Port Town

Even today, getting to New Zealand is no easy business. Back before GPS and accurate clocks, it was even harder. One of the greatest scientific problems of the 17th century was determining a ship's longitude (that's how far East or West of the Prime Meridian a ship is located). This made for serious sailing issues! Following Galileo, ship captains used the moon and stars to determine position for most of the 1600s, but this method is unreliable.

Finally, in 1730, British Clockmaker John Harrison built the first precise marine clock. By knowing the difference between local time and Greenwich Mean Time, captains could finally know with great accuracy their longitude. Longitude at a point may be determined because there are 24 hours in a day and 360 degrees in a circle, so the sun moves across the sky at a rate of 15 degrees per hour (360°/24 hours = 15° per hour).

Which brings us to this fair island. Without a copy of a John Harrison clock, Captain James Cook probably would not have mapped Neuseeland in 1770. Without a map in hand, the English settlers would not have sailed on The First Four Ships to settle Christchurch in 1850. The first colonists arrived in Port Lyttelton:

scaled the Port Hills and started clearing swampland to establish this city. For the next 100 years, New Zealand colonists relied heavily on importing goods from and exporting goods to England. Ships sailed in and out of Port Lyttelton. How did they know the time? With a timeball, of course! On a cold grey winter Sunday, we played captains, sailors, and pirates. We visited the timeball, a castle like place high on a hill above the port:

The ball on the mast has dropped every day at exactly 1pm since 1876 to tell mariners the true time (it should make you think of New Year's Eve on Times Square).

We also had a treasure hunt at Corsair Bay. Anna drew a very cool treasure map and James hid the treasure while we played on the wooden pirate ship. Anna didn't want a mutiny; we were mateys and we shared the captaincy. I love the fact that Anna's honing her map skills and having fun at the same time.


Ships sailed, treasure found, time clocks calibrated, it was at last time to go home and have hot curries for dinner:-)

Anna Turns Five

I spent seven weeks in State College; when I got home, I found a beautiful, funny, confident, capable and courageous five-year-old. In my absence (or maybe because I grew fonder), Anna perfected taking care of herself, telling funny jokes, and entertaining herself for hours with creative play. Sure the house was a mess, but when I cleaned, I found hidden "I love Mummy" cards and letters everywhere.

To top off the hugs and letters, Anna turned five on Tuesday. We had cupcakes at Kindercare and the party was so cute. In fact, the party was hilarious. Between Anna and her sly jokes and her teachers' excellent sense of humour, I was in stitches. First, during mat time, Anna got to stand in front of the class and tell everyone about her birthday, presents, and where she's going to school next week. After the Q and A, Anna said sideways "there's a song you can sing to me."

Teacher Emma laughed and said "let's wait for the cake." Before the cake, hand washing, a Maori blessing (which Anna said by herself perfectly pronouncing 10 lines of Maori verse!!), and fruit. I asked Teacher Adele to translate the Maori words for me (Maori words are full of vowels and very pretty), so she took out the dictionary and started laughing. Not being bilingual, she translated the first line as "bless this potato peeler." We still don't know the English version, but here's Anna waiting patiently to say the blessing and eat her fruit.

Finally, fruit eaten, it was time for the birthday song. Almost. Adele got out the matches to light the 5 candle, and Teacher Holly launched into a discussion about what to do if the kids found matches on the floor. The boys suggested light a fire, but Holly eventually elicited "give the matches to an adult" from them. Adele (matches in hand) asked if the fire safety course was over yet because it really was time for the song (gotta love that British humour). Yay! The Birthday Song! Happy Birthday to You Anna!!

When Anna blew out her candle, Holly asked what she wished for. Anna said she didn't wish for anything because she had everything she wanted. To which Holly said, "not even world peace?" Ok, those teachers are hilarious. I left feeling proud and entertained and totally happy. My little girl has arrived at five fully content. She even got the chocolate icing stain off her dress herself before I left (without prompting!).

Summer Solstice

Summer is sublime. I have a profound dislike for sitting down, being indoors, and wasting daylight. And not having daylight to waste. If I have a map and the sun is shining, I'm in search of adventure. Since arriving in America, I have had 16 hours of sunlight every day compared with 9 hours in Christchurch.

To my running, biking, hiking soul, that means I've had twice as many days; it's no wonder I feel like I've been here weeks and weeks and weeks. My well-used map of State College is covered in highlighter and my head is full of mental waypoints of my favourite rocks, trees, creeks, houses, overlooks and restaurants.

If summer is sublime, the solstice is ethereal. On Friday night after work, I rode my bike to Mt Nittany and climbed to the summit to watch the sunset. On Saturday morning, I rode my bike through downtown State College:

past grand collegiate columns:

and for hours along an old railtrail and miles of forest tracks:

Yes, I did get completely lost. However, I've found that if I stand at the side of the road looking lost long enough, someone will tell me how to get home. They did. The road was gorgeous:

After all that, I got home before lunch, read more of my new used Tom Robbins book, and went to the lab to work on my data for 3 hours. At last I was rescued from the AC, DC, EMRs and electronic hums. Bryan, Marco and I went to Rothcote State Forest for a late afternoon swim in Whipple Dam:

With fresh watermelon in hand, we ended the day at Professor Derek Ellsworth's summer solstice soiree. Nestled in forest against the base of Mt Nittany, his house was host to a bring-a-dish bbq complete with the most delicious spit-roasted spring lamb that I have ever had. We relaxed on the lawn eating, drinking and laughing until the sun set and the children started catching fireflies. Their glowing bioluminescence was nature's fireworks, and the warmth of summer was rivaled only by the warmth of American hospitality. Joy. Friendship. Sunshine.

Love in Lancaster

I rented a Hyundai, tuned into Car Talk and drove to Lancaster yesterday. Stunning scenery lined the road, and I was filled with fahrvergnügen driving fast down a 4-lane American highway. Never mind that I forgot my wallet at Alamo; my friends were 90 miles away and I couldn't wait to meet their beautiful baby boys. I couldn't wait to talk about families and pregnancies and nutrition and breastfeeding and careers and all the aspirations we had 10 years ago in Sewanee.

It was awesome; Melinda made delicious food (blackened Salmon salad, roasted organic chickens). The boys were full of cuteness and curiosity. We wandered around Jones park, found trees and sap at James Buchanan's arboretum, saw turtles and rabbits and baby ducklings. Baby Martin could not possibly have been more adorable:

And Owen's passion for all-out adventure and exploration was both entertaining and refreshing. Thankfully, though, I didn't have to chase after him. My friends Tracy and Melinda are fantastic mothers, unashamedly breastfeeding their babies on the park bench and attentively engaging them in the wonders of the natural world.

I think we could have talked for days, but all-too-soon I was back on the road to State College. Intellectual conversation was replaced with lyrics like "just when it couldn't get hotter, I fell in love with the farmer's daughter." Awe, America, families, babies, deciduous forests, road trips, I love you.

John's Birthday, Jersey Shore

One of the great things about being here is that I can visit my brother and his family! Happily, I escaped the lab again yesterday and headed up to Jersey Shore, where my brother John is the pastor at Crossroads Community Church. I soaked up the ambiance and embraced the Christian fellowship. What a welcome switch from the intensity of academia! Afterwards, we all headed to John's beautiful PA-styled house for a delicious lunch of homemade guacamole and all foods Mexican-American. Yum!

I love my niece Emily (a sporty nature girl after my own heart :-) and my nephew Cole (who loves doing neat experiments, like melting different sized chunks of ice to see the size of the water marks). Last time, Cole and I had all sorts of cool conversations about doing science experiments. Here's a picture of Emily and her cute dog Obi:

And Cole with his friend Jacob comparing Pokemon cards. I remember doing the same thing with football cards when I was his age. Must be an important prelude to collecting scientific data.

After lunch, we sang Happy Birthday to John and had cake. I really liked the strawberry pie that Suzie made with freshly picked summer strawberries. It was SOOO nice to sit in the sun and be in the company of my family.

Morning on Mt Nittany

I've been feeling really dizzy this week from the toxic combination of epoxy and molycote, so I took the day off and rode my bike to Mt Nittany. Mt Nittany is a cute little 2000 foot mountain that overlooks State College, and it's a lovely rolling 40 minute bike ride (on Bono) from my house to the trailhead.

It was a warm, humid morning and I was the only person on the trail, which climbs about 650 feet to the top of the mountain. After an early morning rainshower, the leaves were glistening with water, and mountain laurels dressed the understory with Pennsylvania's state flower.

I enjoyed using my dendrology skills to identify the different trees. It was neat to see the mixture of southern species at lower elevations and northern species at higher elevations. There were also some mountain azaleas still blooming.

Along the ground, I caught glimpses of the Appalchian columbine.

And no trip to the mountains is complete without rocks. I was thrilled to see that the same rock that caps my beloved Sewanee domain outcrops atop Mt Nittany: a crossbedded sandstone.

I approached the bluff thinking, well that would be a great place for a snake. Sure enough, when I clambered over the edge, a Northern Racer greeted me from a crevice. I don't know which was more alarming, the snake or the premonition. Although he looked pretty harmless and I stopped to take a picture, I wasn't about to do any detailed geology:-)

Long Days in the Lab

It's a good thing the days are long; I can spend hours in the lab and still have time to run and bike. I'm posting a photo of the final view of a jacketed rock sample about to go into the pressure vessel (a place where we put huge confining pressures on the rock to simulate the conditions it experiences at about 2 km beneath the Earth's surface).

And here's the monster machine which applies the pressures. It's called the biaxial shear apparatus or "biax" for short. There are a lot of buttons and knobs to learn to use!