penn

See Me, Save Me

Back in undergrad (two years ago now), I took an outdoor skills class. I enjoy doing stuff outside, and I figured it was a good way to learn more about camping.

In the class, our instructor, Chad, was big on little things that can make a big difference, survival wise. We talked a lot about carrying items that had more than one use, and he insisted that we carry all quick-dry clothing (cotton retains water and can be dangerous if it gets cold and rainy). He had a lot of funny, quick slogans, like "Cotton kills!" and "If you're not peeing, you're not having fun," (to ward off dehydration).

One favorite phrase was "see me, save me!" The premise is that a piece or two of brightly colored clothing could save your life while hiking. For starters, quick identification as a human could keep you from being shot if you happen to hike through an open hunting area. Second, being easily identifiable can be a big assistance to search and rescue crews if you're ever lost.

If you incorporate your "see me, save me" item into your wardrobe, you get double duty: you've got your piece of clothing, and it also comes in handy for life savings.

I carry a red bandanna with me when I go hiking as one piece, but my favorite see me, save me clothing is my green fleece jacket. While it has faded from the initial very bright "Margarita" green it was when I purchased it, I still think it serves its purpose:

Photo taken in Glacier Nat'l Park last summer as I was moving cross-country. This jacket can be seen in a huge chunk of my traveling/camping photos.

Random Musing

Even though I know better, I usually think "Ar-Kansas" when reading to myself.

So sad, so true

Wikipedia: biggest time waster in the history of the internet (after livejournal, natch).

I spend too much time on the internet, I think

But this youtube video was too funny to pass up. It speaks to my love of humor and popculture references (note: I'm not really that good at making pop culture references. I think I'm more excited about knowing a few of those references than anything else).

Beautiful Poem: In a Station of the Metro

In a Station of the Metro, by Ezra Pound

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

Video Game Workout

The much-lauded Wii seems to be a fine piece of equipment. I haven't had the opportunity to use one yet, sadly, but I'm hoping to get one of my own sometime in the next yearish. They seem like a lot of fun, and some people have even put them to good use as an exercise regimen.

For those of my readers in the dark, the Wii is the new gaming console by Nintendo. The cool, revolutionary thing about the Wii is that it uses a motion sensor bar to allow users to play games with full body motion. Technically speaking, the games don't *require* full body motion, since they only sense controller movement. Rather, I suppose it's more accurate to say the game allows for full body motion play.

WiiNintendo has a story by a reader who started a workout regimen using his Wii. In 6 weeks, he lost 9 pounds by playing Wii Sports (the included Wii game) for half an hour a day. I must say that I'm pretty darn impressed. I don't think I can lose nine pounds in six weeks of running for 90 minutes a week, so it's sweet that 210 minutes a week of video games resulted in such a nice loss.

Since I don't own a Wii, I obviously can't begin a fitness regimen with one. However, I do own a gamecube, and I own one game that allows for full body motion: Mario DDR. It's Nintendo's version of the game parlor hit Dance Dance Revolution. I spent 45 minutes or so playing tonight, and I definitely got a workout. Even better, it didn't feel like 45 minutes; in typical fashion, I got into the game playing aspects, and the time passed by quickly.

I definitely think Mario DDR would be good to incorporate into my regular routine. Right now, I'm playing decently well on normal mode. Instead of trying to hit time/weight/whatever guidelines, I think I'm just going to aim for beating it. Honestly, with my love of video games, that's a goal I can get behind.

Things I took for granted at my parents' house

Since moving in here, I've done a lot of little things. Unlike in college, my place didn't come furnished and didn't have tons of storage (I was freakishly luckily in college that the dorm rooms and apartments were built with students in mind and included all sorts of little areas to store things and hide stuff). During the course of my "modifications," I've found several things I miss that I used to take for granted.

-> A station wagon. My dad has a station wagon, and it's wonderful for moving big stuff. I haven't gotten anything off craigslist free purely because I don't have much room in my car (admission: it might help if I cleaned out my trunk. I could probably fit a bookshelf or a coffee table in my car if the trunk didn't have a bunch of stuff in it).

-> An extension cord. I live in a house of 6 people, and we don't own an extension cord. I can't even believe it. Once I finally get dressed today, I'm going out to buy a good 12-foot cord.

-> Power tools. I haven't bit the bullet on these yet, but at some point in time, I think I'll have to buy myself a drill and some sort of saw item. I'd like to build items of furniture (since I'm all picky), but I don't have anything to build it with. I also have very little acumen, so . . .

-> my dad is another item I miss. Aside from the company and family togetherness stuff, I miss having my dad to help me think about efficient ways to utilize space. I have a feeling that my room would flow much better if my dad had helped my put everything together. The room works fine . . . but it's sometimes hard to find my things, and I don't have a good place to store everything. I really want to find a space next year that would work well with more bookshelves, since another 7 foot bookshelf (in addition to the one 7 foot and one 4 foot shelves I already have) would really come in handy.

I'm back to continuing putting plastic on the windows. It's proven to be a big pain (mostly because the miniblinds on some windows cover the top bit of the sill, so I've got to do some work arounds). Some windows are too big for the plastic I have, so I'm trying to decide if I should buy bigger pieces or try and splice two pieces together. All this window nonsense reminds me of the last two things I really miss:

-> energy efficient double paned windows that keep heat from leaking out of the house (and, while I'm on the heat leak issue, it would be nice to have insulated walls. I didn't know it was legal to build a house without insulating the walls).

-> a programmable thermostat so that we could turn the heat down at night and during the day yet still have it decently warm for waking up and early evening.

Two types of people

It's often remarked that there are two types of people in this world. Then, the speaker goes on to propose two groupings that can be made (and generally adds a value judgment to one group or the other). Sometimes the speaker is right, but there can often be gray zones within the groupings.

Tonight, tho, I did think of two groups that most Americans can be split into. You've got the type of people who wait for someone to enter the house when they drop someone off and the type of people that drive away while the person is still walking to the door.

Most of the time, I'm a waiter. You want to make sure your friend made it in safely. If I regularly drop a friend off and know that s/he'll be safe, I don't think I wait, but I generally like to watch the friend enter the house and wave goodbye. It's just nice to know that you haven't left someone to sit on the doorstep due to a missing key.

I'm trying to think if being a non-waiter or a waiter says something about the driver's personality. I don't think all non-waiters are thoughtless or anything. I've got several nice friends who are non-waiters. I think it's mostly a timing/attitude issue. If you assume your friends are self-reliant, and you'd like to get home, there's no real reason to wait. How often do people really have an issue getting into their home anyway?

Then again, waiting is nice. It says that you care about the person and want to ensure the person's safety. I can't think of a downside here, unless you think that the waiter is over-protective.

On the subject of cars, there's another arbitrary split you can make (especially when dealing with older or more basic cars). There are those people who unlock the passenger door first and those people who unlock the driver's door first. If you're dealing with the former, there are also passengers who stay put and passengers who lean over and unlock the driver's door. One of my English teachers used to warn guys never to go on a second date with a woman that didn't lean over and unlock his door (or at least try) before the guy got to it. I'm an unlocker, and I've had several guys impressed that I had the presence of mind to return the favor of having my door unlocked. (note: I don't generally unlock the passenger door first, but that's because I've got remote keyless entry. But I have unlocked the passenger door first when opening someone else's car). Thankfully, my English teacher's suggestion has earned me big bonus points.

So, readers, what are your thoughts on these "two different kinds of people" issues? Merited thoughts, or lame? Any judgment on the non-waiters? What about the unlockers?

PS Judgment is properly spelled without the middle e. It's a word I consistently spell wrong (doesn't offer occur -- to be fair, I used to spell definitely wrong all the time). Now that firefox has spellcheck, I'm able to catch regular errors I make.

Gas Mileage stats

In June 2005, I bought a car. It's a 2004 Toyota Corolla. In a fit of nerdiness, I decided to track my gas usage in this new car. A year and a half later, I've got some good, basic data. Perhaps I'll be able to give better stats after this semester of studying advanced statistics, but I've got some simple stuff right now.

In this year and a half, I have:

- driven ~16,650 miles
- used ~517 gallons of gas
- spent ~ $1350 on gas (!!)

Some caveats: I did loan my car out a few times. Once or twice, someone else obviously put more gas in without writing anything down (this was a happy little surprise, as I didn't know people had given me more gas. yay!). Therefore, the numbers are approximate, and the gas mileage for two tanks was skewed upward. Still, remember that we're working with approximates. Additionally, I spent a good chunk of miles here driving across the country (~3000). During almost all those miles, I pulled a trailer, and that made my gas mileage dip.

Turns out that my average gas mileage is ~ 32 mpg. On longer trips with no trailer, I can get that number closer to 40 by watching my RPM. My in-town mileage seems to be about 19-30 mpg, depending on how far I go in town (in Gold Beach, my in-town mileage was horrible because my car never had the chance to warm up. I'm glad I minimized my trips there by only driving to and from work).

I also figured that I spend about 8 cents a mile on gasoline. Not too shabby, since I got reimbursed at the rate of 40 cents a gallon when I got paid by work (of course, that's also supposed to include insurance and maintenance).

I wish I'd kept better track of what kind of driving I was doing on each tank. I started out doing that, but I gave it up after it got hard to remember (especially in Seattle, where I did a mix of driving types) when I was only filling up once or twice a month).

It seems, according to my chart, that my gas mileage varies widely. I wonder how much of that is statistical artifact versus actual truth. Also, it appears that filling up my tank more often gives me lower mileage numbers -- the majority of my poor mpg tanks appear to be ones where I filled up when my tank was only 1/4 down. Overall, I find the range of numbers strange, and I'm not sure why stop and go driving (which occurred fairly often in Seattle, especially when driving to Mariners games) didn't hurt my tank anywhere near as much as in-town driving in Gold Beach appeared to.

I will continue to take more data, and I think I'll add a new column for type of driving. I'm interested to watch those numbers and see how they continue to change over time.

Back in Michigan . . .

I am sitting in the science library at the University of Michigan. I'm trying to get back into the groove of being at school, but my mind is still stuck in holiday mode.

I had a really good time at home. Despite the fact that I love to see new places, home is really the only place I want to travel right now. This will hopefully get better as I settle into Michigan more, but I still feel like a visitor here. I'm trying to remember how long it took me to settle into living in Oregon . . .

During my time at home, I mostly hung out around Mt. Rainier (at the cabin my family rented) and spent time lazing around my parents' house. I played some frisbee on Capitol Hill with my camp friend Boone, and I went to a New Year's Party in Bellevue. While at home, I mostly played video games, card games, and board games with my family (we even got my mom to play Mario Kart!).

Class started today. It seems like I'll have a busy but educational semester. I'm taking community ecology from my advisor. That's mostly lots of reading and paper writing (and no tests! yay! Mostly because every class will be like a test, since the class is half based in discussion). I'm also taking advanced evolution. It will be a good challenge, since I haven't ever taken evolution in a formal sense. I'm also taking a statistics class, and I'll be doing an independent reading course with one of the profs here. Between those four things, teaching, and trying to develop a research plan for this summer, I anticipate that I will be crazy busy.

Anyway, back to work for me. I just wanted to appraise my readers of the goings on around here.