Revisited
May 31, 2008 at 7:17 pm | In Skiing | Leave a CommentA couple months ago, I chickened out (some chickens live a long while) above the finest powder chute my ski tips have ever had the privilege to grace. With a little trepidation, I let a sage partner steer our destination to the same face. I’d heard from a couple folks that there was a mellower chute right next door. We caught it in fine corn conditions.
Same photo as before, from the next spine over.
The sage boots back up our line. We lapped it more than once 
.
Freemason
May 29, 2008 at 9:50 pm | In Life | Leave a CommentMany folks asked me yesterday whether or not I thought I was becoming a freemason as I planned for or helped execute the construction of a concrete block table. Every one of them thought that they were clever.
On the upside, the table seems to have turned out well enough to work. We’ll find out tomorrow how the torque noise does, but I’m tepidly optimistic about the whole thing.
As a note to the world/self: If you’ve selected a subordinate based on the fact that they’re independent, self-motivated, and hardheaded, tread carefully when you decide to give them a set of direct orders. This is especially true if the subject of the orders is a project that they think of as “theirs”. There is definitely a time for such a thing, but there are often third ways through the underlying problem.
Waiting
May 23, 2008 at 9:52 pm | In Drivel | Leave a Comment“So much of life is wasted waiting.” There’s truth there.
CT
May 22, 2008 at 10:05 pm | In Life, Physics | Leave a CommentTake the time to learn about the difference in dosage between a regular X-ray and a CT scan. The difference is interesting. If it interests you at all, consider visiting more than one web page on the subject; the numbers vary somewhat.
Alive
May 20, 2008 at 10:37 pm | In Life, Skiing | Leave a CommentAppreciate it – you never know when life as you know it will change irrevocably or end. It’s too damn cool.
Given what my body’s telling me, I’ll be stoked if I can ski this weekend.
Lovely
May 20, 2008 at 1:07 am | In Life, Skiing | Leave a CommentI just like my mental image of this photo too much not to post it here:
The fact that this view existed had never occurred to me, until my eyes popped over the crater rim.
Non-Newtonian
May 20, 2008 at 12:57 am | In Drivel, Life, Skiing | Leave a CommentNot gravity – fluids. Like a cornstarch and water mixture, I seem to be both hardening and softening in response to different stimuli.
Depictions of pain, both emotional and physical, on a television show touch me deeply these days. Real pain, the yowls of an exuberant german shepard mix that’s just snapped its leg by misjudging a jump off a rock wall leave me struggling through tears to help its owner package it into a minivan for a bumpy ride to civilization. This morning, however, saw me inexplicably reviewing the meager contents of my stomach in the toilet bowl. I dealt with it in halting but logical steps. Direct electrolyte replacement by slowly eating half a gram of salt on top of a little orange juice and water didn’t help. A few hours nap (on top of twelve hours sleep!) convinced my stomach that a little Raisin Bran was a good idea. Ate a pizza for dinner, and all is apparently normal again.
In other news, Wy’east allowed a friend and me safe passage up his slopes two nights ago. Climbing through the night is so darn fun.
My friend repacks his bag after a successful descent. Other folks are on our route at the top left.
An unknown tele-girl skins up the Palmer Snowfield. Some days, this is what it’s all about – warm blue skies and friendly corn.
Spring
May 14, 2008 at 3:42 pm | In Life | Leave a CommentWhile looking up an old friend from undergrad, I realized in a flash how much I miss springtime back in the warmer Eastern climate. Just thinking about it, I can thoroughly taste the velvety atmosphere of humid green spring amidst sunny blue sky.
Life’s too good to miss out on.
Stasis
May 12, 2008 at 1:06 am | In Life, Physics | Leave a CommentWell, the pseudo-repair doesn’t seem to have done the trick, not in the way I’d hoped. I’m still hopeful, but we’ll see how well we do tonight.
This week’s goal: Figure out precisely what’s important enough to mention in my first real twelve minute talk. What is it really that the world needs to know about our experiment? How much motivation, how much explanation, how much eye candy, how much hot air, and how much data?
Oh, and the headlight polish you can get for ~$1.5 at the auto parts store for fixing cloudy lenses totally works. I don’t know whether it just fills the microcracks, alters the plastic, or polishes it away (ranked in order of likelihood, methinks), but the stuff works. So much so that tonight it didn’t feel like I had my headlights on; all the light was going straight down the road instead of scattering everywhere.
Dogpark
May 10, 2008 at 9:28 pm | In Drivel, Life, Physics | Leave a CommentI didn’t ski today. My mind and body both decided to take yet another break. Odds are moderately good that I won’t ski tomorrow either, even though I should.
An early evening trip into the lab got detoured over to the local free-ranging dogpark, where the local cloistered hounds can be let loose to dog around for as long as their owners will let them. In the few times I’ve been there, I’ve never felt so out of place. Tonight, it seemed as though I, as a dogless bystander, didn’t belong. A passing ~10 year old remarked to his Mom, “Look, that person doesn’t have a dog.” Fortunately, I’m accustomed to being a little outcast, so I soaked up the goodness that stems from the presence of canines and humans.
I also found it interesting that I wasn’t terribly interesting to the canine population either. The Saturday evening dog crowd seems to be all-professional dogpark denizens, where the dogs are quite accustomed to having lots of unfamiliar people around. Chasing tennis balls and other dogs seems to be more interesting than investigating all the people.
In other news, I may have isolated and pseudo-corrected a big problem with my experiment. If that’s true, there’ll be some sort of jubilant plot coming to these pages in the near future. Gotta free up the computer to dutifully take data. Begone ye blogging blatherer!
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