Meeting with the Neighbors

So I'm typing this entry while sitting in the USCMS meeting in Lincoln Nebraska. About 90 physicists from around the US (and the world) are here to give status reports and concerns about the status of the CMS experiment from the US collaborators. Its meetings like this that give me mixed feelings. Although I'm very proud to be a small cog in the 'most complex undertaking in human history' (not my words, but I assure you its true), I'm always bothered by being but a small cog. I could throw my half drunk can of pop and hit any number of luminaries in the field but I assure you no one cares to throw a soda at me.

It also bugs me that very few consider me to be a physicist anymore. I'm a sysadmin. A computer guy. I'm basically staff now. The equivalent of a mail room clerk. Although they're right, its rude of them to remind me.

I will say that watching all the reports on what people have done over the past n+1 years makes me want to get more done. If nothing else these meetings make us want to work harder.