One of the many cool gifts my aunt and uncle got me for Christmas was a banana slicer. I eat a lot of bananas but usually it's straight out of my lunch box or shoved into a blender. This morning however, I was tired of having oatmeal for breakfast and decided on yogurt with blueberries. As I went to prepare it, I saw my bananas, hanging there on their little banana hanger and decided I would add one of those too. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the banana slicer sitting on my cutting board atop the microwave. Hmmm.
(complete with pieces of banana)
I peeled the banana, laid the banana slicer over it and pressed down. As I picked it up, the slices stayed in the slicer. I held it over my bowl of yogurt and easily poked all the pieces out into the bowl. BAM. Sliced bananas in my bowl. I was so excited I had to text my aunt right away. I was nice enough to check my watch first though.
Another cool gift they got me was a personal weather station. I just moved into a tiny apartment in a big city and they're pretty strict about putting things outside and there really wasn't a place where I could put it where it wouldn't get vandalized or stolen. After making a major break-through at my lab, the lab director sent me an email telling me I rock. I responded, "Since I totally rock, can I put the weather station my aunt got me for Christmas up on the roof?" He said I could.
So, one foggy morning I set about assembling and mounting my new weather station.
After getting it all put together, I went up to the lab to figure out how to mount this thing. Since I'm an early bird and most people aren't, I was the only one in the lab. I looked around for tools, selected a few and then headed up to the roof.
There was just no good way to go about this. The instruments up on the roof send data out to the internet and weather agencies...it's serious stuff. I didn't want to block or affect anything up there but was having a really hard time finding a good place to mount it. Since the building is concrete, I needed my weather station in line-of-sight to the window of the grad room (2 stories down). There was an old mount up there not in use that I decided was as close as I could get without having to drill holes in a metal rail. The problem of course, was that my weather station and the old mounting bracket were incompatible. So I used zip ties.
I know, right? Pretty janky. It's supposed to be level by the way. I didn't know what else to do and had to get to class, so I put the tools away and decided it was good enough. At least I had accomplished line of sight.
Apparently the lab director brought a class up to the roof to show them the weather observatory and my weather station was a topic of some discussion. I mean, you can see how terribly it's mounted and it's got a Bass Pro Shop emblem on it. He told me I had to do a better job mounting it and that I could go ahead and drill some holes up there. I was surprised. I'm allowed to drill holes up on the rooftop observatory of a university? Super cool. See, I live here.
So I did. Drilling holes in a metal railing takes quite a bit of time. I should've gotten a pic of it when it was done but when I finally brought my camera back with me to school, it was raining. I don't really need to be on the roof in the rain. I'll get a pic eventually. Anyway, it looks great.
The receiver sits on my desk in the grad room and I stare at it while I'm suppose to be studying. I set the atmospheric pressure to hecto-pascals (hPa) instead of inches of mercury (in.Hg) to ready myself for the technical meteorology world. I sit and watch the changes in pressure and temperature and watch to see if the wind gusts beat out the high from the last 90 seconds. Yesterday I changed the temperature to Celsius so I can start relating to that as well. A lot of times in meteorology they talk in terms of Celsius since that's what the rest of the world uses. In a lab discussion earlier this week I was totally lost since I really don't think in Celsius.
While pretending to study for my meteorology exam yesterday, I stared at the receiver trying to relate to Celsius. I came to this conclusion: when it is 21 C in the room, I am unable to decide whether or not to wear my jacket. Outside in the rain and wind, it was 19 C. So in 19 C with wind and rain, I would definitely have to wear a coat (Temperature gauges are unable to measure wind chill. Wind chill is a perceived temperature.) but would not freeze. Also, normal sea level atmospheric pressure is 1013.25 hPa. Yesterday while "studying" for meteorology, it got down to 1004 hPa. High pressure generally brings good weather, while lows generally bring "bad weather". It was rainy yesterday, very windy. The highest gust while I was sitting there was 22 mph. I have yet to adjust that to meters/sec as that's a whole 'nother adjustment for my brain.
So there's that. Also, I have torn my hamstring....surfing. Grade 2, bordering on a grade 1. What does all that mean? It means while I have suffered an actual tear in my muscle, it was not totally separated, which would have been really bad. The doc said he would've given me a cane to walk with but that he thought I'd be feeling better (at least well enough to walk) in just a few days. I was a little skeptical since walking was extremely difficult and painful, but he was right. The first two days were awful and I wasn't able to tolerate much other than sitting on the couch with an ice pack.
On the third morning I got up and did some very light stretching of the hamstring and then heavier stretching of my hip muscles that were all spasming trying to protect the hamstring. That helped with walking immensely. Today is day 9 post-injury and it's coming along very well. I am now able to walk fairly normally but with a shortened stride. No speed-walking to class, that's for sure. I also have gotten on the stationary bicycle two days in a row now (and twice yesterday) at a very low level and it actually made it feel better, not worse. Next week I'll try a slow, shuffling jog. One of my main limiting factors right now is my range of motion, and the reach of my extended leg is not that far, so an actual running stance, or even a speed-walk stride would be a terrible idea right now. The other limiting factor is my ability to tolerate what's called an eccentric stretch. Basically a stretch under a load, like my body weight. The hamstring endures a lot of stretching under load (heel strike during a run for example). So it's contracting while being "pulled apart". Imagine doing that to a rubber band. It's one of the main reasons the hamstring is injured so often in sports. Right now, stretching my hamstrings while standing (bending over and reaching for toes) isn't tolerable, but a seated stretch is. The seated stretch is a pure stretch, not having to support the load of my body.
Little Charlotte celebrated her first birthday on February 21st, so I flew down to San Diego to celebrate it.
She's walking (running) now and saying a few words. Unlike with Emily, I haven't been around her constantly so she experiences a bit of "stranger danger" with me whenever I go see her again. By the time she adjusts to me, it's time for me to go home. It's pretty sad to have her not recognize me like Emily did at that age. I hope I can be around her enough that she'll learn to recognize me more.
On the night of her birthday, we had a small cake and let her tear it apart. It was so adorable. She annihilated that cake.
We cut a slice off for dad, and then Charlotte, mom, and I gathered together to do some damage. It was delicious cake.
The next day we had a bigger party at Lake Murray and friends and extended family showed up.
Halfway through the day, I switched to taking photos with Candace's camera so they could have photos of the day, so that's about all I have for that one. It was good to be home again in San Diego and I can't wait until I'm back down there for good.
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