Just a quick post this morning!

Today is our 7 year anniversary….yes 7 years ago today Olly and I went on our first date (how sweet!). It doesn’t feel like we’ve been together that long, sometimes I wonder where the 7 years have gone – but it is documented in here.  Unfortunately I’ve been at our own flat for the past week so Olly and I are apart for this anniversary 🙁

I also got my start date for my job in atmospehric chemistry research….I start on the 16th March…woo finally!  Although I have loads to do here still (thesis) AND need to swat up on my new job :S

In other news….I cut 16″ off my hair yesterday – pics are on facebook!  No I’m not bald!

So I am in La Palma doing my astronomy thing. Or rather not doing my astronomy thing because of the weather 🙁 I am supposed to be using an instrument called FIES on the NOT to do radial velocity measurements with some of the folk from Queens to look for exoplanets, but alas it is too cold.

(The rest of my photos are on the photos page.)

Last night we observed until about 1:30 when it got cloudy, and when I say cloudy what I mean is the clouds descended and we were in them. Then tonight we got as far as opening the dome when it got too humid again, so we had to stop. Ordinarily when the humidity drops you can start observing again, but the temperature here is cold, very cold, so everything is freezing. We had to drive down from the telescope to the residence, and we had the support astronomer drive with us – as the roads were frozen. His advice to us when driving down was not to wear our seatbelts so we could jump out of the car if we start sliding towards the cliff edge. Hmmm. Oh well we made it down anyway and am now sitting in the residence. The temperature is rising now though, so we may end up going back to the telescope tonight….

My journey here was fairly uneventful, I came via Madrid (and didn’t lose my luggage), then Tenerife. The only thing that did phase me somewhat was when I saw the tiny little plane that goes from Tenerife to La Palma, it was a tiny little two propellar engine jobbie. Ho hum, it got me here I suppose.

Tomorrow I go back down the mountain in the afternoon, but my flight back doesn’t leave until Sunday, so I have to spend a night in that four star hotel with the indoor waterfall and heated swimming pool.

It’s a tough life this astronomy malarkey.

I had an interview for a position at Leicester University today, and guess what, I got it 🙂

The position is an archive scientist, working with the LEDAS stuff and the superwasp stuff. The LEDAS side is looking after the hardware and software of the X-ray archive server at Leicester, so lots of web interface stuff to huge X-ray databases 🙂 The superwasp stuff is along similar lines; looking after the hardware and software of the archive. This is fast becoming one of the biggest astronomical databases in the World, so lots of things for me to break. Then there is the research side too, I get to do independent research too!

So all in all it really is an awesome job for me, since I do the web stuff as a hobby this is kind of merging of my job and my hobby 🙂

They said I can start at the beginning of November, so by then I need to have finished decorating the house and sold it. Then I can go and move up to Leicester. Oh yeah, and I need to finish that minor task also known as my thesis….

So today Olly and I went to Farnborough International Airshow to represent the Schome Space Experiment team in a nationally run competition for high school students to design an experiment to go on board a satellite!  Unfortunately none of the Schome students could go, but they did prepare a poster for the BNSC “Space for Inspiration” exhibit at the airshow.

Olly and I presented the Schome space experiment poster to Ian Pearson MP (Minister of Science and Innovation) and other invited guests. Olly and I actually got mistaken for High School students by some of the people there!!!!  It might have had something to do with the “bothered” T-shirt Olly was wearing!!!!! LOL! We had a chance to spy on the other entries (and entrants!) and even Buzz Aldrin made an appearance to chat to people. Olly and I also received three book prizes presented by Ian Pearson MP to the Schome Team for getting through to the final.

After presenting the poster Olly and I went for a wonder to look at various things from the Airbus A380 taking off, to acrobatic fighter jets.  We filmed everything but editing the podcast is taking ages…. i will get around to posting a link to it at some point. All in all a tiring day!

So I am back from Cape Town now, I might bore you with the details of the touristy things I did later, but for now you have to make do with my random complainings.

I stopped in a four star hotel called The Capetonian. It was in a nice location and at a nice price too (was about £30 p/n). I think I know why it was so cheep.

The staff were somewhat inept it has to be said. In fact I would go as far as saying that they would struggle to organize a piss-up in a swimming pool full of vodka when everyone is in the pool. And drunk.

When I booked in I asked (and paid) to use the internet in my room. Now to me that implies that I would like to be put in a room that can actually access the wireless. So when I went back to the desk about half an hour later and they said “Oh you want to use the internet? Well you won’t be able to use it from your room, it’s too far away from the access point” I wasn’t impressed. Grrr. Time for a room change.

Then I asked to use the shuttle bus to go to the docks, now it is supposed to run on the hour, so at a quarter to I asked if it is going and they said yes, then I waited. About half an hour later I went and enquired, “Oh, you want the bus? It will be leaving soon”. About fifteen minutes later I decided that the fifteen minute walk was certainly not worth more than a forty minute wait, so I walked.

It’s this sort of blasee attitude to life that makes me love my beloved Blighty so much.

And as for the hotel itself. Hmmm. It seems the South Africans don’t believe in fuses in plugs, or wiring plugs correctly for that matter. Every room I was in had sparks flying….

Then there is the building that was being demolished next door. When I came they put me in the room closest to it, not happy. It then took two days of being woken up at 8am before they would move me, not good when you have been working until 6am for the last week.

And of course there was the bathroom. I suspect that some kind of blind baboon installed it. All the fixings were not fixed to the walls properly and water ran along the bath, around the corner and onto the floor. Then of course into the main part of the room.

So my advice to you, if you are ever looking for a hotel in Cape Town, is don’t choose The Capetonian. Right, time to go vent some of this annoyance on hotel review sites…..

So I was wondering down to a restaurant in the centre of town to get some nice whisky steak when two guys started to head towards me. They looked like trouble. They walked up to me and started talking at me. I didn’t really understand what they were saying as they were mumbling. Then I twigged that they were trying to mug me! The bastards.

Then one said he had a knife in his pocket and he was kinda moving his hand around a bit in his pocket to make it look big. Clearly not a knife I thought to myself. So I said to him in a rather sarcastic way, “you, have a knife in there?” At which point I turned and legged it (there was no way I was going to let them have my student card – I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night thinking someone was getting my student discount).

Luckily there was a security guard/police man nearby who then gave chase. He called his friend on a bike who pursued them into the sunset.

I knew I shouldn’t be walking around late at night. Ho hum, can’t go to Cape Town and not get mugged I suppose.

Well I have been back from the S.A.A.O. for a few days (when I say back I mean in Cape Town), so I thought I would let you all know how it went.

Firstly it is beautiful up there, the sunsets are amazing and, as you would expect from an astronomical facility, all the telescopes are cool looking too! Have a look at the pics. I even went to see SuperWasp this time.

I was using the 1.9m with a new polarimeter that Steve Potter is commissioning, this meant that there were plenty of bugs to play with. I got to have lots of fun figuring out why stuff wasn’t working and if the stuff we thought was working really was.

For most of the week I was in charge of the telescope and Steve looked after the instrument. This was cool ‘cos the telescope is operated from a control panel directly underneath it (instead of from the control room like most modern domes). So I got to see the whole thing move as I pressed the prettily lit buttons 🙂

We lost three nights of our seven, two for cloud and one for humidity. It’s so incredibly frustrating losing a night because of humidity, you can see the stars perfectly but you can’t open the dome as water condenses on the telescope 🙁

About half way through the week Steve found a spider in his room. I kinda wish he hadn’t showed it to me, it was big and hairy. So every night from then on when I got in (even if I was really tired) I would shake the bed down, what a girl.

It wasn’t until the trip back to Cape Town that it was pointed out that the nearest doctor was about two hours away, and the nearest hospital three! I think it’s probably best I didn’t know that really, since I am sure that subconsciously I would have made myself walk off a gantry or something.

So I eventually managed to find some internet to connect to the world!

My trip got off to a rather hectic start, the bus to Heathrow thought it would be fun to break down before it picked us up from Milton Keynes. Of course this meant that when a replacement bus turned up it was getting rather late. Then the new bus decided that it would go to Luton, now Luton airport I don’t mind so much, but for some very odd reason the driver went to the town centre first, in rush hour. Then, because we were obviously ahead of schedule, we went via Hemal Hempstead, sigh. So by the time we got to the airport I had less than an hour to get on the plane…..

Now the bus drops you at the central bus station at Heathrow, turns out terminal 4 is a train ride away from there, sigh. On the train I jumped, it didn’t matter how much I was willing the train to move, it didn’t (note to self: improve Jedi mind skills to train moving level). Eventually it left, then when I arrived the running began…..

I ran to the bag drop point (having eagerly checked-in online), then I waited. And then I waited some more. Eventually got to the front, now as much as I love to laugh about my passport picture with people, there’s a time and a place, and when I have less than 30 minutes to catch a plane it is not one of those times, admittedly it is one of those places. But definitely not the time.

So bag checked I began what must have looked like a scene from a bad film where some lunatic runs across the airport, weaving in and out of the crowd, jumping bags and the like (I wonder if I could ask B.A.A. for a copy of the C.C.T.V.). I got to the security gate and amazingly there was only a few people in front, still, gonna be cutting it close.

Through the security gate, of course it beeps, even though there is nothing metallic on me (I am sure I have been tagged in some kind of dastardly secret service plot – one day I shall do it naked. Just to prove a point you understand). And then to run to the gate, carrying my belongings in my now rather sweaty arms. I look at my watch as I run, and I have minutes left, I’m gonna make it!

I get to the gate and the woman said: “Are you going to Cape Town?”, “Yes, pant pant”, I said, half expecting her to say the gate closed early, “Well it’s been delayed by half an hour” she said. “Pfffffffffffff”, I replied with my utmost disdain. So I had got all sweaty and done exercise for no reason! Still it meant that I could buy a plug adapter and get the correct currency (Euros wasn’t it?).

As you might expect, the B.A. webpage that let me pick a row with more leg room lied, and I was stuck with my knees banging the chair in front. Being an overnight flight meant that I would get absolutely no sleep (I never do on planes). So when I arrived ten hours later I was shattered. Of course it was too early to check into my hotel, so I had to go and sit somewhere for a few hours. But I got to my room eventually, and that’s where I am now.

I head up to the observatory on Tuesday morning, so until then I am an Englishman abroad, now where’s that midday sun? I need some to get on with some lobsterification……

So last week we left our house to go to work when I noticed our garage door looked a little odd, on closer inspection I realised it had been crashed into.

Someone had hit the door and bent it, and broken the nice PVC bit at the top. Very annoying given that it wasn’t that long ago that we had the whole garage redone.

Given that the PVC bit that was broken is very high up, the two broken bits at the top are the same distance apart as the uprights on a typical ladder, and the bend in the door is a vertical bend from top to bottom, it is fair to say that it must have been a van that did it.

Now as it happens a van parks illegally outside our garage every day and guess what; it has a big ladder on top that matches EXACTLY the broken bits. The company that owns the van is EDS Aircon Ltd (clearly an irresponsible company if they don’t care about hit and runs). So after a bit of digging I found out where the van owner lives and wouldn’t you know it, he is not at all forthcoming about the whole issue.

So after a few hours a hammering the door back to a normal shape it at least opens, but I am left waiting for a reference number from the police and an insurance claim to deal with.

So I have been upgrading my computer recently, the main reason for this being that I spend a lot of time playing SecondLife and I thought it would be nice if I could run it in its prettiest mode. So this is what I have been doing:

1. First up I had to figure out what sort of motherboard I have. I am sure there is an easy way of doing that, but I couldn’t figure it out, so I popped the box open and read the serial number off it, how technical of me.
2. One of the key things I wanted to do was get a better graphics card, so I had to familiarize myself with them, turns out I have an AGP slot, which is being depreciated in the future, ho hum. Anyway I found a half decent card on OverClockers, I went for the Radeon 2600 XT 256MB GDDR3.
3. I also wanted more RAM, you can never have too much, well actually you can, but I still wanted more, so I bought a Gig, bringing me up to 1.5GB.
4. Then the waiting began. Then woo it turned up, then sigh, the fools had sent the wrong graphics card, they stuck the PCI-E one in instead of the AGP version, is it really that had to pick something off a shelf?
5. Then comes installation time, RAM – easy just slot it in, well actually had to take the 512MB out and put the Gig in the first slot, so really just unslot slot slot. Graphics card – not so easy. This is the first graphics card I have owned that needs it’s own power supply, so I had to jump it off the hard drive.
6. I had also decided to rebond my heat sink as my CPU had been getting to about 90 degees, so I took it off and cleaned it up with some surgical spirt (rubbing alcohol for all you Americans) and cotton wool buds. It was covered in the bubble gum type stuff that’s really messy. It’s amazing how clean you can get it with a bit of patience, see….
   
7. Add to this a longer cable for my keyboard and legal(!) copy of Norton and I am done upgrading things for now.

So there we have it, it’s now running much faster, cooler (more like 60 degrees) and it makes things look so pretty. And I have learnt never to buy anything from Overclockers again. Trouble is now I am thinking that I could do with a bigger hard drive, and a better DVD-drive. Oh and I could do with some more USB ports……