So I've
already given a brief description of Los Alamos, but now that I've been here I
can talk a bit more about it. Los Alamos is a small town, but it's not as
barren as I feared. Believe it or not, you can get most of what you need
from the local stores, even without a Wal-Mart or Target within 30 miles.
The weather is actually pretty nice-it gets hot often in the 80s or 90s but is
very bearable without the humidity I'm accustomed to in the summer.
It does make you wish one wish you remembered sunscreen when you sit outside
for lunch. At 7100 feet above sea level we are almost 2000 feet above
Denver. I haven't really noticed the altitude difference unless I'm doing
physical activity, though it is a but disconcerting to get out of breath
climbing two flights of stairs to my office/lab. Apparently it takes
about 2-3 weeks to fully acclimate, an excuse we've milked as much as we could
to excuse being out of shape.
I am in a
program called the Dynamics Summer School. I work in the Engineering
Institute at the lab, which does not require a security clearance. I do
have a government badge to access my lab, and four layers of cyber security to
access my LANL email. As part of the program, we have a lecture every day for
an hour. Each week focuses on different aspects of engineering that
familiarize us with the topics at a broad enough level to be applied to our
projects, (statistics, dynamics, controls, signal processing, etc.) Twice
a week we also have a guest lecturer talking about their particular
research.
There are 21
students total in the Dynamics Summer School. I live with two other guys
in the program who I met through Facebook. We get along very well and carpool
for the five minute commute to work along with the two other students in our apartment
complex. It's really nice having a lot of students with similar interests
to hang out with.
Our first two
days of work consisted of general orientation to our program and General
Employee Training, which everyone at the lab must endure. It's a daylong
class with an exam at the end to learn common sense safety procedures for the
lab. We also found out more than we need to know about radiation safety
and how our exposure to it is minimal (the largest source of increased
radiation for us is due to natural causes, so it looks like I won't be coming
home with an extra finger). This training was located in White Rock, a
town over from Los Alamos where there is a picturesque spot of one of the
canyons.
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| View from the White Rock Overlook |
The lab takes
up about 43 square miles, which is a lot bigger than you think it is. It
seems like wherever we go, thinking we are far away from Los Alamos, we will
see a sign for a different technical area of LANL.
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| Most of Los Alamos at the Friday Concert |
As you can
imagine, there's not a ton to do in Los Alamos. One of the highlights of
the week and premiere social gatherings of the town is the Friday evening, free
concerts in the park. This first week we were fortunate enough to see
Igor and the Red Elvises, who are a "Siberian Surf Rock" band on
their world tour. They've been together since 1995 when Elvis Presley appeared
to Igor and told him to play rock n roll, despite the restrictions on popular
music in Russia.
Apparently,
they're one of the better bands that come annually to Los Alamos.
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| My first hike in the Jemez Mountains |
Beyond these
concerts, the primary thing to do on weekends in LA is hike. So our first
Saturday most of us in the program followed one of the locals in our program to
a hiking "trail" along a creek in the nearby Jemez Mountains.
It was a lot of fun and a good chance to get to know each other in the woods,
despite getting a bit lost.
On Sunday, I
went to Mass at the Catholic Church, which is conveniently right next to my
apartment. There are a ton of different churches in Los Alamos with
nearly any denomination you could want. Afterward, the 5 of us in our
apartment complex went to Bandelier National Monument, which is the site of
ancient Native American cave dwellings. There are a lot of cool things to see,
trails to hike, and ladders to climb.
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| Cave Dwellings at Bandelier |
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My first real cactus!
|
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| View from the top of Bandelier National Monument |
One more thing about work - one of my partners goes to Stanford, which apparently has weirder quarter systems than WPI. Their finals week was our first week of work, so my partner didn't arrive in town until this weekend. I met him on Sunday night after getting back from Bandelier, and he's really nice and great to work with. Without discussing too much about my project, I can say that I get along really well with both of my partners, and am really excited about the work that we are doing. By the end of the summer we are expected to publish a paper of our work, which we will hopefully be able to present at a conference in Orlando in February. Here’s hoping for this amazing career opportunity/chance for another blog!
