First of all, I'm incapable of interacting smoothly with government agencies, I just don't work that way. Today I forgot that I'd brought my Backpack of Absolutely Necessary Supplies to Boston, and so fifteen minutes before my interview I was hiding pocket knives in the bushes across the street because the security guards kindly let me know that ( Read more... )

It's an interesting quirk of non-personal, recorded communication (whether it's writing or, as more to the point here, podcasting) that people we've never met can become part of our personal worlds. Perry DeAngelis was one of the "skeptical rogues" on the "Skeptics' Guide To The Universe" Podcast produced by the New England Skeptical Society. It's ( Read more... )

It turns out that sneaking into a scientific conference is pretty easy.

The one bedrock certainty about my life seems to be, at the very least, I can always look back and laugh. Like recently, it's been an up and down couple of weeks, looking inward with a critical eye, introspection, etc. However during this period of reflection, thanks to a generous co-worker, I got a chance to spend the weekend rafting the Kennebec ( Read more... )

Hey everyone ( Read more... )

Like an addict returning to his drug, I have started listening to metal again. It's kind of funny, but I think I have a relationship with metal sort of like how I've heard people describe their relationship with hip-hop. It's not that it isn't, at times, completely inane and cringe-inducingly ridiculous, but at the same time it provides a quality ( Read more... )

I remember August of 2000, when I was 17 and had just broken up with my girlfriend. I was living in a freezing cold farmhouse in Chelsea and working at a warehouse in Gardiner (coincidentally also freezing cold), gradually realizing that you could really screw your life up by making stupid choices. But anyway, the point is that in early August I ( Read more... )

Friday evenings have become a bit of a week ending ritual for me, enough to justify Friday evening as a state of mind. It is also, perhaps, continuing proof that "out of step" is a way of life for me. I really, really love chilling out at my apartment, sorting through the week, and watching the sun set from my window. It's not a question of ( Read more... )

So I found a quote just now that seems pretty foundational. It's by the author Terry Pratchett in a discussion of how responding to a crowd of angry people with poorly led, heavily armed police or military units can become a recipe for a civilian massacre ( Read more... )

It's official, my application to the Peace Corps is go! I'm glad to have done this sooner rather than later, as I've realized in the process of submitting it that I won't know whether or not I'm interested until I see some of the opportunities that they have available. On the one hand, I'm pretty open-ended about what comes after my graduate ( Read more... )