Thanksgiving Memories: The Good, the Bad, and the Tasty

If your family is anything like most middle class families, you annually gather with your family to spend your holidays gorging on incredibly delicious (but fattening) foods a loving relative spent hours preparing. Usually the delectable treats quickly disappear in a nearly infinite vacuum of distended stomachs and elastic pants, before the post-feast fun and family together-time begins. You enjoy some football, or a movie with the family, before heading to bed to get up and head out to Black Friday for the best supposed “Holiday” sales. In any case, it's probably a nice time of year.

Personally, I'm not usually a holiday person. Frankly I'm also not much of a shopper, either. Judging from these and many other factors, it probably seems like the whole Thanksgiving thing must be lost on me.

Luckily, it's not.

When I was growing up, every year my family headed to my grandparents' house to catch up with cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents for a few hours before eating the incredible foods my grandmother managed to cook in prodigious quantities. After eating our own body weights in stuffing, potatoes, and perfectly tender turkey we'd all slowly meander out of the dining room and sit down in the den, where the uncles watched football with Grandpa. My cousins, siblings, and I would run around in the back yard or pretend to know the rules to billiards as we shot pool in the basement. Family time would commence until it got late enough for everyone to either head to bed or drive home, depending on how far away each family unit lived.

Thanksgiving was a chance to say hello to family, eat wonderful food, and take a break from the impending Midwest winters. It was a chance to remember that you are connected to people all around the country. Thanksgiving gave my extended family a chance to get together for restful and loving family fun.

They all look so happy! (Yes, it's from television, because
it's hard to actually find happy thanksgiving pictures!)

Now, if I were to be totally honest, I'd admit that getting together for the holidays is also sometimes less than fun. I'd tell the story of when my brother and sister got stomach aches from the food one year and got sick in the car. Or I'd tell the story about the year I got sick within minutes of getting to my grandparents' house, and spent the rest of Thanksgiving in a bathroom. Hell, if I wanted to focus on the negative, I'd talk about how it's impossible to get the family together without someone saying something racist, sexist, or some other form of bigoted enough for the politically correct factions of the family to correct them until an argument breaks out.

In fact, if I'm being honest, it's easy to see why lots of BAD things are associated with holdays too. Suicide, depression, all the nasty junk that comes along with winter also happens to coincide with Holidays. It's easy to get cynical and pessimistic as the holidays approach. I mean, how many television shows have used the stereotypical “Families fight during the holidays” joke to fill an episode or two a year? Or how many procedural crime dramas have had someone die during the holiday rush, only to spend a full episode focusing on the dangers of “Black Friday” shopping?

Nothing says "Happy holidays" like getting trampled
to death buying a new video game console!

I choose to focus though, on the positive, and I hope you do too. As Thanksgiving approaches, focus on the time you get to spend with your parents. Focus on the time you get to spend with siblings. Focus on the feeling of thankfulness you have instead of the 50% off deals at the nearest outlet store in the morning. Instead of worrying that another helping of stuffing will be against your diet plans for the week, take a moment to look around at what you've accomplished in 2012, and what you hope to accomplish in 2013. Take a moment, this thanksgiving, to legitimately give thanks.

In that spirit, I'd like to close today's post with a list of the things I'm thankful for this past year.

My family (Minus my brother, he's taking the picture
....and might kill me if I put his picture on my blog)

MY LIST OF THANKFULNESS:

• I'm thankful for another year of graduate school finished. I'm 3 semesters in and hoping to finish in 2 more.
• I'm thankful for my siblings, both my dour and sometimes gruff Army Ranger brother (he means well!) to my bubbly and energetic musician of a sister (who to this day calls me by a silly but endearing childhood nickname).
• I'm thankful for my parents, and the help they offer their friends and family in terms of every kind of support they offer us. They're truly wonderful parents, and I'm fortunate to have them.
• I'm thankful for the experiences I've had in Alaska: Life is tough in the frozen north, but it's also something of a gift. Nowhere else I've lived has offered me so many unique opportunities, from skiing to fleeing from a rutting moose.
• I'm thankful for my readers, you guys have been great. I only started this blog back in late winter and early spring, and we're up to over a thousand views each month! You guys are wonderful, and I appreciate you a great deal. 
• And a WHOLE LOT more!

Enjoy the holiday, and check back for more BB+B goodness soon!
Thanks,
Brian, the Author Guy.

Check out other fun stories from BB+B, such as "Shut Your Trap and Sing!" and "Beards are Beautiful."

Too Cold VS. Too Hot: Let's Compare

Everywhere in the world small talk is the same: You whine about the weather.

Let's examine a stereotypical conversation about the weather, overheard between "Norman Normal" and "Allen Average", who can be from anywhere at all but still sound the same.

It starts with the cliche, "Crazy weather we've been having, right?" and is followed by the response, "Well, you know what they say:  (Location anywhere on planet Earth) has unpredictable weather. If you don't like it, wait an hour, it'll change! Weather man is always wrong!"
Someone tries to spice the discussion up with a complaint: "I hate either the winter or summer here, it's too cold or hot!"  Everyone agrees, with the caveat that, "Sure, but whichever of those two seasons you didn't mention is great!"

And there you have small talk in every country on the planet.

It's either too hot or too cold, damnit!
Or if you're in the Midwestern US, it's both.

I've lived and worked all around the country. In Texas and Alaska, Indiana and California the same conversations played out every single day, all year long, no matter where I've been.

In the defense of southerners, in my experiences Texas can be unbearably hot.  At 110 degrees some days during the summer, it's 20 to 30 degrees too hot for comfort (assuming that around 65-85 degrees F is comfortable for most people). It never goes below 80 in August, and every southerner spends their days sipping iced tea and wishing for winter to return.

Texans generally argue they're just as 'hot' as Alaska is 'cold'

I'd like to now compare that problematic heat to problematic cold, and make a nice statement about how it's always going to be too hot for some and too cold for others.  But I can't compare southern heat and northern cold. They're not comparable.

I've lived in both places, and Texas heat and Alaskan cold aren't even in the same league. Alaska isn't 20 or 30 degrees too COLD for comfort like Texas is 20 or 30 degrees too hot.  It's 100 degrees, or more with the wind chill. I live in Fairbanks, and we know what cold can really mean.

Winter here isn't short like southern summers.  Sure, 4 months or even 5 in a bad year of 90+ degrees must be tough but imagine instead that it was 8 or 9 months, from September through May. Maybe you'll be on the right track to understand Alaskan winters.

What I know is that supposedly 110 degrees is 'unbearably hot'.  So what's the 'unbearable' cold comparison?  Realize that I have regularly worked at my job outdoors at -50 degrees Fahrenheit, with a personal record of -95 windchill. That's 160 DEGREES TOO COLD FOR PERSONAL COMFORT, not 30 degrees too hot. 

For Texas to be as hot as Alaska is cold, the equivalent disparity would require Texas to easily boil water all summer (Texas would have to be around 245 degrees).  Clearly, we're not talking about the same thing when we complain about weather anymore.

It's a school tradition to strip to your skivvies at -40.  The Texas Equivalent would have to be wearing long johns, 4 layers of sweaters, snow-pants and a snowsuit inside a boiling hot Sauna. I doubt that's a U of Texas tradition.

So, please everyone listen:  Stop thinking that where you live is 'too hot' or 'too cold'.  The odds are that it's not that bad.

As winter approaches, my family and friends load their facebooks with complaints about the weather. "It's freezing outside!" and "BRRRR, I'm not going outside until spring!" were two helpful statuses this morning that I looked at while watching my Thermometer waver between -20 and -30 for the third week in a row.

In fairness, during this past summer I complained about the 90 degree days where I worked outside on my research projects in safety gear (2 layers of non-breathable plastic to prevent pesticides and chemical treatments from getting on my skin). To make amends for my unfair complaint about heat, I hereby apologize to my southern brethren. I should have realized that 90 degrees in safety gear is hot, but nowhere near as hot as 110 or even 120 in some places down south.

In exchange for my apology, though, I expect you to give me the same sort of respect. Don't complain about 40 degrees.  That's not even freezing yet. Don't complain about 30.  That's practically summertime for Alaska.  Don't even complain about 0 degrees, that's just not going to cut it.

If you want to complain about cold, it has to be at least "Alaska cold".  The idea of "Cold" stopped at -20 degrees.  Now, it's "Alaska cold".  And Alaska is frigid, and icy, and perhaps even glacial.  Frankly, it's arctic and sub-arctic and down right colder than a hug from an ex-girlfriend at her wedding. It's so cold your eyes can ice open and your car's gasoline freezes solid.

So the next time someone tries to whine about the weather when we make small talk, I'm not going to accept their complaint, and respond in kind. Instead, I'm going to give them a long and verbose lecture about what "Cold" really means.  How about instead, we all try something else out as a topic for small talk.  Sports teams?  Politics? Skip the small talk all together? 

I don't really care any way you go, so long as it avoids complaining about the weather. I assure you, I'm well aware of the cold weather. You don't need to bring it up.

I know it's cold...no need to tell me.

Thanks for reading guys!  Have a great week!
-Brian, the Author Guy.

If you want to check out other stories and posts on BB+B, check out "Fat People Have Superpowers"
 or "Kid Rules to Improve the World"


The idea for this post was inspired by Allie Brosh's HILARIOUS post on her well-known comedy blog "Hyperbole and a Half" where she redefined the pain-scale used by doctors.  It's hilarious, and you should go check it out. 

How I Lost the Ultimate Rivalry

When I was younger, I had a best friend.  He's asked not to be mentioned by name, so I'll simply refer to him as Luigi, the counterpart to my own identity in this analogy as Mario.

We're like this, except we also sort of hate each other.
No, wait, that's probably true in Mario too.

Luigi and I have always been rivals.  It's not a purposeful rivalry, but it is a sincerely felt contention between the two of us. We've been competing since we met.  I liked to sing, but Luigi did too.  I liked video games, and Luigi had his own gaming passions.  In anything I excelled, Luigi was right at my level, or close enough in skill to be basically indistinguishable. We were two very competitive peas in a winner-take-all pod.

In high school, I was simply better than Luigi.  I didn't know him as well then as I do today, but we were at least friendly enough to be rivals of a sort. If he got a minor role in a play, I got a slightly larger one.  When he became the head of his high school choir's bass and tenor sections, I became a TA to my school's freshmen choir. When he took 4 advanced placement courses, I took 5. When we reached ahead for college, I was certain I had secured my place as the proper Mario of the story.

Luigi, strangely, seemed to agree.

I went to DePauw University in Indiana, a top tier little liberal arts college, while Luigi went to a state school, larger in size but lesser in prestige.

Doesn't DePauw just scream "Quaint but still academically serious"?

I double majored in English and Biology and grabbed a minor in Philosophy.  I held down multiple work-study and part-time jobs, helped run a fraternity, and managed to get out with a reasonable GPA. Luigi changed his major 5 times, got a mediocre GPA, and had nothing else going on outside of his schoolwork. I was certain I was ahead.  I was winning the rivalry, and there was little chance of that changing.

I headed off after graduation to Graduate school here in Alaska.  I spend my time doing research or class work, or teaching undergraduates the basics of biology as a TA.  I spend my time often facing the most beautiful nature the country has to offer here in the frigid north, and I take regular pictures of the caribou, moose, or auroras that let Luigi know that my experience is impressive, and worthy of praise. 

Luigi headed off to a mediocre job as a pharmaceutical lab technician, after finally choosing pre-med as a major but failing to get into medical schools anywhere in the country.  I was ready to declare myself eternal champion when I found that out, but held off for reasons unknown.

That crappy job Luigi had after graduating?  It was working on medicine to deal with allergies, nothing special or exciting.  Luigi got fired within a month or two of starting his work, and had to find another lab-tech job somewhere else. So, he applied at a dozen or more places, was regularly turned down month after month, until last month when he finally (a year after trying to find a job) was hired.

Luigi is now helping a research team that is working on a treatment for a specific form of pediatric cancer.

Suddenly 'Alaska' seems strangely boring and mundane.

Now, every time I talk to Luigi, he gets to end the call with a winning statement.  "Anyhow," he'll say, his voice dripping with a braggart's self-importance, "I have to run."

As I'm obligated to do by the rules of our rivalry, I will ask the question I don't want to ask, "Oh, where are you headed?"

Luigi will take a second and breathe deeply, savoring his victory.  I can almost hear his face contorting wickedly and yet happily as he then breathily lets out a simple reply. "I'm off to help cure pediatric cancer," and like the glorious bastard he is, he'll end the call with another prod at my ego, and end saying, "so enjoy the snow and moose of Alaska!  Got to run, though, because that cancer isn't going to cure itself."  Luigi then hangs up the phone and leaves me to think.

I think I hate him, but I also think...Luigi is winning. He isn't doing important research himself.  he basically cleans the test tubes and sample dishes, and occasionally he gets to hand someone important and educated a tool they'll use in their own work.  He doesn't understand much of the science he's doing, and he has no idea how anything he does benefits the research team.  But that's not important.  The important thing is that Luigi is working on the team.  While my research might help some animals and a few people, and might have implications about changing climate, all I can say is that my immediate work is towards a graduate degree.  All I can say is that I'm on an adventure in Alaska.  Luigi gets to say he works to cure cancer.  And not just any cancer, he works to cure cancer in children, the most emotionally gripping of all cancers.

So today, I admit defeat.  I don't imagine myself ever discovering something so profoundly important in nature that I will be able to defeat Luigi's claim to fame.  I don't think I will be able to win this rivalry, unless he gets fired.  Even if he does, I won't be allowed to gloat because that's just one less person working on a cure for cancer, and that's not something to celebrate.

Today, I step out of the ring.  It might not be my favorite ending, but the conclusion has come nonetheless. If I argue or fight, I still lose, because I'm arguing or fighting with someone who is trying to cure cancer. It's too serious for me to joke about and too emotional for me to ignore.  I'm forced to withdraw from the competition, unable to see where we eventually might go.

Congratulations Luigi: Today, you get to finally be Player 1.  Today, Luigi gets to be Mario.

Congratulations, you S.O.B.

Thanks for reading!  If you enjoyed, check out other stories in the column to the right.
Leave a comment or question below and I'll get back to you! 
Sincerely,Brian, the Author guy

Unleash the Nerd Within

When I was in middle school and high school, I was regularly teased for being a nerd. Heck, I'd bet that most of us were teased as kids and even young adults, and taught that being a nerd or anything remotely related to one ("dweeb", "dork", "geek" etc) was a bad thing. It makes kids everywhere feel embarrassed and ashamed.

People who openly identify as nerds feel pretty differently about the title. To us, being a nerd means being single-mindedly focused, aggressively passionate about a specific subject or two, and being intelligent. Not exactly a bad identity to hold on to.

Maybe those 2 conflicting opinions explain why the top two definitions for nerd are:
1) "A foolish or contemptible person who lacks social skills or is boringly studious"
and
2) "An intelligent, single minded expert in a particular technical discipline or profession."

Today we change the order of the two definitions above.  Today, we redefine the term.  Today, the nerds of the world take control over our own destiny.

Let's show the world why people like these guys are incredible

Taking control of the word, and learning to be proud is very simple.  All you need to do is unleash the nerd within.  Let him or her out of the cage.  Read your favorite book, or go to your favorite comic shop, or re-watch your favorite movie.  Stop feeling embarrassed about your favorite nerdy hobby and start flaunting it.

Nerds are the luckiest people on Earth. They know what they like and have friends who share their interests. Nerds are more interested in why Bill Nye chooses a bow-tie than why Kim Kardashian is still famous.  Nerds ignore the antics of the 'Jersey Shore' cast, except to wonder about the long term consequences of so much skin tanning. We can all agree that's a good thing.

This meme popped up and all I could think was:  Wow, nerds made the right choice.

Unleash the nerd within.  Watch 'Firefly', instead of 'Honey-boo boo'. Read Tolkien, not Palin.  Study how the universe works, and learn every damned thing you can about every damned interesting subject you can get your hands on. Find what you love, and stick to it like a leech (of the family Hirunidea, because my own nerd-specialty is Biology).

When I was growing up I was embarrassed to be a nerd.  I played video games non-stop, but pretended I was interested in football.  I read books so obsessively, my parents had to take away my flashlights so I'd go to bed before midnight. But I grew up and out of that fear.  I let my nerd-hood carry me to a great college, double majors, and a minor.  My nerd-hood made me study seals and sea lions on a tropical island. Admitting and accepting my nerd-hood let me do incredible, fun, and exciting things. I sincerely hope that being a Nerd helps you to do the same.

Not to be cliche, but: Some men just want to watch the world learn.

Unleash the nerd within.  You'll be amazed how cool being uncool can be.

Regional Stereotypes: Uncomfortably Accurate

When I was growing up, I remember hearing all the stereotypes imaginable about different places in the United States.  I was taught them mostly out of a need to communicate how much a given individual felt disdain for other individuals.  "That's a bible belt-er, you can tell because he's both fat and angry" and "That guy sounds pretty pretentious.  How much do you want to bet he's from New York?"

By the time I was a teenager, I was pretty convinced I had the rest of the country figured out: Texas was full of rednecks, the east coast were all a bunch of angry liberals with high minded ideals and a fascination with pretentious art, the west coast was full of hippies and stoners, and the midwest was full of corn, alcoholics, and people who weren't Christian enough to stay down south but still wanted to be religious. 

I'd like to mention that this is also how most presidential campaigns seem to view the US.
And was probably drawn by someone from California.

You'll notice, of course, that Hawaii and Alaska aren't even pictured in the above picture. Now, if they were, they'd probably be labeled 'Asians and surfing' and 'Eskimos and Discovery Channel TV series' respectively. Maybe just 'Where people honeymoon' and 'Crab Fishermen'. 

So, when I grew up I liked to apply these ideas to how I saw people living.  People in the midwest, northeast, and Alaska understood winter. People in the south probably didn't go outside for their entire summer out of fear of dehydration.  People in the west were either too cowboy to care or too high to notice (I imagined that as you went from the center of the US westward you basically were traveling along a gradient of pot-smoking culminating in California).  When I headed off to college I got to know a lot of people from very different parts of the country and even globe, and I started to try to apply my prejudices accordingly. 

After having now spent at least some time in most areas of the country, it turns out that while I was not wholly accurate, I certainly was not far from the truth. 

It turns out that the south really doesn't go outside during much of summer.  My family in Texas describes a Texan summer as roughly as enjoyable as a steam bath on Mercury (That's hot, by the way). Growing up in Illinois taught me that yes, Chicago politics are pretty crooked.  When I worked in Wisconsin, people really were oddly possessive and proud of their cheese.  Working in California legitimately involved watching people giggle and roll in the sand while seals and sea lions frolicked merrily in the water.  Here in Alaska, it's -25 by the end of October and getting frostbite isn't so much a possibility as it is a likely event.  All of my assumptions were pretty much true.

The problem is, I was taught that stereotypes are bad.  Sure, I was taught that in the context of 'Don't be racist' and 'don't be sexist', but it seemed to be a pretty good lesson in the rest of my life too.  I was told over and over that if I was stereotyping I was being unfair. Even today I try to pretend that when I visit Texas that I'm not surrounded by dangerously conservative Christian zealots.  I try to pretend that my friends from Minnesota aren't so nice they're practically doormats (SIDE NOTE: It must be amazing to live in a state where the main stereotype is they're tough as nails and friendlier than a care bear).  

However as the election season progressed and I saw how my friends lined up politically, I was un-surprised. Frankly, I was bored by it.  Even my previously middle-of-the-ground family in Texas started showing signs of oddly aggressive conservatism.  Suddenly my regional stereotypes map started to shift towards a more politically oriented bias, instead of merely looking at weather and demeanor.

This one included Alaska and Hawaii because I now have lived in Alaska and understand it much better.

I hope that this realization doesn't offend too badly.  In truth, I know that these are just stereotypes, and individuals vary wildly within even closely similar political groups.  I know that Illinois is more than a single city, and I know that Tennessee is more than alcohol and poverty.  But I also know that, as election season has trudged on, each state has done an admirable job of being exactly what you expect it to be if you're using a stereotype. 

In the end of 2012, and as we head into 2013, I'm going to be very interested in seeing how the recent political strife affects our country.  I am interested in understanding, for example, why Arizona suddenly seems more racist than I remember when growing up (When I was a kid, my grandfather who lived in Arizona was pretty darned tolerant....so was he the exception to the rule, or did Arizona change?).

In 2013 we're going to have a lot on our plates. Climate change is going to get bigger in our minds because, well, it's becoming more apparent.  The strife generated by this election cycle is going to stir up change.  And if we're lucky, it might even break some of the stereotypes.  After all, in 2008 Indiana voted blue.  Maybe by 2016 their stereotype won't be 'corn and poverty'.  Maybe, JUST MAYBE, it could be 'Corn, Poverty, and Education' or something nice like that. 

I don't know about you, but when I look at the stereotype map and don't see places known for 'education' or 'friendliness' or 'accepting other people', I look at a map I'd like to see change.  

Except for Minnesota.  They're pretty good already. 

Thanks for reading.  Check out some other fun thoughts on BB+B like "What The Hell Happened To Republicans" and "Kid Rules to Improve the World"

Thanks for reading!
Brian, the Author Guy