Walking is my preferred mode of exploration, so yesterday I spent a bunch of time walking the area around downtown Aspen. The weather was lovely (hovering around or above 0C!), so it was a joy to be outside again. I also took the chance to find the Aspen Center for Physics. Most of the day was spent on writing my talk for this conference and drafting a “notice of intent” for a funding program competition.
My usual habit when I travel is to get somewhere, then walk it. I was pleased on Friday to be reminded that the bus from the airport to downtown Aspen is free, so it was a joy to walk from the terminal, across the parking lot, down a walk and up some stairs, to a bus stop. That was a glorious way to begin my (slightly jet lagged) time in Aspen.
Once I settled at the hotel, I walked and got groceries. This was a good excuse to start seeing more of downtown Aspen, and the market I visited came highly recommended from several colleagues. Forming habits when I travel is very important to me, as it helps me pass the non-work time since I am usually eager to be home. And these days, I am always eager to be home. I get homesickness pretty easily at this point in my life, and it’s something that has increased more and more as I have grown older. Order and routine help me process the feeling when I cannot be distracted with work.
Yesterday, I walked more. I set out in the morning to find a coffee shop to work in. My first effort was thwarted. The place I was excited about was specially closed yesterday. I headed for another cafe a bit deeper into the downtown commercial area. That cafe was open and hopping, and the coffee and pastry I had were excellent. But, the place had a “let’s clear the table for all these waiting people” vibe. Don’t get me wrong – the staff were all lovely. But, I wanted to be polite to them and others so I made sure not to linger past finishing my food.
Then I headed for the Aspen Center. One of the things that became apparent to me on my Friday walk, and was even more apparent yesterday, was that you run out of sidewalks REAL FAST outside the major arteries of Aspen. Just behind my hotel is a series of neighbourhoods. Those lie between the hotel and the center. There are few, if any, sidewalks. This means walking on icy streets in the winter, as the sidewalks are generally better cleared than the side roads.
Now, I live in Sudbury and I curl (casually), so walking on ice is not as scary for me. But I overheard folks on the bus on Friday talking about slipping on ice … and the center specifically warned about this in their pre-conference emails. So I took it easy as I worked my way to the Center.
The Aspen Center for Physics has a campus comprised of multiple buildings. I didn’t explore the whole place … I will do more of that tonight, when the conference opens with a reception. But it was a beautiful area nestled between the residential neighbourhood and the thinning edges of the downtown area. Behind the Center, there is a more rural stretch that eventually continues up a mountainside dotted with very expensive-looking houses.
The Center has some of those key features I mentioned in my discussion of the “Secret City” approach to collaborative science: nearby to things to do, but not so nearby that you can walk just a few steps to find distraction. Aspen has plenty of distraction, but it’s about 15-20 minutes away by walking unless you want to drive (and parking seems … stressful … around here). The Center has a self-contained design, with multiple buildings to host multiple needs. I’ll learn more about that tonight, I suppose. It seems a pleasant place to be, so of course, people will want to gather and work there.
The rest of the day was spent mostly writing my talk draft. I don’t speak until Thursday, and I want to be responsive to what people have to say on the first few days of the conference, so I’m leaving places where I can change or edit material to make it timely and thoughtful. I have been working on an army of backup slides in case people want to discuss certain specific experiments or ideas. I have also been working to understand my intended scope for this talk, since I could let it wander forever.
I have also been writing some Python code to generate some numbers and graphs for my talk. I wanted to synthesize some of the recent information gleaned by dark matter experiments about solar neutrinos, and I am excited to incorporate that into my talk as one of my messages (or, at least, places for more discussion). It is fun to both be developing material on my own and sharing the material of others.
There is also a notice of intent to a funding program due tomorrow. I am trying to draft that notice with colleagues, but it’s at the “vague but plausible” stage as projects go. I know some of the specifics but not others … so we’re working to just be responsible and describe our intent as accurately as possible.
Today, I plan to keep working on the talk and spend some more time wandering Aspen. I have another coffee shop in mind for today, so I will see what the day brings.
