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.

If you are a professional contact, hi! Thank you for caring enough to chop off the front part of my email address to investigate me. There isn't much about me here, other than I like music and I am from the southern parts of the Dakota land. I have a more professional email address--robm at Iowa State--to which you can send questions and chat.

If you are a professor, hi! I am very sorry; if I do not already, I will have that paper in soon, I promise. I am not so good about papers, but if you have an engineering or science project for me, I can do it right away.

If you are a music label representative, hi! I'm just Kyle's lackey, but I love you just as much as (or sometimes more than) he does. We really do appreciate all the music you send us, even that electro-acoustic tribute to Amy Grant. Please enjoy your day!

If you are music producer Sandee Curry, hey! What the hell were you thinking? An "electro-acoustic tribute" to Amy Grant? What does that even mean? I can understand that you thought maybe it would be a good idea, dumping it onto your big tribute contract with Vitamin Records and making lots of money, but no one will ever buy your "electro-acoustic tribute to amy grant," because it is a horrible idea! And it sounds even worse! I think I will donate our defaced copy of your tribute to Oval because scarring the album and mixing the fractured audio that results may be the only way your CD will ever produce a pleasant sound!
The Radiohead tribute album you produced was very good, though. Please do more like that.

If you are a friend or acquaintance or total stranger, hi! Sorry for the delay, but I had to talk to my contact, professor, reps, and Sandee Curry real fast. I'm tired of the crappy layout, and I finally have some nice Adobe software and a nice new, functioning computer, so hopefully I will redesign soon. Something something something, it's all okay.