My work

I have just realized I have made many allusions, but it is not clear what is what I do. Indeed, I fill three posts at the same time.

- Researcher. This is what I would like to do full time, most of the time. Unless we have had no advances in a couple of months, when I would wish I could change my career. It is also what I am supposed to do, almost all the time. This includes keeping updated on our products and their applications, proposing new products, or changes to existing products for a new application, and once we have got a promising material on pilot scale, work with the plant manager to find a way to manufacture the same at a big scale. Our main product is amorphous silica (silicon dioxide), a fine white powder (you should see the problems I have taking samples through airports) used as an absorbent or as a reinforcing filler in polymers (from tyres to rubber flooring, passing by shoe soles). We have collaborations with some important customers to develop specially tailored products.

- Quality Assurance. I also should supervise the quality of the materials we manufacture, sign many certificates, and have big arguments with Production when there are problems. That also means talking with customers when they have a problem, to see what responsibility, if any, we have, and what can be done about it. With all the certifications and homologations we have running, this is becoming more and more draining on my time. What is worse, I am not good with paperwork (all that order vs. disorder), which is really what this is, many analysis and a lot of paperwork.

- Salesman. Part of me hates the PR aspect. But there is a small part, that I suspect is growing, that enjoys the fast and loose living of a big volume salesman, travelling around, good food, little time, and relying on charm. I really feel like a different person with the powersuit and lucky tie on. There are two parts, general sales, as I am fluent in English and French, so I tag along as general interpreter and trusted mid-level executive, and technical sales, where I go as "Herr Doktor", and generally have interesting talks with interesting people without ties. And usually in those cases there is no need to translate.

Add some general level time drains (updating the company's web-page, keeping the bibliography database, listening to the boss ranting...), and there is not enough time. So I turn into a poor quality auditor, a distracted researcher and an erratic salesman.

It is hard to convince people that I am working just by doing random browsing on the internet, or looking at the ceiling, or reading some research article. But that is the only way I have of planning experiments, checking hypothesis or testing ideas. Less convincing that taking a plane to Düsseldorf, or presenting thirty pages of statistical results, or sitting on an endless meeting. But that is where the future lies for the company.

Sometimes I wonder why I bother. The company is not mine, and I will make almost the same money anyway...
  ¶ 11:02 PM 0 comments

  Expressing myself through others

The happy mood of the last two weeks is going. It started with a cold, and a sore throat that comes from my own work, aggravating any throat troubles (silica is a powerful dessiccant and mucose irritant). And then you get told that your problems have a solution, but a long and difficult path. And the magic of the moment fades with time.

And yet I cannot explain this small malaise that makes me wish to be at work, distracted, but it is not yet strong enough to keep me from reading, so i do it continuously, to keep it at bay.

And yet this is the music I am listening, constructed from the collected mp3.

Tracy Chapman, "Why"
Red Hot Chili Peppers "Under the bridge"
This Mortal Coil "Song to the Siren"
The Pogues "Streets of Sorrow- Birmingham Six"
Housemartins "Lean on me"
Cranberries "Daffodil Lament"
Leonard Cohen "Dance me to the End of Love"
Dire Straits "Romeo and Juliet"
Esclarecidos "Miles, Miles, Miles"
Eric Clapton "Malted Milk"
Nina Simone "Feeling Good"
Mary Chapin Carpenter "Dead Man Walking"
Danza Invisible "Yolanda"
Diana Krall "Temptation"
Pretenders "2000 miles"
Celtas Cortos "La Senda del Tiempo"
Texas "Everyday Now"
Madredeus "Alfama"
Dulce Pontes "A Brisa do Coraçao"
Sinéad O'Connor "Gloomy Sunday"
Des'ree "I'm Kissing you"

Now, a whisky and a change of music, or this will really go downhill.


  ¶ 8:15 PM 0 comments

  The noble Art of Defence

Or why do I fence.

Most of my acquaintances think it just posing, or sporting snobbery. Running too common for him, too plebeian. He needs something more exclusive, more ancient too. cannot do anything simple, this one.

And partly, they are right.

Choosing a fighting sport instead of a normal sport has two advantages. First, it is more amusing, and I do need some kind of amusement to keep me going. Only way to exercise with a certain continuity. And second, it is a social event. I lack motivation for a continuous effort, specially if it has to be on your own. But the banter, the competition, the fact that I lose more than I win, that spurs me on. So after many years it is the only sport I practise with any system.

And why fencing instead of the ubiquitous martial arts, or Kendo? This time, it is history. Although I like Japan's culture and I am quite aware of their own history and philosophy, it is not mine, and I like it mostly for its alienness to my own.

Fencing, however, has roots, deep roots. And paper ones, which is an additional advantage for a compulsive reader. I am not interested in the sport as it is now, but as it was. I spend as much time in traditional training as in more sophisticated techniques, such as the old Spanish "Destreza", sword and dagger, sabres with point, two sticks (escrima) and other variants. None enough to be good at them, just to be familiar with the technique and the weapon.

I do not expect to use it in battle. Unlike my brother, I do not collect swords, nor have a battle worthy one at home. And yet, when I grab my biggest umbrella, the one with steel support and one Kg of weight, I do feel armed, and it is comforting at times.

Nothing noble about it, but a good conversation starter nevertheless. Another weirdness.


  ¶ 9:37 PM 0 comments

  Trusting your senses

This may be technical at times. That is the way my job interferes, with technicalities.

The trustworthyness of observation has long been a critical aspect of Science. It has been tried also on other areas, such as media or news, with much less success because people do not really want objectivity, they want their subjectivity vindicated.

So, in Science you have to document your observations, and trust in them within the limit of your measuring equipment. However, when you try to convey results to someone outside the convention, specially someone with authority over you, you get asked the following things.

- I do not like that result. Repeat the measurement. No matter how you reason about error brackets, supporting evidence, or track of accuracy of the equipment, it is better to do the damned measurement than to argue. Even if after a terrible fight with losses of big goodwill points you manage to avoid making the measurement, it will happen again and you will start worse (all those lost goodwill points).

- X (whether a provider or a customer) got this result. We have to get the same. Why? I do not know what they did and how they did it. Reverse engineering is an extremely difficult enterprise, but they just think that knowing it can be done will be enough. If you ask, you will get that dreaded "I do not know, it is not my job, it is yours."

- It looks good to me. That is one of the worst. You hire an expert, get some expensive equipment, and then you trust your hunches (or someone else's) instead of the results of said piece of equipment. When it gets to "Customers never complain of that" the battle is lost, and your only hope there is a quality system on place to leave a well documented trace.

- X says it is this way. And can you tell me how you reached that momentous information? Why other people's opinion weighs more than your own people's? Why are you paying me a salary, if you get your information from the competitors?

Now add trying to explain what results are accurate, which ones are precise, and which ones are doubtful, and you will see people spending fortunes on a colour check (the colour is right on the target), while ignoring a nice X-ray result (there cannot be as much aluminium as you say).

Yes, they cannot know everything, and that a liquid nitrogen adsorption equipment has an error under 1% while an oil absorption equipment has 5%. But that is why I am there. Ask me. Everyone says I talk too much. Experience it. Or at least, if I say it is bad, believe me, and do not have a customer say the same to you so you know it is true.

Bad day at work. The engineers are the worst, as they should know better.

  ¶ 2:20 PM 0 comments

  Cities to visit, cities to live

The recent days I have spent in London, combined with the weeks I have passed there through the years, confirm me in the impression I like visiting London, but I would not feel comfortable there. And it is strange, as the climate is bad but not horrible, there are plenty of shops I love, I enjoy the food and it is easy to move around.

Maybe it is the British, or maybe it is me, but I am always glad when I get to the airport to leave. Probably some kind of subconscious tallying up with my hometown that leaves London lacking (although I cannot say how). Even in places where I felt a great emotion to arrive and great sadness when leaving the pbject of my affection (Brussels!), there was still that small spark of pleasure that I was leaving.

Cities I would not live, according to this irrational response: London, Brussels, Madrid, Copenhagen, NYC, Tokyo...

Cities I could live, maybe: Paris, Barcelone, Edinburgh, Sendai, Heidelberg, Milan...

It is not weather, and it is not nationality. But there is something in the air. And that does not keep me from going (such as London, where I have been once every two years, at least, since 1990). Just from staying long.

Indeed, I tend to visit more places I would not like staying, maybe to avoid becoming a slave of change, as I could forsake my current life and start a new one somewhere I could feel comfortable. Not yet, so far.
  ¶ 11:30 PM 0 comments

  Partying

The Pilar is the most important yearly holiday in Zaragoza. Ten days of spectacles, events and debauchery, centered around the 12th October.

Unless there is an event that really interests me, lately I have been less participative. Cheap drink, problems finding food and crowds everywhere are not my idea of fun. At first I tried to take part on it, as it looked like I was missing something. Everibody else was enjoying it, so why I did not?

Now I think people like it more as a safety valve, and as a way to forget, for a time, normal life. It is also a good way to meet again people you have lost contact with. And an excuse to make excesses when you are supposed to have left that behind.

So yesterday I just spent three hours in a VIP area, smuggled in with some of the actors who were supposed to play as entertainment. It is an area with cultural presentations and a few free access computers, with live music interspersed with stand-up comedy and modern clown numbers. Nice place if you have something to look up in the internet, enjoy fusion-Jazz and witty humour, more or less well done.

It looked like our politicians don't, as the area was filled up only with artist's friends and a couple of guests from abroad. So it looked like a private party, paid with public funds.Wasteful, but intriguing.

And after that ended, out in the street to see a Brazilian percussion group battle it up with some home-grown rappers, in a friendly way, to see who had a bigger crowd around dancing and cheering. The only losers were the neighbours.

And there is something rejuvenating in stomping in the middle of the street, with a liter of beer in a plastic container.

Not so rejuvenating in the morning, when you are up at 10 after six hours sleep, when normally you would have had breakfast with your friends, gone to run ahead of a tearling bull, and then go home to read and relax, with no need to sleep.

Five minutes are enough to make me feel nostalgic and sentimental. The other hours just remind me why I do not do it anymore.
  ¶ 1:38 PM 0 comments

  Absence makes the heart grow fonder

Does it?

Up till not so long, I would have said no. I quickly forget to contact friends and family. It is not a cool down. It is just that although I still care for them, they have no bearing on my life, so I just do not allot time to them. I still feel heartwarm and tenderness when we irregularly meet, but then I can spend months without thinking of them.

However, mobile phones and internet is achieving what letters and fixed phones could not. Keeping in touch is easier, and at times communicating is better with someone a thousand kilometers away that it is when they are on the same room. Thinking before talking, apologising, and that great memory that at times is e-mail, all that helps saying what we did not say before.

It does not replace the personal contact, seeing in the flesh, sharing a meal, embracing... But it helps see that as precious, and to enjoy more what you get, when you get it. Missing someone instead of arguing with them.

Terribly bad for any children plans, but good for yearning for someone, all the travelling we have been doing lately. And good for us as a couple.
  ¶ 7:50 PM 0 comments

  Too happy to rant

Or too busy, I am not sure which.

It is strange how you can feel content while at the same time other matters stress you terribly. Just a matter of priorities, I think. So that the simple pleasures that make me happy, companionship, talk, empathy (me the empathy lacking), and general brain stimulation; are much stronger than the worry about the future, big economic benefits, three critical events at the same time, and some travelling when I cannot afford to leave.

I have decided, even if I do not feel like ranting, to revert to the original title. I may not rant now, but I am sure to rant later. And enlightenment seems as far as always. Even further, probably, as I have decided I need some more emotions in my life. Maybe just a little more life.

And to compound my happiness, Gibson is blogging again. I do not care too much about him, but I care about people who care for him, so in a way I care by default. And it is good to feel common sense starting to rise in the things I read.




  ¶ 11:15 PM 0 comments

  Out of my mind

That is how I have felt lately. Which is why this is somewhat neglected. Too busy doing things to write about them.

But maybe because of my birthday, I have been reflecting on urgency and patience. How I have become much more patient than I have ever been before, while feeling at the same time a sudden urgency to do things now, or I may never do them.

A friend has felt something similar, so it could be a matter of age catching up and the mind reacting. But unlike her, I do not feel more mature at all. Indeed I feel more like a coldblooded, calculating teenager. I act on my impulses, but plan and wait for my impulses to succeed.

It is as if I suddenly had no long range plans, but only a series of whimsies that I work meticulously and sistematically to fulfill, before automatically moving towards the next one. There are still many deep interests and obsessions, but they work more as scenario, so ingrained in me that they are part of the landscape.

Some of the actions are obsessions, some are tests for causes I feel would be worthy to be obsessed with. Trying, in a way, to choose what I will obsess about. Which is also one of that calculating teen mindscape I referred to above.

They say old age brings wisdom. Either they are wrong or I am not yet old. Age brings method, and proven ways of acting. But wisdom still eludes me, becoming instead cunning.

At least I know most of the traps around, but now I enjoy setting them off instead of avoiding them.
  ¶ 11:50 PM 0 comments

  Obsolete

Yesterday I filled up a bag with old music tapes. Maybe thirty or forty, all of them at least four years old, most of them much older than that. A few brought memories of ten, twelve years ago. Gifts, personalized compilations, records I could not find (that Talking Heads bootleg...) then.

Many were made however, not as copies from someone else, but as a way to make my music portable. Music for the car's tape deck, for the walkman, to share with friends.

Now my car has a tape deck that has not been used in nine months, I use a mp3 player for mobile music, and when I share music with friends, we use CDs.

And yet, I could not bring myself to throw all those tapes away. Till today. There is a feeling of loss, that there will be things I cannot replace, information entropy. And it is not only that version of Psychokiller. That one probably will be saved, anyway. It is the fragments of personal story that those tapes bring.

I taped once all my favourite records, as records were too becoming obsolete. There they are still, gathering dust in a shelf (while I currently have no table to play them) while their successors are waiting their turn to be dumped. Half of them I already have on digital format, a few are so bent some songs cannot be listened to. And yet, there they are in their sleeves while the tapes wait their turn at the plastic recycling center.

Is it because those were bought while the others were made? Is that feeling of owning the music that an original record brings? Actually, I feel it is because they are esthetically more pleasing and I need to fill that tall shelf with something that shape...

Next, the boxes of 31/2 and 51/4 diskettes...
  ¶ 9:01 AM 0 comments