Oh the ups and downs of experimental research.  I haven’t written about research much lately mainly because it literally has been filling that stigma I so often say to others when they ask me what I do: I dig a hole, fill it back in, then dig it out again to make sure I filled it in properly; rinse and repeat.   Doing basically the same thing over and over used to bother me more than it did before my inner dishwasher took over.  Honestly that is for the better since the brutal 5 or so hour rain dance I do before a thruster test is essentially done in autonomous mode leaving my mind free to explore the reasons why I’m bolting that thing in yet again.  Over the past week there have been some pretty substantial breakthroughs to say the least but some over zealous operation yesterday has left me running on some questionable and undocumented hardware.  Ok so I roasted yet another anode.  Last count has it up to 19 this academic year though 18 of those can be attributed to some contamination.  I’ll leave it at that since I don’t want to get kicked to the curb for betraying state (non)-secrets.  It will all be in my dissertation due out in a scant 3 months.

Two things are occupying my mind this evening, one of which I will talk about . . . so today as I was readjusting / fine tuning the thrust calibration system on the thrust stand, I receive a call from my old  Program Manager at TI on the lab phone.  I recognized his familiar voice in an instant and of course brought back a wash of the good old days (summers 2001-2002) when I was drastically less accountable and was seeking enlightenment as a supplement to my then formal educational endeavor.  I had such a great time working at Texas Instruments, I mean they literally molded me into engineer I am today.  Anyway, so I’m talking and it sounds like I have a position essentially waiting for me if I want it.  Do I want it?  So I basically expressed my concerns which are:  small office in Rochester MN leaves me little chance for advancement within the company and oh I hate the Rochester area (though perhaps mainly out of adolescent angst).   Don’t get me wrong, I’m very honored to even be presented with the opportunity to work with some of TI’s finest engineers but I’m not certain if the long term situation fits into my career goals.  There is no question in my interest in the work but rather in what lies just over the horizon.  In any case, I requested a week to ponder the possibility before I either shove off or open up negotiations.  So if you see me, that pensive look is either debating international politics, or my own future.

For those who don’t know, I’m a pretty environmentally conscious person.  I do what I can to minimize my impact on the environment while holding massive contempt for those who waste natural resources or are conspicuously consuming them (most of the people featured on the Travel Channel fit that bill).  Anyway, I use google earth to plot my runs and today I decided to check and see if there is any plan to update the Keweenaw Peninsula with higher resolution maps.  I didn’t find that, but I did browse through the user community on there.   Of particular interest was the Environment and Conservation area where one can find a dizzying array of examples of man’s meddling on the surface of the planet.  If this sort of thing is you’re deal, I’d suggest checking it out.

Being no stranger to long boring drives, I’ve found that there some things that people do on these drives that likely serve to keep them sane but whose collateral damage is the general annoyance fellow highway zombies. Let me give you an example: maybe 6 months ago I heading back up to MTU on I-35 north of the Cities after visiting home. I was doing my usual 80-85 like most everyone in the surrounding light Sunday afternoon traffic when I saw it: maybe two miles ahead some truck was always taking the inside lane on every gentle bend in the otherwise mind-numbingly straight highway. He was polite about it, faithfully signaling every unnecessary lane change. Since he was a fair distance ahead going only slightly slower than me, I was fortunate enough to watch this escapade for 15 minutes or so. Every single corner. Was he doing it to save gas? Stave off boredom? Scratch that obsessive compulsive itch? When I finally caught up with him, I gazed and eyed up my not so elusive prey. From the looks of it he was probably swaggering his 3 ton full size pickup all the way from Texas. The cowboy hat and alpha male handlebar mustache mated up perfectly with his absent looking woman I can only imagine was his wife. I’m sure the lane changing thing drove her crazy too.

Live music at the house tonight (aka the only venue in the UP really worth a damn):

Anarkinda

The Blackflies

The Neverland Rancheros
The Asian Youth

It all starts at 9pm. Be there.

Hah, just when you thought I was never going to post again you find this page curiously updated. Rather than go into some long detailed and likely entertaining discussion of what has transpired over this hiatus, I’ll just do a quick summary so I can get back to the usual emo whining everyone has come to expect from blogs (ok just kidding, I try not to do that). So here we go, my last month or so condensed into as many lines as it takes your browser / resolution to render:

Colorado: Awesome. For those who are curious, A-Basin was certainly my favorite out of Breck, Keystone and A-Basin. Just imagine the most amazing mountain scene ever – a gigantic mountain carved into rugged bowl over the millennia, stunning morning sun staring me in the face, thin air tugging at my lungs, several thousand foot vertical drop back down to the device that brought me up there, awesome music rocking out in the helmet . . . and then I skied my ass through what is unquestionably the most amazing run I’ve ever taken.

Back in MN: I actually managed to maintain my workout schedule in an acceptable way. My longest run was about 10.5 miles on new running shoes. I did it quite slow, but now at least I know my legs won’t fall off when I run the half marathon.

In MI: Ahhh, my Houghton. This place is beginning to feel like that pair of shoes you’ve had forever. You know, the pair that is almost worn out that you should really be replacing sometime soon. Anyway, I made some progress on the house. Nothing all that fantastic for the amount of time I’ve had. Though as many know, I just sort of checked out for a week there and dabbled in all sorts of different things. Last week was probably one of the better weeks I’ve had from a wide eyed child standpoint. Doing exactly what you feel like whenever you want is very liberating.

Oooo Back to work: This has sucked. I have virtually nothing to do at the moment besides read (which I do constantly anyway). The silver lining though is that I have everything I need to continue my research but there is a bit of a traffic jam so far as vacuum chamber time is concerned. Basically I’ve had to sit on my hands for the last week which is sort of like bouncing a race car off the rev limiter in neutral – the driver is there ready and willing, but that doesn’t mean a damn thing so far as forward motion goes. Ok, so I’m frustrated, since I have hardware in hand ready to go since this past Tuesday but I can’t get tank time until Monday. In the interim though it is hard to stay busy and interested in anything but trying to talk people in to yielding their tank time (which I try to avoid doing).