Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Cryogenics...
...that I'm Still Trying to Learn and Explain
Dear Reader,
Hey, surprise! After last night’s missive that I was unable to put together the newsletter for reasons of intestinal poltroonery, sleep worked its wonders. Since I had taken the day off for my coming procedure, I figured better late than never (besides, I don’t want to break my streak).
Plus, I had to share these reader responses from last night and this morning. You all are great.
“Okay, Craig, that was a stunning Second Drafts! Be advised that we’ve had 2 or 3 each and I’ve done LOTS of research on the drinks the night before, and love the ‘Ice Cream Prep’ the best, which if they make me do another one, I’ll choose this prep!
The key is to start eating a liquid diet several days before instead of waiting until one or two days before, so you don’t have to do the whole thing the night before, then just drink some of the prep the night before because you’ve not eaten anything that is solid! They think people won’t go for 3-4 days w/o food and only drink juices, clear soups, pop, water, but you can stay very full on yummy liquid and the prep is so awful it’s worth it.
Sorry if we are discussing something so unmentionable but after 2 of these…”
No apologies necessary; I’m the one who brought it up, remember? I wasn’t given the “Ice Cream Prep” option, so I’ll have to look into that for next time (preferably in about ten years).
“I just had mine Monday! Indeed, I’ll vouch for the fact that the 24 hours prior is the worst part of the whole thing between the not eating and the chugging of the magic juice. Getting up at 4 a.m. to finish off the other half was also lousy. However, the procedure itself was a breeze. When I woke up, I couldn’t even tell that anything had happened, and by the afternoon, I felt totally normal (although I still followed the recommendation to not drive).”
Indeed, last night wasn’t great, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be (disclaimer: I have quite an imagination). I must have missed the memo on the 4 a.m. finish, though - that wasn’t prescribed, so I slept well. Chloe’s serving as chauffeur this afternoon, so I’m in good hands.
“This is the best promotional I have ever received…Thank you for taking care of your health and encouraging others to do the same! Hoping the party is everything you’ve hoped it would, or wouldn’t, be.”
As much as I would like to pretend to be a poster boy for good health, I can’t, so I have to make the most of when I do something right. Seriously, though, thanks for the encouragement.
“Although I will miss tomorrow’s commentary, tonight’s was rather amusing. Good luck tomorrow!”
(double taps chest, points) All the feels. Thanks for reading.
“I am DYING right now. Literally - timing is everything and we know God has perfect timing. And the really cool thing is I had NO IDEA how bad I needed to simply laugh. Like - full on, laugh out loud...SO, thank you Craig. Thank you for ‘taking one for the team.’ Oh yeah - hope everything came out OK...”
I see what you did there. Well-played, dear reader, well-played. And you’re welcome.
Thanks, everyone, for letting me have a little fun in the midst of the medical uncertainties. Over the years I’ve learned that humor tends to be the way I cope with stuff like this, and I appreciate having a few folks willing to laugh along (it beats my portable laugh track machine).
Here’s to inner beauty!
Craig
P.S.: As a reminder, you’re welcome and encouraged to email me directly with feedback, ideas, links, etc. at cmdunham [at] gmail [dot] com. Just know that, unless you specifically tell me not to, I may quote you here (though it will always be anonymously).
Hot Takes
“College and the ‘Culture War’: Assessing Higher Education’s Influence on Moral Attitudes” - Read it here, because this study will never see the light of day elsewhere since the results are a condemnation of a majority of our media. From the abstract:
“Moral differences contribute to social and political conflicts. Against this backdrop, colleges and universities have been criticized for promoting liberal moral attitudes. However, direct evidence for these claims is sparse, and suggestive evidence from studies of political attitudes is inconclusive. Using four waves of data from the National Study of Youth and Religion, we examine the effects of higher education on attitudes related to three dimensions of morality that have been identified as central to conflict: moral relativism, concern for others, and concern for social order. Our results indicate that higher education liberalizes moral concerns for most students, but it also departs from the standard liberal profile by promoting moral absolutism rather than relativism. These effects are strongest for individuals majoring in the humanities, arts, or social sciences, and for students pursuing graduate studies. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our results for work on political conflict and moral socialization.”
In other words, participation at a majority of U.S. colleges leads to people becoming more liberal morally and then (and here’s the punchline) more close-minded in their morally left views. So much for getting a true Liberal (capital L) education.
I know there’s an element of this that happens on the right as well (though according to the study, it’s not nearly as much), so don’t hear me taking sides; the question for parents (particularly those who care about traditional morals) is, if our colleges are brainwashing and relativizing our kids morally, are we having enough good conversations with them to recognize any effects and shepherd them in what is morally true, good, and beautiful?
(On a semi-related note, I came across this 2021 College Free Speech Rankings website that might be of interest for those looking at schools with their kids.)
“Garbage Odyssey: San Francisco’s Bizarre, Costly Quest for the Perfect Trash Can” - I grew up with the idea of San Francisco being the beautiful and alluring city of Alfred Hitchcock’s movies from the 1950s and 1960s. I’ve never visited, but I confess that my interest in doing so continues on a slow nose dive toward “no thanks” when I read about the silliness of its leaders and the results of their decisions. Here’s an example:
“This is a story examining San Francisco’s bizarre pursuit of the perfect trash can: the time it has taken, the stunning amount of money being spent, and the baffling lack of curiosity on the part of many of San Francisco’s elected representatives and media observers in questioning the proposal by San Francisco Public Works to spend $427,500 to produce 15 prototype cans. Ultimately, San Francisco will spend millions of dollars to custom-produce 3,300 public trash for its use.”
The article goes on:
“What we have are estimates. San Francisco will spend from $6.6 million to $16.5 million to replace the city’s existing public trash cans, and those are estimates made at the present moment. Who knows what things will cost when the manufacturing actually commences.
‘The idea that San Francisco is so unique that we need a separate trash can from anyone deployed in any city around the world is preposterous,’ Haney told Mission Local this month. ‘It’s something that reflects a broader and deeper brokenness of city government and the services it provides.’”
Might there be a better use of funds for the good of the people? Hmmm.
The three models proposed by the Institute for Creative Integration that will be tested in the coming months. Photo by Lydia Chávez.
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Cryogenics…
It’s been a big week at work, and while I don’t talk much about it here or in person (mostly because I still haven’t perfected an elevator pitch that doesn’t end with the person I’m talking to slowly nodding and saying, “Oh”), allow me to do so now.
Montana Instruments, the Bozeman cryogenics company in whose employ I’ve been for 18 months now, just released our latest product - the CryoAdvance, “our flagship configurable work horse cryostat.” This may not mean much to anyone (certainly not if you’ve never been part of a business that makes things), but it’s the second major product release in eight months for our company of 39, so it’s kind of a big deal.
Also kind of a big deal (especially for me) has been the design, writing, and launch of the new Montana Instruments website, a project I began in May when I became MI’s new Marketing and Communications Manager. I’ve put together websites before, but never this complicated or over as long a period of time (five months), nor as much in tandem with multiple other departments and their own product development timelines. The goal was to release the new product and website together, and the amount of detail involved in both was daunting. But we did it, and I’m grateful.
In today’s world, a website is where people first go to learn about an entity - regardless of whether it’s a business, school, or other collective group. The same is true for our small company - a $12 million dollar business - particularly when we don’t have an extensive marketing budget to spend on advertising. Websites matter, and have only increased in importance since I first built one twenty years ago.
Our new website matters even more, as we’ve been on a 10-month journey to rebrand and transition Montana Instruments from being a small, successful custom cryogenics lifestyle company to a significant, growing manufacturer of cryogenic tools that support quantum pioneers in computing, networking, education, and research. Our new website is the first major piece of marketing collateral that iterates this shift.
As singer/songwriter/philosopher David St. Hubbins of Spinal Tap so famously said, “It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever.” The old site had not really been revamped in 5-6 years and had become a very text-heavy repository of good information, but we needed it to be more visual, engaging, and easy to navigate, highlighting our products and their place in a broader world than just cryogenics, and at the same time keeping a human touch to the high-tech.
I’ll save you more of my musings on this for now, but do read our About Us, our Leadership, and visit our Careers page for more on the people behind the products. They’re a really stellar, smart group of people with whom I enjoy working and from whom I’m learning a lot.
Dumb But Diligent
Having spent 25 years in the non-profit/ministry/education world, I still consider myself very much a rookie in the realm of cryogenics. This is made painfully (perhaps annoyingly) apparent when I bother (yet again) folks on our production floor as to what they’re putting together…or when I have to inquire of our product manager as to the meaning of a certain TLA (“three-letter acronym” – there seem hundreds of them)…or when I try to chase down more clarification pertaining to a tech specification document I’m editing. Whichever meeting I’m in, I’m the dumbest guy in the room.
But it’s not just cryogenics that has taken me time to learn; manufacturing itself is a fascinating world for those of us who may or may not have previously given as much thought to all that goes into, well, making things. From market research to business cases; ideation to design; securing parts to building with them; alphas, betas, and pilots; specs and data sheets; marketing and promotion; service and support; systems and software; and, of course, accounting for and paying for any of it while making sure it gets done on time and out the door to an eager customer whom we don’t want to let down – no small feats, any of them in and of themselves, let alone all together.
What happens in all this is manufacturing magic, and at the risk of sounding more naïve than I am, it’s a privilege to have a small part in it. As specialized and technical as so much of the work of production and manufacturing can feel (and how inadequate I have felt due to my lack of experience and expertise in both), I remain encouraged that there is still a place for non-technical problem-solving, a need for accurate and excellent writing that captures and communicates concepts, a demand for strong project management and people leadership, a field for the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control) to grow and impact others, and plenty of opportunities in which, as theologian Bob Yarbrough says, “Diligence is more important than brilliance.”
It’s been a good season so far, made especially meaningful by weeks like this one in which fruition has finally come from planted seeds. After a rough start to the transition (change is always hard for folks, though I tend to like it), Montana Instruments is doing well; we’re about to complete the largest quarter of sales in the company’s 10-year history, our engineering and production departments have become more efficient in building better products for less cost, and there’s a good spirit among our employees bolstered by the sense that what we’re doing has meaning, is appreciated, and makes a difference in the world.
I may not be able to understand or explain all that we do at Montana Instruments, but I’m grateful to be learning and contributing in small ways.
Did I mention we have a new website?
“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” Colossians 3:23-24
“There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?” Ecclesiastes 2:24-25
Post(erity): “God’s Will for Your Life”
Each week, I choose a post from the past that seems apropos of something (of course, you’re always welcome to search the archives yourself whenever you like).
This post, “God’s Will for Your Life,” was a short homily I gave to a student chapel and traces a little of what I remember wanting to be when I grew up. An excerpt:
“This morning, I am going to tell each and every one of you what God wants you to be when you grow up. You’re going to have to pay attention because I’m going to move very quickly, but by the end of our time this morning, you will know God’s will for your life. Before I get to you, though, I thought you might like to know what I thought I wanted to be when I grew up.”
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