Well everyone, I'm back! In Geneva I mean. I was back in the US for a while of course. I had a fantastic break, though I did a lot of work on my thesis and back at STAR for a little while, giving my replacement there a hand while I was available. Creighton likes giving people work to do. I had a fantastic Christmas with my near and extended family in Boise, having a blast doing stuff. Any sort of stuff. We enjoy ourselves.
The flight back was actually pretty short, only six hours from New York to Amsterdam. I managed to get my first batch of homework done on the plane (classes have started) and even got it turned in on time! Hehe. I got the text book on kindle to try it out. So far its manageable, but not quite as good as being able to flip through the thing. Oh well.
Once I got back to ALICE I dove right in. After dropping my bags off at Yiota's and saying hi to everyone, I was back at point 2 following Bjorn around doing... well not much as far as I can remember. Though honestly I don't remember much from my first day back. I was pretty fuzzy and was mostly just trying to keep awake until bed time because that is the most tortuous, if quickest, method for adjusting to the time zone. The exciting stuff is yet to come since at some point this week I'll be going down to the ALICE detector itself and (among the pictures I'll be taking) doing some work.
When I first walked into the ALICE building upon my return, I a shiny new concrete wall in the middle of the floor that hadn't been there before. This is because all the concrete slabs that were covering the pit had been removed to make way for new equipment to be lowered down, including some new pieces of the EMCal that I am working on (electromagnetic calorimeter for those of you who are interested and can't remember what EMCal is). The pit is deeeep.
Before getting permission to go down I had to get a few extra things done. The most complicated (but still pretty simple to get) was a dosimeter to make sure I don't absorb too much radiation while down there. This is an occupational hazard here, and I do hope my children have superpowers rather than tentacles as a result. Actually since the LHC is off, there shouldn't be any radiation, but it's still a safety procedure. The other things I needed (aside from permission from the powers that be, which I got via various emails and phone calls) was a hard hat and a pair of the most incredibly uncomfortable shoes I have ever worn.
These shoes, specifically designed to bend your feet backwards and sideways, produce hot spots and blisters just from wearing them. Not from walking around in them, mind. From wearing them. They have patented leather rubbing devices that stick sharpened leather needles (no I don't know how they do it) into your feet and gently tickle you until you go insane. And get blisters. I think they're steel toed though so that hundred thousand dollar equipment falling 60 meters of the crane onto my foot will bounce off harmlessly into the million dollar detectors all around and not hurt my toeses.
I'll be doing a post with pictures once I actually do go down (sometime over the next few days), but until then this will have to tide you over. Miss you all! Work is heavy with ever mounting piles of stuff to do, including a thesis in my spare time.
Ciao!
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