Back in October, when I defended my thesis, I had tea and coffee with a few guests in the university’s Faculty Club prior to the start of the ceremony. The waiter said he had my contact details, so rather than paying directly, they would send me the bill to be paid at a later date. Several months passed without anything arriving, and I sort of figured they’d simply forgotten.

But lo and behold, the bill arrived at my home address while I was in the US. The invoice was dated December 31st (a good two months after the defense) and payment was requested by Thursday January 14th. I left for the US on Sunday the 17th, but as I said, it was only while I was gone that the bill actually arrived.

Also in the two-and-a-half weeks’ worth stack of mail this morning was a stern reminder from the Faculty Club that I hadn’t paid yet. Well, how did they expect me to pay a bill by January 14th if I haven’t received it by that time? Indeed, the postal stamp on the bill reads January 13th. In fact, that only reflects when the Faculty Club passed it to the university’s post office. From there it must have taken another day or two to get it to the Dutch postal services, because when I left on the 17th, I hadn’t received anything yet.

If it takes the Faculty Club almost three weeks to get an invoice delivered to the relevant party, perhaps it is a tad unreasonable to expect payment within two weeks of the invoice date. The stern reminder is equally ludicrous. It took them over two months to actually prepare the invoice, and then they apparently sat on it for another two weeks before sending it out. Surely there’s no hurry in getting the money, is there? Right, so take a hike with your bloody reminder.

The second batch of pictures from my US tour is up for viewing (or at Picasa Web). This batch covers the Los Angeles area, including Hollywood Boulevard, Dodger Stadium, Beverly Hills, Topanga and Malibu Creek State Parks, and Santa Monica.

I’ve put the first batch of pictures from my US tour online, covering Austin and Phoenix. Click here to view them within my website, or here to view them at Picasa Web Albums. I didn’t take any pictures in Ann Arbor, so you’ll have to take my word for it that it has a very handsome campus and downtown area. No pictures from the Grand Canyon either, because today’s tour got cancelled due to all the snow and closed roads around Flagstaff.

Following a beautiful morning in Austin, TX (sunny, 20+ °C), I flew into a major storm in Phoenix, AZ. For a while, it actually looked like I wasn’t flying into Phoenix at all, given the weather conditions. But we did, so I got to experience what it feels to land in 25 mph crosswinds, with gusts up to 35 mph. Not too much fun, I’ll tell you.

From the airport to the hotel, I shared a shuttle with two guys whose flights out of Phoenix got cancelled. Indeed, inbound and outbound flights got cancelled all over the board. Mine was one of the few that still got in this afternoon. The shuttle driver had been watching incoming flights for a while, and had seen many aborted landings. Made me feel good that we touched down on the first attempt.

I’m in my hotel now, comfortably sheltered against the wind and rain, and watching the news on tv. They’re calling it the storm of the century; given that it’s the worst storm since at least 1993, that moniker is correct, albeit a tad premature. Phoenix is getting record amounts of rain, apparently the most in a single day since people started keeping track. Further north, the city of Flagstaff is getting a feet or two of snow. Elsewhere, the abundant precipitation is causing floods, and that’s expected to get worse over the next few days.

I was going to go on a bus tour to the Grand Canyon tomorrow, but it’s exceedingly unlikely that that will still happen. Authorities are strongly advising people not to travel. If the tour company decides to go on with the tour, I’ll assume it’s safe enough and I’ll go. If they cancel, I guess I’ll be stuck in my hotel for a day, because I’m sure as hell not gonna rent a car and go anywhere on my own. It’s too bad I’ll miss out on the Grand Canyon, but that’s the way life is sometimes.

My tradition of visiting the United States in January continues into the new decade. As the years pass, the number of destinations increases. In 2008, the business part of the trip only included Granville, OH. Last year, I also visited Columbus, OH and Ann Arbor, MI. This time, the two Ohio destinations are replaced by four new places: Austin, TX; Pasadena, CA; Cambridge, MA; and Washington, DC. I’ll also have a day and a half in Phoenix, AZ, but no business will be done there – the result of some logistical issues in planning the whole deal.

The purpose of this trip? To present my research at some of the top US astronomy institutes, and to talk about the possibilities for a postdoc position somewhere.

I’m off to a good start, with a pleasant flight from Amsterdam to Detroit (insofar as sitting in a cramped seat for 8.5 hours is ever pleasant), a quick transfer to my hotel in Ann Arbor, and a comfortable room in that hotel. Following the Christmas incident, security prior to boarding was tighter than ever. No body scan yet, but a full pat-down for every passenger, more stringent passport control, and a brief interrogation as to the purpose of the trip. The flight itself was unremarkable, except that it struck me as odd that the window shutters were closed almost the whole time. I don’t recall that being the case in 2008 and 2009.

Once out of the airport in Detroit, it was clear that I was in the US. The half-hour drive from the airport to Ann Arbor runs through the typical urban sprawl, with an overabundance of asphalt, billboards, gas stations and food courts. The hotel (Quality Inn & Suites, just off the US23 highway) is anonymous, but the girl at the reception was friendly, the room looks fine, and there’s free wi-fi.

I’ll be at the University of Michigan for the next day and a half, with a talk scheduled for Tuesday. I had a great time at UMich last year, and I look forward to repeating that experience.

My two Foggy Forest pictures are in the top five of most viewed items on this website. Thanks to a website called Jigsaw Planet, you can now play both of them as an online jigsaw puzzle. You can upload any image on that website and have it cut into puzzle pieces, which is exactly what I did. To play either puzzle, click on one of the images below.

   

Yesterday, I caught part of a television quiz between two kids of around 11 years old. One of the questions was on the topic of blue blood:

What is true about blue blood?
A. It does not exist.
B. It is blood containing no oxygen.
C. Only noble people have it.

The first kid answered A. Sounds about right, I’d say. But no, the quiz host said, that was the wrong answer. The turn then went to the other kid, who offered a hesitant B. “Correct!” the host said. “Blood containing oxygen is red, blood without oxygen is blue. You can see this from the blue colour of the veins in your hands and arms.” Well, yes, your veins do look more blue than red, but that’s because the true colour of the blood is masked by several layers of tissue. Also, the “oxygen-rich is red, oxygen-poor is blue” scheme is how it’s drawn in biology textbooks, but in reality all human blood really is quite red. Has this quiz master guy never had a wound, or what?

I’ve got a date for my PhD defense: Wednesday October 21st at 3pm. It’s a strange idea: in less than two months, I’ll be a doctor.

It’s a Friday night and the weather’s nice. There’s still a ton of work to do on the last chapter for my thesis, but not right now. Instead, I grabbed my camera and biked over to a little marshy area north of town to. There was a family of swans chilling in the last light of day. They didn’t mind my company, so I could do a bunch of nice close-ups.

The rest of the pictures are here.

There was definitely no shortage of offense in the game I was umpiring today between Zwijndrecht and RCH/Pinguïns. I didn’t get the total number of hits, but it must have been at least forty. Zwijndrecht slugged five homeruns, and RCH/Pinguïns sent another three balls over the fence. Two of the Zwijndrecht longballs came on back-to-back pitches, and the two starting pitchers each hit a homerun.

The game was tied at 14-14 going into the eight inning. The visiting RCH/Pinguïns seemed to strike the decisive blow in their next two turns at bat, climbing out to 16-14 in the eight and to 19-14 in the top of the ninth. They had every chance to keep the lead, but a couple of defensive miscues and the eight homerun of the day allowed the home team to come back to 19-19. But the Zwijndrecht rally didn’t end there—with one out and runners on first and second, their next better sent a grounder up the middle for a walk-off single. Final score: 20-19. That’s not one you see every week.