E/PO foothold

Over the past couple years I have discovered that I don’t really like doing science. In fact, the only thing that I really felt excited working on was re-writing the Swift public pages (all of the linked pages except “What’s in a name”), which has brought me to the conclusion that I should look for a career in Education and Public Outreach (E/PO) when/if I finish my Ph.D. E/PO seems to be the best way that I can use my knowledge of astronomy and my writing/creative abilities in concert with each other.

Currently Constellation-X, one of the missions that I’m working for, doesn’t have an official E/PO program. However, as the web curator (and the person who will be revising the public pages), I’m in a position to start some kind of E/PO for Con-X even without any specific money for it.

Since I’m the only person doing Con-X E/PO (or, the only person in a position close to doing Con-X E/PO), and because I started attending E/PO meetings for the Lab, I’m going to helping the E/PO lead in his next effort to put out an educational package related to the Beyond Einstein program (of which Con-X is a part). The real challenge here, though, is that the materials covered by Beyond Einstein are fairly esoteric, at least as far as high school physics is concerned. The big question is what science can we present that intersects the high school science cirriculum.

The E/PO lead is putting together a focus group of teachers, and he and I got together today to discuss what questions we could ask the focus group to get an idea of what science we can highlight. I think it was a good brainstorming session, and I hope the E/PO lead feels the same way. I’m looking forward to my further involvement in the project.

Tags: work

Worst Commute Ever

We got about an inch of snow here in DC, so the idiots were on the road. I knew the commute would be bad, so I left work at 11:30 AM, after a half-day. I got home at about 3 PM. Yup. Three and a half hours to go 35 miles.

It took 30 minutes to get the 2 miles from work to the Beltway. Another 30 minutes to get off the Beltway at the next exit (about another mile); turned out that the Beltway was essentially closed there due to a multi-car accident, and despite a police, firefighter, and ambulance presence, traffic was still chaos. Then I took an hour getting back to the Beltway (I cut across the inside “corner” of the Beltway). Then another hour and a half to get the remaining 15 or so miles.

At least I didn’t get into an accident.

Tags: life in the city, rant

Wet San Diego – II

I went out this morning to take a few pictures around the Town & Country Resort, where the AAS was held this week. I especially wanted to get “after the flood” pictures of the stream behind the resort. Here’s a comparison of the stream from Tuesday, when Pat and I braved the flood to go to Old Town, and today:
Looking West:

Tuesday

Friday

Looking East:

Tuesday

Friday

Tags: trip report

Wet San Diego

Apparently every time the American Astronomical Society is in San Diego, it rains. This time it has been raining for over a month, and this is a part of the country that usually gets only 10 days of rain per year.

Behind the Town & Country Resort, there is a small creek with a foot bridge which leads to the trolley, San Diego’s Mass Transit Train. When Pat and I went out this afternoon to catch the trolley to Old Town, this is what we saw:

That golf cart was provided by the resort so we could get to the bridge. However, on the other side of the bridge, the road we needed to cross was flooded as well.

Pat and I found a path around the flooding by walking up a block and then crossing. The sidewalk we were on only had about an inch of water. However, when we came back from Old Town, there was more water on the sidewalk — we had wet feet while manning the booths for the cocktail hour tonight.

Tags: trip report

Resolutions

For the new year, Mush and I are going to focus on getting healthier. We’ve both tried this process before, with varied successes, and this time we want to make it stick. Part of our plan to help us along is to make us accountable not just to ourselves and each other, but to, well, you. Mushi set up a blog for our efforts — I’ll include a link on the sidebar soon, but in the mean time, use this one — check it out, watch our progress, cheers us on, and prod us when we need it.

(Oh, and you should check out Mushi’s page — she’s more fun than I am 🙂

Tags: health

Christmas Tumbleweed!

I was looking through my old photo albums this afternoon, and stumbled across a picture of the original Christmas Tumbleweed©.

If you’re thinking, Hey, that’s a cool idea, then chances are you are either from the midwest, east or some country other than the US where you don’t regularly see tumbleweeds. Or, you could be a child from a Southwestern state. Melissa and I are midwesterners.

If you’re thinking, Hey, I had one of those when I was a kid, then you are probably from the Southwest, and dragged a tumbleweed into the house and decorated it while your parents protested.

Of course, you might think, What an idiotic thing to do, in which case you are probably a grown-up. Screw you.

Melissa and searched long and hard for this tumbleweed. There were two problems: first, tumbleweeds are really a Spring thing (we didn’t know this), becasue that’s when the wind really picks up and blows them around; second, we needed a small one to fit in the room. We were so proud when we found this one. As we were walking back, we made up a song. (Sorry Mush, hope you’re not embarrased)

O Tumbleweed
(to the tune of O Christmas Tree)

O tumbleweed, O tumbleweed,
How rounded are your banches.
O tumbleweed, O tumbleweed,
We looked so hard to find you.

We searched all day,
We searched all night,
We’ll put on you
Some blinking lights.

O tumbleweed, O tumbleweed,
How rounded are your branches.

The next two years that I was in New Mexico, we were able to get a larger tumbleweed, because we were renting rooms from the very understanding, very easy-going Bob.

Here’s the 1996 Christmas Tumbleweed (from which you can see that Ares started his obsession with lying under Christmas foliage at a very young age):

And the 1997 Christmas Tumbleweed (the only time we had a non-homemade ornament on the ‘weed):

Summer 1998 I moved across the country to Maryland, where I had to settle for a Chrstmastree.

With any luck, he’ll get fired, too

Check out this article

A rural Alabama judge began wearing a robe embroidered with the Ten Commandments to his Andalusia courtroom this week, echoing the statement made by the state Supreme Court chief justice ousted over a Ten Commandments display.

Covington County Presiding Circuit Court Judge Ashley McKathan said he ordered the robe and had it embroidered using his own money. He said he did it because he felt strongly that he should stand up for his personal religious convictions.

I’m all for standing by your religious convictions, should you have them, but we have a strict policy of separation of chuch and state. This part of American law has apparently eluded McKathan. You’d think a judge would be more familiar with the law, and perhaps we should be ousting judges who can’t even understand such a simple distinction.

UPDATE: Preposterous Universe has a picture.

Chirstmas Shopping

We ventured out to the mall today to finish off our Christmas shopping for each other. We had already finished all of our shopping for family and friends, since those all had to be shipped across the country (and a couple up into Canada). So, all we had left was each other. We split up, with Andrew heading off to the other end of the mall to start his shopping.

My first purchase? A Christmas outfit for Felicia, of course.

We were actually out of the mall by about 2 PM, just when it seemed to be getting really busy. Yay us!

Evolution of the Evergreen Tree

At Andrew’s suggestion, I took pictures at about 15-minute intervals as I decorated the tree last night. The whole affair took about 2 hours from stringing the lights to completion. Unfortunately, most of my pictures are out-of-focus. Even now, I can’t seem to get a good picture of the tree…maybe I need to set up the little tripod that I have.

That black lump that appears in a couple of the pictures is Ares — he’s having trouble deciding if he likes laying under the tree or laying on our new comforter more.

Christmas Baking II

After a quick trip to the grocery store, first up today was the English Toffee. I still don’t have it right, though. When I was only heating it to “hard ball” stage (265 F), it was chewy. I saw a few recipes on the web that said to heat it to “hard crack” (300 F), but now it’s grainy. It tastes fine, but I can feel the grains of the brown sugar. Sigh. Maybe next year.

Finally, I got around to decorating the Sugar Cookies.
This was just a cool picture:

And here’s the finished tin of cookies: