Personal Info

Name: Steven K. Baum
Picture(s): rare indeed with an occasional ambush shot
Born: 7/12/59 (on the obligatory dark and stormy night)
Died: at an actuarially appropriate time plus a standard deviation or two (hopefully)
Marital status: not legally but otherwise engaged
Height: 5' 9" (sans the platform shoes with goldfish in the heels)
Weight: 200 lbs. (in dog lbs.)
Eyes: two
Race: rat
Hair: receding and graying (in just that order)
Polarity (human): theoretical hetero
Polarity (animal): dog person (not that way, potty-mind)
Sign: deceptive bends
Personality: moody loner with occasional (okay, frequent) bursts of psychotic rage
Religious affiliation: devout botulist
Political affiliation: Raving Monster Looney Party
Vocation: oceanographer/climatologist/cynic/phrenologist
Turn-ons: long walks on phoney people
Turn-offs: phoney walks on long people
Drug of choice: life (okay, now that we've both stopped chortling, it's really alcohol)
Need to be publicly confessional: slim and none
Obligatory Shakespearian allusion: Benedict looking for Beatrice

Pleasure:

• The squinty-eyed look dogs get when you scratch them just right.
• Just about everything else about dogs.
• A very good beer (e.g. Anchor Steam) on a very hot summer afternoon in late July or early August.
• A very good (and much heavier) beer (e.g. Anchor Christmas) during that week or so of winter cold hereabouts. Even better is last year's Anchor Christmas after aging for a year. Real beer ages well; pisswater just gets stale.
• A hammock and Miles Davis' "Sketches of Spain" along with the aforementioned brew(s).
• Places that sell used books.
• Using words like "apoplectic", "defenestrate", "circuitous" and "disopprobrium" in everyday conversation.
• P.G. Wodehouse. "Bloody," said Jeeves, "marvelous."
• The endorphin rush that kicks in about 15-20 minutes after two hours of self-induced hell in the gym.
• The porch at Duddley's when all the gits are out of town.
• Watching seeds sprout in the spring. What a rush. A simple but not simplistic pleasure that will eternally remain so.
• The therapeutic ministrations of a cool breeze, especially when it has salty overtones.
• That which grows on you. The instantly impressive is inevitably ephemeral.

• So-called bookstores that sell only textbooks and t-shirts.
• Those who equate graciousness with weakness and passivity.
• Those who take you utterly for granted -- expecting the automatic granting of your favors in exchange for, if anything, the occasional equivalent of a dog biscuit.

Location (now): my present home location can be found via MapBlast
Location (then): my original home location can be found in a similar manner
Travel directions: getting from now to then spatially

Interests (with varying degrees of seriosity):

• Writing the definitive history of physical oceanography in the 20th century
• Creating an open source Web archive of every significant oceanography text that's ever gone out of print - the obsessions of commerce need not dictate the lifetime of the classics
• intermediate numerical ocean circulation models
• growing extremely hot peppers
• nonlinear, baroclinic wave dynamics
• snorting a fifth of Chivas through a guitar neck
• growing exquisitely delicious tomatoes
• developing a time machine in order to find out if Pope Leo IV was really a Sufi mystic
• climate and paleoclimate studies
• growing grotesque Italian and Peruvian squash varieties
• raising exotic fruits and vegetables for commercial consumption and for use as kinky sex toys
• performing my acoustic stuff with the London Philharmonic
• incorporating quantum effects in ocean circulation models
• evolving the ultimately fast and robust algorithm for solving the Navier-Stokes equations on a CM-5 with 2048 processors using genetic programming techniques
• ethnobotanical psychopharmacology
• making it to page 73 in the Kama Sutra without the assistance of either hydraulics or lemurs
• psychobotanical ethnopharmacology
• pharmobotanical ethnopsychology
• performing an analytical turbulence closure for the primitive equations for fluid flow using renormalization group techniques
• terpsichorean ecdysiasts
• replacing the external mode solution in terms of the stream function in the SPEM model with one in terms of the pressure to decrease computation time and increase stability in regions of steep topographic gradients
• preservation of biodiversity sans formaldehyde
• simultaneously following in the footsteps of Robert Burton and Jorge Luis Borges by writing a book about 40 pages long called The Anatomy of Fiction
• creating a parallel virtual machine that puts Amdahl's Law in the same category as blue laws
• establishing a nifty herbarary chock full o' the best medicinal and culinary varieties
• designing and building a theme park around the concept of the Spanish Inquisition
• opening a brewpub called Arnie's Anthrax Ales
• proving that cannabis sativa is the ideal and perhaps only practical sink for excess atmospheric carbon dioxide
• waiting for and finally meeting that rude bastard Godot
• investigating possible paleo-thermohaline ocean circulation patterns as to their effect on glacial stages
• curing the heartbreak of psoriasis once and for all
• writing a Perl script that will do everything for me except drink the beer and make the sign of the two-humped camel
• developing an intermediate general circulation model with all the numerical advantages of the linear balance model but with only half the calories and none of the cholesterol
• reducing the infinite-dimensional atmosphere/ocean dynamical system to a finite-dimensional system with less than 10 degrees of freedom that reproduces all the interesting dynamics
• remixing Exile on Main Street
• breaking into the Reagan and Bush Libraries and replacing every book with an exact duplicate except for the titles on the spines which flash one day a year in October the message "I'm guilty as hell"
• being famous for 15 minutes for creating a fad more inane than even pet rocks, the Laffer curve, or Bart Simpson t-shirts
• telling People magazine, Sally Jessie Raphael, Arsenio, Today and all the other culture vultures to get bent during the aforementioned stretch of fame and only giving interviews to obscure deconstructionist journals
• obtaining a copy of an unabridged version of Sir Richard Francis Burton's translation of the tales of the Arabian Nights (this was accomplished on June 16, 1993; see, they aren't all pipe dreams, eh?)
• nude alligator wrestling (the alligators, not me)
• constructing a program that creates Larry Wall in a horrifying fit of recursion
• reconstructing the contents of the thousands of notebooks that Burton's wife burned in perhaps the biggest literary disaster of the last 200 years
• translating Diderot's Encyclopedia into Sanskrit
• going to bullfights on acid (I might even buy you a beer if you can give me the reference for this one unless of course your last name is Rikkkkkkkkli)
• revising Abramowitz and Stegun's Handbook of Mathematical Functions to contain more gratuitous sex scenes and less boring dialogue
• finding a Hamiltonian (as opposed to Jeffersonian) representation for an intermediate model that conserves all the appropriate quantities and retains numerical accuracy
• not allowing my life to become an obsession about obtaining bigger, faster, and louder electronic equipment than is owned by my betters (such as they are)
• becoming president of the Bavarian Illuminati *heh heh heh*
• getting a copy of that novel that doesn't contain the letter 'e' (a beer for knowing the title, by the way)
• raising albino German Shepherds for classified CIA missions in Antarctica
• overthrowing the U.S. government by subversion and violence
• joining the Kronos Quartet and playing on an album called A Little Bit Country, A Little Bit Rock and Roll: Donny and Marie Interpreted by the Kronos Quartet
• this is not a list item
• translating Godel, Escher, Bach into Esperanto
• cultivating hybrid albino triffids
• becoming a famous scientist and, on my deathbed, indicating in the margins of a well-thumbed and annotated copy of Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler's Gravity that I have indeed found a theory that consistently combines quantum mechanics and general relativity, and then dying whilst snickering
• crustacean phrenology
• putting the officers of the Hair Club for Men behind bars
• rewriting Don Quixote as an episode of Itchy and Scratchy
• retooling my S.E.P. field to use spherical harmonics in order to achieve non-locality
• exploring the implications of a hermaphroditic existence
• seeking out (boldly, of course) new civilizations that don't strangely resemble those on earth and resolving major intergalactic crises that don't involve aliens that are indistinguishable from Mongols or Cossacks
• becoming terribly obscure and recondite in a sesquipedalian sort of way
• obtaining a copy of the underground version of Sam Johnson's dictionary that he only showed to his closest friends and only then after ten too many pints of ale
• self-reference
• creating life using only orthogonal polynomials and empty Foster's cans
• refuting thee (thusly)

Dogs:

• a black lab named Max
• a black pug named Marley
• a fawn pug named Madeline
• the memories of a 13 1/2 year old German Shepherd cross named Shiva

Recently read and recommended:

• The Rape of the APE - Allen Sherman
• The Gun Seller - Hugh Laurie
• Loitering with Intent - Peter O'Toole
• I, Asimov - Isaac Asimov
• Made in America - Bill Bryson
• Harpo Speaks! - Harpo Marx
• Rebellions, Perversities and Main Events - Murray Kempton
• Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language - Douglas Hofstadter
• The Muse is Always Half-Dressed in New Orleans - Andrei Codrescu
• The Cunning Man - Robertson Davies
• The Song of the Dodo - David Quammen
• The Thought Gang - Tibor Fischer
• QED - Richard Feynman
• The World Within the World - John D. Barrow
• The Gold Bug Variations - Richard Powers
• You've Had Your Time - Autobiography Pt. II - Anthony Burgess
• Falstaff - Robert Nye
• Any Old Iron - Anthony Burgess
• Jerusalem Poker - Edward Whittemore
• Tremor of Intent - Anthony Burgess
• Programming Perl - Larry "Bloody Brilliant" Wall
• The Anti-Death League - Kingsley Amis
• Homage to Qwert Yuiop - Anthony Burgess
• Searching for Certainty - John L. Casti
• Does God Play Dice? - Ian Stewart
• Last Call - Tim Powers
• The New Physics - Paul Davies, ed.
• Numerical Recipes in Fortran (2nd Ed.) - William Press, et al.
• The Whole Earth Review magazine
• Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
• Artificial Life II - Christopher Langton et al., eds.
• Against Method - Paul Feyerabend
• Outside the Dog Museum - Jonathan Carroll
• For Love and Money - Jonathan Raban
• The Innocents Abroad - Mark Twain
• Ficciones - Jorge Luis Borges
• Necrom - Mick Farren
• Walking Across Egypt - Clyde Edgerton
• Night of the Cooters - Howard Waldrop
• True Names and Other Stories - Vernor Vinge
• UNIX Power Tools - Jerry Peek, Tim O'Reilly and Mike Loukides
• Genetic Programming: On the Programming of Computers by Means of Natural Selection - John R. Koza
• Collecting Himself: James Thurber on Writing and Writers, Humor and Himself - Micheal J. Rosen, ed.
• The New Hacker's Dictionary - Eric Raymond, ed.
• The Aleph and Other Stories 1933-1969 - Jorge Luis Borges
• Quin's Shanghai Circus - Edward Whittemore
• The Diary of H.L. Mencken - Charles Fletcher, ed.
• Out of Control - Kevin Kelly
• Mrs. Shakespeare - Robert Nye
• I, Claud ... - Claud Cockburn
• The Artful Eater: A Gourmet Investigates the Ingredients of Great Food - Edward Behr
• Less Than Words Can Say - Richard Mitchell
• Oddies and Curiosities of Words and Literature - C. C. Bombaugh
• The Arabian Nights: A Companion - Robert Irwin
• Running Linux - Matt Welsh

Recently heard and recommended:

• Lincoln - They Might Be Giants
• Flood - They Might Be Giants <
• Apollo 18 - They Might Be Giants
• Arc - Neil Young
• Shut Up and Play Yer Guitar - Frank Zappa
• Soup of the Century - 3 Mustaphas 3
• At His Best - Mose Allison
• Gravity Dance - The Horse Flies
• Heartattack and Vine - Tom Waits
• Lord of the Highway - Joe Ely
• Guitar - Sonny Sharrock
• Bone Machine - Tom Waits
• Hearts of Stone - Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes
• Red Hot and Blues on KTAM Fridays from 10 pm to midnight
• Damn Right I've Got the Blues - Buddy Guy
• Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs - Derek and the Dominos
• The Best of Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes
• A Passage in Time - Dead Can Dance
• Friends, Fiends and Fronds - 3 Mustaphas 3
• Live at Liberty Lunch - Joe Ely
• Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye: A Tribute to Roky Erickson
• Spinal Tap - Spinal Tap
• Loud and Plowed and ... LIVE!! - Beat Farmers
• USA - King Crimson
• Paris Encounter - Gary Burton and Stephane Grappelli
• Wrong Way Up - Eno/Cale
• Seize the Rainbow - Sonny Sharrock Band
• Live Alive - Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble
• The Compact King Crimson - King Crimson
• Watching the Dark - Richard Thompson
• Goin' Back to New Orleans - Dr. John
• The Criminal Under My Own Hat - T. Bone Burnett
• Why Don't You Try Me Tonight - The Best of Ry Cooder
• Into the Woods - The Call
• Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld - The Orb
• Safe Journey - Steve Tibbetts
• Dry - The Durutti Column
• Skankin' Pickle Fever - Skankin' Pickle
• Snivilisation - Orbital
• Songs of Freedom - Bob Marley

Recently seen and recommended:

• Dazed and Confused (if you spent the mid-70s in high school then watch this and get all nostalgic and weepy)
• Dr. Strangelove (I don't think that this can be overhyped)
• Simple Men (by far the best from cult favorite Hal Hartley)
• The Point (this Harry Nilsson-scored cartoon from 1971 is available on video - don't miss it)
• Blackadder (the entire frigging series)
• Bedazzled (unfortunately this is currently (4/99) unavailable on video)
• Fandango (still Kevin Costner's best film - and as an added bonus it features Shiner Bock beer)
• Blazing Saddles (if you don't find this funny then jump off a very tall building before you cause any further harm)
• The Final Programme
• The Perils of Gwendolyne in the Land of Yik Yak (Joe Bob loves this, and any movie with the line "If you don't take off your shirt you'll die" can't be all bad, out of print)
• The Coca Cola Kid (I just keep coming back to this - it resonates in a really big way for whatever reasons, out of print)
• Big Trouble in Little China (Kurt Russell meets the Indy Jones schtick meets the oriental/chopsocky/occult thang in a really good way)
• Jeeves and Wooster on Masterpiece Theatre (Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie meet P. G. Wodehouse - a match made in Nirvana)
• Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Animation Festival
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Tom Stoppard meets Shakespeare meets Gary Oldman and Tim Roth - a tasty mix)
• Bagdad Cafe (incredibly haunting title tune and a Jack Palance role not ruined by testosterone)
• Catch-22 (sure, it's not as good as the book but every time I see it (10+ and counting) it gets better)
• The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpaugh's tour de force - a nearly unprecedented (at the time) take on the fact the violence leads to quick and nasty death rather than stirring 10-minute final speeches)

Bio

Okay, here's a few details:

• Born and raised in central Ohio.
• Attended Ohio State from 1977 to 1982 and received a B.S. in civil engineering.
• Worked in materials testing hell for almost a year.
• Took GRE to escape said hell via grad school (or at least find a more accomodating hell therein).
• Buggered off to Texas A&M in 1983 to snag a M.S. in ocean engineering in a little over a year and a half.
• Switched to oceanography at A&M in 1985 and commenced a 10 year march to a Ph.D. with the odd bit of paleoclimatological research interspersed during the last 6 of those years.
• Transmogrified into an Assistant Research Scientist in 1996 to perform (not unlike the legendary bear on the bicycle) yet more paleoclimatological research.
• Slowly transformed into a part-time UNIX computer nerd during the 90s.
• And, of course, the beer thing and the dog thing.