Vehicles

The car has been acting up for a few weeks, with increasingly lower idle, causing me to develop a probably not entirely safe driving style: Left foot for breaking, to keep the car from stalling (and this is an automatic). Picking it up for the 2nd time at the carfixingplace, we found the situation to be the opposite - acceleration to 70 km/hr, without applying gas, and 3000 rpm in neutral. The brakes were smelly when we came home, and the following night I dreamt I drove it around some hilly city, with loads of dangerous situations (such as accelerating down a curved road with mountain depths on the side etc). The next morning, my poor bike was stolen (ARGH!!!), and as I was filming a movie (being an astronomy grad student has its unexpected turns sometimes!), David was updating me with text messages on the situation of the car as he returned it to the placeformendingcars: "here now, they're working on it" "on my way home" "car broke down on Henderson, waiting for CAA" "back again, they had to exchange the computer. twice."

The loss of my bike was rather irritating. Especially since the thief didn't follow normal bike-thief characteristics. There is the petty thief, who takes a bike to use for a bit and then throws it in the ditch. And then there's the organized one who comes with a big truck and takes all the bikes in the neighbourhood. "My" thief chose my bike out of several, and also discarded a newer, probably more expensive one locked much less safely just next to mine, that had been there for weeks... I on the other hand locked the frame and wheel onto a metalfence, and the thief somehow found time to work real hard on the U-lock and twist it rather impressively (it was left on the ground). I only see two possible explanations: Either the thief was extraordinarily dumb (and strong/patient) or it's the owner of the other bike.

I can't not have a bike. So David and I went looking, first in our friends store where David bought his bike - a real bike store with good stuff. Then to the big sports chains, where they sell really cheap stuff. And heavy, bulky, weird gearswitch-device etc. Went back to our friends place to the bike I had fallen in love with, and brought home the precious. It's the same kind of bike as David's, only in brushed silver, and one extra gear on the back wheel. It goes like the wind... Barely any friction, supercomfy, large wheels, and the previously so annoying wind in the face has no impact any longer. D and I took a long bike ride in the evening to Assiniboine park, and the speed was exhilirating. Best bike ever. We also started up a conversation with a tiny prairie dog, while watching the planes on final fly over our heads.

Victoria on Victoria day

I forgot the cable to my camera, so all awesome photos - later. I'm in Victoria, British Columbia, for the 2008 version of the CASCA conference (I arrived on Victoria day, hence the title). It is great. The location is great, the inspiration, the people. The nature here reminds me a lot of Sweden. The inner harbour is like a mini version of Göteborg (but prettier), and has a wonderful walk. No ugly malls, but stores along the streets, like home. Humidity - works wonders for the hair, as always. But best of all: the Pacific. Real ocean, with salt and waves and immenseness. The gardens are very Dutch (i.e. beautiful) - I was thoroughly impressed as we drove from Oak Bay along the coast back to Victoria.
So far: have had some amazing fish & chips (almost as good as the greek place in Halifax), learnt loads about all canadian telescopes and dreams of telescopes, and attended the high redshift session (it is still my favourite area of research). Since next year is going to be the IYA - the international year of astronomy - lots of the conference is aimed towards getting us inspired to contribute to that. It is indeed very inspiring... Lots of the magic in astronomy comes back to me. I hope I will be able to keep it.

A gulp of air...

Oh my. Barely had time to feel happy about having the annual review talk (and questioning) behind me, before I realised that the time to finish my research for the poster (and said poster) I'm presenting at a conference, is SHORT! Then it doesn't help that the stupid photometry comparison makes no sense, and that work just seems to go nowhere, despite all those hours spent in the office... Having a perspective is good, but for once it seems to be much better to concentrate on the details, one at a time, and try not to see the big picture. Really? you ask (can't even believe I'm writing that, since I'm always extremely fond of perspective in everything). Yes, there is one case: if you have one year left of your PhD-studies and intend to publish 4-5 papers during that time. The mere thought makes me sweat and hyperventilate a bit. They are all more or less planned (ahem, more less than more, really, outlined is probably the word) though, I just need to get hold of the results for each of them, and work, neverendingly, so I can spit them out, one by one...

My usual weather rant could come in here too, I guess: What's with this May? cold and nasty. Although, I'm really just happy it's above zero.

On a fairly uninteresting note: the left back blinker on the car is broken. Since I'm an avid pro-use-of-blinker person, I find myself planning all driving carefully, so that I won't have to make any left turns. Adds a little bit of interest to the driving.

And on a sad note: I'll be missing eurovision song contest this year... (I'll be in Victoria, last day of conference, so it's not a bad deal. But missing ESC is sad. )

Spring time

Some signs of spring:
- Snow melting. Not a minute too soon
- A flower outside great west-life 2 mornings ago! Granted, it was by the warm air outlet, but still
- The intriguing sensation of walking outside in beginning of April in below-zero degrees. At this southern latitude, the sun is strong, and thus the illuminated side of my body is melting while the side in shadow is freezing. Bizarre.
- Canada geese flying north. Intriguingly, they started coming early, apparently led by daylight rather than temperature. Dangerous, I'd say...
- 2 days ago I took out my bike, and went to the Forks and back. I thus sprayed my new amazingly awesome spring jacket with mud.
- Best of all: General conference, always first weekend of April. If anyone ever doubted the suitability of the new president of the church, the talks he gave at this conference really showed that he's the right person.
- Not as much fun: end-of-PhD- (timewise) -stress, emphasized further by upcoming advisory committee meeting (beginning of May) and conference (end of May) for which the abstract I submitted includes promises of things I have yet to accomplish.

As I was cycling the other day, there was a guy standing underneath one of the bridges over Assiniboine, playing his baryton saxophone (totally amazingly), and 2 geese were listening swimming in one of the few open parts (despite the warm temperatures now, there was still loads of ice) of the river. I don't know how winnipeggers can stand the long winters. It's as if one walks around in hibernation, and when spring comes, I wake up with all the nature, and things are real again. I do like the intensity of the winter, but the length...?

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...