Fall Arrives Like an Avalanche

I promised myself that I would not post much when depressed or generally surly. So for the last week or I haven't posted, instead I have mulled and stewed and done a good job of imitating a snapping turtle, with rabies, on meth. Some of it was work related, it appears that I am heading for a third "adjustment" to my dissertation, this time, for reasons too complicated and involved to delve into here, sufficeth to say I am non-plussed about the situation. Most of my moodiness has been the weather. The summers in St. Louis are usually insufferable for a Pacific Northwest boy, and this summer has been especially bad. Too much heat and humidity, too much stagnant air, too many mornings where my balls are sweaty before I can even get on the bike. As September has dragged on the summer has clinged to the city, and I have gotten progressively more bitter, more angry. I need fall, more than I need spring, and fall seemed to be hiding out in Pittsburgh and Seattle and Spokane. This morning I woke to a cold house, a cold city, a cold ride. I got to wear the windstopper fleece and the long fingered gloves, and wished I had worn riding tights and not shorts. Fall is finally here, its arrival gives my soul the reset it needed, and soon the sycamores and maples will soon turn colors, and the city shall throw off the oppressive cloak of summer green for her fall coat of color. Most importantly, I am happy today.

Music Makes My Morning

Another near-death or dismemberment experience this morning. A St. Louis firefighter almost took a free right across (you guessed it) Clayton Ave. onto Skinker Blvd. and across me. I guess I will have to go a little farther out of my way in order to improve my chances of living to see my next committee meeting, which I am cool with, more time on the Trek, more time in the park.
Dr. Bones asked about my musical choices. Since I live with statistics and trends in my working life, I have not idea what my Ipod top ten is... And I don't really care. I can say that I listen to Sufjan Stevens' Illinois an awful lot. I also spend a lot of time with DJ Danger Mouse's Ghetto Pop Life and the highly illegal Grey Album. Vespertine and Debut from Bjork are oft repeated (listening to Debut right now) and Days of Future Past by the Moody Blues is a life preserver of poetry and strings that I grasp when the world seems like its off its hinges and everything I read or hear seems to be dark and depressing. Of course there is also the tender, tragic beauty of Pink Moon by Nick Drake.
Music changes my mood, it picks up my pace on late night stealth rides, pushes me over the edge on runs, guides me to the secret place and provides the seed for the walk, when I stride along, hands swinging free, shoulders back, crooked grin on my crooked face, knowing I am a wearing an "I love toxic waste" t-shirt under my button collar oxford and not caring about anyone's roles or definitions or attempts to shame me for being who I am, an over-educated, elitist geek.

All Hail Cool Mornings

There is always a certain pleasure associated with riding a bicycle to work. Watching all the sour faced people trapped in their little (or not-so little) metal boxes, angry at the world and all the other drivers, as I coast by, listening to Liz Phair or Jamiroquai or Glenn Gould's elegant Goldberg Variations on my Ipod Mini and smiling. In St. Louis, its a little thrilling, dodging rusted out dump-trucks, psychotic suburban soccer socialites Suburban's, uber-macho construction workers jacked up full size pick-up trucks and all the women putting make-up on as they drive. Bike commuting is also a sweaty enterprise for four months of the year. Wake-up weather is usually 78 degrees with 85% humidity for most of the summer, so no matter how easy a pace I take, I get to school with sweaty armpits, face, back, and balls. Now that September is here I can get up and ride to work (or to Meshuggah Cafe) without fear of sweaty balls. Pure Bliss.

Polymer Chemist Seeking...

I have the manual to the Stokes Ellipsometer propped open on the pile of spectra, papers, napkins, cables and books that is my desk and it hits me like Montezuma's Revenge, This Is Not Going To Get Me A Woman. I will admit that being able to determine film thicknesses on the sub-angstrom scale is pretty freaking cool, and any device that includes precision machined parts and a laser is by definition super-cool, but really, why am I even looking at this? Now, if I were perusing, say the owner's manual to the 1963 MGA or perhaps a Triumph TR6, I would at least be learning about something that could impress a woman (chicks dig cool cars, or so I've heard). Now I can respect a job well-done as much as the next cat, and I understand that by developing this skill will make the boss shiny-happy and probably help with the next job application, but what good is that going to be tonight at the bar? Not much methinks. I was recently at the Fall National Meeting of the American Chemical Society and I noticed that they had a product fair where scientists could get connected with companies supplying chemicals, software, equipment and services. There was a job fair (academic and industrial) where students could meet prospective employers (they even have a web-page where one could upload the resume). So why not a chemist dating service as well? I envision web-based services for uploading profiles, cvs, research interests, etc... We could even get together with the physicists, geologists, biologists and computer scientists and create a global geek dating service! It may be the only way I can find a woman to impress with my wicked skills with the ellipsometer.

Nanoparticles Don't Scare Me, But They Give Me Nightmares

Someone asked me if I had read Prey by Michael Crichton. I have to admit I haven't, but I did check it out once from the library with every intention of inhaling it over a couple of cold, lonely, November weekends. As is usual in my life, work consumed me and I never got around to it. I read the jacket cover though, and I am sure I would enjoy spending some time in front of a gently crackling fire, a glass of 12-year old Glenfiddich in hand with some Pharaoh Sanders on the Hi-Fi, reading about the end of man. I liked the Andromeda Strain, as much for its technical and scientific accuracy as for its gripping examination of the psychology of scientists and physicians in extreme circumstances. But I don't lose sleep over the possibility of some alien virus falling to earth and nearly killing us all. Nanoparticles don't scare me either, but I do lose sleep over them all the time. Mostly I lay awake and mull over mistakes I made in lab, why my experiment failed, or what I need to get done in the morning. Sleep happens eventually, but never soon enough for me to get a solid 8 hours, which I need. After a few days of this in a row, the anxiety and stress have built up and sent me over the falls, so I drink myself to oblivion, get the sleep I need, and the process starts all over again. Maybe this is the nanoparticles plan, subtle and smart, to kill me off. Then again, I figure that I am in more danger from some suburban soccer mom in a very non-nanoscale Suburban on chatting on her cell-phone, yelling at her kids and not checking the cross traffic and making me into a human speed-bump, than anything that I work with. But who knows, maybe my core crosslinked nanoparticles are planning vengeance for cooking some of their mates with the 514 nm laser yesterday...

Nanoparticles Just Happen

Jack Kerouac once said that he wanted to write like Charlie Parker played the saxophone. Having listened to my share of The Bird, I can understand Kerouac's fascination with the man. He played so fast, so beautifully, or originally that it seems unreal. There is not a lot of sheet music for what he did, just a melody for a few bars and then... improvisation, pure art, never the same two takes in a row. Nanoscience is like that most days. I have a sheet of chemical formula and then I mix some stuff and... nanoparticles just happen, maybe. Some really smart person called the process "Self-Assembly" and in a nut shell it means we make little polymers that, under the right conditions, want to make themselves into nanoparticles. Just figuring out what shape and size our nanoparticles are is an art. Since we can't see them with our eyes, or even a regular microscope we use a lot of uber-geek gear to try and detect them. What gets really humbling is that as I struggle to make little spheres reproducibly, under highly controlled conditions, my body is making polymers and nanoparticles constantly, perfectly. I am talking about DNA, RNA, proteins... They are just polymers, and they automatically fold up into the right shape. If they are not the right shape, the body detects them and either unfolds them so they can try again, or it destroys them. I wish I could make nanoparticles like my body.

Where am I supposed to ride?

I was riding my red bicycle to work today and as I aimed to cross onto the bike path in Forest Park I had to navigate around a woman who had stopped her car in front of the handicap/ bicycle ramp. She was, of course, not going to make that free right onto Skinker at 7 am, and, since there was no damage to her car's rear-end I can assume that she wasn't pushed into the crosswalk and in front of the ramp. So why was she there? I can dimly recall something from driver's ed. About having to stop with ones bumper behind the white line of the crosswalk or the stop here line. Were I to ride my bicycle down the street, occupying my legally entitled lane, I am sure the woman would be very non-plussed about my moving at a sedate 20 mph and not the posted 35. So why would she make it difficult for me to access the bike path? I'd blame my early morning confusion on the lack of coffee... But its 5 and I am still confused.