Core Dump

I've neglected this blog yet again. Here is an undetailed list of my recent activities through the passage of photos. Click on pictures for larger images!

I got pie'd for the physics club's annual Pie a Professor fundraiser where we auction the chance to pie a professor in the face. My lab professor did this... At least I was raising money for the club. :P

I went to IU's Little 500 bike race for the first time. It's an IU tradition that I thought I should see once before graduating!

I went observing for 5 nights in March, at Kitt Peak in my second home, Arizona! There was more snow than I had seen the whole winter in Indiana :P

I saw some beautiful sunsets up there, and we were open 4/5 nights, closed one due to high winds!

Look at those mountain layers!!!!

I brought my sister's SLR camera with me and took some nice photos of the pristine skies up there at 7000ft! The photo above is the dome of my telescope for 3 nights, the 2.1m. The other 2 nights I was at the 0.9m telescope.

The bright city lights light up the 4m dome across the mountain top. 

 

I graduated!!!! Elaine and I on graduation day, behind our home away from homes, Swain West, the physics & astronomy building. 

 My best friend Naomi graduated from Purdue! :)

I got an SLR camera for graduation! It's a Canon Rebel T2i and I love it. I use it mainly to take photos of cats, but occasionally photograph people too, I guess. That's a picture of my sister's cat, Chips (I think?)

Sister's cat Fish (I think?)

My baby, Moka Latte!

Moka being cute.

I made lemon meringue for my good friend Jesse's birthday. I was nervous I would ruin it but it turned out DELICIOUS. I got the recipe from allrecipes, can be found here.

My good friend, Nick, came to visit Indiana from Arizona, and him and his girlfriend (and my fellow astronomy major at IU!) Teresa visited me for a day. All three of us were in the REU in Flagstaff together, and now they are most disgustingly cute couple ever!

My little sister, Lizzy, graduated from high school! 

I went to Baltimore for an interview with Space Telescope Science Institute... I GOT THAT JOB! :)

In the words of my favorite band, Rush, and their song Prime Mover:

From the point of ignition
To the final drive
The point of the journey
Is not to arrive--
Anything can happen!

Recent Happenings

I've been lax in the updates with this blog. I enjoy looking through old posts sometimes, and wish I kept better tabs on things I do during my college years. Here is a dump of events from the past months or so:

-Friday Night Dinner to celebrate the Chinese New Year, lots of yummy food all around!
-Friday Night Dinner for which you had to make a dish you had never done before... I made sushi!
-First trip to IKEA and Jungle Jim's! Both were as magical as I hoped they would be
-First birdwatching attempt, with friend Jesse. You can see a list of all the cool birds we saw here. 2 bald eagles!
-First time trying both squaredance and contradance! Both were great :)
-Brunch with Teresa and her boyfriend (whom we met during our REU in Flagstaff!) Nick.
-Running into old friends who were campaigning? for Ron Paul.
-Friday Night Dinner with heritage foods... I made gnocchi for the first time!
-Fell off a horse.
-Spring break!

I'm going observing next week on Kitt Peak! :)

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! :)

Ruins, Mountains, and Caves Oh My!

Alright!!! Still catching up on late blogs...

Two fridays ago, we threw a huge party to celebrate Canada Day and Eric's birthday (he is also Canadian). We grilled out and had Canadian Burgers (they just looked like burgers with Canadian bacon to me...) and lots 'o yummy veggies and corn. It was really good and we had an extreme excess of food afterwards. We played rock band and cards to finish off the night.

The next day we went to Sunset Crater and Wupatki Indian Ruins, which are about 20 miles from Flag. Sunset Crater was not what I expected, but it was still really cool. I was picturing something like Meteor Crater (which I have not seen yet), like a big hole in the ground essentially. Sunset Crater is actually a mountain that blew it's top. It's not a crater at all; it was a volcano! Such a misleading name.

Look! We're in a small crater!

Sunset crater!

Still, it was a nice and really easy hike, and there were free book guides that told you about the area. After walking around there for a bit, we drove on over to the Wupatki Ruins. It's a beautiful drive, as the Painted Desert is visible on the horizon, and the fields around the road were an interesting shade of golden wheat color with the classic forest green AZ shrubs. The ruins were really interesting and cool.

Wupatki Ruins.

There were two 'basketball courts' that Native Americans used to use. There was also something called 'The Blowhole' that was a hole where air from a low-pressure cave came whooshing up. It felt like A/C coming out of the ground! A brief relief from the desert heat... We stopped at a few side ruins on the way (including a 'Citadel' ruin). Then it was back home again! We got to drive past the scorched side of the Peaks from the infamous Schultz Fire, although you couldn't really see too much.

Playing basketball in The Ballcourt... :)

The view from The Citadel... Painted Desert in the distance.

Sunday was, of course July the 4th, Independence Day. To celebrate our country's birthday, a few of us including myself set out to hike to the top of Mt. Humphreys, the highest point in Arizona. The view was fantastic!!! It is a grand total of 12,637 ft above sea level. For comparison, the average elevation of the state of Indiana is 700 feet... The view was a bit hazy because of the smoke from the fire still, but it was nonetheless quite impressive. It was incredibly cold and windy on the hike up, but the most surprising part was that it was warm on the top of the mountain. I would have guessed that it would windier and colder since there are no formations to block the wind, but apparently I don't know my climatology very well? It was a fun hike and took us about 7 hours to hike 8 miles (and we lollygagged like nobody's business). It was a nice change to hike the Snow Bowl trail without having to run from a fire!!

Independence day on Mt. Humphreys. From left: Nick, Eric, and Christine. And yes, that flag was actually there!

The view from the top...

Once we made it back to the apartments and showered it was off to Prescott, AZ to enjoy some 4th fireworks. Flagstaff wasn't showing any fireworks because of the fire danger, so we traveled south. After a dinner stop at In 'n Out, coffee stop at Starbucks, and wandering around Prescott looking for the fireworks, we settled down for the show. The fireworks were admittedly a bit puny, but better than none. Afterwards we stayed to enjoy the clear skies for a bit, doing some stargazing before heading back to Flag.

The next day I had off work, so I finally got to sleep in! In the afternoon, we went to a lava river cave, or as I prefer to call them, lava tubes! At first I thought it was going to be a bit lame. I was just picturing a circular tube in the ground that was really small. Luckily, they turned out to be much cooler and actually very fascinating. The cave was about a mile long at which point it becomes to small to walk through. You can find info about lava tubes here, but the basic gist is lava erupted from a vent and as it flowed across the surface of the ground, the top layer solidified. The underlying layers, however, continued to flow as a hollow tube was formed from the path of the flowing lava.

The only picture I have from the caves... our dorky group at its best. :) From left: Teresa, Christine, Nick, Eric 1, Eric 2, and Sarah.

The cave looked like a huge subway tunnel because the bottom was flat and the ceiling was rounded into a half-circle shape. It was much larger than I expected, sometimes 30 feet high. There was a small section where we had to crawl on our hands and feet as well. It was quite cold in the cave! It usually gets down in the 40's inside. Even as we were entering it, you could notice a drastic change in temperature. There was ice at the mouth of the cave!

The following Wednesday Teresa and I went to Dancing on the Square, a weekly event on Heritage Square in downtown Flagstaff. Every week they teach a different style of dance then have a couple hours of music and dancing. We learned salsa! It was a lot of fun, and before we knew it, it was time to leave. Unfortunately we couldn't get any of the other REU students to join us, but have high hopes for the future!

Also this week, a few of us headed downtown on Thursday to see the Burnett family play some good ol' bluegrass/folk music. The music was great and it was a beautiful day.

Some good ol' hometown music.

Lots o' photos in this blog. Next up... The most epic camping trip ever!

Keytars and the Universe

Whoa. This has been a hectic week (I feel like I say that every week...).

The highlight has definitely been, hands down, yesterday. It was, of course, the much-awaited Dream Theater/Iron Maiden concert. I apologize ahead of time for those of you who don't know them/don't care to hear the gory details of the concert. This blog is partly for my own record though, so I'd like to remember the intense epicness.

To start off, myself and two other members of the REU group, Eric and Nick, left for Phoenix at about 3:30. I like the drive a lot, so it was nice. We made a planned stop at an In 'n Out in Phoenix for dinner. They only have In 'n Outs in CA, AZ, and NV I believe. Apparently it's a big deal or something... I got a pretty dissatisfying veggie burger, but the fries and shake were good. And the other two seemed to really enjoy their food, so I guess you need to eat meat. There is some kind of 'secret menu' that you can order off of if you know what to say. Weird westerners.

Hot Phoenix.

Moving along, we went to the venue next: The Cricket Pavilion, which was smaller than I expected, but pretty nice. Turns out we had superb seats. We were about 20 feet from the stage, which was excellent for my eyes, but awful for my ears. To be honest, I went online looking up DT tours, and was pleasantly surprised to see they were touring with Maiden. So, really, I went to see DT, and got a bonus of Maiden.

Wooo! Dream Theater takes the stage!

I've never seen DT live, but have been spending far more time than I should looking up youtube videos of them recently. In short, they kicked some serious butt. Some of the highlights were: Mike Portnoy (drummer) threw his sticks in the air multiple times and caught them probably 50% of the time... Jordan Rudess (keyboards) PULLED OUT THE ZEN RIFFER! YESSSSSS!!!! I think the all caps and exclamation points convey my excitement. I don't know why, but I have a strange obsession with keytars.

Jordan Rudess and John Petrucci during Panic Attack.

During one song, James LaBrie (singer) came to our side of the stage. When he did so, I was the only one in the area who was fist-pumping (I think everyone was there just to see Maiden...). He looks over at me and points to me from stage. It's really not anything spectacular, but for a brief moment I was one of 'those fans'. I can die a happy girl now (who knew that was all it took?). DT played a pretty great set (although I kept waiting for Overture 1928....). What I remember they played:

-Rite of Passage

-Home

-Panic Attack

-Under a Glass Moon

-Pull Me Under

-And some other song I forgot

But... that was only half of the show. The main entree was of course, Iron Maiden.

Unintentionally caught Steve Harris mid-headbang.

I know hardly any IM so I felt pretty out of place as the crowd got crazy and sang all the songs. I knew maybe 3 or 4 out of the 2 hours they played... woops! They were really incredible regardless, though. I have never seen such an energetic band perform. These guys are at least in their 50's, and they were running all over stage, jumping around, and being generally Crazy. Bruce Dickenson (singer) was running on top of the set, while Janick Gers (1 of 3 guitarists) was doing insane acrobats with his guitar. I think he actually played it 2% of the show, while 98% of the time was spent throwing it in the air (for real), banging it against props (seriously), playing it in between his legs (it looked uncomfortable...), spinning it around himself, and throwing the cord all around stage.

Janick Gers. He seemed to really enjoy playing like this.

Musically useless but visually entertaining.

The best way to describe the way he ran around stage would be prancing. I felt sorry for the drummer, Nicko McBrain, because he was boxed in around his drum set and nobody paid attention to him. Oh, I forgot to mention that at the beginning of their show, Maiden played a little intro movie to Mars The Bringer of War from the Planets by Holst. I didn't see anyone else around me who seemed to appreciate the reference... silly rock fans. They also showed some clips of the Crab Nebula! Something else I also forget to mention and am adding now: The guy next to me looked like Geddy Lee and was doing some serious head-banging and air-guitaring to Maiden... I've never seen anyone air guitar with such passion.

After the concert it took us forever to get out of the venue, and after a gas/coffee stop we were on our way back to Flagstaff. I happened to stick my head out the window and saw the Milky Way! So we got off the highway and pulled off to go look at the sky. We happened to see 4 or 5 other guys who actually had a telescope and chairs set out. They just happened to be astronomy/physics (graduate?) students! It was actually pretty funny that we were all astronomy people and we sat around talking about science and Iron Maiden. It was one of those strange chance moments that happens rarely but is really neat. The skies were phenomenal and the Milky Way very bright.

I don't know what kind of luck I was having, but on the way back I saw a fireball! I've never seen one, and it was really cool! To top off a long night, we went to Lowell to try and see Comet McNaught... turns out it's not visible naked eye or was too low. FINALLY I got back to my apartment at about 3 and got to sleep for ~4 hours.

The result today: I'm really tired and feel deaf!