First, last Wednesday I went to the CERN salsa club for a trial lesson. I arrived about half an hour early because the website is a dirty rotten liar. The instructor is extremely cute, maybe a few years older than I am, and (most unfortunately) seems to be married to her male dance prop. Ah well. There were several attractive women in the audience as well, so I will certainly be back. Oh yes, and the salsa was good. For those of you who have done some salsa dancing, this is apparently Puerto Rican salsa whereas in the US is generally Cuban salsa. Or vice versa. I'm not really sure. In any even there are some differences in how partners change sides and in how the lead signals to his partner what's about to happen, but overall it is quite similar and I picked up the little differences right away.
The class is taught in French so I had to quickly learn the french names for the moves (though that was simple enough as she demonstrated each). This is the beginner course as I'm really not that good at Salsa. Yet. The lesson went on for an hour and we did the usual change partners every so often. There was actually an even number of men and women which is unusual at this kind of thing. The gamut of ethnicity was fantastic. Everyone spoke French of course, and most spoke some English at least, but there was an Itialian, French, German (Basically everything the three sections of Switzerland pretend not to be), Venezuelan, British and likely others. My french is good enough that I was able to talk a bit with each as we danced. Or at least apologize if I stepped on their feet.
The second club I was able to go to was a Kenjutsu class. That was today (Friday). I had been in touch with a member of the club and I arranged to come for a trial lesson. The lessons take place in a small warehouse like building labeled "pump station" that has a bathroom built onto it. Apparently it hasn't been used for much in years and some of the clubs took it over for various activities where people sweat and.or try to damage eachother.
As most of you probably know I have extensive martial arts experience, particularly in Tae Kwon Do which I have practiced off and on for a good eighteen years. Neither that nor the others arts I have dabbled in (hapkido and tai chi) use weapons. Kenjutsu is a sword art which is both very different and infinitly cool. The stances are all out of whack (your feet are pointing opposite directions for the basic front stance) and the "too close" limit is four feet further out than it would be for Tae Kwon Do. Hapkido and Tai Chi don't have a too close limit. The main instructor wasn't there, but a great five foot and zero inch french guy named Jean Claude (not Van Damme, sadly) who spoke enough English that I at least understood what I completely didn't understand.
He started by teaching me some basic cuts (ones that I knew from what little sword I did during Tae Kwon Do from my kendo enthusiast instructor). He would show me a cut and how to do it correctly (and correct my stance every swing) then lead the rest of the class in some of the forms before coming back to me. The forms are very cool because they involve two people attacking and defending back and forth. If one person makes a mistake, they are liable to get bopped on the head or some such if their opponent isn't controlled enough. Good incentive.
Jean Claud taught me a couple of basic striking exercises and the first few moves of the first kata (form). One of the nice things about this art is everything you do looks cool because you're holding a sword. You don't have to be able to do much more than basic movement to do a cool eight point attack all around you (my favorite exercise he showed me). For the basic moves all you have to do is line up your heels, put your front foot out, back foot other out, back strait, front knee bent, shoulders loose, right hand relaxed and gripped correctly, left hand tight and gripped correctly, cut with the top 10 centimeters, hold the sword naturally, good, exept your stance is off and your grip is slack, no now too tight, turn a little this way and above all, relax! Yea.. there are a lot of things to do before muscle memory takes over. I had a lot of fun and will certainly be back. at 10 francs for a 90 minute lesson, quite worth it.
And now, photos!
Here is my room in the house in Saint-Genis-Pouilly. Actually quite comfortable, on the second floor near the laundry room and the bathroom. The animal posters on the wall to the left came with the room. The bed is slightly too short to be comfortable and surrounded (lord what a terrible design) by wood on three sides that goes up above the mattress but with not enough room for your feet to stick off the end. Whoever designed it was either four feet six inches tall or had never slept in a bed. I use the pull out one underneath.
Here is part of the beautiful walk towards the CERN Meyrin site, a suburb of Geneva. The maples are quite lovely in fall as you can see. Fall so far has either been rainy and mild or clear and cold.
Here we have the sun rising on the mountains in the background. I liked this because the very tops of the mountains are in full sunlight but nothing else is, which you can see if you enlarge the image. A typical morning in St. Genis.
Here is more of the countryside of St. Genis, this time out towards the site containing the ALICE experiment, about six or seven kilometers around the LHC ring from Meyrin. It is actually much closer to my house than Meyrin. And, as you can see on the right, in a developing area.
Here is a view into Switzerland toward the CERN Meyrin site. Farmland, mostly vinyards, covers the rolling hills out that way. This is about the only angle that doesn't have mountains in it. Geneva is in a plane that pushes its way into the mountains from the French side. France surrounds Geneva on three sides so the border is a little confusing around here.
Here we have part of CERN itself. This is more or less in the middle of the Meyrin site. Those who have been there (Andy for example) should recognize the dome structure in the distance. That's where Andy and I got off the bus. There was an Angels and Demons display in there when we visited.
Here is another view of the site, facing the other direction and a little further northwest from the previous picture. A good view of the mountains.
Here is the sign for ALICE at point 2 of the LHC.
The main building for the ALICE experiment. The picture is a true scale painting of the experiment, buried 80 meters below the building. The thing is 16 meters high. Biiig.
This is one of the other buildings in the area, where they store gas that is used in some of the detectors (the TPC for instance uses a mixture of argon and methane). It is pumped down below from here, but is up here both in case of a leak in one of the containers (oxygen is carefully monitored down at the detector) and so that it can be easily swapped out when a tank runs dry.
This is inside the ALICE main building. The yellow thing is a crane that is used to bring things up and down the pit leading to the ALICE experiment. All of the detectors were lowered down, in pieces, and assembled below. You can see a detector part attached here, ready to be lowered once the current LHC run ends for maintenance and the pit can be opened. I am not sure which detector it is a part of.
Here is the detector up close. The ALICE experiment is arranged in a cylinder around the beam so that it can detect particles at all angles. Some of the detectors do not fully surround the beam, and I'm betting this is another section to be added to whatever detector it is a part of to get more of an angle. For scale, this detector piece is about five feet wide at the top.
Here we have the ALICE control room, where the shiznit happens, yo. The tall guy standing in the photo is Bjorn Nilsen, the post doc who has been helping me get settled in and has been teaching me about the EM Calorimeter and data analysis at ALICE. There is a second row of computers that he is facing, and more monitors (that he is looking at) that aren't seen in this picture. Also sort of behind and to the right of the camera is where the shift leader sits.
And here is the EMCal station! This is in a room upstairs above the control room along with several other detector stations. There are three such rooms housing all the detector displays where experts do their work. The left two screens are one computer with a view onto the control panel for the EMCal. The right two show the DAQ (data acquisition) system for the EMcal and a display of the log book so that the expert can see what is going on and any errors that pop up.I hope that was interesting for all of you! A bit of a long post, but I figured I'd make it one post rather than two.
Until next time!
Caio.
No comments:
Post a Comment