Sauntering Vaguely Downward

We took the children to their first ever live rugby match on Saturday after attending Rugby Tots. Keiki is still enamoured of it after six weeks. Humuhumu has realised that she would quite like to do rugby as well and so she is now signed up for the class immediately after his. This brings her class total to three: swimming (Fridays), rugby (Saturday) and gymnastics (Sunday), thus cementing our status as Parental Taxi Service for the next thirteen years or so.

Anyway, the weather was unseasonably mild and sunny and we were sat in the stands next to a lovely group of Brive fans. They tempted the children to cheer for their side with flags. We accepted gracefully and offered them Haribo, which they took, so I'm counting that a win for Anglo-French relationships. Especially since Worcester won, which was definitely not a given considering (a) their early performance, including some dire kicking and (b) the fact that they're pretty much always near the bottom of the Premier league table.

The children loved it, although keeping them engaged did involve bribery with Lego and chips (not at the same time). Afterward they opened the pitch to the children to run around, and then the players came out. We got the Worcester players to sign one of the Brive flags which they did without rancour. It was a superb day out and we were all pleasantly worn out at the end of it.


[L to R: G. Milasinovich (prop), me, Humuhumu, Keiki, P. Humphreys (wing)]

( +3 )

This post continues the homage to the Huntington Library and Gardens with a sample of the library displays. These are a mere fraction of what the library itself actually archives, although one needs a vetted research proposal in order to gain full access to its contents.

We begin with, er, light bulbs. Because if you were absurdly wealthy, why wouldn’t you amass a collection of historic lightbulbs.


“The Huntington’s collection of historical lamps consists of nearly 400 light bulbs, about half of which are on display here. The light bulbs range from the 1890s to the 1960s. They include examples of the variety of bases, filaments and globes in use before the development of current incandescent and fluorescent light bulbs.”

( More light bulbs and then some actual, y'know, books )

Maybe I just don't get out enough (or maybe this is a USian thing), but one of my friends pointed out these single-serving wines to me on our trip to Huntington Gardens when I was in California. I...did not muster up the courage to try either the rose or the sauvignon blanc. Also, it was scorching that day and all anybody wanted was water until it started to cool off around 5 PM, and then we went hunting for beer (see: Brits in hot weather).

Hear ye, hear ye: on the evening of Tuesday 10 October, you can come to Imperial College London and meet some Cassini scientists and engineers. Well, OK, one engineer (that would be me). Imperial are hosting a Fringe event titled “A Space Odyssey” in celebration of the Cassini end of mission, and there are lots of things to see, including me reminiscing about Cassini operations whilst waving around tiny magnetometers, and do, including making your own thin film paper spacecraft. Read all about what's on offer here.

Book yourself a free ticket here.

If you come along, you can see this beauty without all the reflective glare:

Image of the 1/25 scale Cassini model in its newly procured perspex box for display at the Fringe.

In other space news, ESA have conducted a helicopter test on the radar boom that will be on the JUICE spacecraft, to ensure that it will be able to penetrate Ganymede’s ice crust. You can read about, and watch a video of, the tests here. (Synopsis: Big Metal Box and Poles get waved over fields in Germany, serious-faced blokes on the ground don’t seem to find anything funny about this, pfft.)

Thursday was meant to be a quiet day, since we all knew we had to be up and at Caltech by 4 AM for the thing we’d all been preparing for: the actual end of mission.

In reality, there were some impromptu science meetings at Caltech, one of which I attended in the morning. I slipped out just before noon, because I had someone to meet.

I headed down from Beckman to South Mudd to see my former JPL postdoctoral supervisor, from back in those heady days when I was still a lab scientist, for lunch. I hadn’t seen him since 2006. I eventually remembered where his Caltech office was. I could’ve found the JPL one much more easily, but it would have required me to check in and get a badge, which seemed a lot of faff for lunch. Besides, there are nicer places to eat in Pasadena. Once in the correct corridor, I spotted his technician hovering outside the door, plus another UK person from the physical chemistry community whom I’d never met but knows the bloke pretty well. There were lots of smiles and hugs, and we decided to head down to a restaurant over on Lake Street.

We had a very pleasant hour of conversation, reminiscing and catching up. I had a shock on hearing that their children, whom I remembered as children or young teenagers, were now grown up and had careers of their own. Of course I knew that would have happened in the intervening decade-plus, but it’s not until you actually speak together about these things that they’re driven home to you. They were equally shocked on learning that Humuhumu has started school - and has a younger sibling! The bloke and I had been remiss in our communication, clearly. We talked of science, of course, and of politics and its effects on research direction, and of our worries about the future due to Brexit and the current US administration.

I am still kicking myself for forgetting to take a photo. You must instead picture me with a group of men: one starting to disappear into the frailty of old age, peering out earnestly from large-framed glasses, one solid and grey-haired and mostly silent with twinkling blue eyes, and one cheeky-grinned middle-aged bear of a chap with a shock of brown hair and a beard. All sitting together in a booth of a Japanese restaurant, eagerly shoveling the contents of bento boxes into our faces, occasionally bursting into roars of laughter while cheesy ‘90s music played in the background.

We parted with promises not to let another eleven years pass before we met again. I was left with the warm glow you get from (re)connecting with friendly, kind, intelligent people. It was a lovely way to buffer against the excitement and strain of what was to come on Friday morning.


Chilling out in my JPL t-shirt before the end of mission.