That's a Yank Accent!

An extremely long overdue blog post. I've been busy, okay? So. Busy. I have never averaged so little sleep or drank so much coffee in all my life.

I've heard complaints from friends that this blog doesn't have much turbulence. Well here it is!

I was working on an ungodly exam a few weeks ago, courtesy of Dr. USA. It was literally a month long take-home exam. It involved proofs, data processing, applying theories, and then seeing why the said theories are incorrect. Hardest. Exam. Ever.

I'm currently running code (yes, on a Saturday night; turbulence isn't going to solve itself) to calculate the Reynolds stress and several correlations of three-dimensional stereo Particle Image Velocimetry data from an adverse pressure gradient turbulent boundary layer. That pretty much translates to writing lots of code and using up lots of computing power and waiting for computations to get done. A few weeks back, I was running a Direct Numerical Simulation that took a good three days to compute; using four processors. I've heard stories of really big, important simulations taking years to complete; using the strongest, fastest computers in the world.

Have you ever wondered why weather reports are so unreliable? It's because we have only the slightest idea of how turbulence works. That soy milk the hipster barista poured into your fair trade, organic, chai latte? It mixes quickly due to turbulence. Blood flowing through your veins can be modeled as flow through a pipe. Turbulent flow through a pipe. Pollutants coming out a chimney. Huge fire blasts coming out a rocket. Oil spills by BP. High-speed flow over an airplane wing. Cigarette smoke. Wind blowing through leaves. Boiling water. The atmosphere of Jupiter. My life in general. It's all turbulent!

Besides school, I've been traveling a bit. Barcelona is probably the prettiest city I have ever visited. Warm beaches, delicious food, crazy-looking architecture, and Penelope Cruz posters. Amazing.

I took a quick two-day trip to visit the schools I'll be attending next year in Poitiers. One of the schools, ENSMA, has a building that is supposed to look like a crashed spaceship. Except the campus calls is the Camembert, because it looks like a block of cheese from overhead. I hope this Camembert is better than my previous experience. Also, there's an amusement park across the street called Futuroscope. I can't wait to get to Poitiers.

I went to Amsterdam again to meet up with a friend of mine. It looks so much prettier in the summer! We went to a pub close to the infamous Red Light District. I swear, the bartender looked exactly like Artie, the Strongest Man in the World. He served us some regional alcohol called jenever. He then proceeded to disco dance to Earth, Wind, and Fire. I can now say that disco-dancing Artie served me Dutch gin in Amsterdam. Check that off the bucket list.

Beachside bar in Barcelona.

The Nativity facade of La Sagrada Família.

 Interior of La Sagrada Família.

Delicious savory pancake in Amsterdam. Ham, bacon, onion, mushroom, and cheese.

Boat ride along the canals of Amsterdam.

Finding a Different Thing to be Excited About

I went to Paris for a few days last week and then I went to Amsterdam for a day trip. I was asked which one I like better, and I don't think I have an answer. Paris is definitely more "traditionally" beautiful. It's insane! There are all these things you see in movies and read in books, and then you go to Paris and here they are; right in front of you. These amazing, legendary buildings or locations or pieces of art right in front of you and you have no idea what you ever did to warrant this kind of experience. It's pretty overwhelming. That might actually be a problem. Paris is really pretty, but it might actually be TOO pretty. I feel like I wouldn't want to live there because everyday you would just walk outside, look anywhere at anything, and it would just be far too beautiful. You need some ugly to appreciate the beautiful! I'm a big fan of water, so I was quite enamored by the canals all over Amsterdam.

Arc de Triomphe

The Louvre

Pont des Arts

Clock from inside Musée d'Orsay

Moulin Rouge

Eiffel Tower

The Winged Victory of Samothrace

Mona Lisa

Psyche and Cupid

Venus de Milo

Apartments in Amsterdam

Clogs

Houses in the canal

Amsterdam love Heineken

I consider myself a tourist, but even I was annoyed with the tourists in Paris. By the way, a really good way to let everyone know you are not French is to wear a beret. I have never seen a single French person wearing a beret. It's like the French came up with a clever ploy to instantly identify foreigners. They came up with the idea to create this image of a beret-wearing French person, but actually no one wears them. Ever. At all. Don't wear them if you are visiting, okay?

I went to a pub called The Frog and the Rosbif. It's a French/English pub. It's fairly obvious that English speakers call the French frogs because they eat frogs. Apparently, the French have a similar term for the British; "rosbif", as in roast beef. This is probably the least offensive ethnic slur I have ever heard. Anyway, I had a beer called Dark de Triomphe. It made me so happy.

On my flight back into France after Christmas, there was a movie playing called Monte Carlo starring Selena Gomez. Now, I personally do not like Ms. Gomez. I'm sure she works hard and is generally a nice person, but the problem is her name. Her name is Selena. She is not worthy of such a name. You see, I grew up in the age of THE Selena. The one that each and every Mexican knew and loved. Her untimely demise was a huge blow to me and everyone I knew. This Justin Beiber, tweenpop, Disneycore whatever cannot and will not compare to the one true Selena. Sorry. I am not fooled by this false prophet.

I'm going back to London for St. Patty's Day. The Brits are pretty much the same as the Irish, right?

I ordered a CD from Sub Pop records (Seattle!) and it came in the mail the other day. I like hardcopies, okay? It came with a pretty photo album, so shut up piratejerk.torrent. The CD is by a duo from Toronto called Memoryhouse. For all the Seattleites, they are performing at The Crocodile on March 9, and will be live on KEXP on March 10. Highly recommend you go see them. Then tell me how they were. Here is their full new album:

Memoryhouse - The Slideshow Effect (Full Album Stream) from Sub Pop Records on Vimeo.

Lastly is monkey news. Important stuff.

Raconte-Moi Une Histoire

Classes are crazy busy this semester. One of the reasons turbulence is so difficult is because it involves so many different disciplines; not just fluid dynamics. I'm playing in a lab, so that involves things like measurement techniques, electronics, and signals processing. Looking at the data afterwards involves statistics, advanced mathematics, and programming. None of these are my specialty. I'm definitely learning the most I've ever learned in such a short amount of time. Lucky me I enjoy what I study. It would be pretty horrible suffering like this over things I don't like.

It took my computer nine hours to go through 13 million points of data to produce this plot. (Yes I plotted in excel; my gnuplot isn't working. How about you shut up, Snobby McHater?)

I found a blog where I waste a lot of time study fluid dynamics. Here's a video I really like. Warning: insane amounts of pretty.
 
Team Ghost - High Hopes from 16ar on Vimeo.

I was crazy jealous over the snowpocalypse that happened in Seattle. Finally! Snow in Lille! I went out and slipped around on the streets, and threw snowballs, and stayed warm in an Irish pub. It was wonderful.

I went to see Arctic Monkeys this week, and they tore it up! A thing I found odd was the start time. Back in the states, when they say a show starts at 8:00, that means the show actually starts at 9:00. Not here. When they say the show starts at 8:00 it starts at 8:00. So punctual!

I had to send a sad email the other day. A guy from Boeing emailed me about wanting me to come into his office for an interview. I had to break the poor guy's heart and tell him I wasn't actually in the country, so the chances of me showing up at his office were mighty slim. I can honestly say I've denied interviews from both Boeing and NASA. In these tough economic times, this might be a really stupid move. Oh well.

Several French girls around here have the Snooki hair thing going on. Since French fashion is popular in the US, is American fashion popular in France? If so, is "Snooki" what people think of as American fashion? God help us all.

A professor of mine used the word gigaflops the other day. For you non-nerds out there (i.e. decent, normal, non-awkward people), giga = one trillion, and flops = floating point operations per second. Gigaflops is a measure of computing speed. Except when he says gigaflops, he pronounces it "jiggaflops." I really hope he talks about power one of these days.

The Vega launch vehicle is set to have its first launch on February 13. It's a rocket developed in a joint effort by the Italian Space Agency and the European Space Agency. Vega holds a special place in my heart for several reasons. For those of you that know me in person, one of my three names is Vega. Vega just happens to be my favorite star in the sky, and my favorite Street Fighter character. At my last place of employment, my first assignment was working on the reaction control thrusters of Vega. My boss at the time thought it was the greatest thing ever: Vega working on Vega. It was pretty much destiny. It's exciting to see something I had a hand in developing take flight. (I didn't do anything all that amazing; just a bunch of functional requirements. But still! Go Vega!)

Lastly is a story. A story about a man. This man just happens to be a legend in the world of turbulence, and a professor of mine. Let's call him Dr. USA.

One day Dr. USA was teaching something out of a book. He said something that one of his students questioned. The student asked how Dr. USA knows an assumption that was made was true. Dr. USA responds by saying that he doesn't actually know it's true, so they should try and prove it. He cleans up the whiteboard to start fresh from scratch. He takes up a good portion of the class trying to prove this thing, but he kept running into problems. Eventually it's the end of class and the student has lost interest, but not Dr. USA. He tries and tries to prove this thing, but he can't seem to get it. He even reaches out to his colleagues and asks them if they have ever tried to proving this. It turns out none of them have.

Two months of working on this problem pass, and finally Dr. USA decides that if he can't prove it, then it must be false. This is a big deal, because it's an idea that has been accepted as true in the field for decades. Questioning something like this is almost considered blasphemy to fluid dynamicists. One day, Dr. USA is giving a talk about how this popular idea in this book is wrong. Sitting in the front row, is a young, bright-eyed student with the book in hand. He asks Dr. USA something along the lines of: How could you say this is wrong? It's been around for years! No one has ever questioned it! Experiments support this idea! Finally he asks "Okay, if this is wrong, then how would you fix it?" Dr. USA responds, "You want me to fix your book?" "Yes I do." Dr. USA calmly walks down to the student, takes his book, opens it to Chapter 4, and starts ripping out pages. The entire auditorium bursts out in a frenzy. Oh by the way, the book in question is written by Dr. USA's advisor; the guy who gave him his PhD. The advisor wasn't actually there but word travels fast, especially with something like this.

After this happened, Dr. USA and his advisor don't speak for ~10 years. One day, they finally see each other at a conference. The two meet and greet and catch up on old times. Eventually, the advisor says to Dr. USA, "You know, now whenever I teach Chapter 4, I use your method."

Pretty much the baddest badass I've ever met.

Living Two Lives is Exhausting

Bonne Année!

I went to London! It was bloody spectacular! I remember the first night I got into London, I went walking around at night. As I was walking, I just started smiling. Something about London...the smell in the air? The look of the old architecture? The funny accents that are heard? I have no idea, but I liked it. I walked on bridges that are older than my country, I spoke with kind English gentlemen, I climbed to the top of a pretty church, and I rode the slowest moving ferris wheel I've ever ridden (with the greatest view also)! I definitely need to go back.

I went back to Seattle for Christmas. I didn't realize how much I missed Seattle until I was actually back there. My first morning back, I decided to go out for breakfast. I step outside, and there is the tiniest, quietest drizzle. On the way to the breakfast place I see a farmer's market being set up. When I get in, I am instantly greeted by a hipster waitress. There is Band of Horses playing on the radio. I sit down and order myself a cup of Stumptown coffee. There is a Chinese family (not too FOB-ish!) having breakfast at the far booth, and a gay biker couple sitting to my left. I look outside the window and I see people outside walking their dogs. All things Seattle, all things wonderful. I decide right then and there: I belong here. Sure, I'm off studying in France for a while and traveling around; but there is no place like Seattle.

When I first came to France, I was a little freaked out because it felt like I was just this selfish guy going off doing whatever I want with no regard for anyone. I was just leaving everything and everyone behind. Except since I came back, I realized that I didn't actually leave anything behind. All the people and places I knew and loved are still there. A few things changed a bit and that's okay, but they're all pretty much the same. Even visiting my hometown (which shall remain nameless) was nice. So to all my friends and family: thank you for putting up with this selfish little adventure of mine. Thanks for being there when I come back. Seriously.

My New Year's resolution last year was to take more risks and to make more mistakes (partly inspired by a good friend). I think I've lived up to it pretty well and learned a lot from it. So here's to 2012! May your year be as fun/beautiful/terrifying/random/memorable/enlightening as I hope mine is!

Well That's a Bit of a Sticky Wicket, Now Innit?

I'm going to London this weekend! 

Here's my plan of places to go. Will I be able to do it all? Will I get lost? Will I hear people speaking Cockney? Will I piss someone off and get called a "bloody wanker"? Maybe have a spot of tea with the pinky out? I have no idea!

I'm taking a train from Lille to London. Some of you geographically savvy people will note that France and the United Kingdom are separated by a body of water. So then how can I take a train? Well Dr. Know-It-All, this train goes under water. I'm pretty excited to see what it's like. I'm a big fan of traveling by train.

Speaking of trains, there is a band I really like (who just happen to be from the UK) called iLiKETRAiNS. Here's a video they made. I'm not entirely sure what's going on in the video, but that doesn't make it any less pretty.

Sea of Regrets (HQ) from I LIKE TRAINS on Vimeo.

I Want to Wear a Bowler Hat at a Rakish Angle

Oh god, I haven't posted in a while and I'm sorry. Busy! I went to Brussels and it was one of the prettiest cities I've been to. I went to a bar called the Delirium Cafe, which holds the world record for serving the most number of different beers. 2000+ from all over the world! (I was so very close to ordering a Tecate, but when you're in Belgium you have to get a Belgian beer. I'm pretty sure it's the law.)

Since then, I've been busy with school and exploring Lille when I have the chance. Here are some pictures of things!

"Cheval" is French for "horse". Yup. It sure it.

This cheese was recommended to me by my French teacher. It comes in a fancy wooden box!

I have no idea what she sees in this cheese. It smells bad, it tastes bad, and it's texture is super soft. Yuck. Never listen to her again.

These chips (crisps, I guess) are SO GOOD! They remind me of Tim's chips back home. They're cut a bit thinner and not as crunchy, but they're crazy delicious. No jalapeño flavor though.

The same people make vegetable chips. I don't know if they are any healthier, but they are damn good. Beet root, parsnip, and carrot.

Next time I'll try it.

Lille already has a Christmas market up. Christmas comes early all over the world!

Nothing says Christmas like a Dora balloon. I guess a Christmas tree also.

Pretty ferris wheel at night.

Where would the world be without you, Mr. Carnot?

Happy feet?

Le Royale with Cheese

I went to the Palais des Beaux Arts museum today, but I decided against posting pictures. Do people find museums interesting? Do people find pictures of museums interesting? I'm not sure I would.

What's more interesting is that I went to a French McDonald's (which everyone insists on calling McDo's). Right away, I see they have a "Royale Deluxe", which did indeed have cheese. I couldn't NOT get it, right? A friend recommended I get their jojos, so I got some of those too. The jojos weren't anything special, but the Royale Deluxe...ohhhhhh man. Beef patty, cheddar, lettuce, onion, and tomato on a bun. AND some crazy good mustard sauce; a little peppery, a little mustardy, very delicious, very fatty.

Also, I'm going to try and go to Brussels sometime soon. I'm super excited for chocolate, waffles, and beer. If nothing else, I can say I went to the home of the legend himself: Jean-Claude Van Damme, The Muscles from Brussels.

Bloodsport has always been one of my favorite movies. The broken English from Bolo, the hilarious faces Van Damme makes, the guy that says "OK! USA!", the wonderful trailer, it's all good!


His latest movie is a weird sort of meta-movie where he pretty much plays himself as a washed up action star. He goes into a post office, and it gets robbed by some guys. A tense hostage situation develops and the robbers notice they have Jean-Claude Van Damme as a hostage. Here's my favorite scene where he breaks the fourth wall and talks directly to the audience. Amazing, heartfelt acting! Or maybe, he wasn't actually acting?