Category: General

Here are two updates from this summer in Colorado that I wasn’t able to post to the web. I seldom had access to electricity during the 3 weeks I was there, so I wasn’t able to update much. I should probably go back and change some of this as my opinions have changed, but here it is in its original and unedited form:

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Advanced Camp Blog

July 8, 2005

I’m writing this in the far back seat of a 15 passenger van as we drive through the plains region of Colorado. Its about 10am MDT.

In my time, I’ve done a lot of driving across the US. I’ve basically driven the entire west coast from Settle to LA. From the midwest I’ve driven to the east coast, Mid Atlantic, Florida, Texas, Toronto, Winnepeg. I can say with confidence that driving through the Great Plains is fundamentally different than any other type of driving you can do.

At times I wish I could stop and take photos or video of some of the sights you see while traveling across the plains. Unlike, say, the Pacific Coast in California, there are not dramatic sights while driving through Nebraska. You see a train carrying corn or coal which extends across the horizion, grain elevators in the distance which tower over everything else in view, occasional pockets of cattle, and endless, endless flat stretches of land, a lonel truck stop in the middle of nowhere.. Even the occasional hill which is only a few feet high will casue you to take notice.

The great plains, in particular the westers parts of the plains from North Dakota down through Texas is depopulating. People are leaving, and I can’t reallyl blame them. There is nothing here other than farming. No lumber, no mining, no industry, no tourism, nothing. It is fly over space in the most literal sense of the term. To combat people leaving, the states in the Great Plains are offering incentives for people to move and stay there for a few years. Its doomed to fail. Human history is one of people moving to cities. I don’t think tax incentives by the State of North Dakota will change that.

The fact is, farming isn’t a glamorous life and we don’t need as many people to grow crops as we did 100 years ago. Demography is destiny and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it. Trying to stop it is a fool’s errand. The trends are bigger than anything which can be influenced with a reduction in student loans or a tax bill.

Let the people go and let it work itself out. You will end up with very sparsely populated counties in these areas with very large farmss, most of which will eventually be automated. If areas go unfarmed, let it return back to prairie.

July 19, 2005

I’m really sick of camp. There is only a week left, but it is draging by. I have bruises all over my body. The skin on my hands and arms is so dark I’ll have to list another racial category on the census. I’m tired of sleeping on the ground every night. I have no idea what is going on in the world. What gets me the most is the hours and hours of hiking every day just to get somewhere to look at rocks. I’m not cut out to be a field geologist. No way, no how. I have no passion for sitting in a tent for six weeks by myself in the summer writing a paper on some obscure patch of rock in some remote area. Not for me.

I’ll be back a week from today and we only have 4 days in the field from now until then. Day off tomorrow and 2 travel days are also part of the mix.

Any fantasies I had about living in the mountains have been dashed. I have come to grips with the reality that I’m a creature of comfort. By that I mean I really want electricity, hot water, a soft bed, and an internet connection. If that makes me soft and a pussy, so be it. I don’t see the joy in camping for the sake of camping. I have no problem sleeping in a tent, but there is a limit to how long you can do it and staying in one spot day after day is no fun. Doing it a few days or doing it while traveling is no big deal, but three weeks with no destination will drive you mad.

This is also not a normal class. In addition to spending 24 hours a day here, there is nothing really to study. There are no books to read, there is no homework to do. All there is, is your logbook and your map. Once you got the concept of geologic mapping down, its just grunt work to do it.

The grunt work for this map includes climbing over 2500 feet every day on very steep slopes. Having grown up in the midwest, I don’t think it really dawns on you how much 2500 feet is. That 2500 feet is just the vertical. I spend 3 hours yesterday getting to our location. I was dead last in getting there.

That’s another frustrating thing. I’m the kid who’s picked last in dodgeball now. I’ve never been the one who is physically the weakest link, but here I am. It sucks. The only upside is that I’ve been eating only one meal a day, and I’m quite sure I”ve lost a great deal of weight. 8 hours a day hiking in the Rockies + limited caloric intake = weight loss. It could be the altitude which is limiting my appitite too.

I’m writing this in my tent on what I have left of battery life on my laptop. I’m wearing clothes I haven’t changed in a few days. I fell down a slope a few days ago and landed on a dead tree with branches sticking out. I thoght I was impaled, but I “only” wound up with 5 pretty big bruises around my body and 2 bad cuts.

When this is done, I’m sure I’ll be gald I did it, but right now it sucks. I’m able to see things that are only discussed in lecture which is nice, but this sort of work is not my calling. I’m a computer guy.

The last two months I’ve been through something which few people do. It has given me a great appreciation of the modern world and how good we got it. The next time I hear someone talk about how great it was 100 years ago and how things are always getting worse, I’m going to punch them in the face…..with a keyboard.

I’ll be spending most of today locked in self imposed exile in Pillsbury Hall doing homework. I will also try to get in two sessions at the Rec Center instead of just one. Assuming all goes well I will try to see Serenity this evening, which from everyone I know who has seen it so far, is very good.

Also, my friend Scott got a big write up in the Webcomics Examiner where they fawn over how great he is. Read it and discover how much people can over think something.

is that I think I’m definately a wine drinker. I’m currently drinking a bottle of Argentinean Malbec which I learned to enjoy on my trip.

I’m not a frufru wine drinker either, thank you very much. I don’t believe in spending more than $15 on a bottle, which while more than beer, is a far cry from what you could spend. I also don’t drink it in glasses with stems.

If you think there is a correlation between this post and the last one, you might be right.

There is a lot I don’t write about on this blog. In particular, I don’t write about personal stuff. I’m not a guy that likes to share his feelings and the number of people I talk to about personal stuff is really, really small. In fact, it might just be zero. Moreover, when you write about personal stuff, you tend to come across as either a nutjob or an overly sensitive emo who is looking for pity and a hug. That’s not me.

However, I want to talk about something personal, because in a way its not too personal, and probably isn’t a big secret.

If I look back on my life (yeah, its one of these rants) at almost every period of my life I can look back at something I accomplished with pride. Something I can point to and say “yeah, I did that”. These things range from debate accomplishments, academic honors, becoming an Eagle Scout (yes, I am one), coaching accomplishments, business success, and even some (very) limited success in the area of personal relationships.

Much of the reason for whatever I have done comes from my personality type. I know what I am. My parents never went to college. I was the first in my family to go. I was told by my 8th grade teach that I’d never amount to anything (literally), and I remember her saying how good she was in debate. Much of my original reason to join debate had to do with giving her a big “Fuck you, I can do better than you ever did”. (And i did. I have never seen or spoken to her after the 8th grade)

When I started to work for myself, I was told by a lot of people, flat out, that I’d never make it. A big “Fuck you” to them too.

When I coached debate after college I put a lot of time into it. A LOT. I made like $6,000/year and put in more hours than a full time job. The team did well and I never once cared about the money or the time because we were winning. It was fun.

When I was in Boy Scouts, I even took that seriously. I was awarded the Vigil Honor, which is more prestigious than becoming an Eagle Scout (even though hardly anyone has heard of it).

When I was running CIS, I had a lot of fun, and I think most of the people that worked there did too.

Am I tooting my own horn? Perhaps. But the point I am trying to make is that everything I did I had a passion for. A passion almost to the exclusion of everything else. Fuck the world and damn the torpedoes type passion. Even if other people didn’t see it, I knew it and it was what drove me.

Its not just things I can point to as accomplishments either. My reading interests, the woman I’ve dated, music, almost everything has been driven by a passion for something, even if the passion is short lived.

In the last 5 years of my life, however, there isn’t much I can point to and say “yeah, I did that”. I’m living off past accomplishments, and I hate that. I really hate that. As good as my 20’s were, my 30’s have been most unimpressive. A failed business and a failed long term relationship. Nothing much else I can think of and can point to as an accomplishment. Nothing to be proud of.

Most of my problems stem from a lack of passion, or rather a lack of an outlet for passion.

I haven’t had a real date in about 5 years. The primary reason for that is I haven’t met anyone who I find interesting (and who is available. That last part always being the sticking point.). I’ve had business ideas, but so far I haven not had enough enthusiasm to pursue them. I decided to go back to school in part because science was something I had a passion for, but honestly I find much of the undergrad work that is required to be complete and total drudgery.

I am not a political person. I have my views and beliefs, but they are not held to such a passionate extent that I’m going to hit the streets or run for office. (In fact, most of my political views would prohibit me from hitting the streets).

I have no answers. I have no grand plan. I’m just throwing this out there. You could say I’m just pissing and moaning and you’d be right.

I’m in a funk, and I don’t know how to get out of it.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated.

*Proudly stolen from “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats.

There is a reoccurring theme which I talk about on my site, and that is the difference between science and the humanities/social sciences. I’m currently taking courses in science (and in fact have not taken a single course outside of IT since I’ve been at the U) and have gotten previous degrees in two social science disciplines.

Tech Central Station has an article from a guy who is a self professed engineering dropout.

If you read his description of himself, it might remind you a lot of people you know, or even yourself. Rather bright people who, for whatever reason, just never grasped, or did well in courses in math and science.

I actually understand part of what this guy is saying. The intro physics and chem courses which I took had hundreds of students and had average grades for tests around 50%. There was certainly lots of busy work you had to do for class (and honestly, I still have lots of busy work. I’m writing up a lab for a class right now). However, the tests honestly weren’t hard if you understood what concept they were asking you about. I think that’s the difference between math/science classes and your social science/humanities classes. I could ask you a question about how the the Ribbentop/Molotov pact influenced the decision of Germany to go to war. You might not know what the Ribbentop/Molotov is, but you know what Germany is and you know of at least two wars they fought in. You can probably cobble together some sort of BS answer, which while it might not get a good score, its something. If you happened to be in class the day Ribbentop and Molotov were mentioned, you will be even better off in providing filler for your BS answer.

There is no problem solving in answering such a question. Its primarily opinion and testing the ability to put together a coherent argument (which I grant is a skill in and of itself). There is really no problem solving you ever encounter in the humanities/social sciences. That is the primary reason why its easier. (and it is easier)

The author also does make a valid point about bad teachers, but I think its a stretch to say they are all bad, or that most are bad or that they are unique to the hard sciences. Most of the professors I’ve had to date have been very good, and the reason I found them to be good was because they had a mastery of the subject being taught. I have yet to have a lecture course taught by a TA or a post-doc.

I do think this guy made a mistake in assuming that his high school grades meant anything in determining how well he would do in college level classes. I know lots of people who got A’s in high school who probably would be lost if they had to explain anything they had learned a week after the course was over. You can’t be spoofed and you can’t just regurgitate material.

In the end, I think this guy vastly over estimated his own intelligence and the freshman classes did thwa they were supposed to do…..weed people like him out.