Greyhounds and a Few Sobering Conversations.

Photo: Photgraph of Dallas lights when I figured out how to change the exposure time on my camera.

I've done something different every spring break during college. Freshman year I stayed in Golden and played Battlefield 2 the entire time. Sophomore year I took a bus to Mississippi to see my sister and brother in law. Junior year I can't remember what I did. Senior year I went to Moab Utah and did some great mountain biking. Grad school year I stayed in Golden and spent a lot of time with friends including a trip with Bryant to Boulder to tour some breweries. Sophomore year was the most memorable spring break, however. Riding the greyhound is sketchy enough when nothing goes wrong and it's outright ridiculous if anything crazy does happen like it did sophomore year.

I'm not sure what inspired me to go, but I had the money and figured, what the heck. Why not go. Kalen gave me a ride to the bus station in Denver. I had no idea how greyhounds worked. I didn't know where my bus was or even what the procedure for getting on it was. I started waiting in line. Just a line. I didn't know what it was for except it looked like they were getting on a bus. After standing there for a good 10min I asked the lady next to me where the bus was going and she said it was going to Minneapolis! Where's my bus! I finally "asked for directions" from a greyhound employee and he told me that the bus was about to leave and I'd better hurry over there. I ran through the door and found a bus outside already running and it was almost completely loaded with luggage. I quickly thanked God and gave them my bag and got on.

I walked down the aisle, looking for somewhere to sit. All the seats had 2 people in them except for a few. I chose a seat next to a tall Mexican man, expecting I might get to have a conversation with him and practice my Spanish. I really like speaking Spanish, but I kind of suck at it even after studying it for 3 years in high school. I can read quite well, but when it comes to comprehending words or getting the person to understand what the heck I'm saying, I'm pretty lost. Well after an hour or so, I decided to ask the man where he was going. Here's how the conversation went.

Where are you going? Huh? No Ingles. A donde vas? Que? Aaa Doondeee vaaass? Dallas. Vives in Dallas? Si. Que haces para trabajo en Dallas? ***Some spanish I didn't understand*** Muy bien. Tienes una familia alla? Si. Tienes ninos? Si. Cuantos anos tienen? Tres y ocho. Muy bien...

Translation: Where are you going? Huh? No English. Where are you going? What? Wheeeerrreee Aaarreee Yooouuu Goooiiinnnggg? Dallas. Do you live in Dallas? Yes. What do you do for work in Dallas? *** Some spanish I Did not Understand *** Cool. You have a family there? Yes. Do you have kids? Yes. How old are they? Three and eight. Cool...

I don't always have the best of luck when I try to talk to people...much less when it's in Spanish. That was our entire conversation. I tried, but saw that I was failing and he had no intention to have a conversation with me. I was looking forward to Dallas for a new seat partner to maybe strike up a conversation with. Unfortunately, we were stuck in Amarillo, that God-forsaken city.

We were there for 2 hours when we were only supposed to be there for 45min. I knew that I only had a 30min layover in Dallas, so there'd be no way to catch my connection there. Everyone at the bus station was mad. Some lady with 3 little kids was crying and I asked her what was wrong. Her ride had bailed out on her, so she was stuck at this horrible bus station at 2 in the morning with 3 upset kids. I offered her my cell phone to make a call, but she didn't need it. Her sister would pick her up at 7am. Poor lady.

We finally got back on the bus...they told us they had been cleaning the bus and the cleaners took longer than they were expecting. Sure. I got on and realized that someone had stolen my Sony Walkman cd player. Sad day. I should have known better than to leave it in my seat. At least they didn't steal my cds, which were and still are precious to me.

We got to Dallas at 8am. I was mildly impressed too. I mean, compared to the rest of Texas that I had seen while the sun was up. Wow that's a boring state when you're on whatever road I was on. And the fact that texans love texas was even more firmly nailed into my head after witnessing countless front yard texas flags and a trailer painted with the texas flag. But Dallas looked kind of interesting. I was looking forward to walking around.

I ended up walking around town for a good 2 hours because I knew I had about 4 hours before my new bus was going to leave. I saw a bunch of sky scrapers and found a Chipotle. I love Chipotle's burritos and I was a bit homesick after having driven through a wasteland, so I bought myself a steak burrito with black beans, fajitas, green chili, pico, cheese, sour cream, and lettuce. So delicious. I was bored of walking around, so I went back to the bus station where I had locked up my bags. I decided I wanted something out of them, so I unlocked them and sat down, watching CNN.

A man walked up to me and asked me if I was a Christian. Yes. I knew it. How'd you know I was a Christian? I could smell it on you. You have the reek of a Christian...He just stood there, looking at me for 30 seconds. Is there anything I can do for you? Where are you from? Colorado. Have you ever heard of _____ (Some pastor that raped a child and I can't remember who). No I hadn't heard of him, but that's horrible. He's a hypocrite just like all you Christians... Yeah, Christians are often hypocrites.

He kept talking to me for a good hour. Mostly about Christianity. He hated how hypocritical Christians are and he said that he might believe in Christianity if it wasn't for his dad. His dad had raped him when he was a child and claimed to be a "Devout Christian." His dad taught him not to sin and to believe in Jesus, but he was a terrible, abusive father. He completely destroyed this man's view of Christianity, but the rest of the Christians in the world hadn't helped their reputation much. I was sad and tried to convince him that Christians aren't perfect and mess up sometimes and all that nonsense that's just a bunch of excuses. He was tired of me trying to convince him away from something that had already been completely proven to him, that Christians are hurtful hypocrites, not worth being around. So he left me. He told me never to tell anyone about him and I lied to him and said I wouldn't.

He was right. We are hypocrites. We really don't live like Jesus did. So few people have a problem with Jesus. In fact most people really like Jesus. It's Christians they don't like. I had nothing to think about. Nothing in my mind needed to be processed because all I could think was Wow. It was such a convicting conversation for me. I had nothing that I could argue to prove to him that Christianity is good. I started to realized that yeah, we really do more harm than good a lot of the time. It's sad. I still think about that man regularly because it was such a convicting experience for me, making me realize that it's not acceptable to say, Christians mess up every once in a while, just like everyone else. If we identify ourselves by the word Christian, which means Little Christ, then we are identifying ourself to a much higher calling than one that just gives excuses for mistakes.

Anyways, I finally left Dallas at whenever I left. I was in a bad mood after that conversation and really hoped I had a seat partner that just didn't say a word the entire time. I sat down next to a lady, who happened to be from Colombia. Oh great, I'm gonna try to speak Spanish again and fail...again. Thank God she spoke fluent English. I found out she was a high school spanish teacher. She was a really nice lady. She was about 35 years old and was maybe a little chubby, but pretty attractive. She was going to see her fiancé (or fiancee? whichever is masculine) in Jackson, MS. Nice! I'll have a good seat partner all the way to Jackson! We only talked occasionally. Both of us were sleepy, so I slept most of the way there. She said goodbye to me from across the parking lot when Sarah and Lance picked me up at 4am.

The time in Mississippi was good. It was enjoyable and relaxing. Sarah and I drove to Atlanta to visit our Grandmother. I had the pleasure of explaining special relativity to Sarah on the drive because she wanted to know. I wasn't just rambling about physics on my own. So the trip was good and I left Mississippi on Friday.

The trip back wasn't quite as eventful as the trip to MS, but I had the pleasure of sitting next to the creepiest of creepers from Jackson to Dallas. Some guy from Alaska was rambling about how amazing Alaska is behind us (sound familiar, people who know me?) and The Creeper next to me started mumbling something. This guy better shut the &#%@ up or I'm gonna turn around and stab him right in the gut. He was playing with his knife in his lap, flipping it open and shut, gripping it very tightly. Needless to say, this made me uncomfortable. Again, I couldn't wait for Dallas.

We got to Dallas and left after a 45min layover and this time I got to sit next to a nun. She kept handing me these newspaper articles that I should read and pamphlets and all kinds of stuff. You'd think that she was giving me literature about Catholicism, but it was just random stuff. I never read any of it, but it was all just really stupid, boring stuff. She was kind of weird, but much better than The Creeper.

I started to get tired of the New Mexican landscape. Yeah, it's not completely boring like texas, but all the mesas and brownness was uninteresting after a while. I made it back to Denver that evening and I was incredibly happy to be home. Greyhounds make for interesting experiences, but I was pretty tired of that experience.

Someday, perhaps, I'll write about my other spring break "adventures," which are all pretty boring except the Moab one and the mysterious Junior year one that I can't remember.

Physics is Cool

Note: I posted a bunch of old notes that were originally on Facebook. So if you ever care to go back and check them out, they're in the process of appearing in the archives.

Most of you guys reading this know that I study physics. I just finished school 3 weeks ago and now do research at Mines. I decided I would write a post about the physics that I study because I think it's pretty cool stuff.

If you were to ask me what kind of physics I study, I would say, Integrated Optics. This means that I study really simple optical devices that are built into chips on a really small scale. There's a billion different optical devices that can be built and they have all kinds of applications. I'll just choose one of the devices our group works on to give you an idea of the stuff I work on. I've probably worked on upwards of 10 different devices though.

Optical devices manipulate light in different ways for some application. The physics I do is extremely applied, so I don't do that crazy, revolutionary physics that you hear about in the news. Some things that you can do with light are emitting, detecting, filtering, guiding, measure polarization, and more.

Some familiar examples of these processes: (Keep in mind that when I say light, I mean Electromagnetic Radiation which includes, X-rays, UV, Visible, Infrared, Radio Waves, etc.)

• Emitting: Light Bulbs, LEDs, Stars, Antennae, Cell Phones, etc.
• Detecting: Eyes, Cameras, Antennae, Cell Phones, X-rays at the dentist, Radios
• Filtering: 3D glasses (one eye mostly sees blue and the other eye mostly sees red)
• Guiding: Fiber Optics, Those cool lamps that send light through fibers
• Measure Polarization: Polarized Sunglasses, Camera Polarizer

So, our research group tries to do all these effects to build really small devices on micro chips (small=100nm-100microns). 70 microns is somewhere near the diameter of human hair.

One really good example of why these need to be so small is the Polarimeter project we're working on. A polarimeter can measure the polarization of light. You can have linear polarization, circular polarization, or elliptical polarization and the polarimeter can measure any of those and detect how elliptical the polarization is. If you've ever worn polarized sunglasses at a lake or river, then you know that the polarization of the light reflected off a surface tells you about the surface. Reflected light on the smooth, horizontal surface of water, is polarized in one direction and if you're wearing polarized sunglasses, standing straight up, you don't see the reflected light and you can see underwater better. If you rotate your head then you can start to see the reflected light and if you adjust your head so the reflected light is very low, then you have adjusted your polarizers so they are perpendicular to the surface. So by finding this spot, it gives you information about the angle of the water surface. The idea behind the polarimeter is to be able to do a similar measurement, giving the U.S. Army better information about the surface they are looking at.

So the Army wants this to be really small so they can make an entire array of polarimeters so each pixel in the digital camera can measure polarization. I don't know how many pixels they're planning on, but if we can make the polarimeter the size of the pixels on your computer then you can have an entire screen with really good resolution, where each pixel can measure polarization giving you a ton of new information that a regular old camera could not give you. That's why the device needs to be really small, so you can stack a bunch of them in an array to have many pixels.

The idea for a polarimeter is to filter out different kinds of polarizations of light in different ways to be able to measure what that polarization is. This actually isn't a project that I'm really working on, so I don't know that much about it. But it uses gratings etched in materials like Silicon, Silicon Dioxide, Silicon Nitride, Aluminum, etc. to couple different polarizations into a waveguide and sent out for detection. There are different shapes of gratings that filter out different polarizations so we can measure any polarization state. And all of this is built on a very small chip and I think the footprint for this entire device is under 100microns.

You now have some idea of the kind of things I work with. It's really interesting stuff and it's pretty exciting to be working on such advanced technologies. I'm very fortunate to get to work in this area of research because it is incredibly valuable.

This may have been a very boring post for some of you, but I don't care.

Song of the Day: Belated Promise Ring by Iron and Wine

A Routine Morning Gone Awesome

What a morning. Have you ever had one of those mornings that are just epicly crazy? Well mine was pretty crazy. It all started at 5:00AM...

I woke up in a panic because of the terrified screams coming from upstairs. My heart started pounding really fast and I just wondered what was going on up there. This whole episode didn't last very long though because I soon heard The Mama's voice calming The Kids down. I'm pretty sure I was only awake for maybe 30 seconds and I fell asleep really fast for the last 45 min I had to sleep. Adventure #1 of the day.

I ate my Quaker Oats granola like I do every single day with 2% milk, which is so much better than the skim milk I drank through most of my childhood. I went downstairs and read my Bible while drinking my coffee, sitting in the green rocking chair downstairs like I do every single day. I read a chapter in Proverbs about The Adulteress and it was pretty epic. I went upstairs after 2 cups of coffee to take my shower like I do every day and The Mama told me that the bathtub wasn't draining too well today. No biggie, I spent most of my childhood using a shower that persistently wouldn't drain right. So I took my shower, flossed and brushed my teeth just like I do every single day.

I went back downstairs at 6:45, the same time I go downstairs every single day, and threw my clothes in my laundry basket. I heard water from above me and didn't think too much of it because I can hear water in the pipes pretty well from my room. But the water wasn't in the pipes this time. The water was dripping down on top of my TV cabinet and it started coming out really fast! I quickly unplugged everything and took all the electronics from the cabinet and put them on my bed. I grabbed my trash can to catch all the water because a lot had already fallen down to the carpet. I cleared the immediate area of all items that were getting wet, including all my shoes, my bike gear, my hats, etc. I took out one of my plastic drawers, emptied it, and placed it on the cabinet for a larger container to hold all the water. I noticed there was a pool of water in my closet too and there was water dripping down inside a sub-closet within the closet. I put my trash can inside there to catch that water and then heard more water dripping down from a different location in my room, through the ceiling tiles. I got a third trashcan that we use to put lint in to catch that water. I started using my towel to sponge all the water from my closet into one of my plastic water catchers, then once all the water was cleaned up and the water quit dripping, I dried off the cabinet, slid it across the room, and set up some fans to dry off the carpet while I was gone. Adventure #2 of the day.

I knew I had missed the normal 16L bus that I would normally ride to Golden every day, so I went ahead and left the house, in hopes to catch the next 16L. I was feeling lazy so I put my bike on the 1 for a quick ride up to Colfax. This takes the same amount of time as biking, but takes less energy on my part (I very rarely do this). Got to Colfax and waited for the 16L. It got there just a few minutes late and I saw that 2 bikes were already on the bike rack on the front. I asked the driver if there was room in the back and their wasn't. I used to get really ticked off whenever this happened, but I have realized it's not worth getting mad. Just wait for the next bus and accept getting to work a little late. Instead of waiting for the 16L, I decided to try to get on the 16, which only goes part of the way down Colfax to Simms, then turns off colfax. Well the 16 was full too and had no room for my bike and after having my old Specialized stolen a few months ago, I was not willing to just lock up my Bianchi.

As soon as the driver told me this, I started riding along Colfax towards golden. The 16 is really slow because it has more stops, so I was doing a decent job keeping up with it. I realized that I could just keep up with the bus till the people with bikes took theirs off. Brilliant idea! So I did this and it was pretty easy to keep up. Passed Sheridan, passed Wadsworth, still keeping up with the bus, but the 2 bikes were still on there. Are you serious! I started having thoughts of actually getting all the way to Simms before the bus had room for my bike. I was ahead of the bus and I got to Garrison. I saw the bus pass me and saw that there was one spot for a bike! There were people at the next stop that would stop the bus, so I could catch up and get on. Oh wait, there's a man with a bike at that stop and he's not going to let me just ride up and put my bike on the bus. Dang it! Oh well. I kept riding and realized I was getting dangerously close to Simms and I was still keeping up with the bus. Well the bus passed me a few blocks before Simms and I didn't catch up in time to ride it one block to get to Simms, only to get off and wait for the 16L.

I got to Simms and decided that I was tired and called RTD to see when the next 16L was coming and it was coming in only 10min, so I decided to wait. I had enough exercise for the morning and if I could get on this bus, it would get me to work before 9. As soon as I hung up, while I was still straddling my bike, I heard a man yell from behind me.

Hey! You damn near beat the bus all the way to Simms! Yeah, I kept up with him for a while. Well, good job.

Boy, that made my day! I kept up with the bus for 5.2 miles. Take that, RTD!
Adventure #3 for the day.

P.S. Oh parents, please forgive me for cussing. It was needed to get the point across.

Song of the Day: You Are The Best Thing by Ray LaMontagne

8 Bikes

Since I've been a little bit obsessive about bikes recently, I'm going to write another blog about bikes because they are so cool that they deserve 2 posts in a row. Even though I'm stuck riding a bike every single day, I absolutely love bikes and biking.

When I was cute

It all started when I was a wee lad. I was 3 years old apparently and I somehow learned how to ride my sister, Sarah's bike. No training wheels. I just rode it. I only vaguely remember riding a bike when I was that young, but my parents told me that I learned when I was 3, so I'll take their word for it.

Disclaimer: I'm just going to write this post like it actually happened, but some details may be incorrect. I realized that sometimes I make up my own memories, but that's okay!

First Bike: Spiderman Bike (possibly a figment of my imagination)

So my first bike was a Spiderman bike! It was awesome. You know in the movies when some kid is walking along some snowy sidewalk in New York City and they see some awesome bike in the store window and fall in love with it? Well that's what happened with me. And somehow, I got the bike even though my family never buys That Awesome New Product That You Have To Have. At least that's what I remember.

The Purple Deathmobile

I then moved on to my purple bike. Yes, it was purple. Purple happened to be my favorite color back in the day. I didn't know any better. It was a Roadmaster! That bike has very few memories, well none really, except one awesome one. That bike was handed down to my brother, Josh (I seriously don't know if this bike was his originally or if it was handed down to him, but we'll move on). Well that bike was pretty old and starting to rust in some spots, especially at the stem, which held onto the bmx style handlebars. So, those handlebars had a tendency to bend over...a lot.

In our yard, there's a ditch next to the road and a metal pipe that sends the water in the ditch under our driveway. Well it's really fun to ride your bike and drop down the drop at the pipe. I did it a few times and then told Josh to try it out. Being the fearless Josh, he went for it at full speed on that awful rusty purple bike. Well he went off the jump, the handlebars bent completely forward, causing him to lose his balance and fall down onto the ground. He started bleeding like nothing else from somewhere on his head and gave that awful bloody murder scream. I kind of felt bad for telling him to do it, but not that bad.

Yes, I rode BMX, kinda

The reason I'm good at riding bikes is because of this one. My dad got a white elephant gift at a youth group party one year and it was a bmx bike. I thought it was stupid at first, but then I realized that it was a BMX bike and I wanted it. It came in a bunch of pieces so I asked my dad to build it for me. I rode this bike to ALL my baseball games and practices. Out of all my bikes as a kid, I rode this one the most. I would hang out at the ball parks on Saturdays watching baseball and riding bikes with my friends. We would go off jumps and do tricks. I could almost do a standing tailwhip and definitely hit some good sized jumps on that thing. It had pegs on the back, which I used for doing bar-spins and carrying my little sister around. That bike was so cool and I really enjoyed riding during the time that I had it. I liked this bike so much that one year the only thing I asked for for my birthday was a wheel with a freewheel hub, so I didn't have to have the coaster brake on it. And that was the only thing I got because it was expensive.

The Red Mountain Bike that didn't grow as fast as I did

My next bike was a red mountain bike. I can't remember the brand, but I liked it a lot. I put a lot of miles on that bike actually. I had it from 4th grade till I was a sophomore, so about 6 years. That happens to be the time in life that boys tend to grow a lot, and the bike didn't grow. One day I was riding home from baseball practice, which was a 10 mile ride. I had several moms picking up their sons saying, "Wow, you're riding home? I can give you a ride, you know." Well it was an uneventful ride, however very tiring. I took the Eagle River Road trail home instead of going up Meadow Creek Road and I ran into the Burress family. Mr. Burress looked at me and told me that my bike looked a little small for me (It was a lot too small, I just didn't notice) and that he had an old mountain bike that he could give me. I was a little hesitant to accept the help, but ended up going over to his house to pick up the bike later that week.

Green Piece

Again, I forget the brand, but it was a green mountain bike that actually fit me. I was getting close to never growing, at least upwards, again so the bike stuck with me through most of college. I was very happy with the bike and defended it when people said it wasn't a very nice bike. No it didn't have any suspension on it, but you don't need suspension to have a good bike. I put some miles on that bike too. In Eagle River (the town I grew up in in Alaska), there's a big river. It's called Hawk River, just kidding. Well next to the river there are these trails. People sometimes hiked on them, but it was actually pretty rare to find another person on the trail. Well, I would ride down to the river and ride along the trail for a while, till I got tired of riding over all the roots and then I'd just park my bike and walk. I had told my parents that I went down to the river to explore, but they were probably pretty curious about exactly what I did whenever I "went down to the river." Keep in mind that I always did this kind of stuff by myself because I only had like 2 close friends in high school and they weren't into stuff like that. I was mostly just curious to see how far the trail went. I usually ended up walking far enough that the trail just diminished to nothing and I was just climbing through a bunch of trees and bushes. I guess I was always hoping that the trail would lead somewhere cool and link up with some other road or trail that I had never been to. They never really went anywhere interesting. The most interesting thing that ever happened was when I was just sitting down, thinking about how sketchy that trail was. Nobody was ever on the trail, so if some creeper happened to be hiding near the trail and saw you coming, he could do whatever he wanted to do and no one would ever find out. Well I was thinking about that and all of a sudden I heard all this rustling in the leaves. A moose ran out in front of me, like 15 feet away and just ran away from me along the trail. Like I said, nothing interesting.

Well, I brought that green bike down to Colorado with me for college because I knew I wouldn't have a car and would be living a half mile from campus. It was very good to have that bike. It took me everywhere I needed to go and I soon realized it was faster than a car, coming down to campus. And ridiculously faster if you include the time it takes to find a parking spot and then get to class. I mostly just used the bike as a commuting bike aside from a single mountain bike ride on it.

Special Bike

I met Zach that first year of college. When I first met him, I didn't think much of him. He was an alright guy when I first met him, but I didn't really know him well enough yet. He told me he was pretty big into mountain biking and that blew me away. I never would have expected him to be a mountain biker. I apparently thought he didn't fit the image of a mountain biker. He took me out to Aurora one day in Soobie (His Subaru) and helped me choose a good mountain bike. I chose a 2005 silver Specialized Rockhopper and it was certainly a step up from my green bike. The specialized actually had front suspension and V-brakes, which are so much better than the cantilever brakes I had before. Oh, and the bike was WAY lighter. Turns out aluminum frames are a lot lighter than steel ones. Well Zach got me into mountain biking, so for the next 3 years I went on quite a few rides with him and used the bike every day to commute to school.

My college (Colorado School of Mines) is in one of the best towns in the country for mountain biking. One day, Zach and I decided to do an Epic Ride. Normally, we would just go up Chimney Gulch and down Apex, but Zach, being a ridiculously intense guy at times, decided he wanted something more epic. So the ride started out at the Mines Park parking lot. We rode up lookout mountain rode for a bit and then got on chimney gulch. Chimney Gulch is a great uphill ride. It's moderately technical and definitely tiring, but not exhausting except for the last mile, which seems like it's never going to end every single time I ride it. The thing about this trail is that every time I ride it with Zach, he's always certain that we could beat the road bikers going up the road and we always do...at least the slow ones.

We got to the top, and of course I was tired, but the fun part was yet to come. We rode down the road till we got to Apex trail, which is ridiculously fun, especially when you take the Enchanted Forest detour. There are countless woop-de-doos (little bumps in the trail that launch you in to the air), some kind of technical stuff, it's a very fun steepness, and it's a very nice length. We cruised down that and as always it was ridiculously fun. Note: One time we shuttled apex and it was no where near as much fun as every other time we slaved up chimney to get to apex. The uphill makes the downhill so much more fun.

The next trail in line was Dakota Ridge. This was a couple miles down the road and I was uncertain what was to come. I had never ridden dakota ridge before, but zach said it was pretty technical...Yeah it was technical. There were tons of rocks in the trail that you had to ride over and the trail starts off with a ridiculously steep climb that just makes you beg for mercy. We felt pretty proud of ourselves because we passed a group of riders that all had really nice bikes. Ah, how sweet it is to stick it too the rich peeps who can't actually ride well.

The last ride we had planned was the Red Rocks trail and it was a good choice. After already doing 3 trails, my legs were shot and I was about ready to be home, taking a shower. But Red Rocks was a really cool and easy trail. Except for the initial climb, that's not too bad, the whole trail is pretty flat and just relaxing. It's in wide open fields in a valley between hogbacks and foothills and it's just beautiful. Oh and there's a bunch of sandstone structures that are really cool.

Riding along the road, back to the car, we linked up to the bottom of Apex, where there's a paved bike trail that goes all the way to Mines. There are few things more refreshing than that cruise coming home. You don't have to pedal at all and you just fly down the nice paved trail. So relaxing.

Fixerupper and Oldie

That Specialized holds a lot of my memories, including all the random tricks that I learned, but that'll be for another day. I moved to Denver during my last summer of grad school and people in Denver like to steal bikes. Well some punk stole mine from a bus stop and I will forever be constantly paranoid that someone is going to steal my bike when it's locked up. To replace the specialized, I bought an old Schwinn road bike, which I rode for only about 1.5 weeks, then I couldn't help myself and bought my Bianchi fixie from a guy on craigslist. I never ride the Schwinn because it's heavy and small and I'm just in love with my Bianchi. It is such a fun bike and it just makes me happy to ride it. I don't have any significant memories with the Bianchi, but I'm sure more would come.

I'm sure by now you're begging me to stop writing. For how little I talk, I sure can ramble when I'm typing. Now you know about all my bikes that I've ever owned and how I have precious memories with most of them.

Song of the day: Ain't No Reason by Brett Dennen

No Car For Young Man

Left: My Specialized Rockhopper that got me through college. She was stolen in August.

Right: My Bianchi Campione Fixie that I now ride everywhere I go.

The car-free life came to me by accident. I was practically an international student since my home is further than Canada and it's hard to bring much of anything to college when you're from that far away. I brought a bike, guitar, trumpet, books, and clothes. Everything else has been accumulated since I moved to Colorado (which isn't that much really). I couldn't afford to buy a car since every year of college I survived off of summer job money and the money my parents were able to give to me.

Inconvenient Truth

Over the years in college I kept on saying, I'll probably buy a car next year because it's really inconvenient to not have a car. It really was inconvenient. I couldn't get to school and back just fine since I never lived further than 2.5 miles from campus, but I felt so limited in doing anything else. This included going to church, picking up groceries, going out with friends, skiing, going out to eat, you get the idea.

Independence=Hatred of Dependence

I was always very fortunate to have friends who would loan me their cars whenever I needed them. As you can imagine, it was kind of annoying borrowing cars though. I felt bad about free-loading off of them and the thing I hated the most was that I could not be independent. Independence is the reason I am so glad I have a bike. I really hate being so dependent on other people. It makes me feel irresponsible, cheap, and poor. So the way that I avoided this feeling was to try my hardest to always ride my bike places, unless it was completely convenient for somebody else to give me a ride. I would ride my bike at 2 in the morning coming home from friends' houses, ride when it was pouring rain, or blowing wind at 30 mph in the opposite direction. Thankfully I could draft with Z-dub often when I had to practically ride through a wind tunnel called South Golden Road to get to school.

Where'd all this money come from?

After a while, I started to realize that I kept putting off buying a car. When I became a grad student I finally realized that I didn't really want a car and that I'd just wait till I got a real job before I started seriously looking for a car. My method of saving money has always been just to not spend money that much and after a while I'll look in my account and see a bunch of money in there that I accidentally saved up. Not having a car is great for this method of saving money. As a grad student, I made more than enough money for my living situation, so you can imagine that the money in my account quickly piled up. I mean I spent $287.50 on rent, like $25 on utilities, and however much on food. Grad students get paid really well if you're single, in my opinion, especially when you include tuition.

Why's my heart beating so slow?

In addition to the large amount of money I was saving, riding a bike kept me in decent shape. I rode everywhere, so I was always exercising at least a little bit. Recently, since I moved to Denver, I've started riding more miles per day, sometimes having to ride to or from Golden (like 14 miles). And I tested my resting heart rate last night and it was at 48bpm! This is the best RHR I've had in a very long time and the only exercise I ever do is ride my bike places and volleyball every other week (which is not very intense exercise). So I'm really happy that biking everywhere is contributing to my health.

Those are the 2 main reasons I am very happy that I live without a car. Some side reasons I like it are that bikes and buses have very low pollution, bikes are easy to repair, bikes are a ton of fun (especially fixies), buses are great for reading and meeting really weird people, and I'm forced to do a lot of planning ahead of time and manage my time well. Yes it is inconvenient sometimes, but I haven't been overwhelmed by the inconveniences yet, so I am enjoying the life.

Song of the Day: Leave by Glenn Hansard and Marketa Irglova

New Musical Genre: Good Music

People often ask me what kind of music I like and the question is always really hard to answer for me. Instead of giving a genre that I like, I always give different groups I like. Like Iron and Wine, Mason Jennings, The Postal Service, Beirut, Coldplay, and of course Lady Gaga (Just kidding). Although my favorite groups are somewhat similar, I like lots of different genres.

The honest answer to the question of what kind of music do I like is that I like Good Music that Doesn't Annoy Me. You may ask, what makes music "Good Music?"

1. It cannot be somebody that originated on the Disney Channel. Sorry Rachel, I just don't like that kind of music. It's as catchy as an angler on the Russian River but not that great.
2. On the topic of catchy, it has to be catchy. I'm not in the least bit impressed with some shredding guitar solo that sounds like a soaking wet cat. Catchy is dependent on having a good melody. Keep in mind that catchy isn't everything...I mean just listen to I Kissed a Girl by Katie Perry. It's catchy, but horrible.
3. It can't be sappy. For example I'm Yours by Jason Mraz. Very catchy song, but very sappy and lovey dovey. I think it could be a good song without the sappy lyrics and the do-do-do chorus. Like these lyrics, "Scooch on over closer, dear and I will nibble on your ear." So lame.
4. It can't be annoying. An example of music that I would almost consider good music is Surfjan Stevens. He has some pretty cool songs, I just have a hard time listening to very many because they just annoy me a little bit. Yes, all music gets annoying if you listen to it over and over again, but some music gets annoying really fast.
5. It can't be modern country music. Old school stuff is great though and Blue Grass, and the non-sappy stuff.
6. Oh and just because it's popular doesn't mean it's not good. It annoys me when people hate all popular music. For example, Coldplay, Outkast sometimes, Beatles, Bob Dylan, Creedence Clearwater Revival, etc.
7. Can't be repetitive Techno or Trance music. I challenge you to try to change my opinion on that. p.s. Postal Service is not Techno.

This whole rant may make it look like I'm extremely picky about music. Maybe for me to really love the music, I am picky, but I can at least enjoy listening to lots of different music even if I wouldn't include it in my favorite music.

Song of the day to listen to: Boy with a Coin by Iron and Wine

My Light Switch

I love living in Denver. I really do. It's great living with a family with a 6 year old and a 1 year old. It's so different from living with other college guys. It is just refreshing to have a different life.

One of the funny things about the house I live in is my bedroom. I love the wood walls and having cable tv in my bedroom is awesome and is great for being ridiculously lazy. But the funny thing about the room is that the light switch is on the other side of the room. The wall was put in after the house's initial construction, so the light switch is in a kind of awkward spot. I spent the first month or so just using my cell phone to give me enough light to get to the light switch.

This had to stop.

I remembered my friend Rebecca's room. She had a piece of string attached to her light switch so she could turn the light off from her bed and then turn it on from her bed in the morning. It was a brilliant idea and would be perfect for my setup.

So I went to Lowe's and bought some rings that screw into the wall and some string that I could send to my door. I put the rings in the wall and sent the strings through so that when I pull on the top string the light turns on and when I pull on the bottom string, the light turns off. It's great.