Nerd Take-over of San Francisco - Day 1

Monday Dec. 10, 11:45 PM
Hello from San Francisco! I am pooped, but have had a good day. I overslept this morning until 7:40 … oops. I didn’t get much sleep Friday night, and I only slept 2 hours Saturday night because I was finishing my poster, so I don’t feel too bad for oversleeping. I still made it to the conference by 9:30. I was lucky enough to go to a talk by someone from Georgia Tech. Despite being a school of nerds, there is a research group there that does some work that I find very interesting. I should see if any of them has a poster this week so I could talk to them. This talk was about cloud cover trends in the Tropics. They found that, according to a particular satellite, cloud cover has been decreasing in the Tropics in the past couple of decades. I am not sure if this is because of local effects, or if it is because of large-scale forcings that may connect to the Atlantic and East Pacific Oceans.
One of the best things about AGU is that there is a wide diversity of interesting talks. For example, I went to one that was a study of the Maassai tribe in Kenya, a nomadic tribe that is very sensitive to climate change. It is kind of sad that nomads are on the brink of extinction, due to a combination of factors that include increased droughts and land-use changes (privatization of land). I also stopped by some good posters. I met a woman, Tracey, from the Univ. of Wisconsin, who has started a group for women in the Earth Sciences that I will probably join. It is kind of a networking/support/Q&A group that has 500 women from all over the world. I saw a poster comparing maternity leave in the U.S. to other nations, and saw that we have a pretty crappy deal. By law, women get no paid leave in the U.S. In Norway, they get 42 weeks at 100% pay. I also stopped by a poster by Michel Mesquita, one of the reporters for the newsletter I edit. He is an incredibly friendly and positive guy, and it was good to learn more about his research (on the effects of melting Arctic sea ice on high latitude storms).
I had lunch with Brad, a recent graduate from CSU who now works in Boulder, and Nick, from my group. I managed to only spend $5 on lunch at Whole Foods – way to go me! After lunch, I went to a few talks in the Global Change section, including one on future changes in precipitation in the Amazon due to El Nino. I skipped out of the meetings at 3:30. This afternoon was the only extended period of time when there were no talks that I really wanted to go to. I had a really nice afternoon. I took bus #71 up Haight Street (saw a hooker along the way) and took a stroll through Buena Vista park. It is located on a hill and has beautiful eucalyptus and conifer trees, and a stupendous view at the top of the bay, ocean, mountains, city, and of course the Golden Gate Bridge. I would recommend this park to anyone visiting the city. I wish I had more time to walk around, but it was getting dark and I didn’t want to be in the woods alone. After that, I walked along Haight and Ashbury and did some shopping in the myriad of thrift stores. No comment on if I bought anything. ;) It was fun, and I got back to my side of town (near Union Square) in time to meet up with Brad, Joe Munchak, and Erica for dinner. We went to an Italian seafood restaurant in a cute alley that has about 6 restaurants. I enjoyed some lobster and prawns pasta, and a $6.50 pint of Pilsner Urquell – yikes!!! I had to make sure to drink the whole thing at that price.
After dinner, we stopped by the cheesecake Factory for some take-out dessert, and then Brad, Joe, Nick, and I went to Brad’s hotel room for some wine and vegging. Now I am more than ready to go to sleep! I love being here! ☺

The Best Breakfast Ever!

Over the last few days, it has snowed almost 30 inches in the mountains (more in some places). So, even though I am still not done with my poster, Chris and I decided to go enjoy the powder today! We woke up at 5:30 (even though I was up till 2 working on the poster), struggled over whether it would be worth braving the road conditions, and then finally left the house a little after 6. Things were pretty good, I-25 had snow on it but some parts of it were pretty clear. But my windshield wipers were not getting the job done, and a block of ice was slowly spreading from the top of the windshield. We stopped for gas south of Loveland, and after listening to the traffic report (overturned truck, avalanche prevention, emergency bridge repairs, tunnel closures once an hour for hazardous material transport), we decided to turn around. We got royally screwed last year twice with traffic - one time we sat on I-70 for an hour before learning it was completely shut down - so we did not want to risk that headache, especially since I still have to finish my poster. Plus, we were planning on taking lessons, which would probably be on a groomed trail, and wouldn't even be able to enjoy the powder until after lunch.

This could have been very disappointing, but we decided to make getting up at 5:30 worth it by having breakfast at Chik-fil-A in Loveland. It was the best!! I love their chicken biscuits, they are so warm and buttery and delicious. Yum. Then we bought two $20 gift cards, which came with two free calendars. Next years have some really sweet coupons, so we are looking forward to a happy year of eating at chik-fil-A. Then, Chris brought in their newspaper and the guys behind the counter gave us 3 more coupons for free sandwiches.

So I do not regret getting up early. It was kind of an adventure with Chris, I got some gas station coffee, and we had our favorite breakfast. Now we are home and it's not even 8:30 yet, so we have the whole day ahead of us! Although I think a nap will be in order at some point. Hopefully we'll be able to enjoy the snow some day soon - but if not, at least we'll have saved some money. (I am a glass half-full kind of person).

Oh, I should also mention that my poster is coming along well and yesterday was one of the best days I've had in a while, just because it seems like maybe things are finally going my way! :) Bye!

Freedom!!

Phew, I have survived what is probably the most difficult class I have ever taken! I turned in my final project yesterday - an idealized, very simple non-divergent vorticity model. Now that I have used a few big words to make myself feel smart, I'll move on.
I am kind of too tired to appreciate the class being over. I was working at the department until 2:30 AM Monday night and stayed all night on Tuesday, so I am still catching up from the lack of sleep. I also still have some work to do the next few days so I cannot completely relax yet. I have to make a poster for the conference I am going to next week, and my model is still running! In fact, I don't expect it to finish the first year of simulation until about 4 AM Sunday, and my flight leaves 3:30 that afternoon! So I am not sure what will happen there. I can make a poster with less than a year of results, but I have not decided what to do. My adviser came by my office today to tell me it would be okay if I end up withdrawing from the conference - that everyone does it and I shouldn't be ashamed if I have to do it, especially considering it is not completely my fault (there have been 3 power outages the past 3 weeks, one of them shutting down the computers for about 5 days). It was nice to hear him say that, but I am pretty sure I can have something ready by Wed (when my presentation is).
Anyways, I am very very excited about the conference. It is in San Francisco and there are lots of interesting talks to hear and posters to see, and good food to be eaten. The hotel we stay in is top-notch, so I'm even looking forward to sleeping in that huge, comfy bed! :)
I am also very excited to have a life again! Now that the class is over I can probably "only" work 40 hours a week, like a normal person! I can come home at night and hang out with my husband! Maybe, just maybe, I can ride my bike someday, too! Yay! Actually, I have been running and swimming a few days a week, so I am not too bent out of shape about not riding recently.
Well I am going to go now. I am going to address our Christmas cards - woohoo! :) Coming soon to a mailbox near you ...
Bye!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Daydreaming

Well, I am going to break my rule of not blogging at work. I am debugging code that is being run on multiple processors and it is a pain and very slow. Basically, I do some work and then have to wait for the code to run to see if what I did worked. It takes a while but not long enough for me to start another project while I wait.

So ... life has been pretty good. Chris is working late and I'm glad he has a lot to do, we are both just a little anxious that the work will continue - maybe at a slightly less frenzied pace. But I don't want to talk about work.

I want to talk about the Haute Route!! This is something I've been wanting to do for years, and I really think that next summer is THE time to do it. This is a 180 km trail that goes from Chamonix, France to Zermatt, Switzerland (through the Alps!). It sounds amazing! To hike it, most people take almost 2 weeks. A plus is that you stay in huts along the way that have beds and food, so you carry very little gear and can just cruise along and enjoy the scenery. Yesterday I killed some time looking at some websites about it and wow!! It would be ideal to spend three weeks in France/Switzerland, so that we could do some other sight-seeing activities before/after the hike. My grandfather (Pops) left each of his grandkids with some money, he did not have a lot, but it would be enough to cover the airfare plus a little more. (We already spent some of that money when we went to Hawaii - thanks Pops!!!). So it is definitely feasible - the biggest hurdle will be Chris getting that much time off. He should start talking about it now, though ... I want to go soooo bad! It is good timing for me because I will be transitioning between Masters and PhD, so taking a lot of time off wouldn't kill me.



Above is the Haute Route in winter. That would be amazing - you can ski it in about a week, but we are not quite at that level of snowboarding/avalanche awareness yet. Maybe one day!

Chris and I just have so much that we want to do. Even within the state of Colorado there is an infinite number of fun things. We still haven't been to the San Juan mountains, I definitely want to go there. Also I hear the Flat Tops are cool, and there is great mountain biking on the western slope. Those are some things I'd still like to do. Then there's lots of fun stuff close by - Rocky Mountain, the Rawahs and Mt Zirkel wilderness. We also need to go to Yellowstone ... and the Wind River Range up that way is phenomenal. And, we both really want to return to Moab. OH, Utah, that brings up a whole bunch more things we'd like to see. Then there's New Mexico ... it is too much! :) But what a wonderful 'problem' to have!

Yum .... beer!!!!!!!!!! Drink up

Code is running slowly today ...

What Kind of Drink Are You?
	You are a Pint of Beer. You're happy with who you are. Sure, you may not be the 'sophisticated' and 'refined' type, but at least you're real. You don't let the little things get to you, and you have a good time no matter what life throws at you. Keep it up.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Killing Time

Well, it is late, but I need to unwind a little before I go to bed. Working on homework at night has become a necessity, but it is pretty much impossible to fall asleep after thinking about finite difference schemes for three hours. Last night I actually had a dream about solving one of the homework problems ... it is sad! My dream solution wasn't even right - I tried it almost first thing this morning, so it was in no way a useful dream.
Anywho, I am getting close to one month to go until this hellacious semester is over. I honestly do not think I've ever worked this hard before ... and I really don't care to ever again (at least not at this salary!!). I feel slightly encouraged that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It is too bad that I am still quite a ways from defending my thesis. Even though I will need to work on research over winter break, I am excited about December because of the holidays and because I am going to San Francisco for the AGU meeting - and Chris is coming out there for 2-1/2 days and we are going to Napa Valley - yay! :)
The weather has been really nice here in the Fort but it is too bad that the mountains aren't getting much snow. I would love to go snowboarding sometime soon, but it's not worth the drive to ride in 20 inches of packed, man-made snow. I could do that in Georgia! Haha. I wish I could enjoy the nice weather more, I haven't ridden my road bike in well over a month!! I rode my mountain bike home on some of the foothills trails last week and had a lot of fun, but now it is dark by 5:00 so I can't really do that and get in a decent day's work. I am itching to do something outside though - one of these next weekends I will have to take some time off. Chris and I hiked at a new park outside of fort collins last Sunday and it was really nice. It's called Bobcat Ridge - we hiked a 4.5 mile trail that just winds along a valley in the foothills and it was very pretty. We hiked slow because I have been a little sick, but it was wonderful to be outside for a few hours. They have even more trails so maybe we can go back and mountain bike there before the snow starts to fall.
Well, I might try to post a picture or two from my life recently, but then I am off to bed! Goodnight. :)