Totally get the weekend thing. I won't say particle physics is at TRL -10. I remeber in my college days, in a viva voice exam the external asked me to explain NMR. And I started from Spin of quarks and then took him to hydrogen atoms and structure of molecules. Now after 10 years NMR comes ro haunt me again, in a good way. It is a key tool for drug development. And many such tools have resulted from our understanding of the atoms. PET is another example. And who knows what else cool things we will see in future based on what you are publishing after smashing those atoms.
And yes, I will keep writing. In fact I was telling my friend the other day that I enjoy writing more than what I opted to pursue. So that is gonna stay. I also have to an itch to write about my thesis work. I guess one more week, till I submit, after that I will make a layman summary of it.