Dish Pit to NASA

Dish Pit to NASA

After finishing my satellite calibration internship at DigitalGlobe, I was at a loss of what to do next. I interviewed for a full-time position at the company, but the particular position was not quite the correct match for where I was at that point. 

After that I continued to apply for similar positions in GIS and Remote Sensing for another two months. I wasn't having much luck and I was getting frustrated and depressed over the situation, so I decided I needed to do something different for a while. I applied to go back and work at one of my previous jobs at the YMCA of Rockies in Estes Park, CO. 

I moved up to Estes Park, CO from Lafayette, CO after two frustrating months of applying for full time jobs in my field. These were mainly all located along the front range of Colorado in Denver, Boulder, and Fort Collins areas. I started at the YMCA of the Rockies in the middle of October. I had a lot of fun touring the property and I ran into a few friends from the first time I had worked there three years before. It was fun to have a tour of the property and to be able to see what had changed. This is no normal YMCA property. It is the largest YMCA property in the world, with over three hundred buildings. It's its' own functional city. They purify their own water for up to four thousand people in the summer! The property is located right next to the town of Estes Park, CO and Rocky Mountain National Park. This area is my favorite place in the world, and it's no secret to the tourists and seasonal workers who take advantage of the area's mountains. They go climbing, running, hiking, cycling, wildlife watching, etc... It's a wonderful place to be. 

The YMCA of the Rockies is a hidden gem in the winter. That's especially true if you're looking for a Thoreau-like experience. You're on a property with plenty of other employees around, but it's at minimum functional capacity for the winter to keep everything up and running. There are regular 80 mph gusts of wind that make the buildings rattle and shake. It gets dark very early in the day and it tends to get relatively cold in the winter. The jobs are simple, washing dishes, cooking for the other employees, and trying to stay entertained. It's very easy to live simply and just relax alone in your room. The first time I was there at the Y, I spent my free time reading mountaineering books, training for a half-marathon, and applying to six different universities around the state of Colorado. I was also allotted a generous amount of time off from work to go and visit the different universities. I also know someone who wrote a good portion of his dissertation during a single winter in Estes Park, CO. In short, it's a good place to get stuff done and reinvent/re-evaluate life. That was my plan for my second winter there in Estes Park.

After touring the property, I got everything set up in my room, and went to work at the little cafe in the main building the following day. I had difficulty adjusting to the altitude and the new situation after being unemployed for a few months. I started work at the cafe the next day in the administration building. I wasn't feeling well about halfway through the shift and I was having trouble breathing. I went to the front desk to talk to the manager for a bit and I told him that I thought I might be having a panic attack. I could barely speak or breath and everything around me seemed very intense. I went and sat down in the back for a while and talked to the front desk manager for fifteen minutes. At first, I didn't remember him, but then I remembered that he had started working there full time back in 2014 which was when I had worked here before. He said he used to have trouble with anxiety as well and reassured me about it. After twenty minutes or so I started feeling better and went back to close out my shift for the day. I could not sleep that night and was feeling so awful that I started to write a suicide note and then halfway through I turned it around into a more positive message. I called into work the next day and eventually had to go to the emergency room in Estes Park a few days later. I could hardly walk after I got back from the ER and for the next couple of days after that. I felt absolutely horrible, but I ended up going back to work in less than a week and I switched over to the main cafeteria so that I could be on a regular schedule. 

After I started working in the main cafeteria I felt better and started meeting new people. That's always been one of my favorite things about Estes Park is that you meet people from all walks of life. I met Bobby from Estes Park, who was a very interesting character. He was both interested in science and spirituality. His wife was some type of a psychic who wrote about also wrote about nature and informed others about climate change when it was first coming out several decades before. I had some interesting conversations with Bobby while preparing food for the cafeteria. I also met Laura who wanted to be an aerospace engineer. I told her that I had applied to the NASA DEVELOP program. She was as excited about it as me! I shared my portfolio with her and talked about all of my experiences and accomplishments in a short two years at the University of Colorado Boulder. She was interested and impressed. 

After that I started working in the dish room with other characters such as a retired teacher named Bob, a retired English teacher and traveler Robert, and several other well-educated characters. I heard a story about a woman who had worked there a few months before me. She had worked for SpaceX and had become stressed out with her work and wanted to be in the mountains for a bit. She worked at the YMCA for a few months and then ended up going back to work at SpaceX. I found out that there was a retired Space Shuttle Commander who lived in Estes Park, as well as a former NASA rocket engineer. And the staff in the dish room was one of the most well-educated dish room staff around. This was true of several departments on the property. Some people had started working there as seasonals and never left. They ended up making 40-year careers out of it. I knew one of the front desk managers had been a commercial airline pilot in the past. He was also in need of change and started working on property several years before. At the time I was thinking to myself maybe I'm not meant to work at NASA. Maybe just sticking around Estes Park and living a simple life would be okay. After all it is one of my favorite places in the world. There are some things which are appealing to me about being able to stick to one place of work for your entire career. That's almost impossible in the twenty-first century. The YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park is its own little "bubble" isolated from the rest of society in the Rocky Mountains.

After a few weeks though I became bored at work. I enjoyed meeting all the new people and hearing Bobby's stories, but I was bored with the work and the situation. So, I signed up to take some short online courses. I signed up for "Special Relativity" from Stanford, "Python for Beginners" from the University of Michigan, an astrophysics course from the University of Colorado Boulder, "Computer Modeling of Natural Processes" from the University of Geneva, and "Geodesign" from the Penn State University. Every night after work I studied for a couple of hours or more until at least midnight, and sometimes until 3 am. I also started hiking and running on occasion and building up my physical strength again. 

Then one day while working in the dish room I got an email on my smart phone saying that I had got an interview for the NASA DEVELOP program! I was really excited and told people about it. I asked for the day off of work from Sara the departmental manager. The night before the interview I drove down to Lafayette, CO to stay at the place I was still renting. The day of the interview it was snowing and I left a couple of hours before so that I could make sure to make it up to Fort Collins, CO on time. I had worked on my portfolio beforehand and wore my suit and tie. The interview was short and only lasted 25 minutes. Tim, the Center Lead, told me I'd have to wait and he sent the interview sheet to the National Program Office in Langley, Virginia. I drove back up to the YMCA that night and went back to work the next day. 

I waited a week..., then two weeks..., then three weeks...  It was really very tough to wait that long. "The Fear of the Unknown is the Greatest Fear of All", comes to mind. I was starting to get down on myself again a bit, and be less excited after having waited a month. Then a few days after that I got an automated email from the National Program Office. Automated emails are never a good thing when applying for a government job, or any job in general. I didn't get the position... I was disappointed, but I figured I would just apply again in a few months since the program takes applications three times a year. 

I continued working in the dish room and studying every night. I also started to make plans like pursuing an online data science certificate, and getting a commercial drone license. Both would be useful side certifications in my field of study. I kept talking to Bobby about NASA and to Laura as well. Laura ended up applying to several engineering schools and decided to go to the Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida. She was really impressed by my attitude and desire to work for NASA. I hope I showed her that anything is possible at any age.

It was nearing the end of my seasonal contract at the YMCA of the Rockies and I decided to apply for an extension of three months. I signed the new agreement and kept up the same work. I ran into my professor who had come up for a weekend with some of the University of Colorado Boulder staff. She is the Director of Earth Lab which is a big data analytics hub for climate adaptation and natural hazards on the East Campus of the University of Colorado Boulder. She said hello and I told her that I had applied for the NASA DEVELOP position, as well as fifty other jobs and positions. She told me to keep on trying and continue networking. 

I was working in the dish room and it was a busy day because there had been a wedding that day. We were all eating shrimp, wedding cake, and leftover steaks after the wedding. I was tired and went back to my room to sleep, and decided not to study that night. I checked my email on my phone and scrolled through the automated job alerts and saw an email from the NASA DEVELOP program. I was a little confused about why I'd be getting an email after I had been rejected. I opened it up and it basically stated that someone had dropped out for some reason and that I had received an offer in that person's place! I was so excited and went down the hall to my friend Robert's room from the dish room. He's the retired English teacher and traveler. I showed him the email and he read it. The email said I had to start on Monday and it was now Thursday at midnight. It was all the way down in Fort Collins and I needed a place to live. I would have to break my contract at the YMCA, move back down to the apartment in Lafayette, CO and figure out how to get to work in Fort Collins fifty miles away. My nerves were definitely acting up that night, but it really didn't matter because I was super excited!

The next day I went to work and I told Sara and Chris, the manager's, about it. They were sorry to see me leave, but they were also very excited for me. It turned out that the food service staff appreciation dinner was in a couple of days. I stayed on property and got to go to that. People were singing lines from David Bowie's song "Space Oddity" at the dinner. I was in the middle of filling out an extensive amount of electronic hiring paperwork and couldn’t stay for the entire the time. 

The next day in the dish room, Bob, Val, and a few other employees had written some goodbyes on the dry erase board for me. It's not that often that someone gets to go and work for NASA out of the so-called "Dish Pit" at the YMCA of the Rockies, but it happened that day! 

I had learned to make the best out of a fairly bad situation of being severely depressed after having put in fifty applications and working in a seemingly meaningless job of washing dishes. It's all about turning things around and pursuing those dreams and meaningful work in life. 

Charles N. Whittemore

20th June, 2018

Part II: "NASA and Beyond" coming soon...

.....

The Valley of Death: Stories from Death Valley

The Valley of Death: Stories from Death Valley

Day 0: 5th of January, 2017

I woke up in Boulder, CO to a foot of snow on the ground. The university was closed. I went to work via the local bus anyway, after having little sleep the night before. I met a couple, one of whom I had worked with at the campus bookstore. The couple were waiting to see if they could get into the buildings on campus. They sat there freezing in the near zero degree weather. I said why don't you follow me? I can get us into the Geography building. We walked through the middle of campus to Guggenheim. I walked down the stairs, and got us into the building. There I stood and talked with them for a little while. I found out that the woman was doing a first bachelor's degree after having transferred from the University of Chicago. We talked for a bit and I found out that she was interested in Geology, Geography, science, and books. She stood there and told me that she had over 200 credits. I wondered how it was possible to stay an undergraduate with a first degree for so long. 

Her boyfriend talked a bit and said that he was was double majoring in Physics and Computer Science. He worked at LASP (the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics) on Satellites, as well as NCAR, (the National Center for Atmospheric Research). He talked about how he was helping to develop a new method to smooth the metal on the satellites in order to make it space worthy. I thought it was very interesting myself. 

That same day I went to my job at the soils lab on campus, to figure out what was happening with the soil samples. I had made a mistake and mislabeled some of the samples. It tore me up inside because I knew how long they took to collect. I wanted to fix it on my own. I tried for at least three hours, and could not get it right. I got confused. I took the bus back to my apartment. When I arrived at my apartment, I felt awful, and admitted that to my friends who had just arrived from out of town, that I had messed up. Then I had a bit of a panic attack, because I couldn't fix my mistake, and the combination of the weather and the mental stresses exhausted me. I sat there and went through the motions of life for the next two hours in a mode of panic. Time seemed to stop, and moments lasted forever. I told my friends that I no longer wanted to go on my trip to Death Valley. They couldn't seem to understand why? I couldn't tell them. I went upstairs to take a nap and come down after fifteen minutes. They told me that I should still go on the trip, that it was exactly what I needed. I wasn't so sure at that point. We went over to my friends house and watched television with him that night. Then we went back to my place & slept the night away. The next morning...


Day I: 6th of January, 2017

I woke up and was dropped off on campus for a doctor's appointment. They said that I had experienced a panic attack as I had thought. They also encouraged me to go on my trip and let me have some alone time, and the chance to get away and explore.

Part II:

I went back to my apartment and we packed for the trip. We left that day bound for Moab, Utah. About the time we got on the road I started feeling better from the previous day. We listened to a combination of NASA podcasts, followed by comedy bang bang, and the dirtbag diaries. We drove through the snowstorm in the western mountains of Colorado. Eventually, I ended up in a hostel that night. Along the road we had contemplated NASA's vertical farming with bacteria that could produce everything needed for a trip to Mars as well as using agricultural land, more productively. We could increase the production of crops on the land 10,000 times by using this method of vertical farming. To good to be true? Or a modern technological miracle? Probably somewhere in the middle...

Day I: Part III

We entered the hostel in Moab, called the Lazy Lizard. There we met all sorts of interesting people. We met people like a traveller from Switzerland who was hitchhiking through the Western United States for a month. He was living life by the seat of his pants, and had travelled through the same snowstorm in Colorado. He held a sign, "Stupid European trying to hitchhike." People seemed to like it, and would give him rides.


Day II: 7th of January, 2017

When we got up and made breakfast the next day, we met the same traveling swiss man. He told us that he was headed into the park for the day. He made about eight turkey and cheese sandwiches to take with him. I learned that he was also a Geography major, travelling the world. A great way to see the world. He talked of things like a new emerging economy beyond capitalism. It was where robots would do most of our jobs, and people would just work if they wanted to work, or work fifteen hours a week. We talked of global climate change, the collapse of civilization, and psychedelic mushrooms. Then he was off headed west into the park. Ryan, Mike, and I took off headed west ourselves.

Driving through Utah, the landscapes of red sandstone cliffs and mountains, and canyons took me by surprise. So many different landscapes in just a few short miles. Then we headed into Nevada towards the end of the day. Even the desert in the south was new to me. I had been to northern Nevada before. I knew what a desert was, but this was so much drier and different. Then we hit Las Vegas towards the end of the day. The city of casinos and boundless entertainment. It wan off of water drained from the Colorado River. The city that shouldn't be there. The desert city. Then we drove back through it and camped the night on the northeast shore of Lake Mead in a very interesting landscape. We threw out our sleeping bags under the stars, and listened to the coyotes.


Day III: 8th of January, 2017

We headed out and grocery shopped in Las Vegas at Trader Joe's. We were going to be eating well, eating healthy on our trip west. We drove until we saw a gas station just outside of Beatty, Nevada. It was called, "Area 51 gas station" and an Alien bar and Brothel attached. We went in the store full of Area 51 souvenirs and t-shirts covered with alien heads. Soon after Mike told me that Area 51 was actually in southern New Mexico.

We drove through Beatty, NV, a town that was very run-down with cobbled together houses and rusty trucks for sale. There were houses with broken windows propped up on stilts on the right, and a relatively nice looking motel on the left. Then we finished the drive into Death Valley. We met "Mike" a guy that camped 6 months out of the year at the campsite next to ours. Our Mike had bike stories to exchange with the new Mike. We cooked dinner on my Biolite stove, and headed to bed early.

It rained that night. It was very windy. Not what you'd expect in a place that gets less than two inches of rain a year. All of it seems to come in January, when the people are few and far between, and the landscape in endless...


Day IV: 9th of January, 2017

Out tents stayed up that night despite being blasted by 50 mph gusts all night long. We took rocks and ropes and secured them more properly to the parking lot campsite, 2,000 feet above the valley floor.

Following that, Ryan decided to stay at the campsite and relax and do nothing for the day. Mike and I decided to hit up the visitors center at the small town of Furnace Creek, where we found that there is an amazing variety of things to see in the park. On the way down we rounded a corner near Stovepipe Wells and picked up a hitchhiker. His name was hawk and he was headed to Parump to visit his ninety six year old father there. He was ready for a cup of coffee, and smelled of marijuana. Quite the place to hitchhike in Death Valley. He seemed happy and free in the wild. We dropped him off at the visitors center.

The history of the park is very interesting. There were native people here for 1000's of years before white settlers came through. We listened to a park ranger tell us about the 30 wagons that came through the valley on their search for gold further west in California. Only one of the wagons made it out, and a lady said, "Goodbye Death Valley", and the name stuck. Following this came minors who searched for precious metals but found the salt beneath their feet was more valuable. Mike and I visited the borax works where we saw the methods used to extract the salt and carry it out on a narrow wooden wagon covered with iron to keep it whole. We saw the early 1900's boiler from San Francisco.

After leaving the visitors center area, we walked along a boardwalk. There was a river where small fish allegedly prospered. We weren't able to spot any of the fish, but were amazed by the water that flowed through such a desolate place.


Day V: 10th of January, 2017

We learned of a place called Mosaic Canyon the previous day. Mike and I headed down into Stovepipe Wells to go to the trailhead. We met a couple of from our campsite whose car had broken down. It was a Jeep. The guy had left it in 4-wheel drive and ridden down the hill into Stovepipe at 60 mph. Mike and I tried to help them out, but had the feeling a tow truck and (AAA) service would be the best for them. We didn't feel bad for the guy, because his girlfriend was such "prime real estate". We informed them of the swimming pool and showers available for four dollars in Stovepipe. Then Mike and I headed to Mosaic Canyon.

The canyon was amazing, filled with smooth rock along the beginning like a slot canyon. It was very narrow and steep. Mud and gravel slid down the canyon and hardened to the walls. We hiked up the canyon for 1.5 miles and then scrambled further amazed by the vegetation along a narrow ridge with dropoffs on both sides. We slid down the other side into an even deeper canyon, and walked out. The variety of vegetation was amazing and can only be described through photos. There were plants with berries, small purple berries. there were some that had leaves with spike on them. And one small plant that was close to the ground with small purple flowers.

After the hike, we headed into Stovepipe Wells. We got showers and pools time. It great after five days on the road to stop and get a shower. We drove back to the campsite and cooked dirtbag chili for dinner. One sweet potato, three carrots, one can of refried beans, 1/2 cup quinoa, one can of corn, and a whole lot of love. Add salsa and hot sauce at will. We waited for Ryan to come stumbling in at sundown. He did. Mike and I were a bit worried after he did not answer the radio that day. We went to sleep with full belly's. It rained again that night.


Day VI: 11th of January, 2017

We woke up and had coffee with our neighbor Izzy, from California. She had an old stove from the 1940's. It was an old coleman stove. She also had an air press, which was kind of like a french press. We ate Biscotti and chocolate together. We drank good coffee. Then she and Mike decided to go for a hike to see a crater somewhere in the hills. I elected to be dropped off at Stovepipe Wells at the gas station to meditate, write, read and relax. Izzy's car was a minivan with a mountain bike, a road bike and a sleeping bag in the back. She wore the dirtbag lifestyle well. Tonight we plan to hike into the dunes after the sun goes down, and lookup at he boundless night sky above.

Ryan and I hiked out into the sand dunes under a nearly full moon. We both decided we would go out to the highest sand in sight which was quite a ways away, and over undulating sand dunes. We set out. Ryan wore my Indiana Jones hat and went barefoot. I wore Chacos and socks. We used the bright moonlight to guide us out into the dunes. It was a long way and neither of us had brought any water. We had quite a trippy time trying to judge terrain and distances between points in the moonlight. As well as the lines in the sand creating an optical illusionary experience. We wandered across cakes of hardened mud, and walked by many big dry bushy black plants. At one point Ryan mentioned, "Why does anyone need drugs when you have nature?" That seemed like a totally logical thought. We walked continually for quite a while. After following the "ridge line" of several sand dunes we ended up on top of the highest one in sight.

After resting, I pulled out my native american flute on top of the dune. I proceeded to play for a bit, and had quite a magical time with the nearly full moon overhead. We did not stay long. We headed back down the dune, Ryan rolled down and part ways up the dune next to ours. Ryan shouted at me, "Which direction!?" I yelled back, and as I did, another wanderer came over the top of the dune that I was on. He asked if we were trying to measure something. I told him, "No. We're just wandering around". We headed back towards the parking lot. Mike had the lantern sitting on top of the car to give us a point to find him by. He had taken a large log and stuck it upright in the in the sand on top of a dune bordering the parking lot. Mike said that he could hear the flute and that the coyotes had responded. Who would have thought that I would end up playing a flute on top of the highest sand dune in Death Valley? And that the coyotes would respond?

That night we cooked several cans of soup out of the back of my Subaru Outback under a nearly full moon.


Day VII: 12th of January, 2017

It was the first night that wasn't all that windy. All three of us, Mike, Ryan and I, were tired. We slept without the constant sound of wind through the tent fly. Once we woke up in the morning, we tore down our tents and packed the car. We had a huge breakfast and cooked the rest of our food. We said goodbye to Izzy, Marley and Mike. We headed down the road to the Furnace Creek visitor center, and there Mike tried to mail some postcards to no avail, and we walked down to Furnace Creek resort. They had a post office there, and I went and checked out the golf course while Mike mailed his cards. After that we headed out the south end of the park. Along the way we hit up Devil's Golf Course, which was an amazing array of unique salt formations that spanned most of the south side of Death Valley. They stretched as far as the eye could see, and farther.. literally...

That was definitely a spiritual moment of mine on the trip and I would love to go back to that place and meditate in the vast open land.

We headed down the road to Badwater Basin which is the lowest place on the continent of North America at -282 feet below sea level and sinking due to erosion. There Mike and I walked out into the valley on the man-flattened salt road. We checked out the Badwater pool near the sign which was filled with salty water.

Meanwhile, Ryan had decided to climb the cliff up to the sea level sign 282 feet on a cliff above. People watched and gawked and took photos as he climbed. They scolded him on being stupid and irresponsible. We scolded him on being stupid and irresponsible when returned with my keys to the Subaru. We finally really did head out the south end of the park.

Flashback: --- Earlier that day, we had been up to Zabriske Pointe. The road rose a few hundred feet above the valley. It was an area of colorful badlands. The actual point was a quarter mile or so up the paved path. I went that direction. Mike and Ryan headed up a less traveled hill next to it. It was a steep overlook. We waved at each other across the vast expanse. They came running down afterwards like adolescent monkeys.

As we headed out of the park, I took a few videos and we listened to NASA podcasts. Then we exited the park into Southern California. One of the towns we went through was called Parump, NV which was this absolutely enormous spread out town.

It was getting late and we needed a place to sleep. No one was up for camping because of the cold rain that fell. Eventually we decided to drive to St. George and stay in a hotel called the Coranado. When I checked in, the attendant asked the people in front of me if they were locals. "We charge local an extra $50," she said. "That's because we've had problems with partiers in the past." First of all, why would you admit to being a local if they charge an extra $50? That left me wondering..

Despite the negative start, the place was fine, and the room was a suite with two queen beds and a couch. It also included a kitchen. The total price was $51 which we split three ways. Score!


Day VIII: 13th of January, 2017

After rolling out of bed we headed down to breakfast and stuffed ourselves. We checked out and were on our way to Zion National Park around 10 am.

Upon arriving in Zion I wa astounded by the colors of the rock, and the abundant waterfalls. 

.... To be continued at a later date...


Nick Whittemore
16th January, 2017

Mission Accomplished

"Mission Accomplished"

I have 2 bachelor's degrees 216 credit hours, about a 2.9 GPA across all of it, and a 3.5 GPA for the final year of my first degree and my entire second degree at CU. I've attended 3 universities and a community college. I've declared majors in Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology, Biology, Psychology, Individual Studies, Geography, and a minor in Space Studies.

I finished the Individual Studies Major, the Geography Major, the Space Studies minor, and the Geographic Information Systems specialization. I am also about one course shy of minors in Psychology, Economics, an associates in Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology, and two courses shy of minors in Anthropology and Business.

No third undergraduate degree for me. And no need to complete those minors.. Done with undergraduate school forever. ....

Nick Whittemore

July, 2017

Everyone has their own experience in the desert at some point in their life.

“Everyone has their own experience in the desert at some point in their life.”

Life is hard. Life can get you down. Just remember, “Everyone is fighting a hard battle.” – Plato. Don’t ever quit. Don’t ever give up. Don’t ever stop enjoying something in life. If you find yourself read to quit don’t. Period. Don’t quit because someone let you down. Don’t quit because your mind wants you to believe you can’t do something. Don’t listen to it. You don’t have to listen to it.

I myself have been through some tough stuff at points in my life. I’ve wanted to quit. I’ve desperately wanted to quit. I’ve desperately wanted to give up, but I’ve always been drawn back by a combination of love, curiosity, and courage. I’ve always wondered what the next day might bring. It could be a bad day, but how about the day after that? I’ve just convinced myself it’s worth it even when I’m not sure what I’m doing or where I’m headed in life. Something beyond my understanding just says, “Get back up Nick!”. Don’t quit! What about tomorrow!? 

And this thing, this invisible indescribable small bit of faith reminds me that other people love me and that I have a purpose or meaning to life, even if I’ve lost my way today. I can redefine that purpose, that being, that meaningfulness, that love, that curiosity, tomorrow. You might even inspire somebody else or many other people to keep going.

Don’t quit because you broke your leg. Don’t quit because you fell off your bike. Don’t quit because your friend died. Don’t quit because people said that you can’t do it. Don’t quit because people said that, “You can do it!” and that’s not what you what you really want to do.. Instead find another path, another way towards the horizon, or REDFINE your purpose, your journey. Be yourself, love yourself. If you can do this, you can love others. It will be tough, it will be hard, it will be painful and ugly at times… we’re all human beings. It’s supposed to be that way. Life isn’t easy for anyone. 

Maybe you were born poor. Maybe you were born rich and privileged, maybe you were born somewhere in between. Don’t let where you were born, or what situation you born into define who you are as a human being. Don’t let it define your path in life. You can do whatever you want to do in life. It’s going to be hard, but you can do it. Don’t quit because Trump became president. Don’t quit because you’re different and feel disadvantaged. Remember, “Everyone is fighting a hard battle.” Find a way TO BE YOU!

So, this above is all coming from a few conversations that I had at a party tonight. I talked to a student who was not a member of the in-group that was hosting the party. He said he was 3.5 years into an engineering degree, and wished that he’d studied something else. I told him immediately that he still could study something else, but that he should finish what he started. I told him that I’d heard of so many cases where people were so close to “getting there” and something happened and they quit. I told him to take a step back if you need to, take a deep breath, take some time off and work, just be the guy that goes back and finishes what he started. 

He told me that a few of his ROTC friends got sick and had to quit. He said that people don’t understand that someone that’s 24 can get sick. I told him that I understand. I got sick and had to quit. It took me seven years to finish a bachelor’s degree because I got sick and had no idea what I was doing.. but I did finish it eventually. I did go back and finish that degree, and now I was back for a second one. He said, “Wow, you’ve made me think differently.” I told him people go through all sorts of stuff in life, but that doesn’t mean that you have to give up. This stuff is all too common, it’s a part of life. Just don’t fold the deck, when you’re just getting started. He said wow I’ll do that. 

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had similar conversations over the past three years or so. I see somebody in some type of “wanting to give up state.” And my mind kicks in, and is immediately empathetic, but also knows enough that person can’t give up. Similar stories come out, and I can tell my own story in a number of different ways. And very often, more often than not that little spark of understanding passes to that other person in that moment. It ignites a new pattern of thinking. People tell me I’ve inspired them, and that initially makes me feel a bit embarrassed because that can’t be the case.. However I’ve been told that enough times, that I realize it’s true. I am inspiring and I turn to these people that I’ve inspired a little bit when I’m down on my own-self. And they inspire me a little bit. It’s like a wave, or a wheel, or something like that. What goes around comes around. 

So yah, that’s what keeps me going, moving towards the horizon, looking across the desert, to continue being hopeful that tomorrow will be better, because statistically it’s a wish-wash. It might actually be better, and if it’s not then the day after tomorrow will be a good day, because I’ll make it that way. 

“We all have our experiences in the metaphorical desert of life at some point in our lives.”

Nick Whittemore
Written sometime in 
December 2016 

Moonwalk: "Footsteps in the Desert"

"Moonwalk"

My desert experience was the only thing that got me through the degree at CU. That was one of the hardest things I ever did. It was mentally tough, physically exhausting, and we lived a bit like homeless folks (I hate hate that comparison but it works). Ten hours of work in 100 degree heat, 15 days in a row, we had to survive on 5 gallons of water for two days at a time, and a shower once a week, in the absolute middle of nowhere. And after the last trip, cumulative 44 days in the desert, I thought on the last day after all that, “This isn’t so bad, I could get used to it.” 

It taught me that all you really need is a tent a sleeping bag, some clean water, an occasional shower, a change of cloths, a bucket and a shovel, a daypack and some extremely basic cooking equipment, ... and maybe some sunflower butter and jelly, ... access to some type of transportation, and at least one other person to survive. 

That’s really it. Talk about minimalism and a mentally taxing situation but people are incredibly resilient in this world. I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything, even if it contributed to some long term sleeping difficulties. 

"Moonwalk: Footsteps in the Desert"

Imagine being so remote that all you see at night is a completely clear sky. 

Almost 0% light pollution. 

An experience like walking on the moon after the fire 130,000 acres of pure blackness. Nothingness.. 

With this road down the center of the valley, that split life from death. 

The shadow and light. 

Even the black sooty nothingness had a certain beauty to it. 

The tumbleweeds that slowly rolled across the road and the dust devils spinning above the desert were beautiful in a way. 

The sun rose over the black fine grained ash. 

The sun rose in the morning over the nothingness. 

A ball of fire providing new energy and life to a desolate landscape. 

It must have been a bit like what Neil Armstrong saw on the moon when he stepped out and saw the blue earth rise 250,000 miles away in the most isolated desolate landscape humankind ever set foot on.

That desert experience was tough and beautiful. My moon walk, my 44 days in the desert...

      Charles N. Whittemore
      21st of October, 2017

Forty Four Days & Forty Four Nights: Fire Ecology Research in Nevada

Forty Four Days & Forty Four Nights: 

Fire Ecology in the Nevada Desert

I spent the summer of 2016 in the Nevada desert doing research for the geography department.   It was hot.  I was miserable.  The desert just sucked the energy completely out of me.  It hardly ever rained.  I was lucky to get a shower once a week.  The work was extremely mundane and repetitive.  You might ask, “Was it worth it?”  I myself was not sure until a few weeks after returning from the final research trip.  I then started to uncover the deeper parts of the experience beyond being miserable, and beyond science.  As time passed, I discovered that I now look at the world through a different lens.  After spending forty four days in Nevada over two and half months, I realized that I could now live less superfluously.  I began to look and think about people less advantaged than me with empathy and understanding.  My experiences in the desert changed me.  I could hear others’ stories and really listen.

            The entire adventure began sometime in February 2016.  I started thinking about where I might want to work for the summer.  One day, after my Earth Analytics course a graduate student named Adam came up to me and asked if I was interested in being his research assistant for the summer.  I asked him a little about it, and learned the details over a beer.  We were going to be traveling to north central Nevada to conduct fire ecology research.  We would take three to four two week trips over the course of the summer.  We would be camping for a few weeks at time and then traveling 1,000 miles back to Boulder for a week off between each trip.  I told him that I was interested, and the next week I applied for a summer Undergraduate Research Opportunity Grant.  I wanted to do this, because I ended up getting the grant, extra work study, and pay from the Geography department on top of it all.

            Around April, as the semester reached its’ climax, I started to prepare for the summer.  The research required Adam and I to build equipment for the summer.  On a Saturday in April, Adam and I got together to work on building a monopod to measure percent vegetation cover.  After four hours, we had pieced together a semi-workable design.  It was mostly constructed from PVC pipe.  The monopod broke down so that we could carry it along in our backpacks.  We tried it a few times, in clear weather, out front of Adam’s apartment.  It seemed to work well for the intended purpose.  However, we failed to test it in true desert conditions.  This would come back to haunt us early on. 

            The spring semester was coming to a close in Boulder, CO and I was beginning to think about the first upcoming research trip.  This was the same period that I started to move out of my apartment.  Except I was not moving in to a new apartment.  My plan was to store my belongings for the summer, and couch surf when I was back in Boulder in between trips.  I stored some belongings at a farm near Berthoud, CO and the rest in six other locations around Boulder county and Denver.  It was quite a hectic process, and it made me very nervous.  I also left some things in my car, which I parked on the street near the place I would eventually move into in August.  It was at this point at which I started think that this experience could be a tough one.  I thought, “How am I going to survive?”

            The first day of the trip was May 10^th.  We packed the car up to the roof with ninety percent field gear, and ten percent personal belongings.  All I had was a sleeping bag, a change of clothes, a tent, and a small daypack.  Adam had about the same amount, other than some cooking equipment which we shared.  The rest of the white all-wheel drive Chevy Sport Utility Vehicle was full of boxes of field gear.  These included a dozen volumes of plant identification books, a break down table for soil extractions, an enormous tent for processing our samples from the field, and two enormous coolers to hold the samples in, among various other pieces of field work equipment.  Now we were set to go.  We spent the first day driving a thousand miles, and “boy was it a long day.”

We left Boulder around 7 am and finally arrived at the campsite around midnight.  We rolled out our sleeping bags in the road right in front of the truck.  It was in the 30’s, and the sky was completely clear, not a cloud in the sky.  I wore long pants, and my puffy jacket to bed.  I was unable to sleep much at all.  Immediately I began having mixed feelings about the entire trip.  I thought to myself, “This is amazing to be out here sleeping under the stars without a home.”  At the same time I thought, “What am I thinking!?  I am going to be living mostly in the desert for the next three months, melting under the hot sun in the middle of nowhere.  Thirty miles from anywhere.”

We woke up the next day and drove for an hour and half out to Bloody Run Hills, east of our basecamp.  We called CNIDC, Central Nevada Agency Dispatch Center, and let them know the general area of where we would working for the day.  We would do this every day when left for the field, and again when we returned.  Many of the areas that we were traveling to would have no phone service.  We also had a SPOT satellite messenger to send signals back to the Geography Department in Boulder and let them know we had survived each day.  In the truck we listened to a mix of science podcasts, indie folk music, and the Dirt bag Diaries.  We drove on the perfectly straight highways into the rising sun.  When we neared our destination, we took off on a dirt road headed north flying along at fifty miles an hour, churning up a football field long dust cloud behind us.  The Chevy SUV was no longer white when we finally arrived at our first plot, and the suspension of the rental vehicle was no longer brand new.

We both jumped out of the car with our field gear, and hiked a mile up a nearby hill.  We set up our fifty by fifty meter plot, and hammered in our plastic stake.  Next we assembled the PVC tripod and attached the camera to the end.  Right about then the wind started picking up, and blasting dirt and sand in our faces.  We tried to take photos for our science, to no avail.  The two meter high monopod was too shaky to give us the high quality imagery that we needed.  “Just great!” I thought, “The first day requires a major redesign of our data collection process.”  Little did I know that things would go wrong on a regular basis. 

Later in July, after three of our four fieldwork excursions were complete, we were ready to head out for our final trip.  When we arrived in Nevada, we found out that six of our plots from earlier in the summer had been burned by an enormous 122,000 acre wildfire.  It burned an entire thirty mile wide valley.  Before the fire, that valley was covered by sagebrush and invasive cheat grass.  Now it was completely black as far as the eye could see.  There were dust devils which churned up ash and it smelled like a fire had just happened.  I was awestruck.  I realized how fragile life is, and how much humanity has really messed up our planet.  It happened right there, right then.  I had plenty of time to process this feeling over the final two week trip.  I thought back on my experiences from the summer, beyond the misery, and beyond the science.  It began to change me as the next few weeks went along. 

Adam decided to do yet another redesign of his study to incorporate new samples from after the fire.  We would then have before and after soil samples, and biomass and remaining biomass samples to analyze.  We drove out to the field for the next five days and examined the remains of sagebrush and cheat grass fields.  Sometimes there would be about a half inch of material left standing because the grass fire moved so fast.  Other times there would be nothing left, even the sagebrush were piles of ash blowing away in the wind.

As the summer came to a close, on the final day of fieldwork, we were camped near Battle Mountain, NV.  We were the only two campers in the campground.  There was a stream running behind us, where we took bucket showers after returning from ten hour days in the field.  Our work shirts were black and brown.  Mine was originally a light green, and Adam’s was white.  Our legs and feet were black with ash halfway up our calves even though we wore long pants.  We sat there cooking beans and vegetables on small wood burning backpacking stove with bottles of beer in our hands.  I thought to myself, “I could actually get used to this!”  I had adjusted to the unbearable heat, the scarcity of water and food, and not being able to clean up very often.  I had realized that I could survive in the middle of the Nevada desert, with little more than a tent, sleeping bag, hat and bandana, a spare change of clothes, a decent all-wheel drive vehicle, and someone to share the experience.  And a few bottles of beer always helped. 

When I finally moved into my new apartment, in early August, I began to realize that I do not need ninety percent of what I own.  I remember the simplicity of life in Nevada, and yes I actually miss that part.  I miss waking up at 5 am and finishing work at 3 pm if everything goes according to plan.  I miss the open nothingness of northern Nevada.  I’ve noticed that when I talk to people, I tend to listen more and talk less.  I’ve chatted with a few homeless people on the street.  I love hearing other peoples’ stories and I realize how fragile, but resilient life can be.  Recently I walked into a Starbucks in Boulder and a man said hello to me.  I ordered my drink and sat down at the only available table next to him.  He started mumbling and going on about how he had this trike and solar panels that he owned.  He said that he had ridden his trike all the way through Nebraska and eventually had ended up in Boulder.  I was not sure if I should believe him.  I thought maybe he had just seen the movie the Martian and was recounting some of the main characters’ drives through the Martian desert.   Still I sat there and listened, and I wondered whether he might really have ridden his trike all that way.  Who knows?  Everyone has his or her own story to tell in life, and each one is as unique and important as the next person’s.  The difference was, that I could hear those stories from the perspective of having had some experiences and hardships of my own.  I could actually relate to this homeless man’s life just a little.  Whether or not that story happened was irrelevant, it was his own unique perspective on life.  That story belonged to him and was his to tell, and it turned out that he might not be much different than I am.  We all have our experiences in the desert, at some point in our lives.

~ Nick Whittemore 

        (11th September, 2016)

Reflections: "Life, Travel, Adventure"

Reflections: "Life, Travel, Adventure"

Several years ago when I was eighteen years old and a senior in high school, I had a burning desire to visit the mountains.  I decided that I wanted to travel to Alaska during the summer before starting school in Purdue University's world class engineering program.  I bought travel books and made plans on how I was going to drive all the way there, all 5,500 miles of it.  I looked through travel books and thought about taking a trip with a good high school buddy up through the northern midwest across Canada and up to Alaska.  I wanted to visit exotic sounding national parks like Denali, Kenai Fjords, and Gates of the Arctic. 

Sometimes I wonder if I would have actually taken that trip, whether my first college experience might have turned out differently, but that's water over the bridge now.  I made it to Colorado, worked inside the boundaries of Rocky Mountain National Park for a 13 months over the course of four summers, and have been a resident of Colorado for 2 years now.  

There was this other trip, which was a down right crazy idea.  The same buddy and I planned this trip to Ecuador in South America.  We actually went and bought plane tickets off of the "cheap tickets" webpage, and planned on landing in Ecuador, renting a van and driving to Patagonia.  My friend spoke Spanish fluently, so that was the only non-stupid part of the idea.  Probably the worst part was that I didn't tell my parents about it.  I just read about every country in Central and South America online, and printed the encyclopedia facts, statistics, and general information pertaining to all of these exotic places.  I really just wanted to get the hell out of Indiana, away from my failures in Purdue's engineering programs and out of the country for a while.  The ideas for this trip sprung from the "Motorcycle Diaries", a great film about two Argentinian Doctors that dropped out of medical school to take a motorbike trip to the United States of America.  Except along the way they encountered people in dire medical need and one of them decided to stay and help the people.  My friend and I never went on our trip to South America and I was out eight hundred dollars for the plane tickets.  It was not a good idea, and had no real purpose.

After that, while attending a community college and getting straight A's despite living some folks who liked to sleep 5 hours a night and get hammered every other night, another friend and I decided to go visit a high school friend that had moved to Thousand Oaks, CA.  I took my mom's car and told her that I was going to check out a college in Colorado, called Colorado Mountain College, which was in Leadville up at 11,000 feet above sea level in the highest incorporated town in America.  I never mentioned a word about California.  Well my travel buddy and I "eventually" ended up going to visit this college, on the way back from California, in a snowstorm in the middle of the night, but this was not really the primary purpose of our trip.  We switched off driving every four hours and made it all the way to California with only one long stop for sleep in about 40 hours.  On the way there we visited the Grand Canyon in Arizona for an hour.  While in California we visited places like Hollywood, Laguna Beach, and Santa Barbara.  After staying there for 4 days we drove the 40 hours back halfway across the United States to Indiana and went back to school.  I ended up with 3 A's and a B that semester despite the crazy living conditions and atmosphere.  Who knows?  Sometimes just going with an idea can affect a person just enough to figure out how to succeed in life.  I think I learned some lessons on that crazy ass trip.

I hit my rebellious stage in my late teens early twenties rather than in high school like a good number of other classmates.  ...

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Several years later after graduating from college I was working with my sister out in Estes Park, CO for the summer and the flood came on September 12th, 2013.  We lost power, they closed Rocky Mountain National Park, the entire downtown was severely flooded, and eventually the town told all of the seasonal employees to "get out" because the infrastructure was damaged, and the sewer systems couldn't handle all the people.  Our friend Gardner from Tiawan and my sister's friend Anna didn't have anyplace to go right away.  The only way out was to drive west through the closed Rocky Mountain National Park.  So of course, what the hell, we decided to go on a 6,000 mile, 17 day road trip across eleven different states, to five major cities, five national parks, and two national monuments.  So was born, "Road Trip! Road Trip! Road Trip!", as our friend Gardner called it out.  That trip is a story in and of itself, and it deserves it's own blog story, so we'll leave those seventeen days for another time.  Certainly though, again it was an eyeopener, a life changer, a soul changer.  When I saw the damage in Yosemite National Park from the fires that had raged, and that no water was coming over Yosemite Falls, it made an impression on me that changed my future path(s) in life.  
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Not too long after that trip, as I said a story in and of itself, I found myself packing up my Subaru Outback and strapping a kayak to the top of it, covered with a cockpit tarp, jammed full of hiking and backpacking gear and all the cloths that I owned, and I started my seven day off-the-beaten-path road trip back to Estes Park, CO.  I made a few "detours" along the way and ended up 300 miles south of my Estes Park destination in Alamosa, CO.  One of the first things I did in Alamosa was hike to the top of the highest sand dune in the park.  8,700ish feet above sea level.  This is Colorado.  God doesn't fool around with sand dunes.  The base of the dunes was around 8,000ish feet so the tallest sand dune was almost 700 vertical feet above that!  Ever try to hike up a seven hundred foot sand dune in the wind!?  Not so easy.  Everybody else in the park turned around, but I knew that this might be my only shot at seeing what was up there so I kept going.  I made it to what seemed like the top, and was nearly blinded by the baking sun and howling winds.  There wasn't really much special about the top of that pile of sand, but "what the hell! why not?", so I did, "Because it's there." --> (George Mallory).  After that I remember going to San Luis Brewery in Alamosa, CO and having my first beer as a planned resident of Colorado.  It was a damn good beer, I'll tell you.  The waitress was certainly something to look at. ;)  She was a student at the university there in Alamosa called Adams State University.  And so gradually entered the idea of returning to college at some point while in Colorado...  And that's another story for another day too.  I'd like to expand this story and some point to include the tale of sleeping in half constructed tent in the western portion of Iowa with Grass Roaches (a cousin of the cockroach) crawling all over me all night long... but yeah that'll be an expanded story for another day.

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The whole point is, I learned something from each of these trips or "failed trips".  I learned something about myself.  I learned something about the world.  I learned something about the natural world around me.  And I learned stuff that I didn't think that I would learn.  And I saw stuff that I didn't think that I would see.  And shit went wrong that I wasn't even on my radar.  

All these experiences helped shape my future destiny and my future life aspirations.  So yeah it was all worth it in the end.  "That's life.  That's travel.  That's adventure."  And the story goes on..

~ Nick Whittemore (30th of April, 2016)
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"I am a rebel, one who has not listened. We all are rebels. In this way we are all the same" - Nick Whittemore in the post "In Rebellion to a Rebel" (Feb. 2012)

"My mind is in a state of constant rebellion.  I believe that will always be so." - George Mallory (1920's Everest Pioneer, Everest Expeditions)

"All good things are wild and free." - Henry David Thoreau

"A but hell I'm just a blind man on the plains, I drink my water when it rains, and live by chance among the lightning strikes." - The Tallest Man on Earth (Musician) from the album "The Wild Hunt, 2010"