Denver AAS – Day 3

Even less excitement than Day 1. In fact, the only thing I actually remember about the day is going to the Corner Bakery for lunch. Oh, and I’m currently drinking a regular (i.e. non-diet) Dr. Pepper, and I’m ready to start crawling up the walls. No more sugared pop for me!

Later: Grabbed dinner with JD at a bar on 16th. Not bad — though I was really bad and had dessert (cheesecake buritos). Called Andrew and finished Stiff by Mary Roach.

Denver AAS – Day 2

I’ve decided that conference exhibit halls have time eddies, and our booth is caught in a large unyielding one.

Notes on the day:

• Perhaps the big news was that Sean O’Keefe, the NASA administrator was at the meeting to give a speech. Before the speech, he came through the exhibit hall and stopped at several booths. He stopped at ours, and was introduced to Kim. They chatted for just a minute, and I stopped paying attention, which was the moment that he was about to move on, but stopped and extended his hand for me. Oops. I looked like a total idiot. Oh well.
• I wasn’t able to go to his speech — we went to lunch to be on hand for the booth after his speech. However, the buzz was that the speech was heartening. He emphasised that NASA is still going to have a strong space sciences program; that just because the exploration push has come about that it doesn’t mean the end of the other scientific endeavors of NASA. He also did mention Constellation-X by name just after talking about the current missions and before going through a laundry list of other upcoming missions. Kim was happy that he did that, and hoped that it meant something good about our prospects.
• I’m continually surprised by the fashion sense of scientists. I’m not exactly a fashion-conscious person, but I at least try to wear things that match and don’t make me look too bad. A few examples:
  • On days that people present posters, they generally try to dress up. That’s fairly easy for the men. However, some of the women choose to wear dresses or skirts — these are women who have probably not worn a dress or a skirt since their parents dragged them to church in high school. In fact, I think that many of them are wearing the very same skirts or dresses that they were dragged to church wearing.
  • There’s a guy I’ve named “capri boy” walking around the posters all afternoon. He’s wearing khaki colored pants that stopped just below his knee. They are like capri pants, but on a guy. Now, I’ll conceed that he is a tall man, but this was beyond “floods”, beyond the inability to find pants that were long enough.
• At lunch, JD and I walked down to Sonic. The highlight was my strawberry squishy. Yum. I miss Sonic squishies.

After the meeting, JD, Stef, Doug and I went down to the Tattered Cover bookstore on 16th. I bought a few books, a copy of Skeptical Inquirer magazine and bookplates.

Stopped at Subway on the way back to my hotel room, where I kicked back and watched Down With Love on HBO.

Grad Life: The Target Incident

The “Target Incident” is perhaps my quintessential grad school money experience. I’ll start by detailing my monthly budget — this will highlight why money was my constant concern (making it difficult to to concentrate on other things).

In New Mexico, I lived in a three-bedroom house, ostensibly with two roommates — one person for each room. However, both of my roommates had significant others who essentially lived with us, and the brother of the primary renter came down to live with us during the week (he lived and worked in Albuquerque on the weekends). So, in reality there were about six people living in the house at most times. I was tired of living with people.

When I moved to Maryland, I decided that I would get a place on my own. Afterall, I was 27 and it seemed time to try my hand at being alone (well, alone with my two cats). Also, since I had two cats, I wanted a one bedroom apartment rather than an efficiency, so the cats would have some room.

The rent for my apartment was $635 per month. My take-home pay from my fellowship was about $1000 per month. That left $365 to live on. Oh, but I needed to pay out $125 to my credit cards just to cover the finance charges. And I had the $50 phone bill, a $45 cable bill (that was probably a mistake), and $20 to keep gas in my car. That left $125 for everything else — cat food and litter, groceries, necessary-items, and any surprises that might come up. Needless to say, the budget was a bit stretched.

So, one December I found myself at Target picking up essentials — cat food and litter, toothpaste, toilet paper, deoderant, tampons, contact juice, and paper towels.

On my way around the back of the store, I saw a display of Christmas table clothes. I stopped to see what they had, and found the cutest vinyl cloth I’ve ever seen. It had little santas, angels, candy canes and reindeer on a green background. I think it was the reindeer that did it for me — I love reindeer decorations. I so wanted that table cloth. I knew that I couldn’t afford it, but decided to look at the price anyway.

$2.99.

Less that $3. I sat and debated for a bit. I looked at the contents of my cart, and thought about the money I had in the bank and the one measly paycheck I’d be getting before my trip home. That paycheck had to pay a few bills as well as a few meals out when I went to visit friends in Minnesota. Plus I’d already decided that I couldn’t get a Toys-For-Tots toy. Nor could I get the cats any Christmas presents. There was no way I could justify a $3 table cloth for myself.

But it was only $3. My god, how could I not find $3 in the budget.

I debated internally for several minutes before replacing the table cloth on the display and hurrying to the checkout. $3. I was nearly in tears as I checked out and brought my purchases to the car.

I realize, and even at the time I realized, that it was a silly thing to get upset over. But to not be able to pull even $3 out of the budget seemed a ridiculous and depressing thing.

The story does have a happy ending, though. I happened to talk with my Mom the next day (or maybe later that evening), and I mentioned the incident, trying to make it humorous but not succeeding. She ended up telling my Dad, and he Fed-Exed me a check for $50, telling me to just have fun with it. I bought my Toys-For-Tots toy. I bought the cats a new round “cave.” And, yes, I bought that $3 table cloth, which I displayed until I got rid of my round kitchen table two years ago.

^* Some people might not worry too much about a Toys-For-Tots toy, but I had a nephew who died from SIDS at 4 months 21 day old. Since we lost him, I have been buying toys for TFT each year for a boy who would have been Tyler’s age that year. It’s my way of honoring his memory and hopefully bringing a little joy to a child.

Grad Life: Intro

For the past several years, I’ve looked at myself as a recovering grad student. While I am a grad student again, the situation is quite different from my life of 1998-2000, and I don’t think that any further damage is being done by my half-time status.

Somehow, during those years, I lost parts of myself that I really liked and respected. By 2000 I had become more relcusive and shy that I was when I started grad school. I also found that while I was a strong student, in my personal life I became less independent — I no longer enjoyed doing anything outside my apartment by myself. I wouldn’t just go off to a play I wanted to see even if I couldn’t find a friend to go with me. I wouldn’t try a new restaurant if it meant I had to go alone. Pre-1998 I would do that.

Part of my recovery process has been to document both the good and the bad parts, and hopefully in the process I’ll recover part of what I feel I lost during those years. So far I’ve been doing this in a paper journal, but I’ve been lax about writing, so I hope that doing it here will encourage me to write more and more often.

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.

Guards! Guards!

by Terry Pratchett

I don’t know if I’ve started getting my sense of humor back (though I wasn’t aware that it had gone anywhere), or if Pratchett vastly improved his style between writing The Color of Money and this novel, but I rather enjoyed this one a lot more than The Color of Money.

Carrot, a human orphaned as a baby and raised by dwarf parents, is sent to the city (Ankh-Morpork) to see the world. Of course, he’s been sent to work with the City Watch, a shabby bunch of guards who are not well respected but for good reason. Carrot, however, has a strong sense of morals and wants to rid the city of crime (even though crime is legal as long as it’s done within the guidelines of the guilds).

Meanwhile, a secret society is illegally using magic to summon a dragon for their own nefarious purposes. Unfortunately, dragons are hard to control once they’ve been unleashed.

Fun, fanciful diversion

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.

Biking to Reston

I’ve been trying to think of fun bike trips that Andrew and I can make — like going to Hole in the Wall Books in Falls Church (we were about a block from there, as it turns out, when we stopped and turned around last weekend).

In last week’s Sunday Source, there was a blurb on a fun-looking mini-golf course in Herndon. We decided to look at our VA bike trails map, and see if there was a way to get there by bike. We found something promising and it was going to be about 7 miles each way if we started from the point on the W&OD trail where it crosses Hunter Mill Road. Andrew was concerned that I’d be able to make that, but I reminded him that besides being stubborn, we would be stopping and taking a break after the first half, so I should be fine.

So, we put the bikes on the car, and headed up. I noticed that I was going fairly slow much of the way (8-9 mph), so was concerned that last week was just a fluke, but later realized that the entire trip out was on an incline. It was a small incline, but incline none-the-less. Our plan was to follow the W&OD up to Wiehle Avene, then take Wiehle to Baron Cameron, Baron Cameron to the Reston Parkway, and the REston Parkway to Drainsville. That would have at least gotten us close.

Well, the sidewalk on both sides of the road disappeared from Wiehle just after North Shore Drive (the second time we crossed it, because it’s a big loop around Lake Anne). So we decided to take the North Shore Drive to see where it would take us.

It took us to a farmers market and craft sale in a little shopping area around Lake Anne. Cool! We locked up the bikes, found Reston’s Used Book Shop, browsed the crafts, bought some kettle corn, and sat by the lake. It was a very pleasant morning diversion.

When we left, we continued around North Shore Drive (spotting Baron Cameron Avenue just outside the farmers market), and headed back to the car. Total miles: 9. It’s not as far as last weekend, but the way was much, much more hilly. In fact, I made it up two hills I never thought I’d make…cool!

Troy

4/5 stars

I know. I know. Brad Pitt in a summer blockbuster just can’t be good. Now, I’m not a huge Brad Pitt fan (I think partly because I started hearing the no-showering rumors were true), but he was not nearly as annoying as I was expecting. I dare say he wasn’t bad in fact. The performances in Troy were overall quite good — in particular, I liked Eric Bana as Hector and Orlando Bloom as Paris — though there were a few clinckers. I wasn’t impressed with Agamemnon (Brian Cox).

Fortunately, I’ve never read the Iliad, so I wasn’t burdoned with knowing the inaccuracies in the movie. I quite liked the story, though some of the battle scenes could have been shortened. It was interesting that the director/writer/whoever chose to write the influence of the gods out. There is no golden apple. Achilles’ mom is not a sea nymph. Achiles dies from several arrows to his chest (though he pulls those out, leaving one in his heel).

Good, fun, summer movie.