Bookended by new whiskies. Plenty of cats, food, and family in between.

Happy New Year!

1. Are you happy with your current line of work? What do you like/don't like about it?

Ha. Hahaha. I mean, that is a hell of a question. My line of work is the main subject of my locked entries, which are basically a long paean of the many and varied feelings I have about it. The architecture of academia is hugely problematic. I have never been so taxed, drained, and overwhelmed by any other job. At the same time, I have never been so utterly absorbed and satisfied by my work in my life.

2. Do you see yourself doing the same type of work in 5 years? What about 10?

I’m going to be infuriatingly non-committal here and say that only time will tell.

3. Did you see yourself doing this type of work 5 years ago? What about 10?

Absolutely and unequivocally not. I had no intention of becoming an academic, nor any sense that this was a realistic prospect.

4. Did you have a dream job as a child? What was it?

I can remember wanting to be a lot of things. A veterinarian. A medical doctor. (Both of these ended abruptly when I eventually worked out how squidgy medicine is.) An Olympic dressage competitor. (Our neighbours had horses. I have only ever ridden a horse a handful of times. But I liked the dream.) A writer. A Nobel-prize-winning chemist. An inventor. An astronaut. I’m not sure how pleased six-year-old me would be if they could see me now.

5. If you had to pick a radically different job from what you have now, regardless of whether you'd realistically be able to do it given your skillset, what would you pick and why?

Wealthy philanthropist, photographer, and dilettante artist living in an airy flat with my family and cats in a vibrant city. That would be quite nice.

I went to Kenya!

My first (and only) trip to Kenya was in 2010, so I was glued to the window of the taxi for the entire journey from the airport to Kenyatta University campus. The amount of development that's taken place in those 13 years is astonishing. A forest of tall modern buildings sprouted downtown. The roads (thank goodness) now have central reservations, pavements, and pedestrian bridges so there were no repeats of the tragic accidents we witnessed on the roads during the previous trip. I was dreading those in the days preceding the trip, as I had lingering nightmares about them after returning home in 2010. There are safe, wide-laned elevated highways (toll roads) crossing the city, which afford fast passage through congested areas and excellent views of said development.


[Leaving Dubai]


[First glimpses of downtown Nairobi]

The campus was new to both the bloke and me. He has been to Nairobi on numerous occasions for his work on East African air quality, but usually goes to Nairobi University. The conference centre, which included our accommodation block, was located at the edge of the campus' vast acreage. Other than the distant roar of traffic, it didn't feel as if it were in the city. Around 70,000 students attend each year. Most live on campus. Since it was still the summer break and the students weren't there, it felt even more remote. We could see the marabou storks roosting atop the acacia trees outside our windows, and were awakened by the dawn chorus of weaverbirds and flycatchers.


[Marabou storks roosting]


[Yellow flycatchers and their nests]

We arrived in time to catch the last session of the first day of the training workshop we were there to help deliver. Afterwards we went to dinner with the organisers. The dining area was all of about 20 metres from the conference hall. We noshed on tasty Kenyan fare (for me, ugali, lentils and spinach), washed down with, successively, sugary tea, Tusker (Kenyan lager) and Jack Daniels gold label whisky that the main American organiser had procured from duty free (whattaguy).

I was a little stressed about delivering my session on space-based datasets since it was at 8 AM the next morning so partook only lightly of the booze. Thankfully I needn't have worried too much as it went well and I got good engagement in the room and online. It segued nicely into the bloke's and Robin's sessions. They brought things back to the ground (fnarr) and into the room, as Robin did a demo of his awesome light painting technique, which visualises the particulate matter in the room (PM2.5). I later got to help him make some paintings at dusk, with the storks in the background.


[Light painting prep]


[Livestream of light painting from the conference room]


[Light painting at dusk]

Demob happy, we enjoyed the afternoon session and a rerun of the Kenyan food, Tusker and whisky. Having sleep very little the previous two nights due to flying and then anxiety, I turned in hours before the lads did. Unfortunately, most of them were struck down by food poisoning the next day. I congratulated myself on avoiding it, having eschewed all meat and dairy since arriving. This would later turn out to be hubristic.

After Wednesday morning's sessions, those of us from US and UK universities were swept onto a bus and carted to the Administration Complex to have a formal meeting, and tea, with members of the University executive board. We caught the tail end of the afternoon sessions, and turned in early after a quiet meal.

Thursday was our final day. Unfortunately for me, it was also A-level results day, and as I am still nominally the admissions tutor for my department, my attention was divided between C&C activities and the workshop. Nevertheless I enjoyed the pre-lunch sessions, which were to be our last at the workshop.

Word had got round that we were leaving that evening, so the bloke and I had a very busy networking lunch while everyone got a last word in with us. Once that was finished, we hopped in a Uber with Robin to visit the giraffe sanctuary. Unfortunately we managed to get the slowest driver in the world. He was in a battered Nissan leaf and clearly trying to eke the last bit of life out of the thing. A journey that should have been a little over an hour was dragged out into almost two, not least because he got lost. That left us about 40 minutes to feed the giraffes. We opted to skip all the informative plaques and videos and go straight to them. It was worth it.


[Beware giraffe headbutts]


[Giraffes loitering]


[Snooty giraffe was my favourite]


The bloke and I hopped into what turned out to be a much newer Uber piloted by a satisfyingly kamikaze driver who got us back to campus far more efficiently, despite the traffic and missing the exit first time round.

We showered, packed, and checked out. Our third Uber driver arrived to cart us to the airport, which happily transpired without incident or deviation. At the airport, I made my fatal mistake and ate a non vegetarian samosa, thus ensuring a very uncomfortable journey home, from which I have now recovered. Huzzah. Also, the end.


[I’m standing at a lectern, woo]

I have had the most fantastic day in London at the Royal Academy of Engineering but I'm also exhausted after a full day of interacting with quite a large number of people. Please have a photo of a small and well positioned sculpture in the building.

[This is cross-posted from the Dreamwidth community threeforthememories, which is great and you should all join it. You have until next Monday 24 January if you want to post three photos to it that define your year last year, and no time constraints on enjoying everyone else's posts. I think it might actually be years since I've either promoted a community or cross-posted from one. Yikes.]

1. Telstar (RIP)
   
   This is - was - our beloved cat Telstar, just before he turned twelve in June of last year. We had no idea that we only had a few months left with him at this point, as his decline was very sudden. Losing him is an event that will forever be associated with 2021.


( ”+2” )

This is a Zero Centurion Elite flight case. It was used to transport the Flight Model (FM) harness assembly for Cassini’s magnetometer to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory back in the 1990s. It has a three-numeral combination lock embedded into it. The last time this combination was opened was at least four years ago. I watched my then-boss, Steve (now retired), open the lock, show me the case internals, and then lock it again.

I remember chuckling at the combination.


(Not the combination).

You can see where this is going, I assume.

I was supposed to “deal with” the case some time ago, but other things kept taking priority. Then I left the lab. Then Covid happened.

Finally I made my recent trip down to the lab. I extracted the case from beneath the pile of stuff that had accumulated on top of it. I looked at the combination lock. I tried the obvious combinations (000, 123, 666, etc). Did any of those work? Of course not.

Here is a list of other things that didn’t work.

• Swearing
• Talking through the scenario four years ago with my ex-boss in the hopes of jogging my memory
• Wiggling a screwdriver in the gap between the lid and the body of the case whilst trying random combinations
• Wiggling a screwdriver in the gap between the lid and the body of the case whilst methodically going through every possible combination of three-digit numbers
• Drinking wine
• Watching YouTube videos about picking combination locks on suitcases and trying to hear or feel the difference in the clicks between numbers
• Discovering that three of the numbers (6,6, and 6) had black lines drawn under them, presumably to remind everyone of the combination (PS I KNEW IT)
• Drinking gin
• Applying graphite to the rotating number wheels
• Applying whisky to the humans
• Trying 666 with the screwdriver trick while swearing and wiggling a screwdriver in the gap
• Trawling the internet for clues about how to pick Zero Centurion (which later became Halliburton) locks, finding many blog posts about how to reset it from the inside if you already know the combination
• Giving it a firm whack

Here is what did work.

• This blog post, dug up by friend-who-is-not-in-the-journalsphere-any-more whose Google-fu is mightiest
• Following its instructions and tapping out the hinge pin with a small punch and a hammer, then extracting it with pliers

PS It is empty apart from foam padding but I didn't fancy taking it to the post office and, upon being asked what was inside, answering "I don't know!"

I spend too many hours a day at my office desk, but on the other hand, there's the view from the window in late afternoon.

[For Josh, with gratitude.]

Some of you may recall that I was gifted a Lego Discovery and Hubble set a few weeks back by my friend Josh. I decided to share the Lego love with some of my colleagues - particularly the technicians, who are huge Lego fans - and organise a Lego-building activity at work. Two of the people in these photos have had to be at work every day throughout the pandemic with the exception of the first month of the first lockdown last year. It was nice to be able to do something fun for and with them. One of the other lecturers brought a homemade cake.

We got through bags 1 through 12, so it's not quite complete. I've arranged another build session for this Friday, so we'll complete it then. 


( More photos )

It's been a rough couple of weeks but today was a joy.

I opened a science festival (virtually) for a primary school - 14 classes of very excited students together for the first time since before Christmas. They peppered me with questions.

My children have been in school since January, but it was still a special day since some of their closest pals have only been faces on screens for months. Keiki stood alert waiting for his pal J at the school gate and practically fell over from joy when he appeared. Humuhumu and her bestie were instantly reunited and subsequently inseparable. 

I attended a Women in Engineering event and heard some fantastic and highly resonant stories from women working in academia and industry. It was an inspiring, uplifting and well chaired session.

Finally, I went to a talk (by a woman) about the future of the space sector which was for corporate partners of a learned society. It made me optimistic and hopeful for the future.

I feel like I've done a week's work already. Fortunately I'm now energised to face the rest of it.