Ithaca's heroes

It honestly feels like I'm being deep-fried.

Saturday felt hot. Or maybe it was just me. In any case I sweated like a pig riding around Skaneateles Lake, up numerous hills (some of them very much unpaved and gravelly - which lent a sense of adventure to the whole endeavour) and with the wind in the face often enough that I caught myself wondering if I'd been beamed over to Iceland in the Miocene. Haríharíhar, that was a geologist's joke, aren't I funny??!? Arriving in Skaneateles town I sneaked my way into the town's fanciest restaurant's bathroom (wow, lots of genitive there) and seeing my face redder than an overripe tomato I was happy not to have bumped into my hero Bill in the lobby ;) Us outing clubbers had lunch at the famous fish-fry joint in town and didn't meet anyone famous. The town does have a bit of the Nantucket feeling about it, though. The Nantuckety people were all looking at this glorious boat show by the lake, which I wowed to visit the following day with my beloved co-habitator.

And so we did. It was lovely. I saw, for the first time ever, a Joel White/Herreshoff boat in person. Why is that important? Hah, before meeting a certain somebody I woundn't have known. But now I know: Because these are the most beautiful boats on Earth!

Well, the recently-turned-tropical outdoors of my 'Mercan hometown await. I'd better get the spandex on!

Later:
Oh, and btw, the title obviously refers to my lovely co-habitator and his girlfriend, who are braving global warming and heatstroke by going out for a bike ride.

Ithaca right now:

"Current Weather Conditions
86°F
30°C

* Relative humidity: 63%
* Wind: 6 MPH from the north
* Atmospheric Pressure: 29.88 in. (758 mmHg)

Last updated Monday, July 31,2006, at 6:00PM
National Weather Service Forecast

Forecast issued 3:12 pm EDT, Mon, 2006-Jul-31

Warning: EXCESSIVE HEAT WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 10 AM TUESDAY TO 8 PM EDT WEDNESDAY"

See more here.

Growing vegetables... where??

An excerpt from a book on the climate of Hawai'i:

"Even though summer radiation totals at the high-latitude cities exceed Honolulu's because of longer days, the midday radiation intensity is still higher in Hawai'i. This means that while a person is more likely to get a bad sunburn in summer in Honolulu, bigger vegetables can probably be grown in summer in Reykjavík, Iceland, because of the length of daylight."

Habbla ha. Somebody should have told those taro-farmers in Hawai'i...

Visit

Thor is right now in the skies above Ithaca. Gee, I love thunderstorms!! Especially when I'm safely inside.

Mom and Kristján kept Shan and me company over the past weekend and gee, was it nice to see them! We visited some nice restaurants in town and out, not to mention the ever-popular Restaurant Mamma which this time was located in our very own kitchen at Seneca Resorts Inc.. We went to see some bikers at the Dinosaur BBQ in Syracuse, as well as just hanging out on the couch and chatting. An altogether wonderfully relaxing and entertaining weekend. Hail visits!! (hint hint, my sheep-loyal readers).

And since they left it's been back to work. And a couple of bike rides, one in the pouring rain and the other up a big big hill. And tomorrow I'm going with some buddies from the Outing Club on a ride around Lake Skaneateles. Should be nice, especially if the weatherman is right that Thor will be somewhere far away.

Art in Grótta

If I were in Iceland these days I'd go to see the art exhibit in Grótta and listen to Haraldur Jónsson's wailing piece of art, also heard in the interview with the artists on The Old Steam.

Happy crappy

It turns out that Vanuatu is the happiest place on Earth, not Iceland!

In fact my beloved fatherland, for all its self-glorification, scores pretty bad on this new happiness scale, which takes into account not only perceived human happiness but also how efficiently we use Earth's resources. On that scale, we come in at nr. 54 out of 178. The good news here: There is a LOT of room for improvement.

Among the countries that are better than we at efficiently converting their natural resources into happiness and prosperity are China (!!!), Nepal, Bangladesh, Tadjikistan and Cuba. Hundreds of new, old-fashioned and extremely polluting coal power plants are being constructed every year in China. These plants produce enough soot to make cities on the West Coast of the USA worry about impending pollution. Still, China scores higher than we.

But wait, don't WE, the Icelanders, live in the most pristine and wonderful country on Earth? Aren't we saving the world from global warming by building Kárahnjúkavirkjun and damming every river, stream and creek for aluminum production and, maybe, oil refineries? Doesn't the global society see what an Enormous favour we are doing to everyone on this planet when we drown our unique sub-arctic ecosystems for an international aluminum giant??

We don't even have unemployment. We're idiots.

Claudia and I

There's one thing I can think of that Claudia Schiffer and I do not have in common: Being photogenic. Earlier this afternoon I had to have my picture taken at the DMV for my licence and trust me, it was agonizing. In the first try, I looked like a heroin addict. In the next one, I looked like someone who has just been roused from a 250 year slumber. The third, fourth, fifth and sixth pictures were all perfect expressions of the death-row inmate I would be if I ever did something seriously wrong here in this country. And the seventh one, well, it nearly made the lady behind the counter sob but it's going to be on the licence anyway.

Shuffle shuff

I'm totally happy with my iTunes shuffle-function. Now I'm finally hearing again all these fabulous songs I haven't had the imagination to play for years!

Consumer crisis

I'm in a consumer crisis: I've become eligible for a free new phone from the cell phone company because I've been such a loyal customer. However, my old phone works just fine and I don't really need a new one. What do the Danes do then??

The sleuths

Read this, and you'll see the handsomest boyfriend on Earth and his awesome team of science-detectives. Impressive, huh?

4th of July

The fireworks to celebrate the national holiday were all sent off last night. Unlike my first summer here, when I watched them twice, I didn't even bother to steal a look out the window this time. The reason is, obviously, the alarming combination of TV and the Tour. One has to celebrate the day off somehow, though, and therefore Shan and I are headed for a BBQ party at his advisor's house later in the afternoon. I'm right now enjoying the peace and quiet in my lab, trying to get some blogging done. Yep, very hardworking I am, ay.

For the last few days Shan and I have been pup- and housesitting for our friends Vern, Ryan and Brady. Those of you who know me might be aware of the fact that dogs and I traditionally don't go together very well. Either I've been mistaken about the canine population or Cadence and Presto are highly unusual specimens, but they are totally adorable. They do like to bark a lot when people come over and jump all over the visitors but once they (and I) are past that, they are incredibly smart and nice dogs. And I can't believe that researchers are wasting their time trying to scientifically prove that animals have personalities - how could anyone miss that?? Presto is definitely the more rebellious of the lot (she even wears a mohawk on her back when she's out play-fighting with her sister!) but Cadence takes full advantage of the fact that humans are more than happy to feed her and keep her happy and she'll even try to climb into my bed in the mornings when she wants her breakfast.

Another thing of notable importance in our temporary house is a bizarre thing called TV. We haven't had a set since last year (i.e., it lived in the basement for a while until Shan decided to give it away to whomever would take it. It was gone before you could count to ten) and I have to admit, I'm glad. Now when we come home we send the dogs out to do their thing and then we go do our thing - watch TV. At some point during the evening when we find ourselves starving we pick up the phone and order a pizza. Then we continue watching and wake up in the middle of the night, having salivated all over the couch. Ok, well, it's not quite that bad, but it is bad. I'm never getting a TV, that's for sure!

Another week

Well, another week has whooshed by without me so much as noticing it. Or almost not.

The vacation went very well. Your's truly and her boyfriend hiked in New Hampshire, scaled the abominable headwall of the Great Gulf, missed the peak of Mt. Washington on purpose, spent a memorable evening at the Lakes of the Clouds hut and hiked back to civilization in pouring rain down the Tuckerman Ravine, of late-spring skiing fame. After this totally wonderful hike we ambled/drove through Portsmouth and down to Boston where we spent almost a full day shopping and urbanizing ourselves a bit. Very nice indeed.

And Germany just won Argentina. A quarter of me (the Prussian quarter) is justifiably proud. However, the Prussian quarter is not particulatly proud of Jan Ullrich. Was ist eigentlich mit diesen Leuten los??

This weekend

it'll be Mount Washington for Shan and I. Yes, we are going on a (mini-)vacation in the mountains of New Hampshire!!

Merde!

I f***ed up. Big time.

Added ten minutes later:
Well, it looks like the f***-up might be fixable, at least partially.

Pink orgy

I was VERY surprised to see the Moggi front page all pink today. Then I read this post and realized why it is so. See my friend Sif second from left on the picture? I'm so proud of her and the other women and men in the Femínistafélag who are so diligent and innovative working for equal rights of men and women. Go girls, and go Moggi!

Happy 17th!

mbl.is tells me it's been rather miserable in Reykjavík today, rainy and cold. I'm sure my Icelandic friends celebrating the national day in Reykjavik will feel a lot better hearing about my balmy summer day in Ithaca; the temperature is reaching broiling point and if I weren't such an exceptionally conscientious grad student (hóst hóst) I'd be swimming in the gorge right now... right, that's where I was headed...

Helvítis bömmer er það annars að hafa 17da á laugardegi, ekkert auka frí. Algjört frat.

The bike

About three weeks ago I bought a road bike of this variety. This was done after lengthy considerations and even lengthier considerations have followed. See, it's not enough to get a bike. You need a bike computer (to keep track of your speed, distance, average speed, total distance covered etc. etc.), padded shorts (to retain the functionality of your nether regions), a bike jersey with pockets on the back (so you don't have to carry your house keys stuffed into your padded shorts), clipless pedals, shoes to go with the clipless pedals, biking gloves and even biking socks! Getting all this stuff, being an avid online shopper, has proven strenuous. Too small, too large, out of stock and not bothering to let us know, attitude from staff who think they're doing you a favor allowing you to buy their overpriced-but-available stuff from them... úff.

And in spite of all this, I find myself having covered a lot of ground on my new bike (in my sneakers and Shan´s old crash shorts) and slowly, walking up that monstrous hill on the way to school in the mornings is getting easier.

The Icelandic Library

No, not dead yet.

Some of you might know that Cornell has a large collection of Icelandic books. Browsing in the catalog, I came across this.

Citing the obvious:

In case y'all hadn't noticed, my two last posts have been all about sympathy hunting. And yet I haven't gotten any. I am deeply hurt and offended.

Attempts at well-being

Earlier today I subscribed to Yoga Journal. By this time next year I'll probably be (oh, hvurn djö heitir þetta...)... levitating my way around town.