I have really forgotten just how awesome Tacoma is. I knew I missed it, but I had no idea how much. There seems to be so much going on that is new and amazing since I left 7 months ago.

Fresh sea-food a grocery store… being able to wear a t-shirt and a collared shirt outdoors in January, the mist, the sound. Pretty damn perfect place to live. As a enthusiast of all things epicurean, Tacoma is fantastic… and to my great surprise, my favorite bar (which was out of business when I left) has sort of resurrected itself. The cocktails at the Monsoon Room were beautiful works of art, and it was the place that I really had a chance to experience true mixology. 1022 South… in the same building blew me away last night.

I have always been a supporter of the classic cocktail, and many have seen a revival in recent years. 1022 South has an entire section of their menu dedicated to the classics… Old Fashioneds (my personal favorite) Sazarec (now that absinthe is fair-game in the states) and many others… including my favorite drink of the night The Aviation (a take on the classic Aviator). Creme de Violette is what makes this drink… a liqueur made from violet flowers… notoriously difficult to find, but killer. The drink isn’t particularly “wintery”, but it knocked me out.

The bartender… (whose name I unfortunately didn’t catch) is incredibly knowledgeable. The guy is a veritable encyclopedia… and my foodie-perked ears basically exploded when he started describing the merits of kava kava and indian holy basil that goes in the drinks. I love the combination of obscure ingredients, that have cultural significance, great cocktails and brilliant combinations.

Truly, this place is one of Tacoma’s finest, and in my opinion, tops what I thought was un-toppable… the Monsoon Room.

If you’re in T-Town, go here. Seriously. Go right now. Amazing.

SPEW Article on 1022 South

Another SPEW article on 1022 South

Anyway, the point is that the site is getting better all the time, and my favorite new feature is that if you’re inclined towards photography, EOL has made it super easy to contribute photos to their site via Flickr, or through a sweet iphone app.

Anyway, if you get a chance, certainly check EOL out in all it’s glory. It isn’t the tool that it should be yet, but hopefully it will be in the upcoming years.

The Encyclopedia of Life

Check out the Wired Article here, which has links to the primary lit., published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

First up, a bit of music: there is a killer interview with Brent Jensen (some of you may know Brent from the jazz scene around Twin Falls) and Bill Anschell on their amazing duet album We Couldn’t Agree More. You can find it here, at allaboutjazz (a great site to check out if you’re a an avid jazz fan. I recently downloaded the album, and definitely recommend it. The interplay between the two is incredible… the best I can do to describe it is contra-punctual. Seriously though… fantastic stuff. Definitely check it out.

I know the food section of the blog has been a bit lacking lately, but unfortunately, camping all summer doesn’t exactly lend itself to making anything worth mentioning. Freeze-dried mash potatos? Packaged cliff bars? Yum… it’s nice to be back in civilization, but without a well-stocked kitchen, it may be awhile though. However, the parental unit and I are planning on making homemade mozzarella while I am home, so I will definitely post details.

Also, things have been a bit lacking on the science front lately as well (apparently just generally lacking…). There have been a few blips of articles I have read recently that have been interesting, and I will try and add/link them as I find them.

Also, for some more blatant self-promotion, if you haven’t checked out my slideshow of my summer, check it out, along with my pictures, here.

Other than that, keep posted for the next post!

I started off with the 3G (waiting an excruciating year while people touted the sweet original iphone), and this new model I splurged on is an upgrade in every way: faster, better camera (with VIDEO!), and more room. More room was key, as everything was getting a bit cramped on my old, teeny 8-giger. 32 ought to provide plenty of growing room.

Really, the photos look so much better, and the niceties of having a video camera in your pocket at all times are obvious.

Feel free to check out some of the videos I recently shot on my phone on my mobileme gallery here. (Look in the Montana Herp Crew Gallery for videos).

If you’re on the edge of getting an iphone, or upgrading to a 3gs, you will be ecstatic, I promise.

Thanks to everyone who commented and read that last blog entry! It definitely drew some commentary, which is fantastic! Nothing like a good old-fashioned science v. religion debate to get things going.

Anyway, just wanted to let everyone know, there are new photos from my last trip up to the Bob Marshall Wilderness and surrounding area. Also check out my webpage, as it received some minor updates recently. Links below!

Photo Gallery

Webpage

The key point here is that proponents of religion that makes this argument assume that their faith in a deity is the same faith that scientists speak of when they say they have “faith in science” (in all fairness, I think very few scientists would claim to have faith in science… maybe a belief that it can inform our lives in many ways…). There is a big difference between blind faith in something that is by definition unprovable, and a belief in a component of society that can greatly enhance and improve our lives, while increase our understanding of the world around us.

So I suppose the real question that is being addressed here is what exactly is a religion? Is it merely a set of ideals and beliefs that inform an individual’s life, or is it a literal belief in a divine being (or beings) that created and runs the world? Certainly there are people in this world that subscribe to both of these positions, but if religion is merely a set of ideals and beliefs, then cultural and nationalistic behaviors, (and I dare-say capitalism)  could certainly be construed as religious. I think very few individuals would seriously argue that capitalism is a serious religion.

Science certainly does not fall into the 1st category stated above, but do we include it in the 2nd, or is it something else entirely? Certainly science can inform the way we live, and provide a belief system that strives to question things, and have a greater understanding of the world around us, but what it doesn’t do is provide an ethical system. That isn’t say to say that science is inherently immoral, or that we should take a non-ethical approach to scientific research, merely that by definition, science doesn’t provide an ethical framework to live by, whereas religion does.

Whereas proponents of religion are given a moral system and asked to believe in it unquestioningly, atheist scientists are more of the mindset that it it is up to us to define our moral system, and that this requires great care and thought. The difference is a faith in humanity as opposed to a faith in an unprovable god.

But, the bottom line of the argument as to whether science is a religion is that it’s semantics. When a proponent of religion asks a scientists if his faith in science is akin to a religion, he doesn’t understand that the definition of faith means entirely different things to different people.

Also, I should mention that the hog-nose snake (which is rather rare) was totally my find, even though I wasn’t shooting the video or talking. We later found a giganto one, that totally resembled a rattlesnake. It really had me convinced.

Anyway, enjoy the video, and remember to check out my gallery for updated pictures. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about the project, or just comments.

Southeast Montana Herp Video

It really has been an extraordinarily long time since my last post, and so much has happened. What has happened these last few months?

Well, probably the first and and biggest piece of news is that I am currently working in Montana for the summer. Leaving Tacoma (at least for the time being) happened in a whirlwind, and I miss the place constantly, be it the Met, the Proctor Farmer’s Market, all the great people, and yes, even the cloud-cover. But, opportunity knocks, and I moved my stuff out of the house and packed the subaru up for a summer of fieldwork in Montana.

My job is with the Montana Natural Heritage Program, a state program that does a lot of work in monitoring and assessing the status of organisms around the state, as well as a slew of other projects. The field guide that you can use on the site is incredibly useful if you’re interested in the wildlife of Montana, as is the Natural Heritage Tracker program, (which unfortunately doesn’t work yet with Safari or Firefox) which maps sightings of different organisms across the state, and allows anyone to see the distribution of different organisms, and even submit their own sightings!

Bottom line, it is a killer program that the state of Montana is lucky to have, and I have an amazing opportunity to be a part of the work that is being done. Specifically, I am part of a crew that is doing doing amphibian and reptile surveys to get baseline data for the state. Eventually, these data will be used for monitoring, and to assess whether specific organisms deserve different conservation statuses, (i.e. whether or not they belong on the species of concern list for the state or not).

For the past month and a half, we have sort of hopscotched between the southwest and southeast, but most of the time has been in the southeast, which is sort of a black-hole as far as communication via the internet and phone is concerned. The geography is desolate, hot and rugged, but not without beauty, which is mostly in part due to pure lack of humanity. The land we are on is either state-owned, or owned by part of the ranching community that seems to stretch back in time endlessly. You’re out among the cowpies, and it suddenly dawns on you that for the most part, this is a way of life that hasn’t changed too much in the last 100 years or so. There are of course the obvious exceptions, like windmills being replaced by solar panels to drive water up from the depths into stock tanks, but for the most part, life remains unchanged.

There have been some amazing encounters with organisms, including several close-calls with rattlesnakes, which surprisingly are far less aggressive than most people believe. They aren’t these quiet killers that sit and wait for people to approach, so they can inject copious amounts of venom into an unsuspecting ankle. Like most animals that get a bad rap, rattlers are incredible predators, but really don’t want to take on a human if they don’t have to. Believe me, they seem much more content to hide under a giant rock, wiggle their tails to let you know they are there, and not be seen or have to bite a soul. Not only are they not indiscriminate killers, but they are actually quite elegant animals, everything from the vertical pupils, to the heat-detecting pits on their faces, to their almost textile coloration screams that this is a predator, evolved to hunt, and do it with amazing efficiency.

Other highlights have included several encounters with hog-nosed snakes, which are relatively rare, and have shoveled noses that allow them to dig in the dirt and mud to consume toads and frogs that have buried themselves. Milksnakes, the small insectivores that look like the deadly Coral Snake (which strangely, has a range that isn’t even close to Montana) are another fairly rare occurrence, but a treat to find. It is a great moment to lift up a rock and have the the candy-colored curls of Lampropeltis triangulum glinting up at you. Other treats include scorpions, the rare pallid bat, the cute, mini-dinosaur-like Short-Horned Lizard (known to most people as simply a Horny Toad, even though it is not a toad at all).

Currently, I have about a week off, and am home in Idaho enjoying the river, and not hiking 11 hours a day. Feel free to contact me if you have questions about the work I’m doing, or any information on any of the organisms described above. Also, be sure to check out my photo gallery for some fantastic pictures of my travels so far.

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