Hurricane Season in Tucson

It's cold, it's wet, it's windy. I mean hey, what's going on here? This isn't what I signed up for in Tucson! What kind of desert is this place??

In other news, I'm still at work, and not about to head home either. I have to finish a proposal to use the SMT (Sub-Millimeter Telescope) that is due tomorrow. Whee....

Curse Over

It's the bottom of the sixth inning right now. Two outs, Walker on first, Pujols at the plate with a 3-2 count. I say the series is over. Red Sox easily win this game and complete the sweep.

Days in the Life

Tiffany flew back to the bay area yesterday. It was great having her around for a weekend and I already miss her a lot. We had a good time at the Cal game (where we randomly happened to run into three friends of ours from Cal!), explored the Desert museum Sunday afternoon (really cool museum), and went to a potluck dinner/pumpkin carving party at a friend's house. It was the first time I had carved a pumpkin in quite awhile. Tiff and I worked on one together, and it turned out pretty nice (with a very jolly expression). Maybe I'll take a picture of it.

The rest of this week is going to be pretty busy for me, with a midterm tomorrow morning, a homework set due Friday, and a proposal for telescope time also due Friday. Next week should be a little bit less stressful, I hope.

Tiffany Visiting Tucson

Tiffany is coming to town this weekend. In fact, she is arriving sometime this afternoon. I'm really looking forward to having her around. So far, we've got plans to go to the Arizona-Cal football game tomorrow, and then check out the desert museum either Saturday or Sunday. It should be good.

Well Well Well

I sure as hell didn't think they could do it. But they did. Somehow, the Red Sox came back from down 0-3 in a best of seven series and beat the Yankees. At Yankee stadium no less. Wow.

Meanwhile, we actually had a fair number of people show up for softball, despite all my bitching. We ended up with 17 people, although two of them showed up after the ALCS was over. It was a lot of fun for everybody (I think anyway) and we're going to do it next week at the same time. Hopefully, it'll become a tradition.

Off to Softball

And it's still 8-1, going to the bottom of the sixth. I'm off to play softball.

8-1

Johnny Damon!!

6-0

Whoa! Johnny Damon!

Uncharted Territory

Out of 25 MLB teams facing a three games to none deficit in a playoff series, none have ever even forced a game 7. Well, the Red Sox did it. I watched the game last night with a bunch of Red Sox fans and had a great time. I'll admit that I didn't think Schilling could do it; what he accomplished yesterday on that ankle was truly amazing. So now it comes down to Derek Lowe vs. Kevin Brown. Yesterday, I claimed that the Red Sox would have no chance in game 7 since Bronson Arroyo would be pitching. Well, Arroyo's not pitching. That would help, except that Lowe is a worse pitcher than Arroyo. The only saving grace for the Red Sox is that Brown hasn't been much of a pitcher recently either, particularly against Boston. So really, anything could happen.

The one thing that we do know, however, is that softball tonight is gonna be missing several key players who will be glued to the TV set for as long as it takes the game to finish. Oh well...

Should I Root for the Forces of Evil?

Tonight, I am faced with a perilous decision of paramount importance. Game 6 of the ALCS between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox is to start at 5:30pm local time this evening, and I have to decide which team to root for. Now, you might be saying to yourself, 'But Shane! All along you've decried the vastly evil nature of the Yankees! There can't be any way in the world you would root for them!' And under almost any other circumstances, you might be right. But these are no ordinary circumstances. First, even if Schilling is somehow able to pitch as if he had two legs to stand on instead of one and the Red Sox score a win tonight in Game 6, the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of New York in Game 7, when Boston will send out Bronson Arroyo to get totally annihilated over the course of however many outs he lasts. So why string it out any further? Second, and much more importantly, tomorrow night will be the first game of softball that I've organized in Tucson. So far we've got about 16 people committed to playing, which should be plenty for a good game. However, of those 16, at least 3 are big time Red Sox fans, and will definitely choose watching Game 7 of the ALCS over playing softball. So you see, if Boston wins Game 6, playing softball tomorrow becomes a much, much trickier issue.

Fortunately, I think the Yankees are such prohibitive favorites in Game 6 that the will to win provided by me rooting for the Red Sox will be a completely insignificant factor in the overall scheme of things. Hence, I am free to do as I wish and I do not need to compromise the very core of my principles by rooting for the hated Yankees.

Not Much at Basketball

I was runniing full speed on a fastbreak. Then I stopped on a dime underneath the basket while my defender flew past me, leaving me wide open for an easy layup. Unfortunately, my wild shot from one foot away didn't even hit the rim. Another time, somebody screamed 'clear!' at me, and I had no idea what to do, so I just kind of ran around in random directions (which is pretty much what I do anyway). And that pretty much sums up my basketball skills.

After that basketball debacle on Sunday, I decided it'd be better if I stuck to racqeutball, and practiced my backhand quite a bit (in particular, switching from forehand to backhand and vice versa).

Debates Are Done

Well, the exciting four national debates between candidates for the position of president and vice-president of the United States are finished. While Kerry took advantage of Bush's relative inability to think quickly on his feet in a debate to make the presidential race a statistical dead heat according to most polls, both candidates took advantage of this opportunity to exaggerate, twist the truth, or simply downright lie to the American people. For a fairly complete rundown, please check out factcheck.org.

My personal favorite was when the president denied saying in the past that he was not concerned about Osama Bin Laden. In fact, he said that very thing on March 13, 2002: "I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him." Why, it's so utterly stupid that you might even call it asinine!

R-Ball

I won my first ever racquetball match in Tucson today, making me 1-20 overall (or so) since I moved here. I played against Aleks, my [not-for-long] officemate, in three close games today. Two of these were close, and one of those two I won, amazingly enough.

Now, how can I make this post reasonably asinine to fit in with the "Art of the Asinine" theme. Well, the obvious answer is to ask the question of how I can make the post asinine, and then answer it with an obvious answer that refers back upon itself.

Did I mention that I hate the Yankees?

A Fresh Face

I've been thinking of updating the look of my website. Maybe adding a couple of stylesheets for you, my loyal viewer, to choose from.

In the meantime, there isn't a whole lot to say. Besides, of course, that I hate the Yankees.

Spiff and Biff

For my birthday, my Mom got me a couple of plants and pots to put them in (when they get bigger). I have decided to name these two plants Spiff and Biff. You can see them in this picture:

Spiff is on the right and Biff is on the left. Unfortunately, you can see that both guys are looking kind of droppy and brown (Spiff in particular is not doing so well). I think the problem was that I had been keeping them in my bedroom, which probably doesn't get enough light. I moved Spiff to the back part of the house that gets more light, so hopefully he'll start getting better.

Stupid, Literally Stupid

I don't understand some of these Greenpeace protestors. Weapons grade plutonium from excess nuclear warheads is to be converted into nuclear fuel for use in an electricity generating reactor. It's anti-nuclear proliferation. You'd think, of anything, Greenpeace wouldn't protest this. And yet, that's exactly what they're doing. They claim the shipment process is unsafe and the plutonium could fall into the hands of terrorists. So they decide to get a heavy truck, bolt it down onto the road leading to the repreocessing factory, and then chained themselves to the vehicle to prevent the delivery of the plutonium to the factory. That has to be the dumbest thing ever. Their own action probably did as much to aid terrorists in capturing the plutonium as anything. But above all, this is for a good cause!

Sometimes, I just don't get these crazy liberal hippy tree huggers.

Picture Galleries Fixed

You may thank Matt Jankowski for fixing the picture gallery issues that were making it impossible to view any of my galleries.

In other news, I finished in a disappointing fifth place in my primary fantasy baseball league. However, I was only five points away from second place, and a few things going differently in the final week would have made the difference. I think I finished about where I deserved to finish, based on my draft and performance during the season. The real problem is that I doubt I'll be able to play next year, since one of the requirements for playing is that one must be present in person for the draft, which will take place in Berkeley. And since I'm in Arizona now...

On a brighter note, I beat up on Eric Furst's fantasy baseball team in the Matt Jankowski Memorial Fantasy Baseball League in the final matchup of the season. Sadly, it was only a battle for seventh place. My team peaked at the right time, but unfortunately didn't do well enough to finish in the top 6 during the regular season and make the playoffs.

So, fantasy baseball will have to wait till next year.

Ethel the Aardvark Goes Quantity Surveying

And now for something completely different: the story of the evolution of one man's sandwich eating habits.

It began with nothing more than two slices of wheat bread with a thin spread of peanut butter on one and stawberry jam on the other. But, ever so gradually, the simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch failed to provide the necessary nutrients to get through the day. It was this fact that necessitated the institution of a new form of sandwich --- turkey and lettuce. Combined with a thin spread of mayonnaise on either slice of bread, these two components would provide the primary basis for much of the sandwich-eating evolutionary path to come. At first, the lettuce was of the simple iceberg variety, but in time this gave way to the more robust green lettuce, then to the ultimate in healthyness that is red lettuce, and then finally to a steady state of oscillation between the latter two. Where four years ago today mustard was a disgusting, vile entity not to be smelled or eaten under any and all circumstances, the truly boring nature of mayo+turkey+lettuce required a change in philosophy, and now we come to the introduction of the standard French's yellow mustard to the sandwich (on only one slice of course). Naturally, this substandard form of mustard was only tolerated for a very brief period of time before the more appealing form of "Stone Ground" mustard was settled upon as THE mustard to layer upon the sandwich. The penultimate addition, as of the current epoch, was the tomato, in all its glory. The problem with tomato had always been two-fold: first, the practical impossibility of finding a vine ripened tomato in the grocery store implied that any tomato used in the sandwich (or indeed, consumed in any uncooked form) would be hard as a rock. This certainly did not make it an appealing option, and combined with the second problem, that tomatoes were simply gross, makes it obvious why tomatoes had been left out up to that point. But, as we all know, tastes buds change, and this case was no different. So now we have a turkey sandwich with mustard+mayo, and lettuce+tomato on wheat bread. What could possibly be added to this, you ask? Well, in recent times, the house has been proliferated with the presence of avocadoes due to bi-weekly guacamole creating ceremonies. As a result, the impression of the raw avocado has skyrocketed from a slimy green gook to, you guessed it, wonderful latest addition to the sandwich. Prior to the introduction of the avocado, the sandwich had been waning in popularity; grudginly it was eaten for lunch due to the clearly inedible nature of most other things in the office, but it was not done so with pleasure. In fact, experiments that can only be described as "bordering on the insane" involving peanut butter, honey, and bananas were beginning to challenge the authority of the turkey sandwich. However, thanks to the avocado, these experiments should, in all probability, head into remission.

It has been a long, storied history. One that I have no doubt you are enamored to have shared with me. Who can say what the future may hold? After all, avocadoes are damn expensive and go rotten absurdly quickly. But for now, at least, we have stability. I most graciously thank you for your attention.

Unmitigated Disaster

In the baseball realm: the Giants managed to blow a 3-0 lead to L.A. in the bottom of the ninth and lose 7-3. Unbelievable. Houston is on its way to beating up the Rockies, so it's almost all over for the Giants. On the other side of the bay, meanwhile, the A's blew a 4-2 lead against the Angels in the late innings of their game, ending their season.

At least Cal football is still going strong with a 49-7 demolishing of Oregon State.

Baseball

There isn't anything comparable to the final weekend of the baseball regular season, and this particular season is shaping up to be one for the ages. The best matchup is in the American League west, where the A's and the Angels are matched up in a best of three to determine the winner of the division. However, it looks like the A's are going to lose game 1, so they'll have to win the next two games to stand a chance.

Meanwhile, in the National League, the Giants and the Astros are competing for the wild card spot. Also, if the Giants sweep the Dodgers (in LA), they'll win the National League west. Personally, I don't think that's going to happen. However, the wild card is a different story. Houston won today, so the Giants need to win to keep pace. They're ahead now, but we'll see what happens.

In the fantasy baseball realm, this weekend is incredibly crucial for two of my three teams. It's too complicated to explain, but practically anything could happen. Stay tuned...

The Great Debate

You were expecting some liberal propoganda related to the issue of Bush vs. Kerry, weren't you? Hah! Like I care about politics!

Today, the weekly Steward colloquium was given by NASA astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz. He talked about new technologies being developed to allow faster travel through the solar system. What was interesting, at least from my perspective, is that after the talk, the graduate students get to take the speaker out to dinner. So we had an opportunity to ask him about how he felt about certain issues that involve both NASA and the astronomical community.

Obviously, the issue of the Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission came up, big time. The most peculiar thing about the whole discussion (to me) was how Dr. Chang-Diaz had previously been under the impression that there was no general consensus among the astronomical community as to the value of HST. But tonight at dinner, it was abundantly clear that all of us felt that the science offered by HST was absolutely immeasurable compared to almost all other telescopes. So it's hard to understand how the scientific community isn't making itself clear, unless NASA just isn't listening.

With respect to the shuttle program, the speaker felt that it was risky, but that space exploration always involved some amount of risk. In fact, his main concern with the space shuttle program is that its current operating procedure is extremely inefficient because the shuttle carries humans AND a large payload with each flight. So the engineering has to handle the problems associated with a heavy payload AND needs to provide life support to human beings. He explained that it would better if the payload was launched completely separately from any space ship carrying humans. Makes sense to me, except that it sounds like it would take a long time to implement.

In the meantime, using what we have now, does it make sense to spend up to $6 billion and risk further astronaut deaths to make another servicing mission on HST? Well, if you talked to astronomers, the answer you would hear is an unequivocal yes. However, the astronomical community only numbers in the thousands. But I think the public does have a fairly strong connection with HST, strong enough to justify another servicing mission.

Finally, we briefly talked about going to Mars. Dr. Chang-Diaz said he supported it mainly because we need to colonize another planet so we aren't a species limited to one planet (i.e. survival reasons). You may find it particularly entertaining that he referred to that ST:TNG episode where Picard gets to experience the life of a scientist on a dying planet so that the lives of the people on the planet can live on in his memory. Incidentally, I completely forgot why the people on the planet died out: it was due to their star going supernova (somehow they were technologically advanced but didn't see this coming a billion years in advance?!?) and they didn't have enough time to develop space flight before the proverbial big bang. Anyway, we pretty much agreed that the issues of going to Mars and servicing HST are completely separate since the cost of going to Mars is so drastically gigantic compared to one servicing mission. The discussion did illuminate something that I find a little bit troubling though, which is that I think a lot of scientists emphasize the importance of learning too much at times. For instance, your typical scientist will claim that a Mars mission is a waste of time because we can't learn that much more than a robotic mission can. However, this prospective fails to account for the benefits entailed in simply going there. Dr. Chang-Diaz mentioned this specifically when he asked us whether the point of exploration was "to learn" or "to go". I could tell that a number of grad students felt the sole point should be to learn. But I think there is some merit in simply going. It's something that reaches a MUCH MORE broad swath of people compared to a research project. It's inspirational, to know that we can accomplish something of such an enormous technical challenge. To exclude that prospective without giving it a second thought is an error that I do not want to find myself guilty of.