But perhaps the most important institution, the bedrock of what keeps me coming back again and again (aside from my family), is the bountiful and beautiful snow capped Wasatch mountain range.

Skiing is a way of life in the winter. We normally leave the house at around 8:30, make the 20 minute drive up to Snowbird, ski until we’re tired and make it home by 4:00. We play cards at lunch, drink juice packs, eat the occasional chili cheese fries, and generally have a relaxing day on the double black diamonds. Snowbird lies at the top of Little Cottonwood Canyon, a steep, twisting drive up into the heart of the Wasatch Range. Most of the road is only two lanes wide with the occasional passing lane, with one side being a mountain and the other being a quick drop into a cliff or stream.

One notable day several years ago, I had what alcoholics refer to as a ‘moment of clarity’. I was in the passenger seat as we snaked up through the valley on our way to ski, and I was paying attention to the line of cars we had found ourselves intermingled with. Not everyone drives the same speed, and not everyone takes this fact pragmatically.

Several cars behind us was a big, impatient SUV. He was hugging the car in front of him, and whenever even a small stretch of road appeared he would make a move to pass. Slowly he worked his way up to our car, and started to wait for another opening in the road.

Other cars would pass us coming down the mountain at irregular intervals, but it seems that such was the need to keep moving that the SUV decided to pass on a nearly blind turn. I instinctively grabbed my armrests as the SUV roared by us, achieving a probable 3 miles-per-gallon on a push that saw it miss an oncoming sedan by no more than a three second margin. Further acts of automobile heroism saw him inch up, car by car, until he was out of sight.

Approximately five minutes later, when we pulled into the parking lot, I spotted the SUV about 8 cars to our right. The SUV that had risked death and atmospheric insurance premiums to forge ahead of us was only about 25 seconds walking closer to the lift than we were. We put on our ski clothes, grabbed our gear and started the short hike. As we passed, I saw the two passengers standing next to the SUV’s side door, finishing their coffees. By the time I had lost sight of them they still hadn’t even gotten their skis out.

Between the ages of 20 and 22, I received four speeding tickets that cost me a total of about $600, not counting increased insurance premiums. In retrospect, only one of them wasn’t strictly deserved (I swear the school zone blinker wasn’t on), and all of them were in situations where I wasn’t even in a hurry. I’ve never been in a bad car accident, but watching the SUV take the blind turn scared me in a deep, primal way.

Every time I find myself driving fast, I think back to walking by those SUV drivers, their coffee, and the 25 extra seconds of contemplation, and ask myself, “Why?”

The Internet dances and sings to me through blog posts, YouTube clips of political gaffes and rambling counter arguments. I read narrow-minded opinions regarding things I don’t care about. reddit.com hasn’t changed at all in the last fifteen refreshes, not that it really ever does anymore. The computer games are boring, the book I’m reading is in a dull spot, and my buddy list is filled with idle icons.

Eventually I try again. I pause the music, close the lid to my laptop, turn off the lights and lay down on my bed. The memories of the momentary distractions fade away until my bedroom grows quiet. It’s just me, the darkness and the absolutely insanity that occasionally roars inside my brain.

It’s not always the same insanity, and it’s not always there. It seems to come and go with the moon, or some other celestial body of insanity. Sometimes I worry about the heat death of the universe. The distinct possibility of nuclear war and the shortsightedness of our foreign relations. Other times I can’t stop thinking about what happens when you die. About whether or not I’m a failure in some ‘meaning of life’ sense. The normal methods to change the channel rarely work once the lights are out. The insanity is enough to keep me awake, and I lay there until a miracle happens and I actually fall asleep.

I used to think the 3AM doldrums only struck when you were alone. Once in college I was asleep on my futon, my girlfriend snuggled up on my arm, and for the absolute life of me I could not mentally get past the meaninglessness of existence. I’d try to think about other things, about school, or work, or her, but I kept coming back to the idea that we’re all pushing around dirt on a poisoned planet that will be gobbled up by a supernova long after we’re all dead.

Eventually I woke her up and asked her to tell me a story. She looked at me for a moment, but must have understood the scared look on my face. I don’t remember what she said or what story she told, but I remember laughing and falling asleep.

I don’t chalk it up to actual insanity. We all have demons or thoughts that inhabit the dark corners of our brain. The insecurities and fears that lurk just beneath our conscious thoughts, just waiting for that quiet hour of the night when there’s absolutely nothing left to defend against them.

Being alone with nothing but your own insanity is important from time to time. All the little ways we hide start to fail, and we’re forced to confront what we’re really worried about. When I worry about the meaninglessness of existence I’m occasionally worrying about why I can’t find much meaning in my existence. Sometimes it’s simply related to having a shitty day.

Some people watch movies or TV to escape the 3AM hour. Some drink until they pass out. Some stay up playing games or reading on the internet until their brain just shuts off. Others refuse to ever let themselves be alone in a bed, reason and good taste be damned.

It’s useful to find some peace within yourself, because you can’t hide forever; everyone’s alone at 3AM.

At many points during my road trip this summer I had the opportunity to lie on my back and stare at the unpolluted stars. After spending a minute to find the Big Dipper and follow its handle to the northern star, Polaris, I realized I had never seen the southern star (some punk upstart named Sigma Octantis). For that matter, I hadn’t seen an entire portion of the night sky, merely by virtue of being a resident of the Northern Hemisphere.

Assuming a clear night and an unobstructed view to the horizon, you can see half the sky at night. Part of that sky doesn’t always change depending on what time of year it is (Earth revolves around the sun on a fixed rotational axis), and for us Northern Hemisphere dwellers that includes Polaris.

If I’ve spent my life in the Northern Hemisphere, how much of the sky have I never actually seen?

The answer works itself out nicely if you abstract the nights sky to the inside of a near infinite sphere and calculate the surface area of the cap of the cone carved by your horizon over the course of a year. If that explanation isn’t clear, just spend a little time staring at my diagram and equations. It’ll come to you.

The equation to calculate the portion of the night sky you’ve never seen is on the bottom right, with the only input being your latitude.

That is, to calculate the percentage of the night sky that has remained forever hidden to you by Earth’s mighty bulk, plug your latitude in for theta and get ( 1 - cos ( latitude ) ) / 2. If you prefer Lisp notation, (/ 2 (- 1 (cos latitude))).

The closest I’ve ever lived to the equator for more than a year was hurricane prone Galveston, Texas (latitude 29.28). That means the percentage of the sky that remains unseen to me is (1 - cos(29.28 degrees))/2, or a tiny 6.4%.

A lifelong resident of Wasilla, Alaska(latitude 61.58) who only got their passport last year would have missed out on a full 26.2% of the night sky.

You can use the handy dandy form below to calculate just how much of life you’re missing (needs javascript):

There are a lot of reasons to travel around the world, but up until that of night looking up at the cosmos it had never occurred to me that stargazing could be one of them.

“Is this what the e-mail was about?”

“Yep. I need your help. You’re good at this. I need a main character, and not just any main character either.” He looked around the cafe, and took a sip of his coffee. “I need a sink.”

“A sink.”

“Yes, a sink. The opposite of a source. I need the ultimate steadying force, the cool, calm center of the universe. I need a man with no battles to fight and absolutely nothing to prove.”

“Well,” I said as I stirred my latte, “you’ll want a white guy. There’s not much left for them to prove. Already conquered everything.”

“Okay.” He pulled out a notepad and started to scribble.

“You’ll probably want an American too. They’re pretty content with the status quo, and a bunch of them aren’t really proud to be American anymore than they’re proud to be human. Maybe make him a bunch of European ethnicities to the point where the only real history he carries with him is the Internet provided entomology of his last name. Plus with the American angle you can put him in a nice and healthy nuclear family, make it a happy one, and then he doesn’t even have a reason to rebel against them.”

“Hell, make him an atheist, then he can’t even rebel against his religion. Move him around a bunch as a kid so he doesn’t have a hometown, but make it for some reason other than being a military brat. He could be homeschooled through middle school, so that way he doesn’t hate humanity too much.”

“Don’t make him the best at anything, but don’t make him the worst either. He’ll go through life thinking he could do anything, but without actually doing much. Give him the triumvirate of relativism, rationalism and pragmatism. That way he won’t get in any fights but he’ll also be single basically all the time.”

His notepad was filling up. “You meet this guy in real life or something?”

“No, I can just picture him.”

“If you had to give my sink a name, what would you call him?” He flicked his pen to the top of the page.

“Oh, I don’t know, it doesn’t even have to be a strictly masculine name. I might go with a name that doesn’t come up very often, but isn’t exotic at all. A name that everyone knows at least one of. ”

“… like …?”

“Sam. I might call him Sam.”

1. Distance driven between July 8th and August 6th: 7,697 miles
2. Amount by which this increased the mileage of Mark’s Civic: 20%
3. Difference between this and the Earth’s diameter: 229 miles
4. Number of loops around the Capital Beltway the trip represents: 120
5. Length of time this would take a Segway if it never stopped: 27 days
6. Total amount of money spent on gasoline: $894
7. Highest price paid for gasoline, and location: $5.50, Yosemite National Park, California
8. Lowest price paid for gasoline, and location: $3.50, Iowa
9. States driven through, in order of first appearance: Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland
10. Total new states bagged for Mark (his rules, not mine): 9
11. Number of nights spent in hotels, campsites and homes, respectively: 10, 8 and 10
12. Number of prior acquaintances with whom we visited: 24
13. Portion of the nights we spent drinking: 59%
14. Number of consecutive winning Craps rolls thrown by Sam at Casino Royale, Las Vegas: ~12
15. Maximum speed achieved, and location: 106 MPH, Bonneville Salt Flats
16. Maximum temperature recorded, and location: 120 °F, Canyonlands National Park
17. Number of chain eateries we ate at more than once: 0
18. Number of songs on the iPod we listened to more than once: 0
19. Outstanding legal issues that will possibly lead to an arrest warrant being issued by the state of Texas: 1
20. Judgement of the trip as being surprising, boring, dirty, exciting, straining, memorable, lonely, frightening, repetitive, (philosophically) romantic, noteworthy, stressful and unbelievably fulfilling: totally