Odds and Ends

Thursday at work, Sara spotted this moth outside of our building, so I took a picture of it.


As far as I can tell, it is some sort of hawk moth, part of the Sphingidae family (meaning Sphinx).

I spent most of my weekend at home doing various things (including watching the end of the Tour de France). The stage that determined the winner of the yellow jersey took place in Grenoble, so I went back and looked through pictures I took last August when I was there. The finish line was to the right of the bend in the river:


Julie's place is somewhere in the distance, close to the route leading to the finish.

Today, while walking back home from the grocery store, I stopped by our local pupuserie for some pupusas.


Pupusas are an El Salvadorian food made with thick corn tortillas, which taste really good. These had cheese and zucchini inside.

Testing my knee

I tweaked my knee moving heavy crates while unloading a truck from the field project. I tested it out by riding up (and down) hills on my bike. Today I went over Davidson Mesa (the imposing hill in Louisville between me and Boulder) a couple times.


Before I went down the other side (just before 2.5 miles), I took this picture:

Back in Colorado

I got back to Colorado last Tuesday. After a few days of taking instrument racks off the plane and loading and unloading trucks, the CalNex field project is finally over.

Two things that struck me about Colorado: how clearly one can see the mountains (less smog) and how green it is.

For example, here is a picture of Ontario I took from the P-3:


and one of the Flatirons from the NOAA parking lot:



Today, I took a short bike ride through the north Louisville Open Space.


I rode mainly so I could take these pictures of the Boulder Valley:

First bike ride of the year

I rode with Sara and Rich from Louisville to the Boulder Farmer's Market this morning, where we met up with friends of ours, Josh and James. I snacked on the vendors' offerings before settling on tamales for lunch. We had some chai at the Dushanbe Teahouse, then headed back home.

UPDATE: Josh (front left) took this picture of us at the Dushanbe Teahouse. Clockwise from him are Rich, Sara, James, and me.

Weekend Recap

Friday evening I again rode my bike to Louisville, this time for the Louisville Street Faire. I took the northern route this time to avoid the big hill. I met up with Sara, Lenore and Rich in front of the band stage.


Saturday, I went for a bike ride with Sara. Here's a bird I saw during the ride. The winds were pretty strong, and this bird of prey was hovering about twenty feet off the ground. Its wings and body would adjust with the wind to keep its head perfectly still.

Saturday night I went to a friend from NOAA Jessica's party. My friend John from work was also there, as well as a dozen or so of Jessica's friends.

Today, Rich, Sara, and Lenore rode down from Louisville to meet Ilana and me in Boulder. Ilana works at NCAR, which is how she knows Rich and Sara, and she interviewed with my boss this past week for a post-doc position.
The five of us rode around town and stopped for lunch at Lucky's Cafe in North Boulder.

And finally, tonight I thought the moon and clouds looked cool, so I tried to capture the coolness:

Tennis, biking, and dinner

No pictures today because I didn't bring my camera with me.

This morning I played tennis with my boss's mother, who is a top-ten-ranked 75+ yr. old woman in the world. We played with another co-worker of mine (and one of three people I regularly play tennis with throughout the summer), Ken. We weren't able to find a fourth for doubles, so we rotated and played one vs. two. She was quite good, and we had a competitive match. Afterwards, we went to my boss's house for brunch.

After brunch, I went for a bike ride up to Louisville and back. The wind pattern was such that it took me longer to go down the hill than up; I rode home into a steady 20 mph wind, with gusts that would nearly bring me to a halt.

I made up for the extra workout with a big dinner. Steve, a graduate student at Georgia Tech during my time there, just got into town this evening. He, John, and I met up for dinner at a sports bar to watch the Celtics-Lakers (Steve is from New England) and the Cubs game (John is from Chicago).

Boulder 360

On Sunday, Rich, Lenore, Sara, Sean and I did the Boulder 360 (degrees, not miles), a bike tour around the city of Boulder. We started on the eastern side, picked up Sean a quarter of the way around, stopped at Pearl Street for burritos at Illegal Pete's, then finished with the Boulder 180 route to the south. But that wasn't all! After Lenore went home, the rest of us biked over to Superior, then up to Louisville for some vegan ice cream before Sean and I headed back to Boulder. All in all, I probably rode around 43 miles yesterday. I'm considering getting a road bike -- probably after I move this summer. Anyways, here we all are at the end of the 360:

Sunday Bike Ride

Today I went on a 33-mile bike ride. I started off by riding up to Louisville to meet Sara and Rich. Here's a picture from the top of the hill looking back at Boulder:



The three of us rode down to Superior to meet Lenore, and then we explored the Coal Creek bike path. Here's a view of the front range from the path:



Here's a picture of Rich taking a picture of Sara:



And a picture of Lenore patiently waiting for Rich and I to finish taking pictures:



We had a nice lunch in downtown Louisville, but afterwards Rich discovered he had a flat tire. I looked at my tires and noticed I had a #$%!@ goathead in my tire. I had no idea what these things were until I moved out West. Luckily it was jammed in there so well that my tire didn't leak until I got home and took it out. Here's a picture of the culprit:



Oh yeah, and one last thing. One might think I'd be rewarded for my troubles this morning riding up that hill to Louisville, right? Well, on my way home, I rode directly into a stiff headwind. I didn't even need to use my brakes going down that hill because my body was like a human parachute slowing my descent!