Wasson Peak (Again)

I'm starting to feel like I do this hike a lot, but it really is a good hike - enough to feel like you've done something, but not so much as to leave you wiped for the rest of the day. And I don't mind repeating hikes for the most part. It's never the same as the last time - things look different in different seasons, different times of day, and different years.

Yesterday we approached from the south side of the mountain - last time (November) we came at it from the north side (See? I do mix things up occasionally!).

If you look at the pictures from August, you'll notice it isn't nearly as green as it was in August. What green is present is pretty dull-looking. Monsoon season really does make a difference. The second picture shows ruins from an old mine.


Here's the view looking north from the top - you can see Picacho Peak, which we hiked last weekend. Picacho Peak is a good 45 miles away.

Peak Peak

Sunday morning a group of us hiked up Picacho Peak. First fun trivia bit, "picacho" means "peak" in Spanish. So we totally hiked up the redundantly named Peak Peak. Second, Picacho Peak is the site of the furthest west Civil War battle.

The peak is on the far left in the photo below. The trail winds up the front side to the base of the cliff, then over to the saddle point (to the right of the peak on the right), then almost all the way back down to the base, and up the back side of the mountain to the peak.


The hike is relatively short in distance at just over 4 miles, but a lot of it is very steep. Steep enough that there are several portions with steel cables for assistance. Wikipedia tells me that such trails are called via ferrata, and they're quite rare in the U.S. at least. In such a lawsuit-happy country I guess that shouldn't be all that surprising. What could possibly be safer than walking along the edge of a mountain on a 2x6?


Now I'm ok with steep ascents, but steep descents scare the crap out of me. I know it's mostly irrational, especially as I've done (and survived) this hike once before and I've seen children, senior citizens, and even a very pregnant woman on this trail... but I spent a fair portion of the hike feeling like this:


It doesn't help that I'm short enough to make some of the moves to get up onto rocks a bit out of reach, so I find myself scrambling and pulling myself up or lowering myself down more than a lot of people. It's pretty normal for your legs to be a bit sore after a good hike right? But my legs weren't all that sore afterward, it was my shoulders that were killing me the next day. Even if I am a wimp, Picacho is a good hike. One of those that I'm proud of and glad I did after the fact even if I make a lot of faces in the process. :)

I have to thank Dallas for most of the pictures on the cabled portion of the hike - between my wimpy-ness and need for free hands my camera spent most of the hike in my pack.

Catastrophic Failure

This is what a normal, intact turbo pump looks like:


This is what one of my turbo pumps looks like after it tried to kill itself (it succeeded):


Not all the loose pieces would come out. If you shake it it still sounds like jingle bells...

It was the pump.

It pretty much exploded. Can't wait to tell my advisor...

Anything else?

So I finished and gave that presentation, made some progress on my paper revisions, and took some more steps towards trying to fix my out-of-commission instrument, and now a vacuum pump has failed.

Wednesday I ordered replacement parts for two of the vacuum gauges. Yesterday I installed them, only to discover that they weren't actually the problem. Replacing the gauges themselves was my last idea. Without more expertise or information I was stuck. I went in this morning to write down some numbers to include in my plea-for-help email, only to discover that one of the vacuum pumps had died. So now that just raises more questions. This pump just came back from repair and refurbishment, and had been working fine for a week, so now what?? Did it fail because something is wrong with the pump? Or is the same upstream problem responsible for the vacuum gauge issue behind the pump situation? Ugh. I should be able to eliminate or confirm the former as soon as I get another (sufficiently strong) pair of hands to help me get the pump off the instrument. Somehow I don't think the 80 lb female Chinese first year in my office can be much help in this respect...

Seriously hoping February will be better than January has been...

Can it please just be over already??

I'm so over grad school. Yesterday was the first day I didn't go to work in two weeks, and that's really only because I had previously made plans.

My instrument has been down for a week and a half, I've been trying to get revisions done on my rejected paper to send it elsewhere, everybody and their mother needs stuff read, my advisor threw a group meeting lit presentation at me on a topic I've never even heard of, my collaborator wants to meet when she's in town next week but I haven't had a chance to figure out what to do with the data or what it means, and my advisor wants me to present stuff I haven't really been working on at a conference whose abstract deadline is in 18 days, and add to all that the imminent arrival of my period and I can't manage think about anything except how much I really just want to cry. And how hungry I am. But nothing sounds good.

I wish there weren't a first year sitting in my office so I could just sit at my desk and cry. I certainly don't want to explain to her what's wrong with me.

Nuts

The atmosphere on campus yesterday before the memorial service for the victims of the horrible shooting on Saturday was surreal. I didn't really see much of it until late afternoon after I got out of group meeting, but it was bizarrely jovial. As if thousands of people were coming to campus for a massive party. I get that a lot of people wanted to see Obama. Hell, I would have gone if I could have. But don't you think you should feel at least a little bit sad going to an event like that? A chance to see a president I actually like within walking distance of home? I don't think a desire to see the president and sadness at such horrific violence have to be mutually exclusive, but holy cow. Walking across campus you would have never guessed that 6 innocent people just lost their lives and over a dozen others wounded.

Fortunately my friends who did get to go to the event said that the attitude was a lot more "appropriate" inside the arena. Watching it on TV, it was strange to hear the very somber tone of the broadcasters after walking through campus. Despite the broadcasters a lot of it seemed much more pep-rally-ish than memorial-service-ish, but Obama gave a great speech. And even Jan Brewer (whom I otherwise really dislike) was good.

The line to get into the McHale Center for the memorial service yesterday was hands-down the craziest line I've ever seen. The arena only seats 14,000. The line stretched away from the arena across campus in multiple directions.

The end of a line that is at least 3/4 of a mile long.


People waiting.

More people waiting...

Some more people. Working my way down the street...

A little closer...

Oh, it's after 4 now (and still 2 hours before the service began) - lines are moving!

Looking back towards the end of the line. The end was alllll the way at the end of this street.

Where that same line curved, just to my left of the previous photo. Lots and lots more people. Still probably less than halfway up this line. At the end of this block the line turned left, and wrapped around the football stadium...

In the middle of campus now, looking south towards the football stadium.

Same spot, looking north. People as far as you can see and farther still.

All the media satellites at the end of the mall


This paper chain making idea reminded me very much of high school. All-girls Catholic high schools, or mine at least, seem to be very in to this sort of symbolic thing. But it was nice. And the lengths made in children's classes and brought to campus were sweet.

She's done it again.

I'm thinking maybe I should make this a weekly feature. We'll see.

Me: My knee is all oozy again. :(

Little Sister: Why?

Me: I slid at softball last night.

Little Sister. Wow. You're dumb. Do you like the burn victim look?

I'm not sure why I seem to break skin every time I slide now - I never scraped myself like I have in grad school all the years I played softball growing up. And for the record, I was wearing long pants and knee-high socks this time. At least it's just my knee and not my whole shin.

P.S. They went ahead last night and called a snow day for today. Which is awesome (for her) because you don't have to rush to finish homework or get up early only to find out school's canceled. I really wish they did that while I still went to a school that had snow days. Anyways, the point of this tangent is that apparently they'll get extra credit in religion for making a snowman of a religious figure. All-girls, Catholic high schools are wonderfully weird.

Lacking Competence

My labmate sent an email to me and our post-doc asking if we could proof-read the dissertation chapter she just finished. Here's her message:

Would you two mind reading this? By reading this, you are exempt from reading anything else (ok, maybe just one more chapter, as we are limited not by the number of people in our lab, but in the number of competent people in our lab).

So funny, and so true. When random strangers find out that I'm a graduate student in chemistry, the first thing that a horrifying number of them say is, "Wow, you must be really smart." My standard response to this is now, "You'd be surprised..."

Taking Bets

Who thinks my advisor would let me order snake venom from Australia?? Technically a protein isolated from snake's venom. Not straight up venom. Although this protein is a neurotoxin. I would have legitimate research use for the protein. The company lists all its prices in US$, so I'm betting they do ship overseas. Ok, so based solely on the above information, who thinks she'd let me buy it?? Anybody?

Now, when I tell you that it costs $1650 for 500 ug of protein, who still thinks she'd let me buy it? While that price tag may sound enormous, per ug, it's actually cheaper than several other proteins we've bought. I just don't usually buy 500 ug at a shot...

Peer Review

A colleague from my department came across this letter yesterday. Seeing as I've been frustrated by the publishing process (among other things!) lately, and I know I'm not alone, I thought I'd share.

Journal of Systems and Software, 54 (2000), 1.

My favorite line:

"Still, from this batch of reviewers, C was clearly the most hostile, and we request that you not ask him to review this revision. Indeed, we have mailed letter bombs to four or five people we suspected of being reviewer C, so if you send the manuscript back to them, the review process could be unduly delayed."

If you want to read the whole letter (it's only a page) and don't have access, let me know!

To Do. NOW.

I've been rather frustrated and overwhelmed at work the past few days. Coming back from the holidays is always hard enough, but coming back and realizing you have a massive amount of mostly unpleasant work to do just sucks any will I have to get out of bed and go to work right down the drain. Actually, I've been ridiculously tired lately, but I'm not sure if it's because I've spent the past two days on my knees in the lab rearranging turbo pumps, an actual aversion to going to work, or something else.

At the moment the "pile" (partially figurative and partially literal) consists of:

• My labmate's oral proposal that she asked me to read/edit/critique - The request was of course accompanied by the appropriate "I value and trust your opinion the most" sort of flattery.
• A lengthy and dense paper to help my advisor review
• My own paper to rework and submit
• Analyze a large set of data - all the data has been worked up and plotted, but now I have to figure out what to do with it and what it means
• Experiments (unrelated to the above data set of course) for an abstract that's due in 4 weeks
• Come up with some snazzy, exciting new data for my advisor to send NSF (they've asked for something exciting to help convince the powers that be to keep this particular funding program) and use in a talk she's giving in 2 weeks
• Figure out what's wrong with my instrument's vacuum system and fix it

That last one is why I've been on my knees in the lab for the past two days. This morning the labmate that's been working with me was unavailable, so I went to see who else from my group was around, and go figure, the only labmates I could find were the pregnant ones. In other words, the ones that probably shouldn't be on the floor manipulating 15 lb turbo pumps. "Fortunately" I don't technically need this instrument for any of the items on the above list, however a couple of my labmates need it pretty badly. And the "joy" of being a senior student is being the most qualified to put out fires...

Back to instrument trouble shooting...

Just for J

Over Christmas break we had a pretty good snow storm. While it was still snowing, but mostly over, I went outside to take some pictures and play with my camera. I lasted all of about 3 minutes because it was soooooo cold. No joke, there were a couple of days when the wind chill was literally 2 degrees. If you don't believe me, look at the pictures. Even though we had a good 12+ inches of snow, there were spots where the wind had cleared down to the grass.

Wow.

My very, very pregnant labmate just came into my office and asked if any of us (there are currently 3 women in my office) had jelly-like lotion. Apparently she got a little dopplar machine thing that would allow her to listen to the baby's heartbeat. Why, I have no idea, especially seeing as at this point she (and we) can feel every move the baby makes. Anyways, we only have regular lotion in the office. But the real gem of this moment is the following line:

"Supposedly K-Y Jelly works, but I don't think anybody has that at school."

No, no...I don't think (hope!!) anybody does...

Maybe next time...

Maybe the next time I fly will be a nice, normal, on-time, uneventful trip. Maybe.

I flew back to Tucson today - this is my rescheduled trip back to Tucson after last week's Europe fiasco. It wasn't really a bad trip back - I mean, I travel a fair amount. Certainly enough to have had way, way worse travel days.

The first weird thing was an announcement that the flight was oversold (that's not the weird part), and they were offering $650 vouchers to give up your seat! Their rerouting offer really wasn't that bad either. If I'd been sitting closer to the podium I probably would have taken them up on that, because wow that's a lot of money. I really don't think I've ever heard an airline offer more than $300 or so. Alas, people thought as I did, and jumped on it.

Time to board. I had an earlier boarding group than normal (when I get to pick my seat I'm usually in the last or 2nd to last group to board - I use a combination of closer-to-the-front and research done at seatguru.com to choose a seat) - but I thought hey sweet, there will be plenty of overhead space still, and goodness knows that after Christmas break I could use it. So there was still plenty of overhead space, but as I'm walking back and looking at the row numbers, I realize that I'm seated in an aisle seat in the dead last row of the plane. You know, the really awesome seat immediately next to the bathroom (with so much traffic and elbow bumping that there's no chance of sleep) that doesn't recline. It's a 6+ hour flight from Boston to Phoenix. Sweet. Then my seatmate arrives, and instantly gives me this speech about how great the back of the plane is - the safest place in the plane, and right next to the bathrooms! Bonus!

Once we were settled in and waiting to push back from the gate, I closed my eyes since I had a headache (that lasted all day of course). I wasn't really aware what was going on around me, other than that we'd been sitting at the gate for way too long to leave anywhere close to on time. Eventually the pilot came on and said that with the bit of bad weather we were going to go through, the plane was overweight, so we had to wait for them to remove some of the mail that had been loaded. Then a while after that, the pilot came back on and apologized for the delay, that there had been a "passenger issue" that he was sure many of us were aware of, and we were finally ready to leave the gate in Boston. Between sitting in the last row and attempting to sleep, I had no idea what he was talking about, but being in the last row, I could hear the flight attendants conversations. Apparently some jerk in first class pitched a fit when they told him he'd have to check his (oversized) bag, and when he got belligerent the air marshal came and removed the guy from the flight! Definitely one of the more interesting reasons for a flight delay!

Now I really want to know what happens to you when you're removed from a flight. Did he get arrested? Surely they don't just let him take the next flight. Does anybody know??

My seatmate proved to be annoying and a total nutjob. He'd brought about 10 lbs worth of newspapers with him, and even though he wasn't a big guy, he spent about half the flight occupying half of my seat space with his elbows as he read the paper. He also spent a good portion of the flight clipping coupons. You know, like grocery coupons out of the Sunday ads. Who does that on an airplane?!?! Honestly I think it's one of the stranger things I've seen someone do on a plane.

Anyways, between the excess mail and the unruly passenger, my flight landed in Phoenix at exactly 2:30...and my flight to Tucson left at 2:36, while I was most definitely still on the first plane. Fortunately there's a flight to Tucson like every hour, so I didn't get back too much later than planned.

Let's hope the next travel day is less ridiculous...