Day II - End of the Universe

What is an interesting thing to think about if you're a long term thinker?  How about the end of the universe?  Apparently, a new calculation of the amount of entropy in the universe has revealed much higher numbers than originally thought.  Of course the researchers can't put a number yet on when exactly every particle in the universe is around the same energy excitement level, but they assured us that it would be after the sun has done its red giant blossoming thing.

I wonder if this 'heat death scenario' is the same as another end of days theory I've heard about?  It involves the expansion of the universe eventually leading to a point, the 'Big Rip,' where no matter will coalesce and form new stars anymore.  Everything in the universe - stars, planets, moons - will be smeared out to elementary particles just floating in space.  They'll never get back together for a reunion party in a star's core or a planet's crust because everything will be too spread out.  Boring!  Of course before that happens the expansion, which increases, will cause every galaxy to disappear from view.  That's right.  They'll be so far away the light won't reach us.  The only stars will be those in our own galaxy and of course those will be going out as the galaxy evolves and no new ones will form...and it leads to particle butter scraped over too much bread!  

Day I - Falling Snow

I'm from California.  I'm sure you've heard of it.  It's that place that has sunshine nearly every day of the year and where snow only falls high in the mountains.  Specifically, I'm from Sacramento, which is down in a valley.  Snow there is a 30 year or so rarity.  It doesn't rain much there either and so 4 years ago, I moved to Seattle.  And contrary to popular belief, it is not always raining there - it just seems like it does.  Since Seattle is at a higher latitude, I asked locals about snow.  They said it doesn't usually snow.  I guessed then there were winters where it never snowed.  Imagine my surprise when for the next 3 years, not only was there snow but it was so cold that the snow compressed and froze, lingering for a week if not more.  It only snowed once or twice but boy was it beautiful and special.  

Now I'm living in inland Germany.  It is winter and it has been snowing at least a little bit nearly every day for the past month.  Naturally I am rather tired of it by now since it hinders my mobility and makes for depressing walks to the grocery store.  But the snow is still beautiful and special even though it falls every day.  Watching the snow gently come down and cover the local cat's footprints while also coating the trees in white is a daily event.  The pleasure of sipping hot tea and reading a good book is also augmented by the regular precipitation.  It's just so funny to realize that I've seen more snow fall in the past month than I had in my whole life until now.

Outraged

While reading the XKCD for today, I read on the mouseover that NASA pretty much threw in the towel on the Mars rover Spirit.  My best understanding of what has happened is that Spirit got stuck and has been immobile for some time.  NASA now calls it a "stationary research station" and expects dust buildup on the solar panels to eventually force a final shutdown.  Of course, this little rover has been active for 5 years more that it was supposed to be so big kudos to the design gang.  Wanting to get the full story though, I performed a search for 'NASA news' and the first thing to pop up was this.  Obama is canceling the Constellation program!?  I am so pissed right now.  First Bush cans the shuttle program thereby removing any independent method for the US to get people into space, and then this guy cancels funding for the next generation of space-faring craft.  Instead the government will outsource ISS trips to other governments and encourage funding for private sectors to develop spacecraft or some crap like that.  I can understand canceling the shuttles; they're old and we need something new.  But scrapping the new plan is stupid.  Also don't misunderstand me in that I think it's great that other countries are getting to develop their own manned missions.  I'm just angry that we (the US) won't have one anymore.  The article also says that NASA will be encouraged to focus on Earth-based science like "monitoring climate change."  Huh?  Doesn't the government already have somebody (who is already getting funding) doing that?  I suppose the next step would be to shut down satellites that do silly non-climate-change-sciency things.  What does 1/4 of NASA stand for again?  Space.

**Disclaimer after the fact: I apologize for my poorly researched rant.  Should anything I've said not be true, please inform me nicely.

Here is the story about Spirit though.

An Experiment

Recently, I read a post that dealt with being a prolific writer of short stories.  I have had an interest in short stories, largely sci-fi, for some time and have wondered it I may have the ability to put ideas to paper.  The post suggests that in order to prolific one should write a complete story every week.  I don't know if I would even be able to start there, but I do have an idea.  Since I already have a blog, I propose to practice writing here first.  Rachel pointed out that like most things in life, to get better at it one must practice.  I am going to try and write something here every day for 2 weeks.  Even if it is merely me describing the music I'm listening too and what is happening outside my window, I will write it down and work on writing.  This post I read also mentioned that most if not all of one's short stories may never be read.  That's fine by me.  So prepare yourselves.  

Edinburgh, Scotland

It occurs to me that I have never posted any sort of info or news about my trip to Scotland. Shame on me, yes? Rachel and I went to Scotland ummmm.... I'm not quite sure now when but we went there to visit a friend we made from the UW. She had been an exchange student in the physics department and now we were getting to visit her. Needless to say I was quite excited to visit and see a place that I had always wanted to visit. Moreover, they speak English there and it would be nice to be surrounded again by conversation you could understand (if you want to drop some eaves of course). The first experience of Scotland was wet. It was raining and looked simply miserable outside. I loved it. Everything was green, rain was gently falling, the sky was lit but overcast gray...it was beautiful. And then of course there was the sign in 6 languages as you were leaving the airport reminding you to drive on the left side of the road. Ha! Those were the first impressions.

I would have been completely okay if the weather had remained like so for the duration of the trip, even though hiking around Edinburgh would have been wet nastiness.  But the next day let me tell you.  Clear skies, light wind, comfortable outdoor walking temperature and amazingly dry ground!  Let's just say we spent the whole day hiking walking around.  Since it was such a nice day, we decided to hike up Arthur's Seat.  Why it's called that I never really found out but it was quite the hike up a very steep hill and it got windier and windier.  By the time we reached the top, I thought for sure that I would get blown away if I jumped.  From the top, you could see all of Edinburgh and opposite the city, was the sea.  It was the first time seeing the ocean since going to Germany.  It was nice.

There was a ginormous field called the Meadows next to our friend's place and the first thing I thought was frisbee. Oh yes, lots of frisbee could be played here. This picture hardly does it justice since it was about 4 or 5 pictures worth of flat grass.

A store nearby had a wide variety of beers (microbrews!!!) including a ginger beer.  Very crisp and tart.  I couldn't drink it and stuck to my first IPA since coming to Germany.  It was so unlike anything Germany has to offer.  But as you can see, I was more astonished with the Kettle chips!  I couldn't believe.  They are my favorite chip and they were here.  I thought I'd be waiting the whole year to see them again.  Alas no!  Ha.

We visited the Royal Mile which has a very old cathedral that is being renovated.  It was amazing inside.  And though I wish I had more to say about the rest of the mile, I believe we will be visiting again and I'll get to talk more about it since we would like to visit Mary King's Close.

I do apologize for not talking about this sooner and will be better with my next visit which will be in late March and will also include the coastal town of Elgin.