Making a Difference

My mom, along with group of other award winning teachers each wrote an essay about making a difference in the lives of children. Their book is entitled Today I Made a Difference, and the cover art is a rather pretentious perfect red apple. As far as content goes, it is the stuff of Chicken Soup for the Soul, which (sorry mom) I am a bit too pragmatic to truly enjoy. Yet, the idea of making a difference intrigues me, and it is something that I frequently find missing in my life (maybe coming from a family of public educators makes you feel like you have to help people). Thus, when sitting on my couch, I find that I have stare downs with that pretentious apple, wondering, “did I make a difference”?

This is, of course, a question not often asked by geologists and engineers. I think it is often because they are compensated at a rate that they do not need to validate their career choice with intangible returns. These affirmations are the realm of teachers, librarians, police officers, paramedics, firefighters, soldiers, and, oddly, physicians (unlike the rest of this group, they are well paid). Nothing I say here is meant to detract from the noble professions listed above. I am glad that people recognize that these people make a difference in the lives of others. I appreciate the contributions of these professions, even when I disagree with the policies they are working towards (e.g. the dedication, valor and contribution of a police officer enforcing an unjust law, or a soldier fighting an unjust war is no less than those celebrated in bronze in capital cities).

I watched Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy last night where the mole says something like, “I am a man who has made his mark.” While powerful traitors are remembered in history, e.g. Benedict Arnold, most people in the clandestine services, of all sides, are not generally thanked for making a difference. Yet, they are celebrated in pop culture with the likes of James Bond and NBC's Chuck. Soldiers and emergency responders are also glamorized in films like Saving Private Ryan and Ladder 49. When one watches these films, one cannot help but want to make a difference in the way that these heroes do. Everyone has to die, and why not die in a dramatic flourish, saving the public from a burning industrial complex, asking the chief on the radio to tell your family you love them, then be celebrated with a parade of bag pipes?

Physicians are perhaps the most celebrated of the professions that “make a difference.” They are well paid (compare the education of an MS or a PhD to the MD, then argue that they “deserve” that paycheck), they are regarded as sexy and “real” doctors (again, compare the educations), and they are celebrated in pop culture! Imagine the drama that could be made out of the difficulties encountered in the classroom (e.g. Precious), while these dramas exist, they pale in comparison to the following of ER, House, or MASH. It is the disparity between the glamor of these other professions and teachers that spawn the creation of books like Today I Made a Difference, and the award that brought those teachers together, the DisneyHAND Teacher of the Year (which only makes Wikipedia in Joe Underwood's potentially self-made Wikipedia page).

Yet, with all due respect, I doubt that these professions actually make more of difference than any other profession. Politicians make a difference. Scientists and engineers make a difference. Artists, athletes and musicians make a difference. Marketers, corporate executives, spoiled rich kids, and royalty make a difference. Further, gardeners, custodians, maids, maintenance workers, and trades people make a difference. The school or public hospital would not get built without politicians. Without engineers and scientists the buildings could not be designed, the procedures would not be invented, and the knowledge would not have be created. Marketers, corporate executives, and the rich guide public opinion, and supply the materials that go into the public works. Artists and athletes provide the first role models. Trades people actually build the buildings, and gardeners, maintenance workers and custodians keep the buildings going. Without all of these other people making their difference the teachers and physicians would be impotent to make a difference. Even the tax payers who pay (the absolute minimum) for for everything from materials to salaries are making a difference!

It does not seem to stop with legal profession. Do drug dealers and prostitutes not make a difference?  In modern society we see these as negatives, but like traitors, negatives can make a heck of a difference as well. If I ignore the negative societal view, drug dealers provide the same service as pharmacists, they just are not regulated so more mistakes are made. Prostitution is even more interesting to me in this regard. In Frank Hebert's Dune it is asserted that the concubines are the true lovers of the royalty, and are therefore the ones with actual power, as they have the power of love over the rulers. A modern prostitute is a far cry from a science fiction royal concubine, or is it? Are they not being provided money for essentially the same services? Could we learn to respect the “difference” that these people make in society even if we do not respect how they accomplish that difference, or what that difference is?

I have spent much of my adult life in some way connected to the mining industry. Arguably, the father of all engineering and science. Were the first humans to note the properties of certain stones, where they occur, and how to extract them from the earth proto-geologists and proto-miners? Did these earliest earth scientists not create the stone age? As our understanding of rocks, minerals, extraction and mineral processing increased, we entered the Chalcolithic (Copper Age). The metallurgists then really step up to the plate and combine tin and copper to launch civilization into the Bronze Age. The ability to smelt iron ore revolutionized civilization again. Then came coal. The Industrial Revolution is really the “Coal Age,” (a term I am certain I am not the first to coin) an age we are still very much in. Nearly every accomplishment civilization has made can be in some way tied to the earth sciences, and like every field, geology has early heroes.

Like Leibniz and Newton for calculus, geology has the founding fathers. Without surprise, the Greeks and Romans are often celebrated in the West, with the baton passed straight to Christian Europeans, but it was the Muslim world that really started modern geology. Early Muslim geologists like Abual-Rayhan al-Biruni and IbnSina rarely get any love in geology textbooks, and truthfully, I had to look up these names in Wikipedia, though Pliny the Elder sticks in my mind for his idea that amber was ancient tree sap. Skipping the Chinese, and everyone between these earliest geologists and NicolasSteno's 17^th Century ideas about stratigraphic relationships and superposition. A century later William Smith was born into a world that needed geologic maps. Then, in 1785, James Hutton became the first (widely regarded) modern geologist (Wikipedia), launching a scientific field for the inquisitive who are afraid of math. Any discussion of the founders of geology must include Lyell, whose uniformitarianism has been both incredibly insightful, and one of the biggest hindrances to geology conceivable. The thing about the differences these people made is that they did not simply make a difference in geology.

Back when Steno was wandering around Europe anyone with insight, curiosity and resourcefulness could make a hell of a difference. Stratigraphic relationships are obvious, and not to take away from Steno's greatness, but was it really that groundbreaking to argue that the heart is indeed a muscle? Well, yes it was, but it took someone who made observations, then hypotheses, then tested them, which is the basis of the scientific method. Steno made a huge difference simply by making observations in a logical, methodical way! Today, no one makes differences this big and this broad. These big names were part of a golden age of knowledge. Modern scientific heroes are more plentiful, and less celebrated (e.g. the nearly forgotten Jonas Salk, John Bardeen, or most Nobel Laureates). They are also more focused, so they only get to make one big difference (Marie Curie won the Nobel for physics, then again for chemistry, and Bardeen won twice for physics, so while there are a few of these people, there are not many (Wikipedia)).

It is too late for me to make a difference like this (more than likely), and the chances were never really in my favor, but making a difference is not necessarily measured in Nobel prizes.  The inability to quantify "difference made" leads me to stare at that damn apple after a day at work, and wonder, “did I make a difference today”?  Or, more likely, I just helped provide the electricity to let people sit at home, watching TV, not making a difference themselves? Is my difference actually the antidifference? Am I, as an exploration geologist, a traitor to human progress?

When I walk away from these evening sessions of self doubt, I am left with the feeling, that like so many of my kin in extractive industries and Chinese factories, my contribution to history will be far greater than that of the most honorable professions.  My contributions will be recorded in the size of our landfills, the destruction of our planet, and the pollution of our atmosphere, but I will die a man who has made his mark.

Stop SOPA and PIPA

Congress  is once again selling out to corporations, and attempting to sell your civil liberties to the entertainment industry.  The ramifications of the American government doing this would be to cripple free speech internationally.  The bills, known as SOPA and PIPA, are opposed by wide swath of Americans that are small business owners, nerds, university professors, TEA Party activists, the Cato Institute, the ACLU, EFF, and many more organizations and individuals.

If you are unsure what this legislation is, or means for you, Randall Monroe has four good links posted on xkcd. If you want an easy way to contact your congressional delegation, the EFF has a super easy form letter you can send here.

Follow by Email and Travel

I am doing a bit of touring around the North Island right now, so posting has been on the back burner.  I will be adding photos and a few trip details with time.  Instant gratification can be found on my Google+ page, or by following my SPOT (for real time location updates when I am in the woods - owing to battery consumption, I won't be using it while driving).  Lastly, in the right side bar is a new gadget that, I think, will email you new posts, or notifications of new posts, which may make it easier to consume my mind grapes.

Travels thus far have included Rotorua, Tauranga, Waihi, New Plymouth, Taranaki (cloudy summit), Ruapehu (cloudy summit), and Napier.  Napier has earned itself the best small city in New Zealand ranking in my experience, and New Plymouth might edge it out for car owners who could easily escape to Egmont National Park.  Of course, both cities shut down for the day at about 16:00, so Minot probably edges them both out in terms of exciting cities to reside in.  The trip has largely been about walking to the top of Volcanoes.  Yet to come are Ngarahoe and Tongariro, but hopefully they will have clear summits, unlike the top of Taranaki, where it took a good bit of effort to find the summit owing to the cloud cover.

Exercise Ball Antics

I'm not sure how many people check out the comments.  Sarah posted the link to this Nike ad in comment on "Seals Can Do That."  Just in case you missed it, the exercise ball antics (which are way out of my league) are worth a watch. (Also here.)

n+1 Revisions

I am constantly on the look out for my next bicycle.  At times, this seems ridiculous to those around me, and occasionally, I have to admit, it is a bit silly even to me.  I will long for a trials bike (Google Danny MacAskill if you are curious) when I want to play in the urban environment.  Lust after full suspension, carbon, cross-country mountain bikes.  Endurance road bikes catch my eye, and I have been known to dream of long, continental tours on a Long Haul Trucker (Surly's stout tourer).  It goes beyond that though.  I picture winter rides on the Pugsley, and was nearly overcome with the release of the Moonlander (Surly's "Omniterra" bikes whose 4 inch tires ride anywhere).  Better than touring might be touring on a tandem, off road, or chucking a folding bicycle or a Co-Motion tourer into a suitcase and busing or jet setting off to new riding adventures in new places.  Car-free though, the ability to carry more intrigues me.  Maybe a BOB, or a utility bike...

Thus, my next bicycle "plan" is often dependent more on my mood, than my need.  Yet, when a need for a new bicycle arises, I am quickly torn about what style of bike would best fill that need.  Of course, in all of this, price-point also matters.  Co-Motion bikes, no matter how wonderful they seem, are not in my near future.  Next off the list are the bikes with very specific uses.  A trials bike, while fun, would not be much added value in my current life, and the smooth, over-groomed bike tracks of New Zealand do not even warrant front suspension, let alone full (I have been riding rigid single-speed, much to the confusion of Kiwis). The process of elimination leaves me with final choices that are difficult to make.  Leaving me to struggle through a decision with too many variables to be able to decide based on reason, and not emotion.

The deliberation is currently between a utility bike, a disc-brake commuter, and a disc-tourer.  I have between one and two commuters (between one and three if you count Sarah's bike, the fluctuations are based on current state of repair, and gearing and tire size currently on my single-speed).  Thus, another commuter is not really what I most need, but it is probably the cheapest option (aside from soldiering on with what I have).  The disc-tourer would be great, but I would probably end up balking at the cost of the tourers I want, and get something that is more a commuter with racks than an Africa traversing beast.  Thus, the utility bike leads in the standing as an idyllic path to car-free bliss.

Enter the Xtra-cycle!  These amazing bicycle accessories let you carry a week's shopping at Costco and a friend.  The catch of this great device?  Notice the other two bikes had disc brakes.  Xtra-cycles are not disc brake compatible (though I could probably rig up some front disc-rear rim brake nonsense, it would be undesirable at best).  Kona makes the Ute, a rigid body utility bike with disc brakes for $1300 (or ~$1000 for last year's model).  Kona accomplishes the price by going with cheaper components, and skipping out on the wide range of Xtra-cycle accessories for their own design of inferior bags without accessories.  This, strikes me as undesirable (the closest Kona dealer being in New South Wales, Australia does not help either).  Leaving the clear leader in the current standings the Surly Big Dummy.  The Big Dummy is based on the rack system of the Xtra-cycle, meaning every Xtra-cycle accessory is a Big Dummy accessory.  The components are better than the Ute (at least one step up in every category), and there is an importer to New Zealand (though I do not know of any shops that carry Surly products).  So, why an Xtra-cycle?  I can take people to/from the Taupo Airport, I can buy enough groceries for a week (or longer), I can haul big items home when I have to purchase them, they turn heads, people who ride them are sexier than people who don't, and (the Ute and Big Dummy) have disc brakes.  Enough said, right?

Well, not necessarily.  I should not really need a bigger quiver of bikes.  The no new bike option is the most cost effective, and easiest.  I commute and mountain bike.  I run for fun.  I have been known to climb, and have started swimming.  I do not really need more activities, and I live close enough to the shops that I do not need to buy a week's worth of groceries.  The exciting force in all of this is that I want disc brakes, because disc brakes stop better in the rain.

In Taupo it rains so frequently that Noah would pray for a reprieve.  In December, someone from Vancouver or Ketchikan would find the weather enviable, but a Pacific Northwest dweller would not trade one day of their summer for the gloomy summer solstice that the South Pacific spits upon New Zealand.  In daily rain of this magnitude, bike brakes, like all brakes, need more stopping distance.  Yet, the coefficient of increased stopping distance is reduced with disc brakes, and a short stopping distance is key to a long life with these daffy bastards zooming about in their four-wheeled, metal coffins.

Calling cars metal coffins may seem extreme, but 369 people died last year driving in New Zealand.  That may seem like a paltry few, but this is a small country (i.e. few roads), with a small population.  The USA has a mortality rate in motor vehicles of 8.5 per one billion vehicle kilometers (Wikipedia).  New Zealand has a mortality rate of 9.1 per one billion vehicle kilometers (Wikipedia).  If the unit is tricky, just think of it like this, if you drive in New Zealand, you are about 7% more likely to be killed than if you drive in the United States, where 32 708 people died in motor vehicles in 2010 (Wikipedia).  Thus, strapping into a metal box, and grimacing at the weather for thirty minutes a day is just a dance with death, a dance I do not particularly enjoy.

Thus, I choose to bicycle commute.  This does not increase my odds of living, but it increases my enjoyment of the riskiest part of my day.  I can take measures to reduce the risk.  I can, for example, ride on the trails, which increases enjoyment, reduces risk, but adds significant time to commuting.  I can be a timid rider, and avoid roads in favor of paths that weave back and forth across the highway, and get splattered by one of the motorists who accelerate towards pedestrians crossing the street (motorists do not have to stop for pedestrians saving specially marked cross-walks found only near schools, making crossing streets like a real-life game of Frogger).  Or, like all of the other road users, I can accept that my employer decided that the value of their employee's lives is less than that of real estate near where they life, and ride my bike 10 miles, everyday.

My grumping about highway safety, and my current lust for disc brakes stems from a first experience I had the other day.  I, for the first time, was in a collision with a vehicle.  Some people may be smugly thinking, "Ah, I bet he'll be wearing hi-vis now."  But I won't be.  I was headed home, south, in the left lane (recall that they drive on the left here) of State Highway 1.  At intersections, Kiwis attempt to miss cyclists by mere inches to shave nanoseconds from their drive, hi-vis or no.  After several near misses, I have decided to take the lane in intersections.  This puts me in a place where a collision seems more likely, but it forces the drivers to treat me like another car, rather than a pole in a slalom course.  Usually, the driver waits their turn behind me, but not the driver of a blue Holden sedan on Friday.  This individual decided to pass me in the right lane (indicating that he clearly saw me), then make a left turn from the right lane in front of me.  This event would have been a bit rattling had everything gone smoothly, but it didn't go smoothly.

Unfortunately for me, there was a car in the roundabout, so rather than pull a douchey move, the Holden started to pull a douchey move, then came to a sudden stop mere feet in front of me.  I recall brake lights, swerving away from a trailer hitch, and braking hard, then my wheel hitting their bumper, and my chest hitting their trunk.

I did not loose consciousness, I was not even hurt.  I have a cut on my hand, and a larger one on my right shin.  My legs were banged up a bit, and I took my saddle pretty hard to my bum, but nothing major.  There were noises of cars stopping, and I think a pedestrian might have yelled something.  These auxiliary details are unclear to me, not because of injury, but because of how fast it happened.  A car swerved in front of me, stopped, then inertia did its thing.  I got off my bike, and walked around their car.  The passenger rolled down their window, and the first thing I said was, "are you okay"?  They asked me the same, and I said yes, and that I did not think their car was damaged, but before I finished speaking they drove off.  It was over.  I pulled my bike to the side of the road, checked for damage and reset my chain as other motorists who witnessed the event drove past.

I have lived in this country four months.  I have had numerous near misses with cars, as has Sarah (who only comes to visit!).  I cannot change how Kiwis drive, and I am unwilling to change my lifestyle to other equally dangerous ones (two GNS staff members were medevaced following a motor vehicle crash commuting to work last year, they both lived).  I am keen to add to my quiver an urban/tarmac bike with quick stopping disc brakes, and maybe one or two other fun features, and hope that will decrease my stopping distance in the rain.  That seems like my best action following this incident.