A lifeless landscape of textured white spreads to the horizon. Where masses of cool, dry air fell to embrace the warmer currents charged with water vapor below, that water condensed and it is now possible to define and see the space separating those two bodies. It is charged with electricity when they approach, and turbulence, like two future lovers who have not yet decided to consummate. Arms of white stretch up for kilometers toward the heavens, sometimes with a flat hand on top, as if repulsing the advances of that particular chill that will yet prevail, in the end.
Less poetically, that turbulence and subsequent consequences on U.S. air traffic this last September 11th has prevented me from attaining the Neural Tube Defect conference, which started this morning in a lovely hotel in Burlington, Vermont. I am writing this prose from the last plane which should bring me there; I’ve been on three, so far, with two trains and a car ride, but last night it looked like the grand total would have been only one train, five planes and two long car rides. So I was spared some unpleasantness.
My previous record for maximum time-per-kilometer to attend a conference was the one in Praz-sur-Arly a couple of years ago, where train service going east across France was somewhat deficient, and I spend fifteen hours where it could have been three. This time, barring further surprises, I left my (new, now somewhat recognizable as such) home near Paris some 34 hours before arriving at the conference. I’ll spare you the details. Once such ordeals are finished, it’s much the best to forget them. Otherwise, like for childbirth, one would hardly begin again.
The post started with something that could qualify as science – a description of condensation. As I type, a drip hits my left shoulder – the same phenomenon, running underside the overhead compartments. Ah, water. Can’t live with it, can’t live without it.
I will be taking notes at the NTD conference and posting them to my lab wiki – please peruse, should questions on the fusion of epithelial sheets, neural development, spina bifida, genome-wide association studies, folic acid supplementation or related problems in human embryology and medicine interest you. My talk will be on Monday afternoon.
But I really don’t know clouds at all.
Edit to add: Second day of conference notes here.
Don’t talk to me about Turbulence!
Seriously though, glad to hear you finally made it to the conference.
With such a beginning the rest must turn out fantastic :) Good luck with the talk!
At least the trip sparked some very beautiful prose. Good luck with your talk on Monday!
Thanks! It’s been great so far. I am wondering if I will be good and work this afternoon, which is off, or goof off and visit Ben and Jerry’s… posting the next installment of notes now, and I even got explicit verbal permission from one of the conference organizers.
I didn’t mention that my suitcase handle was broken and it was delivered to my room later in the day, after waiting longingly at the carousel for some time.
And just to update on why one should not try to attend a meeting from Europe at a smallish U.S. city with a transfer at a major airport, the trip home was nearly as eventful. I had to sprint for my connecting plane – President Obama was flying through Philadelphia about the time I wanted to, and no one could leave the ground to head there until he was well clear – and although I just barely made it (last one on!) my suitcases (I purchased a new bag to take some pressure off the first) did not.
I didn’t visit Ben and Jerry’s factory, just a store. While the 3rd day’s notes are up, and my talk went over quite well and raised some buzz for the future corresponding paper for the three postdocs involved in it, the last day’s notes remain to be typed up, as I was out of battery again.
Caffeine and fatigue induce me to write immense run-on sentences.
Heather – What you need is membership of the Cloud Appreciation Society
I rather like “immense run-on sentences”, and use them often.
That first paragraph was astonishing. Lovely stuff.
Glad to hear your travel tribulations are now over. The worst I’ve managed is going from Toronto to a conference in Qualicum, which can be found about 45 minutes’ drive north of Nanaimo, on Vancouver Island. I left home for the airport at about 6:00 AM, and traveled essentially non-stop (flight, bus, ferry, bus again) to arrive at a quick dinner and sessions that went until 10:00 PM that night. With the three-hour time difference, that makes 19 hours bed-to-bed, about 14 and a half of which were travel. That’s pretty slow, considering you can drive from Toronto to Vancouver in just over two days, if you don’t stop.
Ack, Richard. That’s pretty awful, indeed! Thanks for your morale-boosting compliments, they’re always appreciated :-) How was your conference out on the West Coast? (‘Twas at the same time, wasn’t it?)
This was a long time ago, Heather, circa mid-90’s. I’m off to California for a few days next week though. That one will be less painful, now that I’ve convinced the travel agent that I do not want to change planes in either Houston, Dallas, or Newark.