A Walk through Zinal

This is a village in Valais, one of the french speaking Cantons in Switzerland. I miss it, even though when I was there, I was feeling quite alone. After my friend dropped me off there, I found a bed and breakfast and went to bed early (9 pm) to prepare myself for the climb the next day when I would get up at 7 am. For those of you who know me, this is an ungodly hour for me.

This village and surrounding peaks were incredibly beautiful! After getting up at 7 am and packing my small backpack I walk through the sleep village of Zinal towards the glacier and Besso the main peak in the background of this picture.

The snow had fallen overnight, it was in late September, the low season for this ski/resort town, where hiking is dangerous because of frequent snow storms and skiing isn't yet feasible. I walked along a river for a couple km towards a deep canyon. Beyond that was a glacier and the base of Besso.

There is something about the Swiss culture in the Alps that wraps me up in its hundreds of years of rich tradition. The feeling comes back to me when I see a picture from there. Makes me feel secure and stable. I know that these deep cultural roots will not be so easily altered.

On the other hand, North America has a feeling of searching to me, of a more equal blending of many cultures. Canada's history is short indeed, and the future is wide open and still maleable. It's exciting to be part of a culture where the choice is still in our hands to decide what will be important about our people.

A New Hope?

"If NASA gave me the chance to go to Mars, even though I wouldn't come back and have to die there, I would go", said Craig my next door grad student in Earth and Planetary Sciences at University of Tennessee. This topic had not so randomly arisen since Craig is doing his Phd on Mars. At this point in time, NASA is fully capable of sending a manned mission to Mars, what they lack is the funding. However, if that trip were to be a one way trip, it would be much cheaper. So I have heard of crazy people that are willing to die for such a journey, but today, I met one! And what makes matters more complicated for me, this guy doesn't seem crazy and he has a lot to loose here on earth. A graduate of Georgia Tech, a sweet girlfriend, rosy career prospects since he works with a leading world expert on Martian geology.

He has wanted this since he was a boy and explained that he put a lot of thought into it. His theory is that humans have got to colonize other planets in order to have a hope for survival. Rather than a anthro-centric (I made that word up) view of humans, Craig believes that we may be the only concious life in the Universe (or Galaxy) capable of comprehending basic laws of nature, and this makes us very special.

He has a point I think. However, it was depressing for me to think of leaving my friends and family behind to go and die alone on a planet for a bunch of data. I find it hard enough to work a whole weekend when I have to instead of going out with friends or going to Starbucks (which may be the closest to the stars I ever get). Is this a saviour, messiah complex? That one dying for the good of humanity is worth the cost? Craig doesn't see it that way. He is driven from something within him. What is the source of this drive? Concern? Curiosity? Love?

Whatever the reason, I felt that I lacked something, or had too much of things. I revel in life. I feel like a decadent Philistine now. I have no desire to sacrifice myself for the good of many. I think that if I do my job well and am a good boy, I won't have to and everyone wins! And if I have to drive a whole hour for a research field site, it pretty much rules it out for me. I've lost this idealism (or is it realism?). I'm a businessman academic. A pirate on the seas of journal articles, looking to pull together some ideas and make a killing someday.

Craig and I both recognize that nature needs to be utilized (exploited, managed) for humans to prosper. There is a difference though. While I hope to win big and so I work towards that prospect of opportunity, Craig is willing to die in the process and let others benefit from his success. I want to revel in my success, in the pleasures or status boosts that come from speaking in front of a room full of experts in your field. He believes in what he does so much, he is willing to lose his life for it. The only paralell I could think of would be the Curies, who, in the process of discovering radioctivity, inadvertantly lost their lives.

I would miss Craig too. He doesn't talk much, but he's really good at Halo on X-box, (which means I always loose...wait a sec....).

Is this how the dinosaurs went extinct?

I was thinking maybe this is how the dinosaurs went. They started standing out instead of blending in. You can see the look of disapproval over my left shoulder in the face of an Opa (German for Grandpa). Society sends me mixed messages about this, should I stick out or blend in? One thing's for sure, if I was a dinosaur I would be dead by now.

In the mood for data

Sometimes I just love crunching data, when a spreadsheet of numbers turns into a playground for me. This must be an engineer/scientist thing. Tonight I want to start a Soil Science assignment and I'm so happy that there is data to crunch. T-tests, variances, the ultimate high is multi-variate non-linear regression. All this listening to Robbie Williams to set the right mood.

Machu Picchu

No I wasn't here, but I bet you wish you were too! I think those Incas were seriously out trying to impress someone, maybe their rival civilization in the north, the Mayans. Whatever it was they were probably overachievers and workaholics and died out from stress related diseases like heart attacks and insomnia. Who needs buildings that will outlive your needs by 1000 years? This is why I live in cheap student housing and use disposable dishes.

Scandalous pre-affairs and a novel scoring system for dating

These are friends of mine who will kick my a_ _ when they see that I posted this pic.

"Peter what is that look in your face?" was the beginning of the end of a growing attraction for a friend of mine who studied Journalism in Stuttgart. The first time in 27 years that I had been pre-rejected. Before this I didn't even know it was possible. She read me before I read myself and knew that at some point in the future I would make a move. So what did she do? Shut me down! I could blame it on the fact that my thoughts were distracted by writing my thesis or trying to function with the German culture and language, but at the end of the day I have to admit I took it hard. It is like she didn't even taste the goods before saying "no thanks". Take that any way you want. Now I know that anything is possible in this crazy universe!

Fast forward 2 months to Christmas, 2005

While sitting in a bar in Swinging London's West End with Philip and Eloise, we devised a scoring system for dating. The idea started with Philip's observation on human nature "you know, you always feel better about yourself when you break up with someone than when you are broken up with". If you get one point for breaking up with someone but minus one for getting broken up with then you can figure out if you are in the positives or negatives and get some insight into how you should be feeling or your dating ego if you will. I still remember racking my brain over the last 15 years of my dating life counting the rejections that I had handed out and received. For a while I was in the negatives, but after the evening wore on I kept remembering occasions where I had done the rejecting. I actually stood up and yelled "I'm a plus two!" when I got there. Philip congratulated me by buying a round of beers.

We also decided that there must be some people are at the extremes. This came from the familiar high school experience of that girl that seems to break the heart of every guy that came within a 10 m radius of her. It is a fact, some girls are in the positive 3 digits. It follows logically that some guys receive more than their fair share of rejections, and are down in the basement. Does the distribution of this ration follow a normal distribution, such that for example, 66 % of the population lies between +/- 10. Or is it assymetric, with the average centred on -5, made so by the few girls out there breaking hearts their entire lives.

From my experience, although I have dated at least two or three of those super-heartbreakers (> +50), I have never met anyone with - 50, that has admitted it that is.

So go ahead and calculated your dating quotient. And don't forget that if you are in the negatives you can always go find someone to break up with that will make you feel better about yourself. And don't worry about them, this gives them valuable experience so they can start winning at some point in the future.