This morning the sisters and I accompanied Daddy to open house at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. ORNL does not hold too many open houses for the families of its employees and retirees; the last one we attended was around 1962. Daddy had a particular interest in this open house whose purpose was to showcase the new Spallation Neutron Source project. This is a field of science he studied in the early 80's until the government decided it had no future and the grants dried up. Twenty some years later it is the hot science field.

We knew, when the notification letter said "cameras welcome," that we would be limited in what we could see and where we could go. No surprise to find lots of police and security on the ORNL reservation, directing traffic and blocking roads. The open house was limited to a couple of buildings and we spent most of our time in a long hall filled with posters and pieces of equipment. Daddy enjoyed talking to some of the scientists active on the project and we enjoyed spending time with him.

Just off the bus in one of the new Spallation Neutron Source office buildings. We ran into Gid Fryer (right) and Virginia Douglas (middle) who copped a couple of passes from Virginia's son-in-law. Gid and Virginia had an open bottle of wine stashed on their person. A little early for cocktails in our book but they were playing by their rules.

Daddy is getting an explanation about this piece of equipment from the scientist in the yellow shirt. Carol is standing behind him to his right listening intently and understanding. Leslie and I are, at this point, in way over our heads.

Shazaaaam! A SMASH Rig.

This is one of the new offices for the project. The offices are scheduled to open in October 2005.

While Carol and Daddy were absorbing the science, Leslie and I found beauty in the architecture in the buildings and windows. This is a floor to ceiling window at the end of the hall and looks out on the office building in the picture above.

Daddy asking questions and studying the information.

While in the cafeteria line, we saw Carl Remenyik (left), friend of the family and another retired ORNL employee who is still doing consulting for the lab. Carl's family is in Europe and he was by himself so we adopted him for lunch. We always enjoy having Carl around!