It might be time for another road trip

So I haven’t written in a while, as I suspected would happen. I’m wrestling with some serious depression, but if I watch any more episodes of Star Trek, LOST and Battlestar Galactica I’m gonna’ lose my mind. Ideally what I need to do is hit the road for awhile. Italy can’t come soon enough – although I’m sure I’ll think of her while I’m there – but at least we never traveled there together. It’s my place of sorts and if you gotta be lonely, I guess Italy is a pretty fantastic place to be melancholy. When I get back, I may have to take a ride across the country like i did a few years ago - and maybe make it to the west coast this time? In the meantime, it’s time to play some catch up on this here bloggy thing.

Back in early June I came home and graduated. Managed to pull off a 4.0 in my 2 years at U Mass Boston. Summa Cum Laude and distinction within the department.





To top it off, Senator Barak Obama was in the house and gave a speech that I can only describe as Kennedy-esque.




Someone has to tap him for VP in ’08. His message will resonate with working class America. And while some of the US may still not be ready for an African American a heartbeat away from the White House, if Obama gets a chance to debate at that level, he will win far more hearts and votes than the color of his skin might lose him. He has the intellect of Kerry, but the charisma of Kennedy, and a sincerity I haven’t seen since Carter. He is down to earth, and speaks with an understanding of working class hell and poverty that seems to escape most politicians. I’m excited to be moving to Chicago and have him as my Senator.

Before coming home, I had some fun times during my last couple of weeks in the Everglades. I came across my first rattlesnake. Can you spot the Rattlesnake?





Now I know the picture is a bit blurry and all, but trust me, even when I was standing some six or seven feet away from the damn thing, I could barely see it and lost track of it while staring right at it. The camouflage that these animals possess is mind bogllingly perfect for their surroundings and environment. Evolution in action – those snakes with the mutation for the best pattern survive the most and have the most baby snakes likely to also carry the trait. Coincidentally, I’m reading a book called Nature's Numbers that talks about why certain patterns (definable by mathematical formulas) appear in nature so often. For instance, snake pigmentation and the growth pattern of bushes and weeds and such – how is it that camouflage evolves? Professor Ian Stewart describes how patterns rise out of breakdowns in symmetry, and that the breakdowns happen with some predictability. When wind blows across the desert, the sand does not settle uniformly, but in patterns related to windspeed, angle of winds and a myriad of other factors (including the fat that sands of grain are not perfectly round and collide with each other, knocking each other in every direction, but within a confines and limited area dictated byt the strength of the wind). Similarly, the chemical game that goes on in creating an animal’s pigment is also beset my a myriad of factors that often prevent a uniform distribution of pigment throughout an animals skin. Like the asymmetrical patterns of sand dunes that arise in the desert, patterns can arise in pigment distribution. Those conditions that allow for a pigment distribution that results in better camouflage are at least in part often controlled by genes, and those animals with the better camouflage survive far more often and pass on the genes for those traits that result in the camouflage.

Enough evolutionary Biology for now, so here’s the rattlesnake: