A few items

I've been negligent in posting for the past few weeks, so here's a general summary of things that are going on:

1- Chile suffered a gigantic earthquake, 8.8, in the south-central part of the country back on 27 Feb. All of my friends, as far as I can communicate with them, are fine (which is amazing!), but some from Concepcion and points nearby suffered property loss. I enjoyed watching the Teleton live last Friday night - and one of the highlights was a short speech from the UN Secretary General... pretty cool that he agreed to attend. The USNA faculty-led trip (led by me) was cancelled due to continued uncertainty/instability in the region, which was a bummer for all involved.

2- Because I'm not going to Chile over Spring Break, I was able to make last-minute plans to visit the Duddy's in Venezuela! They've been super to setup neat meetings with various young scientists across the capital, and I'm excited to experience the culture of that interesting place.

3- In about eight weeks, a colleague and I will take 10 of our USNA students out to the plains to visit installations / research centers and observe the atmosphere. As the local weather turns warmer, I'm getting more excited about the trip. I think we have a great cohort of 10 students, and observing the atmosphere is always a fun pasttime.

4- Speaking of warm weather, the mounds and mounds of snow have FINALLY melted (well, for the most part.. there are still clumps of dirty ice scattered around parking lots/etc). This was definitely one winter to remember - and it might not be equalled for a long time (especially personally... I'll probably have a hard time topping these seasonal snow totals!)