And you knot the rope.

Planning for big things is hard. There are always little details you forget or little details that people don't tell you until the last minute. Or details that people nag you about. Or details people rub in your face until you plan around them the way they want. Or they just don't tell you at all and get mad later. Or they tell you and make you mad and don't realize it. If there's one thing I've learned when it comes to making big plans with big groups of people it's that in the planning stage, everybody will get angsty. There will be some infighting, some resentment, and some group tension. Then, as the trip progresses, the tempers go down into a resigned bitterness that simmers until the end of the trip when it explodes in a tempest of passive-aggressive acts that leave everybody drained and angry.

Which is, of course, my favorite part of the whole thing.

Comments

Pseudo-science (like psych).

I consider myself a man of science. I try to approach problems and deal with them logically, using observations previously recorded to handle new problems. So of course my interest was piqued when someone I knew posited that men are needier and more complicated than women. An interesting theory. But to properly examine it, one must understand the concept of sexual selection and its two aspects: male competition and female choice. Which brings us to point one: men are needier [in relationships] than women. This is true. In a natural/primal setting, the males are generally love-'em-leave-'em kinds of guys. Their main objective is to reproduce as much as they can. Humans, in their infinite wisdom, have decreased the emphasis on this to the point where it has become a footnote in male purpose. Civilization dictates that, instead of finding a partner for the sole purpose of reproduction, males find females for life companionship. With the effective removal of their natur...

I'm a geologist, not an alcoholic.

I thought I had seen people drink before. Hell, I thought that I had drank before. But, clearly, I thought wrong on both of those counts. I cannot, for the life of me, think of a reason to justify all of the drinking that transpired down there last week. There was no rhyme or reason to it, it just was. Field work just makes a man thirsty. Taking this class was easily one of the best things I've ever done. We worked hard every day out in the field. Wake up at 7, leave the beach house by 8, hit the water by 9. My first three field days were in service on the R/V Acadiana , a 58 foot vessel that towed the CHIRP fish , the air gun, and the streamer to measure all the seismic data--looking at the subsurface of the seafloor we drove over. My second ship was the R/V Itasca using the multibeam , sidescan , and grab sampler --getting seafloor surface bathymetry. They were long, exhausting days and we returned to the docks around 6 or 7 every evening. And then, drinking. So much ...

No, Holmes, no!

All I ever think about these days is how much I have to/want to study. I hope that's not how I have a good time, now. Would I rather go hang out with peeps or would I rather sit in and study? It is a difficult question to answer. Just a couple more days and then I can focus all my energy on the next greatest idea I've ever had: iconic detectives and sharks.

everything is fine

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