Crab, Elk, Snowfields

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results


Strangely enough, that's kind of similar to the definition of Monte Carlo Simulation. 


Monte Carlo simulation calculates results over and over, each time using a different set of random values from the probability functions. Depending upon the number of uncertainties and the ranges specified for them, a Monte Carlo simulation could involve thousands or tens of thousands of recalculations before it is complete.


Ok, so it's not really the same, but it IS uncanny that Einstein's famous quote made me think of Monte Carlo.

Moving on....
I drove to the beach tonight, on a "whim"-- I noticed upon returning that I felt epically more productive, and I should really sacrifice the gas for a beach night with "crab in a box" more often. I mean, that is some darn good crab-- you can tell it just came right out of the sea, it still tastes salty and fresh. 


What I want to share though is this. As I drove out, I had this strange feeling. I was listening to some music, thinking about the trees and the mountains and just how beautiful forests are (no seriously I think of that a lot) and suddenly I realized that I was RELAXED. I can't even remember the last time I felt relaxed. There's always something wearing on me-- money, school, you know, it's just my personality, I guess, I always kind of get pent up. I wondered, maybe what I have been needing all along to feel good is just to be outside in the beautiful landscape more. I mean, that's why I got into this field in the first place, right? That's why we all do it, on some level. We feel just inherently ill when we can't be surrounded by trees. I am going to try this for a while; taking daily time (not just runs, which are on roads and are good for other reasons) but daily time to just be in the forests and mountains, and more weekend time to travel to the mountains and the sea. If the cure for feeling run down is just living in a beautiful place and enjoying it more, well, that I can do!


Anyway so I will take it as a sign that this was a good thought because I had the most amazing nature experience on the way back. It was really dark and I was driving along the road with a few other cars when suddenly-- wait don't get worried, this is a good story-- suddenly something darted out in the road, but like WAY ahead of me, not where I could hit it. So I stopped and looked and it was an elk. And he just sort of stared and stopped in the road for whatever reason (if there's such a thing as "elk in the headlights" that was this elk). So I was just stopped in the road, watching this elk and he watching me, and then I kind of looked up because it was on a downhill sort of between Toledo and Blodgett, and I saw these white clouds in the sky, almost like city lights, so I was thinking, that's weird, Corvallis is a small city, there's no way it could generate that light. So the elk moved on and I started going again, just watching this white stuff, and eventually there's a part in the road where you go over a pass, which I think is Summit Pass, it's maybe like 1000 feet high? Anyway at the top I could see the white stuff better and I could see what was below it and it was the snowfields on the Cascades. The moon was breaking the clouds in just the right way that the snowfields were glowing so brightly that they were reflecting off the clouds. I mean, you have no idea how magical this was. It's literally pitch black in the coast range, but I know what's around me, and it's this beautiful, dense, epiphytic (moss-covered) doug-fir/alder/western hemlock stand with a babbling creek along the side of the road, and then I'm at the top of one of these mountains and I can see all the way across the valley (although I couldn't really see the valley itself because of the angle and some trees) and you know, probably at least 70 miles away to the first snow cap mountain from there, and they are glowing as bright as say a short of dim blue colored flash light. Also yes, it was a blue glow, the color of a swimming pool or a glacier or something. It was just incredible.


I am so fortunate to live near mountains, especially snowy ones. And I'm so fortunate that my job essentially forces me to be near forested mountains. And sometimes I forget that I am very lucky like that. But the mountains, and the elk, and the trees, and the epic crab, they remind me that this is good.