Summer is the time for tenderloins

I ran into another physics professor (at the college down the street from where I live) at the awesome Naf Naf Grill a couple months ago.  We got to talking, and it turns out that he has a really cool map of all the places to get tenderloins in Iowa.

This made me think of Porky's in Des Moines, which was across the street from the grocery store I worked at during high school. Unfortunately, Porky's is no more.  Too bad, since the cruise nights were always a lot of fun.

I did find a new blog to follow: Des Loines. Their tagline is beautiful. "The Breaded Pork Tenderloin Sandwich: It's like the filet-mignon cut of pork, deep fried to perfection."

A tourist in our own town...

These are some ideas for places to visit in and around Chicago this summer when we have visitors and/or free time to go exploring.

If you are coming to visit us, or if you have any opinions on these places, let me know what you think of them.

My research students and I got together for the first time this summer in the lab for a very productive first day. The UIUC group is clearing out of the optics lab (and more importantly off of the optics table) for the summer, meaning we have the whole table to ourselves! We cleaned up the corner and started rearranging equipment. After a solid afternoon of working, the students had the instrumentation and PC arranged on the other side of the optics table (away from the wall) and the optical elements rearranged on the table. Fingers crossed, we should have a working speckle pattern interferometer by tomorrow if all goes well.