Hi all,
Thanks to those of you who put off calling me a nerd after last week;
you'll get your chance now. Everyone else went off a bit early I
feel ...
Jason
___
To start with this week, a very strange thing happened to me whilst
flying from Boston to DC. And no, it did not involve me lynching a
family of five. I was catching up on some podcasts, including the
CSIRO podcasts and was about to fall asleep as we were taxiing (I
often do this on flights) when I heard a familiar voice being
interviewed. It was someone I had done my undergraduate degree with
at the University of Adelaide (for those of you who were there with
me, it was Damian Fullston). Not necessarily who you expect to hear
whilst on a flight on the other side of what is clearly a very small
world.
My comments on the plane flights last week clearly got through to
whatever higher powers there are because on a regular sized plane
(say 25-30 rows, 6 people per row) there were a grand total of 15
people. I counted twice. It was hilarious given my previous rant on
the luggage situation and all.
Right, onto the main crux of this week, the ACS meeting. As has been
pointed out, I probably should have indicated that this is the
American Chemical Society meeting as it turns out I still have
managed to retain friends who aren't either chemists or psychic.
It's a really, really, really big conference with about 20,000
people. Being so large it's spread over about 20 hotels/convention
centres in DC, with the main groups (Organic, Inorganic, Physical
particularly) being in the one convention centre. At the beginning
of the week, I had the best of intentions to go to a series of talks
at each of the sites but it turned out to be just too hard and so
I've based myself at the main site.
I must say, I was actually pretty disappointed with the conference.
For such a big conference, with so many parallel sessions (the
organic section alone was regularly running 5 or 6) there wasn't a
lot I actually cared about. This might be a function of going to
quite specific conferences recently where I cared about a lot more
but it was a bit odd. In addition, the turnout at most sessions was
pretty abysmal. I _good_ turnout at a 'normal' talk (there were a
couple of prize talks which were were well attended) was 30-50 people
and most were a lot less. This doesn't go far in a room which seats
a couple of hundred. The problem was highlighted on the first day
when I went to a talk first thing in the morning (which I do have to
point out was early - see below) in one of the main auditoria (I
counted the chairs - yes, I was bored - and I estimate that there
were around 1200). There were less than 25 people.
This brings up another strange point. Not only does the conference
start on Sunday, it started at 8 am on Sunday! (I'm sure that this
breaks some unwritten humanitarian rule.) It's all very odd because
in Australia, if a conference runs for a week it usually starts on a
Sunday night (with either one fairly big, important talk or just a
party with lots of alcohol) and then kicks off in earnest at nine the
next morning. Not here - first talk was 8 am on Sunday and the last
poster session finished at 10 pm. The crazy thing is that it seems
to be all crammed into four days - while the conference formally goes
until Thursday, there's no organic talks on thursday and I found out
early on that the rest of my lab are going back Wednesday night
(apparently, I'm missing a meeting on Thursday I assumed wouldn't be
on!).
There were a few good sessions and I bumped into a few people I know
/ have met before. One of these was almost literally; I turned a
corner and came within inches of shirt-fronting a guy I know from
Georgetown U. (Seriously, I nearly headbutted him.) For those of
you in my group, you'll all get a couple of interesting tidbits over
the next few weeks as a plough through my notes. But, honestly, by
the end, I didn't care any more.
In addition to the conference, Becca took me to a baseball game on
Wednesday. I quite like baseball and while it's not cricket, it can
be quite fun (I'm expanding my collection of baseball memorabilia - I
have a miniature Washington Nationals baseball bat now ). This was
even after a collision with a tree whilst throwing a baseball around
before the conference. (I did manage to get my hands in the way so I
didn't meet the tree with my face.)
It is worth pointing out that I'm not sure going to a baseball game
counts as sport - it's somewhere between that and vaudeville. Along
with the actual game, there are multiple points of crowd involvement
- not least with random group singalongs but also with clearly
programmed events. There's a gentleman who comes out with what can
only be described as looking like a grenade launcher from which
t-shirts are fired into the crowd - and that gun has a fairly big
kick as the t-shirts comfortably make the top tier.
But the most bizarre thing is the President's race. Four mascots
(well, kind of - Screech the eagle is the official mascot but these
guys come close) for the Nationals are 'The Rushmores' - the four
presidents who are on Mt Rushmore: George (Washington), Tom (Thomas
Jefferson), Abe (Lincoln) and Teddy (Roosevelt). At a given point in
the game (4th inning?), they come out and have a race. Of course,
they've got massive heads (they look like bobble-head toys) and it's
all slightly comedic. What's more funny is that Teddy Roosevelt
never wins and everyone is therefore cheering for him. Seriously,
there's a website "Let Teddy Win!" and a number of Facebook groups.
You can buy National jersey's with 'Roosevelt' and '26' (he was the
26th President) on the back. Becca openly says that this is the best
part of the game - you are strongly encouraged to look at the
following links to get an indication of just how mad this is.
http://blog.letteddywin.com/2009/08/20/teddy-roosevelt-twitter-washin...
This details how, on the night I was there, Teddy lost because he was
tweet-ing. It also has video footage, not least so you can see the
crazy bobble-headed people - though it takes until halfway through
for them to come 'round the bend.
http://blog.letteddywin.com/2009/08/02/teddy-roosevelt-leveled-by-rac...
Apparently recently Teddy was winning and got taken about by one of
the Pittsburgh mascots (a racing pierogie - apparently some sort of
dumpling). Becca spent hours laughing at this after she told me
about it.
Just for the extras, the same can be found at the link below, it's
worth the minute it takes to read the commentary.
http://dcist.com/2009/08/teddy_foiled_by_rogue_pierogie.php
Perhaps I should actually comment on the game. The Nationals are
pretty shocking and the first three batters were given walks in the
first inning - actually after an abysmal start (which included the
starting pitcher only lasting one batter into the third) it actually
ended up quite interesting. Needing two runs in the bottom of the
ninth, the first batter hit a home run and everything was exciting.
Three straight outs and it was all over.
For some pictures from the baseball see ...
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=135328&id=570906321&l=9375741f74
To finish, a couple of weeks ago I pointed out the MUPPETS acronym.
This conference has seen a few other impressive ones. If you're in
the catalysis area you may have seen PEPPSI (Pyridine-Enhanced
Precatalyst Preparation, Stabilization and Initiation) but my
favourite came from a fellow Australian. For those of you who
remember Matt Hill (former PhD student at UNSW, now a Research
Scientist at CSIRO), he presented some work which included the
technique that he has dubbed the "Topologically Integrated
Mathematical Thermodynamic Adsorption Model", arguably just for the
acronym. (The work's pretty flash - see J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2009,
131, 10662-10669 - but the acronym is hilarious.)
Next week: Back to Boston.
--
Dr Jason Harper Present Address:
School of Chemistry Merkert Chemistry Centre
University of New South Wales Boston College
Sydney NSW 2052 Chestnut Hill MA 02467-3860
AUSTRALIA USA
UNSW CRICOS Provider Code 00098G
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