Bye bye Chicago; hello New York

Well our experiments here are finished and I am flying out to the next ones in about 6 hours' time. All in all, the time here has been very productive. In fact we've already started writing a Nature paper about some of the results... (well I guess the Introduction and Experimental sections are always easy to write.)

The experiments in New York are using x-ray absorption spectroscopy to look at valence states of particular atoms in potential fuel cell materials. It's not something I've been looking forward to. Our collaborators are very secretive and so they don't give us enough information to work with, which makes writing beam time applications more than a little difficult! Add to that we have had scheduling woes since October last year. So this experiment has basically been in preparation for the last 18 months. And yet I've got to the stage where I basically don't care any more. It's terrible.

For everyone reading and about to post suggestions of great restaurants to check out, I'd better say up front: I've been to Brookhaven, NY, about 5 times now and only made it into the city once. So there's probably only a 20% chance that I'll be anywhere near the city... but you never know. We have two days of 'beam studies' i.e. no beam for us, so depending on what everyone wants to do (did I mention there are 5 of us??) maybe we will go somewhere. Oh, also depending on my shoulder - although that is still improving every day. I'm typing this blog entry two handed (albeit with the keyboard on my lap).

Hmm I guess I should say something about the news back home. I didn't mention in my earliest post, but about 2 days after arriving back in NZ from my post-doc (and sincerely hoping it would be a long time before I saw the inside of a plane again), we got word Dad had had a heart attack while on holiday in Japan with my uncle. Mum and I flew out on the next plane because the info we were getting was sketchy. We were there for a week, he had to stay another month because the insurance company said he had to, he came back home and has been paranoid ever since. He had a stent put in in November. A couple of days ago he went for an angioplasty and now is booked in for a bypass operation on 5 May because it is blocked.
Now I know this is a serious operation etc. but I feel pretty much aloof and impassive to the whole thing. Then I feel guilty for not feeling anything. I am not looking for sympathy, just saying what's going on. There are some things I care about and oddly this is not one of them. Of course I am praying, but...

If I could request prayer for this it would be that God would open my dad's eyes. To Himself, to what his life has become and how he treats people, to what is important and what is just pathetic. And for healing as well, but people prayed for that last time and the other stuff (listed above) hasn't changed.

That's all for now. I feel like (((insert your derogatory word here))) but I know it's just lack of sleep and having just come off a 26-hour stint. I'll feel better once I'm not living out of a suitcase any more. Oh wait - that's not going to be until June... {sigh}