It is 08:32. The accelerator status message (posted 07:04) is "problem with injection kicker; expert needs tunnel access. No beam before 08:00." Sitting here in the refrigerated control room waiting for the beam... seems a pretty standard experience now! At least this is the day shift. I see that the beam was up and down all night for the night shift. Oh, updated message "no beam before 09:00." I think I will go get some breakfast.
The beam came back and we took lots of good data. We're testing our calorimeter with muons (the electron's heavier sibling) and the funny thing is that we do this with a three-meter (at least) thick block of iron in the beamline; the muons zip right through. We go down and adjust things, we sit right in this beamline. I suppose if the muons don't interact in the iron they probably won't interact in me. Let's hope so.
I drove Paweł to the bus today, dropped him off in Genève where he left for the long bus ride to Krakow. I will follow shortly. (He just told me yesterday that `ł' is pronounced like our `w,' so his name really something like ``Pav'ou.'' Now I can at least try to pronounce it correctly.)
Last night I turned my binoculars towards the brightest object in the sky (no, not the sodium-vapor lamps) from atop the SPS (Super Proton Synchroton) in St. Genis, and I saw that it was, indeed, an unmistakable rusty red. Ah, Mars indeed. Hello.
