I'm Ba-ack!

[moonwise]

Got 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.

Comments

[ssilverfish.livejournal.com]

(Sorry to hear you bonked your head -- ow!)

Sounds like you had a good trip, even if the meeting itself wasn't very stimulating...

Welcome back!!

[arafel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it was hard to get through the protein folding... not really my forte. But it was a good experience all the same.

[fireceremony.livejournal.com]

That's typical of meetings, there's always one or two topics that really get focused on by the attendants and they often know one another and make up a clique of their own. Then it's hard for those who work with other topics to gain attention about their work. However, there are always ppl working with other things than the "main" group and they can be well worth talking with.

Good to hear you made it back safely, especialy with the drive home, and had a good time when you were there, even if the meeting wasn't super great. :)

It must have been very exciting to meet Pranoxi, I know we've all been wondering how each other's personae are, the ppl we've been chatting with for almost 2 years now... so it must have been cool to meet and find the tone as well as it sound you did. :)

Too bad the food in LA as so-so...

[arafel.livejournal.com]

I think that the tone of the meeting might be more in tune with what ppl are actually doing; most bioinorganic these days is done with the protein itself instead of a mimic because the techniques have gotten so good. I didn't find the meeting cliquish, I just think that our stuff was more chemical than most.

It was exciting and fun to meet Pranoxi. I'm most grateful that it wasn't totally awkward. ;)

The food in LA was the good food! The hotel slop was another story. Ech.

[hidetomatsumoto.livejournal.com]

"I passed out into my moo shu pork" <== I think I saw that movie before, but the sequel was a lot better.

*Arafel writes "Smart ass" on her fist*

"Talk to the hand!" she yells, unleashing a mega punch.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

It's damn scary to black out unexpectedly. I was terrified and crying. So...

:P :P

[lordraziel.livejournal.com]

I can imagine it would be very scary. I've blacked out before, but that was always preceeded by consumption of large quanties of alcohol. ;)

[arafel.livejournal.com]

Nope, no alcohol there. This was, "one minute fine, the next minute falling off the chair, followed by anxious husband and friend asking name and date." :)