Yes, I almost never post at the moment. But right now I’ve just had enough of writing my thesis, and I want to write something else, like a journal entry. So here we are. I expect that I’ll start with a few more general ideas, and then move on to justify the rather bad pun in my title. So, life first, code second (not that that’s the way I actually live, but it’s a good way to organize a journal entry.)

So, what’s going on with my life at the moment (other than writing my thesis of course)? Not too much, I’m afraid. I am making progress on my thesis though, so that’s definitely good news. Three of the five chapters either done or mostly one, and the fourth started, and I’m on target to defend at the end of July. And, my committee has been convinced to continue my funding through the end of August (for those who know something about how things have been going, this counts as a major victory).

Even with my thesis work though, I’m still learning new things. For example, a couple of weeks ago I discovered an excellent tip for those of you who cook. When one is trying to cook something (even if it’s just a simple “dump onions, vegetables, and maybe meat into a frying pan, cook it, and serve with rice, noodles, potatoes, whatever”), it is important to put the frying pan on the stove before turning the stove on, and vitally important to put the frying pan on the stove before adding olive oil and starting to cook your onions. Otherwise, the process becomes a bit messy. Or so it seems to me. Theoretically at least. Because, after all, I haven’t actually done anything like that of course.

Moving on now…

Well, I’m alive. And so is my research plan. In fact, my first draft (with figures) is complete. I’m linking to it below so that anyone who’s wondered what I’m doing can take a look at it.

Thesis lite

There are still a few things left to do before it’s finished (in particular, I need to figure out what signal-to-noise I’d need to get an equivalent width limit of 0.3 angstroms for each of the Mg II systems, and how long it would take to reach that SNR with various telescopes). Once I have the times together, I need to put them in a table, and put it in the research plan).

Now, as I said, it’s mostly up there for interest, but if any of you feel like commenting or asking questions, that would also be good. The plan is aimed at the level of the non-specialist astronomer, but I’m hoping that it’s not too specialized for the chemist on my committee. In particular, if you see any astronomical jargon that I use without explanation, then I should probably deal with it. And, of course, if my “motivations” section doesn’t motivate, that’s a problem.

It feels really good to be finished this thing finally. Well, mostly finished anyway. And I don’t even have to send it in until the 20th, so I have a bit of time to revise it (if necessary). And, hopefully, I get a good thesis out of it.

Ok, so this isn’t really the post about the curiously high metals content (that’s going to be a future part). Instead, this is the post about what I do, what spectra are, how we reduce them, and what we find out from them. If the post is still short enough, I’ll add in a bit about diffuse bands, and our results there so far (they’re published, so I’m quite safe in doing that).

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So now that we’ve found our DLA (and now that you all know what the “damped” part of damped Lyman-α system means), you can do something with it. But, since this has turned out to be another long post, I’ll discuss that in the next part, hopefully in a couple of days.

Soon there will be an actual update, involving the work I’m doing, what it means, how it’s done, and a few exciting new developments that are currently underway. Meanwhile, though, I’ve been asked to share a brief moment from a parenting course I was taking last night.

It’s the third week of the course, and the overall theme is about how to talk with children, and (of course) there’s homework, (mostly) involving actually trying to apply what you’ve been working on. So, at the start of the class, we were asked to share about if (and how) we’d applied the ideas from the previous class. My response?

“Well, I didn’t apply any of these techniques in talking with my child, but I did use them in talking with an employee of the Ministry of Children and Families. That’s the same thing, right?” The instructor, who has some experience with the ministry, agreed (of course).

Ok, that’s it for now. I’m off again to look at the case of the curiously high metals content.

First off, for all those interested in the “what is a planet?” debate, I suggest checking out this paper. A good read, and a good take on the subject.