It's what he would have wanted

Last night I had a dream.

I was alone at my parent's old house in Windsor.
It was sunny, autumn. The leaves on the neighborhood trees were displaying their reds, oranges, and yellows. Two men in their 60s came walking up to the house. I knew they were bearing bad news. I had been expecting it, and now I was ready to hear it.

"We would like to talk to you about your friend, Aaron Leeman."

I invited them in. One of the men handed me a burrito.

"This is part of what we are able to produce because of the work Aaron Leeman has done. As you know, his work was brilliant. He was able to create an object which had properties of exponents when viewed one way and properties of logarithms when viewed another way. You could go back and forth as you pleased, depending on the application. While not actually mathematics, his work has many interesting mathematical properties."

I held the burrito in my hand staring at it. I started to peel off the aluminum foil allowing steam to escape.

"Aaron Leeman is dead. He was making a larger one of these, the largest ever, stretching his research beyond the limits. Unfortunately, his work consumed him and he was enveloped in a giant version of his work."

I broke down in tears and ran out the back door. The men followed me, the same one talking while I, on my knees on the ground, peeled back the flour tortilla with my hands, the refried beans and cheese burning my fingers a little bit.

"He was horribly burned. When we found him, his body was charred black. There was nothing left of him but ash."

Under the layer of refried beans was a steak hoagie. I wanted to find a piece of Aaron inside somewhere. I didn't.

I needed to talk to someone, so I went in search of my mom, who was in some abstract version of New York City out near the train station at near 98th and 99th. I told her what happened, crying the whole time.

"That's awful!"

"Yea," I said. Then, chuckling, "But it's also really, really funny."

I couldn't stop laughing.

Sweden?

Swarthmore has no job for me to apply to next year.
It is time to let it go.
Head back west?
L.A.?
Canada?

But tonight it's hockey and beer.

Thursday: 

• Make transparencies for Saturday morning talk.
• Write a quiz for the Pi-rates to give to my students Friday.

Friday:

• Drive past State College to Altoona for an extra special session of the special session.
• Schmooze with people who might want to hire me.
• Drive back to State College. Sleep.

Saturday:

• Wake up.
• Give my 20 minute talk at 8:00am to kick off the special session.
• Hang around to see if anyone wants to jam.
• Drive to Wilkes-Barre for a wedding.
• Crash.

Sunday:

• Drive home.
• Regroup and start getting ready for Halloween.
  

Road Shrapnel

The Cambridge House Brew Pub in Granby, CT is quite nice. I went for lunch yesterday, and treated myself to a flight of their beers.

Blitzkrieg, Kolsch, IPA, ESB, and Stout. The Blitzkrieg was made with German yeast, English malt, and American hops. It was a nice concoction. The stout was full of roasted malt, giving it a smokey coffee-like bitterness, which helped it to win a silver medal at this year's GABF.

After my flight and spinach salad, I headed back to my car. The delivery guy, who had been unloading various foodstuffs while I was sampling beers, pointed out my flat tire.

Oh.

I get out my jack, tire iron, and spare, and get to work. I get three out of four bolts off, when I notice the fourth is not like the others.  Hmm.

The delivery guy tells me it's a knot. There should be a piece to attach to the tire iron which will fit the knot. If it's not with the other tools, it's in the glove box. Right he was, in the glove box was my knot unknotter. Thanks again.

As I'm taking care of the last bolt, an old man gets into his Cadillac to leave the pub. He slows down and lends me some empathy and good cheer.

"At least it's only flat on the bottom!" He says. I point out that that's the part of the tire which most needs to be round. "I owned a Civic once. That's a great car." Unfortunately, no car is immune to flat tires. "I suspect that's true. Have a great day!"

Flat off, spare on, I head inside to wash up and get some direction. I tell the bartender my situation. "Yeah, I saw you out there changing the tire. There's a shop a mile up the road that will fix your flat for free." Well hot damn. Fix it for free they did.

Say what you will about people in New England. I got a nice sense of community from people I encountered yesterday.

A Pentatomidae Vendetta

I was recently reminded that last year at the beginning of fall stink bugs make their way through the cracks in the old windows of my apartment.  What reminded me was the stink bugs crawling through  the cracks in the old windows of my apartment. These bugs have a lowly existence. They crawl around looking for food and if they feel threatened, they squirt out this liquid, which stinks like crazy.

The cats took a brief interest in them last year. Sid quickly learned they were not much fun. But Butters had an experience that went something like this:

Oh a bug! I'm going to eat it!

Yuck!
Oh a bug! I'm going to eat it!

Yuck!
Oh a bug! I'm going to eat it!

Yuck!

You can give her points for determination, I suppose.

Patty asked me about the bugs one day. "What are these bugs that are invading?" I told her they are stink bugs. "How do we get rid of them?" Kill them on sight. Whenever I see one in the house now, I grab a tissue, grab the bug, and squeeze until I hear a crack. One less stink bug.

Evidently, they feed on "plant juice," so it's not clear what is attracting them to the computer room upstairs. They might be hatching from eggs on the trees just outside, and our apartment is the closest stop.

I woke up last night around 4:30. I rubbed my hand across my face, discovering a stink bug had found its way to the nook between my nose and the inner corner of my right eye. The stink bug was startled by this. Fuck. I grabbed it, threw it onto the floor, and ran to the bathroom. By the time I get my some fresh running water to my eye, it's too late. I can feel the stink poison stinging my eye. Thoughts run through my head about losing sight in my right eye, but I dismiss them as improbable. I rinse my eye for a few minutes more, then head back to bed. Damn that stink bug.

The inner corner of my right eye is still sore, and that bug is still in my house. I'm going hunting tonight.

Here are some student comments from my course last spring.
Some of these won't make it into my application materials.

• You were great at communication! Thanks!
• Awesome. This is the most organized class i'm in with the best email communication between myself and a professor. I love how I can see my grade as well.
• Homework was the hardest part of the course. It was rare that I could complete it myself without visiting office hours or going to the engineering help session. The amount of homework assigned was usually reasonable, but sometimes the problems were far too tedious and time-consuming.
• It was often annoying to have a quiz every week, but I think it made me review the material after I had finished the homework. I think I retained more information because of them. I do think that they should be 5% of our grade and homework 15%
• I have always liked the format Prof. Kronholm's exams. They cover most of the material which makes it worthwhile to prepare for every possible topic. Also, the exams avoid the often arduous calculations found in the homework and focuses on understanding the material instead.
• you should give a bandana to the highest and lowest scorers in the class
• Joking with the teacher always makes math class more fun.
• Bill Kronholm is AWESOME!! He's my favorite! 
• Very effective use of colored chalk...
• Thanks for being so patient in your office hours.
• Great class! I usually don't enjoy math classes very much, but I will miss this one very much. I invested a lot of time working for this class, but it was worth it because I learned a lot. 
  

a life or death or both situation

I just read this in a BBC News article:

Richard Betts of the Met Office Hadley Centre described himself as "shocked" that so much warming could occur within the lifetimes of people alive today.

"If greenhouse gas emissions are not cut soon then we could see major climate changes within our own lifetimes," he said.

I started wondering why we are so resistant to change. It's not just catastrophic change we dislike. Fold a shirt a different way and conflict can arise. Sitting in someone else's seat can unsettle a whole class. Milk in my coffee? You better watch out.

Global warming seems a bit bigger though. Rising sea levels, increasing average temperature, melting glaciers. All of this spells trouble for humanity. We don't really want the opposite of any of these to happen either. Decrease the sea level and now our ports are in the wrong places, your beach front home is now dune front, yadda yadda.

Increasing temperatures seem to also imply an increase in the human death rate. This website (dubious and unreliable as it may be) estimates that the current death rate due to global warming is 150,000 people per year. This is about the number of people in the US who die from stroke each year.

If global warming is preventable, these deaths are preventable.

If you could, would you prevent these deaths?

Now, imagine instead of 150,000 extra deaths per year we have 150,000 extra BIRTHS per year, also preventable.
If you could, would you prevent these births?