So many books, so little time!

The past week has been somewhat good.  I found out I made it to the next interview for the job I want, and I was asked to be a godfather again for a couple of my best friends next child.  Both of those are very exciting, and to be honest, I am not sure which I am more excited by.  I have also been kind of busy with various other things.

I decided to try to read a book a week this year... So far, I have only read three books.  I am way behind! I could have sworn there was one more book I had read, but for the life of me, I can't figure out what it would have been. Overall, I don't feel like this is something I have to be too overwhelmed by if I don't meet my goals. Really, I just want to read more, and having a goal helps keep me motivated.  While my books tend to be somewhat varied in nature, lately they are almost all at least semi-nonfiction.  I say "semi" because one was a bit of a biographical fiction.  It was mostly true, but with some details modified here and there to make it a little more allegorical.

The books so far:

• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance 
• The Art of Asking (Amanda Palmer)
• Level 4: Virus Hunters of the CDC  

I have actually been going through some old physics text books as well.  It has actually been fun reviewing without the pressure of school behind them.  On that note, I am also thinking about doing some electronics review.  I will probably spend some time on YouTube over the next few weeks watching electronics videos to get back into the grove of things.

I have also been trying to keep active with yoseikan.  I forgot how much fun it was, not to mention the added benefit of exercise. The past few weeks have been largely review as I haven't practiced in over five years, but I feel like I am not as far behind as I could be.

I visited VBAS yesterday for the members meeting, and they had a talk about their expansion into radio astronomy.  I am mildly interested in radio astronomy, so I may try to get involved some if time allows. I actually have a book on radio astronomy published by the ARRL that I started to read and never finished.  I may have to bump it up on my list of priorities now!

Overdue Update

The past couple of weeks have been somewhat busy and exciting.  I have been working on a few different things, and I haven't been able to really sit down and collect my thoughts for a post, but I think it is overdue, so I am going to give a quick update.

Most excitingly, I had a phone interview for a position that I am very excited about.  I am not going to go into much detail right now, but this would be a dream job for me.  This week I expect to hear back and find out if I made it to the "onsite" interview.   Overall, I think the phone interview went ok, but I am sure it could have gone better.  I blanked on a couple of parts.  The one that bothers me the most was the electronics questions.  I don't have a ton of hands on experience with electronics, but I have some, and when I was being asked the questions, I started to overthink them.  The first questions were so easy, I was afraid that I was missing something obvious, so I wasn't as confident in my answers as I should have been.  Lesson learned.  At any rate, I am optimistic, and if this doesn't work out, I am just going to have to keep looking for that next awesome job!

I have also been doing a little more astronomy lately.  I know I have already posted some on this.  I went out again a couple of nights ago with an old friend of mine and did some observing.  We spent the night hopping from one Messier object to another and discussing science, astronomy, and astrophysics.  It was a ton of fun, and I think I was able to identify over 20 objects.  I also visited VBAS and the UAH Astronomy Club a couple more times over the past few weeks.  I think I am going to try to get trained on the VBAS telescopes.  It would be nice to have that experience.

Finally, I have also started to get back into Yoseikan.  It is a martial art that I started taking years ago, but quit because I didn't have a place to study during grad school.  It has allowed me to get a little more exercise, but in the process, I hurt my shoulder last week, so I have been a little sore.  That being said, I have been enjoying it, and I hope to be able to continue it.  Here is an older picture (before they changed the gis and before I started grad school).

Other than that, there have a been a few little things going on here and there, but I won't bore you with the details, at least not now!

Astronomy on a cold winter night!

I have been motivated a little more lately to get out and do some astronomy.  I visited the VBAS observatory/planetarium and renewed my membership last weekend.  I was a member before grad school 5 or 6 years ago, and haven't actually been up there very much since then.  I also pulled out my telescope a couple times over the past week and did some viewing.  Since I was living in Atlanta during grad school,  I had a hard time getting out where it was dark enough to see anything, so I am a little rusty.  My telescope is a modest 10" Zhumell dobsonian.  I also have a small set of Celestron lenses and filters that I use.

Tonight I was actually to observe some pretty interesting objects in the sky.  For those who are unaware, there was a French astronomer named Messier who was interested in finding comets.  He compiled a list of objects in the night sky that could be mistaken for comets so he wouldn't waste his time on them.  This list has grown to around 110 objects that many amateur astronomers try to observe for fun.  The list contains nebulae, galaxies, and various other objects that are fun to observe because they are more than just points of light such as stars but can be seen by a skilled observer in dark locations.

The list of objects I observed tonight include Jupiter and the Galilean moons, several constellations, and 11 of the Messier objects:

• M3
• M13
• M36
• M38
• M44
• M51
• M53
• M63
• M65
• M66
• M92

I also spent a little time on the moon.  I even took a picture using my cell phone (through the telescope).  Unfortunately, I am not equipped for astrophotography... yet!

Random Thoughts On Internet Privacy

I am a strong proponent of Tor and Tails.  I have used PGP (via GnuPG) off and on for years.  For those unaware, these technologies are designed to protect anonymity and/or privacy on the internet.  Each may get its own blog post in the future.  So it feels a little odd starting a new website with the purpose of getting all my professional and even personal information out into the eye of the public.

Personally, I do still try to browse anonymously using those technologies and a few others (which I will also post about in the future).  I even run a Tor relay.  I think that more people should be involved with the Tor project.  So, I suppose the question is, "How do I reconcile my desire to remain somewhat anonymous with posting so much personal information?"  I have been thinking, and at least in some respects it comes down to my ability to choose.  I (mostly) choose carefully what gets posted on my website.  I choose what I post on my blog and on social media.  I have actually tried to be careful about what goes out to the interwebs about myself.  I think it is perfectly fair for me to let people see certain aspects of my life without showing them every reddit post I read or every academic article I look at.

One day we could have this same level of control over all of our data.  We may be able to better choose what people see about our activities online.  I think this is still a challenge waiting to be solved, and I am interested to see how it all plays out over the next several years!

Congratulations to LIGO!

The LIGO collaboration announced today the detection of the first gravitational waves from the merger of two black holes.  I originally started grad school wanting to work on gravitational research before joining the IceCube collaboration to do research on neutrinos and particle astrophysics, so I am especially excited to see the progress being made in gravitational astrophysics.  The work being done by LIGO will provide a new way of exploring the universe through the observation of gravitational waves.  Their announcement today is just the beginning of the work to come!

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog!  The purpose of this blog is to document some of my travel and random projects in technology and science.  I recently finished my PhD in physics at Georgia Tech as a member of the IceCube collaboration.  For those interested, my research was in particle astrophysics.  I have many hobbies that I enjoy when I am able.  I am a pilot, and I am working on my instrument rating.  I have my amateur radio license (AI4LX).  I scuba dive.  I love to travel and have been to a few interesting places including the South Pole.  I (try to) play a few musical instruments: trumpet, violin, and guitar.  Lately, I have also been exploring some network security and computer privacy issues.  As time goes on, I hope to be able to explore all of these hobbies and more on this blog.