beccastareyes

Bit restless today. I spent about and hour or two getting my code to work, so now I'm at the stage of 'five minutes of tweaking my code, thirty of letting it run'. It's a lot like my old job observing galaxies at the UNL Student Observatory, located on a parking garage next to scenic Memorial Stadium, home of the Cornhusker Marching Band (and the football team, I guess). There, after setting up the night's run, it was thirty minutes of telling the telescope to stare at a galaxy, then five minutes to check things and set up the next picture. Thank god for the heated control room, with an internet connection on the non-telescope computer, and my observing partner, who brought her laptop and DVDs. (That's where I saw Pirates of the Caribbean.)

Speaking of sports, the Cornell Men's Basketball team made it to the Sweet 16 (that's the college basketball regional semifinals) this year before losing. It's the best the team has ever done -- even making the playoffs is a Big Deal for Cornell. Anyway, apparently there was a big gathering on campus for their homecoming today, with the VP making speeches and signs and all that -- you'd think we won.

I can't seem to get the hang of posting on one topic. Oh, well.

I played softball today. We had a grand total of six people show up, and we got our butts kicked. Though not as badly as we could. I still am batting 0.000, unless you count the time I got on second by fielding error. (League rules is if the opposing team throws the ball out of bounds, you can advance one extra base -- mostly to cover situations where the ball gets thrown into the bushes and it takes a bit to retrieve.) On the other hand, I'm getting better at fielding -- I managed to hold one to a double. I'm still hindered by my inability to throw hard enough to get it to the infield.

So, question for you all, blog. So, over on Bad Astronomy, Phil Plait posts a quote from Buzz Aldrin, where Buzz says that the unrealistic expectations created by science fiction makes people less interested in the real accomplishments of the space program. Phil disagreed -- he thinks that science fiction spurs us on and inspires us.

I'm biased -- I was a space nut before I learned how to tell SF from horror. Every time I saw the crew of the Enterprise beaming down to a planet, or read novels about imaginary moon colonies, I wanted to work all that more to go there. Or at least learn as much as I could about the real thing.

So, what do you all think?

So, the intramural softball season has started. The astronomy department always fields a team -- the Big Bangers. Our cheer goes like this: "Who bangs big? Big Bangers!". Because we're all secretly twelve. (The name predates most of the people on the team). Traditionally, it's mostly run by grad students and undergrad summer interns. We also have one faculty member and this year we have Adam, who is Research Staff and the husband of a faculty member. (We have a bit of a rivalry with the ultimate football team, since we both play on the same evenings, so have to compete for players.) He's also never played softball before -- thankfully, cricket skills apparently transfer, and he got used to the glove quickly. There's also enough summer interns who haven't played sports since middle school to make me feel better about my skills.

My batting record is currently 0.333, if I understand the figuring correctly. One pop out, one time being thrown out at first, and a single that turned into a double thanks to losing the ball*, then getting tagged out at third two batters later.

* League rules. If the ball is overthrown and leaves the bounds, especially if there's a fence or long grass involved, all the runners can advance two bases from where they started. So, if I was at-bat, I can go to second. One base that I probably would have made anyway, plus another to reflect that retrieving the ball is a pain.

But, as a result of today's game and yesterday's practice, I am sore. I also spent most of yesterday evening asleep, no thanks to the thunderstorm that knocked out my power. Sleeping with painkilelrs tonight!

(Stress seems to be contributing to my inability to sleep. I woke up every two hours last night, and I went to bed at 9, with no caffeine and having moved my meds to morning dosage. One week until I can sleep easy.)