AZ Hankerin'

Arizona stole my heart.

It's not that I don't like Indiana- I do! (And I like green foliage and vegetation!) But I love having crazy outdoors adventures, exploring the beautiful outdoors and seeing the wonder that nature has to offer. In Arizona you are only a stone's throw from the Grand Canyon, mountains, deserts, cacti, canyons and more.

Flagstaff was such an ideal place to live that it seemed fake. I hope to visit sometime in the future :)

Being an astronomer, it is inevitable that I return (frequently) to my second state. Here's to a dry heat!

Fitter Happier

As you've probably already noticed, I changed the layout of my blog! Or maybe you haven't noticed... All the blogs that I read I get updates from through google reader and rarely even visit the actual website. Technology these days...

I'm drinking some chai tea that I purchased in Flagstaff this summer. Cue the bittersweet nostalgia.

I can honestly say that this summer was by far the most exciting, memorable, and fun time of my life. I met numerous very cool people, saw nature at its most intense and awe-inspiring moments, got caught in a wildfire, did some amazing hiking/camping, did some really cool research, learned more dance, and made some amazing and truly fantastic friends. This summer will forever live in infamy, in the top echelon, a sort of dreamy and unreal time of my life when everything was perfect. When I drink this tea, it's like I'm transported back to Arizona: I'm sitting in the parking lot at McKay, my apartment building, talking on the phone, watching the clouds roll in over the San Fran peaks. A pristine day in Flagstaff. I'm happy in that carefree way where it seems that everything in your life is just going so perfectly. Work is satisfying (well, mostly), there are no obligations once I return home and am free to contentedly hang out with my friends all night, I'm physically active, there are mountains in my backyard, I write super cool fortran programs and plot fun things in SM, and I'm happily involved with the man that it seems I've been waiting my whole life for.

Isn't it strange how the most innocent and subtle of senses can trigger such an intense deja vu or memory of a specific time or point in your life? It always surprises me that such simple things such as a song or a smell or even a type of weather condition can take you back in time. Yeah. The weather.

Now fast-forward 2 months from that unrealistically perfect Flagstaff day.

There's More Than Corn in Indiana... There's Soybeans Too!

Back in Indiana! Actually, I have been for 2 weeks today, but am just now catching up on blogs. I feel like I all ever talk about is ‘when I was in Arizona this and that’ but cut me some slack, I DID live there for 10 weeks. It became normal to me. Speaking of normal, now Indiana seems so foreign!

Everything is so different here! Some things I have noticed:

• No mountains in my backyard. Got some corn now.

• It’s frikkin’ hot and humid. Weather in Flagstaff was absolutely fantastic- 70’s or low 80’s and sunny all the time (until monsoon season in mid-July). It was a huge shocker returning to Indiana on the hottest day of the year when the heat index was above 100. The heat in the Grand Canyon was as hot and miserable, but it’s a different kind here. I’m not sure which is worse: the super intense sun of the Canyon or the incredibly awful humid Indiana heat…

• Grass!!! As in, there is grass here! That’s one thing I really missed in Arizona. Their grass was really wimpy and all prickly. It’s so green and nice here!

• Green! Everything is grass green here. First of all, there are trees here, or at least more than pine. Second, they’re actual green, not the standard forest green of Arizona. At first I wasn’t really a fan of the greens (or lack thereof) in Arizona, but now the tables have turned and it’s weird here. I kind of feel a bit crowded by all the trees, too. I got used to a mostly bare landscape, where there are no forests or trees over the road.

• There’s a lot of bugs. Mosquitoes, crickets, cicadas, you name it. I guess it was the elevation of Flagstaff, but there weren’t hardly any insects there. Now it’s so loud with all the bugs!! And I have a lot of mosquito bites! Didn’t miss those.

• The sky is lighter! Teresa and I kept on commenting about how the sky is SO blue in Arizona, and a much darker shade than back here. Kathy told me it was because there’s no moisture in the air and the elevation. It’s really noticeable though.

• Speaking of air, there’s a lot of it here. Flagstaff is like 10 times as high as Indiana, and I got used to the decreased oxygen. It feels pretty great to run/exercise here. Like my lungs will EXPLODE!

• The Midwest is boring and devoid of places to hike.

Walking Sadie with the lil sis Lizzy. The dramatic Indiana landscape dominates.

It took me about a week to finally get back in the swing of things here. I went from spending pretty much all my free time in Flag with the other REU students to not being to see them at all, and it was pretty rough for a bit. It was indescribably bizarre to be back home in Indiana. I feel like everything is different! You try spending over 2 months living in and exploring the west and finally returning here, and then you can tell me to stop talking about it. I’m really happy to see all my friends and family though (and my fish!!!). And I’m excited to start school on the 30th.

Last week I got to see the lovely annual Perseid meteor shower. The peak night was the 12th- I watched from about midnight to 12:40 and saw probably 20 or so. The peak rate can easily exceed 60/hour, but you have to watch later into the night. So, I set an alarm for 3am. I only went out for probably 30 minutes or so, but I definitely saw them at least at a rate of 60/hour, probably more. There were some pretty spectacular ones as well. My friend Steven pointed me to this page, but the first photo is taken from Flagstaff! Representin, yo.

Also, last Sunday, said friend Steven and I headed up to Conner Prairie in Fishers to see A Prairie Home Companion, a radio show on NPR hosted by Garrison Keillor.

Garrison Keillor- the semi-crazy guy wandering through the audience.

I was trying to describe what it was to a friend of mine and could only come up with 'it's a show where this guy sings and tells stories and someone makes funny sound effects'. The show was great! We had a mini picnic and the weather was nice.

And finally, I'll end with this photo... what do you think it is?

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Back in the Saddle Again- AZ to IN!

My last few days spent in Arizona were busy busy busy. I was leaving Wednesday morning, and our presentations and papers were due on Monday. We had to give the presentations Tuesday morning. Not to mention the fact that I had to move all of my stuff out of the apartment, clean it, and check out sometime in there.

Luckily I had my paper and presentation pretty much finished the previous week so that I could leave the last weekend for the Arches trip. I put some finishing touches on it Monday and gave a practice talk to Teresa and my adviser. I rushed around Flag buying people souvenirs (of course I wait until the END of my 10 week stay to do this...) then began packing my stuff that night.

Okay, so throughout the summer, the REU students have sort of had a penchant for pulling pranks on each other. To be honest, we pretty much just stole a lot of stuff from Eric (including his phone multiple times, his french press and probably more things). As a final goodbye, Teresa, Nick and myself went over to the boys' apartment at about 9 or 10pm Monday night and stole Eric's mattress!!! We carried it down one flight of stairs, across the property to our apartment, up to the third floor then threw it in mine and Teresa's apartment. Man, I'll tell you: I never knew how heavy a full-size mattress could be... It was totally worth it, though. Once it was in our apartment, we proceeded to jump on it like the mature college students we are.

Nick and I going to town on the mattress.

We put the mattress on top of my mattress on my bed. Eventually around 11 or so, I got really tired. I didn't know what else to do so I just went to sleep on top of two mattresses. At about midnight, I was rudely awakened to a phone call from Eric asking if I knew where the mattress was. The gig was up, so Nick, Eric and I moved it back.

The next morning was THE day. The day where we had to give our research presentations to a room full of experienced astronomers who will probably rip us apart with questions (people from Lowell, NAU, and the USGS were invited). Eek! I was going 4th out of 7, so I got to sit around nervous for a bit. Everybody gave really good talks! I was pretty impressed. I thought for sure somebody would get too nervous and goof up (most likely me) but everybody did really well.

Notice my star trek cup that I brought specifically for the talk! :)

I thought I did pretty well, although I forgot to say some things, and was a little intimidated by the professional astronomers there. I was satisfied though, and that's all that matters! I answered all my questions but one that I didn't know (my adviser answered it for me though).

After our talks- we can finally relax! From left, back: Eric, Nick, Nicole and Teresa. Front: Me, Kathy (program director and our psuedo-mom), Sarah, and Cailah.

Afterward we went to NiMarco's, the same pizza place we visited on our first day in Flag. A few of the astronomers who attended the talks came as well. It was really fun and yummy. After that, Teresa and I ran all over the place (Target, NAU to give Kathy our leftover food, and Lowell to clean out the office). We frantically packed up our stuff all afternoon and cleaned the apartment like madwomen. Eric and I made a recycling run from all the stuff we've been accumulating all summer and got some espresso at Macy's. I don't think I've ever mentioned Macy's but it's a European style coffee shop. They have the best coffee I've ever tasted! But yeah, went back home, cleaned and packed more. Went back to the physics building at NAU to print off my plane tickets (woops! almost forgot to).

Flagstaff sent me off in style!

FINALLY I got back and tried desperately to use all my tortillas by making a lot of quesadillas (I succeeded). We had a last blow-out party with everyone and a USGS friend Eric (too many Erics). It was lots of fun, but I ended up staying up until 3:30... and then woke up at 5:30.

Wednesday, I did indeed wake up at 5:30, and proceeded to run around the place doing all the last-minute things I forgot to do before. At 6:40, the RA in our building came to check both Teresa and I out. We passed 'inspection' and I headed across the street to the parking lot where the shuttle would pick me up. I got Teresa and the boys to come help me bring my stuff (we woke them up at about 6:30 to MAKE them say goodbye to us). My shuttle arrived at 7:10 and I was off to Phoenix. Exchanged my final goodbyes with Teresa, Eric, and Nick and I was on my way.

It was three hours to Phoenix, and once there, I got through security like a breeze and had a couple hours to kill there.

In Sky Harbor Int'l Airport in Phoenix.

I sat around tired and bored until boarding at 11:40. It was a hard goodbye, but farewell Arizona!

Last glimpse of mountains at the airport.

I went from Phoenix to a layover in Dallas/Ft. Worth, Texas. I slept for pretty much the whole flight. I had about 3 hours waiting in Dallas, and my flight was a little late. I ended up leaving about 9pm Central time for Indy. I had a pretty amazing flight- I saw an incredible sunset (and Venus!). I happened to look down at the right moment to see a fireworks show going on the edge of some body of water. There was also a big storm in the distance. It was really cool to see lightning from the top down! I timed a minute and saw somewhere around 60 lightning strikes! After picking up my luggage in Indy, it was about midnight. From 7am MST to 12am EDT is 14 hours of traveling. I feel like most of it was just spent sitting around in airports though. I got a lot of reading and gameboy tetris done though!

All of my flights were fine, and I spent the night at my sister's house near the airport after arriving in Indiana. I slept like a brick, or a log, or whatever they say. This summer has been phenomenal and I'll dearly miss Flagstaff and all of the close friends I made there. I was lucky to have all really cool and awesome people in the REU group. I still get to see Teresa since she goes to IU, but hopefully I will see the rest of them at this winter's AAS (American Astronomical Society) meeting in Seattle. Until then!

The perfect sunset on my return flight from Dallas to Indy (notice Venus in the upper left!). Au Revoir Arizona! :)

A Day In The Life (Good Morning Good Morning)

I have been asked to report on my day-to-day life here in Flagstaff. Sorry if this post is not very thrilling!

So, most of the time, I don't even do anything during the week. Usually I go out/hiking on the weekends, so the weekdays is when the downtime happens. Lately I've been getting into a morning running routine (experimenting to see if I like morning or evening more). The only downside is that I have to get up at 6 or 6:30 if I want be done in time. Luckily I have no life and go to bed at about 10:30 or 11 (I only say this because even during the school year I go to bed later). Running here is great, and I'm trying out all the nearby trails.

I work 9-5, save for a few days here and there. Since Lowell is about 2 miles from where I live, the three other REU students who work there plus myself carpool. It's not a bad walk, but it's all uphill there, and it takes about ~45 minutes. I don't really like arriving to work all sweaty.

What do I do at work? Well, I'll keep it simple: I sit on my butt in front of a really big mac screen. I think I posted a picture of my office before, so scroll down to refresh. I analyze data and write lots of code in Fortran (I like to compare it to Latin- a dead programming language save for astronomers...). I actually enjoy coding; of course, what I mean to say is that I enjoy it when I can get it to work. Debugging is not my favorite task. I am doing lots of cool things research-wise though. I'm not going to go into detail, but all you need to know is that I'm working with spectra of short-lived massive stars (F-G yellow supergiants to be exact).

I usually take a lunch break with my advisor and/or officemate(s). I think I've brought cheese sandwiches every day thus far. Is this enough detail? :)

I get back to my apartment about 5:15 and usually find ways to entertain myself the rest of the evening. Here are some photos of my apartment.

My bedroom... dramatic lighting.

Teresa in the kitchen.

I don't know if I've said so yet, but the apartment is really nice. Everything looks brand spankin' new and it's really big. It puts my soon-to-be apartment in August to shame... We are slowly making it homey by bringing random junk in. All the pictures I tried to take of the living room were ruined by the bright rising Sun, so maybe I'll put some up later.

I have to find creative ways to entertain myself, so I've recently taken up the harmonica. It was the only instrument I had that was small enough to travel. Suffice to say it's going slowly... all I know is 'The Saints Go Marching In'. I have high hopes though. I am currently reading 100 Years of Solitude, as well as My Antonia. I write lots of letters to people, and now that Teresa arrived, we have a TV! It's great! We get free cable, so I can sit around forever and entertain myself! We even get NASA TV, which is the most boring thing I've ever seen. It's exciting when they are launching things, but other than that I can understand why nobody wants to give NASA money.

Today is sort of a day off for me. A few of the other students drove to San Carlos this morning... it was a 4 hour ride, and they were only going to see some kind of rock (they're geologists...). To me it wasn't worth it. Instead I slept in (relatively). I had to run some errands so I've been walking all over town since about 10:30. I stopped at two bookstores (didn't find anything), then went to the Copper Coyote Cafe. It looked neat, but the Parmesan bagel I got was mediocre at best. I then stopped at Really Good Stuff! thrift shop and bought a shirt and reusable bag. Today and tomorrow is the Flagstaff Music Festival. I stopped by for a bit and saw some group I forget the name of perform.

Flagstaff Music Festival.

I bought a George Harrison and Fleetwood Mac CD at a book sale tent.

Downtown Flagstaff

I am now at the Cline Library, hoping to check out some books after I post this. Au revoir!

I saw this neat flower on my way to the library.

Rocks, Rocks, Rocks

Flagstaff is a runner's dream. They have a system called Flagstaff Urban Trail System. There are so many cool places to run!

This past weekend we went to the DCT in Happy Jack, about 40 miles from Flagstaff. We got to see the telescope they are building there. It's still in progress, but it was really cool! The dome and telescope were actually much larger than I had anticipated. It was also really astounding to see a 4.2 meter mirror...!

Here I am, looking way too excited, in front of the unfinished DCT.

Sunday we went to Sedona, some place I'd never heard of until I came here. It was really cool though! We went for a hike down the West Fork Trail to Oak Creek Canyon. There was indeed a creek (gasp! Water in Arizona!?)! The rock formations were really neat and exciting. I don't know what else to say... it's kind of hard to describe red rocks.

Christine, myself, and Teresa on a big rock. I am quite afraid of heights.

The image above is a really neat rock wall. It kind of looked like somebody just went through and carved it out. It's hard to get a perspective, but it's actually very tall!

This is Oak Creek Canyon. Water!

The hike was cake compared to the Canyon, but was still lots of fun. That night we went to Kathy, the program director's, house for a potluck. Lots of good food and company.

Pretty much during the week, I wake up, go to work, sit at a computer doing work, leave 8 hours later, and go home. Since I didn't bring a computer here, I have to find creative ways to entertain myself once I get back to my apartment. Lately I've taken up playing the harmonica. I don't know how the other people in my apartment feel about this, but I've gotten really good at 'The Saints Go Marching In'. Tonight I hope to learn 'Hey Jude'. I've been reading a lot, and going old-school by playing the Gameboy Color I brought along (Pokemon Blue and Lemmings anyone?).

On a very mundane note, the other day I bought Rosemary & Mint shampoo/conditioner. It's... interesting. It definitely lives up to the scent. And lastly, I will leave you with this photo of Teresa and I in Sedona. SHOOTOUT!

A Less-Than-Groundbreaking Update

Not much has been happening here (well, anything exciting).

Today is the big advisory board meeting at Lowell, so the building is eerily quiet and seemingly empty. It's really been cooling down here in Flagstaff the past day or two. It's currently 60F, and tomorrow the high is 58! Yikes!

Some various pieces of news:

- Next week a few of the other students and myself are going to see the Iron Maiden and Dream Theater concert in Phoenix.

- This is a perfect time to observe Comet McNaught. It should be visible naked eye next week!

- For those of you who ever nagged me about buying new shoes, well I finally bought some new running shoes the other day. The new ones work really great! Now I don't have to superglue them every week...

- Woops. I had to edit this post. I was going to go to the John Hall Telescope next Thursday with my advisor and his previous summer student from last year. The telescope is 42 inches and located at Anderson Mesa, Lowell's main observing hub that's about 12 miles from where I work. Unfortunately I just realized it is the same day as the concert I mentioned just previously. Bummer. My advisor says we will go sometime in July, though. The things I do for Dream Theater.

I feel that no post is complete without a photo, so here a couple pictures I took on a longer-than-anticipated walk the other day. There are hardly ever any clouds out here so the sunsets aren't that exciting. I'm fairly certain I saw a lenticular cloud the other day though!

Above: to the west

Below: the east

A Big Hole in the Ground

Well! This has been a busy/crazy last few days!

We had our 'first' day of work last Tuesday, but didn't really do much expect paperwork and university stuff, so really I started Wednesday. My research is pretty good so far. I had to do some boring beginning work for a while, but Friday started getting into the real stuff. I'm writing lots of programs right now, which isn't the most exciting, but it's interesting (and incredibly frustrating when debugging).

This is the office where I work. My desk is the one on the right.

Friday night all of the REU students (there are 7 of us right now) went out to dinner to a Mexican restaurant. Afterward we walked downtown to attend the Flagstaff First Friday Artwalk. It was really neat and fun! First we stopped at the Flagstaff CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) to watch a banjo/guitar duo band. It was nice, and there were a lot of hippie looking people. We all did a cakewalk, and three of us won free baked goods! I had a Mexican Chocolate Snickerdoodle that had cayenne pepper... interesting to say the least.

We then headed to the main drag and to Heritage Square, where a kids movie was playing. There were so many people out and about! There were lots of art and photography exhibits. Downtown is really nice! It has lots of historic buildings and quaint shops. It feels nice and homey and reminds me of New Harmony, IN. After looking around there we went back to the apartments and played a fun and competitive game called Perpetual Commotion, where you have to lunge after cards in a chaotic mess...

Friday night we decided sort of on the fly that we wanted to go to the Grand Canyon on Saturday! So... we woke up and arrived at the South Rim at about 8. After taking photos and getting ready, we started hiking down at about 9. The Canyon was amazing! I have never seen anything quite like it. It was fantastic and an unforgettable sight. I took lots of photos, but will post a few here.

The first photo I took. This is before we got to the trailhead.

We hiked down the South Kaibab Trail, to Cedar Ridge, then to a place called Skeleton Point.

Wow!

The view below, from near the top. If you look closely near the bottom, you can see a lodge. We hiked down there! It was 1.5 miles out of the 3 going down.

Altogether, we hiked 6 miles round-trip: 3 down and 3 up. Woo, I definitely underestimated how hard it would be to come back up... It was harder than I thought, but still fun!

Left: The near south end from Cedar Ridge.

Right: The near north/east end from Cedar Ridge.

It got REALLY hot down in the canyon. It was 85 at the rim, 93 at the halfway point, and 100 at the lowest point we went. As you descended, it was very noticeable that the temperature increased. Going down was, of course, not bad, but coming back up, we had to take lots of water breaks.

Left: The Colorado River below!
Right: The view from Skeleton Point, the lowest point we hiked, 3 miles down.

So yeah, the trip was pretty good :)

Today we went to the Flagstaff farmer's market. Sarah, my housemate, and I got some pasta, apricots and honey. It was a pretty good farmer's market (not as cool as Bloomington's though...). Afterward we went to a couple of garage sales, where everybody seemed to buy random things as tends to happen at garage sales.

Now I'm back here in the library! It has been a fun and busy first weekend!

PS- I forgot to mention that now my muscles in, of all places, my butt are sore! I can only imagine it's from walking up the steep canyon trails.

PPS- Somebody seemed to have a problem with my telescope photo from the previous post. It is the 24-inch Clark Telescope refractor at Lowell Observatory!

Flagstaff!

Woo! So, I've been in Flagstaff, AZ for 2 days now. Traveling started Sunday with a plane ride to Chicago, then another to Phoenix. I even got searched after using one of the new full body scanners in Indy! Flights and everything went really well, in fact everything was early and I even got to Flagstaff 3 hours early due to happening to get an early shuttle ride from Phoenix to Flagstaff!

What I fell asleep to on the flight from Chicago to Phoenix...

What I woke up to! Nice.

The ride from Phoenix to Flagstaff was really nice. It started with cacti and flowering bushes and palm trees and eventually evolved into pine trees as we started ascending. Flagstaff is at an elevation of 7000 feet!

Mountains!

My apartment is really nice! It's pretty new, and has two other bedrooms. I've already met one of my roommates, Sarah. She's from Cornell and pretty cool. Teresa, a friend from IU will be my other roommate, but she doesn't arrive until the 10th.

The view from my apartment! The San Francisco Peaks. From left, Humphreys, Agassiz, and Doyle.

Sunday night I did some rudimentary shopping and basically passed out I was so tired. Monday morning I woke up at 7 (still on Eastern time... Arizona is 3 hours behind), and went to Lowell Observatory, up Mars Hill. I'll be working at Lowell through the summer, so I wanted to see what it was like.

The view as I hiked up a back trail!

Some mountains and the city below.

A telescope at the observatory

The San Francisco Peaks again.

The weather in Flagstaff is fantastic! It's not too hot, usually in the 70's, and is dry and clear (I got sunburned my first day in Arizona- It was almost 100 in Phoenix though!). Today we had some clouds come in and it cooled down some. The people here are pretty nice, and there are a lot of Mexican restaurants.

Today I started my REU (Research Experience for Undergrads) work. This morning we did paperwork and got ID's, etc. Then the program director and a couple of prof's took us out for lunch to a local pizza place. It was lots of fun to meet the professors and the other interns! They all seem pretty cool so far.

Afterwards, myself and two other students who will be working at Lowell drove up to meet our advisors and get started on our research! I am working with Phil Massey on spectroscopy of yellow supergiant stars. I'm going to be looking for a specific Oxygen line that may be a luminosity indicator and be able to tell us if a star is a yellow supergiant in galaxies with low radial velocities. I also get to write some programs for analyzing spectra. Fun stuff!

I'll post whenever I have anything else to say! I didn't bring a computer so am at the mercy of library hours. Until then!