Have you ever caught a glimpse of the divine?

Have you ever looked at a photograph of a group of people and had one image stand out?  Have you ever looked at a person and felt their smile like the sun on a warm day, and when you smile back the sunbeams become golden?  Have you ever thought that if you were Adam then absolutely positively this other person was Eve, created by God just for you?

Have you ever felt the pain of deep, whole, true love, love that is lost, love that is completely lost?

What do you do, then, when against all hope you get a glimmer of a chance at the same thing again?  What if you find Eve, but you know that this will, ultimately, one way or another, result in another loss for you as deep or deeper than the first?  What would you do then?

I'll tell you what I do.  I feel a nibble of the pain, and then I suck it up, and I build up my courage, and I look at the sunbeam as best I can, and I try to soak up every single little bit of it - the sight, the sound, the taste, the feel, the smell, every moment of it, for as long as it lasts.  I try to linger in every single moment, neither looking back nor looking forward, and I try to stop time and stay and dawdle for every single fraction of a second.

This probably makes me look pretty goofy when I do it, and pretty stupid, but when you catch sight of the meteor glowing across the sky you don't take your eye off it.  When you see the diver spinning towards the water you don't blink.  And by God if an angel floats in front of you you don't think of yesterday or tomorrow, you don't even think, you just be, for as long as you can, where you are.

Because time *will* move on, and this may be the first time you feel the sunbeam, or it may be one of many times, or it may be the last time you feel it.  So you stop, and you gaze, and you hope that you never lose the memory, because as long as you have that then you have more than most people ever have.

And if you experience the loss then you grieve, and you take all the time it takes, and then you wait for the next chance to catch a glimpse of the divine.

O. M. G.

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!

Chillin' . . . waitin' . . . nice

Dear Readers, have you ever had the chance, the extra time, the lack of obligations, to sit, at ease, quietly, and simply chill out?  I am doing that right now, and it is great, but the best part is something extra, there is something extra, there is something in the air, something in the music, something in my head, there is a sense of calm anticipation.  I think something is going to happen, something big, something personal, something important, and something deeply and fundamentally good.

Have they started the LHC at CERN and had a meaningful collision?  It is 8:40 PM there, a week after they got the beams working both directions - that could be it.

No, that is not it.  That is not the feeling.  This feeling is not like the rush of scientific discovery.  No, the feeling is more like the feeling before a cool front comes on an oppressively hot muggy day, the feeling is anticipation of release.  But this happens to be a beautiful cool but sunny fall day.  The weather is not oppressive.  I am not uncomfortable.  I am already at ease.  What is going on here?!

I am at a Starbucks.  Is it because the sales staff are not overworked, is it because they are friendly and helpful and nice?  No.

I had some really deep, meaningful talks with my birth family this Thanksgiving, with my parents and my dear sister, and my Mother is recovering, nicely, from an illness, is that it?  No.  That is not it.

No, I know what it is, and I've been teasing you, Dear Readers, playing with you just a bit, because I think I know what is coming.  I know why I have this feeling, and right now things are very nice.  Very very nice indeed.

If I am right about this, and if I am in the right mood, later, I'll let you know what happens.  For now, Dear Readers, I must leave you hanging.  It is about 1:59 Central time, GMT-6, on 11/27/2009, and if my feeling is right, whatever happens will happen soon, after 2:00, possibly right at 2:00.

Here it is!!!!!!

Ain't I the devil?

Heehee.

Thanksgiving

Dear Readers,

It is time for the annual Thanksgiving post.  Well, okay, my first annual Thanksgiving post, but still, *the* annual Thanksgiving post.  I hope you will forgive me for a rather, well, spiritual post, but today I am in the mood for spirit.

Today I give thanks for my soulmates.  What do I mean by 'soulmates?'  It is very hard to describe, and I certainly cannot describe it in terms of objective reality.  Hence my journey, for a few minutes, off the deep end of reality and into the spirit realm.

My soulmates are people with which I have a very special connection.  A unique connection.  The connection is real, but it is subtle, and it is very deep.  There is no fighting the connection.  there is no severing the connection.  It just is.

Can I prove the existence of soulmatedness?  No, of course not.  There is no physical experiment, no objective measurement, no testable hypothesis that can be made to prove the connection.  The soulmate connection is about feelings, very strong but very subtle feelings.  So soulmates belong in the realm of faith, which is belief without proof, and the subject of soulmates belongs with other spiritual topics such as religion.

I had thought that today I would be giving thanks for all of reality, and for the spirit of discovery.  I expected this because of my recent quest to CERN in Geneva Swizerland.  Yet, surprise surprise, reality exceeds my expectations, and I find myself giving thanks not for reality, but for a soulmate.  I give thanks for one particular soulmate.

This soulmate is especially important to me because this year, in arguably  my deepest hour, during my neediest time,  I reconnected with this soulmate whom I had only the slightest previous inkling of, just a vague feeling, and yet out of the blue I reconnected big time, and there was no denying it, I had a soulmate right when I needed one most.

I have nothing more than a hunch, but I suspect that perhaps this deep connection has something to do with the underlying vibration of the universe, the vibration that I suspect is responsible for the manifestation of what we see as objective reality.  As I say, this is my speculation, and it is totally subjective.  Shoot,  it is downright oogie boogie, but I know that many people throughout history have written about similar things, and I think I am starting to see what they meant.  Have I 'lost it?'  Maybe.  Is my desperation clouding my judgment? Perhaps.  Perhaps not.  Even so, what can I do?  What can I do with my knowledge of a soulmate but give thanks to God?  Dear readers, you tell me.

This is a connection that goes beyond anything else, beyond the physical, beyond the emotional, and in the spiritual realm the connection borders on the connection to God.

I know, without a doubt, that I would die for my soulmate.  For my soulmate I would endure anything for any length of time, just as I would for my kids, although my children are not my soulmates.  My soulmates, for the most part, seem to be selected from my peers.  My knowledge of my soulmates is one of the things that gives a purpose to my life.  My knowledge of my soulmates provides comfort when I despair.  This knowledge verifies the existence of God for me.

Yeah, it is a big thing.

And for this thing, this huge thing, this singular thing, here and now, I give Thanks!

Thank you, God!  thank you for showing me this soulmate.  Thank you very much!

About things sucking . . .

My most faithful commenter, Lynda3, commented on my usage of what I thought was a rather clever word - "suckitude," and that made me think of a question that I have had for a long long time.

Perhaps one of my faithful readers can help me answer my question.

I am certain that every single person in the US, and probably even every single person in the entire developed world, has heard the word "suck" used to mean something bad.  For example, the pejorative declaration "you suck," or the ubiquitous declaration "this sucks."   My question is this - what is the item that is being sucked?  I would like to fill in the blank - "you suck - ?"

Obviously genitalia springs to mind, because genitalia *always* springs to mind.  We are, after all, human, the most sex-obsessed creatures on the Earth.  But if so, why is sucking genitalia 'bad?'  Is one claiming that the other person is, essentially a slut?  Declaring, for example, that  - "you suck large amounts of random genitalia" - as opposed to declaring, I suppose - "you suck genitalia that is screened by using at least a rudimentary set of standards for your selection criteria," - which let's face it, is pretty much what everybody does, we just differ on the standards we use.

Or is the "you sucks" pejorative a reference to the old homophobia, declaring, in essence, that the person being slammed is 'gay.'  Saying, to a man - you suck dick,  - or saying, to a woman - you suck the most intimate and beautiful portion of a woman's anatomy?

Or does the phrase imply bestiality?  I know that I have specifically heard the phrase "This sucks donkey dicks" which is not only very nicely alliterative but which also expresses a very strong taboo.

And another possibility - is the phrase scatological, reaching even further back into our development - declaring that one sucks excrement?

I think one could make a case for any of these possibilities, hence the answer remains a mystery to me.

Can anyone help me out here?

Aw man . . .

Check this out!  Freaking son of a Heisenberg uncertainty!!

Yeah, they got the beams working, in both directions, on Friday, just four freaking days after I was there.  My friends say I must have inspired them.  Yeah.  Nice try, trying to make me feel better.

But this is not the very final step.  They did not say what energy they had the beams circulating with, and they for sure did not say they achieved a collision.

On the other hand I know they are working weekends, and they like to be conservative with their estimates, so I wouldn't be surprised if this very weekend they have a 3.5 TeV collision!  Perhaps.  Obviously this is all speculation on my part.  I have no direct knowledge of what is happening, just slightly educated guesses.

Was the trip worth it?

The inevitable question - was my trip to Geneva and CERN "worth it?"
For me, oh yeah, the trip was worth the time and money and hassle and sore muscles and whatever else the cost may end up being to my personal life.  I have no doubt at all that this trip was, indeed, "worth it."

I have never, ever taken a trip like this before.  In essence I went to a foreign place and I wondered around.  I had only the barest of plans or schedules - one half of one day scheduled at CERN.  I also pretty much expected one day of jet-lag recovery, so you could say that day was planned as well.  Other than that, though, I had no firm plans at all. 

I made mistakes - a ton of mistakes.  For example a couple days I ate expensive breakfast at my hotel.  Even then, even though it was a buffet, the food was amazing.  I think everything was very fresh, because the scrambled eggs tasted like no eggs I had ever had before.  The same with the cheese.  I'll admit the chocolate was nice, too, but truth be told chocolate is not my 'thing,' which is probably good because I could have gained a lot of weight if chocolate was my thing.

My hotel tax covered free city transportation, meaning buses, trains, trolleys, and even water taxis, and I also got a free shuttle ride to and from the airport whenever I wanted it.  For most trips the airport was my first stop, because the airport had a rail link to the main train station, and the main train station linked to, well, everywhere.  BUT you had to know what you were doing, and I cannot tell you how many times I got on the wrong train or the wrong bus.  But so what?  When I figured out I was going the wrong direction I got off at the next stop,  crossed the street or tracks (looking both ways first),  and I got on the bus or train going back in  the other direction. 

The one time that I did have an absolute 'appointment,' for my tour of CERN, I did not go to the airport first, because that was backtracking.  Instead I set off on foot to catch bus number 56 that the desk clerk said would stop "right over there" and which would go directly to CERN but you know what?  I could not find the bus stop!  That was the only time I met someone who was vaguely rude.  On the road I stopped at a small garage and asked the guy sweeping the steps for the way to the bus stop, and he pointed me to the mechanic, who said, in French, more or less, "buzz off I only speak French!"  Frankly I had expected more of that around the city, but that was the *only* time it happened.  So I went back on the small road and walked farther and saw a small sign that said "bus stop" with an arrow.  I waited a few minutes at the stop, in the middle of nowhere, and realized the sign did not mean that _this_ was the bus stop, the sign was showing the directions to _a_ bus stop!  Bwahahahaha.  I walked that direction and followed a couple more of those signs when I saw a real bus stop with a bunch of twenty-somethings waiting there.  It looked like the areas had modest apartment complexes, and I figured they were probably heading to work.  I was pretty sure I wanted the number 56 bus, which terminated right at CERN, and wouldn't you know it but the number 56 bus showed up, so I got on it. 

We took a windy path and the hour that I had budgeted for my fifteen minute trip to CERN was ticking away, and we stopped at various stops, and when the bus route ended I got off and looked around and - no CERN.  I walked around a bit and, still, no CERN anywhere!  Looking back on it, I suspect that the same bus route may run both directions and I had gotten on the bus headed in the wrong direction!  That is what I think happened, but at the time I looked at my map and it seemed I was way off course.  I caught a bus going the other direction going to an area that I could see on my map, figuring I needed to get back to a known location.  Oh, did I mention that CERN itself was off the edge of my map?  Yes, it was just a tiny bit off the edge of the map, but I had been assured that it was absolutely "in that direction."

By the time I got on the right number 56 bus that actually said CERN on the front (I was learning where to look) it was already time for my tour to start, and the confirmation email from CERN had reminded me that if I was late for my tour time I might miss the tour entirely.  But what could I do?  I got to CERN fifteen minutes late and as it turned everything was okay.  Earlier, a large tour group of students had been late for *their* tour, so the whole schedule was pushed back, and I was fine!!  Whew.

I did try to get a geographical sense of where the buses and trains were taking me, a mental map of the area, but the roads were not laid out in grids, and the terrain was hilly and frequently the road was lower than the countryside, so I could not actually see where I was going much of the time.

Here is one tip I offer to my dear readers for orienting around Geneva - if you have no compass and it is overcast so you cannot see the sun, or even the mountains for that matter, you can still always find South, or close to it.  Do you want to know how?  Look for the small satellite dishes!!  Bless their hearts, those little babies are on many of the buildings and they all point their happy little faces in the same direction, day and night, rain or shine.  Follow the dishes, my readers, follow the dishes.

Back to my trip - besides my CERN tour I spent most of my time wondering around Geneva, and looked, and sketched (WTF?!), and rested, and most of my time I had the oddest feeling.  I do not have the words to describe it, but I think the word "poignancy" may come the closest to it.  I felt that I greatly liked this place, and I felt that they clearly were doing many things right.  Perhaps it is because Switzerland is so old, and, I dunno, mature compared to the US.  Perhaps they have had more time to get things right.  Perhaps Europe is more like a beautiful park and the US is more like a shopping mall.  In addition I felt sad, too,  because I knew after leaving I would greatly miss the place, and I have been so disappointed with so much of America lately.  So many of our problems have solutions and yet we are prevented from seeing and implementing them.  I think we get a HUGE amount of disinformation and we don't even know it, and that makes me sad, too.

And the people around Geneva - the way they behaved.  It is so hard to describe.  Calm, perhaps.  Civilized.  Enjoying life.

I suspect all the walking, up and down hills, helps them be a little more fit than we are just as a matter of course, and they dress smartly because of it.  No bright colors, a lot of grey and black, but I must admit that women my age look damn sharp in a black sweater and grey skirt and black leggings, and black boots too!  I didn't expect to see that.  And people seem to accept their sexuality.  It was like it was okay for men to be men and for women to be women.  And I hope you know I am a feminist from way back, but this was . . . different!  And boy does it kill my macho image to say this, but some of the places were just so . . . I dunno, sweet.  One walking bridge that I used had nice benches on it, and the view was great, and I swear I saw three couples, over the age of 35, kissing gently, right in broad daylight.  I couldn't believe it, and yet - why not?  Why not?

So I was sad, and I got tired, and I got sore muscles, but by the end of the day I slept VERY well, either because of the walking or the fresh air or the mental challenge of seeing novelty and having to figure things out.  I slept well indeed.

And so while this trip was not FUN, as in amusement park fun, and the trip was actually very poignant, I think it was also very rich, for lack of a better word.  I saw few museums, I mostly saw mundane things, and yet they were not mundane to me.

Because of all of that I think this trip was very much worth "it."  Frankly I'm a little surpised more people don't do this kind of thing.  Maybe I just haven't noticed, I dunno.

If anyone has their own travel stories to tell I sure would like to hear them. 

Geneva and the Internet and watching TV

I think that perhaps one of the things that made my stay in Geneva so nice is the fact that for the entire time I watched zero TV.  For one thing, it was mostly in French, and also - come on - who would go through all the trouble to get to Geneva and then spend his/her time watching TV?  Seriously.   I did, however, spend a fair amount of time on the internet, some of it social, and I think that, to me, the topics of watching TV and socializing on the internet are a little related.

If you have read much of this blog you must know by now that I LOVE me some internet.  It is the biggest, baddest, bestest research tool that any academic junkie could ever hope for.  Plus it is GREAT for personal business such as banking and shopping, and also it has more or less paid my salary for many years, so as I said, I LOVE me some internet.  As an aside, did you know CERN was the birthplace of the web?!  No lie!  They started it as a research tool, to help them coordinate work and share results.  I tell you these people really have their act together.  Together, man!!

So I love me some internet, but I have never, until recently, used it for interpersonal human interaction.  At work, my preference is face to face, then email or chat, and then phone, mostly because when I worked globally it was so much easier to communicate technical information remotely via typing.  Imagine trying to _tell_ someone a long URL over the phone?  Then imagine that when you try to do that the listener does not speak your language?  Argg.

Because of all of that I am very comfortable with typing and 'chatting,' or 'sametiming' if you use Lotus products.

Still, my first foray into social networking was kind of a flop.  I've been thinking about why that is, and I think I have put my finger on it, but I am not completely sure.  Please realize these are my personal statements, and not an indictment or criticism of anything or anyone that enjoys social networking on the web, bless their hearts.

For me, in a nutshell, I found social networking to be extremely compelling and yet completely unfulfilling.  I was really getting hooked on it, to the point where I would always check messages the first thing when I signed on, and before I did anything else.  And you know me, if I did get a message I would usually respond with a message two or three times the length, never at a loss for words.  For me getting and responding to the messages was the compelling and the addicting part.

The unfulfilling part, for me, I think, is similar to my experience with watching TV.  Watching TV and internet socializing feel meaningful and yet for me they are lacking so much _here_, and so so _now_.  How can you stay in the moment with someone when you are not even in the same room with him/her?  I am pretty much a reality freak, meaning for me the HERE and NOW are really important, and watching TV or chatting are simply no substitute for the real thing.  I've never been much for watching someone else do something, I've always been a lot bigger on actually doing it, or at least trying it.  So I pretty much suck at internet social networking. 

The worst part of this, dear readers, is that I must make a confession. I think I may have hurt someone, someone I care about, because of my suckitude.  I tried to use social networking to enhance real life, but I found out soon enough that I am bad at it, very bad at it.  It can be a nice way to give brief status, and to stay in superficial touch, but any more than that and my goodness, do I really screw it up.

I had to disconnect for awhile because it is just not my thing, more's the pity.  As I said. my thing is the _here_, my thing is the _now_, and my thing is the full monty, not the shadow world.

Sigh.

How I Lost Ten Pounds in One Day and Lived to Brag about it.

Here I hinted about losing ten pounds in one day, and I thought I might explain how that came to be.  Before I get into that, though, I must say that if you want to get most anyone's attention, all you have to do is mention losing ten pounds in one day and you've got their 100% undivided focus for about as long as you want it.

Speaking of that, I kinda try to practice a little Zen or Eastern religion myself.  At many times I like to 'stay in the moment,' as they say in acting class.  When I do that the most remarkable things can happen.  Not always, of course, but sometimes, especially when dealing with people.

I think, though I haven't formally learned this, that many times when people are having a conversation when they should be listening they are instead thinking about what they are going to say next.   This makes sense, because in a normal conversation there is a normal back and forth, where each person takes turn speaking.  But another thing I have learned from studying scripts is that many times, during a dialogue or conversation, there is one person who is more or less driving the discussion and the other person is more or less along for the ride.  As a side note, memorizing the 'driver' part is more difficult than memorizing the 'passenger' part, because the driver is responsible for the direction of the conversation.

What I am suggesting that you do, at least once, when in a conversation, is to try to intentionally take the 'passenger role.'  Forget about composing what you will say.  Instead, not only listen to the other person, but listen with all your senses - hear the words, watch their expressions, feel the temperature, smell the smells.  Do NOT touch their bodies though.  Unh uh.  That would be WAY too 'active' of a listening style.  Well, actually, a touch on the shoulder or arm works very well, but you better be REALLY good at this before you try that, or BAD BAD things will happen.

Is this 'staying in the moment?'   think so, or at least that is my interpretation.  If you try this, at least a few times, it can become second nature.  Your body will become still, and if you get really good at it you will find yourself subtly echoing the other person's gestures, and when that happens something rather remarkable can happen.  For yourself - you will get so much more out of the talk, because instead of being lost in your own thoughts and speeches, which you probably already know by heart, you will be seeing and hearing something *new*.  In addition, and here is the freaky part, the _other_  person will also change somewhat.  Somehow they can sense the difference, although usually it is a subtle feeling only, but they will become, I dunno, more spontaneous and more into the conversation.  If you think about it in a certain way, you could consider this listening style to be a gift you are giving to the other person, the gift of your full attention, although in reality you are really giving the gift to yourself.  Or maybe a gift to both of you!  Either way, I think it is a worthwhile thing to do, and if nothing else it can jazz up a boring day.

But back to the weight loss.  Yes, I truly did lose ten pounds in about eight hours, under a Doctor's supervision.  Maybe I fibbed a bit though, because what I actually did was gain about four pounds first, then lose the ten pounds.  Then gain back the six, back to my original weight.

I don't know if I mentioned it before but one of the perks of living near the Mayo Clinic is that I can participate, for pay, in a number of medical studies.  Yeah, I know, the Seinfeld episode, which I have heard all about but have never actually seen.  From what I gather the studies I have been in are sort of like the TV show, only with no writers, and are much less humorous.

I don't remember exactly what this particular study was for, something about something, but the bottom line was that they first ensured I was pumped sufficiently with potassium and other electrolytes and then they drained me like a lizard.  They said that when one loses ten pounds of fluids one is at risk of having an electrolyte imbalance, so that is why they had to prime the pump, so to speak.  Also, I should mention I am a big guy, over 200 pounds, so ten pounds was only about 5% of my body weight.

The study required a day in the hospital and then an overnight stay in the hospital and then part of the next day, so I got about four free hospital meals out of the deal too, woo hoo!  They had me on a pretty big IV the first day, pumping me with fluids.  I had never had such a large IV before, into the back of my hand, and the chill was a little, as the medical people say, 'uncomfortable,' although not terrible. 

Then they hit me with Lasiks, which the nurses said means "lasts six" hours.  Wow!  That stuff dried me out faster than an etoh/caffeine combo.  I was _in_ the bathroom more than I was out of it.  And I dropped the ten pounds with no problem.  I actually could feel the difference in my waist size when I went home.  It felt really good.  But it lasted only about six hours.  After six or eight hours, as I am sure you have already guessed, I gained the six pounds back.  Water weight comes back as quickly as it is lost, which I suppose is a good thing, because in many ways our body is a giant beaker of chemical reactions which all require water in one way or the other, and to stay that dehydrated for long would not be healthy.

But there you have it, how I lost ten pounds in eight hours and lived to brag about it!

My CERN trip is getting closer

My trip to CERN is getting closer.  So far the news I get from the CERN Couirer is good news.  The injector ring is working fine, and they have injected low speed protons through a couple of the sectors in the main ring.  Unfortunately for me, this time they are taking a very cautious, step by step approach, with the tentative goal of full ring running in both directions and a 3.5TeV collision before Christmas.  That energy is about half of what the ring should be able to do, and will not generate any new data that we haven't seen before.  Still, it will be a very good bringup test of the entire system.

I can't really fault them for being so cautious.  Last year the heat problem the encountered in September was a big setback.  They designed a new quench system so if it happens again it will not take out so many sectors, and they designed new test procedures for the connections so they will spot resistance before it gets too hot.  And they have been quiet about the bringup schedule.  All this makes total sense but for people like me and the press it is difficult to not have a planned 'ribbon cutting' point in time so I can be there at that exact time.

Who knows, though, if they made this like the Superbowl I probably wouldn't be able to get tickets, so I am not complaining.