It's been nearly two years...

and over 300 posts ... so we decided we needed a short vacation from our (more or less) regular posting schedule. This month is particularly busy for us, because of all the Jewish holidays and classes we're missing. However, don't run away just yet! We'll be back on Tuesday, Oct 30 for the two year anniversary extravaganza! And, who knows? Maybe one of us will post something in the intervening time, anyway!
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And see you back at the end of October!

More ID cards and email addresses

My status as a graduate student is somewhat complicated. I'm a student at the City University of New York's doctoral granting school The Graduate Center (GC). But in the CUNY system, if you're getting a Ph.D. in a science, you take many of the intro-level classes and do your research at a specific CUNY school. In my case, that's City College (CCNY). What this means is that I'm officially a student of The GC. As such, I register, get library access, a student ID, email address, etc. through them. However, I get advised, take some classes, etc. through CCNY. Although my GC ID works at CCNY, they prefer that I get a CCNY ID and email address. So I did.
However, my research will be done out of the Benjamin Levich Institute. This is a joint research thingy between the physics and chemical engineering departments at CCNY, Columbia University and a couple other schools. To make a rather long story short (maybe I'll write about it another time), because of this, I'm taking a class on polymers and soft materials at Columbia. This means another ID and email address.Careful readers will note that my CCNY ID has me listed under the Levich Institute. In principle I can get yet another ID with me listed under the physics department, but I haven't had time for that yet.

Mysterious Military Mover

This vehicle is sometimes parked in front of a house in my neighborhood. I can’t figure out what it is, and the real shock is that neither can any of my friends. It is clearly a really cool armored vehicle (although I would hate to see the gas mileage it gets), probably military, that has somehow been purchased by a civilian. If any of you know what it is I would like to know.

Zwetschgenkuchen!

I was supposed to blog for Yoni yesterday but, that didn’t happen. So I’ll blog today instead. I am including some pictures from the production of this year’s first batch of Zwetschgenkuchen! Mmmmm, my favorite, and either Eli’s family is a bunch of really good fakers or they really liked it too.


If you really want to make these, let me know and I'll give you the needed modifications to the linked recipe as per Oma.

Li’Shana Tova Umituka

I would like to start this post with a moment of silence in memory of all those who perished in the 911 attack. It’s the sixth anniversary but feels like only yesterday.

I would like to wish all our readers a happy and health new year (whether you are Jewish or not). Also, I would like to say Happy Anniversary Eli and Stacy. Additionally, I remind you that Eli will not be posting this Thursday due to Rosh Hashana.

Joshua Tree National Park

I've been back in NJ for a bit now, but still haven't blogged about the excitement of my Joshua Tree camping trip. We rented a economy car but they upgraded us to a pickup truck- much more convenient for 4 wheel drive roads. We went during the meteor shower, I would recommend watching such showers in desserts by the way, no clouds.


Pickups are kind of usefull actually- I biked to the rental place then just threw it in the back of the pickup, no problems.

A blast from the past

I recently discovered an interesting vending machine in the CCNY library. But before I tell you about it, let me show you a modern vending machine:
This machine vends iPods and iPod accessories. It's super-fancy: It takes credit cards, has a touch screen, etc. Pretty cool.

Anyway, here is CCNY's (functioning!) vending machine:
But they are slowly picking up on new technologies. They're selling 256MB jump drives for around $60.

Where The Wild Things Are

My family’s’ yard is known for being host to a large variety of wildlife. Up until this point the list included rabbits, groundhogs, chipmunks, mice, fox, turkey, and deer, however I can now add to the list of animals some kind of hawk and the really cool new one coyote. Yep, that’s right we have now had a coyote in the backyard.

I would like to say that this is most probably a very ill coyote. It was acting very strange, additionaly its very scrawny. Also, I saw it walk right past a rabbit that couldn't have been more than 10 feet away.

Geeky Licence plate

A geeky car in a biotech company parking lot in California.

In case you can't read it, it says cytosol.
Thanks David for the Photo! (For the record, I was there, just didn't have a camera).