School

July 30, 2008 at 11:22 pm | In Life, Physics | Leave a Comment

Grad School.

“Learn lots of physics”, they said. “Test fundamental forces at high precision”, they said. “Launch into new regions of parameter space”, they said.

Apparently, what they actually meant was “Stand around just after midnight trying to strip a stubborn wire without breaking a whole host of tenuous solder joints at 12:15 am.” Yes, Virginia, I just wrote just after midnight… at 12:15 am. It’s 12:17 am now. Time to go back to the stubborn wire.

Meadows

July 28, 2008 at 6:30 pm | In Life, Skiing | Leave a Comment

I’m thoroughly stoked at this juncture, and I’d like to record the following whilst I’m a little ebullient.

Yesterday I skied, among many places, down a few short and moderately steep chutes amongst the meadows and flowering flora of Mt. Rainier’s southern flank. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but, as sometimes happens, it’s been replaying over and over in my head all day. There’s magic in dancing your way down lightly softened late-summer snow, tip edges finding and holding their way through little suncups, as lush green trees, tundra, and a multitude of colors float with you. These moments lasted seconds, but I’ve relived them for hours in vivid color. I can only be thankful.

Also, I got to see the fresh remnants of an hour-old coyote killed marmot on my way down the hill. Apparently nature’s flourish extended to the fauna as well.

Noise

July 25, 2008 at 8:41 pm | In Life, Physics | Leave a Comment

It ain’t gettin’ us down just now.

Some months, things work out just a little better. Anyone want to go do physics now? I sure do.

ANAM

July 23, 2008 at 10:54 pm | In Life | Leave a Comment

It’s like eating your vegetables. Thanks to the editors, rescuers, and honest errants.

Edit: Whoa. Googling for “ANAM” doesn’t turn up Accidents in North American Mountaineering in the first two pages of hits, by my quick survey. That’s kind of a shame.

Dating

July 20, 2008 at 3:11 am | In Drivel, Life | Leave a Comment

If only it were radiocarbon dating.

Instead, the combined isolation of my chosen profession and chosen hobby makes me unacceptably unlikely to meet anywhere near a sufficiently large set of people to encounter a good match. Things look even worse if you subscribe to the theory, as part of me does, that I need to sample the entire 6 billion person space to determine the truly optimal match. So, I’ve done the anti-social thing and cast a line into a local online dating pool for the past several months with minimal success.

For whatever reason, a couple days ago, I decided to more fully explore the options available at okcupid. It’s a dating site a particle physicist can come to love. The matching algorithm is clearly stated, and importantly, is manipulated by the user into a personalized filter. The filtering algorithm isn’t what I would choose (first perform all possible strict cuts, then pass the remaining results through a sensitive and detailed filter to suss out the best matches), but it’s still useful. If you choose to use it, ruminate on the matching algorithm for a while before you start training it. It’s easy to attempt lots of strict cuts with “Very Important”s, especially with exclusions (selecting all options but one), that will totally swamp the signal from the copious “Somewhat”s. One must have faith in the central limit theorem, and also in the other user’s tuning patterns. I’ve had more conversations with interesting new dating folk in the past three days than in six months with a more traditional service.

It’s in these searches that it seems to me that it’s best to be very in tune with, but disconnected from, one’s emotional and physical needs. Unfortunately, we’re hardwired to search more aggressively as we become more needy. I’ve little doubt that the natural system produces, on average, more children and genetically successful family/species units, but it’s not what I want.

Friendship

July 12, 2008 at 12:54 pm | In Life, Skiing | Leave a Comment

Is worthwhile.

Rules

July 3, 2008 at 11:03 pm | In Life, Skiing | Leave a Comment

I’m skiing with a friend and some of her friends this weekend – watching the email traffic full of unsolicited advice and planning strikes a dissonant chord with me. I just want to go ski.

It’s reminded me of something I’ve blissfully allowed to slip my notice – moving smoothly through the mountains with trusted partners or alone is heavenly. Some, but certainly not all, of the email traffic is necessary for getting a disparate group on the same page and schedule. It’s just rare for my pre-ski arrangements these days to be anything but, “Hey, looks like the weather’s good tomorrow, wanna ski? – Sure. – Pick you up at 4? – Sounds good. – Think we need ‘pons? – Nah… well, bring’em if you want.” The hard lines are discussed at length and without anyone making a decision for anyone else.

I just want to see the smile on her face when she drops off Piker’s Peak onto the finest backcountry line she’s ever skied, whichever one she elects to ski. The rest is basically irrelevant.

I get to ski corn Saturday. And Monday, and Tuesday, maybe even Wednesday. I can’t complain. (though I guess I am) I should just grow up.

All that said, I am curious to see how I’ll act if told what to do on a mountain I’ve soloed on in winter, and both of the past two weeks… The soloist that I am often hides in the presence of others.

Let me go where the only rules are the only rules.

Edit: Yep- just needed to grow up. The trip was fun and completely unencumbered by internal or external restrictions.

Physics

July 1, 2008 at 10:41 pm | In Life, Physics, Skiing | Leave a Comment

Is hard. It’s a new feeling for me, being in “charge” of our experiment. Looked at from the outside, it should be a world-class instrument. Looking at it day to day, it’s clear that it’s not; not yet. In fact, we’re deeply mired in the process of figuring out why it’s not.

The compelling thing about our experiment these days is the sense that we’re on the cusp of success. It’s felt that way for about a year now. We move ever closer to making our measurement, yet it always glimmers just out of reach. Completion still feels both inevitable and prompt, but the knowledge that our friendly competition is making headway sometimes weighs heavy on my mind.

With these feelings comes the constant and incessant reminder of the freedom of dancing down steep friendly corn, edges holding when I ask and releasing into bliss. There’s more than one way to revel in the embrace of gravity.

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