Allan's Photoblog
A Cherished Award
Reverent
Last night, the parents of W’s Boy Scout Troop held their annual end-of-summer parent party. At the party each year, individual parents are recognized for their service to the troop by being given special pens. The barrel of the pen is wood, and Eagle Scouts from the troop are brought in to make the pens and inscribe one element of the Scout Law onto each pen, signifying that part of Scout Law that the parent’s service most embodies — things like Loyal for long service, or Brave for undertaking some logistically difficult project like planning a big outing.
Ever since W joined the Troop, I’ve been an enthusiastic and active supporter of W’s patrol, of the Troop, and of Scouting in general. I’ve gone on almost all of the outings with W, I’ve attended meetings and worked to help new scouts and families feel welcome, and so on. This past year, I was counselor for the Personal Fitness Merit Badge, shepherding 38 scouts through the classes and fitness program. This summer, I started teaching the Ad Altare Dei religious emblem class for Cathlic Scouts in our Troop. And I’ve volunteered to be assistant scoutmaster (ASM) for J’s patrol when he bridges over.
For leading Ad Altare Dei, for leading the Personal Fitness Merit Badge, and for being “unofficial ASM”, I was given one of the pens. The element of Scout Law on the pen is Reverent.
Scott, our outgoing Scoutmaster who announced my pen, said that pens with Reverent on them were “very rare and coveted."
I’ve received things like Certificates of Appreciation for things like judging science fairs in the past, but this pen will long be one of my most cherished awards.
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I’m uploading photos from the ICRC trip and the vacation to Flickr. Currently, you need to be on my Friends and Family list, whatever that is, to see them. Or maybe I’ll post Guest Pass links here...
Hawaii Vacation 2015 — Snorkeling and Scuba Diving
It has become a tradition in our family to alternate summer vacations between Hawaii and Disney World (or Orlando, if we include Universal Orlando). This year was supposed to be our Disney World vacation year, but we did it during Spring Break instead of summer. Instead, for the summer, we decided to make an additional trip to Hawaii for a specific task: To get J into the ocean for some snorkeling.
This coming year at school, J will have a field trip to Catalina Island, where he will have the opportunity to do some snorkeling. In a previous year, J had gone to Camp Cherry Valley for a Cub Scout weekend, and J had failed his swimming test because he freaked out at the freezing cold water. J is one of those kids who, if he has a bad experience, decides he won’t like a thing or anything similar from then on.
Since then, J has had a large number of swimming lessons in indoor heated pools, and he’s become an accomplished swimmer for a 10 year old. All I needed now to prepare him for his field trip was to get him into the ocean for some snorkeling. At least in Maui, the water would be warmer, and we’d also have wetsuits. Plus, of course, there would be plenty of coral, fish, and maybe some other wildlife like green sea turtles.
W is already an experience snorkeler, so I could bring him out, too.
We decided we’d go to the Grand Wailea in Maui, which we had visited before. It has the advantage of being familiar and of having extensive pools and water slides, not to mention a very nice beach with close proximity to excellent beginner snorkeling at Ulua beach to the north and beginner/intermediate snorkeling on Wailea beach itself, at the south end.
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We had an evening flight from LAX to Maui on Sunday, 8/9, eventually arriving by taxi from the airport to the Grand Wailea at almost 9 PM, too late for dinner in the restaurant but not too late for dinner in the lounge.
The next morning, Hsuan got us chairs poolside, and I took J with me on the longish walk from the Grand Wailea to Ulua beach, following the oceanside path north. During the walk, I talked to him about the Boy Scouts acronym for swimming: BALLPADS (buddy system, adult supervision, lookout, lifeguard, physical fitness or personal health review, ability groups, discipline, and safety). Another acronym is BASSPEDS, but I didn’t bother. The main thing was that we kept to the buddy system and that J hold my hand throughout our snorkeling experience.
Then I taught him how to spit in his mask and wipe the spit around to keep it from fogging up, how to make a good seal, how to blow out his snorkel, and how to breath calmly and not overexert but rather to float and use minimal motion.
He got the hang of things pretty quickly, and while he was a bit scared during our first outing, I was always with him, holding his hand and guiding him along. He was mainly scared of getting water in his snorkel and of being pushed around by the waves and current. By his second or third outing, though, he was pretty relaxed about clearing his snorkel and swimming calmly. (For my part, I was making sure we didn’t get washed up on jagged rocks, making sure we didn’t get run over by other watersports people, and keeping an eye out for sharks — incredibly rare to be in danger, but statistics never matter if the sharks are chowing down on you.)
A young Australian woman snorkeling nearby pointed out a turtle sleeping on the bottom nearby, and as we were looking at it, another turtle appeared close to us and swam by. It was a memorable introduction to ocean wildlife for J.
After about half an hour of snorkeling, we returned to the Grand Wailea, where I found W, and we walked back to Ulua beach for more snorkeling. He posed for a photo near the first, sleeping turtle.
So, J had seen 2 turtles, and W had seen 1.
We spent the rest of the day swimming in the pools at the Grand Wailea and had dinner at Longhi, an Italian chain restaurant at the nearby Shops at Wailea.
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On Tuesday, we rented a car to go snorkeling at Makena Landing just south of Wailea. Eric had recommended a cove in Ahihi Bay, but that was farther south. I wasn’t sure I could find it, and Makena Landing is another well-known, popular snorkeling area. Plus, it was closer, easier to find, and had good parking.
The Maui Dive Shop guide suggested that the left side of the Makena Landing cove is good for snorkeling while the right side is good for scuba. I wasn’t sure really where to go, and after making a short foray along the right, J and I went to the left side. I still wasn’t sure how far to go out, and the waves kicked up a lot of sand. Visibility was poor along the left side, and I couldn’t be sure if we hadn’t gone out far enough or if it was just the wind and wave conditions that were killing visibility.
However, as we snorkeled, two turtles suddenly appeared through the murky water and swam right by us. That was good enough, and we decided to stop fighting the waves and currents and return to the beach.
As W was getting ready to snorkel, more people had appeared at the beach, and we also saw a snorkel tour boat on the right and farther out than J and I had initially gone. So, W and I swam farther out, and the visibility cleared tremendously.
There was an abundance of colorful coral and fish, and as W and I explored the reef, another turtle appeared and swam past us, heading toward the beach.
Half an hour later, I convinced J to come back out, this time farther out along the right where the water was clearer. I was in a rush to get out, and J, who had already taken off his wetsuit, wore only a rashguard on top. He was shivering throughout the swim, so I held him close to me. As we explored, the turtle that W and I had seen swimming to shore passed below us, swimming back out into the ocean. Had we waited for J to get back in his wetsuit, we probably would have missed it.
So by now, J’s running count was 5 turtles, and W’s was 2.
We returned to the Grand Wailea to shower off the saltwater, and then we headed out for lunch in Kihei. We tried to visit the South Maui Fish Company for lunch, but they were closed for the day because they hadn’t caught any fish. Instead, we stopped by Coconut's Fish Cafe, where the boys had fish and chips, Hsuan had fish tacos, and I had a fish sandwich. The service was very friendly, and the lunch was excellent.
We spent much of the afternoon at the Maui Ocean Center, enjoying the aquarium. The day outside was very hot and humid, so the chance to spend the non-swimming day indoors was welcome. We had visited during our last Maui vacation, but the boys are older now and maybe more curious about sea life.
We also spent some time in Lahaina, including visiting the Banyan tree, doing some shopping for t-shirts and a little art, and having some shave ice to combat the heat. Dinner that evening was at Roy’s near Kaanapali.
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On Wednesday, just J and I snorkeled, this time off Wailea point at the south end of Wailea Beach. It’s very, very close to the Grand Wailea: The Grand Wailea occupies the north half of the beach, and the smaller Four Seasons occupies the south end, so it’s a much shorter walk than the walk to Ulua Beach. I was a little worried, because I recalled from the previous Maui vacation that it was quite a swim from the beach to where the interesting coral formations are, but when we got out there, we saw plenty of other snorkelers, including a snorkeling tour boat.
Together, we saw one small turtle trying to stay on the bottom and two more, larger turtles swimming near the rocky shorline of Wailea point. So J’s running total of turtles was 8, and W’s was still at 2.
We spent the rest of the day swimming in the pools or riding the slides at the Grand Wailea.
For dinner, we had poke at the lounge, and then we picked up pizza from the hotel’s cafe and ate in our room.
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On Thursday, I brought W first to Wailea Point, and we saw the medium-sized turtle sitting on the bottom, and we tried hanging around the rocky shoreline at the Point, looking for the larger turtles. We didn’t find them, but we did see plenty of schools of fish.
Half an hour later, around 10:20 AM, I brought J out to Wailea Point, and we saw not only the medium-sized turtle at the bottom, but we also saw the small and large turtle that we had seen the previous day. We observed them for quite a while swimming up to take some air at the surface as well as swim down, and we saw one of them eating moss or other plantlife off the rocks at the bottom.
J’s running total of turtles (including obvious repeats from previous days) was 11, and W’s was 3. Clearly, J was some sort of lucky charm when it came to seeing turtles.
Back at the Grand Wailea, W took advantage of a free “try scuba” class, which basically just let him try out the scuba gear and breath underwater in a small scuba pool. I tried to sign up as well, but I admitted to high blood pressure (treated with medication), so the manager wanted a waiver from my doctor. I got the forms together and faxed them to my doctor’s office, but I would have to wait until Friday before I could do it. So, in anticipation of getting clearance, I signed up me and W for a full scuba class and open ocean dive for Friday.
Dinner was at Humuhumunukunukuapua’a, the Grand Wailea’s signature restaurant. W had fish, and J had, well, something. Chicken fingers? Hsuan and I had the four course tasting menu, and I had the additional wine pairing. The food was excellent, but the third course (entree) was a sea bass that was more a full entree than a tasting item. Afterward, Hsuan and I felt overfull.
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On Friday, since W and I would be scuba diving, I decided that I’d bring only J with me snorkeling in the morning, and we returned yet again to Wailea Point for its convenience and apparent abundance of turtles.
This time, J and I saw only two of the three turtles we were accustomed to seeing in the area, and one of the sightings was uncomfortably close: Following one of the turtles, we swam into the rocky area and found ourselves in close proximity to rocks on several sides. I was busy trying to ensure we didn’t get pushed by the waves and current into the rocks and get badly scratched up, and I didn’t notice that the large turtle we had been observing had turned around in a dead-end and was swimming right back at us. Throughout our snorkeling, we had always been careful not to get too close to the turtles so as not to harass them. However, sometimes they’d appear suddenly close by, sometimes out of murky water, and we’d have little or no time to react. Regardless, they’d usually swim right by us without any apparent concern.
This time, hemmed in by rocks, we barely had room to move, but luckily, the turtle itself was graceful in the water and somehow swam by us and the rocks, and we seemed to get by without touching her, though we rubbed a little on the rocks.
That was enough for us for this vacation, so we swam back, taking the picture of the starfish (or whatever it is) above while on our way.
J’s final total of turtle sightings was 13. W’s was stuck at 3 (though he saw far more than 3 at Aulani).
Back at the Grand Wailea, after lunch, W and I took part in the scuba class. We had about an hour of instruction along with others taking the class, and then we got into the pool with the scuba gear. We rehearsed our various techniques for removing and reseating the mouthpiece, clearing our masks under water, practicing reading and giving hand signals, and so on.
When we first got under water, I had a few minutes of claustrophobia. I’ve experienced claustrophobia before in some situations, like while lying in an MRI machine. I experienced it as a psychological difficulty in breathing and a strong desire to get out, much the same as with the MRI. With the MRI, though, I usually relax pretty quickly after a minute or two, and I often feel so relaxed that I just fall asleep, so I expected my claustrophobia would disappear with scuba as well. Indeed, after a few minutes, it did, and I relaxed into breathing with the gear and just enjoyed the experience.
After practicing in the pool, we divided into groups, with another dad and his daughter, W, and I forming a group led by Drew, our class instructor and our guide for the open ocean dive. We had a brief bathroom and water break, and then we got our gear (with fresh tanks of air) out to the beach, where we suited up and eventually got into the water. I brought my Nikon, which was rated down to 18 meters depth.
We dove to an array of about four fingers of rock and coral, about 200 meters away from the beach. I don’t think we ever got much more than about 30 feet below the surface. Since we weren’t supposed to use our neutral buoyancy jackets except to surface, we were using only our breathing and our swimming to go up or down. Sinking or rising by exhaling or inhaling worked, but there was a big time delay between inhaling/exhaling and rising/sinking, and it took a while to get used to it. Also, kicking or not kicking with the fins had the same effect as inhaling/exhaling, with the same time delay.
We saw a number of things, including another starfish like the one J and I saw, and a moray eel trying to hide in the coral. There was a deck chair/lounger that someone had dropped overboard, and I tried to get a picture of W “reclining” on it.
Every once in a while, Drew took my camera and got pictures for me, including the photos above.
Drew also found. hiding under a rock, a shrimp and what was either a scorpion fish or a lion fish — I don’t recall which, but he said later he wouldn’t touch it because it’s poisonous. He used my camera to take photos for me.
Our total time scuba diving in the open ocean was about 45 minutes, and by the time we got back to shore, my tank pressure had dropped from 3000 psi to just over 500. It turns out that, although the neutral buoyancy jacket helps keep one from having to fight gravity and the weight of the air tank, the tank still has lots of inertia, and you’re still swimming in deep water, dragging the tank with you against currents (or even still water).
The result was that I was utterly exhausted when we got to shore around 4 PM, and once we found J, who had been exploring not only the pools but also the beach — where he apparently discovered some beach crabs — we all returned to the room to shower and rest. I took a couple of really deep naps.
For dinner, we had reservations at 6:15 PM at Morimoto Wailea, at the Andaz hotel 20 minute walk away. Hsuan and I both had the 7 course Omakase dinner. I had a carafe of Morimoto junmai sake, and when I was done with that, I had hot green tea (a Morimoto blend).
W had a sashimi appetizer and an 8 oz Wagyu filet mignon. J had, I think, a kodomo steak dish, though I’m not quite sure about that.
On the walk back, I explained to J that, despite how tired and exhausted I was from the scuba diving, I was happy, because I wanted to make each vacation memorable for both J and W. I wanted both of them to have fun and to have new, interesting, memorable, and exciting experiences, like snorkeling for the first time for J and scuba diving for the first time for W. I told J that if I can give them a good time, then it doesn’t matter how tired I may feel or how much my muscles may hurt. I told J that making them happy makes me very happy.
He said, “You’re pretty good at that.”
So it was all worth it for me.
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Saturday was our last day of vacation. We spent most of the morning at the pools and slides, though J did take time to bring me back to the beach to try to find the crabs he had seen on Friday. We never found them, but J and I had a good walk, anyway.
After lunch at the Bistro Molokini, we let the boys go back to the pool, while Hsuan and I checked out of our hotel room in time for our late check-out time of 1 PM. We spent another couple of hours at the pool, spending more time in the pool and on the slides as a family. Then we took advantage of the hospitality suites provided by the Grand Wailea for those guests who have late flights out, in order to shower and change clothes.
We finally left the resort around 4:30 PM to take a taxi to the airport, flying first to Honolulu, and then flying by red-eye to LAX, arriving just before 5 AM. We got home just after 6 AM, and I slept for most of Sunday.
The Hague, ICRC 2015
After W left for Camp Cherry Valley, I myself departed for the Netherlands to attend the International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC) in the Hague. I had spent much of June and July finishing up my analysis for and my paper on SuperTIGER composition and spectra analysis for Ne to Cu; I had agreed to present the paper orally on behalf of the collaboration. Other team members would present the more prominent and important overview paper, the instrument paper, and the ultra-heavy elements papers, and since they had done far more work than I had, I was happy to take the paper I did, which covered the secondary science objectives.
I also spent June and July working on my pet science of inferred ionic charge states of solar energetic particles. I wrote and submitted the paper, and I presented it as a poster.
I had been pretty worried about the SuperTIGER paper. I was worried about the charge states paper, too, but the SuperTIGER paper was to be presented orally, and since I would represent the team, it was definitely more important.
Luckily, the deadline for paper submission was pushed back twice, I got a couple of breaks in the data analysis that allowed me to have real results for the charge states paper (else I would have withdrawn it), and I got a lot of help from my SuperTIGER colleagues in finishing up the composition and spectra paper. (Unfortunately, I didn’t get actual spectra, but I made progress in doing the analysis, enough to show at the conference.)
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The trip to the Hague started on 7/28 with a flight to Houston, followed by another flight, overnight, to Amsterdam. Ed was on the same itinerary as me, and he got me into the earlier boarding groups as well as into the United Club in Houston. Plus, I had purchased Economy Plus seats for the longer flights (including return).
We arrived in Amsterdam Schiphol Airport on Wednesday morning, where we immediately had problems with the train ticket machines not accepting our credit or debit cards, so we had to go to the ticket desks, where we ran into Christina. We then took the easy train ride to the Hague Central Station, where we caught a taxi to our hotel, the World Hotel Bel Air, near the World Forum where the ICRC would be held. I paid 20 euros extra to get into my room early.
After resting and freshening up a bit, I walked to the World Forum to pick up my registration materials. Although it was a nice, sunny day (albeit windy), I was somewhat taken aback by the architecture of the buildings in the international quarter area where the World Forum is located: All dour and industrial and one-world-government-imposing and Soviet-like, as I imagine it, as if the architects had been looking forward to the triumph of world Communism. I had been looking forward to visiting the land of the Dutch Masters and Van Gogh, and instead, I was visiting the land of oppressive world government and the world court.
Back at the hotel, I ran into Eric, Mihir, Berndt, and other colleagues, and a few of us went out to dinner at a nearby residential neighborhood with shopping and restaurants. When we got there, the architecture was more modern Holland and less world government (world Communism), so I was relieved. It turned out that for the rest of my stay, only the international area had that kind of oppressive feel to it.
And despite the World Forum’s exterior, the interior of the World Forum was a nice, modern conference center (although the main theater had a bit of an echo problem).
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On Thursday, Ed gave his opening highlight talk on Voyager. He’s always a star at these international conferences.
I also put up my charge states poster. Unlike some other meetings and conferences, at this ICRC, the poster sessions each spanned two days, for one hour each afternoon. So, on Thursday, I spent an hour in front of my poster, and after speaking to a random attendee, I spent a lot of time talking to Mihir, and later to Berndt and Yulia. Berndt wondered why the technique worked for some SEP events and not others, and he suggested that Yulia could do some theoretical calculations to show which SEP events had the kind of energy dependence we needed. Mihir wanted a list of charge states for all events for which I had good results.
So that was a good afternoon.
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On Friday, I attended some morning talks, and I can’t remember what they were about. That was to be the case for much of the conference, I’m afraid, whether they were plenary talks or contributed talks.
Then I attended the afternoon poster session and got another visitor — Jim Adams. I forgot what he asked, but I wrote it down on my iPhone’s Notes for further work. I’ll have to find out his new e-mail address, though.
I spent part of the day working on finishing up my oral presentation for SuperTIGER, and I submitted the pdf (rather than the PowerPoint original) to the conference for uploading to the presentation system.
At the end of the day, Thomas gave his SuperTIGER and ACE highlight talk.
That evening, I went with Eric to Sumo Sushi for our traditional sushi meal together. It was an "all-you-can-eat” sushi place, except it both was and wasn’t really all-you-can-eat. The idea was that for each of six rounds, you could order up to five pieces of sushi or other small plates. I had noticed that the box-lunches I had ordered for the ICRC had been heavy on bread, e.g. sandwiches made of thick pieces of bread with small amounts of filling in between. Well, it turns out the sushi was like that, too: Big chunks of rice with small slices of fish on top. I guess the Dutch don’t have no-carb or low-carb diets. We were both so full from the rice that we finished only four rounds of sushi, and then we had a little dessert for the fifth round and skipped the sixth.
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On Friday, I gave my oral presentation for SuperTIGER’s Ne to Cu composition and spectra paper. It was actually the fourth talk in the session, which began with Marty (above) talking about the Fe-60 measurements in ACE/CRIS, followed by Makoto talking about the SuperTIGER instrument and Ryan talking about the SuperTIGER ultra-heavy composition analysis. Those three talks together combined to give good support to the notion that cosmic rays originate in OB associations of stars. My own talk followed Ryan’s and, as I said, covered SuperTIGER’s secondary science objectives of Ne to Cu composition and spectra.
I had gone over my slides with Marty before the session began, and I think I gave a reasonable presentation. I had paced myself to fill my alotted 12 minutes of talking time, and I went over by only a minute. I got a question from — I think — an AMS guy wondering if we’d have the appropriate energy resolution to do microquasar searches. I thought we had enough statistics to answer yes, but I was only able to give a guess about the energy resolution. Unfortunately, the energy resolution changes with energy, and I was going from memory in answering. On the other hand, for the microquasar search, we are using considering Fe signals which have high aerogel Cherenkov signal because of the Z^2 dependence, so resolution should be okay.
That evening, I attended the traditional ICRC Chicago dinner, where I was happy to reassociate with many of my old University of Chicago friends. Dietrich gave the speech recounting the tradition of the Chicago dinner and pointing out new attendees. Scott and Joerg were the organizers. This year, we ate at a restaurant called Waterproef near the beach, and the meal was a very elegant two courses of fish and steak.
At the Rio ICRC, the Chicago dinner was at a Brazilian churrascaria, and I would characterize the meal as lots of tasty meat, but definitely too much to be healthy. At the Beijing ICRC, the Chicago dinner was Peking duck, but again, the volume was much larger than at the Hague.
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Sunday was our day off from the conference, and since I didn’t sign up for a tour, I decided to go to Amsterdam and wing it and try to visit the Rijksmuseum to see paintings by the Dutch Masters. Pam had given me her Museumkaart and said that I should be waved in after the barcode was scanned, but she said the ticket-taker might look at the back of the card and decide I wasn’t a 60-year old person. (The card had only her first initial and last name, so I didn’t have to worry about being the wrong sex.)
I slept late, had breakfast (included with my hotel fee), and then got on a tram to the central station, rode a train to Amsterdam central station, and then took an Amsterdam tram to the Rijksmuseum. I got there after noon, and I ran into Ryan just outside of the men’s room. We entered the museum together, and the ticket-taker did indeed look at the back of Pam’s card, look at me, look back at Pam’s card, and then give me another hard look — but he waved me in anyway.
Ryan had spent a summer at Erice in Italy, so he was Italian-Renaissanced-out, so we skipped a bunch of exhibits (though we did view the van Gogh self-portrait) and went straight to level 2, where the Dutch Masters paintings had a special gallery hallway.
I really loved viewing the Dutch Masters paintings. I loved their mix of subject choices — from Biblical subjects to portraits of named and unnamed figures to their paintings of everyday work and commerce and the outdoors. I loved seeing different treatments of light and shade, how some clouds in the skies of some paintings were sharply defined while other clouds in other paintings were far less sharp. And while Rembrandt was the star, there were wonderful paintings by so many other artists there as well.
I also appreciated that we were allowed to take (non-flash) photos. That’s not often the case in so many museums elsewhere.
Ryan and I toured together for a while, but he also had a 3 PM ticket for the Van Gogh Museum, so we split up around 2 PM. I went to get a cappuccino and rest up a bit, since I hadn’t had lunch, while he continued touring the Rijkmuseum on his own before leaving to go to the other museum. After my snack break and rest, I toured the rest of the Rijkmuseum alone as well.
After the Rijkmuseum, I wandered about the area until about 4:30-5:00 PM or so, at which point I found The Seafood Bar, which is ranked #23 out of 2565 restaurants in Amsterdam. I was lucky I got there when I did, so I was seated immediately, and I wound up having the best fish and chips I’ve ever had — piping hot, as if it had just come from the oil, but not greasy. The batter was crispy and the fish (cod) was flaky without being dry.
After a tram ride back to Amsterdam central, a train ride back to the Hague central, and a tram ride back to my hotel area, I decided to take a walk along the neighborhood restaurant row and maybe buy groceries (drinks for my room). I wound up running into Pam on that street, so I was able to return her Museumkaart.
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On Monday morning, I attended Christina’s review talk on multi-spacecraft measurements of SEP events, but after lunch, I struck out to visit the Hague.
Again, I visited a museum, this time the Mauritshuis. This museum is a lot smaller than the Rijksmuseum, but it packs a lot of Dutch Master/Flemish Renaissance painting into its two floors.
For me, the highlight was a separate exhibit of Rembrandt’s Saul and David. I sat in the room viewing the painting mostly alone, but after a while, I wandered to the rest of the exhibit on this painting and found a very well-done multimedia exhibit discussing how the painting was not definitively known to be by Rembrandt for generations, until modern analysis led to the consensus that it is indeed by Rembrandt.
The rest of the museum housed masterpieces like Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, as well as other self-portraits and other paintings by Rembrandt, and many more.
I left, walked through the Binnenhof, and then spent some time wandering around the shopping areas in Centrum (The Hague city center). I had a nice Argentinean steak dinner at Los Argentinos.
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In July, Joerg had asked me to chair the morning cosmic ray session on Tuesday, and I agreed immediately. I had never chaired a session, and I looked forward to the opportunity. So after some morning talks (which I again forgot), I found out from the staff how to read the timers, and I gave some brief timing instructions to the speakers.
I chaired for two talks by PAMELA, two talks by AMS-02 (given by the same scientist, one after the other), a talk I don’t quite remember (results from a Russian satellite, I think), and a theory talk by a guy at Stanford. All talks were about cosmic ray anisotropies. For the most part, the experimental talks were about what can be done rather than about interesting findings.
In case nobody asked questions for a given talk, I had prepared for the session by reading all six papers and coming up with a couple of prepared questions for each paper. My purpose was to stretch a speaker’s total time to 15 minutes, if needed, so the next speaker wouldn’t start too soon (because conference attendees sometimes jump between sessions, according to the schedule of talks). Luckily, only the AMS scientist needed to stretch some time out, and that’s because she had two talks that sort of followed one upon the other. She did get her share of questions, and I asked a question for which, unfortunately, I didn’t think she quite understood what I was getting at: I asked how long it takes to do an anisotropy map, in terms of accumulating data in real time, but I think she interpreted my question as asking how much computation time it takes to build the map from that accumulated data. No matter: I was just trying to fill time until the next speaker.
One thing about the session was that it was in the main theater, instead of one of the auxiliary theaters. At the beginning of the conference, during his own talk, Ed mentioned that there was a big echo in the main theater that made it hard for people on stage to understand questions asked from the audience. Since I was chairing from onstage, I got that echo first hand, and it made things pretty hard to understand.
After lunch, I visited the Escher Museum, which had been recommended many times by other people at the conference. I must have gotten a little motion sick on the tram ride, and the museum itself was a little stuffy. Combine that with the odd perspectives and visual stimulation in Escher’s prints, and I wound up feeling a bit queasy and maybe experienced some vertigo.
I returned to the area near the hotel and had Thai food for dinner. I also made a solo dinner reservation at a nearby Indonesian restaurant for Wednesday.
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On Wednesday, the last day of the conference, I spent the afternoon near the beach. There was a sculpture museum (Museum Beelden aan Zee), which had a fair number of pretty whimsical sculpture installations, but I think I spent less than two hours there.
Dinner was the previously-mentioned Indonesian dinner at Keraton Damai. I was skipping the conference banquet, as I always do, and I found out that Eric was skipping it, too, so I added him to my reservation. We had a number of tasty satay skewers, plus rice and vegetable dishes.
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On Thursday, I returned to the US. The taxi ride to the Hague Central Station, the train ride to Amsterdam Schiphol airport, and the flight from Amsterdam to Houston were uneventful. Once I got in Houston, though, the line through customs was very slow (though passport control was quick). I ended up missing my short connection to LAX, and I wound up walking huge distances back and forth across Bush International trying to get on flights by standby. I worked up a big sweat, but luckily, I had a tech-shirt packed and ready to go, once I settled down and finally got on a flight to LAX.
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Some final notes:
Some of my colleagues booked their hotel room outside of the conference registration on their own, but I had Debby make my hotel reservation for me. As a result, I had breakfast included in my more-expensive hotel fee. Breakfast itself was fine, althought the fruit seems to have been canned in some sort of syrup that I’m not familiar with.
The hotel had a tiny but barely-used fitness room, so I took the opportunity to walk a couple of kilometers almost daily on the treadmill. I also used the free weights a little.
When I arrived, my room television didn’t work, and I couldn’t figure out why not. It turns out the power cable was accidentally hidden, and housekeeping found it for me. I was glad to have a little TV, even if much of it was Simpsons reruns.
As for the conference itself, I attended talks, but I found many of them unmemorable. I’m not sure what will come of this conference this year. I must have missed something.
Updates: Summer camps
W and J each attended two summer technology camps, one week at each camp, in July. At Planet Bravo, W learned about robotics, and J learned about animation. At IDTech, W learned about Java, and J (the following week, when W was at Camp Cherry Valley) learned about Minecraft modding (again).
W attended Camp Cherry Valley with his Boy Scout troop toward the end of July, and as has been the case for the past couple of years, his patrol was one of the largest patrols from our troop, if not the largest.
Updates: Nephew
Dan and Tracy had a baby in July. Congratulations to the parents! I’m finally an uncle. And Dan posts and sends pictures with those hilariously stern faces that newborns often have.
Updates: J’s Black Belt
Way overdue for updates, so here goes: J got his black belt back in June. He actually tested at the end of May, but the black belts then go through some review period before receiving the actual belt and certificate.
W was one of the judges at his test.