Ground State

Bound within our happy little molecules of families,
Each of us is ultimately alone, an atom.
The energies of life kick us up to excited states
("orbitals" in my HS chemistry class)
Only to fall back to ground again,
Sighing a photon or two,
To resume our inherent selves.

At your lowest energy level,
Just before you sleep,
You (if fortunate) curl up entwined with your love.
At the intimate heart of your relationship,
The simple act of touching
Returns you to ground state every night.

--WF

Hierarchy of Deeds

(This is not to be confused with the "Hierarchy of Needs" devised by Abraham Maslow (whom I researched as an undergrad, obtaining gracious interviews with his widow Bertha and his non-academic disciple Andrew Kay, plus one brief phone call with a very cranky Carl Rogers.))

My daughters (I have so many of them) do some stuff that I praise to the skies and some that drive me nuts. It must seem arbitrary to them, but to me certain things are a better use of their time.

Here's a list in order of what I'd rather they be doing if it's available or needs to be done (though we're pretty laid back about it).

1. Playing musical instruments
2. Doing homework
3. Creative writing
4. Sleeping
5. Talking to relatives (though seldom)
6. Chores
7. Playing with friends
8. Outdoor exercise, playing with pets
9. Cooking for fun
10. Reading, chess
11. Crafts, drawing, photography
12. Playing Wii with friends
13. Computer games, texting, Facebook
14. Watching DVDs
15. Watching fashion/cooking shows
16. Watching animation
17. Watching teen Nickelodeon/Disney

So, what would you add or change?

--WF

Crawl Space

Hey campers, scoot in through this hole in the wall. Welcome to the crawl space. I’m just putting in some insulation the builder forgot 50 years ago. It’s snug in here but not too dusty, and I haven’t heard a mouse in weeks. Yes, I am a bit tall and old to be doing this, but I actually kind of like it. And I’m glad you’re with me here.

I have a friend who spent a lot of time in her bedroom closet growing up, just to escape her crazy family. She’d read or do homework or just sit quietly where, for a moment anyway, everything was calm and unsurprising.

When I was a kid we had a tri-level house with a three-foot-tall space beneath the living room and dining room and kitchen; I could get in there through a louvered door under a bookshelf. It was dry and clean with a concrete floor and cinder block walls and lights on the ceiling. It also was warm in the winter because it was home to a furnace that, unlike many of us, was made to thrive with limited headroom.

I set up a train set, and did chemistry experiments, and made radios in that crawl space, but mostly I spent time in there insulated from noise and nuttiness. Just like bacteria and frogs and vines, kids choose the best environment available under the circumstances.

My kids are as old now as I was then. I teach them simple rules like heat goes up, and water flows down, and things need ventilation lest they rot, and that everyone is entitled to private space and time. They teach me about friendship and trust and simple warm connection.

In this crawl space I’m installing new insulation where it belongs: On the walls that separate inside warmth from outside cold. I don’t need to spend more time in here than that. But I’ve learned that it can take years to remove old insulation.

--WF

Resistance is Futile

Note: This is not about Star Trek, or Google, or Lady Gaga. It’s about fixing stuff.

“Dad, the piano’s broken!” I gently removed my daughter from her keyboard, wiggled some wires, turned things off and on, and agreed, “Yup.” The notes sounded right but were very faint. I changed the speakers, checked the power cube’s voltage, and poked at the output jack; nothing helped. Dang. It needed actual repair.

This was another Craigslist find, an electronic stage piano built a decade ago. We couldn’t afford to have it in the shop for weeks because my daughter needed to practice, and I didn’t want to risk it coming back with a large bill for shoddy work only to break again.

Oh, all right. I’d try to fix it myself.

This piano is old-school sturdy: 40 lbs of steel and MDF (medium density fiberboard; if wood were beef steak, MDF would be a very hearty meatloaf.) A web search found praise for its reliability but no service manual or schematic. The manufacturer didn’t even list it as one of their own.

I flipped it belly-up onto a sofa. The bottom had two dozen benign screws around the edges and ten wicked-looking ones in the middle (probably holding the keys onto the wood; I’d not touch them unless things got really bad). I removed the less-scary screws and the piano fell into top and bottom pieces connected by short bundles of orange wires.

Two circuit boards were bolted to the top shell, one with buttons and lights and one with all the jacks. They could unplug from the orange bundles, but themselves were made inseparable by a stiff wire bridge into a pair of flat green nunchucks.

My diagnostic tools had dwindled to a cheap Radio Shack meter (having sold my oscilloscope to a grad student who drove from NYC with his girlfriend to fetch it.) So with the tool I had, I measured what I could -- DC voltage and resistance. After a few fruitless checks I knew: Without a diagram, I had no plan.

Oh, all right. I had to draw a schematic.

The process is not unlike dissecting a fish to make an anatomical drawing, only less messy and you end up with symbols instead of literal pictures. I removed the circuit boards and sat at the dining room table with a big sheet of paper. I turned the boards over and over, tracing the path of each lead from each component along its track underneath until it connected to another component.

The parts were all comfortingly familiar, and I found that I could still read them; I remembered how to find part numbers and values and knew exactly what each one does. I patiently read the physical reality of the dozens of components and translated them to arcane schematic symbols. (Every business -- horses, newspapers, sailing -- has its private language and signs like this; they’re efficient shorthand for insiders, effectively mystify outsiders, and provide a very satisfying accomplishment when an apprentice, who was an outsider, finally becomes an insider.)

Once on paper I could see what the circuit was supposed to do, as though the designer, half a world and ten years away, were next to me to explaining what he did and why. It was obvious what parts were used as power supplies, as amplifiers, as muting circuits. It was all well marked and well done.

Now it was obvious what to check. The amplifiers, which should float halfway between their supply voltages, were stuck high, while their shared halfway-voltage reference was stuck low. Even after disconnecting the reference it was still stuck. As the reference only had three components, one of them had to be bad! I tested them in happy anticipation. One of them was dead! But instead of being an electrolytic capacitor (which, like that kid in school, is always your best first suspect) it turned out to be an open-circuited 10k resistor, worth about two cents and abundant in my junk bin. I found one and put it in. And the piano played.

Oh, all right. I guess I’m stuck being a tinker after all.

--WF

Pretty Words, Strung Together

Too busy to write today, but let’s complete our musical trifecta with a nice young guy at work who’s been bugging me for a chance. Thanks for helping out, Jord.
_____

“Pretty Words, Strung Together”
by Jordan Leadfoot, the Folk Singer Wannabe who Works in IT

Sitting just two cubes away,
your dewy brightness sparkles
like my lawn on misty mornings
when the sun begins to peek.

Oh, but you’re a BC co-op
and your boyfriend goes to Harvard,
and I drive my mom’s old Ford
and got my GED last week.

Computer games and playing guitar
were all I ever learned, and
maybe dropping out of school
was not so smart.

Still I hope that you will listen to
These pretty words I’ve strung together.
Hope they’ll have a chance to win your heart.

On that wondrous day I met you
I’d just rolled your PC to your desk,
connecting it with special care
to give you all the best.

When I said some silly thing
and made you laugh and then you smiled at me,
I instantly was smitten
but still needed to impress.

So I’m getting Cisco certified,
and my boss said that he’ll help me
find a BSEE program
so I’ll get a better start.

But now all I have to give you
are these pretty words I’ve strung together
hoping that they’ll someday win your heart.

Although I know I got this job
because my uncle is the VP,
but still by now I’m flying right
and carrying my weight.

I figured out your Facebook page
but have not tried to friend you yet.
And I think that you’d reject me
if I asked you for a date.

But I see you’ve come to hear me
at this coffee house for open mike.
I know this is my only chance
to really play the part.

Now I don’t have much to offer
except sincerity and metaphors.
But these pretty words I’ve strung together
just might win your heart.
_____

p.s. Jord, best keep your day job.

Giving Thanks

I have not yet made
The irredeemable error,
The driving lapse,
The unfiltered word,
The lack of caution,
The mistaken touch,
The inattentive moment,
The slip
That changes everything
For the rest of my life.

--WF

Guest Blogger: Dusty Ruination

Today’s guest blogger is Dusty Ruination, the Bad Cowboy Poet.
Take it away, Dusty...
________________

“Work Wife”
by Dusty Ruination

When I was working 9 to 5
I’d see those lovebirds in the lunch room
Leaning ‘cross their table over break.

She was a fading Celtic goddess,
He a graying jock, and they looked
Married twenty years if it’s a day.

But they weren’t wedded to each other.
Both had their own families and
Never saw each other otherwise.

No intimacies other than
The words that passed between them, but
They shared the closest hours of their lives.

He said,

Chorus:

I tell them you’re my “work wife”
‘Cause we spend our days together
Swapping tales of how life is, and ought to be.

So let’s share another helping
Of this pure distilled attention.
Stealing time to give each other what we need.

Verse 2:

You have your husband, I my wife
And neither of us wants to wreck
a home, and we both dearly love our kids.

The consequences of flirtation
Best left to imagination,
Won’t allow what clearer thought forbids.

By mutual consent, not much:
No business trips, no lingering touch, and
No more than a peck upon the cheek.

But I see your beauty every day,
And given half a chance I’ll still
Respectfully admire your physique. ;-)

[Chorus]

Verse 3:

This modern working life is strange
That you and I can get to spend
More “couples time” than we do with our mates.

No matter what the weekend sees,
Our crazy friends, our families,
On Monday mornings sanity awaits.

Now my career has naught to show,
No patents and no IPO,
But still I’ve gained an unexpected wealth.

Your friendship is the finest thing
I’ve earned in all my wanderings.
You know me better than I know myself.

[Chorus]
________________
--WF

Friday Science: Psychology

Bed Head as a Correlate of Sleep Quality

Demetrios Papaginos, PhD, Intercostal College;
Ariana Papaginos, 5th grader

Abstract

The overall quality of a night’s sleep as assessed with a standard measure shows a statistically significant correlation with temporary asymmetrical dislocation of external cranial hair upon rising (bed head).

Methodology

Subjects were recruited from among male and female graduate student volunteers with hair length less than 10cm who also had use of a cell phone with camera. The camera was essential to record the condition of the subject’s hair upon rising.

To determine quality of sleep in a more objective manner than simple self-reports, we selected an empirically validated measure, the Zugzwang Inventory of Potentially Predictive Indicators (ZIPPI). It is often used in sleep studies to assess clarity of thought upon waking (1).

Instructions were provided to each subject as follows: Immediately upon awakening each morning, S was to use the camera phone to take a photograph of his/her face and hair, and forward it by picture messaging to a number we provided.* S would then self-administer the ZIPPI measure and retain the response sheet for collection at the end of the week.

Analysis

From the 47 subjects who received the instructions and inventory, n=31 completed the tasks for the full five-day period.

The second author viewed each photograph and assessed the amount of bed head on a five point scale (1 = “none” to 5 = “like totally”).

For each subject, the scores from both the ZIPPI and the bed head assessment were converted to “high” or “low” relative to the median values in their ranges. The resulting value pairs were subjected to chi-square analysis as shown:








Conclusion

There was a statistically significant correlation (p=0.05) between the ZIPPI score and the assessed level of bed head.** With the ZIPPI score previously shown to be a reliable correlate of sleep quality (2), one may reasonably conclude that the appearance of bed head gives an accurate indication of how well someone has slept, and may even preclude the necessity of asking, “How did you sleep?” other than as a social nicety.

The most likely confound to replication would appear to be the reliability of the photographic assessment. However, as evidenced within social group interactions (3), there are no more finely calibrated and eloquent tonsorial critics than 10-11 year old girls.

-----

Footnotes

*The majority of subjects spontaneously reported that this photography-and-forwarding task was something he/she could do “in my sleep.”

**There were no significant M-F differences relative to the measures in use, but there were large M-F differences in both expressed anxiety and time to resolution of bed head; this merits further study.

-----

References

1. Zugzwang, H. D. P., and Papaginos, D., “An Inventory of Potentially Predictive Indicators”, Psy Ops, v125, p 13.

2. Papaginos, D., and Zugzwang, H. D. P., “Validating an Inventory of Potentially Predictive Indicators”, Psy Ops, v126, p 11.

3. Papaginos, A., “My 11th Birthday Party at Bonkers Fun House”

-----

Note to a Young Round Goddess

(seen diving into a hotel swimming pool)

Dear Miss,

You are a great beauty.

Don't ever stop believing it, nor let anyone tell you otherwise.

Let me share some secrets, all true.

Your lovely round shape may not be what you see reflected in tv or today's fashion magazines, but look through fine art and read classic poetry by men of great talent and discerning eye, who could choose any woman in the world, and there you'll find yourself described in loving detail.

Regardless of what foolish friends or depressing family might have told you, outward attractiveness is based on certain longstanding principles -- not weight, not clothes, not makeup, not hair -- that can even be seen from a distance.

Waist to hip ratio: You have little control over this, as it's baked into men's hearts and into your own curvy body, but it works in your favor so you might as well glory in it. Science shows that the deepest part of a man's brain recognizes wide hips tapering to a narrower waist, not big breasts or a flat backside, as indicating a most desireable woman. It's simple hardwired ancient cave man stuff -- you can look it up.

It's old advice, but when you stand up straight and proud, and walk with a confident stride or a sultry sway (what folks used to call "a fine carriage;" being athletic in anything makes this easier) people see your health and confidence and feel good about you, and being with you makes them feel good about themselves. Amazing, but it actually works that way. Other people pick up on your positive energy and like to be with you; it's that simple.

More old advice: Your smile shows your desire to engage with whomever you bestow it on. Think of yourself as generously handing out your smile like a gift. Not the cold stingy smile of a diva, and not the pleading smile of a hungry puppy, but the happy radience of one who knows she has an infinite supply of something of great value, and who gains, not loses, by sharing it around. Smile and look into people's eyes and your beauty grows tenfold.

Most importantly, choose kind, generous, funny people to spend your time with. Avoid those who enjoy putting others down for sport to make themselves feel strong, or who encourage you to think less of yourself: they are corrosive to your soul. You may find some excellent and true friends among the marginalized -- the nerds, the gays, the musicians, the goths -- who have found a fierce love for themselves as God has made them, and who refuse to hate themselves or anyone else for who they are. Cherish them, because God loves those who first accept and love themselves.

Your sweet face is poised on the edge between doubt and delight in life; you are shy now, but will soon choose how to approach the world. With all my heart I wish you kindness and confidence. You already dive into the pool like a goddess; now take that feeling and let it fill you.

-- WF

Regarding Gender Terminology

For any readers of this blog who self-identify as straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, intersex, multisex, transgender, transvestite, eunuch, asexual, or voluntarily celibate, please note that this blog’s use of gender-specific pronouns and other terminology should be read as applying equally to any and all readers, as deemed appropriate by each reader, that no exclusion should ever be construed, and that no slight is ever intended by their use.

For you involuntary celibates out there: God help you.

Totally unrelated p.s.
GM’s sale of Saab to Spyker comes as welcome news to our largely Saab-driving readership but also to those of us who couldn’t pronounce Koenigsegg anyway.

Innies and Outies

My apologies to those who, having read the title, were hoping for a navel extravaganza. It was just too cold to find participants.

Old joke: “There are two types of people in the world: Those who divide the world into two types of people, and those who...”

Well, these baskets seem to hold water anyway: Introverts and extroverts.

This isn’t about shy vs. bold people, or misanthropes vs. maniacs. “Rather,” as Jonathan Rauch explains in his charming manifesto Caring for your Introvert, “introverts are people who find other people tiring. Extroverts are energized by people, and wilt or fade when alone.”

You know who you are. We’ll call you Innies and Outies.

We Innies (yes, I’ll admit it) can find ourselves too cozied-up in the Hobbit-hole. I don’t know what it would feel like to be an Outie, but y’all seem to have all the fun!

So what happens when you mix and match Innies and Outies?

My daughter (I have so many!) was studying basic genetics and showed me a simple tool called a Punnett square. I also vaguely recall a Gestalt psychology concept of a “third field” as the separate personality resulting from a couple’s relationship. Heartily misapplying these tools in the service of pseudoscience, relationships between introverts and extroverts left to their own devices might result in:












Well, at least the II and EE couples can share rides and disk space.

In the IE and EI couples, the extrovert may not get the introvert’s need for space, and the introvert may not understand the extrovert's itch to get out there and mingle.

I think that a relationship between an Innie and an Outie can be wonderfully enriching when both are open-hearted. Not to change their core personalities, but for each to guide the other in experiencing (if briefly) the joys of solitude and the fun of social frolic that they might otherwise avoid.

Statistically, Innies are fairly likely to have an Outie friend, which (according to my calculations... scribble, scribble... carry the two...) should happen often: Innies, like anyone else, are more likely to be befriended by Outies, who are likely to befriend more, uh, friends of all kinds.

Lucky for us Innies indeed.

Another old joke:
Rock Star: “...Dunno. Guess I’m just not very introspective.”
BBC Interviewer: “Why do you think that is?”

--WF

p.s. Okay, you talked me into it:

Turquoise Ink Lasts 45 Years

Around the age when text gets blurry, some little loops in life clear up.

As kids in religious school we used cartridge pens with blue-black ink for our work, no exceptions, while our teacher used humiliation for his work. "You don't know the answer? Did you even study? Why should I keep wasting my time on you?" He managed to hate every one of us.

But his old-style fountain pen wrote in turquoise. It was an unearthly color in that gray room. I cared little about my grades or his approval -- I only wanted to get my papers back with that wonderful ink on them. I loved to look at that celestial blue; I simply could not reconcile it with that sour old man.

My daughter enjoys school. She's just discovered calligraphy and nib pens -- how smoothly she can write, how the ink pools darker in some letters, and how cool her writing looks from the back of the paper. She even hand-wrote an "authentic" 100 year old diary for a literature project. And when she bought herself a nice pen and an assortment of ink, of course she instantly loved the turquoise -- chattering about exactly what shade of sky or ocean or gem it matched.

So there are again papers around the house with that beautiful ink. But this time around, joy is a part of them.

--WF

So Hot I’m Infra-Red

(Nerdcore rap, y’all)

Gotta’ have my tool kit
Just to see what is what,
And to calculate what others
Can assess with their gut.
I say, keepin’ it objective

Will preclude lookin’ lame,

And I know just what to use
So I can get me some game.

This infrared thermometer
(To me it is new)
Shows all the hotter things as red
And cooler things as blue.
‘Cuz it works so well on houses
It should also measure women.
So I’ll aim it at a prospect
And appraise her heat emission.

Here’s the other tool essential
In my geek armory:
It is called a stud finder,
And it’s meant for carpentry.
But I use it looking in the mirror
To check my self out tight.
And I’ll try out all my moves
Until I get the LEDs to light.

Now I’m fully instrumented
For empirical data.
I’ll be hittin’ all the clubs --
Oh yeah, I’m gonna be playah.

--WF

p.s. Who’s up for a video?

Fractions

Speakers up, please:


Screen snaps of life to date, in thirds
(and fifths, if I were a major dude):

1/3: Clueless. Furry.
Freshman at an Ocean-View Science University.
Inspector at a company who built anything atomic that didn’t actually explode.
Yellow Triumph Spitfire,


red Alfa Giulietta Sprint.



First girlfriend (per se? soi-disant?)
and other discoveries.

2/3: Gormless. Style-free.
Engineer at an ossified firm still building



B.F. Skinner’s boxes.




Living with a smart, funny, neurotic woman
whom I let pull me away from the one
and into a decrepit house as high maintenance as she.

Yellow Volvo Amazon,



green Volvo P1800,



moribund sky-blue Sunbeam-Talbot, VW, MB, etc.

3/3: Guileless. Shopworn. Married.
General scribbling for people who build the Internet’s guts.
Small silver SUV, beige minivan
(but with custom wheels, chrome tailpipe,

and a “Zoom-Zoom” sticker!)


Lovely daughters who get good grades and play music.
Everyone is healthy.
Roof hardly leaks.
My contented siblings have grown kids,
and I have a couple of close friends.

Three parts make one whole.

--WF

The Morning After the Election

Morlocks: 1
Eloi: 0

p.s.
Gee, maybe it would be nice
for the trains to run on time.
Hand me my brown shirt...

Comfort Zone

"Corpus omne perseverare in statu suo quiescendi..."
-- Isaac Newton
(Every body persists in its state of being at rest...)

Three events recently bumped into me:

The New York Times published an article
on aging and the brain,
+
My daughter studied Newton's first law,
in which an object will stay at rest (or in motion)
until acted upon by an outside force.
+
A vibrant friend encouraged
public display of my musings.
=
Something ties them all together: Quoth The Times,
"...what scientists say best keeps a brain in tune:
get out of the comfort zone to push and nourish your brain."

I always try to fix things,
smooth the ways,
optimize,
make things easier for everyone.

So what happens if I achieve it?

I end up with habits,
doing things by rote and rhythm,
settling into a comfortable lull
in the land of the lotus eaters.
-->
So, all-righty then!
Here I am.
Outside my comfort zone.
Hungry brain reporting for nourishment.

--WF

p.s.
Story problem for extra credit:
If all three events crashed into me simultaneously,
per Sir Isaac's second law, what on earth is
my equal and opposite reaction?

Snow Day!

Due to the weather
we must temporarily relieve
the lugubrious tone.

Life's short. Let's dance!



--WF

p.s.
Conditions beyond our control require that we
lighten up a bit, dude!

Left Behind

I cut a hole in my house today.
I needed to know what that clown did when he built it.
And what’s more fun than taking things apart?

Lovely 50-year old bare wood
where insulation should be.
A sinuous copper pipe with subtle patina
carrying hot water through an unheated attic.
Two short wood beams made useful
by a few nails into pretending to be a rafter.

As though air, and heat, and snow
wouldn’t go
where the building inspector couldn’t see.

Yet there’s the plaster
beautiful thick smooth flat
with sharp square corners.
And the wood casings
cut and stained and polished
even inside the closets
far beyond the value
of the cheap doors and windows they surrounded.

The clown obviously subcontracted
to those craftsmen, long dead now.
The pride in their craft
left behind
to be appreciated.

--WF

p.s. You thought mebbe this was about Tim LaHaye’s
eschatology? Oy, have you got the wrong vampire.

Completeness Theorem

High
on the wall
of the downstairs hall
an electric box
with live supply
and wire nuts
and cover plate.
And in the upstairs hall its mate.

For no obvious reason
they're just there.
Mysteries since moving in 100 months ago.

Who cares? Ah, well...
The unimplemented taunts me.
Things want usefulness for closure.

So, so, so.

Needing new ones anyway,
I bought a pair of quality
line-powered smoke/CO alarms.
And tied their little pigtails to the AC.
And mounted them over the boxes.
And took the old ones off the ceilings.

And now it all looks right.

Completeness making manifest an inbuilt sense of order?
Or just making use of what's around?

Easy installation.
Note technique.

Apologia

My poor scribblings read
as much questions as tales.
Neither fast nor prolific am I.

Rough fodder for argument,
meant to amuse,
is the best that you'll get from this guy.

And even though dreadful at carving out time,
I will try to write something each day.

So caveat lector, me darlin's; read on
And I hope that you have a nice stay.

--WF

p.s. Dog or L? You decide.