Here's the video

Blogger won't let me post the edited video, so here's the whole stupid shot. If you skip to about 30 seconds, it starts to get interesting.

Phoenix has landed!

We are so excited here in Tucson. Yesterday the Phoenix Mars lander touched down on Mars and we were all on campus to join in the celebrations. Rob and I and Dana and Matt walked over to the University Mall and tried to find space in front of one of the many screens set up that were broadcasting NASA TV.

We found a spot in the Sonett Space Sciences building. They had these countdown clocks hung up everywhere so we could keep track of Phoenix's progress.
It was very exciting. We were standing next to a guy who was part of the team that designed this: the HiRise camera.
It stands for The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment and it's how Phoenix is going to send back all those great images. The guy wasn't worried at all that Phoenix would be alright. He said that the "7 minutes of terror" were really just slight anxiety. He said everything was going to run perfectly, and he was right. As the mission counted down "1600 meters, 1400 meters, 1100 meters" all the way down to "30 meters, 27 meters, 10 meters" the room was completely silent, crossing our fingers that the lander would slow down enough for a smooth landing. We held our breath as the announcer said "Phoenix has landed! Phoenix landed!" Then there were claps, screams, hugs, and handshakes all around. It was funny, the screen outside must have been a little delayed, because a full minute after we were done cheering, we heard the crowd outside erupt into applause.
Afterward, Space Science graduate students made ice cream for everybody out of liquid nitrogen. Very cool.

In the evening, we went back to Flandrau Science Center to see the Planetarium show on Mars. I love love love Planetariums. After that, we went up to the public telescope to see a very nice view of Saturn. It was so crisp, we could see the shadow of Saturn across the rings, and we could see the shadow of the rings across the surface of the planet. We also could see at least 3 of its moons. So cool. It was a very long day, but to finish it off on a funny note, we saw Rob on the 10pm news! He was interviewed about his experience watching the landing. He looked very cute and very smart.
Congratulations Phoenix and congratulations, University of Arizona. Go Wildcats. Well done.

Windy City

The weather in Tucson has been bananas lately. Here's a video of the stop sign last night. I'm surprised it didn't blow down the street like everything else did. It's been howling all day today too. And guess what. It snowed on Mt. Lemmon last night. Snow. May 22. Tucson.
Signs of the apocalypse? Perhaps.

In brighter news, this weekend's movie extravaganza has finally arrived. Poor R. has been wearing his Indiana Jones outfit nonstop for the last 19 years since The Last Crusade came out. Will it be worth it? Of course it will.

Muggle

My glasses are broken. They've been too big for a while now and I thought they were just getting stretched out. Nope, yesterday I noticed a little crack above one of the springs that's making the part that goes over your ears splay way out. If I tilt my head down, they slip down my nose. I hate (really hate) wearing my glasses anyway, but now that they don't fit, they feel extra bulky and dorky.
Apparently I was mulling all of this over in my sleep last night. I woke up this morning really early, the sky was mostly still dark and the room was just a little grey. In my sleepy head I suddenly had a brilliant idea, I could just use "occulus reparo" on my glasses. Of course! Then I wouldn't have to pay for a brand new pair or wear taped up ones. My brain woke up a little more and told me that I cannot perform magic, so I resolved to ask one of my friends to do the charm for me instead. I happily went back to sleep. When I woke up again at 7:30, I realized that maybe I shouldn't read Harry Potter before falling asleep.
I made an appointment with the muggle eye doctor at noon.

Bubbles!

I've been trying for a long time to make the kind of bread I would want to eat. I've made some really brick-like loaves of dense, gross bread. I've also made some greasy heavy bread that tastes delicious, but will make you sick. I really wanted my bread to have giant air bubbles that toast up so nicely and hold butter so well.
Dana came to the rescue with this recipe. She sent it to me ages ago, but I didn't try it until last night. I love it. Bubbly success!

You start it about 20 hours before you bake it which seems like a pain, but really, this recipe is very hands-off. You mix up the ingredients, then let it sit for 18 hours. No kneading, no stirring, no rising in a warm oven, no nothing. Then you form it into a loaf and stick it in a cast iron pot (or a dutch oven or anything with a lid) and bake it for 45 minutes. Easy peasy. And delicious. Almost immediately after I cut into this and saw all the beautiful bubbles I started a second loaf. I added garlic, rosemary, and thyme to that loaf, so we'll see how this recipe does with some fiddling. The dough smells great, so cross your fingers. It'll be put in the oven in another 2 hours.

Year of cake. hmph!

Dang! I didn't do an April cake. Now it's May.
I made vanilla orange cupcakes last week, but I didn't take pictures of them. I just ate them. all of them. I've been messing around with recipes trying to make a "creamsicle" cake. Something creamy with a little bit of orange flavor.
So, I guess I'll have to make two cakes for May. Poor me.