The Nonsensical Ravings of a Lunatic Mind

Um, let's see. Had a blast this weekend. Went up to Sonoma County last weekend. Stayed at my aunt and uncle's place in Guerneville, and my grandmother and her husband (my stepgrandfather I guess you'd say, but that term never sounds quite right. I call him Harvey, for that is his name) came over for dinner. Did I mention that my aunt used to be a professional cook and my uncle is the regional manager for Whole Foods? We brought them up a flat of local strawberries, picked about two miles from our house. They were well received. Apparently the ones up there are far inferior at the moment. My point is, we ate well that night.

Sunday we met up with cblack and jonny_law in Sonoma to visit some wineries around the Glen Ellen, and Napa areas. We also did some chocolate and cheese tastings. Apparently cblack knows where to find everything within a 100 mile radius of San Jose. We got us a slab of cheese, some truffles (we brought along a cooler for that), a bottle of port and a late-harvest Reisling. I'm not usually a big fan of dessert wines, but kathleenroberts is. It was a fun trip, but it appears I prefer the wineries of northern Sonoma County (say Healdsburg, Santa Rosa) better than those of Napa. But there's no reason we can't do that again, we live close enough.

Abstract is due next week for a meeting on icy satellites. The meeting is in Boulder in August, so I may get to see some of the Boulderites if you're around. I should have enough results for the abstract, though I wouldn't relish giving a presentation on it just now. It's still awfully rough, and there are some things I don't understand. Have to check some things to make sure I didn't frak anything up and the results are real. If you've never been to LPSC, you might say that an abstract's no big deal, but LPI style abstracts are things that would be called "articles" in Nature or Science. They're two pages long and have figures and references. People actually cite them. My point is, that you've actually got to say something in them. But at least this helps you avoid the situation of submitting an abstract, and failing to get the results before the meeting.

I feel kind of bad that I've been neglecting the Wii, when there are still others who can't get hold of one. Haven't really played it since I beat Twilight Princess, because when I do have time to play videogames, I tend to play the DS because that's easy to do in short bits. I got FFXII for the PS2 like two months ago and haven't even touched it yet.

I'd best post my summary of the AGU (American Geophyscial Union) meeting before I forget too much.

It was a good meeting, but ill-timed. I'd just come there direct from a three-day workshop on Early Planetary Differentiation, so by the time the meeting started my brain was already full.

( Sunday, 10 December 2006 )

( Monday, 11 December 2006 )

( Tuesday, 12 December 2006 )

( Wednesday, 13 December 2006 )

( Thusday, 14 December 2006 )

( Friday, 15 December 2006 )

So the meetings were good, but too long. I had 8 straight days of conferences and was essentially working for 12 days straight. And LPSC abstracts are due in three weeks. I have a little work left to do before that's ready and I'll be gone all next week. I can do some work remotely, but not very productively. I took the weekend off because I needed to, whether or not it was a good idea. I needed a break. I played Twilight Princess, got my hair cut, finished X-mas shopping, macerated dried fruit for cake and made latkes matzo-ball soup with never-ending leftover Turkey. This is the last of the thigh meat.

The fruitcakes may not work. I use AB's recipe, but I add extra rum for the maceration, then add extra cider when I cook the fruit, and strain some of the liquid out to make a sauce before adding in the dry goods. I did not however, write this step down anywhere. kathleenroberts is home sick today (I think the latkes provided more grease than she's accustomed to eating lately). She went to bake the cakes for me, but of course never knew about my modification. As a result, the batter's too thin. There's an extra pint of rum in there. We're going to bake them anyway to see what happens. The batter's in the pans already. Can't hurt to try. If it doesn't work, there's still plenty of rum left. We'll just have to get some more fruit.

Most of the work that needs to be done is for the CPU, not for me. I basically wrote this huge entry in spurts over the course of four hours at work while the shorter calcs were running. The rest will be longer (half a day each), and I'll be revising the Icarus paper while that's happening.