Getting here and Day 1

So this summer I set out to Los Alamos, NM to start a two month long internship at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. I arrive last Wednesday, and by this afternoon (Friday) I realized how exciting and fun this experience will be, so in an attempt to remember it forever (and share my experiences with you all) I decided to start a blog.

I by no means am an eloquent writer, but I hope to make this lively and interesting. Plus, I will share with you the research (I'll keep that to a minimum) and more importantly, all of my activities outside the work.

First... getting here was quite a taxing event. The night before I left, my roommate and I finished packing our room into storage units (yes... plural, we scavenged space from several friends and somehow made money on the deal) at around 3 o'clock in the morning. My flight was at 4 pm that day, and was delayed 2 hours, putting me into ABQ (I dare not try and spell the whole city) at around 1 in the morning. That translates to 3 in the morning on the east coast, so after another 2 hour drive to Los Alamos in a rent a car I was pretty taxed. About 3 hours of sleep later the landlord was knocking on my door asking for the first month's rent and had the cable guy ready to set up the internet.

Later I met with my advisor, Dr. Gary Xie, who seems incredibly nice and outgoing. He is making an extra effort to make sure my time here is enjoyable - he is lending me a mountain bike, asked if I had enough clothes, and gave me a quick tour of the town.

At 7,000 ft about sea level, Los Alamos presents a unique, high-altitude training opportunity. I will plan to take advantage of that, and will swim at their olympic size pool as much as I can. Alot of other exercise will include biking, and most excitingly, hiking. The trails out here are ridiculous, I will upload pictures as soon as I can.

Alright, that seems lengthy enough for a first post. My next post will center around my impressions on a book I just read in the public library about the founding of Los Alamos, and consequentially, the building and testing of the first atomic bomb. There are some interesting anecdotes to that story!

Best,
Kevin