• Chemical Oceanography (3)
• Chemical Oceanography Lab (2)
• Geological Oceanography (3)
• Hawaiian Natural History (3)
• Physics 3: Modern Physics (3)

There is however, one major difference between this year and the previous 3, I am living off campus. This means, more than anything, that I need to deal with feeding myself. I suspect I’m unlike the typical college student in that I do not have any ramen around. And also unlike many people that I know who are my age, I know how to use a kitchen. For me, this largely means baking, so I’ll stop stalling and show some pictures!

The above is my first attempt at cinnamon swirl bread, it was delicious and quickly consumed by me and my flatmates. I have also been making bagels on the weekends to have throughout the week.

As you can see, I love garlic and onion, I tried putting the toppings in the bread itself, but it didn’t turn out the way I hopped. This weekend I’m planning on making more bagels but also some rolls for lunches or dinners.

I also am working with a professor on campus on a geoneutrino project, also more on that later, but here is a small teaser made using matplotlib with basemap (python).

Continuing north on the 5, my Swedish friends were impressed by how straight and long the road was. How flat and vast the central valley of California is can hardly be described, perhaps the only thing that rivals it is the ocean, it is something that just needs to be seen.

We made it to San Jose after about 8 hours of driving. For dinner we went to a buffalo chicken place called Smoke Eaters, which some of you may know from the television show Man vs. Food. When I ordered my food I asked for “spiciest sauce you have on the menu.” A mistake you might think, a challenge accepted says I. It was quite spicy, not sure how to describe the flavor, but the hotness had me in a sweat and unable to speak.

Friday Was spent at an Six Flags Discovery Kingdom… it is an amusement park.

Saturday we went into San Francisco. Utilizing BART we went from Daily City to the Embarcadero (Pier 1). From there we walked to Pier 39, aka Fisherman’s Warf. Contrary to what the pier numbers indicate, it was not actually 39 piers. At Pier 39 we ate at Boudin, famous for their clam chowder in sourdough bread bowls. Not being a huge fan of the clam chowder, I had chili in a bread bowl instead. When through with the chili, I ate my bowl, delicious! From Pier 39 we walked to Coit Tower which is on top of Telegraph Hill. Quite a bit up (some 300+ stairs to the top of the hill). A nice view of the city and bay were the reward for the climb. From there it was a short walk to Chinatown and an excellent boba (bubble tea) place. We enjoyed our beverages in a park in Chinatown. After a good walk back to the BART station, we were on our way back to San Jose.

Sunday was spent driving back to San Diego from San Jose. Rather than taking Interstate 5 back, I chose to travel the 101. While the road takes longer, it is much more scenic and enjoyable (for the driver).

So what have I been up to this summer? Working at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. They have me doing some coding tasks and other things. Perhaps the best personal development is my new usage of VIM. I was always scared of VIM as I never could figure out how to reliably exit the program (C-c doesn’t work). I’ve spent maybe two weeks using it and I’m hooked. Goodbye textmate.

Cute Infestation

Scripps has a problem, an adorable problem. For a while the bathrooms in the building I was in were inaccessible (they still are, I just moved buildings). So to go to the bathroom, I would need to walk across the “historic park” of Scripps. This is a large grassy area with some old cottages. While walking, bunnies and squirrels and chipmunks would all be scurrying away from me. So many that I would check to see that I wasn’t in a Disney movie.

The Beach Crowds

Being so close to the ocean, I sometimes go to the beach durring breaks as work. And well, the crowds… just look at them!

And that isn’t even the CROWDED part of the beach! I mean, I’ve never seen it this crowded in Hawaii, well maybe one, at Waimea, durring the Eddie… My working posit is that because we had such a lousy summer last year in San Diego, people are flocking to the beach due to awesomeness…ness.

Office Move

My group recently moved offices due to construction. Look what showed up on the whiteboard…

It has gotten more elaborate since I took this photo, and more nerdy…

That’s all for now!
-Barna

This next view is looking south (ish) toward the rest of La Jolla (my hometown).

The aquarium was also open for viewing.

Here are some more pictures if you aren’t already convinced that La Jolla and Scripps is awesome.



If you are interested in what I’m actually doing at SIO (on not Scripps Day), it involves collecting all the data I can find from a German icebreaker, RV Polarstern. Hopefully it will go online soon.
That is all for now I guess.
-Barna

Some spam chili nachos.

Spam Katsu

Spam fried rice

It wasn’t all SPAM, I had some pretty awesome garlic fries, I even asked for some extra garlic they obliged and the above is the result.

I am now over half way through my finals. Only one to go. I go to San Diego on monday and am looking forward to my first burrito. Some changes are coming for next semester, for one, I will not be living on campus so expect more awesome posts about eating on a budget and how living in the dorms compares to living off campus.
That’s all for now.

-Barna

This past friday (Good Friday). I went to the Honolulu Zoo in Waikiki (I think). This was the first time going to the Honolulu zoo and I was eager to see how it compared to the San Diego Zoo. A good time was had and lots of animals were seen (they even have a snake!) While I felt that the elephant enclosure was too small, a new much larger elephant area is being constructed, I hope they finish soon. Like many places in Hawaii, there were peacocks running wild around the place.

As for how it compares to the San Diego Zoo (my home town zoo), the Honolulu Zoo was much smaller. I have spent entire days at the San Diego Zoo and I’m pretty sure that I have never managed to see everything there. The Honolulu Zoo in comparison was small enough that the complete circuit around took maybe a little more than 2 hours.

The smallness doesn’t affect the good time that was had though. Besides, they had a cute fox!

Finals are in… two weeks!

-Barna

One of the things that happened pretty soon after I got back from the cruise was the closure of the Don Quijote (that is how you spell it) in Kailua. I had only discovered this wonderful store maybe a little over a year ago, since then it had become my go to place for shopping. I went to one of the last days it was open.

Since they were no longer restocking the shelves, it was interesting to me to see what they still had and didn’t have (as some sort of indication to the popularity of the goods). While the ramen, nori and candy pretty much flew off the shelf (there was no ramen left), coming to the soft drinks section, I wouldn’t even know that they were no longer restocking.

In japanese class we have been going over the various informal forms of verbs and how to speak informally in general. All this new conjugation feels very complicated and I often try to find examples of the stuff we are learning in Japanese in English. I figure, if I can deal with the arbitrary rules of English, I can deal with the rather sane rules in Japanese.

One of the best, fun things about living in a different place is the new foods. A friend and I recently ate at a relatively new establishment in Kaneohe called Fresh Catch, which specialized in poke and seafoods in general (hence the name). Not knowing what I wanted, I opted for whatever the special was for that day. It turned out to be a crab stuffed ahi roll which was quite delicious.

Though, one of the not so fun things about being in a place different from home is the lack of my established comfort foods (mainly mexican). At the suggestion of one of the staff at HPU, I went to check out a place called Serge’s Mexican Kitchen in Manoa. Much to my delight it was very close to what I can get in San Diego and they even had Mexican Coke (uses sugar rather than HFCS).

A tsunami happened that was triggered by a very large earthquake off the coast of Japan. Being the only oceanography student in my residence hall, I became very popular that night, mostly reassuring people that where we were on the Hawaii Loa Campus was well above sea level and there was no chance of this tsunami getting us. While Hawaii did have some major damage on the Big Island, we fared relatively well compared to the devastation as seen in Japan (not counting the nuclear crisis). This has not affected my desire to some day study in Japan.

HPU’s annual talent show, Da Freakshow, was March 15th (I think). I helped out backstage as the stagemanager’s runner. The event itself went well and I’m sure from the audiences perspective, nothing went wrong. From my perspective, it was pretty much one crisis after another (all mini crisises). It was my job to make sure that the performers were queued up before they are to go on stage and so I was constantly about 3 acts ahead of what the audience was seeing. Afterwards, I crashed hard with some good sleep (though it screwed up the rest of the week for me).

Finally, I was selected to be a President’s Host. It will be my responsibility to represent the university at various events and whatever else I’m asked to do or volunteer for. I must apologize for not giving a full description of what I will be doing as I’m not sure myself. The induction ceremony was… yesterday, and I had the opportunity to meet the (soon to be retired) university president.

More updates more frequently I hope for the future!

-Barna

This is the bridge of the R/V Kilo Moana. Naturally it has a commanding view of the surrounding oceans. Everything regarding ships position can be controlled from this location, even some engineering functions (but not all) can be controlled from this position. While the wheel in the middle does work and was how I controlled the ship when they let me drive, it usually goes unused.

This is the main control room (MCR). From this position all the ships engineering systems are monitored, that would include the freshwater supplies and things like the sewage system, not just the engines, motors and other various propulsion systems. The system makes you push a button every 30 minutes to ensure that someone is alert and paying attention.

The mess is where all meals are eaten (most of the time). You can see the galley (where meals are prepared) through the two openings to the left of the clock. This ship had some of the best food I’ve had while at sea.

The ship had an extensive computer network and all network communications were fiberoptic. This was the fiber network was largely due to necessity, the ship is very ‘noisy’ meaning that electrical signals are disrupted by EM noise coming from the ship. Fiber is unaffected by this. Any and all computer systems were managed by something in this room.

The wetlab is where the rosette lived. Or I guess any other instruments that go in the water. If we were doing sampling, this is the room that it would be happening in. Out the door (to the ocean) there is no rosette sitting on the deck, meaning that it was deployed when this photo was taken.

This is the lab I spent most of my time in. Using the radio we would communicate with the winch operator our desires for what we wanted to do. We also controlled and monitored the instruments on the rosette from this room.

The ship could be controlled by portable control stations. This one is on the stern of the ship and is being controlled by the captain himself. I was told that it takes about 5 minutes to completely transfer control from the bridge to one of these stations as they do it one control at a time to ensure that someone has control at all times.

Probably the roughest day we had. Luckily it was mostly during transit, though one test/training cast was done with the CTD/LADCP. Quite exciting given the conditions.

This was the main float for the moorings and the first part to be recovered. The mooring is sub surface until the release command is given, then this floats to the surface pretty quickly.

This is a picture of my stateroom, I never did use that fridge.

This is one of the mooring anchors being deployed, the large mass is what keeps it down and the actual anchor is there to keep the mass from moving down a hill. This mooring was deployed on steep topography.

Same as above, but notice that the release mechanism failed, the line was cut using a pocket knife taped to a long pole.

This is the starboard shaft seal, on this side, air, on the other side of the red wall, water and lots of it. Though it isn’t leaking now, a small leak is within specifications and would be considered normal. In the event of a complete failure (which can happen), the compartment I was in would fill so fast with water that I would not be able to escape it.

Conditions
Lat: 20 24.303 N
Lon: 158 50.004 W
Speed: 12 Kts
Heading: 47
Sal: 35.227 PSU
SST: 25 °C
Pres: 1015 mbar
Air Temp: 23 °C

Weather and Sea State Observations
Swell height perhaps 0-1 meter. Cloud cover is 25% or less

Journal Entry

My final day on the KM. I got up late, again, awesome. Missed breakfast, again, not awesome.

Finally saw another ship today, a whole 11 days at sea and I finally see another ship. I bet if I were to look out tonight I might see one. I quickly ran up to the bridge to see what ship it was. The answer, Ocean Prince, an empty cargo vessel heading toward china. It quickly disappeared as we were going in opposite directions.

Lunch today was pasta with some sort of pesto sauce. I really stocked up on the garlic bread. After lunch I drove the ship again, just cause I could. At 1430 or so most of the science party watched the movie Serenity in the lounge.

After the movie there was a bit of time to kill between dinner, which I spent on the bridge with the captain, flying a kite and scaring off seabirds.

Dinner was Surf and Turf. Filet mignon and snow crab. Fresh bread was also available. They pulled out all the stops for the final dinner at sea. Dessert was baklava and delicious. The smell of the galley permeated the entire ship well before it was dinner time.

After dinner many of us went out to the back deck to watch the sunset. A mighty fine one I might add, with brilliant crepuscular rays in many directions. In all, probably one of the best sunsets of the entire cruise and definitely the best sunset where the sun couldn’t actually be seen.

This will be my last entry from sea for this cruise. Cleaning needs to be done and we are scheduled to pull into port around 0700 tomorrow.