***Archiving. Originally published in the Summer 2013 issue of The Monitor magazine***

Original WORD document lost. Column name: “Standard Deviations”

***Archiving. Originally published in the Winter 2012 issue of The Monitor magazine***

Original WORD document lost. Column name: “Standard Deviations”

A link to the Fall 2012 issue of The Monitor Magazine. Original document in WORD lost.

The column in The Monitor was called “Standard Deviations”

***Archiving. Originally published in The Monitor Magazine, Summer 2014, Original title was “Two of my favorite Scientists***

Achievement, advancement, and innovation are things that are often seen in a positive light but often have a disconnect with those that drove those achievements.  As a society, we often take achievement and face value and look at how it will benefit our lives or the benefit of others.  It’s important to understand the mind(s) and the personalities behind innovation.  The two must not be separated.

Jane Goodall is a British Primatologist who has spent her entire career studying the chimpanzee population in Tanzania, Africa.  Her focus on animal welfare and nonhuman rights has put her at the forefront of research into the area of primate culture and habits.  As a result, Jane Goodall has become a popular figure in popular culture and has been a prominent figure on television programs, documentaries, and even cartoons.  Jane Goodall is also a UN Messenger of Peace, a designation that promotes the message of the United Nations.

Committing oneself to a culture in a different country is by itself a monumental achievement.  Committing your life to a different species as well as culture is something else altogether.  The passion involved in this sort of pursuit is rarely seen.  It shows that compassion should know no bounds and that advancement and kindness are not just things that should solely be human-focused.

Mae Jemison was the first African-American woman in space.  In addition to being a NASA Astronaut, Mae Jemison is also a Medical Doctor with an MD degree from Cornell University.  Life after NASA took Dr. Jemison to the world of academia and teaching.  Posts included Dartmouth College and Cornell University.  Dr. Jemison has a strong interest in dance and has studied many forms including jazz and ballet.

Prior to becoming an Astronaut, Dr. Jemison was a Medical Officer with the Peace Corps with tours of service in Liberia and Sierra Leone.  Projects included establishing health and safety guidelines for communities within each country.

Dr. Jemison is a strong advocate for the use of science in technology within society as well as encouraging minorities to become involved in scientific fields.

Richard Feynman.  The ultimate humanitarian scientist.  An eccentric individual who did not keep his love of hard science get in the way of being a safecracker, a bongo player, and a student of Tuvan Throat Singing.  Known as one of the greatest science communicators and educators of recent generations, Richard Feynman is the very definition citizen scientist.

Dr. Feynman was a co-winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics.  His work in quantum electrodynamics set a new precedent for understanding our world at the smallest level.  Awards and recognitions were not one of his favorite things and he found them to be silly and embarrassing.  He accepted awards because they put the focus on his physics and the work he was accomplishing within his field.

A long career at the California Institute of Technology was often overshadowed by his public lectures and public profiles.  He was well known to have worked on his research while sitting in a strip club in Pasadena, California.  It was habits such as this that made him real to people who could not understand his work.  He is quite possibly most known in popular culture as a member of the NASA committee that investigated that Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.  His simple experiment showing how cold temperatures altered the shape of a simple O-ring was shown repeatedly on television at the time.  This experiment ultimately showed why the shuttle exploded.

Understanding even a small amount about the lives of individuals that change our world leads to a better understanding of their work and why they focused on the fields of study that brought them national attention.  Eccentricity, quirkiness, and unrelated interests are often what drive people to change their world.  It’s rare that a straightforward conventional individual will have the personality or audacity to push the world in a different direction.

***Website archiving. Originally written September 27, 2016***

Being witness to certain recent events has brought the topic of bullying and bullies to mind. The Presidential debate certainly offered its share of interruptions, mansplaining, and a general level of rudeness most often seen coming from those with a bullying mindset. Those of us that witness bullying and especially those of us who have been bullies in the past simply want to rise above it all and come out of the experience with some dignity and civility intact. Another recent bullying episode occurred in the aisles of a grocery store and there were two victims, a small child, and an adult woman.  The bully involved did the typical bully thing and was all puffed up and clearly soaking in the grandeur of his own perceived power and control. His actions were clearly making him feel pretty good about his existence and the way he was handling things. Typical with bullies, they must tear others down in order to feel worthy in their own skin. As soon as this individual saw that he had a witness to his words and actions, he puffed up, even more, assuming perhaps that as a fellow male I would be in his corner and cheering him on in some sort of nonverbal way. What he did not expect was to be called out on his actions and told to knock it off. His gear quickly changed and was preparing to aim his lame and ineffective words at me. Well, I walked away and this took away his audience. He could no longer be all puffed up and proud in front of another person. Walking away, the woman gave a subtle smile as if to say something unknown.

Bullies love an audience and they love to know that those that witness their idiocy will do nothing to stop what is happening. Support comes from those that are silent and it comes from those close to the bully who does nothing but latch onto the perceived popularity and notoriety of the bull.  Somebody has to call the bully out on his or her behavior immediately and without any concern for what others may think. Take away the fuel that the bully uses to burn their tirades and outbursts of hatred, ignorance, and sense of self-worth. The worse thing a bully can experience is being embarrassed in front of others. This embarrassment is nothing compared to that suffered by their targets and their victims.

Growing up I was bullied for the most popular reason of them all. I was different and did not fit into the mold of popularity that was seen as the default childhood setting. I read books during recess, I loved going to class, I engaged teachers in conversation, and I gleefully played with Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars in the dirt with my fellow outcasts. I wore glasses and played a musical instrument. I considered the Principal to be a friend and one of the greatest guys ever.  School from K-6 was a blur of fun, numbers, music, and being bullied. I was lucky as I was a good enough athlete where I could put the book down, play a game of foursquare or handball, and demolish those that were bullying me in the first place. They were embarrassed, they shut the fuck up, and I was allowed to return to my book. I was also lucky in the sense that I simply did not care that others saw me as weird or different. I had a strange sense of self-confidence that allowed me to see them for the means fools that they were being at the time. Unfortunately, not everyone can muster up the athletic skills or the sense of self to use as a shield against bullying.

***For archiving. Originally published in The Monitor Magazine Winter 2014***

Recent history, say the last 200 years or so, has brought us many stories coming from the city of Paris.  Many of these offer the personal observations and insights of a single individual.  Though these stories may focus on similar places and experiences in Paris, each of them brings something personal that makes the familiar new once again.

A visit to Paris in October offered great opportunities to observe the locals in various weather conditions and doing various things.  Sitting outside at a café gives one a great view of the comings and goings of locals and tourists and a great insight into the city itself.  As in any big city, there is a hustle and bustle to things that is both frantic and fascinating.  Differences are immediately apparent.   Things are in general more polite and cordial.  People seem to be in a hurry yet the frustration level is low.  It seems to be all part of everyday life.  While moving to and fro to places unknown to the observer, locals clearly take a lot of care in their overall appearance.  Being dressed well and completely seems to be something that all age groups participate in.  Hats, scarves, coats, vests and the full array of possible accessories.  It is a nice thing to see and a nice change of pace.

A key component of life in Paris is the gatherings of friends for conversation.  A real conversation of the face-to-face variety where people take the time to sit down and engage with other people.  There are three things that are central to this activity.  Food, wine, and coffee.  Sitting down for a meal or to have coffee or a drink with friends is a casual affair that is not taken lightly.  Coffee is savored, food is appreciated, and wine is a staple, a part of life that makes everything just that much nicer and taste that much better. Parisians take the time to stop and engage.  They do not hurry through meals or with a conversation.  This is something that could be incorporated into daily life very easily.

History is overwhelming in Paris.   A person could spend a lifetime learning about the history of various small churches and large cathedrals.  If architecture is your thing, then another lifetime could be spent examining great and not so great buildings.  Street corner after street corner brought historical signs marking places where people were killed, born, where agreements were signed, and where Authors, Playwrights, Singers and Musicians, and Politicians made their mark on history.  Personally, I was able to get to two places that I have had on my list for years.  Shakespeare and Company Bookstore near Notre Dame Cathedral and the small cabaret venue Lapin Agile in Montmartre near Sacre Coeur.  These two places brought me a large amount of joy at just seeing after everything I have read about each location.  Locations like this are all over Paris and whatever your interest, you will be able to find the location that speaks to you.

Any big city provides opportunities to hear live music.  In Paris, I was able to combine my love of the city with my love of opera.  A performance of Giacomo Puccini’s “Tosca” was seen at Opera Bastille, the newer and more controversial of the two opera houses in Paris.  This performance offered world-class voices combined with a world-class orchestra to make for an amazing musical and theatric experience.  This was made even more special as the performance was on the night of my tenth wedding anniversary.  A memorable evening during a fantastic and fascinating trip to a place to which I will return again and again, Paris

There are times when something that has been rattling around in your head has to be released onto paper. This is one of those times. I am hoping that by putting this craziness out into the world that the borderline obsession with the subject will lessen.

Imagine a tall building that is rectangular in shape at its base. The building that has been in my head is the Republic Plaza building in downtown Denver. 54-stories and approximately 220 feet long and 110 feet wide with a height of 714 feet. This gives each floor an area of around 24,500 square feet. For our purposes, it is only the footprint of the building that really matters. We want to go one floor into the basement area. Now, imagine that all water, sewer, electrical, phone, data, HVAC connections are visible. These connections are the points where each of these utilities connects at this lower floor. Now, imagine that all non-supporting walls are gone, and you have a view of supporting walls and these connections. The next step is to disconnect each of these at a point where they are designed to connect and fit together. Cutting a cable to the point where it no longer works is not what is happening. Supporting walls/beams are marked at the point where they connect from the basement floor to the ground floor. This is where it gets weird. Imagine that at all these points things are disconnected, or in the case of supporting beams, cut cleanly. The cut would be made so that it could be re-connected at the exact same spot. At this point, the building is cut into two sections, everything below the cut, and the rest of the building to the roof above the cut. Now, the foundation area to the point where things were disconnected is photographed, scanned, analyzed, 3-D printed so that it could be rebuilt to exact specifications at a different location. For the purposes of this mind game that location is London, England. This is where the imagination comes into play. We want to go to a world where moving a huge object vast distances simply by it floating through the air is possible. The building will be lifted airborne and moved across thousands of miles to the spot in London where the footprint has been replicated. The building is set down, connections and welds are completed, and in the corner is a huge switch that is thrown and the entire building comes back online as if nothing ever happened.

Unless you are in the group that uses Facebook to keep tabs on family, grandchildren, and other people’s children, what somebody posts on Facebook is not about you. There is an assumption that should a person share a post, write a post, or check-in somewhere, that it is all about those that see that post. The person posting wants to let other people know whatever they posted. For this user, this is not at all the case. If I check-in at Ophelia’s in Denver it is not because I want people to know that I am at Ophelia’s. I check-in because I like to have a record of where I was in any particular city. Let’s say that the meal I had at Ophelia’s was out of this world. Two years later I am trying to explain to someone how good this meal was. For some reason, I can’t remember the name of the restaurant, just the dish, and the general date. I can go back to my check-in posts, find the approximate date, and BAM, I remember the meal was at Ophelia’s. It is not about you. If I share a post from the Santa Fe Institute that includes a link to an article, I could give less than a frog’s fat ass if anybody knows I follow the Santa Fe Institute. I share the post so that it is easy to find again. I simply go to my page, find the post, and again, BAM, I am reading the article now that I have the time. Even if I post a picture of myself, which I rarely do, it is for the benefit of maybe three people total. Facebook is a personal journal and resource of things, places, people, and organizations that I love. It is all about me. Don’t think for one second that I am trying to overtly influence, persuade, or convince anybody of anything. I don’t care if you know what I’m interested in, where I’ve been, or where I’m going. Check-in at an airport with a destination attached? Absolutely. Why? Because I fucking feel like it and I like to have a record of various airports. Or not. Seriously, don’t worry about it.

The concept of herd mentality applies to concert venues as well as movie theatres. For the purposes of this rant, the focus will be on the movie theatre.

You are arriving early and you have your popcorn and soda in your hand. The auditorium is empty so you have a choice of any seat in the house. You plop down and are thankful for the cool darkness and some peace and quiet. It is you, snacks, and the sights and sounds of a movie. Three minutes prior to the movie starting, three people walk in behind you. They are of course talking at the top of their lungs. You take a deep breath knowing, naively, that you will have some space around you. A barrier between your world and that of the giggling moron spawn that just walked in. But wait. Oh hell no. They walk right past you, take a hard left, and proceed to sit down in the row right in front of you. They are within arms reach for fuck’s sake! How can they walk into a theatre empty of all but one human and make the command decision that the place where they should sit is directly in front of that lone human? Are they looking for some sort of comfort? A sense of belonging? Were they taught this horrible behavior at home? Some sort of homeschooling elective? Herd mentality at its finest. The human form right in front of you is, of course, wearing the requisite “it’s my ball cap!” and of course the brim is pointing upward in typical Cooter style. Leaning back you realize that this oily, filthy, sweat-stained brim is right in your direct line of sight of the screen. The two people on the other side of Cooter want to chat with each other so they lean forward, jibber jabber, laugh and laugh, and proceed to do the same thing for the next 117 minutes. How many people are now in the theatre? Nine. All sitting in a little fuck cluster like a group of ducklings trying to get warm. You think of moving but you have a bad feeling that the entire Clampett clan will move with you. Herd mentality at all costs.

There is a theme here. Could it be…..QUIET!!

When the lights go down, the green preview screen shows up, the movie has started. At this point, all talking should come to a screeching halt.

You are not in your own home. Don’t talk to the screen; don’t engage in a running dialogue. Sit still and be quiet. You may say you paid the same money like everybody else, but most people paid money to hear the movie, not you.

The movie theatre is not a place for babysitting. Nobody wants to listen to a crying baby, the hum of a breast pump, negotiating with your spouse. Get a sitter or don’t come.

Whispering is just as loud or even loud that talking in a normal voice. Whispering is not being quiet. SHUT….UP.

Right before the movie starts there is an obvious reminder to mute or turn off your phone. You know who can see your bright screen during a movie? Everybody. Even those in front of you. Put it away for the duration.

Don’t chew with your mouth. Put that popcorn or nacho in your pie hole, clothes the lips together, and chew like you were eating in front of your current political hero. Nobody wants to hear you chew your cud.

Don’t bring your own food. If you can’t afford a $2.00 candy, $4.00 popcorn, and a $2.50 drink you can’t afford to come to the movie. Stay at home and save your pennies. The sounds of a soda can being opened during a movie? OBVIOUS.

Arrive on time. Your cries of “excuse me, sorry, excuse me” while you are trying to get to a middle seat is distracting and annoying. Arrive on time like an adult.

NO PARENTING! Nobody wants to hear you tell your kid to “not watch”, “cover your eyes”, “Oh god don’t look.” Nobody wants to hear parenting, the answering of questions, and instructions on opening a juice box. Yes, you brought that from home didn’t you?

BE QUIET! It’s not that difficult. Sit down, open your crunchy candy before the lights go down, turn your phone off, and sit still and watch the movie. You can do it.