Mars and Jupiter conjunction seen this morning (aug 15). They were less than half a degree apart - less than the size of full Moon in the sky. Three moons of Jupiter are visible. Ganymede on the left, Europa and Callisto on the right.
As always, I was successful in capturing decent looking startrails while trying for Perseid meteors.
Having 2 college-going kids at home for Summer has been so nice. I haven’t gone grocery shopping since end of May. I add stuff to a shared list in iPhone app and it shows up. They have taken over the dishwasher duty, too. But, this is going to end soon and I’ll be back to doing my chores. 🙄
It was a pleasant night to be out looking for northern lights. Didn’t spot any but it was such a clear night, the Milky Way was shining brightly.
Recently, there has been a record number of sunspots as we are getting close to peak solar activity in its 11 year cycle.
August 1, 1024
August 11, 1024
Yesterday, there was a poster session for all the Summer interns at work. This year we had a bumper crop of interns and it was fun to chat with them about the projects they worked on. It was interesting to see that they were not only about hard-core science but also facilities management, engineering, applications of AI to data and clinical trials. My daughter got to present her work on establishing a protein screening technology platform and talk about it with many other scientists. I think this was a great experience for her to learn about research outside of academia.
In less than 2 weeks, I’ll have to go back to driving myself to work; no more carpooling with her.
First it was the IPL then T20 world cup, the Giro d’Italia followed by Tour de France and now Olympics!!! I have been watching so much sports on TV. Feels like my brain is getting saturated and want no more sports. But but but… Vuelta and Cycling world championship are just around the corner.
Went over Pequot (Thames) river on my commute to work this morning.
Did not know much about president Franklin Pierce but after reading this newsletter from Heather Cox Richardson, it is clear that he was a horrible piece of garbage.
Remco Evenepoel of Belgium won the Olympic road race today and added another gold medal to the one from last weekend’s time trial. This great performance after finishing third in Tour de France just 2 weeks ago. He is having a great year!!! Kudos!
Congratulations to Liam Corrigan (Gold in rowing) and Fred Richard (Bronze in gymnastics team) for winning the Olympic medals!!! Both have parents who are colleagues at work. Liam grew up in neighboring town of Old Lyme and was on the school crew team before going on to row at Harvard and Oxford. Looking forward to Fred’s participation in individual events in coming days.
Saw this on my [commute](https://www.strava.com/activities/12018293900) this morning. This pier in New London is the staging area for the off-shore windmill project in Long Island sound. Those blades are so huge - must be ~100 feet long. These windmills seem bigger than the land-based ones.
100 days to election. I sincerely hope that we only have to endure the orange convict for these 100 days. This is our chance to get back our lives from 8 years ago when we didn’t spare a thought for that vile person. Please go out and vote in November. 🤞🤞🤞
Watched a replay of the Olympics opening ceremony this morning. I liked how it was different from the ceremonies of the past. Great music and loved that drama of the flame’s journey. The rain I thought actually made the whole spectacle better. But that rain is not good for cycling time trial today.
OMG! The orange blob does not know the difference between mental asylum and refugees seeking asylum at the border. No wonder he always keeps talking about refugees and Hannibal Lecter. Just read this somewhere and it makes so much sense!
I always wanted to do a bike ride on every day of Tour de France. My plan always got foiled because of travel or having guests visiting or some other reason. This year was the first time I was able to ride on all 21 days - mostly outdoor rides (13) but occasionally indoors when the weather was bad or had a long day at work. In total, I rode 436 miles over these days - about 20% of total mileage of TdF. Not bad!
