The place where lost socks go...

This entry is, in effect, an ode to the wonders of modern technology.

I write this entry sitting on the floor of the study at the new flat. The desk is not yet rebuilt so I have nowhere else to sit. There is a phone line at the flat, but we will not have our broadband set up for another two our three weeks.

Meanwhile, I am online via my laptop and my mobile broadband modem, surfing along the 3G network. Armed with only these two devices, I am not only able to post this entry... I am also participating in an international video conference with some of my collaborators in London, the United States, Canada, and Japan!

Isn't the digital revolution incredible??

As an interesting side note, I can see a couple of places I recognize on my screen. One is the conference room at the TRIUMF laboratory in Vancouver -- I was there in Dec 2005 when I interviewed for a job. Indeed, they offered me the job to work on the T2K experiment... but I turned it down to go to Oxford. Nearly three years later, here I am on T2K and watching them on the video conference.[*]

The other place that I recognise is the conference room at the Kenkyutou[**] in Mozumi -- a small village in Japan that is very close to the Super-Kamiokande experiment. The Kenkyutou is where the central offices for SK are, and where I worked during the two years that I lived in Japan[***]. While seeing the room in Vancouver is cute, seeing the Kenkyutou again is a major blast from the past, bringing lots of nostalgia with it! I have been in that room so very many times, for so very many meetings. I have wandered into it at virtually every hour of the day. Indeed, I even watched the Twin Towers fall from the television in that room, back in 2001.

Ah, I miss Japan. It has been more than five years, after all! Very glad that I will be going back there in January. Meanwhile, I suppose that it would behoove me to post this and go back to paying attention to my meeting!

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[*] Not the first time that something like this has happened. When I arrived at Fermilab in September 2003, I was able to choose what experiment I wanted to work on. I chose the Pierre Auger Cosmic Ray Observatory... but my second choice was the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) experiment. Three years later, I end up in Oxford working on CRESST, which is a direct competitor to CDMS.

[**] Japanese for "research building".

[***] Unless I was a couple of miles away, in the mine -- working on or in the actual experiment.

Our lease on the new flat began on Friday. We are currently in the process of moving from the old place to the new one, and expect to be entirely out of the old apartment by the end of this coming weekend. In the meantime, here are so initial thoughts on the new space:

Cons (major):

• Size: New flat is definitely smaller than the old flat. Which is saying something!

Cons (minor):

• Location: New flat is further from the Oxford city centre (about two miles, compared with our previous flat which was about one mile away).
  
• Management: New flat is run by a professional company, meaning more interference into our lives.
  
• Rent: New flat is £45/month more expensive than the old flat.
  
• Showers: Thus far, water pressure is not impressive. Nor is the hot water supply. We shall see if something can be done about this.

Pros (major):

• Location: New flat is much closer to the Oxford Tube stop (a five minute walk, or three minute run, compared to a fifteen minute drive). This will also make it easier to take my bicycle on the coach, helping to shorten the London side of the commute.
  
• Location: New flat is also on a bus route that brings cheshcat directly to work.
  
• Location: New flat is in an active neighborhood -- directly above shops -- so there is life outside my apartment. And I can see it just by looking outside of my living room window!
  
• Condition: New flat is in much better condition than the old flat! Much!! (For one thing, there doesn't seem to be rampant mould growth, which the old flat suffered from -- due to insufficient insulation -- every winter!)
  
• Dishwasher: We have one now!

Pros (minor):

• Facilities: Two full bathrooms! Excellent!
  
• Management: New flat is run by a professional company, so any problems that we have will hopefully be tended to. (As opposed to the last landlady who did absolutely nothing ever about anything -- not even returning letters, calls, or e-mail)
  
• Neighbors: I live next to the Shark House! How bloody cool is that??

In short, the new place[**] is not perfect... but it is an improvement, especially given the location of our current jobs.[***] These are just the initial impressions. It will be interesting[****] to see how they evolve as time goes on.

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[*] Apologies to the Barenaked Ladies for my subject line...

[**] Which still has not officially been christened. Chesh favours calling it "Skullcrusher Mountain II", whilst I tend to favour an original name.

[***] In all fairness, the old flat was much better suited to the location of our previous jobs, for both of us. Had we lived at the new place whilst working at those jobs, it would have been very inconvenient.

[****] At least to me.

Writing this entry from the Oxford Tube[*], whilst making my way into London for my first day of the new job at Imperial College. Due to a bureaucratic ripple in the spacetime continuum, I am also still an employee of the University of Oxford until the end of tomorrow. Indeed, I shall be popping in there when I wake up tomorrow morning. I suppose that I could do worse than to[**] simultaneously be on the staff of two of the three highest ranking universities in the United Kingdom!

I realise that 2008 is not yet over. Not even close, really. Still, I think that it would not be premature to declare that this has been a Year of Change for me. Compared to last December: I have a new job, in a new city, working on a new project. cheshcat has a new job. We have a new car. We have a new cat. I am about to have a new mortgage on the Event Horizon. And I have some very significant new developments with some very special new people.

As is so often the case, these changes have not been easy. This has actually been a very challenging year -- particularly during the first four months. However, I am proud of having navigated the challenges successfully and to be reaching a point where a stable new status quo is in sight.

More later, as I have not made a concrete "these are the nuts and bolts of what Nomad has been doing" entry in over a week. In my own defense[***], I have been been burning the candle at about three or four different ends -- instead of the usual two -- for most of September.

And, on that note, the Oxford Tube has just announced my stop. Heigh ho, heigh ho! It's off to work I go...

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[*] Nowhere near as cool as a decommissioned underground nuclear bunker in Southern France, but that's what I have to work with today...

[**] Hmmm... I have noticed that this phrase has recently come into my active vocabulary. Can't imagine who I picked it up from.

[***] Against my own accusations of LJ sloth!

Snippet from a conversation this evening:

"Sex is mainly about energy exchange."

Thoughts, anyone? Tis an interesting hypothesis on a topic that I have been thinking about quite a bit lately. If I accept it as truth, it might help to explain why I very quickly find myself reacting strongly to some people when in a new relationship... while soon realising that others are never going to be more than casual partners[*]. Despite my fabled powers of logic and legendary prowess at deduction, I often find it difficult to articulate why such intensity exists beyond a vague: "It feels right."

It might help to explain a number of other things, too...

Anyway, it is nearly two o'clock in the morning, so utter brilliance is not about to spill out of my mouth (or fingertips). However, dear readers, I would be quite interested in any insights that you might wish to share..

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[*] Which can also be a wonderful thing -- never underestimate the value of friends-with-benefits -- but is decidedly less intense.

Just got back from Birmingham[*], where cheshcat and I helped the lovely redandfiery celebrate her birthday. It was good fun, and nice to see sanjibabes and thehalibutkid again, too! Thanks to all of you for a fun time!

It does seem that I am completely unable to go to sleep before two o'clock in the morning lately. We did not return to Oxford until nearly two o'clock tonight. Last night, I was in the lab until five o'clock in the morning, cooling down the K-400 cryostat. Tuesday night, I was in the lab until one thirty in the morning... then came home to read, which kept me from sleep until about three o'clock. This is what a long holiday weekend does to me, I guess.

On the drive to Birmingham, I popped the David Rovics[**] CD Hang a Flag In The Window into the player. I have not listened to his stuff for awhile; doing so reminded me that I really need to get back into activism. It is hard to believe how absent it has been from my life for the past year or two, especially considering how much time I devoted to it for the five years previous to that.

During the drive back from Birmingham, cheshcat and I opted to forgo the CD player; instead, we sang songs together from the early days of our relationship. It just happened -- we did not plan it -- but it was a nice way to reconnect... and there is an interesting feeling that comes with remembering so many years (and several lifetimes) ago with the person who I have shared them with. There was also one moment where Chesh's puppets made a snide comment so funny that I nearly drove us off the road, blind with laughter. Ooops.

Right. Time for bed. I realise that I have been negligent about updating this week. There has been a fair bit going on: A nine mile walk, gaming, video gaming, an evening with wolfpeach, ice skating, and more cryogenic adventures. I will try to write about them soon... but for now I need sleep. (Especially since I need to be back in the lab in seven hours)

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[*] No, not Alabama.

[**] It has occurred to me that Jonathan Coulton looks and sounds a bit like David Rovics, although the subject matter of their songs is entirely different -- geeky humor for one and radical left-wing politics for the other. In fact, Coulton now strikes me as what one would get if one cross-bred Rovics and They Might Be Giants.

I have been thinking about earworms recently. In particular, I have been wondering two things:

1. Why does a particular song sometimes get stuck in my head? Sometimes I wake up and find that an earworm has taken hold overnight, with no apparent rhyme[*] or reason.
   
2. Why do I get recurring earworms? There are several songs that just come back to me from time to time. For instance, I frequently find Suddenly Seymour, from Little Shop of Horrors, floating through my brain.

Does anyone else find themselves vulnerable to these things? Or is it just me?

While I am on the topic of music, here is another "Is it just me?" question: It seems that, for every romantic relationship of significance that has ended in a break-up, I have a song that conveys the spirit of the relationship ending[**]. Is this normal? Or is this just me being weird?

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[*] Besides one that might be in the song itself.

[**] And, no, I am not going to share the details of the relationships, or the songs, on LiveJournal. Though I might spill the beans if you strike up a conversation about it in person.

I have seriously started thinking about a change in careers.

Anyone who knows me at all will likely find this to be quite a shock. I frequently go on at length about how much I enjoy my work. I get to play with very nifty toys, like an enormous water Cherenkov detector beneath a mountain in Japan, like helium dilution refrigerators, and like the solar powered laser calibration system that I helped to build. I get to go to very nifty places, like England and Japan and Italy and Argentina and India and France. I get to work in unusual places, like the Argentine pampas, the Japanese Alps, and former nuclear command and control bunkers. Best of all, I get to study fascinating subjects, like neutrino astronomy and ultra high energy cosmic rays and dark matter.

So why consider leaving all this behind?

Sad to say, the prospects for my chosen field, particle physics and astrophysics, do not look good. The field is dying. Or, to be more precise, it is being killed. Although the prospects for several major scientific discoveries in the near future are quite good, basic research is not particularly valued in today's culture. This leads to a crisis of funding. Never mind that it is our field which invented the World Wide Web and is currently pioneering work on the computing Grid. We do not directly produce profit, so we are an easy target for politicians when they are looking for something to slash.

This is not particular news, of course. When I worked at Fermilab, I saw many projects fall by the wayside. However, the situation has very recently gotten considerably worse. In the United Kingdom, our work is funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council, which has an £80 million shortfall in its budget for the next three years. Projects and people are both being cut. In the United States, the situation is even more dire. The omnibus spending bill, passed by Congress just before Christmas, cuts our funding by about 8% (not counting inflation) from last year's levels. Making matters even worse, the budget was passed late -- one quarter of the way through the year -- so spending has been made at higher levels, as we were collectively lead to believe that we would be getting a budget increase for this fiscal year. The results of these cuts are disastrous for our entire field. The Stanford Linear Research Center will effectively cease to be a particle physics laboratory in March. The United Kingdom has pulled out of the next major project -- the International Linear Collider -- and the US has, at least temporarily, done the same. With two major players leaving, it is uncertain whether the project itself will be stillborn. The next big US-based neutrino project (a detector called NoVA) is in a coma. Fermilab will be laying off 10% of its employees, and requiring the rest to take two unpaid days off per month -- effectively a 10% pay cut. Not good. And when the currently running projects at Fermilab (e.g., the Tevatron, MINOS, MiniBoone) end in just a few years..... Well, I wonder if Fermilab -- the last US national laboratory dedicated to particle physics -- won't be shut down then, too. There are currently no major projects underway for the lab from about 2010 onwards.

It is too early to be certain that our entire field is headed the way of the Dodo. However, the writing is beginning to appear on the wall... and it looks particular bad for those of us who, like me (and gyades) are very near the beginning of their careers. At the moment, I have made no decisions. I would certainly like to enjoy a multi-decade career as an astro-particle physicist. However, I also like things such as eating, and keeping a roof over my head. For the moment, I want to maximize my options, which involves investigating a career change and what it would entail. If this does not become necessary, so much the better. But, despite my title as the "biggest mother-f*cking optimist", I need to stay in touch with reality. And reality says that there is a good chance that I will need to move on.

With Yule fast approaching, I have been thinking of what ritual would be appropriate for this year's longest night. We usually do something based around a fairly typical routine, like keeping a vigil through the night to welcome the sun back the next morning.

Then it occured to me -- what happens when the Winter Solstice is NOT the longest night?

This year, as last, cheshcat and I will be spending Yule at the Event Horizon. On the Solstice, Chicago will receive nine hours and eight minutes of light. Here in Oxford, however, the days have been shorter than that since November 11th... and will remain shorter until February 2nd. So today, with the Solstice still nearly four weeks away, my day is already forty-seven minutes shorter than it will be on the so-called "shortest day."

Now I realize that one can simply ignore differences due to personal variations in latitude and treat the Solstice celebration as a purely astronomical event. And we may yet do this. Still, it feels silly for to then celebrate the Longest Night on a night that clearly is NOT the longest.

So, I thought I would tap into the great body of creativity and knowledge that is my friends list to see if anyone had any clever ideas on how one could modify one's Yule ritual to account for having had a different Longest Night. I have a couple of ideas of my own... but I would be curious to see what others might think.

Some notes on the day:

• The department received three 100-litre dewars and one 250-litre dewar of liquid helium from Air Products today. Our group got one of the 100-litre dewars, so the Kelvinox-400 cryostat is now resuming its cooldown. I wanted the 250-litre dewar, because one hundred litres is not enough. However, that is going to a group of researchers who are visiting from Australia to do some experiments... and have to go back on Sunday. I feel for them, flying all the way here and then being unable to do their work because of the helium scarcity. I really do feel for them.
  
  
• I learned yesterday that I would probably be going back to Italy next week. I learned today that I am definitely going back to Italy next week. With only two weeks left before my next trip to the States, I had not really planned to squeeze five days in Italy into the schedule. But there it is! Things around here definitely move in different ways than they do at Fermilab!
  
  
• I've watched this week as the dollar has dropped to a record low against the Euro (more than $1.40 for one Euro now), a ten year low against the Indian rupee (less than forty rupees to the dollar now), and a thirty year low against the Canadian dollar (which is now equal to the US dollar in value). The only reason it has remained basically unchanged against the British pound is that the UK currency is suffering from the bank run at Northern Rock. Both winewiskeywomen think that the steadily devaluing dollar is going to continue... with unpleasant consequences to follow.
  
  
• At handbell ringing this evening, I practiced the part of the tenors (the #7 and #8 bells) on Plain Bob Major for the first time. Not too shabby. On tower bell ringing, I rang the treble for a plain course of Plain Bob Minor for the first time. I think I did quite well for a first attempt, although my familiarity with the method from ringing it on handbells undoubtedly helped.
  
  
• I still have not written about the fun and frolic from last weekend. At this point, I begin to wonder if I ever will. I hope so, because it would be too bad if I never did... but there are many examples where that has happened (e.g., the recent trip to Yorkshire, the May trip to the Lakes District, half of my trip to Rome last December). Just in case it never gets written up, here is one picture from the past weekend, taken last Saturday at Christ Church with a few friends:
  
  

And that would be all the news from today. Time to check on the cryostat one last time, then head home for some long-awaited dinner...

This evening, cheshcat had a surprise. She brought me to the Oxford Playhouse to see a [semi-]musical theatre adaption of the Tintin book Tintin In Tibet. The play is called Herge's Adventures of Tintin and is in Oxford for only two weeks before moving on to the West End in London[*]. I have never read any of the twenty-three Tintin books, yet that did not stop us from enjoying the play quite a bit. The part of Tintin's dog, Snowy, was played by a human, except for a brief bit at the beginning and the end when an actual dog played the role. Early on, I found myself feeling sorry for the guy who had to play the dog's part. At the interval, though, I bought a programme... and it turns out that he is the most experienced actor in the cast, having worked for the Royal Shakespeare Company and done a fair bit of work for television. Shows what I know! In any case, he certainly gave an exceptionally good performance!

Cycling home from the University a little while ago, it occurred to me that I am slowly settling back into my life in Oxford. Tonight was the first time I went to the theatre since cheshcat and I saw RSC perform MacBeth two days before I left for my summer holiday. Tomorrow evening I will go to Saint Giles church to ring my dear bells again for the first time since July 5^th. And at work today, I closed up the Kelvinox-400 cryostat so that I can begin filling with liquid helium tomorrow for the first cooldown since the uber-successful one that I began (and JI finished) right before I went on holiday. So, slowly but surely, I am getting back into the swing of things here. I still with that I had the powers of Jamie Madrox, though, because I enjoy being back but there are certain things -- and certain people -- Stateside that I miss like anything. Ultimately, there are several places where I have a life that is basically complete... and I would love to live in all of them at once! And, really, when it comes down to it, having a life that is too full is hardly a bad thing.

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[*] That's London's equivalent of Broadway for all you yanks reading this who aren't theatre geeks.