Elliott’s Blog

Two news stories caught my attention today, and emphasized that life is different in the rest of the world, as compared to the USA.

1. The Chinese are executing two people for “endangering public safety” in the contaminated milk scandal!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090122/ap_on_re_as/as_china_tainted_milk_8

2.  “[L]ocal authorities in Geneva have decided to ban an anti-Davos demonstration planned in the western Swiss city on January 31 because of fears of violence.” (!!)

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/090121/business/davos_economy_politics_us2ndlead_1

A common phrase in the States is “Only in Amerca!”  So to these, I’d say, “Only NOT in America!”  Maybe we don’t have universal health care or supercars, but at least (I think) we have some basic Human Rights!

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.

For all of you who were in the University of South Carolina Concert Choir in 1976, please be sure to see the PicasaWeb album I have created:

Hungary 1976

I took at least 13 rolls of black and white film during that trip (I was 19 years old, by the way). Right now, all I have managed to put up are flat-bed scans of most of the proof sheets, one picture of the choir on stage, and one of my favorite pictures of all time (and the one featured on the album cover), the Cologne Cathedral at 10PM on July 1, 1976.

Thanks, John Simpson!

It was a life-changing event!

The best thing about the Canon XSi as compared to other cameras we have owned is the speed!  One can take several pictures per second, even without using the “rapid fire” mode (which they say is capable of 3.5 shots per second).  You point at a moving subject and click, click!  Your finger hardly has to move.  I had this capability in my old film cameras, especially the Canon F-1 I used throughout the 70’s and 80’s, but one is limited to 36 pictures at a time (the length of a roll of film), and I limited myself because of the expense of the film—the film itself costs a few bucks, and it takes a certain amount of effort to develop the film and make proof sheets (and all that).

So far, it has been common for us to take between 100 and 300 pictures of a scene.  I took 158 pictures of Son 2 and 3 in the workshop with the lathe, and threw away 40 in the first cut (excessive camera motion, out of focus, mis-aimed).  Son #1 seems to take 100 shots at a time of our Grand Kitten.  It is so easy—why not??

I ventured outside the other evening to take pictures of the stars. It was a first effort, so none of the pix were excellent—I need a real tripod.

Update, January 7, 2009. I tried again to get a good picture of Orion’s belt, and here it is.  The camera is MUCH stabler here.