AAS, Day 4

I woke up bright and early, thinking I’d take a nice, long, hot shower. After letting the water run for 15 minutes in hopes of getting that hot shower, I gave up, quickly ducked in to wash my hair, and then shivered for the next 10 minutes trying to recover. Sigh. One might think that a Hilton hotel (normal nightly rate of $178/night) would have hot water. One would be wrong.

After getting myself dressed and ready to go, I headed up to the Starbucks across from the conference site, as had been my habit each morning this week. Unfortunately, this morning was record cold, and everyone in Atlanta had the idea to get a hot drink before work. The line took up the entire store, so I turned around and went right to the Hyatt for the conference. I decided to stop in the hotel’s coffee shop for a chai, and was terribly disappointed by it — they hardly put any flavoring in, so it was rather tasteless.

Not a good morning all-in-all.

The conference was quiet. Jim came by and mentioned that one of the posters was about taking variations in BL Lac objects and turning them into music. They had brought a CD player, so you could actually hear the music. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the poster, and then got distracted by the Astronomy To Go booth — a vendor with lots of cool astronomy stuff. Between my two stops at the booth, I picked up a couple pairs of astronomy socks, a barrette, earrings for Maggie, an ear cuff, and a book for Andrew. Dangerous place.

The day was quiet, and we started tearing down the booths at 4 PM. I was back in my room by 5 PM, resting up for my evening with Jim and Maggie.

AAS, Day 3

We continued people-watching today. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but frankly astronomers are an interesting bunch. And, suppose I need to put myself into that category. One thing that might help our reputations immensely would be the adult equivalent of Garanimals. Remember those? They are mix-and-match clothing where if you buy two pieces with matching animals, you are assured that they match. We could update these for astronomers — say a line of Astranimals. Instead of animals, we could use constellations — match the Big Bear clothes for a snappy outfit, or try the Orion clothes for an evening out.

I took in an invited talk by Sunyaev this afternoon, who was receiving an AAS award. (I knew him from the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect in Astro 1). His talk was on turbulence in galactic clusters and its effect on the iron line. The exciting part is that this effect might be seen in the spectra from the XRS instrument on the upcoming ASTRO-E 2 mission. Cool!

I was once again reminded of how optical and X-ray astronomers speak different languages. While I was at the booth this afternoon, a young man came up and asked what an X-ray spectrum looked like. I wasn’t sure what he meant, since a spectrum is a spectrum. Then he started asking how we “split our beams”, and I knew there had to be miscommunication of some sort. He mentioned that he was an optical astronomer, and they split their beams to get spectra. So I explained that in X-ray astronomy, we get so few photons coming into our detectors that we can count them…individually…and attach an energy to each incoming photon as it arrives. Fortunately this satisfied him. It reminded me a bit of my proposal defense, where Dr. Harrington was asking questions that seemed really odd to me. It was only when I realized that optical and X-ray astronomers live in different worlds that I started to understand his questions.

I decided to get room service tonight, since I haven’t even come close to spending my perdium any day this week. I foolishly got not just an entree, but dessert. I ended up finishing all of my sandwich, salad and french fries, only to discover I was too full. So, I called Maggie and talked for a bit until I was ready to see how much of the peach cobbler ala mode I could finish. Yum.

AAS, Day 2

Ugh. I think I talked with about 5 people today at the booth (real conversations…I did tel more people that they could take pens, etc.)

The longest conversation I had was with Nick, the head of our lab (he’s not counted in the 5 people, since technically he’s here with the booth). He asked about my research with Kim, and we talked just a bit about the Constellation-X web page work I’ve been doing. Hopefully I didn’t make too much an ass of myself.

Perhaps the best part of manning the booth is people-watching. While I don’t like to encourage stereotypes, scientists are, in general, some of the most…um…interesting people. Take Mr. Beard, for example. Pat and I both spied portly man sporting the most…um…interesting beard. He had shaved his chin and cheeks, but left a bushy undergrowth on his neck. How…um…interesting.

I also went to one of the talks sessions this afternoon. The session was on Active Galaxies, my area of research, but I was disappointed that both of the speakers scheduled to talk about X-ray observations failed to show up. The other talks were interesting, though I can’t say I remember much about them now.

I was so tired by the end of the day, though, that I was ready to cry. Chris encouraged me to go to the grad student reception after the main sessions, but that would have been enough to put me over the edge. It was supposed to be an opportunity for grads to network with potential job connections. It’s hard for me to deal with that much socialization in one day — just being on display at the Con-X booth all day is nearly more than I can handle (even on a quiet day like today). I’m going to have to come to one of these as just a participant; that way I can bug out for a couple hours in the afternoon, regroup, and then be ready to network in the evening. Or I need to rethink my career, again…

AAS, Day 1

Today was the first “real” day of the conference (yesterday they had registration and a reception in the evening). I got to the booth around 8:30 AM, though things didn’t really pick up until the first morning break at 9:20 AM. There was a lot of activity at that point.

One guy came by asking about the GRB catalog I’ve worked on — sent to me by JD from the Swift GRB mission booth. He had apparently worked with a group that had worked to compile a small GRB catalog covering the time of operation of one of the neutrino detectors. They had concentrated on the BATSE bursts, since the information available was fairly uniform for all of those bursts. I confirmed what they found when they started looking at other catalogs — it’s hard. Converting the various fluxes and fluences from one mission to another requires different equations/methods from instrument to instrument (and may depend on model, in the case of flux).

While doing my own circuit of the booths, I found some information on Project-ASTRO. I had volunteered with PA when they started it up in New Mexico. I’d been hoping to find a PA in the DC area, but there isn’t one. I asked her about this, and part of the challenge is that they no longer have funding to start new locations. So, to get PA started in DC there would have to be someone interested who could ferret out funding from somewhere (NASA IDEAS proposal was one of her suggestions). This is something I’d love to get involved in, but it’s just not the right time. As a half-time grad student, it would be difficult for me to give PA the attention it would require, especially in the start-up phase. Maybe in a few years, after I graduate. I, unfortunately, can’t remember the woman’s name, but hopefully she will e-mail me, becuase she was also interested in the state of Con-X’s EPO program (which will hopefully get started in a year or so, and hopefully I’ll be involved with it). She also offered to be an EPO resource.

There were lots of undergrads meandering about. I talked with a few of them about the work I’ve been doing, and asking about what they might be interested in as far as research. A couple mentioned that they had been thinking about UMD, and even though I’m not the world’s happiest camper at UMD, I did talk the place up, especially considering what their interests were.

I also found a woman who was in much the same school boat as I was in. She had started as a music theory major, and wound up in astrophysics. We comiserated a bit about how none of the credits overlapped, and how far behind it put us. She’s just at the point of considering grad school, but it sounded like she was going to take some time off. I told her about my experience, and applauded her foresight.

I released Contact in the ladies bathroom, and it had disappeared by the time I returned. Now to see if the person who picked it up registers the book.

Called Jim and Maggie — we’re going to try to get together Wednesday evening, unless there is a play at the Shakespeare tavern Thursday night.

I miss Andrew. And I miss our cats. And I miss our bed and our house.

Travel Day

Flew out for the AAS meeting today (American Astronomical Society). They ended up cancelling my flight, but fortunately I was there early enough that I could get on an earlier flight. I ended up getting in to Atlanta an hour earlier than I was scheduled to.

Normally I hate flying, but the crew had a bit of fun with our flight today, so it wasn’t as bad. First, there were several seats available in first class, so the flight attendant collected all the boarding pass stubs, and had a drawing for a seat in first class. They also drew for a sleeve of cookies. Later, after the beverage service, a flight attendant came through asking if anyone would like to play “Let’s Make a Deal”. From anyone saying yes, she asked for various items — a Sam’s Club card, a book of stamps, etc. From me, she asked for a AAA card, so I won a tiny bottle of Bailey’s. Yay! Never mind that it was still before 10 AM — that Bailey’s was quite good.

I was going to meet JD at the baggage claim, mostly as protection from the weirdos that I seem to attract. Unfortunately, his flight was an hour late. So, with my flight an hour early, and his an hour late, I ended up reading in baggage claim for over two hours. Oh well. It was either that, or read in my hotel.

After I connected with JD, and, as it turned out, 3 other people from HEASARC, we took the MARTA to the hotels. After checking in, we started setting-up the booths, even though it was well past 2 PM and we hadn’t had lunch yet. After getting much of the set-up done, we went off for lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe — it was close, open, and easy to find. After a bit more set-up, I headed back to my room, vegging out for the evening. Currently, I’m debating whether to get some dinner or not. I don’t want to leave, and the room service is not cheap. Maybe I could order a pizza….

New Year’s Eve

Andrew and I flew home today, getting home at about 11 PM. We stayed up to see the ball drop, and then went to bed. We are such exciting people 🙂

Christmas Carols Irk Czech Clerks

Christmas Carols Irk Czech Clerks

Labor unions in the Czech Republic demanded Monday that stores stop playing Christmas carols incessantly or pay compensation for causing emotional trauma to sales clerks.

My mom still thinks I hate Christmas carols, though I’ve actually grown to enjoy them again. I worked at a Kay-Bee Toy store from 1990 to 1992, and at a Hallmark store from 1991-1995, both at Southdale Mall in Edina, Minnesota.

Immediately after Halloween each year, the mall would start to erect it’s Christmas decorations — large lighted garlands and wreaths sprinkled through the hallways, and a gargantuan tree in the center of the mall with balls larger than my head. Long before Thanksgiving, Santa’s throne would be assembled and awaiting his royal arse. A few animatronic elves and reindeer surrounded his abode, nodding and wagging tails (respectively) to no one in particular.

Those quiet weeks before Thanksgiving would also bring the start of the Christmas music. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman and Jingle Bell Rock would blare from the mall speakers, loud enough to overcome the large Christmas crowds, even though the Christmas crowds were waiting for the passing of Thanksgiving to converge on the mall. Occasionally Silent Night would play, just to taunt us hapless clerks.

By the time Thanksgiving came, and the crowds were large enough to drown out the music, I loathed the tunes. If I came home and Mom was happily playing a Christmas CD in the living room, I would retreat to my bedroom to turn on some Sting or Indigo Girls or Elton John or something with no ties to Christmas at all. Even in my first couple years away from retail, I had an aversion to Christmas carols — I would tolerate them better, but after a full CD would have to insist that something else be played.

Now I’m back to enjoying Christmas songs and the whole Christmas season. It took about three years out of retail for that to happen, though, so it’s no wonder my mom still thinks I hate the music. It will take about three more years to convince her.

Thesis Meeting

I’ve still been going around the block on my MCG -6-30-15 fits. I was at least able to reproduce the published results, which had been a goal for last month, but this still doesn’t explain what’s going on. Basically, we are finding that cutting spectra one way produces one set of results while cutting them a different way produces different results. This might mean that the published method is not the right way to do things. However, it might also mean that there is not enough signal in my method to get good results.

My next step will be to fit the full MCG -6-30-15 XTE data set — this is nearly 7 years of data, and will take a lot of computer time. Hopefully I can get it running before the holidays, and just leave it going uninterrupted for that week (though there is always the possibility of a power glitch or infinite loop to mess things up). Kim thinks it might be interesting to plot the results in a way that we can see the time evolution of some of the relationships, so I’m going to look into using numbers as plot symbols in ppgplot. I’m also going to look into doing color-color diagrams (or hardness ratios) of the data to see if there is some way to see where the changes are really occurring. That will require writing some new code for the pipeline.

Thanksgiving

We decided to wait until Thanksgiving morning to drive down to Melissa and Jeff’s place in North Carolina, since there was bound to be way more traffic than we wanted to deal with Wednesday night. (The last time I drove down was over Presidents’ Day weekend, and it took me more than four hours to get just 60 miles out of town.) The drive down was uneventful, though we passed about 10 cop cars, 7 of which had pulled someone over. It took just about 5 hours total.

Jeff and Melissa prepared us a vegetarian feast. They had looked up Tofurky on the internet, and found that it had a competitor (Quorn) which most people were saying was much more like real turkey, and more tasty. As an experiment, they decided that we should try them both. We agreed with the opinion on the internet — the Quorn was more like real turkey (though my opinion may not count for much, since I haven’t had real turkey in over 14 years), it even flaked a bit like turkey. The Tofurkey turned out a bit rubbery, and had a mass-produced stuffing in the middle. Jeff had made homemade stuffing, so there really was no comparison.

The remainder of the weekend was spent playing games, seeing movies, and just generally vegging out. We did head out to the flea market at the fair grounds Friday, but the outside vendors got rained out shortly after we arrived. We got to try out a couple Steve Jackson games — Chez Geek and Munchkin — which were both quite fun (and I’m not just saying that because I won all the games we played). We broke out the 20th Anniversary Trivial Pursuit that Mom and Dad sent me for my birthday — I did much, much better at this edition than the original. Oh, and we also got to try playing Elfenland with 4 people. Andrew and I had bought this after our board game class, and after playing a couple times, decided that it would probably be better with more players. We were right.

Andrew and I headed out relatively early Sunday morning. Surprisingly, the worst traffic we encountered was in Richmond. On the north end of the city the traffic coming in from Virginia Beach joined I95, causing a large backup. I was discouraged, thinking that the traffic would continue all the way into Washington (over 100 miles away). However, about 20 miles outside the city, it just broke up. Not sure where everyone went, but I’m glad they left. In Frederick, VA, we also encountered a bit of traffic, but that was because of an accident. There was surprisingly little traffic in the final approach to DC. Not that I’m complaining.

Tin Bread

Grandma’s tin bread was always a treat at family gatherings. It’s a Swedish recipe that came to Grandma through Grandpa’s sister. It’s a thin bread that is a perfect conveyance for butter or jam to the mouth.

I made my first batch tonight! I remember many years ago, I went over to Grandma’s house, and made some with her, but this was my first time making it alone. And it turned out pretty darn well, if I do say so myself. I’ll be bringing it with us to Melissa and Jeff’s house for Thanksgiving this year.