Journal of a Sabbatical

September 7, 1999

dissipation

Today's Starting Pitcher: Tim Wakefield

Today's Reading: Out of the Crater: Chronicles of a Volcanologist by Richard V. Fisher

My new 4 gig hard drive came today, along with the Photoshop 5.5 upgrade and Conflict Catcher. I installed the hard drive right away but haven't done anything else. Since I took a wild guess that what was upsetting Eudora was QuickTime and moved it to the disabled extensions file, guess what? Eudora works fine. Of course, I'm utterly convinced that upgrading Photoshop will break Eudora again, which is one of the reasons I didn't do it.

The other reason is I am dog tired. Tired on top of tired. All I want to do is sleep. Another case of a acute onset chronic fatigue? So besides sleeping and feeling guilty for not getting anything accomplished except hooking up the hard drive - not exactly a major project - I spent my time reading about volcanologists getting killed in the line of duty. This is really putting a damper on any remaining urge I had to become a volcanologist.

Antisocial mood notwithstanding I ventured to China Blossom for dinner 'cause I had no intention of cooking in this humidity. There I encountered Tom & Julie at the buffet, along with The Fabulously Successful Eric and his two daughters. I chatted with them briefly and resisted the temptation to ask Eric if his being here meant he's between pictures again.

Since I can't find the entry to link to in which I introduced "The Fabulously Successful Eric" appellation, I'll explain. Eric gave a seminar/workshop at the Atlanta Film Festival on "how to succeed as an independent" in the movie business. T&J, his parents, found this amusing. He did produce a prize-winning independent documentary, but mainly he's an assistant director.

Anyway, not wishing to intrude on the family gathering and definitely wishing to know what happened to various volcanologists, I retired to my table and buried myself in Out of the Crater: Chronicles of a Volcanologist by Richard V. Fisher. Most volcano books I've read have either been scientific/technical or pop-science. This is a memoir of Fisher's career in volcanology. It strikes the right balance of anecdotes from his field trips and the development of volcanology research. Despite the depressing parts about colleagues getting killed, it's a good read. Not dry and technical at all, and full of the author's personality. He's one of the big experts on pyroclastic flows so his story is heavy on pyroclastic stuff rather than lava flows, so three-year-olds obsessed with hot lave probably wouldn't get as much out of it as I'm getting. :-)