A day at the VLA

Yesterday turned out to be one of those amazing days which will put a smile on your face that can't be erased. And to show why, I am even posting some photos! We went to the VLA area, all 150 or so astronomers, packed into 3 buses. It was a fairly long trip, through the desert, up and up, (barely noticeable other than through loss of hearing), to a level of 2200 metres. I don't know why a telescope is such a beautiful thing - but it is. When reaching VLA, I glanced backwards, and there was an immense amount of cameras in position. We were divided into small groups, and went on a a tour, which felt really vip. Very Large Array is an array of 27 25-m telescopes, that can be moved into different configurations on railtracks. The only radio telescopes I've seen before are the Onsala 25 and 20 m antennas, so seeing that many of them at the same time was really neat.

 

Isn't it pretty... :) It was a gorgeous day, not too hot due to altitude, but the sun was strong.

 
  

We actually climbed up onto one of the antennas! My knees were shaking due to vertigo, but it made it all just so much extra exciting. Sitting there in the dish was a surreal experience, very very amazing... I'll describe this better in a webalbum to come - for now, this is all I can say: wow. WOW! YEY! YEEHAA! :)

Being hot

Sacre bleu!
So, I came down with the Montreal (aka Montezuma's revenge, etc), plus some bug creating a fever competing strongly with the outside temperature. Zut. I managed to attend the lectures this morning I really didn't want to miss, but the afternoon seems more ok to skip, so in a few seconds I'll try to sleep this away. Fever dreams are intriguing. Last night I dreamt that we were to have a talent show at the summer school, and I was to participate in some wrestling (is that a talent?), which, in the dream, I was really good at (who stole my brain?). Luckily, it didn't happen, due to all the fever, I had to cancel it all. Then I entered an elevator, apparently with the love of my life (nope, don't remember any features, only that he was tall. Rats.) Then the elevator, equipped with windows, malfunctioned. In real life, that would mean that it would stop, and nothing happen (I think). In my dreams (and I have frequent elevator malfunction dreams), it means that it skips your floor, accelerates, stops in the middle, accelerates down, to some unknown basement, surviving that, it now accelerates sideways, then up, up, up, (and I notice with some amusement, while desperately trying out different button combinations to make it stop, to make the alarm go on, or the phone to work, that this building had far more floors than it looked like from the outside). Usually around floor 100 or so, it just shoots out of the elevator shaft, and then, luckily, I wake up, before it hits the ground.

It's 32 outside. zzz.

Albuquerque!

2nd day in Albuqurque, after a full day of lectures on radioastronomy, correlators, polarization, etc... Going for dinner soon, which is a very good thing, since I am very hungry.

I had only 2 days inbetween coming home from Calgary-conferences, before leaving ultra early again on the monday (thanks for the ride, Angelo!!!). Had time for practicing landings, reviving plants and doing laundry, and that was about it. I was actually not even in the mood to leave. But after a long nap in minneapolis, and while heading south, I looked out of the airplane window and studied the desert-y landscape, and realized how amazing my life is. New place, new sites, new people... and no camera to document it with! (due to a certain lack of smartness last week, when wanting to change the format of my photos, but that's another story).

I just love it when you walk out of the airplane, and get a quick sense of the outside temperature and smell just when entering the tube-walkway (does it have a name?). 35 degrees of desert heat - now we're talking! I wasn't picked up at the airport as was previously announced, so instead I grabbed the luggage and took a bus to the campus of university of new mexico. It brought with it the excitement of travelling.

Some impressions:
- Sizes (people, pop, amounts of sugar in everything you might want to eat etc. I always forget, and it's always somewhat baffling...)
- Auto-mode on everything (ARGH! Why, oh why?? esp airport "restrooms". Stupid sensor stupid notices every movement, and FLUSHES when you least expect.. (well, you get the picture). One of my most major pet peeves. Then you try to magically wiggle some soap out of "automatic" soap dispenser, and almost taking off, waving your arms in front of the stupid tap. I don't get it. There are no automatic toilet doors anyhow, so why the stupid flush?).
- ID's. Apparently you can't be served at a bar unless you have american ID. French didn't work, nor swedish driving licences (there's another swede here too, a friend from Onsala!), OR, believe it or not, swedish passport. !?! Not that I care, in my case, of course, but that was the alltimehigh of stupidity... You can enter the US with the passport, but not use it as ID. (well, to be honest, some places do accept it. But only the passports, nothing else.)
- Customs! On the other hand, believe it or not, the US customs were totally nice and civilised towards me this time! First time, I think. Perhaps because I was being rather grumpy, rolling my eyes when they scolded me for not having taken off my belt while going through the metal detector? Anyways, it was really refreshing for a change.
- Temperature! YEEHAA! It's 35 degrees! Or was, right when I wrote that and finished it halfsentence, and now, at 22:35, it's 32. I haven't had this kind of heat since Italy 2003, and I LOVE it.
- Bugs. Apparently I was quite lucky with the room - it's the "coldest" one, it's one of the few with functioning internet connection, and it's not supplied with big 2/3 cockroach sized bugs who crawl along the wall in bugwarpspeed, as in one of the other rooms with sauna temp.
- camera: I bought a new camera today (hooray for low dollar value and tax). Photos from my precious will be online soon. On friday and saturday we go to Soccorro, and VLA, so I assume there will be some nice ones.

And, talks. Some people are magical, and can make you listen for 80 minutes continuously to a talk about polarization, while having fun and learning, while for others, all your energy is taken up by following the talk, and none is left for actually understanding, even thought the topic is simpler.

But, most of all, again, the warmth. Common sight during break outside the lecture building (or: how to pinpoint the scandinavians in the crowd): everyone is sitting/standing in the shade of the huge pine trees (the campus area is amazing!), except for the two swedes, standing facing the sun, leaning backwards a bit to increase the solar exposed area as much as possible, with goofy smiles on their faces, trying to save as much as possible for darker times to come.

The slowest computer in the universe...!

No, it's not my laptop actually, but the computer (or something disguised as one) I'm sitting in front of in the business calss lounge of air canada at calgary airport. I ended up here after having volunteered to give up my place on my flight, since they were out of seats due to some plane malfunction somewhere... And, yeah, I get a pretty nice discount on my next flight due to that. Although, I also have to wait for about 6 hours till my next flight... fun . Luckily htere's a huge amount of food around, so I'm not starving. At all. As usual, during this week, then. I better go on some bikerides as soon as I get home.
I am quite tired after these 2 conferences, but on Monday, I leave again, for New Mexico and the synthesis workshop. Early. Indescribably early. Ok, enough of this grinding of cogwheels (I can't even see the text I am typing) - with some luck it might even be saved...

Calgary report

My run of weird luck seems to be over now, which is nice..! Right now I actually have some extra time, after 3 days of conference activities. I'm in Calgary, enjoying 2 conferences in a row, first CASCA, and then AAS. The weather is nice, although not as nice as Winnipeg, and there's just too much food. They had the banquet early, already yesterday, and I stuffed myself with Salmon with saffron sauce, vegetables and looked suspiciously at the skewer with giant prawns and scallops. Since I can eat scallops when I eat sushi, I tried it out, and it wasn't too bad. Pretty much tofu consistency with mild ocean taste (it was cooked). The prawn on the other hand... I ate one, but no. Then there was dessert, chocolate decadence. Promising name. Well, despite being rather full at this time, I ate almost all of the 2 elusively thin pieces of incredibly massive chocolate cake (the first few pieces tasted divinely). Somehow I couldn't stop eating it even though I had had more than enough after just a few bits. So then I enjoyed about en hour of feeling puffed up as a marshmallowman, but massive as the previously eaten chocolate cake. Greenfaced. One can only eat too much of sushi and still feel fairly ok.

And the rest of the conference? Well, it's very nice. Some superb talks, some somewhat less intriguing ones (or perhaps I was just tired...), some very interesting conversations with people whose faces I never new before, only their names. The socializing is awesome at theses events. But most of all I have been anguishing about my research, and with lots of newfound inspiration, I actually can't wait to get home and WORK, like crazy!! I just have to get up with some good plan on how to make that urge last till I get back home...