Geocaching!

Well, I have a new GPS, a Garmin eTrex Vista C. So, of course, once I get a new toy, I have to play with it!
Yesterday, I went out Geocaching with Katie's brother, Matt. Matt is now known in the geocaching community as Myers7, and I'm petmar. We attempted 5 caches, and found 3.
The other fun thing to do with a GPS is, of course, track stuff. I found a wonderful utility called GPS Babel that allows me to download waypoints, tracks, and routes, as well as convert various forms of location file. Below is a view of our finds from yesterday in Google Earth:

Thanks Again...

Thanks to Erica Henderson, I now have a great new header image on this blog!

My Talk

A week ago, I did a talk for the TAS Journal Club on "The transition from galactic to extragalactic cosmic rays" by Todor Stanev.
Here's the link to my presentation:
http://physics.ramapo.edu/~petmar/CRTalk.mov

On Various Forms of Craziness

So, now I have three blogs chugging along:
This one, "The Inventive Tinkerer" (IT), which is my personal blog, and a roll call of my creations.
"The Informed Physics Student" (TIPS), which is a bunch of advice to science undergrads and other students.
And...
"Tales from the Lab" (TFTL), which is a chronicle of amusing anecdotes from the labs I work/have worked in.

Super Science Saturday!

Yes, that's right! It's March 3rd this year, and you can find all the info you want here.
The Ramapo College physics department will be bringing resources to bear on this one. So far we have planned:
- an egg drop class (how to keep eggs from breaking in a 30 ft. fall)
- a ray optics sandbox and wave tank
- a trebuchet for watermelons
and best of all...
- a 20 ft.-long kid-lifting lever
And to think... the chemists think they can out-do us. Feh!

A Quiz!

Your Geek Profile:

Academic Geekiness: Highest Music Geekiness: Highest General Geekiness: High Internet Geekiness: High SciFi Geekiness: High Gamer Geekiness: Moderate Fashion Geekiness: Low Geekiness in Love: Low Movie Geekiness: Low

How Geeky Are You?

Chili and Cake

So today was a marathon culinary event. All of the pictures (and movies) can be found in this directory. I made my chili, and then brought it to the Wyckoff Reformed Church chili cookoff. I won a bottle of wine. (Yay? I don't drink...)
So, then I came home, and my mom had made another cake. So... that needed decorating. Take a look at the aforementioned photos, and the flyover, complete with theme music.

It's Coming... It's Coming... It's Coming...

Sunday will be Super Bowl Sunday... and to commemorate this fact, I purchased the world's strangest bundt pan. Yes, you read that right. My mom and I were at Chef Central when I saw it. Spurred by my mom's statement that my girlfriend's father would love a cake like that, I knew what I had to do. The result...

And the view from the blimp...

Let me know what you think. It's scheduled for delivery at 8.00a tomorrow.