A Week in Sunny California

The past days have been very enjoyable and relaxing, I didn't post as I was doing things because I didn't really use my computer at all, but now, as I reflect and prepare to go to Golden, CO, I commit my memories to my publicly accessible pensieve:

Wednesday, May 20: 850 miles to Phoenix

Quite a bit of driving today. I said my goodbyes to Aaron and Katie and was out of their house by 7:45 AM. It was a pleasant, but too short visit. I really hope to be able to spend a few days with most people I visit, but could only afford a half day in order to get back to CA.

Katie, contemplating the fog I'm about to drive off into.

I wound up driving for 14 hours today, filling up my gas tank three times (I kinda wish my purple truck got better gas mileage). I started from the 35 degree fog which covered Denver, drove through the rain in the south south, saw snow covered mountains on the west, and entered New Mexico. Apparently, nothing lives in New Mexico (at least the northern portion). I was able to drive for hours seeing only three or four cars, no buildings, and just dessert. It was sublime and humbling. Eventually, I made it to Albuquerque. There was an accident on the freeway, which delayed me for about a half hour. To make up for it, I ate my lunch (Subway) in the car.

I took the scenic route to Phoenix taking a couple hundred of the miles on smaller CO roads through a mountainy forest preserve. According to google maps, it saved me a half hour, and it was certainly much prettier than the interstate, which was nice variety.

In Phoenix, I met with Daniel, a friend from Wheaton at Cafe Rio. Cafe Rio was tasty and Daniel and I had a good talk for a couple hours. I wound up leaving him a book of mine (Who's Afraid of Postmodernism?) to read, which I hope to pick up in a week when I see him again. I also made plans to see him again next week.

I slept at Quinn's house. Unfortunately, Quinn's been very busy with Actuarial consulting (his job), and so we only talked a little and watched the last episode of the Late Night Show with David Letterman.

All round, a solid day of travel and discussions, relaxation and pretty nature.

Thursday, May 21: Back in California Again

I left Quinn's place early, and made it to Lake Forest by 2:30 PM (it was only 350 miles). in CA, I visited with Jacklyn, a friend from high school band. She lives in my neighborhood, and we met in the forest park thing by my house. She also studies physics, but goes to Montana for school. Other than that, I just relaxed at home, glad to be back in CA. By no means do I dislike traveling, but it was nice not to be on the road after 20/48 of my last hours were spent in a car.

Friday, May 22: Libraries and Jacuzzis 

Today I did a bunch of random errands I had to do around CA, got my car smog checked, communicated with Michael and Daniel about the return trip through Phoenix, emailed the place I'm living at this summer and my boss, and went to the public library.

Everytime I go to the El Toro public library I feel like it's smaller. I remember going there as a child and being astounded by the multitude of books, the tall shelves, and the endless stories accessible here. Now it seems much smaller, though I can still always find a book that's interesting, and can order a book there if I want one they don't have. This week, I picked up Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb, one of my favorite fantasty authors. I enjoyed her book Assassin's Quest when I was in Wheaton, and figured I might as well try one of her other works.

Keith invited me and a few other guys from my home church to his Jacuzzi this evening. I went and enjoyed talking with them. We talked, some of them smoked, and we all enjoyed each other's company and Keith's Jacuzzi. I think I might have scared some of them with my talk about racial injustice, but I'm ok with that. I always try to bring up something new and stretching to my friends from church whenever I'm home.

Saturday, May 23: The Christian Rap Concert

I slept in, read my book, and wandered to the park by my house in the afternoon. I went to dinner with my parents, Paul (my brother), and Julie (my sister-in-law) up by Paul and Julie's apartment. After dinner, Paul, Julie and I went to their church (they have a Saturday evening service). Finally, Paul and I went to a concert of a Christian Rap artist (KB) that Paul enjoys. I had never heard of KB, don't really listen to rap (Christian or otherwise), and certainly hadn't been to a rap concert before. It was memorable and fun in an odd quirky way.

I didn't really understand much of what was happening, but I remember several things distinctly.

First, there were quite a few selfie sticks. Somebody even had what must have been a 4 or 5 foot long selfie stick they were using to see above other people.
Second, an audience member proposed to his girlfriend on stage. That was interesting, awkward, and kinda cute.
Third, one of the artists played acoustic guitar, and started with "Where are all the single's at? This one's for you," then sang a song about how a spouse completes people and we all need someone else to depend on.
Fourth, at one point one of the rappers started literally saying "Would you turn down my mike please" instead of the song lyrics, eventually stopping the whole song to address the sound guy. His mic was very loud. Later they just started chanting "Watch out for the Pineapple." They were an odd group.
Fifth, intermixing a Christian message with rap is kinda weird to me. Admittedly, I don't really know rap or concerts, but it felt kinda weird.

Overall, it was fun to go to something my brother enjoys and a good bonding experience. It was an enjoyable end to an enjoyable day.

KB at the concert. (Image Credit Paul Martin)

Sunday, May 24: Grace Community Church

Today was my day to go to my home church. It's always fun to see the people I grew up with, find out how their lives have been changing, and catch up on life, even if I disagree with parts of the service.

After church, I went to the Corner Bakery, and had lunch with some friends (Scott, Rachel, Lindsay, and Emily). We had a lot of fun as we completed the word search they had for kids using literally any words we could find it it. Also, words that probably aren't words. Like "oocoo" and "qwik."

This evening, I saw more of my old friends at the Sunday evening service and Denny's. It was good to catch up with lots of people. We also made plans to go into San Diego tomorrow.

Monday, May 25: San Diego

San Diego is a fun city. I haven't gone there much in the past, despite living so close to it, but enjoyed my trip there today with friends.

To start, we went to a coffee shop, Bird Rock Coffee which had been recommended by a friend. His recommendation was well received, as we all enjoyed the coffee there. Instead of a window in their shop wall, they had an open garage door, which I found rather peculiar and interesting. They also titled their drinks uniquely. I had a "Sugar daddy", aka spiced mocha, which was rather tasty. We all shared each other's drinks and agreed that the place make phenomenal coffee and lattes.

For breakfast, we went to another recommended place to eat. However, it had a two hour wait, so we decided to wander the city and find somewhere else to eat. While walking, it was evident that San Diego is a city with a soul. Many of the stores were bright colors, and there was colorful graffiti several places - one store even had a giant purple elephant on the back wall. Eventually, we found a nice place for breakfast and ate there (I'm forgetting both it's name and what I ate, but they were both quite good).

 The purple elephant (image credit: Dain Christian)

After breakfast, we went to a library to read (we had each brought books). However, we forgot that today was memorial day, and so while the library looked incredible, it was also closed and locked. As was the nearby park. We eventually found a nice park by the ocean to read, relax, wander, talk, and all-round enjoy. While Dain and AJ wandered the docks, and Rachel read on the grass, Scott and I read at a table and talked. I read The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, a memoir of his experience growing up as a black man in Harlem. Scott and I talked about changes in what I believe since I was in high school (roughly encompassed by: evolution, age of the earth and universe, feminism, egalitarianism, social injustice, structural problems, global perspective, historical perspective, importance of bodies, vegetarianism, and liturgy).

The closed Library, also Rachel's hair and homeless tents

(Image credit: Dain Christian)

Next, we went to the Mission Brewery in San Diego. It was the first brewery I had been to, and I found it interesting. They clearly had all the stuff to make the beer right there, and a fair number of customers. I got an Imperial IPA (since I'm on the west coast) and thoroughly enjoyed it. We ate a a nearby bar, where I got a bread salad and a stout aged in bourbon barrels. It had a nice rich flavor which I enjoyed. The bread salad was fine, also the only vegetarian item on the menu.

Before heading home, we went to Jessie's house to play Cards Against Humanity as we waited for traffic to die down (it was memorial day after all). We eventually went home happy, content, and tired.

San Diego remains a wonderful city, and I'd love to go there again, especially on a day the libraries are open, and see some of the other sites (like the museums, the bay, other parks, wandering around the city more etc.) For now, I'm content with what I've seen, glad I went, and look forward to wandering other cities.

Interlude: The Clothing Conundrum

As many of you know, I try to not to purchase things which come from abusive practices (e.g. I'm a vegetarian). Obviously, I cannot do this perfectly without abstaining from purchasing anything at all (e.g. rare earth metals are in pretty much all electronics). While perfect consumerism may avoid me, I still strive to do better all the time. Over the past few months, I've been thinking about clothing.

I like wearing clothes. I even like wearing nice clothes (though I have no real eye for them). Unfortunately, much cheap clothing is made in sweatshops using extensive child labor in unsafe buildings. Additionally, many of the materials are made from abusive methods, such as forced Cotton labor in Uzbekistan. I don't know enough about these issues to be knowledgeable on them, but I know enough that I don't think I should actively support mainline clothing companies by giving them my money. Fortunately, there are several places online (e.g. Monkey Genes) which are niche markets for people who want to buy clothing made from not bad sources. Unfortunately, the cheapest jeans I've found from those places are over $150, and I'd have to wait a week for them to ship without trying them on.

This leads me to my conundrum: my pants have holes in them and I need new shoes to work at NREL in a week. How then can I get shoes and pants without breaking my budget or my morals?

In the end, after much googling and thinking, my parents got me very nice shoes which should last a long time, and I don't think were made unethically (though I don't really know for sure, most of my research was on jeans). We also just went to Goodwill and found all four of their pants in my size, and got the two that I liked the best. By getting clothing from Goodwill, I feel that I am recycling, rather than supporting the manufacturer, and so circumnavigate the primary concerns I have with purchasing clothing. It's also a substantially cheaper. Now my clothing concerns are dealt with for the near future, and I plan on wearing what I own for a fair bit longer.

The pants and shoes I wound up getting.

Tuesday-Wednesday May 26-27: Scott & Dain's House, Books, and Cars

Tuesday evening, after purchasing my clothing, I promptly changed out of it and went to Scott's house (because who wears pants and shoes in Southern California?). He had several friends over, and we all saw his new place, chatted and socialized. I wound up staying with Scott over night, and going back home the next morning.

Scott and Dain have a nice apartment on the top of a hill looking over the suburbs. Dain has an extensive antique lamp collection that they use for lighting, which is very enjoyable. Scott maintains a collection of books, and I borrowed Slaughterhouse 5, though I didn't wind up reading it. We played Dominion and Mastermind as we socialized.

After leaving Scott's house, I napped some more at home and finished Ship of Magic. It was a good read, ostensibly about a magical talking ship and people sailing her, but primarily about power in relationships, communication, and discovering oneself. I found it to be interesting, and would recommend it to most, especially anyone (like me) who likes Fantasy, but is a feminist and wants strong female characters, or even just female characters. Hobbs does a good job of making disparate characters, each with their own perspectives and motivations.

Wednesday evening, my dad and I changed the oil on my truck and noticed two additional problems. One, there appears to be a leak in a radiator fluid hose, and two someone tried to break into my truck and steal all my things. As it stands, they just broke off the handle to the window of my truck cap and wedged open the lower gate, but were unable to take anything (I locked the cap, and breaking the handle doesn't break the lock). But, we decided that my plans to go to the beach tomorrow should probably be replaced with fixing my truck. It's unfortunate, but I'm glad it happened now, so I'm aware of it as a possibility rather than during my longer road trip when there's not much I can change.

A handle used to live here.

Previously, I had figured I would travel with all my things in my truck so if I found a place to work and live, I could easily just stay. However, if carrying all my things is going to result in damage to my truck, I think I might find a place to store all my stuff before traveling, so my handle makes a less tempting target. Or my windows. Regardless, it's a good learning experience. Also fair warning to Scott to not clearly leave valuables in his car in his neighborhood (I'm pretty sure that's where it happened).

Thursday, May 28: The Last Day and David Cosper

Today I took my truck into the shop to get it repaired. I write this post as I wait for news on what they can do about the potential coolant leak and the snapped handle. I fully expect the car to work without the coolant fixed (it wasn't dry and it's not particularly hot out), but it should be easy enough to fix the hose. For the handle, I can always just find a stick to use in place of the plastic which used to work as a handle, or whittle down a piece of wood for the job, which would be a fun activity.

I expect to go to David C's church tonight and visit him. I'm excited to see him and find out how he's doing, what's been new in his life, and all that jazz. I think we're also going to In-n-out afterwards, which is always fun. Less fun now that I'm a vegetarian, but still fun for nostalgia's sake and fries and milkshakes.

Tomorrow, I leave at 6 AM to head back to Phoenix and get lunch with Daniel. After a leisurely lunch with him, I'll drive up to Prescott and see Michael (also sleep in his house). I'm excited to see both of them, and I'm told Prescott is gorgeous, so am looking forward to that as well. Finally, Saturday I'll be driving to my place in Golden, CO to start my internship. Then I get to start sciencing! I'm looking forward to the science again. It's been too long. Well, it's been two weeks. Too long. Also meeting new people! I like people.

Next stop: Phoenix and Prescott, AZ

Edited to Add: Heard back from Ted (our mechanic). The leak was because when they did some work on the engine in Wheaton, they didn't screw back in the water hose. Apparently I'm just really lucky that in the 2400 miles I've driven so far the hose didn't disconnect and my engine didn't explode. He screwed it back in for no charge (the place in Wheaton charged me $250 when they messed it up). He also found a place that sells the handles for my truck, so I drove down there, and purchased and installed the new handle. Aragorn, the ranger from the North is once again ready to roll.

The replaced window handle.

White Sauce and Clingy Dogs

This morning I saw the last of Nebraska for the foreseeable future. I was sent off with classic Nebraskan food: waffles with white sauce. Maddie made a sauce using milk, buttermilk, butter, and I think sugar (it was certainly sweet) and waffles for breakfast. It was very tasty, I can see why her family doesn't use syrup with waffles.

Maddie and me, minutes before departure.

I was on the road by 9 AM, and drove fairly directly to Castle Pines, CO, a seven hour drive. The first six and a half hours had some fairly substantial rains, which was enjoyable to drive through (I do like a good challenge). Nevertheless, I made it to Castle Pines (with one stop for fuel and pop tarts). It was lots of fun to see hills again as I entered the Denver area.

In Castle Pines, I visited the Johnsons, old family friends who moved to Colorado from California 8 years ago. I enjoyed reconnecting with Aaron, their youngest, who I used to hang out with in middle school. We played some games, chatted, watched some NBA finals, and pet their dog. Since I'm going to be living within an hour of them this summer, I hope to see them a few times throughout June and July.

Their dog, Katie, is one of the largest, fluffiest, friendliest dogs I have ever met, and is pretty much the cutest thing ever (if one is ok with four foot tall five foot long cuteness, which I definitely am). She loves people, and was weaving in and out of my legs for the first 10 minutes or so I arrived (which admittedly made walking difficult). We had several intensive doggy cuddle sessions, culminating in Katie climbing me (which I think qualifies as winning doggy affection).

Katie and me, she really likes to cuddle, even with the back of my head.

In the mean time: Eddard (my computer) lives again! One factory reset later, and I am the proud owner of a "new HP computer." And hey, it's been on for an hour and hasn't bluescreened! I'll take it.

Tomorrow I prepare for a long drive, as from here to Phoenix is 12 hours (without stops), but I should get to see Daniel (former physics major) and Quinn (former Californian), both of which should be fun visits.

Denver, I'll be back for you in a week and a half, for now, onward to California!

Next Stop: Phoenix, AZ.

Nebraska: Living History

Today I hit all three remaining items in my Geneva to do list (I already rode my bike around here).

First, Maddie and I visited the Geneva public library. They have a three-d printer! I didn't know libraries could do that, especially libraries in towns with populations under 2500. But they had that, and a few books too. I read the conclusion to Stephen Hawking's "A brief history of time" so I could more accurately speak about it (since so many people ask me about it as a Christian and a Scientist). It seems to hold up to what I had heard of it, it's got good science, but bad philosophy.

Next, we visited the Wessels living history farm in York. It was very unique, quite quaint, and rather beautiful. An old farmer died in 1993, leaving a one line will saying he wanted a living history museum made of his things. So, they've collected the house he lived in, a bunch of tractors, the church he went to, and other items from his time period, and moved them into a small farm. It's got about 20 volunteers working at it, and the two we met were very nice, polite, and passionate about history. One of them showed us the church, which included a pipe organ. After hearing me play on it,  he tried to convince me that I should learn to play the organ ("They need competent young organ players"). I was surprisingly moved by his earnest and heartfelt plea. I think I'll keep my eyes open to see if there's some place I can play and learn to play the organ. At the very least, it would be a nice skill to have.

Finally, we visited Hastings, where we saw Pitch Perfect 2, got colossal cookies, and got coffee from Art's Coffee bar. Art's was an interesting tea shop that I felt would have fit right in with all the tea stores I've seen in Southern California with it's vaguely hipster, progressive feel and look. Maddie got beans for her dad there and a cup for herself. Feeling relieved of my obligation to purchase anything by association with her, I didn't drink any of it, though Maddie says it was delicious.

Now, It's about time for me to leave Nebraska, though I've had a great time here. I've arranged a bit of a whirlwind tour for the next two days to get me home to California. I'll be stopping in Castle Rock, CO tomorrow, and Phoenix Wednesday to stay with other friends on the path back home (before later heading out to Golden, CO).

A solid reading tree by Maddie's porch, I must have read for an hour on that branch on the left

Max, Maddie's dog. Wanting to go outside. Again.

Next Stop: Castle Rock CO

Nebraska: Adventures in Technology

Well, the good news is I got to Maddie's house fairly uneventfully. The bad news is my laptop broke. The interesting news is that Maddie's house isn't on google maps.

Made it to Maddie's driveway

The drive from Wheaton to Geneva was fairly uneventful, I got through it in two legs, with one pitstop in Adair for food and gas, taking around 9 hours total. I bought a few new CDs and an audiobook for the drive (Speaker for the Dead), and listened to each of the CDs and half the audio book.

Unfortunately, I'm listening to the audio book from my phone, after transferring it from my computer. My computer bluescreened (a fairly common occurrence at this point), so only a little over half was transferred. The day after arriving at Maddie's house, I spent about an hour trying to trouble shoot it.

Five or so blue screens later, I've come to the conclusion my memory is corrupted. I might try to fix it again sometime in the future, or replace it. I've had it for four years now. I figure it's probably not worth spending money on it to make it better when something else is just going to break on it, and it's really old anyways. I need to figure out if I need to own a computer sometime else. For now, I'm fine without one. I'm writing this blog post from Maddie's computer, and figure I should be able to write future posts from the public libraries of towns I visit (or my phone if I need to).

Speaking of my phone, it thinks I'm roaming, and doesn't seem to have internet connectivity, text capacity, or calling capacity off of a wi-fi network. This just means I need to plan out my next spot before I leave. Maybe a little more planning is necessary, but that's fine. I can handle that, and it should work itself out once I stop travelling.

Finally, google maps. I needed to follow hand-written directions to get to Maddie's house because their house isn't on google maps. Apparently they built their house within the past 5 years or so, and google maps hasn't bothered to put their address in yet. I guess google maps really doesn't care about Nebraskan housing that much (to be fair, there's lots of land and not lots of people).

Graduation and Plasmas and Papers, Oh My! (5/11-5/15)

Well, I graduated last week, but it sure didn't feel like it. Sure, there was the ceremony, and I got my fake diploma, and I said goodbye to people, and I packed all my worldly possessions into my truck. Then I drove one block away, unloaded my stuff at Gage, Bornell, and Chris's place, went to the plasma lab on Monday.

I've done research with Dr. Craig for about 2 and a half years, all on the same project. I did an honors thesis on it this year, and we want to publish our results in a journal. To that extent, we want a rough draft before I leave, or else it seems unlikely to happen. So, Monday through Thursday this week I went to the plasma lab and worked 8-10 hours a day to make publication ready figures. But now, it's done, and I can leave. The paper isn't written, but we've got some solid figures. If you subscribe to Physics of Plasmas (which I kinda doubt) you can hopefully find our paper in there sometime in the next year.

In other news, I got to hang out with Gage Bornell and Chris a bit, which was loads of fun. We watched lots of Parks and Rec, went out a couple times, and found a place with $1 tacos (which were delicious). I might have been a bad vegetarian there, but their tacos didn't have a vegetarian option. What's a guy to do?

Now, I get to start the minor road trip (from Illinois to California then Colorado). Based on her suggestion a couple weeks ago, I'm going to start by visiting Maddie in Nebraska.

Next Stop: Nebraska.

The Journey Begins

What's this? David's writing a blog? Yep I am. It's about interesting things that happen in the near future. Feel free to subscribe to it if you want to keep up to date on what I'm doing, it might be somewhat interesting, it might be totally boring, you decide.

What are you doing? Why should I care?

As the title suggests, I'm doing two things. I'm wandering, and I'm doing data science (not totally sure that's a term). 

Wandering: I'm visiting pretty much anywhere I can drive to in my purple truck and find a place to stay (preferably with people I know). If you (yes you) are on the continent of North America and want to see me in the next year, please contact me. I'll put you on the trip list and visit (exact date dependent on where you are in North America).

At each location I visit for more than one day, in addition to seeing friends, I'm hoping to:
1. Visit the public Library
2. Go to a Museum
3. Visit a local coffee shop or bar
4. Bike (if possible)

Data Science: I'm using science to make people's lives better (hopefully)! For now, that means I have an internship at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, where I believe I'll be creating an automatic analysis procedure for photoelectron spectrum mapping device studies for perovskite solar cells. Translation: I'm helping study solar cells to make them better.

I'll be updating this blog sporadically with updates on cool places I see and do, people I meet, cool science I do, and maybe even some pictures (if ever I remember to take them). It's gonna be an adventure!