Crosscountry Adventures

wow. And I’ve only done some of the things I want to do with my life.  Maybe the next 29 will see the rest done.  We had a fun party at my house.  My friend Kuldeep’s birthday is the day before mine, so we did it then allowing us one day of rest before school started.  That was a good choice.

The fire pit was heavily used, the smoker took care of 2 big briskets: 8 and 11 lbs, and the keg withstood all of our drinking.  Someone told me the lights went out and the door locked around 4pm.  I made it almost that long.  Not bad for an old man!

I wish I had some words of wisdom or inspiration. Maybe that’ll come at 30. Until now, live life to the fullest and pursue your dreams.

Here are some pictures of my friends that came.

My friend meathead.  He and his big brother fed us well

Kuldeep on the Right.

Kuldeep’s wife thanking me for throwing a party!

Bobby taking out his aggression on a piece of oak

Friends gathered around the beer pong/flip cup table

We had fun

I’m back home.  San Fran was a fun time although it took a lot out of me.  I’m not used to traveling like that: hotels, restaurants, …  It was great to see my family though, and the conference went well.  I presented my Mars findings and learned about what else is going on in the Mars world.  I do have pictures, and they will go up soon!

I’m in San Francisco, and everything is great.  On top of being in a very cool place, the food is great, and I’m done!  My semester is finally over.  Today was my poster presentation, and I am enthused.  The rest of the week is going to be relaxing and educational, but mostly relaxing.  Cheers.

I’m headed to San Francisco this weekend.  I’ll be there for a conference the whole week.  I was there years ago but didn’t get much time to go out.  I expect this time (with lots of friends) I will be able to see more of the town.

Look forward to a few pictures but not all, since your author is too lazy to post them all.

It takes me too long to do this stuff!  I want to finish this up so I can post pictures from Pompeii and the Vatican.

After lunch I continued my walk around the city, and without a map I soon found myself away from the exciting stuff, but thankfully there is plenty to see there.  From the Colosseum I unknowingly headed toward the Roman Forum. On my way I passed some nice things.

The city was littered with these things, viaducts? aquaducts?

That last one has an arch structure coming out of a house!? And the pine trees you see there have somehow been cultivated to look like that. Think giant Bonsai.

My walk took me through a famous church, San Clemente. It was old and beautiful as you can imagine. I didn’t take any photos in there out of respect (well actually it was too dark :), normally I would). So here’s a google image search if you want to see what it looks like.

And since my hotel was so close I found myself back at the Colosseum.

Jack, my boss and advisor, and I met up with some colleagues at a restaurant below our hotel, did I mention there were 4 on that plaza? These guys are from Colorado, and one is the head of the project on the American side. I think this was the cheapest meal I ate there, probably $40 per person or so.

After dinner Jack and I walked in a direction I hadn’t yet gone. I especially liked the view of the Victor Emanuel Monument.

That first one is nice. We walked for a while and found ourselves back at the Colosseum (right by the hotel still). It made for some nice night shots.

Here’s one with the two of us although smeared because I forgot the flash

By then I my feet hurt, and I was tired from jetlag and the long day. The next day was neat, my lunch spot even older than today.

This weekend my GIS class left town for some good ol’ geologic mapping.  The class is mostly computer based, and we collected data in our attempt to better learn ArcGIS software.  The work wasn’t difficult, and the area very pretty.  Be ware though, cacti are everywhere!

Our site was the Mason Mountain Wildlife Refuge: a place where the plants are all native, and the animals are all imported.  We saw animals, but I didn’t get any photos.  Silly me.  Out job there was to map outcrops of a very old granite formation that is being uncovered by erosion of the sedimentary deposits above.  Our group stayed in cabins last night (not all of us slept inside though - the sky was just too good to miss), and we even got to watch UT beat Missouri at football.

I’m just going to show some photos here and link to the rest.

Professor Helper giving instructions on what we were to do and our fearless TA, Ephraim ready to go.

An outcrop, our trucks, and my lab partner, Trisha. We traded off quite a bit, but there are no photos of me working. haha

Trisha again on the “big one”, the largest outcrop we found on the first day. This one caused us to be 20 minutes late and Ephraim to be sent out after us. We beat him back.

Last night was gorgeous. The sky had a few brushy clouds - the kind perfect for nice sunsets, and there was a slight chill on the air.

I took a lot of sunset photos, you can see some of them here.

I slept outside, and on Ephraim’s recommendation did so on top of the van; he chose the suburban because of the rails on top to keep him in place. It made for an interesting place to sleep, and the view of the sky was fantastic, as I so rarely see it these days. It was too good to even take photos, they wouldn’t do the scene justice. There were a lot of stars, and I must have seen 7 or 8 shooting stars to add to the wonder. I woke up once, and there, right over my head, was Orion and the entire winter Hexagon. The best part was finding the Andromeda Galaxy, The Perseid Double Cluster, and the Little Dipper, all three of which are invisible in the city.

This morning the sun came out nicely.

And then we were back to mapping. Today we were busier, and it took all morning for Trisha and I to finish even the closest outcrops (which were far larger than yesterday).

Here’s me celebrating UT’s great football team and Trisha working again, and then some of the biggest red ants I’ve ever seen. I kept far enough away not to find out how bad they bite

On top of the big outcrop we could see the horizon miles away.

And then our group picture.

On the way back we stopped at Coopers Barbeque for lunch

You can see all of the photos here.

As always I’ll start with the trip there.  It began slow: we took off late due to congestion on the runway.  The skys were clear though, and we even flew over Nacogdoches. In the second image you may be able to understand why I’m not a big fan of chickens. These things were all over East Texas, and if the wind blew your way it might make you want to hold your breath. Thankfully I didn’t live near any (but my dad did), so I didn’t have to smell them very often. enough of that!

Dinner on the plane was great. It started off with my own bottle of wine and ended up with some fine French food. I had lamb, but they had other options. My dinner reading was a book about the 17th century artist Bernini who holds some sort of record for most sculptures in Rome or something like that. His work is amazing, and I made it a point to see some (you’ll get the pictures later)

Dinner was right before we flew over Manhattan. What a sight! The Dutch guy sitting beside me couldn’t get his camera out fast enough, so I shared the ok quality photos I took with him.

The rest of the flight wasn’t special except for breakfast. We landed in Paris with not enough time for me to catch my flight. I did catch it, but I had to find an alternate route through immigration. The one that led to my next terminal had >500 people, and I had 15 minutes. Such is the way in CDG, and on the return trip it was just as hairy.

Italy from the sky is beautiful. It was overcast, but I got photos upon descent that turned out pretty well.
The airport isn’t actually in Rome, so I have no photos of Rome from above.

After making my way to the hotel (I made it to the right street but the wrong hotel - that happened more than once) I stopped at a store across the way to get some cheese, bread, and olives to make lunch. But first I snapped a couple shots from the Hotel. It overlooked a small piazza with 5 restaurants and a couple of convenience stores selling cigarettes and soda. You can get cigarettes everywhere there, and even tough I was on the 3rd floor I could smell the smoke at night wafting up into my open window.

I took my bag of food for a walk. The sights in Rome are very easy to find. Down the street from my hotel was a view of the Roman Forum which I’ll show in another post. I walked along a wall showing the extent of the Roman Empire through time. That was cool.

And along the way I saw countless old buildings still with the architecture from centuries ago.

Then finally (after a <10 minute walk) I reached my destination! The Colosseum! Before walking up to it I stopped for lunch on a wall to admire the structure and watch people walk by. This was cool!

I enjoyed the food (olives were delicious) and made my way up to this historic building. It is really big. And you can see how much work was put into making it. Remember they didn’t have the same building materials or heavy equipment we do not. This was cut and moved by hand.

I took a lot of pictures there. Some of which turned out pretty well. I’ll show a few

And of course I had to take one of myself I carried a tripod with me for moments like this (and night pictures). The one I had then was brand new; this was my first time to use it. Well, the leg broke on that first try. Needless to say I returned it once I got home.

But the picture still turned out okay.

There are a few more pictures from that walk, and you are invited to see them all here. Also, pictures of the flight if you are interested.

They are coming.  Actually I’ve got some uploaded already. The trick is finding time to sort them and delete the bad/redundant ones - which is going slowly.  I took a lot of pictures.

For now I’ll link to what is available, but an actual post with captions and stories is coming soon for each.

Here you should have access to 3 folders, one of the flight, one of having lunch under the colloseum and another of a walk I took the first night.

Actually, I head home tomorrow morning early.  It’s been a great week, and I’m really glad I came.  The sights were many, and the food and wine were primo.  This is an amazing place, and I can’t wait to get the photos together and tell some stories.

Rome Express coming soon.

Everything is good.  Staying busy as you can imagine.  I have lots to do.  Last weekend however I went to Dallas with my family to celebrate the 85th birthday of my Grandmother.  It was a nice party with lots of people: family and friends.  There were people there I hadn’t seen since my childhood.  All in all it was a great time, and I especially enjoyed spending time with my cousins and aunt and uncle from Pennsylvania.  I don’t get to see them enough.

Here is a picture of all of us from my grandmother on down.  It was right after breakfast, and we hadn’t dressed to go in public yet

From Left to right:
Front row: Amy, Harrison, Aunt Gayle, Grandma (Jean) holding Alexis, Mom (Barbara), Stacy.

Back Row: Levi, Uncle Jack, Aaron, me, Nathan

In all there are 4 generations represented there.  It’s quite rare to get us all in the same place.  The last time was for Grandma’s 80th birthday and before that at Nathan and Stacy’s wedding (8 years ago?)

The baby is adorable and precious.  Everyone wanted to hold her.  Harrison is growing up quickly.  He’s getting to the age when we can discuss things and have a good time playing.  It used to be his trains, now he’s into computer games and Star Wars.

I hope it’s not so long that I get to see them again.

I’ve got so much to write about.  Now I only have time to mention a few things, maybe soon I can post more in depth.

I am now considered a homeowner.  Mom helped me buy a house; it’s an investment for her and me.  This is a big deal of course, and I really like the new place.  Of course I’m already going broke!  This stuff ain’t cheap.

School is back, so now I’ve got those duties on top of my research.  It is going to be an extremely busy semester.  My thesis proposal is due soon, and I’ve got an abstract due tomorrow for a conference in December I’m supposed to attend and maybe (probably) speak at.  This is all good but adding to my workload.  The thesis is primary concern right now and highest priority.  Of course going to Rome for a week at the end of this month is going to detract from productivity.  But I cannot turn down an opportunity to travel.

Oh, and last month my truck broke down.  The slave cylinder on the clutch went out, and that required removing the transmission to get at.  Well, that was a LOT of work.  Thanks to my good friend Forrest and his great wisdom and skill we were able to do it all in only 2 days.  That didn’t help my financial or time constraint problems.  At least it’s running now - but yesterday while test driving it after getting the transmission back in the alternator light came on.  Means more work and $ probably.  I’ve got a new skill though.

Life is busy, but it is all positive.  I’ve just got to stay ahead of all that is coming at me right now.

Talk to you later

So here’s a tid bit, more to come I promise.

Pictures from trip

The little boy is Alex, the son of my good buddy Trev.

The trip was about 3080 miles all told, and it took from Thursday afternoon to Thursday afternoon.  I rode through Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Arkansas.  Before returning through LA and TX again.  It was a blast, and the bike handled quite well.  I only had one day of rain, and by afternoon it was hot and sunny just like you’d expect for the south in summer.

…

edit to add some things.  It’s been almost 2 months since that trip, and now I wish I had stayed a little longer.  My summer flew by, and this is the best memory I have from it.  Getting on a motorcycle and riding that far is always an adventure, and I look forward to next time.  There ain’t nothing like it.

Here are a couple of  pictures, check out the album if you want to see more.

That’s me* overlooking a horse farm in Central KY.  They must have had a few hundred acres of perfectly manicured grass.  In the background you can see a horse stable that’s probably worth several times my house.  And across the street (with many more down the road)  was another horse farm just as beautiful.  What a place!

(*Please ignore the helmet hair, it’s a part of riding a motorcycle)

And one of my good buddy Trev at the same spot.  I’ve gone to KY numerous times now always to see him and ride in those wonderful mountains.  If Texas wasn’t so great I’d move there.

I’m writing this to motivate myself to do a write up about my Kentucky trip.  Maybe sometime this weekend when I’m feeling industrious.  Pretty soon all my writing will be dedicated to my thesis proposal.  That’s going to be a big deal!

I got back from Kentucky on Thursday night. It was quite an experience and a great time. I really enjoyed the mountain roads, distillery tour, and hanging out with my friends/family from the board. Thank Trev and especially Ope for setting up Braveheart!

In all the trip was 3082 miles in less than 8 days. I rode hard and partied hard. It was great to be back on the road again.

I have plenty of pictures to share, but these are from the last day when I rode through my hometown in East Texas. Chief can appreciate these. I grew up on a dirt road just north of a town with population 317 in a county of about 20,000 people. As you can tell it was a pine forest, and it carries the name “Davy Crockett National Forest”. I’m proud to be from there

some pictures from where I grew up.

The nicer part of my dirt road

This was part of our neighbor’s 500 acre ranch. He was also a large and small animal veterinarian and the kindest sole you could ever meet. We called him Doc, but his real name was Maxine. This pasture was where my mom took me to see Halley’s Comet in 1986 when I was about 5 years old. I remember it as clear as anything in my life.

We sat right there on top of our Nissan Station Wagon and used the car roof to steady our hands and the binoculars. That comet just hung there in the sky with a long tail. It didn’t move in the half hour we watched it, and that was my first real introduction to the wonders of the night sky.

While I sat there several visitors showed up.

This was right across the “street” from where I was born and spent the first 8 years of my life and then half time after my parents split up. My dad built that home with his own two hands.

I’ll have to post more pictures of the house another time.

I had a great trip, and it was great to be back on the road.

Read the rest of this entry »

So, I’ve been writing a paper for several months now. My advisor and I have gone back and forth getting things in order, figures, text, and all that, and finally, today we agreed on a draft.  This is the point when we send it out to potential co-authors and invite them to join the paper.  You may ask why we do that, but several people have made this work possible, and without them neither Jack nor myself could have done what we did.

I’m looking forward to their comments and suggestions, and soon after we will submit the paper to be published.  I’m in such a good mood, and mighty proud to be at this point.

I’ll keep you updated as to how things work out.

Switzerland, as you have probably heard, is a beautiful country.  They are famous for chocolate, cheese, mountains, and money.  All of those things they have and of which they are proud.  There is no place on earth where you can ride a train while sipping fine wine, overlook fine vineyards, and find time to enjoy the outstanding scenery.  New Zealand is the only place that rivals Switzerland for beauty, but to go there is quite a trip.  My last time in Switzerland was but brief.  We drove through on a marathon passport stamp run in an attempt to cross 4 countries in one day and collect stamps from each.  Successful as we were we missed the finer points of this fantastic land such as the food and ladies.  No matter how fast you ride, drive, fly, or train you cannot miss the landscape.  It will not escape you.

The Swiss are proud people: proud of what they have, proud of their place in the world, and most of all proud of themselves.  And you would be too if you were raised there.  It is worthy of all that pride.
On this recent trip I flew into Geneva on recommendation from a website that said the lake and mountains there made for a wonderful landing, and for that I am appreciative.  Most people fly to Zurich, which is a nice town in itself, but there is little to see there except the rumbling metropolis of a modern European city.  Trains run everywhere, people walking, dogs on leashes, and little police cars with tinny sirens.  Geneva has those qualities too, but it is a much smaller city, more quiet and peacefuller.  I think the people there may be nicer too.  They speak French in Geneva, much to my dismay.  I’ve always known that there are 4 official languages in CH: German, French, Italian, and Romanish, of which the first three dominate.  English is an unofficial language, and most people there, except the foriegners applying for Swiss citizenship, speak quite well.  My French is less than un peu, and I had to get by on English.  That was fine except when I wanted to order Turkish food or ask for directions.  Mostly though I kept to myself while observing the sights.

Geneva may be the most beautiful city on earth, may be, but I plan to seek cities more beautiful.  Hopefully it will be a long and arduous task that requires a long lifetime of searching.  Flying into Geneva is a treat that everyone should enjoy.  Besides the perfectly clear, calm, blue lake the city itself is nice to see from above, and the crown jewel, Mt Blanc, is there majestically in the distance.  Mont Blanc is of course named for the year round white cap that covers the highest peak in Europe and can be seen for hundreds of miles.  The combination of beauty in one vista there can trump most we’ll ever see in our daily lives, and yet people live there.  That brings me to another point.  The Swiss take their lot in life for granted.  In fact they’re not satisfied living in a beautiful place where everything is taken care of for them.  They don’t find the happiness in a life that rises them above the daily struggle most people in the world experience.  There are few wants that aren’t met, and boredom reigns supreme.  Odd isn’t it, that a country that seems so perfect from the outside can be so boring to those within?  My impression from personal observations and conversations with others is that the Swiss want out.  They look for excuses to go to the big city.  Meanwhile the entire rest of the world wants that picture perfect cottage overlooking the garden and lake just beneath the mountains.

So Geneva, as beautiful as it is, may be as slow a city as exists on earth.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but a town that quits selling beer at 9PM, even before dark that far north, and has fewer night clubs than my hometown of 300 people, cannot ever be exciting.  Excitement for locals and tourists alike is taking the ferry across the lake and watching the sailboats lazily blow along.  If you’ve got a good pair of walking shoes 2 days is plenty to see all of Geneva and even be ready to leave.  So from there I took the train towards Bern.  Some trains go straight through, but the one I took stopped in Lausanne for a connection, and I’m glad it did.  Lausanne is another town that’s bursting with beauty.  I didn’t stay long enough to gauge the night life, but I imagine it’s not much better.  A smaller college town that looks directly at the mountains across the same lake as Geneva, Lausanne is the picture perfect place to live.  No one would ever deny that.  A friend of mine is moving there, and I can’t wait to visit.

Something to note about CH is that it is expensive.  And that goes for anyone visiting.  One night in Bern our group dropped over 1200 USD on a meal.  Yep, more than one thousand two hundred dollars on dinner.  Sure it was a nice restaurant with good food, expensive wine, and a great view.  Sure we were in Switzerland and our meal was paid for by the institute hosting the workshop/conference.  Sure.  But seriously!  Life ain’t quite that good for me yet.  I am quite happy with where things are going and what I’m doing, but the money isn’t there yet.  That’s just one example of how expensive things are.  The 7 dollar half pint beers and 15 dollar glasses of bourbon are another indication.

Lausanne was a quick stop.  I met a nice couple there that showed me around a little.  We talked and saw some sights.  Before long I was back on the rail again headed to Bern.  Now this may surprise you, it sure surprised me: for all the beauty that a place can have, Geneva was lacking in the lady department.  The girls were nice there, but I wasn’t exactly jumping out of my pants to meet them.  Bern was a different story; even before leaving the train station I noticed the number of attractive females.  This was going to be a great place!  While there I did meet a nice girl that accepted my offer of a drink.  She had a boyfriend but was waiting for him and decided one wouldn’t hurt.  She was very nice and spoke in her best German for me, (Swiss German is quite incomprehensible, even to Germans).  We talked as long as she could before exchanging emails.  I imagine I’ll never hear from her again, but it was a nice conversation nonetheless.  Bern, beyond the feminine beauties, was a nice town itself.  Situated not far from the mountains, the main city lies on a penninsula in a bend in the Aare river.  The river is hundreds of feet below city level, and only brave hikers can make the long staircases down to the water.  We did, but it was to find the perfect restaurant you read about earlier.

Bern, named after the bears which no longer inhabit that region, is the small capital city of Switzerland located somewhere near the center of the country.  It has a long history and nice architecture even if most of the buildings are the same color.  Parliament and soccer keep the people happy there while good chocolate, great wine, and French food keep them well fed.  One thing to note is that the people there are all in good shape.  If you see a heavy person you should probably address them with an American accent because that’s probably where they come from.  So all in all it’s a nice place, and the people are friendly.  We enjoyed 3 nights there perusing the town and local eateries with great views, pictures from some of which are posted below.  Our conference went amazingly well, and I learned so much from the other scientists.  It was a great trip and experience, and hopefully I’ll get to do it again.  Thanks for reading.

Pictures I shared with other conference people.

And those not yet seen, lots though

nearly 24 hours in plane or airport.  Remind me to not fly United or through Dulles again.   The 8 hour layover including 3 hours of delay really turned me sour.   At least I’m home, and tired.  Of course it feels like 8AM to me.