Randomness

In the mode of Yoni's post from earlier this week, I will post a couple of random things.

 The contraption on the right used to fill that nook.  It was placed there about five and a half years ago.  I had honestly forgotten what was behind it.

You know its time to buy new sneakers when you go finger spelunking in your footwear when bored.

Fire, RV, Sierra Nevada, Snow

This post is just about a few old photos

From my family's great California RV trip (long exposure photo where I blew on the coals).

From the parking lot where I work last winter. Lets hope we get that much snow again!

Aryeh Doesn't Cook: Blue Fin Tuna Sashimi

This isn't really an Aryeh Cooks post, mainly because if it was I would have mobs of angry Japanese with pitchforks trying to kill me for cooking Sashimi grade Bluefin Tuna.  Some friends of mine told me that they where planning on going to a Japanese food mart called Mitsuwa where a few times a year they bring in a whole tuna.  In this case a 600 pound Tuna.

You can really get a feel for the size of this fish from the pieces on the board.

This is my friend Ayaka with the head and tail of the fish, you can see how big the head of the fish is in comparison to her.

And finally the piece of fish I got.

Just look at that color.

Thin slice, consumed raw.  Up to this point I have never actually eaten raw fish, so I have gone from nothing to a ton in no time flat.  As it turns out I am not a huge fan, but the texture of the fresh fish is literally melt in the mouth.  So for all of you Sushi lovers, go drool, for all you others, you can do whatever you like.

Multipurpose spoons

In the JetBlue terminal at JFK, they had amazing spoons:

I'm not sure what makes them "multipurpose" since they basically looked like normal plastic spoons:

Notice that the knives, however, are not multipurpose. So, maybe you are only allowed to use the knives for cutting, but you can use the spoons for stirring tea (or coffee!), eating soup (or chili), launching peas (or grapes), as guitar (or banjo) picks, backscratcher...

This was my first time flying JetBlue, and I must say: They have the most amazing planes:

0 mph, parked at the gate, and yet the plane was still at 5 feet of altitude! More incredible, though, was our plane back from Texas:

It reached 420ft while parked at the gate! If they have worked out the secret to antigravity hovering planes, no wonder they can afford to provide multipurpose spoons instead of those cheap single-purpose ones the other airlines have.

Combustion Man

This semester I am taking a class called Combustion.  It is a fascinating class that I am very much enjoying, however I seem to have a problem with writing my name on thing for the class.  This is what I found when I had my midterm returned to me.

I did it completely by accident, I guess I was so focused on the subject matter.  I also have a habit of not writing my name on the weekly quizzes we get in class.  When a recent quiz was returned to me my professor wrote in my name as such.

There are only four people in the class so its not difficult to figure out who didn't put there name on something.  Last Friday I remembered to put my name on the quiz (although I remembered just before I was handing it in).  I wrote "Mr. Combustion Man."  I think I am not going to write my actual name on anything more for the class except maybe the final project (but I will probably add, AKA: Mr. Combustion Man).

Biochemies DNA Molecule Plush Dolls

A friend of mine from KGI invented some cool magnetic DNA plush dolls. There are little magnets inside which are arranged so that they only fit together when you arrange them the correct way.

She started a "Kickstarter" to actually manufacture them - which I hereby endorse! Note that my plushies will go directly to Moshe.

See, and support the kickstarter campaign here.

Conference and a paper

Last week I attended the OSA Renewable Energy and the Environment conference in Austin, TX to give a talk. It was a good conference, and the weather was a pleasant change from the wacky power-outage inducing snowstorm which hit NJ just before we left. I have a couple of things to blog from the trip, but that will happen over the next few weeks.

Additionally, I just had a paper accepted to the Journal of the Optical Society of America B. It's currently listed on the Early Posting page on their site, and the full paper can be found on my website.

HELP!!!

Four years ago I committed a single act of graffiti in the Rutgers Engineering building.  In pencil I wrote a message on the top of a display case.

As is clear from this picture it is still there.  For those of you who need glasses.

Help I am Stuck in A Display Case.

The thing I find surprising is that no one has let the poor guy out of the display case.  Also, if he was inside the case how did he write on the outside, I guess only those of you who read this will know.

Why Are People No Longer Interested In Amazing Things Around Them?

I was walking to class today when I noticed something totally fascinating.

This is cool and beautiful.  A melding of nature and man made.  The water is flowing on the inside of the drain pipe and when it turns the corner is doesn't separate from the pipe it sticks with it until it reaches the end and then arcs out into the air.  I decided this was so cool that I would take some pictures of it.  While I stopped to take out my camera and take the pictures a number of people walked passed without even stopping to see what I was looking out.  Are people so jaded in the world after all the 3D special effects in movies that they can't see incredible beauty in their day to day lives?

Wherever you go look around you, there will be something to marvel at, don't miss it!