It is raining today, for what feels like the first time since May. We often go for months in the summer here without any significant rainfall. But today, it's extra-special, given that we just planted four new trees, and a slew of new perennials around the place in the last few days. And today we get a blessedly soaking rain. The timing is impeccable.
Planting trees inspires long thoughts. Will you be here to see them when they come to full shade-tree status? What will your life be like? What unexpected changes will have occurred? Which goals will have been reached, and which will have fallen by the wayside, outgrown like much-loved old toys? And that naturally leads to thinking about long-term, integrated life goals...
More prosaically, I've been busy packing up the horses for the big sabbatical trip. They are going to visit a professional trainer (Trisha Kerwin, dressage trainer extraordinaire) for about seven months. What an opportunity---I'm so glad it occurred to me to take advantage of it!
And, it was a week of tidying up bits and pieces---getting the car and truck registered and inspected. Oh, and getting the truck fixed. The driver's side front brake had disintegrated. (!) Sigh. When it rains, it pours---seems like all the vehicles are needing work this season. Interestingly, the safety inspection failed to catch this little problem. Huh. But it was squeaking, and I had a little time, so I took it to the brake shop, even though someone had just safety-tested the brakes. More impeccable timing. I could have taken the word of the safety inspection guy!
And we finally got our window shades put on the other two mammoth plate glass windows. We're going to be really happy about those next summer! They do a wonderful job of shading the interior, and keeping the temperature down.
But the thing that's really happening in my head is a general bubbling around of ideas that have needed processing for months. Sometimes, when I'm really, really busy, I sort of throw ideas, thoughts and mental images into a big box in the corner of my head. Then, sometime later, I get a piece of slow time, and they all percolate around. It feels like spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove---good ideas add to the richness, bad ones rise to the surface, burst, and are lost. In this slow time, I tend to spend a lot of time 'puttering around', and arguing in my head with people who aren't there. What I'm really doing is thinking through lots of arguments and counter-arguments, pros and cons, he-saids and she-saids. I'm coming up with complete lists of all possible options (you have no idea how many different transportation scenarios I'm considering for Socorro!), and then methodically weighing pros and cons, and making decisions. I'm thinking through plots for papers, funding strategies for projects, lists of goals, opening lines for public or professional talks, visualizing relationships between various scientific concepts, looking for new metaphors and analogies to bring space down to earth. All at once, in a very non-linear fashion.
Sadly, it looks to other people like I'm not actually doing anything! But this is when I'm at my most creative. When I've just moved the oh-so-decorative teapot from this shelf to that one for the fifth time, or finally figured out how to fit ALL the glasses in the same cupboard, or gotten all the laundry on the line, or planted a tree, or spent the afternoon at the brake shop... that's when I'm most likely to have two different ideas in my head at the same time. And that's when I'm most likely to notice how similar they actually are, and how this corner of one idea fits so neatly into the notch in the other one.
The whole process is like trying to get a skittish horse to come to you in the pasture. If you try to boldly walk right up to it, you will frighten it away, and there's no way you will ever catch it by yourself. Maybe, if you have a bunch of friends, you can corner it. But it will be all worked up and fight you all the way back to the barn. Tomorrow, you will have an even harder time. Much better (and usually faster) to go to the middle of the field, sit down with your back to the horse, and be very interested in this patch of grass with all it's fascinating clover and stems and bugs, and little grains of dirt and sand. Before you know it, the horse comes to you, to see what's so interesting. Give him a handful of grain, and tell him how marvelously brave he is. And there you are. No drama. No trauma. After that, he'll follow you right back to the barn. Most likely, he'll do it tomorrow too.
Sneak up to ideas sideways. Trick them with other fascinations, and they come right to you. It reminds me of those lines from TMBG, 'In every jumbled pile of person there's a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking, isn't thinking of...' Turns out, it's thinking of a lot. You just have to leave it be for a while, and see what it comes up with!
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Friday, August 29, 2008
Overheard at the IFA...
I am fierce.
No really. I am. I just broke my second shovel today. Snapped the solid wooden handle right in half. I was digging out an old tree to plant a new one, and as I was prying the old tree out, the shovel handle broke. This is the second time this summer that this has happened to me. Grrr. Needless to say, THIS was my backup shovel. So I finished planting the tree (which weighed upwards of 200 pounds. I know this because I had to get it out of the back of my truck, onto my little handcart, around to the other driveway, up the stairs, and across the garden. Yes, I know. I could have saved some work by backing the truck around. But I had already stood up all the trees (there are four), and it didn't occur to me to just lay them back down again until just now.
Anyway.
So I had to go to the IFA today, because I needed some other things too, like chicken feed, biotin and de-wormer for the horses, etc.
And I'm walking around, carbonated about Obama's speech yesterday---I have a very LotR feel about it: 'It's been long since we've had any hope.' I was also carbonated about McCain's choice of a running mate: Sarah Palin. (Where did that come from?!) But it appears we are to have an historic election, one way or another. And, in passing, I caught this snippet of conversation, from one Utah cowboy to another:
"If he picks Mitt Romney, I'll vote for 'im. But otherwise..."
Eep. Can you imagine that Utah might go Democrat? OMFG. That would be sweet. Totally, totally sweet.
And, by tomorrow, I will have planted four new trees. That should just about offset my home in Socorro for the next six months!
No really. I am. I just broke my second shovel today. Snapped the solid wooden handle right in half. I was digging out an old tree to plant a new one, and as I was prying the old tree out, the shovel handle broke. This is the second time this summer that this has happened to me. Grrr. Needless to say, THIS was my backup shovel. So I finished planting the tree (which weighed upwards of 200 pounds. I know this because I had to get it out of the back of my truck, onto my little handcart, around to the other driveway, up the stairs, and across the garden. Yes, I know. I could have saved some work by backing the truck around. But I had already stood up all the trees (there are four), and it didn't occur to me to just lay them back down again until just now.
Anyway.
So I had to go to the IFA today, because I needed some other things too, like chicken feed, biotin and de-wormer for the horses, etc.
And I'm walking around, carbonated about Obama's speech yesterday---I have a very LotR feel about it: 'It's been long since we've had any hope.' I was also carbonated about McCain's choice of a running mate: Sarah Palin. (Where did that come from?!) But it appears we are to have an historic election, one way or another. And, in passing, I caught this snippet of conversation, from one Utah cowboy to another:
"If he picks Mitt Romney, I'll vote for 'im. But otherwise..."
Eep. Can you imagine that Utah might go Democrat? OMFG. That would be sweet. Totally, totally sweet.
And, by tomorrow, I will have planted four new trees. That should just about offset my home in Socorro for the next six months!
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Encounters with the ArchEnemy
A day in which I feel like Edward Abbey... cranky at the 'system', beat down by 'the man'...
So, we have this beautiful trail system here. And sabbatical seems like a good time to take the ol' pup for a walk around the 3-mile exercise loop every single day, before she's too old to enjoy it!
Cassie is one of THOSE dogs. Everyone who sees her cries, 'What a GOOD dog!' She walks at my side when I ask her to, comes when I call, sits on command, and generally is interested in two things---me, (or John), and the bushes. Other dogs hold limited interest. People are not interesting at all. I have to call her over to get her to pay attention to them. Generally, if I see someone I've not seen before, I'll call her over, have her sit, and wait until they walk by. That way, they can recognize that she's not a threat to them, and that some dogs are good dogs.
Contrast this with the bulldog I saw today. I was sitting on the bench, looking out over the valley, after climbing a little bit of a hill. Cassie was lying down at my feet. Three women and the bulldog came up the hill. As soon as the bulldog saw Cassie, it started straining at the leash. At one point, it was walking on its hind legs, leaning against its collar, trying to get to us. Cassie just laid there and watched. The woman had to choke up on the leash so tightly that she was leaning back against the dog. 'It takes two to pull', said an old trainer of mine. They got by without incident, but that dog is a threat to himself, his owner, and the rest of the planet. He thinks he's supposed to be in charge, and it stresses him out.
And then there was the hound I saw on 26th. This poor woman had two dogs on the leash, the hound and a beagle, one in each hand. They were headed down the hill on the North side of the street, and we were headed up the hill, on the South side of the street. If you've never been to Utah, let me explain that this is one of THOSE streets, about six lanes wide. Wide enough to turn an ox-cart around, with a little room to spare. So they were pretty far away from us, actually. The hound sees Cassie, and starts straining at the leash. He's yanking the poor woman around, and so she yanks back. Then she kicks him. He glances at her, and keeps straining at the leash. (Somehow he's supposed to know that what's happening with his neck is connected to what's happening with her feet?) She kicked him again, and at that moment, when her foot was off the ground, he pulled a little harder. She didn't quite fall down, but it was a close thing. Meanwhile, Cassie (who happened to be on the leash because of the street) sniffed at the grass, and trotted by my side, completely ignoring the chaos across the street.
Don't even get me started about the border collie cross who actually hauls his owner off of her feet and DRAGS her body along the pavement.
So when Cassie and I ran into the animal control guy, and she was patiently trotting about six feet in front of me, and both of us were minding our own business, I was annoyed. I suppose I'm not really annoyed with the guy---he's just doing his job, and I really do think that those other dogs need to be under control. I guess I'm just annoyed that we so often do the easy thing because it's quantifiable, instead of doing the better thing, because it's not. It's so easy to ask, 'Is your dog on the leash?', because the answer is yes or no, and you can tell just by looking. That makes the animal control guy's job easy. It's much harder to ask 'Is your dog under control?', because the answer is often 'no', even when they are on the leash; and the answer is often 'yes', even when they are off the leash.
And, I suppose, I am mad at clueless dog owners. And a little bit sorry for them. And a little bit indignant that they all think Cassie was just born that way. She used to pull on the leash. She used to rush out the front door. She used to bark all the time, and tear up the furniture. Then we got a really good people-trainer (a.k.a. dog trainer!), to teach us how to behave around our dog. And now she is the paragon of respectability that everyone loves. (Except for that whole counter-surfing thing---if we really cared, we'd change that behavior too, but it makes for too many good stories!) And so I wish that everyone would put the time into their dog that the dog deserves. They don't like to lean on the leash any more than people do. They just don't think there's any other way, mostly because they think that they have to be in charge. Sigh.
So, for all you people out there with dogs that pull, and rush, and jump and bark. Get thee to a people-trainer. Take charge of your dog so that we can all have a pleasant day and the animal control man will leave us all alone.
Fortunately, I got off with a warning. Because I would have been really, really, REALLY mad if I got a ticket, for having my dog under voice control!
___________
In other news, I finished looking at one environmental physics book yesterday. Completely out of date for the course I have in mind, but it had some nice tables and charts that would be helpful.
I also planned out my talk for the DaVinci Academy next week. Now I just have to sit down and make up my slides. I have an idea for a concept map that I think will really help to get across the idea that all areas of science are connected together, and that if you want to throw out the dates of moon rocks, you also have to throw out nuclear power plants, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the radioactive pellets they use to treat cancer. Oh, and the SUN. Chuh.
So, we have this beautiful trail system here. And sabbatical seems like a good time to take the ol' pup for a walk around the 3-mile exercise loop every single day, before she's too old to enjoy it!
Cassie is one of THOSE dogs. Everyone who sees her cries, 'What a GOOD dog!' She walks at my side when I ask her to, comes when I call, sits on command, and generally is interested in two things---me, (or John), and the bushes. Other dogs hold limited interest. People are not interesting at all. I have to call her over to get her to pay attention to them. Generally, if I see someone I've not seen before, I'll call her over, have her sit, and wait until they walk by. That way, they can recognize that she's not a threat to them, and that some dogs are good dogs.
Contrast this with the bulldog I saw today. I was sitting on the bench, looking out over the valley, after climbing a little bit of a hill. Cassie was lying down at my feet. Three women and the bulldog came up the hill. As soon as the bulldog saw Cassie, it started straining at the leash. At one point, it was walking on its hind legs, leaning against its collar, trying to get to us. Cassie just laid there and watched. The woman had to choke up on the leash so tightly that she was leaning back against the dog. 'It takes two to pull', said an old trainer of mine. They got by without incident, but that dog is a threat to himself, his owner, and the rest of the planet. He thinks he's supposed to be in charge, and it stresses him out.
And then there was the hound I saw on 26th. This poor woman had two dogs on the leash, the hound and a beagle, one in each hand. They were headed down the hill on the North side of the street, and we were headed up the hill, on the South side of the street. If you've never been to Utah, let me explain that this is one of THOSE streets, about six lanes wide. Wide enough to turn an ox-cart around, with a little room to spare. So they were pretty far away from us, actually. The hound sees Cassie, and starts straining at the leash. He's yanking the poor woman around, and so she yanks back. Then she kicks him. He glances at her, and keeps straining at the leash. (Somehow he's supposed to know that what's happening with his neck is connected to what's happening with her feet?) She kicked him again, and at that moment, when her foot was off the ground, he pulled a little harder. She didn't quite fall down, but it was a close thing. Meanwhile, Cassie (who happened to be on the leash because of the street) sniffed at the grass, and trotted by my side, completely ignoring the chaos across the street.
Don't even get me started about the border collie cross who actually hauls his owner off of her feet and DRAGS her body along the pavement.
So when Cassie and I ran into the animal control guy, and she was patiently trotting about six feet in front of me, and both of us were minding our own business, I was annoyed. I suppose I'm not really annoyed with the guy---he's just doing his job, and I really do think that those other dogs need to be under control. I guess I'm just annoyed that we so often do the easy thing because it's quantifiable, instead of doing the better thing, because it's not. It's so easy to ask, 'Is your dog on the leash?', because the answer is yes or no, and you can tell just by looking. That makes the animal control guy's job easy. It's much harder to ask 'Is your dog under control?', because the answer is often 'no', even when they are on the leash; and the answer is often 'yes', even when they are off the leash.
And, I suppose, I am mad at clueless dog owners. And a little bit sorry for them. And a little bit indignant that they all think Cassie was just born that way. She used to pull on the leash. She used to rush out the front door. She used to bark all the time, and tear up the furniture. Then we got a really good people-trainer (a.k.a. dog trainer!), to teach us how to behave around our dog. And now she is the paragon of respectability that everyone loves. (Except for that whole counter-surfing thing---if we really cared, we'd change that behavior too, but it makes for too many good stories!) And so I wish that everyone would put the time into their dog that the dog deserves. They don't like to lean on the leash any more than people do. They just don't think there's any other way, mostly because they think that they have to be in charge. Sigh.
So, for all you people out there with dogs that pull, and rush, and jump and bark. Get thee to a people-trainer. Take charge of your dog so that we can all have a pleasant day and the animal control man will leave us all alone.
Fortunately, I got off with a warning. Because I would have been really, really, REALLY mad if I got a ticket, for having my dog under voice control!
___________
In other news, I finished looking at one environmental physics book yesterday. Completely out of date for the course I have in mind, but it had some nice tables and charts that would be helpful.
I also planned out my talk for the DaVinci Academy next week. Now I just have to sit down and make up my slides. I have an idea for a concept map that I think will really help to get across the idea that all areas of science are connected together, and that if you want to throw out the dates of moon rocks, you also have to throw out nuclear power plants, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the radioactive pellets they use to treat cancer. Oh, and the SUN. Chuh.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
See, because this is what's wrong with me...
So, last night I wrote my first post, with all the goals and so on for my sabbatical. This morning, I woke up, came to open doors and so on for my conference-goers, and then sat down and wrote a draft of the Mercury article. Because that's fun, and what I should be doing is working on the revisions of the EB article. But that's not fun, because I really don't enjoy debugging software. Wait. Can I admit that out loud?
Anyway, I wrote up about 1700 words on it, which leaves about 900 for Adam. (Sorry, Adam!) Then I sent it away to him, so that he can have some input. He might like that.
But this is the thing about me. If I have a list of To-Do's in front of me, I compulsively work on them until I can cross something off. And then, when I'm down to the list of things I don't want to do, I add stuff to it, so I can work on that instead. Ugh. If I would just sit down and do those unpleasant things, I'd get a lot more done...
I also made an evaluation form for my conference-goers, was the main go-fer for all the tools and images and items they needed, took them to lunch, provided morning and afternoon snacks, and worked on my talk for the star party this evening. That's enough for one day, right? Right?
This is the fourth 14-hour day in a row. I'm starting to get a little tired, I think. And can somebody please find me some vegetables? I even organized the conference food, and I couldn't find any vegetables...
Anyway, I wrote up about 1700 words on it, which leaves about 900 for Adam. (Sorry, Adam!) Then I sent it away to him, so that he can have some input. He might like that.
But this is the thing about me. If I have a list of To-Do's in front of me, I compulsively work on them until I can cross something off. And then, when I'm down to the list of things I don't want to do, I add stuff to it, so I can work on that instead. Ugh. If I would just sit down and do those unpleasant things, I'd get a lot more done...
I also made an evaluation form for my conference-goers, was the main go-fer for all the tools and images and items they needed, took them to lunch, provided morning and afternoon snacks, and worked on my talk for the star party this evening. That's enough for one day, right? Right?
This is the fourth 14-hour day in a row. I'm starting to get a little tired, I think. And can somebody please find me some vegetables? I even organized the conference food, and I couldn't find any vegetables...
Friday, August 22, 2008
Opening day...
Officially, Monday, the 25th is the first day of my first sabbatical.
Unofficially, it's starting today. This is because:
a) I went to no 'Opening of School' festivities this week! Watching all my colleagues go off to 'Information Security Training', unit retreats and faculty meetings, I have smiled smugly. It's almost as bad as being a Mac user...
b) I am in the middle of running a conference/workshop for planetarium professionals. You might think that sabbatical will not start until the END of this, but I have found that by the time you are past the halfway point, you have the world by the @ss on a downhill slide, and your problem-solving response is so well cultivated that pretty much anything could happen, and you'd just smile and nod. In other words, I planned pretty well, and from here on out, the conference is in 'coast' mode. By Monday, I'll be feeling like a whole other person.
So. One might ask. What are the sabbatical plans, anyway?
a) The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) (Did you even know that YOU own a massive radio observatory?) is very close to the end of a massive project, creating the Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA). This just happens to overlap my first sabbatical, so I'm off to Socorro to make myself useful to them. I'll definitely be doing some documentation. I'll definitely be doing some software testing. I'll definitely be doing some radio astronomy. As soon as I remember how... Fortunately, the NRAO is THE place for radio astronomy, so I'm sure someone there will be able to help me remember!
b) WSU has a new environmental focus ('Purple is the new Green'), and the Physics Department has an environment course on the books that hasn't been taught... ever, as far as anyone can tell. Won't it be fun to create such a course and teach it in the fall of 2009, when I'm back from sabbatical? This fits right in with recent interests of mine, and I'm pretty excited to read all about it, and invent fun classroom activities that make the physics of global warming real to my students. Almost certainly, we are going to be reading a lot of the Real Climate blog.
c) We've all of us been doing an enormous amount of work lately, that remains completely undocumented. Science in the Parks. The K-8 core. Studies of learning in the planetarium environment. I've got a lot of papers to write. Oh, and I really should finish that paper that Mike and I worked on, if I can ever get his code to compile in the new IDL... grumble, grumble.
d) Soon, the planetarium is going to need to be updated again. 'Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but someday...' This is a 1 M$ project, probably. Guess I'd better write some grants. grumble, grumble.
e) I am fresh out of ideas. Wrung dry. I got nuthin'. I need to find that place in my head where the ideas just come swimming up, rising like bubbles through my mind, and bursting open with a sweet scent and a flash of light that makes it seem like anything is possible.
f) I am also bent. Just twisted off to one side. See all those grumble, grumbles above? Yesss... those need to go away. Even the things that usually perk me up slide off to the side a little bit, and make me grumble. I suspect that most people don't know this. But J does. T does. C does. This is related to the ideas problem, and mostly means that I'm tired. So by the time I come back, I want to feel like I've got the intestinal fortitude to make all those possibilities into realities.
Too much? Probably. But I'm not known for doing one thing at a time. Really. I'm not.
If Adam's sabbatical is anything to judge by, I'll probably accomplish some random subset of these things. Or other things. Or I'll forget about all things entirely, and go in some other direction.
There is a secret thing. I sort of sidle up to it. Leaning sideways. Not looking directly at it.
I got my MRI done this summer, and have an appointment with a neurologist on 9/15. He will hopefully be able to reassure me that the fate of all the women in my direct line on my mom's side is not also mine. This is terrifying to me, and I procrastinated about it for 11 years. But this is the year to find out if I need brain surgery.
If I don't need brain surgery, then there are a number of secret things that I want to see if I can do: a sprint triathlon before I'm 40; finish my book; learn one-tempi changes; just imagine what I can do if I'm not going to have my head torn open. I might even cut my hair.
Unofficially, it's starting today. This is because:
a) I went to no 'Opening of School' festivities this week! Watching all my colleagues go off to 'Information Security Training', unit retreats and faculty meetings, I have smiled smugly. It's almost as bad as being a Mac user...
b) I am in the middle of running a conference/workshop for planetarium professionals. You might think that sabbatical will not start until the END of this, but I have found that by the time you are past the halfway point, you have the world by the @ss on a downhill slide, and your problem-solving response is so well cultivated that pretty much anything could happen, and you'd just smile and nod. In other words, I planned pretty well, and from here on out, the conference is in 'coast' mode. By Monday, I'll be feeling like a whole other person.
So. One might ask. What are the sabbatical plans, anyway?
a) The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) (Did you even know that YOU own a massive radio observatory?) is very close to the end of a massive project, creating the Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA). This just happens to overlap my first sabbatical, so I'm off to Socorro to make myself useful to them. I'll definitely be doing some documentation. I'll definitely be doing some software testing. I'll definitely be doing some radio astronomy. As soon as I remember how... Fortunately, the NRAO is THE place for radio astronomy, so I'm sure someone there will be able to help me remember!
b) WSU has a new environmental focus ('Purple is the new Green'), and the Physics Department has an environment course on the books that hasn't been taught... ever, as far as anyone can tell. Won't it be fun to create such a course and teach it in the fall of 2009, when I'm back from sabbatical? This fits right in with recent interests of mine, and I'm pretty excited to read all about it, and invent fun classroom activities that make the physics of global warming real to my students. Almost certainly, we are going to be reading a lot of the Real Climate blog.
c) We've all of us been doing an enormous amount of work lately, that remains completely undocumented. Science in the Parks. The K-8 core. Studies of learning in the planetarium environment. I've got a lot of papers to write. Oh, and I really should finish that paper that Mike and I worked on, if I can ever get his code to compile in the new IDL... grumble, grumble.
d) Soon, the planetarium is going to need to be updated again. 'Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but someday...' This is a 1 M$ project, probably. Guess I'd better write some grants. grumble, grumble.
e) I am fresh out of ideas. Wrung dry. I got nuthin'. I need to find that place in my head where the ideas just come swimming up, rising like bubbles through my mind, and bursting open with a sweet scent and a flash of light that makes it seem like anything is possible.
f) I am also bent. Just twisted off to one side. See all those grumble, grumbles above? Yesss... those need to go away. Even the things that usually perk me up slide off to the side a little bit, and make me grumble. I suspect that most people don't know this. But J does. T does. C does. This is related to the ideas problem, and mostly means that I'm tired. So by the time I come back, I want to feel like I've got the intestinal fortitude to make all those possibilities into realities.
Too much? Probably. But I'm not known for doing one thing at a time. Really. I'm not.
If Adam's sabbatical is anything to judge by, I'll probably accomplish some random subset of these things. Or other things. Or I'll forget about all things entirely, and go in some other direction.
There is a secret thing. I sort of sidle up to it. Leaning sideways. Not looking directly at it.
I got my MRI done this summer, and have an appointment with a neurologist on 9/15. He will hopefully be able to reassure me that the fate of all the women in my direct line on my mom's side is not also mine. This is terrifying to me, and I procrastinated about it for 11 years. But this is the year to find out if I need brain surgery.
If I don't need brain surgery, then there are a number of secret things that I want to see if I can do: a sprint triathlon before I'm 40; finish my book; learn one-tempi changes; just imagine what I can do if I'm not going to have my head torn open. I might even cut my hair.
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