Melbourne

I just got back on Thursday night from my most recent trip, again to Melbourne. We had two sets of experiments scheduled back-to-back, and I think I'm now suffering from beamtime-lag. Both were using the powder diffraction line; the first was using a new technique (new for me, anyway) called pair distribution function analysis or PDF (not to be confused with Post-Doctoral Fellowship or Portable Document Format or any of the other 66 acronyms). This involved having to change samples about every hour, and take what feels like pointless measurements of the same empty glass capillary and the air (i.e. nothing in the beam). The analysis is even more tricky and I suspect it's going to take quite a long time - although we do have an under-utilised computer geek at work whose services I have been encouraged to avail myself of.

The second set of experiments involved using the beamline in a completely different way than anyone has used it before, to look at diffraction from thin films. This involved bringing our own rotation stage across several months ago, and then hooking it up to the beamline with an area detector (and this was the first time this had been used by anyone other than the beamline staff). It took the best part of a day to get everything up and running, and then when we started looking at the samples (high-temperature superconductors on a highly oriented commercial substrate) it got quite frustrating. My brain had had enough, and with so many diffraction peaks from the various oriented layers, we struggled to figure out a suitable protocol for measuring things. This led to repeating some of the samples a couple of times, but after those initial hiccups, everything went pretty smoothly. The only trouble was, this experiment needed something doing every 5 minutes. Fortunately we had planned for this and had a team of three, so we could work around the clock and try to have at least 2 people on at all times. We got through all the most important samples and think we managed to see what we set out to see (that can't be seen on the lab instrument). So just from those three days I have about 8 GB of data to work through. So that will keep me busy!

 My colleague Martin hard at work

After that (my last shift started at midnight on Tuesday and finished at 8 am) I got a couple of hours' sleep and then drove down to visit my friends Paul and Marge who live in Mornington. I stayed with them for a couple of days; we took a trip out to Phillip Island, which I hadn't been to before. Kind of reminded me a bit of Waiheke Island with the different kinds (and classes) of holiday homes, the beaches, the townships with only a couple of shops, the laid-back-ness (is that even a word?). But I'm sure the weather is quite different in a southerly

With Paul and Marge at Phillip Island 

The Nobbies, Phillip Island. We saw two penguins hiding in burrows
but couldn't tell which part of the penguin we were looking at... 

The beach at Mornington

More snow

First there was snow on the hills. Then on Sunday, we had this slushy stuff falling out of the sky, right here in Lower Hutt. Monday we had real flurries, that settled in the hills (like at Al's place) but on the valley floor it was more like hail. I took a detour to work via the hill suburb of Kelson...

Then about 3:30 pm today we had some real snow that actually settled. About 3-4 cm at my place, I reckon. Sure it's a far cry from the 50 cm being reported in Christchurch, but this is the first time it's happened here in living memory. Enjoy the pictures... (click on them to see larger images)

I think it's time to leave work!

 

Back yard

 

Front yard

 

Looking south along the Hutt River trail (stopbank) from Percy Cameron St

 

My street, and my house

 

My street - letterboxes all covered with snow

 

My favourite arty shot of the day!

The last few weeks

So there have been a few things that have happened in the last few weeks that I should mention:

1. I finally got the kitchen finished by having the tiling done for the splashback. I'm enjoying the kitchen very, very much and am glad that people (i.e. Mum) convinced me to actually do something about updating it!

2. The Association of Women in Sciences (AWIS) conference presentation, which I was invited to do, went better than I was expecting. No nasty questions about how hard-done-by women are... I also got interviewed for Unlimited magazine - the online articles can be found here and here.

3. The day after the AWIS conference I gave a whole day workshop for the MacDiarmid Institute emerging scientists association (MESA) on synchrotron techniques. I really enjoyed myself, there was a great turnout, and people seemed interested the whole day. The handouts and lectures (all six of them, should you want to listen!) are also online, here.

4. My friend Alison was in town from the US for a week. Last Sunday after church we had a potluck and games afternoon, which involved a Wii tournament... lots of fun and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. I also took some time off work to spend with her, so it was nice to have a bit of a break! We talked lots, drove up to the Kapiti coast one day, and saw a few things in Wellington. Hopefully she'll be able to come back again sometime soon.

Wii team canoeing challenge

A game for everyone involving balloons... hilarious :)

Snow!

I know for many people snow is not that big a deal. But if you grew up in a place where it never ever snows, like I did, and if the first time you touched snow was when you were about 11, and if you can count the number of times on one hand when you've actually had snow falling out of the sky on you, then is it ok to think it's a big deal?

I've lived in the Hutt Valley basically all my life and I only remember it snowing on the hills around once before, around 1992 or so. I took a photo of that then too. Anyway, here's what the Eastern hills looked like this morning (click on image for a bigger version):

Apologies to Christina and everyone else I know who lives in Christchurch - I know you've got it much worse than this at the moment!

SYD-WLG

I had a whirlwind trip to Melbourne on Tuesday, Sydney on Wednesday, then back to Wellington on Wednesday night. Our flight was delayed by about an hour leaving Sydney, and when we were on the plane about to leave the pilot explained why: they had been held up with bad weather in Queenstown, then had to face a strong headwind coming over. "But," he said, "we should be able to make up the time; we'll have a 250 km/hr tailwind going back."

He wasn't kidding - and I have photographic proof. We took off at 7 pm and arrived at 11:20 - a total flying time of 2 hrs 20 mins. Surely that's got to be some kind of record??

Happy shortest day

Today's the shortest day of the year - which means it can only get better from here on, right?

Actually I read something a couple of years ago that the mean temperature lags the length of the day by about 6 weeks, so although in July the days are slightly longer, the temperatures are colder.

Unless of course you live in the northern hemisphere.

All done

Wednesday this week turned out to be rather exciting, even though I was at home sick with a cold. I had a phone call about 9:00 from the electrician's office, asking if it would be ok for him to come around. I said the last time he had come he said the builder had to do something first but it wasn't clear to me what he expected to be done; the office lady said she would ask him to get in touch with the builder directly. Then about 10:30 there was a knock at the door. It was the electrician, who said he was in the area and thought he'd stop by to see if things were ready for him to finish off. It turns out that he was waiting for the units to be installed (I'd been making a distinction between the builder, being the guy from Tradeskills who removed the kitchen and patched a few things up, and the installer, being a different guy who, well, installed the units). So within about an hour he was able to put in a new plug for the microwave, replace the plug for the fridge, and put a new plug on for the phone jack. Then at 1:00 the installer arrived to do the final touches: attach the handles and seal the bench. When he was just about finished the plumber arrived, he had a few hurdles in fixing up the tap, but everything has worked out nicely in the end.

So now I finally have a new kitchen!

... with stuff in it!

Surprise

I received a phone call today that the bench was ready and could be installed this afternoon.
Then later on, another phone call to say it had all been done apart from the handles, because I had ordered two different sizes and they didn't want to guess which ones went where. So they'll come back maybe Tuesday and do that.
Now all that's left to finish off is the plumbing, builder again and electrician...

(apologies for the weird angle on the last photo!)

What do you mean, it's too short??

Wednesday. Yesterday. I had on my calendar, 'Kitchen installation'.

The installer arrived at about 8:30. I showed him the corner unit that only made it into the garage, which he sort of sighed about but started dealing to it, made a couple of phone calls, and by 10:00 it was inside the house and in its proper place. The bench got delivered (in two parts, since it is an L shape), lots of powertool noises outside trimming things to fit.

Then all the noise stopped, apart from a 'what the...?' It turned out that one side of the bench was 10 cm too short. Mr Installer went for a smoko, made a phone call to the guy overseeing the project. Mr Project came out from Wellington, had a look, yup, 10 cm too short. Then they decided to show me and explain what the options were.

Basically it boiled down to someone not thinking about which numbers they were adding together to get the length of the bench.
No problem, the benchtop company can make a new one.
    Only they don't have this particular laminate in stock.
No problem, they can order it today.
    But then it won't arrive until Friday, and they still have to make the bench.
    And Monday's a public holiday.
    And the installer guy is busy on Tuesday and lives in Levin.
But he can come on Wednesday and do it then.

So it means another week of a half-assembled kitchen, and boxes in the dining room...

But at least I can see what the colours look like!

(and I have somewhere to put the phone...)

Delivery

The cabinets were delivered today... minus the sink. Which I kind of suspected, because the girl who was my 'consultant' didn't write down which one I wanted. Anyway I rang them up and they said they would order it for me in time for Wednesday, which is when it all gets installed.

So for now, I have some boxes sitting in my kitchen, wrapped in plastic...

... and one they couldn't get into the house. Which might be interesting come installation day.