Hello, my name is Aaron, and I have been “off the radar” for about a month now. The reasons for said disappearance are numerous, and this post is intended to be a quick summary of the events.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I visited my home town of Jamestown, NY to visit family and see people. I don’t make it home too often, but when I do I feel pretty good about it. I think it’s good for the soul to spend some time where you grew up.

I left Jamestown for Toronto, Canada where Barbara and I spent a lovely 4 days wandering the city, eating great foods (Particularly this great Indian food restaurant) and just enjoying each others company. I have decided that I would really love to live in Toronto one day. The city feels like it has the convenience of America with the attitude/style/outlook of europe. It’s a little bit 80’s (in the cool sense of the word), very modern, and generally laid back.

New years was spent at a warehouse party benefiting a local art gallery. The music was mediocre, but we had a good time no less. They had some lovely desserts to much on in the chillout room. Interestingly, they also had a mouthwash/chillout/makeout bed to one side of the dance floor. This is a cool idea. The last time I saw a bed in a club was in Amsterdam.

I can make a few observations here about that. In Canada to some degree, but more so in Amsterdam, people (particularly guys) were clearly more comfortable with each other than here in the states. Two guys, clearly heterosexual, could lay on the bed together and talk or relax without it being a big deal. It’s noticing the little differences like this that I love when I travel abroad.

January 3rd, Barbara and I got back into my car and drove the 3. hours from toronto to Erie, PA and dropped her off at the airport. I continued to drive from Erie to Nashville only stopping for gas, making it one of the longest straight shot drives I have ever made. It was well worth it.

Upon returning to Nashville, I immediately transitioned into full on work mode. The summary deadline for the Nuclear and Space Radiation Effects Conference was rapidly approaching. I worked on this as rapidly as I could, knowing that round 2 of January vacations was coming up.

Barbara flew back into Nashville for her interview at Vandy medical, and the day after we jumped into the car with Jeff, McCall, and Sadie (their dog) on our way to Breckenridge, CO. 19 hours later (of which Jeff graciously drove the whole way) we pulled into the driveway of the condo we would be staying at for the week only to find out that Jeff had made a mistake of not clearing the place out before we got there. He apparently walked in on a family that was spending their last night there and scared the hell out of some kid sleeping on the couch. Tired and grumpy as hell we all found a local hotel to crash at till the morning when we could move in.

The rest of the week went great. Barbara and McCall did surprisingly well at learning to snowboard (They both learned quite a bit faster than I did). Needless to say I was impressed. Jeff and I would take off to ski when they were resting. We took a few runs though the terrain park which was most excellent as well as taking some very steep runs that were unlike anything I have ever had the opportunity to snowboard. We also at one point hiked up higher than the lifts would take us to board in some true fresh powder. I really need to get back there to board more.

At the end of that great week, we hopped back in the car and 19 hours later (again driven entirely by Jeff) we arrived back in Nashville, happy and completely worn out. Barbara spent a few more blissful days with me here while I worked more rapidly to beat the approaching deadline of my summary. She left me on the 30th to head back to Dallas and I continued to work on my paper, which has now been completed.

On Febuary 2, 2005, she left for a rotation in South Africa. She will spend a month in Capetown working in the hospitals there and getting a feeling for medicine in the 3rd world. I have to say that I am nervous about her being there, especially when she tells me that it is quite dangerous and that she cannot safely go out at night because of the high rate of violent crime and rape. But I am not overwhelmingly nervous as I know that she is smart and knows how to travel.

To keep my mind off of her travels, I took a trip with my good buddy Dan down to Atlanta this weekend. It’s always good to see the ATL crew. Just like last year, we went to breaklanta to check out the crew battles. Needless to say I was impressed. The only thing I was not happy about was the performance of Nashvilles crew. I have seen them do much better at practices when they weren’t even trying. We came to the consensus that they were holding back for the next round, but got eliminated before being able to really bring it.

That brings me to today. The first day where things are mostly back to normal, with the exception of being not talking to Barbara on a daily basis. It’s time to catch up on everything that I missed because of the crazy month of January and get back into working out and practicing.

Look for pictures and movies of the snow-boarding expedition soon.

I don’t really do new years resolutions. To me, a resolution implies immediate unwavering action. Instead, I like to reflect on the previous year, and think about what I have accomplished, and what I would like to accomplish. I like to think about things that will improve my general state of being and reflect on how I can achieve them. So here it is, my 2005 general operating principles.

1. Increase my confidence levels
This is a deeply seated problem of mine, that has been a recurrent issue over the years. In a nutshell, the problem is that I lack self confidence. This shows itself in many different forms.:
* I abhor conflict. I will rarely stand up for myself, even if I know that I am right. If I get incorrectly charged for something, if it amounts to a small amount of money, I will usually ignore the fee and pay. I’ll tell you that it is because I don’t care that much about such a small amount of money, but in reality, if I’m being honest with myself, its because I don’t want to create conflict.
* I hate calling people I don’t know on the phone, another way that my lack of confidence is problematic. I just don’t like talking to people I don’t know. Somewhere deep down in my soul, it scares me to have to talk to people I don’t know.
* I usually have no problem at parties, unless there are a large number of people I don’t know there. Then I have a problem being comfortable and personable. If I calm down, I do fine. Confidence is a good thing.
* In many ways, this is also the source of my creative problems posted earlier. I lack the confidence to just go with it, instead assuming that I just can’t do it.

So first up is to be more confident than I have in the past. I have already started this process, though I won’t bore you with the details. Just that I am already methodically teaching myself to deal with conflict.

2. Focus more, spread myself thin less
Like many of my friends, I often complain that I feel like I haven’t accomplished enough in the years I’ve been around. This sentiment leads to a feeling of discontent that isn’t too healthy. After a bit of reflection, I have realized that one of the problems is that I don’t dive into things as much as I’d like to. Instead of focusing on a job and seeing it through to its completion, I half ass the job while multitasking 90 other things that I want to do. Instead of doing things in this fashion, I am going to try to focus on a few things with much more fervor. Ultimately this will prove more satisfying and productive, making me a happier person.

3. Eat better, be healthy

I don’t eat too many horribly bad things for me. I quit drinking carbonated beverages around the end of high school, and in the ensuing years I’ve progressively moved towards a healthier diet. I’d like to continue this trend by eating more fruits and vegetables. I love salads, and am going to make an effort to keep those sorts of fresh goods necessary for salads in my refrigerator. I don’t really eat red meat, but I will continue to move away from other meats and towards fish and tofu. I love tofu and I find more and more that I love fish. Why not eat things that are good *and* healthy!?

4. Quit biting my nails
This one is a classic “resolution” that I will move towards this year. I know that it is related to the first problem. My nails habit is directly related to my lack of confidence, so hopefully my rate of nail chewing will be inversely proportional to my levels of confidence.

Of course there are a hundred more things that I could put up here, but these represent the most important things for me to continue to reflect on in the coming year. One thing is certain, even this short list should keep me busy enough.

I’ve been back to Jamestown, NY for some time now, and I’ve just realized something about this place that bothers me. The gossip. It seems too many of the people around me talk about what everyone else is doing, instead of worrying about what they themselves are doing. Why does it matter what this person said to that person? Or that this person got in trouble with the cops for this or that. It’s sad that I’m not around here for a long time, and the best conversation we can come up with is about what other people are doing and saying. (After the obligatory “what are you up to these days?”). I think this was the status quo before I moved away from J-Town, but I was never able to put my finger on it till I got away and gained some perspective.

I was going to make this into a longer discussion, but I think I’ll keep it brief. What I was trying to say was, I love my home town, and all the people there, but I’m glad that I have since moved on and up. I’m grateful for all the people that I’ve met along the way. I love that there are people who read these ramblings on livejournal or my website who have insightful things to say. It fills me with joy to be able to have great conversation about a myriad of topics spanning science, politics, religion, social issues, etc. with my friends, not just trite gossip.

” To talk about other people’s affairs is a great mistake. To praise them, too, is unfttting. In any event, it is best to know your own ability well, to put forth effort in your endeavors, and to be discreet in speech.”

–Yamamoto Tsunetomo

Yes, I think that sums up this story perfectly.

Today was by all rights a classically boring day. Wake up, go to school, hand in a final exam, go get free hot chocolate in the engineering building, chat with other students in my group, come home, sleep for an hour or two, try to meet up with some of Nashville’s b-boys so that I can learn to breakdance, find out they moved their get-togethers on tuesdays to somewhere in MURFREESBOROUGH, decide to finish up christmas shopping… you know, boring day kind of stuff.

Walking into the store, I’m relieved to get out of that freezing weather, but now the real battle begins. Now I must actually do the shopping; particularly, I must figure out how to spice up one of the gifts I am giving with some packaging. Walking around the store, I see a myriad of glass cookie jars and storage containers. They come in every shape and size you can image except for one detail. They all are totally boring and look exactly the same. Moving on, I see a few Bodum coffee press’s that look very nice. These would make the perfect container! Thirty dollars? No, I don’t think I can afford thirty dollars for a nice package.

Looping around the store twice, I pick up a packaging envelope. Yes, at least if I don’t find anything here, I will have not wasted my trip. Still searching for anything that could work, I notice a girl walking in the other direction holding a dark brown wicker basket of some sort and a few other trinkets. Yes! Why should I be looking for something that is pre-made? Why shouldn’t I be creating something unique?! Of course! Why didn’t I think of this before? Circling the store two more times, searching for baskets that might work, I stumble upon the house-ware section, where they are selling napkin holders made from banana trees. Perfect, now what do I put in it? Strolling over to the christmas section (I know right where this is after looping the store 4 or more times), I pick up some ribbon and a small ornament. Perfect. I’ve got what I need.

Back into the freezing cold, somewhere between a beat up Chrysler New Yorker and a Lexus SUV, it hits me. This feels like an epiphany. I am thinking about my artist friends, those who draw on scratch boards, some who do webcomics, others who paint or even make elf ears. I am thinking about writers that I know. Some who work for papers we all know about, some who create poems or short stories, some who write books. I am thinking about music producers who create my favorite music in a range of emotions from angry to depressing, happy to silly, inspirational to liberating. I am thinking about all of these things all at once when I realize that creation is the missing link. Now you must be asking yourself, what the hell is that kid talking about? All of the things I mentioned above are creative. Artists produce visual art, writers produce words to tell stories, musicians produce songs. All of these things require at least four things the way I see it.

1) Perseverance - These people must be able to keep trying, even if they do not like how something they are working on is turning out. They don’t just decide they can’t do it and quit because it’s too hard.

2) Creativity - These people have to obviously have something in their heads that they want and know how to get out onto a media that they can share with the rest of the world.

3) Balls - They also aren’t afraid to put their work out there for the world to see. They aren’t afraid of being laughed at because they know that its the best they could have done, and what does it mean if someone else makes fun of them?

4) Drive - They continue to work, learn, and grow at their skill by never being satisfied. By always pushing the limits of their abilities.

So why am I saying all this? Because in many ways I feel like that is where I want to be, and I have no idea how to get there. I’ve always been the engineering/science/computer nerd kid, and have viewed things through a different pair of glasses. I’ve blogged a bit about this before, but in times past I have been critical of “artsy” people. Why would you do something like that? Well I think I know now. Creation. All my life has been spent trying to understand things. Science and engineering are all about trying to break things down into their fundamental governing principals. We seek to understand, but rarely do we seek to truly create. Now you might argue with me and say that engineers create complex machines that help in every day life. I contend that instead we just seek to understand how things work and then apply them to solve every day problems. This is, of course, somewhat creative, but it is rare that an engineer creates something that is solely his. It takes teams of people to do so, effectively removing that sense of pride and ownership that an artist must feel when they complete a piece.

It’s creation that I find so intriguing. I think we are in some ways wired to be creative, and I’ve been fighting it for so long. Humans have been creating art, literature, and music for hundreds of years, but we also create life, family, social networks, movies, games, food, and so on.

So what am I trying to say with all of this? While walking around the store, looking for something that was prepackaged that I could just toss the other prepackaged stuff into, I realized that this is wrong. I shouldn’t be looking for someone/thing else to solve my problem. I should be looking for a way to solve it myself. Am I so much of a consumer that I cannot find a creative solution to a given problem? Must I rely on someone else to give me a prepackaged hermetically sealed solution to every problem I have? Or should I use the resources around me to come up with a solution? After all aren’t custom solutions usually the best kinds? Don’t we value unique things such as art much more than heavily reproduced things such at prints?

I have no idea how my friends are able to produce things. I get frustrated with my ineptitude at any sort of creative work that I quickly put it down and pretend like I never started so as to not embarrass myself. And therein lies the problem. I guess it’s pride. I don’t know. At least I think I have finally figured out why I admire them so much. Maybe now that I have unlocked that secret I can start trying to become a producer myself. I sure hope so.

This weekend was a strange one for me, but it did have a few positive outcomes. Sunday was a day spent almost entirely by myself, and somehow, that didn’t bother me the way it usually does. I spent the morning/early afternoon at Borders, reading. Dan joined me for some time, but then decided to go home and work on some art projects. After Borders, I went over to the frothy monkey and did a little work, read a little bit from “Godel, Escher, Bach” (An excellent book by the way), and just relaxed.

The evening was reserved for the Chinese food restaurant, again by myself. Finally I went home, worked on a song a little bit and went to sleep. Motivated by all of this independent behavior, I got up this morning and went to the pool for a swim. It felt good to get back in the water, despite the fact that I’m horribly out of shape for it now. My arms (particularly triceps) were not functioning at all. I had a hard time swimming 50’s on the minute. I could easily make the time, but the arms felt like they didn’t want to go anymore. I’m happy with it though, despite feeling like my arms are melting off my bones right now. I’m going to try to start swimming with more regularity again. Hopefully this time I won’t fail at it.

I’m hungry. I should have had some breakfast this morning.. now I’m sitting here starving, and I don’t want to go over to the Cafeteria because I don’t know if they will be serving breakfast or lunch. Instead I’ll sit here and type for a while, then I’ll go over there and see if its breakfast or lunch. Cafeteria… I found out that the divinity school has a cafeteria that no one goes to. Well when I say no one, I mean very few people. It’s nice.. and the food seems good.. and inexpensive. I like food. If it’s inexpensive, thats even better. Speaking of good and inexpensive, I should go to the international market.. Their food is so good, and it’s cheap. MMM.. How I love the international market. That reminds me, I was supposed to go to K&S world market after I left the Chinese restaurant two days ago. That would have been nice, its about time that I go get some dumplings. Dumplings make the world go ’round.

Last night I moved my desk from the living-room into my room. It is a little bit cramped in there now, and feels like a dorm room, but I like it. I don’t think I can deal with my desk being near a TV that is on anymore. I hate TV’s.. I don’t know why it is that I hate TV’s but I do. Well I don’t hate TV’s, I hate TV shows. Every tv show sounds like a car ad to me. Soundtracked laughter, some guy talking too loud and repeating the same crap over and over to get the point across… to get the point across… to get the point across… When a TV is on around me I want to put my foot through it.. Especially if a commercial is on. What’s with that.. why do people stand for paying for Cable TV and being forced to watch commercials? If you pay for the service, you shouldn’t have to watch commercials, right?

I think that my desk being in my room will be good. I’ll be able to get more work done in my new dorm room like room. Hey, I miss being in the dorms sometimes.. Those were some good times.. people always around whenever you wanted to be social. Yeah that was good. The desk in my room will hopefully be conducive to me writing my thesis. So far so good. I did a good amount of work on my thesis last night and this morning.. I’ll keep going on it after I get something to eat… I should have had breakfast this morning. I guess I’ll go see if they are serving breakfast or lunch.

Today is my birdthday. I am now 24. That means I’m only 6 years from being 30. I am going to quit growing up right now. That means that every day from now on is my 24th birthday. Yay for me!

The last few days have been interesting to say the least. Let me see if I can recount them in some sort of coherent fashion. Friday afternoon I gave a talk at [phreakinc](http://www.phreaknic.info) about making your own circuit boards and DIY hardware. I think it went over rather well, but I didn’t realize I was being asked to fill up an hour and a half. Instead I only filled up about 45 minutes. Apologies go to Dolemite, the conference organizer, for the mistake. I think that the talk went over rather well though, there were many people that came up and chatted with me after the talk. I got to hang out a little bit that afternoon, and goat gave me some pizza (thanks goat).

After realizing that I needed to meet with my advisor, I ran out of the conference and back to the office to talk about the resolution we came to regarding some rather persistent geometry problems. It seems that we have unearthed a bug in the libraries that have been giving us trouble for some time now.

Returning to home I relaxed for a few and waited for Barbara to come home from her last day at Vanderbilt. We quickly got dressed up and headed out for a nice evening on the town. We headed to the China Chef, a great little authentic chinese restaurant that we frequent. We are friends with the owner and felt rather obligated to visit them one last time. Dinner was not as good as usual, due to the surprising number of people eating there that night, but still very tasty. Food demolished, and bellies full, we decided to head to cafe nona, a small restaurant my roommate has raved about for some time…

This is where it gets interesting..

When getting out of the car, I overheard some guy yelling, “Hey, you want some cream of some young guy” repeatedly. I didn’t think anything of it till I heard Barbara started yelling back. From my angle I could not see that he was yelling it at her, but moving around the car I came to find out that there was a drunk rather portly white guy harassing her both racially and sexually with a single (albeit repeated) comment. With him were three rather large and (also) rather uneducated redneck trailer trash types that did not seem to get his “joke” as they did not acknowledge that he said anything either funny or insulting in any way. Thats right folks, they didn’t even get his 3rd grade “humor”.

The traditional volleying of insults ensued, culminating in our team throwing: “Why don’t you read a book you white trash inbred piece of sh*t”. Since they lost the battle of words, (the best they could come up with was calling barbara a bitch) his three friends decided that they now needed to prove their worth, country style. Hopping over the porch railing, while tossing a beer bottle to the ground in movie fashion, they walked up to me and the leader (not the one who made the initial comment) started getting in my face. This was funny since it was like some sort of primitive ritual, trying to establish dominance by pushing me with his chest in a fashion that deer might engage in when butting horns.

I pushed the guy back saying that I don’t want to fight, I just want an apology for harassing her, to which the response was, “I wasn’t talking about her, I was just talking to my friends”. Sure. This goes on and on, Barbara tries to call 911 which gets her an answering machine message (Thats a little bit scary, isn’t it?). Finally, some lady from the coffee shop gets in the middle and convinces the goons to relax some, the conflict resolves (without apology). It all ends without a physical altercation, and we take off.

Some other thoughts about the fight…
1) I wish I had been better at Aikido. I could have rather easily taken out the guy that was pushing on me, and probably one more before getting my ass handed to me.
2) I had accepted the fact that I was going to get my ass kicked, but it felt good anyway. The guy who made the comments seriously looked like a deer in the headlights when Barbara started talking back.
3) I also had accepted that my new glasses were going to be broken, which was going to upset me greatly, but thats just how it goes.
4) I’ve never actually been in a real fight, it was going to be nice to use some of the Aikido/Capoeira skills in an actual situation.
5) I think it convinced Barbara that she should learn Aikido. Thats great, if she gets into it, I will start it up again too.

Trying to wind down from the fight, we went to Amerigos and got a wonderful piece of tiramisu. We enjoyed a drink and relaxed some before heading over to [phreaknic](http://www.phreaknic.info). I promised some of my friends that I would try to meet up with them before leaving for Texas. We hung out and had a great time. Here is a [pic](http://gallery.phreaknic.info/gallery/pn8-skydog/DSC00163) and another [pic](http://gallery.phreaknic.info/gallery/pn8-skydog/DSC00164) that skydog snapped of us at the conference. We had a good time for an hour or so, and headed home.

In the morning we packed up her stuff, and headed to San Antonio. A long drive later, we arrived, unpacked, and I am now flying on my way back to Nashville. So I’m back to being “effectively single” and I’m not happy about it.

But that was my whirlwind weekend. I do have BT to look forward to this weekend in Chicago, so at least I have something to look forward to..

While I was at the store yesterday, I crossed paths with an elderly black lady who seemed very nice. My cart was trapped behind some display so I moved the display out of the way to get by. She said something about how I should be careful not to run it over, to which I agreed. Then her facial expression changed and she said “You better not try to run me over, my son would beat you to death.”

That was the end of our interactions. I find it most interesting. First, why did this lady change so suddenly like Smigle? Second, I find it intersting that she would say that her son would beat me to death. I mean, why would one bring up that sort of physical force in such a context, and furthermore, why would this elderly, presumably wiser lady say something that sounds so much like a 4th grader with a bigger brother in 6th grade?

I even made it back in one piece! Nothing like a 20 hour drive to make you happy to see Nashville again. I have a phone on the way too. Should be here Sept. 1. Intarweb is on the way as well. Thank god. Being disconnected from the world is **not** fun.