Logbook

I am occasionally quite terrible at following up on emails and replying to people - some of you may have noticed.

Finally got around to chasing up some astronomy stuff - replying about some visual estimates and getting back to NZ PhD supervisors about the papers that we all keep forgetting to work on (last contact early Feb, was supposed to be in contact at roughly monthly intervals - oops). Wont be in time for a conference I wont make it to in Vancouver in July, but that is ok*.

Digging out RV Tauri material - should update the visual estimates and consolidate more of that data - easy spreadsheet work, but having all the data together really helps.

The AGB paper is now formally out in MNRAS v 378, pg 1089. I'll forgive you if you don't read it, especially as I know how much a subscription to MNRAS costs - Canterbury Uni physical science library was supposed to try and cut ~$30 000 from their budget a couple years back and could do so by eliminating MNRAS, AJ and ApJ subscriptions. However being the 3 largest astronomy journals and probably being the only library in NZ to subscribe to them, luckily...

And non-astronomically:
1 finished (bar chin ties) pixie Viking coif (wool lined with silk - no I am evil and can't document the combination, but I like warm ears).
Banana bread works well, even without walnuts or the sunflowers seeds gotten by the weevils that were going to be substituted.
Have library books to return, but it feels wrong to return them without finishing and I am less than half way through Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" and it is good reading.

* Pulsating star conferences are held every 2 years - missed the last one in Rome, but did make it to the two previous ones in Christchurch (_just_ after thesis submission) and Leuven (2001).

What does it say when the cheap meats are kangaroo ($7/kg diced) and turkey ($4/kg drumsticks)?

4 light bulbs have blown since we moved in ie since living here less than 4 weeks (I think). Good excuse to get the long life ones, especially when they are $5 for a pair (15W) and give a nice white light.

Smelling slightly of wood stain/varnish. No large stains though. Raspberry tommorrow I think.

Got Z hooked on Robin McKinley's Sunshine. Up til 2am last night and he is currently not moving out of the beanbag, not even for beer, til he has finished it.

When googling on oilskin cloaks and the first 10 results give only D&D pages, you start suspecting they may be difficult to document. Round 1 with wikipedia et al appears to give a 19th century origin to oilskin (as a cotton impregnated with linseed oil fabric). This was only about 1/2 hour looking vaguely though. Viking brand wet weather gear doesn't help.

Edit:
And while searching, found a good site on viking archeology. Mainly good photos of ships and digs. Their clothing stuff is less interesting.
And The Viking Ship Museum (Roskilde). I should stop drooling over some of their books.

Nne of which has got me anywhere near oilskin though.

Edit2:
Oilcloth, oiled silk and oiled linen give more results though (Z searching given he has been there and looked before wrt period waterproofing techniques).
Oil cloth making
"... oiled linen has been mentioned in eighth-century accounts in relation to the glazing of windows in York Minster."(Stained glass window construction. No reference given in online version.)
Googling on "oiled silk" gets you an article on "Costumes of al-Andalus: the Umayyad Caliphate", (Moorish Spain 900 - 1000 AD), "Mushamma was an oiled silk used for rainproof cloaks", citing as reference for this:
RB Serjeant Islamic Textiles: Material for a history up to the Mongol Conquest. Beruit, Libairie du Liban 1972
Earlier than that, and you just start getting lots of references to oiled silk paper condoms in China.
There may be more reports when I find more.