It brings a lark to your hand

It is my very favorite season.

“What is man, when you think upon him, but a minutely set, ingenious machine for turning, with infinite artfulness, the red wine of shiraz into urine?”
Isak Dinesen, Seven Gothic Tales, 1934

Yet another night of Steven. As usual, the movie was far from good, but the company was excellent. After largely killing a bottle of wine myself, I’m strangely uninebriated. I blame the potatoes.

Here’s hoping that more than a week of twelve hour days tromping about in the Nevada desert has proven ample preparation for 40 miles of overnight running in California! Go go go! .

The clouds decided to take a field trip elsewhere tonight, so there are planets and stars about. Tomorrow’s a bit uncertain, but it’ll certainly dawn clear and cold. Whether we head for the Slot or merely the Sage’s haunt, we’ll have fun in the snow.

Miles tomorrow, many miles, near Davis. Here’s hoping they’re passably pleasant!

Hm, well, it’s 5 am. After waking up late and fiddling with the experiment for a little while, it’s perhaps too late to go. Gut says don’t. Weather gods say go, but they also predict another foot of snow for the weekend. Ski camping somewhere awesome is sounding very attractive.

After some thought, it seems to me that the best reasons for undertaking an experiment are curiosity and necessity. Either there’s just something you’d really like to know, or somebody somewhere really needs to know something.

I’m still naive enough to believe that science isn’t about racing to a result, or about scooping a competitor. It’s about trying to learn something new. Like at the cutting edge of climbing, it’s about pushing the boat out as far as one possibly can. There’s no doubt in my mind that I’ll be personally better off if my experiment reaches its goals before similar ones can, but getting there first cannot be the underlying motivation for my work. Reaching more sensitive results more efficiently can. I believe there’s a fundamental distinction.

I will not see my friends as enemies.