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snousleJohn and I arrived in Auckland this morning, and we'll be in New Zealand for the rest of the month. The flight went very quickly - for the first time in my life, I slept pretty well in economy class on a red-eye, so I wasn't a total wreck this morning. Air New Zealand is actually pretty nice, and I certainly enjoyed flying in a 777 for the first time. My only complaint is that for some reason you can't raise the armrests between seats, which is a drag on such a long trip when the plane is only a quarter full. I suspect it has to do with encouraging upgrades to economy-plus or first class. Grr.
John is attending an isotope tracing conference in Wellington next week, and hopes to substantially shake up the world of mass spectrometry - and, after filing a couple of patents on his new methods, he hopes it will earn us some royalty money too. He expects his new approach to isotope-ratio calculation to be quite vigorously attacked by other interests in the field, but after spending the past two years practically glued to his computer screen, he's confident that he's right. The result of all this is that certain kinds of mass spectrometry will no longer require calibration to "standard" samples, making it possible to do entirely new kinds of real-time measurement, such as feeding the output of gas chromatographs into the machine. We shall see. It would be amusing if early retirement ended up earning him more fame and fortune than his 20 years at LLNL.
In the meanwhile we are staying chez![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sinnabor and growler_south, who have a lovely 1906 home near downtown (and near the bars). The uber-hot Mike Binis is holding a final party in his "wet dungeon" on Sunday, which I am VERY MUCH looking forward to. I'll probably join John in Wellington on Tuesday.
After that, we'll be visiting my sister in Christchurch. The city was mostly destroyed by the earthquake earlier this month, and as she lives just a few blocks north of Cathedral Square, the damage in her neighborhood was extensive. She is quite lucky that her house is still structurally sound, as upwards of 10,000 homes in her area will have to be permanently abandoned due to soil liquefaction - apparently in these cases it isn't even possible to rebuild. I hear that Auckland alone will have to take in 25,000 new residents displaced by the quake.
My neice will be coming back to SFO with us, and my father will meet us there and take her on to Canada the next day so she can go back to school - her own school was ruined and she won't have anywhere to go for at least six months.
The whole thing is very sad but I am still very curious to see what such a large disaster looks like. Hopefully there won't be any more quakes while I'm here, although I understand that Wellington is at very high risk due to the shifting plates in the area. If I'm washed out to sea, at least it will be in the name of science. :-P
In the meanwhile, I've very much enjoyed my first day here. Auckland is beautiful, comfortably shabby and totally benign. Not sure I've ever felt so safe and comfortable in any large city, ever. This is a wonderful, wonderful country and it's great to see it again after being away for almost 20 years.
John is attending an isotope tracing conference in Wellington next week, and hopes to substantially shake up the world of mass spectrometry - and, after filing a couple of patents on his new methods, he hopes it will earn us some royalty money too. He expects his new approach to isotope-ratio calculation to be quite vigorously attacked by other interests in the field, but after spending the past two years practically glued to his computer screen, he's confident that he's right. The result of all this is that certain kinds of mass spectrometry will no longer require calibration to "standard" samples, making it possible to do entirely new kinds of real-time measurement, such as feeding the output of gas chromatographs into the machine. We shall see. It would be amusing if early retirement ended up earning him more fame and fortune than his 20 years at LLNL.
In the meanwhile we are staying chez
sinnabor and growler_south, who have a lovely 1906 home near downtown (and near the bars). The uber-hot Mike Binis is holding a final party in his "wet dungeon" on Sunday, which I am VERY MUCH looking forward to. I'll probably join John in Wellington on Tuesday.After that, we'll be visiting my sister in Christchurch. The city was mostly destroyed by the earthquake earlier this month, and as she lives just a few blocks north of Cathedral Square, the damage in her neighborhood was extensive. She is quite lucky that her house is still structurally sound, as upwards of 10,000 homes in her area will have to be permanently abandoned due to soil liquefaction - apparently in these cases it isn't even possible to rebuild. I hear that Auckland alone will have to take in 25,000 new residents displaced by the quake.
My neice will be coming back to SFO with us, and my father will meet us there and take her on to Canada the next day so she can go back to school - her own school was ruined and she won't have anywhere to go for at least six months.
The whole thing is very sad but I am still very curious to see what such a large disaster looks like. Hopefully there won't be any more quakes while I'm here, although I understand that Wellington is at very high risk due to the shifting plates in the area. If I'm washed out to sea, at least it will be in the name of science. :-P
In the meanwhile, I've very much enjoyed my first day here. Auckland is beautiful, comfortably shabby and totally benign. Not sure I've ever felt so safe and comfortable in any large city, ever. This is a wonderful, wonderful country and it's great to see it again after being away for almost 20 years.
