Swift 5-Year Conference Celebration

The Swift mission celebrated its 5th anniversary with a 3-day conference at the Pennsylvania State University. Since UVOT team had their own meeting prior to the conference, I spent the entire week in State College. This was an opportunity to sample the local restaurants including the Cozy Thai, the Indian Pavilion, the Golden Wok, Herwig's, and the Berkey Creamery. While returning from the Indian Pavilion, we passed the pig sculpture (photo below) celebrating the 100th year of State College. After the conference banquet Thursday night, many of us went to hear Maxwell Strait at the club Phyrst. The beer was cheap, the band was loud, the place was jumping,  cigarettes were found in surprising locations, and the band did not quit until 2 a.m. Their lead guitar player resembled the PI of one of the Swift instruments. Attendance was down at the start of the Friday morning session.

The final day of the conference was exactly 5 years after the launch of Swift, and several cakes (left photo) celebrated the occasion. For some reason, everyone wanted a picture (right photo).

Elihu Boldt Memorial Symposium

About 100 of Elihu Boldt's friends and colleagues gathered at the American Center for Physics in College Park, MD, on November 6, 2009, to celebrate his life and legacy. In addition to those of us from the X-ray Astrophysics Branch at GSFC (which Elihu founded), there were also friends from as far away as Italy and Mexico and several people who knew Elihu as a student at MIT. There were a series of short talks about the wide range of topics that Elihu worked on during his long career. I was honored to contribute a talk on Galactic Ridge X-ray Emission. Elihu first published a paper on the topic in 1969 and was still suggesting observations a couple of years ago. An agenda for the symposium and links to some of the talks are available here.

Mary Ann Mears Sculptures

Mary Ann Mears is a sculptor who lives in Baltimore, Maryland. Many of her sculptures grace public areas such as bike paths in Maryland (where I first encountered them), but they are also found in other states and even in Japan. The sculptures are typically large, brightly colored abstract shapes made of aluminum or steel. The table below provides information about all the public sculptures that I know about. Unfortunately, there are rarely expository plaques with the sculptures. Another list of her sculptures can be found here.

This interactive Google map gives accurate locations for those in Central Maryland that I have viewed.

I would like to make this table as complete and accurate as possible. Please post a comment if you have additional information about her public sculptures.

Click on the photo links to see images of the sculptures.

Title / Installation Date	Location / (Marker on Google Map)	Links	Comments
Beacon 1 1985	Bethesda Metro Station plaza (A)	photo photo	A major work in the large plaza at the station entrance.
Gyre & Gimble	Imagination Stage 4908 Auburn Ave. Bethesda, MD (B)	photo close-up plaque	a whimsical collection of sculptures
Floating Garden Spring 2004	3003 Hospital Dr., Cheverly, MD (C)	information	inside Cheverly Health Services Building
Coloratura 2002	Southern Ave. Metro Station (D)	photo
?	Baltimore & Annapolis Rail Trail Glen Burnie, MD (E)	photo information	adjacent to bike path
Caracol 1984	Snowden Center Oakland Mills Road Columbia, MD (F)	photo information	An odd, out-of-the-way location.
Red Buoyant 1978	100 E. Pratt St. Baltimore, MD (across from Harbor Place) (G)	photo information	Duplicated in Kawasaki, Japan
Red Buoyant II June 1984	Nikko Hotel Kawasaki, Japan	photo information	An expression of friendship between Baltimore and Kawasaki
Boanerges 1978	Northeast Middle School Baltimore, MD
Brio 1979	Ft. Worthington Recreation Center Baltimore, MD	information
Ailes 1983	Notre Dame Prep School Towson, MD
?	White Marsh Mall
Esperance 1983	Conn. Dept. of Mental Retardation Norwalk, CT
Oasis Diffraction 1999	1219 Broad St. General Assembly Hall Durham, NC		a mobile inside the Hall
Sky Dancing 1994	Student Recreation Center UNC-Chapel Hill
Caged Heuristics 1997	Meyerhoff Gallery

Another Year of No Mercy

The last regular game in 2009 for No Mercy, Building 2's coed team in the GSFC Slow-Pitch Softball Association, was Monday, August 10th. Once again the team avoided being "mercied" (the other team scoring 10 runs in one inning) for the whole year, although we did give up 7 runs in the first inning of the last game before coming back to make it a respectable 7 to 5 loss.


Surprisingly I played the whole year after sitting out 2008 with shoulder pain. Physical therapy followed by a steady regimen of exercises made throwing pain-free once again. As in 2007 and 2008, there was the traditional No Mercy cheer, and then a trip to Side Pockets to celebrate another season.

Two weeks later No Mercy played in the co-ed tournament with teams from both the Monday and Tuesday leagues. The games were shortened to 4 innings, and there were some minor rule changes to speed things up. We handily won the first game, but were shut out in the final games. Since our regular pitcher was unavailable, I pitched all 3 games. I set another personal record in the second game by giving up 3 home runs to the same batter. Two easily cleared the center field fence. On the second one, I gave the pitch the most arc ever, but he still crushed it. This adds to my other pitching "accomplishments": a 4-pitch inning and a full 7-inning game with no fielding chances. Sadly, it was the final game for our star "ringer", who is taking a post-doc position in Massachusetts. At least she went out with a bang -- a bases-loaded homer in the first game. We later gave her an appropriate send off.

Atholton High School Soccer

My daughter is once again playing on Atholton High School's junior varsity soccer team. She played well (left photo) in the team's first three games and scored goals in each victory including a header against Howard High (right photo). The soccer program had its annual "play day" Saturday morning, Sept. 12th. Players from both the boys and girls teams, junior varsity and varsity (above photo), played 7 vs. 7 games all morning. Each team had players from all four school teams. There was a wide range of skills and sizes, but the ball was passed around to all the players, and a good time was had by all. At the end of the morning, the parents got to show their moves (at least what was left of them), and played the high school players to a nil all draw.

End of Softball

The last game in 2008 for No Mercy, Building 2's coed team in the GSFC Slow-Pitch Softball Association, was Monday, August 4th. In some ways it was a disappointing year with many games missed due to rain, schedule byes and a forfeit. Because of a shoulder problem, I only played one game, and it seems unlikely that I will play next year. On the other hand the team did avoid being "mercied" (the other team scoring 10 runs in an inning) for the whole year, and new players were added to the roster. As in 2007, after the game we went to Side Pockets to celebrate another season.

Rafting Down the Lower New River

On the weekend of July 12th, 2008, I went white-water rafting on the Lower New River near Fayetteville, WV. The trip was engineered by MD (initials only on this blog), who convinced 15 of her friends to join the expedition. She also set me up with three people who were leaving from Columbia and had room for an additional person (me) in their van. "Claire", our virtual navigator with the sultry British accent, guided us down I-95, around "Interstate four hundred and ninety five" and toward the far reaches of Va. We had a good time on the long ride, but for some reason the van liked stopping at every Sheetz convenience store along the way.

We used North American River Runners, Inc., for the trip, and everyone camped out at their headquarters in Hico, WV (Marker A on this interactive Google map). This was my kind of camping --perfect weather, drive right up to the camp site, hot water showers, and a restaurant. For only $10, they would even set up a 2-person tent for you. All it lacked was a liquor store. Fortunately others had anticipated this possibility and were quite generous with their provisions. We were entertained at night with shadow shows on the side of a tent featuring someone's toes.

The next morning we packed up, grabbed a helmet, paddle, and life jacket, and rode in a large bus (left photo) across the New River Gorge Bridge (Marker B) and down into the gorge to the river (I believe near Sewell -- Marker C). I believe the altitude is about 550 feet (old topo map). The area is part of the New River Gorge National River (map that identifies Class III (definition) and above rapids). There was a large crowd of rafters where we disembarked (right photo), but at about 10:15 am it was our turn to go. Ominously there were about a dozen buzzards watching us from a large tree on the other side of the river. Our group of 16 was in two large 8-person rafts (plus the guide) like the one in the foreground of the right photo. The raft that I was in also included the three people that I drove down with and MD. I think only MD had ever been rafting before, but fortunately the guide (the tall man with his back to the camera toward the left of the right photo) knew what he was doing and carefully explained what we should be doing. Each rafter sat on the edge of the raft with their feet wedged under one of the inflatable tubes running across the raft. This made it easy to paddle while still being well connected to the raft. The weather was pleasantly warm, and there were enough clouds to keep us from getting baked by the Sun. I took my (very) old digital camera along in a dry bag, but only risked taking pictures a few times on the river (when there were calm stretches). KJ brought a waterproof camera, and it had to be fished out of the river once by our guide.

The first large set of rapids (Upper Railroad?) was real exciting, and at one point most of the people on the right side of the raft were thrown over to the left side. At the time I was thinking that this could be a long trip, but looking back I suspect that we simply were not quite ready. After a while, it became a standard joke as we approached more rapids to tell people to stay on their own side of the raft. Before we entered a rapid the guide would always tell us which direction to swim if we fell off. Fortunately no one in our raft ever did, but we did see two people fall off rafts going through rapids, and one large raft flipped over. A guide also fell off.

The front car is the most exciting position when riding roller coasters, and the same is true for rafting. Instead I sat in the back left of the raft where no one could easily check how hard I was paddling. For some reason, the right side of our raft was by far the wetter -- only one big wave came over the left side of the raft. Surfing was an interesting, unexpected part of rafting. After going through a rapid, we would turn around and paddle back. There is a quasi-stable position just downstream of the rock that obstructed the flow of water.

About noon we stopped for lunch at the side of the river. The guides provided cold cuts for sandwiches, salads, and cookies. Lunch also provided the opportunity to take a few photos. It took two attempts to get the group photo to the right. In the first attempt, the person taking the photo thought that she took 3 pictures, but actually was not pressing the shutter button hard enough. Fortunately someone wanted to look at the pictures and discovered there weren't any. The right photo is actually the 6th pose, and people were beginning to act up.

Although the rapids provided the thrills during the trip, most of the time was spent just floating down the river. We really did not paddle that much. In several of the stretches between the rapids, we were encouraged to jump off and float down the river near the raft. It was great fun, and in a couple of places you could even float through wimpy rapids. The water was surprisingly warm, but still refreshing.


Toward the end of the trip, our guide suggested that someone "bull ride" the final set of rapids, and we volunteered MD. Holding a rope attached to the front of the raft and sitting precariously on the front (like the person in the right photo), she rode into the rapids. Fortunately she had the good sense to fall back into the raft instead of forward into the river.

Near the end of the trip we floated under the New River Gorge Bridge (HDR photo), which we had crossed several hours earlier. It is an amazing structure whether viewed from its deck or from the river 876 feet below (right photo). When finished in 1977, it was the longest steel arch bridge in the world, and it is still the second highest vehicular bridge. It is closed to traffic the third Saturday in October every year for the New River Gorge Bridge Day party. Last year 155,000 people showed up to watch BASE jumping (YouTube video) and rappelling down the bridge. For comparison, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Walk draws about 50,000 people.

Just downstream from the bridge, a large rock provided an opportunity to jump into the river. It seemed like a good idea in the raft, but not so smart from the top of the rock. Since there is no easy way back down the rock, in you go (right photo).

We left the river a bit downstream of the large rock and piled into another bus at about 2:30 pm. We had traveled about 6 miles on the river and dropped about 300 feet in altitude. With fortunate timing, it started raining very hard just as the bus headed up the side of the gorge and then back to the campground. After a quick change into dry clothes, we started the long trip back to Maryland.