Great White North

I slept in really late on Saturday, since I was out until 2am, so I got a late start up to the mountains. My goal was to hike up to Garibaldi Lake, which I did, but I really pushed it. The trail up to it was 9km and rises almost 1km, meaning it was pretty fucking steep the entire way, and I was trying to keep my Brad pace. There was a bit of snow on the ground, but the temperature was 30 degrees (Celsius)! It was also the first time I've been to an actual glacial lake. The water was clear and blue like everybody says, thanks to finely ground silt, or glacial flour. When I filled up my water bottle for the hike back down, I couldn't see anything floating around in it, unlike every other lake water I've sampled. I started up just after 3pm and made it back to the car just after 8pm, including a nice long snack and rest.


On the other side of the gorge is something called The Barrier. It is a giant lava flow that cooled up against the giant glacier that used to be here. Now the glacier is gone and there's this huge unstable cliff of volcanic rock. There were continual small landslides as I was hiking.

Vancougar

After I reclaimed my lost bag from the airport, I had the afternoon left to fill, and the sun doesn't set here until after 9pm! It was too late to do any driving excursions like I had planned, so I decided to get a little tourism in. I rushed through the aquarium (because it closed an hour after I got in) and saw the baby beluga whale swimming with its mom (it was born just last month!). I think they used to have a killer whale too, but I think public protest forced them to release it. The aquarium isn't huge, but the few exhibits they do have they do pretty well, like the frog exhibit and the BC coast exhibit.

Then, only because I had a free admission ticket, I checked out the Capilano suspension bridge. There's really nothing there except the bridge itself, but there's a whole bunch of other crap to try to add value. They even had singing minstrels in olde tyme garb. Not worth the price of admission.

By then it was around 8:30, so I headed to the west side to see the Vancougar show. The venue was pretty cool, and the opening bands were interesting. The first played instrumental surf/rockabilly jams. The second played loud annoying punk. The third sounded a lot like the Hives to me, but I guess they are a Vancouver staple and fan favorite for many years. Then Vancougar came on and played a really fun show. Everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves, and a couple people even tried to crowd surf! I got to chat a bit with the band afterwards, they they are nice people. Maybe they'll come to DC one of these days.

"Delayed" Luggage

...because if you call it "lost", that would be a bad thing.

So I guess my bag decided it didn't want to go to Vancouver, and it hopped back on a plane to DC. When it arrived there, the authorities captured it and sent it back to Minneapolis (I assume under armed guard). I hear it will soon be on its way to Vancouver and be here midday, but we'll see. Luggage can be pretty coercive when they put their mind to it.

As for me, that means I can't take my drive up to Whistler this morning, but I might try to squeeze something in this afternoon. Or today might just be a random sightseeing day, since Budget gave me a bunch of free admission tickets to various museums with my rental car.

Welcome to Vancouver

...Hope you like being a dirty hippie!

So I'm here in Vancouver (British Columbia, not Washington) for the Goldschmidt Conference, but Northwest left one of my bags back in Minneapolis, so while I have my dress shirts, sweaters, and jacket, I don't have a clean change of clothes. The bag was supposed to come on the next flight and was supposed to land tonight around 11pm, but it was delayed an hour. So right now I'm waiting for a phone call telling me they have my bag and I can pick it up. Otherwise, I'm going to be hiking around Garibaldi in the same clothes I've been wearing for almost three days (did I mention I didn't go to sleep last night because I had to be up so early to make it to the airport today? Yeah, so I feel like a zombie too).

All that aside, Vancouver is an awesome city. The weather is great and the mountains and trees are beautiful. I checked through the local entertainment paper for interesting concerts or events this weekend and discovered one of the most awesome band names: Vancougar! They've got a show tomorrow night at some burlesque-themed club, which sounds kinda cool, so I might go to that. Also, Wolf Parade is playing this weekend here, but the show is sold out, which is OK I guess since I don't like them that much.

Air France

This music makes me smile. Reminds me of the Avalanches.

Caprese!

Although my cilantro plants have all but died, my basil is growing like gangbusters. Kirsten had a bunch of tomatoes left over from this weekend, so we picked up some local delicious mozzarella from Whole Foods and I threw together (with slight supervision by Kirsten) a fresh caprese salad . It was really good. I'm having some more with my lunch today.

The Fourth

Kirsten's friend Maria came down from New York City and we all went to Baltimore for the 4th of July. Actually, not quite Baltimore but Catonsville, which is a strange place because it has that small town community feel even though it is a suburb of Baltimore. The 4th is a big deal there. There's a big parade and a big fireworks display down at the high school. Then there was a large neighborhood party on the street where Kirsten grew up. All the neighbors were hanging out, eating, and listening to a live bluegrass band.

So that was Friday. On Saturday the three of us went into Baltimore proper to check out the Visionary Art Museum. Being an outsider art museum, they had a bunch of kitschy stuff, which doesn't appeal to me, but also a lot of cool inspiring art as well. One of the most compelling was a series of Post Secret cards about religion. Some were about Christians who hide their doubts; a few were about atheists who are afraid they might believe in god; and many were about duties and obligations brought on by organized religion. Then we had a late lunch on Federal Hill overlooking the harbor area. There were three distinct wedding parties taking pictures while we were there! After that we went back to Kirsten's parents house, packed up, and headed back to DC.

Then was an hour in hell (for me). Maria wanted to go out to her old neighborhood in DC, called Adams Morgan. I had heard about it a few times--how it was the clubbing area of DC and full of drunken partygoers. When we got there, it didn't even seem like DC anymore. It was like spring break or something. Girls in their hoochie dresses and guys with their popped-collar polo shirts milling around like ants. Maria and Kirsten said this was only about 1/3 as bad as normal! I was just completely uncomfortable. We ate at this place called the Diner, which was really good, and then we went to Kirsten and Maria's favorite dive bar, Dan's. It was completely packed with loud drunken revelers, and I was so glad when they decided to leave. Apparently, Dan's had recently been written up as DC's best dive bar in the Washingtonian or something, so the atmosphere had changed from what they remembered. Plus, I think they would go there right after work instead of at 11pm at night. So Maria was supposed to meet a friend at another Adams Morgan club, so we went there, and as we were walking it started to pour. We waited a bit under a McDonalds awning for it to die down, but we finally made it. This club was better--less crowded although still loud. By then I needed a stiff drink, so I got myself a couple vodka tonics and everybody had a round of shots. After that I was having fun. Kirsten and I didn't get to sleep that night until 4am.

Sunday was a day of rest and recovery. Of course we all started pretty late. I drove everybody out to Virginia for pancakes about a half hour before the place closed, and then we went to my house and played some Guitar Hero. By then the day was pretty much over, and I think everyone was equally exhausted from the busy weekend.

John's Rest

I had one of the most relaxing weekends with Kirsten at one of the PATC cabins. We mostly sat around, talked, and played games (Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble, Fluxx) and just enjoyed the trees and seclusion. It was a really nice time.

Gun Control

So the Supreme Court made a decision regarding the 2nd Amendment this week, and I thought I'd make a quick comment about it. The 2nd Amendment is a unintentionally vague, and it's not quite clear if the right to "bear arms" is a collective right for militias or a personal right for individuals. In other words, can groups, clubs, and organizations own guns, or does each person have the Constitutional right to own a gun. The details of the Supreme Court case involve the gun ban in DC designed to cut down on the horrible crime, however, the decision basically states that gun ownership is an individual right. Meaning basically that no city or state can ban gun ownership.

As for me, I believe that American freedom necessitates the right of the individual to be stupid, so I think that many things (as much as I may or may not like them) should be legal but controlled (tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, prostitution, etc.) and this includes guns. So in that sense I agree with the Supreme Court decision. But I think that since guns can be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands, they should be much, much more difficult to obtain. Gun ownership should require examination and licensure, like driving. I'm also thinking of the hobbyist community (and I'm not talking strictly hunters here). People should be able to purchase and own vintage and antique guns, build and create their own guns, and etch or engrave or cosmetically alter guns, and generally be able to generate an income based on these activities.

Now you may be thinking, "Brad, you're a pretty liberal guy...why are you pro-gun?" Well, more than being liberal, I would consider myself libertarian in the sense that personal freedom and choice are very important as long as it doesn't fuck with anybody else (directly). Also, unfortunately, I think a lot of anti-gun people are unreasonably afraid of guns. I've had several conversations over the years with people who can't even consider themselves firing a gun at a target. Yet I was raised responsibly with rifles and shotguns in the house. I've owned a rifle, took a gun training course, took a gun safety course, practiced shooting at a firing range, shot clay pigeons. I've even made my own shotgun shells using the setup my dad used to have in the garage. I've never hunted or shot a gun at a living thing, though (although I have been shot in the stomach with a BB gun, but that's a story for another day). So the bottom line is that I'm comfortable around guns and know how to use them properly. And I get the impression that some of the anti-gun people are not so comfortable and make their opinions based on that feeling.

Now the downside of my stance is that it allows Americans to be extremely stupid and dangerous. Especially in DC, which has been known as the murder capital of the US, and because of the sniper incident a few years back. This is why I support strict controls on gun ownership, but I can't consciously support a flat-out gun ban. I know this is a sticky issue for some people, especially those that have experienced gun violence in their life somehow. It's hard to argue this point with somebody who has lost a loved one.

Cool Science Shirts

Amorphia Apparel - really worth checking out, and they offer American Apparel versions as well.

I Synchrotron, Therefore I Am

I don't know why, but I think it's funny to use "synchrotron" as a verb.

Anyway, I'm up at the NSLS again, in the middle of bumblefuck Long Island, and I've had an eventful first day of beamtime. Everything was going great until someone on some other old beamline fucked up their vacuum system, which brought the hole synchrotron to a crashing halt. Then, we had a major thunderstorm in the afternoon and evening, which really shut everything down. Basically the synchrotron was down until 4am, but even then the particular beamline I was using was completely fucked up (valves and detectors shut themselves down ), so I had to wait until the morning for the beamline tech to come in and reset everything anyway. I only stayed up until midnight, and when I saw that things were still FUBAR, I decided to just go to sleep. This morning so far things are working well, and I think we can get through a bunch of samples quickly. And there are no more thunderstorms on the weather report, so at least that's one less disaster to worry about!

Songs that I Hate Myself for Liking #24

Katy Perry - I Kissed A Girl.

That song happens to have a really catchy beat and crunchy guitars (my weakness), and Katy Perry has that powerful female voice that I like. But what really interests me about her is she is a "double PK" (both her parents are pastors) and was even heading for a promising gospel career, when she heard a Queen album and "left the flock", so to speak. Now I do think she's a little extreme on the rebellious side right now (judging by her lyrics), but that kind of story warms my heart. I always felt a little sorry for PKs, because they were even a little outcast by the rest of us non-PK kids. They were supposed to be examples of what good little Christians were supposed to be like, so they always had extra rules and restrictions put on them, which made them slightly less fun to hang out with.

By the way, 24 is just a random number, but if I thought about it, I bet I could come up with 23 other songs that I'm embarrassed to admit that I like.

M83

Last night I went on a whim to the M83 show at the Black Cat, and I'm glad I did because it was amazing. I'm a sucker for fuzzy guitars and synths, and M83 has it in spades with an 80's vibe. They released a really good album this year, and they even played several songs from their last album, Before the Dawn Heals Us (not counting the 2007 ambient album), which was very cool. They also had this cool clear plexiglass box with a bunch of dials and blue LEDs that was used to create alot of the electronica sounds (or maybe to pipe instruments through, I have no idea how it works, but it was cool). There were a lot of people there, but I don't think many of them were really getting into it. I mean, some of their songs are very danceable, but not many people were moving around (damn hipster douchebags!). Anyway, I think that was their last concert in the states, and I'm glad I got the chance to see them (and for only $15 too!).

White Rabbits

Will and I went to see White Rabbits at the Black Cat last night. The two opening bands were good but forgettable, but White Rabbits were great. They put a lot of energy into their show, and their songs have a fast tempo, so there were quite a few people moving around. They had two (and at times three!) drummers. They're worth checking out.

Before the show, I met up with Kirsten at Bar Pilar just up the street. It's a nice but not too cozy little tapas place, but the food was great. I highly recommend the mushrooms and leeks dish.

The Crystal Skull

I saw the new Indiana Jones movie, and I did not like it. While watching it, I kept thinking to myself, "really?...REALLY!?!"

Regina Spektor is Jewish?

I guess so because she was the headliner for the kickoff concert for the DC Jewish Music Festival this weekend. It was free, so Kirsten and I decided to check it out. I think Regina Spektor gave a pretty good performance, despite the fact that she forgot some of the lyrics to On the Radio (she was a little embarrassed and asked the audience for help!). I hadn't heard a lot of her songs except the radio hits, but they're all kinda quirky and fun, and it was cool when she started banging on a chair with a drumstick while she was playing the piano and singing. And then she had this guy come out and they did a really cool beatbox version of Hotel Song.

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance

I just finished watching a great movie called Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. It's a Korean film by Chan-Wook Park. I'd seen Oldboy a few months back, and enjoyed the plot but hated the style of the movie. But for Lady Vengeance, I guess I was ready for the surreal elements of the film, although I do think they were less over-the-top and more integral than in Oldboy. But the thing that hooked me came about an 1:15 in when the plot takes a U-turn and becomes completely intense. I mean, the entire movie kinda punches you in the gut, but at that point my jaw dropped for almost ten minutes as I was trying to process what was happening. Highly recommended.

Draft Numero Uno

I am super pumped right now! I finished the first draft of my Apex paper this afternoon and I just sent it off to my Ph.D. advisor to review. This is the beginning of the end, and for me the hard part is over. I really hope Science goes for it, because it would be so awesome to get my Ph.D. work published in Science. I hope it's still cutting edge, since I did defend over 17 months ago! But I am making a bold claim about early life on Earth, so maybe they'll like it. I would really like to see this article published sometime this year.

I really want to celebrate. Maybe I'll go home a bit early and have a beer. Goodness knows I have a fridge full of them now!

New TV

Since the movers took away the old TV yesterday morning, I went to Best Buy after work to buy a new one. I had gone window shopping a few weeks back, and the Toshiba HDTVs looked the best to my untrained eyes. When I went back yesterday, they had one on sale, so I bought it. It was only a little bit more expensive than when I bought the last one. Plus, Best Buy is having some tax-free event this weekend, so I didn't have to pay any sales tax! Maybe this is some kind of DC-area thing, because I never remember not having to pay sales tax back in AZ. So it was a great time for me to buy a TV. The screen looks good, and it has no dead pixels, and the sound quality of the speakers ain't that bad either. And the TV remote has a screen size button, so it's really easy to switch between normal 4:3 and widescreen viewing modes.

So now I just have the problem of dealing with viewing a low quality video source on a high quality screen. It's like looking at all your digital photographs at 2X zoom. You can see some pixelation and blurring, especially in animated shows like the Simpsons. And because the cable all goes through the TiVo, it makes no sense to get HD service, since they would just be reduced to standard definition by the TiVo anyway. I bumped up the recording quality on the TiVo, and that made the picture a little better. I also turned on MPEG smoothing on the new TV, since the TiVo uses MPEG compression for its video encoding and playback. That also made a difference.

But the best part was when I booted up my PC. The new TV has a standard VGA input, and the screen looks outstanding. Even with Ubuntu I can use the maximum PC resolution of the TV (1366 x 768). I can actually read icon text now, and the desktop is huge!

Unfortunately, the Playstation 2 looks like crap now, and nothing really can be done about that.

Writing

I just wrote a kick ass (IMHO) paragraph for my Science paper summarizing Fischer-Tropsch-type synthesis, it's potential application to Apex microfossils, and why my data suggests it's not applicable. For those keeping score, that's about 10 pages of dissertation into 1/2 of a page. And I think it turned out pretty readable too. Actually, the only reason I'm posting this is because I'm surprised how well it turned out...and how "strong" it turned out, since I'm basically arguing that the obvious answer doesn't apply. I guess we'll see how the reviewers tear it apart, though!

Now I need to write a summary/conclusion paragraph, but I need to take a break and step back for a little bit to think about what I really need to put down in it.

Getting Paid to Stay in Bed

I think I've found the perfect job for a lazy person, or people who play World of Warcraft all day. Actually, it sounds like something that could fuck you up for the rest of your life.

Vegan Onion Dip

Because a few people were interested, here's the recipe for a quick and dirty vegan onion dip that I worked out:

12 oz. tub Tofutti vegan sour cream
1 1/2 tblsp parsley (either dried or fresh)
2 tblsp chopped green onion chives or 1 1/2 tblsp chopped fresh chives
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp curry powder
1/8 tsp paprika
1/4 cup dried onion flakes

mix everything in a small bowl and chill to let the dried herbs and onion become soft.

Busy Weekend

I've been doing a lot this weekend. First on Thursday I went to the Lord of the Rings performance at Wolftrap with Kirsten. The orchestra, choir, and soloists were all really good. But since it's a three hour movie, that was a very late night. So Friday I didn't do anything but watch some Wire and go to bed early. Then last night I had a bunch of friends over to the house for a Guitar Hero party. I think people had a lot of fun, plus I got to chat with some friends that I don't see that often. But, as with any party, I stayed up late and drank too much beer, so today is a very lazy day.

Helio Sequence

Eulynn and I went to the Helio Sequence show at the Black Cat last night. They put on a pretty good show, but it was super loud because the drummer was fucking insane (in a good way)! It was basically just two guys (one on drums and one on guitar) and a laptop for backup. The crowd was really into it, even though they're pretty much a no-name band, so they came out for an encore and played an incredible cover of the Beatles' Tomorrow Never Knows. The opening band was Pattern is Movement, who played this crazy math rock. Not really my kind of music, but they really put a lot of intensity into their performance and they interacted well with the crowd. That drummer was even crazier! Plus they played a cool cover of Radiohead's Everything in It's Right Place with everybody clapping along.

Writer's Unblock

Wow! It looks like I wrote 3/4 of a page today on my Apex paper. Looks like I'm on a roll. I hope I can keep this momentum going. I've got about another page to go before I'm done with this rough draft.

Yesterday was one of those dreary lazy days when you just want to stay in bed all day. I ran a few errands and cleaned house a bit. Actually I spent a lot of time talking on the phone with various people, which is a bit rare for me.

Bunny Buddy

Since it was warm and sunny for the first weekend in a while, I took the opportunity to mow the lawns. I noticed I had a bunny buddy chomping away in the backyard. He just kept eating away as I was mowing until I got closer to his end of the yard. Then he just scurried to the other side! He was pretty big too.

Also, I'm also having an awesome time lately with a certain someone. That's all I'll say about that for now.

New Figures

I've been working on my paper summarizing my dissertation over the last couple of weeks. It's slow going, but it's getting done. I created new figures for the paper, and I thought I'd post one (top) compared with the equivalent figure in my dissertation (bottom). Science doesn't like a lot of annotation in their figures, so I explain in the caption that diamonds represent Apex chert and circles represent Gunflint chert. When I would show the bottom version of this figure to people, I would always get questions about what the boxes and error bars represent, and I hope that just showing the actual data will make things a bit clearer. What do you guys think?

Moving Day

Kelly and her brother just left not to long ago to drive back to Arizona. I wish her the best. I really do. We're still friends. But the really difficult part of all of this is that Gunner went with them. I miss him already. I don't know what I'm going to do now that I don't have him waking me up in the morning with his big floppy mouth in my face, without his morning and afternoon walks, without him excitedly greeting me when I get home from work. He is such an important part of my life right now. I'm so proud of how well behaved he is and how loving he is to other people and dogs. He just wants to meet and play with everybody! I know he'll be fine in AZ where there's plenty of other people and dogs. I love him so much. Check out his blog and you'll know what I mean.

Friday

Let me just state for the record that Friday night was fucking awesome!

Jobby Job Jobs

I had a phone interview for an electron microscopist position in Houston today. I was fine until they started asking the HR questions at the end. How am I supposed to explain my work ethic? What does teamwork mean to me? That's when I got nervous.

Roller Derby

I got a bunch of DC friends together to go to the roller derby championships today. It was alot of fun. The girls were very competitive, but not nearly as rough as the AZ derby chicks.

I also went to the farmers market again this morning. Even though pears are everywhere in the supermarkets, there was almost no fruit to be found at the farmers market except for some strawberries. But there was alot of plants and flowers. Since I'm tired of buying basil and cilantro at the store and having it go bad, I decided to try planting my own. I'm not a gardener in the least, but we'll see how it turns out!

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.

We Will Miss You, TiVo

I got the "Green Screen of Death" on our TiVo on Saturday. After about 30 minutes, it would restart itself and then go back to the green screen telling me my TiVo has "encountered a serious error" and it "attempting to fix the problem". This went on for a few hours, so I decided to put the TiVo out of its misery. We've been having playback problems (video stutters, pixelation, and even failure to play recordings) for a few weeks now, so I'm not surprised this happened. I shipped the box back today, and we'll get a new dual tuner TiVo in a week or two. The exchange is technically an upgrade, so I have to pay them $150, but the lifetime subscription service will transfer over for free.

Harpers Ferry

Today I took a drive out to Harpers Ferry. It's had an interesting history, especially during and immediately after the Civil War. It's also interesting that one of the major factors why Harpers Ferry has all this history is due to its geological and geographical setting. The reason why John Brown attempted his revolution here is because it was a US armory, but the armory was there solely because of geography (it was at a natural transportation hub and it was defensible). It was hotly contested during the Civil War because it was necessary for supply lines for both Union and Confederate armies (river access and a gap through the Blue Ridge). And everything else seems to follow from there.

My friend Will is a professional historian of Science, and he's always talking about 20th century science in terms of institutions and collaborative groups rather than isolated case studies (if I understand him correctly). In that vein, I'm always more interested in the history of a place in terms of environment rather than people and events, since I tend to think that geology and geography strongly influence said people and events.

Anyway, after Harpers Ferry, I took a short detour up to nearby Sharpsburg, where the Antietam Civil War battlefield is located. This was one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, and part of the reason why the Confederates lost is because Harpers Ferry existed so close nearby. General Robert E. Lee needed to secure his supply lines and keep the Union garrison there from attacking his rear, so he had to send off a large part of his army to take the town. While I was at Antietam, I kept wondering to myself "just why was the battle so bloody?" Part of it is due to relative inexperience (it was early on in the conflict) and poor planning (the Union army really should have just routed the Confederates), but there are several geographical reasons as well. From what I could tell, the Confederates either had high ground or sunken depressions to give them light protection, but no trenches or real fortifications. Hence they had the tactical advantage to hold their positions but no real protection from bullets and cannon fire. That's a surefire recipe for heavy casualties.

FIBbed

I'm spending most of my week trying to make a FIB sample to take with me to the synchrotron next week. The FIB is in a class 100 clean room, so I have to wear one of those bunny suits all day. Unfortunately, we lost the first two tries, so I'm working on a third section. I have one last session scheduled for Friday, so hopefully the third time's a charm.

The FIB works by sputtering away the sample with an ion beam. I can tell the FIB to dig out trenches around an area of interest to create a 1 micron thick flat section. But then comes the hard part! I have to take this tungsten needle and gently touch it to the top of the section (much harder than it sounds), make a platinum weld between the needle and section, cut out the bottom of the section, detaching it from the rest of the sample, and then bring the released section over to a TEM grid, weld it into place there with Pt, and then cut the needle free. After all that nerve-wracking manipulation, it's trivial to mill the section down to ~100 nm, where it becomes transparent to electrons.

The first sample we lost trying to touch it with the needle (not my fault, I wasn't operating the FIB then). It wasn't aligned properly, and it ended up prying the FIB section free, whereupon it flies off into the ether of the instrument, never to be seen again. The second time we picked up the section and brought it over to the TEM grid, but it charged up during the second Pt welding and flew off.

Most Disappointing Albums of 2007

In no particular order:

Chris Cornell - Carry On
Air - Pocket Symphony
Brandi Carlile - The Story
Aqueduct - Or Give Me Death
Idlewild - Make Another World
Rilo Kiley - Under the Blacklight

Top 7 Albums of 2007

1. Sarah Blasko - What the Sea Wants, the Sea Will Have












2. Alaska in Winter - Dance Party in the Balkans












3. White Stripes - Icky Thump












4. Barcelona - Absolutes














5. Daft Punk - Alive 2007













6. Once - Original Sountrack













7. Idlewild - Scottish Fiction: Best of Idlewild 1997-2007
also check out the download-only b-side disk

Hypocrite

Even though I hate the Apple microcosm, I had to give in and purchase songs on iTunes. I like a relatively obscure Japanese rock band called Eastern Youth. Unfortunately, their US label hasn't released their last two albums on CD, and the only digital versions are on iTunes. Rather than paying $40 for each import CD, it's easier to buy the songs on iTunes and convert to mp3. So I am officially a hypocrite on that count.

Bad Science Day

After a fairly good week in Houston for LPSC, I've been having really shitty science luck this week. While I was away, my colleague prepared a sample for me to microtome. It took him a full day to do his part, and it only took me ten minutes to ruin the sample. And I didn't just ruin the sample, I burned it to a crisp! You see, I was supposed to microtome the sample in epoxy, but I put it in sulfur instead. No worries, though, because sulfur can be sublimated away. So I cranked up the hot plate and waited for the sulfur to melt and disappear. However, I did not realize that at high enough temperatures (but below the sulfur boiling point), liquid sulfur goes through an extremely exothermic reshuffling of atom positions. When this happened to me, the sulfur quickly turned from yellow to red, and then spontaneously combusted! Then I was left with an ugly black mess, with a tiny sample hidden somewhere in the middle (pristine of course because the sample is made of materials with very high melting temperatures). So then the rest of my Monday was spent frantically trying to prepare another sample. My colleague and I managed to get a sample, and I embedded it in epoxy like I was supposed to the first time.

Then yesterday my job was to create microtome sections--about fifty 100nm sections, which will cut about halfway through the sample. That took a looooong time! But once I was done, I looked at the sample in the microscope and discovered that it was still uncut! Turns out I had wasted my time sectioning a gas bubble just above the real sample! I was pissed and it was late in the day, but I had to get this done, so I kept microtoming. Finally I got to the real sample. I cut a few 200 nm sections just as a reference point and went to look at the sample again to confirm I had really reached it. This ended up screwing me up, because once I put the sample back in the microtome, it wouldn't cut right and the sections came out crappy. So I looked again at the sample, and lo and behold, it was gone! I had wasted almost the entire day just for three measly sections that were a bit too thick.

Luckily, I found out today that one of those sections was just thin enough for TEM. And it had the interesting material we were looking for. So I guess there is a silver lining, but it's probably the worst possible silver lining.

Soy Milk

I've finally switched over to soy milk with my cereal in the morning. Back in college, I kept hearing about how fatty milk is, so I decided to begin a program to wean myself off of 2%. I moved to 1%, and after several years, moved down to skim milk. I was fine with skim, but when it's just Kelly and I, then I'm the only one who drinks it, so it makes more sense to just stick with soy milk that we both use. It has been at least six years, but now I'm drinking vanilla soy milk. Sure it tastes a little different, but it's not bad by any measure, so I'm sticking with it. Not having regular milk in the house for a week and getting sick of toast in the morning is what drove me to it.

When Life Gives You Lemons...

While Kelly and I are waiting for our lemon zest to soak for our homemade limoncello, we had six peeled lemons sitting around, so I made some lemonade! I didn't have a recipe, so I made up my own. It's tart with just enough sweetness to make it bearable.

For each lemon add...
- 1 cup water
- 1/8 cup sugar

The Door, Day 3

I painted on President's Day. All done for now! It probably needs a second coat, but it will be fine until the weather warms up again.

The Door, Day 2

So by the end of Sunday, I had finished almost everything. I had to straighten up the hole for the doggy door because it was slightly crooked. Then I cut the holes for the doorknob and deadbolt. I used the old hardware from the original door so we don't have to change keys. Then I built a new threshold and added weatherstripping foam along the sides (the old weatherstripping was metal and rusting!). Unfortunately, even with compression the weatherstripping added 1/8 inch, so I needed to adjust the positions of the strike plates towards the interior. All of these things (plus some trial and error) took me all day, from 9am to 9pm. The back room is a mess, but the only thing left now is to paint!

The Door, Day 1

Here's how far I got on Saturday. As you can see, I cut out the hole for the doggy door and trimmed the bottom of the door with my new jigsaw. Somehow I managed to get it onto the hinges. It's a solid core slab, so it was pretty heavy. I also had to plane of the right side of the door so it would close properly (it also has to be slightly angled towards the exterior). But there's plenty more to do!

All Alone

Kelly left for Arizona yesterday, so it's just me and Gunner for the weekend. I have plenty to do, though. Gunner desperately needs a doggy door so I'll be installing a new back door over the next few days. I ordered a plain, primered solid-core slab a while ago that's sitting in the shed. Apparently, installing a door is quite a complicated process, so it will probably take me at least until Sunday afternoon. I'll have to trim it down to size, install the doggy door, cut the proper doorknob and deadbolt holes, and paint it. I think I'll see if the local library has a how-to book for tips and to make sure I don't miss any steps.

GSW

My talk for the Geological Society of Washington last night went well, but it was a bit of a personal disaster for me. I was given a 20 minute time limit and I went long. I new I was in trouble when I got the 2 minute warning and I was only halfway through my slides! I started with my GSA talk, which was also slated for 20 minutes but only took me 17, and added a few slides. But they were background slides with a lot of explanation. I figured that was important for a general audience of geologists. I probably don't need all of my data slides anyway. I should just show the pertinent results and have that be the end of it.

Valentine's Day

Last night I cooked Kelly a nice dinner for Valentine's Day (we're celebrating early because she's leaving for AZ on the 14th). It was pretty involved, and I was really happy how everything turned out. But the important thing is that Kelly loved it too. So here's my three course menu:

Insalata Mista
Earthbound Farms herb salad mix
cucumber
carrots
red onion
homemade balsamic vinaigrette (red wine vinegar + balsamic vinegar + olive oil + salt)

Orecchiette with Broccoli Rabe
orecchiette (ear-shaped) pasta
broccoli rabe + garlic + red pepper flakes
parmesan cheese

Individual Apple Crostate
homemade pasta frolla dough
2 granny smith apples
1 braeburn apple
cinnamon
sugar
lemon juice

All three recipes come from Italian Classics from Cook's Illustrated, which also includes an awesome recipe for vegetarian lasagne. I really like this cookbook because they explain how they experimented with different ingredients and techniques in order to figure out the perfect recipe.

Ben Stein Expelled

I used to think Ben Stein was one of those few intelligent public figures, but not after watching the trailer to his upcoming documentary. You got to see it to believe the audacity of it. In it, you will see Darwinism equated with Nazism (I mean, Hitler may have used Darwinism as a justification, but that does NOT mean it is a logical conclusion of Darwinism!). You will also see some sort of Big Science conspiracy against Intelligent Design. I am involved in one of the more controversial scientific disciplines for ID folks, and I have NEVER seen any ounce of professional discrimination because of it. There was even an all-day ID session at a recent Geological Society of America conference replete with ID proponents, and believe me they had their fair say with no suppression or persecution. In fact they were probably some of the more popular talks at the meeting!

Kelly and I were discussing it last night, and I brought up the distinction between Free Speech and Science. With free speech, any idiot has the right to say what they want, but good science is supposed to be close to some objective truth, and therefore is held to a higher standard than plain old free speech. That's why scientific journals are peer reviewed with rigorous scrutiny (I know this firsthand--I had plenty of opposition to my puny little paper). And if your paper gets rejected, I would say 99% of the time it is because you have bad science or unfounded conclusions in it. To make it even more fair, most journals allow you to list unacceptable reviewers who might have personal motives against you!

The biggest problem with the movie is that Ben Stein is a respected individual. Whatever he says, the ordinary American will immediately accept. Fortunately, he seems to have a lot of opposition from the internet masses, judging from the comments to his blog posts.

Do I look any different?

Seriously, though, I don't know how you 4-eyes do it. Although everything seems clearer, my depth perception is screwed up. Things that are further away appear smaller to me instead of far away. When I move around a piece of paper or a box it actually appears to change shape. I hope my brain can learn how objects look now.

Back Home from the Synchrotron

I'm lucky to be back home now. There was a blizzard warning yesterday. There was heavy snowfall when I went to the Saskatoon airport and the temperature was -20 degrees Fahrenheit (-40 with wind chill)! But I guess it cleared up enough in the afternoon to take off. I'm taking the day off today to try and catch up on sleep and food. Working long night shifts really takes it's toll after a while.

Saskatoon, Here I Come!

So I'm here in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and it's really cold. Not as cold as Regina, but still really freakin' cold. After finishing safety training and getting badged at the Canadian Light Source, it was only 3pm, so I decided to walk into downtown and get some late lunch/early dinner with Dominic (he flew up with me to help me share the beamtime). We found a nice Japanese restaurant, but even though they had their lunch specials out, lunch was over so we had to order a full dinner. The miso was so-so, but my katsu don was pretty good. Then Dominic headed to his hotel and I headed back across the river to the seminary dorm where I'm staying. Since I had to walk through the University of Saskatchewan campus to get there, I decided to explore a bit. I found the student union by accident and walked around inside, and discovered that there are secret tunnels and bridges everywhere on campus. Students can go from their dorms to the student union, to the dining halls, to the library, and to class without even going outside in the cold! Then I went to the geology department and walked around looking at their mineral displays. They had some pretty outstanding fluorite and calcite. They also had giant replica dinosaur skeletons in the foyer, too. By then it was getting late, so I came back here to the seminary. I'm going to go peruse the student paper and then go to sleep.

Three Days of Bitter Cold

I hope everybody had a nice three-day weekend. For us it was too cold to do anything. Kelly and I mostly just stayed inside and watched TV. We did have grand plans to go see There Will Be Blood and the Hopper exhibit at the National Gallery, but like I said, it was way to cold for us. However, we did finish the third season of Deadwood. It really sucks that HBO canceled the series after the third season because they were in the middle of a story arc, so there are a lot of unanswered questions now. I hear there are talks of making two 90 minute episodes to finish the storyline, but who knows if that will ever really happen.

In other news, I did manage to brave the cold for a quick eye exam. As I expected, I do need glasses, and I have to special order them because the perscription is too strong for LensCrafters to make them in house. We'll see how they work out in a couple weeks.

The Amazon.com mp3 music store just got more awesomer. Warner agreed to allow them to sell their music DRM-free, so now old Led Zeppelin, Smashing Pumpkins, and Radiohead albums (among others) are available for purchase as high quality mp3s with no restrictions. The last of the four big music conglomerates, Sony, is also considering selling DRM-free tracks through Amazon.com. Take that, iTunes!

LPSC abstract

I've been stressing out the past few work days collecting last minute data and writing my abstract for LPSC. Unlike most conference abstracts, this one is two pages of 10pt font with data and figures, so you can't really bullshit it. But I finshed a draft yesterday evening and now I'm waiting for edits from my co-authors.

I also wanted to mention that I had to replace the garbage disposal in my house this past weekend. It just sorta quit on us. But I bought a new one and installed it with few problems (except for the when I cut the dishwasher drain hose too short and had to buy another length of hose). It seems like something breaks for goes wrong every month in this house. It is pretty old, though; built in the '50s.

Best of 2007 - Prologue

Now that it's January and 2007 is over, it's time to start compiling my Best of 2007 music CD. Unfortunately, this year will probably only fill a single CD because there weren't very many good releases. There are some gems, which will make it onto the CD, but there were also too many disappointments. Just look at any music critics Best of list for 2007, and you'll most likely find Rilo Kiley's Under the Blacklight. This is NOT a good CD, and has disappointed a large portion of Rilo Kiley's fanbase (including me). But it's better than most music dreck, and because there wasn't a whole lot better, it has made many best of 2007 lists.

Anyway, my real point here is to make a few honorable mentions that won't be on my Best of CD for various reasons. The National came out with a great album last year, but none of the songs really got to me. So although it won't be on my tracklist, it's worth checking out. Also, The Smashing Pumpkins got the band back together and released a CD. I didn't really like any of the songs I heard on the radio, so I didn't buy it, but that doesn't mean there aren't some good songs hidden on the CD. I just haven't had a chance to hear them yet. They're a talented band, so I can't just dismiss them without giving the CD a listen.

Back to Work

The new year has begun, so it's time to get back to work. I know I have a ton of stuff to get done. I hope everybody's holiday celebrations went well. Kelly and I just had a nice, relaxing, low key Christmas and New Years. We watched a bunch of Deadwood and Sopranos episodes. Like Beth said, I think the first season of Deadwood is great, but season two is not as good (so far).

back home

We're back from Virginia Beach now. It was a pretty good week. Very relaxing. Now we both have a couple days at home before we have to go back to work. Yesterday I cleaned out the gutters on the house. It was the first time I've ever done that, and I had to buy a ladder from Home Depot just to get up there. It was gross, but not as bad as everybody makes it out to be.

No Surprises

It was windy and rainy on Wednesday. We could even feel the beach house shaking! We decided to check out the Virginia Beach Aquarium. There were some cool exhibits, including an awesome shark tank, but it was ultimately disappointing because nearly half of the place was under construction until sometime next year.

Dolphins

Kelly and I took Gunner for a long walk down the beach this morning while the sun was rising. There was nobody around except for a few surfers. We also saw a pod of dolphins just past the wave break. Most of them were just surfacing to breathe, but a couple actually jumped a bit out of the ocean. It was pretty cool.

Vampire Weekend

I hate that I like the new Vampire Weekend song. What the hell is a mansard roof anyway?

Virginia Beach

Kelly and I rented a beach house in Virginia Beach for the week. We took Gunner on the beach at 6pm (when dogs are allowed) and he went nuts in the surf! He kept trying to go after the sea foam. But he kept running really far out in the surf, so we called him back and went back to the beach house. Maybe in the morning we'll try it again when we can see better. Kelly and I are gonna try and get up for the sunrise tomorrow.

If you're wondering how I'm blogging this, let me just say that there are a lot of people around here who don't know about wireless security.

What do we know about Renazzo matrix?

It's been several weeks, but I finally finished a powerpoint summary of all the publishable data I've collected on my Renazzo meteorite sample. You see, it broke off not too long ago, and we need to figure out if we have to ask for more sample from the American Museum. So Rhonda asked me to put together a powerpoint showing all the data I have to see if we can get a paper out of it, or if we really do need more sample. It's kinda like how a dissertation is a summary of all your knowledge from 4+ years of grad school; this was more like 5 months of various TEM and STXM observations, including images, electron diffraction, x-ray emission, x-ray absorption (but no electron absorption, unfortunately). Needless to say, it's a lot of material.

There's actually a lot of interesting stuff in my Renazzo section. Interesting carbonates, sheet silicates, organic matter, and even (possibly) a mineral that has yet to be found in a meteorite (It's only been discovered on Earth so far). It does really suck that we lost the sample.

cold and windy

It is so cold and windy right now. Last night the wind was so strong it blew open our back door twice! It must have really sucked to have been a colonist on the east coast during the winter months.

Snow!

I walked into my cube today, ready to finish up my AbSciCon abstract, when I saw that I had no computer to work on. I had forgotten it at home! So I drove back through traffic, grabbed my laptop, and came back to work. That was a 90 minute mistake!

Happy Thanksgiving

Kelly's parents came to town for Thanksgiving this year. They really had a lot of fun with Gunner. Kelly made Tofurky with all the trimmings, and awesome vegan meatloaf, some vegetables from the local farmer's market, and vegan blueberry cobbler. It all tasted so good it makes you wonder about all those people who complain about how you're missing out if you don't eat meat.

On Friday we all went to the zoo. The sloth bear was out pacing around

On Saturday we met up with some of Kelly's family that lives in southern Virginia. There is a huge natural bridge near the halfway point, so we met there. It really is pretty big.

Meanwhile

This is a really clever Choose-Your-Own-Adventure-style comic book by Jason Shiga. It's full of math and science too!

Kindle

Even though it's kind of ugly and has a silly name, the new Amazon Kindle is pretty cool. I seem to be reading quite a few thicker books lately, and it's a bit of a pain packing them for travel or handling heavy books at night when I'm getting sleepy. I like the addition of the keyboard for making notes or searching for text, and the EVDO cellphone wifi is interesting (including the wikipedia support), but I don't know how ultimately useful wifi would be. I think the e-paper technology is the way to go, though, for these types of devices. They look more like real ink-on-paper, cause less eye strain (due to the absence of a backlight), and use much less energy than traditional LCD readers. Unfortunately, the Kindle is way out of my price range.

On a side note, since Amazon opened the Kindle store for ebook downloads, I now have the option of uploading ebooks for sale in the store. Since I own the copyright on my dissertation, maybe I'll put that up for sale. But I think the figures and tables might be a problem. Amazon says that HTML uploads will work the best in their conversion software, so I would have quite a bit of work to do to get my dissertation to look good in that format. I wonder if anybody would want to pay something like $10 for a copy of my dissertation on their Kindle (I would get ~35% of the sale price). Probably not.

Netflix

While Beth was in town, the topic of Netflix came up. A number of friends have been using Netflix for a while, including my brother, who watches TV shows on DVD exlusively rather than paying for cable. And everybody seems to like the service. Even with TiVo, Kelly and I have been renting at least two movies a week, either from the local independent video store or from Pay-Per-View, so Netflix is much more cost effective. So we signed up for a 2 DVD-at-a-time Netflix account this weekend to try it out.

Insert Font Joke Here

If you have written any kind of crystallography-related manuscript or report, you’ve probably run into one of the most annoying problems I’ve encountered in my academic career—the lack of a proper overline character. You see, instead of writing “-3”, crystallographers change the negative sign into a line on top of the 3 and call it “bar 3”. Unfortunately, there is no font that does this. Some font sets have a “combining overline” (U+0305) which you place between two characters and draws a bar over both characters, as in “4̅3”. In some font sets, this character extends over both letters, and in other font sets, it is centered over the first letter but extends towards the second letter. But I haven’t found a font yet that can just place an overline over a single character (yes, there are macron characters, but they don’t cover the entire letter).

However, just recently a bunch of scientific publishers have released a comprehensive, royalty-free font set for scientists called STIX. It is supposed to contain every character required by any scientific discipline. The STIX font set now has a proper combining overline character, so now I can write that the space group of bornite properly as F̅43m instead of F-43m. One quick note, the STIX fonts are in beta testing right now, but you can download them from the STIX website once you sign up. Also, the STIX combining overline must be inserted before the letter or number you want the bar over.

I hear Beth is coming into town this weekend. Better put on my thicker skin!

Veteran's Day Weekend

Kelly and I had a nice long weekend. On Saturday, Becky and Mike were in town, so we met up for lunch in the district. We went to a good Malaysian restaurant, and it was fun to catch up with them.

We also watched The Thing. For a special effects movie from the 80's, it stood up surprisingly well. Kelly and I were on the edge of our seats waiting to see how things would end, so I think the movie gets our recommendation if you're in the mood for classic horror.

new winter clothes

Kelly and I went clothes shopping last weekend at Nordstrom The Rack. Kelly found me this really cool Ben Sherman coat that I've been wearing all week. If figure since they actually have winter out here, I should probably have a winter coat. Anyway, I really like the coat a lot. It's pretty warm, but not bulky like many winter coats.

Other than that it's business as usual.

Another weekend means another week has passed by. I'm glad to be back home from GSA, but now I have to buckle down and get some more research done.

at GSA

I got a lot of good feedback from my talk yesterday. People seemed to be really interested in it. I was even invited to come to the Thermo Electron party with Steve Mojzsis, Francois Robert, and Dorothy Oehler. I kind of asked myself "what would Joe Michalski do?" because he was always talking with people and seemed to know everybody. It's important for me to do that now so that I can get a good job once my postdoc ends.

Denver!

I'm here in Denver now for the GSA meeting. I'm staying in this really cool hotel called the Curtis, just a five minute walk to the convention center. I don't think I've ever stayed this close to a conference venue. I'm staying on the 14th floor, which happens to be the TV Mania floor. I kinda wish I was on the 9th floor, which has a Simpsons theme (although theme in this case only affects the wall decorations).

It's nice and sunny here, but cold.

EDIT: Turns out the 9th floor is the "Big Hair" floor, not a Simpsons theme, which is why there is a big display of Marge Simpson by the elevators but pictures of 80's hair bands in the hallway.

Rainin'

It has been raining non-stop for two days now. Pretty dreary stuff. And it's a pain to have to dry off Gunner every time he goes outside. Also, traffic has been pretty bad too. It took me an hour to get to work this morning. I hope the rain stops before I leave for Denver on Saturday.

The Big Two-Nine

I suppose I should mention that Kelly and I had our birthdays this weekend. Not a big deal. Kelly got me a really nice shirt and tie from Banana Republic. I need more nice clothes like that, since I'm getting too old to wear "cool" t-shirts.

Stupid Adobe Illustrator

I'm working on my poster for GSA, and I came across the most retarded bug ever. Illustrator CS2 cannot save a file into it's own *.ai format! The problem seems to stem from putting text in your file (required when making a poster) and saving a PDF-compatible file (makes it easier for proofing and printing mini-posters). A quick search on the internet comes up with a fix, which I shouldn't even have to do. You MUST install Adobe Reader 7 or 8, and copy a couple fonts from those install folders into the Adobe common fonts folder. It pisses me off that I have to have a different program installed to even save my work in Illustrator! Stupid!

ALS recovery

I'm back from ALS now. That last day was just horrible. What with the beam downtime, and then when it came back at 3AM, I couldn't get the microscope aligned properly again. So I spent the next 6 hours fiddling and trying different things. I think the x-ray beam was off center somehow. I couldn't even get any intensity through at higher energies. And the guy to call for help had already worked the day shift for me, so he was getting his necessary sleep, and I had to fend for myself. At least it's over now.

I didn't get to go to bed afterwards, though. I had to check out of my hotel and head to the airport instead. I napped a bit in the terminal and on my flights, but you know how it's not the same when you're not sleeping in a bed. I didn't get home until 1AM, and after a quick shower and meal, I finally went to sleep at around 2AM. I slept until 1 in the afternoon yesterday, and I felt alot better. I also pigged out on food yesterday, because I hadn't been eating well out in California. I still don't feel 100% yet. Maybe in a day or two.

The ALS Brain Drain

Another long night at the ALS. Right now the x-ray beam is off for some reason. It shut off unexpectedly at 11:30. I've been sitting here waiting for them to start it up again, but it looks like the control room is waiting until 1AM (the regular refill time). I am dead tired from these long nights, and I didn't get much sleep during the day. I think I'll go take a walk around the synchrotron ring and try to wake up a bit.

from the ALS

I'm here at the Advanced Light Source at Berkeley now. Yes, I'm at another synchrotron facility. I hope to complete my "tour" by visiting the Canadian Light Source in Saskatoon sometime after the New Year. It's just an opportunity to use each of these facilities and decide which one(s) is(are) most appropriate for my samples and the travel costs of visiting them 3-4 times a year. Unfortunately, I'm running the night shift...8pm-8am, which in DC time is 11pm-11am. I just started and hour and a half scan of my sample, so I gotta go run and eat something. I hear there's a Thai restaurant that's open 'til 1:30am. Let's hope so.

The System Works!

So I've been wanting to read The Name of the Rose for a long time. I've heard it's a really good book, and I kinda want to ease into Umberto Eco's themes and style before I tackle Foucault's Pendulum. But I've never started the book because it's chock full of Latin, and I don't know a lick of it. I learned my lesson after reading Lolita that if you can't understand a large portion of the book, you're gonna miss out on some plot development. There's a book called the Key to the Name of the Rose which has a glossary and translations of all Latin phrases, but neither ASU nor various public libraries had it. Well it turns out the Fairfax County Library system has a copy, but it's in a branch far away (well, too far away to be worth the effort). Plus it was checked out. But, not only was I able to put a hold on the book online, but they shipped it to the library branch just down the street from me. So I think I'll start reading it tonight or tomorrow.

I'm back in DC now, and it feels good to be home again. Gunner seems a whole lot bigger than before. Kelly's been making this special food for him full of protein and vitamins. I'm taking the morning off to do some laundry, pay bills, and rest for a bit, especially since I didn't get a weekend.