Well ordinarily the saying goes 'no rest for the wicked' but I don't think that can really be said of me... maybe 'no rest for the frantic' would be better, but then that is stating the obvious, isn't it?
I'm in Melbourne this week, the first of two week-long trips here in February. The present trip is to do some experiments at the brand-new synchrotron facility, and in the last week of Feb I'll be back again for a nanotechnology conference. More about that in due course.
These experiments are a PR dream: we are the first 'general access' users of the x-ray diffraction beamline (and only the second users ever) and the experiments are going very well indeed. We're looking at in situ dealloying of AgAu foils (the silver leaches out in acid, leaving behind a nanoporous gold network that can be used for high surface area applications such as catalysis or gas sensing). I heard there were only 27 days scheduled for users in this first cycle, and we have got 5 of them. Not bad going...
While I'm here I'm meant to be preparing a bunch of talks for a work pow-wow meeting next week, as well as drafting up some Calvary Kids Club programmes and puppet skits. It's hard to be motivated to do the former, and I feel so far removed from the latter (even though we had a meeting about it only 2 days ago) that it's just easier to leave it until I get home. Everything will come out in the wash though.
It's 11 pm here now and we are probably going to be here for another hour yet. Ahh, the beamtime routine...
"There'll be time enough for sleeping
When the experiment's done."
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