Hot Chicago Nights

Hot saxs. That is what I was after in Chicago. At The Advanced Photon Source, a synchrotron that produces extremely bright, focused, monochromatic x-rays that can penetrate several mm of steel, I was planning on zapping my ceramic coatings inside a furnace at high temperatures to see how the microstructure changes, looking at it using wide, and small-angle x-ray scattering.

This was attempted previously by others in the group, the furnace being basically a tin can with some stuff attached, and it didn't really work out too well. My task was to design a better vacuum furnace for the task. This wasn't so easy as startin this in April after my first visit to the APS meant I was running into Swedish holidays when businesses will be shut from June to Aug, just when I needed stuff done! In the end I found a company, and was set to have the chambers delivered to the US by the 19th of July, when I would arrive and have 2 weeks to put it together and test it and iron out problems.

It didn't arrive. Long story short, it was a week late for no good reason. So my first week, especially the first weekend in Chicago, was spent doing a few touristy things, and worrying about whether I would get any work done at all.

Initially I was 'squatting' in Jon Almer's old house's basement that he had just sold, at the South Loop, close to town. So I took an architecture cruise on the Chicago river, saw the Blue Man Group, jazz trombone legend Curtis Fuller, cycled 25 miles up Lakeshore Drive, checked out Navy Pier, swam a couple of times in Lake Michigan, saw the Beach Boys play at Rivinia - an outdoor music + picnic venue, ate at Hooters ("delightfully tacky, yet unrefined"), had a fantastic steak, overstuffed Chicago style pan pizza, and a great Chinatown meal. Then, for the next two weeks I barely slept and ate Maccas as work and the experiments took over. Some pics:

Sears Tower (bkgnd) and 311 South Wacker (forgrnd). Apparently the cylindrical crown of lights on the top of 311 was so bright when first installed, it affected the migration of birds to Canada who were avoiding the 'sun'.

35 East Wacker (The Jewellers Building), one of the first to have underground entrances so that gangsters like Al Capone could go in and out unnoticed.

Reflections

333 West Wacker

The Chicago Tribune

The 'corn cobs'. Designed to have parking, including boat parking all contained within the one building. I believe these were actually students of Mies van der Rohe, who the master of modern skyscrapers who started his career here in Chicago after coming from Germany. Tthink plain rectangles of just steel and glass, and whos limited English produced the phrase "Less is more".

Lakeshore Dve, expensive apartments based on a previously unbuilt Mies van der Rohe design. Oprah has a floor there.

The Beach Boys, including Jon Stamos from Full House, as a fill in. Rivinia is a massive park, with the stage like the Myer Music Bowl but not visible from the grassy area. So people set up tables, electric eskys, and there were silver service catered group functions there, just listening to the music over the speakers and enjoying the atmosphere. Apparently there are summer concerts there every day over the summer period. Pretty cool. I went with 2 aussies who had a spare ticket - one was a fan, and the concert was pretty good. They sounded like the Beach Boys, and had enough hits so that they could make a medley of some of them. They also did a few covers, and had some bad jokes... all in all what you would expect from a family concert.

OK, so what would Freud say about this building - for the Physchology Dept of Chicago Uni?

Navy peir is a redeveloped area full of restaurants, attractions, markets, cruise boats etc. It was absolutely packed with people, and the wait for a table at some places was over an hour at 3.30 pm.

The Stained Glass museum at Navy Pier - more glass, but of a very different kind.

The Oak St. Beach. It is a bit weird to think of Chicago as a beach city.

It was also really hot and humid while I was there, with the heatwave in other parts of the country being felt up there in the mid-west. It was constantly above 80oF (27oC), even at night-time. And they cant seem to cope! The TV was full of scary heat warnings and public safety announcements like "to avoid the heat, go somewhere cold with airconditioning!". The lake was really warm, nothing like the Swedish lakes.

Two different ways of getting around. Segways are used by some police in tourist areas, and on strongly policed organised tours.

The way I got around. PT Cruiser, in front of the APS reception. Looks good, sounds good, but gutless. The interiors of US cars are also disappointingly plasticky, and it had some stupid features I didn't like. Like needing to double click the button to open passenger doors, and doors that automatically lock once you start the car running. I managed to lock myself out of the car one time when I set the aircon running while I was sorting out some luggage.

A drive-thru bank. The US is more than just car-friendly, it is car-necessity. Walking is impractical most of the time. And there is almost no need to get out of a car, when you can do you banking, or dry cleaning, or pick up your medicine from drive through outlets.


And here is another reason why there is so much fatness. A Chicago stuffed pizza, several cm's thick, half of it cheese. After pulling it out of the fridge the next day the thick thick layer of solid cheese is very unappetising. I prefer the traditional thin crusts myself - in this case in terms of taste, less is definitely more.

Planetarium in distress!


Houeses in an ugly neo-tudor style in one of the leafier areas of Chicago. Big and... just ugly.

A section of the beamline (in the pipe), leaving one hutch with the focusing equipment then entering our hutch where the experimental rig is in place.

The hutch (lab) at the synchrotron where we do experiments. It is locked when the beam is allowed in, to prevent zapping people with x-rays.

The control desk, outside the hutch

The tin can from the previous experiment

The furnace for this experiment

Inside the furnace. Lots of nasty reactions happening around the element and in the refractory. Although prompt delivery of the chamber would not have eliminated all the problems we had with the furnace, beamtime was wasted getting it set up properly, and we would have had a bit more time for the refractory problems (my fault) to settle down and be improved. Hopefully the results aren't significantly affected.

One SAXS image from a run, showing a crossed pattern the Vikings around me have called Thor's Hammers. My next task is to analyse this and 150GB of similar data.

Sommar Semester i Södra Sverige Samanfattning Del 3 av 3

Southwest Coast: Smögen - Göteborg

-Part 3-


From the glasriket we headed northwest across the country to the west coast fishing village of Smögen.

On the way we stopped at lake Vättern, the smaller of the two big lakes in the middle of Sweden, for a swim. But it didn't happen - it was freezing cold and we couldn't walk more than ankle depth without the chill heading straight up and setting our teeth chattering. Without a pier to take the plunge from, there was no way we were going to just wade into it.

My mate Peter had, only a couple of weeks ago, raced in the Vätternrunt ('round Vättern) bike race - 300 kms in 14 hrs. And we were tired after just driving that distance! Soft, we are. Very soft.

Vättern

Not the best pic of red farmhouses, but red farmhouses nonetheless

The bridge to Uddevala

Smögen [5] is on Sweden's west coast north of Gothenburg, and is one of a myriad of small fishing villages set amongst the craggy coast. It was a very picturesque holiday town full of boats, fresh fish and shrimp, cafes open late, and small houses perched on top of, and stuck between, the nooks and crannies of the cliffs. I guess it's a sailing town's custom to have blankets available at the outdoor cafes - and it's a good one! With the onshore winds, coastal areas tend to feel a bit less 'summery' than other parts of the country.

Smögen is famous for its boardwalk, which takes you around the port, past all the shops, the fishmarket, the souvenier and clothing stores, through to the harbour, and out onto the rocks and cliffs.

Abba seafood, one of Sweden's largest seafood companies, used to have a very large presence in Smögen, until the founders decided the depleting fish stocks required a change of business direction... so on come the white jumpsuitsl, an entry into Eurovision and the song Waterloo... the rest is history.

Kungsholmen, the bay next to Smögen

Then it was down to Göteborg (Gothenburg), [6] the town with the difficult to pronounce name (it sounds like "yurt-e-borrie"). It was Lucy's last night in Sweden and she was finally able to get some proper Swedish meatballs. Then the last couple of days of my holiday were spent alone, wandering the streets friendless and homeless after 2 of the people I knew in Gothenburg had other plans come up, admittedly good ones like sailing around the country or going to the Netherlands. The other person I knew had a broken phone.

Göteborg was also a big port town, with a massive shipbuilding industry that was dead by the end of the '80s.

It doesn't get more Swedish than meatballs with lingonberries

The Opera House. The nautical theme is hard to escape here.

The Kanon at Liseberg, Sweden's most famous amusement park. It shoots you to 75kph in just over 2 seconds, and then does the whole loop-the-loop bit. It was my first loop-the-loop ride, and I found it fun, not half as terrifying as the Balder (below), the wooden rollercoaster designed to make you think you'll crash your head on every overhang. I must admit to being quite nervous before hopping on, not that I could actually get any balder (boom boom). Actually had I read the paper that morning I would have known that the ride that I walked past which was closed, was closed due to an accident just the day before where a chain broke and sent 4 people to hospital with serious injuries. Then I might not have got on.

The Balder - biggest wooden coaster in Northern Europe.

Gothenburg Streets.

Gothenburg is the hardest city in Sweden to drive around because it has an extensive tram system, and it is not clear which bits of the road are set aside for trams and busses. Often I was driving past elevated platforms with people waiting for a tram. Seeing as no-one waved me to get off, I was assuming I was actually on a road...


The god Posiedon, in front of the art gallery

All the water is designed to give him a cold shower, though according to the story of its, ahem, erection, the water jets should be focused outwards. Apparently at first his power was exemplified by his very large... staff, and the public demanded it be reduced to more modest proportions.

Skansen Kronan, one of the only remaining old watchtowers

Haga, the old town. Recently refurbished to its idyllic old state, it does seem to be missing something as a tourist attraction.

The central train station

The fish church (Fiskkyrkan). Fish market and eateries

Avid readers of this blog, and those who are forced to read it by their parents or obligation to me, might recall from an earlier post on the Swedish language (here) that 'kiss' actually translates as 'piss'. Look carefully at the above soft toys. Do I need to translate what 'bajs' is? Strange subjects for soft toys eller hur?


From Designtorget, a cool idea that has helped me in my new, little, apartment. It goes flat for cutting, and then acts as a scoop to get stuff into the pan. As Jamie would say, "Brilliant!"

Oskar-Friedriks Kyrkan

Someone has an uncomfortable ride home. Or is Cirque de Soleil in town?

Should I say something...?

1600's era Danish architecture - Kronhuset

Was a new Pope just announced?

As a visitor to Sweden, how could one not investigate the most Swedish of institutions - Volvo. The Volvo museum is located in the heart of an industrial area that is not serviced by public transport so you have to drive there. Volvo started in 1927 and it was its trucks that kept the company going for the first 20 years because its passenger cars barely made a dent in the market. No wonder: its first model was a convertible - not really the most appropriate design for sub-zero Swedish winters.

This is the model that broke Volvo into the passenger car market, the PV444. Unveiled in 1944, production didn't start till 1947 by which time 10,000 people had paid in advance for one of these humpbacked cars with a lime green and cream interior. With only 8,000 initially planned to be built, this had to be expanded to 200,000. So Volvo has been making popular, ugly cars right from the start!

Actually, I must confess that not all Volvos are ugly. Some of the old sports cars were very cool - the car used in the Saint, and the new coupes styles like the C70 and S80 look quite good.

Reflex

The Classic Volvo 240. Over 19 years from the year I was born 3 million of these boxy things were released into the world. Many still haunt the streets of Australia, in faded sky blue or beige, whispering sweet nothings into the ears of young students in need of a cheap, first car. Can they never die?

Volvo of course have expanded into aeronautics and aerospace industries, and for a while outboard motors. Do the fighter pilots also fly slowly and wear hats?

Jazzhuset. So full of hope and promise, I paid my 25 bucks to get in just before the band stopped for their first break, a whopping 40 mins long. The 'older crowd' as stated in my guidebook turned out to be 50+. And the canned music in the meantime - Rod Stewart, Dire Straights... not what I was there for.

The Red Rock. Redder, but smaller than I expected. And just stuck in the middle of the ashpalt. Hmmm. Had a funky craft market there, though.

The beach at Näset, with Swedes flopped all over the rocks like herring drying int the sun. I have often been asked "How can you be Australian and be so pale?" - Swedes love their suntans. They even try to get them while they sleep, and tanning beds are everywhere, even in the gym at uni.

So here endeth my holiday. It was great to see other parts of Sweden, to travel around with Lucy, to be able to relax by the lake or on a beach without work or something waiting just a short distance away. In Swedish they call it koppla av 'to disconnect', . It was needed. Within 3 days of returning to Luleå I would be