Musings of the Grand High Poobar

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:03:35 GMT

The satellite that I was using to study the Moon now fully deserves the word "was", being as it is dead. I forget what the final analysis was - radiation damage to key systems I think - but with the short mission and low solar activity, there isn't as much coverage as I'd have liked, and it reduces the chance I can find a decent geological study to work on. There's instrument calibration/analysis work which wouldn't be the end of the world, but I'm more interested in the measurements than the measuring. Quite depressing.

Busking is going well- got a busy month next month, with 5 gigs in various locations, including one with just myself going to the Isle of Wight (Andy's school) again, which should be fun. For the science club I'm taking lego along this time- I have 3 identical sets that I've made, each capable of building a car (in various different ways, lots of different cogs and gears). The idea is to do a kind of Lego scrapheap challenge- get the teams to build cars, then at the end see which can go fastest, up the steepest hill, carry the most weight, and finally a crash test- how many times can you run into a wall before breaking up? With points for each different section, and a box of chocolates or something as a prize. On the way they'll learn about gear ratios and friction and power/weight ratios and energy loss in systems, etc etc.

Geocaching, which Paul has already chatted about, is very fun indeed. It's nice to have a hobby that me and Claire can do together, and now I've got a GPS too there's less chance of us killing each other fighting over her android. It's also the best excuse I've ever found to go out and get exercise.

Last night we drove down to New Quay, not for caching, but to pick up some fossils from freecycle- 2 massive bags full of lovely unsorted fossils. I am going to have heaps of fun just looking through them, and also plan to put together display boxes to take out to schools when busking.

Long period between blog posts! I do most of my internet navel-gazing on twitter these days (username = poobar). If you're desperate to hear my all-encompassing wisdom add me on there. If not, I'll update this occasionally too.

Trip Home

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 15:36:51 GMT

I was back at my parents last week for my sister's graduation, at which I tried to make myself useful by taking the photos. A bit of playing around with photoshop made them a bit better, and allowed me to photoshop a duck onto her mortarboard. Well, why not? She got a 2:1 in Maths, from York, and I'm proud as hell.

Stayed in runcorn for a big family party on saturday (claire came up to join us/sell her car, which was nice). On the day of the party I took the dogs out to try to wear them out before guests were licked to death, and had a nice long walk around the fields of Runcorn, until Murphy (he of the destroyer of worlds) ran full pelt into a bush and disappeared with a yelp. Turned out he'd found a nice filthy drainage ditch, 6 foot deep, and was stuck in the bottom. I tried to coax him along to the end where there was a ramp, but he stayed put. No question of him climbing out, of course- the walls were very steep, coming up to the top of my head when I had to climb into the thing myself to lift him out.

So now of course, I was stuck in a drainage ditch. I dragged myself out (using grass for handholds) with the grace and elegance for which I'm known, and kindly assisted by two hounds licking my face off. God knows what I smelled like on the walk home, a delightful mixture of sewer and dog and mud.

After all that they were still full of energy at the family party!

Physics Busking

Fri, 08 May 2009 09:31:22 GMT

You know those street artists that have a cart full of props, and do tricks and magic that boggles the mind, and then ask for money? Physics busking is like that, except the "tricks" all involve physics, science and optical illusions, and instead of taking payment afterwards we give understanding. It's aimed mostly at younger audiences- people do it in schools and museums- but also at older people too. There's a stall at some festivals for example.

I first heard about all this at Gregynog when I was ~~drinking and playing giant jenga~~ supervising a 2nd year undergrad careers trip. One of the speakers was Angharad Thomas, the Institute of Physics' national officer for Wales, and in the bar that night she told me and the other postgrads about busking, and how we might get trained in it. So I emailed her later and tried to set things in motion...

~~~~~~waveylinesindicatetimepassing~~~~~~~

So the training went well! Just short of the maximum group size of 20 turned up, with a good mix of under/postgrads from different years. Some of the tricks we learnt were truly mindboggling, and we eneded up with 200 quid of props for us to keep and use. Hopefully the open day here will be our first big event. The guys who turned up for it took it in their stride too- you don't expect a group of physicists to instantly leap into such an imaginative and extrovertive activity, but they were all fantastic, and we ended up teaching the trainer a few cool things, and he seemed to thoroughly enjoy it too.

So if anyone wants a fully trained, fully insured troop of science performers (all with CRB checks), let me know! We can travel a reasonable distance, and visit schools, fairs, festivals, science clubs, street corners, you name it.

Free Monitor?

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 15:11:46 GMT

I've got an Eizo 21 inch CRT monitor sitting on my floor- it weighs a bloody tonne and it's as big as a truck. Anyone want it? I got it free from a workmate but it's so heavy that it'd crush my desk flat if I put it on top- it's free to a good home. I'll keep it a week or so before taking it apart and playing with the electronics/ electrocuting myself/ swearing at it and taking it to the tip.

Tiscali, Camera, Paris!

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 10:56:46 GMT

Thanks to damn Tiscali my internet’s down at home so I’m writing this in work (in word, so it doesn’t look like I’m skiving). Work continues on- all quiet on the solar front, except for a few nice flares early this morning which hopefully we caught on camera.

Talking about cameras (neat link Jimmy) I just bought one! Still waiting for it to be delivered though. It’s my first D-SLR, a neat little Olympus E-420 that I’ve bought mostly for astrophotography- it’s small and light enough that it’ll fit on a telescope without straining the motors too much. I’ve got an old Olympus OM-10 film camera too so I’ve got some attachments (light guns, extra lenses, filters) which may just fit on this new model- if not it’s no big deal, but if so I can take some cool terrestrial photos too.

New things since last time… oh, I’m learning to play the Bass guitar! I’ve borrowed Claire’s and I’m just practicing on my own so my technique is probably terrible, but I’m having fun, and maybe every 1 in 10 times I manage to mangle out something vaguely recognisable.

I went to Paris last month with Claire, and it was awesome- great to see a new place, great to get the Eurostar, great to get out of Aber for the weekend. I’ve been to Paris before but only as a kid, and it’s so much better as an adult. Despite near hurricane conditions we saw everything we wanted to see and more- the Notre Dame, Montmatre, The Louvre (saw the Mona Lisa, amazingly not surrounded by crowds- go on a Sunday morning!), and also the whole city of Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower at night, which was pretty damn special.

We weren’t rushing round all the time though- met up with a school friend of mine who lives there and had lunch in a bistro in the Latin Quarter, which lasted three hours- service was appalling, food was incredible! The rest of the time I was really glad Claire was there to translate/ order food, my pronunciation is pretty dire- although she did keep doing stereotypical French laughs (har he har he har), which was a bit embarrassing after a while- you know what she’s like.

I think I may have caught the travel bug though- when we were at le Gare de Nord waiting for the train home there was a massive big timetable board with all these city names on- it was very tempting to jump on a train and keep on going round Europe. It doesn’t help reading Beth’s blog and seeing all the things I missed in Thailand! When I’ve got an actual job I’ll take holidays, see a bit more of the world- until then I’ll stick to reading about them online.

Hopefully my internet will have been magically fixed soon- if not I’ll have another fun hour on the phone to fuckknowswhereistan reading down the checklist of things to try to fix it with a guy whose pronunciation is so bad we had to resort to Alfa Bravo Charlie just to get me to type in “ipconfig”. Even then it took a few shots, because he didn’t know the phonetic alphabet so he made up his own. Why not just put the troubleshooting checklist online? When we got to the end and it was still borked, he told me there was a problem with the login server and to wait 24 hours and call back. Translation: “Go away. I can’t help you”. Fun fun fun! And yes, I know- you told me so.

Hurhurhur... penile

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 12:59:53 GMT

I think I was just drunk enough to enjoy Teeth last night- can't remember when I've laughed more at a film involoving penile dismemberment.

The research continues on. The satellite that I'll be handling the data from is in orbit around the moon- my instrument turns on and works, and if the bloody sun starts producing some x-rays we should be good to go. As you geeks probably know, the sun has an 11-year solar cycle, from the lowest with almost no activity, to the highest with loads of sunspots and flares and lovely murderous particles and radiation. We're at solar minimum right now- the next cycle is a tad overdue. And by a tad I mean over a year. Don't worry, there's probably not another mini-iceage coming, just a nervous wait for people with million- pound x-ray instruments orbiting the moon with no chuffing x-rays to collect.

At the moment my time is made up almost entirely of learning to code- although it's been so soul-destroyingly boring I'm thinking of having a day a week where I just do interesting stuff like read papers. I'm learning IDL, a scientific coding language with shades of Fortran and C (aparently). In a month or so I'll have a reasonably important project to do/ help with (coding a GUI to let people manipulate the data output of my instrument more easily), and I really don't want to make a tit of myself, so for the next few months I'm cramming. It's tricky, especially having never coded a line in my life before, so instead of just looking at other programs and crying inside I've had a few pointers from a collegue, got the 2 books ever written about IDL (I exagerrate- really there were 3) out of the library and I'm attempting Project Euler, after reading about it on xkcd's blag. It's a collection of maths puzzles that are best (or only) solved by using computing- things like finding sums of certain values in the fibonacci sequence, or computing prime factors of massive numbers. I'm pretty pleased with my progress, having completed 6 (1,2,4,6,7 and 14), and it's really helping me learn the basics.

It's not all dull at work- it was clear last Monday night so I went out with some of the 2nd years with telescopes. We were just outside the department so the light levels were too high to see much, But Venus and the moon were almost touching and looked fantastic, and Jupiter was up above them, and for the first time I saw three of it's moons through the telescope (Io, Callisto and Ganymede, moon-fans). Hopefully I'm setting up a new science outreach course too, but more on that when/if the funding comes through.

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 12:20:54 GMT

Aber Amnesty are currently trying to bring justice to columbia by playing lots of drums outside my window. Is it working?

Phd Update, Wedding

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 19:18:03 GMT

I'm about a month into my PhD now. As I mentioned, my project is on making geological maps of the moon (properly it's making elemental abundance maps- as in the percentage weight of each element, mapped out for the whole lunar surface). Of course being only a month in I'm mainly background reading, but I've started reading/doing more relavent things now. It helps that the satellite my instrument is on has only just launched (follow the link for the launch video!) last wednesday, so everyone involved is enthusiastic. It's going to be hard work for a while, but interesting and hopefully worthwhile. It helps that the other grad students are good people, and that my supervisors are decent.

I'm already being sent away for meetings and things- I went down to RAL last tuesday, then straight down to London to stay with my Dad for a few days before the wedding. He's got an ace flat just next to canary wharf, so I spent a couple of touristy days whizzing around the city/ getting very drunk in bars full of bankers, while still managing to get to the Natural History Museum for some research in their frankly amazing (to a geek like me) mineral room. For the wedding my dad had kindly agreed to hand over his flat to anyone who wanted to stay, so Bryn, Liz, Simon Dan, Claire and Matt stayed round- it was great to have them all there. The wedding was fun as hell- you couldn't get a more central location. Sipping a beer out on the steps with the Eye next to you and Westminister across the river was pretty special. Alec and Suz looked so happy too- have a good honeymoon guys.

Internet!

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 16:22:49 GMT

I have it! Woo!

Space Camp- The rest of it

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 11:53:53 GMT

Blogging from the summer school kind of went out of the window- I really didn't have time! The lectures were interesting, even though the "relavent" one turned out to be all about metorites. They at least showed a picture of the moon on the slideshow though, at which point everyone I'd been whinging to about the lack of lunar stuff turned around and gave me ironic thumbs up, the bastards.

The social side blew me (and us all, I think) away- first there was an elizabethan banquet in Hatfield House, which I was dreading, expecting it to be some kind of theme dinner with a few jugglers putting you off your food. It turned out to be basically a dinner show, with Henry VIII and his courtiers holding session at the front of this massive hall, and free wine, mead and wenches flowed forth. After we'd all got quite a lot tipsy there was a cheesy disco, and I maintain that the sight of 100 drunken physicists dancing to "Come on Eileen" is possibly the best thing in the world.

The next night we went for a cruise on the River Thames. Two old private-hire red routemaster double-deckers picked us up at the campus and drove us into central London (me and some other guys raced to the front seats on the top deck, of course). We had an hour or so to sightsee around the embankment before the boat sailed- London at night looks amazing, and the buffet was great (and free) and the bar was well-stocked (and also, amazingly, free- thanks University of Hartfordshire!). So that night was bloody good as well. Add in the general good mood of most people there, and the "fresher's week" kind of atmosphere most nights and it turned out to be a good week, and I've very glad I went.

The only problem, as I mentioned, was it wasn't all that relavent for me, and I was sitting in the lectures feeling a bit worried about not doing enough reading for my project- so to that end I sent claire on a daring mission to pillage Hugh Owen library of lunar geology books which I picked up from Aber on the way back up (in between the very fun geek 'n' troma nights and hogging her new copy of Spore). So that was a very nice end to the week, even with the horrendous drive to aber (7 hours!). Got back on Sunday for my dad's birthday and had a great meal and yet more booze, had yesterday in bed/playing Spore (it's amazing).

Today I've taken Murphy to hydrotherapy- he soaked me to the skin but he's chasing the toy back and forth and not utterly panicing any more. He seems to enjoy the swimming a lot, and even after only 3 times his stamina is well improved, so there's hope for the poor dog yet.

Right- after that monster week I have a million and one things to sort out for the move back to Aber, including sorting through 3 years of undergraduate shite to see what to take back/to the tip- nice fun afternoon there then!

Space Camp, Day 1

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 20:41:07 GMT

For those that don't know, my phd supervisors have sent me on a week-long science council funded summer school (An Introduction to Astronomy) to get me back in the swing of things after such a long time off. So that's where I am! Down in the University of Hartfordshire, staying in a room that's a bit like Rosser if it was set in the future- the campus was only built a few years back so everywheres shiny. The food/hospitality is great- people keep saying "is this actually *meant* for us?", as if in a couple of days someone will realise they're giving Grade-A conference service to a bunch of scruffy students and stop it at once. They also seem to be fattening us up for the slaughter (possibly to sell as cheap meat to solve the STFC's budget crisis) with 3 hot meals a day and 2 coffee/cake breaks.

The lectures so far have been good- some bits of some of them went over my head, but the majority of them I followed- there were 3 this afternoon about String Theory, Black Holes and Active Galctic Centers (supermassive black holes) which were very well presented and linked nicely into each other. The only problem is that theres only one lecture this week (out of 20 or so) directly linking to my PhD (Planetary Science), so it seems a little silly me being here- but that said, it's all pretty interesting, and dispite being the only Aber-ite here theres decent people to chat geeky physics nonsense with. There's also social stuff laid on every night- I've skipped the pub quiz tonight but theres trips into St Albans, a cruise on the Thames and an Elizabethan banquet that I'm looking forward to.

Bloody long drive down here though- rained buckets all the way and there were 2 crashes on the M1 so it turned into a carpark for about an hour. That and the lectures and the early start have knackered me right out- I'm flagging now! Just had a shower in the Multifunctional Future Bathroom Pod that counts as an en-suite in these parts, gonna play some games for a bit then turn in. Oh, and the only book I brought is a history or the sicilian mafia (it made sense when I was packing) so my dreams are full of murders amongst the citris groves around Palmero.

A flat, finally

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:49:47 GMT

Just put the deposit down on a flat! It's on North Parade, and it's a studio with a separate kitchen and a shower room. It's even got a little back yard too- not much, but big enough for a couple of tomato plants and some herbs. It's not perfect (no parking, no separate bedroom, quite a busy street) but I'm so bloody relieved to have found a place I don't care! My letting agents (aberletting) seem lovely, which is a nice bonus. It'll be a few weeks before I can move in, but even so it's before my course starts. Woo! It's just a big load off my mind- coming down to Aber twice a week was getting very old, and as wonderfully awesome as Dan and Claire are for letting me stay on their floor it'd probably get a bit imposing if I had to do it for the next three years.

As it's such a nice day in Aberystwyth I think I'll go for a celebratory ice-cream. Still having fun and games with getting a ~~UWA~~ AU library account, so I might go up later to do some reading while I'm in town. Or... Mariokart!

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 10:01:49 GMT

Every year when the Mathew Street Festival in Liverpool rolls around I think "I should get some mates together and go!". This has happened never- until now! It's on the August bank holiday weekend (24th-26th), which is the week before Penny and Gareth's party, Bicon, and my Space Camp. Basically the whole city centre is closed to traffic and filled with bars, fairgrounds and stages full of the best tribute acts you've ever heard- there's a heavy Beatles quotient as you'd expect, but there's a lot more besides (chech the link for full playlists). In the evenings every pub bar and club in the city is buzzing, with yet more live music and general merriment.

It really is a good weekend, come along! El Casa Del Jimbo is open to all, and can sleep as many as we can fit in- probably quite a few, depending on how good you are sleeping on sofas and how comfortable you are around slobbering hounds.

In other news- my PHD starts on the 1st of October, which is pretty good because I have an immense amount of reading to do before it does. I've been down to aber to look for flats, viewing a few this monday so hopefully I'll be moved back soon. For another 3 years in Aberystwyth... but that's for another post, another time.

Edit: No, I'm not going to Bi-Con.

PhD PLace

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:49:12 GMT

I've been accpeted for a 3-year PhD in Aber! Had the interview on wednesday, which was the longest, toughest, most like an exam interview I've ever had, but it seems I did ok!

The project is all about making mineralogical maps of the moon, then analysing different mineral abundences to shed light on various theories of lunar formation/evolution. I'll repeat that with everything I find cool in bold- I'll be making maps of the fricking moon and then doing science with them. Hell yeah :D

I'm going back down next week to get some summer reading, to sort out paperwork and decide when I start- hopefully 1st September, but if the funding paperwork takes longer then on the 1st October. I'm eligible to do a summer course with the SFTC (funding council) too, which my project superviser thinks will be a good idea, what with me being out of the physics world for a year now. So I'm looking into that too. WOO HAPPY!

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:41:34 GMT

My hangover from this weekend only kicked in properly on the train home. People were giving me funny looks all the way to Runcorn- my Mother's first words to me at the station were "Holy shit, you look green". Now I've more or less sobered up enough to use a keyboard, so here goes.

My Nan died on Sunday morning, while I was still in Leicester. As I mentioned before she'd been in hospital getting every infection going, and one of them killed her- officially pnemonia, really just old age. There won't be a funeral cos she's left her body to medical science (which I think is very cool), so it's just a few days of my dad sorting stuff out in London. I won't write any more about it on here, because it doesn't seem right, but thanks to everyone who texted/IM'd me about it. I'm alright, really.

It seems slightly callous to write about anything else, but it's news, so I will. Murphy went to the vets today and he's doing well- his weight is well down after a month on a brand of dog food sensitivly called "Obesity", and his legs are getting stronger. For now at least he's got a repreive. He starts doggy aquatherapy next week- dispite my hope that this would involve a giant swimming pool full of dogs it seems it's a smaller, one-on-one affair. I'll still take my camera though. The idea is that a couple of sessions of that a week will build up his hind muscles without destroying his hips- to the point where he can support himself to go for walks in the park, stopping him crying like a baby whenever we take the other dog out and not him

Got an interview next week for a phd, which I won't talk about in case the Jinx Fairy reads this. Until then the sitting around in Runcorn will continue.

Home life

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:41:32 GMT

It's not hard to be back home, and it isn't boring- I've just slipped back into things. I'm applying for jobs/ phds (including a couple of interesting ones back in Aber, after almost a year of insulting Claire for never leaving). The plan is to see if I get into a phd- if so, summer job, possibly back at the truckstop. If not, apply for "proper" jobs- things that will use my degree, if only slightly. Until then I've joined a gym, downloaded Frontier: Elite 2 and got back into the West Wing, so my days are occuppied. Oh, I went to a car boot the other day, and got a portable TV/radio- an old Crown one, for just under a tenner. I got a nifty soldering set too, the plan being to open the set up and fix it. I was slightly disapointed when it turned out to be in full working order, but it's still ace.

That, as they say, was the good news. My Nan is still in hospital- she seems to be getting every infection going. My Dad was going down almost every day (and staying in London a few nights a week) started having chest pains, so he's stopped- he's taking a week of, then taking it much more easily. Nothing he can do down there anyway really. As if to put the icing on the proverbial cake, Murphy (our 7-month old chocolate labrador puppy) is in the vet- he has severe hip dysplasia in both hips. He's been getting gradually worse, until he can hardly walk- just hobbles along now. We have him insured, but because he's so young, and hip replacements are very invasive, don't last long and can't be given to him until he's fully grown anyway... it looks like they might have to put him down. Which is shit, he's my favourite one- almost as stupid as my old dog Billy, and twice as bouncy. Bloody labradors and their hips- it's cruel, the way they breed imperfections into them. We'll probably get another dog as a playmate for Bella. She's turning into the most cowardly dog in the world- I took her out yesterday to post some applications- we went past a school at closing time, she hid from the 5-year old kids in a bush and wouldn't come out until they'd gone.

Home!

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 12:19:26 GMT

So I'm back home. Got a new phone with the same number, a depleted bank account, a massive duty-free toblerone and jet-leg that would fell a rhino.

Toronto was a nice enough city, less manic and hot after New York. Only spent one day there because I took a trip to Niagra Falls on a minibus tour (plus winetasting, viewpoint stops, look at this scenic village and all teh extra bollocks). Well worth it, even if you do get restless after about 45 minutes of looking at the thing.

For my last night of the trip, through a series of "isn't it a small world when everyone is on facebook" type connections, I met up with a canadian girl I'd met in Bangkok on my first night, which bookended the trip nicely.

Back to the real world now, I suppose...

New York, New York

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:13:02 GMT

My last post had absolutly nothing about New York in it.

I'm still jetlagged I'm afriad, even after 2 nights sleep. Not sure why, I never have been before. Still, I've spent a few good days here on this flying visit- I get the train to Toronto tomorrow morning.

Tuesday- got into town, almost dead with tierdness, only to have to wait until 2pm for my room (it was 7am at the time). After a short attempt to wander around seeing the neighbourhood I realised quite what "record heatwave" actually means, ran back to the hostel, changed my T-shirt and got the lovely, cold, air-conditioned subway to the lovely, cold, air-conditioned American Natural History museum. It was probably the best science museum I've ever been in- remember my little rant way back in Canberra about patronising, child-orientated places? Well, this wasn't. The highlight for me was the top floor, dedicated to the evolution of birds from proto-dinosaurs- each section took a different evolutionary step (a differently shaped wrist bone, an inverted pelvis) and then branched off around it were examples of fossils, models and exhibits of the different animals that had those feaures. I could go on about the rest of the place but I sense the yawns across the internet, so I'll move on to Wednesday.

After a night spent more unconcious than asleep in a room with a wheezing air-conditioner, a chatty Israeli and an obese elderly Japanese man I lugged my bags up the road to the AHA (american YHA equivalent) which is bigger, cleaner and has a kitchen with actual cooking equipment. I got a subway pass and did the tourist trail- Times Square, Broadway, the Staten Island ferry, Grand Central station. I walked the wrong way from there so instead of going up the empire state building (which I was only half-hearted about anyway) I ended up at the UN and did an excellent tour. Wandered back to Grand Central via the biggest comic book shop I've ever seen and the rockafella centre. By this point (only about 4 pm) I was close to dropping with the heat and the jet-lag so I came back to the hostel and watched Batman Begins. You can't drink in AHAs- bloody prudes over here, I tell you.

The trouble with yesterday was all I saw was the subway cars and the tourist sights, so today I got the tube to Soho and just wandered about for a day, soaking it all up. Went to an art-house cinema, a bookshop/cafe/homeless shelter, a couple of coffee places. Then I headed to Central Park with my new old books and sat under the trees with about a thousand New Yorkers, watching the Baseball games being played and eating ice-cream. When it'd cooled down enough I wandered up to Strawberry Fields (the John Lennon memorial garden opposite the Dekota building) which was surrounded by benches full of old hippies, new drunks and somber tourists. Following the theme of the day I walked around the upper west side, got some dinner and a decent pint at a "Ye Olde Englishe Pub" (god help me), then came back to the hostel.

So there you are- my stay in New York. I'd like to come back I think- with more money so I could stay a little bit closer to the centre, and in the spring maybe, or sometime less roasting. One last evening- probably won't do much with it, gotta get up at about 6am for the train. Canada tomorrow!

New York

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:42:00 GMT

It's 35 degrees in NY city- bloody hot after lovely wintery New Zealand. I just landed in my hostel where they've given my 4-day booking away because I had the audacity to arrive a day later- the flights from NZ to here were delayed, and I missed a connection- 9 hour delay in all. I havent slept in I don't know how long. Literally, I don't know how long- I've crossed date lines and time zones like they were cracks in the pavement. For the whole of Monday the 9th I had a killer migraine. When I landed in LA for my connection I got some pain pills though, so for my *second* monday the 9th my head was clear. Am I now 1 day older or one day younger?

In the queue for immigration at LA (loooong queue) I looked at myself in a one-way security mirror and wiggled my ears. I've never been able to wiggle my ears! I did it again, then I lost it. I spent about 5 minutes trying to reproduce the effect before I realised I was probably gurning away at some humo(u)rless security guard. 10 minutes later I was "selected for special attention", frisked, had my bag riffled through. Bastards confiscated my suncream. Half way through my second flight (some 10 hours later) I decided that I'd probably drempt the whole wiggling effect. The woman on the flight on the seat next to me has some kind of company involving Segways.

Waiting waiting waiting until 2 pm for the hostel, then sleep. In the YHA for the next 2 nights after, the kitchen at my current place was described as "fully equiped", it is a microwave, a fridge, a coffee pot and a vending machine full of crisps.

A small rant

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 08:12:48 GMT

A month of travelling on coaches and today is the first time I get travel sick. Started on the 5 minute shuttle bus to the coach stop, then I've been feeling steadily worse all day. Came from Rotarua (smells like eggs, volcanic, saw geysers and thermal pools- photos to come) to Auckland, feeling shit all the way and since.

I'm trying to phone home but the 2 computers that have skype here at the hostel are broken. I told them at reception and received a "wtf do you expect me to do about it" look. Then I tried to buy a phonecard to England, only to be told that the ones they sell will give about 5 minutes for 30 dollars because of the payphone surcharges. Then why the fuck do you sell them? Why stock only useless phonecards? And why, while we're ranting, why are you so fucking unconcerned about it? Yes, you're on the desk at a youth hostel. You might feel this gives you the right to be snobby and "cool", and answer every problem with a "no worries", or "sweet as, man". IT FUCKING DOESN'T. You're in one of the cushiest customer service jobs going, the least you could do is try to look like you give a shit. And no, I won't chill out, and yes, ringing home is that important to me, you snide little fucknose. I'm trying to ring home to see if my Nan has made it through the night, and if my Dad is doing ok with the trips to London on top of his heart problems, and feeling like a twat all the time for not being there, for being thousands of miles and a week of flights and trains away from being in a position where I can even *attempt* to help- AGAIN. I'm sick and tierd of being in this whole backpacker culture, with it's enforced casualness and easygoing attitude and constant bloody laid-back facade- wake up, shitheads: the adult world thinks you're idiots.

*some deep breaths later*

Yeah. My Nan has gone into hospital. I get back into London on Tuesday next, so if my Dad is down there at the time (which seems likely) at least I can hang around and help out for a bit before going up north- living out of a backpack for another few days wont kill me. That's my excuse for being grumpy and angry, and posting this is designed to let out a bit of it rather than snap at people here and ruin people's holiday. It hasn't really worked.

NZ S.Island, East coast

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:59:59 GMT

I've booked all my accomodation, flights (3), coaches (2) and trains (1) for the rest of my trip now- slightly OCD I know, but it's getting into summer in New York and Toronto so places were filling up. Tomorrow I'm on the coach to Rotarua to see volcanic stuff- hot springs, mud pools, geysers and the like- I've been wanting to do this since I first thought of coming to NZ, can't wait. I was going to rent a car to drive up there, and then onto Auckland the next day, but I'd have had to faff about with rental companies and buy maps and actually do a load of driving over twisty mountain roads, so in the end I thought sod it and booked the coach. Because of the way the busses run it means I get less time in Auckland, but more time with volcanos- worth it!

Since I last posted I did an astronomy night at Lake Tekapo- one the highlights of my trip. Got to play with two telescopes, one fixed and huge, the other an 8"(I think) meade reflector similar to the ones we used in Uni. The skys down here are completly different (being a different hemisphere and all) and they stayed clear all night- saw the milky way in all it's glory, the two Magellen clouds, the Sombreo Galaxy, The Jewel Box, two globular clusters, Alpha Centuri and it's double, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn (with rings! and four of it's moons through the big tele)- and it was so cold that most of the wimps on the tour retreated inside for coffee and cocoa, leaving about 5 of us between 2 scopes, so we got to see loads more than we would have otherwise.

Another geeky treat was in Christchurch. After a day wandering around the city, I found myself at the Arts Centre looking for a film or a play to see, when my eye was caught by the sign Rutherford's Den. A native Kiwi, Ernest Rutherford is the father of nuclear physics- the model of the atom still taught in schools today was figured out by him. Remember descriptions of firing alpha particles at gold foil and some bouncing back? That was him. Anyway, all his early experiments were done in his basement laboratory at the uni in ChCh, then housed at, you guessed it, the buildings where the Arts Centre is now. It's a tiny little room chosen for it's concrete floor (to stop vibrations from the street), and there's a good little museum attached- a replica of his student digs, some of his early equipment, and all of his medals and prizes, including his nobel prize.

At the next stop of the bus, in Kaikora, I went on a tour to see whales. And saw them. Three of them! Huge big sperm (hurhur) whales. The air was buzzing with albatrossi too, so I've got some decent pictures of both. The day before some guys off the bus I know did the tour and saw a pod of Orcas attacking some seals, the lucky gits- but I was quite happy with 3 sperms (hurhur). Two of them did the famous tail-in-the-air dive after coming up to breathe, and one just fell asleep under the surface. An added treat is that I spotted the first one- they dont use active sonar or anything, so anything far off the just have to follow the waterspouts, spotted by observant passangers- me! I felt nice and smug about that one.

I'm back on the North Island now, after a really rough ferry ride- people were spewing all over the ship. I don't get sea-sick, so I was just wandering around looking at really green faces and giggling like a sadist. Fun!

Home Stretch

Wed, 28 May 2008 06:54:34 GMT

It's extremly bloody wierd to think I'll be home in 20 days. I have about enough money left to do the journey home fairly comfortably, with most of the time spent in Wellington, Auckland, New York and Toronto. For the next week or so though I'll be crawling along on the magic bus up the east coast of the south island, NZ- although there's nothing actually *repellent* about the backpacker bus it's still a coach crammed full of people, and I'll still be in hostel dorms every night with the snorers and the creepy old men (why stay in a youth hostel if you're old? SUSPECT) and the forced socialising all the bloody time. I rush to the dorms now and get the bottom bunk so I can hang my towel from the rail above and ignore the rest of the room asking each other where they come from and how long they've been travelling and where are they going next and oh my God you're all fucking boring, but you're not really, it's me, I've been on a coach for 8 hours and I was grumpy even before I got on.

In Queenstown, after the bungee, I spent 2 days chilling out and looking at the mountains. It's a nice small alpine town that's exploding in population- not to the point of being sprawling and concrete (yet, just) but to the point where it's compact and cute but still manages to have a few decent bars and a supermarket. The whole town is surrounded by snow-capped mountains and glassy lakes. I read a travel book that compared it to the Lake District in England, if "the mountains were twice as high, the lakes were twice as big and someone had shot 14 out of 15 people". The last day in town I did something called a canyon swing (twice) and went for a jet-boat ride. As if to balance out the adrenalin, touristy nature of my day I also went to a school-fete booksale and an aquarium where I fed rainbow trout.

Now I'm in Dunedin, poundly hailed as the edinburgh of the south. The only scottish thing I've seen is a shop selling kilts. I spent the day reading in coffee shops and bars, going to the art gallery and generally wandering. Thus is the exciting life of the backpacker. What are you whinging about? Four days ago you bungee jumped, you moaning tit.

I'm off to get pissed. See you all in a few weeks. Oh, and I dropped my phone in a puddle on the glacier and now it wont switch on, so if you've texted me I'm not ignoring you.

Adventure stuff

Fri, 23 May 2008 06:41:23 GMT

Yesterday I climbed a glacier. A whole day thing, spending about 5 hours on the ice, reaching some spectacular ice structures as a trio of mountain-goat-like guides went on ahead and cut out ice-steps with axes. While I was at the top admiring the view the guide asked me if I was doing a bungee- he said I should, as it's "great to get out of your comfort zone". I told him he was talking to a guy 20000 miles from home standing on top of a glacier, which he liked.

Today I jumped off a massive bridge with a rubber band attached to my ankles.

Words can't do either of these days justice- already when the guys on the bus asked what the bungee was like I replied with an articulate "it was awesome. Really... awesome." Photos, as ever, on fasebock.

Tomorrow I'm having a rest day in Queenstown (sleeping off the forthcoming hangover probably). The day after I'm doing something called a canyon swing (think a 400m high rope swing on a bungee rope), followed hopefully by some whitewater rafting. I love this country!

New Zealand

Wed, 14 May 2008 11:09:04 GMT

While arriving here is worth mentioning, I've only been here a day so there's not much to report. The flight went well, despite being the smallest plane I've ever flown on. We made some pretty alrming adjustments coming into (windy) Wellington- I leant over to the scared looking girl across the aisle and said "it's ok, they're just dodging the low-flying kiwis".

Wellington is small, freindly and cheap for a capital city. After Oz the beer is crazy cheap, and GOOD- no more shite lager that's fizzy enough to strip the enamel off your teeth, I'm talking thick ale, actual beer you can't see through. I give it a month before I got up a waist size. Or not, because on saturday I'm booked on a week of Magic Bus tours, over to the south island and round to Queenstown, with much energetic hiking/ kayaking/ extreme sports bollocks on the way. The pass I've got is flexible as hell- can jump off at any town on the route, and jump back on the next bus through, or the one in two days, or the one in 10 months. This is perfect for me, as I'm kinda worried about ending up with a group of annoying 18 year olds on the tour bus- being able to get off for a day and let the current crop of dickheads sail past appeals greatly. It also means I can take my time round the south island, which will give it a chance to snow before I get back up north to the snowfields- it's not a round the world trip without at least one snowboarding injury, and with my famous sense of balance and grace I'll be lucky to get away with one.

The accents here are great- it's like being in Flight of the Conchords but without all the singing. Can't understand a word anyone is saying yet, but that's fine because they all think I'm South African so speak extra slowly for me. Except for one group of girls on the plane who decided I speak like Jimmy Carr. Which I do not.
At some point I should probably do a wrap up post of Australia. I'll add it to the to-do list, which also includes the secret dare thing from a couple of posts ago- but that's all in hand, I've got a couple of designs cooking up and Auckland is meant to be good for tattoos so I'll look at getting it done when I get there before I fly out in 1-2 months (or so). OMG SECRET SLIPPED OUT etc.

Mostly because I want more ideas. I'm almost certainly going to get a science/geek one- preferably to do with my degree in some way so it's more of an end of era/ graduation celebration thing rather than just a macho chest-beating excercise to save face after a certain girl dared me. Location will be on the back (I'm not crazy!), probably small enough to fit on one shoulderblade. I've been looking here for inspiration, but I need more- bombard me with ideas! Send them to me!

Car gone celebrations

Tue, 06 May 2008 23:33:56 GMT

I sold my car! The car market in Kings Cross is a dank depressing hole of a place, I was glad to get out of there. Picture the basement floor of a multistory carpark filled with increasingly desperate travelers drinking away their sorrows as no buyers come to look at their cars, cooking noodles on camping stoves and playing the harmonica. After 3 days I sold "Darleen" to two lads from England- there were others interested before them, but they weren't good enough for her so I turned them away. In the end I made $350 more than I would have got from the buy-back deal, so I'm happy. Tradition down there dictates that the seller of a car buys a crate of beer for the poor saps still trying to sell, so I did that and stayed to drink a few. This was at half one in the afternoon.

Clearly I was faced with a choice- stop drinking, get a headache, go to bed early. OR...

After a couple of hours in the pub, I went to the Wii tennis competition in the common room, at half 6. Free entry, free wine (oh god), free popcorn, and prizes- first prize a $30 bar tab downstairs in the basement bar. Those of you who have seen me play Wii tennis will know the outcome- I rocked. Even though I was, by now, swaying mildly I won the bar tab! Magnanimous in defeat I invited my runners-up down for a pint. Good night, good people, we drank through that bar tab in about half an hour then kept on going. Feel terrible this morning, but it was worth it.

Edit: This all means I have OZ$1500 which I need to change into NZ$ at some point. Anyone know whether it would be better to exchange them here in sydney or in New Zealand? I have no idea which would give me the best rate.