Thu, 11 Feb 2010, 09:27 PM (-06:00)
1. Why
My mother reached over from her chair and picked up one of the books on the table: Nonlinear Ordinary Differential Equations. I bought it the day before along with some other technical books at a used book store.
“Why do you need this?” she asked.
Not a bad question, actually. I’m a fifty year old man. My days of learning mathematics for profit are long behind me. If I didn’t pick it up then, it’s too late now, isn’t it? After all, it’s not like I’m going to start earning my keep by doing nonlinear systems research. I’m just a software guy building simulations. Why do I need a book like that?
“Good question, mom,” I said. “I just like the way they present the material.”
“Hmph. Present the material. It might as well be greek.”
2. Celestial Mechanics
Years ago I sat in a classroom studying Celestial Mechanics. It was a graduate course, and I took it at least three times, if I remember correctly. It was a small room just across the hall from my graduate student office. Taught by Roger Broucke, the course was a slightly different adventure each time.
As I opened that book the other day and surveyed what the first few chapters had to say, I was taken back to that time in that classroom with Dr. Broucke standing in front of the handful of us who were taking his class.
The same diagrams were there on the board. The same equations in his curly way of writing. His pants were dusty white where he would periodically clean his chalky hands. There was a sparkle in his eye as he uncovered those nonlinear mysteries for us, revealed in their mathematical beauty and their stunningly potent aesthetics.
Centers. Saddle. Linearization. Small parameters. Perturbations.
I never really mastered it all, but I do know now why I brought that book home from the store.
Wed, 10 Feb 2010, 04:47 PM (-06:00)
I wore a NASA sweatshirt going out to dinner the other night.
I’ve become quite a wimp for cold weather, and the night was nippy, and the sweatshirt was swinging there on a hanger before me as I pondered my stay-warm options — a plain grey pull-over sweatshirt with a NASA meatball emblazoned on the front:
Geeky perhaps, but I grabbed it from the hanger, because it was there and because it was cold outside and because, I suppose, I wanted to make a statement.
So I pulled the sweatshirt over my head and put on my coat, leaving it unbuttoned. And I went to dinner with that not-so-subtle statement blazoned to my chest for all to see.
I doubt anyone got it. If they noticed anything, it was probably just that geeky guy at the table over there with the big NASA meatball splayed all over his frontside.
Tue, 9 Feb 2010, 08:58 PM (-06:00)
My mom was sitting in the living room looking at a photograph of Ben and the fourth graders with whom he spent the last month. She chuckled out loud and murmured about the goofy boys and smiling girls. Then she was quiet.
“Hmph,” she said. “I miss him already.”
He had just flown back to school after almost a month and a half here. It was a luxury to have him around. But now he is gone again, and we miss him just days later.
It’s not the normal empty nest syndrome. I’ve had an empty nest of sorts with him since he was three, sharing time with his mom. The nest has been half empty for many years, giving me plenty of time to get used to it.
So no, it’s not the emptiness of it that we notice when he’s gone. It’s that we miss him being around just as he becomes a fun, interesting adult to be around.
Fri, 22 Jan 2010, 10:17 PM (-06:00)
[…] what will happen when the throngs of Obama faithful realise that they gave their hearts not to a movement that shared their deepest values but to a devoutly corporatist political party, one that puts the profits of drug companies before the need for affordable health care, and Wall Street’s addiction to financial bubbles before the needs of millions of people whose homes and jobs could have been saved with a better bailout?
[Klein/Branding Obama]
What will happen? Now we know: Massachusetts.. Their anger will keep them home. It will drive them to the other side. The party that took them for granted will be in deep doodoo.
“You sound like a tea bagger.”
“In a way, you’re right,” I said. “You’re hearing anger.”
I’m so angry I could spit. And I am far from the only one. The formerly hopeful throngs have finally realized they’ve been snookered. And the party hasn’t the faintest clue.
Thu, 21 Jan 2010, 10:52 PM (-06:00)
We only do one of two things at the end of the day. I give him his kibble, or we go for a run.
And now, it’s the end of the day. He peers silently around the corner. Brown, glossy eyes. Asking that silent question.
It’s sunny and mid-70s outside.
What do you think we did?
Sun, 10 Jan 2010, 12:38 AM (-06:00)
It was cold outside. Really cold. I stood at the patio door looking into the yard, holding a cup of hot tea in my hands, watching a trickle of water come from the fountain. The pond reeds were covered in ice.
Two Mourning Doves teetered on the edge of the pond trying to get some water, but each time they leaned over for a drink, they lost their balance and almost fell in. Doves need to be mighty thirsty to teeter on the edge like that over and over and risk falling into the water and ice.
I went to the stove and mixed the remaining water in the tea pot with some from the faucet. And I took it outside and filled the birdbath, melting the ice on the bottom. For a few moments, the water steamed, but before long it was barely warm to the touch. And I filled another birdbath on the other side of the yard.
I dashed back inside, shivering from the cold, wondering what the neighbors might have thought if they saw me in my slippers and robe in the yard pouring hot tea into my birdbaths.
Within moments, the Mourning Doves were back, drinking now from a birdbath rather than teetering on the pond. And then there were Sparrows. And I think I saw a Wren. And there were some Grackles, although truth be told, I’d rather not talk about Grackles. And then, the yard was filled with Starlings that swooped down from the sky. The yard was full of birds drinking their full.
It must have been the only open water in the neighborhood.
Sun, 10 Jan 2010, 12:23 AM (-06:00)
This is the continuation of rants, observations and musings that used to be posted on jumpingfish/userland, until userland went away.
The fish are now jumping here. Over time I might migrate the old fish to this new pond. Who knows.
