Tag: Travel

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Aesthetics Culture Travel

Day 1970 and Slowpokes Get Out of The Passing Lane

Everyone goes at their own pace. True for kids, organizations, nation states and Americans on road trips. I don’t like to be rushed anymore than anyone else. I probably dislike it more honestly. I take my time with almost everything.

But I understand that I need to get out of the way of someone who wants to go faster than me. I let folks going at a faster pace enjoy the right of way. I’ll encourage them to accelerate by getting out of the way.

It seems I am a bit unusual in this self awareness when it comes to sharing our transportation paths. Maybe I get it from learning to drive on mountain roads where one unaware driver can slog traffic for hours. Or maybe it was reinforced during years of city living where slow walkers are punished with jostling and cussing. “Get out of the f*cling way you damned tourist!”

But America’s interstate system carries travelers of all kinds from all nations. Especially on a long holiday weekend like one.

Interstate 15 run 1,433 miles long from end to end. Starting in San Diego at the Mexican border and ending in Sweet Grass Montana where it turns into Highway 4 in Canada it covers a lot of different terrain.

I did the Montana through Idaho to Utah portion which is pretty much straight through. It is roughly 558 miles from my home in Montana to the Utah San Rafael Energy Lab in Emery County) and much of that distance is a straight line on I-15 through 3 states.

Montana’s scenic routes merging to I-15

That means I’ve driven over a thousand miles this week. Welcome to the summer amirite?Even if you take a detour for the scenic routes through Yellowstone, or pop up to Deer Valley in Park City like I did, you are running about a third of the route of one of our greatest roads.

I law a lot of misunderstanding of the manners involved in using the left passing lane and the right merging lane. The right lane or lane #2 is for merging onto the highway, exiting, and driving at or below the average speed. Slower traffic must stay here. The left lane or lane #1 is for passing traffic. In some states, cruising in the left lane is illegal and can result in traffic fines.

This system is now how one is meant to aid the smooth flow of motor vehicle traffic on our interstates. And boy I saw a lot of misunderstanding of the manners of this system.

Utah Bluffs

I saw a cop have to ride the butt of an old couple going 50mph in a 75 express lane before he gave up and flashed his lights. They still didn’t yield.

I saw a pile up of 20 plus cars behind a struggling 4 wheeler who inexplicably wouldn’t budge from the passing lane even when he could have gone to the right.

I saw a pair of motorcyclists dodging and weaving between left and right lanes around motorists as they raced each other, several times swerving back and forth around our Subaru. Heck I even saw a tricked out rice rocket style Subaru barrel through the interstate that runs through Idaho Falls.

So please if you take to our fine interstate roads this weekend please remember to stay in your lane. That’s not a metaphor. I mean it literally. And if that’s not for you maybe consider another mode of transportation? You can do 500 miles like Arlo Guthrie that way. Every native son knows the tune.

Good morning, America, how are you?
Say, don’t you know me? I’m your native son
I’m the train they call the City of New Orleans
I’ll be gone 500 miles when the day is done. – City of New Orleans

I will say I’m glad to be home safe and sound in Montana. We took a detour and added a day for our adventures to Valar after our fancy conference and I am sure glad we did. But it’s nice to celebrate the official kick off to summer in my own backyard. I’ll be back on the road soon enough.

Coming up home through Yellowstone
Categories
Startups Travel

Day 1969 and A Very Nice Day

I am in the middle of the Utah desert returning from a site visit to Valar Atomics. If you have the means to tour a nuclear facility I highly recommend it. It is so choice. That’s Ferris Bueller for the Zoomers.

I’ll use another choice line from the John Hughes classic to illustrate how gratifying it has been to drive a remote Utah town for a chance to see our investment in action.

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. – Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

We hadn’t planned to drive down to the Ward 250 facility after Abundance Institute’s Operation Gigawatt. Life is busy, it’s a holiday weekend, I’m flying out to part unknown from Montana in two days.

But what’s another three hours on the open road when there is one of America’s sustainable energy labs and a tour from your favorite engineers on offer? Yes they are all working this weekend. They have a deadline for July 4th that’s pretty important. It’s crazy that this wasn’t in my itinerary in the first place if I’m honest. What a way to kickstart the summer.

Getting up close to “our” reactor is a privilege I never conceived of experiencing. I’ve been lucky enough to invest in some very cool things over the years, but to actually place a bet on a serious industrial effort and have my choice end up at the forefront of a major national push for nuclear energy? Not a thing I saw coming.

So in the hustle of the moment, I am glad to slow down and admire that it is actually possible to do things. That’s a very nice day to have. Yes that’s a Day 69 joke.

I’ll treasure this moment forever. Even if we fail, at least we tried. And who wouldn’t want to put yourself on the line and try when it’s something that matters this much? So we speed up to slow down and see. Because it’s true if you don’t you might just miss it. So yeah it was a nice day.

Utah desert near sunset.
Categories
Politics Travel

Day 1967 and Up In The Air Boss Don’t Care

Will you spare a prayer for the pitiable management class as they fly back and forth on their jets from capital to capital in the hopes of securing any kind of policy that remains in place long enough to do planning? No, I didn’t imagine you would. But maybe you should.

I’m not in anyone’s C-suite and I’d be surprised if I ever am. Being the CEO of even a small privately held company isn’t a great deal of fun. The burden of a fiduciary duty can clash with your instincts as a human.

Working with founders who have these obligations is largely an exercise in providing psychological safety so they can see the truth their hearts don’t want their eyes to see.

But I don’t expect anyone who hasn’t had to shoulder the burden of stewarding resources responsibly and profitably to be sympathetic. People who leverage collective resources to build something that is more than the sum of its parts may only think only of their part.

Still I’d hope anyone who is a parent has experienced the basics of it. Someone relies on you for their needs. Imagine it’s not just your immediate family but workers, investors and customers all demanding that their needs be met.

This isn’t meant to be mere apologetics aside, I feel bad for the technology executives who were told to show up in Washington D.C today for a last minute executive order from the president on artificial intelligence. Only hours before they were told actually it’s off sorry. The ones who could make it had already made the trip for a ceremony in which they were meant to smile and nod in obeisance to Leviathan as personified in America’s executive branch.

Either the president didn’t like how the executive order had turned out (something about staying in the lead ahead of China) or not enough of the fanciest executives could show up.

After flying to China last week to bow and nod, they needed to be whisked off back to another capital to bow and nod some more. And then oops sorry it’s canceled. As if they didn’t have other places to be. Heck one of the places they were meant to be was in Utah for a summit on providing the energy necessary to power this next step in America’s technological ambitions.

Instead it’s just all pissing and moaning and horrors from the peanut gallery about how much our bosses don’t care about us. As if the bosses didn’t report to some other big boss. They report to their board. The board reports to their shareholders.

And all of us in the shareholder class (which is most older Americans, a decent chunk of middle aged ones and anyone with social security) are all waiting on the approval of the state, who may or may not give any of us the clarity necessary to know what comes next. Better hold on tight and keep gassed up. Shame for most of us it’s not a jet. Still I’m happy with my Subaru.

Categories
Aesthetics Travel

Day 1966 and America The Beautiful

I’ve written about my love of road trips and in particular the Eisenhower interstate highway a few times. If a destination is within a day’s drive in the west, it’s often worth piling into our trusty Subaru and heading for the hills.

Heading to the West Yellowstone entrance through beautiful Madison County Montana

With a portable mini-Starlink, you can work from even the most remote corners of the mountain west. Nothing is quite so satisfying as being in some of America’s most remote areas and having enough connectivity on call if it is needed.

Driving hundreds of miles in a day is often more enjoyable than attempting to fly and you can take in rolling hills and jagged mountain tops without the haste of the TSA rummaging in your bags and needing to show up hours ahead of time. The open road is freedom in the psyche of Americans.

I’ve done this in Europe as well where the infrastructure is not quite as well suited to this type of transit. There are more borders to manage and no consistent roadways.

Europeans generally seem to regard my fondness for road-trips as selfish folly though I rarely do them alone. I’m almost always with friends and my husband.

The freedom to traverse easily over some of the world’s most beautiful land is a privilege. to see rolling green hills and bright sky as spring overtakes the mountain west is just about the best way I can imagine spending a day.

Verdant Idaho
Categories
Media Politics Travel

Day 1965 and Don’t Drown in Manic Waves of Algorithmic Surf

It’s hard not to feel like you are drowning when you open up a newsfeed. Every day you are watching people on tilt across every topic and demographic. Is this the singularity?

The doomers and Luddites are being courted by money with shadowy religious grants to “prepare for the dangers of super intelligence.”

Competing political lobbyists in all nations are desperately trying to outscream the noise of crashing feeds as news refreshes with propaganda optimized to reach you.

From celebrity individual contributors making moves to worries about the star struck minds of the managers of the biggest funds, it’s all happening at 1000x the scale of sense.

I go outside and I breathe in the cool Montana air and I am settled by the almost impossible beauty of the mountains out our pasture. If you hike out to the public fields before the canyon you can see the whole valley spread out before you.

Public lands out my backdoor that look like a Microsoft Windows Screen saver

After a weekend snowfall, the grass is coming in spring green and the sky is as bright a blue as a screensaver. The resolution of reality has yet to be surpassed but I don’t know for how long that will be true and if it’s even true for most people.

It’s impossible not to feel as if one is being torn apart as each successive wave of new information comes at you. It’s all on tilt. It’s all faster. It’s all getting better. Or is it all a horror? It depends on the wave.

If you refresh at the wrong moment it’s all getting worse. What about the Vatican and their new encyclical from Pope Leo? Industrial Revolution Leo? Nah Intelligence Revolution Leo. Anthropic is sending a vegan atheist as their emissary.

“You best start believing in singularities!” Cthulhu Dread Pirate by way of ChatGPT Image 2.0 reminds us as we just might be in one. Do we dare laugh back? “This is the day you will always remember as the day you almost caught Captain Jack Sparrow (in a Singularity).”

In other house keeping news, I’ll be driving from the mountains to the desert to participate in the Operation Gigawatt Summit in Park City Utah later this week. If we are accelerating into a new future of intelligence, someone has to provide the power and the compute. And that’s my crew. Lots and lots of white boys apparently.

Categories
Culture Medical

Day 1962 and Piss in a Can

Women are at a bit of a disadvantage to men when it comes to relieving ourselves. Yes I am talking about taking a piss.

From road trips to the backcountry, we’re forced to hike up our skirts (or worse shimmy down our pants) and aim our stream through squat & thrust such that it lands where we desire without soiling our garments or surrounding areas.

You might be wondering why I’ve got such a urological topic on my mind. And I might remind you it is not as if my writing lacks for lewd colloquialisms. Some readers may recall my viral hit “dick riding” so if you are inclined towards Freud we can have a chuckle about penis envy. And today it might even be true.

I am at the moment stuck in a literal can. I am nearing the end of a session of hyperbaric chamber oxygen therapy. To be specific, my 27th session on my second round of the therapy. My first round of it was forty sessions last fall. I am rounding the end of my second set in the next two weeks.

I happen to feel dare I say good this most recent round of HBOT. It’s a marvel what it can do for the lungs and for healing wounds. However I can’t credit my current upswing just to the oxygen I’m breathing in while under two atmospheres of pressure.

I have gone off my biological injection Bimzelx after a frightful year of infections despite its excellent ability to squash down inflammatory biometrics like CRP and sed rate. I’ve added in hormone therapy via testosterone and estradiol pellets (also my second round of them). The big change is that I am heading into my forth week of injecting experimental peptides.

Those had a hell of an adjustment, but seem to have done absolutely everything which was claimed by their champions in terms of anti-inflammatory benefits. Alas I am not sure if I should discuss them too much lest I get in trouble for being ahead of the insurance rackets. My doctor supervised and approved of them which should be good enough but one never knows.

That was a long way of saying that this combination of discontinuing old expensive therapies and adding in new cheaper less expensive treatments is adding up to a lot more mobility and capacity for me.

So today I went hiking and I lifted weights. Actual under the bar squats in my own rack like an actual human. The kind of active life that I’ve been desperately trying to regain for years.

So I’ve drank rather a lot of water today. More than perhaps I should have, as here I am in a pressurized can absolutely desperately wishing I could urinate.

Alas I am waiting the timer praying for decompression to arrive so I can relieve myself in a proper water closest. And thus we circle back to the penis envy.

It’s just that I have an empty can in here with me, it’s not out of the question I could find relief in that manner. Perhaps I’d have a better treatment. My heart rate is higher than I’d like and my bladder is unhappy about the pressure. But I’ve got no aim and little room for error.

Just imagine the smell. If urine smells in a well ventilated area like a roadside rest stop, just imagine how it might smell in a pressurized tube. It’s not a place you want to fart I’ll tell you that much. So wetting the blankets, upholstery, and my clothing in here would be a disaster. I’d never get the smell out.

So here I am laughing to myself about wanting to piss in a can. Maybe a good reminder to buy one of those hiking helper devices for women. You never know what kind of situation I may find myself in this summer if I can actually move my body comfortably again.

Categories
Aesthetics Politics Travel

Day 1908 and Capital Perfection

I may have had one of the best days of my life yesterday. I want to get into a preposterous amount of detail as every single element of the day was peak Washington D.C.

I hung out with a long time friend with whom I have a shared passion (we are a special kind of economics nerd), we walked all over, toured several spaces your average citizen only sees on television. And if you are a nerd you really care where day Bretton Woods was signed.

The treaty room

It was my first time seeing some of those spaces and I felt very privileged. Nothing fires patriotism quite like seeing those who serve the nation.

I finished the day above the city watching the sunset on the Washington Monument while airplanes and helicopters ferried people of great importance than I in and out of the city.

It almost made me want to consider public service. But as my friend reminded me that it’s not all this glamorous. My Sunday was almost surely the very best the city has to offer.

Perfect weather, perfect company, perfectly cooked steak (from 6666 ranch so shoutout to my Taylor Sheridan homies), I even had on a perfect spring dress.

Thanks Jackie
Categories
Travel

Day 1906 and Woo Spring Break

Starting a journey from a small regional airport subsided by billionaires is the way to go when airports are understaffed for lack of pay.

A partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security means the TSA isn’t getting paid because of a lack of agreement on annual appropriations from Congress.

You may dislike the TSA, but most Americans are sympathetic to the pain of missed paychecks. And if you are headed somewhere for spring break you will feel their pain as the lines through security are getting worse and worse at the major hubs.

Getting out of Bozeman was a breeze. Sure my first flight was 8am but that’s the second round of flights for the day. Chicago O’Hare on the other hand, was a bit more chaotic.

The Dinosaur is a hockey fan

Families with multiple children hoping for quality time together on their spring break looked exhausted coming through the security lines.

Little girls pulling sparkling backpacks behind them on the ground or riding dinosaur shaped luggage tugged by their exhausted parents clogged the tight “under construction” hallways.

My flight to Washington D.C. didn’t have as many kids as I would have expected. Maybe touring our national monuments isn’t as exciting as going to Disneyland.

Co-branding for citrus 🍊not history

The original gate was reallocated to an Orlando based flight and based on the number of families with three kids headed to Florida our natalism issue isn’t so bad among the six figure vacation set.

The workers that keep Disneyland the happiest place on work might be struggling with other issues based on the terrifying bathroom signage. I wonder if the men’s bathrooms have these signs

Servile marriages?

May you all enjoy spring break without weather delays, labor issues, geopolitical conflict, or basic operational problems like crew and aircraft shortages as reset flight legs and fuel costs begin to get in the way.

I’m looking forward to getting to the capital. Maybe I’ll see more spring breakers at the Smithsonian. Just deposit your cannabis if headed to a destination where it’s illegal.

Categories
Aesthetics Startups Travel

Day 1905 and Run of Show

I have very particular traveling habits. I like things to be packed in cubes, labeled with contents and in a cascade of backpack, carry on and checked bags should something go awry.

As I’m heading to our nation’s capital soon I am taking extra care with my “run of show“ as I’ll have more varieties of events to account for over my stay. I expect humidity and rain so that should be fun for hair and makeup. All men need to worry about is sunscreen and maybe a bit of hair gel.

Now my travel wardrobe must account for visits to historical sites, nice dinners, late night parties, internet friend meetups (see you at the Polymarket’s Monitoring the Situation bar?) and a conference that is somewhere between startup event and defense contractor conference.

If you are a woman, you are probably nodding your head and thinking well that’s at least 4 different pairs of shoes and two purses. Then there is evening wear, day blazers and skirt suits, sweaters and other mix and match separates, and heaven forbid I find time to exercise so sweats and all the undergarments.

All that packing must work with the additional run rate risks of TSA slow downs (can Congress pass a budget) while presumably needing additional care and attention to security. Given we are embroiled in a war with Israel in Iran it’s hard to count on smooth sailing. So I pack as if I will encounter unexpected difficulties. Hopefully none more irksome than long lines.

As a woman who mostly spends her time in Montana or otherwise in the middle of nowhere, you can imagine that my makeup these days has a bit more in common with tinted sunscreen than it does with a smoky eye with a cut crease let alone a full powdered contoured beat fit for television. However I’ve heard polished full makeup is the preferred look on the hill including eye makeup basics.

I’m hoping I’ll be able to rely on my skills without additional practice, but I won’t lie I did a couple dry runs on new palettes I’d picked up and a few new colors. Very little new made the cut. When traveling, rely on what is reliable.

Categories
Politics Travel

Day 1904 and Ms Fredrickson Goes to Washington

I will be in our nation’s capital next week for a gathering called the Hill and Valley Forum. It’s been ongoing for a few years but I am not someone with a lot of exposure to Washington and wasn’t sure I should pitch myself when the forum describes itself as such.

We host public discussions, panels, and published dialogues that highlight leading voices at the intersection of technology, security, and geopolitics.

Perhaps it’s silly not to think of myself as a leading voice in technology but I don’t know much about security (or its cousin defense) and my commentary on geopolitics is for fun on Twitter.

However, having seen others fail where I have succeeded, in passing successful bipartisan artificial intelligence policy I thought this year I should throw my cap in the thing. It’s not a nice feather having successfully brought the right to compute campaign from citizenry to policy to law in Montana.

It is now succeeding at the national level as states like New Hampshire have passed it in their house and well respected bipartisan policy organizations like ALEC have recommended it as policy.

My husband made a pilgrimage to our capital as the gentleman from Montana to testify before Congress last spring. I was very proud of him. I suspect he is easily as proud of my work on compute policy.

So if you’d like to meet some real Americans (8 wasn’t aware we had fake ones) and are in Washington D.C. drop us a line. I’m hoping to do a little meetup maybe on Monday but not all of my in groups will each other so maybe I’ll do more than one.

But wherever happens I’m excited to share time with other patriotic Americans who do the hard work of making sure we are governed well.