Happy X-mass, Pulser!

Since a couple of month, one of the calibration Pulsers we built in Paris for D0 at Fermilab isn’t working anymore. The reason is not obvious, we sent some spare parts over, but none did the job of getting the Pulser back working. So the Pulser needed to be brought back to Paris for Alain and Hervé, our engineers to look at.

The no-brainer solution to bring a Pulser to Paris is to ship it with FedEx, DHL or something alike, simply getting in contact with the Fermilab shipping department. But wouldn’t that be far too simple? What about having someone from the lab, who is traveling back from Fermilab bringing it directly with them?

Naturally all attempts to do so, fell in the category of a last minute phone call “Oh, aren’t you leaving today? Couldn’t you bring THE Pulser back?” – “Mmh, sorry, but I don’t have any space in my luggage” – “Gosh, I couldn’t find someone to wrap it up!” etc. The Pulser has a size of 40x50x15cm and weights about 2 kg. 

So I made it a personal issue to bring it back home for X-mass. With me. On the plane. Luckily Thursday we had a calorimeter meeting, that reminded to check out if there would be any trouble with customs, and the shipping department provided me with a letter, explaining officially that this is equipment used in a DOE lab, that needs to be brought to France for repair.

How to carry this thing? My suitcase was too small as well. And I wanted to run some tests during my shifts over the weekend. Last minute on Sunday morning I went to search for a bag. At Supertarget, they didn’t have any cheap travel bag that size, they didn’t had any heavy-duty plastic shopping bags that size, the only thing I could find was a holiday gift bag with snowman printings!

Wonderful idea! Only the bag didn’t make it until the airport without starting to be torn apart. Courtesy to Air France I got a plastic bag around, and they accepted it as hand luggage – certainly thinking about a nice Chris-mass present for some 6-year old.

No problem to get it through security, no problem to get it through customs, the package finally traveled business class, as there was not space left in the overhead compartments.

I refused to take public transportation to carry the Pulser with my entire luggage home and we traveled with a cab. Yesterday it reached its final destination after a short bus-ride, and will now happily await New Year for getting repaired!

Comments

[Bob]

Oui c'est vrai que les physiciens ont l'habitude de faire voyager l'electronique dans leurs bagages!