I’ve been working 10 and 11 hour days the last couple of days. It’s kickin’ me arse! But, considering I’ve been where I’ve been working for a little over a year, and this is the first big project I’ve seen to completion, I’m pretty happy.

As a kid, the “do nothing and get paid” job was the ultimate. However, you have to find something to do, else you go mad. Whether it is hefting a typewriter to stay in shape, digging a tunnel to freedom, or even plotting the deaths of your Viet Cong masters, you’ve gotta do what makes you happy, right? Right.

Chuck has written to us “Day 6″ — and it seems that his little travelogues are less and less about Physics and more and more about eating and getting screwed by fake porn-mag distribution company. Well, enjoy.

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– BEGIN TRANSMISSION –

DAY 6

Well, another illustrious day has come and gone. In the mid-afternoon, after heading up to SLAC for boring meetings and some SP, we headed off to San Fransisco again.

This time in SF, the day was not so optimal, it was a rare summer rain in the city of rainbows. Incidentally, the National Gay Pride parade was on Sunday, wow, what a goddamned spectacle!

So, we arrived and parked on pier 39, remember that number. After a little wandering of the low-cal, we found the cable cars and rode it. Irony was beheld, when I noticed the Rice-A-Roni add on the cable car. As I was not quick enough on the stampede when the car arrived at the station, I got to stand at the front (open, mind you) edge of the cable car, ad get to hold on to a single pole in the rain(the standing room was not covered). The cable car went up steep ass hills (SAHs) at a near 40 degree angle in places, and then down again on the other side of the hill. On the ride, we passed that section of Lombard street that is the most curving section of road in the world, and sure as fuck, they do not exaggerate. Soon after this, we entered a more traffic strewn section of town. First, there were some road cones in the road(obviously), but the cable car ran over them(it is on rails), the annoying part is that it ran over them right at the edge, the edge I was standing on, and they slid over to the side and pummeled my ankles, fuckin-a! But then, a car tried to pass us in the parking lane and fucking hit me, not the cable car, ME! goddamnit!

It is not as bad as you think, his side view mirror caught a bit-o-my-pants, but still, the fucker hit me. I did him better by leaving my muddy footprint on his window.

We then walked around in the shopping centers, and eventually found chinatown. Its nice, but to many foreigners. We ate there and I had the Dim Sum, which is just a plate of several finger foods. It was ok, but I suspect that this place was not the best dim sum in SF, as the sign proclaimed.

On the walk back to the car, I saw another YANK mag box! Yeah!! This one looked legit, with a handle and a stack of yank mags visible . So another attempt to get the YANK mag ensued. And, it ended in failure. The quarters got stuck in the change install place. NO YANK mag, and now, im almost totally positive that this is a scam. It re-goddamn-diculous!

Thats all for Monday, soon I shall return!

Chuck

Chuck realizes that work is boring, hits the road to San Francisco, realizes that the Golden Gate bridge is the world’s longest tourist trap, and much more…

Peep it… Day 5 (Sunday, June 24, 2001)

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–BEGIN TRANSMISSION–

Day 4

So I yet enter another day in the great state of California. I getting pretty fucking bored of the stuff at SLAC, I’ve learned about all that im allowed to learn, and we have to wait for Dr. Brown to finish his work and go to the meetings(the colloboration meeting started today) There is SP work for us to do, but with the three of us being proficient in doing it, all the work is done in les than an hour.

SP: Simulation Production, the use of Monte Carlo (MC, a better random-number generator) techiniques to create a simulated high energy event(s), then use intelligent processing to recreate it ‘inside’ a virtual detector. This data then can be run through a third process of data analysis to try to reconstruct the original creation. This reconstruction process is the same one as actually used on the real detector data, and it helps the colloboration to fine tune the different processes.

Ok, that is what I do in a nutshell, I don’t do the fine tuning, or anything other than oversee that the computers are working on the assigned tasks correctly, and then update the database for the completed simulations, of course, there are millions of events simulated….

So, anyway, after several hours of boredom, we headed off to the mall, then a few more hours of boredom, but finially we got everyone together and headed north on highway ONE to SAN FRANSISCO! (song in my head…. ‘san-fran–sisko’)

So, we drove into SF, really nice, really big, really hilly. WE drove on Lombard street, the guiness records most curviest street in the world, saw some other shit, and ended up on pier 39, which is a popular tourist attraction, basically a floating mall, really big too.

It seems that everything in Sunny California is bigger: roads, buildings, trees(redwoods), you name it.

We ate at a lovely Italian restaraunt on the pier, I had the prawns, and then checked out the mall. IT was a Sunday nite, and much had already closed.

But then we had a lovely drive across the bay bridge to treasure island, then across the other half of the bay bridge to Oakland(about 4 miles long I estimated a definite Long Ass Bridge, or a LAB). Then north thru Oakland, a not so pretty city, to the other side of the Golden Gate bridge, we drove south across the bay again into SSan F on the golden gate bridge, its really big!

Cost $3 goddamn dollars too, and they dont charge you till AFTER the ride, what a racket!

Long drive home, then passed out at 1.30 in the am.

Chuck

Here are Chuck’s travelogues from Days 3 and 4 in his trek to SLAC

Day 3, Chuck climbs a big hill. Day 4, Chuck goes to the ocean. Read it all below!
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– BEGIN TRANSMISSION –

DAY 3

So, day three began early as usual, but instead of heading to work, we headed to the Stanford wildlife refuge and big-ass-hill, or BAH for short.

This area is on foot only, and a very steep climb into the mountian. It is very pretty up there, and the view of Silicon valley is tremendous. I saw the NASA Ames research center, and the Airforce base there, and later I saw a F-22, onw of the new ass-kickin airplanes that we have.

After that, back to drudgery.

At approx 5.30 PST we succeded in removing the keys from Dr Brown, and headed out of SLAC in a fury of dust and gravel. We cruised the town for a while, ate mexican at Celia’s Mexican restraunt, drank beer, and proceded to walk home. On the way back to the hotel, I noticed a newspaper vending machine on the street. It was called ‘YANK’. I was first struck with the thought that Kelly, being herself a Yankee, that she would be interested in this magazine about British stuff in Cali, but as I looked closer into the vending machine, I noticed that the YANK-mag was of a different sort.

I was indeed a YANK-MAG!

Soon, you all shall see the wonders of the YANK, if you so choose….

DAY 4

So, Day four begins early with us excited about heading out to the coast. Dr Brown arrived early at 9.30 or so, and we began the trek.

First we headed into the commercial areas of Palo Alto and checed out some of the businesses. We saw SUN Microsystems, Silicon Graphics Incorporated, GOOGLE headquarters, Lorel Space Systems, Replay TV (TeVo), and maybe some others.

Then he headed across the mountians towards the coast.

WE went through the beautiful country-side, and as we crossed the mountians we entered into the fog zone. It was still too early for the sun to beat off the fog. We arrived at the coast and went south on California Highway 1. Yes, the same one mentioned in the books, songs, movies. The California coast if beautiful. WE drove for several miles all the way to Santa Cruz county and stopped at a beach. The ocean is FRIGID, but the sand is HOT from the sun. IT is a real nice mix. I played in the sand for an hour building a sand hole, while the others either sat, wondered, or layed out. There were naked people on the beach.

After the equally beautiful drive home, we came to work.

I shall continue this day if anything merits the mention later.

Chuck

Day 4 – Continued…
So, after some more work at the accelerator, we headed out to eat, since Dr Brown didnt like fish, and he wasn’t there due to having to stay in the control room till midnite, we went and ate…. fish.

Somewhere near our hotel was a place called the Fish Market, it was pretty good. I had grilled Hawaiian Ono, a large white-meated fish, it tasted much like chicken. I deduced that this fish is large, as the ‘flakey’ meat of fish(you know what im talking about), well the indivudual flakes were quite large, about the thickness of 2 cm. Big. More importantly, Tasty.

So, on the drive home we passed that Yank-mag stand. Tires squealed, pokets were turned out, and 4 quarters were found for YANK. Becc stepped out, inserted the quarters, and began to yank on the door. Well, to make a long hilarious story short, the YANK mag door didnt open, apparently it does NOT open, its just there to steal your money, this was figured out after the family with 3 kids(ages 7-13) walked by, giving Becca the oddest looks as she(and then Darius) were attempting to open the YANK mag stand. Sorry guys, no YANK mag souvineer. I will try to get some postcards, but I canna find any. I thought about purchasing some California lottery tickets, as all big payout lotterys are invariable won by out-of-towners, but alas… apathy prevailed. This morning I heard that the winning ticket was sold in Palo Alto(this town that im in right now). Oh well…

Thats it for Saturday, June 23, 2001.

Chuck

Here is Chuck’s Travelogue of his journey to Stanford’s Linear Accelerator.

In this episode, Chuck hits the Stanford campus, sits through a boring meeting, and once again, steps over the line from disgusting to obscene
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– BEGIN TRANSMISSION –

Hola amigos!

Me gusta apunular los ninos!

er… I mean, hello how are you doing today! Day 2 opened with much ado about nothing. Or actually, we got up at 6am, then headed over to the laboratory, pronounced la- boor- a- torie, and worked.

Later in the day, we (consisting of Dr Brown, me, Kelly, Becca, and Darius) headed over to the Stanford campus to ‘check it out’.

I soon realized how shitty the UofL campus really is. First spotted was the Leeland Stanford Jr Memorial Bell Tower, rising phallically in the distance. Next there was Palm avenue, which is for some odd reason lined with palm trees, 40-fucking-foot palm trees. We then entered the Leeland Stanford Jr Memorial quadrangle, which is about the size of the ENTIRE UofL Belknap campus(excluding parkinglots). The building of this campus are in the southwest style of terra-cotta roofs, and freso’ed walls and floors, mucho impressiva.

One side of the Leeland Stanford Jr Memorial quadrangle is the Leeland Stanford Jr Memorial cathederal, this is one big-fuckoff church.(ive got pictures that will be posted when I get back and fix madbovine.org, that will be added into these emails, if someone saves them for me.)

Anyways, this cathederal is filled with the carvings, inscriptions, stained glass, icons, et all of the religious types. Seats about 1500 I estimate.

I saw the rodan statues of the 7 Berghers of Calais. The also have the thinker, an original cast, just like ours.

Next followed was the daily BaBar meeting, the most booring fucking meeting ever, even fro us physicists, 1.5 hours of mind-numbing-tedium consising of charts of the ramifications of changing the gas mixture in the injector-something from 70/20/5/5 to 60/27/8/5 percentages of some four gasses, N O Co2 and something else…. baH! who gives a fuck if you arent actually working on that project yourelf.

Finially it was over, and we went into the control room, and worked with DrB on ‘shift’ And we nearly broke the record for sustained luminosity through an eight hour period.

luminosity: combined strength of the 2 beams being collided (simple version)

Soon after came me with the car keys to Dr B’s car!! hehehe watchout So Cali!

well, anyways, we ate (not Dr B) at Sizzles, king of the steak. I had the …… steak. The converstion here drifted into the vulgar, even the obscene very quickly, but the group was guffawing loudly. And interestingly enough we had the attention of the old couple that was sitting next to us.

One snippet, you can add a new chapter to the Charles Pearsall story: Chapter 23 Sphincter Flex

Basically, I rehased all those funny stories that I have. None really new, just the same old same crude Chuck.

Thats it for day 2.

Peace, out

– END TRANSMISSION –

Here is Chuck Pearsall‘s account of his first day at SLAC (the Standford Linear Accelerator), where he is participating in the BaBar collaboration, which “was built at SLAC to study the millions of B mesons produced by the PEP-II storage ring”.

In our hero’s first episode, there are deer, beer, and Delroy Lindo. So, read on for his full account!

A minor update — Chuck says the website to the sushi place is here.
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– BEGIN TRANSMISSION! –
Day 1

Open: 4.30am ugh, this sucks, early morning trip to the airport. After a quick flight to Atlanta, there was a 2 hour layover. What to do during these 2 hours? BEER! yes, beer is on sale in the airport 24-7. So, 2 beers later, then off to LAX.

Slept through most of the 4 hour flight to Cali, but i nearly throttles this annoying, and I MEAN ANNOYING woman sitting behind be. In addition Del Roy Lindo(I think that is his name, the black policeman actor in Gone in 60sec and Ransom) was sitting in the same row as I was. OHOHOH, get this: it now cost $5 to get the inflight movie, to RENT the fucking headphones, how much shit is that??!!? Its a fucking travesty I tell you, and THEN the movie was that pile of shit the Weddding Planner? who the fuck would pay to see shitty j-low act like a stupid cunt in that dumbass movie???!!!??

Enough ranting…

So, then a commuter flight from LAX to San Jose, and Im in the silicon valley!!!

So, we drive from the San Jose airport, which by the way I had to climb down a fucking ladder(almost) to get off the plane, it just stopped in one corner of the concrete, and a stairway drove up and parked next to the plane. what is this? 1962? no airconditioned pedway? no automatic slidewalks? WTF?

Again, we drive from the san jose airport to the ‘heart’ of silicon valley, SLAC and the Stanford campus(adjacent,but different cities) On the way, we see headquarters for the following companies:

Intel
Apple
Compaq
Hewelet-Packard
Wall Street Journal West
Silicon Graphics
Sun Microsystems

And many others…

Impressive, most impressive isn’t it?

well, then a quick tour of the area insued, and we stopped at the Stanford Mall, yes, this is the open-aired mall owed and operated by the University of STanford, On the Stanford campus. So, more driving around towards SLAC, and we drive OVER the LINAC (or linear accelerator) which extends over the interstate. Soon we arrive at SLAC, and are ushered into the guard boot to get our dossimiters and ID’s.

dossimiter: a device worn that measures radiation levels

Next we headed into the BaBar control room, as Dr. Brown, our professor and chauffer, had to start his 4-12 shift, and it was 3.56. So, some down time akwardness as Dr B did the startup sequences, and we stood around looking dumb. But, soon we got a small tour of the facilities, as the LINAC was down. We saw a 50000 liter tank of liquid nitrogen, the multiple control systems of the BaBar detector.

BaBar: the name of a detector system for looking at high energy particles, also the name of the collorobation of scientists working on said system.

We also saw much equipment in front of the detector, we COULDN’T see the actual detector, as the radiation levels would be fairly unsafe, now that the experiment was in progress, so it was safely buried behind 1.5 meters of high pressure concrete. Nearby was the ‘farm’ of computers that run the command and control systems of the BaBar detector.

farm: a large group of computers, usually dedicated to a single, or similar tasks

So, next was the outside of the project building, and right there was a not so wild deer and her two babies.
Up, comes the camera and what? the fucking camera is now broken..wont turn on. shit, fucking digital camera broke.

Alas, soon it will turn on again, dunno why it failed to turn on earlier, dunno why i suddenly decided to start working, dunno how long till it acts up again.

But, back outside, and got the pictures of the deers. No as great as I could have, they were 10 feet away, at first when the camera didnt work, but still, pictures.

Also found out about a large herd of wild horses on the Stanford wild lands on top of the LINAC.(it is buried)

Work, work, work followed, the same shit I do at Uof L, but actually loggin on to the computers, not accessing them thru the internet.

We get a ride back to the hotel, or the roach hotel as id like to think of it, and start walking down the street looking for a restraunt.

We pass up Denny’s and some taco stand and come to Grub and Grog, which sounds promising, but still we move along. Suddenly the clouds part, a shaft of light from the heavens illuminates FUKI SUSHI! we enter, and the numerous awards and articles that litter the anteroom walls proclaim this restraunt to be the BEST SUSHI IN Silicon Valley, even Southern California, a 5 star resturant, etc,etc,etc… so, we eat, then we eat some more, then our comes my sushi plate ($22 it was) and it was the best sushi ever, in my book. it beat the best of Bonsi of Louisville hands down, Bonsi is CRAP, it sucks. This was the best!!!!!! Those 6 exclimation points aren’t for nothin! those are deliberate! I’m not the type to use excessive emphasis!!!

So, after 3 hours of feasting and splitting the bill, which was a major hassle, we trudged back to the hotel. Where we soon passed out after our gorged bellies forced us into a coma, otherwise known as sleep.

To be continued….

Fade to Black……

– END TRANMISSION –

What is Kludge-O? — Well, Kludge-O is something on the order of theLocust v2. And I’ve been working on it (or what became kludge-o anyway) since something on the order of DECEMBER 2000. I thought I’d get it done end of February, as a boatload of it was completed in late Dec 2000 / Jan 2001.

So, “Where the hell is it?” you say. {more} Well, I try and try to sum up the motivation to finish developing the extra features I want on it (ie. User-defined Color Schemes, Personal Top Tens, News Queues, New Article Voting, Better Comment Handling), and out comes the sun and I go outside, or (as has lately been the case) I fall asleep.

What’s my motivation? Sometimes, I’m not real sure, and since work had been slow ’round March, April, I just felt drained… so drained that I didn’t want to work on the ‘kludge. May and June have been a little hectic, a little up and down at work, and I still feel drained. Argh! The last couple of posts on theLocust have given me a good deal of motivation, in that I think that if I post more like it, and allow OTHERS to submit their stories, that theLocust could prosper.

I intend this site, which is my “personal” site, if you will, to be much like Killoggs. I like their design a lot, but that really isn’t the gist of it all. It is (what appears to me to be) a group of friends, relating little bits of their lives to us, and most of it is entertaining, or at least thought-provoking. I like it. It’s smallish and the “signal to noise” ratio is rather high. Lots of good postings.

But, not being too technical of peoples, the Killoggs site isn’t too functional. It is, but not to Kludge-levels (oh dear!). So, that’s my idea for the site.

I’ll also have a few other installs of the ‘kludge goin on, too. Prolly one for my other domain, KYGeek.org, one for Kludge-O itself, and mebbe one for MPy3, if I ever get around to it.

As I was driving along today, by myself, I found myself having a conversation (in my mind) with James Eisenmeinger, our long-dead friend. I don’t know why my mind manifested him, but it did. Feeling very introspective lately (since Kelly, my girlfriend, has been out-of-town), I was just speaking with him about ME. Kelly and I are moving rapidly into our fifth year as a couple, and the topic of marriage has been heavy on both our minds. We are all making the transition from students to workers, my parents are getting older. We are getting older.
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I haven’t been to James’ grave since the day we put him in the earth. I always planned to, and in my own comfortable sadness today, I thought about doing so. Being Father’s day, however, my day was consumed. I thought about just going there and sitting in front of his headstone to air my thoughts. I thought how silly that would be. Not silly in a whimsical fashion, but silly because for some reason, I can’t seem to bring myself to do that with any of my friends, relatives, or even Kelly. I can’t express my feelings that well, apparently. Like I mentioned before, I didn’t go through with speaking with James today, so you, the inky void of the Internet is my confidant. I know full well that Hunter, Danielle, and others will read this. But I don’t mind that. It’s strange, I know. I can’t explain it.

The things that were on my mind at that moment are ages-old. Ages-old in the fact that people have grappled with them since the beginning of time, and ages-old in the fact that I’ve been thinking about them for quite some time. Marriage, my own emotional cloistering, my ability to love.

I love Kelly Brockman. Let that be known to all. I love my friends. Every single one of them. I don’t say either of those often enough. I CAN’T say them often enough. And I know I don’t show that often enough. “Asshole” is the word I remember more often than not when my attitude is referred to. And I’ll admit to that. I’ve changed a lot in the past few years. Life has been changing a lot in the past few years. College, girlfriends, jobs, money, marriage. It’s all been turned around, and the in the commotion, I didn’t remember how to communicate. I got confused. I don’t know. I shrink away from communication. I’ve lost friends that way. Either by my own cognisant effort or not. Megan Leahy I never wrote back when I was 10. I’ll never forgive myself for that… and I never heard back until she returned from France. Oh well.

That is something I must remember, so this is as much a message to anyone who reads it as it is a message to myself.

“There is a comfort in being sad,” someone once wrote. I know this too well, but rarely do I ever show it. I am too easily swayed. I too easily lie to myself. I too easily shun confrontation or communication, to hold onto the sadness that is my center of gravity. I’m never too happy, or too sad. I stay somewhere safe. If you get to high, you fall to far. I’m afraid of heights. I afraid of falling. I’m afraid that what I build will come crashing down, and I’d waste what I have now. Why must I be so rooted in my past? Just because my parent’s relationship failed doesn’t mean mine has to as well, right? Then don’t let yourself destroy it, Ben. But how do I know which is right? I’m tugged between the two. I don’t want to be told which way to go. When is that door going to open? When you start communicating…

Thanks for the chat, James.

So, I’m reading this article over at CNN, entitled “$1.35 trillion dollar tax cut signed into law“. It mentions the rebate program, which will start July 20th — “Singles will get $300, single parents will receive $500 and married couples will see a $600 rebate.”

Now, any American who has taken Economics, or at least blown their entire paycheck and/or Christmas bonus in one booze-fueled fandango near the end of the month KNOWS that the “marginal propensity to save” in the United States is SHOCKINGLY low. Somewhere around 5%, as compared to somewhere around 25% in Japan (as best I can remember). Way to go Bush!
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Let me explain here. How did most of the richest folks in the United States become rich? Hitting the lottery? No. The way you “make money” isn’t necessarily important. I could make fat sacks of cash money, but those fat sacks wouldn’t do me a damned bit of good if I kept spending it all. Which brings me to the point — rich people SAVE money. Thats why they are RICH. If they didn’t SAVE money, then they would be POOR. Bush’s primary impetus behind the $300 rebates was to “stimulate the economy”. To the richer portion of those rebatees, they will merely toss that $300 on their already fat pile of money, meanwhile, the POOR SAPS like you and I will most likely either use it in the aforementioned fashion, or pay down our debts. It will most likely not go towards the “general economy”, and that is my primary concern. So, giving $300 to every single taxpayer (who filed this year) is going to do a fat lot of fucking good, if you ask me!

In fact, I’m probably either going to:

A) Donate it to a good cause, which may or may not be the “Get Ben Drunk on Expensive Imported Irish Tasty Beer’

B) Soil it, and return it to the White House
C) Pay down my debt.
D) Go completely against everything I stated above and buy a new TV, VCR, or a small immigrant house-boy, who will live in the closet.

All of this rebate nonsense just seems like very short-sighted policy on behalf of the Bush administration. Which apparently is a theme in the Oval Office. We’ll infuse the American public with $300 rebates, which will provide minutes of fun to the populous, which will pay for about 1 tank-full of gas for our SUVs, which by the way are the reason why we need MORE OIL. To hell with this conservation (read: SAVING). But that, my friends, is a whole other story.