A Better Day of Grant Training

Silver Spring, MD -- 1/25/06.

We had a better day today. Not only did I get some pictures of the Hydrolab display, the training workshop took a turn or the better and I got a lot out of the sessions for day two.

We fly back to Duluth tomorrow on a noonish flight out of DCA. Yea!

I gotta run now. I'm headed back to the treadmill for a little while before tying to connect for a meeting via a webchat. We'll see how that works. . .

A Day of Grant Training

Silver Spring, MD -- 1/24/06

Well, don't feel too jealous of the exciting day of training I had. It left a lot to be desired. Too general and repetitive for the most part. The highlight of the day was checking out the display they had of NOAA's Hydrolab in one of the rooms where we had presentations. The relatively small Hyrdolab, while in operation for a number of years (1966-1985) has been replaced by the much larger Aquarius undersea lab that is currently deployed south of Key Largo, FL. The picture on the right is from the NOAA website and shows the Aquarius Lab before deployment in 1986.

I didn't get a picture of the Hydrolab display so I'll have to do that tomorrow. Meanwhile, here are some pictures from the NOAA Photo library:

1. J. Perry, HYDROLAB builder, swims away from the lab
2. Wet porch entry to HYDROLAB, way station in background
3. Aquanauts relax inside HYDROLAB
4. Inside HYDROLAB, only 8 x 16 ft., the head (toilet) was outside
5. HYDROLAB scientists conducted coral reef studies not possible from the surface

On the Move Again

1/23/06
Silver Spring MD

After a stretch of staying relatively close to home, I'm on the road again. In the air actually. Karla and I flew out of Duluth this morning at about 7:30am and got into Washington DC at about 2:00pm. The picture on the right is a shot of the snowy, fragmented landscape of Minnesota from the airplane. I passed some of the time on the plane enjoying Terry Pratchett's "The Color ofMagic." Very fun.

After a hop on the Metro, a tranfer from the Blue Line to the Red Line at Metro Center, and a short hike from the Silver Spring Metro stop, we checked into our rooms at the Marriott in Silver Spring MD around 3:00. It is a pretty nice place. The picture below is my first attempt to use my new digital camera's stitch assist program to paste several overlapping pictures together. I don't think it turned out too badly.

We found some pretty good cheesburgers at the RedRock Canyon Grill just a couple of blocks away. After dealing with email and making a quick call home, I spent about 1.5 hours in the health club attached to the hotel walking on the treadmills and doing a little cycling. Now my feet are sore and I'm going to shower, crash and finish my book.

Tomorrow we are off to the NOAA HQ for a two-day grant training workshop. Check out the Schedule for Day One and I'll bet you will be jealoous of how lucky I am!