Office Space?

Jim got us temporary office space! Apparently at least for the move, we'll be taking over the two disused offices across the hall from our lab. We're hopeful that we can squat long enough to have them become permanently ours.

-Tim

Waiting for that other shoe...

So we've gotten all of our 'summer' power bills now and I'm both delighted and worried. All my life's it's been drilled into me that air conditioning costs roughly three arms, six legs, and an unspecified number of unborn children. But our bills were quite reasonable--hardly more than last year. I guess we were fairly paranoid about running it, but we certainly did run it. Even for several days straight!

I'm glad we pushed for the more efficient unit.

-Tim

Everything must go!

We're sitting down in the office on Thursday having lunch when Jim comes down to tell us that the Materials Research Lab (MRL) has decided to close down the Epicenter -- in a month. Now, as you may or may not know, our group specializes in a process called Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) whereby materials are literally custom built atomic layer by atomic layer within an ultra high vacuum (UHV) chamber. And most of the MBE machines that our group uses are located in the MRL's Epicenter. We're basically the only group that actually uses any of the equipment in the Epicenter, and we are the only ones who use 'our' growth chambers.

The upside is that Jim says the MRL is going to give us just about any equipment from the center that we want. The downside is that we'll need to move and set up the equipment in the labroom that we've been using as our office space. A room that is most decidedly not set up as a clean environment like the Epicenter is.

It'll be nice to have the equipment be closer and be officially ours, and I'm looking forward to being involved in the tear-down and setup -- there really is no better way to learn exactly how it all works. But we'll basically be all but shut down for the next three months. What a way for Jim to spend his semester research sabbatical, huh?

-Tim

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday, Tamara!

Games

I finished Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic last night. It's a very good game, and I'd recommend it highly. It took me quite awhile to get the hang of it, and I still don't totally understand the weapons system, but it had a good story, interesting characters and an expansive world. The major plot twist was well handled too. I did guess it might happen long before it did, but it wasn't blatantly obvious what was coming, which was perfect. I don't normally play role playing games, but I'm glad I gave this one a chance.

And it seemed like there were more than enough side quests that I missed to make the game worth replaying later. Besides, I still need to go through it following the dark side instead of the light. I haven't decided whether or not to get the sequel yet, I'll at least wait until the price drops a bit more. Anyway, next up for me is Prince of Persia: Warrior Within.

I tried to watch some of the US Open today, but we don't really get CBS well enough. I could see the players and the court, but I had no idea where the ball was. Too bad no one I know has an HDTV.

And finally, Tamara managed to just beat me at Scrabble tonight. Of course, she was also burning a hundred copies of the veterinary pathology course website she wrote last year and researching how to write web applications at the same time.

-Tim