Day 37: One Short Day

Yesterday was a short day. Literally. cheshcat and I flew from the Event Horizon back to Oxford, losing six hours of the day on the way.

The flight was mostly uneventful, for which we are thankful... especially considering the massive chaos involved in cheshcat's flight to Chicago three weeks ago: An eight hour direct flight from Heathrow to O'Hare ended up becoming an almost twenty-two hour journey involving five planes, three take-offs (and landings), and a route from Heathrow to JFK followed by a domestic from LaGuardia to O'Hare. In contrast, the only travel drama we had was at O'Hare, when cheshcat's ticket was not turning up in the computer system.

After this one snafu was fixed, we checked in and obtained the Holy Grail of international flying: Both cheshcat and I each had a whole row of seats to ourselves for the flight. With five seats to myself, I stretched out and napped for most of the journey. I think that Sunday morning has become my new best friend when it comes to trans-Atlantic flying!

On the flight, I was wearing a t-shirt with a picture of Animal on it. To my amusement (and cheshcat's), several flight attendants -- I remember at least three in my sleep-deprived haze -- commented on it. Most were confused by it at first, thinking that it was Elmo. For shame! Like I would ever wear an Elmo shirt! All of them said that they liked it. I am only used to getting this sort of attention when I fly with my International Terrorist t-shirt...

Upon landing, we cleared passport control, baggage claim, and customs very quickly -- another advantage of a sparsely populated flight -- allowing us to barely make the 11:30pm coach to Oxford. We got to the [as yet] unnamed flat at 12:45am... ten minutes under the twelve hour mark. I am quite pleased, as twelve hours (and under) is a rather impressive door-to-door time for this trip!

Day 37: One Short Day

Yesterday was a short day. Literally. cheshcat and I flew from the Event Horizon back to Oxford, losing six hours of the day on the way.

The flight was mostly uneventful, for which we are thankful... especially considering the massive chaos involved in cheshcat's flight to Chicago three weeks ago: An eight hour direct flight from Heathrow to O'Hare ended up becoming an almost twenty-two hour journey involving five planes, three take-offs (and landings), and a route from Heathrow to JFK followed by a domestic from LaGuardia to O'Hare. In contrast, the only travel drama we had was at O'Hare, when cheshcat's ticket was not turning up in the computer system.

After this one snafu was fixed, we checked in and obtained the Holy Grail of international flying: Both cheshcat and I each had a whole row of seats to ourselves for the flight. With five seats to myself, I stretched out and napped for most of the journey. I think that Sunday morning has become my new best friend when it comes to trans-Atlantic flying!

On the flight, I was wearing a t-shirt with a picture of Animal on it. To my amusement (and cheshcat's), several flight attendants -- I remember at least three in my sleep-deprived haze -- commented on it. Most were confused by it at first, thinking that it was Elmo. For shame! Like I would ever wear an Elmo shirt! All of them said that they liked it. I am only used to getting this sort of attention when I fly with my International Terrorist t-shirt...

Upon landing, we cleared passport control, baggage claim, and customs very quickly -- another advantage of a sparsely populated flight -- allowing us to barely make the 11:30pm coach to Oxford. We got to the [as yet] unnamed flat at 12:45am... ten minutes under the twelve hour mark. I am quite pleased, as twelve hours (and under) is a rather impressive door-to-door time for this trip!

Day 37b: Work

So, as my last entry notes, yesterday I flew to Oxford. Eight weeks from today, I have tickets to fly back to Chicago (though I will try to change them to a day or two earlier, to have another weekend to spend on my holiday vacation). So, with my mental and psychic batteries recharged from my October vacation, I now have fifty-six days in which to accomplish two very concrete and substantial goals:

#1) Cool the K-400 cryostat down to base temperature (5 mK).
#2) Produce something that we can put into the cryostat.

The first goal, as long-time readers of the journal know, has been sparring with me for quite some time. However, we have ruled out obvious problems and are now calling in the professionals from Oxford Instruments. I plan to begin another cool-down this week, which will not achieve base temperature... but should give us data that will be useful to the technicians. With a little luck, I shall emerge triumphant over this meddling dilution refrigerator soon!

The second goal is actually much more interesting than the first... but I can only talk cryptically about it here. I consider all information put out over LiveJournal to be in the public domain, and this work is most definitely not. Over more private lines of communication (e.g., e-mail, phone calls, or in person), I will be happy to chat about that particular work. It is by no means considered to be classified or confidential. Just not yet ready to go out to the whole wide world...

On a different work-related note, the technical paper that I wrote on the Central Laser Facility at the Pierre Auger Observatory was just accepted for publication by the Journal of Instrumentation. Go me -- rock on! (Plus, this was my final major obligation to my previous job... and it is nice to have successfully discharged it)

Day 37b: Work

So, as my last entry notes, yesterday I flew to Oxford. Eight weeks from today, I have tickets to fly back to Chicago (though I will try to change them to a day or two earlier, to have another weekend to spend on my holiday vacation). So, with my mental and psychic batteries recharged from my October vacation, I now have fifty-six days in which to accomplish two very concrete and substantial goals:

#1) Cool the K-400 cryostat down to base temperature (5 mK).
#2) Produce something that we can put into the cryostat.

The first goal, as long-time readers of the journal know, has been sparring with me for quite some time. However, we have ruled out obvious problems and are now calling in the professionals from Oxford Instruments. I plan to begin another cool-down this week, which will not achieve base temperature... but should give us data that will be useful to the technicians. With a little luck, I shall emerge triumphant over this meddling dilution refrigerator soon!

The second goal is actually much more interesting than the first... but I can only talk cryptically about it here. I consider all information put out over LiveJournal to be in the public domain, and this work is most definitely not. Over more private lines of communication (e.g., e-mail, phone calls, or in person), I will be happy to chat about that particular work. It is by no means considered to be classified or confidential. Just not yet ready to go out to the whole wide world...

On a different work-related note, the technical paper that I wrote on the Central Laser Facility at the Pierre Auger Observatory was just accepted for publication by the Journal of Instrumentation. Go me -- rock on! (Plus, this was my final major obligation to my previous job... and it is nice to have successfully discharged it)