the ravings of the questioning
Although this isn’t my favorite Apple Harvest Festival photo of this year (more on that later), I do believe it’s my favorite of today’s shots. Somehow there’s something amusing in the juxtaposition of a very carnival-like vending booth and the stately trimmings of the Ithaca Commons. I also love the brightness of the colors here; it was a gorgeous day for a festival today.
I felt it appropriate to kick off Project 22 with a photo of myself and my camera, but the motivation for this particular shot is one rooted in nostalgia. When I was a kid, my father built a medicine cabinet above the sink for the bathroom that my sister and I shared. It had three separate, evenly-sized mirror sections that opened to reveal shelves where things like our thermometer were kept. I used to love to crawl up on the sink counter, open two of the sections and bend them inward, leaving only a little gap to press my face into. This revealed a world of infinite (or so it seemed) mes, and the numerous reflections fascinated me. My current apartment is the first time since I was thirteen where I’ve had a similar medicine cabinet, and, well, I had to try.
Otherwise known as: What Nicole Will Find Time For During Her 37 Hours In NW Arkansas If Her Advisor Gives Her Permission To Show Up To The APS/DFD Conference A Day Late In Order To Go To Her Cousin’s Wedding.
So I hadn’t actually planned to make research-related photos the very first that I post here with my new camera, but that just happens to be the way things turned out. Now, to be fair, these are not great photos–not by a long shot. However these shots are something I could never have even dreamed of catching with my previous camera. Therefore, I now present you with photos of those-hotwire-things-Nicole-keeps-talking-about:
Above is a close-up of the prongs on our boundary layer probe, which is our most delicate and difficult to repair probe. The tips of the prongs form an X-shape (hence being an x-wire hotwire) on which two wires are set at approximately 90 degree angles to one another. It’s just barely possible to see a hint of the wire proper. You’re more likely to notice slightly larger copper-colored bits sticking out from the tips: this is (surprise!) copper plating over the tungsten wire that actually measures velocities for us. With the copper-plating, the wire is about 80 microns thick–the size of a human hair. The tungsten beneath that is 3 microns in diameter.
Here’s a shot that will give you a better indication of the overall size of this instrument:
Not too big. All of the repair work on these is done by hand, beneath a microscope with your average, run-of-the-mill soldering iron. This is why Stephanie and I tend to gush whenever we manage to repair one of these.
The new camera (i.e. my birthday present to myself) has arrived. My fingers are itching to play with it. Unfortunately, batteries require charging. Both the camera’s and mine. Staying up until 2 A.M. trying to get my homework working turned me into a walking pile of misery today. But it’s over now. And I have a new toy!
‘Tis a fine day to be talkin’ like a marauder o’ the seas. Pillage yerselves a bottle or five o’ rum an’ enjoy th’ time while it lasts, ye scoundrels. Th’ beatings’ll continue on th’ morrow. ‘Til th’ morale improves.
Whoever played “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” on the McGraw Tower bells at today’s midday concert brightened my day enormously. It was impossible not to smile on that walk, despite the traffic, the homework problem festering in my brain, and the fact that I was on my way to my not-so-beloved optics lab. Thank you.
It rained pretty steadily this weekend, so I made a point of walking the Cascadilla Gorge trail on the way home this evening so that I could see how things looked when the creek is swift and swollen. I happened to walk home such that the upper portion of the trail caught the fading sun perfectly. I can hardly believe my sad little camera captured the colors so well.
I’m very pleased with this 360 degree panorama, too, but one has to see it in a rather larger size to really appreciate it, I think.
I’ve put up nine photos of the gorge today, and I also have shots from a year ago, in case anyone wonders what it looks like on a more normal day. I’ve also uploaded some lovely shots of Ithaca Falls that I took the weekend before last on a day when the sky was too blue to be Ithacan.
Research is eating me alive, but my actual progress has been virtually nonexistent. Having access to the tunnel is going to turn into a nightmare at the end of this month, which gives me only a couple weeks to get the data I need. That said, I couldn’t get any measurement done this past week. It was as if the lab hated me with a burning passion. Wednesday was spent in a futile attempt to rebuild the $1000 probe, and I had to end by making just a simple one-wire probe for the next day instead. By the end of the day, it felt like someone had stuffed cottonballs in my eye sockets and I couldn’t solder another wire to save my life.
Thursday I got into the tunnel, only to find that the plate’s height had been changed such that I couldn’t perform my experiment. To make matters worse, we don’t know what height the plate was at for the measurement I was trying to match, and the post-doc doesn’t want to change the plate’s height because right now it’s perfect for his set-up. End result: I may have to throw out all my data from this summer. Spent the rest of the afternoon with Stephanie actually getting the $1000 probe remade.
Friday morning I got in a bit late, but we got the $1000 probe all calibrated and ready for a detailed experiment that didn’t require the height of the plate to be altered. We got the probe in the rig, lowered it into place, turned everything on–and got no signal out of the second channel, which had been fine ten minutes before. At that point we had to run out to class, but when we came back we put the probe under the microscope to inspect it. Even at the highest magnification, we could barely see a break in the wire. The fracture had to have been less than a fraction of a micron wide, but air, unfortunately for me, doesn’t have the same resistance as tungsten, so that day’s measurements were also scrapped. We spent the afternoon remaking the probe. Again. I won’t have another shot at getting data until Wednesday and sometime before then I have to explain to my advisor why I haven’t accomplished anything.
I went to a party at the house of one of my fellow second-years on Friday night and had a lot of fun, even though I just sat around and talked while everyone else got to drink. I’d driven over, so I stuck with juice and water. I’m glad that we still manage to socialize despite it all.
I’m continuing to devour book after book in my free time, and even managed to write some 1100 words earlier this week. Sometimes I think it would be great fun to finish my novel, get someone interested in publishing it, and then walk into my advisor’s office to ask for some time off so that I could go publicize my novel. I think the expression on his face would be very entertaining.
A Good Thing: finishing the day’s cooking by 9:10 A.M. Three full and healthy meals included. Yay for crockpots!
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