Caffeine

Caffeine Key:
1 cup coffee...........................120mg
1 shot espresso......................100mg
1 cup tea................................70mg
coffee beans...........................1.2-4% (of what, who knows)
Coke.......................................46mg
lethal dose..............................9g

Extreme Coffee Shop

This morning I was just waiting for my coffee, basking in the glory of having purchased new lead for my pencils, when into the coffee shop walks this girl wearing cowboy boots, a suuuper short denim skirt, and a pink polo with the collar POPped. I thought to myself "I guess if I'm going to wear the same sweater day after day I should not judge people's outfit choices."

Then Another one walked in!! Then, I realized that the first one was with Another one! And then Another one walked in!

These sentences don't make sense, so let me just do a quick re-cap.
Four girls.
Four pairs of cowboy boots.
Four scandalously short denim skirts.
Four pink polos with the collars popped.

It just didn't seem appropriate given the time of day and location. Not that I know a time of day or location that would be more appropriate though.

My Life's Ultimate Passion

Contra dancing is the thing in life that I am most passionate about. I don't know if I have ever loved a thing so much. Last night Brandon and I drove up to Montpelier for their regular contra dance. The caller was Nils Fredlund (who is possibly one of the best callers ever and sometimes plays his trombone with the band) and the band was Atlantic Crossing (who played phenomenally). Apparently Atlantic Crossing got their name because one of the fiddle players lived in New England, and one of the fiddle players lived in England, so when they played together one of them had to cross the Atlantic. Then they got married, and he moved here, so the name is not quite so accurate anymore.

In comparison to the Norwich contra dances, the Montpelier dance is in a smaller hall and has more people show up. Also, I think the average age is much younger, and they are more lively and energetic and not as much about traditional New England folk dance, like Norwich can tend to be. Don't get me wrong, I love my local Norwich dance, but I just love the Montpelier dance in a different way. It is fun to see a lot of the same faces in both places too. And despite the fact that I have not been sleeping enough lately, my tiredness will never keep me from dancing every dance. Contra makes me feel alive to the point of keeping me awake for hours after the dance has ended. Perhaps it has something to do with the sense of community established in a contra dance.

Plus the other highlight of the Montpelier dance was seeing some of my old favorites who I hadn't yet run into since my return from the North. One is Miss Bailey, who is my 5 year old little contra buddy. At the break we sat on the floor and talked about Pirate Booty and this pirate movie she really likes. When we were sitting there chatting this other little girl came up and started chatting with us too. Her name was Maya and she is 9, but she will be turning 10 soon. We share the same birthday. Also her skirt was from Bangladesh, where her stepfather has built homes for poor children where they can get food, shelter, clothing, and education. He has built homes in Nepal and two other places also, and Maya has visited each of the places once, except for Bangladesh where she went twice. Also, she is home schooled, so missing school to travel to these places is not even an issue. Even the kids I meet at contra are some of the most fascinating people around.

Then I danced a dance with Bailey, which was a little challenging, but tons of fun. She has been contra dancing for longer than I have, so she knows what all the moves mean, but she just needs you to remind her what to do and when, and to make sure she is in the right place. The great thing about contra is that it just repeats, so by the end of it I would say, "it's your turn to do a star!" and she would come back and say "now its YOUR turn to do a star!" which was really cute. Plus most people get a kick out of dancing with her, so she inspires a lot of smiles. Unfortunately, I think some people thought she was my daughter because she usually only dances with her dad (who is one of the men who prefers dancing in a skirt). It was worth it though, because I just never see any kids these days, so it was good to get my kid-fix and my contra-fix all at the same time.

All-in-all it was a spectacular time, and I don't know why but I always manage to have way more fun than I ever thought was possible. Plus on the way home I learned about the musical highway which I think is amazing.

Any good day is made better with good socks.

Targeted Ads Know What I'm Thinking

So the google targeted ads are highly skilled. Often I find myself clicking the links, when I have never before clicked the links for ads. Like when Nicole and I were emailing about starting gardens for the summer I got a lot of good ads that I just couldn't stop clicking. Also, I get some good ads for outdoor gear. One time I found myself playing on the Timbuk2 website where you can design your own bag. It is amazing. Then I thought to myself, "Self how did you get to this website? And why are you not doing real work on a Tuesday morning?"
Today the targeted ads have gone one step further. They gave me the ad for www.cleaningproductsworld.com and the little bit of info said, "Buy a case of 48 rolls of Charmin Big Roll toilet paper and save." It was like Google knew that within the past hour I had a conversation with Julie about how we needed to buy toilet paper. I didn't send any emails about that!

The Barn!

Luckily enough we have one photo of our rocket launch.

This was taken by Robert Michell who was Kristina's graduate student that worked on Cascades1. In this photo you can see the four motor burns, which did not happen for C1. On that rocket the third stage motor did not light so the entire mission was a failure.

Anyhow, so now I am back home! I got out of Alaska just in time, as Mt Redoubt is now erupting and they are canceling many flights due to the large ash cloud drifting over much of the state. My flight actually left about a half hour early, because we were scheduled to go three hours after the first eruption, and they didn't want to risk us not getting out. So I had a little extra time on my layover in Seattle, but it was still quite short. Three of the NASA dudez were also on that flight out of Fairbanks, but they had 3 hour layovers, so they brought me to my gate and saw me off, which was fun. Usually I am that lone traveller in airports. Also, one of my NASA buddies had the privilege of sitting next to Kevin Barry in first class. I must admit I never would have known who this guy was if I didn't have that inside connection. He was a HUGE guy though. Nice, but HUGE.

My next flight got into Minneapolis a little late, so I got off one plane, booked it through the airport, and got right back on another plane. I guess it was the perfect amount of time, except for that whole not eating thing, but such a short connection makes me very nervous, particularly since I don't want a repeat of my last Minneapolis airport stranding. Luckily enough I made it just fine, as did my luggage. Then I got to ride a completely full Dartmouth Coach home.

I got to Hanover and my car started with no trouble, and Lisa and Laura were home to greet me at the barn with flowers and freshly washed sheets on my bed. All in all it was a great return.

At the barn I am starting to realize I have forgotten a few things. I smacked my elbow on the toilet paper dispenser, so I'm quite convinced someone moved it around or something. Also, the bathroom mirror makes my face look tan (is that even possible??), so I think there is something wrong with the mirror or the lighting. Almost all of the snow is melted around here, and tomorrow the high will be a balmy 47F. Not so bad..

Launch.

Finally we launched our rocket! And it seems to be a great success. The whole night seemed to be pretty surreal, and I'd give a play by play of the events leading up to the launch, but I don't think I could accurately portray what was going on. What I can tell you is that our data looks amazing. So far we just have the strip charts with the real time data from the flight, and nothing we can play around with but it really is great stuff. We have data from all five payloads, and four out of five of my detectors worked. The one that didn't work failed because it somehow deployed too early and the high voltage came on when the rocket was still in the atmosphere, so the high voltage board fried. I am just so so happy about the results of this rocket, as is everyone on the team.

It has been almost 24 hours since the launch, and I am just now realizing that I am finally through with this stage of it, and I get to move on with life. I finally get to go home and am so happy about that I could cry.

Life's so good. (apparently the former state slogan of Wisconsin, which, just four days ago, was replaced by "Live like you mean it.")