After a long, dry, and recently HOT year, it appears that the monsoon has begun!
Today felt like the first snow used to feel when I lived somewhere more North.
The only downside to the monsoon is that the storms often keep us from operating our sensitive equipment. Here’s a real-time lightning map from this afternoon, showing the storms advancing on Tucson from the South.
Lightning strikes shown as the colored dots, white most recent, getting dark with age. That’s Tucson in the middle of the image.
Thanks to Joseph’s hacking kills, our friendly lab-assistant Vizzy keeps us informed if there is lightning nearby.
We had to shutdown our fancy deformable mirrors and sensitive cameras this afternoon, but there’s always software to debug and documentation to update and tests to study for and referee comments to answer. So we enjoyed the thunder and were happy for the rain.
The Sabino Rainbow made an appearance. I went for a blessedly cool run into the canyon, but didn’t find the end.
The song of the day is about the monsoon rains, and it also needs to be turned into a movie. It sounds like an intense adventure.
A beautiful Tucson sunset tonight + iPhone portrait mode + a smidge of the secret Adobe Lightroom sauce = impromptu photo shoot!
Please welcome the new member of XWC Lab, a new LAB member! Meet Lani, my new 2 year old yellow lab! Lani came to me via friend of a friend who was looking to rehome her.
She couldn’t be a more perfect dog! She’s still pretty puppy-like, has no bad habits at all, loves people, loves dogs, loves to chase the ball and bite the hose water. As I type she’s holed up in the bedroom devouring a rawhide chew. We even made a new dog friend in the neighborhood and they’re already besties.
Here’s a few more.
And here’s some derp:
Song of the day is in honor of Lani’s new name, which is Hawaiian for “Star” (I like stars ok?). Iz’s version of “In This Life”.
Resident pyramid expert Dr. Lauren Schatz defended her thesis work today, despite pandemic pandemonium. The field has decided to accept her (with minor revisions), and she will be joining the Air Force Research Laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico later this year.
We’ll miss her a lot, but every wavefront sensed by MagAO-X will have her fingerprints on it. Well, not literally, that’d be bad optical science-ing. But you know what I mean.
We had all kind-of forgotten how to do the in-person rituals of academia, but we “reserved” a “conference room” and used a “projector.” We also set up Zoom, for good measure (and for everyone beyond the tiny occupancy limit imposed by These Unprecedented Times).
Masks were worn by all non-presenters, fear not.
Best wishes in all your future endeavors, Lauren!
Drs. Schatz and Males post-defense. The women of Optics make sashes to commemorate defenses, and this one was made by Dr. Silvana Ayala.
Song of the Day
You’ll find in time All the answers that you seek Have been sitting there just waiting to be seen Take away your pride and take away your grief And you’ll finally be right where you need to be
“Different Now” by Chastity Belt
Bonus Lauren
Have you ever unpacked a new optic and it turns out it was actually Lauren? (Photo: Jennifer Lumbres)
Shortly after I began my Ph.D. studies at Steward Observatory, I noticed that the historic dome building (where they gave me my first homely office) was ringed by orange trees.
“Don’t try eating them,” I was told. “They taste terrible! They’re not edible; they’re only, what’s the word, decorative? Ornamental?”
In this post, I will seek to rehabilitate the reputation of the much maligned Steward orange.
I have been undertaking progressively more intricate cooking projects over the course of the last covid, and after SeriousEats featured a recipe for cochinita pibil on its homepage I knew I had to try. Cochinita pibil is a pork dish from the Yucatán region of México, best known to Americans as “where Cancun is.” The Seville oranges used in it are known for being sour, bitter, and generally unpalatable on their own, but impart a distinctive flavor to the dish. I tried finding them at local Mexican grocery stores, but struck out.
But… aren’t the Steward oranges sour, bitter, and generally unpalatable? Could they be the oranges I’m looking for? Fortunately the campus arboretum has cataloged every notable plant on campus, and I had only to ask:
Armed with this information, I went to harvest some ingredients. However, a problem arose.
Undaunted, I returned under cover of darkness with an improvised professional harvesting tool.
Attempting to look as suspicious as possible
The haul
The first thing I made with my sour oranges was some quick-pickled onions (another SeriousEats recipe). They were delicious. No food coloring required!
A bag of orange peels on the mantelpiece in the first act must go off in the second..
Red onion for color; bay leaf, black peppercorn, and allspice berries for flavor.
Chiltepín is a Sonoran thing, but also delicious.
Of course, juicing a bunch of oranges means you have a bunch of orange rinds left over. The Seville orange’s peel is full of flavor compounds, with writers sometimes calling it the “orangiest” orange. I couldn’t let that go to waste! Seville oranges are prized in the UK for use in marmalade, but, quite frankly, I don’t eat much marmalade. So I made candy instead.
So a-peel-ing!
I opened a new 4 lb bag of sugar for this and now it’s half gone.
That’s already two ways to eat the Steward oranges, and we haven’t even gotten to the main event yet. In cochinita pibil, the bitter (or sour, or Seville) orange juice is used in the marinade alongside a laundry list of spices—but no hot chilies. The flavor of the final dish is a bit smoky and earthy, and fairly orange in color (thanks to achiote), but you’ll have to apply hot salsa to taste.
3-4 oranges produce 3/4 cup juice
Orange you glad you didn’t get achiote all over your kitchen?
Ready, set, marinate
After a tedious overnight wait, it was time to parcel up the meat and veg. Though I’m not digging the traditional pit, I can still use banana leaves. Fortunately, Tucson’s excellent international supermarket had them in stock.
Trussed up and placed on a tray, it was time to grill. Or, I guess, smoke. (The grad-student budget version of a smoker is a grill plus a lot of babysitting.)
Smoker, meat parcels, my attempt to save thermometer probe from grill lid.
The (almost) finished product
The author with the fruits of many hours of labor
Success! Some corn tortillas and pickled onions were produced, and tacos were had by all. A poll of the individuals present for this pork fest indicated broad approval for this cochinita pibil recipe. More importantly, there were no leftovers.
One of the most painful things I’ve had to do in graduate school is writing. It’s probably the worst necessary evil in academia. I’ll take documentation and giving presentations any day over writing papers. I’ve finished writing the first full draft of the MagAO-X Fresnel modeling paper and it’s going through the comment cycles. But this entry is not about academic writing, it’s about a writing the world as a whole has slowly started to forget about.
My first material love is paper stationery. It manifested during my childhood in the Philippines where I was first exposed to paper stationery shops. It’s a passion that has only evolved in the past two decades, even in the face of technology advancement. I exclusively use 0.38mm and 0.5mm gel and ballpoint pens because it keeps my handwriting the cleanest. I’ve been using the same Uni Jetstream 4-in-1 0.38mm ballpoint multipen and pencil my entire PhD because it writes so smoothly. I recently bought my first fountain pen and I’m completely hooked. There’s particular notebooks I purchase because the paper is smooth and sturdy with just the right level of brightness and no ink bleed through. I discovered dot grid paper a couple years ago when I tried out bullet journaling (bujo). I’ve since stopped maintaining a bujo, but dot grid paper is my standard preference for personal and research notekeeping. Paper stationery products are hit or miss and I’m grateful for Kinokuniya Bookstore in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles for being my first resource into exploring quality products.
A snapshot of my MagAO-X Fresnel model paper planning notes. Using dot grid is the best combination of maximizing blank space with the evenly spaced dots providing just enough guidance to write in straight lines. My eyes can focus on the writing instead of the grids and ruled lines.
While paper stationery usage is one thing, letter writing is a different game. Writing and sending cards occasionally was nothing new for me, but it became a regular thing when I moved to Tucson for graduate school. I was transitioning into a distance relationship and I missed a lot of my friends and family. I sent cards as a form of encouragement for myself and a lot of my friends who started their grad programs. Over time, card writing became my personal creative outlet.
I have maintained a few pen pal correspondences through the years. We’re never quite consistent; we regularly fall off the wagon from our correspondence streak as we each get busy and that’s perfectly fine. There’s no time constraints on these things and we help each other get back on track. We don’t write much, just little highlights of things we want to share with each other. I wrote to one of my pen pals about how excited I was about my monstera plant’s new unrolled leaf had not 1 but 2 holes in it. I’ve amassed so many cards from friends through my PhD that I’ve had to buy another decorative storage box to house them all.
My favorite part about letter writing is adding cute card flair. I love finding out about new stamps coming out and using them in my correspondences. My current favorite stamp is a lenticular printed T-rex. I get to learn cool stuff from stamps, such as Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu and her work in nuclear physics (my excitement for female Asian in STEM representation is off the charts). All my envelopes get sent with some sticker by the recipient address and sealed with washi tape.
My first time doing Christmas cards was in 2017, to which I mailed 43 cards. New Horizons got a commemorative stamp set when it visited Pluto in 2016, of course I was going to collect it and use them.
Letter writing has been my private getaway to detatch from a computer screen and hang out at local cafes. Just me, a drink with a snack, a small pile of cards, my favorite pen, and listening to music on my headset. It has brought me to appreciate taking in my environment. Of all the cafes I’ve visted in Tucson, Ren’s Coffeehouse in St. Philip’s Plaza is my favorite letter writing hangout (mostly because they also serve food).
During an internship in New Hampshire in Summer 2018, I frequented Terragia in Nashua, NH on weekends to write cards. Terragia had the perfect writing atmosphere – a small plant shop in a cafe. My second favorite local spot was The Bookery in Manchester, NH where it was a both a bookstore and a meal-serving cafe.
During my visit to Bhutan in August 2019, I would spend a couple minutes in the mornings to write postcards in my hotel room. I intentionally picked the room with an extra window to admire the breathtaking landscape from my desk; the photo doesn’t do a good job showing what I could see. Unfortunately, international mail is very finicky and it’s unclear to the status of these postcards.
In 2001, the USPS dedicated April as National Card and Letter Writing month with the goal “to raise awareness of the importance and historical significance of card and letter writing”. To challenge myself, I made a very lofty goal: write and send 100 postcards to people I know through the month of April. I chose postcards because if I’m going to mail 100 of something, I’m going to do it with the cheapest postage stamp. (Jared is only capable of paying me so much with the graduate student salary limits.)
I came into this project with a lot of pre-existing postcards. I’ve accumulated cards from all over the place: astronomy-themed cards from a past Art of Planetary Science show, Tucson–centric cards, and some funcards from Antigone Books. I completely burned through an AMNH illustration postcard set that has been sitting on my shelf for over a year. When I ran through my postcard supply, I bought a postcard set from an independent designer recommended by a friend. Postcards are fairly cheap to buy in a bundle set.
It’s an arduous task, but I manage it in stages through the week. I eagerly look forward to spending my Friday or Saturday evening binge writing through postcard bundles. To be honest, I believe it’s been the only reason why I’ve been able to not lose my mind with writing my papers. Writing these cards is an enjoyable process with the right setup. Here’s some progress photos through the month:
Writing postcards 1-40 with some blooming tea and matcha roll cake. Glass teapot from Seven Cups Fine Teas in Tucson. Blooming tea from Teabloom. Matcha roll cake from Sandyi.
Writing postcards 45-60 while basking in the sunset with some charcuterie and agua fresca (jugo de jamaica). Beehive cheeses are seahive and teahive flavors from Flora’s Market Run.
Writing postcards 74-95 while spending time with my new balcony companions. Pan dulce from La Estrella Bakery (the best panaderia in Tucson) and mug is full of Ibarra hot chocolate (Ibarra >> Abuelita any day).
I’m happy to say that as of two days ago, I met my goal and completed my 100th postcard. (If you want to be fully technical about it, I mailed them out today.) It was fun to pick card designs for the recipients and allocate dedicated time away from the computer. I’ll probably do something like this again, but not to the extent of 100 postcards within only 1 month. It’s been a rewarding experience all around. The best part is that I’m starting a regular pen pal correspondence with 2 more friends!
Letter writing is a bit of a dying activity in this technological age. Despite that, I believe it’s a worthy pursuit. While email, texting, and social media allows for easy and quick access, there’s something extra special about maintaining a snail mail correspondence. After all, isn’t it nice to receive a surprise letter in your mailbox? The sillier the card, the better.
SONG OF THE DAY
Of course I’m going to choose a song by The Postal Service. Where were you in 2003? Because this song was EVERYWHERE.
