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I'm Ba-ack!
Jan. 29th, 2002 09:46 amGot back from LA yesterday, and after taking Monday to sleep and do laundry, it's back to the lab for Arafel. It was a great trip and I'll probably give the full rundown some other time.
My weekend started inauspiciously on Wednesday night over dinner. D (labmate) had come to spend the night because I live fairly close to Newark Airport. Over dinner (takeout Chinese) I passed out into my moo shu pork and we spent the rest of the evening in the ER. Turned out to be just a fainting spell, no real reason for it, but when one moment you're having dinner and the next you're on the floor with a nasty crack to the head, it can be very alarming.
The conference itself was a good experience but it seemed to be dominated by protein people. After the first night, the remaining attendees were grad students, and they were largely interested in perusing the protein posters rather than the small-molecule protein mimic posters (ours.) We got into Ventura on Thursday evening after our flight was delayed two hours out of Newark and then sitting in LA traffic for a while. By the time we'd put up posters, had dinner, and listened to a famous inorganic chemist give his seminar, we were all falling asleep - and then the poster session started. I have no idea what I spoke to the profs about; it's all a blur.
We went to talks and were Good Little Grad Students, but we did take advantage of our free time. I went with two members of the Spiro lab to a little tourist trap town called Solvang; the Dane in their group had talked them into finding it and going. It's supposed to look like Denmark but mostly it's a cute little town with a lot of junk for sale. We bought some cheesy souvenirs and had a big laugh over the whole thing. D and I went into the town of Ventura as well, but there wasn't much there besides bums and antique stores.
Did go to the beach for a little while and ran around in the surf. Too bad that it was really too cold to take a running jump into the water. The Ventura beach wasn't very nice; the Jersey shore is a lot cleaner and more appealing. We went to the beach again while we were in Santa Monica, and the beach was a lot wider and prettier, but right off the beach there was a six-lane freeway and dirty walkways running over it. Kinda took the charm away from it.
The highlight of the trip was meeting Pranoxitreles, one of the former moderators of the Nosgothic Realm for those of you who don't know him. It was a lot of fun, and he took me out for the only good meal I had in CA. (the hotel food was icky and the lunch we had in Solvang was so-so.) Our postdoc from Santa Barbara is always lamenting how much worse the Mexican food is here than in CA, and I now understand why he complains.
We caught the red-eye home, and I managed to keep my wits in order long enough to drive back. I do not seem to be one of those people who can sleep comfortably on a plane. It was fun to visit CA, but it was with great relief and happiness that I saw the glittering lights of the Northeast unfurl under the plane.
My weekend started inauspiciously on Wednesday night over dinner. D (labmate) had come to spend the night because I live fairly close to Newark Airport. Over dinner (takeout Chinese) I passed out into my moo shu pork and we spent the rest of the evening in the ER. Turned out to be just a fainting spell, no real reason for it, but when one moment you're having dinner and the next you're on the floor with a nasty crack to the head, it can be very alarming.
The conference itself was a good experience but it seemed to be dominated by protein people. After the first night, the remaining attendees were grad students, and they were largely interested in perusing the protein posters rather than the small-molecule protein mimic posters (ours.) We got into Ventura on Thursday evening after our flight was delayed two hours out of Newark and then sitting in LA traffic for a while. By the time we'd put up posters, had dinner, and listened to a famous inorganic chemist give his seminar, we were all falling asleep - and then the poster session started. I have no idea what I spoke to the profs about; it's all a blur.
We went to talks and were Good Little Grad Students, but we did take advantage of our free time. I went with two members of the Spiro lab to a little tourist trap town called Solvang; the Dane in their group had talked them into finding it and going. It's supposed to look like Denmark but mostly it's a cute little town with a lot of junk for sale. We bought some cheesy souvenirs and had a big laugh over the whole thing. D and I went into the town of Ventura as well, but there wasn't much there besides bums and antique stores.
Did go to the beach for a little while and ran around in the surf. Too bad that it was really too cold to take a running jump into the water. The Ventura beach wasn't very nice; the Jersey shore is a lot cleaner and more appealing. We went to the beach again while we were in Santa Monica, and the beach was a lot wider and prettier, but right off the beach there was a six-lane freeway and dirty walkways running over it. Kinda took the charm away from it.
The highlight of the trip was meeting Pranoxitreles, one of the former moderators of the Nosgothic Realm for those of you who don't know him. It was a lot of fun, and he took me out for the only good meal I had in CA. (the hotel food was icky and the lunch we had in Solvang was so-so.) Our postdoc from Santa Barbara is always lamenting how much worse the Mexican food is here than in CA, and I now understand why he complains.
We caught the red-eye home, and I managed to keep my wits in order long enough to drive back. I do not seem to be one of those people who can sleep comfortably on a plane. It was fun to visit CA, but it was with great relief and happiness that I saw the glittering lights of the Northeast unfurl under the plane.
