Palm Springs (at last)

I don't know why I didn't write this up earlier. It's not like I did so much this weekend, but I felt a bit groggy. It's ok now though, so finally: how was palm springs?

Well, to be able to say that, we first have to get to Palm Springs. And as it turns out, that's not the easiest thing on friday afternoon. It took James and me about four and a half hours, and the rest (who first had to drop Jordan off at Union Station) two hours just to get out of LA, and almost six hours in total. Needless to say, our golfing plan fell through: after all, it's nice if you can actually see the ball. What then? Food, apparently, despite the rations we took with us in the car (brownies, lollipops, sandwiches, and the other car had donuts too), at Applebee's with a big group of people who just seemed to pop out of thin air.

After this we went to a castle-like structure containing, amongst other things, "Dance Dance Revolution". Now, for those of you who have never seen one (as there are, according to Sylvia, only 3 in the entire Netherlands, you might not have) it a contraption with a screen in front of your face and four arrows at your feet. The idea is that bad dance music plays, arrows comme up the screen from the bottom, and when they reach the top you have to step on the appropriate arrow(s). It sound silly. It is, however, incredibly fun, and very impressive when you can do it well (one of the guys there was amazing).

We also played various other games such as air hockey (2:1 loss for me, alas), skeeball (Brigid seemed to like that a lot), and we did a go-kart race (don't believe anything Brigid and Maximo say, James and I won. That it, he drove, I yelled "go go go!"). We had a fantastic time, but then we got out to the parking lot...and found that both of Maximo's car windows had been smashed in. For no reason, apparently, since nothing had been taken.

Needless to say, this put a damper on the euphoria. We decided to go home, but of course driving on the freeway without windows is not very pleasant. Luckily we found and open supermarket, and managed to improvise something:


Maximo showed his MacGyver side

This wonderful contraption managed to shield us from the wind. It also, unfortunately, made an extreme amount of noise, but it turns out Queen can overshout anything if it's turned on loud enough. So there we went, some asleep and some awake, "The show must go on" blasting, providing a very surreal end to a trip that was, despite the bummer ending, pretty great.

Random link of the day (well, not entirely random if you know about my infatuation with everything Dave Eggers is even remotely connected to).

And now, for something completely different....and update on my tumultuous relationship with physics. As you all know, physics and I have our ups and downs. Oh, we'll probably be together for a while yet, but that doesn't mean ours can be called a stable relationship. Sometimes, for example, it saps my self-esteem, makes me doubt myself, makes me erupt in fits of passionate anger. But then there are the other times, when it suddenly decides to open up to me, when it shows me one of its beautiful sides, when it offers glimpses of insight to come, and everything suddenly seems alright.

We're in an up phase now. On Friday I finally solved a problem I'd been stuck on for almost a week, attended an incredibly interesting lecture that showed once more the beauty of local gauge symmetry (you have no idea what I'm talking about, but that's ok. Suffice to say that it's a theory that makes so much sense and is so beautiful once you get it...something I think I might in a couple of years), and today we had yet another fascinating lecture, this time by a guest teacher on neutrino mixings. That last lecture was mostly interesting because it shows how inventive experimenters have to be and have been, and to what strange results it leads.

To round off, yet another completely different thing, I need your opinion. I have discovered a wonderful site, www.neighbourhoodies.com , where you can make you own personalised hoodies, T-shirts, bags etc. I've decided on a bag, but not yet on the texts. Some of the options I am considering are:

• I talk to strangers
• Poo Poo Occurs
• Short Chicks Rock
• Wake up, Donnie
• Cellar Door
• Some Physics formula, NOT E=mc2, but maybe the Dirac equation or something
• Something Else (that's where you come in)

Of course, I told Brigid about the idea and she immediately came up with a brilliant idea, namely to get a "Godverdomme" bag...Anyhow, let me know which option you prefer, or if you have any ideas!

Cheers,

Hedwig

P.S. Brilliant phrase of the day (or actually of yesterday): "The end is extremely fucking nigh"