And so it begins...

Why does traveling make one so tired? All I did yesterday was spend a few hours in a car and on a plane and a lot of waiting around. But after a short walk from the hotel to the Peachtree mall food court for a quick meal, I came back and crashed out for the night. I was asleep by 10:30 (which is unheard of for me). I'm now up with the dawn (another rare event). It could be that I am unconsciously resting up in anticipation of the exhaustion that is to come. Well, the conference starts at 8:00am and goes until 5:00pm today, after which I have to attend a meeting of the Association of Neuroscience Departments and Programs until 7:30pm.

I spent an hour last night creating my itinerary from the searchable database only to discover at the end that my computer does not have the software to convert it to a printable format. Sigh. I'm hoping that they will have some way to do this at the convention center, else I'll simply wander around until I see something interesting. And with several thousand posters and talks each session, plus exhibits, there is likely to be something to see.

Ok, time to go to work...

When did I get so old and boring?

So as I had said, I got up with the dawn and went to the conference only to discover that the main hall did not open until 1:00pm. So I sorted out my itinerary with the staff there and then went for a walk in Olympic Park and found my way to the Georgia Aquarium. That turned out to be a fun way to spend a few hours. One must pass through metal detectors in order to enter the Aquarium, which made me wonder what had gone on there to inspire such a level of security. Among the sights were sea dragons, jellies, sea otters, giant groupers, whale sharks and beluga whales! They had an unusual layout, with six different exhibits that branched off of the big open main space and funnelled you through a path to see the various tanks. Each exhibit was organized around a theme and if it hadn't been so crowded, it would have been much more enjoyable. As it was, I did get to see everything, but there were a lot of people jostling each other to get close. I could have watched the two sea otters all day! They are much bigger than river otters, but still incredibly cute. There were five beluga whales there as part of a breeding program (one was actually in the medical tank being treated for an illness) and they were very cool to see. The attendant warned us that since it was a breeding program that we might see some (ahem) breeding displays. None occurred while I was watching, except that the male had his nose against a rock and was casually flapping his tail to stay in place while the females all ignored him. It looked like typical human bar behavior and made me laugh.

I went back to the convention center and began looking at posters and running into people I knew (despite their being over 30,000 people here). I was glad to see one of our grad students who had defended yesterday and successfully passed (it was a close thing)! After several hours of hard core science, I took the shuttle bus back to the hotel to rest for a bit and then returned for my evening meeting. That was fun as we gave an award to the Editor in Chief of Science magazine for his efforts in promoting Neuroscience education. So now if I ever am successful enough to submit a paper there, he knows who I am! I then spoke to my three grad students to make plans for dinner. Well, it turned ou that their plane had been delayed and that they were very tired, so we agreed to fend for ourselves and I came back to my hotel. There had been enough of a spread at my evening event to count as dinner, so I got some dessert and here I am. So it's 8:30 on a Saturday night in a city I've never been to, and I'm going to soak my tired feet, read a book, and go to bed. The strange thing is - I'm actually happy with this decision, since I am pretty worn out from my busy day and it's all on again tomorrow.

I am unique

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