Feb 27 2005
This past week was what is usually called “BaBar Collaboration Week”. This is a week of morning to night meetings of the entire collaboration. This typically involves something like 1/3 – 1/2 of the collaboration all showing up at the same location (SLAC) and presenting their progress in research. The collaboration meeting is a mixture [...]
Feb 20 2005
After weeks of putting it off, I finally went to the Redwood City Library and picked up my library card. It’s been ready for several weeks, but I just wasn’t making the time for it. However, I am certainly glad I did get it, because it led me to a storehouse of great books.
Being a [...]
Feb 18 2005
I saw this article hit the mainstream press today, “concerning the huge emission of gamma rays back in December by a neutron star on the other side of our galaxy”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4278005.stm. If we dig a little bit on this, we soon find mention of the “SWIFT”:http://swift.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/swift/swiftsc.html gamma-ray burst (GRB) probe. A quick peek at the page [...]
Feb 18 2005
It’s been a remarkable week. First, I got back into my research at full speed and it felt **great**. Second, the reality of the President’s FY06 budget proposal has hit home. While the U.S. particle physics community, especially the national lab programs, is vigorously discussing the implications, some consequences have already become clear.
I think that [...]
Feb 15 2005
I’ve been a bit glum these last few weeks. At first I wasn’t able to exactly pinpoint the problem, but given how well I’ve felt this week I think I’ve figured it out. I needed research, and I needed it **bad**.
Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed my time at MIT, working on simulations for the [...]
Feb 11 2005
When I was in high school, I participated in only one sport: quiz bowl. I know what you’re thinking: quiz bowl isn’t a sport. Only a stupid jock who’s never played would say that.
You stupid jock.
Anyway, this weekend is my chance to give back to the bowl. SLAC is hosting regional competition in the DOE [...]
Feb 09 2005
It’s been a busy week on many fronts, and this is the first opportunity I have found to add some thoughts to this page. Besides the fact that this is high-energy physics conference time (one of two spikes in conference activity for my field each year), this is also the time of year when the [...]
Feb 05 2005
**Written in Chicago, Midway airport on Feb. 4, 2005**
As my favorite comedian, Lewis Black, once said – and here I paraphrase – “for
only the second time in history, Sodom and Gomorrah have been
rebuilt”. He was referring to Las Vegas, and for a long time I think I
was almost convinced that Las Vegas might be someplace [...]
Feb 02 2005
“Tonight is President Bush’s State of the Union address”:http://www.cspan.org. If we flash back to this time last year, the Mars rovers had made their historic landings on the surface of the red planet. From there, they set out on a remote-controlled quest which eventually led to a body of persuasive evidence for the past presence [...]
Chirp, a microblog Going Up Alleys The Perils of the Ice Queen
