Swing Shifts

Hi everyone. Happy President's Day. I'm celebrating by working until midnight!

No really, now that our telescope is undergoing some testing that involves being inside a vacuum chamber with liquid nitrogen flowing all around it, 24-7 personel coverage is required to make sure someone is around in case something goes wrong (a lot can go wrong at -196 C).

Anyways, it's not so bad, as I have my mornings free to take a long walk with Banjo, run some errands during normal business hours, and have a relaxing morning. And it's only a few days at a time. But there's something a little strange about being at work at midnight. At least I don't have to do the graveyard shift (midnight to 8am). Ick.

Speaking of Banjo, our trip this past weekend to Tahoe for some skiing and snowshoeing and winter fun went really well! The dog is still not thrilled about car rides, but he just hunkers down and deals. We stayed in a nice rental house/cabin right near Donner Lake that Dustin found - with 7 of us it was pretty affordable to do, and way nicer than a hotel or doing a day trip. We went up with Dustin + Sarah, Adam + Ashley, and Alex. Not surprisingly, the male contingent was all Lockheed employees. Sigh.

Friday some of us skied at Alpine Meadows, and the others went XC skiing at Tahoe Donner, right near where we were staying. Kate went romping in the snow with Banjo, who loved it! The weather was sunny and warm, which was nice but made for some soft, slushy snow in places. I really like Alpine, though - especially getting to hike over to the back side and ski the open bowls that lead to the Sherwood lift.

Saturday we packed up and headed over to a trailhead off I-80 near Donner Pass and set off on a popular trail to hike Castle Peak. There's a good description of the snowshoe hike we did here or here (since we didn't take many ourselves). Despite the poor winter, there was a pretty good amount of snow up above 8000'. Our trail took us from about 8000-9000', going from the highway up towards a pass and then a quick spur up part of the steep ridge towards the peak before heading back down. Banjo was really good about the snow, and we were able to let him off leash for most of it. On the way back down he seemed to get tired and was dragging a little, but this was the longest hike we've done with him (~6 miles), and in snow, and steep at times, and at altitude (does that affect dogs the same?). Anyways, we were real glad to see that he not only could handle, but enjoyed such adventures.

Sunday we had a nice laid-back recovery day where Kate and I cooked a whole bunch of things - waffles (on our wedding present waffle maker), minestrone soup (with wedding present knife to chop veggies), "the best meatloaf recipe" (with wedding present mixing bowls), a big batch of pesto (with wedding present salad spinner), and morrocan chicken (with wedding pot to make cous cous). After a trip to the dog park we lounged and watched "The Dish," a movie about the Austrailan satellite dish that was used during the Apollo 11 moon landing. Thanks for the recommendation, Auntie! We liked it.

And that brings us to today, which brings me to the start of my swing shift in 6 minutes. Off I go...