Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio?

As my devoted readers will remember, last month Abra got to try her hand (her foot?) at soccer. Well, now it's Thalia's turn to enter the word of organized sports -- in this case playing peewee T-ball! (Is there any other kind of T-ball?)

It was a long painful story of organizational disorganization at first, but a few well-placed calls to the boss of the league finally got Thalia onto her team -- the Cardinals. And she had her first practice last Tuesday.

The first time her coach (Coach Christy) asked her to throw the ball, Thalia two-handed the throw, kind of pushing the ball awkwardly. Uh-oh, I thought, that was bad. So the Coach said "use just your bare hand, Thalia", and on the next throw, she whipped it in to Coach Christy pretty confidently. OK, that's my girl!

Here's her first T-ball hit in practice (it was on an 0-1 count, since she, uh, wiffed on her first swing...), and looking at the trajectory of the ball, it kind of makes me wonder if the boys should be wearing cups.

So after a bit of playing around a bit in practice (T-ball practice for four year olds is a sight to behold), the Cardinals were ready for their first game, played this morning against the Diamondbacks. Here's Thalia walking to the field in uniform, with her game face on.

(She is wearing pants, in case you're wondering...)

Thalia is number 5, the same as Joe DiMaggio. I guess we can start calling her "The Yorkshire Clipper".

So the Cardinals were up first. The batting order was in uniform number order, which meant she bats fifth (protecting the clean-up hitter as it were...). It also meant she had to wait her turn in line:


But finally it was her turn to bat. Coach Christy got her lined up and ready to hit (she's a lefty, remember). Hey batta batta, suh-WING batta!

And off she goes with her first official T-ball hit!

OK, you can tell she kind of topped the ball, driving it into the ground about a foot in front of home plate -- the classic T-ball hit. She then stood there for a minute -- I wasn't sure if she was admiring the hit and showing up the, uh, tee, or had just forgotten to run. Turns out she had just forgotten to run -- the coach reminded her and off she went to first base.

You gotta love the first base coach helpfully and VERY CLEARLY pointing out where first base is. Run, DiMaggio, run!

OK, so maybe you're wondering if she was safe or out at first. This is probably a good time to remind you that THIS IS PEEWEE T-BALL. There is no "safe" or "out", there are no runs scored, you swing until you hit the ball, then you run to a base. You are safe regardless of what happens to the ball. (This is a good thing, since often it takes several minutes for the kids to remember to run the bases or field the ball). So the kids simply bat in order, moving up a base each time, until they've batted around, and then they switch.

When Thalia got to second, she kind of spaced for a minute and stayed on second base when the ball was subsequently hit, creating a traffic jam of Cardinals on second base for a moment.

But then the coach reminded her to run again, and she made it to third base.


Now honestly that picture kind of chokes me up a little bit. She's clearly being a trouper there, a little bewildered and uncertain and trying to do the right thing even though she's not sure of the rules. She's the smallest kid on the field BY FAR, and there's a lot of yelling going on (not yelling at the kids, mind you, but simply yelling to be heard by the kids) and its confusing and I think she's feeling a bit scared and overwhelmed there. But she then ran home and got a high five from Coach Christy, so she seemed ok.

Then it was their turn in the outfield. That was kind of a zoo, as you might expect. At first, whenever the ball was hit, a large group of boys would run at the ball and dogpile on it, like this:


Thalia didn't really know what to do (and maybe figured since the boys were gonna get it, she didn't need to run after it) so she simply stood in place behind the basepath. After watching this happen a few times, I figured it was time for some personal coaching. So Coach Dad ran out on the field.


I told her when the ball was hit, she should run to it, even if the boys beat her to it. I figured just getting her reacting to a batted ball was a good start. She did, although she was usually the last one to get to the ball and just watched the boys pounce on it.

Then it was the Cardinals' turn to bat again. At that point, Thalia started asking to go to the playground, or go home, and so first Dad then Mom had a pep talk with her to get her spirits up. And it was a good thing, because then she suddenly started having a good time. When it was her turn to bat, she walloped the ball but good:


And she had no problem running the bases, and here she is standing at third base again.


Contrast that picture to the first time she's on third, and it's a world of difference. She knows what to do this time, she knows what's coming next. She's much happier. A little experience and confidence does great things for one's mood!

So when we went back out on the field, I went with her again, and she was much more ready for playing the field:






I love the picture on the left -- look how scrunched up her hat is; we had trouble trying to tighten it enough to get it to stay on her head!

So then she ran after the ball with the boys, still not quite getting to it, but giving it a game and spirited try.

But then the coach switched things around so that instead of the kids dogpiling after the ball, they took turns fielding it. I think that worked better, and Thalia had a chance to field the ball by herself and made a pretty good throw to first.

Anyway, after a little bit of this, she turned to me and said "I don't need you out here anymore, Dad, you can go sit with Mommy." ATTA GIRL!

And then when the game was over, it was time for the postgame high-five handshake with the Diamondbacks.


Dang, but she's cute.

I asked her afterwards if she liked it, and she said yes, and was looking forward to having practice later in the week. So I think much of the tentativeness was just due to unfamiliarity, and the fact that many of the other kids were a) mostly strangers, b) mostly aggressive, c) mostly boys (there's only one other girl on the team), and d) mostly knew what to do.

But in the end she did fine. She's a little jock, I think she will find her niche in sports pretty soon. If it's not T-ball, it'll be something else. For now, though, the peewee league better be ready for the Yorkshire Clipper....

ps: (No Country for Old Men Update: #116)

Dog Revenge

So yesterday it was time for Wacko to get washed. When he saw me coming downstairs calling him while holding a towel, he started sidling into the kitchen and tried to bolt for the basement. I grabbed his collar and he let out one of those great Wacko sighs and slowly followed me upstairs.

In the bathroom, he tried again to make a break for the door, but I eventually herded him into the shower, where, with good Wacko grace, he put up with me washing him down. Afterwards, I left him in the bathroom for a good 20 minutes so he could shake a lot of the water out. Finally, I let him out of the bathroom and he rather pitifully and dramatically made a slow, pained walk down the stairs.

At which point, I got occupied with other things.

Then at bedtime, Brenna called him for his late night walk. I went back upstairs into our bedroom and beheld quite a curious sight.

Evidently after his bath, he jumped up on our bed and pulled the comforter back. Not the whole thing, mind you, but just my side. Then he must have laid down on the exposed sheet and pillow and taken a comfy nap while he dried off. My side of the bed was wet and smelled like dog. Brenna's side was immaculate.

This was no coincidence. Brenna's giving him his bath next time.

(No Country for Old Men Update: #206)

Report Card!

a.k.a. how to survive Caltech with honors...

So digging through my office the other day, I found a highly entertaining document: my undergraduate transcript. Now after years of handing out grades to my students, hollering at them about their GPA, and telling them "I have to see your transcript before I write you a recommendation letter", I figure fair's fair and it's time to let them see mine. It's been over 20 years since I graduated from Caltech, and they can't take away my degree at this point (can they?). So here it is in its full glory, and I'll even throw in a running commentary.

Things to remember:

• Caltech was on the quarter system, not semesters. There were 3 quarters per academic year.
• We used a wierd unit system -- divide the units by 3. In other words, a 9 unit course is like a 3 credit hour course.
• We were allowed to pass/fail a certain number of courses -- a lot of them, by the looks of my transcript!
• Freshman year at Caltech was pass/fail entirely.

---

First Year, Fall

OK, so fall term my freshman year looks pretty standard:

Standard 1st year calculus, physics, and chemistry. The obligatory "Literature Past and Present" course -- I remember reading Chaucer. That's about all I remember from that class. Like every freshman at every university everywhere, I took PE at the beginning, before realizing that I could blow it off and do it my senior year like every other upperclassman at every university everywhere. God only knows what "Computer Application" was.

---

First Year, Winter

On to being a second term freshman:

Pretty much a carbon copy of first term, except now we throw in Phys lab and Chem lab. I vaguely remember learning how to pipette in Chem lab. My friend Ich couldn't -- or wouldn't -- pipette to save his life, and he ended up having to take freshman Chem lab over again his senior year. When that happened I think he spent most of those lab periods scaring the poor freshmen...

Oh and that was the semester I suddenly realized that "Electricity and Magnetism" was how physicists spelled "Pure and Utter Hell". But I made it to be a third term freshman.

---

First Year, Spring

Yay, finally an Astronomy course. It was fun finally being able to take Astronomy. I think we used Shu's book. Third term freshman chemistry was notable mostly for the fact that the professor was teaching undergraduates for the first time after teaching grad students for several years. So we basically got graduate level physical chemistry rammed down our freshman throats. My grade on the midterm was, if I recall correctly, something like a 37/300. During the final, which was take home (all Caltech finals were, actually), I remember walking into Ich's room and finding him taking the final while doing tequila shots. It probably helped.

Then I went home for the summer and hung out in my buddy Mike's basement. Think That Seventies Show shifted forward slightly into the early 80s.

---

Second Year, Fall

Then it was back to school, as a sophomore ON GRADES this time. Strap in.


Hey look at that -- a good start in Astronomy. That's gotta be a good sign. But there's a so-so math score to balance it out. That was assuredly the first C I'd ever gotten in my life -- a sign of things to come. "Basic Graphics" was a engineering drawing class, and it proved that my brother Bill got all the drawing skills in our family, clearly. I remember having to draw a nut and struggling mightily. But I got through the course, and I have my first grade point average: a 3.2.

---

Second Year, Winter

OK, that's looking a bit more respectable. I raised the math grade, but dropped the astronomy grade. I think the astronomy course was taught by Tony Readhead, and had a lot more radio astronomy than I'd ever seen before. There's the art course (why did I pick 1900-1940? probably because it fit in my schedule...), and then the beginning of my intense interest in African politics. Or at least my intense interest in easily graded courses in African politics. And there's my GPA creeping up.

Now it's about this time that I realize that, unlike all my engineering buddies, who just need to graduate and they'll get a high paying job, if I want to go on to graduate school in astronomy, I need to get my grades up. As I tell my current students, a course screw-up here or there is understandable, but if your GPA is below a 3.5, you have some 'splainin' to do. Plus, 3.5 is the GPA necessary for "Graduating with Honors", so that seems like a nice juicy target to shoot for. But there I was, sitting at a 3.3. Time to get to work....

---

Second Year, Spring

Ah, "Solar System Astronomy", taught by Hal Zirin. This was basically three students meeting with Zirin in his office talking about stuff we read. (Note to students: when you are one of three students in a class, you do not skip class. It's obvious when you do. I think of Hal every time I yell at my students about skipping class.) EC115 was a course on global population growth. Being a Caltech undergraduate, I was practicing birth control by default, so that was a pretty easy A. StatMech seemed really cool to me, for some reason -- I enjoyed Kittle and Kroemer far more than is probably decent. And how is it that I can take three terms of Phys lab, and still have no idea how to wire a circuit board? (They did teach me all those important units like "farad" and "ampere" that come in handy while doing crossword puzzles...) But math bit me again, and my GPA slips back down to a 3.2.

---

Second Year, Summer

Then I did the smartest thing I ever did at Caltech:


Yep, that's summer term, where I worked reducing quasar spectra for Wal Sargent and earned 20 units of credit -- that's like 2-3 courses worth of credit! Keep that in mind when we get around to senior year...

---

Third Year, Fall

On to junior year. As I have always said, junior year in a physics or astronomy program is the absolute worst academic year of your life. Much worse than anything you get in grad school, in my opinion. So navigating this year was going to be challenge.


That math course (AMa95) was a killer -- tons of work, hard as hell. But it wasn't required for the Astronomy program, so I could pass/fail it, and all my smart engineer friends had to take it, so I could work with them. I remember one time before lecture holding up a big sign in class that said "PASS/FAIL" and all the engineers got very cranky with me....

And finally, finally, I get to take a Shakespeare course. Now, I love Shakespeare. Always have, always will. There was no question I was going to take that course, and it was great. My term paper compared the storm in King Lear to Lear's internal anguish (Damn that Goneril!). Yeah, it probably was your typical 10 pages of undergraduate twaddle, but it seemed good at the time. And Jenijoy Labelle, the professor, said it was awfully good, too, so there!

Remember how I said "Electricity and Magnetism" was Physics-ese for "Complete and Utter Hell"? Ph 106A is E&M. Out of Jackson, no less. God save me, that was the worst experience of my academic life. How I got a C+ is anyone's guess. To this day, if you mention "Green's functions" to me, I pass out. It made Quantum Mechanics look easy, and I think that's why I did pretty well in QM.

But, look -- only four courses? What's up with that? I took five courses, dammit. I'll let Sherry tell you about that Optics course.

---

Third Year, Winter

"Physics of Stars" I believe was taught by Bev Oke. Racking up an A in an 11 unit course helps the old GPA, that's for sure. But that C in 106B is still dragging me down - curse you, Jackson! Other than Green's functions, the most striking thing I remember about Ph 106B was when the department secretary interrupted class one day and whispered something to the professor. He looked at her, and went on teaching. It was only when we said "Excuse me, did she say the Space Shuttle blew up?" that he actually stopped class. Yeesh. And then there's "Microcomputer Engineering"? That must be more programming, although I don't remember it. (This is usually where Biff likes to point out that I took more computer classes than he did.)

---

Third Year, Spring

And into 3rd term junior year, where the master plan starts coming together:


"Interstellar Medium" was cotaught by Nick Scoville and Fred Lo. It was early in the morning. I didn't mind -- I was working heavy hours in the Housing Office, and liked to get my courses done early so I could go to work. In fact, the early hour looked like it pained Nick more than it did any of us students. Look closely, though: another African Studies course! And finally "Classical Physics" has finally transitioned to covering mechanics, which made a lot more sense to me, so my grade finally ticked up there, pulling my GPA up another tenth.

Now comes the good stuff: senior year scheduling!

---

Fourth Year, Fall
So there's the optics class -- if you take a class twice, and did well the first time you took it, you better do well the second time. Then do research with Nick (something about correlating IRAS maps w/ HI maps), take a stellar atmospheres class from Jeremy Mould, and a techniques class from Judy Cohen. Judy made us basically design Keck. I remember suddenly having to worry about the thermal expansion coefficient for Zerodur glass and thinking "This is engineering, dammit -- I'm an astronomer!" She mowed us all down, so we all pass/failed it, I think. I did, anyway.

Oh, and check out that A+ in "Political Geography of Developing Countries"! Five bucks if you can guess what continent that focused on. But still, I'm sitting at a 3.4. Must push it up one more tenth of a point!

---

Fourth Year, Winter
Since I took all those politics and economics courses, I figure I should take an Intro to Political Science course, right? Me and a bunch of freshman. Pass/failed it, of course. Then a Stellar Interiors course, and Wal Sargent teaching about Galactic/Extragalactic Astronomy. I vividly remember one homework set where he gave us a list of stellar coordinates and radial velocities, and we had to solve for the solar motion. It blew me away that, as an undergrad with a simple HP15c, I could take real data and come up with an astrophysically meaningful answer. To all my students: when I hand you real datasets and tell you to solve it yourself, you have Wal Sargent and his AY 154 class to thank for that!

And of course, like every good senior, I took PE. "Independent Study" PE, which consisted of running around the track and then reporting my laps to some bored assistant track coach. At one point, he asked me how far I was running before stopping, and I said "Oh, about half a lap." He just looked at me and said "Try harder." So I would run for three quarters of a lap. Ah, PE at Caltech!

But look -- one graded course earned an A, and I got my GPA up to a 3.5! Honors, baby! So what are we going to do for third term? Well, remember that summer working for academic credit? That means I need only one more class to graduate. And since I've completed all the major requirements, it can be a non-major class that I pass/fail. So it's time to play a prevent defense with my scheduling -- can't chance a graded class that might lower my GPA...

But -- horrors! I've taken all the African studies courses offered by my favorite easy-grading professor. What to do, what to do?

---

Fourth Year, Spring

Ask said African Studies professor if I can take retake the course as Independent Study!

Now the way this works is, you have to show up for a few seminars and then write a paper about some political aspect of an African nation. I know that going in, I know how long the paper needs to be, and I know I just need to pass. So the week before the term starts (also known as "Spring Break" to you slackers), I research and write the paper and then stuff it in my desk. I sit in on a few classes, otherwise loaf around all term, and then at term's end I turn in the paper, and that's it. Game, set, match.



As my good friend J.R. would say: Boogie.

The Green Green Grass

It struck me this morning that my lawn looks about as close to something out of a Scott's Lawn Service advertisement as I've ever seen it -- green, healthy, full, neatly mown (that last part is Brenna's doing...).

I took a picture of it so that in a few months when it's brown and dying and looking like a scene from The Grapes of Wrath, I'll have something to look at fondly and wistfully.

Multimedia Galaxy Extravaganza!

So those nice folks at the Space Telescope Science Institute put out a recent news release about the Hubble Space Telescope producing some damn strong* images of colliding galaxies in the nearby universe.

(Wow, look at them colliding galaxies!)

To go along with the images, Frank Summers took one of the simulations I did with Lars Hernquist several years ago, and made an animation where he stopped the simulation at certain points and cross-faded it into some of the Hubble images. He did a great job -- I was really impressed.

The video can be found in several different sizes and formats at the news release posted at the STScI website -- go there if you want to download them, and to see other images and videos from the news release. But the animation has also been uploaded to YouTube, so I can just do the embedding thing here:





Anyway, I thought it was cool, and figured I'd share. Enjoy!


(* Mark is the only one who's gonna get the "damn strong" reference, I'm afraid...)

(oh, and thanks to Steinn for making me think that this might be something worth posting about....)

(and finally: No Country for Old Men Update: #264)

Too Cute for Words

With spring sports here, we've had to outfit the girls with the proper sports equipment. Now when they were in ballet and such, I was expecting that everything would be pink: pink tights, pink shoes, pink tutus, etc. I was, however, a bit surprised (and quite enchanted, in fact) to find that quite a bit of sports equipment can be found in pink as well.

Such as Abra's soccer cleats:


Or even better, Thalia's T-ball glove (a lefty glove, no less!), complete with "Girl Power!" written on the palm:

Is that great or what? The purple and pink "Princess Forever" shirt (with the juice dribble down the front) just completes the set.

Gotta love the pink glove. I'd pay good money to see someone like Gary Sheffield using one of those.

(Gary digs the pink glove)

(ps: No Country for Old Men Update: #298)

Shameless Self-Promotion

So to celebrate the new CCD imager on the telescope, and to celebrate our graduating seniors as well, I put together a "Case Astronomy" T-shirt. The logo represents the field of view of the new imager (and thanks to John for helping me on the layout):


And the back has the famous "Schmidt Happens" image designed by the very talented Nancy Lin:




(Yes, that's our dome, and no, that's not a real lightning strike. But it's based on a true story. And our telescope is a design known as a Schmidt telescope, hence the "Schmidt Happens!" theme...)

So if'n anyone is interested in making a fashion statement with a Case Astronomy T-shirt of their very own, you can go to http://www.cafepress.com/caseastro and pick one out. Note that the T-shirts labelled "Schmidt Happens" have the lightning strike image on the back; the rest are just the logo shirts with nothing on the back.

Oh and the prices are cafepress base prices -- there is no profit markup on these!

(ps: No Country for Old Men Update: #342)

No country for cheap men

So the local public library lets you put reserves down for DVDs, and you can reserve from the entire pool of northeastern Ohio libraries. As far as I'm concerned, who needs Netflix or the like when you can just reserve from the library for free?

Now there are some downsides, of course. The biggest issue is the wait. About six weeks ago, when No Country For Old Men won the Oscar, I logged in to the library system and put a reserve on it. At that time, I was #1,123 in line. So I figured it would be a while. As of this morning, I've moved up all the way to #372! It'll definitely be here by the end of the month.

(I'll probably look like this by the time "No Country..." shows up...)

In the meantime, I'm #59 for Sweeney Todd and #125 for Pirates of the Caribbean III.

Yes, yes, I could go to Blockbuster or sign up for Netflix and get them faster, but half the fun is watching the numbers tick down. (That, and it gives Brenna enormous pleasure to roll her eyes at my cheapness every time I update her on the number.) And of course, there's no way in the world I'm gonna pay Blockbuster $3 for a movie when I can get it for free from the library, even if I do have to wait three months.