Fort Collins

In Fort Collins for the weekend, spending time with my little sister, Cassie (or Cassandra as I am not told) and her husband-to-be Corey. For those of you who know the family, here are some updates, in photos.

Corey. Soon to be a member of the family. Has a truck that sometimes runs and a bike that sometimes runs.

Cassie. Difficult to photograph due to not liking it. Soon to be adding another member to the family, little Thomas Aquinas. At least that's who I assume she's naming him after.

Linda. Amazing vocabulary. I've never seen anything like it.

Joel. It looks like a smile, but it's not. Actually a breathing technique picked up from Alberto Contador.

Jumping in Rocky Mountain National Park. We also saw some elk. They are large.

Dementor

I refer you to my other half for comments.

Update

I've been MIA at blog city recently, or rather, at this particular one. I've been visiting relatives over at the Black Mountain Blog, getting as much done on the guide as possible before the season ends.

Oh yea, and philosophy. Lots of philosophy. I just finished a draft of a major paper, and even got a shout out on the illustrious Splintered Mind.

Perhaps I will stay here for a while, now that I'm sick of bouldering and the major philosophical thoughts are out of my head...but we'll see.

Miss Photogenic

This is Amna. She's amazing. Here she is at Mickey's Beach, photo compliments of Jim Thornburg. He's a good photographer.

Friday Chancellor Blogging

Every Friday, the head of my university, Chancellor White, sends out an email on the state of the campus, sort of like FDR's fireside chats I suppose, but, well... you'll see. At first I discounted the emails, but they appear to be consistently funny, so perhaps it will be a routine. Last week he gave us this gem:

"On the other hand, families to whom this is the second or third child often do a drive-by drop off! These parents are at greatest risk of getting a speeding ticket going home, as they can’t wait to get back and re-purpose their child’s room for something else!"

Of course there's no word on the budget, or the UC-wide walkout by instructors, TAs, and professors in protest of budget cuts and furloughs. No, instead we get this. I don't even understand it. Is he really making a generalization about parents with multiple college grads? They get speeding tickets and throw away they're kid's trophies - I hate multi-collegiate parents, they're all a bunch of jerks. And give me an article before "greatest risk," please.

This week we get a stream of consciousness vignette:

"On my way to the Town Hall, I interrupted a student walking and asked how her school year was starting. “Oh, just fine,” said this sophomore in Political Science. I queried back a little, and she offered that she was flummoxed by a required book being sold-out for a large lecture class… a serious student I concluded privately. And then she confessed she was very concerned about the rising costs and her financial aid… she couldn’t see a path forward yet… a pallor of worry came visibly over her as we concluded our chance meeting. As we parted, I wished her well with her journey as she put her earphones back in… the seriousness of that plaintive moment hit me hard and sticks."

It's too bad that he was beaten hard with sticks, but that's what happens when you let the MS Word thesaurus get out of control..."I queried back a little"... "she offered that she was flummoxed"... "a pallor of worry came visibly over her." Attack of the thesaurasaurus, seriously... and why all the dots?

The purpose of the story? Please, tell us. "This sophomore’s story is an example of why our UCR-2020 plan will be so instrumental for sustaining excellence as we refine and pursue our aspirational vision." I couldn't have said it better myself... I've always needed help to sustain my excellence as I refine and pursue my aspirational vision... and it's like this EVERY WEEK!

Thusday Story Blogging

This summer I read the entire collected fiction of Jorge Luis Borges, an Argentinian author from the early/mid 20th century who dealt philosophical themes.

Today we have the short story "The Disk." Read it. It's fun and doesn't take long. A woodcutter meets a beggar who claims to possess the Disk of Odin, an object with "but one side." The woodcutter kills the beggar, but in the process the Disk falls to the ground, up-side-down (or perhaps "only-side-down"). The woodcutter is never able to find it.

What would it mean to be a three dimensional object with only one side? In the afterward, Borges calls the Disk the Euclidean circle "which has but one face," but what does this mean? The Euclidean circle is just a two dimensional circle, like the kind you can draw on a piece of paper. In the two dimensional world (since this is where the circle lives), it has no faces since the face we see is on the plane of the z axis.

But consider this. Draw a circle on a piece of paper, a light circle with a pencil, and then turn the piece of paper over. Magic, the circle is gone. This is a cheap trick, since you can still see the paper that the circle is drawn on, but this is a start. Now imagine that the circle isn't drawn on a piece of paper, but just is (or that it's drawn on an invisible paper). If you were to turn it over in this case, the circle would appear to vanish, since you would have lost the background on which it is drawn that makes the everyday circle-on-a-paper case so trivial.

That's what I can get out of this - my take on 3D objects with but one side. Thoughts?

World Cup

Via climbingnarc, a side by side by side look at 1-2-3 in the Puurs world cup. Check out the different climbing styles. Adam Ondra doesn't just beat them, he p00wnes them.

Phil Twitter

Famous philosophers in one sentence. Example:

Plato: Symposium 2nite 7pm, @ The Cave. Open mike, open bar. Under 21 admitted free.

Ruminations on Kneebars

I'm working on getting my life back together, so this must be short. Here's a shitty video of me crawling up Rasta Roof (8A) in Rocklands. Check out that kneebar over the head. I'd recommend skipping the end, since it goes on and on and on...

Re-Patriated

I'm back in SoCal now, jet lagged in a nasty way and not used to the heat. I'm ready to be back, but couldn't the weather have been a little more inviting. Cheers to Chris for trudging out to LAX for the pick up. I've been reading short stories, so I expect some of them to pop up here soon...