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.

Later this month, a new tunnel will be opened on the outer ring road around Paris, the Volkskrant reports. At a cost of 2.4 billion euros, it is France’s most expensive tunnel ever, and supposedly also its safest ever. The full tunnel will be 10 km long; initially, only the first stretch of 4.5 km will be put to use. In order to make the tunnel as safe as possible, it will be closed for motorcycles and trucks.

Okay, so how can you only open a tunnel for half of its length? I’m not gonna drive into a 10-km tunnel if I get stuck after 4.5 km. I’m sure the tunnel actually consists of separate segments, but the newspaper article was specifically talking about “a tunnel”, not “one of two tunnels”.

On a more serious note, what’s with denying entrance to motorcycles and trucks? You know what would make this tunnel even safer? Close it for all motorized traffic! I can see how it might be a good idea to make separate lanes for cars and trucks, and to keep out trucks with highly inflammable cargo, but it seems ridiculous to just close it for all trucks.

There are certain eternal truths in baseball. Third out ends the inning, third strike is an out, and third time is a charm. After rain spoiled my debut in the Rookie League/First Division on Sunday and Wednesday, the skies remained clear tonight and I got to work my first Rookie League game. And a charm it was, even if I do say so myself. I had half a dozen or so close calls on the bases, but I was in the right position each time to see the play and make the right decision. My calls were loud and clear, and only resulted in some minor chirping, if that. Given how close some of the plays were, I’ll take that as a good sign that I came across looking as if I knew what I was doing.

In one of the early innings, I made a call at third base that got the base coach going a bit—but it turned out to be a very short discussion. With one out and a runner on third, the batter hit a hot shot right at the third baseman. He caught it on the fly for the second out, than dove to tag the bag to double up the runner. The coach immediately started yelling that the fielder had only tagged the base, and not the runner. He was right about that, but of course it didn’t matter. Runners have to return to their base when a batted ball is caught, and they’re out if the base is tagged before they return. A gentle reminder that this was a catch was all it took for the coach to quickly retreat to his dugout.

Wednesday’s game has been rescheduled for next week and I’m still assigned to work the bases. Let’s see if my First Division debut goes as smoothly as today’s game.

The third paper for my PhD thesis just got accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics. The initial referee report we received last month was pretty hostile and recommended “eventual publication but only after some substantial revisions.” Basically, the referee felt we had ignored some recent experimental results in constructing our model. We had strong reservations about the validity of those results, so we deliberately didn’t include them.

We reran some of our models with the new experimental data included, and fortunately our conclusions didn’t change. That allowed us to send in a new manuscript that only contained some small changes relative to the original one. The referee now felt we had done a good job discussing the experimental data in question, and had made a good case for not including them throughout the paper. That was enough for him or her to recommend publication.

So, that means three of the five science chapters of my thesis are now finished. The fourth one is approaching a first full draft, and the fifth one is still entirely to be written. That still leaves a lot of writing to do before the end of August, but with the CO paper now accepted, I’m an important step closer to my graduation.

For about three years now, I’ve been umpiring baseball games in the Dutch leagues. So far this has been in the Third and Second Divisions, as well as the top level of the 16-18 age group. People generally tell me I’m doing a good job, and my efforts were rewarded last week with an assignment to work a game in the Rookie League. This league is sort of what AAA is to MLB in the States. It consists of the rookie teams from the eight Hoofdklasse (the Dutch Major League) clubs. It’s a springboard for players in their late teens or early twenties to get to the highest level. In many ways, it serves the same purpose for young umpires.

My excitement over being assigned my first Rookie League game last until a few hours before game time on Sunday, when it became clear the weather was going to be a problem. I did make my way to the field, but I might as well have stayed at home. My Rookie League debut turned into a rain-out. By the time the skies cleared, the field looked like a swimming pool. No way we could play the game that night.

But not to worry… I had another debut pending. Tonight, I was supposed to work my first game in the First Division. The level of play there is similar to that in the Rookie League, being only one step below the Hoofdklasse, but it consists of teams from clubs that don’t play at the highest level. For umpires, it serves much the same purpose as the Rookie League: it’s an important step on the way to the top.

Well, the “supposed” from the previous paragraph already gave it away: my First Division debut also became a rain-out. The weather and the field conditions were as bad as on Sunday, except they were even worse tonight.

I’ve got another Rookie League assignment on Friday. It looks like it’s going to be a bit drier by then, but there’s still a fifty percent chance of rain for the day. I sure hope we’ll stay on the dry side of that 50/50 prediction, because I don’t want to go 3-for-3 in rained-out debuts.

On the plus side, I’m completely error-free so far in the Rookie League and the First Division.

[Update: The First Division game has been rescheduled for next week, and I'm again assigned as base umpire. Good weather that day would be much appreciated.]