Well . . . sort of. I took a long vacation from personal things this summer to work in Geneva, Switzerland, at the CERN laboratory. I posted lots of things in the SMU CERN blog [1] and mirrored those posts in my own professional blog [2]. If you missed those adventures, have a look.
When I returned from CERN in late July, I got to see Jodi for just one day before she flew to Canada for a meeting of the SuperCDMS Collaboration. I spent the week at home, working on small projects and recovering from my summer of ATLAS work. I needed to get my brain back into something resembling a shape, and time away from work was the best way to do this. This effort culminated, upon Jodi’s return to Texas, in our first vacation since last year (I don’t count Christmas. I draw a distinction between a “holiday,” forced and mandatory institution-sanctioned time off, and a “vacation,” the use of unpaid leave to remember why life is worth living).
We took off for Door County, WI, where mobile phone reception is almost nil and wifi is spotty, at best. We did this on purpose. My e-mail has been going into an electronic DMZ from which I will extract the actionable items when I return. I have avoided work, and instead focused on life. Of course, this is not devoid of physics. I make a distinction between obligations and passions. On vacation, my only obligation is to myself and to my passions. Jodi and I discussed course structure philosophies, the nature of large collaborations, and other bits and pieces. These took minutes over coffee. We spent hours biking and hiking and swimming, or napping, or reading.
Photos from our adventures in Door County are available in our photo album online [3]. We’re not back to Texas yet, but our time in Door County is drawing to a close and we have some last stops to make on our way back to Dallas.
[1] https://blog.smu.edu/smucern/
[2] http://steve.cooleysekula.net/goingupalleys/category/event/cern-summer-2010/
