Fermilab

I don't think I'll find many opportunities for blogging over the next few days. I'm at Fermilab, serving on the U.S. Department of Energy site review team. It's a fascinating process, although our days are extremely full. Today we were in sessions from 8:30am until 6:45pm, followed by a dinner. We've been hearing about the collider, the particle physics experiments, experimental astrophysics and theoretical efforts in both areas. Tomorrow it's 8:30am - 8:00pm, and so I can't imagine too much blog-time developing. Nevertheless, service to the community is an important part of an academic's life, and so I'm not complaining about the workload.

I don't want to go into detail about the site review here - it's not the place. However, apart from the actual work involved, it is also nice to see some friends. I had dinner with, among others, Rocky Kolb and my collaborator Nemanja Kaloper, and hope to find a little time tomorrow for a quick beer with Joe Lykken. Over dinner we even found time to sneak some discussions about physics topics of common interest (yes, we're a wild bunch given half a chance).

The site review is over on Thursday afternoon, but I'm staying an extra day in the Chicago area to spend some time with Sean, doing some physics and, almost certainly, some fine dining. I'm always tempted to go back to the Frontera Grill, but there are so many new places to try that I'll probably end up doing that.

Anyway, I need to get some sleep. More when I find a little time.