As I am sure happens with many other human occupations, the job of a particle physicist proceeds in bursts of activity interspersed with periods of more relative calm. Deadlines must be met, and sometimes several of them overlap. The life of a physicist can get miserable for short periods of time, but after those end one usually looks back with satisfaction at the accomplishments.
For me this is such a period. I must deliver the draft of my book, "Anomaly!", to the publisher by the end of January, and in the meantime I must take care of many other important tasks: the organization of three international conferences and two workshops; the editing of five review articles for "Reviews in Physics"; the coordination of an european network of 15 partners; and the supervision of two PhD students.
Then of course there are many other occupations that, while not less important, must somehow pay the price of the overload with a reduced throughput. One of them is this blog. While my monthly goal is to produce 10 good articles here, I believe that until the end of January this will go down to only two or three. So bear with me, dear reader - I will be back in a blogging mood by February at the latest!
