I will do it anyway

I saw a documentary film about Appalachian trail. I heard before that there were hikers who hiked through the trail from Georgia every season. The trail runs from Georgia to Maine passing through 13 states. I was amazed by scenery of the trail and those hikers. It reminded me my hiking in UK.

When I was staying in London in 1997, I went a trip to South Downs way in southern England by myself. I hiked over the white cliffs and in the middle of pasture. It was February, but it was not that cold. Windy and cloudy though. Typical British winter weather. I met more sheep than people on the way.

Beechy Head & Lighthouse (photo courtesy National Trail, UK)

I stayed one night at Alfriston youth hostel. A manager of the hostel told me that I was the first ever Korean visitor to the remote hostel. Next morning, I visited the beautiful small town while all residents were still sleeping and kept walking my way. I walked from Eastbourne to Brighton. I was lonely on the way. My knees were hurt. At the end, my body pulled my legs. But it was a moving journey. I cannot forget the joy when I finally arrived at Brighton.

The Cuckmere River (photo courtesy National Trail, UK)

One 70 year old hiker in the documentary said, "It is difficult and sweating... But I will do it anyway!" On the South Downs way, I told myself the same thing. Today, I tell myself the same spell again: Journey to Ph.D. is rough, bu I will do it anyway.

If I have a chance in the future, I would love to walk again the South Downs way. I want to see how I grow up standing at the top of white cliff.

Zero Sun-Burn

My goal of this fishing season was zero sun-burn. Sounds not so ambitious? Sun-burn is the most frequent injury that fishermen suffer, and the damage lives long for whole life time. Skin cancer is the ultimate danger of prolonged sun exposure, and skin age is adversely affected by sun-burn. Many anglers do not pay much attention, but sun exposure is clearly dangerous aspect of the sports.

I invested mostly on sun protection this season. Not much on tackles. Here are the items that I used:

1. Strike King polarized sun goggles with strap: I saw Shaw Grigsby wearing this glasses in his fishing show. It satisfies all my needs (1) polarized lenses, (2) strap, (3) goggle. So far I am very happy with this. One drawback is that sometimes lenses get foggy.
   
   
2. Columbia Performance Fishing Gear (PFG) UPF 30+ hat: One with neck drape. I could not find exact picture of the product. Here is a picture look like mine. Neck drape did not make me feel warm. The opposite. One drawback is that it looks not cool. My fishing buddies complained about my appearance... It is hard to become a fashionable angler.
   
3. Buff: It is a simple fabric product. I bought this for face protection. It is a very versatile gadget. I used this more for wind proof. When I covered my face sunny day, it did protect me from the sun, but it made me sweat while I was paddling. Not so comfy. When I was doing still fishing at bank under the sun, it definitely helped. I strongly recommend this for other anglers, not for sun protection but for wind protection and keeping you warm.
   
   
4. Field & Stream Long Sleeves Fishing Shirts: I did not believe that there are shirts exclusively for fishing. All fabric provides reasonable UV protection. The thing that makes this shirts exclusively for fishing is that this shirts keeps your cool under the sun while providing sun-protection. I was amazed. This shirts has good ventilation, and the nylon fabric wicks off moisture from your skin. I like this shirts.
   
   
5. Alpine Design Convertible Outdoor Pants: After buying the fishing shirts, I decided to give a shot to fishing pants, too. Again, the pants was very satisfying. This pants is not designed exclusively for fishing but provides the same benefits. I can convert it to shorts, but I have never done it. Because this pants made me cool enough; I did not need shorts.
   
   
6. Facial Sun Block with SPF 55: I used Neutrogena Age Shield Face. No special reason to pick this product.
   
7. Body Sun Block with SPF 50: I used Coppertone Sport. Again, no special reason. It might be the cheapest.

Disappointingly, I didn't take a picture while I was wearing all of these items. I just took a picture at home. Not a good one, but to give you an idea about all of these, here it is.

Not so cool. But it is better than suffering sun damage from my favorite sports.

Windows 7 and Open Office

I bought Windows 7 with student discount from Microsoft ($30, professional edition). Although I am comfortable with XP, I did not want to lose my last opportunity of the student discount event. I have been hearing all good review of Windows 7. So, I will eventually move to Windows 7. But my top concern is compatibility with Open Office. Currently I use Open Office Version 3.1.1. I checked the compatibility at OpenOffice. org and found that version 3.2 would be fully compatible with Win 7. Someone commented that version 3.1.1 would work fine under Win 7, but there could be stability issues.

Hm, stability... I am not so sure if it is right timing for me to move. I will take some time. The blue box of Windows 7 is sitting on my desk and luring me, 'install me, install me'

Graph presentation? Need help!

I am working on my dissertation. There is no economics dissertation without graphs. Economists love graphs! So, I am putting many graphs. Decomposition results are hard to present. I found this bar and line graph style was the best. If you know better one or have any other suggestion, please let me know. One of my problem is that there are so many decomposition factors (26). Some of them are zero and meaning less. But still many, as you can see. This graph is auto-generated by open office calc. Unfortunately, there are color code overlapping. I can customize color code, but it is not easy task. I have many graphs, I have to keep same color code for all the graphs...

By the way, a bit explanation of the graph. Blue total line shows change of total demand for gasoline. Orange change line shows change of difference between total demand for gasoline of two terms. Bar shows decomposition factors.

Computer Upgrade

After eight years with my beloved Pentium 4 system, I finally upgraded my computer. P4 with 1G memory was (and is still) fine for everyday computing. But for my simulation and modeling, it reached its limit. No, indeed my patience reached the limit: it took more than 10 minutes for the P4 system to simply open my data file, which is about 10 MB in size.

What I got?

1. CPU- Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 2.66GHz
   Originally, I was thinking i7, but it was too much for me.
2. Memory- Kingston 2 G
   I was considering 4G, but 32 bit OS cannot recognize 4G. I will upgrade it later when I have Windows 7.
3. Motherboard- ASUS P5KPL-CM
   I have used Intel board, and wanted to use ASUS board. This board is one of the cheapest. Now, I slightly regret about this board because of all the problems that this caused to me.
4. Hard drive- Seagate Baracuda 500GB SATA
   I didn't plan to replace my old 40G IEDE drive. But somehow, new board could not recognize it. So, I had to replace it. 500G is too big to me.
   
5. Case- In-Win Z583 350w
   Because new board is micro ATX, I bought this at a local store. To be honest, I was kinda fed up with ugly outlook of old middle tower case.
   

So far, I am quite satisfied with the new system. Now, it took only 1 minute to open my data file. It took less than one minute to boot and shut down! Amazing to me. By the way, I am still using the same monitor, keyboard and mouse. Should reduce electric waste.

Well, faster computer cannot guarantee better research, but at least it can reduce stress level. That's what I appreciate.

My uncle

My uncles love fishing. I might be influenced by them about fishing, although I have had no chance to go fishing with them. Now I can say that I am a decent angler, but compared to my uncles, I look like a bait fish angler. One of the uncles, who is my favorite, is particularly a die-hard fisherman. Here are two picture that he took in Panama.


Yellow fin tuna. I didn't ask about how the taste was.


Marlin! The dream fish of all anglers. I am so jealous. Someday maybe, or never.

Superfreak Controversy

Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's new book, Superfreakonomics is out and igniting some heated discussion. If you are not familiar with this, you can catch up with some blog posts below.

Their key argument is;

'Because reducing carbon emissions is too costly and somewhat not-so-feasible, instead let's try geo-engineering to solve the problem of climate change effectively.'

Their points are well taken. But they are missing one important thing, the big picture. The reason why many insist to reduce carbon emissions, not only because of the climate change, but also because of fossil fuel exhaustion (although it is not near future). These two issues always come together like twins. I wonder what they will respond to the question of running out of fossil fuel on earth.

Final thought. Levitt argues,

"~reducing carbon emissions, which is that it requires worldwide behavioral change, which will be hard to achieve."

You may be right. But isn't it the very topic that economists have to research on, how to cause behavioral changes in market through various incentives or penalties while minimizing adverse effects?



You can explore these blogs for more information.

Climate Progress

Krugman

DeLong

Union of concerned scientists

Marginal Revolution

Freakonomics blog

The Wonk rook

(Thanks to Carlos, who put these together)