Photo with President Jackson

I won a fellowship award (two more years without worry of funding!). There was a convocation at RPI. President Jackson really looks like a next door lady. Whenever I see her, I cannot believe that she is such a genius.

First Striped Bass at Hudson

When: June 9th, 2007
Where: Hudson River near Troy dam
Lure: Deep diver (4 inch)

It took a while to catch the first striper. Capt. M is a huge fan of striper, and he brought me to striper fishing on his canoe. Whenever we went out, he caught some, but I didn't. Actually, there was problem of equipment. He used medium or medium-heavy rod with premium reel spooled with braid line. But I used bass rods with 8 pound test line. It may sound excuse, but because we use deep diver at fast current, rod strength is a critical matter. You cannot fully control your crank bait with flexible rod. (But when you use light weighted jig, rod strength is not a matter. I proved it later by catching a striper with my medium power rod)

On the day, I borrowed medium power rod from Capt. M and tied 4 inch deep diver. And finally I caught my first ever striped bass. It was decent but not big one. You can see my head lantern. Night fishing is never easy...

One more comment on fishing at Hudson: There is tide! Usually, at high tide, fishing is better. You can check tide of Hudson at this website:
http://www.hudsonriver.com/tides.htm

Is black less intelligent than white? Genetically? Statistically!

James Watson's racially charged interview is a big issue now. A friend of mine, who studies at Stanford, posted his experience at Dr. Watson's lecture at a bulletin board before. The friend said that he was digressing too much and he seemed not to know what he was saying. He must be too old to be an active scholar. And finally, he made such a mess! Old enough to retire...

I don't know what he found about the issue in genetics. According to news coverage, I highly doubt that he actually did find evidence to support his assertion. I started imagining how economists can handle this topic? If they want, economists probably can seamlessly reached the same result with a plenty of statistical evidence. What I want to say here is that statistics, which is the best tool of economists, is dangerous when it is used without being based on prudent theory. One can easily be deceived by statistics. It is scary. I don't really trust number or statistic result before listening to the theory under the statistical analysis.

My first Walleye

I went to Hudson river for night fishing yesterday. The weather was good and tide was high. We looked for Striper and Walleye. It was slow. I brought two rods. I set one for catfish and the other for Striper. There was weak biting at the catfish rod. That was it for a while. I tried all the variety of baits, including crank (deep and shallow), swim, jig... The first hit came when I use bucktail jig. It was quite close of our canoe. Fighting was not that strong. OMG, it was handsome Walleye!!! It was the fish that originally lured me to start fishing two years ago. Length was about 20 inches. Unfortunately, My scale didn't work at the moment. Even worse, I didn't bring my camera... Too bad. It was such a critical moment in my fishing life, but I could not record it. I was so excited, and I was cramped in the leg. After releasing the beautiful one, I kept casting my bucktail jig. Another hit came, and it was stronger that first one. It was 5 lb12 oz Striper. Also, beautiful one. The climax came, when we decided to leave. After enormous hit my drag started crying. It was Striper! There was nothing but for me to hold my rod tight. It was incredible fight. I tried to reel in, but it resisted like a rock. After several minutes' fighting, eventually the fish came off. I could not land it, but had great sport.

I took pictures of my bucktail jigs which did a great job yesterday when I got back home. Here they are. Of course, no better than fish pictures, they are beautiful, too, aren't they? ^^;


They are small. But I think their tail may exaggerate their action. I retrieved them in faster tempo because of strong current.

IPCC and Al Gore win Nobel Peace Prize

You must be surprsed and a bit cheered by the news, so did I. What an inspiring news for environmental groups it is! I want to point out that it is Nobel " Peace" Prize, not a science one. Still there are many things that scientist community do not know about climate change. I would like to consider the meaning of the prize as the whole global community reached to a consensus about the potential danger of climate change at least. Now, no body does not suspect something goes wrong on this planet. I am so glad to hear about the prize decision. What do you think?

Climate change is clearly related to world peace issue. According to the UN secretariat Ban , Darfur crisis was caused by water shortage, which was believed to be caused by climate change. In some countries, especially poor ones, climate change already seem to be a matter of survival. In this sense, Gore's winning of Peace Prize can be justified.