Fermilab Thursday

August 14th, 2009 | By 49

A very multicultural breakfast: Today started with breakfast with Dan and Ben. Ben had the Hobo Platter that we were laughing about yesterday. Do hobos know they have their own platter here? Dan had the Italian Skillet again which cheesed me off. I was gonna get it today but he was complaining about it yesterday. I bet it was full of deliciousness! I got a breakfast burrito. Ben was a French Hobo with his Hobo platter /w French Toast, I was Mexican and Dan was Italian.

Dan shooting buffalo like its 1867!

Dan and I go see the bison. People were honking at us from the road which was hilarious while we were filming. A lady with some kids asked to take my picture with them. I asked if I could have my picture taken with them too! It was an honor. After the bison (with the Wilson Hall in the background!) we bounced out to D0. We shot in their datacenter, control room and their experiment build hall. Dan was really happy with the last one. He also got to shoot Marc from the control room using a geiger counter on something. I was busy tweeting what we were doing.

Dan after shooting Marc from the D0 Control Room

After that, we go to the CDF offices and shoot with Dr. Ben Kilmister. Dan shot him explaining how Higgs events and shot me being confused. We stepped outside where he shot us bullshirting and doing the ‘Atom Smasher’ handshake that we came up with. It starts with daps and then a first bump “collision” that results in particles being sprayed outward. Keep it nerdy.

Dan and Dr. Ben Kilminster

Dans Tips for Successful Video Shoots:
* Rapper needs to know their lyrics
* Rapper needs to be presentable
* Rapper needs tote all of their clothing every day of the shoot (oops!)
* Dan hates shadows
* Other stuff why are you asking me to remember?

Steve & Christy on the train – huzzah public transportation!

Afterward I race to the airport to pick up my girlfriend, we park the car and train into the city. We peep a giant Picasso metal sculpture, the Cloud Gate, fountains, find our hotel, have a drink 95 floors up in the John Handcock Tower (seriously, why pay $15 to go to the 94th floor, when you can pay $15 for an adult beverage on the 95th floor?) and then to Ed Devevic’s for dinner (thanks Gary!). Train back to the car to drive back to Naperville.

Another Great Day. Thanks Illinois!

Fermilab Wednesday

August 12th, 2009 | By 49

Us humans are but such small creatures on this planet…

It must be a slow news day because I’m in it. :)

The Beacon News & Daily Herald & symmetry breaking

Check out the pictures! They did a really good job taking pictures with their cameras!

Today I get to meet Dan Lamoureux (from Nerdcore for Life documentary and the LOLCats & Buggin Out videos!) for the first time. We are going to eat mad breakfast foods and talk about video location shoots. more to come….
….

So Dan and I scarf some breakfast and we drive through Fermilab to get our sweet Visitor Passes. We shoot some in front of the Wilson Hall and run to get batteries for his boombox because we didn’t want to be stuck without music for the next stops. We signed our radiation agreements (I think we can blame but not sue Fermilab if we turn sterile or something) and were escorted down into the CDF collision hall with Dee and Brittany. NO ONE GETS TO GO HERE. WE WERE SPECIAL! It was awesome. Crazy cramped. Lots of electronics. The muon scintillators were most visible because they are the outermost sensor package. We got shots with some guys and Brittany and Dee. Too much fun. Amazing stuff.

We bounce out from CDF to go to the Wilson Hall and meet up with Tona & Rachel from Fermilab Communications. We get taken to the huge room where the Cockcroft-Walton is and shoot there! They have two so obviously we went in the second one but only after it was grounded. We don’t need any stray electrons!

We then had this GREAT shoot in the Tevatron Master Control Room. We even were able to get someone’s blog in the shot who has their own Star Wars fan film in post-production! I even got to shoot DAN as a worker in the MCR! It was great! From there we went up to the 15th floor of the Wilson Hall and Dan got some footage up there. It’s really beautiful up there. We stop by CDF and Dan and Ben got to meet. I think I’m hungry. We have been running around since breakfast. Everyone at Fermilab has been so nice. Dan has been great to be around. Because I was in their daily intranet/Fermilab Today website, people I haven’t met wanted to say hi which was really cool.

Fermilab Tuesday

August 11th, 2009 | By 49

TODAY ROCKED! First, check out what’s on a bulletin board at the Wilson Hall

I guess mainly because this day was going to stress me out the most. Giving a speech to a room full of scientists when the most education I have is a simple Bachelors degree?

Today couldn’t have started off any worse. That Taco Bell Volcano Nachos I had last night? Bad idea. I was getting torn up from the inside. Breakfast was some yogurt and a few grapes and a vitamin (which made my stomach even more upset!)

I shaved with store brand disposable razor blades. Let’s call them Mach Faux’s because they kinda suck. Drove out to Fermilab bumpin Kanye. It’s a good liiiiiiife I told myself. I started to believe. Took this great shot of the Wilson Hall (errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr HIGHRISE) and sent a tweet bout it. I hung out in the room the presentation was going to be in and talked with the AV guys, Al and Jim a bit. They were cool. I wanted to spend as much time as possible in the room to get used to it. Around 10:30 I met up with Aria and she took me on a tour of cool stuff… like where the anti-matter is stored! First was the Cockcroft-Walton where things start with a simple bottle of hydrogen (H) and they hit it with an extra electron so its H-. From there we saw a bit of the Linac which starts to accelerate the H- in a pulse.

funky49 with Cockcroft-Walton generator

Did I mention I saw where anti-matter gets stored? We had to walk down there with a real Geiger counter!

Fermilab Monday

August 11th, 2009 | By 49

I wonder if these bison make Fermilab cheese? Anyway…

Breakfast with yogurt and fruit again. Drove to Fermilab and saw the bison closer up for the first time. I also visited the Lederman Science Center. It has that video I LOVE that shows you the metric powers of 10. You know the one, it starts with some couple chillin on a blanket next to Lake Michigan and zooms out so you can see the Milky Way galaxy and beyond and will zoom in to the guys hand? The rest of the Lederman Science Center is pretty cool and a MUST before you go and see the stuff on the 15th floor of the Wilson Hall. I also spent some cheddar on Fermilab tattoos and car decal and a onesie for my cousin Tracy who is having a bay-bee.

Meet up with Ben at the Highrise (remember, that’s what you are supposed to call the Wilson Hall!) and we put up a bunch of flyers. Ben must know a ton of people because we handed off like half the flyers to volunteers who did most of Wilson Hall (err, the Highrise). Next we flyered up the D0 office as well as the Users Center where we will be performing Friday night. We also flyered up the CDF offices as well as the CDF building where their control room is (along with a bunch of scissor lifts, a huge mural of the CDF experiment and displays explaining sensor elements of the CDF array of equipment.

Ben made up the flyers to promote the Friday show (funky49 with Fermilab’s Drug Sniffing Dogs!) as well as the Tuesday “Science Outreach via Rap” presentation. Pretty cool! When we came back I had the best souvenir ever! A parking ticket from Fermilab’s security! Too sweet!

Went back to the hotel and crashed until it was time to battle traffic on the way to the Drug Sniffing Dogs practice. They rocked hard last night but rocked EXTRA hard with their brass section! Sax (got a reed actually) plus trombone and trumpet.

TACO BELL VOLCANO NACHO FOR DINNER FTW!

Fermilab Sunday 1

August 10th, 2009 | By 49

First, Dr. Ben Kilminster is beer powered awesome. But before that…

Sunday afternoon. I couldn’t stand it. I had to drive out to Fermilab National Accelerator Laboratory today. Did I mention this weather is hot and the ToYOta from MinneSOta has crappy AC?

Do you remember when that guy from Close Encounters of the Third Kind is haunted by imagery of the Devil’s Tower… and then he finally sees it? That’s how I felt! I’ve been seeing the Wilson Hall* in pictures and video for the past few months. First I see the top of it for a second through some trees. Then I see more of it as I drive closer. Finally the building appears in full view and I have to stop the car and take it in.

*Fermilab peeps don’t call it the Wilson Hall. They call it the ‘Highrise’.

I drove around and found the D0 and CDF sites. Saw the bison. Drove down Power Line Road (it has power lines next to it! crazy road naming scientists!). I also kicked it in the atrium of the Wilson Hall/Highrise. They have a Faucault Pendulum there! Dave and I tried to get some funky49 ‘press shots’ with one for our MOSI photo shoot! I wrote some new note cards while alone in the cafeteria area. I went for Thai food thinking I’d get some vegetarian dish and be good. NOPE! Nearest Thai joint was closed so I found somewhere for a Chicago style hot dog (Vienna Beef) and chili. Took a nap and headed off to see the Drug Sniffing Dogs practice.

The Drug Sniffing Dogs are mainly musician/experimenters from Fermilab’s CDF group. They ROCK! Steve Z liked the instrumental and most were enthused about the raps (except for the drummer who will be a harder nut to crack?). I got an invite from Aria to see where anti-matter is made on Tuesday. YES! I basically cracked a few beers and listened to a bunch of rawk in an unfinished basement! My second in two days! What else did I have twice in two days? White Castle. No more, I promise. Watched some Penn & Teller Bulls hit before going to bed.