Working the field

I'm on my work assignment out of town, up early for breakfast. I wanted to eat early to avoid meeting any clients in the hotel lobby because, frankly, I really can't talk business over breakfast, and I know for a fact that these people love nothing better. I did enjoy dinner last night with the big boss from A, and it was fun for the pure fact that it wasn't all business and, when it was, it was very straightforward and honest--I never felt that I necessarily had to say just the right thing or try to please the client. Then again, that may have just been the beer I had.

Anyway, life is OK. It's cold and gray here, too, but I think it will be a decent day.

I hear you on the God thing. How come Buddhists and Hindus don't get all wrought up over science? Hell, Jews don't get this wrought up. Muslims I don't know--I can imagine the extremists getting all medieval on science, but I am sure that there must be some moderate Muslims who back evolution. Ack. But there are plenty of fine Christians who are biologists and physicists, so there's no reason the two can't go together. It's just the extremists or literalists in any religion that raise trouble.

Shit, the director of the program just called and asked if I could be downstairs in 45 minutes for breakfast. They want to meet and talk about the projects. Ack, clients. Fortunately I ate already, but I do have some other work I need to prep before hand. But maybe I can cut out earlier later....

All right, now I am just blabbing. Hope you are having a good morning at G*.

When you're old and lonely you will wish you married me

Gray skies bring a gray mood, tell you what. I got me the low down G* blues.

A while ago we chatted briefly about the comfort people find in believing in God, and I agree with that strongly. I don't understand why Christians don't put more emphasis on the fact that people find comfort in heaven as opposed to crap like creationism, and wanting to teach that crap in school. Fucking crazy evangelicals, wasting people's time with this bullshit, as if the understanding of the universe makes this a godless world. Man, it's so frustrating.

Anyway, I'm going to focus on the comfort belief gives, as opposed to the crazyness of a few nutcrackers.

This day is long and gray.

Give this stone to my brother

Workin' the G* is a lonesome thing, man. I haven't spoken more than ten words to a person's face today. Well, we do what we have to do.

Sounds like you had a good Turkeyday. It must've been pretty beautiful out there, and chillin' in a hotel with C* must've been pretty good, too. El and I did not have a long enough weekend. The obligations of being with family took away from the scarce time we have, so we felt a little cheated. Plus with me getting sick as hell, that didn't help things too much either.

I prefer your interpretation of Genesis, I must say. Can't we all just get along and say, 'God created the earth'? I was telling someone recently that I think Christians nowadays do more good than evil by virtue of their giving and charity, but after having this stupid Darwin argument, I'm starting to question how much good Christians do. No, no, I can't base my opinion on a visceral reaction to those crazed creationist evangelicals. Damn, though, if any of them are diabetic, I dare them, I double dog dare them to stop using pig derived insulin!

Argle fargle bargle.

When God was young, he made the wind and the sun

Dude, sorry to hear about the strangeness over the weekend. Stomach viruses are the worst, but fortunately they tend to pass quickly. Still, they leave you feeling beat up.

C* and I ended up staying in a small Midwestern resort town called the Wisconsin Dells on Friday night. We intended to come back that day, but it was snowing the whole trip and, after seeing a few cars spun off the road, we decided to not risk going further and check in to a hotel for the night. It ended up being kind of fun and relaxing, and the snow was pretty much melted off the road by late morning Saturday.

T'giving was fun. All vegetarian, which is nice, and entirely nontraditional dishes. Everything turned out so well, we all ate like pigs.

Speaking of pigs, yeah, Darwinism and God. I think a lot of people manage just fine to be Darwinists and to believe in God. Only when you interpret the creation story literally do you run into trouble. Otherwise, evolution could be thought of as God's little creation machine, pushing forward creation over time, or whatever other rationalization you want to come up with that allows God and evolution work together. I'm sure there are some theologians who have written about this and can provide some kind of a framework for believing in both.

I was raised Catholic, so we never really believed in a literal creation story--Genesis is just a way of saying "God created the universe." No problem with evolution, as all it shows is how amazing creation is. Of course, now that I am a non-believer, I have no problem with a godless creation story. Funny about the need to succeed in science outweighing religious beliefs. Is El trying to convince you to reject Darwinism, too?

Apparently David Berman has found God lately. The album has a lot of references to God. He still cusses in his songs, though, so he can't be entirely a stringent believer. But I dunno--do Jews have a problem with curse words (aside from taking God's name in vain)?

The harder they come

Gobbleday did not treat me so well. We visited the elder sibling and stayed in his McMansion in North Carolina. The actual day went fine, but the day after I caught some ridiculous 24 hour bug and ended up throwing up several times and staying in bed in a delirium. Most people gain weight during Gobbleday, but I am one of the few who must have lost a couple of pounds. It was horrendous. If it weren't for El taking care of me, it would've been even more painful, as my family seemed to express only a passing interest in my condition.

How was Gobblefest for you? Cruising the highways with a new cd is always a welcome thing.

Oddly, I don't have much to say, though El and I had a kind of strange moment. I was watching this crazy thing on CNN about creationism field trips, and I told El, Look at this crazyness! And she basically said what crazyness? I said, this guy is saying the world is only 6000 years old! This is when I realized that El doesn't believe in Darwinism, because in Genesis it says that God created everything in 6 days.

Can someone believe in God and Darwinism? Are they mutually exclusive? How can you not believe Darwinism? Wouldn't that negate modern medicine? We test drugs extensively on mice and pigs because they share similar DNA to humans. Augh, it was a weird moment. Thank God she's Korean in the fact that if our children want to be scientists, her desire for them to succeed will outweigh her beliefs in biology.

Time is a game only children play well

Hey, Happy Thanksgiving to you, too, man. Or, as C* has been saying, "Happy Gobbleday, everyone!" Sorry I've been incommunicado. It's been a little frantic with work stuff. They're going to eventually take this project away from me and give it to someone in-house. A few months ago I might have took this as an affront, but today I see the wisdom of it. In fact, I can't wait to wash my hands of this project.

Anyway, last man on base. There's something timeless about that image. It's a bittersweet sort of feeling. You're probably gone by now, but I feel for you and am pulling for you during your final pre-holiday hours there. I remember my first year of college staying one more day past when most people had left. It was a really weird, but strangely satisfying, feeling. I got really drunk the afternoon before the morning I left, simply because there was not much else to do, and the slight sadness of the desolate campus seemed to call for it. I imagine your wine in the afternoon might be a similar prescription.

We're heading up to the state to the north of us to celebrate with some friends, just for the night. Should be nice. My new Silver Jews CD finally arrived in the mail today. I hope to listen to it on the road. I've half-listened to it today, and I like what I hear--it's a real departure from his other work.

Did you enjoy your comic book and drink last night? I love that image of you falling asleep with one on your chest. Graphic novels are such a fine, underrated literary form. Have you been reading Chris Ware's weekly installment in the Sunday Times Magazine?

Anyway, happiest of gobblefests to you. This is the best holiday--so simple and food-centered, with no weight of meaning or commerce (well, except for the food industry). Are you two celebrating with anyone, or just by your lonesomes? Whatever you do, may it be grand.

Thanks for weathering the storm

Man. I'm at G*, and I may be the last person on base. It is dead as dead here. I probably would be home now if it weren't for the fact that I'm picking up El from the train station at 4:45. I had a lot to say earlier, but thankfully the incoherent fire has left my belly. It's instead full of the glass of wine and pizza I ate earlier today for lunch. I feel a little cranky and uncomfortable, which happens when I drink early in the day. I think I may head out soon, drop by a comic book store on my way to train station, and read until my wife arrives. That wouldn't be so bad.

Happy thanksgiving, Ed. I hope the work calms down a bit so I can more from you.

Sometimes I think the cycle never ends

I am pretty sleep deprived at this moment. El called me at 4 this morning, but I was awake already for some unknown reason. I tried to go back to sleep, but I was not tired at all. I'm running on fumes right now. I'm wondering if I shouldn't just go home a little early today, and take a nap or something. It's interesting how uneffective thought is when I am in this state. It's about the only thing I can concentrate on, the fact that I can't concentrate on anything. My attention span is utterly decimated right now. What I'd love to do is go to a nearby comic book store, pick up some graphic novels, pour myself a generous amount of scotch and lay on my sofa and chill, and eventually pass out. Sometimes that's the best feeling in the world, waking up with a slight headache from booze and a comic book folded over my chest. I'm a simple person with simple needs!

Love me for who I am, not who you want me to be! I'm borderline delirious here.

My camouflage is dying

It's been a heck of a morning, man. Just so swamped with stuff. I will write more later. I enjoyed your meditation on television, by the way. It's a real addictive thing--one reason we don't have cable.

Anyway, more later.

Television

I'm sitting here at work, having done just about all the studying and reading I can tolerate before I have to leave for class. It's been a mother of a day, starting at 4:55 and not ending until close to 9. My posture is sufferingly drastically, and now I'm artificially stiff backed, to make up for the past five hundred hours of slouching.

I know that I have to get rid of my television. I can't remember the last book I completely finished reading, and it depresses me that I've gone from being a person who read regularly and steadily for years to one who only has time and patience for new yorker and times articles. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with those two periodicals, but I feel like something is missing when I don't read something that I have to tuck into. I really want to read this Chabon book you've just mentioned. I'm going to get this book, and I'm going to start reading it, and I'm not going to let wonderful, freeing, soul caressing television distract me. No more Iron chef, animal planet, no more espn, travel network, televised poker, and martial arts fighting. Dammit, no more! Maybe!

It's intellectual lazyness. Man. I'm not even going to buy the argument that there are grades of television, there is no better or worse television, it's all garbage. Oh, but so sweet. Some of these reality programs are so fascinating, like the ones where they follow incredibly rich kids around as they go shopping at barney's, and the travails as they meet their incredibly removed father for dinner. I'm shocked he remembers his daughters names. And the cliques and parties and boys and plastic surgery, it's fucking truly amazing some of these shows.

Wow, I love tv. Fuck.

Cool that you're going on a business trip. Is it down to Chicago? It is nice to expense dinners, I always try to get nice dinners when I travel, althought I haven't travelled in more than 3 years now.

Oh, and I'm not sure if I'm chipper or if I'm manic. Man, I can't wait for Thanksgiving. There is nothing like taking some serious time off.

Monday monday

Hey man, you sound really chipper. That's awesome. I am feeling somewhat less than chipper, although I'm not doing too bad. I went for a run this morning, so I am feeling that nice post-exercise relaxed feeling.

Yes, bombastic is the rule on blogs! I am currently reading Dave Egger's short stories, How We are Hungry. He's all right. I sometimes like him, sometimes not. A few of the stories are really excellent, but a couple of them just leave me a little cold for the fact that they are cold--there's no real sense of depth to the characters, and you come away feeling like the character was created just to get across an idea. The rest are decent, and he does have a good, memorable sentence or image fairly regularly, so it is worth reading overall, but don't expect magic on every page.

I just finished that Michael Chabon novel I was talking about, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. I strongly recommend it. Chabon is an excellent writer. Unlike Eggers (not that it's too fair to compare authors so closely, I know), Chabon's sentences unfurl delicately and with great precision. There's stuff on every page that is wonderful read simply because of the way it was written, nevermind the plot or story. Of course, the story is excellent. It's very funny as well as deeply moving.

I'm a slow reader, so I don't read a whole lot of books. In the last four months, I also ready Moby Dick and Confidence Man by Herman Melville. I recommend the former. However, Confidence Man is a very unconventional narrative, with no main character (or possibly one main character impersonating many people--it's not clear) and hardly any characters are ever identified by name, so it's a hard read. It has rewarding moments, especially in the later part of the book, but overall it takes a bit of work to get through. The narrative technique is pretty ahead of it's time, seeing as it was written in the mid-1800s.

That's cool that El cooks such awesome food. I would like to meet her when I am in town. Maybe we can all go out for drinks?

I need to get to work. I get to do some traveling next week--only 80 miles away, but I get to spend the night, have business dinners and breakfasts, and all that. I like charging stuff to other companies while I work for them--the hotel food tastes better when you're not paying for it.

And there he wept when he remembered Zion

Happy Monday morning, E. I'm at work extra early, having dropped El off at the train station this morning. I decided to drop in at S* before heading off to G* for the rest of the day. Twas a good weekend, and lots of delicious food was had. She made shabu shabu, made famous (to me, anyway) by our Hawaiian friend C*. That El made shabu shabu was one of the very first things I learned about her.

I just read over our last couple of posts, and I agree, we are being bombastic and wordy, but what are these blog things for if not for grandiose pronouncements? I will have to check out that book you mentioned, btw, but I have had lots of difficultly lately finishing books. What books are you reading nowadays? I restarted 'City Life' by Witold Rybczynski (almost got his name right the first time!), and though it's an engaging enough book, I get distracted reading the new yorker magazines and sunday times piling up all over the house, and also by the delicious pull of sweet television.

How was your weekend in De_B? One of these days (and I actually mean one of these years) I will find myself up in your neck of the woods. Maybe El would be interested in going to Chicago, and as a detour we could go to De_B. Also, that's great that you're going to be in Washington for New Year's. I should be in town at least part of the time, if not all of the time, and from my end it should be pretty easy to meet up. My mother-in-law will be in town, so while she and El go shopping or something (though I really want you to meet El), we can meet up for drinks and the like.

It's been a while, man. I look back on our Ethiopian dinners fondly.

Weight of the whirled

Hey man, it's a crazy day today, so I haven't been able to post. I enjoyed your meditation on science and scientists. I've read a fair number of research books, and I concur on the bone-crunchingly dull nature of data. It takes a special kind of person.

I disagree on the predictability of everything in the universe. Call me a romantic, but I still believe in free will and the power of consciousness. I don't know if I could defend it, but the fact that no one has been able to come close to replicating the human mind (or even a cat's mind, as far as I know) with a computer makes me think there's a lot more to it than pure data crunching and statistics. Of course, I may be arguing something along the same lines as the Intelligent Design crowd--you know, since I can't understand how it works, there must be some mystical power (in this case, will power) that makes it all happen. So, although I look down on the Intelligent Design crowd when it comes to the origin of life, maybe I'm just as bad when we start discussing the nature of the soul.

Not that I strictly believe in the soul in the religious sense of the word. I just mean consciousness and freedom of the will. But maybe I'm misunderstanding your argument. I think that, given enough statistical data and the means to process and analyze it, it is probably possible to predict someone's behavior more often than not. But I can't give in to the idea that the human mind is somehow a machine or that the person being observed does not have the power to choose differently than what the accrued data says he or she will choose.

I recommend "In Defense of Human Consciousness," by Joseph Rychlak. He's a psychologist, and the book is a little heavy at times, but he defends the idea of free will pretty well against the mechanistic and reductionist models of modern science.

Anyway, I just had some espresso, so I am being way too wordy and probably bombastic (I like that word).

Ah, thanks for trying to stop with the "gay = sucks" thing. That's very straight of you.

Just kidding.

I am a scientist I seek to understand me

Hey man. I've decided I'm going to make a concerted effort to stop using the word 'gay' to mean sucky.

Anyway, I just got out of our technology interchange meeting (TIM), which kind of blew my mind. As an engineer, I rarely work with scientists. By the time engineering work gets to me, it's been filtered down pretty far, so far that I've never really met a physicist in the work world. Well, with this new project I'm in early enough that I have to deal directly with them. The meeting was very educational, but being me, I learned something interesting about science.

Science is the reduction of data. I know scientists often create theories but what the vast majority of scientists do is reduce data. I think maybe the reason this comes to mind is that I've always been infuriated by easy to read science books that describe the universe or complex physical laws using plain language. These books make it seem like anyone can comprehend science. I never really understood why in the world I had a reaction to it, but today I realized it's because I personally don't have a scientific mind, and have some weird chip on my shoulder because of my knowledge that I don't and I can't get it.

Science, I think also intrinsically, is the search to understand the universe. That sounds bombastic, but this is what science/math is. The movie the matrix touches on this superficially, the fact that all human interaction and experience can be programmed and shown as a mathematical solution. This is, I believe, true. There is likely an equation that can describe the soul. Every single thing you sense is a math. Everything, theoretically, can be predicted. Every behavior and phenomenon is math.

But you want to know the truth about this stuff? Not only is it pretty much incomprehensible, it's also boring and grinding as fuck. I mean, statisticians write these fascinating things about what they've discovered, but to actually read through and make sense of the data is horrible! I'd much rather surf the web and read about how blue jeans are made than swim through a million lines of data.

Man, I could go on and on, but this is starting to get a little incoherent. Anyways, school should take me about 3 years, because I'm going to try to take at least one class every semester including summer, and I need ten classes. Some semesters I'll have to take two classes.

I'm stopping here. I'm going home. I've got schoolwork to do, blah.

I am a lost soul I shoot myself on rock and roll. Man, that line about blue jeans shows what a slacker I am, damn.

Labor intensive

Today's a pretty busy day. I haven't been working hard enough all week, so I am playing catch up. Not that I haven't done anything, but I haven't been as intense as I am today to get things finished. This tends to happen to me toward the end of the week--Thursday and Friday I tend to work harder for some reason.

You're so lucky you get to learn about NYC. My town of De_b, Prairiestate, is not so hard to get to know. However, I still have a lot to learn about it. I need to get out more, work less, talk more to people, etc.

How long will it take you to get your degree? Will it take long, going part time?

Yeah, I understand how you feel about career planning. I've always felt like a bit of a sellout anytime I thought about things that way. I try not to be as half-baked as I used to about work--if I am working, I might as well put everything I have into it as much as possible (although it's hard--see first paragraph). But when it comes to planning my career arc, I can't seem to get into the idea of being a real business man. At heart, I guess I still see myself as a kind of slacker. It's a bad self-image to hold, but I think its pretty common among guys around our age.

Morning from the ranch

Yo man. I'm at G*, looking forward to another sunny day. It's brisk out, and I'll be stuck in a 5 hour meeting starting in about an hour, which kind of suck because my nose is running like crazy. I guess I'll have to go down to the old convenience store and get some tissues.

Some good news about being on base; I can realistically consider taking mass transit! I realize I don't need my car everyday, especially at G*. It's pretty well self-contained, with a nice cafeteria. I'll hopefully take metro once or twice a week, not really at any monetary saving, but not driving is definitely relaxing.

You know, El doesn't really love her job. I think she definitely finds it rewarding, however. We're also torn about what we're doing in the future. I don't know if El wants to stay in NY for the foreseeable future (meaning past the next 2 years), and since I started school again, both of us wants me to finish before we make any other concrete plans. Man, this is gay. All this ambition crap, career crap, but you know the thing is I know how lame this but it's all I know dammit, etc, so on.

Anyway, blah. Are you getting to know your town better nowadays? El and I are learning more and more about NY.

A figure in the distance, even to my own eye

Congrats on the phone, man. Yes, the Tugboat Captain's log makes me feel a little less isolated, too. Good to know you're out there.

I hear you on the subject of wifely proximity. I sometimes wish C* were home more often, as she often works late into the night (she usually leaves before 8AM and doesn't get home until 9:30 or 10). But you make me grateful for the everyday stuff, even if I only get to see her for 3 waking hours. I imagine it must be pretty hard having El so far away most of the time. But she must be finding her work to be pretty rewarding? Living in NYC can't hurt, either. The only solution is for you to get yourself a job up there.

We'll be in the DC area around New Years--it would be cool to see you if you are in town. Maybe we can hit the Taverna for lentil soup and beer. Are you staying in-country for the holidays?

Still snowing. Not much sticking. I don't have a TV, but I imagine they're going wild ("there's gonna be a snow storm, and they're letting me go home...").

Listen, the snow is falling

Wow, snow. That's amazing. I also envy the fact that you helped C* remove snow from her car before she went to work. It blows, all the mundane daily things I miss since El lives in NY. For the two and a half months El lived with me before she started working, we got to act like the traditional household, with my wife staying at home cooking dinner and keeping the house, and me bringing home the bacon. She became disgruntled quite quickly, but now instead of wondering what she's doing with her life (there must be more to life than cooking and waiting for my husband to come home!), she misses me and being home instead. Why can't we reach a middle ground?

E-word, having this little bit communication makes me feel less isolated. Oh, and I finally got my phone!

Window of my World

Outside my office window, there is a chain-link fence about 4 feet from the window, and beyond the fence another four feet is a two-storey, Caucasian-beige garage with apartments on the second floor. I can see the blank first storey wall of the garage apartment building, but there are two windows on the second floor that I can see if I tilt my blinds. I keep my blinds angled so that no one in those apartments can see into my window. If I open the blinds and lean all the way over, I can see the sky at the top of the alley.

It's snowing outside, in earnest now. Before there were flurries, now it is coming down in slanted white dashes. It is not accumulating. This morning we woke to snow on building roofs and on cars. I helped C* scrape the snow off the car before she left for work.

A view from this window

Cool, we got the log going. For about 6 years now I haven't had a window, and only saw the most diffuse amount of natural light, but now, over my right shoulder, I see sky. The rest of the view is dominated by a rattling, brown compressor, some 90 degree angle aluminum beams, a 'Danger High Voltage sign) a wood pallet sitting up right on a chain link fence, a rusting gray metal shed with some vents, and lots of corrugated aluminum siding. This compressor is hilarious, it has these rubber mounts, and clicks and rattles at even intervals. when I look over at it, it literally shivers on the mounts. The amount of sky I see is the top third of the window. It's a bit cloudy out now, but there the sun is peeking out, though it's reflected off the corrugated aluminum. It's a weird view, really, because it sees into (for lack of a better word) a courtyard filled with literally tons of scrap metal.

I'm glad we're doing this. No, this is not necessarily just for during work hours, I think it's just a good place to dump and keep in touch. Baking bread sounds good to me.

Hey, I made it. I am sitting here in my home office, by choice, but also by obligation, as I have so much work to do. I am coordinating a product line for a client (A*), and it is starting to get me down. It's hard to do a job from a distance. It's 1000x easier for me to go to my fridge than it is for me to check files back in A*'s office. I feel like I am administrating with a pair of robotic hands that I control via slow dial-up access. In addition, I don't really have an administrator's mind--I get either bogged down in details, or I forget about very important details, such as notifying M* about a new date for releasing a product.

But hey, life is good otherwise. I'm baking bread today. Haven't done that in a while. (No, it's not all work here, and that's the only thing that keeps me sane.)

Describe the view out your window, Toe J. I am curious about what you can see there.

Yo man. I've been stationed at G*, and am currently without a phone. I'm feeling a bit abandoned, or perhaps that's not the right word. Is there a word for the feeling you get when you're in the army and they decide to station you in uzbekistan to insure no one storms the steppes? That's how I feel right now.

Anyway, I got to thinking that perhaps you're not feeling too differently from me. I'm thinking we should start a blog! Or try, anyway. it'd basically be just the two of us keeping in contact with one another, just notes on what's happening in life, etc. Like public emails, perhaps with identities vaguely changed to protect the innocent.

Let me know what you think. Do you have any ideas for a name for our blog? If you're interested, that is. Notes from Underground is the only title I've thought of so far, and actually 'I just want to be your tugboat captain', but they frankly are not great titles.

Hope all is well in your small Illinois town.