mikeShriver

I have a lot of respect for crafty people. I like the kind of people who own sewing machines, or buy darkroom chemicals from ebay; the kind of people who hammer old silverware into jewelry, and paint; and who make music, and make musical instruments, and fix everything first before buying new. I’ve never considered myself all that crafty. In fact, I kind of write myself off as being too lazy to really get into something long enough to really learn it.

A friend mentioned that she is taking a cheesemaking course from WSU, recently. This is strange, and awesome and made me want to try to learn my own craft. I’ve had an idea that I wanted to try homebrewing for a few years, now, and I think that comment gave me just enough of a kick to try it out. I nabbed an old kit from craigslist for fifty bucks, got the ingredients a week later, and brewed everything up last weekend:

This is what beer started out as: Malt extract, specialty grains, hops, and yeast (that white package is actually corn sugar used when bottling. Just pretend it’s yeast, and let’s move on).

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Tags: Beer, Hobbies, Homebrewing.

Some more of those “I thought that shit only happened on the internet” times:

Living in a house of eight unrelated people is always going to be an adventure. Keeping common areas clean and resolving conflict when they aren’t gets overwhelming. Everyone falls on a spectrum that seems to range from being unconcerned with a few dirty dishes, but stressed by indirect confrontation about mess, to those who can’t stand the mess, and have no direct way of communicating their discomfort.

In my current house reside eight people that had never met before the current housing situation. Previously, I have always lived in houses with friends, and while the dish situation was rarely better in those houses, communication was better, and so conflicts tended to raise to the surface faster, as opposed to boiling unnoticed until someone moves out.

Probably the best situation I lived in had 5 guys in one space, but we regularly shared meals together. In fact, we made it a point to have a dinner with just the ‘family’ once a week where we shut out the rest of the world and enjoyed each other’s company. Seeing each other regularly led to complaints about cleanliness problems coming out in normal conversation. They weren’t kept inside until agreed upon times. It also prevented dreaded ‘house meetings,’ which amount to times specifically scheduled for complaints. We looked forward to weekly dinners, no one dreaded our house get togethers.

The kitchen sink seems to bear the brunt of the cleanliness complaints everywhere I’ve lived. Anyone with workable ideas about how to manage sink cleanliness and avoid the associated negative communication needs to write a damn book. I am completely out of ideas.

Our house whiteboard has become the de facto forum for airing complaints:

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Tags: Eastern House, Roommates, Whiteboard.

…A man who can still find awe in the bigness of things.

On Mission India and the Size of the Universe

During our conversations, you expressed a rare wonder at the expanse of the universe. My whole life I have been confronted by astronomical charts, and the enormity of the universe has become familiar idea. After I got back from my trip to India, I looked up some information about out place in the universe, and I think you might be interested in some facts I have taken for granted. This stuff always amazes me when I stop to think about it.

A few years back, an astronomer with some spare time on his hands took the most powerful telescope that we have available to us, The Hubble Space Telescope, and pointed it at a completely black patch of the night sky. He was curious about what he would be able to see if he left it focused on the blackness of space, and the image he came up with is called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field:

It is an incredibly striking image by itself, but just seeing it doesn’t really reveal all of its implications. To fully understand it, you need some background information. The relative sizes of the objects in our galaxy can provide a good starting point.

First, our own home. The earth is about 40,000km around at the equator. I know you fly halfway around the world with regularity, and so you have an easy reference point for the size of the blue marble (the flight from Chicago to Mumbai is 12,978 km, and about 16 hours).

In comparison, the Moon is 10,921km in circumference, and about 3,475km through the middle. That is about the distance from the top of India to it’s southmost point in Tamil Nadu. The moon orbits at a distance of about 405,700km. If you were travelling the same speed as that Mumbai-bound jumbo jet, it would take you about three weeks to arrive at the Moon.

The Sun is about 100 times the diameter of the earth and is 152 million km away, which would take you 21 years to reach in your airplane.

Here is where things get really big. We are out of the range of kilometers, and have to switch to a larger unit, the lightyear. One lightyear is defined as the distance that light travels in a single year, and it is approximately 9,461,000,000,000 (nine and a half trillion) km. Which is a way bigger number than I can even comprehend. In comparison, it takes the light from the Sun only 8 minutes to travel the distance from the Sun to the Earth. It takes that same light about 6 hours to get to Pluto, at the edge of our little solar system.

Our sun is one of about 100 billion stars that make up the Galaxy we reside in, known as the Milky Way. The Milky Way is shaped like a flat disk of two outwardly spiraling arms. The disk is about 100,000 lightyears across, and about 1,000 lightyears thick. The closest star in the Milky Way to our sun is 4 lightyears away, a distance that is practically impossible for humans to cross. We will likely never even travel outside our own little solar system, past Pluto.

I have to admit that I have a hard time visualizing the distances that I’ve described so far, because they are so vastly outside my range of experience.

Now, go back and look at the first image. The original of this image is pretty large, but it covers a small portion of the sky. If you walked outside under a full moon and looked up, this image would cover a patch of sky about 1/10th of the size of the moon. The image is so small, it would take 13 million of them to cover the entire sky. There are no single stars in the image. Every single speck in the image is a galaxy like our own Milky Way. That means that thousands of galaxies fit into that tiny little speck in the night sky.

The first time I saw that image was a moment of epiphany for me. I can’t fathom the sheer insignificance that even our own unfathomably huge galaxy commands in the universe, not to mention our own tiny planet.

I hope that this information is interesting to you. It certainly has made me wonder at the enormity of everything. My understanding of it all is pretty limited, but feel free to ask me any questions you have, and I will answer them to the best of my knowledge.

–Mike

Note:  A full version of the Hubble UDF image can be found here:

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2004/07/image/a/

Tags: astronomy, epiphany, rimi, saji, universe.

Posts tagged ‘Travel Journal’ come from travel journals written on the road. The present series is from my recent trip to India. Posts have been backdated to reflect the day they were written.

Tags: India, Travel Journal.

We got to spend a nominal day in Mumbai which ended up being a lunch at an over-the-top luxury hotel and an aggravating car ride around the city with the two most insufferably fervent Christians in India. We were up early and out the door in Nagpur to a couple pairs of heartbreaking eyes. I had a hard time saying goodbye to little Jeremy and Sharon, They were broken up that we had to leave.

The flight to Mumbai was short, and we got a hotel room for the daylight hours, as out flights left for the states in the evening. We had lunch at the hotel buffet, Saji seems to love these. He had invited a few of his contacts in Mumbai to join us. A business man in the software business, and a couple (who knows what they did, but the seemed to be well off in money, and testimony).

Every story of struggle of one of out lunch companions was met with a flurry of bible verses and stories about their own personal struggles. Imagine my elation to find out that they were my ride home (side note: in the nicest Honda I have ever seen) and that they needed to make an extended detour for their own business. This trip has been marked by car rides of high emotion. This ride was easily the most aggravating.

The stories they told were preposterous, and the enthusiasm with which they told them was so vibrant I have a hard time believing it wasn’t contrived.  At one point the talk turned to politics and Paki-Indian relations. a comment was made that Obama’s support of Islamic nations was a “The beginning of the end.” I spent a good deal of energy being angry at that and shut down emotionally for the rest of the ride.

When we got back to the hotel, the sun was setting and I took my camera and walked out into the neighborhood to cool down. As a 6′3″ westerner with a beard and long hair, I feel a little like a spectacle to these people. I wondered into an alley and found a small following of wide-eyed children. I will probably always wish I had asked someone to show me how cricket was played, but this will give me something to return for. 

I sat at a park and watched a few sets being played and made stunted conversation to a few kids and took their photo. This will be a fond memory.

When I returned to the hotel after a shower and a cooling off time, I asked my dad about the Israel comment. We had a very good talk which I recorded, I think I will try to do that more often because I enjoyed it, and it’s effect was therapeutic — calming. It even made ma a little more amicable towards Saji.

We parted ways with Nathan, the Alabaman who was at the campus doing some survey work for construction projects. This man gave off a good vibe. Very conservative, politically, but he gave off the impression that he wanted to be exactly where he was, he truly enjoyed is work.

My last taxi ride was rushed, as Saji was late for his flight. for the first time I made extended eye-contact with a beggar girl, even as I denied her income. It struck me how beautiful most of these street girls are, and sparked an interest in researching the situation further. This girl was unbelievable lovely. I will always smile to think of her, even as I know she is not in a happy way. I cannot remove the image of here smiling face from my mind.

Tags: India, Travel Journal.

The raw wonder that Saji exhibits derives, I think, from his inability to comprehend subtlety. His comprehension of the Sun sizes it at about 2-3 times the size of the Earth, and still it blows his mind. I have a perverse desire to see his reaction to the Hubble UDF image.

I have had exactly one moment of epiphany in my life, and it came the first time I saw that image, and had it described to me. When I confronted the absolute incomprehensibility of that image, my brain shut down. I remember lying on my floor for a few hours after first seeing that.

The weight of that experience came back as I thought about it today at dinner. I had to excuse myself and walk home with the explanation of an upset stomach. I still have a hard time knowing how the world can keep functioning under the weight of its inconsequence.

Visited the Mercy Home again, today. This time with Saji and Dad. The little girls there positively swoon over me. I’m probably a little to fixated on this fact, but the attention is nice. It is a little to jarring a contrast to the sense of insignificance I get looking into space, though. How does one reconcile these two extremes?

The whole day we moved around in the same oppressive heat we have had since our arrival. but today the sun was cut into by a sudden downpour of torrential rain. Tarps materialized from nowhere to cover vendors carts, it was quite a sight. We gathered in a tea shop as the sky darkened over a sort of noiseless, spectacular lightning storm.

Tags: India, Travel Journal.

These conference days go impossibly long. My dad has finished speaking for this event so I am done hearing him for this trip. Right now I am listening to a speech in Hindi. I am impossibly timid and these people stretch their inter-meal times hours longer than they should. It’s been 7 hours since lunch and I am starving. It will probably be a couple more hours till I eat. I wandered around the campus a little today and in my walk I passed the Mercy Home. All the little girls there seem to know my name and the called me from across a field. I am like a rock God!

Came across a book in my cataloging today called “.Christ, The Gospel Beautifully Designed for the Internet Age” a printing of the gospel of Matthew using cheesy faux-computer graphics and web layouts. It astounds me that someone can create an entire production “for the internet age” without apparently having ever seen a computer. Also, I think the point of the internet is that it isn’t print.

Bansal the Librarian was slightly less awkward, and I was actually left alone to get some work done today, which was kind of nice. The power goes out often, though, and failure today left an hour of awkward sitting around waiting for it to come back on. 

I heard a couple of good stories from the Mercy Home and hospital thing Mission India was able to help with – medical bills and such. It raised a question in my mind, rhetorical. If there was no God, no afterlife, would these people, these Christians still have a motivation to do these good works in the world, just for humanity’s sake [The utilitarian in me asks if the answer to this question even matters?]

Tags: India, Travel Journal.

Sitting in a session at the leadership conference my dad is speaking at. His topic tonight is ‘the need for education.’ I think the intent was for an exhortation for education as a social services, as a way of lifting people and cultures out of their poverty. Of course, they picked the wrong man for that topic.

My biggest problem with the evangelical church, with my Dad’s church is their relentless focus on spreading Paul’s agenda. The intent completely overshadows any and all social programs and services the church might otherwise, offer. 

Meals for the poor require attendance at a sermon. Leaders of the church delegate the actual service of the meal to youth groups and focus on condemning the people who need emotional sustenance as much as they need physical nourishment. [Ed, May 16th 2009: Upon further consideration of this comment, I am not sure what I found so distasteful in the delegation of this task. Even as I wrote it, I don't think I believed it. It was just an expression of my frustration with the situation as a whole. In fact, delegation is an important function of any leader and must be undertaken for any organization to survive. Indeed, the times I spent serving meals to the poor of Salt Lake's streets incubated a compassion I would have otherwise not have known, and I owe a great deal of my present outlook to the fact that these tasks were entrusted to me. The teenage and preteen years are an important time to foster empathy in a person, and placing our entitled young teenagers in a place where they have to confront the discomfort and realities of social injustice, we give them a wider perspective that is necessary for raising compassionate adults.]

Even now, in his speech, dad ignores culture education and the socially uplifting aspects that a secular education will provide, and focuses on ‘Spiritual’ education, confirming the idea that there is only one thing of importance: telling biblical truth. Biblical truth will not raise a culture out of oppression. it will not transform the world, not without a worldly enlightenment. It has not, so far, and it will not in the future.

Indians seem to have no sense of cell phone etiquette. Every time we are in a church service or grad ceremony, the speaker’s cell phone invariably rings. Today, the pastor (mid-sermon) answered it– right there at the pulpit. My American sensibilities and I were floored.

I really need to work on my handwriting.

Tags: India, Travel Journal.

This final stay in Nagpur will be the longest one in India, almost a week. Dad is speaking at a leadership conference at the MIBC campus. My services have been offered at the library to help catalogue books. This was one of the more awkward experiences of my trip so far.

I felt myself more a burden than a help as the people who worked there had to stand and supervise me the whole time. Certainly more could have gotten done without me. Also, the ‘main’ librarian, had some unsettling habits. He kept smiling awkwardly and caressing my hair. I’m just gonna rack that up to cultural differences.

I gave in  today and took an antacid after unwisely ravaging he mango pickle jar for its sauce.

Tags: India, Travel Journal.

Saji took us to another hotel for their buffet. I think his primary goal was to show us how much better the other place was, though. He gave us a complete tour of the grounds, which were larger, but not necessarily better.

10:00 PM:

I think I figured out why I don’t like Saji. The man is all talk, no listen. The world revolves around his schedule. I revolve around his schedule, now. I can’t imagine having to spend another week with this man, especially the two day train ride back to Nagpur.

He treats the women like shit, too. It’s probably a ‘cultural’ thing, but the man cannot clean up after himself. I saw him leave a door open, and instead of taking two steps backward to close it, he made his 5 year old niece come across the room to do it for him.

Sonny claimed it was cultural: “the women cook and clean, and the men do the work.” Fine in theory, but I have yet to see a man do any work here, yet. Even manual labor: everywhere we went, women were pouring concrete and sweeping the streets.

More evangelical talk, all day, too. It surprises me, but Saji didn’t seem to know that the moon was smaller than the earth, yet here he is trying to explain the creation of the universe to a random stranger in the park.

Tags: India, Travel Journal.