01.31.09
IYA 2009 – Landing in Hilo
I came back to Hilo today. It has been a long time since I flew back in during daytime. I was treated to a beautiful sight.
I came back to Hilo today. It has been a long time since I flew back in during daytime. I was treated to a beautiful sight.
The big news of the day, once confirmed, is that my team is going to lose a member to grad school. It is a great news; not the lost of a teammate, of course, but the news of a friend getting what she really wished for.
That is all for today. I am starting to head back home tomorrow. I do not expect to be able to write something tomorrow. On the plane on Friday, I should have plenty of time to write, but I will not be able to post before Saturday evening when I will finally get back online.
I got caught by office work late last night. Stupid Internet. Nah! It is not that bad. Thanks to Internet I was able to do maintenance on our observing program. That sort of work is not very ‘brain consuming’, so I do not mind doing it while on vacation. The problem is that I had to connect to the office and hence my office mail got downloaded. And I could not resist…
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I checked my emails tonight, before sitting down to write to this blog. I should have checked earlier. I have a series of ‘as-soon-as-possible’ requests. I have taken care of two and will have to complete the work tomorrow. It is getting quite late now, so that is as much as I will write tonight. I told you a few days ago that I was worry about not being able to survey my emails. See, I was not completely crazy. Must be my sixth sense.
“Astrophysicist”. That word for some reason always makes an impression on people outside the business. I normally use “astronomer” when people ask me what I do. Well, unless I want to be left alone, then “astrophysicist” is a good way to end a conversation.
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Last time I was ‘off-the-grid’, that is without being able to address my work email, for so long while preparations for a review on our big project were being worked on, I came back to a series of stupid decisions.
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Sorry folks. I have been sick all day. There will not be an astronomy-related blog today. Maybe I should pre-write a few articles for situations like this. Live and learn.
It looks like Gemini might be back on the sky taking data tonight. There was a mini-shutdown to make repairs, maintenance, and improvements to a central piece of the telescope system.
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Like the rest of the world, it seems, I watched the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the USA. I sincerely hope that he can live up to the wave of change he has triggered.
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The other day on the news the ticker at the bottom of the TV screen mentioned something about methane on Mars indicating that the planet was more active than previously thought. I rarely pay attention to astronomy on the news. Maybe I should but just like the rest of news, the astronomy that makes it on the news is just the flashy stuff, not necessarily the really interesting stuff.
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