This past weekend was a nice reunion with a couple climbing partners of mine up in the Adirondacks, and the addition of a couple new ones. Seven of us converged on Lake Placid, NY, coming from Toronto, Rochester, and Virginia. The goal of the weekend was ice climbing, and we weren’t disappointed. The first day was spent top-roping around the climb “Lions on the Beach” back in Chapel Pond Canyon. We played around on some pure ice routes as well as some mixed climbs. One of the people with us had never climbed ice before, so it was a good introduction for her. We also ran into the RIT Ice Climbing class, which is taught by a friend of mine. It was nice to see them.
We were somewhat more ambitious in our climbing: Chouinard’s Gully. This classic 100m ice climb is popular and always crowded. When we walked by on Saturday, there was at least one party on the climb, with 3 more waiting at the base. So we woke up early, and ended up being second in line. As there were 5 of us, we broke up into a team of 3 and a team of two. I led both pitches at NEI 3. The ice on the second pitch was fantastic and the climbing was great. We topped out just after noon and abseiled off, headed straight for the diner and hot food.
It was a fantastic weekend out. Good weather and good company. Well worth the large amount of driving necessary. Sadly, my camera wasn’t working, but one of the guys put his pictures online: Jamie’s Pictures.
Last week I went around the grounds at UVa with a fellow grad student. We did some night time photography at a variety of locations, including the obvious ones of the Lawn, Rotunda, etc. On our way over there, I found this cool tree partially illuminated by a street lamp. I’ve uploaded more pictures from the night excursion to flickr.
Half-Lit Tree
Originally uploaded by GeorgePrivon
This past afternoon, we finished the first year qualifying exams. My brain is now a pile of goo, but at least it’s over. The test went fine. It was the expected mix of the anticipated and un-anticipated. I was able to make a good stab at enough questions that I feel I’ll do fine.
But now, as I’m fried, it’s bedtime! Tomorrow I get to do research again!
I woke up to falling snow, a rarity here in town. By the time I’d gotten ready to leave the ground was white (and the roads were a mess). The amount of snowfall here is relatively small, so many (most?) drivers are unaccustomed to driving in the snow.. It was slow going on the way to work. I saw quite a few “stuck” cars, including a truck that’d somehow managed to get stuck in the middle of the road, while going downhill… But the most amusing (scary?) was watching a trash truck sliding down a rather steep hill. I was quite happy to be going the opposite way up.. at least he was going slow.
After a few hours of snow (which got quite deep in fact), it turned to not-quite-freezing rain. Fortunately the roads weren’t too horrible by the evening commute home, so that passed uneventfully.
Twice during the day I went out and shot scenes with my new camera: a Mamiya 645 1000s. It is my first medium format camera and I’m looking forward to using it more. I spent about 20 minutes in the Confederate Cemetery opposite the Astronomy Department shooting pictures of statues and grave sites in the snow. Later in the afternoon I went out to the Lawn and Rotunda, where I was able to hopefully get some nice pictures.
I’ve got slides to scan in from my recent trip to New Mexico as well as some night photography done around the UVa grounds. I hope to spend some quality time with a scanner on Sunday and upload them.
Less than two days to go until 1st year qualifying exams at UVa. The multi-hour test (somewhere between 4 and 6, but I forget) will cover basic physics and astronomy in addition to the two courses taught last semester (Observational Techniques and Stellar Astrophysics I). I’m expecting it to be a fairly painful test, but it sounds manageable. The 2nd year students will also be taking the same test. However, on Sunday they will have a second round of testing which will cover the rest of the courses they’ve taken. Assuming all goes well on Saturday, in a year I’ll be taking both days of the test 
I have been fortunate so far with the weather.. It usually waits to rain until after I’ve arrived at work or rains before I ride. Today was my first day pedaling to work though the rain. And it wasn’t bad at all. It was a bit chilly (4C) but I kept pretty warm. The only issue was my feet, which were pretty soaked 5 minutes into the ride. I have fenders on my bike which probably save my foot from some soakage, but I think I need to do more.
I’ll probably pick up a pair of neoprene booties to put over my shoes. That should keep my feet warm for colder commutes and help with the water issue.
Another solution I’ve been thinking about is fairly simple and involves a 2L soda bottle… I’ll cut it in half (from top to bottom), and use each half as a shield of sorts. Sitting on top of my shoe, the plastic will keep water from splashing onto my shoes (which is the major issue for me). That should take care of the problem.
After a very successful and fun Christmas break with family and friends, I’ve returned to Charlottesville and am getting ready to start the spring semester. I’ll be taking some interesting classes, as well as being a TA. I should have a schedule online soon, and I’ll link to that.
I had a bit of excitement with my laptop a few days ago… I upgraded some software and everything broke. After several hours of unsuccessfully trying to fix the problem, I had to format and reinstall linux. Fortunately, I didn’t lose any data and the reinstall was actually quite nice. I’d been missing out on some features due to my upgrading from Fedora 7 to 8, but now I’ve got the latest and greatest. It’s a pretty slick operating system.
Yesterday I continued working on my thesis by verifying that my fitting code could reproduce some generated data (aka data for which I know how much of what models are included). It was a successful test and I will shortly begin re-running the fitting on the actual data. There are still some modifications that need to be made, but those can be done soon (and hopefully with ease).
On the UVa front, more data from the Hubble Space Telescope has come in for our observations of a [[wikpedia:Seyfert Galaxy]]. This means I will so begin learning how to reduce HST data, which should be pretty exciting.
But for now, back to work!
I spent a day in San Francisco with Lydia, exploring the Marin Headlands. We had a great time shooting pictures of the old bunkers there. I’ve uploaded a few of the pictures to my flickr account (see link below).
San Francisco – (06 January 2007) on Flickr
Just got back from night skiing at Bogus Basin with my family. We had a great time, and virtually had the mountains to ourselves. Peter and I broke off and did some serious skiing, logging over 6300m descent over the course of the evening. I managed to have a fantastic spill, jettisoning both skis and one of my poles as I somersaulted and then slide headfirst 30-40ft downhill. I took a few pictures with my camera phone, which have been added to the Flickr set linked below.
Christmas Break 2007 on Flickr
Tomorrow, I begin my trek back to Charlottesville, via San Fransisco. So this might be the end of the skiing out west for the time being. However, I hope to crush some more snowflakes (ice?) back east…
Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day shows a nice picture of the Geminid meteor shower from this past December. It also notes the Quadrantid meteor shower should peak tonight. So if the sky is clear, you should check it out!
APOD: 2008 January 3 – Geminids in 2007
