Putting on the Ritz

Here's Milo the morning that I left to go to a conference in Washington:

He's still into hugging the cat. Too much. Sometimes I wish our cat, Caspian, were just a little less sweet than he is. Caspian will never defend himself against a human, even if he's being actively hurt. If he would give Milo a little swat every now and then when he is being too rough, Milo would get the picture. He never tackles our other cat, Sam. Caspian sort of likes it, though. Jake and I have to go around and monitor how rough Milo is being and constantly remind him to be gentle with the cat.

Here's pretty Nora the morning I left:

We had fog in our town that delayed and cancelled many flights, but we lucked out and our flight to Washington was only a couple of hours late. It was a direct flight, so it was no big deal. I say "we" because there were actually 5 people besides me from my university on the same flight to this conference (and it is a small conference!), and a 6th person, my dept. chair as a matter of fact, flying to the metro area to give a talk.

This conference is being held in the Ritz Carlton, and I thought, oooo, fancy! It's right outside of the metro stop, so that's convenient. By the way, it's super warm here. Like 60 and sunny. It's awesome. As we were descending into the city I thought, what looks so strange to me right now? What am I seeing that's out of place? Oh...it's the water! The water is...water. It's not ice! Back home all of our lakes are still frozen solid. Out here, the water is water, and that feels like spring to me.

Anyway, the Ritz. I thought it was funny that we were staying at the Ritz. It is old school fancy. Not fancy like the modern, uber-chic boutiquey hotels I sometimes frequent at conferences, but fancy in the sense that there is a lot of marble around. And chandeliers. There is even a chandelier in the elevator.

So here is my old school room:

It's nice. Very comfortable bed. Here is the bathroom (more marble!):

Here is the luggage rack that is, I think, the exact same luggage rack that my mother owns. At least, I think so. It sure did look familiar. That is the sole reason why I took a photo of it. (Forgive these grainy pictures taken with my old point-and-shoot camera):

Last night we went out for dinner at a Lebanese place. It was very crowded and so we got drinks and waited and waited and waited for our table to become available. We were a larger group so it took ages, so we just kept drinking, and by the time dinner arrived we were both semi-drunk and starving. So then we ate a ton of food, rapid style, and by the time I made it back to my room I collapsed onto my bed feeling like an over-indulged, beached whale.

Today I had to give a talk and I thought it was kinda...meh. I don't think it was so great. Part of the problem is that I had to report on extremely early results that aren't all that exciting yet unless you place them within the larger context of the overall research project, which is hard to do in just 14 minutes. So I tried to do that justice, but probably ended up just communicating our not-too-exciting results. But that's okay, because today I also got official confirmation that my big grant, source of so much work and worry, has been awarded. Hoooooray! So I was all, whatever, I have my grant now!

Here is me after learning of the grant. That's a fist pump of victory right there.

Well, I'm off now to a celebratory dinner -- it's Vietnamese tonight. Sounds like fun!