Elliott’s Blog

I am torn on who is Da Man today.  Care to cast your vote on this matter.

Da Man #1: Devin Hester of Da Bears.  Ran back two kicks for touchdowns (yeah, one was called back because of an irrelevant foul).

Da Man #2: Tiger Woods.  There has never been a player in any sport as dominant as Tiger is right now, except for Devin Hestert and that other #23 in Chicago, oh, what was his name?  (2-meters tall; played for Da Bulls?)

Arguments for Hester.  Football may be the most scintillating sport to watch in extremely short stretches–an unexpectedly successful Hail Mary, an interception return, the marching bands.  When I list the scintillating moments I have experienced in football over my 40+ years of watching it, I’d say that 25% of them are now occupied by Hester.  That 119-yard return of the missed field goal last year may be one of the most exciting plays ever in football.  And the Super Bowl (can I use that term here??) last year only lasted 20 seconds for me–the rest was irrelevant.  And then there was yesterday.  Every time he touched the ball it was electric!  Even the kicks he returned NOT for touchdowns were pretty fantastic. He was Da Bears yesterday.

Arguments for Tiger.  Saturday’s stretch of 6 holes that he shot at 7 under par my be the most outstanding stretch of golf (and luck) ever seen in the PGA.  And he wins going away at -23, eight shots better than the guy who finished second, Mark Calcavecchia.  Just read some of the post-round interviews, for example, “Maybe Zach Johnson had the best description. ‘The man is a freak of nature,’ the reigning Masters champion said. ‘I mean, he’s a normal person but he’s sooo not normal.’” (from PGATOUR.com) Those guys were shell shocked!  Truthfully, I have no real idea how good these guys are–when I play golf with a single-digit handicapper, I cannot imagine how he (or she) can play so well, so consistently.  And the guy who carries a 2 handicap at Orchard Valley probably isn’t as good as Steve Williams (Tiger’s caddy).  So I guess you could say that this guy can’t even carry Tiger’s shoes.

So, what’s your opinion?

I know, this has nothing to do with Switzerland.  Hey!  I’m an American and I can’t help it.

We have internet in our apartment. And I was able to call my mom on our Lingo phone. Whew!

Thanks to my neighbor and Fermilab colleague Bob F. for helping me think this through clearly!

But it looks like there is still work to do on our television connection–we get 6 channels (5, 90, 92, 95, 96 and 97), but 5 has no sound (and it is BBC World–ugh).

My new header image is one of the ends of the ATLAS detector at the LHC.  See my professional blog for a report.

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!

Our stuff arrived in Belgium on August 9. We arrived in Europe on August 16. Our stuff is STILL in Belgium. It has now turned out that we need six official documents and one unofficial one. Why Stevens Movers didn’t know that is WAY beyond me. In other words, they suck. The documents we needed to get our stuff released from Belgium are:

1. Passports (all three)
2. Marriage License
3. Birth Certificate (for SG)
4. Copy of the Rental Agreement for our apartment in Nyon
5. Residency License from Nyon
6. Import Form 18.44
7. Inventory of the goods in the container (unofficial)

And CERN tells us that we are only allowed one car. So it remains to be seen how we are going to get car #2 into Switzerland. It will probably cost us big bucks! Contributions are accepted via PayPal–email for details.

Divonne is nice, and our temproary apartment is OK. It is only two small rooms, plus a bathroom and a toliet closet, and since there is no cross-breeze, the stink of 3 people tends to accumulate. But opening the doors helps a lot.

We have gone to the beach on the lake twice (each Sunday). You’ve seen the posts. The lake was VERY cold yesterday. I estimate that it was 18 degrees. Brrr. But SG and I had a good time. J and I stayed, after SG left the beach, for another 30 minutes or so. It was very nice to be able to be close to each other in the sun. At IMSA, they talk about PDA (Personal Display of Affection) and try to snuff it out. Well, that would go nowhere in France! There is PDA everywhere!!!

Work is good and bad. The good is (still) that the people at CERN I am working with are really nice, really smart, and really inclusive. The bad is i some of my recent interactions with Fermilab. Ah well, I am still being paid by Fermilab, so I guess it isn’t all that bad. I have had a little trouble with someone who is working with me (I’ll not mention names), but he is such a nice guy that I am pretty sure we will work through this little problem. The worst part is that I am taking it pretty hard–talking face-to-face is SO much easier. So, I have been pretty stressed/depressed about this for several days. But, for the first time, I am looking forward to the weekly LAFS meeting tomorrow afternoon–I have learned a lot and I am prepared to talk! That feels good.

This morning, we left from Nyon (after dropping SG off at school) and we were on the highway at about 8:10 AM. The GPS (we call her “Genie”) said we would arrive at CERN (Prevessin) at 8:35, in plenty of time for my 9:00 meeting. Well, there was a serious accident on the highway (there may have been a fatality!). We arrived at 9:10. But I wasn’t the last one there. One interesting aspect is that about 40 motorcycles passed us on the line between the lanes! This seems to be very common in Europe.

At lunch today at Prevessin, I told the fellows (all men) about this traffic, and there were two bikers in the table of 6. One of them admitted (reluctantly (he was a French guy)) that he also rides on the lines in traffic. He said that it always takes him 22 minutes to get to work! The other fellow said that he usually stays with the cars. Well, there were 40 men like the first guy. I’m not sure how many of the second type there were.

I get to play golf on Thursday! This is a national holiday–I’m not sure what it is called. I bet I am going to totally suck. I’ll have to remember that my pitching wedge goes 90 meters (which is 100 yards or so). So if the marker says “90″, then it is a FULL pitching wedge.

One big piece of news from back home is from our, er, Marty’s dear Lana. See her blog, here.

There is so much to say! There are so many ups and downs, ins and outs. I need to tell you more, but the “downs” from the problems with the Fermilab interactions have kept me quiet. J is keeping a really nice private journal. I hope to catch up!