January 10, 2012             Science, art and deadlines

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My formative years were spent during a time of unbounded enthusiasm for science. Except when we were hiding under our desks anticipating the arrival of a Soviet nuclear weapon. But even the Soviet threat was tempered by an aura of science. After all, making a nuclear weapon is essentially a science fair project, although a bit bigger than most. Add to that a reliable, rocket-based delivery system and you could keep slide rules busy for years.

My earliest memories revolved around the push from everyone: teachers, parents, government officials and other important people, movie stars, priests, nuns, all wanted little Billy to be a scientist. What is a kid supposed to do?

I did find I had a certain knack for understanding complex subjects. Of course, when I displayed such ability, it was similar to a five gallon can of gasoline on the campfire. I soon learned to stand well back when I displayed such erudition but always, always, there was a sense of fraud in my undertakings.

In fact, the only real benefit to such abilities was it sheltered me from the pestering of the nuns to become a priest. In my grade school/high school, there were only two acceptable vocations for the moiling mass of unwashed boys: a priest or a scientist. Unconsciously I opted for the latter, shielding myself from the former. This worked well except one occasion where Sr. Rose Michael in the 4th grade began asking me some questions about something and then promptly announced to the class that I wanted to be a priest! This brought jubilation from the school staff but I stonewalled it and the news eventually staled.

Science Fairs were a fun part of my science education. I participated in three. The last one, my senior year was on Coal Tar: A treasure house of organic chemicals. Fascinating stuff. I designed an apparatus, subsequently built by someone in my dad’s shop that let me extract tar from lumps of coal. Coal was put into a sealed chamber and then heated. The volatile tars were driven off and condensed into the liquid tars. Stinky business but it worked, leaving me with a flask of thick black liquid. I went to the State Science Fair with that one. I was on a roll.

Graduating in the upper part of my high school class, a small class that did very well for itself, I found myself at a local Catholic college declaring a major in Chemistry and a minor in something else that escapes me.

The emphasis on the chemistry curriculum was practical. They meant to turn out working chemists, people who actually did something with the knowledge the school imparted. There was room for people who desired advanced degrees but working in a lab, white coat and test tubes was the order of the day. Occasionally mentioned was the fact that superior science was one of the ways to defeat godless communism. I suppose in a way they were right but that would only be a guess on my part.

It took a while for this charade to unravel. The cause was simple: lousy grades. I have often thought about that and it is only in my advancing years that clarity arrived.

The analysis is simple and three fold.

Fold one
A couple of years ago, with plenty of time on my retired hands, I bought a video course on quantum mechanics. It was a marvel studying particle physics. Today I read with great interest the efforts of FermiLab, J-Parc and CERN as they try to understand quarks and neutrinos, the Higgs boson, the very building blocks of nature.  I can easily see why many brilliant men and women devote their lives to it.

I followed this with a course in dark matter and dark energy. This required introduction to the subject of cosmology. Again, I could see why many people would devote their lives to understanding black holes, gravitational lensing and tiny bits of light emitted millions of years ago by dying galaxies.

Slowly it seeped into this ancient brain that I liked learning about these items of deep science, not doing anything with them. Thus, it had been with chemistry. It is fun to learn about it; let others light the Bunsen burners (if they still use them).

Fold two
The second part of my understanding of the problem involved my long-term success with computing. For those who don’t know, that is how I made a living in this cold cruel world. From programmer to senior programmer, to IS/IT Director to MCSE in my latter years.

But wasn’t computing science, some form of engineering? Didn’t it require application, producing something? Not quite the white lab coat treatment but I inhabited many a dismal cubicle, spent endless hours in rumbling, air-conditioned data centers. Why did I love computing so much and dislike chemistry, practiced in much the same environment.

It’s simple. The chemistry I had been groomed for involved analysis and record keeping, an ancient, established science with plenty of rules and regulations.

Computing, was new. In 1969 there were few rules, sort of a Wild West atmosphere prevailed. Programming as a profession barely existed outside government and military circles.  But most importantly, I could see that computers, especially programming, involved artistry. During the 70s and 80s, we who toiled at Basic Assembler, Cobol, CICS and other fledgling disciplines often argued whether computing was engineering or art.

Computing does have many aspects of engineering. For example, a microprocessor requires extreme engineering disciplines from design of the chip to design of the semiconductor plant that makes them. The generation of operating systems requires immense hard work and attention to detail.

But to write a few lines and have something appear on a screen was a thrill, is still a thrill. Sure it has to be useful, I suppose, but often not. Sometimes it can be just beautiful. I still dabble a bit, more practical than beautiful but still . . .

Fold three
Bringing up the pack at third is a few years spent doing video work. Much of my expertise was forged in the crucible of a former parish. After doing some initial work for the parish taping talks by the pastor and others, we struck upon the idea of doing weekly announcements.

Announcements were 5-8 minute presentations displayed on a huge screen before Mass. I would start with a brief animation of something from the weekly readings; the pastor would talk about an important topic; perhaps someone else would talk about an upcoming event important to their ministry; and I would conclude with posters. Posters covered a lot of ground but reminded parishioners of bake sales, youth events, Religious Education deadlines, etc.  Audio was important; I confess I indulged my penchant for grand opera more than ancient hymns but no one complained.

All of this required the utmost attention to detail and, for the first time in my life, I was required to exhibit a bit of artistry. And I learned quickly the ins and outs of shooting, lights, editing, motion graphics, all things that made me happy.

The pace was relentless. It’s amazing how fast a week would go by before it was time to start again. I gauged that I spent 3-4 hours for each minute of presentation so I had to pay attention.

It was useful work, I feel. The parish was a large one, some 3500 families, and the bulletin only went so far. Announcements were a way to keep the non-readers of bulletins in the loop. Announcements allowed the pastor to say a few words at every Mass, not just the ones where he officiated. And I would transcode the announcements and put them on the parish website so parishioners not able to see the information in church would have access at home or wherever.

It was about announcements that the third item really surfaces. During the course of any given development, problems and challenges would appear. Often I was asked to do something that I had no idea how to do. I found that situation, not knowing how to do something that had to be shown to 1000s of people in a couple of days, something artistic, was what I came to live for.

I number those days among the best in my life. I miss them, especially when I see on TV a swirling bit of magic, some guy using an After Effects plugin that would be so fun to try. But such are the musings of the old.

Science was always part of the solution but never enough by itself. Science needed to be combined with artistry and relentless deadlines to make this old guy happy.