Much Adventuring

Well, since my last post about MOONFEST, I have read a few more books, made a day trip to San Francisco, volunteered on the USS Hornet during Splashdown 09, made a skirt, baked some delicious garlic-onion-cheese bread, created a poster and worked on my paper some more. And now I have a moment to sit outside, enjoy the weather, and write a bit.

Last weekend was super busy, probably the most so since my first weekend here. Fortunately, I did not have to drive in SF, Mrs. Sayre did all the driving. Since Daniel was out backpacking, we made it a girls day out. First up was a trip to Oakland to the closest Essential Baking Co., as well as to go to Berkley, to check out the campus and a used bookstore the Sayres had heard about.





The bookstore was great, but there was also a high ratio of bookstores to other stores in Berkley. Surprisingly, I walked in and out with zero books in my hand. While in the area, on our way up to campus, we encountered a street fair of sorts, where there were tables lining the sidewalks for a few blocks before hitting the actual school grounds, and people were selling their wares, everything from jewelery to tie-dye tee-shirts to hand thrown pots.











The Berkley grounds themselves were nice, and included an assortement of building styles. There was some very colonial style halls, as well as very 50's ish buildings. Also, they had this prospective students campaign set up, which consisted of a wall of headshots of students, some with a quote written on them. And the campus is HUGE! There is no way I'd be able to walk to all of my classes if I attended there. We did, however, find this nice gate in the picture, so we stood in front of it as proof that we were there. There was also a group of people swing dancing in the middle of walkway, which was fun to watch.







After driving around the perimeter of the campus, we traveled over the bay bridge, paying our toll, and saw Alcatraz along the way. Though we did not go this time to the island, the Sayres have gone in the past and said it is worth a visit. But our real reason for this outing was to go to Japantown!! I had mentioned that I wanted to go, so go we did. It was really just two malls of sorts, but super fun.











On our way through SF to Japantown, we witnessed a rally, protesting the Iran vote.












When we got to Japantown, there was a store full of pottery, one full of kimonos and other Japanese clothing, lots of restaurants, and this fantastic bookstore where I could have spent all day, even though most of the words were all in Japanese.













One thing I noticed about the texts, is that the spines tended to be white backgrounds with vibrant/neon colored titles. Almost everything was neon pink or green or yellow - it was quite a change from the bookstore we visited in Berkley.














Also in the bookstore, we saw this shirt that captured the essence of SF in the summer in graphic form.

Somehow, though I can't read the Japanese signs, I ended up on the one isle that had pattern books. It seems that at least here, you buy a book with one pattern in the back, but with different variation instructions, complete with great pictures of finished garments. It was quite different from the patterns I buy from JoAnn's. Also, they had a Daiso in the mall, but it was newly opened, and only about one-third the size of the one in Seattle, so I passed by the $1.50 teacups and decided to go when I got back to Seattle.






And then, since it was 3 pm and we hadn't had lunch, we found a spot across from the malls and had some Japanese food for lunch. Though I did not go to far out of my comfort zone, I did try new things. I tried the mizo soup I was served, because I don't think I tried it when our exchange students made it for us (it had green seaweed flakes dancing on top of it), but I like this one, though the meal had a tendency to separate from the broth. :( I did not eat the tofu chunks. And I tried the salad that came with it, as hitherto I had always ignored it or asked for no dressing when my family eats a the Ginkgo Tree in Ellensburg. It also wasn't to terrible, though I could only tolerate bites with light dressing. I also tried the udon soup Mrs. Sayre ordered, but the seaweed flavor was too strong for me. And the tea we were served with our meal was just too green, it tasted a bit like grass. I definitely prefer the Chinese restaurant oolong tea. But my actual meal was fantastic!! It was really good beef teriyaki with sticky rice. There were some other things on my plate, and while I tasted most of them, I didn't eat them completely. But that beef was so delicious! It was flavorful, and filling, and tasty, and not overcooked - just plain delightful.

After we realized how long we'd spent eating, we had to change our plans for the rest of the day. We were going to hit Lombard (that super windy street) and then drive through Chinatown so I could see it and take pictures for my mom, and then go to the garment district, but with the time crunch, we vetoed the former and only traveled to the garment district. However, when we found the address we had gotten from online, the building was just an empty warehouse, newly built, and looking for leasees. So, we ambled down 3rd ave in our car, but upon finding no desirable stores, I looked up Fabric Discounters on my phone, found an adress nearby, and we decided to go there.

Wow. Fabric Discounters had rows upon stacks upon isles of fabric! And while most of it was great fabric and lovely to look at, it was all a bit out of my price range, though discounted it may be. I found some neat yellow and blue fabric in the remnant pile, however, so I did snatch that up, and I am still dreaming up a use for it. I think I'll stick to JoAnn's for now, espically when I have 40% off coupons....

Then we hit 101 and traveled back to San Jose, though we did have to stop at NASA so I could turn the heat off on one of my experiments. It was a super fun day, and someday I will get back to SF to see more of it, but also really want to go back to Japantown!

And all that was just Saturday...check back soon for a post about my fun afloat on the USS Hornet!

MOONFEST! and the Semi-end of Procrastination

If you didn't know, today is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first stepped foot on our lovely moon. Significant lunar activity = lots of things to do at Ames! We had a special speaker two weeks ago, a gentlemen who has speialized in writing about the Apollo missions, and yesterday was MOONFEST! (And yes, it has to be in all caps, that's just the way it is.) 

MOONFEST is a day full of lunar activities for the young and old. The picture on the right shows just part of the crowd that showed up to Ames on Sunday; the organizers expected 8,000 people. I am not sure how many actually showed up, but there was a traffic jam all the way down Moffett Boulevard, and it backed up into Hwy 101. That never happens on a normal day. I decided to voluenteer for this event (I got a free t-shirt!) and I worked the Speaker's Tent. For part of the day, my friend Hannah and I guarded the door behind the speaker's platform from people who might ignore the 'KEEP OUT' signs and try to slip in. We also acted as direction and general information givers, as our bright blue shirt labeled us as people who know something about the event. 

For the other part of the day, I got to sit in on the speaker's talks and then pass the microphone around during the Q&A afterwards. My, but I didn't know how pushy people were about getting their questions heard and how challenging it is to coordinate mics! However, I did enjoy listing to Dr. Wooden, who I had met at lunch one day, speak about future NASA missions to the moon. She was engaging and had great videos and visuals on her powerpoint. She also has an asteroid named after her. And then, at the end of the day, an astronaut named Dr. Donald Pettit, who has a doctorate in ChemE from Oregon State, and has flow into space twice, and invented a zero-gravity coffee cup that he uses on the International Space Station. He talked about what he learned in space, about how things like iPod cords and heavy equipment behave in ways previously unimagined, and how ever since NASA invented a zero-gravity printer, they've had to constantly be doing paperwork (It is the government....) He has also been to Antarctica, studying meteor rocks, but that wasn't nearly as interesting then the ISS information. He was actually on the last mission that came down, STS-126 (STS-127 is up on the ISS now, after a month and a half of launch delays), which also installed the waste-water recycling set up that a gentleman who works in my building designed and built. I heard a talk on it a couple of weeks ago, it is very interesting how they are making drinking water. 

Today, I decided to leave Ames a bit early and just find a place off base where I could work. I would get distracted in the lab and at Sayre's, so I found a Peet's Coffee and Tea to do some work. I really wanted to find a place like the TeaCup in Seattle, but apparently all they really have is Starbucks around here. Starbucks doesn't serve great tea, but I remembered my friend Sarah said she enjoyed Peet's when she went there, so I decided to give it a try. It was surprisingly good, even though it lacked the teapot and cup service, and the friendly people of the Teacup. I got my work done that I needed to for today (abstract and poster draft) and will probably continue procrastinating on the rest of it (poster final version is due next Monday and the final paper is due in three Fridays). Thus, this is only the semi-end of my procrastination. 

Next time, I want to try this place in the picture, Le Boulanger, which sounds like they might have good French bread!!

Also, you all should google (which is a verb now, according to Dr. Reinsma) the Hubble telescope pictures, they are amazing! I used one for my poster background and placed one on my computer desktop, even going so far as to clear all my icons off so I could see all of the picture. 

And tomorrow, you all should go to Starbucks and get a free pastry!! Click here for the coupon! You should try the Chonga bagel (toasted) or the Traditional Coffee Cake, they are both delicious!

96.34 Hours

The number in the title of this post? That is the number of hours I spent at NASA Ames Research Park over the course of the last two weeks. Not only was I there every weekday, but I went in for a bit last Sunday, today (Saturday) and will go in tomorrow. I am doing my best to get as much experimental data in before I have to write up my abstract, poster, and paper, of which, the first two are due on Monday (the 20th!) by midnight...

And of course, I don't really want to write the abstract or finish my poster, so this post is one glorious form of procrastination. I have been majorly procrastinating on this project, partially because it feels to much like school (a 10 page research paper?!) and I don't feel like I have enough data to draw conclusions. What do they expect, I've only been here for 6 weeks! 

So, I decided to tell you about non-NASA stuff, to take a break for a moment. When my parents were visiting, on morning on my way to work, what did my and dad and I see? ....an older couple walking their goose! Yes, I am telling the truth, they were walking with what looked to be a Canadian goose in between them, prodding it along with a stick. It was quite funny and pretty much made my day that Tuesday. 

Another interesting observation about this area (and also tells you how much I have adapted to Seattle): There are so many SUVs and big trucks around here. Now, I'm used to them in Ellensburg, because they usually serve a purpose as a farm truck or for hauling things, but I was very surprised to find so many in a state that is striving to be green and save energy. (On another note, there are these really cool stickers that let single-passenger cars use the diamond lane if they are hybrid cars that pass a clean air emissions test. There are so many days when I wished I had a Prius) The following are a few pics from my phone that I couldn't resist snapping when I saw these trucks. These are both trucks that have been jacked up and ride real high off the ground. In Ellensburg, we'd call them red-neck trucks, but I'm not sure what you'd call them here....

Something fun Alina and I did today was travel to the Willow Glen farmers market. I was kind of expecting a market like Fremont's in Seattle, but this was surprisingly like the one in Ellensburg. There were local, fresh-picked fruit and veggies, flowers, handmade jewelry, a guy singing classics with his guitar, a local bakery and a local jam/jelly maker. 

It was pleasantly uncrowded, and we purchased some delicious fruit. 

Here is a picture of part of the market, this was only about 2/3 of the booths. I forgot to bring my camera, so this is a shot from my phone. 

Well, I'm going to leave procrastination station now, eat some ice cream and get back to work. Before bed I am determined to have a 250 word abstract written and emailed to my mentor!

Also, funniest thing I've seen at NASA, this is a sign in the bathroom in the cafeteria area. Jesus reminding people to wash well with his "Repent! Wash your germs away!" sign.

Wow. Two Weeks

It has been two weeks since I have last posted, sorry for the long delay :) I will however, not aim to post all of what has occurred in that time in one post, but will tell my tales over the course of a few. My family and my chemicals have been keeping me from writing lately. That, and I lost my camera for a time and thus was unable to take or post pictures. I found it in a bag of yarn in my room, of all places!

Well, for the whole week leading up to the fourth of July, I did nothing but sit in a chair and read scientific literature the whole week. However, that has paid off, as now I am prepared to do more and have a better grasp of the reactions I am running. That thought doesn't, however, make those 40 hours I spent staring at my computer any easier in my memory....

Also during that time, my family came into to town from the great state of Washington! I was really excited to see them, and it has seemed to break up the time I am here into nice chunks. I have now been in Cali for exactly 5 weeks and have less than 5 weeks to go. Eek! So much to do! I was nice to hang out with the have have a mini-vacation of sorts: we traveled down to Bakersfield, CA for the fourth. Now what is in Bakersfield, you ask, that would induce a normal person to visit such a hot, smelly land? Well, I have relatives down there that we like to visit about every other year (or so it has been for the last few). They actually have air conditioning, which is great, seeing as it was nearing 100 degrees F before nine o'clock in the morning. They also have a rather large pool, which my family availed themselves of constantly. The picture above is from the 4th, the girls sat and watched while guys lit off the fireworks, which consisted of mostly fountains that sparkled. And then we watch the show from the country club over the hill, where there were bigger and better fireworks, and they were free!

Also, the other best part of visiting Bakersfield - the meat. My great-uncle cooks really good meat. We had delicious chicken the first night, pork the second, and some beautiful beef the last evening. Of course there were other things along with it, but I have not had good meat for a while now, probably since my birthday, when I was home in E-burg. 

While I was there I was able to really relax. With no agenda, a pair of knitting needles, new yarn and a new pattern, coupled with a little second-cousin (I think that how we are related anyway...) who loves to watch the Disney channel. And deep down, I really enjoy that channel too, especially when I find Scooby Doo on...I love Scooby Doo and could watch it all day...but please, don't tell anyone ;) Though I seem to do nothing but relax when I am at the Sayres, home from work (I am not taking French classes this summer and no one I know lives close enough for me to visit) but at my relatives I got to stay up til midnight and still get 8+ hours of sleep! 

This is what what the nightstand next to my bed looks like. And yes, it does get cold enough here in the evenings to merit a nice hot cup of tea. Tonight, I believe it was mint.

I have, this summer, read many books. It has been almost 2 years since I got to properly read a novel for pure pleasure, and I have been taking every advantage of my lazy summer days. This is the reason I will not come back from Cali with a tan, as I spend much of my time inside, reading my books. I do however, have a slight Tom's tan line, which I will sport with pride when I meet up with my friends from the south US. (aka Kali and Charis). 

And with that, my friends, bon nuit! for I am heading to bed. 

It's Finally Friday!

So today was probably the slowest day of my entire 3-week career as a NASA intern. I sat in the library for 8 hours and researched articles on the internet. Story of my life lately. On the up-side, I did get to sit in the library for those hours, instead of the lab, so I had more comfortable chairs, better table heights and much less noise. :)

Back to what happened over the last week. On Sunday, I went to church again at Campbell Church of Christ, sans the Sayre family, and it was an interesting sermon on the fire of God, and how Christians can re-light that fire as it is quenched just by living the human life. A couple of the hymns struck me regarding their theological information, especially coming off a quarter of Christian doctrine with Dr. Steele at SPU. In particular, we discussed in class how the body has often been regulated as not-redeemable, or that there is body/soul spilt, stemming somewhat from the influence of Plato and often read into Paul's writings. However, (and I am not looking at my notes here, so forgive me if I get this wrong) from what I remember, Paul was using language that did not denote the separation of the body from the soul in the Greek language, and thus there is no room for a doctrine of the 'immortality of the soul,' where the soul will go to heaven after death, but the body will stay behind. From this erroneous view often comes the idea that the body is somehow a cage for the soul, that the soul is 'good' and the body is 'bad' (again, reflecting Plato), and thus when we are redeemed, our soul's are saved, but we must fight against the sins of the body. However, and this is what we discussed in class, it seems to be Biblically supported that the whole person, body and soul, is redeemed through Christ. Christ's whole body and soul died and rose, not just his soul. There was no body in the grave. So, I guess what stuck me with the hymns was the references to the body as halting the refiners fire from glowing, and how we had to move past the sins body to re-light the fire inside. While I think that many sins do seem to stem from the body vs. the soul, I think that we sin with our whole selves and are redeemed with our whole selves. If that light 'goes out' then I think that we can't hold up what we consider our soul as untouched, but that the relighting has to involve both all the person. I don't really know where I am going with this, just that I wanted to share with you all some of what I am learning and processing right now on my walk with God. 

After church on Sunday, I took a trip out to the Computer History Museum. It was very interesting to see how the laptop I am writing on evolved. I saw some huge machines and some early computers, and want to go through it with my dad or someone who grew up during all the revolutions in technology to truly get a feel for what it must have been like to see that much technical innovation in the span of ~40 years. I saw card punch systems, walls of wires from MIT, some guys doctorate project, really BIG hard drives, old-school arcade games, and the teapot that launched the 3D graphics revolution. There was so much history there, so many machines that were saved (it kind of looked liked an organized garage) - it was nerdy and it was great! Also, there was an exhibit on computer chess, and I saw an old game, "Chessmaster" that I used to play on our old PC. Also, bit of Olivia trivia for you - I really learned to play chess on our computer with a version of Star-Wars chess. Mind you, I hadn't (and still haven't) seen the the episodes to which the game was referring, but it was still fun. It took me forever to figure out how rooks moved and did the switch-aroo thing with the Queen, or is it the king? I still don't know it, apparently.  They also had this huge machine designed by an Englishman in the 1800's that calculated polynomials. It looked so complicated to design and use that I was amazed and became very grateful that I had a TI-83 to do all that math for me. 

Here is a picture of the wall of PC's, starting with an Apple I.

Which reminds me, I also had a conversation this Monday with an astronomer who works at NASA over lunch, and she suggested that become proficient in a programing language before heading to grad school, as that would be a valuable skill. While the last time I ever attempted programing was in 7th grade on an old Compaq laptop (with an external floppy disk drive, mind you, that's how old it is) in MS-DOS. Now, while I did make fun game programs and password protected them, as well as make pictures, I didn't remember a thing on Tuesday when I decided to start learning. I chose to learn Python, because it looked relatively intuitive, yet could do some powerful stuff, but after conversing with my CS major friends, I might switch to C++, though I think that would be more challenging to learn on my own. I am kind of following a MIT course entitled, 'A gentle introduction to programing' through their open courseware project, coupled with an online book called "How to think like a computer scientist," both of which teach Python. All I have done so far is learned some basic commands, as well as read almost 4 chapters of the book, and made two little programs. The highlight so far has been creating a program that will do all the math to tell me how many grams of a reagent I need to add to a solvent to make a certain concentration. I really just didn't want to crunch the numbers any more, so I am making my computer do it! It was quite fun and it works. We'll see what else comes from this dabble in programing. 

On another note, I also saw this at the Computer History museum, and I laughed. I had one of these at my grandma's house growing up, but did it help me learn to spell? Nope. I am still a terrible speller, but I enjoyed the device. :)

A Few Thoughts

I know, I know, it has been a week or so since I lasted posted. But because my 15 minute nap this evening lasted 1.5 hours, I have to go to bed for real very soon. Today was long day, very long - I left the house at 6:45, got to work at 7:15am and didn't leave until 6:01pm and finally arrived home at 6:50 pm. This is not my normal day length, but today I wanted to use a machine called a Scanning Electron Microscope (or SEM for short) and it was booked by other people from 8 am to 6pm. Not thinking that I would be around past 5, I aimed for the morning. Well...I didn't actually write my name on the sheet because no one gets here earlier than 8am, and only before 10am if their young and you get lucky. Much to my surprise, however, the person was already on the machine! So here I was, at work ridiculously early, with practically nothing to do. Oh well, c'est la vive, n'est pas? 

Days are also kind of slow right now because I am in a transition part of the project, which requires new chemicals, and thus wait time. It means I am back in the literature, researching and reading things that often go over my head. But, I did recently discover that Ames has a few libraries on base, and the one in my building is great! It is a much better place to read my literature than either my lab or my semi-desk space 5 minutes away. And almost no one uses it, so it is quiet...and warm...and comfortable. And the old guy who walks by my lab all the time is pretty much the only other person in there, and he sits and responds to emails for hours. Literally. I watched him type emails from 1-4 today, and he was still there when I left. I snuck a picture of him with my Photobooth and built in computer camera, but all I got was a back shot. I also found out his name is Joseph. Soon, I might even try striking up a conversation with him...

I really was holding off posting another blog entry because I was marathoning through both my TV show seasons that I missed this last year and through the finishing steps of a sweater I am knitting. I didn't really stop to do much else this last weekend and really wanted to post pictures of the final project. But, alas, doing things the right way takes more time than I thought, I will not be finished for a while yet. (Also, the needles I need to completely finish it are currently in use with another project that I started without thinking that I might need the needles for the sweater). This particular sweater was started during Christmas break of my freshman year, in 2007. Don't think I am a slow knitter though, I just could not justify taking the time to knit this school year because of the amount of homework I had, as much as I wanted to do nothing more than sit, chat, sip some tea and knit my sweater. 

Fun new thing coming up: my family is coming down on Sunday and will be here for about a week!! We are going to go to Bakersfield, CA, for the 4th (don't worry, if you don't know where that is or are wondering why I am going to that part of Cali, I understand). Bakersfield is where my great-Aunt and Uncle live, and we have gone down there a few times during the summer breaks. Alas, we generally go during the hottest week of the year, where I distinctly remember reading '117 degrees F' on the thermometer for a few days.... I am so much more a winter weather kind of girl... But, it will be fun to see my family and relatives, as I will have a grand total of 8 days in WA before heading back to school. However, once there, Elizabeth my sister will be joining me, so that will be fun to have her at school with me. We've gone to the same schools since preschool. I think she will like SPU, it definitely was her first choice for college. 

I hate to always sign off with this, but it is past my bedtime now (it is 10:42 pm) and I have to get up so early to go to work. I'll post pictures tomorrow. Bon nuit!

3, 2, 1, LIFT OFF!!!!

Today, the LCROSS project blasted off the earth and hurtled itself towards the moon. in percisily 111 days, this project will crash itself into the moon and move no longer. LCROSS stands for 'Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite' (apparently they could not just call it LCOSS...). The purpose of this craft is to hit a part of the moon that has never seen the sun. This permanently shadowed spot is in a crater at one of the two poles of the moon. The theory is that if a spot has never seen the sun, if there is any water (in the form of ice) on the moon, then it would be frozen in a spot that has never seen sunlight and thus has never had a chance to evaporate. According to NASA's website, "the identification of water is very important to the future of human activities on the Moon" (a.k.a for deciding whether or not we'll create a lunar habitat). Beyond just sensing for water-ice, the LCROSS will also look for hydrocarbons and hydrated materials.

Another speical aspect about this project, is that it was spearheaded by a group here at Ames, where I work, so it was quite exciting to watch it launch today. To be more specific, our website says that Ames will be "managing the mission, conducting mission operations, and has developed the payload instruments" in partnership with Northrop Grumman, who built the actual spacecraft. Another cool thing about this craft can be found in the design, because it uses existing NASA technologies as well as off-the-shelf parts. Thus, this is a low-cost, quick project. It only took 3 years from proposal to launch. For those not familiar with the NASA time line, that is fast!

You should check out the video on this page: http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/ to learn more about the project.

In other news, another boy, Joe, a senior in high school, semi-joined our lab group yesterday. He will be working on a totally different project, but will be sharing the space with Kunal and me. This is his third summer here and he knows lots of people, which is great!

And...we passed our lab safety inspection today after 3 hours of frantic cleanup. Yay!