Love by the numbers

One of the guys in my lab had his heart broken last summer and, in spite of our best efforts to cheer him up, has been fairly depressed ever since.  Last week, in an effort to socialize him more with people outside of the department, I took him to a few local bars, were he continued to mope.  He eventually asked me if I thought that there was one person for everyone.  Out of hand I dismissed that sort of thinking as naive and childish, but didn't really give it any more thought than 'there is no physical basis for there to be one ideal person for everyone.'   What I failed to consider was the rational basis for why there wouldn't be and why that sort of thinking is down right counterproductive.  

First of all, there is the simple sex ratio.  Although it is close, there are not the same number of men as women.  For the purpose of this discussion, I'll just look at the 20-44 years age range since I consider older or younger than this unlikely to be when people meet the love of their life.  There has been a steady decrease in the proportion of men in the general population, but this is accounted for by much lower proportions of men in the 45-64 and 65 and above age ranges.  In the 2000 and 2005 censuses, there were more men than women in this age range, which has been part of a trend of an increasing number of men relative to women since 1940.  As of the 2005 census, for every thousand women, there were 1029 men.  1.51 percent of Americans describe themselves as bisexual or homosexual.  Of the general population, 0.7% are gay men, 0.32 are lesbians and 0.49% are bisexual.  I'll just assume that the bisexuals are evenly distributed between males and females.  This only changes the ratio of heterosexuals by 0.21% in favor of a more equal distribution.  Therefore, for every 1000 women, there are 27 lonely guys that will never have any of them as their one love.

If one were looking just for sex, the numbers are a bit less publisized.  Six percent of the 638 men and 1.2% of the 843 women indicated that at least one of their sex partners in the past 12 months was a "casual date or pick-up."  This means that there is a relatively small proportion of women, having allot of casual sex.  I expect that the distribution of the number of sexual partners one has follows a Zipf or Pareto distribution, whereby 80 percent of changing sexual partners is done by 20 percent of the people.  It just means that it is a random process that reinforces itself.  What does this mean in terms of finding the one love?  It means, don't start dating a slut expecting her to suddenly start being loyal to you.

Suppose for a second that there was one person for everyone.  What would your odds of finding that person be?  The answer depends on how many people you know, but in any case, the odds are against.  For example, suppose that you are really, unbelievably popular and know 2000 people of the opposite sex and that the one person for you just happens to live in your home state.  I'll use Tennessee as an example since that is where I am.  Assuming that of the 6,038,803, people in Tennessee, 1,752,751 are women between 18 and 64 years of age, your probability of meeting your one true love is 0.114% or 998.859 to 1 against.  Not exactly betting odds.  

The moral here is that there can't possibly be one person for everyone, otherwise we'd never find them.  If you can't have the one love, love the one you're with. 

The Sloth of Doubt

I was reading Douglas Adams'  "The Salmon of Doubt" and came across and interesting statement : "My absolute favorite piece of information is that young sloths are so inept that they frequently grab their own arms and legs instead of tree limbs, and fall out of trees."  This seems like a very poor thing for sloths to be doing.  Evolutionarily, that sort of thing should have been weeded out long ago.  However, when I looked up is bit of information online, all I found was references back to Douglas Adams.  This is the sort of anecdotal information that could only be gathered by direct observation, I decided to write someone who works with sloths all the time.  I wrote the Sloth Rescue Center in Costa Rica.  The following was their reply:

Oh boy, this will be a difficult myth to break, given the author from which it is quoted!

 

From what I know of Douglas Adam's writings, he sort of has fun when he writes about people, animals, events, etc., so you must take the quote from that angle. .

 

No, it isn't true. In fact to see is sloth in its habitat, moving about the rain forest canopy is like watching an exquisite ballet. They are as sure footed in the trees as are himalayan mountain goats scampering about the pinnacles of the uneven terrain of their mountains! To see a sloth move is to apprecieate the finely-tuned mastery of his environment.

 

In fact, the sloth is subject to more myths and misinformation, I think, than most mammals, and much more than he deserves!  I think it all started when early 'explorers' to the Americas named him...sloth.  One of the seven deadly sins!

 

I hope I have piqued your interest to learn more about the extraordinary sloth!

 

Slowthfully yours,

 

Judy
Sloth Sanctuary of Costa Rica
http://www.slothrescue.org

God and Parsimony

Toward the end of last August, I encountered a point of view that at the time struck me as bizarre and possibly revolutionary in terms of looking at God and faith.  I simply haven't written about it till now because my time has been taken up by my formal education.  The idea is that God probably isn't parsimonious.  That is, God doesn't need to do things by the simplest, most strait forward way possible.  It's God!  He does whatever he wants.

When I usually get into a discussion with a devotee, the argument eventually breaks down to one of God of the Gaps.  They contend that there are simple things that god set down as universal laws, like gravity, that time moves only forward everywhere, that force = mass x acceleration, energy travels from a point of high potential to low, and that the rest of the actually complex stuff like life, is specially created.  My argument in tern is that the complex stuff is really just an extension of simple laws building on each other with lots of very little parts, and that the laws themselves are the extension of some more encompassing law.  I make the argument that it is simpler that God (if there even needs to be one at all, and I don't think there does) just put down a very small set of laws, and that the rest just flows from there.

The man that I met in late August believed that simplicity just didn't enter into it.  

-Why are we having a nice breeze right now?  

-God wills it and is favoring us, his children.  

-Isn't it true that our having a nice breeze is the result of large scale weather patterns that also breed destructive typhoons that kill thousands and ruin lives?  

-No, they are completely independent, as is absolutely everything in the universe.  Any cohesiveness is the result of God's decision to have cohesiveness.  That could change.

-But having a miracle in one spot would create a chain reaction of consequences that would ripple out in increasing complexity through the universe.  Answering someone's specific prayer in one spot could cause harm to someone else.  For example, if someone prays to recover from an accident, someone else won't get a kidney as a result.  Also, someone would eventually notice that there are things happening that can only be explained scientifically by the sudden creation or destruction of energy or matter somewhere.

-Not really.  God could just do a second miracle to cancel out any affects of the first one.  He really doesn't have to conserve miracles.  It's not like he's going to run out.

-Well, I guess when you take out parsimony, you can believe in anything!  Including a very, very personal God.

Unicorns

For some reason, I've noticed unicorns getting allot of mention lately.  A friend of mine was pissed because he forgot a hypothetical example that involved unicorns in one of his law exams.  They've been cropping up in other places too.  Boing-Boing is gaga for unicorns.  And so I present a photo that I found in my archives, it is one that I took during an ungulate lab in my comparative zoology lab at the University of Alberta.

Back Story

If you know me in person, I've probably mentioned that I've met Irony and that she's actually very nice.  If you know that, then you also know that I have a handle bar mustache.  The two are linked and I shall tell you why.

When I was in Alberta, in my freshman year, I was at a bar and in walked 7 of the most beautiful women that I'd ever seen.  I later learned that they were Faith, Liberty, Melody, Justice, Harmony, Irony and Rachel.  These were seven daughters of Poseidon, muses.  The Seven Sisters made their way about the bar and plied their charms to the effect that only Justice paid for her own drinks that night.  She could have gotten them paid for by any of the men fawning over her, but she paid for it out of principal.

I'm naturally shy, and so it was quite appropriate when Irony came up to me and we fell to chatting.  We talked about everything.  She had stories, I had stories and we were both deeply interested in the other's.  I haven't clicked like that with a girl before or since.  We fell to just looking comfortably into each others eyes and I realized that I was completely, totally and forever, not in love with this girl, and that she was completely, totally and forever, in head over heels for me.  It's not that she wasn't attractive.  She's an immortal deity, cousin to wood nymphs and Aphrodite, daughter and niece of gods.  In short, she was radiant.  That's just the way it works with her. Cursed that no man that loved her (and there were many) would ever receive her love in return, and that no man she loved could ever love her in return.  Irony isn't bitter about it, a bit wistful, but not bitter.

The problem here arises that immortals have a tremendous sense of entitlement.  For them, love need not be reciprocal (which is perhaps why irony never became bitter) or eternal either.  The lifetime of a man is such a small thing to the immortals that although Irony loves me intensely, and will continue to do so until I die, it is but a passing infatuation to her.  Consequently, over the centuries, a muse may love many men, and at the very moment that I was simultaneously realizing her infatuation with me and my perplexing lack of it for her, and still at the peak of susceptibility to her suggestion, she said "have you ever considered growing a mustache?  I think you would look so good with a handle bar mustache."  Apparently she was thinking of how similar I was to a young man that she fell in love with in 1875, and how she had adored his mustache.  The suggestion of a muse, even a passing one, is not subject to rational inspection.  A man who has had Justice or Liberty whisper thoughts in his ear is throughout his life a good man, even when it is to his detriment, so long as those whispers are with him.  Those muses love a good man, and their whispers stay with him so long as they love him.  Irony hadn't meant to suggest that I grow a handle-bar mustache.  She didn't even think about it really, but there it was, the whisper that would stay with me.  Perhaps because Irony is fickle, my like for the mustache is too.  I realize that it looks ridiculous in the 21st century, but as I said, it is not subject to rational thought.

At the end of the night, she understood what her role was.  Her sisters were complaining lightly and trying to drag her away, that is except for Faith who wasn't worried and Liberty, who didn't care.  Irony said goodbye and tried to kiss me.  I dodged the kiss artfully and had no idea what my role in all of this was other than that I should grow a stupid looking mustache and that it would look good on me.  The Seven Sisters exited the bar and disappeared into omnipresence.  Irony loves me, I know it still.  Here jealousy and constant interference with my life is a daily reminder of that, and so is the mustache.

Drama Department

Of all the ways that superheroes and villains kill each other, one in particular that people might actually relate to has yet to be invented, which is why I'm laying claim to the invention of the drama radiating villain.  The villain, male or female, it doesn't matter, simply radiates an energy that causes the lives of those around it to spiral into mind numbing drama.  Parts of the brain that control forethought and rational thinking are just shut down, hormones are cranked up to 11.  As a consequence, people's lives fall apart, politician are caught up in scandals faster than new ones can be elected to replace them, government falls apart, the economy is brought to its knees because nobody can interact reasonably with their co-workers without things being awkward!  Mass histeria, cats and dogs living together!  Everyone cowers in fear that the secrets that they are keeping or have created will get out and all of modern civilization comes to a crashing end around this one being that just has to walk around and radiate its power.  I guess that it would be allot like the Scarlet Witch, but instead of altering probability in general, it would just be directed to create drama.

All is one with one

Here's a book seen on a colleague's book shelf.  That's right, the title is E Pluribus Unicorn.  I forgot to take a picture of the blurb on the back, but apparently it's a collection of short stories.  The author, Sturgeon, also wrote a couple episodes of the original Star Trek series and may have been a least partly the inspiration for the character Kilgore Trout, also a science fiction writer with a fishy last name, in Kurt Vonnegut's novels.

Also, here's a paleontologist with a squid on his head.

Sympatric Speciation in Humans

I here report a gene complex responsible for sympatric speciation in Humans.  The genetic basis of metabolism relating to the deposition of subdermal fat has resulted in a behavioral  The range of expression of this gene in conjunction with environment will be referred to here as fatness.  The humans are subjected to environmental conditions so that there is complete expression of potential fatness.  Sexual selection on the parameters of 'perceived hotness' and 'perceived gettability' result in highly assortive mating.  Generally there is a negative correlation between the two parameters.   Both genders choose mates based on the hottest member of the opposite gender that they perceive that they can get.  This therefore involves both outward assessment of others and self assessment.  For example, a hot female will self assess that she is highly desirable and therefore can be very selective.  While one would think that high hotness would correlate to a high number of potential mates, this does not hold.  The reason is that the opposite sex is aware of the very low gettability of the hot individuals and devote their resources more efficiently to more gettable mates.  Because being gettable counteracts hotness deficiency, there is no difference in fitness at the two ends of the gradient.   Furthermore, because selection is acting on hotness and gettability as two mutually exclusive traits, the middle of the distribution is deminishing due to lack of hybrid vigor.  The probability of mating between two individuals varies inversely with the distance between each other on the distribution of fatness and positively with the distance of the pair from the mean.  If they are mating up, then their progeny are more likely to mate up, if down, then down.

A Clear Need

Itunes is incredibly versatile, but there are two features that it clearly lacks.  The first is hierarchal classification.  Currently, only one genera can be set for a song at a time, so that my Irish punk is outside the realm of punk which is outside the realm of rock, although each is clearly a subset of the other.  The solution is to currently create smart playlists by adding either additional tags or by grouping generas.  Instead, what should be done is allow one to put multiple generas and to stack them.  Eg.  Rock (hard rock (punk (irish punk))).  This information would be set for all songs downloaded and can be added for songs illegally downloaded.  

In this strain of adding metadata to files, written material that one can download such as periodicals or scanned books, should have the metadata that is already known included in a universally agreed set of categories the same way music is.  Much of this information is already available and is used by on-line bookstores, search engines and cross reference sites to find the article.  The only difference is that the data should be downloaded with the file in the same way that data is included with Itunes files, so that they can be easily managed at home.

Try Before You Buy

I walked out of the store with it, I paid money to the cashier for it, but I'm not really sold on it.  The permissive return policy of big-box stores gives one the option of having a free trial period with a product before you actually commit to it.  Lately, I've been doing this with digital cameras and Walmart.  The reason that I'm looking at a digital camera at all is that the one that I bought a couple of years ago is much too large to take around comfortably.  What I want is something pocket sized that I couple do macro photography with so that I can take it into the lab and take pictures through the microscope lenses.  I liked the macro setting of one, the battery of another, liked the anti-shake ability of both and disliked the low light settings of both.   The answer?  Keep buying and subsequently returning cameras until I find one that I really like.  I'm planning on doing the exact same thing with a graphics tablet and a hi-res scanner in the near future.  I don't know if those are even the products for me, but the ability to test it out in a real setting and then return it, not for any product defect, but for the fact that I just don't like it, or want to upgrade, is very appealing.

Productivity

I've been waiting to be a graduate student for quite a while.  Now that I am one, I can think about things in a completely different way that when I wasn't.  This weekend, I finished reading the biography of Charles Shulz, read (and re-read) several papers on Australian skinks and started (and will possibly finish) Vonegutt's "Breakfast of Champions," in addition to watching several episodes of my favorite TV shows from the comfort of my computer.  The relative importance of these things in terms of my education are as follows: TV shows < Books < Thesis materials.  Their relevance in terms of relative accessibility by others are the complete other way around.  It takes a fair bit of work to become an expert in something that few other people are familiar with.  With regard to the skinks, I am probably one of about two or three dozen people who have ever, or will ever read the combination of research articles that I read this weekend.  I realize that this process is an integral part of science, but I would greatly prefer to be known as an expert in something that many people care about, rather than a few very specifically educated people.  The Master's degree is one step of many that I must take.  I just hope that in the process of learning the specifics about these lizards, that I am able to learn the specifics of a much broader range of creatures.  I do so hate being asked what something is an not knowing.

Riddle of the Skinks

I've been officially in grad school now for a few weeks, and it's about time that I actually nailed down what my thesis project is going to be.  Originally I was going to work on Western Australian agamid lizards, but I was informed that there was an easier group to work on: skinks.  The argument was this 'nothing is known about the morphology of australian agamids but next to nothing is known about australian skinks.'  Consequentially, the lizard that I'll be describing in minute detail is a small, sand swimming skink named Eremiascincus.  That is a good start, but what exactly will be the usefulness of describing this species if there is nothing described to compare it to.  Supposedly the goal of this project is to provide a tool for identifying isolated skull fragments in the fossil record.  Knowing the detailed osteology of one lizard basically tells you: okay, it's not that one, it must be one of the other 150 closely related species.

It turns out that the reason that little is known is not for a lack of trying, but rather the fact that the details one must consider are so fine and esoteric that little progress is even possible.  For example, Eremiascincus was erected as a separate genus in 1979 after about 150 in the genus Sphenomorphus, a genus that contained more than 150 species.  None of the diagnostic characters used to erect the genus were osteological.  In fact, what apparently justified making it a separate genus was a the possession of a line of dorsal ridges and either lots of stripes or very few stripes (depending on which species of Eremiascincus one is examining).  Stripiness?!  Seriously!?  The description isn't much help either, listing characters that definitely place it in the Sphenomorphous group of skinks, but are characters that hardly make it unique (quite the opposite really).  

Then there is the diagnosis of the Sphenomorphous group.  It turns out that the genus sphenomorphous is no longer used to refer to any Australian skinks.  All the the Australian sphenomorphine skinks were placed into other genera.  As soon as I find out what they were put into and on what basis, I might have something to go on.   As it is, there is an ok phylogenetic tree available based on molecular data, but I'd really only use that for corroboration of morphological data, or to look at what closely related taxa to describe with Eremiascincus.

Birthday '08

So yesterday was my birthday, which as one would expect being that I'm in a new area, I spent by myself.  In fact, I read the same volume of Steinbeck that had me feeling down in the last post.  But instead of feeling lonely, I was uplifted, since birthday greetings came in from literally all corners of the continent.  I had best wishes from Florida, California, Alberta, Toronto, Montreal, Utah and here in Tennessee. It's a pleasing feeling to know that one's sphere of influence extends that far.  To all of those that sent birthday greetings by phone, e-mail or Facebook, I thank you.

How to be a Hermit

Lately I’ve been reading a fair bit about the loneliness of successful men.  This includes the biography of Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts; Simple Curiosity, which is a collection of letters from George Gaylord Simpson, well-noted paleontologist, to his family; and John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley in search of America.  All of these books deal with the profound loneliness of great men, who were usually surrounded by people that liked them, or at least in Steinbeck’s case, made friends easily by the application of whisky.  It just so happens that I’m reading these books as I start a new geographic chapter in my life, the way that I start out in any new area: by being completely alone in the crowd.   It is one thing entirely to be alone when one is truly by one’s self.  When I lived out in the desert of northern Arizona, I only remember rarely feeling the pangs of longing for another person.  Reminders that I was missing something didn’t surround me.  Here in Tennessee, as it was when I was working independently in Utah, or traveling to Monterey, I don’t know anybody, not even someone that can make introductions for me. 

Of course, I am more acutely aware of this absence because of the books that I’m reading.  The rain hasn’t helped at all either.  But then, I know of no more sure fire way to stop the rain than for me to buy an umbrella, except possibly for me buying two.  I did in fact buy two, and wouldn’t you know it, the rain has stopped  I consider it money well spent).  Perhaps I should also pick up Cuppy’s How to be a Hermit again.  That is the one book that has ever made me feel much better about my naturally hermitic tendencies.  I suppose a third read through wouldn’t hurt me, although I need to find someone that can repair the book’s ancient binding lest I hurt the book.

I Give it a Tenn

My seemingly continuous travels continue as I now find myself living in the American southeast.  I now reside in Eastern Tennessee, where everyone speaks as though Jeff Foxworthy taught English.  The amusing thing is that few people have commented on my accent.  One administrator was even surprised I said that I'd just moved out here from California.  'Well I guess you do sound different don't you!'  My social circle is currently limited since the only people I've met are in the graduate biology dept, and most of them already have their own social clique.  That in time too shall come about.  I've only been out here a week.

True Love . . . of Spam

What is quoted below is a great example of some spammer, with a translation program, or automatic message generator, producing a hilariously badly worded e-mail.  The English is so bad that I just had to post it here.  The spacing and line changes are exactly as they were in the e-mail that I received.  I removed the e-mail address that it links to so that people won't accidentally click it.

Hello my new friend!
My name is Elena!
how are you? I hope you fine!
I have found yours profile and e-mail on dating site match.com.
I want to find the love.
If you is real are interested, answer to me and we can begin our acquaintance.
Allitle about me. I was born on June 10, 1979. I want find someone man that can
love me,
and i can love him! i went through your profile and read information about you
and what you want to see in a man of
your choice.
And i believe, i can have all part of what you want in soulmate, out of
thousands of people that is on here,
i find you to be my true choice and i hope that you should feel the same way
too.
It's really a wonderful moment as am writing this missive to you
and i pray that i should hear a good and sweat reply from you.
You may be in long distance to me,
but i belief that there's nothing love can not do.
I belief love can move mountain and love turn around man life to precious life
and sweet one.
Ok, i wish that you should write me in e-mail and lets meet to have more
discussions and get to know more about each other.
My new friend I ask you to write to me on e-mail:
12893a*&%)@$#
because the Internet here is very bad, but on e-mail I can check my
mail easily.
I will be great to read a marvellous missive from you.
Hoping in God of love and in power of love to hear from you.
Thanks for the reading.
Elena.

Turn About is Fair Play

Some of the beauty of Gelnaw's law is that on rare occasion, it actually works to one's advantage.  

This last week, work finally started on the project that I've been waiting on in Central Utah.  I have little doubt that it started merely because my supervisors and I got tired of waiting around and instead had me go back to Vernal.  The night before I left to go back to Vernal, I had spoken with several people in charge of the project, who all regrettably told me that it would not be going ahead the next day and that, as usual, the day after was uncertain.  

Therefore, bright and early, I pack up my things and did the 2.5 hour drive back to Vernal.  Within an hour of getting there however, I got the call from the foreman that they were in fact going to be starting excavation right away.  Not in a couple of days, not tomorrow, but that very minute!  Very well, I hopped back into the Jeep and drove another 2.5 hours back in the direction in which I'd come.  I am certain that if I had not left, then I'd still be waiting for the project to get underway.

Meditations

I can't work and I can't leave

And I've no where to go before I sleep

Being in Utah kind of sucks right now.  I am in a tiny, coal mining town called Price, and in about 3 hours you can do just about everything there is to do in town without getting paid for it.  The problem is that I'm not getting paid, not nearly enough anyway.  Monday was the only day this week that I got full hours in.  The rest of the week has been comprised of just killing time.  Monday was spent in Moab, the La Sal mountains, and Big Indian Valley.  Tuesday I just drove back to Vernal.  The drive was awfully scenic, but the visual impact of huge, exposed rock faces is somewhat diminished on me.  I was supposed to start monitoring a road cut on Wednesday, but that project has been put off and put off, day by day with no indication of when it might actually start.  The frustration is that I can't really go and do anything else.   I have reports that I can help write, but that is so mind numbingly tedious that I'd almost rather waste my time than work on them.  

   I'm trying to fill the time.  I've gone prospecting in the morisson formation and checked out the Cleveland-Loyd dinosaur quarry, but I really wish I could go home.  Had I gone home last week I could say that I really wanted to because I actually had someone to go back to this time, but as with all my relationships, she dumped me because I'm away too much.  This is why I never like to talk about my relationships.  Don't ask me to choose between you and my work, because I won't choose you.  The frustration this time though is that I'm choosing between a pretty girl who digs me and doing absolutely nothing!   I didn't choose nothing, it was thrust upon me.  Nothing is a surprisingly big thing to deal with.

  Okay, that's enough for this overly emotional post.

Missing You

Last summer, I did some surveying with a woman named Steph. Besides finding fossils, Steph was focused on getting as much area done as possible. She surveyed very, very fast, so that I was sure that she couldn't possibly have been getting everything. I brought this to the attention of our supervisor and was told that she didn't think that Steph was going too fast. Having been either chewed out or brushed off when ever I brought it up, I just dropped the subject. As a consiquence though, in an area that we nick-named Valley of the Birds, we apparently missed what is possibly the most significant bonebed ever found in this particular formation. The way that it was found was that last week my supervisor and the lead paleontologist for the company were out mapping the geology of the area on their own time and litterally stumbled upon it. It's bee described to me as so obvious and extensive that there is no way that we could have missed it if we had actually looked at those rocks. As a result, I feel bad for having let myself be pressured into going faster than I thouht was adequate for the survey and my supervisor feels bad for having not taken my complaints seriously. We're now planning on going back and resurveying areas that were previously done by only Steph and I so that we can correct for her influence over the results.

The Library of Stuff

In effect, the Salvation Army, Good Will and other Thrift stores that rely on donations are libraries of stuff.  You check something out, you pay a fee, and then when you are done with it, you return it to the library that you got it from or another branch.   If you deem that something is beyond saving, you forfeit your fee and you save the library from throwing it away for you.  

  I think that if someone where to take this idea to the next logical step and make a business that was actually a library of things other than media, eg. clothing, furniture, tools, appliances, all things donated by the community of potential and actual users, then it would be a rather successful business.  Internet sites already serve to link individuals with stuff that they are getting rid of with those that would like to acquire it.  The problem with those is that there are not necessarily items that you want available when you want them, and that there is the issue of shipping, which is expensive.  Furthermore, if one only desires an item temporarily, then that person has to go through the same hassle of getting rid of it or storing it that the first person did.  If there was just a central location that you could go to to inexpensively get second hand items for a limited time, or that one could dump such items at, it would be a great convenience.  Really the only difference between this model and a regular thrift store is that one would actually be expected to return the item and that the store would actually keep real track of inventory.

Just imagine: a guy needs a suite or a big meeting but forgot to pack it while traveling.  No problem, he just goes to the stuff library!  A student needs a dresser or a desk.  No problem, the stuff library has a glut of desks that outgoing students have dropped off.  Have a couch but don't want to move it to your new home in another state?  That's all right, just drop it off and we'll give you a coupon for a couch where you're going!  So long as people aren't emotionally attached to the items, the stuff library is doing great!

As if anyone still reads this

I got my official letter of acceptance into a Masters Program today.  It's at the Quaternary Science department at Northern Arizona University, which is good since it's the only school that I applied to this year.  

In past years, I followed my Mom's advise and applied to as many schools as possible.  In past years, I was summarily rejected by every school that I applied to.  Evidently, I put my eggs in too many baskets in the past.  

I don't know yet if I'll be going to NAU.  There are other extraneous factors that I'm not at liberty to publicly discuss at present, but things are really looking up for me.  Going to grad school is the fruition of my entire life's work so far.  I'll grant that any progress towards pre-eminent vertebrate paleontologist is the fruition of my life's work so far, but this is a very big step.  I'll admit though that receiving the letter didn't cause any real reaction.  I already knew it was coming.  My prospective advisor wants me to work with him and I have funding lined up, I've been notified several times before that I'm getting in.  Receiving this letter just makes it official.  The irony is that I won't be able to respond to the letter until the extraneous factors are resolved.  C'est la vie.  Life is a waiting game.

The Moor Things Change, The More They Stay the Same

Once again, I'm at the Tucson Mineral and Fossil Show.  I consider these trips to be valuable educational opportunities.  For instance, I'm learning how much the value of the U.S. dollar has dropped in the last few years compared for foreign currencies.  Since Morocco is one of the biggest exporters of fossils today, they are possibly the best yardstick to judge the value of the dollar in terms of the actual quality of a specimen.  In particular, I've been looking at a Tethysaur partial skeleton with an attached limb.  This is very rare.  Two years ago, I saw a similar specimen without a limb for about 2.5 grand.  This year, the one that I'm looking at is over 4 grand.  

Another valuable thing that I've learned is that vertebrate fossils are essentially smuggled out of Morocco.  Apparently nobody ever declares what is in the actual box when they ship something out of the country.  they put some polished pieces of marble on top, say that the whole box is full of the same and easily get incredibly valuable fossils past customs.   I'm not quite sure how I feel about this in terms of the balance between respect for another country's attempt to keep its historical resources within its border and the respect for the fact that there would be no way for Morocco to protect or house the fossils even if they stayed there.  After learning this, I've held off on buying any more Moroccan material.  This will likely be a short lived moratorium as I plan on buying that Tethysaur tomorrow morning as soon as I hear whether or not I qualify for the company $1000 publication bonus.   A museum that is interested might be able to swing another grand to chip in and the tax refund on donating it is worth about another thousand.  Well, lets see how things work out. 

Trouble Avoided

My van has a really bad problem of breaking down when I'm far from home.  For once at least, I've managed to avoid that by breaking down only 15 miles from the house.  When I've joked that the exterior of the van is the only thing that is old, that all of the internal working parts are practically brand new, apparently I forgot about the ignition system.  The starter is new, but the actual ignition is now 13 years old.  The problem that I had today was that the key has stopped turning all the way to the start position, thereby keeping me from starting the van.   The radio will turn on, but the engine is beyond my reach.  After jiggling the key and turning it with varying forces, I did manage to get the engine started and get back home.  

The irony here (beyond the fact that I only got it started within the gaze of the tow truck driver) is that I had originally planned to be in Quartzite, AZ today, at the main event rock show.  If the key had stopped working when I was camping out there, then the only directions that I would have been able to give a tow truck would have been GPS coordinates.  Thankfully, my parents had some urgent work that they were told would be coming in today and they told me that they needed me to stick around to do it.  The work did not come in after all, but even if it does come in tomorrow, I won't be able to do it, unless I somehow get my ignition system fixed by 10am.  Oh well, Gelnaw's law may not be universal, but it affects my life at every turn.

Resolve

New Year, Same Resolutions.

This time I mean it though.  There shouldn't be a difference between a resolution and a goal that you actually have the determination to accomplish, but there is.  Here are the things that I actually have the determination to achieve this year:

1.  Get into a relationship that lasts more than a month. 

2.  Start my thesis, whether I'm in grad school or not.

3.  Clean my room and keep it clean ( I actually mean it this year!)

4.  read all of the books that I was given last year.  This is a bigger and bigger accomplishment every year.  I've so far never achieved it.