Even engineers have imagination

I was watching a technician setting up a huge ass mass spec instrument for our group.  Now, among other things, the instrument has a long vacuum chamber operated at 6500 V where ions happily travel from one end to the other and back.  The particular chamber is lined with fans for cooling called Medusa fans.

Excuse me, I asked the guy while he was looking for the container for these, why are they called Medusa fans?

Well, ever imagine what form that much electricity takes in a  vacuum chamber?  The bolts look like the hair of Medusa.

Huh.

Some engineers know their Greek.

My version of 'Dude, I was there'

 - Chris Daughtery
 - Sheryl Crow
 - Maroon 5

All three in the same day, all for free and all from 100 ft away.

It helps if you are working for the 'second best company to work for in the country'.  It also helps if your classmate is working for the 'second best company to work for in the country'.  Genentech was having a week of giving it back, the culmination of which was a concert at the AT &T Park in downtown San Francisco.

Yes, where the Giants play.  Yes, I walked on the green, stood next to the diamond and carefully looked for spit balls from Barry Bonds.  I also imagined hitting a home run into the stands, and was generally beaming on the rest of the Genentech crowd.

The musicians were a big secret, but since last year BEP showed up, we thought it would be pop or hip-hop. Daughtery showed up first.  Ah, it's rock for today. Good.  (One can be a snob when one has free tickets).  This is my first ever of Daughtery since I was never an American Idol fan. The band was good but he was OK, he really was ..just OK (one can be a snob etc..).  His vocals were bad, sounded very generic that what you would expect coming at the end of a rock lead up. Until he did a cover for Rebel Yell.  Maybe he was toning down the rock.

And then Sheryl (yes, 100 ft away is enough for first name basis) shows up. She's really tiny but effortless in her vocal range.  Her songs were most of the popular hits from her 7 Grammy career, but with variations and improvisations.  Plus she had a mean guitarist who took it away every single time he was asked to do so.

Maroon 5 was just ..awesome.  Adam Levine showed what a true band leader would do in a live concert (Hope Daughtery was taking notes - BOOM! Ok last one). And Dusick was easily the best drummer I've seen, which I admit isn't much.  Sunday Morning was stretched out to a whole 12 minutes.  Levine Has Skills.

And of course, there was free beer and food too.

A good weekend, one where you know someone up there is sitting where they should be sitting.

Every family needs a Godfather

The mallu nair/menon are tradionally maternal. Our family takes it one step further.  We become our uncles. 

It all started with my granduncle whom I could easily call my grandfather.  My mom's dad died when she was a kid. My granduncle made the decision to take his widowed elder sister and her four children right under his wing.    All he had going for him was a job at Cochin Customs which he was terribly good at, and a doting wife who happily agreed in spite (or because) of the fact that they themselves had no kids.  Slowly, brick by brick he laid the foundations of our family.  The other brothers were less selfless.  They each sought to set up their own families first, establishing themselves in Bangalore and Kuwait and such. They always lend a helping hand, of course.  But the guy who stayed put to face the drum music was my granduncle on his measly salary but with a determined mind and a pure heart.  Only one other brother Chandran stood at his side.

Little stories emerge like the time when my mom's cousin Balu moved back to Kerala to study. Balu's mom and dad were sufficiently rich for him to attend KV (then a big deal).  Sunny, Usha and Suja (my mom) had all been educated in governtment schools till then. There was the youngest, fondly called Baby, who's education was still left.  Everyone including Chandran, said - forget KV, it's expensive and plus Baby might find it too hard. Send him to the Govt. school just like the others.  My granduncle put his foot down and said he was going to send Baby to KV no matter what.  He did exactly that.  Baby wasn't aware of all of this (he still is not). But that hasn't stopped him from being a Director of Finance in Phillips. 

 Balu hung around the ancestral place long enough for some of whatever it is that works in our family to rub off on him.  He was smart and ambitious, wanting  to come to the US at 28 for his MS.  His own dad said no.  My granduncle again put his foot down and said yes.  We'll arrange it. The family was not all that rich.  I have no idea how exactly he managed to pull it off with his impeccably high-standard of conduct and his ethical nature.  I hear stories of hardship, but that somehow seems irrelevant when I think of how amazing the fact is that everytime he put his foot down, he had nothing to go on except a pure gut feeling that this will work.

Balu came to the US. Baby followed.  Then my cousin Vinu and then me.

The next time he put his foot down was in choosing a bride for Baby. Another grand decision that paid so well in that I now have a gem of an aunt. 

My granduncle went on to win Presidental Award while in Customs.  He retired with great prestige and establish a successful insurance detective agency which further extended his fame.  In fact, one of the things that worked in mine and HG's favor was that my father in law knew  him!

Robin was a house painter whom my granduncle found reading an English newspaper on his break. He had tough luck in getting an education but wanted it badly enough.  My granduncle called up his now established nephew, Baby for some help.  Baby never even asked what exactly Robin was going to do.  When Robin was told there was money available for his education, he said gimme a week.  He went away and found a course in bartending that he could take at a reasonable amount.  Baby said yes, his wife equally agreed and Robin went on to become a bartender on a cruise ship.  He always came back from his sails with presents for my granduncle and grandaunt.

My granduncle is gone.  To be be left by a crowd of people, family and otherwise, whom he has touched.   And I get a lump in my throat everytime I think of that big place without him in it. 

My granduncle once recently told me - don't worry, I have done enough good in my life time that you and Vinu will definitely get it all back.  This is how I will remember him.

And Baby is becoming him.  Balu is not too far behind.  Half my generation owe it these two, whether they recall it or not.  I know I couldn't have made it  here and survived here without them.  And being around them has rubbed off whatever works in our family on to me.

At least I hope.  I hope I become Baby and Balu someday. 

If I let myself think that people who died are looking over me right now, I imagine a long list of uncles  gazing over my shoulder. The stern Chandra, the life-loving Anniyan, the book loving Appu, and the truest of them all  - Achuthan.

 

Being on one's own

When I was at Utah, I had this nasty habit of googling up people in science, hours on end. It could be anybody - from scientists in the likes of Chandrasekhar to faculty members or even other graduate students. I would go to their pages, their publications and even their hiking photos.  When I went for my first conference, I researched almost ALL the speakers. And this was a 5 day conference.  That's a lot of research! And the few that I talked to I pretended not knowing anything about them.  Of course when I came back I had a fresh list of people's names to go through. It didn't have to be my field, I would read about physics graduates, computer science faculty - anything.  

Then I heard my friend complain that her boyfriend (a fellow graduate) also does the same thing - spend countless hours going through research profiles.  Thus the notion that this might be a bad habit first entered my mind.  Now I realize that I did this even if I didn't understand whatever research I was reading.  In fact, I did this especially when I didn't understand the research! It wasn't about the science, it never was. It was about how to do science.  Being ignorant and insecure, I was trying to find out what these guys did in order to get what they were. 

When I first started at PNNL, I started with a clean slate since I was from an another field.  I didn't know who the big guns were, and I made a conscious effort (from just a feeling that it was unnecessary) to keep my stalking habits to a minimum of names. I had a great boss and mentor who with his direction made me feel secure about my work. I pleasently discovered that my group WERE the big guns and everywhere I went, my name tag opened doors.  I could start conversations easily with other scientists, big or small, and everyone was my equal.  There was no ego, it was just about the science. 

Later in my PhD, being in an academic environment with a nice advisor and a hitherto non-problematic research has spoilt me a bit.  My work is hard, yes, but I could always count on my advisor's help.  

I now sit at my desk at this BIG company for the first time on my own as an intern and it scares the shit out of me. No one here but a handful know me.  My work here wil have to speak for itself.  I know I have to hold my own. I just have no idea if I'm smart enough to do so. 

I spend a bunch of hours this morning looking up all the people I once could talk to without knowing who they were.