Week 47 - Indy

It's been a long time since my wife and I took a vacation, and this was far from it, but still it was nice to get out of town together on a trip to anywhere but work. So this week with the national joint annual meetings for my associations being so close in Indianapolis, I was pretty excited to finally be returning to the meetings to attend presentations, network with peers and betters, and leave the fermenters behind to do some brainstorming. Period 3 crashed and died over the weekend, so we restarted them and set off earlier than originally anticipated (was going to have to stick around for sample collections Tuesday am). We dropped down to visit my wife's grandma on the way out and by pure chance missed a good portion of the traffic backed up from a bad wreck on I-70 thanks to our late departure and a warning text from my adivsor.

Me presenting a poster at my first JAM in 2007.

Different priorities back in the day...

Indianapolis as a town wasn't much of a draw to me, having poor memories of it the last I was there as an undergrad recruiter for Michigan State at the National FFA Convention. Turns out, FFA has a way of down-funning a town (sobriety and all that, responsibilities for manning a booth, role modeling, etc.). But either my initial impression of the city was wrong or the place has improved over the last 5 years. There were lots of great places to eat, a nice shopping mall and beautiful parks/monuments. The skywalk/sidewalks between places was effective and pleasant (minus the random temperature/humidity flares). Our hotel was very nice and I think we had a good time there in general. I was struck by the cleanness and structure of the downtown area, not something I remembered from the last time I was there. Of course, I suppose it's all really about what you're looking for in a place. It was definitely better than Des Moines (read more here).

This was our first trip with the newest member of the family, and for the most part it was uneventful. We did have to make a couple of pitstops to refuel her and grab some coffee. I did a Wal-mart special and changed her diaper in the car with the door open. We also had a diaper change go amiss when she decided she wasn't quite done yet. That turned out to be while she was in my wife's lap (woops!). All things considered, not a bad trip for a baby of 3 weeks.

Having not seen many of my friends within my field in a while, our little girl was the "belle of the ball". I felt like I couldn't go anywhere without hearing how beautiful or cute she was from people who had seen her or held her before I'd even see them. I can already tell that our little girl is going to be one of those who is known by many more people in her childhood than she can remember. She is truly blessed to have so many people who care about her and we are blessed to count them among our friends.

A view of Indy from my phone.

I saw many cases of bad science ("educational indictments") at the conference, but also some great work and ideas as well. Our own work in instructional technology (see previous post) went over very well and it was exciting to see so many people interested in enhancing the classroom with technology. In general, I came away feeling like I had accomplished a lot of learning in a short period of time. My wife helping to watch Hannah really allowed me to maximize my short time with so many people in one place and I spent the days reading, listening and questioning, and the nights shaking hands and making contacts, the difference of which should be inherently obvious.

Me with Burk and Jeff.

One special moment from the conference was the symposium in honor of a long-time researcher in the field, coincidentally the MS advisor for my mother-in-law. He has done much of the research with the protozoal field, and is responsible for the drawings of the rumen protozoa that we take for granted when doing ID and other work. An accomplished scientist and friend of my advisor, it was nice to get to know him on our trip to Chicago (backstory) but this presentation let so much more light in on his work and the esteem that his colleagues have for him. It was the best 3 hours of the conference for me and that was before I even knew what surprise my mother-in-law had for me. After the meetings, she showed me the original textbook she had brought with her to be signed. I knew she had been excited about this for a while, but when I opened it up inside, it was signed to me! Wishing me the best in my future studies, she had him sign the book over to me. It is a moment I will remember for a long time. I can only hope that any of my work will have as much impact as what he has done.