Thursday, September 14
A Long U-Turn
About once every 4-5 weeks, Kirk and I head up to Berkeley. He has work there at the 88-inch cyclotron at Lawrence Berkeley Labs. Generally, we leave on Monday and come back on Friday. Occasionally, we'll go on Sunday or come back on Saturday. Once or twice in the five years we've been married, we actually came home on Thursday, but that is rare.
I'm fortunate enough to go along with him for two reasons: (1) I have a job that is very flexible and they support me traveling with my husband; and (2) there is equipment that must be driven up and back (flying it on a plane isn't really an option), so I'm able to travel for free if Kirk volunteers to make the drive. It's a really nice situation for us, as we are able to spend the week together. When at the cyclotron, they run on a 24-hour schedule. Kirk is normally on the 4AM to noon shift, giving us the afternoons free.
On Monday, we headed up there as usual. If we are unlucky, we'll hit rush hour traffic heading out of LA. If we are REALLY unlucky, we'll hit it heading into the Bay Area. If we hit any rush hour, it generally means it'll be an 8 hour trip for us (once it took 10! ugh!). It took us about 8 on Monday, even though we hit bits of rush hour on both ends.
When we arrived at the lab to drop off the equipment, Kirk unloaded the car. Then he found out that the cyclotron was broken. Now, normally, if it's "broken", they are looking at a several hour delay - maybe even 24 hours. However, it was "really" broken - so basically it was out of operation until Wednesday. Kirk's first shift was going to probably be Thursday at 4AM. They asked us if we'd be willing to drive back on Saturday instead, which, of course, we were.
We checked into the hotel, got settled, hung out and didn't have to go to sleep at 8PM! Yay! On Tuesday, we spent the day in the hotel room. Kirk essentially telecommuted, getting much done. Around 6PM, he got a phone call. Apparently the cyclotron wasn't "really" broken...it was "really REALLY" broken and now the soonest it would be fixed was Friday! Well, Kirk's company only has it reserved until Friday. So there was no sense in us staying. Basically, on Wednesday morning, we packed everything up and drove home. Somehow, we managed to miss both rush hours this time and made it home in a bit over 6 hours!
On the way up and back, we saw some of the fires in the mountains. There are quite a number of them, and some areas that were tremendously burned. A couple of the fires were close enough to the road (or large enough) that we saw open flames going. It made me think of my friend Vic, who is hiking the Pacific Crest Trail and had to detour around some fires earlier this summer.
I'm fortunate enough to go along with him for two reasons: (1) I have a job that is very flexible and they support me traveling with my husband; and (2) there is equipment that must be driven up and back (flying it on a plane isn't really an option), so I'm able to travel for free if Kirk volunteers to make the drive. It's a really nice situation for us, as we are able to spend the week together. When at the cyclotron, they run on a 24-hour schedule. Kirk is normally on the 4AM to noon shift, giving us the afternoons free.
On Monday, we headed up there as usual. If we are unlucky, we'll hit rush hour traffic heading out of LA. If we are REALLY unlucky, we'll hit it heading into the Bay Area. If we hit any rush hour, it generally means it'll be an 8 hour trip for us (once it took 10! ugh!). It took us about 8 on Monday, even though we hit bits of rush hour on both ends.
When we arrived at the lab to drop off the equipment, Kirk unloaded the car. Then he found out that the cyclotron was broken. Now, normally, if it's "broken", they are looking at a several hour delay - maybe even 24 hours. However, it was "really" broken - so basically it was out of operation until Wednesday. Kirk's first shift was going to probably be Thursday at 4AM. They asked us if we'd be willing to drive back on Saturday instead, which, of course, we were.
We checked into the hotel, got settled, hung out and didn't have to go to sleep at 8PM! Yay! On Tuesday, we spent the day in the hotel room. Kirk essentially telecommuted, getting much done. Around 6PM, he got a phone call. Apparently the cyclotron wasn't "really" broken...it was "really REALLY" broken and now the soonest it would be fixed was Friday! Well, Kirk's company only has it reserved until Friday. So there was no sense in us staying. Basically, on Wednesday morning, we packed everything up and drove home. Somehow, we managed to miss both rush hours this time and made it home in a bit over 6 hours!
On the way up and back, we saw some of the fires in the mountains. There are quite a number of them, and some areas that were tremendously burned. A couple of the fires were close enough to the road (or large enough) that we saw open flames going. It made me think of my friend Vic, who is hiking the Pacific Crest Trail and had to detour around some fires earlier this summer.
Labels: Family, Friends, Travel
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It turns out that the cause of the failure at the cyclotron that made us go home early was a rat. Apparently a rat got into the 12,000 Volt system for the cyclotron and got electrocuted. This caused several 100 amp fuses to blow, thus shutting down the entire cyclotron. I think I can get a picture of the offending rat.
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