Guess This is Home

Hello readers (I think there are about 4 of you)....

It occurred to me a couple weeks ago that between my arrival in late September and my first trip away in January, I'd been here longer than I've ever been anywhere, aside from Pasadena.  That first stint here narrowly surpassed both my many summers working in Colorado, as well as the 12 times during college that I was in Wisconsin for 12 weeks or so at a time.  By the time I've finished, my year-round residence here will almost certainly bring my total weeks in residence to a higher number than that of my time in Wisconsin during my four years in college, which is a strange thought.  I will say this, however: while clearing customs at Heathrow Airport in January through the "non-EU permanent resident" line (which had a grand total of zero people ahead of me in January) felt strange to do, I think it's going to start feeling more and more normal each time I do it.  And that short line is certainly going to help me settle into the routine, as well....

of hillwalking and footpaths (translation: hiking and trails)...

Went for another long walk today on the footpaths that surround our little clump of houses here outside of Eynsham.  There is no doubt about it -- the British countryside is spectacular.  Certainly there is not the awesome fields of color like the in the Rockies, or the dramatic vistas and colossal topography of the Sierras, or the austerity and ruggedness of the desert southwest, but the lush green hills, rolling as far as the eye can see, the scattered trees providing contrast and color to the expansive fields, and the slanted, north latitude Sun slanting through the scattered clouds have a spectacular quality all their own.  It is wonderful to be able to escape onto trails from our front door and experience this grandeur.  

But this, for me at this point, is hampered slightly by one thing.  Lest you think I'm just whining, I must remind you that I've hiked and rock-climbed through the pouring rain, backcountry skied through a blizzard, and trudged through thick, muddy marshes of alpine willows, and enjoyed every minute of it.  But here, I just can't figure out a way to deal effectively with the MUD!  The bits of trail that allow me to just walk or jog and enjoy the scenery are few and far between.  For a good chunk of the time, I'm trudging through mud that feels more like sand, with my ankles and Achilles protesting every step.  Or focusing on not landing on my back as I move through a slippery top layer that resembles an ice rink more than a trail, my motion resembling skating more than walking.  Or perhaps, my personal favorite, when the mud is so thick and deep that each step is a carefully planned movement designed first to not lose one's balance, second to not lose one's shoe, and third, to perhaps, if you're lucky, derive some forward motion in the process.  The task of cleaning ones shoes and socks (just enough so they can be put through the washing machine and worn again at some point) after a trip like this takes such a long time that I'm finding it detracting from the overall experience.  I suppose I better get used to it, because I'm certainly not going to avoid one of my greatest loves in the world, hiking, just because the clean up is tedious, but I just had to comment here about what a drag it is.  Not to mention, that while I'm covered from toe to knee in thick smelly mud (of toe to waist if I'm jogging) you cannot imagine the state in which Nissa, our knee-high border collie, returns from walks.  Let's just say she, as well as her favorite resting spots in the house, one of which happens to be our bed, will never be clean again.  

Waterproof Wellington galoshes have been suggested, but you can't jog in those, and I'm not sure they'd even keep my feet happy for a 5 mile walk.  Hiking boots and gaiters might be a good option, but let's face it, anybody who's ever run in hiking boots knows that's not terribly fun.  So while I'm finding myself pulling out the boots for my walks and just grinning and bearing the long dog-cleaning sessions that must certainly follow, I have no reasonable solution yet for trail running.  And since during the week that is all I have time for to exercize the dog, it is a necessary pass time.  If any of you who live in wet and muddy areas and enjoy trail running have suggestions, please leave a comment with your solution.  I think I've pretty much destroyed my brand new trail running shoes in less than a month.  Sigh.  

of Driving, Cycling, and Roads...
It's totally automatic for me now to look the correct direction when crossing the street, and the same goes for driving and cycling on the correct side of the road (I actually was caught by a friend in Pasadena driving up the left side of a residential street back in January, and was totally unaware myself).  Being a cycle commuter here is a totally different beast than it was in Pasadena, though.  In Pasadena, it was common to encounter drivers who made it very clear they didn't feel that you should be on the road.  Being cut off, passed too closely, and honked at was a near daily experience.  Here in Oxford, most drivers seem to be much more willing to share the road with me.  I've only been honked at, cut off, or passed too closely a handfull of times during a lot of miles on the road.  The other thing that frequently happened in Pasadena while cycling was realizing that drivers were simply oblivious to your presence (like when I got hit a couple years ago).  It was always difficult to say which was worse in Pasadena, the danger posed by angry and aware drivers or the danger posed by those who just hadn't been paying attention to your presence.  The other really nice thing about riding in and around Oxford is that since there are so many cyclists in the city center, drivers are definitely more aware that they need to be looking out for you.  I'm not sure that I've ever caught a driver totally unaware.  So all in all, Oxford should be a much better cycling experience than Pasadena, right?

Actually, I've come to the conclusion that it's quite the opposite.  It's certainly nice to know that cars are looking for you, and looking out for you.  And also nice that it is such a rare occurrence to be in the path of an angry driver taking out their frustration on any cyclist unfortunate enough to be caught in their path.  But the problem here is the streets are so incredibly narrow.  There is often just not enough room for a car and bicycle next to each other in the same lane, so if there are cars coming the other direction, things can get tight even when everybody is behing and being polite.  In the city center, there are tons of cycle paths, which is nice, though they're often clogged with old ladies returning from shopping, parents pulling their children behind them, and other forms of slow-moving cyclists that force me out into the regular traffic lanes maintain my speed.  And once you're outside the city and the cycle paths end, there is no such thing as a shoulder on these roads, so even if I ride up the line at the edge of the road, all but the smallest cars have to move into the lane for oncoming traffic in order to pass me.  That means a lot of cars pass a bit too close, and a lot of cars drive right behind you until they feel it's safe to pass -- which is a bit unnerving and stressful in its own right.  So while the people in cars are less of an issue here, the actual riding experience has just as many stresses, albeit totally different ones from those faced in Pasadena.

So what makes me prefer riding (slightly) in Pasadena?  Traffic.  When there's traffic in Pasadena, nothing changes for the cyclist.  In fact, if anything does change, you get a slightly safer ride since those angry motorists who seem to be aiming for cyclists on the road are pinned in by the cars around them and can't be as stupid and reckless.  But when there's traffic in Oxford (where the fourteenth century streets just aren't equipped for the volume of residents and tourists that now use cars and buses to get around) it's sometimes impossible, even on a skinny little bicycle, to get past the traffic, so the cyclists who are trying to obey the rules and stay off the sidewalks (pavement, for you British readers) are stuck in traffic along with everybody else.  In Pasadena, my commutes would sometimes be faster during rush hour -- here in Oxford, they definitely slow down at peak driving hours.  I guess I'm just waiting for traffic to get so bad in the city center of Oxford that they make the whole town pedestrian....

Oh, and one last thing regarding road etiquette here.  How does it make sense that you are officially supposed to drive on the left, and walk sidewalks on the right?  That's just confusing.  According to one British friend in town, it's really only in London that people strictly enforce that pedestrian rule, and to the extent that it's observed elsewhere it is only for fear of being yelled at by a visiting Londoner.  Regardless of that, however, my previous point is valid: it's just confusing!

A Chat with the Lincoln College Rector
The head of each Oxford residential college is called the Rector, a position akin to, I suppose, the University President at a small school in the U.S.  The Lincoln Rector, for example, is the top man on the totem pole, and has final say over all matters that concern the 600 or so students and 100 or so staff and academics that make up Lincoln College.  He lives in a nice house on the Lincoln College grounds, and is visible at many of the important functions and events that the College holds.

My first direct interaction with him occurred last week, when I was invited for my turn at the College Advisors Lunches being held this term.  Basically, the College put out a nice buffet and invited a group of students to dine with their college advisors (as well as the Rector and the Senior Tutor) in an informal setting to just 'check in.'  Before the meal began, I was chatting with 3 other students when up strolled the Rector.  He seems very much to fit the part of the Oxford academic -- very British seeming, and ever so slightly eccentric (neither of which are bad things, should he happen to stumble upon my blog during a late night of Googling himself).  The ice was definitely broken, for me and a British friend, at least, when he chose to point out the one British person in the group as the person most likely to be from outside Britain.  With 65% of the graduate students from outside England, the odds were in his favor, but it just wasn't his day....

I was surprised when it came up that I was from Pasadena, that he was quite familiar with the city.  As it turns out, he's been on several trips to the Huntington Library to do research (he's a historian), and I was pleased to be able to inform him that my father worked at the Huntington.  In the next sentence, he continued emoting of his fondness for the city, and dropped in that he had a great friend who wrote for the foreign desk at the LA Times.  The signal was given for us to head to the buffet, so I didn't get to tell him that my father had also worked there, but I was quite surprised to see his familiarity with several things that were a frequent conversation point during my childhood....

Vocabulary Primer (this time in the form of an anecdote)
An American and an Englishman were discussing US politics one day, and the American was impressed at how much the Englishman knew of US politics, specifically his general knowledge of the US Presidents from the past 20 or 30 years.  Deciding that the Englishman had a broad enough base of knowledge that he needed to add to his arsenal a bit of obscure (and utterly useless) US Presidential trivia, the American decided to regale him with said piece of trivia:

"Do you know who the first US President was, who was inaugurated wearing pants?"

At this question, a strange look came to the Englishman's face, and he asked, "What did they wear before that?"

"Knickers, of course."

At this response, the strange look turned from puzzlement to something more like wow-I-knew-these-Americans-were-odd-but-I-had-no-idea-they-were-that-weird-ment.

After a few minutes of discussion, things were cleared up, but as it turns out I should have said "Do you know who the first US President was, who was inaugurated wearing trousers?" and the response regarding their previous attire should have been "three-quarter-length trousers."

As it turns out (for you American still in the dark), I had inadvertently suggested that starting with John Quincy Adams, US Presidents have all been inaugurated wearing men's underwear, and prior to that, they were inaugurated wearing women's underwear.

Cheers!

Message from the Bitter Winter

Hello all --

It's been quite a while since I wrote.  This is probably due to many things -- I'm feeling more and more settled all the time, and so the many things that jumped out at me as being 'different' in England are fewer and fewer now.  Also, school has been keeping me busy, and lately all my spare time has been taken up feeding my furious metabolism (1,259 miles of cycle commuting in a little over 4 months) and entertaining (and cleaning up after) four newly arrived pets that hopped off a plane from LA to join me!  But I think I've got enough material now for a blog as long-winded as ever, so "hang onto them hats and glasses, folks, 'cause this here's the wildest ride in the wilderness...."  (Okay, I do miss my Disneyland season pass a bit...).

Pets Arrival
Well, as I alluded to in the prologue, Nissa, Nonay, Brulée, and Dribble all successfully made the journey, earning Ariana some additional frequent flyer miles in the process, landing with her just before Christmas.  Perhaps because the house was already full of things that reminded the cats of home (and smelled like me!), they all settled in remarkably quickly.  Within an hour or two, they'd all made themselves at home playing in the empty house.  Dribble (our ageing matriarch cat) and Brulée (one of the brother cats who's part Siamese -- need I say more) are pretty happy romping about the house.  They're not overly interested in venturing outside into the cold and damp weather, but are quite happy lounging near the wall furnaces and gazing out the windows at the birds.  Nonay (the other brother cat) has taken quite a liking to the yard, however.  Though the coldest days, the wettest days, and the snowy days (more on that later) typically move him back inside pretty quickly, if the weather is decent, he loves to wander the yard and check things out.  Getting his paws muddy is not, however, part of the agreement with visitation rights to the yard, and he typically wanders the paved and gravel paths, occasionally venturing deeper into the wild by hopping (literally) from stepping stone to stepping stone.  Finally, it is no surprise that Nissa, our border collie, is loving the country.  When I go into the yard to deal with taking the trash out or other outside chores, Nissa disappears off onto the farmland and comes running back grinning when I return to the house.  She's also become quite familiar with the surrounding footpaths, and our daily jogs and walks, rain or snow, wind or cold, are her favorite.  And the mud she drags back into the house!  What fun for me!

Furniture Arrival
Just after New Years Day, our shipment of furniture and boxes docked in Thamesport after a trip through the Panama Canal (lucky!) and across the Atlantic.  What little free time I have has been spent trying to slowly get through the boxes and get the house organized.  I've gotten the kitchen and living room mostly done, and made a good start on our office/TV area as well as our bedroom.  But once Christmas break was over, the rate of boxes unpacked per week dropped dramatically, so it's going to be a long process.  There's so much stuff!  I'll post more pictures once things are cleaned up and normal looking, but here's the first round of before and after pics....

British Winter
As you may have heard in news headlines, this has been by all accounts the coldest and snowiest winter in southern England anytime in the last 20 to 30 years.  Sounds bad, right?  Well, having survived 4 winters in Wisconsin, and numerous snow camping trips at high altitude, including one where a snowstorm trapped us for 24 hours in a tent sitting between two 12,000 foot passes in the Sierras, I have to say the worst winter in Britain really doesn't have much bite -- but I guess it's what you get used to.  We've had several weeks where the temperature dropped below freezing at night, and we also had two different occasions where snow actually accumulated on the roads and fields, a very rare occurrence in southern England.  To put this in perspective, it's been nearly as cold in Pasadena this winter, and Pasadena has received more precipitation this January than Oxford has.  But that being said --- Oxfordshire is NOT prepared in the least for winter weather.  As I already knew, whenever it rains more than an inch or so at a time, the roads, fields, and rivers all flood, as there's not much drainage infrastructure around.  But this problem pales in comparison to the massive breakdown of normal life when snow actually starts sticking to the ground.

On the first day when the snow started sticking, it started accumulating in the late afternoon.  I took Nissa for her usual evening jog, running through perhaps 2 inches of snow on the ground on the footpaths.  By morning, we had probably 4 inches on the ground.  I hopped on my bike and started the commute into work.  It was slow going, but I had meetings, and figured this was part of the job....  When I had the first mile under my belt, I arrived at the small, 2-lane motorway that leads into town.  Generally I ride along the bike path that runs parallel, but this was going to be a problem today, as biking through 4 inches of snow isn't really possible.  But, to my surprise, I noticed that there were pretty much no cars on the highway itself.  Since there had been enough overnight traffic to keep the snow from piling up quite as much, I just rode down the middle of the highway.  Only had to pull over once or twice to let about 6 cars total pass me.  This is normally a morning commute in which the cars are so backed up I move faster on my bike....  The commute took about twice as long as normal -- if we get any more weather like this, I think it may be faster to throw on my skis and ski the first 5 or 6 miles and then walk the last few.  Arriving at the office, it took me a moment to figure out that I could work my bicycle lock only after breathing some hot air into the keyhole.  I was surprised to see that almost nobody had come into work -- given that most people live within walking distance of our building, with the remaining handful living within about 2 miles, I hadn't been expecting this.  My meetings were off, as it turned out.  We got an email from the physics department telling anybody that had come in that day to leave early, to insure they had extra time to get home before dark (at 4:00 PM).  You see the buses weren't running, except a few lines offering limited service in the downtown area only.  The schools were closed.  The entire county shut down completely!

I spent lunch wandering around the streets taking photos on my phone.  And the ability of Oxford to cope with snow was pretty much summed up for me when, on my walk, the (1 and only) City of Oxford snowplow drove by -- pushing a blade in front of it that had to have been at LEAST 18 inches tall.  As I biked home that day and the next, the local kids from Eynsham had all hiked a mile down to the local hill (wow it's sad that anybody from Eynsham probably knows exactly what I mean by that) and had donned skis, snowboards, and sleds for some playtime in lieu of school.  Arriving at home that night, I don't think I'd ever been so muddy.  Every car and truck that passed (and there were a few on the road in town now that the snow had stopped) sprayed me with a fine mist of dirt and grime from the slush on the roads.  One truck was particularly nice, and chose to pass me in the middle of a flooded intersection, completely drenching me with muddy, ice-cold water.  I was so pleased.

The last surprising snow-story came several days after the snow had stopped, but before the rain had cleared it off the ground.  Life had returned to normal, for the most part, and the traffic on the roads had rendered them passable for most drivers and cars.  I ventured out to the local village market, and was astonished to find life had not returned to normal there.  A skeleton crew working the registers, plus more people than usual since many market runs must have been put off a few days, left the line to check out at least five times normal, stretching fully around two walls of the store.  As I strolled the aisles grabbing the things on my list, it became apparent that shipments hadn't return to normal either.  There was almost no bread left.  There was no dairy whatsoever.  And the frozen food section had been picked through pretty thoroughly.  So that, my friends, is the story of the winter of January 2010....

Friday Pub Runs
As far as work and school go, I'll leave out all the technical details in hopes of retaining a few readers.  Suffice it to say that my classes and lectures are going pretty well, and the worst is behind me.  In addition, more time this term devoted to research has allowed me to start zeroing in on the general area that I'll be working in for my thesis, which is exciting.  No topic yet, but I am finally starting to think about what it might be....  The thing that is most notable and different is the "Planetary Lunch" on Fridays.  Pretty much every week, on Friday, several members from the planetary research groups head to a local pub for lunch.  The size of the group varies from week to week, though there is a core of 3 or 4 die-hards that almost never miss.  Lunch easily lasts two hours, spent eating very mediocre pub food and keeping the local ales flowing (served warm!).  I've been along on these lunches perhaps a third or half of the time -- I can't quite rationalize a lunch of that length every week, though nobody would mind if I did.  And when I leave the pub after a couple hours, I'm generally one of the first to go -- from the sounds of it, that group of 3 or 4 die-hards and anybody who cares to join them just stay through the evening hours, or even occasionally late into the night, with the ales still coming....  Not exactly the culture I experienced during my JPL days....

Vocab Primer
Stag Party / Hen Party - Bachelor and bachelorette party

Tinnie - beer can (though apparently more commonly used in Australia than the UK)

Twitcher - bird watcher (or birder)

Twiddle - tilde (that squiggly key on the computer keyboard -- or perhaps I should say 'twiddly' key)

And an interesting observation about pronunciation of the alphabet.  'H' is pronounced more like 'haich' and of course 'Z' is pronounced 'zed.'  Also, many of the greek letters are pronounced quite differently....