Notes from the Field: Part 1

Well the desert collect has pretty much wrapped up. All that’s left is for me to pack up my things, hang out with the Vegas family for a few days, and then go home to see my pregnant WIFE who I miss so much.

I’ve been writing to Jessie a lot, so allow me to blog by posting some choice quotes from my correspondence with her:

Day 2: “The training for the downrange stuff was mostly boring.  'Here's what you have to do.  Don't play with animals.  Don't touch anything that could even potentially explode.' But there was one point where they actually showed full on video of graphic explosive damage.  Potentially not from here, but GRUESOME.  Hand blown apart.  Messed up face.  Leg in tatters.  They ended with a 6-second shot of a dude *getting his leg amputated*.  Doctor cutting it and everything.  I couldn't even watch.  Snuff film kinda stuff. ”

Day 4: “I’ve been sitting in the car for two hours and we just got a radio call from Ed to remind us to switch hard drives at 10:00. Most excitement we’ve had all day.”

Day 7: “So we’re hanging out in what I’ve dubbed ‘fake Iraq.’  It’s pretty cool, I can show you pictures when I get back.  (This whole thing is unclassified, except for one little uninteresting bit).  Out in ‘the box’ which is the range where they send people out to train for shooting tanks and mortars and other, less interesting things like troop movements and supply stuff, I’m sure.  It’s a pretty big place out here.  Lots of room for different things to be going on at the same time, it’s miles on a side, at least, I’m sure.  Just a big empty space for army training things. 

We’re currently sitting in an SUV at Mediana Jabal which is, and no kidding, a fake Iraqi city. It’s mostly made out of shipping containers, but they’ve done a really impressive job of dressing the whole thing up.  They’ve got fake walls on all the boxes with fake bricks.  Fake two-story buildings with fake crenelations, and a big, pretty, fake mosque in the middle of the town.  There’s a bunch of fake power/phone lines all over the city, all haphazardly.  They even have fake fruit stands and storefronts, like a fake internet cafe and a fake hospital.  The fake fruit is really weird, because it’s all plaster and paint. 

And even better, and I don’t know if it’s for us, or for something else, (I’m guessing someone else) but there’s fake people out there today!  Bunch of army dudes in their fatigues (not fake, it’s real army guys) and dudes and dudettes in fake (?) garb, walking around and doing role-playing stuff.  I’m not sure if they’re doing specific scenarios or what, but there’s a lot of dudes out there.  Mostly Iraqi-looking.  Probably a really good training scenario.  I even saw, no lying, *goats*.  Real ones, being led down the street by some army dudes. Not even sure where those guys come from. ”

“Ooh.  Fake explosion, I think.  Either that or somebody just dropped something really heavy.  Ooh, now gunfire.  Pretty far away, though.  I feel safe.  There’s a whole bunch of people around here, too.  Either it’s real and far away for a different exercise or, and I suspect this one is correct just due to the radio chatter, it’s a fake-ish explosion for whatever training stuff they’re doing over there.  We have a special range radio they can use to communicate with us and I’m monitoring it closely.  If it was a real problem, we’d hear about it, so no need to worry.  We’re safe.  And I’m not getting out of the car anytime soon.”

Day 8: “...while we were setting up and collecting they were doing some pretty serious training.  I didn’t see most of it (definitely trying to stay out of the way) but I definitely heard the explosions, and I was outside the car walking around when one of them went off.  Loud!  And then they had Ambulances drive up.  That’s all I know, cause that’s all I could hear. 

I overheard some other people talking, though.  Evidently it was some sort of IED training, or at least part of it was, and they had a stunt guy pretend to have his leg blown off.  Sounded pretty dramatic. ”

More in a second,

-N

Oh, I got your 'handy'

I learned to break glass today- you know, the purposeful, score and break way. Got me a diamond tipped pencil, shattered half a box of microscope slides - for practice - worked my way up to glass plates until I scored and cut a sheet that was most of a centimeter thick. Boo yeah! And then I went back and split an entire box of glass plates- FOR SCIENCE! Amazing the things you learn in grad school.

We are all ready for the kiln firing this weekend- let's hope it doesn't snow!

WIP- also how much I rocked that seminar

I'm not sure if I ever mentioned that early in the semester there was some confusion with my boss about some seminars he asked me to give (angsty GSR eye-roll, is this HARD to keep straight?). It turned out for the best, I got to give a pair of seminars to two different Cancer audiences. The first one was a 'Prize,' and the second one was a WIP, or Work In Progress talk. The WIP was this morning, and I was worried about how I would stretch the 15 min Prize talk to a 50 min WIP. For cancer people. Since, I don't actually study cancer....

Turns out I had lots of extra stuff to add in, and it's easier to give the slow explanation. And dammit, my work is interesting. Dr. Boss and I drove to the seminar site together (it's off campus), and he was very supportive. He punted me prompts in response to the barrage of questions so I could come off as really bright. He was very gracious about the whole thing, so I felt good about it. I had loads of questions, which makes me feel like I explained myself way and other people think my work is interesting.

- - -
I've had some stressful interactions with students and my class recently, which have been making me question my motivation for teaching long-term. But really I've just been feeling busy, and not thoughtful or reflective, or in any position to respond well to students concern about their grades, or the overall course structure.

This weekend we are going out to the wood kiln- its expected to be cold. Fortunately, we'll have a raging inferno to keep us company, and distract us from real life.

Turning the corner on GSR angst

They tell me the best sign you are ready to graduate is when you can't stand your boss anymore. I've been trying to move past the science equivalent of teen angst ("he doesn't notice how smart I am," "he doesn't understand what it is like to do these experiments!"), and today I think we turned a corner. And it was a corner that I really thought would be a clif. See, I tend to get irritated with my boss when he takes too much interest in what I am doing. He isn't usually up to the minute on things, so I feel like I have to slow way down and reach WAY back to explain things to him. (Picture adolescent eye-roll here) Other methods to tame my attitude were only partially effective (patience, looking for my own errors instead if his, setting my expectations more realistically), but I was pretty confident that the togetherness of actually writing a paper together would push my patience past the brink. Fortunately for everyone involved, I was wrong.

We are writing a part of a paper, for a collaborator, which is serving as a nice dumping ground for some data we can't follow up on. We got involved in this madness about a month ago, at which time Dr. Boss suggested I try (as a Go For It experiment) an extra experiment that would round out the data nicely. We want to get it done by early November. But we needed some more details, and there was waiting, and then I was kinda slacking last week... and yesterday, my slightly flustered boss says they want EVERYthing done by Saturday- which means we need to get it out by Friday, which means.... I need to get that experiment done! And also the written part, and make the figures. Arg!

I didn't want Dr. Boss to think I wasn't taking this opportunity (big opportunity for me) seriously, so I mashed out the data- but the writing, I can't really fake. Fortunately, he can. So I spent half an hour in his office today, writing up one short part of the paper. And it was really good- I felt like the paper was better because we both wrote it, and I felt like he'd say that too. He kept saying things like "Good point" and "Well put." I didn't feel defensive about it (since I didn't have anything written before), so it actually seemed quite collaborative. Awesome!

A relevant side note, my technical writing isn't any better than it was in high school. I still write like you get charged per period, and my liberal use of tenses makes me seem like a time traveler. Ah well, with luck, we'll write a couple more papers.

It’ll be a long day

So...how’s it going for everyone? Good? That’s cool, that’s cool. Me? Sitting in the desert for a few hours, that’s all. Not a whole lot to do. I mean, there’s some tumbleweeds over there. Even got a little green on ‘em. Don’t see that too often, nosir. Quite rare, quite rare. It’s on account of the rain, you see. Had some rain last week. That’s what puts the green on them tumbelweeds, gives em a little color, you understand. Normally, o’course, they’re just brown and dry. Not much water, you understand, on account of it being the desert. Mostly just brown tumbleweeds as far as the eye can see. Not today, though. Nope, today we got a touch of green on those puppies. Just a touch, mind. Ain’t like we’re going to get a whole lot of color all over, but just a touch is enough. Yep, get just a little rain out here and you get just a little green. If we got more rain, we’d be more green, but then we wouldn’t be a desert, y’understand. Then we’d be just like anyplace else, if we got enough rain. Green and trees and whatnot. But out here we don’t get much rain. That rain last week is probably all the rain we’ll get for, oh, at least a month. And this time of year is when we get any rain at all. Yep, during the summer it’s just dry as a bone, and all those tumbleweeds are brown and dry all summer long. They have to wait until it gets on into fall and winter, sometimes, before they get a little rain. But that’s when it turns green, you see, when it gets some water. Plants need it to grow, tumbleweeds no different. Ain’t nothing grows without water, not even in the desert. Nosir. Not unless it rains.

I think this place is getting to me.

So I’ve made it successfully out to Barstow (not Baker, as previously reported to some) and have started my two weeks of work. Not a whole lot to report, actually. The collect is unclassified, but they generally frown on tossing about information too freely, even if it isn’t restricted, so if you want to know about it, you can ask me, but I ain’t postin’ it up on no internet site, nosir. AAH! keep it together, Noel. You’re not a hillbilly yet.

The biggest adjustment has been the wake up time. I got up at 4 AM today, though I could have probably slept in a little bit extra. I didn’t want to have too much to do and not enough time to do it. On the plus side, I did get to see a very pretty desert sunrise, and my rigorous plan of making myself go to bed and get up early paid off, it wasn’t that hard to get moving. For the most part, everything on the project is going quite well, yay for that. And most of my days will probably consist of sitting in cars, letting equipment run and pondering the green-ness of tumbleweed. I’ll take boring success over exciting failure, though, given the choice.

Barstow isn’t bad either, considering I was in China Lake last time. Barstow actually has a population. It’s mostly still fast food joints, but at least it’s got a few healthy ones, and even a Wall Mart and a Home Depot if we need supplies and stuff. I’ve picked up a ton of food, all sitting in my room, at the moment. O’course, there’s not a whole lot of time to appreciate the city. The days may be boring but they can be pretty long, too. Nothing absurd, I don’t think, though.

So I’ll just pass the time blogging and writing e-mails to Jessie. Not much else to do, on account of the isolation.

Yup.

-N

Rachel Maddow in AK

Just in case anyone missed it, Rachel Maddow went to Anchorage to chat with Joe Miller and a few of his supporters.

You may now resume regular programming.

News from Walla Walla

It has been just a week since the trucks pulled into the driveway at our new home, first the rental truck I drove and then the pickup that Dave Berry filled carefully with fragile pictures, boxes also marked ‘fragile’ and some key plant containers.

It has been an up and down week, getting things unpacked, placed and starting the process of learning our way around a new home and a new community. I’m starting to remember which closet lights turn on from the inside right, and which turn on from the outside left, but there still plenty of habits to unlearn and new ones to acquire.

I approach home ownership a bit differently than Noel does . . . a little bit more concerned about thermostats and other devices that come with no instructions or instructions written for contractors needing to know clearance requirements and wiring diagrams.

There is a timer on the gas furnace that seems to turn on a fresh air exchange (for SIX hours a day) that cannot be adjusted other than cranking the timer around to some time zone in the EU so that it doesn’t come on at 2:00 a.m. in our time zone.

“Gas Fireplaces for Dummies” does not appear to be available in a Kindle edition yet but I’m still hoping . . . In Ballard, I took the fireplace apart, cleaned the glass and got it all back together. In WW, I did the same process, and started looking at the pilot light instructions.

The process looked the same in both places but there is a solid looking silver fixture built into the floor next to the fireplace here . . . that’s the gas control, the real estate agent had said confidently. I looked in the “stuff” drawer where the fireplace installation manual was thoughtfully left and sure enough there’s a big brass key marked “fire log valve control.”

But when I go to use the brass key on the silver valve . . . the key has a square opening and the valve in the floor is round. They do not match and I’m at a loss for how to turn the valve on the floor. I tried the pilot-lighting process anyway, and yay, the gas is already turned on, the pilot light sparks up, and when switched on, the fireplace fills the room with cheer and warmth.

Today dawned sunny and warm and we took advantage of the break from yesterday’s rain to walk a few blocks over to the nearest park. Which turns out to feel a lot like Shadle Park, with a lot of play fields, open spaces, and magnificent maple and other deciduous trees, just turning into fall colors.

I have two job interviews next week and have already been to a community meeting sponsored by a group called the “Grandmother Round Table” where a speaker described people like us as "quality of life immigrants."

I think we’re going to like it here.