On random bits

So I guess I have a few random thoughts to throw out there and try to hash out. Feel free to help, those of you who have not given up on my blog:

THOUGHT THE FIRST: I have a silly e-crush on some blogger named editorgirl. Apparently a friend of Amanda's, she has a nice blog with a creative name and interesting and regular posts. In my estimation, she's an attractive writer--that is to say, she writes attractively. Whatever that means. Silly e-crush.

THOUGHT THE SECOND: My friend Erin asked me last night how much longer I have in my MA program here at George Mason. Usually when people ask that, I give a nebulous answer akin to the Israelite "40 years" approximation. But I actually thought it out last night and realized that if I keep my current pace, I have five more semesters, including the Spring 2008 semester that starts in January. So that's two and a half more years. If I take one course during the summer for the rest of my MA program, that eliminates one semester, making it an even two years left. That would make for a grand total of three years in the MA history program at GMU. I can manage that.

But what next? Perhaps I'm a little ahead of myself, but I've been thinking already about where to go for my Ph.D. I'm assuming, first of all, that two more years of juggling full-time work with part-time school won't make me swear off academia forever. I'm assuming that I'll have been wise in those two years and saved and invested enough to be able to plausibly quit my job and be a full-time doctoral candidate. And I'm assuming that Ph.D programs will want me.

Just to throw this out there (that's what this post is all about, after all), I think that the ideal place for me right now is Rutgers University's American Studies Ph.D program. It'll be just like a history program, really, with the path I would take. And Rutgers Newark has, get this, the Institute of Jazz Studies, which, according to their website, is "the largest and most comprehensive library and archive of jazz and jazz-related materials in the world." Guh.

So I'd do a doctorate in American Studies where I could interdiscipline myself in 20th century American history with some cultural and musical studies. Throw in a little early-to-mid-20th century literature, and I'd be golden. You could all call me Doctor Jazz.

THOUGHT THE THIRD: I finally got my license plates last night from the dealership up in Silver Spring. I didn't know they weren't going to let me choose my license plate design. I mean, I didn't want to spell anything fancy or anything like that, but they gave me the plain old white plates, when I would have prefered the ship. The ship!

So anyway, the real issue here is a matter of obsessive compulsion. When I was a lad, my mom and I would play a game where we'd make words out of the letters on license plates of other cars on the road. The only rule was that you had to maintain the order of the letters. You got extra points if you could find two words: one that started with the initial letter in the series, and one where the initial letter was not the first letter of the word. For example, if the letters on the plate were HTL, you would say "hotel" and then "shuttle" for the bonus.

My license plate letters are KFF. I'm having some trouble making words. The best I've come up with so far is "kickoff," but you all know I'm not really a football fan.

Moments in Toast History

Orville Wright had a penchant for our favorite means of preparing and consuming bread:

Fond of toast, he developed two special implements to guarantee a perfect product every time: a gauge to ensure that each slice of bread was cut to a precise thickness, and a toaster, constructed of two sheets of metal, to compress each slice as it was toasting (Tom Crouch, The Bishop's Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright, 479).

Just thought you'd like to know.

Where is Jared?

If any of you have tried to email me, or tried to call me between the hours of 7:00am and 7:00pm EDT, you may have noticed that I'm simply not there. Where am I?

Once a year the client I work for, the Naval Treaty Implementation Program (NTIP), carries out a Challenge Inspection Training Exercise (CITE). For those interested in international law and arms control regimes, read the next few paragraphs and find out what a CITE is. For those of you already bored, skip a bit.

The 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) prohibits the production, development, stockpiling, or use of any and all chemical weapons, and the United States happens to be a party to the treaty. Being a party isn't a huge deal for a lot of nations, but it is for the USA. The Cold War arms race wasn't just about stockpiling nukes; the USSR spent a lot of money developing and stockpiling chemical munitions as well, and we followed suit. Now the USA and Russia literally have tons of chemical weapons to destroy, and we have until 2012 to do it (neither country will make the deadline, by the way).

The U.S. Army is in charge of properly storing and destroying all of the United States' chemical weapons. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), an international body created by the CWC, takes charge of verifying the proper storage and disposal of the agents. So really, the Department of the Navy should have nothing to do with this.

However! The CWC contains a provision allowing for challenge inspections. A challenge inspection is the result of one state suspecting another state of not abiding by the rules of the treaty. For example, Belarus could accuse the United States of hiding undeclared CW agents in unused bunkers at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Kaneohe Bay. Or Senegal could accuse the Navy of developing chemical weapons under the guise of defense research at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD).

As of yet, there have been no challenge inspections under the CWC. Every state that could initiate one can also be relatively sure of a reciprocal challenge from the state they accuse. But if there were to be a challenge inspection, Russia and the United States would be the two most likely candidates.

So we practice, we exercise. And that's what I'll be doing this week. Many of the employees of my company and most of the government workers at my client site will be staying four nights at the luxurious Dahlgren Comfort Inn, right next to NSWCDD. There I will spend several humid days pretending like I'm helping prepare the base for a challenge inspection carried out by the OPCW and the fictitious Republic of Simón Bolívar, our accuser. Most of my days will last 10-12 hours, after which I will eat dinner at any number of fine local restaurants (from Uncle Dave's Somethin' Different Café to the appetizingly named Crabby Oyster). I'll be back Thursday night, at which time I will regain email access.

In the meantime, do feel free to drop me an e-line or to comment on the blog. I'll let you know how everything went on my return.

Constant vigilance!

Is Congress causing global warming on purpose?!?

In light of Warren's recent exploits into the field of global warming, I thought that this editorial was particularly exigent. Read and wonder:

And I post again

I have a little black book

I post! I post!

Many of you have been wondering if I would ever post again. Some of you may think that I purposely put off posting to prove a point. Some of you may even think that I simply don’t care any more. Not so! I post!

It seems that my previous musings on not making time for writing inspired my friend Nick, administrator of Salsa Night (the other blog I contribute to), to be a more frequent writer himself. More than that, he invited others to join him in a month-long effort to write something at least once a week for the month of April. Thus began the Salsa Night Month of Writing.

I claimed Mondays and I’ve been posting regularly all month. It only recently occurred to me that I should mention it here.

So if you miss me, or my writing, or if you’re simply bored, feel free to check out any of my posts:

I work best under pressure

Goals, planning, and Free Time

Sounds often heard at my client site

And while you’re there, feel free to peruse around. There’s some good stuff to be found.

Why Don't I Write (more)?

A monthly post is better than no post at all, right?

Let me tell you: I enjoy writing. That is to say, I enjoy writing the type of writing that I like to write. Some writing I don't like: quantitative analysis, filler for meeting page requirements, dry topics that don't interest me and that I can't imagine would interest anyone else, quantitative analysis, and quantitative analysis (to name a few types).

But some writing is fun. I like to tell a good story. I like to be excited about a good qualitative analysis I've done and then describe it succinctly. I like to rant sometimes, and occassionally to rave (sans ecstasy and glow sticks). Writing can be cathartic. Writing can make me learn more about a topic that I love. Writing can help me express myself. It keeps me connected to my friends. It broadens my views. It makes me happy when I feel I've done it well.

So why don't I write more? Why isn't this blog updated more often? Why hasn't "A Piece of Poetry" become a regular feature, as I imagined it would?

This post is incomplete because I don't have an answer for that. I have several partial answers, but none of them really address the bigger question from which "Why Don't I Write?" stems: what keeps me from making time for some of the things that I like? If writing (or anything) is important to me, what keeps me from it? Or why do I keep myself from it?

Feel free to wax philosophical. I await your wisdom.

Free Jared! And Tibet if you’ve got the time

Today, tomorrow, and Monday I am bound to a desk that is not my own. Part of my company’s contract with the Naval Treaty Implementation Program (NTIP) is to have an on-site contractor that remains, well, on-site. The man with this job is named Darnell, and he knows the ropes quite well. But what happens when Darnell takes leave?

Rather than go for one or two or, heaven forbid, three days without Johnny on the Spot, our liaison at NTIP insists on having someone fill Darnell’s chair. And fill his chair I can.

Unfortunately, I can’t do most of the other things associated with this particular job. Darnell has access to many things that required a lot of processing and account-making and approval. NTIP doesn’t want to bother with all of that for a guy who will only be here for three days, so I basically have a mouse, a keyboard, and a screen. The internet works (hooray!) but I have no email access, either business OR personal (boo). Nearly all of my business correspondence has to happen over the phone. Not that that’s inconvenient, it’s just not SOP.

Where is this all leading? To this point: I have nothing to do. I’m supposed to be performing Darnell’s duties, but I don’t have Darnell’s tools and resources. There are a few things that I can do, and do have access to. If I look hard I can find things to keep myself busy. But guess why I’m writing this post—I’ve already done them. I’m actually quite proud; I kept myself busy for four hours this morning. And now? I have a couple of things that I can look at, but nothing I can do. Thus I blog.

If you would like to donate to the Free Jared Fund (FJF), please post a comment to this or any other post on the blog, or put a new post on your own blog. You can make a Free Jared a reality.

Great Moments in Pointer History II

A week and a half ago my team lead called me up at my desk and said, "Would you happen to have an extendible, retractable pointer? We need one."

At first I was a little incredulous. I asked if he was serious; he was. Apparently a group of executives from other companies was in our little corporate conference room giving presentations. One of them had asked my company, their host, for a pointer to use in his presentation. One of our vice presidents offered him a laser pointer, which he declined. He wanted a reliable mechanical device. In a flurry, people were assigned to track down a telescoping pointer. Our employees called everywhere and could not find them. Even the clerks at Staples were unaware of their own pointers (same aisle as protractors, $3.50). Finally someone asked one of my coworkers, who had seen me pointing at something only days earlier. He told my team lead, who promptly gave me a call.

Needless to say, I happily loaned my instrument of pointing for the good of the company. They used it for a full three days. At the end of the third day, my company president brought my pointer back to me himself. He had placed it in a foam-rubber lined case. Inside, wrapped around my pointer, was a crisp twenty-dollar bill.

And people ask why I carry a pointer around.

For Great Moments in Pointer History I, see the other blog I contribute to: Salsa Night.

A Piece of Poetry

Wood
by Thomas Hornsby Ferril
(Trial By Time: Harper & Brothers, 1944)

There was a dark and awful wood
Where increments of death accrued
On every leaf and antlered head
Until it withered and was dead,
And lonely there I wandered
And wandered and wandered.

But once a myth-white moon shone there
And you were kneeling by a flower,
And it was practical and wise
For me to kneel and you to rise,
And me to rise and turn to go,
And you to turn and whisper no,
And seven wondrous stags that I
Could not believe walked slowly by

I'm no poetry/literature expert, but I do appreciate a little verse here and there. I thought I'd give a little web time to an under-appreciated 20th century poet named Thomas Hornsby Ferril. He was a Poet Laureate of the state of Colorado and a friend of Carl Sandburg. In fact, the Colorado Center for the Book's official bio of Ferril tells an amusing anecdote about their close friendship:

The Ferrils were known for their lively dinner parties with theater people, writers and photographers. Friends recall parties where Ferril played his mandolin and Sandburg played the guitar... Anne Ferril Folsom recalls coming home from school one day and being startled to find someone asleep on her bed, wearing her mother's negligee. It was Carl Sandburg, taking a nap.

So anyway, I'm interested in others' interpretation/applications/thoughts on the poem. Me? I think it's lovely. I'll withhold further comment until a few people post.