It’s been awhile since I posted… I want to share my experiences with you on my latest adventures…

Working at the AO is aside from being so way cool, quite challanging, and loads of fun.
The people there are warm, giving and just so down to earth. They are quite friendly and cheerful. I’ve made many new friends there.

My role is to operate and assist the scientist in their efforts. Several equipment are used to help them in their observations. The coolest part is being able to move and control the platform, dome and carriage house and its internal receivers and transmitters from the control room… I feel like I’m at NASA’s control room during the moon missions…   I have about twenty-one monitors to monitor.

The first half of the month, I was given the inside tour of the platform which hangs about 500 feet above the dish (305 meter wide)…most people that work on the platform take the cable car to the platform’s main entrance. What a ride!

From the platform there’s an excellent view of the Control Room and the Visitor’s Center.  That’s not to mention the view of the whole island! We arrived up at the entrance to the platform and started weaving are way to the rotary joint were we had to go into an opening and climb down. From there we can walk to either the carriage house or the dome.

The dome is so cool. Next we went to the elevation floor and climbed down the dome platform to then walk over to the entrance of the dome. Inside of the dome is like a three floor building: Inside the top floor is where the dual Klystrons are kept for the S-band Receiver and Transmitter plus loads of cabling and water holes (used as part of the heat exchange system located outside above the dome). 

The middle floor is where the rest of the equipment is located. They are on a rotating floor which allows the scientista a choice of receivers/transmitters.  Both top and middle floor rooms are shielded to minimize any interference. 

Next, the bottom floor has a service platform (not enclosed) that allows Electronics, Maintenance, and/or Operator crew to interface with the horns and detectors coming through the rotating floor above. 

Ideally the receiver of choice is moved to the focal point (away from the service platform) to allow sending and receiving of signals to a small dish located at an angle right below the service platform. It directs the signal to another dish located among the inner surface of the dome which then directs the signal down to the main dish below the platform. The signals are received and transmitted from the main dish.

The main dish is amazing. Would you believe that it’s another world down there when we drive down below the dish? There are plants, streams, and small animals, plus lots of insects. The view of the platform from below the dish leaves me in awe. I’m amazed by the size and complexity of this telescope. More impressive are the people from the past and present that created and maintains this work of art in the best condition.   

If you ever get a chance to vacation in Puerto Rico, I highly recommend to add to your sightseeing a trip to the Arecibo Observatory Telescope — the world’s largest dish ever. It is something worth experiencing in person versus seeing it via a movie or pictures. If you want to know more about Arecibo Observatory visit www.naic.edu.

I’m in a dream…I didn’t picture being here in Puerto Rico and less so working at Arecibo Observatory and being a Cornell University Employee.

Sometimes, dreams really do become a reality. Don’t lose sight of your dreams because when you least except it an opportunity presents itself–and it’s up to you to recognize it and make that change. 

As always, I wish you and your loved ones much success.
Miss you, love you, with BIG Hugs,
Evelyn

P.S. There are a couple of pics of the control room in the Photos area of the site. Check them out.

Upon Request, here are the images of the both types of Klystrons used at AO: 

For further information on the 430MHz Radar visit: http://www.naic.edu/aisr/sas/transmitter/trans-home.html

The following are the older Klystron model are used for the 430MHz Observations:

                                   
         Klystron tube          Klystron Slipt power          Klystron Control panel
                                              and load

The next Modern Klystron model is used for the S-band Observations:

                      

Thanks to Leo Nardo (an old friend of Evelyn’s) for sending us down a box of new music to listen to. Leo heads up “Taste Da Flavour“, which hosts events that bring together music with local artists. For example, Leo does his DJ magic while models show off a designer’s newest works. Pretty cool stuff, and a really great guy. It looks like every Thurday this April he’s having events at Puerto Vallarta Restaurant (431 N. Wells). Check him out if you have a chance, and let him know that you’re friends of Evelyn.

I originally found this in Cook’s Country, but I’ve made a few modifications. A lot of people like this one, so I’m posting it up here. It’s pretty easy to do, and only dirties one pot (usually). Note that it looks a lot more complicated than it is, since I put in a lot of (hopefully) helpful hints. I’ve made this many many times, so I’ve got it down to a science.

1 tube of fridge biscuits (ex. Pillsbury, gives you 10 biscuits)

4 tablespoons of unsalted butter (1/2 stick)
1 onion, minced
2 celery ribs, sliced thin
2 carrots, peeled and chopped into quarters

(Your onions, celery, and carrot pieces should all be about the same size.)

1/2 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon cayanne pepper (optional)

2 3/4 cups chicken broth (about two regular size cans)
1/2 cup heavy cream (get a pint container, you can use it for other stuff)
2 teaspoons of chopped fresh thyme OR 1 teaspoon of dried thyme (works fine)

4 ounces of frozen peas (optional–about 1/4 bag of peas–make sure to defrost in water and DRAIN before adding, otherwise you’ll have too much liquid). Make sure they are defrosted and drained. If they come out of the frozen package already looking like prunes then throw them out, since they have already been refrozen at the store and will suck. Complain to your store and get your money back. They should never sell re-frozen veggies, since they are awful. It’s not the end of the world, you can still use them, but they won’t look as pretty and won’t taste as good.

1 rotisserie chicken, skinned, meat shredded (about 4 cups) OR 4 “normal” sized skinless boneless chicken breasts COOKED OR 5-6 “normal” sized skinless boneless chicken thighs COOKED. If you are cooking your chicken breast/thighs, just put a bit of oil in a pan and brown both sides of the chicken. Then let cool a bit and shred with a fork/knife/hands/whatever. Don’t worry if it’s not cooked all the way, since it will be in the broth for a while and get cooked through. Helpful hint: Cook and shred the chicken beforehand. It will sit at least 3 days in the fridge and makes the process MUCH faster. In other words, cook up the chicken on Sunday and have pot pie on Mon/Tue/Wed. Helpful Hint 2: I ALWAYS use frozen chicken thighs. Why? Because they taste good and are dirt cheap. Half the price of breasts and much tastier for this dish. Don’t be afraid of the chicken thigh! They are very tasty in dishes like this.

4 teaspoons of lemon juice (optional, but recommended, gives it a “kick”)

Salt and Pepper

Okay! Got your stuff? Let’s cook!

(If you are cooking your own chicken breast/thighs, then do it now. Have the chicken cooked and shreded before you begin.)

1) Cook the biscuits per package directions…except: Spray the biscuits with some PAM and sprinkle with salt. (You don’t need PAM, but I’ve found that the salt sticks better.) Helpful Hint: You are putting salt on them to give a counterpoint to the semi-sweetness of the pot pie. If you omit the salt, you may find that it’s too “sweet”. Helpful Hint 2: You don’t have to start cooking these now, you can wait a bit. But until you know the recipe it’s safer to cook these now, even though they only take 10 minutes.

2) Melt butter in large pot. Make sure it’s a bigger pot, like something you might cook stew or chili in. Not huge, but big enough. I used a 10″ wide by 4″ tall cheapie pot. Do this over medium-high heat.

3) Once butter is melted, toss in onion, celery, and carrot. Stir around every once in a while. Cook about 8-10 minutes until they are soft.

4) Stir in the flour and cayenne pepper. It will get VERY thick and CLUMPY–this is PERFECT. You want to think, “boy, I put too much flour in”. That’s OKAY. Stir every once in a while for about 8 minutes. If it smells like its burning, turn down the heat (this is UNLIKELY, since you have water in the veggies and fat in the butter).

(Once you have gotten good at this, you’ll put the biscuits in the oven at this point, since they will be done at the same time as the pot pie part. But, for now, just get them ready beforehand so you don’t have to worry about two things at once.)

5) Now stir in the broth. Start with ONE normal sized can. Stir in the cream. The sauce will be very thick. Stir in more broth until it’s thinner (like a cream soup). You’ll have to do this by eye. Helpful Hint: When you add the chicken stuff will get THICKER, so a little more broth is OKAY. When you add the peas they will thin out the sauce slightly (be sure to DRAIN THEM WELL–or it will be WAY TOO THIN). The thing to keep in mind is it’s easier to make something thinner. Better for it to be too thick and to have to add more broth than too thin and have to boil off.

6) If you are happy with the thickness, stir in the Thyme, Chicken, and Lemon Juice. Give it a minute. Does it look too think? Add a bit more broth (if you are out of broth, add more cream, if out of cream, add a bit of water). If it looks too thin, that’s okay, just let some of the water boil off.

7) At this point the biscuits should be out of the oven and ready. The “stew” (“pot pie”) portion should be done (ex. chicken heated through, sauce looks right, etc). Ready to go? Okay, dump in the defrosted peas and give them a stir. Grind in a bit of pepper and salt if you like. Let it sit for a minute then spoon into soup bowls. Then, put 2-3 biscuits on top of the “stew” and serve.

This will serve 4 people. For 2 people, you’ll be full and have a bit of leftovers. For four people, I’d probably add a bit more meat and cook two tubes of biscuits (if people like biscuits). If you are 1 person, then go for it! You’ll have some very tasty leftovers and lots of biscuits for yourself (or, just cook 5 of the biscuits and save the other 5 for later)! Note that when re-heating the next day it will probably be very thick. Just add some broth/cream/water to thin it out.

Since I have to resize pics all the time (for posting to the site), I’ve been looking for something dead-simple to use. Now I had previously used stuff like ThumbsPlus (a great product, but they want to charge me too much for upgrades) and other software, but I’m sick of paying out money for overly complicated software.

So I went poking around and found that Microsoft gives away a simple image resizer. It’s part of their Power Toys and is free for all. It doesn’t do anything except resize pics, but it does have Explorer integration, so it’s super-simple to resize a ton of pics at once. Check it out.

Here’s a download for those who don’t want to search Microsoft’s site: ImageResizerPowertoySetup.exe

Here’s what I’m currently working on:

“The Life of Potemkin” by Sebag Montefiore. Evelyn picked this up for me from the Arecibo Book Club. It’s an interesting story of a period of Russian history I previously knew nothing about. Interesting history reading.

“What If?” edited by Robert Cowley. I picked this up on remainder (for $10) at Borders. It’s a series of essays by eminent historians that cover alternative histories (ex. what if Lincoln didn’t abolish slavery, what if D Day failed, etc). I’m just starting this one, but it seems pretty interesting.

“An Alphabet for Gourmets” by MFK Fisher. An A to Z book by one of the most famous gourmets. If you like food, this is a good one. I’m reading the Folio release (since I’m a snob).

BTW: If you love good books, check out the Folio Society. They ain’t cheap, but they have great bindings. They are the kind of books that will last for generations. My Folio books are probably my most treasured (besides the rare super-old stuff).

BTW2: Speaking (bragging?) of rare books, I’ve got a number of them. Several are well over a century old. Plus, for you space nuts, I’ve got a couple books signed by Apollo astronauts (Al Bean, Gene Cernan, Buzz Aldrin, etc). Also have Shelby Foote (Civil War) and Kurt Vonnegut (many novels). It’s cool to have books signed by people who walked on the moon.

I subscribe to a couple of cooking magazines, all of which are really good: Cook’s Illustrated (the “brainy” guide), Cuisine At Home (my favorite step-by-step mag), The Rosengarten Report (expensive, but lots of great tips and “best of” lists; few recipes), and The Art of Eating (great food reading [a la MFK Fisher], not for recipes).

I like all of the above mags a lot (I have multi-year subscriptions), but I was really lacking a day-to-day “I need a good and tasty recipe that doesn’t require exotic ingredients” mag.

So, a couple of months ago I subscriped to the (new) Cook’s Country magazine. This is a cooking mag that’s from the people who put out Cook’s Illustrated. Instead of complicated stuff, it focusing on “comfort food”–but not cheesy crap.

It’s good stuff, made from scratch. Sloppy joes, French dips, stuffed French Toast, quick chicken pot pies, very tasty sandwiches, etc. Really good stuff that doesn’t take forever (or can be perpared beforehand) and does not require hard-to-find ingredients (most everything can be found down here in PR, which is saying something).

If you are looking for a good cooking mag that has a lot of traditional food (properly researched by the Cook’s Illustrated people) then check it out. I make more dishes out of this mag that all the others. I hope they keep up the good work. Highly recommended.

We just finished watching an older (1984) documentary on Harvey Milk. It’s about the colorful and tragic story of a San Francisco gay activist during the late 1970’s. It’s a very moving story and well worth the rental. It really gives you more background on the gay rights movement–I learned a lot.

(I know I rave alot about Netflix, but this is one of the reasons: It’s got decent suggestions [a la Amazon] so you end up renting stuff you enjoy that you’d normally never think of renting. We’ve seen so many interesting movies because of this. Very cool.)

Also, when you watch this movie you’ll be very pissed off at the end. But remember that this was filmed in 1984 (about 6 years after the incident). After you’re done watching, do a Wikipedia search on Dan White. You’ll find that karma (good and bad) has a way of catching up to you.

Just checking to see if there are any HAM (Amateur Radio) operators out there who are reading this blog. I’ve got a small HT with me right now (Yeasu VX-7R) that might reach Chicago (on QRP, 6M, with a big antenna). I should have my 100 watt ICOM 746 down here later this year.

My callsign, for now is KB9YVF/KP4 (KP4 indicates that I’m operating in PR). I’ve applied for a vanity call sign, which will hopefully go through in the next couple of weeks (WP4RON or NP4RON are my preferred).

Since I’m a Tech, I can only operate down to 6M, but I’m working on my General ticket(gotta work on my Morse). Luckily, there are a number of hams at the telescope, so they can do the VEC testing for Ev and I. Isn’t it odd that guys working at the largest Radio Telescope are interested in Amateur Radio .

P.S. I’ve got some cool “behind the scenes” picks of the Observatory, which I’ll post shortly…I promise!

As you might have heard, we currently get about 5 TV stations down here (and two of them are duplicates), so we end up watching a lot of movies. We have Netflix down here (which is a great service, in my opinion), but we only get three movies at a time…and since we get them shipping from NJ, they sometimes take a couple days to get here.

So, we just ordered some “box sets” from Amazon: 50 Movie Pack Horror Classics and 50 Movie Pack Mystery Classics. Yep, that’s right, each set comes with 50 movies (on 12 DVDs). The best part is the price: Each set runs under $25.

Now don’t go expecting grade A movies here. These are all old B movies, some in color, some in B&W. Some are stupid, many are decent. Some are “talkies” some are silent. The quality is okay for the most part, but do go expecting Dolby DTS Surrount. Heck, for less than 50 cents a movie you can’t complain that much.

So, if you are stuck in the campo, or just want some cheap old movies to watch, you can’t go too horribly wrong with these sets. Heck, even if you liked even only one movie it’s still only $25. If your dad is anything like mine or Evelyn’s, they will love these sets. It’s a good way to unwind after a long day of work.

I recently picked up two new games for my Nintendo DS: Tetris DS and Bust A Move DS.

Bust A Move is, well, like every other BaM game out there. It’s a pretty fun puzzle game, but this time you use the touch screen to “throw” the little ball onto the playing field. It’s a decent game, and has multi player modes (no WiFi), but it’s not that great. If you really love BaM, get it, otherwise I’d hold off for something else. I say this not because the game isn’t good, but because it doesn’t give you ANY alternate game play…which brings us to….

Tetris DS. This is really a great game that I’ll be playing for hours on end. You get your regular dose of Tetris, which is still a great game. But, the real fun is in the alternate games they have. There are “TOUCH” games where you use the pointer to move pieces around to remove stacks of pieces (hard to explain, but really fun). There’s a “PUSH” games where you battle head-to-head on a single playing field, trying to “push” the other player across a boundry line.  There are ”PUZZLE” modes where you try to do certain things with the pieces they give you.

These alternate games are MUCH MUCH better than those found on the GameBoy Advance version of Tetris (Tetris Worlds, I believe). Those seemed simple and tagged on. These seem like independent games. Loads of fun.

Plus, the best part of all this is that you can play multi player–either locally or on WiFi. That means Ev and I can play most of the games head-to-head with one cartridge. Or, I could play against anyone in the world using WiFi (I’m working on getting this to work with my Verizon EVDO wireless card–I’ll probably need to buy Nintendo’s WiFi USB gizmo).

So, in summary, Tetris DS is a must-buy if you like puzzle games. Bust A Move is okay, but really doesn’t give you anything special (though it is pretty “cheap”–I picked it up for $22 down here). I’ll probably be playing BaM more in two-player wireless mode, but I’ll be playing Tetris DS all the time.