now picnic

Where am I now? In Seattle. I was in Chicago for the weekend, now in Seattle, back to Pittsburgh on Wednesday.

I have some great photos from the Chicago weekend, but I forgot the cord to connect the camera to the laptop, so you'll have to wait until I get home for those. I can say that an evening that includes the Hop Leaf, Green Mill, and being called up on stage to do the electric slide with Tom, Laura, Mary Fons and others for a two-minute play at Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind is a pretty kick-ass last night in Chicago.

And today, some mushroom-themed links for you:

Check out this "All Things Considered" story about a Harvard scientist out in the woods with her student and postdoc, looking for mushrooms. The family she loves is in Massachusetts now, but the mushroom she loves is still in California. The interviewer seems very amused with her group, cavorting through the rain, breathlessly identifying new kinds of fungi. Young mycologist, Fiona, in the Series of Unfortunate Events could use a role model like Dr. Pringle.

And speaking of mushrooms, comments like "Me too on the toilet mushrooms" abound on Tom7's 3+ year-old post on his blog, #1 google hit for "bathroom mushroom.

// posted by kc @  11:15 AM   0 comments

Happy equinox to you.

Did you know that the day and night are both about 12 hours long, everywhere on the earth on the equinox? The wikipedia article on equinoxes could use some editing, but the whole thing is kind of neat. (Bonus good word: equilux!) Spoons and I were trying to figure out how the equinox worked on the car ride back from AA yesterday, and we decided a whole semester of high school math/science could be spent teaching geometry and such using the earth and the seasons/days/orbits/etc.

Here are a few other random snippets:

• The Cliche Rotation Project is a great idea, and I fully support the use of the phrase "boot souffle" for "kunckle sandwich" and "like trying to find a clock in a casino" instead of "looking for a needle in a haystack." Saying "Well isn't that the bee's pajamas?" with the right amount of snarkiness could be fun, too.


• Physics bubble chamber art (click for more):
  


• An article from the UK about John McCain that sums up how eh I feel about him these days: "Some of the old fire that captivated independents even as it upset Republican traditionalists, has gone." He used to be a lot more interesting.

// posted by kc @  9:26 PM   1 comments

Thanks to everybody who called/emailed/commented/text messaged/drove to Ann Arbor (!) to wish me good luck or congrats!

The talk went well yesterday. My thesis committee, some other members of my group, and some family and friends were there. If you want to see more about what I talked about, check out my work webpage.

Afterwards, a bunch of us went out to Ashley's for dinner and a few beers. I have some work to do still on my thesis -- corrections and additions -- but nothing major. So, I'll be all finished soon!

Next, I'll be off to work for Columbia as a postdoc at the beginning of April, spending a few weeks in NYC before I am off to CERN. Right now, I'm back in Pittsburgh.

// posted by kc @  4:25 PM   1 comments

Happy birthday to my mom! ... oh, and today is my thesis defense. If you are in Ann Arbor, meet me at Ashley's around 5!

// posted by kc @  11:05 AM   5 comments

When you sit at a computer all day long like I do, you find interesting things every once and a while. Here are a few:

• Awesome high-five contest. Are you awesome? Do you like high-fives? (P.S. Listen to the Sound of Young America on the radio or podcast. It is good.)


• A list of good things to do in Chicago. (P.S. Listen to Sweet Thighs. She is good.)


• I like the idea in the comments for this article about the gender of pronouns. There's no good non-gender-specific word for him or her, so when you need one of those words, you always have to guess, or hedge: "So, did you give the book back to ... your friend?" or you can resort to the plural: "Did you give their book back to them?" even when you know there's only one person being discussed. This Wired article talks about meeting people virtually, when sometimes the gender of the person you're meeting is even more unclear than in real life. For example, if the person's screenname is AHRW28 or the avatar used to represent him-or-her is a flying sofa, what do you use? It would be neat if some other third person singular pronouns would evolve online and become common in the real world.


• Here is a picture of my (getting-so-old!) niece Isabella. My dad is visiting Seattle this weekend and sent it to me. So skeptical! And so much a combination of John and Candace. I can't wait to see them all again.
  

// posted by kc @  10:59 PM   0 comments