netCDF and other successes!

Just a brief post to celebrate a small success with netCDF: I have finally figured out how to read the netCDF data file. This breakthrough came after I realized (the hard way) that I have to compile my fortran-interface program with a hard link to not only the netCDF include file, but also the netCDF library. (It may seem trivial to you, but to me, it took several headaches of analyzing compiler error messages to realize that the library was not linked properly). My next task: to actually find cyclones in the era-40 dataset. Then I plot their density on a nice polar-stereographic map. Then we move on to exciting analyses!

In other news, Trygve, Robbie, and I took a short (one-night) road trip to Venezia (Venice), Italia. I enjoyed their company and fellowship, and walking the streets of Venice wasn't bad, either. Although the city was charming like the guidebooks say, I couldn't live in a place fairly devoid of community. In my limited travels thus far, the places with the richest spirit of community must be Colombia and Turkey.

I know I owe photos from several of my recent travels (Prague & Budapest come to mind), so perhaps at the end of the week I'll have some time to post an update. This weekend I plan to stay in Graz (woah, I know, surprise there) and continue working on job applications. Any suggestions where I might like to work?

Enjoy the week. Can you believe it's only three weeks - to the day - before Christmas? And I depart Austria in 6 weeks 1 day (16 January). Can't believe it. So much to do, including:

- confirm my enrollment in the special climate change course offered the last weekend of Jan
- figure out if I can be reimbursed for the climate change conference in Istanbul
- give my final lectures (covering hurricanes) to my Graz students, and give the final exam
- confirm next semester's housing at OU (I have applied to live in Kraettli apartments, but the demand is high)
- finalize plans for Tim's visit after Christmas
- decide if I can / should attend the AMS annual meeting in San Antonio in January (I will be jet-lagged from traveling the day before)
- finish up my cyclone-tracking research project with the WegCtr
- polish essays and send job applications
- continue work on my dissertation

Catch up with you later. Leave me a comment or two if you will!