What’s Jaouen Jonesing For?

Oh to be a child again, to look up in wonder at a lonely kite sailing on a late summer breeze. During my childhood there were several kites. Every one of them came to a similar ill fate. Some broke away from their strings, never to be seen again. Some plowed into power lines and would stay there for weeks, mocking me every time I looked up. Even worse, some would slam into the ground in the middle of the street, only to be smashed to kindling by passing cars. None of my kites ever survived for long. As a result, I quickly lost interest in kiting; frustration and anger overwhelming my curiosity for their amazing ability to soar through the sky. It seems that not everyone has had the same disappointing experience that I felt. Several grad students at Delft University of Technology had actually found a practical use for kites. Using what they have dubbed a laddermill, a series of interconnected kites, they have found a way to harness the tremendous stores of energy contained in the winds of our atmosphere. The theoretical kite arrays would stretch 30 thousand feet into the sky and harness enough energy to power 10 thousand homes. Although it seems like a flight of fancy, the concept was proven recently in a small scale test. 10 kilowatts of energy were produced by the test; enough energy to power 10 homes. This is a prime example of innovation solving old problems with wild new solutions, and that’s why I’m jonesin’ for it.

It’s no secret that I love gadgets. Some gadgets are cool in principle, by have names that don’t do them justice. This is not the case with the VASIMR, or Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket. Are you kidding me, these guys worked the word Magnetoplasma into the name of their rocket! Even Microsoft word is telling me it’s not a word in the English language. Best of all, the VASIMR is just as sick as it sounds. It’s a new engine being developed by Ad Astra Rocket Company for NASA and is in the prototype stage of development. Most people don’t realize, but the maximum speed that an object can travel is the speed which its engine can “blow”. Conventional rockets used to get objects into space are able to exert a tremendous amount of force, but are incapable of getting them to the astounding speeds needed for quick travel through the solar system. Essentially, they are pump out tons of energy but not at a very high speed. The VASIMR is different though. It is like a whisper compared to a rocket engine’s yell. But this whisper is traveling at 300 kilometers per second, or 0.1% the speed of light. This incredible velocity is attained by ionizing propellant (hydrogen) with radio waves to create plasma, then accelerating and shaping it with magnetic fields. Current methods for traveling to Mars take about 6 months to cover the distance. The VASIMR could cut travel time down to 2 months. I wonder if it uses a Retroencabulator?

After a month long hiatus, Jaouen is Jonesin’ for some new content! I have been on the road for work since I last posted, and it has been hectic. I was in San Francisco for two weeks, then Columbus for two weeks. I’ve been in Indianapolis and Chicago, and I’ve been to Lake McConaughy in Nebraska. I’ve had a home in Boulder, and a home in Denver, and I was homeless for a time. I’ve eaten at five star restaurants, Taco Bells, and crappy hotel lounges. I’ll be back to the quiet life in Colorado within a week, and I will be Jonesing for new and awesome stuff!

Stay tuned….

Endless Enjoyment, Endless Winter (Not the same bowl)

Everyone has a great passion in their life. Mine is skiing. The problem is that the winter only lasts half the year. The other half I have to twiddle my thumbs and watch ski movies, waiting for the day that I can hit the mountain again. Recently, I began a quest for an endless winter. I am searching for those little pockets of snow in the high country. These pockets aren’t easy to find, and many aren’t worth finding. Over the 4^th of July weekend, Brandon Mutari and I found a great pocket of winter at the top of peak 10 at Breckenridge. The snow field is called the 4^th of July bowl. Getting there requires driving a super sketchy road (especially if you are driving a VW Passat with no ground clearance), followed by a fairly mellow hike up the side of a mountain. The first turn was a little sketchy, as the mountain allowed us no time to get to know the snow conditions before we were committed to a line. The snow was very light slush, with decent coverage. All said, the journey to get to the top took about 3 hours, including the drive. The skiing lasted just over a minute. What a day. Check out the pictures here.

http://flickr.com/photos/mutari/sets/72157605996329093/

http://www.switchskier.com

As you all may be aware, I have to study pretty hard in med school.   And everyone expects their doctors to be knowledgable and well-read.  That being said, most of the medical students I know are lame at best.  Definitely not social like I am.  Very few of them have ever smoked pot, let alone do other drugs.  And one of my friends didn’t get drunk for the first time until he was 23!!  HE DIDN’T GET DRUNK IN COLLEGE!  So you can imagine how one of my favorite questions to ask people when they first got drunk.  I first got drunk and smoked pot both at 13.  Thanks peer pressure!  But hey, I get shit done now.  Fuck you if you don’t think I’ll be a good doctor.  I get A’s in med school so kiss my ass.  Anyways…a few months ago one of the kids in my class sent this email out to the entire 1st and 2nd year students at my school:

I don’t know who it is, but there is someone (probably more likely a few people) that doesn’t know how to flush a toilet but I (and I am sure everyone else that you go to school with) would appreciate it if you would flush the toilet after having a large bowel movement.  This is the 6th time I have gone into a restroom in Smith Hall to blow my nose and/or use the facilities and had to whitness the greusome sight of someone elses bowel movement (not to mention the aroma that ensues from such a disgusting habit).  Personally I am quite tired of the elementary antics and I feel that as an adult AND future physician you should grow up and have some respect for those around you.  Furthermore, YOUR MOTHER IS NOT HERE TO CLEAN UP AFTER YOU, nor should you excpect the janitorial staff here at KCUMB to fill your mothers place as your personal servant.
Sincerely,
Jeremy R. Brown

For those of you keeping score at home, this douchebag went to CSU for college.  I rest my case.  My friends and I really couldn’t decide what this guy deserves more, an upper decker or a top shelf.  If you don’t know what this is, upper decker is when you take a shit in the back of the toilet where the water is, so that the toilet always fills with shitty water.  A top shelf is when you close the lid and take a shit on the top.  Both would serve him well.  As a totally unrelated side note, thank you Steez for filling me in on what Steez is.  I had no idea, but now it’s even more awesome

BMW is innovative. They have always been at the top of the industry with new ideas and designs. Now, BMW has come out with GENA, their most innovative car yet. GENA is a roadster based on Z8 design. The Z8 is the ridiculously fast roadster that BMW started making about six years ago. It was featured in one of the Bond movies where it was cut in half by some sort of flying saw (what a ridiculous plot line…classic Bond). GENA is different though, it wouldn’t take some absurd flying saw to cut GENA in half, just a utility knife. GENA actually has a skin made of cloth, rather than aluminium (Yeah, I know I spelled it the British way, but I my inner monolog sounds like David Attenborough). BMW engineers found that they could make a car with elegant curves and design, using a space frame structure covered in cloth. The form comes from a series of thin metal ribs which define the contours of the vehicle. These ribs can move too, allowing doors to open and even the spoiler to become more aggressive. The car is just a concept and is not particularly practical. The problem isn’t safety; with modern materials we could make a tricycle safe enough to drive on the interstate. The problem is that you couldn’t park this car. It would constantly require valet parking to keep the skin safe from assholes with utility knives. Think about it, if Mutari had this car, I would cut the skin the first chance I got just to spite him! And I like the guy. Imagine what people who don’t like him would do (remember that cloth is an absorbent material; imagine the fun things you could smear into it). Admittedly, if you can afford to buy a concept car from BMW, then you can probably afford to hire someone to watch it 24/7. I still like the car though; I want one really badly. The curves of this car are so striking that it has an almost organic feel, a direction that I think the entire auto industry should be moving in. Now, if I can just find a paper mache garage to store it in.

Note: I just checked, and Jacob’s plan worked, I am again the number 1 and number 2 hits on Google for Jaouen.

Adsense, you could say I am STEEZIN for it. This blog needs Adsense. When it comes down to it, nobody really knows how google’s logarithm works in ranking pages. Yea there are ways to see how well you are ranked and yea you can pay money to make your page show up on top. In all reality though the logarithm is continuously tweaked and always will be. If you want to be the top search result for a term like ‘Jaouen’, you have to be relevant. In an effort to make this page more relevant to google I am putting some Adsense on this page. (Also I think adding the words Adsense and google to this post a few times might help as well.) I am not going to be all annoying though and put it at the top, bottom, and sides of the page layout. I am just going to put some here-


And a little
HERE


So, if you can see the Adsense on this post it means google’s spiders have crawled this page and will more often in the future.

Also if you can see this Adsense, please comment on what it was for because I like to see the variety of stuff that comes up. Next, click it and check it out, click through and all that jazz. Third download firefox and the Adblock add-on because Adsense if annoying as hell.

It’s no secret that I love skis. I own 4 pairs of them currently, although I typically only ride on 2 of those pair, with the other 2 pair reserved for rocks days. My weapons of choice, Line Sir Francis Bacons designed the Eric Pollard. This year I’m looking for a powder ski to add to my arsenal. The front runner in my search is the EP Pro, from Line. The EP Pro, designed by Eric Pollard, is a 185 cm beast, boasting slightly asymmetric 153/127/150 dimensions. What does that mean in English? They are wide, really really wide. They are essentially 2 very narrow snowboards. They also have reverse camber. For those of you who don’t speak ski, reverse camber means that instead of the skis having a natural downward curvature, the curvature is upward. This allows the skis to float in powder. The skis look cool too, which is a must. It’s no surprise though, Line skis typically have the coolest graphics in the industry, many of which are based on paintings by Eric Pollard. Check out the gallery at Lifelounge for more of Eric’s (and his wife’s) work, or cruise over to Josh Bryant’s ski shop, Jibij, for a preview of the entire line of Line skis for this season. 5 Months till ski season!

In the far northern reaches of a lifeless desert, a visitor has just arrived. This visitor is inquisitive, seeking to uncover the ancient history of Mars. When Phoenix arrived at Mars last weekend, it slammed into the Martian atmosphere at 13,000 miles per hour and was subsequently slowed to 5 miles per hour in under 7 minutes. High overhead, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, a glorified spy satellite, began snapping pictures and relaying them to Earth. On the surface, the Lander has begun its three month long task to find water in the frozen north pole of the red planet. The process is going to be slow, as the Lander takes extremely small samples of the Martian surface, digging only centimeters into the surface at a time. The turn around on taking a sample and analyzing it is slower than a snails pace, taking almost 15 days per cycle. In the end, we will have a better understanding of the composition of Mars and we will better understand the role of liquid water in Mar’s history? Why is this important? Water is the fundamental basis for all living organisms on Earth. If Mars was once covered in liquid water, then microbial life may have once lived there.

Already there has been a small setback as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s radio has had a malfunction and cannot currently communicate with the Phoenix. This delay is expected to be repaired in hours though and is not a threat to the mission. Since it landed, Phoenix has been sending pictures back to NASA. NASA has been using a strategy of corporate transparency with this mission, so you can find all of the pictures at NASA.gov. You can also find a repository of pictures on Wikipedia. The pictures may not seem all that impressive unless you think, “These pictures are from another planet!”

Indiana Jones is a story that inspired a generation of children to see adventure in the ruins and antiquities of times past. The original three movies are classic masterpieces of adventure, filled with fun jokes and cool special effects. There is little doubt though that the newest movie in the franchise is an amazing disappointment. From the start of the first scene, the movie is set up to be a spectacular failure. After leaving Indiana Jones last night I thought to myself, “I could have been at home watching paint dry…at least that would have made some sense.” The entire movie is a string of impossible events with almost no cohesive bond to keep them moving. I can understand surviving a thermonuclear blast by hiding in a refrigerator, but aliens? This is another case of a simple concept that I have understood since the last batch of Star Wars movies came out; don’t let George Lucas write your script. George Lucas’ idea of writing is a combination of horribly cliché dialog mixed with strings of action events whos order is decided by random chance and not a grand design. Its not like the script matters much, it has to be performed by an all-star cast who seem to have forgotten how to act. Harrison Ford is getting so old that it wouldn’t surprise me to hear that the movie studio doubles as a geriatrics facility. Shia LaBeouf gives an excellent performance as Jones’s annoying son, if by excellent you mean shitty. His lackluster performance is punctuated by the horrible direction of this Spielberg train wreck. If you haven’t seen it yet, do yourself a favor, paint a wall and watch it dry…trust me, you will enjoy the experience more. With absolutely no redeeming value, I give Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull 1 crappy crystal skull out of 5.

All you need to make it to number one is a viral video. Viral videos make everyone happy and more interested in what you have to offer. Viral videos create the buzz that make people go to google and type in a phrase to try to get to your site. Viral videos create that #1 page rank on google. So get to work, make a video that gets that buzz going where you can bring up in casual conversation, “Did you see that little gay kid on youtube?”. (reference here) For some inspiration here is Weezer’s new video, Pork and Beans.

People, lets be realistic here. The only reason I started this site was make my name the top search result for the word Jaouen on Google. I’m pleased to report that I have accomplished my goal…sort of. Before I was Jonesing, Google search results for Jaouen included a ton of French websites (I’m sure they are all rude too), a website with plastic surgeon listings in the Casper WY area, and the website of an artist named Deborah Jaouen (no relation to the Deborah Jaouen in Glenwood). After a couple pages you could also find some things about my aunt Pauline and uncle Steve (a CSU professor). After I started my blog, I was deeply concerned that my site appeared on the third page of the Google search results. Google cut me deep, real deep. But, it seems that time heals all wounds. I am pleased to tell you that the overwhelming popularity of “What’s Jaouen Jonesing For?” has outshined all other search results. Currently, this site is sitting pretty in the number 2 position on Google. I know what you are thinking, “But Jaouen, you are number 2, you still suck,” I am willing to sit in second place, because the top search result, which only recently achieved its status as number 1, is worthy of its position! There is only one thing left to say, “Suck it Jaouens, I’m number 2 AND number 1.”

UPDATE:  Some chinese social networking site has pushed this site down to #4.  I’m not concerned though; I am confident I can retake the top spots.  Expect shameless plugs for big news items and high value terms. Myanmar, Obama, Clinton, Windsor, Election, Electric Car, Peetz.

As I look for my own creative outlet, I bring to you the not so creative idea for an article…


Steez is Steezin for Steez

I am straight steezing for more steez. Simple as that sounds, steez is really lacking these days. There seems to be no place to turn to get my fix of steezyness. Not on the radio, not on the tv, and not even on the internet. All I get is the same songs, same shows, and same links all lacking that steeztastic feel that I need in my life. This is just not very steezy. Lets take a look at some not so steezin examples.

The Urban Dictionary defines “steez” as style with ease.

This is an example of style, but that is not with ease.

The problem with this definition is that both words can carry a large bias with them. Style varies greatly in person to person, place to place, and age to age. Judging the difficulty of that style varies even more. A broader definition of “steez” once again from the urban dictionary brings some other aspects to the word. While I exercise my steezcreativity (shouldn’t it be steezivity) to try and figure out where the steez comes from I find that steez is more opinion based than anything else. So to get my steezerific dose of steez I just have be more steezy.

In the never ending quest to become more macho, I am Jonesin’ for power tools. In pursuit of said quest, I have come to the conclusion that I must have a tabletop Mill. Now, I know what your are thinking, “Metal working equipment, really Jaouen? Awesome.” Besides making me significantly more masculine (45%, guaranteed), the mill is great for building inventions! Whether its building another doomsday device “just in case”, or building a horrible, Mutari hunting, robot, the mill comes in handy. One major hurdle remains however; funding. A decent personal mill runs for about a grand, so I may have to just settle on Jonesing.

Everyone has seen them in movies and games, a sinister looking big red button that obviously activates something impressive. Who knows what pressing the button will do. The button could activate your doomsday device (don’t you have one too? Mine just makes babies cry, relentlessly for hours, then makes blue whales fall from the sky like rain.) or just start an alarm. Big red buttons fill us with a sense of intrigue and wonder. Surprisingly, few people have access to big red buttons in their daily lives. This guy, http://plasma2002.com/epb/, decided that it was time for a change. His big red button, positioned strategically on a living room table, converts his house into the ultimate dance party in a pinch. Pressing the button sets off a chain of events that lead to the ultimate “lets party atmosphere” in seconds, complete with fog machine and black lights. Now, doesn’t your house seem boring?

What would you do with your big red button? Tell us by leaving a comment below.

Bruce Lee vs Chuck Norris   <——-    this video is awesome

As we age through our 20’s, we all find ourselves busier as the days go by.  At least most of us.  If you are not busy, there are two possible scenarios. 1) You are not doing shit with your life, and if so…get your shit together.  Or, 2) You have a better life than I do, and you must be having a good time.  If that is true, Go Fuck Yourself.  The point is, as we all get busier, it is the finer things that allow us to relax and enjoy life when we are most stressed.  For me, I find great comfort in the world of sports.  As you all likely are aware, I live and die with Colorado sports, except for those butt pirates down in Ft. Collins.  CSU can suck a goat’s nuts.  So I write these words in deep despair and emotional paralysis over the current state of Colorado sports.  This week, we as Colorado sports fans have suffered one of our worst periods in recent memory.  For those of you keeping score at home, here’s the tally:  First, the Nuggets lost AGAIN in the first round of the playoffs, even after a 50-win season.  We didn’t just lose, we got swept.  And who did we lose to?  Kobe and the Rape-ettes.  God I hate that guy.  In the words of my father, “I fucking hate Kobe.”  Next, the Avs lost in the second round.  Once again, we didn’t just lose, we got swept.  And I believe that is 9 STRAIGHT LOSSES in the 2nd round of the playoffs for the Avs.  And of course we lost to those fucking communists from Detroit.  And not just 1-0.  The last game was an 8-2 beatdown.  Two sweeps in one week.  That’s like meeting a beautiful woman at the bar, going home with her, and getting cock-blocked by her bitch of a roommate.  You don’t get another chance until next season, and all you can do is be pissed off about your monumental letdown.  Don’t give me that, “You made the playoffs so be happy” bullshit.  Anyone who says that has never had a team make the playoffs.  And then, the week gets worse when we find out that Troy Tulowitzki has torn a tendon in his quad that will keep him out until after the All-Star break.  FUCK!  And the final blow comes when the news breaks that Jay Cutler has been diagnosed with Diabetes.  Come on, after a while this shit just starts to be cruel.  I wanna know, who is responsible for all this?  Who is to blame for all that we have been forced to accept?  Personally I think it’s that damn Jay Feder.  I don’t know how, but somehow part of this has to be his fault.   So I write these words, clearly in a state of frustration, and general anger.  Whoever is to blame for all of this, I feel obligated as a member of Colorado sportsnation to inform you of what must be done.  For causing the Sportsfans of Colorado so much anguish, you need to get what you have coming to you.  Line up, so I can kick you in the balls.  I can’t take much more of this, and I need to inflict suffering on something.  Who’s with me?

Yeah… I could use some of that. A good Sunday activity; something to get my juices flowing but not too difficult. An outlet for what’s on my mind. Yeah… that sounds good. Creative writing can be an enjoyable and rewarding activity. But like all rewarding activities, writing can be difficult and frustrating at times. As any successful writer will tell you, the secret to quality writing is practice and spell chek. I’ve never been one for either of these. Tolstoy wrote without MS Word and I’ve written this post. Therefore neither spell chrck or practice are necessary. Iron clad. This also reinforces my idea that great writers are very insecure and try to throw potentially greater writers off course with silly rules. In conclusion, I’m excited for spring, Ticket Master is a rip-off, I hate the phrase ‘if you think about it’, and the What White People Like website knows me better than most who have met me.

After nearly 26 years of living on the line of cool and lame, I have found a way of getting off the fence. A skateboard. I have decided that a skateboard may be dangerous enough to suit my lifestyle, and cool enough to make me hip again. I have no doubt that I will be able to find incredibly interesting new ways to cover my body in scraps and bruises, and with any luck, I will get a hospital visit out of the deal. There was some discussion as to what type of board to get. Seeing the guys in skateboard competitions grind rails and get big air had me looking very closely at a freestyle board. After about an hour of discussing the topic with various people, our friend over at Airek Publius convinced me that, despite my best efforts to convince myself otherwise, I am tall, gangly and too old to learn to freestyle board. After having my dreams of X-Games gold so brilliantly dashed away, I decided to go with the longboard. I will be searching for the perfect board over the next few weeks. As I have almost no experience with skating, the performance doesn’t matter to me so much as looking awesome. If you see a board worth buying, let me know (I really like the one, by Element, pictured).

There are a number of horrible hallmark holidays out there. These holidays are shameless money making schemes for card manufactures and chocolate makers (I’ve got my eye on you, Wonka). I’m talking about father’s day, Valentines Day, and Earth Day to name just a few. These holidays are the result of clever marketing and a need to pacify the mob. We are forced to celebrate these holidays because nobody wants to say, “Sorry honey, Valentines day is a crock of shit so I didn’t get you anything.” It is in this way that corporate holidays have become a mainstay of American culture. There is one holiday that dares to break the mould. A holiday that no religion or marketing monster would dare create. A holiday created by the people, for the people. A holiday called 420. Some say it was started by a small band of hippies that wanted a break from the drudgery of smoking their drugs in their mothers’ basements. Others say that it was the late visionary Jerry Garcia who started the holiday. Regardless of the origins however, this holiday is a celebration of the reefer. Although 420 is recognized around the world as a pseudo-holiday, in few places is there more support than my own stomping ground of Boulder. Every year festivities ensue on campus as thousands of students gather for this fantastic ode to a drug that makes everyone apathetic.

In years past, The Man has done his best to quell the mob. Past strategies have included, but are not limited to, turning on the sprinklers, using riot police to intimidate the mob, use of hidden cameras to capture images of drug offenders, and waterboarding. Last year though, things went off without a hitch. It is possible that the university just can’t think of any effective way to stop the festivities. It is possible however, that the university recognizes the pressure placed on students in an ever more competitive world. It may be easier to let the students “have their Tar-Tar sauce” than to deal with a student body that feels oppressed by work and by an unreasonable administration. Whatever the reasons, this years 420 celebration (which regrettably I did not witness) attracted 10,000 people to the Norlin Quad at CU. Police were again present that the festivities, but this year they made absolutely no attempts to stop the party. At 4:20 a cloud of smoke rose from the crowd and not a single ticket was issued. Police later stated that 20 police were no match for a mob of 10,000 potheads. They were simply there to keep the peace. It is difficult for me to applaud the actions of any police force, let alone the Boulder police. I have made a sport of hating the very air that they breathe. For once they have done well, by doing nothing at all. Congratulations BPD, you handled a situation with cool minds and dignity, keep it up!

If you know me, then you know that I (like Stephen Colbert) like one thing more than anything else in the world, me. I don’t like being overshadowed by anything. Having to type Jaouen.tumblr.com instead of just Jaouen.com has infuriated me from the beginning of this blog. It makes it sound like tumblr is the subject of the blog, instead of that handsome devil, Jaouen. In an attempt to rectify the situation, I have purchased a domain name for the blog, and I will be migrating to a new server under a new name over the next few days. Finding a perfect domain name, that is clever, yet still satisfies my basic love of me, was a difficult task. At first I went simple, Jaouen.com. No Dice; it was taken. I next tried something a little more religious, WhatWouldJaouenDo.com…taken. Plus, the inability of the internet to handle “?” in a domain name was a genuine disappointment. From there I tried JaouensWorld.com, but it sounded pretentious; like something Ike would make. Switchskier.jaouen.com was my next attempt, but switchskier sounds like a move performed by two men in the comfort of a hotel room”apres skiing”. OrangeFootJaouen.com was another option. My feet may be disgusting, but they aren’t orange. AirekPubliusJaouen.com was unpronounceable. Plus I have too much disrespect for dead languages to use something that sounds like Latin. Whitehouse.com sounded great, but it turns out it already exists (and I certainly hope that those pictures aren’t of the First Lady). Another domain that I tried was JaouenIsAwesome.com…taken. I tried all of the different iterations of those words, IsJaouenAwesome.com, which sounded too introspective, and JaouenAwesomeIs.com, which sounds like a library entry. In the end I had to settle on something simple. It isn’t a flashy name, but it does satisfy my main requirement, it contains the word Jaouen. This evening Danny and I will begin the migration process from Jaouen.tumblr.com to TheJaouen.com. The site’s address may be changing, but the premise will remain, What’s Jaouen Jonesing For?

Update:  We have moved!  The old posts were ported over to the new site with a lengthy process involving quite a bit of work by hand.  A few posts were left behind, because they sucked.  They are not gone though, the tumblr site isn’t going anywhere.  You may occasionally find xml code for special characters if you look through old posts.  I have tried to elimenate it all, but it is all over the place.  There are also problems with double spaces being turned into single spaces after periods in the old posts.  The new site may change significantly over the next few days as we experiment with new themes.  Please bare with me as we transition into the new site.  Cheers -Jaouen