Family, Friends, FOOD!

We made it back safely to Tucson about 22 hours ago - a real letdown after the excitement of the trip north! Just your boring non-stop 3.5 hour trip home. We were home about 11, I was at work by 8am, and Melinda is at work now.

We had a great trip, but it was WAY too short. After being away for 6 months, 4 days was just not long enough. Today at work, Kirk asked if we had the famous Chicago-style pizza. No, there just wasn't time to eat everything, but do you notice that when you catch up with friends and family, it usually involves eating, and we certainly did plenty of that. Here are the memorable experiences...


I already posted about the cookout at Maj and Jeff's Sunday. Late Monday afternoon we met them again at Rookies, with Carolyn, her daughter Ann and Ann's husband Pete joining us. Rookies is great - diverse menu, always a Cub's game on if they are playing, and good quality beer on tap. What else could you want? We've got favorites on their menu, but certain times of the year, they run a loss-leader - $1 hamburgers! It might have been Pete's first time there - he didn't know about the dollar burgers - "how much of deal can that be?" he asked... Well, everyone got one, cooked their way, so he caved and got one too. They really are a great deal - here is a pic of mine - a half pound burger, for a buck, extras optional... By the time you add a chunk of cheese, and a side of fries, you are up to $4, but with a side of jalapenos and a pint of fine microbrew for $8 total, you can't beat that with a stick! Maj, Jeff, and Melinda really enjoy the all-you-can-eat snow crab for $24 on Saturday. They also have great ribs, and the pizza is good too.

Tuesday afternoon, we had arranged to meet some of my family in western Illinois. Sister Linda lives in Morrison and is a convenient nearly midway point between us in St Charles, and sister Kathy near Bennett, IA. Brother Brian also joined us with his daughter Cejae. We had talked about going out for Chinese food, or pizza, or someplace local to avoid cooking with everyone working, but Linda stepped up and fixed a buffet line, with baked sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, and the masterpiece - burgers, thick ham steaks and smoked pork chops Ala son Mitchell. I don't think I've had ham that good since living back on the farm - you could cut it with your fork! And cooking it on the grill really made it tasty. That was a memorable meal!


Monday after our Rookies excursion, Melinda dropped in at her former place of employment to surprise her working buddies. She wanted to get a box of doughnuts, but evidently, St Charles has gone healthy - Krispy Kreme is out of business, and Dunkin' was long closed at 10:30 when she was out searching... Anyway, she had a great visit catching up, staying till after 1am, and made plans with good friend Rita for breakfast on Wednesday at Colonial. Colonial is the descendant of a local dairy that serves great breakfasts and short orders (and ice cream), and is a popular place for the nurses to meet after a shift. I'm fond of the pumpkin pancakes they serve in the fall... Anyway, Rita had talked to another nurse, Karen, who had been unable to attend Melinda's going-away party last fall, so she also joined us to catch up. Maj tagged along too to maximize time with sister Melinda.

Wednesday was our last day, the plans being that we would meet Carolyn for lunch, but after our Colonial breakfast and all the other meals the previous few days, no one was hungry, so Carolyn came out to the house and watched the 3-ring circus of home improvement. Tuesday Maj and Melinda had gone out shopping for blinds for the sun room, knowing in their minds exactly what they wanted. Maj had been doing so much work on the house, we felt guilty missing out, so with Carolyn's "supervision", Maj, Melinda and I hung a couple blinds on the side of the room that Maj had painted windows. After a couple false starts and less than a dozen holes that can be easily caulked back up, we paused to feed Carolyn an English muffin w/peanut butter. The girls finally left us to finish laundry and packing for our return, and Melinda got to enjoy some rain showers there - likely won't rain again in Tucson until July!


Like I said, a trip that was entirely too short, but we've already got plans for late June/July that is already looking to be as busy as this this one was. But it will always be nice to go back...

Good News, Bad News...

The good news is that we made it safely to St Charles! The bad news is that it was an adventure getting here and we had a new experience - sleeping in an airport!

It all started with the classic weather scenario - bad weather in Dallas-Ft Worth (DFW) causing a chain reaction in air traffic across the country. But unfortunately, our flight to Chicago was to connect THROUGH Dallas. Besides the plane arriving an hour late into Tucson, DFW ground control kept us on the tarmac in Tucson until the storm had passed there, so we finally took off about 2 hours late. We, of course, were concerned about our connecting flight, but hope it was also delayed so we could continue on. Well, the storms reformed over DFW, closing the airport again, so after circling in central Texas for a while, we got diverted to Austin to refuel and wait further for the storm. Some had enough and chose to exit in Austin, without checked luggage and any further commitment from American Airlines (AA) to reach their destination, and it wasn't 10 minutes after they departed that the pilot announced we were taking off again, finally reaching DFW about 12:15 am, about 7 hours late. Oh - our connecting flight? While in the air over Austin, both of us had gotten cell messages from AA that that leg had been cancelled...

Once in DFW, Melinda got the AA re-booking desk on the phone (a number we had to get from a gate attendant). We both had been re-booked on to Chicago the next morning but because our last names were different (Melinda was using frequent-flier miles under her maiden name) we were on different flights. She got us on the same plane, leaving at 6:30am to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, then 3 hours later on a connecting flight to Chicago. We had called my sister-in-law Susan who lives in Dallas about possibly staying with them if we were stuck for any length of time - turns out my Mother-in-law was also flying in that very night, though the storm delayed her somewhat too, she arrived an hour before us. We had the invite to join them, but with our flight leaving in 5 hours, chose to ride it out at the airport.

Let me tell you - sleeping at the airport isn't all it is cracked up to be! Yes there are cots available - but they are not much more comfortable that the carpeted floor, but in our spot, the floor was wet from roof leaks from the storm. Of course, all the food areas are shut down, so there is no food available, though there were restrooms a short amble away. I was horizontal for a while, but between the full lights, the 55 degree temperature, and the TV on in the background, sleep was fleeting. Thankfully, Melinda got a couple hours - she had gotten on the plane after a work shift and only an hour nap before we left Tucson.

We got up early, verified our bags were still checked into Chicago and stopped at McDonalds (the only place open at 5am), then boarded for Cedar Rapids! I think we both napped on that leg of the trip, but coming down over farmland woke us up as we were about to land. When we got in, we saw there was a flight to Chicago leaving in less than an hour and asked if we could get on that flight rather than wait 3 hours to ours. Turns out there was only one seat available, but we got on standby, and magically, we got on, so got into O'Hare at about 10:15 - only 12 hours after our original schedule. The picture at left is our view of the Mississippi - at center is Sabula, "Iowa's only Island City" near where my Aunt Velma lives! Savanna, Illinois is at far left.

We got the rental car and got to our "summer cottage" we've not seen in 6 months. What a transformation! Melinda's sister Maj has been busy with home improvements pretty much since the day we've left, it appears. There was not a room untouched by her efforts, from painting, plumbing, duct work in the furnace room, ceiling work, and roof reinforcement in the guest room where there was some rotted supports. It was just amazing! Pictures to come in the near future!

We showered and changed, and headed over to Maj and Jeff's place for an afternoon cookout. We also picked up friend Carolyn to join us, and sister Susan also came by. It was a tearful reunion, as we've not seen them since we left for Tucson in October. Besides our house by the river, Maj had been busy on their place as well, and we got a tour of their basement which was mostly unfinished last time we saw it. Their place is mostly done, though, and since the work on our cottage is never-ending, she continues work on ours! She is quite the resource to marry into!

The cookout was great, and it was fun catching up with all the sisters. Carolyn is considered a full family member and I think of her as Melinda's third sister! Picture at left shows Carolyn, Melinda, Susan and Maj. We finally got home about 8 and I was just about walking into walls like a drunk without the benefit of alcohol, so crashed by 9. Melinda was working on the computer trying to reset the key to the router (obviously was successful, as here we are blogging!). She is up now too, so it is time to get out and enjoy springtime in St Charles. More later!

Travelin' Shoes...

In a few hours, Melinda and I will be heading up to the western suburbs of Chicago for an all-too-brief visit. It has been 6 months (!) since coming down to Tucson and it is about time for her to see her sisters once again. It is not like they couldn't come down here to see us this winter (who wouldn't want to visit family in Tucson in January?), but it just didn't happen this year. So until Melinda returns to work on Thursday, forward your thoughts to St Charles, where we hear the sky is blue and temps are in the 60s. Unfortunately, the extended forecast says Tucson will be perilously close to breaking 100F upon our return - that will be a shock!

Details, Details, or WhatsDeanDoing.com!

I've not blogged about the Mirror Lab in an age, so after this, you will officially be up to date! It has been over 2 months (!) since last blogging about the Large Synoptic Survey telescope (LSST). We at the Mirror Lab (Steward Observatory Mirror Lab ) are working on the primary mirror fabrication, and since the last post on 20 February, we've finished the backplate generation to the proper thickness, edged the mirror to the proper outer and inner diameter, polished edges and fine ground the bevels and boss reference surfaces. All that is left before loose abrasive grinding and polishing is to machine 24 of the backplate holes for stress relief.

The LSST Telescope is unlike any other telescope in a number of ways. The most important point for the tasks at hand is that after the brief sky exposures, the telescope has only a few seconds to reposition to it's new location in the sky as the previous exposure downloads from the 3.2 gigapixels. The potentially large sky movements in a few seconds puts huge loads and stresses into the telescope and mirror, and as a result, the hard points defining the mirror position must be as strong and stress-free as possible. A mill head has been mounted to the Large Optical Generator (LOG), and with an assortment of diamond tools we are attacking the backplate. The crew and I are going through the 6 areas where the hard points will be mounted, cleaning up the as-cast backplate holes and generating radii into the extra-thick cast backplate (for extra strength). With 6 locations and 4 backplate holes per location, and several hours per hole, nearly a couple weeks will be required for this work before moving on to conventional grinding and polishing of the rear surface.

The coolest part is that they've installed a webcam to either monitor progress or keep an eye on the employees! You can check in to see what is happening real time in the lab by going here. You should see an image update every 2 seconds. I'm currently working 6am till something after noon (Mountain Standard), at which time the second shift comes in till about 8pm. Of course, most everyone is off weekends, and I'll also be gone early next week with Melinda for a short Midwest trip. But do check in and at least wave to me if I'm there working hard!

Buds and Blossoms

As the Arizona cactus flowering season continues, I've been keeping an eye out for interesting blossoms. I've mentioned before in these posts (check here for the 5 April post, or here for the 9 April post) that the flowers only last a day in the heat and dryness. While a large, branching cacti may have enough buds to flower for a week or two, some only have one or two buds, so you've got to have good timing to catch them! Anyway, here are a few of the recent photogenic results.

I'm not sure why this prickly pear appeals to me so much - probably because the pads are so small and cute. Images of the pads and buds have appeared in both the above posts, but finally the spreading bush of this cactus is finally flowering (it is mostly in shade, so is a little slower than those in the sun). Some pads only have flower buds on them and some have new pads AND buds. The large pads here are about 10cm (4") across, so buds, flowers and the new pads are tiny!



This is another prickly pear behind my neighbor Leenie and Mike's house. In all my years here, I've never seen a cactus quite like this (I need to get a book!). Huge thorns protruding from nodule-like bumps. These flower buds appeared a couple weeks ago, and I'll be watching for them to pop out soon.











This gorgeous flower is from a potted hedgehog cactus in the backyard of neighbor Jack (with the Cereus cacti flower post of 24 April). The hedgehog name generically applies to a large number of cacti species, but locally, if you see the bright cup-shape flowers, that is the name that you use. I've seen these at 7,000 feet elevation at Kitt Peak when I worked there decades ago growing out of seemingly solid rock. And of course, they are common to the desert floor as well.







This cholla (pronounced choy-ya) cactus has also made a previous appearance in our posts above, though the first time for the blossom. I remember years ago when I got a book on Arizona flowers that the ONLY green flower in the book was from the cholla cactus. And while not precisely not a green flower, it is definitely on the green side of yellow. But even if they are not a showy desert bloom, the bees still seem to find them, and the big bushy plant, over 2 meters (80") tall, has seemingly an endless supply of new ones every day.





The last image of today is actually from a mistreated Bishop's Cap cactus in our back yard - potted over a decade ago and rarely watered (and mostly under the eave of the house to boot!), it is the last survivor of the pot, yet every month or so in the Spring it sends out a set of buds with small 2cm (.75") diameter flowers. Melinda wants to reward it with a replanting in the front of the house - who knows how it would respond to some reasonable treatment!

A Friendly Native

While scouting the trail head of the Finger Rock Canyon area yesterday looking for some IR photos to take, I ran across this fellow. I've tried to image lizards lately, but they are always too fast for me - just as I push the shutter release, they are typically on their way at a high rate of speed. But this guy was much slower, and larger (and brightly colored) than those in the back yard (perhaps the cats have eaten all the slow ones!). I thought for a bit that he might have been someones pet, because I could get my hand to within a few inches. But I wasn't quite motivated enough to catch it, and I was content to grab a couple frames. It looked to be at least 30cm (12 inches) long, mostly tail. From the description and other photos on various websites, it appears to be a native, not a pet, likely an Eastern Collared Lizard, Crotaphytus collaris. Tucson is on the edge of it's range, tending towards rocky woodland areas, which certainly describes the edge of the Catalina Mountains where found. He was certainly a beauty - I'll need to keep an eye out in the future!

A New Window On The Universe - IR!

I've been a bit of an infrared (IR) nut since I started doing photography in high school. Infrared light is just past our limit of visibility in the red part of the spectrum. By using a red-transmitting filter and infrared sensitive film (generally available till a few years ago), you could record some interesting effects, that we'll get into in a few minutes.

As digital imaging came into popularity and film use slipped a few years ago, many scientific and special-use films disappeared, including IR. Fortunately, the new digital sensors had some sensitivity in the infrared band which was generally bad for normal imaging, and is filtered out. Some had a "red leak" where the filter still passed some IR - my first digital camera, a Sony, could be used with an IR filter and LONG exposures of .5 second or so. Here is a shot of Melinda in her pre-engagement days in her tie-dye t-shirt and sunglasses. Note the IR image loses the shirt color, as well as the tinting in the sunglasses! My newer Canon cameras didn't have a similar red leak, so were not able to be used for IR.





But where there is a need, there is a solution! There are cottage industries showing up to remove the normal IR blocking filter in the new digital cameras and replacing them with clear or specialty filters. Amateur astronomers for several years have been modifying cameras to better transmit the red hydrogen wavelength to better show gas clouds in space. Similarly there are also folks who can install the IR transmitting filters. Jim Chen, of San Diego was recommended by a friend, and after finding a used, reconditioned Canon 20D camera on E-bay, sent it off to him for modification. It came back the other day and I've been having fun with IR! So what Jim does is change the normal filter in front of the sensor with a deep red (almost black) filter that transmits light just beyond the range of vision. The advantage of this over using a clear filter over the sensor, and an IR filter over the lens is that you would not be able to focus and compose with an IR filter - the field would be pitch black. The viewfinder looks normal, auto focus and auto-exposure still works fine, but you get the full IR effect.

Some of the effects you get with IR - since the clear sky is blue, it is quite dark in the infrared part of the spectrum. So the sky is dark, while live vegetation is brightly reflective, or white. Many dyes used in clothes and paints do not reflect well beyond red, so results can be unexpected. A stop sign will not show the "stop" printing. As above, tie dye and sunglasses some out uncolored. When viewing long distances, small atmospheric particles scatter light in the blue -longer IR wavelengths are less affected, so better visibility results. Check out Jim Chen's site for more results, or Google "IR Photography" - I just got 56.5 million hits! Well, that is good for an intro - here are some IR-visible comparison pictures taken this afternoon near the trail head of Finger Rock at the top of Alvernon.