Well, while Sylvia was attacking the sights in Rome, I was attending our SuperB workshop at the Laboratori Nationale di Frascati. This time we had relatively high expectations of a decision re. funding of the project… even if it was a negative one. Alas, even though the President of the Italian INFN (the agency that would distribute the funds) came and spoke, he did not have a decision to offer us. He did indicate a significant increase in support for our studies, which was announced in a press release and which was gratefully received, but at some point we need a full go-ahead. An interesting event was a video link-up with the director of “IIT” (all these acronyms become really too long when spelled out) which is engaging in and supporting applied research. They are supporting the SuperB project as it potentially also offers first-class synchrotron-light facilities for Italian industry and material science. For once the workshop was not overloaded with talks and allowed us some time for real work and discussions. One of the nice byproducts was that I got into discussions with a colleague about other research I would like to do when back at SLAC (the crystal work I have been mentioning before) as his detector expertise may be helpful there, while he can also potentially test out new things. So I hope this will lead to something.
Did I mention that I was sitting at the table with him when I received Sylvia’s phone call about the her accident in Rome (which turned out to be the broken foot)?
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