update with lots of pictures

Wow. It's been such a fun week. I've just got several random stories, so bear with me. I was very glad yesterday when my adviser came up to me at wine and cheese and told me how proud he is of my progress in my research! Yesterday I broke a piece of the meteorite! It was awful. I had a thin section (a very very tiny sliver of the meteorite adhered to a glass slide) and I was mounting it on a metal stub so I could load it into the EVO. I started scanning it and I couldn't figure out what was wrong... well I had glued the stub onto the rock rather than onto the glass (upside down) and it pulled out a large chunk of the sample when I pulled the stub away. I showed the ruined section to Denton and he just kept saying "Shit. Shit. Shit. Don't worry, it's an easy mistake to make. Shit. Shit. Shit." And needless to say, that didn't help me feel much better about it.

I've been slowly but surely tinkering away on this EVO program and I've pretty much got it down now, German and all. It's funny because yesterday the tech came in to install a new part for the EVO and I was giving him pointers about the program that I have deciphered because I knew more about it than he did. It was a nice feeling.

I was rushing through the fifth floor hall of the museum trying to make it to the microscopy lab for my 9am appointment when I almost barreled over a triceratops skull! It was scary. I was coming around the corner just as the caravan of wagons and people pushing them very slowing began to emerge in front of me and I skidded to a halt. I narrowly escaped. Everyone just stared at me like I had just given them all individual heart attacks. There was a triceratops skull on a pedestal in the middle of a very large white wagon like cart followed closely but another cart carrying a cast of this skull. It was a really cool thing to behold... I'm pretty sure most the bones on display are casts, at least for the most part. But this was definitely a real skull. Sorry, no pictures, it was far too awkward to ask them to stop so I could take a snap shot. Just take my word for how strange of an incident it is to almost knock over something like that.

The fourth of July was spent in Brooklyn on the promenade watching the Macy's fireworks over the river. It was a good show, but it don't got nothin' on Thunder over Louisville. We walked across the Brooklyn bridge and it was tons of fun. The following pictures are from the Fourth and walking over the bridge as well as some various views of Brooklyn. It's a very nice place and I really like it.
Plus a meteorite picture and one of the thin sections (that I did not mame).

Ready to rumble

I have recently become entangled in an epoch battle to the death. It's the EVO SEM versus me. I seem to have forgotten this is one of the world's classic blunders. Only slightly less well known than "Never start a land war in Asia." I tell EVO to do something and it yells at me in German. Literally. It pops up dialog boxes in German with exclamation points. I only recognize the words "uber" and "nicht". Basically we are both set on the other's demise... only me slightly less so, as EVO costs 400k.

The stage automation function finally exists, but nobody in the museum knows how to work it. Except me. And it's my job to figure out the most poorly designed piece of software (p.o.s., hah) that I've ever encountered. And then I've got to teach everyone else. I've made lots of headway in the past few days, much to EVO's dismay, but I still can't quite get a standard procedure down aside from "Enter numbers in such a way that the machine will not yell at you in German. Push start. Stop if it gets finicky."

EVO woes aside I have lots of fun pictures from this weekend, but they'll have to wait. Jaime flies in tomorrow evening! I'm so excited. But now I'm about to go for a run and then it's off to China Town for a fellow intern's 21st birthday!

Cheers,

Chelsea

PS
For the love of God listen to Rodrigo y Gabriella. It is such beautiful music by two very talented guitarists.

Meteorwrongs

In case any of you are wondering... if you find a rock on the ground that you think is a meteorite I can tell you right now with 99.9% certainty that it is not a meteorite. My adviser calls them "meteorwrongs" and they get 3 a week on average. People are convinced that the black rock they found is a meteorite. Given, some of them are actually strange looking... but strange looking does not equal meteorite.

Good day.

A few things of interest

What's that in the large metal container, you say?

That, my friends, is a giant squid.



Observe the label on the tub. I really hope you can read the size specifications on the bottom of the sticker. But in case you can't, the squid is 25 feet long.

Sorry to report I haven't got a picture of what's inside the squid box as I'm told it's the worst smell you've ever smelled to crack that thing open. So, hopefully another day...

Many good finds were found this week in museum land. We found the paleontology sections....



And yes, that is a dinosaur. While wandering around this wing we bumped into a friendly scientist. We asked her, "Is there are room where they keep... big bones?" and she smiled politely and said "Yes. It's called The Big Bone Room. Only two people in the museum have access to this room. But one of which is a very pleasant fellow who loves to give people tours." And we now have a tour date set to see the Big dinosaur bone room an July 9th.



We were also taken up to a really amazing old fashioned library in the ceiling of the fifth floor. It's all that's left of the old library that used to span the entire ceiling of the fifth floor. It has glass tiles that you can see through as floor tiles.



We were led to an old iron staircase by the batty librarian who shepards what's left of the wayward old library. You'll never guess what one keeps in the ceiling of an old library in the ceiling of a museum...



Why, they keep elephant skulls up there, of course! Silly. What else would they possibly keep in the ceiling of a rickety library in a museum aside from elephant skulls??







That's about it. Thought you all would enjoy that...

love
Chelsea

PS
If you click on a picture it will enlarge in a new window. So you should have no problem reading the squid label. =)

primarily posting pretty peaceful park pictures

just a bunch of pictures from a beautiful lazy Sunday afternoon spend lounging about in the park in the center of the city.




























love
chelsea

Current Theme Song:
I was born (a unicorn) by the Unicorns

I &hearts New York.

My friend AJ and I swapped almost 3 gb of music each. It is a very good thing to have new music!

Tonight I am going to see my favorite artist, Souther Salazar, at the John Levine gallery downtown. It's going to be lots of fun. After dinner and the gallery show we're heading over to the International House tonight for a get together there. It's been a very good weekend.

Last night my friends and I went dancing and it was so much fun! I'm glad there are really nice people here to hang out with.

I hope all of your summers are going wonderfully as well. Missing everyone back home.

Love,
Chelsea



--------------------
EDIT

Just got back from the Souther Salazar exhibit and it was so much fun! The entire room was like being in another world. His art is so whimsical and dream like. I loved it. Here are some of the pictures that I illegally took inside of the gallery. Woopsy.