Blackout!

The night I came back from Wisconsin I had the unpleasant surprise of finding that the electricity in the entire neighborhood was killed! Well, I have been in power outages before, so I assumed the power would come back shortly. Ha! After spending the entire night in complete and utter darkness I learned from my landlady that the authorities say it would take "several days" to fix the problem. I don't quite understand why it has to be so slow. Clearly, in a gritted city like Chicago (and its suburb Oak Park, my current home), a power outage in a well-defined area indicates a problem in the feed into that area. That junction should be quickly found, shouldn't it? We have been without power now for more than 24 hours, and a remedy is not in sight. For some reason the German saying, "sich schwarz ärgern" comes to my mind, meaning "to turn black in anger". No light, no cooking, no fridge/freezer, no laundry, no TV, no internet (I"m so desperate that I am writing this in the lab at 8 pm on a Saturday) - even our water is heated electrically! So in order to kill some time I decided to go and see a movie, but there was none I would have liked. Remember, I couldn't check the shows online, so I only found out in front of the theater, which is 40 min walking from my home. And then, on the way home, disappointment was joined by humiliation, because the storm that had killed our power decided to return and make me soaking wet. I''l keep you posted.
Update: After a total of about 25 hours the power finally came back.

Wisconsin

Like any other scientist, I have to attend conferences once in a while. After going to San Jose last November, I had now the chance to bring up my state count to five. I currently live in Illinois, I went to Georgia to meet my friends Heather and Jon, I went to California for another conference, and finally I spent the New Year's Eve and Day 2010 in Michigan. (I didn't write about the last one, but it was very nice!) The Physical Electronics Conference 2010 was held in Milwaukee, WI, so there was not much traveling needed. My colleague Jun (who later made the second place in the poster presentations) drove us about 100 miles north, always following more or less the lakeside. The first night there was just a welcome reception. Fortunately I had the opening slot for the entire conference, so soon enough I could get over with my talk (which went okay, should anyone care). Then I could relax (and wear more comfortable clothes, even though I enjoyed being able to show off my posh outfit another time) and follow the other presentations without worries. Fortunately the first World Cup matches of each day finished just in time for the first session of the day, so I could even watch Germany-Serbia live! Unfortunately the game was just the worst case scenario for Germany - after about half an hour they had to play with one man down, due to a red card, then one minute later Germany scored the only goal of the game, and to conclude a truly abysmal experience, after about one hour Germany missed a penalty kick. Then I was ready to go home to Chicago!

Sports

Sports are important in the United States. They are also important in Europe, including Germany. However, the kinds of sports people consider important on their respective side of the Atlantic Ocean are different. Americans' top four are: American football, baseball, basketball, ice hockey. Europeans favor soccer, soccer, soccer, soccer. That said, I must confess I am double lucky! First, on Wednesday the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1961. (Alas, the drought is naught!) Second, the FIFA World Cup 2010 has kicked off today.
Yet, while I enjoy living in the city of the new NHL champion, I am by no means a die-hard ice hockey fan. I did buy a hat a while ago (see photo), but merely to show my affection for my current home town. I also have various other merchandise items from the Chicago Bulls (basketball), the Chicago Cubs (baseball), the Chicago Bears (American fottball), and even the Chicago Fire (soccer). In fact, I learned about the Hawks' successful season only when they entered the Final Four, because then the city-wide hype got so large it reached even me. Still: yay for the Hawks! Good job, guys!
However, now it is soccer time! Unfortunately, the time difference between Chicago and South Africa, the host nation, is not exactly in favor of my plans on following the matches. Kick offs are 1:30 pm, 4 pm and 8:30 pm local time, which is 6:30 am, 9 am and 1:30 pm in Chicago. I am willing to get up for the first match, but if I watch the second one at home, I won't be able to start working before noon, which is unacceptable. Hence, forget about the third match, too. That wouldn't be so bad, if there were matches at 6:30 am every day. That slot won't be used anymore before we are even half way through. And that's when the play-offs start, when it actually becomes really interesting!
You know, Germany needs any supporter they can get. Across the world Germany still has a bad reputation for historic reasons. It is because back in the 1930s the government turned the entire population into haters ... and I now found evidence how it was done: they had Hass avocados! If you are no speaker of German: Hass means hate. As you can see with your own eyes, both the Anglophonic and Francophonic world have seized this infamous fruit and are dealing it out recklessly to anyone. (Even to me, for that matter!) What's even worse: they are luring people into eating it by advertising how "mild" this guacamole were!
Anyways, enjoy the World Cup, everyone! No hating! May the best team win! As for Dr. Feltes, it will be South Africa, as it is where she will start a new job next month.

Another PhD!

This is a picture of my friend Theresa and me. Before I introduce her, please look at my eyes - no more redness! There are less than three days in between the peak of the conjuntivitis and the present photograph. Yay for the doctors at Rush!
But now back to the important part. Theresa began this day as Ms. Feltes, and she ends it as Dr. Feltes! Congratulations to her with all my heart! She successfully defended her dissertation and will soon be officially bestowed upon the academic degree of Doctor of Philosophy, but actually in Chemical Engineering. Some of her experiments were done in the same room where I currently do mine - if you care about going back and looking for yourself, see photos here and here; the blue chair in the background was occasionally hers.
As much as I am sad about her departure for the next stage in her career (postdoc), I am happy for her, because I am enjoying the exact same experience right now. Good luck to you, Theresa, you will be greatly missed!

Conjunctivitis

I am usually a pretty healthy person, with no persistent problems. However, I have been recently haunted by a strong cold, which kept me away from work for half a week. Earlier on this week, the infection apparently resurfaced to have a rematch with me, this time affecting my eyes (see photo). As I was later told by a doctor, the symptoms are those of a conjunctivitis. I thought so myself, as I have had some before, but I didn't know the English term for what Germans call Bindehautentzündung. Yet it became apparent to me that the two must be the same: a (con)junction is something that binds several items together; hence the first part of the German disease. Haut means skin, referring to the membrane that the conjunctiva is. Finally, Entzündung means inflammation, indicated by the suffix -itis.
I have outlined before that such language geekiness is one of my pet pass times, and I thought after all the emphasis on potential transatlantic divisions it is nice that despite the Germans using a Germanic descriptor and the Anglophones a Greek one, the described concept is the same in both languages: a little piece of skin that connects two other parts of the eye is burning. I can find true delight in such parallelism, even if I am the one with the red eyes ... only five months shy of Halloween!

Travel Limits

There is one more aspect to my trip to the Golden Gate Bridge that deserved being addressed, but it makes sense to dedicate it a separate entry. In fact, the spot on the beach at the Golden Gate has been the furthest west I have travelled so far (in terms of longitude). My stay in the U.S. is the first time outside Europe, so anything west of that will set a new record. In that light, the trip to the Californian west coast is about as far as I can go within the (contiguous) United States. While I would certainly like to visit Hawaii and Alaska, those places will have to wait. - The runner-up in the west is actually the Chicago area.
The eastbound limit had been Budapest, Hungary, since September 1999, and was surpassed only recently, in 2007, when I went to Turku, Finland, for a scientific conference while still being a graduate student. To date, Turku still holds the record; actually both in the east and the north. The second most northern location I have visited so far is Glasgow, Scotland/UK, where I spent one wonderful semester as an undergraduate student.
Finally, southbound I have gone as far as Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands that are Spanish territories just in front of the African Atlantic coast. The Canary Islands share the same lattitude as Orlando, FL. The runner-up in this direction is Atlanta, GA, where I spent an as great as intense weekend with my friends Heather and Jon, number three is the San Francisco Bay area, and believe it or not: number four are both the area of Naples, Italy, and Chicago, IL! While Italy is generally perceived as a warm country (and rightfully so), Chicago is infamous for its cold Midwestern winters ... Indeed, Europe is not only east, but also (mostly) north of the U.S., but I don't think there is a single place in Germany that gets as cold as Chicago in the winter. You would have to go as far north as Scandinavia to experience -17°F in the European winter. (Well, Russia might do the trick, too.)
Further travelling plans encompass Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where I have a friend and former colleague from Berlin; several coastal cities in China; Moscow, Russia; Iran, Homa's home, which might prove to be complicated, due to political obstacles; and many other destinations that I am not thinking of right now.

The Golden Gate Bridge (San Francisco, CA)

As I have mentioned in the last post, I seized the day (Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009, to be exact) to go to San Francisco. The main site on my list was of course the Golden Gate Bridge, but originally I had planned to see also the local Chinatown, "the crookedest street" (a section of Lombard street, which is exceptionally steep), the Transamerica pyramid (a local landmark), and the cable car. As it turned out, I could accomplish just the Golden Gate bridge, yet it was still all worthwile the visit!
When I finally arrived (after travelling on the hilly streets of the city and in particular going through the Presidio, which I knew beforehand from a movie of the same name) at the Golden Gate, which is the narrow junction between the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean, the sight was incredibly soothing, and I could not help to become all meek and mild about the beauty of this location. The bridge itself is a very impressive structure, and the view around the Golden Gate is breathtaking, I have no other words. I saw Alcatraz, I saw downtown San Francisco, I saw all the sailboats on the water, and I finally laid my eyes on the Pacific Ocean.
Actually, I could not resist, so I laid even my hands on it. Next to the bridge there is a beautiful beach, and I climbed all the way down to the water and touched it with my hands. I lingered a bit, beholding the scenery and contemplating for a while, and then I climbed back up to the trail, from which I came. (Up was of course more complicated, and I knew that beforehand, but I simply had to.) Back on the trail I contemplated some more about the sunset, one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. In fact, I believe it is not possible to catch that moment with my camera, but I took a photo as a souvenir, so as to remind me of what I felt then.
And yet I had to part from my new favorite spot, as I was going back to San Jose the same night, and then to Chicago the next day.