Claire Gray

First Day at School: Proton Pancakes

Today was the first day of HUGS, the summer school run by Hampton Uni here at JLab that Mark and I are attending. The day started off with breakfast at the Quark Cafe, JLab's cafeteria, and welcomes from Rolf Ent, the group leader of Hall C, and Bob Williams from Hampton U (Bob is the guy who's looking after us while we're here for HUGS). We then went into the lobby for a group photo, taken by Greg Adams, JLab's official photographer. Thanks so much Greg for sending me the pic so I could put it up here :)

Today was basically an introduction day, we had an overview of the computing facilities, and then an overview of JLab's physics program by Larry Cardman which was really interesting. It was great to get an idea of the big picture of physics at JLab. I mean, you can basically come here, run an experiment, analyse the data and get a PhD without really knowing what's going on around you if that's what you want - Not recommended, of course! I like to hear about the other experiments being done, and get an idea of what contributions are being made in the different areas of physics. It's nice to see where you "fit in" to the overall physics picture, I even felt quite proud when Larry showed how various past results from JLab have made significant and even impressive contributions to physics! *blush* so call me a geek, I don't mind ;)

If I can find the slides from his talk on the web I'll try post a link to them or something.

After that talk it was time for lunch, and then off to visit the library, and for a talk on safety. Then for the last hour the HUGS program really kicked off, with the first "proper" lecture of the school on Proton Tomography, given by Matthias Burkardt.

Well I must say that the lecture was rather intense, and after 6 months of computer coding my brain wasn't entirely impresed about being twisted round theory, but by the end of the hour it had got the idea again. We basically looked at the charge distributions of stationary protons, and those moving at non-relativistic and relativistic speeds. There were a few fantastic quotes that came out of this lecture. First, for not moving and non-relativistically moving protons, you can work out their charge distributions quite nicely because they go like the Fourier Transform of the form factor. However, as Burkardt so eloquently put it, "relativistically, all hell breaks loose!" :D

This was about the point that my brain started it's protests, but I can tell you one thing: a proton moving relativistically looks like a pancake, ie "if you boost a proton, it becomes a pancake because of Lorentz contraction."

Everyone got that, it makes sense doesn't it? Food analogies always work for physicists.

Speaking of food, HUGS has organised us dinner tickets for Ryan's, an all-you-can-eat buffet diner up the road from JLab. So at 18:30, 10 of us got together and went through to have some supper. We had a good time, ate lots and had time to chat properly to one another and get to know each other. Bob Williams even came by our table to say hi, though I didn't recognise him without his fantastic tie he had been wearing the whole day. I should have got a picture of that tie, come to think about it.

Anyway, I thought it time to take some photos, so here they are:

<--- Left to right: Mark, Olga, Mat, Richard, me,                Lamiaa

                       That's Chris Angell on the right --->

<--- Brian, Scott and Clausell

Long Weekend at JLab

Firstly, happy Memorial Day to all the Americans out there :) Hope you had a good holiday!

So since today is a public holiday, it's been a long weekend for us at JLab. What did we do?! Well, not much really. Mark and I are both pretty busy at the moment trying to get work done. See, HUGS starts tomorrow, which means three busy busy weeks of lectures and stuff, during which we won't have much time (if any) to work on our respective projects. Then there's about a week and a half before we're off to present our work at a conference in SA, so there's much to be done.

Nonetheless, we managed to do something apart from staring at our computers, even something worthwhile writing (and hopefully reading) about. Saturday was boring, but on Sunday we decided to go visit Hall C - one of three experimental halls here at JLab - to see the setup for the HKS experiment that's about to start running. We cycled over to the halls (well Mark cycled, I walked cause I was wearing a skirt), chasing ducks en route for fun.

The HKS is a new High resolution Kaon Spectrometer that's been built to measure the spectra of lambda hypernuclei. I would try and explain it if I could but I'd probably end up in a mess, so check out the HKS homepage  if you like strange particles :) Mark found some funky purple retro eye protective gear and modelled it for me. Who says you cant do physics in style! (ROFL)

For Mark's and my experiments we used the two "resident" Hall C spectrometers, which have now been closed up tight and moved out the way for the impressive looking HKS. Here's a diagram of the HKS that I got from their website above. In the diagram, the beam of electrons comes from the bottom and the HKS bends the Kaons off to the right. The elctron beam carries on almost straight, through the top of the page and on to the beam dump. The diagram says it all, really.

Now picture yourself standing at the "top" of the diagram looking down the photon line with the HKS bending off to your left. That's the orientation for this photo here. The big bright green thing going off to the left is, as labelled, the HKS, and behind those yellow concrete blocks on the right is the Enge spectrometer. That pipe thing that Mark is standing looking up at is the beamline. Maybe it sort of gives you an idea of the size of things, although the actual hall is pretty huge. I have yet to find a picture that does the hall size justice. Maybe you'll just have to come visit it yourselves!

Well, we climbed up into the HKS and Enge spectrometers, and I tried taking some photos of the component bits of them, though they look like a rather uninteresting mess of wires if you've never seen anything like it before. But since I mentioned them in my post on detectors on Thursday, here are some photos of photomultipliers in use. (photomultipliers rock!) They're the funnel-shaped things at the top in the pic on the left, and the tubes at the top and bottom in the picture on the right. They're covered with black tape to stop light from getting inside them, because that would destroy them. Remember, they're designed to amplify very dim signals, ie single photons, so daylight has about the same effect on them as on undeveloped camera film... Zap!

Well that's about it for HKS, we climbed the stairs out off the hall (they're underground) and went back to the ResFac.

We had a lovely surprise waiting for us when we got back. Since HUGS is starting tomorrow, the ResFac is getting ready for the influx of students, and to welcome us there was a bag filled with Hershey's Hugs, and a "Hugs for our HUGS" note on it. I am an absolute chocaholic, and this just made my day :) It even made the prospect of sitting down at my pc again to work that much more bearable, a daunting task on such a pretty bright sunny day. There's very little you can't fix with chocolate... ;D 

Run-A-Round

Yesterday was JLab's annual run-a-round, a 1.5 mile race round the lab. This was the first one I had been to, and it was lots of fun. Sarah Phillips and I both decided that we would forfeit our desire to run the race to take photos for you lot - a very hard decision, you must know!

The start/finish line was infront of the CEBAF centre building - the main building at JLab where all the offices are. Everyone gathered there before the race for the unveiling of the 2005 JLab tshirt - it wasn't the one I voted for but it looks very nice nonetheless. All the people who took part in the race (ie actually ran/walked it) got a free one.

Anyway, the race went off with a bang (or more like a squaaark) with the runners in front, and the walkers behind. Mark decided to run the race, and wore a tshirt with our flag on it. He came 3rd in his division which was very impressive considering he hadn't done any training beforehand.

Once everyone was on their way Sarah and I took a walk up the road, and then had to sprint back because the first runners were already coming back! I caught a pic of her taking photos (hehehe *g*). Everyone then milled around for a bit, collecting tshirts and recovering and stuff, and then went down to the prizegiving where they were serving food and beer and ice-cream :D

I was very impressed with the catering capabilities of the organisers because they just kept putting out more and more food, and with that many people munching it was not a small feat to keep them fed! Once everyone had curbed their appetites they held the prizegiving, with medals for each division and lovely trophies for the overall winners. By this point my camera's battery was dead (i hadn't charged it since i left SA on sunday) so I regret not being able to get any piccies of the trophy winners, but congratulations to them all, and thanks to the organisers and volunteers for making it a great race!

Detectors and Free Pizza

Yesterday I went to the pizza seminar at lunchtime. JLab occasionally holds these seminars, chances for grad students to learn about things going on at JLab and as an extra bonus, get fed pizza :) Yesterday's talk was by Howard Fenker on detectors used in high energy physics.

I enjoyed the talk because I have so far been focused more on the computational (analytic) and theoretical side of things, rather than the "hands-on" stuff of messing about with the actual equipment. I know about the detectors, understand (more or less) how they work and all, but my relationship with them has up to now been rather impersonal.

Yestarday's talk brought it all into a new light, however, with slides such as "How to build a gas-filled wire chamber" for particle position tracking, and such. Thus it was with some excitement that I was able to get my hands on a photomultiplier tube that was being passed around. That's it on the left here, though it comes in a tube filled with gas.

For those of you who don't know much about photomultipliers, you can think of them as signal amplifiers. In high energy physics, we mostly try to detect single elementary particles at a time, such as electrons, muons etc. You can probably figure out that the "signal" given off by one of these little babies passing through a detector is pretty damn small, so in order for us to be able to pick it up on our computers, we need to amplify the signal.

Now, a common way to detect particles is to use the light they produce when going through some medium. For example, if we wanted to measure the speed of an electron, we use a Cerenkov counter. Now you all know that nothing can go faster than the speed of light, but did you know that this was only in a vacuum? Light slows down as it travels though other substances, such as gas. In such cases, an electron can actually travel faster than light speed in that medium, and light is emitted from the travelling particle. The number of photons emitted, and the angle at which they are emitted, tell us the speed of the electron.

This is where photomultipliers come in. As said before, for a single electron, even if it's going really fast, the number of photons it produces are still low. A photomultiplier takes one photon, and uses an "avalanche effect" to produce lots of them. They're rather useful little things :)

Anyway, that was yesterday. Today is a wonderfully bright sunny day - the first we've had since we've been here, it's been raining and I didn't bring a raincoat or umbrella. Mark and I went and did some food shopping at Wal-Mart this morning. I also bought an umbrella. What's the bet it won't rain again while we're here? LoL

This afternoon is the annual JLab Run-a-Round, a 1.5 mile race around JLab. I have decided to be fantastically lazy and am not going to participate in the race ;D but rather take lots of photos and be a cheerleader instead! Before the race, they are also unveiling this year's T-shirt, and I'm very eager to see if it's the one I voted for.

So I'd better get back to work now because this afternoon's going to be out. Now I wonder if anyone's got any pompoms....

Jet-set part 2

After 2 very pleasant, if long, KLM flights Mark and I landed in New York, JFK at 3:30 pm. It took us another hour before we were through customs to collect our bags, and by quarter to 5 we were anxiously waiting outside to catch a bus to LaGuardia, where we were supposed to be catching a 7pm flight to Newport News, VA.

Now let it be known that one should never, ever, EVER trust NY bus-ticket-sellers. We were told the bus would be there soon and we would be at LaGuardia by 5:15. This would have been fine since we had to check in an hour before our flight, but Mr ticket seller was a big fat liar and the bus only arrived at 5:30.

It was well after six by the time we made it to LaGuardia, and on top of being incredibly pissed off at Mr ticket seller, we were met with further complications. Our flight reservation had been cancelled, and we knew nothing about it! Too late to make the flight even if we paid for it ourselves (the HUGS organisers had bought our tickets, as part of the summer school), we settled down at an internet cafe (the only one in the airport) to take stock of the situation and figure out what we could do. A few wordy emails were sent off, to our families to let them know we were alive, and to the HUGS people, to try and figure out just what exactly was going on here?! Being 7pm in the states, and 1 am in South Africa, we weren't exactly expecting answers soon either.

We figured we should make a reservation for the flight to Newport News at 10am the next morning, but we didn't have enough cash ourselves to pay for it, so we would have to try to get hold of someone in the morning and hope they could pay for our ticket by 9:30am. So we went back to the AirTran counter, explained our plight at length to the nice lady at the counter, and made the reservation. Actually it went more like:

    AirTran lady: Y'all wanna check in?
    Mark: Umm.
    Me: Well, actually, here's the thing...
    AirTran lady: Oh Lord, you have a thing! (does a nice show of staggering backward and collapsing, which made us laugh)

We then decided that we were going to find a hotel to stay at, because we were absolutely NOT going to sleep in the airport. We went to the Airway Inn, the cheapest one we could find, although our enquiry efforts were not exactly exhaustive, nor did we care too much. We had a rather nice large meal of curry and rice at a pakistani/indian/halaal/etc take-out place across the road, went back to our room and propmtly fell asleep.

We made sure we were up at 6 the next morning, so we could be back at the airport just after 7 to try and organise things. In the rush, I managed to leave our vuvuzela (that green horn thing Mark is blowing in the picture above) in our room. We were taking it as a present to JLab, so I am rather pissed off with myself about that. Mum, you're going to have to bring me one when you come through! (i love you?)

Now, the only phone number we had that was of any use to us was the JLab Residence Facility's. We bought a phone card, which didn't work on the phones at the airport, turned some dollars into quarters, and left a message on the answering machine. We then went to get some breakfast, and at this point I realised I had lost my bright green notebook with loads of important info (to me, anyway) as well. I had left it by the phones, but it was gone when I checked again :(((((

After 8 we called the ResFac back, they had got our message and were going to pass it on to the organisers of HUGS, they gave us their number as well. We then went on a mission to Lost&Found on the 3rd floor, but alas, no sign of my notebook. If anyone is passing through LaGuardia and happens to see a bright green covered spiral notebook, please keep it for me. It's got a shrek sticker on the front.

Just after 9 we went to the ticket counter to see if our ticket had been paid, but no. We missioned back to the phones (I was getting to be rather kick-ass at going up and down escalators simultaneously with a big suitcase and a pullalong by this point) to call up HUGS and see what was up. As we phoned, they had just paid our ticket, so we missioned back to the ticket counter and lo and behold! we had our boarding passes. What a relief, and just in time before the 30 minute cut-off.

Sitting in the domestic departure lounge, we were eyeing the suspicious-looking seats 3A and 3C on our tickets, when our flight was called. What a surprise it was then, after all the annoyances we had been through, to find that we were actually seated in Business Class! This more than redeemed our bad moods and pretty soon we were basking in legroom and grinning in lovely large seats :)

They gave us cookies after takeoff, and the napkins they came with were really funny. on the front read "Introducing the very best deal in the history of napkin reading" and on the back...

"How to use this napkin:
    1) Read about free flights.
    2) Fold gently.
    3) Place into front pocket for safekeeping.
    4) Wipe hands on your shirt."

hehehe :)

The only regret was that the flight was only just over an hour long, so we didn't get much time to enjoy our newly-upgraded status. But we were so happy just to be there when we landed in Newport News that it didn't really matter.

We took a cab from the airport to the lab. Everything is so green and pretty here now, a wonderful contrast to the dead brown that it was when we left in December, and that we have left at home too. It's great to be back, and we went to say hello and get our user cards activated as soon as we got in.

We popped by Sarah's office to say hi, as well as our supervisor's, and then went to go have lunch at the Quark Cafe, JLab's cafeteria. After that it was our weekly project meeting, and then off to start some work and let our families know that we had, finally, arrived.

So to all of you thinking about becoming physicists, I hope you like to travel, and I hope you can deal with interesting problems as they come your way, because I have yet to make a physics trip without having to make a contingency plan!

That's right, I'm here! (This was at one point doubtful)

Yup, we're here at JLab. A day late. It seems that I cannot come to this country (the USA) without some rather eventful circumstances. A jet-set lifestyle is all very well, but not after ~30 hours of travelling, minimal sleep and cancelled reservations. Sounds interesting? Here's the story of my trip...

(I always seem to have a story that goes with my trip, don't I? Maybe it's just me.... Hmm, oh well, who cares!)

So, last week was pretty frantic. I was getting everything done (or trying to, at least - this was not entirely accomplished) before I left, and coupled with a horrible tummy bug this was not the easiest of experiences. My poor parents, siblings, fiance and anyone who has to deal with me for extended periods of time will tell you that when I get sick, all I want is to be left alone to sleep until I wake up better. They will also tell you that patience is not exactly one of my virtues. And patience with being sick scores a big fat zero. So you can imagine.

But luckily by Sunday evening I was pretty much ready to go, bags packed, tickets and passport in hand, and laptop, camera and iPod charged. Chris took me to the airport (actually I drove, since it was going to be the last time I drive in a month) and we met Mark, his girlfriend, and my mum and dad there. We checked in and then went for some (decaf) coffee.

Before going through security I had to declare my stuff at customs, lest they try give me trouble on my way back into the country. In true SA style, however, there was nobody at the customs desk. The fact that it was 10pm on a Sunday evening is irrelevant - I was not in the mood to mission to find somebody who knew what to do (a rather unlikely prospect, given the circumstances.) So I took a photo at the customs desk, which as far as I am concerned serves as my declaration.

So, we said our goodbyes and headed on through to board the plane. Mark and I had lovely seats, the 747 was rather empty so we got three seats to ourself by the window on the left side of the plane. We were also in the last row of a section which meant that we got our food and drinks served first :) So within 2 hours of the 10 hour flight, we were both asleep, Mark was resting against the window and I had managed to curl up horizontally on the two other seats.

I woke up twice during the flight, and then woke up again at about 7am and decided to stay awake for the rest of it and read. We both woke up at the same time at about 4am with exceptionally good timing, as they were distributing ice creams (this is the best part of flying KLM). We landed at Schipol in Amsterdam just after 9am, with a 5 hour wait before our flight to JFK.

Schipol is a lovely airport to waste time in, actually. It's full of shops and colours and interesting things to play with, or on. Mark posed for some pics with Ronald McDonald, and he caught me on camera riding a cow near a cheese stand.

So we were pretty amused for the wait, and just after 2pm we were on our way again on a nice little 777. On this flight we had interactive entertainment, which means your own tv screen and a choice of movies, music and games for the 8 hour flight. I watched Bridget Jones 2, Finding Neverland, and The Incredibles, movies that I'd been meaning to see for some time now, and then read a bit more.

But this is where this post comes to an end. It is just after 8pm here and disconcertingly light after coming from winter sunset times, and I am pretty buggered to say the least. So I'll finish the rest of the story - the interesting part - tomorrow, because now I am going to shove my stuff off my bed (I haven't unpacked yet, but I really don't feel like it now!) and get a good night's sleep.

How 21 dots can make me unhappy :(

Okay, so I said I was doing data checks at the moment, right. Well, this is how it goes...

At JLab they create a beam of high-energy electrons and shoot them off into three different Halls for different experiments. My particular experiment was in Hall C, and we shot the electrons at a thick Carbon target, and looked at what came out of the collision between the electrons and the Carbon atoms. Mostly you get pions, which are the "debris" of experimental physics.

Anyway, there are two spectrometers, ie particle detectors, that measure each and every thing that goes into it, through it, and hits the calorimeter at the back. (The calorimeter measures the energy of the particle.) Now, each detector records their own events separately, in what is known as "singles" data. This is useful for checks like what I'm doing right now, as there are more events to look at for each detector.

I am (or will be, one day when I've finished this stuff) looking for J/Psi particles. Or more like looking for their existance, because they don't live long enough to make it to the end of the detector. They decay, mostly into hadrons, but 6% of the time they decay into an electron and a positron, and another 6% of the time into a positive and negative muon. These decays are what we're looking for in my experiment, and signal the existance of a J/Psi.

Now, the SOS detector picks up negative particles, and the HMS detector picks up the positive ones. So to be able to look for these particular decays, we have to look at results from both detectors. And we also have to know that the two particles were created at the same time. This is known as the Coincidence data, the system at JLab looks at the two sets of data from each of the detectors, and "matches up" coincident events.

But for now, I'm just looking at the SOS singles stuff. Now, the SOS was set to get the negative particles, which means it was getting electrons. One way to check that our data is good is to check certain things that are always constant. For example, there's a quantity measured called the E/P ratio - the ratio of the particles energy divided by its momentum. Since electrons are light (compared to pions) and since they're moving relativistically, their energy and momentum is roughly the same. So, the E/P ratio should be around 1.

Now when we look at data we plot it in histograms and look at the pictures, and it's peaks (humps) that are the important thing. So all the peaks for each run should be around 1 for electrons in the SOS. This is true, and my histogram showing this is okay. Those ones with huge enormous error bars are where there weren't many events in the run and the fits to the peak were dodgy.

So that's fine. But we also have to check if this is the case for position on the calorimeter face. ie, if an electron hits on the top, bottom, or middle of the calorimeter it should make no difference and the peak should still be at 1. So what I did was "section" the calorimeter face into 21 vertical "bins" (actually 24, but 3 were useless) and then put the electrons from all the runs into each bin depending on where they hit. And then I fitted a gaussian and got the peak position for each bin. And then I made a picture...

Now, what we should see is that the dots make a straight(ish - I'll even go for an "ish") line around 1. Because that would mean that everything is behaving nicely and electrons and detectors are doing what they should and where they should do it, making peaks in the right places. But, my dear friends and QD readers, is this, in fact, what we see? No. we see a very definite dependence on x. (x is the vertical direction here for some reason. It's probably a good one, I just don't remember it.) Is this a good thing? No! It means a whole lotta mission and calibration, which I have spent the last day trying to figure out if it is understandable. Is it? NO. Not yet. And I am not exactly a patient person.

It is, essentially, 21 dots that make me very, very unhappy.

On a happier note, however, Sarah posted some lovely pictures of flowers, just for me! Which definitely brightened my day and, actually, made me decide earlier to stop scowling at the computer and go get a cup of tea.

Arrivals and Departures

We have just (ie yesterday) had an electric gate installed at home. It looks so nice, and it's such a pleasure not to have to get out the car to unlock the gate, then get back in and park, then go close the gate again. Call me lazy, but it is. It's also safer, too, especially for coming home in the early (and now pretty cold) hours of the morning. The best part is the remote works from around the corner so if I time it right the gate is fully open as I drive in.

Another thing that arrived yesterday was a press card for Chris. Let me tell you the story... After wakeboarding champs, Dorin, the editor of Blunt Magazine who we know very well and who also rides, sent Chris an email suggesting that he enter the Red Bull Snapshot competition. It's an extreme sports photographic competition with a R35000 (equivalent of about $5800) Canon camera up for grabs, and a trip to an international sporting event of your choice to take photos for Red Bull. So Chris registered and we're still trying to figure out which photos to submit, then yesterday a press card arrived in the mail. So now he can get into cool events for free to take pics! Pretty cool, huh?

Talking of arrivals we may as well talk about departures too. First, a tree outside the lab where I do all my stuff. For some reason somebody decided they didnt want the tree here anymore, and so it was cut down. The ironic part of it though was the name of the tree fellers they chose to use - "Tree Care Services." So much for that! It was a pretty big tree too, Mark and I went up to where it used to be yesterday and stood on the stump for a while.

Tonight I took two of my fellow student friends from the lab, Lucky and Rhyme, to the airport. They're flying to France with Simon (our supervisor), Denson, and Mick, another guy who works at the lab and is our resident diamond expert. They're all going to ESRF to do some experiments on diamonds. The lab where I work is mostly into diamond physics, but I haven't written much about it because it was taken over by the NRF (National Research Foundation) at the beginning of the year. (It used to be owned by Wits). They still haven't even decided what to call us yet, let alone much else, so it's all a bit confusing. But diamonds are what it's all about. When Mick gets back, and I get back, I'll go visit him and take some photos of diamonds for you.

I just went to the drop-off zone, but I took this photo of Lucky and Rhyme just before they went inside to check in. Everyone who is off tonight is getting back at the end of the month, except Simon who gets back the day that Mark and I leave for the US. We'll probably see each other in passing at the airport. In the meantime, email is a fantastic thing.

One Week Early

Well, everything is finalised and the tickets are paid for. But we're going over to JLab a week early - we were originally going to stay for 10 days after HUGS to get some "quality time" on our projects, but there were issues with flights and stuff. So now we're going in two weeks - on the 22nd May to be precise. And yes, we're flying KLM, because the University is paying for us and according to our supervisor, we're "young and able to handle it"! But at least we'll be able to annoy each other when we get bored.

HUGS officially ends on the 18th of June, but we'll also be staying a few days extra afterwards, leaving on the 21st. My parents are going to be over in the US at the same time, they're going to Florida for the ASTD conference, and then they're taking a trip up to Virginia afterwards. They're going to come visit me one sunday while they're there, and I'll show them round JLab a bit so they can see what it's like.

Only two weeks to go, though, and there's so much to do before. And May is birthday month, too... On friday it was my mom's, and I made her and dad roast beef for supper at our house. Then saturday was our friend Charles's 31st, Sunday was Mother's day, this coming weekend is our friend Liesl's birthday (her husband Matt has organised an "Amazing Race" party, which is going to be great fun!), and then 2 weeks later is Matt's birthday. Oh, and it's Karsten Buesser's birthday on Wednesday. Have I left anyone out? Probably.

Yesterday I had a lovely 2 hour chat with my bro in Thailand, via Yahoo Messenger. He's found a place in a mall over there with free wireless, so we had our webcams on and everything. It was great to chat to him and see him again. He sent us over some presents, Chris got this really cool lighter that I'll try take a pic of later, and one of the things he sent me is this cute funny kiddie placemat thing. "Dogs with little ball." and then they label the ball, LoL! And the dogs look really strange too. Dave always manages to find this arb stuff for me :)

Well, that's about this month so far in a nutshell! Now I'd better go get some sleep so I can do lots of stuff tomorrow.

Capped and Powerless

We have an ADSL line at home, with a 3 gig cap on the service. Once you hit your 3 gigs, you are "throttled" down to a 56k line, along with anyone else in the country who has also hit their cap. Basically what this means is that you can't get to any sites outside SA.

Now, apparently, on Sunday 2.8 gigs of data was transferred on our account (1.8 down, 1.0 up). Funnily enough this hadn't showed up on Monday, but two days later we get an email from Telkom saying we've been capped. Also, Chris and I were both at the wakeboarding champs the whole of Sunday, so "unless somebody broke into our house, bypassed the alarm system, and logged onto my PC, download 1.8 gigs of data, burnt it onto their own CD's, deleted it all and quietly left after reactivating my alarm and locking up for me (wish they did the dishes as well).. That or my cat has learnt how to download feline porn while I am away from home..." (as Chris put it!) it would seem that our account has been hacked.

F***ing fantastic.

Luckily we can manage during the day - Chris from work and me from the lab, but at night it's useless. And to make matters worse, there's no power at the lab from Friday for the whole weekend, cause they're building or something. This is not a very good position to be in when you're trying to book tickets and accommodation for overseas, via email.

Telkom has tracked down the person who hacked our account now, but of course won't give us our bandwidth back. But before they give us his details we have to file an official police report. So Chris spent much of the evening trying to explain to a guy at the police department that "the scene of the crime" was the internet. The policeman did not get this, so he eventually just gave our home address instead.

So, how am I writing this then? Well, Chris sent out a message on the wakeSA.com mailing list apologising for not having the SA Champs photos up yet, and telling them about our situation. He got floods of emails back from people, and one guy who we don't know from a bar of soap replied with his own ADSL account details, saying that he's just got a new account and doesn't use this one anymore. All because he's bought a new tige boat and wants to see what it looks like. How amazing is that?! Karl Danneburg, you rock!

So my connectivity may be up and down this next month, and I'm apologising in advance. Actually only until the 22nd which is when Mark and I are off to the US. But still.