Pahoa

Spent some time in Pahoa over the weekend....

Sleepy Saturday

I've just had the sleepiest day in a long time. Not having coffee helped a lot. Given the observing runs past and future, and how tired I've been lately I think this was a most needed day. At least I got to spend a few hours organizing my chaotic and overly full hard-drives... The pics coming in to Maui last week turned out to be pretty incredible.

Saturn!

Tonight was the dry-run and testing of a new project. It was pretty cool to go looking at a planet. No more stupid dots of light. This one is a big fuzzball.

MacroBug

I love the eyes....

Detector Coming Along!

Sometimes I have to take a walk upstairs and look at the new detector system so I can deal with the pain and suffering of 'purchasing'. I have to know that at the end of the tunnel is a $500k detector system that will rock. I remember in highschool, the year the Music Man burnt down, I had a job as a purchasing clerk with this small company, Excelda, that bottled and packaged various chemicals. I woke up around 5:30, worked at Excelda till 4ish then did the 4-10pm shift at Music Man. Those few summer months sucked. I remember having dreams about alphabetizing folders, waking up thinking "my god, I didn't even escape it in my dreams". I'm almost there again. To buy something with state money requires 5 separate people with titles like "Fiscal Officer" "Administrative Officer" to agree that something meets the requirements for buying it. Who knew that after grad school I would spend less than a quarter of my time actually doing the sciency-type stuff. But then again in these economic times I shouldn't bitch about having to help spend a few million on toys. We've got some good ones coming.....

A or B?

New Website Pictures

Up for Bry and Nikki's Visit and Haleakala Crater Hike

UCSC CfAO / ISEE I-SELT PDP for AMSC & AWI

I know people love acronyms these days but I think Santa Cruz may have lost it. I spent Friday through late Tuesday night preparing for the upcoming Akamai Maui Short Course (AMSC) at the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) Professional Development Program's (PDP) workshop on Inquiry in Science/Engineering Learning and Teaching (I-SELT) jointly run under the Center for Adaptive Optics (CfAO) and the new Institute for Science and Engineering Educators (ISEE) in collaboration with the Akamai Workforce Initiative (AWI). Sick of acronyms yet?

At any rate, it was a great place to learn more about how people learn, how to teach process-skills and to practice (and get feedback on) cirriculum development. I was MC for the final celebration and was "Flava Dave". Lani made me an awesome clock that I couldn't refuse. I'm still sore from grappling with Ryan. Amazing how quickly you lose your skills when you don't train for 2 years and somebody else does....

Haleakala Day 4 - Hiking Out

Bedouin people know what's up. When crossing hot deserts, hike early! We were out of Kapalaoa by 8ish and over at Holua in under 2 hours. Petty amazing shadows and colors. We went in to the lava tube then hiked out switchbacks. 13 big switchbacks and then a ridiculous number of smaller ones. I'd wager we were around 30 miles for the 4 days. Not bad....

Haleakala Day 3 - Kaupo & Leaving Paliku

We hiked down in the morning to 5600ft and got to enjoy the view (though Bradley made it to the Koa at 4700...). We then packed up and walked to the next cabin up at Kapalaoa. Another awesome day!

Haleakala Day 2 - Paliku Hikes

The weather was stunning, the hikes painful but rewarding (even after a stabbed thigh, ripped pants and the sole of a shoe coming off), and the views totally worth it. Isar almost died in the middle of the night but Jill's bag of goodies saved the day. Awesome.

Hiking to Paliku

This morning we hiked the 9.8 miles down from the summit trail head at 9870ft to the cabins at 6380ft. It took most of the day and was insanely scenic. The forecast was for perfect weather and it was. Completely. And this time we had the cabins!

Haleakala Summit

I came over to Maui with Bry and Nikki. I spent the day at work while they chilled and caught up on email. We headed up the summit and got to catch a sunset and some stars.... It was the calm before the hiking storm into the crater.