to many flanks in your analogies

Quick story about the name of the blog. It's more of an aspiration than a declaration. It comes from a fIREHOSE song I first heard on a skate video from nineteen eighty something. Yeah, I was/am a skater. Not professionally. I saw Hokus Pokus by H-street in the early nineties and was blown away ... in a bad way. When I saw what they could do, I realized I'd never be a professional skateboarder, and decided I'd better learn some skills. I also liked lighting things on fire, which led me to chemistry. I took a couple of chemistry classes in high school. I really liked it, and I was good at it, which was a nice combination. Secretly, I was motivated by a desire to light things on fire faster and in more creative ways.

Fast forward a few years, and I was able to avoid a life of crime and do something positive with my life. I told my high school chem teacher I was going to study chemistry in graduate school and he tried to talk me out of it. "You don't want to be a chemist. You wanna do something else, like be a helicopter pilot!" So much for encouragement. After a couple of years of grad school, I was wishing I took his advice. But I plugged through it, got a few publications and some letters after my name, and now I'm looking for a job.

I left something out. Family. I got married. Best thing I've ever done. And I have two kids. They're great. If you have kids, you know what I mean. A lot of trouble and headache, but a lot of fun and family just has a way of bringing you back to earth and reminding you what's important in life.

The long and short of it is: life is good. Did american eagle actually trademark that sentence? Gotta go to bed or life is NOT going to be good tomorrow!