I'll start in reverse… Currently sitting in the waiting area in Chicago Midway (MDW), waiting for my Southwest flight to Albuquerque, after two Porter flights, YOW to YTZ, YTZ to MDW. The plane I arrived with was the plane David was to fly back to Toronto (and currently is), and I had hoped to catch him for a quick good bye before he took off. But, after customs, bag pickup and checking in again, I came too late to the gate, and he was already hard at work preparing. I had hoped to wave through the window, but of course the windows there are completely dimmed, so you can't see a thing. So I sat there, knowing he was just a few meters away, feeling happy about that, but sad that I wouldn't see him before my last New Mexico sejour (he was unexpectedly called away on a 3 day pairing yesterday). Then I could see the plane from the other end of the building as David was taxiing out to the runway, and a few moments later as he was ascending into the sky. Beautiful plane, the Dash-8 Q400. Toronto was btw extra beautiful this morning, with a low mist surrounding the islands in nice shapes. Sadly my camera was tucked away in the overhead bin, a mistake I rarely make, but when I do, I need it the most.
After a completely wonderful month in our new home, in the awesomest apartment ever by the St Laurents river in Brockville (strategic position for our respective jobs in Kingston and Ottawa), I now have to return back to Socorro. Only for two weeks, so it's nice. I have mixed feelings about returning, but it will be nice to see all good friends and have a real good bye before leaving for good. The weather will make up for a lot. And the telescopes. And wonderful Winnipeg friends visiting, and the solar eclipse. I hope that these new memories will somewhat remove the taint of the old ones.
Pinda and Wokkels are two new little creatures in mine and David's custody, and the fresh memory of Pinda's happy little chirp as I kissed her feathery chest early this morning will hopefully help as well (but I still miss Merry and Pippin terribly).
As for the TSA question (or US immigration/customs not sure if they are the same?), this is the conversation I had when I went through US customs a few hours ago:
After a few of the normal general questions, I got a few new ones:
TSA: "What kind of research do you do in New Mexico?"
Me: "Astrophysics observations with a large telescope located there"
TSA: "What kind of observations?"
Me: "I work on a project where we observe the gas surrounding galaxies"
TSA: "What do you want to observe on these galaxies?"
Me: "Well.." (wondering in how much detail I should go and embarking on a brief explanation that there are divers goals with the observations)
TSA, glaring suspiciously at me: "Is it dangerous?"
Me: "!?! …no… these galaxies are very far away…"
TSA: "What happens if you observe anything dangerous?"
Me, trying to come up with what could possibly be seen as dangerous in my work: "well…"
TSA: "What happens if you observe something dangerous, like UFOs, do you report it, or is kept secret?"
Me, finally seeing where this is heading: "Ah, that would be an awesome observation! And no, I would definitely not keep it secret…"
Not that I'd be able to see any UFO's in my continuum observations… But still. Heehee… :) The idea of dangerous galaxies will keep me smiling for a while.
Hm. The nice free wifi at MDW is gone… I guess I'll post this a bit later.
