Journey In God's Amazing Grace

Wednesday, October 5, 2022

A visit to Fermilab - part 2

Continuing our visit to Fermilab on Monday (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2022/10/a-visit-to-fermilab-part-1.html), we took our e-bikes out of the Jeep and set off on the publicly accessible path along Pine Street and Batavia Road.

Carl in front of the Feynman Computing Center where he worked while at Fermilab.

Article in the Fermilab News when he retired: https://news.fnal.gov/2014/04/carl-williams-core-computing-division-retires-thursday/

We met up with Carl's former co-worker, Andy, outside in the parking lot, then continued on our biking trip:

...passing the bison herd...

...enjoying the beautiful fall colors...

... and the nice biking path.

Carl had told me that he and his co-workers would walk at lunch time, with the goal being to get to this stop sign and touch it before turning around to get back to work -- a 2 mile round trip walk - as long as the outside temp was at least 15F!!!

One summer, Carl's son Steve had a job on the campus, they would commute to work together, and Carl would drop him off each morning here in front of this building. It was funny, because as we arrived there, Carl's phone rang, and it was Steve calling to say, "Hi!" They got to share some memories of that summer.

It appears that there is a bike-share program on the campus...

... information about the bike share program.

Houses in the Fermilab village - housing for visiting scientists and their families. Son Steve remembers power washing the outside of these buildings during his summer job.

On our way back to the Jeep - a view of Wilson Hall.

Feydman Computing Center from the other side

Power lines with pi ( $π$ ) shaped power poles (https://history.fnal.gov/historical/art_arch/power_poles.html, https://history.fnal.gov/historical/art_arch/power_poles_aging.html, https://history.fnal.gov/historical/art_arch/pi_poles_complete.html).

More classic view of Wilson Hall (https://history.fnal.gov/historical/art_arch/wh_press_release.html)

I enjoyed visiting Fermilab and having Carl show me around where he had worked!

Tuesday, October 4, 2022

A visit to Fermilab - part 1

When Carl and I were first "dating" and we talked about our pasts, we found that we had had similar interests in employers -- Carl had worked for Bell Labs and Fermilab, and I had worked for IBM. When I was graduating with a degree in Physics and Math, the short list of companies I would be thrilled to work for included Bell Labs, Fermilab, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and IBM. In a similar way, Ma Bell and IBM were on Carl's short list and with whom he had his resume submitted and hoped and waited for an open position.

Carl had wanted to take me to visit the FermiLab campus in Batavia, Illinois. With COVID shutdowns during the past couple of years, we had not been allowed to go onto campus, but this year, it was at least partially open, so on Monday, we drove there with the hope of seeing the campus and riding our bikes around.

Fermilab's campus occupies 6800 acres in Batavia, Illinois.

The entrance on Pine Street has the Broken Symmetry sculpture.

Information from one of the brochures I picked up:

When Fermilab's founding director, Robert Wilson, imagined an ideal laboratory, he wanted it to be architecturally impressive and artistically inspiring. With this in mind, he installed remarkable sculptures and designed buildings influenced by culture, history, and physics.

Broken Symmetry, 1978: This 21-ton sculpture greets you as you come through the Pine Street entrance to Fermilab. The three legs are of different height and weight, which creates the asymmetry at the top - but when viewed from directly above or below, the sculpture is perfectly symmetrical. Broken Symmetry is made from metal from the retired U.S. Navy aircraft carrier Princeton, which was the prime recovery ship for the Apollo 10 lunar mission. (additional information: https://history.fnal.gov/historical/art_arch/21tons.html)

We first stopped at the Lederman Science Center.

Carl showed me a solar array on the outside of the building. He had participated in the Alternative Energy Club at Fermilab to work with a vendor to donate the concentrated photovoltaic panel (the part with the parabolic collectors). The Club then worked with the Science Group at Fermilab to determine where to place it, and it was ultimately placed outside the Lederman Science Center.

The Tevatron Collider is decommissioned (not in use at this point) -- this was a display in the Science Center showing how the magnets were designed to accelerate the beam.

An example of a Tevatron Dipole Magnet

Information inside the science center about the solar collectors that Carl had shown me outside.

Energy collection graph - predictably showing that more energy is collected in the summer than earlier in the year, and it is already tailing off in September and October.

While we were in the Lederman Science Center, we saw volunteers harvesting seeds in the prairie grass area.

The Idea Lab within the Science Center had information to engage young folks who might want to get education in fields that would lead them to jobs at Fermilab.

Maybe if I do well enough at the exercises in the Idea Lab, they might consider me for a future "Hire-A-Senior-Citizen" program?

As we were leaving the Lederman Science Center, I took a picture of the scientific data on the birth count for the Bison herd in 2022 -- appropriately, 22 in '22!

A map of the campus can be found here: https://news.fnal.gov/wp-content/uploads/site-map.pdf

Monday, October 3, 2022

Did you know?

I recently saw this posted on Facebook... I didn't know most of these:

Some notes -- just because it was on Facebook doesn't make it true! (really?!?!?) -- so I looked up the words on the internet looking for other sources that gave similar definitions:

(11) - I couldn't really find independent verification for "agraffe" being the wired cage over the cork for champagne -- it was in wikidictionary, but I didn't find it in other dictionaries.

(13) - I think interrobang is actually referring to a character that I've not seen before: (‽), not to the two characters printed next to each other (like I did in my paragraph above!). I did know that the exclamation point is often referred to (amongst computer people) as "bang".

(16) Carl thinks he has dysania.

I only knew "tines" and "tittle" before reading this!

Now... if you learned a new word - try using it in casual conversation and let me know how it goes!

Sunday, October 2, 2022

The Pumpkin Patch

The same campground neighbor who told us about Edwards Apple Orchard also told us about the Pumpkin Patch (https://lindbergpumpkinpatch.com/). On Friday, we headed there.

Entering the Pumpkin Patch

Animals to feed...

Sharing with the animals

Feeling their wooly coat

Many looking for handouts!

Imagine getting farm visitors pay to acquire food to feed your animals!

Big spider web!

Hay mountain...

All the way to the top!

Sisters!

Exploring the teepee!

Look at those corny girls!

Heading off into the corn maze

We had read that it could take 20-30 minutes to complete the corn maze, so we sat down to wait for them to return... to our surprise, they arrived back in just about 5 minutes, having traversed way down the field and exiting near the parking area! They went back in, and found their way through to the "official" exit in another 5 minutes!

They also enjoyed the corn bin!

It's the Giant Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

The girls also enjoyed playing in the inflatables -- especially the big slide! But we neglected to get pictures there...

Both of the local farms provided good fun!

Saturday, October 1, 2022

Edwards Apple Orchard

One of our neighbors in the campground had recommended a couple of places in the area to visit, including Edwards Apple Orchard (https://edwardsorchard.farm/). On Thursday, Carl, Kim, and the girls visited...

Although it was an apple orchard, they also had pumpkins!

Always drawn to sweet dogs!

Going into the store...

Wow! Lots to see!

Beautiful old barn (originally built in the 1860s, transported from Wisconsin after the original barn on the farm here was destroyed by a tornado in 2008)