In case you weren’t keeping track, I actually haven’t been to CERN for a while- they do pay me to teach at MIT, and that tends to preclude trips – it’s neither realistic nor worthwhile to come for just a few days. However, in January they have “Interim Activities Period” so I can sneak away (sorry spouse, kids…) and help my students lay out the next 6 months.
So, let’s see: Got up Monday around 0600 EST, left on NW 38 from Boston to Amsterdam, KLM 1927 Amsterdam to Geneva at 1900, got a few hours on the plane, and now it is 1900 EST again, so we’re talking maybe 3 hours of sleep out of the last 37. The way this usually goes is I’ll be up a few more hours and then have a rather difficult struggle getting myself out of bed tomorrow morning, but a student is coming in at 0800 CERN time and I promised to retrieve him from the airport – but my body will ask me what the &Z()*&Z*(7 I’m thinking.
It promises to be a very exciting year. The Tracker is in place, now we have to hook it up, and keep an eye on how progress goes with the Accelerator complex. There’s a natural tendency once things are in place to relax, and consider the hard work over, but getting the entire detector to work in sync at design specifications is nothing to be sneezed at. It makes me tired just thinking about it. Think I’ll seize that opportunity…
