Another eventful week at "Chez Goldie" - that's the name we've given to the house we live in, since it's rented by and for University of Minnesota employees (since MN is the gopher state, "Goldie the Gopher" is the UofM mascot - which is why UofM sports teams are feared the world over - and maroon and gold are the school's colors).
You saw from our previous blog entry that we were able to get our car on the road with temporary plates. K immediately took to it like a duck to water - she used the car every day since. Did we tell you she's found a job cleaning a lady's house a few hours a week? K enjoys the job, the lady - we'll call her "D" - appreciates it since health reasons keep her from being able to clean it herself. And B manages to keep himself occupied while K cleans. So K used the car to go to this place twice this week. She's already made 91 euros worth. We've been told you can make money on this level without reporting it, and it's totally legal.
On Tuesday K arranged for us to see another apartment on St. Genis. I was able to break free from meetings to join her and B. We both liked what we saw.
At first I was crestfallen to see that it belonged to a rather sizable high-density high-rise complex that I'd seen before - in fact, K and I used their laundromat when we were here in summer of 2006, because the laundry machines at Citadines were so obscenely expensive. And all the high-rises around here are this off-white color with stains down the side, and ugly looking window shutters. Just nothing to look at, at all.
But almost invariably the apartments in these places are much nicer to look at on the inside. We'd already encountered several apartments like this. The difference here was that the views out of this apartment managed to avoid the worst. Instead of looking at other buildings in the complex, you're looking out from the complex towards the Jura or the Alps. See the video uploaded at our dropshots website, under December 11th, 2007.
In addition, this place is furnished tastefully, has a combo washer-dryer (yes, they actually make these! "Sounds like an electrical disaster waiting to happen," says K. But hey, if you can make it work, sure makes sense for space-saving), a large leather couch, TV (with cable! - well, maybe we can negotiate that...), plenty of cabinet and counter and closet space, and best of all, all charges and utilities included in the rent. Plus St. Genis is ideally located for biking/walking commute to Meyrin (see previous blog entries for a map). Downside: parking is catch-as-catch-can. Or you can rent an underground garage for extra.
As my adviser was in town for the CMS week meetings, he told us an important detail: landlords around here like to rent their aparments furnished because it puts them in a different category: they are then allowed to take action against clients who don't pay their rent - otherwise they can't!
Even so, the system (and the clientele?) tends to force landlords to get nosy about your personal life, because they have so many troubles with tenants. And this landlord was no different. When we contacted him by email (he lives in Paris) to say we were interested, he wanted to know what my "work contract" term and stipend were. Well. I happened to notice that his email ended with "physics.uoc.gr" - meaning he is affiliated with the Physics deparment of the University of Crete, which is a part of Greece. So I told him I'm a graduate student working on my PhD. I assumed he would know what that meant without having to explain it: I don't really have a "work contract". And I get paid the meager stipend of a graduate student plus a pretty decent cost-of-living adjustment. Even if physics departments work differently around the world, I figured any physicist that has worked at CERN (assuming this since he rents an apartment near CERN), he would have had enough exposure to other physics department affiliates from around the world.
But even after this he asked a second time what my work contract was. So I started getting more explicit with him:
- "Because I'm a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, I am paid by the University of Minnesota as a graduate student. I am paid by them until I complete my degree program, as I explained previously. This is not a hard and fast 'contract term'. As a graduate student, I do not have a 'work contract' as such"
We didn't hear from him again -and once K had seen his web page, we weren't sure what kind of landlord he would be - until Thursday. Phew! We're still in the running! After all, with the time getting short, and a juicy apartment like this, what's an eccentric-Greek-string-theorist-and-amateur-art-aficianado landlord between friends? K wants to know if he uses Windex on everything, like in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"...and how else are we going to find out, unless we get to rent from him? He wanted a letter drafted supplying the requested information - and happily, since my adviser was in town, he promply supplied said letter. Please pray this turns out as the Lord wills - and we do hope it works out! We hear-tell that a horde of fellow students are waiting to move into Chez Goldie next semester...
This Thursday I got to see one of the last key pieces lowered underground (and without my camera! :-( I really need a pocket-slim digital I can use for such occasions, hint hint): the silicon tracker, with millions of channels, all wrapped up in foil like a huge fried beef-and-bean burrito, the spicy, crunchy heart of CMS - "Chipotle!". Compared to the heavy lowering campaigns (each piece of which requires 12 hours to lower 90 meters) this was a lightning operation, taking only 45 minutes from positioning directly above the shaft to touchdown. I looked for juicy photos that maybe other people took, but none are available as of yet - check back, there may be some in the near future.
Thursday evening was the CMS Christmas party, held in the surface hall at Point 5 ("SX5"). In the photo you see the back-side of YE-1 ring, the last to be lowered in January. This hall used to be filled with such rings, but most have been lowered by now. Only three remain.
Family members were technically not allowed. I noticed some folks ignored that rule. But they had great food, boxes of wine at every table, and lots of students showed up (again, sounds like a recipe for disaster, but we're talking the creme-de-la-creme of nerds here - people generally behaved themselves...).
Finally, for another B-fix, see the dropshots video of a live performance by both K and B, recorded today in France! - our living room, that is.
Merry Christmas,
-PKBD
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