As mentioned below, yesterday we visited a few of the wineries Brianne is interested in working for this summer as well as when we return to the area and she begins school. It was a nice day despite intermittent rain, and the tour of the facilities at Erath Vineyards was especially interesting.
We began the day at Amity Vineyard, just outside of Amity, Oregon. Amity is a very high quality winery of a limited scale and staunch tradition that is instantly appealing. We introduced ourselves to Doug, the tasting room host, just after 11 a.m. (we know, we know).
“Amity, as you know, means friendship”
While at Amity we were able to sample twelve (!) different wines, most of which were very, very good. It’s difficult at this point for me to feel comfortable with much in the way of critiquing due to our level of inexperience, almost like a film critic who had only seen Clint Eastwood films. While he might have valid and interesting reasons for liking some of them just fine and others not at all, the narrowness of his experience understandably undermines the merit of his conclusions. The total subjectivity of wine tasting is a whole different issue, but I’ll save that for a later post.
This early in spring the vine shoots are just begging to grow, and each winery we visited looked sparse but promising. Less than six months from now all of those trellises will be sagging under the weight of Continue Reading…
Today Brianne and I spent the day hiking around the Washington side of the Columbia Gorge, enjoying the 75 degree weather and enjoying being together with one less major distraction in our way. We began with a morning hike up Beacon Rock, which climbs 900 feet and where we were buffeted by extremely high winds for most of the trail.
The view from the top was wonderful, with bright green vegetation, dark teal water, and Continue Reading…
“Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast, or of one thing too exclusively”
-Voltaire
Yesterday I did both. The Fundamentals of Engineering Test (or FE) is a nationally administered competency exam for engineering students of all disciplines who plan on one day becoming state licensed engineers. Once this test is passed a person is considered an “Engineer In Training” and must practice under a licensed engineer for four years, at which point they can try to pass the Professional Engineering Test (or PE) and taking responsibility for their work themselves.
Since most engineers are expected to one day become licensed professionals, and since nearly all entry level engineering jobs require the candidate to have passed the FE, it looms large in the mind of all engineering students nearing graduation, and in none more so than mine. I had been dreading the FE for the last four months and began preparing for it in earnest about a month ago. Regardless of how capable, intelligent, or prepared I may be, my severe test anxiety throughout college has resulted in me developing two distinct strategies for dealing with tests. They are:
A. The “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” or “Become Morrissey” method, where I try to convince myself that nothing in the world matters, least of all some lame test I haven’t prepared for and couldn’t care less about. I typically do this.
B. The “Super Wrestlemania” method, where I psyche myself up with self aggrandizing nonsense about how incredibly smart I am and how badly I’m going to kick the test’s ass. I only do this for tests I need to do well on in order to pass a class or, in the case of the FE, to move on with my life.
Figure 1: Alternate Test Preparation Strategies
Some specifics about the test: It is 8 hours long, contains 180 multiple choice questions, and covers the length and breadth of my education related to engineering. As engineering disciplines go, Civil is much broader than, say, Chemical or Electrical Engineering, because it encompasses Hydrology, Structural, Geotechnical, and Traffic. With that in mind, I probably should have taken my Hydrology, Geotech, and Traffic classes a little more seriously, but it’s too late to worry about that.
The test was a bit of a blur. Based on the quote above, Voltaire would call it madness either way he defines it, since for two four hour blocks you are exclusively focused on one general subject while answering questions in such quick succession and about so many different things that you don’t really have time to think. My agressive mindset was helpful because for the most part my answers were accompanied by a confident sense of “Oh yeah? Well take THAT!” Sure I could have studied more, but my biggest concern was never “do I know enough to pass?”, it was “what am I supposed to do if I don’t?” I mean, if you spend five years learning everything you’re expected to know when you begin your engineering career and then fail this test, how confident are you supposed to feel about your education?
When it was all over, I walked out into the afternoon sun feeling like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. For something that had dominated my mind for so long to suddenly become irrelevant, well, it felt great. If I had to guess, I’d say that I passed. I won’t know for another two months, because the results are not released until after I offically graduate, and even then it’s a simple “Pass” or “No Pass”- I never get to see my score. It doesn’t matter, though. I’m back to being Morrissey.
6/23/06 postscript: I passed.
“Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast, or of one thing too exclusively”
-Voltaire
Yesterday I did both. The Fundamentals of Engineering Test (or FE) is a nationally administered competency exam for engineering students of all disciplines who plan on one day becoming state licensed engineers. Once this test is passed a person is considered an “Engineer In Training” and must practice under a licensed engineer for four years, at which point they can try to pass the Professional Engineering Test (or PE) and taking responsibility for their work themselves.
Since most engineers are expected to one day become licensed professionals, and since nearly all entry level engineering jobs require the candidate to have passed the FE, it looms large in the mind of all engineering students nearing graduation, and in none more so than mine. I had been dreading the FE for the last four months and began preparing for it in earnest about a month ago. Regardless of how capable, intelligent, or prepared I may be, my severe test anxiety throughout college has resulted in me developing two distinct strategies for dealing with tests. They are:
A. The “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” or “Become Morrissey” method, where I try to convince myself that nothing in the world matters, least of all some lame test I haven’t prepared for and couldn’t care less about. I typically do this.
B. The “Super Wrestlemania” method, where I psyche myself up with self aggrandizing nonsense about how incredibly smart I am and how badly I’m going to kick the test’s ass. I only do this for tests I need to do well on in order to pass a class or, in the case of the FE, to move on with my life.
Figure 1: Alternate Test Preparation Strategies
Some specifics about the test: It is 8 hours long, contains 180 multiple choice questions, and covers the length and breadth of my education related to engineering. As engineering disciplines go, Civil is much broader than, say, Chemical or Electrical Engineering, because it encompasses Hydrology, Structural, Geotechnical, and Traffic. With that in mind, I probably should have taken my Hydrology, Geotech, and Traffic classes a little more seriously, but it’s too late to worry about that.
The test was a bit of a blur. Based on the quote above, Voltaire would call it madness either way he defines it, since for two four hour blocks you are exclusively focused on one general subject while answering questions in such quick succession and about so many different things that you don’t really have time to think. My agressive mindset was helpful because for the most part my answers were accompanied by a confident sense of “Oh yeah? Well take THAT!” Sure I could have studied more, but my biggest concern was never “do I know enough to pass?”, it was “what am I supposed to do if I don’t?” I mean, if you spend five years learning everything you’re expected to know when you begin your engineering career and then fail this test, how confident are you supposed to feel about your education?
When it was all over, I walked out into the afternoon sun feeling like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. For something that had dominated my mind for so long to suddenly become irrelevant, well, it felt great. If I had to guess, I’d say that I passed. I won’t know for another two months, because the results are not released until after I offically graduate, and even then it’s a simple “Pass” or “No Pass”- I never get to see my score. It doesn’t matter, though. I’m back to being Morrissey.
6/23/06 postscript: I passed.
Today Brianne and I spent the day hiking around the Washington side of the Columbia Gorge, enjoying the 75 degree weather and enjoying being together with one less major distraction in our way. We began with a morning hike up Beacon Rock, which climbs 900 feet and where we were buffeted by extremely high winds for most of the trail.
The view from the top was wonderful, with bright green vegetation, dark teal water, and hazy skies in every direction.
The switchback trail that we followed to get up looked even steeper on the way back down, and I admired the foresight of the Biddle family who purchased the site in 1915, completed the trail in 1918, and sold it to the State of Washington in 1935 for a dollar while requiring them to use the land as a public park. Thanks, Mr. Biddle.
After Beacon rock, we drove east and had a very nice lunch in the small town (they claim it’s a city) of Bingen. A sign by the road informed us that Bingen’s sister city is Bingen, Germany. What a coincidence! While in Bingen we saw a truck full of adorable calves on their way to what we hoped was not a veal factory. If cows ever make a horror movie, I bet it will be titled either “Bolt Gun” or “Ronald, Portrait of a Serial Killer”.
Lunch was followed by a much longer hike near Syncline, a trail further east that we’ve mountain biked in the past. Along the trail we discovered a lilac bush that was taller than Brianne and smelled better than any bath salts or hand cream could ever hope to. It was also covered with butterflies, the German name for which means “milk thief”. So maybe a butterfly was driving that truck in Bingen…
On the hike back to the car I spotted a small rattlesnake whose guts appeared to be blown out the side of its body by a bicycle tire. It was originally in the grass by the trail, but I decided to play nature photographer and compose a shot that suited me. This required two sticks and was still unnerving despite the snake’s obvious rigor mortis. We hadn’t heard any rattling during our hike, but this discovery did have me questioning the decision I had made earlier to reach blindly under a rock while trying to catch a lizard.
In the evening we cleaned up the house (I could finally put all my review books away), made a fresh salad for dinner, and finished watching a movie. In short, it was very close to a perfect day. Despite planning to leave this area behind for over a year, it is a beautiful place to live, and days like today reinforce the fact that regardless of where Brianne and I happen to be, we always manage to find interesting things to see and discoveries to make. We don’t even have to travel far to find them, but we will just the same, we will.
April 17, 2006
Tonight I listened to Nina Simone’s “Sinnerman” in its eleven minute (and fully astonishing) entirety. For the first time in a long time, I took the opportunity to listen in a darkened room, leaning back and focused solely on the music. I’d forgotten how much more powerful the senses can be when used independently rather than smashed together and producing a cacophony of information, with my brain expected to distinguish what is important from what isn’t and probably doing a poor job of it. For a while now I’ve felt similiarly about my life- lots going on, some of it important, much of it useless, and dealing with it all mostly by shuffling papers, taking notes and hoping for the best. Now with the end of school (a major draw of time and effort) in sight and the first real chance for reorganization and reflection in a long time, I find myself thinking about priorities.
In all great jazz (the aforementioned Simone, or Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme”, for example), there is never any question of instrument priority- every part is neccesary to accomplish the goal, and no part is more or less important than any other. It would be absurd to listen to a track while staring at a stopwatch and conclude that since the saxophone solo is ten seconds longer than the piano solo it is the focus of the song, the most important part of the whole. The beauty of jazz, and really any challenging music, comes from the suprise that the listener feels when distinct but complementary elements blend harmoniously, sometimes for only a few perfect moments at a time. “Sinnerman” is filled with these moments, and every one of them gives me chills.
But then I have to wonder, is it any different with great wine? With great meals? Chocolate? Beer? I would argue that it isn’t. In every case the ingredients are simple, but the interpretation can range from the miserable to the sublime. As with jazz, the pleasure comes from immediate recogition of all the elements combined with the suprise and delight of experiencing the interesting new ways they are being introduced, blended, and layered. That last sentence makes me think of painting, and I realize now that I’m really just decribing different kinds of art.
So then my question becomes, is it any different with life? Earlier I mentioned priorities; so often it seems people define their lives in terms of units of time spent on some basic activity or another, be it work, school, family, church, recreation, or anything else. The assumption is that whatever gets the most time is (or should be) the most important, and that all of the elements are in constant competition for the limited resource of ones lifespan. People talk about prioritizing as though they’re handing out ribbons at a fair: Family… First place! Work… Second place! Movie Trivia… Third place!, and so on. This quantitative outlook is understandable in a world where spreadsheets, bank statements and timecards are given great importance, but it is severely misguided. Imagine a person making the claim that the quality of a painting is proportional only to its size, of a song only to its volume, a wine only to its color, or chocolate only to its bitterness. Focusing on one element as most important can only result in a product that is lacking in all the rest. I think the same is true with life. Shouldn’t the quality of a life be judged, like all great art, on the complexity, harmony, and originality of the artist at combining the elements that everyone had already been working with?
All of which leads me to this conclusion: living a substantive life requires taking the essential elements of the medium and combining them in a way that is most likely to create as many suprises and perfect moments as possible. Doing that would truly make art of life. I’m not advocating hedonism. The goal should not be constant pleasure but rather constant curiosity and interest and appreciation. Anything less would be like choosing one note to hear, one flavor to taste, or one sight to see, forever. Anything less would be like choosing death.
April 12, 2006
One of the many reasons I love photographing Brianne is that I always manage to catch the exact perfect moment on her face. Seriously, I even have a series of pictures of her sneezing. Getting the injections wasn’t bad at all (at least for me), but our arms were both very sore today. We go back in a month for another round, and then again just before we leave. It’s a little odd to me that we just accept injections from some lady in a broom closet in the hope that we won’t get sick on our trip, despite the fact that we are most certainly going to get sick anyway, hopefully just not so badly. As in, we won’t get bitten by a mosquito and end up in a coma.I was reading about bird flu recently; it’s pretty scary stuff. The Spanish Flu of 1918 (which killed more people in 6 months than during all of WW1) was a strain of bird flu. There’s no vaccination for that, yet, so Brianne and me made a rule: No sex with poultry while in Asia. Better safe than sorry, after all.
April 11, 2006
New personal grooming rule: when I start to look like Wolverine, it’s time to get a haircut.
New personal grooming rule: when I start to look like Wolverine, it’s time to get a haircut.
April 9, 2006
“Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”
-Benjamin Franklin
In addition to being one of the best craft breweries in Oregon (or anywhere else), Rogue Brewery offers a free half yard of beer (about 2.5 pints, see below) and a free t-shirt if you visit on your birthday. While I would never consider visiting Denny’s for a Continue Reading…