Bay Area Industrial Waste Sculptures

Zen with Mandalas

I am an amateur water colorer and penciler, but here is what I have made. Pictures are courtesy of my G1 "smart" phone. Smart here is surely a relative term. Thank you Einstein. In the future this phone will be called a dumb phone or a used-to-be smart phone. I will be making my own mandalas on a larger scale instead of using templates which I obtained from a book by Bartfield and Hutchinson called Mandala Designs. See below for pictures of my work. I realize that artistic and creative perspective must be practiced with science for innovative advancement in knowledge to occur. I cannot simply read a text book and expect to solve the world's problems. I can, however, express my self most elegantly by combining the art and practice of creation and synthesis with available knowledge about environments. For example, the use of intense color and texture with awareness of natural examples which surround us now like flower petals, light reflection, diffraction, and refraction, Cadmium Selenide Quantum Dots, and fluorescent molecular dyes.

Exploratorium and Cheap DIY food

A place where my day dreams can come true. A museum of art, science, and human perception. This museum encompasses my three favorite fields other than the life energy field that exists around us which inspire and express them. No sense trying to be profound. I will become a member there this week. I am a poor college student so this is a big commitment. A path which leaves me feeling full like after a delicious meal is a path I want to follow. Speaking of delicious meals I cooked some Chinese forbidden rice with black eyed peas, both were purchased in bulk at less than $3 a lb along with locally grown non-organic vegetables. I chose non-organic because they are half the cost most of the time and I would rather eat good amounts of fruits and vegetables than insufficient amounts of organic ones. With the peas, actually they are beans, they can be cooked in only 30 minutes, no soaking overnight which is typical of most dry beans. I added diced tomatoes, diced green peppers, diced hot red pepper, chopped red onion, white wine vinegar, olive oil, Italian seasoning, Cayenne pepper, and garlic powder. The combination is delicious, in addition I had a salad with kale, celery, green lettuce, lemon cucumber, Italian parsley, and normal parsley with some Caesar dressing. This meal is amazingly satisfying and quick to make. Even better is that I made enough for more than half this week's lunch and it cost me a whole lot less than going out to restaurants for food AND it is healthier for the digestive system and the immune system and probably more. I do not have the energy to count how much the meal cost exactly or how many meals I made exactly so I will wait until I get a request for that. Cheers.

Herbal Healing Workshop Follow-up

Rather than editing my last post I am going to write more about new stuff. I attended an herbal healing workshop in Oakland last night. The meeting was held in a place called Cafe Gratitude inside of a Whole Foods Market. The speaker wore an orange gauzy shawl dress-thing on it were embroidered wild flowers. She spoke on many topics, Ill cover a few.

#1 Drink a "Power-up" every day. A Power-up consists of Siberian Ginseng, Spirulina, and Maca Root.

Siberian Ginseng - or Eleutherococcus senticosus is distantly related to Asian ginseng this plant contains different molecules called eleutherosides. Eleutherosides are lipophillic chemicals that bind to hormone receptors which produce an adaptogenic effect (3). Adaptogens are molecules which strengthen the cellular response to stress and toxins. Research has shown Siberian Ginseng to decrease the length of the common cold, decrease the length and severity of Herpes outbreaks and improve memory, mental alertness, and social behavior. (1)

Spirulina - this name describes two types of blue-green Cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic microbes which are thought to have created the oxygen-filled environment in which we all currently exist far before we existed. The Aztecs have been harvesting this substance for hundreds of years. NASA and the European Space Agency have suggested the use of spirulina in artificial space environments. Numerous scientific studies conclude Spirulina is beneficial to cholesterol levels, High-Density Lipids (HDL) levels, allergies, blood pressure, muscle breakdown, antioxidant potential, and HIV symptoms. (2)

Maca Root - This root boosts the endocrine system, and strengthens male libido. Maca was eaten by Inca imperial warriors before battle. Enough said.

#2 Avoid Denatured foods like Dairy
#3 Avoid Dairy - contains Casein, a micelle protein structure similar to gluten. Breaks down into an opioid which acts as a histamine releaser (4)
#4 Avoid overuse of Alcohol, Caffeine, Marijuana and other medications.

She also gave recipes for Herbal Teas which I took pictures of. She suggests making a quart of tea not a cup of tea. Steeping for at least 12 hours and drinking the tea incrementally during the day instead of all at once in the beginning and the end.





(1) http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/siberian-ginseng-000250.htm
(2) (wikipedia: Spirulina:Evidence of Health and healing effects:Human Research)
(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleutherosides
(4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casein

Forbidden Laughter

I attended a small conference today focused on solar cell and water splitting catalyst technologies. Located in the government owned and operated Lawrence Berkeley National Labs. The room was filled with numerous armchairs all of which were scattered about and at one point belonging to the long and wide conference-style table centrally located. The current speaker had a nasally voice and was giving an introduction to the speakers at the conference. "Inorganic solar cells made from malachite, pyrite, and chalcocite." "Charge seperation in molecular heterojunctios." "Probing Highest Occupied Molecular Orbital and Lowest Unoccupied Molecular Orbitals with Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and Atomic Force Microscopy." He finished listing the titles. The first speaker began and during the middle of his talk a man with a discernable german accent and a defensive tone inquired, "Why are band gap energies so important for solar cell materials? Do these energies even correlate to overall quantum efficiencies in the devices?" An entourage of near unintelligible squabbling broke out amongst a select number of people affiliated with the speaker in response to the man's questions. After awhile what appeared to be the research director of the speaker waved his hands around and spoke in a jovial tone on the importance of band gap energy. "We think that it is important because otherwise we will get no absorption in the visible spectrum of light." "However, like you suggest Alex, there is little correlation between band gap energies and quantum efficiency since there are many other factors like junction interfaces and material band gap matching." After a couple minutes of warming discussion they quieted down and the speaker continued. I found myself looking for a spot to sit in the room, but the only open chairs were located in the front of the room. I have never liked crushing myself through legs and arms to get to a seat, so I sat on a table in the back of the room next to my colleague who I arrived with. The table turned out to be creaky and unstable. I prayed the table would not collapse in a scene which would be brutally embarassing for the me and the new colleague who brought me to the somewhat esoteric meeting. He suggested I grab a chair promptly after the first speaker finished.

I met him through interactions with a professor that emailed me after I visited the University for the first time. He is a post-doctoral researcher from Denmark who recently received 1.5 million Euros over 5 years to start up his own lab in Sweden based on Gold Nanorods coated with Small Molecule Electron Donor-Acceptors. He also was giving a talk and introducing me as a new member of his project. I pushed myself through legs and took a seat in the front.

The second speaker began. About half way through his talk I heard what sounded like a gasp for air coming from a lady sitting a couple seats behind me. I thought either she was getting into an extremely cold lake or there was an impending "AAAACHOOOOOO" to be soon released. "AAA....AAAA...." and then I heard a loud snorting and farting noise which took me by complete surprise. I let out a small jut of laughter. Someone quickly blessed her. I thought about the crowd, and the speaker who continued talking like nothing happened. No one else thought that the sneeze was funny. This lackadaisical attitude made my reaction worse. I let out another jut of laughter. Did they not hear that crazy sneeze? It was even funnier that no one else was laughing. I could not wipe the grin off my face and at this point I could barely retain sustained deep stomach wrenching laughter. The reaction faded as I thought about the implications of disruption, but then would reemerge compounded and amplified. I struggled with the waves of laughter until I started inflicting acute pain on my arm and lip to try and forget the sneeze had ever happened. Then through focus on the minute esoterica of the speaker I forgot about the sneeze. This method is successful after about 5 minutes.

What is it about laughing when you should not laugh. Like at a funeral or during moments of silence and especially during musical orchestrations. And apparently during science presentations.

Vertigo

While at work, I have been reading papers about new materials with high electron affinities, unique steady state fluorescence emission dynamics of donor-acceptor molecules, Wittig-Horner-Emmons reactions using trimethoxyphosphines and aryl aldehydes. Suddenly, I was stuck with mild to moderate dizziness, otherwise known as vertigo. My eyes were oscillating back and forth trying to find a stable center point while my stomach evolves a consistent nausea. My head and body feels somewhat unbalanced and unstable as if I am going to fall over if the feeling gets any worse. I take a break, walk outside, walk around, sit down, lay down on a bench with the sun hitting my face. The feeling hardly changes, coming and going in mild undulations of uneasiness. I calmly check my smart phone for causes of dizziness and vertigo. A list of daunting causes appears within 30 seconds, heart disease, low blood pressure, high blood pressure, I think of my recent doctors visit where my bp was 110 over 70, stroke, brain tumor, I scroll down, psychological traumas depression, anxiety, well I do not feel depressed or anxious, low blood sugar, hmm I had just ate an hour earlier. I decided to get a croissant and chai latte which helped quite a bit. I still do not know what the cause was of my Veritgo.

Solar Flares are Awesome

Entertaining footage of the fragility of our existence. A large solar flare in July of 2000. Note the grains caused by high energy protons



Space weather article with an aurora.

An article about the collapse of the thermosphere.

Toltec Wisdom

I stepped into an open doorway off of San Pablo Avenue in West Berkeley. My interest was purely out of curiosity and dissatisfaction after walking half a mile to a Mexican grocery store which had closed down just as I arrived. It was 9pm. Scattered about the entryway were tables and racks with numerous brochures, newspapers, and magazines related to yoga, herbal healing, music festivals and art gatherings. I wandered to the back of the complex and saw a locked glass door with a long hallway behind it, on the wall stretched a 20-foot long red and gauzy tapestry. At the intersecting hallway was located a wall mounted bicycle rack with a few polished cruisers hanging from the ceiling. My feelings were that this was a free-spirited place of meditation and austerity, not particularly asceticism. on my way out of the building I picked up the July/August 2010 edition of Commonground Magazine. On the cover reads "The bay area's magazine for conscious community living since 1974. Inside contains articles on the Future, Past and Present of Burning Man in Black Rock City, NV At home, I flipped through to an interview of Don Miguel Ruiz where he speaks about five agreements to living a wonderful life.

#1 Be impeccable with your word.

#2 Do not take anything personally.

#3 Do not make assumptions.

#4 Always do your best.

#5 Be skeptical, but learn to listen.

Here are some quotes from the interview,

"The truth doesn't need us to believe in it. On the other hand, lies need us to believe in them for them to survive."

"Knowledge becomes the last obstacle to reach the real truth."

"Attention is a bridge that goes from one mind to another to share data."
With some people I do not want to read their data.

"You must find yourself and recognize yourself as the love of your life."

The Little Zoo

The little farm is a quiant and peaceful place with goats, cattle, chickens, turkeys, sheep, and rabbits. It is located next to an Environmental Education Center built over a World War II training camp in Tilden Regional Park. I took some pictures of the sometimes hilarious descriptions of the animals.

It was Saturday during the day and the sun was shining brightly and with a brisk breeze which is nominal in Berkeley, CA. At just past noon I decided to leave the house on a bike ride into the Berkeley east hills and through the higher hills of Tilden Regional Park, which is the country's first regional park.

I embarked towards UC Berkeley campus first to check on a chemical reaction I had set up yesterday evening. My sole goal and plan was to take a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectrum of the reaction in order to see if it worked. Upon my arrival I was informed that my vacuum pump connected to my newly assembled AirFree Glass Manifold (Schlenk line) had started gurgling and smoking and that my refluxing reaction had to be cooled down and exposed to air. It turned out the rubber vacuum hose connecting my line to the pump was old and had cracked open. Therefore, I replaced the line with new rubber hose and the crisis was overted. However, after taking an NMR of the reaction I am somewhat discouraged at the resulting unknown signals indicating my ignorance and aloofness with the result of the experiment. Thus, I should work up the reaction soon (wash with brine, extract with ether, remove solvents) and retake the NMR, if things look good then I can try to clean up the crude reaction product mixture with a chromatography column. The concepts and skills of chemistry I have obviously not yet mastered. So I left the lab to go enjoy the day.

The Berkeley hills turned out to be steep, in some areas out-of-shape lungs and hearts cause one to pussy out. I had to get off the bike and walk for the long and steep portions of the climb. Regardless, the summit rewarded me with multiple new adventures. I visited the UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens. I might volunteer to work there if I have enough time and energy. These gardens have plants from all over the world and commuting uphill to volunteer would be brutally healthy. I grabbed a brochure about volunteer opportunities and an on-site Chinese medicinal garden. I will learn quite a bit from even the most amateur of gardeners let alone a botanical garden staff, even if I am just pulling weeds.

The Lawrence Hall of Science was a mile or so up the hill from the already very lofty botanical gardens. I arrived late while staff was preparing for a wedding inside the Science Hall. I chatted with a staff member and grabbed another brochure. The courtyard was a beautiful site of one entire 140 degree panorama of the San Francisco bay area and Berkeley, included were things like the bay bridge, golden gate bridge, wizard island, Mount Tampalpais (which is taller and beefier than Tilden Regional Park), Berkeley Harbor, and Bay estuaries. I was in a mood of exploration and self-fulfillment so I continued upward and onward towards the park's native plant Botanic Garden and Inspiration Point where I grabbed another brochure, ate an apple, a banana, drank some water, and biked down a rocky hiking trail open to bicycles on my Schwinn Varsity 10-speed.

I wanted to experience new areas and people on my Saturday while getting enough exercise and stimuli to feel satisfied. I stopped by the Botanic Garden entrance which was being guarded by a friendly staff member. Her name I'll leave undisclosed, she recently moved to the bay area like me. I mentioned I might volunteer at the garden and she quickly piped up about when the best time would be, how to contact her supervisor, etc. "Weekends are too busy, we'll be totally swamped, so thats a bad time to come." she said, "I work during the week so the weekends are the best time for me." I said. "Well, I don't want to turn you away, I mean other volunteers usually help with pulling weeds, sweeping sidewalks, and even then they need supervision so they dont pull out an endangered species or something." I chuckled, "I guess I'll come when I can and I can contact your supervisor about the paperwork." We ran in circles conversationally for a bit and then she talked about her job in 88' and mentioned it was attached to a head shop. She said that in 88' the people in Berkeley would come into her work thinking the city was still the same as it was in 68'. "There's a stigma in Berkeley." she said. "They would demand I try some new herb they found somewhere and I'd say, Ha! where did you find this crap." I chuckled again, knowing she was talking about the freely flowing marijuana in Berkeley. I said, "Well, I just moved here too from Portland, OR this week so I don't have a whole lot of friends to hang out with yet, I just needed to get out and do something." "You'll make friends in Berkeley, its real friendly, and its full of all kinds, very eclectic." she said. "Well, I hope so." I replied, "I know its been friendly so far." We said our goodbyes and I left to arrive at Little Farm.

Enjoy experiences by sharing them even if alone.

Happy birthday to bits of data

Well, I was looking through my friend's Youtube profile and found a video or two that I would like to share. The first video puts me into a heavy-chested and sensitive place. There is little like a soft female voice to put me to sleep. zzz zzz. The second video tells me to give up definitions of my self, the world, and the people in it in order to be at one, at peace and happy. There is no reason and no questions.

The third video.