The week after Thanksgiving, which Lisa and I spent in Idaho visiting our families, I went to Boston for the Materials Research Society’s Fall Meeting. I was a co-organizer of a symposium on novel nuclear materials, which I think turned out very successfully.

In any case, I’m a history buff, particularly on early American history (Revolutionary War and Civil War periods, in particular). I was in Boston for the MRS meeting 3 years ago or so. That time, it was horribly cold, so cold I didn’t really want to be outside. However, I did want to visit some of the sites of this historic city, so I did wander from the convention center towards the heart of the city, following the so-called Freedom Trail. I saw a couple of graveyards, and some other sites, but nothing too much. And then I reached that god-aweful City Hall building. I looked at hideous building, shivering in the cold, and thought “What the hell am I doing out here? There isn’t anything to see!” And so, I wandered back to the hotel.

Well, this time, it wasn’t so cold. And, when I got to the City Hall, and looked at it with a mixture of both disgust and awe — awe that such an ugly building could be built — I decided to see what was on the other side. And THAT is where historic Boston is. I wandered a bit around the true heart of the city and saw some pretty cool sites. There was the oldest Mall in America, which probably, considering our consumer culture, should be one of the most important sites in the country! I saw a pretty impressive cemetery, overlooking the harbor. And, I visited Paul Revere’s house.  Which was very cool. The house itself isn’t overly impressive, but just the sense of history associated with the house, and the description of how the family lived (a couple of tid bits:  many early Americans didn’t celebrate Christmas, as they felt that was against the spirit of Christianity to ritualize such holidays (though it isn’t clear if Revere’s family did or did not celebrate Christmas); the master bedroom doubled as a parlor for entertaining and many rooms had dual uses like this; and Revere had a total of 9 kids and while they didn’t all live in the house at the same time, the ones who did shared one room).

I also visited the Green Dragon tavern, which is the place that Revere and other revolutionaries met to get a pint and talk.  I don’t know if they maybe planned some of the revolutionary activities there or not, but many of them often gathered there.  I asked if they had a souvenir glass, but, alas, they did not.  Seems like a pretty cool marketing opportunity to me:  “The Green Dragon, where freedom was discussed over Boston’s best beer.”  Ok, maybe they could do better than that, but something.

Anyways, it was a much better visit than the first time.  I appreciated much better the city and what it means to American history.  There is still a lot to see, but seeing as how the MRS is always in Boston, I’m sure I will be there more than a few more times.  Maybe it will be warm enough for one of those visits to really spend a good day getting to know the city.

Another reason the summer has been so busy is because of work travel. I just got back last week from a 10 day trip to London and France for a conference on Radiation Effects in Insulators (REI) held in Caen, France. We went to London first to meet with collaborators there who were also going to the REI conference. There were three of us who went from Los Alamos: Kurt, Chris and myself. We stayed in the Kennsington area, very near the Earl’s Court metro stop. After meeting with our London colleagues, the next day we headed south, first to Portsmouth where we caught the ferry to Caen.

The ferry was very nice (on the way out, anyways). It wasn’t too crowded and, while it was a slow mode of transport, it was nice to be able to walk around, get some food and drink (there was a bar on board) and play ping pong. I pretty much sucked at ping pong, but the last game I played, I eeked out a victory (more due to my opponent choking than any real skill on my part). The photo is the sunset from the boat over the water.

The conference was held at the University of Caen, which wasn’t the prettiest thing to look at. It was heavily bombed and essentially destroyed during WWII and had been rebuilt in the 50s or 60s. As such, it had that very functional, boxy look to it. No style to the buildings at all. The cafeteria, though, was very nice. It was very cool to get fresh omelets.

And the conference itself was fine. I gave a talk on the last day, which isn’t the best day to give a talk. I’d much prefer to give a talk early in the week. First, people who might be interested in your work can find you and talk to you about it. And, you don’t have to fret all week about the talk, you just get it out of the way. Then you don’t feel so bad as you enjoy the evenings during the week.

Speaking of enjoying ourselves, the food overall was very good. Not only the cafeteria, but also the local restaurants. One night, we went to a Basque Bistro. While no one there was Basque (except me, perhaps), the food was very good. I had squid in its own ink, another guy had grilled sardines, and everyone was happy. Another night, we went out to the B&B that Kurt was staying at and had a very nice meal. I had a special local menu in which every course was paired with a local cider (the region, Normandy, is known for its ciders). It started off with duck meatballs, went on to pork filets, had an intermediate course of local cheeses, and ended with dessert (which I can’t remember at this moment).

The drink, on the other hand, wasn’t quite as good. I tend to be a beer guy, and France isn’t known for their beer. While I do enjoy cider, and the local cider was good, the beer was just average. The bars had this gimic to make up for it, something they called the “girafe”: a tall column of beer (2.5 liters) with a pour spout at the bottom so you can take the 2.5 liters to your table. Not that it made the beer taste better, but it made it more fun to drink it.

The most notable thing about Caen is the church steeples that fill the city line. And they are all nearly identical, again, a consequence of the bombing: all of the churches were rebuilt after the war. William the Conquerer, who conquered much of Britain from Normandy, is buried in one of the churches, the Men’s Abbey. His wife is buried on the other side of town in the Women’s Abbey. Interesting how the sexes were separated like that.

Caen is very close to the D-Day beaches and, after the conference finished, we spent an afternoon exploring the American Cemetary. It would have been nice to have more time to see the others, but even that much was worth it. Around 9000 Americans died during the Normandy invasion, and you get a sense of that cost in human life by visiting the cemetary. It is amazing to think that almost 3 times as many Americans died during that invasion than have died in Iraq. Maybe that says something about war becoming just a little bit humane (though, that doesn’t consider the cost in Iraqi life). There is a little museum there too, trying to give a sense of how difficult the task of taking those beaches was. Not that I’m in any kind of shape, but just hiking around the hills surrounding the beach winded me slightly. I can’t imagine trying to take the beach and the hills, carrying a bunch of equipment and being shot at.

Afterwards, we took the ferry back, though this time it wasn’t nearly so pleasant. It was full of families with kids, who were screaming their heads off, and parents who were yelling at their kids to stop screaming. But, we survived and made it back to London, where there was a metro strike, so we had to deal with that. The next day, we had some meetings with collaborators at Imperial College. That night, we were all exhausted from the travel, so we just grabbed some dinner at a local pub and called it a night. The next day, we flew home.

The photo is from the airplane as we flew home. I’m always struck with how much of the earth we humans have marked. It seems that there isn’t even a square inch of land we haven’t done something with. From an airplane-eye-view, it is rare to pass over any spot big enough to not have any obvious signs of human activity. I’m both amazed by what we have done and appalled by it as well.

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to really do any new postings here. It has been a busy summer. Lisa and I got away for a week in late July/early August to Oregon. Lisa’s parents have found a really nice beach house in Bandon which they’ve now rented three or so years as a place for the family to get away and get together.

This year, Lisa and I decided to drive instead of fly. We put the Prius to the test on a very long road trip — nearly 2000 miles each way. On the way there, we passed through the Vegas area, driving across the Hoover Dam. I’d never been there before and it was a pretty impressive site. Unfortunately, it was too hot for us to linger much, so we didn’t visit the visitor’s center or anything, but just stopped and looked around. It is an amazing engineering marvel. The water line was significantly lower than normal, as we could see the normal water line etched in the rocks. We could also see that they were building a new bridge to bypass the entire dam. We figured it was so people couldn’t just drive up to the dam as the dam is likely considered a terrorist target. But, the bridge they are working on looks to be pretty damn amazing itself. It is high above the dam, seemingly just coming out the side of the mountain. It will be cool to see the dam from the bridge once it is finished.

We stopped at the Paris Hotel that night. We got in a bit later than we wanted (partially because it took us forever to crawl down the strip to our hotel), so we didn’t do too much site seeing. We did look around the hotel itself. It was made up to look like a small French village, with the slot machines, of course. There were some things you might expect from anything French that was missing. There wasn’t a simple creperie. The only thing available served humongous Americanized crepes rather than the simple lemon ones you would get in Paris. And there weren’t any clothing shops, something you see in Paris a lot. These were all things Lisa noticed while we wandered around. But, overall, it was alright. We had a nice view of the Eiffel Tower outside our bedroom window.

After Vegas, we went on to San Jose to see Lisa’s friend Jot and the next day on to Bandon, where we met up with Lisa’s parents. Bandon is a small beach town, sort of geared towards tourists, but it has its charms. The beach isn’t a sunny Californian beach, but more a wild, cold beach. Most mornings, we took a walk along the beach, looking at the sea creatures attached to the rocks and searching for cool rocks. Later in the week, Lisa’s brother, sister-in-law, and niece came by for a couple of days. After they left, the rest of us spent more than one night playing dominoes (sort of our tradition at Bandon).

After a week in Bandon, we drove back, stopping again in San Jose. We then diverged from our previous route by heading to Santa Barbara. It again took us longer than we thought it would and we got into Santa Barbara pretty late. We had to stop earlier at Los Alamos, California, for dinner. Los Alamos is a pretty small rural community. It was dark, so we didn’t see much, but the diner we stopped at had good food. After Santa Barbara, we headed east to Santa Fe, though had to stop a night in Gallup as things again took us longer than we had planned.

Overall, it was a good trip. A bit much on the driving, but we had Harry Potter to keep us awake and help the time go by (more on Harry later). We saw some cool things that we hadn’t seen before, which is the nice thing about driving.

Photographs by myself and Lisa.

I grew up in Homedale, Idaho, so I have some familiarity with Boise.  Not as much as one might think since it was far enough away that we didn’t get there very often.  I’ve gotten to know Boise better in recent years as Lisa’s parents live there.

Lisa and I just got back from a visit to Boise where I attended the regional American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting.  It was held in the heart of downtown Boise, at the Boise Centre on the Grove.   I have to admit — I was very pleasantly surprised.

It has been a long time since I really spent any time in that part of Boise (minus the Basque block, which is a minute or two away by foot, but which might as well be miles away considering how often I strayed from it).  I remember the 8th Street Market Place as a relatively run-down shopping center and that was about it.  I have to say that Boise has done a tremendous job in revitalizing their downtown.  The 8th Street area is now a vibrant commercial zone with lots of restaurants and wine bars and shops.  Of course, the ever-popular Basque Block is right next door.  And right in the middle of it all is the Boise Centre, which is where the conference was held.  And right outside of that is a nice open plaza area with a fountain where they hold public concerts every Wednesday.

It was a very nice location for a conference.  The Centre has wireless, the rooms are large and spacious, there is a coffee bar in the Centre itself.

I took a group of conference attendees to the newest Basque restaurant, Leku Ona, just opposite the Basque Center.  Most everyone enjoyed their food.  People got rare treats (for them) of things like tongue, tripe, squid in its own ink, and lamb shank.  I and another guy had pork chops which, I think due to overwhelming conference crowd that caught them unprepared,  were a little cold.  But everything else was great.  The service was a bit slow, also due to the unexpectedly large crowd, but it was still a great night.

I highly recommend a visit to Boise Downtown, or what they are calling BoDo (seems like a rif off of Seattle’s SoDo).  Everything is in walking distance of the Centre, including a number of hotels.  It was the perfect location for a conference.

Google recently released their “Street View” feature, in which they’ve gone around a few cities (including San Fran, Vegas, and NYC) with a van and a camera and photographed everything. Those photos are now on the web.

I thought I’d see if I could find the places I visited back in September (see this post). So far, I wasn’t able to find the San Francisco Brewing Company, even though I know the address. I just couldn’t see it on the street. But I was able to find both Eguna Basque and Iluna Basque. A shot of both of them is here. And you can see a few people hanging out in front of City Light Books. SF Brewing should be just down the street from them, but I am having a hard time finding them.

No, I just found them. Their sign is hidden by a road sign, but you can see their happy hour special!

It’s a bit weird to be able to zoom in on things like this and see people wandering the streets. There are a few sites popping up which show some of the more interesting things people have found (just search for Google Street View in, where else, Google). But it is also cool to be able to take a virtual tour of a city like this. I might feel differently when my house is online like this though…