Landing on Mars - Curiosity

BURBANK, CA -- Good morning everybody! Since I just wrote that long post about running and running gear yesterday, I thought this would be an appropriate start:

Haha... yesterday I did 8 miles, which went well - they were all under pace by a decent margin. Today is "only" 5 miles, and then 13 on Saturday. Another pretty good one:

Hahaha. These things get passed around on facebook all the time, and most of the time I don't share them, but those two were too good to pass up. On a more travel-related theme, which is more of what the overall spirit of this blog is about:

Lastly, I give you a great shot of me tossing a Frisbee in Australia, taken by super-awesome travel buddy Paula Asinas:

Check out that form!

On a blog layout tangent, there are a few new features I have added to catch up with the times. On the right-hand side there are now four buttons for facebook, twitter, we heart it, and google plus. Feel free to like, tweet, heart, and plus away! I also added a "popular post" section with the top five posts based on individual post views. Some of them seem obviously right (All 50 States, 100 Posts/Last Days in Egypt) while a few others I would have predicted to make the cut did not (how about anything from Antarctica?). In any case, they are pretty good and will change as people find and read other posts along the way.

Beyond traveling and running, two of the more exciting things to happen in the past month or so were that I finally felt my first earthquake back on August 7. It was a tiny little 4.4, but at least now I can check that one off the list!

A couple of days before that, I live-tweeted the final hours and landing of the NASA Mars Curiosity rover, which was a phenomenal success. Check out this amazing video of the final couple of minutes from NASA's JPL mission control, just 10 mins down the road from me over in Pasadena, CA:

Since landing, the rover snapped a bunch of photos and has gotten a chance to try out all of the various instruments it has, dusting everything off after 9 months of traveling some 350+ million miles from Earth. Yesterday, for the first time, Curiosity got to drive away from the landing site.

You can clearly see Curiosity's tracks in this photo, taken yesterday.

This is the first image Curiosity snapped from Mars, two weeks ago.

At the end of my live-tweeting the event, which was characterized by "seven minutes of terror," I wrote the following:

NASA just lined up multiple satellites in Mars orbit and live-relayed telemetry of Curiosity, a spacecraft the size of a car that slowed from 13,200mph to zero in 7 minutes, and hit a target within 1,000 meters after a 352 MILLION mile trip. And all of this happened blindly, a 13 light-minutes communications signal delay away. Congratulations to all - absolutely surreal.

Illustrating the above, not only did satellites orbiting Mars relay Curiosity's telemetry to Earth, but they even got a picture of Curiosity during the landing, with the parachute deployed.

This color relief photo shows Curiosity on the surface of Mars - this was taken by a satellite in Mars orbit.

Taken from Curiosity, this is the first color panorama, looking to the edge of Gale Crater.

Finally, I will leave you with the following video. These are thousands of images stitched into an HD movie. Due to the data bandwidth required, this was not relayed in real-time, but in the past couple of days everything finally made it back to earth and was stitched together. This is the last 45 seconds of flight, from the heat shield dropping away until the actual landing. It is a stunning reminder of what we can accomplish when we set our minds to it. Enjoy!

Running Gear

BURBANK, CA -- Good afternoon on another hot day here in southern California! Actually, it has been better the last two or three days. For awhile we were topping 100F on a daily basis last week and the week before. Such is summer in the valley!

I hope everyone enjoyed the daily updates from Australia. My apologies for the delayed posting of them. As often happens while traveling, internet access became difficult, so there was really no way to update them in real-time. Of course, when I got back I was swamped with work, so it took some effort to get everything up. In any case, they are all up now, in order, with the actual posting dates. If anybody has any comments or questions on those or any other posts, feel free to leave them below.

In the past three weeks since I got back, I have mostly been here in CA focused on work and running. Emphasis on RUNNING! I'm now in the midst of week 12 of training for the Chicago Marathon, coming up on October 7th. This will be my first marathon, and I am now at the point where the training is serious enough that I'm breaking all kinds of distance records on a weekly basis. Last Saturday I ran 18 miles, surpassing the then-record 16.25 miles I ran two weeks prior. Next Saturday is 19 miles, and so it goes leading up to the 26.2 in Chicago. A couple weekends ago I was in Houston for my Grandmother's 80th birthday party (my one trip since I got back from Oz), and instead of a relaxing vacation, I woke up at 445am to run a half marathon. In Texas. In August. Yes, really.

February 5, 2012 - Running at the Surf City Half Marathon

Besides all of the actual running, one thing that was very helpful in Houston was finding a great top-end running store, Finish Strong Sports. Here in LA I go to Run With Us in Pasadena. At home in Chicago, we frequent Runners High 'n tri in Arlington Heights. A few people who are just getting into running have asked about what type of gear I use, so here we go!

The first thing I would recommend is going into a good running store. If you're in Houston, LA, or Chicago, I would highly recommend the three places I noted above. Anywhere else, you should do some research. While in Houston, I picked up a new pair of shoes, Brooks Ghost 4's, and thanks to the combined advice of my podiatrist, the ladies who give me pedicures, family, and friends, I got them a full size larger than the Brooks I was running in before. The reason why this is necessary is because the longer you run for, the more your feet swell up. The larger your feet become, the more friction there is, and the more friction, the more blisters and nail damage you create. By getting shoes that are normally too large, you allow room for your feet to swell, and when they do there is less friction, preventing or at least lessening damage.

New shoes!

So far the shoes have been great, and I've recommended them to a few friends who have asked. I use them with custom orthotics and a flat insert over them (in place of the ones that come with the shoes). I think it goes without saying that shoes are the most important "gear" when it comes to running. The next-most important, to me anyway, is actually socks. If your biggest potential problem is blisters and crazy toenails due to friction, having a good pair of socks that wick away moisture will help reduce that friction. This is actually more important than at first glance - for a long time I was simply running in short nike socks, and that was okay for a few miles, but when I found myself doing 10K's (6.2 miles) and half marathons (13.1 miles) in them, I was having major foot and toe problems.

Since then, I have switched over to Asics hydrology socks. They're a bit more expensive than "normal" socks, but make an enormous difference. Not even a year ago I was completely wiped after running about eight miles, and it wasn't because I was any heavier or had been running less. It was because I was wearing shoes that were too small and socks that were not helping. Saturday when I finished my 18 mile run, I could have kept going if I really wanted to.

The rest of running gear I would characterize as important, but non-essential. If you're new to running, just make sure you have a good pair of shoes and socks, and the rest will be okay. For years I was wearing gym/basketball/tennis shorts, which are all fine, but when you get to 10+ mile runs, it does make a nice difference having actual running shorts. About a year ago I got a pair of Nike dry-fit shorts, which are great workout shorts, and for a long time those were my default pair I'd wear during races or other really long runs, since they are great at wicking moisture (notice the theme here).

September 24, 2011 - Wearing the Nike Fit shorts at the Midtown 5K in Palatine, IL.

In Houston, however, I upgraded to an actual pair of running-specific shorts. As great as the difference between the Nike fit shorts and your standard workout/tennis/basketball shorts is, you will find an equally great difference between the Nike fit shorts and a pair of actual running shorts. I went with their men's five-inch "race day" running shorts. There are a number of advantages to these. First, they are shorter and lighter, which simply helps from a weight standpoint. More than that, however, they also embrace dri-fit technology, helping wick extra moisture. But perhaps the biggest change is they come with built-in underwear, which greatly reduces friction and chafing, as well as combined total weight. The first time I ran in them, I felt like I was flying, and they no-doubt contributed greatly to being able to pull off such a good 18 mile run.

Shirts, to me anyway, are not very important, with two exceptions. One, you want a color that is appropriate for the conditions you are running in. Summer in most places means you should basically be wearing white, to reflect heat. Second is that you obviously want to be wearing a light, technical shirt. Sure, you can go run a 5K in a t-shirt if you really want to, and I sometimes do, but otherwise any type of technical shirt should be fine. I mostly wear all of the various technical race shirts I've collected in the past two years during training - right now I'm wearing my 2012 Hollywood Half Marathon race shirt, since I'm getting ready to go out and do 8 miles this evening.

May 29, 2011 - Running the Soldier Field 10 Miler

One thing that I learned the hard way that I needed, and this only applies to men, is nip guards. They're basically nipple protectors, which helps with chafing (and when you're doing that on your nipple for hours at a time, you end up bleeding). They are cheap, easy to use, and help a ton. I use these guys for runs over an hour (anything more than a 10K in distance).

That's about it! I wear a bandanna on race days or extremely long runs, which helps keep sweat out of my eyes (or at least prolongs it from happening). I also wear sunglasses regardless of the weather or time of day, since they're much more aerodynamic and help protect my eyes. I've made a few exceptions to this, but overall I'm almost always wearing sunglasses - they also keep me a little cooler.

May 1, 2011 - Running the Orange County Half Marathon

My favorite little gadget of all is my watch. I wear a Garmin Forerunner 410, which is quite the toy to have. In addition to the basics (time, distance, speed), this does a great job tracking you by GPS and thus determining your elevation, calories burned, split times, and a ton more I won't even get into. The best part is you can customize what you are looking at, so you can change things accordingly to get whatever information you want, even while you are running. This is something I did without for over a year, but now that I have it, I am a much better runner - I am able to be more consistent and adjust my speed in real-time.

Alright everyone - I hope you have enjoyed this running post and hopefully even found it useful. Congratulations to all of you who are at it for the first time, and well done to those who are just getting back into it after a few years absence. Enjoy the last few weeks of summer, go get a PR or two, and have fun!!!

SYD-LAX - What a trip!

July 28, 2012

LOS ANGELES, CA, USA -- Just as you lose an entire day crossing the international date line heading westbound, you gain one heading eastbound. The net result of this is you actually land even earlier than you left.

After departing our hotel we got to SYD and checked into our flight. We filled out our exit immigration cards, said an emotional goodbye to our incredible delegation manager Anthony, and proceeded through security. When we got to the duty-free area, we found out that as luck would have it, our flight was delayed three hours. Qantas gave us each a $30 (!!!) meal voucher, and eventually we departed around 4pm on July 28th from SYD.

One massive ocean and a particularly short night later, we landed at LAX on July 28th... at 12pm noon. Ah, the fun of international travel. :)

The flight itself was fine - we were on a newer (and thus nicer) plane than our LAX-BNE flight, and almost everyone got at least some sleep. One thing that was immediately noticeable was that after two weeks in cities and countryside that were pretty much completely pollution-free, we were landing into a typical summer day in Los Angeles - you know, where you can't see more than 5-10 miles in front of you.

On a complete side tangent, I will say that this summer has been noticeably better on the pollution front in LA. Overall, having visited here multiple times per year going back to 2005, it has actually become noticeably better pretty much every year. Turns out when you quadruple clean-energy production, double the efficiency of all electronics sold, and tax gasoline to the point everyone drives hybrid cars, it actually makes a huge difference. Sure, LA is still the most polluted city in the USA, but I am happy to report that it seems to be making strides in the right direction. 

For about half of us, our trip came to an end at LAX. We said goodbye to the PA delegates at baggage claim, and they set off through customs to their connecting flight to Philadelphia. We got through customs, walked up and around the ramp, and within about 30 seconds all of the students were reunited with their families. Only later did I find out that the PA students missed their flight, spent the night at LAX, and got back to PHL late on Monday, but it sounds like they had a good time, and everyone is safely home.

To our DM Anthony, thank you for your endless passion and enthusiasm that never waned in two weeks of traveling with us. It was educational and fun, and this trip would simply not have been such a great time without you. To all of my co-teachers, it was great traveling with you, and I look forward to doing it again soon - in CA, PA, internationally, with PTP, or otherwise. To the parents who I have met multiple times here in CA, and those from PA who were posting on facebook every hour or two, thank you for your support and engagement - I hope you learned a lot through this and felt like you were with us along the way! Lastly, to all of our students, I hope you had the trip of a lifetime. Like any experience, you get out of life what you put into it. Many of you wrote detailed, informative, and emotional journals, took excellent photographs, and made life-long friends with Australians and your fellow American students. Believe it or not, the best part is in front of you. Now you get to share your experiences with the rest of the world. Let the things that you have seen and done shape you, and you will be forever better off for having had these couple of weeks abroad. 

Sydney

July 27, 2012

SYDNEY, NSW, AUSTRALIA -- How did this happen so quickly? As they always do, suddenly our last full day in Australia arrived. Luckily for us, this was also our busiest (and I would therefore argue exciting) day of the entire trip! We had a quick breakfast and wasted no time going straight to the world-famous Sydney Opera House.

July 27, 2012 - A beautiful morning from the Opera House, in front of the Harbour Bridge.

Made it to the Opera House!

The Sydney Opera House is unique, to say the least. First of all, it isn't really an Opera House. Well, it is. But it is also many other things. The designers simply thought terming it an Opera House would get more attention and help bring Sydney onto the world stage. In reality, however, it's a huge performing arts center, and the biggest building within it is actually the Concert Hall. The smaller of the two is the Opera House itself, and there are many other stages below ground set for live-action musicals and plays, among other events.

However, like me, I would bet that you first heard about and remembered the Sydney Opera House for none of those things. What was it? The truly globally unique and instantly recognizable architecture. Did you know that the Sydney Opera House is the only building ever to be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site while the architect was still alive? Let that one sit for awhile - try to think of any other buildings that have that status. None of them were built more recently than the 1970s, when this was completed. 

Check out the amount of wood, and notice that the wood never actually touches the concrete.

The Opera House has commanding views of Sydney Harbour.

By building a "building within a building," the wood protects the acoustics inside.

Of the many things we got to see and learn on our private, behind-the-scenes tour, was that the entire complex was built for $102 million. In today's money, that would be about $1 billion. Worth it, sure, but they went just a tad bit over their original $7 million budget.

Looking at the actual Opera House, from inside the Concert Hall.

Inside the concert hall - there was nothing happening on stage, so we were VERY lucky to be able to take photos!

Inside the concert hall of the Sydney Opera House. Even the seats are made of wood.

Back outside, I really enjoy this photo of the tiles. Notice some are yellow. If they were all white, the building would blind people from across the water when the sun hits it. This helps dilute that just enough to appear white in the sun. 

After our excellent tour we headed over to the other side of Circular Quay for a walking tour of The Rocks, the oldest part of all of Australia. It was here that Australia was founded as a British penal colony in 1788, just a few years after the end of the American Revolution. While more than a century after the American equivalent, The Rocks are essentially to Australia as Jamestown and Plymouth Rock are to the United States.

Walking through The Rocks, dressed as convicts and British soldiers.

The Rocks

Following our tour of The Rocks, we had a quick lunch at Circular Quay, and then walked into the CBD to the National Opal Museum, where we learned about the various types of opals. Australia exports 95% of the world's opals, and they have quite the display. 

Students watching a worker cut and polish an opal.

We continued walking through the CBD and eventually arrived at the New South Wales Parliament House.

While currently the Parliament House for NSW, this was also the first-ever Parliament in Australia.

Interestingly, the Parliament House predates the founding of Australia as an independent, sovereign state. The building hosted the first Legislative Council in 1829, and the first elected Council in Australia in 1843. Today, it serves as Parliament House for New South Wales, the most populated of Australia's states, with Sydney as the capital. Do note, however, that Sydney is NOT the capital of Australia. That title belongs to Canberra, some 170 miles down the road.

Sitting in the Speaker's chair in the lower house.

Inside the Senate.

After meeting two different government representatives, one from each of the two houses in Parliament, we concluded our visit and walked through Hyde Park, over to our coach.

St. Mary's Cathedral from Hyde Park, Sydney.

We continued our day over at Darling Harbour, just a short drive away. It is actually a nice walk, but it was starting to get darker and colder, plus we had been walking all day, so we opted to drive instead. We first visited the Hard Rock Cafe, where I was able to get a collector's edition Australia PTP pin! Very cool that they had one.

Sydney CBD from Darling Harbour on a beautiful evening.

We finished our day with a nice dinner right at Darling Harbour. Some of the students tried kangaroo fillets, while I enjoyed a vegetable pasta. We retired back to our hotel, had our last group meeting together, and then started packing for the long trip home.

School visit and Harbour cruise

July 26, 2012

SYDNEY, NSW, AUSTRALIA -- We had a very busy day today, though ironically with "only" three things in the calendar for Sydney.

The first was our school visit at St. Mark's Primary School. Two or three of our students were grouped with two or three St. Mark's sixth-year students, who began by hosting a school-wide assembly introducing everyone. In talking with some of the teachers, they hosted a PTP group two years ago, wanted to last year, but it didn't work out - some of the students remembered the group a couple of years prior, and they had been spending weeks looking forward to hosting us! Needless to say it was a very exciting day for students and teachers, Aussies and Americans alike.

July 26, 2012 - Group photo after the school assembly at St. Mark's Primary in Sydney.

After the assembly the combined Aussie and American students went around in their small groups and visited with the various younger grade-level classes, introducing themselves and also answering any questions they had about living in the United States or anything at all. Us leaders went around from classroom to classroom taking photos and answering a few questions too. At one point, one of the younger third-year Australian students asked one of our CA PTP students about what Australia was like compared to California. In a gut reaction, before even really thinking about it, she answered "Australia is SOOOO much cooler! I love it here!" The Australian student's gut response was, "Uhhh... really?" Haha - everyone was laughing and it was pretty funny to witness in person.

Three PTP students with four sixth-year Aussie students, taking questions from a class of fourth-year students.

Following questions, the students broke off for snacks while us leaders met with school teachers and had some morning tea. Everyone was very friendly and welcoming, and the snacks were great too! We set off to the school library, where students made lists of similarities and differences in their small groups, and then got to present a few of their results. Some groups focused on food, others on sports, schools, animals, and everyday life. What everyone seemed to realize after presenting was that while the differences are interesting, there are many more similarities than there are differences - regardless of the category they focused on. As a well-traveled adult, this is something I am keenly aware of. What was interesting was watching the students figure it out over the course of an hour - their enlightenment was inspiring.

From the library we headed out to the park to play cricket, touch footie, and another capture-the-flag-esque game. The students broke into three groups and rotated, while some very nice volunteer parents cooked us a BBQ lunch in the park. 

Australian students made up their country border, with PTP students spelling "P2P" in the middle. 

Alas, it was already 2:30 and time to say goodbye! The students exchanged emails, and I would in no way be surprised to learn of some life-long friendships emerging out of our school visit. It was truly an exceptional day.

Amazingly, our day was not even close to over yet. For the first time since arriving in Sydney, we headed down to world-famous Circular Quay to board our Sydney Harbour cruise! As soon as we got to the ship, everyone saw the Sydney Opera House for the first time.

A lovely afternoon cruise past the Sydney Opera House.

We also passed right by the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which I climbed to the top of in 2011!

The Sydney CBD on the left and Harbour Bridge in the middle, as the sun sets.

Coming back towards the CBD after sundown - looks like we got a little wind! :) 

All told, we got some great pictures from the Harbour and the students really got to see the scenic side of Sydney for the first time. Following the cruise we set off to our home-hosted dinner, where a dozen or so volunteers cooked us a wide array of delicious local dishes. The great meal was a fitting end to an excellent day!

BNE - SYD and the 2000 Sydney Olympics

July 25, 2012

SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA -- It is SO NICE to be back in Sydney! Unfortunately I was not actively blogging at the time, but I had a fabulous trip to my then-sixth continent, spending nearly a week in Sydney in August 2011. As such, it is great to be back. That said, we should start at the beginning of the day...

We had a reasonably late wake-up of 630am today, checked out of our rooms, had some breakfast, and set off for BNE. When we arrived, we said goodbye to Rob, who was with absolute certainty the best bus driver I have ever encountered in all of my years of these trips. He was first and foremost a really good driver, but beyond that a nice, friendly, and informative gentleman who greatly contributed to our entire experience up in Queensland.

After our goodbyes, we got into the airport and saw the bad news that our flight was cancelled. A few minutes later we were re-booked together onto a flight two hours later - all told, not too terrible. We checked in, went through security, and got to our gate. Unfortunately by this time our flight was delayed another two hours, meaning a four hour delay for us, which was going to actually impact our planned itinerary on arrival into SYD. Qantas was kind enough to give us lunch vouchers, so we ate at BNE and cancelled our planned lunch in Sydney, making up most of the time we lost. After lunch, we finally boarded our short one hour flight down to the Australian continent's largest city.

July 25, 2012 - Finally ready to board our plane from BNE-SYD!

An hour and a half later, we were on the coach in Sydney!

Once we got to Sydney we immediately set off for the 2000 Olympic Park. Unfortunately, it was peak traffic, and as such it took us a whopping two hours to cross the city and get over there. By the time we arrived it was nightfall, and while we luckily were still able to get a tour at the Aquatic Centre, there was simply no time to get to swim, as originally planned. Alas, that's how travel goes sometimes, and we have been very lucky to this point to have not missed anything so far!

That being said, the Olympic Park was awesome! When I was in Sydney last year, this was one of the few major tourist sights I did not get to visit, so it was all new for me. We started at the Olympic Stadium, visited the memorial to the 47,000 volunteers who staged the games, and then got into the Aquatic Centre for our tour.

Olympic Stadium from afar.

Almost there!

At the Sydney Olympic Stadium (now obviously ANZ Stadium)

Our DM's name on the volunteer memorial, Anthony Marcon.

The 2000 Sydney Olympic torch!

Inside the Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre, on the diving side.

After our visit was over we headed to our hotel, had some dinner, and FINALLY enjoyed some free wifi before getting to sleep.

Back to Brisbane

July 24, 2012

BRISBANE, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA -- We woke up to another chilly morning at the farm, had some hot tea and breakfast, and then quickly loaded up the coach and set off to Brisbane, completing our week-and-a-half Queensland circle. About 20 mins into our ride everyone got their cell reception back - I had some 100+ emails, and all from what was basically a Sunday in the USA. Anyway the coach lit up with chatting for a bit, and once everyone got caught up we arrived at our first stop, the tiny town of Eidsvold. It was mainly a toilet stop, but we were making good time so a few of the students sent post cards home from the post office there, and the rest emptied out the local supermarket's supply of tim tams and other candy. I actually found three-packs of butter menthols, so I stocked up on a bunch to bring friends and family back home.

A few hours later we made it to Murgon, the still-tiny but much-larger town of 4500 people that is home to the Queensland Diary Museum. Thanks to a bunch of local volunteers who served us a nice lunch, and after we finished we had time to explore the museum.

July 24, 2012 - One interesting item from the museum was a photo of this building from 1902.
The British flag was still flying, as Australia wasn't a country yet.

Our delegation with a few of the volunteers who showed us around.

After our visit to Murgon we had one last toilet stop in the afternoon, and by evening we were back to the third-largest city in Australia, beautiful Brisbane! We headed to the other side of the river from the CBD and walked along the banks for a mile or so in South Brisbane, which afforded some great skyline photos.

A beach, lake, river, and city skyline - all in one!

The Brisbane CBD from South Brisbane.

Following our walk, we made it to Amici's, an Italian restaurant that served us a ridiculously large amount of food - everyone had salads, bread, pizza, pasta, and ice cream, and honestly I may have already forgotten something more. It was delicious, filling, and everyone got right to sleep upon our arrival at the hotel.