Happy 4th of July (weekend) to my fellow patriotic Americans around the world, particularly back in the States. We miss not being able to celebrate with you, particularly in the way that we are accustomed - stuffing our faces at the "Taste of Minnesota", or "Schmaschte of Schminneschmota" as I liked to call it, and then sticking around for the fireworks afterward.
Well, at least we got to do something vaguely like the first part. A fellow student, E, had the extraordinary generosity of first organizing and then purchasing all the meat for a 4th-of-July barbecue at a local park for our little CMS social circle - mostly HCAL people, but a couple others we know in the area too. She and another student are from the U of Maryland, there was another student from Princeton, NJ, and there are others employed by Florida International University in Miami, FL. We had a nice time, although K had to leave early to put B to bed. No fireworks, though...
Those will come on the 14th, when the French will again celebrate their own "Independence Day" - Bastille Day; the storming of the Bastille prison, while it actually didn't accomplish much, was highly symbolic of the overthrowing of the "Ancien Regime" or old order. I've been reading a book that reminds me of how interesting it can be to compare and contrast the two revolutions, French and American, since they happened at roughly the same time in history. But the leaders of the respective revolutions had profoundly different philosophical underpinnings, which leads to the differences between the two countries today. And in fact, these differences have no small part to play in the internal politics of the current political season in America. But that's all I'll say about that in this venue! For now anyway...
Then last night K and I got to have another date night; E graciously babysat for us again while we took in the "Monts Jura Jazz Festival" - see this is another thing that Americans can be proud of - we contributed something uniquely American to the history of music - that of the creation of jazz, that has since been welcomed and adopted by many cultures around the world. The Swiss have now one of the most renowned jazz festivals worldwide, the Montreux Jazz Festival, which is going on right now on the other side of Lake Geneva, about an hour's drive away, in Montreux. And for those of us who don't want to make the drive and pay the exorbitant entrance fee, we can go instead to the base of the Jura Mountains in Crozet, where the ski lift ("telecabine") is, buy some reasonably priced food, sit in uncomfortable chairs, and take in some great jazz bands under the tents. K and I were particularly impressed with a band reportedly from Brazil, the Carlinhos Franco Band, a fusion of Latin and jazz, just fabulous. I could have sworn there were at least two more band members, a bass player and a keyboardist. But the lead singer/guitarist could make his guitar do all these things. It was just him, the saxophonist and the drummer. Check out our two videos on our dropshots website. Unfortunately the sound recorded by the dinky digital camera microphone is nothing like what we experienced, unbelievably rich and toe-tapping, but hopefully you can get some sense of what it was like. We bought a CD :)
Speaking of independence, B is gaining more of his all the time. K took him to the kids beach on Lac Leman (Lake Geneva) along with my adviser's wife and kids. He got to experience sand...
Also, when I pick him up off the floor I usually stand him on his feet first. But today when I lingered at that waypoint, he voluntarily took a step towards me! So I encouraged him to take a few more. He's on his way to cruisin'...
Unfortunately, he would also be on his way to a bad TV habit unless we intervene - we found out we can play CDs on our newly purchased multizone Panasonic DVD player (only 88CHF). Even having a static "screensaver" display on our TV seems to mesmerize him.
Check out the new B videos on our dropshots website.
Just a note of thanks to the Germans for defeating the Turks in the semifinals of the EuroCup 2008. We slept very well that night, since apparently there aren't as many Germans in the area, or else they are not as accustomed to keep people up late with their revelry. There was just one car that slowed to a stop at the base of our building (and consequently the base of the one where a few Turks live across the street) and laid on the horn for about 10 seconds, and then sped off - and then nothing but blissful quiet for the rest of the night. Not a peep was heard when the Spaniards won it all last Sunday...
This Monday starts another global run on CMS, "CRuZeT 3" - and this time the tracker is finally in the game. They've had more than their share of trouble with their own cooling system - didn't I say before that if anything sinks this detector, it will be the low-tech stuff, not the high-tech? So the tracker, which is the most complex part of the CMS detector (the number of pixels and silicon strips in the tracker is measured in the tens of millions), is somewhat behind in terms of integrating with the rest of CMS, so it will get the lion's share of the attention this go-round. I have the evening shift on Tuesday and Thursday nights.
For those of you who are wondering: "When are they actually going to turn this thing on?" Well! I spent considerable time trying to find a suitable schedule to share with you online, but to no avail. Lots of details about CMS in particular, but none about LHC. I will continue trying and update this space once I've found it.
Recent bun-isms by K (add these to "the sinking of the Ella Fitzgerald" and other classics :): While I was reading up on the French Revolution I was mildly surprised to discover that Jean Jacques Rousseau (the philosophical father of the F.R.) was born in Geneva. So I mentioned this to K, and she asked - "didn't he die recently? Wasn't he the guy who went on all those fishing expeditions?"
"Why don't the French understand me?" - when she wanted to ask where the WC was, she pronounced the letters WC "dub-lay-voo say" - to a Frenchman that would maybe look like "dublez-vous c'est?" - who knows how that translates - instead of the correct pronunciation "doob-lah-vay say"... guess you had to be there.
Ph's Phun with Phrench: K likes the French word for dustbin - "poubelle" - as in, "consigned to the poubelle of history". So we thought we'd take a picture of our own concept of a "poubelle" - whenever you take a pou, don't forget to ring the belle...
Take care,
-PKBD
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