Oh, the sexy life of a physicist. All that thinking, all that writing-some-of-it-down-sometimes, all that travel and big machinery, big ideas and big discoveries.
For a human being, doing all that sexiness is also a pain in the ass. This month is a good example; it’s the kind of month you plan for, execute, and look back on as a lost battle in the cause of winning the greater war. Earlier, this week I was at Caltech giving my last seminar (?) for a while. Today, I rolled out of bed at 4:30 am to shower and head to the airport for my flight to Fermilab. In the cause of the annual SLUO/FNAL UEC/USLUO [1] teams’ trip to Washington D.C., Jodi chauffeured my team co-chair and I to the airport for a set of flights that take us through Denver to Chicago. Tomorrow, we’re meeting during the day with members of the FNAL and USLUO teams to plan for what this year might look like for science policy and funding. It’s a critical ingredient in planning for our visit to the Hill.
Ah, the annual trip to Washington. It’s still amazing to me that three groups with such different possible motives can get together once a year and bring a common message to Washington on behalf of high-energy and astro-particle physicists. SLAC, once devoted primarily to HEP research is diversifying into a multi-purpose laboratory for photon science, HEP, astrophysics, collider research, and lots of other areas. FNAL, the “last” HEP lab in the U.S., is focused on what the future of such a devoted lab will look like. U.S. LHC has no one U.S.-based host facility, but rather represents the many U.S. physicists who use CERN and the LHC to pursue their science.
That occupies today and tomorrow. Tomorrow night I return very late, in time to see Jodi for about 5 hours before I take her to the airport for an early morning flight as she begins a two-week multi-stop tour of the country. We’ll meet again in two weekends for our nephews’ first birthday party, then return (on separate flights) to California.
Holy God, that’s insane.
Of course, let’s not forget the analysis I’ve been trying to wrap up for months with my colleagues, the BaBar collaboration meeting next week, other miscellaneous projects that ebb and flow in my attention stream, Jodi’s research and her responsibilities to her collaboration, the endless meetings . . .
Wait, how was this life sexy again? I forget.
[1] SLUO = SLAC Users’ Organization; FNAL UEC = Fermi National Accelerator Lab Users’ Executive Committee; USLUO = U.S. LHC Users’ Organization
