I've thought about starting a new blog for a while. It seems like it would be nice to have a place to put thoughts and ideas and keep a record. But why start it right now, less than two months away from defending my dissertation?! Sounds like procrastination and a means of wasting time to me. But it was excellent weather when I went running this morning and the trees at the arboretum were inspiring. So here's the new blog.
The first post topic: the blog's name. It was going to be something like "Dave's observations and wild ideas." Then I thought maybe "Dave's observations and crackpot ideas" would be more fitting. This American Life aired a story about a crackpot physicist who knew he was a crackpot but didn't accept it. That could be me; so many crazy dreams and wild ideas, but without the background and experience to make anything come of them. Crackpot.
A few years ago I made a crock-pot dinner for a girl and called to tell her it was ready. In the message I left it sounded like I said, "My crack-pipe is warm and ready to go..." So crackpots and crockpots have an intwined history. I'll go with crockpot.
Crockpot is fitting, too, because here is where I'll put a lot of raw carrots, celery, meat, and potatoes. They will be without form or polish, just the ingredients. Some of them will get drowned out and you'll never know they were ever in the mix. But hopefully some of them will release their flavors over time and become a yummy productive meal.
And the reason this might not be a bad time to begin is that I'm stuck in the doldrums of Science: writing my dissertation. Any new ideas I have must remain unexplored while I tweak all my old ideas and line up all my citations and equations. How is a guy to be creative while he's reading material that he wrote two years ago for the 15th time? Here is my outlet.
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