== Bernie's brain backup for November 2007 == === Fri 9th to Sun 11th === ==== An old friend ==== One dayh my old friend DaSnake showed up on IRC and told me he's was an intern at FermiLab National Accelerator, near ChicagoCity. I told him I was at OneLaptopPerChild, in CambridgeCity. So we decided we were "close enough" to visit each other's workplace and do some tourism together. So, on Friday morning, I took a cheap UsAirways plane to ChicagoOHare through Philadelphia. ==== Trip To Fermilab ==== Refer to the [[http://www.fnal.gov/pub/visiting/map/site.html | Fermilab map]] My friend lives in a coed apartment in the Fermilab village, which is surrounded by buffalos and various other animals, little lakes and bike paths. Indeed very pretty. On Saturday, I took a guided site tour, starting from the museum. They have lots of real-scale models of the accelerator parts and really working equipment such as scintillators and Geiger's counters. Then... WAH! They guided us **inside** the [[http://linac.fnal.gov/ | Linac]]! The Linac is the LINear ACcelerator facility, the first stage of acceleration that produces protons for the MainInjector. It was like entering an old science fiction movie! FermiLab is no doubt the most amazing place in the world: * http://www-bdnew.fnal.gov/tevatron/ * http://www-bd.fnal.gov/wao/fermipics/fermipics.html * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tevatron To beat this place, next time I shall visit the NCC-1701A!