Saturday, July 30, 2005
Splunge
I'm now sitting in my almost-empty apartment at two-thirty in the morning, having a dinner of Libby's canned yellow cling peaches and a bottle of beer. This has got to be a new low.
Lately I've been quite mired in the process of moving. I enjoy moving, even with the hell of finding roommates, looking for new places, paying deposits, and the eventual lifting lots of heavy things. It's all worth it. My life's setting needs to change annually. But these transitional, penultimate days of July sort of get to me.
So I'm looking forward to next week. Once I get settled in my new place, I'll try to use the remaining three weeks of summer to be productive. My goals are to 1) finish a draft of the piano sonata I've been working on, 2) go canoeing, 3) fix my telescope, and 4) catch the Perseid meteor shower on August 12th. I haven't had the best couple of months, true, but I think if I accomplish even one of these goals, I will be extremely satisfied with my summer.
Lately I've been quite mired in the process of moving. I enjoy moving, even with the hell of finding roommates, looking for new places, paying deposits, and the eventual lifting lots of heavy things. It's all worth it. My life's setting needs to change annually. But these transitional, penultimate days of July sort of get to me.
So I'm looking forward to next week. Once I get settled in my new place, I'll try to use the remaining three weeks of summer to be productive. My goals are to 1) finish a draft of the piano sonata I've been working on, 2) go canoeing, 3) fix my telescope, and 4) catch the Perseid meteor shower on August 12th. I haven't had the best couple of months, true, but I think if I accomplish even one of these goals, I will be extremely satisfied with my summer.
Thursday, July 21, 2005
We're havin' a heat wave, a tropical heat wave
The temperatures have been ridiculous lately. They're predicting 104 degrees on Sunday. Good lord.
So I am generally miserable, physically and emotionally.
On August 1st, however, I'm moving into my new place, which is 1) cheap, 2) air-conditioned, and 3) doesn't smell like dead things.
So I am generally miserable, physically and emotionally.
On August 1st, however, I'm moving into my new place, which is 1) cheap, 2) air-conditioned, and 3) doesn't smell like dead things.
Sunday, July 17, 2005
NM report
Now it's time for me to speak exhaustively about my trip.
So here are some highlights.
Here's me high-fiving a stalagmite. Unfortunately, it left me hanging.
White Sands
An incredibly amazing place, especially around sunset. Here's another cool picture.
The Very Large Array
Radio interferometry equals awesome. Or if that's not your thing, it's also quite cool just to see the place, not least because it's the setting of my favorite movie ever. "Whatever it is, it ain't local!"
Incredibly Dark Skies
The sky is incredibly dark at night in the desert. We stopped near Carrizozo to look at them. It doesn't get much more remote than this (what makes for good stargazing also makes for good atomic bomb testing; this is just west of Trinity Site, the 60th anniversary of which was yesterday). Jake put his digital camera on top of his car and took a 15-second exposure, and later I adjusted the levels in Photoshop and was amazed at the detail the camera caught - a colorful multitude of stars in Hercules and at least one deep-sky object: globular cluster M13 is visible (indicated with red arrow).
Sandia Tram
The world's longest aerial tram. Best $15 you ever spent. The view alone is worth it.
Cockroaches
Lots of them.
Jemez Mountains
North of Albuquerque, at the edge of an impressive caldera, lies an idyllic little canyon with some amazing geological formations and the like. It's a place of great natural beauty. Your cell phone doesn't work here. You can't pick up any radio stations here. The Jemez is a place to linger. There are also weird red rocks nearby.
That's about all I can stand to type. And now, a nice group picture.
I sort of balk at calling this trip a vacation. It was a vacation for the other guys, but for me it was the pedestrian act of visiting family (and in the wake of my aunt's death). Moreover, it was a bizarre sort of time travel or dimension jump, in which I spent a great deal of time imagining an alternate reality in which I hadn't dropped out of UNM. It was quite a weighty experience. Which is not to say it wasn't also exciting and fun. Even though we didn't go anywhere I hadn't been before, I still enjoyed it vastly more than I would have enjoyed a week of farting around in Iowa. I'm pleased to report that the Land of Enchantment is no less enchanting after countless visits and even after living there.
There was a lot of driving. As an experiment, I took a picture of the road every 50 miles on the way from Iowa City to Carlsbad, to document the transition of the landscape from prairie to desert. This is the result. It looks pretty cool, I think. (Photos 1-4 are in Iowa, 5-7 are in Missouri, 8-13 Kansas, 14-17 Oklahoma, 18-23 Texas, and 24-25 New Mexico.)
There was a lot of driving. As an experiment, I took a picture of the road every 50 miles on the way from Iowa City to Carlsbad, to document the transition of the landscape from prairie to desert. This is the result. It looks pretty cool, I think. (Photos 1-4 are in Iowa, 5-7 are in Missouri, 8-13 Kansas, 14-17 Oklahoma, 18-23 Texas, and 24-25 New Mexico.)
So here are some highlights.
Carlsbad Caverns
It turns out I'm a little claustrophobic. Hmm. It wasn't too bad though.
Here's me high-fiving a stalagmite. Unfortunately, it left me hanging.
White Sands
An incredibly amazing place, especially around sunset. Here's another cool picture.
The Very Large Array
Radio interferometry equals awesome. Or if that's not your thing, it's also quite cool just to see the place, not least because it's the setting of my favorite movie ever. "Whatever it is, it ain't local!"
Incredibly Dark Skies
The sky is incredibly dark at night in the desert. We stopped near Carrizozo to look at them. It doesn't get much more remote than this (what makes for good stargazing also makes for good atomic bomb testing; this is just west of Trinity Site, the 60th anniversary of which was yesterday). Jake put his digital camera on top of his car and took a 15-second exposure, and later I adjusted the levels in Photoshop and was amazed at the detail the camera caught - a colorful multitude of stars in Hercules and at least one deep-sky object: globular cluster M13 is visible (indicated with red arrow).
Sandia Tram
The world's longest aerial tram. Best $15 you ever spent. The view alone is worth it.
Cockroaches
Lots of them.
Jemez Mountains
North of Albuquerque, at the edge of an impressive caldera, lies an idyllic little canyon with some amazing geological formations and the like. It's a place of great natural beauty. Your cell phone doesn't work here. You can't pick up any radio stations here. The Jemez is a place to linger. There are also weird red rocks nearby.
That's about all I can stand to type. And now, a nice group picture.
Saturday, July 16, 2005
I'm back. I had fun.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
The f- ... who the fuck are the Knutsons?!
Quit it, Al Qaeda. Just... quit it.
So a consortium of powerful world leaders finally sits down together to discuss climate change and poverty and what we should do about it; it figures that some assholes would bomb London and change the whole climate (har har) of the summit.
Right, so although violent terrorism isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and neither is Bush's unilateralism, I am happy to report that I will be going somewhere. Very soon. Tomorrow morning me, Jake and Jesse will push off to New Mexico for a week or so. This is going to be a very welcome vacation, let me tell you. I'm going to try (and probably fail) to do a lot of sketching. Sketching is a very meditative, healthy thing to do, and I ought to do it every day.
I'll be back on July something-teenth.
So a consortium of powerful world leaders finally sits down together to discuss climate change and poverty and what we should do about it; it figures that some assholes would bomb London and change the whole climate (har har) of the summit.
Right, so although violent terrorism isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and neither is Bush's unilateralism, I am happy to report that I will be going somewhere. Very soon. Tomorrow morning me, Jake and Jesse will push off to New Mexico for a week or so. This is going to be a very welcome vacation, let me tell you. I'm going to try (and probably fail) to do a lot of sketching. Sketching is a very meditative, healthy thing to do, and I ought to do it every day.
I'll be back on July something-teenth.
Sunday, July 03, 2005
High and dry
Well, things have actually gotten a lot worse for me. So much worse that I'm considering becoming an evil supervillain with a secret identity. I'll change from mild-mannered (if slightly misanthropic) Brian Lenth to evil, conniving Doctor Lazarus; cackling wickedly as I draw up a brilliant plan to steal the sun. Look out, Gotham!
The good news is that I can't possibly see how things can get yet worse. I guess I'll give you the simplified version of what's going on. There's a girl. After a long, long period of me pining over her, she finally lead me on, then immediately, inexplicably changed her mind. And now (this is just perfect), her friend has hooked up with my friend. I really just need some time to pry the metaphorical harpoon out of my heart, and then I'll be OK. I hope. Also, I'm going on vacation; specifically a road trip to New Mexico, next week. That will be a very, very good thing.
The other good news is that the Iowa City Jazz Fest is going on, and I actually went out and had a good time today. There is great, great music in the world, my friends, and two of its names are the Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey and Kenny Garrett.
So yeah, sometimes life is halfway tolerable, but most of the time I just wish there was a God so he could smite me.
The good news is that I can't possibly see how things can get yet worse. I guess I'll give you the simplified version of what's going on. There's a girl. After a long, long period of me pining over her, she finally lead me on, then immediately, inexplicably changed her mind. And now (this is just perfect), her friend has hooked up with my friend. I really just need some time to pry the metaphorical harpoon out of my heart, and then I'll be OK. I hope. Also, I'm going on vacation; specifically a road trip to New Mexico, next week. That will be a very, very good thing.
The other good news is that the Iowa City Jazz Fest is going on, and I actually went out and had a good time today. There is great, great music in the world, my friends, and two of its names are the Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey and Kenny Garrett.
So yeah, sometimes life is halfway tolerable, but most of the time I just wish there was a God so he could smite me.
