Now that Memorial Day Weekend is a month in the past, I’ve gotten around to posting some of the photos Joe and I took while we were in Virginia. The weekend was a pretty relaxing one, all things considered, though we did spend Sunday hiking part of the Appalachian Trail and doing a lot of driving around the greater Wytheville area. Most of the photos are from then.
Our first big stop was at the Big Walker Lookout Tower, by a country store, which was filled with the sorts of things one expects from such an establishment. The younger ones of the group climbed the tower for photo-seeking purposes.
After some ice cream, we hopped back in the car and started searching for the hiking trail we wanted. Eventually (by which I mean hours later) we located a section of the Appalachian Trail that had a place to park our cars while we hiked. Oddly enough, part of the trail we went through went through some farmer’s cow pasture. Some of us might have gotten nostalgic if it weren’t for the fact that it was miserably hot when we weren’t under the trees. (Actually, my sister Kelley started doing Sound of Music impersonations in the middle of the pasture, but no one caught it on camera, unfortunately.)
Luckily for everyone, we found a nice creek to stick our feet in and cool off. Some of us were more excited by this than others. Not that I’m naming names or anything.
In the end, we hiked back to our cars, spent some more time driving and enjoying the scenery, went back to relaxing at the campsite, and then drove back to Ithaca the next day.
I love my “backyard” in the summertime. Who needs air conditioning when there are creeks to stand in? Enjoy a few photos from my afternoon jaunt through Six Mile Creek.
I was pretty down earlier this week when everyone in my research group suddenly turned against my recent data and said it had to be wrong. I went back and adjusted some calibration parameters and reran all of the numbers, but things didn’t change too much. The trend that had them up in arms was still there. But now the tables have turned! I realized that the article I was supposed to lead a discussion on today had data for a situation similar to mine and they found the same trend that I did. So I spent most of our meeting today not so much leading a discussion on said paper, but proving to everyone that I’d made my measurements carefully and correctly and that my results constitute a clear continuation of the results of the previous paper. In the end, I won. No more questioning whether Nicole knows what she’s doing!
Instead, my advisor insisted that we add more of my–or rather our–data to the presentation he’s making at a conference next week. Win!
Holy crap, guys! The Germans have created the perfect wallpaper for any fluid mechanician: wallpaper with streamlines. Check out Surrealien’s other patterns. Some of the photos are pretty mind-boggling. (via Rocketboom)
Also, forgive me. I know full well that the fact that my mind instantly jumps to streamlines and fluid mechanics when I see this is a sign that I need a vacation. Or a lobotomy. Or both.
I found out last minute about an on-campus blood drive today, but when I got over there I got rejected, for the second time in a row, for my iron levels being too low. Not you’re-anemic-and-need-to-do-something-low. Just on the low side of normal. It’s indicative of the kind of day I’m having when hearing that there was a blood mobile here was the highlight of the day so far, and now I’m sad, annoyed, and generally in a bad mood because I can’t donate.
I need something to cheer me up.
No seriously. First I get introduced to this song, which is all about Mandelbrot and his contributions to chaos theory. Then, this morning I watched yesterday’s Rocketboom, which was all about Mandelbrot and fractals and chaos theory, and then–then–this afternoon as I was reading out of one of my turbulence textbooks, I came across this:
“For large n, the discrepancies [in the scaling of the structure function] are attributed to the deficiencies in the log-normal assumption, which has been roundly criticized by Mandelbrot (1974) and others.” #
My brain hurts. Is it the concept, the paranoia, or the fact that I’ve been clenching my jaw day and night for days now?
My plan to write disintegrated in the face of robots although I did make an updated timeline for the story. Firstly, there was this story of a student who was arrested for holding up a sign saying “Equal Rights For Robots” at a pro-life rally (via Rocketboom). The whole reaction of the police seems pretty sketchy to me, and it seems strange that there wasn’t even much in terms of local media attention on the incident. Hmm…
In other robot news, I spent too much time on LOL Bots today. But how can I resist lots of Borg jokes; fun Futurama references; space geekery; sad robots; political commentary; and even a reference to one of the labs in my department? Well, obviously, the short answer is that I can’t.
Not a great deal of recent news. Sadly, I still have not managed to get around to uploading the photos from my trip to Virginia. I would do so now, but I might break the lab’s wireless connection and that would be profoundly bad. Stephanie might well murder me.
Most of my recent free time has been spent charging through the Harry Potter books. I’m afraid that I rather underestimated my reading speed, as I’m already taking chunks out of Book 5, despite having been very specific about not bringing the books to campus and reading them while taking data sets. I’m starting to remember how it was that I was kid that astounded the librarians during the summer reading competitions when I was younger. I only wish that textbooks and journal articles went by so quickly.
Right now, for example, I should, by all rights, be reading some work-related stuff. But, instead, I’m blogging and toying with the idea of doing some serious writing. Ahahaha, I love summer.
I ran away to Virginia last (Memorial Day) weekend after the Great Debacle, and that, along with this past week, have done me a world of good. Things are basically looking up in all regards. In the lab I’ve been given my own domain within the lab’s current project, and I basically have license to pursue the ends by means of my choice. My first set of measurements–which I’m hoping to begin this week–happens to fall under the expertise of my former advisor at Case, so I’ve been in contact with him again, which is always enjoyable.
I have an apartment scoped out for next year, but I’m working out the final details and haven’t signed a lease yet. I’m rather looking forward to it, though, because the place is nothing less than swanky.
This weekend was the annual Ithaca Festival, which provided me with plenty of entertainment yesterday. I think my favorite bit was when we ran across the “Ethical Fashion” show, which was one of those things that I can only imagine happening in Ithaca. It was a fashion show entirely dedicated to recycled attire. As in, some vintage clothing; some clothing that had been reconstructed from bits of old clothing; and some clothing that had literally been recycled. Particularly intriguing was a woman’s dress that had been made entirely from men’s neckties. Yes, you read that right. There was quite a crowd, and they enjoyed cheering the models–all local Ithacans–immensely.
I also had fun wandering through the various crafts stalls yesterday, particularly the photographers’ stalls because many of them had photos from around Europe of places I’d visited. One of my favorites had some lovely canal house reflections from Holland that both made me nostalgic and reminded me how I need to go back through some of my old photographs and find ones to enlarge and frame nicely. Nothing like decorating with photos I’ve taken myself, yay!
In other news, I’ve finally done what my sister has been after me about for years. Yes, I started reading the Harry Potter books. So far I’ve finished the first two, and I stand by what I’ve said before regarding Rowlings’ style. Still, the stories themselves are enjoyable, even if many of the many characters suffer from Caricature Syndrome. At least Neville’s there. I shall be most put out if poor Longbottom goes in the last one. Still, I think if she were to try to kill Harry off the publishers would hand back the manuscript and say, “Try again.” Alas!
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