Diez Meses en Chile-and a whole lot more at CMU!

Guille el Flautista

2007-07-16T13:35:00.000-04:00

Stanley Cup Finals, Game 2

2007-06-03T11:17:00.000-04:00

Go Ducks!!!!
What a wild experience game 2 was! Definitely the loudest, most intense hockey game I've ever been to in my life. The Ducks won 1-0 in a game they absolutely dominated physically, and now are only 2 games away from bringing the Cup to Southern California!

My dad shelled out for the tix. Lucky for me, he decided to bring me along :)

The players emerge from the locker room to a rock-concert atmosphere!

Masters!!!

2007-05-25T12:20:00.000-04:00

DONE!!!

2007-05-18T12:36:00.000-04:00

The semester is officially over, we all officially passed our qualifying exams, and it is now officially Party Time!!!

Party at PHI bar after quals to celebrate Elan's birthday & the end of exams!! Happy b-day E.

Gol de Maradona vs. Gol de Messi

2007-05-10T12:26:00.001-04:00

Maradona's goal (on the left) in the World Cup '86 in México is probably the best goal ever.
On the right is Leo Messi's goal last week for Barcelona in La Copa del Rey...he's 19 years old.

CTIO skybrightness

2007-05-09T06:56:00.000-04:00

I am officially a published scientific author:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0705.1153

This details skybrightness measurements at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory for the last ~15 years. Unfortunately, it will be Hugo's last paper.
To appear in the June 2007 issue of the Publications of the Astronom. Society of the Pacific.

Of quals & spirals...

2007-05-06T06:17:00.000-04:00

The semester is finally winding down, which is a good thing 'cause I'm pretty sure I could sleep for a week straight. It's been a very good first year of grad school, I've definitely learned a ton, determined that Stats is the right field for me, worked on a very cool project, etc., etc....but at some point there's no sense in trying to cram more stuff into your brain & your good side says 'stop working & go to bed, dumbass'.

That said, next week is finals/qualifiers week. I have to pass 2 quals and 1 final exam before I am declared a Master of Science in the field of Statistics (oooooh!). This means that although I have long-forgotten stuff I learned in September, I somehow need to remember all of the hard stuff from every class I've taken this year and spill it out onto 1 3-hour exam in theory and 1 9-hour exam in data analysis. Yes, that's right, a 9-hour exam in which I must fully analyze a dataset and write a report. Fun stuff...

Sooo... the point is that on Friday at around 1 p.m. I will be free once more to begin drowning out everything I am trying to re-learn with sweet, sweet beer. Can't wait!!

But not everything about grad school is studying & taking exams (& drinking beer). We also work on sweet-ass research projects. My sweet-ass project this semester was the study of spiral galaxies using texture analysis techniques. The project blossomed into a very nice piece of work, with good results & promises of future work and possible publication!

The basic idea is that Astronomers have only ever classified different types of galaxies by manually inspecting images. However, new sky surveys like SDSS will return images of millions of galaxies, making manual analysis of galaxies infeasible. So in my project, I investigated numerical methods that can automatically give us crucial information about a galaxy in order to classify it semi-automatically.

My particular project was to use a new technique called the curvelet transform, that can automatically extract the interesting features of a spiral galaxy. A problem with automatically studying galaxies is that there's a lot of dust and stars that reside in the line of sight between us and the galaxy. We can try to eliminate these from our view by applying the curvelet transform, which effectively ignores point-like features (such as foreground stars) & captures lines & curves (like the spiral arms of a galaxy)...see the example below.

The original image on the left is hit with the curvelet transform & our output is the image below...which has the point-like foreground stars mostly eliminated & the spiral arms intact.

So with these sweet images, we try to fit spiral arms that are defined by an 8 parameter model. Since we have already extracted the spiral arms, the fits will not be distracted by the extraneous features in the image that aren't part of the galaxy. From these fits we then get information such as a quantitative measure of how curved the galaxy is, the inclination angle of the galaxy, etc....all the stuff that is scientifically interesting. Pretty cool, eh? (Well...i think it's cool!). Now I'm gonna try to put 100s of galaxies thru this procedure to get this information for as many galaxies as possible!

Spiral model fits for 3 galaxies.

El Regreso a Chile!

2007-03-20T21:13:00.000-04:00

During the first two weeks of March, I made my triumphant return to Chilito Lindo!!! I ditched a week of class & took the entire Spring Break vacation to escape the sub-freezing Pittsburgh temperatures & live it up in sunny-skied, 90°F Chile, visiting with friends, livin' it up, and NOT working (well...not too much).

Upon arrival in Santiago, I spent a great four days with Paula (right) & got a chance to catch up with Coté.

In total, I spent about a week in Santiago and about a week in La Serena. My time in Santiago was nice and restful: a rest much-needed! I had a wonderful time hanging out with Paula & eating well, drinking well, and catching up on the last 8 months!

La Serena, on the other hand, was, despite it's name, not what you would call peaceful! Late nights, mucho copete, and great times with old friends!! In addition to spending quality time (i.e. drinking a lot with) Guille, Felipe, Jaime, Chape, Lorena, Haylen, Guille Damke, Jorge, Luzma, Armin, Chris, Rikki, Sean & all others I may have forgotten, I got a chance to see Claudia for a couple of hours...who, I was glad to see, is doing much better & got a job at her kids' school.

Salud!! Arrival to Guille's house (I brought with me some home brews to pass around).

Dando jugo en la casa de Guille.

One of the crazier nights we had started off with Guille, Felipe, Jaime and me drinking rum and tonic in the Coquimbo wharf. After a couple of hours, we went into town and stumbled onto a Jazz band playing to an essentially-empty restaurant patio. We decided to stay for a drink (which was expensive) and watch a couple of songs. They commenced to play Santana's Oye Como Va, and, since they were without a singer, Guille decided to go up and sing a few verses! After a few laughs and then meeting up with Guille Damke, we headed to a disco, which turned out to be quite lame and empty. Thus, we headed off early (~4:30 am) and started home to La Serena. However, somewhere during the journey the Guilles decided it would be sweet to go into El Valle Elqui & keep the night going (and they were right!). So with a passed-out Felipe in the back seat, we headed 40 minutes into the valley to a sweet little mountain that Guille Damke knew. There, we settled in & lived it up until sunrise! Just another typical Chilean night.... Too bad I don't have any pics fhttp://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifrom that night...but I do have pics from the BBQ we had at 1 pm the next day! See Album Chile 2007 for all the pics from my trip.

Amigos reunited...and stumbling home at 5 am.

Perhaps the highlight of my entire trip was the chance to see a Roger Waters (lead singer, Pink Floyd) concert in Santiago with Guille, Paula, and Jaime. Guille and I had spent the entire previous week thinking about the concert, watching Pulse various times, and singing/listening to Pink Floyd continously! The concert was an absolutely incredible experience & probably the best, most emotional concert I have ever seen. The band was right on every number, Waters' voice is still amazing, and we were amongst 45,000 Chileans in Estadio Nacional (the same site where Pinochet killed hundreds of people during his dictatorship). Here are a few videos of the concert and links to others. Again, If you want to see all the pics from my trip, go to Album Chile 2007.

A look around the crowd of 45,000 at El Estadio Nacional during intermission.

Their version of Time was spot-on!! Check out the drum solo!

They played all the classics, including:
Wish You Were Here
Breathe
Another Brick in the Wall
the chorus for Another Brick in the Wall was a group of Chilean kids from a Santiago grade school!

Winter in the 'Burgh

2007-02-26T01:13:00.000-03:00

I don't want to celebrate yet, but I am ohhh so close to surviving my first winter in Pittsburgh. Although Spring doesn't officially begin until March 20th, I'm escaping the cold this Friday & heading to Chile for 2 weeks! By the time I get back, I fully expect the snow to be melted & the sun to be shining on a 60°F heat-wave shrouded Pittsburgh.

All in all, I think I did a pretty damn good job adjusting to the weather. I complained a lot early on, but as I experienced more lows under 10°F & foot after foot of snow, I came to accept...and maybe even embrace...the coldness. It didn't hurt that I had other real-winter virgins like Gary around as a support group & experienced snow-veterans like Drew to tell us we were a bunch of girls for complaining about 2 lousy inches of snow. Honestly, I don't even remember what it's like to not have to wear layers of jackets & sweatshirts every day! The only downside to this winter...we did not once have classes canceled!

Some snowy, icy highlights from winter 2007:

My street, shrouded in snow & ice.

Icicles on my balcony...which was rendered useless by the cold.

From Winter in the...

One thing you can be sure of in the winter...the trees will look awesome!

We are the Champions!!!!

2007-02-12T02:05:00.000-03:00

Yes ladies & gentlemen, February 11, 2007 will go down as one of the most important days in recent history. Tonight, under a pressure-packed atmosphere and in front of 1 or 2 spectators, we, the Statistics Department intramural floor hockey team won the grad school hockey CHAMPIONSHIP, winning 7-6 in a well-fought, hard-battled championship game, avenging our only loss of the season to 'Brian's Team'.

Your 2007 GSA floor hockey champions!!!

After a 30-minute delay for technical difficulties (i.e. the lights had to warm up after being inadvertently shut off), we came out of the gates on fire! After some sick saves by Dave 'The Cat' Friedenberg on the PK, we opened up the scoring in the first period on a wrister by Elan 'Don't mess with Dave or I'll put you on your ass' Cohen and took a 3-0 lead into the 1st intermission. But our scrappy opponents wouldn't go away, tallying three goals in the second period to our one. We padded our lead early in the 3rd period with a rocket from half court by Steve 'You can't stop me, you can only hope to contain me' Wasik. However, Brian's Team still had a few good shots in them, and promptly catapulted themselves to a 6-5 lead. Things were looking bleak for the Statisticians, but that's when we were at our best, winning lose pucks, scrappin' in the corners, and pounding home a couple rebounds to take a 7-6 lead with under 3 minutes left. After a few stellar defensive plays we iced this baby away with an impeccable ball-control clinic. And of course best of all, we won t-shirts!

Let's Bowl!!!

2007-01-27T23:55:00.000-03:00

Well, I'm back in Pittsburgh buried under a few inches of snow and a few feet worth of work to do. So, to avoid the massive piles of work a few of us first years' decided to hit the lanes & knock back some brewskies, Big Lebowski style. The alley we went to had obviously not been renovated since the 70's, which is how every bowling alley should be! If there was ever a hole-in-the-wall bowling alley, this was it! It was 18 lanes of goodness that sold nothing but 7-oz. mini beers! Plus, next to our lane there was a poster of our now-bowling idol, Earl Anthony, whose form Gary emulated perfectly, leaving the rest of us in drunken awe.

Gary Klein, a.k.a. Earl Anthony, shows off his PERFECT form to pick up a tough spare!

Now, when one talks about bowling, the discussion of beer must not be left out of the conversation. The positive correlation of bowling prowess with amount of beer consumed is absolutely irrefutable.....until about the 5th beer. After reaching that level, bowling ability is nonexistent (but bowling is a lot more fun!). Obviously, we kept ourselves well-lubricated with a few buckets of mini-Rolling Rocks...and these trends of bowling ability vs. beer intake were absolutely proven with the following anecdotal evidence:
1) Our amigo, Drew Crosset, showed up just a tad drunk...and began his night by closing out the first 5 frames! However, after a couple more drinks he became i) unable to keep the ball out of the gutter, and ii) entirely concerned about busting out his dance moves (including shaking his ass at us before every shot)....and dayam, that boy can do the sprinkler like none other!!
2) I showed up dead sober...and couldn't hit the head pin to save my life (nor could I break 100 in my first 2 games). But 5 mini-beers later and I was rollin' 'em like a pro, compiling my highest score ever, 189!
3) Our last game, we were all rollin' up big points...both Steve & Gary were in the mid-100s...and by this time the pressure was through the roof as Drew & Joe had stopped bowling and were heckling our every shot!

Drew, upon arriving, hit strike after strike...giving him a well-deserved chance to bust out with the sprinkler!!!

This is what it's all about....good friends, good beer, average bowling, and lots of smack-talking!

Dueling Cameras

2007-01-17T21:58:00.001-03:00

Check out these pictures from our last night in Seattle. From one end of the table Coté snapped a pic of us, while on our end I simultaneously snapped one of them. However, I caught all of Coté's flash, so my flash didn't go off! Sweet...

These 2 pics had to be taken essentially simultaneously (well...with coté's coming a split split split second earlier)! Everybody's expressions are exactly the same! Awesome...

About time for a break!

2007-01-14T23:19:00.000-03:00

The three and a half weeks I had off for winter break can be easily separated into two disjoint sets: before New Years' and New Years' + 2007. Not that either was better, but during the first week and a half of X-mas break I spent all of my time in the greater LA area while in the final 2 weeks I made my way all over the West Coast: from San Diego to Portland to Seattle and then back to LA. The time off was a perfect balance between relaxing and recharging my batteries and having some fun, crazy nights with good friends. I saw some of my amigos from Chile (Renee, Coté, Jorge, Guille, Armin, Alfredo, Sean, etc.) who I hadn't seen since at least June and I spent a couple days with the homies, John, Pete, and Adam, who hadn't been together since May 2005. And hell yeah, we rocked the place.

A Happy New Year to all. May your 2007 be better than your 2006. I experienced quite a roller coaster ride in 2006. The year started off great, with some fantastic times in Chile plus trips to Machu Picchu, Brasil, Patagonia, and the Atacama Desert. I had an amazing time with my Chilean friends, especially in the last few months and also thoroughly enjoyed my research. The return to the states was less harsh than I had imagined: it was great to spend time with my dad and my transition to the 'almost' real world (graduate school) was not as hard as expected. Hugo's death in October was tough to deal with, but I battled through the end of the semester and was rewarded with a spectacular break to end 2006 and kick of 2007. Enjoy these pics and videos from the break!

My dad an I celebrated a nice X-mas together...with our enormous tree!

For New Years' Eve we went to a San Diego Chargers game and then hit up the Gas Lamp District.

Me and my amigos chilenos in Seattle (from L to R, Renee, me, Guille, and Jorge).

Me and Guille eatin' lunch, trying to survive those American portions!

We rocked out at the Experience Music Center in Seattle.

And no trip to Seattle is complete without some Space Needle pics!

And I caught up with Alfredo and Armin on my last night in the Emerald City.

Before truckin' down to LA to see these locos. The homies were again together...so lock up your daughters, lock up your wife, lock up your back door....and run for your life!!!

It was great to see that Pete can still dance!

And even Adam can dance now!!!

And our man Dre could always eat! He put together, and then put away this 10 by 10 at In-n-Out!!

Resumen 4: El Observatorio

2006-12-15T13:51:00.000-03:00

Last February 16-19, I observed at the 0.9 meter telescope on Cerro Tololo. It was my only observing experience during my time in Chile. Observing consists of pointing the telescope at different targets, taking exposures (which can range from a few seconds to several minutes each), looking at the resulting images to make sure everything is working properly, and repeating this process all night! You stay up all night, sleep all day, and get well-fed!

The project I observed for was to calibrate the WMAP data for foreground contamination by our own galaxy. Essentially the idea is that the WMAP mission has measured the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation across the entire sky, which is indicative of conditions in the universe very shortly (~100,000 yrs.) after the Big Bang. The data gives astronomers an idea of the large scale conditions of the universe and provides insight into the origins and fate of the universe!

It is very exciting data, but there may be problems with foreground contamination, which is where I come in. In my observing, I took polarization observations of Milky Way halo stars (the stars in our own galaxy that are the farthest away from us). The idea is that if we can obtain measurements of halo stars across the entire sky, then we will have an excellent idea of how the dust in our galaxy varies with sky position and can use that information to adjust the CMB data to better-represent the true CMB spectrum. Although there may be other sources of contamination besides our own galaxy, this is undoubtedly a major contributor, and correcting it is crucial to enable astronomers to confidently draw conclusions from the WMAP data.

I observed for 4 nights, the last three of which I spent observing alone! The nights lasted from about 9 pm to around 6 am, which actually isn't too bad compared to the LONG Winter nights! Enjoy the pictures!

I arrived to Tololo the afternoon of the 16th...tired already, but still looking forward to 4 sleepless nights!

The evenings brought clouds that were beautifully colored by the setting sun. Luckily, these clouds went away by nighttime, making for great observing conditions.

Enjoying the setting sun. Here, I'm standing next to the 0.9 m dome, and preparing to spend all night inside!

The setting sun meant time to get to work!!

Getting the night started with some calibration frames (taking images of stars with known polarization...to later calibrate the rest of the stars). Everything about the telescope is controlled by these computers in the control room, which is situated directly beneath the telescope. The two biggest things I had to continually control were the telescope pointing and the camera (each done on a separate computer).

In all her glory, the 0.9 m scope. We spent 4 great nights together. This is probably one of the smaller telescopes in use in Astronomy today. It has been in operation since the late 60s. But she still works like a charm!

After observing all night, it was spectacular to emerge from the control room to a setting Venus...

...a beautiful moon (here, seen over the 4 m telecope dome)...

...and then to head off to bed until the next afternoon!

Haircut!

2006-12-11T20:05:00.000-03:00

I finally gave in and got a haircut:

Also, it snowed in Pittsburgh over the weekend. The view from my balcony:
Only one more final and one week until I'm back home in LA for winter break!!

With all the stress of studying for Finals, it has been difficult to get a restful sleep this week, particularly last night. In all attempts to avoid thinking about Mathematics and Statistics, my brain decided to delve into poetry last night at 4 a.m. It was a good reminder that poetry is not my calling in this life! Hahaha. Enjoy!

Collision course

Ducks, naturally, waddle the right way.
Bears, casually, trodden the left way.
Imminent intersection?
Non-linear paths converge on a curved surface.
Independent measurement triangulation
begets temporally-calibrated coordinates.
Transformations abound, causing headaches.
Linearity (and normal residuals!) painstakingly achieved and praised.
Trend extrapolations reveal undesirable but avoidable truth.
Results relayed to authorities (logic-deficient idiots).
Idiots have power.
Significance misinterpretation causes inaction and headaches.

Result:
Farmer Billy's leaf blower becomes startling (and annoying) machine.
Flying V the left way.
Who's the fool?

Resumen 3: Coyhaique

2006-12-09T02:08:00.000-03:00

In mid-January, Fulbright Chile sent us to Coyhaique in the very south of chile (the XI región) in the heart of Patagonia to present our mid-term research reports (in Spanish). Because three of the five Chilean Fulbrighters were researching in the south of Chile, it was easier to send us to the south than to send them up north to Santiago (and an awesome excuse to spend a week in a beautiful place!).

The city of Coyhaique is nestled between stunning mountain peaks in the very south of Chile.

We had sunny, clear weather for almost our entire trip.

In all we spent a week touring the XI region of Chile (and presenting our research). Highlights of the trip were seeing Cerro Castillo, a towering snow-capped string of mountain peaks, Lago General Carrera, the second-largest lake in South America which was carved by glacers, is 1000 feet deep, and has a gorgeous blue-green color, Laguna San Rafael, a lake that is fed by a 300-foot high, receding glacier, and finally an archeological site in which researchers have discovered 10 of the 20 oldest human skeletons in the Americas!!! I could probably go on and on about the amazing experiences we had down there and how cool it was to become good friends with the other U.S. Fulbrighers in Chile. Plus, we had great weather for the entire trip, something very rare in those parts of Chile.

Enjoy the pictures!

This is one of the only places east of the Andes in all of Chile. It's known as the steppe, and is very reminiscent of the high-flat lands of Argentina.

More of the Chilean steppe. Windy, cold, big beautiful skies...

...and 10,000 year-old skeletons! This is one of the oldest skeletons found in all of the Americas. And he's also the 10th one found in this one cave!! For some unknown reason, they were all buried in this tucked position.

A gaucho helped us with directions when we took a wrong turn.

Cerro Castillo (Castle Mountian). Sure did remind me of some sort of castle from some fairy tale...or perhaps some alien-robot creature...

A farm at the base of Cerro Castillo. Amazing how green it was..and the people friendly enough to let a bunch of gringo tourists trespass!

One of many caves on Lake General Carrera. These caves are all over the shores of the lake. The cave walls are smooth and glossy like marble.

La Capilla (The Chapel), a spectacular formation on Lago General Carrera.

And, yeah, we went swimming! According to our guide, this was one of three sunny days the entire year! We took advantage of the good weather...and as long as you kept your entire body close to the surface, the water actually wasn't too frigid!

In Southern Chile, dogs go toe-to-toe with cows!

The glacer at Laguna San Rafael. It's only reachable by a 5-hour boat ride through some of the most sparsely-inhabited land in all of Chile.

The glacier is receding...not necesarily due to global warming, but because we are still coming out of the last ice age (although the rate of warming is probably accelerated by global warming!). Here is the splash of a chunk of ice that fell off the glacier.

They took us on a raft as close as possible to the glacier.

And finally, they treated us to whiskey with 1000-year-old ice! All in all an unforgettible week.

Hugo E. Schwarz (1953-2006)

2006-11-03T01:56:00.000-03:00

On Friday, October 20, my very good friend and advisor during my 10 months in Chile, Hugo Schwarz, was killed in a motorcycle accident. Hugo and his wife, Claudia, were my first two friends in Chile, and when I arrived they took me into their home and helped me find an apartment and get settled in La Serena. Hugo always went out of his way to see that I was enjoying life in Chile and adjusting to a new culture. He had me over to his house for the Chilean Independence Day celebration (el dieciocho), the most important holiday in Chile, introduced me to Pucón and the south of Chile, and had my dad and me over to his house on Christmas. Moreover, if it weren't for Hugo and the beautiful letter he wrote for me during my Fulbright application process, I probably would not have won the grant in the first place. Thank you for everything, Hugo.

Hugo had a passionate attitude for his research that was very contagious. He never seemed to stress out about his work because he truly loved what he did. Each new project was an exciting new opportunity to learn something more about the universe. Working for him was a great pleasure. Even when things did not work out as expected (as happened often) we would just put our heads together and try to work things out. When I got frustrated he would be there to compliment me on my work well done and to encourage me to keep at it. I can easily say that I did my best work under his guidence. And it was always easy to make it through a workday with Hugo there telling one of his stories or jokes (of which I am convinced he had an endless supply).

Hugo, we'll miss you buddy. Thank you for being such a great friend, and thank you for all the good times we had during our 10 months working together. You will not be forgotten.

If you would like to learn more about Hugo's life, visit http://www.subjectivelens.com/Hugo/

Resumen 2: Carreteando!!!

2006-10-06T22:04:00.000-04:00

After seeing my dad off, I spent a few days in Santiago with my good friend Felipe, who was home for summer (yep, January is the smack middle of Summer break!). We had a great time, hitting up a few bars and discos, hanging out at his place watching after his younger sister, and playing PlayStation & trying to keep out of the smoggy summer Santiago heat. This was a mere weekend before the run-off elections for president between Michelle Bachelet (woman, socialist) and Sebastian Piñera (billionaire, conservative), so there were several huge campaign events in the city, including speeches at La Moneda (kind of like the White House...).

We ordered a few Escudos at a really sweet bar called Entrelatas (literally 'Between Cans') which is completely decorated with can-art and blacklights!

Yeah, we had a good time!

By the next weekend I was back in La Serena enjoying the perfect coastal summer weather. That Sunday was the run-off election, which Bachelet won by ~7%, becoming the first woman president in South America. She won the vote in every region except one (there are 13 regions total), and cleaned up in the La Serena-Coquimbo area, raking in over 60% of the votes there. The victory parties were out of control!! I have never seen so many people parading around town, honking their horns, waving their flags and joyfully celebrating an election result in my life! Eventually, a few thousand people (myself included) converged on La Plaza de Armas (central square) to dance, sing, and listen to speeches. The party was a sight to see...all ages waving flags & chanting, etc. And what's better, it is illegal to sell alcohol on election day, so the entire crowd was in complete control & it never felt unsafe. Afterward, I went with a few friends to the la Serena headquarters of the Socialist Party, where they were celebrating with a few (dozen) bottles of pisco and wine (I guess the alcohol ban doesn't apply to free liquor!). I had to leave around 2 a.m. to rest up for work the next day, but all of my friends stayed until at least 5! Wild! I had the time of my life discussing political theory with Chilean Socialist Party members over several pisco sours!

Me, Guille, and Lorena celebrating Bachelet's victory at La Plaza de Armas!

Vamos Bachelet! Vamos Chile!!!

Resumen 1: El Resto del tiempo con mi padre

2006-09-27T21:36:00.000-04:00

Although 'Day 2' in San Pedro de Atacama has been on the top of my blog for six months, we did not actually get lost in the desert for that long. Call off all search parties! What we actually did after 'Day 2' was crash early and get up at 4 a.m. to see El Tatio Geysers, the highest volcanic hotspot of its type in the world (for comparison's sake, Yellowstone is a comparable hotspot, but at MUCH lower altitude). El Tatio is essentially a field of geysers. There must be at least 50 of these things in a square mile, and they shoot mainly steam with a little bit of water. Unlike lame tourist attractions in the U.S., here they let you get right up to the geysers and peer inside!! (although I'm more in agreement of the conservationally-superior, safer practices followed by the park rangers in the States).

My dad posing with some sweet geysers. After the sun rises, much of the steam goes away and the cool war-torn-desert effect kind of wears off.

We also were lucky enough to see about 50 vicuna in a field on the bus ride back to S.P. de Atacama. These guys are related to llama, but wild. And, yeah, if I lived in the middle of the Atacama Desert, I'd probably find a nice stream to hang around, too.

And apparently, they often stand on rocks!! I posited that this guy was their leader.

After the trip to El Tatio, we hitched an overnight bus ride back to La Serena (on Salon Cama...the deluxe bus with seats that recline almost the whole way...definitely worth the cost for a 13-hour bus ride!). We stayed a couple days there, and my dad said his goodbyes to Serena and we headed down the coast to Valparaiso, the biggest port south of Lima, Peru. Valpo (as Chilenos call it) is a blue-collar city & very beautiful. It lies on a bay surrounded by hills....which are covered in amazingly-built houses that seem like they will fall over at any moment, and are beautifully colored. They also have some SICK bars in valpo. There's a street called Subida Ecuador that has about 50 bars. We were there on a tuesday night, and still about 8 bars were open practically all night. I went with my dad to a bar that served these surprisingly-tasty $1 shots called 'Sacrificio Maya' (mayan sacrifice).

Rockin' the Bachelet t-shirt & watching the sunset between Vina and Valpo. Bachelet is the first woman president of South America.....more on that later!

We also did some exploring of Vina del Mar, which is the white-collar (and lame) neighbor to Valpo. It's like gringolandia in chile...everything's expensive, everyone's rich, the beaches are packed solid, and all the cuicos (=lame overly-rich people) think it's cool to summer there. Anyway, i don't have too much love for Vina...valpo is sooo much cooler. But we did have a nice wine and dine on the beach in Vina. After a couple days on the coast, it was time for dad to head back to the US (he was back in June for a few weeks, too!)... It was great exploring a different country with my dad, and i'm really glad I put off a lot of my travelling until he came. It made exploring all those new sights that much better!

Jeez...more walking up hills!! I'm sure my dad slept for a week when he got back to the States!

Overlooking Valparaiso. The walk up that enormous hill was well worth it!!

A little update!

2006-09-24T22:12:00.000-04:00

So, my bad for not posting for a few months!! Things got pretty crazy (crazy fun!) in Chile the last, oh, 6 months! I finished out my 10 month Fulbright grant in June and have been back in the States since. Ended up doing some great research in Chile, modeling planetary nebulae and attempting to quantify light pollution in northern Chile. I got to use data from the biggest optical telescope in the world (!) and had a chance to observe 4 nights for a really cool project to calibrate microwave background radiation data! Also met a ton of great people down there & it was very sad to leave so many friends behind. For now, we're doing a pretty good job staying in touch, and hopefully that will continue. I definitely want to go back ASAP to visit my friends and finish up some work that needs tidying up.

Right now I'm in Pittsburgh, about a month into my grad program in Statistics at Carnegie Mellon University. It is going well so far. I have a very nice apartment about 2 miles from campus (and better yet, about 100 feet from the bus stop!). The work has been demanding, but not overly-hard thus far. Have also met some cool students in the department, and we go out and blow off some steam every now and then (a necessary activity to maintain sanity!).

In the next few posts, I'll try to summarize the rest of my time in Chile (plus side trips to Brazil and Peru). Unfortunately, my camera died in March, and I have very few pictures of my last 3 months. But fortunately, Canon fixed it for free when I got back to the US!! I'll leave you with a few pictures from this weekend's activities (which entailed celebrating the completion of our first grad school exam!).

Gary and I are the two Californians in the department. We're dreading the winter, and are both seriously concerned about our survival of the snowy months.

For some horrible reason, we decided to torture all bar-goers by singing karaoke on Friday night.

And of course, there's always time for some beer-brewing!!!

San Pedro de Atacama, Día 2: Salar de Atacama

2006-03-03T19:38:00.000-03:00

On our second day in San Pedro, we hit up an all day tour (~8 a.m. to 5 p.m.). It was quite a long day, but we saw some pretty spectacular sites, most of which did not have very many other visitors when we were there. Also, we had a pretty good crew of tourists on our trip (again, the tour guide spoke spanish....again frustrating my dad a bit). The main attraction of the trip was the enormous Salar de Atacama, which is essentially an immmense layer of salt in the middle of the desert that is deposited by run-off from the Andes. We also went to two volano-surrounded lagunas at ~3500 m altitude! Lastly, we went to the small town of Toconao for lunch & some sight-seeing (i.e. walking through the town like goofy tourists).

Me standing in the salar. We visited a part of the salar where there is a small laguna and they have made a small nature park with a trail. The salt deposits are quite amazing. They form tremendously jagged, rocky shapes when they are weathered. The only thing visible for miles in any direction were these salt formations.

Here is a sweet-looking lizard that was romping around the salt. It's amazing that creatures like this survive on a surface that is entirely salt. Also on the trail were a couple of tiny ponds in the salt swarming with millions of tiny organisms feasting on the minerals in the salt deposits.

My dad on the salar trail. It's amazing that somebody actually removed all the enormous salt rocks and smoothed the remaining salt into a trail! But i'm glad they did!

Another main attraction of the salar was the flamingos that come from the mountains to feed on the tiny organisms in the laguna. Three quick cool facts about flamingos: 1) they eat tiny organisms, so they need to spend tons of time eating...that's why their heads are always down! 2) nobody can tell their sex until they start mating! 3) when it's time for the little ones to feed, all the adults will leave (save one elder, to babysit), allowing them to get a fair share of food.

More flamingos eating. We also saw a few flying around later in the trip.

After visiting the salar for awhile, we got in the van and climbed, and climbed, and climbed up to 3,500 m. Then we got out to explore two lagunas (Miscanti and Varela), walked a bit, and got very light-headed. Yeah...the lagunas were cool!

Cone-shaped volcanoes surrounding Laguna Miscanti. Very cool! Plus, the clouds casting shadows on the slopes of the volcanoes was a nice touch.

Here's a sweet birds' nest in the middle of Laguna Varela. I crept up slowly as to not scare the 2 birds away...and of course one started honking loudly and buzzing around my head. Still, I snapped one picture of the other bird before fleeing.

Another shot of Laguna Varela, the smaller of the two lagunas. These guys were about 30 miles from the Argentinean border, to the south of San Pedro.

A small, old church-bell tower in the town of Toconao.

A river (water!) just outside of Toconao. It's safe to say that the only reason the town is there is because of the river. Also, they all use terrace agriculture, which is very cool-looking AND practical.

San Pedro de Atacama, Día 1: Valle de la Luna

2006-02-27T19:02:00.000-03:00

From January 6-8 my dad and I visited San Pedro de Atacama, a small town close to the Chilean/Argentinian/Bolivian border. It was about a 16 hour (overnight) bus ride from La Serena: a bus ride that begins in the dry yet not-completely-desolate Chilean transition zone and finishes in the utterly-arid, practically unlivable, astonishingly beautiful Atacama Desert (yeah..I'm a desert-lover). S.P. de Atacama is a small town smack in the middle of the desert & is easily one of the most expensive places I've been in Chile due to the huge influx of tourists that come to explore the natural marvels in the surrounding desert.

During our three days in San Pedro, we took three different tours to natural marvels (and smaller, a bit less-touristy-than-San-Pedro towns) in the surrounding desert. These tours ranged from 5-hour excursions to all-day affairs, and were mainly given by Spanish-speaking tour guides--a fact that somewhat irritated my dad. In the next three posts I will take you along with us, explain a bit about the cool stuff we saw, and mostly show you a ton of cool pictures!

Day 1: Valle de la Luna
We arrived in San Pedro, pretty exhausted from a long, highly uncomfortable bus ride, in the early afternoon on January 6. We also had to spend a few hours in Calama, the nearby big city, waiting for a smaller, more uncomfortable bus to take us the final 2 hours to S.P. Then we got a relatively-cheap hotel room (which turned out to be a strike of luck, as almost every place was full), and hit up a tourist agency for our first trip, to the Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon--so named because it apparantly is supposed to look like the moon..i.e. desolate!).

The town of San Pedro de Atacama. It's small and swimming with tourists.

On our tour, we first stopped off at a 'preview valley' to el Valle de la Luna that was off the road just north of the town. This definitely gives an idea of how desolate the Atacama desert is!

"I can see our house from here!"

"Woooo!! I'm finally not sitting on a bus!!!"

Next we trekked down into a canyon that was amazing, even with extremely strong winds that blew sand into our eyes the entire way.

The layering on the rocks in the canyon was pretty spectacular, especially transposed against the sand, other layering patterns, and two of the most handsome men you'll ever see!

Next we went to some really spectacular salt caves. Here is a salty wall with the rising moon! The surrounding rock was all very very salty due to years of salt deposits, and if you were quiet enough you could hear the salt slowly cracking due to stressing. The sound was very cool....

...but made us a bit scared about being crushed by massive amounts of salty rock!

But we trekked on, and even braved places on the trail where we had to duck under low-lying arches.

We then entered the Valle de la Luna, which was full of fascinating structures like "Los Tres Marias (The Three Marias)". If you look carefully (and use a lot of imagination), you can see three women in the three towers (and a really cool guy in front!).

As a grand finale to our trip to Valle de la Luna, we hiked up a big dune to catch the sunset. We hiked, ...

...and hiked, ...

...and hiked, (my pace may have been a bit too much for my dad)...

...and saw some cool sites from the dune, ...

...and took a short break to look at more cool sites, ...

...and stopped to rest and snap some more pictures, ...

...and finally made it up to the top!

The sunset was pretty nice, but my dad didn't think it was worth the length of the hike! The large volcano in the background is Licancabur, and is located on the border of Chile and Bolivia.

A nice end to a long afternoon....with two more days in San Pedro to come ........

Isla Damas, Home of the Pingüinos

2006-01-28T18:49:00.000-03:00

From La Serena, there's a nice little trip up north to a humboldt penguin reserve. The first week of January, my dad and I got ourselves up early one morning to take this trip. After an hour and a half bus ride, we took a boat to two islands: Isla Choros and Isla Damas. We circled around Isla Choros for a half hour or so, taking a good look at some big 'ol sea lions, flocks of penguins standing and looking around (and not doing much), and some caves. Then, we landed on the smaller Isla Damas.

Isla Damas is essentially untouched wilderness (besides a small ship-guiding light, a path, and a small wooden dock). They only allow up to 50 people on the island at a time (according to our quite hilarious tour guide, any more and the island would sink). The island falls in Chile's transition zone (along with La Serena), which means it's between the dry desert and wetter valleys to the south. This means that there's really cool desert plant life with a lot more variability than you would see in a desert.

Welcome to Isla Damas!

Isla Damas & the surrounding area is full of cool plant life. To show us that the region was wetter than you'd think, our tour guide pulled up one of these plants and rung the crap out of it, squeezing out a bunch of red, sticky juice.

Some penguins on a rock. Couldn't get much closer our they would fly away....just kidding.

Of course, I had to climb up to the top of the highest peak on the island.

More cool plants.

#### More Isla Damas Photos!! ####

My dad just sent a CD of pictures he took on his trip down here, so I'll add a few of them here!

We also saw a bunch of elephant seals on the boat trip. They're smelly, lazy, enormous, and ridiculously good swimmers.

Ah....the seals' life.....

When you don't do anything all day, you can spend some of the time posing for gringo tourists.

Lots of penguins standing there and looking around.

More penguins standing and looking around....I think all they do is stand there and look around. I never saw a single penguin do anything but stand around!

Me and my dad on Isla Damas. The clouds hung around our whole time there, but it was pleasant. The one bummer is that we didn't see any dolphins. I've talked to people who say that there can be dozens of dolphins that come and play around the boat.

The plant life on Isla Damas was quite impressive, and was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip. Although I have to admit I'm a huge desert-plant lover, especially flowering desert plants!

¡Mi Papá llega a Chile!

2006-01-28T18:38:00.000-03:00

My dad made the trip down south to visit me for a month, from mid-December to mid-January. We celebrated a nice Christmas and New Years' together & did a good amount of traveling. It was his first time outside of North America, and he absolutely loved it. Here's some pictures from his first week in Chile.

My dad posing in front of La Moneda in Santiago.

My dad hung out with Salvador Allende for a bit.

Christmas!!! I got a much-needed pair of new shoes (in Chile, size 13 shoes do not exist!).

Pucon y el Sur de Chile

2006-01-15T17:51:00.000-03:00

In mid-december I went with Hugo (my boss) down to Pucon, Chile for an astronomy conference. Pucon, falling at about 40° S latitude, is the furthest south I have been in my life. The sights there were spectacular, and very reminiscent of western Washington, except more pristine, less crowded, and with more impressive volcanoes. The drive down was awesome, as we gradually changed from dry, dusty desert to plush, green forest over the span of 12 hours. Also, we drove on election day (a Sunday) so there was practically nobody on the road (but the few that were on the road, were, like most chileans, horrible drivers).

Volcan Villarica from the road to Pucon. Occasionally it's possible to see smoke coming out the top.

Pucon, although very touristy and expensive, is surrounded by fantastic scenery. Snow-covered Volcan Villarica peers down on the town at all hours of the day. I really, really wanted to climb the volcano, but since we were there only 3 days for the conference, there was no time. The other side of the town is bordered by a gorgeous lake lined with evergreens.

Nice lake, eh?

Volcan Villarica from the place we were staying.

FUTBOL!!!!!

2005-12-31T17:43:00.000-03:00

Club Deportes La Serena!!
Here in Chile i've become a pretty big futbol fan. It's very nice knowing a bit about the sport since every male in Chile is a huge fan. Even though most people are bigger fans of the European and Argentian leagues, there are still tons of people who go absolutely nuts for Chilean futbol clubs.

Coming from a small city, La Serena is usually very under-manned compared to the teams from Santiago. However, this past season (Clausura 2005--there are two seasons per year), they made the playoffs and then knocked off the winningest team in Chilean futbol history, Colo Colo (thus winning me a bet!). This victory won them a date with Catolica, who went undefeated in the regular season & also made it to the finals of the Copa Sudamericana...a feat rarely accomplished by Chilean futbol clubs.

La Serena fans await the arrival of their beloved team. People arrive hours before the game and rip up newspapers into tiny pieces to make confetti to throw in the air when the team finally steps on the field.

I attended the semi-final game held here in La Serena. L.S. played extremely well, even though it was obvious that La Cato was better...and worked their way to a 3-3 tie. They even had a 2-1 halftime lead, but Catolica was way better in the second half and Serena was pretty lucky to leave with a tie. In the partido de vuelta in Santiago, Catolica won 1-0, making it to the finals against La U. de Chile (also from Santiago), and Catolica eventually won the championship in an amazing final game that ended in penalty kicks.

A frenzy ensued after La Serena scored their second goal...a sweet bicycle kick (it's called a chileno here...a bicicleta is some other crazy move).

La Serena fought valiently vs. La Catolica but came up short. The next season starts in February.

Don't ask me how fans sneak in road flares! They also throw rolls of paper and pieces of flaming trash onto the field. The first game I went to, an opposing player got pelted with all sorts of stuff while attempting a corner kick, so they had to bring out shielded policemen to protect him!

Somos los campeones!

2005-12-29T17:42:00.000-03:00

A while back the annual observatory olympics were held. My team (the AURA team: CTIO & Gemini) won the championship, winning more than half of the events (the other 2 observatories are Las Campanas & ESO. I played both basketball and futbol. We absolutely dominated in basketball, mainly because we had me, a guy named Jim who is 6-11 (!). I think the final scores were something like 45-15 and 50-12...or something ridiculous like that. In futbol we tied twice (Que fome!), but should have won both. I was pretty much the only gringo playing futbol & the only one without cleats...but it was a good time.

Your 2005 AURA championship basketball team.

This is a pretty picture. The cross in the background is in Coquimbo...it's kind of an eyesore.

Also a pretty picture. The weather here has been like that for the past few weeks.

Not as pretty of a picture...

Mis Amigos Chilenos

2005-11-25T19:28:00.000-03:00

So, I've met a good group of Chileans here in La Serena. They're all university students in the Philosophy/Spanish carrera, and mostly 3rd and 4th years. Basically, the way the Chilean higher educational system works is that before entering universidad, students have to take a horrendous exam that determines which carreras (majors) they can enter. It seems like a terrible system to me, but in an educational system that is 100% focused on producing qualified working people, i guess it's the way to go. Anyway, they're all in the filosofia/castallano carrera, which means they didn't score all that well on the exam & they didn't want to study English. Also, they hardly ever have homework, but spend a ton of time in class (pretty much 9-7:00 every day) & almost all of their grades are based on exams.

These are some of my amigos here in Chile. The guy in the middle signaling '2 x peace' is Guille. This pic was taken in his house.

Anyway, I hang out with them at least a couple times a week, usually to either watch futbol, party at Guille's house, or hit up the local bar scene (which isn't much). And, since they study philosophy, it's usually pretty fun to talk to them about astronomy & related topics. The school year ends in late December (it should have ended in a couple weeks, but there was a month-long student strike in august), but most of them are hanging around La Serena for the summer.

Felipe, from Santiago and Michem, from Illepel, are two of my best friends here in Chile. They, along with the rest of my Chilean friends consider cheap wine mixed with cola their beverage of choice.

A couple weekends ago, I went with my friends to an day-long open-air concert here in town. The headline band was Los Jaivas, a very famous group here in Chile that was huge in the anti-Pinochet movement in the late 70s and 80s (they lived in Paris at the time). They play a very distinctive mix of traditional Andean & modern electric music, and are awesome! Check out their music if you can, especially the album 'Alturas de Machu Picchu' that was based on text of Pablo Neruda and is amazingly good.

Even today, more than a decade after Pinochet, people go nuts for Los Jaivas & their anti-dictatorship messages. They play a really broad range of instruments, from Andean flutes, to giant horns, to electric guitars.

Santiago: a nice place to visit

2005-11-15T21:07:00.000-03:00

A few weeks ago, I made it down to Santiago (7 hrs. in bus) to go to a breakfast hosted by Fulbright. The breakfast was pretty lame, but it was nice to spend more time in the capital. Santiago is a very nice city: it's full of parks and cultural activities & relatively easy to get around in. However, I am very glad I do not live there. Being an enormous city and home to half of Chile's population, Santiago is a bit too noisy, crowded, and polluted for my taste (especially compared to la serena La Serena). However, it is definitely much more entertaining than La Serena, and while there I took advantage of some things I would never be able to do in L.S.: 1) went to the new Chilean movie 'Se Arrienda' (For Rent)...which is very good and you all should see when it gets to the U.S. in a few months, 2) went to the race track to see the horses & do some very low stakes gambling, and 3) went to an art museum and actually saw good art.

Me on top of Cerro Santa Lucia in Santiago. Santa Lucia is one of the nicest sites in the center of Santiago & a big tourist spot.

It is hard to capture just how immense the city is. This pic gives an idea. I stayed in Nunoa, which is way off in this direction to the right. It's a 20-minute micro ride away from downtown.

My visit to Santiago also coincided with a very historic event: the introduction of the TranSantiago bus system. For decades, the Santiaguino has commuted via la micro: a very ugly, rude, confusing, and flat out dangerous system of yellow graffitied buses. Practically any photo that you see of Santiago has a micro in it. However, the city just introduced the shiny, modern, polite, and safe TranSantiago bus line that will eventually replace the micros. Along with an expanding Metro system (the cleanest, most well-kept Metro I have ever seen!), the TranSantiago is changing the face of the city. In a year I am positive that the city will be unrecognizable.

This is actually a very flattering picture of a micro. Everywhere you look in the city, you see yellow....for now.

The road from Santiago to La Serena is full of spectacular views, both inland ...

... and on the coast. Although, it's hard to take pictures flying by at 120 km/h.

Life in La Serena

2005-10-27T16:57:00.000-03:00

Here in La Serena I work in an office that is on a hill about 2 miles from the beach. Walking to work every day, I have a very nice view of the city and the beach (see picture below). It's still a bit cold here, so I've only made it to the beach once. Apparantly L.S. is a big tourist spot once summer starts (mid-December). I share my office with a Chilean who is currently applying to grad school, a Brazilian who is finishing her Ph.D., and an American who already has his Ph.D. It's a good crew, and we chat quite a bit (usually in Spanish), although people here are for the most part swamped with work and relatively non-social.

This is the view I have from the road that leads up to the observatory offices.

This is NOT where I live. This is the 4.0m telescope SOAR on Cerro Pachon. I went up here to install an all-sky camera in sub-freezing weather with 50 mph wind gusts. So cool!

Also NOT where I live. This, too, was taken from Cerro Pachon. Those are clouds, not marshmallows.

Outside of work, I split my time between my room, hanging out with gringos from the observatory, and hanging out with Chilean college students. My room's small, but not tiny, and the family that rented me the room has loaned me both a TV & a radio at no charge (the family's way too nice). I play futbol once a week with gringos and Chileans, and i'm actually not half bad (my determination makes up for my lack of skill). The gringos from the observatory also put together weekly basketball and ultimate frisbee games. To avoid speaking English all day, I eat lunch at the Universidad de La Serena cafeteria & have made quite a few Chilean friends. Chileans for the most part are hard to initiate contact with (although I suppose being a 6-5 gringo doesn't help matters), but are very friendly once you've spent some time with them.

My room is adjacent to this house (through the two gates in the backyard). There are 2 other rooms next to mine that are currently rented out to Chilean students.

Every house in my neighborhood looks exactly the same!

It's windy on Cerro Grande. There's also nobody there to take a picture of you.

The Elqui Valley from Cerro Grande. The observatory is up in those Andes to the right.

Si, Estoy en Chile!

2005-10-21T21:14:00.000-03:00

Hola a todos! I have been in Chile almost 2 months now. I live in La Serena, a coastal city of 100,000 people and capital of Region IV of Chile. Weather here is almost always cloudy and cold in the morning and then sunny and mild in the afternoon. However, we are creeping toward summer, and it's been getting warmer poquito a poco. I am renting a room (w/private bathroom) next to a house in la comuna Colina El Pino. It's pretty sweet...I pay 75 luca a month (~150 USD) and have access to a kitchen. Plus, it's less than 2 km from my work, so I walk to and fro everyday. The only problem with the place is 4 extremely dogs that live there. But soon, I will punt the small, yappy one over the fence, so things are looking up.

Well, it's Friday afternoon, and I'm meeting some Chilean students for some drinks (there's a university right next to my work), so i will leave you with a picture of the greater La Serena area taken by me from Cerro Grande (Big Hill) a few days ago.