2001-05-24 - 6:44 p.m.

Magic Feathers ... or Crutches

Most people should be familiar with Disney's Dumbo. The little elephant could fly, but had convinced himself he couldn't do it if he didn't have a magic feather. I really need to ask my therapist about crutches, because I realized today that I use them too.

Listening to: Depeche Mode's Enjoy the Silence Single.

This morning I woke up at 6 AM (which is a hell of a lot earlier than my normal 7:30 AM wake up time) and put on black socks, black bikini briefs (sorry guys, the women that tell you that hate briefs ... well they must be gay, boxers are designed to hide the body, bikini briefs are as close as you can get to going comando), black dress shoes, black dress slacks, a very dark red dress shirt, and black tie. OK, a bit of a protest, but since I was told to look professional, I did just that. However, I did it mostly in black. ;)

I drove down to this small town called Courtland to give my presentation. I was surprised that the town was only 35 miles away (and I went the long way, through Sacramento instead of the local farms out here). When I was almost there, I got stopped in traffic. Apparently this town is so small that there is one road in from the north and one road in from the south. Same road actually. And it was under construction. I had to weight next to a construction worker for 15 minutes before a "pilot truck" came by to drive me into the town.

Courtland, PA ... oppps I mean CA

Talk about time warp. I expected to find a mint on card original Boba Fett action figure there. Well I would if there were any real stores. The local general store was selling drinks and a sandwich for $3.25. Fuck that! A stinking Hot Dog (which I gave up eating long ago when I was told I tasted funny) and a drink cost $3.50.

Of course this is no reason to move to Courtland, CA. It has a small town feel, but it was lonely. I thought I was in Western PA, one of the many tiny mining towns. Having grown up in big cities, I just have a hard enough time here in Davis.

Basically from 8 until 4 PM (all day) I was supposed to be on head to give a short 10 minute presentation about my modeling research, as well as answer any questions that might come my way.

The morning session was closed to the public, but a scientific peer review panel came to listen to the research that my team was proposing for 2001.

Team and Research

I'm the youngest member of this team, and one of the few modelers. Most everybody else has children in high school or grand children in high school. Then there is me. Believe it or not, but I still am young for being an environmental engineer (in large part this is because many of us have Masters degrees or got our undergrade degrees at really tough universities). Not that the degree matters. It doesn't, as Shortround in my office is quick to prove. Shortround is one of the laziest and worst engineers I've met, and he has a PhD.

Anyhow, the team is composed of a few engineers (mostly field engineers) and tons of biologists. Our research is to save the US Govt and California Govt billions of dollars by investigating and creating a way to protect endangered samlon at the same time that we protect human drinking water.

Why?

In 1999, a group of teen ager salmon (juvenials ... smolts I think) were migrating down the Sacramento River, at a time when the state was about to violate water quality standards. Sure enough this happened in the winter 1999, when the moon was closest to the Earth as it has been in years. The moon caused the global tides to have more energy, and so the tides pushed salt far inland. The state violated one of its own water quality regulations (the Federal Govt doesn't give a shit about this kind of thing ... really, California has its own stricter environmental regulations and the penlaties are steep for violation).

The end result in 1999, was that my job in Oct. 1999 was to calibrate the model I work on. By Thanksgiving 1999, my job description was rewritten. I've spent the rest of my engineering career as a modeler and no longer calibrating stuff. I was asked to simulation what happened in Nov. & Dec. 1999 and later I was given a series of "what if questions".

Computer Modeling

Computer Modelers are basically just overpaid file clerks. If you know how to collect action figures, comic books, trading cards, CDs, or maybe DJ, then you can do my job. You just have to pay attention to small details.

Computer Models are like giant 8-balls. Modelers like me shake them when people who don't have the same skill in using computers ask us questions. Gothic Example: "Hey, some stupid kids tossed a bunch of chopped up body parts in this river. We found them over here. Where did they come from?"

No shit, I once used an environmental model to track human body parts. The local police asked me to do this.

The questions are varied, and in my two years of professional work I've developed (with another team) a forecasting system. We can tell you in advance what is likely to happen. Cool shit actually, it is why I went to graduate school.

My Feather

So in response to the 1999 situation, a team was formed to prevent that from happening again. If we fail, then the state is going to build a several billion dollar bypass (which will have a host of environmental problems).

The panel in Courtland asked my team a bunch of questions. Though I'm just a modeler and not in management, nobody else higher than me was there. There came a time when some of the grumpy panel members kept pressing questions, and finally asked, "So what is your modeling opinion." I wasn't expecting to talk, but I just let loose! :) They kept asking me questions, and answers just rolled out. Wow!

After the panel, the public was admitted and I was shocked to see tons of normal everyday people walking in. OK, I thought nobody would show up and that my presentation wouldn't matter. But there must have been 50 people (many of them conservative small town looking people). I was starting to get neverous. *gulp*

I asked for a laser pointer, and one of the biologists leaned over and said we didn't have one. But he could tell I was starting to get afraid and gave me a red pen ... my magic feather. He whispered, "Just hold real tight onto the pen and use the red part to point at things. It is magic."

Actually the team was really cool. They've worked with me since 1999 (some of them) and know about my normal blue hair. The team leader told them that my HR people made me dye my hair and that I was upset. They were all really cool.

Anyway, the time came for my presentation, and although my stomache hurt, I started. And low and behold, it was over in no time and I felt great. There weren't any questions and everybody said I did a great job.

*blushing* OK, last night I said I consider my "Religious" caste. My talent isn't as an engineer, but when put on the spotlight, I can talk to people in common language and I do it evenly. I think that is why management is angry about my hair.

In August they told me that they saw me eventually working for the state as one of the engineering spokes people. At work I create presentations for myself (and sometimes my superiors) and edit other people's stuff. I'm not great, but they would like to use me more this way. Which only makes the hair thing a bit more tragic, because if the public would see more freaks, they'd deal with.

Diaryland

A number of other diaryland people are really cool about talking about their normal days and then throwing in tidbits about alternative lifestyles. Be it that they are homosexual, bisexual, into BDSM, open relationships, experimenting with chemicals, or JPO Just Plain Odd, I think as freaks like myself take a more visible role in society that people will become more open minded. That is my hope at least.

(Tomorrow I'll talk about something else big that happened today at the presentation.)

Later,

-=-

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