CNN carried a story on the Pian et al. Nature paper(s) on XRF 060218. Josh Bloom, Maryam Modjaz, and I are putting together our own paper on the near infrared observations of the SNe which should be out soon. At least now I can point to this article when someone asks what I work on. 
CNN Article:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/08/31/space.star.reut/index.html?section=cnn_topstories
Marijka, Jenny Wells, Kimberly H., and I went up to Tuolumne meadows this weekend to meet up with the Phil from Chaos for the annual Tuolumne climbing trip. Marijka and Jenny ended up hiking Clouds Rest on Saturday and Kona Peak on Sunday, with Kim and I deciding to stick with the climbers on both days. Kim and I are both relatively new to setting up our own anchors, so Phil and Brent went out of their way to teach us the basics. For future reference, below are the basics of how to setup an equalized anchor for top ropping and some useful knots.
How to setup an equalized anchor:
http://www.uoregon.edu/~opp/climbing/topics/anchors.html
Useful knots:
http://www.uoregon.edu/~opp/climbing/topics/knots.pdf
Photos from the trip:
http://www.kocevski.com/photo-album/album/2006-tuolumne/
The way he condemned that match, the pathetic solemnity of his protest against the ignominy of being “insulted by a mere inanimate thing” lingers with me to this day.
This weekend a few chaos people organized a music camping trip, in which everyone would bring with them a musical instrument to be played around the camp fire. I thought it was a great idea, so ended up driving down Saturday afternoon with Phil Chang from the astro department along with Alex, another chaos member. The trip turned out to be loads of fun. There was a meteor shower on Saturday night, so we found an open field and watched the sky while taking turns at the guitar, it was really great. I gave my hand at the little guitar that I know, but mostly stuck to the drum that I brought in. It was amazing what people hiked in, someone even brought in a saxophone! The whole experience did inspire me to get better at the guitar though, so that’s my new goal for the summer - learn my chords.
Photos can be found here:
http://www.kocevski.com/photo-album/album/2006-music-camping/