Greg's navel gazing

12:11 pm - bleah

Ran 20 minutes this morning. So did not want to. So did not want to disappoint make_your_move but not keeping up with my part of the bargin.

01:57 pm - forgot to update

Ran for 20 minutes yesterday morning. Again upped the distance by a small amount.

12:10 pm - training

Another 20 minute run today. I went about 1/8th of a mile further each way.

08:51 pm - Wager

I saw Gottdamerung this afternnon at Kennedy Center with a non lj friend. Five hours of music. My first Wagner, I barely knew the plot. Siegfried is strong, brave, and can take out dragons, but boy is he dumb as a post. Brunehilde also was rather dumb at times for someone who had songs sung about her wisdom. This wasn't the opera that had "Ride of the Valkyries", but when they appeared they played a few chords. I was good and never once broke out into "Kill the Wabbit".

11:43 am - *sigh* dogs

Doing Saturday housecleaning chores. Time to sweep and mop the laundry room. Montoya happily sits down and watches me work. And then when I'm done he gets up and walks across the still damp floor, leaving a trail of muddy footprints behind.

09:33 am - exercise

Another 20 minute run today. At least it wasn't actively raining. I'll do the same length next week, before trying to up it.

01:49 pm

Cholesterol 181, LDL 105 (a tad high), HDL 38 (a tad low).

07:30 am - first workout

My first workout towards doing the Angles Race sprint triatholon, which I'm blaming on make_your_move, Only 20 minutes of running, but I want to ease into this. Still, go me.

01:04 pm - two day old humor

When driving to work on Tuesday, the announcer said "Welcome to Morning Addiction".

04:03 pm - linux certs

The bean counters at work have decided I need to have a linux certification, doesn't really matter which one. Since I don't want to waste time in a class, does anyone know who has a short class, or better yet just some place I can show up and take a test?

09:08 am - linksys FAIL

I used to have a cheap linksys wifi router, cause I like being
being behind a non software firewall. It gave up the ghost a few weeks ago, after about 7 years, so I didn't think to much about replacing it. The replacement failed after three weeks. Die in a fire, linksys!

10:09 am - wow

From email I just got. SDSS is the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which I worked on for
about five years.

Refereed SDSS papers have just passed over 100,000 citations. You
can check this out on ADS at:
http://tinyurl.com/42jxy
which lists the 2656 refereed papers to date that mention 'SDSS' or
'Sloan Survey' in their title or abstract. I quickly put together the
differential and cumulative statistics per year in the attached
graph. The number of SDSS papers published each year has been steady at a bit
over 400 per year for the past several years. But the number of
citations has been growing almost exponentially. And we now have 200
papers with 100 or more citations, which is a truly impressive
number.

09:40 am - home improvement argh

I love waiting at home between 7 and 9 am to find out the time that the contractors to measure for the new floor will be arriving, only to find out that I'm not on the list at all today, since Home Depot didn't collect the measuring fee to be forwarded to the contractors.

I'm sure this isn't the last time I'll be grumbling either.

10:49 pm - wow

Eight hours of cleaning today. I've got to make sure the house never gets that out of control again.

05:11 pm - Leaf Peeping

Fall in Vermont

08:23 am - Nobel Prize

Dear Nobel Peace Prize committee,

Please have higher standards than "Not being Bush". You don't get a Mulligan, although you need one.

02:23 pm - ding dong the witch is dead!

NSPS is gone!

09:49 am - NPR

It is so amusing to listen to the NPR anchor attempt to pronounce "x-ray crystallography" while announcing the Nobel Prize winners.

09:17 am

Happy birthday sappharia!

08:35 am - once is an accident, twice enemy action

As I was ready to put my shoes on this morning, I noticed a tennis ball in my right shoe. I made some comment to the dogs, then went to put on the other shoe. At which point I found a second tennis ball in the second shoe.

Montoya is trying to claim my shoes.

09:53 pm - owww

There are few things like having a dog attempt to hop up into the bed, and landing in one's crotch.

02:17 pm - attn faire addicts

if I wanted to get a nice looking outfit for a friends wedding who is getting married at Faire, can anyone recommend a good place to get it from?

11:24 am - Boston on Tuesday

I'm doing a one day meeting in Boston on Tuesday, and it looks like the way the day is scheduling out I'm going to be free for dinner. I'll be visiting MIT/Draper, and will be using the T, so can anyone recommend a place to eat nearby? Anyone interested in dinner that day?

09:47 am - some days start way too early

Somehow my alarm get all messed up, and while the alarm was saying "6:30", it was actually 3am. Luckily Pam stopped me before I got into the shower. I hadn't even noticed how dark it was, I was ready to start my day cause the alarm said "6:30".

*sigh*

09:58 pm - where everyone knows your name

I often joke that walking two german shepards is a great way for everyone to know who you are. Tonight I was walking the overexcited fullballs and I passed someone walking his dog. The person stopped, looked at Montoya, and said "New dog, isn't it?".

10:45 am - today's thoughts

Its getting hard to tell the difference between the Republicans in Congress and the wingnuts.

10:21 am - Happy laborday

My sympathies to anyone who has to work today.

12:15 am - netflixed

Saw Dangerous Beauty tonight. Ah, costume porn. :)

07:05 pm - Mt Wilson, in the fires

Fire bad

03:59 pm - simple pleasures

Ice cream tastes better when it has been scooped out by prism_pet.

02:10 pm - The battle for Mount Wilson

Fighting the fires near a modern observatory.

11:08 am - geeky news

It looks like Magnetic Monopoles exist.

09:48 pm - some of my week

	working hard or hardly working The telescope control room of the 1.0 meter telescope.
	Moonset over the dome Bye bye Mrs. Moon!
	trucked amoung the rocks The CTIO 4 meter seen from about a 1/4 of a mile away.
	Rachel and Daniel My two coworkers for this trip.
	ISS and Shuttle And overfly of the ISS and the Space Shuttle as seen from Cerro Tololo on 30 Aug 2009. The brighter is the ISS. The streaks are due to my camera being hand held.

05:50 pm - it's become work

The shiney has stopped from this observing run, and its now just work. Start work at 4pm. Work till 7 am. Sleep till early afternoon. Lather, rinse, repeat for six days.

09:51 pm - phrases you rarely hear

Tonight I uttered for the first time "I'm going to eat this because it is purple."





PS: It was a blueberry dessert.

06:34 pm - Pam update

Pam is home. She's currently low energy, but glad to be home. She would love visitors, but not today, and asks that you call first. If anyone wants the house number please let me know. I get back on next Wednesday.

02:39 pm - Congrats sihaya09

Congrats and best wishes to you both!

08:07 pm - what I'm doing this week

	telescopes at CTIO The big one is the 4 meter. I'm using one of the smaller ones, central most one.
	my view at dinner Lunch and dinner are so boring when I have too look at this.
	sunset at the 0.9 meter dome A view to the west of the 0.9 meter dome.

11:14 am - in Cerro Tololo

I'm back in La Serena Chile for yet more observing of quasars. Whee! I have about 45 minutes before the ride to the mountain. The trip so far has been interesting, the plane to Santiago was late, but we cleared customs with about five minutes to spare in order to get the next plane. I had dinner with the two ducklings at Tololo Beach last night, I had a tuna fillet and Dan and Rachel both had the "lomo" which is steak tender enough to melt on the fork. A bottle of wine and I was feeling pretty mellow. Now for six nights of not sleeping, and potentially cursing at balky telescopes.

12:24 pm - hey, tamnonlinear! zombie math!

When Zombies attack!

10:29 pm - Sept 12th

Any interest?

Target FREE Opera in the Outfield
A Live Simulcast of Rossini's The Barber of Seville at Nationals Park
Saturday, September 12, 2009, 7:00 PM

Gates open at 5:30 p.m.

04:08 pm - weekend update

Friday, went with reedrover to Wolf Trap for box seats for La Boheme. We buffeted (is that a verb?) at Ovations before hand. The food was 15 buck buffet food served for $27 each. The moral equivalent to hotel food at a con. But the scenery was wonderful, so I figure it was part and parcel for the night. It was my first opera, since I figure if I understand the language they sing in it ain't opera. Phantom and What's Opera Doc don't count. :) A decade of going to Wolf Trap and I've never sat in box seats before. I'll not make that mistake again. The opera was fine, with modern technology of subtitles I had zero trouble following along. They staged it in modern Brooklyn, which was a two edge sword, it was so much like Rent (actually Rent is like La Boheme) that I was doing the compare and contrast thing mentally all night. But in a way I like experiencing these things as themselves, not how they compare to others. C'est la vie.

Saturday and sunday were interior cleaning and exterior cleaning. I got my lawn shed swept out of bugs and mouse nests, and power washed the grass stains off the exterior. Got to watch Montoya playing in the sprinkler for an hour. That dog seems part fish.

11:33 am - Mafia wars

Someone at the telework center is playing "Mafia Wars" on facebook. I enjoy the game as well, BUT NOT DURING WORK HOURS!

09:46 pm - dinner for 4

lamb chops with mushrooms and thyme, potato cubes with some rosemary, broccoli flourettes with cheese sauce, a bottle of Bordeaux, and bread pudding, all served on the good china. And the new doggie behaved once I showed him a spot he could lie down on that was close enough to make him happy, and far enough from the table to make me happy.

04:59 pm

Montoya settles in Montoya gets in a staring contest with his food bowl.

09:45 am

Has yelling at cops "You wouldn't be doing this if I were white." ever accomplished anything useful in recorded history?

08:40 pm - Jupiter ringing like a bell

Looks like a comet or asteroid plunged into Jupiter a couple of days ago.

Linky

09:29 am - modern life

No names mentioned to protect the not so very guilty.

"So, you're calling to confirm an e-mail I didn't get about a dinner date I don't remember?"

10:30 am - what a way to start the day

I love it when suspicious packages shut down Mass Ave.

03:46 pm - DC area ISS viewing

Tonight, between 22:43 and 22:49 EDT the ISS will pass from southwest to northeast, culminating 50 degrees above the northwest horizon at 22:46. It should be at least magnitude -2.5, and may "flare" even brighter if there's a good specular reflection from one of the solar arrays.

Tomorrow night, 7/7, between 21:32 and 21:38 EDT it will pass from southwest to northeast, culminating 44 degrees up in the southeast at 21:35. Since it will be viewed at a greater phase angle it should be brighter than tonight's pass, perhaps by a full magnitude. As an added bonus, there will be a bright "flare" of Iridium 32 at 21:31:37 near the bright star Vega. If you are ± a quarter mile of the USNO's longitude this flare could top out at magnitude -8. Farther east/west it will be less bright, but anywhere within ± 15 miles east/west of the USNO longitude it should still appear brighter than Venus.

On Wednesday, 7/8, between 21:57 and 22:02, we will once again have a southwest to northeast pass of the ISS, culminating 47 degrees up in the northwest just before 22:00.