Crab-Girl Speaks About Bunnies

I have 4 pets, Draco the bearded dragon, Fishy the goldfish, Sunset the guppy, and Paul the bunny. I love animals!!!!!!!

A long time ago, we worked at Pig Hoppers, which was a shelter for bunnies. One day we went to the bunny hospital, there we saw Paul, he was stuffed in a tiny cage. We were there to look for a friend for Sarah, my bunny who died. I wanted to see if they would be friends, they were. I wanted to bring him home, but I couldn't because there was a fair that week so I had to wait until the bunnies and the people came back, and hope that Paul wasn't sold. He wasn't so I got him and still have him.

Here, There and Everywhere

Last Wednesday I headed off to Berkeley to help with a proposal. I got to visit my buddy Tom and his family over there in hippy-ville. I learned a lot about how to write a NASA satellite proposal. I have to say that it is just nuts. NASA requires a HUGE amount of work, with the proposals covering every single aspect of the design and build - from how to fit together the instruments to the bus to how many meetings per month the project manager should have with different team members. Everything. The review that I was at was to make sure that they actually accounted for everything, and not just almost everything. This happened on Thursday.

On Thursday night, I flew down to Los Angles to spend a day with my friend Joe. We spent the night chatting about crap. Then in the Morning I got to see how a different family does school in the AM. I was amazed. The kids got up and watched a little TV. Then, when Joe got up, they got dressed and got ready to go. Joe handed them a granola bar, grabbed their lunches and we left. Holy Crap! No 20 minutes of eating Rice Krispies! No arguing about wearing jackets or coats (since it was 70 degrees!) It was like a Festivus Miracle! If only we lived in LA! The grass is literally greener on the other side, since it is snowing here.

After dumping the kids and a nice breakfast (no granola bars for us!), we went looking for a bike for me to ride. We found a place that rented mountain bikes ($20 for the day!!) I don't think that there was actually a new bike in the place - all used. It was interesting.... We debated for a little while about getting a patch kit and a pump, but hey who every gets a flat?

Next we drove north on the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway for all you non-hipsters out there) past Malibu, to a little state park. We unloaded the bikes and started off down the trail. Joe had only been to this particular place once, so, of course, we got lost. No big thing. We biked about 7 miles in before I got a flat.

Turn around, start walking.

We come to a fork in the trail, and being smart and all, we decided to take the route that we had not gone down before, thinking that it would be a short cut. We also thought that there may be more people. We did run into someone after about 1/2-1 mile. He had a patch kit and all, so I changed my tire. Here is a nice picture of me in action with the nice fellow who helped out.



At that point, the guy (who Joe called "Frenchie" - you will never guess why) informed us that we were going in the wrong direction. We were like "nu uh!" and he was like "you guys are morons". After the tire was changed and all, we got back on the bikes and went back the way that we came. At the branch Joe whipped out his iPhone and realized that without cell service, the GPS doesn't provide much info. So, being tricky (and a smarty pants), Joe holds his iPhone up to the sky. God beamed down the appropriate information, and we got the map. Frenchie was right. We are idiots.

On the way back from biking, we stopped in Malibu to go to Starbuck's and hit the bathroom. Interestingly, Joe knew exactly where there was a public toilet. Of course, with kids, you know where every bathroom is within 20 miles of your house (in LA, this is expanded to 100 miles, I guess?) After that, we headed back home, had dinner and headed to the airport to catch the red eye.

I actually slept a little bit on the plane, which is pretty good for me. I think that this is two flights in a row (both red eyes!) that I slept on. The airport is always fun at 5 AM - all the stores are closed, there are people sleeping on benches, and it is typically quite empty. Anyways, I grogged out to my car. When I went to the airport on Wednesday, the lot was quite full, so I had to park someplace different than normal. So, of course I walked out to my normal spot, looked around, and realized what a moron I am, turned around, and walked back to where my car was. Did I mention that it is much more cold in Michigan than in California?

I then head off to Monroe High School, where Crab-Girl had a Lego Robotics competition. Her school entered the competition with no real experience with the Lego robots or the competition or anything related to it. So, with a month or so to go before the dealy, they started working on a robot and accomplishing all of the things the robot was supposed to do. Crab-Girl is leaning over my shoulder while I write this, so I will defer my description until later. As a small taste of the event, envision, if you will, 150 middle school students trapped in a cafeteria with free access to Mt. Dew, Pizza, Candy and robots. Yeah, you get it. Here is a picture of Crab-Girl with her team mate at the competition, running the robot. She was the lead programmer. Hell yeah.



We stayed there until about 4 PM (after arriving at 6 AM, 2 hours before anyone else...) We gave her team mate in the picture a ride home, and who would guess that they both love fishing? There was much Bass-Talk in the back seat as we drove the hour home (she points out that they were also discussing Pikes). Once home, we collapsed. Well, at least I did. Who the h*ll knows what anyone else did.

What a wonderful week

Good things that happened this week:

1. Obama was elected president.
2. A conservative judge was replaced by liberal judge on the MI supreme court.
3. We went to a Coldplay concert on Monday night.
4. My students did their talks on Friday, so I didn't have to prepare a lecture.


Relatively bad things that happened this week:

1. I had to make a make up a test for the class.
2. I had all day meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday with visitors from Japan, then had individual meetings with them on Thursday and Friday. While the meetings were interesting and I got to talk to people who do a lot of stuff like I do, they took a long, long time.
3. I have yet another proposal due early next. It is a great idea. I just need to utilize the concept that I don't have to act on all of my ideas.

Overall it was a pretty freaking good week.

Alaska

Here I am in Fairbanks, Alaska. I flew in on Friday afternoon (well, it took 12 hours to get here...) and flying back tonight (Sunday night). We are installing a Fabry Perot Interferometer, which measures the winds in the upper atmosphere (250 km altitude). It does this by looking at the doppler shift of the light emission at 630 nm, which is where Oxygen transitions from an excited state to the ground state.



Above is a picture of a radar that is encased in a building. They do this because the wind can push the radar around and make it so you can't point it where you want it to go. I thought it was cool because it completely blocks the sun, which only rises about 20 degrees about the horizon. The temperature here is a little low. It is Fairbanks, after all. I think that when this picture was taken, it was about 5 degrees out. Earlier, when we were leaving the house, it was about -15. That isn't overly cold, but it is shocking when you are used to 40s and 50s.



This picture shows the FPI being lifted up to the platform in the high bay room where we mounted it. The black thing that looks like it has little wings is the FPI. The wing things are there so we can do different filters (i.e., look at different wavelengths).



This is the FPI attached to the pieces of plywood that are supporting it.



From the floor you can see the jumble of wires and crap that make the FPI work. It is pretty amazing, since the thing is a relatively simple design. There is a lot of "support" pieces that go along with it, which complicate thing a bit. Heaters and lasers and sky-scanner boxes, and all sorts of other stuff.....



This is a view from inside the dome. The FPI looks out into the sky, so you have to have a clear dome. I stuck my head up an took a picture, and this is what I see.


Ok, it looks like one of the guys that I am working with fixed the problem that he was having with the software (wrong camera setting!!!), and so I have to go back to work.

I'll be back in Michigan in about 19 hours!

Before I go, here is a lovely image showing just how crazy wife is.... If you get one of these for Christmas, don't say that I didn't warn you....

blogging when I can

Here I am at the kid's guitar lessons, stealing wireless from the next door business. Crab Girl is in with Super-Cool-Guitar-Teacher working on scales. Crab Boy is playing on my Blackberry next to me, but just asked if he can play on my computer. It is about the first free moment that I have had in a long, long time.

My class is 1/2 over! I am hopeful that it will ease up a bit in the next month. I gave the students a project to do - they have to make a 7 page powerpoint presentation on a space topic - almost any topic that they want at all, as long as it is related to space or science. Then - for extra credit - they can present it to the class! If 1/2 the class wants to present, then that would be about 45 5-10 minute presentations (or 225-550 minutes of class time). That is a lot of time, and will take 6-10 classes! Holy crap! I only have about 20 classes left! That means that I only need to come up with 10-14 more lectures! Yikes - I still have a LOT of stuff that I have to present!

Last night I bought tickets to go see Coldplay and Metallica. I am going to do more stuff that I want to do and stop feeling guilty about simple things like this. I bought two tickets to each, but don't have anyone to go with. Maybe my wife will go with me to the Coldplay concert. Who knows? I have to find someone to go to the Metallica concert with. Anyone want to come?

I played soccer on Thursday and pulled a muscle in my leg. I rode my mountain bike to work a couple of times this last week, and really worked out my quads (I think that those are the muscles....???) So, going into soccer, they were already sore. Then, at some point during the game, my right leg just started shouting in pain. Not screaming, just moaning sort of loudly. Now, two days later, my muscles still hurt a lot. Fun. I wanted to ride my bike in to work on Friday, but was afraid that it would hurt too much. I am getting old.

Crab Mamma is having a party tonight. One of her co-workers is leaving, so she decided to throw a party for him. It is strange, since she is quite anti-social and does not like being in crowds of people. Maybe, since it is pretty much her friends, it is ok. Hmmm....

I finished a proposal to NASA this last week. I interviewed a few people for a post doc positions. None of them are perfect, so I am not sure what to do. I think that I will actually hire two Post Docs, and hope that I get some more money in the next two years. I am pretty confident, but who knows. My boss is trying to pressure me to hire someone who, most likely, will not fit in. That is because she is the wife of someone he really wants to hire. It makes sense from his point of view. The problem is that she doesn't do any modeling. I am a modeler. I model. She doesn't. I have hired people who don't model into my group before. It has not worked. They don't want to model, which ends up being a small problem. Which grows into a big problem. So, then what do I do? How many times can you tell your boss to bugger-off? N or N+1? I am up to N+1000. I am constantly fighting back. So, more stress. Instead of being a complicated decision, it end up being a quagmire.

I would imagine that you have noticed that pretty much all humor has gone out of my blog. That is how I feel right now. Life pretty much s*cks *ss.

But - I was told that I get to teach this class next semester, which means that all of the prep work that I am doing right now gets to be reused again! My life will be MUCH easier next semester. Then, a year from now, I teach the same class again, which means that it will be great! So, while life is sh*t right now, it will be better shortly.

Oh - on a better note, we are all going to San Fransisco for AGU this year. So, around the middle of December, we are taking an 8-day trip to California. That should be a good time. The lead up to AGU is going to be painful. I have to do a million things. I don't really have time to do them, but I have to. Well, I am sure that it will work out, and we will have a great time. Then, once we are back home after AGU, I am spending two weeks doing nothing. Nothing at all. Glorious nothing.

Ok, that is enough of a pity party. Sorry.

nothing

What has happened in the last week? Uh...

I went to South Carolina to set up an instrument to measure the winds in the upper atmosphere. It was an interesting trip. I hate flying in small airplanes. I am a chicken sh*t. I admit it.

Oh yeah, I worked on lesson plans, too.

Speaking of lesson plans, I really need to work on some....

Sorry that this blog sucks b*tt right now. Maybe in a couple of months from now, my life, and therefore my blog, will be better.

suck.

Sitting on the bathroom floor

As I write this, I am in my pajamas sitting on the kid's bathroom floor, watching over the bearded dragon, who we are giving a bath, in the hopes that he takes a dump. Ah, what depths we sink too as parents. You see, bearded dragons relax in baths. The relax so much that they let loose. Draco hasn't taken a dump in about 3 weeks or so, and he has to be mighty clogged up, if you get my drift. So, I sit, waiting for him to sh*t. I actually doubt it will happen. He is too clogged. We have done this before, and typically it takes about 15 minutes, but it has been 30 or so. F*ck. This is bad news. Come on, you little dragon, sh*t.

I am listening to the new Coldplay disk. It is very good. I imagine that I have blogged about this before. Since I ran out of disk space, I moved all of my music off my hard drive and onto a portable disk that never seems to move around. So, when I get a new CD (e.g., Coldplay), and rip it to mp3s, it is the only music I have on my computer. I guess I listen to it a lot.... well, only 10 times since ripping it....

I got the new Metallica album also. It is pretty good. The first few songs are fantastic, but some of them are a little boring. I was majorly impressed with the album, then I read a review and they railed on it (lame, nothing new, same old crap as on all the last 5 albums), and I felt like a dumb-*ss, since I liked the album. Now I hate it just like everyone else. It's a good thing that I can think for myself. Actually, I like the album. A few of the songs rock pretty hard.

I have got to rant here for a couple of steps:

1. If McCain and Palin win, we are f*cked. I guess I don't have to say much more than that.

2. If we bailout Wall Street with $700,000,000,000.00, I will be disappointed. The whole US budget is $2.5 Trillion dollars. Something like $625B is paid in interest every year already. Can you believe how much money we owe. I mean, holy sh*t. We, the people of the United States of America, owe China and other countries so much money for wars and other crap, that we are drowing. The value of the US dollar is going down because we owe so much. Then the cost of oil goes up because it is traded in US dollars, and people can put gas in the guzzlers. Which causes people to not be able to buy all the crap that they want too, which then causes the economy to go into the crapper. Now, if we give Wall Street $700B, people can borrow more money to buy their crap and jump-start the economy. Maybe if we used the non-existant $700B to bailout the people who can't pay their mortage, instead of the banks that gambled with the money that they thought that they would get with they ever-increasing house valued mortages, it may actually do some good - the banks would stop failing and Americans would be saved from increasing interest rates and such. (Is this a run-on paragraph?)

3. Did I mention that I think that this $700B bailout is complete sh*t?

4. GM and Ford and Chrysler buried themselves with crap cars for a long, long time. We lost a lot of jobs in Michigan, and did the US come and bail them out? Well, oh, I guess the auto industry just got $25B from congress also.

5. The stock market took a dump today. Draco needs to learn from the stock brokers. 780 points. Ouch.

6. I need to work more. I don't think that I am actually dead yet. I'll try harder.

7. I feel like I am actually getting into shape. I was riding my bike all over today and actually felt good. I didn't feel too much like hurling. Now, I am sure that once I feel really good, winter will set in and I won't be able to exercise for 3 months, thereby turning my *ss into flab and my rock-hard calves into jello (or ice cream, ummmmm, ice cream....)

Ok, I done with p*tching a b*tch.

Palin for President!!!! Oh, God, no!