I-COOL

It isn't. But it is the only show in English over here.

I started at Puertos today working with Marta de Alfonso. We are working with wave data, trying to find freak waves. Freak waves are pretty interesting things to study. There are some preliminaries to get into first. There are two ways to calculate freak waves. With the first method, you need to find the significant wave height (distance from trough to crest). To find this, calculate the mean of the highest third of all of the waves. From here anything considered to be a freak wave is over twice the significant wave height. The second method of calculating a freak wave is by calculating the crest height (distance from the mean sea level to the crest of a wave). A freak wave is also considered to occur when the significant wave height is greater than 1.25*Crest Height. I am considering both conditions to be valid so i get a greater number of occurrences. Here is a figure i found online...

There are 3 general categories of freak waves. One is called las tres hermanas (the 3 sisters). Another is when a large wave interacts with a strong current (current acts as a physical barrier) and it breaks (she said this is shoaling?). The last is just a huge wave that gets adds up from many other big waves and just lasts a few seconds and breaks in a huge mess. It sounds pretty cool to me

Freak waves were always considered folk lore told by old fisherman, but they exist. the first documented incident was in 1995 at the draupner oil platform in the north sea. A wave 30 m high came up and damaged the structure while people were on it. Imagine that just for a second. A 9 story building crashing over next to you . Bad news

Ill try to save some more juicy tidbits on freak waves for tomorrow.

Tomorrow I am at Puertos again, the back to Qualitas on friday. My main goal at Qualitas at the moment is making a mask for my Codar data. It is hard. But John sent me some tips in an email so hopefully it will help me. It wouldn't be the first time he has saved me from the ever unforgiving Matlab!

Well that's about it now. Ill try not to be so nerdy next time.....unless you like nerdy---Evan

I think these pictures say 1000 words. First of all, who serves a burrito with fries? Second, who serves a burrito that you cant pick up with your hands without it falling apart. Third, where is the hot sauce! Unbelievable. But what could I really expect going to a mexican restaurant in spain. I guess we are spoiled in NJ, particularly in New Brunswick. Give me Tiajuana Burrito any day of the week. Now that is a burrito!

Nearly everyone is out of the office today. It is just Bruno, Fernando, Vicente and myself today.

Yesterday after work we went to a sporting goods store called Decathlon. This place is HUGE! Take your standard Home Depot and fill it with sports equipment. They have everything from surf boards to sleeping bags, archery sets to a pro shop. Really nice and surprisingly competitive prices. I bought some swim goggles so i can play in the pool.

Thats about it for now. Take it easy---Evan

Well the glider seems to be making its way back into the gulf stream. What a wacky ride. You would expect to find a similar path on some roller coaster at 6 flags! These past few days must have been quite stressful at IMCS in terms of the path planning. All of the maps I saw were blanked out by clouds. Keep up the good work!

As I am sure you all know (haha), Spain beat Sweden on Saturday 2-1 in injury time. What an exciting game. In fact it was so exciting that i unfortunately fell asleep at half time and awoke to everyone shouting GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL! The sleep was worth it; I am finally over my jet lag. Either way it is all anyone is talking about over here and it is the front page of every paper.

Before the game Juan Carlos went out and bought some snacks. Here is a pic of them...

He told me they were pork rinds, so i thought i would give them a try. Turns out they are pork snouts.

Yesterday I met Don Barrick, the president of CODAR. Don, Andres, Juan Carlos and I all went out for drinks and then dinner. It was really good. Don also came into Qualitas today and helped trouble shoot on 2 of the codar sites in Galicia. Don and Vicente must have talked and worked on this situation for close to 3 hours this morning. I chimed in with wise and oh so deep statements as "What do the arrows mean?". No, my questions were not that bad. It was however very interesting to watch Don act as both a detective and a doctor when tending to the Codar stations. He meticulously went through what seemed to be every possible situation that could ail codar station; from ionospheric interference, to animals biting through the wires. I definately learned a lot and now have a spiral book full of notes. Don and Andres are going to conventions in Italy and Portugal this week. Although Don's visit was short, I appreciated the conversations we had. Here is a pic of Angel, Andres, Vicente, Don and Myself

Busy day so far huh? But it gets better. Today Qualitas celebrates its 19th anniversary. Upstairs in the conference room we celebrated with multiple trays stacked high with empanadas and wine and afterwards 2 trays full of pastries. If you know me even the slightest bit you would know i most certainly enjoy food. 3.5 empanadas later I am writing this Blog entry feeling great. Here is what you are missing...

There were so many left over I am sending them back via fed ex with my computer. Haha.

Back to what I am doing. Since Vicente and Andres will be gone most of the week I will be going to work at Puertos del Estado (Port Authority, mas o menos) on wednesday and thursday. There i will be looking at tons of data on freak waves. It should be interesting. Next week when everyone is settled again I will be going out to Galicia with Vicente and Angel to work on the Codar located at Finisterra. It is a small peninsula in the North West corner of spain. It should be a good trip because we are driving the 7 hours to the coast and i will get a chance to see much of spain ( i say it will be good now but when i am in the car during hour 5 i think i wont be as optimistic).

So thats about it for now. Make sure to watch on Wednesday night. Spain plays Greece. The game is totally inconsequential because spain has already moved onto the next round and greece is already out. But a game is a game and I am looking forward to it. Apparently the entire country will stop for the night while the game is being played. Its like the super bowl except once per week.

Stay cool everyone, i have heard its still really hot. Hasta luego---Evan

Hi all!

So today is my first full day on my own in Spain. I am now relatively settled in my apartment with my 2 flat mates Juan Carlos and Bruno. Juan Carlos is from Spain and is currently studying like crazy for an exam. Here is a pic

That is our dining room table in our main living space. It is well furnished (thanks IKEA) and comfortable. My other flat mate Bruno is away on vacation in his homeland Portugal. My apartment is in a nice neighborhood on the outskirts of Madrid. Here is the view from my window ...

Next week my schedule will be very varied. Most of the Qualitas team i work with will be out at conferences in Italy then Portugal. During the time they are away I will be working with Puertos del estado looking at lots of wave data (10+ years worth) and trying to pick out freak waves. Initially this sounded like an awesome project to work on but then i found out that i will need to work with Fortran and use some archaic system that holds all of the data. This will add many challenging aspects to the project but i will be working with 2 people who know all about it. I think i will manage and i think it is a very interesting topic. Here is a map ( hopefully) that I made on Google Earth that shows the locations of all the places i refer to...

I guess it is hard to see the titles next to the pins so from top to bottom it goes My house, Puertos del estado, qualitas, espacio accion (rock climbing gym), then Plaza Mayor and the Palacio real (both very close). It is about 6 miles from my house to downtown Madrid and i do not yet know the subway system. That will be a trick.

So i don't know how i am going to organize the blog. I guess whatever catches my interest for the day i will focus on most (cultural aspects) and then i will throw in some of what i am doing at Qualitas. I dont want to bore everyone with too many graphs, charts, stats, etc. Give me some feedback if you want a report on anything in particular, especially if you have been to Spain and have any suggestions. Ok well i think that is about it for now. Ill post something later this weekend. I am going to the bars to watch the soccer games of the EURO Cup with my flat mates so maybe some good pics. Take it easy---Evan

PS. I ate pizza last night for dinner at TelePizza and it was surprisingly good. Usually pizza outside the states is pretty poor to say the least but i was pleasantly surprised. If anyone has tried pizza from round table in Cali it is pretty similar to that. Either way it blows pizza hut and dominos out of the water!

Hi everyone. Josh and I are going to eat some paella and drink some sangria with Andres and Vicente. Josh is going home tomorrow so we will have to send him home with some good stories. I will post more and better tomorrow when I get more settled. Adios amigos! ----evan