Sailing, camping, riding, and broken bikes - Austin

An event-filled weekend road-trip started Friday with a 180 mile ride up 290 with Chris (proud owner of a sweet Ducati 750 Monster) to Lake Travis just outside Austin. April and her dad had a two-day sailing race from the Austin Yacht Club, and a whole group of people went along and made it a fun two days of camping and hanging out on the lake. About 30 miles from Austin, though, the weekend took a decidedly bad turn before it even got started when a guy in a pickup knocked my bike over in a Dairy Queen parking lot. I have no idea how he did't see it, but at least he was helpful and nice, and paid for the minimum repairs it needed to be road-worthy so I could at least finish the trip to Austin. Even though the damage doesn't show up so well in the pics, it'll probably be about a grand in repairs when I can get it into a shop, so he gave me his insurance information and a sincere apology. It certainly made me feel better - what would I have done if he were a complete jerk, or just simply left the scene? The left turn signal was ripped off, front air intake broken, fairing bent and cracked, windscreen support bent, windscreen split, mirrors bent, and one sticking straight up in the air. I could have ridden it, but pieces were literally falling off. It's nice he paid for the immediate repairs and was so helpful about everything. Still, my bike was (and still is) all kinds of messed up and it's just going to be a headache getting the insurance crap all sorted out.

But back to the weekend. Friday night was too hot to get much sleep (at least for an insomniac like me) and left me too tired Saturday to get down to Devil's backbone (about halfway to San Antonio - not insignificant on my quite-uncomfortable sportbike seat) where the roads seem custom made for motorcycles. So Chris and I explored some of the roads between Friday's and Saturday's camp grounds, and found that Lime Creek road is one fo the best in the area. Take a close look at the local map to get an idea of just how insanely winding that road is, with its multiple 15mph curves and fantastic hills. Egads, I want to live in Austin!

Saturday night brought a pretty good storm, soaking a bunch of stuff in the tents thanks to the crazy changes in the wind's direction. At one point I thought the stakes weren't going to hold the wind was so strong. So after another near-sleepless night in the tent and looking at nearly 200 miles back to Houston that evening, the day's ride was a modest 60 mile round-trip to marble falls along 1431 - another great road if there's no traffic. All in all, the weekend was a good time, and I'd do it again, though with a couple of key changes. April and her dad came in 2nd both days, so there's a good chance that they won the overall race, though we're not sure. I'll be sure to update about getting my bike fixed, and post some pics of the weekend soon.

Social and Science Update

Egads, it's been another long while since I've updated this thing. At least it's not completely defunct yet, I suppose. So this weekend was just about completely full of fun. I actually don't know if the laws of phunsics allows for a higher concentration of joviality. The highlights were a 250 mile ride up past Navasota with Chris on Saturday, a bar-hopping night out that evening for Christina's birthday with a bunch of BioEs, and a big 'ol grill and chill event around the pool with many of the same people (and many other people as well) as the previous evening. Sunday's grilling event saw nearly 25 burgers, pounds of chicken and other meats, various veggies, and two or so cases of beer consumed in the four plus hours that people mingled. The grilling and chilling groups pretty much stayed by their respective areas, with the un-heated jacuzzi providing a base for most with bathing suits, except for the rare emergence prompted by the sultry scents wafting off the grills. (We actually had 2 going simultaneously by the end.) It was a complete success, if I do say so myself, though I'll probably do things a little differently next time - and not for another month or so I'd wager.

In other news, this month's issue of National Geographic Magazine has a decent-sized article on nanotechnology. This is pretty cool since it's what I study, but made even better (for me, at least) by the fact that it focuses a lot of attention to work done here at Rice University. There are a bunch of faculty and a few grad students mentioned, and my work on nanocars is even mentioned briefly, with one of my images appearing thumbnail-sized in a little blurb. So please allow me a moment to be excited that my name even appears in print in National Geographic - albeit as a photo-credit in really tiny print at the bottom of the page - before pointing out that no one ever reads those names. Next step - getting my name in full-sized text.

Research Update

Things are going so incredibly slowly in my research efforts, mainly due to my dosing valve. Basically I have to get some rather fragile (can't sublimate) molecules onto a surface from a solution, but I want to keep the surface as clean as possible in the meantime. For this, I want to deposit the molecules in a high vacuum environment. What I've been doing up to this point is to use a valve with a tiny orifice that is electronically actuated and capable of fully opening and closing in fewer than 5 miliseconds. This has succeeded so far in keeping my substrate much cleaner than when depositing in air. The problem now is that the valve isn't closing properly after I dose the solution. What this means is two-fold. First, the pressure in the prep chamber is much higher than is should be, getting the surface dirty and basically negating the benefits of using the valve in the first place. Second, if the pressure doesn't get back down to low enough pressures, I can't put my sample back into the UHV chamber to scan, meaning I have a brand new sample that I can't get to the microscope. AAARGH!! Like a steering wheel in a pirate's pants, it's drivin' me nuts. Pretty soon I'm going to have to go back to depositing in air and looking for a cleaner solvent. Of course, we've ordered a new valve that won't get here for another 5 weeks, but if it's not working now, why should a new one work any longer than this one did? Basically I have to devise a completely new way of depositing these molecules (nanocars, dimers, and a ton of other molecules the Tour lab has synthesized) in a high vacuum environment. It would be helpful to have a proper prep chamber, but we're talking over a hundred grand, easily, and probably a month's work to attach an entirely new section to the UHV chamber. All this means I'm getting really skeptical about my ability to get enough quality data to graduate in a year. Horseshit. I'm just going to have to work my ass off.

Emily's Graduated!

Congratulations to my little sister, who, I must add, is finished with school at least an entire year before her big brother!

It was great to see everyone this weekend - Mom, Joel, sister, bro and his girlfriend - for a family get-together in Syracuse, albeit a very short one. There was lots of driving and little sleeping, but it was all for the best, since I haven't seen everyone since December, and don't know when I'll see everyone together again, at least till next December (I hope.) I can't believe that my little baby sister is all grown up, going out into the real world to find her place of prominence. I know she'll do fantastically at whatever she decides to do, but I'm not without a little brotherly concern for all the changes and challenges she's about to come up against. Knowing her, though, she'll breeze through them all and make my worries look absolutely silly in hindsight. Congratulations, Emily, and good luck in LA!

I miss you, Dad. Same today as every day, just more pronounced. Six years seems like a day, sometimes.

Another day older

Heck, another year older, if you think people only age when their birthdays come around. No specific milestone this year, no nice, convenient numbers involved, (last year I turned 25 (5*5) on 5/5/5 - how cool is that) but it sure was nice weather this morning. Nothing out of the ordinary today, just a normal work day, but I'll probably go out with a few friends tonight - starting at Valhalla around 8 and probably moving to Volcano and maybe Brian O'neal's after that. If that's anywhere near you, come on out and help me celebrate another year in the life of me!

Weekend Ride

I finally got out of the city for a decent weekend ride again. I don't think I've done that in over a year! Even though it was only about 200 miles, it was still a good time. I really need to do that more often.

Jonah and I didn't start til nearly noon, so I was worried about the heat. Luckily, it was incredibly comfortable riding weather till the last half of the ride back, when even 80mph winds couldn't keep me cool. The map shows our approximate route, since at that scale the smaller roads aren't visible on the map. Green is for gas stops and blue is where we had lunch in Montgomery. I can't believe the difference that highway driving makes for my gas mileage. Even with the last fifteen miles being in the city, I got about 50% better mileage out of the last half of the ride than I normally do in day-to-day riding.

We detoured along a new road to test it out, but it ended up about 8 miles of gravel after the first half mile of pavement. Bad news for bikes. Even so, it was fun, if a little nerve-wracking, and we made it the entire day without any incidents.

As usual, click on the pics for larger versions.