A walk in the woods, the naturalists have it (Yorktown, 12/22/2016)

I have been reading a lot about nature.  In fact , as a biologist I consider myself a naturalist, or maybe an amateur naturalist.  I write a lot about nature in my blogs; it often revolves around the interaction between us humans and nature, or what I have started calling “nature deficit disorder.”  It is a term I stole as most of my readers are aware (there are now 30 posts on this blog where I talk about it).  

In the distant past I have wanted to become a naturalist writer.  But I am not sure if I have the quality to be one or to become one, so this blog will have to do, at least for now.  Among my favorite naturalist writers are John McPhee, Gretel Ehrlich, Sue Hubbell, and Edward Hoagland, among others.  Naturally, I devoured writings by Henry David Thoreau and Aldo Leopold. 

The last quick read I had was Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea.”  A friend of mine tried to convince me that it was Hemingway’s way of telling us that a man can be defeated but not be destroyed, or as he said, maybe that it is a metaphor for Apostle Paul’s writing when he describes that outwardly a man can waste away but inwardly he is being renewed.  Santiago was reborn as a legitimate fisherman; the book ends in him regaining respect from his colleagues and of course having respect in him self.  Hemingway himself claimed there was no symbolism in the story.  I mostly read the story because it is on a list of the top 100 books, as a lover of the water, a sailor, for entertainment, and as a naturalist (I used to fish when I was a teenager).

I have so many unfinished books.  That is not because I don’t like them, but it is partially because of my varied interest and because the only time that I can read is in the evening after work when I am tired.  I usually do not read novels, but read, you guessed it, naturalist and non-fiction books.  Right now I am trying to concentrate on a book on human psychology (Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow by Daniel Kahneman) hopefully it fits in with my study of humans and the idea of nature deficit disorder.

To me nature is very important for the human psyche; whether it is that freshly fallen sassafras leaf in the fall; the timing of the pine pollen in spring (mostly on my Instagram Pictures); my frequent walks along the New River Trail in far Western Virginia (7 entries); being out on the water in my kayak or my sailboat (too many to count); or examining a pine tree that apparently snapped in a recent storm (during my latest walk).  I like it all and I need it!  I like to take my time and enjoy taking it all in; the sights and sounds; the feeling of just being immersed in nature, being one with it.

Sunrise on the trail in the woods behind our home.

Take this past Sunday.  It promised to be one of those rare early winter days when the temperature was going to be above 70 degrees Fahrenheit.  We decided that there was no better way to get our spirituality that day then to get out in nature and we went for a two hour hike in the woods behind our house (no church for us).  We went off the beaten track on a trail that is not traveled on by many people.  

The trail leads from our home by some ephemeral ponds that so often write about.  This time of the year they are not as full other years.  They were fuller a month ago, and the water level has slowly been dropping.  These ponds are groundwater fed, meaning the water level in the ponds are as high as the groundwater and we've had a dry month and a half.  Groundwater levels usually rise in the winter and reach their highest level around the middle of February.  All trees are dormant at this time and throughout the winter.  There is little transpiration from plants and the evaporation is at its lowest as well.  By early April the groundwater levels and the levels in the ponds start dropping and the ponds dry up completely by mid to late June.  By that time the water level has dropped almost 6 feet.

Examining a pine tree that must have snapped during a recent storm this past Sunday.  This was on the trail.

The rest of the walk takes us by very young pine forests where the woods were cleared in 2003 after Hurricane Isabel devastated a certain area, through a shallow stream valley, back up to what is my favorite area: a wooded section with huge tulip popular trees.  I would estimate that these trees are close to 300 feet tall and probably more than 100 years old.  After that the trail descends into a mixed forested wetland that is often difficult to cross.  It is wide, dark and wet and often has shallow running water in it.  After passing through the wetland it becomes a fun trail and passes by a heron rookery that appears to have been abandoned in the past two years, and a large swamps where we love to watch redheaded woodpeckers and all kinds of ducks.  Eventually the trail end up in the Battlefield National Historic Park and from there the hiking and biking choices are limitless, but well defined.

A piece of broken off bark covered with lichen that I found lying on the forest floor.  I just loved the color contrast between the bright green and the leaves.  I want to bet it was knocked off by a woodpecker of some kind.

It was a great day for a hike!  Walking around you find all kinds of treasures, large and small, up high and down low.  Getting back from the hike I had my daily 10,000 steps, but the exercise was not the most important.  I felt mentally and spiritually recharged.   

Try it yourself, get out.  It is not scary out there; if you have not done it in a while, start in small doses or just go for a walk in your neighborhood and observe people's yards, the plants, trees and birds.  Take it all in.  Cure your Nature Deficit Disorder!

Just standing still and looking up in the woods is nice!

Having flow, I can fake it with the best! (12/12/2016)

Last week I experienced flow again.  It was a crazy couple of days.  I was on the road for six days, two three day stretches, with a Friday and Saturday of relative rest (home chores) in between.  I put over 1000 miles on the vehicle that I got from our motor pool that week (thank goodness it was not my own car).  

When I was a young kid, driving large distances really did not bother me, I remember that day that we drove from just outside Little Rock, Arkansas to Wilmington Delaware (1,100+ miles) in one day, and the next day we went for a large hike.  This last time, I had to drive back at night in the dark in the pouring rain; at times I had zero visibility.  The day after, I was sitting in the office feeling like a zombie; it was an almost completely unproductive day.

You would think that after driving to the location where I teach, followed by a rotten (first) night in a different bed (motel room), I would be out of it.  I might feel like it, but the moment I step into the classroom, it is like a switch is being flipped. 

Ready to start my day of teaching this past Monday 12/5/2016.  Boy, I have never used that many selfies in my blog!  But you can see, I was kind of out of it, not yet ready to get going, but it changed once I opened my mouth. This picture was manipulated with a small program called Prisma; I used the Mosaic option.

I have this ritual when I teach and it really helps me get my stuff together.  I can be in the crappiest mood, or tired; drag myself out of my motel bed and into the room where I will be teaching, but when I get in there, I forget about it all.  I can literally solo teach for six or seven hours; be on; be engaging; feel great; and simply do not let on what’s the matter with me.  I give it my everything!  Oh yes, I can fake it with the best!  But when when the class is done and the last person leaves the room, I am done for, I am exhausted.  As a fellow teacher of mine and I once compared: "Good teaching is like good sex, you are exhausted after that."  Hopefully I am teaching a second day and I can go back to my motel room and go for a nap.  Having to drive back to the office and then back home is tortuous at times.  

No, I am trying to show off or complaining.  I am just sharing my technique; my way of doing it.  I probably take it too far and exhaust myself too much, but I made a promise to myself to never give a boring class.

My morning ritual is really simple.  I get to the room where I teach about a half hour early, set up, put out the sign-in sheet, and then I try to make small talk.  I talk with people (I think) I know.  I ask them about their life, make small talk, and I am personable.  It is a one on one link that I establish with a few that helps me teach, it allows me to search them out later and make eye contact.  Being an introvert, this is my way of drawing me out of my shell, and getting me in that mindset of putting myself out there and teach; of focusing of the task at hand.  I learned this a long time ago; I need to socialize to get the juices flowing.  Even during the breaks I give people; I don’t even get to go to the restroom, but I am in front of the class answering questions and talking to people.  Usually I am on all the time, with just enough time for lunch.  That is often the only time when I don't mind being on my own, that is my time to recharge for the afternoon session.

For me it is all about being in the zone, having flow.  As I mentioned in my post on how sailing meditates me, flow is important.  When you have flow you forget the bad things that surround you.  You forget that you are tired, you live on adrenaline, you are in the zone.  You fake it with the best!  Or do you really?  Maybe it is genuine; I really genuinely care about what I teach and I care about my students; otherwise I would go through the motions and not achieve flow.

So how do you achieve flow?  To each his or her own, but as I mentioned, I have somewhat of a ritual.  Owen Schaffer mentioned that there are seven conditions for getting, being and staying in flow:

• High perceived challenges
• High perceived skills
• Knowing what to do
• Knowing how to do it
• Knowing how well you are doing
• Knowing where to go (where navigation is involved ... or maybe my ritual)
• Freedom from distractions

This is how I am when I sail, teach, kayak, bike, work on my bonsais, and when I go for a nice walk in nature.  Interesting isn't it?  To think that I am not even that good at some of these things or really do not know what I am doing, I get to that state of flow.  Enemies to flow are boredom, apathy and anxiety.  Flow keeps you alive, boredom, apathy and anxiety are killers.

Nothing better than a morning hike through the woods, exploring life and death around you.  Here is where I experience flow, forget about it all and take photographs to document nature's beauty, even a dead tree that is slowly decaying.

You are not alone (11/30/2016)

It sometime takes strange circumstances to realize things in life.  After "unfriending" someone in Facebook (I'll write about him a bit later), getting a text from a friend, and listening to the radio on my drive back home, I realized something during my meditation session in yoga: "I am not alone." 

I have been interested by that concept of being alone in the world for a long time; as a young boy my favorite book was "Nobody's Boy" by Hector Malot (free download on Kindle). The title in Dutch is "Alone in the world" and in it's original French is "Without a family".  You get the drift, I remember reading the book over and over and sitting there crying over the pages.  I read a few disappointing reviews on English translation, but others say it is still worth the read.

As a teen I have felt alone in this world.  It was a combination of circumstances, doing a lot of moving as a child, having parents who did not seem to care about us children, being shipped off away from the family for a half year to a different culture, getting to a high school where everyone had their own established groups and clicks, you name it.  I felt different and alone.  I mentioned it before, as a young budding photographer, my favorite hobby was taking pictures of empty park benches.  About a year ago I heard the same thing from an old friend who I grew up with on the islands in the Caribbean.  She felt different and alone as well after being transplanted to Switzerland.  

The latest empty park bench picture I took (yes I still take them).  I took this one May 19, 2016 in the Norfolk Botanical Gardens when I visited it with my wife and daughter.  So no I was not alone and I did not feel alone!  I liked the composition.

So here we are at a time in our culture that we surround ourselves with artificial friends on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (I do not have a Twitter account), and many more, but you get it.  I have written before about on how I rely on them during my travels <here> and <here>.  But it really hit home during this past year during the elections.  I have my political preferences, and I started wondering why I put up with the crap put up by the people that were opposing my candidate.  But I let it slide, I believe in the first amendment, right?  OK, my candidate lost, and I am part of the sore loser crowd.  I have a right to complain.  That's fine.  But the guy I unfriended, now more than a month later, is still trying to bash my candidate.  He is like a sore winner, get over it dude, your candidate won.  For one, he is just a distant acquaintance, a guy I supervised nine years ago, and then I have to look at that crap he keeps posting?  He should be celebrating that his candidate won, and not still try to trash my candidate.  It was then that I decided that I needed to surround myself with my true friends and not with fake friends.  Why anger myself over something like this?  At the end of the day those fake friends make you actually feel that you are alone, they are not there for you, they are there for themselves to accumulate friends and to aggrandize themselves; they are not worth your attention.

This realization together with a text message exchange with a true friend and lunch with another, culminated in that realization that I am not alone, but that I need to make a concerted effort to purge myself from the negative people that surround me (sorry Bob ... nah, not really sorry at all ... good riddance) and cultivate my current friendships and enjoy the people who have the political, cultural and social values that I have.  I know I have started this process in the past and will continue to do so (and at times when I let those toxic people back into my life, they turned toxic again; it is just a matter of time).  I am not purging myself from people who think different but only from those who are obnoxious about it and toxic, we need a healthy discourse and friendship.

These are my baby steps to my independence from toxic people around me and embracing of friends and like minded people. (Photo taken on 11/29/2016 at the Virginia Arboretum during one of my favorite things to do: a walk in nature). 

Laws and regulations suck (no they don't) (11/18/2016)

It should not be a surprise that as a teacher of regulations it helps me to spend time out in the field to see how regulations that I teach are interpreted, implemented, and enforced.  So last Monday I spend a day with an inspector in a locality that will remain unnamed looking at construction sites in town to look at what the builders do to comply with our regulations.

Inspector Jan

I came away from a day in the field amazed by the huge difference I saw between individual projects.  Be assured the inspector was great and the town I was inspecting in was really good too; I had issues with the builders/contractors.  In one project the foreman was cooperative, friendly and wanted to work with us, while in the other project we were definitively his adversary and he just looked at us from a distance with angry face.  Later on I learned that our angry player treated others the same way; he does not cooperate and you need to threaten him with shutting down his project, before he grudgingly cooperates. His project looked horrible and was littered with violations.  When we visited they had just torn out some concrete because it had not been pored correctly, even there he had done a shitty job. 

This is supposed to keep the sediment in the next time it rains (and it was supposed to rain the evening after we visited).

It is amazing the difference between these individuals.  Some are so against the government telling them what to do, and they fight it all the way.  The result is that they have to comply anyway, but all the fighting will cost them project time and most likely money.  For one, time is money, but all the after the fact clean up, the slowing down of the project because they have to correct or repair things, and so on, will all cost them money.  It is all so short sighted, but they are all standing on their principle!  In a previous post I wrote about catching flies with honey, this guy just acted like an asshole, and that attracts attention too, but not the long-term attention he would like.  He will have a reputation with inspectors for the rest of his career.  He will have cost overruns and it will never be his fault; always those damn regulators; it will always be the government's fault, those laws and regulations.  

So why do people hate regulations?  If you believe in the Bible, it was Adam and Eve who were the first people that did not believe in the regulations that God put in front of them and gosh darn it, they took a bite from the apple.  This famous bite still reverberates all over and we are living with the consequences.  But from what I see some people have been against laws and regulations throughout history.  Revolutions have been fought over this problem.  I am no philosopher, but I think a lot of people feel that they are put in place to control them.  Wake up call, the laws and regulations have no one specific in mind.  But without them society would probably be chaotic, there would be no traffic rules, there would be pollution everywhere, there would be no one checking who was bringing what on to airplanes, you name it.  As you can see I can give plenty of examples of laws and regulations that are essential to our safety, our life and health. 

Ruben's depiction of Adam and Eve's temptation (this picture is hanging in the Prado Museum in Madrid)

In our current political climate you hear conservative saying that we need to get rid of regulations; and that is what that one foreman’s behavior essentially was pointing at.  He did not care about environmental regulations and you had to force him to comply.  But these conservatives are the first in line to pass stricter and heavier regulations on the use of marijuana, on abortion rights, on euthanasia, or the death penalty. 

So now you say: "I hate bad laws and regulations, but I like good ones."  But who is the judge?  It all depends on who we listen to.  It is often said that if a lie is repeated often enough we will start believing it is true.  So it is the political pundits that we listen to on the radio, on TV, on the internet and maybe even in those books that we read; they will eventually convince us what laws and regulations are good or bad for us. 

Brooke Berger wrote an interesting article in U.S. News and world Report in 2013 entitled: “Yes, Regulation Can Make Government Better.”  Regulations often fail because they are so complicated.  People don’t understand them or the reason behind them.  In my teaching, I have been a huge proponent of explaining why we have certain regulations and I still find resistance.  “Just teach the law and tell them to follow it,” I am told.  To me this makes it: us the educated elite versus the non-educated masses, much like what we have seen in the recent election.  Simplification and explanation of the intent of the laws and regulations should not be a partisan thing; I believe that you get better buy-in when people understand how things affect their life and wellbeing.  However, repeated lies and biased interpretations are not constructive; they pin us against each other and don't help society grow.

Elections (11/8/2016)

So the election is over (for me), and yes I voted.  As of this writing, we do not know the outcome yet, and contrary to many predictions, the sun will rise tomorrow and the world will continue to revolve around the sun.  The problem may be that this country may be even more divided than when President Obama was elected president eight and four years ago, regardless who the president elect is.  That is scary to me.

I am sorry, another selfie.  But this is proof I have voted.  Here in Virginia I am wearing a shirt that I bought because I liked it, but people will stop me on the road complimenting me on my choice of supporting the University of Virginia.  It seems that this is their team's colors.  I was not aware of this when I bought the shirt, but now I get Virginia Tech alumni mad at me for not wearing a maroon shirt which is their color.  The world is so polorized it drives me crazy!

I turned U.S. citizen in 1994.  I have the correct skin color and if I keep my mouth shut, I can pass as any good red blooded (white) American (yes, I still have a funny accent).  I have not missed any election since turning citizen, and honestly I am fascinated by U.S. politics (often to my wife's chagrin).  I think a lot of immigrants can tell the same story; however, some are not as lucky, being of different ethnic background as I am.  These guys have been in the center of the attention, whether they liked it or not.  This election has pitted friends against each other; the educated “elite” against the working class white men; women against men; husbands against wives; black against white; it has polarized our entire society. 

I am afraid it is something that will not go away when the last vote has been counted.   Truthfully, I am not sure how we can heal; politicians in Washington are already promising obstruction and pigheadedness instead of compromise who ever will win.  I just hope civility and tolerance will win.

Having lived all over the world, I can attest to how important democracy is; how it is valued and how horrible it is to live under a dictatorship or under a military regime.  My parents grew up under the dictatorship of Hitler and I saw fanatics of both political parties claiming on Facebook that the candidate of the opposition was just like Hitler or would be just like Hitler.  They don't know what they are talking about!

I lived in Uganda under Idi Amin, where if you said anything bad about the president you ended up becoming alligator food somewhere along the Nile River.  The standing joke (or threat) was that the alligators had never been so fat as during Amin’s reign.  There was no opposition, discourse or democracy.  In Nepal, the King was a reincarnation of God and try to question God!  The dictatorship in Yemen where I lived was not much better; although there the local villages always seemed to rebel against government rule.  There was little compromise in all three countries that I worked in; it was always the dictator's way or the highway (or worse).

Where are all these countries now?  They are still in political turmoil, in civil war, poor, you name it.  I am a strong believer, that democracy, literacy, science and education in general is the only way out this vicious circle.  That is what made us what we are right now.  I am just afraid that in the current political climate we are descending to the same level as those countries I worked in.  Let’s prove me wrong America, let's compromise and work together!