Denver AAS – Day 1

The summer meetings are much less busy that the January meetings. Ugh. I was bored by noon. Even the morning “rush” was more like the dulldrums of day 2 of the January meeting.

Not much of note happened today. I woke up at 4:30 AM local time and was unable to get back to sleep, so I read a couple chapters of my book, showered, watched part of The Today Show, and finally headed down to the convention center. Set-up was quick, so I messed around on the internet until the first break.

I can’t actually think of anything noteworthy for the day other than lunch was at Johnny Rockets with JD. That’s pretty sad.

After the exhibit hall closed down, I went to dinner with a few of the other LHEA guys, and then went back to the hotel, called Andrew, and crashed. If you notice a larger density of blog entries, this would be the reason.

Boring, boring day.

Travel Day

Today was a travel day. I’m now in Denver, CO, at the Marriott City Center Hotel sipping chamomile tea and watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on USA. That’s what I hate about business travel — there’s no time to see much besides the building where the meeting is being held and the hotel. (See Scary Duck’s scarily accurate account of h-space.)

Joys of air travel:

• There was “weather” all across the midwest, so much of the air traffic from the northeast was being diverted through a single corridor. My flight was delayed by about 45 minutes to wait for our turn through that corridor. At least the pilot waited at the gate rather than wasting fuel causing us to refuel before going.
• The corridor we flew through was just on the edge of the “weather,” making our flight very choppy. I was able to read for parts of the trip, but the middle hour was pretty bad. Add to that my dehydration (because I refuse to use the bathroom on the plane unless a dire emergency), and I had a whopper of a headache by the time we landed. Fortunately, the three Excedrin I took helped.
• Economy class should not have seats that recline. There is just not enough room. I ended up pressing my knees into the seat in front of me as the passenger tried to recline the seat. Whenever I needed something out of my backpack (under her seat), I felt free to bang and bounce her seat.
• The person behind me kept kicking my seat. I should have reclined my seat to teach them a lesson.

This was actually my first time going outside the “B” Concourse in the Denver Airport — I used to fly through here a lot when I lived in New Mexico, but never had Denver as a final destination. It was cool that at the baggage claim there is a special conveyer belt for skis. I’d never thought about that.

I met up with Shane, who is here with the LISA booth, on the Super Shuttle. I’d met him at the Atlanta meeting in January. It was nice to share the ride with a familiar face. We chatted a bit, and then met up to get me some lunch and head over to the Convention Center to set up.

He pointed out the Mall on 16th Street to me (actually, I had lunch at the Einstein Bagel in 16th). There are a lot of shops and restaurants along 16th. In fact the Tattered Cover is about a mile up 16th. JD and I are going to trek up there one evening this week. Oh, and I also saw a Media Play…that could be trouble.

During the set up I heard a rumor that there’s a Sonic near the Convention Center. That’s going to be trouble, too. Real, superior squishies. Yum.

One other thing. I didn’t realize how much I missed the mountains until I saw them out the plane’s window when we came in to land. Mountains. I don’t know what exactly it is about them, but I just feel more of a connection with them around. They are such a majestic and primal reminder of the Earth and her power. Andrew has promised that we can move someday to a place with mountains — New Mexico perhaps. I’m looking forward to it. I just hope our careers will allow it.

Going West — cicadas not welcome

Tomorrow I’ll be leaving for Denver to man the Constellation-X booth at the American Astronomical Society Meeting. I hate traveling. I especially hate traveling for business. People have said, “Oh, Denver. That should be nice.” Well, yeah, if there was any chance of actually seeing any of Denver. However, I will be at the Constellation-X booth from 8 AM until 5 PM every day. I’ll be tired and cranky after that, and will likely just crash in my room with some crappy food from the hotel lobby.

There is one thing I’m happy about, though. Denver will not have the Brood X cicadas. Oh happy day.

I think I’ve mentioned that I don’t do well with bugs.

I work in a trailer without running water, so when I need to use the bathroom, I have to walk the 50 feet into the nearby building. For the past week, every time I step outside the trailer, I assume the bug-stance, which consists of tighening my shoulders, clenching my fists, and a determined look.

I then proceed to the building doing the cicada-walk. This consists of dodging the cicada bodies strewn about the parking lot. Some of them are dead and squooshed, but several are alive and crawling around. A few are alive and just sitting there, waiting for some unsuspecting person to walk by before they fly up into said person’s face. In addition, the walk also entails a continuous sweep of the sky for flying cicadas. When one is approaching, then the walk turns into a dip, twirl or quick-step, whichever will most effectively avoid the cicada.

Of course, it is not possible to watch all of the sky at once, and watch the ground to avoid bug guts, so an occasional cicada gets through. One time this past week, I was happily doing the cicada walk, when I felt a pin-prick on my arm. I turned to see a cicada perched on my sleeve. This brought on the cicada-dance.

The cicada-dance consists of vigorously wiggling whatever body part the cicada has landed on. Of course, this doesn’t acutally dislodge the cicada (they withstand a significant wind-force^*). So the dance then turns into a slow-dance, where the dancer becomes as calm as they can muster, grabs the fabric of the garment the cicada has attached to, and shakes it more vigorously than possible when doing the fast-dance portion of the cicada-dance.

Of course, doing the cicada-dance makes one look like a complete moron.

I won’t miss the cicadas.

^*My coworker, JD, came out to his car one morning to find three cicadas attached at various places. One was on the thingy-m-bobby where the windshield fluid comes out, so JD could see how long he lasted. Apparently he held on for a while, even with the car going 70 mph down the BW Parkway.

ASCA results and re-directing my efforts

Last week I met with Kim about the Constellation-X web pages. I also brought her a preview of my ASCA results.

The point of running the ASCA data was to see if we could see the same structure in it’s data as the XTE data. If we could, it would be good confirmation that the structure is real rather than instrumentational. Unfortuantely, the ASCA data do not show the effect. However, after talking with Kim, we decided that it’s entirely possible that ASCA does not have enough response in the higher energeis to actually show the structure. To this end, I’m going to find average count rates for the various energy ranges for each instrument, and perhaps show statistically that ASCA can’t detect the structure.

Kim also suggested picking another type of source and use it as a control source. Ideally a cluster of galaxies would work, but unfortunately there aren’t many repeat observations of clusters in the XTE archive. Instead, I’m going to look at the Crab data spanning the same years as the MCG -6-30-15 data. If the structure is real, i.e. inherent to MCG -6-30-15, then we should not see it in the Crab data. However, if the structure is instrumentational, we will see it in the Crab data. My only concern is that the Crab is a “bright” source; whereas MCG -6-30-15 is a “faint” source. Different background models are used for extracting the background spectra and lightcurves for “bright” versus “faint” sources. Someone might argue that the structure is due to background modelling — not sure if that holds water, but might need to investigate.

Cicada Count

Sitings: 34

• Sunday, May 16, saw my first one on my front stoop (after it bounced off my head); total: 1
• Monday, May 17, saw one on the path behind the house while taking out the trash, and a second flying around out front; total: 3
• Thursday, May20, saw one flying around the officiant’s neighborhood as we made our way to his house; total: 4
• Friday, May 21, saw way too many:

  • One near the shed outside the trailer I work in; total: 5
  • One flying around the parking lot at work; total: 6
  • Three flying around by the ramp from the Goddard campus to the parkway; total: 9
  • 16 while driving on the beltway home (traffic was really slow, or I wouldn’t have seen any (I watched #24 fly into the front passenger-side of a Jeep, bounce off and then bounce into the car behind the Jeep); total: 25
  • 9 driving on I-66 on the last leg home (again, traffic was backed-up or I would have been going to fast to see any)

  total: 34

I stupidly hoped that I could get by without seeing any, but knew that wouldn’t work. Fortunately, only three of them have been non-flying sitings. Somehow they seem fairly harmless when they’re flying (though if one gets stuck in my hair or bra, I may change my tune about the flying ones). But when they’re just sitting there, and I can see their freakish red eyes, I get the creeps.

With Trembing Fingers

This is a good article by Hal Crowther, With Trembling Fingers on the Bush administrations failures and lack of shame about those failures.

A guerrilla who opposes an invading army on his own soil is not a terrorist, he’s a resistance fighter. In Iraq we’re not fighting enemies but making enemies. As Richard Clarke and others have observed, every dollar, bullet and American life that we spend in Iraq is one that’s not being spent in the war on terrorism. Every Iraqi, every Muslim we kill or torture or humiliate is a precious shot of adrenaline for Osama and al Qaeda.

I absolutely agree — the war in Iraq was not waged in response to terrorism; terrorism was just a great excuse to get the American people behind the war. The whole thing has become one huge clusterfuck, and no one in a position to change things is willing to admit it.

On the near side of my haystack, among hundreds of quotes circled and statistics underlined, just one thing leaped out at me. A quote I had underlined was from the testimony of Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg trials, not long before Hitler’s vice-fuhrer poisoned himself in his jail cell:

“It is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.”

Doesn’t that sound familiar? Anyone who does not lock-step with Bush on his Iraq policies is branded anti-patriotic by the leadership.

I’m so tired. I’m angry any time I see another story on Iraq. It’s time for the leaders in this country to step up, admit things are going badly, and correct those mistakes. I fear this won’t happen until we have someone new in the White House. I fear that it might not happen with this election — the polls are still too close for comfort, and we need more people to see the light.

(Found this article through Pharyngula.)

The June bug story

Since seeing my first cicada this weekend, I’ve been thinking a lot about the June bug story. Let me just preface this by saying that I don’t deal well with bugs. I’m okay with a small ant or two, but anything larger sets my body shivering.

Several years ago, I was in Minnesota visiting my parents for the summer. I was out in the garage with my brother, Dave, and almost-sister-in-law, Jen, when I noticed a weird feeling under my arm. I reached my hand around to see what it was, and lo’ and behold, there was a June bug in my bra under my arm.

The first question that might come to mind is How on Earth did a June bug get there? Mind you, that was not my first question, but I’ll address that here nonetheless. First, I was wearing a sports bra — the kind that can gap in the cleavage-area, leaving ample opportunity for the bug to enter my bra. Now, as to how it got from my cleavage to under my arm is still somewhat of a mystery. I would have thought that a June bug crawling along sensitive parts of my female anatomy would have raised a flag sooner. Perhaps I moved in such a way that other gaps in the bra were produced, easing the path of the June bug.

My first reaction to feeling the June bug under my bra was to start jumping around and yelling, “Get it out, get it out, get it out.” I had to calm down enough to get a few explanatory words to my brother. I probably muttered something like, “June bug. Bra. There. Get it!.”

My brother, being a loving, kind and considerate brother, looked at me and said, “But you’re my sister.”

“I don’t care. Get it out.”

But he wouldn’t. I continued the heebie-jeebie-dance, and turned to Jen. Sadly, she has just as much of a bad reaction to bugs as I do.

Someone, I think Dave, went into the house and grabbed Mom. She came out, and even though I’m sure she hates bugs every bit as much as Jen and I, her Mom-instinct took over, and she flipped the June bug out of my bra. Yay Mom!

But I still get the willies whenever I think about it.

The cat is away….

I dropped Andrew off at the airport this morning. He’s going to visit his family in Canada, and to renew his visa. So I’ll be alone in the house (well, if by alone you mean alone with three cats) until Tuesday. I’m trying to decide if I’m looking forward to having the house to myself or if I’m just going to be bored and lonely.

Let’s just hope I don’t have a repeat of last year when my back went out while Andrew was in Canada.

Grieving Gardens

I saw this article this morning on high schools creating grieving gardens for students who have died.

Such “grieving gardens” are springing up at high schools across the country as students seek closure and administrators grapple with how best to honor dead youths. Born of tragedy, the main force behind the gardens has been students and grieving parents.

The article goes on to say that some schools have chosen not to have such gardens on the grounds that it might spark some kids to consider suicide.

A friend of mine commited suicide in high school. We did not have a grieving garden, but we asked if we could include a memorial to him in the yearbook. The administration refused, saying that they didn’t want to glorify suicide. While now, years later, I can understand their view, at the time it was like a slap in the face. It seemed that his death meant nothing to the school. Counselors were sent to the American Studies class where they announced his death to the school.

He was a couple years younger than me, so I heard about it in my interior design class. When they first read the announcement that a student had died, I though immediately of my friend Jen, who was in the hospital at the time. When they announced a different name, I was elated, because it wasn’t my best friend. Then the name sunk in. It was Mike. Mike who I had tried to ask to the Sadie Hawkins dance, but chickened out at the last moment.

That one day, with counselors in his American Studies class, seemed to be the only acknowledgement that the administration would make of his death. To a high schooler, dealing with the death of someone their own age for the first time, this really served only to make the process more difficult.

A few of us did get poems about Mike in that year’s literary magazine, so there was some evidence that we lost one of our own that year. (Sadly, my poem was really, really bad — read: teen angst in its worst form.)

Politics

This is not a political blog — in fact, I’d be hard pressed to say what kind of blog this is, but I never talk about politcal stuff. In general, I feel like I don’t have anything new to add to the discussion. I sometimes wonder if I should bring things up from time to time.

My feelings about the current administration are no secret to my friends and family — I’m jumping on board the I’ll-vote-for-anyone-as-long-as-they-can-get-Bush-out-of-office bandwagon. I’m not voting issues this time around. I’m voting for whichever candidate can defeat Bush.

We all know why — our country’s eroding relations with the rest of the world, the Iraq invasion, the refusal to admit that there was poor-planning for the Iraq aftermath, the continued refusal to acknowledge that we either need to get out or send reinforcements to clean up the mess we created, the prisoner abuse in Iraq, the international gag rule, the continued attacks on pro-choice and other women’s health issues, the asinine moon/Mars plan that’s killing other worthwhile science at NASA, ….need I go on?

Do I have anything new to add to any of these issues? No. Others have said it all better than I could, but I wanted to add my voice to the others raising in protest. We need to continue to be angry. We need to continue to raise our voices. We need to vote out the current administration in November. We need to get our country out of the hands of the bumbling idiots.