Winter Traveling

Long time no see!

This winter I drove to Indiana with my fellow Hoosier Katie. It's a long drive, and fairly boring after leaving the mountains in Maryland. We spent around 8 long hours driving through dreary weather.
Click on pics to enlarge and see them in all their glory!

Quite a long interstate, 70.

Frost line in MD mountains

Frozen waterfall in MD

States traveled through, plus MD of course :)

Indiana! I got to see my Mom's new house for the first time, which thankfully has a spare bedroom. No more sleeping on a couch ;)

I got to visit Bloomington for a reunion with IU friends, and even got to see a basketball game in Assembly Hall!

Go Hoosiers!

Most of my time was spent catching up sleep, internet-ing, Netflix-ing, and seeing my family for holidays. It's so strange coming home ~twice a year and seeing how much my nieces and nephews have grown!!

This year I managed to secure some funding from STScI to attend the AAS (American Astronomical Society) meeting in Seattle. So, I went to leg 2 of my winter traveling- the Pacific Northwest!

Nice sunset on my flight from Dallas to Seattle.

Seattle was the location of my first AAS back in 2011, so it was fun to go back and visit! Seattle is a fun city with lots of great food and attractions, but dang it, my hair does not appreciate the humidity...

Most of my days were spent conference-ing, which mostly consists of getting up early, attending talks and poster sessions, shmoozing with other astronomers, running into so-and-so from a few years ago (astronomy is a small field, we all know each other...), and generally chatting astronomy and non-astronomy with friends new and old. Of course I did have to do some real work ;) ... I presented a poster about some data reduction methods I tested. I even got to meet the creator of the HST instrument I work on :)

I also got to try some awesome food and drinks at some of Seattle's restaurants and bars. Working for a government contractor has its perks- we get a GSA per diem, which is something like $70/day for food!! Some of my favorites were:

• Bathtub Gin, a very hard to find and easy to miss speakeasy-style bar with a great atmosphere and excellent cocktails
• Pike Brewing Company bar & restaurant, I had an amazing grilled cheese, and they have several yummy in-house brewed beers
• Taphouse Grille, they have 100+ beers on tap from all over
• Elysium Brewing
• Von's 1000 spirits, faaaaabulous scratch-made pasta, and amazing selection of liquor which they use to make delicious cocktails
• La Creperie Voila, a food stand outside the convention center. Looks meh but has perfectly-made sweet and savory crepes prepared by personable employees

Roberto flew from LA to meet me in Seattle 3 days into the conference. There is a tradition that on the 2nd to last day of the conference a large party is held at a local bar. These parties are always sooo much fun! Imagine hundreds of dork astronomers trying to dance... it was no less of a spectacle than usual this year! It's always the highlight of the conference to attend these parties. Bars usually host us pretty well (how often do you get 500+ space nerds in your bar?) by creating space-themed drinks or showing NASA TV/astronomy movies. This year they displayed astronomy paper proceedings and posters on projectors, ha! 

After the conference ended (Thursday), Roberto and I met up with our friend Jeff, who was also attending the conference. Jeff lives across the Puget Sound in Bremerton. So, we headed down to the pier and caught a ferry. 

Roberto, Jeff, and me waiting for the ferry to arrive

It was a rare beautiful and sunny day in Seattle! Perfect weather for enjoying the sight as we trekked across the Sound.

View from the ferry

On the ferry's deck, watching the ferry headed to Bainbridge. Mountains!!

Seattle skyline from the ferry

Mt. Rainier

Sunset as we arrive in Bremerton

Once we landed in Bremerton, it was a short walk to Jeff and his husband Nick's house. They have a nice house with an extra bedroom they let us take. Jeff is a hardcore-brewer who even had a kegarator (keg with refrigerator) in his living room for us to pour freshly brewed beers! Nick occupies the other aspect of gardening, cooking, and canning, so we got to have some of his food products as well. Jeff and Roberto went to grad school together, and two of their other grad school buddies came over (who also attended the conference). We spent a fun night playing cards and sipping Jeff's beers.

The next day we slept in and explored Bremerton. The USS Turner Joy, a Navy destroyer ship from the 50's that was built in Bremerton is retired there and open for tour. We spent the afternoon exploring the very expansive ship. It is self-guided tour that allows you to access most parts of ship.

USS Turner Joy

Keep Cool; DO'NT GIVE UP THE SHIP.

After that, we walked along the docks enjoying the sunset. It got chilly soon, so we headed home. 

Sunset on the docks

We all went out to dinner to the Silver City Restaurant. They had amazing in-house beers (noticing a pattern?) and I had some amazing Tillamook mac 'n cheese. 

Saturday we got up early and took the ferry back to Seattle. We walked around the infamous Pike Place Market (even saw some flying fish!). We bought some fresh salmon and veggies to grill later. 

All the seafoodz

We headed up to the Space Needle after that to catch a Duck Tour. Well. Our guide was absolutely RIDICULOUS, but it was a fun and convenient way to get a whirlwind tour of Seattle. It was fun to ride the duck into Lake Union. Also, we all got duck calls that I annoyed Roberto, Jeff, and Nick with all day (and the next day).

A foggy/rainy day in Seattle?!?! I'm SHOCKED!

Gas Works, as seen from the duck boat on Lake Union

After that, we took a bus to Pioneer Square to go on the Seattle Underground Tour. This was probably my favorite part of the day. The history of Seattle is fascinating, and the whole "city under a city" thing is mind-blowing. There is wikipedia page for it here. We had a great tour guide to boot.

Underground Tour

The original wooden sewer pipes used in Seattle circa 1854

Afterwards, thoroughly tired, we went back to the ferry station to get back to Bremerton. The ferry is about an hour long, so by the time we got back, we were all too tired to cook or go out. We ordered pizza and watched the NFL playoff games ;)

Sunday, our last day there, was spent relaxing at home, and I got to watch the Colts kick Peyton's butt. For dinner we grilled up the salmon and veggies we bought in Seattle. Then Roberto and I packed up our suitcases and trudged back to the ferry to return to Seattle to catch our flight home to Baltimore. 

Seattle skyline at night from the ferry

Ferris Wheel makes cool reflections, ooooh

We took a red-eye, with a layover in Boston. This was my first red-eye in the US (overnight trans-atlantic flights shouldn't count!). Never. Again. It was awful, I couldn't sleep, was uncomfortable, and grumpy. Boo. Finally I stepped back in my apartment after 3 weeks away to a crazy Moka who my neighbor/co-worker had been cat-sitting.

Phew, what a trip! It was great to go home and then visit Seattle again- it's a great city that is also very vegetarian-friendly considering its reputation for seafood ;) But it's always nice to return to your own bed, own shower, and own kitty :)

The Life Austin

I've been waiting to post about my trip to Austin, TX until I could upload pictures onto my computer, but I had been missing my computer-camera cord... It's a funny but uninteresting story where it went, but suffice to say it made a long trek from Austin to Oklahoma to Indiana and back to me a month later...

Anyway! I went to the AAS (American Astronomical Society) meeting again this year (last year it was in Seattle). This time it was in Austin, which is awesome because it was 70 degrees in Texas in January. Woohoo! I flew in on a Saturday, though the conference didn't start until Sunday. I got to reunite with my buddies from my REU last summer. It was great to see them all again, and I got to see Jenny too, who is now in her first year of grad school at U. Colorado! The meeting kicked off Sunday with a huge opening reception at the Austin convention center. Imagine thousands of astronomers getting together to eat h'ordervs, drink alcohol, and talk about science... sheesh.

Monday-Thursday was spent waking up early to attend astronomy talks, splinter sessions, peruse the free shwag, talk to national institutions and universities about job positions (yeck), and talk to professors, students and others. Social overload! Oh, and I guess the whole reason I went to AAS was so that I could present a poster one day about my summer research :P (which went very well!)

Notable non-astronomy events are limited to great restaurants I ate at. One was Max's Wine Dive (slogan: Fried chicken and champagne... why the hell not?!). I had an outrageously delicious sandwich that had fried eggs, gruyere, lettuce, tomato, and truffle oil all between sourdough bread. No words can describe the magnificence of this sandwich.
Another great place Jenny and I ate at at least 3 times was the Cafe Crepe which had amazing sweet and savory crepes (mmm nutella).
Last, I had a great burger at Stack Burger Bar where I had a veggie burger with a fried egg (what's with Austin and putting fried eggs on all their sandwiches?), a parmesan crisp, tomato and lettuce... Yum! If you ever find yourself in Austin, be sure to try these places! :)

Oh, I forgot to mention the most important aspect of the trip: the hotel. NOAO put all their employees up in the Hilton. Ritzy lobbies, overpriced coffee, and complimentary door-openers were just some of the free benefits included in the several hundred dollar bill. The best part was the pool. It was on the roof of the ~10th floor and looked out to the skyline of Austin. Jenny and I went swimming at night, where the chilly 60 degree weather forced us into the hot tub (too much sarcasm?). Needless to say, we felt extremely empowered, and the situation could have only been improved if we had martinis and a smooth jazz band was playing under the bamboo tent.

Sunset1 from the hotel room window.

Sunset2 from the hotel room.

THE POOL.

After the meeting, I stayed around Friday-Sunday (as I did last year). I explored downtown Austin, attempted to go to the children's museum (which was utterly pitiful compared to Indy's, not to mention meant only for children under the age of 10), visited the Texas Capitol Building, and stopped in a few other landmarks. I stayed with a friend who used to work at IU and now attends UT-Austin for astronomy grad school. I had lots of fun exploring the university campus and area, sleeping in, and meeting some of the grad students there. I also went and saw an Austin Symphony concert with a friend I met during my trip to DC last year!

A neat building downtown. Not sure what it is for.

Pretty Catholic church!

Capitol building.

These trees were all over next to the capitol building. Anybody know what they are?

The glory of Texas, where everything is bigger.

Texas library & archives.

All in all, a great trip, and my first Texan adventure outside of their airports!

Astronomers Do It At Night

Over winter break I went to Seattle for the AAS conference. It lasted from the Sunday immediately before classes to that Thursday. Because of this, I skipped the first week of school. At first it sounded alright- in fact I was a bit excited (come on, don't tell me you're not excited when a class got canceled?) Once I emailed all my professors and got homework for the week though, I wasn't really too keen on the idea of missing the first five days of class...

I presented a poster over my research from last summer at NAU. It was great- lots of interesting and stimulating people came around and asked me about my research. I met a lot of really cool people- astronomers and students alike.

Alec, Jenny and I in front of my poster!

Last year Chris went to AAS in DC and whenever I called he always told me how tired he was and how busy he was the whole time. At the time, I had a hard time believing that you could be busy all day at an astronomy conference... Yeahhhh, how wrong I was. Talks started at 9 in the morning and lasted until about 5. There were a few invited talks each day that almost everyone attended (big conference rooms, well-known astronomers speaking), and in between those were special session talks over specific areas of astronomy that were smaller. And going on all day in the exhibit hall was the poster session where people like me stood next to their poster all day waiting for people to come by and look. The conference in general was socially tiring, but worth it.

After the "conference day" was over, I would be invited to dinner with someone from somewhere, or I went to scheduled dinners. After dinner was drinks, after drinks was talking, after talking was finally getting back to the hotel to pass out in bed. Lather, rinse, repeat!

I did get to go out while there as well. We went to Pike Place Market...

One evening we went to the Space Needle. It was really neat to see the city at night!

Nicole (from my REU!), me, Teresa and Jenny at the top of the space needle.

We went to Chinatown for lunch one day and got dim sum (only two vegetarian options... sad...) We also went to the original Starbucks! Not that exciting really, but I had to go out of principle. One evening I visited University of Washington and got to talk to their grad students and faculty about grad school (eek!) and see the department. I also went for a run down on the waterfront...

And got lost on the way back. After the conference ended, Jenny and I stayed until the following Sunday, bring our trip length to a whole week. We had planned this out months ago, and in hindsight I probably should have come back to school as soon as possible to get back in the groove of classes and catch up on what I missed, buuuuut... how many chances do you have to go to Seattle (paid for, no less)?

Things we did:
-Visit the EMP (Experience Music Project) and Science Fiction Museum (a music and science nerd's dream come true)
-Eat at Top Pot Donuts
-Went to the market again
-Visited the Fremont Troll (a huge stone troll under the Fremont bridge!)
-Went to the Erotic Bakery... haha. It was very interesting.

That was about it. Two nights Jenny and I stayed with a friend of Alec's, and the last night we stayed with Keaton (he did an REU at Indiana and stayed through early September). Then on Sunday we left early to catch a bus to SeaTac airport and from there it was back home. After a layover in Minneapolis, I made it back to Indy about midnight and then drove back to Bloomington.

All in all, Seattle was great! I could do without the weather and the extremely poorly-designed road systems... but the stores, restaurants and nightlife were diverse and unique. Skipping the first week of school? Not one of my best ideas, but I had a great time anyway. Hopefully next year I'll get to go to AAS again!

Let The Good Times Roll

Classes officially resume again on Monday, but I am taking a stand against education and deciding to skip the first week of school to play hooky and watch TV and eat potato chips all day.

Not really, of course. I'm going to Seattle for the AAS (American Astronomical Society) annual meeting. It's a 5-day long conference during which astronomers from all over the US get together to present research, exchange ideas, and in general get to know others. I'm presenting a poster about my research I did this summer at Lowell. And it's in Seattle! Woohoo! The conference technically lasts until Thursday, but I'm going to be staying until the following Sunday, spending the last few days around Seattle and the area. See some sights, visit some friends, have a last hurrah for winter break.

Speaking of winter break. This break has been so busy! I began and finished my poster (WAY more work than it might have been due to having to re-do a large portion of my summer work...), helped my sister fix up her new house (not much because I'm lazy), put a lot of miles on my car, lost and consequently got a new debit card, took my cat to get spayed and vaccines (poor Moka....), visited with lots of friends and family, and started looking at internships for this summer! Woo!
Who needs to relax?! I'm the kind of person who thrives on busy-ness, but I will be the first to admit sometimes you just need a break. I feel this break wasn't really a "break" at all, but it was fun!

Tomorrow it's off back to Dear Old Bloomington for a pitstop before heading to Seattle on Sunday! Never a dull moment! :)