now picnic

So, I was in Chicago last week, then Dallas, now back in Chicago and to Pittsburgh, Tuesday, then Philly and NY this weekend coming up. Rock!

I'm thinking about making up a tour t-shirt for myself.

Speaking of touring, the Tourist highlight of Dallas: this rotating bar in a sphere on top of a tower. Oh yeah.

 

Found at the Heartland Cafe. Well, actually, we went there together, so can I really say I found her there? Happy birthday, K! 

Here's another found list, clearly a "moving in" list. I like the contrast of the little items (lightbulbs, hot sauce) with the big ones (BED) and the doodling that makes me think the person was sitting around waiting for someone, or was on the phone. Maybe s/he started by outlining "CLOCK" at first, then adding the skillet illustration and the toilet brush. And what's "SAL!!"?

Me: Pittsburgh
Sunday: back to Chicago
Sopranos status: finished 7 episodes of Season 5 - I will catch up!

Thought y'all might like to see the digs. That's our Pittsburgh place -- on "East End Avenue" just a short walk from D's and the Regent Square movie theater and the Square Cafe. It's a good place - lots of old-house-character, some bright colors thanks to previous tenants, some new bookcases (IKEA grad student standard!), and a computer made almost completely of salvaged parts with 200 gigs of space for music. (The hard disks were the only un-free part, and they were cheap!) (And the unsightly monitor on the floor is long gone -- it was just there for the setup.) There's also a big squishy couch for guests. Come visit!

So, that's where I am now - Pittsburgh. Last weekend Spoons and I were in Ithaca to see his sister's lacrosse team beat Dartmouth (2nd time in 15 years!) and then we drove back here. I'm here for a bit, then back to Chicago this weekend. Then Dallas, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Phili, NY, Pittsburgh and back to Ithaca? Hmm.

(photo by stefan!)

Many years ago, I spent a wild spring break of museum-going and general awesome learning in Washington D.C.(.?) While Spoons and Stefan and Bawb and I were walking around at night taking in the monumental (ha.) amount of Public Stuff in D.C., we kept coming across strange things in the distance, and a refrain developed. Someone would ask: "What's that?" and we'd get to it and answer: "It's art!" We thought it would be fun to write a book called, "What's that? It's art!" that took bizzare modern art pieces and explained their context and their significance to a general audience. So, I call the picture above "What's that? It's physics!" It's actually the hall where my experiment is. The offices are in the next building over, but that's where the magic happens. Er, the science. That's where the science happens.

And! In case our geeky DC spring break sounds too boring, I hasten to add* that this was the vacation where we kept assigning points to people for oblique references to Stefan's penis. (I promise that if you click that link, you will not see a penis.)(OK. That one has real penises. Watch out.)(That one too. Did someone say penis? PENIS!)(Sorry.) The more subtle your reference to Stefan's cock, the more points. So, "Stefan's penis is big." 1 point. Maybe. When eating at a restaurant, "A 12 oz burger. Hmm. That's a lot of meat..." (with a significant eyebrow raise) would earn more points, since, in basically any situtation, it is assumed that it's a comparison to Stefan's unit you're talking about. Near a sign that says the movie will last ninety-eight minutes? You might say "I know something that lasts longer!" And so on. I think someone managed to reference it wordlessly once -- quite a feat. Maybe it was a glance at the Washington Monument, then at Stefan's pants? Try it at home!

In case you were wondering:
Currently in the state of: Illinois

Don't you have some kind of work stuff going on? Yup! Submitted an internal paper to the 600+ people on our experiment just yesterday about the analysis I've been working on, so hopefully we'll be able to show our result at a conference at the end of April. I have a talk to give about it this Thursday. We'll see how it goes!

How many of the 600+ people will actually read your stuff before the conference? 8? 10? Counting me? Not many.

What's your analysis about? It's about two particles affectionately named "W and Z bosons." And how awesome they are. No, wait, it's about their production and decay -- how often they're made from collisions at Fermilab, what they decay into. I couldn't find any links worth linking to about them, so I will try to write something useful sometime.

* - I hasten to add that so you know that the trip was actually action-packed. Where by "packed," I mean "packing," and where by "packing," I mean "well-endowed." With a large penis. And by "the trip," I mean Stefan. Oh dear.