Honor... Courage... Commitment

All my bags are packed . . .

. . . and I'm ready to go?!

In 5 hours I will leave the US for Austria. Wow! This summer has been a whirlwind of events, people, emotions, research, teaching, sport, cultures, cities, and homes. I cannot fathom that only 3 months and 10 days ago I arrived back from Barbados. It is all surreal, and I have been so busy lately that I haven't begun to process it all. One thing that is overwhelmingly evident is that I have been richly blessed. Here are a few things that I praise God for:

- warm nights
- Wildwood church
- ultimate frisbee
- the Bluesteins and Mrs. Dennis (& their hospitality)
- summer tuesday night bible study
- Colorado and mountains to be climbed
- long phone talks with Bethany
- my students
- the Angolans
- Mee and Por
- tennis
- chats with Zach and future plans to visit!
- Scott Goodspeed and FOCUS ministry
- back to school excitement
- map distribution in Couch tower
- the word of the day (pope on a rope!!? haha)
- parties at lake thunderbird
- sunday night volleyball
- fun times with chris, cameron, and liz
- technical meteo discussions with Dan Dawson
- passing my General Exam!
- my parents (and their love, support, and willingness to be my mailbox!)
- daydreams of Barbados and my friends there
- Florian and his hospitality
- long walks at night
- singing praises to the almighty
- plans to visit Bethany!
- accents
- ceiling fans
- my advisor's flexibility and strong support of my education
- many new friends at OU (not a complete list!): nathan, matt, rakesh, nisha, arpee, hani, danielle, ben, the volleyball guys, barnabas, ashley, ryan, bob, nishan
- my many old friends at OU (meteo & church)
- prayer
- celebrations
- Thai food
- working out at the gym with Matthew
- college football
- world cup 2006
- probably a thousand other things that i forgot

Next post will come to you from Austria, enshaallah. Stay tuned for the transition from "good morning barbados". Peace and love.

General exam revisited

Friday Sept 8 at 8:00 a.m.

That's when I will go before my ph.d. committee and defend my general exam prospectus. For those who are curious, here is the final paragraph of the introductory chapter. The entire prospectus is roughly 100 pages, or about the same length as my masters thesis (which is now bound and resting quietly on a shelf in the OU Bizzell Library).

In this prospectus, I present an organized plan of research to answer the following question: “can tropical cyclones be accurately forecasted?” Three primary methods to answer this question are proposed. First, I will develop and employ a climatological tool that quickly and succinctly displays the spread of historical TC tracks for any point in the Atlantic Ocean basin. This tool will be useful in all parts of the basin because it is derived from prior storm motion trajectories and summarily captures information about the historical synoptic and mesoscale steering patterns. This tool will display the strength of the climatological signal and allow for rapid qualitative comparison between the historical tracks and the more robust NWP models. Second, I will use a high-resolution mesoscale model to investigate the ability to predict TC intensity change and mesoscale structure, and secondarily, TC track. This will be accomplished by coding into the model’s planetary boundary layer (PBL) equations a new drag coefficient parameterization derived from very recent (1997-2003) observations made in the TC boundary layer. The primary energy source (sink) of a TC is the air-sea exchange of enthalpy (momentum), and the drag coefficient is critical in the mesoscale model’s determination of this exchange. By adding a new, observationally-based parameterization for the drag coefficient, TC intensity forecasts should respond positively. This hypothesis will be tested using a series of model sensitivity studies. Third, I will use a high-resolution mesoscale model to examine the interaction between the TC circulation and the island topography of the southern Windward Islands. Previous numerical studies of terrain impact have focused on Taiwan; the Greater Antilles of Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Cuba; and the Philippines; but the Windward Islands of the eastern Caribbean have been largely neglected. By varying the terrain representation in the mesoscale model, the interaction between the TC circulation and these islands will be examined for the first time at high horizontal resolution (< 3 km). Collectively, these three investigations will provide answers to the main question of this dissertation, “can tropical cyclones be accurately forecasted?”

General exam

The last few days have been incredibly busy. First the OU semester has begun anew, and of course I love it. Meeting new people, making new friendships, and reacquainting with old ones -- it is entirely awesome. These are perhaps the most exciting ten days in all the year. Everyone is generally in a good mood, and they are open to making new friends. If only the entire year was like this! A few highlights of the past few days:

- Wednesday FOCUS leadership reunion / planning / prayer (fyi - i think we should have more prayer)
- Thursday freshman move-in at the dorms, and international student tours
- Friday hang out with Ben and the gang
- Saturday map distribution on campus & Celia's back to school party for meteorology dept
- Sunday morning FOCUS, evening volleyball

Second, I have been working hard on my ph.d. general exam. I plan to hold it before I depart for Austria (which, incidentally, is 3 weeks from today). I'll post later this week about the general exam, maybe even give a few of the more important sentences.

Moved on up

Hey from my new place, where I'll be staying until I depart for Austria. I'm very gracious for Mrs. Dennis to provide me with these accommodations. I hope that I will not disrupt her routine too much. I already accidentally blocked her driveway while moving in yesterday, and I could tell she was frustrated with having to park on the street & walk in (hey, I would be frustrated too if some inconsiderate whipper-snapper blocked me out of my own home!) Plus it was 105 degrees & she was tired after running errands.

I'll try to post a photo or two of the place, to give ya a feel of my new abode. Peace.

Oh, splash.

Zach Barnes (shown, left, with 2 of his students in Ireland) is in town. In his furlough between years of english teaching in Kralupy, Czech Republic (which, coincidentally, does not yet exist on the 'country list' in Barbados. They do still have Czechoslovakia, whose country code was good enough to send a package last yr.) Zach and I went out to Moe's on Saturday and then chilled out pretty good. Then Chris Crowder joined us last night at Olive Garden for some tasty Italian food. Zach is a great guy; if you haven't gotten to know him, czech him out at http://zbarnes.blogspot.com.

Today I gave my August Intersession students a midterm. The class will be complete next week (we meet 4 hrs/day for 12 days), and after that, I finish up my general exam prospectus & head east to Austria. Can you believe I head there in a month?

My root canal went smoothly last Wednesday. No more toothache for this fellow. And my pseudo-brown recluse bite (just above my right knee) also continues to improve. Medications over the past two weeks: ibuprophen, orajel, penicillin, codene, and another antibiotic. I will be very glad when this is all over.

An article worth reading ...

No matter where you stand in the theopolitical spectrum, I think this article from the NY Times is worth reading. Give it a glance, and let me know what you think. (I imagine you already know what I think about it).

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/us/30pastor.html

Here we go ... again.

First, a side note: Tropical Storm Beryl has formed off the North Carolina coast. Weak and moving northward, Beryl poses pretty much no threat to anyone. To emphasise this minimality, NHC has issued a tropical storm watch. I always chuckle at the trop storm watch, as its such a benign thing: lookout, in the next 36-48 hours, some weak winds might (we're not sure) come your way. That's essentially the gist. But, nonetheless, marine & fishing interests would do well to take care for the impending wind, wave, and rain.

Now, on to the meat of this post. In reading commentary of the "evacuation" of Americans from Lebanon this week, I'm shocked and saddened to hear - yet again - whines & complaints of tardiness and bad mothering on the part of the US government. In both the NY Times & Associated press articles, Americans are quoted as being angry with the speed at which their demands are being met. From the NY Times:

"American ... officials faced fierce complaints that they have moved too slowly to help their nationals leave."

From the AP:

"A cruise ship sailed into Beirut late Tuesday, delayed by an Israeli naval blockade amid fierce criticism that the U.S. effort to evacuate 25,000 Americans fleeing Mideast fighting had lagged behind Europe's."

Again in the NY Times:

"And many Americans said they were distressed to learn they would have to pay their own evacuation costs."

I don't really know what to say. I mean, you travel to Lebanon, a war breaks out, and your complaining that the embassy is moving too slowly to get you to safety? (Maybe there's something to be said for the comparison to European nations, although my quick tally from the Times article is 340 Americans evac'ed so far, 1000 French, a few hundred British, and a few hundred 'other'. USA isn't exactly lagging too far behind.) Even without the comparison, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT??! Again, a) you have left the US shore. Consider thyself at the mercy of your host country! b) it's LEBANON! war on-and-off for the last 5,000 years. c) as I recall saying after the Wilma fiasco in Cancun, the US gov't is not your momma. It doesn't swoop in to cover your wounds and make everything better if you get in a tight spot. I would hope that most of the 5,000 reported Americans who wish to leave Lebanon are very grateful of the assistance of the embassy. Probably the Times & AP reporters are embellishing for sake of the story, as I really do find it hard to believe there's a sense of widespread anger like was reported. (For those who haven't kept up, the airport runways have been bombed [so no planes], and most of the major roads have also been bombed [and the others arent altogether safe for travel] ... basically you're in for the long haul).

My advice to these folks is this: enjoy your time in Lebanon, eventually you'll get out, but prepare for it to cost a bit more than otherwise. And finally, realize that while you can leave, the Lebanese citizens are staying and must deal with the continuing threats.

Austin was great!

This past weekend I got to visit Xinan and Jin in Austin. It was my first venture south to the capital of the Lone Star State, and I admit the city lived up to its billing. From the nightlife along 5th and 6th streets, to the group of weekend joggers along the Colorado River, Austin is a pretty cool city! Xinan and I joined some friends of his at Vicci on 5th street Friday night for a little techno / latin dancing (which was pretty sweet), and on Saturday after our a.m. jog, we drove south to San Antonio and visited the Alamo & Guadeloupe river. Saturday night Jin prepared an excellent "hot pot" dinner for us and 3 of her Chinese friends from business school, and then we played hold'em poker into the night. Sunday we enjoyed dim sum (Chinese food brunch), then watched Italia take l'Republic 5-3 in PKs in the FIFA World Cup finals. Here are four photos: of Xinan and me in front of the Alamo, me in Texas, Xinan and Jin in front of the UT business school, and me at Daryl Royal Memorial Stadium reminding American football fans everywhere to "saw 'em off".

"Darfur is Dying"

Found this crazy flash-player video game called "Darfur is Dying". It's like Oregon trail, only happening now. My people kept getting kidnapped & raped as they tried to get to the water pump. Then I retreated to the refugee camp but my girl got diarrhea. Check out the game: http://www.darfurisdying.com. It's interesting for sure.

... Colorado!

We are back from Colorado!! Gerson, Nilza, Docri, and Olga (from Angola, at OU studying English) and me -- the five of us drove NW to Chaffee County, camping in the Arkansas River basin and hiking the Collegiate Peaks. We had a FABULOUS time! Here are a few photos. Stay tuned; more info to come . . .

** Captions are above the photo **

Gerson (on the sign), Docri, Olga, Brad, and Nilza -- in Colorado!!