Wanderlust

Obamanos

2008-10-11T12:58:00.000-07:00

Why I like ___Obama___

I second a lot of what Ceri said. Specifically;

He was a college professor
He believes health care is a right, not a privilege

Matthew 25 "I was naked, and you clothed me: I was sick, and you visited me ... Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me."

He is cosmopolitan having traveled widely

unlike some another candidate that didn't even have a passport until two years ago. Inspite of living right next to Russia.

I also like him because;

He supports a balanced and diverse energy policy which would lead us to independence as well as make us economically and ecologically responsible.

Although I disagree on his stance on off shore drilling. There is very little factual support that off shore drilling would benefit our economy or make us more independent

He is calculated and reflective
He has style

He has religious beliefs that I can respect
He believes in personal freedoms
He listens to facts no matter what side of the aisle they come from

a fact is a fact

He gives pointed answers questions instead of skirting around
He supports getting out of Iraq.

We have got to get out of Iraq. Hasn't anyone read/heard about the Lancet article on Iraq casualties? Please look into this. It is sound science and it basically says we, us Americans, are responsible for between 400,000 and a 1,000,000 causalities in Iraq, or about 650,000 dead with 95% confidence. How can we ever hope to improve our standing in the world unless we get out of there? The longer we are there, the more causalities we will be responsible for and the more they will learn to hate us. We have to leave.

Please, please look into this. If nothing else, just listen to the This American Life piece. If that doesn't convince you then you may not have a soul.

This American Life on the lancet articles - What's in a Number
Wikipedia treatment - "Lancet surveys of Iraq War casualties"
The original article PDF

Finally, if McCain is elected I could loose my job.

Although he may never have actually tried to reduce funding for the grizzly bear population surveys he seems unable to stand up to peer pressure to the idea that science is a pointless endeavor. I assume he would consider research on desert tortoises for the USGS to be the same as research on Grizzly Bears for the USGS.

Bibliography

Speaking of Faith

Sciencists and Engineers for America

Amy Sullivan on turning white evangelicals to democrats

Living on Earth on the Grizzly Bear study

A jab at Palin

Palin on wolves

2008-09-07T08:46:00.000-07:00

I had to break my internet silence for one little public service announcement.

Wolves are beautiful. Vote for Obama.

"Hoping to boost the number of wolves killed this year by permitees, Palin announced the state would pay $150 for each kill. According to an Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) news release, the bounty was instituted to "motivate permittees to redouble their efforts and to help offset the high cost of aviation fuel, ADF&G will offer cash payments to those who return biological specimens to the department." The state's press release, issued last Wednesday, indicates that "Permittees will be paid $150 when they bring in the left forelegs of wolves taken from any of several designated control areas." (Defenders of Wildlife)

Watch the video for a better understanding of wolf hunting in Alaska.

Diversity

2008-03-23T15:13:00.000-07:00

This is a post about the changing nature of life, decisions, diversity and open mindedness.

Obama
I am about half way through Obama's book "The Audacity of Hope" and I am very impressed. He is articulate, thoughtful, collected and centered. The thing that sticks out to me the most is his respect for people of different opinions. He is willing to listen and find common ground. He recognizes that we are all constitutionalists. That;

for all out disagreements we would be hard pressed to find a conservative or liberal in America today, whether Republican or Democrat, academic or layman, who doesn't subscribe to the basic set of individual liberties identified by the Founders and enshrined in our Constitution and our common law: the right to speak our minds; the right to worship how and if we wish; the right to peaceably assemble to petition our government; the right to own, buy and sell property and not have it taken without fair compensation; the right to be free from unreasonable searches an seizures; the right not to be detained by the state without due process; the right to a fair and speedy trial; and the right to make our own determinations, with minimal restriction, regarding family life and the way we raise our children.

So why does it seem like there is so much controversy? Aside from the media, which is not happy with a story of cooperation and compromise, it's because we disagree on how best to protect these rights. I think most people believe that they are right and that they act ethically, but the reality is that we all work with an extremely limited and different understand of what the world is and how it works. Should we then abstain from making decisions until we have all the information? Waiting until we completely understand a problem before making a decision would result in a state of utter paralysis and nothing would get accomplished. If we waited for science to tell us what is and is not healthy to eat, we would all starve to death. We have to eat and we have to make decisions. The lesson is to find a balance between progressive and conservative decisions.

Tortoises

Currently, there is a law suit pending which may inhibit us from doing our work on the desert tortoise. Let me say right now that I am not a spokesperson for USGS nor am I involved in the administration and I don't claim to know much about the situation at all. The Center for Biodiversity is suing to stop a project in Southern California to move tortoises off of Ft Irwin Military Reserve across a fence onto BLM land. Now the reason I am a biologist is because i believe in protecting biodiversity so you would think I would agree with the opinions of an organization called the Center for Biodiversity. But I think this is a dangerous move. The danger is that Ft Irwin may decide to disregard environmental law in the interest of homeland security and start training on the land without moving the tortoises, which is a bad precedent to reinforce. The temptation is to vilify the opposition, which i see done all the time amongst scientists. Because they have an opinion that we disagree with they must be stupid, or ignorant, or evil. But maybe they really do want to see the desert tortoise survive and feel this is the best way to go about it. It doesn't seem to be constructive to put them down as inferior human beings.

Diversity
I think that our strength as humans comes from our diversity. The founding fathers disagreed vehemently about the role of government in our lives, the role of religion in the government, and many other things, and after the constitution was drafted they continued to debate in the Federalist Papers. And it doesn't stop there. New bills are passed every day. Obama explains that the majority of those bills are not new laws but clarifications of old laws either strengthening or weakening a position for or against something. Nothing is really final and people change their minds all the time. I believe in competition and capitalism, economics and ecology, evolution and the survival of the fittest. But I also believe in tolerance and compassion. In nature it's all red in tooth and claw, existence or extinction. But for humans life is less permanent and dichotomous. This is getting long and I have more to say about diversity but for now I will close by asking that we be tolerant of other peoples views and forgiving of their decisions. They are just decisions made under a certain set of presumptions and circumstances. Embrace diversity and we may be better off for it.

PS to Jeff: Feel free to syndicate if you think it appropriate.

Motate

2008-03-02T19:02:00.000-08:00

I walk.

I ride.

I drive.

I scoot.

Obama

2008-03-01T09:00:00.000-08:00

Tarantula!

2007-11-10T14:13:00.001-08:00

Please don't confuse my action for decision

2007-10-14T14:51:00.000-07:00

After much deliberation and hesitation, I have accepted a permanent position for the USGS here in fabulous Las Vegas, NV. They are offering me a raise (more money than I've ever made before), a dependable income, and very valuable experience (lots of projects and some more responsibility) at a fairly prestigious institution. The commitment is scary and I would prefer a different biome but in the end I do enjoy my work and the prospect of not having work at all was too scary. It has significant implications but I think it will be good for me.

The idea of living in Las Vegas is really more strange than actually living here. It's an "honest city not pretending to be anything but what it is." There is always something happening and good food of every nationality, many places are open 24hrs. I've become something of a vampire here; avoiding sunlight, staying out late, sucking blood and what not. The weather is becoming more tolerable as we approach winter. It's in the 70's and 80's now but after July and August even temperatures around 105 seem cool. I have a cheap apartment in a good location, right on UNLV campus. It's not the Bellagio but it's close, literally 4 Las Vegas blocks. I still drive to work but on the weekends I can bike to anything I need. I plan on getting a smaller car for trips to the mountains though. Some of my liberal and conservative habits have changed along with ideas and ideals.

So anyway, that's life. Not always what you expect but generally good.

Buy it, use it, break it, fix it, Trash it, change it, melt-upgrade it

2007-07-05T13:53:00.000-07:00

I purchased a new computer this week and since it's 113°F outside I've been spending the days with it in Panera under the a/c. My old computer had become so unreliable I didn't want to do any work on it. At least that was my, I think justifiable, excuse. Everything was broken on it. I'll try not to spill coffee on this one. It feels good to have a dvd burner that I can back up my data on. Also, half the weight and a smaller size mean fewer bruised thumbs from picking up the computer with one hand.

It's been sometime since my last post. I'm still in Las Vegas, still working in the Mojave. One of my life goals since high school has always been to become an itinerant biologist and it's something I've spent 10 years in college to become. It's still a goal for me but the allure of a dependable income is hard to resist. Being out of school and with no serious notions of returning I am now faced with the necessity of creating an enjoyable career and lifestyle for myself in an economically sustainable way. So I've decided to stay on at USGS until the end of September to make a bit more money in a position I enjoy. Unfortunately, I seem to be increasing my spending lately so I'm going to have to get serious about my budget and stick to it to get my credit cards paid off. Once those cards are taken care of and I have some money cashed away I will feel at liberty to quit my job and move on to the next place.

Small living.

One big expense I am anticipating soon is an apartment. During the week I have and expansive desert floor and infinite ceilings but on the weekends I've been living in a mobile 32 square feet with 4 foot ceilings. Since I spend most of my time in the field sleeping under the stars, I felt it was unnecessary to depart with $500/month for a weekend shower. But with the extreme heat advisories lasting until midnight recently, I am beginning to seriously reconsider this position. I feel like a vampire here sometimes as I watch the sun creeping into my shade and I inch back to avoid frying alive. Hard plastics melt, fruit rots in a matter of hours, and trim is falling off of my truck.

It's been almost a year now since I had a permanent residence of my own. I've learned a lot from the experience. For example, I can shower with between two and three gallons of water. I've also learned that there are lots of other people that live in their cars. I'm still sleeping on the same full sized bed I was when I had an apartment and even when I had an apartment I didn't like spending time there so my life isn't that much different. My most missed conveniences are a private bathroom and kitchen.

Gandhi said "Live simply so that others may simply live." I try. I've been wondering if I would leave less of a footprint by not living in an apartment or by not driving. I think it's a toss up economically as well. Certain things just cost more if you can't purchase them in bulk. I'm considering joining the Small House Society. I believe I have an "unconventional spirit coupled with down-to-earth practicality". In contrast, the scale of things here in Vegas is ridiculous.

Other thoughts.

I had lost 25 pounds since moving to Nevada and reached an acceptable 159#, that was until Fourth of July BBQ and mild beverage consumption. The fireworks on the strip were disappointing but the Bellagio had an impressive water show with patriotic music. Work is still good. We've complete perennial surveys for burned habitat. Plant identification is sometimes frustrating. Soon we will be working on tortoises. Vegas will effect me much more than California did. I may need to wander.

Favorites of the moment;
casino: Mandala Bay
internet access point: Panera
internet tool: del.ic.ious
books: The Sun Also Rises, Religions of the World series by Chelsea House publishers
word: ridiculous
bands: Sexy Champions; Project Jenny, Project Jan; The Broken Remotes; Apes and Androids
Unexpected favorite drug of the moment: jäger and coke
plant: YUSH - Yucca shadigera
technical advancement: a/c
experience: Unexpectedly running into someone I know in town. Even better because I only know three people here.

P.S. -- Personal notes to distant friends:

Thanks to Mandy for posting the picture of us at graduation.
Sorry to Jeff, I am no longer planning to be in Colorado in August, maybe October.
Thanks for the comment Melinda. I'm not sure I'll ever have an affection for the desert the way a native would.
Chels, We will talk again someday, I promise.

Work and Travels

2007-05-25T14:29:00.000-07:00

I am finding it difficult to keep regular updates. My excuses are a sporadic schedule, travel, and a lack of discipline. But this weekend I get a five day weekend so I can't use those excuses. Today I am in Desert Hot Springs, CA visiting Ceri and pretty much being lazy, surfing the Internet.

Tacos y Más Tacos

Mexico was big fun. It was basically a taco run. I ate eleven tacos of five varieties at five different taco stands. So good.

Our trip took us down the 15 from Las Vegas to Tijuana, and then down Baja 1 to Ensenada where we stayed Friday night. We got a hotel at La Mision where for $40 we got two rooms and cable TV. We wasted an hour and a half on Los Simpsons and half of a Futurama. In Spanish Futurama was funnier. After some tacos we spent some time at the Jazz Cafe. I liked the dark, blotchy colors, the split levels, and the windows. The webpage is not the great.

Saturday we drove to San Felipe for más tacos and Cinco de Mayo. Cinco de Mayo was not celebrated. Instead, the prominent celebration was the Oscar de la Joya vs Merriweather fight. After tacos we walked on the beach and drew pictures in the sand. Anine wanted to see the fight so we walked around looking for a bar. We settled on a place with outside dining and view of the TVs. However, we were distracted by the night life and ended up watching very little of the fight.

Although there were quite a few tents set up on the beach in San Felipe, it was far too populated at midnight to expect to sleep without interruption so we drove north for a few miles until we found a campground on the beach. We made a fire and told a mix of true and untrue stories to each other.

Solvang

The next weekend was a trip to Solvang, CA for the Wine Country half marathon. I didn't run but Ceri and three of her family members did. The night before the run we ate at Pea Soup Anderson's. I had the bottomless bowl of pea soup which filled me after a single bowl. While the others ran I walked around Solvang looking for a coffee shop to buy a pastry and coffee. The locals hadn't heard that a half-marathon was scheduled for the weekend but luckily I was able to find a single coffee shop open next to the Hans Christian Anderson museum. Overheard conversation included a description of a firehouse BBQ where "Uncle Eddie", as in Eddie Van Halen, had sold a guitar for $12,000 to benefit the fire department. On Sunday, Chris purchased a motorcycle in Santa Barbara. Now I am contemplating taking a motorcycle safety class and getting my license.

Mojave Field Work

Work has been going well. We finished the annuals surveys two weeks ago and have been working on road restoration projects. These involve running a tape measure down a trail that had been restored by various treatments and counting all perennial plants that fall in the path. Specifically, we are looking for seedlings but these rare. Ideally there will be more in the treated areas than the untreated areas, indicating that the restoration is working. I'm not sure how the different treatments will compare but it seems like the best thing is just to keep the vehicles off the trail.

After 8 weeks working for USGS I am almost half way through my appointment. Hiking all week, sleeping under the stars, and generally being away from society has been good for my mental and physical health. I like the people I work with and I learn new things about the desert and desert plants every day. I have also lost nearly 20 pounds since starting work here. The heat hasn't been a problem with the highest temperature experienced so far at just 100 degrees. I drank 7 liters of water and gatoraide that day. The temperature drops to 50's and 60's fairly quickly after nightfall. During hot days we set up a tarp off the truck and break from noon to 3pm. Generally we read, write in our journals, eat and play games during this time.

I think it's funny that this truck has about 1500 miles on it and have already destroyed one running board.

Ok, I'm tired of being on the computer so I'm gonna quit writing. You will notice that I have posted some links to my galleries on the right. In keeping with my sporadic nature I have them spread out over three google accounts. Someday I plan to consolidate them into a single account.

2007-05-03T20:02:00.000-07:00

Hola todos,

Sorry for not posting last weekend. I went climbing at Red Rocks instead.

This weekend is Cinco de Mayo so I'm going to Baja with two of my workmates.

Hasta luego y Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

PS. Thanks for the dedication Jeff. I did read your post.

Mojave Week 3

2007-04-21T16:17:00.000-07:00

This week had it's ups and downs. I started Monday morning by being 40 minutes late to work. I still don't remember being told to be at work at 7. The hours were long and the weather variable.

Mojave Desert Week 3 Gallery

The first site we visited on Monday was in Meadow Valley. We were greeted to the site, and throughout the next two days, with slightly terrifying sonic booms made by planes that could vanish in front of your eyes. They stop flying at night, thankfully, and the only sounds are the wind and distant howls of coyotes.

This glutenous and slothful bumble bee was rolling around on his back in an opuntia flower and loving it.

On the way to our second site we saw a new development under construction at Coyote Springs. Although there are no houses built yet the golf course looked to be finished and the deep green of the grass stood out against the beige and tan everything else. They left one natural rock with some yucca on it for the entrance to the development. It was completely surreal and a perversity of nature.

Nevershine is at the end of the road in Parachant NM and is the most remote site we are working at for this project. It gets it's name from the layer of black basaltic rock on the cliff in this picture. I am thankful that I get to see places like this for work since I am not likely to go there on my own.

Here is an example of a quadrat. They are assigned randomly within the plot. Once my GPS shows that I have reached the correct coordinates I set the lower left corner at my toe and direct it towards the north. You might be able to see that all of the plants in the smaller rectangle have been plucked. The plants are identified, separated, and placed into bags labelled native, native seeded, and non-native. My impression is that most of the plants go into the non-native bag. The work is monotonous most of the time but there is excitement when a new plant is found and identified.

The two plants in this picture are both Bromus madritensis. Most of the plants look like the one on the right and are only a couple of hairs. This makes them difficult to see against the ground as well as hard to identify and to pick up. I often use a flat rock as a tool in excavating.

I also find joy in discovering insect constructions and little jewels of eggs; pearl, amber and gold spheres stuck to the undersides of leaves.

I learned last weekend that in addition to our regular pay, which is decent but I have enough debt to feel guilty spending any money at all, we get a per diem of $20 for the "inconvenience" of staying in the field. This news has made me happy all week. As I had been eating for about $35 per week I decided to spend a little more and venture a bit away from canned food. And why not spend that money on good food? On Thursday I made a wonderful meal of prepackaged gnocci and pesto with ciabatta and Vina Salamanca. It was delicious.

Friday had the worst weather with intermittent rain and temperatures around 50 degrees. I was wet and cold and my figures were like blocks. On the weekends I had been staying at Lake Mead and taking showers with my solar shower. This works ok, but the water only gets warm if you leave it in the sun for about 3 hours. This weekend I decided to join the YMCA. The hot shower and sauna are totally worth the $10 per week, and having spent only about half of my per diem on food I am not feeling guilty for this pleasure.

No Fixed Address

2007-04-15T19:37:00.000-07:00

Greetings from the Mojave,

I've been working for DOI-USGS-BRD-WERC-LVFS (That's a lot of letters) for two weeks now and I think I should probably give you an update before I head out again tomorrow for another week.

The first day I, and two others, had orientation and paper work, mostly paperwork, a trip to the police station for fingerprints, and a lot of racking my brain after my external memory (computer) crashed on me. The hardest part was that we needed a continuous history of employment, education and habitation, all with references for the past 5 years. No small feet for a bunch of vagabonds with no fixed address. They asked for a lot of names so don't be too surprised if an officer comes to your door and asks if you know who I am.

My first trip into the field involved me and my boss, Sara, driving around Grand Canyon-Parachant National Monument checking rain gauges. I'm told this is some of the most sparsely populated country in the lower 48. Although it is a National Monument the springs are still privately owned by families that have lived there for maybe centuries. At one point we passed the Whitney's homestead (of Mount Whitney fame) and Sara mentioned an episode when one of the sons offered to trade a much needed tire for one of female USGS employees. People who live in the desert are there for a reason, basically that they don't mesh well with society. After two days we had driven about 180 miles at about 30 miles per hour and hiked over 50 km.

The entire last week was spent at Coyote Springs located between the Las Vegas and Arrow Valley ranges on Hwy 93. The four of us have been picking annuals for most of the daylight hours. This involves splitting the plots up into an equal number of quadrats then heading off into different directions with our radios and GPS and sometimes not seeing each other again for the rest of the day. A quadrat is 1 square meter which we determine by laying a set of one meter dowels connected at the ends on the ground. Within this square we must identify every annual present and in the lower left corner we must pluck every annual in a .1 square meter area. I'll take a picture of it this week for illustration and describe it more fully next weekend.

The weather has been pleasantly cool, actually cold at times. The lowest temperature I recorded was 46 degrees in the middle of the night. From Tuesday to Friday it was cold and windy often with partial cloud cover. I forgot to put sunscreen on one day now have a strange tan line similar to black paws on a white kitten. Although at the time it was hard to tell how much was dirt and how much was sun. This desert is hard on equipment too. I popped my therm-a-rest Wednesday night but used it again on Thursday night anyway. I'm also expecting to need new pants and possibly shoes by the end of the summer.

We don't stay up too long in the evenings. If there is still daylight we play hackysack or Kongki Noli. Then we eat, write in our field books, and read. This week I intend compose text that I will transcribe here.

In short, work is pretty great. I am happy to be doing biology work and I am getting paid to be outside. You can look forward to weekly updates from me from now on.

Have a good week all.

Bryant

A Thinking Blog

2007-03-27T20:05:00.000-07:00

Think

First of all, I want to thank Mandy for nominating my blog for a Thinking Blogger award. Also, happy birthday. Mandy is a very prolific writer, which does not dilute the overall intelligence of her writing at all. Her posts often motivate my mental matrix in ways in which it wouldn't otherwise get exercise.

Here's how the thinking blogger meme works:

If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to five blogs that make you think.
Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.
Optional: Proudly display the Thinking Blogger Award with a link to the post that you wrote (available in silver or gold version).

So I will nominate:

Jeff - For years I enjoyed reading Jeff's mass emails. Then blogs appeared and now the rest of the world is invited to read what Jeff has to say. He often posts about Christian responsibilities, the environment, justice and poverty.
Daniel - A litterateur as well as a connoisseur of food and drink.
Melinda - Thinking about Africa.
Scott - Generally insightful and observant commentary on life.
Egle - because her blog is in Spanish and reading that takes thinking... So I haven't actually read that much of it.

In other news

Yesterday was a net zero profit day for me at work. I only made two deliveries. The first one had the wrong address on it and while I was figuring out the correct address, by the help of a professor of medicine in the Mayo Building, I got a parking ticket for $36. So I was a half our late delivering the food and got no tip. Five hours later I've made enough in my hourly wages to pay for my ticket and I make my second delivery for a $2.80 tip. An additional two hours of work increases my income by $14 which I promptly turn over to the cinema.

The good news is that I quit working for Milio's today.

Ceri and I watched Inland Empire at the Oak Street Cinema. It was pretty good. I liked it better then Twin Peaks.

What else?

I'm headed to Vegas for the summer. I'm leaving Minneapolis on the 28th and arriving in Vegas on the 1st of April. You can see my planned route here.

I'm planning to stop in Lincoln Thursday evening. Lincoln may be the closest to home as anywhere and I'm interested to see how it has changed. I haven't been there since I left for California 3 years ago. I wonder if they demolished the apartment Karen and I lived in on 19th st. The City owned the building by the time we moved out and, knowing that they were just going to tear it down, we through a party and painted the walls.

Graffiti Party 2003

What is my summer job?

After not finding much in the way of field biology in Minnesota, I started applying to jobs I found on list serves that paid well. One of them liked my resume and interview and offered me a job. It's for the US Geological Survey - Western Ecological Research Center http://www.werc.usgs.gov/ . There are two basic projects that I am helping on. WERC is looking at the effects of alien (non-native, invasive) grasses and at the effects of off-road vehicle trails in the Mojave Desert. Both are basically interested in restoration of the desert after disturbance.

I'm excited about this because it's 80% field work and 20% greenhouse. It's also for the USGS which will be good for getting more jobs at the USGS.

California Deserts

2007-03-18T09:29:00.000-07:00

Steve Jobs introduces the iRack

2007-03-12T07:29:00.000-07:00

More snow

2007-03-01T19:12:00.000-08:00

It's snowing again. We are supposed to get another foot or so tomorrow.

That is my mom's canoe ulocked to the cloths line. I forgot the paddles and life jackets so it may as well be under snow.

Ceri is trying to move her car to the other side of the road without removing the snow from the windows.

I could be shoveling tomorrow for $15/hr but I am going to work at Milio's for $7 because they will give me hours beyond tomorrow.

Tomorrow I'm going to have to take an order over the phone. I'm a little anxious about that. But if I'm luck enough to be making deliveries I won't have to take orders.

Working at Milio's isn't too bad. Everyone I've met is nice so that is something it has going for it. I guess I was a bit more lucky than Wendy with my crew. I made a run with another delivery drive today, to see how it is done, and we had a good conversation about our respective degrees. He has an anthropology degree and is applying to grad school. He was interested in species concepts and in my research so that was cool. The manager I worked with today was a biology major until she started having kids. I guess her little boy wants to be an ornithologist when he grows up.

2007-02-28T19:55:00.000-08:00

Today I joined the prestigious ranks of the aging, over-educated delivery drivers. If you have a hankering for a sandwich, and you live in dinky town, just give me a call. Yes it is depressing. Especially since it won't pay enough to cover my bills, let alone pay down my enormous credit card and school loan debt, or even allow me to get my own apartment. It does have the potential to fit into my portfolio career as the semi-stable 15-20 hour per week position. Needless to say, I continue the job search. I still have hopes of finding a summer field position, even though I've been turned down at every consulting firm I know of in the Twin Cities Metro so far. Sometimes I think I made a mistake in going to grad school and other times I think I am just going to have to get my PhD. At least I get a free sandwich at the end of each shift. I hope they are good sandwiches.

2007-02-20T08:33:00.000-08:00

Now that I've run it out I guess I can let you in on the latest in Internet sitcoms. Now that it is so last week, and I've out grown it before it became really popular, I can let you in. The Burg is a hipster indie tv serious about five friends from Williamsburg that listen to emo and go to bars named after what they used to be to drink PBR in a can because it's ironic and funny.

I think it's hilarious. I've seen all the episodes now and am eagerly anticipating episode 11. You can watch them in any order but it's best if you start at the beginning.

Backyard Bird Count

2007-02-17T10:49:00.000-08:00

This weekend is the Great Backyard Bird Count.

I rode my bike to the an island where I was watching robins the other day. I didn't see any robins there today though, just two cardinals and two chickadees.

Riding over snow with slicks is not as hard as riding through sand.

I tried to digiscope a downy wookpecker but just missed her. She's in the top right corner of the image.

A cardinal is taking some of my offering of 3 week old bread heels.

More Frozen Goodness

2007-02-12T16:16:00.000-08:00

The warm weather this weekend brought lots of people out to recreate on Lake Calhoun.

Fishermen, people walking their dogs, cross country skiiers doing laps on the lake, and a hockey game at one end of the lake.

Lake Calhoun

Never saw a frozen waterfall

2007-02-08T21:28:00.000-08:00

It warmed up to 8 degrees today so we decided to go for a stroll in the park.

I guess Ceri never thought about frozen waterfalls despite her preoccupation with the weather. This was her first.

Minnehaha Falls after two weeks of highs ranging from 20-45 degrees below freezing.

The blue just isn't the same on the computer screen.

It was actually pretty cold out so we took some pictures and then warmed up with some coffee.

Mexican Proof Fence

2006-12-15T17:43:00.000-08:00

So, if we build a fence at the USA-Mexico border to keep out illegal immigrants, um.... who will build the fence? Golden State Fence might be working themselves out of a job.

Career and Christmas lists

2006-12-01T20:04:00.000-08:00

My last post was from Montana and I there is a pretty good story of why I was there and how I got to where I am now. Maybe I'll be able to tell it next weekend when I have more time.

The Porfolio Career

The last couple of weeks I have been in Loma Linda, CA working pretty much non-stop on my thesis. Its amazing the amount of work that goes into one of these things. It has made me wonder why I ever wanted to be a biologist in the first place. I don't really have time to writing a post to my blog, I have a draft due to the Graduate School office on Monday morning, but I have spent half of my day trying to make my figures look nice in Illustrator with little success ("fatal error, not enough memory") and I need a brake.

So I'm not really considering giving up on biology, but I am going to have to think about maintaining a positive cash flow in some way after I graduate. I have recently come across the concept of the "Portfolio Career" which I think may be just for me. It is a term that was coined in the 90's to describe the increasing mobile and decreasingly blue collar American work force. There really are no garaunteed 30 year career type jobs anymore, my father was laid off from Case IH twice. So the portfolio career is more plastic allowing the employee slave individual more control over their schedule and the direction of there cv. In theory it is indivualised, reflecting your interests and personality. Instead of the one job you have multiple part-time and/or temporary positions combined with self employment and profitable hobbies. Actually, a lot of positions I have been seeing in biology are 3-6 months or maybe a year, so this may be for me. It sounds like fun (better than a dreary 40 hour work week), which is why I wanted to become a biologist.

So I've been thinking up the perfect cocktail of profitable/semiprofitable employment for after graduating. I think the ideal portfolio career for me includes the following.

15-20 hrs/week at a semi-stable part-time job with a real employer, preferably with benefits.

co-op, landscaping, coffee shop (Starbuck offers health insurance to parttime employees)

20-40 hrs/week consulting

I really enjoy consulting.

Run a small research farm

I am interested in ways to increase profitability for part time farmers in urban and suburban areas.

Research - as much as I am hating writing. I still kind of feel a pull towards research.
Teaching - I would like teach a class or two at a community college
Temporary field work around the country.
I would like to work on waterfowl migration tracking and counting in Nebraska

owl surveys sound fun
I have a friend that worked with eagles in Arizona
These are pretty competitive so I just have keep applying until I get one

Local issues

bike paths, public transit, greenways, public gardens

Although, not a requirement of the portfolio career, I think most of the things on my list are related and would contribute to an ecology and sustainability themed CV.

Christmas list

Now of the second part of my post that I wanted to get out to people. Some people have been wondering about what to get me for Christmas. Please don't buy me anything. Jeff has written a very important and informative post about the state of poverty/wealth on this planet. Here is a song i like to illustrate it. That's part of the reason I ask for nothing. Another is that I already have more things than I can carry with me and I really don't want any more things until I have a place to put them.

However, some people can't help themselves so I will provide you with a list of things that I will accept without immediately re-gifting.

Free or almost free things - for friends and family that weren't planning to get me anything but now are because I'm asking you for it:

* Plant a tree for me -- Send me a picture and a location of where the tree is. Try to plant something native to the region you are in. Something that will live 10-20 years

$25-$50 for friends and family that were actually planning to buy me something

* Gift certificate to KIVA.org - A $25 gift certificate here will become part of a micro-loan to a small business owner in a 3rd world country. After 18months, if the loan doesn't go in default. I will be able to withdraw the money or re-loan it to another needy business person.
* A lift ticket to Whistler.

>$50 - This one is for the complete stranger that is feeling generous

* An acre (more or less is fine) of land. Just looking for a place to grow a little food and put my stuff from the last 27 Christmases.
* A job - preferably something like I talked about in the beginning of this post.

Ok, I've wasted enough time. Back to my figures.

Montana

2006-11-07T16:30:00.000-08:00

Things that are a waste of time

2006-10-27T16:22:00.000-07:00

The Google

2006-10-26T09:05:00.001-07:00

We think this is funny.

BUSH: Occasionally. One of the things I’ve used on the Google is to pull up maps. It’s very interesting to see — I’ve forgot the name of the program — but you get the satellite, and you can — like, I kinda like to look at the ranch. It remind me of where I wanna be sometimes. link

Things that are Food

2006-10-24T18:47:00.000-07:00

Which of these things is not food?

Waldon Pond and New England

2006-10-21T11:00:00.000-07:00

In the beginning of September I went to Boston to collect some data at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology. I stayed at the Boston Backpacker's Youth Hostel on Friend street, which I would recommend despite being hit on by the manager. The place has a dozen names so it's more important to know that it's on Friend street at North Station.

I had never been east of New York City before so after my work was finished I wanted to see what else there was to see. I decided to rent a car and drive for a couple days. That turned out to be way more expensive than I had expected. Between the airline ticket, car rental and hostel I could have driven my own truck there for cheaper.

I picked up my car at 1pm on Saturday with 48 hours and unlimited miles to see New England. My goal was to visit Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.

Walden Pond
I went directly to Concord to see Walden Pond. Ceri asked me, "So that must be kind of a pilgrimage for you, huh?" It's the birthplace of Ecology, environmentalism and American naturalist thinking/writing. Looking at a bird book I had purchased at the Harvard Bookstore I discovered that David Allen Sibley lives in Concord as well. I am a biologist that believes that ecological balance is the most important issue for our survival. So, I guess it really was a pilgrimage.

I wasn't quite sure what to think actually. It was $5 to enter the parking lot with no guarantee of actually find a place to park. After finding a questionable parking spot I packed my lunch and binoculars into my backpack and set off through the woods in the wrong direction.

My immidiate reaction was that this was far from the solitude Thoreau must have experienced. About 500,000 people visit every year. It was difficult to take a picture of the pond without a swimmer or kayak in the water. It's kind of crazy.

I walked around the pond, most of which was fenced off because of erosion on the banks. Some people were jumping the fence to get to the water. I wasn't sure if Thoreau would have approved or not.

Mostly I was thinking about how things had changed in the past 160 years. At the time Thoreau moved there it was the only spot of woods left with most of the surrounding area having been deforested for lumber and conversion to agriculture. The area around Walden was too sandy for agriculture and so was spared. Today it seems like there a quite a lot of trees to there might actually be more forested. I had always thought of Thoreau as living in solitude for the two years he was there but in reality, he was only a couple miles from town and his parent's land. It was a 10 minute walk to the rail road. Today that rail road is a commuter rail and probably sees less traffic now than when it was used for mail and freight.

New England

When I saw Thoreau's cabin the first thing I thought was, "I could live here." It was pretty much perfect. On further thought though, I am a bit more of a materialist than Thoreau and would need another building to store my bike and climbing gear and what have you. But presently, I have almost all of my stuff in a 5x5 storage unit so I think I could get buy with only a slightly larger building. If only I could just find some land to build on.

So that's what Walden Pond was like for me.

New England

I was wanting to get to Portland, Maine that night so I only spent two hours at Walden Pond. The drive to Maine is short but it actually took me about 6 hours to get there. I made the silly mistake of taking the surface road rather than pay the toll on the interstate. In New England the average speed limit is 35 is seems. It has a way of testing your patience.

I slept in the trunk of the rental car in a Denny's parking lot in Portland. It was quite comfortable actually. Portland is on a sort of peninsula and has a bike path running most of the way around it. The next morning I got up and walked on the path watching birds and people walking their dogs. Portland I quite nice, I wouldn't mind living there sometime.

At around noon I started toward the white mountains in New Hampshire. There are no interstates in that direction so it was once again very slow traveling. I was able to stay calm by listening to NPR. Click and Clack accompanied me to the Mt. Washington vistas.

The rest of the trip was driving and little stopping. As slow as I was going I thought I should just head back to Boston. But I stayed focused on the goal traveling down I-91 in Vermont to I-89 back into New Hampshire and listening to the episode of This American Life where Diane Cook's boyfriend Jorge doesn't want to be "That Guy" and John Hodgeman describes his experience at the Mall of America. I slept at Walmart in Manchester.

As I drove south into Massechusets the next day it was it was 9am and I knew there wasn't enough time to go to Connecticut and Rhode Island, but it was only like 40 miles away and the goal was to go to the states I hadn't been to before. So I drove through about 5 miles of Connecticut, got lost in Providence, RI and the whole time I was watching the clock and gas tank pushing to get back to the rental place before 1pm Monday. I was speeding towards Boston and thought I would have a good 1hr and 15min before my car was due back, but no, I got lost like 4 times just trying to find the place. It was very frustrating. At one point I could see the parking lot where I needed to get to but there was a fence across the road. It was really unbelievable how far I had to drive to get to the other side of the fence. Boston is full of one ways and crooked streets 5 or 6 point intersections. Don't drive in Boston if at all possible. I got to the rental place at 12:59 and thought I would be fine. But I had to use the restroom and the screwed me in the end. When I gave my receipt to the lady to check me in it was 1:05 and I had to pay for another day of insurance and an hour of car rental, which happens to be only half the price of a full day rental.

So, I guess it's nice to have seen all of those states but it cost way too much. Over all I really liked the northeast. I would like to go back to hike in the mountians. I'm pretty sure renting a car is something I never want to do again with my own money.

All your space are belong to U.S.

2006-10-19T11:39:00.000-07:00

Dear Leader,

In your infinite wisdom and benevolence you are supremely qualified to exert absolute authority in this world and all others.

In these terribly dangerous times I am assured that I am safer because you are my leader. You recognized the need for a 700 mile fence to restrict brown people from entering this country (as well as threatening coyotes, leopards, pumas and much other wildlife). This is probably preferable to sending aid to Mexico to encourage people to stay there rather than emigrate to the US.

You tell me that terrorism is less of a problem now than ever before because "Our Enemies Have Not Succeeded In Launching Another Attack On Our Soil" and "our enemies are evil and kill without mercy." This is enough for me to know, facts would be confusing and might undermine the efficacy of your work. I feel ashamed to know about your beneficial programs like domestic wiretapping and secret prisons. I have no right to know about these and my only hope is that my knowledge of this hasn't compromised my safety.

I know that the Geneva conventions are quite vague about the definition of torture. This probably stems from the difficulty in many people attempting come to a consensus about the issues. Of course if only one person were to define torture then there would be 100% consensus. You should be this person. A side benefit is that your infallibility renders the need for habeas corpus obsolete.

Because of your example I feel confident that the US is in the moral highground in asserting control of all of space.

"Consistent with this policy, the United States will preserve its rights, capabilities and freedom of action in space … and deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to U.S. national interests." ABC and here

Richard Branson might have issues but as a white Englishman we will want to work with him. I'm sure as he is a super capitalist and non-islamic there won't be any problems aside from his environmental record.

As a lowely patriotic American it is not my place to make suggestions to you, my only hope is that you will find a way to change the term limits so that you can stay in office for longer than the short 8 years the they give you.

May democracy rule over all people, forever.

Knoppix saved my life

2006-10-18T20:58:00.000-07:00

Hello again. I'm feeling a bit guilty for "lurking" and not commenting on others blogs or writing on my own blog. I've been using Google Reader lately which makes it very easy to see when any of you have updated your blogs. So here is a little update about me.

This last weekend I almost lost two and a half months worth of work on my thesis because I hadn't backed it up in that long. On Thursday I got a virus or something and Windows wouldn't start for me. I was able to use Knoppix to retrieve my files before I formatted my hard drive. I finally got everything back to function on Monday. So it ended up taking about four days to do all that. Lesson learned: back up files. Also, I'm thinking about quiting windows and moving to Ubuntu after I finish school.

Currently, I am waiting to hear back about a job I interviewed for at the Minnesota DNR. I am confident that I could do the work and enjoy it, but there were 7 others, who I didn't meet, but I assume were equally qualified as I am. So I guess I have a 12.5% chance of getting the job. Maybe I should have pleaded. If you are Karen and found my blog during the background check, it's been two weeks and I wouldn't mind if you contacted me to let me know one way or the other.

If I do not get the job I will start making plans to return to Loma Linda to defend my thesis. Hopefully I will also be able to make a little money while I am in California as well.

Thanks to Hanne Beldin, and much to Ceri's dismay, I acquired two Siamese cats which I am to transport to my mother in Portland, OR....somehow. They are very friendly cats and are hardly satisfied until they have your compete attention.

Coming soon:

The conclusion of my trip to New England, pictures and thoughts about Walden Pond.
Thoughts on ethanol/biodiesel, hydrogen and electricity for transportation needs.
Webpages that interest me lately.

Copyright

2006-10-07T07:22:00.000-07:00

I seem to be making a habit of reposting from other blogs or webpages lately. I guess it's not as bad as forwarding an email but is still seems a little weird.

Anyway, here is something I found on Accuweather.com, of all places. I have to post it because it's hilarious.

Metaphors For The Ages
Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Regular blog contributor Andrew sent this along, and I couldn't help but beg him to let me post it here. As many of you know, I am a huge nerd about language and vocabulary, and I have also been known to pretend like I am a writer every now and again. I know if I went back and dug up my old stories from when I was a kid or a teenager, they'd probably be chock-full of ridiculous comparisons, similies and analogies. So we're taking a break from the weather talk today and here are some great similes, metaphors and analogies from some of the country's creative teenage geniuses. (My personal faves are in bold!)

"Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country. Here are last year's winners.....

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2.. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie,surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.
19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
20. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

21. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

22. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

23. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

24. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up. "
Updated: 9/27/2006 12:25 PM

Actionable Intelligence

2006-10-06T17:40:00.000-07:00

It's too bad Clinton didn't leave a strategy to remove Osama bin Laden but only a list of actionable items. And then if only bin Laden hadn't been hiding behind the Taliban. Maybe the Bush administration could have done something to prevent 9/11/2001.

Minneapolis Light

2006-10-01T11:44:00.000-07:00

Minneapolis Light

click for slideshow
Sep 28, 2006 - 12 Photos

Photography by Bryant Reynolds
Soundtrack by Zero7

I miss Clinton

2006-09-26T14:24:00.000-07:00

I didn't pay much attention to politics before I was in college. I vaguely remember a lot of amazingly good enivronmental stuff as Clinton was leaving office. Looking back at how he balanced the budget, decreased unemployment, maintained good relations with other countries, and inproved environmental regulations, I miss him. What was it about America in 1992 that allowed us to elect such a brilliant man?

This weekend Mr. Clinton went on Fox News Sunday for the first time ever to talk about how he raised $7billion for his Global Initiative, combat global warming and poverty. He got ambushed with a question about Osama bin Laden. This is great! Listen to how you can clearly understand what he is saying, unlike Bush.

And then this commentary on MSNBC.

2006-09-24T09:03:00.000-07:00

Manakins are awesome.

Mississippi Wild

2006-09-19T08:19:00.000-07:00

Yeah! They are thinking about letting the Mississippi run wild again. Well sort of, I guess they are only willing to let the bird foot delta portion of the Mississippi return to more like it's natural state. I'm sure it will be much more controlled than it's natural history of channal movement and wetland building. In reality the whole coast of Louisiana needs help but this is still significant news and a step in the right direction. It would save 120 million tons of soil from being wasted from agriculture run-off into the ocean every year (soil which would be better off staying in farmers fields if you want my opinion) as well decrease the size of the "death zone" which is and area of hypoxia off the Louisiana coast essentially a man made problem.

I took the cannoli

2006-09-08T08:23:00.000-07:00

I have been enjoying my time in Boston. I've been traveling around the North End mostly and taking a lot of pictures. You may have seen some of them in my last two posts. There are more here. I hope my camera battery holds out until I return to Minnesota.

On Tuesday I purchased a book from Booksmart anticipating my trip. I was originally going to buy "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan but then saw "Collapse" by Jared Diamond and lost interest in Sagan. I had already started reading "Collapse" but also, I am a big fan of Diamond and I new I could stay interested in the book. I also considered Sarah Vowell briefly, I've already started some of her books as well. Collapse has been interesting but now as I'm wondering along the Freedom Trail I wish I had chosen Vowell.

Another book I should have bought, in retrospect, was an Italian phrase book. It didn’t occur to me that I would need one but this morning I wondered into a pastry shop looking for some breakfast and was unable to ascertain the contents of a certain lobstertail. My mind immediately started wondering how I it could be possible that I completely lack any understanding of basic Italian. Apparently, it was a poor decision anyway because I ended up leaving with something of seemingly similar consistency but half the size and shape of the lobstertail. I also got a chocolate filled cannoli which I guess I may have never had before.

I made great time at the Museum of Comparative Zoology yesterday and completed my work in one day. Having planned to work for two days I now have a free day in Boston and have been thinking about what to do. There are many museums and galleries and tours and boat trips to go on but with entrance fees of between $20 and $30 I’ve decided the cheapest thing for me to do is eat. And there is plenty of eating to do; pizza, calzones, gnocci, cannoli, gelati. I’m a little worried about gaining back some of the almost ten pounds that I lost on our journey from California to Minnesota, but with all the walking I’ve been doing here it’ll probably balance out. I think it's funny that so many restaurants advertise "Italian food" because, really, what else are they going to serve.

Presently, I'm sitting in the window of the Boston Beanstock Coffee Co. watching a traffic officer consider an illegally parked Chevy Avalanche. She points to the people sitting outside with her pen, eyebrows raised and a curious frown. The coffee drinkers shake their heads. She looks across the street to a large, gray haired barber. He shrugs, his palms out. She points at the barista. He doesn’t know and makes a half hearted attempt to alert his customers. After going next door, and asking everyone in sight on the street, she reluctantly prints a ticket and continues up the street.

Tomorrow, I’ll rent a car and see other parts of New England. My first stop is Walden Pond and then on to Portland, Maine. I’ll stop at a couple places on the coast and look for migrating seabirds, then camp in the mountains in Vermont.

2006-09-07T17:13:00.000-07:00

2006-09-06T17:40:00.000-07:00

California to Minnesota

2006-08-30T11:02:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from our trip to Minnesota.

Loma Linda to Minneapolis

Aug 11, 2006 - 57 Photos

From Fish Creek Canyon

2006-06-22T22:41:00.000-07:00

California Coastal Newt (Taricha torosa)

2006-06-20T21:14:00.000-07:00

Nora and Chayses Wedding 2

2006-06-20T21:12:00.000-07:00

Nora and Chayse's Wedding

2006-06-20T21:10:00.000-07:00

Willow Lake Park, Prescott, AZ

2006-06-20T21:05:00.000-07:00

Hoover Dam

2006-06-20T21:01:00.000-07:00

Heading West

2006-06-19T09:49:00.000-07:00

Ceri's hot.

Señor Swede

2006-06-11T21:51:00.000-07:00

Mexico 3 - Iran 1

Saturday

2006-06-11T21:26:00.000-07:00

Lake Hemet

Idyllwild

Sparklers

The Week in Pictures -- Thursday

2006-06-10T10:34:00.000-07:00

Chocolate tasting party.

The Week in Pictures -- Tuesday

2006-06-10T10:28:00.000-07:00

The Week in Pictures -- Monday

2006-06-10T10:25:00.000-07:00

Department of Earth and Biological Sciences Awards Banquet

Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

2006-05-06T22:08:00.000-07:00

En la celebración del día fui a Versailles. Es un restaurante del comida Cubano en Los Angeles y es ¡buenisimo! Tenía frijoles negros y arroz, plátanos dulces, fritos, y yuca adobado . ¡Que delicioso! Entonces, mientras que volvía a casa, escuché el salsa en la radio en me coche.

También, fui a un simposio del loro. Más en eso más adelante.

Estoy apesadumbrado para no responder a tus comentarios. Quizás, escribiré más mañana.

Saludos,
Bryant

Lavamatica Fantastica

2006-05-04T09:31:00.000-07:00

Fast Food versus Good Food

2006-04-25T09:06:00.000-07:00

I guess I’m still on the Earth Day theme. I think I need to write about this though, since it is perplexing to me. And I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks about these issues. (I have been thinking about more science and religion based posts, Mandy. So I’ll get to those soon.)

On Sunday I went birding with my professor and student/classmate. The birding was good and I made a significant start on my lifelist with 78 new birds. You can see the results at my new birding webpage. It’s very simple and I didn’t proof read it.

At one point we started talking about fast food and Walmart. If you’ve seen the “No War: Nebraskans for Peace” sign in my car you might imagine which side of the debate I came down on against these two Californians. Humanitarian issues aside, why would you want to buy crap just because it is cheap so you can afford to buy more crap? On a certain level I can understand the appeal if you are poor. Fast food and Walmart do make things very cheap and I can’t argue with that. But I make $6000/year and somehow I can afford to buy whole wheat bread. Sure I could buy two or three loaves of white bread for the same price but I guess I would prefer to eat less food of a higher quality, and I’m not starving. In the long run it might save money in health costs. Seriously, why should I go to Del Taco to eat some flimsy little taco of questionable appeal and support some millionaire CEO when I can eat the delicious Pablo special at Maria’s and support the local entrepreneurs?

Is there anyway to instill a since of pride in someone’s life?

PS. On a similar note, I would recommend to everyone to use compact florescent light bulbs instead of the incandescent bulbs. They may cost twice as much but they will save you about $200 in electricity over the 8 year life of the bulb. In the same amount of time you may need to replace an incandescent bulb 10-15 times so really you are saving quite a lot of money by using the compact florescent bulbs.

Happy Earth Day!

2006-04-22T12:39:00.000-07:00

Today is Earth Day. I hope it is good for you.

Here are some picture of the earth that I have taken.

These are some more pictures I took of the Loma Linda Hills last weekend. The hills are in real danger from real estate developers.

We should remember that we are not independent of our environment but depend on the earth for our lives. It is more important than ever that we recognize the impact humans are having on the earth. In 1850 there were 150 glaciers in glacier national park in Montana while today there are only 35. Sea rise will effect the 70% of the worlds human population that lives on coastland.

Religious obligations
For those of you who are SDA and going to church today. I hope your pastor is giving a sermon about the importance of respecting God's creation.

It is the belief of the Seventh-day Adventist Church that humankind was created in the image of God, and is thus to represent God as His steward and to manage the natural environment in a faithful and fruitful way. Nature is a gift from God.

...

Seventh-day Adventists advocate a simple, wholesome lifestyle, where people do not step on the treadmill of unbridled consumerism, goods-getting, and production of waste. We call for respect of creation, restraint in the use of the world's resources, reevaluation of one's needs, and reaffirmation of the dignity of created life. (Statement on Stewardship of the Environment)

Many of the things we can do to protect air and water quality have direct influence on our health as well. Here are some suggestions of ways you can be responsible.

Be involved

Purchase your food from local markets. Try making your own meals rather than buying processed foods.
Recycle your old cell phones with Sprint.

Simply print the pre-paid mailing label, put it on a box with your phone and mail it.

Vote and be involved in your local and national government.
Recycle as much as you can.
Compost your kitchen waste rather than using fertilizer in your garden.
With gas over $3/gallon it will save you money as well as your health to drive less this summer.

Consider riding a bicycle and/or public transportation
Economize your travel by making fewer trips
Consider buying a fuel efficient car

Education

Take a tour of the earth with environmental and climate lessons on Google Earth. If you don't know about Google Earth, it's freakin' cool, and free.
Or watch videos about why polar bears should be on the endangered species list or melting glaciers in Everast National Park.
Learn more about responsible living at the EPA webpage

Here are a few more pictures.

New Shoes!

2006-04-21T10:16:00.000-07:00

I bought some new shoes yesterday.

They are the same as the ones I had before except that they are red and have about 500 fewer miles on them. There were also on sale because New Balance has changed the design. I'm hopeing they will give my feet more cushion so they will stop hurting.

Sunflower

2006-04-15T18:28:00.000-07:00

Religious Confirmation of Science

2006-04-12T23:31:00.000-07:00

Here is a paper I wrote last week. I got a good score so it might be worth posting here. If you find it thought provoking, please comment.

Introduction

Science and Religion are two epistemological disciplines claiming to provide true knowledge of the universe. Science claims to ascertain the truth through observation while religion approaches it through a system of beliefs.

Study of the relationship between science and religion can be approached from at least four different perspectives. They are, in roughly chronological order of development ("The relationship between religion and science", 2006), that the two are; in “conflict” and directly oppose each other, in “contrast” and simply have nothing to offer each other, in “contact” and influencing each other, or that religion “confirms” science encouraging its existence (Haught, 1995).

I agree with Haught’s (1995) opinion that religion has “confirmed” or encouraged science. I think it does this by; using religious language that encourages scientific study and by awakening inquiry in its followers and providing ideas for new directions in scientific research.

Counter Argument

The conflict perspective is most directly in opposition to the confirming perspective. Proponents of the conflict thesis claim that religion and science are completely at odds. They claim that religion can not back-up its claims or that science has robbed society of its values and meaning.

Those that depict science and religion as a battle have many examples of hostile acts to support them in the form of warfare and executions. They also claim that pollution and depletion of our natural resources are direct consequences of science.

But these are difficult arguments to understand because science generally does not deal with issues of morality. Additionally, science is not responsible for our actions or what we do with our knowledge; it is simply a tool for discovering truth.

Most people do not fault Einstein for the development of the atom bomb and nuclear weapons, even though he discovered quantum theory which made it possible.

My Argument

Religious Language

I think religion awakens scientific inquiry in individuals through the language that it uses. It has encouraged a basic interest in science at the level of natural observation for thousands of years.

Thousands of years before the dawn of modern science, there was encouragement from religion to make observations of the natural world. Numerous examples in the Bible invite us to observe nature. The Book of Job, which is considered the oldest story in the Bible, asks, "Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn? Do you count the months till they bear? Do you know the time they give birth?” (Job 39:1-2 New International Version). Today, many have called nature “God’s second book’ and we are encouraged to enjoy nature as an acceptable way to observe the Sabbath.

Inquiry

I believe religion awakens inquiry in our minds and gives direction to our scientific studies.
Some cutting edge science has been motivated by religious beliefs and a desire to understand the miracles related in the Bible. Recently, a group of physical oceanographers were interested in how Jesus may have been able to walk on water. They concluded that it was physically possible for ice thick enough to walk on to have been formed in the Sea of Galilea at that time (Nof, McKeague, & Paldor, 2006).

Conclusion

In conclusion, I reassert that religion does encourage a mentality of creativity and observation by using language that encourages its followers to observe nature and be scientists and by seeding minds with ideas and questions to test.
In the future I propose that we increase education in both secular and religious schools about the true relationship between science and religion. Often we discover that the most staunch opposition to one or the other discipline comes from people that are mostly ignorant to the respective subject. We can also encourage our religious leaders to facilitate tolerance amongst religious congregations towards science, in our churches and at religious functions.

References

Haught, J. F. (1995). Science and religion : from conflict to conversation. New York: Paulist Press.

Nof, D., McKeague, I., & Paldor, N. (2006). Is there a paleolimnological explanation for 'walking on water' in the Sea of Galilee? [Electronic version]. Journal of Paleolimnology, 35(3), 417-439.

The relationship between religion and science. (March 23, 2006). Retrieved April, 4 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Relationship_between_religion_and_science

"Sometimes you do take your life in your hands going certain places and it's very unpredictable, but that's thrill of it, the excitement of it all."

2006-04-11T22:40:00.000-07:00

Ceri has been told that San Bernardino is at the top of her list for places to move to. She may have some statistics on her side as far as weather goes but overall it's not that great. I had to take the test for myself to see what kind of misleading questions could possibly suggest that anyone would want to live in San Bernardino. Maybe they don't know there aren't any orange groves here any more.

My results were a bit surprising. I never really thought of myself as an easterner before, but 9 of my top 24 cities are in New England. Perhaps that wouldn't be so bad considering the universal health care plan proposed for Massachusetts. I would qualify for free insurance because I'm am so poor I can't afford to pay attention. Actually, I'm poor enough that they doubled my tax return. Sweet!
Also, 11 of my cities were in common with Ceri's cities including my top 5, meaning it's not completely hopeless for us to live in the same city. I had completely expected to have no cities in common with her. I kind of think their database of cities is small enough that some of them have to overlap just because we both chose living by a university as a requirement.

Here are my cities. Try it for yourself and see if you are living where these people think you should be living.

1. Hartford, Connecticut
2. Sheboygan, Wisconsin
3. Eugene, Oregon
4. Danbury, Connecticut
5. Corvallis, Oregon
6. Providence, Rhode Island
7. Johnson, Vermont
8. Portland, Oregon
9. Medford, Oregon
10. Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts
11. Brattleboro, Vermont
12. Albuquerque, New Mexico
13. Salem, Oregon
14. New Haven, Connecticut
15. Worcester, Massachusetts
16. Charleston, West Virginia
17. Reno, Nevada
18. Eau Claire, Wisconsin
19. Oshkosh-Appleton/Neenah, Wisconsin
20. La Crosse, Wisconsin
21. Fayetteville, Arkansas
22. Elkins, West Virginia
23. Little Rock, Arkansas
24. Middlebury, Vermont

Urgent News!

2006-04-05T01:02:00.002-07:00

My Gramma sent me an email with some information that very urgently requires your attention, at least for those of us that feel cheated if we forget to watch our odometers rollover on certain milestones. Soon we will witness the passage of 01:02:03 04/05/06. This will probably never happen again for Christians and those who believe in a "tropical year". But there is good news, if you convert to Islam within the next approximately 603 years. Then you might witness it twice.

"Man has always assumed that he is more intelligent than the dolphin..."

2006-04-04T19:31:00.000-07:00

For those of you that liked Milk Gone Wild.

Consumer blunder

2006-04-02T15:15:00.000-07:00

I've needed a new bottle of imitation syrup for about 4 months and today I decided to buy some. Some syrup bottles have a nice spout that doesn't drip and I was contemplating getting the Stator Bros. brand for $1.50 which has that spout when I saw this Log Cabin bottle. I've never tried Log Cabin and I thought, "Well with the dollar off coupon it would be only $0.50 more. It doesn't have the nice spout. But I should try Log Cabin brand and see if I like it." Notice how the coupon is still on the bottle. I hope it is good syrup.

Save the Trees

2006-04-01T09:12:00.001-08:00

Large trees seems to be disappearing from campus.

I thought I should take a picture of this one before it's gone.

There was once a giant edable fungus on this tree. I think someone ate it.

Science or Pseudo-science

2006-03-31T09:00:00.001-08:00

Here is a pretty good article about how to tell if something is not science.

The Chronicle: 1/31/2003: The Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science

This week was a the first of a new quarter for me at LLU. One of the classes I am taking, and very much looking forward to, is a seminar in Science and Religion. At our first meeting we defined what science is and what religion is to our class, and how religion is different from theology and spirituality. Since we were mostly scientists we spent less time on that but I believe it is definitely important to think about it.

Here are some good quotes from the evening, uttered by the ethics professor Dr. Gerald Winslow.

Advice to aspiring professors -- "Don't lie awake wondering what to teach the student, lie awake at night wondering how to awaken inquiry in the students"

-- "You can't settle definitionial problems. What do you do get a bigger dictionary? All you can do is explain why you choose to use a word."

Wonders Wedding Pictures

2006-03-29T22:19:00.001-08:00

Here are some, or a lot, of pictures from Bradley and Sunny's wedding.

Harriet

Bradley

There was some hugging.

Real trees and flowers.

Mr Bumkins

Sunny's twin brother Jonathan and their mom Judy were the first to walk up.

Sunny and Bradley came up last.

Sunny's dad talked for a couple of minutes after we were all on the stage.

Sunny's grandpa read the vows.

But he forgot to make them kiss.

The Wonders

Did I mention there were chocolates?

I think my mom had fun.

Eddy

We're cute.

Fiona the Love Tree was featured in the wedding.

Some people took pictures after the wedding

Bride's side

Groom's side

All of them

Groom's family

We had crackers and cheese and fruit afterwards, and a guy played a guitar.

Springbreak 2006: The Wonder Wedding

2006-03-26T09:18:00.007-08:00

I was super busy last quarter. I was working on assignments and papers and grant proposals and exams right up until Ceri arrived at nearly midnight on the 14th. All of that and trying to get my dad to come out and visit, which I was ultimately unsuccessful at, was very stressful and I got sick. These are all my excuses for not posting.

I will make it up to you starting right now. Here I will tell you about our trip from SoCal to Vancouver and back and about my Brother's wedding.

We left late on Wednesday after sleeping in, submitting my projects and finals, packing my cloths, running 3 miles, and getting some oranges and gas.

We drove north then west through the Mojave to Bakersfield, then north on 99 to meet 5. At about 11pm we decided to sleep in the jeep in Corning rather than drive an hour out of the way to camp in a state park. We had remembered seeing a cafe in Ashland that we had quite unfortunately passed by without stopping in December.

This is the Breadboard where we had breakfast in Ashland, OR.

I had a tasty veggie benedict and Ceri had the waffle with fresh fruit. The coffee was excellent and the potatoes were good.

We made it to my Mom's house in Vancouver on Thursday afternoon.

Here is Bradley making chocolate truffles. The truffles were fantastic. I think he should try to sell them online. Or at least send them as Christmas presents.

He made 4oo truffles because he didn't know how many people would show up for the wedding.

We spent a lot of time wrapping the truffles.

I think the TV looks like it's made of cardboard.

On Friday we explored Portland with Eddy. This pictures looks towards downtown from Mt Tabor park.

We also stumbled upon Joseph Wood Hill Park. It was exciting for all of us to discover the park at the same time. It might be the best place to get a 360 degree view of the Portland area including Mt St Helens and Mt Hood.

Tammy and Carissa showed up Friday night with two giant dogs that each weigh 150 pounds.

They turned out to be pansies though.

I saw Caly smack one on the nose.

It ran away whimpering and then Mr. Benofrin chased them both into the bedroom.

Saturday morning Ceri ran 6 miles in Washington.

I was still sick so I drove around taking pictures like the paparazzi and listened to NPR.

We all ate at Sunny's parents house for lunch on Saturday.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Blogger is giving my trouble and won't let me save a draft. So I'll get to the pictures of the wedding later.

A Duck

2006-03-26T09:04:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I asked if anyone knew what this duck is. Today, I lost that post somehow while I was trying to edit it.

Anyway, last night I asked Alex if he knew about it and he thought it was probably a domestic duck. That hadn't occured to me but I guess he is probably correct.

RE: " HOMEWORK: Evolution & Creation"

2006-03-25T10:04:00.000-08:00

This is a response to Jeff Boyd's post on the debate between evolution and creation. I apologize for not noticing your post earlier, Jeff. Of course you understand that this is a very difficult topic to cover in 300 words.

One point of confusion here is the idea that evolution is contrary to creation. You have correctly pointed out that the ultimate origin of life can not be studied by science, but evolution and predictions from evolutionary theory can be studied by science. In fact, creationists that believe in a young earth must believe in a very rapid evolution of species to account for the great biodiversity we see today. Evolution simply means change and the idea of fixity of species (that species never change and were created essentially as we see them today) has been abandoned by almost all creationist scientists for at least 100 years. However, many creationists that are not scientists have difficulty with this.

But I think the subject of your essay is the ultimate origin of life and possibly even the universe, as opposed to questions over the reality of evolution. The difficulty is that any theory of abiogensis requires evoultion to work. But i think it is important to distinguish bewteen the two.

In the fifth paragraph I think a few important points are not addressed but I don't know if you can make room for them.

One: and this is a paraphrase of my professor Ron Carter, “In science you get kudos for being self critical and changing your mind when you are wrong. But in religion you get kudos for being certain and steadfast in your believes.”
And two: opponents of ID argue that it is philosophy and not real science. Scientists are not opposed to teaching ID in school. But the idea that it be taught in science classrooms is very frustrating. This goes back to a previous post of mine.

I think that your questions are good. If the point is to start a conversation this will definitely do it and i think that philosophical accuracy is not that important. I could go on and on about it but I think if you could address the issues I mentioned that would be good.

Orange and Chocolate

2006-03-04T11:54:00.000-08:00

First, I want to apologize to all the pedants for my misspellings and bad formatting. I'm sure reading that last post was excruciating. I generally publish a new post and then go back and edit. But the user interface in blogger got all screwed up in my browser after I posted and I didn't want to deal with it.

This morning I made some chocolate chip and orange juice muffins. I thought it would be a good idea because I like chocolate with orange flavor in it. I called Ceri to tell her and she was very dismayed. Actually, I think they taste ok. Once they cooled down they lost their warm orange juice taste. So they weren't as good as orange-chocolate bars but I think there is room for improvement. I've decided to go ahead and eat them despite Ceri's objections.

I think she will be happy to know however, that I decided not to buy a gallon of milk with my dollar off coupon after watching her PeTA propaganda.

Bahamas part 2

2006-02-26T14:15:00.000-08:00

I am so swamped with homework for the next two weeks. I haven't had much time to do work I get paid for. But my brain is numb. So I'm going to post to my blog.

I have a few more pictures and these are all from Inagua.

I forgot to tell you, while I was driving on Abaco at times when I wasn't listening for birds I would listen to Radio Abaco. I heard some good commercials that I wish I had recorded. One was about how I should get everything from Price Right with an unintelligable guy tell me what was available for purchase and then another guy translateing. I think I met that guy at a gas station when I was asking for directions. He said, "khre ke cor to co ca tahcahco" and i took that to mean, "If you want to use a credit card you have to go to Texaco." I was actually impressed that I understood him before he pointed to Texaco.

Then there was the Bahamian trying to do an Italian accent for a commercial for some canned noodle thing.

But the absolute best thing, was that I actually got to hear Boney M on the radio. Awesome!

So, Abaco is the most northern Island in the Bahamas and after leaving there I went to Inagua, the southern most island in the Bahamas. They are quite a bit different. Abaco has a much larger resident population as well as attracting a lot of tourists. Inagua doesn't attract nearly as many tourist. Most of the people that stop there are just passing through on their way to Cuba or Haiti or Puerto Rico.

cloud

There is only one town on Inagua. It's called Matthew Town. I was told before I arrived that there would be hundreds of parrots all over town. I didn't see any parrots on Friday or Saturday. Many people I talked to said they hadn't seen parrot for weeks. I guess they will be back in town when the Genip (Spanish lime) is in season.

Another problem I had on Inagua was that the rental trucks were broken. So I was on foot. I did a lot of walking around the town but I had to hitchhike to get out of town where the parrots are.

Matthew town

Morton Main House

This is where I was lived.

City Park

My shadow

Generators

Dog at church

Lawnmower/future dinner.

Dragonflies on a wire.

Some plants

Cotton

Cactus tree

big moth

Inagua Parrot

On the last day I was there I saw two parrots in town.

Osprey on dish

Dead Donkey

Dead mini

Passport photo

Trip to East Inagua

On Sunday I hitchhiked to the east side of the island with some people that had hired a truck. It was a long day, 10 hours. Half of which I was sitting on coolers in the back of the truck. It as a bumpy ride but I got a good view.

After 10 hours I had recorded only 2 parrots. I was very tempted to return to California and return later when the parrot would be in town.

Eastern Inagua

Feral Donkey

This is a big lake we tried to drive across.

It turned out it was a little too wet. We drove half way across here and then had to turn around.

East Inagua

Road to narrow

At one point there was another truck of hunters coming our direction. We stood still for about 5 minutes with neither driver wanting to drive off the road.

Morton Salt is the biggest employer on Inagua. It runs 24/7.

Morton shop

Salt

Evaporation ponds

There are usually flamingos in these ponds.

Morton shop

Morton ship yard

Here are more hermit crabs for Janelle and Daniel.

I don't know why there was a pile of peanuts here but the hermit crabs really liked them.

Hermit crab without a shell

I cracked the shell of one to see what it looked like inside.

Dream writing

2006-02-22T08:02:00.000-08:00

I had a dream last night that I had put a new post, with a picture, on my Blog. But then I woke up and looked and it wasn't there. Somehow I knew it couldn't be that easy.

I should have been dreaming about my speciation paper anyway.

Now those Bahamas

2006-02-20T16:38:00.000-08:00

It's been about a month since I got back so I better put some pictures up or I probably won't get to it. For those of you that didn't know, for the first three weeks of January I went to the Islands of Great Abaco and Great Inagua in the Bahamas. I was going for a conference and to collect data. It as a pretty good time but I was also alone and somewhat stressed because of time and money restraints.

Before leaving for the Bahamas I had emailed a fellow parrot researcher about my trip and she hooked me up with a lady that often gives free lodging to scientists on Abaco. So I emailed this nice lady asking how to find the place and this is what she said.

hi rryan, yes we have a place for you in little harbour. you will love it. just go to little harbour and ask for allison. she has the key. i will come down in the evening and meet you. have a safe trip.

I've never been to Abaco before and I didn't have a rental car reserved so I wasn't sure what I was going to do when I got there. I wasn't to worried though since I know the islands are small. Abaco is a big island. Fortunately for me, on the plane from Miami I overheard some other people that sounded like they were scientists too. So I asked them if they were going to the conference. It turns out, there was one guy (Greg) not only going to the conference, but staying with the same lady. He offered to share a taxi into Marsh Harbour and then help me find Little Harbour.

The first place we stopped was the Friends of the Environment Office. This place is awesome for scientists. They have wifi, copiers, telephones, a conference room and they will help you find whatever you need.

A few hours later we went to Little Harbour to find where we were staying. On the way we stopped to get some beer, a peace offering for the keepers of Little Harbour. I owed Greg for paying for the taxi so I bought him a couple beers too. He went ahead and drank them in the car. It was kind of weird to be driving on the left side of the road and drinking beer at the same time but I was the passenger and I didn't know where I was going so I didn't say anything.

In Little Harbour we, of course, went straight to the bar. That is where we found our hosts. Bob talks and looks a lot like Red Green. Accept that he sometimes yells at his wife and I get a much kinder impression of Red. Later I found out he had just given up cigarettes so that probably had something to do with it.

This is the place they gave me courtesy of some absent, mysterious benefactor names Walkingstick. It was really great.

The house was wired for both 12volt and 220volt electricity. I had to watch the batteries to make sure I wasn't using more power than the solar panels put in. There was no heat or water heater, just an on demand gas water heater. It got quite cold while I was there and there was no where to warm up. The rental car didn't have heat either.

I came back really late one night and there was a flock of geese sleeping in the yard. I almost ran over them. The all woke up dazed and staring at me. Then they waddled out of the way and i drove up to the house.

The next day I went hiking through the jungle looking for bird sounds, and i found these cool epiphytes.

Abaco jungle

This picture is looking strait down into a limestone cavity. This is what the parrots nest in.

The first couple days I was on Abaco I was attending a conference put on by Friends of the Environment. It featured scientists doing research from all over the Bahamas. On Sunday we took a field trip to Hole-in-the-Wall which is at the southern most part of Abaco. I wanted to try to see some parrots before going down there so I drove the rental car through the park. It got pretty well scratched up driving through the pine forest.

Abaco National Park

This lighthouse was first constructed in 1836.

People lived here until 1995. Now it is automated and solar powered.

The Hole in the Wall

The Great Abaco Hiway is really straight. I guess there are kids that like to race down the hiway on the weekends.

Here are some pictures of some parrots I saw at Bahamas Palms Shores on Abaco.

I took these pictures on the Sunday morning before going to Hole-in-the Wall. They were the best behaved parrots of my trip.

Here is a sample of their beautiful cacophony.

After that I spent another four days driving about 800 miles looking for more parrots. To see parrot you have to be out in the morning or evening when they are making the most noise. I drove around the different housing communities with the windows down and all of my gear around my neck. I didn't see any I could record on Monday, Tuesday. On Wednesday evening I finally got a break and saw a big flock. I think I got all the data I need from that. But I still haven't had appropriate time to analyze the recordings.

This is the garbage dump at Crossing Rocks. I heard some parrots back here but I didn't see them.

A number of times I could see a flock out across the coppice and i even tried to run after them. But the coppice is so thick that it was impossible to keep up with them and I usually only came back with stickers.

Here is a hermit crab that I recorded one day while looking for woodpeckers and hummingbirds.

That was my stay on Abaco. On Friday I travelled to Inagua and that was a totally different situation. I'll post pictures from there later.

Running

2006-02-12T20:14:00.000-08:00

It turns out there wasn't anything to worry about. My foot problems were just some stress pains from starting to run again, and not watching my form well enough. I ran 3 miles on Friday and then 3 again on Saturday. Today I ran 5 miles in a little over 45 minutes so I am happy with that. So running is good.

I am debating with myself on whether or not to sign up for the San Francisco marathon. I really want to do it but the slots are already filling up and it will be $95 to run. By my reasoning, if I am going to run the SF marathon with it's 650' of elevation gain, this year might be the best as I will be in pretty good shape after having just run the SD marathon. It is $95 though, so I can't decide.

About the Bahamas pictures. I didn't quite get to them. I have some other pictures from Christmas, right below this post. I do have a Bahamas post started though, so maybe they will be out soon.

I spent too much time on things not related to Blogging or school work this weekend. Some of that included going to church, so, yeah for me!

More of Christmas

2006-02-12T08:00:00.000-08:00

More Christmas pictures.

After Christmas in Vancouver we drove down HWY 1 through San Fransisco and Stanford. It was pouring rain all the way from Vancouver to SF. The drive along the California coast was terrible because it was dark and the road was not strait.

We stopped in Santa Rosa for a night and it was still raining the nest day. Someplaces were rationing water because the rivers were too turbid to filter.

On Thursday we had a nice Christmas with the Myers. April and Chris were back from their honeymoon to Mexico and had many stories about the ship.

I've learned that it's ok to buy cloths at the GAP if they are made in Cambodia.

Saturday we went to church and then the museums in LA. First we went to the LA County Natural History Museum where I really wanted to see Jared Diamond's exhibit Collapse. It was good but I was kind of disappointed by how simple it was.

We also saw rocks and some cool bugs there.

Then we went to LACMA for art.

These were neat. I tend to like the 3D art but Ceri doesn't care for it as much as the flat art. The Japanese paintings were really cool though.

On Sunday, Ceri and I went climbing in Joshua Tree. We decided to take the back way out on the Geology Tour. It got dark on us but the road wasn't terrible. Towards the end we met a couple in an Acura that need a boost of confidence to drive over a washed out road. Who knew Acura made an SUV? I was actually really impressed that they made it that far. There were some tight spots in the canyon and their car was quite a bit bigger then Harriet, our jeep. We lead the way and they were so happy when we got back to the road. We were happy too because we were way late for supper.

The next day I spent about 17 hours working on my poster for the Bahamas. It was so stressful and I am thankful for Ceri's support that day. I also had to pack for three weeks of field work, go to class and print the poster.

Ok, I am working on an actual post about the Bahamas. Maybe it will be done by next weekend.

2006-02-10T08:36:00.000-08:00

There is a new post coming this weekend. I can feel it. Ellen has requested more about the Bahamas so I'll try to oblige her.

Here is a list of what I have been working on lately.

Review paper on ecological causes of speciation in parrots
Analysis of parrot vocalizations from my trip to the Bahamas
Setting up a Tuesday lunch Bible study
Setting up an LLU student chapter of the American Institute of Biological Sciences
Going to classes
Convincing Ceri to run the San Diego Marathon

Signing myself up for said marathon
Beginning training for said marathon

Unfortunately, training for the marathon hasn't started out so well. I sort of hurt my foot on Tuesday and haven't wanted to run on it again. I'm going to try it out today and see if it's gotten any better.

My goals for the marathon are to run it in 4 hrs and to lose 10# (or 5% body fat) during my training.

cheerio,
bryant

"Visibility 1/4 mile"

2006-02-03T18:48:00.002-08:00

It was warm today, in the 80's, so the smog was bad. I would sweat anytime I went outside.

This is almost like the sunset I saw a few months ago but couldn't take a picture of. I went to Rancho Cucamonga today and had to drive into it but it was actually a pretty good day in Loma Linda.

Disfunctional Internet Browsers

2006-02-02T19:49:00.000-08:00

The programs you use to browse the internet.

I'm terribly sorry if you couldn't access my blog for the last couple of days. After I was so impressed with the traffic I was getting by not posting I was perplexed by not getting hits after posting so many pictures and starting to share again.

The proximate cause for much of the viewing publics inability to partake in my corner of the web is that I added some special effects to my blog in the form of a Google map. The ultimate cause is that I am a firefox user (which is in my opinion far superior) and I forget about the segment of the population that insists on, or simply persists in, using Internet Explorer (IE). I didn't try to look at my blog with IE so I didn't know it wouldn't work.

It should be fixed now. My recomendation is for everyone to click here and install Firefox to browse the internet. However, if you must, there is at last a new version of IE out in beta which copies much of what is great about firefox. This is similar to how major political parties adopt some of the views of third parties when those third parties start to gain popularity.

I have given IE 7.0 beta a test drive and it is much better than the old version 6.0. They finally added tabbed browsing, a built in search box, and pop-up blocker. These have been in most of the other browsers for a long time. Other things I like about it are; the phishing filter, the zoom and print functions, and the more simple design. But it is still slower than firefox and the within page search is inconvinient. Things that mean very little to me are; RSS feeds and quick tabs (which is super slow).

Overall. IE 7.0 seems to be much better than IE 6.0. But I still think Firefox is better and will continue to use it. I will try to be sensitive to the IE users though.

Exam 1

2006-01-30T21:58:00.000-08:00

Ok, I'm glad to be done with my first exam. It took me 2 hours and others were still working on it. I think I got a lot of the points. At least I answered all the questions. I already know I'll do better on the next exam in that class. After the exam we had another 3.5 hours of lecture finally getting out of class around 9:20 pm. That's just too much.

Time to sleep.

Avoiding my responsibilities

2006-01-28T21:59:00.000-08:00

Hello again!

I am impressed that some people perennially check my blog even though I haven't really posted anything for months. I had 223 hits this month including someone from Bulgaria searching for Anza Barrego. Maybe you are anticipating the exciting pictures and exotic stories from my forecasted journeys. Or maybe you are just avoiding your responsibilities. Or maybe you are just clicking through to another blog. In any case I feel like there is a potential readership which longs for more Bryant stories so I may just take after Leah and resolve to publish more often.

Unfortunately, stories are going to have to wait. I do have about 7 more chapters to read before a Behavioral Ecology exam on Monday. Then I have a Genetics and Speciation exam on Thursday, along with a paper outline.

Ceri already wrote about our Christmas but she left out some pictures that I like.

These are from the April's reception.

I really like these pictures of Ceri. She was totally beautiful.

We showered April and Chris with sparkles.

After the wedding in Auburn we went to my mom's place in Vancouver.

The first thing we did when we got there was sit on the couch.

Then we ate cookies and decorated the tree.

This is Cally the Courageous. She has breast cancer.

One day we went to Portland to do some christmas shopping and found this horse tied to the curb.

We didn't let the horse free but we did eat at the Typhoon for lunch. Yum. I had pineapple red curry tofu with grapes.

This is Mr. B drinking from the bathroom sink.

On Christmas Eve we went to Mt Hood for some snow.

I made Ceri come and I think she had fun. She was carving up the mountain by the end of the day.

Here Bradley is taking a sweet jump.

When we got back I said, "Ceri, we need some disaster style pizza crust." And she made one up, out of her head. It was pretty awsome.

That covers about half of Christmas and I'll post more later.

Until then, here is your moment of Zen.

.

Great Abaco

2006-01-10T08:34:00.000-08:00

Hello peoples,

Sorry I haven't posted for sometime. I have been traveling a lot lately and internet hasn't always been easy to get. I am in the Bahamas right now trying to get recordings of parrots. They seem to be more illusive than I expected. Here are some pictures to hold you over until I get back to the States.

"Try not to look down"

2005-12-10T08:07:00.000-08:00

2005-12-09T15:19:00.000-08:00

Happy December

2005-12-07T22:46:00.000-08:00

Hi all,

I haven't posted for a while but Ceri's pancakes inspired me. After reading her post I really wanted some pancakes of my own. I had some fresh pomegranates so I used the seeds and it was quite good.

There is good news. My camera is back. My new ability to take pictures might translate into a less boring blog for you. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera for a spectacular sunset on Saturday. Coming back from Joshua Tree there was a wall of smog coming from LA, and the sun shining through it was just amazing. There were so many colors. Hopefully it will happen again and I'll get to show you.

Things are going well. I "finished" my proposal just before thanksgiving and emailed it to some potential committee members, one of which was impossible to get a hold of. That stressed me out for the last two weeks because I need to meet with them soon. I finally gave up on the one and chose someone else. Now have a meeting set for next Wednesday, the 14th. Ideally they will like my proposal and I will be off to the Bahamas in January to do research. It is especially important that they approve because I already have a ticket to go to Abaco on the 3rd of January. In addition to collecting vocalization of the parrots I will be presenting a poster of my plumage study. I am working on the analysis right now and it looks good. I finished measuring all of the dead birds I have here and there is some overlap, but a discriminant function analysis showed significant grouping for the white head plumage and the rose throat. Assuming I am interpreting the results correctly.

After my proposal defense on the 14th another exciting thing will happen. I get to see Ceri! I pick her up at Ontario airport and we immediately head north for her sister's wedding in Auburn, WA. I'm not too excited about driving all night, but I guess it's important for Ceri to get to the bridal shower Thursday evening so I'll drive as long as I can.

I am excited about getting away from this, however.

I scrubbed this sink only two days before this picture. I wish I could use the sink too.

Ok, I've wasted enougth time. I hope to post pictures more often in an attempt to reestablish my readership. So, yeah, keep reading.

Peace and Love,
Bryant

Old photos

2005-11-19T15:30:00.000-08:00

I sent my new camera to be fixed and I think they have it now. I suspect they will determine that it is beyond repair in short order and send me a new one soon. Maybe I'll have it after thanksgiving.

So, without a digital camera I have been trying out the old style 35mm film. I finished off a roll that had been sitting in the camera for about 9 years. Yeah, it's a lot easier to take pictures when it is relatively free to develop them. Some of the photos were from around old Thanksgivings so they are sort of in the spirit of the season.

Hey Brett, remember this place? It's our place at 12 and G. My first apartment. I loved living there.

Sorry for the mess, I guess I needed to take out the recycling.

Here is a squirrel that would eat at my window. They would run strait up and down the side of the building.

These are from Thanksgiving in 1998. Bradley came to visit and we went snowboarding at Wolf Creek.

Climbing Again (maybe)

2005-11-10T09:15:00.000-08:00

I feel like I need to post something even though I don't really have time. I had hoped to have a digital camera this week and start posting pictures. I bought it on Ebay and it came on monday. Annoyingly, after 13 photos it stopped working. So I have to send it to Minolta for repairs already. I do have some pictures that I developed at Target for only $10.

Thanks for all the advice on bradley and sunny's surname. He liked Bloom best. Last time I talked to him they were thinking of Koala. So it seems to be between Boots, Bloom and Koala.

Chelsea's visit was fun. I hadn't seen her since we climbed Mt Evans last fall. It was nice to have her visit and show her some of Southern California. It was also a good excuse for me to get out to see Southern California. We climbed at BoxSprings and Joshua Tree. It made me want to start climbing again and be active and healthy. We'll see if I can keep it up. Here are the places we climbed while she was here.

BoxSprings is in Riverside, CA. - Wednesday

Not a destination climbing spot, but it's only 15 minutes from Loma Linda so it's fun for a couple hours on an afternoon to get away from studying. There are a lot of bolted routes 5.9, 5.10 and 5.11.

Randomness of the day: Today I ran into a guy at the coffee shop that had a route guide in pdf, so I had him email it to me.

The rock is sharp and after 5 months without climbing it was a good place to break in my fingers. I let Chelsea lead the routes while I wimpered and babied my red, raw, blistered fingertips. This week my fingertips are all callused and numb. I went back here on wednesday with some classmates and the climbing was easier.

The University of California - Riverside is just to the left of this photo.

Joshua Tree National Park - Friday

This picture is Chelsea on Gunsmoke. A V3 in the Barker Dam area which is a classic.

Here I am pretending I'm as cool as Chelsea.

We also did some rope climbing at Joshua Tree but I guess I didn't get any pictures. Joshua Tree is hard. A 5.6 there is a 5.10 at other places.

Saturday
We wanted to climb Tahquitz but it didn't work out. If anyone wants to buy a guide book to Tahquitz and Suicide peaks let me know. Tahquitz was were a lot of famous climbers started before going to Yosemite. The first 5.8 and 5.9 were done there.

Sunday
We also went to Pirates Cove/The Beach at Newport Beach but I don't have any pictures and we mostly just played in the sand. We saw the aftermath of the most impressive car accident I've seen since I've been here. The car was so far off the road on it's top but still holding up traffic on both sides of a 10 lane highway. I can't imagine how the car got over there.

Chelsea's friends live in Newport Beach and they were her ride to the airport the next day. We couldn't get a hold of them but we went there hopeing that they would call back. I guess they are notorious for not answering their phones or returning calls, even to eachother. At the end of the day we hadn't heard anything from them so I was beginning to think I would need to drive to the airport the next day. I decided I wanted some sushi and was prepared to drive to San Clamente to get it because that was the only place I knew of. So we were driving down the PCH and Chels was about to make some comment about See's Candy being for rich people when she saw her friends in the candy store. We zipped down the alley back to the store then snuck in and hide behind some candy display. They never noticed us even with our giggling so we had to just walk up behind them. I guess they were going have sushi as well at a half price place on Bilboa Island. The sushi was very reasonably priced. I recomend it. Just take the fairy across to the peninsula, drive one block and park by the Wells Fargo ATM. It's in the alley across the steet.

After sushi I left Chels with them and drove back home.

Now I'm trying to catch up with school and research. I think it's coming together and I'll probably be going to the Bahamas in the next couple months to get recordings of parrots. I'm will be attempting to finish my proposal and get a committee together before then end of the month.

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose..."

2005-10-31T17:09:00.001-08:00

I guess I do have one other thing to report for the weekend. My brother and his girlfriend have decided to get together and share a last name. But they haven't decided which name to share yet. So I thought it would be fun to use your collective creative abilities. Here is what they have thought of so far.

Bradley & Sunny Belle
Bradley & Sunny Turtledove
Bradley & Sunny Boots

Their names right now are Bradley Reynolds and Sunny Thomas. Bradley likes Boots best so far.

What do you think? Give me your ideas.

Running for my life

2005-10-30T18:29:00.000-08:00

I’m procrastinating, but it’s to your benefit because I am writing this post.

I don’t have much to report. Last week was mostly studying. My professor let me take the philosophy test even though I totally spaced out on taking it in the first place. I’m not sure how much he docked me but I got an 18/25 which makes it possible to get an A still.

I spent a lot of time running this weekend; 6 miles Friday, 3 on Saturday, and another 5 today. There is a new running club for LLU students which I think will be really nice. This old Korean doctor, that has already run 5 marathons this year, is coaching us for free. He says we can train with him if we promise to run for the rest of our lives. Maybe I will. I am thinking about running another marathon after the encouragement and the excitement of being part of the group. I bought some new insoles today. I hope to get another 100-200 miles out of my shoes.

Saturday night I went to Marie-Lys and Austin’s for a costume party. It was fun. There were some good costumes. I’m trying to get a picture of myself to post here.

I am mulling over buying a digital camera. I know I shouldn’t but I really want one. Film is just too expensive and I want to take pictures.

My friend Chelsea is coming tomorrow. She hasn't updated her blog in over 3 months. It's the end of rafting season in Moab so she is coming here to visit and climb some California mountains and cliffs before driving to Costa Rica for the winter, or some such thing. One never knows where she is at.

Maybe I’ll buy a camera and show you all the routes and beautiful California mountainsides. I have to get back to studying if I’m going to go climbing later in the week.

Seven things

2005-10-25T22:44:00.000-07:00

I caught Ellen's mind virus. I didn't think I would make it but I think I got 7 things for each.

SEVEN things:

7 things I plan to do before I die:

live in another country/learn another language
MS (?)
argue that there is a difference between a Cuban, a Cayman and a Bahamian Parrot
publish a scientific paper
build a house
do a bicycle tour (pacific coast, europe, or mexico)
Climb spaceboys in El Potrero Chico (15 pitches)

7 things I can (or once could) do:

jump onto a picnic table with my bike
climb a 5.10
build a campfire
tell the difference between a Cuban, Cayman and Bahamian parrot
play chess
get into grad school
rebuild a vw engine

Cuban

Cayman

Bahamian

See? Isn't it obvious?

7 things I cannot do:

read fast
focus with a computer in front of me
loose weight when I want to
convince Ceri to move to California
team sports
kill a bear with my bare hands
beat Ceri at the crossword, or scrabble

7 things that attract me to the ~~same or~~ opposite sex:

smiles and giggles
happiness
understanding/liberal
intelligent conversation
rides a bike
wastes time with me
that spot on the neck at the end of the jaw

7 things that I say most often:
I needed Ceri's help on this one.

i should be reading
i need to get away from my computer
yeah....
so, anyway
oh-kay
huh, i don't know
go away (I only say this in my head)

7 celebrity crushes:
Since I don’t actually know these people I probably only like the characters they play.

Sara Vowell
Jenna Elfman (Dharma)
Jessica Alba (Dark Angel)
Nina Persson (voice)
Tina Fey
Gwen Stefani (from the 90's, although she is still sort of cool)
Jared Diamond/Pierce Brosnan/Harrison Ford/Ernest Hemingway (that's who I want to be)

I tag Amy and Brett.

The science and philosophy of Kansas

2005-10-21T19:20:00.000-07:00

So, I’m taking Philosophy of Science this quarter. It’s a class I enjoy immensely but of which have the disturbing precognition to know, I will not be getting an “A” in. I neglected to take an online exam today. I was only fooling myself into thinking I could graduate with a 4.0 gpa when I know I am 3.0 student. I really like the class anyway. It’s one of my favorites and maybe the teacher will let me make it up.

As you may have guessed from the title of the class, it has given me the capacity of scientist qua philosopher and I have always had a deep desire to be this person. Ok, I don’t think that highly of myself, a 3.0 student after all. I’m going to ramble on anyway.

If any of you ever read the news, or go to church, you will have heard about the controversy in Kansas over the whether Intelligent Design (henceforth id) or Evolution will be taught in high-school science classrooms. If by some impossible chance you have not heard of this hit next blog. Now, I know I am not going to say anything new here, but since the topic is education, and blogging is public media, I am going to take the opportunity to educate the public. For another insightful and intelligent abstraction of the enormous topic please visit the Doldrums.

Here is the question; should id be taught as an alternative to evolution in science classrooms? I will add my vote to the NO camp and let me explain why. First, id is not science and neither is any theory of the origin of life. It is in the realm of philosophy. Second, evolution is science. I believe it should be taught in the science classrooms. Why is one science and other not? Because science is based on empirical data. There is a plethora of data available to support the theory of evolution. There is no data available about the origin of life. To qualify as a scientific theory it must be testable and repeatable. Any theory on the origin of life is not testable or repeatable so it does not qualify.

Ok, having said that and I don’t know if I said it well, I do think there is a place for id in schools. Id should be taught in philosophy. The fact that this is such a huge issue really does say something about the quality of our education system. I don’t know if philosophy is a required class for public high-school students but it should be. I am a graduate student and I am only in my second philosophy class. I think every high-school educated person should have a philosophy class in which they teach the following; philosophy of science, critical thinking, and ethics.

Pope John Paul II once said (1996), invoking an earlier Pope Louis XIII (1893), “Truth cannot contradict truth.” Though they were over 100 years apart and had vastly different understandings of truth, they shared a similar dilemma, the apparent contradiction between the Scriptures and scientific theories. I always liked John Paul, I’m not familiar with Louis, but I have a lot of respect for their steadfastness in their beliefs. Their conclusions were the same then and now, either our interpretation of the Bible was incorrect or of the scientific data. They called for open discussion and acknowledgment of “hostile arguments” so mistakes in understanding could corrected. And if no mistakes were found, then judgment should be suspended until such time as these discrepancies could be reconciled. John Paul recognized that evolution is more than just a “serious hypothesis, worthy of investigation and in-depth study” and acknowledge it as a theory. But he also recognized that it was at heart, a philosophical question.

Science is a great and powerful tool for the acquisition of truth, but it has limits. Science can not tell us why things happen only that they do. It can’t assign value to things and it has little to say about relationships.
It is a cold machine that requires the human capacity to ponder. I am a scientist in training but I think of it as only one tool in the toolbox which guides our lives. In our search for truth and wellbeing, science is a tool for observation, but there are also feelings, beliefs and logic. When choosing what to believe in or when making life decisions one should consider all the tools and use the ones that are right for the task.

I want to keep going with analogies but I know I’ve lost some of you already. Sorry, it’s kind of long and wandering. I might have more to say on this later.

War, Peace and Rattlesnakes

2005-10-15T16:11:00.000-07:00

Last night I went with my advisor to Joshua Tree National Park for a lecture he was giving. I had contemplated staying the night out there with Ceri’s parents but he only called me an half hour before we left so I didn’t really have time to warn them I was coming. I recognized it as an opportunity to talk about my research and get out of Loma Linda so I said I would go.

It was good to get to talk to him, sort of encouraging and discouraging at the same time. It was encouraging because it’s good to talk about my project with someone that knows a lot more than me and work things out. But it was kind of discouraging because he didn’t seem optimistic that things were going to work out. We are waiting to here back from some people about acquiring some data. He is worried that we won’t be able to get the data and kept talking about other projects that might be fun. I would just get the data myself but there might not be money for that. I’ve got to get my proposal done.

After the lecture we went to a restaurant in 29 Palms where Drew Berrymore likes to go. The lady, who had invited my advisor to do the lecture, paid for dinner. She was very nice and always smiling, an alumnus of Walla Walla. At the beginning of the night we learned that her husband is in Faluja and I kept telling myself all night, “Don’t say anything.” At the end of dinner we started talking about the war and I was curious so I kept asking questions. I finally let a comment slip about how aggressive Americans are toward peace lovers. She started to get red and defensive. I feel bad. I could tell she is perpetually on the verge of tears. I wish he could come back and stay here with his wife.

Bill’s lecture was entertaining. After his talk he pulled some snakes out to show people. At one point he dropped one and everyone jumped back, some onto their seats. One lady had to move to the other side of the room and hide behind her daughter. It was funny. They are kind of scary. They were all in Rubbermaid containers in the back seat and I would think once in a while about getting into an accident and having rattlesnakes all over the car.

Here is a quote from the car ride home. “Wow. I keep veering left. I never veer left.”

Bush vs Bush

2005-10-15T08:58:00.000-07:00

This is hilarious. Bush vs Bush.

“The leaves are falling back east….”

2005-10-13T13:34:00.000-07:00

Ok, I’m back to driving my SUV to the coffee shop. I went running this morning and had to step out of the bike lane onto the curb 4 times to avoid becoming a red spot on someone’s windshield. In the spirit of Ceri's vindictive post, I’ve been thinking about taping nails to the white line that separates the bike lane from the car lanes.

After running this morning, I have been antsy for the rest of the day. I can't really concentrate on class.

It was cold this morning and I had to wear a sweat shirt on my run. This afternoon it was 97 degrees and sunny.

Consumerism

2005-10-12T16:39:00.000-07:00

I was just looking at Strovska’s blog this morning and wishing she would update it. Then I looked at my own and realized her last post was two days newer than mine, I have been adding links as I discover them though. Now she has updated and I guess I should do the same. Maybe posting doesn’t have the same therapeutic value for me as it does for others. I tend to be a net consumer in the blogosphere with less in the way of production. I wonder if that is fair.

I wonder if I am the same way at the coffee shop sometimes. I pay my $1.75 for a cup of coffee and then proceed to use about $1.75 worth of toilet paper for my nose over the course of the evening. Thank you Boise-Cascade. Some environmentalist I am. At least I bring my own cup and that saves them a penny for the plastic one they would have given me. I’m feeling better about this coffee shop now that they split from their franchise and started offering free wifi. It’s a lot closer so I can ride my bike and be a good patriot by following the lead of our favorite politicians and not driving my SUV. Although, I was almost run over twice on the way here today, seriously. There might be something to the SUV’s are safer campaign.

My proposal is now 5 semi-solid pages long. It’s getting there.

That’s all I can write for now.

Fall Quarter

2005-10-03T18:33:00.000-07:00

I've been back in California for a week now. I had started writing a post about that time but it ended up just sitting in my draft box and now is out dated. So I'll try again.

Ohio was very pleasant. I’m glad I was able to bring some things back to California for Ceri because that means she is coming out here. I was 12 pounds over the limit for checked bags but the ticket guy let me through.

In my draft I started talking about the nastiness of Southern California and it's resemblance to an armpit. I still believe that but the business of the last week has diluted the effect. At the time, the contrast between where I had been and where I had come too was depressing and almost intolerable. In reality there are many parts of California that are beautiful and can be fun. Those places just happen to be to far from where I live to be accessible. I already spend about 25-30% of my income on gas. The penalty for being poor I guess.

“Being poor is a crime and the punishment is death.” If you haven’t listened to This American Life in the last month I highly recommend episodes 296 and 297.

I worked on Camp Pendleton again this weekend. At $10/hour it actually pays less than staying at school and studying for my assistantship. But it is extra money on top of my assistantship and it is about the only time I can afford to see the ocean.

School started out pretty well. My classes are interesting; Philosophy of Science, Biodiversity and Conservation, and Research Methods and Design. There will be a lot of reading and required work. At first I was concerned about the amount of religion slipping into my science classes. But I think it will be tolerable and even interesting. It certainly has a place in the philosophy class, western science having been born from a desire to understand God and the laws of nature that allowed creation. I’ll keep you posted about that and if you aren’t not interested than you don’t have to read it.

I finally finished and developed a roll of film, the contents of which, I discovered, span an entire year. I think I can almost afford one roll of film per year in my budget although, at $26 for development and $4 for a roll of film, it is still an open question. I’ve decided to renew my search for a digital camera, motivated more by economics than the immediate gratification which images stored as electrons can supply.

How is my research going? Yeah, well, my proposal isn’t done yet and I don’t really want to measure more birds until it is. I still have the 7 pages of garbled words that I did when I left Ohio. It might come to a point were I need to just write it and let people read it to get more feedback. Actually, that might be the only way to get my advisor’s attention. He doesn’t seem to respond to verbal communication all that well.
“Hey Bill, I have a question”
“Can you email that to me?”

Ok, I told you I had developed some pictures and I’m running out of time for tonight. So, here they are in a totally random order. Briefly, they are pictures from the Alcazar in Segovia in December; Sunny, Bradley, and Ma in a grassy park in Madrid; Bryant and Ceri last August sometime, somewhere we don't know; some pictures from Salton Sea birding with Stacy Davis and my advisor Bill in January; and Bradley and Sunny at the Getty in Santa Monica this August.

2005-09-13T09:48:00.000-07:00

2005-09-11T08:15:00.000-07:00

For more about Katrina and the Bush administration read Felber's blog. He is a much better writer than I am. Of course, he gets paid to be a writer and a satirist.

Oh, and this is fun too. It's a quicktime movie about the President's speachalist.

Hurricane, hurrican't, or hurri-don't-wanta

2005-09-08T14:22:00.000-07:00

Ok, I know that hurricane Katrina is last week’s news but I was sort of doing things and not keeping up. Ceri has already vented some frustration at the government.

I just came across this article from the Houston Chronicle in December of 2001 and it's kind of pissing me off. The link is to a copy at Louisiana State University because you have to have an archive subscription to read the original at the Houston Chronicle.

So, we sort of knew at least 4 years ago that around 250,000 people would be trapped in New Orleans in this sort of storm, 20 feet of water would drown the city and about 25,000 people would die. But we don't really care because 30% of the people in New Orleans live in poverty. Most of the people are dieing after the storm and the government doesn't seem to care.

The Progressive Sept 1, 2005
The state and local authorities were woefully unprepared, and the Bush Administration responded with a lethal tardiness.

While Katrina was without question an extraordinarily vicious storm, the vast majority of people who died did so not because of Katrina but because of a laissez-faire federal government with skewed priorities.

“A rightwing government that strangles public expenditures for public works is largely responsible for what happened in New Orleans,” says Paul Soglin, former mayor of Madison, Wisconsin, and past chair of the committee on urban economics for the National Conference of Mayors.

Definately read this article.

Meanwhile, our president, who happens to hold the record in just over 4 years for most vacation days while in office, claims we can handle both Iraq and Katrina. But our National Guard, it's equipment, and the budget is tied up in foreign countries instead of protecting our people at home. Shouldn't the National Guard be more concerned with our wellfare?

If they didn't care about the poor people in New Orleans they should have at least cared about the largest shipping port in the United States. One quarter of the nations gas and oil, all of the grain exports from Montana to Ohio, and one third of the countries sea food. This hurricane is costing the United States billions of dollars. If we're talking about national security these are dollars that would have been better spent restoring protective wetlands on the coast and a better levee.

When will we learn that people matter and the environment matters? What is government good for if it can't protect its people? We certainly can't do it ourselves. Volunteers are not organized enough tend to overwhelm the area by requiring food and water for themselves. This nation needs to start thinking about health care for everyone and an environment that takes care of us.

beaches and mountains

2005-09-01T09:02:00.000-07:00

Hello peoples. The original intent of this blog was to inform people of my where-abouts so, here is my tentative schedule for the next month.

I am going to Los Angeles to get Bradley and Sunny today. We are probably going to go to the either the Getty or the Natural History Museum. We are thinking about camping tonight close to the coast but looking through a California Camping guide yesterday, it looks like most places require a reservation and can cost between $20 and $150. So, we might end up back in Loma Linda.

Tomorrow we are going to the beach. Everyone says Laguna is the one to go to so that's where we are going.

Saturday we are going to climb San Gorgonio, getting up early around 4:30am leaving at 5am. We want to be the first in line at the ranger station to get a hiking permit on the Vivian Creek Trail. It's the shortest and steepest. 14 miles round trip and over a mile up, 5500' elevation gain. The other trails are around 20miles round trip but still I think about the same elevation gain.

Sunday we are all heading to LAX. Bradley and Sunny are going to Spain and I am going to Ohio until school starts, 24th. (Sorry Chels. I really would love to climb some 14ers and go rafting. I just can't right now.) While I'm in Ohio I hope to make significant headway on my research proposal. I've been hoping to get that done all summer. Technically, I don't have to have it done until December, but I've been looking at my classes and I'm getting excited about the idea of graduating in the spring.

There you have it. If you happen to be in LA or BG when I am, give me a call. I'll keep updating my blog too.

Wiki is awsome

2005-08-28T10:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was looking at articles on wikipedia. I used to do this when I was a kid too, with the real encyclopedia. It's really interesting. The beauty of wikipedia is that it, if you see something wrong you can change it, but if you don't know anything about the subject you can be confident that someones else made it correct.

So I was thinking, most of the time for classes in which a research paper is required, the paper gets written and then the teacher uses all the papers for a bonfire to roast marshmellows on. Last quarter we came up with the idea of presenting our research papers to our class in a power point to make it seem like less of a waste of time and to get peer review experience. But another good idea, i think since it was my idea, is to have them publish it on wikipedia. It's easy to check up on and measure their progress because each page has a history that anyone can view. And it's out there for peer review. Of course I would require a certain length and depth, and include a bibliography, and that it were either an original or a significant improvement on an existing page.

So, I'm presenting this idea to you all. I might suggest this to my professors next quarter. What do you think?