Work Hard, Play Hard

Late October is always a time of transition. With one more racing season behind me and the next still just a faint glow on the horizon, I start paying a little attention to all of the other things. For I guess the last twenty years or so, the annual NCURA conference represents the start of the off-season for me. The big four-day conference that deals with a lot of things most people have never heard of somehow always leaves me both tired and energized, reassured that I'm not the only person in the world who worries about all of the complicated things that allow our country's researchers to thrive. When I think about this unique group of people, the phrase that always comes to mind is, "work hard, play hard." I could go on forever about all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes at major research universities in support of the scientific research that keeps us, just barely, ahead. Don't worry. I won't.

What's really interesting, though, is how diverse a group these research administrators are. I'm pretty sure that when the 3rd grade teacher asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, none of them said, "I'd like to be the director of sponsored programs at a major research university." Anyway, I returned yesterday night from four days in D.C. attending sessions with intriguing titles like "Research Development: What is it, who does it, and how can it help increase institutional competitiveness in challenging times?" (I really like that one, by the way!). As usual, I had Hospitality Suite duty for our region, and so the bottom line was that I got back to my hotel room, half a mile from the hotel, between 12:30 and 1:30 am. for three days.

I'm still a little tired, but overall it was a great meeting. On Friday night we had our own in-house band, Soul Source and the No-Cost Extensions, that played from 8:30 until midnight. After a couple of glasses of wine they sound pretty good. After three or four I always end up on the dance floor. I put a bunch of photos on my Kodak gallery site. Keep in mind that the theme for the party was the 70's!

The flight back home on Saturday was a long one and by the time I hit the sack around midnight I was already an unlikely candidate for the Sunday morning Giro Ride. Fortunately, we had organized a little Tulane Cycling Club ride for 9 am, so when I woke up I set my sights on that. We had about a half-dozen riders show up, and since I didn't have a feel for everyone's ability, I figured we'd to the "old" Giro route around Bayou St. John and City Park. Unfortunately, we ran smack into a big charity 5K at City Park and ended up taking a rather bumpy tour of the back streets in order to work our way around it. Under the circumstances, though, it was just the kind of ride I needed today.

Tomorrow, it'll be back to work. I have a very long to-do list right now at work, and a pretty long one for LAMBRA as well, so I'm expecting it to be a very busy week. On top of that, the NCURA conference has got my head filled with all sorts of new ideas. Hopefully I can make some progress with that before I get too bogged down with the usual day-to-day stuff.