Happy Ides of March

Ah, the Ides of March! The day Caesar should have called in sick. The weather is that dismal in-between where it's too warm for snow but too cold for spring. There's no football on tv. And the trees still have that dreary lifeless quality about them. At least there are excellent spring beers to evoke daydreams of warm, long evenings grilling on the porch. I highly recommend the Sam Adams Noble Pils and Sierra Nevada's Glissade. Even Caesar would have chosen them over a goblet of pungent Roman-era wine.

So I've been on hiatus it seems. School has been sucking the life from my bones. I'm not even sure what to write anymore. My poor mind is so inundated by such horrors as convective heat transfer coefficients and quadratic multi-variable interpolation. I really despise X-Y graphs and this whole sick notion of trying to define the world in terms of those graphs. The world cannot be understood in sine curves and points on a graph! We are poisoning the minds of our youth with this nonsense! X-Y graphs are a terrible way of conveying information. Just give me a few sentences to clearly sum up what is happening on the wretched graph. And don't even get me started on computer programming....

Okay - let's shake off the demons and talk about random things:

1. How come whenever I see, hear about, or think of the Nissan Pathfinder I recall the very first commercial when it originally came out in the late 80's that made it seem like some mysterious and amazing new creation? -- I remember part of it shows this guy walking on a tarmac and looking back at the camera (think they were walking towards a big cargo plane) and managing to get the words "the Pathfinder" out before it cut away to other secretive footage. Oh the strange things television burns into the memories of little kids. Hmm...let that sink in and then start weeping for today's children.

2. Did everyone enjoy the Winter Olympics as much as I did? At first I really didn't care about them, but shortly after the opening ceremonies I became hooked. It was so cool coming home each night and having hours of footage. I discovered that I enjoy the Winter Games a lot more than the Summer Games. Skiing, speed skating, snowboarding, etc. I can't even think of a summer olympic sport that sounds interesting right now....

3. Who listens to regular FM radio anymore? Apparently someone does. It's a shame. If I turn on the radio I feel like I'm experiencing the aural equivalent of someone trying to feed me mind-control drugs. Society is decaying at an ever-increasing rate. In another generation we'll be a culture of complete self-absorbed buffoons, programmed to like, think, say, and do whatever gets pumped into our minds.

4. I'm officially a fan of the show Community. I feel a connection to the main character, Jeff, as we're both older, non-traditional students with law backgrounds. However, the folks I go to school with are the opposite of Jeff's classmates. Where he has a colorful group of goofy personalities to bounce off of, I'm surrounded by engineers.....not that there's anything wrong with that!

5. Them Crooked Vultures are unbelievable! Their album is a bulldozing, soul-charging, rhinoceros ride that will leave any rock fan happy. I've been listening to it non-stop for 2 months now. At this point I could handle never getting another Foo Fighters album as long as the Vultures kept producing.

6. Last night I watched one of ESPN's 30 for 30 films. It was about Reggie Miller and the Knicks back in the mid-90s. Back when I actually liked the NBA. Funny how time can change things. Now I abhor the wretched NBA and it's never-ending schedule. I wonder if in 10 years I'll hate the NFL? That's a terrible and depressing thought. If I hate the NFL - what sport will I love then?

7. Did you know that mustard gas is often used as an intermediary in chemical processes? It's apparently a good source of chlorine molecules when you need to replace other molecules with them. Of course, companies are not allowed (nor would they want to) store mustard gas - so it gets made within the process itself and then used immediately. Let's say there's a certain ingredient that goes into your favorite snack food or beverage or toothpaste -- in the course of processing that ingredient it has to be altered on a molecular level so as to result in the desired ingredient and not something completely different. Maybe you need some hydrogen molecules removed, but due to complicated rules of chemical reactions, you can't simply remove those hydrogens without first taking away other hydrogens. So in comes our friend mustard gas (aka Phosgene Gas) with his big, beautiful chlorine molecules. The chlorines replace the first set of hydrogens. But we still need to get rid of those original hydrogens - what do we do? Well, thanks to the big chlorines we can now get rid of the remaining hydrogens through a standard procedure without losing the chlorines. Then we can go through another step and get rid of the chlorines (think of them as a place-holder) and put back on the first set of hydrogens that we didn't really want to lose in the first place. THIS is the stuff I should be learning about all the time at school! Not graphs and analyzing graphical data and calculus and all that filth!

Alright...it feels good to have blogged again. Unfortunately I cannot promise when you'll next hear from me. Hopefully it won't be a month and a half again. Enjoy the Ides of March and if your best friend invites you to a meeting near a bunch of Roman columns.....maybe just fake having a cold and stay home.

"Like winning 10 cents in the lottery"

That's what gettting an inch of snow is like - according to Calvin (from Calvin and Hobbes - the greatest comic strip of all time) and I've often quoted that line over the years. It applies once again to the results of our "winter storm" from the other night. For those not familiar with the reaction of Kentuckians to the possibility of snow, it goes something like this:

A day or two before the "winter weather" is predicted to arrive, people flock to grocery stores and clean out the bread, milk, and egg shelves. Mind you - this is the case for ALL degrees of winter storms - from a major 8-12 inch snow storm, to an ice storm, and even (as in this case) a 1-3 inch mild snowfall. News reporters will be stationed along main roads, parking lots, and gas stations giving live updates of the treacherous conditions. Citizens will be warned to stock up on supplies and stay off the roads (unless of course, you go to my school, in which case you will be expected to arrive on time despite the 12 inches of snow, 6 inches of ice, roaming packs of zombies, and 300 foot tall alien robots wreaking havoc). As the threat of the inch or two of snow looms closer, the grocery and hardware stores will be flooded with wild-eyed folks desperately picking through what's left of the foodstuffs, ice scrapers, and shovels. All talk will be of the impending doom and catastrophic calamity that will surely keep everyone trapped in their homes for weeks to come. This occurs even when the "storm" will surely be nothing more than an inch or two of snow...just as it was the other night. And yet - all schools closed, businesses - even doctor's offices! Normally I'm a major proponent of shutting down society for the sake of snow and having a Utopia-like celebration...but yesterday even I would have felt no need to call of classes and shut down the region. (And if I'm the one saying that, then that's really significant!)

You know what I long for? I would really like to hear the weather-people talk positively about snow for once. Like -- not get so upbeat and happy when the snow misses us or less falls than is expected. I want to hear things like "well, darn, it doesn't look like we're going to get all that much snow after all. But hey - we tried our best! There's still plenty of winter left, so we have more opportunities to get that solid 10 inch storm!"

Switching gears...I finally got around to picking up the Them Crooked Vultures album. For those who don't know - this is a side project featuring Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters, Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin. And yes, it sounds just like a blend of all three. Really really REALLY cool stuff! One can almost literally pinpoint certain strains of each members' style running through the songs. The song "Mind Eraser No Chaser" is one that gets lodged in your head for the entire day - be careful not to burn yourself out. I was a little cautious about what to expect at first, but was pleasantly blown away upon giving it a full listen.

That's all for today....2 blogs in 3 days...I'm spoiling you guys....