Trip to National Laboratory - Day 2

On the second day (May 8th, 2008) we started off early as usual, leaving the hotel around 7 AM. I decided not to take my camera with me because I presumed that the security in this National Lab would be pretty strict and fooling around taking pictures would not be allowed.

Before I further tell the National Lab stories, I would like to complain about breakfast in the hotel in US. We had a free continental breakfast provided by the hotel at that morning. At the first time (long time ago), I thought that hotel breakfast here (US) would be similar to those in Thailand. In fact, they are waaaaaaay different. In Thailand, the hotel provided good buns, ham, sausage, fried eggs, cornflakes, fruits, real milk, reduced-fat milk, etc. But here, they provided just apples, bananas, buns, cornflakes, skim milk. And that was it!!! HOLY SHOOT!!!!

OK, back to the trip. Before we arrived the National Lab, Dr. Box told us that somewhere around ORNL was a nuclear waste and urenium (that US sieze from some other contries--I didn't remember exactly what coutries are they) junk yard. This urenium and nuclear waste made me thought about three wig shop in that departmentstore that Dr. Box stopped by to change his Time Capsule. I bet these nuclear waste had something to do with those baldy problem!!!

We arrived Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL) around 7:30 am. As I thought, the security was strict. The front gate of this national laboratory looked like not a front gate at all. It looked like a little toll station on the toll way. In that mini station, there were security guards screening the cars. We had to declare ourselves, and reasons why we were there. Mon and I had to give them our passport. After our identities were granted, we then further drive to the working building, which took around 10 - 15 minutes. Dr. Box even said that the security fences (from nowhere--we can't see) will be activated if someone tried to break through the security checkpoint.

Afterall, we all arrived at the reception desk safely (around 8:30 am).

There, we had to request our badges which were valid only on the day we had business with ORNL, i.e. 1 day :P Plus, escort was required all the time (we couldn't fooling around by ourselves).

The presentation went pretty well (I couldn't tell much about our discussion). After the morning sessions, we all had lunch at ORNL canteen. The foods were suck and expensive!!! Believe it or not, my plate you are seeing below cost me 5 bucks!!! I took this picture with my cell's camera, so please don't complain about the quality.


In that afternoon, we had a little ORNL tour. The host (ORNL staffs) brought us to their super computign room (The Jaguar; please see http://top500.org/system/8372 for more information) which stays at #7 on the top 500 recent list (please see http://top500.org/list/2007/11/100). Here, I just knew that they didn't serious about taking pictures T_T. I should have brought my camera with me.


Next, we went to the visualization room (so cool) which had a lot of high-resolution screens. This visualization system could be used to help analysts better understand their problems (as good visualization should do). For example, the screen in the picture below illustrates global various global activities (world temperatures, earthquake, etc... I can't remeber :P)


And this was the end of the tour. We continued our talk in the late afternoon. Everything went well, and in the evening, we had a nice local dinner.

--END OF DAY 2--
[TO BE CONTINUED ON DAY 3 ...]

Trip to National Laboratory - Day 1

Folks,

Long time no see :)
I have no excuses for not being updated for a while except that I was so (extremely very) busy.

Papers... Report... Presentation... Proposal... Helping People... and many other things.

OK, let's end the nagging busy things.

Today is Sunday May 18th, 2008--the third day after my final exams in this quarter (Spring).
Today is the day that I had some free time to update my blog!!! (T_T so sad, isn't it?)

I would like to start updating my blog with this entry: the trip to Oak Ridge National Laboratory --for mid-year project presentation and discussion--with Dr. Box, Mon, James and Clayton (my friends in Dr. Box's lab).

We had to drive from Ruston, LA to Oak Ridge, TN. This would take approximately 9 hours for non-stop driving!!! So, we all had to leave early. The rendezvous was Wednesday, May 7th 6:30 am, @ Nethken Hall ,Louisiana Tech University. The time had to be strict as we were having sooo long trip and we could not lose a minute!!!

At 6:30 - Dr. Box called me and told me that he's leaving from his house -_-"

However, he arrived Nethken Hall around 6:40 am (that's forgivable :D ) with a white, nice, 7-seated minivan--Nissan Quest. And our trip had begun.

Dr. Box was the first hand to drive. I admitted that I didn't remember many things during the drive as I spent most of my time sleeping :P Anyway, we had the first stop at ... I didn't know what to call ... maybe a tourist information service at Mississippi River. Here, they provide free drinks and coffee!!! Even the coffee taste so-so, but it's free :) This is very good for tourist.

For the rest of the first day ... nothing was interesting. Just drive and drive. We stop sometimes to fill the gas and have lunch.

The scenery we passed by during our trip was pretty much the same all the time .... (SUPER BORING). It was just a view of ... trees, grasses, some flowers, fields. And that was it!!!

I was so bored in the back seat of the car (actually, minivan; but, I may refer to it as car from this point on). But, finally, we arrived at Knoxville, TN, on where our hotel (Laquinta Inn) was located. We stopped at the mall called Western Mall (if I remember it right) to change Dr. Box's Apple Time Capsule and then we reached the hotel.

This is the boring first day story of the trip.

I will continue updating this Blog day-by-day. We'll be in touched.

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW).