Moderate amusement

"I think women smell great. That is why I dislike perfume. I want women to smell like women, and not the sitting room of a 19th-century San Francisco bordello. That may be extreme, but I know I am not alone."

- Gene Weingarten

Made it

Made it down to Fort Worth. The accent is nearly impossible to avoid. My God, I wonder how I'm going to sound after a month down here. I'll write more soon when I'm feeling a bit more introspective. Right now, just sitting at my cousin's desk in my uncle's office, typing on this computer, listening to Jimmy Buffet, and talking with Justin, a guy I met once when we were both about ten.

Such a deal

Maybe I will be in Paris.

When I mentioned the meet-up thing to M, her heart skipped, thinking I might be going to Paris. She's made something tonight that she's sending me. I will be recieving a description tonight via dream, with high stakes. On the other hand, I still owe her 114 bachatas, from a deal in which I'd dance three (or was it four?) with her for every one I did without her. Which would have worked out fine, except when the bachata band came to UWM.

La Coquette

Elisabeth at La Coquette has just settled on a time and day for her meet-up in Chicago. I would very much like to go, and I definitely would have gone if I were still living in Milwaukee. I'd already talked with Dr Lizzie about it to get a place to crash for the evening.

I'm actually not entirely sure why I read her blog - I'm not terribly interested in fashion, certainly. But I am interested in french, I do dream of Paris, and it's nice to read about someone close to my age dealing with family, work, and life far from home.

Maybe another time. Maybe I'll be in Chicago again soon. Hell, maybe I'll be in Paris.

Goobye, sweethearts

I sent out an email, finally, to the swingers to tell them I wouldn't be back. I sent it to my core group people, minus E, because I didn't much feel like thanking her for anything, and minus people I'd already talked to: Sarah, Becky, and of course A and M.

Wonder how they'll take things. I imagine Alison'll be a bit upset she didn't know. Tom won't be too surprised, Amer already knows. I also wonder who'll teach on Wednesday and the coming semester. I don't think A's decided yet, and, I really think it's going to come down to her decision. My guess (for posterity) is that she'll eventually bring in Karl to teach, maybe with E, for the beginner class, and put the intermediate class, as a lindy class, under Dan and Alison. We'll see.

I did get an email from Becky yesterday. That was nice. I'm glad we finally came around on things. It would have been nice to've gone salsa dancing with her.

Longer term plans are still up in the air, of course. Not even sure what the goals are right now, in many different ways. I've been talking to M just about every day, sometimes (err, usually) for hours at a time. It feels so good to talk with her. About anything, really. And that's pretty amazing.

Texas it is

The reason I'm leaving is that things start to drive me crazy after about two days here. My father answered his cell at the dinner table, then sat talking on it between Mom and me. When I'm not here, he'll read the news or something at dinner. Bugs me.

Tonight, I was trying not to cause any difficulties, so Mom and I just made fun of him and his conversation.

I have decided to leave on Saturday for Fort Worth, TX. It'll be nice to be there for a while. Should be down there for a month or two. After that, I don't know.

Swingtime in Memphis

The first thing to say about swing in Memphis is that nearly all the swingers here are from somewhere else.

Still, they've put together a fun core group, and they're now teaching some lindy hop and east coast lessons with www.redhotlindyhop.com. I went dancing with them last night in a lindy bomb at a bar south of downtown. They were pretty laid back, only a couple of them had been dancing more than a year. Average age was just a bit older than me, maybe 30, with, as is typical, the usual age gap between leads and follows.

There's a lot of scope here for swing, especially east coast and blues. Rockabilly and blues music are both very big here - you can find good live music of both varieties almost every night. I imagine there's probably some big band around here that'd be good for the lindy hoppers, but I haven't seen it myself.

The dancing itself was fine - certainly the relatively new dancers had picked up lindy pretty quickly. I saw a little too much emphasis on memorized routine steps as opposed to lead-and-follow for my tastes. (Although it's worth pointing out, in this regard, my tastes would tend toward the kind of martini so dry the vermouth is just coating the glass. Oddly, I don't like my non-metaphorical martinis this way.)

It was very nice to dance in an old bar like that, reminds me of New Mexico.

Curio cabinet

My mother and I are talking at the table about memory and aging and such (it's been a little on my mind since talking with Dr Lizzie in Chicago about her mother), when my father comes in from the shop, where he'd been working on a frame or curio cabinet or airplane or something. He sits down and starts talking about this modern art exhibit he went to somewhere or other. It had an explanation of modern artists (1950's and 60's in this case) that he was pretty thrilled with. Really, it was some pretty normal stuff about Pollock and Warhol - you know, how Pollock's art was the act of the creation of the canvas, and that Warhol's was about the mechanization and commoditization of the artist and society. But to understand what this says about my father, you have to know that my mother has a degree in Art History. I mean, she studied this stuff, and, to some degree, taught me this stuff, and almost certainly knows more about it than either me or my dad. Personally, I think Warhol's work is boring, shallow, way overimpressed with self referral (it's not that deep a concept! really! so quit it already!). Pollock I like more - but I still don't really give a damn what Pollock said about it. In any case, there's my father, much more aware of ideas and of the world than of the people that populate it.

I suppose we all have issues with our parents, and mine are really pretty minor. Still, there are things I wish were different.

Anagnorisis

A moment of recognition or discovery.

In other obscure word related trivia, there's a girl I used to refer to as my callipygian osculator. She thought it was funny. Geek.

How did the UW get its spots?

I'm not much of a football fan. This has caused me problems on occasion, like when the Packers amounted to my ex-girlfriend's staunch atheist-Republican family's religion. It also means I was entirely unaware that colleges ran ads during the bowl games. Excuse me, they're called "institutional spots."

Swingin' Noel

Noel is part of the furniture of Chicago swing. He's everywhere and a good guy to boot. His site, LindySynergy, has pictures of Chicago swingers and lots of pictures of Noel with pretty women wrapped around him.

Heckuva job

Even news writers couldn't fail to spot the irony in this.

Wiretapping and data mining

On Dec 16, the New York Times published an article saying that President Bush authorized wiretapping, without a warrant, of Americans in the United States by the NSA. Bush hasn't denied this.

He lied about it in 2004, about two years after the program was authorized. Here's the quote:
"Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so." -- George Bush, April 20, 2004

It's almost certainly illegal. Also, more specifically, the legal case from the ACLU. It's also anti-American. And, of course, the Justice Department is investigating to find the person who leaked the information.

But things get a little scarier when you ask why. The government can already get a wiretap at any time, then get a court approval afterward to use it. So they were probably trying to get around this court.

Why would they do that? I can think of two reasons. One is that they were using it for political purposes - keeping track of political enemies. This is something the court wouldn't have approved. (And part of the reason for these kinds of laws in the first place - Nixon and his infamous enemies list.)

The second possibility is that they were data mining, that is, recording a vast amount of stuff and looking for connections and keywords in it. This is also something you couldn't do with the court-approval system. It's also pretty damn scary, and, in my opinion, the most likely possibility.

Of course, the NSA seems to already have been doing this kind of thing through the program that was once sometimes called Echelon. It's tough to get good information on this program because what's known has come out in small leaks and pieced together by people who are against the project. (Who else would bother looking?) Echelon is supposed to record things from voice, email, and satellite transmision and put it through a data mining process.

There was also a system out there that used to be called Carnivore. Apparently, Carnivore was the name for the software, and that software has been replaced with commercial stuff, "Carnivore" no longer exists, but the program does. In any case, it's much less scary to me - it's run by the FBI, it tracks email from specific individuals, and it requires a warrant. But, of course, who knows if it still requires a warrant?

I'd like to know more about this kind of thing. Maybe if I have time someday I'll research it a bit more and write something about it.

Exodus

I have now made it to Memphis. I am typing on the laptop which I have managed to hook to the internet by the expedient of making my parents' computer completely inoperable.

Took me a while to get here. I did spend a day with M. It was beautiful and emotional and long and she's thoroughly wonderful, and it was much more difficult to leave Wisconsin than I'd ever thought it would be. I'm not going to write about it, at least not yet, but this is really what's on my mind. Hence the mostly dry listing of events.

Took me an extra day on top of that, although most of that is due to trying to move material out of my apartment New Year's Eve. Miss W called me at midnight - she's alone for the holiday again, sadly. (Although everyone seemed pretty low key this year - working, with a friend, at home with spouse, ...)

I took off very early in the morning on Sunday and met Dr Lizzie after her shift at the hospital. (She's working twelve hour shifts right now - 7pm to 7am. Insane.) We walked, had breakfast, and talked for many hours. Then I drove across Illinois in winter. The most prominent color is grey. The prominent shape is the plane.

Talking on a cell in an empty quizno's

Getting ready to leave has been driving up the time I spend talking on the phone, even to people who are remote. I do have great friends, scattered all over the country. Just dealing with me is probably qualification for sainthood. Sometimes I wish they weren't so scattered, but sometimes it's nice.

M called back. She wants me to see her tomorrow, which would mean changing plans with Dr Lizzie. I'm determined to feel guilty about it either way. We'll see what happens, maybe I'll just stop by Racine in the morning before heading down to Chicago. You know, for someone whose personality is so directly opposed to taoism, I certainly find myself following the scent without knowing what's before me. It's like being a follow, but I'm not sure who the lead is, or whether I trust him, or what the hell dance we're doing anyway.

Teaser (and reminder) for a related topic: Budo in the Ballroom and the Tao of Dance

I get a kick

In the Frank Sinatra song, I Get a Kick Out of You, do editors take out the verse about cocaine or did he just sometimes sing it that way?

Some get their kicks from cocaine.
I'm sure that if
I took even one sniff
T'would bore me terrif-
-ically too.
But I get a kick out of you.

Democratization of this blog

People are starting to come here occasionally, looks like. Sort of strange, but I suppose that's the advantage of a blog over a journal - you don't have to pretend you're writing to someone.

I've also now told two people I know about this blog - S, up in Seattle, and Dr Lizzie in Chicago. (You know, I always like calling you Lizzie, but Dr Lizzie sounds like an eighties rap artist. Definitely a keeper.) This leads to an interesting issue. I've never been one to tell everything to anyone - I usually sort of compartmentalize things, I'll tell this to one person, this to another. Now, there are things I wouldn't put on the blog, but there are perhaps things I'd put here that I wouldn't necessarily say to particular people, people I know very well. I've resolved, at least for now, to try not to censor myself, not to think about the people I know who might be reading this. We'll see how that goes - you two (and others later, no doubt) may learn some things about me here you wouldn't know otherwise.

As for you other people, glad you popped by. Feel free to comment away on my life, my positions, my thoughts, and my braindumps. It's all good. I tend to take strong positions - feel free to disagree in a similar way.

Should have been

I've been putting off calling M for some reason. Not exactly sure what that is - just a jumbled bag of conflicting feelings.

I finally called her today and got her voicemail. The message was probably the most negative thing I'd ever heard her say, all about having trouble seeing the good in people and hoping for compassion but losing faith in it. To be sure, I'm only one effect on her life, certainly not a dominant one in any way. But I hope she's okay, and I wonder if I've been selfish. As young as she sounds to me when I hear these kinds of things from her, she's not wrong. I certainly can be very demanding of people (including myself, of course), and I should probably be more patient. And for M, I should have been there.

Dave Barry becomes full-time blogger

It's official, Dave Barry's column will not return. I think the baby boomers are now officially completely superflous.

Quote:
E&P: If you might resume it, when would be the earliest that would happen?
Barry: Several weeks after my death.

Midwest morality

People always seem to think of the midwest as wholesome, or whatever, (and they really lap it up in Wisconsin in a way I don't remember people in Kansas City doing - but KC has that slightly-more-cynical western perspective, maybe), but their idea of morality must be limited to an association between sex and guilt, because it seems like people here lack moral conviction in terms of things like loyalty, pride in community, and sexual harassment, plus that little bit of latent racism that I thought was limited to my parents' generation and that more-than-a-little-bit of homophobia.

Voting systems

In high school, I spent a little time thinking about voting systems because of the obvious disadvantages of plurality, the voting system we use for everything in the states. After a bit of thought, I came up with what I called ranked voting. In this system, a person ranks the candidates. The votes are tallied using the top choice of each, then the candidate with the least votes is eliminated. For any voter whose top choice was this candidate, we now count the second highest choice. Many people think this sounds like a lot of effort, but if you think about which votes actually have to be recounted, it's not that many.

Of course, other people have thought about this, both earlier and more extensively than I did. The system I had come with is equivalent to what's called Instant Runoff. Some other useful systems of voting are Approval, in which a person can vote for as many candidates as wanted, and Borda, another way of counting ranked lists.

I was going to write a introduction to all of this, but I found a really nice one by Erica Klarreich in Science News. Check it out.

Oh, the comments, though! So many irrelevant things! If you have a question about it, ask in the comments, and I'll try to clarify it.

While there is no perfect voting system (not an opinion, by the way - Arrow's Theorem is the proof), I favor Instant Runoff. It works pretty well, and, while it's not a simple as Approval, it's pretty straightforward, and all an individual has to do is rank candidates. It also has the advantage that with this data, it's possible to apply more complicated ways of counting the votes that might more directly represent what the people want, when people get more mathematically sophisticated and comfortable with systems that aren't plurality.

On the other hand, I'd support any reasonable voting system that replaces plurality, definitely including Approval. People who say plurality has worked well enough obviously aren't paying attention. There are scores of examples, just in recent American politics: Bush/Clinton/Perot (was Perot a spoiler for Bush?), Gore/Bush/Nader (how 'bout Nader for Gore?), the domination of the California legislature by Democrats (because presumedly Republicans aren't the opposition a lot of Californians are looking for), and don't forget that our national legislature is almost entirely composed of two parties. Changing voting systems is better for democracy, better for everyone except people who want a two party system, for some reason.

People will also argue that instant runoff or approval are "too complicated". These people are crazy. If you want to score debate points, mention that they're arguing Americans (or whoever's doing the voting) are not as smart as Australians or the Irish, both of whom have successfully used instant runoff. Again, all a person has to do is put the candidates in order by preference.

Instant runoff tends to run into problems when the voting pattern is cyclic, that is: close to evenly divided between ABC, BCA, and CAB. (ABC means these people prefer A over B and B over C.) Since political views sometimes depend on shared worldviews, this is fairly unlikely, and the problems are still far less than the very common problems with plurality. Approval doesn't have this problem, but gives less optimal results (in terms of representing what people want) in more common situations.

A (very) secondary advantage to these systems is that they tend to draw people together over politics, making them focus on their similarities as well as their differences. Hey, maybe I'm not a big fan of the Republicans in general, but maybe I'd rather have them than an actual Nazi.

Obviously, this isn't the answer to all of our societal problems, but it is a step in the right direction - that is, toward more democracy, not less. It's really hard to reasonably argue for plurality - you'd be on firmer ground arguing for enlightened dictatorship.

To support instant runoff voting, take a look at FairVote.

Lolita

I also wanted to put up a link to this really excellent Slate essay on Lolita, fifty years on. A and I think we both read this essay, but we mined substantially different material from it.

Lolita is a beautiful (and horrible) book, but I hesitate to say so, since this will just give more comedic fodder for our own little swing syndicate about me and the lovely M. Oh, never mind, if any of them have read Lolita, I'll be too full of surprise to have space for any other emotional response.

The greatest tragedy

"The greatest tragedy he could imagine was an existence devoid of excitement or playfulness, a biding of time on the way to the grave."

From an essay about Dickens by Michel Faber

Fort Worth?

I'm still completely unsure where I'm going to be next week. I did get a very friendly email from Helen, the president of the Fort Worth Swing Dance Syndicate. (You know, the Austin club is called the Austin Swing Syndicate; is that a Texas thing, or a Swing thing?) She gave me all kinds of information on different places and events, plus the pleasant information that Dallas swing stuff is moderately accessible in the western sense.

[Sidebar: People are more willing to travel for things in the west - from Socorro, we didn't really think anything of driving seventy miles each way for dinner and a movie in Albuquerque, but people from Philadelphia seem to think it a major trek to go to New York. Apparently it takes thirty minutes to an hour to get to places in Dallas from Fort Worth.]

The Keys Lounge in Fort Worth sounds like a lot of fun - I haven't been to a real blues joint in a while, and never with a group of swingers. (Blues is another growing trend in swing - one I'm totally in favor of.) I'm not sure what she meant by her statement about Southside: "It is favored by younger folks but lots of regulars still go." I don't know if I still count as "younger" in the swing scene, but I am used to the college crowd.

Short bio of Chuko Liang

Chuko Liang was a taoist scholar/wizard who was recruited by the warlord, Liu Pei (known for his long earlobes), during the unrest during and immediately following the revolt of the Yellow Turbans against the Han dynasty around 200 AD.

He used the magician's arts of deception in war strategy and his knowledge of the tao to control wind and fire to make Liu Pei one of the three dominant powers in China, most notably at the Battle of Red Bluff in 208 against the rival warlord, Tsao Tsao.

Vocational wandering

Miss W has suggested that I make my peace with wandering from one job to the next, that I should see that as part of the adventure. (I'm paraphrasing here, somewhat drastically.) Certainly, there's been some of that so far, and I prize the experiences I've had living in different places and meeting interesting people. On the other hand, this is something that's getting increasingly difficult to justify as I get older. It's still okay now, but I am aware of the finiteness of life - I think being around people younger than you can have that effect. Particularly M, of course. It's pretty amazing, the speed at which she changes her ideas and outlook. Brings out the teacher/philosopher in me - I'm suprised she doesn't find that more annoying.

Really, this is already how I treat things. I don't want to be a computer game programmer for the rest of my life. (Computer game recruiters, please ignore the preceeding statement - a computer game programmer is all I ever wanted or will ever want to be. Please hire me.) But it would be a fun thing to mess with for a while. So it would really just be accepting that that's okay, at least for the moment. I wonder if the only reason that's tough is because of the image I used to have of living on a university campus - beautiful academic wife, precocious kids, and solar panels on the roof.

Lindy snobs

Lindy hop is a great dance. It's the most versatile of the swing dances, the timing for basic steps is pretty easy, and it's a good framework to hang everything else on. I like lindy, and I dance lindy as much as I dance all the other swing dances together. That said, it's not the only swing dance, and I'm a little concerned about how it's pushed out east coast swing in the last five years or so.

East coast swing is also a great dance. A person can learn enough in a night to get out on the floor and enjoy themselves. The style meshes perfectly with music from the mid-forties to the early sixties. It's a bouncy, high-energy dance, and a lot of fun.

The basic timing's a little more complicated than lindy, since it's six-count. (This timing comes from the phrasing in traditional blues, borrowed by swing and early rock - it's not evidence of some deficiency in east coast.) However, it's not the timing that differentiates lindy from east coast, it's the connection. In lindy hop, you mostly maintain connection in opposition, rather than compression. In east coast, the movements tend to build off of changing the connection between opposition and compression. Note that many lindy instructors start their beginning lindy series with standard six-count moves danced in opposition, like the six-count underarm pass, that starts with the lead moving back down the track as he would in a lindy whip.

In both dances, individual steps are (ideally) led, and we aren't slaves to the counts, so there's really no call for saying that lindy is a more improvisational dance. East coast certainly does lend itself to energetic, bouncy music, in contrast to the ultra-smooth lindy styles that are popular now.

At this point, many like to point out that lindy is "the orginal swing dance." There's some truth to that. (Although exactly how much, I'm not certain - the history of dance is incredibly muddled.) But, of course, what they were dancing in the twenties was a bouncy, rough dance, quite a bit different from what most people dance today, even those that are careful to differentiate their Savoy from Smooth (or Hollywood, or Dean Collins, or Whatever.) And you know what? I prefer the ways we dance lindy hop now, myself. I don't see any reason to think that 'classic' is necessarily better. [On the other hand, one of our local swings likes to advertise itself as being "authentic, vintage swing"- and they're full of it. Mostly what you see is something a little closer to smooth than Savoy, pretty much the contemporary standard. Nothing wrong with that, but 'authentic, vintage'? They might be talking about their god-awful balboa lessons...]

Okay, so the popularity of dances comes and goes - as far as I can tell, swing was nonexistent in the seventies and only reappeared in the mid to late eighties - so why am I concerned about east coast? Well, part of it is that I think east coast is often a more appropriate choice to fit the music for classic rock, rockabilly, and World War II era music. The other part is maybe a little less personal, but important for the scene.

When swing was really popular in the late nineties (the peak was maybe '99?), it was east coast. Why? Because east coast is accessible for people who dance casually. You don't have to devote a month of your life learning how to do the basic steps - you can show up, and you can dance, at least a little. That's necessary if you want a dance that even sort of mainstream. The decline of the popularity of swing is directly correlated with the dominance of lindy hop, probably working in both directions. Why is it necessary for swing to be popular? Because if you want swing to survive, it has to be. The way to get more great dancers, the way to get more good venues, and (in my view) the way to have more fun with the dance, is to have more people involved. This is social dance, after all.

Seattle

My friend, S, out in Seattle has (possibly) offered me a place to stay in January. Very sweet of her, and it sounds like a pretty good deal. (I'd better be nice to her since I gave her the blog address, and she's the only one likely to be reading this...) Apparently she's moving to a three-bedroom on 15 Jan, so I figure I can help her with the move.

And Seattle in winter is such an ideal place to be depressed, too! Plus, they have some computer gaming companies, the physics department at the U of Washington (known for its abused grads), Microsoft, and an actual swango community. Living in the area are also Miss W's ex-boyfriend, Steve, A's parents, and several college friends like Mike and Bonnie.

More of a history than a life

So many things need doing.

I need to pack my stuff together and get out of here. I'm planning now on taking off late Wednesday - I think I can swing that, but, man, there's a bunch to do in that time. Plus, I don't know my destination yet. I do have a direction - south: Memphis, Fort Worth, or Albuquerque, unless something else comes up. Who would leave Milwaukee and head north anyway? A Canadian, I guess.

I think I'm giving up on the demo until I'm resettled - that is, what?, Sunday, maybe.

Fort Worth is the most likely, and not the least desireable. I've written ahead to see what's going on there for New Year's Eve. Last year was in Kenosha with swing people, at Mark and Ann's. The highlight was being recognized as the founder of the new weekly swing in Milwaukee. The year before was in San Francisco, with Rachel's friends. The highlight there was Laura. Ah, well. Before that, San Francisco with Rachel and Em. Em and I spent most of the evening dancing and making out in clubs. Ah, well. Sometimes I think I have more of a history than a life. Bah, my sister's right - I'm too much the romantic.

Syriana and the subtle use of sarcasm

Just saw Syriana. Good flick - enjoyed Alexander Siddig (or is he Siddig El Fadil now?) as the prince. Nice cinematography and little melodrama. Makes me want to read Robert Baer's biography, get the real story.

I suppose I could go into the financial world. Certainly there are things to do there for people good with numbers, and I have some interest in international relations and such. Being a rich oil securities analyst sounds pleasant, and it's just going to get more lucrative as the oil gets harder to drill. Pity about the terrorists, corruption, and smart bombs, though.

Sweet of Sarah to invite me along today. She thought it a tragedy I was without family on Christmas. It was nice to go out for a bit, although annoying to hear more disturbing things about E. The girl's going to end up a fat, depressed housewife in some Milwaukee suburb if she keeps down this path.

Christmas dance and departure

Wednesday night was our annual Christmas Dance. (Wouldn't Bill O'Reilly be proud of us!) It was also, very likely, and unbeknownst to most of those attending, my last night at the swing club that I founded a little over a year ago, when I moved to Milwaukee.

We played Christmas music in the mode - swing, rockabilly, jazzy stuff. Also some stuff that begged for charleston or bal. It was much better than last year's list; several people sent swingable Christmas music my way after last year's Christmas Dance. There were several special dances: a birthday, a graduation, a moving-to-Minnesota. No swing jam, sadly, I was never able to get them to really get into the spirit of the things.

It was fairly quiet. I didn't count, but maybe there were forty or fifty people there. Sadly, I think that is mostly due to me, or, rather, the swing crowd's reaction to me. Everything was pretty smooth for quite a little while. Sure, Adam and I weren't fond of each other because he shows up to events drunk and/or high and occasionally molests women, but otherwise, I pretty much got along with the crowd, even in a scene known, in Chicago and Madison anyway, for its turf battles. But the swingers didn't respond very well to M, and my efforts to get other swingers involved were a disaster, particularly in the case of E's boyfriend, who I had such high hopes for, who turned out to be not only completely incompetent, but also peevish, childish, and vindictive. So.

I wonder how long the swing is going to last without me. A will probably keep the weekly swing running until she graduates in May, unless she also gets completely sick of it. I hope they treat her well - they mostly have no idea how much she's done and how much credit she deserves. Hell, most of them don't even appreciate her dancing - her strengths (lead/follow, connection, frame) are not things that are understood well in Milwaukee and her styling and such isn't quite to the same level. Find me another follow in Milwaukee who can really step! My guess is that the swing will die just after A leaves. I don't think there's anyone here capable of running it. There are a few who might try, but my guess is that they'll fail miserably. Pretty depressing, really. I put an awful lot of time into it, acquired a bunch of reasonably good equipment. I guess I should have read my Shelley more closely: "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"

In any case, I certainly enjoyed myself, mostly dancing with A, especially to the bluesy numbers she just got into the day before. Mind, she'd been dancing to them for a while, but now she got it. I'm going to miss her.

Next Steps

Always, every day things are fine, and the future may yet be bright, but the immediate future is pretty grim. M's called twice this week, and I want to call her, but I have nothing positive to tell her. Same old thing there - it always feels wonderful to talk to her and to be with her, but, well, that'll be it. Waiting to hear back about places to go - no real job offers right now, but a possible housesitting in Albuquerque or squatting with relatives in Fort Worth.

The housesitting would be very nice. I wouldn't mind being back in New Mexico for a short period. Plus, the house is owned by Miss W's ex-stepmom, who is a ballroom dance instructor in Sunnyvale, California (which is why she might be able to use a housesitter). I already know about half the ballroom instructors in Albuquerque, and I'm interested in learning about the other half. (Maybe even teaching a bit - I've certainly improved my lindy hop over the last year, if I accomplished nothing else.) I could probably find out some useful information for her.

None of this would be an issue if a job would come my way. I'm looking for a computer game programming gig, doing physics modeling. I have an odd background for this, but I can demonstrate some competence. On the other hand, I really need a better demo using my physics library. I have an imaginative idea for one I'm working up, but the actual execution has been painfully slow, mostly because I've been distracted wondering about little things like how I'm going to pay my rent and eat. Other distractions, like the bitchiness of the local swing community and the girls are very minor in comparison. I wish I could spend more time worrying about girls for a while.

A couple of words to prospective physics students

Okay, the links help, the site is starting to a look a little more lived in. I feel like such an adolescent, and not only because I'm shouting into the blogosphere like this.

It's funny, really, that I'm physically here in the physics department. I haven't technically been a student here since August, although I was on the payroll until the middle of November.

A couple of words on going into physics. First of all, check out John Baez's advice, to get the perspective of someone who made it. Then note in the middle of his page in which he says, "Go to the most prestigious school and work with the best possible advisor." Now there's a trick.

High school (or younger!) types: if you can, get yourself into a private or magnet school. Get great SAT scores - the classes from Princeton Review help, even if you have an impressively high score to begin with. The school matters quite a bit - high schools are not all the same, and even with great grades and SATs, a diploma from a public school (particularly one in the midwest) is not going to help things.

When you get into a college, go to the highest caliber one you can. You don't have to do a lot of research on this - the people who do grad school admissions are just as easily swayed by the common wisdom as anyone else. That is, if the school sounds prestigious to you, it'll sound prestigious to them. In physics, everyone uses the same textbooks, more or less, everyone has roughly the same mixture of brilliant, mentally absent, and sadistic profs. The quality of your education is not what's important - it'll be okay. The prestige of your school is the important part. The cost is always worth it. If you want to do physics, you'll need it. If you leave physics, you'll make more money and recoup it anyway.

[Side note: I've met students from all over the place. Once you get above the level of University of Wisconsin at Podunk, I haven't noticed much difference in the quality of the grad students resulting from different undergrad schools. The only exception has been Caltech - they're always pretty amazing, but most of them will tell you it has more to do with the selection of the students than the education.]

I'm pretty sure the same thing applies to grad school, except the competition's a bit more fierce so there's a bit more selection going on, even at places that aren't Caltech. Then you have getting a good advisor. If someone knows how to do this, please e-mail, okay?

Christmas Eve in the Physics Department

I've started this blog at a low point.

Specifically, it's Christmas Eve. My sister and her husband are presumedly with my parents at their house in Memphis. I'm at the physics department in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They would be enjoying themselves, but no doubt my mother is a bit upset over my not being there.

I have at this point given enough information so that most people who know me could make a guess who this is. This is just as well -- kind of want to get it out of the way so I feel free to write anything that comes to mind. Again, who'd read this silly thing anyway?

A physics department is not the safest place to be when feeling sorry for yourself on Christmas Eve (too many dedicated foreign students about), but it does have internet access, and my home is without. I thought I'd come here on work on the webpage for the swing club (very basic at the moment), but I'm not really doing that, of course, not yet anyway.

How about I try to add some links and such? Then I'm sure the web traffic will come pouring in, and I'll be able to afford to live in a sailing boat moored in Tahiti.

Is this thing on?

Start with the obligatory First Post. Explain that I've never done a blog before. Explain that I don't really expect anyone to read this blog. Done.