It’s official, I love food. I thought I just liked it a lot, but after really talking with people, I think I love it. I love going to grocery stores, I love cooking food, smelling food and finally eating food. My meals are one of the highlights of my day. Food is one of those special ways we interface with the world and with nature. If you think about it, most everything we eat was at one point alive, therefore eating is an especially rewarding communion with nature. As we nestle away in our buildings and sit in front of our computers for the better part of our lives, it’s nice to think about one of our last remaining portals to the natural world.
So naturally I’ve been cooking more lately and I’ve been enjoying it immensely. It’s funny… when I cook, everything kind of melts aware. Work worries evaporate away in sautés. The smell of onions and sizzling steak put to shame the recycled air of the office. The sound of sizzling is more stimulating than that of telecons.
I’m amazed to hear that people don’t like the cuisines of entire countries. Indian? Chinese? Mediterranean and Thai? I remember the exact restaurants I first had most of these, most were in Boston. The experience was as thrilling to me as walking out into that country personally. It was seared into my brain. Ok enough with the bad puns.
So yeah, I love food. What do I hate? I hate rushing through meals, overcooked food, ground beef and potato salad. I consider potato salad a form of prison food. It is bland, mostly condiment and often served cold. It is the most disgusting food I have ever eaten and I’ve had boiled chicken feet, cow tongue and eel liver soup. As for ground beef, beef is too perfect a meat to be treated in such a horribly demeaning way. Ground beef in the grocery store is a horrible cocktail of animal fat and a few dozen cow scraps. If I need ground beef for some unforeseen reason, I’m going to ask butcher to grind a roast.
My favorite foods? That’s REALLY hard to say. For some reason eggplant parmesan is amazing to me, it is my comfort food. I used to eat eggplant parm subs all the time in college. I love Jamaican jerk chicken, conch fritters from Belize as well as their coconut ice cream. The food in Belize by the way blew me away. Indian food is amazing as well as Mediterranean. Japanese food is great too but after going to Japan I’ve had both the best food I’ve had in my entire life and the strangest. The single best bite of food I’ve had in my entire life is a piece of toro (fatty tuna) in Kyoto. Sarah videotaped me eating it. It was food nirvana, my entire head was a taste bud.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Books
I just finished a book called “Rocket Men” and it was pretty good. I would describe it as a wonderful jumble of anecdotes.. and I do mean jumble. I like it, I really do, but it is completely schizophrenic. The author jumps wildly as he describes various parts of the program, the astronauts and the hardware of Apollo. Seriously, I think the author fell into a synclastic infundibulum in the 60s and just started writing. (Any Vonnegut fans out there?) Anyway, it was still good and I finished it because I’m determined to start finishing books. My former self may not have. He did do a good job of finding quotes from Neil and Buzz. It was amazing to read how they described the lunar dust as smelling like ashes from a freshly put out fire and how the lunar module jolted and bucked while it guided itself to lunar orbit. There are many more anecdotes like that that made it worth it. Overall the book helps to answer that question that we all ask but NEVER get a good answer from astronauts… what did it feel like to go up into space?
It was good to read a book glorifying space travel for a change. The press seems to be so negative about it lately, or I might just be sensitive about it. The thing about space travel is that it forces us to build basically perfect machines. Nothing else does this. Our cars are very reliable but if they break it is no big deal, we pull over and call a tow. Planes however are manufactured to a much higher tolerance and have much more redundancy. They simply have to be made better. The parts are looked at through x ray machines and tolerances are phenomenal. This is because if a plane breaks you are in trouble, you’ll have to land or you might die. Now spaceships are yet a whole other level. They are incredibly expensive because they are much more complex AND they have to be for all definitions perfect. If it breaks, then you almost certainly die. The outcome is hardware that is only beat in perfection by nature herself. Like some unnamed government official said during the launch of Apollo 11, if just a sliver of this engineering perfection makes its way into the industrial sector, it will have paid for itself. If that is not a practical reason for a spaceflight program, an R&D program that produces historic achievements, I don’t know what is.
All that being said I’m not in it for the practical reasons.
I've started a few more books including a cooking book by Alton Brown. It's awesome. He describes EVERYTHING about cooking. How does frying "work" on the food? What really happens when you cook meat? And how can you use all of this knowledge to become a master chef. It's the difference between just doing a recipe and understanding how that recipe came to be. It is for the curious.
It was good to read a book glorifying space travel for a change. The press seems to be so negative about it lately, or I might just be sensitive about it. The thing about space travel is that it forces us to build basically perfect machines. Nothing else does this. Our cars are very reliable but if they break it is no big deal, we pull over and call a tow. Planes however are manufactured to a much higher tolerance and have much more redundancy. They simply have to be made better. The parts are looked at through x ray machines and tolerances are phenomenal. This is because if a plane breaks you are in trouble, you’ll have to land or you might die. Now spaceships are yet a whole other level. They are incredibly expensive because they are much more complex AND they have to be for all definitions perfect. If it breaks, then you almost certainly die. The outcome is hardware that is only beat in perfection by nature herself. Like some unnamed government official said during the launch of Apollo 11, if just a sliver of this engineering perfection makes its way into the industrial sector, it will have paid for itself. If that is not a practical reason for a spaceflight program, an R&D program that produces historic achievements, I don’t know what is.
All that being said I’m not in it for the practical reasons.
I've started a few more books including a cooking book by Alton Brown. It's awesome. He describes EVERYTHING about cooking. How does frying "work" on the food? What really happens when you cook meat? And how can you use all of this knowledge to become a master chef. It's the difference between just doing a recipe and understanding how that recipe came to be. It is for the curious.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Math Class
I've started taking a math class and it's fun. Yeah I know that's nerdy but what can I say? I can't hide from it. Heck, I have two degrees from a notoriously technical university and work as an engineer in the aerospace industry. To be yourself is all that you can do.
So I was thinking, math is spooky. It is spooky how universal it is. It describes literally everything. The movements of stars, the behavior of light, the development of life, and the production of hurricanes. The whole shebang. I mean think about it, if you write a computer simulation about something in reality and it models it perfectly, what is the difference? It's like that story of the tribesman who got scared when you took their picture because they thought you were stealing their soul. Well seeing the math behind something is like that, it's like stealing its soul.
I started reading Penrose's epic physics tome "The Road to Reality". The first part is a little metaphysical but he basically divides reality into 3 parts; the mind, the physical world, and the abstract mathematical world. They are all connected in a very strange and nested way. It's like the self eating snakes Plato talked about called the Ouroboros. Plato used it as a symbol for something that kept re-creating itself in such a way that it was eternal. It does actually seem that way. The mind is a subset or part of the physical world. And the mathematical world is a part of the mind. But then the physical world seems to be a manifestation of the mathematical world.
What does that mean? Who knows. Maybe they are all connected in a deeper way we can't really see. Maybe they are all the same thing.
So I was thinking, math is spooky. It is spooky how universal it is. It describes literally everything. The movements of stars, the behavior of light, the development of life, and the production of hurricanes. The whole shebang. I mean think about it, if you write a computer simulation about something in reality and it models it perfectly, what is the difference? It's like that story of the tribesman who got scared when you took their picture because they thought you were stealing their soul. Well seeing the math behind something is like that, it's like stealing its soul.
I started reading Penrose's epic physics tome "The Road to Reality". The first part is a little metaphysical but he basically divides reality into 3 parts; the mind, the physical world, and the abstract mathematical world. They are all connected in a very strange and nested way. It's like the self eating snakes Plato talked about called the Ouroboros. Plato used it as a symbol for something that kept re-creating itself in such a way that it was eternal. It does actually seem that way. The mind is a subset or part of the physical world. And the mathematical world is a part of the mind. But then the physical world seems to be a manifestation of the mathematical world.
What does that mean? Who knows. Maybe they are all connected in a deeper way we can't really see. Maybe they are all the same thing.
Friday, August 14, 2009
The Terror
I just finished reading Dan Simmon’s epic The Terror. I consider it a feat to complete any book north of 700 pages! Needless to say, any book that keeps my interest for the long is epic. I loved this book. It was just the right blend of dreary macabre and introspective torment I’ve loved in the horror genre. This may sound crazy but horror is a great literary vehicle to reach true depth.
This by the way was a fascinating blend of history and the supernatural. Simmons chose to recount the experiences of the HMS Erebus and Terror while on their fateful journey through arctic wastelands in search of the Northwest Passage. They were iced in and subsequently spent a grueling few years at the edge of the world with very little provisions and competent leadership. The author adds to their misery but injecting a horrible “bear – like” creature that methodically stalks and terrorizes them. Through the entire book we are really never sure if the thing is just some crazed polar bear or something else entirely but amazingly you end up not caring. The true terrors and evil in the book are wrapped up in the unimaginably hostile environment and the relationships among the crew. The final mutiny and fracture of the crew are where the true horrors surface. This all sounds dark and hopeless but in the end I considered the book weirdly inspirational.
So, this “thing on the ice” is basically indestructible and endlessly able to resist detection. It gets a little old as it mercilessly devours members of the crew so when one man manages to escape from it after MUCH effort, it is moving. These men are forced to endure bitter cold, starvation, scurvy, an evil bear demon, and endless work as they abandon ship and haul their boats all around the arctic circle. I think it is these extraordinary circumstances that Simmons uses to show how noble and inspiring the human spirit can be and simultaneously into what horrible depths it can plummet. And towards the end of the book you realize hell is not that starving wasteland and the devil is not that thing on the ice.
This by the way was a fascinating blend of history and the supernatural. Simmons chose to recount the experiences of the HMS Erebus and Terror while on their fateful journey through arctic wastelands in search of the Northwest Passage. They were iced in and subsequently spent a grueling few years at the edge of the world with very little provisions and competent leadership. The author adds to their misery but injecting a horrible “bear – like” creature that methodically stalks and terrorizes them. Through the entire book we are really never sure if the thing is just some crazed polar bear or something else entirely but amazingly you end up not caring. The true terrors and evil in the book are wrapped up in the unimaginably hostile environment and the relationships among the crew. The final mutiny and fracture of the crew are where the true horrors surface. This all sounds dark and hopeless but in the end I considered the book weirdly inspirational.
So, this “thing on the ice” is basically indestructible and endlessly able to resist detection. It gets a little old as it mercilessly devours members of the crew so when one man manages to escape from it after MUCH effort, it is moving. These men are forced to endure bitter cold, starvation, scurvy, an evil bear demon, and endless work as they abandon ship and haul their boats all around the arctic circle. I think it is these extraordinary circumstances that Simmons uses to show how noble and inspiring the human spirit can be and simultaneously into what horrible depths it can plummet. And towards the end of the book you realize hell is not that starving wasteland and the devil is not that thing on the ice.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Lunch
This is a pretty mundane post to follow up my last but I've decided to start posting more. The new house has a great kitchen and it has inspired me to cook more. Lunch today also did.
I had a Caribbean jerk chicken sandwich for lunch today and it S U C K E D. It was described as a Caribbean jerk chicken Sandwich with black beans and banana mustard on a multigrain bun. Sounds exotic and interesting right? Filled with all kinds of tangy spices and flavors? Sounds like it would add some zing to this engineer’s desk job? Transport him to the island of sun and reggae?
It was the biggest bun of suck I’ve ever had to eat.
The chicken was in big chunks, VERY cold (think ice cube cold) and barely covered with a kind of jerk sauce. By barely I mean I could only taste the sauce my dipping my finger into the drops that fell off the sandwich into my tray. This chicken made deli meat taste like filet mignon. In fact, I’d rather have eaten expired sliced ham.
The roll it was on was way too big, extra dry and bland beyond belief. It had the consistency more of a fabric and I think I remember hearing the sound of fabric ripping as I bit through each pitiful bite. The experience was like taking giant bites of a bready brick that tasted like sand.
The only interesting thing was the “banana mustard” which just tasted exactly like mashed bananas with no mustard. I was lucky enough to taste the banana mash once every 5 bites. Those tiny bursts of flavor were torture. They made me realize there was a world out there of tastes and warm food. I think the coldness of the sandwich made my tongue go numb, that or I had probably swallowed it along with all my taste buds upon starting this suck-wich.
I give it a 3 out of 10. It has 1 point because it was completely cooked and the bread was not rotten. It gets 2 points because I was no longer hungry after completing the sandwich.
I had a Caribbean jerk chicken sandwich for lunch today and it S U C K E D. It was described as a Caribbean jerk chicken Sandwich with black beans and banana mustard on a multigrain bun. Sounds exotic and interesting right? Filled with all kinds of tangy spices and flavors? Sounds like it would add some zing to this engineer’s desk job? Transport him to the island of sun and reggae?
It was the biggest bun of suck I’ve ever had to eat.
The chicken was in big chunks, VERY cold (think ice cube cold) and barely covered with a kind of jerk sauce. By barely I mean I could only taste the sauce my dipping my finger into the drops that fell off the sandwich into my tray. This chicken made deli meat taste like filet mignon. In fact, I’d rather have eaten expired sliced ham.
The roll it was on was way too big, extra dry and bland beyond belief. It had the consistency more of a fabric and I think I remember hearing the sound of fabric ripping as I bit through each pitiful bite. The experience was like taking giant bites of a bready brick that tasted like sand.
The only interesting thing was the “banana mustard” which just tasted exactly like mashed bananas with no mustard. I was lucky enough to taste the banana mash once every 5 bites. Those tiny bursts of flavor were torture. They made me realize there was a world out there of tastes and warm food. I think the coldness of the sandwich made my tongue go numb, that or I had probably swallowed it along with all my taste buds upon starting this suck-wich.
I give it a 3 out of 10. It has 1 point because it was completely cooked and the bread was not rotten. It gets 2 points because I was no longer hungry after completing the sandwich.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Life
I decided a long time ago not to make this blog too personal. Well, there are some things in one's life that you just cannot hide, nor would you want to. They are wonderful things that have the power to change you, mold you and in a sense, redirect you. It's an amazing time for me and I thought I'd like to share.
So here are a few of them.
I married the love of my life two months ago. It was a beautiful day and it has quickly seated itself as one of my happiest memories. A simple thought back to that day and everything else pales. Strangely it comes to me only in bright and emotional bursts like only my most cherished memories do. They are full of wonderful flashes of family and friends, love and laughter, and of course my beautiful bride. I will hold on to them dearly and can't wait to add to them.
We are also about to buy a new house. It is our first house and we have seen it built from the ground up. It's been a long time but tomorrow we go to close on it. It's hard to believe it is almost ours! Especially for me because my family did not have alot of money growing up. I lived with my grandparents and various houses as a child. In fact, I clearly remember thinking I wanted to buy a "nice brick house with central air and heat". Well it has happened and to top it off, my wife and I get to start our lives together in it.
I also changed my job earlier in the year. I moved to a group that I thought I might be able to grow into better. There are transition issues as with anything but nothing too serious. It is challenging and interesting and somewhere where I could be allowed to fully pursue my technical interests.
I am not a religious man but I am spiritual, and I am thankful.
So here are a few of them.
I married the love of my life two months ago. It was a beautiful day and it has quickly seated itself as one of my happiest memories. A simple thought back to that day and everything else pales. Strangely it comes to me only in bright and emotional bursts like only my most cherished memories do. They are full of wonderful flashes of family and friends, love and laughter, and of course my beautiful bride. I will hold on to them dearly and can't wait to add to them.
We are also about to buy a new house. It is our first house and we have seen it built from the ground up. It's been a long time but tomorrow we go to close on it. It's hard to believe it is almost ours! Especially for me because my family did not have alot of money growing up. I lived with my grandparents and various houses as a child. In fact, I clearly remember thinking I wanted to buy a "nice brick house with central air and heat". Well it has happened and to top it off, my wife and I get to start our lives together in it.
I also changed my job earlier in the year. I moved to a group that I thought I might be able to grow into better. There are transition issues as with anything but nothing too serious. It is challenging and interesting and somewhere where I could be allowed to fully pursue my technical interests.
I am not a religious man but I am spiritual, and I am thankful.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Speed and Innovation
I bought yet another video game for the PS3 the other day. It’s called Killzone 2 and it is amazingly fun. One thing that blew me away were the graphics. Now, these are good, some of the cut CG scenes look like reality… but better. Like a brighter more dramatically and visually stunning reality. I am floored by the progress in the video game industry. It’s programmers are running neck and neck with computer hardware processing power and speed. They create an incredibly complex simulation complete with physics and artificial intelligence. They are free to imagine any world they wish, any game mechanic, any situation as long as it sells. No limitations. It’s only going to get better. If I could invest, it would be in this industry. The game I bought was developed for about 30 million dollars. Someday soon, it will rival the movie industry. Even in this economic climate, the game industry has only expanded.
Anyway it got me thinking about computers and the electronics industry in general. There is just no stopping it, the progress in this field is blistering. There are no checks, it’s just the free market running like crazy. No government agency to say this or this is unsafe. No entity to monitor anything really. I mean electronics may control critical things but the electronics industry itself has no resistance from anything. Other high tech industries do… Aerospace and Medical for instance.
Over simplified maybe but that’s the idea. So what is the future full of? Doctors? Pilots? Engineers?
Programmers.
Anyway it got me thinking about computers and the electronics industry in general. There is just no stopping it, the progress in this field is blistering. There are no checks, it’s just the free market running like crazy. No government agency to say this or this is unsafe. No entity to monitor anything really. I mean electronics may control critical things but the electronics industry itself has no resistance from anything. Other high tech industries do… Aerospace and Medical for instance.
Over simplified maybe but that’s the idea. So what is the future full of? Doctors? Pilots? Engineers?
Programmers.
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