the greek island of Ios

a few weeks ago i met several friends on the greek island of ios. what an amazing place for a reunion!

we rented scooters to explore the remote places of the island. following the 4-wheelers on the deserted roads made it feel like a real life game of mario cart!

the sunsets and the views were incredible.

at this beautiful place i ate one of the tastiest and most memorable meals of my life.

we realized one evening when asked at a restaurant that we were a group of 12 friends from 10 different countries.

thank you friends. not sure when i'll see you again, but those were some good times!

hello babies. welcome to earth.

i attended a lovely wedding in edinburgh a few weeks ago. men wore kilts, we danced ceilidh, and several excellent quotes by kurt vonnegut were read during the humanist ceremony. here's a quote that stuck with me, followed by a few photos surrounding the event...

'Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies -

"God damn it, you've got to be kind." '

- kurt vonnegut

one last look

today is my final full day in greece before i make the long trip back to the land down under tomorrow. it has certainly been an adventurous and exhausting 6 weeks. i woke up sore today, but all i did yesterday was sit on a ferry for nine hours returning to athens from santorini island?

thanks to all old friends i caught up with and new folks i've met on this trip. it has been memorable, productive, fun, and exhausting. i should have scheduled a short holiday from my holiday, but after i return to sydney on saturday, i give a talk on monday!?! i'll think about that on the plane...

parthenon: ancient legos

i started my official holiday today - in greece! i probably wont be posting much over the next week, but i couldnt resist sharing some photos from a walk up to the acropolis of athens today.

is it just me, or does the parthenon look like it was put together with stone legos? ;)

Γειά σας!

heidelberg, germany

two weeks ago i visited the lovely city of heidelberg, germany and the max planck institute for astronomy (MPIA) located on top of a mountain overlooking heidelberg.

the little city has a very large castle!

and a big river with an old bridge to walk across.

i love the coziness of restaurants that serve german food, i just wish i would have thought to take this photo when the plate was still full with yummy spätzle and meat.

after a nice journey up the steep hill ("berg" = mountain) in a funicular, we saw some lovely views and walked the rest of the way to MPIA through a forest.

just next to the MPIA, a building is being constructed in the shape of a spiral galaxy (!!) and will host the haus der astronomie - an exciting organization dedicated to teaching astronomy to school children and adults all over the german-speaking world!

i was lucky enough to get a full tour :)

a lovely day over edinburgh

unexpectedly sunny skies for most of today!

(click to see full-size!)

ride the slide

i'm currently in garching, germany (near munich) visiting the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and the offices of the european southern observatory (ESO). across the road from these intricately-designed buildings is the local university's school of Mathematik, Physik und Informatik.

inside of this building lives a wonderful set of slides, which provide an excellent escape from the office and bit of adrenaline-inducing fun when i feel sleepy in the afternoon!

you can pick up quite a bit of speed sliding down these slick tubes, and they provide a convenient measurement system beyond the end of the slide to tell you just how far you go! the best part is that the markings along the white line say 1, then the square root of 2, then 2, etc... nerdilicious.

every building should have a slide. weeeee!

mangle with a clear conscience!

i'm currenty in cardiff, wales to give a talk at cardiff university. while exploring the city, guess what we found inside this cool building...

did you guess?

a penny smasher!!!

but not to worry... we can all mangle with a clear conscience :)

cardiff is a city where the buildings have hats.

and face boats. (?)

and it's by the sea! look, i think that's england!

european odyssey

today i begin a very large stretch of travel. first i fly to the UK, stop in my old haunt of nottingham to hopefully finish a couple projects with astronomers i continue to collaborate with there. then i'm off to oxford for the third installment of the exciting dotAstronomy conference series. you can read some of my previous posts about it if you dont remember the fun!

then its a whirlwind tour of universities and institutions to present talks about my recent research results, including: the university of cardiff, the max planck institutes in heidelberg and munich, and then the royal observatory in edinburgh (where maybe i'll get to see some cool first edition books by the likes of copernicus, galileo, and newton), and finally, a bit of holiday.

i think this will be an intense trip filled with lots of fun and lots of science. it will be good to see old friends, visit new places, share my research, and get both positive and negative (i'm sure) feedback about what i've been up to.

i havent had much time to actually get excited about this trip because i've been working really hard to get several projects to a point of relative completeness.... but i'm finally feeling relief and really looking forward be sitting on the plane, except for the fact that i woke up this morning feeling a little ill. boo.

anyway, get ready europe, here i come!

coonabarabran

just arrived at siding springs observatory for another round of observing with the anglo-australian telescope.

there isnt a whole lot of excitement during the seven hour drive through the bush to get here, regardless of whether you take the hunter valley route or the mudgee route. but i must say, i am highly amused by the place names around new south wales!

i remember driving around the UK and being utterly confused as to how anyone was supposed to know the proper way to pronounce place names. for example, Leicester is "Les-tah," Belvoir is "beaver" (i'm not joking, and made the mistake of using this pronunciation in australia. the horror!), Loughborough is "luff-buh-ruh." actually, anything with an "ough" in it is pointless to even try. just wait to hear someone say it. especially edinburgh.

apparently a common mispronunciation of Loughborough, especially among australians, is "looga-burooga." having done some driving around this part of australia, it's clear that a lot of place names maintain their aboriginal origin and are pronounced mostly phonetically. so if the word has a lot of letters, like coonabarabran, you just take your time, pronounce all the letters, and it sounds exactly as it looks. or, in true australian fashion, you just shorten the word. so instead of saying the 5 syllables of coon-a-bear-a-bran every time, you just say coona.

coona is the closest town to the observatory and also happens to have one of the best names i've encountered yet! but on the drive today we also passed by dunedoo, wallerawang, cullen bullen, and marrangaroo :)

great britain? united kingdom? england?

c. g. p. grey attempts to control the world's confusion over the difference between the united kingdom, great britain, and england in this fairly successful video. he speaks quite quickly, but you can get the transcript here.



this video certainly clears up many mysteries, but opens up many more. why do so many countries on the opposite side of the world from "the empire" still recognize the monarchy as their head of state? this video also doesnt show you the different flags of england, scotland, ireland, etc... so you might still be confused during world cups or olympic games.

across scotland on a bike

i had to watch this video twice! once for the skills of danny macaskill and once for the gorgeous scenery of scotland.

australia, first impressions

the bad news is that last week my laptop died :( its such a sad moment when it happens.... i managed to back up everything before i left england, but i think i forgot some music files and i lost most of what i did last week (not much). at least the beast held out until i started my new job, but unfortunately, my new computer has not arrived yet and so i'm feeling a bit helpless and unproductive.

i therefore took advantage of the down time to explore sydney a little and try to get my body adjusted to this oppressive heat, humidity, and sunlight! since i cannot download my pictures just yet, i'll share some observations:

The size of the bbqs have not disappointed. there is even a special BBQ cleaning spray that i've never seen sold in any other country!

i've adopted a "don't bother asking" policy and just assume that all animals in australia are poisonous. this was particularly distracting during my first lunch with new colleagues when there were a ton of small creatures crawling all over the picnic tables, yet no one seemed to notice them...

i bought some running shoes and attempted to run to the national park near where i'm currently living. i was unsure that i had found the small trail i was looking for, but pushed forward anyway.... until i came bounding around a tree and literally ran into a huge black snake!! ack! we both stayed stunned for a few seconds and then scurried off in opposite directions. i finally found the proper trail and ran long enough to release all my nervous energy while worrying that any little noise was really something poisonous poised to attack me! silly, i know... when i returned home, i did some research and learned that its the brown snakes i need to worry about and very few people are actually killed each year by animal bites or stings. whew.

my first weekend here there was a spectacular thunderstorm complete with lots of lighting!! i forgot how exciting and dramatic and intimidating thunderstorms can be!

i found some ridiculously specific statements in the paperwork for my new job: "normal business hours are from 8.30am to 4.51pm."

there are a lot of colorful birds with aggressive sounding calls. i had quite a faceoff with a kookaburra saturday afternoon... they are incredibly stout birds with huge heads and beaks for the size of their bodies! they are carnivorous, so i wondered if it was after my toes, but it eventually got bored and flew off to watch from a tree branch.

the people have been incredibly nice... strangers look at me and smile and some even talk to me!

surfer boys are cute. surfer girls are b.a.d.a.s.s.

its freaking HOT and humid here, and it's not even summer yet!

actual question on the driver's licence application that i have no idea how to answer: have you ever had attacks of giddiness?

no, water does not swirl down drains in different directions on different hemispheres! The coriolis force, created by the earths spin, causes storm systems like tornados to swirl in the opposite direction, but it does not affect a system as small as a toilet bowl or sink!

jetlagged in sydney

i survived two A380 flights to cross half the world and successfully land in australia! hello from sydney! i hope they manage to quickly fix the design fault in the A380 engine, because its an amazingly quiet and more-pleasant-than-usual plane in which to fly long journeys!

i arrived at 8 am yesterday and felt my mind was swimming through a jetlag haze for most of rest of the day. but i managed to accomplish a few things during my determination to stay awake until at least 8pm. i saw the sydney opera house, from a few different directions, from the car. i thought it looked smaller than i expected, to which someone said "you're so american!" no way to argue that point. i also had some very tasty australian red wine, and i must admit, i tried kangaroo... and liked it.

i havent taken too many pictures yet, but i wanted to share this photo of the power outlets...


they remind me of edvard munch's famous painting the scream, but even more so, of that scary character from the movie...


i made it to 8 pm yesterday and then slept solidly thru the next 12 hours. now i might be on the local time schedule and i get to start shopping for a few staples, you know... a place to live, a phone, health insurance, a car, etc... and i'm supposed to start my new job tomorrow. yikes! that was poor planning!

so begins another adventure

today i leave england with a one way ticket to australia.

moving far far away is difficult and draining, despite the potential adventures that await in a new land....

its a bittersweet feeling that the inexorable nina simone has managed to capture in her ballad, lonesome cities. see you on the flip side.

things i'll miss about england

tomorrow i move away from england, my home of the last 2 years and 3 months. i have to admit i'm emotionally exhausted from saying so many big goodbyes, but i'm completely over dealing with all the preparations for moving across the world.


things i will miss about england

the sound of the accent, in general, but also how geographically quickly the accents vary!

being called "love" or "duck"

the subtle and hilarious humo(u)r

riding on the upper floor of a double decker bus, in the front seat!

the variety of locally brewed, tasty, real ales. and ciders. and whisky...

satisfying late night cravings for chips!

premier league football

afternoon tea, and the arguments about the "proper" way to add milk to tea

pub quizzes (i only ever won one during my time in england, but not for lack of trying!)

running along the canals

my city center flat and walking to shops

come dine with me

rambling thru the unbelievably bright green countryside

sandwiches from homemade.

participating in sixty symbols

postdoc lunches (PDL), specifically at the vic!

unforgettable friendships.



things i will not miss about blighty

the weather

general moaning and the expectation things will inevitably go wrong: "typical!"

friday and saturday night debauchery by the locals (lack of clothes year round, incredible drunkenness, etc...)

invisible queues ("An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one." - George Mikes)

the irrational excesses of english politeness

lack of eye contact

not speaking to strangers, or in most cases, not even acknowledging the existence of other people, unless, of course, one is trying to sell the big issue, or sharing the silent acknowledgment of the impudence of a queue jumper.

confusing one-way streets that are practically impossible to navigate, mostly because the street signs are purposely hidden!

riding my bike in the rain

the full english breakfast

brits asking me to imitate the british accent and then laughing at me when i cant

"i cant be bothered" to come up with anymore right now, but if youre curious about any of these aspects of the english culture, i can highly recommend the book watching the english: the hidden rules of english behaviour by kate fox. in her socialogical study, she hilariously captures the peculiarities of living with the english. reading this book completely changed my perspective and experience here.

cheers, england!

views from mauna kea

as this observing run on mauna kea draws to a close (tonight is my last night), i share another round of views from the volcano.

i never really get tired of these sunsets.


the nearly full moon is on the rise.


just a short hike from the telescopes takes you to that actual summit of mauna kea (on the right of the photo above, and shown below). some brave folks marched over to see the small monument built by hawaiians.


clouds in front of the sun can create some really interesting shadows and rays. when taking this shot, the sun was setting behind me and i couldnt see it at all thru the thick cumulus clouds.


below is an early morning photo with the sun rising behind me. the telescopes from right to left are the NASA infrared telescope facility (IRTF, where my old undergraduate professor is currently observing, small universe), the two keck telescopes (the biggest mirrors on the mountain), the japanese suburu telescope, and the submillimeter array. the little island peaking out of the clouds on the right is maui!


this is a sunrise view of the cabin at 9000ft where sleep happily greeted me after a 14 hour work night.


if you click to see the full photo below, you can see some telescope domes on the top of mauna kea! its rare to be able to see the peak from the ever-cloud-covered town of hilo.


aloha!

on an extinct volcano

aloha from the top of hawai'i!

i'm sitting at the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) and will be here for the next 5 nights. my last visit was about a year ago and i posted a few descriptions that you can read for more pictures and stories: scenes from mauna kea and twinkle twinkle little star (about adaptive optics).

the peak of mauna kea is at 14000 ft, which is really really high (about 3 times higher than the tallest peak in the UK). the potential effects of such a high altitude on the human body have forced this observatory to limit the amount of time that people are allowed to stay at the summit to 14 hours. which is fine with me - 14 hours is a long work day/night, especially at high altitude!

during observing runs on mauna kea, astronomers sleep at hale pohaku which is at 9000 ft. i spent one night there in order to acclimate to altitude, before coming up to the summit the next night. the photo below shows the buildings where we stay, the visitor center, and some cinder cones from the extinct volcano.


tonight is my first night on the summit, and i just reread the safety material they gave me which describes some of the minor symptoms of high altitude: headaches, drowsiness, nausea, loss of balance, altered mental state, and impaired reason.

i had a headache earlier, but it's gone now. the bathroom is down a flight of stairs and i have to remember to walk back up to the control room veeeerrrrrryyy ssslloooooooowly, or else i get light-headed and dizzy. the altered mental state and impaired reason is annoying when i cannot remember the right word for something, but slightly amusing when i mix my words up into some humorous mutation of what i actually mean to say.

the clouds are coming and going pretty rapidly tonight. we start an observation series and by the end the weather is too bad to result in useful data. i cant even go outside to enjoy the night sky because its hazy and too fuzzy. so for tonight, and the next five nights, this is my station:


the three screens on the right allow me to choose targets and control the observations. the middle three allow me to monitor the weather and quality of the data collected. the four screens on the left display the data after preliminary processing so i know whether things are running smoothly.

time for my night lunch...

ohio in the fall

i have begun a serious round of travel.

i'm currently in ohio, usa, in the city where i grew up. no matter how long i've been away or from how far away i come for a visit, i feel instantly comfortable and at ease in this house where i grew up. yesterday, i saw loads of family and old friends at my little sister's college graduation party. it was very fun, exhausting, and completely energizing to see so many familiar and supportive faces. everyone giggles at every word i say with any hint of a british accent, but it sounds to me like my midwestern drawl is back full force since i've been here nearly a week! in the flurry of continuous conversation, i managed not to take a single photo during the party :(

here are a few shots i've captured showing hints of the beautiful fall colors that so gracefully cover this part of the world each autumn.





this is my gorgeous niece's "birthday whippy!"