Unpacking

I will be the first to admit that I don't like moving. I try to avoid moving whenever possibly by finding places where I can foresee living for a good length of time. Of course, occasionally there are circumstances that fall outside our control and/or take precedence in which moving becomes necessary: a new job, a job loss, an increase or decrease in numbers of family members, choosing to own rather than rent, having to rent rather than own, or even an eviction (be it friendly or unfriendly.)

I lived in the same house for the first 21 years of my life. Over the last 10 years I have lived in five other places, so I only experienced moving in my adulthood. There are some good things that can come out of moving, of which the most important to us is purging. Keith and I have got purging down to a science. Occasionally, we're actually too good at it, and we've come to regret not owning something that we've ridden ourselves of a year or so later, but we try to hold our possessions loosely, so any regret is generally short-lived. One of the other great things that moving presents is the opportunity to reorganize. Typically, when we move, I end up deciding where everything in the kitchen gets to live while Keith has control over the closets (linen, storage, spare room, etc.) Then there is the fun of deciding where all the mirrors, shelves and pictures get to hang. It can take a couple months, but it can be very rewarding.

To answer the question that may be going through your mind: no, we're not moving house. We really like our place, and we plan to live there as long as we can't afford to buy something and I am working in Boulder. (Aside: I never knew that having a place on a quiet street with a fenced yard and an attached garage that has a door to the house would be so important to me.) But I am moving: my work. The entire division I work in has been relocated from our old building to a brand new building across town.

So here's why this is so much fun (and I use the term loosely), in old fashioned pro/con terms:

Con: we left a building high up on the Mesa with a beautiful view of Boulder and the Flatirons to move to a new building that has a view of the highway and a railroad track on the opposite and very flat part of town.

Pro: my new lab is directly across the hall from my new office, rather than four floors down and on the opposite end of the building inside another lab.

Con: my old office had a huge window overlooking Boulder, and my new office has a small window in the door that overlooks the hallway.

Pro: my old lab was in the second basement with no windows, while my new lab has two walls of windows for plenty of light and a frame of reference to day/evening.

Con: my new lab is a sea of cardboard boxes and pink bubble wrap.

Pro: I have the opportunity to reorganize my entire lab to make things easier to find and use.

Con: I don't know what many of the things in my lab are, let alone how to organize them.

I could go on, but I will spare you the rest of the details. After all, I have some unpacking to get back to.

Banff Mountain Film Festival

Something really strange happened this week: Keith and I got a babysitter for Kai TWICE in three days! It was one of those coincidental things. On Sunday evening a friend of mine from ACCESS (Atmospheric Chemistry Colloquium of Emerging Senior Scientists - a.k.a. free schmoozing trip to Yellowstone and Big Sky) who has been in Boulder for 6 weeks wanted to go out for drinks with all the Boulder ACCESSories one last time before she moved to Berkeley. Then last night, Keith and I went to the first of two Boulder showings of films from the Banff Mountain Film Festival. No, we aren't going tonight, but I am curious to find out what films they will show.

A quick run-down of the films we saw last night:

Soul Flying or High Fly Summits (France) - a film about some rather insane skydivers who don suits with webbing between their arms and legs and between their legs and skim down the slopes of Mount Fuji and Mont Blanc before opening their parachutes. It was entertaining, but likely my least favourite of the evening for lack of production quality.

Person as Projectile (USA) - a fairly short film about the art of falling while skiing. The skier in the film skies off cliffs and falls anywhere from 20 m to more than 140 m, landing on his back, and *most* of the time he continues to ski down the hill. The post-production is what made this film worthy.

The Magic Mountain (Canada) - a 50 min film about a Canadian woman, Cynthia Hunt, the founder of HEALTH (Health, Environment and Literacy in the Himalayas) who is working in Ladakh, northwest India. The film is very inspiring, but seemed a little out of place.

Balancing Point (USA) - a film by a local Boulder filmmaker showing the "reverse destruction" of balanced rock sculptures. This was certainly one of the most creative films of the evening.

Harvest Moon (USA) - a 39 min film about a Swiss expedition to climb Thalay Sagar (22,650 ft.) in the Himalaya of northern India. Definitely a nail-biter. I have no desire to do technical climbing in the Himalaya.

The Hatch (USA) - a 17 min film about the time once a year at the Gunnison river (southwest of Boulder) where millions of 1 1/2" long salmon flies hatch and the salmon bite at anything with reckless abandon, and about the fight against allowing the river to be dammed. In terms of production quality, this was one of the best films of the evening. In terms of making me interested in something I had nearly NO interest in prior to last night, it was certainly the best film. Gunnison isn't far from here... and Keith has fly fishing gear. If it wasn't for the flies swarming all over everyone, I'd be there!

Solilochairliftquist (USA) - a 4 min film about the musings of a skier on a chairlift in Telluride, CO. Kudos for the best title of the evening. This was definitely the funniest film of the evening, with the audience in stitches during almost the entire 4 minutes. This is one that I'd love to see again.

So as you can see, there were a number of American films, at least three of which were from here in Colorado... I seem to remember the festival showings that I've been to in Toronto being a little more... international. Anyhow, as I said earlier, I'm curious to hear which films are played tonight.

it's like i'm in the tropics today

many of you may hate me after this but that's life.

today it is 21 degrees celsius (70 degrees fahrenheit for our new american friends) and tomorrow it will be much the same. colorado has awesome weather. the summer was great, almost no humidity. this winter has been somewhat unusual with the warmer temps and only three or four snowfalls for boulder. mind you the monsoons will be starting and we can still get a fair bit of snowfall into may but that's ok.

i think i need to put on some shorts before i go and brush jake outside this afternoon.

remember when you go outside wear a toque. it will keep you warm.

The Milkman Cometh

I have vague memories of my grandparents getting milk delivered to their house in Kapuskasing when I was a kid. At that time, milkmen were all but obsolete. Things have changed.

This week we joined a number of our friends in the Boulder area and started having our milk delivered to our doorstep in reusable glass containers by the Longmont Dairy Farm, a local organic dairy. Organic food is a concept that I've tried to appreciate from afar for years, but have never been able to justify in terms of our actual grocery bill. I have often thought, "I'd buy organic, but I just can't justify paying almost twice as much." Well, it seems that Boulder mentality is gradually seeping into us.

For years, Keith and I have taken some pride in the lack of processed (read: frozen, pre-prepared, chemically enriched, etc.) food that our family consumes. We are the type of family who goes to Costco and stands in line with our 10 cans of tuna, package of 10 fresh chicken breasts, 10 kg bag of apples, 50 rolls of toilet paper and 5 kg of brown sugar, marvelling at the vast amount of frozen foods that overfill the carts of the neighbouring shoppers. We both like to cook and bake, and it's much more satisfying, and far less scary, to serve foods where we can easily identify and pronounce most of the ingredients. (Even for a chemist, some labels can be rather horrifying.)

So it's likely a natural transition that we've been experiencing.

Many of you know that we're a cereal family. I'm a little obsessive, and I tend to stick to the same cereal and eat it every day, week after week, month after month. The last few years we lived in Ontario, that cereal was Vector, which is not available in the US. So addicted to it were we that we had my parents bring us 10 boxes when they came to visit in August. Needless to say, we had a lot of searching once we moved here to find an acceptable alternative, and strangely enough, all of the best options we've found here have been in the organic aisle. We've now been eating organic cereal for well over half a year, and it has begun to make sense to consider changing some of the other foods that we consume daily to a healthier choice.

For years I've been in denial about the effects of the hormones that are added to mass-produced milk products. And who knows, maybe the only people who should be concerned are those with young daughters? Regardless, the old what you don't know can't hurt you can only go so far, and after a while, one needs take responsibility and become more informed, even if it means cutting corners elsewhere. Thankfully, the financial commitment is only about 20% more expensive than the non-organic alternatives.

One step at a time.

The Chaos of Science

I took some pictures today at work that I thought I would share with the group. These are pictures of the instrument that I'm helping to upload (install) and make ready for our two field studies. It's the 4-channel chemical ionization mass spectrometer (CIMS) that can measure a whole suite of gas-phase molecules and radicals that I described in a previous post (Time flies when you're busy.) It's pretty crazy to look at, and we've garnered more than a few comments from the other investigators along the lines of "they're actually going to let you fly that?" The "they" in question are the crew in charge of all things aviation. And the answer, miraculously (and by a small degree of history), is yes.

The interior pictures are of the CIMS instrument, both from the aft of the rack, and the front. Yes, all those lines are actually necessary. The one with the keyboard on the floor is the aft picture, and there will be two seats put in tomorrow morning. The seats go in and out depending on what the guys in the rack behind us need to do. There are also a couple pictures of the exterior, showing the pylons that cover our inlets. Mine (and my boss's) is the one that doesn't look like a bazooka. They're all designed not to interfere with each other. The ones that face forward are designed to smooth out the flow, while at the same time being 10 degrees off axis so that any liquid water in the air will collide with the sides and not enter the inlets.

Seuss

Last summer, a very nice kid sold me several of his old (and yet quite well-looked after) Dr. Seuss (and co.) books at a garage sale. I'm pretty sure his name is Kyle Cheng, because it is written in the front cover of most of the books with rather nice handwriting. When I was a kid, I had a couple Dr. Seuss (and co.) books. I still remember Hand Hand Fingers Thumb, The Foot Book, If I Ran the Zoo, Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now and my mother's personal favourite, Fish Out of Water. Working in a children's library for 4 years, I learned the titles of a lot of the other Seuss books, but I didn't actually read them until after Kai was born. Now I'm finally discovering the fun of classics like Green Eggs and Ham, which I recently read was written after a bet that one couldn't write a good children's book with a vocabulary of 50 words or less. I have yet to check this personally, but it certainly seems about right.

Kai tends to want a particular book read to him night after night for 4 or 5 days at a time. As Northrop Frye once wrote, we learn by repetition. What better way than with Dr. Seuss? For a while, it was Go, Dog, Go, then A People House, then Are You My Mother (that one lasted a while.) Just before Christmas, I read How the Grinch Stole Christmas to him, and it became a cherished favourite for many MANY nights. A few days ago, I picked up the Lorax... what a fabulous story! And what a great way to introduce environmental issues to kids. I'm starting to realize that by not having read it until now, I likely missed out on a number of literary references to it over the years... Again, I'm having flashbacks to OAC English and Frye.

Speaking of references, although not necessarily literary, I've had to describe what being a Polkaroo is a few times over the last few weeks. It's such a perfect term for "someone you have heard exists, yet never seen personally," and yet so lost on anyone who didn't grow up in Canada.

Time flies when you're busy

I guess it's been a while since I've posted anything. I've thought about posting from time to time, but between not having my computer set up at work, and not being too excited about waiting for this dial-up sloth we have at home, I have put it off many times. I believe I promised Shannon I would post "very soon" over a week ago, so in relative terms I don't think I've broken that promise, although that could be considered a stretch.

We had another visitor here this week - Joanna, a childhood friend of mine, came to our place for a few nights after spending the weekend in San Francisco and the Sonoma valley. Kai was super-excited to have another buddy to play with, although he insisted that the room she slept in was Shannon's room.

I've been keeping pretty busy lately. For work, I've been at a local county airport with a number of colleagues uploading (installing) our 4-channel CIMS (chemical ionization mass spectrometer) onto the NCAR C-130 for over a month. Unfortunately, we've been beating our heads against the wall for the last week and half because we can't get counts through our inlet. There are 4 inlets with 6 people in total contributing effort: OH, HNO3, HO2/RO2 (the one I'm associated with) and NH3. We're supposed to start test flights early next week. It was originally to be this Monday, but of course, that's been pushed back. I'm a little overwhelmed at times, but I'm learning a lot. The shear magnitude of the field study that I'm going to be involved with is enough to make my head hurt. I just hope that I actually get some data... at this point, it's looking sketchy. Of course, it wouldn't be a proper field study otherwise.

We had our second snowfall since mid-December a couple nights ago. This year has been incredibly mild, but I'm not complaining. (Neither is our heating bill.) From what I've heard, heavy snowfalls aren't uncommon in this area even into the middle of May. I don't think we've had more than 2" on the ground at any given time so far this winter, so for Kai's sake, I do hope we get dumped on before spring. How Canadian of me, to point out the weather.

Life here has certainly fallen into a rhythm. Keith is keeping busy with Kai and with work. I've been quilting during my free time. We get together with friends on a pretty regular basis. I guess it all sounds rather uninteresting, but we wouldn't want things any other way. I guess it's the calm before the storm, if you can consider my absence a "storm". I guess that's something Keith will have to fill you in on when I'm gone. Wow. I just realized that 4 weeks from today it all begins.

short but sweet

well i have returned and i must say that after last nights election i'm not sure i will be returning to canada after our stay here in boulder is done until the conservatives are gone. more on that another day.

i've been a bit busy over the last couple of months and now that things have settled down i plan to get back to posting some thoughts and adventures every so often.

i've started training for my big climb up longs peak this summer, i've started working at both our church and a local rec centre in the child care departments and i have been asked to stay on at williams-sonoma on a permanent basis. although i now have three jobs i only work about 10- 15 hours a week and kai and i are busier than ever. i'm really excited about the climb up longs, it is going to be awesome. i think i've caught mountaineering fever.

well off to make lunch for the little man, once again it will be peanut butter and jam, his favourite.

Obstacles

I realized earlier this evening that my vertical peripheral vision, if there is such a thing, has somehow become significantly heightened over the last couple years. I found myself stepping over things whose presence I hadn't actually registered until I was already on the other side of the kitchen: a bright orange xylophone and a mini power drill. What were they doing on the floor of my kitchen, you might ask? Well, that would be something to ask my son. Regardless, much to my dismay the living spaces in our home are frequently the dumping ground of various toy collections, discarded suddenly during routine laps around our living room/dining room/kitchen. If I were to wager a guess, I'd say that Keith and I are not alone in this constant battle of toy-landmine strewing. And I suppose I should admit that there are still many times where my peripheral vision fails me and something gets stepped on awkwardly, but they are amazingly few and far between.

Life in the Anderson home has become fairly routine over the last few weeks. Keith is working two or three evenings a week, as well as weekends. Last week, he worked three evenings straight and we had a taste of what "off-shifts" would be like: for three days the only times we saw each other (awake) was for about 5 minutes around 5:15 PM each day and briefly one night around 4 AM when the smoke alarm in our bedroom started chirping and we had to remove its batteries. "Mommy's at work" and "Daddy's at work" have become frequent responses to Kai's constant inquiries.

Speaking of Kai and questions, we have being trying to help him with his word order, but as of yet, to no avail. One of his favourite questions of late has been "what that is?" Oddly, although he has the word order wrong, he has a sufficient grasp of proper grammar when there is more than one object in question to ask "what those are?"

Lastly, I just found out a few days ago that butter tarts are a uniquely Canadian thing. Who knew? And really - butter tarts? The amount of butter in the recipe makes that a very odd name - it would make more sense to call them "brown sugar tarts".

Wind

Today is a VERY windy day. I woke up around 5:00 am to the sound of our house rattling. When I went downstairs, the flue in our fireplace was flipping up and down. When I went back upstairs, I noticed that the curtain in our bedroom was flapping in the wind, even though the window is shut. It might be time for some weather stripping. Here at work, I hear the dumpster lids swinging open and slamming shut outside. It sounds like someone is driving a truck around inside the ventilation system. I just checked the weather station reports for the lab - we've had a number of gusts that have reached 90 miles per hour. That's pretty fast.

Last Friday 17 cars in our parking lot at work had damage due to the wind. There has already been one damaged today. I didn't take the chance with our van and left it at a park n' ride down the hill, taking the shuttle up to the lab. Here's hoping that it's still intact.