nyssa73

Trip to Manchester, UK, Part IV

Tue, 29 Aug 2006 22:47:49 GMT

Monday morning and we tried to get to the workshop location early because madandrew still needed to register. Get there at 8:20am (talks start at 9am) - no sign of the registrar. Everything was exactly the same way it had looked the night before. Okay, so the person is running late.

We had skipped breakfast to get to the workshop, so I decided I had enough time to hunt down some food. Turned out one of the student cafeterias (called "The Refectory") was just at the end of the street. They had a "small breakfast" special which consisted of your choice of three items plus toast and a drink for 1.95pounds -- by far the most reasonable food deal I'd seen so far on the trip. The selection was interesting. I did not find any cereals. They did have fresh croissants and prepackaged muffins. Most of the options were in the typical big steel warming trays being served up by ladies in hairnets. They were very plesant (lots of service people address customers as "love" and end conversations with "cheers"), but some of the food looked iffy. There were very runny scrambled eggs and greasy-looking fried eggs, sausages, hashbrown patties, thick bacon, and beans. Yup, beans. Apparently it's a very common British breakfast item, usually in the form of beans-on-toast. They are the kind of beans that I remember getting out of a can when my mom made beans-and-hot-dogs -- small, soft-textured beans in a light tomato-based sauce. I opted for a fried egg, a sausage, and hashbrowns. I was still a bit asleep because they got it all plated before I thought to ask for it to-go. They were very obliging and repacked it. The toast ended up going into a flat paper baggie that soaked off some of the grease. Turns out that way of packaging bread is common too. Having collected my food, I headed back to the chemistry building.

On every lecture hall and classroom door were signs about "no food or drink". Most of the workshop attendees obeyed the rules for most of the week, but it pretty much all broke down by Friday. Anyway, at that point I was good and looked for a place to eat before I went inside. It was about 8:40, the hallway was mostly void of furniture, and the registrar still hadn't arrived, so I decided to sit down at the edge of the registration desk. We had discovered the night before that while the name tags had been laid out in neat rows, they had not been sorted in any way. Being OCD, I started alphabetizing the tags while I ate. I'm sure you can guess what happened from there. Fellow collaborators had started arriving and trying to register with me because I looked like I was "in charge". Now, I'm not the kind of person to turn people away when they come to me looking for assistance. So even though I was not "in charge" I started handing out name tags, information sheets, and the complimentary workshop umbrella, and telling people to come back later to register just to keep them from standing around in front of the table and blocking the hallway. Unfortunately this meant eating breakfast took much longer. Good thing I 'helped' though because the registrar didn't show up until 9:15 and she was completely disorganized. So I might have missed the generic opening welcome talk, but a lot of others didn't and I did get to finish my breakfast.

A little aside about the sausage. It wasn't nearly as greasy as I suspected (though the fried egg was), and I suspect this was partly due to the texture. Where I grew up, the word 'sausage' meant something highly meat-based such as italian or polish sausages. Items that were high in filler were categorized as 'hot dogs'. British sausages are somewhere between the two. They do contain a noticeable percentage of meat, but also contain quite a bit of breading, egg, onions, and other various ingredients all blended together into a texture more like a hot dog than italian sausage. I'm sure the higher percentage of breading helps absorb extra grease. The texture surprised me a little at first, but it's not unpleasant and they are very tasty.

The main auditorium we used was nice enough. Pretty steep to afford all a good view of the front, and fabric covered seats. Unfortunately the fabric was the only thing the seats had going for them. There was foam under the fabric, but it had very little give and the seats themselves had no hint of ergonomics. Just a flat back and a flat, fold-down seat. Each row had a "table top" across the front of it, but it was only 8 inches deep. It could have been designed for a laptop, as mine just about fit on it, but obviously wasn't since electricity had to be supplied by running power strips all over the place. madandrew gave a talk in the morning that I thought was very good (though I might be a little biased :). He mentions a little about it in one of his entries.

For lunch we got together with our friend and coworker gyades and went to a chinese restaurant very nearby called TaiPan. I wasn't feeling very adventurous, so I ordered something that sounded tame and simple: chicken with ginger and spring onions. The dish arrived and looked quite yummy with big chunks of chicken, and slices of green onions and bamboo shoots. I like bamboo shoots, so grabbed a big piece for my first bite. The texture was chewier than bamboo usually is, and I was just trying to reconcile this discovery when the heat kicked in. For those of you whom have never had large quantities or fresh ginger, it is actually a very spicy root. That is why it is usually served in small quantities or just added to flavor sauces. What I didn't know was that when ginger is sliced in large chunks and cooked up with a brown sauce it turns out looking a lot like bamboo!!! Yes, I was in fact chewing on a 1/2 inch by 2 inch by 1/8 inch piece of fresh ginger root. As my eyes started watering I had to go for my napkin and spit it out. Discretely (I hoped). The guys weren't sure if they should be concerned for my health or if they should be laughing at the faces I was making. I recovered quickly enough and just made sure to separate all those pieces of "bamboo" off to the side which I ate the rest of my dish (which was quite good).

Another several hours of talks and everyone was ready to go to the welcome reception. While having to sit and listen to lots of talks is bad enough, the workshop planners did not think through the ordering very carefully -- the last talk of the afternoon was a guest theorist talking about Higgs. One thing many experimental physicists can agree on is that no one particularly enjoys sitting and listening to theorists give a talk. Having to do so jet-lagged and at 4:30 in the afternoon is just bad planning. madandrew agrees with me.

The welcome reception was to be held at Manchester's Museum of Science and Industry's "Power Hall". It's a nice place with displays showing the evolution of steam power through history, and they had arranged to have docents on hand to answer questions and actually run some of the equipment. The only drawback was that the museum is not close to campus and the organizers simply handed out maps, expecting us to find our own way there (Have I mentioned I'm not impressed with the organization of this workshop?). Fortunately being handed a map was not particularly a problem for me, since I like figuring out maps, planning out the fastest or easiest route, etc. I had decided that our best bet was to walk two blocks from our hotel to a central bus and train station (Oxford Road Station to be precise), and from there take a free metro shuttle bus right to the museum doorstep. Granted, the bus service ended before we would finish, but I figured I could handle a leisurely walk back and had traced the route on a map I had. I must also mention that I am about 60 pounds overweight and not in the best shape cardio-wise. madandrew seemed okay with the plan as we set off, but then we ran into some coworkers on the way to the station. They had found themselves a collaborator who was a local and had assured them "it wasn't far" and "he knew the way". After sitting all day listening to talks, madandrew was leaning towards walking there (and I can't say I blame him). So he convinced me we should join up with the group, even though I got the sinking feeling we headed out in a direction 90 degrees from the way I thought we should be going. The group was composed of young to middle-aged tall men in reasonable athletic shape, plus me. I was really having to work to keep up, and was getting annoyed when I kept trying to offer direction suggestions only to be ignored (even when our "guide" stopped to reorient himself and double check his directions with others in the group). We did eventually get there, with me only suffering some minor stitches in my side. And while the museum was very interesting, the food was only hors d'ouvres (not enough for a meal) and there was very little in the way of non-alcoholic beverages. We ended up with a much smaller group for the trek back from the museum, and I suggested the direction I'd originally planned. However, the others felt more comfortable going to way we had come, and since we were looking for dinner as well, thought we'd stand a better chance of finding something if we went closer to the city center. All told it was about a mile farther than I had planned to walk that evening, and I was just glad I had changed from dress flats into my sneakers.

Trying to look on the bright side, this whole trip involved a lot of walking every day, and while I went to bed exhausted and with sore tootsies every night, I'm sure it was good for my health. For dinner we found a "chop house", which is essentially the British version of the USA's burger joints. It was called "The Paramont". And while one of the group was a vegetarian (gyades), there were options for him on the menu too. Britain seems to be very good at accommodating vegetarian diners just about anywhere. There was of course the omnipresent bar through which you placed your food order (no waitstaff). They did have a good meal deal called "Burger and a Beer". It consisted of a burger with fries and a drink (not necessarily a beer, but there was a limited selection) for 4.99pounds. Everyone was pretty pleased with their food too.

We had not had our oddball sighting for the day yet, so guess what was awaiting at the hotel. Outside the front door was a young woman having a smoke. That itself was not odd -- it was her clothing. She was wearing cowboyish-looking boots, Daisy-Duke shorts, a red and white checkered shirt tied tightly around her waist, pigtails, and an undersized straw hat. We glanced at each other (and as we discovered later) having the same thought -- a hooker? -- as we entered the hotel lobby. That was immediately proven wrong as there was a gaggle of about eight more girls inside, all dressed exactly the same. On the elevator ride to our floor, we dismissed it as some kind of Kilgore Rangerette wanna-be's convention and went to bed.

Trip to Manchester, UK, Part III

Sat, 26 Aug 2006 11:57:00 GMT

Sunday (August 20th) was our only full "free" day of the trip, so we decided to explore the Manchester City Center (excuse me, Centre). We (or at least I) tried to get familiar with the map and we tried to pick where to go. We had grabbed a couple "guidebooks", but they were mostly ads and not very informative. I did find a listing for a free photography exhibit about Britain's wildlife, but the information about where the exhibit was located was very vague (at least to someone not familiar with the city). It turns out we would run into cases of this throughout the trip (lack of detailed information, that is). A listing like "Manchester Museum, University of Manchester Campus" or "Manchester Museum, Oxford Road near Brunswick Street" would have been wonderful. Instead it simply said, "Manchester Museum". I searched through my paper maps (remember, we did not get internet access), and found multiple possibilities, but no exact match. We discovered later that the place is in fact a block away from our meeting rooms, but haven't yet had time to stop in. <sigh>

We decided to at least try to see Piccadilly Gardens, but beyond that to just wander. So we headed downstairs in search of breakfast. The hotel has a sort of cafe for a restaurant and the only option was a breakfast buffet for 4.95pounds per person (almost $9). The offerings were only slightly more varied as one would get in US hotels that offer "continental breakfast" (usually free or included in the price of the room). We figured since it was Sunday morning, we would try to find a breakfast place elsewhere. We didn't bother asking for a recommendation from the reception desk, but did remember to mention a couple complaints about the room. We had discovered that morning that the shower head, which was actually a hand-held kind of unit that had a mounting bracket on the wall, had a big split down the side of the handle so it leaked badly and I was concerned about cutting myself. We told them about that, and remembered to mention the 'faulty A/C' to them. The girl at the front desk had a very thick local accent. We were informed, "Well, it's not really an aihr conditiona'. It's a fahn tha kinda circulates the aihr 'round the ruum to freshen it up ah'bit." Us: "Then why does it have a thermostat?" Her: "It's'noht a thermostat. That controls the fahn speed I think." <okaaay>

Out the door, heading towards the middle of the city we started looking for breakfast. This included stopping at every intersection and peering down the side streets for signs. At first there was nothing at first. Just signs for apartments for rent. We turned down a few streets where the signage was thick, but they were either closed or were more dinner fare. We finally found a tiny Chinese bakery and had a look inside. The food looked good enough, but we felt like we were standing inside one of their ovens the entire time we were inside. I got a sausage (looked like a hot dog but did taste more like a sausage) wrapped in a croissant. We quickly retreated outside to eat as we walked. It turned out the Manchester Art Gallery was just up the street and they had a cafe that was open. So we went in (the gallery official gently reminded me there was no eating in the galleries, but was immediately pacified when we said we were just headed for the cafe). We bought a couple more items (juice, chocolate muffin, etc.) and had a nice sit.

Since we were there, we decided to wander through some of the galleries. They had a small children's area with a couple displays we found interesting. We saw mostly paintings from the 1700s and 1800s and a lot of them were very nice. It was interesting that the gallery allowed photography (though video and flashes were prohibited). They also had some rather disconcerting stairs with glass steps.

We exited and headed just up the road to Piccadilly Garden. Considering the pictures I've often seen of British "gardens", I was very disappointed when we got there. So was madandrew. The "garden" consisted of several patches of dirt covered in some places with grass and a few trees scattered along the street. There were some interesting features to the area though. There is a famous statue of Queen Victoria there, and a few other statues of famous people. There is also a modern-art style metal tree sculpture that is a WWII memorial. Finally, there were pissoirs (I had to look up the name after the fact). Apparently these conveniences are more common 'on the continent' (the rest of Europe), but there are a few scattered around Britain. Any guesses as to what they are?....... They are a special kind of public toilets. And I mean public. The structure has about the same footprint as a Port-O-Potty, but it's an inside-out one. There is a central column that I assume contains the receptacle and "blue stuff". Then around the outside are five "stalls" that consist of a space about one foot square for your feet, and a hole/seat covered by a "door" that is hinged on the side (didn't see a latch) and is about 18 inches high and about 30 inches wide. In other words, just big enough to cover your butt. It seemed geared towards men, but Andrew wasn't even getting near it. I'm not sure if a woman could have used it or not. I did see a couple customers, and they were all male.

One direction off the garden square looked like it had a bunch of shops, so we went that way. Turned out we had picked to walk down Market Street. It's a pedestrian-only road with lots of shops on both sides with a large mall (called "Arndale") at the far end. Turned out we would be back later in the week to shop. We saw a sign for the Manchester cathedral at the end of Market and headed that way. Ended up approaching the cathedral from the back, but that was just as well as it faced a very busy, bland street and construction site. The outside was nice enough, but we did not go in so as not to disturb the service (remember, it was Sunday). On the way we also found a very "genuine"-looking tavern and oyster bar. Well, meaning the building looked every part the medieval tavern. Look some pictures but didn't go in (good thing as we found out later from a local collaborator that it's mostly a tourist trap). Continuing our meandering, we found the central library, the town hall, Prince Albert's square, and St. Peter's square. We then headed back to the hotel for a little rest before trying to find the workshop main building and registration.

Looking at the workshop instructions more closely we discovered all the meetings would be held not in the physics building, but in the chemistry building. On the way there we discovered why. The area where the physics building was supposed to be was surrounded by a very large, very high construction fence. Nice timing guys. We found the "DZero" signs and followed them to discover only two other collaborators there chatting with the local computer support guy. We even had to sign in as visitors to the building. There was a table labeled "registration", and there was some stuff laid out (name tags, maps, souvenir umbrellas, etc.) but no sign of a secretary. We helped ourselves to the supplies, and our coworkers informed us that there was a reception at the dormitory where some people were staying. I looked at the newer schedule and saw that the 'registration' location had changed to the dorm. So we found our way there and looked for a welcome table. No such thing. The "registration" was for people who were staying there and just picking up their keys. There was a small bar where we saw a few more familiar faces and managed to get together a dinner group. We wandered down the main University drag (Oxford Road) and found a Chinese place called Moso. We got tap water with the meal by default for the first time since arriving, and the food was good. The only other mentionable about dinner was a bum who attempted to get into the restaurant, and there were some load words exchanged between him and the waitstaff before he was 'encouraged' to leave. The staff kept a careful eye on him until he went beyond the view of the restaurant's windows. Oddball number two.

We made it an early evening and returned to our hotel. Watched some TV. madandrew did his exercises. Then oddball three arrived. It was around 10pm when we heard a knock on our room door. madandrew and I looked at each other quizzically, and he went to answer the door. There was a blonde woman we did not know standing out in the hall. She was clearly several sheets to the wind. She was wearing what was either lingerie or a very skimpy dress made of white satiny material with red polka dots, and had her hair pulled around one side of her head and was chewing on it. Without a word, she started walking into our room!! madandrew fortunately reacted very quickly, threw up his forearm to block her path, backed her right up into the hall again, and shut the door. We weren't sure what to say or do for a minute after that. We decided the best course of action was to shrug it off and turn in. So ended day two.

Trip to Manchester, UK, Part II

Thu, 24 Aug 2006 15:59:07 GMT

So where did I leave off....? Oh, yeah, reaching the hotel.

Now, I booked this hotel online. It was not one of the originally "recommended" hotels for the workshop, but it did show up later as the first recommended hotels filled up. I must have been right on the border of this transition because when I looked for a reservation in the recommended hotels I got "not available" messages. Anyway, the website I used claimed "climate controlled" rooms and "WIFI available". I should have read more carefully.

We arrived at the hotel and checked in. Since I'd made the reservation, it is my name that will appear on the bill. Since Andrew and I were sharing the room and we work for different universities, we each need a copy of the receipt preferably with both of our names on it. So, I asked if his name could be added to the room. The answer was a simple, "No." Apparently their system does not allow for more than one name per room. We were told, "if you were married, I could put 'Mr. & Mrs.'...". No, don't bother.

We get on a teeny-tiny, hot and stuffy elevator with a lovely lilting woman's voice to assist the visually (or otherwise) impaired, and go up to our room. The room on first appearance was pretty good. Window, TV, ledge to use as a desk, bathroom, double bed, and instant coffee and tea service. Andrew went in to flop down on the bed, only to discover it's less of a bed and more of a futon. The "boxspring" is a solid pedestal. The "mattress" is a six-inch thick piece of foam that only compresses a little bit and has no bounce. We move on and try to turn on the TV. I note that it was nice that there was a clock integrated into the front of the TV. There is a big power button on the front, so we pushed that. It popped back like a toggle and the little red light that had been on and the clock display both went dark. Apparently it had been "on" and we had just turned it "off". So we pushed the button again. The red light came back on and the clock came back, but the tube remained dark. Finally, hitting the "channel up" button on the remote turned on the tube. I'll just mention now that British TVs are badly in need of volume leveling technology (or at least this one needs it). Plus all the news shows themselves need to hire sound mixers.

Next, we set up our laptops on the desk and tried to connect to the wireless. After a few tries, we succeeded in getting to a local login page. It was asking for a username and password. We figured we just needed to call the front desk to get them. First off, the receptionist was shocked that we had signal ("you're not supposed to be able to get service on your floor" -- <okaaay>). She goes on to explain that, access was available but we had to pay the fee to use it. We hung up with her and looked a little closer at the login page to find the rates. Four hours of access (actually two hours plus two free hours) was six pounds (almost $11.00). A twenty-four hour pass was ten pounds (about $18.00). A seven day pass was sixty pounds (about $108.00). Screw that. We'd survive with the free access available in the meeting rooms. The room was a little stuffy, so we moved on to figure out the air conditioner. There we a unit over the door and a thermostat on the wall. The thermostat had an on/off switch (which was off), a switch to select between three fan speeds, and a dial with numbers and a "degC" label. Andrew turned the dial to around "15degC" and flipped the switch to on. Air started coming out of the unit over the door (good news). We gave it a little time to cool and then rechecked the air flow. The air was the same temperature as the room air. So we tried turning the dial down to a lower temperature setting. The fan cut out. We assumed the unit wasn't working correctly, decided to report it when we went back downstairs, and went to open the window (it was cooler outside than inside). Turn the handle and pull the window open and notice the thick plastic-coated wire that prevented the nice big window from opening more than two inches. It looked like one end of the wire could be detached by turning a screw. We spent a little time trying to find objects that would catch enough to turn the slot only to realize that it wasn't just a slot but a keyhole. No getting the window open any farther.

We headed downstairs to try and find a place for a late lunch. We stopped by the desk and (forgetting to ask about the A/C) asked where he would recommend for food. The reply was quite vague, and all I parsed was the gist of it -- there are pubs with food everywhere, just pick a direction and start walking. Thanks. We picked the direction the taxi had come from and found a pub called "Lass O'Gowerie" a block away. We wandered in and got some odd looks from the patrons. There was a neat little room right across from the door that looked nice and quiet and was marked as non-smoking. We sat down and started looking for a menu. A sign outside had said "food served all day". Every piece of literature we could find consisted entirely of various alcohols. After about 5 minutes and no server wandering by, we decided to try elsewhere. Walking back towards the hotel, it turned out the building diagonally across our intersection was another pub called "Joshua Brooks", so we had a look. They actually had a brief menu posted in the front window, but when we got inside it was very smokey and the twenty or so patrons and one server were all riveted to the "football" (american soccer) game showing on the four-foot-tall video screen that dominated one wall. We decided to move on. Our first street had taken us west. We decided to try north, towards the city center. Two blocks up there was another pub (which I don't remember the name of). There were a couple things on the menu that looked promising, so we went in and sat at a booth. Again, no matter where we looked we could not find a menu nor a server taking orders. And there was a football game on. We decided to keep looking. When we exited the pub, we spotted a chinese buffet place down a side street. We headed over and checked it out. The buffet price was 9.95 pounds per person (almost $18.00), but we were hungry and it had started raining outside, so we decided to eat there.

As we headed in, I noticed a sign that said "we do not serve tap water". Apparently this is not uncommon. You either buy yourself a drink or a bottle of water, or you don't drink. We were actually seated by an actual waitress who took our drink orders. Andrew got a beer. I looked at the menu and thought, " Ooo,a nice cool glass of lemonade will taste good." So I ordered a lemonade. She then told us to help ourselves to the buffet. Soups: there was a chicken noodle soup that tasted more like it was a beef-based broth, a sweetcorn soup, and a something else that sounded unappetizing. First time I've seen a chinese buffet that did not include a wonton soup or a hot-and-sour soup. Appetizers: spring rolls, fried prawn puffs (which look like palm-sized pieces of bright white pork rind, have a texture similar to funyuns, and taste like rice cakes with a little shrimp flavoring), deep fried mushrooms, deep fried eggplant (called "aubergine" in th e UK), deep fried zucchini (called "courgette" in the UK), deep fried pineapple, and french fries (called "chips" in the UK). Sensing an oily theme? Main courses: several items I couldn't recognize and that didn't look appetizing (about half of which had Indian-sounding ID cards), cubed potatoes pan-fried with chopped bell peppers, mixed vegetables (mostly cabbage) in a white sauce, egg-fried rice, several lo meins, egg-foo young, and pork chops with a honey-ginger coating. The pork chops were the most edible in my opinion -- kind of like East China Inn's honey-sesame chicken, but with larger, flatter pieces of meat and much thinner breading. There was a dessert section too that had several puddings and some of that really dry faux-chocolate roll-up cake with the thin ribbon of white fluff between the layers. I didn't bother. Oh, I must also mention that after I got my soup and first returned to my seat, my drink had arrived. I took a sip to discover it was carbonated and tasted much more like Sprite than lemonade. Apparently "lemonade" in the UK usually means a light lemony soda and I had in fact ordered a Sprite. At least it wasn't an unpleasant surprise.

We returned to our room for a rest before hunting for dinner. We had noticed that around the back corner of the building that our hotel was in, there was an Indian restaurant called "eastZeast" and we decided to try there for dinner. On the way out was again forgot to mention the A/C at the desk because we had found a staircase that lead out an exit without going through the lobby. There was a gentleman in front of the restaurant who opened the door for you and was dressed in a traditional Punjabi outfit (complete with turban and pointed curly-toed shoes). Turned out Punjabi style food was their specialty. The decor was quite modern but not unpleasantly so. All the lighting was indirect and would continuously rotate through the color spectrum. Their primary decor 'colors' were black and gold. The windows had rich black curtains that were pulled back with ties and the floor was a shiny black mable-like tile with metallic flecks.

We picked well this time as the meal was excellent even though it was not all familiar. I had another Sprite (no tap water again), and Andrew had a strawberry lassi. Lassi is a thick, sweet, chilled, yogurt-based drink similar to a smoothie. It is a common drink with Indian food as the dairy helps cut the heat of the spices. Andrew had a chicken and ground lamb dish that was deemed "medium" in spice (I'm afraid I can't remember the name). I had "Karahi Gorsht", which is finely chopped lamb with tomatoes, peas, and spices, and I chose the mild version. We were both quite pleased with our choices. We also had boiled rice and naan. Naan is a soft Indian flatbread that can be used to cut spice or simply as a delivery vehicle for the main dish. I was wondering where we were going to put the naan as the tables were quite small and usually a 'loaf' is the size of a formal dinner platter. Their solution was really cool -- they brought the bread out impaled on a metal 'tree' and we simply ripped pieces off working from the bottom up. Smart, useful, and fun!

As we were eating we saw our first "oddball" of the trip. We were seated by the window and so could look out on the people passing by in the street. Then a odd twenty-something man entered the intersection we were facing. He was not very tall, had hair cropped very short, was built like a WWF wrestler, and was simply walking down the street. The odd thing was he looked like he was wearing a costume. His t-shirt and bike shorts were made of skin-tight shiny red spandex fabric and there was a big white cross on his chest. He also had what looked like small, metallic shin-guards on. It was such a non-sequitur that Andrew and I could do nothing but watch him until he disappeared down the street. Then the debate began as to why he might have been dressed that way. It started out sanely enough: it was a soccer player's uniform? He was headed to a gay pride event (several were scheduled in the city throughout the next week)? It then devolved and we decided he was a superhero named "Captain Switzerland" who stood for "truth, justice, and neutrality"_{[aside quote from Zap Brannigan: "What drives a man to neutrality, Kiff?"]} , and was on his way to foil, er, make that witness, a crime.

We returned to our hotel room and settled in for the night. Additional attempts to get the A/C to blow cooler air failed. We also discovered that the TV was set on such a low shelf that we couldn't see it while laying down without craning necks in weird directions. Thus ended the first day.

Trip to Manchester, UK, Part I

Tue, 22 Aug 2006 17:03:19 GMT

I have been prompted to finally open this account to share my experiences on my trip to Manchester, England. I am here on "company dollar" (if a University can be considered a company), to attend a high-energy physics experimental collaboration workshop. Sounds complicated, but it's really not. I'm a physicist. A high-energy physicist. When I try to explain what that means, most people say, "So, you work with stuff that's smaller than atoms?" That's as good a description as any I guess. Because we work with stuff that is really small, we need detectors that are really big, and that translates into needing lots of people to work on one experiment. Hence everyone who works on the same detector is part of a "collaboration". My collaboration is called "DZero", after our experiment's location on the Fermilab National Accelerator Laboratory site. Our collaboration has a habit of holding big meetings once a year to catch everyone up on what is going on, and every other year it is held in a country outside the USA. This year it is at the University of Manchester in Manchester, UK. Hence I am currently sitting in a lecture hall in Manchester.

I must explain here that I do not enjoy traveling. Don't misunderstand me, I love to travel --- I love to see new places; I love to experience new cultures; I love to try the food and meet the native people. I just hate the process of getting there. I get car sick easily. I get train sick easily. I get seasick easily. I get airsick easily. These various motion sicknesses are not the simple 'suddenly you want to vomit, you vomit, and then it's all over'. It is a combination of waves of anxiety and disorientation, a bad headache, heat and sweating spells, and constant nausea, all of which don't stop until the motion causing it stops and I get a minimum of 2 hours to sleep off the effects. Yes, there are drugs to help combat this. Some of the drugs leave me very sleepy and head-achy (Dramamine). Some of the drugs generate the exact symptoms they are suppose to suppress and they last for multiple days (Trans-dermal Scopolamine or 'the patch'). The only one I've found that has benefits that outweigh the side effects is Bonine. Still, it leaves me loopy and sleepy for about 12 to 16 hours after I take it. But yet I am in the UK.

The reason I am here could be that my boss said go, so I would have had to go. But that is not the case. I am here because my fiance' is here. Back on July 10th, I had to watch madandrew get on a plane bound for France/Switzerland, not scheduled to return home again until September 11th. BUT, there was this workshop in kinda the middle of the trip, so we both arranged to attend it.

So far the experience has been interesting.

A week before I was scheduled to depart for Manchester, UK officials broke up a plot to bomb planes from the UK bound for the US using a liquid-based material. That's not the kind of news I wanted to hear, and it also meant that carry-on baggage was being clamped down on. In the US this included complete prohibition of liquids, gels, and pastes, and in the UK no carry-ons were allowed. One was supposed to carry only the most essential of paperwork and money in hand in a ziploc baggie. Fortunately the restrictions lightened up just enough by the time I flew that I was not completely stripped my travel aids (pillow, laptop, and crossword book). I was unhappy when I got on the plane to discover that it was a 767 and not a 777. In March 2005, I travelled on a 777 from Chicago to Paris and it had some features I appreciated: audio from the cockpit piped through one of the channels on the headphones (if I know what instructions the pilots are getting, or what maneuvers they request, I am better able to handle the motion); the plane body itself is very large (three seats + five seats + three seats), so it is less susceptible to air turbulence (also torturous on me) and seats are a little bigger; there is a personal video screen in the seat-back in front of you that can offer diverting games, movies, and a progress tracker. The 767 isn't as good. While it is bigger than a 757 (two seats + three seats + two seats versus three seats + three seats), there was no pilot audio, the seat was a standard version built to be comfortable for Olive Oyl had she been a midget, and there was only one screen that was difficult to see and which you has no control over (other than to unplug your headphones). And the flight is about 8 hours long. Fortunately turbulence was not severe nor extended, but I'm afraid I might have the same kind of plane on the way back.

Anyway. I arrived at the Manchester Airport at 7:30am the next day. Andrew was flying into the same airport (yea!), and even the same terminal (yea!!), but not for another four hours (nuts). I manage to get some money changed, order a little food, and find a chair that wasn't on a major walkway and actually had some padding on it (most European chairs are not comfortable, having little or no padding and no sense of ergonomics). While waiting I got to see a couple other travelers get into a minor shouting match about walking too slow / getting in the way of a speeding wheelchair pusher.

Andrew finally arrived. I was so happy to see him! But I was also ready for an eight hour nap. (On top of the travel, I had purchased a hot chocolate to warm myself while sitting because my spot was near an exit door and the outside temperature was in the fifties degF, and they used real milk instead of a mix, and my tummy doesn't like dairy. Really just a dumb move on my part.) We opted to take a taxi to our hotel (as opposed to taking a train and walking two blocks).

Ah, the hotel. I will continue there in my next post.

First Posting

Mon, 21 Aug 2006 14:32:38 GMT

Since several of my friends have these accounts, and I've been feeling like I want to write, I figured I'd finally get one too. This first entry is really just a test post. Testing..., testing..., <tap, tap, tap> <squeal>, testing....