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...that I like living in Oxford:
Being a small city, it is large enough so that there are always plenty of things to do, yet it is small enough that I can randomly run into people I know on the street with reasonable frequency.
For instance, walking down the Banbury Road to work this morning, I ran into one of the bell ringers from the St. Giles group. She was outside of the vet's office buying a 5kg bag of cat food. The same vet where we buy over-priced[*] 10kg bags of cat food every seven weeks for our little furry ones. At other times, in town or on a bus, I have run into my ex-landlady[**], my ex-landlady's mother, my boss, my colleagues, other Oxford Physics people, other ringers from St. Giles, ringers from OUSCR -- you get the idea. Heck, in December, I ran into a random guy and his kid that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cheshcat and I had eaten lunch with in October at the One World Fair. And it turned out that we had seen his kid perform the night before in the carol service at Christ Church Cathedral.
In the past, I have lived in a big city (New York), a rural area (around Hampshire College), and far too many suburbs. Other than the 'burbs, which I dislike, all of these types have their appeal to me. But I've never lived in a small city before -- Oxford has a population of about 150,000 -- and I find that this can also be quite charming.
Anyway, here is a quick rundown of what I have been up to this week:
Work
Took apart the electronics for the Kelvinox-400 cryostat and rebuilt them in a way that made sense. Mainly to eliminate things like ground loops and 50 Hz noise. Don't know what a ground loop is? Consider yourself lucky! As the old saying goes: Love my job -- hate the ground loops! Also used the radioactive cobalt-60 source to calibrate one of the thermometers via nuclear magnetic orientation thermometry. The method is very closely related to the experiments done to prove parity non-conservation in the 1950s[***], which won my quantum mechanics professor -- C.N. Yang -- his Nobel Prize. Now that the cryostat can reliably be made cold, we are getting its electronics and thermometers nicely sorted so that we can move on the next stage in this work. Which, unfortunately, will only be discussed via private e-mail and personal discussions -- not in the public space of this journal.
Extra-Curricular (i.e., evenings)
Monday: Already wrote about. Swam laps and then watched Babylon 5 withcheshcat
Tuesday:cheshcat and I met wolfpeach at the pub[****] for a relaxed evening out. It is nice to have another friend in Oxford, and one who falls into the poly, gamer, geek mould, too! Good food, good conversation, good company, and games! Played a couple of rounds of Lord of the Fries while a bad open mic blared in the background.
Wednesday: Went back to the Ferry Sports Centre and swam another mile. I can't easily express how good it feels to be back in the water. Ever have something that you miss terribly... but don't realize how badly you missed it until you have it again? It's like that.
Thursday: Had a lesson on handbells at St. Giles and then rang tower bells with the usual practice. I have actually reached the point where I can ring the 1-2 part for a plain course of Plain Bob Minor on handbells. Which, while not nearly as interesting as ringing tower bells, is some nice progress.
Tomorrow, Friday,cheshcat and I have tickets to see Playhouse Creatures at the Old Fire Station theatre... and Saturday evening we are having C&M come over to hang out and play games. At least that's the plan. As we all know, the best laid plans...
[*] Cat food in this country costs three to four times what it does in the States. If it weren't a violation of Her Majesty's Customs laws, I would bring twenty pound bags back from the US each time go to the Event Horizon.
[**] And also a current friend. Known in this journal as EO-W.
[***] Don't worry if this makes no sense to you. Seeing as how I've provided no explanation, are odds that you don't understand what this means or else, if you do, that you are a particle physicist.
[****] "The pub" meaning, in this context, Far From The Madding Crowd. Oxford has, for all practical purposes, an infinite number of pubs. In my year here, I have been to nine: The Bear, The Mitre, Eagle & Child, Far From The Madding Crowd, The King's Arms, The Gardiner's Arms (North Parade), The Gardiner's Arms (vegetarian version), The Royal Oak, and the Dew Drop Inn.
Being a small city, it is large enough so that there are always plenty of things to do, yet it is small enough that I can randomly run into people I know on the street with reasonable frequency.
For instance, walking down the Banbury Road to work this morning, I ran into one of the bell ringers from the St. Giles group. She was outside of the vet's office buying a 5kg bag of cat food. The same vet where we buy over-priced[*] 10kg bags of cat food every seven weeks for our little furry ones. At other times, in town or on a bus, I have run into my ex-landlady[**], my ex-landlady's mother, my boss, my colleagues, other Oxford Physics people, other ringers from St. Giles, ringers from OUSCR -- you get the idea. Heck, in December, I ran into a random guy and his kid that
cheshcat and I had eaten lunch with in October at the One World Fair. And it turned out that we had seen his kid perform the night before in the carol service at Christ Church Cathedral.In the past, I have lived in a big city (New York), a rural area (around Hampshire College), and far too many suburbs. Other than the 'burbs, which I dislike, all of these types have their appeal to me. But I've never lived in a small city before -- Oxford has a population of about 150,000 -- and I find that this can also be quite charming.
Anyway, here is a quick rundown of what I have been up to this week:
Work
Took apart the electronics for the Kelvinox-400 cryostat and rebuilt them in a way that made sense. Mainly to eliminate things like ground loops and 50 Hz noise. Don't know what a ground loop is? Consider yourself lucky! As the old saying goes: Love my job -- hate the ground loops! Also used the radioactive cobalt-60 source to calibrate one of the thermometers via nuclear magnetic orientation thermometry. The method is very closely related to the experiments done to prove parity non-conservation in the 1950s[***], which won my quantum mechanics professor -- C.N. Yang -- his Nobel Prize. Now that the cryostat can reliably be made cold, we are getting its electronics and thermometers nicely sorted so that we can move on the next stage in this work. Which, unfortunately, will only be discussed via private e-mail and personal discussions -- not in the public space of this journal.
Extra-Curricular (i.e., evenings)
Monday: Already wrote about. Swam laps and then watched Babylon 5 with
cheshcatTuesday:
cheshcat and I met wolfpeach at the pub[****] for a relaxed evening out. It is nice to have another friend in Oxford, and one who falls into the poly, gamer, geek mould, too! Good food, good conversation, good company, and games! Played a couple of rounds of Lord of the Fries while a bad open mic blared in the background.Wednesday: Went back to the Ferry Sports Centre and swam another mile. I can't easily express how good it feels to be back in the water. Ever have something that you miss terribly... but don't realize how badly you missed it until you have it again? It's like that.
Thursday: Had a lesson on handbells at St. Giles and then rang tower bells with the usual practice. I have actually reached the point where I can ring the 1-2 part for a plain course of Plain Bob Minor on handbells. Which, while not nearly as interesting as ringing tower bells, is some nice progress.
Tomorrow, Friday,
cheshcat and I have tickets to see Playhouse Creatures at the Old Fire Station theatre... and Saturday evening we are having C&M come over to hang out and play games. At least that's the plan. As we all know, the best laid plans...[*] Cat food in this country costs three to four times what it does in the States. If it weren't a violation of Her Majesty's Customs laws, I would bring twenty pound bags back from the US each time go to the Event Horizon.
[**] And also a current friend. Known in this journal as EO-W.
[***] Don't worry if this makes no sense to you. Seeing as how I've provided no explanation, are odds that you don't understand what this means or else, if you do, that you are a particle physicist.
[****] "The pub" meaning, in this context, Far From The Madding Crowd. Oxford has, for all practical purposes, an infinite number of pubs. In my year here, I have been to nine: The Bear, The Mitre, Eagle & Child, Far From The Madding Crowd, The King's Arms, The Gardiner's Arms (North Parade), The Gardiner's Arms (vegetarian version), The Royal Oak, and the Dew Drop Inn.
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To put this in a little bit of context, the conference that