In my first Blog I alluded to various crises during my first month as GridPP Project Leader. To briefly expand on this: I fell off a ladder on Easter Sunday - actually, it wasn't the falling but the landing on the edge of a stair half way down a staircase that was the real problem. The ensuing broken rib(s) meant that my first week as Project Leader was somewhat painful, though I'm glad to report that I am now almost back to normal. The drill in the picture was in my hand when I came off the ladder - notice the discontinuity in the handle!
The pain-in-the-ribs was rapidly surpassed by a pain-somewhere-else in my second week, when the Sunday Times published a misleading article following interviews with Tony, Ian Bird from CERN, and myself (http://www.gridpp.ac.uk/news/-1208247915.064841.wlg). The story subsequently rattled round the globe gathering inaccuracies with each retelling. Between us, Tony and I did five radio interviews; one conference talk that stretched to two hours; and addressed numerous other requests for information, interviews and visits. I seemed to write many thousands of words that week, covering topics that stretched from the Grid to why Black Holes would not destroy the earth when the LHC was turned on.
By the third week, the pain was starting to come from somewhere else with a request to explain to the Programmatic Review committee why GridPP should only suffer a 5% cut and not, say, 10% or 15%. This was more like "business as usual" as I seem to have spent a great deal of time in the last 5 years defending proposals and budgets. Nevertheless, it would be nice if it could stop and let us actually get on with what we are trying to do!
On the bright side, at least all the crises didn't happen in the same week!
Dave.
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