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!

Another Week

Wow, I am starting to feel pretty lame. I am overwhelmed by my class. By the time I get done with my lecture for a Monday, I still have to make the homework. On Mondays, I am overwhelmed by meetings and teaching class. Tuesday is probably the best day of the week for me, since I have many lectures done for Wednesdays. In a few weeks, this will change. On Fridays I am doing demos and discussions about bad movie physics. I have no lectures done, so Thursdays are pretty tough coming up with a lecture. Sundays are horrible also, since I have to come up with Monday lectures. Blerg.

Crab Boy's fish had babies. We now have little itty-bitty fish living in the tank. It is pretty cool. We cleaned the tank out yesterday, and hopefully we didn't kill too many of them....

Wow, that is probably the most exciting thing that has happened this week. Holy Crap.

I am going to Clemson in a couple of weeks. Then to Alaska a few weeks after that. Then San Fransisco in December. Then, maybe Chili in January. Then Hawaii in February.

Oh, here are a few things:

1. Our soccer team has lost 3 games in a row, although we play better each week.

2. Metallica released a new album. The critics seem to hate it. There are some pretty rocking tunes on it.

3. I destroyed Crab Mama's bike. Imagine, if you will, driving into a garage with out taking the bike off the roof rack. Ah, you get the general idea.

Later.

Class

Well, it has started. Classes. I have pretty much disappeared off the face of the Earth and am working like a dog for the 3 hours of lectures that I have to present each week. Then there is the homework. Luckily, we have figure out how to get a computer to grade them all, instead of us (I have a graduate student helper!) having to grade them.

The kids started school last week - or was that a couple of weeks ago? Holy crap, this month is going fast. Like a blur. Ok, the kids started two weeks ago. They seem to be loving school. Crab boy now has some friends in class, which is fantastic. Crab girl seems to love being in middle school right now. Hopefully, that will continue. If she starts hating school and is permanently marred by the experience (and who was not marred by middle school), my wife will kill me. I will never, ever, ever live it down. All I can say is:

I am sorry dear. I know that you were right and I was wrong. I am slime.

Hopefully, I will never have to use that line. Well, maybe I will just put it out there, knowing that it is pretty much applicable everyday....

Crab girl is now at middle school camp for the week. It is the first time that she has been away from home without a parent or grandparent present for any length of time. I am sad. My little girl is growing up.

Ah, another thing that I have been doing is playing soccer on Thursday nights. It has been pretty crazy, since the games start at 11 PM. I have to admit, if you didn't know, I am typically in bed by 11 PM. Asleep. Like, really asleep. So, to start playing at 11 is hard. The game ends around midnight, home by 12:30, sitting around sweating until 1:30, then try to fall asleep by 2. Up at 6:45 to start the day. Kids to school by 8. Teach at 9. F*ck am I tired.

Salsa Experience

Crab-Mama has gone insane, in case I have not mentioned this before. She is canning everything she can get her hands on. It is crazy. In the middle of the summer, she canned 42 jars of strawberry jam. Then a few weeks ago, she canned a b*tt-load of blueberries. Then a mountain of peach jam. Well, when we got home from our vacation, there had been a tomato explosion in our garden. Something like 45 kilo-tons of maters ripened while we were away. What to do with this many tomatoes? Easy - can them!

So, she made a lot of tomato sauce, some pureed tomatoes, then went out on a limb and made some catsup. That was insane. Do you know how many tomatoes you need for one pint of catsup? Something like a million. Then you boil and boil and boil until it gets down to a paste. After 3 hours of slaving, she got one pint. You could say that she was rather disappointed. I am not sure when we will ever use it, since it is like gold to her now. I can envision the dinner table conversation, when Crab-girl slathers the catsup on her fries - "That's too much! Do you know how long it took me to make that! Jesus-H-Christ!" (what does the "H" stand for anyways???) Anyways, it tasted good, so I am going to try to get her to make more.... Or not....

Next, we decided to try Auntie-Crab-1's recipe for salsa. (Well, I didn't decide. I am not the decider. I am the follower.) We end up having almost everything to go into the salsa, except some of the hot peppers, so we go to the farmers market and get some there. We then figure out the Auntie's recipe calls for some dried peppers, but we only had fresh peppers. I say that it is all right, call Auntie up to check, she says it is ok, but the dried peppers are more intense and concentrate the flavor more, so Crab-Mama decides that we have to do this. Everything is put on hold while we dry out some of the peppers in the brand new-to-us, slightly used, food drier thingy. The next day, we pick up where we left off and make a bunch of salsa. Did you know that salsa is like a fine wine? It has to age for a while before it is good? Auntie says at lease a month. A month? I can't wait a month! I want to try the salsa that we made now! Crap! Did you know that you can go to the store and get salsa and eat it in seconds after to pick it up from the shelf? Man, this waiting crap is for the tree-huggers. What I want to know is if you make a nacho cheese dip with homemade salsa and Velveeta, will I go to Hell?

Crab-Mama planted a few stalks of corn in the garden a few months back, and it is starting to produce ears. Well, three ears to be exact. And at different times. We picked 2 and put them in the fridge. Then the other day, we picked another ear and decided to see if the rumor that corn is best within 30 minutes of being picked is true. Holy crap - it is! The ear that she just picked was the best corn we had ever tasted! The other two ears, picked a couple days back, were complete crap compared to the super fresh corn.

Fresh veggies have taken over our lives! Someone help!