Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in moody7277's LiveJournal:

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Thursday, October 1st, 2009
11:25 am	Odd incident while I was coming in on the bus this morning. It was pack ed to capacity as usual, but I had managed to snag a seat right at the back, which allowed me a close view of what happened. A lady got on the bus at Lion's Gate, the next stop after I get on, and stood up with some other people towards the back. As we head down Atherton to campus, she starts feeling uncomfortable, and asks someone to ding the bell. His feeble attempys don't actually activate the "Stop Requested" sign, not that I think it would made a difference as SOP for the bus I was on is to pass by the former ambulance station stop and let the second bus pick up those passengers. We do stop at the Balfurd's on Atherton and Beaver, and the lady tries to get off the bus while feeling decidedly woozy and short of breath. She collapses in the aisle, and the driver starts to pull away. Several passengers yell to stop the bus and open the doors. The driver is in a bit of a bind as on the one hand he has a route to drive, but compassion wants to have him stop and see if she is in need of further care. The lady is finally helped off the bus, and a guy is on his cell phone to paramedics to have someone come by to check her out. Once the lady is off, the driver starts up again, only to have the passengers stop him so that the guy with the cellphone may also get off as he was still talking to the paramedics as to where we were and what had happened. We finally drive off, and most likely I will not hear what went on with the woman. KDM (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 1st, 2009
1:49 pm	September blog Summarizing a few points since my last entry: 1. Acquisition of an acceptable (to state regulators) car accomplished. Amanda's (Martin) mother-in-law had recently become a widow, and had a '99 Taurus wagon she no longer had a use for. After some dickering, we agreed on a price of $1800. The transfer of keys happened July 27, when we first saw it and were extremely pleased with it (mom up till then had been nervous about it). We turned over our old car to Walk's for them to do whatever they felt like with it on Aug 3. The next day, we went to the DMV place in Pleasant Gap to get the title switched over, only to find out that those services are done at a private company. Fortunately, this was on the road between there and home, so we go there, wait 30 minutes for it to open, and then find out that the nosy bureaucrats in Harrisburg are concerned that we got too good a deal on it and need a form with the previous owner's signature on it. The previous owner was in Carlilse, not far from Harrisburg. To show how desperate my mom was to get the deal done, she was ready to drive all that way to get the signature instead of just mailing back and forth. Instead, we called Amanda, and set up a meeting at the title place for Friday before they moved to Colorado. Papers signed, and a couple of weeks later we got the title. 2. The thesis defense on August 20. I get the thesis in good enough shape to send out to the committee a couple weeks prior, then attend to the presentation which makes up the first part of the defense. It's during this time I get some of the activities in the category of "shuffling you out the door," including moving me from the window office to a walk-in closet sized room with two other guys in it. The new office is so depressing by comparison that I can barely stand to spend more than 3 hours a day in it. Good thing for me, I can work on the presentation at home. As the week of the defense arrives, I start having waves of nervousness of increasing amplitude and frequency. In my more lucid moments, I think that the defense will be simple enough with my presentation followed by a nice chat with the committee about what I've been doing. At other times I worry about what sort of obscure questions they are going to pull out of thin air. Talking to Steinn at coffee a couple of days before is of dubious value as he regales me with a couple of horror stories from other defenses he's attended. The Thursday arrives. Mom and I drive up to the back of Davey since she is attending the public part. We get to the office a little before coffee starts. Hitch number one I discover as I walk to 538 to see how the room for my defense looks. There is a scaffolding in the middle of the room and wires hanging from the ceiling. The secretaries say that some room in Osmond would likely be available, but based on a suggestion from Steinn I ask about 541. That room turns out to be fine, if also requiring a bit of tidying. Coffee conversation proves a bit more extreme than the usual zombie talk; the graphic discussion of corporeal creation myths in ancient civilizations make mom very uncomfortable. So we go to the front porch of Davey for a while, until it starts raining. I finally start setting up about 12:20. People start milling in at ten till, and the call goes out to supplement the limited seating in 541. My mom decides to sit in the back left corner. One o'clock, and I begin my presentation. Hitch number two happens shortly thereafter when some annoying drilling starts. Eric inquires next door about it, and it ends after a minute or so. In the meantime, I am doing my best to talk over it. After a shaky start to the presentation, I hit my stride. When I look at my watch on the table after I had finished, I see it's 1:55, which is about 10 minutes longer than I estimated but very respectable. After a couple of questions from the general audience, Steinn clears the room so the comittee can discuss format. It's at that point that I (and my mom) notice that I and my sport coat are drenched. A couple of minutes later, I am invited back in for the private part of the defense. All in all, it goes about how I figured in my more "lucid" moments, other than for one question that had to do with other observational limits to large objects in the outer solar system that ironically Steinn had a reference on but "didn't want to bother me with" while I was preparing. But an hour and a half later, everyone seems satisfied and I am excused while the committee deliberates. I walked out of the room feeling accomplished, having taken two of the cookies Steinn's kids had thoughtfully provided for my committee and me, and found mom around the corner in the hall. We had arranged to meet at the car, but it was too hot outside and she came in to cool off. We sat down in the coffee room, and 15 minutes later I got the thumbs up. So now here I am. Temporarily in room 439 until I get a post-doc somewhere and making some revisions suggested by the committee (mostly aesthetic). Dr. KDM (still has a nice/odd sound to it) (Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 21st, 2009
11:38 am	Interesting events smell like coffee Starting from where I left off, I first explain the second half of Astrofest. Friday night I had two more times for my talk. The second one was mostly kids, and they do ask interesting questions. On the roof we had quite a lot of cloudiness. Bands of clouds gradually thickened over time, and when the moon rose we fought to get the most people to see it and Jupiter while they were visible. Saturday was a bit worse. There was a severe thunderstorm warning at 7pm which cleared out Artsfest, and not many people came back out once it passed. According to Jane, one year this happened closer to opening time, and we were able to accept all the refugees and have a full 5th floor. Thunderstorms and the remnants thereof also meant for cloudy conditions, and so dutifully, I helped set up for what our roof boss Andrew called "telescope spiel". I was stationed in the 12" dome, and so was caught by complete surprise when around 10:30 I was told that we were having clearing conditions and might I set up to look at Vega? I did so, and even switched to epsilon Lyrae, which is a more exciting target being two closely spaced pairs of stars. The after party at Perkins seemed oddly anticlimax as I felt Astrofest this year had raced by at unprecedented speed. July passes on, and I have finally found a date for my thesis committee to meet. I wanted Astrofest to be firmly behind me when I did my defense, and so that provided one edge of the window. From the first couple of times I asked, I found constraints which kicked it to mid-August, and talking with Steinn the other day I heard there was the other edge of the window. So, I asked about having it August 20th, and all agreed they were available. So there it is. Copies of my (mostly) completed thesis go out to them 2 weeks prior. I also now have a countdown going on the chalkboard in my office. Now for our most recent incident. I have mentioned before about the smell of coffee portending interesting events (either good or bad). Mom said she got a whiff in the past week. Monday she was taking the car in to get it's yearly inspection. This time what we thought might happen at some point occurred, the car failed miserably. There are several spots highly rusted, including the muffler and a motor mount. The estimate to fix all of the stuff wrong to bring it to code was around $1000, which is a few times the current value of the car being as it is a 1987 Olds wagon. Current certification is good through the end of August, which gives us enough time to find another used car. I've got a couple of feelers out, and hopefully this will soon be resolved. KDM (Comment on this)
Friday, July 10th, 2009
12:35 pm	Astrofest--Night 2 Yesterday's clouds looked just as bad as Wednesday's, but cleared out better so that we had a glorious night. I was shuttling back and forth from the roof to room 530 for my talk. This was actually the first time I had done a talk at Astrofest. The topic was black holes in globular clusters. I give an overview on what globular clusters are, their distribution and properties, and then go on to talk about the black holes therein, including my research on how black holes may merge to form bigger black holes. My first talk was scheduled at 9pm, and was well attended by perhaps as many as 20 people, the second happened at 10pm which is the nominal opening time for the roof and so I only had 8 people. On the roof, we had our usual compliment of targets, deep sky objects in the domes and Saturn early and the Moon and Jupiter later with the outdoor telescopes. Since I was up later, I did crowd control instead of manning a telescope. Crowd control was more needed Thursday night than Wednesday due to the larger attendance. Tonight and tomorrow's forecasts do not look promising for clear skies; rain is forecast for Saturday. Thursday attendance: 450 KDM (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, July 9th, 2009
11:25 am	Astrofest 2009 Morning after the first night, and still working out some soreness. Yesterday's sky conditions included lots of puffy mid-level clouds that were due to the heating of the day. The Weather Channel and what I recall from the undergrad course I took said they should have dissapated a little after sundown. Unfortunately, that didn't happen until after midnight, which meant that we had to peep between the clouds. We got an okay view of Saturn early in the night, and the Moon made a spectacular entrance, preceded by a glow on the underside of the clouds. Tonight looks to be about the same, judging by the look of the clouds from the window right now, except that I also have two showings of my talk on binary balck hole mergers at 9 and 10 pm. Wednesday's count: 230 KDM (Comment on this)
Friday, July 3rd, 2009
11:27 am	Birthday surprise So yesterday was my 32nd birthday. I got up, went to the office at my regular time. Facebook birthday wishes came in from Steve Movit and a couple of people I knew from high school. At coffee, I casually bring up that it's my birthday and get some cheerful congratulations. The rest of the day passes without much fanfare, I work on the introduction to my thesis. Amanda L. comes by later to say Happy Birthday and to apologize for not getting out one of her usual greetings (since she makes 3D models to give for birthdays, she's a little behind). I head home at my usual time. Mom is asleep on the couch after her couple of hours volunteering at the St. Vincent's down the hill from us. The apartment is slightly more spiffed up than average, but I don't make anything of it. After a couple hours of Civ, I work on a talk I plan to give at this year's Astrofest (more on that next week). Dinner is not going anywhere, but again I think this is due to Thursday and being the start of the month when we have money. We watch Star Wars and Jeopardy, and at the end of Jeopardy we hear a knock on the door. I go to answer it, peer out the peephole and see cardboard cutouts of a tree and a mountain. When I open the door, Steven, Jason, and Sara pop out from what I now recognize as props from the improv comedy troupe. "We're here to kidnap you." Jason says. "Sure. Just let me get my shoes on." I reply. I had changed into comfortable clothes for the night since I was obviously not expecting this. So a surprise birthday party for me. This was definitely a first as usually at home my birthday goes by almost unremarked, except perhaps for a pan or two of enchiladas. From the conversation between my three friends and mom while I changed, I found out that mom was in on it. That was almost as big a shock as the party itself since she is not big on spontaneous things. The four of us drove up to Steven's place for dinner (cooked frozen pizza) and a movie (Constantine), followed by cake and a game of Power Grid. The cake was a Boston cream pie, and while sixteen candles may make a lovely light, 32 is really bright and probably a fire hazard. Power Grid is a strategy game whereby one selects a portion of the country, buys by turns power plants, the natural resources to run them, and cities to power, then collects utility fees. I did fairly well considering this was my first time playing. My biggest tour de force was right at the end when I forced Jason to spend 75% more for a power plant than its listed price which left him too poor to buy resources for what power plants he did have. Overall, a great event for which I am deeply appreciative. KDM (Comment on this)
Friday, May 15th, 2009
11:45 am	Shuttle launch trip Jason, Sara, and I set out early Sunday morning for the ~17 hour trip down the width of the east coast. The first phase was the complicated bit of getting to I95 just south of DC, Sara driving while Jason rested for his shift next and me in back taking pictures and reading Foucault's Pendulum. I had this big plan of getting each of the "Welcome to" signs for each state we went through. It started out fine with me snagging the first one in Maryland. Little did I know this would be the only one I get. Northern Virginia, and Jason swaps into driving after we get some breakfast. He is considering where our next meal will be, and I say "This afternoon, we have lunch in NORTH CAROLINA!" (quote may have been dramatically enhanced). We start pounding out the miles on I95 through Virginia and the Carolinas. Puffy clouds star to pile up, and I recall there was a front just about there. We finally meet the storm around exit 77 in South Carolina. Sara drives through the first wave of it, and pulls over to let Jason drive some more. While waiting at a McDs, I take some dark sky photos, and the storm catches back up to us. We get back on the road, pull ahead of it once again, then encounter the second storm. This one likely had a severe warning with it, because when we pulled over to let it pass, we got some pea-sized hail with it. Fifteen minutes of waiting with the hazard lights on, and the rain lets up to merely heavy. We see other people who had pulled over also starting up again. We pass through Georgia and the northern half of Florida, finally getting to our campsite near Titusville. Yes, you read that correctly, campsite. As an economy measure we decided to sleep under nylon during our trip. I am not a novice at camping, my family having camped in a few desert locations over the years while we were in Southern California, but that was nearly 20 years ago. We got to the site around 11:30pm, pitched the tent quickly, and crashed inside. The morning of launch day, we were on the road at about 10am to find breakfast and then our vantage point. Breakfast was at a coffee and bagel shop. A local newspaper quoted the chance for launch about 90%. Even so, the subject of contingencies for scrubbing the launch were considered, even up to getting back on the road the afternoon after a day 2 launch. We got to the Spaceview Park at T-3hours, and it was already crowded. The sun was blazing in the sky, with just a few puffy clouds that did not interfere with the launch. The temp was in the mid to upper 80s while we were out there. We sat on some steps near a body of unappealing water across which sat the Vehicle Assembly Building and a couple of booms with blinking lights which framed the launch pad. The closest one was where the Atlantis sat, a little off to the right and further away was Endeavour. The crowd was enthusiastic, and chatting with some of the people in front with tripods was fun and interesting. The countdown was broadcast from some speakers nearby, and we heard the radio checks of the astronauts, and some of the concerns they were having (ice build up on a fuel line, a fire NW of the launch pad, and those puffy clouds). Anticipation grew as 2:00 got closer. With about 30 seconds to go, we saw this boat start to cross our line of sight. It was close, but it passed off to the left before actual liftoff. From the pad, a bright orange spike trailing a shaft of cloud lifted up. The clouds added interest as the shuttle pierced through them. Since it was heading to the Hubble Telescope, the trajectory made it appear to be lifting straight up. For the first minute, all this happened in near silence, then came the slowly building rumble. After a few minutes, the visible spectacle was over, we stayed a little more to hear the broadcast until the shuttle had shut off its main engines. Extricating ourselves from the park took a while; the traffic was similar to that after a major sporting event. Standing out in the sun for so long required a siesta for Jason and Sara, while I sat outside with my book and watched a thunderstorm in the distance. The winds occasionally brought scent of that fire mentioned by NASA. That evening, we had dinner at a Mexican place on the south side of Titusville; it was a fairly good meal. We headed over the bridge to get some closer pictures. They turned out great, but I wasn't entirely sure that we weren't going someplace we weren't supposed to be. First place we stopped off at was the road going into what looked like the main part of the facility. Jason decided to get artsy, while I was waiting for The Man to take us to a room with one way glass and give us a stern talking to. On our way back over the bridge, we turned aside to check out one of the wilderness preserves. The road turned out to be a winding causeway of packed white rock. We carefully traced our way around the perimeter (map here), seeing some waterbirds, that afternoon's vantage point for the launch, and an amazing sunset reddened by smoke from the fire. Ice cream at a shop near the campsite served as that day's coda, as we had to get up early in the morning for the trip back. The trip back was mostly uneventful. We started in earnest after a good breakfast at Denny's a little way north of Titusville. A few sprinkles in northern Florida and Georgia gave way to sunnier skies. I photographed a large lake in South Carolina we had passed Sunday. The trip became more interesting when we arrived in the DC area around sunset. We tried inferring reverse directions from the PA to FL set we had, but ended up driving straight into DC (within 500 feet of the Jefferson Memorial). We continued following the labyrinth (I even made a quip about the minotaur at one point) northeast of the city. A call to Steven, who had been in the area most recently, helped some. We were finally able to get to the Beltway and reconnect with our directions. KDM (Comment on this)
Friday, May 8th, 2009
12:01 pm	Long week In that strange malleable manner in which time passes, I have gone from last week flashing by to this week being quite long. Fortunate, this, because I had some big events happening. Frist off, Steinn wanted a version of my thesis Tuesday evening. I have put in a lot of figures for one project, and am currently working on the interpretation text for them. The remaining big chunk to start is the introduction, something along the lines of "This problem has vexed man for a long time now. Here is my contribution." Wednesday morning, I had an interview with the Physics department at the Univeristy of Exeter. The interview went about 10 minutes, I said my speil fairly well, the audience of other people in the office said I sounded good. Now comes the waiting. Thursday night was a bit of fun. I finally made it to a game night and got involved in Puerto Rico. It is a bit copmlicated to descibe succinctly, but it involves managing natural resources and trading to obtain funds for buildings, with victory coming from sending supplies back to the motherland. It is simliar in some respects to Civ, except without the science or military portions. I made a reasonable showing, although the other new player was the one who won the game. Biggest announcement, I'M GOING TO SEE THE SHUTTLE LAUNCH MONDAY!! Servicing mission 4 is finally going to happen (knock knock), and me, Jason, and Sara are going to Florida to see it in person. Steven had some work issues come up, and so isn't able to make it. This makes lodging arrangements a little more interesting, as it was with his relatives we were orignially planning to crash. Full description of the trip down there after I get back. KDM (can almost hear Three Dog Night's "Road to Shambala") (Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009
10:27 am	Bus schedule fubar'ed? What's a boy to do? Hear now my friends this morning's tale of woe (or at least annoyance). I walk out to the bus stop at about 9:25 as I always do. Some of the familiar faces are also there. A lot of us are under the shelter because it is cold and drippy this morning. We're waiting for the bus that should arrive about 9:30. The time comes and no bus shows up. A few more people show up, including one lady with an umbrella. 9:35, and some people are wondering what has happened. "Maybe it came like 10 minutes early," one guy says. "They don't allow the buses to be early," umbrella lady replies. 9:40 comes, and with the passage of the regular R bus on the other side of the road, we resign ourselves to waiting the extra five minutes until it gets to our stop. One small problem with that, there are now about twice as many people waiting for a single bus, i.e. those who would have gotten on the 9:29 bus, and those who are trying to get on this bus. To our consternation, but not to my surprise, the bus drives on by our stop, clearly completely filled. Umbrella lady is furious, and goes to the side to call CATA to demand answers. The rest of us look at eachother pondering what to do next. The experience of walking to Drew's place last prospie visit puts any thoughts of walking to work out of my head, and so there is nothing to do but wait. We finally get a bus at 9:55. With the people who are at our stop and the Lion's Gate stop, the bus's seats are already filled. Our bus pauses to pick up a guy who had chosen that moment to pop out of his apartment building, run across the street, and decide to board. The next stop, which is not usually well attended, had over half a dozen people at it. These include two guys who are talking about their wait for the bus, including managing to get in a whole breakfast. Umbrella lady is still furious, now over likely missing an appointment she has. The final stop to pick people up at is the one opposite the Westerly Parkway Apartments. It is given to large crowds even on regular days. We manage to squeeze in about half of the people there before the bus gets to a full load. I pity the rest of the people there, as they probably have been waiting about half an hour, and there isn't as large a shelter as at my stop. KDM (occasional inconvenience is the price you pay for regular convenience) (Comment on this)
Thursday, April 9th, 2009
4:31 pm	It's amazing how relatively minor progress in one area can get a project going. So I've been staring at this vast monolith called the Thesis, trying to figure out how to attack it. I've been playing around the edges for a couple of weeks with no great movement, a figure here, a couple of sentences there, and some people (most notably my advisor) are suggesting that time is not a friend here. Today I tried a direct assault on one of the technical parts of the thing, the bibliography. I had toyed with it a while back with no success, and wasn't having any today either. The incorporation of the bibliography into the thesis is handled differently than regular papers, so I decided to ask around for some suggestions. I got an email response from Judy, and eventually she asked if I had run bibtex on the bibliography file. My jaw dropped. I had not known this was a separate process. I still have a couple of kinks to work out with the bibtex/latex combo, but mostly I'm just doing the mechanical work of inputting the references in the proper format. Big picture, I am no longer stymied by the totality of it. KDM (hoping the feeling of confidence lasts for the couple of months I'm going to need it) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
1:15 pm	The 2nd Prospie Weekend of Semi-major Wootness Second prospie weekend finished up a little while ago. My first encounter with the prospies was at grunch Friday. That meal was pretty good, meatloaf sandwiches, a couple of salads, and a Thai variety spread made for a good selection. There was a bit of a debacle as anticipated pizza ordered in lieu of actual cooking did not arrive until well after the finish of grunch. Most prospies went to the Swift building for the evening break between the end of their meetings and the party at Robin's place. One decided to head out with a couple of grads here to happy hour. This involved a lot of standing for an hour and a half, followed by a walk to Drew's place to pick up his car to go to the party. A long walk, maybe a 20 minute walk, which left us somewhere between a third to halfway to my apartment from campus (I absolutely do not want to try the whole trip). I didn't mind the walk so much as it let me stretch my legs after standing in one place for a while, and of course after both standing and walking sitting in the car while on the way to Robin's place was appreciated. Unfortunately, the walk and picking up supplies for Gabe's famous mojitos had us arrive at Robin's place at eight and after the more meaty pizzas had been picked over. I was left to choose among sun-dried tomato, ricotta, and artichoke heart (yuck) pizzas. Entertainment was as usual at Robin's place, most notably his interesting set of alternate chess sets. Jian and Sharon got into a game of Chinese chess, while Gabe and a couple of the prospies were ensnared for over an hour by a problem on a standard chess board Robin got from one of his books on the subject. The party broke up around 10, and everyone got delivered back to their homes safely. Saturday, I was given lunch duty. There were three groups headed by Jane, Chris, and Don. I was with Jane's group which consisted of Calen and the two Ryans. Calen is from Vanderbilt, but I forgot to ask him if had talked to the other Vandy prospie; then again Calen does planet work while Taylor does gravitational radiation stuff. We went together with Chris's group to Allen Street Grill, while Don's group (which had the two women prospies and Megan) went to the Deli. Our first event was with the appetizer choice. Originally it was 2 platters of calamari for the whole table, but I and a couple of other people expressed apathy for the squid, so at the suggestion of the waitress we switched one order to the (much tastier) combo platter. Sandwiches around were all good. Talk consisted of the demise of a new planetarium here, and how projects at Maryland got funded, followed by some grousing over insanely strict P-card policies. Student prospie party was at Steve Bongiorno's place, which as far as I know was a first. I took the bus there, which turned out to be surprisingly simple as his apartment was ~500 feet from the bus stop I got off at. I arrived about quarter to nine with a few people already there. Steve showed us his workshop/basement set up in cliche party fashion with red and blue bulbs on opposite sides of the room and UV lights over the workbench. Upstairs, the nosh spread was good with a couple of brie wedges and some chips. Prime party time started about 10pm. I was anticipating some board game action, but while they arrived no one seemed interested in breaking them out. Instead, we had Amanda chest-bumping several people, and on one occasion losing the elastic collision, and the now infamous "rugby shots". I am not sure of the exact recipe, but I do know it involves squirting lime directly into the eye. Brendan and Steve talked Calen into doing it with them, and I saw their anguish from across the room as lime juice ran down their faces. There's even a video to use as "encouragement" for Calen to come to Penn State. 1am comes around, and I start looking for someone with a car who's ready to leave the party. Turns out no one is, so I check the bus schedule on a laptop being used for music for the party, and find that there will be one at the nearby bus stop in 10 minutes or so. I collect my coat, say my goodbyes, and head out. The bus comes like clockwork, and I'm thinking to myself "This bus turns into a inbound N, which becomes a outbound R, so I don't have to move." Unfortunately for me, when we get to the mall on the north side of town, the bus driver announces that the bus will not be going on, and so all must disembark. I ask him when the next inbound N will be. He give a shrug, then looks it up in the guide and says 2:02. This leaves me and the group of four other people 25 minutes in the cold drizzle. I wait out the time, get on the next bus (which happened to be the last bus), and finally arrive home at quarter to three. KDM (sometimes I wonder why I go to those parties, then I recall seeing the rugby shot live) (Comment on this)
Thursday, March 12th, 2009
1:48 pm	The present situation Pondering on a quiet Thursday afternoon during Spring Break, I think of a couple of things. First, a celebration! What I thought had been lost forever has been found again. I speak of finding that the Quiznos on Beaver is still selling. A couple of years back, I went there and found it closed a couple of consecutive times and so figured they were out of business. Imagine my surprise then as earlier this month I found a Quiznos bag in the trash can by Jian's desk. "Where did you get that?" I say. "Quiznos." He says. "I can see that. Is it close by?" "Yes. It's by the Coldstone Creamery." At this point I am confused, and say "But I thought that place had closed down." Apparently I had gone there at some peculiar time (of day or of year I'm not sure). Regardless, I got some for lunch today, and all is right with the world. Or would be, except for the second item on my mind. Right now, the best metaphor to describe my career is the climactic scene in Back to the Future 3. I am Marty, sitting in the DeLorean getting pushed up to 88MPH, and in the meantime rushing toward the edge of the cliff. In this case getting up to 88MPH means getting offered a post-doc position somewhere, at which point the bridge is available, and I sail boldly into the next stage of my career. I think the bridge in this case is my PhD, but I don't want to push too hard on the metaphor. Suffice it to say that I am not liking what the speedometer is reading right now, and I get to the cliff August 20. KDM (passed the windmill about two months ago) (Comment on this)
Friday, March 6th, 2009
11:49 am	1 Gs So, next Tuesday March 10 at around 9am, I will be 1 billion seconds old (give or take a couple thousand). A completely useless factoid, but it does give a measuring stick for that number which is more visceral than just 10^9; i.e. if I earned a penny per second from that time I was born at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton, I would have about $10 million. Other somewhat more realsitic metaphors can be made. KDM (hoping to be around to celebrate 2Gs sometime 2040ish) (Comment on this)
Monday, March 2nd, 2009
2:33 pm	Interesting events in the 1st prospy weekend A cold windy Monday after the first prospy weekend, and I review what on the whole was a rather strange weekend. We start our story Friday with the introduction to the prospies over grunch, which includes what is likely my final offering of enchiladas. There are four: Jason Curtis, a novelty maker out of Berkley, Jackson, who is currently at Vanderbilt and wants to do gravitational wave research, Yusra, and Chris. Grunch starts off a little slow, a couple of contributions get there late, but then proceeds well. We do our intros, then talk about various things related to life at Penn State. At 1:30 or so, they go on with their busy schedule while the rest of us do some work before the faculty party at Jane's place that night. Dinner for the evening is Chinese food, with a generous supply of egg rolls, fried rice, and other tasty dishes. Obligatory suit of armor girding on attempt by one of the prospies, and one managed to walk around in it for a few minutes (with a little constriction around the neck toward the last). Party ended around 10:30ish with a mass exodus of cars. Saturday was routine for the first half, laundry plus shopping. I volunteered for dinner with the prospies so I would be in a better position to get a ride out to the grad party at Jason's place. Dinner was at India Pavilion, with individual dishes instead of shared as last year. Much naan was broken (both standard and garlic). I got my absolute favorite mutter paneer at just the right spice level (upper edge of comfortable). We finished dinner at about eight, which would give enough time for things to be set up after the drive out. Dinner had made a couple of the prospies drowsy, so they went to their hotel room to freshen up. I walked with Gabe and Tyler to Tyler's place, which freshened us up, to get his car and wait for the prospies to call once they were ready. In the meantime, mojitos were discussed, and it was decided that provisions for such would be obtained. The call from the prospies came, and we piled down to Tyler's car to get them, along the way getting the mojito fixings. It was fortunate that only two prospies needed a ride from Tyler as the car only had room for five, and cramped at that. Once we had the propsies and the fixings on board, we headed for Jason's place, starting at about 9pm. Heading out Atherton, we missed the turn onto the quick way to Jason's place through a combination of Google maps, my thinking we were using the easy way which uses 322 for a while, and this being the first time Gabe or Tyler had been out to Jason's place (so I believe). Instead, we found ourselves on I-99 with no exits in sight and an absolute surety within five minutes that we had gone wrong. After another ways down the road (read: halfway to Altoona) we decided to improvise a reversal, and return to State College to put ourselves right. Once more on Atherton, this time much more carefully looking for the true path of 550, we get to the exit which in part reads "Waddle". "Oh, Waddle," I say, "That sounds right." which garners me a few groans. We finally get to Jason's place at 10ish, after some comment about the twisty road and what one would do if one found oneself in a horror movie (for my take on that see here). The party is already in full swing when we get there. Amanda (Lundberg) immediately recruits the prospies into "Apple Pie Shots"=apple juice+rum+whipped cream. Music is going, mingling is happening in the kitchen/dining room. I look into the fridge, and there is the Dr Pepper left from the last party I attended at Jason's place--in November. It was not left over this time. Shortly after I head to the living room, Jason Curtis starts setting up his novelties, which in this case is foam stick puppets in the shapes of elephants and gorillas. Amanda (Lundberg) and Jason (Curtis) seem to have a deep and instant rapport, or it could have been the booze. Around midnight, I take advantage of the prospies being returned to their hotel to make my goodbyes, giving a last "Elvis has left the building" as I go out the door. As I here later, the party goes on till 3am with fire breathing and brazen clotheslessness occurring later. The expectation value of the number of prospies who actually come from this group is hanging around two, with Jason an almost certainty due largely to Amanda's efforts. Sunday was a bit complicated due to the fact that I was trying to balance two things for which I had little to no data, those being this week's episode of BSG and getting rid of my old TV. First the TV part, I had recently purchased a new flat panel 32" TV, and was looking to release my older one. It's 27", only two years old, and still in working order, but it's a CRT and has some extra equipment in it for HD and DTV purposes, so it weighs over 100 pounds, and would be difficult later this year when I move on. Jian got first dibs on getting it, and we had arranged the swap for Sunday. Unfortunately, he didn't have my phone number, and I rarely check my email on the weekend, so by the time info was passed back and forth he had other matters to attend to. The swap is rescheduled for Tuesday. In the meantime, our group for watching Battlestar Gallactica hadn't finalized plans on Friday due to several reasons, and so the where-when was still up in the air. After some discussion in which my apartment and VCR was in the running, we settled on Steven's place at 8pm. After the episode, which was better than last week's filler but only addressed one major point, we discussed what the viewing schedule will be for the final three weeks (four hours worth). The consensus seemed to be we watch them live, but of course with Spring Break coming in the middle of them there are complications. KDM (2nd prospy weekend could be more crazy with possible 10+ coming) P.S. Forgot to mention the weird dream I had last night. Mostly this comes from having public radio on overnight while I'm asleep, and their broadcasting of BBC news. Anyway, in the dream I heard on the news that Obama was assassinated in Guinea-Bissau. What he was doing there, I had no idea. That this was a dream was rather obvious as I was chatting about the news and how it wasn't making as much impact as one would expect with my dad, and he's been dead eight and a half years. I got up in the middle of the night, saw mom was watching TV, and asked her if Guinea-Bissau meant anything; she said no, which confused me because despite it being a dream I was sure there had to be something to it. Turns out it was the actual president of Guinea-Bissau who got assassinated, and I had just imported a couple of pieces into the dream. Weird, huh. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 21st, 2009
1:22 pm	Notes from SB Long Beach photos available here. Not so many from Santa Barbara (SB) as it was mostly business. Trip between the two cities was on a Greyhound bus. Short trip up from Long Beach to the depot in LA, then waiting for the bus to SB. Scheduled departure time was 1:15. There were a lot of people trying to get on, and it ended up that only ~1/3 of the people in line at time to go got on. The bus was full and took off. The people at the station said there would be a second bus to get the rest of us, but that took until nearly 3:00! I was thrilled when I finally got on, but it still seems to me rather sloppy. The trip up was pretty, with an actual sighting of the Hollywood sign on its hill, and driving right along the coastline on the 101. Arrival at the bus station was about 5:30, and I suddenly realized that I didn't have the specific name of the hotel. It turns out that it is in the town just west of SB called Goleta. I check into the hotel, get the notice of when the shuttle to the UCSB campus is running (remembering Steinn's stern warning that I must not miss it), and go to my room to unwind after the hectic travel day. The meeting itself is good. The facility is excellent, an interesting architectural design for the building with a courtyard wherein we are provided with lunch all five days, and dinner twice, all of which is high quality. Non-conference meals included one the first night there I took with a couple of other grad students and three professors at a Japanese place (I had some baked fish), and John Fregeau's low cost alternative to Fred Rasio's traditional sushi blowout Friday night. Among the attendees is Ivan King, the person who derived the density models everyone uses to fit globular clusters with, and still sharp despite being 80 years old now. Talks range over formation and evolution of the clusters, to various types of stars/objects found in them. Getting up at 6am, which is necessary to make sure I am ready to go with the first shuttle, does not help my attentiveness for some of these talks. Coffee doesn't combat it much, either because of my higher mass or a tolerance I've built up from drinking soda. Most controversy is over something called the "blue tilt", a supposed trend in color versus magnitude for one group of clusters. Real property or bad photometric reduction?, you decide. My contribution was a poster presenting results of my recently published paper, which was cited in three talks toward the end of the conference. To paraphrase one attendee's question, "Why do they put the black hole talks at the end of these conferences?" The flight back to State College was more interesting than I would have liked. At the SB airport, my flight was listed in an "overweight condition," which means they had more checked baggage than allowed in the bottom of the plane. They first tried to fix this by getting people to move to a later flight, but no one could budge. Their ultimate solution was to put 4 of the bags in the cabin with us passengers. This hoopla delayed us leaving SB by about 20 minutes, which meant a quick jog across the Phoenix airport when I landed there. Phoenix to Philly was smooth enough, and I landed with a bit longer to wait until the flight to State College. I phoned home to say I would be there about 8pm, give or take taxi time. I was soon to be proved wrong. There was a flight to Nashville, scheduled to depart 5:45pm at our gate. It pushed off about ten minutes late and five before we were scheduled to get on our plane. Six o'clock and our plane is not there; we would wait a half hour more before it got there. Everyone finally piles into the plane about twenty to seven and we push off to start taxiing. A few minutes of driving, and I notice that we pull back into the general vicinity of the gate; this is disturbing. The captain tells us on the PA that the steering is not working on the plane and they were having someone look at it before deciding whether we should deplane(!). We wait, it passes 7:15, and finally some good news, steering fixed, we are good to go. Takeoff finally comes around 7:30, half an hour later we are back in State College. I easily locate my checked bag (still on the pull around truck as they still haven't finished the baggage claim remodel in six months), and get a bonus surprise. Mercedes is waiting for her husband coming back from a conference and didn't mind also driving me back to my apartment. Shock to the system is that it's in the lower teens when I land, but I have just missed the worst of the cold Friday. KDM (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, January 9th, 2009
8:13 pm	Last day of AAS and Intermezzo Thursday I spent most of the time in the big show room, except for a small amount talking to the lady from Tuesday at her poster and making sure Christian had set up his. First talk was about Fermi, aka the satellite formerly know as GLAST, and all of the good stuff it's seeing. The oral session in the big show was on NASA's exoplanet missions, several talks crammed into the 90 minutes, some on coronography missions that I dozed through, but one by Marcy gave a talk which basically said that anything less than the current de-scoping of the Space Interferometry Mission would be pointless. Short break, followed by the final talk of the AAS on Phoenix at Mars; nothing I hadn't already heard from a TV show on TLC. And that was it. After the end of the AAS, a bunch of us from Penn State went to Tokyo-Wako for lunch. Justin and Steve had a shocking amount of sushi, I had grilled scallops on a mango sauce, and did some cuisine photos. Interesting idiosyncrasy about the place, no forks. Even with my practically nil experience with chopsticks, I think I acquitted myself well enough, i.e. I finished everything and didn't get any on me. After a parting of the ways, Steve and I decided to do touristy stuff. Steve had in mind to visit a former Red Navy submarine docked next to the Queen Mary. Our first attempt to walk there led to the marina and a stretch of water between us and it. We took a bus over, and got aboard. While Steve was taking my picture, the horn of the Queen Mary went off at 3pm, and nearly scared him to death. Inside the boat was quite tight, and besides me and Steve there were a few other people also looking at the same time, so it was crowded with less than ten people. I can't imagine what its stated compliment of 30-odd would have been like. After the boat, we went to the aquarium. Lots of fish behind glass. There were a couple of tactile opportunities, we felt the protective slime of skates and the slightly sticky anemone tentacles. They had an aviary with lorikeets, which were oddly attracted to my jacket. Steve took a couple of pictures of me looking unamused with a bird on my shoulder. After the aquarium, Steve went back to his hotel room to wait for his shuttle, and I went to check out a nearby book store. Today, I decided to check out the Long Beach Museum of Art. I walked to a local convenience store to pick up some spare batteries for my camera, the set out on the road to walk to the museum, which according to my map was a short way west of downtown. Fifteen minutes of walking later, I was wondering just how accurate the map was. I did finally get there, and found that it opened an hour later. In the meantime, I checked out the beach just down the hill. The sky was foggy, and a hazy sun illuminated a sea that slapped against the sand, with an occasional gull overhead. I was massively unimpressed. I climbed back up the hill and waited the half hour until opening, watching a field trip from a private school leave and other people arrive. Inside were various paintings by California artists painting California scenes. Upstairs were some of the modern art paintings, some of which looked pretty good. At the back of the building was an overlook of the ocean (with much less fog now). As I was attempting to photo it, the batteries in my camera died. I sat down to change them, then got up again to photo the ocean. Up comes one of the workers from the museum who says there is a matter of a legal document if I were photographing the artwork. Fine, I say, I'll take care of it just before I leave. I once again go to take a photo, and the camera is not working properly, acting like the (freshly bought) batteries are no good. I put in the older batteries which have just enough charge to finish a couple of pics, and leave. I take the bus back into downtown, taking a couple of minutes to cover the distance I walked in 20. The afternoon consisted of lunch at Quizno's followed by reading in the lobby until housekeeping was finished with my room. KDM (semi-live blogging provided by Christian's computer) (Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 7th, 2009
10:05 pm	Day 3 at the AAS Woke up a little later because the big show in the morning was about China's new ground and space telescopes and I didn't really care to see that, although I did end up watching about 2/3 of it anyway. I had a nice lengthy breakfast downstairs at the buffet. Morning talks on various kinds of evolved stars, including reevaluating a potential GRB aimed at us. Pre-lunch big show was on black hole feedback. Lunch was with Steve and Christian at an excellent pizza place just across the street from the convention center. For the afternoon session, I went to watch Nino and Judy at their talks. I also saw a talk there which made me feel better about the backgrounds from my talk. Afternoon big show talks were on lower mass supermassive black holes, and a quartet on Xray observations of galaxy clusters. For dinner, Jane sets out to get together a group to go to the Greek restaurant from Monday's lunch. We end up about ten, and have a good time as various courses, including flaming cheese (pictures to follow), were presented. Goodbyes as some plan to leave quickly tomorrow. I will be in Long Beach a couple more days before going to Santa Barbara for the globular cluster conference. KDM (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009
9:41 pm	Day 2 at the AAS Went to the convention center to see the big show talk for the morning. This one was on the Decadal Survey, the next 10-year plan for what astronomers want to get built with the pittance the government throws our way. I had my camera with me today, so I took some pictures of the poster session, including me in front of a life-size version of one of the LISA test masses (and 5 million km over there...) Morning talks on black holes, including seeing Tamara's spiel on a supermassive black hole binary again. Talk pre-lunch was described as "Astronomy at the Antipodes". I decided to skip it so that I could be sure to get lunch in before my talk and have some time to settle any nerves. Lunch was at the California Pizza Kitchen, whose more radical topping choices have been seen on TV. I got a tostada pizza, which was mostly salad and huge so I ended up throwing away half of it. The appointed hour comes round, I sit at the front of the hall and see the first two talks before mine. Their much slicker backgrounds give me pause about some of my hand drawn diagrams. I stand up, give my talk, taking just under the 15 allotted minutes. No questions for my talk, but there were none for the previous one either. I sit there for the rest of the session, making one question about background contamination. Afterward, a lady grad student from U Toronto wants to talk to me about issues I've had with the Kozai code I use. We chat for five minutes or so, and I leave the room feeling more pleased with myself. I email Steinn my after action report and go downstairs to the big show for the afternoon prize talks. The first is by Quatert on convecting gas in galaxy clusters. I am not paying attention as I have had the sleepies all day, and I miss most of it. I think it had to do with magnetic fields. The second talk is by Andrea Ghez on all the wonderful discoveries about the galactic center she's made and those yet to come. This one I do stay awake for. After the talk, I find Steven, Julian, Tamara, and Raghib talking about where-when to meet for dinner. Where is in the main lobby of the convention center, when is 6:30 (it is just after 5 at this point). I go upstairs, relax, and purchase my first Dr Pepper in three days. Quarter after six, I encounter Ravi, newly flown in and wanting to have dinner at PF Chang's. Once the group is convened at 6:30, this suggestion is carried. PF Chang's is a triumph of Chinese food, the Austin branch of which last year where I dared to tempt the fire that is Dali Chicken, I did not so tempt it this year. KDM (now a free agent after strutting and fretting his quarter hour upon the stage) (Comment on this)
Monday, January 5th, 2009
9:30 pm	Live from Long Beach--it's the AAS! The flight out yesterday was interesting but tedious. Very chilly in State College (23F) and threatening freezing drizzle, which fortunately didn't happen but still caused the plane to be de-iced anyway. I had on two extra layers of clothing which now are dead space in my already extremely full suitcase. Instead of my usual distinctive bright blue, I have a larger black one with script M's (reminiscent of the sign for Virgo) on the corners and front. More on luggage later. I find that Peter Brown and Kosta will also be making the trip to Philly with me. Jane and Caryl also take the same routing to Long Beach. The plane in Philly is delayed about half an hour with maintenance issues (I had a maintenance issue come up on the same flight, Philly to Phoenix, several years back, but at that time it was en route). This delay causes our five hour flight already bucking headwinds to get to Phoenix only an hour before takeoff for Long Beach. Our bags do not make the transfer, so we have to spend an hour in the Long Beach airport filling out forms as to where they should be delivered once they arrive, which occurs at about 10pm for my bag. Long Beach is a touch cool (40'sF), but clear and warm in the daytime. Sunday night is the usual reception, loud with mediocre food and expensive drinks; $3 was more for a can of soda than US Airways was charging on the plane. I came back to the hotel about 9, happily picked up my bag once the front desk said it was in, and went to sleep. Today the big show opened in a room adjacent to the poster/exhibition room that looked like a really big version of someone's basement. Open duct work, vents blowing inappropriately, and a serious echo. Adam Burrowes gave a "State of the Transiting Exoplanets" report before we went to coffee and posters before the morning's talks. The poster hall was bounded on one side by the Spitzer Galactic Midplane Survey image in all its lengthy glory. Not so much cool swag (that I could find anyway). Morning talks I went to were on brown dwarfs, the last one on whether they would really look brown if we were to get up close enough to really see it. Lunch, and I ended up at a Greek place with over a dozen people, mostly former or current Penn Staters. I had some rolled grape leaves, very nice. After lunch, I went to see Peter's talk. Lots of cool supernova stuff, so much so that he went over time by a bit. After his talk, I left the session (along with quite a few other people) and did a more concentrated sweep of the posters and exhibitors. 3:40 and I decide to go back to the big show for the last two big prize talks of the day. First is one on the glorious accomplishments made with emission lines from galaxies that I was neutral about. Second was a fun talk on how astronomical observations in art and literature could be used to place precise dates on certain events, including a star mentioned in Hamlet that is actually Tycho's supernova, a couple of Van Gogh paintings, and a photo by Ansel Adams that was repeated recently because of the date found for it. Dinner tonight was at a seafood place on Pine Avenue. First off, I can say that my theoretical dislike for raw oysters is now empirical. That's right, I actually tried the thing, and my tongue rejected it utterly. Steamed clams and mussels were tasty though. For the entree, I splurged and got Alaskan crab legs for $43. They were positively prehistoric looking. After battling the kraken for half an hour, I called a cease-fire and declared a draw. Tomorrow, I take my turn upon the stage and get my 15 minutes. I am suprisingly not nervous about it. More next evening. KDM (Comment on this)
Thursday, January 1st, 2009
9:50 am	Expectations for 2009 Earlier today, mom and I did our usual activity for midnight, which involves watching the fireworks less than half a mile away (I counted). This year's weather was decidedly colder than in the past, where we've had rain and warmer temps, as well as moderately cold. Last night was in the teens with a stiff wind that at one point actually allowed us to smell the residue from the fireworks. Fortunately the show was 10 minutes, so after it was over we quickly came back in. This Sunday, I start my epic two-week west coast swing, starting with the AAS meeting in Long Beach. Weather for the departure looks most dicey here in State College with a chance for some freezing precipitation. If I should get out of here on time, though, the rest of the trip isn't as affected. Tuesday is the big day, I give my spiel on intense three-body action in clusters. The rest of my time in Long Beach should be spent talking to some of the people I want to be working with come fall. After the AAS meeting, I have a couple of days free until time to head up the coast to a globular cluster conference at Santa Barbara. This will include me bringing a poster with the results of my big accomplishment so far. The duration of my trip has required a larger suitcase which is [i]stuffed[/i]. I was thinking of using my standard smaller suitcase and doing a load of laundry in the middle of the trip, but was talked out of it. Instead I have a 38 pound suitcase which is a much more common black (but with a distinctive M painted on it). KDM (according to plan, I will not be finishing 2009 where I started) (Comment on this)