Elliott’s Blog

I got a nice set of photos on my way to work this morning of the snow-capped Jura mountains. I made a photosynth of it:

Location:

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I like Microsoft’s Photosynth technology. Here is one of my favorite pieces of public art, which I pass on my way to work every day:

For such a big question, I will provide specific, but trivial, answers.  (Let’s avoid controversy, OK?)

Campus: Fermilab has prettier buildings and nicer land.  But, hey, some people like the quonset hut look!  Those people would love CERN.

View: CERN, hands down. Although the Plains have their own charm, nothing compares to snow-capped mountains and vineyards!

Diversity: Draw.  Fermilab has more ethnic diversity, but CERN has more national diversity (that is, everybody at CERN is Caucasian, pretty much).  But you know, one hears three or four languages during the course of a day at both places!

Snow Removal: Fermilab, hands down!  OMG, the snow removal is bad at CERN.  There seems to be none!  There was a big snow over the holiday period, and two or three cars tried to drive through.  These tire tracks have been fossilized in the snow-now-ice for WEEKS!

Quantity of snow: The winner here depends on whether you consider more snow to be good or bad.  Fermilab definitely gets more snow than CERN.  I guess that’s why their snow removal is better.

Vibrancy: CERN.  This is because this place is CRAWLING with young people!  It is great!  Of course, these youngsters are ignoring the possibility that physics from the LHC won’t come for (ahem) a while.

Wildlife: Draw. Fermilab has tons of deer and geese.  (Some might argue that geese are bad because of their voluminous droppings).  But CERN has deer, goats and sheep.  As a matter of fact, both places have a bison herd (I wrote about that in a previous post, I think).

Coffee: CERN. I have learned the subtle virtue of the 1-ounce expresso.

Cafeterias: This is a tough choice, but I have to go with CERN.  The Fermilab cafeteria is just fine–the salad bar is good; the entrees are reasonbly tasty and the sandwiches are fine.  Moreover, the Fermilab cafeteria is quite a bit cheaper than any of the CERN cafeterias (in fact, everything in Kane County, IL, is cheaper than in Canton Geneve, CH).  But there are three cafeterias at CERN, and they all serve wine and beer all the time.  The pizza at Restaurant 2 (a.k.a., “R2″) is very good!  The free French bread at R3 is fabulous and their pizza is wierd (who ever heard of artichoke and anchovie pizza??) but not bad.  The atmosphere at R1 is quite nice (see “Vibrancy,” above).  And compared with eating out, the CERN prices are acceptable.

I would like to expand this silly list to cover EVERYTHING in life at these two places.  Check here, and at my web site, for more.

When in Rome, …

So, the first event of the 2009 CERN ski Club was yesterday, and #3 son and I joined in.  It was quite interesting!

The CERN ski club had decided somehow that I was a Level 1 skier, so off we went down the main slope of the resort.  The instructor said that he’d assess how we are doing and then start the lessons.  This was a “blue” (beginner’s) slope, so no big deal, right?  Wrong!  I managed to get about halfway down before fall number one.  The instructor and the rest of the group were about 100 m ahead, so they paused to wait for me.  I got up and started again, and quickly experienced fall #2, this time straight into a fence on the side of the slope.  The instructor called for someone to come rescue me and went on with the lesson for the real Level 1 skiers.

I must say that they handled my situation very well.  The rescue instructor was infintely patient with me and basically held my hand as I moved slowly down the slope to the chair lift.  Her English was equivalent to my French–pretty bad.  But we managed to communicate.

Here is what went wrong.

1. I was not a Level 1 skier.  I did not remember enough technique to navigate ANY slope.
2. My leg muscles were not strong enough for this.  I actually did pretty well at the beginning of the blue slope, but I fell because my legs had given out!
3. If I weighed 10 kg less, my legs might not have given out so easily.  If I weighed 20 kg less (I wish, I wish), I’d be on the black slopes.

Given that I did not remember the techniques (or, really, I didn’t remember them correctly), and that my legs weren’t strong enough to control my (all-too-massive) body, I, uh, freaked out.  Once I got scared, I could not continue.

So I went to the beginners’ level and started over.  This was actually the right thing–I needed someone to remind me of the proper techniques for getting down a hill!

The best advice I got was told to me, more or less, as follows.  “When you are going down a hill too fast and you are starting to panic, you have to think to yourself, ‘Push on the downhill ski!’”  This will cause you to turn upslope.  If you keep pushing on that downhill ski, you’ll actually end up going up the hill and this will stop you.  This instructor really hit the nail on the head for me–she saw that I was scared (52 year old scare-d-cat–that’s me), and she knew exactly what I needed to do to fix it.

I practiced this for the rest of the day.  My instructors were very supportive of my needs.  At the end of the day they complimented me on my technique and said I should definitely do the blue slopes next week.  (Deep breath here.)  Okay!

Apparently, the best excercise for skiing is biking.  I can do that.  Another great excercise is the one in the gym where you are basically laying down and you lift a huge mass with your legs.  I’d say, oh, 100 reps at 100 kg should work.  The excercising I have been doing of late has not been strenuous enough–I really need to push it.

Snow fell on the Jura mountains this morning! They tell me that the Juras did not see any snow last year until January. So maybe the year will be a little colder, and a little more conducive to skiing. They tell me that skiing last year was awful.

Joanne and I really want to learn how to down-hill ski. But, alas, I am a little afraid of the learning process. I am not as agile or as bouncy as I once was, and I know that falling from my dizzying height of 5-foot 6-inches can be very painful. Maybe we can find a gentle ski slope with really soft ground around here.

I went to a sports store today and confirmed that ski equipment is very expensive. Here are some rough numbers:

• Skis: 100-500 €. I have no idea what the difference is between the 100 € skis and the 500 € skis. Cross-country skis seem to be a lot less expensive.
• Boots: 150 €
• Poles: 20-70 €
• Clothes: You can spend whatever you want for clothes!!
• Total: 270-720 €, per person, without buying the cool/fashionable ski clothes.

And don’t forget, the Euro right now is worth $1.46!! So 270 € is close to $400! I’ll check the prices in Switzerland, where the exchange rate to the dollar is a bit more favorable.

Grass

Nothing earth-shattering, but it is nice to note that lawns aren’t very important here. They don’t seem to care for their lawns in quite the same way as many of my neighbors (and myself on occasion) back in Illinois! As my namesake Uncle Elliott Simkins used to say, “If you mow it, it’s a lawn!” That is exactly what they do.

Here at the CERN Prevessin site, they have installed a small herd of sheep to “mow” this “lawn”. There are, I’d say, 20 sheep grazing in a penned-in area of a couple of acres. Very nice. I strolled by them yesterday and they took a great interest in me. I believe they though I was going to feed them.

(When in doubt about what to say, talk about the weather!)

I am surprised by the evenness of the weather here. In Northern Illinois, it isn’t weather unless the temperature changes by 50 F (28 C) at least one day a week. This just does not seem to happen here!

There is a thermometer visible from our apartment window. Every morning when I leave and every evening when I return, it says the same thing! Recently, it has been saying “6″ or “7″, occasionally “10″. It is very pleasing, but rather boring. Even on days that it rains, the temperature stays at 7 C.

I really should be playing golf.

Here are some random thoughts on the last few days of life in Switzerland.

Joanne has done a marvelous job of unpacking us. Our apartment in Nyon is lovely, bright and airy. We have filled up all of the closets with our stuff–Joanne and I keep coming back to the questions, “Why do we have so much stuff? Can’t we live our lives just as well with less stuff?” I guess we may never know.

Sterling and I built three dressers and two futons on Saturday and Sunday. He is a great worker–he can follow non-written instructions fabulously (this comes from his vast experience with Legos, of course).

We are still waiting on our internet, television and phone service. The local DSL provider in Nyon, called TRN, is having trouble with their modems–the newest one they were delivered don’t work. They are waiting for ones that do work, and we are waiting for them. This is pretty bad.

Joanne tried to buy German beer for me, but it seems that the Swiss grocery stores do not carry German beer! They only carry Swiss beer. This beer is good, but not great. It is not as good (by a long shot) as my beer, and not as good as what I recall real German beer to be. I hope to have the time soon to start a batch of my own beer. We have a wonderful cellar for storing it while it ferments!

Be sure to see Marty’s blog: He ran in (and completed) a mini-marathon in Bloomington last weekend!

The daily commute from Nyon (Switzerland) to my office in Prevessin (France) takes between 20 minutes and one hour–the traffic on the “A1″ motorway can be horrible! But if there is no traffic, it is quite pleasant.

All FM radio stations have a frequency of X.N (for example, 101.9 (X=101 and N=9)). In the US, N is always an odd number, so there might be a station at 88.3 or at 88.5, but not at 88.4! This is a problem here because there are no such restrictions on the value of N. In fact, the excellent British station in Geneva is, in fact, 88.4 FM. The radio in my car is made for the United States, so I can’t tune it in. Even the “scan” feature on my radio can’t find it. The fellows here say I should spend 100 CHF and get a new, Swiss-tunable radio/CD for my car. This might be nice because (a) I can listen to 88.4 and (b) I can get one that recognizes MP3’s, and maybe even has an input jack for an MP3 player.

This post is too long. Stay tuned for more!

I played 18 holes of golf yesterday with the CERN Golf Club in Aix-Des-Bains, France. It was an absolutely beautiful day–sunny, breezy and 20 degrees (68 F). 38 euros–kinda high by municipal course standards in northern Illinois, but not too bad.

There are a couple of interesting things about this round.

1. Of course, all the markers are in meters. I knew this going in, but it was still kinda weird to hit my 8 iron only 100 meters on a decent hit. This course had six (6!!) par threes (total par 70). Two of these holes were right at 200 meters!! (Figure it out–that is 240 yards or so). I used my driver on both of these. One of the par threes was a mere 100 meters, but you had to hit it over a road! They had a chain-link fence right in front of the tee box to prevent errant shots from hitting a car–a very weird hole!

2. In the States, we mark the pin location with “Red, White and Blue” flags, corresponding to the “Front, Middle and Back” of the green. “[W]hereas the French more properly use the same colors in the order of blue and white and red,” (Jean-Luc Picard, stardate 41386.4, episode The Last Outpost) to represent the front, middle back of the green. Not a big deal–just interesting.

3. You don’t get vistas like this in Chicago! There were mountains everywhere. I guess we were in a valley.

4. And yours truly won the long-drive competition!!! But I forgot to pace it off, so I can’t say how long it was. Maybe 270 yards??

The fellows I played with were very nice and quite patient with me, speaking in English most of the time. But they reverted to their own personal mix of Swedish/Norwegian from time to time.

I hope I can play in this league (as time and money permits) next spring!

We got our stuff today!!  All of our “household goods” are in our apartment in Nyon, and we (somehow, unbelievably) got both cars into Switzerland.  Our go-to-guy at CERN, Mick, says don’t ask why, just go with it!

We are so happy!