Three fire engines and a ladder truck just blared by my house going southbound on the street and stopped about two blocks away. What a beautiful sound of the QO2 siren screaming by on a chilly city night. It takes me back to a few years ago, hearing the fire dispatch alert going out, gearing up in seconds at the station with 45 pounds of firefighter bunker gear, and peeking around each street corner as the truck leaned away from the turn - not knowing if there would be a small car fire or a huge commercial building fire. Terrified people waiting with nobody left to turn to as their family members are endangered by the power of fire. Their life history, photo albums, accomplishments, and material possessions having flames licked at them and could be vaporized into an ashtray within only a minute.

That blaring sound is why I do what I do. And people ask me, why do I like this field so much? Fire is mesmerizing, fire is better understood each day that passes by, but still greatly misunderstood. Fire is extremely useful. Fire is extremely devastating. Fire has context to define its will.

To me, understanding the dynamics of a fire dancing and licking around can be like trying to understand the psychology of billions of different humans. It can be like trying to catch something running away by using differential equations and fluid dynamics. It can be like painting a picture for hours or days and the end product is something that sticks with you every day for the rest of time.

It is like playing on a sports team and working with your family when working in the lab. We work for 3 hours on setting up temperature sensors and calorimeters and even more hours discussing and brainstorming in a room boiling over with a mental flood of science, passion, logic, deduction, and induction. All about fire. Then we burn our creation in 1.73 minutes and forever destroy it, releasing yet another drop in the endless pool of ongoing knowledge.

Here is a video that exhibits a very successful test burn from today. The box is filled with small plastic cups and packed like one that would be shipped. We set up instruments inside to measure the fire size, temperature inside at different places, cameras to record the flame standoff distance, and a ton of other information.

I guess in my version of 1984, things make sense in this way: fire is knowledge, community is power, and intuition is freedom.

This is why I do what I do.

Ohgod, ohgod, ohgod. My first day working in the fire laboratory at school and about 30 minutes into it this is what I get. Why am I so excited about fire? Fire!

The day started off cool enough with French combustion students presenting their projects done at WPI.

Just watch:

The test involves measuring the heat energy from the flame, tracking the flame as it spreads inside the box, and the mass loss rate of the box throughout the burn. The purpose of the test is to better classify the types of hazardous storage commodities and much more greater things than I can put into words.

As the lab student said today, “As much as we like to protect people from fire, we also really like to burn stuff.”

Fire. I love this place. Nerds, community, really motivated people. And fire.

What an intense day. My brain hurts, time for sleep.

I haven’t updated the blog in a bit since I didn’t have actual internet for a while there, but all is exceptional here in Worcester, MA.

I’m outside in the setting sun in my makeshift office in the 60 degree weather in mid-August. And as Eetion would say about my temperature preference, I’m right at home. As Brenda would say about my mind and soul, welcome home. As Marcos would say about my outdoor adventures and motorcycling, I’m in a great place. And as Katie would say about my craziness and passion, I’m in my element. And as my mother would say, I’m too far away.

Everyone has had a huge impact on my transition, from my sick grandmother’s prayers from a very long way away to some new found friends at WPI to the greatly helpful faculty at school.

Hopefully friends and family can come and join me soon while I follow the trails of my passion in this weird and pleasurable experience and location.

You can see the entire photo albums here: the 4-day trip up here and the first day in Massachusetts doing high-pointing in New England.

Thank you to everyone and I will see you soon. Look for some exciting updates to come with my new found Internet connection.

And as always: peace, love, and happiness to all.

Update on the big move to MA

In just over 9 days, I will be departing for the big move to Massachusetts with nothing more than 16 boxes holding 30 cubic feet (about 224 US gallons) of my belongings. I will be traveling with my dad and cousin Abel and leaving behind 23 years of memories physically in the good old Houston of Texas.

The trip will involve a little-engine-that-could Ford station wagon and a Nighthawk 750 motorcycle with the three of us alternating riders for all of the comfort and enjoyment that the 1800 miles will bring upon us. The trip will look something like this:

I was fortunate after looking at 2200+ postings on craigslist to find a place to live for a good price (good by New England’s standards) which has all bills included AND is fully furnished! All I have to go on is a few pictures from the landlord and a few external supporting pictures thanks to modern technology (Thanks Google and Microsoft!):

I’ve tried to make it a focal point just to be a listener for my last days in Houston. My story is already known; I just want to slowly and patiently take information in as the final days leak through the drain.

Tianguis Cultural del Chopo

Last night, I met someone who was embarking on an adventure at the same time as I, except in a much different direction. She lives in Austin and will be taking THE bus down to Monterrey, Mexico then flying into Cuba for a few days. Just to explore the world and take in more experiences, couchsurfing style. What a great idea.

While I was looking around and making a customized Google map to share with her some cool spots that lay back in my memory, I was trying hard by visual cues and street names and picture order to find a punk/hippie/skater flea market that I ran across in Monterrey. I believe that it was fashioned after this concept in Mexico City:

The Tianguis Cultural del Chopo is a Saturday flea market near Mexico City downtown, known locally as El Chopo. [...]

Originally, the Tianguis was a place for hippies to trade sixties memorabilia including not only records but also clothing, magazines, books and other collectibles. Eventually, the Tianguis has also given place to more recent musical styles like metal, goth, punk, grunge and ska, among others. Almost always, some local and touring bands play live gigs at the back of the market, where you can also find the casual traders standing and looking up for that rare and collectable record or CDs.

On the northern end of the market at Aldama and Camelia is an area called Espacio Anarcho-punk. Vendors in this part of El Chopo sell mostly books, movies, and other materials that have an anarchist or radical perspective. Many of the Espacio Anarcho-Punk vendors contribute to a weekly zine of the same title addressing local social issues and radical politics.

(from Wikipedia)

Lots of cool stuff to be seen in the world.

Information R/evoultion

An excellent video about how information access, sharing, collaboration, and all of my other favorite things going on in the world is here:

Working as a fire alarm technician with a company that does an amazing 100-mile radius for service calls leads to my eyes being exposed to a ton of sights and adventures - both lovingly good and giant-naked-lady bad. I have tons of stories and supporting pictures to share with over 6 years of working in the good and the bad.

This week’s journey leads me to a Thursday night (day 2 of 3) in Caldwell, TX. I am doing fire alarm inspections for four local schools that are pretty huge and thusly I am hanging out at the Sunset Inn for 3 days. This means that I get paid to torture the summer cheerleading camps and office ladies with blaring fire alarm sirens all day long.

And just so you know, in the picture on the front page of my hotel’s (Sunset Inn’s) website, there is a huge Walmart sign right there looming in the background for your nightly dose of subliminal Caldwell advertising - it’s like a bad smell that you can’t help but keep smelling.

Caldwell TX is about 25 miles south of College Station. So everywhere I turn, I see AGGIE COUNTRY signs and all sorts of aggie references. Nothing new here, just overloaded with it. THIS IS AGGIE LAND!!!

Last night, Katie and I were hanging low with the locals at the Texan Lounge about 0.8 miles away from my hotel room. Everything was typical Texas - maybe so insanely Texan that it was just… normal. A sign on the wall said - IF YOU AIN’T OILFIELD, THEN YOU AIN’T SHIT. And I didn’t even want to ask the bartender and get shmacked in the head nor do I even want to Google it. Just let it coexist within my mind, alone and peaceful.

Now to the media: Yesterday, when inspecting the local high school’s fire alarm and deafening the occupants to their demise (and my pleasure), I came across this room (it was actually in the faculty “work room”). Hmm, my school didn’t have one of these:

Smoking bans in Houston bars, smoking rooms in high school faculty lounges, I see the real truth now.

Next up, in the bathroom reserved for only the staff and faculty to do their dirty handywork, located smack in the center of the building amongst the hallways, where surely a middle school student could take wafts of their biology teacher’s deuce:

Thanks Caldwell schools for keeping my teachers clean and freaked out by psychadelic super graphics from space!

And finally, the local schools are plastered with reminders and motivational messages from Aristotle, Einstein, and other great thinkers. But this one particularly caught my eye; they sure do want to remind us of something here.. what is it? Oh yeah!:

I can’t make this stuff up folks. I love it. This job gives me random input from all angles that I never see coming. Good pay, good travel, good summer work. And great timing! - I am definitely getting my Texas fix in before I leave this great state in 20 days.

After working until 8:30 pm tonight, I only had the energy to visit the Brookshire Brothers about 400 feet from my hotel and gather some resources for my last night here: cold beers, a TV dinner, a banana, and a bear claw for breakfast in the morn. During my checkout process, the grocery sacker told me about six and a half times how cool it would be if “you could buy beer when you were 15 years old.” He was about 2.5 times larger than me. Noted.

Thanks Caldwell. Seriously, I love your offerings, no jokes. And here’s to tomorrow. I <3 you Texas.

P.S. Thanks to Sunset Inn for making this blog post all possible with a $35 dollar room with free Wifi! Ahh America!