HBM081: Kinnikinnick Nick VS The Bear

Jeff Emtman at Boy Scout leadership camp.

Jeff Emtman at Boy Scout leadership camp.

 

Boy Scout Leadership Camp was a bad fit for Jeff Emtman.  He was a meek 13 year old who didn’t eat meat and talked to animals with his mind. Regardless, Jeff wound up in the dry forests of Eastern Washington, with a group of other boys and a young scout leader, Nick, whose leadership style was...let’s just call it “eclectic”.

Content note: language and drug use.

Nick was rarely around, and when he did show up, he’d impart scouting wisdom on building giant towers, making drug paraphernalia, and pooping in the woods.  It was Nick’s lesson on plant identification that earned him the nickname “Kinnikinnick Nick”.  He browbeat the virtues of smoking the dried leaves Bearberry, a plant that grew wild across camp.  He claimed the plant an intoxicant similar to LSD.  Nick also sold weed.

As the camp’s middle management wised to Nick’s dealings, they slowly sowed the seeds of conspiracy into the minds of the Jeff and the other campers.  And the middle management prepared for a late-night sting.

Jeff Emtman produced this episode, along with help from Bethany Denton and Nick White.

Music:  The Black Spot

 
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HBM058: Kelly Is Cold

Kelly Stratton.  Photo by Jeff Emtman

Kelly Stratton. Photo by Jeff Emtman

 

It was early in the morning of New Years Day and Kelly had just bought a purse-load of psychedelic mushrooms from Laramie Wyoming's local "druggist."  Kelly handed them out to the assembled company and took some himself.  He felt a bit apathetic about the world.  He was wearing thin shoes,, a t-shirt and a pair of jeans.  But when he went outside to look at the stars, he realized what he wanted more than anything else in the world...a book on combinatorics.

Suddenly, Kelly found himself elsewhere, in a wavy and confusing reality, holding a large rock and looking through the windows of Coe Library.  He was thinking about the math books that lived there on the third floor.  He was very cold and had a decision to make. 

Kelly lives in Seattle today.  He cares about math, people and bikes.   His favorite book on combinatorics is Herbert S. Wilf's generatingfunctionology, which is available for free.

Music: The Black SpotFlowers

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"Kissing Spheres" are an application of combinatorics that are useful in constructing 20 sided polyhedrons. Courtesy of Robert Bradshaw of Wikimedia Commons.

Calculation of Pascal's Triangle. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

It is possible to cut a rectangular cake into 15 equal sized pieces with just 4 cuts. These are called "cake numbers." Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.