New (to us) art!

Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa, we've been able to adopt several pieces of artwork. Please enjoy the following quick tour of the works' new homes. The camera makes the pictures look really small compared to the wall, but I think they look pretty good.

The houses went in the dining room, overlooking our table.

Adjacent to the dining room, the girl in green on the stairs.

We have one piece in the upstairs bathroom

And one in the downstairs.

One piece in Chad's office

And one in mine.

A few more in the guest bedroom

And finally, a neat face by the back door.

Thanks again for making our walls more interesting!

Happy end of passover!

Properly celebrated, with takeout Ethiopian food. Is there a better way to welcome bread back to your diet?

Hello from Neutronworld.

So I’m at NIST, doing some scattering experiments at the National Center for Neutron Research this weekend. Please hold back your comments about what a party animal I am and how I live it up on the weekend.

**disclaimer: if you don't want to endure my lengthy description of Neutron scattering targeted to third grade teachers and musicians already familiar with x-ray scattering (perhaps that is a small demographic but whatever) please skip to the last paragraph.**

I actually think this Neutron stuff is pretty cool. Neutron scattering is similar to x-ray scattering, but the contrast mechanisms are different. When you shoot x-rays at a material, they scatter off of the atoms inside. The heavier the atom, the more the x-rays scatter (so P (atomic mass = 31) is a better scatterer than C (mass = 12), and H (mass = 1) is practically invisible). When you shoot neutrons at a material, they also scatter off the atoms inside. But the heavier atoms aren’t necessarily better than the light ones. For Neutrons, scattering is larger for atoms with a higher "scattering length" (I'll call it "b" for short), which doesn’t necessarily increase with atomic weight. For example, for C, b = 6.65, and for P, b = 5.13 .

There is a huge difference in scattering length between Hydrogen and Deuterium. Deuterium is Hydrogen with one extra neutron, so it's molar mass = 2. However, for D, b = 6.67, for H, b = -3.4. Big difference! Most molecules that have H in them can be made with D instead of H without really changing any other properties, so scientists can swap Ds for Hs in their molecules to get different scattering in the Neutron beam (so I don’t have to go into a whole shpiel about contrast matching, take my word for it that this is really really useful).

What all this boils down to is that you can do a very similar experiment with x-rays and neutrons and see totally different things. Below is an example of the difference between the contrast available from x-ray and neutron imaging, from UT Nuclear Engineering. "Neutron Imaging" is similar to "Neutron Scattering" in that you expose the material to neutrons, but the optics are different such that you get an image in real space. The contrast mechanisms are the same as with scattering, though, and you can see that each neutrons and x-rays allow you to see totally different things.

Here is an x-ray image of a camera.
The plastic parts of the camera are basically invisible (they're made up of light elements) and the metal parts are basically opaque (they're made of heavy elements).

Here is a neutron image of the same camera.
Now we can see the details in the plastic parts, including the film, because the metal parts are basically invisible. Isn't that cool?

They use neutron imaging a lot for fuel cell research. Inside a fuel cell there is water moving through channels in a plastic membrane, and the whole thing is enclosed in metal. Because of the metal casing, we can't use regular or x-ray imaging to see what's going on inside when the cell is running. But turns out Neutron imaging is perfect for this sort of thing, because the casing is basically invisible but the water shows up great. I would encourage you to read more just because I think it's such an elegant way to study fuel cells.

In case you are tired of my neutronbable, I will switch subjects entirely, to one less science-heavy. I think the picture on my NIST badge is one of the best taken of me in a really long time. Which is too bad because the badge is used for security purposes and belongs to the government, so I am quite sure it would be inappropriate for me to take a picture of it and post it here. Basically I am saying this great picture will be seen by no one, so it’s entirely useless to me. And you’ll just have to take it on faith that it actually exists.

Not Dead!

BEANS!!!


Look at the little guys. Up they come! They can handle it if we go away for their crucial first few days in the ground. They're tough! And they have lots of friends. Please look at all of the things in our gardens I thought would be dead but are clearly NOT DEAD!

**note: today's post has been brought to you by the simple pleasures department**

Now on with the show (some things look kind of brown in the pictures, but they're nice and green in real life):

Lettuce! (We'll have to thin it soon)

Spinach!

Radishes!


Zucchini!

Cucumbers!

And from the side garden, some of our perennials are coming back. We are very happy to see them, especially since we weren't great about clipping down their pathetic dried corpses from last season.

Black Eyed Susans!

This picture shows the beginnings of the crazy red and white lillies! (I didn't realize those would come back at all!) as well as the return of our mums! I am happy to report that we have not had any additional mum thefts.

And finally, a newcomer: mint! from Grandma. It seems to be quite happy on the side of the house, next to a hosta! that is also noticeably NOT DEAD! Woohoo!

Atlanta 2

As I seem to have forgotten to mention in my last post, Chad and I were in Atlanta for the FIRST world championships. We are VIP guests (or rather, Chad is a VIP and I get to tag along) because Thoughbot is building a new registration platform for the First Lego League.

First is a robotics competition, with different competitions for kids of different ages (the total span is elementary – high school). My favorite is the Lego League, because these teams are by far the cutest – they’re 9-14 year olds from all over. They have to build a little robot out of legos that completes tasks on a game board. I like the Lego League because teams come in from all over. The team from Egypt (in lime green below) competing against the team from Utah (just off the left of the picture). The kids are very excited and creative. In front of team Egypt you find one of my favorite teams: the Fire Breathing Rubber Duckies. Seriously, that was their name. Clearly these kids are allowed to name their own teams. See the inflatable rubber duck tube as part of the team.


I am also partial to teams with lots of pink: see below for the girls from Saudi Arabia (they also get points for their kick-ass name: team Danger Mind)


I also liked team Damsels in Charge, based on their pink boas.


Perhaps the FLL core values (things like teamwork, creativity, professionalism, etc) are more important than pink, but since I'm not a judge I get to pick favorites for arbitrary and/or petty reasons.

The main event, however, was the First Robotics Challenge (FRC). In this year's challenge, the robots had to move around a track, and manipulate these gigantic balls.


These robots are impressive - you can see in the picture how big they are. The kids have to build, program, and drive the robots, as well as represent their team to the judges. The teams are pretty serious - everyone in a tie-died t-shirt above is on the same team, watching their robot. One cool thing about the FRC tournament is that in each round, 6 teams compete in two groups of 3. So each round the teams have to be able to work with different people they've never met before. It is very easy to see how applicable the skills that high schoolers learn in FRC will be applicable in future careers. In addition to the teamwork and professionalism stuff, they're using serious technology that is directly applicable to a variety of industries. In summary, I was impressed.

The last night we were in Atlanta, we went to the FIRST VIP dinner at the Georgia Aquarium. This was such a cool place for a dinner - there were two big windows to the giant tanks, so we could see sting rays, whale sharks, and beluga wales. I also had the opportunity to see just how nerdy my husband is. (I generally know about his nerdiness, but occasionally he impresses even me). He was hoping to find a friend of his at the dinner, but when we couldn't see him anywhere Chad twittered that he was looking. I find this ridiculous. But not as ridiculous as the fact that HIS FRIEND CHECKED FOR THE TWITTER. See below for the two men checking their phones during the nice dinner to see where their communications got crossed.


Maybe it's because my friends tell jokes about the Born-Oppenheimer Approximation (seriously, this came up at the bar on Sunday night), but I like getting confirmation that Chad's friends are dorkier.

Also this weekend: Seder at Dad's and Melanie (Moses! He's our Moses!), a beautiful wedding celebrating all things pink and green (Congratulations Chris and Sharon!!) and a great visit with Grandma and Grandpa (Sure we'll take passover service for 22!). Then we came home to crash. Is it any wonder I don't get posts up in a timely manner?

Atlanta 1

So we’ve arrived in Atlanta. And by the looks of our hotel, I mean ARRIVED.

After living in the city for 5 years I don’t really feel like a country bumpkin often, but I am not used to being places where I don’t touch my suitcase from the time I leave the cab until it’s set on a baggage rack in the room. And when we walked into our room (the guy took us up the elevator and opened all the doors for us, apparently when you have money you lose the ability to open a hotel door) not only was every light on, but the TV as well. With beautiful scenery and calming music.


We were starving when we got in, so we shooed super helpful hotel guy away and went out to dinner. Everyone in this hotel is almost unreasonably friendly. Perhaps I am a bitter northerner, but I find it a bit odd when we’re leaving the hotel and a cleaning lady sees and steps out of her way to say “we’re so glad to have you with us, have a lovely evening.” I’m certainly glad to be with her, but still.

When we returned, everything back on again. And there was ice and water, and chocolate. It’s great. Did I mention the beautiful bathroom?



Things that all hotels should have in the bathroom: Nail file, q-tips, cotton balls, woolite packets (for washing things in the sink, I would assume). Also please notice the requisite phone in bathroom. Which I honestly don’t understand. Who talks on the phone in the bathroom? Other than the weird lady who works in my building and often talks on her cellphone in Russian while in the stall in the bathroom. Awkward, but a story for another time.

But my favorite signals that we’ve arrived are my hotel slippers.


Honestly, not all that comfortable, but still fancy. And also in that picture please observe my hotel bathrobe. Which, according to the sign in the bathroom, I can purchase as a memento of my stay for $100 at the gift shop. In case you are wondering, This bathrobe is not worth $100. Apparently when you have money you also lose the ability to price a bathrobe. Perhaps you are just so relieved to have made it into the room with out the helpful hotel guy that you want the bathrobe out of gratitude. Whatever. As long as they keep bringing me chocolate in the evening.

First crop

Not from the garden, per se...

I noticed these crazy tufts of grass in the lawn the other day.


And a friend suggested that they may be spring onions. So mid-bocce we broke some off and what do you know - smelled just like onions. Huh. So the other night we pulled up a whole bunch of wild oniony goodness.


Washed them off, chopped them up, and put them in the turkey burgers. Here's to eating from our yard even before we're able to grow anything. Even though the only thing from our yard was the seasoning. And for turkey burgers, that isn't going to change. I don't think the neighborhood cats could handle a pet turkey.