Oh deer!

When Gunner and I got home from our morning walk, there were about six or seven big deer in the neighbor's backyard. Gunner went nuts!

Robots Hate Us

I didn't realize that we recently avoided a Judgement Day-like scenario in Iraq. Never ever give a robot a gun again!

10 Years Back

Just for fun, after I put together my "Best of 2007" playlist, I started looking at my music from 1997 to see what I was listening to ten years ago. That was the year I graduated high school and started college. Because of that, it was also the year I first started to become pretentious about music (but that should become more apparent in 1998). In '97 my musical tasted were still pretty steeped in grunge and alternative. 1997 also saw two of my favorite albums: Radiohead's OK Computer and Foo Fighter's The Color and the Shape. OK Computer may even be one of the greatest albums of all time, and is certainly one of the most important. Here's the playlist...

Best of 1997
1. Beck - Deadweight
2. Spiritualized - Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space
3. Bjork - All is Full of Love
4. Radiohead - Paranoid Android
5. Live - Lakini's Juice
6. Deftones - My Own Summer
7. Foo Fighters - My Hero
8. Everclear - Father of Mine
9. Modest Mouse - Trailer Trash
10. Headboard - The End is Near
11. Grandaddy - A.M. 180
12. Space - Female of the Species
13. Shania Twain - You're Still the One
14. Radiohead - Exit Music (for a Film)
15. Foo Fighters - New Way Home
16. The Jerky Boys - Testing for Jeopardy

A side note to Beth--I'm sorry, but I couldn't help it! It's a good song!

Via Audio

I had a great time at the Black Cat last night. Via Audio (pic) opened for Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin. If you've seen my "Best of 2007" playlist, you'll know that a Via Audio song was on there, and they put on a pretty good show too. They were up on stage jumping around and being goofy and just all around having fun, which was cool to see. I watched about half of Boris Yeltsin's show, and headed out to the bar area to talk with the Via Audio band members. They were really cool and very friendly. I guess they're all friends from some performing arts college in Boston, and now they're trying to make a living from playing music. Actually, the drummer is a bit of a secret nerd, so we talked a bit about cosmology and string theory and meteorites (he brought it up... seriously!). I also met a guy who works as a Russian analyst at the CIA. He didn't know anything about the bands...he just saw something about Boris Yeltsin in the paper and decided to check it out! Then I talked for a while with this girl studying Applied Economics at Johns Hopkins, and she assured me that the US is not going into a depression (and it's not even strictly in a recession yet). By the time I was ready to go home, it was already 30 minutes past the last metro train, so I had to hail a cab (first time I ever had to do that!) back to Falls Church. I guess I have to remember to drive, even though parking's a bitch, whenever I go to a weekday show in the city.

A New Wire Fan

It took 9 episodes of season 1, but I'm now fully vested in the Wire. I can't wait to see what happens next. It started out as an interesting police procedural, but now they took it to the next level, and I care about what happens to the characters. Plus it's set in Baltimore, which is only about an hour away from me. Unfortunately, there are five seasons of this stuff, so I'll be watching it for a while.

New Music

I don't know what it is, but lately I've been really grooving out to Beirut at work. It seems to put me in the right mood to be productive. The funny thing is I thought I hated them when their album first came out.

Jobs

I actually applied for a job today. One of the companies that contracts to Johnson Space Center is looking for a TEM guy. Then I wrote up a statement of research and teaching for a faculty position at UCLA. I'll probably send that off tomorrow morning. I've been procrastinating about it for a while, but everybody says you need to start sending out applications as soon as you start your postdoc. But now I don't have to travel until mid-summer, so I have some time to write a bit.

Rainy Day

I was planning to take Gunner to Shenandoah today, since it has been so warm this weekend. However, the weather had a different idea. It's been pouring like crazy today, which pleases Gunner to no end, since now he can play in the mud and track it all over the house.

Luckily I mowed the lawn yesterday instead of today. If you've seen my yard, you know how big a job that is. Add to that trying to start a lawn mower for the first time in over six months. But now it doesn't look like an overgrown jungle out back.

Back in Town

I'm back now from AbSciCon. It was actually a good meeting this time, as opposed to past AbSciCons I've been to. I got to meet a few new people, including Abby Allwood, who's skyrocketed in the Early Life community. She gave one of the keynote talks at the conference. If you read any of her papers, the quality of her work is quite impressive. However, she seems to lack a bit of charisma (at least from my interaction with her) compared with most field geologists. I think she takes herself and her work a bit too seriously, like myself if I don't watch out (Beth knows what I'm talking about!).

I was staying near the San Jose airport, right by the light rail, so it was easy for me to go to downtown San Jose. I went down there for dinner a few nights. I found a cool vegan restaurant, and I also had some sushi at Smile Sushi. I actually sat up at the bar, so I got to see my sushi being made and chat with the chef a bit. And I also figured out I don't like uni (sea urchin). It's kind of like a pink cream puff, and it starts to melt after a while. It tasted good, but I just didn't like the texture.

I'm in San Jose now for the Astrobiology Science Conference. I'm staying at the Radisson Plaza, but even though it's a nice hotel, they stuck me on the 5th floor, which is currently being remodeled, where I can see drywall and unpainted moldings. Probably because I'm using the federal rate, which is less than the standard room rate. My room is nice, though. Well, I better finish working on my talk for tomorrow!

Parental Visit

My mom came up to visit this weekend. Since it was such a nice day today, I took her to see all the major monuments (Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, etc.) on the mall. It was cool to see all the cherry blossoms as we were walking around the tidal basin. Then we came home and I made some baked tilapia with garlic, cilantro, tomatoes, and lemon. You just wrap it all in tin foil and bake for 25 minutes. Real easy for a guy like me.

As readers of Kelly's blog already know, we've decided to break up. It was a mutual decision, and there are no bad feelings between us. Unfortunately, that means Kelly will be moving back to Arizona soon.

Best of 2007 Playlist

I made the list and checked it twice. I went through the playlist one last time when I got back from Long Island, and I think it's ready for prime time. So here it is:

Disk 1
1. Nakatomi Plaza - Retro is Really in this Year (Demo Version)
2. Rivers Cuomo - Blast Off!
3. White Rabbits - The Plot
4. Against Me! - Borne on the FM Waves of the Heart
5. The White Stripes - Catch Hell Blues
6. Fang Island - The Landing
7. Dr. Dog - Ain't it Strange
8. Blitzen Trapper - Wild Mountain Nation
9. The Colour - Devil's Got a Holda Me
10. A Dilemma - Alla vet Allting
11. The Furze - Stolen Cars
12. Monkey Swallows the Universe - Elizabeth & Mary
13. The Deadly Syndrome - This Old Home
14. Brandi Carlile - Downpour (Live Acoustic Version)
15. Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova - When Your Mind's Made Up
16. Okkervil River - Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe
17. Iron & Wine - Boy with a Coin
18. Laura - Every Light
19. House of Fools - Live and Learn

Disk 2
1. Fujiya & Miyagi - Ankle Injuries
2. MGMT - Kids
3. The Bird and the Bee - Polite Dance Song
4. Daedelus - Fair Weather Friends
5. The Pierces - Three Wishes
6. Liam Finn - Second Chance
7. Via Audio - Presents
8. Sara Bareilles - Bottle it Up
9. Sarah Blasko - Queen of Apology
10. Tegan and Sara - Dark Come Soon
11. Ingrid Michaelson - Die Alone
12. Barcelona - Stars
13. Straylight Run - The Words We Say
14. Daft Punk - One More Time / Aerodynamic (Live Version)
15. Amerie - Gotta Work
16. Rihanna - Umbrella
17. Alaska in Winter - Lovely Lovely Love
18. Radiohead - Videotape

My Stomach Hates Me

I'm already sick of fast food. That's all there is around here at the NSLS. And it's shitty fast food too. I mean, it's the same old places--Taco Bell, Burger King, Wendy's, etc.--but the crappiest versions of them I've ever tasted. I'm serious. I used to think that at least with a fast food chain, you know what you're gonna get, but that myth was busted as soon as I started coming out to Long Island. I have no idea what it is about this place.

Yesterday I found out that the Creative Zen now has a 32GB version. For a while now I've been thinking about upgrading to a new mp3 player, but one that can hold my entire music library. I still like having my iAudio for walking the dog and things like that, but I want more listening choices when I'm out of town. Since my music library is currently 19GB, that means I need something 30GB or more. That means my options were limited to hard drive based players like the iPod or Zune. But the problem with hard drive based players is that they're slow (gaps between songs), they use up more power, and if you drop them they can skip or even break because they have moving parts. I prefer the solid state players that use flash memory with no moving parts and low power consumption. But up until now, they've only come in small sizes, commonly 2, 4, or 8 GB. A few offered 16GB, and now the Zen has one with 32GB. I really like the size (credit card sized), screen, and user interface, and now that linux has good MTP support, I can use it to transfer songs from my music library on my Ubuntu PC. The only problem is price. I'm not paying $300. Maybe I'll wait a year. I think I'd be willing to pay $200 for something like that, and it's only a matter of time before it hits that price point. Besides, my next big purchase is probably going to be a wii... if I can find one, that is.

Synch Away!

I'm back out at NSLS for the rest of the week. I'll probably be posting some crazy ramblings from lack of sleep by Friday, so if I do, you can safely ignore them.

Last night I had a nice dinner with Tim and Deanne last night out in Port Jefferson. We wanted to go to a Spanish tapas restaurant, but it was closed, so we went to a nearby Italian place instead. They're both new hires in the geology department at SUNY Stonybrook. I never really hung out with them at ASU, since they were planetary people and had their own building on the other side of campus, except for randomly seeing them at concerts. But it was good to catch up with what they're doing. I'm always interested in how people I know are getting jobs since I have to start worrying about that now. The big decision for me right now if figuring out if I want to go full-fledged into academia or stick with a pure research position. For the former, you get to keep a high profile in the academic community, but you have to deal with all the academic bullshit like committees and writing grants, and you have to split your time between teaching and research. For the latter, you really go under the radar, the jobs can be somewhat repetetive, but you get to focus on doing science (unless you're stuck with a sample prep job). Also, you generally make more money in a research position vs. academia. I haven't really decided what I want to do yet.