notes on weekends

I think maybe I used to be productive on the weekends, but that has all stopped. Now I prefer to sit around and absorb the generally pleasant Ambiance of Being. Loafing, if you will. I have a small routine of walking to Zippy's for a burrito or a flauta on the weekends, and now they recognize me there, which is kind of annoying. Then I go to the cafe near my house and sit around until I get hungry again. I am at that cafe by my house now, and there was just a downpour, and I sat outside on the veranda with my coffee and the banana trees, bamboo, and ferns, reading Landau and Lifschitz, but too lazy to break out my notebook and work through the equations on my own, which was all very pleasant. Of course now I am Wasting Time On The Internet.

notes on lab life

The first couple months here were all work. I mean, we were at the lab from something like 10am to 11pm every workday. And there's about an hour commute to get there and to get back. Delightfully, however, we recently had an influx of visitors, Nic[olás] and Aidan , giving us a kind of critical density of Young And Hip Persons* (in the words of the chief scientist), which has made our lab-rat existences infinitely more pleasant. For example, we somehow stole away 2 hours of time at the lab late one night to project a movie (Gerry—it was kind of terrible) in the lab's auditorium; and we have variously gotten away to New Orleans and Lafayette and the Chimes and Louie's. It's also nice to have another student to work with; Nic is my counterpart at the LIGO lab in Washington, and we are working on the same thing here, and keeping the same schedule, which allows carpooling, and stealing breakfast at his hotel. Aidan was staying at the same place, and it kind of makes me imagine our little microscopic labrat social group might as well give up renting places of our own and just crash and carpool with the visitors (whose hotel, car, and per diem are paid by Caltech).

* Also including Kate (visiting grad student from Florida), Dan (interferometer operator at LLO), and Rupal (LSU grad student and laser enthusiast).

critical mass/baton rouge and other adventures

Critical Mass on Friday was wonderful. The weather was superb, and the turnout huge: with something like 200 riders*, this was the largest Critical Mass I've yet ridden (after San Diego, Rochester, and Los Angeles). The ride was also remarkably well-behaved, staying together, corking beautifully, and even sticking to a single lane. (Southern politeness?) The ride ended at a house party very near my own house. The place was great, with a live band inside, and a trampoline and tire swing and a huge oak tree with a rope ladder in the backyard. I went with Kate and we both made some new friends (non-physicists!). These new friends took us to Chelsea's. It rained on us as we drank iced tea and ate delicious food. The new friends also responded enthusiastically to suggestion to go camping on the Gulf Islands.

On Saturday Nic, Kate, and I went out to the Festival International de Louisiane. Highlights included: eating delicious paella, running into our new friends from critical mass multiple times, kate finding a group of jugglers (she was ecstatic), seeing the Vidrine family band at the lovely but unfortunately named Cafe Artmosphere, and ice cream at Nic's place afterwards.

* nearly all LSU students, as far as I could tell.