DAMOP 2014 and missing George

To kick off this year's summer research I took two of my students to DAMOP, which was in Madison, WI, this year. The conference center was beautiful. A great choice!

Our hotel was located right across the capital building, maybe 7 minutes away from the conference center. 

It was great seeing old friends and colleagues again, to catch up with what they've been up to these last two days, and to listen to the awesome physics that's being done across the world. My students were also definitely impressed and are eager to get started.

On Friday, the day of our return, I got a message from Jan early in the morning session: The cats had escaped! One of the windows in the dining room had been left open over night, and the cats (probably George) had clawed their way out and had gone on a walk outside. When Jan opened the patio door, Abby was easy to get back inside. After all, it was breakfast time! But George was spooked and ran. 

Jan spent the whole day observing the yard (together with his parents who had arrived the night before), checking under every bush and shed not only in our yard, but in all neighbors' yards in a good 5 house radius, printing fliers that he posted in the neighborhood, talking to people to help him search. All I could do from Madison was inform the local vets... I felt so helpless. 

George remained hidden the whole day. Not too surprising, he was scared and in hiding with all the chaos going on around him.

At 9 pm Jan saw him outside the house, but he ran away, and Jan couldn't find him again afterward.

When I got home at midnight, Jan was exhausted and I took over the search for a while. I ran around the neighborhood and sat in the yard, calling his name and trying to coax him out of his hiding place. Nothing.

Then, at 1, I went up to see Pepper who had started whining since he had heard me call George over and over again. I sat with him by the window, we both looked out, and I called George one more time. And Pepper's ears perked up. So, out of desperation, I asked him if he'd like to help me find George. Luckily, Pepper knows "go find" and "George", and he has done things like "Go find Jan!" and "Go find ball!" before, so we know that he can combine two keywords and make sense of them. So I said "Wanna go find George?" and he got super-excited. So off we went. His nose on the ground, he first lead me to where Jan had seen George disappear earlier today (and ate some cat poop as reward - my guess is, it was George's!). Then on we went. And all of a sudden, I saw cat eyes in my flashlight. George! Poor thing was scared out of his mind, he didn't recognize me, and kept running. George was dashing from bush to bush, me calling him and trying to gain his trust back. All the time Pepper kept a close eye on George, and at one point, he and George actually touched noses! But George was still too scared to let me come close and hid in yet another bush. At least he was talking to me by then. Progress!

So I was talking to the bush, George talking back for a while. Then - silence. And I didn't see George anymore. Pepper of course knew exactly where he was. He got very excited and started pulling toward a parked car. And guess what - George had run from the bush and was now underneath that car. Without Pepper, I would have lost sight of George again, I'm sure. So we again followed George across the street and to some more bushes. Finally, I saw him hiding underneath a neighbor's bush. And while looking at him, I just talked, and talked, so he could hear my voice. And finally (FINALLY!), he started rolling over on his side, started relaxing just a little. So I praised, and praised, and called, and extended my hand. And slowly, slowly, he made his way toward me. When he finally reached me and sniffed my hand, and thus got final confirmation that it *was* in fact me, he brushed up against my hand and started a big, big purr. I grabbed him and held him *really* tight all the way home. He was tired but otherwise unharmed. Thank goodness!

Back home he got a big dinner/breakfast (it was 1:40 am), which he devoured. And Pepper, the hero of the night, got a big spoon of peanut butter and pumpkin. He did so well, and I am sure without his help I would not have found George. Amazing dog!

Here's George the next day, clearly happy that he is back home again. What a horrible day, but what a great, great ending!

A day at the beach - Oregon style

Rogue River Trail

This year, instead of heading to Hawaii in May as we'd done the last two years, we decided to hit the trail. For the first time in Oregon (which also means for the first time in about six years!). Yes, we'd done some day trips before, but never an extended backpacking trip with tent and overnight stay. So finally, we packed our bags and headed to the Grants Pass area to hike the Rogue River Trail.

After a good 4 hours we made it to Grave Creek, a boat launching area and the trail head. The weather was beautiful (not too hot, not too cold), and all three of us were eager to get started. 

The trail mostly followed the river with small elevation gains and losses throughout. It was extremely well maintained and overall very easy to walk on, even with 45+ pound backpacks. The views were stunning too!

Our camp site for the first night was Horseshoe Bend, a good 11.5 miles in. It was located directly at the river (which made getting water very easy), but which also meant we had to climb down 500 feet along a rather steep trail. Well worth it, though! Even though it is one of the bigger campsites, we had it all to ourselves. It's probably too early in the season? 

Pepper was initially a bit restless after a full day of exercise without nappies, and the unfamiliar tent didn't help either. But after I crawled in with him, and once he realized just how comfy the sleeping bag really is, he settled down nicely. Throughout the night he crawled into my sleeping bag a few times when he got cold (and I appreciated the added warmth too!).

Day 2: Surprisingly, we were hardly sore and felt tip-top and ready to go!

The hike started out with a nice warmup: To get back on the trail we of course had to climb back up the 500 feet. Oh, yes, we could feel our legs! Once on the trail it was easy walking, though, with more great views.

By then, Pepper had also learned what the sound of ziploc bags meant:

"Snacks? Did someone say snacks?"

"Is that a snack? For me??"

Unfortunately, we ran into a problem we hadn't anticipated, at least not to that extend: Ticks. The first day we didn't encounter a single tick. So with our guards down a little, we started the second day without checking occasionally. Big mistake. When I did check a good hour or two in, my legs were covered with crawling, creeping, horrible ticks. YUCK. After a small freakout and frantic tick removal, we made our way down to a small camp site to double check. And that's when I discovered that some ticks had crawled under my shirt and had started sucking on me. Major freakout. No fun at all. Jan got them off me, though, thanks to the Tick Twister. Jan and Pepper had also several on them. From there on out, we removed ticks every few minutes from one of us. No fun at all. Yes, we knew there'd be ticks, but we didn't anticipate an assault like this. I guess all in all we had between 100 and 150 ticks on us over the course of the six hour hike out. At that point we decided to cut it short and head out instead of hiking for two more days with unknown amounts of ticks ahead of us. While we were a bit sad that our trip was already over

it was a good choice. Thank goodness we had the option of heading out: Our goal for the night was the Rogue River Ranch, located at 23 miles, and they had a radio that allowed us to contact the shuttle service to get back to our car. It took them a good two hours to get to us, and another 2.5 hours to get us to hour car, and then another 3.5 hours to get home. It was a long day, but the shower felt so good!

Overall, despite the ticks, it was a great trip, and I am sure we'll do something like this again. My only restriction: When the guide book says "ticks", we will not pick that trail!

Rochester Regalia

Michaela is off saying goodbye to her students at the 2014 Willamette Commencement - her very first opportunity to show off her brand new University of Rochester Regalia - one of the perks of being a fully tenured professor:

Yokohama - 4/21-4/25

I went on a brief trip to Yokohama for a Conference this April - my very first time to Japan!

The experience was rather brief and I didn't catch much outside of the conference center. But I did check into a genuine Japanese Hotel (with a German motto about hospitality no less!) versus the standard international Conference hotel. And that indeed gave me a different perspective on space - here is my hotel room:

These are the two views: from the entrance door and from the window: enough space to sleep and store your carry-on, but anything more would have been a stretch...

Toilets are a little different, too. And you are provided with slippers so that you don't have to walk barefoot or with the same shoes that you use in your hotel room in your bathroom, which is considered fundamentally 'unclean'.

People dress VERY sharply - both men and women. I was noticeably one of the poorest dressed people in my 'west coast business casual' attire walking Yokohama's streets...also, I didn't wear a surgical face mask, which is quite a common sight for various reasons (people are sick, don't want to get sick or have allergies).

One more picture to share: I encountered this sight several times, particularly at the airport. Restaurants showing off their various offerings:

(believe it or not - it's all plastic!)

Dog Mountain - April 12th

As we plan to go backpacking in late May, we figured it worthwhile to have a little practice hike upfront. Dog Mountain is great for that: not too far away and a straight up (elevation gain of ~2800') and down 7 mile trip. It's been 2 years since we hiked there the last time- time flies when you are having fun!

It was quite windy on the final stretch and correspondingly cold. But the view makes up for that.
Pepper got a bit tired on the way back down - so did we...

Let it snow, let it snow,...

Instead of the rain that we usually get this time of year, we got a good 7 inches of snow! It started falling on Thursday afternoon, and by Friday we had probably 4-5 inches of nice powder. 

Willamette was closed on Friday, and Jan returned from a conference Friday at around noon, so we got to spend some quality time outside. And Pepper LOVED it! He went nuts in the fresh snow. I think it was the first time that he saw that much snow!

He also had a nice wrestling match with Gibson, our neighbor's Golden/Lab mix. Which made me particularly happy since Gibson didn't really like Pepper when they met the first time,... or the second,... or the third. Guess "Pepper" is an acquired taste!

We also let Abby and George out for a brief moment since they were complaining loudly when I let Pepper out in the yard (Why does the dog get to have all that fun?!). They were interested but not too thrilled about that cold, wet stuff on their paws :). After just a few minutes they were very happy to be back inside, cuddling up on a warm blanket.

 

While Friday was all fun and games, we must have gotten some rain over night. When I let Pepper out Saturday morning to do his business he was in for a nasty surprise: He learned that he really, REALLY hated the feeling of a thin layer of ice on top of his beautiful snow. To the point where he didn't even want to go potty anymore! Poor thing. So what did I do? At 4 am, might I add? Grabbed a shovel and dug through the ice to the nearest tree, where Pepper happily lifted his leg. Talk about spoiling the dog :P.

It's Sunday evening now, and most of the snow has melted. There is more rain in the forecast, and together with the rising temperatures that's probably that. Goodbye snow 2014. Welcome rain. We've missed you.