Turing Test THIS!!

In Rainbows

2007-10-14T13:17:00.000-05:00

I don’t think I’ve ever done the amateur music critic thing on this blog before, but it’s been forever since I posted, and I was writing up my thoughts anyway. Thus, I present my stream-of-consciousness review Radiohead’s newest, In Rainbows.

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"15 Steps": Oh cool, this is in 5. Or maybe 15. Mm, tasty rhythm. Actually, one of the things that I noted the first time through was how tight the rhythms are on the whole album. Well done, technically.

"Bodysnatchers": The riff that opens this one up is most excellent. Some of the synth stuff in the middle sounds like background that was used in "The National Anthem." This is possible, right? Radiohead have been known to reuse bits from previous works, right?

This is all significantly better on headphones than on my cheapo spekers. Man, I need a real stereo. ::attempts to Glean::

"Nude": Every layer that comes in on this just makes me smile. Mellow bass. Thom Yorke feather-voice. Easy chill guitar line. Orchestral mountains in the distance.
The music plus the title makes me think of bed-ins for peace.

"Weird Fishes/Arpeggi": Sounds oceanic and benthic in the same way that "Subterranean Homesick Alien" sounded cavernous and chthonic. Good evocative sound painting without being overly literal. The exact opposite of this would be if Radiohead had for some bizarre reason decided to include bubble sounds effects on this song.

"All I Need": Some eerie dissonance between the lyrics and the music here. Just listening to the words, you get the sense of a song of devotion, albeit a devotion bordering on co-dependent and pitiful. But the music contains shadows of menace that change the whole package. I appreciate musical irony.

"Faust Arp": When Thom counts this one off, I immediately think of "Little Yellow Spider" by Devendra Banhart. Of course, Radiohead doing a song like that would be about the most humorous and improbable thing to hit music in recent memory. As it is, I award points to the acoustic guitar work, the string section, and the driving syncopation under the more lyrically dense parts. If anything, this song is too short for me; I want to hear it develop further.

"Reckoner": Here I had to look up the lyrics. I am not sure what they mean. This song makes me think of the Grim Reaper, not as an image of terror, but as a kind old man with a gentle smile coming to bring peace to a tired soul.

“House of Cards”: A curious juxtaposition of mellow, relaxing, spacious chords and words about “denial” and “infrastructure will collapse.” Musical irony similar to “All I Need.”

“Jigsaw Falling into Place”: Another example of captivating, well-crafted rhythms, right from the first second. And more acoustic guitar. Is it just me, or does this album have way more acoustic guitar than anything since The Bends?

At about three minutes in, I start thinking of this song as some alternate universe version of “Hotel California.” Man, my brain is weird.

“Videotape”: This one actually grabbed me the most from my first listen. I suspect it is the lonesome piano combined with Thom Yorke singing about personal salvation. It’s a strangely comforting song, despite not being overtly optimistic. Another instance of that peaceful, resolved feeling.
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A number of people have noted that the MP3 download album did not come with art. Someone made their own.

Flashback

2007-04-28T19:27:00.000-05:00

In honor of the upcoming third anniversary of my visit to Iceland (or maybe just because I keep talking with people about this trip), I have uploaded most of my photos from that trip to Facebook for public viewing. If you're on Facebook, go visit my page. If you're not, use this link.

Loopy Experimental Poetry

2006-11-25T00:07:00.000-06:00

In a mystic loop,
This haiku contains itself--
And the universe.

Not Related to Thanksgiving

2006-11-23T09:14:00.000-06:00

Every morning, usually around seven or eight A. M., this man runs by my apartment. He always wears the same thing: gray sweatshirt with hood pulled up tight over his head, old sweatpants, dark gloves curled into tight fists. Generally he’ll make two circumnavigations of the block on his route. I’ve never gotten a good look at him, but I’d say he’s about 48 to 52 years old.

Now, you might be wondering how I can confirm that this man runs by every day; I mean, isn’t it a little improbable that I would be looking out the window every time he passes by? It’s not like I spend hours staring outside. Nor would I say that my schedule is so routine that I am, say, always sitting and eating breakfast at the same time every morning.

No, I know this man runs by every morning because I hear him. I swear I am not making this up: the man barks as he runs. Sort of odd little panting yelps, not particularly loud, but perfectly audible in the early, low traffic quiet of the day. At first I thought he was running with a very rhythmic and vocal dog. Then I watched more carefully the next time and noticed that the man was completely alone. Just him, running and barking in time to his breathing and his footfalls.

I can not get my mind around this singularly strange character. I have hypothesized at length about the reasons why one might bark while running. Perhaps the man has some sort of respiratory condition that makes his breathing noisier than most. Still, I would think that such a condition would force him to run more slowly than the pace I observe. Perhaps this man seeks to channel the spirit of the wolf in order to maintain his stamina while running. (That reminds me of someone I knew in college who consistently wore a wolf tail everywhere. Quite normal when you talked to him and really and all around nice guy, but he always wore a wolf tail. And more often than not, a T-shirt with a print of a wolf on it. And sometimes, wolf ears. But he was clean-shaven, so I guess the wolf fetish did not extend to facial hair. I never really felt comfortable asking him about it.) Perhaps it is a psychological, rather than physical, condition that causes the barking.

Whatever. I’ll let you ponder the nature of this unusual, and quite unnerving aspect of my neighborhood.

Authentic Excerpt #1

2006-11-19T00:04:00.000-06:00

“Years ago, biologist Bill McLarney was inventing some advanced aquaculture at the New Alchemy Institute in Costa Rica. He was stirring a tank of algae one day when a brassy lady from North America strode in and demanded, ‘Why are you standing there stirring that green goop, when what really matters in the world is love?’

Bill thought for a minute and replied, ‘Well, there’s theoretical love; and then there’s applied love’-- and kept on stirring.”
--Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins; Natural Capitalism

This may actually sum up why I’m in engineering.

Carbon Neutral

2006-10-24T22:18:00.001-05:00

Once again, I apologize. It’s been too long. Nevertheless, I would ask you to remember this: even if I have months-long gaps in my posting, this blog is still here. I haven’t given up on it yet. Nor do I plan to.

It’s just one thing after another these days. Ever since I moved here back in August, I haven’t been overtaxed, but just busy enough too limit blogging. Moving in requires buying many new things, like furniture, which requires time-intensive shopping. And I have been socializing quite a bit, getting to know my fellow comrade grad students, playing occasional jams with Kevin & Co. over at St. Andrew’s (to play his compositions for services). I’ve made a lot of new friends, and I have kept up with some of you old ones out there with personal emails. That’s better than mass mailings or indiscriminate blog posts, right? I guess I still have to apologize for those who were left out of the loop.

And once something moves out of the front of your mind, it’s difficult for it to work its way back in. For example, I still haven’t followed through on my promise to tell everyone where my new album(s) are available for download. Yeah, plural--we’ll get to that in a moment. Many of you I told in person; many were informed through Facebook. My dad even posted the JoelTed link in the comments to one post. Still, for the record:
JoelTed-- download.com/joelabrahamson
JTAKRA--wu.elixant.com/jtakra

OK, so what is JTAKRA? Well, that’s the OTHER album I did this summer. When I came home to North Dakota, my sister was waiting for me with a bunch of cello and piano duet music. I hadn’t played piano seriously for a while, so I gladly agreed to play with her. A good, fun way to keep the skills up. Then, since she joined my record label, I thought it might be a good goal to record an album in July before we left for backpacking on Isle Royale (another story! agh! I was behind before…). We settled on two pieces, Elgar’s Cello Concerto (piano plays the orchestra reduction) and the Beethoven Sonata for Cello and Piano, Opus 102, No. 1. I’m quite pleased with the results of only about six weeks of work. So go check that one out too. There are liner notes there as well. Hosting is graciously provided by our friend Lushen Wu.

I also promised many people that I would post pictures of my new apartment when I got it together. Well, it’s together… but I haven’t taken the pictures yet. You’ll have to wait on that one.

Finally, we come to the real reason for the post. I am very happy and proud to announce today that I am “carbon neutral,” having purchased “offsets” for the greenhouse gas emissions from my apartment, car travel, and plane travel. What this means is that I have invested a certain sum of money in projects that will reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by an equivalent amount those for which I am responsible. This is a similar system to the one in Europe (and the one about to be set up in California), where companies have carbon allowances every year and are allowed to trade them on a market. This way, if somebody goes over, they can pay extra to have someone else who is doing better than expected to make up for their extra emissions. Thus, good ol’ capitalism is put to work, giving business financial incentives to reduce their emissions. The carbon-trading system grew out of the Kyoto Protocol, which most developed nations have ratified, but of course, not the US. (Also, not Australia. Not sure why that is.) I will take this opportunity to remind you that President Bush did promise on the campaign trail in 2000 to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and has since completely reneged on that promise.

Basically, I finally saw An Inconvenient Truth today, and although I had been planning this move for some time, the movie reminded me of the urgency of the issue. We are already seeing effects of global climate change, and although we will not be able to stave off all the negative effects still to come, everything we do today makes the problem that much less severe. Plus, sustained action and change in policy and energy infrastructure must begin NOW to give us the best chance of stopping the worst of global warming.

I cruised over to the website associated with the film, calculated my annual carbon dioxide emissions, and followed a link to a partner site, NativeEnergy to purchase my offsets. It was very quick, and less expensive then I expected. By my estimates of driving, flying, and utility bills, I am responsible for 4.15 tons of carbon dioxide emissions this year. That sounds like a lot to me, but it’s actually quite a bit less than the 7.5 tons per year of the average American. To put it in other terms, that’s 22.7 pounds of CO2 per day, which is still almost double the average human’s emissions, and more than four times the amount the Earth can actually sustain (according to this rather informative Sierra Club article). But by buying credits in new wind power projects with NativeEnergy, I could compensate for those emissions for just $48. At this price, there really should be more people going carbon neutral.

Now, there is some debate in the carbon credit trading community about how to calculate one’s individual responsibility for emissions, so I will admit that it is possible that I have underestimated my own personal contributions to global warming. For example, another carbon offset site, The CarbonNeutral Company, says that, as an American, I am responsible for a whopping 19.9 metric tonnes (21.9 US tons) of CO2 per year. Of course, I didn’t plug any numbers into this site, so they are just assuming that I consume as much as a regular American, neglecting all my biking, bus travel, thermostat lowering (I still haven’t turned on the heat in my apartment, and it’s fine, thank you), etc. That still doesn’t explain the discrepancy between 21.9 tons and the ClimateCrisis value of 7.5 tons for the average American. Purchasing offsets for 21.9 tons costs much more (try ~$300). I think CarbonNeutral’s higher value takes into account the emissions from “infrastructure,” emissions from the university buildings I walk around in all day, from the crews that made the roads that my buses drive on. But I think I am justified in using the lower estimate, since I have made changes in my lifestyle to reduce my emissions, so therefore I should reap the benefits. Plus, calculating my share of responsibility for these “infrastructure” emissions is rather complicated, so I would rather that the individual organizations more directly responsible for these emissions deal with their own CO2. In any case, I am proud to say that now I have at least done SOMETHING. Please join me in the fight to preserve our world.

Causes

2006-07-20T23:16:00.000-05:00

I found something to jolt me out of my summer blogging doldrums. It is urgent, interesting, important, and blogs just happen to be an excellent platform from which to promote it. It is Amnesty International’s Irrepressible.info campaign.

If you look at my sidebar, you will notice that two new little boxes have appeared there. Down at the bottom of the “Links” section, there’s the ONE campaign, which has the worthy goal of fighting global poverty and AIDS. Not only that, but it has enough resources and supporters (yes, more than just Brad Pitt and Bono) that I would say I have seen ONE make real progress on awareness of these issues in the last few years since its creation.

Then, closer to the top, there’s the box from Amnesty. It is a little piece of HTML that displays a fragment of text that someone is trying censor (in the native language). It brings up a new fragment every time you reload the page. The more people add this code to their site, the harder it will be for governments to block their citizens from reading politically undesirable content. I think Neal Stephenson would proud. And possibly also the Founders. So join me, friends, and defend Internet freedom.

(If you don’t have a platform where you can add this code, you can also visit Irrepressible.info and sign their pledge for Internet freedom anyway.)

Excuses, excuses

2006-06-17T23:06:00.000-05:00

I’m sorry, folks. This time, I’ll blame it on the fact that my parents only have dial-up, so I don’t spend as much time on the Internet as before, nor do I accomplish as much in the time I spend. Plus, it’s summer. Time to go outside, ride a bike, play disc golf, read a book. There are many books I would like to read.

I will announce when my album is available for download whenever I get that set up. And if you are in Grand Forks: hey, let’s hang out.

Different Art

2006-05-30T16:26:00.000-05:00

Quick post: Everyone needs to see this.
I want this to decorate my walls.
Amoeba Art

who needs sleep when you’ve got art?

2006-05-30T16:06:00.000-05:00

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s piece, today we bring you Francisco’s “who needs sleep when you’ve got art?” (crayon, 2002). It could be a response to “2:21 AM,” but it is uncertain which piece was created first. “who needs sleep” extols the exuberance of artists when the are “on a roll,” not wanting to stop until their work is complete. Indeed, this can be seen in the stick figure’s hovering above the bed.

The picture the rather crudely drawn human figure is holding may be Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers,” although several alternative explanations have been suggested. The piece is not very complex, probably because Francisco dashed it off in a hurry. While the members of the Fran Clan did not really compete with each other per se, most works were produced hastily out of a desire to quickly show them to friends for laughs. The exception to this rule is Francine, who produced only two works. However, they were much larger and more detailed than anything else produced by the Fran Clan.

It’s 2:21 AM. Shouldn’t I be TIRED?

2006-05-29T11:35:00.000-05:00

Today we introduce the only known work by Francesca the Lesser, “It’s 2:21 AM. Shouldn’t I be TIRED?” (crayon and pencil, 2002), which asks the question that was doubtless in the minds of all the Fran Clan on that fateful night which saw the creation of most of their body of work. We know this piece came later in the Fran Clan canon, since there is no “Radisson” mark to be found, indicating the artists had to find new sources of paper after exhausting the hotel’s complimentary pad of paper. Thus, it may be that hours of creative output were finally taking their toll.

Indeed, “2:21 AM” is a rather simple, minimalist work, suggesting some fatigue with art. Besides the title, there is just one motif, the question mark, repeatedly endlessly in a variety of colors. Some of the question marks are inverted, which may be a reference to the Spanish sound of the pseudonym “Francesca.” The different colors may allude to the fact that there are many other ever-present questions that dog each of us throughout life. Alternatively, the plethora of question marks could merely be intended to overwhelmingly emphasize the title question.

The Mingh Dynasty

2006-05-27T11:16:00.000-05:00

I kept promising for many months, and news kept interfering. Now, at last, we can return to our series on the art of the Fran Clan with “The Mingh Dynasty” (crayon, 2002) by François. (Fun fact: the British pronounce it “din-asty.”)

This piece introduces the dinosaur motif, which can be found in at least one other Fran Clan work not yet displayed here. Potentially, the dinosaur may represent fellow Clan member Francisco’s childhood desire to become a paleontologist, a desire which was then shown the door in favor of a career as an astronaut. Relatively simple, “The Mingh Dynasty” is known to be one of the earlier works by the Fran Clan since the artists first drew on the complimentary pad of paper in the hotel room.

Connections to the title, as with most of François’s work, are difficult to discern. Speculation by art critics has centered on viewing the lumbering dinosaur as the antiquated Chinese dynasty, croaking out a final attempt at intimidation as Time invariably sweeps it away. Thus, the piece may be seen as a statement about the impermanence of worldly things, although this interpretation may be too literal.

Improbability Drive

2006-05-24T11:40:00.000-05:00

First, it appears I owe the blogosphere in general and, more specifically, my friends and family an apology. I think I gave some people the wrong impression with my last post. If it were the only thing you read on this blog, you might get the idea that I am an angry, self-absorbed human being who focuses on petty things even though he knows they are petty. This is generally not the case. Except, apparently, when I wrote “Anticlimax.” I won’t say that I regret writing it because it was a very useful and cathartic experience that helped me work through some issues I had been having with the whole graduation business. And I do think there is something valuable about exposing your thought process to the world on occasion, in the spirit of truth and understanding. Thank you for all of the messages of encouragement and admiration that, by their nature, attacked the thesis of under-appreciation in “Anticlimax.” I just want to say, most respectfully, that I wasn’t fishing for compliments (as it may have seemed).

On to new business. The organ recital went pretty well. Thanks to so many for coming out to listen. This concert will be released as my long-awaited second album, to be titled JoelTed. Please contact me if you wish to receive a copy. As far as price is concerned, I’m thinking it’ll be a free-will-offering deal.

And now, on to what I would say is actually the subject of this post. (Yes, I could have broken off the first few paragraphs into a separate post, but that would not preserve my rambling style of thought.) My improbable aptitude in sweepstakes/drawings continues. This tale begins with my departure from an organ practice room towards the beginning of the month. I was just aching for an excuse not to study for my Plant and Environmental Safety test when a flyer for the Spencer Art Museum student night caught my eye. Ice cream, prizes, KJHK DJs, art—what more excuse did I need?

So I walked over to Spencer, ate ice cream, listened to KJHK, looked at the textile exhibits, talked to Bryan Park, then noticed that they were giving away art-themed Transformers parody t-shirts.
“Can I have one?”
“Yeah, sure. It’s the last one left.”
“All right! Hey, I guess I should probably write my name on these slips of paper to enter the drawings, right?”

My new shirt in hand, I looked at more textiles, then floated back to the prize table when the drawings started. Several CDs were dispensed, some candle set; many names were called, but few actually had remained for this phase of the evening. And, of course, you had to be present to win. The last prizes were five paintings by local artist Steve Keene, created at a live painting session in the Union a few weeks before. Many more names were called, and four people stepped forward to claim paintings, leaving only one painting.

I will never understand why people have such a hard time pronouncing my last name. You say it like it is spelled, folks. No, not “Abramson;” see, that’s spelled differently. Mine is spelled “Abrahamson.” Abraham. Son. Nevertheless, the Drawer of Prizes stumbled when announcing that I had won the last painting, so I just sort of cut him off as I stepped forward to accept my prize, exclaiming, “Abrahamson! Yes, I am here.”

Now, when you think of paintings, you probably think of nice little pieces, certainly no more than a meter on each side, easy to hang on any wall desired. That’s what I thought I was getting too.

Needless, to say, I underestimated a bit. This is more like one meter by two meters. It’s actually painted on an old door; you can see the holes where hinges were attached upon close inspection. Immediately I was captured by the vibrant colors, and yes, the incredible size. It is an imposing work.

The downside of large paintings is that they are very difficult to move from the Spencer Museum of Art to one’s residence. Clearly, the painting was too large for me to carry alone, so I summoned the aid of my friend Dana the Viking Physics Major. (Well, he doesn’t have a beard, and he’s added an environmental thing as well, but stick with me. The point is DVPM can lift heavy things.) We would return to Spencer one morning to recover the painting, it was decided. And yes, it might have been easier to simply put the painting in a truck or station wagon and go, but not nearly as funny as carrying a giant painting through campus.

DVPM was going to wear a shirt with “International Art Thief” emblazoned on it, but unfortunately, he woke up too late to apply the requisite marker to the requisite white t-shirt. Thus, we were wearing normal clothes when the journey began. Sure enough, we received our fair share of bewildered looks. One man even commented, “This is an action-adventure movie waiting to happen.” Before long, the painting was set up in my living room.

The other downside of large paintings is that they are well nigh impossible to transport across the country when one is moving off to grad school and one does not wish to rent a U-Haul-class vehicle. This difficulty is only enhanced when one must first move back to North Dakota for the summer, with only the space in one’s parents’ minivan and one’s Prius to transport cargo. So it seems I will have to give away the painting (at least temporarily). I have selected Dana the Viking Physics Major and Rugby Player to be its guardian, since he was so good as to assist me in its recovery.

Epilogue: The day after Spencer Art Museum student night, I got my hair cut, wrote my name on another slip of paper, and scored a 95% on my test. Then the following week I received a phone call to tell me that I had won a two-week membership to the Lawrence Athletic Club.

Anticlimax

2006-05-11T01:41:00.000-05:00

Well, it’s been almost exactly a month since I last posted. What happened? I managed to post six times (counting “excerpts”) during the Design project, and yet in my final month of my undergraduate career, I can’t even manage one?

The easy thing would be to blame a succession of weekly due dates and deadlines in April, which then dragged on into May. Taxes. Fundamentals of Engineering Exam. Second Safety Project. Presentation for second Safety Project. Catching up to all the things I neglected during second Safety Project. And so I am only now catching up to my blog; it takes a bit of momentum for me to start writing again.

In the spirit of catching up, I need to write a bunch about what’s been happening lately, and THEN, then I will get us back on the art postings, which were very well received. There are still so many to cover, after all. But now that there is only one final standing between me and graduation, I see no reason why I won’t have more time to post.

Yeah, the g-word. I guess I should be vastly more excited than I am. I get to be the banner carrier for the entire School of Engineering for Commencement. I will be honored at no fewer than three different ceremonies (Honors Program, School of Engineering, general University Commencement) on graduation weekend. Well-wishing and congratulations abound. But maybe it’s because of all this pomp and circumstance that I can’t help but feel somewhat ho-hum about the whole affair. After all, I could go to none of these ceremonies, and I would still get a diploma, still go on to grad school in the fall. In five years or so, the fact that I did not go to graduation ceremonies would be nothing more than a funny story to tell at a party.

But supposedly we have all this rite and ritual to create eternal good memories. Certainly I would not deny others the opportunity to create happy memories, but I’d rather be hiking than standing in various public places while hundreds of names are read and people march from one place to another. And the memories I have from the actual college experience itself are far more valuable. Plus, I didn’t have to pay ~$20 for those memories, unlike my keepsake robe and mortarboard, which I could not rent but was required to have to participate in the ceremonies. I really don’t need a one-use item of ceremonial clothing taking up space as I move around the country. If I want to remember graduation day, I’ll take pictures; I don’t need some mass-produced folds of cloth to remind me.

Maybe the problem is that graduation has been something I’ve been expecting for quite a while. It doesn’t seem like that much of an achievement. Sure, I toiled for countless hours to get through classes and learn the skills and knowledge that make up my chemical engineering degree. It was hard work, the hardest I’ve ever worked in my life, and by some accounts, the hardest I’ll ever work. I have climbed academic Everests since arriving at KU, but still, it was all so predictable. The problem with consistent success is that you only raise the standards for yourself. Excellent performance is expected of you, from others and yourself. Case in point: it’s beginning to look like I might just escape college with a 4.0 (somehow). Even if I don’t quite make it for whatever reason, it’s close enough. I never coasted, never let up, because there was always something to work for: keeping my scholarships, grad school admissions, and even after graduation, applying for fellowships next year. I wanted to continue this measure of academic perfection. But this bizarre and most improbable event has barely been acknowledged by my family, friends, or classmates outside of the occasional murmur of amazement or “Keep up the good work.” Imagine how different the response would be had I failed a class or (gasp) burned out and crashed due to the pressures of college. Such events could do far more harm to my future than a perfect GPA would do good.

Now, this case deserves a few qualifications. First, I am not accusing my friends, family, or classmates of being anything but supportive during these past four years. Indeed, I may not have made it without them, and I know they would stand by me, even if I had suffered academic catastrophe. Second, I am not demanding that they shower me with praise just because of some numbers on paper I have. That’s not their job; the motivation for success must come within oneself and not from wanting the praise of others. I hesitated to even use this example because I did not want to seem like that annoying kid who won’t shut up about how much better he is than everyone else. Such arrogance will only alienate friends, destroy relationships, and consign this person to irrelevancy in the long-term as no one wishes to work with him. I might have become such a person, but fortunately, somewhere back around eighth grade I took a different path and at least have been conscious of the importance of humility since then.

Finally, I am not even arguing that perfect grades are in fact all that important. Skill development is important. Learning how to learn is important. Building networks and understanding how to work with people is important. Grades may give you a little boost as you leave college; they may help you get that job offer or grad school admissions letter you want. But after a few years you are on your own and no one cares how you did in college. I have already seen the evidence of this in the rapid decreasing importance of my high school work after I arrived at college. Sure, ACT scores and National Merit status are really nice when one is trying to score scholarships, but once one is actually in, it’s not like people sit around and ask, “So, how did you do on the SAT verbal?” Even in engineering.

But now that I have finished downplaying my own original argument, I want to explain what I believe the case of perfect GPA demonstrates (aside from my propensity to self-analyze ad nauseam). To some extent, I believe the seemingly disproportionate outcomes of, say, a perfect GPA and failing a class are just a reflection of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The entropy of the universe is always increasing. Basically, it’s harder to create than to destroy. Moreover, perfect grades or most of my other collegiate “achievements” do not represent true success, given how soon they will cease to be relevant. True success has to make an impact, leave a legacy, be remembered. I may have achieved success on a personal level, in that I have positively influenced the lives of many people, just as we all have. This is undeniably a good thing. But in the arena of my career, my profession, society, the world, I have not yet done anything of significance.

It is about at this point that you should be objecting with some statement like, “But Joel, you’re only just starting your third decade! There’s still much time to make an impact on society.” Indeed, I made this objection myself, and it is true. It is hardly reasonable to expect that I could have such a level of influence at this point in my life. Still, I am driven (and impatient) with my sights set high. It will take me many more decades before I am anywhere near satisfied with the state of my life, but I guess it’s the struggles and yes, the journey, that gives life its purpose.

This One Was Somewhat Backwards

2006-04-12T22:01:00.000-05:00

As I have been explaining in recent posts, there is this irksome trend of bad weather cropping up in Lawrence just when I go on trips. However, for my final grad school visit (the University of Illinois), the bad weather showed up in other places, but still affected my travel plans.

Let’s start with flying out on Thursday night. The plane that was to take me from Kansas City to Chicago had to first stop through St. Louis to drop off some passengers on its way to KC. Because of thunderstorms, that plane was delayed, meaning I left KC perhaps an hour later than I intended. Consequently, I missed my connecting flight to Champaign-Urbana from O’Hare, and (not too surprisingly) there were no other flights that night. In retrospect, I probably could have stayed in a hotel that night and been reimbursed by UIUC chemical engineering, but I didn’t think of that at the time. I thought I would have to pay at least $50 to get a room. The thought was not particularly appealing.

Even the busiest airport in the world is practically deserted at 2 AM. This I discovered after resolutely vowing to camp out overnight in O’Hare. I figured that since I had an important Plant and Environmental Safety project due the next day, I would be staying up later than usual anyway, which made the problem of trying to sleep in an airport less pressing. I would type a bunch of stuff on my laptop, then find some Internet connection and send my material to my waiting group members back in Lawrence, while downloading a copy of their work to proofread and review. And then when I was really tired, I’d catch a few winks, which should have been easy at that point.

Before leaving for continental Europe on my spring break trip of 2004, I slept in London’s Stanstead airport one night, and not very restfully I might add. So on this trip, I was well aware of the hazards inherent in trying to sleep in an airport. Most available areas are hard floor, unless one is lucky enough to find some rows of chairs that don’t have armrests. On top of this, automated announcements about safety or the lurking threat of terrorism will probably come on every 15 minutes or so (although in Stanstead, this was not so after midnight). In any case, you can expect people to start showing up around 5 AM for the early flights, so good luck trying to sleep in. And if you’re really lucky, the airport will turn off the lights after midnight or so. Stanstead did. O’Hare didn’t.

So, circa 5:20 AM found me giving up on sleep and setting out to find breakfast and the Internet. Never before had I wished so much that I had a wireless card for my iBook; I’m definitely going to make that investment now. It took me nearly half an hour of wandering around the airport to find a place where I could plug in; I couldn’t use those data ports you see in pay phones because apparently they only work for local or toll-free access numbers. Eventually, I paid Laptop Lane through the nose to transmit my vital data. Although it was expensive, I still had a bit of a rush thinking about the fact that what I was doing was important enough to justify spending a relatively exorbitant amount on Internet time. I suppose if I had failed to get my section of the report to my colleagues, our grades (and therefore our graduation) might have been jeopardized. Maybe.

So the next few hours had me looking very much like a road warrior: typing on a laptop computer, making and receiving cellular telephone calls. I felt very important, and the project was completed as scheduled. I only missed a few activities at UIUC, and the rest of the visit weekend was great. At least until I was flying home on Sunday, whereupon O’Hare was beset by high winds just when I was trying to depart from Champaign-Urbana (which apparently the locals call C-U). The winds put a hold on all flights scheduled to fly into O’Hare for about an hour, so once again I was delayed. Fortunately, I was still able to make it back to KC that day.

The good news is that out of all of this travel, I finally synthesized a choice of graduate school. The winner is…

the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign!! Since you all want to know my reasoning, I’ll explain a little. First and foremost, I was very impressed by the faculty at UIUC and excited by their research projects. Specifically, one Dr. Michael Strano does some really great work with my favorite molecule, the carbon nanotube. Besides this, all faculty members seemed genuinely interested in helping to develop their students’ careers (and they are particularly good at securing national fellowships for qualified students)--a very personable bunch. Of course, facilities and equipment available are top-notch. They have access to almost any instrument you could ever want/need, and some groups take field trips to national labs to use some of the exceptions to that statement. And although this decision isn’t really about money (I mean, on that basis I would have just accepted Dow Corning’s offer back in December and gone to work processing polycrystalline silicon), the cost of living in C-U is obviously lower than another top competitor, Berkeley. Example: It is not uncommon for students at UIUC to buy condos or houses. So start making your plans now; come visit me next year in…the middle of…Illinois. Well, maybe we can meet up in Chicago.

Google Is Plotting to Take Over the Solar System

2006-03-23T11:12:00.000-06:00

We’ll get back to the art some time. I promise. It’s just that things are actually happening to me these days, so I have some current content that takes precedence.

For example, I have recently uncovered a new dimension to the growth of Google: outer space. There now exist both Google Moon and Google Mars, along with the more famous Google Earth. Like their terrestrial counterpart, the two new websites offer complete maps of their respective heavenly bodies, although they are less helpful when trying to find, say, good hotels near Tycho Crater. However, the Mars maps come in Visible, Infrared, and Topographic modes, which is more than Earth can say, plus they have easy directions to help you find surface features like canyons or spacecraft.

This is all a lot of fun… but where will it end? Google’s avowed motto is “Don’t Be Evil;” let’s hope they stick to it.

Again, What the BLAP?!?

2006-03-21T21:43:00.000-06:00

This weekend I visited the University of Notre Dame to see just what their graduate chemical engineering program has to offer. The campus overall has a serious old money feel about it, what with its gilded dome and numerous dual-purpose religious/football works of art (i.e. Touchdown Jesus, First Down Moses, and Fair Catch Father Corby). And the bookstore is very classy indeed, as you may have heard. The problem that I seem to be encountering, however, is that these visits increasingly do not teach me anything new about the program beyond what I learned from their website. Or at least that’s how it seems. Maybe I’m actually getting some kind of travel fatigue.

The other problem is this annoying pattern of bad weather arriving upon my return from a grad school visit. This time, I was sitting in the South Bend airport, and once again my mother informs me of some storm that blew through Nebraska and Kansas, dumping snow and canceling school (well, in Nebraska at least). What’s more, there was a second front on its way in Colorado, which could spell serious trouble for my expedition to the Black Canyon.

Coming into Kansas City, I was treated to the greatest amount of turbulence I have yet encountered. It was kind of like being on a big wooden, rickety roller coaster, but with soft drinks and little snack packets. Then I had to drive through some sleetoid precipitation most of the way back from the airport. Luckily, it didn’t really freeze, but since it was night, I (along with most of the other drivers on the interstate) still didn’t really feel comfortable driving 70 mph. After finally getting back to Lawrence, I conferred with Dana the Viking about our expedition, checking road conditions and weather forecasts with the Internet.

Now, the Prius is good at many things, but four-wheel drive is not one of them. In fact, I’ve never really tested the Prius in snowy, mountainous conditions, and Dana the Viking’s rear-wheel drive Volvo was certainly not going to do better. So, feeling very uncertain about driving in a small car on slick mountain roads, we cancelled the expedition, discouraged.

I’m pretty bummed right now. If anyone is still in Lawrence and wants to hang out this week, I’m basically available, aside from spending tomorrow with my grandparents, who have just returned from Egypt, and my cousin Brian, who had a birthday today, and his family. Other than that, I guess I’ll be reading and working on my Plant and Environmental Safety project. What an anticlimactic final spring break of my college career.

This better not happen again when I come back from Champaign at the end of the month.

What the BLAP?!? I Leave Town for a Few Days and THIS Happens?

2006-03-15T20:44:00.000-06:00

This weekend I visited the University of California-Berkeley to see just what their graduate chemical engineering program has to offer. Answer: a lot of well-funded, well-equipped labs full of people who are very excited about what they are doing. That includes both grad students and professors. Also, beautiful campus scenery--lush forests (probably redwoods) standing right there, between buildings. And of course, there’s the matter of their superlative reputation. But as it turned out, the visit wasn’t the most interesting thing to happen that weekend.

Waiting in the Denver airport on my way back from Berkeley, I received a phone call from my mom. She had news of some sort of high winds disaster in Lawrence Sunday morning. Maybe it was tornadoes, maybe just high winds. The information wasn’t exactly clear. She also had some unclear reports of shingles or roofs or pieces of roofs coming off of KU buildings and maybe no classes on Monday.

I was quite concerned, so after finishing that conversation, I called my flatmate, Magic Steve, to ask what was up. He reported that our house was fine and, in fact, most of the town was fine, but our house also didn’t have electricity. Sure enough, classes were cancelled for Monday, and yes, there were pieces of trees down everywhere. But at least I could stop worrying about my residence.

As I later learned, Lawrence was hit Sunday morning by a microburst, which apparently is a region of high (as in, 70 or so mph) winds that can form at the base of thunderstorms. Don’t feel bad if this is Greek to you; I certainly had never heard of this, the ball lightning of windstorm phenomena, before Sunday. I still don’t really understand what it is. And actually, my house had a little damage--one of my windows blew out. But mostly the storm just brought us a day off from school (probably only the third time classes were cancelled in about twenty years) and a night of that odd sense of togetherness and cooperation that only shared natural disasters can bring.

If you want to know more, the Lawrence Journal-World did a much better job of covering everything than I could.

Rip Van Winkle

2006-03-13T11:10:00.000-06:00

On the night of February 1, 2006, I fell asleep.

On the morning of March 4, 2006, I woke up. There was a black Accupress binder next to my bed, so I took it with me when I stepped in my car and drove through the morning rain, grey skies lowering. Upon arriving at the Kurata Thermodynamics Laboratory, I presented this binder to Dr. Howat, who gave some acknowledgment and wrote my name down on a list.

I only have vague memories of the period in between those two events, so I am led to the conclusion that I slept the whole time. I do remember some of my dreams, though.

Most of the time I was in a room with computers lining the walls and windows covering most of one wall. The windows could have been nice, except that instead of looking out over a twinkling cityscape, or the ocean, or a forest, or a mountain, they faced a brick wall. And at night, the wall was just a shapeless black.

It was night most of the time in my dream. I don’t remember seeing much sunlight.

There were other people in this room, but they didn’t say much. I recognized most of them, although they only seemed to be chemical engineers I know. Not the usual mash-up found in dreams, where cities are overlaid, and a person often has one appearance and a different personality.

One time in a dream I found myself getting off a plane in some Blade Runner city: wet, drizzling rain, dark skies but for the light of skyscrapers. Like one of those mash-ups, it suddenly turned into Seattle as soon as I saw the Space Needle on the skyline. I spent quite some time in Seattle, and it was enjoyable, but for the knowledge that I would have to return to that room all too soon. And even in Seattle, I found a binder shackled to my leg, dragging me back to my hotel room to scribble formulas in it for hours.

In downtown Seattle, I found a musical fountain. The jets of water sprayed in time with whatever was playing, which happened to be Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D minor” when I stopped by. It was some sort of orchestral arrangement, not the organ version that I love best, but a decent effort nonetheless.

The fountain was the sort of place where, in the summer, children might run around haphazardly, shrieking with glee as the cool water drenched them. But it was cold and a little windy when I visited, so the fountain played alone.

But on the plane that carried me away from Seattle, something magical happened. I was flying over Idaho (sometimes called ID) when the clouds parted and breathtaking landscapes were revealed below. And even though I knew I would soon return to the room for days more of toil, I was able to let that fact go for a time, leaving me at peace. My cares having departed, I gazed at snow-covered mountains and rippling watersheds that wrinkled the Earth below.

Even as I left the mountains and crossed over starkly flat plains, I continued to be amazed, because it seemed that no people lived in this vast area at all. Could such large areas of wilderness still exist in the Lower 48 states?, I wondered. It looked more like Antarctica than America.

Then, at the edge of more mountains, I saw a road. A single scratch of habitation existing in what many would call a wasteland. Many, but not myself; I have always found snow comforting and beautiful. This is no doubt due to my North Dakota childhood, which taught me many ways of using snow for recreation.

The snow cover on the mountains decreased with my latitude, as did the sun’s height in the sky, until finally I found sunset over Colorado. And so the sky dimmed, and my wondrous visions of natural beauty ended. But I knew the images that remained in my mind would shield me from the troubles I still had to face. And it is perhaps this assurance, this hope that I remember most from my strange dream.

Excerpt #3

2006-02-23T09:37:00.000-06:00

From Breaking Eggs:
“’Why I let you pick the getaway car, I’ll never know,’ I grumbled as I slid into the passenger seat, trying to pull my legs in as I did so. A clown car might have had more legroom than this bucket did, and consequently, the simple process of getting in the car was slowed not insignificantly. Shorty had many talents, to be sure; I guess choosing a vehicle with due consideration to the dimensions of his partner just wasn’t one of them. Still, I wouldn’t have been on that job if it weren’t for what Shorty did back in Rio.”

Excerpt #2

2006-02-22T09:38:00.000-06:00

From The Lotus Empire:
“The emperor’s dyspepsia notwithstanding, the mood in the imperial court grew ebullient as the winter months dragged on. The thought of being surrounded by endless kilometers of arctic tundra was, of course, easier to bear with minstrels at hand to play a favorite ballad or a warm goblet of glühwein only a clap of the hands away. And although the reports on the state of the empire offered little reason to celebrate, neither were they extraordinarily worrisome. But one day in March, a messenger arrived from the west.”

Bizarro-Post

2006-02-21T21:35:00.000-06:00

First of all, I am blogging way more than I expected to during the design project. I guess that means it’s going pretty well. Less than two weeks left now!

I finally heard back from those MIT folks. Oddly enough, I was not admitted (sorry, Frances, I guess I can’t come to Boston for free). Apparently my application, which was good enough for Washington, Berkeley, Illinois, and Notre Dame, was not quite what MIT was looking for. Of course, the letter in the thin envelope said they had a very large number of qualified applicants, but what does that actually mean? In summary, I guess I would feel more annoyed or hurt if I weren’t already trying to choose between these other four very desirable grad schools. In fact, since I am going to be gone on tours a rather shocking number of days in March as it is, I’m almost glad I don’t have to figure out how to schedule in an MIT visit (no, Frances, that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to come to Boston). Mostly I feel kind of bemused about the whole thing. It just strikes me as kind of odd.

Speaking of odd, apparently the powers of my flatmate, Magic Steve, extend to electronics now. Magic Steve’s super-powers documented to date include super-climbing, super-stealth, realistic BATTLE DAMAGE!, and the ability to walk into a Vegas casino and win $20 off a slot on his first pull. But now there’s this electronics business.

The free television that Magic Steve and I share (see post “Hunting and Gathering as per my particular…idiom”) has always had this little problem where occasionally the color goes kind of fritzy and the screen turns mostly red. Fortunately, all that is required to fix this problem is a good thwack to the side of the TV. It’s actually kind of hilarious, having an appliance that requires you to hit it to make it work. Until I acquired this TV, I thought such things were fictions invented by screenwriters and authors for dramatic purposes.

Anyway, one day, after Magic Steve had set some Valentine’s Day flowers on top of our free entertainment center, the Fritz-daemon showed up and possessed the television. Magic Steve performed the usual procedure of picking up a bottom corner of the box and dropping it a couple of inches. The exorcism was successful. However, the Fritz-daemon conspired with Gravity to destabilize the flowers and send them toppling on to the back part of the TV. Immediately, the screen went dark, and Magic Steve feared the worst. Indeed, it seemed that Free TV might be dead. But later, it was successfully reactivated, and the Fritz-daemon has not been seen since. Apparently spilling about a liter on the back of our television doesn't kill it, but rather, exorcises its daemons. That said, I do not recommend trying this procedure on any of your uncooperative appliances or electronics without the aid of a trained Magic Steve. And there’s only one of those, so good luck.

And now, back to the top-secret project.

Excerpt #1

2006-02-16T11:11:00.000-06:00

From Mr. Sasquatch Goes to Washington:
“What Sasquatch had learned in the woods of Washington state was not often relevant in Washington, DC. But one thing seemed universally applicable: if one went around turning over rocks, one was certain to find any number of bugs, squirming at the sudden transition from dank darkness to sunlight.”

Well, It's Been Several Months

2006-02-12T10:33:00.000-06:00

Less than three weeks now until the project is due. That means this one will still be short. But I wanted to write it while I was thinking about it.

Recently, I thought to myself, I wonder how I can get closer to my goal of being polylingual? Is that a word? What I mean is, even more than multilingual. I won’t pretend that I could ever attain omnilingual status, but I want to learn MANY languages. Of course, a major restriction for me is that I don’t really have a lot of free time, as you know. This makes it difficult to do some sort of self-study with books at home, much less actually take college classes. Schade, nicht wahr? But then I realized an untapped time resource I had-- those thirty or forty minutes or so per day that I spend walking between places. Or for that matter, the time it takes me to do my grocery shopping. I could be listening to those handy language-learning audio programs! But I don’t want to spend a lot of money…

Hey, aren’t most podcasts free? And easy to get by simply downloading? And doesn’t iTunes have a library of thousands of them that is easy to search? Quick investigation proved my brain correct, so I subscribed to some likely suspects that looked like good Japanese resources. (I figured I’d start with that language since I probably have the greatest toehold in it of any of the smatterings of languages I know. More than Russian, that’s for sure. Of course, there’s still the problem of learning kanji.) Then I realized that I could use podcasts to educate myself on any number of different topics. The problem with chemical engineering as a major is that it doesn’t leave a lot of room in your curriculum for random electives, which is quite disappointing to a would-be Renaissance man like myself. Thus, I added “In Our Time” from BBC Radio 4 (this week’s topic: Chaucer), NPR’s “On Words with John Ciardi” segment (the etymology of the word “midriff”), and the weekly Piano Puzzler from “Performance Today.” And the Onion Radio News, just for fun. So now I will have even more random facts to toss at people. Insert your own punchline/quip here.

In my first post on this blog, I explained my innate distrust of fads, which is why it took me so long to get a blog in the first place. You may also note that in that first post I singled out podcasting and Facebook as the new fads, blogs having become old hat by that point. Actually, I am considering joining the Facebookers some time in the next few months. But what can I say? The convenience of listening to audio programming when I want to, with the help of my iPod mini, was just too good to pass up. Besides, it’s been several months since last summer. The Fad is now… I don’t know… Gmail’s integrated chat program? Video blogging? I’ll take public comments on this one.

And You Thought Sudoku Was Hard

2006-02-04T00:24:00.000-06:00

I really did want to put a piece of art with this one, but the fact is that I am now working on the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) design contest problem, and it will continue to consume most of my free time until March 4. I can’t even tell you what it is about, as that probably violates contest rules (someone who will be working the problem later this semester could happen across my blog and get an unfair head start). How’s that for mysterious and super-top-secret. Let it suffice to say that the next month will be one of those periods where my posts are very witty, or at least very brief.

Today’s post is intended to bring to your attention a fantastic new puzzle for those of you who have more free time than I do (oh, irony). Samurai Sudoku (素毒の侍, I think) is particularly suited for those people who weren’t quite challenged enough by the 9x9 number game that has been sweeping the world in the last six months or so. It consists of five Sudoku puzzles that overlap at their corners. Just go look at the link. It makes a lot more sense when you see it. I did manage to finish one of these before The Project began, and I think it might have taken me over an hour, but unfortunately I did not think to time myself. Thanks to Liz Morel for bringing this to my attention.

America Monkey

2006-02-01T10:25:00.000-06:00

Breaking news: I have been accepted with full support to the Universities of Notre Dame and of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign). This leaves only the slackers at MIT, who have not yet notified me of their decision. In any case, it seems likely that I will be spending most of my weekends in March flying around the country to visit various schools. Good thing the decision deadline is April 15 for all schools.

And in honor of last night’s State of the Union address, today’s piece is François’s “America Monkey” (crayon, 2002). This little guy is the most patriotic monkey. The American ideals of freedom and liberty can be seen in his open arms. Imagine thousands of immigrants and huddled masses running towards those welcoming arms. It almost makes you wonder if France should have built us a giant monkey statue instead of that dame with the spiky hair. If we had a giant monkey statue, I bet the apes would at least do their part and keep the sand off of it in the future, which clearly would not happen with our present monument, as many prominent historians have noted.

“America Monkey” foreshadowed the “one state, two state, red state, blue state” divisions that appeared (or were hyped by the media) during the 2004 elections and offered a solution ahead of time: out of many red and blue pieces, one patriotic monkey. It’s heartwarming to see such a symbol of unity and friendship today.

However, there exists an alternative interpretation of “America Monkey.” Some art critics believe it represents a critique of American culture and politics, although it should be noted that it was not nearly so fashionable to criticize the president at the time of this work’s creation, January 2002. Additionally, the first piece in the Fran Clan series was titled “Australia Day Fireworks,” so “America Monkey” may also be an allusion to that work.

Sharks are not mammals

2006-01-26T21:35:00.000-06:00

Let the people never say that I did not listen to their comments on my blog. Even the anonymous ones. And so, we return to the ongoing Fran Clan exhibition with a piece from François.

If you have been noticing that all the pieces so far have come from just two members of the Fran Clan, I should note that not all members produced pieces at the same rate. However, that does not necessarily mean that some were more creative than others; Francine’s, for example, were just much larger than average. With dimensions of 8.5 by 11 inches, it is easy to understand why he produced only two such works.

But despite being one of many, today’s piece, “Sharks are not mammals” (crayon and pencil, 2002) still stands out. A cake can be seen telling a stalagmite (remember, folks: “g” for “ground”) its true feelings about their relationship. The stalagmite agrees, perhaps somewhat placidly; its response is in lowercase type. The presence of word bubbles demonstrates the pervasive influence of the primary humorous genre of art, cartoons, on the Fran Clan. This is hardly the only piece to make use of word bubbles, as will be seen in the coming weeks.

As is typical for a piece from the Fran Clan school, “Sharks are not mammals” is suffused with irony and humor. The setting, a cave, may be a visual pun on the cake’s apparent desire for a platonic relationship. Can you find another visual pun?

The Strangest Fortune from a Cookie I Have Ever Received

2006-01-24T13:57:00.000-06:00

Note: Because of some blogspam (blam? splog? fake posts? what do you call them?) I’ve been getting lately, I have enabled word verification for comments. This will be slightly inconvenient for you, the poster, but I run the ship around here, not some spam-bot. Ironically, word verification can be said to be a kind of Turing Test, since it aims to have a user prove they are human by doing something software can’t. Say for example, reading a distorted series of letters and numbers in a graphic. So any program that could actually do word verification might be judged to be artificially intelligent, by this standard. Hm. Well, it would certainly have to be a clever program.

And let’s not forget: intelligent programs are not the same thing and self-aware or self-conscious programs. And the intelligence of computer programs can still be quite limited, working well only in certain applications. For example, a program could be very good at identifying faces in crowds on surveillance video and other such visual pattern recognition tasks, but not be able to understand patterns in text. Such a hypothetical program could not read a message where all the letters are simply repeated. Which is where today’s title comes in:

“Ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn..”

The Circle of Life

2006-01-22T21:15:00.000-06:00

Before we discuss this week’s piece, a few tidbits from what’s actually happening presently in my life. Saw Good Night, and Good Luck last week. It is excellently made and everyone in the cast gives a strong performance. Of course, the subject matter is uncomfortably relevant, I would say. But all of that you could have gotten from any number of talking head reviews. Here’s my tidbit: see if you can figure out which minor character is Alex Borstein, voice of Lois Griffin on Family Guy!
My semester finally started last Friday. Safety will be difficult. The design project will be difficult, but at least that’s basically limited to February. Apologies in advance if I don’t post during that month. Apologies also if you were really itching to hear some more of those stories I foreshadowed in “”FREEDOM!!” I will try to switch it up a little bit and throw some of those in alongside the art exhibition, but the simple fact is that those take longer to write. It’s pretty easy to throw together a paragraph and post some silly drawing, by contrast.
On the grad school front, I have been accepted with full support to the University of Washington (located in Seattle) and Berkeley. Both have graciously offered to fly me out (on their dime… er, thousands of dimes) to tour their campuses. This will happen in February and March, and of course I am excited. I love traveling anyway, and I have not yet visited the great state of Washington.
I also need to mention some kind of a disclaimer. I suspect that the Radisson Hotels would not necessarily like their good name besmirched by this zaniness. So: the views expressed on this blog and in this exhibition do not necessarily represent those of Radisson Hotels, its employees, partners, etc. They’re good people; without their little tablets of paper in their rooms, none of this would have been possible. But don’t hold it against them.
OK, today’s piece: “The Circle of Life,” (pencil, 2002) by Francisco. It’s pretty self-explanatory, but if you need something to think about, consider this: it’s not really a circle.

Whoa dude, deep.

Lost Artwork Recovered—by Me!

2006-01-16T15:13:00.000-06:00

What would this blog be without self-aggrandizing? I would think there is enough self-deprecating humor thrown in as well to counter-balance it.

Anyway, one time during my senior year of high school, I was on a jazz band trip to Bismarck, ND. We were playing at some university jazz festival, probably the U of Mary, you know, one of those things that high school jazz bands do. I shared a room at the Radisson Inn (which was becoming quite familiar to me by that point from many other trips to various state-level student events and competitions those days) with my good friends Matt Crummy (and check out his music), Josh Killfoil, and Brian Palay. Around 9:27 PM we started to feel a wee bit peckish, so we traipsed over to a nearby Applebee’s. Serendipity dictated that we keep the crayons from our table. And later, someone noticed that our room had little notepads of paper… and a movement was born.

The Apple/Fran Clan school of artistic thinking had few real goals or characteristics, but nevertheless enjoyed relative popularity during 2002. Many visual works of art were exhibited in the hallway of the music wing of Red River High School in the spring, and in the fall, the exhibition moved to the renowned Room #302 Gallery in Stephenson Hall. Poems written in the Apple style also surfaced periodically in this time period.

Defining characteristics of the visual art side of the movement include use of crayon, pencil, pen, and other so-called “primitive” or “elementary” artistic utensils as a medium. In general, the works were relatively small, often about 3”x5”. A variety of subjects were covered, including still-lifes and portraits, with numerous Surrealist tendencies. In a way, the style of the works can be seen as reacting to some of the more esoteric and less audience-friendly aspects of Abstract and Postmodern (PoMo, to you hipsters) art; Apple/Fran Clan art basically always came with a sense of humor, although the poetry could be more serious.

Although the movement was originally thought to be limited to high school students at Red River High School, research by art historians revealed that quite a few celebrities (including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, veteran Democratic advisor James Carville, former NASA administrator Daniel Goldin, and Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf) had painted works in this general style for Debra Trione. These have been collected in her book called A Perfect World: Words and Paintings From Over 50 of America’s Most Powerful People.

The two names associated with the movement have different origins. but are equally applicable. “Apple” refers not to the manufacturer of iMacs and iPods, nor to the Beatles’ music company, but rather to the good ol’ American Pie fruit, which is a common theme in a number of works from the school. “Fran Clan” is a name given to the collective of artists that contributed most of the works: Jason Melin (Francesca), Matt Crummy (Francine), Josh Killfoil (François), Joel Abrahamson (Francisco), and Brian Palay (Francesca the Lesser). As you can see, they all have “Fran” in their names.

After the Stephenson Hall exhibition closed, the location of most of the Apple/Fran Clan works of art was unknown for some time, until I stumbled upon them in an excavation of certain boxes in a storage room in southern Grand Forks, North Dakota. Now, for the first time, these works will be exhibited electronically (at least as fast as I can scan them) at Turing Test THIS!! Prepare for your brain to be challenged and your face to be contorted. From laughter. It is recommended that you keep in mind this disclaimer that was presented with the previous exhibitions: “Don’t ask what anything means, cause we don’t know. No, we weren’t on drugs.”

Our first piece is by François and is titled “Blue stop signs mean go!” (crayon, 2002). I used it as the cover art for my debut album, Joeliosis, released by Harriman Enterprises in 2002.

Oh Yeah: Happy New Year

2006-01-09T15:48:00.000-06:00

Just think of this: if you’re on the Julian calendar, it’s not even the new year yet. Same for the Chinese calendar. And obviously, the Jewish New Year is nowhere in sight. So keep these things in mind before you accuse me of being remiss in my electronic New Year’s greetings to the world.

I’m in Grand Forks right now. It has been a most relaxing time. I was the guest organist at my church, organized a sledding/Super Action Ball day with my high school friends, talked to my high school choir teacher, Mr. Sherwood. It was very good to see all of these high school people. Good to know we haven’t totally fallen out of touch or any such thing. I made sushi (twice) with my family’s Japanese exchange student, Kota. I bowled with Kota and my brother and two Swedes at an exchange student Christmas party (if you think this is a bit late, see the first paragraph).

Now, a story. I guess I would be remiss if I didn’t finally explain for the record what exactly Super Action Ball is, now that I’ve mentioned it again. This story begins, oddly enough, with a T-shirt. One day in Stephenson Hall about two years ago, local resident Sir Dennis was walking around wearing this shirt with writing upon it. And lo, the writing upon the shirt said, “I Won at Super Action Ball.” Being naturally curious, I inquired as to the meaning of these strange words. Dennis told me that he had no idea to what primeval sport the shirt was referring, but he had bought a 12-pack of these garments off of the magical marketplace known to most as eBay. I thought that the shirt was quite imbued with the jolly spirits of hilarity, so I inquired to Sir Dennis if he might bestow one upon me. He readily offered it as a gift, and I accepted.

A few days afterward, in a time closer to the present and with less medieval speech, my friends and I decided to take a break from studying from finals and take advantage of the snow that has recently covered our area. It won’t last long, so you must be sure to use it while it lasts. So that evening we left to go sledding on a campus hill, wearing plastic bag suits. See, since Kansans do not have real sleds for the most part, they have to fashion crude substitutes, like plastic bag suits in which you slide down a hill unassisted by a sled. On the way to the hill I spied a laundry basket that appeared to have been used as another such primitive sled substitute. Knowing that the men of Stephenson were bound to find some interesting use for it, I brought it along to the hill. Then, after the first few runs, inspiration struck, and Super Action Ball (as we know it) was born.

Super Action Ball involves any number of teams of two sliding down a hill, not on sleds but rather Super Action Suits (see aforementioned plastic bags). These pairs are attempting to get the Super Action Ball (which isn’t so much a ball as it is that laundry basket or some other non-spherical object; boxes and bottles have also been used) and carry it across the line to score a Super Action Goal Unit (SAGU, if you wish; it sounds pretty good as a South American-style soccer cheer: “SAGUUUUUUUUU!!!!!”) Naturally, tackling is allowed and encouraged, but in order to keep the game moving, if one is tackled, one must throw up the Super Action Ball, preferably to your teammate. Initially, the Super Action Ball was placed behind a Super Action Box (regular, ordinary cardboard box), but now it is customary to place it inside the SA Box. The first time the referee put it inside caused much confusion; it was pretty funny watching everyone, myself included, try to figure out where the Super Action Ball had gone. Now a number of other random items can sometimes be found in the Super Action Box, including, but not limited to, a Super Action Bowl (regular, ordinary metal bowl) or Super Action Frisbees (regular, ordinary plastic Frisbees). Finally, there is the unnecessary tackling rule, which states that whenever a SAGU is scored, as many people must tackle the scorer as possible.

Super Action Ball has been played every winter since then--that is, whenever snow is kind enough to show up in Kansas. And as I mentioned earlier, I recently introduced the game to North Dakota. Still, without official “rules,” the game is flexible. For example, in the last two games people have played the position of Enforcer or Troll. This person attempts to tackle everyone and has no interest in scoring SAGUs, just causing mayhem. The Enforcer certainly makes the game even more fun, although players should beware if a plastic pool is present on your Super Action Slope. The Enforcer may throw it at you.

Some of you may be wondering if I ever followed up on the shirts to discover the true origins of the name of the game. Of course I did. Some quick Google searching revealed that the game is also some sort of gambling thing played at a Reno, NV casino. I guess that would explain the presence of “John Ascuaga's Nugget” on the shirts that started it all.

I would encourage all of you to try this game. It’s really quite fun and a great new take on sledding. And I am proud to say that now the random shirt from eBay is true, because I have won at Super Action Ball many times.

The Greatest New Game/Gladiatorial Combat of the Year

2005-12-28T11:01:00.000-06:00

What were you doing Labor Day weekend? Grilling? Sitting in the sun? Watching television? Well, if you were Joel Abrahamson, you were doing all of that and more, because you went to the Lake of the Ozarks with David “Red” Shoemaker and friends. But you’re not Joel Abrahamson; I am. So I have to tell you this story.

This is actually something of a tradition for me, in that this year was the third in a row that I participated in this retreat for only the manliest of men. Generally, the weekend involves testing our prowess at jet-skiing, boating, tubing, and Chuck Norris movie watching. (Have you ever seen Invasion USA? It’s ridiculous. See also: pretty much any episode of Walker, Texas Ranger. Which reminds me: that’s one of my newer nicknames for W. *chuckle*) Those on the retreat also generally spend some time wrestling over large floating blocks of Styrofoam that have broken off of older docks and drift around the lake. (Have you ever seen the Lake of the Ozarks? There’s a lot of trash in it. The water is also exceedingly sketchy-- on a previous trip, Steve went swimming with some superglue on his hands, and the lake actually dissolved it.)

Maybe enough people finally upgraded their docks to the newer, floating barrel/tub models; for some reason, the Styrofoam blocks were nowhere to be found this year. While this was good, ecologically speaking, it meant that we could not play King of the Foam Block. Maybe that was why a long-germinating idea finally saw the light of day that weekend: TUBE WARS!!

Tube Wars works like this: you tow TWO tubes behind a boat moving at reasonably high speeds. On each tube is a person (or possibly two, if we are talking about Tag Team Tube Wars). Each person steers their tube around and generally tries to knock the other off. Hand-to-hand grappling is highly encouraged, and outright wrestling matches did develop at times. Cool moves include jumping your tube over your opponent’s tube, overturning your opponent’s tube while he is flying over you, ditching your tube and hanging on to your opponent while dragging half of your body in the water, and tilting your tube to drag the aforesaid opponent even more in the water. Sadly, no photographic evidence exists of the first series of Tube Wars matches. I guess we’ll just have to do it again.

Random Acts

2005-12-21T23:58:00.000-06:00

Right now you get a little detour before I jump in to retelling the tales of the last semester. It goes something like this:

Today I was doing my laundry. Around the time I was transferring from washers to dryers, Fox Sports Network was making some declaration about how Gale Sayers was the sixth best running back ever. I thought of the laser beam that forms from all of the Names of Fame in the Memorial Stadium opening video they show at all our home football games, and how it blasts forth from Mr. Sayers name to destroy the opposing team’s helmet. Because, as we all know, without your helmet, you can’t play football.

Then a man walked in the door of the laundromat. He walked around the machines to me and presented me with five two-dollar bills, neatly paper-clipped together, saying, “Here you go.” I was very much taken aback for five seconds as he turned to leave, wondering if this man had just seen and very much enjoyed Pay It Forward. But instead I collected myself enough to say, “What’s up?” (How intelligent.) Mystery Man replied, “Merry Christmas. Pass it on if you feel like it.” Then he walked out the door and disappeared melodramatically into the night.

Well, maybe there’s hope for this old world yet.

FREEDOM!!

2005-12-18T20:13:00.000-06:00

Well, realistically, I didn’t expect to get much time to post to this blog during the semester. I was fully aware it would be the most intensive academic period of my life to date. Still, I think it caught me off guard somewhat; ergo, the complete lack of ANY post for the last 4+ months. Yikes. Sorry, folks, if you were interested in what was happening in my life during that time. I’ll make it up to you in the next few posts. For now, let’s just say that there was a lot of homework, some gigantic projects, and what free time I had generally found me too brain dead to want to write anything.

But now I need to write about something more current. I promise I will give the highlights of the last semester in due time, but right now I need to write about today, before it slips my mind.

This morning, I woke up at 3:30 AM. Not because I had to, but because I could. Because I had finally had some free time and could take liberties with how I scheduled it. You see, my friend, the Zach Ol’ Party (ZOP) had snagged a block of air time from 4 to 8 AM on our local college radio station, KJHK. What’s more, this is what’s known as “freeform” programming, meaning you can pretty much play whatever you want (subject to FCC limitations, naturally). So I thought, this would be an interesting experience: early morning radio broadcasting. I’m all about adventures and interesting experiences. They make for good blog posts, after all.

Yesterday it snowed again, leaving 4-5 inches of fluff everywhere. Since this is Kansas, not North Dakota, the streets are only marginally plowed initially. Here it’s pretty much assumed (correctly) that the weather will soon warm up and melt everything anyway. It’s already happened once this year. The downside of this practice is that for the day or two before things have really melted, things can be a little slick. The ZOP’s car, the Jade Falcon, couldn’t quite make it up the hill to the Shack, as the KJHK station is affectionately known. We were forced to abandon ship and trudge upwards through the strange twilight glow that falls upon cities with at least a few street lights and plenty of reflective ground cover. Powdery flakes continued drifting down. My super-all-terrain hiking boots performed satisfactorily.

After the colder-than-expected hike up the hill, the radio show began. The inherent freedom of freeform programming was only enhanced by the knowledge that we were broadcasting noisy experimental electronica and obscure rock on a college radio station after finals had finished in the early morning. I don't have to tell you that college kids aren’t up that early, and any that stayed up late from the night before patronizing bars and such establishments have already fallen asleep (or passed out). We could easily have had a single-digit audience. I suggested that perhaps aliens circling some distant star centuries or millennia in the future might pick up our signal, so the audience might in fact be larger. To tell the truth, I don’t really know the relative power of KJHK’s transmitter, or, for that matter, the effectiveness of FM signals where interstellar communication is concerned. They don’t have the wonderful ionospheric reflections that shortwave does, that’s for sure.

Perhaps an hour or so into the broadcast, the ZOP and I discovered the hole in our small-audience logic-- KJHK is streamed live over the Internet. And the Internet reaches the whole world. And it is not 5 AM everywhere in the world when it is 5 AM in Lawrence. Some places it is 10, 11 AM, even… afternoon. This was evidenced by the longest-distance request call I have ever witnessed. A former KJHK dude, now in CHINA, was listening to the show on the Web and called to request something by a local (to Lawrence, not to China) band called the Regrets. Needless to say, we obliged his request.

After recovering from that surreal experience, the ZOP decided that he had been up since at least 2 PM the previous day and that he was, consequently, tired. Thus, I took the controls and The Big Chair for a few hours. I have been to the Shack several times now, so I know my way around the boards reasonably well. In any case, the ZOP had basically planned the whole four-hour show out ahead of time, so I didn’t even really need to think about what to play next. Mostly I just needed to answer the phone if it rang (it didn’t), announce the station ID (on the hour), and throw in some promos and public service announcements (required by Uncle Sam). So that was easy enough, but I’m the type who wants to be doing something else while he listens to music. This is especially true when we play an hour or so of ambient electronica. So, prompted by the longest-distance request, I decided to actually visit that page that teaches you important Chinese characters used in restaurants that I wrote about two posts (but almost five months) ago. Learning little scraps of languages here and there is almost a hobby for me, so I had a lot of fun. I think I learned quite a bit in ~2 hours, although the ZOP correctly questions how useful this knowledge will be, since the website does not teach pronunciation. Still, you have to start somewhere.

That’s all for now. Coming soon:

the greatest new game/gladiatorial combat of the year,

my experiences seeing half of the US concert dates for the fantastic Swedish acapella jazz quintet The Real Group,

the greatest new game (with combat, perhaps, but not gladiatorial) of two years ago,

one very awesome board game and one very awesome card game that everyone should know about (but probably will not learn about in time to purchase as a holiday gift… oh well; they’re kind of hard to find anyway)

perhaps the best photograph I have ever taken

a Waking encounter in my Life, and

the amazing magical talent of Gleaning.

I think that’s all I need to write about to get caught up. Wow. I have my work cut out for me. Of course, it’s not that I have nothing to do, strictly speaking. There’s still the matter of finishing the various graduate school applications I have out there…. they’re due in January… I’ll get them done…

Smorgasbord

2005-08-11T15:46:00.000-05:00

Whoa, it’s been a while. Let me bring you up to speed on what’s been happening.

The first couple of days immediately following my last post were basically spent preparing my final report detailing what I did during my summer vacation. All my research sort-of accomplishments were included in this report, and I say “sort-of” because I would feel much better about this project if I could actually complete some of the studies I was doing. We’ll see if my schedule allows it.

Then I spent last Wednesday (the 3rd) moving everything out of Lewis Hall and into my new apartment. As usual, I just barely managed to get everything out in time, although the moving of the free mattress (see post “Hunting and Gathering as per my particular… idiom”) was extremely quick and efficient thanks to Kasper, Ian, Sam, and the Schirer Blazer. The apartment is nowhere near set up yet, so I have some work to do when I return. For example, I don’t have Internet access or phone service yet. This leads us to an interesting point: I am now looking for a cell phone, since I figure that would be a better telephony solution than a simple land line. So if anyone has recommendations for providers they like (or models of phone), please do reply to this post.

No sooner did I finish moving things into my apartment than it was time for me to drive to the KC airport and board my flight home to Grand Forks. I spent six days visiting friends and family; sadly, it was too short a time, as it always is. Unfortunately, I did not get to go sailing with Tommy V and his family; the scheduling never quite worked out. However, I did spend an afternoon floating down the Red Lake River in an innertube (also known as “tubing” for short, but not to be confused with the “tubing” where one is dragged behind a speedboat at high velocities). This may be the most sublimely relaxing activity ever. Except for the parts with rapids. Those are pure adrenalin fun.

On that note, we move on to my upcoming activities. Besides spending a lot of time unpacking and setting up, I will be doing a radio show Thursday night with the Zach Ol’ Party on KU’s very own college radio station (pause) … (dead air) …um (dead air)… KJHK. I think the Ultimate Frisbee tournament is this weekend too, and there may even be a trip to Oceans of Fun in the future…

“Restaurant Chinese”

2005-07-30T20:39:00.000-05:00

Once again, there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for why I did not do a conventional Tuesday Frisbee post. We didn’t play this week. It rained too much. So there: a weather cancellation. Wait, that doesn’t sound right; that sounds like it was going to rain but then we called up the clouds and told them to knock it off. A cancellation due to weather. There, that’s better.

March of the Penguins is the movie that I have most recently viewed. It is charming, educational, and features Antarctica: all good reasons to like it. From this movie I learned that penguins are very strange, but very good at queueing. And when they get tired of walking, they start sliding on their bellies. Penguins would probably be excellent players of Super Action Ball.

And now, in the middle of the post, we explain the title. Turns out there’s this site that is a nice little tutorial in reading common Chinese characters found in restaurants. I’m definitely going to study it, if for no other reason than to add another party trick to my linguistic repertoire.

I took the GRE today, and it went well. In the interest of trying not to sound like I’m bragging, I won’t tell you here what my scores were. You can ask me personally some other time if you really care. Let it suffice to say that I did not score a perfect 1600 on the combined verbal and quantitative (read: math) sections, but I did not score poorly. And I did get to write what I thought was a pretty sweet essay on objectivity for the writing section, but I won’t know what score I got on that until later.

Since I am trying to whip up a report for the end of my Research Experience for Undergraduates, I bid you all farewell for the time being. As soon as I get some free time I also plan to start moving into the new apartment. And if you are in Grand Forks between the 3rd and the 10th of August, do contact me in some fashion. There are all kinds of friends I haven’t seen in a while. How’s this for an idea: tubing on the Red Lake River, anyone?

Finally

2005-07-22T21:42:00.000-05:00

No, really! I have good excuses! Just read on for a bit.

You see that book at the top of my reading list? Over there, to the left. The Book of the New Sun? It’s a really good read. The kind that just eats up your free time.

My free time last Saturday was also consumed by another very pleasurable activity: water sports. I went to a lake (artificial, like they all are in Kansas) with my cousins, my aunt, my uncle, and their dog and had fun on their boat all day. Water skiing, kneeboarding, tube riding (also called “not falling off of tube”)—I did them all. It was a great day; I didn’t even get sunburned. And in the evening, after I ate pizza with these ever-so-kind relatives of mine, I hung out at their house and watched fascinating programs on the hunting habits of wolves and polar bears on the Discovery Channel. Made me really want to go to Scandinavia, though.

On Tuesday, I played Ultimate Frisbee, as usual. But you see, I’ve been so busy, I didn’t even have time to write my customary Tuesday post! The game was really exciting, and by exciting, I mean there were a lot of drastic momentum changes. For example: we start by allowing Team Red (for whom Anna plays, I might add) to score six unanswered points. No sweat, we say to each other, we just don’t like blowing out teams. We’ll come back. And indeed we did, ending the half on a 6-2 run, so we were only down two at the half.

Then we started the second half on a 7-0 run. If all these numbers are confusing you, that makes the score 13-8. But then we let our opponents back in a little bit, and soon we stood at 14-12 after failing to win game point three times or so. Then we finally sealed the deal with a sweet Capt. Ryan Kilmer catch in the endzone. Victory: Team Blue.

Oh yeah, I also saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and was suitably pleased. See? There’s another blog-stopper.

The research project is winding down or wrapping up, depending on your preferred turn of phrase. I received a crucial shipment last week, so I was finally able to test the magnetization of my magnetic polymer composites. The final report and poster presentation are coming up on August 2nd, so I’ve started working on those.

Also around that time, I will be moving in to the new apartment at 1420 Tennessee. And on August 3rd, I fly back to Grand Forks for about a week. It’s going to be busy up until the start of school… at which point I expect the engineering curriculum will make it busier.

Turing Test THIS!!: Now Your Home for Sporting News

2005-07-07T23:28:00.000-05:00

…and the news in this case is that I have discovered the sport known as racquetball. On the off chance that some of you out there might also like to try a new sport, I will describe what I find to be particularly appealing about racquetball. Steve and Red will tell you it’s no Defender, but racquetball has a special charm all its own. Perhaps the appeal comes from being able to hit a ball extremely hard without having to run very far to fetch it. Maybe it’s the thrill of trying to keep up with the crazy ricocheting projectile as its ridiculous bounciness propels it from wall to wall to wall to floor to racquet to ceiling (I’m having some problems with that one) to wall, etc. that makes it so exciting. In any case, I am now hooked.

Which poses something of a problem here. There are a limited number (i.e. two) of racquetball courts at the local rec center, so they tend to fill up quickly. Reservations must generally be made ahead of time, making it more difficult to fulfill one’s need for blazing bouncing blue speed.

But if reserve I must, then reserve I shall. I now plan to use racquetball as part of my ninja training regimen, since it is clearly good for improving one’s speed, reflexes, coordination, and projectile path extrapolation skills. I recommend racquetball highly to anyone who is seeking Real Ultimate Power, or even just Pretty Nifty Skills (although I am fairly certain this is not why my father plays).

I’m also not entirely sure I have the rules entirely figured out. Eh… I’ll get to that later.

Tuesday Posts: Not Really Focused on Frisbee Anymore

2005-07-06T00:03:00.000-05:00

The thing is, there’s just not that much to say about your average game. So I think I’ll be writing the equivalent of a highlight reel, and then moving on to another topic, starting this Tuesday. Come to think of it, that’s basically how last Tuesday went also.

Today I had what might be my best game of the season to date. Lots of playing time, no critical fumbles… and ironically, we lost. I described the difficulty of playing with only two subs last week; this week we discovered what it is like to play with only one sub. And that one person could well be the difference between victory and defeat, since last week we won, and this time, we lost. The final score was only 15-13, so it wasn’t a blow-out, but sometimes being that close to victory only makes defeat more bitter. Alright, I’m done.

Let’s also talk about fireworks this week. I will say this about Lawrence’s display: definitely respectable for a city of its size. For better or for worse, living in Chicago last summer forever skewed my perspective on the issue of fireworks. There they have fireworks twice a week throughout the summer, and the extravaganzas for Independence Day and Venetian Night (at the end of July) outshines small stars. Plus, all this happens over Lake Michigan, so private boats, often lit-up and decorated themselves, are cruising around trying to get a good view, adding to the spectacle. All that said, Lawrence’s fireworks were still a good time. I also got to eat a delicious grilled pork tenderloin dinner with my grandparents, so good food was also had last weekend.

I am still amazed at how packed my days are, even though I’m not occupied with engineering homework. It seems I managed to allocate and divide up that free time pretty early on in the summer.

And coming this Friday: the Stephenson Hall Alumni Barbeque!

The End of the World

2005-07-02T17:36:00.000-05:00

Where the World Ends
Originally uploaded by Turing Test This.

Me? Melodramatic? Never!

This is the follow-up to Tuesday’s post; this is the other picture/story that I mentioned. What we see here is that the sea can be very much the same shade as the sky on the Gower Peninsula, as it was on that very first day I visited it. Thus, the horizon tends to vanish, and when you stand on a cliff overlooking the sea, it is a practically seamless wall of grey that is looking back at you, what seems to be the end of the world.

If I remember correctly, that spur of rock turns into an island when the tides come up.

Also went swimming today at the Lawrence public pools with Dana and Anna. We used our mutual knowledge of friction and fluid mechanics to optimize our velocities and splash profiles. For example, if you arch your back such that only your feet and head touch the slide, you reduce friction considerably, resulting in a much faster ride. Then if you want a splash, you fold into cannonball mode at the last second.

Obligatory Frisbee Post--But Wait, There’s More!

2005-06-28T23:21:00.000-05:00

gower coast
Originally uploaded by Turing Test This.

Won again, despite my dropping two of the easiest passes ever. I hope it’s just because of the sweat that comes from running all over the field. It’s a good thing that none of my team members read this blog; they’d probably start electronically yelling at me to stop being so hard on myself. :) There was even more running than usual today because we only had three subs in the first half, and only two in the second. The other team had something like five or six subs. Anyway, Team Blue improves to 4-0.

And now, more.

I know many of you probably never saw many of the pictures that resulted from my European travels. Therefore, I think I’ll throw in a few of my favorites here and there. Enjoy!

Photo explanation: Near Swansea, Wales, the surprisingly magnificent beaches of the Gower Peninsula. You don't associate surfing with Britain, most likely, but there's quite a bit of that going on this coast. Pretty serious tidal differences, too, as you might be able to tell from the broad flatness of the beach. It’s usually pretty windy at the beach, and when it rains it can be miserable in a very British way, but any other time it is beautiful.

The Gower Peninsula was the destination of the first American exchange student tour the day after I arrived in Britain. That time, it was one of those rainy days, but even then the fog ended doing some very interesting things with the horizon. But that’s another picture/story. Later in the year, my flatmates and I would go to the beach to relax, and Ewan would tell us interesting things about geology. Sometimes Sam, the English literature major, would debate him over the subject of whether a thing is more beautiful when it is analyzed and understood or when it is simply experienced. Perhaps it was almost a debate between archetypes, the Artist and the Scientist. Those were good conversations.

Oddly enough there is a street named Gower in Lawrence, only about a block from where I will be living in the fall.

Canoeing, OR, Wow, the Vowel Sequence “oei” Looks Awkward

2005-06-25T23:52:00.000-05:00

A nice thing about being in a summer program like a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) is this: sometimes, you don’t have to plan your social activities and adventures. The program directors will plan them for you. In this case, the Chemistry Department set us up to go canoeing on Lake Woodson (near Emporia, KS, if you know where that is) on a fine, hot Kansas summer afternoon. The canoeing was originally supposed to take place on a river in the region, but recent thunderstorms caused water levels to rise to the extent that that plan became a bad idea.

Naturally, the lake was quite warm near the surface and in shallow waters, so getting in was exceedingly comfortable, and still cooler than being out of the water. I am also rather certain that despite my best SPF 45 efforts, I got sunburned, but maybe not too badly. Other notable highlights of the trip include everyone paddling into a cove, getting stuck, backing out very awkwardly, a canoe (not mine) tipping over, and subsequent swimming and investigation of the mysterious solar-powered cubes suspended over floats on the lake. To those of you unfamiliar with the world of fishing, it will not be obvious that the last part refers to automated fish-feeding devices used in fish population management.

On another note, the drive to and from the lake gave me a chance to read a bit. Now that I have finished reading about galactic colonization, it was time for me to move on to Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick. This is, in fact, the novel referred to in Waking Life as the PKD novel that supposedly resembles the Book of Acts, so for that reason at least, I had to check it out. A very strange novel, but a quick, interesting read. Typical PKD metaphysical science fiction, which I like. On that note, I offer this haiku, second in a series of X, where X is an integer (I hope):
“PKD says MU”
All I do not see
And all I un-think confirms:
Reality isn’t.

An Unusual Step: Political Endorsement

2005-06-23T00:43:00.000-05:00

I usually prefer to stay away from politics, since both parties are being rather stupid most of the time these days. It might also be that my vote doesn’t count, at least in presidential elections (I can vote in either Kansas or North Dakota, either of which will go Republican). On that note, go to this site and search for “Party Differentiation and the Decision to Vote” by my friend Ian Ostrander.

But there’s nothing like a good old-fashioned petition on a topic of personal interest to get a disenchanted young voter to make an endorsement. Or rather, a good old-fashioned petition writ large (~one million signatures) thanks to the InterWeb. The problem is that it appears that Congress has proposed massive cuts in funding for public broadcasting (i.e. PBS, NPR). Personally, I think public broadcasting is one of the few places left with a decent claim to balanced, in-depth reporting on a wide variety of topics, many of global importance that are nevertheless overlooked by commercial news organizations because they don’t sell. (I’m sure Bob would argue with me on a lot of that, however.) There’s also the BBC. But anyway, if this sounds like a bad idea to you, check out the petition.

Yes, I am aware that MoveOn.org is sponsoring this. Yes, I am aware of their liberal bent and past affiliation with Howard Dean. Yes, I still will support them on this issue. If the conservatives will not stand to save public broadcasting, then I will stand with the liberals. And if Tom Vacek can be a liberal these days, then I think I can quite honorably ally myself with them.

Hey, if nothing else, my mentioning of politics in this post will bring a storm of comments to this blog.

Looks Like Every Tuesday We’re Going to Have a Frisbee Post

2005-06-21T23:33:00.000-05:00

Well, it seems my team has won again. Yep, we’re pretty awesome. Still undefeated. I think I’m still the worst player on the team. But I’m probably getting better. And the only way to get better is to play more. Now if only I could figure out a way to use my sweet ninja chi channeling powers to improve my Frisbee game instead of just using it to get spares in bowling…

Sonnet: Second in a Series of K, where K is Probably 3.

2005-06-20T23:51:00.000-05:00

It also appears that my computer has now moved into giving life advice (see line 6). And remember, no sponge abhorred premier compulsive dance.

sonnet3.out (“Examine job decision, sniveling crook)

Imaginary ultra faint inferno,
Establish limit luminary grass.
Biotic carnal medical clot reversion
Acclaims decaffeinated beehive lapse.

Of cheese ephemeral, a blob bitumen.
Examine job decision, sniveling crook.
No hex- piano statutory voodoo
Abuses regressive melancholy clump.

Biotic stinkpot lifetime levering surplus
Exemplifies opaque baboon and France.
Performance wrecks began Picasso- gullible-
No sponge abhorred premier compulsive dance.

Hispanic derelict oil and jazz: no awe.
Elapse atrocious French: inspiring awe.

Thought Question #2 (Analytical Thinking Skills, Thermodynamics)

2005-06-18T00:05:00.000-05:00

If you are standing (or sitting, fighting in hand-to-hand combat, etc.) next to a machine emitting microwaves tuned so that they excite water molecules outside of the machine, causing them to enter the vapor phase, wouldn’t that cause your blood (and other parts of you) to literally boil? Keep in mind that the microwaves are traveling away from the machine, not being kept inside it as with our conventional microwave ovens.

Exciting News about Ego Surfing!

2005-06-16T16:56:00.000-05:00

I have known for some time that I am not the only Joel Abrahamson on the Internet. I guess the first time I ego surfed was probably back in high school; you know, one of those free periods where you’re sitting around in the library, checking your email, when suddenly a thought comes into your mind: I wonder if I show up on a everyday household Google search?

Today something similar happened, but with a different outcome. You see, since I now know I show up on a Google search, the question has become, “How many of the links actually refer to me?” Originally, it was only a couple: programs from a choir concert or musical I was in. Other Joel Abrahamsons far outnumbered me in terms of hits.

But today’s search revealed an exciting new development. As measured by Google links, I am now the number one Joel Abrahamson on the Internet! How many of you can say that about your name? I bet you can’t, Steve Brown… although I’m pretty sure my father Harmon is the only one of his kind out there. It appears my research involvement last summer and deeds at KU have boosted my number of links to seven, just enough to surpass the lawyer Joel E. Abrahamson of the Twin Cities, who has six.

Top Joel Abrahamsons on the Internet, Measured by Google Search Results (as of 6/16/05)
1. Yours Truly, 7 links.
2. Joel E. Abrahamson of the Twin Cities, 6 links.
3. Joel Abrahamson, student in Alberta (although he is out of HS by now), 3 links.
4. Joel T. Abrahamson, bowler, 2 links.

...and then we have various others with one link including, but not limited to: a bird watcher, a DJ, and a Swedish athlete.

Isn’t ego surfing fun?

Sonnet: First in a Series of K, where K is Probably 3.

2005-06-15T22:46:00.000-05:00

Eight years ago, I ran into some software called Shakespeare v. 1.0.1. It is what you might call an iterative sonnet composer; the code contains a databank of words and the syntactical rules of the sonnet, so it is able to generate random sets of fourteen lines. Then the user can choose which lines they like and which they don’t, and the program generates new lines to replace the ones rejected by the user. Repeat until a satisfactory poem has been generated. It kind of reminds me of Jabberwacky, a fun little Internet experiment where a program is trying to learn how to converse with humans, Personally, I like to add some punctuation for clarity in the end, but the whole thing is a joint project between the computer and myself anyway.

In any case, this post actually helps this blog live up to its name and supposed topic. I guess this software could be a potential way to test the ol’ thousand-monkeys-with-typewriters hypothesis…

sonnet1.out (“Illiterate wailing Babylon ablaze”)

Deride ineffable incongruous pipes;
Frenetic, rather passionate, matrix ends.
Police the feared emeritus (yipes),
Exemplify sustained sarcastic blends.

Vicarious Israeli staff material
Rewards a dull -the nun- and storms the bare.
Inject incompetent sideshow gross amoeba.
Illiterate wailing Babylon ablaze.

Computer hot, inspiring makeshift peon.
Design amoeba funk procedures flipped.
The waste, the pen- Hispanic functions dreamy,
Intuitive production pain equipped

In missed bouquet of tasteless disdain awash;
No heat, no greed: ineffable assuage.

Breaking News from the Frisbee Front!

2005-06-14T23:29:00.000-05:00

Last week, the wind was ferocious and the heat was intense. This week, the field was quite squishy, and the muddy areas only grew as the game wore on. Team we-don’t-have-a-better-name-so-I-guess-we’re-still-Blue just can’t get a break, I guess.

The first half was pretty rough, as the team seemed to have trouble gelling. On the plus side, my friend and fellow chemical engineering major Andrew Duncan joined the team today. He immediately proved himself an asset with blocks and catches at crucial times. Still, at halftime, we were down 8-5.

The beginning of the second half looked much like the first, as our opponents, lead by team captain Ryan Kilmer’s archrival Caleb, scored three unanswered goals to make the score a lopsided 11-5. But then everything finally changed. Team Blue battled back with new confidence and skilled play to shrink the gap to three. But by that time, the score was 14-11, and it only takes 15 points to win an Ultimate Frisbee game around here. Although I was impressed with our comeback, I was ready to settle for an honorable defeat.

Once again, I think we all surprised each other with what must have been a third or fourth wind. The Blues scored the next three points to tie the score at 14. On the game point, we kept our cool, forced a turnover, and Joey threw a long pass to Captain Kilmer in the endzone to win the game, 15-14. The record stands at 2-0.

In the Center of My Heart There Is a Force Commonly Known As Love

2005-06-12T19:26:00.000-05:00

You know how sometimes, for one reason or another, maybe due to a confluence of spontaneity/impulse and a difference of timing, you know how that sometimes makes things not go exactly as you had planned? Yeah, I thought as much. Well then, you know how sometimes even though things did not go as planned, it turns out to be kind of a good thing? That’s what this story is about.

I know, last week I said I would be taking my fellow student researchers to Ruchi, purveyor of Indian cuisine and much mango lassi. (Really, that’s about the best drink on the planet. You have to try it.) However, what ended up happening instead, as I convolutedly, vaguely, and abstractly explained above, was that we instead went to Kokoro, purveyor of Japanese cuisine and much sushi. In Japanese, you spell “kokoro” like this: 心
(Me? Show off my recently acquired linguistic knowledge from Zach and my iBook? Never!) My congratulations if that symbol actually displays on your computer; if not, you should get yourself a Japanese character pack. Somehow. Fortunately for you in the latter category, what the kanji for “kokoro” actually looks like is not really important to the rest of this story.

Sushi is always pretty expensive for the amount you get, but if you and a friend are looking to fill yourselves up at Kokoro, the most efficient way is to buy the Kokoro boat. This is, naturally, a wooden boat about 0.6 meters in length filled with many different kinds of sushi. Dining entertainment! I quite appreciated the Rainbow Roll, which manages to combine several different types of fish (and octopus) in one roll. Also, the Kokoro Boat brought much tuna roll and California roll, and several pieces of shrimp nigiri. Of course, everything was delectable. Now if only Kokoro had an elevated canal running by their tables as Isobune (いそぶね) in Oakland did. Then the boats could actually sail by your table. But let’s not get picky.

Tangent: Actually, the first thing of which I thought when I saw the Kokoro Boat was a story I heard a few years back about the death of Jim Carrey’s pet hamster. It seems that Mr. Carrey loved his hamster so much that he gave the little guy a full Viking funeral. This means that the hamster was placed on a small longboat with some of his favorite possessions (i.e. ball and blanket in place of the typical Viking great sword or axe), and then the boat was set afire and pushed into the ocean to sail off to Valhalla. Kind of touching, really. Anyway, the Kokoro Boat looked about the right size to be a hamster longboat.

And finally, to answer that nagging question in the back of your mind, something to the effect of, “What the heck does that title have to do with sushi?!?!” Or maybe it was just “何?!?” Well, it turns out than a translation of “kokoro” is…
heart.

Photo! Now with FREE supplemental musing!

2005-06-11T15:24:00.000-05:00

We here at Turing Test THIS!! have been receiving some requests lately. First, we have been asked to display a picture of the car I am now driving, the 2002 Toyota Prius (see also sidebar). Second, we have been asked to post more content.
TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE!!

And now, supplemental musing.
***
Due to the geography and meteorology of Kansas in the summer, there have been many thunderstorms of late. These persistent weather patterns have reminded me exactly how much I like lightning. Now, of course I know lightning is capable of causing destruction or hitting people, but those probabilities are always compared to the likelihood of improbable events like:
-winning the lottery
-being eaten by a shark
-being hit by a meteor
-David Shoemaker putting together a coherent analogy
-David Shoemaker not stopping at Brahm's when one is sighted
-the Vikings winning the Superbowl
-Tom Vacek going liberal--wait...

Anyway, I suspect many will agree with me when I say lightning is beautiful. Last Wednesday night we had a great storm going on around Lawrence; around 9 PM there were probably at least two strikes a minute going on in the quadrant of the sky I was watching. Ground strikes, cloud-to-cloud, branching: all could be seen from my excellent vantage point on top of Lawrence’s Mount Oread. Well, it’s not a real mountain, but at least it’s a decent hill, and that’s good enough for Kansas.

Since it wasn’t raining in my location, I was more than content to stand outside and watch the meteorological fireworks. I guess I was probably only standing there for about ten minutes, but it felt longer.

That’s enough improvised content for now. My audience, you will simply have to make do until something ACTUALLY happens here, say, tomorrow. I think more Culinary Adventures are coming…

What do you call the frisbee that is not quite the last one to be sold? The answer, at 11.

2005-06-08T15:21:00.000-05:00

I joined the Lawrence summer Ultimate Frisbee league for a number of reasons.
I thought it would be fun.
My friends were doing it.
It's good exercise.
My gamer friends would say I'm doing it to increase my stamina and dexterity stats. The validity of this claim will be addressed at a later time.
But whatever the reasons that I joined, the first game (last night) was definitely a success. In ~90F temperatures and a ferocious wind, my team battled our opponents and came up with a 15-10 victory! Go...us! (We don't really have a team name that I know of.)

11/The answer: The Penultimate Frisbee.

Haiku: first in a series of X, where X is an integer (I hope...)

2005-06-07T17:11:00.000-05:00

This one I wrote two years ago, but it is nicely applicable to the current season, at least in sunny Kansas.

"Longer Way from A to B"
Happily, summer
Makes me spurn Pythagoras
And detour somewhat.

Hunting and Gathering as per my particular....idiom

2005-06-06T22:07:00.000-05:00

Today I was on my way back from the Student Rec Center when I noticed a double-size mattress sitting next to a dumpster near some of the graduate/married student apartments. It appeared to be in reasonably good condition (no huge visible stains, odor within the capabilities of Febreeze, passed the run-in-to-it-to-see-how-springy-it-is test). Since I will be needing a mattress of some sort this fall for the new apartment, I hoisted it up and decided that the least awkward way to carry it would be to balance it on my head. I imagine this must have looked pretty funny. It probably looked even funnier when it slipped off and I fell on top, sliding down the hill on the wet, dewy grass--
oh wait. No, that didn't happen. Sorry, the rest of the transport back to my summer residence at Lewis Hall was uneventful. I guess the most adventure that comes out of this story is just from the concept that in Lawrence there are all sorts of free things being thrown out with which you can stock your abode. Curbside-Mart has been my preferred choice for televisions, refrigerators, couches (/sofas/davenports/whatever else you crazy people want to call them), chairs, old record stereo systems (technically that should be singular; I've only ever found ONE of those), etc. I highly recommend this shopping method, provided you don't mind doing your own moving and some cleaning. Because, yes, we don't know where that mattress has been, so a good disinfection and perhaps a covering of plastic couldn't really hurt. But hey, what a great way to both reduce waste and save yourself money! Which leads me to this wonderful informational poster the gang and I made last fall:

RECYCLE!

DUMPSTERS!

Many useful things can be found in/near them!

Televisions!
Chairs!
Couches!
Sofas!
Davenports!
Secret criminal evidence!
Exclamation points!!!
All for the low, low price of free!

This message brought to you by the Stephenson hall environmental chair, the theme song from "WKRP in Cincinnati."

Culinary Adventure

2005-06-05T23:13:00.000-05:00

Probably the most interesting thing that I did this weekend was visit this new Ethiopian restaurant in town called Addis Ababa. If you like spicy (in an Indian, as opposed to, say, Mexican way), I think you will enjoy this dining establishment, named for Ethiopia's capital (Who ever said being a four-time State Geography Bee contender was good for nothing?). It can be a little pricey (at least for collegians), but a good strategy to get around that is to go with friends and order several dishes between you, particularly their combo platters. The food is quite filling, so you may not need as many dishes as you think. Or maybe that's just because of the liberal, continual supply of the traditional Ethiopian pancake-bread, injera. This tastes and feels like a sourdough pancake--pretty delicious, in my opinion. But maybe I'm just a sucker for new tastes. Example: at the dining hall where I am getting meals this summer (sponsored by the KU Chemical Engineering Department!), they have all kinds of juices, teas, sodas, coffees, etc. So I decided to combine OJ and iced tea in equal proportions, just for fun. Result: tasty, and rather original in flavor. Like an Arnold Palmer (iced tea and lemonade), but with more citrus.

Back to subject: I ate from the vegetarian combo platter and from a dish of beef in spicy watt sauce. The combo platter is a particularly excellent way for culinary explorers like myself to satisfy their urge to taste everything on the menu; it provides samples of all of the vegetable dishes for ~$13 for one person, or ~$45 for four people, although I think we shared that one among six. (There is also a meat platter.) This includes lentils, cabbage, carrots, green beans, collard greens... and more injera. Particular favorites of mine would be lentils and cabbage.

The dining experience also provides entertainment since you don't so much get silverware as you do get a bunch of injera. You scoop up portions of the other dishes with the injera and consume in bites. So that's interesting.

Coming next week: I take the REU students from out of town to Ruchi, local Indian restaurant and source of much mango lassi.

Thought Question #1 (Analytical, Critical Thinking Skills)

2005-06-05T13:53:00.000-05:00

If you kill a clone of yourself, is it suicide?

Beginning

2005-06-05T10:55:00.000-05:00

Let's start things off on the right foot. With honor. With candor. With honesty. Like we used to: as a family.

I really didn't like blogs when they first appeared. I disliked their cutesy-hip contraction of a name. I disliked the thought that we needed a new name for online journals, which of course had already been in existence since the dawn of the Web, in one form or another. I especially disliked their trendiness, their nature as a fad.

People would often say to me, "Joel, you should get a blog! I'd love to read it. I'm sure yours would be really cool!" I would smile and nod, say maybe someday (or something like that), and think, just wait until the fad passes; then they'll stop bugging you. You see, I have been writing and emailing chronicles of my life since I entered college, mainly as a way to keep in touch with friends, although I also enjoyed the chance to moonlight as a wordsmith. Majoring in chemical engineering doesn't allow much opportunity for stoking the fires of the furnace of language, pumping the bellows of syntax, or otherwise creating exaggerated, overly fanciful metaphors. (It also doesn't allow much opportunity for self-referential jokes.)

Then, time passed on our planet. Since I was not off traveling at the speed of light relative to you, an observer, I aged. I changed. No, I did not grow more conservative in my voting tendencies or begin playing shuffleboard. Instead, I noticed that the blog fad had not passed; no, it had only grown. Blogs were now more common, and the Spirit of Fad had moved on to things like podcasting or Thefacebook. So when the summer months rolled around and the ever-present monsoon that was homework last semester finally passed, I decided to take the plunge and see what new things I could forge with this new medium.

Thus, the tale of a curmudgeon, mellowed and reformed.