Observing at WIRO

Last night I went to the university’s WIRO observatory with Dr. Chip Kobulnicky, the director, and another student. This was my first trip up to WIRO and I’m looking forward to many more. I joined Dr. Kobulnicky’s research team so that I may gain valuable experience and hopefully satisfy the undergraduate research requirements to obtain a BS rather than a BA in physics.

During my first night there, I tried to follow along as the others set up the telescope and computers for observing. It was a lot to take in. I am not terribly skilled at hands-on activities and practical applications of physics, but that is why I am doing this. It’s time that I learn what all this book work has been for all along. Unfortunately, physics labs didn’t help me much in this area. I always felt rushed or even completely left behind as others did most of the work. It seemed that a lot of the careful detail required of a scientist was left out due to the way labs were structured. Whether or not I was actively participating in a lab, my partners generally prioritized getting out early rather than taking careful measurements and observations. This meant that if I tried to do things the “right” way, I would be ignored as my partners took over to do their hasty “good enough” way. If I was a little lost in the first place, hastiness certainly didn’t help me to catch on and made it immensely difficult to right up my own lab report. This was so frustrating! Especially during my upper division semi-independent lab. I still had to work with partners, but I was required to right an authentic scientific-quality report sans partners. Sometimes I wished I could just go back to the lab and redo it all on my own.

Anyhow, I hope this WIRO experience will be a positive one. It is definitely a plus that I was able to actively participate in data collection on the first night. Now I just need a couple of nights to actually set things up on my own too. It’s much easier to learn by doing rather than by observing, though I admit that another night of plain observing will also do me good in this case. I certainly don’t want to break anything.

I was supposed to be up there again tonight as well, but the weather didn’t appear good enough for observing. Last night, too, the clouds took over and sent us home earlier than planned. Tomorrow is my last officially scheduled day for now but, from what I see in the forecast, it looks like thunderstorms will be a problem for the rest of the week. Of course, I can arrange to accompany other observers later on, but I wanted to get some decent experience as soon as possible. Tomorrow isn’t completely ruled out yet. I’ll just have to wait and see.

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Jul 22

2010

Pennies, Chess, and the Unexplained

Chat log from 6/13/2008 (Friday 13):

7:57 AM me: um, so i was just at my computer, went upstairs, came back and a new game of ches is open…?
7:58 AM i dont even know where the games are on this computer.
7:59 AM Eric: ? me: ?
8:00 AM Eric: chess is in applications and comes with all OSX me: i dont know how it opened. Nexus was near, looking up at thecat tree hopefully, its possible she was walking on the laptop, but can she open that easily? Eric: was she walking on the keyboard? me: i dont know Eric: I mean, it’s possible. me: thats the only thing i can think of.
8:01 AM Eric: That’s annoying when cats walk across keyboards was baby with you? me: I assume she was trying to get to the food on the tree caushe she was on the floor looking up when i came back down
8:02 AM Eric: stupid cat. me: whatever how do you oepen a game without openg the applications window? is there a keyboard shaortcut
8:03 AM Eric: no, you have to go to finder, then applications, then click on the chess icon me: yeah, well, finder wasnt open just the game Eric: thats …odd me: yeah
8:04 AM besides a cat walking accross the board cant accidentally open finder, click on applications and click again on the game. . that would be odd but then she would have had to close the finder window after all that too Eric: and then close finder
8:05 AM me: yeah Eric: I dont know thats really weird

And it has only gotten more weird since then. (I only noticed recently that the date was a Friday 13th when it all began)
I will try to remember events in the best order I can:

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Sep 07

2009

From Florida to Wyoming

Left Florida, as planned, in May. Drove the whole way with two dogs and three cats. Not quite where I want to be yet, but closer at least. It’s not so pretty. Kind of like a cold windy dessert. Got another puppy since I last posted. A little female Blenheim. Her name is Rosalina (but we call her Rosie). She is almost 6 months old and still very small, not like Aubrey. Aubrey is over 20 lbs. He will be a year old on the 10th. It is nice to have a house and a yard. We can put all those furry things outside when they get too obnoxious

I worked at Wal Mart all summer. Now I am in school. Even without working, I have so much to do. It didn’t help that I missed most of the first week of classes. I have only just recently caught up in all my classes. Those absences were for what was supposed to become one of the best memories of my life. We had tickets for the Aug. 28 Michael Jackson concert. I cried most of the week following the tragic news and I thought I would only feel worse as the London trip approached. But I didn’t. I wasn’t so happy either, though. I felt mostly tired and indifferent. We stayed in the same hotel as on our honeymoon, but it didn’t seem as grand as it did the first time. I don’t like how the shower was set up, or how the pillows felt gummy, or especially how the lovely view from before was obscured by large, towering apartment complexes. A lot of things went wrong and we ended up losing a full day and a half of our time there. I didn’t really care, but I tried to care. I couldn’t just let it be a wasted trip. I suggested to Eric that we go on a guided tour for the last day. . .a way of forcing something productive to occur. We saw Shakespeare’s home and Oxford. It was all lovely, but I was not nearly as interested as I may have been several years ago. I am always hoping for something grand and exciting, and these things do occur, but I just can’t seem to care when they do. I want to be happy, but I don’t know what it means really. I want external forces to make me happy, but I know that’s not how it works. I am looking for something. . it would sure help if I knew exactly what it was.

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Dec 29

2008

Aubrey

Aubrey Eric and I left Wal-Mart, after having returned a pajama set that didn’t fit well. We didn’t stay there long. It was our third trip to Wal-Mart over our winter break. We were bored of it already and too poor to spend more money anyway. On our drive out of the parking lot, Eric asks what I want to do. I was going to suggest taking Odyssey to the dog park, but he suggested going to the mall before I said anything. I said, “ok, but can we go to the dog park day after tomorrow?” (because tomorrow is supposed to be rainy). Eric said, “sure,” and we headed to the mall. I asked what we would do there. He said, “something free, or cheap.” He suggested getting coffee, I said we have had plenty of coffee recently and that certainly isn’t free anyway (albeit cheep). He then suggested we look in the pet store for new pug puppies to play with. After having Otis, we did not worry that we’d absolutely have to come home with one, they are just fun to play with in the store!