GMU Redux

[On location in Fairfax, Virginia]
I have to say that all the presentations by or involving Penn Staters have certainly raised the bar on the average quality of the presentations here at the 11th Annual George Mason University Conference on Atmospheric Transport & Dispersion Modeling. It might sound like I’m bragging by saying that, but it’s the plain truth that all the PSU presentations have been among the best talks at the entire conference thus far. While the presentations have been overall better than they were last year when Walter & I came down, they’re still mostly subpar. But what else can be expected from an academic conference? The conference started yesterday, and Kerrie spoke at 9:00am, Sue did hers at 9:45am, I went at 11:00am, and Walter presented at 1:30pm. And then today Anke gave her talk at 11:15am (I would’ve given a link to everyone’s presentations on the GMU website, but a username/password is required to access them (lame!!), and I’m not sure if it’s okay for me to give that out here on my blog…). So now we’re all done and can relax! Everyone’s talks went really well. Afterwards I had two people come up to me from the Air Force Weather Agency and the National Ground Intelligence Center and ask me for a copy of my thesis, and mention possibilities for data/projects I could use for my Ph.D. research. I don’t know if those options will turn out to be better than what Joel, Sue, Dave & I brainstormed last week though, but it’s all still cool stuff to be thinking about.
We’re 3-for-3 so far on dinner choices down here in Fairfax, they’ve all been awesome for food. On Monday night after we got checked into our hotel we went to PJ Skidoo’s, an awesome steak/ribs/pasta place that Walter & I discovered last year. I got a full rack of ribs, and let me tell ya, that was the biggest rack I’ve ever seen at a restaurant! Last night we went to Court Side Thai (more on that shortly), and tonight we went to Dolce Vita, an excellent Italian place. So much food… 🙂 Thank goodness for per diem though!
Last night we (sans Andrew & Jon, who took the metro into DC to visit other people) met up at Court Side Thai (yes, even Walter came to a Thai restaurant and found something he liked!) with my friend Betsy from Gustavus (who just recently got a job as a digital serials librarian at George Washington University here in DC) and her friend Sean. It was all kinda planned on the fly, so Betsy & Sean got there earlier than I’d expected, basically right when we got back to the hotel from the conference. So I rounded everyone together but had to drop Andrew & Jon off at the Vienna train station first. Because of all that, by the time we got to the restaurant, Betsy & Sean had been there for about an hour. Before we left for the train station we called Sue & Brian and told them to meet us at the Thai restaurant in 20 minutes, which is whenabouts we’d be getting there. So after we’ve been at the restaurant for 15-20 minutes, we really start to wonder where they are. We gave them a call, and they were waiting at another Thai restaurant a block or two away, haha. Apparently neither of us communicated *which* Thai restaurant we were going to, we just assumed the other knew which one we were talking about (mostly because we didn’t know there was more than one!). 🙂 But all was well, and we had a wonderful dinner. It was good to see Betsy again too and catch up with her a bit, even though Betsy let it slip to Kerrie, Anke & Walter that I once upon a time had played the card game Magic with my roommates at Gustavus. Sigh. Kerrie & Anke loved that tidbit entirely too much. 🙂 But anyway, just as we got our food, Sean saw his boss getting takeout at the restaurant, so his boss came over and introduced himself to everyone (it was an interesting chain for him to follow, from Betsy, Sean’s friend, to me, Betsy’s friend from college in Minnesota, to everyone else, my friends and colleagues from Penn State — three or four degrees of separation right there!), and then proceeded to buy us all a glass of wine! (It was really good white wine, too!) That was so nice of him, and of course really unexpected for us. Sean said he’s a generous guy though, and likes to do things like that, so that’s cool. I told him he should definitely make sure he keeps that job, haha! Anyways, I’d say the whole evening worked out just fine, considering all the extra hassle early on. 🙂
Well, we’ve got one more day of presentations to listen to, and then we’ll be driving back to Penn State tomorrow evening. Just in time to get back to the broken A/C of Walker Building for a day of work on Friday, ugh. Come to think of it, I’m gonna try to work on thesis corrections from home on Friday, I’ve decided. I’m not going in there unless absolutely necessary!