Further Adventures with Dr. Science

Evidence

2009-06-23T18:50:00.001Z

A good weekend.

_Dr. S

parentheses for dinner

2009-06-23T01:22:00.003Z

...also available au gratin:

_yum

But what to do with the plantains?

2008-12-27T01:57:00.003Z

Some recipes in my usual style: What looked interesting at the market, and what existed at home. Recipes are in the past tense for a reason: This is just something done this way once; the next time, it will probably be different. What person is the same at two subsequent meals? So use your judgement following any amounts/ingredients/techniques/life choices I might make; I'm not responsible for you, you baby. Enjoy!

Wei, You're Distracting Me Garlic Chicken

Chopped many cloves of garlic,
chopped a few chicken thighs,
threw in a tablespoon of Dijon mustard
about 1.5 t <powdered wasabi
to marinate ~1hr.

Cooked in a little oil (lightish olive oil) until tender and cooked.
Served with a small amount of molasses, which turned out to be genius.

The whole time I was chopping and researching uses for chard which would be tasty, Wei wanted to chat. Kept washing the garlic or chicken from hands so I could type back... sticky keyboards aren't my steez.

Lord Bless This Bacon-y Chard

In a pot, cooked Irish Bacon over high heat with some fresh oregano from a potted plant I bought earlier today, making a nice mess of the inside of the pot.
Added many leaves of chard, cut across the stem into inch-wide strips (thinner at the stems).
Stirred over high heat, wilting thoroughly. Lots of juice produced.
Added cider vinegar, butter, a little white whine.
Added slightly too much salt; don't do that, ok?
Cooked over medium-low heat, uncovered, to reduce the liquids away.

Christ Jesus, that was some tasty pork!

note: The oregano's probably completely unimportant, but looked nice while the bacon was still piles of pink flesh in a clean pot, and certainly didn't hurt. I'll add it after the meat is crisped, next time.

Sadly, the plantains I bought found no place in dinner tonight. They're sulking on the counter, but I've got some tasty plans for them, too. What about spicy, ginger-fried plantains? Crispy chips, maybe, since these little guys are a bit green right now.

_jmsj

raw oysters and wine for breakfast

2008-12-06T11:14:00.003Z

A cold, blustery, rainy morning at the market. Shared a dozen raw oysters (Gillardeaux, petite et moyens) with friends, standing by the seafood mongers' stand. White wine is complementary. My last Saturday morning market for the foreseeable future; glad I finally tried this.

yum,
_jmsj

resuming posts

2008-12-03T14:05:00.003Z

Think I'll go back to posting here. Hello again.
_jmsj

The table dinner

2008-04-01T21:38:00.003Z

_jmsj

oh woops

2008-03-30T20:37:00.003Z

purple sheet was new. Now the pink socks are.

_jmsj

photo essai

2008-03-24T21:55:00.008Z

clouds from the Jura mountains mean rain

flanking CERN, clouds from the right.

maybe that last one is only interesting to me.
_jmsj

photo essay; the move-in

2008-03-24T21:42:00.004Z

print printemps des temps...

2008-03-02T21:30:00.005Z

The way to work. Muddy these days; March is here.

I thought it was weird that all these trees started their springtime growth in little balls, right in the middle of the branches.

Then I found one that had died. You can see where the parasite plant has inflamed the bark of the host tree. What is it? Doesn't look like mistletoe, does it?

Springtime. Pussywillows.

No jokes, now.
_jmsj

when stuck in a meeting...

2008-02-17T21:46:00.002Z

...and missing the sunset...

The Mystery of Batiment 2017

2007-11-25T17:00:00.000Z

In the fields to the west of the ATLAS surface halls

There sits Building 2017.

CERN denies its existence.

But if 2017 doesn't exist, then who is its TSO,
and what kind of ghost answers that GSM?

And are there other rooms or floors?

Don't let this die. You never know, it might be a big deal.
_Dr. S

occasionally glorious swiss weather

2007-11-25T15:40:00.000Z

On such days, this is handily the best commute of my life.

Even the view from the kitchen windows can be breathtaking.

And on cold nights with a strong Biese (spelling?),
if you're patient with the exposure,
on a path through a field by a busy road,

-Dr. S

I'm thinking of painting the other one to match

2007-11-24T19:13:00.000Z

Eyes are neat. I've been reading all about black eyes. Too bad it changes so fast.
_jmsj

Handful of Pretty Pictures

2007-11-24T19:03:00.000Z

Pixelated chayotte.

Your side/My side

Swiss snow in my hand

Cafe avec hurricane du Double Creme

Fun with clouds

2007-11-15T11:33:00.001Z

|......----++***^^*^***----_............|

2007-11-14T20:43:00.000Z

I stopped working to watch this. So very worth it.

and then

The night shots of CERN's gigantic luminous clitoris took some long exposure times. I accidentally surprised another cyclist who was afraid that I had wiped out, with my bike laying on the ground (no kickstand), my stuff spread out everywhere. Probably freaked her out even more that I was apparently so calm and even happy. We ended up talking about the comet near Perseus that night. Maybe she meant the Perseid showers?
_Dr. S

Breakfast art, religion amidst science, and a first snow for the Jura

2007-11-13T22:34:00.000Z

Not only did I not cry over spilled blood orange juice,

I kinda liked it.
The book is an annual poetry review (with art and short fiction)
published from the Netherlands by my high school friend Megan Garr.
wordsinhere.comBetween the LHC building and its twin,
Vishnu dances the world through creation and destruction.

There are some heavy-handed words nearby
about vibrations, existence, and physics.
I like it anyway.

Doing my part for No-Shave November.
It's Geneva/CERN vs. Pasadena/CalTech this year.

I watched the last of this snow being deposited on the Jura.

These little mountains look much taller with their hats on for the winter.Sure makes for a pretty commute.

-Dr. S

A gift horse's mouth

2007-10-29T09:38:00.000Z

From the album Gabriel's weirdo plant

A neighbor in Bat 40 (the LHC offices) brought me one of these prolific plants when she saw me repotting mine. They start off like normal young plants, then become gargantuodd. She has an adult one seen here which is completely new-looking to me, and has already started a handful of young ones in its own pot. Mine is in the beginning stages of looking more adult already.

The leaves start as pale green shoots at the top of the stem, among pink fuzz. Then the stem grows past them and they develop white ribs and red leaf stems. The stalk takes on a thick, cactus-y look. Anybody got any ideas about this thing? It's hard to find the name of a plant without technical botanical descriptors in my head.

A week ago, I met my old friend

2007-10-13T19:13:00.000Z

I biked out to LHC point 5 to commune with the detector I've been working on.

-Dr. S

Un Anana du Terre

2007-10-13T19:08:00.000Z

While I was out riding around the French countryside...

Here I thought that the deciduous North American ground pineapple had no relatives...
_Dr. S

Assorted views from the camera

2007-10-12T19:49:00.001Z

Made six roasted chicken legs with leeks, sweet potatoes, and figs.
Took me two days to eat even a third of it,
then the leftovers went to a BBQ,
then the leftover leftovers I ate with two other people at CERN Restaurant 1.

I kinda went overboard.

~

The Jura nearby Cessy.

On foggy days, we're not in a valley any more.
No hint of the Alps, even.

From the livingroom balcony, looking towards Mont Blanc. It's pretty tall, so I don't think i can walk there. I checked it on a map.
That would be it there, with the snow on it.

The floor of the CERN visitors' center... umm, centre
is graced by a giant, metallic sperm.
Do the reception desk workers know this?

~

...and the ever-poplar Alhambar, in Geneva's Old City.

Most European Place I've Ever Been.

_Dr. S
PS

Now this, this is another story.

Investigations of Frenchness

2007-10-02T19:09:00.001Z

Some things in Frenchness have charm,
like the All-Night Pizza-Thing Community Cooking Event. A colleague of mine has been living for about two decades in Bretigny, where they have the last of the area's communal stone ovens. For three days it is stoked with fires (Used to be only two days, but he convinced them of his idea that two was insufficient), and then the fires are alternated with tartes of brioche dough about 20cm across and bearing all kinds of good toppings. It takes all night to bake the 500 or 600 tartes, which are available immediately for sale. So if you're driving from the experiment cavern site in Cessy to your home in Ferney-Voltaire at 3am on the right Saturday... Or you just ask Dick to bring the tartes to work on Monday.

And some other things in Frenchness have strangeness.
The USCMS apartment where I'm crashing is home to a singularly ugly amateur painting. As Jessica is explaining to Andrew, it was almost bad enough to be a "croute." Something about the paint being laid on so inexpertly as to develop a baguette-worthy crust. So we pushed it over the edge by allowing Kathy to apply pink pony glitter.
The ... painting ... passed the croute test by being able to hold the glitter--on the flowers, on the figures' eyes, and in the bluish part of what we took to be a sky.
I used to be unable to look at the thing. Now it makes me smile.
_Dr. S

where things are, and a social life at last

2007-09-30T19:34:00.001Z

The gray blob where the Rhone leaves the lake is Geneva, Switzerland.

The yellow pushpins are placed at the synchrotron's eight interaction points.
I work at any of the three red push pins.
I live at the green one.
So for instance, a week ago, I left my green push pin and biked under the airport, over a massive hill called Grand Sacconex, and coasted into the Geneva about as close to the lake/river meeting point as the dark North-South bundle of train tracks you see there. It's called Cornavin. There was a going away party for a Swedish CERN student I'd never met, but it was where everyone was planning to be that night.

There was karaoke in one room...

There was copious alcohol in all the others.

The ride home was the second time I'd ever tackled this hill.
The sight of top of it still brings a smile.

And just as I re-enter the town where I'm living, the sign on this
restaurant nearly made me fall of my bike.
I spent the next Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday recuperating from a cold
(and completing my first major computer coding effort)
in my room.
Pretty damned pleasant place to work.Outside my window, (NNE) it's mostly other apartment buildings.
I'm going to look for places to live which are less urban.

work work work

2007-09-30T19:12:00.001Z

Some of my work has been in Batiment 904.

It's a warehouse where subsystem development teams can have electronics racks, small electronics laboratories, and the greatest coffee machine I've ever had the pleasure to frequent. But the only running water is the water cooler, so the bathroom is a short hike to the next building over.

It's clean, warm with the soothing heat of multiwatt hardware, and has great natural light.

There have been some .... hiccups, but then the real world is just like that.

Of course, some work can be accomplished remotely, say on the lawn of Restaurant 1, with a view of the sunset on the western faces of Mont Blanc.

Working on both sides of a national border means carrying two currencies at all times. You also should have your passport, GSM phone, CERN ID card (losing one means a visit to the Geneva police station and a scolding), and working papers for two countries. I have a different pocket system for each pair of pants.
-Dr. S