When the summer turns really hot and it is late July in Geneva there is usually a notable slow down. August is coming and everybody knows this is the time when people take their vacation, they go to the seaside if they have been fortunate enough to book early or go to the mountains to enjoy the beautiful nature or just even visit with friends or family. Physicists are just like any ordinary people and CERN (and MIT) becomes somewhat deserted. I have always liked that period of the year because you can get more done, of course only on projects where you do not need to speak an expert, that has taken his/her well deserved vacation!
The LHC operation is no different and you would worry how well can the machine actually perform through the summer month? With many expert and experienced operators not available and the personnel is stretched thin and only the necessary operational plans will be made.
It turns out that this year late July and August the LHC crew put the foot on the gas and performed a furious catch up race because during June the planned luminosity could not be hauled in due of various issues. As an experimentalist and our group being responsible for the last stage of the CMS DAQ system is has been a wild ride. The Storage Manager system has been pushed to using almost half of its buffer space in early August which seems a little much, but it has held up.
For now we are of course very happy that we are meeting and exceeding the luminosity promised and that our system is holding up. It has been a great August, vacation were awesome and so productive. Maybe we should have more vacation ;-).