Dog and Truck

Meet Kobe and my new home! Both are awesome!

Unfortunately, Kobe is not mine all the time. But I plan to steal him as much as possible!!

1 comment | January 16th, 2010

New Photos!

I’ve added a couple of new galleries in the photo section: one with shots from the mountaineering seminar I took earlier this summer, and the other with shots from my first course as an instructor. Check ‘em out!

1 comment | August 11th, 2009

Sixth Sense

I came across this video on one of my favorite blogs, Gizmodo. It’s a presentation on Sixith Sense, a project from MIT’s Media Lab that aims to provide everyone seamless access to the web by automatically picking up information about the world around and projecting information on any surface–using natural gestures to control it all. Sort of what would happen if a bar code scanner, an iPhone, and a mobile projector had some sort of crazy liaison. Very cool. The demo starts at minute 3.10

2 comments | March 10th, 2009

Driving through America

There’s something strangely beautiful about the landscape that surrounds Interstate 20 near Odessa, Texas. It’s not that it’s particularly scenic. The views aren’t much different than much of the the American West, with arid plains and low hills stretching away in all directions, eventually meeting the unbroken dome of sky that towers overhead. Furthermore, in the case of Odessa those plains are crowded with buildings, road and oil wells, which put Odessa way down the natural beauty list.

But that, surprisingly, doesn’t really make it ugly.  When I drove through — at sunset — the darkening sky lit the buildings and power-lines up with oranges, reds, and purples. The landscape, man-made and natural alike, wore the colors well, in a way that a truly heinous stretch of country, like the I-5 south of Sacramento where it abuts a gigantic feedlot, couldn’t.

No. It took me a while to figure it out, but that stretch of I-20 bisects a celebration of petroleum. Every business along the road was an oil field services company, or a pump maker, or an earthmoving equipment rental firm. (Ironically, the business I would have thought would be the biggest, the infamous Halliburton, had the smallest office on the whole stretch). I passed at least one refinery, and a company that manufactures the giant ICBM carrier-looking derrick trucks used to drill wells.

The traffic on the road yelled oil, as well. The derrick trucks rumbled too and fro, as did flatbeds carrying bulldozers and graders. At one stage the procession was joined by a chain of trucks carrying wind turbine parts. They looked sadly out of place.

When I focused my eyes on the distance, I saw the oil pumps themselves, smoothly rocking up and down. Even so late in the day, trucks plied the dirt roads that connected them, raising rooster-tails of dust in the fading light.

The houses were different, too. Cinder blocks and corrugated metal were the norm, and often times the attached carports were as big as the house itself, crammed to overflowing with massive Chevys, Fords, and the occasional Toyota Tundra.

So why wasn’t it ugly? The evidence of industry cut a gaping gash on what should have been a lonely, majestic Texas plain.

But the scene had an unexpected appeal. Partially, I think it’s due to the town’s singularity of purpose; every person and every business has as it’s goal to wrest as much oil from the ground as possible. But I was also surprised by the names of the businesses I saw on the buildings– with the exception of Halliburton, none of which I knew. Nowhere did I see an Exxon logo, or even a Texaco– nothing that I can point to as “big oil.”

I’m sure that some of the businesses I saw were multinationals that I simply didn’t recognize, and to be fair, owning a refinery sort of makes a company “big oil” by default. But it seemed to me that much of the town was dedicated to “small oil.” A building emblazoned with “Rick’s (may have been Bob’s or Steve’s) Petroleum” looked to me like nothing more than two guys and an oil well. I just hadn’t thought that such mom and pop oil companies existed.

The small, rough and ready businesses gave town a feel of honest work and a sense of authenticity. For better or for worse,  I felt like I was watching the American experience play itself out in front of me, and though I know  the industry that supports the landscape is both irresponsible and unsustainable (hypocrisy note: I was driving my car through it), at the time that seemed irrelevent. It was kind of pretty.

1 comment | February 8th, 2009

The Dork Files, Part 2: Deriving a coffee shop

Look, this isn’t a brilliant post. Neither was the experience that led me to write it very unusual. So don’t read on if you’re expecting some sort of pent-up greatness because I never update this blog. I’m only writing this because I’m happy; I was able to validate a hypothesis quite elegantly. Namely, that under certain circumstances, it is possible to derive the nature of a coffee shop from nothing more than its name and location.

I sit now in Golden Roast, a coffee shop in Knoxville, Tennessee. As I was coming up to Knoxville on I-40, I decided I wanted to do a bit of surfing “the tubes,” as Mr. Stevens so oddly called them.  So naturally, I pulled out my iPhone, and googled coffeeshop in Knoxville. I was presented by a plethora of options, from gas stations, to Starbucks, to Denny’s.

Where to go? I do not have T-Mobile, so Starbucks and its Hot Spots are out. Anyway, they burn their coffee and their  pastries leave something to be desired. However, there was another option. Knoxville is home to the University of Tennessee, and where there are college students, there will be places for them to study. Today, that means either a library or a coffeeshop with internet. Being who they are, college students will also avoid Starbucks, and instead gravitate toward independent coffeeshops near their university. And since so much of college now depends on going online, to encourage their patronage such independent coffeeshops will probably provide free WiFi to customers.

I therefore picked the coffeeshop closest to the university that was not named Starbucks or Peet’s, hoping that it would have both WiFi and good pastries. And here I sit at the Golden Roast, self-evidently online (and also fully pastried).

1 comment | February 2nd, 2009

No More Spam!

I love this site. I do. I don’t update it nearly as much as I should, but I enjoy the knowledge that if and when the desire strikes me, I can instantly mouth off in a fully-branded, globally-accessible fashion that would forever ruin my chances of running for public office (if I haven’t done so already).

But one thing I hate about the site is the truly massive amount of spam comments it generates. Six or seven times a day, a message arrives in my inbox announcing that a new comment has been posted on one of my blog entries. It used to be that I would rush over here, excited to see what some interested well-wisher had written. No more. After about 2 weeks, I realized that every single comment was a bot-planted ad for Cialis or Vicodin.

I’ve finally taken action. If you decide to leave a comment, you’ll now have to fill out one of those (admittedly annoying) random word generators. Sorry. But no more bots means that if a real person does post a comment, it won’t get lost.

1 comment | January 7th, 2009

The Joy and Wonder of a Different Dock

Now don’t get me wrong– I enjoyed my year living in DC, and all the people I met. But the two weeks I just spent there on Amistad were, for several reasons, frustrating. But I won’t get into it, and nor does it matter, because we are no longer in our nation’s capital! I write this from the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, in St. Michael’s, Maryland. More specifically, I’m perched on the taffrail, poaching a wireless signal off some one or other in the harbor. And, I’m writing on my own computer, which means I have photos, as well!

The first is self-explanatory — me grinning like an idiot, sitting on the quaterdeck as we sailed up the Bay yesterday– sailed for the first time in two weeks! we had a great run, making upwards of 7 knots under fore, foretops’l, and jib alone. The other two are scenes from the bay.

1 comment | October 3rd, 2008

DC and Surrounds

So much to report since the last time I wrote. I guess first of all, we’re now in Washington, DC. Been here for 10 days or so, doing deck tours and some events with the Congressional Black Caucus. Actually, thus far the latter part of our duties has been entirely theoretical, since all of Congress is tied up trying to save the nation from total financial meltdown. So, although we’ve been open for business, no members have yet come by.

On the other hand, we’ve had lots of students on board, including one memorable morning when we showed the boat to over 300 in just over an hour while docked at National Harbor. That was interesting. In fact our whole time at National Harbor was chock-a-block– during our 2 big deck tour days, we put several thousand people through the boat. Never have I told the story so much.

DC has been great for a number of reasons– First, my sister lives here still, and so I’ve had all the comfort of home every night, including flush toilets, TV, and all the rest. Second, catching up with friends has been great. Moving around does tend to make maintaining friendships difficult.

Getting to DC was interesting. We came straight from Mystic, CT– with the wind on the nose the whole way. Now I know some of you will object that the route from Mystic to DC is convoluted and there is no way the wind could be on the nose the whole way. But it was. From Mystic to Cape May, the wind and our course were southwest (and the swell was large–much puking was had). Then we turned north up the Delaware, and the wind obligingly shifted to match. Turning west into the C & D canal, again we found the ind on the nose. then south down the Chesapeake, accompanied by a Southwesterly wind of 15 -20 knots. And finally a run up the Potomac, with a northerly to match. Sigh– four days of movement, with nary a moment of sailing.

But perhaps the wind will serve better as we reverse our course. and head back down th Potomac and up the Chesapeake. From here, it’s back to real sailing for a bit. We’re headed to Baltimore, where we’ll embark on th Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race– all the way down to Norfolk. With sailing — rather than transiting — the point this time, I’m looking forward to tacking the boat down the Bay– should be great fun. From Norfolk it’s up to New York for UN day, and then to Mystic for downrig, winter, and the end of my time aboard. It’s coming quickly!

2 comments | September 28th, 2008

Salem, Mass

So I think that this blog should really be called the Coffeeshop Diaries, since that’s really the only place I ever write from. Not that I write that much, either. But enough of that, I’ve just got time for a quick line, because in 27 minutes, it’ll be all hands on deck as we lip our lines and head back out to the bay for the evening, anchoring up off of Baker’s Island. Tomorrow, we head to Provincetown, on the end of Cape Cod. 2 nights there, then through the canal and Martha’s Vineyard!! Elsa is coming up to visit and do the transit from the Vineyard to Mystic, CT. She’s never been sailin before– I’m stoked!

In othr news, I heard from NOLS a couple weeks ago– Got in to the instructor course!~! Baja in November, here I come. Huge reading list! I’m still trying to figure out how to buy the books and get them out to the boat.

When I Logged onto the web this morning, I was greeted by the news that Obama picked Biden as his Veep. I was jarred– I hadn’t thought about the veepstakes in a loooong time. It’s quite amazing how cut off from the outside world I’ve become. Especially my friends at HHMI will remember how plugged in I was. No More!!

2 comments | August 23rd, 2008

On board Amistad

I’m on board Amistad, Finally. I write this from the “Just Us” coffeeshop, on Barrington street in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Getting here was a bit of a trick; bad weather throughout the northeast forced cancellations of many mny flights on July 24th (including mine, unfortunately). So I sat in Washington National airport for seven hours on Thursday, then returned to my sister’s house with my tail between my legs. Friday morning I set out again, an thi time made it smoothly to Boston, where I sat for another 9 hours before catching my flight to Halifax. Airport are not my favorite place, but it all worked out in the end. The transition from my awesome house in DC to the fo’c’sle of the Amistad is a big one, especially as my mattress is apparently always damp. However, the boat secured a hotel room at the Marriot for us to shower and zone out in, and the Maritime Museum is cool with letting us use the shore heads. So life is pretty good. More soon. For those of you wanting to visit when we’re in DC, that looks set to happen between september 23 and 29. check the calendar at Amistadamerica.org.  

Add comment | July 28th, 2008