Friday, June 23, 2006

Five o'clock in the morning

So tonight marks the fourth (I think) night for which I've been in charge of the night shift here at SLAC — where the ANITA payload is currently dangling from a crane and recording pulse after pulse of Askaryan radio Cherenkov radiation emanating from a ten ton block of ice in the beam line. For some reason, even though I am getting something close to my normal (recent) quantity of sleep, when I'm working nights I find it much harder to maintain a coherent thought. Probably because must of the time all I can think about is curling up in a ball and going to sleep. Ah, sleep how much I miss you.

Despite the early kickoffs here in California, I have at least managed to watch two of the three England games so far this World Cup, having missed the Trinidad and Tobago game due to East coast West coast confusion. They don't look terribly impressive, do they. But having said that they did win their group, and you have to fancy them against Ecuador on Monday.

Only two and half more hours to go until the shift ends. Two and a half achingly long hours. Did I mention how much I hate the night shift? More than a little.