I'm pretty much done with chapter 6 of my dissertation. I haven't had a lot of time to think about my SIMS data (collected last month) like the rest of my data, so I'm not that satisfied with my discussion section, but I'll get a chance to present some of this new data in a few weeks at our next research group meeting and get some feedback. As for the chapter, I'll sleep on it tonight and then tomorrow fix up anything I want to change, and then send it off to Tom to review. I should also send a copy to Rick, who runs the SIMS instrument. He seemed pretty interested in my experiment.

Next up will be to revise chapter 1, the background chapter, which Tom got back to me a few weeks ago. Then I need to start scheduling the actual defense. Looking at the deadlines and wait times (the dissertation has to be turned into format review 10 working days before the defense), I will most likely defend the first week of November. Two weeks for writing the final chapter (mostly arm waving), and two weeks for format review. I better get cracking!

Kelly and I went to Flagstaff yesterday to have dinner with Beth and her parents and a few extra people. It was a long way to drive for dinner, but we had a good time visiting and catching up. Plus we finally got to meet Nic!

Imagine the earth being sucked into a man-made black hole! There's a small chance it might happen when the new Large Hadron Collider goes operational next year.

I decided to drastically alter the figure from last week. Having a separate figure for each sample wasn't working well for easily comparing the data, so I decided to combine the three figures. I think this makes it much easier to see similarities and differences between samples.

I fulfilled my civic duty today and voted. I usually don't care about primaries, but this one was important for Scottsdale citizens because of the so-called "Strip Club Ban". Basically, the city council rewrote the sexually-oriented businesses rules so that no girls can be nude and no girls can be within four feet of a patron. This means that dancers have to wear underwear and lap dances are banned. These new rules will effectively put Scottsdale strip clubs out of business, which is exactly what the city council wants. They can't ban strip clubs outright because that would be illegal, so they've attempted to cripple them. It's no coincidence that ASU is building a new high-tech research park within a mile from both strip clubs. No council member will admit that this is the motivation for the new rules, but most people supporting it have recognized its predicted results.

The strip clubs are fighting back and got a resolution on the ballot: Prop. 401. I voted to keep the rules the way they were before the city council got involved. Why, you wonder? Aren't strip clubs degrading to women and associated with criminal activity? Yes, that's true to some extent, but that's not the issue here. Strip clubs are perfectly legal, but what the city council is trying to do is not. The new rules are an attempt to legally accomplish what the council cannot do outright. The new rules take away the freedom of a business to fully operate. The new rules are unfair to patrons of Scottsdale clubs because they remove the primary reasons for going to strip clubs. Even if you are morally opposed to strip clubs, you can see how this is an unfair situation and should be struck down. There is a big difference between saying "I believe strip clubs are bad and I would never go to one" and "I believe strip clubs are bad and I don't want anybody to be able to go to one". This is just another example of politicians pushing their moral agenda into people's private lives.

Yesterday Kelly and I went with Kelly's parents to the new P.F. Changs by Scottsdale Fashion Square. On our way out we walked right past Jeffrey Ross! He was in town this weekend at the Tempe Improv, but Kelly and I knew him from the William Shatner celebrity roast. We didn't stop him or say anything because at the time, we couldn't even remember his name!

I wanted to post this figure because it took me a while to figure out how to present the data. It shows the average, standard deviation, and max/min values of four atomic ratios in my sample. IDL is a bit limited for error plots like this, but I managed to figure it out. The vertical sides of the boxes were actually added in Illustrator. As for the data, I had to convert everything to log scale to calculate the means and standard deviations, but I needed to convert back to linear scale to plot the data (even though the final plot is still in log scale). There is a keyword flag for making the box labels at the bottom of the plot, but I had to center the labels in Illustrator. I think the figure really shows the relationship between the ratios like I wanted to show them.

Do a Google Video search for "look around you". You will not be disappointed. Here's one to get you started:

Calcium

There are also videos for Sulfur and Iron to find. I especially like the one's on Germs and Music.

I didn't do much this holiday weekend. Kelly had to work, so I spent most of my time finishing setting up my new laptop and then reinstalling Windows XP on my old laptop for Kelly. It makes me feel good that I can do something like that for her. They only have two field laptops at her job, so now she has one all to herself.

In other news, after over a year, I finally finished Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. Three books with at least 800 pages each, set in 1700s Europe. Now it's not like I was reading every night. It was mainly during plane trips or babysitting the synchrotron. I really liked those books, but I wouldn't recommend them to anyone since they have a unique style unlike traditional historical fiction. Instead, I would first recommend Cryptonomicon, and if that is bearable, then move on to the Baroque Cycle.

Now I'm moving on to something a bit more mellow.