Love Story

"Romeo, take me somewhere we can be alone! I'll be waiting. All there's left to do is run." -- Taylor Swift

Halfway through my workday, I took a walk around the corner to grab a cup of coffee. As I headed back to my building, cup in hand, I noticed a tractor-trailer stopped at the red light directly in front of me. Or, more specifically, I noticed the truck's driver. He was large, burly, and balding, and he was singing along with something on the radio. He wasn't just mouthing the lyrics, though -- this dude was in total rockstar mode. He played the drums on his steering wheel, he tossed his head around, and he even interspersed a few well-placed fist-pumps into his performance.

I continued to watch him as I walked.

As I approached the corner, I noticed that his window was cracked open.

As I turned the corner, his blaring radio became audible.

Yeah. The truck driver was totally, passionately, and unabashedly rocking out to Taylor Swift.

Debug In Reverse Order

“Reaffirming and strengthening America’s role as the world’s engine of scientific discovery and technological innovation is essential to meeting the challenges of this century. That’s why I am committed to making the improvement of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education over the next decade a national priority.” -- Barack Obama

Five year-olds stop pursuing STEM careers because their parents and teachers don't make science fun.

Ten year-olds stop pursuing STEM careers because that's not what the cool kids do.

Fifteen year-olds stop pursuing STEM careers because their classes are too difficult.

Twenty year-olds stop pursuing STEM careers because they realize that they can make three times as much money working in finance and consulting.

Twenty-five year olds stop pursuing STEM careers because the job market denies them opportunities to do so, despite the fact that they're fully qualified to work in science and love it enough to have stood by it for a quarter of a century.

I applaud the President's efforts to reform STEM elementary education and rehabilitate its image among children, but technical knowledge is worthless if those of us who are passionate enough about science to study it at the college level aren't encouraged or even allowed to exercise our skills in the workforce. I'll gladly use my engineering degree to help America meet the challenges of this century, but in return, I should be able to find a technical job in America without killing myself and, once I've got one, I should earn a salary that's not an insult to my level of expertise. Just a suggestion.

Giving Up

"Nothing about us is perfect or clear, but when paradise calls me I'd rather be here. There's something between us that nobody else needs to see." -- Jason Robert Brown

Despite the perpetually depressing weather, I've had an amazing couple of weeks. I've been happy, healthy, and living life to the fullest. But now it's Lent, and though I'm not religious by any means, I still like to keep with tradition by foregoing a luxury for forty days. When I was younger, I used to give up my favorite foods for Lent -- chocolate, coffee, even cheese one disastrous year. After I grew into my appetite and learned that my food cravings are cyclical (and rarely last a full forty days), I began to make Lenten resolutions instead of denials. Over the years, I've vowed to stop procrastinating on homework, double my job hunting efforts, and swear off unhealthy relationships. The same should go for this year, but... I'm in a great place in life. My relationships are spectacular, I'm at the top of my game at work, and there's really nothing important that I know I could be doing better. I decided that I'd have to revert to giving up something for Lent... but what?

The answer was right in front of my nose... or, more appropriately, right underfoot.

I love fashion and own a lot of great clothing, but since I spent my formative years wearing a school uniform, I tend to gravitate towards black, grey, and neutral fabrics. Since this approach has a tendency to appear funeral-chic and I don't wear a lot of flashy jewelry, I developed one foolproof method of waking up my sense of style:

These photographs don't include seven pairs of boots, two pairs of running shoes, two pairs of Chucks, one pair of Birkenstocks, or the three assorted pairs under my desk at work.

I can explain, though! I spend a good portion of my workday on my feet, so I started collecting shoes in an effort to find the perfect balance between style and comfort. As I grew more successful in that arena, I just learned to love shoes in general. Some of them really are works of art, and their ability to completely transform what I'm wearing amazes me. Shopping for shoes soothes me, and even walking through shoe stores and browsing online -- seeing the shoes, stroking them, imagining where I'd wear them -- is an uncannily pleasurable experience for me.

Thus, I'm giving up shoe shopping for Lent. No looking at shoes online, no leisurely strolls through any department stores, and most importantly, no touching. And if I'm spending time with someone who wants to go shoe shopping, I'll go but I'm not allowed to buy anything.

It's only been Lent for two and a half days and I can already tell that this will be a tough one for me. I'm writing this blog post to distract myself from the fact that Nine West is having a 60% off sale this weekend.

Who Are You?

"I used to believe I was such a great romancer -- then I came home to a woman that I could not recognize. When I pressed her for a reason, she refused to even answer. It was then I felt the stranger kick me right between the eyes." -- Billy Joel

A few months ago, I wrote about the New Yorker who looks exactly like me. How do we reconcile her existence with the fact that, apparently, I don't even look like me?

Epica Insuccessa

"Say it's over. Say I'm dreaming. Say I'm better that you left me. Say you're sorry -- I can take it. Say you will, say you won't. Say you love me, say you don't. I can make my own mistakes. Learn to let it bend before it breaks." -- Brandi Carlile

I don't usually follow recipes when I cook. I learned how to cook from my grandmother, which means that I work in the kitchen the same way she did -- measuring in terms of pinches and handfuls, feeling out the consistencies, tasting things along the way, applying heat until the food looks right. Even when baking, I use ratios and basic chemistry concepts more often than I use cookbooks.

That doesn't stop me from owning many cookbooks, reading tons of food blogs, and subscribing to half a dozen cooking magazines. One of them, La Cucina Italiana, has long been a favorite because it's as much of a resource about Italy as it is about Italian cooking. It teaches you where to stay and what to see in the country, discusses tools and techniques, and breaks down all of its food writing by region. (This is especially useful due to the insane degree of cultural variation across Italy; my Parmense grandfather and my Abruzzese grandfather might as well be from different planets.) Today, I spent my Saturday at home as a consequence of the snowstorm that never happened, which gave me an excuse to go through a year's worth of La Cucina Italiana back-issues to tear out the recipes worth keeping.

One recipe, for a sticky, delicious-looking chocolate espresso layer cake, haunted me all day, and since I had all of the required ingredients on hand, nothing could stop me from making it. The recipe was surprisingly simple -- it was a foam-based cake, made using whipped eggs and only enough butter to grease the pan -- and came together in no time at all.

I poured the batter into several miniature cake pans, whipped up the recipe's chocolate and coffee liqueur frosting while my cake was in the oven, and waited expectantly. After half an hour, I pulled my cake out of the oven. It had basically exploded -- the batter was everywhere except my miniature cake tins, and I was thankful that I had the foresight to place the tins in a roasting pan before baking. I soldiered on, though -- hacked the cake out of the pan and glazed it anyway.

So it looked gross. But that doesn't matter if it tastes good, right?

Well, it didn't. It was so disgusting that I ate a few forkfuls and threw away the rest of the cake.

I then went online to check out what people were saying about the recipe. (I figured half a dozen horrible reviews would make me feel better about my culinary misfire.) Well, it turns out that the reviews on the La Cucina Italiana website were... pretty good. Very good, actually. The cake was downright praised.

I scrolled up to look at the recipe on the website. It called for six tablespoons of softened butter. I then grabbed my torn-out recipe off the kitchen counter. It called for no butter. The recipe on the website gave very specific instructions about how to incorporate all that butter into the batter. There weren't any references to butter in the text of my recipe.

Now I have a garbage can full of disgusting cake and a folder full of recipes that I will never, ever use... on principle alone. I'll read through them tomorrow morning and jot down any meal ideas that they inspire. Then they can join the damned cake in the trash.

The Future That Never Was

"Fifty years after the fair, I live in tomorrow town. Even on a wing and a prayer, the future never came around. It hurts to even think of those days, the damage we do by the hopes that we raise." -- Aimee Mann

Writing my last post got me thinking about Flushing Meadows Park. This, in turn, got me thinking about the two World's Fairs held there -- the first in 1939 and the second in 1964. Both events were the brainchildren of Robert Moses, the Master Builder who single-handedly designed the infrastructure of modern New York City. (Read up on the man if you have time. His life story is unbelievable.) Though Moses used the Fair as an excuse to turn the Flushing cinder dump into public parkland, the people of New York City saw it as so much more.

The World's Fair gave New Yorkers hope for a bright future when reality offered little encouragement; the first preceded World War II and the second came on the heels of JFK's assassination. One square mile of land in Queens was cleaned up for the cause, and different countries, US states, and major corporations erected lavish pavilions to showcase their products, people, and visions for the future of humanity. If you've ever been to EPCOT in Walt Disney World, that was the general idea. (And by "general idea," I mean that EPCOT was an idea that Walt Disney stole from the '64 World's Fair.)

I love learning about the World's Fair for the same reason I love EPCOT: I derive an inordinate amount of joy from studying my predecessors' expectations of the future. It's inspiring to see what innovations first presented at the World's Fair have enjoyed success (i.e. television, color photography, and the modem) and which never found a place in society (i.e. humanoid robots, Smell-O-Vision, and undersea vacation homes). It's even more interesting to compare our current technology with our grandparents' and parents' expectations of how our generation would live. True, we're not colonizing Mars or traveling at light speed, but I doubt that anyone in 1939 could have ever envisioned anything even remotely resembling the iPhone.

Despite which predictions came true and which predictions never came to pass, one aspect of the entire World's Fair experience can be recalled as indisputable fact: its optimism. The people of 1939 genuinely believed that humans would travel on automated highways and eat meals cooked by machines by 1960. The people of 1964 knew that they'd live to see moon bases and flying cars in the new millennium.

Flushing Meadows Park is still scattered with these certainties. Two time capsules filled with microfilm, "new" materials like stainless steel and nylon, knickknacks, and other symbols of our civilization are buried fifty feet under the cement with instructions not to open until 6939. A forty-foot sculpture of a Buck Rogers rocketship stands in a random driveway behind a building. A geodesic habitat designed by Buckminster Fuller houses forty species of birds at the Queens Zoo. The future of American architecture is slowly rotting despite preservation efforts, but it doesn't matter because most Americans only know it as something Will Smith shot out of the sky in 1997. Meticulous etchings of cars, robots, and transistor radios are underfoot everywhere. Tokens of world peace -- whether they're actual depictions of the world or pieces of native architecture donated by friendly nations -- are everywhere, too.

All of it makes me nostalgic and curious, but it also makes me sad. I'm a smart, forward-thinking research scientist with a firm grasp on technological innovations and a degree in the most cutting-edge discipline on the planet. And you know how I envision the future? Thinner cameras, iPods, and televisions. And that's about it. There are no robot butlers in my old age. No flying cars, teleportation devices, or jetpacks, either. I don't think we'll ever cure cancer or even come close to it. I don't think humans will travel any farther than the lunar surface. I don't envision food, architecture, or fashion significantly changing. No end to world hunger. No world peace.

I don't know if this makes me a pessimist or a realist, but when I walk through Flushing Meadows Park, it's nice to look back, look forwards, and forget.