Abstracts, Serendipitious Poetry, A Harrowing Bus Boarding, Roquefort Rejected

(Lately I've been titling my blogs in a style Stephen King uses; see The Mist, The Little Sisters of Eluria. I like its summarizing fragmentary MO.)

Today dawned in New York as the deadline for abstracts concerning the 17th Conference on Solid State Ionics. This biannual grand palaver between a bunch of the world's solid state chemists, physicists, ceramicists et al. will be held this year in Toronto, Canada. Turns out both my advisor at Mines (Nigel) and my boss here at Risø (Mogens) are members of the organizing committee. Nigel told me late yesterday evening (my time) to submit an abstract, angling for a chance to present my work. Trouble is, I don't have any even barely scientifically rigorous 'work' to show for it (I just started in August for heaven's sake)! This fact doesn't phase Nigel in the slightest and Mogens calmly agrees. They told me to write up a proposal of sorts, conforming to the SSI organizers' guidelines, talking about what I will be doing in the next 6 months. These conferences work by amassing results people have obtained far in advance of the actual gathering, giving them time to refine, add, subtract, and work out professional presentations. Should my abstract be accepted (I'm proud of it), I will be doing all those things in tandem with the actual research needed to legitimize it all! What fun!

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I subscribe to the podcast "Poetry Off the Shelf," which updates once a week with a 10 - 15 minute program covering various news, tributes, history, and language in the universe of this wonderfully undefinable human art. I hadn't listened in since before Christmas 08, and when I updated the feed, the first cast was all about Inger Christensen, the recently late Danish poet. How uncanny that I should first hear it while in Denmark!

Two Danish-born poets living in New York (where the show's produced) were guests on the program. One of them actually traveled and gave readings alongside Inger, and reminisced fondly on those days. They played several soundbites of Christensen reciting her work. Her background fascinates me too. She grew up interested in mathematics and enjoyed playing with numbers as much as words. She incorporated math into some of her poems. Check out "Alphabet," where she crafts verses in groupings to mirror the Fibonacci sequence (1,1,2,3,5,8...), assigning A to '1,' B to '1,' C to '2,' and so on, going all the way to O.

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Tonight I left my building late (the abstract's to blame), looking for one of the public Risø bikes to make the ride up to the guardhouse and adjoining bus stop, hoping to catch the 7pm line to Roskilde station and on out to København and home. But, to my slight frustration, the only remaining such cycle was broken (hence its presence half a kilometer out from the main gate at this hour). So, I walked the tree-lined lane expecting to wait for the 7:18 ride. As I stood at the stop eight or so minutes later, I saw the northbound 600S arriving at the Risø stop on the opposite side of the bridge carrying Frederiksborgvej over the entrance road to the lab. I hesitated maybe 10 seconds before running full tilt towards its idling bulk, hoping the driver would wait a half minute longer! I was able to see the bus would take me to Ølstykke station (another way to get to København, via the S-tog train system, a not-quite-metro-not-quite-regional-train network) and just as I confirmed this fact on the curbside time table, the bus began to pull away. I lunged forward and tapped (well, banged) the door with my hand and the driver (a middle-aged woman) slammed on the brakes while jumping half out of her seat in surprise. She clearly hadn't seen me sprinting to catch the 7:08 departure. The whole vehicle followed her movement and audibly protested the abrupt change in momentum. As I boarded and showed her my pass, she rebuked me in Danish and gave me the stink eye, two of them actually, complete with a frown/sneer. I didn't understand a word, except "nej," meaning "no," so the embarrassment was diminished.

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Home now. I bought grated cheddar cheese tonight. I've only been able to find it in one grocery store so far. The purchase recalled to my mind an article I found on The Washington Post's web page, covering the recent 300 % duty applied to Roquefort cheese, the blue-veined delicacy from southern France. I liked the story so much (for its eloquent journalism; I'm not rejoicing over the plight of cheese falling victim to international political tantrums) I decided to go find some of this cheese. I found my precious shredded cheddar instead and forgot all about the Roquefort till just now. Check out the article. The history of the cheese makers in Roquefort is fascinating.

Godnat, Dear Reader...

Breaking News!

I interrupt the usual string of bulky and long-winded posts to bring you this mercifully short announcement (complete with picture for those who find reading dull and maybe even harmful):

I am now Fish, Bespectacled! Behold!


I can see so much better at distance now. Mange tak (many thanks) to Micki, my Love, for airmailing them! Now I can actually read the Danish street signs from across the road.

That is all.

A Treatise on Cake

Cake: a multitudinous class of comestibles that carries significant weight here at Risø. Success in this national laboratory is measured by credible publications, healthy research grants, favorable press releases, and cake.

Cake is scheduled, often days or a even a week in advance. Everyone syncs their Outlook calendars, Gmail calendars, notifiers, and Entourage agendas with cake. E-mails are sent. Phone calls are made. Planners are marked. Kitchens are busy! Cake is good.

In snynonymity with 'party' or 'informal meeting,' a cake will be "thrown" for several reasons (that I know of so far). The obvious birthday cakes, wedding announcements, and anniversaries (of employment). Successful experiments, tests, arrival of new colleagues and equipment alike, and the 'christening' of lab stations. This last category was the reason for today's cake, given for the official naming of test rig 32 and declaration that it is ready for operation (meaning mostly debugged). It's new name is "Lichen" (after the plant), given by Chris, the American PhD student from Columbia University whom I am working closely with in my tenure here. He said he chose the name because all the other rigs and machines in the lab are either named after Norse deities or Earthly bodies of water, except for one, called Flower. He reasoned that 'flora' needed more representation.

The cake was good, a confection resembling chocolate brownies (after squaring it in its rectangular pan) with orange-flavored frosting and two slices of clementine cuties per piece. There was also a side dish of coconut balls layered with chocolate and sugar. Delicious!

Cake has the added feature of sparking technical discussions amongst us nerds, geeks, and engineers.* Today's topics included a thorough discussion of using gadolinium-doped ceria to absorb unwanted silica from the working atmosphere of a solid oxide fuel cell and solid oxide electrolysis cell test chamber, leak testing on "Lichen," the explosive tendencies of a custom-designed glycine-nitrate wet chemistry powder synthesis process, and the precise workings of an isostatic press machine in the context of fabricating dense ceramic electrodes from powders. One of the older researchers present, a Greek named Nikos, took us on a tangent about how he could float his ceramic powder down to the bottom of a trench in the Aegaen Sea on a nylon string and isostatically press it that way. Being nerds, geeks, and engineers,* we of course discussed (and joked) about the specifics of this pragmatically ludicrous suggestion.

Cake is good.


*redundant, but I included it for completeness' sake.

A train, a bus, a winter morning, (a bit of) procrastination

I'm on the 7:34 Regionaltog (regional train) out of København Hovedbanegård (Copenhagen Main Station), bound for Kalundborg.



On the way, about 20 minutes into the nearly two-hour journey is Roskilde, and I will be getting off soon (we just pulled out of Hedehusene station). From there I get on the 600S bus that has a stop right at Risø. Frederiksborgvej, one of the main roads running through Roskilde, winds north of downtown along the fjord that butts up against the city's northern border. Risø sits on a small peninsula jutting out west from the eastern shore and the main entrance is 60 meters or so from the two-lane blacktop. So, it's quite nice to be dropped off at the bottom of the exit ramp and then a minute's worth of walking beneath the highway and onto the lab's property, and to work!

Here's my stop..."næste station, Roskilde!" Thank you charming Danish female recording voice.

Fog and mist are close on the land, a typical Danish morning. The heavy moisture will probably become a little lighter as day goes on, but the scant few peeks and wisps of blue sky come and go just long enough to notice and too short to cherish. The tether-tied radio tower (I assume that's what it is) a few hundred meters south of my office window is topless, its blunt triangular peak lost in the clinging weather. Outside is not quite what I would call cold, certainly not the harsh freshness of Rocky Mountain winter nights, but cool enough for jackets and hats, and to numb fingertips. The absence of wind in the insulating vapor is a welcome reprieve from the usually vigilant north-bound gusting.

I picked out one of the Risø public bikes and rolled off on a rust-tinged frame with a loose right pedal. The cycles are sturdy, but maintenance is not top priority among the many machines here, and even the Danish cannot make an invincible bike. But it serves just fine, though I wish they hadn't bolted this one's seat; I feel like one of those slouching, surly BMX riders, knees pumping nearly to my chest each revolution, and without a neighborhood skate park to show off my two-wheeled talent. Instead, I make use of static friction lean muscle to traverse the well-worn half kilometer roadway between the guardhouse and building 778, where I now sit at half past 9. The trip down that stretch of pitted pavement is a daily highlight for me, and I'll have to take pictures when the light's not so perfectly flat; maybe a sunny day will happen upon us soon? Trees (haven't figured what kind yet), old and tall trees, line either side, down its full length. Spaced a few meters, they form an airy wooden tunnel. The site is beautiful now and I wonder how much more stunning it will look in a few months. Nature's awesome.

Just south of the road is the fjord, petering out and ending in dozens of niches, coves, and ponds, grabbing every last bit of space it can, and coming within 10 meters of the trees. If you see pictures of fjords in books or online where they show inlet ocean channels surrounded by steep, rocky shores (I know I have), this isn't one of those fjords. Like the rest of Denmark, the landscape is mostly flat, rolling and jutting here and there a bit to show some spirit, but not much. As with every winter morning I've been here for, there's a layer of ice close to shore and it mixes in with the mud and grasses to look like a smooth beach in the soft gray light. Ducks and gulls strut and slide on its glassy surface, and I roll on by, to work and (a bit of) procrastination. By the latter, Dear Reader, this post is brought to you.

Tilbage arbejde (back to work)!!

Danish First Floors, Bicycle Streets, Moving Again

I imagine once my stream-of-consciousness peters out here tonight, this post won't qualify as short, but if you hate long blog posts, just take comfort in this, Dear Reader: it could be a lot longer if I wasn't so lazy!

Some interesting features I have found in Denmark (I call them 'features' because I have no better word for them, and, to write 'things' is terribly trite):

The Danes count building floors starting with 'ground' or 'zero' as what Americans would think of as the 'first' floor. So, the 'second' floor in an U.S. building would be the 'first' floor in Denmark. Perhaps this is true elsewhere in Europe and the world? I'd not be surprised to find out America is the only country with a system like it has (e.g. holding to the Imperial (British) system of units and measures as opposed to metric). Cogitation aside, this change caused me some confusion the first time I got directions to find an office on the first floor of a building last week.

Secondly, the fact there are raised bicycle lanes running between the pedestrian walks and streets in nearly all parts of the Danish cities (the ones I've been in anyway: Roskilde, København, Århus) is really very awesome. It's like a cyclist's own street. These bike paths are set at a height greater than the road, but less than the sidewalk. The elevated plane with its well-weathered borders actually makes me feel safer, more contained than I feel riding on the same level as cars or people. I suppose this feeling comes out of my desires to see order and neatness in a lot of life, and to have thorough organization. I don't think it's OCD (I'm quite uninformed on that condition), but maybe it's my equally inherent laziness that combats true obsessiveness. Simply put: if I don't find order and organization quickly or relatively easily, I usually just give up and stop caring, perhaps to return and tackle the task later.

Anyway...I moved into a spare room in a downtown København flat owned by a Danish doctor and lived in by his son Laurids (say it: Laord-ss and swallow the 'd') and Peter, Laurids' friend. I took my stuff down from Risø in a couple trips. The room has a backwards 'L' shape, enclosed with white-painted concrete walls, a wood panel floor and a plaster ceiling with an obscure rectangular hole shooting upwards into darkness and the fourth through sixth floors. A floor-to-ceiling window that opens two different ways depending on the handle's position overlooks a triangular courtyard where the residents' bikes and the trash bins sit. I'm living on the third floor (Danish third) of a good-sized apartment building on Christianshavn, the small oblong island that rides up alongside København central with a couple hundred meters of water between. My street is Voldgården if you'd like to look it up (the zip code, which goes before the city, is 1412; Google Maps'll pick it out right quick).

I'd say to mail me some letters telling me how much you miss me, Dear Reader, but, alas, after two nights living in my island-bound room, I heard back on another apartment lead. This one's in Nørrebro, a region of København to the northwest of center, about 10 minutes' bike ride from the main train station, Hovedbanegård (meaning roughly 'main station'). I hadn't expected to get contacted by this other landlord. In the variable sieve of my memory I didn't pay enough attention to the detail that he'd be telling me by Tuesday (20 January) if he found me the best choice for the room. I had thought it was to be Monday (19) at the latest. So! I am moving again! I lose my deposit to my current roommates, and I'm paying 1000 kroner/month more, but I gain some nice benefits.

First off, my Nørrebro room is three times larger! The L-room I'm in now; it's a mere 6 square meters. if I lie down across the widest portion, I can't stretch out fully. For the visual learner (like me), imagine a letter 'L' whose base is thicker than it is long. This geometry leaves only one place to put the bed, running parallel to the 'L's vertical spine, nestled in the corner of that 'thickened base.' As for the bed itself, we found the frame on a dumpster dive. It's a single-person rig that's just wide enough to let me lie on my back and long enough that my toes come to rest on the wooden footboard as my scalp touches the head piece. No mattress. When I arrived with my belongings, it was the only piece of furniture. Why would I even take this small, bare room? All my other leads hadn't contacted me back (not including the one that did two days later), and Svaleholm charges about double my rent for this place. I decided to wing it. It happened that my roommates are kind Danish guys, and they lent me a mattress, pillow, and sleeping bag to cover me during the cold København nights. One of them (Peter) even gave me a lamp to plug into the lone socket. All together, it was quite a shift from the well-furnished farmhouse near Risø. To make matters even better, when I reassembled the refuse bed frame, I found some of the screws missing. While I was able to get it into a whole piece of work, I had to use screws from the foot and head boards. Even then, I may have discovered why it was all trashed in the first place--it wobbles, even with the transplanted screws. Definitely not a bed to be used roughly! I have slept on it now for a week and it hasn't fallen down. Oh, what fun!

Second, third, and fourth real quick. The new room is furnished with bed, couch, and desk. The apartment has its own washing facilities (I pay 17.5 kroner per wash here at Voldgården). Finally, it's closer to the train depot (Nørrebro station) where I need to get to classes at DTU (they start next week), and a connection down to Hovedbanegård (often abbreviated to København H) for my ride out to Risø.

To make this long post not so long, I am moving Saturday, another adventure to close out an action-packed January. What a way to spend the first days of 2009!

For those of you I relayed my Vodgården address to, I'll let you know my new-new address soon, and the rest of you will get a (hopefully) more permanent one.

That's enough for tonight.

Until some undetermined future time! Hej og godnat.