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!

Organic > All Natural

Today I ate a bite of All Natural granola, then I had some organic granola. Thus I came up with a food hierarchy:

1. Run of the mill food
2. All Natural
3. Organic
4. Local

Each level increases in hippie-friendliness.
Man, I should start writing books, or something. Ask me about my joke about the porpoise.