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Have you ever looked at three or four generations of a family and discovered that a peculiar trait was handed down?  Perhaps a hook nose or a jutting chin?  Something that is almost cartoon-like in its singularity?  It is funny how our connectedness can be seen in outward manifestations.

Three years ago my mother’s family began a tradition of having a cousins’ reunion.  It was such a great time, sharing time and meals with people I knew and loved, some I rarely see anymore, and a few I had never met before.  All converged here on our little corner of Iowa, where the family got its start in America.  At the time, we decided to have this gathering every three years and this weekend marks the second cousins’ reunion.

After several hours of interaction with five generations of our family, I quietly made a quick little observation tonight at the opening event.  I haven’t talked to anyone about it yet, so I thought I’d talk about it here.  My family came to this country like almost everyone else – without much.  That was our fortune at the time, but it was not our destiny.  We have all done exceptionally well at what we’ve set out to accomplish.

In visiting with each of the relatives and their families tonight, it dawned on me that each of us has inherited wealth that has helped us along and proven vital to our success. Money?  No, it is a personal feature that isn’t related to money or material well-being.  And like a physical peculiarity, this feature stands out and makes itself apparent across the generations of our family, especially when we are all together.

We seemingly have each inherited the remarkable ability to enjoy a situation for what it is and to share that joy with those around us, instantly making memories and creating bonds with others.  Some might say that this is a behavior, something that is learned.  I say it is an innate ability, related to who we are and who we came from, something that is in our DNA as surely as our eye color and skin tone.

Some time in the mid 19th century, my great great grandfather came to America to eventually settle in western Iowa and raise a large family.  No doubt it was difficult and dangerous to make the trip from his native Ireland.  And surely it wasn’t all roses when he finally arrived and settled. Homesteading was not exactly a “free ride”, after all.  There were trees and rocks to clear, fences to make, homes to build, and crops and livestock to raise.  Not to mention, often these folks were sending some of their money back to the “old country”.

But in the letters that we’ve found between different family members from those years, in the newspaper clippings, and even in the obituaries, there is one thing that stands out about him and each of his children.  It is an enduring optimism and happiness, even thru the toughest of circumstances.  This immutable joy, bubbling just below the surface, is even more evident in some of the period pictures.  They show not only a fierce determination in the eyes, but also a mischievous twinkle – the look of someone preparing to place the whoopee cushion.  It is something I remember so well about my grandfather – his easy smile, sense of humor, and unending generosity all stemmed from his ability to simply enjoy life, whatever life might entail at the time.  It is easy to see and understand that this isn’t something he learned.  No, he was born with it, a gift from his ancestors and a gift that he passed on as well.

Thanks for the gift grandpa, I love you and this is dedicated to you.  Wish you were here.

I remember the feeling I got when I went into the opposing team’s gymnasium for the first time – it was a small gym and we were going to play basketball there, and hopefully we would go home happy, with a win. The strangeness of the gym was apparent from the first time you walked in – there were bleachers on one of the “long sides” of the building, and a stage on the other, with no seats on the ends. This was unlike other gyms we had been to before – and it became one of my favorite places just because it was different.

Have you ever enjoyed something just because it’s a departure from normal?

This isn’t all that unusual, I suppose, but I think that maybe I enjoy it more than most. If there is an uncommon way of accomplishing something, I usually want to do it that way. Sometimes it is easier, sometimes harder, but almost always it is the most unique way to finish the task.

This story doesn’t have any moral, there’s no take-home message, just sharing a quick thought that popped into my “post-midnight” head.

As a born-and-bred Iowa native, I am always interested in agricultural practices where ever I travel.  On a trip to Seattle last summer, I took the opportunity to take an early morning walk down the beach to Elliot Bay on Puget Sound, where I got a close-up look at Seattle’s Pier 86.  The pier was built in 1970 to move grain, unloading trucks and trains and transferring the grain onto ships bound for the far East as well as Central and South America.

A grain handling pier in Seattle's port

In the photo to the left, the ship Ji May is being loaded.  At normal operating capacity  the terminal can load 3000 tons of grain per hour through twin 48-inch conveyors.  In addition to the ability to hold and unload long trains (current capacity is 175 cars, expandable to 215), the unloading operations on shore also include a truck unloader which inclines a loaded semi tractor-trailer to unload 250 tons per hour.

Current capacity is 4.2 million bushels of storage.  The Port of Seattle owns the grain terminal and it is under long-term lease by Cargill, the nation’s largest grain dealer.  The terminal is served by both the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad.

In 1979 the terminal loaded a record-breaking 1,977,000 tons of grain into 85 vessels.  Time to load a standard 15,000 ton bulk hauling vessel is about 5 hours.

Note:  All technical information in this post is courtesy of the Port of Seattle and the information placards in Elliot Bay Park.

I have been talking to many people lately. I always do this over the holidays and at the beginning of the new year. I catch up with friends who’ve become distant. One of the things I’ve been sharing with many of them, especially the ones who live far from here, is how great it is to have all the opportunities that come with a life in Dunlap, Iowa, USA. I’m going to focus on that for the next few weeks, and I’m going to be sharing some of those thoughts here, too. Hopefully I will inspire you to do the same! More to come…

My faithful riding companion for the last five years

I am in the market for a different car.  My trusty Taurus is approaching the ten-year-old mark and I am thinking something a little newer might be in order.  I  spent part of today looking at cars and thinking back to my very first automobile – a 1984 Oldsmobile Cutlass that I first drove in 1988, during my junior year of high school.  I grew to love that car over the course of about eight years of daily driving, and sometimes still wish I had it back.

So, that got me wondering – would you be willing to vote in a quick poll about the age of your first car?  If so, click the question:

Have you ever asked, or have you been asked, “What do you do?” This question comes up almost instantly when you first meet someone. It may be one of the cheapest and most overused conversation starters. Our occupation sort of defines us in others’ eyes, doesn’t it?

Most people ask this question with the intention of finding out how you make a living. Sometimes I like to have fun with my answer to this recurring question.

“I take pictures of freight trains” or “I take apart wooden furniture looking for salvage parts” or “I like to take candid photography using my zoom lens”. I really like using this last one on new neighbors, then watching to see how much time passes before they close their blinds. My wisecracking answers increase with my caffeine intake.

How would you answer this question? Do you have any other humorous ideas? Who was the last person you asked this? What did they say? Click the “Comments” link and let me know!

“…and I look forward to joining your team, where I am confident that I will make significant contributions in short order.”

I am not a professional job hopper – I have had only three employers in over 15 years.  When I got my first “real” job, social media was not even a buzzword.  Much can change in a decade and a half.  Even though I now have accounts on several social networking sites, this was the last thing I thought about when I applied for my current job.

I have no idea if anyone was looking through my LinkedIn profile or my Facebook entries, but I certainly didn’t do any optimization on any of my networking profiles.  Looking back now, maybe this would have been a good idea to consider.

Are you searching for a job?  Maybe you should take a different approach than I did, and give some attention to your social media profiles.  Are you putting your best image forward from your social media “projector”?  Have you eliminated any references to less-than-professional behavior, kept incriminating statements to a minimum, and attended to removing profanity?

Not every social network is designed for professional promotion, but all are searchable by your potential employers’ hiring managers.  Why not give them something inviting to look at, instead of something condemning?

I am attempting sleep right now – or I was – in a very unusual bit of downtime around the midnight hour. I have discovered that I have a new pet. I don’t have to feed him/her, nor do I need to walk this critter. It just stays in my house, unassuming, until nightfall, when it begins to CHIRP-CHIRP-CHIRP.

You have perhaps guessed by now that my uninvited house guest is a cricket. My mind is wandering back to “A Cricket in Times Square”, a book I read as a child about a singing cricket in New York City. Can’t quite remember the details now.

This “singing”, as it were, has inspired what I believe to be my first ever haiku:

Infernal chirping,
One with exoskeleton,
Crunchy Gooey Mess

I make my living in a lab.  I like full disclosure, so I tell you this to let you know that I have a vital interest in science and scientific inquiry.  I am classically trained as a chemist.  Nowhere in my training as a chemist have I found reason to doubt the notion that humanity, and indeed all of creation, was the product of a well prepared creator with an intensely personal vision for how this universe would look, and even how it would work.

I recently heard the phrase “sabotaging science” in reference to some church-based curriculum or another (yes, there are still a few educational programs which are built upon the foundations of religious thought).

This made me think, “If I were to create a universe, and give a certain group of life forms the ability to think and reason, would I then also sabotage that ability?”

It is a tough question if you consider the ramifications.  First, I am going to create this prototype setting for my favorite creatures to occupy.  Then I am going to create those favorite creatures, loosely based on my own image, and place them in this setting.

With further thought, the real question soon becomes, “Do I indeed give them free will to make choices, and thus, mistakes?”

As a mere mortal, there is much to consider.  Eventually, though, I think it necessarily comes down to “If they are to find truth,  how can they not have the ability to choose between truth and lies?”

Now, if sabotaging science actually happened, then I would assert that it was done from the beginning, when humans were established as the dominant form of life.  With human participation comes human error.  This is the true sabotage that has happened.  Give a person the chance to observe a monkey and a man, and instantly the similarities are obvious to this person.  But what of the less obvious differences?

It is ironic that this doesn’t hold for human creations.  Hand a person two items made by human hands or by today’s equivalent, the robot.  If the items aren’t exactly alike, the differences will be quickly obvious, while the similarities sometimes remain somewhat elusive.

For example, let us consider a small salad bowl and a similarly sized round ash tray.  To the casual observer, the two items are obviously different.  The recognition of this difference is nearly immediate among a wide variety of intellects.  Although the two items are both round, and may both be the same color, and perhaps close to the same size, the difference is obvious.

You may ask “What difference?”, to which I would answer, “The intention of the creator.  That is what separates the salad bowl from the ash tray.”  Even to a casual observer, this is quickly obvious.  This is because the observer has an understanding of the purpose for each.  Why not for the monkey and the man?

I propose that it is because you and I might one day create either the ash tray or the salad bowl, given enough patience and the right material and the desire to do so.  However, neither one of us will come close to creating a human or a monkey or any other of the wonders all around us.

You don’t buy it?  Well, go ahead.  Create something on the scale of the majestic world and universe we live in.  Try to create the moment that hundreds of thousands of people unwittingly share as they each observe a beautiful sunset, each from their own vantage point.  Try to create the feeling in your heart that happens when you hear a baby say “Dada” or “Mama” for the first time.  Want something easier?  Try creating a dung beatle, a cockroach, or a flea.  Where would you start?

This level of detailed work, the type of artistry that went into making just the few things we have discovered about our world, is just too much for most people to grasp.  So rather than looking up and acknowledging the wonder, we look down and wonder about knowledge.

We build tools and laboratories.  We create measuring sticks, and we create methods, and we create ways to quickly share the details of what we measure with others who are also measuring.  In all of this, we claim to build up a healthy detachment from what we are studying, we even claim to be “objective” and unattached to any method or theory, when in fact we know the opposite is true.

Just as the whole of creation brings a twinkle to the eye of the intelligent architect in charge of all, the author of a scientific paper will often defend the indefensible to the bitter end because his name is on it. Well folks, I think that we are the indefensible, and that grand architect has indeed gone the distance to defend us in spite of that, because of the love that develops between the creator and the creation.

Not only have we been allowed to search for truth, and to fail, but we’ve been allowed to keep trying again and again, with the encouraging promise of impending success.  This applies to everyone, regardless of whether you search for truth in a church or at a lab bench, as a journalist or as a laborer.  Today, tomorrow, and the next day you will have another chance to get it right.

Eight years can pass slowly, or quickly, depending on your attitude and what you’re doing to pass the time.  My fist eight years of life passed so quickly, I barely realized that they were gone.

The last eight years, also, have passed quickly.  I started that period by moving myself and my household from one region of our great state to another, in a sort of homecoming.  I had taken a new job in a new industry, an experience I would later write about in retrospect.

And now, again, it is time for a change.  I’ve parted ways with my beloved job in the natral products industry, and I am now off to a new beginning in an industry that is, in a way, also a homecoming.  I will again  be working in the agricultural sector, this time in an industry which is facing its own share of ups and downs right now, and I’m sure I’ll be sharing more details as time goes on.

Wish me luck!