Lake Tahoe Day 2 - May 29th 2016

早餐是房東準備的香噴噴藍莓muffins，我用咖啡機泡了咖啡，還燒熱水泡茶。房東的muffins雖然稍微甜了些不過很好吃，我一連吃了三個。我們邊吃早餐邊和Rhonda聊天，也和另一對房客——從Sunnyvale來的印度工程師夫妻——太太見了面。印度太太說她先生早上有固定的儀式（我原本以為是宗教儀式，後來才知道印度先生有椎間盤的問題所以要做一些伸展），所以她不急著出門。我們和Rhonda提起要去Tahoe Rim Trail的計畫，Rhonda說那個方向有個景點視野很好，建議我們下車看看。我問說那個景點在哪？Rhonda說：
「你走往Reno方向的公路，看到很多人停車的地方就是了。」

結果，我們在很多人停車的地方下車，看到的景色卻是......

教堂。

這才想起這天是禮拜天，剛好是鄉民上教堂的時間......Or2

上了車繼續走，終於找到了Rhonda所說的景點。從這個制高點看下去，只見環湖皆山，上下天光，一碧萬頃。心胸不由得為之一爽。

（至若春和景明，波瀾不驚，上下天光，一碧萬頃。）

DOE SAFE Training

I am taking a DOE safe training for the possibility that I will work overseas more than 30 days. One of the safety training is about overseas driving, and the transcript states,

"If the drivers in the country you are visiting drive on the opposite side of the road than we do in the US, it may be prudent to practice driving in a less populated area before attempting to drive in heavy traffic. Left turns into oncoming traffic are bad, trust me, I got that t-shirt in Japan. Here’s another tip for countries where cars are built wrong, I mean, with the steering wheel on the right side of the car; when, not if, when you accidentally get in the passenger seat because you forgot the car was built backwards, immediately open the glove box and pretend to look for something very important. The locals may not notice, but your friends will for sure."

LOL!

---

June 13 at 10:09pm

Continuing my DOE SAFE training, I was whining, "I've passed the counterintelligence (spy) and the hostage survival modules. Still three modules left...."

"Are those nuclear meltdown, alien invasion, and doomsday modules?" Gianluca replied.

LOL

Lake Tahoe Day 1 - May 28th 2016

五月底Memorial Day的長週末，決定去Lake Tahoe走走。由於Gianluca和我平時都很忙沒有提早規劃、出遊前一兩個禮拜才上網看住宿費用，因此經濟實惠的選擇不多；超貴的South Lake Tahoe基本上是不考慮了。而Gianluca說網路上對於腳踏車道和健行步道的評價是North Lake Tahoe比較好，因此我們決定住北岸，也決定試試看Airbnb。

最後選了東北岸的Incline Village。一開始Gianluca在他的Airbnb帳號放了張喝啤酒的照片，結果被兩位房東發好人卡；我建議他換一張比較像乖孩子的照片，而他決定走愛米國路線，放了張背後有米國國旗的照片，然後就順利被第三間房東接受了。

星期六早上，Gianluca的飛機十點到舊金山；而我前一天還在趕review slide deadline，當天早上收行李時才發現自己漏東漏西因此晚了半小時才到。我們先「路過」位在Berkerly的85度Ｃ（Gianluca的加州御用行程）吃早午餐，也喝足了奶茶，這才前往Incline Village。沿路有些路段塞車，不過終於在下午五點到達村子裡。

Incline Village很像溪頭度假村，是個在山南水北的小村落。我們從沿湖公路開進去，錯過了該左轉的路口，反而在下一個路口看到謎樣生物——開得稍近一點就看到是一隻小熊！和我們錯車的一車遊客也特別叫我們去看。這隻小熊徘徊在兩戶人家門口；其中一家屋裡的狗一直狂吠。看完小熊，回轉不到二十公尺，就到達我們的宿處了。

房東John和Rhonda是一對非常友善的米國老夫妻，他們在Incline Village已經住二十一年了，給了我們不少建議。聽到我們在附近看到小熊之後，他們說在這條街上熊出沒是很罕見的，一邊通知鄰居，一邊告訴我們不要擋在小熊和母熊之間就沒什麼問題；另外，也告訴我們有食物味道的東西——不管是食物還是垃圾——都要冰在冰箱裡。John跟我們開玩笑說，如果我們需要武裝，他只有弓箭可以借我們。另外，房東夫妻有一張表列出他們房客的國籍，Gianluca是他們第一位義大利房客，而之前已經有過台灣房客了（加州不意外）。

我們趁太陽下山前到附近走走。可惜的是，Incline Village的湖畔全都是好野人的別墅和私人沙灘。本來希望走遠點看看能不能有地方可以看湖景，沒想到走到村口了都還在別墅區，只能悵然而返，回到住處開車到村中心吃晚餐。晚餐吃的是tapas，很特別不過份量很少也有點貴。

飯罷回到住處開始研究次日的路線。AAA的旅遊手冊和我們房東都建議開車環湖，看到漂亮的景點就下來走。而Gianluca想去北邊的Mt. Rose看看；在Incline Village和Mt. Rose之間有個叫Meadow Trail的步道，屬於Tahoe Rim Trail的一部分，不過旅遊手冊上的難易度是easy，適合我們兩個廢柴。於是我們決定早上去北邊看山，下午去南邊看湖。Gianluca還說到Mt. Rose讓他想到義大利的Monte Rosa，那是阿爾卑斯山的第二高峰，離他的家鄉Turino很近，與我去過的La Thuile滑雪研討會粒子物理研討會也不遠。好奇之下我咕狗了Monte Rosa，發現這座高峰屬於瑞士而不是義大利——

"Cheater! They told me it belonged to Italy!" Gianluca complained.
"Well, I was told the highest mountain in my country was Everest." I replied.
".... you win."

Make Shower Great Again

I could not refrain from posting my tech note of shower reconstruction on the SLAC meeting agenda with the title "Make shower great again."

My colleague Tracy Usher concluded my shower reconstruction and the following neutral pion mass reconstruction as follows,
"60 years after the neutral pion discovery, we now measured its mass!"
XDDD

My Next Job?!

I met a senior Asian guy while pumping my bike in front of the public library. (The pumping area becomes the only place I could talk to locals.)

"Do you speak Korean?" He asked.
"No, I'm from Taiwan." I replied.
(I guess I'm getting fat recently and having a Korean-style face... :S)
"Are you a student?"
"No, I'm a postdoc researcher."
(yay! that means I look young! :D)

We chatted a bit more, and finally he asked,
"Are you going to stay in this area after school?"
"It depends on where my next job is...."
"You have a female president; four years afterwards it will be your job!"

OK, I'm preparing my CV and reference letters.....XDDDD

Make Taiwan Great Again.

Make Filter Great Again

Conversations between my colleague Michael Mooney and me have become --

Me: Hey!
Me: you are not in your best office.
Me: nor the best meeting
Mooney: i'm in the best meeting
Mooney: making meetings best again
Me: Yes you can.
Mooney: yes *we* can, YTT.
....
Mooney: after this meeting we should talk
Mooney: about Big Plans
Me: yes!
Me: building a wall?
Mooney: listen, we are going to build a wall, so high
Mooney: that calorimetric measurements will pay for it themselves.
Me: between signals and noise?
Mooney: exactly
Mooney: the noise is getting into our country
Mooney: its bringing drugs,
Mooney: molesting signals,
Mooney: and we are just not gonna do that anymore
....
Mooney: let me get for you some amazing FHICL file parameters
Me: terrific
Me: make filter great again

Features in PUBS

What are the features in PUBS that people using PUBS really like?

On behalf of the scientific computing division, Kirby was polling us. PUBS stands for Python/php/PostgreSQL UBooNE Software; it is a data processing software framework designed by drinking Kazu, and each step of data processing is defined by a project.

Below is my reply,

The current PUBS, and it is really great PUBS, it really is. It relies on projects -- and we have the best projects, you know, we use the best projects in our PUBS.  It really is quite amazing just how great the project is, but I'm not really, in fact -- it is a project. A really good one and I've talked to people and, lots of people actually, and they all think what I said. It has a lot of appeal. It's really just all there and what it is. If people, you know, losers and whatever, if they don't get it, then what are you going to do? It's not like the idea isn't there and that, you know, it's what it is. I have to shake my head. Everyone is just shaking their heads. It really is.