the glacier geek and his vaimo

White Mountains traverse

2010-03-10T21:35:00.004-09:00

Over "spring break" (not really spring...) Inari and I joined some friends on a 4-day ski trip through the White Mountains. The Whites are about 50-100 miles north of Fairbanks; I've visited them several times before, but mostly in summer (here and here) and never made it so far from the road. This time we got to see some terrain that I'd been wanting to see for several years.

It was a tough trip: we averaged about 8 hours of skiing each day and had just enough energy to eat dinner before crashing each night. We were thankful to have good company and cabins to sleep in - otherwise this trip may have been a death march like my solo trip in 2007.

It was a really nice, diverse trail. Skied over a couple of "high" passes and through some open swamp land, crossed Beaver Creek a couple of times, and had to navigate a 2 mile long section of frozen overflow (imagine a giant hockey rink tilted at a slight angle).

The trip had its moments. There were times when I questioned my sanity, but at other times - especially when the sun was shining - I didn't want to be anywhere else. I guess that's why we do these trips! (Plus the pain makes you feel alive...)

Some moments along the way.

First view of the mountains on Day 1:

Barely enough snow for skiing:
Cache Mountain Pass:
Anja and Penny eat lunch on Day 2:
Windy Gap Cabin:
Inari happy to be on top of Windy Gap:
View from Windy Gap:
Strong winds near Colorado Creek Cabin:

Skiing weekend

2010-01-31T16:45:00.002-09:00

The last weekend in January has been a good one.

Friday: Late evening moonlight skiing, followed by a cup of chai.

Saturday: Breakfast at LuLu's bagels. Skijoring on the Tanana River in the bright sunlight with Cooper and Saphira.

Sunday: Downhill skiing at Moose Mountain with a bunch of friends. To be followed by a hot sauna.

Winter in Fairbanks is so much nicer when it is reasonably warm and sunny!

What will the groundhog do?

2010-01-24T11:45:00.003-09:00

Another month has gone by without a blog post. Where does the time go?

The last few weeks have been pretty cold - not unbearably cold, but cold enough to keep us indoors most of the time. We're starting to get a bit stir crazy and anxious for longer days and slightly warmer temperatures. Almost there. Just another week and the furry groundhog will tell us how much more winter we have!

We pass our time by going to shows and reading. I've already read 2.5 books this month and am about to start on another. Its nice to be this close to my defense (March 18) and not be too stressed about writing, yet... Speaking of which, last week I turned in my "Application for graduation" and reserved a room for my defense. Its really starting to feel like my days as a student are numbered. Kind of strange and exciting. We're not sure yet what happens next, but it probably involves moving to a large city in a distant land.

blogitäytettä

2009-12-14T03:23:00.003-09:00

Lately, life has been in a rut. A pleasant rut, but a rut nevertheless. Jason has been busy with a manuscript, a funding proposal (or was it two?), and other scientific stuff. Me, I have been teaching two classes, taking one, and learning to crochet (so far I have made two hats and a potholder). All this busybodiness means that our blog has been left to fend for itself, and apparently, it doesn't write very well (or at all). It doesn't help that it is dark most of the time and this year seems to be another one with not that much snow (combined with the normal cold weather). Long story short short, we haven't done anything exciting (Fred Meyer's at Sunday afternoon doesn't count).

I won't promise that we'll be any better next year. I'll be teaching three classes, and Jason is graduating (in theory, he should have plenty of time after March. Right?).

4 countries, 4 currencies, 3.5 languages, and heck of a lot of strawberries

2009-08-17T21:04:00.004-08:00

Inari and I just returned from a whirlwind trip across the Atlantic. We first went to Finland to visit friends and family and eat way too many strawberries. I do like strawberries, but at some point it's nice to eat something other than strawberries... We managed to find some adventure, rock climbing, hiking, kayaking, and feeding squirrels near Helsinki. The climbing and hiking weren't anything too special, but I really like being on the ocean and Inari really liked squirreling. If we ever move to Finland I'll definitely have to buy a kayak.
After a couple of weeks in Finland I left for rainy Newcastle, England, for a conference. The conference was good and I got to meet a lot of people, but at the end of the day it was still a conference. I was exhausted from thinking about nothing but science for a week, so I was pretty happy to continue on to Switzerland, where I'd meet up with Inari and friends that we knew from Alaska. There were nine of us in total - eight that could walk and one that was so close to being able to walk. And, eight out of nine had blue eyes. I felt a bit out-numbered.

The rain that I found in England followed me to Switzerland (and later to Minnesota and now Fairbanks...). We still managed to have a good time eating cheese and chocolate. And we did make it out for a hike to a mountain hut in Sustenpass.
Christoff, skeptical Marlo, and Tanja.

My favorite photographic subject, Lena. Although Lena and I don't speak the same language, she was quite sad to see me leave. She wasn't sad to see the other guests leave though, just me... Maybe it had something to do with this:
Finally, I made a short stop in Minnesota (photos not yet processed) on the way back to Fairbanks. It was nice to spend time with my family, but I was also happy to return to Fairbanks after a month on the road.

Back(s) to Prindle

2009-06-17T21:09:00.006-08:00

It's been a great summer so far - warm and sunny, but not too hot. Admittedly though, heat is rarely a problem in Fairbanks. An occasional rain shower to keep away the forest fires would also be okay. I've experienced thick forest fire smoke before, and don't feel the need to do it again. We've had a couple of days of smoky air this summer, but the smoke was blown in from faraway places and wasn't too nasty.

A few weeks back Inari and I went hiking near Mt. Prindle with a couple of friends. I had previously visited Mt. Prindle in 2007. It was nice to go back, and I was happy that Inari came - I'd been wanting her to see the place since my first visit. Its a beautiful place that feels very arctic, as though it were hundreds of miles north of Fairbanks, but really, its just about an hour by car.

A couple of photos from the trip:

We were surprised to find that the newish outhouse at the trailhead was frozen solid.

The author and vaimo with their backs to Mt. Prindle (and hair blowing in the wind like in the shampoo commercials).

Since our Mt. Prindle trip, we've been busy gardening and trying to catch fish. We failed at fishing, guess we'll have to wait until the end of summer to see whether or not our gardening efforts have been successful. Next week we'll probably try to squeeze in a 3-5 day hike down in the mountains.

Bizkit

2009-05-27T18:11:00.002-08:00

If you haven't already seen the videos of Bizkit, the sleepwalking dog, then you should. Pretty darn hilarious.

Columbia Glacier

2009-05-26T23:53:00.004-08:00

As usual, I find myself back-blogging. It's been a busy couple of months, what with working on the second chapter of my thesis, helping Inari get ready for her exhibition at Well Street Art Company (photos coming eventually), a couple of canoe trips, a new (for me) road bike, some spring cleaning, a backpacking trip, and a weeklong field excursion to Columbia Glacier.

(Aside: Why is it that the day after I wash the windows of our cabin, some poor little bird commits suicide by flying straight into one of the windows?)

My field trip to Columbia Glacier (near Valdez) was rather unplanned on my part - a friend/colleague called me on a Monday asking me if I'd like to go along because somebody had hurt their back and wasn't able to go. We were to fly to the glacier on Thursday... I couldn't resist, so I scrambled to finish some things at work and get my stuff packed, and three days later I was in Valdez.

It was really cool to see Columbia again (I was there for a couple of hours in 2004). It's a beautiful place, but it's also pretty important historically (well, at least to glaciology) and shares some similarities with Jakobshavn Isbrae ("my" glacier). And, the trip was a much needed break from thesis writing, which has been pretty all-consuming lately.

We had great weather the entire week, so that we finished most of the work rather quickly and had time to sit and watch the glacier.

The drive back to Fairbanks was nice as well. The view going over Thompson Pass:

juu, ei, vaarinhousut

2009-05-12T11:47:00.007-08:00

Toisinaan virallinen Suomi muistuttaa olemassaolostaan postin välityksellä. Saanen eurovaalilipun, mutta ääni jää käyttämättä, koska lähin äänestyspaikka sijaitsee Vancouverissa, 2252 kilometrin päässä.

Ollapa mahdollisuus tarkistuttaa ääni virallisesti ja äänestää missä päin maailmaa tahansa. En tosin kannata täkäläistä systeemiä, jossa vaalilippu lähetetään pyynnöstä annettuun ulkomaiseen osoitteeseen, täytetään kotona ja palautetaan postin välityksellä äänestyspiiriin. Usein nämä hajaäänet saapuvat viikkoja vaalipäivän jälkeen, eikä niitä yleensä vaivauduta laskemaan ellei äänestys ole ollut äärinmäisen tiukka.

Napsuttelin kuitenkin uteliaisuudesta vastaukset sekä Hesarin että Ylen vaalikoneeseen. Molempien sivustojen kysymyksenasettelu on turhan yksinkertaistava. Monimutkaiset asiat oli murjottu kyllä-ei muottiin riippumatta siitä voiko asiaa edes esittää joko/taina. Yle sentään käyttää neliportaista asteikkoa, jossa väittämään voi joko yhtyä voimakkaasti tai vähemmän voimakkaasti.

Hesari kysyy: "EU:n perustamisesta asti sen keskeiset tehtävät ovat olleet rauhan ja vakauden turvaaminen Euroopassa sekä Euroopan talouskasvun vauhdittaminen sisämarkkinoita kehittämällä. Kumpi näistä historiallisista perustehtävistä on mielestäsi nyt tärkeämpi?" ja antaa vastausvaihtoehdoiksi: "a) Vakaus, b) Vauraus ja c) Eivät ole tärkeitä". Hesarille tiedoksi: sekä vakaus että vauraus kulkevat käsi kädessä eikä vakautta ole ilman vaurautta (tai vaurautta ilman vakautta).

Tasapuolisuuden nimissä esimerkki Ylen yksinkertaistamisesta: "Maailman vapaakauppaneuvotteluissa EU:n on oltava valmis tinkimään maatalouden tuista ja tuontisuojasta.". Voimakas kyllä, jos puhutaan kolmannen maailman heikosta maataloudesta, joka kärsii tuontitullien myötä epäreilusta kilpailuasetelmasta. Voimakas ei, jos puhutaan hormonilihantuotannosta ja geenimanipuloiduista tuotteista, joita erityisesti Yhdysvallat haluaisi työntää Euroopan markkinoille.

Koska kysymyksenasettelu on väistämättä yksinkertaistava, kuvittelisin, että jokainen ehdokas haluaisi selventää näkökantojaan kommenttilaatikossa. Näin ei kuitenkaan aina ole, vaan ehdokkaat jättävät kommentointimahdollisuuden käyttämättä. Tosin sekä Ylen että Hesarin vaalikoneen valitsemat epäsopivimmat ehdokkaat saavat hampaani kirskumaan kommenteillaan. Yle kysyy: "Suomen hallituksen tulee esittää EU:n komission jäseneksi eli komissaariksi sekä naista että miestä." ja ehdokas vastaa: "Eli transu komissaari!". Kätevää toki, että ehdokas itse ampuu itseään jalkaan. Hesarin epäsopivin ehdokas väittää olevansa freelance-toimittaja, mutta ujuttaa jokaiseen kommenttiinsa kirjoitusvirheen saaden minut epäilemään ehdokkaan ammattitaitoa.

Mielenkiintoiseksi vaalikoneiden vertailun tekee myös ehdokkaiden sukupuoli- ja puoluejakauma. Hesarin vaalikoneen mukaan kymmenen sopivimman ehdokaan joukossa on kuusi vasemmiston ehdokasta ja kaksi vihreää. Ehdokkaista kaksi on naisia ja loput miehiä. Epäsopivimpien joukossa on kolme köyhää (KÖYH?) ja kaksi ruotsalaista, kolme naista ja seitsemän miestä. Ylen puolella saan kolmentoista ehdokkaan joukkoon mahtumaan kahdeksan demaria. Loput viisi edustavat kukin yhtä puoluetta. Miehiä joukossa on kuusi, naisia seitsemän. Epäsopivia on tarjolla vain viisi, näistä neljä kuuluvat IPUun (itsenäisyyspuolue?). Ehdokkaista neljä on miehiä.

(Vasemmalle painottuva poliittinen näkemykseni ei tosin tule yllätyksenä. Älkää kertoko Yhdysvaltain maahanmuuttoviranomaisille että ovat päästäneet maahan sosialistin.)

the reason for the current sleep deprivation

2009-04-27T12:28:00.002-08:00

Join me on Friday 5/1 to see this and other paintings at Well st. Art Company.

Note to self: do not agree to have a show opening a week before semester ends ever again.

A vague promise for out-of-towners: at some point some of the paintings will find their way to my website.

my paintings travel farther than I do

2009-03-30T09:49:00.005-08:00

I painted this image for a friend of mine when he finished his Ph.D. Andy is now in Antarctica and my painting went with him to Scott Base. I might never get to see Antarctica, but at least my painting got to go.

Oh, and that vehicle in the background is a Hagglund, a Swedish made ice transportation unit that researchers use to travel around.

Thanks Andy. Truly appreaciated.

not all anniversaries are good anniversaries

2009-03-27T01:16:00.016-08:00

On march 24, 1989 the oil tanker Exxon Valdex left the port of Valdez with an overworked crew, an alcoholic master, and a broken radar system. Only three hours after the departure, the vessel struck Bligh reef and spilled 10.8 million gallons (40 million litres) of crude oil into the Prince William Sound. The spill covered 11,000 square miles (28,000 km2) of ocean, killing hundreds of thousands of animals. NOAA estimated in 2007 that more 26,000 gallons (98,000 litres) remains in the sandy soil surrounding the spill area, continuing to contaminate the shoreline.

In 1994, an Alaskan jury convicted Exxon, ordered the company to pay $287 million for actual damages, and one year's worth of profits ($5 billion) for punitive damages. Exxon appealed multiple times managing each time to reduce the amount. In June, 2008, the Supreme court ruled that punitive damages were excessive, returned the case to a lower court, and limited the amount to $507.5 million. Exxon continues to argue that any amount over $25 million is excessive since the spill was "an accident". (You do the math: when divided between the 30 000 plaintiffs this amount becomes ridiculous compensation for lost livelihoods.) In comparison, when Lee Raymond, the president of Exxon at the time of the spill, retired in 2006, he was awarded a $400 million as a bonus.

Here's to this sad anniversary.

Local exploration

2009-03-14T16:49:00.002-08:00

Today, with the help of a couple of dogs, I managed to prove something that I had long suspected: the trails by our cabin connect to the Dunbar-Livengood trail. This means that if I so desired, I could ski from our cabin to the Bering Strait, and if courageous/stupid enough, over the strait and into Russia. I doubt that I'll ever do anything like that, but it's pretty cool to know that it's a possibility.

I've been thinking a lot about the future lately. If things go according to plan, I will be graduating a year from now. It's difficult to see how I would be able to stay in Fairbanks and keep doing the research that I'm doing, but it's also difficult to imagine leaving Fairbanks. A part of me is excited for the opportunities (hopefully) awaiting me elsewhere, but a part of me wants to buy a cabin, a dog team, and a canoe, and spend my life exploring the Arctic. Maybe I can find a compromise... Or maybe I've been reading too many books about Arctic exploration.

kotirouva suosittelee

2009-03-08T11:35:00.001-08:00

Sarjassamme kummallisuuksia: Miksi netin englanninkieliset mainokset ovat täynnä kotirouvien ja äitien keksimiä härpäkkeitä? Facebook mainostaa: "Uskomaton ihmeparantuminen: kotirouvan keksimä luonnonuute." "Äiti paljastaa nuoren ihon salaisuuden. Taistele ryppyjä vastaan."."* Miksi nimettömillä äideillä on turhakkaiden keksimisvimma?

*Suomennettuina mainokset kuulostavat vielä alkuperäiskieltäkin hölmömmiltä.

++++++

Now that I have frequented Facebook, I get to see a steady supply of GoogleAds. It is weird though how "break through" inventions seem always to be made by nameless moms or housewives. "Get your miracle cure. Invented by a housewife." or "Incredible wrinkle treatment invented by a mom." Are moms somehow more trustworthy? Do housewives have secret inventive superpowers that manifest themselves only as weight loss medication or cleaning supplies?

Update: Jason doesn't get any wrinkle cure adds. His Facebook is filled with business opportunities (with seminaked ladies) and basketball. I must be targeted by housewife adds because a) I am a female (they must then think I find the nameless moms trustworthy) and b) I'm old and really need whiter teeth.

myyrän kosto

2009-03-05T15:30:00.004-09:00

The vole is out there.

This time the critter was seen by Jason, not me. It was in the hole (not much of a problem since everything is frozen anyways), freaked out, crawled out, and vanished somewhere. This explains the shredded toilet paper that I saw a few days earlier.

Excitement in Fairbanks.

Moose on the loose

2009-02-13T15:43:00.003-09:00

I found this e-mail rather amusing:


TO: UAF students

FROM: Police Chief

SUBJECT: Moose on campus

This is a reminder that moose living near the University of Alaska Fairbanks may pass through campus. Members of the campus community should use common sense if they come in contact with wildlife and be aware that wildlife could be present, especially in the wooded areas of campus.

Do not attempt to feed wild animals or try to approach them.

The University Police Department has had a dramatic increase in the number of reports of moose on the Fairbanks campus this year and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is reporting an increase in the Fairbanks area moose population.

Moose can be easily frightened, have been known to charge without  notice and can be especially dangerous when trying to protect offspring.

If you see a moose on campus, please call the UAF Police Department.

tekoäly hoi

2009-02-13T01:04:00.005-09:00

Google mainostaa: "Suorana lähetyksenä kotona USA Avulla by USA Kokematon Karstata.".

On tää konekääntäminen hupaisaa.

+++

Google translations strikes again. You English speakers just have to assume it is funny.

Upside down Switzerland

2009-01-28T23:06:00.005-09:00

Then we were off to the Grand Canyon. We weren't sure quite what to expect, since we knew that (1) the Grand Canyon is always crazy busy with tourists, (2) many of the hiking trails are closed in winter, and (3) even more trails would be closed because of the heavy snow that had fallen while we were getting wet in the Superstitions. We dove up from Flagstaff for a day hike, enjoyed the day hike, decided that the snow and people weren't a big problem, and decided to do an overnight hike. So the next day we descended to the bottom of the canyon, zig-zagging our entire way down to the river. The elevation difference from top to bottom is nearly 1 mile, so it kind of feels like your walking into an abyss.

Hiking there is a bit like hiking in Switzerland - it's as if the Grand Canyon was the mold used to create the Alps. You can walk up hill, or you can walk down hill. When you get to the bottom of the canyon, you can go get a beer at the "ranch". You can even sleep at the ranch if you're not cheap like us. There are people everywhere, but you learn to ignore them by soaking in the spectacular views. Sound like Switzerland? Neither of us had been there before, and I'm not sure if we'll be going back anytime soon, but we definitely enjoyed it.

We were feeling pretty good about ourselves on the hike back to the top of the canyon. We were much faster than we anticipated, and we managed to overtake quite a few people on the way. We were feeling good, anyway, until we were overtaken by a runner who had started at the top, ran to the river, and was then running back to the top. This was over 16 miles horizontally plus 1 mile down and 1 mile up. We were impressed. I almost felt inspired to start a rigorous training program.

After reaching the top we drove to Phoenix, slept through New Year's Eve celebrations, woke up early the next morning, and flew back to Fairbanks. We were greeted with nearly two weeks of -40 C (-40 F).

Views of the south rim:

The trail downward. Don't look at this next photo if you get vertigo.

The Colorado River:

Inari jumping into the abyss:

Some of our friends and acquaintances have perfected the art of jumping photos. We still haven't quite figured them out, but you have to admit the leaping into the Grand Canyon is rather dramatic.

Arizona, part 3

2009-01-28T22:23:00.003-09:00

As usual I'm falling behind on my blogging...

After our hiking experience in the Superstitions Inari and I decided to head north to Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon (which are about 2 and 3 hours north of Phoenix, respectively). On our way to Flagstaff we stopped at a couple of archaeological sites. We first went to Montezuma Castle National Monument. I would've loved to have lived in such a place. Nowadays though you're not allowed to enter the dwelling, which is an extreme disappointment.

The dwellings must have been a pretty ideal place to live: sheltered from cold winter nights and hot summers and next to a river that allowed for cultivation of corn, squash, okra, and other foods. Nowadays there are some beautiful Arizona sycamores growing in the low lands.

We then continued on to Wupatki National Monument, which is basically a bunch of pueblos (sort of like manor houses) in what appears to be the most inhospitable landscapes imaginable. No food, no water, no wood. Basically just rocks and silence. Very stunning. What I found most surprising was that people lived in this landscape, when just a few kilometers away (less than 50, anyway) the desert rose up into pine forest that must have supported some big game.

Highlight of the day: seeing a jackrabbit, a roadrunner, and a fox within a span of two minutes.

joys of teaching

2009-01-28T10:14:00.000-09:00

So far I have spent the beginning of this semester in a front of a computer playing tag with my students, trying to stay one step ahead of them. No matter how much work I put into preparing my lectures, there are always six more to give next week. An endless cycle in a making, but I digress.

This semester I have also seen an increase in student email. Clueless questions varying form "How come you don't have text book listed on the textbook ordering site?" (because I don't require one, honey) to "Where is the Art department located anyways?" (I dunno, maybe looking at a campus map would help). Yesterday's in-class exchange was priceless though. One of the classes I am teaching is called 2-dimensional design, a beginning art class about design elements and composition. After giving a lecture (Intro to composition, art and life or something equally lofty) I am going around, helping each student to do their in-class assignment. Halfway, I reach one them, carefully crafting his name in the tiny print on the middle of the paper. The drawing itself is good, but I raise the issue of paper size and urge him to reconsider the placement and size of his text. He looks at me, confused, and asks: "You mean that this class is about composition?"

I don't know what he thought 2D design was going to be. Maybe I should have asked.

Library criminal

2009-01-09T17:35:00.004-09:00

That's how I felt this morning.

---------------------

Story: I've been slowly reading Tin Drum by Gunter Grass. It's an interesting book, but not a page turner, and besides, after spending all day trying to use my brain I'm not always motivated to read at night. I first checked out the book from the public library in October. The first renewal wasn't a problem. When I went to renew it a second time I had to ask for permission from the circulation desk. Today, I went to renew it a third time.

Me: Hi, I'd like to renew this book. I've already renewed twice, so can I get permission to renew it a third time?

Librarian: You've already had it three months?

Me: Yeah..

Librarian: I don't think we can do that.

Me: And... why not?

Librarian: We don't like books being out of the library for long. How much longer do you need it, a week?

Me: I was hoping for another month. If somebody wants it can't they just put their name and list or have you contact me?

Librarian: ...

Me: Well, whatever, I don't need to renew it, it's okay.

Librarian: Let me see if we have any extra copies...

Librarian gives me a dirty look and says "I'll tell the check out counter that it's okay to renew it again".

---------------------

Is it wrong to keep renewing a book? Why do I have to ask permission? Should I be treated like teenager that is continuously late for class? People aren't exactly waiting in line for this book. On top of it all, our library's method of dealing with overdue books is to send out weekly reminders in the mail. There are no overdue book fees. Seems to me that the solution in the future is to not even attempt to renew the book.

Shouldn't technology (i.e., e-mail and online library accounts) have prevented this conversation from ever happening?

my 5-year anniversary

2009-01-07T15:36:00.004-09:00

Of dry* cabin life.

And what kind of dream did I have to celebrate this occasion? I was dreaming about a nice, hot shower (this part of the dream was fairly grounded to reality too, unlike other instalments that included a new transportation method where people were lift up by their necks). Maybe my subconscious is trying to tell me something.

*Those of you that are not familiar with Fairbanks realities: dry means a cabin without running water. All water needs to be carried in (and then out). We have an outhouse too.

Feeling superstitious

2009-01-04T12:34:00.003-09:00

I've been raving about the U.S. southwest to Inari ever since we met. This year I finally got the chance to take her there. We spent the first two nights in Phoenix with a friend from my Widji days. It was good to catch up with him. But then the desert called us. We thought it was telling us to come have fun and be warm, but we know now that wasn't the case. It was about to rain cats and dogs and all other sorts of creatures that could be used to describe a hard rain that doesn't stop for 36 hours.

But we didn't understand what the desert was telling us, so we headed east to the Superstition Mountains. The Supes, as they are called, are just on the outskirts of Phoenix. As such they are heavily used, but we managed to avoid the crowds by being there over Christmas. We nearly had the place to ourselves. It probably would've felt fairly remote if planes from Phoenix hadn't been buzzing overhead all week.

I vaguely remember being quite miserable on several occasions. Something about wet boots from numerous stream crossings, not having an extra pair of dry shoes for camp, a rain jacket that no longer works, strong gusts of cold wind, and sleet. Christmas Day may have been my most miserable (memorable?) Christmas ever, but I'm not sure. It's just a vague memory now. Actually, I do remember the wind quite well. It was really cool, because you could hear the gusts of wind funneling down the valley before they hit the tent. Sometimes the gusts would pass over the tent. It was like a train coming toward you, but you didn't know if you were standing on the tracks.

There must have been some good times too, because I seem to have lots of photos of cacti glowing in the sun. Such bizarre shapes they have!

After the rain stopped were treated to beautiful colors as the sun was setting:

A view of Garden Valley:

An impossibly gargantuan saguaro cactus:

My favorite cactus, the teddy-bear cholla:

P.S. If you find yourself in the Superstition's, don't try to fight the "cat's claw". You won't win. I didn't.

San Francisco

2009-01-04T12:22:00.002-09:00

This December I went to San Francisco for the American Geophysical Union geek fest - 15,000 scientists from around the world talking about science for five straight days. I still can't decide if I like the conference. On the one hand, it's exciting to be in such an international community. On the other hand, when I read through the program I find that many of the talks and posters sound really boring. And by corollary, this must mean that the reverse is also true: that most people who read my abstract must think that my work is really boring.

Inari came down to San Francisco near the end of the week to rescue me from the conference. We spent a few days exploring the city, seeing museums, visiting Alcatraz, and eating really good food. We had to get out of there to avoid going broke.

View of downtown from the Nob Hill area:

Some random shots from Alcatraz:

This last one is for you, Anu:

amerikan ihmeellisyyksiä

2008-12-16T17:30:00.002-09:00

Kysymys: Kuinka oikeaoppisesti maksetaan pankkitiliin yhdistetyn luottokortin kuukausilasku?

Vastaus: Lähetetään niille tietysti shekki.

On tää kumma maa.

Declining moral values

2008-12-13T22:05:00.001-09:00

I've now done something that I once promised to never do. I joined Facebook. What's next? An iPhone?

Thanksgiving ills

2008-11-29T21:16:00.003-09:00

During the past three days I've averaged over 12 hours of sleep, only left the cabin to take short walks, read three graphic novels, and made sourdough banana bread. That's about it. Not exactly the way I had envisioned spending my holiday, but I guess I'd rather be sick now than during our upcoming trip to Arizona (Inari and I will spend Christmas break there).

After getting over a sickness I always feel so fresh and alive. Maybe my body's immune system needs to occasionally shut down to make me appreciate what it does for me. Well, that's one thing that I'm thankful for this Thanksgiving. A good immune system.

google knows

2008-11-24T19:38:00.006-09:00

This is just too funny to pass by. Some of you got tired of waiting my translation, and put Google on the case. The resulting text is sort of understandable, and you you can figure out at most of the context (even though some sentences come out as total opposites)*.

*No, we don't have a "domestic elk farm" in our backyard in case you were wondering. And yes, people in Europe smoke too much. Plus, in the comment section, Google translates my name as "callan".

The translation of the vacuum cleaner rant** really got me. Here's the Google version (I translated the few Finnish words left in the text that Google didn't understand):

"6. Horrid vacuums. These weighty, inconvenient and obtrusive machines, which are all in addition to the planned inoperative. Vacuum cleaner is the bottom for some strange reason, the light which is intended to enlighten apparently the floor. [Snip]"

I guess this answers all my questions about the horrid design of American vacuum cleaners. This enlightenment business explains why these machines weigh a ton, spew most of the dust back into the air, and why the cord gets wrapped around me all the time. I am still left wondering: can I ask spiritual advice from my floor when I am done cleaning?

**I am not the only Finn hating these machines. Most of the Finnish comments complain how bad US vacuums are.

top yhdeksän

2008-11-14T19:39:00.004-09:00

(For the English readers: this is a list of things I like/don't like about living abroad in Alaska. Right now I'm debating if I should translate it or not. I'm not sure how interested others are about my whining, or how universal these feelings are among immigrants. All the things on the list are seen through my Finnish heritage, and might seem incomprehensible (i.e. not a big deal) to others. I might provide a shorter summary in the near future if you are interested).

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Tässä edellisyön unettomuuden tulos. Havaitsin yhtäkkiä asuneeni Alaskassa miltein viisi vuotta (ja enemmänkin jos lasken mukaan vaihtovuoteni) ja suhtautuvani asioihin eri tavalla kuin aikaisemmin. Yhä moni asia ärsyttää, mutta en enää jaksa vetää hernettä nenään kun asiat eivät sujukaan tottumallani tavalla. Päätin siis kirjoittaa itselleni muistiin, mitkä asiat tulevat päällimmäisenä mieleen, kun listaan Alaskassa elämisen hyviä ja huonoja puolia.

Hyvää
1. Ihmisten ystävällisyys ja muiden huomioonottaminen. Tiedä onko tämä vain Alaskaa, mutta täällä ei todellakaan tarvitse odottaa apua. Toissapäivänä olin kaupungilla ison pahvilaatikon kanssa. Äheltässäni kaupan ovea auki, joku kiirehti parkkipaikalta avaamaan minulle ovea. Siis kaukaa, juoksujalkaa ja tuntematon ihminen, joka ei ollut kaupan työntekijä. Pahoitteli vielä, kun ei heti ollut huomannut.

2. Luomuruoka. Täällä kaiken voi ostaa luomuna tavallisesta automarketista (lukuunottamatta miesten partavaahtoa, jota yritin Jasonille toissaviikolla metsästää. Ehkä miehiä ei viherpiipertely kiinnosta?)

3. Luonnonläheisyys. Saattaa olla vain Alaskan ominaisuus, mutta luonto alkaa kolmen metrin päästä kotiovelta. Ehkä muualla maassa ollaan vieraantuneempia, mutta täällä karu luonto on kokoajan läsnä. Nimim. hirviä kotipihalla.

4. Ihmisten mutkattomuus. Toisiin on todella helppo tutustua, ja uutta tuttavuutta pyydetään helposti mukaan erilaisin rientoihin. En tiedä kuinka paljon tähän vaikuttaa oma elämäntilanne ja yliopistoväen suuri liikkuvuus, mutta sosiaalista elämää on helppo viettää (sanoo syrjäänvetäytyvä ihminen, joka ei sosiaalisuudesta niin kovasti perusta. Jopa minulle on kertynyt huomattavan monta ystävää).

5. Tupakoimattomuus. Tupakan poltto on halvinaista, eikä missään sisätiloissa juurikaan polteta. Eurooppaan palatessani nuuskin aina epäuskoisesti ilmaa ja ihmettelen miten ihmiset voivatkaan polttaa tupakkaa.

6. Aukioloajat. Pankkeja (ja virallisia instansseja) lukuunottamatta kaikki ravintolat, kaupat sun muut ovat auki pitkään. Rovaniemellä asuessani jouduin hiki päässä toimittamaan asioita koulun jälkeen, kun paikat eivät kertakaikkiaan olleet auki tarpeeksi myöhään kaltaiselleni yökukkujalle. Tähän tosin vaikuttaa olematon työlainsäädäntö, jonka mukaan sunnuntaityöstä tai juhlapyhistä ei tarvitse maksaa korkeampaa palkaa. Työntekijän kannalta siis miinusta, asiakkaan kannalta plussaa.

7. Toimeliaisuus. Täällä vapaahtoistyötä tekee suuri joukko, ja yhdistyksiä on satoja. Fairbanks on Rovaniemeä hitusen isompi, mutta kulttuuripuolelta täältä löytyy vapaaehtoisvoimin pyöritetty ooppera, kolmesta neljään teatteriryhmää, sinfoniaorkesteri, kaksi isohkoa musiikkitapahtumaa, alkuperäiskansojen taidefestivaali ja neljä taidegalleriaa. Kaikki ilman valtiovallan tai kaupungin tukea mikä tietysti tarkoittaa, että suurin osa työstä on palkatonta. Laadusta en sitten sano mitään.

8. Juuri kukaan ei tee suurta numeroa juomattomuudestani, eikä kukaan ole tyrkyttämässä alkoholia kun tulee puheeksi etten siitä välitä. Suomessa olin joku kummallinen friikki, koska ainoat sosiaalisesti hyväksyttävät syyt raittiuteen ovat (olivat?) uskonnollisuus, entinen alkoholismi tai raskaus (väliaikaisena selityksenä hyväksyttiin myös lääkekuuri). Kun en suostunut lokeroitumaan mihinkään näistä, alkoi kysely ja suureen ääneen ihmettely. Minusta aina tuntui että juomattomuuteni oli jonkinlainen uhka kanssaihmisille, josta oli helpointa päästä eroon saamalla minutkin juomaan.

9. Elitismin puuttuminen taideyhteisöstä. Ehkä tämäkin on vain selitettävissä kaupungin pienuudella, mutta kuvataiteilijana toimimista ei nähdä traagisena kohtalona, tai valtavana neroutena. Suomessa en olisi ikipäivinä ryhtynyt maalariksi, koska en tuntenut itseäni tarpeeksi lahjakkaaksi. Täällä olen ymmärtänyt ettei niinkään kyse ole taivaasta tippuneesta lahjakkuudesta, vaan kovasta työstä.

Huonoa
1. Amerikkalaisilla on tapana ilmaista asiat kiertoteitse, eikä suomalaisittain töksäytellen. Ennen kysyin ihan suoraan kyllä vai ei, kunnes Jason korjasi ja sanoi kysymystenesittämistapani olevan epäkohtelias. Nyt sitten on ollut pakko oppia kohteliaaksi ja monimutkaiseksi. (Ehkä tämän listaaminen "huonoksi" on hieman liioiteltua. Kyseessä on enemmänkin erilainen asia.)

2. Maailmankuvan täydellinen Amerikkakeskeisyys ja Yhdysvaltain esittäminen maailman parhaana maana. Ennen muuttoani pidin väitettä liioitteluna ja sen korostamista eurooppalaisena ylemmyydentuntona, mutta tätä "maailman mahtavin maa" propagandaa on oikeasti kaikkialla.

3. Autokulttuuri. Infrastruktuuri on suurimpia kaupunkeja lukuunottamatta rakennettu niin, että oman auton omistaminen on välttämätöntä, eikä julkista liikennettä ole. Pyöräilijään suhtaudutaan Fairbanksissä kuin heikkopäiseen ja jotkut autoilijat unohtavat kaikki velvollisuutensa kevyttä liikennettä kohtaan. Lisäksi Fairbanksin kylmässä ilmanalassa on tapana jättää auto käyntiin kun ajaja piipahtaa ruokaostoksilla. Tuloksena on ihana pakokaasupilvi, joka talvisaikaan peittää osan kaupunkia.

4. Käsittämättömän turvaton (ja kummallinen) pankkiliikenne. Vain pankkikortilla maksettaessa tarvitsee näpytellä tunnusluku, luottokortilla ei koskaan. Henkilöllisyyden varmentamiseksi riittää allekirjoitus (jota kukaan ei vertaa kortin nimeen). Bensaa ostaessa kortti vain höylätään koneen lävitse vailla mitään turvallisuusmeininkejä. Vaihtaessani euroja muutama vuosi sitten sain kokea, että vain muutama suurin pankki vaihtoi rahaa ja sielläkin homma oli nakitettu yhdelle työntekijälle, jonka poissaollessa kukaan muu ei voinut rahaa vaihtaa. Niin, no, käyhän tuo dollari kaikkialla, mitä sitä turhaan.

5. Paha ruoka. Suurin osa ruokakaupan tuotteista (siis ne ei-luomut) maistuu pahalle ja on epäterveellistä. Jokaiseen elintarvikkeeseen tungetaan sata lisäainetta ja high-fructose corn syrupia (= keinotekoisesti tuotettua sokerilitkua) on ihan kaikkialla. Osa ruokayhdistelmistä on kokolailla kummallisia (niinkuin sokeroitu ja toffeella kuorrutettu popcorn). Vanhempieni ollessa vierailulla he ostivat erehdyksessä Maple Baconia, siis vaahterasiirappiuutteella maustettua pekonia.

6. Hirviöimurit. Nämä painavat, epäkäytännölliset ja hankalat rakkineet, jotka ovat kaikenlisäksi suunniteltu toimimattomiksi. Imurin alaosassa on jostain kummallisesta syystä valo jonka tarkoituksena on ilmeisesti valaista lattiaa. Imuroija näkee siis mitä imuroi, mutta kun vehje ei kuitenkaan mahdu sohvan alle, niin valo on aika hyödytön (ellei sitten sammuta kattovaloa ja imuroi pimeässä pienen imurivalon turvin). Portaiden imuroiminen on tuskainen toimenpide tällä helvetinkoneella.

7. Epäluulo kaikkea valtionhallintoa kohtaan (tämä on ehkä selitettävissä kohdalla 8). Tässä poliittisessa ilmapiirissä on vain yksi oikea tapa kampanjoida, ja siihen kuuluu lupaus laskea veroja ja pienentää hallintoa. Kun kommunismia ei enää oikein voi pelätä, niin nyttemmin asialistalle on nostettu sosialismi, tuo kammottava tuloerojen tasaaja. Emmehän nyt millään halua muutta Yhdysvaltoja sellaiseksi sosialistiseksi valtioksi kuin esimerkiksi Ruotsi. Tämä on erityisen hupaisaa Alaskassa, jossa osavaltion hallinto jakaa jokaiselle asukkaalle osuuden öljytuloista ja joka on nettohyötyjä osavaltioiden välisessä tulonjaossa.

8. Byrokratia niin paikallistasolla kuin liittovaltiossakin. Kaikki liittovaltion lomakkeet mielletään niin vaikeiksi, että oletusarvoisesti ne täyttää joku muu kuin hakija itse. Tavallisilla palkansaajilla on siis oma lakimies ja kirjanpitäjä, koska säädökset ovat niin monimutkaisia, ettei niistä yksittäisen kansalaisen edes oleteta ottavan tolkkua. Ollessani viimeisessä maahanmuttohaastattelussani viranomainen oli aidosti hämmästynyt ettei meillä ollut lakimiestä mukanamme. Paikallistasollakin osataan. Yliopisto vaatii sata erilaista lippusta ja lappusta täytettäväksi mitä omituisimmista asioista. Joka toinen viikko minun on allekirjoitettava palkanmaksukuitti, jota ilman palkkaa ei voida maksaa. Lappu kierrätetään vielä varmuuden vuoksi esimiehelläni, joka allekirjoittaa sen tahollaan. Ymmärtääkseni lapussa vain mainitaan palkan määrä ja sen miltä tililtä se maksetaan, eikä sen avulla pidetä kirjaa työtunneista. Jokaikinen yliopiston työntekijä allekirjoittaa oman lappunsa, jotka sitten allekirjoitutetaan esimiehillä ja varastoidaan jonnekin. Kai tällä paperinpyörittelyllä työllisteään muutama virkamies sen sijaan, että saataisiin jotain aikaan.

9. Uskonnollisuus. Uskonnolla oletetaan olevan merkittävä rooli ihmisen elämässä. Ateistit ovat epäilyttäviä, jotka ovat joko moraalisesti epäkelpoja tai vaihtoehtoisesti koko ajan peloissaan ja hukassa. Uskonto tunkee päälle jokapäiväisessä elämässä, eikä se suinkaan tunnu olevan ihmisen yksityisasia. Vaikka perustuslaki määrää valtion ja uskonnon pitämisen erillään, käytännössä nämä kaksi ovat hyvinkin yhtä. Sanomalehden neuvontapalstalla kehoitetaan usein puhumaan ongelmista "luotetun hengellisen neuvojan" tai papin kanssa ja avustamaan kirkollisessa vapaaehtoistyössä jos elämä tuntuu tyhjältä.

Temporary relief

2008-11-10T21:05:00.002-09:00

I passed my comprehensive exams today. I stumbled a little bit along the way, but I made it to the finish line - and with all major appendages still in tact. Overall the exams were a worthwhile experience, but I'm really glad that they're over. It will be really nice to have my evenings and weekends back. I think Inari would agree.

The whole experience would've been a little nicer had I started preparing months in advance, but that's easier said then done. Especially when you have a computer full of interesting data to look at.

Phew.

P.S. Dana - Thanks for cookies. They were better than Martin's - though I'm fairly impartial to most cookies.

shameless self-promotion

2008-11-09T23:40:00.003-09:00

After a year's worth of procrastination, I made myself a new webpage (yes, this time there are things to click). It is made with the tried I-get distracted-by-a-million-better-ideas-as-I-am-putting-this-together -method that made me reinsert the links at least fiftytwo times. Disclamer: the HTML code is not pretty, Etsy shop doesn't have anything to sell yet, and there is a ton of things that bug me but nobody else will notice. If you encounter broken links, let me know.

Hints of good web-hosting companies are also welcome.

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Uudet kotisivut ovat valmiit vain puolentoistavuoden vitkuttelun jälkeen. Tällä kertaa mukana myös linkkejä. Sivut ovat olemassa vain englanniksi, hermo meni jo puolivälissä, eikä enää riitä suomenkielisten väsäämiseen.

my electoral college is stronger than yours

2008-11-04T09:54:00.009-09:00

Yei, life without robocalls telling us whom to vote for. Alaska, with its measly three electoral votes, is not a battle-ground state by any means, but we were still receiving a number of calls each day from the local politicians. I do wonder what is the objective of calling the same people four times within the 24 hours and telling them to vote (in our case they can only tell Jason to go). The callers always seem so confused too when I tell them that I cannot vote, thank-you-very-much-for-the-urging. Interesting tidbit though: the democratic calls have outnumbered the republicans 5:1 or so.

Edit: I spoke too soon. We still got a call at 7.20 PM (only 40 minutes before the polls closed) making sure that Jason voted. They must have learned and stopped asking about me.

The good life

2008-10-26T16:55:00.001-08:00

Something that wives aren't knowing for saying to their husbands: "You need to drink more beer." I have a good wife.

Let the examination begin

2008-10-24T16:53:00.002-08:00

Today I had the first of my comprehensive exams. Although I didn't come away from the exam feeling particularly brilliant or that I had done all that well, at least I came away with a box of girl scout cookies (thanks Martin!). This experience brings back painful memories of my undergrad days: 5 exams during finals week each semester. The unfortunate difference is that then I was rewarded by a month or two of vacation. There'll be no such reward this time around.

spill the beans

2008-10-22T21:35:00.002-08:00

Piirustusblogi 550 drawings on ollut olemassa jo jonkin aikaa. Blogi on huhtikuussa syntynyt yhteistyöprojeti, jossa minä ja ystäväni Liisa yritettiin piirtää jotain joka päivä. Tavoite on vähän kärsinyt, mutta blogi päivittyy silti epäsäännöllisen säännöllisesti. Projekti päättyy ensi toukokuussa, jolloin piirustukset ovat esillä Fairbanksissä.

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Some of you have already found out that I have a drawing blog, 550 drawings. This is a collaborative work between me and my friend Liisa. Our original idea was to draw something every day, but we are both lagging behind. I decided to draw objects that have somehow been used during the course of the day. The blog updates irregularly (when either one of us have an access to a scanner). The project will go on until next May, when the drawings will be exhibited here in Fairbanks.

Media reports

2008-10-16T11:05:00.004-08:00

The paper that I've been working on is now accepted for publication. The media seem to have discovered it; in the past week I've had correspondence with 5 different journalists who either want to talk to me about the paper or want to use our timelapse videos. It's crazy and is starting to take up a fair amount of my time, but I try to enjoy it while it lasts. The first articles to come out can be found here and here. Both articles have mistakes in them but they are generally correct.

hidden among sponsor angels

2008-10-13T23:56:00.004-08:00

Last Friday we went to see Calo Flamenco. Before the show started I was leafing through the pamflet (it mostly detailed the performace and thanked all-the-people-that-make-this-sort-of-thing-possible and gave them funny names based on how much money they donated). Amist the explanations of how to behave (they encouraged jaleos - encouraging shouts - and palmas - rhythmical clapping - during the performance) I found the following disclamer: "Calo Flamenco assumes no responsibility/liability for injuries resulting from attempting to follow the palmeros during the show. Possible risks include dryness/cracking in the palm of your hand, muscle fatigue and other physical injury to you or the person sitting next to you. If you decide to follow the palmeros and steal their work, you will not be paid for your services and cannot deduct your services on your tax return as a charitable contribution."

Made me snicker.

Rewinding to Ireland

2008-10-09T23:45:00.006-08:00

I was in Ireland for a meeting a little over a month ago. Before the meeting I met up with some friends and their rapidly growing children (ages 6 months to 3 yrs). It was fun to catch up with everybody and to practice shooting photographs of people. Children make nice targets, since they don't move too fast, are emotional, and don't always notice when you're taking a photo. It's even better when they are children that you know, so that you don't feel like a paparazzi when you're taking photos...

Here are my favorite photos from that trip. I've thrown in a couple of scenery shots just for fun.

Lena, if you can't see us then we can't see you.

If only bubble wrap could help me focus with such determination.

Emilie, the "raspberry monster", apparently likes blackberries as well.

Sonja the Alaskan, who after spending a year in Switzerland still wanted to show her Alaskan pride (this was before she knew that Palin would be McCain's running mate).

The Cliffs of Moher, western Ireland. I really like the motion of the flowers. Makes you feel a little bit queasy.

The last two photos pretty much summarize Ireland: flowers, fences, and ruins.

whittier secret operations and its aftermath

2008-10-08T10:51:00.004-08:00

Last August, while Jason was busy travelling in Europe, I had my share of fun in Alaska. My oldest friend (all the way from the first grade) came to visit me with her boyfriend. We loaded up the car and travelled from Fairbanks to Whittier and back again. Short version of the trip: 1200 miles (out of which 2.2 miles in a tunnel), a wolf, a pod of belugas, four brown bears, two eagles, numerous ground squirrels, one deserted army barrack, one small day hike, several glaciers, several sea otters, one ulu, five hotels, one lawn, two campgrounds, and quite a bit of rain.

Interesting tidbit from Whittier: the town used to be a secret army harbour, sealed from outsiders. The only way to get in was through a railroad tunnel or by boat. During the height of the secret operations, there were over 2000 soldiers living in Whittier. In 1953 the army built "the largest building in Alaska" at the time, "a city within a city" to house and entertain the soldiers. Mere seven years later, in 1960 the army left the town, and only 100 civilians stayed behind. They did not need all the housing that was constructed, so Buckner building was left uninhabited. This huge abandoned barrack overshadows the city, large enough to fit a cruise ship inside. Asbestos contamination prevents the demolition of the building (or rather, no one wants to pay for the cost of dealing with asbestos) and in true Alaska fashion, the building is just sitting there.

Today, 90% of the inhabitants of Whittier live in the Begich Tower, used to house soldiers, and the remaining 10% are in the apartment complex build for the officers. In other words, all the inhabitants of the city are living in just two buildings.

Presidential impressions

2008-10-04T11:43:00.003-08:00

I've had some fun watching the debates over the past week. I was mostly watching them for entertainment value, as I had made up my mind months ago. I was really impressed with the ability of all four candidates to avoid questions that they didn't want to answer and to consistently tell lies and half-truths.

After the McCain-Obama debate, I read through the bipartisan website factcheck.org and learned that, not too surprisingly, many of the statements by both candidates were "simply not true". What surprised me, though, was that Palin and Biden repeated the same lies and half-truths one week later. You'd think that they'd do their own fact checking.

I wonder if we'll every have high-ranking politicians that are completely honest and unwilling to fabricate stories to get elected. What I find really amazing about politics is that politicians can spend an hour and half arguing with and making up lies about each other, and then afterwards shake hands and congratulate each other for doing a good job. That must be such a weird work environment.

Other things I learned from the debates:
1. McCain knows a lot of people from small towns around the world.
2. McCain isn't a very good listener.
3. Obama is naive and just doesn't get it (if McCain says it enough times, it must be true).
4. Obama has always been on the correct side of arguments (if he says it enough times, it must be true).
5. Palin sounds like a MinnesOHtan. I was going to write an entry about it, but the Minneapolis Star Tribune already beat me to it.
6. Biden talks a little bit like Garrison Keillor, but more quickly. I think he'd be a good story teller, and I bet he could fill in for Garrison Keillor on the Prairie Home Companion if he ever needed a week off.

myyrän paluu

2008-09-27T22:36:00.004-08:00

Vanha tuttavamme myyrä on palannut silppuamaan vessapaperia. Tänään aamulla näin sankarin tositoimissa, mutta tällä kertaa se ei jäänyt tuijottamaan minua, vaan hyppäsi ämpäristä (joka on aikalailla täydempi kuin viime toukokuussa) kakkalankulle* ja sitä kautta maahan. Huima hyppy oli ainakin kolmen myyrän mitan pituinen. En silti haluaisi kotimyyrää, joka levittää käytettyä vessapaperia ympäri ulkohuussia (vaikka oli se kyllä aika söpö).

*Kakkalankku = lankunpala, jolla pirstotaan ulkohuussiin talvisin kerääntyvä jäätynyt kakkakimpale.

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Our friend the vole has returned. The animal is cute, but I would appreciate seeing it more if it wouldn't happen in our outhouse, and it would not be munching on our used toilet paper. This morning I witnessed the vole jumping from our used toilet paper bucket to the top of the poop stick* (at least three vole lengths in distance) and scurrying away with a mouthful of toilet paper. Cute in a sort of grossed-out way.

*Poop stick = a stick to used to knock down the frozen poo-tower that inevitably fills the outhouse hole during winter.

Science and politics

2008-09-25T13:39:00.003-08:00

Science is generally not a main topic in political discourse though it is clearly becoming more and more intertwined with politics and culture, what with concerns about global warming, oil production, stem cell research, and attempts by the religious right to discredit the theory of evolution. How politicians address these issues will affect how science is funded and conducted, ultimately feeding back into how politicians will address future issues. (This scientific system is not perfect, but maybe that is a topic for another post.)

Nature magazine published today a special feature on the 2008 US presidential election, which is definitely worth checking out. I think you're able to view it without having a subscription to Nature, but I could be wrong.

Taking back the blog

2008-09-24T00:22:00.004-08:00

If I don't start posting more we may have to call this blog "The vaimo and her glacier geek". Or even worse, "The geeky artist and her aviomies". My only excuse this time is that I'd like to post photos from Germany and Ireland, but I still haven't gotten around to picking out my favorites. I continue to be really busy, and I don't think it will get any better any time soon. That's just how it is in science - field work, data analysis, preparing manuscripts, attending meetings, writing proposals (of which I've only done a little).

The meeting I attended in Ireland was really good. It was rather informal and there was plenty of time to meet other glaciologists, including some of the grandparents of glaciology. Glaciology is really fun for many reasons, one of which is that the field is young and small. A friend of mine says that glaciology is like a village, everybody knows everybody. If I had to pick a village to represent glaciology, I'd have to say that the village in "One hundred years of solitude" is a pretty good choice. Not only does everybody know each other, but almost all people that have considered themselves glaciologists are still alive, due in part to glaciologists ability to live into their 90's.

I returned to Fairbanks in late August, then quickly turned around and flew to Seattle with Inari and her family for a short vacation. In Seattle we visited some of the standard tourist sites, did a a little shopping (finally bought a nice down comforter - on sale), and visited friends Erik and Stephanie who are now doing their residency in Seattle. I have to say that I've gained a lot more respect for doctors after talking with them and seeing what they have to go through on their way to doctorhood. I don't believe that anybody would go into medicine just for the money. There must be much easier ways to make a good living.

Then it was back to Fairbanks to work on finishing up a manuscript (almost published now...), writing an abstract for a meeting in San Francisco in December, saying goodbye to friends that are leaving us for warmer climates, and picking our bumper crop of potatoes and carrots (50 lbs (?) of carrots and many, many more potatoes). This winter I'll either learn to love potatoes or die trying.

I'm now in the process of studying for my comprehensive exams, something I probably should've taken about a year ago. To pass the exams I have to demonstrate that I am making sufficient progress towards a PhD. Interestingly, the exams vary from group to group, even within one department. We basically have the flexibility to make up the exams as we go, but generally follow some sort of tradition. In my case, I'll be taking written exams on three subjects: glaciers, numerical analysis, and geodynamics. Then, a couple of weeks later I'll be presenting a thesis proposal in a talk that is open to the public. If I pass those I will be a certified "PhD candidate" and my biweekly pay checks will get ever so slightly bigger (yea!).

my two cents on Palin

2008-09-22T10:45:00.009-08:00

Piti kirjoittamani Sarah Palinista, mutta Project Mama ilmaisi asian paljon paremmin.

McCain osoittautui taitavaksi taktikoksi valitessaan Palinin varapresidenttiehdokkaakseen. En usko, että Palinin tarkoituksena on saada Hillary Clintonin äänestäjiä McCainin taakse, enemmänkin kyse on konservatiiviäänestäjien houkuttelemisesta uurnille (siis niiden uskonnollisten änkyröiden, joiden mielestä McCain on aivan liian vapaamielinen). Kaksi vuotta sitten Palin voitti Alaskan kuvernöörin vaalin uudistuspoliittisella ohjelmalla, johon kuului mm. korruption kitkeminen. Vaalivoitto (ja kampanja) oli ilmiömäinen, joten en ole hämmästynyt, että Palin kykenee saamaan koko Yhdysvaltain sekaisin ja nousemaan McCainin rinnalle tärkeäksi osaksi vaalikamppanjaa. Kunnianhimoinen täti kaiken kaikkiaan (tai poliittinen pyrkyri, miten nyt kukin haluaa asian ilmaista).

Ehkä vastenmielisintä koko touhussa on kuinka Palin on muuttunut suorasanaisesta politiikan uudistajasta republikaanien käsikassaraksi (tai mitä todennäköisemmin Palinin mielipiteet ovat pysyneet samoina, mutta kuvernöörin vaalikamppanjassa niitä ei voinut esittää yhtä avoimesti kuin nyt).

Sokerina pohjalla: jos McCain menee ja voittaa vaalit ensi marraskuussa nousee Alaskan kuvernööriksi Palinin varamies, Sean Parnell, jolla on (mikäli mahdollista) vieläkin konservatiivisemmat mielipiteet kuin Palinilla.

++++

I meant to write something about Sarah Palin, but Literary Mama says these things more eloquently. I don't think McCain selected Palin to woo Clinton supporters, but to rally conservative voters and get their support.

And oh joy: if McCain wins in November Alaskans get stuck with our current Lieutenant Governor, Sean Parnell, who seems to be even farther right than Palin. Even if McCain loses and Palin returns to her position as a plain governor, I think we are going to see a much more of a right wing agenda and a lot less bipartisanship.

there might be such a thing as too much garlic

2008-09-13T20:46:00.004-08:00

Viime viikkojen ohjelma on suurimmaksi osaksi ohi. Kiitos perheelle käynnistä. Oli valtavan kivaa. Ikävä.

***

Today's rainy weather made a perfect day for a general laziness. We did manage to get to Farmer's market and bought some garlic bread that was mostly garlic and a bit of flower to make it more breadlike. My first impression: "Wow, this IS garlicky."

And I grew up on garlic.

the joys of a long distance relationship

2008-08-18T22:34:00.008-08:00

Today I met a Random New Person:

RNP: So what brings you to Alaska?
Me: Oh, you know, the usual story. I was here as an exchange student, met my husband and so forth.
RNP: Interesting. What does your husband do?
Me: He's a glaciology student at UAF.
RNP: Oh, does he study Denali ice worms by any change?
Me: No, no, he is in Greenland doing fieldwork. That's where his research site is.
RNP: So let me get this straight... You moved here and your husband spends his time in Greenland?
Me: Yeah...

Trying to use up my 15 minutes

2008-08-12T13:47:00.001-08:00

My friend Rolland discovered that there are actually public photos of me with the German chancellor Angela Merkel. It turns out that if you spell my name incorrectly, as he did, that you can quickly find a link to the German embassy in Denmark.

Photos from the field

2008-08-12T05:26:00.008-08:00

I've finished my field work in Greenland, and am now sitting in Frankfurt (actually Niedernhausen) trying to comprehend the color green. Despite its name, Greenland really isn't very green, and in comparison Niedernhausen looks (and feels) tropical.

Our field work was quite successful. We managed to collect over a terabyte of data, a new record for us. Most of the data was in the form of photos - we had two cameras taking photos every 10 seconds. Those cameras eventually failed, giving me the opportunity to use a nice image stabilizing lens on my camera.

The results:

The glacier's terminus (where icebergs break into the ocean) shot from a helicopter.

Another shot of the terminus. Can you spot the helicopter?

An iceberg that has recently broken off of the terminus.

My favorite picnic spot. Most of the area near our camp contains very little vegetation, except for one small patch of tundra located a couple of kilometers down fjord. On a nice day its a great place to take a nap.

A little bay on the main fjord.

Boats in Ilulissat harbor's dry dock.

Lakes on the surface of the ice sheet.

this summer's weather rant

2008-08-05T11:43:00.008-08:00

It has been cloudy, rainy and cold for two weeks now. We have been covered with low-hanging clouds that block the sun, rain a bit and move two meters to rain some more. The cabin is cold, the garden doesn't grow and my mood has taken a downward swing. I don't want to turn the heater on (it is supposed to be summer) so I have gone back to wearing my down booties and woolsocks.

The weather forecast for the next week (or the past two weeks):

Today: Occasional rain and mostly cloudy, scattered rain showers
Tonight: Mostly cloudy. Isolated rain showers
Wednesday: Mostly cloudy with isolated rain showers
Thursday: Mostly cloudy. Isolated rain showers
Friday: Mostly cloudy with a chance of rain
Saturday: Mostly cloudy with a change of rain
Sunday: Mostly cloudy with a change of rain

At least they don't throw in a warm and sunny day two days into the future as some forecasts do. Maybe they are trying to lift our spirits as in "The sun will shine. Just wait two more days."

Everything is slanted in the garden (except the weeds of course, but who wants to weed when it is raining). I am kind of glad we planted so many potatoes this year. They like colder weather and the tubers are safe underground. Our tomatoes, on the other hand, look pitiful. Zuccinis are rotting into their stalks.

I want my money back.

(As i type this, the sky is clearing up and I can see the sun first time in days. The incredible power of ranting does it again.)

+++++

Tervetuloa Alaskaan, täällä on kylmää ja kosteaa. Haluan tuliaisena hieman auringonpaistetta, kiitos.

personal note of changing circumstaces

2008-08-02T13:25:00.003-08:00

Lopetin työt kirjakaupassa eilen.

Pelottava, mutta oikea ratkaisu. Nyt ollaan sitten kokopäiväisesti taiteilijaa, kun näyttää siltä, että kukaan ei Fairbanksissä tarvitse introverttiä piirtäjää. Työ itsessään oli ihan mukavaa, mutta vähän yksitoikkoista (puhumattakaan siitä, että työvuorolistassa olin aina ja ikuisesti viikonloppuvuorossa). Jason on luultavasti tyytyväinen, etten enää saa henkilökunta-alennusta kirjaostoksistani (tätä tosin kompensoin ostamalla tavallista enemmän kirjoja viimeisen viikon aikana). Kirjahyllytila on taas loppumassa.

Palkkaa saattaa tosin tulla ikävä. Tosin, jos oikein tiukka paikka tulee, niin Fred Myers tarvitsee aina kärryntyöntäjiä.

++++

I quit working at the bookstore yesterday. I left with mixed feelings; scared of future, sad to leave great co-workers behind, but happy to be drawing full-time again. I just have to treat drawing as a career and see where it takes me.

Jason is propably happy that I cannot get any discounts on books anymore. He thinks that our place is overflowing with books, I think we still have plenty of room to install more bookcases.

turning completely around

2008-07-28T23:48:00.008-08:00

On my previous rant I made a passing reference to a website, 360 cities. The idea behind the site is simple; They stitch panoramic photographs together to create immersive views of a place. Their site is pretty neat (think Google streetviews) even though their navigation system is awkward and using the main map to move from one site to another is a bit frustrating.

Even though the site features an extensive network of European cities, I was still surprised to find that Helsinki, where I grew up, was included. I'm not sure if the photographs featured from Helsinki represent "the most interesting places in the world from the most interesting perspectives" but I guess I have never seen Helsinki through a pair of foreign eyes. (And maybe part of the fascination is to see what parts of a familiar landscape a stranger chooses to photograph.)

Most of the images turned out to be the obvious ones. There is the main square, the main park, the main shopping district, and there are multiple images of Suomenlinna, a naval fortress where I run around as a teenager participating in live action role-playing games (wearing a complete scavenged pseudo-medieval outfit with a cape and a wooden sword. Geeky, I tell you). Yet, some of their choices are more puzzling: Hotel Sokos' lobby is not very high in my list of interesting interiors in Helsinki. And why take photos of a lipouautomaati* (sic)? I fail to see the exoticism.

*A vending machine that sells parking passes.

Familiar Ilulissat

2008-07-22T15:38:00.000-08:00

I'm back in Ilulissat and will be heading out to the field tomorrow morning. I find it interesting to see how my perception of Greenland, especially Ilulissat, changes with each visit. It's becoming more familiar - I no longer have the urge to take photos of every thing I see. This doesn't mean that I no longer find it interesting and beautiful. I also don't take that many photos when I'm in Fairbanks, but I like it there as well.

My initial attitude towards Greenland and Greenlanders was probably too romantic. The Greenland of my imagination no longer exists, at least not in the big town of Ilulissat. Life here really isn't that much different than life anywhere else. The culture has been strongly Danish-ized: pretty much everything about life in Ilulissat has been affected by Danish culture. I'm very curious to see how this changes in the future. How will Greenlandic culture evolve under globalization, climate warming, and rising fuel prices? The problems facing Greenland are very similar to the problems facing Alaska. The lack of resources, harsh climate, and large distances makes it very difficult, in my mind, for a modern western culture to survive.

I'll be done with field work in a little over two weeks. Then I head to Frankfurt to meet some friends and to Limerick, Ireland for a glaciology conference. Looking forward to both of those trips.

Note for our American readership

2008-07-19T22:42:00.007-08:00

(Warning: this post contains political commentary. Take only with moderation.)

The rising price of gasoline is sending panic waves through congress and pushing legislators to open Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil exploration and drilling. I urge you to contact your representatives and tell them that drilling in ANWR will not lower the gas prices, reduce the dependency on foreign oil, or provide improved homeland security.

(For the record, I am aware that drilling will employ a few Alaskans, and create income to the state, and to a few native corporations. But no one knows how it will effect caribou migrations, subsistence hunting or animal populations living in the area.)

As for the Alaskan representatives, they are dead-set on opening ANWR (which is quite understandable when you think that 90% of Alaska's revenue is created by the oil industry - the rest comes mostly from the Federal reserves.). They have tried every trick in the book to slip ANWR legislation through the system. The rising gas price might be the ticket that they have been waiting for.

If the rising gas prices get you down, please remember that Finns are currently paying €1.50 per liter. That is €5.68 per gallon. High conversion rate increases the price even further so that Finns are essentially paying over nine dollars per gallon of gasoline (which is the same than rural communities in Alaska are facing right now).

Just in case you agree with the former Alaska senator Frank "There is nothing there!" Murkowski, please click here to see 360 degree images taken on location.

(End. You can all take a deep breath now.)

Edit: price calculations

Suomalaisia uutisia

2008-07-14T23:52:00.002-08:00

Now that we have fast internet at home, I've started researching more exciting ways to learn Finnish. One thing we discovered is that Yleisradio, basically Finnish public broadcasting, offers streaming news video and sound clips. What is really cool is that the website offers "selkouutiset" (meaning: clear news), which is geared towards foreigners living in Finland that don't yet have a good grasp of Finnish. The language is greatly simplified and the reporters speak r-e-a-l-l-y slowly. The audio clips are also transcribed, so you can read the news as you are listening to it. Seems like a great way to learn - news clips tend to be short, so you don't need to have a long attention span, they use very common language, and if you are somewhat current with events it can be easy to figure out the meaning of words. For example, one of the clips today talked about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, so I was easily able to translate "asuntomarkkinat" (housing market) and "lainata" (to loan). I plan to listen to Finnish news every day. We'll see what happens, but so far I'm one for one.

I wonder if other countries have similar programs for foreigners. It seems like a great way to help non-native speakers assimilate into a new country. The Finnish program that we found is great, but I think it could be significantly improved with just a little bit more effort and resources.

Listening, reading, watching: July 2008

2008-07-11T20:06:00.003-08:00

Listening: Pandora radio

I just learned about Pandora (internet) radio from a friend of mine. This coincided with Inari and I getting faster internet at home, and I now listen to Pandora basically every day. It's really neat - it allows you to fine tune your "radio" to listen to music that you like. It's a great way to learn about musicians. Right now I have three stations: pop, cuban, and electronic. I'm sure that will expand with time. No more advertisements, no more top-40 playlists, no more pre-processed mass-produced music.

Reading: Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

Speaking of mass-produced culture, I'm now reading Fast Food Nation, which doesn't exactly instill pride in our culture. The book is a very thorough account of the history of fast food and how it has affected American culture. It covers everything from treatment of employees to health to agriculture. Schlosser has a very obvious left-wing bias, so I am left wondering exactly how truthful he is, but on the other hand he does seem to have done very thorough research. I'm anxious to finish the book so that I can begin reading critiques.

Watching: WALL-E

This sci-fi Pixar animation is fantastic. I wasn't sure if Pixar could top their last animation (Ratatouille), but I think they have. Of course I'm a little biased - some of my favorite movies throughout my life have been sci-fi (e.g., E.T., Star Wars, 2001: A Space Odyssey) - so any movie that makes fun of or mimics these movies is likely to make me laugh.

Canoeing in Minnesota

2008-06-25T22:24:00.005-08:00

Summer always seems to go by too fast. I can't believe we're already approaching the end of June. I've already been to Greenland and back, Minnesota and back, am now teaching an undergraduate course (which is a lot of fun but also a lot of work), and will be leaving for Greenland again in a few weeks. In the mean time I have a lot of other things to work on, including getting a paper submitted, studying for my comprehensive exams, gardening, fishing, and trying to get out to the mountains to have fun.

The trip to Minnesota was a much needed vacation from computers and e-mail. Inari and I went down there for our friends' wedding and to help my grandma celebrate her 85th birthday. Our friends had organized a pre-wedding canoe trip in the Boundary Waters, which was something we couldn't resist. I did a lot of canoe trips in the Boundary Waters when I was kid, and I'm sure that those trips had a strong impact on me. I hadn't been back for several years. In some ways the place was the same that it has always been: peaceful, familiar, relaxing. At the same time I realized that I've changed and have a different perspective on things. I found myself wondering why I never bothered to learn about the plants, people, and animals that live in that region. I was bothered that I couldn't identify basic plants. But most of all the trip made me want to spend more time in the Boundary Waters. Its not the most beautiful place that I've been, but its probably the most peaceful and also the most comforting. It feels like home.

Here are few photos from the canoe trip:

The view of Shovel Point on Lake Superior, taken on the drive from Minneapolis to the Boundary Waters.

Our trail group minus myself. From left to right: Jenny, Elvira (the bride), Inari, Kelly, Jason (the groom), Angie, and Mark.

Typical Boundary Waters scenery.

Sawbill Lake in the fog.

----------

Our friends' wedding was also a lot of fun. Probably the second most fun wedding that I've been to (sorry J&E, but you had some tough competition). The wedding festivities lasted an entire weekend and even included square dancing! Got to meet up with some old friends and make some new ones.

lessons learned

2008-06-23T11:59:00.006-08:00

We tried to go canoeing yesterday (or I tried, Jason succeeded). It turned out to be an afternoon spend mostly driving from one point to another, trying to find the lost cars, and getting lost ourselves.

Lesson number one: everyone knows where they are going. We set a meeting point to be at a local grocery store. Already on our way there one carload got lost. After we were ready to go, only one driver knew for sure where the destination was, and we lost him in the first turn. A lot of mix-ups happened (not to mention an hour and a half of lost time) before everyone was at the river ready to get in the canoes.

(Here's Sam, Chris and Agatha seen through the car window. Notice the rain drops and proper attire.)

Lesson number two: If the weather is good, go now, and don't wait until afternoon. In our case, the gorgeous sunny and hot day turned into windy and rainy afternoon. Always bring your rain gear.

Lesson number three: if you are sick, don't go (hence my trying). I got a flu a day before, but kept hoping that my condition would improve (and hey, canoeing is not that strenuous activity anyways). It didn't and a splitting headache got me to my senses. I had to bail out.

Lesson number four: if someone is picking you up, make sure that they know where to go. After I bailed out two other members of the group decided to do the same (see lesson two). Problem was that it was their car waiting at the other end. I drove them to their car and they kept telling me that I was headed the wrong way (which I wasn't). In the end they did manage to find their way back and pick up the successful canoers.

As for me, I spend the rest of the day in a feverish stupor.

before and after

2008-06-23T11:00:00.010-08:00

The blogsilence was due to a trip to Minnesota: we participated in an Amundson family gathering, a BWCA canoe trip and a wedding. Jason can fill in the details, what I wanted to share was this: We left in a hurry. Jason's paper writing woes, gardening craziness and my painting worries left our place in complete disarray. In fact, we were still packing at 1 AM.

It took six hours of cleaning to get to this stage.

Bear affects peaceful commute

2008-05-29T19:24:00.005-08:00

I like bears, or at least I try to. I think they are pretty amazing animals. I also like biking and skiing to work. Even though the commute gets old at times, especially in winter, I mostly enjoy it because its a chance to get some fresh air, to organize my thoughts, and to put some distance between my personal life and work - though admittedly the last thing doesn't always happen.

What I don't like so much though, is when bears affect my morning commute. Granted, I didn't actually see a bear, but I did see this sign Wednesday morning just as I was entering a narrow trail through the woods:

That was enough to raise my heart rate even though I started biking at a somewhat slower pace.

Field appetite

2008-05-22T19:57:00.005-08:00

You'd think that I'd eat a lot more food when I'm doing field work than when I'm sitting in front of my computer all day, but you'd be wrong. By a lot. A typical day of field work involves getting up around 7:00 and starting work around 8:00. On days that we fly up on the glacier there tends to be very little time for lunch since its expensive to have the helicopter sitting around doing nothing. That doesn't bother me too much, as long as I can get a few bites of chocolate and an apple. If we don't have the helicopter we are at camp tending to our instruments. Setting up the instruments requires hauling heavy batteries and solar panels around. (Once, while doing field work in southeast Alaska, I even hauled loads of rocks up the glacier. Seemed kind of pointless, since the glacier would just carry them back to its terminus...) On those days lunch becomes a little more important, but I still don't eat any more than I do at home. Dinner tends to be around 7:00 or 7:30 and is followed by a game of cards. Some days - especially if the weather is nice - we work after dinner though we usually try to avoid doing so.

Let's compare that to what I do when I'm in Fairbanks. I get up around 8:00 and am at work by 9:00 or 9:30. We have a coffee break at 10:30, which is occasionally accompanied by some sort of cake or chocolate. If not, then I'm hungry by 11:00. I usually make it until noon before diving into my lunch, which today consisted of a fairly large salad, and apple, and a couple of sandwiches. By 3:00 I was already thinking about dinner. I made it until 7:00 without eating anything else, but I had to snack on some munchies while I was cooking dinner in order to have the energy to cook. Its now 8:30 and I feel fine, but I'm pretty sure that a big bowl of ice cream will hit the spot in about an hour.

The only explanation that I can come up with is that my computer needs more than 4 GB of RAM to do all the work that I ask it to. It is forced to suck energy from me to complete all of its tasks.

What I'm listening, reading, watching: May 2008

2008-05-17T04:30:00.003-08:00

Listening: Mr. Pitiful by Matt Costa

I discovered this little gem (great video) when I was looking through the Brushfire Records website. Brushfire Records is musician-owned company featuring some very good pop musicians (G. Love, Jack Johnson, Mason Jennings). I'm not so keen on Matt Costa's other songs, put I can't get this one out of my head. See if you can listen to it without tapping your feet and nodding your head. Its really catchy. I guess I'm a sucker for good pop music.

Reading: High Fidelity, A Long Way Down, and Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby

Since I'm on the topic of pop culture... Nick Hornby's books mix emotional turmoil and pop culture into funny, witty, and insightful stories. I've now read all of his novels and his autobiography (Fever Pitch, which is interwoven with the history of the Arsenal soccer club). I think the best two are High Fidelity and About a Boy, but they're all worth reading. I don't know of any other authors who can make breaking up with a girlfriend or contemplating suicide so funny. I'm sure that last sentence makes a lot more sense to people who have read any of his books.

Watching: Northern Exposure

Inari and I have now watched the first two seasons of Northern Exposure. I remember hearing of the show as I kid, but I never watched it. Its actually quite good, even though its portrayal of Alaska is off the wall. But then again, Alaska is a little off the wall. All of the characters are entertaining and unique. The show can be a little too bizarre at times, but I think it is just bizarre enough that you're okay with it. What I mean is, when you're watching the show you realize that you're not watching reality and you come to expect totally crazy stories in every episode.

Greenland photos

2008-05-16T15:27:00.005-08:00

I've now had some time to go through my photos from the past month. I thought I'd post my favorites. I didn't take very many while I was in the field - I guess I've been to our site enough times that I can be there without feeling like I need to take a photo every 10 minutes.

A dog team on its way back to Ilulissat.

Naja took me dogsledding a couple of times in April. On this trip we headed straight up the hill in the distance. It was a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed seeing Greenland in "winter".

My favorite of Naja's dogs - a youngster name Nuka. She was really sweet. Naja doesn't let the dogs put their feet up on you, so this one figured out that she could stand backwards and lean into you for maximum petting.

The town of Uummannaq, which is named after its heart-shaped mountain. The town is on a tiny little island. To get to Uumannaq you can take a dogsled, a helicopter, or, for a short part of the year, by boat. It has the northernmost port in Greenland.

The view from my hotel room, looking east across the sea ice.

Aerial photo of sea ice, taken during the helicopter trip from Uummannaq to Qaarsut. From Qaarsut I boarded a larger plane and flew to Ilulissat.

An iceberg surrounded by sea ice.

Myself wrestling the camera away from Isbjorn.

maailmassa on virhe

2008-05-15T23:45:00.008-08:00

Ennen luulin, että maailman voisi jos ei nyt ihan pelastaa, niin ainakin tehdä kovasti paremmaksi paikaksi luotoystävällisiä tuotteita ostamalla. En ole menettänyt vielä uskoani, mutta kummastuttaa mihin tuotteiden luontoystävällisyys unohtuu pakkausvaiheessa. Teepaketti on kääritty useaan muovikalvoon, luomumaitotölkki on varustettu muovisella kierrekorkilla ja luomujuusto on pakattu säälittävän pieniin pakkauksiin. Viimeisin harmin aihe: suosimani jäätelömerkki on uusinut pakkauksensa pahvisista muovisiksi. Ei tietenkään kokomuovisiksi, silloinhan koko paketin voisi pestä ja käyttää uudelleen, vaan kanteen on lisätty turha muoviremmi. Mikäli vanhat merkit pitävät paikkansa, kuukauden päästä kilpailevat merkit ovat myös uusineet pakkauksensa, ja jäätelöä ei enää saa ilman muoviremmiä. Piih.

En valittaisi, jos kysessä olisi yksittäinen tuotemerkki. Mutta ei. Neljän vuoden aikana useampi yritys on vaihtanut pakkauksiaan vaikeammin kierrätettäviksi, hankalammiksi, tai muuten vain lisännyt turhan tilpehöörin määrää. Pöh.

English summary: today's irritation was caused by an ice cream packaging. Someone has replaced the old (fully recyclable cardboard) container with a new package that comes with a plastic striped lid. Didn't anyone tell the organic companies that combining several materials into one package makes the whole thing much less recyclable? Not to mention how much oil is consumed to make this plastic strip. We must not be running out after all...

Greenup

2008-05-10T22:04:00.006-08:00

Another year that spring rushed past us. So far, I have experienced spring ten times above 64 degrees. Yet, the astonishing speed of spring time continues to amaze me every single year. Last week there was still snow on the ground, and temperatures were around freezing. I wore my scarf, mittens and winter hat as I have been for the last eight months. Today, snow is gone, grass has turned green, and dandelions are blooming. In short, it feels like summer (and I finally shed my wool socks).

This breakneck speed always leaves me feeling a bit cheated. Where did the spring go?

My bizarre and wonderful trip to Uummannaq

2008-05-04T04:54:00.003-08:00

Greenland - and the arctic - is a lot like a small town. If you know somebody that knows somebody that maybe heard of somebody else, then all of a sudden you have new friends and a place to stay.

Example:

Last Tuesday I flew to Uummannaq, a wonderfully beautiful little town on a little island surrounded by sea ice. By mid-afternoon I had seen the town and was wondering how I would spend the rest of the week. The next morning I knocked on the door of a Ann Andreasen, a Faroese woman who runs an orphanage in town and is famous for her hospitality. My motivation for meeting her was that I thought it would be nice to talk with the children at the orphanage about the changes that are happening in Greenland. Anyway, her husband/boyfriend Ole-Jørgen Hammeken, a famous Greenlandic adventurer invited me in for coffee. (It turns out that I had read about Ann, Ole-Jørgen, and their daughter Pipaluk in the book "This Cold Heaven" by Gretel Ehrlich.)

Ole-Jørgen has some pretty amazing stories. He has/is circumnavigating the Arctic Ocean in phases, was the first person to climb the northernmost mountain in the world, pioneered a new dogsled trail from Uummannaq to Ilulissat, and is planning on dogsledding to the north pole this winter to "commemorate" the 100th anniversary of Robert Peary reaching the north pole.

Side note: I may have discovered an interesting piece of family history during my discussion with
Ole-Jørgen. I share the same surname as the polar explorer Roald Amundsen (changed by my one of my ancestors to Amundson), that branch of my family comes from the same small town as Amundsen (Borge, Norway), and supposedly the Amundsen surname did not come into existence until the mid-1800's. Although we haven't yet proved it, there is a good probability that we are somehow related to Roald Amundsen. We know that we aren't direct descendants, especially since Amundsen supposedly didn't have any children - at least not in Norway. However, Ole-Jørgen told me that he met an Inuit person in Gjoa Haven, Canada, who claims to be a direct descendant of Amundsen. So maybe we have long-lost Inuit cousins! What makes the story even more interesting, if its true, is that supposedly Amundsen's shipmates didn't talk about women in his presence - he didn't approve. He was so focused and determined during his expeditions that he didn't want there to be any sort of distractions to him or his men.

Okay, back to Uummannaq. While drinking coffee Ole-Jørgen's house was suddenly filled up with a French film crew! Ann and Ole-Jørgen were in the middle of filming a feature film in Greenlandic, the first such film in 80 years. So now I had a bunch of French friends. They introduced me to yet another French filmmaker who was working on a project with the children at the orphanage. He then introduced me to a French painter, who immediately invited me over for dinner... I think you get the point.

It was a fun and somewhat bizarre week. I ended up seal hunting by dogsled (didn't see any seals) and also gave a short and somewhat unsuccessful presentation at the orphanage (technical difficulties). The hospitality of the people I met rivaled those of Fairbanks. At times I felt like an intruder, but they kept inviting me along. I turned down a couple of offers only because I felt uncomfortable. I probably could have gotten a place to stay if I had been more pushy, but as I already felt like an intruder I decided to stay at the hotel instead.

The dinner with the French painter, his wife, and one of the filmmakers was also very much fun. I'm not sure why the French get such a bad rap. Every French person I've met has been really generous and fun to be around.

myyrästoori

2008-05-03T22:10:00.005-08:00

Tapahtui tässä toissaillalla, kun käytin ulkohuussia:

Keräämme käytetyn vessapaperin erilliseen ämpäriin, ettei kolo täyttyisi turhan nopeaan. Astiassa vain sattui pyörimään myyrä, ehkäpä Cletherionomys rutilus, vaikea sanoa kun eläinkirjani on aika onneton. Nostin muovipussin täytteineen ämpäristä toivoen, että myyrä tassuttelisi tiehensä, erinäisistä syistä kun pesän teko vessapaperista ei ole toivottavaa. Mutta mitä vielä, myyrä istui tattina paikoillaan ja katsoa killitteli ruskeilla silmillään. Siinä me sitten seistiin, katsottiin toisiamme ja räpyteltiin aina välillä silmiämme. Kauempana huhuili pöllö. Vihdoin ojentauduin pystyyn ja myyrä piiloutui ämpärin taakse, ilmeisen lähtöhaluttomana. Kyllä se sitten viimein suvaitsi lähteä, eikä ole onneksi tullut takaisin silppuamaan vessapaperia.

English summary: a vole (possibly Cletherionomys rutilus) wanted to claim our outhouse for personal use. I think I managed to convince the critter that it was not a good idea. During the process, we did spend some minutes staring at each other.

häivähdys koti-ikävää

2008-05-01T15:26:00.006-08:00

Kysymys: Mistä tietää asuneensa liian kauan ulkomailla?

Vastaus: Kun Blogilistan ilmapallot herättävät hämmästystä. Mitä ihmeen syntymäpäiviä siellä nyt vietetään. Minulla meni puoli päivää tajuta, että ainiin, vappuahan on pyhäpäivä. Fairbanksissä oli eilen oikean oloinen vappuilmakin, viistoa räntäsadetta ja lämpoä asteen verran.

Ilmapalloista lienee siis tullut liian arkisia, kun niitä saa ostettua tavallisesta marketista. Onneksi Fred Meyersistä löytyy laulavia ilmapalloja, jotta jonkinlainen roti säilyy ja palloja voi vielä ajatella luksus-esineinä...

The polka?

2008-04-27T05:14:00.001-08:00

I have lost my polka virginity. For same strange reason, the polka is really (and I mean REALLY) popular in Greenland. Basically you can’t be a musician in Greenland if you don’t know how to play polka music. I went to a party on Friday – a post dogsled race dinner, awards ceremony, and dance. I ended up being forced, well maybe coerced, into polka dancing. The first song nearly ended in disaster. It’s not easy to dance with two left feet! The second time around was quite a bit better, in part because I danced with one of the best ones there, and in part because there was more room on the dance floor.

It’s interesting that dancing and playing music at parties – well at least traditional dances and music – has basically been lost from American culture. I wonder why that is. Is it that our culture is such a melting pot that nobody could ever agree on what dances to dance and songs to play? Or did pop music ruin everything?

Observations on dogsledding from somebody who doesn’t know anything about dogsledding

2008-04-27T05:12:00.002-08:00

After a couple of dogsledding experiences in both Alaska and Greenland, I have made some surely keen observations. Dogsledding styles differ considerably between the two cultures. In Greenland, mushers sit on their sleds, which are wider and sturdier than Alaskan sleds. The dogs run in a fan formation and are controlled by voice and with a whip. This contrasts with Alaskan dogsledding, where the musher stands behind the sled, only use their voice to control the dogs, and the dogs run in a row. My impression is that the Alaskan mushers treat their dogs better. Greenlanders claim that their dogs sometimes need to be hit to be controlled because they are such wild dogs. Personally, I don’t think their dogs are any more wild than Alaskan huskies, and they definitely don’t need to be hit. Some mushers in Alaska have learned that the dogs perform better when they are treated well. Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.

There seem to be advantages and disadvantages to both styles, and I think they could learn from each other. The Greenlandic dogs seem more difficult to control because they are not in a line, so they are more likely to get tangled up with each other or with a passing sled. Also, because the musher is sitting down its more difficult to see what lies ahead. On the otherhand, the trails can be very rough and full of rocks. Its easy to imagine that a standing musher would be thrown off their sled if they hit a rock. What I find maybe most interesting is that they don’t have a very good braking system. They have no way to anchor the sled into the ground, and their only way to force the sled to stop is to throw a large rope (like you’d see on a ship) around the front of the runners. I’d have thought that they would’ve developed something more sophisticated by now.

By standing, the Alaskan musher can more easily navigate his team around obstacles. Their sleds, which are somewhat lighter, are easier to manuever from behind but likely couldn’t stand up to repeated collisions with rocks. This is okay because they mostly run through the forest and swamps anyway, which is also why they run in a line. The sleds have both an anchor and a brake.

Two things that I’ve definitely learned: I need my own dog team, and Umimmak (= musk ox = long bearded one) would make a good dog name.

I will post photos later, but right now I stupidly don’t have a way to download them from my camera.

Frustrations at the museum

2008-04-27T05:08:00.003-08:00

My experience at the Ilulissat Museum has been fairly discouraging this year, especially when compared to last year. We had basically three objectives this time around: to give another talk at the school, to set up a time-lapse camera with the school children (to get them involved with our research), and to put together a short DVD containing photos and videos of our field work.

I spent two days preparing a presentation for the school, only to have the teacher cancel on me since I had already talked to her class (she didn’t know this beforehand). Of course, I was planning on talking about something different, but that didn’t seem to matter.

The camera has also been something of headache. First, we talked to some teachers who thought the project was a great idea – but not for their class. According to Naja, my colleague at the museum, that is a typical response from the teachers here. Regardless of their response, we’d still like to put out a camera. As I’ve told several people in town, I’m happy to share the time-lapse video with anybody who can make use of it: educators, tour companies, etc, and we’d like to have the imagery for our own work. The problem is that we’re having trouble finding a good, secure spot for the camera with a good view of the fjord. I had first thought that a roof of a building would be ideal, but finding an ideal roof is far from easy. At this point I think the best alternative would be to mount it on the radio tower, which is up on the hill behind town. It seems that there is some hope for this, but it will require quite a bit of bureaucracy. We’ll give it a shot anyway.

We haven’t worked on the DVD yet. It should be pretty straightforward, except that the computer I need to use is currently in Kangerlussuaq.

On the other hand, the trip here hasn’t been a complete waste. I’ve gotten to experience Ilulissat in “winter” and have already gone dogsledding a couple of times and also gone to watch a dogsledding race. (It was the type of race where the objective is to not come in last place.) And, I’ve just purchased tickets to fly to Uummannaq, a town about an hour’s flight north of here. I’ll spend 5 days and about a month’s salary… I’m really excited to go to Uummannaq, even if it is going to be really expensive. It is much more removed from the standard tourist route and will be my new farthest north (over 70 deg).

Side note: travelling in Greenland is incredibly expensive. I’m paying over $50 a night for a bed in a hostel (a hostel!), a taxi from the airport to the hostel (5 km) costs $25, a burger at the greasy dinner costs $20, beer costs $10 a bottle if its served to you and $4 if you buy it at the store (and its not particularly special beer), and dinner at one of the nicer restaurants costs $50. The flight to Uummannaq will cost me $700, and a hotel room there costs $200 a night (actually fairly reasonable by Greelandic standards). I might end up camping outside of town or staying in a hut, but first I need to find out if Isbjorn lives nearby.

sizing matters

2008-04-24T22:20:00.003-08:00

Some frustration today was provided by weird US clothing sizes. OK, I kind of see the principle. Sizes get bigger as the numbers get bigger. That part is easy. Difficulties start when I actually try to apply the theory and buy something that is my size.

I needed a new lingerie and hastly calculated that since my bra size is 75 centimeters, I should be fine with 30 inch bra. I guess there is something else going on here instead of a simple conversion from metric to imperial. The smallest size I could find was 32. Since my bra size is fairly common in Finland, I refused to believe that here I would be considered a weird undersized mutant. So I grabbed randomly some 32's and 34's and headed for the dressing rooms. When I tried them on, there did not seem to have any logic which sizes fit me and which didn't. Some were huge, providing ample room plus some extra space for my breasts, and few were super thight. (Most of them were really big, so maybe I am a weird undersized mutant after all.)

It has taken me some trial and error to find right size pants as well. I think the numbers start from somewhere around 0 and grow in increments of 2. But each company sems to have their own sizing chart where the basic unit of measurement is unknown and one just have to guess what size to try. To keep it all confusing, it seems to me that every single item of clothing has their own numbering system. Underwear sizes do not match pant sizes, and shoe sizes do not match sock sizes.

And I really don't understand why this country needs three different shoe size scales: separate ones for kids, females and males.

Ilulissat in winter

2008-04-24T02:32:00.003-08:00

It's great to be back in Ilulissat, and its great to see it in winter. Its much quieter than in summer. There are basically no tourists and there aren't nearly as many teenagers cruising up and down "main street". Speaking of tourists, I learned that the number of tourists has increased from about 5,000 per year to 35,000 per year within a span of a few years. That number is expected to double this year. This for a town that has 5,000 inhabitants. As you can imagine, the town is starting to be overrun by tourists, at least in summer. I wish I could've seen it 20 years ago.

As I've written in past entries, Greenland has quite a few social problems that it is trying to overcome - poverty, poor education, and poor health care. There is reason for hope though. Among other things they are opening a university and national art museum in Nuuk, the capital city. This says to me that they are becoming increasingly independent from Denmark. (They have also started a couple of breweries, an important step towards independence!) Hopefully they can do so without selling out to tourism and mining operations.

An interesting note that I learned this week: the Greenlandic word for Greenland is Kalaallit Nunaat, or land of the Greenlanders. Apparently that name didn't exist until after Danish colonization. The word "kalaallit" (or the singular version "kalaaleq") developed a negative connotation during the colonial period, when it was used by Danes to refer to a lower-class of people. This is much like the word "eskimo" in Canada and Alaska, which simply means "raw-meat eater" but has come to have negative connotations as well. Thus the people of Greenland are not particularly comfortable with the name of their own country! Apparently their has been some discussion (I don't know how serious) of changing the country's name to the much more pronounceable Inuit Nunaat, or "land of the people". Poetic, but a little misleading considering that in all of Greenland there are only 50,000 people.

Airport rant

2008-04-20T13:48:00.002-08:00

I'm enroute to Greenland at the moment, and things are going pretty much like they usually do. This time my luggage is sitting in JFK airport and I'm in Albany, NY. I don't know what my problem is, but it seems that every trip I take involves some unforeseen delay. Inari is losing desire to travel with me for fear of spending nights at airports, which we've done once before.

Anyway, if my luggage doesn't arrive tonight, as they promised it would, I'm really going to be in a pickle. My flight to Greenland leaves super early tomorrow morning and the next flight isn't until 4 May. I suppose I could manage without those packs until then - it wouldn't be ideal - but I could manage. If they end up being lost, however... Wow, that would pretty much ruin the field season. I must have several thousand dollars of equipment in those packs plus some pretty crucial instrument download cables. Keeping my fingers crossed. There must be a lesson in all this.

On a related note, I've come to loathe people who design airports. At least American airports. Or at least the people that decide to make it extremely difficult for newcomers to find information and get around. Why aren't there more maps and information desks? Why is it that at some airports flight information screens only contain information for one airline? Why did I have to leave security at JFK to transfer from one regularly-scheduled domestic flight to another? I really don't understand the rationale.

Three most hated airports so far:
1. Los Angeles
2. New York - JFK
3. Chicago O'Hare

Hmm.. I see a trend. Maybe I've just become too comfortable with our 6 gate, 2 baggage carousel airport in Fairbanks and the even smaller airport in Ilulissat. At Ilulissat you can walk in the airport and straight up to the tower. There you can ask them to open the door to get to the runway and hangars, and they'll do it without hardly caring what you're up to.

chick chick

2008-04-19T23:45:00.004-08:00

According to Jason, I have a bunch of weird hobbies (I guess geekines have to be earned somehow): among others, I collect religious tracts published by Jack T. Chick. These are small comics trying to get people to repent and to believe in Jesus. I don't know why anyone would like to convert after reading one of the tracts, though. The presented religious wordview is awful, and god is portrayed as cruel, unforgiving and mean. Tought luck getting in heaven, if you belong to a wrong religious group (namely, if you are not a Babtist).

My main source for the tracts is a Babtist minister that comes to the university every week and sits behind a table at the student union. I once made the mistake of actually talking to him. Now I just wait until he is preoccupied with something else and try to grab some tracts as I walk by. Two days ago I scored a big time. He was nowhere to be seen and I got to choose from a wast pile of tracts.

Tracts are kind of scary, but hilarious at the same time. Plus, you do learn interesting things: I bet you all thought that the dinosaurs were killed by global cooling, most likely caused by an asteroid hitting the Earth. No, no, how wrong we have been. The real reason is the Great flood. You see, Noah did include dinosaurs as well, but since the flood distroyed all the plant matter, the oxygen levels dropped dramatically. Dinosaurs were quite big animals and did require a lot of oxygen. So the poor critters died because the Earth could not sustain them anymore. (I don't know why god failed to save them by just messing with the oxygen levels. Not to mention how was it possible for anything to survive without any plants...). All this information is accompanied with a picture of a pitiful, coughing dino. Priceless.

Herra hajamieli

2008-04-16T18:47:00.004-08:00

Viime kesänä Expressenin toimittaja vertasi Jasonia Professori Tuhatkaunoon. Viime päivinä on tuntunut siltä, ettei arvio osunut kovin väärään. Herra on levittellyt omaisuuttaan pitkin kämppää ja hukannut esineitä samaa vauhtia. Stereon kaukosäätimen söi sohva (kuten ilmeisesti myös rannekellon ja jääkaappimagneetin), sohvan alta löysin niin musiikki-instrumentteja kuin kameranjalankin (tosin vain instrumentit olivat hukassa, kameranjalka ihan siellä missä pitikin, kuulemma). Nyt hukuksissa on muistikortti, jolla on on aikaa materialisoitua ensi lauantaihin, kun toiseksi viimeinen Gröönlannin reissu alkaa.

Luvassa on siis kuukausi yksineloa.

English summary: our sofa is eating Jason's things (wrist watch, musical instruments, stereo remote) and my refridgeretor magnet. We are still looking for a flash card...

Losing blogging virginity

2008-04-13T13:00:00.005-08:00

I guess I'm exposed. I never consider myself a closet blogger though; I think you actually have to write something (anything) to be a blogger. I have just been reading stuff. And now all-of-a-sudden I find myself in the batter's box.

Random thought of the day: drinking tea makes you (i.e. me) happier. But it has to be good tea with a lot of honey.

a new author

2008-04-11T21:44:00.003-08:00

Inari has long been a blog fanatic. She's been more of a closet blogger though, not really contributing to the blogosphere. Not anymore. Now she'll be writing on our blog. Maybe in Finnish, maybe in English, or maybe in Inarian. Good luck trying to understand her, whatever language she uses...

Springward bound

2008-04-11T21:03:00.002-08:00

A strange spring. Maybe every spring is a strange spring. Unpredictable. At the end of March it felt like winter had abandoned us. Good riddance. The birds were chirping; it was hot. Most of the snow melted. Then it was cold again and it snowed. This morning it was well below freezing. What's going on? Did we miss summer? Frustrated and anxious. Tired of winter. Nature was playing games with us.

Then, tonight, I went skijoring with our neighbor's dogs. Remembered why I like winter. Calm, quiet, beautiful light in the trees, fresh soft snow. Peaceful. The dogs pulled hard, really hard, and ran gracefully. At one intersection they went left, I went right. Disaster narrowly avoided. One dog flew into a tree. Oops. We recovered and continued on. Took a narrow trail through the trees. Bad idea. Stupid dogs got wrapped up in the trees. Finally made it through.

A great way to end a stressful week at work. How long until we have our own dogs?

Listening, reading, watching

2008-04-08T23:32:00.003-08:00

I've decided to have a monthly post on the things that I'm currently listening to, reading, and watching. I hope this is interesting to others...

Listening to: Eliades Ochoa
Lately I've been really digging Cuban music and I'm just now starting to get a handle on who's who in the world of Cuban music. Eliades Ochoa is a vocalist, guitarist, and tres player (similar to a guitar but with three sets of two strings and it sounds nicer) who played with the Buena Vista Social Club. I'm now realizing that Ry Cooder - the man who organized the Buena Vista album and movie - may have been more important to Cuban music and culture than many of the musicians who developed the unique music styles. So many of the musicians from the Buena Vista project are now enjoying well-deserved international fame. Some of the musicians were in their 70's and 80's when the album was being made and have since passed away. If it wasn't for Ry Cooder their music may have been lost.

Reading: The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer
I read this book with my grandma as part of our Nobel Prize reading "club". I wouldn't recommend it unless you like torturing yourself for no good reason. Nobel Prize books are typically not easy reads, but at least you feel like you get something out of them. When I finished this one I was just happy to be done. That's a little unfair, as it did have some good points. The book was essentially about a wealthy white businessman in South Africa and his relationship with the black farmers who worked on his farm - farming was a hobby of his. I suppose the book contained some interesting commentary on race relations in South Africa, but I don't think there was anything revolutionary - at least nothing that I picked up on.

Watching: The Sea Inside (movie)
This may have been the most touching movie that I've ever seen. Don't watch it alone, when you're feeling down, late at night, or without a box of kleenex. Its a story about a quadriplegic man who fights for his right to commit suicide. That about sums it up. After watching the movie I felt that I had a somewhat new perspective on life. The film stars Javier Bardem, now famous for his role in No Country for Old Men. I'm quite impressed with his acting - he did a great job in two completely different roles.

Brush with fame

2008-03-12T18:09:00.003-08:00

In case you needed proof that I did actually meet with Angela "The Chancellor" Merkel, here are a couple of photos that I got from a reporter about a month ago.

Photos by Inge Rasmussen.

I wonder what this coming field season will bring.

The things kids do

2008-03-03T22:50:00.004-09:00

People say that kids everywhere are pretty much the same. That's probably true, but I guess most 4 year olds don't do this:

On Sunday Inari and I went to see the Junior North American Dogsledding Championships. There were something like 20 competitors ranging in age from 4-16 years. The kids raced with anywhere from 1 to 8 dogs, depending on their skill level. Some of the dogs were really fast and were good sled dogs. Some ran half of the course and then stopped and decided that they'd rather do something else. A couple of the kids were thrown off their sleds into the snow - that's why they wear helmets!

One girl said that her favorite thing about dogsledding was getting to play with her dogs. Most of the kids' favorite dogsledding memories involved getting thrown from their sleds or narrowly missing a tree.

Photographic phrustrations

2008-03-01T20:45:00.005-09:00

Since I got into photography a couple of years ago I've really started to appreciate good photographs of people and also of the night sky. I'm starting to get the hang of both of these, but I still have a long way to go.

A couple of nights ago I took these photos of the aurora. They look good when viewed from afar, but grainy and blurry close up. I've tried long (30 s) exposures, short exposures, different ISO settings, just about everything. Not sure if its a problem with me or my camera. I suspect that analog cameras still do much better than digital for low light conditions. At least that's what I keep telling myself.

Back-blogging

2008-03-01T20:03:00.002-09:00

Sorry about the complete lack of updates lately. I haven't felt very inspired to sit down and write about anything, at least not after spending day after day struggling over words at work. The paper that I've been working on is nearly finished - I hope to submit it next week. That will be weight off of my shoulders. Now that the paper is almost finised I've begun to start thinking about the upcoming field season. I've been looking into purchasing some really fancy audio recording equipment with a small student grant that I have. I could see myself totally getting into it. Next thing you know I'll be out recording birds and squirrels.

Life hasn't only been work work work. I've seen some good music (The Wailing Jennies, a folksy group from Canada) and some really good movies (No Country for Old Men; Juno). And then there's always hockey, broomball, drumming, and soccer. For those of you that have played broomball and appreciate the difficulty of the game, check out this youtube video. Amazing. I didn't know that people could be so good at it.

In early February I went to NASA's PARCA (Pan-arctic regional climate assessment) meeting in Boulder, Colorado. It was a really interesting meeting with good discussions. We debated questions like: How can the PARCA group most help society? (Improving predictions of sea level rise.) What is the single biggest contribution that we can give society? How do we go about doing that? Where should we focus our resources? I realized that the discussions we were having directly affect policy and the future of NASA. Pretty neat. Also strange in a way. I guess not very many people spend much time thinking about Greenland and Antarctica. In a way it makes me feel very isolated from society. Even more so when I hear people talking about business, stocks, and economics, and I have absolutely no clue what they are talking about. In my life I'm happy if the number at the bottom of my bank statements is positive.

I took advantage of the trip to Colorado to do some skiing. It was great timing - Colorado was getting hammered with one snow storm after the other. The snow was really great, so was the company. Jason Stenson wrote about our trip and posted some nice photos.

Slave to science

2008-01-14T20:48:00.000-09:00

I've found myself in a somewhat unusual situation in that I am "racing" to get a paper published. We have some really interesting observations regarding calving of large icebergs and how the glacier, fjord, and earth respond to those calving events. Interesting enough that we're going to try to submit the paper to Nature (one of the two big science journals). The problem is that our observations are only slightly more unique than some other researchers, so if we don't hurry up and get this paper published then we may have missed our opportunity to get it accepted into Nature. If it doesn't get published in Nature we can always submit it elsewhere, but of course we want the fame and the money that comes with fame...

My colleagues are letting me write the paper, which could be really good for me. Its not very common for a graduate student to be a first author on a Nature paper - though it does happen. I stress the word "letting" because I haven't really contributed any more to the ideas in the paper than anybody else. I've done more of the work (writing is a lot of work), but otherwise its been a group effort. It's too bad that somebody's name has to be first.

Actually this whole process has been quite strange for me. There are probably five or six groups around the world working on the same problem, and there is a lot of discussion between groups, and so the ideas are really being developed by many people. But then, because of the pressure to publish (and to be the first to publish your results), people are being a little bit secretive about their observations. In my mind, that's not the way things should work. It says something about the problems with science funding and with scientists (we're just as greedy for fame as everybody else).

Anyway, getting a paper accepted in Nature seems to be a somewhat random process. Some papers that do get accepted wouldn't be accepted in lesser journals. And having a paper in Nature doesn't mean that you do better work than people that haven't published there, it just means that you were in the right place at the right time. Of course, being in the right place at the right time does require some skill.

Basically, this means that I haven't had much of a life for the past month. It also means that I'm almost finished with the first chapter of my thesis (I have to write three papers). I'm also hoping to write a paper for a conference proceedings for a conference that I'll attend in August. Maybe this means that I'll finish my Ph.D. faster than planned, sometime in 2009? And then?

Bagh Chal

2008-01-07T23:13:00.000-09:00

I recently learned how to play "bagh chal", or the tiger-moving game. Its the national game of Nepal and a little bit like checkers, but so far its been a lot more fun. I especially like that the players have different objectives. Its quite easy to build your own board so give it a shot if you're into this sort of thing.

Start with a board that looks like this:

To play this game you need 4 tigers and 20 goats. (We used quarters and pennies.)

Put a tiger into each of the four corners. One person plays the tigers and will attempt to eat all of the goats; the goats will attempt to surround the tigers so that they can't move. At any point in the game a tiger can jump over a goat and eat it, but only if there is space on the other side of the goat... Think checkers. The goats try to surround the tigers until they are unable to move. If you're the goat player and you've lost five goats you should just give up. It's pretty much hopeless at that point.

The goat player goes first by placing a goat onto any intersection on the board. Then the other player moves one of the tigers along one of the lines to an adjacent intersection. This continues until all the goats have been played, at which point they are allowed to roam like the tigers. The tigers continue to play as before.

The only additional rule is that you are not allowed to make a move that results in the board looking identical to how it looked previously. This means that you can't just keep moving forward and backward.

I've read complaints that the game is too easy for the goats. I haven't played enough to find out if that's true, but it seems to me that there is an easy solution to that problem - play with one less goat.

Life cycles

2008-01-03T14:14:00.000-09:00

This time of year I go through all of the photos that I took during the past year and print the best ones as 8x10's. I found a pretty good website for printing photos: www.iprintfromhome.com. I'd highly recommend them. They do a good job and are reasonably priced. They can print in luster, which in my opinion is much better than glossy or matte.

Anyway, in going through the photos I've realized that my life is becoming a record that loops over and over and over. Around this time of year Inari and I usually do a couple of overnight ski trips to remote backcountry huts. Even the destinations seems to be almost the same. In February or March we'll probably go winter camping, freeze our butts off, and then say that we're never doing that again. In May I'll leave for field work and Inari will plant the garden. We'll be busy working on the garden in June. Then comes July, which brings fishing, blueberry picking, the Gulkana Glacier field course, and hopefully a hiking or canoe trip. I go back to the field in August, then to a conference later in the fall, and then hang low until mid-winter.

There is something about the isolation and strong seasonality of life in Fairbanks that makes this sort of cycle almost inevitable. I haven't decided if I like it or not. I also realized the other day the I'm not as attracted to the Alaskan scenery as I once was, its like I've become desensitized. I kind of feel that its time to try someplace new, someplace with more connections to the rest of the world. Then again, I know that once/if I leave Alaska, I'm definitely going to miss it.

Percussive musings

2007-12-18T01:12:00.000-09:00

A week and a half ago I played in the end of semester percussion concert with the World Beat Ensemble. It was a lot of fun - getting more comfortable playing in front of people. Even soloing isn't too scary anymore. Been feeling quite musically inspired lately, just wish I had more time and opportunities to play.

The concert was recorded and posted online. If you're curious to hear what sort of music I'm playing, go to http://library.music.uaf.edu/ and search for world beat. In this concert we played Agbeko and Kpanlogo, both from West Africa. I especially like Kpanlogo - its really catchy. That crazy cool instrument that you hear is called the gyil. I'm trying to figure out how to get one sent to me from Ghana (and to convince Inari that we have room for one). There are some recordings of pieces from previous concerts as well: I played Bin Tin, Ijexa, Fanga, and maybe Timini. Can't remember very well these days.

The musical choices aren't always my favorite, but its fun to play anyway. I usually prefer something more Latin - rumba, samba, bossanova.

"If you can..."

2007-11-16T22:47:00.000-09:00

Tonight I went to see the Mensah brothers perform. They are percussionists, dancers, and singers from a small village in Ghana, though through music they've been able to move to the U.S. and teach at the University of Colorado. African music isn't my favorite - I prefer afro-cuban music: samba, rumba, latin jazz. Nonetheless it was quite fun and inspiring to watch them perform. Their sense of music is so different than traditional western music, and in my opinion, a lot more fun. Plus I appreciate it their music because I see it as the grandfather of the music that I'm really interested in.

They play because its fun and they have fun because they are playing. It's easy to imagine them at their home in Ghana, playing with their family and friends. They probably didn't have much other than music, but that was all that they needed.

They were selling t-shirts and cd's after the show, just like all other musicians. But, they said during the concert that the money that they make of off sales is donated to an orphanage in Ghana. Pretty cool.

They also said that they bring Americans to Ghana for a month in the summer to learn to dance sing, and drum. As they said, "If you can move your legs, you can dance; if you can talk, you can sing; and if you can move your arms, you can drum."

20th century digital boy

2007-11-15T23:00:00.001-09:00

Inari and I have re-entered the 20th century. We now have internet at home. Its not exactly anything to brag about though, as the only connection available to us is dial-up. I'm not sure why people even bothered with internet back in the day. Dial up is sooo slow. I'm not yet sure why we're bothering with it either. It does allow me to do some things at home that I'd rather not do at work - like blogging, buying plane tickets, checking my bank account, etc. Now when I'm at work I can focus on work. At the same time, the slow connection basically guarantees that my work won't follow me home very often and that I won't spend too much time surfing.

I was really hoping that I'd be able to use skype via a modem, but so far I'm not having any luck. I've read on some forums that it works for some people. We'll keep trying.

Oregon

2007-11-06T18:11:00.001-09:00

It's been a busy couple of months. My research is really starting to gain some momentum. Today I started writing the first paper for my thesis (three are required). It's been quite fun; I've been doing quite a bit of detective work and feel that I've stumbled across some interesting observations. I still have quite a bit of work to do, but I'm getting there (wherever there might be).

Two weekends ago I was in Portland to present my work at the Northwest Glaciology Meeting. It was a pretty good meeting but I didn't get as much feedback as I might have liked. Anyway, I guess meetings aren't about getting feedback, they're about schmoozing. I enjoyed this meeting more than other meetings that I've been to because I feel like I'm starting to know a lot of people in glaciology and have lots of people to catch up with.

Since the meeting was in Portland I was able to stay with friends Jason and Elvira, who had moved there two weeks earlier. Despite their lack of knowledge about Portland, they were great tour guides. We did a little road trip around Mt. Hood and back down the Columbia River Gorge. Its a pretty area - reminds me a bit of parts of New Zealand. And the trees are so big! Well, at least compared to the tiny black spruce outside our cabin.

Best of Greenland, 2 of 3

2007-10-11T16:51:00.000-08:00

Lately my blog posts have been few and far between. I'm going to blame it on Harry Potter. I haven't been doing much of anything lately other than working and reading Harry Potter. I'm almost done with book 6 (out of 7), so hopefully my social life will return to normal in the somewhat nearish future.

Well, I have managed to do a few things other than work and reading. I've joined an intramural soccer team, which has been really fun. I haven't played soccer for many, many years, and I usually end up going home sore. The first week I had a bruise on top of my collarbone (I got elbowed while going for a header) and this week the back of my knee has been sore. I didn't realize that soccer is such a tough sport. Or maybe I'm just starting to show the first (?) signs of old age. Anyway, its been really fun and I'm inspired to play more.

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Now back to my Best of Greenland series. I didn't manage to get my photos submitted for the show, so I'll have to wait until next time around.

Here is a photo of water-filled crevasses on Ilulissat Glacier (aka Jakobshavn Isbrae). I really like the color. Unfortunately the image isn't sharp enough to print it really big - I tried and wasn't happy with the results.

Best of Greenland, 1 of 3

2007-09-21T19:23:00.000-08:00

One of the galleries in Fairbanks has an annual juried exhibition titled "64th Parallel", which is only open to residents of Fairbanks and vicinity. This year's them is IPY - International Polar Year - so I thought it might be appropriate to submit some of my photos from Greenland. I'm planning to submit three, assuming that the frames that I ordered arrive on time.

Here is the first one - a little cliché, perhaps, but I like it anyway.

I really like that the Greenlanders still use the more traditional qajaqs (spelled differently in Greenland than in Alaska). Hunting is done primarily from boats (and with dog sleds in winter). These qajaqs seem to be used primarily for recreation.

P.S. Eemeli, thanks for encouraging me to get a circular polarizer. It really can make a boring sky look nice, as in this photo.

World News Tonight

2007-09-09T12:12:00.000-08:00

For those of you that may not have gotten the message, I made an appearance on ABC's World News tonight on Friday. There are two clips - though in one of them I'm just standing in the background pointing at icebergs. If you'd like to see them, click on the links below.

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3573900

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3573668

Media circus

2007-09-06T10:09:00.000-08:00

I know I've said this before - but I can't believe how much media attention our Greenland project is getting. Its really getting out of hand. I had several reasons for signing on to this project: I like working with my advisor and didn't want to risk trading him in for another, I wanted to go to Greenland, and I thought the project had very good scientific merit. But I had no idea it would become a news story!

In the three weeks that I was in Ilulissat I talked with 6 different reporters and gave a tour to Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany and supposedly the most powerful woman in the world, and to Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the prime minister of Denmark.

The reporters were from around the world - ABC News, Aftonbladet (Stockholm's evening news), Tokyo Broadcasting Station, NHK (Japanese), Haaretz (Israeli), and MSNBC. I missed an interview with a Norwegian reporter because of troubles with our flights, and I've also been contacted by the Oregonian. This is really insane. At first it was quite exciting to know that my work was receiving so much attention, but now I just roll my eyes when I hear that a reporter wants to talk to me. But then again, I am funded by public money and think that the public should have access to our research findings, so I cooperate as best I can.

I've already made an appearance in the Aftonbladet; the article is in Swedish, but there is a close-up of yours truly. In the article I'm compared to Professor Calculus from the Adventures of Tintin. That didn't mean anything to me, but Inari found it pretty funny.

I'll let you know when I make any appearances elsewhere.

I couldn't find any photos of me with the chancellor, but I did find this, which basically says that I will be giving a tour to Angela Merkel. I had dinner with the dignitaries - it was an informal dinner, which meant that you didn't have to wear a tie. I ended up borrowing a suit from somebody that works at the German embassy in Denmark. The next day we flew out to our campsite and I talked with the dignitaries for about 15 minutes, explaining what we are doing and why its important. Her critics claimed that she went to Greenland just as a publicity stunt, and I think they are probably right. She said that she wanted to meet with scientists - she met with two of us for a total of about 30 minutes - and I was picked because I was the only scientist in town at the time. On the other hand, a good photograph makes for a strong political statement.

Getting educated

2007-08-14T03:24:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday was the first day of kindergarten in Ilulissat. Here, the children start their school career by wearng traditional Greenlandic clothing. They're traditional in the sense that their origins are very old but, as you can see in the pictures, the clothing has evolved considerably through the years. At noon the children and parents gathered outside the school, and one by one they were introduced and welcomed to the school and given a Greenlandic flag. The proud fathers documented the event with the cameras, just like they do everywhere else in the world. I thought it was a very nice tradition and I was happy to witness it. Most of the kids were very shy, but a few had big grins on their faces.

From what I've heard, the education system in Greenland is very poor. They are just now in the process of developing their first university. Many towns don't have high schools - the towns are just too small. Even the kids in Ilulissat, the third largest "city", have to go to boarding school in the town of Aassiat once they turn sixteen. The poor education system is a big reason that I'm here right now. In addition to my research, I'm spending about two weeks working with the municipality's "science interpreter". I've been told that even though there are many scientists coming to Ilulissat, the local people don't gain anything from the visits, and in fact they are often the last ones to find out about the research results - when they are discussed on the BBC. So we are trying to bring our science to the community and especially to the children. We want to teach them science as well as the scientific process. I'm working on a poster that will be displayed at the schools and in the town museum. We've also organized a public meeting with myself and a couple of other scientists. And, just yesterday I learned that I will be giving a presentation at the local school - a chance for the kids to practice their English and to learn about the interesting glacier in their backyard. I just wonder who will learn more - the kids or myself

A bridge, nostalgia, a wedding

2007-08-06T16:51:00.000-08:00

Wednesday night I went to school to pick up some equipment to take with on my trip to Greenland (I’m en route right now). My computer was on, so I quickly checked the news on CNN. I couldn’t believe what I saw – Minneapolis had made international news because of a devastating bridge collapse, a bridge that was something like 10 blocks away from were I used to live. I felt shocked; it touched close to home. I’ll probably always remember reading about it, just as I'll always remember where I was when I heard about the attacks on the World Trade Center.

On my way to Greenland I made a short visit to Minnesota. Travelling there and (and to other parts of the civilized world) always gives me fixed feelings. I’m not particularly fond of the cookie-cutter design of many parts of the U.S., and when I see those areas I’m happy to be living in Fairbanks in my little cabin in the woods. That was my feeling on Thursday evening after arriving at my parent’s place in Maple Grove. Friday, though, I went to Minneapolis to meet up with Cuong and Joe and some of their friends. We went out for a dinner and then saw a play – a really funny satire of the pyramid business scheme for selling beauty products. Afterwards, while talking on the street corner on a warm summer evening, I really missed living in Minneapolis. I’m not sure if it was Minneapolis itself, or just the city culture. I often feel torn between where I would really like to live: a city, with its culture and architecture and busy-ness and closeness, or a rural area like Fairbanks, with its quiet and beauty and space and wilderness. Maybe my ideal home would be in a dense city with no suburbs that is surrounded by complete and easily accessible wilderness…

I was passing though Minneapolis to attend my friend Sing-Wei’s wedding (to Nate, whom I’ve just briefly met). The day of the wedding was one of the only rainy days all summer. The ceremony was outdoors, but they managed to squeeze it in between rain showers. At the end of the ceremony they released some monarch butterflies, some of which weren’t very eager to leave their warm little “cages”. Its interesting attending weddings after being married. I almost feel like I’m welcoming the newly-weds into some sort of club. A club that doesn’t have rules, just feelings. I’m pretty sure I know how Sing-Wei and Nate feel right now, and that’s a feeling that I didn’t know existed a few years back. I also wouldn’t be surprised to learn that their new pet names for each other are “husband” and “wife”. It’s a funny thing when you get to say “Hey wife, should we have dinner now?”.

The wedding was fun- it was especially nice to catch up with old friends, though I would’ve like to talk more with Sing-Wei.

My 15 minutes

2007-07-23T09:57:00.000-08:00

I've just received word that one of my glacier calving videos (see 19 June 2007) will be airing on the Lerher News Hour on PBS this week as part of a larger (~10 min) story on Jakobshavns Isbrae. I don't know much more at this point, but check back to find out when it will be showing. As I don't have a t.v., I would really appreciate it if somebody would be willing to tape it for me - especially if you have the means to do it digitally. I assume that the story will also be posted online at some point (http://www.pbs.org/newshour).

Update: The clip was aired on 1 August 2007, and can be found online.

Mt. Prindle, a Carhartt wedding, and canoeing

2007-07-06T17:03:00.000-08:00

Yikes, I can't believe its already been a couple of weeks since my last post. There are so many things going on these days its hard to keep up.

Two weekends ago I went rock climbing at Mt. Prindle with friends Laura and Pierre. We left Fairbanks Friday evening and drove north on the Steese Highway for about two hours. We then turned onto a logging road and continued on, fording two streams in the process. It was quite clear that the car couldn't make it past the third stream, so we took our bikes off the roof of the car and rode a few miles to the end of the road. From there it's a 7 mile hike up and over a couple of hills to the base of the climb. We ended up hiking until 1 am (in full sunlight!) . Saturday we woke up late in the morning, discovered that we didn't have a pot (my bad), ate cold oatmeal (yumm...) and continued on to Mt. Prindle. We relaxed in the sun with the mosquitoes on Saturday evening, climbed Sunday morning, and were back in Fairbanks by midnight on Sunday evening.
Mt. Prindle has some impressive rock outcrops, the highest of which is over 300 m high. Unfortunately most of the rock is completely covered with lichen, so the climbing isn't as nice as it looks from afar. Anyway, it was fun to do a long climb - something that you can't do in many places around Fairbanks. I've only done a couple of multi-pitch climbs before. It takes some getting used to. I was a little nervous at first, but once I started focusing on climbing (and not looking down) everything was fine. Pierre is a very good climber and did all of the leading, so there really wasn't much for me to worry about. I'm just glad that he led and not me!

This past Saturday Inari and I attended our friend's wedding. It was truly a Fairbanks wedding - the guests were asked to wear Carhartt's and bring some food to share. It was complete with piñatas and a group of about 30 youngish people (mostly geology graduate students) dancing in the rain. These dancers included the bride, who was wearing hiking boots under her traditional wedding dress. A lot of old friends were in town - it was good to see everybody.

On Sunday I went on a short canoe trip on the Chatanika River, and then remembered how much I enjoy canoeing. I then proceeded to buy a roof rack for our car, 2 nice life jackets for paddling, and a paddle for Inari. We went again on July 4th. I'm hoping to squeeze in some more paddling trips this summer, but there isn't a lot of time left! I'm going fishing this weekend, and Inari's sister Anu is coming in a few weeks... After that I'm off to Greenland again and won't be back until early September. Phew!

What is productivity?

2007-06-22T11:23:00.000-08:00

This past field season was a struggle and so it was quite a humbling experience. Last year everything went really well, so I kind of expected more of the same... The instruments that we left running over winter failed, and nearly every instrument that we brought with didn’t work as it was supposed to — at least not at first. This included a wind gauge, a precipitation gauge, a marine radar (for tracking iceberg motion), an automatic theodolite (for optical surveying), several GPS, and an ablation meter (measures ice melt rates). On top of that we had some pretty bad luck with weather during the first two weeks at our camp. The first night that we were there we had 60+ knot winds. Martin lost his tent in the wind and broke his glasses when they were blown off his face. All of the tents suffered some damage. A week later we got hit by another storm. You could hardly stand up outside, let alone try to do something productive. This was also probably the first time that I’ve ever slept with ear plugs. It was really something. I’m sure I’ll remember it fondly some day. Check out this poor tent:

In the end we managed to accomplish most of what we had set out to do. At any rate, it gave me a new perspective on how difficult field work can actually be. I was certainly feeling pessimistic about our work for a couple of weeks.

During the last two weeks — we were out for a month — the weather cleared up. Actually, it was amazingly beautiful weather. It was actually hot, and there was very little wind. That’s quite unusual, because large glaciers often have strong winds blowing down-glacier. We had a lot of time to relax during those two weeks. I passed my time by reading Finnish children’s stories and cleaning up all the dirt. Its really a dirty place.

We also played network video games (not really),

ate narwhal,

and formed a band (photo for the c.d. cover).

Return to summer

2007-06-19T16:25:00.001-08:00

I sometimes think that glaciologists - especially those who chose to live in Fairbanks - must be really stupid people. I spend my winter in the dark and cold, and once spring arrives I travel to Greenland so that I can sit next to a giant ice cube all summer... Well, that's not to say that I didn't enjoy being in Greenland, because I did. But its also really nice to be back in Fairbanks. Everything seems so green, and its warm and the flowers are blooming and the birds are chirping.

I've started keeping a journal while doing field work because after a while the days blur together. I'll try to type up some of my entries and post them here. Maybe they're interesting?

For now, I'll leave you with a link to a video that I put together. About once a week we witnessed a BACE (bad ass calving event), during which a large part of the glacier tongue would break off and roll around in the fjord, making a lot of noise in the process. The icebergs are huge- the ice cliff that you'll see in the video is 80-100 m high, meaning that the ice is on the order of 800 m thick. Try picturing that rolling around in your neighborhood! This particular calving events lasted for about 20 minutes; I took one frame every 10 seconds and compressed the whole sequence into about 20 seconds.

For an avi file, click here. For a wmv file, click here. Sorry if they don't work on your machine.