Fall Break

I'm going to come out right now and say my fall break was too short- that dratted Physics GRE exam was scheduled for 830am Saturday morning (a great way to kick off your vacation, I assure you!), and honestly it's amazing how much a difference one night makes when you only have four to work with. But a few hours after I hopped on a plane-
(The view over Western PA was just awesome...)

...And ended up for a few days in New Hampshire. Where the most beautiful foliage on the planet was in full swing, of course, so this was the best Fall Break activity one could concieve of doing.
Gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous... Though to be fair, I was probably a week late for foliage because it had clearly peaked on the mountainsides (if this sounds odd as Ohio hasn't yet, keep in mind it's already snowing up there meaning it's a fair bit colder!). Luckily the lakeside keeps things a few precious degrees warmer, meaning the area was ripe for canoeing about to see the leaves. And what a stereotypically pretty activity it was too- this time of year most of the cottages are vacant on weekdays, not to be visited until next summer in most cases, so while there were one or two motorboats on Sunday I saw or heard none at all on Monday/Tuesday. Absolutely silent, and the only ripples were the ones from paddling.
Another pretty foliage shot from the lake. The odd structure to the right is actually a hundred-year-old boat house, built by a wealthy Bostonian who used to own the whole lake shore in this area back then. His daughter had a steam-powered yacht with a tall mast (click here for a picture), thus the odd boat house was constructed to accommodate it.
This little guy was what got me most excited about going past the boat house that day- believe it or not, it's a loon! Loons are very iconic for their gorgeous summertime plumage on lakes in northern North America, of course, but this guy is busily changing into his winter duds. If you look at a close-up of the picture you'll see his beak is still primarily black and he still has some semblance of a checkered back, but overall he looks a totally different bird.

And because I've always liked loons ever since I did my "bird report" in 5th grade on them and I'd never seen one ready for winter before, trust me, this was very exciting. Unfortunately the loon decided this was fall so he didn't need to stick around for photo ops anymore, so he dived under for a long time and we never really saw him again.
The reddest tree I have ever seen in my life, even if you might not be able to tell in the picture. You could spot this tree as standing out even though it was on the opposite shore from us.
This picture was taken on Tuesday, when it was cloudy so the leaves didn't look half as impressive, but I was nonetheless a fan of the orange tree and thought I would post this in the name of tree foliage diversity.

Tuesday was also noteworthy in canoeing because I went out alone, and it was dead calm again so I set off for the opposite shore. Except it turned out on the opposite shore it wasn't calm at all and in fact quite breezy, and believe you me when the wind picks up canoes just go. And this wind will always blow in the exact opposite direction of the way you want to head! To make a long story short, there was a fair bit of frantic paddling while kneeling in the middle of the canoe to overcome the wind (as opposed to the seat in the back- more awkward, but more stable), and my jeans got a bit wet. Not complaining though, as the story of paddling small craft over troubled waters is way better than whatever I would have been doing at school.
And I will now finish my fall break post by posting a picture of my Halloween gingerbread man from the local grocery, as he was just that awesome. Almost too cool to eat, until I remembered the only thing cooler than looking at a Halloween gingerbread man is cannibalizing him. The poor guy's disguise was no match for the hungry canoer.

Yellowstone Wildlife

My absolute favorite thing about visiting Yellowstone is, hands down, the wildlife. First of all, it's so abundant- you can hardly go a few miles without seeing something you'd pay good money at a zoo to see- and second of all it's really exciting, and third of all it's just cool. If you don't think so, you're just jealous because you haven't gotten to the point in your life yet where you think "oh, another buffalo herd, not worth stopping for..."
First of all, a buffalo. The most prevalent in the park. I really like them because it's difficult to think of an animal more iconic of the American West than a buffalo, and they're everywhere, so this made me happy.
A baby buffalo, also affectionately known as a "red dog." These guys are born weighing 70-80 pounds, which sounds like a lot until you realize their dads weigh about one ton...
An elk. Also everywhere, particularly around Mammoth lodge where they're smart enough to graze on the well-mown grass. We also saw one with a beautiful set of horns, but no picture I'm afraid.
A white-tailed deer spotted on our hike. Now listen, I know these guys aren't too exotic- they've been tearing up my mom's garden longer than I can remember- but I'm keeping track of wildlife species seen alright? Alright.
A moose, cooling down in the water.
A beautiful shot of a butterfly who obligingly posed on our hike.
And last but not least, a black bear! Spotting these guys is a big deal in the park and we did it twice- once when he was waaaaay off in the distance so that you'd never notice if there wasn't a ranger and a crowd of people around to point out the black speck on the nearby hillside to you, and once when the cars slowed down on the side of the road and we discovered he was only a few yards away. (A sure hint of good wildlife in Yellowstone is an unexpected traffic jam.) This guy was pretty little and he was foraging on the side of the road, wondering what all the huge commotion was about but not at all deterred by it-
I loved him, not only because he was cute but because, well... ok, he was really cute. I'd so want one, if I didn't know they can kill people and all those messy details.

Also seen but not shown here, due to either lack of photograph or my ability-
~ ground squirrel
~ jackrabbit
~ bighorn sheep
~ lots and lots of birds
~ grizzly bear (Ok, this one is very suspect. However, the first afternoon we were in the park there were a bunch of cars parked with telescopes looking in a direction, and for a second while I looked in that direction it looked exactly like a grizzly bear. No one else saw this though, and I don't fully trust it myself, but still it would be cool to say I saw one!)

Packing Up

Whenever someone visits my room for the first time (or even a second, or third...) they immediately become distracted by my wall decorations. This is because every decent-sized surface is covered by an odd collection of maps and postcards-
The reason the US and World maps are interesting is because I use them to mark my Ham radio contacts. It's a hobby of mine that it turns out I'm very good at (if you're ever bored, check what comes up under "Ham radio operator" on Wikipedia), meaning throughout college I have affixed several hundred little star stickers for the various stations I've contacted throughout the world. The US one is particularly impressive, I think, because it's gotten to the point where the various geographical centers of the country are strikingly notable.
The world map, not as filled because further away radio contact is a touch more difficult. The station I use on campus is pretty good though if the markers in southern Africa aren't a tipoff... I didn't take a picture of the rest of the map though, because I haven't made contacts in the regions not shown. I think this has less to do with the capabilities of the station than the fact that I have never have a desire to wake up during the prime operating hours for Asia/Oceania (their evening, which is early morning for us).
I told you the postcards are cool- this wall is covered with about 200 of them from all seven continents. I get then from a few sources, mainly Postcrossing, radio, picking them up myself, or bugging friends...
A close-up of the postcard wall. This one was in our common room this year and my suitemates and I had a bit of a party sticking them up... I finally took them down last night, and it really was sad. There's nothing like taking down several hundred postcards to make you realize you're moving on from your home to a totally new one.

So now I've moved away from Cleveland for the summer, the bad news of which is I had to say goodbye to all my graduating friends but the good news of which is this blog will start up as a travelogue again. I'm in Pittsburgh now, but within hours will be on the road to my brother's college graduation in North Carolina for a few days. And in just a few short weeks I will be driving across the United States to my summer job in California- an adventure I am truly looking forward to, and will undoubtedly be a great source of postcards for next year's display. Stay tuned!

Camping!

We've wanted to do this for awhile, but four of us physicists (and one token astronomer) finally got our schedules worked out and went camping this weekend. We went to Findley State Park, which is an hour or so to the southwest of Cleveland. It was an absolutely perfect weekend too- nary a cloud in the sky and warm enough during the day for shorts and t-shirts, which is very odd for this part of the country at this time of year.

This was also, it should be noted, my first time going "fun camping" with the exception of when I was in New Zealand. What I mean by this is I spent fifteen years of my life (from age 3 until I graduated high school) as a Hungarian Scout, so while there was a lot of living in tents during my vacations and what not it was all very structured and there was usually somebody yelling at you to do something. Here, on the other hand, it was very nice to wake up in the tent realizing that no one was going to make you jump out of your sleeping bag first thing in the morning for a few calisthenics (Hungarian Scouts have some sadistic traditions) or shout because my campfire wasn't in perfect tepee form or whatever. Ahhh, the joys of not having to abandon sleeping bag warmth at seven in the morning!

We (John, Alison, Nick, and me) arrived Friday night just around when it was getting dark, so while there was a lot of marshmallow consumption I don't have pictures as it was (obviously) a little dark. After breakfast and what not I took this picture as we headed out to explore the park because it amused me: nowhere else but Ohio would it be so flat that they warn you about an approaching hill! To make things further amusing we never found the hill, and so far as I could tell no hill exists in the area. Hmmm...
John examining the spillway that we came across, which had a sign that just guaranteed we were going to come closer for a second look.
A gorgeous thicket of purple wildflowers. I'm not entirely certain of what they are (do any of you guys?) but they were blooming everywhere in a last touch of summer. To top it off, a lot of the leaves on the trees were beginning to turn wonderful colors as well; it looked like someone had dipped a paintbrush and thrown brilliantly colored paint haphazardly throughout the woods.
Alison standing at the edge of the lake, which is around thanks to a natural dam towards one end of it. It's 93 acres all told, so we rented canoes and spent the afternoon exploring the inlets, admiring the foliage, observing the herons and egrets, and splashing each other in a good ol' fashioned canoe war. Fortunately (or incredibly?) enough, it was so warm yesterday that you didn't feel cold at all getting a little wet, and the sun took care of things quite quickly.

(Alas, no pictures from the water as I wasn't stupid enough to take my camera what with all the splash threats, even though that was probably the most photogenic.)
Once we were back at the campground we settled down for a bit of R&R while waiting for Steven (who had to work on Saturday and was joining us late) to arrive.
The second night's campfire, where Steven spent a lot of time trying to get our improperly ventilated fire going through excessive uses of fanning with a piece of cardboard. There was much joviality, and since we're physics geeks a lot of jokes that I'm sure most of the general population wouldn't completely understand. Nick also played his guitar a bit for us, which he's quite good at- I plucked a few strings but still need a lot of practice!
Steven looking pensive over his morning bagel- we broke camp and left around 11. All in all, we had a great time and hope we'll have time for another camping trip later this year.

Chalking it Up (part 2)

I just realized that I never posted chalkings from the second day of the chalk festival two weekends ago, and since a lot of you never got a chance to visit it'd be best if I posted them. So these are from Day 2 of the chalking extravaganza outside the Cleveland Art Museum...The above is a little map I did as my first chalking of the day on Sunday (I posted Saturday earlier). I spend a surprising amount of time looking at maps thanks to Ham radio so I wanted to see how well I could get away with the US from memory... not too bad overall I think, though the southern border needs some work.
After that I had an urge to draw something really, really colorful, so what was better than a peace sign? After all, not there's always a slight lack of it in the world...
These are my three drawings overall, plus some of the tools I used. Notice that the peace symbol really stands out compared to everything else- this is because you usually use a sponge to smooth out the colors, but I instead used the "wear down the chalk" approach instead on that one. Clearly, it works better, but only for smaller pictures because else you'd run out of the stuff.
This was the chalking of the guy who was working next to me, which was really cool because I got to see how the drawing evolved as he made it. Note that the source of light in the prism isn't clear- it's intended so that it could be coming either from the book or from outside sunlight.
This was a two-day effort by two ladies who were also in my general area. Looks just gorgeous!
Just another one I thought was lovely.
So much great work! This is one of the ones made by a professional artist, but I still felt really out of my league with all the great talent around... Unfortunately, we did get rain a few days ago in Cleveland so most of the chalkings are probably gone, but some of them might still be visible. I'll have to go check.

Chalking it Up

Today was a fun day! Gorgeous weather to counter those hurricane remnant clouds passing through last night, so I headed over to the 18th annual Chalk Festival hosted by the Cleveland Museum of Art. It's ongoing all this weekend (Sunday's hours are 12-5) and the artwork will last until the next rainfall, so you should all go check it out as it's really awesome.

As you can see, most of the people who participate are just families from Cleveland and such- you can pay for a certain-sized square and they'll give you some fine-quality chalk, so you can just get to work on doing whatever you want. There are also a few professional artists working too-
But yes, lots of creative chalkers! Here's one I particularly liked, titled "Snakes on a Plane"...
Here's another gorgeous set, which honestly look for all the world like a few Monet paintings just walked out of the art museum and laid themselves on the pavement-
Here's another nice one, which is clearly a work in progress and wont' be finished until tomorrow. A lot of people get really serious about the chalk festival, and are there the whole weekend. (For those who don't recognize it, the building is Adelbert, the CWRU administrative building where the president and provost and all those lovely people hang out.)
After seeing all this great artwork, I decided to throw my lot in the ring and do my own chalking. I was a bit intimidated by the other artists to be honest- I can't draw most things at all, and forever envy those who do- but I do have a good cartoonish style of many a deep space object thanks to years of doodling in my notebook margins and having a one-track mind. So after two hours, here's my end result-
Hooray for the Mars rover! This is probably the biggest piece of artwork I've ever done by the way- here's a picture with me in it for scale-
So anyway, I am quite proud of my piece and now get to obsessively worry about the prospects of rain for a little while (luckily we're in that time of year with perpetual blue skies, so it says "sunny" for the next ten days of forecast!). I had a lot of fun though and still have quite a bit of chalk, so perhaps tomorrow I'll be heading back to do another square. And if I don't, no one will complain too loudly if I use my meager artistic skills on some other nice piece of sidewalk around campus, right?

A Trip to the Ivy League

Time for a trip! I spent this past Labor Day weekend in New Haven, Connecticut, which is the home of Yale University. But my main reason to be there wasn't academic at all- I was there to see Katherine!
Katherine is, for those of you who have never made her acquaintance, my best friend from high school. She's in her fourth year of history right now, but unfortunately led as busy a life as me this summer so I hadn't seen her since January. A long weekend was just perfect for a visit... Oh, and while I didn't realize it until Katherine told me, we apparently met exactly ten Labor Day Weekends ago at a pool party where neither of us really wanted to get into the water. Hooray for anniversaries!
When we weren't spending time hanging out with a bunch of very kind students, we spent a lot of time taking a grand tour of Yale University and its environs. Yale has to be one of the loveliest universities I have been to- founded in 1706, the entire thing is modeled after a British university, from the lovely Gothic style of the buildings (the library is above) down to the fact that the students stay in residential colleges rather than dorms. They even pour acid on the stones to make them look older.
The view from the reference room of the library, or more specifically from the table where I worked on my cosmology homework Sunday afternoon. (Yale students were still doing orientation and just started classes today, so while Katherine was busy meeting first years I worked on homework a bit.) It was mildly amusing to work here because a lot of tourists/visitors come in the doorway, snap a photo, and leave. And while the above clearly indicates that I'm not exempt from this, I must be on several dozen photos by now looking for all the world like a serious Yale student... or something.
The furthest away part from where the students live is Science Hill, which is also home of the Yale Physics Department! Yay! The building itself is probably a little bit smaller than CWRU Physics's Rockefeller Building (though Yale has a huge building devoted to astronomy to make up for it), but alas I never got inside to poke around. They still use actual keys on the doors as opposed to card swipes and it was a Sunday, and two grad students refused to let us in despite our asking very nicely. Hmph. Guess I'll need to pay them a proper visit on my own steam sometime.
This is the view from East Rock, which is a hill a half-hour walk from campus that overlooks New Haven and the university. If you have a clear day like we did, you can see all the way to Long Island. As the picture sort of shows, Yale is basically New Haven- according to Katherine they're the number one employer in the city, with number two being the university hospital. Either way it's a cute little city- they have good pizza too if you're a fan of thin pizza!

So all in all, it was a great weekend for sure and I had a lot of fun. I will confess, however, that it never felt like I was completely in the "real world" for a large chunk of it. I suppose this is because while Yale students are all intelligent and lovely people, they didn't seem to view the world the same way college students I usually hang out with do. Virtually everyone went abroad to an exotic country this summer, often to volunteer in an orphanage or conserve wildlife or something, and while this is quite commendable I have never heard of a CWRU student doing such a thing for the simple reason that CWRU students need their summer pay. Further, there were a few instances where the degrees of separation between me and Famous and/or Influential People reduced to scantily tiny numbers in what were otherwise normal situations, and if you never do double-takes when these things happen you've probably been away from the normal realm of things for a long time.

(Special thanks to Katherine for being my ever-splendiferous hostess!)

Live Free Or Die

It's very New Zealandish in New Hampshire. No wonder I like both so much. Great weather too, check out the Weirscam to see what I mean...

Catch you guys next week, when I'm in Cleveland and no longer in the prettiness.

One Saintly Momma Duck

Spotted this on a rock in the lake a few days ago-

For those who can't see properly, it's a momma wood duck with twenty-seven, yes, twenty-seven!, ducklings. With the exception of one who was slightly bigger, all the ducklings are the same size and I've seen the family paddling up and down the shorefront more than once. (Well they don't really paddle, they just sort of hydroplane in this gigantic cloud of fluffy cuteness.)

Looking into it though, wood ducks lay no more than 15 eggs usually, so something is amiss here. Some other wood duck had problems so this one adopted the brood, perhaps? Either way, she must have a great deal of patience with so many little ones.

EDIT: Bird girl saves the day! My sister the bird-studying graduate student looked into it and informs me that these are actually not wood ducks (as I'm used to calling them) but rather common goldeneye ducks, which often mix their young with other families. That could explain what's going on here!

Sundogs on Spaceweather.com!

Hey everyone, guess what? The sundog picture from the earlier post made the main page of spaceweather.com! For those who don't know, spaceweather.com is the astronomy "current events" site for aurorae, atmospheric phenomena, NEOs, etc. As it recieves over 600k hits a month, getting your picture onto the site is an astro-geek bragging right of sorts.

Hooray!!!

South Island Lite

Last weekend when my dad and brother were still here (they're back at home, but my mom's still here for a few days), I sent them down to Queenstown to go out to Milford Sound and see all the things that I did. A few days after, I took a long weekend and flew down after them, and we drove up to Franz Joseph Glacier (and by "we" here I mean my dad drove the whole way, and we all thanked him for the kindness of a saint and for remembering what side of the road to drive on).

And the coolest thing about Franz Joseph was how we did a helihike! When I was last there I did a half-day hike but it's not the same at all- you need to walk a good hour out to the glacier face, and the ice is rather dirty due to all the accumulated dirt on the bottom left over as the ice melts. If you do a helihike, on the other hand, they fly you up to the fastest-moving part of the glacier and you tramp around on pristine ice floes... plus there's the helicopter ride, which none of us had ever done and was, quite frankly, pretty damn sweet.
What Franz Joseph glacier looks like as you fly towards it. For comparisons, last time I was there I probably just went a few pixels up the bottom from where the ice starts.
A much closer-up view of the glacier face, which was just spectacular. Notice how nice the weather is too: last time I was here this part of the glacier would've been completely covered in cloud, as it rains an astonishing 9 meters each year at the top of the glacier (for comparison, it rains about 3 meters in southern England). The upshot of this was I was completely astonished to see the mountains upon waking up, as I hadn't seen them last time in Franz Joseph!
Patrick clinging on for dear life. The guy roped up to him had slipped, you see, and he had luckily gotten his ice pick in the ice just in time...

No really, that didn't quite happen but this is an ice field after all, so in order to counter the slippery nature of every step we were equipped with talsons (spikes) for our feet and given ice axes as well. And you use those ice axes too, partly to maintain balance, partly to hit the ice ahead of wherever you're walking to make sure it's strong enough to walk on. (Nothing really deadly, just a lot of melted water with only a thin layer of ice on top which wouldn't be fun to step in.)
Me in a little ice cave, admiring the blueness of the ice. Isn't it just an incredible color?
My mom in another ice cave. My Hungarian relatives check in here regularly, and I know my grandmother would like to see this one. (Latod milyen jol hejet allt anya, Sari mamama?)
The main part of the glacier, which is advancing at an astonishing rate (sometimes over a meter a day!). During our hike, we were interrupted more than once to watch large chunks of ice the size of cars or busses tumble down the side... to give you some scale here, the top of this floe is over a kilometer away, and all those pinnacles of ice are about twice as tall as you are, give or take.
The helicopter we rode out on. I know this will sound obvious, but the most impressive thing about them really is how they can land and take off on the spot of a dime. I mean think of an airplane taking off: yes, takeoffs and landings are very impressive, but you get up to a great speed with lots of accompanied shaking before slipping the surly bonds of Earth. A helicopter, on the other hand, just goes straight up! Neat stuff... the other cool thing was how our pilot was cool enough to do a few bank rolls wonderfully close to the mountains for us and what not, which was a great lesson in reference frames because you don't feel like you're at an angle, it's just the ground suddenly is.
The view from the chopper away from the glacier. The closer body of water to the right is a nearby lake, and if you're sharp-eyed you can spot the ocean in the distance as well (sorry, but I couldn't dictate the position of the sun obviously).
Alas, that's the end of the glacier/ helicopter pictures. Not to worry, folks, there's lots of pretty scenery to enjoy on the trip back because this is New Zealand after all!
Patrick contemplating a sign at the Queenstown airport telling him the most direct route to New York City (it's 15,027km away if you can't read that). My brother was starting an internship at a buisness firm Tuesday, and since this was Sunday in New Zealand his life for the next day consisted basically of travelling so he could reach NYC by Monday night. I thought the sign was a good touch.
Me with the stylistic backpacker look at the airport. For those of you who don't know this is what backpackers do usually, as in throw your main pack on your back, hug you smaller one to your chest, except apparently this looks mildly rediculous when I do it because I don't look much larger than the pack. I'll leave that for you to decide.

All in all, I was very, very happy to make it down to South Island one last time before going home, and it was even better to share it with my family! I think that's about it for now, as tomorrow is the last day of class and I need to get some rest before that. Goodnight everyone!