Unexpected Discovery

Today I do not hate my job. I have been in the lab since just before 10:00 this morning, and I've been having a perfectly fine time, even though it's Saturday. Of course, I've been setting the computer to take data and then waiting for hours at a time, talking on the phone and reading strangers' blogs, and not semiconductor processing or attaching teensy-tinsy gold wires to teensy-tinsy grey chips. Another thing is that I complain kind of a lot about how lousy it is to be alone in the lab all the time. I discovered today that a benefit of that working condition is that if you work all day Saturday, it's no different from any other day of the week, so you don't even feel like you're working a weekend. And finally, I think I don't mind because tomorrow Matt and I are embarking on our three-day first-anniversary vacation.

Tonight we're going out for sushi with Craig and maybe Helen and Buebbles and then tomorrow afternoon we are departing for Los Angeles.

Thank you to everyone who has inquired over the past several days about how my experiment is going. I had a bad day on Wednesday, but tried some things yesterday that ended up working out well, and am now back to getting nice results. And my work schedule complements nicely my vacation schedule--I'll finish up this data set tomorrow and then let the cryostat warm up while I'm on vacation with Matt. Then I'll have some more samples to measure when I get back, and that's when we'll know exactly how well this experiment is working.

In other news, I have found a new internship to apply for. This one is only for twelve weeks, but it sounds interesting, and I know that if I get it, I will make contacts that could lead to a permanent position in science policy. And that is something that I think I really need because two nights in a row I've had dreams featuring characters from The West Wing. I won't detail much about Wednesday's dream because mine is a relatively family-friendly blog, but I will say that Josh Lyman was involved, and I was Drew Barrymore. In Thursday's dream, I worked in the White House and asked Donna if she wanted to go to the UCen (UCSB's student union thingie) for lunch. At first she was skeptical, but then she agreed. We couldn't talk Josh into going because he had a meeting, but we ran into him on our way to lunch, and he decided to join us after all.

I just ate a pound of asparagus heads.

That's not really true--I ate the heads off of a pound of asparagus. But that's still a lot of asparagus. Matt doesn't like asparagus, so the responsibility was all mine. And I had to eat it ALL because we bought it a week and a half ago, and I didn't think it would last much longer. So now it's gone and I don't know what we'll have for dinner tomorrow. Ham, probably. And canned vegetables. That's my guess.

So today was a day that I don't think should have existed for me. Nothing went horribly wrong, but all day I felt partially asleep. And all day I was really sore from Pump class on Monday (that's a weight-lifting class). And even though my experiments are going pretty well in general, today things kind of went to hell. Today I discovered that six of the eight electrical contacts on my new sample are bad, which means that the whole thing is worthless. Tomorrow I will see what I can do to resurrect it, but today I didn't have the energy to deal with it. Today I also looked for Buebbles' office on the wrong floor, which meant that I ended up in the main physics department office instead of the astrophysics wing. And the weirdest thing about that was that I didn't realize what had gone wrong for the longest time--I just figured that somehow the astrophysicists had acquired a new receptionist. Hell, they did just get a new espresso maker. And today I advised the chemist in my group to hook a current up to a diode in the wrong direction. I understood the physics of the situation; it was just that I was thinking that current should flow from negative to positive. I understand that the convention is the opposite way, but it made sense to me (and still does). But it was backwards and he gave me a hard time and jokingly (I think) said, "And you're the physicist." I refrained from explaining at that point that the last thing a physicist wants to be confused with is an electrical engineer. (Sorry, Meggie.)

On the other hand, I had a lovely conversation with Julie, who described to me a new restaurant that serves fried olives stuffed with salsa and cream cheese, or something like that. Provocative, don't you think?

And we are going to Catalina in mere days. Five days, I guess. But the vacation starts in four days, when we head to LA to visit the La Brea tar pits and stay on the Queen Mary, a haunted ship docked in Long Beach. I'm not all that psyched about staying in a haunted anything, but the price was the same as the Travel Lodge, and at least it should have some character. I once saw an Unsolved Mysteries, or some such television show, about a haunted hotel, and I've always been kind of scared of that kind of thing ever since.

Anyway, Matt has kindly done the laundry and we are soon heading over to Helen and Buebbles' place to watch West Wing.

The happiest place on Earth

Yes, World, I have been to Disneyland. So have Matt and Megan, but that information is perhaps less newsworthy, since they had both been there before. And what a time we had. Let me start from the beginning.

We went to the Daily Grind for breakfast, and it was yummy. I got a cranberry streusel muffin and a small coffee. Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm. And I didn't even have to stop during the drive to go to the bathroom. And that's a good thing, because it was a looooong drive. We didn't hit much traffic until about 30 miles from Anaheim, but from there on, it was pretty slow. But we got there, and it was a miracle, and it was so damned easy to go where we wanted to go. Basically right off of the highway there is a sign that points you to the express route to the theme parks, which dumps you right into the creepily well-organized parking structure. You don't have to think about a thing because the talented "cast members" direct you into your very parking spot. I was more than amazed.

Thus far I have left out an important detail: it was windy and rainy out, and I was quite soured on the idea of driving three hours to spend $50 to freeze my ass off in lines all afternoon. And, sure enough, we got out of the car and onto the tram that takes you to the park entrance, and I wanted to die because I was so cold. And I was not the only one. In fact, I would have forgotten about Disneyland's motto if a frustrated father hadn't hissed to his whimpering child in line for the tram, "This is the happiest place on Earth. Start SMILING."

So, we got to the park and by this time I really did have to go to the bathroom, and we were cold and hungry and unsure of what the day would bring. So we had lunch at a restaurant outside of the park, where it turns out they didn't have a bathroom. What the hell? To be fair, they only had five tables, so maybe I shouldn't have expected a bathroom, but still. I was peeved. So Megan and I ordered our lunch and then fought our way to the very back of the Disney store and found the bathroom. I was surprised that there were only two stalls and even more surprised that there was no line. We thought that that probably bode well for the rest of the day. We returned to find Matt looking lonely at the table with all of our lunches in front of him. So we ate lunch (it was very good), Matt went to find the bathroom and we were ready to start our Disney adventure for real.

Right away, something happened to make us happy: we found out that, as residents of southern California, we could buy a two-day pass for the price of one. It would allow us go to Disneyland one day and then Disney California Adventure on a different day before April 30. Or we could enter both parks on one day and forfeit the second day. We thought it was highly unlikely that we'd make it back to Anaheim again before April 30, but the price was exactly the same as a regular one-day pass, so we did that, figuring we could give the passes away.

So, finally we entered the park, and this is where I have to tell all of you who didn't already know this that I worked for four summers at an amusement park when I was a teenager. As a result, I have little admiration for the amusement-park industry in general, and I wasn't expecting to be particularly impressed. I was dead wrong, though. I would characterize Disneyland as Las Vegas for kids. Sure, lots of people hate Las Vegas, but for me, the naive tourist, Las Vegas was quite a sight to behold. It was pretty and fancy and interesting, and I'd say the same about Disneyland. I can't imagine the money that goes into keeping the park looking so good. Imaginative people with eyes for detail put that place together, and for me, it works.

So anyway, the park is gorgeous, but let's get to the part about Indiana Jones. That was the first ride that we went to, and it remained my favorite. I don't want to say too much about it for those of you who may never have experienced it, but I thought it was fantastic. It was just scary enough to be fun, but not in a roller-coaster kind of way. And we only waited for half an hour, even though the sign said that it would be a sixty-minute wait. We next went to Pirates of the Caribbean, which was also cool and the Haunted Mansion, which was OK, but not as good as the first two. From there we went on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, which was the most like a roller coaster of any of them. It was fun and not too scary. Well, I guess it was kind of scary compared to the Flying Dumbos and the carousel, which were the next two rides we went on. And from there we went to It's a Small World, which I really liked. Sure, it was kind of dated, but its intent is nice, and I didn't find the music half as annoying as I expected to. We next braved the Matterhorn Bobsleds, which was pretty fun, but not nearly as fast as we thought it would be. We finished off the day with Honey, I Shrunk the Audience and Star Tours and then headed back for one last gratifying ride on the Indiana Jones Adventure before we caught a tram back to the parking structure. We had dinner at a country-themed karaoke bar and Italian restaurant, and got home sometime before midnight.

And the next day Megan and I went one last time to the Daily Grind, and I dropped her off at the car rental place, and off she went to her conference. I will see her again in just a few weeks at the social event of the year, otherwise known as Debbie's wedding.

Anybody want some ham?

I just looked in the fridge for a late-afternoon snack and happened upon the remaining 8.37 pounds of our Easter ham. I had no idea that we had that much left. So I ate some and put most of the rest in the freezer. I don't know how well it will thaw, but it can't be worse than what's going to happen to it if it stays in the refrigerator for much longer.

Well, Megan and I have been having a good time vacationing here in lovely Santa Barbara. We did go shopping on Wednesday, but we didn't even make it as far south as Camarillo! We had so much luck in that colorful mall somewhere just south of Ventura (Old Navy, TJ Maxx, Nordstrom Rack) that we exhausted our shopping potential early and headed home. We then hit Video Schmideo's two-for-one Wednesday, and rented two classics of our own day: From Hell with Johnny Depp and Heather Graham and Proof of Life. You know--Meg Ryan, Russel Crowe. Megan and I might be the only two people in the entire world who would rent a movie like From Hell--in fact, we may have been the only people in the world who did rent it--but it is just the kind of lousy, B-movie that we loved to watch in college, and we wanted to recapture some of that innocence. The movie was not only horrible, but really long. I thought it had potential, to be honest. I like Johnny Depp, and I usually like his movies. Not so much this time, but that's OK. On the other hand, I enjoyed Proof of Life much more than I expected. I was really tired when we started it and I didn't think I'd make it through the first hour, but before I knew it, the movie had ended and Meg Ryan's husband was safely tucked away in her skinny, wifely arms while she was not-so-secretly yearning for what could have been between her and the ever-so-hot Russel Crowe, had her husband never been born. By the way, wasn't that guy Jodie Foster's father in Contact? As for Russel Crowe, I've never understood all the fuss. I mean, I think the guy's a decent actor, but I never found him quite as dreamy as a lot of people did. But in this movie, he really did it for me. He was confident and competent, not to mention sensitive. And hot. He'll never be what Antonio Banderas is to me, but at least now I have some appreciation for what people have been saying about him since Gladiator.

Yesterday was another lovely day. Megan met my advisor for the first time ever, which was an experience that I think she'll agree was well worth the wait. Then we headed downtown where she found an absolutely adorable bathing suit that fit her perfectly. It was the easiest bathing suit purchase that I have ever been a party to. Delirious with success, we stopped for lunch at our downtown favorite, California Pasta Something. I don't remember the last word, but believe me--it's our favorite. We split a Cajun chicken linguine and a Caesar salad, and it was so, so good. Then we managed to score on a tee-shirt that featured the Governator and claimed that "Our governor can kick your governor's ass." Megan bought it for one of the machinists at the ETH, where she works. I can't imagine that that guy won't love it. I want one pretty badly, myself. Not to wear here, of course, but for after I move. Then we walked down to the wharf and stopped for a mid-afternoon drink and narrowly missed getting crapped on by any number of sea-faring birds. It was a nice rest, and we walked back to the car and went home, stopping on the way to get the makings for a taco salad. Then we watched TV, made our taco salad and went to McConnell's for some ice cream. In the two and a half years that I've lived downtown, I've only been there once. And it's about a three-block walk. I got cinnamon ice cream, which was delightful. Then we went home and watched two episodes of Friends, one of which some of you may have noticed was the Crap Bag episode. And I have to admit that at that point I turned off the TV, because I didn't care to watch The Apprentice. I just can't get into reality TV shows. I know a lot of smart, funny and respectable people who love them, but I just can't get involved. (I did happen to catch Mr. Trump and Bill and Kwame on Katie Couric's show this morning, though.)

And today we went on a hike and then to campus, where we had the pleasure of running into Craig, Chris S. and Matt Lippert. Then we went home and took naps, and here we are, sitting on our butts and playing with the computer. Wireless internet is a wonderful, wonderful thing.

Bigger Wednesday

Today Megan and I are going to the Camarillo outlets, Old Navy and maybe even Target. Anyone who is familiar with the shopping scene in Santa Barbara will understand why I'm excited.

Not trapped, just confused.

I think we're back in business.

Hmmm....

I thought that that might happen--the post that is labeled Saturday is actually Monday's. I had some trouble publishing to the web this weekend, and I think blogger has trapped me in Saturday. Well, if you're going to be trapped in any day, it might as well be Saturday.

Some good news, some bad news, some good news

First of all, I hope everyone had a lovely Easter. I was pretty tired, myself, because I'm in the church choir and we sang for both services, so I was at church from 8:15-11:45 yesterday morning, which was way too long. Still, the music was beautiful, and it came out really well for both services, I thought. I know what you're thinking (well, maybe)--what do Unitarian Universalists care about Easter, and why do they bother to have fancy services with lots of music for the occasion? I can't answer that question in any satisfactory way, but suffice it to say that everyone enjoys a little Alleluia every now and again. Anyway, when I got home I suffered the collapse and slept until around 12:45, when Matt got home from judo. Then we had lunch, went grocery shopping, cleaned a bit, cooked a bit, cleaned a bit, and this is the part where I get to the first good news: Megan arrived! Yep, she flew all the way from Switzerland to help me and Matt eat our free nine-pound Easter ham.

And now I get to the bad news: I found out on Saturday that I did not get the cool APS Congress job. I figured I wouldn't, so I wasn' t horribly distressed, but I was still a tad disappointed. But I'm not going to worry about it. I'm just going to wait until we move and then work something out, I think. Frankly, the idea of a month or so without a job appeals to me. A lot.

OK, and the other good news is that I think the good data that I got on Friday is real. I am having slight technical troubles with my experiment, but the results are really, really promising. I still haven't gotten to show my boss because she and I appear to be working opposite schedules, but for once I actually look forward to group meeting, which is tomorrow.

Other than that, I'll report that Matt and I did actually go out on Friday night to Chipotle and the movies, which was fun. I enjoyed the movie, but didn't feel fully awake for about two days after I saw it. It left me with a strange, dreamy feeling, like nothing that I was experiencing was real. Of course, that might just have been a reaction to going out on a Friday night. I'll be honest--it's been a long time.

And today Megan came to campus to work on some stuff, and I'm in the lab. We met for lunch and ended up eating with most of Matt's research group. That could have been horribly awkward, but one of Matt's coworkers is Swiss, so she came up with quite a few things to talk to Megan about (Megan is doing a postdoc in Switzerland and has lived there for the past year and a half, for those of you who might have found that last sentence on the odd side.)

Breakthrough?

I don't want to get any of you too excited or anything, but I think I might actually have found something of physical relevance in my data. Why does this always happen at 5:30 on Friday afternoons? My boss is not here, so I can't share the good news with her. And I'd like to take more data, but that could involve being here for another two hours, which doesn't appeal to me all that much. On the other hand, I've been collecting data on this sample for almost a week, I was this close (how close?) to abandoning the sample and measuring a new one and I'm kind of excited to have found something. And Matt is still working because he is also getting decent data, so maybe I will stay. But, now seriously, don't get too excited. The data probably won't amount to anything, but it is still the second-best data that I've gotten as a postdoc to date, and it is definitely the best reproducible data I've gotten. Oh, and also? Please don't comment that "data" is the plural for "datum" and I should be saying "they are the best data. . . ." It's physics-speak, people, and I know what I'm doing.

In other news, in honor of Matt's officially receiving an offer of employment next year, I'm taking him out on a date. We are going to go out for dinner and to see a movie. Yes, we're classy folk, so we're going to Chipotle and then to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. If we both stay awake, that is. It has been a long week for us in the Walling-Doty household. By the way, have I told you that I am seriously considering changing my name when we move? It seems like that's a pretty good time to do it, since I'll have to get new everythings anyway. And then we'll technically be the Doty household, but JR will always have a hyphenated name, so I hope that in the event that I do change my name, you'll all still refer to ours as the Walling-Doty household. And from what I've heard, I think you will.

Oh my god, I can't believe I forgot!

Matt and I are officially moving to Washington, DC. He got an offer for real for a postdoc position at the Naval Research Lab. He'd been expecting it, but nothing was absolutely definite until yesterday, when he received the actual offer. To my surprise, I still have not heard anything from APS about the job that I interviewed for. I fully expect not to get the job, but it's strange that I haven't heard anything from them at all. If I don't hear anything by next week, I'll probably contact them--when I left the interview, they said that I should hear from them in a few days. That was eleven days ago.

Who is Ulysses Ashley, and why does he send me email?

Well, guys, I'm not going to lie to you--I'm tired. And my ears are stuffed up and my contacts are fuzzy. All of these factors convince me that I shouldn't be here in the lab today. Should I go get some coffee? Maybe, but my usual Friday morning coffee buddy isn't here. That's Buebbles, by the way, and he is flying to North Carolina today and won't be back until next Monday. Should I work on my paper revisions? Definitely, but let's be realistic. Who has the motivation to start on something that downright crappy on a Friday? (Or a Monday or a Tuesday or any other day, for that matter?) So, I think I will spend the day reading strangers' blogs and watching the computer take data on a sample that might as well be a rubber ducky for all the physics that I'm getting out of it.

Happy birthday, Lizzie!

I'm going to step, step, step. Step III, that is. No more of this Step II/III crap. Today I tried to go to a talk. I tried to be a good, active, involved scientist. I arrived exactly on time, according to my watch, but the talk had already begun and the room was full of people that I didn't know, so I left. Oh well. Maybe tomorrow I'll try again harder.

Pittsburgh pictures

If anyone wants to see some pictures of my trip to Pittsburgh, click here.

Two days in a row

What could possibly be so newsworthy that I would write twice in one day? Well, I'll tell you. Two days in a row--that's yesterday and today--I used the ladies' room by the machine shop and I wasn't alone. Yesterday I was so startled to see another person that at first I thought she was a ghost. Today I didn't actually see the person because she came in while I was, um, occupied, and we strategically managed to miss each other on the way out, but I know she was there because she tried to open the door of the stall that I was in. I HATE THAT. To be fair to her, she probably didn't believe her eyes when they told her that that the door was closed.

Where do you go for Zenergy?

I go to Tuesday's 5:10 group fitness class called Step Zenergy. It is followed by Yoga Zenergy, but I don't go to that. It is a class that I never considered attending until yesterday, but I think I will become a regular. I missed my usual aerobics routine on Monday to visit the kittens, and I abhor my job and will do anything I can to leave for a while, so I decided to try it out, even though I know and don't really like the teacher. She's not a bad person, but her choreography tends to be bland and repetitive, and she's a bit on the talkative side. But this class is great! Try to imagine a cross between pilates and step aerobics, and you will understand what this class is about. The lights are low and the music is, well, weird. There's a beat, but you don't have to follow it. The choreography is not technically challenging, but you soon realize that if you're taking the time to do it correctly, it's also not easy. You're encouraged not to step in time with the teacher or the rest of the class. The class is about balance, lengthening and core strength, but it's also cardio. The time went by really, really quickly, which in my mind is the ultimate test of an aerobics class. If I keep going, I'll definitely need a new outfit because I only have two, one for Monday and one for Thursday. That's OK--my gym clothes are the same ones that I've had for the last five years. I could probably use some new ones anyway.

Some kitties

Last night I went to Lompoc with Helen and the Buebbes to see Helen's coworker's eight-week-old kittens. There are seven of them, and they are very, very cute. I should have taken some pictures, but I left my camera in the car. Anyway, we held them and played with them and then they had dinner and ran around all over the place and got sleepy. I sat on the couch with four of them, and my favorite one crawled up on my leg and fell asleep while the other three curled up in a kittenball and slept on top of each other. It was like a postcard, it was so cute. And it's no wonder they were tired--scaling the couch was no easy feat for these cats. Finally we had to leave, and I had to wake the kitten up so that I could put it with its brothers and sisters. The thing did not want to wake up, so finally I just picked it up and put it on top of the others, and it squirmed its way into the pack and fell back asleep.

So, here's the dilemma. The kittens' owner wants to give them away because she cannot keep seven kittens in addition to her two cats, dog, birds and rabbit. I have wanted to get another cat because JR spends so much time alone, and I feel sorry for her. But Matt and I think it doesn't make a lot of sense to get another cat now because we're moving relatively soon, and we already don't know how we're going to transport one cat across the country. Also, neither of us has a lot of time to spend at home these days making sure that the two cats interact safely and happily together. And thirdly, the one that I loved so much is a long-haired kitty, which we don't really want. So I'm not sure what to do about it. I did not promise the owner that we would take one, but I told her that I would like to. I don't know what to do.

6:00

Apparently that's when the weekend will start. Matt doesn't get into things like leaving kind of early on Fridays, for the most part. Oh well.

Hey, the time change is this weekend. I'm very, very happy about that.

And, it's the weekend.

Well, almost. Actually, I have no idea when we're leaving work, but that is when the weekend will start for us. Right now I'm cooling my cryostat with liquid nitrogen. Tomorrow I will cool it with liquid helium. It is really annoying to work with a cryostat. I have to keep it cold all the time while I'm taking data, which means that I have to come here every day, even weekends, for the duration of the data run. And those can take months. Yes, something that I will not miss in my future life is low-temperature physics.

But Megan is coming in just over a week, which will be great. And Matt and I are going to Catalina Island for our anniversary in a few weeks, which I'm really looking forward to. We booked a room with a hot tub, something that we wanted for our wedding night, but couldn't have because nobody would let us rent such a room for just one night. Jerks. But anyway, that will be a mini-vacation in April, mere days before we leave for Debbie's wedding. And then Jess and Robbie will be here in June for Buebbesfest 3K. So I foresee months of quality entertainment in the coming days, which will take us almost to the time when I will start getting excited about moving. Oh, who am I kidding... I'm already excited.