Resonant Constellation

For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, view this video:
Captain Picard Day

Now, a bunch of geeks have computed from the stardate in the episode that Captain Picard Day actually takes place on June 16, meaning yesterday! This is yet another amazing day in my ever-growing list of geek holidays. To recap:

• Talk Like a Pirate Day (September 19th)-also a religious holiday for the church of the FSM.
• Pi Day (March 14th) (not to be confused with pi approximation day, July 22)-also Einstien’s Birthday AND also Steak and a BJ day.
• Gravmas/Apple Day (December 25th)-Newton’s Birthday (in the pre-Gregorian calendar)
• Towel Day (May 25th)- Always have your towel, so people know what a hoopy frood you are.
• Star Wars Day (May 4th)-May the Fourth be with you.
• Hobbit Day (September 22nd)-Frodo and Bilbo’s Birthday
• Evolution Day (November 24th)-Date of publication of On the Origin of Species
• National Dark Sky Week (First Week in April with a New Moon)
• International Dadaism Month (in true Dadaist tradition: 4 February, 28 March, 1 April, 15 July, 2 August, 7 August, 16 August, 26 August, 18 September, 22 September, 1 October, 17 October, and 26 October)
• And now, Captain Picard Day (June 16th)

I suggest now that we set up a Commander Riker Day, as in the TNG clip. This day will be exactly one month after Captain Picard Day, July 16th. I know it’s a little late to celebrate Captain Picard Day, but here’s some youtube links to make up for that:
THAT Jean-Luc Picard
PicArt
Bridge Buffoonery
Goodnight, Sweet BEEP
Picard Sings
The Picard Song
Picard Goes Crazy
Picard’s Night at the Roxbury–Be warned, this last is incredibly surreal.
There are so many more at youtube, I recommend them all.

I ride the bus often-especially during the hot Tucson summer. This means that I am eminently familiar with the ability of public transportation to completely not work. This is especially frustrating when I’ve gotten up early in the morning to get to work and discover that the bus driver has decided that even though he is already seven minutes early, he will just blow right by my stop. This usually leaves me waiting at the stop, not knowing if I actually missed the bus, or if it is incredibly late (I have known busses to be as late as 17 minutes before). Usually, it is the former. This gives me a lot of time to become familiar with my surroundings, and it was thus that one day last year I noticed a few words stenciled into the concrete on the sidewalk in front of my usual stop:

Life
Could
Be
Worse

I have found this sage advice oddly comforting at times when I am unbelievably pissed off at Tucson public transportation. If only somebody had thought to write that on the chalkboards in the physics classrooms, maybe life wouldn’t seem so bad.

Well, it could be worse.

My most recent adventure has just concluded. It all began on Thursday morning, when I received a letter on my door from my landlord asking to confirm that I was indeed moving out of my apartment on the 31st. As this was not supposed to be the case, I quickly went to the office to correct this misconception. I found out in due time that my landlord had mixed me up with another tenant (the guys living below me) and that she had already scheduled a married couple with a baby on the way within the next week or so to move in right after me. This precipitated four days of me running around like a chicken with my head cut off.

I first asked my new landlords if the apartment could be ready in time-thankfully it could. Next, I had to get a cashier’s check from the bank to pay the first month’s rent and move-in-expenses. This involved me walking nearly two miles before giving up and calling a friend Trevor to come pick me up in his car. Trevor was the first person this weekend to save me from my own stupidity. When this idiocy was over, I began packing and moving my things.

On Saturday, I began the day by moving one box at a time, with a ton of stuff in my large backpacking pack. Since the apartments are close to each other, this was not too hard, but it does take a lot of time this way. My friend Chris arrived in due time, however, and brought his truck, which considerably speeded things up. By the end of the day, we had about 2/3 of my stuff moved and all of the heavy things done.

I awoke early Sunday morning to go pack and prepare for Chris’ arrival at 10. We spent an hour moving things, but then had to leave for an appointment. Chris was back by 5, and we made a few last trips for the big stuff, and Chris left by 6. At this point, it was back to me lugging my stuff by myself. There turned out to be a lot more stuff than I had thought, so I took a break at 10 to order a pizza. This was finished by 10:40, and I resumed my lugging.

At this time, the stars were out, and I could look up at the familiar constellations as I hulked things back and forth. This was a great comfort to me for some reason, and it kept me going for quite a while. I finally brought in the last things just before midnight. I then took a shower.

So I’m done. Now what do I do? What is that thing you do when you’re exhausted and feel like you can’t walk another step? Go get more boxes?

Oh, yeah, sleep.

Read about his “book” by clicking on this link.

That is all.

I went back to New Mexico for a weekend and a bit, and as per usual during the summer. Also as per usual, I had a fit of allergy attacks. It seems that New Mexico is a breeding ground for every type of pollen that ever bloomed, and then some. Most times, I recover in a couple of days, but I spend those days completely miserable and unable to function. This time was incalculably worse, as my entire six day stay at home was effected this time. At the time of this writing, back in Tucson, I am still entirely miserable. The pilot on my plane flight was none-too skilled with the cabin pressure controls, and as a result, my right ear has completely (and painfully) blocked up. To make it worse, my sinuses are still suffering from extreme spasms. I have resolved that I am never going back to New Mexico during the summer, no matter how much I love the green chile, I am inevitably miserable for a lot longer than I can enjoy the spicy food.

Bleh.

Well, it’s finally over, and aside from a slight headache and severe sleep deprivation, I’m not too much worse for the wear. Just before the semester ended, however, fun things began to occur. The first was that my name is now on a submitted paper, which you can find here. It is not yet accepted to the journal, and we’re still waiting on referee’s notes.

Also on the research front, I have a new job, researching the stellar population around the light-echo source V838 Monocerotis. This is a really interesting star, and my research is aimed at determining if it is part of a young or old population. This could tell us a lot about how the outburst event occurred, and even what it was.

This weekend, I have been in Phoenix at the invite of my friend Pete (you can find his website to the right in my links) attending a blog bash and the NRA Convention. I went to this event as a member of the media and as such, felt obligated to take pictures, investigate things, and write interesting things down. In all honesty, I did feel a bit out of place at this convention (Star Trek conventions are much more my speed). There were quite a few people there, and the overwhelming majority of them live by the de-facto catchphrase of the convention: “Guns, Family, and God.” This is obviously not the usual crowd that I hang out with, hence the slight uncomfortableness, but we did meet up with several other bloggers who are anything but stereotypical NRA members. In fact, I believe I was the only non-member in that group. I channeled my inner journalism nerd (high-school paper) and wrote down many fascinating observations. I’m still mulling over these, but expect to see my reaction here within a couple of days.

Tomorrow, before leaving Phoenix, we plan to visit Luthier Walt Kuthman of Gypsy mandolins. I’ve been in contact with Walt about the possibility of him building me a custom Bouzouki. At the moment, this seems unlikely due to financial concerns, but I’m still hopeful about the future. Also musically, I just got a new CD by 2Duos, which includes Claire Mann and Aaron Jones, whose album I reviewed in one of the first posts for this blog. I may post a review of this new album here when I get home.

Every summer, I have a project-this is a tradition I have going back at least…well, about three years. This project invariably involves building something. For example, last summer one of my projects (there were two) was building and painstakingly painting a model of the U.S.S. Reliant, Khan’s ship from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. My other was constructing a custom prop-lightsaber. These were very entertaining. At the moment, I am considering several things for this summer’s project (or projects). First, I have designed a system for focusing many laser rays into a single beam. This would involve wiring the lasers to power supplies, and making or otherwise obtaining an optics system. So far, this is my best idea, but if anybody out there has any suggestions, I’d be glad to hear them.

The best thing, of course, is that I survived another year, becoming one of the approximately 6 astronomy majors out of 100 beginning in our freshman class to make it to senior year on schedule. 6% made it. I’m going to need this summer to recuperate a bit.

Hello everybody out there. It is finals time, which means that there is a multitude of tests, papers, and miscellaneous assignments for me to complete. I’ll be on hiatus here until all of this insanity is over in a week or two. See you then.

It is the weekend, so I offer you a drawing I made of The Winslow.

If you’re wondering just what The Winslow is, follow the link above the picture.

Recently on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart showed a series of clips on a Senatorial practice called “Reconciliation,” wherein the minority party in looses the ability to filibuster-effectively their only power. Now, I don’t always agree with the Republican party (read: I almost always disagree with them…almost), but I certainly don’t want the Democrats to run things with carte blanche (I also disagree with them with a high frequency). As long as the two parties are of equal power and fighting each other as is their wont, hopefully only the truly valuable and necessary measures can make it through with bipartisan support. When one takes over, you can bet shenanigans will be afoot.

The particular shenanigans afoot today had to do with a budget-related bill that the dems are shoving through the Senate with this reconciliation bullshit. A Republican Senator rightly stood up and called the Democrats on this idiocy. Then Jon Stewart showed the exact same man making a speech four years ago defending this deplorable practice when the situations were exactly reversed (the Republicans were ramming through a budget-related bill with majority rule). This man went so far as to say “What’s wrong with majority rule?” My mind: it boggles.

And then, Stewart brought out the best (and worst) part of it all. He showed Nancy Pelosi defending the Democrat’s use of reconciliation, using many of the same terms as the Republican Senator did four years ago. Then he showed her four years ago condemning reconciliation. I did not think it was possible for me to be more disgusted with “our” political parties-I didn’t know whether to laugh or vomit. I found out it’s actually possible to do both at the same time.

So, the answer to my question: Are politicians giant douches or turd sandwiches? Yes.

Aw, crap.

Okay, so here’s the situation: today I was in E&M class, sitting in the back (I had biked in and was almost late, so I took the first seat available). My glasses were smudged a little, so I took them off to clean on the bottom of my shirt-this is a commonplace occurrence. While cleaning, I heard a popping sound, and the glass/plastic piece that actually corrects my vision clattered onto the floor. This was a little surprising, as it had never happened before, but I was theoretically prepared for it (I knew it could happen and was not overly alarmed).

I quickly retrieved the wayward lens, but noticed that the small bolt that holds the frame together and the lens in the frame had disappeared. As far as I can tell, this tiny screw evaporated into thin air-I never found it. The puzzling part of all of this is that the threads in the tiny little hole aren’t stripped at all and the whole assembly is otherwise intact (sans tiny screw). Now, I say I never found the screw, but it could have been right under my nose-I believe it to be too small to be perceived by human vision (yes, it is smaller than the wavelength of optical electromagnetic radiation). I’d need to requisition the department’s scanning electron microscope to find it.

Okay I thought, I’ll just wait until I get home to repair it and go today without glasses. My prescription isn’t that intense, I can still see. Sure, past me, you can see. Here’s what you can see: the people in the rows around you, the seats, and senseless blue smudges on the whiteboard that must have been equations. Squinting, focusing hard on the distant board, I gave myself a headache and eventually felt nauseous. Awesome.

Now, a whole day passes like this, including other symptoms, such as my right eye beginning to twitch again (this was a weird tick I developed before I had glasses when I needed them). This is so incredibly annoying, I do not have words to describe it. By the time I ride my bike home, I am really ready to break out the eyeglass repair kit. After about a minute of searching, I locate the tiny kit with its tiny screwdriver, and its even tinier screw (remember:scanning electron microscope) and get to work (this is difficult, as I can’t see that well without the glasses…which I am repairing).

Twenty truly excruciating minutes later, I conclude that the tiny screw included in the kit is somehow not tiny enough to fit through the indescribably tiny hole in the actual glasses. I gave up this line of attack.

Soon, though, a new idea struck me: solder! I have a kickass soldering iron, which I’ve been itching to use, so I broke it out and got to work. Another twenty excruciating minutes later, I again concluded that this is a failed effort. The solder, even with a resin core, just wouldn’t stick. I realized halfway through this process that it’s kind of irreversible, so maybe it’s not so bad that it didn’t work.

So that’s where I stand now: not quite blind, but headache-ridden, and a little blurry. Anybody out there have good ideas to help me out?