the pocket prof

similar to the pocket physicist, this is a most decidedly benign sort of category, utterly devoid of the potential implied in some of the others. it's the kind of intellectual who is just fascinating and adorable in a professor sort of way (if you haven't had a prof do something adorable, i'm very sorry you've had such a worthless school life). me being me, this also typically includes random as hell. i justify the randomness as "breadth of knowledge and interest," which is often correct, but sometimes random really is the only word (gregor the rug or "these lights look like sunchips," anyone?). i am, as i've said, a great fan of the real conversation, and these people spark or participate in such.

why bother to bring this up? because after a couple of years being occasionally nostalgic for the oddball little department that i let influence me into my majors and other academic misadventures, i've found another pocket prof. hooray! this guy is really all over the place, but he's got the sense to connect people from different parts of everywhere in new and interesting ways. very cool. potentially useful, even. and can i just say how much i love the kind of conversations that start relevantly at environmental modeling and range through politics and children's movies at such an involving rate that you end up standing in the 30 degree parking lot for an extra hour? yes.