On sabbatical from my sabbatical...

That's it. I'm outta here! Goin' home for T-day.

Back on 1 December.

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all.

The upside of having a 'boss'...

Sometimes, it's really fun to have a 'boss'. Just yesterday, I finished the software audit that was supposed to take me until April. This morning, he tells me it's just what he wanted, only better.

So now I get to sit around and look pretty, while my 'boss' scrambles to figure out what to do with me for the next four months...

(Of course, I'll be busily pulling data out of the archive, and getting some science done in the meantime...)

It's fun to watch 'em sweat.

It's like 4th of July, for astronomers.

I finally figured out what was wrong with Lorant's maser data. The techs had reset an antenna position in the middle of the run. So 75% of the data was flagged on import. D'oh. So I fixed it, and re-calibrated.

Now, I have a little movie that goes through the image cube, from one end of the spectral window to the other. And when I watch the little movie, the masers light up and fade out sequentially. All over the spatial dimensions.

It's like itty-bitty, noiseless fireworks.

Just for me.

Oh yeah. Weekends.

I know this will make all of you nutty, but I just had a weekend. You remember those. I woke up on Saturday, and pretty much had nothing on the agenda but laundry, and dinner at a friend's house. Two hours later, laundry was done. So I went for a bike ride. I had no particular place to go. It was just nice out, so I rode my bike.

Then on Sunday, I woke up and had nothing on the agenda at all. I went out to breakfast at the coffee shop, and ran into some friends, so we ate together. Then I went for a walk to the duck pond. I wandered over to the NMT library to flip through their magazines. I went to the grocery store to buy a pencil. I sketched for a while, and took a nap, and then listened to music. Then I read a book.

I had forgotten that it was possible to get up in the morning and have nothing planned. Oh, yeah, and not immediately MAKE plans, out of sheer panic! ; )

Can I just say...

I love my phone? This is what technology should be.

Yesterday, I finally straightened out a bunch of passwords and so on. Yes, yes, I should have done this weeks and weeks ago. But I didn't. Because I'm the kind of person who doesn't always solve problems right away if they require me to figure out a new approach... sad, but true.

So anyway. I now have a budget spreadsheet for keeping track of my expenses, several 'print' books, a number of audiobooks, music, games, tv shows and movies. All in my phone.

Ever since I arrived in Socorro, I've been using it to keep up with NPR, because local NPR doesn't carry a lot of things I really like at KUER. Marketplace, for example. How am I supposed to understand the economy without Marketplace?! How did I live before streaming audio from NPR?!

And I've used it to navigate, schedule appointments, look stuff up on the inter-web, connect with friends and family, check email from home and the laundromat, track packages, obsessively keep track of the stock market, make to-do lists, watch videos on YouTube, keep up my address book, and take, send and post photographs. I've also used it as an alarm clock to wake me up, and as a stopwatch to keep speakers on track at a conference.

This morning, I am doing a very tedious job of creating a spreadsheet that keeps track of the CASA project, and needed some new tunes to keep me going. So I purchased and downloaded the new Van Morrison. Right here at my desk. I just have to say, 'Way to go, Apple! I don't know how I ever got along without it!'

What are you using your phone for?

Sometimes...

you just need a manager.

Which sounds funny coming from me, but it's true.

I was ranting to J about how this whole software project seems to lack a coherent vision, and any way of reporting problems, progress, etc.

Then I find out there IS no manager.

They are trying to hire one.

Have been for quite some time.

The project's doing pretty well for a bunch of scientists and developers just getting stuff done with no deadlines, meetings, oversight, or conflict resolver.

Back to work...

So, with all that election chaos and emotion, you might be under the impression that no work is getting done.

But you'd be wrong!

I've acquired data (from the archive) on six masering OH/IR stars.
I've duly calibrated and reduced spectral-line data on two of these objects. I actually did that twice, because:
I've found two more bugs in the CASA code, and reported them to those who can fix 'em.
And then I reported a bug that wasn't a bug. It was just me not understanding what the code did. Oops.
I've found several unhelpful error messages that need to be reworded so that novice users will know what they've done wrong.
I've re-organized the CASA spreadsheet o' tasks, so that everything is not priority 1. Scientists. Sheesh.
I've investigated Bugzilla, Mantis and a couple of other programs as a better way to report problems to the development team. This, by the way, is a priority 1 task in the spreadsheet... ; )

So, that's all good. Especially since spectral line data is big and slow, and cleaning it can take your computer as long as four hours. If you do it right. The first time. Which never happens. ; )

Oh, and I also created a sweet Google-docs worksheet for the environmental physics class, as part of the semester-long project students are going to be doing. During which, I learned about solar hot-water heater installations.

And I read the appalling and terrible (but well-written and vitally important) book 'The Weather Makers' by Tim Flannery. Yep. Sometimes there's nothing to do but lay on the sofa and cry for the golden toad (extinct) and the polar bear (soon to be so). So now I know a lot more about climate change. That'll be helpful, as soon as I can wrap my head around it.

I list this all here, because I was thinking that nothing was getting done, and it was depressing me. But now I can go back to work, mightily cheered up!

Odd. Tomorrow is Veteran's Day. It's an NRAO holiday. And we're supposed to actually stay home. On a holiday. What's up with that?

The Man

is spending this morning at parent-teacher conferences with Michelle.

And all of America is going 'Oh, crap. When's my parent-teacher conference? Oh crap. I'd better hitch up my pants, put a belt on and get my sorry butt to my kids' school.'

I keep fearing to get let down. And then he walks the walk, and does things I didn't even expect, that are such powerful messages to the people. Who ever would have expected that the president-elect of the United States of America, the most powerful person on the entire planet, would spend the Friday morning of election week in parent-teacher conferences?

For me, the higher standard is the parent-teacher conference, and not the solving of the economic crisis. Although I expect that too. Just, sort of, you know, if he can squeeze it in while he's changing the culture of the country to include things like responsible parenting, and caring about the future. Oh. He's on it? And getting advice from a wide array of stakeholders and experts? Even people of varying points of view? No lobbyists allowed? Oh. Good. Right on. I'll go back to responsibly doing my job then, and wait to hear about how I can help with the most excellent plan that will no doubt be devised.

Oh, another one.

which lives in my head in Spanish, not English.

My first natively Spanish thought.

Si. Se puede.

And this one... which is Spanglish... sort of...

Obamanos.

Giddiness...

We did it! After four weeks of stomping around NM, calling and knocking and heckling and annoying everyone we could find... After J in Utah calling and heckling and annoying people in CO, and even some in UT... After spending all of election Tuesday checking the polls, calling around, giving rides, and dragging people to the polls, calling, calling, calling, as late as 6:45 pm.

After all that... VICTORY!!!

I am still compulsively checking maps.

Is it really happening?

I have these little epiphanies. All last night, I kept waking up with them. And all day today. I suddenly stop typing, or trying to figure out what happened to my graphics display, or trying to figure out why my bandpass fails in the 245th channel. I suddenly am stopped dead in my tracks, and bits of words and fragments of images fly like birds across my mental landscape. Sunlight glints off of feathers.

We won.

HOPE vs. fear.

We saved ANWR.

Solar panels.

No offshore drilling.

Wind turbines.

Boots.

No one else to die for my car.

Education.

Service.

Ask not what your country can do for you...

Ask. of me.

Hope. Hope. Hope.

Roe v. Wade.

The Constitution.

Sex ed.

All people. Everywhere. ALL. Include. Encompass. Allow. Appreciate. Embrace. Enfold. Lift. Let fly.

The Supreme Court.

Nina Totenberg.

The Constitution.

Warrants for wire tapping.

Medicine for children.

Education.

Science.

... BECAUSE it is hard.

Help for the elderly.

Homes for the homeless.

Homes for the poor.

Homes for our veterans.

Homes.

Home.

Hope.