all suffer from the GM starter motor issue, but I take issue with their aesthetics too, all of them. I cannot think of a GM product that I have looked at and thought, “I like the looks of that car.” The new Camero isn't bad, but the reverse lights are terrible. It is as if the architects drew up the plans, they got approved, the engineers started building them, realized there were no reverse lights, and stuck in the middle of the bumper. Had they simply duct-taped a flashlight to the trunk it would have at least been unique, but they didn't.

Hondas are okay, but too expensive for what you get (if I was buying a new car tomorrow, I might test drive a Civic hatchback). The Suzuki Swift is super cute, and the SX4 Crossover is a practical all-wheel drive, and good to look at. Nissans, I despise. The trucks suffer from tremendous body-roll, I would rather try to turn around a 14' raft with a teaspoon after realizing I was about to go over Niagra Falls, than make a U-turn in a Nissan on a busy street, they are designed with a face made for radio, and, like many of their fellow countrymen, they are expensive. What solidified my dislike of Nissans was the Nissan Pulsar five-door hatch. The driver, owing to the position of the seat, steering wheel and pedals, sat at a 5 degree angle to the car. Terrible!

I like Ford trucks. I might argue that Ford is the only company (saving maybe the Land Rover Defender) still making a work truck. Ford's cars are decent. I like the new Fiesta, but the branding is tragic (I would have a hard time buying a Fiesta). They are not “great cars,” but my Ford Ranger had less unscheduled maintenance in the first 100,000 miles than my parent's Subaru, so they might not be bad cars either.

Subaru makes a great all-wheel drive system. Probably as good as Suzuki's, Ford's, and most other company's, but it is not as good as VW's. Sorry Subaru, I have driven a VW van that was more capable off-road, and as fun to drive as every Subaru I have been in. I will say that the VW van had as much road noise as the Subaru (deafening), but to be fair to VW, it was a cargo van, and all of the sound dampening material had been removed behind the front seats.

I have a crush on small hatchbacks, and no one does them better than the Europeans. I like the Fiat 500, BMW 1 series, Volkswagen's Rabbit (RIP, the nearly identical Golf just is not as sweet) and GTI, and the Volvo C30 is beautiful. Seat, Renault and Skoda have some acceptable cars. Peugeot has the decent looking 308, and made a hatchback with a sliding door, which is beyond words, even though it was kind of ugly. The top of the list for European cars is the MINI. It is not perfect. Sometimes sitting in a MINI I have an incredible urge to touch something made of a natural material, but their plastic is vaguely nicer than other plastic cars (if I were to buy a MINI without budget constraints it would have a wooden steering wheel, an option they may no longer offer, -tear-).

Korean cars remind me of the Toyota of the 1980s. Decent to look at, great running, kind of crappy interiors, and a price tag fitting for the reliable, no frills vehicle they are selling to move a family or commuter around for years to come. The Hyundai and Kia of old were trash, but the new ones seem great. I challenge any Toyota (Subaru, Honda or Lexus) dedicated owner to get into a Hyundai of the same trim level and make a compelling argument that their car was worth the extra money. It seems to me that the Koreans are doing to the Japanese what the Japanese did to the Big Three all those years ago.

Lots of cars did not make the list, but here are the promised generalizations. I like Ford Trucks. They are the best trucks, if for no other reason than they make a work truck, and if your truck is not for work, buy a station wagon. I like European cars, and do not like Japanese cars. Everything else is somewhere in the middle. There are, of course, European cars I do not like, and American and Asian cars I do.

The astute reader and lover of Japanese cars may be upset that I specifically mention liking Suzuki autos, but dislike Japanese cars. Here is the rub. When I sit in a Suzuki, it feels Korean, in the sense that it feels like a Japanese car in every way, except the price tag was set at the value of the vehicle, not the value of the vehicle plus hefty advertising. Suzukis feel like Korean cars, and that is a good thing...

But, the swift just isn't a MINI.

Alice in Wonderland

I started reading Alice in Wonderland on my phone while waiting for something to happen (I do not recall what).  Progress has been slow, as I have not spent a lot of time sitting in waiting rooms alone lately.  I started reading it because I was curious about e-readers, and it seemed handy to have a book on my phone.  Progress in Walden has also slowed owing to my working lunches of late.  On the bright side, LOTR continues to progress at a reasonable pace for a bedtime book.  I anticipate my reading will increase once Sarah departs on Wednesday, which I suppose might be a bit of sweetness, but I am not looking forward to it in the slightest.

War Stories

It has been something of a challenge to get online for any decent length of time since arriving here.  The internet is somewhat expensive and somewhat elusive.  To add some complications Sarah has come to visit, and I fell ill.  Sarah visiting is a great distraction!  Getting sick is a much less desirable one.  In the end though, it has all added up to a paucity of posts in September.  Since it seems that people do occasionally read my wandering thoughts, I have decided that I need to come up with "easy" posts for times that I am not able, willing, or motivated to write something new and exciting.  While telling new friends and acquaintances the stories of my life, it occurred to me that some of these stories could make good posts, even though most people who know me have heard at least some of them.  Thus, without further ado, a new category of post is born, the war story.

When I lived in Socorro, I lived in economical accommodations.  My duplex was small, fatigued and poorly built.  The ceiling was not insulated.  The carpet was old and gross (I will admit to being partly to blame for this as my vacuum cleaner was generally down for unscheduled maintenance).  The toilet was slowly rotting through the floor, allowing the tank to slosh during hurried ascensions to the throne, further rotting the floor.  The house behind me had pigs.  And, my neighbor was a deaf, retarded smoker.  He could often be seen through his screen door asleep with the TV blaring, a lit cigarette slowly burning in his hand.  Among all of these peculiarities, the most amazing feature of this building is that the walls and floors were not attached.

Any person who has peered into the blackness of a crawl space, through the layers of spider webs and debris that crawl spaces (particularly in unloved buildings) attract and retain knows that while the ecosystem is supposed to stop mere inches into the abyss of the underworld, the simple thought of what might actually be living down there is the stuff of nightmares and horror films.  I know this, not from ever venturing into that crawl space, but because when the walls and floors of a building are not connected, what lives in the crawl space, lives in the house.  It was not uncommon to be sitting in front of a movie, and spy a visitor scuttling across the floor.  Sometimes they were harmless roaches, other times they were centipedes, or worse.  Jason once woke up to watch a spider cruise by on a mission to wherever spiders mission to.  All the insects mostly just passed through, but at one point the population of mice exploded.

I did not want to kill the mice with traps, nor did I want bricks of poison laying around.  Thus, I endeavored to capture the mice, by hand.  In the beginning, it was largely unsuccessful.  Heidi would often attain a perch, on a chair or other high place, and I would tear the house apart after the mouse.  In these days, I used the domesticated dog approach to capturing prey, with no knowledge of what to do should I actually meet with success.  While  I never truly "caught" a mouse in my early attempts, I did once chase one into the pantry, where it seemed to simply disappear.  Days later, I discovered a tail sticking out from under a bin filled with camping gear.  Lifting the bin, I discovered a dehydrated mouse, pressed to the bottom of a Rubbermaid, as a flower between the pages of a book.  A definitive failure in the avoidance of killing the mice.

My first success was actually a careless mouse, more than skill on my part.  The mouse managed to climb into a bag of tortilla chips, and having discovered what it thought was mouse heaven, decided to munch chips until it was caught.  I took this first mouse out to the shed in front of my house (yes, the shed was in front), figuring it would find plenty of mouse habitat there, and never want to return.  The next mouse I caught in the silverware drawer, and again relocated it to the shed.  With time, I learned stealth, and hunted the mice like a cat, or less like a domesticated dog.  With every mouse I caught, I worried more that the mice were not retiring to the shed, but were returning to my crawlspace, more convicted in their quest for chips, flour, chocolate, peanut butter and the other stores of my pantry.

This concern led me to relocate the mice further and further away, but with every captured mouse, the concern escalated that I was simply capturing the same couple of mice over and over again.  Thus, I did the only logical thing.  I obtained a vast array of colored Sharpies.  Upon capturing a mouse, I would use a Sharpie to give the mouse a racing strip (or two), and would then release them to the neighborhood.

Never did I get a repeat mouse.  This may be because mice shed their fur rapidly.  It may be because they never came back.  It may be because one of my neighbors kept getting mice in their mouse traps with carefully drawn racing strips.  I'll never know.

In time, the mouse population subsided, and I moved onto new endeavors and new homes.  The days of mouse hunting are hopefully behind me, but the memories live on as stories shared with people, and now the internet.  I will endeavor to keep a queue of these types of post at the ready in the inevitable event I encounter a period of few posts.  I hope you enjoyed it, and there should be a plethora of updates in the coming days as much has happened, and is happening in establishing myself in the land of the long white cloud.

The Fellowship of the Ring and Walden

I finished Lost Discoveries, an interesting read.  I think Teresi lacks a suitable definition of science, but the book is fun in establishing what non-European cultures contributed to our understanding of the world (like the number zero).  After finishing it, I started The Fellowship of the Ring, which I had wanted to read in camp, but I cannot really complain about reading it in New Zealand (I might have to buy one of the travel guidebooks that catalog all of the sites in the movies).

I also started Walden for my lunch time reading.  I have not read Walden, but Jason and Alecia gave me a Walden t-shirt (http://www.outofprintclothing.com/) for Christmas, which prompted Sarah and I to decide to read it.  I do not know if it is going to be exactly my type of book, but it is a classic, and there is no better place to read classics than at work, where TV, runs and blogging are not as easily at hand.

Ayurveda

I went to an Ayurveda workshop at Living Yoga last weekend.  I spent the money mostly to have an excuse to socialize.  I was not all that interested in the subject, and am amazed at the belief people put into such obvious nonsense (bloodletting is a detoxification method for the Pitta dosa).  It did, however, work to help me socialize.

Ayurveda was introduced by the instructor as the "science of life."  Science, in this use, would relate to the study of something, not necessarily to scientific study.  That is, science in the -logy sense, where geology is the science of Earth systems, cosmology is the science of the universe, and theology is the science of religion.  Obviously, science is not the best translation of the Greek root.  It should be, rather, the study of the Earth, universe or religion, in the previous examples.  The translation from Sanskrit for Ayurveda would probably be better not as the study of life, but as the knowledge of life.  The Wikipedia translation defines it as "the complete knowledge for long life."  (The Wikipedia page seems like (I have not read it) a good summary of Ayurveda, and can be found here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayurveda, as a discussion of what Ayurveda is functionally, is out of the scope of this post.)  Even if the ancient Indians called Ayurveda science, it would not be science today.  Unfortunately, most people lack the understanding of the difference between that which is science, and that which is not to appreciate the difference.

People have a difficult time defining science, and there is not, to my knowledge, a definitive definition of satisfactory quality published by a respectable body, for example, the National Academies of Science.  In this vacuum of fact there is an overabundance of opinion to which, I add my own.  Science is a method to study a system strictly using the scientific method.  The scientific method is observation, question, hypothesis, test, observation.  A "scientist," who observes glaciers, but does little hypothesizing is a naturalist.  It is a noble pursuit to be a naturalist, and in fact, science would be better if those incapable of original thought stuck with naturalism, rather than "inventing" social significance, hypotheses and such to validate their research as science, but I digress.  For this rant, I will use my definition of science, and I encourage people to think about those things that claim to be science (naturalism, engineering, creationism, etc.) in this light, and see if the world makes more sense.  I would be grateful for any comments about how to improve my definition without adding complication.

Pursuits that are not science are not bothered with all the steps of the scientific method.  In the geosciences, it is common to see naturalists skip the hypothesis and test steps (observation, question, observation).  In every "pseudo-science" it is the test step that is wont to be skipped.  In Creationism, the method is something like answer, question, observation, answer (a dogma cannot really be a hypothesis because one believes it).  In Ayurveda, the method is observation, question, hypothesis, observation.  It is notable to point out that in all of these examples scholarly people are pursuing explanations for the world, the question here is one of rhetoric (defining science), and belief.

Belief is a plague in society.  Belief has its place.  Religion is nothing without belief, but love, trust and happiness are probably nothing without belief too.  The problem is that people believe (or not) in nearly everything.  Common beliefs in society are about trivial things ("I believe the meeting is at 09:00"), the functionality of a treatment ("I do not believe in chiropractic care" or "I believe in Ayurveda") or any number of similar ideas where thought, not belief, belongs.  Does the co-worker believe the meeting is at a given time, or do they think the meeting is at 09:00 based on their memory of a memo?  Does the person actually not believe in chiropractic care, or do they not think that it is not a useful treatment?  Should the person believe in Ayurveda?  Of course not!  Here is the test for the use of believe; can you replace what you believe in (or do not believe in) with a common object?  If you can, then you should think not believe.  Here are some examples.

"I believe the meeting is at 09:00."
Replace the meeting time with something else, say telephones.  You now have the statement, "I believe in telephones."  There is plenty of evidence for the existence of telephones, and there is also plenty of evidence for the meeting times.  There are also ways to test both the existence of telephones, and the time of the meeting.  Therefore, telephones is an appropriate substitution for the meeting time.  Thus, the statement should be, "I think the meeting is at 09:00."

"I do not believe in chiropractic care."
Replace chiropractic care with red cars to get, "I do not believe in red cars."  Can you test for the existence of red cars?  Yes.  Can you test for the existence of chiropractic care?  Yes.  Can you test the effectiveness of chiropractic care?  Again yes.  Red cars can substitute for chiropractic care in this statement.  Thus, the well spoken, rational person says, "I do not think chiropractic care is useful."  (Personally, I think chiropractic care is an effective treatment for certain ailments, as a note.)

"I believe in God."
Replace God with dogs.  Is there a test for the existence of dogs?  Yes.  Is there a test for the existence of God?  No.  Thus, dogs cannot substitute for God in this statement.  It follows that one can believe in God, or have faith in God, or what have you.  This is not to say that you cannot think that God does or does not exist, it is simply to say that one can believe in God without being a complete idiot for doing so (e.g. the guy who does not believe in red cars is a complete idiot).  In the case of deities, belief just indicates that you are out of the discussion.  I, for example, do not think that God (or any other omnipotent being) exists.  I would find it most enjoyable to have a discussion about this with someone who thinks such a being exists.  I do not (generally) mind hearing the thoughts of those who believe/do not believe in God, but I gain little from this because I will be swayed by thought, not feelings, opinions or ancient texts.

Back to Ayurveda and science.  The beauty of all these methods of describing the world is that the observation step is common to everything!  Creationists observe a beautiful, complex world, and seek explanations.  Naturalists observe a beautiful, complex world and seek to record and categorize it.  Ayurvedics observe a beautiful and complex world, and seek a path through it.  Scientists observe a beautiful and complex world, and seek understanding.  To focus on Ayurveda, Vatta people are generally thin, active and cold.  To be comfortable in life, they should give themselves warmth and eat regularly.  Maybe this is because they are Vatta, or it could be that there is a physiologic reason for this.  Either way, the observation that thin, active people are generally cold, and need to eat small meals regularly holds solid.

As for my Ayurvedic experience, I am tri-dosic, meaning that I am Pitta, Vatta and Kapha in nearly equal proportions.  Finding balance in my life is difficult owing to this.  I suppose I might be all three dosas, or it could be that it is difficult to develop a system that answers all of the questions of the human body based on three types of people who are controlled by the five elements (earth, water, fire, air and ether), and thus some people fit multiple dosas.

I gained several things from the workshop.  Most important, were invitations to two dinner parties.  Of lesser importance, was the knowledge of my own dosas.  As for Ayurveda, six hours of sitting on the floor gave me an increased appreciation of the observations that people of all belief systems can contribute to the combined knowledge of humans.  This dovetailed nicely with finishing the book Lost Discoveries as the author of that book attributes scientific discovery to ancient peoples.  After the workshop, I think the discoveries of most ancient peoples are made through insight, not science

The Final Straw, and Moving Out

*Note*  The following post was written in Honolulu on the 24th.  After writing this post, I have made it into Taupo without incident, and have been running errands, and doing just a bit of socializing.  On the docket this morning is foraging for food, then cell phone, then some time for exploring my new surroundings.

I am sitting in the Honolulu airport, it is hot, muggy and crowded, and the internet is not free. Thus, this may not be posted until Auckland. It all depends on how cheap and bored I feel (ah, the scales of frugality vs. boredom).

I left Chicken early. The story is interesting, but I do not know if changing names is enough for me to feel comfortable posting it publicly. The skinny of it is that after a summer of my complacency putting myself at greater and greater risk in the field, I had a false sense of security working with a partner. The second day after I had a bear encounter (previous post), working in the same area, there was another bear encounter. It was between one of the employees who was working alone and a bear, and he took a shot at it. I will never know what actually happened. A radio call came through, then a shot rang out a moment later. What little procedures we had were not followed, were not sufficient and people clearly had insufficient training to be working in bear country (“we were trying to be quiet so the bears wouldn't hear us”). After the shot was fired, my field partner spotted a bear running straight at us at high speed. The bear ran at us for 20-30 seconds before being deterred by our noise making. It is not clear if the bear that was shot at was hit, but it was definitely not killed in a responsible manner if it was hit.

In the aftermath of this incident it was clear that the other employees and the company were not interested in working safely, following industry standards for field work, or taking the appropriate actions. Further, the fieldwork was set to continue in the same area the next day. One other employee and I declined to continue working under such conditions, and left for home, rather than for the field the next morning. Allowing me to spend a week and a half in Delta.

The extra time in Delta allowed me to say good bye to the Delta “family,” and my parents, made making final arrangements a bit easier, afforded me some great runs, a hike and bike rides with my parents, and easy to neglect Faux Social. I am at what can best be described as halfway, here in Honolulu, and it still seems, not unreal, but unfathomable, I suppose. I have never had a contract this long, I have never moved to a place I knew no one, and I have not ever sat in an airport this hot typing about what I have never done before.

I posit that the surreal feeling about this is that I am so accustomed to the “temporary” attitude towards everything, that even a long period, like two years, has been temporary for me for the last six years or so. It seems like I have always been preparing to leave, and this last year has been defined by preparing to leave wherever I just arrived. I think this has made me feel stuck in between moving somewhere, and heading off to another temporary life, with temporary people in temporary accommodations. Hopefully I will be able to snap out of this, and settle into a life that looks like what I want my life to be.

It is time to stretch, refill water, and figure out what time it is.

Bears

Yesterday, I had my second bear encounter of the summer.  The first encounter was at the last property I was working.  In that encounter, the bear was spotted approximately 1/4 mile away.  It then walked up hill directly at my field partner and I until it was 50 feet away.  At that point, the helicopter picked us up.  My field partner fired one warning shot, which did nothing to dissuade the bear.  The second bear encounter was one of the more stressful hours of my life.

Bear encounters are highly stressful events.  However, statistically speaking, bears are not that great of a risk.  At the last property, someone pointed out that a bear attack might be a one in a million event for the average person, but geologists working in bear country are not really average.  Thus, I propose a new statistical analysis.  I will assume that everywhere in Alaska represents "bear country."  Thus, in the last ten years (according to Wikipedia:    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_bear_attacks_in_North_America) there have been 5 people killed by bears in Alaska, or about 0.5 per year.  According to the State of Alaska (http://www.hss.state.ak.us/dph/bvs/death_statistics/Leading_Causes_Census/frame.html), bear attacks, at 0.5/year are not in the top ten causes of death.  Malignant neoplasms are number one, number two are diseases of the heart, yet the food served in mining camps is not generally heart friendly.  Unintentional injuries come in at number three (with 339 deaths per year, if you deduct bears, 338.5 people are killed by other unintentional injuries in Alaska per year).  Intentional self-harm (suicide) is number six, with 140 deaths in Alaska per yer.  This means, that a randomly selected person in Alaska is 280 times more likely to kill themselves, than to be killed by a bear.  Given this, should people carry firearms to prevent bear attacks?

From an easy, back of the envelope statistical analysis, it is very evident that bears are not the biggest risk.  However, bears are scary.  It, for some reason, is not scary to ride in a truck on a gravel road to the field.  It is not scary to ride a quad for half an hour into the field.  It is not scary to walk over uneven ground.  Nor is it scary to ride in a helicopter.  However, when you are confronted with a bear, it is scary.  From this fear, people start making decisions based on emotion, rather than logic.  This is an undesirable situation that can only be dealt with through discussion, and training.

I have been through several bear trainings.  Some have been funny to me ("While there is no proof bears are attracted to menstruation, menstruating women should wear tampons rather than pads while in bear country"), and others have been quite good.  It is generally agreed upon that bears have vision approximately equal to our own with excellent senses of smelling and hearing.  If a bear can only see you when you see it, that does not help keep bears away.  Since scent is controlled by wind direction, which is unpredictable sound becomes the best warning tool.  All training advises you to take advantage of this.  They say that to warn an animal with an excellent sense of hearing it is advisable to make lots of noise.

I usually sing to make noise.  My go to song is Greg Brown's "If I Had Known," but I have a few other partial songs in my catalog.  "If I Had Known" is 3:25 with music.  I can pause for a bit between stanzas, but the goal is to make noise, not be artistic.  Thus, I rip through that song in about 2:20, I might stretch it to 3 minutes, but either way, I have to sing that song a lot to make it through a full day in the field.  So, sometimes I take a break from singing.

When I am not singing, I am not really a geo-ninja.  When in the thick of black spruce, moss, willows, tundra, tussocks and alders, I break branches pushing through them, I rustle trees trying to move them out of the way, I hit my shins and fall resulting in me turning the air blue, and if I get really angry with something I break the branches or what have you with my shovel.  This, apparently, is not enough noise to warn a creature with excellent hearing of my imminent arrival.  Bears, apparently, hear me rolling in on them like a gaggle of drunken sailors on shore leave in a fine china factory, and think to themselves, "what is that noise?  It must be a sparrow."  Given this line of reasoning, that seems to be common to all bears that will attack you, does singing actually help?  Would carting out a rock band help?  I am skeptical that if these creatures cannot associate my slow, steady progress through the brush with stick breaking and expletive eruptions as a human coming towards them, that folk music will make them turn and run.

What seems to work with bears is not noise (I am not suggesting that travel should be done with stealth, but rather the noise working in the brush combined with the normal amount of talking and singing should be sufficient), but working in pairs.  The buddy system does not eliminate the bear threat, but rather mitigates the risk in the most effective manner.  That is why one should never be working hundreds of meters away from anyone else, in an area of high bear sign, swimming through alders, singing, swearing and releasing frustration through fits of blind rage on dead trees.

This brings me to my second bear encounter of the summer.  I was hundreds of meters away from anyone else, in an area of high bear sign, having just passed through a bear latrine with fresh scat, swimming through alders, singing, swearing and releasing frustration through fits of blind rage on dead trees.

I exited the alders into a burned area (from a forest fire).  I was relieved to be out of the alders, but looking straight into another thick zone of alders between me and my first sample points.  I took out my HTC (absolute rubbish for field work) to assess whether I should move farther off my line to avoid the alders, or continue through the alders when I heard a branch break behind me.  I turned around to see a bear's ass leap back into the alders at the precise point I exited the brush twenty feet before.  I drew my bear spray, easily removed the safety I improvised when my was torn off in alders (a concern of the pistoleros), and called to the team that I had just spooked a bear and it was headed southeast towards Olmos and Stewart.  Fillion, who was attacked by a bear a year ago, quickly realized that he was between Olmos and Stewart, he thought through this, and realized that if a bear is headed towards Olmos and Stewart, it is actually headed directly for him!  Shatner began to orchestrate a response on the radio, and the chatter began.  At this point I realized that the bear had not moved southeast towards the other three crew members, but was glowering at me from the bushes, and all I can see are two eyes and a snout.

They teach you how to recognize bear moods to predict their actions in bear training, and they teach you what to do when you are interacting with a bear.  A bear with perky ears and its head up is curious, much like a dog.  A bear with its ears back and head down is angry or aggressive.  I could not see the bears ears, but its nose was very near the ground, so I leaned towards angry/aggressive, and called on the radio that the bear was not moving, but staring at me.  Shatner wanted to know who was closest to me to offer aid.  Stewart then radioed to ask what point I was nearest to.  In order to answer that question, I had to look at my HTC.

In bear training, they also teach you how to interact with a bear.  The best method seems to speak calmly, "hey bear, whoa bear," with your hands above your head to "look big."  I had one hand on my pepper spray, taking an aggressive stance, ready to hose the bear down.  My other hand was at my radio to key the mic when I had to need to give updates.  The only logical thing to do to look big, was to raise my elbows.  I was then standing with elbows up, one hand in front, ready to spray, one hand on my radio, and I had to let go of my radio to get my HTC.  HTC3, as mine is designated, is slow to connect to the satellites to get GPS points, and is prone to not reliably updating my location on the screen.  I turn on the HTC, unlock the screen and wait for the screen to update, with elbows raised, a constant stream of "hey bear, whoa bear" coming out of my mouth.  I radioed my location, and the radio chatter began again.  I was also thinking the whole time that one should back away slowly from a bear.  These burned areas resemble logging slash, and I was quite convinced that backing away would result in me falling backwards, thus, I decided to stand my ground, elbows held high, thumb on the trigger.

Shatner, in an attempt to figure out where Stewart was, had Stewart fire a shot into the air.  I heard this request, and realized that Stewart is on the other side of the bear.  I braced for the possibility that the shot would frighten the bear into me.  Bang, the shot was fired, and it became clear that Stewart, Olmos and Fillion were a long way off.  Shatner had obtained visual on me by this point, and was 300 meters away.  The bear eventually disappeared out of view, and Shatner gave watch as I moved away from the point of first contact.

When I got approximately twenty meters away from the point of first contact, and Shatner radioed that a small bear emerged from the brush and was moving behind me.  I turned around, pepper spray still ready, and could not see anything despite being in the relative clear of the burned area.  Eventually I saw a yearling cub bound by, and I continued moving away.  The next call I got on the radio was that the cub was changing direction, then coming parallel to me, then overtaking me.  This forced me to head more directly towards Shatner.  As I began to cross between the cub and the point of first contact, Shatner radioed that he saw a larger bear emerging from the brush at the point of first contact, it was bigger than the cub, and was following my trail.

Shatner continued to navigate me away from the bears, but it required me to move into a thicker area that was difficult to walk through, where I had no visibility.  Trusting his guidance, I proceeded.  Olmos, Fillion and Stewart were within sight of each other, listening to the radio and organizing themselves when the bad news came.

"brian, I know it is thick in there, but you need to hurry up," then a pause on the radio.  I kept walking, singing Greg Brown, and try to think how I was going to walk faster, through brush and fallen trees, with a can of bear spray that did not have a safety tab.  I figured if I fell, Shatner would see a puff of orange spray, and could do something to help me.  I resolved to speed up, and then call came through, mere seconds after the hurry up call, "I am going to fire a couple of warning shots."

While I do not recall making this transmission, reports are unanimous, I responded, "Okay.  I am not happy," in a stern, grumpy, monotone.  While I do not recall reporting my unhappiness, I do recall thinking that while I did not know what Shatner could see, I probably did not want to.  I motored, as best I could, bear spray sans safety, stumbling through brush and fallen trees.

Eventually I got to Shatner, and then we walked to a nearby cabin.  Fillion and Stewart met up with Olmos in view, and we waited for thirty minutes, without the bears following.  Fillion, Stewart and Olmos sampled the top of the lines, away from the bears.  Shatner and I walked over to points east of the bears, and sampled.

The day was significantly stressful, and after working the adrenaline out of my system, I started to think about what led to the situation.  Working this summer, I have been making small compromises on my personal work safety standards in order to get the job done.  There were issues at the last project I was working, there were issues with the truck driving here, and there have been issues working here.  After yesterday, I requested that I not work without a partner again.  Thus, I have made progress back towards safety.  Other crew members have made safer choices, and fixed some of the problems that existed here as well.  Meaning others are making progress back towards safety as well.  As stressful as the day was, and as bad as the day could have gone, it is the occasional serious incident that reminds us the reasons that we have safety standards that are always followed.

Note:  I am not working with a crew of actors who have played spaceship captains, but changed names to protect the identity of people and entities that were portrayed in this post.

Visa

My New Zealand visa is at the Post Office in Delta!  This means that I am now making travel and moving arrangements.  I have gotten my personal effects moving again, and chosen a travel date (24 August).  GNS will book the ticket as soon as I have a scan of the visa, then it will feel like I am officially moving to New Zealand (I think)!  Next on my list, set up a bank account in NZ, so I have some finances when I arrive.

Out of the Frying Pan

I have transferred to Chicken. I thought the change of scenery might be good for my attitude, but I am not sure this was the right change of scenery. The environmental hazards are slightly diminished, so in some ways, there is less risk to the work. However, we work alone here, which I am not crazy about. I am willing to work alone because we are within a couple hundred meters of each other. In a major emergency, I think this means that one would have people there to watch you die.

As for the scenery itself, I am more fond of glaciated mountains than rolling hills. However, after being married to a girl who loved the Appalachians, I can certainly appreciate the rolling mountains for their beauty. In contrast to the western Alaska Range, I do tend to scoff at the hills, but I am trying. Tromping around black spruce forest will just make Taupo all the better.

My final problem with the Chicken transfer (that I will complain about on the internet, anyway), is that it seems that the state of Alaska, the United States, and probably the world in general, would be better off if this place disappeared (a la the island in Lost) taking these people with them. I have overheard more griping about the raising of the debt ceiling than I thought stupid people could form into words. The US “borrowing” is not like a credit card, America, you cannot just stop using the card! Further, under Clinton, there was a budget surplus. It was after eight years of reckless tax cuts and deregulation to benefit the wealthy under W. that has brought this country to financial ruin. Anyone who has forgotten such things (including every person but me, it seems, in Chicken) can disappear with this horrible little place.

The good news about this transfer? I have been able to eat more veg. At Estelle, the cooks (who were accommodating and wonderful to me) tried to cook veganized meals. I am in charge of my diet here, and I am eating vegan foods. I am looking forward to moving into the “apartment” out of the cabin though, because a hot meal would be pretty nice. Hell, electricity will be nice in general, but the be able to cook a little something to have with my spinach will be a big plus. (5 lbs of blueberries, 15 cups of spinach, 25 oz of hummus, 1 lb of cherries, 12 clementines, 6 muffins, 6 cookies, 2 apples, 2 sandwiches and 1 tomato, if you were wondering what I have been eating to deal with my heaps of perishables and no refrigeration or cooking).

Being here all boils down to 18 more days to get back (closer) to zero. I do not like to start counting this early, but in a place like this, knocking down days is all I can think about.

Lost Discoveries

I finished The Hobbit, and with some reservation, I began Lost Discoveries by Dick Teresi.  It seems like the book will be reasonably interesting, but after The Hobbit I wanted to jump into LOTR. (My guide to italics did not cover abbreviated titles!  Thoughts, grammar nerds?)  I did not do this, because I am trying to purge hardcover books first (as they weigh more, and I am trying to cut 30lbs from my luggage).  As such, The Fellowship of the Ring will be a reward for learning about the lost scientific discoveries of man, owing, largely it seems, to a Euro-centric culture (though I am only on page 12).

Transferred

It seems like I am being transferred to a couple of projects near Chicken on 30 July.  I am not sure for how long I will be there, but estimates range from two to three weeks.  I initially found out about this through scuttlebutt.  Even with all of the confusion, I am looking forward to the change of scenery, and a break in the monotony of a long hitch in a camp.

Anniversaries and Letting Go

For the first time in years, 23 July slipped by me.  I knew there was something significant about the date when I wrote it in my field book, but I could not place it.  As if it was a memory from a past life.  In many ways, it was.  From my current life, 25 July has become a date to remember, though I always forget it.  On 25 July 2010, I met Sarah, and, though I did not know it, she would become an important part of my life, quickly.  


Honestly, 25 July would have slipped by me as well, but Sarah emailed me.  She wrote me a message about how she felt in the first few months of knowing me.  We were both in rough patches of our lives, and probably still are.  One of the paragraphs in her email was about coming back to Red Dog for the second hitch.  Apparently, she, like me, was looking forward to the only bright spot in my life, and that was spending time with my new friend.  She wrote about the airport, as we were on the same flight out of Vancouver.  At the airport, I got there early, and was reading at the gate, she said hello to me when she arrived.  She wrote in her email, "I sensed the density of your pain on that day."


I suppose a year after such things have happened it is no longer rude to let the whole world know some of the details of my life.  Corinne and I moved out of the Painted Rose house in May.  Kelly was kind enough to let us stay with her intermittently through the summer.  Eventually, I went to Red Dog, on my R&R, I moved Corinne to Vancouver.  Corinne decided to not move with me (she may object to this, saying that she "had" to delay her defense, but few things in life "have" to be done in a certain way).  In doing that, she talked her sister into taking the trip that I proposed we take together, as part of our move.  Thus, by her choosing, I drove the moving truck to BC alone, I missed her defense, I moved everything into her apartment alone, then I waited for her and her sister to arrive from their trip.  Once they arrived, I spent a couple of days with Corinne and her sister before going back to Red Dog.  When it was time for me to go to the airport, I took a taxi, and Corinne stayed in bed, not getting up to say good-bye.  For those, and so many other reasons, I was in a lot of pain that day in the airport, feeling alone, lost and unloved.


Reading that line of Sarah's email brought those feelings back to me.  I am so happy to have her as a dear friend.  I was so happy to be reading that email, but great happiness comes with great pain, and in my experience, it is the pain that is lasting.  It is the pain that fills my memories, and it is the pain that I am trying to let go of.


People have tried to relate to what I must be going through, others have just acknowledged that it must be awful, and some have asked what it has been like.  I cannot describe in words what my divorce has felt like emotionally.  It was shocking when Corinne asked for it.  It was painful to acquiesce.  With every step of the process of ending it, I have felt enormous pain.  At the same time, removing her from my life eliminated the pain that living with her brought me.  I am free to be more open and honest about who I am.  I have people in my life who support me in not knowing what I want in life.  I have the love and support of people who actually love and support me.  All this should not be taken to mean that Corinne and I were never happy.  She was often very good to be, and we had lover's rituals that I still cherish and long for, and probably always will.  This is why it is complicated, but suffice it to say, I am better without her, than I ever was with her.  My life has improved by getting a divorce, even though the process has had a painful resonance that vibrated every fiber of my being.  Never has the pain of the divorce exceeded the pain I was feeling while sitting in the Vancouver Airport.


How do I let go of all of that?  I cannot hope to imagine the direct path.  I find that she is a significant part of my life that still comes up in conversations about me, despite wishing to cut out those years, and those memories.  Cutting out is not how memory works, and is not how emotions abate.  Instead, the wounds are healing slowly, and time is moving forward.  This means that on 23 July I write the date, and recall some fleeting importance from a past life, and on 25 July I receive an email that is a celebration of the good in my life.  I let go of old anniversaries, and new ones come along.

Reading

I like to read, but I find that it is hard to find the time to do it.  Perhaps it would be more reasonable to say that I find it hard to make the time to read.  In camps, it is particularly difficult for me to accomplish this.  So I generally read at breakfast in camp.  When I work, I read at lunch.  I generally read before going to sleep, but this is also prime journal time.  In camp, I usually feel too tired to accomplish anything significant laying in bed, other than falling asleep.  Thus, breakfast is sacred time, reserved for reading.

For some people, a book is not a "do not disturb" sign, but an invitation for chatter.  To avoid being chatted to while reading at breakfast, I tend to get up earlier than others in camp, to sit in a secluded spot in the mess tent, early in the morning, and read.  I did this at Red Dog too.  Sarah relishes quiet reading time, so she would arrive to the Red Dog mess after me, sit across from me, and read too.  You have to duck out of the mess before the hordes arrive, otherwise you are stuck chattering away, holding a book, and getting steadily grumpier.

One problem with this method is that it makes me tired earlier at night.  Meaning I have less time in the evening to read, journal, blog, email, etc.  This makes my breakfast reading even more important.  You can see where this all goes.  In the real world, I still squeeze in reading, though I can usually find a place to read without being bothered, so I do not generally have to become nocturnal just to read a few pages of The Hobbit.

Which brings me to the next part of this post.  I am reading The Hobbit.  I have read it before.  I have listened to it on audiobook.  I have seen the movie.  I like the LOTR in book form.  I have listened to them on audiobook.  I have read them.  I plan to reread them after rereading The Hobbit.  I have seen the LOTR movies.  I like the LOTR movies.  I like the extended editions the best.  I have watched all three extended editions back to back.  I do not consider myself a Tolkien, or fantasy, nerd or fanatic (I do think of myself as a nerd).

With all that out of the way, it seems like an easy type of post will be updates on the book(s) I am reading.  Sometimes this will make me disappointed with myself for not reading enough, but overall, I hope it to be a fun way to share details of my life with anyone who cares.  Without further delay, here is my first reading post.

I just finished Lawless World, by Philippe Sands.  It was a good book about international law, and I would recommend it, but it would have been better six years ago.  It also was not the most engaging camp book.  To reward myself, I am rereading The Hobbit, a better camp book, perhaps even one of the best camp books (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, including all of the sequels, is also a great go to).  I cannot help myself from thinking about Middle Earth whilst bounding about in the field.  My responsible plan is to push through a bunch of books, hard bound first, to lighten my baggage to New Zealand.  Unfortunately for my plan, the call of the LOTR may be too strong after I finish The Hobbit.

Camp Living

It seems like there are two types of people in camp, those who look forward to time away from the world, and those who cannot wait to get back to it.  I am of the second group.  I like the idea of a camp.  I like the idea of camaraderie, of being away from the distractions and problems, and of working in the wilderness.  Unfortunately, that idea is not how it usually works out for me.

Camaraderie in camps does not usually seem to work out.  Some people make close friends, and treat the crew like their family.  This is not my way, if I am going to adopt people into my family, I am going to choose them well.  I look for certain aspects and characteristics that are rare in the world, and even more rare in a camp.  I have made very close friends in camps, so I can experience the camaraderie that I imagine having in camp, but most of the time, I just feel annoyed with those around me.

After having been out of a camp for a couple of months, I start imagining camp as an escape from the world.  It is not.  The world keeps going.  I still have all of the problems, chores and errands that I do when I am in civilization, but I have less ability to deal with them.  For me, this compounds the stress these things cause me.  For example, my visa was being held up because the immigration officer needed one further document for my medical examination (an unexpected certification from a physician).  When I called from civilization, the clinic estimated that it would take two weeks, putting me in camp when I could expect to have them fax the document.  They did not fax it after two weeks.  It took two weeks of daily calling from camp to get them to fax the document.  In civilization, that would cause me to be grumpy.  In camp, that caused me a great deal of stress trying to imagine a contingency.  The world keeps going, the fires keep starting, but I am without my usual tools to address them.

As for working in the wilderness, I am, but I am not.  I am miles from anywhere, at times without communication to anyone, tromping about in amazing scenery.  By most definitions, that is wilderness.  However, I commute by helicopter, so every morning I am confronted by a machine that can be taken as a symbol of man's domination of wilderness.  There are two camps on this landing strip, so at times it is deafeningly loud (this morning I was dispatching a telephone, and two radios, with four helicopters, two quads, an airplane, and a skid steer operating outside the office tent).  Beyond the noise of work, the only thing that this camp has more than bear-anoia are small arms.  They use firearms to haze bears, they target practice, and the camp next door does the same.  I reckon there are areas of Baghdad that have fewer gunshots than this patch of nowhere.  While out on traverse the trickle of water through boulders can take me to a place of zen, this camp, and my life however, are not in the wilderness.

As whiny as that all sounds, the point of this post is not to whimper to the web.  Instead, I want to focus on the interesting ways in which people operate out here.  I think it is a reflection of how they would operate in the world at large, but this is a microcosm of society, so everything that happens out there, happens in here.

Beginning with the attitude people bring into camp.  I, for example, can overreact to things.  It is, in some ways, a character flaw.  Maybe in most ways it is a character flaw.  Regardless, it is the way I work in the world.  In the pilot episode of 30 Rock, Tina Fey's character battles this same issue when she "buys all the hot dogs," then is later ready to quit her job over issues that eventually work out.  I have been on the brink of washing out nearly daily.  It seems one of the pilots is too.  Another geo has come close too, for him, it seems, especially the first week.  Previously, in my life, I have bought all the hot dogs, and during many stages of my life, I have been on the brink.  I am hanging in here just to get back to zero (a topic for a later post if I ever start posting regularly again).

Other people seem to relish the camp life, but I imagine that they would be happy (probably not the right word, content?) in most environments too.  They become close to one another, and throw themselves at their work (not generally in a competent manner).  Camp may actually be better for these people, because they would probably only work if they were not in a camp (essentially being in camp is being a workaholic, but you socialize at chow).  A few people resign themselves to serving out their sentence without happiness or gloom.  To me, these people are the worst, just as they are the worst in the world.  Workaholics and quitters have passion, those who are just serving their sentences seem only to have fear.

In this camp, there are 24 people living in close proximity with one another, all bringing in their own attitudes and problems, working in psuedo-wilderness to accomplish a job.  The interactions are great people watching if you could do it from your couch, but exhausting to be in.  The camp manager and one of the pilots do not get along.  The drillers (not here yet) and pad builders will faction into a group that are entertained at a different level.  Permanent geologists live to work, and want to control every aspect of the project.  Consulting geologists, like me, either have a clear mission, or are lost in the woods of a group of people (the permanent geos) who do not fully understand what they are doing, or how to delegate work load.

Inevitably, without strong leadership, the camp falls into factions.  Little microstates in the world of camp.  As of yet, it seems that this camp has only one superpower, but with time, all that will change (or people will leave).  I will try to stay out of it because most of it does not affect me, and I have already done my best to be hands off after the first five days.  My bet though is that the Millrock geologists will be/are the first nation.  A second state will emerge that will be a loose alignment of grumpy folk.  In response to them will be the camp manager with the drillers, pad builders, etc.  A fourth state of soil samplers is forming around nightly card games with the cook, though this group will be mostly loyal to the Millrock geos.  The remaining crew will be free agents who will eventually be claimed, or rejected, by factions until everyone is accounted for.

This microcosm is fascinating because it seems as though it is human nature in a power vacuum.  I am reading a book about international law right now.  It seems like the interactions of nations through international law is much the same as the people in camp.  Allies, rules (that are frequently broken) and private interests dominate interactions.  It must be innately human to want to behave this way.  Until I am claimed, or buy the hot dogs, I will do my best to enjoy the wilderness, escape/deal with the outside world, and watch the show from the comfort of my tent, counting the days until I am back in civilization.

Updates from the Field

I don't have a lot of time these days to write.  I will keep trying to, but working, posting photos and sleeping all take priority.  In lieu of posts, you can see my latest photos, and stalk my SPOT.  Photos are updated via Picasa, and can be viewed by following the link on the right of the page.  My SPOT can be checked here:  http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0vpsC1MvORVjAFZFUtqLifYlem5FjIWl5.  I will see if I can get a gadget that posts it directly to blogger, but no promises that I will do that soon.