Babies!

Before getting into the summer, I think I never posted about our April trip back East to see family and some of our recently-parentified college friends! A belated congrats to Andrew and Jess, Erin and Brian, and now Gordie and Amanda! It was fun seeing all of you and now we look forward to getting to meet Willem in person, now that you've finally joined the world! Here are some highlights:

Visiting with our NH/VT friends and hiking along the creek in Gordie and Amanda's backyard

Andrew and Tyler

Group at Andrew's house, in the apple orchard

Tom and Donovan the horse

Gordie changing his first diaper (I'm sure he's got plenty more under his belt now!)

Us and fuzzy baby Zoe in Boston

Trip with the parents to P-town

Kate goes whale-riding

More pictures

Summer Fun

We've been decidedly negligent in posting recently, but that's not for lack of exciting activities. Kate has been enjoying her first real summer vacation as a teacher, and we've had some enjoyable trips recently, both near and far. Stay tuned for some catch-up updates on our summer soon!

Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Advance preparation

• 3 to 8 hours for marinating the meat (optional); also, allow yourself 4 to 6 hours cooking time

Special equipment

• 6 cups hickory chips or chunks, soaked for 1 hour in cold water to cover and drained

For the rub (optional)

• 1 tablespoon mild paprika
• 2 teaspoons light brown sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons hot paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon celery salt
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 2 cups cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons ketchup
• 1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar, or more to taste
• 5 teaspoons salt, or more to taste
• 4 teaspoons hot red pepper flakes
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper

For the barbecue

• 1 Boston butt (bone-in pork shoulder roast; 5 to 6 pounds), covered with a thick (1/2 inch) layer of fat
• 10 to 12 hamburger buns

Preparation

1. If using the rub, combine the mild paprika, brown sugar, hot paprika, celery salt, garlic salt, dry mustard, pepper, onion powder, and salt in a bowl and toss with your fingers to mix. Wearing rubber or plastic gloves if desired, rub the spice mixture onto the pork shoulder on all sides, then cover it with plastic wrap and refrigerate it for at least 3 hours, preferably 8.

If not using the rub, generously season the pork all over with coarse (kosher or sea) salt and freshly ground black pepper; you can start cooking immediately.

2. Set up the grill for indirect grilling and place a drip pan in the center.

If using a gas grill, place all of the wood chips in the smoker box and preheat the grill to high; when smoke appears, reduce the heat to medium.

If using a charcoal grill, preheat the grill to medium-low and adjust the vents to obtain a temperature of 300°F.

3. When ready to cook, if using charcoal, toss 1 cup of the wood chips on the coals. Place the pork shoulder, fat side up, on the hot grate over the drip pan. Cover the grill and smoke cook the pork shoulder until fall-off-the-bone tender and the internal temperature on an instant-read meat thermometer reaches 195°F, 4 to 6 hours (the cooking time will depend on the size of the pork roast and the heat of the grill). If using charcoal, you'll need to add 10 to 12 fresh coals to each side every hour and toss more wood chips on the fresh coals; add about 1/2 cup per side every time you replenish the coals. With gas, all you need to do is be sure that you start with a full tank of gas. If the pork begins to brown too much, drape a piece of aluminum foil loosely over it or lower the heat.

4. Transfer the pork roast to a cutting board, loosely tent it with aluminum foil, and let rest for 15 minutes.

5. Wearing heavy-duty rubber gloves if desired, pull off and discard any skin from the meat, then pull the pork into pieces, discarding any bones or fat. Using your fingertips or a fork, pull each piece of pork into shreds 1 to 2 inches long and 1/8 to 1/4 inch wide. This requires time and patience, but a human touch is needed to achieve the perfect texture. If patience isn't one of your virtues, you can finely chop the pork with a cleaver (many respected North Carolina barbecue joints serve chopped 'cue). Transfer the shredded pork to a nonreactive roasting pan. Stir in 1 to 1 1/2 cups of the vinegar sauce, enough to keep the pork moist, then cover the pan with aluminum foil and place it on the grill for up to 30 minutes to keep warm.

6. To serve, mound the pulled pork on the hamburger buns and top with coleslaw. Let each person add more vinegar sauce to taste.

Southern Light Cornbread

Vegetable oil spray
1 c Quaker yellow cornmeal
2 t sugar
1/2 t salt
1 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
1/3 c boiling water
3/4 c buttermilk
1 large egg
1 T butter, melted and cooled

Preheat oven to 450, spray 9 inch round or 8 inch square baking pan with spray

Measure 1/3 cup of cornmeal into a bowl. Whisk remaining 2/3 cup, sugar, salt, powder, and soda into small bowl and set aside.

Pour boiling water into the 1/3 c cornmeal and stir to make a mush. Whisk in the buttermilk gradually, then whisk in egg and butter. Stir dry ingredients in until just moistened and pour into pan.

Bake roughly 20 min.

YTVotD

If anyone needs to know what I'd like for Christmas, one of these video projection systems would suffice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXvmDaY29xg

Totally Awesome Science Experiment

OK. You need a bowl, a little bit of milk (say 1/4 inch in the bowl), food coloring (the watery kind, not the gel kind), and some liquid soap.

Put the milk in the bowl. Put a drop of each color of food coloring around the outside of the bowl. Put a single drop of soap in the bowl, and prepare to be amazed. You may have to wait a minute or two, be patient. If you're absolutely sure nothing is happening, you can put another drop in, near the side .

You should go do this right now. Really.

SDO on KQED

Is everyone sick of SDO-related posts yet? No? OK good, because here's another video featured on our local PBS/NPR station. Oh, hey, who's that cool guy at around 6:29? Also, I think some of those fancy computer models with green lines going every which way were probably reader and commenter Marc's handiwork. And if that red wall at around 7:00 was transparent, you'd see me diligently working away.


QUEST on KQED Public Media.

Here's the link if you want to view it from the KQED page:
http://www.kqed.org/quest/television/journey-into-the-sun

Tour of California, Stage 3

I won't blame you if you haven't heard of it, but the Tour of California is the biggest bike racing event in the USA, and yesterday it rolled through our backyard, basically!  This year the Stage 3 route took them through the hills just west of where I work, and Alex and I took a long lunch break to ride out and watch the race go by.  I had never seen a major bike race in person, and while it all blew by incredibly quickly, it was really pretty cool to experience all the excitement and activity - lots of hardcore biker fans braving the cold rain and mist lining the sides of the road in the forest, dozens of police and official vehicles clearing the route ahead of time, the cowbells cheering on the lead group of racers, the 100-strong peloton churning after them up a "King of the Mountain" stretch, and even the wet ride back to the valley with all the other people that had the same idea as us.  Most of the major names in cycling (that you'll also see in the Tour de France, for example) were here, and I'm sure I was about 3 feet from Lance Armstrong at some point, I just couldn't tell which extremely fit white guy with wraparound sunglasses, a helmet, and skin-tight RadioShack jersey he was out of 5 or so.  I even had some freebie bags of Jelly Bellys tossed to me from the team car as I cheered them on!  Alex took a couple pictures, and there's some other representative ones from our vantage point below.

Here's the peloton, led by Team RadioShack, heading through the hills

Here's me waiting in the drizzle on the La Honda uphill

Here comes the throng of racers blasting through...

... followed closely by the throng of support cars that were inches apart (from each other and from the riders they were busy handing Gu, Cliff Bars, and water bottles to) while winding up the narrow mountain roads.  Yikes.

And here's a video Alex took of the lead group going by.  These guys finished the day in Santa Cruz having averaged an insane 23 mph over 113 miles, including 4 major hills.  They'll keep riding for the next week (eight stages total), ending down in LA.  I'll definitely head back to see this again next year!

YTVotD, musical edition

Have you ever wondered why so many pop songs sound familiar? Or feel like you subconsciously recognize that song on the radio but don't know how?  Australian comedy band "Axis of Awesome" has this pretty, well, awesome skit to demonstrate to their audience that pretty much every pop song ever is really just based on the same four chords, played over and over in order.  The songs are labeled on-screen, but it helps a lot if you have a reasonable knowledge of bad pop songs going into it to better enjoy the mockery. Well done guys, despite the fact that it kind of makes me want to vomit. (Warning, one curse word at 4:58, so NSFW or sensitive ears)

SDO is live

At long last, the Solar Dynamics Observatory is live and the data is publicly available!  After a month or so of on-orbit checkouts and calibrations, the instruments that I worked on (HMI and AIA) are now streaming back tons (well, terrabytes really) of data each day in the form of high-resolution pictures of the sun in different wavelengths and properties.  There's a lot online that can explain it better than I can, so I'll limit myself to just posting a few of the amazing pictures from the press conference event yesterday.  It's exciting to see the pictures finally, and to see that so many other people (around the world) are excited too!  Here's to a good 5 (or 10) years of working telescopes.