It's been a long time since I posted hear and a lot has happened. It occurred to me that there might be some value to having a space to write and aggregate ideas, quotes, and other things that I put online. I see my meditation practice log going on here, as well as previous essays written for Baha'i Coherence, quotes that I like, and a space for poetry and prose both refined and therapeutic. The next few posts will be stuff that I have written in the last few years on other forums, it will probably take a while to get it all transferred.
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Showing posts with label Life News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Life News. Show all posts
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Friday, December 26, 2008
Stuff that's happening
I've been thinking about what to write on this blog. There have been a couple of false starts, words have just fallen flat. I am really excited about an ongoing essay project. The scope of it will probably have to be toned down at some point, or else it will never get written. It was going to be collaborative, but that is looking less likely. I feel an intense need to engage in collaborative, creative writing projects with other people. I have tried to initiate things but nothing seems to get off the ground, which is a little bit frustrating. Maybe it is a sign that I need to put more energy in other aspects of my life right now.
Speaking of which, Sjo and I visited some of her family this evening. I had a really nice time, they are all very wonderful people. Here are some photos...
Jimmy and I. Jimmy is one of the most interesting people I have met. He is so good hearted and full of energy. I have to say it took me a while to get used to his personality, but now I love being around him, he makes me happy.
One of the cutest pictures I personally have taken of Sjo
The cousins. Nancy is in the middle, she is awesome. Very inquisitive, open minded, and mindful of things.
Speaking of which, Sjo and I visited some of her family this evening. I had a really nice time, they are all very wonderful people. Here are some photos...
Jimmy and I. Jimmy is one of the most interesting people I have met. He is so good hearted and full of energy. I have to say it took me a while to get used to his personality, but now I love being around him, he makes me happy.
One of the cutest pictures I personally have taken of Sjo
The cousins. Nancy is in the middle, she is awesome. Very inquisitive, open minded, and mindful of things.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
What to do during writers block? Write about writing.
So I have been in a writing slump lately. I can no longer use a crazy work schedule as an excuse, since I am back to the 40 and life is pretty laid back at the moment. I thought I would utilise this writers block to reflect upon the purpose and nature of writing within a blog format, as well as think out loud about new directions to go in.
Writing has become incredibly important to me, especially in the last year. I find that it is a great way to give voice and to actively explore emotions and cognitions that might have remained sub-conscious otherwise. Blogging has given me a forum to think about the craft of writing as well as the content. What I mean is, I used to write a lot a few years ago without very much thought to word choice, sequence, rhythm etc, kind of a throw-up if you will. Looking back on it now is invaluable, not only to see the progression of my thought but also to realize how far the craft of it has come. I find that the focus on craft has greatly improved the content; ideas are more tightly knit and lend themselves to greater cohesiveness.
Too much concern about craft can often inhibit writing, which has been the biggest problem lately. I have a post in progress that I find disjointed and cliche, even if it is a true record of my feelings
I find it important to challenge myself in different styles of writing. When I was working on my thesis, academic writing would have become dry if I couldn't also write poetically. Recently I have attempted to write in fictional and non-fictional narrative styles, which has always seemed horribly daunting, but has turned out okay so far. A few of my posts have been essays on religious/spiritual themes. The approach has been an analytical one; I would also like to approach them subjectively and poetically. Another interest, which is the approach of many blogs, is to comment on current events in a thoughtful way and link up to different others who are doing the same.
Writing is a form of therapy, a means of reflection, and a chronological record of our experience in this life. I intend to invest more energy finding words for the experience.
Writing has become incredibly important to me, especially in the last year. I find that it is a great way to give voice and to actively explore emotions and cognitions that might have remained sub-conscious otherwise. Blogging has given me a forum to think about the craft of writing as well as the content. What I mean is, I used to write a lot a few years ago without very much thought to word choice, sequence, rhythm etc, kind of a throw-up if you will. Looking back on it now is invaluable, not only to see the progression of my thought but also to realize how far the craft of it has come. I find that the focus on craft has greatly improved the content; ideas are more tightly knit and lend themselves to greater cohesiveness.
Too much concern about craft can often inhibit writing, which has been the biggest problem lately. I have a post in progress that I find disjointed and cliche, even if it is a true record of my feelings
I find it important to challenge myself in different styles of writing. When I was working on my thesis, academic writing would have become dry if I couldn't also write poetically. Recently I have attempted to write in fictional and non-fictional narrative styles, which has always seemed horribly daunting, but has turned out okay so far. A few of my posts have been essays on religious/spiritual themes. The approach has been an analytical one; I would also like to approach them subjectively and poetically. Another interest, which is the approach of many blogs, is to comment on current events in a thoughtful way and link up to different others who are doing the same.
Writing is a form of therapy, a means of reflection, and a chronological record of our experience in this life. I intend to invest more energy finding words for the experience.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
I wake up and I go
Wow, these last few weeks have been insane! Somehow I ended up with two jobs in my lap which overlap making me constantly busy. I have finished my degree. Sjona and I are still in the process of moving. Everything is different, everything has changed. My life is moving on.
Do you ever notice that successive stages in life take on distinctly different flavors?
My professional life is taking shape. Every day brings the fresh experiences, challenges, and doing-ness I have been waiting for after what seems to be a stale eternity of studying and preparing. Other parts of my life have been neglected. I have not been active in the Baha'i community just as fundamental transformation is manifesting. Sjona and I rarely see each other, let alone spend quality time together. I have neglected the strands of creative and exploratory writing which keep me sane and engaged. I have stopped exercising. Instead I wake up and I go, I do, I am acting without being.
August is when I end my research job and stop working 60 hour weeks. I am hoping that is when I can find balance again. I hope I can survive one more month of this.
Do you ever notice that successive stages in life take on distinctly different flavors?
My professional life is taking shape. Every day brings the fresh experiences, challenges, and doing-ness I have been waiting for after what seems to be a stale eternity of studying and preparing. Other parts of my life have been neglected. I have not been active in the Baha'i community just as fundamental transformation is manifesting. Sjona and I rarely see each other, let alone spend quality time together. I have neglected the strands of creative and exploratory writing which keep me sane and engaged. I have stopped exercising. Instead I wake up and I go, I do, I am acting without being.
August is when I end my research job and stop working 60 hour weeks. I am hoping that is when I can find balance again. I hope I can survive one more month of this.
Monday, May 05, 2008
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Thesis update
So I am in the last phase of my thesis, getting ready to send out 2000 surveys, 1000 each to the homes in two different clusters of Albuquerque. While I am only looking at two areas, I have to send out so many because probably only 10-15% will respond. It is quite a bureaucratic and time consuming headache to do this. First I had to get Internal Review Board (IRB) approval which required a mountain paperwork, an online course, and three weeks of waiting. This approval is required for anybody doing a study involving human subjects as a way to insure against possible exploitation. Now I am getting the bulk mailing worked out with the UNM campus mail. I will provide them with the materials (2000 surveys, 2000 consent forms, 2000 10" envelopes), and they will put together the smaller, business reply mail pre-paid envelopes that the responds will use to mail back their surveys. They will also sort and stuff all of the large envelopes and send them out. It will take about two weeks to get all of the details sorted and all of surveys ready to be mailed. Finally, It will probably take about 3 weeks to get all the surveys back.
I am saying all this because I am getting impatient. I want to finish my thesis, graduate, and get on with my life. While sometimes I wish that I didn't go the survey route, I think that in the end it will pay off. I decided to do it because it is rare in the literature to see an analysis that uses both qualitative and quantitative analysis. I am interested in a personal and descriptive analysis to complement all the data that has been processed
The goal of my thesis is to identify neighborhoods in Bernalillo County that lack provision of healthy (primarily meaning access to fruits and vegetables) and relatively cheap food. The quantitative side of the analysis involves two things. The first is to determine personal distance, meaning in this case the average network distance (aggregated on a block group scale) of people to various types of food retailers. Block groups are ranked based upon the aggregate median distance to supermarkets, grocery stores, specialty shops, etc. The second is to determine personal mobility, meaning the ability of people to get to these food retailers in a reasonable amount of time. While there is no index to do this directly, It can be inferred based upon a set of demographic and spatial characteristics, such as car ownership, distance to a bus network, unemployment, disability, poverty, education, etc. Finally, personal distance and personal mobility are compared to rank personal accessibility and possibly identify "food deserts" (areas where people clearly lack accessibility and risk facing health risks in consequence).
I have identified two clusters that could be construed as "food deserts" based upon my analysis. While they have equally dismal personal mobility characteristics, they are different in that one has decent access to supermarkets, but not grocery stores, and the other visa-versa. The purpose of the surveys is to determine if the people's perception of personal food accessibility confirms my methodology and results. In the literature, most people assume that supermarkets are the only real source of healthy and cheap food. I want to see if that is true based upon peoples perceptions.
I am hoping that this analysis will help to better target "food deserts" in Bernalillo County so that businesses and non-profits can better serve these areas. There is a push in many parts of the country to encourage local agriculture in urban areas that lack it. There are also other endeavors, such as food on wheels, which takes healthy food on mobile carts directly to the areas that are lacking.
I am also hoping that I have made a contribution to the spatial accessibility and food accessibility literature by improving upon some methodology. In addition to paring qualitative analysis with quantitative, there are some other methods that I feel are somewhat original.
1) Frequently I see people walking, carrying bags of food. For this reason I set up the network to account for the fact that many people do not own vehicles. bike paths and arroyos were included with rodes as plausible walking routes.
2) Network analysis is a way to calculate the distance from one point to another along a given network. In order to make distance information comparable to census data, it must be aggregated to a census scale, such as a block group. Researchers often estimate the distance of a population from the geometric center of a block group to the nearest facility. The problem with this (in addition to the fact that the resolution is bad) is that the population is not homogeneously distributed through each block group. The geometric center is therefore often a poor measure of average distance. What I did is to find the distance from every residential address point to the nearest food store, and then take the median of those distances within the block group. While the measure is still not perfect it better accounts for heterogeneous population distributions.
3.) Most of the literature assumes that supermarkets are the only source of food. It is widely known that local neighborhood shops are more expensive and have less selection, but they should not be neglected in the analysis. Farmers markets should also be considered, since they are tied to local agriculture and cultural traditions. That is one reason why in my surveys I want to compare people's perception of food provision in different kind of food environments.
This thesis has taken longer than I hoped, and has required more work than I would have liked. There have been many setbacks. At one point my hard drive was stolen containing weeks worth of work. A few times I have realized that something was done wrong a few steps back in a work-flow process, causing me to have to redo the entire process. On the other hand I have learned more doing this than I could have by taking any class. In classes, the data is already clean and the methodology is taught to you. In this I had to find new ways of doing things and work around intractible problems. It has been quite the experience
I am saying all this because I am getting impatient. I want to finish my thesis, graduate, and get on with my life. While sometimes I wish that I didn't go the survey route, I think that in the end it will pay off. I decided to do it because it is rare in the literature to see an analysis that uses both qualitative and quantitative analysis. I am interested in a personal and descriptive analysis to complement all the data that has been processed
The goal of my thesis is to identify neighborhoods in Bernalillo County that lack provision of healthy (primarily meaning access to fruits and vegetables) and relatively cheap food. The quantitative side of the analysis involves two things. The first is to determine personal distance, meaning in this case the average network distance (aggregated on a block group scale) of people to various types of food retailers. Block groups are ranked based upon the aggregate median distance to supermarkets, grocery stores, specialty shops, etc. The second is to determine personal mobility, meaning the ability of people to get to these food retailers in a reasonable amount of time. While there is no index to do this directly, It can be inferred based upon a set of demographic and spatial characteristics, such as car ownership, distance to a bus network, unemployment, disability, poverty, education, etc. Finally, personal distance and personal mobility are compared to rank personal accessibility and possibly identify "food deserts" (areas where people clearly lack accessibility and risk facing health risks in consequence).
I have identified two clusters that could be construed as "food deserts" based upon my analysis. While they have equally dismal personal mobility characteristics, they are different in that one has decent access to supermarkets, but not grocery stores, and the other visa-versa. The purpose of the surveys is to determine if the people's perception of personal food accessibility confirms my methodology and results. In the literature, most people assume that supermarkets are the only real source of healthy and cheap food. I want to see if that is true based upon peoples perceptions.
I am hoping that this analysis will help to better target "food deserts" in Bernalillo County so that businesses and non-profits can better serve these areas. There is a push in many parts of the country to encourage local agriculture in urban areas that lack it. There are also other endeavors, such as food on wheels, which takes healthy food on mobile carts directly to the areas that are lacking.
I am also hoping that I have made a contribution to the spatial accessibility and food accessibility literature by improving upon some methodology. In addition to paring qualitative analysis with quantitative, there are some other methods that I feel are somewhat original.
1) Frequently I see people walking, carrying bags of food. For this reason I set up the network to account for the fact that many people do not own vehicles. bike paths and arroyos were included with rodes as plausible walking routes.
2) Network analysis is a way to calculate the distance from one point to another along a given network. In order to make distance information comparable to census data, it must be aggregated to a census scale, such as a block group. Researchers often estimate the distance of a population from the geometric center of a block group to the nearest facility. The problem with this (in addition to the fact that the resolution is bad) is that the population is not homogeneously distributed through each block group. The geometric center is therefore often a poor measure of average distance. What I did is to find the distance from every residential address point to the nearest food store, and then take the median of those distances within the block group. While the measure is still not perfect it better accounts for heterogeneous population distributions.
3.) Most of the literature assumes that supermarkets are the only source of food. It is widely known that local neighborhood shops are more expensive and have less selection, but they should not be neglected in the analysis. Farmers markets should also be considered, since they are tied to local agriculture and cultural traditions. That is one reason why in my surveys I want to compare people's perception of food provision in different kind of food environments.
This thesis has taken longer than I hoped, and has required more work than I would have liked. There have been many setbacks. At one point my hard drive was stolen containing weeks worth of work. A few times I have realized that something was done wrong a few steps back in a work-flow process, causing me to have to redo the entire process. On the other hand I have learned more doing this than I could have by taking any class. In classes, the data is already clean and the methodology is taught to you. In this I had to find new ways of doing things and work around intractible problems. It has been quite the experience
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Research Proposal and Lit Review
I have completed a draft of my Research Proposal and Literature Review which I will present soon to my thesis committee. If you would like to scan it, I have made a link to it under (Thesis Proposal). I am interested in any feedback...
Also, I couldn't get the images to show up, but they aren't very important.
Also, I couldn't get the images to show up, but they aren't very important.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Sunday, September 02, 2007
This and that
Life is good.
Lately I have taken an interest in teaching. It started this summer when I started helping out (meaning sitting there) with children's classes, something that I had vowed never to do. I never thought that it was my path of service, but really it is, it should be everybody's path. Now I have become more confident to teach on my own, and it has really opened things up for me. It has given me a much greater vision of how Bahai's can transform the world. It is so easy to start a class, in any neighborhood, and especially apartment complexes. It is the portal to engaging the whole family, within a framework that allows us to serve them in all dimensions, and then for them to serve other families in the same way.
The teaching has also started in the university, the labs for two classes in my graduate department, Intro to Geographic Information Technology, and Intro to Geographic Information Systems. Going in I thought I would be much more nervous than I was. The greatest challenge has been to bridge the gap between those that are way ahead of the curve and those that have some catching up to do. I enjoy working one-on-one, I love feeling that I am making a difference in somebody else's learning.
Just recently I have decided to do a thesis, again. For a while I thought I wouldn't because the previous idea flopped after putting in a lot of energy. I think, partly due to lack of support from the faculty, I was naive in the feasibility of my vision. Now a new faculty member has come that has changed my world. He embodies everything I want to learn and more. With his help I hope to develop a thesis proposal within the next few weeks. I have taken an interest in modeling spatial accessibility. Common applications of this include determining the accessibility (meaning how long does it take people to get there based upon their type of transportation within a given transportation network) of health services, and analyzing ways to efficiently extend the outreach. My thesis probably won't be related to health care since it has been thoroughly studied. Instead I am thinking in terms of job and service accessibility, especially for people without vehicles.
Lately I have taken an interest in teaching. It started this summer when I started helping out (meaning sitting there) with children's classes, something that I had vowed never to do. I never thought that it was my path of service, but really it is, it should be everybody's path. Now I have become more confident to teach on my own, and it has really opened things up for me. It has given me a much greater vision of how Bahai's can transform the world. It is so easy to start a class, in any neighborhood, and especially apartment complexes. It is the portal to engaging the whole family, within a framework that allows us to serve them in all dimensions, and then for them to serve other families in the same way.
The teaching has also started in the university, the labs for two classes in my graduate department, Intro to Geographic Information Technology, and Intro to Geographic Information Systems. Going in I thought I would be much more nervous than I was. The greatest challenge has been to bridge the gap between those that are way ahead of the curve and those that have some catching up to do. I enjoy working one-on-one, I love feeling that I am making a difference in somebody else's learning.
Just recently I have decided to do a thesis, again. For a while I thought I wouldn't because the previous idea flopped after putting in a lot of energy. I think, partly due to lack of support from the faculty, I was naive in the feasibility of my vision. Now a new faculty member has come that has changed my world. He embodies everything I want to learn and more. With his help I hope to develop a thesis proposal within the next few weeks. I have taken an interest in modeling spatial accessibility. Common applications of this include determining the accessibility (meaning how long does it take people to get there based upon their type of transportation within a given transportation network) of health services, and analyzing ways to efficiently extend the outreach. My thesis probably won't be related to health care since it has been thoroughly studied. Instead I am thinking in terms of job and service accessibility, especially for people without vehicles.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
My Crazy Summer
My dad and I in his back yard in Taos
Sjona in Portland
Sjona's uncle, his girlfriend, and Sjona's grandmother in Northern California
Sjona and her mom in Taos
I love Taos!!!
Sjona's mom, my dad, and me
Sjona and I with our new bikes at our house
Sjona' mom and me in Taos
Love in Taos
Daniel, Leila, and Sjona
Leila and Sjona in Central California.
Needles, California/Arizona border. We made it out of the Mohave desert alive!!
Sjona and her grandmother
Pretending to be pensive in Monterey, California
Monterey is beautiful, so is my wife.
My aunt and grandmother at our family reunion in Oregon
A very spoiled dear in somebodies yard in Ashland, Oregon
Sjona's Uncle at a nice swimming hole in Northern California
My mom is so cool!!!
Coastal Oregon
My mother and grandparents
Sjona is silly
My mom and her husband, Steve
The two lovebirds at Devil's Churn
Alsea Falls
I wish
Steve, he is such a great human being
Checking out a bald eagle in some wetlands in Oregon
A cute plant nursery
I love my mom
Sjona's hairpin
Some cool youth in Philometh Oregon
Chris and Mona at the Frontier!!!
Ryan and me near the river-walk in Corvalis
The three stooges
Sjona in Portland
Sjona's uncle, his girlfriend, and Sjona's grandmother in Northern California
Sjona and her mom in Taos
I love Taos!!!
Sjona's mom, my dad, and me
Sjona and I with our new bikes at our house
Sjona' mom and me in Taos
Love in Taos
Daniel, Leila, and Sjona
Leila and Sjona in Central California.
Needles, California/Arizona border. We made it out of the Mohave desert alive!!
Sjona and her grandmother
Pretending to be pensive in Monterey, California
Monterey is beautiful, so is my wife.
My aunt and grandmother at our family reunion in Oregon
A very spoiled dear in somebodies yard in Ashland, Oregon
Sjona's Uncle at a nice swimming hole in Northern California
My mom is so cool!!!
Coastal Oregon
My mother and grandparents
Sjona is silly
My mom and her husband, Steve
The two lovebirds at Devil's Churn
Alsea Falls
I wish
Steve, he is such a great human being
Checking out a bald eagle in some wetlands in Oregon
A cute plant nursery
I love my mom
Sjona's hairpin
Some cool youth in Philometh Oregon
Chris and Mona at the Frontier!!!
Ryan and me near the river-walk in Corvalis
The three stooges
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