The Joys of Summer

It's been a relatively quiet week in Tucson. No favorite authors met, no cougars sighted.

I went to a lovely soiree on Saturday night where I met some wonderful people and -shockingly - had quite a bit of wine.

I saw "The Dark Knight", part of which was filmed in my office building last summer. It was neat to see how they turned our very uninteresting lobby into Bruce Wayne's penthouse.

Mainly I've been passing the time furiously scratching the mosquito bites that cover my legs. I have thrown away the herbal organic 'bug repellent', and have purchased the product with the highest level of DEET allowed under federal regulations. Ah, summer.

Just Because You're in a Bar, Doesn't Mean You Have to Drink

Since I've been in Tucson, my liver has born the brunt of my socializing. Meeting people and being social usually means being in a bar or restaurant. Wednesday night wine tasting, Thursday night cocktails and pool. Last weekend's birthday pub crawl. It's a lot of liquor-related activity, is what I'm saying.

Friday night I went to a happy hour and then to live music. I stayed strong and resisted the vino and spirits, and I think my liver may have breathed a sigh of relief. Or maybe that was a withdrawal pain. One or the other.

On Saturday night I went to my first baseball game of the season. Tucson is home to the AAA minor league Tucson Sidewinders. They have a lovely ball park on the south side of town, it's where the Diamondbacks (and until recently, the Chicago White Sox) hold their spring training. It's a nice modern stadium, easy to get to, and the priciest tickets are $9. A very nice night out. Too bad the Sidewinders are moving to Reno next season. I don't have pictures of the stadium. I was with a new friend and didn't want to ask him to hold my purse while I took some photos.

The game was entertaining, despite the Sidewinders loss. Lots of balls flying down the third base line kept us on our toes. A weirdly high number of broken bats. And, perhaps some of the funniest hecklers I've heard. They taunted the third base coach and infield ref (is that a thing? I may be making that position up) for the last few innings. College students + beer usually is annoying, but these guys were really pretty funny.

After staying on the wagon for all of Friday, many drinks were consumed on Saturday. I mean, how does one not have beer when at a ball game? That's practically un-American.

Good Times in Tucson

This was a pretty great week in Tucson. While meeting David Sedaris on Wednesday was certainly a highlight, there were several other great experiences last week:

Wednesday night I had lots of wine and a wonderful dinner at 58 degrees and holding. Heading back there tonight for a French Reds wine tasting, in celebration of Bastille Day. Vive la french wine!

For the 4th of July, I headed to a bbq in Oro Valley. At this lovely gathering, I met two more people from NJ and two more from Chicago. This whole NJ/Chicago thing is getting to be surreal.

On Sunday, I spent the day celebrating Ed's big 4-0. I knew there would be cocktails involved, but when we started with breakfast at 9:30 am so we could carbo-load for the day, I knew we were in trouble. Getting to the bars before they opened, also ominous. But, we had a lot of fun, and I stayed relatively upright for the duration. Our birthday celebration group: three New Jersyans, one Chicagoan, and just to mix it up, a Michigander.

Peeps In Space

Not all space exploration is being done by NASA.

Video of the mission and the story behind the experiment. I like how its sugary coating glistens in the sunlight.

Slide show of training and mission prep. Genius.

Who says science is boring?

I just met David Sedaris!

David Sedaris is on a book tour for his latest book, When You Are Engulfed in Flames. Today he was in Tucson reading at the University Bookstore. I got to the bookstore early. Fortunately, so did he. Instead of signing books at 6:00 after the reading, he started signing them at 3:30. By 4:30 my book was signed, which is fantastic as there were hundreds of suckers who showed up late who will now be in line for hours.

I told him that I'd seen him at the Chicago Theatre a few times, and he asked me what I was doing in Tucson. I told him the story, and then he looked at me and said he was concerned - was I sleeping in my car? how was I paying for gas? I assured him all was fine. He signed my book, "To Susan, my free spirited friend." I love him now more than I did before.

If you ever have a chance to see him read, take it. His books are great, but his readings are superb. The intonations, the dramatic effect, the facial expressions, it really is amazing. The first time I saw him read in Chicago, I laughed so hard I hyperventilated. It got so bad, things literally started to go black and I realized I was about to pass out. I had to stop listening so I didn't require medical attention; it wasn't the embarrassment of having the paramedics show up in the middle of the theatre that was my concern; it was that I didn't want to miss the rest of the reading. Seriously, he's THAT good. Go see him when he's in your town.

Hello, Monsoon Season

Last night I was working and noticed it was nearly pitch black outside. Strange, I hadn't realized it was so late. Looked at my watch: 6:15. Uh-oh. The skies were a purple-y black, and it was preternaturally quiet outside. There was a little lightning, some thunder, and some pretty normal rain. Kind of disappointing.

Today, the Monsoon began in earnest.

Around 2:30 it started to *pour*. It's coming down in sheets, streets are flooding. And the thunder, omg, the thunder!! It's pretty neat, but I'm glad I'm inside.

You know who's happy to be outside in this? The Tortoises! They are all out there, stumbling around like drunk babies, pleased as punch. I had no idea they loved the rain so much. Well, I guess if I lived in a dusty dank burrow, I would love to play in the rain too.

To go boldly, where no man has gone before...

NASA is accepting applications for astronauts. Who knew it was an open application process? I figured it was an 'invite only' kind of a thing.

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/jun/HQ_08158_astronaut_deadline.html

(Yes, I know it's "to boldly go", but I refuse to split an infinitive.)

My new favorite place in Tucson - Mt. Lemmon

It seems that every third person asks me if I've been to Mt. Lemmon yet. Mark has only been here a week and he's been three times, but I didn't get up there until today.

It is my new favorite place. The Coronado National Forest covers the mountain, so it's covered with pine trees and lush hiking trails. It snows up there in the winter; the southern-most ski resort is on Mt. Lemmon. With an elevation of 9,000 feet, it is significantly cooler than Tucson. When I got home this afternoon, it was 107; when I left Mt. Lemmon, it was 76. I will be heading back soon.

Of course, since I was in a new terrain, there was a new predatory threat: bears. There were actually bear crossing signs along the road. Oy.

There is a residential area on Mt. Lemmon called Summerhaven. In 2003, a forest fire destroyed more than half the town. The town is rebuilding; it's strange to see new construction amid the burned pines.

This sign was in a store in Summerhaven, which I think is great motivation for parents to mind their kids:

I went to the top of the mountain to have lunch at the ski resort. It was supremely serene.

Kitt Peak National Observatory

Friday afternoon Mark, Heather and I headed west to Kitt Peak National Observatory, for their Nightly Observation Program. While it was 106+ in Tucson, the air atop the peak was *much* cooler, such a welcome relief. 7k feet up, it was probably in the 80s.

We started off the program with a boxed dinner at 6:00 pm. Mark couldn't figure out why they bothered feeding us...this would become obvious later.

The program started with an overview of the National Science Foundation, and AURA, then details about Kitt Peak. There are 27+ telescopes on Kitt Peak, run and shared by several universities. Here are a few different telescopes and radioscopes and other science-y things:



There is one university of note that is involved with the research - check out the one on the bottom right of the list:
Oh, yeah. Go Terriers!

They then taught us how to read star charts, which was great. We then went outside to watch the sunset, which was very pretty. It was SUPER hazy; mostly due to wind pulling particulate into the air, and smoke from distant wildfires. It made for a vibrant red sunset, though:

After sunset, we headed to the telescope to start looking at stars, galaxies, and planets. It was SO cool. Really, no way to describe it. There are lots of great photos taken at the observatory here. It is so hard to wrap my head around the enormity of space. We were looking at things that were 3,000 light years away. Each light year is 6 *trillion* miles, so those stars were 3,000 x 6,000,000,000,000 miles away. What? And yet, we were able to see them through one of the baby telescopes on the mountain. How is that even possible?

We went inside for a bit to learn about star gazing with binoculars. When we went back outside, the sky was pitch black, and the stars were *amazing*. It was stunning. It was surprising to see how much you can observe with just binoculars. The majesty of it was somewhat shattered when our instructor Kevin said he was going to scan the area for rattlesnakes, "just to be safe." Yeeesh.

We then went back to the telescope to look at more celestial objects. Kevin checked his watch and said "oh, still plenty of time," which was when I noticed it was 10 pm and we weren't close to being done. That's why they needed to feed us, to keep our blood sugar up so we didn't pass out in the telescope buildings.

We wrapped up about 10:30. As most of the telescopes are conducting research each evening, the procedure for descending the mountain is to form a caravan behind a lead van, and drive down the first two miles with all headlights off. The lights from the cars would impact the research, which would be very bad. Before we took off, they reminded us to watch out for animals - including wild cows (?) - as they like the cooler mountain air. Lights off, large animals, windy roads. Bon Voyage!

Yup, Classiest House on the Block

The house had a high pressure toilet that used little water, which is good for a desert location. Except when it stops working, and they don't make replacement parts. I walked past the window when the plumber was part way through the replacement process, and had to share the image.

Another image I am compelled to share: this sign on the side of a bus encouraging people not to pollute:

I am missing something, right? Right??

"Be Nice to Me, I Gave Blood Today!"

You should be nice to me everyday, however the YMCA sponsored a blood drive today, so off I went.

A few facts about blood donation:

• 60% of the population is eligible to donate blood. Only 5% of people donate.

• Every 2 seconds, someone in the US needs a blood transfusion

• While there is a pretty constant shortage, summer is the hardest time to find blood donors. Summer is when demand for blood is the highest.

• Last summer elective surgeries in Arizona were cancelled because of a blood shortage. I'm sure they were cancelled in other states too.

• If everyone who is eligible to donate did so just once a year, there would never be a blood shortage.

To find a blood drive or donation site near you, click here . After you give, you get cookies and juice. I believe that's what's called a 'win-win'. Or possibly a 'win-win-win'.


If you're really feeling generous, consider Apheresis donation. It takes about 2 hours, but up to 5 recipients benefit from a single donation. The platelets immediately go to cancer patients and bone marrow donation recipients to boost their immune systems. After I did apheresis donation, I received a letter from one of the recipients telling me that my platelets allowed her to spend Thanksgiving out of the hospital with her family. *sniff*

"Be a hero - give blood."

"Mars or Bust!"...Gonna have to go with "Bust"

Well, the tour of the Science Operation Center...a pretty big let down. No big rooms filled with computers and harried scientists. No giant screens with maps and images. There was an auditorium where we saw a 40 minute presentation on the project, and an area with several displays with information about planets and the mission.

Exciting, isn't it?!

Maybe it's just a few scientists with laptops running the whole thing, which while amazing in and of itself, doesn't have a whole lot of pizazz to it.

Oh, there was a 'twin' of the Phoenix Lander which the scientists use to practice commands, which was neat. You can see the arm extended as they were practicing digging.




Perhaps if I hadn't already seen most of this stuff during the Landing Weekend, I would have been pretty impressed. But, I did, so I wasn't.


Oh well. Not every nerd adventure can be magical.

When did skorts come back?

Have been doing some shopping and nearly every store I visited featured skorts. Huh.

The last week or so, I've been doing less exploring of the Tucson sites, and more exploring of the Tucson social scene. I joined several MeetUp groups. Y'all know about www.meetup.com, right? I highly recommend it, it's a great way to meet people and do new things. Last week I went to a wine meetup, a dive bar meet up, and a women's brunch meet up. All were a lot of fun, I've met some really nice people.

Remember how I said nearly everyone I meet is from NJ or Chicago? It's becoming my favorite bar game. In the past week I've met people from Fort Lee, Union, Princeton, Parsippany, Staten Island (close enough), Toms River, Hyde Park, Lakeview, Romeoville, and Naperville. It's a bit ridiculous.

Tomorrow I have an extra nerdy field trip planned: I'm taking a tour of the Phoenix Mars Lander Science Operation Center. I know!!

I love the internet

The Phoenix Lander has a Twitter account. It responds to questions and posts updates...in the first person. Nerds, gotta love them.

http://twitter.com/MarsPhoenix

The Scripps National Spelling Bee

Did y'all watch on Friday night? The preliminary rounds are broadcast on ESPN Ocho (I love that ESPN will air pretty much any competition), but the final round was a big deal- it was on ABC. The best part of the ABC coverage - the tag team of commentators doing play by play of a spelling bee. It was honestly like Fred Willard in Best in Show:

Commentator who knew something about spelling: Well, the second syllable is where he might get tripped up, he could go with an 'a' instead of an 'e'.

Judge: The word is 'xyze2ghs'
Tom Bergeron: dear god

Field Correspondent who usually covers MLB and NCAA sports: What was going through your mind when you hit the second syllable? When did you know you had it?

I'm always struck by how well those kids hold themselves together. They've spent years preparing for this, are clearly stressed out by it, and then when they are out, they have to *sit on the stage* watching the other participants continue. I would not be so gracious in defeat.

If you haven't seen it already, highly recommend Spellbound, a documentary about The Bee. I know what you're thinking; documentary + spelling = zzzz. Honestly, I was on the edge of my seat when I saw it, as were the people in the theatre. When a kid would miss a world, people would audibly gasp and sigh. There was cheering when they got the words right. It's a great movie, put it in your NetFlix queue.

Sign that not everyone is all that interested in spelling: At the nail salon this weekend, one of the technicians asked the group, "how do you spell 'follow'?"