You remember that movie from Tim Burton a couple of years ago, Nightmares before X-mass? I am sitting in my office, today, although I am officially on holidays and was meant to drive home to my parents in Germany. I am sitting in my office, and I am just dreaming away, how much I would like to have some quite time, to go shopping for some presents, to bring home some wine for X-mass lunch, or just arranging the flat a little before leaving.
I logged in this morning, and got the conclusions of the management meeting yesterday. Apparently it was not clear that we would need some additional software to correct for this bug from the data we have already reprocessed. A phone conference is scheduled for 9:00 am Fermilab time, 4:00 pm here in Paris. I called my mother and told here that I will arrive only tomorrow and I start to prepare the software in question. At 5:30 pm we have to leave the lab, which will be closed without access until January 2nd.
PS: It’s been 10:30 pm when I left the lab. Everything was dark except the light in the cupola. Even the coffee and the vending machines have been switched off. When everyone was kicked out, Nicolas told me, that I could stay, and that he trusts me that I will shutdown my computer and close down whatever I am still using. The bug-fix-repair code is commited to the software repository. I've sent e-mail to everyone concerned. There is a great feeling of satisfaction, like after having acomplished something important, having overcome a big difficulty - yet we still have to do some more testing. Slamming the door behind me, I knew I couldn’t get anything from my office before January. Hope I didn’t forget something crucial to continue working from home.
Comments