Birthday-tag

I'm quite resistant about doing tag-posts like the one below. However, I never did a new year-review, and today just happens to be my birthday (which, for the record, should include small spring flowers outside and no snow (although, apparently it did snow in my home town today - first snow of the year..!)), which is kind of suitable for this kind of exercise. So here you go, Jess ;)

1. What was I doing ten years ago?
I'd need my photo albums or diaries for this..! Although, I have a fairly good idea. Listening to BeeGee's, Elton John, Simon & Garfunkel on my LP player until late in the evenings, spending lots of time with friends, studying 2nd and 3rd year courses at Physics Engineering, anguishing bigtime over said courses, feeling like Sisyfos, and, finally slowly beginning to realise who I was and what I needed to do. Although, that happened really one year later.

2. 5 things on my to do list today.
1. TA
2. Finish my extra check of NGC 3556 to figure out if I need to include its bulge or not in the mas smodeling.
3. Do taxes (hm, perhaps I should reconsider)
4. Find some twigs for the cage I imported so Merry and Pippin can start enjoying their new home (if I know them correctly, the first sentiments will probably be highest suspicion...)
5. Buy flowers (strict orders from my mom)

3. What snacks do I enjoy?
Chocolate, dark, expensive.

4. What would I do if I suddenly were a billionaire?
Hm. The same as now, I suppose: Save, travel, hopefully not get used to having lots of money and spend too much, and spend too much time doing that... But yes, I would get rid of CSN in my life, once and for all (i.e. student debts). Pay my brother for the Ibook with a suitable interest :) If time, build a summer house on Tjörn or perhaps buy Staregården in Onsala.

5. Three bad habits
Oh, public self examination? Procrastination of whatever reason. Just repeat 3 times.

6. Five places I've lived
Winnipeg (Canada), Göteborg, Onsala, Sweden, Tofta (or Varberg), Stockholm, all in Sweden.

7. Five jobs I have had
1. Teaching Assistant in physics and astronomy
2. Commercial hot-air ballooning retrieve driver
3. Dairy slave (in the fridge)
4. Observatory guide
5. Packaging stuff at a nuclear power plant (much less exciting than it sounds)

8. Five things people don't know about me (this is worse than the bad habits! there'd be a reason for them not knowing it, eh? Let's see if I can dig out some more pleasant skeletons from my wardrobe, pink ones or so...
1. Collected stamps (as well as everything: erasers, chocolate papers, letter paper, little stickers that smelled yummy)
2. ...
No. I can't come up with anything more than utterly silly things. People who know me, know me fairly well, nothing unknown that is worth writing about, I think.

9. 8 Fears
1. Losing hope
2. Losing love
3. Losing faith
4. Pain inflicted upon family members and other loved ones
5. Turning apathetic (probably same as 1, but I ran out of scary things)
6. Seeing as I was being chased by zombies in a dream last night (and saved by my mom driving the volkswagen van! the rest of the family was there too, but I found it interesting that she was driving it. I normally refuse to interpret my dreams, but this particular scene I think represented security), I can fill out the rest with less probably items, or silly ones: Zombies
7. Anything that would suck my blood (excluding mosquitoes, they are just annoying)
8. And, anything that brings out anger, and inability to stop the anger (that's part of the first more serious category though)

End of tag.
I won't tag anyone, but, I'll invent something back for Jess in the future, I think...

Interim report

Reading week was spent with my family in Onsala. I'm back now, and I miss the humid air. All of a sudden it's hard to wear contacts and my lips became chapped in an instant. Photos will come, but first, let me give out a warning to potential travelers: On the list of airports to avoid, add O'Hare after Heathrow. O'Hare doesn't have the high taxes and fees of Heathrow, BUT, they cancel flights on a whim, and blame it on the weather. This problem is most likely less if you travel to an important destination, in heavier planes. Winnipeggers however, risk facing endless waiting at the airport, standby flights or detours, and of course bags will take at least 2 days extra to arrive. In my case, I got to greet my poor cheese yesterday evening. Luckily it seemed to have taken no damage, and I enjoyed some Hushållsost on knäckebröd for breakfast. Aaaaah...

cross country skiing

I just turned into a Canadian. Or even into a *real* Swede. For the first time in my life, I've been skiing. And - I really liked it! Best were the falls when in a penguin-like manner striding up the slopes (and since we're in Winnipeg, it's safe to say that the incline of said slopes were not in any way intimidating...). My friend Lindsay is an excellent teacher, and I am happy she had a good time too. Luckily (?), there are no photos of my falling technique (although, according to L, I was falling the least amounts compared to the others she has been teaching), since my camera is still broken. I have given in after a serious attempt to fix it, which rendered it even more broken, and decided to buy a new camera. It's fun doing research on which one to buy (I'm trying to apply that kind of fun to the research I really should have been doing at the time), and I think I found the one. I still have to find some time to buy it though. But next time, there will be photos. Meanwhile, here's my latest webalbum. It was made while enjoying the vilest flu I've had ever since I was little (still working on a cough from it), so the photo comments aren't entirely coherent or informative either for that matter. I can't wait for having the new camera, I feel somewhat crippled without one.

In other news, I watched the funeral of President Hinckley today on my trusty Ibook (D's new Dell that has been working wonderfully the 2 weeks he's had it, is starting to show the backsides of its flashy microsoft equipment, and refuses to connect to my wlan... pc:s...). It was a beautiful event, and the Tabernacle choir sang something in the middle of it making all the hairs on my body stand straight up, but I don't know what it was. GBH has been the prophet ever since I became a member, and there are loads of quotes in my diaries of things he has said. He came to Sweden for our stake conference once, when he was a counsellor in the first presidency (before I was a member), and hearing him talk then, gave a huge impact on my life after. What I remember most was the sweet things he said about his wife, and how it choked up my then bishop who was translating for him. It was so simple and so fundamental, and I remember thinking that he would make the greatest prophet. Which he did... (and he always reminded me a bit of Yoda!)

Last night at the summit

After 2 nights of engineering, I'm about to start my last night of observing, together with some new observers, and another operator. They seem awesome, so I'm up for a fun night, I think! Also an exciting one - Since my flight leaves unfortunately early the next day (noon), I'll have to drive down one of the cars, which I'm not allowed to do unless I get some sleep first. So I'll have to leave the summit a bit after midnight. that will be an interesting experience... Driving 4WD UP the other evening was awesome enough (done as exercise for this upcoming experience, and luckily I passed ;)
My camera is broken, and I haven't been able to take it apart yet, so no more photos, I'm afraid...
Anyways, Hawaii, byebye, I wonder when I get a chance to come here again...

Notes from Hale Pohaku

There's of course loads to write, so this is just a very quick report! I finally slept longer than usual this morning (6 hours), which was great, but even though this location (Hale Pohaku, the mid-way facility with lodging and food for the owls (astronomers)) is not as high as the summit of Mauna Kea, it is still high enough to make you lose your breath if not moving slowly. So now, time for a quick dinner, and then going up to the summit and JCMT for another night (12 hours!!!) of observing. This is my 3rd night, and it's been amazingly fun to learn so much at such a short time (and to actually grasp it as well - feels very efficient). A funny thing that I didn't know before, is how projects (to be observed) are scheduled, depending on the weather. First night we actually had too good weather for our galaxies in the start of the evening! And last night, we started up with totally excellent weather (i.e. too good), which deteriorated in a rapid speed and became too bad for our project (!). This is governed by the amount of humidity in the air, and the more there is, the harder it is to get good data. Anyways, since I am starving, I'll just post a few pictures. Could you ever imagine this much snow on Hawai'i?


The lodging at Hale Pohaku. And in the bakground is the slope of Mauna Loa, the huge flat volcano in the south


On our way up to the summit, with the setting sun in the background. Obviously these photos can't really make justice to how it really looks like... :) It's rather grand, to say the least!


Upon leaving the telescope building the morning after the first night of observing... the light was just divine!


The sun is happily trying to keep you awake! And with great success - I had no wish to go to bed anymore when being blinded like this.


Here's a view a little from above, showing JCMT in the middle (the white cylinder - it contains a 15 m antenna)

If anyone wants to see JCMT observing in action, check out this camera (apparently it has won price for most boring webcam in the world - can't see why though. Especially not now when I'm in it...)