Happy Holidays

I started the Brainsplitter Project in February of this year. I suppose it would be honest to commemorate a year in some forty days or so, but I'm not one to make too much of serious conventions like this. The fact is, like everyone else, it will take me at least seven to ten days to start writing 09 on my checks.

Whatever your travel plans, please be safe and warm during your holiday season. Turkey and ham in moderation. Just enough caroling before one's voice starts to go hoarse. And if you are not on the best of terms with your parents or your siblings or your in-laws, try nodding and smiling. Those two things can get you through absolutely anything.

For the record, I have been giving some thought about resolutions for the new year, only to realize that that's just a farce really. It does not need to be January 1 for life changes to begin appropriately, just like I know I'm silly when I insist on starting homework or errands when the clock strikes :00 or that the volume controls on my car stereo should end in zero or five. I would enjoy a successful integration of working out at the campus gym, but I trust that it, like all else, will fall in its proper place and time. I would enjoy very much an intention to start thinking seriously about my Master's paper or getting ahead on comprehensive exam reading, but that would just end up driving me crazy. Everything in its own place and time, I said.

Regarding a focus on the here-and-now, my only requirement is to take solace and peace in being away from Tucson. My primary directive is to recline comfortably in the living room, either reading an enjoyable book, talking with my family, or snacking on some sweet potato pie. Or heart-healthy and quite nutritious plus delicious breakfast bars sent via Priority Mail by a very special cakemaker friend in the Deep South. (I don't care if you're not from there. Adopting the social graces successfully is all that matters.)

I don't have any plans to do any serious writing on here until I get back into town. If that changes, well, you'll see it plastered as such on the page.

Take care. I'll see you all when I get back.

Reclaiming

I am grateful that final exams are complete. I finished my statistics final this afternoon, celebrated with friends over a beer, and did absolutely nothing of importance for the remainder of the day. I caught up on video games and junk food. I have to finish up grading final exams and term papers for my Social Forces class. I hope to have it all done by Friday, so that way I can chill for the weekend before flying back home to see my family.

It seems almost unreal. I have been away from home for going on six months now. I walked back to the parking garage with one of my colleagues, and she agreed that it will be nice to get away from our lives here for a little while. As much as I like living here, I feel that I need some space too -- away from grades, away from homework, away from seminar papers. Truth told, I'm really glad to get away because it will give me some time and space to clear my head and to start evaluating what I want to do with myself while in the program.

I loved hanging out with Dan and his family in Los Angeles during Thanksgiving, but it happened so late in November, and it was such a tease! Piles of books were waiting for me when I got back.

My academic interests are pretty much set, I think. I like learning more about race and culture and political participation. But, more than that, I'm learning what type of student I want to be while I'm here. I like my colleagues quite a bit, but, as selfish as this sounds, I really need to figure out who the people are in my life that can enrich me -- that can challenge my thinking, that can comfort me when I'm down, that can motivate while I'm up. I have enough drinking buddies. I think I want it all, you know. I want a strong academic side satisfied, and I want to know that there are people that I enjoy hanging out with during my downtime, too.

Something I'm grappling with is my visceral reaction to all the mating and dating going on in my department. Maybe it's because I'm used to putting distance between my dating and my studies. There are quite a few couples in my department, and I have been that third wheel guy more than I care to admit. It's just not fun. Once upon a time, I heard something to the effect of, "Well, your friends with both of us, aren't you?" See, that's just it. I am. I have a unique friendship with each of you, and in the unfortunate event that I like one of you better than the other, it would be easiest to put the distance to both of you. I would like to think that twenty- and thirty-somethings need not stage ultimatums about having to like a friend and their mate. But then again, nothing really surprises me. It just lets me focus more on other singles and not quite so attached-at-the-hip folks.

I foresee a lot of long nights drinking coffee and talking with my mom about life in general, and I can't wait. It'll help recharge my soul.

Below Two Dollars

I can't say I remember with any sort of clarity the time that the figures at the pump read anywhere below $2.00 a gallon. I walked past a corner gas station on campus yesterday to find in big red print on white background, $1.76. The brief stint I performed in health and life insurance, I had to commute back and forth between Lexington and Louisville when the pump read closer to $2.25 or so. Even in a fuel-efficient car, it took its toll on my pocket book. When I was a graduate student, I could drive to the family clinic in the morning only to return home when gas jumped a quarter or more. But why? I can buy a hurricane disrupting fuel transportation from the Gulf into the heartland, but in most instances, gas fluctuations seemed little more than whimsical jumps and bumps. Being someone who is readily distrustful of my government, it is with an uncomfortable lean into your ear that I express my belief that, on the surface, gas barons repeatedly pressed the American people to determine just how much we would pay for gasoline. Not that we could afford it, not that we wanted to pay what we were paying, but rather that we had no choice in the matter. For those of us who weren't ready, willing, able, or accessible to bicycle our work commutes and to the grocery stores and so on, we got a taste of acute market powerlessness. This was under the watch of a president and vice-president who, incidentally, made a lot of their family fortunes on oil. Between deregulation efforts and deliberate stalls in green technologies, some coincidence indeed.

On my way to Los Angeles to attend Thanksgiving with a friend and his family, I drove westward on Interstate 10 and discovered a patch of land past the California border. I don't know how far along I was, but I remember these huge wind turbines, white, propeller heads idly turning and cutting into the dark grey of the storm-gathering sky. My current city of residence, Tucson, prides itself on being the Solar City in our vast desert. The bothersome question remains: So, now that America has elected Obama as our 44th President, will we actually start making strides toward green technologies and reducing our dependence on foreign oil, let alone fossil fuels in general?

Blogger Pelikan at Clips and Comment posted a blurb of T. Boone Picken's interview on Meet the Press in which he lamented,

...I had planned on 30 percent equity, 70 percent debt, and I can't get any, any, any money for that at this point. But it doesn't mean that this is the end of it. It's been postponed a little...

This refers to a large wind farm that Pickens wants to construct in Pampa, Texas, using the electricity generated by those turbines to offset the current expenditures of natural gas which would then reduce the amount spent on foreign oil consumption.

I haven't read or listened to the rest of the interview, so I don't immediately know if he is referring to a lack of fundraising support for his project or financial backing from banks and investors. What I do know, and agree with Pelikan on, is that we can't let this project die a sleeping death. The problem with some widescale grassroots efforts like this to promote a worthwhile cause is that the energy is there, the support is there, the interest is piqued, but the feasibility of the plan falls apart. Money isn't there. Time isn't there. Interest peters out. The problem of foreign oil is so large, though, that it necessarily overcomes the complacency issue. Why stay stagnant on this? The vast potential for job growth -- literally, the people building the solar panels and assembling the wind turbines and digging up the land sites and providing the infrastructure -- cannot be underestimated.

Instead of worrying about which big bank meets the requirements for a bailout, I say Pickens and his crew should petition a grant to the government to pick up a good bit of the slack. There are whispers about of Obama's intentions to generate a New New Deal for our economy, and I think renewable energy and job creation in that market are the perfect places to start.