Author: Zane Selvans

A former space explorer, now marooned on a beautiful, dying world.

Categories
tweets

Tweets for the week of 2010-01-31

  • New sesame orange garlic habañero chicken and tofu recipe was great. I was wondering how we'd finish off that gallon of marmalade. #
  • Did my first training ride for Barrancas del Cobre, up into the snow-capped (!) San Gabriel Mountains. #
  • Heading down to Caltrans to present on http://bikewise.org Wearing my safety-orange shirt, so they'll think I'm one of them. #
  • Think my talk at Caltrans went well. Got to ride 60km too! Visited Flying Pigeon LA, went climbing w/ @michelleselvans. A great day! #
  • Soggy and cold, but feeling good about my role in the universe. This coffee will make it ever more better! #
  • Enough database futzing. Need to guzzle this tea and fall asleep. #
  • Okay okay, mebbe I call you back, now I busy. Yah yah, mebbe I fix. Okay. *click* #
  • I didn't go away from religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. #
  • Let the cavalcade of rent increases begin! At what price I will go homeless instead? Or will they spend the $50k to bring us up to code? #
  • Biking up to the Chantry Flats helipad is *definitely* better on a weekday. #
  • My cute cute black bike has brakes! Now it's totally a velocipede. Retirement present to self. #
Categories
journal

To Charter Communications: transparent bills get paid faster

Charter Communications, our local co-axial monopoly and recent bankruptee, sent a technician out to our house today, to hook up our new net connection.  As is almost always the case, the tech was friendly, helpful and generally knowledgeable, in stark contrast to just about anybody you can ever get on the phone if you call the company.  The customer service people are like robots.  Sometimes, like robots with buggy firmware.  They are, quite literally, running a program written by someone at Charter, codified in a choose-your-own-adventure style script booklet or web application.  They seem to have no intrinsic knowledge of the business they work for, or the systems they are meant to support.  Honestly, I wish Charter (and other such companies) would just put these resources on the web directly, so I can page through them on my own without having to be on hold first.  They probably won’t do this, at least not in full, because one of the most important jobs this script/program does is to retain as much of their customer’s money as possible, whether or not they’re really supposed to have it, and to direct people into more lucrative service contracts, aggressively if need be.

Continue reading “To Charter Communications: transparent bills get paid faster”
Categories
tweets

Tweets for the week of 2010-01-23

  • The rain falling in Los Angeles this week would be enough water to supply the city for 1-2 years, if we didn't just send it all out to sea. #
  • C'mon immune system, I know you're better than this. You know you're better than this. Stop procrastinating and take this virus out! #
  • Oh, right, I forgot to have my coffee. No wonder. #
  • In California we throw away roughly 3 times as much food as the entire nation of Haiti consumes. #
  • Finally, all new traffic actuated signals in California must by law detect bicycles: http://bit.ly/4IesRz (PDF) #
  • Was weirded out by several back-to-back pharmaceutical ads on the radio in the dentist's office. When did society get so messed up? #
  • Working on a talk entitled "Retirement investing for scientists and engineers". Let me know if you're interested. #
  • Wow. I had forgotten how spectacularly incompetent Charter Communications was. #
  • I live in a disposable house, ten years past its 'use-by' date. #
  • I am not understanding RNAi from the Wikipedia article. Anybody have another good introductory reference? #
  • More than any other flavor, berry jam mixed with black tea reminds me of my summer in Russia. #
  • Time for a bike ride in clean air with a view of the snow. And maybe the mudslides, too. #
Categories
journal

Checking back in with the world

I’ve been gone.  Not just from Pasadena, but from the world at large, for at least six months.  I can probably count the number of times I left Mike and Susan’s house in 3.5 months on two hands, or maybe three, but some of those were just hiking.  I didn’t see much news.  Thankfully I missed the entire healthcare debate.  I didn’t spend time with other people.  I was checked out.  Now I’m starting to check back in, and of course things seem kind of surreal.

I went to a mall last Friday.  The one by the Santa Anita racetrack.  I went with Ian to see Avatar in IMAX-3D, and to get a little exercise.  I’ve mostly been laying around trying to stop being sick for the past week.  When we got there, the show had sold out, so we decided to walk around the mall — to literally circumambulate it, not walk around inside like shoppers — and decide whether we wanted to go to the next showing, and kill some time.  It was bizarre.  The whole place.  I felt like an alien, first for having biked there (they have a giant valet-only parking lot), second for clearly not wearing culturally acceptable Friday-night-at-the-mall attire, and third for having a giant crazy-homeless-guy beard.  The homogeneity of the people just seemed bizarre somehow.  Lots of black and white clothing.  Lots of text messaging.  Lots of makeup and trying to look tough.  The scene was so strange we decided to pee in the bushes in the parking lot rather than try and find a bathroom inside.

Continue reading “Checking back in with the world”
Categories
tweets

Tweets for the week of January 17th, 2010

  • not currently interested in employment of any kind, but thanks for thinking of me. #
  • Looks like I'll be traveling with a sore throat today. Bummer. #
  • Either I caught a cold from someone at Bryan's birthday party, or proximity to LA makes me physically ill. Welcome home. #
  • ya buscado para mapas topograficas de Chihuahua, y horarios de autobuses de Tijuana y Cd. Juarez a las Barrancas del Cobre! #
  • Maybe I should engineer the xero- and halophillic frankenfoods of tomorrow in a walled semi-autonomous desert compound: http://bit.ly/6ayRzg #
  • If you're unemployed, have books to read, and want to take a bike with you, Amtrak's not a bad deal. #
  • I am a little bit daunted even by the prospect of writing my todo list for the next few months. #
  • Gonna go get me a few library cards. Hallmarks of civilization. #
  • Dangit, I was going to try and avoid building another bike, but it didn't work very well. http://bit.ly/4CU7gu #
  • Deprived of sleep by endless coughing last night. Just want to be able to rest. All because of some stupid little strands of RNA. #
  • going for a short bike ride before the storm hits. Will get a "before" picture of the Eaton Canyon wash, for comparison. #
Categories
tweets

Tweets for the week of January 10th, 2010

  • I am finally missing SoCal. Today I just don't feel like biking in the snow. #
  • And of course just to spite me, it's going to be -20°C tomorrow morning when I ride to catch the bus. My eyes will probably freeze shut. #
  • Green, of course. #
  • Thinking about bike touring through las Barrancas de Cobre with Bryan for three weeks this spring. http://bit.ly/8hBz5q #
  • Whipping Bryan's place in to party-shape: music, lower lights, do dishes, mix a batch of french press full of Caucasians. But where's Bryan? #
  • Looks like it'll be easier to box and ship my bike from here. Bike shop, burritos, FedEx, all within easy walking distance. I love Boulder. #
  • Packing up after 3.5 months in CO, I seem to have developed an PTSD aversion to my thesis room. Glad it's here and not at home! #
Categories
tweets

Tweets for the week of January 4th, 2010

  • Earthship at dawn: -12°C (10°F) outside, 20°C (68°F) inside. Massive condensation on windows makes me wonder how long they'll last though. #
  • Went for a nice 8 mile hike along the Rio Grande gorge outside of Taos. Saw 40 bighorn sheep too. #
  • Suspect that just like real ships, these earthships can only be operated by someone with an understanding of how they work. #
  • Drinking Bryan's margaritas in Taos, without Bryan. Light snow falling under a nearly full moon. Snowshoeing tomorrow in the mountains. #
  • Dug my 3rd snow cave. Got cold wet fingers. Now heating soup, and taking a hot bath. #
  • Remembering Barcelona, when I should be remembering Sea Ranch. #
  • The headline reads grad school, but that's not where the memories came from. The twenty-oughts, a decade in review: http://bit.ly/4AnD3z #
  • Migrating data from the elder Stempel computer to their new Apple lappy. #
Categories
journal

The twenty-oughts, a decade in review

I will remember the past decade as graduate school.  Only 6 years actually enrolled, but also another 1.5 or so working at Caltech beforehand, trying to get in.  However, all the highlights took place in the other times.  The 2.5 years yet unaccounted for.  Of that time, about 18 months was spent traveling, and that’s where the memories really are.

A wolf in our camp by the calving McBride glacier.  Paddling over Pacific swell with seaweed and a wright whale by George Island.  The miracle of getting over sea sickness while fishing for salmon on the M/V Radio out of Pelican.  A brown bear and her cubs on the beach.  Lonely, wordless, solo backpacking in the Beartooth range.  Two weeks in Dark Canyon with the ringtails eating cattail roots.  A half eaten deer and mountain lion tracks in the morning by our campsite in the Zion narrows.  A night with Concept One and Aphex Twin in a Subaru crammed full of camping gear during a rain storm in the redrock country.

Continue reading “The twenty-oughts, a decade in review”
Categories
tweets

Tweets for the week of December 28th, 2009

  • Long slog back to Denver, but I made it. Feels like I've been gone a long time. Can't imagine what getting back to Pasadena will be like. #
  • Looking forward to the long slow return of the Sun. #
  • It's a dark day when I hope for a long and dreamless night. #
  • Gave up on sleeping after three hours of staring at the ceiling. #
  • Going to get some groceries for the next couple of days. And booze. Plenty of booze. #
  • It isn't easy to be the trouble I want to see in the world. #
  • Halfway through Energy at the Crossroads (http://bit.ly/7HxYP8). We now return you to our regularly scheduled infinite Christmas music. Ugh. #
  • Gifted skills and information for Xmas. Financial plans, compost, computational savvy. Roasted a turkey, making soup stock overnight. Yum! #
  • Sitting in an Earthship outside of Taos. It's 80°F in here, and 25°F outside. We'll see what happens tonight… #
Categories
tweets

Tweets for the week of December 21st, 2009

  • Finished the (long) eligibility questionnaire for George Church's Personal Genome Project. Gattaca, here we come. http://bit.ly/1agesJ #
  • Revising AGU poster. Hoping there's some lemon merangue left. I wonder if Obama read HST's "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 1972"? #
  • Went to Richard Alley's (of the 2 mile time machine) talk at #AGU09. He speaks like he writes. Would be a fun guy to take a class from. #
  • If you tell the other players you've got an ace up your sleeve, and they keep playing, is it still cheating? #
  • Thai takeout from Chile Lime and Garlic for our beer swilling slumber party in downtown SF. #AGU09 #
  • Got Sally's wireless internet connection set up. Glad the modem arrived before I left. #
  • During this visit for the first time SF has felt comfortable and accessible to me, not confining and frenetic. I wonder what changed? #
  • Glad I got the time of my flight back to Denver wrong in the right direction. Automatic timezone adjustment be damned. #