new cook book!

I check out this book from the library about two weeks ago:

and all the recipes we've tried have been excellent.  So excellent in fact, we bought it!  I highly recommend the onion soup, the cheese spread ideas, the rice pudding.  We've had a few others, and they've been good too.  To boot, the recipes have all been quite quick and easy, simple, with a few ingredients.

I'll be expecting a check for my advertising work, Mr. Bittman.

ISI cam

I've got a web cam grabbing images once a minute and making them available for public consumption:

You can find the current image here, and a bunch of old image here.  Eventually I'll make a movie out of them.

Briefly, what that big metal shiny thing at the right is:

1. active (like with actuators and stuff) seismic isolation platform
2. made out of aluminum
3. weighs about 5000 pounds
4. contains more than 1000 helicoils, all put in by hand (a couple of hundred by yours truly).
   what that means is that all the little holes you see are tapped into the aluminum, but then a small hard steel insert is wound in.  This is what the screw or bolt will bite into, instead of damaging the soft aluminum body.
5. will support some optics inside the vacuum system soon.

MdDS is gone

It went on Saturday, but I wasn't totally sure until today.  Yay!

smirking, a lot

I've found myself laughing to myself several times over the last three days about this.  Warning: juvenile humor and some foul language.  Also, it helps if you know what Twitter is.

MDDS: Mal de Debarquement Syndrome

Apparently I have Mal de Debarquement Syndrom (MDDS).  This is self-limiting, which means the dizziness should go away on it's own after some time (days to months).  I'm hoping for the former, and to encourage that, I have some exercises to do: mostly looking around quickly, or tracking things.  I'll keep you posted.

am I on a boat?

I feel like I'm on a boat.

Since getting back yesterday, I have a slight, subtle, wobbly feeling.  Every few steps, the floor won't be quite in the right place.  Or, after a while sitting in front of the computer, I feel like my head is turn a little all by itself.  If I were a cartoon, I would probably have little circles around my head.

If it keeps up tomorrow, I'm calling my doctor.

Onion Soup

I made onion soup from Mark Bittman's How to Cook everything Vegetarian last night.  It was good last night, I had never made or had onion soup before.  The soup was even better after sitting in the fridge overnight and re-warmed for lunch today!  It's like a revelation- really good!  The hardest part was slicing the onions.  If you need to make a soup that is easy and full of flavor, make this one!  Unfortunately I don't have a link to the actual recipe.  I checked this book out from my local library though.

coffee review compendium

Note: this entry will be updated. This list is ordered from best to worst.

The Best

1. Pete's: Major Dickason's Blend: very good
2. Starbucks: Ubora Blend: very good
3. Raven's Brew: Three Peckered Billy Goat: good.

Middle Grounds

1. Starbucks: Espresso blend: okay.
2. Starbucks: Pike's Place Roast: a little bitter.
3. Daily Grind: plain, but nostalgiac.
   
4. Tully's: House Blend: weak.
5. McDonalds Premium Roast: watery.

The Rest

coffee review: McDonald's Premium Roast

Summary Comment: watered down.

Specific review info:
really weak in the flavor department. Not too hot, so I could drink it right away. It was not overly bitter which was nice, just not much flavor.

Specific brew info:
This was a commercially brewed cup bought in Hood River, Oregon. Additions included one packet of plain white sugar and one tub of "coffee cream".

last day and trip home (bonus day!)

Sunday was our last day in Syracuse. Our flight left at 3:30 in the afternoon, so we pretty much had a full day to mess around. Lunch and coffee with Eiichi, we really had to drive around to find a place open on Sunday morning! That was kind of a surprise.

Now, some highlights from the return voyage:

• due to a canceled flight prior flight, we were selected to change travel arrangements. In the end it didn't mean much- we flew to JFK instead of Atlanta, and then nonstop to Portland.
• The Delta Connections pilot from SYR to JFK was kind of a "race car driver"- taking the corners (on the ground) kind of fast compared to other pilots, and accelerating out of the turn at take off. Not scary, just unusual.
• Departing from JFK we experienced some "congestion", there were quite a number of planes queued up to leave the terminal. So many in fact that we couldn't back up. While taxiing around the airport I could see about 6 planes in front of us at one point. Later the pilot announced that we were number eight in line for departure! In the end we were only 20 minutes late (the really flew to get us home) from our original landing time. This would have been over an hour from our earlier itinerary, except that plane was delayed too and arrived at the same time as we did!
• Our checked bag took the Atlanta route.
• When we landed in Portland it felt like 2 AM!
• We got in the car at about 6:30 AM pacific time, which felt like 9:30 AM, but we still only got about 5 hours of sleep.
• On I-84, we saw two interesting things: an entire box car (for rail) laying on its side on a flat bed truck; a pickup truck with the bed full of wagon wheels, some of them looking really old!
• It took us almost two days to get all the way home. Still, I find it utterly amazing: we flew across the entire country!

Forgot to mention above: we were upgraded to Business class (first class? we were in row 1) for the 6 hour flight from JFK to PDX. This got us dinner (good for a plane, I would say) and complimentary movies/games on the in flight monitors. I watched two movies which I'll sum up:

1. There will be blood: gruesome. It was very well composed, but due to the subject matter, I'm not sure I enjoyed it.
2. National Treasure 2: dumbest plot ever. I expected this. The first one was better, but it was okay- if your stuck on a plane for six hours.
   

heading home

we're in Syracuse airport waiting to board delta flight 4371 at 3:30 eastern bound for Atlanta. Our flight to PDX is delta 669, but we aren't seated on it yet- I'll update you on that after we check in. Presumably we'll be on it.

Syracuse, Day 4

Most of today was spent looking at a couple of apartments. See the map. We did manage to get a little lost this time. We missed the turn to the airport off I-90. We were trying to check in for our flight, but you can only do the 24-hours-a-head-of-time-thing on line.

The three apartments we saw:

1. labeled B, Grant Village Apartments. It's in a run down neighborhood. Heat is included though.
2. labeled D, Covered Bridge Apartments, because it has a covered bridge. The 1 room apartments are down stairs with the windows buried under snow in winter. Also, it has a sliding door in the shower.
3. labeled E, Grenadier Village, located on the Seneca River. Very nice and also the most expensive of the three we saw.
   

We ate at The Retreat in Liverpool, labeled C. It was nice, and we beat the rush, just barely! The food was good, and the service pretty prompt.

mobile blogging

I'm such a nerd... I can blog from my mobile phone.

Syracuse, Day 3

I'll try to keep it a little shorter than yesterday's summary. A few bullets:

• attended the Syracuse GWG meeting this morning, which lasted about 2 1/2 hours.
  a couple of things I found out aboout:
  - the Einstein@Home home team, SUGWG has moved up 2,000 spots in the rankings since adding the SUGAR cluster.
  - how to estimate the coincident rate for glitches from a couple of channels (bad sentence summary).
  - global warming is going to be very bad, a summary statement from the APS meeting this week in St. Louis.
  - of course, more stuff.
• had lunch with that group. Stephanie really got along well with Peter! That made me happpy.
• A road tour around Onandoga Lake to see what the neighborhoods were like (thanks Josh!).
  - I found out what New Yorks obsession is with the word "Empire": when people first moved here, they stated that the area that would become the state of New York had everything necessary for an empire.

After that, Stephanie and I headed off to find some quiet time at the hotel.

Also, I determined that the right bank is probably HSBC, it has branches both here and in back home. If anyone knows anything about this bank, please let me know!

about

This blog is going to serve a couple of purposes.

1. update the family on what I am doing, since we don't live too close together, and I'm about to move even further away.
2. an outlet for some of my nerdy tendencies that should be public. I've been putting some of this stuff on my lab blog, but it really ought to be shared.
   

A few things will be avoided, mostly because they tend to make me want to not write. One is context. I find putting in the back story for a post usually kills it, so I won't be doing that. If you need context, post a comment or shoot an email.

Similarly, I'll try mainly to just write stuff that I think you'll find interesting and that I find interesting. I might not do the best with grammar, punctuation and spelling, but I will use the spell checker. You will essentially be reading the rough draft.

two photos

The first picture is of the Quad. As you can see, they have rolled in the special weather for visiting students. The sky is blue, there is no snow, and there are a lot of people on the grass. Aparently we are 20 degrees F above average today.

The second pictures is inside the geology building (I know, random) which has an interesting piece of art on the wall, and several casts of fossils along the right. It also has some very large windows, which the physics building does not have.

Syracuse, Day 2

This was the first full day. It started off quite early by pacific time standards but didn't feel that way. I dropped Steph off at the Carousel Center, a giant mall. They happen to be working on it right now so there was a lot of construction going on.

I found my way to campus by feel, after reading how to get to my final destination, the Quad 4 VIP parking. Getting to the lot went pretty smoothly. I walked passed the Quad (which was filling up with people) and headed for the Physics building. Inside I didn't immediately find the people I was looking for because the floor plan was a little odd. On the first floor there is a lecture hall, but on the second floor there is another hall way and more offices- it is hidden behind the free standing wall with the stairs and the elevator.

Once in there I chatted with the people I knew, and was introduced to a few new faces. Then I got a piece of good news. I've been upgraded from a TA to a RA! I'm pretty excited about this because it means I'll be able to keep working on LIGO from the start. I'm not sure how hard exactly, because I need to get the classes taken care of too.

After this I had a 'grad student's lunch'. Six of us, grad students only, went to King David's restaurant. It was an okay place, I think you just have to know what to order.

Next up was a little bit of work- the post-doc and I took the eLIGO telecon. Then it was back to the Carousel Center to pick up Steph and head back to the hotel for some down time.

Dinner is at 6:45 with two professors, the post-doc, and a friend of mine, one of the senior grad students.

getting "lost" in NY

We tried our hardest, but didn't actually get lost. Navigating by intuition, we did this:

View Larger Map

We'll try harder tomorrow, adding destinations, splitting up, etc.

writing from Syracuse

We made it!  The trip was mostly uneventful.  Some high lights:

1. landing at Atlanta was the "droppy-est" that either of us had ever experienced.
2. barely had time to get any food after landing and before boarding the hopper to SYR.
3. Although the Syracuse airport is much larger than our native Pasco, about 4 times, I would say, it is just a sleepy.
4. The necessary toll to get from the airport to the hotel was 20¢!
5. This place is very flat.

There are a couple other things, but I'll save them for later.  Gotta make sure I have something write about!

boarding planes to Atlanta

I'm so glad PDX has free wi-fi.  One hiccup at the security gate: I forgot to unpack my leatherman.  The nice man helped me mail it to myself.  Very friendly guy.  No other problems so far.

boarding planes to Atlanta

I'm so glad PDX has free wi-fi. One hiccup at the security gate: I forgot to unpack my leatherman. The nice man helped me mail it to myself. Very friendly guy. No other problems so far.

looming departure

We'll be getting on the road in about 30 minutes, I hope. This is about an hour behind schedule, if you ask me, which I find frustrating. I would like to be in Portland by 9, but that isn't possible now. Even getting there by 10pm is unlikely.

two friends

two friends are moving to Logan, UT later this week. I don't think it will be the last we'll see of them. M has gotten a job at Space Dynamics Laboratory, which is cool. J is going to be a mommy, which is exciting. They will be missed.

Mail Trends

Have you ever wondered about your email habits? I have, but not enough to do anything about it. Well, the boys of Google solved that little problem with Mail Trends. It's a python script that will analyze your mail data, as long as you have access to it via IMAP. I was able to install it (and the one other package that it depends on) very easily. Cool.

I was pleased to learn that I do, in fact, email my number 1 the most!

coffee review: Starbucks Espresso Roast

Overall Comment: not great, a little tangy.

Specific review info:

1. a little weak in the flavor department- I'll try 4 scoops tomorrow.
2. after taste is tangy/acidic. Not unpleasent, but not what I'm looking for either.
3. at least it doesn't taste burnt.
   

Specific brew info info:

• Water temp was just below boiling- right after bubble stop.
• ground with whack-a-bean for a 10 count.
• 3.5 scoops for 14 oz filtered tap water.
• paper cone filter.
  
• additions: 2 t sugar, 2 oz 2% milk.
• allowed to cool for approximately 1 hour in Starbucks thermal mug #2.

UPDATE: much better with four scoops. 20080422.

the latest

On Tuesday we drive to Portland to catch a plane to Syracuse, NY. We'll be there for about 3 1/2 days, which isn't much time. I hoping to see a couple of apartments, see the campus, get a road tour of the area, meet my new colleagues, and find out where good coffee and food is. We'll see how it goes.

another SP ride

(maps.google link). After three rides, the trail system is really starting to fill in!