Last few weeks

On October 23, I viewed the partial solar eclipse through specially made glasses.  It was awesome -- you could see the giant sunspot in the middle of the sun.  Unfortunately, my cell phone picture doesn't do the view justice:

For the Halloween party at work, I made cookies:

For some reason, I didn't take a picture after they came out of the oven!




Last Friday, Terri, Mike, and I went to the Nuggets-Cavaliers game.

A couple pictures shot with my cell phone of Kevin Love and Lebron James:

We had such good seats, I recorded the game to see if you could see us on tv.  You could!  Here I am in the bottom right of the screen adjusting my glasses:

Then here is Kevin Love, Wilson Chandler, Timofey Mozgov, and me:

Finally, here is one of Lebron James, along with Mike, Terri, and me:

Buena Vista

I took a Columbus Day holiday trip to Buena Vista this past weekend.  This was the view from my hotel's parking lot.

Unfortunately, it rained on Sunday, which was the only full day I was there.  So on that day, I went south to Great Sand Dunes National Park, where it wasn't raining (as much). 

 

  

I decided to climb High Dune.  This was the view from down below.

And this is a panorama from atop High Dune.  

Monday morning, I drove back to Boulder.  I liked this scenic view point showing the railroad through the valley.  

More wildlife at work

It appears the cold weather is driving the critters indoors at work.  Yesterday I was sitting at my computer when I noticed a spider crawling on my lap.  The leg span of the thing was about 2".  I looked down, saw it, then jumped up to brush it off me!

Today I was closing up the lab for the weekend when I saw something on the floor move.  It was a baby snake, which I scared into this resting spot:

I didn't see any rattles, but I still didn't want to get bitten, so I got the broom and swept it outside.  Here it is on the way down the hallway:

And here it is coiled up on the mat by the door before I swept it outside:

From what I can find online, this looks like a gopher snake or a bullsnake.

My new bike

New to me, at least. The frame is as old as I am!

Flooding

Luckily I'm in Houston for work right now, so I'm not impacted very much by the flooding in Colorado. Here are some interesting video captures from this video.

Here's a picture of the Mariana Butte golf course my Dad and I played up up in Loveland before Terri's and Mike's wedding:

This is just upstream of where the wedding took place:

The wedding was about 1/8 mile south of here, right next to the river.

Suzy

My parents had to put their dog, Suzy, to sleep today.  She was just over 17 years old.

I remember playing with her as a puppy.  She liked to play tug of war with her rope while moving back and forth.  If you put your hand on the ground as a tummy-tickling obstacle, she'd jump over your hand while still holding the rope in her mouth! 

Suzy loved people.  I've never met a dog that felt as comfortable sitting with people as she did.  She also trusted she wouldn't be dropped, which allowed me to do Circle of Life jokes with her whenever I saw her!

Here are some of my favorite pictures from over the years:

Suzy in the kitchen (her favorite place!)

Me, Suzy, and Emy

Holding Tasha and Suzy at the dog grooming place

Jackson and Suzy at Christmas

Suzy after waking up from a nap

Suzy and Emy from Christmas 2012

Bye Suz.

Tampa

On Sunday, May 5th, I flew to Tampa to install my instrument on the P-3.

Here's a picture of MacDill AFB flying in.  The NOAA hangar is on the far right -- you can see one of the P-3's parked on the tarmac:

The first thing we did when we got there was go to Clearwater Beach.

The work week went smoothly.  Here is a picture of my instrument after I had installed it.  The complicated-looking inlet belongs to the other instrument in my rack.

This is the P-3 we are going to use:

I'll head back to Tampa the week of Memorial Day for test flights.  We are scheduled to transit to Tennessee on June 3rd.