Madrid Meditation

Greetings from Madrid! Granada was fantastic and the conference was very fruitful, allowing me to see world-class talks, converse with other researchers, and to lay the ground work for future collaborations.  This level of inspiration would have been most beneficial two years ago when I began this arduous degree.  With 11.5hr days it became difficult to explore much of the city on my own; fortunately the conference made arrangements for the delegates to go on a tour of the Alhambra, the palace of the Islamic rulers of old.  It was a night tour so photography proved difficult but I was able to acquire a few gems.

Thursday afternoon I caught the train to Madrid and with Prynsus have been enjoying the city ever since. Madrid is a lot more touristy and expensive than Granada but it is a beautiful city with a lot to see. Friday we just walked around and made our way through the very imperial Retiro park, with its crystal palace and enormous ducks.

Saturday was our museum day where we visited Museo El Prado and the Reina Sofia. The Prado was filled with classical Spanish art, including Goya, Velasquez, and Rubens. The paintings and marble statues were stunning and I wish I could show you pictures but photography was strictly forbidden.  Culturally enriched we felt the need for something more … modern, leading quite nicely to the Reina Sofia where we found …. well more.    I now have no idea what art is, the modern definition appears to involve piles of used  car tires and quizzical looks. The trip was not a total loss as Prynsus found Picasso’s Guernica, a piece she was desperately hoping had not gone on tour to another museum. Yesterday we woke up early in order to get to the Rastro flea market, a market in the heart of Madrid that organically springs up every Sunday from 9-2 covering 6 or 7 square city blocks. Within its limits we found everything from underwear and fashion to life size brass stags and art. It is difficult to describe this cornucopia of stuff, the best description we could come up with involves your grandparent’s house erupting onto the Spanish streets.

Today we are taking things easy leading up to our Toledo day trip. For now  we are signing off, we shall return with news from Toledo.

Stress Advisory: LOW

Welcome to Spain

Here I am once again apologizing for no updates.  It would appear that regardless of want I wanted this blog to be my laziness has rendered it into yet another travel blog laying semi-abandoned along the information superhighway.  For the five people reading this you are all aware that I am in Spain, currently Granada, where I am at PECS IX a conference on photonic crystals.  Next week it will be Madrid with Prynsus for an end of conference vacation.  I do hope that her trip out here will be less eventful than mine.

I have begun to think of traveling as a less lethal form of Russian roulette, perhaps it should be renamed Gen X/Y roulette¹? Traveling will always be a memorable experience, the question is whether the memories are filled with laughter?  My trip to Granada would be the later,

I only have two words to sum up my flight from Ottawa to Frankfurt, Air Canada.  What more can I say?  It was cramped, hot, and the food was horrible  This stood in glaring contrast to my Frankfurt / Madrid Lufthansa flight, which was amazing and filled with good food.  Once in Frankfurt things got interesting, in the Chinese curse sense.  I always thought of Germans as an organized people, I should get used to being wrong.  Frankfurt is under construction resulting in barely constrained chaos.  There were no lines, just massive crowds trying to shove through 2 boarding control stations and 4 security stations.  Ahhh Security, these people require a whole paragraph to themselves.

I understand profiling, whether or not I agree with it is another discussion.  That being said I do not understand what it is about me that concerns security so much.  Ottawa was not too bad; they only made me walk through the metal detector three times (with not one beep I might add).  Frankfurt was the problem, they are some thorough people.  After a long wait I got to the x-ray equipment and I take off all metal items, including my belt and then move to my bags where I remove my laptop.  I asked the security if I should remove the battery charger as well and was told this was unnecessary.  I put my stuff through and proceeded to the metal detector, setting it off.  As standard procedure I was inspected by the gentleman with the wand, who found nothing.  Frustrated at his inability to prove me a threat he called over his supervisor so she can scan me twice.  Released I went to claim my carry-on bags to find an irate security officer holding my laptop bag and lifebook (mini laptop).  He promptly told me that there were additional electronics in my bag (remember the battery charger) and that there were special tests for these items.  I was then escorted by this man to a tiny room where they wiped down every inch of every piece of electronics in my laptop bag.  I genuinely thought they were getting ready for the full body search, instead I was told everything was fine and told to enjoy my trip, which I did till I hit the train station in Madrid.

The train station was a nightmare with rapid fire Spanish announcements no signs on platforms to indicate which train went where and the computers would only show the information 15 minutes before departure.  This combined with my watch being set 10 slow resulted in me getting to the platform 2 minutes (by their clocks) before the time on my ticket and they locked the doors and would not let me on the train.  After 24 hours of travel and no sleep I came close to losing it.  Nothing was in English and none of the staff cared that I had nowhere to go.  It was too late to get to Granada any other way so I paid the 13 euro “you’re an idea fine” and got my ticket renewed for today and began my search for a hotel.  After 20 calls, I counted, and no one having a room except for hostels that sleep 4 to a room I started back at the top of the list with the expensive 4 stars that I had previously skipped.  My second call reached Rafael Hotels who had a room for 89 euro, a quarter of the price of the others, and was right next to the station.  My luck was beginning to look up.  I arrived at the hotel to find a gorgeous building with staff that spoke good English and cared about my predicament.  My room was big with a king size bed and free internet.  Once settled I showered and went in search of food.  I was too exhausted to go on an epic search for tasty authentic food so when I found the Burger King 3 blocks into my quest I gave up and chose that, it still took me 10 minutes to order.  For those of you currently shaking your head Prynsus can tell you we have been craving BK chicken sandwiches (the Spanish call them long chicken sandwiches) for a month so it was about more than it being the first food place I found.

Now that I am in Granada, my hotel is fantastic, I have started to relax once I unpacked, ~4pm Spanish time, I went out looking for food.  4.5 hours, 2 beers, and no free tapas I came home and fell back on room service.  I really need to research where and when to find food.  As I write this debating the merits of sleep I have decide to take today as the turning point of the trip.  The rest will be fun or else…

¹ Was Russian roulette invented by Russians or is it simply a comment on their grim demeanor?  More research is required.

Stress Advisory: GUARDED (was BONKERS)

Procrastinator Extraordinaire

I truly have no excuse for the lack of posts to the site.  In fact I have recently made a decision which has become the bane of my existance.  I have once again rejoined the World of Warcraft legion. This will have been the second time I have picked up the game after freeing myself from its clutches.  To give you an idea think of your free time being consumed by some gaping rift and you thinking it has only been five minutes.  There are times when I think these games should be classified as drugs; why is collecting 8 cogs for some gnome so engrossing? I would like to claim that it is social aspect as I have a number of friends who still play, but I cannot.   Playing with friends may be the reason I rejoined but truthfully I enjoy that wonderful little ding every time I complete a quest or reach a new level.  I have been playing too much as of late and will need to get things scheduled so that it is not all consuming; while it is enjoyable it does not render any tangable benefits and thus must be done within reason.  For those of you who are players my main character is Anomandris on the Feathermoon server (Gear and specs here). For those of you who do not play do yourself a favor and stay away for here be dragons.
Over the next week or so I will be adding a projects section to the blog which will just be a collection of pages documenting various projects I want to work on.  The idea is if they are online then people can ask me about them, causing such guilt for a lack of progress that I actually do them.  Speaking of procrastination I must depart to accomplish academic pursuits.

Stress Advisory: GUARDED

From Toronto

I am here reporting to you from the “great” city of Toronto. Yes I mock the city with it’s cranky people and erratic drivers but we are really enjoying ourselves. We have been staying at a friend’s place. Last night a great bunch of people were here and we emerged victorious from the epic endless set list in Rockband. Prynsus and I need to meet more people in ottawa; it was truly enjoyable to be at a gathering with mature people who can have fun without alcohol / clubbing.
A big city is also great becaus diversity and numbers bring fun discoveries. Just strolling down the street I found an antique store with a nice collection of typewriters. It even had an East German typewriter; I wanted it but in the shape it was in i could not justify the price. I would love to hear if anyone does know of a nice unique typewriter I can acquire.
Just as a side note I swear I am working on articles on my bikes and the Practika 35mm film camera that my grandfather gave me. In the meantime I am off to seek out tastiness at Just Desserts.

Stress Advisory: Low

Another new beginning

As with pretty much all of my journal, logs, and daily activities I will start this with it has been awhile.  It has been quite awhile since I have posted anything online.  The site has been brought over to wordpress because:

1. I enjoy the admin interface
2. Prynsus and I also have food blog here
3. Blogger continued to have commenting issues and hearing from people is half the fun.  Speaking of which please let me know if comments are causing issues here as well

I have a number of plans for my rants site including some upcoming projects, that will start showing up as pages, linked on the sidebar, and will document my progress. I will also be using the site as a record of my foray into photography as I have acquired a wonderful Pentax K-X.  I have yet to decide whether the photography will be showing up on separate pages or just as entries.  If the site starts turning into a photography blog I may be tempted to move the educational stuff (f-stop, aberrations, etc.) to a wiki documenting my knowledge and understanding regarding photography and optics.  For now 2 blogs and my Ph.D. research will be more than enough.

I have turned over a new leaf, my xbox is getting boxed up tonight and I have yet to play a flash game.  I expect to start making progress with my research and plan to keep this site up to date.  I hope you enjoy.

Stress Advisory: Low

New York!

Dana and I thought our plans for New York had fallen through but last minute they have arrisen from the dead; can I hear a cheer for zombie plans? We leave tomorrow morning and will be there for a week, well we come back Saturday. We will be driving which should be very interesting at about 700kms. I will try and post throught the trip and keep everyone updated, I do intend on trying to post online more often.
I had planned on providing you with a rant on vampires and their apparent fame with young women but I waited too long and vented on facebook. It may appear here if I hear too much more about twilight.

Stress Advisory: LOW

Ponderings

I sit here very relaxed. Those who may know me are currently thinking that this is an impossibility. My moods may range but they are always some form of stress, anxiety, or excitment; essentially any emotion that will have me bouncy off the walls. The last time I was this relaxed I was in Cuba with the sun on my face and my feet in the cold ocean. The only similarity between now and then was the taste of a Cohiba. I am not a smoker nor will I ever become one; however, once every six months or so I want one of my cigars. Sitting there watching the smoke wisp away is the closest thing to meditation I think i can achieve.
The only other times I can honestly say I am not consciously thinking are when I am mountain biking. The subconcious attempts to stay on my bike are sufficient to prevent me from becoming too engrossed in anything else. The ordeals also leave me exhausted and require time to “relax” afterwards.
Why am I so preoccupied? Or better yet, why do I feel the need to occupy my mind with so much stuff? I am a grad student and as such a certain level of preoccupation is expected. I find it nearly impossible to clear my mind. It will always drift to the noise no one else can hear or begin analyzing people around me or the dynamics of the chair I am sitting on. If the peace I find while watching that smoke wisp away is how everyone else relaxes I am beginning to realize why people see me as driven and excitable and I envy them.

P.S. As requested I have tried to get the RSS feed to work. For those of you who have any idea what that previous sentence said you will find the standard icon to the left at the bottom of the menu. It does appear to work with my firefox but I am interested in hearing if it is working for everyone else.

Stress Adivsory: LOW

Procrastination

I have been informed that I in fact am the owner of a blog, and that the responsibility of a blog owner is the creation of entries for said blog. Something else for me to procrastinate over. Some people collect coins, some collect stamps; I collect tasks which require my attention. I think I have a secret desire to feel stressed. Even when I do not have too many tasks to do I simply wait until the ones I have are due. You often hear people say that there are not enough hours in the day to accomplish their tasks. More hours would accomplish nothing for me, I would just find more tasks to put on the ever growing todo list.
As it has been well over a month since my last entry I feel obligated to give a quick run-down on my current situation. I am now back from my exchange and am running in research mode. It has been a bizarre shift for me. I have gone from having too much to do all with severe deadlines to way too much to do with no deadlines. I have wished for this as deadlines are stressful, but now I find it hard because I look at what I have to do and need to sort out the priorities myself. I make elaborate and solid plans of attack; if I could execute these plans I would be the most productive and prolific grad student ever. Instead I spend my time making new plans. As a matter of fact I should this instant be editing a paper. I do vow to return here from time to time, I forget how good it is to actually rant. I will aslo turn on an RSS feed for my next post so that certain people do not have to keep coming here to see if I have posted anew.

Scotts Stress Advisory: LOW

3 Days and Counting

February 28th I went on a hike with a group of international students to Wasson Peak. I almost did not go because I had assignments which needed to be completed but I am very glad I went as I had an absolutely incredible time. It was an 8 mile trip which climbed 2000ft, I was exhausted and sore but it was worth it. To be on the top of that peak and see the view of the surrounding area was perfect. I took a whole series of photos on the trip and posted them over at Picasa in an album (click here, then click on the Wasson Peak album).

See what I mean simply stunning. This was a panoramic I took just as we were reaching the peak. The others are posted in the album I linked to above. Below is the group I went with, they were all alot of fun. We had a really great mix of people from all over the world: USA, Canada, Germany, China, Netherlands, Taiwan, and I believe Korea.

The weekend which just past was relatively uneventful filled mostly with studying. I went for a very short mountain bike ride with a fellow student in one of my classes. Once again I was reminded of the poor state of my cardio. I really need to work on that. Otherwise I pretty much relaxed and studied for one of my upcoming midterms. I pick up a take home exam today which should not be a problem and then have an inclass one on Wednesday. To be honest that Wednesday one terrifies me. Few of us in the course have any idea what is going on; it is one of those classes where the professor just pours stuff on the board without really discussing the inner workings and you simply do not have time to think because your so busy writing. I have been going over my notes and they make absolutely no sense. Sigh, I sense this is going to be painful. The only thing keeping me optimistic for this week is that the completion of that inclass midterm signals the beginning of spring break for me. I will pack that night and at 6:30 Thursday morning I fly back to Ottawa to spend the week at home.
Anyone who wants to meet up next week let me know and we will see what can be arranged. With everything coming up I likely will not be back on here until one of my layovers or I am back home. I hope everyone has a good week, and to those I will be seeing I am looking forward to it.

Stress Advisory: HIGH

I am still alive!

Well it has been awhile since I have been here to update this site and a great deal has happened since I gave a decent update. The last couple weeks have presented me with a cornucopia of assignments which has drastically limited my free time. there are a number of items I wish to address is this particular entry.

• My Birthday
• Spring Break
• Photonics West

First and foremost February 5th was my birthday! For those of you wondering yes it was hard being on my own for my birthday but I will survive. I went out for pizza with my roommate and drank $2.95 pints of Guiness and later bought a cake from the grocery store both of which were perfect. MMMMMMM cake; It was chocolate Oreo and very tasty.

My second point which I wanted to talk about was Spring break, which is rapidly approaching. I had not planned on it but I will be back in Ottawa from March 12th to March 21st. I really could not be away from Dana for that long. I need to recharge and get ready for finals which start in May. I am not sure what my schedule is looking like for that week but if you want to meet up let me know.
For those of you who know, I went to Photonics West in January. This is a optics conference which was held in San Jose. The conference was really good and I got to see some very interesting talks. Before the conference started my supervisor and I took a crazy trip along the California coast which was awesome. I mapped it out at one point and unless I am mistaken we did 700 miles. The crazy part was we had rented a hybrid Nissan Altima and it only used one tank of gas. It was an very nice car to drive. To simplify posting and comments I posted them in an album on the Picasa site, you can find the album here. For those of you who don’t wish to go to another website here is a gorgeous shot of a bridge along the route.

It was an amazing trip with some really great sights. To top it all off we went to Las Vegas for a couple days on our return trip. This was my second time to Vegas and it is a unique experience. I have decided I hate slot machines, the only reason I came out even from Vegas was I decided to play blackjack at a table for the first time and got really lucky. I took some great shots on this leg of the trip and put them into the album at this link. I will leave the Vegas trip off with what I believe to be the best shot of the trip, a sepia image of the Paris Hotel with Ballys to the left.

The last month in which I have silent really has had nothing else to report. I am enjoying my classes, they are harder then I expected but I am learning alot. Tucson is still an awesome place; The temperature reached up to 35 degrees here which is too hot for me, even without the humidity, but it has gotten cooler. Tomorrow I am going on a day long hike with a group into the mountains which should prove to be really interesting. I will bring my camera and keep you all informed. I promise I will try to do better at the updates I am just very easily distracted. For now I must get back to the outrageous number of assignments which require my attention.

Stress Advisory: SEVERE