Lab

It turns out the contractor actually finished the construction on time...and like magic, after only two days of aligning...we saw the bright white spark, trademark of powerful ultrashort laser pulses...

Tubing

One of the most popular outdoor activities around Austin on weekends is tubing. Wikipedia says: "Tubing, also known as inner tubing, is the recreational activity of riding an inner tube." Usually you would think the tube is pulled by a motor boat...in hot Austin summer, this however, is way too much physical activity so people just float on it down the river. That by itself of course is pretty boring, so it helps to take a few beer or even better a separate tube for the cooler. Some rapids (also referred to as "rabbits" by some intoxicated tubers) can help too. Anyway, we went tubing this weekend for the first time in Austin's Barton Creek which has thanks too the rainy spring a lot of water this year. After we got soaked by some nice thunderstorms it even got sunny...Now that we own those nice tubes...I guess we have to repeat this more often.

lab renovation

The fire marshal decided the emergency exit from our basement has to be accessible without having to run through a couple of laser beams...so our lab needed to be renovated...supposed to be done by next week. Doesn't look like it, does it...?

Canoeing!!

With 100F and blue skies there is really not much else to do than to go canoeing. We decided to go to our hillbilly friends in Webberville again, and of course brought our BBQ equipment to have a nice picnic on this little island about half way down the river. The Colorado had much more water than last year and was also much faster. We made it to the island without capsizing our boats, however when we wanted to light the BBQ we discovered that no one had a lighter or matches. Since Texas is not so densely populated and even worse we were stuck on an island there was no point in walking somewhere. We tried to take the Canoe upstream to reach the last house we saw...that turned out to be not so easy...and ended with us in the water...Matthias and Laurent finally made it to the other shore, disappeared for 2 hours and finally showed up with matches...