What am I going to do with myself

I always assumed that I would, at some point, know what I wanted to do
with myself. You know, what kind of career I would want, what kind of
house I would want to live in, even the part of the country where I
would prefer to reside.

It comes as something of a continuing shock that I really don't have
the slightest clue. Sometimes I think Kansas is pretty awesome (and
sometimes it is), but other times I really, really want to move.
Oregon seems amazing. North Carolina seems beautiful. New Mexico and
Arizona have a strong appeal. Norway looks so awesome I can't even
fathom it. On some level, I can't imagine staying in one place for
any appreciable length of time.

And then there are career options. So I'm very slowly learning new
things. Things about programming and writing. Things about cooking.
How neat would it be to do these things in some professional capacity?
Pretty neat, I think, but then again...who knows? Everything I leave
behind (English lit, physics, research) becomes something I dearly
miss. Will I miss fighting for T&E species if I leave? I think I
might. I think that without some strong goal, I am going to
constantly be looking for the next thing and wondering why I left the
last thing.

Of course, there are a lot of really good aspects to the way things go
now. I have a hard time remembering why I was so angry all the time
in grad school. I have a hard time remembering why I was so
frustrated with my physics prof. I seem to only remember the good
stuff (well, except for Oklahoma. I'm not forgetting that). And each
move had taken me to a place where I meet and get to know amazing
people.

So I don't know what I want to do with myself. I don't know quite
what I want to accomplish. I guess my only real goals are to raise
happy kids and have a happy family and not be too bitter and jaded
when I come home at night. Well, and I want to figure out how to make
pickles that taste great every time, but I assume that's going to by
my personal Mt. Everest.

--

Cooking really is so much fun. Despite the
'so-good-I'd-blog-about-it-if-I-were-my-brother-in-law' meme that is
apparently floating out there (A and S!), I don't actually blog about
everything I cook. I only blog about the stuff that is somehow
fulfilling on both an intellectual and spiritual level.

And today was all about cooking. Apple Ketchup and Pumpkin bread and
grilled cheese and quesadillas and smoothies that the boy wouldn't
try.

Holy cow it was cold today...

I picked a great day to hike all over the Neosho River Basin. As I approached my destination, I realized it wasn't just that the sun wasn't up yet, it was also that a thick layer of clouds had developed. I was further clued into the blowing northerly wind by the presence of snow and ice pelting the window of my truck.

And did I mention that I didn't really bring appropriate clothes?

So from 8 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon (with a half-hour break for lunch), I walked around looking at gravel bars, secretly grateful for the first time in my life that previous generations have so devastated the riverine environments that the 15-20 feet of channel degradation between field and stream bank was offering a modicum of protection from the wind.

Luckily I was wearing a flimsy pair of summer pants, so it only took about 30 minutes for the nerves in my legs to be permanently damaged, and thus cease sending little messages of protest to my brain.

I spent probably 45 minutes soaking in hot water before I felt warm again.

But worry not, the Neosho River will be protected...a little....by today's actions.

And it was actually way better than sitting in the office all day.

--

I find myself relating more to Jay-Z than Tiger Woods.

--

Parenting. A brief explanation as to why child # 2 will be arriving in a couple of months.

--

In case you didn't know....Daisy Owl. Actually, there aren't that many, just start at the beginning.

--

I guess that's it.

Good music

I've heard this before, of course, but it has been so long that I forgot and then remembered.

Chicago.

Twilight

So my wife read Twilight. Yeah. I know. I was opening scorning her as she was reading it. And she was expressing grave misgivings about reading it the whole time. And after the last book, her sentiment seemed to be: "Well that was a complete waste of my time."

Of course I had to pick up the first book and see what all the fuss is about (it was lying around the house).

A word about expectations here: I was expecting a book about vampires.

Twilight took me longer to read than any other book I've ever read (other than some textbooks). I am almost pathologically compelled to finish books when I start them, and this was hard. I think the writer is genuinely gifted with having a reasonably good 'voice', and I think when things start happening, she's better than most at capturing the sense of action.

Having said that, this is maybe the worst book I've ever read. The main character (and I use the term loosely) has no drive or ambition beyond her male love-interest. None. None. She has no interests. She has no motivations. She's an empty-headed dimwit who has all the personality of a cracker. She loathes everything. Her dad. Her mom (less obviously). Her classmates. In fact, I would not have been the least bit surprised to hear that the entire book, after a particular dramatic incident, was a drug-induced hallucination after a failed suicide attempt. Amazingly, that would improve my opinion of the book.

The vampires described here are ridiculous. They are virtually invincible beings who can't possibly have any reason to be hidden away. After reading synopses of the other books on Wikipedia (I'm not going to finish the series), I'm given to understand there is some kind of vampire authority that dictates they not reveal themselves. But, I'm going to be honest here, that is just dumb. In addition to the main character, it is clear that the vampires have no aspirations. They just...exist.

This is a book that actively seems to encourage women to think of themselves as incompetent, useless creatures with no skill or ability. Just accept whatever your man wants and accept that it may destroy you. Great.

I've been wrestling for days with trying to figure out what about this story appeals to anyone. The action is vanishingly brief, the two main character's interactions are basically just "You're so great." "No, you're so great." "Ha ha. No no. You're so great!" And the ending gives me absolutely no reason to want to continue the story. The are a handful of blunt references to a larger world history related to the supernatural, but, amazingly the main character is almost completely disinterested in knowing anything. You can see that the author is trying to entrance us with a rich world backstory, but her efforts to allude to that backstory are just so crude.

Basically, I give this book a frowny face sticker, and I really just wanted the main characters to die by the end. After reading the wikipedia summaries, I guess I can't even get that satisfaction if I read the remaining books.

Rant Over.

Let's have a talk.

Here's what is going on with me...

Grand projects spiraling out of control:

- The special issue I steamrolled forward has essentially burst into a million pieces. Why? Well, half of the contributors didn't come through (more than half actually) and at least two of the papers are not getting through (apparently). My paper is one of the ones that didn't get in on time...it still isn't in.

So what happened? Me doing two jobs for 4 months happened. I'm just not as good as I used to be.

- The online project review system. This is the big "light at the end of the tunnel" project for everyone at work. The three ecologists in my office all hate project reviews. They take time, they are tedious, and unfortunately, they are the reason we have jobs. So we got the bright idea of putting together an online system that would automate the majority of this process and simultaneously make the material we're being given more consistent.

And I volunteered to lead this.

Shit. Delays with our internal processes lead to the contractor going to other projects in the meantime, and now it doesn't look like things are going to get going until December. Which puts the critical time for this project right when child number 2 should be emerging screaming from the womb. This is going to be not fun.

- Dam removal is a pain in the ass. For some reason, things are just not moving forward.

Job Hunting:

- Yeah, I guess I'm looking for other positions. Except I feel like two years at my current employer have killed me. I'm tainted by my association with this place. Who's going to look at me, at what my employer does, and think 'This guy must be smart.'

Cooking:

-Hey! Fun stuff. Turns out I can cook pork really well. In two weeks we've had 3 'people over' meals, and I've done pork tenderloin with apricot stuffing, brined porkchops with apple ketchup, and pork 'kinda chili'. Those dishes were all amazing, and everyone thought so. I don't have nearly as much success with any other meat: I'm up and down w/ lamb...I try to do too much with chicken...and bison just isn't interesting. Pork, on the other hand, seems to always turn out great.

- So I've continued to play around with 5 minute a day bread. The first loaf was amazing. The 2nd and 3rd loaves were not great, although they made great stuffing and croutons. The dough can also be used for other stuff. We made calzones and pizzas with great success. I decided I'd give it one more try. So far, so good. The first loaf was slightly undercooked, but that was just my fault. I should have let it get a little more brown on the outside. It did make that wonderful crackle when we pulled it out of the oven.

- The salsa I made with the last of the fresh tomatoes is great. I made 8.5 pints, and I've gone through 1.5 so far. We have a problem in our house of not eating the food we freeze for later. We're always waiting for a 'special occasion'. We need to stop doing that. To start, I've been eating more of the canned foods we've made.

- I also brewed some quick apple cider. Turned out really good, and I might try brewing some other quick hard drinks (orange juice would probably be good).

- Watched another episode of Top Chef tonight (I'm in a hotel room) and a 'reunion' episode. The reunion episode was a stupid bit of nostalgic nonsense. The episode is the one where Mike got sent home, and the guy thought he was much better than he was. (the one with Natalie Portman) At first I was totally bored by the idea of Natalie Portman as a participant, but the twist of bringing them all to a steakhouse and then forcing them to cook vegetarian required a vegetarian to be involved. It seemed to me that everyone's dish was mediocre. I was surprised that Michael was so pissy about losing to Kevin. Kevin's freaking great...if he showed you up by making something simple that was better than your complicated stuff...well....I guess I can understand why you'd be irritated.

- Pull out a college ruled page of notebook paper. See how many lines there are? That's how many dishes I have in my repertoire that I feel I can pull off with success for most crowds (counting things like different types of pizza as 1 'category'). I think 5 years ago that list would have probably had half or a third that many items.

And what else:

- I'm bored with work, de-motivated to do anything new, and tired way more often than I ought to be. So I bought a playstation 3. Because I always said I hated Sony. Oh well, the online service is free. If anyone else plays Call of Duty 4, let me know, we can team up to collect some kills.

- There's absolutely no music better on earth than Matt and Kim. I have a hard time putting into words how awesome I think this music is:

Boring

Sitting in a meeting, waiting for the last guy to come.

Now we're cooking with cans!

More cooking updates:

This weekend was 38 jars of sand hill plum jam. That's a supremely tart version of the plum that is about the diameter of a quarter. We got them from my wife's family's house, and we got like 15 pounds of them. I wasn't sure how many that would make, but I figured it would be around 40. If you didn't know, jam takes a LOT of sugar. I went through about 13 pounds of sugar. Whoa. However, the whole process hardly took any time at all. Started sometime after 10 and was done by 1 30. I've already tried some, and yes, it is delicious. I did 2 batches of the regular recipe (from SureJell), 1 batch of low sugar, and 1 batch of freezer jam (although I used a sugar free pectin box.

What else did we cook this weekend? Not a lot (made a lot of pesto and froze it). The wife made a chicken and rice casserole.

Yesterday, on the other hand, was good times in the kitchen. I made a large pizza for dinner (Turkey pepperoni & garden tomatoes) and I made two more pizza crusts so when I'm on the road the fam will be able to prepare something quickly. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that feta, basil, and oregano (with some olive oil) is the greatest topping possible on an italian style pizza. That combination is just amazing.

I also got 36 eggs from a friend who has chickens. Not sure what I'm going to do with all of them (angel food and lemon curd will probably be involved at some point). I made french toast yesterday, and I pickled hard-boiled eggs last night. The pickled eggs are in a spicy vinegar (which smelled terrible to make actually). I thought if they taste ok, I might use them in a spicy chicken salad recipe.

I also pickled probably the last of the fresh cucumbers from the farmer's market last night. Although the dill pickles have been in a hit in the house (wife and kid seem to like them), bread and butter's have just been even more popular. Although I've got about 8 jars of zucchini bread and butters, I'm down to two or so jars of cucumber bread and butters. After discussing other options with the wife (Thai pickles, yellow pickles, etc), we decided to go with the bread and butters. They are probably the tastiest pickles I've ever made (the recipe, not this particular batch). However, I have a hard time taking credit. The cucumbers themselves look so incredibly delicious. After they've been soaking in salt for a few hours the smell is amazing. In fact, after I drained them, all three of us huddled around the collander to smell the cucumbers, and the boy couldn't resist! He popped one in his mouth and loved it!

I say he couldn't resist. But in reality, he doesn't even know what that means.

Cooking fun

So I've been away from the house for most of the month of September, but from here on, things are going to hopefully get a lot easier. This means I'll be able to spend more time doing one of the few things that really allows me to achieve a zen-like state of happiness:

COOKING!!

Ok, so here's what I made this weekend:

Friday (I took friday off because I'd already worked 44 hours by Thursday evening):

Breakfast was boring, we re-heated pancakes we'd made last weekend and had some juice (the boy loves the orange juice).

The boy and I then ran to the store and just walked around to get a feel for what was out there.

We ended up making squash soup for lunch (previously described here). This was pretty funny because the boy has kind of a hard time with eating soups. He's decided he's no longer going to sit in a high chair, but he's not really tall enough to see what he's eating out of a bowl. So I made the soup a little thicker, and it basically had enough texture to stick to the spoon. Then I 'tempted' him to try it by putting croutons in there. He loves croutons. Well, he was eating the croutons (with bits of soup stuck to them). Then I said "Actually, that's soup. You can eat it like this" and demonstrated. He took a big spoonful, shoved it into his mouth. Looked blank for a second, and then scrunched up his face as if he had just eaten the most disgusting thing in the world. When my wife came home, she underestimated his distaste and gave him a spoonful of her soup (he wasn't paying attention). He promptly spit it back out, into my hand (I was anticipating that).

So then we had chicken nuggets.

For dinner I prepared the pork chili/stew that I've previously written about. Interestingly enough, I hadn't made either of these dishes since about a year ago. The pork chili included pattypan squash (cuz I had some sitting around), so we're sort of on a squash kick. I also bought another acorn squash and a butternut squash and a pumpkin. I think I'm going to make some dumblings. I also made cornbread, which I hadn't made in so long I couldn't even remember how to do it. I had also forgotten how little time it takes...like 10 minutes of prep! And they tasted great!

I think I'm getting better at figuring out how to put meals together.

Anyway, Alton didn't want to eat any of the chili for dinner (he had like a handful of bites), so he had a grilled cheese. I'm slowly learning what he doesn't like (if it ain't green, odds aren't good).

Saturday I was sick. Sunday we had lunch out, but for dinner we had:

BREAKFAST FOR DINNER!

Have you felt that slight chill in the air that means it is autumn? We got that for the first time last week (hence the soups). But what that did, more than anything, is tell me that my pickling days are coming to a close for this year, and my pumpkin days are beginning to emerge. And how does pumpkin work into a breakfast for dinner?

You guessed it: Pumpkin Pancakes. I mostly followed the recipe on AllRecipes (google it). They turned out great...fantastic actually. The recipe itself was too weird (called for vinegar!) and too thick (more like a dough than a batter). So I added a lot more milk and fiddled with the spices a little. But gosh dang, it turned out great. Everyone like it. I think I do well with pancakes because I have a ton of griddle patience. I am perfectly willing to keep the heat really low, because it seems to allow the most amount of rise in the pancakes. With these pumpkin pancakes, they needed all the rise they could get.

While I had the pancakes going, I also had bacon going. The idea was to have pancakes, bacon, and scrambled eggs. But then I realized we had three small red potatoes left over from a few weeks ago. So I had my sous chef shred those, and I thought I would make a hash (with the bacon grease). But apparently I don't know what I'm doing with a hash, because it really didn't work out. It just didn't taste right. So then I took all the eggs (egg beaters actually) and poured them into the pan, with some milk, and made a frittata. This was funny because I was using a pan you can't put into the over (the handle wasn't built for that), but I needed to broil the surface. So I had to shove it as far as I could into the toaster over and turn on its broiler. That worked, but if the door is open, the broiler won't work....so I had to rig up a knife to prop 'on' the little trigger that tells the toaster the door is closed.

Which was great because the knife was on the verge of flying across the room the whole time. But it all worked out and the fritter turned out really amazing.

So we had pumpkin pancakes with smart balance butter, turkey bacon, and a hash-brown and cheddar frittata.

It was actually embarassingly good. My wife was like "holy cow, I can't believe how awesome you are", which was nice, but I kinda felt like it all just came together super easy. And we've got 8 or so pumpkin pancakes frozen to use as breakfasts over the next few weeks!

So even though my last month has been hell and I'm sick of everything, cooking is really fun and yes please, I'd like to do more :)

And in case you're wondering, here's what I've pickled this year (i.e., it is considered a pickle or I canned it):

Thai Cucumber Pickles

Quick Dill Pickles

Really Quick Dill Pickles (yes, there is a difference)

Bread and Butter Zucchini Pickles

Bread and Butter Cucumber Pickles

Yellow Cucumber Pickles

Apple Ketchup

Mango Chutney

Lower-East Side Sours (a fermented pickle...that is actually looking pretty weird...not sure if I'm going to eat it or not)

Mousaka, mini meatloaf, and the weakerthans

The Mousaka saga is yet untold. It involves my culinary exploration, poor estimation of the carrying capacity of a baking dish, and the effect of smell on life in general.

And now I'm getting all crazy with mini meatloafs.

I should stay vegetarian.

Those of you wishing to subscribe to my musical tastes newsletter may. Just email me and I'll explain. Suffice to say, it involves Pandora, which isn't actually as good as you might think at bringing me new music.

Once again, the Weakerthans:



This song is pretty good as well.

As far as life in general goes: I am rapidly approaching the 'overload' portion of my stress carrying capacity. A nap this afternoon helped, but I'm not sure how long that energy can carry me.

I spent much of this week attending a 'range management' school. I attended to learn my plant identification (yes, I can now tell you the difference between fall witchgrass, little bluestem, windmill grass, and beadgrass; and I know why switchgrass is hilarious), but I learned more than that. Right now, I totally want to be a rancher. I'm interested in running the numbers, but I imagine grazing land ranching is the most environmentally sustainable agricultural practice out there.

I'm not even kidding.

Anymore the most productive ranchers are pouring a serious amount of ecological theory into their production methods. And when they are really cooking, they pretty much don't damage the native biotic community at all (assuming you can look past the widespread fencing and replacement of large mammalian grazers; bison and prairie dogs). The point is the birds and bugs and plants shouldn't be negatively affected.

Of course, I don't like or eat beef...

I guess the point is that I'm escaping from my job into a temporary imaginary world where I'm not exhausted by my job.

Saving the world one acre at a time is not easy.

What I did today...

For the first time in...oh, months probably...I have science to do. Not a little bit, but a lot. I have a grant to write. I have two papers to revise and submit. And I'm editing three other papers. And I'm working on a research idea.

So yes, I am finally getting back into that which I love.

And yet I'm sitting here with my brain completely fried and I'm unable to work on any of that. And I tried...judas I tried. Take the grant. I think I'm going to title it something like:

"Mapping the distribution and impacts of fish obstructions caused by road crossings in Kansas."

The grant only has to be 2-4 pages long. The granting agency tends to hurls money at projects like this. Oh, and there's also $50k sitting there from the state to provide a match.

So great! Right!?

I start to write, and it is gibberish. It isn't even comprehensible. I'd barely call it English.

Fine.

I'll work on Catchment Stoichiometry.

I just need to read through these papers to see what I'm missing in my citations.

Open paper. Stare at paper.

I might as well be staring into the abyss. I, seriously, have no idea what I just read. So are there good relationships between inorganic nutrients and catchment characteristics in this paper or what?

I re-read.

Stare.

This is the kind of exhaustion I have after a day like today. I spent 6 hours in a meeting on the topic of mitigation banks. Every single time I opened my mouth to speak, even when I said: "Fine, let's just forget it and move on", I managed to spark a 35 minute discussion that usually ended up so far from my original point that even I had to think hard to remember what I was asking about.

I swear, some people are trained to repeat the same things over and over again as if that mantra will answer a completely unrelated question.

All I want to do right now is go home and chase my son around the living room, hit the gym for an hour, and think about nothing at all.

Instead, the odds are good that I'm going to spend the rest of my 'per diem' on a ticket to Harry Potter (Wife and I already saw it once).

(I wrote a lengthy review/thoughts on the movie that somehow got deleted. To sum up: It was good if you'd read the book and I can't imagine what it would have been like without having read the book. I'm not really liking this director.)

Am I going to be able to get all this science done before my vacation?

I guess we'll see....

Oh, and here's some more awesome music:

White Stripes (Effect and Cause):

Johnathan Rice:

Mountain Goats (Yes yes yes!):

My Teenage Stride:

The Weakerthans:

My flaws

Are so numerous that I cannot list them.  They include keeping secrets that do not need to be kept.  Which is why I'm now going to post some songs that I think are awesome.

The Strokes

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The 2008-2009 NBA Wrap-up

The NBA continues to be the most predictable league in professional
sports, and due to the awful officiating (specifically 'star
treatment') that just continues to get worse. Over the past 25 years
you could have picked 5 teams _before_ the season started and bet
$1000 dollars that one of those 5 teams would win it all and you would
have only lost your money once (Detroit in 2004...and even then I'm
not sure you wouldn't have picked them in the top 5). If you'd just
bet on the team with the most prominent superstar every year (MJ,
Shaq, Duncan and Kobe) then you'd have looked pretty damned good.

If you'd been able to pick at the halfway point, you would have
probably never gotten it wrong.

If you'd picked at the start of the playoffs, you probably could have
narrowed it to three and never have been wrong other than Detroit in
'04.

This is in sharp contrast to other team sports: The past five super
bowl champions were the Steelers, Giants, Colts, Steelers, and
Patriots. When the _playoffs started_ the Giants and 2005-6 Steelers
would not have been considered one of the top 5 teams to win the
Superbowl, let alone at the beginning of the season. In baseball,
there have been 3 recent World Series Winners that were long, long
shots at the beginning of the season: The Phillies, White Sox and
2003 Marlins.

At the beginning of this season, the short list for potential NBA
Champions would have been the Lakers, the Celtics, the Spurs, the
Pistons and the Cavs. At the All-Star Break you would have swapped
out the Magic for the Pistons, but otherwise that list didn't change,
and at the beginning of the playoffs, 95% of the basketball world
would have picked the Lakers, Cavs, or Magic (a few people might have
picked the Celtics despite KG's knee).

This isn't really good for the NBA, because most sports fans identify
with teams, and 25 of 30 teams have fan bases who, at the start of the
season, have no shot at winning a championship. Everything about the
NBA is designed to make the best teams win championships. There is a
grueling 82 game regular season, 7-game playoff series with at least 1
day off between each game (so older players can rest), star treatment
from officials during the game, and inconsistent 'oversight' from the
league office to insure teams aren't hamstrung by suspensions to key
players. There have only ever been 2 wholly unexpected/shocking
playoff series in my entire NBA watching experience: The Warriors
beating the Mavericks three years ago, and the afore-mentioned Pistons
hammering the Lakers in 2004. Every other series was won by the
favorite, or had no clear favorite.

In the context of team sports, that is bizarre. Like, extremely
bizarre. And for me, it sorta calls into question the whole point of
having a sports league. Are we creating entertainment out of a
physical activity, or are we determining the best team that season?
Because one of those options is boring, we all _know_ who the best
teams are, and unless those teams have a ridiculous moment or
amazingly transcendent player, there's not much interesting in
watching the best team win unless that's your team.

Which is a round-about way to talk about how the only thing keeping
the NBA alive is individual storylines. As in, storylines about
individuals. Among other things, this season advanced three star's
storylines to the next stage, and closed the book on two others.

1. Kobe Bryant -- There has never been a more divisive superstar in
the NBA. Forget his off the court stuff, watching this guy play has
always been the most frustrating experience imaginable. He settles
for terrible shots, ignores his teammates, whines constantly to the
officials, throws cheapshots like crazy, and pouts about his poor
teammates. Yet, he sees the court as well as anyone ever has, works
harder in the offseason than any player alive, seeks out flaws in his
game and fixes them, plays defense on a level unmatched by any other
NBA star (at least in terms of intensity), is an effective scorer from
anywhere on the court, and has more raw and refined basketball talent
than anyone not named Jordan has ever had. The story for Kobe has
been about ego. He's an egomaniac. And this chapter in the story is
about how he didn't have to learn that his ego was wrong. He might be
the first player in the history of the NBA to piss on karma and win
anyway. Even MJ had to accept a role. Shaq had to accept a role,
Bird and Magic accepted roles.
Not Kobe. He whined and complained and fought and eventually got a
cast of teammates who were simultaneously extremely talented and
extremely willing to give up any stats of their own so that Kobe could
win his way. Pau Gasol is, right now, the most effective scorer on
the Lakers. There is nobody who can prevent him from getting good
looks on offense. In succession this postseason he made Carlos
Boozer, Yao Ming, Kenyon Martin and Nene, and Dwight Howard look
ridiculous trying to guard him. That's a pretty darned good run.
Kobe, by contrast, looked tired, ineffective, and essentially on the
verge of burning out, for long stretches against Courtney Lee and
Micheal Pietris, JR Smith, and Shane Battier. He got incredibly
lucky that he didn't have to face a guard like Paul Pierce or LeBron
in the Finals.

2. Lebron James -- You gotta go through purgatory before you reach
the stars. Unless your name is Kobe or Dwyane Wade, NBA superstars go
through years of struggling before they achieve team success. We are
now in Act II of the LeBron saga: Wherein Lebron struggles to achieve
success within the framework of ego (even though he isn't
self-centered player like some, he is nevertheless the only
above-average talent on his team, hence, the team success is solely a
product of his own skill). Note: Only Kobe Bryant, in this season,
was able to do this. Act III will probably be LeBron joining with
another superstar.

3. Dwight Howard -- This is a glimpse of the future. NBA
championships, lately, are won in bunches and by big men. Looking
around, there are no other young big men who are championship calibur.
The old guard (Duncan, Shaq, KG) is fading away and the talented bigs
who are out there (Gasol, Nowitzki, Boozer) are already in their
primes and can't handle Dwight. This is the chapter where Dwight
realizes he can win 5 championships over the next ten years if A) he
can get a little better on the offensive end, B) he stays healthy and
C) his teammates are even moderately talented. Of course, he might
also realize that he is already better than almost everyone at his
position even on a bad night, and quits trying to improve. This is a
chapter about choices, and all he has to do is emulate _the_ model
superstar for his generation (MJ) to know what he ought to do next.

4. Duncan -- Yeah, this is the long slow finish. This is Karl
Malone and John Stockton after '98. Too good to be bad, too old to be
great. Unless the Spurs miraculously stumble onto the next Tim Duncan
(nobody out there looks like him right now) this will be the stately
decline into retirement that David Robinson avoided.

5. Jason Kidd -- This is the chapter about hanging on too long. I
have a hard time remember how good Jason Kidd was. But if you can
re-wind your brain a little bit, remember that this guy once had the
greatest court vision of anyone who has ever played the game. Kidd
made Kenyon Martin look like an All-Star power forward on both ends of
the court. He made Richard Jefferson look like a force of nature for
three years. He made Vince Carter look borderline godlike. Kidd took
a Nets team that hadn't been relevant in thirty years and
single-handily willed them to the NBA Finals two years in a row. This
was/is one of the very best point guards ever to play the game, even
though he was almost completely unable to score efficiently. And now
he's really not that good at anything anymore.

Overall, this season sucked. The defending champs fell to injury, the
reigning champs escaped due to opponents injuries in the playoffs, and
the champions were lead by the most selfish, me-first player to ever
win an NBA Finals MVP trophy.

Maybe next year will be better.

Sick...sick sick sick

My stomach thwarted my evening plans. I feel like I have a ball of unhappiness where my digestive tract should be. I'm not sure if it was what I ate for dinner, or if it is the stress I'm feeling at trying to stay on top of everything.

And let's be clear: I'm not staying on top of everything.

I like to break things into threes, and right now my life has three components:

1. Paid work.
2. Exercise.
3. Family.

At this point, that means I'm ignoring my 'fake work'...aka. my science, my writing, finances, cooking, gardening, etc. My job is killing me, and trying to lose weight has been really hard all of a sudden. Basically, the only thing I'm not totally blowing off or overwhelmed by is the family stuff. And believe me, that hasn't exactly been relaxing.

This might be a lot easier if I was able to organize my thoughts, but the stress has been preventing me from sleeping. I went to be before 11 the last three nights, and I can't even begin to fall asleep because I'm just lying there thinking about things.

And now tonight I'm feeling so ill it hurts to stand upright. I'm exhausted, beyond tired, beyond any level of exhaustion I've felt in the last six months. Things aren't actually that stressful, but I just can't get on top of anything.

NBA Wrap-Up

For the second year in a row, the L.A. Lakers have to be the favorites
entering the Finals. Yuck. I'm less optimistic about the Magic's
chances than I was about Boston's chances. I thought if Boston could
win both of the first two games, they could win the series, and that's
exactly what happened. But Boston had two underrated perimeter
players (everyone forgets that Ray Allen and Paul Pierce have both had
stretches in the past five years where they were unquestionably
playing better than anyone else in the NBA) and a desperate Kevin
Garnett. The Magic has a freakishly atheletic monster who may or may
not have made the leap in the conference finals, and a couple of tall
guys who play like guards. I'm not sure that beats the Lakers.

However, there are at least two reasons to think the Magic will win:

1. The Magic run a real offense. That's something the Lakers haven't
seen since Yao got injured. The Magic will genuinely do things other
than just drive and kick (ala the Rockets without Yao) or isolate on
the perimeter (ala the Nuggets w/ Melo).

2. The Lakers have only three big men who should ever be on the floor
in an NBA Finals game: Odom, Gasol, and Bynum. But they only have 1
big man who can guard Hedo/Rashard Lewis (Ariza can probably guard one
of these guys as well): Odom. If you put an Odom-Gasol tandem out
there, Howard will probably shut down Gasol and score fairly
effectively against him. If you put Gasol-Bynum out there, then
Lewis/Hedo probably score on Gasol with some ease. I think Gasol
tends to be vastly underrated, so I would expect him to be effective
against Howard for stretches, but if Howard pulls out some of his
inner Shaq (throwing people around on offense), then I don't see the
refs helping out Pau.

Basically, I think this series depends on Pau versus Howard. I pretty
much see Gasol holding his own. Maybe in two years, when Dwight
Howard has some real post moves and is a little more savvy with how he
attacks the basket, this could be a whole different story.

The Kobe factor is a complete wash, unless he decides to really up the
stakes and guard Hedo. I think he would be effective there, and
slowing Hedo is a lot more important than slowing Courtney Love or
Pietrus. However, if he doesn't, I can't see him being more effective
than he was the first four games of the Nuggets series, when his
ability to score didn't translate into an improved ability for the
rest of his team to score.

If I had money to bet, I'd bet on the Lakers in 6.

Fun on the road?

As pointed out by my infrequent life-coach, I typically write the most amazingly depressing things in this space during my road trips. Let's count down some awesome then, just for a change:

22 and 4: That's the pounds I've lost so far, and the inches off my belt. Wow and wow.

3. The number of amazing songs I heard on the radio today...starting with:



2. Meals I had that involved the words chicken schwarma (sp?) or drunken noodles over the weekend. Denver was actually pretty awesome.



That song is great.

2. Funnel clouds (pre-tornados) we saw dropping down out of the unholy sky as we made our way out of Denver on Sunday. Fortunately, we were headed 80 mph in the opposite direction.

3. The number of wins that the Orlando Magic have laid on the Cavs so far. Tonight's game may have been a coming out party for Dwight Howard, who was on the receiving end of LeBron's "I'm taking over" moment, and responded by turning into early-Shaq for overtime.

4. The number of times my Uncle and I agreed the game was over for the Cavs before LeBron made a ridiculous shot that brought them back.

1. The number of birdies I had last week on the golf course. More than I'd had in the last three years combined.



Yeah, Franz Ferdinand! Not the 3rd great song I heard, but good still.

Pilot Speed isn't my favorite, but deserves more attention than they get...so...



I've done my part.

Goofy.

Where is that other song I heard????

Still not it, but yes awesome:



Was it the Raconteurs (you know, Kurt Cobain's new band)? It could have been, it has now been several hours since I heard the song, and I'm sorta forgetting what it sounded like:

Musik

Children are a trial

My son has been epically sick this winter.  From basically October until May he had something.  There were brief, week-or-so-long respites from this reality, but they would soon be over.  For the last three weeks-ish, the boy has had a cough and a cold.  I'm not sure he's one-hundred percent over it, but I can tell he's feeling better, because he's starting to eat.  Like, eat a lot.  As in, half a plate of sweet potato french fries and a bowl of green beans and a bunch of crackers and raisens and it is actually kind of starting to become a concern.  

When the boy's been sick, he won't eat much.  For several stretches of a week or so this winter we've been struggling to get the kid to eat anything (which is borderline amazing considering his parents as well).  His sudden re-discovery of the joy of eating is probably the best sign we've had that he's healthy.  

I don't really know why I'm compelled to share this information.

One step after another...

Sometimes you have to be tireless.  You have to push the rock up the hill, watch it roll down into the valley below, and run down the hill to get it going up the next one.  

Clair Patterson was a graduate student in Chicago whose major advisor said "Here's a method for measuring the age of the planet.  It's simple.  Go for it."  And he did (Clair is a he, for reasons his parents hopefully explained at some point).  Along the way he discovered that the atmosphere was so full of lead that modern humans had 800 times the amount of lead in their bodies as humans from the 1800s.  So after 10 years of slaving away on his professor's "simple" method, Clair gave us the age of the earth, turned around, and spent the next twenty years waging a single-minded and relentless battle to erraticate lead from our lives.  

And he succeeded to some degree.  The EPA probably exists in large part because of him.  The lead is out of our paint, our canned goods, our children's toys and our books (yes, even the books).  

Suggesting that this was an easy accomplishment is ludicrus.  I can only imagine, but what I do imagine is nights spent wondering whether the harrassment from media, industry, politicians and other scientists was worth it.  His funding was cut.  His livelihood was at stake.  I imagine late nights at the desk reading papers on lead poisoning, while his kids were getting older.  

But sometimes you have to be tireless.  Sometimes you have to put aside the exhaustion and simply do better.  

I feel like that is the only option left to me.  I have 40 hours during a workweek, which is shockingly few, and around 49 when my kid is awake and at home (typically, I'm cooking, cleaning, giving baths, playing, and walking with the kid during almost 100% of this time).  That leaves 79 hours.  10.5 more hours for working out and subsequent showers.  A minimum of 63 hours for snoozin'.  5 hours for lunch breaks.  That leaves me with half an hour.

Half an hour to write papers, edit the special issue of a journal, try to think about a new job, write my books, think of new ideas, and seek out new ways to do things.  

And somehow into 40 hours I have to squeeze 40 or so project reviews, a dam removal program, a T&E fee fund program, re-writing a mitigation document that governs the whole state, try to figure out a way to improve all the T&E evaluations, keep up on current literature, and, oh by the way, solve every other problem that comes up in my vicinity.

Sometimes you just have to be tireless.  

But I'm getting really tired.

A Night in the Little Apple

Again I greet my loyal readers and subsequently the emptyness of the late afternoon on the occasion of my work-related exile to a hotel room.  This one should be nice, but the elevator is geologically slow, and the whole place feels...old.  I don't like old.

Garden:

Hardly any of the latest seeds I put in the ground have taken off.  I see no little leaves poking through the dirt, and that drives me crazy.  Plus one of our tomato plants is struggling.  Right now we have 11 cabbage/broccoli, 48 onions, 4 tomatoes, 3 cucumbers, 4 cilantro, 4 rosemary, 4 thyme, 6 sweet corn, 6 green pepper, 3 summer squash (yellow), another 20 or so thyme, 10 strawberries, 20 green-bean and peas and probably 40-ish spinach plants.  But only the spinach, cabbage, and strawberries are really doing well.  I guess the peas that have come up look ok.

The thing is, I can't spend enough time in the yard/garden.  There's no limit to the amount of time I want to spend out there.  Apparently, for me, giving up means gardening.

Death to the EverGreens:

You know the little evergreen 'shrubs' that so many people have in their front yard?  On Monday I had the supreme satisfaction of ripping mine out with my bare hands.  Admittedly, my hands were a little cut up by the first two, so I used gloves on the last three, but the point remains:  My shrubbery is no more!

Thank god.  In place of the shrubs we now have an assortment of native flowers and grasses.  Big bluestem, liatris, coneflowers, salvias, brown-eyed susans, spiderwort.  We've also got an assortment of interesting rocks I've found over the past year and a half all over Kansas.  I want this stuff to look amazing.  I can't wait for 7 foot tall flowers next to my front door.

Denver-Dallas:

Boy, that stepped up a notch didn't it?  Wow.  

Food: 

Bison t-bone steak.  Manicotti.  Good times...good times...

Weight Loss:

Over halfway there....over halfway there...over halfway there....gotta stay focused.  Must have Kindle....

I don't wish to alarm you...

...but this comic is hilarious.  However, I'm recommending that unless you're a big fan of ridiculous penis jokes, the rest of that comic's archive should be avoided.