Snowy Grocery Store Walk & Learning to Read

Walked over to Ahart’s and got breakfast.  Along the way a lady asked me for $0.50 and I asked what for and she said food.  I took her with while I was shopping, it was a bit odd getting groceries with her 5 ft behind me.  Their organic stuff’s expensive and limited so I didn’t get much organic, like normal.  I question the environmental benefits of organic versus spending the money on other items.  But, organic foods do taste better and for cost to go down the market supply and demand needs to grow.  She said she couldn’t eat much cause she lost a bunch of teeth and had some loose ones, and she chose Campbell’s creamy tomato soup to go (~8 oz of soup for $1.50).  I got her the generic hearty chicken and rice for $2.15.  But, really if you cook on your own you could make a pot of soup for like $7 that lasts you ~5 meals.  At one point in the store she still asked for money because she needed something at the pharmacy.  Between her lack of teeth, spacey behavior, and desire for money I’m guessing she was using meth.  As I mentioned before, the US should probably make pseudoephedrine prescription only.  When we left I had bought $10 of groceries, $2 for her soup.  I said good bye and it looked like she was confused as to where to go.  I was tired and just continued on my way.  With all the snow lots of people are making money shoveling, apparently $10/hr on campus if you get to the right place at 3-4AM.  But she’s getting SSI for some disability, so maybe she can’t.  I think if I walk more places life would be more interesting and less zombie-like.

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I wonder how common it is for students to writer their own letter of recommendation when someone else is too busy.  Well, it is a bit my fault because of procrastination.  We’ll include this in the list of new things done around this proposal.

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I may just eat a whole box of “Raisin Bran Extra!” today.  Not for any good reason except that I bought it as part of breakfast.

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After re-reading the proposal details my submission won’t count at all because they’re going to review submissions up until Feb 1^st - the date I was going to submit.  Also, I screwed up getting outside recommendations’ and those probably won’t happen.  Holy crap.  After killing myself the last two weeks working on this thing it doesn’t matter because I suck at reading and not skimming.  Well, I figured this would be a lesson in something.  It was a lesson in reading.

Wednesday

I think a good model for gun legislation should be automobile legislation.  They’re similar in nature for their ability to do good and be fun, but also their ability to kill (unnecessarily) through misuse.  This could involve an education program (Gun Ed) and gun insurance.  Ideally it would be grandfathered to all current gun owners, but it would be hard to take away people’s guns if they don’t pass gun ed.  There’s already state-certified hunters safety courses, so it shouldn’t be too hard to get a more general gun safety course.  Gun insurance rates would be based on previous crimes, Gun ed, and safety measures used with your gun- just like car insurance.  I guess there might be different rates for different areas, but that could get racist- but it’s the same for cars.  The insurance would cover costs of accidental damages to others.  It would be interesting the details of what would happen if the gun was stolen.  I think the person should still be somewhat responsible for the gun, in that they had it inoperable except for their personal use (i.e. RFID tags).

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The other day I posted EPA’s laziness with the Boiler Act policy.  Well, it looks they’ll unveil some type of regulations by late Feb.  I’m wondering if they’ll be toned down because of the delay, and desire to watch jobs, or if they’ll be the same and they’ll get lots of flack from industries about having to spend money.

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/89/i05/8905news2.html

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Stayed at work way too late writing/editing.  But submitted a crappy draft to my adviser.  I hope things turn a corner once this proposal is submitted.

Didn’t feel like biking/walking home in ~6” of snow so I stayed in a friend’s dorm room.  It was kind of sad walking to his place with 6” of snow on everything and how fun it would’ve been to go sledding and frolicking, but I had no desire to play, just to sleep, recharge the brain, and continue doing grad school crap the next day.  To what end?  After I got into his dorm I was kind of excited to go outside and almost did, but then I just tried to sleep.  It must’ve been set to 78 degrees, and I’m used to sleeping in the cold.  I turned down the heat and eventually got some sleep. 

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Tuesday

Tuesday

You know what’s not complicated?  Reducing mercury contamination of aquatic wildlife and human exposure.  This is an issue in the Everglades.  What’re the main sources: point sources (i.e. power plants, concrete industry, etc.)  How do you eliminate the particulate matter that contains mercury?  Clouds.  I’m not even lying.  http://www.tri-mer.com/wet_scrubber.html It’s really sweet, cheap, and effective.  If the USEPA moves to implement Proposed Rule 75 FR 31938, or at least puts down a final draft, small emitters will be forced to reduce their emissions, but I don’t think this impacts large power plants.

Why won’t this get implemented quickly?  Politics. Reducing heavy metal emissions by forcing plants to add on this new thing will kill jobs- the jobs of the people making the raw materials for CCS, Tri-Mer, the fisheries who will have the future option of harvesting and eating fish that are currently hazardous. 

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I finished a really crappy draft of my proposal, sans budget, proper referencing, and other formatting issues.  Wahoo!  If you have too much free time and actually read this, I’d be very happy to send it to you.  I will eventually develop a non-diary/stream of thought style, I think, that will be more reader accessible.  But, that sounds like it will take editing.  We’ll see.  For now this replaces a little black book I was using last semester.

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I thought the talk by Tim Wise was going to be a joke, but he has a very thorough understanding of American history, academic research, and philosophical argument to make a case for institutionalized racism in favor of “whiteness.”  Two people with a Tea Party-esque demeanor yelled at him for a bit during questions and then left.  He tried to discuss with them in a calm rational manner, but this was difficult.  One interesting point that can be read between the lines is the dysfunctional relationship between Lehigh and the surrounding community.  One of them mentioned how you must be filthy rich or know rich people to get into/afford Lehigh.  I think the Lehigh-South Bethlehem relations are broken, and this might be an example of some of the opinions.  After my first month here I thought the same thing, then I learned about the many Alumni scholarships and remembered about college loans.

Another poignant quote from someone on me talking to God about this is not how my life’s supposed to be.  I need sleep for multiple reasons.

With love.

Sun-Mon

Sunday

Quaker Meeting- 45 min late to the quiet hour- oops.  Earth Quaker action team (EQAT)- tee hee.  They were fun rebels who had to ask to get arrested at one point, but only 4 people were allowed to be detained.  They got PNC to make a statement against their funding of Mountaintop Removal, but were smooth with words so that they could still take part in issuing loans.

Mark Inductive Bible study.  This will be very good for me to read through Mark and trying to understand everything, but with more time to look up OT references and to use IV concordances.

Gym for a bit- lungs aren’t in shape L  It’s incredible the fitness I lost the two weeks after BAAM! when I didn’t do anything, and then being virtually immobile over winter break while reading and pondering.  No will be a time to get back in shape.  Been reading Did the Resurrection Happen? A conversation between Anthony Flew and Gary Habermas (http://www.veritas.org/Books/Books.aspx/1/Did-the-Resurrection-Happen-A-Conversation-with-Gary-Habermas-and-Antony-Flew) and it’s been interesting.  Flew converted to Deism after being one of the most lauded atheist philosophers of the last century, believing in an Aristotelian God, but open to the idea of a God of special revelation.  His main argument for a God was:

The philosophical question that has not been answered in origin-of-life studies is this: How can a universe of mindless matter produce beings with intrinsic ends, self-replication capabilities, and "coded chemistry"? Here we are not dealing with biology, but an entirely different category of problem.

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Played some more trombone.  I was never good at reading music with sharps, always throws me off.  I’ve gotten okay at hearing scales- doing more music theory would be good.

Later I made cheese, scallion beer bread using Joy of Cooking recipe.  It turned out too salty (1/2 tsp per loaf, 2 tsp baking powder, and 1/2 tsp baking soda).  I’d like to try again without any salt.  I made two loafs.  Here’s to jam and other things on the bread to mask the salt followed my much water.

Monday

Talked with a local guy on helping him out with a resource guide for kids in elementary/middle school.  He bought me a sandwich at Deja Brew.  I realized that many non-profits and businesses spend a ton of time wasted doing data mining and file formatting that could be easily done by some people with basic programming skills.  I wonder if there’s a group that specializes in projects for non-profits- probably, but I couldn’t find any quickly.  These types of projects would be great for undergrads and University-community relationships.

Tried to submit app for Meals on Wheels, but e-mail failed multiple times- their fault.  I think it’d be fun to drive old people food in the snow!  Or, at least it sounds heroic.

Need to not be in my office to get work done- to the public places!

Joined a choir that sings classical pieces.  I’ve never learned so much history about the music I’ve played- the conductor rocks.  Apparently, composers after becoming known for traditional pieces become badasses as they progress- Beethoven and Haydn.  Also, there’s this French guy Chausson who hung out with Monet, Debussy, etc. and had billions of dollars of paintings in his home from his buddies.  He died by crashing into a wall on his bicycle.  I forget the names of the pieces but Chausson’s is about epic wars between the gods.  The pieces are in latin, german, and French- sweet.  I’ve never tried speaking anything in these languages, besides “Je t’adore” which I failed at horribly, kind of on purpose.

Mike blabbs about things

I don't know how I want this blog to work.  But for now it's like a daily journal of sorts.

Friday

I passed a stuck car on a snowy road with a slight grade on my mountain bike J  Audi 2.0T.  I didn’t see other cars try to go uphill, but some were going down.  It was a very slight grade.

Oh my, a distracted last two days of this week. 

I walked in late to a seminar with two bowls of food, from the lunch that’s part of the seminar. Then proceeded to eat and was a little above eye-level with the speaker.  Within a couple minutes he asked for the back row lights to be turned off (I was in the back row).  I don’t think he liked me.  But I stayed awake so much better versus not eating during.  It was on climate change in Peru’s Andes, lots of loss of glaciers, and 18O dating (it’s in dust).  Pretty interesting actually!

I’m amazed that the general populous is so well disciplined and functional.  This must be because of goals and greater rewards to be attained, which require a certain behavior for future good (?).  If people were pure physicalists I think there would be less restrictions on behavior, and in a totally anarchist setting fall apart.  But, the perpetuation of man requires this to not happen and people have the general no-harm policy.  

- Apparently I was being moody in the afternoon.

Then I meet and talk with someone, and that encounter and discussion have great value.  The banter.  The decisions.  The product.  If there wasn’t this possibility of great value we wouldn’t converse on such issues.  Yes, it’s part of getting the job done.  But, why is the action in itself valuable.  Is it?  If we were all volunteers it would still have intrinsic value, I think. 

Today my officemate said “Do not be afraid of the prophet.”  Kind of referring to himself, because he “prophesied” that someone would invite him to happy hour, so he didn’t eat his lunch.  But, oh my the timing.

Constructive solid geometry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructive_solid_geometry

Went to McGrady's Tavern twice in like 5 hrs- first grad students, second  1-grad student (Alla) and her little.  The hot wings were pretty hot, but I got used to it after the first 2, and was a mess while eating (next day it made itself known while leaving).  After the second time we went to Molly’s.  I learned a little bit about what it would’ve been like to be at a college within easy walking distance of a bunch of pubs.  Maybe like multiple Fish Bowl’s with different themes and character.  Then meanderings and an eventual short bit of couch sleeping in a dorm of someone Alla knew, I forget their names.
 

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Science!

A synthetic human eye lens with zoom!  Flexible lens and electronics that are controlled via hydraulics.  Brilliant!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110117152739.htm

18O in ice cores is due to dust deposition.  Frequently this is removed from the air, but sometimes from dust events triggered by earthquakes or what not.

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Saturday

I remember the constant high of pure endorphins during biking and eating!  I think Jesse said the endorphins from food and exercise are only less than those from drugs.  He said even versus sex, but I’d have to check some studies before being confident.  But they last so much longer without the drop from drugs.  Here’s to the pursuit of long lasting endorphins.

Some 1-on-1 tutoring and free brunch.  Met a girl who started singing “Dear Prudence” after I saw the first ~30 min of Across the Universe last night.  I joined in, it was fun alternating lines.  Very interesting set of chance encounters in the past couple weeks.  Mark inductive study tomorrow will also go in that category.

I found an interesting article on cannabis and anointing oil during Jesus times: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2633187.stm  I didn’t bother looking anymore into the issue because I couldn’t find other unbiased sites.

Internet sites about old governmental rulings that are no longer correct should be culled… Everglades you are so massive.

I’m hungry, today I’ve only eaten food from other people- minus one small pepper.

Today's thoughts

I soaked a bag of 15 bean soup beans yesterday and thought that would be an easy thing to throw in the crock pot before sleep.  I didn’t have any ham which would’ve really tied things together well.  So I figured I’d make it spicy/gingery, cause I like both.  I added 2 medium onions, some garlic, and 1 tbsp red chili pepper powder.  I also added a whole ginger root (~5 tbsp) thinking that it might be a bit strong, but whatever I didn’t feel like leaving part of this ginger root.  I tried some and man does raw ginger have a bite.  I woke up and the whole house had some ginger smell and oh my goodness the ginger in the soup kind of burns.

Lesson: When cooking at midnight it’s good to have a recipe or I’ll make bad food.  Or at least for spices I don’t know so well.  Also, maybe plan ahead to have the correct ingredients.

We’ll determine the dilution powers of rice on ginger in the near future.  Sometimes I wish cooking was like acid-base chemistry, when you can just add something to cancel something else out.  But, alas, I’m all out of my anti-ginger.

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The balance of phenomena in describing a process is important.  I was only considering the Donnan Membrane Effect (for stationary charges repelling mobile secondary like charges), but the driving force due to the diffusion gradient was more significant and enabled iron to enter the resin bead.  This is with regards to my advisor’s patent on the production of a sweet ion-exchange resin that removes arsenic from water.  It’s used in India/Bangladesh, Arizona, and other places with As issues.   http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7291578.html

Sudipta Sarkar is a boss.  You should probably check out his sweet work in India.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V73-50PCM75-3&_user=127053&_coverDate=11%2F30%2F2010&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1614504275&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000010458&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=127053&md5=a9ab162cbe938281601d7f4381309c91&searchtype=a

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Oh my goodness.  I love me some real Chinese food.  I enjoy sitting down and hanging out with Chinese people, the differences in culture are fun.  Also, Americans, we really need to get on the ball about having a bunch of plates of food on a table and everybody grabbing with your own chop stix at the food across the way repeatedly, then putting the bones/chunks of ginger/cardamom/whatever on the table when they get in the way of eating.  Mix and match everything in one bowl and yum.

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Why?  To what end?  Where is the beauty?

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Science News!

Ceria is described as inhaling and exhaling oxygen at different temperatures.  It does this by removing oxygen from CO2-> CO and H2O-> H2.  Many possibilities for syn gas production and alternative fuels

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110119102746.htm

CPR just got better with vacuums!  Negative pressure ends up helping more blood get to the heart and brain.  I guess because blood is pushed out and pulled in, supporting greater flow versus standard practice of pushing and pulling due to relaxation.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110118200825.htm

You can make things that are opposite of black holes in the temporal dimensions?  I don’t understand physics.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110118101519.htm

They’ve developed a crystal structure of the HIV plasmid coat by “divide and conquer.”  Impressive because of the floppy nature of  the proteins and the overall large size.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110119132520.htm

Nano-silver is going to have large roles in antibacterial products in the future.  There was some impressive work with using TiO2 in combination with silica (the new addition) under UV radiation for boosted anti-bacterial and anti-viral applications (not sure about the viral part).

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110119125310.htm

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es102749e