where things are, and a social life at last

The gray blob where the Rhone leaves the lake is Geneva, Switzerland.

The yellow pushpins are placed at the synchrotron's eight interaction points.
I work at any of the three red push pins.
I live at the green one.
So for instance, a week ago, I left my green push pin and biked under the airport, over a massive hill called Grand Sacconex, and coasted into the Geneva about as close to the lake/river meeting point as the dark North-South bundle of train tracks you see there. It's called Cornavin. There was a going away party for a Swedish CERN student I'd never met, but it was where everyone was planning to be that night.

There was karaoke in one room...

There was copious alcohol in all the others.

The ride home was the second time I'd ever tackled this hill.
The sight of top of it still brings a smile.

And just as I re-enter the town where I'm living, the sign on this
restaurant nearly made me fall of my bike.
I spent the next Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday recuperating from a cold
(and completing my first major computer coding effort)
in my room.
Pretty damned pleasant place to work.Outside my window, (NNE) it's mostly other apartment buildings.
I'm going to look for places to live which are less urban.

work work work

Some of my work has been in Batiment 904.

It's a warehouse where subsystem development teams can have electronics racks, small electronics laboratories, and the greatest coffee machine I've ever had the pleasure to frequent. But the only running water is the water cooler, so the bathroom is a short hike to the next building over.

It's clean, warm with the soothing heat of multiwatt hardware, and has great natural light.

There have been some .... hiccups, but then the real world is just like that.

Of course, some work can be accomplished remotely, say on the lawn of Restaurant 1, with a view of the sunset on the western faces of Mont Blanc.

Working on both sides of a national border means carrying two currencies at all times. You also should have your passport, GSM phone, CERN ID card (losing one means a visit to the Geneva police station and a scolding), and working papers for two countries. I have a different pocket system for each pair of pants.
-Dr. S

Parking Lots of CERN

For a friend who reads this blog, and finds more exciting things in a parking lot than any normal person would. So on a beautiful fall day in the Rhone Valley,
with the wind from the west, off the Jura mountains,I saw some nice juxtapositions...

Mom, Dad, I think I might like Smart Cars.

It certainly is excellent driving country.

In the picture above, can you spot the tallest mountain in Europe?
-Dr. S

Dinner with the BU team

Most of our team is CERN-based, and some of it is adopted from another group (That would be Ianos, across the table from me).

Arno was in a great mood, so we sat him at the head of the table.

I don't recall Laza doing magic tricks.
What the hell was this?
Arjan reminds me of a Dutch incarnation of
The Dude from The Big Lebowski.
Maybe it's just me...Eric took a nice little video from his corner of the table:

What nice dinner table conversation we were having.
_Dr. S

Took a while to unpack the bike

...but when I did,

bump-b'p-BUUUUUMP!

It's on, Glitter Gnomes. It's so on.

~

I forgot to deflate the tires before checking the bike into the plane's unpressurized, rubber-freezing cargo hold. The rear tire only seemed to have a slow leak, but when I surrendered my CO2 cartridge at airport security, I gave up the only way of re-inflating it. So Eric and I pulled off The Bike Trick, where a Kia (Ikea?) is made to hold a bike as big as the car itself.

All you have to do is shake out the car's contents onto the lawn....
et voila!

Once it was back in shape (the rear tube had to be replaced after all, when it gave up completely--and suddenly--after being ridden at full pressure, though not until it had been resting quietly beside my desk for a few minutes), I could load up with, say, a pate en croute, tableware, and a book of French grammar.
Now I'm comfortably prepared for tedious meeting and for sailing along open French countryside alike. Speaking of the new commute:

This beats the pants off of what I was riding through in Boston.

(though the JP commute had no border crossings)