my new office is probably the best office in academia
When I was in my final year as a graduate student, I had what I thought then was the best office in academia.
It had been Prof. Kip Thorne's office - on the ground floor on the north side, with french doors onto a balcony overlooking the Rose Garden on the south side.
Technically I shared the office with two other graduate students, but for technical reasons they were essentially never there, so it was my office.
On thursday afternoons caterers brought a small keg of draught beer and some snacks and left it outside the office on the balcony; it was that year's gimmick to attract people to colloquia and get them to hang out and chat.
I could pour myself a beer if I lent back and cracked the french doors open.
The keg was never finished by the colloquia crowd and the caterer was rarely in a hurry to reclaim it.
I now have a better office.
this is the view out of my window.
I am currently at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, in Santa Barbara.
The building is newly refurbished and extended, and is in the shape of a skew triangle, on the east side of campus, on the bluffs above Goleta beach.
At the end of the triangle, towards the beach, a little bit sticks out, and upstairs on that corner, next to the small conversation lounge, is my office.
The view is breathtaking, the facilties exquisite, the coffee fresh brewed and the company good and entertaining.
We're having mild Santa Ana conditions, after some unseasonably cold weather.
The temperatures are back in the mid-70s F after plunging to the low 60s.
Academia does have its benefits.
Now I just have to get some work done.
PS:
lets see if that works.
PPS:
Ah, home sweet home.
I miss the snow.
- Log in to post comments
Cool. I'll be there on Monday. I'll look ya up.
yup, saw you on the list - were you here this week for the string theory kickoff?
Unfortunately, I missed the first week due to a long-planned prior engagement, but I'm there from here on out.
From just your description, I got from google maps; 34.413163, -119.841608
Is that the place?
close enough
No beer?
Holy hell! I was going to say that view didn't look much like State College, PA. I think I totally missed the news about your relo. Congratulations!
One of the things that i love about science is that no one is above reproach.
Jest visiting for a while, sadly.
Kavli is one of these much talked about "physics hostel" type places...
I have this hypothesis that no one actually lives in California.
People just visit for varying lenghts of time to "soften up" as needed.
Good to be back though.
Congrats, I know this office pretty well, and by the way, I've been drawing the very same KITP maps on Google Earth in the past. ;-) I've spent more than 6 months in total in SB.
Now I just have to get some work done.
You are theorist. All you have to do is go to coffee, and then write the paper that results. I expect 5 new publications by the end of the coming week....
If you ever want to compare your current view with what you are missing, you can get pretty close to the view out of your other window here:
http://146.186.221.188/cgi-bin/jpg/image.cgi?resolution=704x480
For comparison, right now the view outside your other window is covered with about 6" of snow.
First "real" meeting I went to as a graduate student was a ITP workshop.
I think this is either my 5th or 6th visit in these many years.
It gets nicer every time, and the first time wasn't all that bad.
I think that was the meeting where I learned of the great propensity of pulsar astronomers to do much of their work in hot tubs...
...shudder...
You gonna argue with Nobel prizes?
Geez you guys are busy. I looked for you a few times, but you were strangely not in your awesomish office.
yup, talks all day - I'm the one on the floor at the back cradling my Mac... not that it narrows it down any
Are you going to make it up to the Bay during your stay in CA?
hope so, not sure which side of the Bay or the Peninsula though. Schedule is already crowding up a bit.
steinn, i'll be there too starting feb 23.
we should write a paper about globular clusters + XXX
(XXX TBD)
yeah, this here meeting might have given me an idea or two
maybe we can even expect ACS to be restored in the finite future
Well, clearly all we need is beer at KITP and it'll be a utopia.
good local Zin will do... I am older and wiser now.
and at my pace, a glass 2-3 times per week is adequate.
It'd be utopia, except it manifestly exists...
anyway, isn't there a Rule of the Internet about people not actually being within 3 feet of each other when cross-commenting on blogs?