Tommaso Dorigo

Let the move begin!

Here I am, in front of my computer desk, in the apartment I've lived in during the last five years. In half an hour, eight bulky guys will make their way here through my door and the maze of boxes, bags, dismantled furniture. They'll start picking things up and throwing it outside of my bedroom's window - where a lift is being arranged (I live at the fifth floor). I'll cling to my desktop with nails and teeth, swearing nobody touches it until everything else is gone.

The fact is, I do not have internet set up yet in the new house, and I know it's going to take a few days. So, to delay being cut from the outside world, I've asked that my PC station be the last thing to be moved.

The second scene is located in the new house (in the map on the right, the new house is marked by a red dot, the old one by a green dot). There, the remodeling is in its very last touches. The floor (a custom-made layer of crushed stones, flattened and polished, called "alla veneziana") needs to be given the last round of polishing and waxing; plumbers need to install the last pieces in the bathrooms; the electrician is continuing with his heroic effort (the electrical system is really complex in the new house). Carpenters are installing the last window and doors, plus a string of wood where the floor meets the walls (we call it "battiscopa"), to protect the wall when one sweeps.

Things are going to clash in some way, because as soon as the moving company is done filling a boat and transports the contents to the new house, they'll have to deal with a dozen people running around to finish the works there. If it wasn't MY house and MY stuff, I'd be quite amused at the idea of sitting back and looking at the mess.

Psychic powers

Tonight I was playing bridge on Pogo, and decided to call Gino, an old friend who lives in Indiana, to check whether he'd play a rubber with me. He sometimes has time on Sunday afternoons, so I figured I could be lucky.

As I called him, he greeted me saying my call was most welcome - he was just in the process of cutting the cake for his 37th birthday, around a table with friends.

Now, I surely felt I had been lucky to have a chance to wish him happy birthday, but that was it. What are the chances ? Well, I call him three or four times a year, so this must be a 1 in a hundred chance or so.

I am sure, however, there are many people out there who would swear that was some sort of "psychic connection", and some would go as far as using it as a proof that they have some psychic powers. The usual mechanism of reinforcement of positive hints, while ignoring negative ones...

I am afraid science is losing the battle against occultism... The TV broadcasting companies just love the juicy share points they get whenever somebody goes on air saying he's a psychic, while science programs fill the dust bins. What a shame. Surely, a hint of the decadence of our society.

Sleep, finally!!!!!!

Last night I slept 13 hours!!! Boy, did I need it.

My sleep deprivation lasted almost two months. It started when I traveled to FNAL at the end of July, through jet-lag and workaholicism, and continued through during my "vacation" in Padola during the second half of August - there, the jet-lag combined with Ilaria's sleeplessness.

Back to Fnal for a few days at the end of August, I had no time to adjust to Chicago time, and by the time I got to Corfù on September 5th I was totally cooked... If you browse through the past posts you'll find a video I posted 20 days ago that demonstrates that pretty well.

After Corfù, two days in Venice and then back to FNAL for five days! And then, back to Venice, with the remodeling in its last phase, and Ilaria's needs during the night charged on myself - I had decided to take on the challenge of teaching Ilaria how to sleep in her own bed, and had to do it by myself - Mariarosa always yields during the night if she is the one dealing with a crying daughter!

So, how the hell could I sleep that long last night ? That is because my kids are visiting my mother, and I had the morning for myself. Well, it started in the evening actually: I landed on my bed at 9.30PM and that was the end of it... Until 11 this morning.

God, I felt like a lion all day! How could I live through these two months, sleeping an average 5 hours per night, with two to five interruptions in between ??????

Now I'm kind of tired again, but it's half past 1AM and I'm calling it off. Good night everybody!

moving nightmares

That's it. Today officially started the move from the apartment where we've lived since 2000 (when we came back from two years in the US), into the new house I've had remodeled during the last six months.

The last days have been frantic, and the ones a-coming are even worse. On one side, the moving company has started destroying everything, packing my 4 metric tons of books, amassing piles of cases and pieces of furniture in a couple of rooms. This will last until tomorrow, then a weekend of pause and finally next Monday they'll move everything to the new place. Moving in Venice is no easy feat. A lift has to be arranged on the side of the old house, where I live at the fifth floor. Boats have to be ready to carry the load in small amounts (they have to travel through small canals). Another lift has to be arranged on the side of the new house, where I will occupy the third and fourth (last) floor. A side note: if next week the weather is bad,  I will have to wait - no moving with rain showers is possible.

But this is only one part of the nightmare. The other is the remodeling of the new house, which is in its very final steps, but nothing still converges. Painters are painting, plumbers are plumbing, windows and doors are being installed, the electric system is being finalized and lights are being set. The end should be next Monday, but if any of the 12 or so people involved is late with their assignment, well... Things will slip.

There are additional constraints: part of the new furniture is arriving next Wednesday and Friday. The old house has to be painted before the 30th of September, when I will leave it to the owner - and this takes three days to complete. My kids need a place to play and sleep, and with two houses I have none for them this week and the next until next Wednesday.

All in all, a big headache for now, maybe a nightmare in a few days. We'll survive. I'm going to Padola this weekend, to run away from my worries for two days.

Back home... For a while now!

Yesterday I flew back from Fermilab to Venice, for the umpteenth time this summer. The last one in a while I hope! It really is getting on my nerves... Stress is a nasty thing: it accumulates and then explodes, so it is better to give everything a break every once in a while.

I could secure a business class seat from Chicago to Munich only with a hefty amount of bonus miles this time, but I was happy to spend them now, since I did need the comfort to sleep a bit during the flight. Which I did, after sipping a good South African red wine that seemed designed to bring golden slumbers to the fatigued.

The trip was quite uneventful otherwise. I've become so accustomed to the whole route that I usually turn on the autopilot and my CPU is completely free to deal with anything else, while I drive to the ACE rent a car, get a hike to Terminal 1, check in, pass security controls, check out from the INS machines, get in the United lounge of terminal 1, get a drink, fill the bag with candies, sit in one of the few spots with power close-by and recharge the laptop, get up just in time for boarding among the first (using the senator card to bypass the long economy class line), and so on...

Tonight, after a day with friends who came over with their kid (Sebastiano, one year older than Filippo), we just had a celebrating cake for Filippo, who will start his school tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow it is the first official school day for Filippo! Both parents are needed to accompany him there, and we wanted to have a chat with him tonight, just a few suggestions on how to start this big adventure with the right foot... Filippo is a good listener, and I am sure he will not let us down!

After taking Filippo to school, my agenda tomorrow foresees a trip to my bank, then a meeting with Mattia, the Engineer who supervises the remodeling of my house - which is in its last week!, and then I will go to Padova, where a student is waiting for me to start a two-week training period on the same analysis Elena is carrying on at Fermilab.

Of course, Pietro Vischia (another student, who's graduating next Monday) and Giorgio Cortiana and Marco de Mattia (two PhD students: Giorgio is getting his PhD this coming winter, while Marco, working on CMS simulations, has one more year to go) will all have something to discuss with me. A busy day awaits me.... I hope I will be able to sleep tonight!

Mexican pic-nic at the Village Barn

On Friday the group of italian Summer Students gathered for lunch at the Village Barn, where a pic-nic with mexican food had been organized. It is with a bit of shame that I admit I do not even know what was the celebration about. The fact is, the supervisors of the Summer Student program piggy-backed the mexican pic-nic to get an occasion for everybody - trainers and trainees - to have lunch together in a nice setting.

The food was very good, although we got disturbed by a very intrusive bee for part of the lunch. The bee first dig deep into the chicken in my dish, and then, having grasped a small but quite visible bit of chicken meat, continued to hover  on the table, looking for the correct dip. Quite funny.

So here are a few pictures of the event:

Elena and Marco kept the center-stage, their summer fling in full blossom.

Here is Nanni Piacentino, one of the instructors of this year's SS bunch. On the right is Giulia.

Here are a few faces in a row. The last two are Pierluigi and Valentina, two of the Summer Students.

Here is Giorgio Chiarelli, the head of the program, from Pisa University. On his right is Federico, partly hid by Chiara's hair.

Here on the right is Daniel Jeans, who works for Rome University and is the tutor of Chiara. They have been working at improving the b-jet tagging algorithm for high-Pt physics searches and measurements. Daniel is a really nice guy, but he looks darn serious in this pic!

Here are Federico, Chiara, and Mia. I should mention that I took all these pictures with Mia's new digital camera, a nice Canon which, however, proved to have a malfunctioning flash. Mia brought it back to CompUSA that very afternoon, and got a better model... But I managed to download the pics before!

Here is a view of all the people at our table. From left to right you can see Giorgio, Federico, Chiara, Mia, Francesco, Pierluigi, Valentina, and then Daniel on the fore right.

Well, here am I, in a pic taken by Elena. Just to display a bit of vanity: I look horrible in this pic, but I have to say I had slept very little (which only adds to a month of sleep deprivation and stress), had woken up late, and did not have a chance to shower in the morning!

Here is Mia, who was happy to delegate the photographer's job to me.

And finally a couple of pictures of Elena, my favourite shooting subject. She's been complaining for a month or so when I first posted pics of Mia and herself in April, and people commented the blog entry by congratulating me for Mia's picture and not giving any mention to her picture... I think Elena is quite photogenic and remarkably pretty, so here I pay her a bit of homage...

Here is a funny face, typical of Elena - she has a full arsenal of meaningful expressions...

Alarm clocks and dangerous driving

Yes, the two are tightly connected... This morning, I had set the clock to 7AM, since at 8AM on friday we have our weekly meeting in videolink with Padova. I do not know whether the clock did not ring or whether I stopped it while sleeping, but I know I woke up at 7.50 - and there's a 15 minutes drive to Fermilab from the Padova house.

I hate being late, always. But when there are meetings with a tight agenda as today, and when students are warned to be on time, one just must be of good example. So I was really really pissed - I also hate not having time for a shower in the morning!

It took me about 5 minutes to dress up and bolt out of the room. But then, reaching Fermilab as quickly as possible, in the middle of the morning traffic, with slippery roads due to a little rain, was really dangerous - I am known to be a daring driver, and daring driving is dangerous. I did, however, manage to get to the meeting in 12 minutes... I just know one day I will have an accident if my alarm clock keeps giving me trouble!

Summer Student Status Reports

Today is status report day. All italian Summer Students have to present the status of their work, which has to be almost final since in two weeks they will go back to Italy.

Elena and Mia gave their presentations this morning. Mia had little trouble since she basically showed what she had prepared for yesterday's Jet Energy Workshop. On the other hand, Elena's was her first presentation at Fermilab, and she had prepared it in English in case there was any non-italian at the meeting - which of course happened during her talk.

Elena (right) gave a very clean talk, explaining in detail the basics of top quark physics (since among the summer students there are non-physicists, the assignment was to give a general introduction to each topic). She went on to show our very first results on the attempts at reconstructing the top quark mass using the missing Et plus multijet sample which was recently blessed by Giorgio, another student of mine who's about to get his PhD. I was very proud of her and Mia, and am happy in the end to have traveled back to the US for this (as well as others of course) meeting.

Here is one of Elena's slides, the one where she explains the way our selected top sample is obtained:

Dinner chez Tommaso

Yesterday evening I was feeling hungry - and whenever I feel hungry and have no prospects of a dinner out, I get into cooking mood. At 8PM, still working in the CDF trailers which host our offices, I called it off, and invited Mia and Chiara, two summer students that were still there working for their presentations (the one Mia gave is described in the previous post), to join me at 10PM for a dinner at my place.

I had originally meant to spend the evening with Gina, an old friend of mine, who had dropped me a line upon hearing that I was coming to the US (yes, she read this in the blog!). Gina had to come and pick me up at 10 at my place, so I thought I could cook dinner for everybody...

I ended up cooking some rice with vegetables. Rice, sauteed zucchini and carrots, sauteed asparagus and romaine lettuce, plus thinly sliced scrambled eggs, and small squares of turkey breast. All mixed together. I will spare the details, but all of my guests ended up helping themselves twice with it.

Gina arrived very slightly late, quite uncustomary of her :) I was very happy to introduce her to Mia and Chiara, and we had a very pleasant conversation about our lives.

Here are a few pictures of yesterday:

Mia (left), Gina (center) and Chiara (right) around the dinner table at the Padova house.

Gina lost a lot of weight and looks gorgeous! Is it possible that there is no distinct gentleman out there who is interested in a young lady with four wonderful kids ? :)

Here Gina and Chiara seem to be having a good time.

Here they are again, all together... I am proud of having been able to cook a good dinner to three nice ladies. A nice evening overall, although later Mia decided to spend the night in her office to give the finishing touches to her presentation, instead than rushing to sleep as she really should have!

Mia's first talk

Today we had a Jet Energy and Resolution mini-workshop, in the CDF theatre. The activities of our working group have faded in the last few months, after the release of the latest package of jet corrections, and we reorganized our meetings in a monthly schedule. This was the first of our mini-workshops, and we had a very full agenda, with 12 talks packed in two and a half hours.

One of the talks was given by Mia, one of the two summer students from Padova. She had never given a presentation in English before, and was quite worried about the result... Moreover, I had been a bit too optimistic about how long it would have taken her to produce a presentation according to the skeleton we had agreed upon, and about the results of a program we had been running, and which had to provide the plots for her talk... Finally, I discovered this morning, upon arriving at Fermilab at 6.30AM to fix her slides, that she had been working all night here, and had caught sleep in her office, on top of a row of chairs!

So it was with a bit of apprehension that I listened to her talk today, partly due to the fact that we had not had enough time to run it fully once among us as a test. But she performed well... Her English was not too steady at times, but I place her above average for a first exploit... Here she is, pointing at one of her first slides.

After her performance, she was quick at questioning me about how she'd done... Not bad, Mia, but sleeping at night before a talk is rule number one!