Life as a Turkey

I am a graduate student at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (aka LPL or the Planetary Science Department).

We are part of the University of Arizona.

The U of A is located in Tucson, Arizona, a small-big city, population about 600,000. It has Sam's, Outback, Home Depot, Long John Silvers, Hooters, and Jack in the Box, but lacks a good Fry's Electronics and Del Taco. But it has a whole lot of retired people to compensate. :)
Tucson is hella far south, 32^oNorth latitude, and is located in the Sonora desert, famous for being the only place in the world with those cool arm cactus (called Saguaro). The climate here is hot, and dry. I thought that Pasadena was hot and dry. I was naive. THIS place, is HELLA hot, and helladry. During August and September we have the "monsoon" season, when there are some cool desert thunderstorms, and those are cool. But this 110^o summer is going to suck :)

I live in a studio apartment about a mile East of campus, and ride my bike into the office every day so as not to deal with the hell that is parking here. Besides, I can't imagine it being any easier to drive, biking is easy and fast, unless its super cold in the morning. Well, even if it is supercold its still easy in fast, it just isn't pleasant. It never rains, so that's not a problem :)

I spend an inordinate amount of time at home in front of my P200, R2D2. Thankfully I have a DSL (Digital Subsriber Line) that's REALLY FAST.

To see a bit of what I do at work, go to my professional page.

The mountains North of Tucson are called the Catalinas, and I've been on 2 hikes into them, one with my brother, and one with my ex. Unfortunately I don't have comprehensive pictures of the latter, but pictures of the former can be found here.

Every term the LPL graduate students go on a field trip to learn about geology on other planets by studying the one on which soft-landings are the least fuel costly. The first one that I went on was the Canyon de Chelly field trip in October, 1998. Chronicles of old field trips that were before my time can be found here.

My friends from Fleming and I play an internet game of cards every week, we call it Spades. On another day of the week, some of the other LPL Graduate Star Wars Freaks and I play a Star Wars role-playing game called Halo of Jedi.

So far I've been up to visit my friends the Youngs in Phoenix only once, but I go up there to the airport and to the Fry's Electronics sometimes.