quote of yesterday

i went into work yesterday to prepare my desk and complete some paperwork. everyone was nice enough to take me out for welcome drinks and dinner and i quite enjoyed their company! at some point later in the evening, my new boss looked at me and asked:

"you're not a morning person, are you?"

excellent sign! hahaha! ;)

welcome to nott'm

layover in dublin... nine in the morning. mmmmmmm.... guinness. this picture looks barren, but there was a surprisingly large number of people drinking guinness this early!


the place i'm staying in nottingham. i lucked out with a great hostess (not pictured)!!


she took me to a farmer's market under a simpsons sky. i've seen the full sky behind the clouds exactly twice since i've been here. i miss the stars.


longhorn? wait a minute, didnt i just leave longhorn country?


a positive side effect of the plentiful rain!


there's always a storm pending in the distance.


city center (not called "downtown")




and the shot you've all been waiting for....



more to come....

things you know you dont know

yes, i'm still here, alive and enjoying nottingham... er, nott'm. i havent had my laptop online yet, so i'm waiting to write lots until i can also share pictures. there arent a buhzillion internet cafe around these parts, so it might have to wait until i go to work. mostly i've just been organizing, exploring, and relaxing before i officially start work on monday. i will say that the crosswords here are a bit different, and decidedly more difficult due to their subtlety. i'll keep trying though.

in the meantime, here's another gem from indexed:

noctilucent clouds

siamak sabet captured this lovely shot of the allusive noctilucent ("night-shining") clouds, over Mt. Sabalan... an extinct volcano in iran.


these clouds exist very high in the atmosphere, nearly 90 km above earth's surface, above almost all of our atmosphere! they are not seen very often, and their existence remains a bit of a mystery. notice the distinct blue color of the clouds. the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) satellite mission has confirmed that the particles making up the clouds are tens of nanometers in size... just the right size to scatter blue sunlight, making it uniquely visible to our eyes. but the mission also found even smaller ice crystals, which makes no sense at such an altitude since it's so dry! why and how are there clouds so high up?

to read more, here's an interesting article (and more pictures) from NASA called strange clouds at the edge of space.

where can i buy a raincoat?

hello from rainy england! i've arrived, safe and sound. it has rained everyday, providing a wonderful atmosphere for napping and trying to get over my jetlag. unfortunately, i dont have proper raingear, so as soon as i venture out of the house on a shopping trip, i'll be buying myself a raincoat and maybe some shoes.

today is my new boss's birthday, so i'll make it out tonight to (hopefully) meet him somewhere in town. time to explore the pubs!!

the lovely woman i'm staying with politely corrects my pronunciation... usually i don't emphasize the letter "t" in the right places. and yesterday i innocently tried to get in her car on the drivers side - much to our amusement! i wonder how long it will take me to get used to cars zooming past on the right side?

today begins the adventure of finding my own place to live, figuring out what phone companies are the best, and what banks exist here... and also watching olympic sports that they don't show on the US channels i was watching.


why do they kneel?

also, can anyone tell me how football (soccer) teams qualify for the olympics?

to go, please!

a disadvantage of my new job, is that they are paying no relocation fees! bug dud! so my mission was to reduce and efficiently pack my load of possessions:



after much procrastination and then effort, it's finished!


that's it. two boxes were mailed home, the plastic containers and little boxes were mailed to england (come on US postal service, make it work!), and the colorful items come with me on the plane.

i spent a lot of time yesterday fashioning that big box from a refrigerator box, to send some artwork in:


but it was too big to ship for any reasonable price :( so i had to perform surgery on the poor painting and now it's all rolled up with the other paintings in the tube. sorry, shay... but i had to do it!

thanks to cindy and jeff cook for giving me a great place to stay this last week and a half in austin. i'll miss you all, but not so much the heat of texas!


ciao!

liver training

the advice has been pouring in these last few days, for both things to do before i leave and once i arrive...

before i leave texas:
eat mexican food (esp. breakfast tacos)
drink root beer
swim
drink margaritas
soak up the heat

after i arrive in england:
buy rain suit
carry pullover at all times
drink beer
eat indian food
sleep


hhmmmm. sounds like i have my work cut out for me ;)
anything else?

we are stardust, billion year old carbon.

on this, the weekend that the world experienced woodstock 39 years ago, i'd like to appreciate a woman who didn't get to go: joni mitchell. as she describes at the beginning of the video below, she stayed back in new york city because her manager thought it more advantageous to appear on a TV show instead. as soon as i heard that story, i felt that she probably regretted that choice the moment it was made. she immediately wrote the song "woodstock" for her friends (a young CS&N) to commemorate the event. most will recognize the more familiar version of woodstock performed by crosby, stills, nash, & young, recorded a few years later. i honestly have no idea how their version came about from the original song. joni mitchell's solo piano version is as haunting as it is hopeful....




i find it unfortunate that there have not been recent pop singers in the soprano range. joni mitchell's soprano sound is naked and gorgeous because she allows her natural vibrato to enhance the melody. i'm easily annoyed by the endless mariah carey-type quick note-hopping at the ends of phrases and carried notes. dont get me wrong, total props to mariah for introducing this sound and performing it incredibly well, it's just that too many damn pop stars are imitating it these days, and not very well!

i've enjoyed listening to joni mature as a singer, because her voice has changed over the years. her voice has grown deeper with time, as i feel mine has too. i'm not the soprano i used to be!

so as i pack today for the big move tuesday, i know who i'll be listening to!

baltimore - welcome to birdland

amazingly, four former UT astronomers, three of whom were in my class, are now living and working in baltimore, maryland (or did they call it birdtown? birdville?).

i stayed with former officemate, shay and her husband. first, we explored the neighborhood.




then we hopped a train to DC, where it rained on us...


... so we drank tea and watched the rain fall down.


(left to right) kit, shay, erin, damon , jeff, and i all went to dinner.


erin and shay both entered grad school with me, graduated with PhDs and decided the direct academic route was not for them. they seem extremely happy doing research at the johns hopkins applied physics lab. they cant tell me the details of what they're doing, but they're making twice as much money as i'll be making... d'oh!! ;)


now open, but closed.


from left to right here: claudia, shay, kit, marty, and the adorably pregnant lissa.


claudia and marty have stuck with academics and both are excited with their postdocs!


ice. custard. happiness. bring it on!



excellent to see everyone in such good spirits! i hope my move goes half as well as your alls (how's that for texas grammar?).