You know, I could have sworn I was giving this up.

But it's not every day (or year) I get to go to the FermiLab particle accelerator facility in Chicago and meet the eminent G.P. Yeh. The facility exudes this sense of imminence and of raw power... incredibly enchanting. Doc Cochrane spent years there having a total blast building and working on one of the experiment sites... CDF, I think he said, though it could have been D-Zero.

The two things that really blew my mind, though, were the asiago chicken pasta at this Bennigan's in the massive mall outside Iowa City and Dr. Yeh's prediction that the Higgs Boson will be found (or possibly found to not exist) sometime within the next five to ten years. This isn't exactly new information, but I hadn't heard anyone make such a statement with as great confidence as Dr. Yeh did in that conference room this morning. This would be something of a Big Deal in the physics community. Assuming Dr. Yeh is right, it would mean that the current standard model of forces will be made or broken (again) very soon.

The only disappointing thing was an equipment failure that kept FermiLab on maintenance watch (and without an active particle beam) for the duration of our stay. Something about a fan out in one of the accelerators. Still, there was enough going on, and enough bored physicists to talk to, to remind me why I wanted to get into the wonderful world of particles in the first place.

Spending ten hours in a van with a dozen science-oriented blokes was a bit depressing, though. I don't know that I agree with the rest of them about women being evil and all, but some frightening revelations were made.

But yeah, a good time was had by all, and I'm pretty much doomed to die alone. I'm still getting a haircut, though.