Book: the Challenge of Affluence by Avner Offer (2006)

While on my trip to Russia and the Baltic states, I read the book "The Challenge Of Affluence: Self-control and well-being in the United States and Britain since 1950"

The reason for buying this book was my belief that obesity is a strange problem given the tremendously strong forces that would seem to push against it, namely avoiding major health problems and the social norms of body image.  This would suggest that individuals lack self-control, and that perhaps the broader obesity problem is related to a gradual reduction in people's self-control. But why? In particular, I notice for myself that when I am in a bad mood or depressed, I have less control over my eating and I am less motivated to exercise.

I found this book quite instructive in exploring this notion.  The book explores the economic, social, and psychological research related to self-control and myopia across a number of problems, including obesity and smoking.  At a general level, self-control is difficult and so people tend to act myopically, but to help us we impose "commitment strategies" to force ourselves to act in a longer-term self-interest. As an example, in Canada, in provinces where cigarette taxes were imposed smokers reported to be happier as compared to in provinces where they weren't, indicating that they are not "rational addicts".

In the case of obesity, then, the biggest explanatory variable for its rise was the increase in restaurant density -- I.e. a decrease in the barriers between oneself and the food that you crave but is bad for you.  This indicates that the key component for self-control is delay. As a simple example, a reasonable commitment strategy is to purposefully expel all junk food from your house, since if its fit in front of you, you will eat it.

Offer finds that within a given developed society, the affluent have more resources available from which to develop and implement commitment strategies, and thus tend to be less obese. This is in contrast to poor societies, in which the very poor simply cannot afford enough food to become obese; furthermore, in such societies obesity is often a status symbol of affluence.

Meanwhile, across societies, affluence is defined as an abundance of choice, yet the ability wisely choose among those choices and to develop commitment strategies for them, a concept he calls "prudence", takes time to develop. Since prudence lags affluence, affluent societies struggle to maintain self-control.  In this way, offer argues that "affluence breeds impatience, and impatience undermines well-being".

Though a compelling argument, this perspective only tackles the external and aggregate aspects of the relationship between affluence and self-control.  Offer only briefly touches on how self-control may be modulated by other factors, such as depression and broken homes. He notes that mental health problems are strongly linked with broken homes, which themselves have risen substantially in recent decades as well. He also briefly mentions materialism as connected with lower personal well-being and depression, and notes that the capitalist marketing world encourages such materialism and feelings of insecurity. However, he does not go into detail on research exploring this connection more in depth, including research directly connecting depression with a loss of self-control, as well as potential commitment strategies that people may employ and the efforts of advertisers to subvert those strategies. The modern Internet era adds an additional, major element to all of this, but of course the book was only written in 2006.

Russia et al!

Back from the big euro trip! Helsinki to st. Petersburg to Moscow to minsk to Vilnius to Riga to tallinn and back to Helsinki.  All in all not a bad trip despite being a tour full of predominantly old people, with a couple that successfully fell into the "older" category.  The photos will tell the story.

A few random thoughts:

- Russia is a strange place, and its not obvious to me how their culture will evolve moving forward. Communism is not dead and western capitalism is by no means embraced.

- Russia has insanely beautiful women. My neck hurts.

- riga was easily the most fun city, and one that I would love to live in.  It successfully balanced local culture with tourism without feeling touristy (perhaps the only place to do so besides minsk, but that's minks after all).

Moore, OK

Tues: arrive, SWA flight waits for me after ridiculous flight with SLU jock surgeon med student who talked the entire way esp with girl headed to Houston and was hilarious and obnoxious, picked up at airport at 1030p, Sonic for the first time ever! summer of shakes, tots, jalapeno cheddar bites, Guest Inn hotel in Norman, pass in darkness the tornado damage around I-35 at the theatre where the medical center and post office were utterly annihilated.

Wed: Morning Waffle house for the first time ever! waffle, biscuit and egg sandwich, grits; Newcastle Shelter, meet Santana, unload trailer of clothes, sort them and integrate into clothes across tables, eat more Sonic, leave. Afternoon First Baptist Church shelter/supplies, lots of insurance trucks and aid stations outside, front desk help answer questions and guide people to their needs (many lost literally everything) many tarps, trash bags, food, shovels, etc., impromptu medical station set up by amazing doctor, Lupe the religious woman at the food stand. Evening to Moore City Hall meet with Jayme who is in charge of disaster response, hilarious and awesome and friendly and excited about recovers and that we're "real", Jayme calls me "the intern" (since I stayed quiet during the chat/training process), we're tired and stop at Sonic on the way home.  I am legit exhausted even though everyone else had been working way harder than me.

Thurs: Morning ridiculous isolated linear band of thunderstorms aligned NW-SE through central OK right on top of Moore with crazy lightning and dumping a few inches of rain between 5-10am, just awful for the tornado-ravaged town, danishes in the lobby for breakfast, drive through flooded intersection and through destroyed houses to City Hall at 830am, I as "intern" am immediately put at the desk to answer calls on behalf of City Hall which is initially terrifying to me, at first frantically taking calls and writing things randomly in a disorganized mess before gradually settling down and getting my shit together made easier by the awesome folks working at City Hall (Jayme, Nancy, Sjonna, Armand, Diedre), office is chaotic as they plan for a press conference with OK Governor downstairs, as I settle down I begin to play around and post on moore.recovers.org updates for needs for volunteers/donations at various churches around town, calls from media outlets ranging from CBS evening news and CNN to a Jewish online interview program to Discovery Channel documentarians, organized on SmartSheet shared documents.

Friday: crossroads church signing everyone in with recovers.org, robo is chatty, city hall chat with Gary, oak crest church to train someone, waffle house!, back to crossroads to fund they had abandoned recovers probably because their operation was taken over by an outside group (oh well, can't win them all), then Starbucks to debrief, flight home. Alvin, Chris, and morgan are all awesome.

A few things I took away:

I was thoroughly impressed by the dedication and efficiency of the City Hall employees, who had to deal with such a ridiculous range of issues -- coordinating the response, organizing the press conference, responding to citizen needs, managing volunteers and employees -- all simultaneously.  It was basically a whole office of Leslie Knopes, all friendly and peppy and excited despite being placed under an enormous amount of stress.

The PR work at City Hall was also fascinating, seeing how politics plays into the disaster response -- which one would expect to be among the most apolitical of issues.  First, when the Governor misspoke and stated that contractors were now allowed to enter the affected area, this was not true, but because it was already stated on air this resulted in a great deal of confusion among both employees and contractors in the field (including several phone calls to City Hall) that had to be addressed right away.  Second, city officials certainly were eager to make their presence known at any major press events -- an action that often is viewed with disdain, but is also understandable given that folks working this hard would prefer if the citizens that pay them are aware of how much they're helping.  After all, City Hall did bring in 4 PR folks to help them craft their messages among other things.

The past month+

Since the last post:

• Got a PhD (end product was pretty good, everything leading up to that point was painful, i mean "memorable")
• Baked lots of bread
• Got a fancy new DSLR Nikon camera + 18-200 lens
• Porchfest, one of my all-time favorite events
• Read Steinbeck's Cannery Row, an absolute classic -- describing the undescribed (the little things, the emotions of the marginalized), ignoring the indescribable (deaths in one sentence or less)
• Baked home-made pretzels -- amazing
• Went to the opening of (Le)Bronwyn in Union Sq -- pretzels, spaetle, sausages, beer
• Barry McGee at the ICA
• First ever trip to the Super 88 in Allston + dim sum
• Fantastic tofu bao baos at Doowee & Rice
• Saw "Great Gatsby" -- decent, overproduced
• Generally basked in the sun

And now, I've just arrived in Moore, Oklahoma, 36 hours after another massive F5 hit the town -- the last was in 1999 and was the strongest tornado ever recorded (250 mph).  Preliminary estimates for this one are at 200-210 mph.

Boston Marathon bombing

Two days ago, at approximately 2pm, two bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon finish line, killing 3 people and injuring at least 175.  Fortunately, for the first time since I arrived in Boston, I did not go downtown to watch the race, and no one that I know was hurt.  Instead I was working at a coffee shop in Ball Square, Somerville.  I learned about initially via text message from a friend, and then opened up the internet to reveal what had happened -- a gruesome and awful tragedy.

For me, it has been a little shocking but also a little detached from myself.  After all, I've watched everything on TV, in the same way as I had for any other disaster event that has occurred in cities around the country/world.  The difference of course is that this event took place within biking distance of where I live, and many friends I knew had been at the site anywhere from 10 minutes to 2 hours before the bombing; I feel incredibly fortunate that I don't even know anyone who knows anyone who was hurt.

Sad times.

A gorgeous, relaxing weekend

Oh Spring, how I love you.

Yesterday (Saturday) and today brought absolutely gorgeous weather: 50-60F, calm and sunny.  This was the first official day of Spring from any relevant practical metric.

Saturday morning I awoke at 11am, rolled over, saw the sun and recalled a vague forecast of warm weather, and texted my friend to bike over to Sofra near Belmont for some brunch.  After some delicious turkish brunch consumed outside, we weren't sure what to do but decided just to bike around for a while.  We headed towards the Charles river, then turned West to venture into new land that we had not seen before.  We hopped across the river at the next bridge, where the signs pointed us towards Allston.  Gladly, we headed in that direction, arriving at the Sunset Grille for an afternoon beer and some nachos.

By this time, it was clear that the day-long adventure was on.

So we subsequently biked all the way down Comm. Ave into Boston, taking advantage of the amazing new bike lanes -- even now through the underpass beneath Mass. Ave -- until we reached Boston Common.  After lounging on the grass under the sun for 45 minutes among the throngs of fellow sunbathers, we biked up towards the North End, swung by the Garden, and crossed over a new pedestrian bridge that links the edge of Charlestown to northeast Cambridge near the Museum of Science.  We pass by Lechmere and the Galleria and make one final stop at Atwood's Tavern.

We had decided that we would check to see if the patio was open, and if it were, we would get a beer.  Upon arriving at the door, we're greeted by a big chalkboard sign that states "You'll come in and ask us if the patio is open.  I'll tell you it's not, and then you'll stay for a beer anyways. Yes."  Sooo hilarious and spot on. And so, naturally, we did.

All in all, 16.7 miles: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=5869423 (not sure how long these links last for...)

We capped off the night with a stop at Back Bar later on for one final drink out with a close friend.  It was a bit strange, in the sense that it felt like any other night out.  Yet it shouldn't have; it should have signaled the end of an era in my life and my friend's too.  Yet, perhaps because he will be back again in three weeks for a weekend, or perhaps because we've simply been in this era of our lives for more than 5 years now that it's just to be expected, it didn't.  I'm not quite sure what to make of it, but I don't like it -- I have no problem at all with change in life, but I do need closure and acceptance/acknowledgement/celebration of the end of one step and the start of a new one.  Such real, specific, finite moments in time are important, at least for me mentally.  I felt the same about how little fanfare there was for my roommate Alex's departure last week as well.

As for today, I went for a long run, helped clean the kitchen, cleaned and began refinishing the chair and bench on our back porch, cooked some delicious food, did some laundry, watched some basketball (with the most gruesome injury of all time for Louisville vs. Duke), watched 60 minutes, and just enjoyed life.

This was a wonderful weekend.  Partly because it was the first one of the Spring, but also partly because it was the first one that I really let myself enjoy.  It reminded me of how much life there is outside of work, and how many little tasks/events/things there are in life that I miss when I sit around being stressed out, or when I (over)plan every last second of my day and night and leave no room for the random, the whimsical, the unexpected.

I can't wait to not know what's next.

Newtowne Grille

Last night we rocked $12 for a high-quality cheese pizza + a pitcher of PBR on trivia night at Newtowne Grille (there may or may not be an 'e' at the end of one or both of those words).  We took second place overall, though I contributed effectively nothing to the team's effort.  It had been at least a couple of years since I had last been there, ah such fun times on a random thursday night :)

A busy day full of emotion

What a crazy day I had yesterday, so many things happened, some random and some emotional, that kind of overwhelmed me:

• Our roommate Alex packed up a big truck and moved out, heading out to San Francisco, and taking with him one of our couches and lots of other random things from the apartment
• We switched cable/internet to RCN
• We got a new dishwasher
• I made the official call to Princeton to let them know I am coming, and sent the official email declining the offer at NCAR
• I finally made some progress (I think) in how I show some of my research results
• A couple close friends came over last night to grill and play board games before one of them leaves town for good at the end of the week
• Someone I dated on OK Cupid stopped by to pick up earrings before moving out of town and wanted to say hi, though I was terribly busy at that very moment and felt very awkward about doing so, so I avoided it.

Whew, lots of things happening.  I'm still struggling to deal with my emotions for my thesis/future, and all these other events, some of which obviously are less significant than others, made for a very emotionally-confusing day.

Perhaps the biggest event was actually my roommate leaving, who I think we didn't do much to celebrate his leaving, which I now find tremendously sad given that I saw him as our effective apartment greeter and friend every single day, and now I likely won't see him again other than an occasional visit here or there.  He was a unique character without a doubt, but I am definitely going to miss him, yet I don't think I processed that fact even the slightest bit until yesterday.  Even now, going downstairs and seeing his empty room is making me sad.

So anyways, busy busy times. I feel a little overwhelmed.

Princeton and Inspiration

I've spent the past three weeks battling over a difficult life decision, though one for which I am very grateful and lucky to have.  I have two standing offers for post-doc positions, one a Fellowship at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, CO, and another at Princeton University in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Three weeks ago, I heard back from the NCAR ASP Fellowship program informing me of my acceptance, but then unfortunately only providing two weeks to respond, a deadline that I was only able to push back by a few days.  I have a planned trip to NCAR to give a talk in mid-April, which I had hoped would provide me the opportunity to get a good sense of what life would be like working there.  This was to follow on from my visit to Princeton in early March, and from these trips I would make my decision. In the case of NCAR, the circumstances has altered this plan, and so I phoned a couple of folks at NCAR with whom I thought I would be most likely to work to get a feeling for what the opportunities would be while there.

There were a number of important considerations, both personal and professional, that I have been weighing.  In terms of personal life, Boulder is a beautiful city within a couple of hours from the mountain slopes that boasts a high quality of life and a low cost of living. Three of my close friends actually live there now or will be living there. And the NCAR fellowship pays very very well.  In contrast, Princeton itself is in the middle of New Jersey, though is only an hour or so from New York City, Philly, and an additional hour from DC.  I also have a couple of close friends who will be there. And Princeton pays less in an area with a higher cost of living, though this is pending a response from two Fellowships to which I applied but from which I won't hear back until after I must make my decision.  Clearly, in terms of personal life, it's NCAR 1 Princeton 0.

On the professional side, NCAR is a premiere spot for atmospheric science, whereas at Princeton I would be working in a Civil and Environmental Engineering department with a wide array of people, resources, and topics of research.  Importantly, I've come to realize that my life as a young scientist over the past couple of years hasn't actually made me particularly happy.  My young professional career thusfar has basically always been without barriers, which it turns out can allow one to make choices based on perceived value (e.g. prestige) rather than personal/professional satisfaction.  It also means that I never have had to really think about what makes me happy.  But one thing that clearly does not is the daily grind of doing basic science.

So I've finally pushed myself to think hard about a simple question: what inspires me?  I know in my life that I have become highly inspired -- i.e. those activities that you choose to pursue with utmost excitement undeterred by barriers of time, space, or distraction -- on a number of occasions: trans fat, global warming group and website, econ damage paper.  Individual, independent research does not fall on that list.  Instead, the things I love entail activities that involve working for people or, at the least, working with people.

In short, I like making people happy.  It's a characteristic that, frankly, does not translate well at all to being a scientist, at least not when it is your primary motivation.

So what does this mean for my professional life?  It means that the choice between NCAR and Princeton is one between static change and new opportunity.  In the former, I am continuing to be a scientist in a purely academic setting amongst a similar set of peers as I have been throughout grad school.  In the latter, I will have significant exposure to a much broader set of topics and professional opportunities, though admittedly the atmospheric science resources available will be much more limited.  But if I don't want a career as a basic scientist, then what's most important is that I find myself a new environment where I can find new options and challenges. Above all else, I need to feel excited.

I've come to realize that my personal satisfaction is closely tied to my perception of my professional fulfillment.  Put simply, I need to do what makes me happy.  It doesn't matter what that is, though internalizing this notion is not nearly as easy as you'd think.  But I know what that isn't -- it's what I've been doing for the past 5 years.

Which means it's time for a new path, one full of opportunities that I can explore in order to really, truly figure out what it is that inspires me. Risk? Consulting? Teaching? Science? Policy?

I like the way my officemate put it: the positive way to view grad school was simply a test period to see if I like research.  I now know that I don't like doing research alone.  So it's time to try out some new options and see where they lead me.  And to abandon long-held fantasies about what I "should" be -- a Professor, a scientist -- and let me decide for myself.

Princeton, here I come :)

Getting over the hump

Starting late last week, I started feeling like I could breathe a little bit.  After about 3 weeks of constantly writing, intermixed with continued science and other related activities (still running simulations! what's new?), I finally had what constituted a draft of my thesis.  It was exciting, though it's also beaten me down -- I began excited about writing, as it was something new and different for my mind to think about at least, but now that feeling has passed.  Now I just want to finish.

Perhaps I will feel better when I actually get approval from my advisor.  But the fact is that I still feel as if all of this has been thrown together and that I am still out on an island alone.  Part of me still doesn't believe that I've actually done good work, that I'll actually graduate, and that life will actually move on. It's not fun, and it's taken a toll on my mental health.  I need a mentor, someone who I feel I can trust for guidance and support.  This whole experience over the past few months has destroyed my self-confidence, such that I just never am sure of what I'm doing or whether what I'm doing is right.

Whew, the post turned from positive to negative in a heartbeat :(

It's just frustrating when my advisor doesn't even reply to my emails with an acknowledgment that he will read the things I've sent him as soon as I can.  Again, this may all just be in my head, but I feel a bit abandoned.

I also realize that I am dealing with real academic adversity for the first time in my life. It's difficult for me to distinguish perception from reality, though -- how much of this is manufactured in my head because I am not meeting some feeling of expectation that I hold for myself?  And, more importantly, are those expectations grounded in my own personal goals or are they based on comparing myself to others?  I think it's probably the latter -- that I've always been the best at what I do, and clearly that just isn't the case anymore.

Unfortunately the apparent stress that that causes me is actually, to a certain degree, ruining my day-to-day life right now.  Because I'm fairly certain that I've spent my entire life deriving happiness from 1) doing better than others, and 2) knowing that other people see this.  But can I come to terms with the idea that #1 isn't happening?  Or, better yet, can I stop caring about that?  I dont know, I think it's been how I've comported myself throughout my life unfortunately.

Anyways, that's enough venting, today is the first day of March Madness.  Awesome.

Tasty Burger and IHOP

Uh oh.

Following a few hours at home for my roommate's going away party, I headed out to meet up with a friend out for his birthday. We headed out to reach the Tasty Burger before its supposed bar time of 1am so that we could check out the bar.  We were successful, and we also learned that bar time is in fact 2am just like all the others.  So we chowed down on our respective meat/veggie burgers, fries, and onion rings with pitchers of beer in hand.

Then we went to IHOP.  It started as a joke, but then it actually happened.  The hashbrowns and eggs were undoubtedly delicious.  The cab ride home -- after losing an hour for daylight savings time -- was a little painful. I reached my front door at around 440am.

The New York Times had beat me to it.

Progress and Positivity

Today was a good day.  It may change tomorrow when I get feedback from my advisor. But today, after sending my advisor a quite long paper with much of my recent work, I finally (3 months after my friend emailed it to me!) downloaded and opened the MIT thesis LaTeX template.  It felt quite daunting and terrifying at first, but after putting in a few hours getting things set up, I quickly can see how a thesis can become as long as they often are.

Also, I've realized in the past day or so how many of the side-track projects that I delved into only briefly over the past couple of years -- many of which I had basically forgotten about -- it's clear that I actually have done quite a lot during my tenure here.  But only recently, perhaps forced by the weight of an impending deadline, have I come to recognize and synthesize the outcomes of these various endeavors into a broader framework of my topic of hurricane size.

The result has been, perhaps for the first time in at least one year but perhaps more like two or three, I felt a surge of pride about what I've accomplished.

I hope this continues.  At least for a little while.

Whoa

Time is flying by.  Things:

• Last Friday: went to visit Princeton.  Left in a much better mood than I arrived.  I think that's a good sign.
• Weekend: lots of work. Saw the Oscar-nominated animated shorts, which was... okay... though apparently they all had to be no-talking.
• Week: MASS seminar went well, but now onto my actual thesis.  Yikes.  But finally.  And hopefully.

I need sleep, badly.

Coffee shops and cocktail parties

My office is too distracting and accessible, my apartment too cozy (except for my desk chair), the library too isolated.  I have officially become a coffee shop nomad.  Diesel, Mr. Crepe, Starbucks (once and no more), Simon's, 1369, Andala (well, that one was for a date).

It's actually a great environment to work, especially when there is no internet access.  There's always quite a bit of hubbub going on around you, but none of it is specific to you, which means you can tune it out quite easily to work but then tune back in when you need a distraction or a new sensory perception.  Also, having coffee/tea/food/bathroom so easily accessible is really nice.  The only downside is that, being there alone, you have to guard your computer and your location when you decide to get up and wander around at busy times.


On Saturday night, a couple friends of mine hosted a fantastic cocktail party (drink, not dress).  They purchased an impressive array of liquors and mixers that enabled one to create a healthy variety of quality cocktails.  Of course, the night ended, as it always does nowadays, with a 3am pilgrimage to the Tasty Burger.  It turns out that having an activity option that stays open til 4am has the effect of significantly extending the night.  Makes for good fun, but also makes sleeping til noon a much more regular and desirable choice (if you can call it that).

Asteroids, meteors, apocalypses

On Friday, I headed out to the MIT Haystack Observatory with a few EAPS folks to join the astrophysicists and astronomers excited to witness asteroid 2012 DA14, the approximately 50-m diameter object that reached 27,700 km from the Earth's surface before heading back out into the great unknown.  For the scientists here, this was the equivalent of last week's blizzard -- a rare, awesome event of great scientific interest.  Though, of course, it lacked in the more tangible wonder that accompanied the falling of snow and the gridlock it imposed upon modern society.

That is, until earlier in the morning, when a meteor exploded over the Russian skies, its shockwave shattering thousands of windows and injuring at least 1200 people.  Amazingly, though, no one died, thereby helping to illuminate the true news story that accompanied it, courtesy of the Onion: "More Than 1,000 Russians Injured In Freaking Coolest Event Ever".

The result of the meteor was a heightened sense of confusion and wonder, one that only rarely manifests itself in the modern age.  We feel that we have a good grip on most "natural" hazards, not in the sense that we can necessarily mitigate them, but rather in the sense that they do not come as a surprise.  More broadly, they are easily explicated, and blame for consequent damages is easy to assign (rightly or wrongly) -- for example, no one who lives inland is surprised when a hurricane destroys a coastal property, because that was an obvious risk.

But the combination of meteor and approaching asteroid brought forth a new hazard, one that has long been sensationalized, yet has never emerged as a true concern, perhaps due to its statistical infrequency or perhaps due to the lack of sense of control that can be imposed on the problem (we couldn't see the Russian meteor before it arrived anyways).

And this sense was not too different from that of the blizzard here in Boston, in that life was so ground to a halt -- the only distance one could hope to travel was whatever distance your feet could take you -- that it felt as if one were in a bit of a surreal dream landscape, as if the world were jolted from the procession of regular, every day life, and reminded of the context in which our societies exist.

Thus, Haystack was an exciting experience.  I know almost nothing about astronomy besides the Big Dipper, a relic of my childhood fears of aliens that appears to subconsciously persist today.  Following a long and rather dense introduction to asteroids and Haystack in general (it was, after all, a bit of a sales pitch), we headed down to mission control, where the mammoth satellite dish radar was set to track the asteroid as soon as it crossed over our horizon from the North, at around 4:40pm.  We then witnessed as the scientists looked at the signals from the returning radar beams, attempting to interpret in very short time what the data were saying and how closely it matched up to predictions of its speed and rotation rate.  It was quite an intense atmosphere.

In the evening, we headed over to a set of observational computerized telescopes to look at the night sky and attempt to track the asteroid optically.  After 1-2 hours of effort, the technician and one other planetary science student successfully located the object in the telescope's field of vision -- an admittedly impressive feat.  We were officially one of only a handful of folks around the world watching with our very eyes as this space rock departed Earth's neighborhood.  Once spotted, we simply watched the screen in wonder, tracking an apparent intergalactic amoeba -- a moving object shows up a small white streak on a largely red/black background -- as it makes its escape.

Very cool.

Blizzard of Feb 8-9 2013!

What a fun past 72 hours*.

* I began writing this on Sunday night.  this is way overdue.

Friday: Boston effectively shuts down pre-emptively before the Blizzard sweeps in.  Snow picks up around 8pm.  Earlier in the day housemates gather to make beignets on our stovetop and we hang out in eager anticipation.  We gather for a potluck-type dinner at 745pm and drink our way into a massive, raucous game of Pit.  At 1130pm, the blizzard is now in full force and snow is accumulating at perhaps 2"/hr.  We all get appropriately dressed -- read: ski goggles -- and venture out into the streets, singing and jumping and wrestling our way down an abandoned Holland Ave towards Davis Square.  We arrive at the Burren (word had spread that it remained open), which is pretty decently packed.  We end up on stage dancing the night away with our snowpants around our ankles.

Saturday: I get up around 9am to the tail end of the storm, gusty winds, and over 2' of snow on the ground.  In front of nearly every house, one or more people are busy shoveling or snowblowing... slowly.  Our neighbors across the street spend 15 minutes attempting to access their car to retrieve their cross-country skis.  My roommate and I shovel out the sidewalk and driveway, in the process creating a massive snowpile in front of our front deck.  My roommate is the first to climb up and jump down onto its peak, sinking in about 5 feet before coming to a stop... awesome.  Afterwards, we all go for a walk around the neighborhood, surveying the blanket of snow that has buried cars and blocked entryways.  Some cross-country skiers are hitting the roads, actually somewhat dismayed by the incredible speed at which Somerville plows are capable of clearing the roads.  Davis Square is abound with folks wandering in awe, not only at the sheer volume of snow on the ground but also at the wonder and joy of our neighborhood center completely car-free (oh the potential!).  Ultimately, we end up at Amsterdam Falafel for a bite (they stayed open the night before too, since the drunk folks from the Burren needed to eat too, obviously).  On the way home we swing up to Powderhouse Sq and then down Broadway, where the cars were apparently parked on the downwind side of the street such that many of them were rendered nothing but soft undulations in the gentle rolling white hills that lined the edge of the road.  Truly remarkable.


Overall, this was an amazing experience, as much for the snow itself -- I'll never forget dropping our measuring tape from inside our back door into the snow on our back deck and watching the numbers disappear, truly in disbelief when the 24" mark was passed on the way to 27" -- as for the community experience of an event that is all by measures extreme and even catastrophic yet wholly non-life-threatening.  The result is that of pure joy, knowing that no one has anywhere to get to because no one is expected to be able to get there; that the folks you see around you are none other than your very-nearby neighbors, as neighborhoods that were once only a few minutes away are rendered as far apart as two islands on opposite ends of the Earth.

It's a rare thing for an entire major city to be shut down, and even rarer for its cause to be something so tranquil and serene, as if a city-wide shutdown was placed in effect for a 48-hour, no-holds-barred pillow fight.  In a world that is ever more inter-connected and increasingly extricated from the archaic notions of day and night, it's a remarkable opportunity when everything is forced to stop -- and you have no choice but to sit back, look around, and enjoy it.  Truly, it was a communal breath of fresh air.

Oscar nominated shorts

On Tuesday night, I headed over for a pseudo-date to the Kendall Square theatre, the local artsy theatre in town, which every year offers the awesome deal to watch all 5 Oscar-nominated short films as a package for the price of a single movie.  This is done both for live-action and for animated.

I went to check out the live-action set, finally making it after 4 years of hearing about this but never actually making it out.  The 5 films were:
1) A funky french/russian (?) fantasy film in which a man, to repay some sort of debt to save his own life (we walked in a couple minutes late), must use a magical camera to capture photos of the silhouettes of 10,000 individuals at the moment they die.  These shadow images are then displayed on canvases lining the walls of a mysterious mansion.  At the end, he could resurrect his own life in the real world.
2) An old french man gradually becomes conscious of the loss of his own memory, and has to come to terms with it in the context of a world growing increasingly confusing.
3) While attempting to commit suicide in his bathtub, a young man in NYC is called by his troubled sister to watch her young but fearless daughter for an evening.  Her pugnacity incites intrigue in him, leading to a confession to his sister of how important she is to him despite their troubled past.
4) A young blacksmith boy and his adventurous beggar friend in Kabul, Afghanistan, venture out through an old palace and to a Buzkashi match (men on horses trying playing capture the flag with a goat), exploring the internal competition between pursuing dreams and maintaining loyalty to father and tradition.
5) A young, intelligent, and courageous boy in a coastal village in Somalia encounters greedy soldiers from Mogadishu, whose attack on the local wise fisherman send the boy out on his first solo fishing adventure, which leads him hilariously to a small yacht and the "white lion-fish" (a dog) that he brings home as his sea bounty.

I love shorts.  So much fun and imagination in such a short period of time.  My vote goes (barely) to the first film, with #5 a close 2nd and #3 an even closer 3rd.

Another busy few days, now with some optimism

The past few days have seen a small breakthrough for me in my research, as I now have a new framework perspective for my whole problem that helps to make much better sense of what I've been doing.

I also spent several hours this week preparing a post-doctoral fellowship application on the dreadfully poorly organized website of the host institution.  I am now officially done with post-doc fellowship applications (unless I don't get any of them), which is a relief, though I can't say that I really gave my best effort into this final one.

In more exciting news, this week I had the pleasure to read John Steinbeck's "The Pearl", which was a delightful little story about Kino, Juana, and their young son Coyotito, a poor family from La Paz, who have the fortune of finding a great pearl only to discover the misfortune that accompanies both the perceptions and reality of acquiring an object of tremendous value in a greedy society.  One of my favorite aspects of the entire story is the fact that, in most instances, it's not actually obvious whether the "evil" that pursues Kino and his pearl is real or merely a figment of Kino's paranoid imagination.

I also love Steinbeck's literary style, which is vividly descriptive yet concise, always focused on conveying the emotion and tension that surrounds a simple yet masterful storyline.  I read Cannery Row and Grapes of Wrath in grade/high school but don't remember them really, but now I think it's time I pick up (for the first or second time) his other classics.

So many things!

Ack, so much life.  Flies too fast.  Like a hummingbird.

• OkCupid date at Green St. followed by party at her friend's place.
• Housewarming dinner party at Mike and Gemma's place, very good times.
• Attempt to follow up the party with 3am Aussie Open tennis final #awakefail
• Titus Andronicus concert at the Sinclair #goodpunk #talent #DmitriMartinTwin
• Lots and lots of research.  Pretty much redoing half my thesis in a month.  Whoops. 

More seriously, I've really had to reflect hard on the way I do science.  I'll follow this up soon with a real post addressing my thoughts and feelings about this topic.

Football

Today was warm out.  It was also the going away party of my roommate's good friend.  To celebrate, this afternoon we headed to the park down the street and played a little 2 v. 3 (3 always offense) football on the soggy ground.  It was a lot of fun, both in terms of a little stress relief for me as well as the sheer fact that we could go play football outdoors in the middle of January.  I also got a quality gash on my knee that I didn't notice but that bled down my leg at the end... just like the old days growing up :)

Unfortunately, the Simpsons lost 105-91.

A busy, busy few days

Lots of work.  Last night I had finally reached a point where, basically, I think I've figured out what I know and I've figured out what I don't know.  I have figured out plenty of interesting things, but now I need to try to explain the aspects I dont know.

I also am looking to be more creative with broader theories related to my thesis work, something that I for some reason never bothered to attempt, or at least not in a deep scientific manner that is required to do so given the extensive bed of theory that currently exists.  After so much trouble dealing with the noise of computer models (though to be fair I think it's remarkable the details that I've uncovered using just a model), I suddenly find myself excited at the idea of just sitting around making up theoretical answers and seeing if there's a mathematical/physical way to explain it.  I now understand why theorists can love what they do -- forget noise, just take your pencil and paper, figure out which variables you need, and then imagine an equation that gives you an answer for each variable.

I've been alternating between extremely stressed out and feeling better about things.  Right now I'm in the more relaxed state, feeling better about having an interesting -- and now more rigorously characterised (both physically and statistically) -- story to tell.  Also, it's really remarkable how much I've gotten done in the past week, motivated by, if nothing else, outright fear.  It makes me excited for the future, as I am beginning to rediscover how much I'm capable of when I let my mind go wild.

Ah, science.

In the meantime, I went on a fun date friday night and caught some live music at Toad in Porter Square.  It was good fun, though I'm so occupied with work that I can't say I'm particularly invested in dating right now.  Otherwise, a dog randomly entered our house yesterday.  It turned out to be our new next-door neighbors'.

Reaching bottom, moving back up

Today I met with my advisor.  It wasn't a particularly pretty sight trying to address my new-found thesis issues, but at least he was upbeat overall and encouraged me "not to lose sleep" over everything.  But needless to say, I've got a lot of work to do.

Also important is that I can work through this.  As my officemate noted, after chatting with my friend I sound more positive and less depressed.  And he is completely right -- I have 6 weeks to work hard and figure out as much as I can before my department seminar, and that's certainly quite a lot of time to get things done.  I'm done complaining and seeking pity, I'm in work mode from here on out.

Thesis issues

On Friday night, I realized that a central result of my thesis was in fact incorrect due to a flaw in the methodological approach that I had developed over a year ago.  Incredibly, incredibly frustrating.  I've lost all confidence in myself as a scientist, and I'm left now questioning every last little detail of what I'v done.  This isn't fun.

One update: bats

Forgot to mention that on Thursday evening I also checked out North America's largest urban bat population under the South Congress St. bridge in Austin, with over 1.5 million bats.  They all fly out from under the bridge at sunset, but I wasn't quite sure precisely what time it would occur.  I went for a quick jog and got there 20 minutes before sunset, then wandered up and down the bridge for the next hour, not sure where to look either.  Finally, as darkness really set in and just before I was about to give up (I had envisioned a massive flock of bats rising up), I noticed some folks looking up from below.  Indeed, I couldn't see the bats from above without light from behind, but there were lots and lots and lots of them emerging from the bridge, though always staying low such that from above you wouldn't have noticed them at all if you weren't looking intently.

In the end, it was a pretty unique sight.

Rainey St

Might as well name this post "Why Austin is amazing".

Last night around 830pm, I headed out from my place in search of some fish tacos, having decided that I would simply get some food to go and relax in my hotel room for once.  On my list of good taco places was "Art of Tacos", located on Rainey St., about a 10 minute walk south of my hotel.

So I set out, walking alongside the highway in darkness before reaching an IHOP, which made me wonder if I was in some random suburban hell hole.  But just one block behind the IHOP is Rainey St, a seemingly quiet residential street with small houses.  Except in this case, basically every other house has been transformed into a semi-outdoor bar/restaurant, many with live music, and lined with food trucks, themed decorations, lights, and other eccentric decor.

I walked up and down the street multiple times, eventually finding Art of Tacos, though unfortunately they did not do fish tacos.  I grabbed veggie tacos instead at Wild Taco, one of 6 food trailers in the lawn of the "White House" -- an amazing pseudo-replica of the White House whose walls were lined with tributes to local social organizations in the Austin area.

While waiting for my friends to make their way down (after convincing them to do so), I followed the sounds of live music down to a large beer garden.  Inside, the wall was lined with 100 beer taps from all over the country.  I grabbed a seat at the bar -- I think this was officially the first time in my life I've gone unaccompanied to a bar for a drink -- and chatted with two hilarious men from the area.  Sean owns a carpet cleaning company in Austin and San Antonio, and his friend Joe was a self-described "hillbilly" from East Texas.

Needless to say, these two shared some amazing stories.  Sean described some of his worst experiences in his ~20 years in the industry, including places with floors literally covered in shit, piss, and trash (and kids running around with soiled diapers), as well as a place with "not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of roaches... everything you touched sent a wave of roaches out from underneath".  Meanwhile, Joe shared a terrifying story -- one which pushed him to stop drinking -- of how one night some kids shot off fireworks outside his home that he thought were gunshots, and so in a drunken rage he took out his gun and fired 30 rounds blindly in the direction of the kids.  "Fortunately, no one got hit, or else I'd be in jail".  It took me a bit of effort to convince me that this was actually a true story, but in the end, it really was.  Yikes.   Either way, though, these two guys were genuinely nice and extremely friendly and endearing.

I then headed out to meet up with my aussie friends at a place 100 feet away called Clive, which had a gorgeous back patio.  A couple of friends (one an aussie) from a summer statistics program I attended in Boulder two years ago also joined.  From there we headed 50 feet away to a place called Black Heart (?), which had some interesting live music (guitar/tambourine combo).  We grabbed seats outside and chatted til bar time before heading out.

Without a doubt, this was the coolest street I have ever seen.  It's relatively new, starting up only 5 years ago, apparently organically as some folks decided to convert their place into a bar, and soon enough everyone else followed suit.  I imagine there's a risk that in 10 years or so the street will become a bit touristy.  But for now, what an awesome, awesome place.

Awards blunder

Last night I put on my suit and tie to attend the AMS Awards Banquet, where I thought I was going to be officially given the Max Eaton student award from the tropical meteorology conference last April.  When I arrived though, I found out that this award (along with a subset of others) were in fact announced at an event on Sunday evening.  This was fairly disappointing since I was here, and perhaps even at the convention center, at the time of this event and so I absolutely could have attended.  Oh well :(

At the least I met a lovely group of fellow awardees with whom I shared dinner, including the winner of the Rossby award, which is the highest honor one can receive.  I didn't realize he was the recipient, but it was appropriate given that his award was for synthesizing knowledge about radiative transfer and climate and, upon meeting him, I verbally vomited "Oh! I love your book... it's the best book ever!" to which he had no reasonable response.  His book is great.

I chatted for quite some time with his wife, who studied French Literature in graduate school and loves France.  Coincidentally, his brother (I think) and wife joined as well, the latter of whom was a filipina. She was very excited to meet a fellow filipino; we even took a photo together at the end.

Afterwards, I headed out to meet up with an Australian friend to catch some live music.  We met first at the Driskell Bar on 6th, which was cool though the music ended when I arrived; I did get to eat someone's delicious left-over Salt Lick barbecue though.  We then headed over to Mohawk, where the first band was terrible, but was then finished off by a group named Seth Sherman, which were very cool.

Another solid night, one left to go before I finally head back to Boston.  It feels like it's been months since I've been there...

Busy/fun times at the AMS Conference

It's been an eventful and uber-busy past three days in Austin, TX, where I am attending the American Meteorological Society 2013 Annual meeting.  Quite a few friends are in town, particularly a big group from SUNY-Albany who I have not seen since at least last year's meeting.

Saturday night:
Met up with the Albany folks, grabbed beers at a dive bar on 6th St. to watch the Packers defeat the Vikings (!) and to catch up.  My good buddy and roommate here in Austin arrived a bit later, we grabbed dinner at a highly-rated Irish Pub a block away and caught up, and then a couple of my Albany friends joined us as we listened to a fantastic band composed of an upright bass, saxophone, drum, and guitar.  The guitar player had a wonderful deep raspy voice to match their folk/blues style.  This is all a part of "Free Week" in Austin this week, which has supposedly grown into Austin's third big music festival, only this one takes place in every live music venue around town, showcasing all the great local music Austin has to offer for no cover charge.  Pretty amazing.

Afterwards, my friend and I wandered through the drunken mess that was 6th Street, now blocked off to automobile traffic (it was around 1am).  We headed into a bar called "Rooftop" that turned out to be a standard, douche-y dance club replete with poles.  After a couple drinks and feeling a little out of our element, we left in search of a top-notch taco truck supposedly parked nearby on a late Saturday night.  We couldn't find it unfortunately, but did find 10 other food trucks seemingly spanning the whole world.  I grabbed a delicious slice of pizza from the pizza truck, and we headed home.  All in all a great night.

Sunday:
After working for a couple of hours in the morning, I stopped in briefly at WeatherFest to check in on the awesome river flooding toy model (hand-made, not of the computer variety) that the man I met on the plane the day prior had developed.  Very cool.
I then met up with a friend of mine from Boston who recently moved to Houston for work.  She drove up to Austin for the afternoon.  We met at the Capitol building (gorgeous and massive), then drove 20 minutes northwest to Mount Bonnell, which offers a nice view of Lake Austin and of the city skyline.  After a brief hike, we drove to a nearby taco joint for lunch (fish tacos, yum).  Next we headed to the South Congress district, which is a very eclectic neighborhood, seemingly straight out of the '60s but with 100 times as many food "trailers", that embodies the "weirdness" of Austin that you don't really see in the downtown area.  We wandered around past the sidewalk hashpipe salesmen and the various funky/kitschy stores the area had to offer, then grabbed some Shiner Bock ice cream at Amy's before heading up to the 6th st. area.  We grabbed a very quick rye whiskey (on tap!) at a crappy bar before I headed back to my hotel.  A lot of fun and great to catch up with my friend, though it did feel a bit rushed unfortunately.
For the evening, I headed over to the AMS Policy Colloquium reception and caught up with several policy folks I had met before.  Finally we flocked over to see T. Boone Pickens give a curmudgeonly yet reasonable conversation (besides the brief excursions into tax-related Obama bashing) on energy.  I was spent by this point and just headed home for the night to do a bit more work before crashing at a reasonable hour.

Monday:
Worked a bit in the morning, grabbed free hotel brunch (every day), headed to the conference to catch lots of talks: urban water resource management, climate extremes, tropical cyclones and climate.  Went for a great 5-mile run with my friend along the "river" that is Lady Bird Lake.  We just missed the bats -- Austin has North America's largest urban bat population residing under a nearby bridge, and they fly home every day at sunset -- so I'll have to check that out later this week.  Then we stopped in at the Harris party, which was a major disappointment ($7.25 beers... seriously?).  We left with the Albany crew over to an AMS Energy party that had free drinks, so much better.  Then we stopped into a shady-looking bar, Mugshots, on 7th street that had the cheapest scotch I've ever seen in a bar: $7 for a Glenfiddich 12-yr and $8 for a Balvenie double-wood.  Wow, amazing.  Afterwards, my friend, an Albany undergrad alum and I headed back towards the hotel and stopped in at Easy Tiger, which serves awesome local meat-based food and drinks til 2am in an awesome set-up with good music and outdoor table tennis.  At 215am, I was home in bed.

Today:
Working all day.  Nothing too exciting stood out on the schedule, so I've been home and very productive all day long :)

Whew.

Posted to wrong blog! "Last Day in Madison" Sat 5 Jan 2013

** Whoops, I posted this in  my dream blog instead, here it is reprinted... **

Yesterday was my dad's birthday, which was the first time in quite a long time that I've actually been home with them for it, which was pretty cool.  We went out to dinner at Eno Vino, a latin/fusion-style tapas restaurant.  Needless to say, the food was just tremendous and incredibly creative: cucumber-wrapped ahi tuna tartare, mushroom and duck foie gras double-ravioli, grilled bass in a phenomenal white-wine cream sauce, calamari fries that were like magnificent mozzarella sticks but with calamari instead of cheese.  All of the flavors were wonderful, and none of the dishes I had really ever seen before.

Then this morning I headed out bright and early to catch my 640am flight to Austin via Chicago.  I had planned to work on the 3-hour 2nd leg, but instead ended up chatting the entire way with a very nice man who is a high school earth science teacher and works in the American Meteorological Society Education Program.  The flight absolutely flew by, he was such a friendly and curious guy.

I suppose networking can begin even before the conference does...

Work, Work, Pretzel, Work

Worked all day yesterday.  This morning I chatted with my advisor over Skype. Then I worked some more before heading out to the west side of town to get a gift for my Dad for his birthday tomorrow.  I perused the shelves of Barnes and Noble for quite some time, then headed to the mall to buy some t-shirts, and ended up leaving with nothing but some salt on my fingers from the Auntie Anne's pretzel.  Yum.

Bed time.

Night out

New Years Day was work-filled during the morning and afternoon up until 4pm, when I headed downtown to meet a friend of mine and his girlfriend to watch the Rose Bowl.  It was a relatively boring game overall, and though Wisconsin kept things much closer than expected, there weren't too many moments of genuine excitement that we would actually win the game.  A little Roman Candle pizza helped maintain a little delicious excitement at least.

Afterwards, we played a little Dr. Mario 64 (which I got last place literally every time except for once), and then my friend and I headed out for a New Years bar hop.  It was surprisingly a ghost town downtown, perhaps due to a combination of the very cold weather and the Badgers losing their third straight Rose Bowl.  But we stopped in to the Irish Pub, then wandered over to a closed Karaoke Kid, then to Whiskey Priest, a new place in the douche-y undergrad part of downtown but that is spacious and full of games (we played pool, then basketball, then big buck hunter HD) and even has a stage, which isn't something many bars have in Madison.  Finally, on our way back we passed the new Paul's Club, now a block closer to the Capitol, which thankfully took with it their awesome bar-spanning tree.  An entertainingly drunk girl who was out partying all night long made this final stop a great capstone to  the night.

That was my big night out, now back to work for the next four months.

New years eve with the fam + resolutions

Spent my new years eve relaxing with my family tonight.  We went to Sushi Muramoto for dinner, then came home and watched "Salmon Fishing in Yemen" with Ewan MacGregor.  The film seemed stuck unable to decide whether or not it was taking itself seriously, and the result was some cute and hilarious moments sandwiched between painfully corny and cliche scenes.  I spent most of the time, particularly towards the end, cringing.

We then shared some beer, then scotch, then champagne, as we watched... crappy video-taped musical performances from Los Angeles.  After seeing the ball drop in Times Square at 11pm CST, it turned out that there was no further hourly midnight celebration moving westward oddly enough.  I seem to recall celebrating midnight 4 times live on television, but apparently there's no market for that anymore sadly enough.

And now, for the resolutions.  I realize that they are a bit cliche and unnecessary -- after all, nothing's stopping you from pursuing goals all year long -- yet at the same time I can't help but enjoy the annual day to pause and reflect on how your life changed in the past year and how you might like to see it change in the next one.

Obviously a ton has changed for me in the past year.  After a 2011 that felt very much in the doldrums, I felt like I found myself again and am still in the process of doing so.  Books, music, cooking, learning, engaging, living.

And so, here are my resolutions:

• Doing
• To write in this journal every day, because no day is ever worth forgetting -- and any attitude other than that is honestly just depressing
• To practice seriously my ukulele every day, working from my Dummies book until finished and then going from there.  I want to move my relationship with this instrument from one of novelty to legitimate interest to learn.  It's a really cool one to play, and it'd be even cooler if I applied myself and let myself get lost in the journey of learning a stringed instrument.
• To bake some serious bread -- let's enjoy an all out experimentation, making small loaves of bread until I can create loaves and baguettes that I truly love.
• Living
• Note the theme: I want to take living seriously again.  Take work seriously, take play seriously, take everything I do seriously, striving to be the best at whatever activity -- no matter how big or small -- that I'm doing, and always looking forward to the next thing I get to do.  It's an attitude I used to have but only appreciate since I realized that I've lost it.  It's a joy for learning and experiencing anything, because that's the only way anyone should live.
• To carry myself with confidence and pride -- dare I say arrogance -- in my line of work.  I should be able to say to myself and others "I am damn good at what I do".
• To be fearless and daring -- do what I think is right and stop caring what others think.  Ideas are valuable not for being right/wrong, but for ability to push boundaries, to be visionary.

That's all.  I like setting goals.