Casey ex Australia

Avalanche safety course

2012-01-31T20:41:00.001+11:00

Last weekend some members of the Caltech Alpine Club drove to Mammoth Mountain, a dormant volcano and super duper skiing resort only 5 hours drive from Pasadena. On arrival we set up sleeping arrangements in a somewhat stacked condo, then settled back in the jacuzzi to watch the stars overhead, blow steam, throw snowballs, and attempt conversation in Czech.

Next day the course began, which involved a lot of talking and a fair amount of moving snow from place to play to try and identify layers, weaknesses, and potential instabilities. In the afternoon we shifted to search and rescue training, which involved using beacons to find other buried beacons, probing, a fair amount of innuendo, and occasionally getting stabbed. Probes are a lot less sharp than they look!

That evening we chilled back at the chalet, ate some dinner, watched the x-games at Aspen on TV (not enough crashes), and eventually went to sleep. Next morning it was back to the mountain. I'd traded in my sandals for snow boots and shoes, and finally gave my new jacket the run it had been looking for. I spent a fair amount of time experimenting with different ways to configure gear to try and take the edge of my n00biness next time we go alpine climbing!

Sunday too consisted in large part of digging holes in the snow and trying to break it into large chunks in a semi-regular way. The afternoon involved a more realistic beacon and probe search over a hectare or so. Finding a buried beacon is somewhat harder than a person, as they're not very big! None the less we managed to consistently extract the burials within 15 minutes.

That afternoon I set up my camera on the rear view mirror of M's car and did an epic time lapse of the drive home - a public version is coming home. I also did some time lapses of sunsets and stars, one spin-off of which (ha!) is in the album. Which album? Read on!

Only 5 hours after leaving Mammoth we returned to the mothership, where I was just in time to catch the last half of FD rehearsal and memorise a few new songs. In other news an undergrad attempted to emulate my photo of semi-transparency in front of the city of LA, and wound up getting winched off the mountain by helicopter early Saturday morning, though without injury!

Photos from Mammoth: https://picasaweb.google.com/105494084231616659850/AvalancheSafetyCourse

Sister comes to the US of A

2012-01-29T15:59:00.002+11:00

This is a rather late and thus rather short account of a visit to the USA of my sister A.

I collected A early one morning from LAX, and she and I spent five days exploring Pasadena, hanging with my friends, climbing the mountain and shopping.

In due course we flew to New York, where we were joined by our brother M to see The Book of Mormon on Broadway, which was well received! We also explored much of the island, hung out with friends, and got a dose of culture.

First, museums. We started with medieval chess pieces at the Cloisters and finished at the Met, with everything else in between. We admired the pipe organs of St Ignatius Loyola and St John the Divine. We saw an improvised musical comedy, two operas (Faust and La Fille du Regiment), and took a train out to Coney Island.

We spent Christmas eve with my friend J's family, and New Years Eve with M in New Haven, chilling in the hospital and on the historic Yale campus.

All too soon it was time to pack our bags and head for our respective homes. One more flight across the geological wonderland of the western US, and A continued to Australia.

Next day I was back in class, to start the winter term.

More recently my friend S was in town and we tackled Echo Mountain in under 4 hours. Not bad for 23km in the dark.

Photos of A. Photos from Echo Mountain.

Surprise trip to Australia

2011-12-12T16:17:00.001+11:00

In possibly the most expensive prank I pulled in 2011, I snuck back to Australia last week. Without telling my mother, sister, or grandparents I flew into Sydney the day of my sister's speech day (high school graduation). I found everyone drinking coffee nearby about 45 minutes before proceedings got underway, and relished the look of surprise on their faces.

The ceremony itself was, as usual, 99.9% other peoples' relatives walking across the stage, but in the end A nabbed four major prizes, so we were all very proud of her! Lunch under the Sydney harbour bridge followed.

That minor subterfuge aside, the rest of the week in the antipodes was spent catching up with friends, mainly at Sydney university, and mainly in pouring rain. Naming names in the usual initial fashion would be boring even by the standards of my blog, so I'll leave it to the photo album! Suffice to say it was terrific to catch up with gazillions of people - only a small handful had the excessive forethought to be out of the country or city at the time. Next time, peoples! You are warned.

I also took a moment to get my father shod in cutting edge vibram toe shoes, which I hope will help him walk under load more efficiently, in preparation for an impending Everest attempt about which he does not yet know... I also visited my ancestral stamping grounds on the coast, and more recently in Newtown - in both cases the situation was soggy with nostalgia, as well as the afore mentioned inclement weather.

All too soon it was time to throw my nerdy teeshirts back into my bag and head for (new) home, back in Pasadena. I was fortunate (my work less so) to have a functioning entertainment system on both legs of the flight - a first!

Photos can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/105494084231616659850/Australia2011

M visits Pasadena

2011-12-10T23:31:00.001+11:00

Early last Sunday morning I dragged myself out of bed to stand by the road in the chilly morning air. After a short wait, who should step out of a shiny blue van but M, my brother who I had not seen in more than a year. He was on his way to do a two month endocrinology surgery placement at Yale, and kindly agreed to stop on the way.

Photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/105494084231616659850/MInCalifornia

After a short rest to unpack, relax, and begin the process of desecrating my room, T took us to the Huntington gardens and library for lunch. M seemed to appreciate the understated opulence of the place, which looked terrific on this crisp sunny day. We visited most of the gardens and headed for home, taking in the fall colours and neighbourhood. A quick siesta was followed by dinner and rehearsal.

Monday called for some serious cold weather clothes shopping, culminating in methodical raids of every department store between Lake St and Arcadia! I myself picked up a fine dark green skiing/mountaineering jacket. We sampled the caltech cafeteria for lunch, and that evening M cooked dinner and we duly conquered Echo Mountain. 26km was dispatched with barely a whimper; I also took the opportunity to test my new camera in dark conditions. I'm tempted to try a yellow filter to reduce light pollution, but it was otherwise excellent.

Tuesday brought mainly work, followed by an FD rehearsal that M attended, through frantic prep for a concert on Friday. On Wednesday we walked into old town Pasadena, saw the cheese cake factory and the museum of east asian art, as well as the rather impressive town hall visible in CBS' hit show The Big Bang Theory. That evening there was a huge windstorm that resulted in damage to nearly every tree in Pasadena.

An early morning walk revealed the extent of the carnage, with power out and roads blocked in every direction. I hired a car and we drove up highway 2, the Angeles Crest Highway. M remarked on the steepness of the geologically young mountain range, and before long we were in Palmdale, found the local track of the San Andreas fault, performed the usual rituals, and located a place for lunch. Lunch? In-n-Out burgers. While a far cry from my badly missed burgerfuel, it gave M a taste of American cuisine.

From there the Aerospace highway took us north through the Mojave desert, to California City. A city designed to rival Los Angeles had roads and land surveyed for at least 100,000 people, but noone ever moved there. Today 14,000 inhabitants are lightly scattered about an enormous and barely used central park, complete with a large, duck-inhabited artificial lake.

In the day's dying light we zoomed north to the Red Rock Canyon national park, at the beginning of the Owens Valley. The setting sun blended with the natural rock formations, and after a quick jaunt through the day's frigid winds we turned around for home.

On Friday we picked up some amazing sandwiches from Roma Deli, then headed to Eaton Canyon with T and S. Many trees had fallen victim to Wednesday's winds, making for some interesting balancing problems. At the waterfall we climbed on the rocks a bit, tested my new geology hammer, then headed for home. I got dressed up, picked up some friends from Fluid Dynamics, then drove to Cal State, where we performed a few songs (Look Around, Don't Know Why, Break Even), then drove home. I started packing, then crashed on the floor, M having already grabbed the bed.

On Saturday we dusted the car, went fail-shopping for a warm hat, ate some left over food, then caught a bus to the airport. Why would I go to the airport? Stay tuned.

Overall a crazy busy week to catch up with my brother I hadn't seen in 15 months. We saw most of what Pasadena had to offer, with the exception of the insides of one's eyelids.

Dispatches from the cultural front: Laszlo Fassang plays organ at Walt Disney Hall

2011-12-02T17:25:00.001+11:00

Dispatches from the cultural front: Laszlo Fassang plays organ at Walt Disney Hall

Last Sunday noted Hungarian organist Laszlo Fassang gave a recital at Walt Disney Hall in downtown LA, and I was fortunate enough to be in attendance. A former student of Olivier Latry at Notre-Dame de Paris (himself due to give a recital here on February the 19th) Fassang has distinguished himself over the last decade in both recital and improvisation. Organ improvisation is an art going back centuries, even millennia to the origins of the precursor instrument, the hydraulis, in Ancient Greece. In particular, several Parisien churches and organs have dynastic compositional and improvisational traditions stretching back to perhaps the greatest organ builder of all time, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, who revolutionised the capabilities of the instrument contemporaneously with the French romantic period. At Église Saint-Sulpice, there were Widor and Dupré; at Notre-Dame de Paris, Vierne was followed by Cochereau, Lefebvre, and Latry; at Église_de_la_Madeleine tenured organists included Lefébure-Wély, Saint-Saëns, Dubois, and Fauré; at Basilique Ste-Clotilde there were Franck, Pierné, Tournemire, and Langlais. More familiar artists from this period include Chopin and Liszt, both of whom also wrote for the pipe organ.

As I had recently attended the recital of Cameron Carpenter, I was already familiar with the rather formidable capabilities of the instrument we have here in Los Angeles, and anticipated the program with excitement bordering on pathological. Fassang opted to play a series of pieces based on the B-A-C-H theme (B-flat, A, C, B in modern notation), used as a musical signature in hundreds of J.S. Bach's own compositions, and providing a narrative for a journal through a few hundred years of subsequent musical thought and invention. Serendipitously, Fassang began his recital with the same piece as Carpenter, the Bach Toccata and Fugue in F Major, BWV 540. Unlike Carpenter, Fassang played it in its original key, and did a reasonable though not spectacular job of warming up both the instrument, the crowd and himself.

Following the requisite sacrifice to the unimpeachable master of organ repertoire and probably music in general, Fassang left Bach and wisely skipped the renaissance period entirely. Next up was Schumann; Four Fugues on B-A-C-H, from Op. 60. With a shift in texture from polyphonic to symphonic, Fassang's Hungarian- and French-trained musical sensibilities could come to the fore. He began by explaining that he was playing the pieces out of their numerical order for the sake of musical cohesion, a choice which also helped place them in the context of the entire recital.

Rounding out the first half was Reger's Fantasy and Fugue on B-A-C-H, Op. 46. Although he died young, Reger was a profilic composer and musical experimenter. Though music had moved more than two centuries since Bach, his musical signature continued to inspire musical geniuses everywhere, and in tandem with the extraordinary versatility of more modern pipe organs, this piece was a quarter-hour of grinding counterpoint, symphonic texture and musical flow plucked by Fassang from the roaring instrument with dexterity and taste.

Following an intermission in which to catch our breath, we were treated to a rather rare performance of Liszt's gargantuan work Fantasy and Fugue on the Chorale "Ad nos, as salutarem undam", adapted from Meyerbeer's opera Le prophète. Composed as a private meditation by Liszt during his pilgrimage in Weimar in 1850, it was eventually published despite almost nil demand for such a challenging work, and received its premiere performance five years later. Composed of three sections and lasting almost half an hour, it abounds with musical contrasts and is epic in scope. While perhaps not as coherent or consistent as the archetype recording done at the Sydney Town Hall Grand Organ (Hill & Son 1886-89, 5m., 127 sp. st., tubular-pneumatic/Barker lever) by David Drury in 1993, Fassang nevertheless contended stoically with the herculean difficulties presented by the piece and in the end triumphed to rapturous and well-deserved applause.

While Fassang took a short break to mop his brows, he was approached by a member of the crew carrying a basket of papers. During intermission, audience members had written suggestions for themes on which to base the final item of the program, a hotly anticipated organ improvisation. Several members of the audience drew the raffle, Fassang read the results and placed the slips of paper on the console music stand. Organ improvisation is an anachronous art, surviving despite its death in the classical performance of nearly every other musical instrument. Creativity and coordination combine to mix musical ideas old and new, construct a coherent piece of music, and perform it in real time. For those who love to watch figure skaters crash, there is a certain nail-biting element here also, since one misplaced finger or toe can be all it takes to destroy a musical line developed over seconds or minutes. Fortunately Fassang combined a generous dose of natural talent and study with the best in the business to deliver a quarter hour every bit as interesting as a meticulously and laboriously constructed piece of music. It is no secret in organ circles either that many of the most famous pieces of music were initially improvised, then later recorded or transcribed.

Fassang gave one encore, on the theme of the Walt Disney Concert Organ, in which he got an opportunity to show off some of the more unique aspects of the instrument, including bells and other percussive stops, weaving the whole lot together into the musical equivalent of a braided sausage: consistently textured, meaty, rich, and topologically non-trivial.

Denizens of LA are fortunate to have both such a spectacular instrument and a well organised celebrity recital schedule to make use of it. I look forward to future recitals with the sort of interest I ordinarily reserve for free food and pass/fail grading.

Ge 136 field trip to Baja California, Mexico

2011-11-16T21:14:00.001+11:00

Last term Caltech ran a geology enrichment field trip to the grand canyon in Arizona, which was a pretty extraordinary experience, and a wonderful opportunity to learn stuff beyond your usual specialty. For that trip I gave a talk on the mechanics of river incision, an important erosive mechanism. The previous trip was to have been to Baja California in Mexico, but at the last minute had changed due to concerns over the situation in Mexico. Statistically speaking, of course, you're much more likely to be shot in Arizona than in Baja, but at least then you'd be supporting American made weaponry. Headlines aside, Baja is actually much safer (even including Tijuana) than Los Angeles, but that's not very difficult! Headlines not aside, dozens upon dozens of executed, beheaded, and kidnapping/ransom victims hit the papers every week. Deaths in the 'war on drugs' are well in the five figures, not that far behind civilian casualties in Iraq, and over a shorter period. So it was with some trepidation that I, as usual, set aside my emotional concerns and fear and approached the issue statistically. Never-the-less, I packed light in case of robbery or misadventure!

Photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/105494084231616659850/MexicoGe136FieldTrip

Videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKUClqEFU5k

At 6pm we met at the Arms geology loading dock. To get there, one walks through the elevated front door of the Arms building on the Rose walk at Caltech. In the entrance foyer are several large rock samples, including a large volcanic bomb. Turning to the left the curve of the staircase mimics the spirals of the diagram of the geological ages on the wall (something like: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-D2BeFP6a7w8/Tm8d9CSNpxI/AAAAAAAACfY/_-QQYjyJ8Lc/s1600/Geological_time_spiral.png) and then you are in grad student land. Several frantic-seeming icons of originality and free thought decorate the closed doors of various offices and labs. More wall poster prints of pictures from field trips in previous decades, photos of the moon, etc line the corridor as the noise of activity steadily increases. Emerging at ground level four huge white Ford Excursion (and similar) 4WDs lined the dock as last minute packing and seating allocations took place. By choice I wound up with seven undergrads in the largest of the trucks. Unlike other more technologically bold groups, roughly divided into grad students, Europeans, and S's team, we did not bring portable music players or laptops, so spent most of the trips engaged in conversation and bizarre word games, the rules of which I shall sprinkle intermittently throughout this report.

Dodging bad traffic we eventually crawled from the LA basin by the 210 East towards the 10 South and 111. By 9pm we had reached the northern shore of the Salton Sea. I put up my new bivy bag/tent combo, since I anticipated this trip would be low on trees from which to hang my hammock. Snacks and fireside chat ensued, split with a quick trip down to the seashore to shoot lasers at clouds, skim rocks, and disturb the birds which lived there. In due course it was time to retire to sleep on my luxurious customary camp mattress, made from a single car windshield reflector. I figure that a 2cm inflatable mattress is no different to a 1mm shiny thing, with similar heat properties. I took advantage of a clear view towards Jupiter to look at a few moons

Next morning we were up early, packed, munched on some breakfast, and drove around the eastern shore of the sea. With only a brief detour to be told off for trespassing on private owned railway tracks, and admiration of the bright green haze over the rather polluted sea we arrived in the Schrimpf-Davis seismic field, corresponding to the southern terminus of the San Andreas fault. Here compression gives way to rifting and several other faults. Incredibly, the Salton Sea as it exists today is anthropogenic, resulting from the flooding of the Colorado river in 1905 and filling the rift valley to a depth of 15m. 12m more and it would have overtopped to flow to the pacific ocean. Apparently it was a 'disaster' on par with the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 and came very close to being a permanent problem. Now waters of the Colorado are used for extensive irrigation in the region and the sea is fed entirely by runoff. The field is also known for hot gas effusions giving rise to mud pots and gryphons, which are small mud volcanoes. I gave my talk on mud volcanoes (naturally). There are tens of thousands of such features around the world. The largest are found in Azerbaijan, though the man-made one in Sidoarjo, Java, Indonesia is giving it a run for its money. Down at the sea shore we found lots of dead barnacles and dried fish resulting from one of the frequent die-offs. As the salinity rises, more species of fish have found it impossible to live in. Now only the Tilapia survives, meaning that the next die-off will probably be the last. In between this quasi apocalyptic landscape of depressed and dusty towns between hyper-phosphate green fields, fumaroles, glassy obsidian beaches, and dozens of geothermal power plants I managed to cut my toe on a sharp rock. A quick application of alcohol and ethyl-cyanoacrylate (superglue) staunched the flow and permitted the persistence of sandals for the remainder of the trip. Which is lucky as I didn't bring any other shoes!

We pushed south to the border town of Calexico-Mexicali. Like most border towns, there was absolutely no reason to hang around so, navigating alternate two- and one-way streets, we drove towards Tijuana and the fault from the 2010 El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake. Modern seismological techniques have taught us that this earthquake began as a magnitude ~6.4 normal thrust earthquake, whose rupture propagated a few hundred km along the fault, in the process triggering a stronger strike-slip movement lasting for about a minute and with a total magnitude of 7.2. With surprisingly few fatalities for such a large quake, there was none-the-less impressive surface ruptures visible, one of which we were soon to discover. At the time of the quake, the road looked like this: http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/34083282.jpg. The road has, of course, been repaired, however on either side it's still possible to stand in cracks taller than one's head and wider than one can reach.

Turning south we drove towards the Californian gulf (part of the same rift), stopping at some rather lovely sand dunes on the way. The sun was by this stage low in the sky and sharp black hills poked through the deposited sediment in a landscape reminiscent of Mongolia. We had dinner at "Rice and Beans" in San Filipe, then drove up the coast to a marginal beach resort. I unrolled my sleeping bag on a rickety picnic table and slept under the stars. When we arrived the tidal mudflat stretched further than the eye could see. By the time we slept it had vanished beneath the incoming tide, replaced by fisherman. Another campfire raised spirits, smoked for the lasers scanning pattern, and provided a nucleus for the consumption of cheap Mexican booze.

Next morning we woke once again at 6am, packed, ate, and after a few talks on tidal flats, beach morphology, and so on, were on our way. This time we drove north, passed a routine military checkpoint and headed inland. Before long the black-top vanished and after a few turns past bewildered cows our trusty vehicles began climbing the central Baja range. At the summit we stopped to discuss the juxtaposition of differing deposits; recent volcanic tuffs and granite plutons with associated metamorphic structures overlay and interleave an ancient crustal fragment criss-crossed with eroded dykes. The road wound downwards towards Santo Tomas and Punta Cabras. By now it had begun to rain very heavily. After S stopped to help pull some stranded Mexican dudes van from the mud we shifted into 4WD and to my surprise the truck stopped sliding into the ditch. Driving through puddles that sprayed the entire car with dark orange mud comprehensively tested the sealing ability of the doors (95% solid) as well as the windscreen wipers. In due course we forded the last raging torrent and reached our campsite on an old marine terrace above a forming one. Separated by a steadily eroding cliff we managed to park the cars off the track despite being unable to see anything in the rain. Most of the evening was spent inside the car waiting for the rain to ease, though at one point a few people and I donned our raincoats and set off through ankle-deep flooding (pitch a tent? HA!) towards a distant light house and access to the beach where we hoped to find some interesting rocks. By the time we made it to the beach, everyone was pretty wet. We split the distance between the raging surf and the muddy cliff dissolving and collapsing beneath torrents of water and wandered half lost in the rainy twilight for a few minutes before turning around and walking back. By virtue of the rapidly evolving landscape, the view on the way back was quite different to the way out, and we witnessed about five landslides, each with a heart-racing 'whomp' sound. Back at the cars there was a futile effort to secure a tarp against the blustery gale before we each retired to the car. A space-blanket made an impromptu screen as the more soaked members of the party changed in the back seat. Meanwhile I shivered under a towel and came to terms with the fact that my old camera was unlikely to survive its third thorough soaking in my aged raincoat's allegedly waterproof breast pocket. At the moment there was not much to see, however. We passed around my supply of trail mix and played 'contact'. In contact, a person thinks of a word and names the first letter. Someone gives a clue for a candidate answer and if someone else realises what word that is, they say contact. The person who knows the word has a few seconds to say "it's not (whatever word is being referred to)" and if they can't, then the other two say their word simultaneously. If it's the same, the work-knower has to give out the next letter. So the game proceeds. In my day, "I spy" was pretty sophisticated!

At about 8pm the rain eased enough for S to emerge, shirtless, from his car and run around setting up the barbecue and with the help of his colleague S, excavate enough mud to start a fire. Combined with our fervent hopes for continuing rain lest crops dry out and fail, the weather cleared at about 9pm and people began to emerge from their cars, dry and smoke themselves by the fire, eat dinner and pitch tents. For a while it looked like we'd be sleeping in economy class, but in the end only four people slept in the undergrad van, including me. Dinner was infinite pasta, mushrooms and tomato sauce, prefaced with corn chips and followed with toothbrushing, an alcohol wipe bath, and a visit to the rather comfortable outhouse. It had a particularly spectacular view over the night-time ocean through the open doorway, and only leaked a little in the rain. Eventually it was time for bed, so I put on my socks to keep my muddy feet safe from my sleeping bag, unrolled said sleeping bag, and slept behind the wheel. I dreamed of driving while wearing not much more than my sleeping bag, and reflected on the awesome properties of the steering column as a clothes hook.

Next morning it was Sunday, the weather had cleared and a beautiful dawn over the ocean and nearby military radar post rubbed in just how non-functional my camera had become. The ground had dried a bit, breakfast was served (I had some of my own supplies again to avoid certain additives and milk products), I packed my sleeping bag and backpack, and prepared for our last day on the road. We walked as a group to the lighthouse and ramp, heard several talks on dinosaurs, paleomagnetism, and mechanics of wave action in marine terrace formation. We had an excellent view as part of the cliff collapsed during S's talk, somewhat distracting us! I perched on the lighthouse wall, reveling in the balance afforded to squishy sandals, and conceded the keys to P for part of the drive back. Returning along the road we came on, we were surprised to find part of it had washed out in particularly spectacular fashion. A culvert had ruptured, washing away a trench 2m wide and 4m deep. At the bottom a boat sat in the mud, possibly it had previously been used as reinforcement. While I and a few others managed to jump the chasm, the cars were not so lucky and a diversion was found around the canyons to the north. The road had dried a lot, though preserved most of the very splashy puddles that continued to leak through the doors! After a quick chat to the land owner we were on our way, pausing beneath atmospheric eucalypts in Santo Tomas for lunch. Here, like so many other places in Baja, the tourist economy is geared towards contestants in the Baja 500, an endurance 4WD race featuring cars with extraordinary power and suspensions! This sort of thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv0RIUl8j1w

After lunch I took over driving again and we drove north to Punta Banda near Ensenada to check out some pretty awesome rudists deposits. These extinct bivalve molluscs were the dominant reef builders before the KT mass-extinction. From here it was a straight run to the border at Tecate. We arrived at dusk and joined the queue of cars waiting to enter the US. Here we began to play another game in which a given word must be described with four or less letter words. After an hour we made it through, though the European car was delayed for a further half hour! On the other side of the border we zoomed down a narrow windy country road in the dark. The high quality of the US roads offset the inherent instability of enormous 4WDs, but somehow I managed to not kill everyone in a fiery conflagration. With one more checkpoint inside the border we shot onto the freeway and cruised as far as our stomachs would take us. Stopping at Temecula In'n'Out for dinner I made a beeline for the bathroom. Just at the moment of relief the ground swayed back and forth a few times, unnoticed but for my splayed stance before the urinal. A follow up visit to the USGS website confirmed my initial suspicion. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Quakes/ci15075388.html, magnitude 3.0 is the first earthquake I've felt since moving to California more than a year ago!

I ordered the least offensive thing on the menu, swapped driving with P, and promptly fell into a food coma. Arriving back at Caltech, we fueled up our gas guzzlers for the fourth and last time, unpacked, swept, washed, signed off on the log, and left for sleep as quickly as possible.

I was in many ways surprised that there was so little drama in Mexico, given the reputation it has recently acquired for extreme violence at the hands of various drug and crime syndicates. In fact, much of the place really charmed me. There is always a soft spot in my heart for underdeveloped and economically questionable places on earth, but unlike parts of the Russian Far East, Mexico isn't frozen for eight months of the year!

Lang Lang at the LA Phil

2011-11-15T16:01:00.001+11:00

Lang Lang at Walt Disney Hall

Last Sunday night I had the pleasure of seeing the internationally renowned concert pianist Lang Lang give a recital in Los Angeles. Lang Lang has shot to fame since his 2001 Carnegie Hall debut, with reviews praising his showmanship and technical mastery of the keyboard. As his career progresses, it is interesting to see what and how he plays to live up to the hype and the expectations of his audience, many of whom are, it could be said, eager for a display of acrobatics. Lang Lang is certainly not the first virtuoso musician to be type-cast in this way, and I was interested to see whether he might try to subtly subvert or lampoon his own unique style. Unfortunately, subtlety is not generally considered one of Lang Lang's selling points.

He served up a balanced program consisting of Bach Partita No. 1 in B-flat (BWV 825) followed by a late Schubert Sonata, also in B-flat (D 960). Both are pieces renowned more for musical than technical difficulty, and Lang Lang approached both according to his by now familiar formula of "no rubato left unplayed". While I'd be the last person to criticise a performer for reinterpreting older music with more modern innovations, Lang Lang did not express the polyphonic texture of the Bach particularly well, leaving us with a notationally accurate but sometimes bland and often confounding performance. Indeed, were it not for the applause from the more alert ends of the auditorium, I would have had difficulty telling the end of the Bach from the beginning of the Schubert, despite the intervening centuries of musical development, thought, and stylistic difference between them. Displaying a level of proficiency performing music at a level he must have mastered nearly two decades ago, Lang Lang nevertheless delivered a piece whose cohesion, unity and flow was broken by occasional but seemingly arbitrary pauses in tempo, intrusive fortissimo chords, or other "pops".

Thus far most of the audience, where still awake, seemed confused. Where were the technical fireworks? This was, after all, the performer sometimes dubbed the "greatest living pianist" who can "play anything". Someone with his reputation could certainly afford to dish up some tasty and technically terrifying tidbit from the edges of the repertoire. Thus far, with Bach and Schubert we had travelled down the dead center of the road of western musical thought. When one sees a virtuoso perform there is an expectation that they will play easy stuff well, and that they will also select some repertoire they find challenging. Georges Cziffra, a Hungarian pianist well known in Europe in the 60s and 70s, was famed for driving audiences into a frenzy with edge-of-your-seat fear and excitement over his interpretations and arrangements of, in particular, Liszt. A pianist must perform at least some music with which they physically and viscerally contend. Without the possibility of a spectacular melt-down there can be no suspense and no excitement, at least since Steinway worked out how to prevent pianos from exploding beneath the demands of the Romantic repertoire.

The second part of the recital promised the desired technical showmanship in the form of the Chopin Etudes Op. 25. Billed as Chopin's "ultra-demanding pianistic studies", they were, at the time of their composition, possibly the fourth most challenging etudes in existence. They are certainly nowhere near Liszt's contemporaneous Transcendental Etudes in musical, technical, and pianistic complexity. Indeed, Liszt went on to republish easier and more accessible versions of his etudes not once but twice, and even then they are by no means the most challenging works in his ouvre. Additionally, there has been considerable development in the nearly two centuries since. In my opinion, the etudes composed by Godowsky, Sorabji, Finnissy, Busoni, and Marc-Andre Hamelin are, while often directly referencing Chopin's earlier work, much more interesting and certainly far more challenging.

This is not to take away from Chopin's Op. 25, whose technical challenges alternately bemuse and infuriate aspiring professional pianists in nearly every music school on earth. Again presenting a work that he must have mastered at half his present age, Lang Lang delivered solid performances of the 12 studies, though we got a few fistfulls of bonus notes in the seventh. Towards the end he anticipated premature applause and played one almost right after another, often ending with a flourish or musical joke obvious enough for most of the audience to get.

In between half a dozen curtain calls, he performed two encores: Liszt's Romanza and La Campanella. The former was most likely for the people sitting to the right of the podium who have a strong appreciation for his legendary emotional state while playing, while the latter is an old encore favourite amongst pianists. La Campanella was originally written as a musical joke, but due to its technical difficulty is almost always played "with a straight face". Lang Lang took the opportunity to play his own cadenza drawn largely from other Liszt works (including an extended melodic inversion from Liszt's transcription of Danse Macabre) which included at least one laugh at the serious faction of the audience's expense. At last! Thus it seems that Lang Lang is very aware that certain repertoire and tricks sell tickets, records and sponsorship deals, and is, perhaps, musically trapped. The question, then, is at what point will he decide he is rich enough, throw off the shackles of living up to his possibly undeserved reputation and turn his unique style and voice to more unexpected repertoire? Perhaps he could emulate Stephen Hough, who occasionally sneaks Godowsky billed as Chopin upon an unsuspecting audience. Who knows, perhaps one day he will bring a new audience to the most recent century of piano composition.

Camping for one night only

2011-10-25T17:40:00.001+11:00

Not so long ago I went on a brief overnight camping trip into the mountains to the north east of LA. I was joined on this trip by my friends T and S, one of whom was in charge of driving! The point of the exercise was to hike to a natural hot spring that occurs in the area. Geological map of the region which makes the location obvious: http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2003/of03-293/sanbern_map.pdf

In the end we found the springs and they were glorious. On the way back we were rewarded with a terrific SoCal sunset over some spikey mountains. These, and a few other nice views along the way I managed to capture in my soon-to-be-replaced camera gloria, and can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/105494084231616659850/CampingWithTAndS

Might be worth a trip back there some day. One of the nicer hot springs I've ever visited; a distinct lack of boreholes and concrete!

Photos and wrap

2011-10-10T05:46:00.001+11:00

All the photos from my recent trip to Europe are now uploaded. They can be found here.

Individual posts are now all hyper-linked for extra efficient reading/photoing. All panoramas were stitched together with the freeware tool "Hugin".
In addition, there's a composite album of photos I took of a small stuffed cassowary in some interesting place nearly every day.

For no particular reason, I did not take substantial quantities of video during this trip, so there are no videos in particular awaiting upload. :(

This probably marks the last major trip I do with my trusty Canon Powershot A530 - bought in November 2006 and carried with me ever since. I'll probably eulogise it more thoroughly when its eventual replacement is obtained.

Spain, land of mañana...

2011-09-25T09:02:00.001+10:00

At Vienna airport I was delayed as my ticket had been 'bought' by another airline, whose system then refused to cooperate. Fortunately I was eventually issued a boarding pass, and flew out of a cloudy Vienna into sleepland. A rainy and bumpy splash landing in Barcelona was followed by an extremely overpriced dinner and a weather-delayed second flight.

In the end, I arrived in Malaga only an hour late, with 50c of phone credit and a 20% charge. At this point I realized my friend T couldn't reply to international numbers, so I sniffed unsuccessfully for wifi and waited.

In the nick of time T turned up and we set about finding a suitably dumpy pension for me to crash. We found it in the form of Hotel Olympia. From a distance the sign even resembled 'DUMPIA'. The stairs were broken, the electrics sparked and smoked, the plumbing was questionable, and my door's bolt hole was secured by a single loose screw. It did, however, have a sink at which I washed my clothes, and a bed flat enough to sleep on. It's worth mentioning that since neither the shower nor bathroom door could close all the way, I could keep an eye on my room door down the corridor while showering; an added security feature. And thanks to early morning garbage trucks, cat fights, and two-stroke vespa booty calls, my morning sleep was punctuated by a series of extraordinary lucid dreams featuring volcanoes, alien invasions, mountain climbing, engineering projects, and so on.

But perhaps I am too hard on Malaga. T and I spent most afternoons chilling indoors, then wandering the narrow flagstone streets of the old city from tapas bar to tapas bar. I visited the magnificent cathedral, the hilltop palace and castle, which were pretty cool. In particular, the surviving Moorish architecture and landscaping/gardens were spectacular. The (free) museum of modern art was well priced and had a few works that really impressed me.

Breakfast was bread, lunch was something yummy T drew from cooking classes, and dinner was tapas, full of flavour and variety. Continuing my Croatian effort to cover the animal kingdom, I had rabbit, squid fried in ink, bull's tail, and many other bizarre but awesome dishes.

T and I caught up on at least a year of news, and I even managed to describe my research whilst ensconced in a rather atmospheric teahouse. The physics was good, but not as good as the tea!

After only two days, it was time to say goodbye. I bought a bus ticket to Granada, T revised the Spanish subjunctive for an impending exam, and we toasted absent Australian friends with very pulpy orange juice.

The bus was luxurious, better even than the ones in Turkey. Only three seats across, inflight food, and clean windows. If you adjoined this bus in Hilbert space with the one from Kosovo to Montenegro, then you'd completely span the space.

The only downside was that at one point the man in front catapulted his chair backwards into my kneecaps, and then his snoring shiny noggin kept reflecting the sun into my eyes! :P

In Granada I spent an hour finding the train station, then walked up to Alhambra (the real one), while dodging spikey and knee-high traffic bollards seemingly intent on finishing what the bus had started. A steep climb through a forested hill took me to the 'gate of justice'. Sadly the ticketed parts had sold out, so I had to be content wandering the grounds and accessing available buildings. There was an exhibition of primarily religious art in one of the buildings. A painting of San Juan de Dios and another of the Nasrid family leaving Alhambra were, IMO, particularly excellent.
http://images.evangelizo.org/images/santibeati/G/San_Giovanni_di_Dio_Religioso/San_Giovanni_di_Dio_C.jpg
http://www.mikeouds.com/messageboard/files.php?pid=34592&aid=5012

On the walk back down I saw a world photos exhibition on forests, which was pretty cool. I've never spent much time in rain forests, and I still want to visit the world's northernmost forests in Taymyr, near Khatanga.

Back in town I had a look around the cathedral, built in a renaissance style upon gothic foundations, decorated with baroque elements, massive in size, and surrounded by other buildings! Looking into the dozen or so chapels arrayed around the periphery, it struck me again just how disgusting and gruesome so much of the Christian, and in particular, Catholic religious imagery is. Life size hyper-real sculptures of Jesus in varying states of torture and decay, not to mention a glisteningly anatomically precise model (I hope) of the severed head of someone later beatified for their troubles. Is idolatry (not to mention polytheism) okay provided you leave your lunch behind?

I walked up through the old town, taking turns at random until I found a plaza with a great view over the town and castle. I sat in the shade munching bread, drinking juice, and watching an endless procession of tourists fill up their memory cards with the same photo. Worth mentioning is that at no point during the entire day was I out of earshot of an Australian accent, and that one slightly strange fellow spent the entire time I was there getting other people to take dozens of photos of him in front of Alhambra with his camera.

I walked back into town, and checked out an ex-caravanserai dating from 1400 or so, some traditional markets, and found a place worthy of dinner.

I ordered fried aubergine with molasses, and pasta alla Napolitano with black olives, both of which were terrific. I took a compass bearing to the station and wandered at random, this time finding it accidentally within minutes.

I had booked the overnight 'soft seat' to Barcelona. Only 12 hours, half of it going backwards, with the usual variety of peculiar co-travelers. By the time the lights went out only two babies were crying. Then a new passenger got on with a loud Bollywood ringtone, and proceeded to make calls. Someone snored. Then the father of the nearest baby decided to exploit the fresh silence by dropping his suitcase on my feet, then giving his baby some ear drops at 1am. This operation was complicated by baby's unwillingness to lie sideways, father's cross-eyed-ness, and about 60 freshly awoken people grumbling enough to suck all the oxygen from the car. Finally, silence. Someone tried to take photos of the moon out the window with the flash on, until their head imploded by the sheer weight of their stupidity. Lots of points for me, and peace at last.

In this way, sleep interruptions were compensated by at least 10 hours in which to try, and I arrived in Barcelona only mildly grumpy.

I walked from Barcelona-Sants station into town. After I found 6 hostels were fully booked, I worked out that I'd accidentally caught the Barcelona festival. Free music and shows, and pickpockets preoccupied with alcoholic backpackers! I did a preliminary 10km lap of the old city to narrow down my options, and followed up after siesta with a visit to the Palau Guell. On the way I visited most of the large churches in Barcelona, all of which lean to some extent. Palau Guell of Gaudi's earliest works, it prefigures a lot of his later stuff. His use of natural materials with interesting textures, ingenious approaches to light and space, and a decent quantity of sheer awesome. By the time I'd climbed from the stable through a series of halls, living spaces, servants' quarters and the roof, I felt I had earned a kebab. So I bought one next door.

Later that night another dude from the hostel joined me for a walk down to the beach and to the Fastnet Irish Bar, where we exchanged Spanish and English with a few other CSers. All too soon it was time to turn in for the night. The person on the bunk below me snored, so I was on 'earthquake duty', where I shook the bed in a vain but oddly satisfying attempt to stir them just enough to breathe better, but not enough to kill me.

Next morning, I realized it was my last day in Europe and I was still lugging around the 3 ounces of flab I'd gained in Austria. Casting a cursory glance over the map I set off!

First stop was the Picasso Museum, itself housed in a rather spectacular, though overlooked, building. Focusing mainly on his early works, the collection also included a number of things by his contemporaries, of which my favourites were a van Gogh painting of a glass of Absinthe (http://www.vangoghreproductions.com/paintings/1887-13-1.jpg), and a Toulouse-Lautrec portrait entitled 'Red-haired girl in a white blouse' (
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CvDCiEFbNy8/TFISdYWtDMI/AAAAAAAAVO0/9vLjjaZgwdI/s1600/9+Henri+de+Toulouse-Lautrec+(1864-1901)++Carmen+Gaudin+1889.jpg)

In contrast to these, Picasso's works seem to show us not what is, but what we see. His later works, including the series on pigeons, I saw as skeletal and technically unsophisticated. The whole point is (I think) that the human brain fills in the missing detail, in much the same way as XKCD. (www.xkcd.com) I found as I walked away that the impressionists were on my mind, but that people resembled the Picasso sketches I'd just been looking at.

I continued up from the port, taking in a few more of Gaudi's buildings and some Chinese noodles on the way. The monument to Casanova revealed the existence of more than one new cottage lying about, as this fellow was neither THE Casanova nor a descendant.

Next on the route was the Sagrada Familia. Everyone has heard of this building, but I'm prepared to admit that I knew nothing about it except that it was unfinished and it had four tall towers. It turns out that work is continuing, and the interior was finished only last year, about 130 years after the first stone was placed. Cathedral construction, old school style. The interior is quite extraordinary, with branching, treelike columns joining in hyperbolic domes, with all sorts of decoration. The exterior remains unfinished, though the (recent) sculptures on the resurrection portal reminded me of the 'mask of sorrow' in Magadan.

In the crypt was a fascinating exhibition on the ongoing efforts to finish the cathedral, complicated by the untimely death of Gaudi in 1926 and the burning/destruction of the workshop and models during the Spanish civil war. For me the highlight was an 'inverted model'. By hanging small weights proportional to structural mass from strings of the same (scaled) dimension as structural members, gravity automatically finds the optimal solution, which is a generalized catenary. Here's the kicker: the inverted string model has only tension. When righted, the corresponding bits will have only compression, permitting the construction of cheap masonry structures in weird shapes, rather than resorting to prestressed reinforced concrete or similar.

All too soon it was time to press on. I enjoyed my walk between octagonal city blocks joined by octagonal intersections, and shaded streets running NE-SW and vice versa, meanwhile hearing only dozens of foreign languages, not Australians!

After a while I came to the Park Guell, a never-completed neighbourhood that is now a public space. The landscape design was also done by Gaudi, and resonates with his ideas on a grand scale. From the summit there was a great view over Barcelona. At this point I realized how ambitious my plans for the day's walk were, since I was only a quarter of the way through.

Without further ado I continued, back toward Barcelona-Sants railway station (via a motor scooter crash) and then onward to the Catalonian National Art Museum (MNAC), an impressive domed structure set high on a hill, not unlike the Imperial Palace Museum in Taipei. I gained entry and managed to see everything before it closed at 7pm, with about a minute to spare.

MNAC is unique for the large quantity of Romanesque art. Created c.1200 and displaying a mix of Italian and national influences, the works were preemptively removed from old church walls in a documented fashion to prevent loss into private hands. As a result, this section of the museum is a whole bunch of church 'set interiors' filling a series of large halls. To my untrained eyes, it was reminiscent of the stone paintings M and I saw in Capadocia in 2008.

My favourite this time was hidden behind a corner in a hallway, and probably missed by most visitors. A
Antoni Caba work from 1882 titled 'Dia sobre la Nit precedit de l'Aurora'. (
http://art.mnac.cat/image_big.html?id=200004-000)

Also, in the modernist section, Ramon Carga's 'Ramon Carga, pere Romeu en un automobil' (http://www.amicsdelmnac.org/imatges/170610_1276768235_6_AutomobilWEB.gif) was a lot of fun!

I walked through the port and Rambla de Mar to the beach and the Olympics Harbour, arriving just in time for a most serendipitous fireworks display. On the way back I had some excellent home-made Italian pasta, then returned to the hostel to pick up my bag after only 14 hours of walking.

I walked back through town one last time, during the quiet hours around 1am. Except that there were at least a million revellers filling the streets, multiple parades, drummers, street sellers, and happy people. Across the plaza del Catalunya to the N17 night bus to begin my 24 hour trip back to LA. The driver took advantage of empty parking lots at the airport to execute a few two-wheeled corners, efficiently dispelling any notions I may have had for sleep. Better to cope with jetlag by mixing in sleep deprivation anyway.

Two thirds of the early morning flights were to Russia: St Petersburg, Minsk, Miberalnye, etc. I haven't seen so many Russians in one place for quite some time! And none of them knew I understood everything they say... Muhahaha!

Eventually we boarded the plane, but not before chatting with an Argentinian dude until I realized I was interrupting his reading of a rather explicit magazine. Of course, boarding the plane was very slow, compounded by my falling asleep until the final call! Then we sat on the tarmac for 90 minutes as the plane had a broken windscreen wiper. Fortunately I had booked my flights with a long transit time, so was able to relax as we descended over Dusseldorf. I imagined I was Biggles, and squinted into the bright sun over medieval buildings with my comrade and best mate Algy, gingerly fingering my bomb toggle as my mustache whipped in the crisp 1917 air...

On the next plane I found myself seated to a rather broad-shouldered man with extremely bushy eyebrows who, it came out in conversation, was an increasingly devout catholic. When I expresses reservations about the current pope, Cardinal Ratzinger, due to his dubious/criminal actions whilst the leader of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, he explained the official position of the church on priests accused of paedophilia (or other criminal acts), which I found rather interesting.

Child rape is, no doubt, a terrible thing, BUT (there is always a but), given that Jesus Christ is the son of god, he explicitly vested the church run by man his power of forgiveness. Therefore the church has power and priority over national legal authorities with respect to its own, privately run, judicial system. Under this system, paedophile priests or other church members guilty of criminal acts can be forgiven and get another chance, or excommunicated if deemed beyond salvation. When I brought up Charles Manson he conceded that a deathbed repentance would mean that god would forgive him his criminal acts, so I find it hard to imagine what would warrant excommunication! I asked at what point does the church call the police, but apparently that never happens. Unless, of course, the church is a victim of criminal acts, such as vandalism.

Regular readers will be in no doubt as to my attitude to this idea. In my opinion, there is no god, no sin, and no eternal life, but there is an organization intent on covering its own arse whilst permitting the continuing violation of everyone else's. More seriously, however, if Cardinal Ratzinger covered up, and allowed to continue, the rape and torture of children, then he is effectively perpetrating that crime himself, and, at the very least, must be held accountable.

What could have been a very lively discussion petered out due to a lack of a fluent common language. But I'm always surprised when I meet otherwise normal, rational people who can, with a straight face, tell you they are absolutely certain that a special class of people are exempt from justice, or above the law. It is, in my opinion, delusion and mental illness.

Above the great lakes our aging A330 got caught in the braids of the jet stream, which made for lots of awesome bumps. Soon enough we were cruising high above the stark and beautiful deserts of the western USA, with mountains, faults, gorges, volcanoes, and many shades of red. The captain pointed Las Vegas out the right window, so I got an excellent look at Lake Powell on the left; impossibly austere, rugged terrain we visited on the Ge136 field trip earlier this year.

With a bounce and a bump we hit the tarmac in LA, and the hostess with the Portal voice wished us good day. From here it is only a few hours of sitting in traffic and I'm home.

Pointless statistics:
12 countries, 26 border posts (and not one strip search!), 38 days, 60 towns. One pair of sandals, one pair of pants, 3 shirts, one cooking pot, only 18L of luggage.

Overall it was a very interesting trip, filled with wonders and surprises. Travelling with J for 3 weeks was a lot of fun, plus all the other old and new friends along the way. Travelling with only a tiny bag and writing all my blog posts on my broken iPhone was also a new approach and one I liked a lot. Being able to walk around with your bag all day is a terrific asset!

Photos will go up in the next few days, with retrofitted hyperlinks and captions and LOTS of panoramas. UPDATE: Photos.

Here endeth the travels of Al Dente and Gazpacho.

The game

2011-09-22T22:41:00.000+10:00

One way to minimize the chance of trouble when travelling is to be aware of your surroundings at all times, almost to the point of obsession. Combining this with the fun of prejudging people one has never met, J and I developed a terrific though slightly cynical game. One earns points by spotting a wide variety of egregiously touristic behaviour. As near as I can remember, spotting any of the following gets you FIVE POINTS.

- Incorrect use of a camera flash, such as in the sun, with a monument, too close, against a pane of glass.
- Taking a photo of something with the sun behind it, so everything is in silhouette, or of a scene with too much contrast.
- Taking a photo of beggar or other poor child close up with a wide angle lens and camera expensive enough to swap for said child.
- A backpack taller than the person when carried, OR a backpack getting jammed somewhere such as a narrow or low doorway, or knocking something over.
- Lots of luggage, to the point of no free hands. Bonus points if negotiating a staircase.
- A wheeley bag used on irregular surface or cobbles, making lots of noise, flipping, or having to be carried.
- A hybrid wheeley bag/backpack, for sheer crocoduck impracticality.
- A hipster of any size or shape. Extra points if on a shiny motor scooter or wearing sequins.
- A lonely planet guidebook.
- Reading a guidebook right in front of a famous monument instead of looking at it.
- Hiking shoes capable of climbing Annapurna. Bonus points if still shiny or obviously uncomfortable.
- Convertable pants/shorts.
- A terrible sunburn.
- Anyone shouting "Do you speak English?" at close range.
- Anyone asking if they can pay in USD.
- Anyone getting ripped off or scammed.
- Anyone using an audio guide.
- Either one of us tripping or stumbling or running into something.
- Anyone using a taxi when they could walk.
- A visible, outside, or obvious 'secret' money purse, wallet, or bum bag.
- An unusable or perilously dangerous wheelchair ramp. Eg. steep, a big drop at the bottom, or nowhere for a pusher to walk.
- A tourist map. Bonus points if it is being read upside down.
- Anyone asking directions to the 'mall'.
- Anyone so out of shape they can't see for sweat, or climb the stairs to the top of an expensive attraction with a view.
- Funny voices, accents, laughs, etc.
- The smallest and largest dog all day.
- Anyone making a comparison between, say, a wonder of the world and a place 'back home'.
- A McDonalds restaurant.
- Any person with 'only on holidays' facial hair. Bonus points if it's very silly.

To be fair, we both gleefully committed many of these 'crimes against travel' from time to time. Suggestions for more categories welcomed.

On the loading of A320s

2011-09-22T22:33:00.000+10:00

During the last year I've done quite a bit of flying on single-aisle commuter jets, such as the A320. It continues to stun me just how slow loading these things is, especially in comparison to unloading them.

In particular, the usual modus operandi for the average traveller seems to be:
- walk as slowly as possible
- check every seat for yours
- when you find your seat, stop in the aisle, then start looking for space for your barely-legal carry on bag
- after the bag(s) is(are) stowed, stop to admire surroundings
- contemplate degree of butt-squeezing needed to fit into seat
- take 20 last deep breaths
- watch people further from the window act surprised when you tell them your options are them to unbuckle, stow baby etc or else crowd-surf
- take seat, bitch about it
- wash, rinse, repeat

However, I propose using MATHS to address this problem. There is but one narrow aisle, and around 180 seats to be filled. Also, seats are numbered sequentially (skipping 13) from front to back, and lettered alphabetically from port to starboard. Every plane is the same - this isn't rocket science.

Therefore, approach the vicinity of your seat as quickly as possible. Once there, place bag on ANY empty seat nearby and get out of the aisle. From there, throw bag in overhead locker, or wait for a break in the traffic. While waiting, take your breaths, and indicate to fellow sardines where your butt is to be squeezed, so that they can prepare themselves (mentally and otherwise).

Finally, with grace befitting of a ballerina, park in your allotted space having not blocked the aisle with pointless shenanigans. My favourite method is the 'arm rest two step', also useful for late night toilet breaks on long haul flights. The rules dictate that you may not touch any part of anyone else's seat. Only your own seat, the ceiling, arm rests, and cabin floor is permitted. Convention maintains that a successful execution's celebratory grunts and yelps be kept to a bare minimum.

Therefore, if you, dear reader, cause an aeroplane traffic jam henceforth, you shall incur my mighty (though virtual) wrath.

Austria, home of Almdudler!!

2011-09-18T20:40:00.001+10:00

Schengen. The first hint J and I got that we had left Slovenia and entered Austria was a change of phone network. After a few hours of rolling through excruciatingly quaint Austrian countryside, interspersed with sips of Almdudler, the national soft drink, we arrived at Vienna Meidling Hauptbahnhoff. We were greeted warmly by one of my oldest friends R (I tend to sprinkle them around the world), and took the embarrassingly efficient u-bahn to their new flat in Leopoldstadt.

R has always lived in places much too nice for a university student, and this place was no exception. From artistic light fittings to high tech windows, and a shower that requires regular consultation of an instruction manual to use, J and I immediately came to terms with the prospect of a few days of comfort and compulsory gourmet indulgence.

In the afternoon we went to the old Danube channel for a swim. J, R, and I amused ourselves watching slackliners falling in, while C indulged in a 50 minute swim in the frigid green waters.

That evening J went for a wander through the Viennese streets while R, C, R's friend L and I went to the city hall to see what had been described as 'acrobatics and vivaldi'.

What it was slightly exceeded that description. In celebration of 40 years of diplomatic relations between Austria and China, a show was prepared. All the dignitaries were present, including the Chinese ambassador, a Chinese vice-premier, an Austrian minister of parliament and a city representative. The stage was decorated with lights and a giant projector screen. The show consisted of an Austrian ballerina dancing a movement of Vivaldi's four seasons, followed by Chinese acrobatics to slightly more varied music. While the ballet was excellent, the acro was astonishing.

I have previously seen a Chinese acro show in Beijing, roughly Nov 28, 2006, sections of which I filmed and put on YouTube. This show was just as mind-blowing.

The usual routine consisted of some props etc used in the most obvious way, and then more and more crazy until it was at least two orders of magnitude beyond the impossible. Highlights included a choreographed routine on giant unicycles with bowls being balanced in heads and thrown back and forth by foot, a human pretzel pyramid, hand stands on hand stands, balance poles on balance poles, people balancing en pointe on someone's head, and an inverted flipping drums routine that culminated in people being flipped from foot to foot.

Next day J and I hit the city and saw most of the famous buildings in a two hour jaunt across the city, including the interior of the Votivkirche, which I had never seen before. Next on the agenda was meeting C and R for lunch at the Vienna University. I learnt most of my physics in the Vienna University in 2005, so I made sure to check in on the old lab. Together with half a dozen colleagues we dined at a popular nearby Italian place. I had penne alla napolitano (I think), and it was one of the nerdiest lunches I've had in quite a while!

That evening we took a tram to the northern part of Vienna, another UNESCO listed village that specializes in wines. At this time of year, however, you can get sturm, which is newly fermenting grape juice. Translucent, bubbling, sweet, and mildly alcoholic, it is a seasonal treat only. I opted for most, which is unfermented grape juice, otherwise known as diabetes in a glass!

Next day J, R and I went present shopping. We found a cool shop near stefansplatz that sold bottles of everything. After the compulsory Viennese wurst, we visited an interesting market to buy more sturm, and rounded out the trip with a quick jaunt up the dome at Karlskirche.

Now on my fourth visit, the extraordinary architecture of Karlskirche is augmented by a scaffold that permits visitors to climb into the highest part of the dome, and to appreciate the ceiling art at close quarters. I also noticed access paths next to the windows, so presumably a more organic view is also possible. For me, the highlight of this church is the way skylights above the chapels mesh geometrically with windows on the second gallery level.

We put J on a train to the airport, and, despite a very rare service disruption, he made it! C and I headed to the Votivkirche (site of an unsuccessful assassination attempt on the emperor Franz Josef in the mid 19th century) for an organ concert, which sadly was cancelled. Instead we worked on the style of his thesis until R turned up, at which point I ditched him for a walk around the city to catch up on news! That evening I made some Gula Melaka, but the result was not as successful as the attempt in Philadelphia.

Next day C and I celebrated his posted draft thesis by going for a run. As C is a competitive triathlete, I rode his bike as we clocked 21km in 90 minutes along the charming though skinny Danube island. We saw a floating highschool, and to the end C talked easily while explaining the philosophy that sweat is just muscles crying.

That afternoon we drove with S and a different R to Kematen an der Krems, C's home town in the north of Austria, for a wedding. We made a side trip to C's cousin's nursery, which had a herb garden with hundreds of varieties! One of C's dozen or so cousins is a piano builder by trade, and he showed us his self-restored Bosendorfer, which was terrific! Back at C's house his mother fed us ad exploseum, after which poppy seed cake for dessert treated us all to extraordinary lucid dreams.

Next day after a similarly enormous breakfast, C and R dropped me at the Wels railway station, where I took a train to Salzburg to catch up with R's family.

I had previously spent a few days (20-22 Dec 2006) with them just before Christmas. It had been an oasis of order and calories between 3 weeks in Siberia and 2 penniless weeks in Italy on my first major trip overseas, so I had very fond memories. This time, only R's mother C and younger sister S (now all grown up) were present. I spent the day talking, playing music, including a terrific duet of Phantom of the Opera with S, and enjoying the wonders of Salzburg. S and I went to check on her horse C, who is now old but happy, and I also took 5 minutes to reacquaint myself with the Salzburgdom. It is one of my favourite cathedrals as it has four separate pipe organs on each of the four pillars of the central dome. Apparently they are sometimes played in concert, even with improvisation. S left for a party, so C and I walked into the town once more and talked about the intervening five years. At length it was time to board a train back to Vienna, but not before I was gifted with a packed though comprehensive dinner. The hospitality was so lovely I was confused whether they wanted me to come back, or to be so embarrassed I should never return!!

There is nothing quite like flying along rails at 200km/h in silence and eerily still comfort. I have no idea how the tracks are kept so level. Three hours of cruising beneath the rising yellow moon and I was back in Vienna. I packed, laundered, and before long, C and R arrived, having survived a north Austrian wedding!

Next day I woke, ate, chatted, and all too soon it was time to say goodbye. The train pulled out from Praterstern and I was already on my way to Spain.

UPDATE: Photos.

Slovenia, the outlier

2011-09-14T09:02:00.001+10:00

A few more passport stamps and we were into our last former Yugoslav country. The train line ran along the bottom of a deep, densely wooded gorge. Spring colours gave way to overcast skies, while the river ran swiftly below. Trains in Slovenia drive on the left. L, J and I spent an hour or more with our heads out the window screaming into space. Only drops of rain slamming into our faces at 160km/h could drive us back inside. I was surprised to note all the roof panels were already open and accessible, possibly to simplify border customs searches.

After a few hours we stopped in Ljubljana. L was continuing to Munchen, so we said farewell before walking into town. We found lunch and our CSers M, E and baby A, and got a quick run down on why Slovenia, of all the former Yugoslav countries, was absurdly well organized. Osmosis from neighbouring Austria, perhaps?

We walked into town and saw the castle and the triple bridge. Ljubljana, while charming and organised, does not sport the attractions of many other cities. Nonetheless we had a satisfying drink at a cafe by the river. A, who at 10 months old is the youngest CS host I have ever had, got tired and grumpy so we returned home. Ljubljana has some terrific mountains on the north horizon, all lumpy and craggy.

That evening we watched Men in Black, ate a terrific dinner, then retired to rest on an absurdly comfortable couch.

Next morning we woke with the family at 6am, ate fresh brown bread with chestnut jam for breakfast, then walked to the station. With minimal drama we found our platform and train, and under an early morning fog completed our stay in Ljubljana. After a slightly rushed connection in Maribor we were on our way to Austria, and the end of J's and my three week trip together.

UPDATE: Photos.

Croatia, part 2.

2011-09-14T09:01:00.001+10:00

We entered Croatia for the third and last time about five hours from Zagreb. Not yet knowing the intricacies of neo-stokavian emphasis shift, J, L, B and I had a conversation about how to pronounce Zagreb. We could at least agree that very few capitals began with Z, which was pretty cool!

We followed the girls (with their blessing!) to a hostel in the western part of the city, checked in, freshened up, and exploited wifi! The hostel owners agreed to do some laundry in return for a beer, which was a welcome prospect!

We walked back into town, perused a terrific flea market, and explored the Museum of Broken Relationships. Zagreb was once two warring towns. Following their formal unification in the 18th century forming the upper town they gave birth to the lower town, a sprawling delta of sequential superposed architectural styles. All Austro-Hungarian stucco in the middle and socialist concrete on the outskirts.

After lunch we met our Croatian colleague from Caltech B, with whom we explored the city and discussed linguistics, music, history, science, non-commutative topology, and of course the mysterious elephant trunk problem.

In the evening we retired to the hostel, said goodbye to B and L who were leaving early the next morning, and hit the sack ourselves.

Next morning after a late start we walked back to the train station. We were pleasantly surprised to run into L, the girl we met on the bus from Skopje to Prishtina. She was taking the same train, so we attempted to finish our earlier conversation.

UPDATE: Photos.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

2011-09-14T09:00:00.001+10:00

Bosnia and Herzegovina have a small corridor of land linking to the ocean, and we crossed that on our way to Sarajevo, meaning we actually returned briefly to Croatia before making our third and final crossing for the day! Some minor drama with people hitching across, and we turned inland, winding up a valley surrounded by mountains.

During a brief stop at Mostar, the Belgian hiker W gave us a quick run down about landmines in the region. Apparently they were sown along the lines and thus mark the ethnic divisions pretty accurately.

Arriving in Sarajevo we sussed out the train station, then walked into town and met our CSer O, who owns the oldest bar in Sarajevo.

O told us that during the 1300 day siege of Sarajevo (nearly a year longer than in St Petersburg during WWII), the only way into the city was through a tunnel under the airport. Alcohol was extremely hard to come by, and he opened a bar overlooking the front with a single bottle of cognac. 3 years later the war ended, 4 years after that he no longer ran the only club in Sarajevo, and 7 years after that the front his club had faced was declared 98% mine free. O bought a block of land and started building a house. Since then he has found only 3 more mines during earthworks...

(We later found that in the coastal village of Zadar, locals have been removing warning signs as they frighten away tourists.)

Three years after that we left his bar at 2am and sped up the mountain to see the incredible house he was building there. Three floors, rough hewn timber members, heat insulation, unmortared brick floor, heaps of space, outdoor eating area, and the great view the Serbs had over the city for four years as they failed to capture it.

Next morning O made us an awesome breakfast before we walked to a nearby destroyed fort surrounded by uncleared mines and inhabited by a herd of goats. O told us the standard procedure if you find an unexploded mine; hide it on the enemies' position... He also told us the Bosnian technique for surviving winter with only a single bag of coal. Three times a day, pick up the bag and carry it around the yard.

Fortified by a lunch of cevapi, we explored the old town, a mix of Ottoman and Christian styled single story shops, interspersed with (drinkable) fountains, mosques, and "Sarajevo stars" caused by exploding shrapnel.

We also visited the Latin bridge, from which Franz Ferdinand (and his wife) was shot and the first world war started nearly 100 years ago.

We returned to O's club, outside which he parks his car unlocked, and said our farewells. A short (45 minute) walk across town via a bakery to the station. In the foyer we met B and L, two sisters from England with backpacks and seeping paranoia.

An experienced traveller at their hostel told them to expect pickpockets, cutthroats, corrupt police and harassment on any international overnight service. We teamed up to occupy a 6 person couchette compartment, and spent much of the evening swapping stories and Bosnian/Turkish sweets. I leveraged my enthusiasm for trains to optimize the functionality of the folding seats, and with no additional drama we crossed the border only two hours behind schedule at 3am.

UPDATE: Photos.

Croatia, part 1.

2011-09-14T08:59:00.001+10:00

Crossed the umpteenth border, this time into Croatia. The road wound along the side of some absurdly steep coastal mountains before plunging beneath a modern cable-stayed bridge and spitting us out in Dubrovnik.

We negotiated a cheap room for the night, then headed into the city; red tiles beneath shining blue skies.

Once an independent naval city state to rival Venice, and despite bombardment in 1991-2, Dubrovnik is exceptionally well preserved. A number of fountains spurt drinkable water, stone buildings line narrow and often steep stone car-free streets, surrounded by a complete ring of well maintained walls. We visited the history museum in the rector's palace, the ethnographic museum in an old and cavernous granery, and the maritime museum in one of the old forts. Dubrovnik continues today as an active port with associated cargo ships, though the old harbour is now mostly marina.

Not for the first (or last) time, a group of tourists approached me and started speaking in Russian. I haven't shaved in a while, but I also haven't given directions in Russian for ages. Still, the language is related to the Slavic Balkan dialects, and my vocabulary concerning travel is the least incomplete.

After bread and ice cream we visited the beach. Lots of fish, a ruined jetty, a deep sea cave, and a gorgeous girl quotient approaching unity.

Past an active looking church to a restaurant for dinner. Spring rolls for entree, home made gnocchi with smoked salmon sauce for main (J had goat cheese ravioli Victoria (white sauce, truffle oil, shrimp and mushrooms)) and a chocolate soufflé for dessert came in at less than 15 euros, with an incredible sunset over the Adriatic as a bonus side dish.

Next day we climbed the walls which encircle the city for a series of incredible panoramic views, then had lunch at a street cafeteria in the old town; I had fish, J had mussels.

Back to the bus station, chatted with some girls from Germany and a guy from Belgium. We were off, winding on rollercoaster roads towards Bosnia and Herzegovina.

UPDATE: Photos.

Montenegro, or Crna Gora to the initiated.

2011-09-10T22:43:00.002+10:00

Just as Albania is known as Shqiperi to Albanians, Montenegro is actually called Crna Gora, which means the same thing.

We crossed into Montenegro at about 11pm. Soon after crossing the border the bus pulled over for a third 45 minute break, thus ensuring we were 2 hours late to meet our CSer in Podgorica, as well as adequate business for the driver's cousins' pizzerias. On the upside, it was dark enough to get a great look at Jupiter and the pliades.

At about 2am we rolled into Podgorica, met our CSer A and his lovely wife, and promptly passed out. Next morning we got up, said goodbye, and wandered around the city. It has a nice river between parks and is spanned by the sort of bridge used for QC by the designers of Solidworks.

I traumatized yet another waitress by asking for a hot chocolate without milk, and got a glass of hot chocolate syrup - perfect!!

Back at the bus station we got a bus to Kotor with 5 minutes to spare, and enjoyed a spectacular ride through the mountains down to the sea through the southern-most fjord in the Northern Hemisphere. Kotor is built at the head of the fjord between bare rock walls scaled by quasi ruined fortifications reaching to the skies.

At the Kotor bus station I availed myself of the facilities. Like most such places in South Eastern Europe it was a pay-by-use affair. Unlike parallel examples in Turkey or Greece, which are in general spotless, the money paid here appeared to go toward neither maintenance nor cleaning. It's not every day one gets to sit in a stall with the object of one's high fiber diet smeared on every wall, so I appreciated the (hopefully) unique character of the place.

That aside, Kotor was well worth a walk around on the walls and poking around the marina and old town. Soon enough we had to take a bus onwards to Herceg Novi, a town in a similar style whose name means, literally, New Castle. =P

The road wound around the shore of a series of bays dotted with wooded and churched islands, yachts, and filled with shiny blue Mediterranean water.

At Herceg Novi we found a cheap place to stay (with bonus two year old), then headed for the beach. A rather large town of some tens of thousands, a corniche was formed of the former railway corridor. Most of the shore was concrete platforms rather than stone beaches in the communist fashion.

We found a place bathed in afternoon light, and jumped in. The water was nowhere near as clear as the Greek Islands, and somewhat shallower. A few dives cleared up some worrying sinuses, and then we had to climb back onto the platform with a minimum of cuts and scrapes.

We dined at a local place and had the usual healthfood option of fried meat and potatoes. We walked back via Internet and a good view over the old and new cities.

Next morning we woke early, headed to the bus station and got a ticket to Dubrovnik in Croatia. The bus was filled with Russians, and I had a ham sandwich for breakfast.

UPDATE: Photos.

Kosovo, Europe's youngest country

2011-09-10T08:53:00.002+10:00

Cruising past a set of enormous and empty factories marked yet another relatively uneventful border crossing, this time into Kosovo. Kosovo is Europe's youngest country; internationally recognized in 2008.

Exceptionally regular readers will recall that I was, in fact, in Belgrade for most of Tuesday January 7th 2008, which is, coincidentally, Serbian Orthodox Christmas. On that day I noticed a lot of graffiti which said variations of 'Kosovo is Serbian forever'. I also ate lunch at a McDonalds restaurant in the center of town.

Kosovo is a region which is seen by Serbs as the cradle of Serbian culture, and is the site of monasteries, monuments, and graves. About a hundred years ago, Albanian migration rendered Serbs a minority in the region. During wars in the 1990s (featured in the movie "Behind Enemy Lines") Serbia attacked Albanians in the region (and vice versa), until Clinton authorized a NATO strike on Belgrade, forestalling an attempted genocide.

About four weeks after my visit to Belgrade, Kosovo seceded from Serbia, and the McDonalds was torched by an angry crowd.

Today, the political situation has stabilized to the point that travelers might only encounter entrance stamp shenanigans with certain border crossings.

Against this backdrop we drove on a reasonably smooth road to the capital, Prishtina. Upon arrival, bus schedules out forced us to choose; half an hour or 24 hours in the city?

We set off up Bill Clinton boulevard towards the city center. About half way there we saw his statue as well as a three story high picture of him. We walked up the rather nice center plaza and found a guesthouse in which to stay. That evening we availed ourselves of superior purchasing power through fine dining, and J continued his sojourn through the world of Balkans beer.

Next morning we ventured to the Route 66 Diner opposite the UNMIK headquarters in the New Born part of town. I ate a half-pound 'fatburger' in another (unsuccessful) attempt to stop getting skinnier as we watched an endless procession of UN 4WDs cruising past.

We spent the rest of the day wandering through various neighborhoods. Highlights include the university campus with an architecturally interesting library and a barbwired shell of a church, and a series of nice mosques and monuments in the northern end of town, between which hung photos of the more than 3000 people still missing since the war in 1999.

On our way out of town we saw a big concrete church adorned with banners of Agnes Bojaxhiu, also known as Mother Theresa. She was a Christian Albanian born in what is now Macedonia, but that didn't stop the international airport in (mostly Muslim) Tirana being named after her!

We made it to the bus station with minutes to spare, availed ourselves of a strong contender for 'world's worst bathroom', and took our seats.

We managed to find the bus equivalent of an 'exit row' with stupendous amounts of legroom. This extra space allowed room for swarms of mosquitos to descend in perfect formation through the stagnant, stifling atmosphere, while our remaining senses were assaulted by a loop tape of terrible, terrible local music videos.

As the bus ground up a picturesque mountain range towards the Montenegrin border, we were rewarded with a spectacular sunset. An interesting day.

UDPATE: Photos.

Macedonia and the end of my 24th birthday

2011-09-08T20:03:00.002+10:00

We crossed the border into Macedonia with the four backpackers, who quickly flagged down a passing car and hitched a ride to Ohrid. We turned left off the main road at the first opportunity and descended back towards the lake. We walked past a church, a barn, a combine harvester (!), and down a road to St Naum's monastery, built at the site of the afore-mentioned springs that bubble up in the region, forming a short but rapidly flowing river that feeds the lake. We met a few travelers on the shore; 2 girls from East Germany, an artist from Kosovo, and a couple from Poland with whom we exchanged our Albanian money, chatted, skimmed rocks (record: 17), and watched the sun set over the lake. J bought me a burger for a birthday dinner and we ate in the company of two girls from Vienna. Though one was a med student, both were chain smokers!

We took the last bus to Ohrid, and considered spending the night at that lakeside town. At the bus station, however, we made a 10 minute connection to an express to Skopje, and with minimal drama found ourselves in the large, well organized concrete bus/train terminal of the Macedonian capital a quarter of an hour before midnight.

We walked across town and, guided by the world's worst map, found the 'Hostel Hostel', in which we availed ourself of free tea, checked email, and I spent a while parrying birthday wishes on Facebook.

Next morning we tip toed from the dorm, showered, ate some pie for breakfast, then wandered into the city. In the main square is an enormous poster of Alexander the Great, and we crossed the stone bridge towards a series of enormous building sites. In the adjacent old town we saw some beautiful mosques, the kale fortress, and the old market, complete with drinking water fountains, baths, a caravanserai, a locked section for valuables called the bezestan, and many other wonders.

We found an eatery under a tree and feasted on the traditional dish of tavche gravche, which consists of beans cooked with spices in a terra-cotta pot, all wrapped in a great name.

Sated but not yet supinated we returned to the bus station, spent our last denars, and spent most of the next leg to Prishtina (Europe's youngest capital city) chatting with L, a veteran couch surfer from San Francisco, and the only other person we've met who has taken a similarly minimalist approach to packing.

Photos by October... I promise!

UPDATE: Photos.

Albania and the best birthday ever!!

2011-09-07T11:35:00.001+10:00

After a reasonably ruthless 10 days in Greece, J and I were ready to kick back and relax a bit.

Fortunately our insane schedule prevented such slacking off, and before long we were waiting at the Greece side of the border while Albanians, evidently much keener than us to return home after shopping trips, continually cut the line. We walked 200m of no man's land, crossed the Albanian border without incident, and were immediately accosted by half a dozen minivan (fulgon) drivers, who had about 10 teeth between them. Thus we made it to Gjirokaster, a UNESCO listed town in the south of Albania, of which we saw very little.

Soon we found a connecting fulgon to Berat and left in a cloud of dust, garbage, and quivering steel reinforcing. Thus it was that we got our first view of Albania through a moving window. We had been warned to avoid the fulgons in favour of buses, as the vans are operated by Albania's allegedly-organized criminal networks...

While the drivers evidently knew each bump of the road personally, we were surprised to see carwashes (lavazho) every 10 meters or so along the road. Additional mirth was derived from the Albanian word for "for sale" (shitet) which appeared frequently on road side cars, trucks, buildings, and so on.

About half way the fulgon ground to a stop for a break. On the side of the road metal pipes emerged from the rock face, gushing with water that everyone enthusiastically gulped. Spring or cistern? I have no idea.

Soon we continued on. I should add that there was no real concept of 'sides of the road', particularly exciting while passing trucks and buses on winding mountain roads.

But we were too busy looking out. People rode cows and donkeys along the road which, to be fair, was partially rebuilt, and partially non-existent. Donkey drawn carts also shared the road, laden with hay, vegetables, strings of onions sold on the roadside, and family members. Fields were harvested with scythes and dotted with haystacks.

About halfway to Berat the haystacks were replaced with antiquated oil wells, and the air with something to which, I imagine, the fish in the Gulf of Mexico have become accustomed.

Also dotting the country side are hundreds of thousands of randomly placed mushroom-like prefabricated concrete gun emplacements. Their construction consumed the national budget during the communist years.

Perhaps the strangest thing I saw was the proliferation of scare crows, one of which was hung from the roof of a petrol station!

After only a few instances of our fare being 'bought' by another fulgon going in the relevant direction, we arrived in another UNESCO listed town called Berat. Preserved for its unique blend of Albanian, Ottoman and Greek architecture, it had many, many windows. The Muslim quarter was decorated with a selection of mosques, all connected by narrow cobbled streets and a few bridges crossing the river to the Christian quarter.

J and I bumped into a couple of Czech backpackers who recommended us a very nice guest house. J negotiated the deal in broken Italian, then we set off for a walk through the town. Gradually my usual travel feelings of paranoia seeped away. I am by no means rich, but it's surprising how little is needed to remind me just how wealthy I am. Even if, hypothetically, I was totally broke, my health and education are still priceless (though non-tradeable) commodities in some even European countries.

We found a net cafe which had wireless eeePCs for 5c/hour. I left J after finishing my Internet and went for a walk up the hill, discovering the third quarter; a well preserved medieval town within the hill-top fortress. At the citadel I had a great view of the town and spent about 30 minutes clambering over the ruined battlements in the dark. Fortunately there were not too many hidden precipitous drops!

Back at the town I chatted with the Czech couple over Albanian wine and olives, wrote my journal to the strains of the first organ symphony of Vierne, and went to sleep. But not before the clock struck midnight and I turned 24.

While lacking much of the transition and indulgent adventuring of my 22nd year, 23 was highly successful in its own way, marking the commencement of grad school in a new country and the writing of a new chapter in my life. Regular readers may agree that 23 was not entirely devoid of adventure either!

Next morning we woke to a complimentary breakfast from our wonderful host (details on request) and wandered to the bus station to find a lift to Elbasan. We worked out that the 9:30 bus had been delayed until 11 due to low patronage. Fortunately we ate a rapid breakfast, as the bus left at 10:45. After a slow, hot, dusty and extremely authentic journey we arrived in Elbasan and found a connecting fulgon to Pogradec. We fare-swapped at a roadside spring, then climbed a crazy road over a pass to see Ohrid lake below us. Not only is it at 750m above sea level, it is fed by spring waters that flow under a mountain from an adjacent lake in Macedonia. The surface was smooth, shiny, and blended with the horizon in a very Baikal way. We walked along the shore from Pogradec towards the Macedonian border about 5kms away. We were picked up by a couple of unlicensed French-Albanians in Pogradec on holidays who drove us a bit closer and, after dropping us off, backed into a signpost!

At the border we met four Aussie/Kiwi backpackers on their way from everywhere to everywhere. Before long we had left Albania behind. Although I was not entirely immune to its many charms, crossing that border was one of the best birthday presents I have ever received!

UPDATE: Photos.

Greece!

2011-09-04T05:26:00.002+10:00

The ferry ploughed the Aegean towards Greece. Soon we were standing in a new country. J and I walked north from the town past a series of ruined windmills to a rock beach. J went for a swim with some local teenagers, I snoozed! A bus back into town and we met some fellow travelers for dinner. T and A were interns in Turkey from Germany and Serbia respectively. Soon, it was time to board the ferry. We met two more travelers trying to hitchhike back to Poland without money! J and I slept on the roof for a better view of stars and freezing wind.

Next morning we docked in the charmless Athenian outpost of Piraeus. We made our way into the city and rushed up the Acropolis before the hordes consolidated. Later that day we could barely see the mountain at all for the surfactant tourist coating! We also saw the new Parthenon museum, had a nice lunch, and disturbed a phalanx of waiters by charging and using my phone for Internet in the cafeteria.

That evening we saw students occupying a university building in the city, and the parliament guards doing funny stuff. We took a sleepy tram to the water front and met E, our CSer. After dropping our stuff we made up for not eating much since Chios by eating 3 amazing souvlakis each, followed by a walk along the beach in the sunset.

Next day we woke early and took public transport for about 5 hours to get to Delphi. Highlights of the trip included a 10 minute run to catch a bus! The trip out also showed us many new wind generators installed all over Greece. From modern Delphi, we had an incredible view over a valley of olive trees to the water, many miles away. The Delphi museum is filled with treasures from the site, mainly gifts from kings as distant as Pergamum seeking priority in receiving an oracle. The site is large and full of rocks. Occupying a shelf half way up the mountain, the main sanctuary is thought to be built at the intersection of two fault lines, which in ancient times permitted the evolution of a unique spring where chemical reactions liberated ethylene. The priestesses became intoxicated and mumbled; a nearby priest wrote some fairly non-committal prediction. Springs still exist in the region, but drinking from them produced no unusual effects.

Waiting for the bus we met three interesting people. A Greek man and his Mexican pen-friend/Spanish interlocutor/wife, and her friend. J had a good chat in Spanish!

Back in Athens we ate Kalamaki for dinner, packed, and prepared to leave.

Next day we were aiming for the Kifisou bus station, but got lost. In the process we found a Russian supermarket and bought some biscuits for breakfast. I chatted to the girl working there in my basic Russian, but evidently said the right thing because we were gifted with two ice creams!

Dodging aggro beggars at the bus station we headed for the Isthmus, and were rewarded with a view of the Corinth Canal cutting the land in half.

We visited Ancient Corinth, which was pretty cool, and saw the pottery in their museum, which was extraordinary. We took a bus to Nafplio and spent the night watching castles, street performers, distant lightning, and yachts.

Next day was a long haul to Pyrgos on the opposite side of the Peloponnese. We met our CSer G, walked around the town, then got our Greek on by spending the entire evening in a coffee shop by the square talking with people. G told us crazy CSing stories about sleeping overnight in a room full of magic mushrooms under lights, and fare evasion by speaking in imaginary languages. He also told us about an expected hitchhiker from England who was spending a month in Greece, but already took 2 weeks to get from Thessaloniki to Athens! Apparently he came back to his Athens CSer, took off only one shoe then passed out for 18 hours from sheer exhaustion. He woke at 8pm the next day and said "I'd better go while it is still morning." =P

Next day we took the train to Olympia, a large and well preserved site. The museum in particular had some extraordinary remnants. J and I raced twice the length of the stadium, then indulged in some wrestling to even the score. There were nearly as many tourists as at the acropolis of Athens! In the evening we took a bus, ferry, and hitchhike to Sami, on the island of Kefalonia.

Kefalonia has had a number of large earthquakes in the last century, leveling nearly everything. Geographically, however, it is green and mountainous, ringed in crystal clear beaches, riddled with caves and mystery. That evening we walked to Antisamos beach, and swum in the evening light. I had brought goggles, and could see the bottom to a depth of 20m or so. Looking at it past my feet induced mild vertigo. Soon we were surrounded by fish of all different kinds. That evening we chilled by the docks and sipped our drinks.

Next day J headed for the beach, and I took a cab across the island to the low-lying Paliki peninsula. On the way I was rewarded with dozens of incredible views, including a mirror smooth Lefkadi gulf and lots of folded limestone. At Atheras Beach I went for a swim, enjoying a sandy beach. On the eastern side of the bay a spring coated the warm sea water in a layer of cold about 10cm thick, with an amazing filigree mixing zone in the sun. I walked up to Atheras, a strong candidate for the true location of the Homeric Ithaca, and met a girl in a shop who seemed to have walked straight from the pages of Captain Corelli's Mandolin, which is set on the island. All too soon it was time to bid Pelagia farewell and return to Sami. A walk along the beach was punctuated by the first storm of the season, and followed by a trip to the Melissani Cave, a flooded sinkhole cave with crystal clear brackish water flowing under the island. With rain falling through the roof hole it was pretty amazing. On the way back I met some Australians on a cruising regatta in ~50' yachts around the Adriatic sea. I turned a shade of green! That evening we compared notes, ate, drank, and prepared to leave.

Next day we took a ferry to Patras, about which it can be said that it has an amazing bridge. Otherwise, we found it cramped, busy, noisy and smelly. After a 2 hour wait, a bus left for Ioannina. The bus wound between ever-present wind turbines and mountains, while the radio proceeded to Rickroll us. We met our CSer Y (organized by J), walked through the Turkish fortress and around the lake before retiring for a pasta dinner (thus breaking the run of souvlaki) and watched a few episodes of 'Shameless', a rather questionable though hilarious TV show. Y had a frighteningly large computer monitor/TV, which was a stunning contrast to my broken iPhone screen on which I have been depending! J commented that only four days before we'd been at the beach in Nafplio!

Next day J and I left early to catch the bus to Kalambaka, chatting to two French backpackers we found on the way. At the town we were immediately confronted by enormous spires of rock that make the Meteora region famous. Between them we got a terrific echo effect, and watched a few brave slack-liners tackle the voids. J and I set off and in 4 hours managed to walk to all six publicly accessible monasteries, though we entered only St Barbara's. While small, it is an architectural gem, with many handmade fittings, access by rope basket, terrific iconography, and terrifyingly awesome views. J thought it would be a terrific place to survive a zombie apocalypse.

Back in Ioannina, Y took us up the mountain for a view of the lake, island, and sunset. We ate traditional food and drank traditional spirits as the sun set, and later heard some traditional (and rather strange) music.

Next morning we woke early then took off with Y towards the mountains; a series of stone-built villages strung out along the edge of an enormous canyon with the dawn breaking over the top. At the bottom, turquoise water spanned by ancient arched bridges. At the top, tiny houses and churches, interspersed with places selling coffee. Each house had a wooden door within a slate roofed gate, colourful windows, and a vegetable garden. Later we visited a monastery perching on the edge of a gorge about 1km wide and deep. Much deeper and narrower than the grand canyon, with echoes to match and impossible trees beginning to turn orange with autumn.

All too soon it was time to return, collect our bags, and buy a bus ticket to the Greek-Albanian border. As the bus wound through the mountains I demolished an enormous slice of chicken pie and prepared to leave Greece behind, for who knows how long?

UPDATE! Photos.

More crazy travels; Turkey!

2011-08-29T06:14:00.002+10:00

I last left you, dear reader, on a BA flight from heathrow. The air is dry, the accents crisp, and the inflight food is completely unsympathetic to one with a lactose allergy.

My carefully selected seat got no view of the old town during landing, but soon enough I had got a visa, crossed the border, passed customs, and taken a series of metros into the city. Alighting at Sultanahmet station I started wading through memories of my trip in the winter of January 2008. The climate was warmer!

I walked through the hippodrome between the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofia down into the backpacker district, and eventually located the Bahaus hostel, checked in, and left to search for J. I found him in the next street and together we walked to Eminonu, ate some kebabs for dinner, and soaked up the atmosphere.

The next day we visited a few mosques, Aya Sofia, the basilica cistern, the grand bazaar, the spice bazaar, and the Galata tower. Interspersed were episodes of epic Turkish dessert consumption. Sadly the Topkapi palace museum is closed on Tuesday.

That evening we took a bus to Canakkale, crossing the Dardanelles and meeting our CSer A at about 10:30pm. He took us to a converted inn where we chatted with his friends until midnight, then retires.

Next morning we took a bus to Troy and checked out the remnants of about a dozen cities stacked on top of each other. From the hill there was a clear view of the Scamander river, the dardanelles and Gallipoli. The archaeological remnants were pretty cool too. Returning to Canakkale we took a bus to Izmir, then Cesme after a 2 minute stop! In Cesme we found a Pansiyon, ate sheep stomach for dinner, and soaked up the evening vibe on the main street.

Next morning we woke early to buy tickets, returned to the pansiyon for our last Turkish breakfast, and then mooched through town to the ferry terminal, crossed the border with a quick passport stamp, changed money and waited on the dock for our ferry. The Greek island of Chios waited across the straight, and not long after we were on our way to the birthplace of democracy.

UPDATE: Photos! https://picasaweb.google.com/105494084231616659850/Turkey2011

F1rst post!

2011-08-23T22:13:00.002+10:00

Now, for the first time, I can find myself in front of a computer on which I can type! As some of you know, this trip exists as an experiment in very-light-packing. I have a single 18L backpack, into which I have crammed all my worldly possessions, with some degree of success.

Additionally, my friend T lent me a stuffed cassowary called Bragg to take with me, and whom I'm attempting to photograph in front of every monument of significance between Ankara and Cadiz. So stay tuned. I'm pleased to report that Bragg is far more photogenic than I.

I flew from LAX to Heathrow via JFK. Highlights of the trip included the antiquated 767 across the USA with a hole in the rear bulkhead through which I could see the interior of the pressure hull. I also met half a dozen med students from Leeds on their way back from South America with a variety of interesting stories. Also on that flight were more than a few dogs sleeping curled up in the exit row!!

London greeted me with late-morning fog. I hired a car (Vauxhall Insignia), and proceeded to remember how to drive as I drove the A40 into town. I even managed to find Bloomsbury Square without using the GPS, parked, and spent 3 hours walking down Monopoly named streets to St Pauls and the Thames and back. Curiously, the church of St Vedant alias Foster (quite close to St Pauls) had a very similar lay out to the chapel in St Paul's College in Sydney University. Like most of central London it was designed by Sir Christopher Wren!

Heading back towards Euston Road tube station and UCL I met my friend N. N and I had corresponded ever since I stalked her in connection to an upcoming interview for the Fulbright Scholarship, which she had won the year before. Despite thus knowing each other for about two years, we had never previously met. N was, I'm happy to say, much crazier in person! Despite her initial disappointment that we wouldn't start drinking at 5pm, we spent about 4 hours shooting the breeze in one of the most interesting and charged series of arguments I've ever had!

I decided to get out of London while the going was good, and made it onto the M1 before, at about 11:30pm, I started to experience... fatigue. I checked into a road-side hotel, accepting a steep discount for a defected room, and had 5 glorious hours of sleep before sitting bolt upright at 5am. No idea why - jetlag would put that at about 9pm LA time... I jumped in my car and set off, making it back to the highway after a road-works skirting diversion just as the sun rose over quaint rolling hills with dry stone walls and organic looking cottages. By breakfast time I was in Kendal, and spent most of the day negotiating narrow roads in the Lake District. I even revisited the Lodore Cascades at Derwent, and shot about 15 minutes of them, for unspecified later use. :)

I ate some lunch and got back on the road. Now accustomed to controls and the feel of the car, I felt more comfortable keeping up with the traffic, as it averaged 80mph down the road. Soon enough, however, the lunch kicked in and I ended up pulling over in the town of Lockerbie for a 30 minute siesta. As far as the town goes, there is little sign of the terrible crash that occured there a few decades ago, though it continues to make international news. By 6pm that day I was in Edinburgh, met B, found some cruddy Indian food for dinner, and had plenty of interesting chats.

Next morning we got up earlyish and set out into the Scottish countryside. We stopped first at Loch Leven, site of an aristocratic house and garden, and a few island-bound castles, one of which had imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots back in the day. We ate a loaf of bread for breakfast, and continued on perilously narrow roads to the town of Dollar, where we visited Castle Campbell, the lowlands stronghold of the Campbell clan. It was on the small side, as far as castles go, but surrounded by beautiful mountains, streams, and country side. Only part of it was ruined. Returning to the car park we found one of the tires had gone flat! After changing it, a screw hole was found. We cut out part of our trip and returned to Edinburgh, just in time for B's show for Out of the Blue, which was EXCELLENT! Amazing stuff. Later that afternoon, a tire change guy come out and changed the tire. At that point I found a screw in the rear tire on the same side - so I guess we got lucky. With that repaired, I felt more confident about an 8 hour marathon to Oxford the next day! We still had enough daylight left for a quick jaunt up Arthur's Seat, where we saw the Firth of Forth, a sunset, and the roofs of a rather quaint, lowrise and traditionally architectured town. In short, it was excellent.

When I previously climbed Arther's Seat with my brother M during December 2007, I found the way down quite icy and slippery. This time, however, it was so lovely I did part of it barefoot. We returned to the house for a barbeque with the group and friends, spent a few minutes trying to melt the grill with various kinds of alcohol as accelerants, and eventually went to bed.

The next morning I got on the road at 7am, and to my pleasant surprise found the vibrations at 70mph had all but vanished since I removed the screws from the car tires! The way was fast, and after listening to the latest Out of the Blue CD 7 times (it's that good!), I arrived at the house of my Oxford CSer, L. L was a retired mechanical engineer with a very interesting house. We went for a bike ride around the river and into the town. I saw a playbill for a piano recital that evening by Jack Gibbons, and resolved to see it. He's one of the greatest pianists currently alive, who specialises in Alkan and Gershwin, of all things! Back at L's house, we had pasta for dinner before I jogged 2.6 miles back into town. Unfortunately the show was sold out :(, but then D, a friend from Science Revue turned up, so we went to the Turf (a low-ceilinged pub dating from pre-Roman days, apparently) instead. D, his friend A, and later old Pauline's T and his brother P turned up, so there were Australians EVERYWHERE! It was very fine and jolly. At 10pm I spontaneously passed out, so said my goodbyes and returned to L's place, where not long after I fell asleep.

Up the next morning at 6:30am, drove back to Heathrow. But for a short delay on the M25 (impossible to avoid!), I strode into the rather shiny terminal 5, had a quick breakfast of Okinomiyaki, and boarded a flight to Istanbul. Before long The Island receded behind me and it was time for the next adventure - Istanbul!

Photos will be uploaded eventually. I promise.

EDIT: Photos are uploaded. https://picasaweb.google.com/105494084231616659850/UK2011

Impending travel!

2011-08-17T09:50:00.001+10:00

By this time tomorrow I'll be closer to space, on my way to New York, and then Heathrow, UK for some productive gallivanting around the countryside. Expect quasi-regular updates of this, my last indulgent holiday (?) before PhD-land arrives.

Photos will upload to here: https://picasaweb.google.com/105494084231616659850/EuropeAugSep2011

After Princeton - the way home

2011-08-04T19:24:00.000+10:00

With minimal time wastage in transfers, I found myself clambering out of the train in Philadelphia. Unlike a few other US cities, I really knew nothing about Philadelphia. A few of my friends have been before, and recommended some stuff to see, but that's about it. I walked from the station through Rittenhouse Square to my couchsurfer, D. She accepted my couch request despite leaving for Ghana less than 24 hours later. She'd hosted about two dozen people since joining CSing in April, which I thought was impressive. We climbed onto the roof, I washed the dishes, and then we went for a walk to a nearby bridge to look at the skyline, sunset, and contemplate a swim in one of the rivers. Only about half of it was under an oil slick.

On the way back, we were caught in a brief downpour, but it's so warm and humid even at 8pm that it was no big deal. I picked up some kosher chocolate dessert stuff, and we walked to a Jewish university students potluck dinner. I think it's the first time I've been the only non Jewish person in a large roomful, but it wasn't too scary. Good food, and sitting in a circle swapping names, universities, and majors. At length we left a disappointed dog (having eaten all the dinner by ourselves) and walked back to D's place, and collapsed into an inflatable mattress. Next morning it resembled the Schwarzschild metric, but fortunately did not strike the ground. D left for Ghana, I walked into town, scoped out a good vantage point for the Wanamaker organ in the children's clothing section of Macy's, and dozed slightly through a 45 minute recital on the world's largest operational pipe organ. It has about 31000 pipes, 462 ranks, 6 manuals, etc. I picked up some lunch and met the next CSer, W, and we talked our way into the Mutter museum for free.

The Mutter museum was originally a collection of medical samples; skeletons, models, two-headed foetuses in jars, and so on. Nowadays medical pedagogy has stepped forward, so the collection is now in a museum. For me it was closer to fascinating than gross, but there were still a lot of surprises. Highlights included a case full of models of stuff that can go wrong with eyes, skeletons of various bone deformities, including giantism and dwarfism, severe kyphosis (hunchback), and the results of late-stage terminal syphilis. It's hard to believe survival was possible with the degree of damage shown in some cases.

Following that we walked back through the city trying to find W's car, which he had lent to some friends who were moving. We found them at about the same time as they finished moving, so accompanied them to a beer distributor (bottle shops are separate by law in Pennsylvania), which we carried up to their roof. I was wearing one of my nerdy teeshirts, and had a good chat about the foundations of special and general relativity. The sun set and W scoped out a CS potluck for dinner. We dropped the movees off to collect their bikes, then swung past a factory-flat-convo to pick up another person. This place was basically one big room, and there were about half a dozen people present, an eclectic mix of furniture, 5 dogs, and a variety of smoking paraphernalia scattered here and there. I got the feeling that the place was trapped in an eternal present, as both the past and future seemed impossibly remote in that environment. We ate some spaghetti and meatballs, and sat around making references to events and films noone could quite remember. In the nick of time we remembered to meet the moving people at the next place and took our leave, as though evading an impending forest fire.

By the time we arrived at the CS meetup, the eating part had wound up (so I only got one dinner), but about a dozen of us headed down the road to a rather interesting bar for further entertainment. A converted house with all internal walls removed, it had a dance floor upstairs. The DJ stood in the bath with his turntables on the sink, and the floor sagged convincingly with pounding of 'modern' style dancing. W had been up until 6am that morning, so at midnight we took out leave, headed back to his place in Fish town, and after a quick shower/clothes wash, slept through the heat of the morning.

Next day we got up at about 11am, and sat chatting about travel, the various sub-cultures W was familiar with via his work in photography, and the possibility of figurative death and rebirth through life-changing experiences. At about 1pm we realised we hadn't eaten breakfast yet, so went to a local Irish cafe and fed ourselves well. I had a steak, potatoes, mushrooms, tomato, sausages, and toast. Om nom nom!

That day (Sunday) was a street festival near the Piazza (pronounced without a glottal stop, apparently) on 2nd St. Over time the day cooled off, W achieved an extraordinarily tight park between two frighteningly shiny cars, and the crowd came out. There were some of the most colourful clothes I had ever seen. W and I started a game of 'spot the hipster' for 5 points, but eventually had to change the rules to 25 points for slapping a hipster in the face. There were just too many of them! One of the stages had robot legs, so we called it 'rocktimus prime'. At some point I ate a few mini donuts, and the streets exploded with time-travelling wizards, and a rather ironic conversation about astrology was had. The bottom line performance was by a band called 'tuneyards', that used some nifty recording/playback technology to build up a very interesting sound. Despite the heat about 2000 people crowded the Piazza and danced. About half a dozen or so did a double-take on my "Maxwell's equation in differential forms notation", since it wasn't quite ironic enough. One person even recognised me as a physicist! There were free iced-coffee energy drinks being given out. I don't recall the brand, but the can said 'consume no more than 3 daily', which gives you some idea of the kick they delivered. Also in abundance for some peculiar reason was red-heads. About 50% of the people present, as well as being deliriously alternative, had flaming red hair. I felt like I was back in Ireland, though I've never actually visited...

Once more the sun set, and it was time for the next house party! We stopped by a supermarket to buy some ingredients, and once there, prepared (laboriously!) gula melaka for dessert! I had never made it before, but at least stirring it reasonably regularly gave me an excuse to absent myself from the rather smoky balcony at regular intervals. There was also a piano on which I played a few songs. Fortunately the action was not up to a recital of my less socially inclined pieces. The main course was a pretty awesome selection of mainly vegan food. The conversation was, as always, right out of left field. Time-travelling magicians made a reappearance, with a discussion of amphibian transmutation. At some point a passer-by offered to sell us some 'oxys', but we already had enough beer to last us until morning at least. Sadly the tapioca had stuck to the bottom of the pot, so I spent about 20 minutes scratching it off in the sink with my nails, while engaging one of the housies S in a fascinating discussion of late 1960s feminist lit crit on Freud 50 years later. As the evening wore on and I finished off most of the food :) I showed W how to throw a library card down the street. This time we got home and to sleep by 3am.

Next morning I was up at 11am, but packed slowly enough that I had to rush to the train station. I caught the train to Atlantic City with minutes to spare, but as the train pulled out realised I'd done a 19-year-old-me and forgotten to eat again! Fortunately I wasn't yet starved. In Atlantic City I navigated between enormous casino towers to the Irish Pub, one of the cheapest hotels available. I had been unable to find any CSers here, but fortunately the Irish Pub is both atmospheric and 111 years old. AND has a bar/restaurant downstairs, at which I had shepherds pie and steak fries for breakfast/lunch. I'm in a tiny un-airconditioned room with a shared bathroom and shower (one per floor), and it's basically perfect. This is how inns should be! Most of my fellow people are older American men down at the beach from Philly or somewhere, or Irish people gunning for patriotism. At about 5pm I went for a walk and covered about 8 miles of the Atlantic City boardwalk - the world's first. Watching boards zoom beneath my feet caused an odd 'vibration' effect, probably as the eye's saccades were drawn to some critical speed. I scoped out my destination for tomorrow's tour (of the organ in the boardwalk hall!), and went for a walk along the beach. The beach is not particularly nice or clean or anything, but as the sun set it did not particularly matter. Large clouds rolled in and a distant storm began to flash. I saw a nun walking along the beach covered in white, except for a prominent cross and rosaries. An interesting place for a nun - amongst all the casinos and massage parlours. The illusion was shattered somewhat when she winked at me!

In short order the storm blew around and soon lightning crackled everywhere. I stood on the beach experimenting with long exposures (trying to get lucky) as the entire sky lit up with mostly cloud-to-cloud strikes. In the end I got one reasonably good strike, though of course nothing is like cold drops of rain, rumbles of thunder and a distant band, warm breeze, crashing waves, rough sand, and millions of volts of electricity only a few hundred metres overhead.

I returned to the sitting room of the inn and sat between deaf men shouting at each other, snooped some wireless, and uploaded photos. Lightning: https://picasaweb.google.com/105494084231616659850/NewYorkAndPrinceton#5636076774171024258. That evening I stayed up late washing clothes and hair. I'm looking forward to being able to wear a different shirt when I get home!

Next morning, I woke at 8:30am after just over 3 hours of beautiful sleep! I found bacon and eggs for breakfast, then walked down the boardwalk between other 'early' risers to the Convention Hall. This, indeed, was the reason I had trekked all the way to Atlantic City. The convention hall was built between 1929 and 1932 and could originally seat 41000 people. To provide music for the hall, a pipe organ was also commissioned. Designed by Senator Richards (as were 3 others in Atlantic City), it was on a scale never before seen. Built and installed by 80 technicians, it has 449 ranks, ~33000 pipes, and one of only two 64' stops in the world. The other one is in the Sydney Town Hall! Additionally, there are 10 32' stops, 4 ranks on 100" of pressure. One of these, the Grand Ophicleide, produces the loudest musical sound ever built, of around 150dB. The hall itself is enormous, with a 6 second reverb that can be actively exploited to play music at certain tempi.

My photographs: https://picasaweb.google.com/105494084231616659850/ConventionHallOrgan

Other ones from the trip: https://picasaweb.google.com/105494084231616659850/NewYorkAndPrinceton

Organ website (with sound samples): http://www.acchos.org

The tour took about 4 hours, and we visited 4 of the 8 pipe chambers, inspected many varieties of pipes, checked out the relay rooms, 1929 solid state memory devices, and gargantuan 7 manual console! We also got a good look at the operations of the hall and the smaller Kimball pipe organ in the ballroom. One of the tour guides told me a story about how his family had met an girl from Blacktown during a tour in Australia in 1983. She then visited them in upstate New York, and subsequently fell in love with and married one of his sons!

Sadly, both organs are in various states of disrepair. The ballroom organ will probably be fully operational within 6 months. In 1996 the right stage chamber was pushed to 75% operational status and a series of recordings done. These recordings, despite shortcomings of less than a quarter of the organ being available, are still extraordinary! Conservation and restoration continues at a steady pace. The pipework is fine, but many wind chests, blowers, windchests, etc need fixing or replacement. Each pipe has its own electromagnetic valve, and of course the relays need replacement with a modern computerised relay system which is much easier to maintain. Already, fire suppression systems and asbestos removal has taken place. Without a serious infusion of money, however, it will be a decade or more before any part of the organ is functional, tuned, and ready for action. Realistically, the entire thing will probably not work all at the same time without a small army of technicians and tuners! In my opinion, the only valid business model for its continued operation is the donation of time by organ builders and assistants in some sort of monastic tradition. Still, given the opportunity I'd rebuild a few dozen ranks. Then you'd only need a few hundred more people like me and the whole thing would be working again...

After the tour I returned to the Irish Pub, ate lunch (they have the best deals in town), and had a siesta until the evening. At about 9pm I set out and walked up and down the beach looking in curiousity shops and restaurants, and eventually sat down for a 3 course $20 meal. When the bill arrived, I was bemused to see a compulsory 18% gratuity added BEFORE tax was calculated. I walked back down the beach (now without a thunderstorm), completed some internet, and went to sleep.

Next morning I was awoken by a very loud fighter plane flying over head, just in time to check out, eat breakfast, and take a cab to the airport. At security a TSA agent asked about my accent. Are they actually doing the Israeli "how are you, where are you coming from?" security thing now? Somehow I doubt it. Once in the terminal I discovered that my flight was delayed about 90 minutes. Fortunately (for me) the same plane is doing the connecting flight, and there is wifi (of a sort) available in the lounge. Ah... Spirit Airlines. You never exceed expectations!

At length we boarded and taxied out onto the tarmac. One flight attendant gave us the wrong flight duration, so during preflight checks the pilot said "would our wonderful flight attendants and the other one prepare the cabin for take-off". I dozed until a late afternoon landing in Detroit, and confirmed that the same plane would be continuing to LA. In this case I didn't miss my connection, which was lucky. At 8:10pm we pushed back, and during the taxi the sun set over the airport. During take-off we climbed faster than the rise of the terminator, and popped out of clouds back into sunlight, experiencing an evening sunrise. The plane flew west slightly slower than the sunset, meaning the sun took about 3 hours to set from our view. In this way we got two sunrises and two sunsets, one of them rather drawn out. This is one of my favourite things when flying, but it only happened to me once before, during a flight from Warsaw to Vienna on the 20th of December 2006 (or thereabouts).

Eventually the sun set as we crested the Rockies. For a while, the flight got rather bumpy as we zoomed between dozens of enormous storms with lots of excellent lightning. The woman sitting next to me was reading 'Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul 2'. It seemed to consist of a whole bunch of stories of fights against the odds with terrible things happening. The various protagonists unflinching faith in their beliefs seemed to be the only common thread running through the stories, prompting evil me to question correlation vs causation. One is also inclined to wonder just how much chicken soup the christian soul needs, if the original book warranted a sequel. I'd also be interested to know if there's a book of chicken soup for the non-christian or zoroastrian soul or something.

On landing at LAX, I stowed my maths notebook, and saw a long daisy chain of lights leading back from the airstrip into the sky, consisting of a queue of aeroplanes coming down to land. I jumped in a shuttle and made my way back to Pasadena, where future (on FRIDAY!) housie R provided me with some lovely dinner. Borscht, rice pilaf and water. Yum!

Overall, a very interesting 18 days on the road!

After Princeton - the way home

2011-08-04T19:21:00.001+10:00

My photographs: https://picasaweb.google.com/105494084231616659850/ConventionHallOrgan

Other ones from the trip: https://picasaweb.google.com/105494084231616659850/NewYorkAndPrinceton

Organ website (with sound samples): http://www.acchos.org

Overall, a very interesting 18 days on the road!

Princeton excitement

2011-07-31T15:52:00.001+10:00

I've been at a workshop on theoretical aspects of cosmology for the last two weeks. It's called the PITP and is extremely interesting! It's held every year at the Institute for Advanced Study, which is an independent research institute close to Princeton in New Jersey.

In our information packet, there was a page-long warning about Lyme disease, which can be caught from ticks in the wilds of the campus. Deadly invisible animals everywhere - soon I'll get homesick! On the first day, everyone kept close to the path just in case they were attacked by giant marauding arachnids.

About 24 hours after we arrived a shuttle was arranged to drive us to the nearest supermarket - only 20km away! Princeton is anything but a bustling metropolis, if you get my drift. Entering 'shoprite' or something I had to negotiate 20 or so shelves stuffed with cookies, followed by an aisle of cakes in plastic containers covered in heaps of icing, followed by yet more cookies! After traipsing all over the store collecting non-poison, I staggered back onto the shuttle carrying 6 bright yellow bags of groceries. Hopefully enough to feed me for seven days!

During the check-in process, we were given a box of afternoon tea refreshments, the centrepiece of which was a rather exciting looking sandwich. If you will permit a short excursion into the fascinating area of US farm subsidies; a push for healthier milk led to the popularisation of skim milk products. So far so good. But the diary industry was left with an excess of cream. There is really nothing sensible to do with cream except to eat it. So the diary lobby (yes! It exists!) has pushed for wider consumption/subsidisation of cheese and butter. Which kinda defeats the purpose of skim milk in the first place.

This sad fact impinged upon my life thusly - the upper part of the sandwich bread was encrusted with a delectable layer of melted cheese. Don't get me wrong, I actually rather like cheese, but have been rather allergic to milk products for the last two years or so. The sandwich upper was lain aside. Beneath two slices of the rather less appetising orange american cheese shone sunnily forth. They too were consigned to the purgatory of the adjacent fold of grease proof paper. I was suspicious that the sandwich may be built upon a foundation of milky creamy stuff, but it passed the sniff test. I proceeded with abandon. It was scrumptious. Perhaps a little too scrumptious. Forensic analysis of the crumbs revealed, to my utter horror, that the bottom of the sandwich too had a stealth encrustation of baked cheese.

Having not eaten this much of the forbidden fruit in many months, I was now curious (like the scientist I am) to see what would happen. I am pleased to report that a repeat of the precipitous weight loss that marked the last half of 2009 did not repeat itself. However the usual milder response of fatigue and irresistible drowsiness while seated has recurred. Sitting in 5 hours of lectures a day in front of the creme de la creme of theoretical physics was daunting enough. Spending most of that time in bizarre, cheese-filled dreams, was slightly embarrassing. Fortunately at this sort of event jet-lag and workaholism is not so uncommon that sleeping all day is particularly out of the ordinary. Still, when I'm able to control my diet better I will have to return to the webcasts (as yet only fabled) and see what I missed out on. Moving to the back of the theatre and less comfortable seats helped to an extent!

For the record, all the speakers here are highly regarded researchers in their fields, including Susskind, one of the inventors of string theory. Ed Witten (the only physicist to ever win a Fields Medal) is not officially part of the program, but has joined many of the sessions. It is slightly intimidating to be amongst people who would eat my hardest research problem for breakfast. So I have to keep it a secret! As my research is tangential, I do not know most of their work except by reputation, which is also slightly awkward. E.g. "Hi, I'm Casey. I hear you do good work, but I have no idea what it is..."

On Thursday afternoon I walked through the town, visiting the record store, a small park with a list of regulations and rules about 8 feet high, and saw many of the famous buildings in Princeton, including the stairs that Russell Crowe dropped books down in the movie 'A Beautiful Mind', about the economist and Nobel Prize winner John Nash. The next day at lunch the REAL John Nash was sitting at the next table! With a few Nobel Laureates at the cafeteria I could almost be back home at Caltech!

Also worth mentioning is the exterior shots of the "Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital" in the television series "House" is actually the Frist Student Center on the Princeton Campus. Like everything else, however, it's actually filmed and produced in LA.

On Friday afternoon we were finally released from the rather strict schedule we had been following (wearing a name tag at all times is compulsory!) and, throwing a spare shirt or two into my capacious laptop bag, I sprinted for the train. Except that the ambient temperature was about 40C, so my sprint was more of a purposeful melt. If it had been much hotter, I could have exploited the Ladenfrost effect and scooted there on a frictionless layer of steam. Would have simplified the calculations too!

To the train! Before long I was once more in New York's Penn Station, which have all the charm of a subterranean Burger King drive-thru, but a worse smell. In particular, access to the platform from the concourse is via a stairway too narrow for two (normal sized) people to pass, and platform numbers are not announced until 10 minutes before departure. In contrast, for instance, every railway station I visited in Russia was designed and built exquisitely to corral large volumes of human and freight traffic in all weathers and temperatures with maximum efficiency. I am aware that Penn Station was originally a full scale replica of the Baths of Caracalla, with rolling stock instead of a hypocaust, but its loss is an indelible stain on the architectural legacy of the entire United States.

I had received word (via the customary homing pigeon) that my CS host for this weekend K was running late, so rather than brave the metro tunnels I emerged in the sunlight. Elementary arithmetic soon had me zigzagging south east towards my destination. I arrived in time to buy some cool drinks and hang my new hammock (ordered and delivered to Princeton by Amazon Prime!) on the roof before I was joined by K and another CSer, H! Sadly most of the view is blocked by the rampart when sitting in the hammock, but the sunset and sky was, if anything, in bolder relief.

Returning to the blessed cool of air conditioned comfort below we ransacked the fridge and produced a very passable pasta sauce. There is nothing quite like a variation on a theme!

Over the next few days H and I saw Captain America (from the front row) which very, very nearly exceeded my extremely low expectations, but was otherwise fun. We purchased some cupcakes from Sugar Sweet Sunshine only to be served by someone from Sydney! Graduated from Strathfield in 2005, the same year I did! I sometimes try and imagine the tangle of lines embedded in 3+1 spacetime by the movement of people from place to place, and how they diverge and clash again. It was still extremely hot, even with the AC on, except about below the knees. On Saturday evening we held a party on the roof, to which about a dozen brave souls turned up. The weather held, the hammock bindings held, the alcohol supply held. Even K only triggered the emergency alarm once!

Outside the cinema H and I had been bailed up by a journalist who wanted to ask us our opinion of the recently reported death of Amy Winehouse. Aside from the usual questions, one in particular stuck in my mind. "Do you know anyone with whom you would want to intercede?" At the time I answered that I thought doing so would probably only heighten a feeling of condemnation and isolation, as it apparently had with Amy. I'm still inclined to think that to assume I (or anyone) could 'save' someone from themselves is at best naive and at worst condescending. In my opinion the gifts and privileges I've received, through no fault of my own, are much too valuable to risk on what I see as rather juvenile chemical attempts at escapism. That, and I prefer my experiences undercooked. I've travelled far and wide, however, and I'm aware that my feelings and rather hard line in this matter are certainly a minority, and possibly unique. It's not that I'm overly cautious or averse to danger. Just stupid, pointless danger!

Later on Sunday I met K one last time at Bryant park and we had Thai noodles for dinner at a nice place near 36th and 8th (I think??). After exchanging the requisite keys I bolted for the station, and once again immersed myself in the company of peculiar people. Nearly everyone had an iPhone, including me. Though mine is increasingly unusable due to a large crack in the LCD and fluid leakage. The exterior of the phone remains pristine after nearly 2 years of ownership, so I'm a bit cheesed off about the whole thing. Planning an upgrade to probably a Samsung+Android combo in October so I can run some UNIX shell and ssh directly into the machines I use at work. Then I can make Linux move files with a frustrating keyboard and terrible user interface from the comfort of some lecture theatre I would otherwise be sleeping in!

Back at the IAS, the weather had turned. On Monday it rained heavily for most of the afternoon. A few of the nuttier theorists from Stanford expressed a desire to play soccer that evening regardless, however at 7:30 it was only D and I on the pitch, so we threw a Frisbee at each other for a while. In a cooperative sense. After that I was still a bit bouncy, so sandals in hand I took off down Einstein drive towards Bloomberg hall. Through the pouring rain, I splashed in cool puddles down to warm tarmac, pattered over the slick-looking slate, and flew down towards the pond. I paused for a second to catch my breath, and on an impulse pulled my damp teeshirt over my head, rolled it up, and stuffed it down the back of my pants. With a single look over my shoulder to check for oncoming traffic I flickered off on presto footsteps down a path I'd discovered the previous week. A rough dirt trail, it wound between the (rather undergrown) trees of the Princeton forest towards the (little) canal. In the evening's fading light and steady rain I could see moss, grass, dirt, stones, and muddy rivulets, slick underfoot. With short footsteps an unexpected stone is a minor inconvenience, and before long I had reached the water, spanned by a precarious looking wire and wood suspension bridge. I stood in the middle, sandals in hand, watching the rain smash down into the water where I had seen a crane the previous week. Then, lest the setting sun catch me out, I turned for home and zoomed back up the trail. Before long I was back at the pond, and stopped at the ice warning sign. In front of me was the main hall of the IAS. To the right, half a dozen deer looked up, surprised to see me. To the left was the pond, the surface mostly rough and choppy from the rain. Beyond, the sun shone up from the horizon beyond the clouds, casting the underside in that rare yellow glow you see combined with a rainbow about twice a year if you're lucky. I lapped the pond once and ran back via the soccer pitch under scattered yellow light and falling raindrops. Back home, I waited for my hair to dry and tried not to forget. I ran about 2.2 miles (3.6km), which is nearly twice as far as I've run since maybe 2003, and easily the furthest I've ever run without any shoes. It's easy to forget the texture of the ground and what it tells you about where you're going!

I made Pad Thai for dinner, and followed it up on Tuesday with a Moroccan chicken and vegetable stew, which was well received by my housemates, despite a few technical errors in the execution. Next day I experienced sleep paralysis during a lecture, which was slightly disconcerting! Later at lunch I joined an audience of awed grad students and post-docs watching an exchange between Witten and Arkani-Hamed concerning, inter alia, the possibility of the LHC discovering two Higgs bosons before next summer, thus simultaneously disproving both natural and fine-tuned models. For physicists, this is about as good as witty repartee and edgy humour gets. Arkani-Hamed, who is also faculty at the IAS, was doing most of the talking. Clearly, he was nearly as awed as the rest of us! My efforts through the last week to think of something sufficiently intelligent to say to Witten finally paid off! I asked if he'd care to take a side on the toroidal event horizon existence problem currently being bandied about by the grads back at TAPIR.

INTENSE NERDINESS (muggles may wish to skip to the end): This is the problem. A black hole is a lump of matter dense enough to trap light. This is a thing called 'escape velocity', which, like most physics things, means exactly what it says. Nothing can go faster than light (which is why we will eventually use nothing to power space ships <--- physics joke), so if light can't escape, nothing can. The stationary, uncharged, non-rotating black hole was the first solution to the Einstein Field equations. Sadly, that won't earn you a PhD anymore. Rotating black holes are similar, but a bit oblate. They too are stable with respect to time, so determining where the 'event horizon', or the surface beyond which light cannot escape, is relatively straight forward.

At Caltech, we're solving (inter alia) the problem of a general black hole binary inspiral, merger, and ringdown. Here's an oldish video of two non-rotating black holes merging: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9HTdpQMAjY. If the black holes are spinning, then the merger process involves an 'elephant trunk' of event horizon emerging from each black hole across space and eventually connecting to its opposite number. Note that at all times the event horizons of the holes are topologically equivalent (continuously deformable) to a sphere. However, it has been an open question for nearly 20 years whether this process can lead to slightly more exotic topologies. In particular, it is theoretically possible that each elephant trunk could connect somewhere half way up rather than at the ends, leading to the (momentary) creation of a torus, or doughnut topology. Topology just means 'shape'. Note that a typical coffee mug is also topologically equivalent to a doughnut. The discovery of toroidal event horizons would thus complete the holy physics trinity of coffee, donuts, and intense nerdiness.

Technical problems include solving the problem with adequate resolution (on top of which we're just getting). Additionally, finding the event horizon requires an evolution backwards in time from the final, time-stable state to discover which light rays only just escaped to infinity. Infinity is where escaped light rays go. Lastly, not all observers would see the same thing. The event horizon is a 2D surface in 3D space, so in 4D spacetime, the event horizon is actually a 3D manifold that separates two regions of space (an inside and an outside). Then what an observer sees is actually the surface of their past light-cone. Even if a whole bunch of observers get together and agree on a global time (like we do on the surface of the earth), this is non-unique. It's called a foliation, or slicing of space time into space-like surfaces separated by small, perpendicular time intervals. In particular, travelling at different speeds leads to different natural foliations. In order to infer the existence of a toroidal event horizon, the network of observers would all have to be travelling at some particular velocity. Noone is quite sure what this velocity might be. There is a good chance we'll have a relatively good answer by 2015, marking the 100th anniversary of the publication of General Relativity by Einstein in it's final, correct (so far as we can tell) form.

END INTENSE NERDINESS: So, an interesting problem. Naturally, Witten stated that it was not his area of expertise and declined to offer an opinion. My feeling is that toroidal event horizons almost certainly do not exist in nature, though I think they are theoretically possible and could be simulated on a computer. There's a diagram in the album somewhere.

That afternoon I attempted to prove the Jacobi identity for spin-0 4 particle interactions using spinor-helicity formalism (with limited success), then walked to the IAS director's house for pizza and pool party. Although no-one remembered that me and another guy were lactose unfriendly, someone else who didn't turn up was, so all was not lost. I hadn't had a swim in a pool since last August (nearly a year ago), and that was just a small pool in a banya in Magadan. Mostly guys, so there was a lot of water-frisbee-polo, splashing, a relay race, swimming under water, and I did a few flips into the pool to assess how much parkour in Orlando had rubbed off on me. Conclusion - don't try a forward somersault on concrete yet. The water was warm and it was a rather lovely evening. Plenty of fun was had by all! Worth mentioning is that the pool was installed by the former director Oppenheimer (probably not personally), who was one of the driving forces behind the Manhattan project, which led to the creation of the atomic bomb. I suppose he needed somewhere to keep his souveniers!

Around sunset I leapt out of the pool like a whale on speed and, scooping up my stuff, ran past a few slightly confused fellow attendees right back down the road to the house. Putting on my shoes would have slowed me down too much! Back at the diggings I listened to "The Book of Mormon" (the broadway show, not the book), prodded couchsurfing for a place to stay on Saturday (success at last!) and got ready for bed.

The rest of the program rushed to a conclusion. On Friday during lunch, Ed Witten was once again called upon for his expert opinion, this time on the 'tau-pi' religious divide. In recent years there has been a push from certain obscure corners of the academic community to use an alternate notation for units of angle in radians, tau. Numerically, tau = 2*pi, where pi = 3.14159... The reasoning for this is best told here: http://tauday.com/. Ed said something along the lines of "it's a bit late now", which I think applies pretty well for people who make a living out of mathematics - they battled past their confusion long ago!

At length I packed my bag, returned my key, posted my leftovers to K and A in NY, walked into town, bought some merchandise, and swung past the exterior set of the Princeton-Plainsboro teaching hospital (from the TV show "House") for good measure (The Frist Campus Center) on my way to the Princeton train station. Before long the density of nerds had dropped to its stable background level, and the wonders of Jersey Transit sped me away, back to real life.

Photos from the trip can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/105494084231616659850/NewYorkAndPrinceton

Russian subtitles

2011-07-27T08:05:00.001+10:00

A quick post! I cobbled together a functional subtitled version of my most popular youtube video, as most of my viewers are Russian.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1F5HeZD-b4

Depending on how well received it is, I may repeat the experience for the other Russia videos. What excitement!

33 hours in New York (plus a few in Princeton)

2011-07-18T15:42:00.001+10:00

With major consideration to http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/xmasinyc.html. You are missed, Steven Bicknell!

My shuttle to the airport was due at 6pm. But first I had a friend over to borrow some music. I was reading the foreword to the new book "The Quotable Hitchens" by Martin Amis. Next on the list was returning to "How to Survive in a War Zone", which had exactly the same shade of red for a cover. My friend and I swapped observations on whether private cars or taxis were more affordable. I almost never even take a taxi if I can help it... but then I've never actually visited a war zone, aside from the interior of my room. As my friend helpfully pointed out.

Then my parents skyped me for the 5 minutes my internet managed to work, I grabbed my bag (everything in my laptop bag again; the less you take, the quicker it is to pack!), and headed for the exit. On the street I found the shuttle, which was also waiting for another Caltech person. His name sounded familiar, and it was N, who was on the Mt Whitney climb! He arrived in the nick of time (for a conference in Boston or something), and together with an expert in magnetism, we set out on the nerdiest drive to the airport I have ever had. We discussed zeolites, rare-earths, hydrogen storage, and the ever-increasing uses of superconductivity for magnets, including large windmills.

I had taken an early ride to avoid traffic jams associated with 'carmageddon', or the complete closure of the 405 for the weekend. In the end we made good time, and soon enough I was opting out of the security scan, starting a trend, and asking the TSA personnel pointed questions about their own radiation safety. After I received the definite highlight of my week (up to that point, at least!) I put all my stuff back in my pockets, ate dinner, navigated the interior of terminal 6 (I think) STILL being renovated (since at least last November), boarded the plane, and located my seat. Fortunately I was not seated next to an overweight person, but somehow Spirit managed to recreate the experience (and after being forced to shell out about another $160 to check in and bring a bag, even when done over the internet!). Both the aeroplane and the seats were ancient and worn, and after a beautiful climb out of LA over the lights (it looks better in the dark), I folded myself up into a shape resembling the Chinese character for 'intestines', I attempted to snatch a few hours of sleep. Pretty soon we caught up with the dawn at Detroit. Because we were in a plane, we could see it while the city lights were still on down below.

Photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/105494084231616659850/NewYorkAndPrinceton

After a short break in Detroit (which has a charming airport terminal, at least in comparison to LA), I boarded a short flight to NY La Guardia. Having paid $10 to print my boarding pass (at home) I had a terrific window seat view of Manhattan on approach. The plane ground to a halt metres from the wet, splashy end of the runway, and soon I was on a bus through Astoria (home of the American Steinway factory) and Harlem to Columbia University. One short subway ride later and... oh bugger. Someone was murdered where I want to get off, and now the police are holding things up. Soon enough I popped into a grocery store and bought a loaf of bread for breakfast, then met my couchsurfer. Normally one meets couchsurfers in an at least semi-public place, but here I knocked on their door. "A, I'm Casey", "Come in, come in!" I ditched my luggage, unpacked, and chatted for a while. A had misplaced her phone, so we had to organise 'old school'. I actually prefer that. We headed downtown, ate some oatmeal-dark chocolate biscuits for lunch (travel = bad diet!), and caught Harry Potter 7.2 (in 3D!). "HARRY!!!!!!" I screamed a few times during interminable pre-show advertisements. And later, during the climactic show down between good and evil, with a decent quantity of teen hormones thrown into the mix. I compulsively cheer whenever people on screen kiss. Ever since I started watching "Bones", where it took about 7 seasons to get around to it...

After the movie we headed further down town to High Line Park, a recently built park on a disused section of train line above the traffic. It was quite crowded and rather nice! A departed to 'do work' or something equally unlikely for a fellow grad student. I headed up to 42 and Broadway to check out Times Square and the theatres. I was seconds away from buying a frightfully expensive ticket to see D-Rads in "How to succeed in business without really trying" or whatever it is when I got a text message from A. A different A. I think we're up to three. This was the A I couchsurfed with in April 2010, just after the Caltech prospective grad student open day. K (the other CSer from last year) was having a roof top party on the Lower East Side, and I should totally come. So I did (catching a bite to eat on the way). I arrived before A, before K, indeed, before everyone. So in due course I helped carry stuff up on the roof, ate some food, and caught up on 16 months of news! It was, I think, the first time I've ever seen a CSer again, and it was nowhere near as bittersweet as I thought it might be. Ordinarily, the fuse of friendship burns bright and fast with couchsurfers, since there is an implicit time limit. In this case, at least, there was at least a little bit more to go. The city formed a wonderful backdrop to party as the sun set over New Jersey.

At 10:30, my spidey sense told me that I should leave to avoid inconveniencing my host on the other side of the magical island. I got lost only once on the subway, and was soon standing beneath the first shower with good pressure I've been in this year (at least), which prefigured a delightful 10 hours of sleep (making up for the one hour the previous night) on a very comfy couch.

Next morning I woke, folded the sheets, checked email, and had a single slice of bread for breakfast. I stopped by at the cathedral of St John the Divine in case they might be playing the amazing pipe organ (on which the story linked to at the top is based), but no such luck. I swung past central park on my way to Penn Station, where after the requisite period of wandering around deciphering signs, bought a ticket and caught the appropriate train with whole minutes to spare. Two thoughts struck me as the crowd belched down the stairs onto the platform. First, why did they add escalators that destroyed the stairs (making them too narrow for people to pass). Russia could teach them a thing or two about station design. Second, I hadn't eaten lunch. Travel is like that.

Atop 800 tonnes of American engineering, I zoomed south down the BAMA to Princeton Junction, where the passers-by became conspicuously more nerdy. I have a nerd-radar. Soon I had boarded Princeton's little 'dinky' train to the main campus, and began walking with a couple of other guys towards the Institute for Advanced Study. They were somewhat perplexed by my light packing. My hobby: sow discord and confusion with my travel habits.

Soon I was registered and had retrieved a lunch with an intact cookie and an iced tea. I don't think I've ever had iced tea before. It's basically pure sugar. I was so sad! The beef sandwich bread had melted cheese on top, so I sacrificed the top piece of bread. Underneath was more cheese (the weird orange american sort), so that too got the flick. After finishing the first half, I realised the bottom half too was cheese melted. I mean, I understand that with skim milk there's a huge abundance of cream to be processed and eaten, but REALLY, people? I was losing enough weight just from forgetting to eat for a few days here and there, and now I've been cheesed. Worse, I've been crypto-cheesed!

The accommodation is on the comfortable side - certainly nicer than the Catalina apartments, and I look forward to settling in here a bit over the next two weeks, with a possible weekend jaunt back to NY. I imagine the rest of the workshop will be rather less interesting for non theoretical physicists, but we did get one last adventure. My housemates (A and S) and I went into town for dinner and a few supplies to last us until the shopping trip tomorrow. The dinner was the definition of unremarkable, but we took a shortcut across the golf course on the way back. While there was some risk of being bitten by a tick or something, we saw about a dozen fireflies, which was pretty awesome.

If every day could be filled with as much interest and joy as the past two have, I would be a very happy man indeed!

Mystery trip to Florida

2011-07-12T15:00:00.002+10:00

It started with an innocuous enough email; spare ticket available, any takers?

Four days later, I was zooming east to Orlando (via Charlotte). D, the man sitting between me and the window, was an environmental scientist from Houston. We had a quick chat about speculative physics and at the airport, his father and friend gave me a lift to my hotel, the retro-chic Days Inn.

Sitting in the lobby some time later between naps, who should I run into but J, a guy who graduated from my high school a few years ahead of me, and who I hadn't seen in 8 (?) years. Here for the same reason, of course. What reason? (I hear you cry.)

I took a few naps, answered some emails, and ate dinner at a local Indian place, which was satisfying. I ordered extra naan to fold up and stuff it in my pocket. At 1am we got in the car and drove to the bus meeting place, met the rest of our six person group, and jumped on the bus. The next 10 hours consisted mainly of waiting in over air-conditioned buses or rooms, in
traffic jams and security procedures. I'm not sure what security was looking for, but it wasn't particularly thorough. We also spent 2 hours at the Kennedy Space Center before 5am, checking out the exhibits. Most were quite good, but some were hilariously outdated. Eventually us and 8000 other people were funneled out into the car park, put back on buses, and delivered to the east causeway by about 9am. We found a place with good visibility and borrowed some chairs
from under a marquee, and settled in. I munched my pre-stowed naan, folded my arms and legs in the traditional manner, and duly passed out.

By about 11am the countdown (did I give it away?) was proceeding apace, weather trouble had abated, and the feed provided an interesting insight into the processes of putting the astronauts inside, taking spare stuff out, sealing the hatch, leak checking, retracting gantries, and so on. I pulled out my binoculars and got the focus just right. At 9 minutes, the last hold went through, prompting cheers from the people lining the shore. At 31 seconds, control passes to the orbiter's computer, which began oxygen flow. The countdown paused! A sensor on the ground had failed, and the gantry might not have retracted adequately. Camera 61 swung into position and confirmed that it was indeed retracted, the countdown resumed (within a 10 minute launch window!), and shortly afterwards the shuttle was obscured completely by billowing clouds of hot, poisonous gases. As the peak of the shuttle emerged from the cloud a deep rumble reached our minds and bodies, and the shuttle continued upwards on blindingly bright pillars of gas. For about 40 seconds it remained in view below the clouds as the loud speaker updated us on its consumption of fuel and steadily increasing speed and altitude. At half a ton of fuel per second, it's not really a hybrid. A minute later it was seen between a gap in the clouds for a few more seconds. 10 minutes later it was in orbit. A video can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSY4Z_nso5U;

Rather astounding, and definitely worth the last minute hassle of organizing it! The shuttle was inefficient, expensive, and did not fulfill its mission criteria. But the shuttle was a flagship project; a signal of wealth and prestige. Certainly lessons have been learnt, and I await the maturation of the SpaceX developed Falcon rockets. Already they've launched a seven person capsule into a stable orbit with functional life support. To me this is astounding. A private company has achieved in a few years what most space-faring nations have still not demonstrated.

Photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/105494084231616659850/FloridaShuttleTrip

Back to the hotel by 3pm, a well earned shower, and sat in the lobby using wifi, but MSNBC nonstop news, featuring pointless analysis of the Casey Anthony acquittal blared right into my brain.

That evening we stacked the apartment. At some point D rolled over in his sleep and grabbed my ear; a very strange way to wake up during the night. Of course after that I had some bizarre lucid dreams featuring harpies, unsafe auditoriums, and steampunk styled caverns in which
gravity was optional. The following day wifi was much more usable, as the TV in the lobby had apparently broken. There were two more days in Orlando, and only 1000 pages of quantum and stat mech/thermo to revise for Tuesday's qualifying exam. If I pass it, it'll be the last exam I
ever do which counts for anything. :) Possibly...

Next day I had a slow start, plenty of revision, ate some snacks, and read a lot of physics. At about 5pm I got in touch with a local CSer, A, and he took me on a tour of the nicer parts of Orlando, after which my attitude to the place softened considerably. After chatting about
his Obama mannequin, testing the trampoline, and sharing insane travel stories, he dropped me at his blue-haired housemate's parkour gym. I walked into the un-airconditioned warmth and felt the sprung floor beneath me. About 20 guys aged between 10 and 30 were bouncing all
over the place. I signed over the rights to my undamaged organs and joined a queue of 'beginners' doing forward somersaults from a trampoline onto a mat. I watched it a few times, figured out the essential elements, and soon enough was pulling flips with the best of them. I even didn't land on my head most of the time! As I tumbled in free fall I noticed a hole in the wall right next to me...

Meanwhile a few other guys were learning tricks of various kinds, jumping over obstacles, doing forward, back, and sideways flips, jumping off the roof and rolling, and (very rarely), falling
spectacularly. A kid who looked about 12 sat at the side with his arm in a sling, and offered to teach me 'anything'. Apparently he was an instructor within the group, along with about half a dozen others. I had never seen these sorts of antics before in person, and the agility impressed me. Here's a video of similar stuff: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fouvwilGWc, the free-running scene from a recent James Bond film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJubOZLpp4A. The video I shot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXGq8L333kQ

I jumped a few obstacles, fell a few times, and judged when I'd exhausted my luck's ability to hold out. As I left, I noticed that the mothers of the boys in the class sitting in the air-conditioned foyer, ostensibly keeping an eye on their children and discussing how best to interest them in school work. I'm pretty sure they were there for the shirtless and obscenely well-muscled gymnasts doing their thing, though. Eventually A returned with P, and we headed for dinner. Sadly all the pho joints had closed and we had to settle for hotpot, confusing the restaurant's wait staff no end, since not one of us was Chinese! After dinner we walked into town, checked out the rather noisy clubs, walked a few blocks on the railway tracks (balancing, of course, to the bemusement of some mounted police in the area), and eventually I cabbed back to the hotel.

Orlando is a rather spread-out city, but not every attraction is hugely expensive. There is, for
example, a section of 1970s era parks which often have a single attraction, such as one water slide, or put put golf with live alligators. Apparently there's also a restaurant run by a middle aged Chinese woman with peroxide blond hair, who has a cable channel pushing the philosophy that world peace will come about when all people, AND animals on earth convert to veganism. The videos also feature simultaneous subtitling in 30 languages, which is apparently quite something.

I had noticed very few mosquitoes throughout the trip, even when on the causeway. Apparently the local government sprays a LOT of some relatively un-carcinogenic chemical to keep them at bay. Some other local oddities include sinkholes, which open up at random in response to depletion of the local aquifer in the otherwise flooded limestone of Florida. Main methods of remediation include conversion to a lake (neaten up the edges) or filling with concrete. D and I agreed that re-adjusting to Pasadena time would be a good idea, so stayed up until about 4am surfing the internet, editing videos, writing websites, reading physics, etc.

Next day I got up at about 2pm, ate breakfast, read physics, ate lunch, read physics, and ate dinner at the Indian place again. The food was excellent, but the mathematics in the check/bill was terrifying. Maybe I've just got quantum physics in my brain? I think a currency based on non-commutative representations, or complex numbers, or something stranger still, would be very interesting.

That afternoon, a fellow guest and I had a long question and answer conversation, which ended disappointingly (but unsurprisingly) with him equating cancer and sin as potentially curable yet possibly unknown diseases. I think I landed a hit when I pointed out that actually 1) the ten commandments were explicitly superseded by the gospel of JC, and 2) the ten commandments do not prohibit slavery, amongst other things that should be pretty obvious to people living in
the 21st century. Overall the affair was refreshingly civil, and happily terminated before frustration levels rose!

Next day I got up at 8am, took a cab to the airport with a rather chatty great-grandmother, who had apparently found a new boyfriend a few years before at the age of 81 =D. The auto-check-in at US Airways nearly destroyed my passport, then my patience, but in due course I was in the line for security. The agent, Ashby, was the nicest, funniest TSA agent I've ever seen. Possibly the only one. Orlando international airport has free wifi, so all my material needs were being met.

In the departure lounge, I met a number of zumba instructors, who informed me that in fact there had been a convention that weekend in Orlando, and 6000 people were there! They then proceeded (without prompting!) to give me an account (complete with photos) of some of the outrageous parties they had held over the weekend. The fun I missed out on while sweating on my computer in front of endless iterations of Schrodinger's equation...

I also indulged (privately) in a game evil-me likes to call 'fatty-roulette', in which one looks around the lounge and tries to estimate the odds of having to share half your seat in economy with someone who will probably insist on having the arm rests up, and quite possibly have questionable hygiene too. Ah, the joys of cattle class. More leg room than in coaches, and better seats, but still, at my size, a bit of a squeeze. Flying international I usually can manage an exit row for at least one leg, but in the US you have to pay extra! If it's any consolation, the people in first class always look pretty unhappy and uncomfortable, which has always been a bit of a mystery to me. Fortunately, in both legs of today's travel I was okay! First one I had a chatty, bright and tiny 5 year old, and second leg was a French tourist. When I think of foreign words for something now, I think in Russian. Pushing that to one side, an amorphous soup of Latin, Italian, and French floats to the surface. Simply set the jaw at the correct angle, clear the throat, and hold forth.

At one point I looked forward through the window and saw an awesome and rather exciting row of enormous thunderstorms ahead of us. The bumps were, however, a mere 3/10 before the pilot descended 'for your comfort'. In 2004 I flew Narita to Sydney in July on a 777 and it was spectacularly bumpy. They served breakfast and dinner during the same 10 minute quiet spot, but otherwise moving around the cabin was impossible. The entire plane shuddered up and down, and since I was up the back, side to side too, with a nice wide range of frequencies, interspersed with multiple consecutive periods of freefall. The first two the flight attendant calmly ascended and descended from the ceiling, but on the third she screamed, which is when, I suppose, it was getting interesting. That was probably a 9/10.

West of the storms, the air was spectacularly clear, and though I saw neither the Grand Canyon nor the Sierras from my side of the plane, the graben block faulting is still visible and awesome in that part of the world. Quite reminiscent of the Mongolian Altai. Beautiful rugged dark mountains between flat alluvial pans with confused and jagged drainage patterns.

Soon enough we kissed the tarmac at LAX, I jumped in a shuttle, and was home. The advantage of travelling with only a few shirts stuffed around your laptop is that it took about 2 minutes to unpack! The only casualty of the otherwise highly successful trip was a small container load's worth of astronaut icecream, which is substantially more brittle than I had expected. Same (i.e. nil) nutritional content, however, in powder form.

Cedar Flat - book review

2011-06-27T10:11:00.002+10:00

Cedar Flat (ISBN: 978-1-61204-092-9)

Alex Jones

Available in all fine book stores.

The third novel offering from Alex Jones strays from the semi-urban and quasi-autobiographical setting of his two earlier works (Helen Garner and the Meaning of Everything (2007) and Morris In Iceland (2009)) to the titular 'Cedar Flat'. On the outskirts of a barely-named Northern NSW coast town, Cedar Flat is a failed eco-resort with a reputation for short tenancies. Seeking a change of pace, retired geek Murray and his adolescent daughter Pim move in.

The story is expertly yet effortlessly crafted, advancing the tightly drawn plot only infinitesimally removed from the reader's own familiarity, yet somehow creating mystery and interest in an otherwise domestic setting. In the words of one of the characters, the detail is there for those that are capable of seeing it.

The multilayered text rewards a second read, and a third. Thematic elements tie the whole together as the central idea is folded, compacted, and crystallised like a insect caught in a spider's web.

Ultimately the story is about coming of age. A hand is offered up to the next level and is ultimately embraced, through a series of life experiences and reflection.

http://www.amazon.com/Cedar-Flat-Alex-Jones/dp/1612040926/ref=sr_1_32

Mt Wilson Hike

2011-06-20T11:54:00.001+10:00

Having spent 3 days scurrying all over Yosemite, I was still as fresh as a daisy. So I met some fellow hikers at 8am the next day and carpooled up to Chantry Flat. We walked 17 miles (27km) return to the summit, where we also had a nice 2 hour observatory tour. The Mt Wilson Observatory is responsible for a number of terrific discoveries in the first half of the last century, including

- sunspots are cooler than the surrounding solar envelope by about 2000K

- sunspots are associated with magnetic fields (via Zeeman splitting)

- some planetary nebula are actually outside the milky way galaxy, including M31 (Andromeda galaxy)

- most other galaxies are receding from ours at a rate proportional to their distance, indicating that at some time in the past the universe was much hotter and denser

All fairly amazing things! From 1908 until 1948 it had the largest telescopes in the world. And as any astronomer can tell you, the number of discoveries is proportional to the size of the telescope. And, to some extent, the skill of the astronomer.

At length it was time to rewind the climb, dodging bitey flies, lizards, a small blue rodent, and a few errant deer until, within site of the carpark I removed my shoes and walked the last mile or so barefoot. Then back home, shower, dinner, and out to a movie with friends.

Legs are STILL not sore, but at least the rest of me was pretty tired. Photos are here: https://picasaweb.google.com/CaseyHandmer/MtWilson

And a video of waterfalls from Yosemite is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlRZdrZHH6o

Sunset in the redwoods

2011-06-20T07:15:00.001+10:00

A Caltech club for student activities puts on a trip most years to Yosemite National Park. I signed up, along with about half of the TAPIR research group (in which I work), packed my bags, and met everyone on the bus. A lifetime's practise sleeping in awkward positions enabled a good doze before we stopped somewhere in California for lunch. I had something from Subway that was just tolerable. A small subgroup of the main 26ish people headed for the campsite and set up a few tents, since we'd be getting back after dark and most people had never camped before. Before long we'd inhaled our own weight in insects and set up about 7 tents (one in each site), and then drove off to the park.

I had never previously been to Yosemite, nor really seen any photos, except for the odd promo or when I was looking up maps the previous week. The van zoomed through the tunnel (not unlike Milford Sound) and burst through into the valley. Of course we had to immediately slam on the brakes as all the cars in front slowed down for a look between the 1000m walls of the valley down to Half Dome in the distance. It was spectacular. We arrived quite late in the afternoon, so opted to climb the Yosemite Falls trail up to Columbia rock, then onwards if we had time. We only had to run up about 60 switchbacks, but got a pretty good view. Me and a few others continued along the ledge until we were virtually underneath upper Yosemite falls, took a few photos, and got very, very wet. AWESOME. A few of the other more aggressive types and I had planned to climb to the top. Of course, I stopped to set up tents, and they didn't wait. Later they got back just in time to tell that they'd made it to the top. Anyway, a few more minutes of walking in the sun and I was dry again, and even my camera started working again soon after its misty experience. We grabbed some dinner from the cafeteria, debriefed each other on our adventures, and then drove in the bus back to the camp site. The setting sun streamed through the red woods as we negotiated curve after curve of the long highway. I set up my hammock, helped a few other people find the tents we'd hidden in various places, at some snacks, took photos of stars, poked the campfire, and eventually went to bed.

Like the grand canyon trip, I used bungee cords to secure my (overkill) sleeping bag around the outside of the hammock, with my blanket on the inside to keep me warm. Well, this time I was a bit more careful than at Torroweap, but I still got pretty cold at around 3:30am, for some reason. Further research is required. The following night I used it as normal, with the blanket under me and the sleeping bag on the inside and it was like floating on fluffy clouds of warmth all night.

Next morning I sat up, got out of the hammock, shivered with conviction for a few minutes, prepared a lunch and ate two plain bagels for breakfast. Not so much choice was available - you could have high fructose corn syrup in any of about 5 different forms. It took about 8 miles of hiking later that day for the nausea to subside. Packed everything up and, having stowed all my gadgets in my raincoat, boarded the bus back to the valley. At about 9am we set out for the mist trail, to do Vernal Falls, Nevada Falls, then the Panorama trail to Glacier Point, then the Four Mile trail back to the valley floor, then part of the valley floor loop back to Curry Village, where the bus was parked. About 17 miles (27km) in total. Roughly equivalent to Half Dome, though Half Dome is no longer accessible without a permit, and was actually still closed when we were there. :(

The trail begins with the aptly named 'mist trail', in which you are bombarded with water smashed from the Vernal Falls. It was smashier than usual, due to there being a LOT of snow this year. I was wearing my straw hat, and the mist went right through it, so when I was walking towards the sun I had a rainbow literally within arms reach in front of me, and stretching out behind me above the thrashing rapids. We walked on. At the top of Nevada falls, I topped up my bottle from the stream, then bombarded it with UV radiation from my steripen. I haven't become sick since, so I guess it worked! It also saved me the trouble of carrying much water for the trip. At the Jon Muir trail head we split off for the Panorama trail, splitting into two groups, one that would attempt to finish via the Four Mile trail, and a slower one that would turn around before a certain point. At length the latter group became sufficiently lost (though I'm not sure how) that they ended up doing the whole trail afterall, though they were nearly an hour late for the bus...

The forward group took off, stopping for a snack at Inspiration Point (I think), a vertiginous lookout over several waterfalls, the valley, and half dome. Down into a ravine, across a raging torrent, and back up the other side. We paused for a quick lunch snack, and before long were at Glacier Point. Glacier Point is accessible by road/shuttle bus, so there were lots of people of the non-hiking type. I opted to not do the shirtless handstand, as many of the people there would not have ever seen a man without breasts before, and may be traumatised by the experience. Also, I was near a really big cliff I did not want to be thrown off.

We refilled our water bottles and scampered off down the Four Mile Trail. We quickly came across a few patches of unmelted snow, which was a lot of fun. The trail, like many others at Yosemite, quickly devolved to an endless succession of switchbacks with quite frequently very slippery gravel above steep cliffs. We had basically walked from one end of the valley to the other, and were now rewarded with views down the valley between El Capitan and Sentinel Rock, with the flooding river winding its way along the valley floor far, far below.

By now we'd reached the point where time only passes in terms of distance, and before long popped out at the bottom of the trail. J and I waited a few minutes to see if T and K would catch up (they had stopped to take photos before), and enjoyed the valley floor in the evening light. I doffed by (now seriously dusty) sandals and we walked the last 2.2 miles (4km) back to the Curry Village swatting mosquitos and savouring the sense of accomplishment.

Back at civilisation I bought an 'all you can eat' dinner, loaded my plate, and sat down with a few of the Caltech undergrads. Before long it was time to load the bus, and after only a 45 minute wait the last Panorama Trail hiker tumbled out of the wilderness, took a seat, and we drove off. Again, we were spoiled by a spectacular sunset. We lit the fire, roasted marshmallows, swapped stories, and slurped ramen noodles after a hard day's walking. To my surprise I was still not particularly sore, or tight. Normally after a full days walking I can feel it, something gets pulled or whatever. It's possible that walking in sandals forces you to walk much more carefully and less stompily, and that prevents pulls and strains. In any case, I scrubbed my feet under a tap, threw on my lovely warm thermals, lasered the whatsits out of the campfire smoke, and eventually retired to my hanging pod of extreme comfort and heavenly dreams. That night at least I was not awoken by snoring, but rather laughter floating across the campsite the next morning (at around 6am). I got up, ate some breakfast, zoomed around packing everything up, and preparing for the last day of hiking. This time we drove to the Sequoia state forest, in which there is a 30 acre grove of giant sequoia trees that belong to Caltech! I've visited the Karri forests in Western Australia, I've seen the giant redwoods near Stanford, and I've spent weeks wandering between the hardy larches in Siberia, but I've never seen trees quite as big as the largest in this forest. The largest was just under 27ft (9m) in diameter. I got a photo of me standing in a hole under it! It was pretty cool. I sat on a fallen log that had been split by a fall onto another tree, ate my lunch, and wiggled my toes. Back on the main path I removed my sandals again and enjoyed the feeling of soft, cool, damp earth under my toes.

We returned to the bus and started back to Caltech. The driver had brought two films to watch; Avatar and Clash of the Titans, so we got plenty of Sam Worthington! In between we stopped for dinner at Panda Express, which wasn't particularly overwhelming. Apparently the first Panda Express was the Panda Inn in Pasadena, though, which I thought was pretty cool. Back at Caltech I helped hang out tarpaulins to dry, packed some stuff up, then went home and showered, did some laundry, and uploaded some photos. Later that evening I cooked my own weight in pasta for second dinner, then duly passed out - I had an early start the next day!

Photos are here: https://picasaweb.google.com/CaseyHandmer/Yosemite enjoy!

More adventures

2011-06-13T04:51:00.001+10:00

Since my last post - many adventures. Mainly to do with term finally ending. At last, unfettered months ahead for research!

I went on a few more night time walks. With a friend T walked to the Eaton Canyon waterfall, which was really really dark (down in the canyon). Photos here: https://picasaweb.google.com/CaseyHandmer/EatonCanyon, trip time 6.5 hours.

Last night, went back to Echo Mountain with another friend R (T still being exhausted or something) and this time brought my new binoculars, with which I had a good look at Saturn's rings, the moon, and a few other bits'n'pieces. Including the Caltech campus, from about 6 miles away. Photos are here: https://picasaweb.google.com/CaseyHandmer/EchoMountain2, including a lovely panorama I put together.

I've been experimenting a bit with some software which can stitch photos to convert some of my 360 degree videos from Russia (amongst other places) into nice strips. I used mathematica to rip a few frames out of the videos, then passed them to the existing stitching software to complete the conversion. Finished products are here: https://picasaweb.google.com/CaseyHandmer/RussiaPanoramas02. I might make some more at some stage, but I think that's about it for now. Most of those come from the central portion of the most recent Russia trip, spanning Chara (on the BAM line) to Yagodnoye, which is about 2/3 of the way from Yakutsk to Magadan on the Road of Bones. Almost sounds like something out of a fantasy novel, but it's a real place!

This summer I plan to do a whole bunch 'o' research, some travel, work shopping, more travel, and spend a few weeks in Europe. If anyone in Europe wants to catch up, now would be a good time to get in touch.

Echo mountain climb

2011-05-23T07:02:00.001+10:00

As the term winds down (I hope!), I occasionally have evenings in which I'm not working. For instance, this Friday and Saturday night I sang in a concert with the glee club. A whole bunch of German, with some French, English, Tamil, and Latin thrown in for good measure. For two of the songs we joined forces with the Caltech/Occi orchestra and sang robustly.

But that is the not the purpose of this blog post! After the Saturday night performance, I scampered off home, doffed my concert attire, and dressed in my usual adventure kit; jeans, teeshirt, jacket, and sandals. And set off.

I have climbed Echo mountain twice before (I think, maybe 3 times?), but only ever during boiling hot days, and I wanted to see how far it was. In summary, I walked up and back (16 miles/25km) in five and a half hours, with half an hour at the top staring at the view and taking photos. https://picasaweb.google.com/CaseyHandmer/EchoMountain#

The walk north from campus to the end of Lake St was uneventful, save the odd cat or crunchy leaf, but a good opportunity to think over in my mind the structure of two talks I'm giving this week! After about 90 minutes, I reached the trail head, and set off. I wasn't certain of the path, but found a few landmarks and was on my way. Of course, there were no lights and the moon had not yet risen, so I depended on light pollution from LA to guide my way. Very quickly the trail steepened and switched back up the side of the mountain. The trail is (fortunately) quite smooth and broad for the most part, so not falling into the void wasn't too difficult. On occasion the path ran through undergrowth and I had to look about a radian away from where I wanted to see, as the edges of ones vision are the most light sensitive. Wary of drop bears and mountain lions I had my blanket wrapped around my neck, which kept me nice and warm. As I climbed and the night deepened it became quite cold.

As I climbed I was alternately rewarded with views out over LA and lights, or deep into valleys, up the mountains, to the stars. I could see headlamps of other hikers on distant mountains, and quite often hear them as well. Every now and then an unseen animal would skitter in the undergrowth, but for the most part I existed in a world of silence and a grey scale. About half way up the moon began to rise above fog in the east, and for one switchback was just poking over the edge of the next ridge. With the moon up there was substantially more light, however as I rounded the first bend I saw the figure of a man rise up from the edge of the path, giving me a fright before I realised it was my shadow! A few minutes later I encountered some hikers coming down (also without flashlights) and returned the favour. At this point the moon was high enough to be quite glary and I had to put my hand up to avoid being dazzled and then blundering into stuff everywhere.

After about an hour of climbing I leveled out and reached Echo Mountain, a rocky outcrop with the ruins of a hotel, burnt down nearly 100 years ago. I reconfigured my blanket for warmth (except for my unlucky toes), and started taking photos, experimenting with long exposures and different ISO settings to achieve the effect I wanted. I tried a self portrait, but had to stand very still! I also managed to get a few good pictures of stars, despite the bright moon and light pollution.

After about half an hour I decided to head back down. The first switchback leads deep into the valley, and on my return to the crest of the ridge, I was stunned to see that LA had disappeared - a dense fog had rolled in. Before my eyes the bright light axis of Lake St dissolved into a warm diffuse glow, and I could see only a few lights on the tops of the Hollywood ridge winking across a sea of white with stars above. I continued my descent and before long the fog rose to meet me, turbulently rolling over the ground, and, with a quite pronounced edge, cutting off the moon, which developed a glowing aura. At its thickest I had a visibility of about 5m in any direction, there were no shadows, colour, or sound. Just depth perception, really. After walking for many hours one feels sensory isolation from ankles and feet, probably due to endorphins and a trancelike state in which distance flows imperceptibly. In addition to this it was not really possible to see the ground in a meaningful way, giving the impression of floating in space, with someone else's feet scraping along somewhere in the distance.

I had a similar experience climbing Mt Ossa in Tasmania a few years back, except this time it was dark and not rainy. The fog continued to rise as I fell and about an hour after starting back I reached the bottom of the trail head, emerging from the fog and again surprising a few other lightless hikers who had only heard my footsteps until I was about two feet from them. I could see them quite easily, but they had only just left the relatively bright street. I was wearing dark blue and black for the most part. I quite enjoy being invisible!

Back on the tarmac I realised I was only about an hour and a half from home, a snack, and sleep! I set off, this time walking down Catalina Ave (I walked up Wilson, for the most part), disturbing a few dogs, cats, and late night lawn waterers. By this point I'd been walking long enough that time and space seemed to decouple. This is a psychological phenomenon I think is useful for coping with long migrations, but it's almost like you blink and 3 hours pass and you've walked over the horizon. Not the sort of thing one experiences every day.

At about 4:25am I arrived at my front door, kicked off my shoes, hobbled to the kitchen to munch something, put some socks on and crawled into bed, falling instantly into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Organ recital - Published in the California Tech!

2011-05-17T07:25:00.001+10:00

When one imagines feverish controversies in classical music, it's
almost too tempting to picture Beethoven caught "in flagrante delicto"
with one of his students, a snuff box full of suspicious oriental
powders and a lewd portrait on hand. While these allegations remain
unproven, controversies do indeed exist, and many a distinguished
gentleman's toupee is set askew in vociferous argument, normally about
the merits of authentic performance.

It was my supreme pleasure to spend an evening last Sunday listening
to one of the largest controversies in the classical music world.
Whereas advocates of authentic performance everywhere get excited by
the prospect of paying unauthentic sums of money to listen to music
played poorly on authentically imperfect instruments by authentically
untrained musicians, the concert I attended was the complete opposite.

Cameron Carpenter, with just a hint of sequins, walked onto the stage
of the cavernous and dimly lit Walt Disney concert hall, acknowledged
the audience, and sat at the remote organ console placed right on the
edge of the stage. Four rows of keyboards and thousands of switches
were arrayed before him, and as the echoes of applause died down, he
got right into it. The instrument in the Walt Disney hall is both new,
well maintained, and quite extraordinary at 'only' 109 ranks. I can
state with utter confidence that it has never before been played in
quite this manner. In this, his LA debut, he opened with a grand yet
considered Bach Toccata and Fugue in F-sharp major. Bach wrote it in
F-major, but playing music in the key in which it is written is for
musicians who don't know how to transpose. It was a subtle yet clear
break from generations of organists who, with very few exceptions,
have built a towering edifice of traditional and conservative
interpretation.

Cameron Carpenter, already famed amongst organ enthusiasts despite a
career of less than five years, has rebuilt a solid audience and
following for his style of performance, through both a substantial
following on youtube and his indulgence of members of the public. On
Sunday he gave a pre-concert interview and lecture, played some stuff
on the piano, and answered many questions. As the buzzers rang he
excused himself and ran back stage to get ready to perform - something
few if any members of the audience had ever seen before.

By this stage the concert was in full swing. As is his custom, he
announced the program from the console on stage, providing a few scant
hints at the workings of his eccentric and eclectic musical mind. Next
up was the first of two pieces of Brahms on the program - here the
prelude and fugue in g-minor, expertly deconstructed and rebuilt. This
was followed by a piece of Carpenter's own composition, the Serenade
and Fugue on B A C H, which was kaleidoscopic in structure, and
naturally used every stop on the organ (though not all at once).

Before his next piece, he gave an introduction. Cesar Franck was an
organist at Sainte-Clotilde in Paris in the latter half of the 19th
century, and at that time its organ was state-of-the-art. Franck
notated registration, or sound combinations, meticulously. Cameron
explained that was because he wanted to ensure his interpreters were
using the full dynamic range of the organs available at that time. He
said that organ building had come a long way since and that the
original registrations often resulted in muddy or indistinct music, in
which the structural filigree of the music could be lost. Therefore,
while keeping the notes, "...we've dispensed with the rest". This
rendition, too, was one of the most clear performances of the
challenging French romantic organ repertoire I've ever heard.

Having now warmed up the audience and the instrument, Cameron made
good on his assertion that organists must be as technically
accomplished as their concert pianist counterparts by playing two
rather rococo transcriptions of the fearsome Liszt Etudes 'Feux
follets', and 'La campanella'. Here, Cameron demonstrated facility
with the specialised organ technique of 'thumbing down' to play on all
four keyboards and the foot pedals simultaneously. With one final
blast of the organ, including the deepest 32 foot pipe, we took a much
needed break for intermission.

It is sometimes said that in the playing of a pipe organ, one knows
the majesty of god, and in the silencing of a pipe organ, one knows
the mercy of god. There was, however, quite a buzz amongst the few
thousand people who had survived the first half, and in due course we
all filed back in and took our seats. Cameron walked back out on stage
to gasps, mainly from middle aged ladies in the front row, as he had
changed into black sequined tights, a black mesh shirt and white
glittery organ shoes. He took a seat at the console and promptly began
the second half by playing the Brahms Academic Festival Overture.
Earlier he had implied that writing this piece was a substantial
factor in Brahms' demise, and in listening to it, I could see why.

The penultimate offering for the evening was a transcription of Bach's
Chaconne in d-minor, with a substantial nod to Busoni. Within a few
notes of the beginning he had to stop. Turning around, he said "It's
almost like the organ just said 'you want me to do WHAT?'", prompting
giggles from the same middle aged ladies. Turning back to it he
flicked about a hundred switches in some inscrutable order, tested one
of the swell pedals, then began again. The difference was obvious and
within seconds we were swept into a whirling maelstrom of chords and
grinding counterpoint like only Bach can write, reinterpreted and
revealed through the new medium of the pipe organ.

All too soon Cameron began his final piece; a transcription of the
finale of Mahler's fifth symphony. Though he wrote it at 15 he had
been unable to play it in any sensible way until quite recently due to
the extreme technical difficulty of channeling Mahler's monumental
writing for more than a hundred instruments through just ten fingers
and two feet. Like the rest of the program, he played from memory,
once again revealing a fusion of solid musical understanding and a
slight tendency to iconoclasm. Noticeably, it neither saturated nor
sagged, common pitfalls of transcription, but rather rolled steadily
and inexorably from one musical epiphany to the next.

In a state of shock and surprise we, as one, relaxed into our seats
for at least a few nanoseconds before leaping to our feet in rapturous
applause. Cameron took five curtain calls and played one encore, and
in due course we spilled out into the street, both ponderous and
chatty with complete strangers. Every person in the hall that night
looks forward with interest to the next time Cameron Carpenter comes
to perform here.

When nothing really is something

2011-05-12T09:26:00.001+10:00

But what about Mechanics of River Incision?

I hear you cry.

Never fear, all will be revealed soon enough. Caltech has a large and active geology department. Every term there is an opportunity for non geo majors to go on a field trip. The original plan this term was to take a field trip to Baja California, but school administrators, worried about drug related violence thousands of miles away, squashed that plan like a puny bug on the wind shield of a speeding 4WD. The plan was hastily modified, we packed our bags, and headed for Arizona, and the grand canyon. Which was a pretty good consolation prize, in my opinion.

We took four 4WDs stuffed to the brim with food/undergrads (the distinction is sometimes borderline) and drove into the distance. The first night we stopped at the campground at Lake Mead at about midnight - this is close enough to Las Vegas to see the glow in the sky. I found a perfectly smooth concrete table off the ground and away from blowing dust, unrolled my sleeping bag, and started taking time lapse photos of the moon. Those, and other photos, can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/CaseyHandmer/GrandCanyon

I don't own a sleeping mat, so I use a car windshield reflector and a folded up blanket, and slept like a baby until some noisy campers in the next site got up at 6am and their leader decided to practise projecting his voice with useful commands like "eat breakfast" "load the car" and "don't forget to brush your teeth ...eeth ...eeth". In due course I got up, threw everything back in my bag, and walked down to the lake, which is somewhat shrunken. Later we all drove back down the road to the same spot, and the academic portion of the trip began. As we squinted into the early morning light reflecting from the lake, a few students took 10 minutes to present their report on some aspect of relevant geology, such as 'water usage in Nevada' 'formation of Lake Meade', and so on. As a physicist it is often tempting to view all things in their simplest form, and assume that problems are thus simple. On this trip I learnt that with geology, it's actually quite difficult to know specific things about geological history, since we've only got a 2D view (plus bore holes) through often unreliable strata, and everything is really really old.

We drove on. Through the course of the day we visited a pretty cool slot canyon carved through 45 degree strata (where I explained the mechanics of river incision in combination with my beautifully LaTeX formatted report and paint-tastic diagrams), some cool rocks, rock carvings, and dinosaur footprints in the valley of fire, and a few other rocks here and there, the history and formation of which were expertly and mercilessly dissected by the keen eye of my expert colleagues. We visited and stood on the great unconformity and Frenchman mountain (outside Las Vegas), smuggled alcohol between ancient inverted topography from lava flows in Utah, and listened to C.K. Louis' stand up comedy on W's iPod. In good company the hours and distance on the road quickly diminishes, and by the end of the day we'd arrived at Torroweap, where we were to camp. Unable to find any sufficiently and well placed trees I hung my hammock at ground level, in which capacity it still exceeds the comfort and convenience of tents in many respects.

No sooner had I turned around but dinner (spaghetti) had been cooked, we sat in foldy chairs around a camp fire, told outrageous stories, and shone lasers into smoke for fun - which was awesomely cool. Sometime after midnight it was time to hit the sack, and I slept brilliantly, cushioned by about 10cm of very soft dirt.

Next morning, not realising that we were camping in the same place the next night, I packed all my things in my waterproof bag and stuck it in a low shrub out of the dirt. This move would turn out to be startlingly prescient! Water bottles were filled and we drove down to the canyon rim, a short trip down the valley between the numerous cinder cones of a tantalising volcanic field. The largest of these is Vulcan's Throne, situated almost exactly on the Torroweap fault and responsible for some pretty cool lava dams in the grand canyon - some more than 200m high, over the last few million years.

We could wait no longer. We burst from the cars and streamed towards the edge of the canyon, where ground suddenly and inexplicably gave way to nothing (which really was something!) for hundreds of meters. In this section the canyon is quite narrow, but still extremely deep, with a thin green thread of Colorado (oh, the irony) river at the bottom. Photo time. Instantly I had lost my shirt and taken a few photos, including the obligatory handstand. Of course, when you're walking on your hands, you can't see where you're going very well, and I had to be careful not to fall off the edge...

We lined up and got a few more talks on geological details, including all the different layers in the canyon, their ages, colours, history, etc etc. Probably the most overtly impressive feature was the degree of slipping on the Torroweap fault - probably 150m or so of discontinuity in the strata, and evidence of continuing movement. We ranged up and down the rim a bit to look in both directions, and were suprised by a sudden but intense rain shower, out of otherwise blue skies. Prescient indeed. Before we returned to the campsite we had enough time for a few of us to cast aside our exhaustion and bolt up the side of Vulcan's throne. We were time limited, and in the end I opted to pause near the summit, enjoy the view, take some photos, and perform the customary rites associated with climbing peaks in general and volcanoes in particular, before skipping at great speed to the bottom in a cloud of dust.

Back at the camp site we surveyed the damage. The sudden rain shower had turned the soft dirt to sticky mud. Even worse, some people had pitched their tents without flies, the better to enjoy the starry sky the night before. Now their groundsheets resembled paddling pools. All was not lost, however, as the sun was still out for a few hours and everyone was a fan of Douglas Adams. This time I had enough time to set up a sling system and suspend the hammock between two appropriately placed trees, and after tacos and yet more fireside chats, retired and slept. On this occasion I was testing a new approach to hammock insulation, in which a sleeping bag is suspended tight beneath the hammock, where it could not be crushed by my body weight. For the first time, I was really warm from below, but sadly a bit cold on top, where I only had my thin blanket.

Next morning I was up at dawn (the sun powered across the nearby range right into my face), and after dressing I decided to see how far the fire trail ran. Kicking the still sticky mud from my shoes I walked for about 20 minutes, and eventually emerged from the trees on the edge of the Torroweap valley, with a terrific view down towards the volcanoes and the edge of the canyon in the early morning light. I returned, packed, and soon we were on our way.

The trip back was long and tiring - I spent quite a lot of it asleep in any of a dozen hyper awkward positions, munching on left over food, and marvelling at the extraordinary scenery of highway 15 (I think) as we wound our way back down into the LA basin. I arrived back at Caltech with enough time to visit my office, do some work, shower, and eat dinner before Monday, and all the work starting again.

This trip was the last of four consecutive extra curricular weekends, and as a result I was pretty behind on work. However, there are 168 hours in a week, and quite a lot can be accomplished in 168 hours. I even found time to catch up on missed TV.

A and B came to town.

2011-05-11T12:21:00.001+10:00

A few weeks ago I packed my bags, caught the gold line metro to Union
station, and jumped on an Amtrak train to San Jose - it apparently
knew the way. I have travelled in trains in many countries, but never
in the US (over long distances) so this was something new. I wasn't
sure what to expect - most people said that the trains were okay, but
a few had pointed out that they were slower than buses (!) and quite
noisy and bumpy or something. Well I have no idea what trains they
were accustomed to, because I soon settled back in air conditioned
comfort as the train worked its way up the coast, past a number of oil
rigs, spectacular scenery, and about half a dozen prisons.

In under 8 hours, we had arrived at San Jose station, where my friend
D was waiting. We drove via a diner (at which the usual offering was
duly consumed) to D's new place in Sunnyvale, a short commute to his
current work with some company in 'the valley'. Like myself, D is an
Australian expat making his way in the big scary US of A, so we (as
usual) had plenty to chat about! I spent the evening on an air
mattress, and in the morning, woke, packed, and headed off to a nearby
eatery for breakfast. Walking in the front door, I was only slightly
surprised to see my friend J (who studies NLP at Berkeley) and my
parents A and B (because A + B = C) sitting at a table. My mother A in
particular seemed quite excited to see me, and soon we were seated,
eating American hash browns and bacon and other good things, catching
up on news, discussing the latest in information technology, and the
somewhat peculiar sport of ultra marathon running.

After breakfast D took off to work, we dropped J at a caltrain station
so he could head back to Palo Alto, and A, B, and C headed off into
the sunset.

Well, almost. It was only 10am, but we were in a hurry! We drove
swiftly to Santa Cruz, met some family friends (I was able to finally
deliver a few things I'd brought across in September!), and then
proceeded to drive down the coast, stopping in Carmel and a few other
nice seaside towns. Land slips meant we had to cut inland, coming back
out at Cambria. We checked into a hotel, then drove up the Big Sur
highway towards another land slide, admiring the incredible scenery
along the way. I thought it compared well to the Amalfi coast, and the
Chuisky Trakt, both of which feature similar winding roads perched
precariously on cliffs above crashing water. I saw the car of "Goanna
Tracks", some Australian 4WDers who wrote a very useful account of
their trip along the Kolyma highway about a year before I went. A was
a little nervous at times, and not just because B wasn't always sure
which side of the road to drive on...

In due course we turned back, greeted some seals, and drove up to
Hearst Castle for an evening tour. Hearst Castle is worthy of another
blog update in its entirety. Instead, check out the photos!
https://picasaweb.google.com/CaseyHandmer/SanFranciscoTrip
The story goes that Hearst got really rich running a newspaper and
decided to funnel his money into building a huge house with which to
entertain guests and live well near San Simeon. So he did. After he
died it made its way to becoming publicly accessible, so we can enjoy
its rather extraordinary features. The floor plan of the main house,
for instance, is quite haphazard since room dimensions were dictated
by the sizes of the various decorated ceilings he had purchased from
Europe. Eventually we finished the tour, had dinner at a local
restaurant/karaoke bar, and retired for the evening. I spent several
hours writing up a report on the mechanics of river incision, for a
purpose that will be revealed shortly!

The next day, we checked out and drove down highway 1 via several
lovely volcanoes in the surf to Santa Monica, then to the Getty
museum. By this stage we were running a bit late for the evening's
adventures, so we had to see all the nice stuff in the Getty (and
there is quite a bit) in about an hour. Back on campus I swiftly
changed and got ready for the chamber singers concert that evening. A
and B turned up and quite enjoyed the proceedings - madrigals in
French, Italian, English, and German. Dinner at Wokcano was followed
by a quick trip to the top of Lake St to look at the view over LA at
night, and we retired for the night.

Next morning we met for breakfast, then drove up to Eaton canyon, and
with about 1000 other people walked up the waterfall. I went largely
barefoot (it was a nice day), which was interesting. It's not every
day your feet get to savour the texture of the surface of the earth,
after all. Italian sandwiches were procured, and we spent a few hours
at the Huntington looking at nice old books, gizmos, art, and plants.
The Huntington is a pretty extraordinary place - well worth a visit if
you're ever in the area. Soon enough it was time to propel A and B
back onto the perilous freeways for their last trip to the airport.
Soon after they were airborne and in Australia, and I was back at
work, with only 4 days to catch up!

As for mechanics of river incision, all will be revealed in the next
installment!

Mammoth Ski Trip 2011

2011-04-15T06:08:00.002+10:00

The Caltech Alpine Club, already such a productive font of adventure, has delivered yet again. This time, the order of the day was skiing, instead of trudging into thin air.

I packed in the usual frantic way, made rendezvous with two geologists, and proceeded to a high speed 4 hour guided tour of the Owens Valley. I had previously driven here to climb Mt Whitney, but the days were shorter and I had not seen much of the fascinating scenery in one of the world's most seismically active regions. Previously, for instance, I had had no idea that I didn't properly understand how columnar basalt forms.

As we wound up the road to about 2500m it began to snow heavily, and by the time I'd hired my gear and we'd found the apartment, the roads were quite dodgy. More than 12 inches fell, which was terrific! We were condo stacking, so I picked out a nice patch of floor for my sleeping bag, traumatized everyone by walking around in thermals, and waited while everyone arrived. By breakfast, 18 people had slept over, which certainly kept the place warm. We even had someone sleeping under the table!

Before long we'd driven to the lift and started up the mountain. A few easy runs to make up for 3 years of inactivity, then we hit the turbo quad to the top and powder heaven.

I had last skied 3 years ago while training through Bulgaria, and wearing jeans etc managed to get stuck somewhere in the back country. I survived that time, only to be chased by hungry streetkids that evening at the train station in Sofia...

We decided to traverse to the other side of the mountain and my companions D and E got stuck, as snowboards have poor glide characteristics. Soon after we negotiated a series of ungroomed
nirvana. I stopped to catch my breath, disguised behind ski glasses and an outlandishly enormous Russian fur hat, only to hear a nearby skier say "are you a Caltech grad student?" Why yes indeed.

A, her friends C and T skied with us for a while, with several hilarious crashes and no tree collisions. I got thirsty so filled a ziplock bag with snow and put it in my pocket.

At length we returned to Eagle lift and met with two beginner boarder friends of ours, Z and H. Both were already exhausted, but we convinced Z to go up the lift and come down the run, about 10 times slower than usual. Z was wearing jeans, which were already pretty wet, as were his gloves. His intention to go down the easiest run was dealt a serious blow when he lacked the turning skills necessary to turn away from an intermediate slope. But he stuck it out and by the time he reached the bottom was edging well enough to carve down the last bit. Spectacular took a turn for the sublime when he collided with a lift tower! Fortunately he was moving very slowly. The next day he was still improving, but managed to take out a sign that said 'slow', again, right in front of me.

We headed off the mountain and I passed out back at the lodge. Next came dinner, again everyone wearing their best thermals, white wine chilled in a pile of snow on the balcony, and mountains of food to replenish our reserves. After failing for the 50th time to get the
wifi working, we fell asleep.

Next morning, D decided to try skiing, so after an awful breakfast of corn flakes and mineral water (it seemed like a good idea at the time) we hit the slopes. D stepped into his skis, and boarded the lift with the confidence of man who knows he's wearing 10lbs of body armor. Which he was. The first order of the day was the run Z tumbled down the previous afternoon, and D did not disappoint. He decided to skip the snow plough and start paralleling, and within 30 minutes was linking turns like a pro. I demonstrated how to carve turns for speed (or 'rail'), and succeeded in my efforts to fall over.

A few runs later we decided to maintain the learning curve by heading up Cloud 9 to Ricochet, also known as McCluskie's Eternal Regret. In my mind, at any rate. The first few turns in particular were hair raising, but D didn't fall until the flat bit at the bottom. Meanwhile more than a few hair raising beginners coasted past in outrageous snowploughs, ignorant of their total lack of control. D worked on his pro-valley stance and we tacked inwards to main, caught up with
primary organizers extraordinaire D2 and D3, and ate lunch. During this run D achieved his penultimate and 13th fall on skis, right next to the Mammoth fumarole. It smelt like volcano and made me happy. Mammoth is, to the best of my knowledge, an eroded but active lava dome.

We ducked back to the car so D could get his trusty board (recently repaired after a nasty run-in with a rock), then hit the slopes on the back side of the mountain. The mountain remained uncrowded and supremely awesome. The vertiginous couloirs above us beckoned 'test yourself!', but it wasn't until we headed back that we found ourselves by accident on the edge of a rather steep slope. We dropped over a cornice and traversed the worst of moguls that seemed to grow from cornices and then ripped down the side of the mountain. We raced down the mountain at terminal velocity, reaching the home lift 25 seconds before it closed. One final run on empty sloped, catching some persistent freshies between trees, and then down to the carpark.

Back at the place we packed and cleaned, piled into a car with R, F, H, D4 and me, and herded aggressively back to LA to the tunes of Iron Maiden. We stopped at Lone Pine to stare at Mt Whitney in the sunset and eat some buffalo burgers. The conversation shifted to the pros and
cons of dating within Caltech (hypothetically, of course), and by midnight I was back on campus with only 72 hours of work to catch up on.

Photos and video are in the usual places.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1drgxdNcgV4

Maska Scorbi

2011-04-08T10:19:00.001+10:00

The mask of sorrow is a large concrete sculpture sited on a hill
overlooking Magadan. In broadest terms it is reminiscent of the moai
statues on Rapa Nui, but exceeds them in both scale and scope.

Originally conceived as one of six similar statues arrayed in a
hexagon throughout the former soviet union, to the best of my
knowledge it is the only one that has been completed. In purpose, it
commemorates the terrible lives and deaths of the prisoners who passed
through Magadan as part of the dalstroi (Far Northern Construction)
effort which began in 1930, expanded enormously through the prewar
purges of 1937, and was officially ended by Kruschev's pardon of
Stalin's prisoners in 1956. At its height, more than 12 million
Russian citizens were convicted under article 58, for political
crimes, and were sent to work camps for the 'reforging of the criminal
spirit' to labour for 10 years or more. These works camps were arrayed
throughout the soviet union, but the most infamous by far were the
mines of Kolyma. When people refer to mines of Siberia, they refer to
Kolyma. This is not the self imposed exile of the intelligentsia after
the failed uprising of 1839 to cities in Siberia such as Krasnoyarsk
and Irkutsk that subsequently became centers of learning.

Kolyma is a region in the far east of Russia, well beyond Siberia. A
number of great rivers flow from the central asian highlands through
Russia to the Arctic Ocean. From west to east, they are the Northern
Dvina, the Pechora, the Ob, the Yenisei, the Lena, the Indigirka, and
the Kolyma. With the exception of the Indigirka, all are navigable
along most of their length from source to ocean. Each is a story in
itself, however here I am concerned with the Kolyma river. Like many
of its northern cousins, during the bitterly cold winter it sometimes
freezes all the way through, leading to the formation of ice dams and
flash flooding. From the ocean it rises towards the south, and
eventually tracks west at the point where it meets the highway at
Debin, which is also known as 'Left Bank'. Debin was the headquarters
of dalstroi for most of the 1930s, and remained an important center
with a major hospital until perestroika. When I visited, nearly every
building was abandoned, and its population currently stands at about
80. During the WW2 the hospital was frequently home to (inter alia) a
convicted nuclear scientist called Kipreev who managed to build an
xray machine. Shalamov worked as an orderly in the hospital prior to
his release after 17 years of labour, and eventually returned to the
mainland.

It is hard to describe the isolation of these places. Magadan is a
town on the coast of the Sea of Okhost. Within quotation marks, it is
the only town. There have been other towns at other times on the shore
since the 1600s, when the Russian sled route first reached the
pacific, but with the exception of Sovgavan', more than 1000km away,
it is the only one of any size that is left. Magadan, which I have
written about before, is an astonishing city, the gateway to the
Russian Far East, to Kolyma, and the still productive mines in the
region. Even today, in the age of trans-oceanic jet liners, it remains
remote. I will describe the usual path of convict to these places to
give an idea of how remote these places were - prisons like convict
Australia, from which escape is meaningless.

After the usual formalities of accusation, constant interrogation, and
beatings, a person convicted under article 58 would be transfered to a
holding prison, which in Moscow was the famous Butyr prison. From here
they would be loaded on a prison train car and taken by train to
sovgavan', probably a 20 day journey in those days from one side of
Russia to the other. From here they were loaded on steamers to take
them to Magadan, a 3 to 5 day cruise, and in Magadan they were placed
in prisoner camps before being divided up, allocated a work site, and
sent there. Before that, of course, they came to terms with the nature
of criminal life in Russia, which to this day involves a
semi-exclusive language, a strict hierarchy, and complete degradation.
Usually clothes would be confiscated before prisoners were marched
500km up the highway to Debin, where they would be fanned out to one
of hundreds of work camps in the area, most accessible only by river
(at least in the early days). As the decade progressed, punishments
for escapees and transgressors became more serious, the roads were
improved and lengthened, and by about 1938 it was possible to travel
from Magadan to Yakutsk via the original Kolyma highway. Still, travel
without freedom or permits was almost impossible.

I don't intend to dwell here on the conditions suffered by the
prisoners, or try and give any account of the experience. There are a
number of excellent books on the subject by survivors, including
Varlam Shalamov's "Kolyma Tales", and Alexander Solzhenitsn's "The
Gulag Archipelago". The bottom line is that more than 3 million people
perished at the camps, mostly between 1937 and the early 1950s.

This is a legacy that cannot be forgotten, marginalised, or undone.
Kruschev's 'rehabilitation' meant little except for a small number of
survivors who, having been released years previously, were finally
permitted to leave the far east and return to their homes. Despite
this horrific past, the taiga and the extremes of climate have all but
erased tangible memories of the camps, few of which were built to a
lasting standard in any case. In the 20 years since perestroika, the
region has depopulated by more than a factor of 2, and some cities,
such as Kadykchan, have been completely abandoned.

Which brings me back to the mask of sorrow monument. It is large in
scale, and depicts a stylised mask. Within the interior of the
sculpture is a small one room museum. One eye is the bars of a prison
cell. The other eye, weeping, has tears in the form of people crying.
Around the sculpture are a number of concrete plinths with religious
symbols of the faiths of people who died, some of whom were prisoners
of war. Some of the main camps are also named. Yet for many locals and
visitors, the most important question is of its fundamental nature.
Why a mask, and not a face. Why is the mask sorrowful, and not an
actual person. In my mind, the mask symbolises a disconnect between
the people changed by suffering into something different, between the
horrific history and the need to go on with life, and between regret
and an inability to rationalise, explain, or otherwise understand the
profound pointlessness of the spilling of that much blood. In a way, a
mask can be used to express a desired emotion, while concealing
conflicting feelings which continue to lurk deeper still.

Nearly everyone who lives in Magadan today is unrelated by business or
blood to the gulag. They are as aware as anyone of the past and its
weight, but Kolyma remains a perilous place to live and work. One
cannot dwell excessively on the past and still expect to make a
success of the present. Most of my exploration of the history has
occurred since I returned. When I visited, I was more interested (and
remain so) in the people living there today, rather than the all but
vanished history of the place. Yet the character of a city and its
inhabitants cannot be divorced from their awareness of the past.
Ultimately, however, the past is too confronting to worry about every
day. The lessons to be learned are either too obvious or too subtle to
be taken in one sitting. In every way, the human tragedy in Kolyma
exceeded any person's will to survive, to be tough, to be human. In
the opinion of a number of people I talked to, even the people who did
not die, did not survive. And that, if anything, is the reason why the
mask of sorrow is a mask. Why it, as a work of art and a monument,
encompasses so much of the dissonance of that part of the world. A
dissonance that will not be understood until it is forgotten.

I visited in August 2010, though I did not see the mask up close
during the day time. Here are some photos I took:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/0SZq-SZF8ecpqlV3BpWWiA?feat=directlink
Better photos can be found here:
http://www.google.com/images?rlz=1C1ASUT_enUS398US398&q=mask+of+sorrow+wiki&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1366&bih=667

Composers day music party

2011-03-28T07:08:00.003+11:00

Late last year a friend had asked me to reserve March 26 in my diary, which I duly did. March 26 finally arrived, and what happened? Well read on and find out.

Every year, a composer's day music party is held, during which the complete chamber music of a particular composer is played. But my skills on the fiddle are non existent, and my piano playing remains far inferior to the requirements of even the easiest chamber music. In addition to this, a group of friends is called upon to gather around a piano and do a complete on book performance of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. Such are the demands of this undertaking, that this is the first party I've ever been involved in that had a dress rehearsal the day before!

On the day the weather held, and arriving at about lunch time, I snuck between hordes of string players, set up in every room, valiantly attempting to play all of Haydn's chamber music in a single day. One room was stacked with music cases, there could have easily been a hundred people in a modest sized family home.

At the appointed signal, all unassigned musicians disappeared into the back yard, where stands appeared and were arranged, and the complete overture was played through of "The Gondoliers", twice. Just to make sure. After that our trusty pianist and keyboard, braving arctic gusts of wind and the threat of imminent rain, began the show. The Gondoliers is slightly peculiar in that there are two almost entirely separate casts that do not meet on stage until the finale, so in between singing (I was singing the role of Giuseppe, an eligible bachelor gondolier whose charisma 'shamed the summer skies'), we huddled at the back and shivered resolutely as a couple of children singing the roles of the Duke and Duchess of Plaza-Toro stole the whole show. Each of the main characters has a song, and mine appeared early in the second act, a typical G&S patter song making fun of the concept of a republican monarchy (where republican retains its literal meaning). After that, there is a tradition of singing an updated version. The Gondoliers had last been performed in 2001, and at the dress rehearsal, my predecessors in the role of Giuseppe sang an outrageously funny version about Bush II, who I believe was still a suitable target for humour at that stage of his presidency. Thus my time between the dress and the performance was spent in feverish rhyming, the semi-successful results of which are at the end of this post.

At length we reached the final chord, obtained divorces from our on-stage spouses, ate enough food to immobilise us, then headed back home to sunny Pasadena. Coincidentally it was also on this trip that I learned that the Arroyo Seco Parkway was the first expressway ever built, in 1940, which explains its hair-raisingly dangerous corners and 10mph off ramps.

In all it's not every day that one has a party that one has completed a dress rehearsal for, but I certainly wouldn't object to more in the future!

To the tune of "Rising Early in the Morning" from The Gondoliers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbM-DhoCWvU), updated politically.

Rising early in the morning,

We supress needs nicotine,

Then, rememb'ring Michelle's warning,

breakfast burger - extra lean!

I stroll to the oval room,

In the face of impending doom.

First we double check that Clinton

Is still spying on the UN;

It's best to keep an eye on all those slimes

Then if we want to see some foreign

Former classified addendum

We simply have to read the New York Times.

Then we probably take aim at wikileaks

Anonymous and Assange are total freaks.

Now Manning is exposed at Quantico,

The arabs can know cablegate's fair go.

As for Bush and all his phoneys,

Thugs thieves criminals and croneys

I think it's most appropriate to keep them all immune.

Such privilege executive

Rendition, torture, right to live,

Wire tapping sans a warrant - they are too good to impune.

Contemplating reelection

Watching democrat rejection

No need to fear a threat by a rethuglican candidate.

Bachmann, Newt, illegitimate

Conservative illiterate

Or Palin just for LOLs, such would be perfect fate.

Oh, Colbert, Maddow may whine,

That the problems are all mine,

Yet the legacy is frightful and the obligations great.

But the privilege and pleasure

That we treasure beyond measure

Is to blame it all on Hillary, the Secretary of State.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE:

Casey Glick (who sang Luiz) contributed a second verse on similar themes, just to show us how it's done.

In the evening reuniting

Cop and teacher who’ve been fighting

Racist fears suppressed by glass of beer or three.

I’ll take my birth certificate

(I’ve reproduced in triplicate)

Conveying it to pundits on TV.

Then I’ll work to stop an ultimate relapse

Of the global economical collapse

Or intervene in Middle Eastern State

Which Newt derides as early and too late

Appeasing Dems, an order signing

A new Health Care law confining

‘bortion rights, insurance premiums, approval in one blow

Though I found quite ineffective

An executive directive

To fulfill my campaign promises to close Guantanamo

Then appointing Justice Kagan,

Signing treaties just like Reagan,

And desperately taking steps to mollify my base

All the while I’m interacting

With a GOP impacting

My chance to be the President who first transcended Race.

Oh conservatives complain

Of my socialistic reign

And the lib’rals think I’ve given in to “blackmail” sans a fight

But the culminating pleasure

That I treasure beyond measure

Is the comedy induced by all those idiots on the Right.

Walk to the beach!

2011-03-20T09:34:00.001+11:00

Some time ago I had noted via Google Maps that it is not impossible to conceive walking to the beach from Caltech. The only problem is you'd need about a day of spare time, which only occurs about twice a year.

Still, yesterday was such a day, so I gave a friend J a call and we met at 6:30am (just before dawn) and set off. I took minimal weight; phone, keys, wallet, jacket, and a hat. J brought a bag with some water and a red cap that made him look like Mario. (In my opinion!).

The weather was perfect, and we walked at a steady pace, joining a series of very long LA roads.

From memory, we began on California Ave, then zigzagged up to W64 Ave, cut through on Meridian Ave, then York. Walked through an underpass under the railway festooned with pigeons (dead and alive), before joining Eagle Rock Ave, following it south to Fletcher, which took us over the LA river (which had some water, and trees in it). By this point we had covered about 12 miles, or 20km, which is a decent walk in itself, in about 4 hours. J put his NY honed 'diner finder' skills to good use and we stopped at 10:30 for Breakfast/Lunch. I consumed my own weight in steak, capsicum, and omelette, providing essential walking fuel.

A quick dogleg put us on Silver Lake Avenue, and suddenly the affluence of our surroundings jumped about 10 points. The lake itself is a fairly unremarkable reservoir, but there was a nice park (infested, as usual, with Australian trees of varying kinds). We sat under a bottlebrush and dodged a rain of gumnuts for about 20 minutes. For varieties sake we swapped shoes, then continued on. Silver Lake Ave fed into W Sunset Boulevard, which had a lot of interesting looking shops, and soon we turned left onto Santa Monica Blvd, which marked the end of tricky navigation. Santa Monica Blvd is about 14 miles (25km) long, and only has one substantial bend in the whole thing. Although by this stage a degree of discomfort was apparent, it's only at this point that the idea of walking all day becomes worthwhile. That is, walking is easy, even when tired, but only when tired does putting one foot in front of the other become meaningful.

After a couple of hours we entered Hollywood, then Beverly Hills, which seemed to ooze money. The side of the road was a long, skinny garden. Walking on grass for a change, J said it felt like 'walking through cake'. We took a 25 minute break, then continued on. We walked past a large Mormon church, the turnoff to UCLA, and one last raised expressway before finally, we could see the last row of buildings before the beach, now 'only' 3 miles (5km) away. Our pace had slowed by this point, but inevitably, inexorably, we reeled in the miles, one numbered street at a time, 20th, 10th, 3rd, 2nd, and finally, we were there, at the park above Santa Monica beach and pier.

Some otherwise trivial steps, doffing of shoes, and a quick jog across about another mile of sand and we dipped out toes in the great Pacific Sea. I attempted to skim some pebbles, took a few photos, and ran through all the streets we'd walked on through my mind - it was exhausting!

Back up into the town and found a Thai restaurant to supply essential, life giving nutrition. I had Pad See Ew, naturally, though I mixed it up by ordering chicken instead of beef. Google provided guidance on the swiftest way home, so we caught a 'metro express' 10 to Union Station (sleeping most of the way), then the gold line to Lake St Station, followed by a walk back into the university (about another 2 miles in total).

After a quick shower and glass of water I joined some friends who were watching the final half of 'The coronation of Poppaea', which was an extremely silly (and early) opera, then went home and slept the sleep of the righteous until 3pm the following day.

In total, we walked about 30 miles or 50km, which is further than a marathon. This is nearly the furthest I've walked in a 24 hour period, and certainly the furthest I've walked in an urban environment. LA is HUGE! In my opinion, beyond a level of physical discomfort, it wasn't all that difficult either. Just something, without a good reason, you wouldn't do every day.

The air is so thick, it stings! (Or recreation, part 2)

2011-02-20T16:47:00.001+11:00

Photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/CaseyHandmer/MtWhitneyWeb#

Other people's photos: http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~alpine/wiki/Winter_Mountaineering_Trip_2011#Mount_Whitney_Trip

My most recent blog post concerned a hike up Mt Baldy (or Mt San Antonio, depending on your level of formality), ostensibly for fun. Well I can say now, it was a training hike for climbing another large Californian mountain - Mt Whitney.

Mt Whitney is the tallest mountain in the 'lower 48'. It is 14,505ft (or 4421m) tall, which is nearly half of Everest. It holds the dubious distinction of being struck by lots of lightning, sometimes via people standing on top. Statistically speaking, however, it is a safe mountain to climb, with around 30,000 people summiting a year, and maybe one or at most two deaths. Most people climb the 97 switchbacks of the Whitney Trail. We chose the much more direct (and much steeper) mountaineer's route. A straight line distance of about 7 miles (or 10km), vertical distance of 6000ft or 2km. That's pretty steep! The mountaineer's route is perhaps a hundred times more dangerous than the Whitney trail, but we rested assured that noone had died on a Caltech Alpine club trip in nearly four years.

To the account! We met outside the Braun gym (not to be confused with the Brown gym next door), allocated into cars, and set off. I travelled with L and J, and we covered the 4 hour distance about an hour faster than everyone else. After stopping at a gas station for emergency jerky supplies, we headed off from Lone Pine up the mountain, until the car got stuck on an icy bit and was unable to make headway. We parked by the side of the road (away from the fallen boulders) and waited for some other cars to arrive. Eventually we were ferried by 4wd a mile up the road (walking would have been faster) and camped on the hair pin. I was eager to try out my sleeping solution, with a car windshield cover acting as an insulator (though providing minimal padding). All went well.

Next day we got up early (easy to do when lying down on rocks), packed everything together, and set off. By 9am we'd reached the trail-head, begun to learn the difference between snow that's firm enough to walk on, and snow that will 'post-hole' you down to thigh-depth, or deeper. There was a weighing device hung at the beginning - we all weighed our packs. Mine was about 33lbs (16kg), though I wasn't carrying full water bottles. What weight I gained with ice axe, crampons, rope, harness, and helmet I saved by only taking a single change of clothes. Saved by the layering principle! The heaviest belonged to PT, at 68lbs. In training for his Denali attempt he carried 5 litres of wine, a large beer bottle, and a cake up the mountain. I too brought stuff to share - in this case Werther's Original sweets. They had a double purpose - they prevented hyperventilation while resting. My tent/cooking partner P's pack was also about 35lbs (with a little more water). Together I think we had the lightest stuff, and it made a big difference.

I had decided that there was no point in rushing to the top. I am hardly fit, and over exertion is a great way to get a nice altitude headache. Also, as we were only covering a few ks every day, there was no rush. Towards the back of the group with two Ls, we walked up the first part of the Whitney trail, negotiating snow banks, sub-nivean streams, and fallen trees. At the trail junction we waited as a group to ensure noone went the wrong way, then set off. Soon the trail began to steepen. Sticking to the track to avoid post-holing through the softening snow into a nice cold stream, we continued to climb up a narrow gully. It seemed we were making agonizingly slow progress, stopping every few minutes for a breather and a sip of water. At one point we met some people who'd stopped, put on helmets and crampons, and begun to climb some ice sticking to the rock walls on one side. It looked like heaps of fun, and also really really tiring, so we continued on. P was nowhere to be seen, but I hoped I wouldn't arrive (with the shovel) too late after him (with the tent) so we could dig in. I also put on crampons and my helmet, because they were banging around a bit on the outside of my bag, and serve a very useful purpose when installed according to directions! I also took out the ice axe to help with balance and self belay on tricky steps.

When one is climbing a steep, snow filled chute (couloir), while lugging a heavy pack, it's not unusual for your face to be mere inches from the snow ahead. Even though previous climbers have often left large snowy foot holds that can be climbed like steps with minimal calf-pain, craning your neck to look upwards never reveals a horizon that's particularly far away. Most chutes are not perfectly regular, but have steeper parts and less steep parts, so typically one can see the edge of a flattening part. Thus the end always seems a lot closer than it actually is. When one has climbed the last bump, buried the axe, and stood up to take a breath, the ground does not flatten out towards your destination at Lower Boy Scout Lake, but merely dips inwards and begins to climb again.

Horrible as this sounds, the weather was perfect, the air cool, and at any point turning around rewarded me with a view of the cars parked below, and, in the distance, the entire breadth of Owens Valley and lone pine. At high points, looking ahead one could see the summit in the distance. This was true for most of the climb.

Luckily, the distance was not far, and eventually we reached the top of the chute. L, L, and I sat on a rock, and ate trail mix, bread, and granola bars. A few hundred metres down the trail we found the campsite. At this point we were higher than the summit of Mt Baldy that I'd huffed and puffed to get to only 2 weeks before. P was still nowhere to be seen - someone said he was iceclimbing. I took out the shovel and started to dig. Surprisingly, it was not difficult work. Perhaps the action of bending ensured enough oxygen in my brain? Before long I'd dug a large tent-sized hole and piled the snow around the edge. I also dug half a snow cave to see how difficult it would be. Before I had time to build an igloo, though, P turned up, we pitched the tent, and started melting water. I use a jetboil stove - it's surprisingly efficient, and we devised an efficient scheme for melting a litre every couple of minutes. In the meantime we unpacked some stuff and generally got ready for dinner.

There was a false sunset at about 4pm, when the sun dropped below a nearby outcrop. Soon after it rose again on the other side and we had a few more hours of warm sun, before it finally set, and the temperature dropped. We donned our head torches and pulled out dinner - freeze dried miracles in a bag. Water boiled, bags filled, and sequestered under layers of insulation like a hot water bottle. We headed to the communal rock where PT's cask wine had been annexed by the French element and converted (in part) to mulled wine. 10 minutes later our food was ready and we ate it. The obvious deficiencies of storing food in an airless environment for up to three years were perfectly compensated by double helpings and a generous portion of hunger sauce. Someone had some spare hot chocolate, which was nice. After dinner was packed up, P sat in the tent and began to de ice his boots. We installed a foot-well below the door to prevent kicking snow inside, but the process was time consuming. I took out my pet laser pointer and started firing it at things, like distant peaks. I even managed to see a spot on the side of the main summit, 5 miles away! I heart science. My head torch is the Petzl Myo XP (top of the line about 2 years ago - thanks dad!). For this trip I'd bought brand new lithium batteries for everything. At this point I discovered that they supply too much current for the bulb, and it overheats and shuts off, every few seconds. This was pretty annoying! Hopefully with normal batteries it'll come back to life. Still, I've got my eye out for a not particularly useful torch which is just absurdly bright. Ideally, I would have a torch to use as a stove as well.

Soon I too turned in, de iced my boots, wrapped them in my sleeping bag bag (inside out), and stowed them, and most of my clothing, between my legs in the sleeping bag to keep it from getting frozen. As I drifted swiftly to sleep I noticed that P was breathing rapidly in his sleep - but other than that, little effect at being 10500ft above sea level.

Next morning we woke up pretty early, after a long (roughly 12 hour sleep - plenty of darkness at this time of year), and occasionally disturbed sleep. P's tent is pretty amazing, but it is well ventilated, and I hadn't bothered to secure the warmth cuff in my sleeping bag, so got cold shoulders. There was ice on the bag where my breath had frozen. Once awake, we got up, put our shell layers back on, and packed up pretty swiftly. J had brought a finger pulse oximeter, which we used to test our haemoglobin oxygen saturation level. Levels ranged between 84 and 96, which was pretty good. Mine was about in the middle. I'm told by my brother that exercise acclimatises you to a certain altitude. Since I do no exercise, I am not acclimatized anywhere, and I had relatively few symptoms while climbing. P is much fitter than I, and as a result, possibly pushed himself a bit too hard and got a headache. But he did climb about twice as fast as I did!

Before the sun had risen over the hill we'd rejoined the main trail and crossed the flat section above Lower Boy Scout Lake. We proceeded to climb a broad chute before arriving a while later at the snowed in meadow below upper boy scout lake. Here there was an even better ice wall, which K, H, and a few others immediately threw themselves at. N and the rest of us moved to some rock ledges on the other side of the valley, had a breather, and got a demo on how to test for avalanche danger. Soon enough I'd eaten a few more snacks (in anticipation of losing my appetite when I finally ran out of lungs), and we'd set off across the upper part of the valley. To our right was a terrific cirque surrounding the (frozen) lake - a series of jagged granite outcrops hundreds of metres high completely enclosing the valley.

L dropped a water bottle and we watched it coast at terrific speed back down the hill we'd just spent the better part of an hour climbing. Fortunately T, on skis, was on his way up and caught it on its way past. Reunited with its owner, we turned left and zigzagged up to the next valley, where high winds had carved the snow into fantastic shapes (sastrugi). By this point we were at about 12000ft and I was beginning to feel a bit winded! We paused on a few rocks and chatted with some people who'd camped there on a two day trip up and back. At altitude you take lots of photos and chat with lots of people, especially if they're going the other way, because then you don't have to walk!

By now we were most of the way to the last camp site, so we put on our packs and headed up. We traversed along the right hand side of the valley until we found the first coulois leading to the next level. It was pretty steep and mushy, and by the time we got to the top, it wasn't clear how to exit. We thought maybe to the left, where some rocks and tracks led. Someone else behind went to the right and managed to climb over a rock shelf onto snow above and continue. L and co traversed the top of the chute to try the right fork. In terms of fail modes, a fall from the right would have been on (steep) snow. From the left, several protruding rocks and ledges severely discouraged false steps. In the end I spotted a line and, clambering onto rock, followed it up. I threw my backpack ahead, and about a dozen moves later, had likewise got onto the snow. Though less steep here, it was still steep enough that climbing was best performed in a zig-zag, one leg over the other, with toes pointing slightly down hill to minimise calf tension.

Breathing deeply we climbed onto the broad lip of iceberg lake, 12300 ft (3750m) above sea level. Above us (literally directly above) loomed the main peak like something out of "Lord of the Rings", with two spires to the left, and the iceberg cirque to the right. P, arriving first, had picked a spot behind a large boulder and had already excavated a hole big enough to park a car in! I started melting water (being a slow process), we unpacked (slowly), pitched the tent, and unfurled sleeping bags to let them relax and puff up. Behind another large boulder everyone else had set up camp, digging deep holes and building walls around the edge. Ice axes, rocks, and shovels were used as anchors to secure tents against the wind. At the entrance of each tent a now semi-sub-nivean network of trenches connected everyone together. P and I sat on the rock, chatted with other snow-melters, and ate candy.

Meanwhile H, who had turned up at about 10pm the night before after ice climbing, dug himself a trench in the snow and slept in all his clothes in a sleeping bag, once again turned up, having been ice climbing. He explained that all the ice and rock gear in his pack meant there wasn't room for a tent (which are pretty useless in the wind, given the size of the hole you have to dig anyway...). He coopted all the climbing ropes, laid them on the rock, secured them with his pack, put his sleeping mat on top of that, and his sleeping bag on top of that. It wasn't very windy anyway, he claimed. (That's how it should be done!)

PT arrived with cake. It was L's birthday, and although she was feeling altitude perhaps the worst of anyone, she perked up when we all sang her happy birthday, then sliced up the cake with an ice axe. The remaining wine was converted to warm ambrosia. Sadly, the beer bottle had asploded the previous day, leading to a beer water-fall.

P and I duly heated water, filled out powdered dinner sachets, tucked them under out jackets, and sat on the rock as the sun began to set. The food was eaten, waste products sealed inside the zip lock bag (very efficient - no cleaning of cooking pots necessary, even though snow is pretty good for that). The sun set (for us), lighting up the surrounding granite outcrops in shades of orange and yellow. The laser made another appearance, and pointed out with stunning clarity the astonishing monolith we had yet to climb!

Now came the best part - attending to bodily needs in snow and at altitude. For this purpose we had at our disposal a number of NASA designed 'WAG bags'. The process was surprisingly unstressful - fortunately it was neither particularly cold nor windy. The trickiest part was preventing paraphernalia from scooting away on the smooth and gently sloping snow surface! P dug a small hole and we banked our zip-locked presents out of the way of hungry animals and disturbing wind, and a safe distance from the tent, to be picked up the way out the next day.

All said and done, we turned in, by now experts at the process of knocking ice off boots and storing them in our sleeping bags. I methodically removed my shell layers, folded them, and placed them on the shiny mat (car wind-shield cover) to insulate my shoulders and arse. Because moisture migrates through the insulation until it hits the impermeable mat (where it collects), I folded the clothing so that the least important part was on the bottom. I also left my down jacket over the top. Inside was my hat, neck warmer, gloves, and socks - ready to be internally deployed to any cold spots, like elbows, etc. As during the previous night, snow settled unevenly beneath me, leading to some odd bumps and slides, and my toes were rather cold. My sleeping bag is excellent, but the down has over the years been crushed by storage in a compression sack during long trips. I might have to fluff it up a bit again! In any case, I was only slightly uncomfortable. Finally, I set my alarm for 3:30 and unceremoniously passed out.

Next morning I woke with the alarm, motioned to P, who seemed pretty awake, and we got ready to go. I reinstated the chosen pocket junk, put on boots (warm but moist), crampons, retrieved ice-axes, fitted a harness, tied on a water bottle, ate a few granola bars for good measure, fended off a wake-up call in incomparable Hindi sung by PT, and, some of the first ready to go, set out.

But we were not the first. As I climbed the bottom of the talus slope, J explained to me that K and H had got up about an hour before and were now RACING each other to the top. Looking up I could see their lights already at the top of the notch nearly 2000ft (500m) above me! H told me later that he sprinted the last 100m up the near vertical coulois, but had to hyperventilate a bit at the top.

Moving at a much more stately pace I zigzagged back and forth up the slope. P swiftly pulled ahead, but I held my own against the remainder of the group, most of whom were suffering either headaches or nausea or both by now. We clambered in the dark over a few rocky patches (probably thoroughly snowed in again by now), and my headlamp finally stopped working entirely near the top. Fortunately I had brought a little Fenix LOD with me (which ate lithium batteries just fine). At the top the sun just started to come up, and the lights in Lone Pine began to be drowned out. It was pretty windy at the top, but I snuck behind a rock and, after smashing the ice on the top of my water bottle, had a few sips of ultra chilled water. B had previously experimented with burying water in snow overnight to prevent it freezing by insulation - which seemed to work. P had opted for the well tightened bottle in the sleeping bag approach, whereas I kept the bottle just outside the bag near my head. It was partially frozen in the morning. As I munched on some well deserved scroggin, we were joined by a few more people at the notch, and PTs crampons struck sparks from the rocks. The mountains across the valley's shadows passed us as the peak lit up with dawn and descended rapidly into the valley below. I could see a trail of lights leading nearly vertically up from the camp below, and below that, the valley we'd walked up. Further still, the trail head with cars parked as far as they could drive, then the road leading back to Lone Pine in the valley 11000 ft below.

Since I was ready to go I unhooked my prussik, tied in, and proceeded to climb the three ropes K and H had already set up the last steep bit to the top. By this stage the adrenalin had kicked in and I barely even felt out of breath. I was still overtaken by a few of the more competent climbers who climbed without ropes up over the final lip and onto the summit, a gently sloping, mostly snow free area a few hundred metres on a side. Near the summit a small stone hut served to provide (some measure of) refuge against lightning. Incredibly, the sky remained clear, the wind reasonably gentle. We ran around like headless chooks taking all the requisite photos, and either eating or throwing up, depending on the individuals state of mind. I got close enough to the edge to see the camp below and a more suitable chute to climb down in due course. T uncorked a bottle of beer he'd carried up for the occasion, PT served up his cake, and P (a different P) had, incredibly, ported a 15lb (7kg) watermelon to the summit, which was smashed with an ice axe and consumed. We took a group photo (with a few people shirtless, of course), and then decided it was time to get back.

We lined up at the ropes and commenced to rappel to back to the notch, then to walk back down. Walking back down is much the same as walking up, just in rewind. Below the last rocky section, I noticed a large rock (which I photographed) attached by a tiny bit of snow to the slope. I gave it a wide birth as I didn't want to send it to anyone who was descending in front of me. As I treasured the dry status of my pants, I opted to walk all the way down, but a few people opted to glissade, which, while fun, made a mess of the foot-holds! When I was about half way down, C, who had climbed back up with skies, began to ski back down. Some loose snow dislodged the rock of doom, which, weighing about 100kg, began to slide, roll, bounce, then richochet down the narrow chute. Several people screamed rock at such a pitch that I was expecting to meet the big one again, so I turned around and scooted to one side of the canyon. At first I saw only small rocks and snow bombs above me, but then I heard, and saw the big one bouncing around. I had about a second to work out where it was going and dodge - even with my quality helmet, prevention was better than cure.

As it went past me I would have been safe anywhere - it was going so fast it was about 8ft off the ground! It came to a halt a few hundred metres below me in a soft patch of snow - so I saw it a third and (thankfully) final time - in two pieces.

Before long I was back on the flat near the camp. By now the sun had warmed the interior of the tent enough to evaporate some of the ice and water from my stuff, and to sunburn the parts of my face I hadn't blocked out that morning (ie all of it). I blocked out swiftly, but there was still a moderate amount of damage. We dismantled, packed, retrieved wag bags, and, once again the quickest out, set out. One of the Ls had not summited due to altitude sickness, so H, descending rapidly, had packed her gear and taken her back down to lower boy scout lake. We were next out - avoiding the difficult section from the day before. N, coming in later after ice climbing, had tried going to the right of the chute, and had fallen up to his chest in a rock-well. Fortunately he could pull himself out using his ice-tools!

Pretty soon PG and P got sick of traversing the icy 55 degree slope without crampons and glissaded to the bottom of the valley, and walked out. Again opting for pants of dryness I traversed (in my now seriously battered crampons) and, with occasional rest breaks for my poor, unfit ticker, continued to walk back down with substantially less difficulty than the day before. At the slope above upper boy scout lake PG went for a glissade and became unbalanced, tumbling and dropping even more stuff (I already had collected his shovel). P, by this time, was nowhere to be seen. T, who is above 6'6", came down on skis from above. I was critiquing his stem turns on the left as he (rather deftly, I might add) negotiated alternating patches of rough and smooth, soft and icy snow. As he passed the compacted trail, he lost it and flew right at me. I jumped to the left, landing with 3 points (axe and two feet), and just missed getting a ski to the teeth. T picked himself up and skied down to help PG, who was disinclined to ascend a few hundred feet to collect some of his missing belongings. I turned back around and descended into the valley, forensically examining foot prints to determine a path of firmest snow to the next section. We tended to the right to avoid a series of cliffs (that T nearly went over on his skis), and before long, and with slight icyness, we were back at the first campsite, reunited with P (who had got there about an hour before, literally by the seat of his pants) and H and L, who was feeling much better. From here we knew it was only a short descent, though during this section we became a bit strung out and were more or less alone on the mountain. Down the steep chute with the false horizons, into the trees, avoiding post-holing into the stream or other hazards, back onto the Whitney trail, down the road to the waste disposal area, where I left rubbish in the appropriate places, then back down the road to where the cars were parked. I managed to fit into a car that was heading back down, and before long we were in Lone Pine.

In dribs and drabs car loads of people arrived at the bistro, ordered food, disappeared into the bathroom to change back into civs and wash their extremities, consume their own weight in Whitney burgers, compare sunburn, share horror stories, stare back at the summit (still visible), or watch 'bondi rescue' on TV. I ordered something with a salad, but it was delivered to the wrong part of the table and promptly consumed by others. No loss, I substituted with an enormous bowl of chips (in addition to the steak, corn, and baked potato I had already eaten).

H and I climbed into his rather nice 4WD and set off for Pasadena. It's about a 4 hour drive, and I struggled to stay awake for solidarity! The first 3 hours were not so bad and we shared our respective mountain climbing ambitions and Caltech experiences.

After I climbed Mt Baldy, I was really thinking "well that's my mountain for the year". The experience had not been sufficiently positive to make me want to repeat the experience for hedonistic reasons. Yet the Whitney trip was organised and attainable, and I'm sure my readers understand that I could not pass up such an opportunity. I was more than prepared to suffer extraordinarily for the duration of the trip, as I have on occasion done in the past, just so that I could complete it, or fail, having tried to the best of my ability, and thus know my capabilities. For the most part, however, the trip was pleasant. I was not challenged beyond any degree of discomfort or difficulty I've previously survived, and I was able to experience new things (like camping in snow) which were not so bad afterall.

So who knows. Its mesh bag does not entirely conceal my harness, and my battered but valiantly red crampons and blue ice axe will sit in the corner of my room saying 'use me again'. I might even go rock climbing some day, now that I have a harness and vibrams (toe shoes). Last time I climbed my piano playing suffered (and most would say it's already suffered enough!), but maybe this time will be different. In any case, I feel I know the mountains a little better than I did before.

What some people do for fun

2011-01-30T17:25:00.001+11:00

"Rock!"

"Rock! Rock! Rock! Rock! Rock!" Our faithful guide PT echoed.

I planted my ice axe and looked up and up until my eyes met the horizon, seemingly above me. There skittering on the icy surface was a rock the size of my head, and on a sure path to displace it. It bounced to one side, crisis averted. Returning to intense concentration on breathing I focused once more on the point of my crampon - the only thing preventing me from zooming at terminal velocity down the bowl behind me right to our distant campsite where we had been roused at 4:30am.

While focusing on the immediate task at hand - my goal being to complete ten steps before gasping for breath, I noticed that my newly bought snow glasses still had a sticker on the lens- a huge blow to my credibility. Though most of my gear is old and well-used, I'd bought a few new things for this trip. Last Monday (6 days ago) I was mindlessly browsing the net looking for a US supplier of 'just add hot water' freeze dried camping food that worked so well in Tasmania a year ago. I realised with a timely email that in fact the trip was on Friday night, not in 'about a month' as I'd thought for the previous few weeks... reviewing the gear list I made some surgical purchases on Amazon.com (ice axe, crampons, glasses, harness, carabiner, descender, food, and a shiny blue laser...), draining my phone battery before the end of the class! :(

Fast forward to Friday. I packed and headed off to the rendezvous point about half an hour early - to make sure I could get a car seat and also to brush up on rope work which, I realised, I haven't done in 8 years! A short drive took us to the trail head by 8pm. Donning my headlamp I set off with the first group of 7 (of 17) hikers, reaching the Baldy ski hut about 2 somewhat strenuous hours walking in the dark (sometimes off the trail - it being hard to see and all) later. I found two trees close enough for my hammock, pitched camp, prepared dinner, then walked across to the snowy western side of the valley to chat with the people there, hand out Werther's Originals, and test out my ice-axe helping to make a flat camping area. Dinner was prepared and duly consumed, and after a bit of tuning my hammock was ready to go. I kept all my clothes inside the hammock to help insulate me and to keep them from freezing. Next morning I simply unzipped the bag, climbed into my clothes, and stepped out - no more to say.

One more thing to say - we were woken at 4:30am by PT, our trusty 'bad cop' guide. I had a muesli bar for breakfast, sipped my drink bottle, performed a quick triage on my gear that wouldn't be going up the mountain - tying it all inside my hammock, and set off to join the group. We checked our avalanche transponders, tethered our ice-axes, fitted our crampons, and set off.

Before long we'd reached the base of the bowl, and working our way between the outflows of a recent rock fall and an avalanche, began our climb just as the sun rose and kissed the tops of the craggy rocks forming the summit ridge of our mountain - still so far away.

Having found a suitably precipitously steep and icy bit of slope with not too many protruding rocks we were strongly encouraged to fling ourselves down the slope front-ways, back-ways, head-first, and upside-down. In each instance we were to use the ice axe to maneuver ourselves face down feet first and then stop. This exercise is called the 'self arrest', an essential skill if you are ever going to slip while climbing a snow covered mountain. It was rather exciting, not to mention peculiar. The muscles have a similar feeling to performing an eskimo roll in a kayak. A short video of the proceedings can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afZiFn088YU Photos of the whole event are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/CaseyHandmer/MtBaldyWinterTrip#

K and P, the other two guides, yelled up the slope that it was time - the rising sun had warmed the air above freezing, and any rocks/boulders broken off by last night's freeze would soon unfreeze and commence a terminal flight to the bottom of the valley, already hundreds of meters below us, and hopefully not ricocheting off any of our heads. We traversed out of the danger zone and across the bowl to our chosen chute. One of 14 on this ridge, it was called 'once is enough', or possibly something else. Misidentifications are possible. After fixing some crampon trouble (I was wearing my waterproof but ankleless summer hiking shoes) I found myself directly below our chosen chute, and commenced an increasingly breathless climb upwards.

As I neared the base of the chute, the previously described episode of 'rock' occurred (a number of times), as people dislodged small rocks with their feet as the climbed. A chute is a narrow space in between boulders that fills with snow and can thus be climbed. Theoretically at least. The winning strategy was to kick steps as you go - each lasted just long enough to move to the next one. After a few twists and turns we emerged at the top of the ridge with blasting icy wind (okay it wasn't that bad!) and, after a short break, continued towards the summit. Again I found myself quickly out of breath, though the rest of my body felt great, despite its abuse. Last time I climbed baldy I got a bit of a headache - this time I was in the clear. I just had to concentrate intently on breathing on every step, and continuing to breathe after I stopped for a rest.

Moving almost agonisingly slowly I eventually reached the summit, now snow capped and very windy. There was a small wall for a wind-break - about four people could fit behind it. The remaining 13 of us ran around (as much as we were able) and sacrificed the summit watermelon according to tradition (with an axe). We traversed to a neighbouring steep bit. I should state that in summer all this would be impossible as it is just mounds of super-critical and bottomless scree, but in winter the snow affords a surface that can be climbed on.

We dug a few holes to prepare 'dead man' belay points, and also made a snow bollard. We then practised rapelling (abseiling) and prussiking. Prussiking is a way of climbing a dodgy section to which a rope has already been fitted with a safety point. The abseiling was lots of fun, and probably the easiest thing we did all day. At about the same time we lost one of our guides (P), and K went to search for him (who was searching for us). After dismantling the ropes stuff we traversed yet more icy snow and began our descent.

Every step downwards felt better, as though I could breath again. Soon we reached the top of another chute, and were strongly encouraged to attempt to glissade all the way down the bowl back to the camp site about 1600 vertical feet (500m?) below us. This was possibly the most tiring part of the whole exercise. After some zigzags to avoid inconveniently placed rocks, I ignored the steady accumulation of snow in my pants and top and zoomed down the hill so fast I had increasingly slushy snow flying over my shoes in front of me and spraying everywhere. My ears popped. With one or two self-arrests I brought myself in a semi-controlled way to the base of the snow pack and the campsite. I packed away my stuff, checked out the (rather comfortable looking) hut, and commenced my descent back to the carpark.

I had initially considered spending a second night on the mountain and attempting another igloo, but snow conditions were less than favourable for such exploits. So off I went. Not far down the trail I hear a couple of men speaking to each other in Russian. Swallowing any vestiges of bashfulness I may once have had I called out 'zdravstvutye, kak vy pozhivaetye?', and spent the better part of the next hour of descent speaking as much Russian as I could remember to these guys, who were rather surprised by my Russian adventures, as related mainly in this blog (and an older one). We had a good chat about the strategy of Russia retaining the southern Kuril Islands, about the richness and poorness of Russia, the continuing effects of the communist era, and other points of mutual interest. Clearly no adventure is complete without wrapping your tongue around such words as "dalina geyzerov" "Kolyma", and "vyertalot"!

In the car park, I repressed my sudden and unexpected craving for pancakes, packed my stuff in to M's car, and began the long and rather dozy ride back to main campus, where, I knew, a scrumptious dinner of pasta con tomato et egg was only a few short minutes of preparation away.

Christmas 2010

2010-12-30T10:29:00.001+11:00

So, my dear reader, it has been some time since something adequately interesting occurred that was worthy of a blog post. So here we are:

I finished my first term/quarter/funny semester at Caltech. It was an adventure in a way - a constant balancing act between the competing forces of knowledge acquisition and sleep. Also thrown in the mix were some light teaching duties, which was not without its challenges. All in all I managed, I think, a reasonable balance. Okay, I didn't fail anything!

Back to the main game! I met a local girl in the last month or so, who is in the process of finishing a PhD in applied maths. Well that's how I spell it. Anyway, she invited me to meet her family, and, passing that not inconsiderable hurdle, I was also invited to spend Christmas with some family friends in Boston. Tickets were bought, arrangements were made, and not without a little trepidation!

Meanwhile it had been raining a lot in southern California - some places getting 3 years rainfall in a week or less, and lots of flooding everywhere. Of course noone knows what to do with this funny wet stuff on the road, so they carry on at 130km/h until something breaks! We got up at 4am and jumped in a cab which took us to LAX, and after minimal carnage were flying (separately) to Boston. On the flight I met a nice older man whos son was a physicist at MIT, amongst other places, working in plasma or something. On arrival at Boston I chilled off and took a cab back to the house, and after watching the US cut of 'the boat that rocked', called 'pirate radio', went to sleep.

At 2:30 the next day I woke up, organised a piano tuner to tune the piano in my room (apparently in desperate need), and then over the next few days hit the streets, checking out MIT, Harvard, and the city. The people we stayed with were also physicists and faculty at Harvard, so my female friend was the odd one out - being a 'mere' applied mathematician. A particular highlight was throwing snowballs at the frozen Charles river to puncture the ice.

Christmas came and went with the distribution of an obscene number of presents - the definite winner being our host, who scored a macbook air! I also made off with a scarf and a Harvard jacket - perfect for schtoinking free food in disguise. And possibly also keeping warm. Snow fell and melted. We saw Tron, which was pretty intense. I thoroughly forgot about my lactose avoidance regimen. All too soon our time was up, 45 episodes of arrested development later, and mother and daughter returned to the airport to return to California.

I, however, had other plans. Soon after I was dropped at the Boston bus terminal, bought a ticket, and wandered off to find my departure bay. The place was FULL, mainly with Hawkeye lookalikes - I stood in line for an hour and very nearly missed the bus I was aiming for. However I just made it. The driver was a jolly fella who sang us a few songs as we motored off north through Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine. After a few hours we got there, I was met at the bus station outside the historic Huber's store, and we returned home.

I had not long to rest, however, as it was Christmas party night, for some old friends. And I mean old! I was the youngest person there, then a 36, 41, 63?, 69, 70, and 90 year olds! The party was crazy, so I sponged for the most part, and just soaked up a seemingly limitless supply of food (mostly Maine seafood!). By 10:30 the festivities had wound up, so I crawled into my loft bed underneath a steadily increasing blizzard, watched scrubs, and passed out.

Next morning I was awoken early by the sound of pleasant chatter down below, emerged unscathed, and enjoyed a healthy breakfast, then put on my spacesuit and ventured out into the snowy wastes. About 8 inches had fallen over night, and I tramped around the house in gumboots and jeans, snow shovel in hand, looking for a nice dense wind-blown drift from which to carve my masterpiece. In the end I found some snow which was solid enough to be shoveled out in a brick and placed, although only barely. Some measure of compression continued throughout the day, and many a fractured brick had to be reconstructed by hand. Also requirements on thickness etc saved time by meaning blocks fitted together, but lost time in the number of extra rows to build.

After about 90 minutes I'd built most of the cone, and broke for lunch. Stepping inside I instantly felt warm (tingly toes) and tired, and could barely lift a bowl of soup to my mouth. After lunch I checked in for my flight the following day, then, modifying my apparel, stepped outside once more. The feeling of the iced up snow shovel in my hands reinvigorated me and I put the last 6 blocks in place, sealing the dome. I pulled out my compass, found south, and starting digging and entrance. Within a quarter of an hour, my igloo was all but complete. Inside there was room to stand while hunched, and probably room to seat 4 close friends. It was a fun exercise to build, as I have, over the years, honed my skills, though never had time to finish one properly. Inside was a strange blue light, and later that evening I put some torches inside and the whole thing became a big blue thingo - it was pretty awesome (if I don't say so myself.)

One final point - it had been my ambition to break some ice out of the pond and set it in the side as a window, however it was not to be - the ponds' ice was covered by a four inch layer of slush that I did not fancy messing around with. What a fail!

After one final shovel of all the paths around the place, I retired indoors, ate dinner, chatted about political developments across the world and what might happen next, about Obama and his and our hopes for the future, then retired for the night. This time I read some papers on advanced partial differential equation solvers, but quickly passed out.

Next morning I woke up, ate breakfast, packed, and drove out to wait for the bus. And wait we did. Some light comic relief was provided meanwhile by a retinue of firemen, policemen, and local news crews - Huber's store had been broken into and torched overnight. People really are desperate. After waiting for 90 minutes and seeing the full bus drive by, I was driven to Portland, where I bought a ticket and joined a line so long it snaked all the way back to where it started and back again. I still had some time up my sleeve, having opted for a later direct flight from Boston, so didn't panic excessively. After only 30 minutes or so two buses turned up and I managed to get on the second. Off we barreled down the highway - this time my travelling companion was on her way to a meditation retreat in western Massachusetts. About 2 metres after the New Hampshire - Mass. border our bus broke down, but fortunately some relief was on its way, and before long I was on my way again. I made it to the airport, somewhat stressed, and cleared security. I even had time to use the bathroom before the plane boarded.

Virgin America is something else - mood lighting on entry, food ordering on screen, and free wifi during the holiday period. Finally, I was begged to swap seats with someone on the plane so they could sit next to their girlfriend, and forcing me to accept an upgrade to premium economy, with an exit row, leg room, free food/drink, and earphones. What a deal - where I now write. Hopefully I will soon be back on the ground in Los Angeles and home in sunny, friendly Caltech. An interesting winter break.

UPDATE: The flight ended with minimal drama, aside from a 40 minute wait on the tarmac due to a cancelled flight catchup clusterfuck (tm) at the terminal. A quick return from the airport was followed by a righteous Thai dinner and a screening of 'wizard people, dear reader', which was appropriately hilarious. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPVhmZodaLA

Belated update

2010-11-16T14:04:00.001+11:00

Dear valued reader,

Apologies for not writing anything here for a while. Principle reason: Nothing interesting has happened.

Well, that's not entirely true. I took lots of photos, but most are up on facebook - no time to upload to picasa. If you're on facebook, you know where to find them. They're okay, but they're not exactly erupting volcanoes!

Work proceeds apace. I'm sure I'm exaggerating, but it seems I have about 6 hours a week in which to actually chill, and that's with an optimistic average of 6 hours of sleep per 24 hour block. I also get a fair few zeds in each class, as is my custom!

Every now and then I do something exciting on the weekend. About a month ago I climbed Mt San "Baldy" Antonio with a group of fellow students to a height of 10056ft (or 3250m). It was the highest I've walked (I think) and I could definitely feel the altitude!

More recently, many of the choirs I'm in have done various performances, most of which were successful! A few weeks ago it was the olive harvest on campus, which I think was won by Ricketts Hovse (motivated by free food, I believe!)

Yesterday I noticed a baby turtle in one of the ponds on my way to class - it was maybe half the size of my hand. Awwww!

Two weekends ago I had the combined fun of grading question 2 of the Physics 12a mid-term paper (all 68 copies). It was the first time I've graded anything on this side of the pacific. It took quite some time to meticulously dissect every answer with my fluorescent orange pen of doom, and yet more time to fend off and avoid students finding me to ask for more marks! Fortunately I got grading/marking done in time to go flying on Sunday. I've been attending the odd class on civil aviation theory. I don't think I'll make it this time around, but there's plenty of time left in this PhD to get a private pilot's license! Speaking of licenses my efforts to get a Californian driver's license have been quite amusing. I hired a car (with my Australian license, which remains valid for a week or so more) and practised driving around on the wrong side of the road, without any difficulty. However the department of motor vehicles (or DMV) is the latest and greatest thing. I arrived last Friday 2 minutes after opening (at 8am after a 1 hour walk to get there) only to find that the queue already encircled the building. 3 hours later I made it to a desk and got processed, and by 5 hours into the exercise I'd passed my theory exam and got a learner's permit. Sadly no practical driving tests can be booked until well after my Aussie license expires (FAIL), so I'll have to hire an instructor sooner or later to drive me there and back! (And maybe teach me how to drive on the freeways here...).

No earthquakes of perceptible magnitude so far - I'm tremendously disappointed! Indonesia, I notice, has been getting more than it's fair share of geological activity, with three volcanoes (Merapi, Sinabung, and Anak Krakatoa) all erupting seriously in the last month. This most recent weekend I took off with a dozen or so fellow rock-acapellarians (the Fluid Dynamics) to a hire house in another part of LA for a retreat, which involved a lot of singing (mostly in tune), food, and watching movies. Rocky Horror (with commentary) and Rent were the order of the day. Probably the most amusing thing was that within 2 minutes of the end of a singing rehearsal EVERYONE had at least one laptop open and plugged into any available wall socket to do either homework or write some program. One girl was writing something in assembly - I was impressed! I nearly didn't even take mine along. There were a few moments of held breaths as we tried to figure out the wireless password. Fortunately we got it in the end!

In the meantime I approached a research group doing interesting work to try and suss out a research topic. Currently I've been given a review article to read and see what I think. http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1010/1010.5260v1.pdf It's all about merging binary black holes, which manages to be both an extremely elegant problem and an extremely difficult problem all at once. There's also a real possibility someone will detect the gravitational wave signature from one of these in the next few years, so it's an exciting time to be in the field. People have been trying to calculate this sort of thing since the 1960s - apparently it's quite tricky!

A few weeks back was the mid-term election here, which was interesting in the sense of almost palpable apathy, and really impressively poor journalism. In the end the democrats lost the house but clung onto the senate - an impressive feat. Meanwhile most politicians continue to fiddle while Rome burnt. I read the other day that there is a greater degree of income inequality in the US than in almost any other country - much more than in the traditional caribbean or central american plutocracies. Probably the best article I read about it putting a positive spin on it is this one: http://www.slate.com/id/2273708/, which points out that the point of power is to use it, rather than to cling onto it. It only remains to be seen if Obama can unbreak his heart enough to either fight congress back to tax, education, energy, and immigration reform, (and possibly a second term) or if he'd rather play the nice guy all along and hope the winds of hate blow themselves out. Fortunately either way the US has not yet gone the way of most other developed nations and drastically cut research funding, so there's some hope we'll science our way out. Interesting times we live in, yes!

One particularly happy note is that Amazon does free delivery here! It's actually easier and cheaper to buy books from the internet and have them delivered just after you've forgotten about them (awesome surprise) than to walk to the library, borrow the third last edition, lose it, pay fines, and eventually steal it out of spite. At this rate my room will be seismically damped by enormous looming piles of books by the time the next major earthquake strikes.

And that's the news to this minute. Come and visit me!

Videos are up

2010-10-09T17:39:00.001+11:00

I cut together and uploaded some video from the Russia trip:

In chronological order:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgTfBNhfAWs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYVq2qzMkFk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIsPRcz2uoo

Also a video of me playing a piano in Magadan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0cmOHZEF6E

Enjoy!

Florida trip

2010-10-08T06:14:00.001+11:00

Last weekend I took the opportunity to catch up with my friend and expert zoologist Vladimir in Florida before he leaves to other, less exciting places! The weather was just turning in downtown Pasadena as I took the metro to union station, and in light rain the flyaway shuttle to LAX airport. I had already checked in on line and received an electronic boarding pass on my phone, which I used to pass through security to proceed to the xray.

I wound up in a queue that led to one of the few backscatter xray scanners. For several reasons (privacy and ionizing radiation being at the top of the list) I opted to get frisked instead of zapped, although the guards were pretty annoyed about it, going so far as to suggest that opting for a frisk was an admission of guilt, which I thought was a bit over the top. As several people have demonstrated fooling x-ray machines is not particularly difficult and the so-called privacy safeguards are a complete joke.

Eg: http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1ASUT_enUS398US398&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=airport+scanner+privacy+breach

http://xkcd.com/779/

This refers to microwave scanners, but is similar in principle http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBfHMCiatK0&p=1AA6C5D94197406A&playnext=1&index=81

In summary, I find someone whose face I can see frisking me far less invasive than electronic measures, which I feel have been hastily rolled out with no real evaluation of the long term risks.

Killed time at the airport waiting for the flight (fortunately I was early), and noticed next to the boarding gate was a room entitled 'American Airlines rebooking office', which made me nervous. Not to worry, my electronic boarding pass had me on faster than anyone could actually check it!

I arrived in Florida, and after a short delay, drove with Vladimir back to a neighbourhood near the university, parked the car, then walked across a golf course to his office. Once there we talked Russia, travel, volcanoes, animals, science, teaching, academic careers, and so on for several hours. Having eaten about one decent meal in the last few days I was a bit hungry, but managed to eventually warm up some corn and Vienna sausage, which was a nice relief! Eventually, we retired to the floor of the office and slept, as Vladimir has moved out of his apartment.

The following day we battled blinding sunlight and drove to the Everglades. On the way we discussed the stories of several scientists who managed to defect from the Soviet Union, including a coral researcher (Slava Kurilov) who was prevented from leaving the country, but took a Russian based cruise that went 'close' to the Philippines. At the crucial moment he put on a wetsuit and jumped overboard - four days later he found land! Many years later he formed his own sea-based religion, and subsequently died by drowning in the bath.

Vladimir also told me about the state of universities in Russia. His alma mater is now best known for its UFO research, in which one self appointed expert built a flying saucer landing site with a few million tonnes of concrete, but is still waiting for the first landing.

At length we arrived in the Everglades, and took several walking paths around looking for interesting animals and plants. We saw many snakes, frogs (one was transparent under torch light), toads, alligators, baby alligators, herons, and lots of water. It had rained a lot in the past few days and the Everglades, which is essentially a very broad, shallow sheet of water flowing slowly to the ocean, had filled up a bit. Closer to the sea we saw several vultures and crocodiles, and many fish in the water. Later we checked out a few 'hammocks', or islands of rainforest that originate with crocodile pool digging and eventually evolve into Gaussian humps of hurricane resistant tree growth. Each hammock has its own subspecies of tree shells - shells that climb trees and hang there. Fireflies also blinked. By far the greatest feature was mosquitos, which became fierce in the evening as Venus and Jupiter came up. Apparently in the 50s a cyclist broke his chain at the end of a not particularly long path, and was actually killed by mosquito bites walking the bike the two miles back to the road.

On the drive back I saw a particularly excellent sign, advertising "BT's gentlemen's club - parking and entrance in rear". By now it was about 11pm and we were keen to eat something, so keeping an eye out we saw a Mexican restaurant, ordered ENORMOUS meals, and sat back as an old man with a saxophone played happy birthday in a very jazzy, pitch approximate way.

At length we returned to the office, looked at pictures of Russia, volcanoes, and watched Tim Minchin singing questionable songs. Vladimir told me about Mathias Rust, a man who used to fly people out of the Soviet Union on the one day a year that he knew the border guards were drunk. In 1987 during glasnost, he got the head of security sacked by landing his small plane on red square! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathias_Rust

Next morning we drove to the beach for a swim. Vladimir explained that the beach with the pretty girls was 200 miles to the south - which I thought was TERRIBLE planning. Such is life. I didn't fully understand previously either, but there's a road which connects nearly all the keys, which is pretty cool. The water at the beach was very warm, so I was able to swim for nearly five minutes before I got tired and drowned. Well, not quite - I can touch the bottom! But despite living in the US for a few weeks I'm yet to undergo a positive shift in density, which is probably a good sign.

Next we visited the Miami Seaquarium, where I managed to catch a few shows and check out many animals. Lots of dolphins, seals, and manatees. I had never seen a manatee in person before - they really are huge sacks of fat with extremely fluid movements that float around eating stuff. Pretty cool really. Saw nurse sharks being fed a few fish, with the odd piranha floating around - they are quite spectacular fish. I saw a sea lion show, which was pretty clever, but also pretty corny - thoroughly aimed at young teenagers or little kids. Still, it was pretty cool seeing what they could do. A key different to the sea shows done at the Manly Aquarium that I remember (as it was explained to us) is that in Sydney the trainers deliberately make their gestures subtle, flexible, and constantly shifting to ensure the seals pay attention. At Miami, it was pretty obvious what the trainers were doing, and that the sea lions weren't really paying attention. Meanwhile a heron managed to steal a few fish, which I think was probably part of the show. Another part of the show is getting splashed, which was pretty funny.

One hour later I went to the dolphin/killer whale show, in which Miami's killer whale (Lolita, her mate Hugo died a few years ago) and 5 pacific white sided dolphins did all sorts of clever stuff. The dolphins were really fast, and able to jump 5m out of the water. It reminded me of a paper on animal creativity I read a while ago, in which dolphins were trained to improvise moves. It took them a few weeks to catch on, but then they went nuts to the point that the trainers could no longer deduce any structure to the moves. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cetacean_intelligence#Creative_behavior)

The killer whale was also pretty cool, carrying the trainer around, jumping, making big waves, and splashing everyone - not bad for a whale that's longer than the radius of the tank it's kept in! The ethics of keeping whales in tanks is an ongoing question - there's many excellent resources on the web if you're interested. It reminded me of a story I saw in one of Australia's many excellent whaling museums. In Eden (on the southern NSW coast) there used to be a killer whale called Tom who would tow the whaling boats out into the bay, then help his pod herd other whale species close to the shore, where the humans would spear them. Tom and his family would eat the lips and tongue of the killed whales. His skeleton in the museum shows dental wear where he held the rope, although its age at death is much smaller than the duration of this behaviour, suggesting that perhaps Tom's grandfather began helping the hunters. Aboriginal Australians also have stories of killer whales helping them hunt whales from canoes!

Soon it was time to drive to the airport, where I discovered that I'd somehow managed to book my return flight on the wrong day (in fact 3 days previously, well before I'd even left LA). I'm not sure how this took place, as I'm usually pretty careful. Perhaps the online booking system shunted me towards a cheaper fare on a different date without making it obvious, but in any case, after a 2 hour foray into the depths of stupidity and terrible customer service, I forked out another $300 cash (as the previous transaction had got my card blocked by my bank - apparently budget airlines are common recipients of credit card fraud) and made the plane with at least 60 seconds to spare. Budget airline indeed!

On the flight back I spent most of the time up the back in the galley chatting to one of the air hosts - with no inflight food service, they have time on their hands. As a former member of the navy, he had an interesting take on the current administration's attempt to repeal 'don't ask, don't tell' - apparently when he was in the service a gay man outed himself to obtain a discharge, but being annoyed with the process, attempted to out several other men in the unit. Of course even insisting you're straight is grounds for dismissal, so it was just a pain. In essence, the presence of this rule gave people who were belligerent or didn't want to follow orders a way to do so without suffering direct consequences. He also confirmed my suspicion that most gay members of the armed forces are usually the most competent fighters in a unit. The other half of the conversation was about the horrors of the job as a flight attendant. Apparently a few months before an attendant (Steven Slater) flipped off a passenger, stole some alcohol and excited the aeroplane (while it was taxiing) by the escape slide. Style!

On another occasion he delivered a baby, though I never found out if it was named after him. What excitement.

In due course I arrived at LAX, then found a taxi driver who had missed his fare, who drove me swiftly to Pasadena for a very reasonable price and some excellent conversation about the rise of Islamic fundamentalism amongst expat communities before and since 9/11. He was a Lebanese (christian) immigrant, and had heard about the race riots in Australia a few years before. I'm still not sure what the upshot is, but the process of integration is never helped by nationalism, which in my mind is one of the four great evils of the last century (and probably more generally, together with racism, sexism, and religious extremism).

All in all, a very interesting weekend, well worth the huge set-back in terms of homework!

Moving to the US

2010-09-27T09:45:00.001+10:00

Before I went to Russia I had largely finished packing for the move, so when I arrived in Los Angeles, toting 7 cases on a trolley, and unpacked in my allocated room, I was surprised just how many enormous books I had brought. I guess there had to be some reason for there being 160kg of luggage!

I soon met my house/apartment mates, who are pretty cool, and explored the local area, though I have yet to sample the Pad See Iew of every Thai restaurant in town.

Last week was orientation week, which consisted in equal measure of procedural lectures (sleeping opportunities) and a series of quite excellent parties with themes like western, hawaiian, etc etc. On Friday I joined a group and climbed part of the San Gabriel mountains for a great view of LA. Photos may be updated shortly. So far it has been sunny every day, the last few days were very very hot as well - easily in the 40s.

Most other administrative boredom has been organised, I have a telephone number, a bank account, and so on. Tomorrow classes begin - I have 10 timetabled, but solid assurances that more than five will result in severe singeing and probably premature death. So I'll see what the tone is this week!

For those who are interested, an excellent website on earthquakes is http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqscanv/. The server is just down the road.

Almost time to begin work for the year! I auditioned for a piano part in a chamber ensemble - I'm pleased to report the resulting train wreck was entirely fitting given my abilities...

Vladivostok and last post

2010-09-03T15:45:00.001+10:00

The airbus made a hard landing in Vladivostok, and after the requisite period waiting for luggage and fending off the taxi drivers with particularly pointy teeth. I got a lift into the city (with a 30% discount on the excessive ripoff, meaning I only paid about twice as much as I should have...). After about an hour we arrived at a hotel I thought I could stay at. The woman at the front desk stated with a perfectly straight face that no single rooms were available, but I could take a triple room (for three times the price). I must have looked particularly stupid! After about 10 minutes, however, she 'remembered' that there was a single fare option available, with the possibility of sharing a room.

In the end, I did share a room, but in the morning the fellow (Maxim) insisted I share breakfast with him, which saved me the trouble of shopping for my own! I spent the next two days walking around finding the places I had seen on my previous trip in December 2006 and buying gifts for friends. I usually put of buying heavy stuff until the last stop before home, but there it is time to cut loose!

One particular highlight was the weather, which after 4 weeks of chasing autumn, finally turned to summer again for two days. On the first of September all school children return to school dressed up and with flowers. I visited the museum and was particularly impressed by the exhibition on early sea explorers, including La Perouse. I took advantage of my knee returning to normal to meet with a local couchsurfer Alyona and climb a nearby hill, look at the view, and also to visit the lighthouse at the harbour entrance, accessed by an eroded tidal isthmus. Vladivostok is currently having two new bridges built, partially in preparation for the APEC summit. Even though Moscow is paying for the construction, there are concerns that the city will not be able to afford maintenance!

All too soon it was time to leave. I woke up at 4:15am on the second of September, took a cab to the airport, and took a flight to Beijing. There I was in transit basically all day. I spent some time looking at a 3D TV screen display, which was pretty cool, and compiling statistics of my travel, most of which I have already published here. At length we boarded a flight for Sydney via Shanghai. As we cleared immigration in Shanghai I met Matias Hyde, an Argentinian man who is starting a bike ride from Australia to Spain. His website is www.matiashydetravels.com - it looks a lot nicer than my one!

In Sydney quaranteen asked me to open my bag - there was apparently food buried right at the bottom. When I unpacked it, though, all we could find was a balled up wadd of thermal underwear. Probably not consumable by anyone. Luckily, dad met me at the airport. Now I am safe at home, worried only that my unpacked stuff will cover my bed and prevent me from sleeping!

Photos! Kamchatka photos are now finished (8 shots from the last day added), and photos from Vladivostok and the flight home are up as well. They can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com.au/CaseyHandmer/Vladivostok?feat=directlink

All the photos can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com.au/CaseyHandmer

Overall, I think it was a pretty crazy trip, and I've been surprised and thrilled at how well most of it went. The trip lasted for 77 days, and in nearly every one I tried to do something which I thought would probably fail, but I succeeded just often enough to keep on trying.

In 10 days I will move to California to start a PhD at Caltech in theoretical physics (think Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory). I do not anticipate regular updates on the thrilling sequence of events that will be the next five years of my life, but I may occasionally find time for a photo or two of the lovely Pasadena.

Last days in Kamchatka

2010-08-31T12:40:00.001+10:00

The day before yesterday I was awoken at 7:53am by a frantic text message 'wake up, be at the hotel as soon as possible' - presumably there was some chance a helicopter would fly before 3pm (or not at all!). Within 15 minutes I was at the bus stop, and soon enough found myself at the hotel (on the other side of town), where I handed over a frightful amount of money, signed some paperwork, and then headed for the airport.

This time there were about 22 people, mostly Russians, taking the helicopter to the hopelessly remote 'valley of the geysers', the second largest geyser field in the world (after Yellowstone). The only other way of getting there is walking, and it takes about 2 weeks. Our guide gave us the safety chat, and insisted we wear set-belts, probably to prevent everyone changing sides to look at stuff as we zoomed past. The helicopter went through its 5 minute preflight warmup, then the engines strained to life and we leapt from the ground as daintily as a frightened elephant.

The flight took us north past the home volcanoes Koryaksky and Avacha (at that moment being climbed by about 1500 people as part of a volcano festival), Jeponova, and into the Kronotsky Nature Reserve. At this point large, steep, angry looking cone appeared on the horizon - Karimsky Volcano, so active it is a perfect cone within an older caldera, smoke and ash billowing from the top. Not far away the volcano Maly Semyachik with a large lake in the crater. Once deep blue, the lake is now a white colour, and has always been acidic. Soon we banked to the left and entered a steep-sided canyon with vegetation reminiscent of the cliffs in the Altai.

The upper parts of the valley are filled with steam, and we landed quite close to the central building and ranger lodge. Here we could see the results of the landslide that occured in the winter of 2007, apparently without being noticed by anyone until after enormous boulders had stopped about half a metre from the lodge. The landslide also blocked the valley, forming a lake and drowning about a third of the geysers.

Discovered in 1941, the geyser field is caused as water seeps down fault lines to hot magma about 1700m beneath the surface (associated with a nearby volcano). This water then bubbles to the surface, forming an intermittent spring, as well as many mud pots, hot pools, and other cool stuff. The plumbing of a geyser can be modelled as a very long vertical straw. Due to the geometry, heat flow by convection (or radiation) is essentially negligible, and so heat is transported by conduction, as well as phase changes. Under intense pressure, steam can form. Bubbles rise through the system until their heat is absorbed by colder water above and the bubbles collapse. I have no idea what the mean distance they travel is, but I suspect not far. Heat continues to be transported upwards, as well as outwards through surrounding rocks, and bubbles form and absorb in a manner analogous to a binary counter. When the counter overflows, so does the geyser, discharging a good quantity of water and resetting the system. It is for this reason that some geysers erupt with very regular periods. Another cool thing is that you can make a geyser erupt by pouring in soap - it affects the viscosity and surface tension of the geyser, releasing the pressure which is building up!

While we were there we saw many geysers erupt, including 'grot' (ie 'cave'), which apparently only erupts every few years, and discharged thousands of litres of boiling water about 10m into the air. We also took the opportunity to check out many other steaming holes in the ground, pools of boiling mud, and other awesome stuff.

Next we flew in the helicopter to the Uzon caldera, not far away, which are the remnants of a volcano that was most active about 300,000 years ago. The magma chamber emptied and the ground collapsed, forming a large ring of hills about 11km in diameter. In the middle are a series of hot lakes which contain sodium, potassium, sulfer, and aluminium (amongst other minerals). Apparently bears like one of the lakes in particular as the water helps to treat their paws, which can get itchy in summer. We saw enough bear tracks in the area that it seemed likely.

Next we flew back over the ranges (sadly without a view of Krashennikov or Kronotsky volcanoes, or the more distant Kluchevskoi group) to the Jeponova river, which was full of salmon in retirement after their spawning activities. We ate a lovely lunch of different varieties of salmon fish, bread, tea, juice, etc. I skimmed some stones and flew a kite. As we were leaving, two other helicopters landed - it was pretty awesome. Above the river (on which some people do rafting fishing trips) was the volcano towering into the clouds.

Too soon we had to fly back, arriving at Yelizovo heliport, receiving certificates to mark the occasion (I don't know why...), and of course waiting almost an hour for the airport transfer shuttle. Lost World Tours (the group through whom the agents I booked through booked, who in turn booked through the heli tours group, who leased helicopters from the airport...) seems to struggle a bit with timing...

I headed back to the flat, arriving exactly in time with Nina, Denis' mother, who was making a surprise visit and helping the electricity people check the meter. We managed to communicate what time my flight was leaving the following day, and make arrangements to hand over the key.

I walked to Tanya and the Australians (Kent and Olya)'s place with a bag full of Russian sweets, we ate dinner and had a 3 hour comedy session, in which we realised the potential of the Russian word for 'shield'. The other highlight was comparing idiom in which the word kitten (or kotyonok) is used. In English 'she was so happy, she was having kittens' seemed to be the most common. In Russian, the equivalent phrase was 'my boss was so happy, he must have run over a kitten'.

As I walked back I noticed fog building up near the coast, and the next morning, the entire city was again shrouded. I had been lucky to get the three day window in which I helicoptered and climbed Mutnovsky! With the traffic stopped I wasn't tempted to go shopping, so instead backed my bag and cleaned the flat to within an inch of it's life, and ate all the leftover food. Mmmm.

At 3pm Alexsei, Denis' father, arrived. We had tea, I unplugged the electronics, and then he insisted on driving me to the airport. He also insisted that my Russian, which is good enough for most things, was utterly incomprehensible when I said I was happy to take the bus!

Airports are boring, but after about 4 hours, I had cleared security (I beeped lots, so was waved through), and boarded the plane. The flight out, in the evening, was one long sunset, but the definite highlight was just after taking off, we punched through the fog, and instantly every volcano in southern kamchatka was visible, including Gorely, which was still erupting. =D. Only Avacha bay was filled with fog, which spilt through passes of mountains ringing the bay and into surrounding valleys. Some time later an airliner passed us going in the other direction at quite close range - but it only took 3 seconds. We were really moving.

The airbus made a hard landing in Vladivostok, and I had arrived. Kamchatka was 12 crazy crazy days of volcanoes, in a land that, being at the edge of the world, was never quite finished. I think I will certainly return, though timing is everything!

In the meantime I've uploaded photos from Kamchatka except for the flight out, so enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.ru/CaseyHandmer/Kamchatka?feat=directlink

The weather improved

2010-08-28T23:29:00.001+10:00

The weather finally improved a bit. I borrowed a bike and attempted to ride to the pacific ocean (maybe 12km), but ultimately failed, primarily due to my own incompetence. I saw a road on a map (old trick) and followed it, though it was rather muddy. I saw a barking dog on a chain (no problem), who was then joined by about 7 unleashed dogs who did not like me much at all. I decided to ride another way. I rode around the bottom of the bay until I had a great view of the southern part of the city and a bunch of sunken and semi-sunken ships, as well as Vilyuchinsky volcano, and saw the road curve in a huge arc below me down to the turn-off to the road which would go (via another route) to the ocean. Remembering that I had to ride back (and my knee wasn't real good for walking, though riding was okay), I decided to stop at the top, next to a small army base, and take lots of photos. Fortunately my clothes are now worse than my Russian, so I'm the definition of harmless. Also, Putin left the day before, so probably all the security personnel are still unconscious! I rode back, cooked a hearty dinner of some packaged something boiled or whatever (my memory is not clear - it was not an overwhelmingly amazing dinner), went through the usual routine of exchanging text messages with the travel agent, uploading photos, reading about Australian politics, and sleeping.

The next day I got up early, got a lift to the hotel, waited around for a few hours, got a lift to the heliport. There there were a number of mammoth MI-8 Russian helis sitting on the tarmac, but due to the delays from weather, they were all pretty booked out. I realised at that point that the group I had booked through didn't exactly have priority, and in the end I took a helicopter to Kurilskoye Ozero instead. The preflight safety talk was rapid, in Russian, and can be summarized thus 'the exit is the door you came in through, and you can open the window to take photos'. Which was pretty cool. Soon enough the jet spooled up (best noise in the world) and, incredibly, 7 tonnes of Russian aluminium and steel became airborn and rapidly zoomed south through a series of narrow wooded valleys and past literally hundreds of volcanoes! At some point we popped through a hole in the cloud and then were in sun, the tops of the tallest peaks poking up through the sea of white below. The lake appeared on the horizon and with a shudder and a clatter, the helicopter began to descend, flying low over an island (disturbing hundreds of birds), and landing next to the lodge. Our guides were two interesting local girls with reasonable English, and we soon stumped off down a path accompanied by a ranger with a flare and a big gun to the bear observation platform. Sadly, no bears appeared here that day, so after a rather mediocre lunch (that was rather heavy on packaging) we flew to the lake's (current) outlet to try our luck at the salmon counting station there. Salmon, I hear you ask? Kurilskoye Lake is the world's largest salmon spawning ground. The lake formed 8400 years ago with a rather large volcanic explosion, and is actually much deeper than the surrounding ocean. Once deeper still, the ancient outflow to the pacific was blocked by the formation of a number of new volcanoes around the crater rim (now well over 2000m high!), and a new outlet to the sea of Okhost formed, causing the lake level to drop more than 40m.

At the salmon counting station we walked through the camp to a bridge built across the river with a net designed to direct the salmon through narrow gates where they can be counted every hour or so. Salmon waiting for the opening scudded back and forth creating a serious surface disturbance. By far the most excitement, however, was a dozen Kamchatka bears swimming in the river catching the salmon and carefully eating the salmon eggs, then other parts before discarding the head. The bear uses the back of its non dominant arm as a platform to hold the unlucky fish on! Of the bears, 4 of them were cubs of various ages, and the bears quite frequently swum, splashed, stood up, fought, and basically did everything else their contract required of them. I melted a set of batteries taking photos, but was probably the least photo-ey person there. Half our group were middle-aged Korean tourists, all of whom had cameras which were either obscenely enormous or absolutely minuscule. Mine has got to the point where I have to squeeze the bottom if I want the zoom to work, etc etc! After a while we had to vacate so the counters could do their counting, so we reboarded the helicopter, watching the pilots go through some intricate choreography involving flicking switches, and then feel the five bladed rotor's collective thump into position and once again we were airborne. These helicopters can easily carry a (small) car, so if I can somehow raise the $25000/day running costs, I might move into one permanently! Also they're kinda loud...

We flew to the base of a nearby volcano where there was a lake that steamed with water at 43C. The clouds had lifted to the point where nearby volcanoes were visible to about half way up, creating the impression that we were surrounded by steeply sloping columns covered in trees or tundra. Soon, however, we had to get moving again as the weather was not improving. As we flew back towards Gorely volcano (which has recently become much more angry) the clouds parted and the impossible landscape of twisting gorges, glaciers, pinnacles, layers of ash and ejecta, and the superposition of maybe 40 generations of volcanic activity was illuminated by streaks of light which seemed to rotate in real time as we cruised by at 260km/h. Too soon we circled the heliport and made a rolling landing on the short airstrip. Russian helicopters are built with wheels rather than skids. We eventually drove back to the hotel where I ordered a 3 course meal, then ate the other tour groups 3 course meal as well (they had spare). Back to the flat and sleep.

Today I woke up, again, absurdly early (maybe 5:40am), and took a cab across town to the hotel where I was met by our tour guide for today. A four hour drive in a Mitsubishi Delica (a 4wd people mover) took us via the museum of natural disasters (an extensive rocky/ashy plain) to the base of Mutnovsky volcano. The path winds inwards towards the caldera up a steep-sided slot canyon, revealing bit by bit what you came for! The path largely was composed of a thin layer of mud over glacial ice that filled the base of the gorge (even in summer). Quite frequently one is surprised to find a glacier hiding beneath layers of exposed moraine, even quite far from a mountain or apparent source.

Mutnovsky is composed of three large craters. The first, largest, and oldest is cut by a deep river valley, and the opposite face is covered in a tumbling glacier, with enormous rocks perched above, vanishing in and out of mist composed part of cloud, part of boiling brimstone. The smell was... sublime. We left the glacier and climbed to a lookout, surrounded by fumaroles spewing out steam at temperatures between 150 and 300C, some sulfur subliming to form insane and quickly changing formations of bright yellow and almost green. With our sleeves over our mouth and nose we walked through a wall of steam (two distinct smells, one of sulfur, one like burning matches) into the more remote parts of the caldera. The stream flowed swiftly to our left, dotted with geysers and chunks of ice amidst a mozaic of rocks of all different colours. Above us the opposite side stretched steeply to the exposed edge of an ancient glacier with one particularly large rock teetering on top. The second caldera was filled by a glacier than nearly did a figure of 8 to reach it. The opposite wall was steep sided with several large water falls, the glacier was riven with crevasses that stretched lengthways, and periodically the area was filled with the sound of falling rocks as the volcano continued its rather fast journey to flatness. Volcanoes tend to erode very quickly as they are composed of unconsolidated rock (mostly). At this point the sun came out, and the glacier glittered white, while water pools in the bottom of the crater glowed deep blue. We risked a short walk on a precarious mud/dirt track to the third, and most active crater. This crater had a major eruption in 1970 and a smaller one in 1993, but today was largely obscured by huge clouds of sulfur crystals blown upwards by rising heat. In short spaces we saw the bottom - a deep hole filled with fumaroles and mud!

We turned around and made our way down to the floor of the second crater, walking on the glacier. I of course skimmed a few rocks on the lake between the ice, and then we headed back down the valley. As we emerged from the other end of the canyon, we had a terrific view across the plateau towards Gorely volcano. Composed of 11 major craters (from 3 intersecting volcanoes) the central one was continuing to blow large amounts of steam from its newly formed vent. Volcanoes in Kamchatka are more than capable of dumping cubic kilometres of dirt into the stratosphere, so it remains to be seen if Gorely's activity will continue to intensify, however at its current state it could (hypothetically) be approached with little danger. We drove down the slope to a rocky promontory, from which we had an excellent view of a waterfall. The canyon continues down the mountain, and beyond the end of the glacier, drops about 30 or 40 metres into a very deep canyon surrounded by steep rocky scree slopes - falls are not infrequent, according to our guide. The canyon cut the side of the slope, revealing many layers (each about 4 metres deep) of the volcanoes eruptive history; ash ejection followed by lava flow, and vice versa.

Back in the car and the drivers took a 'short cut' across a field of substantial boulders to the main road (built to service the geo-thermal power plant nearby), from where a 3 hour drive returned us to the hotel. This time I opted for pancakes only and headed back to the main road to catch a bus south to my flat before they stopped for the night. After about 5 minutes waiting, who should drive by but two people I met from the tour (and with whom I posed in front of Vilyuchinsky volcano in a handstand), who offered me a lift all the way to CRV, a drive of about 20 or 30 minutes. Thankyou!

Once here I had a quick shower, and contended once more with a towel which exceeds the size of the bathroom in every dimension. When using it many hands are required to keep the corners from the bath, floor, sink, and toilet bowl!

Tomorrow, with any luck, I will take another helicopter (at this rate I have spent about as much in 3 days as I did in the previous 3 months - which was kinda the point of hitchhiking!) to the valley of the Geysers, Karimsky, Maly-Semyachik, Kronotsky, Krashennikov, and Uzon volcanoes, etc etc.

In the meantime I uploaded photos from Magadan and Khabarovsk - now all that is required are photos of Kamchatka (of which there are a few) and photos of Vladivostok, which I haven't taken yet.

http://picasaweb.google.ru/CaseyHandmer/MagadanKhabarovskAndAeroplanes?feat=directlink

Biking

Heli to lake

Mutnovsky

Magadan photos

Fog, rain, snow, wind.

2010-08-26T09:18:00.001+10:00

In Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the weather has continued to be miserable, and helicopters are not working. Just my luck that I can't blow my life's savings on a 3 hour flight to some glorified conical pile of rocks! In the meantime I've visited places of interest, eaten pancakes, and walked around a bit. I managed to get iliotibial band friction, I'm not sure how (probably sitting badly on a bus), which has limited my walking range. Fortunately there are buses in the city, which I've taken around the place. Visited the music college and played their piano, but it was no comparison to the one in Magadan. Also yesterday visited the institute for volcanology, and used my lack of Russian to fail to understand 'no, the museum is closed' until they let me in. :)

In the meantime have continued to upload photos - the album covering the Kolyma highway is now complete! Yay! It can be viewed here: http://picasaweb.google.ru/CaseyHandmer/KolymaHighway#

I also had some friends over at different times for dinner, which I improvised given available ingredients and which turned out quite well.

With any luck helicopters will fly today or tomorrow, and my leg will be good enough to climb Gorely (which is currently erupting whee!!) and Mutnovsky (which has waterfalls, glaciers, sulfur flowers, fumaroles, and hasn't erupted in 17 years).

More photos and not much else

2010-08-24T21:36:00.001+10:00

Today I got up early for the helicopter ride, but was informed in the nick of time that it was delayed until 2pm. I uploaded a bunch of photos, and then was told that because Putin arrived in town today (contrary to earlier reports), airspace is closed until further notice, in case he wants to take a helicopter to see the attractions I paid about 1000 bucks to see last week, but had bad weather, etc etc etc. So yay - I get a taste of the Russia that people who live here deal with on a daily basis. I guess it's only fair.

Instead, I cut my losses, met Julia (a couchsurfer and linguist) at the music school, managed to con/charm my way into a music practise room, where as soon as I touched the keys, all doubt was erased. The secretary then went from querulous suspicion to curiousity. I played some music and discussed musical theory and notation with Julia. After a few hours, I gave my splintered nails a break (this piano was not quite the Ferrari I had at my disposal in Magadan), and returned home.

At home I met Roman, a friend of the man who's flat I'm borrowing, and cooked dinner with what I could find in the fridge. It was rice boiled in juice, chopped tomato and egg fried on the stove, and sliced cucumber with salt - a winning combination. He showed me some photos from Mutnovsky - which may be as close as I can get if the current environment of tour paralysis continues, and then departed. I uploaded yet more photos, and have completed the section from Baikal to Yakutsk via the BAM. The next section will cover the trip from Yakutsk to Magadan via the Road of Bones. Be afraid, be very afraid. All these photos is one upshot of enforced idleness through a combination of uncertainty over tours, bad weather, and a sore knee (from cramped buses, funnily enough!).

http://picasaweb.google.ru/CaseyHandmer/BaikalTheBAMAndYakutsk?feat=directlink

Yay photos!

Some photos from Russia up

2010-08-23T20:03:00.001+10:00

http://picasaweb.google.ru/CaseyHandmer/RussianAltaiAndSiberia#

Some space issues being resolved now. This takes us to the shores of Lake Baikal. Enjoy!

Casey Handmer

Hot mud and rain

2010-08-23T13:29:00.001+10:00

Yesterday the tour agent informed me that due to bad weather, helicopter flights had been cancelled. This was a shame, but they suggested I meet with their friends to go to a remote hot spring and so on, for the day. I was given a time and a place, but no names or numbers. After making the rendezvous point I wandered around shivering slightly for about 10 minutes, wondering just how this was going to work. After a while I saw a man in camo water proof clothing (pretty common in Russia, actually) say the words 'Australian' and 'red hair' in Russian, and so all was sorted. We jumped in a series of buses and taxis, then walked about 4km. Along the way the man (Nikolai) carried an empty plastic bag, which he proceeded to fill with an astounding variety of leaves which he spotted, then bounded off the track to collect. In the meantime, he whistled a bit to warn the bears we were coming. There were 7 of us in total. The track steadily degraded, and passing a half submerged car, degenerated into a loamy, peaty track next to a swiftly flowing stream. At last the scenery opened out to reveal a rather makeshift looking hut next to an ancient, mineral encrusted well-head, presumably sunk into underlying strata. Hot water bubbled up, and ducted through several insulated pipes to heat the hut, filled a series of mud-lined dams before flooding a section of ground filled with dead Birch trees. Several decaying slabs of reinforced cement completed the picture, and combined with the smell of sulfur, it was really quite something.

We dumped our food on the table, stripped to our underwear, and took off down the track towards the river. The river ran between muddy banks (not the usual stones), and was freezing. I decided it was now or never and had a dip, which was actually not nearly as painful as I thought it might be. We returned to the pools and gradually immersed ourself in water that was pretty hot. Rolling around in the mud and clay (a deep blue colour) we soaked and steamed until we were bright red and puffy, and there was nothing for it but to run back to the river and jump in. Putting your head under stimulates the mammalian diving reflex (in a BIG way), which is probably why the experience wasn't fatal! After a while we scraped off most of the mud, dressed, and ate most of the food we'd brought. Nikolai poured his leaves into a cauldron and cooked up an amazing tea. We left in quite a hurry to meet the taxi driver, and sadly I forgot my wet underwear, which I'd left on one of the pipes to dry.

About a 40 minute walk back (no sign of bears), then a series of 3 buses taking about 2 hours (one of which was full of men from the navy), and I was home. I cooked about 60 ANZAC biscuits (though some went missing in action...), then walked across town to meet another couch surfer (Tanya), her family, and two couchsurfers from Australia. They are the first Australian tourists I've seen the WHOLE trip (there were 3 others, geologists and mining engineers in various places), and to my delight I discovered I had not forgotten how to speak the lingo. We chatted for the rest of the evening. My knee had got a bit sore (from the bus ride after climbing the volcano, crammed into a tiny seat!), but Olya, who is a physio, confirmed that it was nothing too serious. I put my raincoat back on and struggled through wind and driving rain (which looked amazing under yellow street lights) to my flat, where I took a shower (win!), closed the door (win!), and slept on a bed with sheets (win!!!).

Today the weather is awful, so I slept in, then ate food and uploaded photos. They are visible here:

http://picasaweb.google.ru/CaseyHandmer/MongoliaTheFarWest?feat=directlink

This album completes Mongolia, meaning I'm only 46 days behind now.

Kamchatka rocks my world

2010-08-21T21:46:00.001+10:00

I'm sure I can work a geology joke from the title... - stay tuned.

Last post left me just arrived and already found some nice people to spend time with. One cool thing was Vasily's prospectus for studying in Australia. The photos for Sydney Uni were of the St Paul's College quad, and the harbour bridge from Milson's Point, which is a ferry wharf, not a uni. UNSW same story. Kudos to Macquarie for actually having a photo of their campus!

In other news, I was also published. Some honours work from last year finally matured to the point of being accepted by Optics Letters, so yay! Here's a link: http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?URI=ol-35-17-2846

If you actually click it, and then read the abstract, and don't want to pay 35 dollars for further confusion, and your curiousity has not been quashed by the limpid prose and completely oblique subject matter, send me an email - I have a copy!

I heard some Russian jokes which I thought were funny. Probably after I tell them here they'll be eviscerated from the national memory (at the least), but here they are!

The Russians say that east of European Russia, there are no roads, only directions. *cue laugh!* This is actually not so far from the truth.

In response to one of my maps a friend stated "We have no maps of Magadan, except for one that Russian spies stole from the CIA - which must be that one!" Think about it!

Back to the narrative. Yesterday I got in touch with four local couchsurfers (and friends), and hung out for the day. The first problem was that none of the tour agencies I had researched on the web seemed to be in business anymore - the ghost web. Fortunately, the first Cser (Anna) works for a hotel which does tours, so I went there and signed over my life's savings for a helicopter ride (in a Mi-8!!!!!) to some valley with geysers or something. The important thing is that I nearly melted the ATM paying for it.

The next couchsurfer I found was a 20 year old linguistics student called Julia, who spoke better English than I did. I knew nothing about her prior to our meeting except her telephone number, and was somewhat surprised to see such a young Cser, even with braids and stuff. Not to worry, Julia told me about her solo travel experiences in Japan last month, which was pretty impressive. Also, at long last, I found someone willing to swap swear words in the 10 or so languages I know them in! You would have thought any of the 15 truck drivers in Magadan could have taught me one each, but they were too bashful. Nevermind - the school girls know them all! (And most of the English ones too). It reminded me of a time in Japan a few years back when I conversed painfully with a girl in French (those of you who have heard me speak French will understand the pain), but who was very enthusiastic when it came to swapping dirty language.

It wasn't all fun and games, however. We also discussed physics, atheism, stone skimming, dance styles, travel styles, and a few hundred other things! At some point we saw a police Uaz jeep in hot pursuit of something. That something is safe, however. Uazes have many virtues, and speed is not one of them! That evening we met some more people and climbed the central hill (again) to watch the sunset. Following this I went home and cooked an excellent dinner, then stayed up WAY too late using the internet.

Doing what, you may ask! Since no more photos have yet appeared. I did a backup yesterday. There are about 5000. I'm less than keen to start climbing that mountain! However, I was watching science revu ee videos on youtube. They've shot some really funny advertisements, (but for some reason they're not on youtube... =P). Still, the ones that are can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/user/sciencerevue

Other cool stuff in town is Vladimir Putin, who arrived yesterday (maybe). He will shortly be joined by Medvedev (the president) and the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. They're opening a new church in town, and probably closing the airspace on the one clear day I have to fly around. But in any case, it's nice they could make it here for me!

4:30am the next morning I woke and took a cab to the rendezvous point for the climbing tour. We piled into minibuses and departed at 6am. The bus drove to the edge of the city then wound up a ashed filled creek, with plenty of bumps to test if 10 days had really mended my back post crash. No problems, and after the van navigated impossible potholes and washouts, we arrived at basecamp, where the advantage of paying became evident - free (sort of) food! After we took about 4 million photos of Avachinsky and Koryaksky volcano we set off. At this point I discovered on our tour was a translator from Moscow, who also spoke better English than me, so we had a great chat (while everyone else was huffing and puffing) about linguistics, case structure in Latin (and the untimely demise of the instrumental in said great language), walking style, volcanoes, helicopter maintenance techniques, and so on. Our guide insisted on maintaining a 10cm per step pace, which I (probably alone) found rather frustrating. I'm a great believer in minimising the number of steps by taking huge ones, but since the climb took about 6 hours over all, some degree of pacing wasn't a bad idea. Early on a few people flaked out - later on a few more people who should have flaked out opted instead to slow the group down, meaning that by the time we got to the summit we had a great view of the inside of a cloud. However, all was not lost - during a few moments on the ascent (sliding on 40 degree scree slopes with permafrost above terrifying glaciers, etc etc etc - think Mount Doom only with less hobbits) and on the summit the clouds cleared, affording an excellent view to more distant clouds covering the ground and surrounding volcanoes. Over the course of the day no fewer than 7 other major volcanoes were visible, the closest being (of course) Koryaksky, which is about twice as steep and also erupted last year.

Disapointingly, no eruption occurred today, so the climb was uneventful in that respect. A steam/ash plume from Gorely was visible in the distance. At the top the wind was very strong, the smell of sulfur pleasant (in my mind!), and the mountain steep. The summit is at 2714m, which is high enough to feel the effects of a thinner atmosphere. When climbing the more active volcanoes altitude sickness kicks in earlier and harder due to CO2 inhalation! SO2 forms sulfurous acid in your lungs, and thus climbing volcanoes is something which probably shouldn't be done every day!

The climb down could have taken about 15 minutes, but our guide decided instead to not opt for a 15% fatality rate and picked a speed that I would have liked going up! Even so, once the tricky permafrost section had been negotiated, thick gravel on a very steep slope made for a quick and soft descent. Often climbing down mountains is as hard as up, due to the constant jarring motion. In this case it was more of a semi controlled slide. I opted at the beginning not to take walking sticks (bipedalism is confusing enough for me!) and to everyone's surprise managed not to fall over, despite about 100 close calls! We dropped down 3 or 4 steep slopes in quick succession, filling our shoes with gravel and our hair with mist. At the bottom we piled into the almost sliflingly warm kitchen and were served salad and potato soup (the Russian staple) with an option for tea, biscuits, etc. Due to a series of complicated events I had been carrying food for someone who gave up very early on, so I had plenty to eat the whole day. Happiness!

We swapped email addresses, got back in the vans, and bounced back to the city. I returned to my (Denis') flat, had a wonderful hot shower (hot water works again in Russia after a month of repairs in summer = yay!), bought ingredients for anzac biscuits, but forgot to buy pasta (no matter, I'll live on biscuits for a week!), and made some plans for tomorrow.

In the meantime, I need to catch up on some sleep. I have photos, I have internet, if I have boredom, you will have photos. In the meantime, sit tight! (I uploaded five from the first day to facebook, if you're desperate!).

Magadan - Khabarovsk - Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky

2010-08-19T21:18:00.000+10:00

I wound up my wonderful week in Magadan with a private performance at the music school and a session repairing the guitar hero drum kit of my couch surfing host. To my relief the repair went perfectly and we spent many fine hours playing the best of western pop!

Next morning I went through the familiar ritual of packing and saying goodbye to people I have bonded with and will probably never see again. But one can hope. Took a bus to the airport, where security was pretty interesting. Luggage was thrown into the truck by hand, then driven through heavy rain to the plane, where it was also loaded by hand. Wall was decorated with stamped metal sheets commemorating events and locations in Russia. Several planes of defunct airlines were parked on the grass nearby, their rear engines and drooping wings (in the Soviet style) looking both sad and menacing at the same time. In the departure lounge I met another Australian (the third for this trip!), a geophysicist who was doing work at Cupol, where apparently the ore grade is as good as 28g/T in places, meaning the extraction cost is about $340/ounce, and the market price is around $1200/ounce. Like a gold mine! Apparently their capacity of 1000T a day of ore is unspectacular - some other mines manage as much as 20000T/day. Hooray.

The flight had a great view of the tops of clouds, some coast lines, secret military installations, the enormous Amur river (joined by the Ussuri river at Khabarovsk), and about 20 uniformed and face-masked troops sitting at the back of the plane.

In Khabarovsk I found a Cser with 2 very cute kittens, chatted, walked around the city, and slept the night. The next morning after a brief walk, more talking, and farewells I had to depart - one of my quickest couch surfs ever (mainly because of difficulties in getting plane tickets). Back at the airport things went much more smoothly. I had a lunch of chocolate and apple juice (probably a little high on sugar), and passed security without a blip. This was regarded as suspicious (I had even removed my belt buckle), so I was frisked by one very lucky Olga! Back to the plane, which also had excellent food (kudos Vladivostok Air!), more secret military installations, and a flight to Kamchatka over Sakhalin Island, which I've heard is very beautiful, but looked green and flat from way up high. I've heard the main hobby of people on the island is to make home-made gliders and test them by being dragged behind jeeps. Frequent crashes and broken bones!

The plane cruised over Kamchatka. Kamchatka resembles a flint spear point thrust into the Pacific Ocean, and is quite young (only 4 million years). Somewhat similar geographically to New Zealand, it has the highest density of active volcanoes of almost anywhere on the planet. Which is why I'm here! The plane cruised past two biggies, Koryaksky and Avachinsky, landed at the airport, and we disembarked (by bus, of course). Waited for luggage and just watched these two mountains. Only 30kms or so from the city, both are active. Koryaksky is currently in an eruptive phase, and Avachinsky erupts about once every 10 years, last in 2001. One can hope :). Avachinsky is about 2700m, Koryaksky 3456m, but both their summets were hidden by layers of clouds, as their flanks were covered in forest stripes with lava flows. This place is as close as one can get to heaven. One might even say the edge of the world, where some bits are still in pieces!

Took a bus into the city to Avacha hotel, a place with 5 star prices and 3 star standards, but a cheap dinner, clean room, comfortable bed, 47 channels on TV (one in English - Russia Today, but basically propaganda), and two Caterpillar reps from South Africa, with whom I had a good chat. Shower, food, clean clothes! Hooray. Also waiting for me at Avacha hotel (which was an enormous pain to organise) was a postal ballot for the Australian federal election, which I duly completed (voting below the line for the senate, of course!), enveloped, and posted the following morning. I read (at 8pm, when I recieved the delivery), that the outgoing envelope must be post marked on or before the 18th of August, which was the same day. Obviously this was impossible, but I pointed out in my letter (in which I had to explain why no Australian could witness the procedure) that I was unfairly close to the wrong side of the international date line and that this would be posted while it was still the 18th on more than half of the world. If Russian post even works at all. Hypothetically, I could have chartered a plane to Anchorage... ;P.

Next morning I woke early, ate breakfast (included in the $150/night bill), posted the letter, and tried to get in touch with a couch surfer's father. Said Cser, Denis, is out of the city but promised to lend me his flat. Neither he nor his father (who had the key) spoke English, so it was an adventure. But in time for the checkout it was all organised (with the help of a friend who speaks English, admittedly - though I would like to think my Russian contributed only 50% of the difficulty - the remainder being the fact that my phone's speaker is less than functional...) and I have the run of a flat for 2 weeks, free of charge. I was pretty embarassed by this generousity and good fortune, but then Denis' mother Nina handed me two shopping bags full of groceries and insisted I was too skinny. Now it's nearly midnight and I look forward to eating something, but am too busy completing a blog update!

In the meantime I met an English speaker randomly on the street who offered to show me the best places in the city (and saved me a big walk up the central hill), for an awesome view of the entire city nestled between extinct cinder cones and the distant peaks of Koryaksky and Avachinsky, the bay, the river delta, the port, the closed city and volcano of Vilyunchinsky across the bay, and on the horizon Mutnovsky, yet another volcano famed for unique sulfer formations in the crater.

In the evening Denis' friend Roman and I walked around the square and 'lover's hill', skimmed some rocks, and watched an awe-inspiring sunset before returning to the flat for tea. This place is unreal! I thought maybe I saved Kamchatka for last for financial reasons (helicopters are not cheap), but now realise I saved the best for last. I often thought Scarborough (north of Wollongong) or Sydney's northern beaches could be improved by the addition of a few stratovolcanoes, and here's a place that offers a pretty good idea of what that would be like. So, people, start digging!

Magadan adventures

2010-08-16T00:10:00.001+10:00

Since arriving in Magadan, I spent a few days recuperating in the hotel, chatting with miners as previously mentioned, and compiling a list of Russian swear words. Many other Russians had declined to teach me any, saying I would learn more than enough in Magadan, but until the crash I had heard none. The crash afforded an excellent opportunity to hear them used in context and with the correct inflection.

I got on the couchsurfing horn and found a few locals to hang out with. One couple (Anna and husband) were very keen to show me around, and drove me to the beach, the Mask of Sorrow, and many other places. Anna's mother is part of Rotary, and they have often had American exchange students, which explains why Anna's English is so good! At one point Anna's cousin drove us to a local beach. As we passed the police post we saw dozens of cars with illegally tinted windows waiting for one to make the sacrifice and cop a $20 'straf' or fine, so the others could then herd past. We swapped drivers, because the cousin didn't have his license. I thought maybe it would be a problem, because Anna's husband is a police officer, but quite the opposite. Russia! Also, Anna's cousin described several intrusions by bears at their dacha! The beach was framed between steep rocks and cliffs and leaden autumnal skies and was suitably spectacular!

Speaking of bears, the Russian word is Medved (as in the president). Medved, I discovered today, comes from the word myod (meaning honey) and an old word for 'to know', 'vedit' (as in the Sanskrit). Cool huh?

Anna's husband also followed up some details of the crash, finding that the car was a 1996-1998 model Hilux (but new looking!) that had recently been sold. This is pretty much a dead end as far as getting an official police report and insurance, but fortunately my costs were very low.

I investigated visiting the Magadan Zapovednik, or nature reserve a few 10s of km from Magadan, most easily accessible by boat. This nature reserve is mainly a marine reserve centered around some stupendous rock stacks (similar in a way to the 12 (7.5?) apostles in Victoria) with bajillions of nesting sea birds and so on. I heard today that recently an unlicensed Brazilian scientist was found adrift out there missing socks, so I think the chance of hitchhiking out there tomorrow is pretty slim. If I come back next decade in a helicopter, I'll visit the Zapovednik, Jack London Lake, and the Pole of Cold, amongst other interesting things I know of hidden in the Taiga.

This evening, following a stupendous lunch celebrating Anna's grandmother's 85th birthday, we visited a local banya, which was inspirational. In the meantime I organised a home stay with another couchsurfer, Elena and her boyfriend Sergei, who just got back from a 25 day trip to Turkey and Scandinavia, and have just the right amount of jetlag to stay up all night playing games on their xbox or playstation. They also have a large number of very nerdy friends who visit to play guitar hero (though encouragingly, not very well), oggle pictures of a cleanroom I worked in a few years ago, and provide interesting conversation. One tennet of the conversation is the similarities between Magadan and Australia, as both started life essentially as very remote prisons of a colonial power. In Magadan's case, however, it was built by intellectual exiles. Many millions died in camps in Kolyma, but enough survived to give the city interesting architecture (some of it built by Japanese POWs) and flavour. In many ways the most remote power here is Moscow - China, Japan, Australia, US are all closer. Later this evening 4 guys joined Elena, Sergei, and I to watch Japanese anime, but had to spend about 25 minutes (longer than the anime itself) syncing the Russian subtitles on a transparent window on a remote screen - transcendent nerdiness the hard way! I have never felt more at home.

I've also been steadily patching holes in my jeans (about half as fast as they appear), and spending an hour or two each day at the music college attempting to bring Godowsky's transcription of Chopin's revolutionary etude under control. Words cannot describe how relieved I was to find my piano abilities (already and perpetually at dangerously low ebb) undiminished by the crash! Another peculiarity of Magadan is that although the local airport (only 50kms away) services most local airports, including Anchorage from time to time, the cheapest flights are to Moscow, due to competition.

I was dismayed to realise I'd left one small detail out of my description of the crash. As I started in the front passenger seat and finished upside down (with respect to the car) in the opposite side back seat, I performed personally the coordinate inversion (x,y,z)->(-x,-y,-z), thus underscoring the validity of Hamiltonian Dynamics in this particular instance.

Finally, two days ago I walked to the base of the TV tower at the top of the hill and the end of Lenina Ulitsa. There is a view down the road maybe 5km, however the road continues unbroken nearly 1700km past the port of Khandyga to the bank of the Aldan River, making it probably the longest main street of any town in the world!

Magadan!

2010-08-12T16:25:00.001+10:00

For those who are interested, here's some stats on the trip.

2025km, 26 vehicles, 12 days, one crash, $250 net expenditure. Of that all but food (maybe $30) was discretionary - that is, I paid for a night in a hotel when I could have camped, had I been sufficiently stingy.

In Magadan I explored the city on foot (albeit slowly!). I found the music college, at which I had a contact from Ust-Nera, and played the piano well enough to get an invitation to see the regional museum with a guide (in Russian...) and free of charge. Aran, the head of the music school, plays the piano accordion!

At the hotel, a steady stream of foreign and English speaking mining people made their way through. I spent last night in the bar chatting to two guys who between them had enough stories and interesting goss to fill a book. One worked in a not-so-near nuclear power station, but said that a visit would be impossible due to tight security, which he then outlined in excruciating detail. The other specialises in deep hard-rock mining and provided heaps of information I was curious about - like how do the Russians remediate oil-spills on the site? Covering with more dirt, apparently! Magic!

In the meantime I also saw the sea, which is quite amazing. 53 days travelling overland, and finally have seen the sea (and it's not frozen over, which is a bonus). The seagulls like it too. :) I continue to live it up in the hotel (where my habit of photographing everything translated to a free dinner).

One problem continues to bug me - internet cafes are in short supply. I have heaps of time - as soon as I find one which can do USB I'll upload 1000 photos from Mongolia and Russia. Until then, try and imagine the awesome.

Corrections, etc

2010-08-12T16:18:00.001+10:00

Hello peoples! A short post to say that Vladimir Dinets' websites are actually:

http://dinets.travel.ru and

http://vdinets.livejournal.com so click through and make google happy!

Also, it goes without saying (almost) that all the text I've punched out on crappy keyboards in mudbrick internet cafes are mine, also the photos that my ancient camera somehow saved in JPEG format (rather than bass-relief) are copywrite. If you want to use some text or photos or retell my stories as your own, that's fine, just ask me first. I'll probably say yes. If you want to plagiarise my pulitzer worthy prose and (I don't know) very good photos, then don't. Save a few thousand bucks and go hitch-hiking yourself! Just don't flip a hilux on a dirt road... Also you'll have some difficulty stealing my photos as I haven't been able to upload very many of them. Shucks.

More stuff - I want to thank my brother Marcus who came to the rescue when internet proved elusive along the way, extracting data from google and who knows where and providing useful information, like which towns were abandoned (interesting, but no hotels), and the straight line distance from Ust-Nera to Tomtor (150kms).

The Kolyma Highway, or, In Soviet Russia, luck pushes YOU!

2010-08-12T16:17:00.001+10:00

I left Yagodnoye with half a plan to visit Jack London lake, a picturesque lake amongst the mountains about 50km to the south. I hitched quickly to the junction, and to my surprise, found the bridge in perfect condition. Realising that a 60km walk (and 60km back) through bear infested territory was not such a good idea (I only had 2 days of food with me), I decided to walk anyway. About 1km, to the first pass to get a good look down the valley. After a quick chat to some guys who were there in their UAZ to pick berries, and a lift back to the highway, I skimmed stones in puddles, ate biscuits, and considered the problem of a mud-water boundary layer (which supports very slowly propagating waves).

Not long after, a man in a van gave me a lift 100km down the road to Debin, a town that was once the administrative center of the Kolyma gulag, at the junction of the road from Magadan and the river itself. According to Solzhenitsyn's interviews, in winter the place was an array of tents surrounded on 3 sides with frozen bodies piled 6 deep, as the snow was too deep to attempt burial. Today, there are a handful of inhabitants, an abandoned TB sanatorium, and a newish single lane bridge over the river. Soon a passing UAZ ute gave me a lift down the road towards Orotukan. First, however, we had to stop at a gold mine and refuel two graders, which circled the tiny truck like barracuda before each parking about 2mm away on either side and pumping diesel from some cans in the back. When I attempted to jump out to photograph the process I found BOTH the inside and outside door latches of my door were not functional, but that a well aimed blow could open the door. Later, we picked up 4 workers in the back, and their door wouldn't latch shut, in some kind of odd symmetry.

In Orotukan I bought some juice and snacks and waited about 40 minutes for a lift. A guy drove out of the town in a nearly new Toyota Hilux. I thought - wow! Best car of the trip. The driver knew it too, and slowed to 20km/h in muddy sections to avoid getting mud down the sides too. Just after Orotukan we passed a memorial for 7 people killed in a crash 2 weeks before. Trucks throw up enormous dust clouds, and somehow 2 of the four cars which see the road each hour managed a head-on in one of these dust clouds. My driver seemed quite upset by this - as you can imagine, very few people live in the region, and he almost certainly knew some of them. They were in a minivan doing a run from Yakutsk to Magadan - more or less how I would have travelled had I paid. Not long after we picked up another hitchhiker - a Russian who has travelled quite widely and hoped to travel to Canada. We paused in Atka, a village with about 200 people left in between the usual windowless empty apartment blocks, for a quick snack, and then continued on. The road wound pleasantly through valley after valley, high mountains on either side, larch alternating with tundra as very Mambo clouds hung in the sky. We made good time and I anticipated being in Magadan late in the evening. To pass the time I counted the cars and trucks I'd got lifts in since Yakutsk - arrived at a total of 25!

About 33km after Atka the road crested a pass and began a winding descent into a valley. I pulled out my passport to show the other hitchhiker some visas. At that moment we rounded a corner and the back of the car began to slide. In seconds we had spun 180 degrees and slid into the curve. The car struck a low earth embankment, shearing off a tyre, then flipped into the ditch, coming to rest after one and a quarter rotations. I had previously been sitting in the front passenger seat, and now found myself on the opposite side, in the back, my back against the door (which was facing the ground), with my head in the foot-well, passport still in hand. I transfered the passport to my mouth, grabbed the nearest head restraints, pulled myself upright, and made my exit through the smashed windshield. I figure I must have been thrown into the ceiling and slid along it for a bit.

Fortunately, noone had been hurt seriously. My back and shoulders were pretty sore, and the driver and other hitch-hiker seemed to have escaped without a scratch. Debris was scattered widely, but I soon found my camera and dictionary, replaced my passport, and pulled my bag through the smashed window. I also found the drivers coat, which contained maybe 50-100,000 roubles (2-4000 bucks), and returned it to him. None of us would make it to Magadan that day, and he without his car. I'm not sure why we lost control - perhaps older cars have proven their reliability? Also possible is that the shop-supplied tyres are no good. We were not speeding given the conditions, but it's possible the ABS system freaked on a dusty dirt road.

Soon enough a passing truck stopped and we flipped the Hilux back upright. Some of the doors still worked, so we got the rest of the stuff out we needed, then me and the other hitchhiker got in passing trucks going the right direction. At about 3am I made it to central Magadan, where I located the best hotel in town and checked in. Even better, because I checked in so late, the first night was effectively free.

Next morning I got an Xray at the polyklinika which said nothing was broken. This is excellent news. My adventures in Magadan will have to wait for another post.

Casey ex Australia

Avalanche safety course

Sister comes to the US of A

Surprise trip to Australia

M visits Pasadena

Dispatches from the cultural front: Laszlo Fassang plays organ at Walt Disney Hall

Ge 136 field trip to Baja California, Mexico

Lang Lang at the LA Phil

Camping for one night only

Photos and wrap

Spain, land of mañana...

The game

On the loading of A320s

Austria, home of Almdudler!!

Slovenia, the outlier

Croatia, part 2.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Croatia, part 1.

Montenegro, or Crna Gora to the initiated.

Kosovo, Europe's youngest country

Macedonia and the end of my 24th birthday

Albania and the best birthday ever!!

Greece!

More crazy travels; Turkey!

F1rst post!

Impending travel!

After Princeton - the way home

After Princeton - the way home

Princeton excitement

Russian subtitles

33 hours in New York (plus a few in Princeton)

Mystery trip to Florida

Cedar Flat - book review

Mt Wilson Hike

Sunset in the redwoods

More adventures

Echo mountain climb

Organ recital - Published in the California Tech!

When nothing really is something

A and B came to town.

Mammoth Ski Trip 2011

Maska Scorbi

Composers day music party

Walk to the beach!

The air is so thick, it stings! (Or recreation, part 2)

What some people do for fun

Christmas 2010

Belated update

More videos

Videos are up

Florida trip

Moving to the US

Vladivostok and last post

Last days in Kamchatka

The weather improved

Fog, rain, snow, wind.

More photos and not much else

Some photos from Russia up

Hot mud and rain

Kamchatka rocks my world

Magadan - Khabarovsk - Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky

Magadan adventures

Magadan!

Corrections, etc

The Kolyma Highway, or, In Soviet Russia, luck pushes YOU!