A to B through Z

I've been thinking a lot about nuclear war lately, but that seems far too dark for the moment. In some ways I want this blog to reflect how I'm feeling at 28 as a time capsule for myself to look back on years later. The issue is that I'm only really drawn to scribble something down when I'm feeling particularly morose. When I'm out having fun and living life I'm just too busy to come tell the internet all about it. Then whenever the other shoe drops and I start think about how long we've had nuclear weapons and isn't it crazy that they've only been used twice? How much longer can we keep that streak going, huh? Nuclear arms are over 70 years old and our policy is to tell other people, "please don't build them. pls." Then all of a sudden I have to come and hammer out a depressing 1,000 words about nuclear winter. Well I ain't doing that today, chumps! Lately I'm just really content. Not happy daily or satisfied with where I am, ...

When we decided that a twitter personality was our best bet for president, I was pretty upset. I won’t tell you how upset or for how long, because certain corners of the internet sure would love to get their hands on my cuck tears. Outrage was the correct response at the time, but you can’t live in outrage long term. At a certain point, you have to be able to function day-to-day, work, and look your parents in the eyes again. It’s not giving up or giving in to a new reality, it’s just learning to cope in a way that doesn’t have you crying in bathrooms. My primary method for coping with a Trump presidency was to pick three issues that I care about the most and only try and comment on social media when these issues came up. That was working pretty well up to a point, but let's check in at the 100 day mark and see how things are going for me. 1) Science funding: F- 20% in proposed cuts to the NIH (my favorite and likely more in cuts for NSF (who actually fund me directly). ...

Getting a PhD sucks, no doubt about that. On the one hand, enjoying what you're doing requires you (or at least me) to get lost in the work. Thinking about problems, rotating issues in your head all day. On the other hand, you can totally lose yourself in a thought and effort for months this way. It takes a certain kind of person to stick it out in grad school, but even the best student isn't that person every day. Nor should they be, that's why PhD candidates are so much more likely to develop mental disorders (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733317300422). The paradox is really that you have to be simultaneously completely devoted to your project, while at the same time retaining your sanity and awareness of the world around you. This is especially true for people looking to jump that fence from academic life to work in industry. A postdoc I used to work with told me not to get too invested in your work, because you would never be able to graduate ...

A good analogy only gets you so far. My first mentor in science taught me that. Basically, analogies in science are tremendous tools because you can translate the complexity of natural phenomenon into crystallized sound bytes for easier communication and snap comprehension. He also taught me that they can be dangerous, because they sand off the edges of complicated ideas for the sake of simplicity and comprehension. You've got to know where the analogy you're using breaks down. A good analogy will drive you 75% of the way, but all analogies make you walk around at dusk for a while. Truth ain't easy. As much as Americans "fucking love science," I don't think we like scientists very much. They're argumentative weirdos that hem and haw over complexity too much. True Americans™ like an overconfident cowboy to take the analogy, tip his hat, and run with it. Basically, we like a nice story with a scientific sheen to it. And yet, there's nothing more danger...

So It's been a busy summer then a busier fall, but luckily in all my hopping around I found the time to take some notes for posterity. I feel like when I was younger the set of adventures I had experienced was limited enough that keeping track of them was simple. At this point I can barely remember the specific approaches on mountains from last summer, let alone back in college. With that in mind here is quick recap of my hikes in Rocky Mountain National Park this summer. Less for posterity and more for my own edification. As a quick aside, most of this was written in an afternoon hailstorm in the Ute Meadow so that may be where the note of terror you detect is coming from. B-17 hike - CSU-Pengree/Comanche park area (07/14/13) Great for an easier yet rewarding day hike about 1.5 hours from ft Collins. Take 14 west to 63E. There's some great car camping sites along the Poudre on 14. Also, a few spots on 63. 5 hours, easy pace. The trail ends at...

Recently I read a blog by a pretty popular homebrewer about how he uses miller light to test new varieties of hops before throwing them into full batches of beer. Using a bland, familiar base to become acquainted with an unknown variable seemed like a brilliant idea to me and I made a quick note to try this out some time. A few days later it dawned on me that this is precisely the method I used to work my way through my mother's spice rack as a teen. When my friend Dustin was visiting a few weeks ago he kept poking me about how I plan meals, how I think about cooking, and why I wasn't using a recipe. As usual, I shrugged and probably gave an unhelpful and sarcastic answer. I have a few good cookbooks (Joy of Cooking is my jam) and obviously an internet brimming with shitty advice, but mostly this goes ignored or lightly-referenced. There are a handful of tried-and-true recipes that Ann has faithfully transcribed but I couldn't tell you where she keeps "our" c...

I hope no one ever makes a documentary of my life. Not because I feel incapable of great deeds or am unsure of their coming. Rather, it seems that every biography papers over the indecision, angst, and apprehension that I sincerely hope has plagued the luminaries before me. I understand that Ernest Hemingway's bad poetry and Jeff Tweedy's shitty mix tapes make for poor prose, yet it makes relating difficult. The biography kick I have been on recently has made this obvious. A paragraph about lost years capping off a lengthy list of dates and places intended to sum up a childhood and family history, the dryness of which may only be topped by your neighborhood police blotter. Perhaps I'm not the target demographic, but if the telling of a lionized figure's life is not inspiring future genereations of partially-molded minds then what, praytell, is the point? We either need better authors or better youth. I suppose this entry forgoes the latter conclusion by its ver...