6 week update...

So, I've been incredibly busy recently. As a good recap, please find the following blurb I wrote about a week ago. Following the jump, is an update to date and some pictures. 

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Captain's Log, stardate 201008.21.

To my followers (both of you), I am sorry about my inability to update this blog recently. I've been preparing for my three month exodus to the deserts of Arizona (ie, my return to the VERITAS site). 

I've finished building my detector. Adam and I designed and built a mezzanine to connect to the FPGA so that I can actually test some real signals. I only got the detector working fast the day before I left, however, so I'm going to have to do some work on it once I arrive on site. 

I left home at 9AM yesterday and arrived in Columbus, Ohio some 14 hours later. I crossed the border at the Thousand Island Bridge (beautiful). The line I was in at Customs was very slow, I figured that the agent was being thorough, and so I got ready to whip out my travel itinerary, the letters from my supervisor and the VERITAS basecamp manager that prove my intentions. 40 minutes after arriving, I pulled into the booth, handed over my passport, informed him that I was, indeed, driving to Arizona, and he just waved me through, to my surprise. I was expecting him to pull me over and go through all my equipment (I have my detector and three computers including my desktop tower with me), a telescope and a guitar.  Hell, the car in front of me was from New York State and they had their trunk opened at least. 

I'm not complaining, by any means, just very surprised. Totally painless.

By about 7 I was in the vicinity of Cleveland, so I pulled over at the first place I saw for food (a Waffle House), had some mystery meat (they called it a steak but had the wrong texture), and left again. Right around Columbus, I saw this mad accident, a guy my age or yonger with the back end of his car bashed in. Some 200 feet later, the car that hit him was in considerably worse shape. Once the traffic cleared, I was forced off the highway by some police cruisers. I tried to go around them, but couldn't find the detour. Talking this as a sign, I crashed at the closest inn I could find. 

This morning I was up at 8AM and out the door some half hour later. Breakfast at a Waffle House (closes thing that I could find that wasn't already serving burgers), coffee frmo the connected Tim Hortons, then back on the road.

I've been tanking every 400km. This marker leaves me with a quarter tank safety margin in the event there are no fuel stations around. So, at around 2, I was getting close to the 400km mark when I asked my GPS reciever where the closest gas station was. The answer was "Dale's Fieworks". For obvious reasons, I took the exit. As one miguht imagine, Dale's was not a gas station, but a fireworks warehouse. I went in, bought some firecrackers and other things that explode, tanked (elsewhere), and got back on the highwar. 

Writing this, I'm in a Steak and Shake diner in Lebnon, MO, some 375km from Tulsa OK which is where I hope to spend the night (to stay on track with my Monday arrival at VERITAS). I've done enough Westward travelling to give me an extra hour of daylight, at least, so the only thing keeping me from getting there is potentially fatigue, but I'm not worried, there's enough "real fruit" in this strawberry milkshake I just had to keep an army of six year olds moving for a week. As much as I like diners, I'm becomming a bit oversaturated. I actually thought this place was a steakhouse, but had sat down before I noticed that they were a cheap burger joint. 

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The day after that I drove through Oklahoma and New Mexico, and I drove by the Tom Stafford Air and Space Museum 9and obviously went in) and past the Very Large Array (which I also visited). Two panoramas are included with this entry. 

This week the weather was really bad, thunder and lightning. We hadn't had a clear night before last night. We're finally going to be able to take some good measurements tonight; we're going to make a measurement of the reflectivity of the mirrors of one of the telescopes. 

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Shortly after I finished that sentence, we went outside to take the data and for the second time, we were unable to get the telescope to slew in azimuth (side to side). This was strange because twice now the telescope had been checked out during the day, and twice at night it just wanted nothing to do with pointing at a target. 

So, we drove up the mountain and parked at the Bowl dorms, had a beer and went to bed. This morning, I got an email from one of the VERITAS directors. We had left the telescope exactly as we had used it, so that if we hadn't plugged something in, for example, he'd be able to point to it and blame our issues on it. This was not the case, he had no issue slewing the telescope around. 

We're not quite sure what's going on, but tonight one of the experts is going to stick around until we start to take data to see if the problem crops up again. 

So, tonight we're going to try and make the measurement again, take some measurements to test the alignment of Telescopes 2, and then finally take some data so that we can align the mirrors on T4. All in all, it'll probably be a busy night. 

Dear followers, I am sorry for ignoring you. As one might imagine, I have been very busy since my return.
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BMW donkey.

A BMW donkey.

Something I threw together yesterday in various little bits.

Captain's Log, Stardate 101007.22 or something along the lines.

I write this entry from a TGV as I depart Paris. Internet access was so horrible in the hostel I was staying in that it made it incredibly difficult to get online, and when I did, I would be sitting haphazardly on some stairs along with a dozen other 20somethings asking their boyfriends if they could hear them because the Skype connection was so bad. So, needless to say, I didn't spend much time online.

I did however have a really good time in Paris; I went on a tour in Normandy at the beginning of the week, saw Omaha, Point d'Hoc, the artificial harbour, some surviving German gun batteries, the American graveyard, and we had a guided tour of the Caen Memorial.

I highly suggest anyone who has an interest in WWII and would like to see some of the sights to go on this tour; the rates were pretty reasonable (170 USD) considering we had lunch included (steak and wine) and our groups were very small, at most 8 people per guide. The fact that the groups are small really made it worthwhile, you didn't have to wait for the guide to finish repeating their speil in four languages before you could ask a question. It was really great. The visit is organized by the Caen Memorial, but I bought my tickets through http://www.linkparis.com. If you can get a good deal on your train fare to Caen and back from Paris, it should cost you no more than about 200 dollars. Sure, it's a good chunk of money at face value, but if you're interested in the material, there's nothing like getting taken around by a professional.

The next day I went to the Eiffel Tower. I was there at a time that I thought was early (10AM), but when I showed up, the lines were huge. I spent at least an hour waiting to get my ticket to the second floor, at which point they informed me that the top of the tower was closed due to congestion (not unjustifiable, at least). I didn't really care, going to the second floor is better than not going. Up there, however, they were selling tickets for the tower, so I queued again for about half an hour, this time. I was luckily able to get a few kerbillion pictures as the line wrapped its way all the way around the second floor.

Upon reaching the top, I declined getting a 10 Euro glass thimble of champagne, took a couple pictures and essentially got right back in line for the elevator down. 45 minutes later, I was back on the ground looking for the Notre Dame cathedral. The line to Notre Dame had a lineup akin to that of the Eiffel Tower so I took some outside pictures, sat down in the park behind it, and crossed it off my list.

Ah yes, now, the adventure for supper. I had read about a Canadian pub (yeah, apparently they exist?) called the Moose that actually looked like it would be interesting, so I tried to make my way over there. Epic fail. About an hour into the 13 minute walk I ended up at a tavern that had some nice looking beer and food for less than ten euros. It was pretty simple, I had a "tartine", some sort of bread with cheese melted onto it and toasted. It was simple, but tasted good; mine had goat's cheese and another kind I couldn't pronounce. For desert, I found a crepe shop and had a nutella/Gran Marnier crepe, scoffed it down while it was still warm, then walked what (at the time I thought was) the road back to the hostel. 20 minutes later, I realize something is up; I should have at least seen a building or street that looked familiar... or the frakking Pantheon that I knew was on the way. I was really, really lost, and naturally without a map. I had somehow ended up in a part of town where metros were scarce, so I couldn't even figure out what stop I was at. Eventually, though, I found a metro, managed to misinterperate what direction I was facing, and then stumble somewhat in the direction of where I was going.

By the time I got to the hostel I had been wandering around for about 90 minutes, was drenched in sweat, and fell asleep on my bed fully clothed (minus the shirt I was wearing which had to be burned), with the lights on.

My last day in Paris (yesterday) I went to the "Cite des Sciences et Industrie", a purely immense science museum geared towards everyone. It has to be at least 3 times as big as the Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa, which in itself is pretty huge. In the 6 hours I was there I saw a 3D IMAX show in their theatre, a planetarium show that was pretty fantastic, and two and a half out of maybe a dozen exhibits. I can't imagine anyone actually having the time to visit the entire museum in one day.

That night, I met up with a coworker from McGill who was in town for a high energy conference (TeVPa), and he, his girlfriend, sisters and myself went on an hour long boat tour. You couldn't really hear the guide which was a bit of a drag, but the experience was still nice (albeit a bit of rain). We had supper at this South American place, then my coworker and his girlfriend and I went out for drinks. We ended up at this royally expensive (but really cool) place next to the Pantheon. I had a 1L "glass" of kreik (a sour cherry beer) out of a kwak bottle.... The pictures can explain more than I can with words.

Today, I made my way to Ghent, got royally lost on my way to my B&B, checked in, took a 4 hour break (was pretty pooped), and now I write this sitting on a terasse, drinking a Duvel, surrounded by live music, magicians, street performers, this creepy girl in a dress (see the pictures) and swaths of people. Ghent looks like it would be a blast to visit when there isn't a festival going on, this is nuts. It's like the Montreal Jazz Festival on crack with a small section of LaRonde thrown in (did I mention there are rides set up here?). I missed the Ghent jazz festival, which is too bad; I was hoping to be able to compare it to Montreal's. Oh well, it gives me an excuse to come back. Also, at (I think) 45 Euros a night, my B&B is really nice; nicer than some (most) hotels I've stayed in.

Well, my glass is empty. Time to order another bottle of something that'd cost me three times as much back home.

*caveat: I do miss my brewery. I should be taking notes on all the things I try; it would be really cool to try and figure out what makes then and attempt to duplicate some of the flavours. I don't want to clone them, there's no fun in that. Instead, I would like to be able to pull together something similar.

PS, there are some really, really pretty girls in Ghent.

PPS, most of them smoke.

PPPS, I hear that there are all you can eat ribs somewhere around here. w00t.

Partial update

I'm at this crazy huge museum in Paris, called the "Cite des Sciences et Industrie". Saw a 3D movie (unfortunately spoiled by the daycare groups who were there) and a planetarium show (fantastic; I almost want to go to the second show). 

This place is way too big to see in one day; I've still got most of the museum to visit, there's a 50s era submarine parked outside that I have tickets to go see, and I've just discovered that the Louvre is on a direct metro line from here. 

Not sure if I'll be able to make it to the Louvre; I have plans to go on a 1 hour boat trip tonight at 8PM with one of my colleagues (and his girlfriend and sisters) who is in Paris for the TeVPa conference (I love being a physicist, we get to go to all these cool places). 

Internet access in Europe is very meh.

OK, I have to make this short, the internet access here is flakey. I will post the links to my pictures, and then tonight from my room I'll write up a proper log entry.

Last Days in Erice

First Hours in Paris

Normandy D-Day Tour

Apparently, I did get a tan the other day.