[wayneanneli]

Hey,
Just chatting with alienator about a gathering like the lounge did in San Diego recently, but this time for all Moots riders. Picture it, a heap of Moots riders drooling over each other's ride. Or 20 Moots in a paceline? To get an idea of where the best place would be, we need to know where all Moots riders are from. Most of you already know where I am - northern Sweden (somehow, I doubt we'll be meeting here ). I doubt that I can join you guys, but I can start the thread.
Cheers, Wayne

 

[alienator]

Just like a Canuck to stir up sumthin just so he can stand by and watch.. But I'll play along.

Me in Tucson.

Arizona.

 

[wayneanneli]

I might show up, but with Anneli's work situation, it'll be difficult to leave here within the next few months at least. I'd like to though...

 

[Dick Rhee]

I'll be sure to show up so long as this is held in Seattle!

 

[Phat&SlowVelo]

guys who get fat in the winter...

Come from portland, after cross season that is. I mean it's not like I can subject me pride and joy to the nasties of rain riding, now can I? I think this is a tall order for Moots nuts from all over hell and gone to converge in one place but:
I think we should meet in Colorado, we could all tour the factory, and then go on a Moo-tour ride! Display all our Moots in grandeur, and then do the Moo-pace line. (Assuming I can hang off the back) What a sight that would be! I like to eat too, any good caterers in Steamboat Springs?

 

[oneslowmofo]

I'm in

I think a Moots factory tour is a GREAT idea. I've been tossing it around for some time but this is a good excuse as any. Wendy at Moots said that they do the tour thing all the time and could help plan the post tour ride.

I don't know what the weather is like there in the summer but that may work better for Wayne.

Oh, I'm in Southern Cal.

 

[alienator]

Come from portland, after cross season that is. I mean it's not like I can subject me pride and joy to the nasties of rain riding, now can I? I think this is a tall order for Moots nuts from all over hell and gone to converge in one place but:
I think we should meet in Colorado, we could all tour the factory, and then go on a Moo-tour ride! Display all our Moots in grandeur, and then do the Moo-pace line. (Assuming I can hang off the back) What a sight that would be! I like to eat too, any good caterers in Steamboat Springs?

Oooooo: Steamboat Springs is a good idea. Many good rides 'round there, and many good eats there. I'll be there, in July, on the first leg of a 6 legged solo ride 'round the Rockies.

I'd sure like to be in/see a big ol' Moots paceline. Why I bet such a thing could make the catalog.......PSV could be the coverboy. And we can all chip in and pay are Canadian friend's way here, from Sweden, via a Japanese freighter and Greyhound Buslines, of course.

 

[wayneanneli]

Oh, that is a good idea. I've been dreaming about visiting their factory ever since I got my Moots. Thanks for offering to help, but the real problem is time. My wife is defending her PhD thesis in June and we might have to move after that, depending on where she gets work here in Sweden. The summer in CO must be nice. It would be kind of cool to pick up our flags from Wendy in person, wouldn't it? I'll let you guys know. Anyway, going over by freighter and bus might take a while...maybe I should leave by the end of May...

 

[alienator]

Oh, that is a good idea. I've been dreaming about visiting their factory ever since I got my Moots. Thanks for offering to help, but the real problem is time. My wife is defending her PhD thesis in June and we might have to move after that, depending on where she gets work here in Sweden. The summer in CO must be nice. It would be kind of cool to pick up our flags from Wendy in person, wouldn't it? I'll let you guys know. Anyway, going over by freighter and bus might take a while...maybe I should leave by the end of May...

When it comes time for me to do my thesis defense, I don't want any of my family around. I attended a defense, last year, wherein the guy's mom and dad showed up w/ a video camera. Nope. I don't need that sort of pressure.

 

[Phat&SlowVelo]

me?

Nah, I'm not coverboy material, too short, and like my call name too fat and slow. I'm thinking TB should be the coverboy, or Zippi, Zippi is fast, or Maybe Alien? ya, Alien, he's got carisma and all that, plus fancy wheels and cranks. He could dress up like his avatar and be the covershot! Then we could have Alien out in front pulling the paceline in all his getup waving the Moots flag! Now that ladies and gentleman, I'd like to see.

 

[alienator]

Nah, I'm not coverboy material, too short, and like my call name too fat and slow. I'm thinking TB should be the coverboy, or Zippi, Zippi is fast, or Maybe Alien? ya, Alien, he's got carisma and all that, plus fancy wheels and cranks. He could dress up like his avatar and be the covershot! Then we could have Alien out in front pulling the paceline in all his getup waving the Moots flag! Now that ladies and gentleman, I'd like to see.

While I dig all my scars and the odd lumps here and there where bones couldn't be put back together quite right, most editors try to keep such things off their covers. I guess that means coverboy duties will have to borne by TerryB. He can do a photoshoot, a la BikerFox:

 

[wayneanneli]

When it comes time for me to do my thesis defense, I don't want any of my family around. I attended a defense, last year, wherein the guy's mom and dad showed up w/ a video camera. Nope. I don't need that sort of pressure.

Hey,
How much longer do you have? Which uni? What is your research?
Cheers, Wayne

 

[alienator]

Hey,
How much longer do you have? Which uni? What is your research?
Cheers, Wayne

I've stopped thinking about how much longer I have. Getting hit by a car my first semester, having surgery to repair a shoulder from the wayward car in the spring, then crashing 1 week after shoulder surgery and breaking my hip.....well, let's just say that the first two years have been sub-optimal.

I'm at the University of Arizona, College of Optical Sciences. My research has been/is in, uhm, optical sciences. More specifically, I've been working with some new metrology techniques for characterizing the surfaces of large optics (mirrors up to 4m in diameter). My particular group seems to specialize in metrology of very large optics and also does space optics: a couple o' folks are working on a test procedure for characterizing the primary mirrors for the Giant Magellen Telescope (And giant it is: 7 8.4m mirrors make up the primary for that telescope); a couple o' other cats are workin' on a testing/alignment process for the James Webb Space Telescope; and me worked on a testing procedure for the secondary mirror on the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (a lot o' big words for a wide field telescope that'll image the entire Earth sky every 5 days and download images to a public database and will also be able to pick out near Earth objects far enough away that we'll actually be able to do sumpin about 'em before they get to Earth. It's a monster, too: 8.4m primary, 3.5m secondary, and a 3 gigapixel sensor to collect images with)....and here she is...or here is what she'll be:

 

[wayneanneli]

Nice research, you're doing some really interesting stuff. In my work as a proofreader and translator, I read a lot of different types of research from our local university. Everything scientific comes my way, whether it's CAD related, air filtration, mathematical and linear functions, lubrication for machine elements, etc. The university is my main source of income, so I read heaps of academic papers and theses. Most stuff is written in English because if they wrote it in Swedish, only a handful of people in the world would read their research. English is the international language of research. Have you published anything yet? Which journals?

 

[alienator]

Nice research, you're doing some really interesting stuff. In my work as a proofreader and translator, I read a lot of different types of research from our local university. Everything scientific comes my way, whether it's CAD related, air filtration, mathematical and linear functions, lubrication for machine elements, etc. The university is my main source of income, so I read heaps of academic papers and theses. Most stuff is written in English because if they wrote it in Swedish, only a handful of people in the world would read their research. English is the international language of research. Have you published anything yet? Which journals?

You got a good job. Research or anything affiliated with it is where it's at: readin' cool papers; playin' with really cool, expensive toys; goin' to conferences and getting drunk on all the tech geek stuff. I luv it. All I want to do is research. I wanna be a lab rat. No teaching. No corporate job that morphs into management. Nope. I could maybe see being a research professor, but I doesn't want to teach. I TA'd last semester and hated nearly every damned minute of it.

I published a couple shortish papers for NASA about optical tweezers work I did for 'em. Other stuff is in the works.

So what's your background?

 

[wayneanneli]

I have a B.Sc. in Management from École des Hautes Études Commerciales (the business school) at l'Université de Montréal. When I moved to Sweden, I needed to find work. Business degrees are in short demand in this part of Sweden, so I started my own language business, and I love it. I used to be a PhD doing research about the Internet, but really couldn't get into doing research. All I would do all day is surf the net. I had started my company a few years before becoming a PhD, and went at it full-time after I quit my PhD job. These days, I work regularly for about 10 depts at our local university. I really enjoy reading about the hard sciences, i.e. technology or scientific based faculties, as opposed to soft sciences, i.e. philosophical faculties. It's much easier proofreading articles than writing them, IMO. What about you? Is it difficult getting research money for your type of research? Here, it's a never ending cycle.

 

[alienator]

I have a B.Sc. in Management from École des Hautes Études Commerciales (the business school) at l'Université de Montréal. When I moved to Sweden, I needed to find work. Business degrees are in short demand in this part of Sweden, so I started my own language business, and I love it. I used to be a PhD doing research about the Internet, but really couldn't get into doing research. All I would do all day is surf the net. I had started my company a few years before becoming a PhD, and went at it full-time after I quit my PhD job. These days, I work regularly for about 10 depts at our local university. I really enjoy reading about the hard sciences, i.e. technology or scientific based faculties, as opposed to soft sciences, i.e. philosophical faculties. It's much easier proofreading articles than writing them, IMO. What about you? Is it difficult getting research money for your type of research? Here, it's a never ending cycle.

I have a BS in Physics. As for the money end...well, it can be complicated. As you've probably read or inferred, our current government is not very science friendly, except when science can serve some political purpose. Our college, though, gets a lot of money from Dept. of Energy, Dept. of Defense, and a few other agencies. We also get a lot of money from industry. Funding can still be tough. The Nat'l Science Foundation has kinda been hamstrung by the current government. Our gov't also doesn't put much money in telescopes, unlike pretty much all the other governments in the world. Cosmology and other space science fields are foundering, too, with the new emphasis on manned missions to the moon and then to Mars. It's too bad, too. I believe in the value of manned missions, but I also know that there is a huge volume of science--critically important science--that can't be done on a manned mission. For example, in order to work toward a grand unified theory of physics, physicists have had to look out into the cosmos and work more closely with cosmologists and astronomers. That's tough to do when no one will pay for it. NASA has essentially become a one trick pony. They've slashed all sorts of programs--life science, atmospheric science, astronomy--all to fund the single minded vision of that less than visionary bumpkin from Crawford, Texas.

Still, our college does well. We bring in 1/3 of the research money to the University, which places us second behind our medical school in research dollars brought in. Nationwide, UofA ranks in the top 20 in research dollars earned.

 

[pdeisner]

You guys are going to make a great contribution to the world. Keep it up. I am now just a retired guy in Tucson trying to ride my bicycle 4-5 times a week, help my 95 year old mom and pick my 15 year old up from High School every day.

 

[Phat&SlowVelo]

Alienator.....

While I dig all my scars and the odd lumps here and there where bones couldn't be put back together quite right, most editors try to keep such things off their covers. I guess that means coverboy duties will have to borne by TerryB. He can do a photoshoot, a la BikerFox:

Man that was funny! man you crack me up. laughing out loud I was.....

 

[alienator]

Man that was funny! man you crack me up. laughing out loud I was.....

Hey! I was being serious. I mean, in an old thread somewhere....maybe a different BBS....TerryB was goin' on about how trim and veiny his legs are, and it hit me: I have NEVER seen TerryB and BikerFox in the same room, same picture. Never. Suspicious, ain't it? Anyway, whether or not he admits his nom de guerre is BikerFox, TerryB has had to have the experience on the runway. I mean the way he waxed poetic about his legs, it's obvious the man's got his modeling chops.