So, that NOVA show last night was a good 'layman' look at quantum mechanics, and it was interesting to see an intro to string theory - who knows if that will all pan out to be true, it's pretty nutty science.
It's interesting to me that science, with this as a prime example, has become a commercial thing. This show almost made me feel like 'if we can sell this to the general public, it MUST be true!' It's an interesting twist on the pursuit of knowledge.
Speaking of examples, I forgot to mention the other example of mine for people relating things to physics. Here goes . . .
Example 2: My mom, about a year ago, started up a conversation with Mark and I about a class on organizational management that she was taking at the time. She was so excited to talk to us, because the subject that they were covering in the class at the time had related something to physics, and she was excited to learn more about what the physics could tell her.
Now, unlike yesterday's example, this use of physics was much less literal and much more metaphorical. See, in the study of how large groups or organizations work, someone made the inferrence that the forces acting on groups are much like the invisible forces of electricity and magnetism: they affect things without physically manifesting themselves.
Really, this was as far as the relation went. In other words, it was just a 'scientific' way of saying that you can't always pin down what's causing a group of people/co-workers or who-ever to do a certain thing.
I love my mom, but unfortunately, I find this 'relationship' less revealing than just an effort to make some business major sound intelligent.
No offense to business majors: you make the world run, kudos.
Anyway, I'd like to thank Jack for stalking me so efficiently. Your comments really do liven things up I think, bud.
Speaking of people trying to make connections between things, I've noticed there's a lot of this going on with people using physics to make their point.
Example 1: On my way back from Flagstaff (yeah, I'm talking last summer), my road trip crew stopped off in central California and stayed with a lady who was one of the most 'holistic' people I've met. I had a bad headache from the full day in the car, and immediately she rubbed some oils into my temples. Five minutes later I was feeling somewhat better (and slightly amazed that it worked).
Upon hearing my testimony, Joel, who had been having some real problems with his ankle of late, struck up a conversation with this lady. The result was a post-dessert ankle massage, complete with oils and an explanation of the techniques she was using.
In her estimation, his ankle was having trouble healing beacuse, as she put it, the network of 'fibers of life' were having trouble reconnecting. Her solution was to rub certain oils in that would help. Here was the real trip though: she said that everything in the universe (our bodies included) operated on certain frequencies, and that these oils helped amplify certain frequencies that correspond to the healing of certain parts of the body.
Her substantiation for why we should take it all seriously went something like this: "If you don't believe me on this, just look into the physics of it - this is all the newest stuff that they're discovering in Quantum Physics. It has to do with how the whole universe works. It's all there."
Now, as a physicist in training myself, I just sat there and listened to her babble on like a fool while my friends tossed me sideways glances. I knew that if I had announced myself a person of that school she would have tried to find some connection with me. But do you see my point?
Speaking of 'fibers' there's supposed to be a NOVA show on PBS tonight about string theory which promises to be pretty interesting. I think I may be checking that out. That's at 8pm.
With that though, I'm going to head to school to do my quantum homework. Hopefully I'll have some homework problem that will teach me how to heal this whole 'work' problem I've been having to deal with for the past few months . . .
Yesterday, Johnny and his mom (who's in town from Boulder for the weekend) picked up a house vacuum for us. This was promptly used, an effort which called for the bag to be emptied three times before it was completed - and that only included the spaces between my room and the bathroom.
I get tired of people creating political statements with everything they can find. Last night Lin and I went to see a school production of Iphigenia, which is about how a Greek general, Agamemnon, sacrificed his own daughter in order to garantee success in the war against Troy. In both the Dramaturg and the Directors notes on the play, they talked about the questions that this play poses to us: Is war justifiable? What sacrifices are worth making in the name of war? Is it not hypocritical to make such sacrifices in the name of 'freedom'?
In the end, the play had elements of these questions, but mostly I would say that it focused on the familial relationships. In fact, the internal debate that Agamemnon went through in deciding whether or not to commit the sacrifice dealt more with the reaction his army would have against him rather than his own patriotism.
But oh well, some people will find a way to connect any two things together if they think it's somehow revealing. I just want to see a good story.
As you might be able to tell from Lindsey's post, the birthday surprises went well. Tomorrow night we're off to introduce her to the finest in Tacoman pub life. Good times.
To celebrate the cancellation of my Quantum quiz, Jack and I skipped class today and visited the local comic shop. The guy there knows us by name and everything. It's cool because he's been around for about a year, so we're like those regulars who've been there forever (just wait ten years and it really will be like that). I ended up picking out the first five issues of the latest 'Spectacular Spiderman' series, which are damn good if I do say so myself. And I do.
Tomorrow he and I have plans to go see the recent film starring The Rock and Christopher Walken. If there never was a better friend for watching trashy television and getting excited about superheroes, Jack would take the cake for sure.
But I digress. I've got my second short story due tomorrow, and I still have to start something. There's some real digressing that needs to be done, and here the is the least of it anyway . . .
It's been a while, and I should explain myself.
This last weekend being Fall Break Weekend, Lindsey and I spent a full three days at my parents' across town just hanging out, eating home-cooking, and playing video games. It was a great time of doing nothing (and doing it damn well too).
Tomorrow is Lin's 21st birthday, and right now she's in the middle of a two day scavengar hunt/initiation. It's gone well so far - she seems to be enjoying herself for what that's worth. Meanwhile I've been running around like a madman, making sure it goes smoothly.
In other news, I've restarted a game of Zelda: Majora's Mask.
Good times.
My creative writing teacher tells me that I'm in the top five writers in class. This happened Monday during my fifteen minute writing conference with her (the same conferences that got class cancelled for the week, heh). When she learned then that I'm a physics major, she was intrigued and informed me that 'they' say that often times people who really understand math are good writers too.
Now, this isn't the first time I've heard that sort of thing - just in different subjects perhaps. I've been told that for musicians and artists as well. Which makes me think that this is just some made-up thing that these people use to justify it when they're confronted with scientists or mathemeticians that are also really good at art.
I'm just a genius all-around, what can I say?
I read this morning that the proposed 'Tacoma Spire' project was shut down by the mayor. Thank god someone's around to keep the falice-obsessed city council in line.
Midterms abound this week at UPS. You can tell just by looking at a sample of away messages.
Yesterday Tag quit the swim team, following suit behind Johnny who quit cross-country last week due to an injury. The four of us got a good session of RoadRash64 going yesterday afternoon to celebrate the success that Mark and I have had in influencing people to not care anymore. Lindsey showed up for a bit and played to celebrate her third effort ever to ditch class (in college). Next we're hoping to work on our Quantum prof.
The moral of the story? I'm in the library right now 'working' on a religion paper that I didn't turn in on Monday and 'studying' for the midterm that's today.
I have about the work ethic of a snakehandler that's found an unopened can of high life.
In a humorous turn of events, Johnny interviewed me last night for a while concerning my childhood. He's going to be using me as a case study that he's doing on adolescent development and he says that I've given him a good amount of material to work with.
However, I don't see how I'm helpful at all since I don't quite consider myself fully developed.
It's a funny contrast to the fact that the case studies we're doing in religion class concern a couple very extreme and unsettling cases of religious ideology: snake-handling pentacostalism and the nation of islam.
If you didn't see this, it's the funniest thing to come from the post season so far. Kudos to Pedro for a flawless victory.
I've been working on a design for a retractable claw system for my halloween costume (Wolverine of the X-Men). I think I can devise a pulley system that would pull from the inside of my elbow and shove the claws out of my sleeve. It would be attached to the inside of my forearm, then wrap around my wrist and run down the outside of my arm to the base of the claws. By providing some tension - like say springs attached from the claws to my elbow - I could have them retract on their own. That way I would be able to just hold the claws 'out' by holding the ends of the strings in my hand, which would fit perfectly since Wolvie usually has his fists clenched when he uses them anyway.
Can you tell I've spent some time thinking about this? Pathetic? If by pathetic you mean inexplicably awesome, then hell yes.
The new twenty dollar bill was introduced today. As a new design feature, the mint has added what it calls "Symbols of Freedom" : two graphics of eagles, one contemporary rendition and one that is reminiscent of those drawn in Jackson's lifetime.
The security features haven't changed much - the little strip now has a flag symbol on it and the glittery '20' now goes from green to copper and not just another shade of green.
Other design features include the new color background and the little yellow '20's that are all over the back of the bill, which are probably the two biggest changes of any worth.
And although they did this sort of thing already about five years ago or so, I sure am glad that they've added those eagles. In this time of insecurity and confusion, I'm just glad to have something to remind me how great this blessed country really is.
In my religion class of late, we've been discussing the topic of apocalypsus every so often. That is, the spiritual/religious idea of a major change in the earth or the world as we know it that is brought on by a higher force. Usually, this change is preceeded by some sort of signs or rituals that might signify an impending shift in the world.
The scary thing is, if you look at the fact that Terminator just became the governor of California combined with the doubly strange victories that Boston and Chicago have had of late, I think you're looking at the heralds to some strange inevitable fate that is now close at hand.
I'm not trying to tell you that you need to clear out the old "Millenium Shelters" that I know you all must have, nor am I trying to convert you Druids out there into snake-handling Pentacostals or vice-versa. Simply, I'm looking at the facts that have been laid before us and putting two and two together.
Let's just say I'm happy to be heading to bed in a couple minutes.
This ones worse than yesterday's. Sorry.
Last night Lindsey and I went back to chez Morrison for a good home-cooked meal and some quality time with my family. As it turned out, my dad wasn't there at all, and in his stead was Buddy, my brother's best friend. Buddy's a funny guy: he's sort of a mix of Chris Farley and John Belushi who was the student president of the local community college all last year.
Over dinner my mom and Buddy exchanged stories about Alec (this was his first time ever over for dinner I think), which - especially with Alec on the side trying desperately to relate the 'true' events of his own life - was enough to keep Lin and I laughing for a constant thirty minutes or more.
In the end, Buddy decided that invitation from Alec or no, he would be back for dinner at the Morrisons' again.
It's a boring story, I know, you'll just have to trust me that being there was the single funniest thing I've experienced in a while.
And then I found five dollars.
I'm making up for lost time with a concentration of posts.
Last night at the always prestigious Wine Club, it came to my attention that small-town Minnesota has become a breeding ground for teenage prostitution. It appears that the young ladies find the state "so cold in the winter, that there's nothing else to do." As one man put it: with such a concentration of Lutherans, where else are you going to find so many blonde, pale-skinned teenys who hate the cold enough to whore their bodies away?
For my part, it would seem as though this could be a statewide response to the depressing fact that Jesse The Body is no longer governor.
Oh! And I almost forgot: the four of us managed to eat breakfast together this morning! This time I was the missing link, so Mark gave a yelp upstairs while I was still in bed and I came down to enjoy breakfast and a conversation - eat that Breakfast Club.
Man, I mean it must have lasted at least seven minutes.
Zing!
The city of Tacoma wants to build a 420 foot 'spire' out in front of the new convention center that's in the works right now. The spire would cost an estimated 7 million dollars (but who are we kidding, give it a few months once construction has started and you can bet that it'll rise another million at least), and tower over the existing buildings downtown.
But don't fear, aside from being Tacoma's best effort to join the falice club frequented by such upstanding cities as Seattle and Washington, this spire (like the others) will have functional use: it will have two observation decks as well as its own boardroom at the base!
Does our city need something like this? Not really. But this will be a sure fix to the mean case of penis envy we've got.
I've found that my lack of direction for next year is affecting my drive to work this year. Without something to work for, why make the effort?
Possible options for next year:
1) Substitute teach and have a second job of some type.
2) Get teaching certificate and teach full time.
3) Grad school in Instrumentation.
4) Some other sort of work in instrumentation (if that's at all possible).
5) Grad school in Education.
Five options, not bad. I have no idea where to begin. Oh, and I have two additional 'pipe dreams' that I'd like to work on. The first is Film School. Most likely directing or editing - something behind the scenes anyway. The other is teaching abroad. Lindsey and I have talked about France, but I'd also love to do Norway, so maybe if we can get our collective act together (and by we I mean I).
In the meantime though, Lindsey and I are also planning our big road trip this coming summer. We've begun saving up money for it already. Of our many possible plans are a 'Great Rivers' trip where we follow along major rivers of the US to different destinations, a 'World's Best/Biggest/Smallest/etc.' trip where we'll visit such places as the largest ball of twine, the largest honey bucket, and whatever else we can find, and a 'Nation's ____ Capital' trip where we'll visit places like the Corn Capital, the Raisin Capital, and many more.
I've got things to look forward to baby.