Nerd Take-over of San Francisco - Day 2

Tuesday, Dec. 11 11:35 PM
Another long day! My alarm went off at 6 AM and this time I was out of the room by 6:40. I was going to run outside but was just too tired to try to find a route and deal with running in an unfamiliar city in the dark. So I caved and paid $30 for a week of working out in the cramped workout room in my hotel. Oh well, at least now I have extra motivation to work out every day.
I made it to the meeting by 8:30. There were a lot of good talks today – quite a few related to my research in the Ecohydrology and Climate Change: Observations and Predictions section. At noon, I went to the Atmospheric Sciences section Executive Committee lunch … it is funny to me that I am invited to this lunch because it sounds so official. It is actually pretty informal. I go because I am the newsletter of the section’s newsletter. It was nice to hear that people are enjoying the newsletter – although I heard from 3 people today that they didn’t know anything about it. So we need to check the e-mail list. I also go because it is a free lunch. ☺
After lunch I went to more talks regarding hydrology and biology. I went to some talks about the public’s perceptions of climate change and how scientists can better convey the truth about our research. This was interesting and is also useful for the writing I do for the CMMAP website. One guy talked about “alternative conceptions” (because “misconceptions” is not PC) that people have about global warming. People associate it with pollution and ozone loss, and sometimes associate the carbon cycle with the water cycle. These kinds of things are good to keep in mind as I write about climate change! Oh yeah, and I met a guy named James someone tonight who works for a nonprofit called Environmental Defense. He writes about climate change for the public, I should look at that website or track down his e-mail address, that could be a good resource.
Now I am done talking to myself. The last two talks I went to tonight were awesome! They were about volcanoes. One was about bursting lava bubbles in Mt Erebus in Antarctica. He had a video of a bubble exploding and it was really cool. The next talk was about a volcano 550 m beneath the Pacific Ocean near the Marianas Trench. He had a lot of videos with eruptions and they were impressive. It is cool to watch stuff blow up. ☺
After the meeting I walked down to Whole Foods to buy some food for the next couple of days. I bought 5 pounds of oranges … they are sooo good!! I usually don’t shop at Whole Foods b/c it is so expensive, but since everything is over-priced in San Fran, I don’t mind so much. At 7:00 I went to the AS section dinner. It was in China Town and the food was really good, except I was at a table with 5 vegetarians and there was not much for them to eat. I met some nice people, mostly young folks like me. Michel was there too, and afterward I went to the bar at the top of Marriott with him and two gals from Univ. of Leeds in the U.K. – Christine and … um, gosh I am so bad with names. There was a crazy singing lady at the dinner. She was pretty funny, she sang these songs about climate change, GCM’s, greenhouse gases … it was odd but entertaining, too. I have video on my phone, I wonder if I can post it somehow.
Well, tomorrow is my poster. I am un-enthused, because my results are so preliminary. Basically, my results were available at 5:30 Sat. I spent a couple hours thinking about them and then made my poster. I am nervous that what I thought was acceptable at 4 AM is not actually that great. I’m not looking at it until tomorrow morning, after working out, while I’m eating my yogurt and amazing granola and coffee. Then if it sucks I can at least take solace in the vanilla almond goodness.
So speaking of which, I should go to sleep. I should get up at 5:30 so I can prepare myself for the day and still get to the meeting by 8. Ugh!!! Oh well … I am still having fun!
Oh yeah, two things I wanted to mention: 1. Walking several miles in high heels seems to result in shin splints. 2. I get a kick out of how many people have been complaining about how cold it is. When I left Colorado, it had been in the 20’s (as a high) for several days and was snowing. Chris called this morning and said it snowed 6 inches last night. In contrast, it is a very pleasant 50 degrees here. And every other person I see is talking about how cold it is! It’s hilarious, people are walking around in fur coats with hats and scarves. It is even a big deal on the news channel. But to be fair, it will be in the 20’s in Sonoma tonight – which is pretty cold. But I am not thick-skinned, I get cold pretty easily, so for me to think these people are being wimpy is saying something.
Anyway, that is it for now. I have to get my beauty sleep … or more appropriately brain sleep. Good night!