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'?"

Quite Memorable Memorial Day Hiking

It was a gorgeous Memorial Day Weekend here, high 80s, deep blue skies, unending sunshine. Perfect conditions for a hike.

I headed to the east side of Saguaro National Park at David's suggestion. It was quite different from the west side of the park, which I saw in March. Fewer saguaros, but more vegetation. And LOTS of hiking trails. Spoke with a Ranger who recommended a few good options, then did the scenic drive to the Mica View Trail.

A lovely walk on a glorious day. The saguaro are starting to flower, which is very pretty. There were lots of birds, little lizards or salamanders or whatever those things are, just lovely.


A saguaro that's starting to flower, see the flowers on the ends of the, um, arms? This saguaro reminds me of a menorah.



Close up of flowers:

Think this is some sort of cholla cactus:

A flowering barrel cactus. It kind of reminds me of Cousin Itt from Addams Family.

Lovely.

Pretty.

Halfway through the hike, I came to a trail head. Posted at that trail head - but not posted where I started - was this little number:

Click on it to enlarge. Go ahead, I'll wait.

To say that I was freaked out would be an understatement. Shouldn't the Ranger have told me about the cougars?! Rule #1 to avoiding cougar attacks: don't hike alone. He knew I was hiking alone. Gah!! I turned around and hightailed it back to the car, being sure not to run in case a cougar was nearby, wouldn't want to arouse its chase instinct. Picked up a few rocks in case I needed to fling objects at an approaching cougar. Started noticing feces from a large animal on the trail, tried to not hyperventilate, made it back to the car before I really started to unwind.

So, today I joined the YMCA. I'm done with exercising in the nature until I find a hiking partner.

I should have been an Astrophysicist

Last night in Ventana Canyon was great. One of the engineers on the Mars Mission gave a great presentation on the project. He also answered many stupid questions, with great patience and grace. Such as, "which Universe is Mars in?" I wish I were kidding. He earned his paycheck, for sure.

There were also several telescopes set up. I got to see Mars (of course), and Saturn. When one of the grad students said the sky constantly changes, and Saturn looks different from week to week, I got to Nerd name-drop with, "Yeah, I was at the Lowell a few weeks ago and it looked very different". I think I may have pushed my glasses up while I was saying it.

Today was the big event. I headed to the University to find huge crowds waiting to get into the presentations. Before I got in line, I took a look through a telescope fitted with a solar lens and pointed at the sun. The sun...looks like a plain white ball, no flames, no shimmering. I guess it was a boring day to view it, no sunspots or solar bursts. But, it was nice to look at the sun without worrying about searing my retinas.

The Space Imagery Center was open for visitors, and we had an all access pass. "Sure, pull open those drawers, the photos from Apollo 13 are in there." A half million images, literally at our fingertips. Another time I can't believe they let the public access this stuff. It was pretty neat. A lot is viewable on line, here.

I then took a seat in the auditorium to watch a bit of the NASA Channel. That's right, I said NASA Channel. Apparently you can watch NASA if you have the right cable provider. AWE-some.

The auditorium was standing room only when Bill Boynton started his presentation. He's one of the big guys on the project, I was amazed he agreed to be with the public instead of with his teams for the big event. He didn't have a presentation prepared ("I've been a little busy"), so he spent 30 minutes answering questions. Then, we all watched together as the clock hit 4:38, and the lander theoretically landed on Mars.

Because Mars is 422,000,000 miles away, it takes some 15 minutes for data to travel to Earth. While the landing happened at 4:38, it wouldn't be until 4:53 that they would receive confirmation it was a successful landing. I only learned about the Mars Mission on Friday night; I was on the edge of my seat with knots in my stomach for those 15 minutes. I can't imagine what those who've been involved from the beginning were feeling. With each passing milestone (heat shield separation, parachute deployment), the crowd cheered. And then there'd be silence until the next piece of data came in.

Half a billion dollars, 7 years of work, a 250 ton rocket to launch it into space, and a nine-month 422 million mile journey at 74,000 miles per hour. At 4:53, confirmation of landing. The crowd erupted. There may have been some spontaneous precipitation in my ocular area. It was an amazing moment.

It's really hard to believe that something that was built in California is now sitting near the north pole of Mars. 50% of the missions to Mars have failed, so it is a real accomplishment. And, not only did it land intact, it was pretty much a perfect landing. They programmed this machine to do some stuff, launched it into space, then waited for 9 months, and it worked perfectly. Perfectly. Astounding.

The first images from the lander are up on the website. The first experiments start next week. I have no doubt that throughout Tucson, there are many drunk engineers celebrating their achievement.

Nerd Weekend: Mission to Mars, GPS Art, and Nerd Music

The University of Arizona has participated in almost every American planetary mission for a half-century and has received more NASA grants for space exploration than any other university in the nation.

The current mission to Mars is the Phoenix Mars Mission (super website, do check it out). The Phoenix lander is set to touch down on the Red Planet this Sunday at 4:38 pm Tucson time. After the landing NASA will turn over mission control to the University. This is a big deal. Huge deal.

In anticipation of the landing, Mars Mania has swept the city. I'm heading to an event tonight in Ventana Canyon to celebrate with other nerds. Tomorrow the University has several events planned to mark the milestone, including watching the landing with the scientists running the program. Very cool.

* * *

The Biggest Drawing in the World has been created by a guy in Sweden, a GPS in a briefcase, and several dozen DHL employees. Such a fantastic idea, creative and technical, with an impressive end result. The Making the Drawing video is great.

* * *

Lastly, this week I learned of a new collection of music for nerds. Old Nerdy Bastard is a collection of remix compilations, some great, some odd, some referencing Dumbledore. I particularly recommend track 17: Nerd Lust, which will exhort you to "shake your inhaler, baby!"

Finally, my timing is great!!

I arrived in Tucson late last night, exhausted from 19 hours of driving this weekend. It's lovely to be back, even if it was 102 today. Really, a dry heat is nothing like humid heat, so it wasn't unbearable. I don't even have the A/C on. No, I'm not lying.

As happy as I already was to be here, my happiness only grew when I read:

Of the cities surveyed, the cheapest price was in Tucson, Ariz., where a gallon of regular cost $3.48 on average.

Ooooh, yeah!! Given my car demands plus/premium gasoline or it doth protest with engine knocking, this pleases me greatly. Yes, my Japanese econo box has a taste for the good stuff. I shouldn't be surprised, I guess she takes after me.

Carlsbad Caverns National Park

"A picture is worth a thousand words, but an experience is worth a thousand pictures."

Ranger Barry

At some point in grade school, I did a report on the cave system at Carlsbad Caverns National Park. That really stuck with me, as going to Carlsbad is something that's been on the list. It did not disappoint. The cave system is huge, really massive. They're still discovering parts of the cave, which is astonishing since they've been exploring it for 85+ years.

I did the self-guided tour through the Big Room, which was pretty amazing. I can't really believe they let the public in there on their own, wandering about as they please. The first rule of these tours is to touch nothing, as just a single touch can destroy tens of thousands of years of growth. Given how good people are with following directions, I can't believe they actually let people into the caves unchaperoned. And, I'm astounded they let small children into the cave, as toddlers are so good at the 'no touching' thing.

After the Big Room tour, I did the guided Kings Palace tour. Ranger Barry was great, full of stories and lots of information. He kept reminding us to take it all in, to not just take pictures. And yet, though we were 950 feet underground without a signal to be had, a woman kept checking her cell phone for messages. Oh, my fellow man, I will never not be amazed by you.

At one point, they sat us down in the Queen's Room, and then turned out the lights. Talk about eerie. Couldn't see anything, and I mean anything. I had my hands right in front of my face and couldn't sense they were there. With the lights out, Ranger Barry started talking about the bugs that live in the cave. When the guy next to me bumped me, I nearly screamed. It was great though; it's probably the first (and last?) time I'll ever be in absolute darkness.

Unlike Kartchner Caverns, you can take photos in the caves. Unfortunately I still haven't figured out the night settings on the camera, so a lot of the photos turned out like this:



But, I did get a few good ones:

This is the entrance to the Big Room, you can see how some formations are right there on the path, just begging to be touched. Even I found myself wanting to touch the pretty, shiny objects. I kept hearing "my preeeciousss" in the back of my head. I did giggle when I heard someone actually say "my precious" aloud.










This formation is called the Lion Tails as it, well, looks like the tails of two lions:

This one is the Shy Elephant. Can you see the back of the baby elephant on the right?

Sadly, I could not stick around to watch the bats emerge from the cave at sunset. It's supposed to be an amazing sight. Hundreds of thousands of bats take hours to get out of the cave, and then they go eat their body weight in bugs. I was disappointed to miss it, but I had a 7 hour drive to Tucson ahead of me. I'll just have to go back, and take some of the more intense cave tours, which involve helmets and knee pads.