Traveling in June

During the first half of June, I am traveling to three different states for various different personal and academic events.

Illinois

As I write this, I am attending the annual Fermilab Users' Meeting.  I am looking forward to learning about the people and activities here beyond the experiments on which I work.

Partially overlapping with the Users' Meeting is the 2009 Outreach Workshop, which will feature a Tesla coil show, posters, presentations, and panel discussions.  Given some of the difficulty I have had in effectively communicating certain aspects of science to my friends, I hope I can learn practical lessons from people with experience reaching out from the lab to the public, government, and educators.

On Friday through Sunday, I will be taking shifts monitoring MINOS again.  I will be on the morning shift (6 AM to noon).  I hope that these shifts will be less eventful than my previous set of shifts, during which a transformer failed (go to 11 PM once you click the link) cutting power to MINOS and multiple other parts of the lab.  It was quickly replaced.

Minnesota

On Sunday evening, I am scheduled to fly from ORD to DLH.  From Duluth, I will drive with a grad student in our group to Ely, MN for the MINOS Week in the Woods Meeting.  I have never been to this meeting before, and I have not been to northern Minnesota for several years.  I look forward to it, but I was sure to pack the strongest insect repellent I could find.

Wisconsin

I will leave Week in the Woods on Friday (June 12) to fly from Duluth to La Crosse, WI (LSE), where my sister lives.  There, I will meet Kelly, and the next morning, we will travel to Independence for my 10-year high school class reunion.  I expect it to be a fairly strange experience, given how much I have changed and grown since 1999.  Also, I have not seen most of the people who will be there since then, so I am curious to see how they have changed.  I will, as always, be proud to have my finacée with me.

My mother and sister will be hosting an engagement party for us on Sunday.  It should be a fun time to celebrate this occasion with friends and family, especially those who might not be able to travel to the wedding.  Since some guests have been asking about gifts, Kelly and I have started gift registries.

Kelly and I will fly back out of La Crosse to O'Hare on Monday afternoon.  There, we will part ways as she returns to Columbus and I fly to Indianapolis on my way home.