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I took a break from my research on this week to attend a talk in the Ford School of Public Policy by a member of the House of Representatives Committee on Science entitled "The Policy and Politics of Science and Technology on Capitol Hill."  The themes I was able to glean from the obscuring jargon were disheartening at best and very scary at worst.  (I realized that my attending a lecture from a politician is probably like a layperson listening to a scientist speak in his field--every point seems to be made more complicated by the language, without conveying much more information!) 

Describing the ins and outs of the federal budget process, the speaker snaked together the circumstances that lead eventually to a result that most members of the audience knew all too well:  the 2008 budget has slashed funding in almost all areas of basic science.  This devastating spending plan was passed despite the growing realization from scientists and business leaders that the United States is in real danger of falling off our pedestal as the World's leader in science and technological pursuits.  This sentiment was expressed resoundingly in the National Academy of Science Report "Rising Above the Gathering Storm," released last year and available free online (all 592 pages are online, but the first ~20 are the "Executive Summary" and are worth reading, if you're interested).  

The importance of this report was seemingly not lost on the Congress or the President (don't look now but some Bush praise is on its way!) who drafted the "America Competes Act" and the "American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI)" respectively.  The two documents are similar, as both called for, among other things, a doubling of funding over the next ten years for "innovation-enabling research at key Federal agencies that support high-leverage fields of physical science and engineering" including "National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, and the National Institute for Standards and Technology."  It was only five months ago that Bush signed ACA into law, and as you can imagine, we are not likely to meet the goals set forth therein.

I am, of course, biased in my zeal for funding support in the sciences.  And, maybe with the current turmoil of failed wars, criminal negligence in banking, and ailing healthcare programs (to name a few) there isn't much left over for academic research at the moment.  However, despite my political ignorance I do understand that getting "back on track" with programs like the ACI after a blow like this will be nearly impossible.  Despite following the primary races quite closely, I have not heard any of the future presidential candidates address these issues directly.  While the impacts of this deceased scientific support may not be felt outside of academia this fiscal year, these budget failures put our Country on a scary and dangerous path.  

More info and links:

• National Academies Press, search for "Rising Above the Gathering Storm"
• American Physics Society Press Release
• American Institute of Physics detailing cuts across each disciple
• Summary of the America Competes Act
• The America Competes Initiative
• Email your Congressmen with these pre-written letters of concern

First things first: despite the dearth of postings, I am happy and healthy and doing well. I have completed my first year of grad school, begun what I hope will be a productive summer of research in a new lab, and spent much the last few months traveling around the country for work and pleasure, including the trip to San Diego to see my brother and friends and another trip to San Francisco/Livermore for a physics conference. More recently I enjoyed the spectacle that is the Kentucky Derby, caught a Sox game at Fenway, enjoyed a weekend at home, and showed friends from Boston around Ann Arbor, which amazingly I have now called home for a full year.

As anticlimactic as this might be, I'll be honest--this post is really just a test to see that I have everything properly set up on my new computer (MacBook Pro, sweet machine!) and though I have pictures from all of the aforementioned events, they won't be up for another few days. Breaking the posting drought is good, though; thanks to all who've been hassling me to post new pictures, it's nice to hear. Happy Memorial Day!

Hitch-hiking in Scotland in the fall of 2003 introduced me to some truly fascinating characters. I rode with a young couple with little babies, a grandmother with her grandson, an off duty police officer, a pair of British scientists setting out to climb a mountain, and a pair of high school kids who'd already scaled most of the Bens in the Highlands. All of these were interesting, but still the most memorable conversations came early in the mornings with the old local men out on their daily rounds, having woken up with the sun for the last 60 years and interested on that particular day to find a young American already up and hiking his way along their little farm town roads.

Many of these farmers had never left Scotland, or maybe had visited family in London, but often no further. They listened eagerly to my stories of travel around Europe (I was but a European traveler at that point!) and were always impressed at how far I'd gotten as a "wee young lad." One old farmer, though, had a much different take. "You're a damn fool!" he said. I wasn't sure if he was going to lecture me on the dangers of hitch hiking, or have to listen to how I was going to get sick from sleeping out in the rain--both things I often heard from the old women--but rarely from the grizzled old men. "Why would you ever leave your own country?" he asked. "You have everything there: from forests to mountains to oceans, plains, and deserts, you could spend your life traveling the United States and never see all the natural beauty of the country." It hadn't struck me before that, but it's true: for sheer diversity of outdoor wonders, the US is second to none.

While it's legendary urban sprawl is far from a "natural wonder," this week I expand my domestic travels to include the great state of California.
International travel has an undeniable allure to it, but there is so much in our own Country, too. This is the first time I've seen the Pacific from US soil, and I'll certainly snap a few touristy pictures of the San Diego zoo and the bustle that is Hollywood (Muir Woods and the Golden Gate will have to wait for next time). I'm sure the same thing could be said about this state as the old man commented about the US--one could spend a lifetime and not see it all--but even with only a few days to explore, it will still be nice to finally be able to say I've been to Cali.

That's not an overnight low, that was at 8:00 this morning when I left the house. I have always maintained that if the sun is out one can bundle up against even the coldest temperatures, but the new caveat is that no degree of bundling will prevent one's eyes from freezing when trying to bike into the wind!



As would be any reasonable person's reaction to these conditions, I've booked the better part of my spring break for a visit to someplace warm, namely San Diego to visit my brother and friends. Until then I'll be busy in my new lab (I've changed from curing cancer to developing inexhaustible clean energy; this should be figured out by the end of the semester :) and trying to keep up with classes. This is not as overwhelming as last semester when I had nearly no free time, but still the break at the end of February will be nice, if for no other reason than I won't have to cover every inch of skin with several layers to walk as far as the mailbox....

From my jubilant first steps out of the gate at Tocumen International to the melancholy departure from the same place, every moment of my winter break trip to Panama was an adventure. Using Panama City and David (the second largest city, though still dwarfed by the frantic Capitol) as hubs, we crossed the country from East to West and North to South in our far-too-short 14 days.

After the necessary (and fascinating!) stop at the Canal we headed out of the City and into the mountains to the town of Cerro Punta. After meeting up with a pair of friends we loaded our groceries into a 4x4 for the journey into the cloud forest, where we prepared Christmas dinner by candlelight--a feast of fruits and cheeses, pasta salad, mixed veggies, and the tough to cook, tough to eat, gallina de patio (free range chicken). The next day was a hike through the lush rain forests in Volcan Baru National Park to the mountain town of Boquete, where Angela and I indulged our mutual love of coffee at the Kotowa coffee plantation. The long-lived coffee plants have been passed between three generations and the high altitude and cloudy conditions of the area produce arguably some the world's best java.

From Boquete we headed to the site where Angela has been placed by the Peace Corps and will spend the next year and a half. The village of Los Pocitos is on the Pacific Ocean where several species of turtles lay their eggs, and where she will focus her conservation efforts. Though no turtles would be hatching while I was visiting, the oceans still proved to be quite alive and we were treated to an afternoon of swimming with dozens of large rays that were playing in the waves with us. After a few relaxing days we again headed north again, this time over the mountains and out to the island town of Bocas del Toro, on Isla Colon. A few dives revealed some beautiful sea life, including pods of squid, a moray eel, several lobsters and crabs, and even a large nurse shark who has taken up residence under the hull of a sunken wreck.

The first day of the new year found us on a bus headed back to Panama City, but we wasted no time escaping the dirt and noise of the city by hopping a boat for Isla Taboga, or Isla de las Flores (Island of Flowers). Once a favorite haunt of many famous pirates, the island is now a day-trip destination for Panamanians and was a great place for us to enjoy a few more sunny days before the University so hastily drew me back stateside.

It was an intense two week trip--maybe as much so as the preceding two weeks that were final exams--and one that left me with some amazing Christmas-time memories. I hope to write up a few more stories and add some more pictures (check out the photo map for the first set) but now, for better or worse, its back to classes for me. Happy New Year.

Last week, all faculty, staff, and students at the University of Michigan received an email from the administration of the University. Contained within were the following tips for having at "safe and positive experience this weekend":


The event in Columbus is, of course, this weekend's Michigan-Ohio State game, unquestionably the biggest of the college football regular season. Aside from being the biggest rivalry in sports (arguably! I am still a loyal Bostonian at heart...) this Saturday's game is a matchup between the Nation's top two teams, the winner being assured a spot in the National Championship game (and the loser still having a shot at a rematch--these two are the teams best by far). So, while I'm certainly cheering for a Michigan victory, I'm also hoping my friends make it back from enemy territory in one piece! Go Blue!

Going a month between posts has stretched to two, but it's not for dearth of good intention. With one half of my first semester behind me I can say that classes have been much as I expected--overwhelmingly time consuming, academically challenging to a degree that I never experienced in undergrad, and tremendously effective at creating bonds between myself and the classmates enduring these experiences with me. Since the day classes began I haven't had a moment without an assignment to do, leaving me in a state of constant anxiousness and at times anxiety, and really highlighting the importance of striking a balance between the important things in my life (namely, finding time interspersed in the schoolwork for sleeping, eating, trying to keep some touch with family and friends, and leaving my desk to move around long enough to keep my body from atrophying and getting sick). It has been a trial-by-fire adjustment after a relaxed summer, but with my first round of exams behind me (some successes and some failures, but well enough to be invited back for another semester) I am finally fully in the swing of things. While it'll be at least May before my course work eases up, I do have one amazing trip to look forward to between now and then.

Like Northeastern, Michigan gives us a very short Winter Break, but I am excited to be spending 110% of it (leaving six hours after exams and getting back the day after classes start) enjoying the equatorial warmth of Panama with my girlfriend Angela. As I labor with classes she is in the Peace Corps, learning to Spanish, teach English, and protect several species of Sea Turtles that nest on the beaches of Chiriqui Provence, on the country's western end. Our potential itinerary is dense, but if we are able to do even half of it it will be an amazing trip:

Dec 22 - 9:45 PM arrival to Panama City

• 23 - day in the city, visit Casco Viejo (the Old City), Panama Canal
• 24 - flight to David, visit the site, beaches
• 25 - Stay in Las Olas, a hotel on the beach
• 26 - Boquete, tour a coffee farm
• 27 - Hike the volcano, Volcan Baru
• 28 - Travel to Santa Catalina (best surfing beach in Panama)
• 29 - Dive Isla Coiba
• 30 - Visit Santa Fé in the mountains
• 31 - Back to Panama City or head back to Bocas del Toro (Caribbean side)
• Jan 01 - Early flight to the Islas Kuna Yala (Caribbean side) or Bocas
• 02 - Dive a wreck in the islands or Bocas - there's diving in Bocas, too
• 03 - Back to Panama City - fly back if in Bocas
• 04 - 8:30 AM departure

To be honest I don't expect my wake up-work-class-eat-work-class-work-sleep-repeat daily routine to change much before Christmas, so barring something particularly noteworthy, check back here in early January for pictures from my first foray to Central America!

Like writing to an old friend who you haven't spoken to in a long time, I don't know where to start. I have had an amazing first summer here in Ann Arbor, so much so that I haven't slowed down enough to sit and write anything about it, but that is really indicative of how busy it's been. To compensate for my month-long negligence in posting anything new, here is a short list of some of the highlights:

• Moved into a new apartment, and since have biked countless miles around Ann Arbor acquiring "stuff" for this apartment.
• Saw Roger Clemens, former Red Sox great, pitch at Comerica Park in this, his last season in the Majors.
• Enjoyed a beautiful weekend at a friend's cabin on the shores of Lake Michigan. It was very counter-intuitive to be at "the ocean" but not taste salt or experience the buoyancy I have come to expect from any body of water than I can't see across!
• Went fishing in the Huron River with my brother, who stopped by on his way through to San Diego. It was one of the very few times that my hands smelled like fish at the end of the day and his didn't!
• Won a "haggis toss for distance" competition among my friends at a local Highland Games. This guy was there.
• Had staples inserted into my head to close a laceration from a soccer game. Have since had them removed, but not before breaking the foot of the guy who gave me the cut.
• Hosted friends from CT who were crazy enough to drive the 750 miles through Canada to visit me for a long weekend. Thanks guys!
• Attended the first of many Michigan Wolverines football games at the Big House, a 27-10 victory over Vanderbilt. As if I needed another tantalizingly-good-but-not-quite-there team to cheer for!
• Woke up at 3:30 AM to meet six other maniacs in a park to begin the 9-hour smoking of 25+ pounds of meat, highlighted by a dry-rub brisket, in a homemade smoker. The meal was served to nearly 40 as a Labor Day/End of Summer celebration/mourning.
• Registered for what will almost certainly be the most difficult classes of my life. They begin tomorrow.

As summer winds down I have been hearing ominous warnings about both the strenuousness of classes and the bitterness about the winter, but I am really only scared of one of those things. Flipping through my newly-acquired textbooks, it has started to come back to me what it is like to be in classes, but I'm sure any memories that have faded will come rushing back to me in Applied Quantum Mechanics at 8:30 tomorrow morning. It has been well over a year since I have taken a Physics course, but in addition to the trepidation, I am excited. I don't promise that that excitement will shine through in the posts that I put up here between now and the end of the semester, but I feel like I feel like with Applied Physics at Michigan I am doing the right thing for me in the right place, and am ready to start this next part of my life. As for the cold weather, you can probably tell from above list that the end of summer might be the best thing to happen to me if I'm going to make it though these studies!

(A note: My friend Dan (in the cowboy hat with crutches in the 'homemade smoker' pic) did actually break his foot, but it wasn't really me who broke it. He did really elbow me in the head, though--glad we'll be on the same intermural "Team Physics" soccer squad... don't laugh, we're a good team!)

(Disclaimer: There is some of web design mumbo jumbo in this post, so if you want to skip to the cool part, here it is.)
Always looking for new ways to show photos, I've borrowed a cool Interactive Map from a New Zealand web designer, Grant Robinson. As my still-meager web design skills have improved my photo galleries haven't always kept up with the look of the site, and I've been planning on giving them all a big makeover, rewriting them with xml, probably using spry. This is project is Flash-based alternative though, and in addition to looking cool it uses flickr.com's API availability to dynamically loads all appropriately geotagged photos, which makes updates very simple. If you haven't found flickr for web-based photo hosting check them out: it's very innovative, easy to use, powerful, and free!

As for the map, I'm not sure how many photo sets I'm going to put on it... things are going to get crowded around Europe and the Middle East. Most of these photos have made it up on here somewhere else previous to this, the exception being the Arizona set from a trip I took back in May and never figured out how i wanted to display. So, let me know what you think of those and especially let me know if it doesn't work on your computer--I think it dislikes Internet Explorer, though I doubt more so than I do.

Congratulations to my brother, who this week made good on his long-standing threat to my mom that he would one day have his dream car, a Mitsubishi Evolution 9. Most people who i've mentioned it to know it only from the racing game Gran Turismo, which is pretty appropriate for this car. I'll have to wait a while to see it, but if you can catch up to him (yes, pun intended) ask him for a ride... it's has to be quieter than his old car, but it'll still be hard to miss.

Click the picture for a clip from Top Gear, an awesome British car show.