The Hoosier Diaspora

Yesterday I went to the dedication for the National Ignition Facility at the lab. I have to say, I really hope this works. This would be such a huge deal for science and a major step towards carbon-free abundant energy. The science behind it is amazing, and the dedication was quite a ceremony. Several high-level officials in the DOE, congressmen, and the governator were there to give talks. I really hope this thing works, because it would be (as Diane Feinstein described it) a “holy cow game-changer” for science, public policy, energy, and a thousand other unforeseeable things. For folks that have no idea what I’m talking about, this is a major step in the quest to have a working nuclear fusion reactor, among other things. More information on what it is here. 

Mossy rock - 
Originally uploaded by khob

Memorial day weekend rolled around and Matt, Joana, Shannon and I were planning on going out for a day trip to Yosemite before everyone we told our plan to said it would be a bad idea on Memorial Day weekend. We decided against that, and ended up heading to Muir Woods, which is a nice park to the north of San Francisco with a pretty expansive and amazing redwood forest is. If you’re ever around you should check it out. There are a bunch of pictures on the flickr page.

Afterwards, we headed down to Sausalito for some food and to wander around the downtown area there, which was also very nice. The bay area seems to have a lot of towns with really great pedestrian downtown areas, so I’m going to try to do a lot of exploring if I can.

Pleasanton - 
Originally uploaded by khob

I got together with some friends from work (Matt and Shannon) with the intention of going bowling, but after finding a really good bowling alley in Dublin CA (not too far away) it turns out there were leagues that night and no open lanes. We ended up heading down to Pleasanton CA, which I have to say was rather… pleasant. It’s got a nice little downtown area that we wandered around in for a while, stopping off at an english-style pub for dinner. If you’re ever in the area it’s worth stopping by and wandering around.

Cable car - 
Originally uploaded by khob

Gary, Goat and I went on a nice day trip to San Francisco the other day. We took the train system down to one of the stations where the cable cars pick up, then rode that to fisherman’s wharf where we wandered around for a bit. There was a pretty creepy coin-op museum there that we wandered around a bit too before heading to chinatown on a quest for a hat that we never found (everything was closed). SF is pretty great overall, so I’m going to try to make some weekend trips there as much as I can.

Taking it all in - 
Originally uploaded by khob

So the time finally came to pack up and head for California for my summer job. I’m working at Lawrence Livermore national lab and so far it’s pretty great. I like the work I’m doing and the people I work with are pretty great, so there’s not much else you can ask for. We had to get there pretty quickly (we left Saturday around noon and I had to be there Monday), so we didn’t have much time to stop and take in the sights. Fortunately, the trip we took (Cheyenne -> Salt Lake City -> Reno) didn’t have a whole lot to see along the way. Cheyenne was an interesting place, and from what I can tell all of Wyoming is very… cowboy. We had lunch in a great spot that was in an old railroad depot so it was fun to wander around in there.

As far as Salt Lake City is concerned, I honestly cannot imagine why any human being that isn’t a) mormon or b) born there would live in that city. I don’t want to have this turn into a diatribe, but I could not get out of that city fast enough.

Reno was fun, though I have to admit the whole Reno / Las Vegas thing escapes me. I can appreciate it and I had fun while I was there, but it really is not my scene and I don’t plan on making that a vacation spot in the future. It kind of reminds me of everything that feels wrong to me in the world, all rolled up into one nice loud, shiny, soulless bundle. A place where (shockingly more than other places in the country) thinking too much is discouraged. It is what it is though, so I enjoy my time in places like that but try not to be a person that would enjoy it more than once every few years. With a lot of friends. Drunk.

My friends Gary and Travis (Goat) from Indiana went with me on the trip, though we had to take Goat’s car as well since he’s heading on to Portland to visit some friends there. We switched off between the two cars and in general had a good time making our way out to Livermore CA. They split off to go camping at Lake Tahoe for a few days, then we met back up and hung out for about a week before they headed on. Good times indeed.

I finally got around to cleaning off my camera, which consisted of at least a month of pictures. Needless to say, there are now a lot more pictures in my Flickr gallery if anyone is interested.

Hi all, just a quick note to let folks know that I finished up my last semester of classes and I’m now in Livermore, CA. I’m spending the summer working at Lawrence Livermore National Lab on some pretty cool stuff. Once I get settled in I’ll post some details about the semester and the trip.