Well, for another year the conference is almost over again. I've gotten much more out of it this year, just because I've been more comfortable and have known what to do and say. Tomorrow we'll get the bus back up to Boston and fly out to Berkeley in the afternoon.
Tuesday was interesting, just after dilating as I was about to shower there was a power failure. I managed to get cleaned up, but then we all had dinner in the dark. Since the lecture theatre had no power we started at the bar early, but not long after the power was restored and we got two of the evening talks in. The poster session was ok, and I got to bed about midnight.
Wednesday was a good day, I missed the extra talk which we had not been able to get to the night before. I made it to the rest of the talks, and they were ok. In the afternoon we had a boat cruise, and so we all went down to the harbour and sailed around the harbour for three hours. I talked with a few people, and got a few leads there especially about crystallography. We got back at 5 pm, and happily I was not sun burnt. After dinner were some very good and somewhat “controversial” talks, which everyone enjoyed. There was the second session of the poster session, and although I had my poster up in a better location, I think I got fewer people coming by. I missed a phone call from Bonnie, but I called her back a bit after midnight just before I went to bed. There is a very small area of decent cell phone reception just outside the dining hall. She has a fun time at her conference in Taos, New Mexico, and was telling me all about it.
Today I woke up at 8 am, and made it to breakfast and the morning talks. One talk was particularly dull, but we survived and then it was lunch time. I was a bit worried about the first Ashes test, but things turned out ok in the end. I went back down to the harbour, and returned the lock I had accidentally kept from the moped rental. I rented the moped again, and in addition to checking out the northern end of town, I did the Ocean Drive trip in reverse this time. It was great fun burning up the road on the little motorbike.
At the moment I'm dilating and cooling off in my room. Tonight I'll do laundry and then get ready for the lobster dinner. I'm not really a huge fan of lobster, but the atmosphere is a lot of fun. I have to pack and get ready for a long day tomorrow, I have some ideas from this conference, so maybe I can start to put those into coherent form.