The Hoity-Toity-fication of America

I have a question for y'all. Is the hoity-toity-fication of consumer goods inevitable?

When I went to Barrow, I was astonished to order a cup of tea in a tiny, unpretentious cafe, and be presented with a selection of a dozen or so fancy teabags. As a tea drinker, I was pleased, but also a little unnerved. I drink exquisite Taiwan-grown Oolong tea at home and in my office, but when I'm traveling in remote areas, Lipton original and Red Rose suit me just fine.

Here in Fairbanks, I once practically went catatonic at the tortilla selection at Freddie's. Understand, this is not a region of America heavily populated by Latin Americans, and yet--a full wall, three shelves high, of over thirty types of tortillas. Studies have shown that having too many choices induces paralysis, and that's pretty much what happened to me; I stood there reading labels, going back and forth from this package to that, until I actually felt crazy. What, after all, were the best and worst possible ramifications of my tortilla choice? Minutes later, an acquaintance of mine passed by and saw me standing there clutching six packages of tortillas, my head tilted to one side, my eyes glazed over, dribble working its way down my chin, etc, etc. He immediately assessed the situation, grabbed five of my bags away, and proclaimed, "You have tortillas! Good!" and marched me to the next aisle.

We might feel that we are happier with more choices (and Wal-Mart does such a stupendous job of capitalizing on this that I can hardly set foot in there without going catatonic), but are we truly? I heard somewhere that there is some optimal number of choices (between 3 and 6) that makes us feel satisfied. Any fewer, and we feel that we didn't have much of a choice. Any more, and we go back and forth and walk away wondering whether we really got the best one, and should we go back and study all of the other ones one more time?

But what's really, really interesting to me about all of these consumer choices is that it allows the true market trends to show up, and, as I hinted at at the beginning of this post, that trend seems to be toward ever fancier and hoity-toity stuff!

Observe, if you will, one third of the new cheese display at Freddie's:


I loves me my cheese and am delighted with this new addition, but there is even fancy-pancy artisan salt, to be ground directly from beautiful marbled blocks for your chi-chi cooking!

Amazing, is it not? I'm so torn between loving the cheese and hating the consumerism. My heart is confused.

The Job Search

So... I've begun my job search. The contract for our project ends in May, and although my adviser has offered to help me apply for other funding so I might stay on, we mutually agreed that I'd wrap up lab work and a first draft of my thesis by May, and look for ahhh... one of those... job things and finish my thesis part time once I am already working.

This suits me fine. I enjoy my work, but frankly, I've never worked at the same job for four years in my life, and I'm ready for a change. I'm also ready to bring home some larger portions of metaphorical bacon! Mama likes decent paychecks and ten-dollar copays at the doctor.

So I've been thinking about my career. The Silicon Valley, for me, was a very lively, dynamic, and surprisingly flexible place to work. For the most part, I got along well with my colleagues; we had a lot in common, as it seems to be the case that careers attract their own certain sorts of people. At first glance, it would seem that any career-climbin' freshly minted PhD would be attracted immediately to the Silicon Valley, which is famous for being one of the most, if not the most, exciting place for cutting edge technology on earth.

However, there is one small niggling thing that makes all that sort of not apply to me, and it's this. While it is literally awesome (as in, it fills me with awe) to rub shoulders with such movers and shakers on a regular basis, and while I absorb a lot of the excitement of technology by proximity, most of that excitement is not about mechanical engineers. It's about software and firmware engineers, PCB layout engineers, and even industrial designers (as in the famous case of Apple). Mechanical engineers are critical, sure, but we aren't the stars. We don't get recognition or big bonuses. We are invisible support players.

Our work is very challenging (try designing supports for a 1-kg heat sink that's meant to 'float' on top of a printed circuit board that measures about 20 x 10 cm, while the board layout folks will only let you 'touch' 2-mm stretches of board at a stretch!), but we stand only to get negative recognition. Our work is only visible when it fails. Otherwise, it's covered by a pretty bezel, and the industrial designers get credit for a lovely cover with a nice user interface.

So where do mechanical engineers shine? I have to say, I am at a bit of a loss to answer that question. I do know that several obvious industry candidates do not appeal to me either. I had used to dream of working for the aerospace industry, but I've since met folks whose entire careers "designing rocket ship parts" meant spending years designing things like brackets and custom screws. Not so exciting when you look at the details of how your daily life will proceed!

Well, I hope to get some answers as I proceed through this, my most thoughtful job search yet. Wish me luck!

Lovely, lovely!

It's been so nice and warm this weekend, and the girls and I have been skiing, running, and skijoring to our hearts' content.

The good thing about ultra-cold weather is that there are no after effects. You might curse and grumble as you build up the fire, but as soon as temperatures come up, forgiveness is instantaneous--life resumes as normal. On the other hand, after an unacceptable warm spell, the recovery is slow, and bad. A layer of ice can remain on the trails and on the roads for a long time, potentially until the end of winter! After a cold snap, well, no problem! Off we go to ski! Yay!

Oh, here is today's temperature:

(You'll note that I added the Kelvin scale. ;) )

Ayyyyyy! That is dangerously close to the danger zone, yes? But temperatures in town have been 10-15 F degrees cooler, and temperatures in town tend to precede temperatures chez moi, so there seems to be no danger of a meltdown.

The Yukon Quest started this weekend, but I didn't attend the start since I was too busy enjoying my own dogs to go look at others'. :) Here are some excellent photos though. It would appear that my Linden has actually been out-goobered. Check out this gooberdy beast! Linden now has to give up her crown as Gooberdiest Sillypants Dog in Alaska. She surely must cede to him!

Miscellaney

So yesterday evening, this occurred:


It only lasted for a few hours before dropping back down to the negative teens F, but it did in fact occur. I have photographic evidence and poor photo shopping skills, so you know it's real!

I promise this isn't going to morph into a food-only blog, but here are some food photos. These are amusing at least to Dingo Dave and BT, and, furthermore, they reassure my mother that I am eating properly.

A decent enough lunch when I haven't time to prepare anything and don't feel like walking out in search of campus food--half an avocado, an apple, a tomato, a good chunk of cheese, and pilot bread from the stash in my desk drawer:


My neighbor gave me a jar of her homemade pepper sauce. When I opened it up, it smelled somehow East Indian to me, so I cooked it up with eggplant, then tossed in some tofu for protein and some cilantro and green onions because, why not? With the tofu, and over brown rice, it looked very hippie to me, so I had to take a photo to maintain my Berkeley and Ester cred:


My dinner last night, which I planned while talking to my adorable niece over the phone--veggies and potatoes, drizzled in olive oil, and chicken thighs stuffed with lemon slices and garlic cloves.

Before:

(I was about to crop this photo, but then realized that I'm proud of my kitchen detritus.)



After:




And see now I've got leftovers, too!

Oh, and here is a photo of my favorite campus ice bear, when he first went up:

Yes, yes, it happened

When I left the house yesterday morning, it was -40. When I got home at around 6:


And at 8:30:


At around 10, it finally happened:


We came above 0F! Yay

Now we're talking!

A weather record! January 2012 went down as the fifth-coldest January on record in Fairbanks.

Hah!

The average temperature for the month at Fairbanks International Airport was was 26.9 degrees below zero, which was two-tenths of a degree colder than January 1969, according to a statement released by the National Weather Service on Wednesday...

Though no daily temperature records were broken in Fairbanks, the average temperature was 19 degrees below normal for the month.

As I very eloquently stated several times over the past six weeks, "Holy sh*tballs".

There were 18 total days during the month when the low temperature was 40 below or colder and another nine when the low was in the 30s below.

That means that 27 out of 31 days were, to paraphrase a bit of eloquence from my sister, butt-ass cold.

The things you don't think about until they occur...

A week ago, I had a moment of inattention while slicing green onions, and cut a finger pretty badly. I cleaned and bandaged it, and the next day went to the University Health Center to have them look at it as well. They did a better job with bandaging than I did. Anyway, it's healing up nicely, but one thing I hadn't realized is how coooooold my pinkie would get when walking around outside See, my fingers usually snuggle together inside my mitten, and now my pinkie is thermally isolated:


Brrrr... Poor pinkie! Please wish me a speedier healing so my pinkie can snuggle again!

Here is a time lapse video of all of the people wanting to take their photo by the UAF sign when it's in the -40s:


And here is a photo of two husky configurations. They can be folded or extended, at your convenience.


Also, also: I've concluded that Yahoo weather sucks:


From now on, I'm a NOAA girl.