This week, I had to do some “Out in the field” work which involved me taking pictures of a coworker showing the amount of movement a slow moving landslide had generated on a roadway…. on a scary roadway called Ohio State Route 666….. ooooh spooky! Halloween is around the corner and I was on OH SR 666 for a full day…. isn’t that how bad horror movies start? Anyway… since I was in the field I decided to set up the topic for today’s post to revolve around the idea of “Field of Work.”
Thanks this week go to Chris Corrigan, some other guy, and my wife. Onto the questions!
1. How would you describe your field of work?
Stagnant and unyielding. It is a field of work that is absolutely necessary for the continued use of our crumbling infrastructure, but it leads to nowhere.
2. What are the other fields you are active in and why don’t we describe these also as fields of work?
There are some other fields that I am tangentially associated with, but I find myself hard pressed to claim membership. I love the field of comic book art, but I am woefully under-educated about existing and past artists and writers as well as the over all recent plots associated with current comic book characters. I am on the ball for 80’s and 90’s comic book lore and artists, but when you get away from that my knowledge is rather anemic. Other than that i would say I am an active participant in the field of parenting as well as a wannabe member of the field associated with watching soccer.
3. Have you ever worked in a field?
Nope, that is rather backbreaking work and I seem to be allergic to backbreaking work.
4. Your wife and I worked with some farm workers a few years ago. I think more people need to know what goes on in fields. Cheap food is a bad thing. What say you?
Most cheap things ultimately end up being bad, so cheap food would not surprise me to find out that, overall, it is bad. And honestly, it only takes thinking for less than a second about why cheap food could be cheap for one to realize that cheap = bad for someone.
5. What is the nicest field you have ever played on?
I did not get a chance to play on it, but I got to see and kick a ball on Old Trafford. Other than that I would say the fields my team played on when we went to England were all pretty nice.
6. How large is your “field of view?”
I would say that maybe about 185°. It is far from accurately measured, but staring straight ahead I can see my hands if they are just slightly behind being even with my ears..
7. Is it true that an acre was determined as a unit of measure by the amount of land an ox could plow in a day, or is that apocryphal?
Looking into the history of the acre on Wikipedia it seems that it is not apocryphal. It seems that the acre is an average amount of land a “yoke of ox” could plow in one day.
8. Do you feel that you are an expert in any particular field?
Nope… I used to be, but my skills and knowledge base stagnated in that particular field. People who were students of mine when I was TA’ing their labs are now much more gainfully employed than I am currently. Therefore I am trying to generate some expertise in a new field.
9. Do you feel that you “field questions” on this blog?
I had not thought of that, but, yes, it seems that I do field questions on this blog.
10. Were you ever very good with Field Theory in mathematics?
Nope, couldn’t do field stuff or complex manifolds or tensor sets, or a bunch of that stuff.
11. What field of mathematics would you have followed had you stayed in the field of math?
I would have gotten deep into the nitty gritty of geometric topology, most likely focusing in knot theory. I have to say that I am happy that is not my life.
12. What is the weirdest agricultural field you have ever seen?
Well, “weird” to many would be “normal” to many others because agriculture is primarily a geographic thing. Growing up in Alabama, I saw cotton fields when traveling through the state, while it was not a weird site because it was fairly common, the cotton plant is an oddly weird plant, so while I would say that seeing cotton fields was common if you are in that geography, cotton fields are weird.
13. Have you ever been to the Field Museum in Chicago?
Yes, we went to the Field Museum when the King Tut exhibit was traveling through the US and we happened to be in Chicago for a conference my wife was attending. We had tom truncate our Tut viewing because Little Man wanted to watch the commuter trains and the “Ell” more… even though we had already watched the trains for 3 hours that day. Yes, I am a little bitter.
14. Is there something going on with the Earth’s magnetic field?
Yes, there is always “something” going on with the Earth’s magnetic field, it is a very dynamic and volatile field.
15. Why does “field of work” typically feel rather neutral but “piece of work” feel negative?
I… I… I don’t know… I haven’t thought about that… Is a field better than a piece? Is there a “____ of work that is better than “field” such that the continuum goes from “____” to “field” to “piece?” Crap… I am not sleeping tonight, so much to think about.
16. Have you ever used that overdone joke about cows being “Outstanding in their field?”
I am a dad and therefore have tapped into the field of bad dad humor… of course I have. My 8 year old at the time found it HI-larious.
17. Morphic Fields…. discuss:
Morphic fields seem to be the available capacitance for activity within a subject matter. The example you (my wife) gave me is that a new skill was done in in gymnastics in Russia within a week in a different area of the world, say the USA the same skill was attempted and completed without any cross-pollination of idea or instruction. Similarly, the creation of differential calculus was achieved near simultaneously. I think the concept of morphic fields has to do with critical mass and quantum states. It has to do with things being ready to shift. They often do so simultaneously.
18. What is the least favorite work you do in the field? Most favorite?
I think I enjoy the being out of office most of all, but the actual drive is the part I like the least.
19. What fields of work do you see Little Man and Q going into?
Little Man: I think some kind of engineer, probably leaning towards aerospace
Q: Ninja
20. Did you ever walk through a field and have you stepped in something smelly, squishy, and processed through an animal?
Is this an elaborate question to see if I have stepped in animal poo? Yes, I have, and I did not like it one bit.
To recap:
Not sure how often I will be getting to these for the rest of the semester in my schooling
The class I am in right now is crazy hard
So. Much. Work. To. Be. Done.
So. Little. Time.
I did get an “a” in my last course, so I am still rocking the 4.0
I have also started exercising again
That certainly sucks a big old bag of dicks
I need to get some reading done
Stupid homework! I am 39 GOTDAMNIT!!!! I SHOULD NOT HAVE HOMEWORK WHEN I AM 39
Have a great weekend everyone!