Measuring the periodic table

Today is day 2 since arriving at Brookhaven (NY), things are going pretty cruisy so far. I haven't had to do anything. We swap over later today to do the experiments I'm here for. With 5 people it gets way too crowded (even three makes this particular beamline crowded), and I do have other stuff I can be working on.

So far they have looked at gold, copper, and zinc spectroscopy; today we will change to nickel and possibly to tungsten later. Usually we only do one element, or maybe two (not that it's a big deal to change, but you have to be organised and make sure you've done everything you want to on one element before going to the next). So to do four or five feels like we are almost doing the whole periodic table. (Yes a gross exaggeration because there are over 100 elements in the periodic table.) Ok I should stop trying to explain myself - people will think I'm a geek. Oops - too late.

We're not going into the city on our days off - two of the students are heading there afterwards so there's no point. Don't know what we'll be doing instead but no doubt I will let you know. Somebody said something about going to the beach, but the weather's meant to pack in. We might go to Tanger; you can do that in the rain.

Update on the shoulder: it's coming along. Still sore but I am taking the sling off for a couple of hours each day, and at night too. It's now 3 weeks AB.