Riverside Fun

(Note: Written yesterday afternoon at 6:00pm.) Well, that was fun! I am on my way back from UC Riverside where I visited to give a colloquium. I met a number of faculty that I had not seen since I was last there (talking at a DPF APS meeting in 2004) and people seemed to like the talk (similar to the ones I gave last Fall in LA and in Vancouver), even though I was a bit rusty in my talk-delivery, being deep in sabbatical mode, you understand. I wallowed too much in the experimental physics part of the talk and so had to rush the ending bits where I bring in aspects of string theory to the game. I hope people were not too confused. I invited people to send me email for more information/explanation if they wanted to, since I had to leave immediately after my talk.

You might be wondering why I am typing while I’m driving on the highway. Isn’t that bad? I could respond that texting while driving is illegal but blogging while driving is perfectly fine (along with things like eating, shaving, applying makeup, and a host of other things you see people doing in cars, some of which I won’t mention as this is a family blog). However I won’t make such a silly response since of course I am not driving. I took the train. Yes, I’m weird. It’s a very fine double-decker (actually there are three distinct levels) train trundling along nicely, taking about an hour and a half to get from LA’s Union Station to Riverside, and it’s simply great to sit here and let the train do the work instead of fighting in traffic back to LA, staring at the road all the way. Reading, writing and listening to music as I sit here is a much better option. I plug right into downtown LA at Union Station and walk to my next destination (there are some galleries with special exhibits I specifically want to look at in today’s Downtown Artwalk, for example), and then ultimately take the subway all the way home. Several of my hosts were surprised by this, as it seems to be the norm to just drive there from LA. Metrolink does not help the situation at all by having the most utterly ridiculous schedule that means that I could not get here at a reasonable time to spend the day at the department. They’ve decided that nobody goes from LA to Riverside between the hours of 6:25am and 12:45pm. There is simply no train leaving between those times. Not being able to make the 6:25am (I’m no longer on that helpful jetlag schedule I was three weeks ago) – which would have put be in Riverside at 8:00am anyway – I caught the 12:45pm, got there at 2:20pm and was picked up by colloquium organizer, particle physicist Owen Long, and taken to the department. (I considered bringing the bike and just riding to campus, but don’t want to have it with me for this evening’s errands. I note there is a bus, though, for future reference.) My talk was at 4:00, after coffee and chats with department members in the lounge. Soon after my talk was over, a little after 5:00, I was dropped back off at the station. I could not stay for dinner because (1) I need to get back to downtown LA, and (2) the 5:52 pm train is the last train form Riverside to LA! Unbelievable, right? But true. Now I am sure there are those who will say that the schedule is the way it is because nobody uses the train, but I wonder how much of a component of “Nobody uses the train because the schedule is lake that” is in the mix. Is it really that the flow between the cities is so polarized in the other direction? Is it really true that nobody comes from LA to Riverside to work, and/or outside these prescribed commuter times, for example? I’m not convinced it is as simple as it seems. The status quo of assuming everyone prefers to drive seems to be in force here, keeping the schedule stuck this way, as it is in so many other places and instances.

Anyway, there it is. An excellent albeit short trip overall. Once back home I will fade back into sabbatical solitude for another long stretch…

Here is a couple of quick snapshots from the rest of my evening. One scene of the ever-beautiful City Hall (with the Triforium sculpture, by Joseph Young, in foreground) while nipping along on foot from the station to the downtown exhibits, the other from much later (close to midnight) with the excellent “Downtown Jazz Project” band at the Edison, where I retired for a drink or two (hey, they had N’Dea Davenport -remember her from the Brand New Heavies?- come up on stage and sing a couple of songs. She was great!).

-cvj