Up in D.C.
You know, every year I come up here to this conference with at least a little hope of getting in some exercise, but some years it just doesn't happen. This is looking like it will be one of those years. Sunday night was the welcome dinner, followed by a long visit to our regional hospitality suite. I stayed until around midnight catching up with all the people who I only see once or twice a year and then made the three block walk back to the little hotel I'm at. One thing I like about DC is all of the cyclists I see. Granted, there is somewhat of an overabundance of wannabe bike messengers mixed in with the real bike messengers, but even so, there are lots of regular people riding regular bikes to and from work too.
By 6:30 am I was already rushing to get dressed for a very full Monday that didn't end until the wee hours of Tuesday. The highlight, really, was the morning's Keynote Address by Steve Squyres of Cornell who was, and still is, the Principal Investigator for the Mars Rover Mission. It was really awesome to hear his inside stories about the mission and to feel his abundant enthusiasm wash over the room. The day was filled with technical sessions that only research administrators could appreciate with titles like "A-21, Allowability Criteria and Section J," and "Incommons, Federated ID, Internet 2, LDAP, Shibboleth, Kerberos, X.506 - What are They?" By 6 pm I was meeting my dinner group where our table spend more on wine than food. I then reported to our hospitality suite again, where I had volunteer duty until midnight. Things were a bit more lively than they had been on Sunday, and when we closed things down around midnight I followed some of the other survivors down to another Region's hospitality suite. That one was still going at 1:30 am or so when, having lost count of the number of glasses of wine I'd had, I decided I had better get some sleep if I expected to repeat this process today.
This morning started out with a really funny Plenary Session by James Carville and Mary Matalin (amazing we got them to do this on election day), who have moved to New Orleans and actually admitted it a few times. If their political pundit gig ever goes south, they can always jump right into stand-up comedy! I finally got a little break this afternoon so I can catch up on email and catch my breath before the annual party tonight. The weather is warmer than I expected, but it's been drizzling all day. I was thinking about going out for a long walk, but it doesn't seem worth getting wet so I'll probably pass.
You know, every year I come up here to this conference with at least a little hope of getting in some exercise, but some years it just doesn't happen. This is looking like it will be one of those years. Sunday night was the welcome dinner, followed by a long visit to our regional hospitality suite. I stayed until around midnight catching up with all the people who I only see once or twice a year and then made the three block walk back to the little hotel I'm at. One thing I like about DC is all of the cyclists I see. Granted, there is somewhat of an overabundance of wannabe bike messengers mixed in with the real bike messengers, but even so, there are lots of regular people riding regular bikes to and from work too.
By 6:30 am I was already rushing to get dressed for a very full Monday that didn't end until the wee hours of Tuesday. The highlight, really, was the morning's Keynote Address by Steve Squyres of Cornell who was, and still is, the Principal Investigator for the Mars Rover Mission. It was really awesome to hear his inside stories about the mission and to feel his abundant enthusiasm wash over the room. The day was filled with technical sessions that only research administrators could appreciate with titles like "A-21, Allowability Criteria and Section J," and "Incommons, Federated ID, Internet 2, LDAP, Shibboleth, Kerberos, X.506 - What are They?" By 6 pm I was meeting my dinner group where our table spend more on wine than food. I then reported to our hospitality suite again, where I had volunteer duty until midnight. Things were a bit more lively than they had been on Sunday, and when we closed things down around midnight I followed some of the other survivors down to another Region's hospitality suite. That one was still going at 1:30 am or so when, having lost count of the number of glasses of wine I'd had, I decided I had better get some sleep if I expected to repeat this process today.
This morning started out with a really funny Plenary Session by James Carville and Mary Matalin (amazing we got them to do this on election day), who have moved to New Orleans and actually admitted it a few times. If their political pundit gig ever goes south, they can always jump right into stand-up comedy! I finally got a little break this afternoon so I can catch up on email and catch my breath before the annual party tonight. The weather is warmer than I expected, but it's been drizzling all day. I was thinking about going out for a long walk, but it doesn't seem worth getting wet so I'll probably pass.
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