The place where lost socks go...

This was a pretty ordinary Sunday. After staying up until 5:30am Saturday night, I lay in until 11am this morning. After rising, I caught up on e-mail and LiveJournal before, as mentioned in my previous post, tidying up Skullcrusher Mountain (SCM) a bit. After throwing a couple of hours at this task, our flat now looks fairly decent[*].

In the afternoon, I came into the lab for a bit -- as mentioned in my previous entry -- to prepare the cryostat for the next cooldown. I got the helium transfer set up and then let the initial stages run on their own while I crossed the street to ring bells for Sunday services at St. Giles.

Shortly after the ringing had finished, I cycled up to Summertown and swam a mile at the sports centre. Then it was back to the University to finish the helium transfer manually. After all, the diaphragm pump cannot do it all on its own!

With the main bath finally full of liquid helium, I cycled back to SCM. There, I had dinner and spent some time with cheshcat. I took her lyrics quiz[**] and we played two games of Bohnanza. I won the first (8 to 7) and she won the second (16 to 14).

Now I am back at the lab for the third time today. Days like this make me really appreciate the fact that my commute is nine minutes, door to door. I have just set up the pumps to remove the exchange gas[***] from the inner vacuum chamber. They will run overnight, which means that I can now go home and get some sleep!

Although nothing particularly special happened today, it was pleasant enough day... and moderately productive, too.

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[*] Except for the office / guest room which, although marginally improved, is still a disaster area.

[**] If there are still any lyrics left "unclaimed", check it out!

[***] The exchange gas, which is also helium, is the medium that allows the cold liquid helium in the main bath to cool the apparatus within the inner vacuum chamber. It provides a thermal link to 4.2K, which is useful when cooling from room temperature, but fatal when trying to reach millikelvin temperatures. Hence the need to remove the exchange gas a few hours after the main bath has been filled.

Whew -- what a day!

Woke up this morning, came into the University, and started the liquid helium transfer for the latest cooldown of the K-400. Shortly after this was done, I went home to take a nap, having not slept very much last night.

When I woke up again, cheshcat and I put Foxy into a carrier and attempted to drive her to the vet. This very simple plan was foiled by Oxford's rush hour traffic. Although the drive is only two and a half miles, and although we left twenty minutes in advance, we got so backed up as to miss our entire appointment. This is why I greatly prefer not to use Peter as a form of transportation within Oxford. Said veterinary appointment has now been rescheduled for Friday morning.

After the aborted vet visit, I came back to the University to check on the helium fill. Confident that all was proceeding well, I made my way to Mary Mag to ring bells for the learners' practice. These Wednesday practices basically consist of ringing rounds (i.e., a descending scale) on six bells. Four bells are rung by more experienced ringers, while two learners take the remaining bells, each guided by a non-ringing experienced person. During Trinity Term last year, I joined in as one of the learners. This time, I am both pleased and amused to say that I am attending to help out as one of the "experienced" ringers. Actually, I like this quite a lot, as I get to ring much more this way. I rang on the #5 bell for the entire practice, rather than only half or a third of the time. Rounds are pretty easy, but it gives me time to practice my ringing technique -- something that is more challenging when I am trying to keep in the correct place during Grandsire Triples or Plain Bob Minor at St. Giles.

When practice ended, I cycled back to Skullcrusher Mountain and sat down to dinner with cheshcat. It was good to get in a little downtime, and specifically to do it with her. After dinner, I hopped back on my cycle and rode to Summertown. First I returned a DVD, then I went to the Ferry Sports Centre, hopped in the pool, and swam a mile. This was my first swim of 2008 and it felt very good to be back in the water. I almost was not able to get my full mile in, as several minor delays had prevented me from getting into the pool as soon as I would have liked. To successfully swim a full mile, I had to really push myself for most of the session... which can actually be viewed as a positive thing. My arms and legs feel tired now, but it was worth it!

Left the water, dried off, and cycled back to the University. Forgot my ID card, though, so I had to wait for somebody to let me into the building. The helium fill had gone as far as could be done unattended, with the use of a diaphragm pump, and I had to take a more active role for the final stages. As of about fifteen minutes ago, the main bath is now full of liquid helium.

Although I have been at the lab three times today, my work is not yet done. The inner vacuum chamber needs to sit in the helium bath for three or four hours before the exchange gas is pumped out. The pumping takes many hours. Thus, after posting this entry, I will cycle home and come back in a few hours to start the pumps and let them run overnight. This will make for a very late night -- once again -- but there are a variety of things that I can do in this time. I need a shave and a shower, and I also promised a call to the adorable squeektoy42. And if cheshcat is still awake, we can always spend a little quality time together.

So that was my Wednesday. I did say that term time was going to make my life busier! Let's see what my Thursday will bring...

I seem to have gotten myself into one of those all-too-common spots where I let a week go by without writing much of what I have actually done. To rectify that, here is one of the ever-popular week-in-review entries.

Last Saturday, cheshcat and I spent the day at Woburn Abbey... which is neither a woburn nor an abbey. Discuss. Seriously, though, the so-called abbey is really the home of the Duke of Bedford, who is worth roughly one billion dollars. The house sits on land that was once an abbey, before Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in the late 1530s. Henry gave the confiscated lands to John Russell, ancestor of the current Duke: Anthony Russell. Although I really enjoy visiting this historic homes, it bothers me more than a little to see the ongoing privilege of the aristocracy. Basically, this guy is a billionaire simply because his great-great-great-etc-great-grandfather was cozy with the king. I much prefer visiting places like Leeds Castle, which have ceased to function as a home for rich people.

In any case, we still had a pleasant day out. Surrounding Woburn Abbey is a three thousand acre estate that serves as a deer park for a large number of species of deer. We drove through the park first, stopping frequently to take pictures of the deer. The inner part of the estate, near the house, has a fairly unimpressive informal garden, a few ponds, an antique shops, and other assorted curiosities. Here is a picture of me taken near the house itself:



The inside of the house contains a noteworthy art collection. Honestly, what probably impressed me the most about the entire outing was getting to see the so-called Armada Portrait of Queen Elizabeth.

Overall, it was a pleasant day out. Though, of the four Treasure Houses that we have visited thus far, we agreed that this one made the least impression.

On Sunday, I ran some errands, got Peter cleaned up a bit, refilled liquid helium in the K-400 cryostat, rang bells for services at St. Giles, and swam a mile at the sports centre. Overall, a quiet day.

On Monday, cheshcat and I played a couple of games of Skip-Bo. I won the first, fair and square. On the second game, however, it looked quite likely that cheshcat would win by a fair margin. For those unfamiliar with Skip-Bo, you start a two player game with thirty cards apiece and the winner is the first to get rid of all those cards. She was down to six cards and I still had fourteen. Then, somehow, a stroke of luck came my way and I was able to rid myself of thirteen cards in one fell swoop. This amazing turn brought me victory soon after.

On Tuesday, cheshcat and I went to see Floating at the Oxford Playhouse, as mentioned in this entry.

On Wednesday, after work, we brought Totoro to the vet. Not feeling up to riding my bicycle with a cat in tow, I carried the poor guy (see icon) down Banbury Road in his carrier. He was very vocal about his displeasure, though very well behaved once we actually arrived at the vet. His left eye has been bothering him, so we wanted to have it looked at. Thankfully, it does not appear to be anything serious. In the evening, cheshcat and I exchanged gifts to celebrate our 157^th month anniversary.

On Thursday, I rang Plain Bob Major on handbells at St. Giles and then rang tower bells as described in the previous entry. After practice, a few of us went to the Bird and Baby, a pub once frequented by J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis, to chat over drinks.

Today, we finished installing several pieces of equipment into the cryostat and started evacuating the inner vacuum chamber in preparation for the next cooldown. In the evening, cheshcat and I did some work beating Skullcrusher Mountain back into livable shape... then watched two more episodes of Babylon 5. We have one episode to go until the fourth season is over... though it feels like the whole series could have ended now with no loose ends left untied. Soon we will not be the last people left on Earth who have not watched Babylon 5!

Tomorrow and Sunday both look to be good fun, as we have plans for both days. But this entry is long enough... so I will write about those events after they happen, and not before.

Okay, I'm back. I know, I know -- I wasn't even gone long enough for anyone to notice... but gone I was, nonetheless. I was off brooding. No that's not quite right. I was wrestling with my newfound revelations about how badly the United Kingdom sucks. I was struggling to assimilate all the things that I hate about this country, and somehow reconcile them with the fact that I love being here so much. Significant developments from the Western side of the Atlantic during this process include the Supreme Court's decision to turn Brown v. the Board of Education on its head and the selfsame court's decision to reintroduce price fixing. Simultaneous developments on the Eastern side of the Atlantic include a minor incident at the Glasgow airport leading to further encroachment of the police state and a plethora of mindless patriotic quotes from our new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. Sounds a lot like the things that I'd heard far too much of in the United States and all falls under the basic theme of: "They attack us because they hate us for our freedom... so we shall stop the attacks by taking that freedom away." At the end of the day, which it most certainly is, I stand by the conclusion that the political situation in the US sucks more than it does in the UK... but it still sucks over here much more than enough.

The real reason that I stopped posting for awhile is that anything I could possibly write about from my life sounded exceedingly trivial and superficial compared to the terrible things of real importance that are going on. That is still true... but unless I want to pack this journal up completely, I guess I am going to have to go back to writing about the superficial trivia that is my life. Here is a summary of things that have been happening:

( Games )

( Bells )

( Other )

Trivial? Yes, I know. But, for now, it's my life so I may as well chronicle it. Meanwhile, just for fun, ( here are a couple more pictures from Solstice at Stonehenge. ) And, if you have not yet seen it, go check out Riz MC's video for the Post 9/11 Blues. Just because.

The OUSCR wine and cheese bar-b-que party last night was gangs of fun. Yummy food, lots of schmoozing, sparklers, sing-a-longs on the piano and guitar. Good stuff. Got into a couple of interesting discussions... one on political philosophy and Anarchism, another on the nature of geekdom. Some good pictures were taken, one of me with three other ringers names Mark, Luke, and Jon. Another was a slow exposure shot of sparklers drawing out the "OUS" acronym for the society. I was reminded that most of the Society are undergraduate kids when another long exposure shot used sparklers to draw an ejaculating penis. Stayed until the party closed down, then headed back to chat with resourceress for awhile before bed.

Today has been fairly mellow so far. Cycled over to the sports centre and swam another mile. Tidied house. Watched a fifteen minute thunderstorm -- rare for Oxford -- mixed with hail. Now cheshcat and I are getting ready to leave for the formal summer ball at the Oxford University Press. Should be a fun shindig!

Work
Bells
Theatre
Swim
Babylon 5

Now sleep...

As I mentioned in yesterday's entry, this past weekend was not a total loss.

The high point of the weekend, for certain, was Saturday night, when cheshcat and C&M joined me for an outing to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and the adjacent Pitt Rivers Museum. The museums were hosting a special late-night event called In A Different Light. Both museums were open from 8pm until 11pm, with a variety of special things to see and do.

We arrived just before eight o'clock and were greeting by a band of people playing drums on the front lawn of the museum. When the doors opened, we went in -- admission to most museums in the UK is free -- and looked around the natural history museum. Although it is quite close to the building where I work, I had never been inside before. There are carefully preserved kitties and foxes and squids and fossils and many other nifty things. We watched a performance by dancing monks, then listened to a kora player. We got a taste of gamelan from the Oxford Gamelan Society. Yup, we've got all sorts of odd hobbies going on here in Oxford. As is usual these days when we go out in Oxford, ran into other people that we knew... from cheshcat's job, from my job, from bell ringers.

The Pitt Rivers collection was a particularly special treat. For this event, all the lights in the room that houses the collection were turned off. People entering were given flashlights to use for exploration. Nothing quite beats finding shrunken heads or mummies in the dark! In fact, not only is there a normal human mummy in the collection... there are also mummies of a cat, a dog, a child, and a crocodile! In general, I do like museums, but poking about with a "torch" not quite knowing what one will find gives it a new twist...

Other points of interest during the weekend included going to see an outdoor production of Noel Coward's Private Lives at the Queens College on Friday evening. It was quite amusing and slightly biting, as can be expected from Noel Coward. During the performance, I realized that some of the lines sounded familiar from my high school acting class. Clearly I had done a scene from this long ago. Except that I hadn't! I later remembered that I had done scenes from Christopher Durang's The Actor's Nightmare... which borrows lines from Private Lives. Par for the course, we ran into a former neighbor at the performance and a fellow member of the University board game club on the way home from the show.

We also had time on Saturday for one game of Puerto Rico with C&M. It was very close. cheshcat and I tied for the win with forty-seven victory points each. However, she won the tie-breaker and, therefore, the game. Sunday evening, I rang bells for services at St. Giles, including a covering tenor for Plain Hunt Triples and ringing the treble for Plain Hunt Doubles, ( for which the method diagram is behind this cut. )

And on Saturday afternoon, I had time to go to the pool and swim another mile. So, despite having to cancel some plans for work, the weekend turned out to be far from a total bust.

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Unrelated to the weekend, but also worth noting: I gave my fourth blood donation in the UK today. One more and they give me a blue donor's card; currently I have the red one for relatively new donors. That won't happen until September, though, as they only allow people to donate every sixteen weeks. Unlike the US where donations are accepted after an eight week interval. I was a tad nervous that they might notice my left "slit wrist" and say something, but it all went off without a hitch.

This evening, I rang bells at Mary Mag with OUSCR. I got to ring four times, all just rounds and called changes. The most interesting part was at the end, when we rang rounds on all ten bells, instead of just eight. Ten bell rounds are noticeably quicker.

On Saturday, cheshcat and I spent the day at Blenheim Palace with C&M. We arrived as they opened at 10:30am and left when they closed at 6pm.

Blenheim Palace was built in the early part of the eighteenth century for Sir John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough. He became a duke and got the palace by the wishes of Queen Ann, for saving England's backside in the War of Spanish Succession. In a nutshell, the English beat the French in Germany fighting over the Spanish throne. Another famous Churchill, Sir Winston, was born within its walls on November 30^th 1874. However, not being descended from the eldest line, Winston was not one of the dukes of Marlborough. Tough break. The house is a tourist attraction, but is privately owned by the 11^th Duke of Marlborough, who also lives there. In the interests of time, I will refrain from making political commentary on the ongoing aristocracy.

We visited an exhibit on the life of Winston Churchill then we took a tour of the palace. Twice during the tour, we were told after the fact by a guide that the current duke had just walked by us a minute earlier. I never saw the guy, and began to suspect that he is invisible. The last room on the tour was the library and organ room where the annual Churchill Memorial Concert was to be held later that evening. The keynote speaker this year, we were told, was Mikhail Gorbachev. Although he was scheduled to speak in that room later in the day, at the time we walked through, he had not yet arrived.

After the tour, we had a long and lazy picnic lunch on the grounds, relaxing and looking out over the Queen Pool at the Column of Victory. Then we went back inside to see an exhibit on the two Churchills (Sir John and Sir Winston) as war leaders. Next we made our way into the formal gardens and sat by the water terraces having a drink of Blenheim's own spring water. Then we took a stroll up past the Temple of Diana -- where Winston had proposed to his wife. Continuing on, we walked by the rose garden, the arboretum, and went as far as the grand cascade water falls before turning back. When we had returned to the house, we got ice cream at the Ice Cream Parlour.

The day was nearing a close, so we headed to the other side of the grounds for a quick visit to the Pleasure Gardens. We made our way through the twenty-five minute Marlborough Maze (second largest hedge maze in England) in only ten minutes, then spent a little more time in the lavender garden (everyone but me) and doing smaller mazes in the so-called adventure playground (me) until it was time to leave.

Before heading back to Oxford, we went on to Bladon, which is about a mile or so away. There we visited the church cemetery where Winston Churchill is buried. One of C's grandparents is buried there, too. Then it was back in the car and down to Oxford.

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The rest of the weekend can be summed up rather quickly: Saturday night, after dinner, C&M came back over and we played Puerto Rico. cheshcat won, with 44 points (C had 42, I had 39, and M had less). Then they went home early due to feeling tired so, in lieu of a second game, cheshcat and I watched Babylon 5.

Sunday morning, cheshcat and I had one of those lazy mornings together in bed. Then the daytime was spent doing some desperately needed spring cleaning at Skullcrusher Mountain. In the evening, I went to St. Giles to ring bells for services and then went to the pool to swim another mile. Afterward, cheshcat and I ordered pizza and ate it while watching Ian McKellen in Richard III. And thus the weekend came to an end...

It was a pretty mellow weekend.

Spent yesterday afternoon with C&M driving out to the Harcourt Arboretum. The arboretum is a sibling establishment to the Oxford Botanic Garden, which is the oldest botanic garden in Great Britain. Not surprisingly, both are run by the University. The Botanic Garden is in the city centre and, as such, I have been there numerous times. Fans of Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy may recall a special bench mentioned at the end of the last book. Said bench is located in this garden.

In contrast, the arboretum is located several miles outside of the Oxford ring road. So I had not made it out there for a visit before this weekend. I am very glad we went, as the weather was fantastic and the arboretum was largely in bloom. There is a Blue Bell Woods, filled with blue bells as far as the eye can see. There are not as many different collections of trees as at the Morton Arboretum (located half a mile from the Event Horizon), but there was still an impressive number to view. As chance would have it, there was also a furniture making workshop going on that day, with wooden pole lathes out in the open. C has an interest, as well as experience, in making furniture, so this held his attention for awhile.

In the evening, the four of us regrouped at Skullcrusher Mountain to play games. We played our staple -- Puerto Rico and I won by a considerable margin: 64 points, second place went to cheshcat with 57 points. For the first time ever, I managed to purchase a factory and a harbor and a wharf. With that kind of advantage, it would have been shameful to lose! Next, we played Carcassonne, which I also won -- albeit by a much smaller margin. Then we played Ra, which cheshcat won. Ra is not my game. In all the times I have played it, I have only won once. Which is why I keep wanting to play it more.

After C&M left Skullcrusher Mountain, cheshcat and I watched the final episodes of the second season of Babylon 5. We continue making progress to remove ourselves from that small sliver of geekdom that has not experienced this show. And we are very much enjoying what we see. For me to enjoy a television programme is indeed rare, and speaks volumes.

Today, cheshcat and I laid in until after 11 o'clock. After spending the early afternoon on mundanities around the flat, we went to see the gardens at St. Hugh's College, which were open to the public for charity in much the same way that the Trinity College gardens were earlier this month.

After spending time taking in the gardens, cheshcat headed north to Skullcrusher Mountain and I headed south to ring bells for the evening services at St. Giles church. After ringing rounds and called changes and practicing dodging a couple of times, the band went to ring Plain Hunt on seven bells. I asked to ring the tenor, and DR let me. I don't believe he has seen me do this before -- indeed, I have only done it twice before. With only seven bells changing, the tenor keeps time (like a metronome) and always rings after the last hunting bell. So, in theory, the job is easy -- just keep a steady pace. In practice, it is good to know which bell will strike last in a given change so that one can watch that bell. I have studied the theory of the Plain Hunt method and so I knew I could do this... and, indeed, I did. That was fun! Things got really interesting a little later, though, when a band was gathered for Plain Bob Doubles. A doubles method involves five bells changing. Often when we ring doubles at St. Giles, the #6, #7, and tenor are all covering. When this happens, the first five bells change places according to whichever method is being rung, but then they are always followed by 6,7,8 in that order. So the person ringing the #6 has to track which bell they follow from the front five, but #7 always follows #6 and the tenor always follows #7. I have done this many times before on either #7 or the tenor, to get extra ringing practice. Well, DR started me off on the tenor, which would have been straightforward enough, but soon told us all to stand (i.e., park our bells). He then swapped me out to the #6 position covering for Plain Bob Doubles. Ever have a dream where you are in a play and have to go on stage... but you don't know any of your lines? This was a lot like that! I have never studied the theory for Plain Bob Doubles and had little to no idea who I was to follow. However, unlike these common anxiety dreams, I had a great time trying something new! I did my best to keep a steady pace, and DR (who was ringing the #7) helped me out a bit at times by telling me who I should be following! So that ended up being quite exciting!

After ringing ended, I stopped by Skillcrusher Mountain briefly before heading to the Ferry Sports Centre to swim another mile. My legs had already gotten a small workout from all the walking of the day, and my arms had received the same from forty-five minutes of near-constant ringing. Nonetheless, it was good to work them out in tandem in the pool.

Finally, I came home and had a good dinner and evening with my darling cheshcat and am now winding down to get some rest before what promises to be a very busy week. There is a cryogenic cooldown in progress -- the grad students should have filled LN₂ into the Kelvinox today -- and I also have to prepare my talk for my interview at Sussex at the end of the week. Should be fun!

First things first: Once again, just after sunset tonight, look to the Western sky. The two day old sliver of a crescent moon returns to hovering nearby Venus. Very pretty! I am amazed that the clouds of England have permitted me to see the one and two day old moons thusly for two months running!

That duty tended to, here is what I have been up to lately:

Last night, after a yummy dinner prepared by the marvelous cheshcat, I was off for a dip at the Ferry Sports Centre. Swam another mile, which feels wonderful. I am amazed to find that I can already see a difference in my arms from these workouts. Have to remember to stretch more, though. When I last swam regularly (1993 - 1999), I never stretched and, thus, lost much flexibility.

Today has been a very pleasant day. The weather is phenomenal -- warm with clear skies -- making every moment I spend outside a joy. At lunchtime, I attended a meeting of the PGJCC. This god-awful acronym -- don't even try to pronounce it! -- stands for the "Post-Graduate Joint Consultative Committee." Essentially, it is a council that responds to the concerns of graduate students and post-docs here in the Oxford Physics Department. There are six graduate student members, one to represent the students at each of the six sub-departments, and there are two post-doc members, each representing the post-docs at three of the sub-departments. That's right -- yours truly represents the post-docs of Particle Physics, Astrophysics, and Theoretical Physics. Ooooh, I can feel the power going to my head already! Actually, the meeting was pretty good, and I brought up issues that have been of concern to me since starting my post-doc here. Foremost of which was the isolation that we have from each other -- heck, I don't even know the vast majority of the people I am supposed to represent! Fermilab, for all its bureaucratic flaws, did a good job of organizing interaction time for its post-docs, and I made suggestions based on my experiences there.

Other than the meeting, work is going pretty well, too. After finishing some electronics work on the cryostat, we mounted an old proto-type detector onto the experimental plate of the Kelvinox-400. When next we cool down, I should actually be able to make some measurements. So things are proceeding apace... and are very exciting! Wish I could say more about where this is all heading, but it is best not to do so in a public forum. Those of you who have requested private e-mail can probably expect something on this topic in a couple of weeks time.

In the evening, I crossed the road to get to a bell ringing lesson at St. Giles. I ascended into the bell chamber for only the second time, and watched the #5 being tied so that it would be silent during my lesson. I need to take a picture of the actual bells; those old things ave quite a beauty to them! The process of tying a bell is different from what I would have expected. I'm sure that resourceress -- rope-goddess that she is -- would have an easy time of it! After practicing on #5 for the better part of an hour, I ascended again and I untied the bell so that it would sound during practice.

Over the course of the practice, I rang several bells. I rang rounds and called changes, as well as practicing my dodging. However, I spent a very sizable part of the practice ringing on the tenor -- usually covering as the lower five or six bells rang a method. I am starting to feel a fair bit of affection for the tenor. This is the oldest bell in the tower, as well as the heaviest. It was cast in 1632 and bears the inscription "FEARE GOD HONAR THE KING" on it. It is an F-sharp bell[*] and has a mass of 13 cwt (or "hundredweight"). To translate units, that is 1456 pounds of bell that I was swinging about less than an hour ago! Being so heavy, it is a challenging bell to control. I don't always have it right, but I can say that it feels so fantastic when I hit my groove and it all flows smoothly! Alas, I suspect that my affection for the tenor is likely to mean little to her; with a life so much longer than mine, I must only be a flash in the pan -- just another in a very long line of lovers!

By the way, for anyone who is interested, the bellringing webpage for St. Giles church can be found a picture of the ringing chamber can be found here. There is also a picture taken inside of the ringing chamber, though it is not terribly impressive, I'm afraid! Especially since you cannot see the horrendous patchwork carpet!

Off to Skullcrusher Mountain now, to spend a little time with my beloved cheshcat before the evening is out...

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[*] There is a very, very obscure Green Lantern reference here. I will be extraordinarily impressed if anyone other than ashnistrike knows what it is.