Say it ain't so...

Dammit Floyd Landis. I really really REALLY do not want to believe that you doped.

The tests are rather damning, but the rest of it doesn't add up.

I mean, he was tested 8 other times in the race, and none of those turned up positive. Testosterone seems to be a long-term effect steroid. There wouldn't be much use to just use it once.

They didn't publish the actual results of the test, but I think they should. Do they know all the effects of all the drugs he'd been taking? He's taking cortisone for his hip, and another hormone for his thyroid. And besides, he got drunk the night before. Does alcohol affect it? What if he got laid with a cheap french whore the night before? I'm sure that would do something to his testosterone levels.

That would be kinda embarrassing to admit though... especially since he and his family are strict Menonites.

I believe him.

My Mountain-Biking Mantra

While on the trail at Emma Long park last weekend, I came to terms with the fact, that indeed, I will probably break something if I keep this up. Not looking forward to that, but here's something I keep telling myself:

Everything the helmet doesn't protect will grow back.

Nerd Post - Point Spread Functions

Ok, as the title suggests, this will be a nerd post. Since my blog is named with an optics term, I figure I should probably write some science in here too.

Definition of Terms

• Point Spread Function: Measuring the spot created in the focal plane when you focus a beam of collimated light down to a point.


• Collimated: All travelling in the same direction. Laser light is collimated light.
  
• Grism: a combination of a grating and a diffraction grating. Splits up light into its component colors (aka wavelengths).


• Full Width Half Maximum (FWHM): A measurement of how steep a peak on a graph is. Imagine a mountain. You take the peak elevation, divide it by two, and go find two towns on opposite sides of the mountains at this elevation. Then, you measure the horizontal distance between the two towns. The smaller the distance, the steeper the slope.


• CCD: Charge-Coupled Device. In laymans' terms, a digital camera, just more expensive. The one I'm using has a cooler on it which can cool the chip down to -20 C. It's also $5,000.

Doug and I got the optics bench pretty well aligned and focused. Since our optics aren't achromatic, we have two focii for our two laser beams (one green, one red). We've got our camera lens on a linear adjustable stage so we can repeatably focus the camera on the two laser spots.

Anyway, once we focused the system, we inserted the grism that Doug's been working on. It's still got some plastic on it from the time when he accidentally melted some zip-ties in 180 C phosphoric acid. After two further rinses with the hot phosphoric acid, we've managed to get most of the plastic off, but there's still a little bit. Anyway, we were able to measure the FWHM of the PSF of the grism, and found it to be approximately 2 pixels, which is no worse than the FWHM of a flat mirror. This is pretty good, implying that our grism is not any worse than a flat mirror, which is good.

Tomorrow, I get to take it all apart and put a faster lens in so we can get more orders on the CCD chip. Then we get to measure the efficiency of the grating, i.e. how much light is reflected into the different orders versus how much light we shine onto the surface of the grating.

Road Bike! (Part Deux)

Yes folks, I have done it! I now own ~15 lbs. of aluminum, rubber, and probably some steel which have been fashioned into a mode of transportation. I am as giddy as a school girl.

Since my car is dead, I rode it to Ginny's tonight to play my leauge match. While it could be that I just normally kick ass, I'm pretty sure my stellar record this evening (3 wins, 0 losses, two of which were in leauge play) was due to the fact that I HAVE A ROAD BIKE!

I feel a bit like a little kid, not only because I'm still a little shaky on it, as the pedals are kinda funky, but also because I'm going to take it to work tomorrow and show it off. :-D

Fixing my car will have to wait, because there's not much left in my bank account right now. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to ride my bike everywhere. Oh darn.

Piece of Shit Car

So my car died today. Which sucks royally. I'm pretty sure the alternator died, but I think it took my battery with it, which sucks even more because the feng-shui masters at Pontiac thought it would be better to bolt the wiper-fluid container right on top of the battery. Maybe it pleases the Chi of the car, but it annoys the hell outta me. Eh... it'll give me an excuse to give my new bike a workout.

Road Bike!

Come monday, I will be the proud owner of a Trek 1200 road bike! I just have to draw out $450 of my hard earned cash and go pick it up. It's going to be awesome.

Jarrett and I went mountain biking today. It was a lot of fun. And f-ing hot. It must have been at least 100 degrees out there. I couldn't suck down water fast enough. I think I'm still a little dehydrated.

I think I'm getting over my fear of death and dismemberment on a mountain bike. While there are still drop-offs I don't think I'll ever be able to ride off of, I am getting braver and willing to take a few more plunges. And even the ones where I pull up short, I know that it's just a matter of getting a little more speed and leaning back a little further, and I'll be alright. I think I'll wait until after I buy a new helmet to try these though... I got my current one second hand, so it may have a history of which I'm unaware.

Courage is a bitch to build up...

-------------------------------
To a certain someone...

While you're not the reason I come to domino night, you are the reason I stay so long...

A night at the alamo

I. Love. The. Alamo.

They did a Queen Sing-a-long tonight. It was glorious. They played Fat Bottomed Girls, Killer Queen, Bicycle, Don't Stop Me Now, and to finish it all off, Bohemian Rhapsody. It was so cool.

If I were gay, I would be ga-ga for Freddy Mercury. As it is, I think he's pretty awesome.

Anyway, at the Alamo, I sat next to another astro student, and she grilled me on the tryst I had last semester with a certain other astro grad student. Kinda made me realize that I'd been a bit of an asshole about the whole thing... I should probably call/email/talk to her about it. Hopefully we can still be amicable about the whole damn thing.

I'm watching the office right now. It's solid gold genius. Ricky Gervis is a comedy god.

the cat has come back... playtime's over

So Dan (my advisor) gets back in town tomorrow.

I've been working... but I'm not sure it's been enough.

I've made progress, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to be able to publish the paper when Dan wants me to.

I'm nervous...

In other news, my friend who's sleeping on my couch just got fired. Seems the eccentric rich dude didn't want to pay him what he thought he was worth... Man... I hope he's gonna be able to find a new job before he signs his mortgage.

Found on the back of a cereal box

Q: Who would you call if you find Chicago, IL?

A: Baltimore, MD.


Think about it.

We live in an awesome neck of the woods...

Wow... that's really all I can say.



Tonight, Rebecca (friend from work) and I got paid $250 each to drag a few telescopes up to Possum Kingdom lake and show some rich old farts a few cool objects in the night sky while some real-estate moguls wined and dined them into purchasing their second or third million dollar homes. I can't say that I'd buy from them, but I'd definitely like a ranch or a lakehouse out here, at least before it gets totally yuppi-fied. (prolly too late, I know).

Anyway, Rebecca talked about the astronomy department and McDonald Observatory, and I gave a short tour of the summer sky (i.e. constellations, visible planets, scale of the solar system/galaxy). I managed to work in a short plug for my old A&M days, and I got a few whoops and a few cat-calls from some red raiders. After it got dark enough, we pointed the scopes at the sky and showed them some cool things (Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars, basically). Let me tell you, drunk people are rather entertaining to try to explain astronomy to them. Well... for a while... then, after the 4th time you show them where the north star is, they just get annoying.

Anyway, they wrapped everything up by 10:30, so we had to clear out. As it had been a long time since both of us had seen a decent sky, we went back to the hotel, stocked up on some bugspray and some red flashlights, and headed out down highway 16, until we got tired of driving and pulled off the side of the road.

When we got out of the car, we both started laughing almost hysterically... I have NEVER EVER seen a sky so dark. The Milky Way just pops out and smacks you in the face. We set up the Dobsonian telescope and took out a few binoculars. Jupiter was so bright, it almost hurt your eyes to look through the scope at it. I could see globular clusters with my naked eye. I now know more constellations than I ever knew existed, and can cross at least 10-15 Messier Objects off my list.

The Milky Way is really something. It's not something I can put into words. It's more than beautiful, it's more than humbling. I've never seen the milky way as clearly as I did tonight. We could even see the dust lanes. I was simply dumbstruck. Just looking with binoculars, I could see all sorts of cool stuff in the sky, and we were able to find quite a few of them with the scope. By far the coolest time I've ever spent stargazing.

If you've never seen the milky way, GO! Go to a DARK location. Preferably 60-70 miles away from any sort of civilization. Go to Ft. Davis. Go to Possum Kingdom Lake. Go anywhere.

I've never been more excited to be an astronomer. You guys don't know what you're missing out on.

Bike Thiefs Suck!

Yeah... So my bike got stolen last week. Through my own stupidity, really. I had my bike in the back of a friend's truck while we went to eat. When we finished, I hauled my bike out and headed home. The unfortunate thing was, somewhere between my apartment and his truck, I lost my bike lock. I returned to the parking lot and tried in vain to find it, but to no avail.

Anyway, I kept my bike inside for that night, and kept my bike in the library during the day. I kept this up for a day or so, until my friend Greg came to stay with me. He's sleeping on the couch, so I didn't want to crowd him, and I put the bike out on the rail, like I usually do. I even went through the farce of pretending to fumble with a lock and "lock" it to the rail.

This worked for a night. I was pretty busy the next day, so I didn't manage to make it to the bike store to buy a new one, and I was also holding out hope that my friend would find it in his truck.

I tried the farce for a second night, and it worked again. By the third night, I was pretty sure that I could get away with it again. However, I was indeed planning on buying a new lock. I even said to Greg as we walked past a bicycle store, "I need to buy a new lock." That very night, my bike was stolen from off my balcony...

I walked outside the next morning, and my heart sunk into my stomach. I've pseudo-lost my bike several times before, but that was just because I forgot where I parked it. There wasn't even a glimmer of hope that I might have parked it somewhere else.

So, I called the Po-po... I reported it as stolen. I guess I've got a shot, because my driver's license is engraved underneath the bottom bracket.

My guess right now is that a homeless guy took it. I've seen them joyriding on bikes which obviously weren't theirs before... Hopefully they dump it in a location the cops frequent.

Oh well... gives me an excuse to finally buy that road bike I've been wanting... it looks like there are some good deals on Craigslist.

Moral of the story: Inconvenience your friends or buy a damb lock.

Damn Government....

Well, it seems that the legislature has gotten a taste of their own medicine, and it doesn't look like they like it.

Bear in mind that I am an Astronomy grad student, so anything contained in this blog is pure speculation.

Anyway, it seems to me that the FBI's actions could VERY WELL fall under the jurisdiction of the Patriot Act. (Jill, other people of the legal persuasian, could you comment on this?) The senator (Jefferson, I think is his name) had been caught in a bribery scheme to bribe some Nigerian government official. Nigeria is in Africa, which is kinda close to the middle east (a lot closer than we are, anyway), which is a hot-bed of terrorism, right? So, couldn't the FBI claim that they were acting to protect our government from a terrorist threat?

I know, it's a bit of a stretch, but not an extreme one. The lawmakers are all up-in-arms about this "breach of the Constitution" when they have repeatedly used this hallowed document to wipe the mud from their boots after mucking around with our Civil Rights.

I agree, they should be upset at this over-stepping of constitutional powers, but I am really finding it hard to feel pity for them. After all, they basically gave the FBI a carte blanche.

Silly people...

Legalize Drugs

I just got finished watching an episode of Penn and Teller's show "Bullshit!". This particular episode was on the "War on Drugs". I have to say, they made some convincing arguments. There are a hell of a lot of similarities between the war on drugs and prohibition. And, from what little I know about prohibition, it seems like it was a phenomonally stupid idea. The more I think about it, the more the libertarian inside me comes to the surface.

Their section on medicinal marijuana was very good. Did you know that the Federal Government actually provides 7 (count them, 7) people with pot cigarettes? They're the vestiges of a medicinal marijuana program they started way back when. They actually showed a shot of one of the guys lighting up a joint right in front of the capital building. I grinned.

Legalizing drugs seems like it would alieviate a lot of society's problems. You'd immediately kill the black market, and a great deal of the criminal underworld would suddenly be out of a job. I suppose there'd be a little re-adjustment process, and probably the economies of a few latin american nations would suffer a bit, but I think that's a far cry better than all the people currently dying in drug gang turf-wars. The border patrol probably wouldn't have to pack heat while patroling anymore, since no more heavily armed drug traffickers will have to cross illegally.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating putting crack vending machines in elementary schools. The money that now funds the DEA could instead be spent on educating people about the dangers of all the various drugs and rehab clinics.

Yeah, I know some people would OD and die, but doesn't that already happen with alcohol? And what about tobacco? At least if they're legal, we can regulate them.

Right now, I'm not exactly positive if I completely support legalizing drugs across the board, but I'm pretty positive I support legalizing marijuana. I've never smoked it, but from what I can tell, the side-effects are no worse than alcohol. Plus, I don't think there's a pot equivalent to alcohol poisoning.

serrano peppers

Note to self: (and anyone else who tries to make Thai food)

Serrano peppers are really freakin' hot! My taste buds can handle them, but my fingers and mouth cannot. I tried this Thai beef recipie, and it called for 14 serrano peppers. I only had 10, so I used them all. I had to "finely chop" the peppers and then grind them into a chunky paste with a mortar and pestle along with some garlic and onions. The directions failed to say that you really should wear gloves when chopping serranos, or that you should have a well-ventilated kitchen when you are stir-frying these peppers.

My lungs were suffering while I was making it, and my fingertips and lips feel like they are on fire now, even after taking a shower. Well, they don't exactly feel like they're on fire, they feel like they've been frozen and are thawing out by a hot fire. Not exactly pleasant.

The food was good though.

Get Kinky!!!

Kinky Friedman should make it on the ballot! He turned in almost 170,000 signatures, so now the secretary of state has to validate the signatures, which could take an extremely long time. I gave Mandy and Mom each a Kinky bumper sticker. Maybe I'm just being extremely naieve, but I think he's got a shot. If he were toeing the line with Rick Perry with just the normal voters (i.e. those who normally give a shit about Texas politics) then he'd stand absolutely no chance, but I think Kinky's banking on people who normally don't vote. To me, that's the beauty of his campaign. He's getting people involved in politics who normally try to steer clear of the quagmire. That's what democracy is all about.

I don't think that Carole Keeton-Strayhorn is going to be a rather large threat. If anything, she'll pull votes away from Perry, since she's a partisan republican in all but name, and seems to be quite well versed in the lingo of outrage (i.e. the press releases on her website tend to be quite bombastic and sensational... She's always "blasting" Perry, or "demanding" extra votes, or "condemning"... Smacks of politics if you ask me...). She also paid for over half of her petition signatures. Kinky got 90% of his with volunteers.

C'mon Texas... Get Kinky!

CD's I want

This post is primarily to jot down CDs that I really want. Just to give you an idea of my musical tastes.

• Bruce Robison
  
• Max Stalling
  
• the Dixie Chicks
  
• James McMurtury
  
• Led Zepplin
  
• Metallica - S&M
  

This is only a partial list, so I may update it later...

We Are the Champions!

Right now, there is a (probably) drunk homeless dude singing We Are The Champions outside my apartment window. There's not much else I can do, but shake my head and say "that's Austin for you."

Also, I've been spending WAAAY too much time in front of a computer. I need to get out more.

Also, the monochrometer that our group built for the instrumentation class worked like a charm!

Stolen from Yellow Snapdragons...

Accent: I say 'Ya'll", but I don't really think I have a texan accent

Booze: yup. Tom Collins is my friend. Also good are Redneck Mimosas (lonestar and OJ)

Chore I Hate: Cleaning the bathroom

Dog or Cat: Dog, but cats are cool too.

Essential Electronics: alarm clock

Favorite Cologne: I prefer to shower instead...

Gold or Silver: no preference

Hometown: Garland, Texas

Insomnia: possibly in like 4th grade, but I've since found a cure for that... CLASS!!

Job Title: Data Monkey (a.k.a. Grad Student)

Kids: Sure, why not (in like 10 years)

Living Arrangements: I live with me, myself, and I in a 1-1 stumbling distance from the Crown, Trudy's, and Campus.

Most Admirable Traits: I'm honest

Number of States Lived In: 1 (Texas)

Overnight Hospital Stays: 1 (see my post on snowboarding...)

Phobias: singing or dancing in public

Quote: "There are only two things that I know are infinite: Human stupidity and the Universe... and I'm not sure about the Universe." -- Albert Einstein

Religion: Agnostic

Siblings: 1 sister

Time I Wake Up: 20 minutes before class

Unusual Talent or Skill: I can flip my pen around my thumb and back again... I know... not really unusual, but I like it.

Vegetable I Love: Broccoli

Worst Habit: Procrastinating

X-rays: Teeth, and I think they took one when I had my concussion (see hospital stays)

Yummy Foods I Make: Spagetti, although I'm trying to learn how to cook Thai food.

Zodiac Sign: Don't ask me... I'm an astronomer, not an astrologer...

They only boo in new york

So, if you don't know, I'm a bit of a baseball fan. My team is the rangers, which means I'm perrenially disappointed. Anyway, their achillies heel has ALWAYS been their pitching. Pick a year, any year, and the offensive numbers have pretty much ranked in the top 10 in the majors, but their pitching staff likes to hang out near the basement....

Anyway, we have this closer... Francisco Cordero... He was pretty good for us last year. In fact, he was an all-star in 2004. He's run on a spat of hard luck lately... he's blown 4 of 7 save opportunities. It's gotten so bad that fans are BOOING him!!! BOOING!!! This is TEXAS!!! You DON'T BOO THE HOMETEAM!!! You can be less than pleased, but you don't BOO! Especially pitchers. Pitchers are such skittish creatures anyway, and if you boo them, the mental problems just get worse.

I am ashamed that people like this patronize the Ballpark.

C'mon Cordero... You can pull through this.

Screw all you fair-weather fans.

Jinjitsu master

I saw jinjitsu master again today. He was on the wrong side of the street riding a bike he'd obviously stole. He had some of his possessions over his shoulder. As I passed him, I heard him grumble to no one in particular (rather loudly, I might add) "I don't have any money, and that really pisses me off!"

He's one of those homeless guys you don't really want to have anything to do with. I've met a few, and some of them you can actually have a conversation with. Not this dude.