Basil Tikoff and Steve Marshak, my graduate and undergraduate structural geology thesis advisors respectively, at the famous Van Hise Rock in Baraboo, Wisconsin.
Thursday Geology Picture: Cool Geologists Against Cool Geology
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Category Archives: wisconsin
Dragonflies On Algal Bloom, Door County, Wisconsin
Green Bay Packers, Superbowl Champions
February 6, 2011, 22:10 EST – @maitri: “We won the Superbowl, Packer nation! The Lombardi trophy goes home! Titletown! Aaaaahhhhahahahaha! LOVE LOVE LOVE!”
Packers quarterback & Superbowl MVP Aaron Rodgers with the Lombardi Trophy (thanks for the picture, Blair!)
That is all. I am going to be in bed for the rest of the week watching the highlights reel over and over again.
Someone Pinch Me
Rodgers, Shields, Matthews, Kuhn! Superstars! The defense rocked (Dom Capers, I am still naming our hypothetical son after you), but last night’s MVP was #90, The Fat Man, The Freezer: Busari Raji, Jr. To quote fellow Packer fan, Athenae, “If you like it, then you shoulda put a belt on it!”
How ‘Bout Dem Packers?
The oldest American football rivalry is set to meet again this Sunday for the NFC championship. This is only the second time these two teams have met in the playoffs since seven days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
D is excited. He wanted us to play the Bears and he got his wish. I simply wonder whether we want to play the Bears or a team that beat the Saints and the Bears (which Seattle didn’t, of course). It doesn’t matter. Sunday approaches. Who wants it more? Also, who do the refs want more?
You who know me well and visit here often know of my immense love for the Green Bay Packers franchise and why. It’s just that. Love. The love that envelops this team and its fans – people who own the team – and shoots from Lambeau Field to the most impossible corners of the earth. We are proud Cheeseheads of the Packer Nation, we wear, eat, drink and share goofy crap and don’t care who thinks what of it and the Bears still suck. Whatever happens, two things: 1) Whether our team is stinking it up with a 0-16 record five years in a row or in the playoffs, we never, ever leave a game early. Hell, with more than 80,000 names on the season tickets waiting list (that’s approximately a 60-year wait and I’m being generous), we demand and stick around for a fifth quarter. 2) The only beer bottle we’ll throw at you is one you have to catch and drink from.
It’s real, old love, baby.
Despite my love for football and the Packers, I don’t post much about them here given that I’m not into post-mortem analyses, prognostication and pools when it comes to sports. For me, it’s completely the athleticism and strategy of the moment. They play, score, win or lose, next game.
Another reason I don’t blog a lot about the Packers is you don’t want to know what’s in my head when it comes to this team. Imagine something louder than a Mardi Gras parade, all covered in green and gold and old-fashioneds and pasties and snowboots and antlers, that barrels down the field and plows into the stands for a Lambeau Leap. While Clay Matthews does this.
And you’re not even close. Everybody sing!
Les Squeals De Noël
Just look at them. My godsons:
1) are the squishiest little booger monsters ever,
2) rock the Ramones hats we got them (that I hope they hang onto long enough to grow into),
3) are in the will for at least $50 for being fans of the “Green Packers” (makes me shed tears of godmotherly pride right there) and coming along smashingly as yutes of Wisconsin origin, and
4) can now speak in whole sentences. For example: “Dammit, Wilman. Now mama has to spank yo ass.” (I’m just verklempt with pride, y’all, talk amongst yourselves).
The one we’re going to have to watch out for, however, is little miss K2.
Don’t underestimate us stragglers, for we will run you over when you’re not looking.
Forget the 1000 megawatt Cheeeeeeese. See those fingers? Move over eTrade Baby, there’s a new nuk in town. And this one’s for real. Yes, K2 was actually operating the laptop – mouse pad, buttons, Enter key, power switch, moving the monitor towards and away as if calibrating the display for optimal viewing – and all. AT AGE 2.
This crusty heart swelled up three sizes that day. Kid’s going to be Aunty Maitri’s bookie accountant soon.
More pictures (from Wisconsin and the Packers-Giants game) as I upload them.
2010 In Travel Photographs
JANUARY - Krewe du Vieux was All Fired Up!
FEBRUARY - The New Orleans Saints won SuperBowl XLIV which made QB Drew Brees our Bacchus XLII. All hail!
MARCH - Attended my second Where2.0 conference in San Jose, CA, where I did not play pool with OpenStreetMap founder, Steve Coast.
APRIL - In Madison, WI for the Department of Geoscience Alumni Board meeting. Of great interest then was the meteorite that had just landed in southwest Wisconsin and a sample that the UW Geology Museum obtained. The BP oil spill had also just begun.
MAY - Memorial Day weekend brings the Class A Arabian Horse Show to the Ohio Expo Center. These beauties were our neighbors' contestants this year.
JUNE - Hay baling in Northeast Ohio
JULY - Downtown Columbus, OH
AUGUST - Back in New Orleans for the launch of A Howling In The Wires and the fifth annual Rising Tide blogger conference. I moderated the Treme panel of Eric Overmyer, Becky Northcut, Dave Walker, Lolis Elie and Davis Rogan. The smell of Sardines In Louisiana Hot Sauce that Davis placed in my hand has still not washed off.
SEPTEMBER - Fort Collins, Colorado
SEPTEMBER - Chicago for a weekend with Athenae (and her adorable ferret trifecta), Anne and Lisa. And a record number of photographs from the Art Institute.
OCTOBER - The Dude at the Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear in Washington, D.C. What point the rally made I do not know, but we had a blast wandering amongst our own on a beautiful day in the nation's capital.
NOVEMBER - A wonderful week in and around Dublin, Ireland (as opposed to Dublin, Ohio) with Domingo and Mark. The 20+ pubs we hit were great, but what call me back are the hills and hiking trails of the beautiful glacier-carved Glendalough and its monastery. I have to return soon. Like tonight.
DECEMBER - Orlando, FL for the annual I/ITSEC conference. It was very nice to catch up with old friends and take pictures of domesticated hotel ducks without a) scaring them or b) falling in their pool.
Note: Thanks to geobloggers Silver Fox and GeoTripper for inspiring me to do this post. Check out their beautiful travel photographs, too.
School Spirit*
We interrupt our twee Irish broadcast to talk about American college sports fans. Not that the Irish don’t love their soccer and (awesome) rugby, but this needs addressing right now. In the name of SCIENCE.
Jen took PhD Comics’ recent Grad School Spirit Pop Quiz and scored 2 points. Her excuse: “I am a graduate student [at the University of Washington]!” Girlfriend. We need to get you out of that lab more often.
Science graduate school at the University of Wisconsin was (and still is) all about doing research AND attending football, basketball AND hockey games, AND knowing the fight song and special rituals and incantations for all said sports.
Let’s take Wisconsin football, for instance, and show you how we jump around in Camp Randall. Here goes:
1. What is your school mascot’s name? Buckingham U. Badger
2. What are the team colors? CARDINAL and white
3. What is the school fight song? On Wisconsin!
4. What NCAA division and conference does your school play in? Division I – Big 10
5. Who is the school’s main rival? Officially – Minnesota. Really – we hate Michigan.
6. What’s the name of the head coach? Bret Bielema
7. Bonus: 2 points if you’ve ever been in the stadium. How about 5 bonus points for not just having been in the stadium but working and living in its shadow every single day for five years?
Score: You did your undergrad in the same school, didn’t you? No, I did my undergrad at Illinois. Besides the Chicago Cubs, I’ve never been a fan of any Illinois sports teams. Also, the team-fan relationship in Wisconsin is legendary and special, you really get it when you get it and there’s no going back.
Scientists who are sports fans are not an anomaly, and I don’t really get the (need to prop up the) stereotypical nerd-sportshead divide. Geek-jocks for life!
Do you want me to start in on the hockey team next? Sieve sieve sieve sieve sieve!
* Just so you know, Kanye West ruined the phrase “school spirit” for me in that I can no longer think/utter those words without immediately following up with, “I feel a woo coming on, cuz.”
Teach Me How To Bucky
On nice, sunny days during high school and college at the University of Illinois, a bunch of us would take our fat slice of Garcia’s Pizza In A Pan and walk on over to the Quad to listen to Preacher Dan for lunchtime entertainment. I’d lazily peel off the extra pepperoni to munch on while the rest of the pizza cooled and Preacher Dan wouldn’t even notice us while he railed against pagans and homosexuals and feminists and Hottentots and everyone who didn’t Praise The Lord, Jesus Christ. At some point, a fellow student informed Dan that he was leaving Urbana for Wisconsin and the good preacher went off on the entire Dairy State because “it is named for SIN.” Cool! From that day forward and until I reached Madison myself, I could not say Wisconsin without gleefully stressing that delicious syllable. “Wisconsin … no, wait. WiscooonSIN! Heehee.”
Preacher Dan hasn’t been around the Quad for a while, I hear. What with the advent of smartphones and all, I wish I could have shown him this video. His sinless head would have ass-ploded.
They’ve got Band Director Mike Leckrone jumping around on Bascom Hill in there! And the new chancellor Biddy Martin shaking her poor head. AV Club has the full cameo roundup:
… Chancellor Biddy Martin, marching band director Mike Leckrone (in a fantastic sequin jacket), orange piccolo guy, the statue from the Camp Randall Memorial Arch (with a Conan-style talking mouth), and that brown party house outside of gate nine.
So many fun-filled years living, studying and working right next door to Camp Randall. In fact, D and I met *sniff* in its *sniff* shadow. From Illinois to Madison to Ohio State country. Man, I should be a Big 10 legend. And I miss the hell out of Madison. Best school ever.
Wisconsin In The News
1. Finally, Wisconsin is recognized for something we’re really, really good at. Thanks to Nathan at Flowing Data for posting this FloatingSheep gem.
Flowing Data | Where Bars Trump Grocery Stores: “Red dots represent locations where there are more bars than grocery stores, based on results from the Google Maps API. The Midwest takes their drinking seriously.” Actually, it’s just Wisconsin that does. Central Minnesota, Chicago and southeast Illinois lightweights need not apply.
2. USA Today Science Fair | Tectonic Plate Model Lets Users Play With 3D Planetary Puzzle
Dubbed MORVEL, for Mid-Ocean Ridge VELocity (because much of the data comes from the mid-ocean ridges) it was created by University of Wisconsin-Madison geophysicist Chuck DeMets and collaborators Richard Gordon of Rice University and Donald Argus of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
MORVEL lets allows users model the relative movements of 25 interlocking tectonic plates that account for 97 percent of the Earth’s surface. It’s being presented in the April issue of Geophysical Journal International and is based on work the scientists have been doing for the past 20 years.
A dynamic three-dimensional puzzle of planetary proportions! Chuck was on my MS thesis committee and we used older versions of MORVEL in our graduate geophysics classes. Glad to see this great research and teaching aid get the attention it deserves.