<\/a><\/div>\r\n <\/div><\/figure>\r\n <\/div>\n\nThe first picture is of Mexico . . . New York. I thought it was amusing that just south of the U.S.\/Canada border is a town called “Mexico”. This is probably an old joke, but it’s new to me!<\/p>\n
My grilling by the border patrol on the way back was pretty light. In fact, I found the experience a stark contrast – perhaps a telling one – between the U.S. and Canada. Entering Canada, the Canadian border guard had lots of questions about my work. The U.S. border guard, as I went south, upon hearing that I worked on physics remarked, “I’d ask you for more information, but I probably wouldn’t understand.” I offered to explain anyway. He waved me through.<\/p>\n
I believe every person has the capacity for physics, because all of us have the curiosity needed to drive the need to learn such things. I was a little sad that one of my fellow countrymen saw so little in his own potential to understand. I like to believe this isn’t a common thing, but my deepest fears about the world warn me otherwise.<\/p>\n
Today, I went to OSU and immediately ran into one of the faculty members I work with. He took me on a tour, showed me where to get coffee, and then showed me to the group’s offices. The physics building is a 10 on look and office space, but I’m told it’s a 2 on lab space. New building, new problems.<\/p>\n
I gave my seminar at three and it seemed to go really well. I got to have pizza and brewed beverages afterward, and did a lot of chatting with an old colleague of mine from BaBar. He graduated with a Ph.D. from BaBar a few years ago and is now working in astronomy at OSU. He loves it. The focus of our conversation, however, was largely the current state of U.S. politics.<\/p>\n
Tonight, I’ve been catching up on e-mail and working on job application material. It’s time – time to write that research plan, get those letters of recommendation, and get those applications in. It’s time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I arrived last night in Columbus after 12 hours of driving. I left Montreal around 6:15 in the morning, and dropped off the rental car around 7 pm last night. I’m staying in a hotel outside the city – getting around by cab isn’t too bad, and I’ve had some gracious offers (accepted) for lifts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1077","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-travelogue-seminar-series-2008","7":"czr-hentry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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![<\/a><\/div>\r\n <\/div><\/figure>\r\n <\/div>\n\nThe first picture is of Mexico . . . New York. I thought it was amusing that just south of the U.S.\/Canada border is a town called “Mexico”. This is probably an old joke, but it’s new to me!<\/p>\nMy grilling by the border patrol on the way back was pretty light. In fact, I found the experience a stark contrast – perhaps a telling one – between the U.S. and Canada. Entering Canada, the Canadian border guard had lots of questions about my work. The U.S. border guard, as I went south, upon hearing that I worked on physics remarked, “I’d ask you for more information, but I probably wouldn’t understand.” I offered to explain anyway. He waved me through.<\/p>\nI believe every person has the capacity for physics, because all of us have the curiosity needed to drive the need to learn such things. I was a little sad that one of my fellow countrymen saw so little in his own potential to understand. I like to believe this isn’t a common thing, but my deepest fears about the world warn me otherwise.<\/p>\nToday, I went to OSU and immediately ran into one of the faculty members I work with. He took me on a tour, showed me where to get coffee, and then showed me to the group’s offices. The physics building is a 10 on look and office space, but I’m told it’s a 2 on lab space. New building, new problems.<\/p>\nI gave my seminar at three and it seemed to go really well. I got to have pizza and brewed beverages afterward, and did a lot of chatting with an old colleague of mine from BaBar. He graduated with a Ph.D. from BaBar a few years ago and is now working in astronomy at OSU. He loves it. The focus of our conversation, however, was largely the current state of U.S. politics.<\/p>\nTonight, I’ve been catching up on e-mail and working on job application material. It’s time – time to write that research plan, get those letters of recommendation, and get those applications in. It’s time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I arrived last night in Columbus after 12 hours of driving. I left Montreal around 6:15 in the morning, and dropped off the rental car around 7 pm last night. I’m staying in a hotel outside the city – getting around by cab isn’t too bad, and I’ve had some gracious offers (accepted) for lifts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1077","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-travelogue-seminar-series-2008","7":"czr-hentry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/steve.cooleysekula.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/sp_a1001.jpg\"){kind=link}