Clams for Chowder

About as far as possible from the coast, in a window of sad looking fish we found some tasty looking clams - perfect for clam chowder Rhode Island style.

Stretch SUV

Booking an airport transfer can be a bit of a gamble. Sometimes you end up in a white stretch SUV limo complete with sleazy music, a leather clad driver and leopard & zebra print cocktail napkins.

Geographically-Challenged Travel

Our Southwest flight from Midway to Long Island, NY landed 3 hours late - in Hartford, Connecticut 1 state up. Luckily it was a weather diversion rather than budget cuts in pilot navigation training.

Beamline Lingo

"Time-/spatially-resolved" just means "lots of data analysis". In less than a week we collected data for more than 5000 pdfs, each of which must be extracted separately. Here's a diffraction map of a metallic foil.

Jeans etc.

Its that time of year again. Time to get a new pair of jeans. Clothes shopping in the US is great for the ego - I've more than halved in jeans size since my previous acquisition. Now all I'm missing is a sewing machine to take up the legs.

New Whitegoods

What's white, cool and twice the capacity of the noisy, 20 year old, about-to-breakdown fridge? Our new refrigerator - courtesy of building management.

ja060916r Submitted

Nearly 10 months after my first attempts to write up this work, draft No. 24 of the paper was submitted.

Licensed to Mill

I am now free to make as many sample holders and adaptor plates as I could ever want. Happy days.

No More Pesto

A gut-wrenching encounter with nuts at the normally excellent Argonne Guest House. The chef said there was nothing but pinenuts in the pesto - my stomach said otherwise.

Snow twist

In a small spot of shopping this morning I picked up a double layer ski jacket for the chilly Northern winters. Orange might not normally be my first choice but the deal was too good to resist.

Australia Day

An extra serving of vegemite on my morning toast to celebrate Australia Day.

Social Security

An hour in a queue and a week later... my social security card and key to life in the land of the free.

Snowfall

Last night we got the second decent dumping of snow this season - a perfect opportunity to break in my new waterproof, polarfleece lined, jumbo grip soled merrell boots by taking an early morning walk around downtown Naperville.

My snowball making was accelerated by the sno-baller which produced perfect snowspheres ideal for mini snowmen and snowball fights.

A Real Job

The boss' boss shared this info on what real jobs are all about. The definition of overtime feels particularly true - every month I sign a time sheet to say I worked 9-5 Monday-Friday.

Rollerblading@Fox River

We went rollerblading along the Fox River trail today enjoying a crisp winter day.

Green (Eggs &) Ham

Have all the important questions in science already been answered??? Scientists in Taiwan have resorted to reproducing work by Dr Seuss - synthesising a green fluorescent pig.

Lincoln Park Leopard

The leopard just wouldn't stand still for a photo.

Facing Australia

This is a very cool project where they digitally merge the image of 100 people with the same age/racial profile as a city etc. to give "The face of ...". More info at http://www.facingaustralia.com

Brokeback Mountain

We saw Brokeback Mountain today. One of the better movies I've seen in a while, full of long close ups and a good soundtrack. I think Heath Ledger had fewer lines to learn than an extra who was only on screen for ~60 seconds.

Happy 2006