The Personal Blog of Steve Sekula
Feb 03 2009
As I fly over the vast stretch of mountains that rim the California central valley, it becomes apparent to me that all this talk of drought cannot be far from reality. It becomes clear that the needs of the past will weigh heavily on the demands of the future, that water rationing is becoming a [...]
Nov 19 2008
This is the last leg of the flight back to San Jose. It’s about 5 pm CA time, and we’re mercifully on time tonight. I know I always say this, but it’s hard for me to believe that I woke up in Lafayette, IN this morning and am now lurking in a jet somewhere over [...]
Nov 19 2008
Yesterday, I hit the road from Bloomington and headed north to West Lafayette, and Purdue University. Purdue is a place I knew little about before I arrived, but the many posters on the walls of the physics department told the tale. From detector fabrication (CDF hadron calorimeter, CLEO silicon detector, CMS pixels) to flavor physics, [...]
Nov 17 2008
What is a Hoosier? I never realized until last night how long I’ve wondered that, but never bothered to just go and look up the answer. This is an amazingly simple question with, it turns out, no simple answer. According to the bits on Wikipedia [1], the exact origin of the word is not known. [...]
Nov 15 2008
Tomorrow, I am heading back to the Midwest for a brief round of seminars. My travels will take me to Indiana University and then Purdue. I am really looking forward to this, as there are people I respect greatly at both locations. I’m even looking forward to the plane ride; I can tweak my talk, [...]
Oct 21 2008
This morning, I awoke a bit later than usual, went through the morning routine, paid some extra attention to the cats, and then hit the road for Davis, CA. I came here today to give a seminar, just as I had been doing through my 8-state trek in September and October. This was particularly exciting [...]
Oct 14 2008
I feel halfway home. I got up early this morning, after a nice solid 8 hours of sleep, and hit the road an hour later. This put me into Midway Airport four hours ahead of my flight, but I really like killing time at Midway. They have a decent food court central to all three [...]
Oct 13 2008
I don’t have a lot of time to say too much – in fact, I’ve planned a rather informative look back on my seminar trip that I’ll write later – but I can say this: what an incredible month this has been. I have learned a terrific amount about over a dozen experiments in this [...]
Oct 12 2008
My journey on this large part of my seminar tour has taken me several thousand miles, through eight states, to eight institutions, in two countries. It was inevitable that this would catch up to me, and while I was hoping to stay that until I got home it seems my hope couldn’t hold. I’m fighting [...]
Oct 08 2008
This afternoon I arrived in the city of Cincinnati, in southwestern Ohio. I began my journey this morning after my last breakfast in Cleveland. Breakfast was fantastic, topped with a great discussion of physics with a fellow traveler staying at the B&B. He told me a little about the heavy ion physics being done on [...]
My StatusNet Feed Going Up Alleys The Perils of the Ice Queen
