Merry Christmas

Tradition

Following tradition, I have special guest posters for this special day. Yes, the penguins are back.

Aragorn: It’s been awhile, little hobbits. Let’s keep the puns to a minimum, not get too

        excited, and-
Pippin: IT’S MOTHER’S DAY.
Merry: Pip, did you not just hear what Aragorn said about not getting too excited?
Pippin: I don’t care. I have the name of the day right, the right day, and pictures.
Merry: Pictures? I hope you don’t mean those troll selfies we took last month.
Pippin: Of course not. I only sent those to fifty-seven of my closest friends and relatives.

Merry: . . . Of course you did.
Gimli: Ha! Better those than the ones he took while he was smoking. Again.
Merry: Did he send those to you?
Legolas: I’m afraid he sent those to everybody.

Aragorn: I think we should wrap this up. Pippin, do you want to close this year’s post?
Pippin: Happy Mother’s Day!

Under the Sea

Since the past summer was my last completely free summer for the next few years, one of my requests for places to go was the New England Aquarium. Mainly, I wanted to see the penguins, but the hundreds of other fish and animals were cool too. The New England Aquarium has three species of penguins – African, Little blue, and Rockhopper penguins. All three species live in more temperate climates than Adelie and Emperor penguins, which breed on Antarctica itself. Little blue penguins are the smallest penguin species, reaching an adult height and weight of twelve inches and two to three pounds. They’re kind of adorable. New goal: hug a penguin.

African penguins.  Just standing?  Or plotting their escape?

Other things of note we saw: the sea lion show, baby sharks, tiny lobsters, sea turtles, and lots of fish. Sea lions are fast, have great flip turns, and will work for fish. The baby sharks look a bit like a cross between a fish and an eel, and they look like they have way too many fins, but I guess that’s actually how many fins sharks have. (Six, if anyone was wondering – pectoral, first dorsal, pelvic, second dorsal, anal, and caudal.) The lobsters were interesting because the aquarium had a series of tanks showing the lobsters at different stages of growth. They start out looking like shrimp or crayfish before growing into their lobster-like selves at adulthood.

Little blue penguins

The fish and different habitats are always interesting. The New England Aquarium had a tank with a whole bunch of mackerel or some other schooling fish showing how they move. While looking up schooling fish, I found out that fish shoal if they hang out together, but they school if they perform coordinated movement. English is weird.

Anyway, I enjoyed the aquarium. I like aquariums in general, even if you are mostly seeing a variety of fish that you’re never going to remember unless you’re actually an ichthyologist. In terms of less common exhibits, the National Aquarium in Baltimore (I was in the city for a conference) has a whole room of jellyfish, and the aquarium in Singapore has one of those tanks that’s also a tunnel you can walk through. And Boston has penguins.

The New England Aquarium isn’t very large, and could be seen in a couple hours if you rush a bit. If you really want to read everything about every fish, and go to a lot of presentations, this could probably be stretched to half a day (4-ish hours?). I had to leave after two and a half hours because the group I was with wanted to get lunch. So I had to say bye to the penguins.

Just Flowers

Pippin: Merry, I’ve got it right this year, I know I do!

Merry: Got what right?
Pippin: It’s Mother’s Day!
Merry: It was Mother’s Day. Last week.
Pippin: . . . Last week?
Aragorn: That’s right.
Merry: Looks like you’ve got it wrong again after all, Pip.
Pippin: But . . . I had so much planned. There was a party, and a speech, and fireworks.
Merry: That’s all right. We were told just flowers this year.
Aragorn: Don’t worry, Pippin. There’s always next year.
Pippin: Well, I suppose so. Where are the flowers?
Merry: Right here, Pip.

Happy (one week after) Mother's Day

Lab of Ornithology

Abandoned by my roommate who chose to go home to see her family rather than stay in Ithaca with me* while I finished research (and started grad school applications . . . what happened to cause that is a whole other story), I had to come up with my own trouble to get into. After some thought, I decided on biking to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, only 4.5 miles from Collegetown. Pocket change for any semi-serious halfway-competent biker, a significant distance for a culture that fights for the parking lots closest to the grocery store, just right for me.

Of course, being Ithaca, the way there was almost entirely uphill. There were enough flat spots along the way to make it bearable, but just barely. First I had to bike up a hill from Collegetown to get to campus. On campus, I had to bike up a hill from the engineering quad to North campus. From North campus, I had to bike up a hill to get off campus. After biking through a golf course, I turned left and had to bike up another hill. That hill led to another hill, which led to the last hill, and then I was at the Lab of Ornithology. I don’t think the overall grade was too bad, but you try biking uphill for forty minutes straight and tell me how your legs like it.

Biking was a very popular option this morning

I wasn’t really at the Lab of Ornithology to go birdwatching, because I can recognize maybe a half dozen different birds, but I wanted to take a look around at their trails and if I saw any birds, great. If not, I got a bike ride and a walk/hike for my troubles. I picked up a map and headed out on the paths. I planned to walk a couple loops that would take me around two sections of Sapsucker Woods and let me walk part of each trail.

In the end, I spent a couple hours wandering around the woods. It was pretty quiet, and not many other people were there, which was probably a good thing for birdwatching. I did end up seeing a few birds – a couple woodpeckers, some ducks, a robin, and the most rare find of all, shown below.

A rare find: the chinstrap penguin outside of its natural habitat

I also heard a lot of different birds, none of which I could identify by their calls. It was still a worthwhile experience, though I would like to go back for a birdwatching walk hosted by the Lab of Ornithology. They’re on the weekends, which isn’t a problem, but they start at 7:30 am, which might be . . .

*That was probably a good choice.

So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish, part 3 of 3

We now pause in my summer posts (just a few more to go) for me to express my thankfulness for the people who had to deal with me during the last school year. This should have been posted early last summer but I didn’t write it until the end of the summer, and by that point I thought I’d delay it until Thanksgiving and save myself the trouble of writing another post about being thankful. Because let’s face it; that probably wouldn’t have gotten done until Valentine’s Day or so.

This Last year (junior year), thanks goes to the following (you might be able to tell I spent the year sleeping, eating, and ChemE-ing, with occasional trips to the band room and the rock wall):

- the Big Red Pep Band, where it’s all about that bass (and treble)

- Hans Bethe House, for being the best house on West campus, and the inhabitants of suite 585 who had to live with me, and particularly my roommate, who had the pleasure(?) of sharing a room with me and still wanted to stay with me over the summer. Definitely my most favorite College of Engineering Environmental Engineering roommate ever.

- Cornell Outdoor Education, and in particular rock staff and any fellow climbers I’ve met who have offered belays, encouragement, or advice, for getting – and keeping – me hooked on scaling tall objects

The penguins contemplate their next move from their perilous perch at Lindseth

- the ChemE professors, for providing schooling in all things ChemE, from designing reactors and separation units to using obscure ChemE programs to understanding the kinetics behind slope day behavior

- the TAs who put in the effort to keep us from floundering (too much) in our classes

- the ChemE class of 2017, who had to put up with my TA’ing. Saury for any times I led you astray; I promise I didn’t mean to.

- the ChemE class of 2016. Catch you in the fall for more mutual suffering. And when you find yourself in the deep dark trenches of problem sets, just keep swimming.

- other miscellaneous family and friends, for dealing with my warped sense of humor, affinity for mosquitoes and fully experiencing mud, insistence on taking stairs and longcuts, and ability to complain about absolutely anything. It was a reel fun year, made better by the people who shared it with me.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Cars are Fast

Not having a car in Ithaca forces you to plan well and be creative. Sometimes you also have to be willing to expend some energy and walk farther than thirty feet in the un-air-conditioned outdoors with the sun beating down on your back. Oh, the horrors. I’ve done my share of bus riding – to Wegmans almost every week this past summer and to all three state parks the bus goes to during the summer, but I’ve also branched out into using my bike as transportation instead of just recreation.

It started because I didn’t have a ride to church in the summer. I next found out the church I attend during the school year was closer than I thought (only about 4 miles from Cornell). Thanks to Google maps, I then discovered a way to get there that only had me biking on the highway for about a mile. I decided to test bike the route on the Friday of the Fourth of July weekend because I took the afternoon off from work and didn’t have anything else to do.

It turned out that although the way to church is almost entirely uphill, because most of it isn’t on busy roads, it’s very bikeable, even with my questionable biking ability. For most of the summer, I biked to church every two or three weeks, and besides burning some energy, it was nice being able to leave as late or as early after service as I wanted to.

Arrival at Treman

My next biking destination was Treman State Park, with my roommate. The fellowship I’m in has a lot of people staying in the same apartment building and there was an end of summer picnic planned for a Saturday at the beginning of August. My roommate and I, hearing that the Gorge Trail was finally open, wanted to hike at Treman, and we didn’t have a ride, so we decided to bike. It was about six miles, with a couple miles on a highway (with a very wide shoulder). After biking six miles, we immediately hiked up steep steps, which my legs and lungs absolutely loved. A note about biking to Treman: if you’re looking for the bike rack, it’s by the changing rooms for the swimming area, not by the ranger station, the parking lot, or the bathrooms by the trailhead. Why . . .?

Got a little help from a friend on the way to the Lab of Ornithology

Having gained experience biking to places, my last biking exploit of the summer was to the Lab of Ornithology (4.5 miles). There is something extremely satisfying about reaching your destination and knowing that you made it there under your own power, even as you gasp for breath and your legs want to hurt your brain for putting them through physical activity. There had better be, because it takes two or three times as much time to get anywhere, because cars are fast.

Moth Hairs

Pippin: Merry, I've got it this time – Happy Moth Hairs Day!

Merry: Pip, you smoke too much.  That doesn't sound right at all.

Gimli: What are you two going on about?

Merry: Pippin thinks there’s some sort of occasion going on today.

Pippin: Yes, it’s Moth Hairs Day, just like last year.

Legolas: Mother’s Day, young master hobbit.

Gimli: Ah, a day celebrating dwarf women.  You know, some say that there are no dwarf women, and dwarves come up out of the ground.

Pippin: I – I don’t understand.

Merry: You don’t understand a lot of things, Pip. . . . Are there any dwarf women?

Gimli: Of course.  My very own mother.  Ask Frodo’s uncle, Bilbo; he’s seen a picture of her.

Gandalf: Yes, yes he has.  And how did we come at this topic?

Merry: Pippin was wishing everyone a Happy Moth Hairs Day, but he’d had it all wrong, it’s-

Pippin: Wait, I want to say it.

Merry: Go ahead, then.

Pippin: Happy Mother’s Day!

Thirsty Thursday

Merry: Pip, look at this.

Pippin: What are they?

Merry: I heard they’re called shots.

Pippin: They look even bigger than pints.

Merry: Do you think so?

Pippin: How do we get some?

From left to right: Virgin piña colada, nonalcoholic wine, soft cider, and 0 proof vodka

Much Excitement

After using column chromatography to separate a mixture of two chemicals, I turned in two solids that appeared to be different in my orgo lab practical. I recovered 0.064 grams of my original 0.17 gram sample for an overall percent yield of 37.6%. I’ve done worse.

My bruise is fading. From the center out, but hey, it only took two weeks. I suspect it was from rock climbing but I don’t recall hitting anything hard enough to cause the subsequent explosion of purple and red on my kneecap.

It’s hockey season. The women’s team is 0 and 3, and they’re already playing ECAC games, which is concerning. I haven’t seen them play because they were away last weekend and their game yesterday was at 3 pm. I have class until 4:30 pm. On a Friday. It sucks* is suboptimal. The men’s team opened with a pair of 3-2 wins in exhibition games last weekend, then tied the University of Nebraska Omaha 1-1 last night. Rematch is tonight. Things might get violent.
*Not a Lynah approved word

Surprise package:

I have a thing about penguins. And also applesauce, peanut butter, and hats. And also against tight pants, half naked Halloween costumes, and finely chopped celery.

This is happening.

From MLSsoccer.com:

At the Library Again

In the over two years I've spent at Cornell, I have not studied at the library once. Over the summer, however, I did make use of the library to fill my free time by borrowing a number of books to read for fun. Apologies to more sensitive readers for using the f word.

Unfortunately, my experience was that the Cornell library system did not have every book I searched for. I guess the books I was looking for must have been extremely obscure or wildly unpopular. Probably both.

I got my book recommendations from online lists I stumbled upon and out of the books I managed to hunt down at Olin Library, I didn't hate any of them, but some were definitely better than others. Some of my favorites:

2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke) – I read the whole Odyssey series, but the first book was the best. I enjoyed the whole series, but if you’re not a big science fiction fan and/or don’t have time to read an entire series, at least read the first one. Although the movie shows up on multiple “Most Confusing Movies of All Time” lists (yes, I do spend too much time looking up random stuff on the internet), I didn't think the book was confusing at all.

Discworld, Terry Pratchett – There’s an entire series of Discworld books, and this summer I read the first two, The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic. If The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (one of my favorite books) is science fiction humor, the Discworld books are fantasy humor. There was adventure, weird characters in a strange world, and utter ridiculousness.

Our Town, Thornton Wilder – The last play I read was The Importance of Being Earnest, in the spring of my junior year of high school. So it’s been awhile. I really liked the descriptions of life in a small New England town, probably because I did most of my growing up in a small-ish New England town.

Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell – Along with Brave New World and We (Yevgeny Zamyatin), Nineteen Eighty-Four is considered one of the most influential dystopian works. I have not read We, but I ended up liking Nineteen Eighty-Four more than Brave New World. There wasn't any particular glaring failure of Brave New World; I just like Nineteen Eighty-Four better overall.

It was a good summer in terms of books (and overall) and one of the reasons I wrote this post is because I forgot a picture in the last summer reading post I did. What trip to the library is complete without some penguins?

Meet the Penguins

So when I said I’d introduce the penguins “very soon,” I really meant “more than a month later.” I blame my permanent writer’s block.

I’m not sure exactly how the idea for the penguins was born, but I know I saw these photos (there’s also a Facebook page). I liked the idea and started thinking about what I had that I could photograph. All my LEGOs were at home, so I didn’t have any minifigures. My LEGOs are still at home; I meant to bring some back with me this summer, but I forgot. Guess I should have packed more than twelve hours before leaving. Anyway, I thought (shocking, I know) some more and decided on a plastic animal figure.

The next time I was at the mall to go to Target, I stopped by AC Moore to check out their selection of plastic animals. I was looking for a penguin, because I like penguins, but the only one I could find was about three inches tall and cost four dollars. I considered a couple cheaper options, and then I saw a whole tube of penguins. They were only an inch or two tall, but there were eleven of them, and they were on sale for five dollars. They came back to campus with me.

I then decided to name them after the Fellowship of the Ring. Here they are:

Front row: Merry/Pippin. Middle row: Frodo, Gandalf, and Sam. Back row: Legolas, Boromir, Aragorn, and Gimli

The penguins occasionally travel with me and they tend to see the world from a different perspective. I plan to feature them on the blog every so often, because who doesn’t want to see life as a two inch tall penguin?

A Message from the Penguins

[You haven’t met them yet, but my penguin friends are here to bring you a message today. They’re named after the Fellowship of the Ring from The Lord of the Rings.]

Pippin: May the Eleventh be with you!
Gandalf: Fool of a Took! It’s May the Fourth be with you. You’re seven days late.
Pippin: Seven? Eleven . . . minus four . . . hold on a second here . . .
Merry: That’s seven, Pip.
Pippin: All right then. But I did think there was a holiday today.

Aragorn: It’s Mother’s Day.
Pippin: What’s that you said?
Aragorn: It’s Mother’s Day, little halfling.
Pippin: That’s right. Happy Mother’s Day!