Physics and Chemistry

Being that I'm a Chemical Engineering major, and in a few short weeks will officially be a Chemical Engineer, I thought I had a pretty solid understanding of physics and chemistry.  However I recently discovered an anomaly in which mixing shredded potatoes and flour creates a very sticky and moist mixture.  I feel as though it is important to note that an important step in this process was drying the shredded potatoes.  So imagine my surprise when the fairly dry mixture of flour and potato slowly became thicker, liquidier, and stickier as I added more flour.  That's right, adding flour to a dry mixture made it liquidy and sticky.  I have absolutely no explanation as to why such a ridiculous thing would happen, yet there I was, may hands getting more and more covered in a gooey potato/flour mixture.  Absolutely fascinating.  It seems as though the lesson to glean from this, if there is in fact a lesson to be learned, is that sometimes our best understanding of things is inadequate to explain some of the little splendors of life.  However after eating the delicious potato dumplings that were made from this mixture I sure am glad that they exist.

Disappointment

Being a fairly large fan of BYU sports I was quite thoroughly excited for the big sweet 16 game tonight, the first one BYU has been in in the past 30 years.  Like any good sporting event the entire game was a gigantic roller coaster ride of emotions.  The sadness of being down 10 early, and the excitement of rallies making up the large deficit.  All of it was simply glorious with the high point probably being when regulation ended in a 68-68.  Unfortunately after this point it was all downhill as the overtime was not BYU's time of glory.  Rather we started to show fatigue and were pretty much dominated on both sides of the court.  Well this got me thinking about a philosophy about pessimism that I had recently heard.  Basically if your optimistic you'll either feel validated or disappointed, if your pessimistic then you'll either be validated or pleasantly surprised.  Logically then, it makes more sense to be pessimistic than optimistic.  While this is a hard argument to dispute, something in me just feels as though that can't really be the best way to go.  Had I been pessimistic the whole game I would have missed out on the wonderful roller coaster ride during the game, and lets be honest, since we lost the game the roller coaster of emotion was definitely the best part of the whole thing.  I think it has to do with the necessity of opposition in all things.  If we are pessimistic and the worst we feel is validated, then we never really have anything to make the good times seem that much better.  The opposition of being disappointed is what makes the highs so very high.  I don't know about other people, but I do know that when I'm on cloud nine I want to be as high up there as I can possibly be.  And the only way I see to be able to do that is by being optimistic and putting myself out there time and time again. Sure the lows will hurt, but the highs will make it worth it every time!

The Happiest Place on Earth

Well it's been a while since I've posted anything, and I thought that now would be as good a time as any.  Unfortunately I really don't have anything on my mind about which to ramble on for a while.  Therefore the idea that I'm running with is just writing and seeing where my mind takes me, a dangerous adventure for sure, but hopefully it turns out to be a fun ride.  In fact that itself made me wonder why it is that just starting to write with no plan in mind gives you ideas.  It happens every time without fail.  I could sit around thinking for hours and not come up with anything that I would ever really want to write about, or I can just start writing anything and like magic a fairly decent topic comes out.  It seems to work with anything, from blogging to writing essays for school, just start and the rest will come out.  So Disneyland, it's a pretty awesome place.  Just this last weekend I had the pleasure of taking my first trip there, and what an experience it was.  I do feel, however, that I may have missed out on opportunities to go at the right age.  To my parents credit, they did take me and the rest of the family to Disney world, but that was back in 93 when I was only 8 years old.  Honestly, that was probably a better time to go than at 25, except that the problem remains that I have an absolutely horrible memory.  So while I probably had more fun with all of the childish things involved with Disney World, I can honestly only remember a very small number of them.  And that raises the question in my mind, when is the ideal time to go to Disneyland/World.  I realized this last weekend that I was too old for the majority of rides and things happening there, a lot of them were simply slow and not very exciting.  Even a ride like space mountain doesn't really carry the pizazz that one is seeking at an amusement park.  However, if you go when you're too young, then years later you can't remember the experience that well, other than it occurred and it was a great time.  Well then, when was it that I stopped being into shows like Doug or the Rugrats, and started to focus on more mature entertainment?  To the best of my recollection, which may I remind you is not very good, it was right around the time of becoming a teenager, say 12 or 13.  I think that this would be the ideal age to go and visit such a Theme Park.  In this stage you will still be excited about meeting characters, or at least people dressed up like the characters, and all of the other childish happenings which are going on, and hopefully remember it a little better.  But then again, as I was walking around Disneyland there was one thought which I had repeatedly, that it would be so much more fun to have gone with my niece and nephews.  Perhaps, then, the best time to experience Disneyland is when you are there to enjoy the pleasure of seeing someone else love every second of it.  Maybe the best reason to go isn't a selfish one of having fun yourself, but seeing loved ones eyes light up as they get to say hi to Mickey and Buzz Lightyear.  Personally I thought Disneyland was a wonderful place but now that I've been there and can remember what it's like, I'm even more excited for the day when there are little Travises (or perhaps Travi) running around that I can bring with me and enjoy their enjoyment!

Nostalgia

As I got in my car after a full day of school something strange happened, a song from my childhood randomly came into my head.  This wouldn't be so strange if it weren't for the fact that I was doing absolutely nothing that should have made a mental connection with Air Supply's Here I Am (Just When I Thought I Was Over You).  Had I been thinking about a girl that would have been one thing, but I wasn't, I was thinking about an upcoming road trip to California with some friends of mine.  So here's what I think happened, I was extremely excited about all of the plans for the trip coming together, and it was that high level of excitement that put into my mind something old and nostalgic, which just so happened to be an Air Supply song.  However, the second that song came into my head the excitement quickly turned from being about California to being about an old song that I hadn't heard in years being all of the sudden in my head.  It was stuck in there so much that even as I played other music on the way home, I was still singing Air Supply, and loving every second of it.  So the real question is why in the world was I so darn happy about an old corny love song?  Of course the answer to that question is nostalgia, it reminds me of being in the back of my parents van with the whole family taking a trip to Long Island to visit relatives, of a simpler time when responsibilities didn't really exist.  Well, I started to think, does this mean that what I really want is to be a child again, living under my parents roof without any sort of a care in the world. While that does sound nice at first, the answer is a resounding NO!  Goodness I couldn't imagine how terrible it would be to be 12 again, to not be able to just leave to do what I needed to, to not be able to just drive to the store, or get home at whatever hour I please.  When I visit my parents house for a week I start to go crazy having to check in all the time and what not.  So it's not that it makes me think of a happier time, because I'm fairly certain that I'm much much happier now than I was back then.  So what is it that makes me giddy about feeling like a little kid again when I see robots fighting each other, or think of an old family favorite song?  It's probably just one of those mysteries that we may never really know the answer to, but as a scientifically minded person, that kind of crap just isn't going to cut it. So here's my hypothesis as to why such a thing happens.  It occurs because of a blending of present and past.  As the best things from the past come into the future we start to subconsciously imagine a world where childhood and adulthood blend together with all of their individual magnificences.  We briefly, but truly, live in a world where we don't have any responsibilities holding us down, but at the same time we have all of the freedom which we could ever hope to have.  The nostalgic effect is merely the mind blending all of the good it has ever known into one temporary reality, and it's absolutely awesome!

Mulligans

To anyone who plays golf casually, mulligan is about as beautiful a word as any.  For those who aren't familiar with it, it is basically just a fancy way of saying a do-over.  The great part about a mulligan is that you get to take another swing and it doesn't count against you.  A mulligan is the epitome of a second chance, as it basically erases the existence of the previous stroke.  The reason that mulligans are on my mind in the dead of winter is that I was recently watching a TV show and that particular episode was entitled "mulligans".  The show had the golf reference because the episode took place during a golf tournament, but the true reason behind the naming of the episode was that in the end a son forgave his father for having left him and his brother as children, after having sworn that he would never do so.  Essentially he gave his dad a mulligan.  Interestingly enough this got me thinking about a certain friendship with someone that didn't end on great terms.  While watching this show I started to think about how things had ended and about second chances.  Then, later that night, I received an E-mail from that exact same person, apologizing for the way things ended up.  To be honest, had I gotten that message a day earlier I probably would have just dismissed it and been frustrated, thinking to myself that there is no way this person deserved any sort of second chance.  But it didn't come the day before, it came that exact same day, just as this issue was on my mind.  I mean c'mon, there is absolutely no way that something like this happens purely out of coincidence, right?  So I decided that I needed to follow my gut on this one and give my old friend another chance.  What happens in the end, I honestly have no idea, but there is one thing that I do know, such things don't happen by accident, and the best type of do-over is a mulligan, where the first time is completely erased from memory and the record books.  Give it up for second chances.

Cross Country Skiing

Exciting news in the life of Travis Zurcher, I have now learned a brand new sport, cross country skiing!  Granted it's not the most exciting sport of all time, but when you consider some of my other favorites like golf and baseball I guess it kind of fits right in with what I'm all about.  Anyways, finally something that got me outside and enjoying the snow for the majority of the day, not an easy task, I must admit, but definitely accomplished.  So now the question is this, could I be convinced to become a winter person.  A very interesting thought indeed seeing as since as far back as I can remember I've never been a fan of the snow or winter.  Sure as a kid I would make snowmen and snowforts, throwing snowballs at friends and having a good time.  But I always remember suffering through winter to make it back to the glorious days of summer.  In fact many times I recall people at the end of summer saying that they were excited for winter and were done with all this hot weather for a little while.  I also recall thinking to myself that such a thought was ludicrous because summer was in every way better than winter. "But you can always put on more layers in the cold, you can only take off so many", someone would say to me in defense of winter.  Right, because there's nothing I love more than putting on two shirts, a sweater, a jacket, scarf, gloves and a hat just to be "comfortable" outside.  And I also am skeptical to the fact that such amounts of clothing is in fact comfortable, because to me shorts, a t-shirt and some sandals is the ideal amount of clothes.  Too hot?  Try going inside in the A/C for a little bit, or maybe you can take a dip in a body of water of sorts.  Here's an idea, in the summer the shade is much cooler, relax in it while sipping a nice lemonade.  So what's the point, well at first it was to analyze whether finding enough fun winter activities could change my mind about loving summer so very much more, but now it seems quite obvious to me after my rant about how much better summer is.  No amount of fun winter activities will ever change my mind because summer is just that much better, period.  Even if I were to discover a plethora of fun filled wintery stuffs, the absolute best solution is a week or so out of the year where I visit somewhere cold, and then head back to some hot wonderous desert where winter is only a fairytale.

Assumptions

Today during Econ 110 Professor Kearl started off by making an assumption in order to simplify economics.  This, to me, seems like a perfectly reasonably thing to do since I know very little about economics and to attempt of study of the most intricate details right off the get go would be nothing but futile.  However, it appears that many other people were not able to grasp this very simple concept of making assumptions to simplify a system, even if this assumption is not entirely true.  In this instance, the assumption was made that people were self-interested and would therefore ultimately act in the fashion that would help them to acquire as much as possible.  While this assumption is obviously not 100% true, it is, in general, a very good guideline as to the roots of people's behavior.  That's why it's an assumption, and not a rule of economics.  But for some reason every couple of minutes or so someone would come up with some hypothetical situation of people not acting in a self interested manner.  While this was quite frusrtating to me, the fact that people couldn't understand the purpose of the assumption he was making, it was also very entertaining.  This is because every time someone gave a situation where people were not acting in their own self interest, Professor Kearl showed them why they were in fact wrong every time.  A mother staying at home with a child, not self interested?  Why yes it is.  That mother is staying home because it would cost more to hire a full time nanny than she would be able to make going to work.  The best choice for her is to stay at home to take of the child.  Point Kearl.  The industrial revolution, people went into terrible working conditions, this most certainly was not to their benefit, right?  Wrong again, no one forced people to leave their farms, they left because in the end it was a better decision, certainly not the best but obviously better than farming, or they wouldn't have left the farm.  Point Kearl.  This continued literally the entire class and was fascinating to see people continue at it, when time and time again, the point when to Dr. Kearl.  In the end, this made me think about other classes where similar assumptions are made, and I realized that they are all technical and science classes.  So it must be that all these people have not had many, if any at all, science classes, or this concept would not seem foreign, but instead blatantly necessary.  At first I thought more people need more science to understand this concept better, because making assumptions to simplify things that are occurring in life is a very useful and helpful tool.  But as I continued to ponder on the outcome of this solution I realized something very important.  If more of these liberal arts type people are in my science classes, then I would have to deal with the stupidity all the time, and not just in one class.  So in the end the current system is probably the best one and I'll just sit back and enjoy Dr. Kearl making people look stupid.