Mostly content to be sedentary

Wandering is on hold for now. I'm solidly in Golden, diving deep into the graduate school universe. Hearing about the adventures of my friends abroad makes me want to travel, and now I have a wife to take along with me! Since my last post came the day I left Denmark (June 24, '09), I must elaborate on that previous exclamatory sentence: I got married in September. Most of you who read this blog know that fact already, so its inclusion here is merely for completeness' sake.

But yes, I have a friend riding his bike around CO, rafting, skiing and snowboarding (instructing). I have another in Switzerland, working on his masters in renewable energy, a third in the Netherlands attending grad school, a fourth mulling tough decisions for future work in Australia, and a fifth in Germany, somewhere, doing something. Oh, and my parents are going to Kenya in December to teach English and medical skills to kids.

My consolation is my wife and I will be heading down to New Zealand in December (one month away!) for our second honeymoon. We'll be tramping all over the south island, visiting wineries, kayaking rivers, watching whales, and sailing through the majestic sounds of the southwestern coast. More than consolation, it's downright awesome!

For now, I'm enjoying lazy weekend mornings in bed, grading papers for a class I've never taken, crunching literature, writing reports, watching football games, eating pomegranates by the armload, and FINALLY getting back to this blog. Dear Reader, I've kept you in drought too long. Enjoy, as I am.

Day 0: Homeward Bound

Goodbye Denmark! I am off to the airport with big bags packed and a tumult of emotions in my heart. I want to go home and I want to stay. There have been so many amazing opportunities here and I've learned so much. But, I miss the mountains, the family, the friends, the actual darkness (never gets really dark here at night), and cheap groceries! Here I'll miss the bicycle-obsessed culture, the ultra-clean tap water, good public transport, and the taste of Carlsberg (much better mass-produced beer than Coors, Miller, Bud, etc...).

I've been saying goodbye for the last few days. I gave cake to my coworkers on Tuesday, bought a round for friends at a local microbrewery last night, and generally haven't slept so I could maximize my farewell festivities.

I'm leaving new friends, an amazingly good laboratory, and a flat land of boldly blunt Scandinavians. I can't wait to see my beloved CO again, but I also look forward to my return trip (guaranteed so far by my advisors) in 15ish months.

For those who have followed my sparse blog trail these last 5.5 months, I've left out pages and pages of stories, but maybe I'll get around to telling them someday. To you Dear Reader, I dedicate my final blogpost from København. See some of you soon and all of you eventually!

Breeze With A Bite

I was blown off my bike today. The sun was out, the clouds were sparse, the city was bustling, and the wind was on a rampage.

During my ten minute ride to see a friend about going to Iceland, I was caught on my left side by a particularly harsh gust that obliterated my balance. My tires hit the curb at a moderate speed, maybe 10 mph, and I tried to stop myself, but to no avail. Next I was spinning on the sidewalk and a Danish man had stopped his bicycle to ask of my health. I'm really glad it wasn't rush hour and I wasn't on Nørrebrogade, cuz my tumble would have caused a pile-up worthy of the Tour de France. Biking in København is crazy in the heat of commute time! Everyone (mostly) has bells, and almost no one (including I) uses them.

As for the wind again, København just became the "Windy City." It hasn't yet been as strong as it was today, but it's never really gone either, no matter what time of day or what weather. Even out in Roskilde, far from the sea coast, I've been blown back down hills while riding to work. So, more appropriately, Denmark is the "Windy Country." Given my limited world travel experience, this title is probably prematurely assigned, but after today, I can credit this nation's weather with being the first climate to literally knock me down. Roadrash notwithstanding, the whole experience was exhilerating.

Early Risen, Snoozing Strategy, Nature's Daily Masterpiece

In my frequent search for new adventures, I set my alarm for 5:30 instead of 6 this morning, so I could snooze 3 times, feel good about it, and not be rushed. I enjoy a relatively relaxed morning routine; I am most definitely not the 'roll out and run' type.

Freshened, lunch packed (last night's feasting remains), and warmly bundled, I snagged the 6:28 bus to the metro. I've taken the week off from bicycling to see if my mysterious knee pain (I recall no trauma whatsoever) subsides. I rode the M2 to Nørreport, disembarked, and boarded the 6:55 Regionaltog (an earlier run of the train I took in the Jan. 29 post) and headed out to Roskilde.

The inspiration for this post came from this morning's sunrise, which I first noticed on the 600S bus from Roskilde station to Risø. This far north on the globe, and in this season, Sol does little more than hint at its coming until about 7:30. Most days there's cloud cover smothering in a uniform and decidedly heavy blanket, but Friday the 13th began clear and sharp with Jupiter in the southeast standing out starkly. The thin lines of cloud laying low in the east delayed the full light till 8, but their concert performance with the sun today brought to mind an effect I really enjoy. I see this same symphony of color and light back home (and it stirred up memories) looking from Denver toward the flatlands of Colorado at dawn. I regret forgetting my camera so I'll do my best to paint a verbose 'picture:'


A spectrum of new gold to fiery red blossoms out in quiet prelude, just above the trundling farms and fields. It seems as a cathedral roof painted in scenes of graphic violence, looking down on the timid and basal landscape. A gray and blue mist floats amongst the naked tree branches, permeating and concealing their leafless shame in swathes of dimness.

The hazy panorama is contrasted by the sharp mechanical clarity of a wind turbine breaking away to the heavens, its perfectly circular arc stirring up the moisture-laden air and appearing to poke at the sky’s grandeur—a strangely comical coincidence of perspective, as how distant stars meet in seemingly close constellation symmetries.

All this earthly climate is made low and insignificant in the presence of the Great Show conducting at near-infinite distance. There, on celestial canvas, there is a slowly churning lava field. The dark clouds silhouetted there are like the stringy islands and fat blobs of semi solid stone riding in acrid molasses seas of fire and sulfur. Their carbonic, pyritic, and basaltic brethren beneath already given over to liquefaction’s maddening call. These topside remainders futilely restrain the blazing inferno beneath, backed by reinforcements of cooler atmospheres above.

The magmatic heart relentlessly rises into being, wonderful burning color cascading off it as freely as ticker tape in a grand parade. As it ascends, its misshapen captors waver and fall back, riding along at entropy’s swift commands to regroup and press again from cooler vantage. In these moments of change more warm, red light is cast out into freedom, bringing with it legions of heat that warp the very air into ripples of nonconformity. The sweet disease of chaos spreads further into order’s domain, both sides executing their actions with the calm sense of inevitability.

The patina of snow in the foreground field greedily snatches up morsels of this generous shining substance and flings it along to seer’s eyes, desperately trying to proclaim itself as the splendor's source. The ever-mounting brilliance rising o’er its incessant treachery snuffs out these silently screaming lies.

In the west, the waxing moon nears its vanishing point and swells to double size, well fed by curvature's distortion. Its pitted face is like a clouded mirror, poorly reflecting the dawn's bountiful hues and appearing as a rotten orange discarded from the picker’s basket. It insolently flaunts its dull decay as a farewell to the waking world.

I must be content with this lesser and disturbing vista as I travel down the road to work.

Yet, not all is bad in the western view. A fleet of windowpanes faces east; their straight and serious hides catch quick to smolder in the dawn's tremendous gaze. They are both mirrors outward, like golden armor, and windows inward, belying great furnaces running hot. The effect is fleeting and in a moment their polished blackness returns, as if such glory had never graced them. Such flippancy!

I pause at my building’s door for a final glance. A cold breeze slides over my face and fingertips, and I see at last the immense intensity is unleashed, ready to singe corneas and make blind husks of unfortunate retinas. I turn with a smile.

Full day is here again, overly hasty and precisely punctual all at once.


Thank you God for blessing me with eyes.

Back to work and a new day! Farewell.

Nørrebro, Lyngby, Spanish sans-Dialects

I'm going to like living here.

Fernando and Kristian are my flatmates. The former, a Spaniard, followed a Danish girl to København and these days the girl is gone. The latter, a Dane, owns the flat and is looking for work as a late 20-something. This morning was my first here, and it felt like a confluence of cultures. Spanish, Danish, and American, converging in the kitchen, over coffee and breakfast. As an aside, french-pressed coffee is the best to my taste thus far; thanks to James for making me my first pot of it all these months ago.

Kristian, Fernando, and I spoke of language first. There are no dialects in Spain according to Fernando. There is only Spanish. Basque is a different language and Catalan is an accent, not a dialect. Potayto potahto I say, and Krisitian agrees. Fernando will have none of it. Segwaying into a brief discussion of Spanish imperial history, we next discussed Italy, how it is split in two with the affluent, 'civilized' north, and the poor, mafioso-controlled south. The Vatican sits as the centerpoint. "It's a funny country," says Fernando, with division and corruption everywhere; the mob controlling the southern half of the nation and pushing its influence into the north through commerce and networking. Fernando says the country's Prime Minister has sent the army to combat the mafia, and even now they are skirmishing. I've not confirmed this, but I haven't really read much into Italy's current events.

The kitchen table is customized with newspaper pages under a varnish layer covering the entirety of its top.



Kristian and I walked while a real estate agent showed the flat. I suppose this is a good time to relay. Kristian has been trying to sell the whole place for some time, since September 08. I recently discovered this fact, in conversation. What it means for me is another move should he finalize a sell. But, not for 2-3 months minimum. The worldwide financial slump has dealt me a fortunate turn: banks won't loan money, so people can't buy homes, which means owners needing to sell will rent out until the the economy swings skyward again. For now, it's a rentee's paradise, and that suits me the rentee just fine.

I scouted out a chunk of DTU's campus this afternoon, riding along from Nørrebro station via S-tog lines to Lyngby station. As the sun set I caught a bus to campus, and found the building where I'll be taking classes starting Tuesday. On my way back to the bus stop, I went through the student center and caught these photographs, each taken through a different color of glass looking out onto a courtyard.



More adventures tomorrow! Hasta luego!

At work, clean water, House of the Swallows

I've begun the workweek on a Friday. How incredible! After three days of workshops and conferences that I had no inkling I would be participating in beforehand, I am in my new office here at Risø. I share half a room, back-to-back with Janet Jonna Bentzen, a Danish scientist who has been here for some years. Our office is about 8 feet wide by 15 feet long; the upper half of its southern wall taken up by a three-pane window looking out onto a narrow parking lot between some of the buildings. It's quite cozy, but doesn't feel cramped. Janet, conversely, has filled nearly every inch of storage space. I have half a shelf along my wall, out of six shelves. The storage landscape is dominated by red binders containing a myriad of proposals, papers, research plans, student projects, conference material, and the like.

My desk is mechanized! By pushing a button near the right front end, I can raise or lower the top to a good height. This is a common workspace type (at least at Risø) and as I walk the office halls, I see a variety of configurations, from low to accommodate the shorter person, to stomach-high for the worker who desires to actually stand rather than sit during the day.

The day went well. I will be spending most of the next week in a lot of introductions to this machine and that co-worker, and this administrative procedure and that instruction manual. I have lab safety training sessions Tuesday and Wednesday. The facilities are so much more well-endowed than the ones at Mines (at least the ones in the Ceramics Center). No doubt this comes out of a sizeable bit more cash, but for my purposes as a visiting PhD student, I'm working in a gold-mine of furnaces, mass-flow controllers, soldering irons, and test stands, among many other tools, not to even mention the large chemical/powder inventory!

ø ø ø ø ø

I've moved from Anne and Klaus' house into a renovated farmhouse near the lab. It's called Svaleholm (Home of the Swallows), and the sign over the main stable door says it was built in 1868. On a bit of a tangent, in any conversation I've had involving the term "old" when applied to architecture, customs, or ideas, the Danish don't consider anything younger than 500 years to fall into this category. I tell them the School of Mines was founded in 1874 (already younger than the farm I'm living at), and they tell me, "Oh, well DTU was built in 1822," or, "København University was started in 1479," or they just smile and say something like "that's nice." It's quite alien to me to see buildings that have been around since before the Crusades, and still quite well-preserved and open to the public; some are even still used.

Anyway, Svaleholm's interior feels more like a medium-priced hotel. I've got my own room and am sharing a bathroom and kitchen. All the appliances are new, the furniture is new, and the heat stays on in the night. It's nice.

I think the most incredible discovery to me recently has been about the tap water. I've been told Denmark has really strict guidelines and enforcement policies for clean water everywhere, so anyone can drink right from their bathroom sink with no worries. In fact, some of the Danes have told me the tap water is often safer to drink than the bottled water from France.

I've already started looking for alternate housing. I want to live down in København if I can find something. After asking lots of questions and heavily relying on Google Translator (a nifty tool!), I found some good "classifides" websites, mostly in Danish. There are some good deals on here, so I'm going to check 'em out.

To that end, I've planned a trip into København for the weekend days. I've been using a really great public transportation site called "Rejseplanen," meaning "trip planner." You put in your start, end, time of arrival or departure, and it calculates all the possible routes to get you there the fastest. It includes the Metro, all trains, buses, and walking routes, even giving prices and detailed maps. It's quite handy for me and my poor Danish pronunciation skills (asking for directions without a map can be a real hard time).

Adios and hej and goodbye for now!

Denmark: Round 2, Jet Lag, First Full Day

Hello Dear Reader and goddag! I have returned to Denmark, and have begun blogging again after a lengthy hiatus. My writer's block (blogger-block) has been forcefully thrown aside by the need to keep you informed of my adventures! So, with some introduction to start...

I flew from Denver to Frankfurt non-stop, and non-sleep, starting Sunday, January 11, and ending up in Germany about lunchtime January 12. I estimate my total REM time aboard the two-deck jumbo to have been no more than two hours total. Credit goes to the (Indian?) family with two toddlers in the row behind mine. Ah, what a true test of patience and good manners!

Blearily navigating my way through Customs, and explaining the presence of my alarm clock and flashlight to German security, I caught my connecting flight into Copenhagen (I like the look of "København" better, personally) without any hassle. I had to get on a bus that shuttled a load of us Denmark-bound passengers out onto the tarmac, where our plane waited, and we climbed the set of rolling stairs to board. The briskness of the foggy German Monday was refreshing after the hot and cramped plane-ride.

The plane arrived on time in a clear-skyed Copenhagen. As I disembarked, I thought about the service I've received while flying throughout my life, and I've concluded Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) provides the best. These people are very polite, observant, and seem to have unshakable cheer and uncrackable patience. Lufthansa (my carrier from Denver to Frankfurt) comes in a close second.

After picking up my checked bag I made my way into the airport's main building to find the train ticket office. The Copenhagen airport is very beautiful, full of glass and color and winding, swirling designs in everything from staircases to chairs. There are reclining armchairs lining some of the concourse walls for the weary traveler to rest in between or after flights, a feature my jet-lagged body sorely wished to enjoy, but declined in favor of getting to my final destination with all haste.

I found the train ticket booth and bought a ride to Roskilde, the city where I am living (for now), and where Risø, Denmark's National Sustainable Energy Laboratory, is located. I am glad nearly every Dane speaks or understands English, for while I can read it in fair fashion, I cannot pronounce it correct enough to be useful, yet. I made it to the correct platform, looking for "Roskilde" on the view screen and boarded. I thought I would be fine all the way to Roskilde, but it turned out the train first stopped in Copenhagen Train Station. Here it stopped and everyone who did not want to go right back to the airport had to get off and transfer. By the time I found someone to ask, I had two minutes and had to be two platforms over. I think I looked like an overburdened Sherpa with my bags slung across my back and front, running up one escalator and (carefully) running down the other one, getting onto the right train connection 30 seconds before departure. Phew! A good thing too as the next one would come an hour later. The station is very nice, but I was anxious to get to Roskilde before it got too late.

Upon arrival in the mid-island town, I grabbed some cash and a cab to the home of Anne and Klaus Hauch, about 1 mile from the train station. They are a very nice, young couple, with a 9 month-old son, Jacob. This little tot is real easy to like. He has to touch and eat everything within reach, and he stares curiously at any new object (i.e. me), but he's also very pleasant and he loves his Lego bricks! I'm staying with them till January 16, and then I'll move into the Risø-DTU Guest House. My new home will be closer to work, but I'll have to cook for myself and I won't get to learn as much about Danish culture and family life, so I'm a bit sad be leaving so soon. Free meals and lodging is great!

I had not originally intended to spend any time with a Danish family, but when there was a scheduling mix-up with the Guest House people, I found myself homeless in Denmark for four days and nights. My boss, Mogens Mogensen, put me in touch with Anne, a post-doc researcher at Risø, and she agreed to put me up in a guest room for the week--very nice of her indeed. I have learned a lot from them about Danish customs, history, and language. I'm still real rubbish when it comes to remembering pronunciations (a real hindrance is that, like most native speakers, the Danish don't enunciate very well), but I'm getting there.

So far at this house, I've accompanied Anne on a grocery run, using bicycles (I rode Klaus') and towing the food home in a small trailer bin attached to my seat by a bar, running behind me on wheels. Klaus' birthday was today (January 13), and I heard, though I cannot remember, the Danish version of "Happy Birthday." Klaus' parents are visiting today also, having driven the 130 km from the city of Odense (say: 'Ooln-suh' while swallowing the 'l' a bit). They speak very little English, but are happy to trade expressions and learn new ones. Klaus is quite a cook, and we've had several great meals. When they don't know the English word for a vegetable, food, dish, etc..., they look it up in their Dansk-Engelsk dictionary and tell me. I've never had 'jordskok' before, but it's called 'Jerusalem artichoke' in English, looks somewhat like a mushroom, and has the consistency of a radish, though it tastes like a potato. Yes, very good food! In our dinner conversations we've been over Danish driving laws, what Americans eat on New Year's Eve (Klaus' father thought maybe we all ate 'Big Macs'), Danish history, food, a bit of politics, and all sorts of descriptions about the Rocky Mountains, Denver, and Colorado. Klaus works as a math teacher at a university that trains teachers, so we talked about the Danish education system and its comparison to those in America. Jacob is perpetually either at the dinner table or playing on a toy-filled blanket next to it. He cannot yet walk or talk, but he scoots himself between our legs, tries to eat our toes (or slippers), and often grabs the attention of one or more of us. Cute kid.

Ø Ø Ø Ø Ø

I went into work with Anne today. We rode the bicycles the 6 km (~4 miles) to Risø. Even though we left at 7:45 am, it was still predawn. At least, I think so, for I never saw the sky today. Fog and low-hanging clouds was the forecast and it held. I don't mind, really, the countryside is still quite beautiful and the town is very nice. Bike paths are built like separate, miniature highways running along the car roads. Except for the small side streets, every roadway has them. In town, cyclists even have their own set of traffic lights to obey at intersections. While it had rained during the night, the air was merely damp on our way up to Risø. It felt about as cold as a Colorado winter, and I'm glad I came plenty prepared for winter weather. Anne tells me ice and snow are rare; mostly it's wet, windy, and dim during Denmark winters. I've been told the worst part of the cold season has passed, and the days are about seven hours long now.

We arrived at Risø around 8:15 and I got my guest badge. I'll soon have a more permanent ID with a picture, and access will be easier. Anne showed me around some of the facilities (I'd been given much the same tour when I visited back in August 08), and I met some of the other 'early birds' (it's typical to arrive around 9am). Mogens was already there though, and we talked briefly about my initial duties here at Risø, i.e. getting safety and liability paperwork, lab tours, my office set up, a network password, and so on.

The rest of the day was occupied with a workshop on hydrocarbon fuels. This event consisted of nine half-hour presentations by scientists and PhD students working at Risø, all within the Fuel Cells and Solid State Chemistry department. We heard about hydrocarbon and hydrogen fuel production, systems integration, economic considerations, modeling, electrochemistry, and materials research. Much of it directly related to my work here, so I kept fairly good notes throughout the day. As with everything Risø-DTU is involve in, sustainability is a major factor, from basic design to system and market integration. This idea gets a lot of attention in Demark, coming out in mandates from their government, initiatives in companies (e.g. Vestas, DONG Energy, Haldor Topsoe), and all over academia. If you, Dear Reader, are not informed, Risø was originally founded by Physicist Niels Bohr in 1958, as a nuclear power research facility. It has long since shifted track to renewable and sustainable energy technologies, and the fuel cells division (where I am) is only a small part. Researchers here also work on fusion, wind, biomass, and solar, among others. So, yes, sustainability and renewability are two buzz words going around everywhere.

The talks were spread out by several coffee breaks (the Danish are religious about this custom) and a catered lunch in the cafeteria. The food was much the same as the fare I ate back in August, at Fulgsøcentret, and I made acquaintances over bites of fish and bread with several other people in the workshop group. Most of us are Danish, though there is another American, Chris, whom I met last time, a few Asian-looking fellows, and an Indian man named Shital. In all we numbered about 20 or so, I didn't count.

Tomorrow I will go with Anne in a Risø-rented car to DTU (Technical University of Denmark, the academic institution financially and legally linked to the government lab Risø). Many of the people from today's workshop will be there. The occasion is a two-day conference on renewable energy, and there will be more intensive and longer presentations on solar, wind, biomass, and energy storage. People are coming from around the world to attend and talk. A woman from NREL is scheduled to speak about the Colorado lab's wind program. I may attend that one. The schedule is largely a free-for-all in the reservation department, so I guess it's just "show up and listen."

That's enough for one day! I'll write more soon, so take care Dear Reader.

Afsked og godnat! (meaning farewell and goodnight. I had typed it as 'Afskend' back in August, but I was wrong, so, AFSKED!)