OS reinstall on my PC

I had to reinstall my OS (Windows XP) over the past few days. I have a new wired external hard drive, but I couldn't get it to connect through my router (Linksys WRT150N), it couldn't even be found. So I tried resetting my router with its reset button. Unfortunately I couldn't then get Windows to find it. Linksys makes a program called "LELA", but it couldn't find it (and thus couldn't set it up) either. I tried setting it up through its webpage, but couldn't really remember how I did it the first time. So I wasn't sure if there was just a lot of garbage on my computer screwing it up or what. I tried doing a Windows system restore. Now I know that the last time I had a similar problem, after fixing everything I made a Restore "Save Point". That was probably in 2006. But when I go to do the restore, all I can choose from is the past week or so. I couldn't go back to earlier points. So thats useless. I did the restore anyway, in case the problem was younger than that. But now Google Chrome wasn't working. I'd clicks its icon, it'd flash on for a split second and then disappear. Plus, when I tried running the command, 'ipconfig' from the windows "run" program, it'd do the same thing, whereas before I had been able to get that information (to configure the router). Plus my computer had been taking forever to start up for a while, yada yada yada, so I decided to reinstall windows. I did that with a CD I got when I first purchased the computer. When I bought the computer, the standard, default option was to not receive an OS cd. Which is nuts. I'm really glad that I noticed this and specifically requested the OS on cd; it wasn't even extra, but it has ended up being worth quite a bit of money. After doing this and still having problems getting the router to work, with both LELA and Windows network setup wizard failing to find the router, I finally got it to work. I remembered something pretty basic, I had to 'clone' my MAC address. Apparently my ISP, Cablevision, is one of many that does something with their system where your computer MAC address is their reference point, or their modem MAC address is the reference in their system, or some such setup where you've got to clone your networking card's MAC address, or "Physical Address" in order to get the router working. I had to get that information through the ipconfig/all command. Which, it turns out, isn't run directly from the 'run' window. First you have to open up a Command line, by typing 'cmd' into the 'run' program, which I had completely forgotten.
Eventually I was able to get things working, but only after being lucky enough to unplug and then replug the router once right in the middle of everything, which appparently did the magic trick.
Actually, after all that, I changed the router password, but must've screwed up typing it it because then I couldn't log into the router anymore, and I had to reset it again! Fortunately everything worked out quickly that time.
So now I have my computer hooked up to the wireless router. An external hard drive wired separately to the router, and an older external hard drive that is connected to my computer. It turns out too that I could actually (and I did this and it worked from my end at least) plug in my older external hard drive to the new external hard drive's usb port, and thus have two shared hard drives that I can access online from any computer. Whether I actually need any or will use any of this crap remains to be seen.

Hairy Vetch

A while ago I bought 10lbs of Hairy Vetch seed, which is a type of legume, a bean plant. 10 lbs would be a little more than needed for my yard. The vetch, being a bean, can take nitrogen out of the soil, and turn it into a usable chemical form, thus over time adding nitrogen as a nutrient into the soil. That is why I purchased the vetch, I am hoping that it will grow over the yard, both on the lawn and in the gardening plots, and the bare batches, and supply nitrogen to the yard for the other plants to feed off of. This way I won't have to buy fertilizer every season. I don't want to buy fertilizer each season for three reasons. First, it is a cost (of course, if I end up re-seeding the vetch then thats a cost also). Second, a lot of the fertilizer added to lawns and gardens just gets washed away into the groundwater, and can screw with the nutrient balance of the island. Thirdly, I think that by adding fertilizer all the time, what you end up doing is promoting top grown of the lawn and plants, but not root growth; perhaps to the detriment of root growth. The yard around my house isn't as well drained as it should be, and I think that by doing this I will have deeper roots and better drainage. Finally fourthly, there's something attractive about managing the yard this way.
All of that sounds well enough, but, there is some chance, I think, that the vetch will grow out of control. Vetch is an annual, meaning it grows, flowers, and dies each year. So if it gets to be out of control, I will have to mow the lawn pretty close to the ground as the first flowers are appearing, to prevent seeds from forming and fertilizing.
Mowing will be important anyway. If I don't want to destroy the vetch, I'll have to mow before the flowers appear, and hold off when they are present, and then mow once the seeds have dropped, I believe. I'm planning to mow the vetch and grass into mulch and leave it in place. If there is a lot of it, too much to leave in place, then I will bag it and probably compost it. There is a large section of the yard that doesn't have good soil at all, its really just old exposed tree roots, gravel, and dandelions. So even if the vetch does start getting out of control, I think that I can make some good dirt for that area. It would be too much to buy dirt for it, and we might just extend out our deck to cover it all anyway.


Useful online Hairy Vetch Referances:
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/AFCM/vetch.html
http://www.sarep.ucdavis.edu/cgi-bin/CCrop.exe/show_crop_21
http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/20090206/nf1

I've also been finding the Cornell Cooperative Extension very informative for yard duties.
http://www.cce.cornell.edu/
http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/hort/faculty/bjorkman/covercrops/pdfs/hairyvetch.pdf

Iceland

Iceland Meltdown
I've been hearing in the news a bit about this breakdown of the Icelandic economy but haven't had any real kind of grip on it. This article seems like it is a good summary.
Apparently, the big story here is basically a small story. The Icelanders had for generations made good livings with fishing and farming. With globalization and free trade credit became widely available to the trustworthy and sturdy Icelanders. They dove headlong into a buying spree, obtained companies throughout the world and made excessive use of their credit. Now its come time to pay the piper, and their banks have been annihilated save one. Fire and gravel all around, the cycle can start anew eh?
The closing line sums it up in a nice way, though I have to wonder about the 'icelandics' term.

“The Icelandics had better get their fishing rods out. They’ve got a lot of cod to catch to make up for what we’ve lost”

Environmental Commitment?

I just found out how committed to the environment I am. Its around 10 feet.
I got out of my car, and I had two styrofoam coffee cups, one was from the day before and it had today's sitting inside of it. It slid off and hit the ground. Today is pretty windy. It sat there for a second as I was thinking, 'crap, this is going to be a hassle'. It starts bouncing away, I chase after it a bit and then just let it go after about ten feet.
So that's how 'committed' to the environment I am. Actually, I suppose if I really cared, I wouldn't be using a styrofoam cup in the first place.

In fact, if I consider this a little more, it wasn't that 10 feet was too far. If the thing had been blown further and just sat there, I like to at least think I'd've gotten it. But it was in part that I don't think I was going to catch the thing, and also because I looked pretty ridiculous, hunched over trying to grab it, trying to step on it, just waiting to slip on the ice. So I guess I will 'help' the environment a little bit, as long as its not pointless and I don't look stupid.
Guess that mean's I won't get a SmartCar anytime soon too.

To Shit or Defecate?

http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/l.html

"Words of Germanic origin tend to be shorter, more direct, more blunt, while Latinate words tend to be polysyllabic, and are often associated with higher and scientific diction. If you want a memorable example, compare the connotations of shit (from the Germanic scitan) with those of defecate (from the Latin defaecare)."

and

"you'll sound more blunt, more straightforward, even more forthright, if you draw your words from Germanic roots. An extensively Latinate vocabulary, on the contrary, suggests a more elevated level of diction. Choose your words carefully, then, with constant attention to your audience and the effects you want to have on"

Very much reminds me of shakespeare using simple couplets when he was trying to appeal to a general audience, and then a fancier rhyme scheme when not.


Also somewhat related is this issue of "U and non-U English"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_and_non-U_English

Looking at the word lists, it almost looks to me like the non-Upper class words are attempting to seem fancy.

Bombay attacks fallout

Fallout may end up being a poor choice of words here. Nevertheless, I found some interesting bits in this article:
Bombay attack Dossier
The response from the Pakistani Information Minister really just says it all;
"it is our fond resolve to insure that non-state actors to do not use Pakistan's soil to launch terrorist attack any where in the world"
This is the sort of statement that really reminds us that the position of information minister in most countries used to be the Ministry of Propaganda.
Another curious, though sensible side note is that the information when presented to diplomats was accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation. If nothing else that is something I should include in future discussion with students about the wide range of places that MS PP can be used in.
Apparently the attackers were being directed as the operation proceeded, even by simple means of phone calls to the hotels being attacked. And the fact that a handler told the people holding the jews hostage to 'conclude' the operation, which resulted in the jews being executed, strongly says to me anyway that that aspect was part of the original plan, and not a target of opportunity. I don't know how much debate there is over that point anyway, especially when a handler seemed to hope that the execution of the hostages would "spoil" relations between India and Israel. Why they think Israel will be angry with India over this, who knows.
Something that is often brought up with regards to these attacks is that, its the plan of the attackers to provoke a strong response, and that be counter-attacking you are 'playing into their hands' or giving them what they want. But if they actually thought that the attack would sour relations between india and isreal, when its plainly obvious to the rest of the non-insane world that pakistan has a hand in this, then maybe that whole line of thought is just bogus anyway. I suspect that these guys don't think 'our deaths will lead to an unpopular counter-attack, and through that we will get global sympathy and win'. Rather, they probably think 'this attack will show those bastards'. Its bad to underestimate an enemy, but perhaps that line of thinking is a case of over-estimation gone awry. The article ends with the ominous note that there were actually 13 people selected as attackers, this 13 met up with another 3, and then 6 went into Kashmir. Are we supposed to believe that those 6 have done nothing, are doing nothing, and will do nothing? Everyone was shocked over the Bombay attacks, even though Bombay was bombed recently also, and even though there is constant fighting in Kashmir. I guess that the Kashmir fighting is an 'acceptable' level of international terrorism. My father-in-law also noted that in Kerala a muslim terror camp had been uncovered, and, perhaps not surprisingly, the terrorists were NOT native to Kerala. Looks like the world has found kasmiri-based terrorism fine and dandy, and so now terror groups are simply expanding well into India. AND this is at a time when Hindu chauvanism is rampant and Bangladeshi terror groups are on the move.

More news Bits

Hitchen's Article on the Timing of the Gazan War
Bad Timing
Another interesting article from Mr. Hitchens. This one considers the need of Kadima to be hawkish in order to defeat Likud and Nettanyahu in upcomming elections. Hitchen's also considers palestinian elections, and that Hamas needed to do something to prevent any weakening of their own position to Fatah. Hitchen's also laments the fact that this may all have also been timed with the US elections, with Israel recognizing that now is the best time to do anything, when there is a lame duck president. Many people had speculated that Israel would do 'something' in this time, though I'd've thought that if anything it'd be a strike on Iran.

That blog posting pointed me over to this NYT op-ed piece:
Why Israel Feels Threatened
I think that the most interesting thing from this article is the idea that Israel in the past was successful, it could defeat arab armies that were trying to invade it. And for all the fighting, it did seem to result in treaties with Egypt and Jordan. But today, it hasn't find a way to successfully deal with guerilla and irregular groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. I do also notice that the author states that the war started with Hamas 'ending' the ceasefire, and then Israel attacking. This leaves out the fact that Hamas ended the ceasefire by attacking Israel with rockets and killing schoolchildren. I don't know if it was an omission with a good purpose, but I doubt it was 'sloppy reporting' like on the news, where the talking heads are just reading a prompter anyway.

Another interesting article, from Abu Aardvark
Alhurra
The thing that caught my interest about this article, besides being written by the well informed and intelligent Abu Aardvark, is that its about Alhurra, which, after its inception, I really hadn't heard much about at all. Apparently the station has become expensive and irrelevant.

News Bits

Intersting article I found through Abu Muqawama (and then through a blogger that posted it there)Fisk's Article
This presents a more interesting report on the Gazan War than other news stories, thats for certain. A particular stand-out is that 80% of the families in Gaza are refugees from the creation of Israel, though I have no idea what data substantiates that. I somehow suspect that neither Hamas nor the old PLO kept good records of movements. Heck, neither org ever bothered to build bomb shelters in Gaza apparently either. The tone of the article is partisan, but sometimes that it what makes for the best reporting, rather than trying to cover it up one way or the other. The bit about how the media tells the story of two grandparents killed in the bombing, but failing to mention that they had been refugees from the very land that now killed them, is interesting.
Though I have to say that a more telling aspect of that story is that IF those grandparents had just stayed in their homes when Israel was created, then no only would they be alive today, but they'd've lived a far better and freer life. Unless of course they died in a Hamas attack.


Looks like the Sri Lankan army has captured Killinochchi over the weekend. I missed that with this Gazan War going on:
Rebel Capital Captured
Fascinating article. Looks like they've split the rebels in two, with some retreating to the northern most parts of the island, and others cut off to the south east. Apparently they emptied Killinochchi of its residents. Seems to be some dispute as to whether they were taken by the rebels or sided with the rebels. It seems just as likely that people fled the town during the bombing and assault, irrespective of who's side they were on. BBC also reports there that one 14 year old girl was forced into fighting by the Tigers too. May be more when if this is all mopped up. Apparently the rebels are holding out around a large lagoon in the north and one city along the eastern coast.


Also another article on the situation in Gaza:
Gazan War
Reports continue to state that around 500 palestinians have been killed, with around a quarter of that being civilians. The death toll from this war rose very rapidly during the aerial bombardment phase, and seems to have dropped off just as dramatically once the ground invasion went into operation, which I suppose is what should be expected. This seems to mean that around 125 civilians have been killed. Which is surprisingly lower than the ~172 civilians killed in the Bombay attack, (which did not inspire a series of worldwide street protests and which followed another attack on Bombday in 2006 that resulted in ~184 deaths).
Clearly, it would be best if no civilians died during this Gazan War, but just as clearly, thats not possible. Its strange too because the newscasters often focus on the numbers of dead, as if the numbers really mean anything. Whats also rather frustrating is that the newscasters on CNN and the like set up the timeline for this event as starting with the Isreali air bombardments. While its perhaps not surprising that Hamas would be firing rockets at Israel and we can maybe take that for granted, surely its noteworthy that this all started right after a ceasefire reached its expiration date and then Hamas started firing rockets again. I'm not sayings bias, just sloppy. Levinson, the author of the above article, I should say, doesn't seem to be biased or sloppy. Levison also notes that after the bombardment, Hamas was ready to negotiate unconditionally with Fatah. One has to wonder if the Yehudis had considered that as part of this also.


Another story of interest from Asia.
Indian Nun Rape
I recall hearing about this event while the anti-christian riots were going on. Maybe there is a translation issue, but the article's opening sentences seem rather biased, at least in saying that she is 'finally' identifying her rapists. Seems like the bigger story is that she was able to identify them out of a suspect 'parade' of 90 people. Those riots were a real shame on India, you'd think that the report would be a little more demure. I get the impression from it that a lot of people don't think or don't care if she was raped.
And meanwhile, this is also being reported.
Two arrested for possession of beef
This just highlights the paradox, a country where a nun is raped and churches openly attacked is also so high minded and specific that cow meat is illegal? Not to say that the US is perfect.

Busy Semester

I've been pretty busy this semester. The campus is getting its Decennial review this year, which is exciting in a way. My Oceanography class has been going well. The students did very poorly on their first test, class average was in the 50s. I know a lot of them studied their butts off and didn't do as well as they'd've liked, but I also know that others haven't been putting much nor enough effort into it. One student (and I am not saying that she is one of the ones that isn't putting in enough effort, I get the impression that she is) is from the accounting program and was looking to fulfill her general education requirements and was told by her advisor that this is an 'easy course'. Thing is, this can be a difficult course. Its got elements of physics, chemistry, meteorology, geology, and even biology all mixed together.
Most of the students are from the Maritime Technology program, they are required to take this course specifically by their program, and this apparently is the only science course that they have to take. Its meant reconsidering what I expect from the students. For many of them this is their first science course in a decade or more.
I have been surprised to see how earnest many of the students are, I had heard much worse about the students here.

C. Hitchens on Vestigial Eyes in Cave Organisms

http://www.slate.com/toolbar.aspx?action=print&id=2195683

What's really interesting here is that Hitchens is unfamiliar with the argument that he is making; he doesn't realize that other people have noticed that intelligent design doesn't do a good job of explaining vestigial organs, a statement often made with particular respect to cave organisms, of which there is much recent interest.

Hard to say if that is a good mark or a bad mark for Hitchens, being on the one hand unfamiliar with what I thought was a fairly widespread argument, or, on the other hand, coming up with that very argument independently. I suppose at first it seems like a black mark, being so vehemently anti-creationism and at the same time being unaware of what could be considered a basic argument against it. But then again, why need a particularly detailed argument against a concept when you've, presumably, already rejected it from other angles anyway?

Anyway, I am not so certain that the idea that vestigial organs shouldn't've been designed argument is all that good of an argument contra intelligent design. Design-infatuated creationists will, firstly and probably correctly state that we don't know the intent of a designer, so maybe 'purposely poor design' or 'nonsensical design' makes 'sense'. Of course, the whole argument pro design is that intent can be detected in the first place, so not sure what that would really all have to say.
Secondly, it could be argued that degeneration is permissible in creationism, that parts of a genome can mutate, and that mutation will, and in fact can only, screw things up. So destroying functions probably wouldn't 'refute' so called 'intelligent design theory' (ignoring that its not a theory and can't be refuted anyway).

Considering this further, Hitchens has realized one of the things that vestigialism tells us. But, in particular, the eyeless salamander case that he sites tells us even more. Because this is not an organism that has had some weird mutation in one of the genes 'for' its eyes and now has non-functional eyes. It has no eyes. It has evolved to get rid of eyes.
In an environment where sight is useless, some organisms that have mutations that make them blind can have an advantage. Natural selection will 'select' for this trait, in so far as it works to get rid of the eye organ, to get rid of the apparatus that maintains the genetics of that organ, and to not 'waste' energy on the development and nourishment of that organ. Not being able to see isn't necessarily an advantage, even in pitch darkness. But not having all the investments with no rewards that an eye represents can be an advantage. So natural selection, I think, should actually be an explanation for complete loss of eyes in cave organisms.
Now, of course, if I recall correctly anyway; many blind cave organisms still have non-functional eyes. So this might all just have been gibbering over-arching.

Garage Sale

My mother is thinking of having a garage sale in two weekends, so now my wife is going through our stuff. She seems to think that we'll get lots of money for old VHS casettes. Can't imagine who'd actually want these things. We don't even have a VCR at this point, at least not that I know of. In fact if we do have someone somewhere we'd better sell it too.

Maybe it will make a nice 'bundle' along with the tape.

Tons of Stuff

I ordered a lot of supplies recently, in particular from Ben Meadows, which is a good supplier. Almost all of them showed up on the same day, and over the next few days the rest showed up. They're all sitting in my office right now, need to start moving them over to a new lab prep-room.

The inlaws also went to India for two weeks recently and just got back the other day. They were visiting their parents. They seemed to have had a good time. Luckily their state seemed to be spared the recent anti-christian riots in Orissa, which is a little far from Kerala, and Karnataka, which actually borders it. Infact, the city of Mangalore, which apparently is right near the border with Kerala, was the site of some of the more recent rioting.

We are all planning on going here in February of 2009. That should be interesting. It will be my first time in the country and the first time meeting the grandparents. I speak no Malayalum, they speak no English. My father-in-law's dad (his only remaining parent) had said that the only thing English he knows is a salute, and he jokes that that's what he'll have to do when he meets me. My mother-in-law says that when he stood to demonstrate this that he seemed to still be effected by chickungunya, of which there was an outbreak in Kerala earlier this summer. He had caught it but generally recovered from it. Apparently it is a mosquito borne sickness that started in Uganda and spread to the rest of the world from there.

Ramping up for Summer Program

Recently completed the AMS Online Ocean Studies Diversity Project Implementation Workshop. It was really interesting.

I've been seriously slacking on writing up a research paper. There's so many damned things that keep getting in my way. I need to get focused this week and crank it out.

Because after this week, the KCC Summer Grant will be in swing. Its a 500k$ grant this year. We have "Purchase Cards" or P-cards, which are Visa debit cards attached to the grant (but with pre-set limits). I recently reached my limit and have had to request that the limit be raised. The Principle Investigator (Dr. Mikalopas) approves, now the Grant Administration Officer has to, and then they have to inform the Research Foundation that they approve. Then it should take effect. The RF told me that it could be ready to go this week.

One of the more difficult aspects of this project that I am anticipating is organizing the students. We'd like for them to start each day off with some sort of common experience, and then segway into smaller groups. At the same time they're going to be pulled out, 6 at a time, to sail on the boat and do work there. This will happen two times each day. I think that we're just going to have to pull out 12 kids at a time, have 6 on the boat, and the other 6 on the ground engaged in an activity and waiting for the boat, as the second half of the day. This seems better than pulling out six kids of 24 in the middle of a class. We shall see.

AMS Ocean Studies Diversity Project

http://www.ametsoc.org/amsedu/online/oceaninfo/diversity.html

Been at the AMS Ocean Studies Diversity Project all week. Its been absolutely fascinating. The idea of this workshop is to learn how to best implement the AMS "Ocean Studies" course, which is set up to be offered aqs a live course, a hybrid course, or a completely online course. Given that is has a lab function built into it, making it an online course would be fabulous. Our department doesn't have any all online or true hybrid courses right now, but the campus, I believe, has some. If we were to implement this as an all online course, that'd be great. So many of our students work full time and have other beyond-school responsibilities, so I think that not having to come to campus at a specific time to sit in lecture or perform lab activities would really make a difference for them, and be a real attractive option.
Part and parcel of preparing to implement this course includes meeting with researchers and hearing talks from them on their latest efforts. We've also been able to visit the NOAA Pacific Marine Environment Laboratories and Labs at the University of Washington School of Oceanography. Both institutions are heavily involved in the ARGO Float project, an incredible program that currently operates an array of 3,111 ocean going robots. These robots dive to 1,000 m water depth, travel along oceanic currents, and then at a pre-set time dive deeper down to 2,000 m, from which they begin a slow and steady ascent to the surface, collecting CTD data along the way. The newer floats collect optical data, perform wet chemistry on water samples, and do other things. Other researchers at PMEL were responsible for setting up and maintaining the array of oceanographic buoys that allow us to determine if there is going to be an El Nino or a La Nina each particular year, and how intense its going to be, when we're moving out of those conditions, etc. Still other offices at PMEL are charged with responding to ocean emergencies, like oil spills, chemical spills, even derelict ships and other hazards. We also saw some of their fabrication facilities, and their dissolved CO2 lab. One of the wilder pieces of equipment that we saw included self-deploying buoys. A small fishing ship could literally swing one of these small devices into the sea, it will open up, drop its own anchor and a spool of cable allowing it to be moored, and it will start transmitting data.
The talks that we've been getting about the research thats come out of the deployment of this sort of equipment has also been fascinating. Everyone seems to be really interested, we're running out of time at each event because of all the really great questions that everyone's been asking.

Thoughts for the 2008 Mg/Ca paper

writing up the methods section of my 2008 Mg/Ca Benguela paper.

I'm realizing that it would be a good idea to include some SEM micrographs of both sinistral and dextral N. pachyderma for illustration in the paper. Need to make sure to remember to do that.

I am also thinking that things like calculating pooled standard deviation and such might be best to include in a figure caption, rather than as a whole section in the paper. I will have to write it in for now as part of Methods.

Matthew/Thomas Wedding in PA

Went to a wedding for Baby Uncle and Lela Aunty's daughter yesterday. The groom isn't syro-malabar catholic, but the mass and ceremony were extremely similar. THe only difference I noticed anyway was that, at the reception, the boys gathered around the couple when they were introduced and shouted something a few times while all pointing one finger in the air and then swinging their hands down. Not sure what its supposed to mean though.

It was a nice service at a large church, Dad estimated around 500 people at the reception. They had hired a drummer for the reception (along with a dj of course). Overall it was a nice wedding. We had planned the next day to go into Philly, because the whole thing was just outside of it, however we just weren't feeling up to it and wanted to get some shopping done while we were in a relatively lower tax area. Ended up buying, after a good amount of searching, a Nintendo Wii. So that's fun. Now we have something to use the Wii Guitar Hero game we bought with!

Attempt at coring in the South Shore

Went out with Profs Christensen and Farmer and others as they attempted to get a 10 foot long vibracore sample of the sediments at a south shore estuary. I was worried there would be good weather, but fortunately there was a downpour the entire time that we were there.

A vibracore is run by a small engine, in this case a cement mixer engine, it looks like a typical lawnmower gas engine, it even starts by pulling a cord. Or at least, thats how it is supposed to start. This one, which had apparently been purchased a few years ago, but was never started up before, wouldn't start up now. One of the other people, who had brought it for the coring, tried their best to get the thing working, even running out to get starter fluid to spray onto the machine. All to no avail. The sky poured out cold rain on us all day while we stood around the engine in parking lot for a few hours without it started. Low tide was starting at 1230, we had needed to have trugged out to the coring site, assemble to support for the corer, and get it running into the ground and then pull out the core before high tide came in. So by that time, even if the engine were to start, we probably wouldn't be able to core anyway.

We went back to the Christenen's office and decided to keep most of the coring materials there, everyone else is going to try to figure out what's wrong with the engine and they plan on re-attempting the 28th. I think that I will meet them out there for that also, I have nothing to do with the project, but I can help with the actual coring, and that will allow me to see how its done. I'll make sure to get some waterproof boots and pants before then too, being soaked in the rain in jeans isn't too pleasant.

After putting everything back, Dr.s Christen, Farmer, a grad student, and I went to get lunch at a local indian restaurant that we've been to a few times before. Lunch at least was hot and good and the Kingfisher hit the spot. After that, Dr. Farmer had planned on coming back to the lab so that we could go over our 1085B project. Unfortunately she had to run back to Hofstra first to enter in grades for the semester, and got caught up there and couldn't make it over. Christensen and I got some work done and made some progress on the work.

AMS Ocean Studies Diversity Project, Hotel and Flights

Just got off the phone with Fortune Travel, s/w Nanette to book flight to Seattle for the AMS workshop.

Leaving on a Delta flight DL 0627 leaving from JFK @820 on 2/15 and landing in Seattle at noon.
Returning on a Delta flight DL 0162 at 1240 and arriving at JFK around 915.


I also spoke w/ Mz. Mills at AMS about the hotel. She confirmed that there is a room set aside, the actual room will be assigned on arrival. They just have a block for attendees.Confirmed that the hotel is:
Universtiy Inn
4140 Roosevelt Way NE
Seattle, WA 98105
(800)733-3855

Still going to need to book a hotel for the night of the 21st and 22nd, somewhere in downtown Seattle.

CollegeNow Grades

I've been instructing for a collegenow course in Meteorology. I have 30 students from LGHS registered. Around 12-15 tend to show up relatively regularly. We've had two tests. No one got above a 65 on either of them. I've made the tests so that they do what they are supposed to do, test the student's knowledge of the subject matter. I've tried it with a longer test (100 questions) with quick, multiple choice, true/false questions. The students were able to finish on time, even the ones that came in a half hour late to the test. The second test had 24 questions, but they were a combination of question types, and they got at the most basic and fundamental issues that we had been discussing in class and that were also covered in the textbook. And still the students did poorly. They're telling me that having a test on more than one chapter is too much for them. I think that I will infact make the next test on a single chapter. I spoke with Rob Perro from CollegeNow, and he suggested speaking with the HS principle about arranging for tutors for the students, which is a good idea. I had previously spoken with the principle, and he had a lot of students coming to him asking to drop the course, but he said that he insisted that they stay in the course and put more effort into it.

HEO/CLT Professional Development Fund

On monday I had spoken with some of the people responsible for the HEO/CLT Professional Development Fund. I spoke with PSC-CUNY regarding the “PDF” (up to $3K every academic year). I wanted to get a stereomicroscope, sieve pans, picking brushes, and other equipment to continue my grad school research, along with membership in a few societies and some reference books. Ms. Slifkin stated that you can’t get equipment, but then at the same time said that you can use it for anything that involves professional development. I had started describing it as something that we can incorporate into our classes, which apparently is no good because it’s supposed to be something that the college wouldn’t get us. I was able to get the names of the people on the committee for this fund.

Joy Johnson
from Medgar Evans College in Brooklyn 718-270-6210 joy@mec.cuny.edu
Bob Suhoke
from City College in Manhattan 212-650-8154 suhoke@sci.ccny.cuny.edu
Linda Slifkin
PSC-CUNY fund Rep 212-354-1252 No email


Ms. Johnson re-stated that the materials can’t be something that the college would be normally ordering. She stated that she has seen it go through for chemical reagents, and then answered that it is at least conceivable that it could go through for the larger equipment. She also stated that there was nothing like a ‘line item veto’, where some items in a proposal could be approved and others rejected. The whole application is either accepted or rejected.

I spoke with Mr. Suhoke on Tuesday. He was even more adamant that the funds not be used to obtain equipment or materials for the department, and that, in the case of the above example of a stereomicroscope, its obvious that any department would already have one. However, he did admit that it was possible, though it would be extremely difficult, to make a convincing case that the equipment would only be used for personal, professional, use, unrelated to the functioning of the department. He stated that reference books and society memberships would be much easier to obtain. He stated that it was possible to submit two applications at once, one for the equipment, and another for the reference books and memberships and the like.

I wrote this information up and printed out some copies to give to some of the other CLTs who I've spoken to who've said that they are interested in the grant.

NAGT part deux

"Caffeine and Carbs" breakfast at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, in their new science building, the Gary Comer building. Apparently Mr. Comer is a businessman who sailed through the northwest passage on a bet, that he wouldn't be able to do it. After completing it, he was apparently so impressed by the lack of ice blocking the passage, that he became very interested in climate. One of the results of that is then this new research facility. Most of the researchers haven't moved in yet, at least it looked like that to me, but there were several that were doing work while the conference was going on. I beleive that Dr. deMenocal's lab is going to be in this building also. Out of the blue, Dr. Green from the department showed up and we talked for a while. Then, possibly out of the same blue, Dr. Coke from Adelphi showed up. We talked for a while too. That was especially fortunate for me, because I didn't have the car for that trip and he offered me a ride on the Iron Mine trail trip, which I had been planning on going on. Dr. Green was attending a different trip. NAGT had prepared box lunches for the trip, but you had to pay for them, which is unusual, but probably a result of having to plan the whole thing on two month's notice.

After breakfast, Dr. Wally Broecker from LDEO gave a talk. Infact, it was the same talk he had given at the OSM 2008 meeting in Orlando, "Warning from the world's tiny Oceans (closed lake basins)." He started by considering Held's (Issac Held, Princeton) prediction that in a warming world, the tropics get wetter and the drylands get drier. Dr. Broecker reasoned that if thats what happens in a warming world, then should, in a cooling world, the tropics get drier and the drylands get wetter? He tested this by looking at the sizes of various pluvial (closed basin) lakes through the ages. He decided that the following equation applies:

A(basin)* hRfr = A(lake)hE (hR rainfall rate, fr runoff fraction, hE lake evaporation)

and that from this,

A(lake)/A(basin) = fr (hR/hE)

He refered to a 'mystery interval' between just before 18kya and 14kya where climate acts strangely. In this interval, the Southern ocean is warming, while ice coverage in the Northern hemisphere grows. He also stated that there was an increase in CO2, probably caused by the retreat of seaice in the Southern Hemisphere.

The ITCZ shifts southwards, because it follows heat across the globe (this is what it normally does in austral summers). This incidentally results in a weakening of monsoons. The biggest southwards push of the ITCZ is during the Mystery Interval.

Dry lakes are largest during the mystery interval, and large at the LGM. Dr. Broecker concluded that the ice volumes that existed during the ice ages do NOT obviate Held's prediction, and that drylands will infact get much dryer as the world warms.

He also, interestingly, stated that he wasn't too concerned anymore with shutdown of global thermohaline circulation, especially not by influx of fresh water into the North Atlantic. The Younger Dryas cooling that may have resulted from just such an effect would've required a great amount of water. Since there aren't giant reserves of ice today, Dr. Broecker observed, we're probably not going to have a massive influx of freshwater, even with melting at the poles, and shutting down THC. He also felt that the recent papers that claimed to have observed a shutdown of the Gulf Stream were just too short in duration to be able to call 'abnormal'. He figured you'd need a 30 year record or something like that on that level of detail to be able to rule of 'normal' cycles.


There was a break after the talk, and then we met for the saturday field trips. I went on a trip to the Iron Mine trail at the Sterling Forest Visitors center in NY. Dr. Gates of Rutgers lead the trip and passed out a trip guide booklet. The trail included a pre-revolution Iron Furnance which had been shut down in the 1760s, but then, at the command of none less than Washington himself was rebuilt and reopened to aid in the war. Afterwards, it was shutdown again. It reopened again much later, and ceased operations in the 1920s. Originally ore rock, charcoal, and limestone was carted to the Furnace, dumped into it, and then it was tapped at the bottom to release molten iron. In the closer to modern period, magnetite ore was actualy mined on location. Apparently the people that built the Furnace didn't know that there was in fact a large reserve of ore so close by. The remains of the more modern that shutdown in the 1920s are still there. Cables for the cable cars are strewn all around the cable house. We walked off the path and behind those remains and a little ways and came upon a small strip mine, with an entrance to another underground mine nearby in a depression of rocks, the organization had sealed a gate over the entrance to prevent anyone from entering, the interior of the mine if of course flooded anyway.
The magnetite in this location, Dr. Gates explained and pointed out, did not, as is usual, form by deposition within fractures of the surrounding rock. Rather, the source water leached into the surrounding carbonate rocks, and slowly replaced them such that now the magnetite has the relict structures of the carbonate.
The visitors center had very nice dioramas of the furnance and mine and the park in general. We also watched a short video wherein Dr. Gates, and a cartoon cave man (Dr. Gates was equally bewildered as the rest of us), described the geological history of the park. We started in the visitors center and ended there. One of the park rangers had relatively recently been able to acquire and trace back to the more modern mine an ore cart (apparently the person who had previously found it had been using it as a bbq), and also a part of the pre-revolutionary Furnace, some sort of iron flange that they thought was slotted into a beam as part of the Furnance, which was powered by a waterwheel.

NAGT Trip

Friday
Apparently the meeting was supposed to be in the Hamptons, but 2 months ago that all fell through. Within that time, the group managed to set up a meeting at LDEO and some field trips. Unfortunately, the hotel is terrible. I called up to make reservations and could hear that there was construction going on. Some hallways in the hotel are metal rafters for the ceiling and carpeted floors. Its been raining so the whole place stinks of mold, and the floors in some hallways are sopping wet. The lady at the front desk when I showed up was sitting at a fold out table with a hardhat on. After checking in she lifted up a plastic tarp that was covering one of the doors and let me go through a torn apart hallway with equipment lying everywhere to get the side of the hotel my room was on. We're also going to have to pay admission for some of the trips.

Field Trip to Sterling Hill Mining Museum in Ogdensburg, NJ to a former Zinc mine w/fluorescent minerals. Collected ~9lbs worth of material from their tailings pile. Calcite fluoresces red, willemite green, and I managed to get a small sample with a little bit of hydrozincite, which glows a pale blue. All of this apparently a result of just one element in the form of impurities in the mineral, Manganese. In different crystals, forming different bonds, the bonding electrons which are participating in the fluorescence fluoresce different colors. The museum also gives a tour of the mine where the walls of the mine, of course, are made up of these brilliantly fluorescing minerals. The museum also has a great mineral collection on display, apparently obtained by the Oreck vacuum family.


I spoke with Earl Verbeek, the field geologist at the Sterling Hill Mining Museum regarding their teacher education program, which seems like an interesting program. They have on site training and also videoconferencing, which is good because we have that ability too.

I gave a presentation before the group on our MSS-OST program. Most people seemed interested. At least we were able to get the word out about the program. Other presentations included evaluating teaching techniques with reference to certification level, using GIS in the class room (specificallty ArcGis and ArcExplorer) and the Einstein Program.

I spoke with a Ms. Kathy Prichinello from New Utrecht HS (1601-80 St Brooklyn NY 11214) during the group dinner. She was curious to see our Introduction to Earth Science Lab Manual, I told her I would find out if it is permited to sent it out. She said she is allways looking for new ways of running her labs.

A couple of things

- I submitted 3 separate Internal Service Requests to our Buildings and Grounds Department, for missing ceiling tiles, exposed wires, water damaged ceilings, requests to install leak pans, replace lights, fix light fixtures, replace some blinds and fix/replace some windows.

- I spoke with N.Roth about the filaments. She said that she gave them to Dr. Weisberg when they showed up and that we should figure out a time to find out why the invoice wasn't paid next week.

_ I called and left a message with the computer desk (5353) regarding a computer for the SEM room, which we had requested previously. I also forwarded the orginal email for the request to the head of that department.

Carbon Coater for the SEM

I called up Ted Pella Co, regarding their carbon coater again. I spoke with Jack again also. Regarding maintenance, he stated that after 10K hours of operation the rotary pump should be greased with silicon grease, and that the oil should be changed. The rotary pump is a sort of pre-pump, and then a turbo-pump gets you to high vacuum.

As far as the Film Thickness Monitor, it monitors thickness by examining the changes in the frequency of a vibrating crystal in the chamber, as carbon accumulates on the surface of the crystal, the frequency changes. You don't clean the crystals, you just throw them away when you can visually observe flaking of carbon on the surface of the crystal. The device works by entering a density of carbon value along with a correction factor for the position of the crystal inside the chamber, which can all be stored in memory. Hitting the 'zero' button clears the device to get it ready for coating another sample. Things like the microprobe can then have the FTM information entered into them and then they make the necessary corrections to their readings. Jack said that many people use the FTM for a while, to get a handle on what their Carbon Coating procedure is putting down, but then don't use it every time thereafter. A rotary-tilting stage is, he said, still going to be very useful for larger specimens. I emailed Dr. Weisberg about all of this.

Poster for NAGT

Completed and printed out a 24 inch wide poster for NAGT on the MSS-OST program. Created file in Adobe InDesgin, which does not export as a tiff. KCATT, where the poster was printed by Brian (Dr. Rosen was out)works in tiff format. They also allways seem to work in MS Publisher. I will have to remember to try to prepare the next poster in Publisher. I thought I entered the size into Adobe InDesign as 24 inches, but apparently it was smaller. Brian was able to easily resize to 24 wide.

Trip encumberment

I spoke with Natasha Roth regarding trip reimbursement / encumberment. She stated that I can apply for a trip reimbursement through the Procurement System, and that whenever she does so prior to the trip occuring, she is called by the final approver and told to instead re-do it once the trip is completed. I still will need to fill out an "Application to Attend a Conference" form and have it signed by the Chair. But then afterwards, upon return, I will apply for reimbursement.

Human Resources and Leave Time

This is probably pretty late in the game to be figuring this sort of stuff out. But here it is for my own reference. I accumulate as a FT CLT 1 2/3 days per month sick leave, an can hold up to 160 days. I receive 4 unscheduled Holidays per year that can't be held over, they expire within the year. I also receive 1 1/4 days of annual leave per month, which comes out to 15 days a year. No more than 45 days can be held or carried over a year. A year runs from September 1st through to August 31st. This is per Ms. Rosanne Scalice in HR (6525).

NAGT Meeting

Prof. Christensen told me about this National Association of Geoscience Teachers meeting up at Lamont-Doherty in Pallisades.

http://stevekluge.com/nagt/

http://www.nagt.org/

Sounds like it will be useful. I will present our KBCC Summer Program results as a poster there. Prof. Christensen noted that the field trips look the most promising. There is one to a location where you can collect flourescent minerals, and another to an old mine where you can collect magnetite from the tailings. There will also be a talk by Wally Broecker, a wisened one who gave a talk at The Oralando OSM 2008. Should be plenty good. Prof. Christensen said that she will be at Lamont running samples that weekened anyway. I will apply for trip expenses through the department.

AMS Ocean Studies Diversity Project

This is a project open to schools that serve large minority populations, it provides training for implementing the American Meteorological Society's Ocean Studies Course. AMS covers the full cost of attending this workshop in Seattle, travel, food, lodging, registration, etc, in exchange for an agreement to implement the course at least for one semester. It was easy to get support to attend, especially since there is little to no cost.

http://www.ametsoc.org/amsedu/online/oceaninfo/diversity.html

Ocean Sciences Meeting 2008

OSM 2008 is going well. My talk was early, 8 in the morning on Monday. There was decent attendance. Dr. Christensen said that she thought it went well. The talk that was scheduled to go after me had been canceled, so the section moderators said that there was time for questions. Wahoo. There were some good questions though.

One person asked if we knew how many women had attended compared to boys. I did not. We didn't keep that kind of data, though it might be a good idea to do that in the future. I explained in the talk that our demographics for the program were basically the same as the demographics in Brooklyn in general and had a slide showing those demographics for Brooklyn. Another person asked if we had worked with any HS teachers, no we did not. But that might also be a good idea to try out next time. Indeed, some of the other talks in the session did just that, in order to get the HS teachers better prepared for teaching ocean science. Another person thought that we needed to explain why some of our students had scores as high as 39 out of 50 on their first try. I really couldn't explain why, in fact I don't see a reason for us to have to explain that. One student got a 50 out of 50 on the first pass. The test should 'capture' a wide range of abilities, and that should be reflected by low score and high scores.

I spoke with a Dr. Ingram from the Rose-Hulman institute of technology at the end of the session (she had given an interesting talk about a project where students monitored the conditions of a local pond). And she had lots of ideas about what I could do in terms of statistical analysis of our score results. I will have to look into the methods she mentioned and try to work them out when I get back. I also spoke with Dr. Christensen and she suggested getting someone from our sociology department (do we even have one, I assume we do?) and working with them to create our own evaluation and to work with the results of it, which could be interesting.

From the other talks, I am thinking that we can have a 'HS wide Science Challenge", which is an attention getting event that is 'fun', so in one case the students worked in pairs as pretend helicopters searching for a lost ship and sailors, this was done as a sort of mystery addendum to their normal program, which involved understanding shipping and the like. If we could have some sort of student presentation at all then that would be excellent. I am also thinking that it might be of use to bring in HS teachers in the role of our normal office assistants, that way they can get some work on advancing their science education during the school year.

Bruker Training

Bruker training went well. I was able to confirm that we can trust the results we're getting for Dr. Li's silicon spheres; they're not too rough of a surface. Though I should sample from the side facing the x-ray detector just as an issue of general practice.

They also recommended shutting the PC running the detector each night, or at least every once in a while, to 'purge' the memory, that might undo our scale bar problem, where the scale bar is correct in the first image, but that first bar is carried through to all other images. They also suggested making sure that a particular checkbox for communication between computers was checked. Indeed it was.

I got to see a lot more of the features that we have with the machine, especially the reports writing feature, which looks like it could be useful, and the quantification feature, which looks pretty powerful, much more so that I suspected before. I had really thought of the machine as especially useful for mapping and qualitative analysis. So this was a real eye-opener.
The course of course also was very informative on the physics of x-ray analysis. It combined lecture and lab work. There was an interesting set of people attending the program, one guy who is an art preservator from the Smithsonian, two guys who work for Bosch out in Michigan I think, and a researcher from VA Tech. Interesting range of jobs that are using x-ray analysis and the SEMs that they operate along with.

The class was in Ewing, NJ, which apparently was right next to Princeton, but I didn't get out to see the campus. The other people did and they seemed to have enjoyed it. I ended up in Trenton one or two nights, but the area I was in one night looked pretty sketchy, so I had to bail out on dinner there that night.

I did get to eat some good indian food (chicken tikka masala and somosas) for takeout one night, and some good hungarian/polish (chicken paprikash and perogies) food another night too. The weird thing is that my GPS device sent me to two different locations for indian food where there weren't any restaurants at all, before I finally got to one.

Funding Came through

Funding came through for the Bruker training and the OSM, Dean DiLorenzo's office had the funding and was able to give permit its use for those trips.

So I will be attending the Bruker X-ray analysis training in Ewing NJ, this month.

I am also attending the 2008 Ocean Sciences Meeting (OSM) in Orlando Fl, this year. I will be giving a presentation on our Middle School Students Ocean Science and Technology program, our Oceanography Summer camp program. The meeting looks like it will have many other talks about outreach and education in addition to plenty of research talks.

Prof. Christensen and Cathi are doing a poster on the Deep Earth Academy (formerly Joint Oceanographic Institutes) classroom activities.

CollegeNow Meteorology

The issues with CollegeNow have been cleared up and I am teaching Meteorology to around 25 high school students. I say 'around' that many because the first day only 14 showed up, today, the second day, only 20 showed up, and the roster has 25 on it. The classroom wasn't unlocked today, and I was caught in traffic so the students were waiting outside for about 25 minutes before I showed up. Had to get people in the office to open it up. I filled out a card for keys after class. There aren't any textbooks for the students yet either and we won't meet again until the 11th of March. They have off for a week for Presidents Day, and then I am at training and a conference until then.

Apparently there is a problem with the course code or section, so they haven't been able to set it up on blackboard yet. I don't think I am going to bother with that anymore. The school has a license for a wiki, so I am going to have the students try that out. It could make for some interesting assignments for them too (create or edit the page on Tornados, edit the page on Dew point, provide citations for the page on weather maps) as well as allow them to coordinate their projects with one another.

Mr. Li's Silica Spheres

We've been fortunate enough to have someone from industry come in to use our SEM. Mr. Li has set up an account with us and I've been operating the SEM for him on a set of samples that he's made. We've had two sessions so far and it seems to be going well enough, he seems to be happy with the results we've been getting. We're actually scheduled to meet again next week on the 19th.

Mulitple Events

Funding for a Bruker training session in Feb and the OSM in March may not be available, which is disconcerting since I've spent $400 to register for OSM. I had been told that it would be acceptable by the department chair, and at the same time was going for SEM training from JEOL. For that training, I filled out an expense report and applied to have it refunded. Apparently I should have applied to encumber funds before doing anything. So I didn't encumber funds for OSM, thinking I would apply for reimbursement, and now there are no more funds available in the department.
Fortunately, there are external funds (from the college still), that had been encumbered for another person to use, however they were unable to use them. There was enough in that deal to cover both of my trips, IF it can be switched over to them. Hopefully it can. They are checking with Dean DiLorenzo to find out of this is workable.

Earlier in the day I received a phone call regarding CollegeNow. They were checking to see if I could be ready for a Meteorology class on Thursday. The problem was that I hadn't talked to my Chair about it, and it seems to me that any instructions regarding something like that need to come to me through him, since this is his department. I didn't think that there would be any problem, but still, I'd need to talk to him before actually starting it. Especially since we're in a wintersession, and the college class wouldn't start until afterwards, in the spring session. However, the Chair asked if I'd like to do the class when I met with him today, so that clears all that up. They're going to get off to an odd start however, since I have those two trips to go on in the beginning.

I also made contact with Mr. Li. He had originally be one of the candidates for the position that I have. He know works for a plastics company. They have some material, apparently its a plastic with silica grains embedded in it that they'd like to look at using the SEM. I was able to speak with him today and he'll be stopping by at around 11 on Thursday.


As a further note, I just started receiving payment in the last two weeks for the KECSS Astronomy class that ended last year. At least they are coming through now.

SEM Issues

I was working on our SEM the other day I decided to look at an electron-mirror image of our machine. I had an uncoated fossil specimen in the chamber that was charging, so I magnified tightly in and let it charge up some more and moved around to built up a big charge while at 50 kv, and then dropped down to 2kv. I didn't get a great electron mirror image but it was there at least, looking like as if I had been shrunk down and was standing in between the teeth of the fossil specimen, looking around at the specimen chamber. One that that was particularly neat was that I could see parts of the charged specimen, and the other specimens on the multi-sample holder. The image of our Backscatter electron detector was severely warped however, I was actually worried that it might've actually been warped at some point, but later on when I exchanged specimens I could see that it was perfectly fine.

The problem is that when in Backscatter imaging I should be able to see all parts of the detector as bright objects, however, half of one of the halves of the main chip (not the shadow chip) was dark. This must indicate a problem. I am going to have to contact JEOL to try to find out what can be done.

Porphyritic Basalts without Coverslips

I've been looking for the above for use in both traditional light micrscopes and Scanning Electron Microscopes. I had some difficulty finding vendors when searching under 'geological thin sections', but someone in a google group suggested searching for petrographic thin sections, which has yeilded some good results. So far I've emailed

mineralopticslab.com - minoptic@sover.net
nationalpetrographic.com - npsinc@flash.net
tulsasections.com - samples@tulsasections.com

I'll hold off on contacting any others until I get some responses.

Attempts at Organization

Today I attempted to organize S302 a little better, unfortunately I still don't have permission to move around too many of the larger items in there. I had hoped to get to assemble the lap-table today too, but there is some question of whether or not I should be doing that or standing by for any SEM issues. Clarification is pending.

Spoke with Prof. Ericco a bit today, seems like he has pretty much got things handled in terms of his EPS38 lab and Astronomy lab. I mentioned the Enrichment Cluster Astronomy course, he seemed bemused by the idea of inductive learning.

I was able to sort through the five overhead projectors that we have in the prep room, and pick out one new-ish and functioning one to set aside for our section. I don't think that anyone actually uses overheads in the department anyway, no one that I've talked to does. I'm just waiting now on confirmation that I can get rid of the remaining four. There's a lot of wasted space in the prep room, it could become pretty functional with some effort. Apparently the person here before me went through a real herculean effort to get it to this level, so I can be thankful for that.

SEM 'school' has become a priority, so I will definitely be going to that. Should be interesting. I think that starting next week, since there's a long break in classes this week, I will be logging in a lot of co-pilot time at the SEM.

I didn't get in touch with the people organizing the CollegeNow Oceanography program, left a message at their number though. I will have to just bring in the syllabus tomorrow and see what happens.

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Feast

The wife and I went to a feast this evening with Gigi in Port Washington. It was a bigger feast than I'd've expected. Casino tents, long rows of food tables with meatballs, sausage and peppers, fried calimari, zeppollis, corndogs, etc. The old gravitron was there. I wonder if there's just one of them owned by one carnival company, or a whole bunch? I suspect that perhaps its just one or two, that most of these carnival rides are just built for specific use during a short period of time, and that new designs come out after a season or two.

We decided to book a trip to Disney next week. Gigi's brother works there, and can get us free tickets to all the parks. Her grandmother also has a little house near it that we can stay at, so we'll just have to cover airline tickets and food and the like.

SEM School and conferences

Profs. Goodrich, Connolly, and Weisberg are hoping that I can attend an SEM 'school' session, from the 13th to the 17th of November. I can almost certainly find people to cover any setup that I can't prep in advance for the regular courses, but I am not too sure about what to do about the CollegeNow and Enrichment Cluster courses. Hopefully someone can be setup to cover them. We'll have to check in with the Department Chairman.

I got a call from one of the people involved with the CollegeNow program, and they're going to want a syllabus Monday, so I will have to work that out this weekend.

Start of Classes at KCC

Today was the start of classes at Kingsborough. I had come in on Tuesday to meet with Dr. Goodrich to set up for today's labs. It was a straighforward setup, the students would just be doing some exercises to either introduce or re-introduce them to the metric system. When they actually showed up to do it today, it was interesting because almost everyone had trouble with it. In the first lab session, only one student finished, but they made some odd mistakes on the units in their calculations. Whats interesting though is that the Middle School kids from the summer program seemed about as familiar with the metric system as these college students, if not, perhaps a little more familiar with it. Both the Middle Schoolers and college students had about as much trouble with the problems as one another though. In one session, a couple of students seemed extremely dismayed by the lab, and were concerned that the rest of the year was going to be as difficult. In truth, it will almost certainly get more difficult, or at least much more involved. They seemed concerned about having to do 'formulas and stuff'. I tried telling them that any science course is going to involve at least this level of difficulty, so if they're taking the course to fulfill a science requirement, then it might not make sense to switch out. They thought that the rest of the class would involve looking at 'rocks and stuff like that', which might've lead them to think the course would be 'easy'. I told them that it'll be up to them if they want to stay in the course.

I recall the first day of classes being hectic as a student, and it appears to be just as hectic for the profressors. I think that the schedule for the day had only been finalized the night before, if not this morning. One class, an Oceanography class, was supposed to be instructed by one professor, but, as it turned out, they had to teach a course at a different college at the same time, and couldn't do the oceanography course. When I walked in this morning, I was told this, and I think it had just been revealed to anyone this morning anyway. They asked me to be ready to go over to the class so that there'd at least be someone there for the first day. Turned out to not be necessary though, as another professor was willing to take the course over.

I'll also be instructing an Oceanography course through the "CollegeNow" program, where high school students take a college level course. The professor that is teaching the regular Oceanography course doesn't have much of an oceanography background, so we are going to be collaborating on creating a syllabus. The CollegeNow students would be doing the same stuff that the college students are doing. I'll also be instructing in an Astronomy course at the highschool on campus, as part of an "Enrichment Cluster". The students will have to create a set of presentations for an assembly at the end of the semester. Neither of those will start this week however.

An interesting first day. I can't tell exactly how much the rest of the year will be like this. I sat in on the lab classes and helped out, only having to leave for a while to meet with people connected to the Astronomy and CollegeNow programs. But for the most part I'll just be setting up lab course materials. The other classes that I am responsible for, the professors don't have any lab materials yet that need to be set up, that will come in for later labs.

Final Day of Summer Program

Today was the final day of the summer Oceanography program at Kingsborough. The program was definitely a success. Torwards the end, I was asking students if they'd do it again if the program was offered next semester, everyone that answered said yes, and one kid even wanted the forms for it now. If it's done again, there's a chance it will be expanded. This was a $300k grant, next time it might be as much as $900. That will probably mean more kids. If its done again, hopefully a boat can be requisitioned earlier on.

The major problems during the program were a result of lack of planning, not at the pre-camp stage, but during the actual operation of the camp. None of us were camp counselors, so we had a steep learning curve to deal with while the camp was going on. Things worked out, but this meant that there was a lot of stress going around. A meeting, at least once a week, or heck at least once, with everyone, the instructors and college assistants, would've gone a long way to preventing most of that, I believe.

KCC Summer Program

I've been able to get a job working at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn. I will be working on a special project wherein Middle School Students from around Brooklyn are brought to the campus to attend a summer camp. They'll receive two periods of instruction and science oriented activities, with physical activities in between and after. The program will run from around 9 o'clock, when they get breakfast, until around 5, when their last physical activity is completed. The college is also working on getting sailing ships for the kids to go out on,where they can perform oceanographic experiments.

College Lab Technician Position at KBCC

I've been able to get a job as a College Lab Technician at Kingsborough Community College, within the Department of Physical Science. Specifically, I'll be setting up labs for the Earth and Planetary Sciences section. So I'll be a CLT at KBCC in EPS. The job also includes responsibilities related to the maintenance of the department's Scanning Electron Microscope. Fortunately I had a course on Adelphi's SEM this past semester.

Wedding

Today, 6/2, was the day of our wedding. I am adding this post well after the fact. Everything went well, excluding the preist forgetting my name, and even using the wrong book at one point for the ceremony. The reception was excellent. The next day, we went to my new wife's parent's house to have a family party, and that was very nice too. We went to the Yucatan, the Riviera Maya, for the honeymoon. The honeymoon was great. We thought we lost my wife's wedding Thaali necklace after packing for the flight home, but luckily, after getting home, we found it in with out luggage.

More ex-Moderator Lamentations

I think I've done a decent job of keeping myself from going back to my old discussion site. I want to participate, but I have to resist going back. It just won't work out in the end. A human brain is very good at tricking itself. You'd think that an individual actor can't deceive itself, that it'd be logically immpossible to con yourself into doing something, but it certainly does. I keep thinking, "I will log back on to see if there are any messages for me" or "Maybe they changed their minds" or "I should just go back and participate as normal". I went back once of twice to get particular, specific information from two threads from the past, without engaging in discussion or logging on. But the minute I did that I set about looking around. "Any mention that I'm not a mod" I'm thinking to myself as I search the recent discussion thread titles. Nope, none, which isn't surprising. Then I see that there is already a new interface, a totally revamped frontpage, which was in the works while I was still there, and a re-worked 'member page'. The intention had been for a while to make the member page, which had your profile, into something more like a myspace page, for social networking. So now it displays your recent threads, recent tags, etc, along with the ususal account information. There's also a comments section, where people can leave messages if you've activated it (which it isn't on mine), and a "Friends" list and a "Foe" list. I have to say I am surprised at who's on which. The Foes list, for one thing, I short. And at least two of the people on it seem to have taken it seriously, they're people that I know strongly dislike me. I'd've thought that people would take something like that in a tongue-in-cheek manner, but apparently some people are really wound up.
The friends list illustrates what was so great about that place. "I'm just this guy, see", just a normal, average dude. But on the friends list, there's a bunch of people that I either wouldn't know in real life, or that I wouldn't know in the same way. There's a proud muslim. Knowing muslims is hardly a rarity, but I'd've never had the conversations with that guy that I did if I knew him in real life. They're either socialy inapropriate, or simply the oppurtunity for them just doesn't come up. There's a Thelemite who's a master of occult practice. Maybe I do know someone in real life who is that, but I'd never actually know that they were. There's a hard core brother who doesn't take no shit from nobody. Again, not a rarity, but how much interaction would we actually have had just passing on the street or working in an office? Most people my age already have a set of friends and they're not looking to bring many new people in. And who can really have anything other than a superficial discussion while inside of an office or in the lab or at class? There's a fun and fiesty chick from puerto rico, which I knew before she said she was because she even writes in an accent, so occurs thats where she's from. There's a mason who's simply a master of arcane knowledge, taking tributaries from all the underground streams and traditions. There's shriners, conservatives, the irreverent, the pious, black nationalists, pan-arabists, jewish nationalists, rude bollywood gyals, jews, muslims, hindus, christians, etc. And, again, this is just the tiny list of people from the board that actually marked me down as 'friend', rather than 'foe'. In other words, its a small sampling of the types of individuals that you'd encouter and engage in dialogue with there.
It sure was fun while it lasted.

Second Day of Prep

I arrived at Dr. Farmer's Paleoceanography Lab at Hofstra this morning to start a second session of specimin prep. All went well enough. There were still a few samples that were either lost, or that seem to have too little material in them to be useable. I went back to the first day's worth of prep and collected the ones that also looked like problems. Between tomorrow and the next day I will finish the normal picks, and then also re-do the problem samples. With all that, I should have around 36 samples crushed and ready for the final day of preparation.

New York City Teaching Fellowship

NYC has a programme in which people who have academic degrees, but no teaching certifications, can get those certifications. If you're accepted into the programme, you're put quickly to work in a NYC school, teaching a subject you are qualified for, getting paid as if you were a regular hire, and after about a year you get the certification needed to be a teacher.

I applied to the program, not expecting to get into it. Infact, I applied on the very day of the deadline. There's only a limited number of positions, and thousands of people try to get them. By some miracle, I've been able to advance to the Interview stage. Their website has some paperwork that I need to fill out, and I'll have to decide what category and grade level I'd want to be considered for. I need to schedule the interview for early next week, I think, if I'm going to hope to have any chance. Even then, it seems unlikely that I'll be accepted, its the end of the process, they've certainly filled most of their positions, and might just be interviewing a large number of people, in part to find a small number of the best applicants to fill in the final spots, and probably also to keep a 'buzz' up about the program.

Thesis Proposal

Part of the process of doing a Master's Thesis is proposing the project. It is an odd requirement, since by the time you're presenting the propsal, you're already heavily invested in the project. That goes double for me, since I've proposed my project in the middle of the same semester that the thesis itself has to be completed.

The presentation went well, started at 4:30, with the process of doing a power point presentation and then a question and answer period lasting a little more than an hour. In the week prior I had written up the thesis proposal itself, which ended up being only 5 pages of actual text.

I presented to Dr.'s Christensen, Farmer, Coombs, and Russell, who together make-up my Thesis Committee. I'll have to defend the thesis before them at the end of the semester. Dr.'s Christensen and Farmer of course I am working with, and Dr.'s Coombs and Russell are professors from the department. They did seem genuinely curious about the project, which isn't to surprising. The details of my project are barely within the normal confines of biology, at least here. It seems like everyone else here is doing a genetics project, running PCRs, gels, etc. And then I come in with what looks like spoonfuls of sand 'but I assure you, they're fossils'. True enough, these professors have heard of Foraminifera, and surely are aware that they're marine protists that extend pseudopodia outwards to pick up food particles. But be damned if I've got to deal with actual living ones. These things are dead as dirt. Literally, they've accumulated as dirt. Most biologists tend to think of biology as involving things that were at least relatively recently living.
This idea actually seperates biology into two overly wide domains. Pale-ontology, and Ne-ontology. Everyone in the department here is a neontologist. If they haven't killed it themselves, or known the guy that did kill it, they don't want any part of it.

Fortunately they looked past any of that, I was genuinely concerned that there would be objections to it for being too much of an environmental studies programme sort of project. Dr. Christensen prepped me well for the presentation, I was at least able to prevent myself from trying to speculate too much and rather just admit that I don't know the answer to a question. Speculation, it seems, can be too easily received as bullshitting.

I suspect that the actual thesis defense will be a much more rigourous process. I don't expect to have the thesis accepted right off the bat; that's relatively rare. Equally rare is to have it completely rejected. What normally happens, or so I read, is that revisions are requested, and the degree is awarded sort of 'conditionally'.
One of Dr. Christensen's previous students, from another University, infact has been through many revisions. He defended his thesis before I was even in my Master's programme, and he's been going back and fort with revisions ever since. This is while already being accepted into a PhD programme.
I can't really even consider thinking about the revisions at this point, I just have to work on actually finishing the data collection and writting the initial, pre-defense, draft, first.

De-modded

I ended up being de-modded today. I had been participating on a discussion board since July of 2004, and had be selected to be a moderator on it a while into it. It was a great old time. Wonderful discussion that you just can't have anywhere else. And a variety of people that I'd've never met in my lifetime. I had been getting heavily invovled in a series of conversations about Holocaust Denial on the board, these kinds of conversations aren't, to say the least, dispassionate. One of the peopel running around promoting the nazi propaganda that the holocaust didn't happen/wasn't that bad/or that the jews themselves did it, sent me a long private message, through the board system, attacking me and picking a fight. I send him/her back a short, to the point, beautifully vulgar response. Hey, if they want to pick a fight, I'm not one to dissapoint. But it was one of those moments when you realize right afterwards that it wasn't a good idea. Some of the other nazis that had swept onto the board, and this sort of thing does tend to happen in waves, and it does tie into the Iran Holocaust Conference which at least brought up the idea in the public spotlight again, had been complaining that I was too 'mean', both in the complaints section and also just openly in the threads. Apparently, these people aren't 'sensitive' enough to not rant that the jews were the perpetrators and beneficiaries of the holocaust, but are 'sensitive' enough to bitch and moan when someone frankly disagrees with them. So not too long after having sent the private message I get another one, from one of the three board administrators, quoting my vulgar reponse to the member and informing me that I wasn't going to be a moderator anymore.
What could I say, they were right. As a moderator I represented the board's administration. I thanked the administrator for even letting me a mod for the time that I was. But I can't continue on on the board now. I really loved the board, but I can't even justify to myself anymore spending that much time on it without being 'on staff'. True enough, it sounds silly to refer to a discussion moderator position as a staff position, but we, as mods, were part of the organization, and we did help it move along and advance, outside of normal moderation duties. THe board had grown a lot in the time I was there, and I at least like to think that I contributed to it. Everyone participating on the board did contribute, but I like to think that those of us working as moderators were a part of it, in addition to being contributing participants.
It was great to have all those intruiging interactions with completely different people, to learn from their nearly alien worldviews (infact, a person or two would occasionally claim to be an actual extraterrestrial alien), and to have my own ideas challenged. Thats not something that you too often get in regular life. The people that I personally know aren't, in the end, all that different from me. They're mostly from the same region, living similar lives, and operating in similar manners. But there, you'd be mixing it up with someone who's family was in the Iraqi Insurgency one moment, debating UN policy with people in post-communist era countries the next, or listen in on a debate between a master mason and a Thelema devotee before getting a good lecture on US monetary policy. And usually one of those guys or gals would also be trying to explain a paranormal event that had happened to them, or posting a possible (if improbable) UFO sighting photo that they had taken.
Alas, thats just going to have to be a stage that's over for me now. If I go back to participating as a member, I'll allways be wondering about whats going on in moderation and administration. And in all honesty it'd be almost too painful to watch from the sidelines as the board continues to grow and expand, as it certainly will. And while I was a moderator, I held my tongue. I held back, because we had a certain amount of responsibility in that position. Without that responsibility, who's to say how long it would be before I was booted off altogether? That'd be a bad experience, and it'd, in a way, make at least the time between being demodded and this hypothetical future booting, something of a waste.
All good things come to an end.

Hiring in Advance?

I've had what appeared at first like potential offers to work for some companies. I'd put my resume up on a job search site, and sent out a bunch of inquiries to matches for jobs in biological and geological fields and received a few call backs. But it turns out that they're not really interested in hiring anyone months in advance, before they even have their degree. Which shouldn't've been surprising, but was disappointing.

Rejected by Stonybrook

I had completed my Stonybrook application a while ago and sent it in. I was able to get letters of Recommendation from Dr.s Christensen, Schoenfeld, and Hobbie. I also contacted Dr. Forster at Stonybrook to see if she was taking on any more graduate students. Unfortunately she said she already had 5 students and wasn't looking for anymore, but, she said to contact her again to see if something could be worked out. I responded saying that I'd still like to work in the program, and would like to meet up with her at Stonybrook. She agreed and asked for me to send in a day to meet, which I did. Unfortunately, the next time I heard from Dr. Forster was when I received a rejection letter from Stonybrook. The letter seemed like standard fare, but at least it had been sent directly from her, as she is on the graduate admissions committee, rather than from someone that I hadn't spoken too previously.

I sent a follow-up letter to Dr. Forster to get more information about the specific reasons why I was rejected, and what I can do to improve my chances of getting accepted into another program. Hopefully she will respond and it will be something that I can work on.

New Teaching Assistant Assignment

I've been fortunate enough to get assigned to another TA position. This time it is in Dr. Coombs' "Fundamentals of Microbiology" lab. There is only one section with all the students from the lecture, and it meets twice a week.

The students are going to be working with cultures of microbes, including BSL 2 organisms in the second half of the semester. BSL 2 organisms are 'potentially pathogenic' organisms; they can cause disease. Bio Saftey Level is a rating from 1 to 4, with things like Anthrax being Level 4, and non-disease causing varieties of E. coli being level 1.

Cleaning for Mg:Ca Analysis: Problems and Solutions

I collected around 40 individual G. bulloides for the first 15 or so depth intervals from the core. I seperated them into two sets of 20 individuals each and carefully crushed the test chambers open in prepartion for cleaning them for Mg:Ca analysis. This gave me 30 samples, which were put into certified metal free tubes on a rack. Even though they were certified metal free, I still treated them to a long heated acid bath to ensure that there were no metals that had collected in them, such as with dust. I then went to Dr. Farmer's lab at Hofstra for the cleaning at around 9 in the morning. The rest of the cleaning work was done inside of a negative pressure hood, to prevent metal bearing dusts from contaminating them. They were then put through a series of treatments, the goal of which was to remove all clay minerals and wash away any Mg or Ca crusts (non-biological) that had accumulated after deposition on the ocean floor. A small amount of methanol (for clays) or acids (for leaching) would be added to the tube and then siphoned off. I also treated the samples to a boiling bath of strong Hydrogen Peroxide, to destroy any organic materials that may also have accumulated, using a sonicator at many steps to aggitate the material. Leaching in a weak acid was the penultimate step before final dissoution. It was after leaching, and this was around 6 or 7 at night, that I realized that the tiny amounts of material were missing, they had either been dissolved at one of the acid steps or sucked up by the vaccuum. That was unfortunate.

So several days later I collected a small sampling of forams, not necessarily all G. bulloides, but similarly shaped and with similarly thin test walls, from a 'practice' jar of washed material. There were four tubes, with around 20 crushed individuals in them each. I then used the same procedure as I had previosuly used to clean them, and after the weak acid leach, they were still there and looked good.
So its possible that I had previously sucked them up with the vaccum, or that I had crushed them too finely, which allowed them to dissolve in the various acids. But it looks unlikely that carefully crushed tests will be dissolved by this procedure, which of course is to be expected, since many other workers have used it with success, including Dr. Farmer.

Now I will have to finish picking the foram samples and clean them, hopefully there won't be any problems with this round.

Wintersession

For the intersession during the winter break, I had to.

 

1. I need to contact Dr. Farmer over at Hofstra. (done)
2. Prepare a new outline for a Thesis Proposal (done)
3. Contact Dr. Forster at SUNY Stonybrook about her program (done)
4. Complete SUNY Stonybrook PhD application.
5. Prepare a draft cover-letter for new job applications.
6. Pick 40 G. bulloides to later be analysed for Mg/Ca ratios from all of the 1H1W and 1H2W intervals.

I am waiting on any kind of response from Dr. Forster. I have to wonder at how they react to emails from people that they don't know, asking to work with them and asking about grant money. Seems like it would normally sound suspicious. Maybe I can pretend next time to be a Nigerian Bank Manager.   I suppose that they expect it to be part of the territory that comes with being a professor in a programme.

 

Outlining the a new proposal for my thesis went quicker than expected. Prof. Christensen had previously said that I should use her other student's theses and proposals as a way to structure it. But I hadn't done that. I tried it this time, and it sure was a lot more helpful.  The difficult part was deciding what sections to put everything into, but seeing that other students had just flat out broken it up into the study area, background on the techniques and science, and then an explanation of their method, was just a sensible way of laying it out. This should make the writing of it go quickly.

 

As far as cover letters and essays for applications, I have to get going on that.

 

Picking the samples has been a mixed experience. I focused on my previous picks from Jim's material, pulling out what I now recognize as G. bulloides.  I've gotten through all of 1085B 1H1W, and now just have 1H2W to go through.  After that though, I am going to need to either sieve some more material to get up to 40 G. bulloides for each point I want to sample down the core, or go through the rest of Jim's and see if there are any to get from there. I'll probably end up doing both.

More forams

Met with my Professor today to go over what I need to get done before the semester starts. We're going to meet for another couple of days to review what I've gotten done. I need to reorganize my Thesis Proposal, so I can present it to a committee for approval. I also need to actually select who will be on my Thesis Committee too. Apparently I might be able to include Dr. Farmer on this, even though she is at Hofstra (and in a different department on top of that). That should be helpful, since she has direct experience with this kind of work. I will need to contact her soon to set up when to come to the lab and find out exactly how many specimens to pick for each level.
Thats the big task right now, picking the specimens. I started by trying to pick out G. bulloides from Jim's slides, I got through half of one section of the core and was barely able to find one. I think I might've picked too liberally when I was looking for Nq. pachyderma previously, and taken up all his G. bulloides. So I went back to my old slides and really started hitting a roadblock on just what defines which organism. I definitely picked a lot that weren't Nq. pachyderma, in the early slides at least. I was able to get some G. bulloides out of them too. But now I am not at all confident in my understanding of which characteristics define which. Yes, I have Kennet & Srinivasan right in front of me, but the descriptions just seem like they can go either way on so many individuals. I ended up spending a long time in the lab, but got nothing done with it.

Before all that I had to clear up an issue with financial aid. They had cut a refund check for me early in the semester, but when the TAing tuition waiving came through, they shut off the financial aid. That meant that the check that the school had cut for the refund wasn't being covered by my Financial Aide, so now I owed them for it. Luckily, all that needed to be done was to have a stop put on the check.
After that, I gave the biology office my probable schedule for Spring. Hopefully, I will be able to get another TA position. The professor in charge of doling out the positions had only picked up the student schedules earlier this morning, so they shouldn't've assigned anything to anyone yet. On top of that, one student that was a TA last semester isn't doing it again, so that should mean I am pretty certain to get a position.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Got this book for Christmas, which is funny because I had picked it up in a bookstore and thought it looked interested but ended up not buying it. So I lucked out and ended up having it anyway. Just finished reading it, really interesting book. Its about a father and son, neither of which are named at anypoint in the book, wandering through the world after what seems to have been global thermonuclear war. The world is completely destroyed. The inside flap of the dust jacket says that they are walking through "burnt America", which says it all. Everything everywhere is completely burned out. There event happened in the man's lifetime, when his wife was pregnant, and the books starts years later with just him and the kid. The descriptions in the book push the sensations of the charred out world where the only thing that seems to move is a permanent cover of ashes. There's no sun anymore, or at least you can assume it still exists beyond the never ending overcast of the sky. Only a diffuse light exists during the day. McCarthy describes mornings as 'palings', and night is absolute blind blackness. The only things that are alive in the book are humans for the most part. We once hear a dog parking, but that stops before long. Hell, people are capturing and eating other humans, so of course they've done away with dogs, cats, etc. Pets, I suppose, are pretty superfluous in the apocalypse. The only other time any animals are mentioned is during a nightmare of two with hideous monstrous animals, and then one scene where there are snake. A group of men pull open a peice of hill to get at a mass of hibernating snakes within it and just set them on fire. McCarthy describes it as little more than them wanting to destroy something that represents evil.
I don't think it necessary to view the book as a science fiction novel. It doesn't make sense that way. Nuclear war would be destructive, but here, its like every square inch of the planet was hit with a flame thrower. And every animal is dead, there's never any insects, birds, worms, nothing. But humans are still alive. The coasts at some points are completely littered with millions of tiny fishbones, and the oceans are just churning gray masses. The description of rivers are great, they're just these dead, whirling black slicks with greasy froth and scum all over them. The only food that they come across are tinned goods, and it seems to be what everyone survives on, either that or other people. The man and the boy are like concentration camp victims, but they seemed to have walked from Virginia, or even further north, to the southern tip of Florida. So no its not a science fiction book. Its almost more poem than prose. McCarthy also doesn't use much punctuation, which can be annoying, especially with dialog. Its easy to forget who's talking or thinking any particular line, or if its even being narrated when you start reading the sentence, which, I suppose, must be the point.
Its almost funny to even think of it as a "post apocalypse" story. Just compare it to the TV show Jerhico or Mad Max or anything from the 'after the end of the world' genre and you can see that its just completely different. There are hints of the post-annihilation history, but its muddled and infrequent. "Blood Cults" and "bull drums" are completely used as props to reinforce the mood of the book. Its like when a horror movie never gives you a good look at the monster. You know its hideous, and therefore it is, you don't need an accurate and detailed description, its as horrendous as anything you know, because you've more or less made it up.
Its the descriptions that I think come out most stronly in the book. Even though the whole world is nothing by gray dust, black ash, and scorched soot, where even the snow is gray, you still manage to get a 'vivid' impression of it. You can feel how freezing cold it is, with minimal sunlight during the day, and nothing but scavenge wood or gas to burn for a fire.
The story ends oddly, but I guess that McCarthy figured he couldn't have an unhappy ending. You definitely feel completely hopeless for these two completely pitiful people through most of the book. Half the time you just hope that the man snuffs out the kid before some one roasts him over a spit or wears his skin for a hat. If the narrator said "but in reality, this wasn't earth, the man and boy had died in the attack and now they were wandering through hell while everyone else was alive', you'd beleive it. They're traveling down the road, because its the only thing around. Its all asphalt and oil, and the novel appropriately ends with someone telling the boy to get out of the middle of the road. The other thing that I noticed about the novel is the physical book itself. At first I thought it was just poorly cut, but after a little while I realized that the pages must've been made uneven on purpose, gives you a feel for it being something to be left during the apocalypse.

Here's a page about the author, from the looks of his other titles, he doesn't seem like the most jovial guy around:
CormacMcCarthy.com

From his page I see he apparently is the author of "All the Pretty Horses", which was made into a movie. Never saw it.

Random House has a pretty nice looking page for the book, but from the looks of the url it will change with his publication history, so it might not allways be for "The Road".