Oh how it taunts me, this “Powder” magazine. Confined to my office writing applications for jobs, it sits, silly little magazine, on my desk and taunts me. “Ski,” it jeers, “Snow” it whispers. But no! I must apply for jobs. Of course it affects my judgement. Of course I dream of the academic jobs where one might do physics and also ski. A theoretical ski bum’s paradise is not complicated, just hard as hell to achieve. But it must be some kind of Nirvana, this physics job in the mountains. A heavenly bliss of powder in the mornings and equations at night. The two converging, diverging into a state of infinite bliss.
Someday I dream of writing a letter to “Powder” magazine. All those years you teased me with your pictures of powder days while I slaved away in the bowels of academia. “Get a Ph.D. and then find someplace to ski.” “Take a postdoc and then find someplace to ski.” But now I actually have a job in academia where I can ski! While others dreamed only of academic success, you “Powder” magazine made me dream of the mountains, of snow, and of doing physics while riding the first chair of the day.
Until then, I content myself with my small dream. And go back to work on another beautiful physics problem.
O brave new quantum world!