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.

Conference in Knoxville

This is what a plate of bacteria look like after being infected with a water sample containing bacteriophages (viruses which exclusively infect their host bacteria). The clear spots (plaques) are where at least one bacteriophage has landed and started an infection which has grown to neighbouring cells.

Lab bench in Waterloo where I did column experiments on the attenuation of viruses and microspheres in sand.


Last week there was a conference in Knoxville, Tennessee for the Geological Society of America, southeastern division. I presented my masters research there and I had some good feedback from other grad students, professors and consultants as far away as New Hampshire and Ohio. It was quite difficult to discuss three years of research in 15 minutes, but with the help of my new supervisor (Dr. Larry McKay) I think we pulled it off.

I don't want to bog down this blog by posting the whole presentation but I will attach a few of the highlights.

Weekend in Atlanta with ex-U Waterloo-exchange Student Carine

I'll take two of those!

Downtown Atlanta, a very big, clean and beautiful City!

Stone Mountain

This is a huge Granitic Outcrop (also called a Pluton, an Intrusive Igneous Rock) several hundred metres high and over 2 km long. It jutts erratically out of the relatively flat terrain around Atlanta. It has been fully developed as a tourist attraction, complete with a pioneer village, Arial Tram and petting farm.

Hiking up the Pluton.

That's downtown Atlanta behind us.

Muskoka, Canada and the Trip to Knoxville, Tennessee

Brothers Brian and Graydon

I had to dig my car out of the snow!

Canyon in West Virginia

Downtown Knoxville along the Tennessee River

Baptist Hospital along the Tennessee River, Knoxville (I live behind the hospital)

London, England

Going into the London Ungerground

Museum of Natural History

London on the Thames River

Friends from Stuttgart

Parliment House, Big Ben and the London Eye

Sherlock Holmes Museum, 221B Baker Street

Nelson's Column, Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square

"I'm on my way to London Engaland"

Leipzig City Hall

Old Communist Style Architecture in Leipzig

My good friend Kurt who is a Missionary in Leipzig

(http://www.calvarychapelleipzig.de/index.htm)

Castle Wartburg in Eisenach (eastern Germany) where Martin Luther first translated the bible into every day language (from Latin) around 1530 ad. That room with the window is where he worked for two years on the project while being protected from the Pope's armies by local Royalty.

And that's my friend Rebecca who showed me a great time over Christmas with her family near Eisenach (the exciting village of Langula).

Typical landscape in eastern Germany. Flat, green and open.

If a Thesis was a home.

If a thesis was a home then the executive summary would be the door and the front of the house, with everything looking orderly and presentable. The introduction would be the front hall where the company (reader) takes off their coats and shoes to stay a while. The background chapter would be the living room where the host (author) makes the company feel at home and where they can see all the interesting books the host has read and nice pictures on the walls. The methods section is like the kitchen where one can see how everything is being done and the Results chapter is the dinner. The discussion and conclusions might be the bedrooms, since this is where the company must linger overnight to really get to know the home and the host better. The Appendix is definately the closets throughout the house where you are NOT SUPPOSE TO LOOK!

More musings about writing a thesis...I told you I lived in it these days!

Last Blog-cast from Stuttgart!

After going through 10,000 hurdles of red tape to get to stay here (University of Stuttgart, Township of Vaihingen, State of Baden-Württemberg, German Federal Government, Student Coopertative Residence, German National Pension Fund, University of Waterloo to name a few...). Today I had to go through some red tape to leave! Apparently my rental agreement stated that I was staying until the end of August, 2006. When I arrived in September I apparently signed a contract that I didn't look over very carefully...must have been the jet lag or the fact that I DIDN'T SPEAK GERMAN VERY WELL!

So they told me "You can't go".
I said "I'm going".
They said "Ok, but it's going to cost you 325 Euros".
I said "Fine, I'll argue another day when I don't have to submit a report to my supervisor while writing my thesis and travelling to Karlsruhe".

Jetzt auf Deutsch...
Sie haben gesagt "Du kannst nicht gehen".
Ich habe gesagt "Ich gehe".
Sie haben gesagt "Ok, aber es wird dich 325 Euros kosten".
Ich habe gesagt "Klar, ich werde mit der Hausmeister sprechen ein andere Tag wann ich müß nicht so viel erledigen wie heute."

So I guess they love me here, because they didn't want me to leave!

As my family and friends back in Canada know already, what's there not to love!

Pictures from the Last week in Stuttgart

Looking South West Towards Stuttgart from the Tower in Schwäbisch Hall

Sabine

Schwäbisch Hall nestled in a limestone Canyon in North east Baden-Würtemberg

The Last Days of Life in Stuttgart....

Well, time is winding down here in Stugitown. As I reflect on the last 3 months it feels more like a year as I sometimes have experienced or learned more things in a minute than an hour of life at home. I think the famous German pop singer Julie said it best "Sekunde werden Stunden" (seconds become hours). I love Stuttgart for its uniqueness, its hills and forests and their pride in the Mercedes Benz (a very good car) and Fantasische Vier (the fantastic 4) a crazy German Hip Hop band.

Inspite of some difficulties wrapping up my masters Thesis, I have come to fully appreciate the input (ok it's called criticism in the real world) of the Professors at U of Waterloo. The work has kept me on a tight leash here, but also made me focus and discipline myself, which is not bad, and made me really appreciate my friends here who make efforts to rescue me from my "arbeiters Gefängniss" (worker's prison). I have come to always more (immer mehr... I can't remember how to translate into English?) appreciate my family in Muskoka, Canada, who have looked out for me in many ways.

It is true that it is often in the hard times that we learn to have a sense of humor, the importance of friends and family, and make the greatest memories of all! If this sounds meloncholic I blame my Russian and Polish friends here for influencing me. For me, it is also in hard times that I learn to pray to God. So I thank Him for giving me such a great place to stay for a while and friends that have invited me into their homes and villages, introduced me to their families, and made great meals. To the people (in Hamburg and in France mostly) that I didn't get to visit this time, thank you for your invitations, I would have loved to visit every one of you for a week each (by then you might kick me out)!

Merry Christmas!

Cheers from the Canadian!

What do I do at the University of Stuttgart?

It has been asked several times "what am I doing in Germany anyway?" Other than travelling around and visiting friends and working of my thesis corrections this fall, I also have a day job. This is working on part of a big EU project called GLOWA (they love the acronyms here). I am responsible for incorporating huge (200,000 + lines !) amounts of data from Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria and Austria into one database and creating useful and attractive maps of certain "nutrients" in the groundwater of the Danube River. Very exciting! At the end of the project now, it is much more interesting at the beginning. I have found my travels around southern Germany have helped me understand the geology and societal uses of the land, which in turn helps in understanding why certain chemistry patterns persist in the groundwater of certain regions.

And you thought I was just playing here!

ROAD TRIP to Strasbourg II!

When one goes to France you have to where one of these hats.

This is what Jen looked like when she saw me again.

But things settled down after a few cups of Glühwein at the Noel de Marche.

Life around Baden-Württemberg, Thanksgiving, and Jutta's Birthday in Tennenbronn

Chilling out at my favourite bar in Stuttgart, Encheladas.

For a look at another of my roomates from Glen Forrest in Waterloo check out http://jendrik.blogspot.com/. This is a very high quality, professional blog, like everything Jendrik does.

House in Tübingen

Bebenhausen monestary near Tübingen

More monestary, I think this place is about 500 years old or so

Hiking in the nature reserve park behind the monestary. The sign says "Glaube mir, Du wirst mehr in Wäldern finden, als in Büchern. Bäume und Tiere werden Dich lehren, was kein Lehrmeister Dir zu hören gibt." or "Believe me, you will find more in forests than in books. Trees and animals will teach you, what no schoolmaster will tell you". They guy that said that was Bernhard von Clairaux in 1153.

Ken and Holly, our hosts for an awesome American Thanksgiving dinner with Turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie!

It was a very multicultural night with 20 or so people from the international masters program (WAREM) here at Uni Stuttgart. People in this picture are from England, Mexico, Poland, Germany and me, Canada.

Philip and Elawise

Molly the Bulldog

Strasbourg by night

Wolfgang and Katerina. We had some drinks in a several hundred year old pub.

Christian

Part of the Christmas Market in Stuttgart involves an extensive model train set up.

Tennenbronn. (sounds like "Tannenbaum" which is the word for Christmas Tree).

Jutta's home village.

Topfschlag is a popular kids game that we played. I felt like an idiot looking around for a tin pot somewhere under peoples chairs.

Jutta is trying to find a pot somewhere in the room where presents are hid underneath.

Hurray she found it!

Santa Claus visits Tennenbronn early this year.

Schamberg Castle near Tennenbronn where we did some climbing in the rain.