Geocaching...

Or, The Hobby That's Trying to Take Over

With my help, of course.
So, a month or so ago, I got Mike into geocaching. Now he's hooked, and even has a cache by the school. A new listing for Inner Space came up, so I HAD to go get it. Nick and Brian were heading out to do some errands, so I decided to tag along, since we all were going in the same general direction. We got to talking about various forms of seizure disorder that Brian might have along the way, and before you know, we were there. Searched for a bit, and then Brian says, "Hey, guys..." and holds up a peanut butter jar full of cool stuff... with a sprinkler system vent cap on top. He then lets out a whoop, and we sign the log and trade.
Yes, a sprinkler system vent cap. It was in the ground in a section of PVC pipe. I can't make this stuff up!
Nick says he's going to be an evil cache placer now... and I, for one, believe him!

Squamous and Rugose

Or, What Statistical Physics Really Is

To quote the great Samuel Langhorn Clemens, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics."
That's the problem with statistical physics. It's a system that's totally artificially generated to give you certain predictable results out of the chaos of reality.
This explains why, in the middle of Dr. Buna's Mathematical Methods in Physics class, I pulled out my pocket notebook and wrote in it, "This isn't Physics; it's the third kind of lie."
And showed it to Nick.
Who glared at me and made gestures meaning to pay attention to Dr. Buna.
Some people have no sense of humor.

On Potentiometers

Or, Why Nick Was Once Called Cheech

One day, during the Fall 2005 semester, Nick and Keith were working on a project in Dr. Anderson's Analog Electronics class. Nick has never had that much luck with discrete analog components, and this day was no exception. In fact, I'd smelled just a few fried LEDs from all over the room, but across the bench from me, they were cooking up the greatest batch that day. Nick hooked up a potentiometer, supposedly to delimit the potential on one of these very LEDs. Apparently the power supply didn't like him that day, for as I watched in horror and disbelief, the back of it lit up red, and burst into flames. Mind you, Nick was still holding the control stub of the potentiometer at this point, so I shouted, "Nick!" and shut down the power supply. He's all like, "What'd you do that for?" and goes to touch the potentiometer. "No!" I say. "It was just on fire!" "Oh."
Dr. Anderson is attracted by the fuss. "What's the matter, Nick?"
"Well, I just smoked the pot."
Somewhere, a pin dropped.
Everyone looked at each other in complete and utter silence, and then, exactly four seconds later, burst out laughing simultaneously.
"Good job, Cheech!" I declared, to redoubling laughter.