Down N Out

The conference ended on Friday, but the grand adventure continued. That morning, we went to rent a car and were graced with a pretty cheap five-class upgrade, from "intermediate" to "premium," from a Pontiac G5 to a convertible Seabring. An hour or so later, and amidst a wee bit of confusion, this car departed for San Diego with 2 Austrians who never made the trip (Josef and Clemens). We of course took a mostly coastal route, from Monterey to San Diego. Jack Johnson's dulcet voice came on just as we hit the famous yet underloved Pacific Coast Highway, followed by a fine blend of road trip music from the car's satellite radio.


Highway 1

We were in no great hurry to make it south, with liberal stops for pictures that I will post sometime later. Our first longer stop was to see the elephant seals a bit north of Cambria. There they were, dozens of massive, 2 ton beasts, wallowing on the sand. They really don't move gracefully on land, and they look ridiculous anyway, and sound pretty silly. I bet they don't smell too good either. I watched them, just laying there on the beach, sometimes rolling over or flipping sand. Minutes went by. Roll over. Flip sand. Bark. Accomplish absolutely nothing, be silly, lounge on the beach all day. Wow. And I instead drive and work and write blog entries. I deem elephant seals noble beasts, and kindred creatures.


Elephant seals


They think I'm cute.

After a brief trip to the Hearst Castle gift shop, just a few minutes south, we continued to Santa Barbara. I thought about taking the labbies to Hearst Castle, but decided not to, for the same reason I did not take the (Austrian native) labmates to Disneyland, or a San Diego Mission, or anything vaguely castle-like anywhere in SoCal. I took my job as SoCal cherrypopper quite seriously.

And so our next stop was at the In - N - Out in SB, a true California icon. The labbies agreed it was a tasty burger, and were fascinated by the array of secret ordering tricks, which are mediated by an elaborate secret dialect. It seems rather like Styrian. I told them they only need to remember "Animal Style" to get by at In - N - Out. Oh, and don't get discombobulated when they ask you if your burger is "to go" at a drive thru. Yes, I realize it sounds obvious at a drive thru. But "box it up to eat in your car" is a valid option, and fueled many a trip along the 1, 5, 15, 40, 66, and the other state and interstate highway numbers that support so many great American road trips.

A couple hours later, we drove through Camarillo. My old friend Victor Wang is from there, as is the hot chick from Big Bang Theory. The trip through LA went as well as could be expected. As I told my labbies, there was not much traffic because it was pretty late on a Friday. I had good fun playing tour guide and pointing out all the sights. And (as I mentioned many times) the play the same music in Austria as in the US, so the songs were familiar to them. The difference was that some of the locations in the songs are in fact along the drive. Tom Petty's "Free Fallin" hit the radio just after we drove by Mulholland; I got to explain it and the reference to Reseda.

It was a shame driving through Pendleton at night, since I really, really wanted to see that beach on the way down. But missing traffic was probably worth it. I did notice an increase in monster trucks as we entered San Diego, but overall, traffic was surprisingly light. We made it safely, and then the next major phase of the So Cal sojourn began.

AsiloMORE

Hard to believe last Friday was only one week ago. Friday morning began on the beach, with over 100 conference attendees at the beach bonfire I mentioned before. This last one was an unprecedented blowout, with well over $600 spent on drinks that were gone by 1:30. The event was made possible by another remarkable cooperative effort among quite disparate and often novel groups, with Berlin and others getting drinks, teams from Fort Collins and Albany (and me) transporting firewood, several of us from Graz hauling leftover food that the conference people graciously let us take, and a crew of dozens on cleanup duty. And it all came together quite well, and I even made my money back. I'm already scheming for next time.

There were minor hitches. I tore something in my throat screaming Austrian names with Gerv, and it is still recovering now, but it was worth it. Chad Boulay and Bill Sarnacki hauled a huge log that would have bedrocked an epic bonfire. They put it down near the firepit, and less than a minute later, Niels Birbaumer and Herta Flor designated it for seating. I sure as hell wasn't going to kick them off their log, especially once they got going singing Italian songs with the Roman BCI team. So, I hauled another, bigger, heavier log to the fire. A pine log, with lots of little protrusions, that I carried on my right shoulder for over a quarter mile. Dammit. I learned my lesson and put it right on the fire, and it did the trick. The fire kept going, but the beer did not, which is another hitch. The Dutch people, characteristically, had a different take on when the beer ran out. "Where is the beer?" asked Erik Aarnoutse around 1 AM. I told him we were down to just Budweiser, but it was over by the fire. "No, I said beer." I always said the Dutch are a clever people.

I'm told the party went on well after my departure around 3 AM (did I mention no more beer?), and the site was spotless the next day. What teamwork! This adumbrates a bright future for the BCI community. And indeed, while the conference was pocked with a few strident arguments and flaring jibes among the increasingly ragged attendees, people got along quite well overall, with a lot of mutual respect and love. Theresa Vaughan earned a standing ovation at the closing banquet, and I know that most attendees felt it was far too little.

I started doing something I wanted to do every time: I went around and asked attendees to sign my copy of the conference proceedings. I explained that it was for posterity, or sentimental reasons. I told other people it was so I could sell it in 20 years instead of writing more grants. I told yet others that it was so I would have copies of all signatures of everyone who is senior now, and most people who will be senior later, in case I have any trouble getting their signatures on more important documents later. Also, I'll start this blog, and get their passwords when they log in to make comments. But remember not to tell anyone about it.


Most attendees of the 2010 BCI Meeting. This photo was taken on Thursday afternoon in front of Phoebe Hearst Social Hall

Jooooooooosef FALLER!

The California sun fills my pores with warmth and happy memories. It had been almost a year since I last drank the love pouring down over my home state. BCI Meeting 2010 blazes around me. I’ve been looking forward to this since the last one (which was in 2005), and yet it is far more fun than I anticipated. These conferences are evermore a reunion of old and new friends, and I spent a lot of time with both over the last few days of the conference. I coordinated a social event on the first night that went exceptionally well, and the sponsors want to do it again, so it looks like I just started a Series of Special Events that could be prepended to other conferences.

Another tradition was born. Gerwin Schalk and I, two of the (physically) largest people in the BCI Community, found it fun to yell names of Austrian colleagues, with a strong bias toward Josef Faller. This caused my voice to, um, Falter, but we kept it up on the subsequent nights. Tonight will be the last night of the conference, and we anticipate the biggest blowout by far.

Ah, the nightlife of neuroscientists. The Special Event I threw was at the bonfire area of the conference, since we paid the conference people $145 for a 2 hour bonfire. The later parties leveraged a key fact: the conference center is only a five minute walk from the beach. Some of my homies from Berlin got some beer et al. on spec on Monday night, and then I followed up and coordinated the madness last night. It was quite engaging for me – aside from the fun of the party itself, and the intensity of some of the conversations (intercalated with screaming “Josef Faller” with Gerv periodically), it reminded me of countless other beach parties. Many of the attendees had never been to any beach party, and/or never been to the US, and so it was good fun being in the middle of the mass initiation to my little world.

Here’s a further testament to the character of the BCI community. I put up $100 for beer last night on spec. This was a calculated risk, and I guessed I would get half of it back. After hosting the ten Distinguished Party Series at UCSD, and countless other happy hours and other such events, my expectations were low. I showed up yesterday with the beer and didn’t even bother with a donation jar. Further, I repeatedly rallied wood committees to drag wood to the beach for our fire, meaning I couldn’t guard the alcohol supply and ask for donations. And yet, people were surprisingly proactive in donating money to me, which I kept in a separate pocket. I counted this morning. $133. This is the first time in my life I actually turned a profit, purely because of the goodwill, camaraderie, and honor of my colleagues. I love them all the more now, which is why I sprang for $300 tonight. Again, I’d be content to recoup half of it, but am guessing I will get more.

Of course, we did a lot of work related things at the conference too. But, there are good reasons why I have this, and my official work blog on the future BNCI website.

Teamwork

This sign is right in the middle of my daily walk to work, so I had to mock it sometime. Adding to the fun: the long German word on the bottom of the sign means "Business Consulting."


I can use the potty all by myself.

Balming in the media

Here is how four different media entities present the recent feeble bombing effort in New York. All four screenshowts were taken around 15:40 CET today.

Fox News put it on its front page, with a big headline claiming a terror attack:




CNN disagreed, saying it was too early to tell - also not just in the article, but in the cover link announcing the article on their main page:



BBC did not address the terrorist issue in the headline, but the article also quickly said it seems to be a one-off event, ie, not terrorist:



And, finally, Der Spiegel did not mention the bombing anywhere, but instead have this headline about poisoning the Bushes in Germany in 2007:



Actually, this is more intriguing, and smacks of far more hgh-level intrigue, than any of the other stories. The New York failed car bomber wasn't a terrories, mastermind, or anything. But who the hell is so good he can can sneak poison into a top-level party, fuck up one guy's hearing, prevent another from walking properly forever, make Laura Bush sick, evade all detection and (most remarkably) keep the erudite and garrulous president to utter a sentence with no multisyllable words? Wow! This guy is the true genius. (The poisoner. Not Bush.)


Text from that article:
Bush writes that she doesn't even know herself if any poison was discovered. She writes that the most concrete conclusion any doctors could reach is that "we contracted a virus that attacks a nerve near the inner ear and is prevalent in Heiligendamm." She claims that one White House staffer lost all hearing in one ear and that another had trouble walking. The military aide's "gait has never returned to normal," she writes, "nor has our senior staffer regained hearing in that ear."

"No, no, no," Stefan Hummel says, trying to catch his breath after an outburst of laughter. Hummel, 59, is the chief pulmonary doctor at the Median Clinic, a medical facility located just behind the Grand Hotel. He finds it strange that one person had a gastro-intestinal problem while another supposedly had an ear problem and a third a walking problem. A highly infectious virus wouldn't have remained contained within the delegation, he knows that much. And if many people had fallen ill, he says, he would have heard about it. He also said the climate at the resort was a "hostile one" to viruses.

And on the day after George W. Bush had his chicken broth, he was apparently already feeling much better. Steffen Duckhorn met the president, who was in what Duckhorn describes as good spirits, in the courtyard. Bush shook his hand and praised the cook for his meals. "Hey man, good food," Duckhorn recalls him saying.

Euroblogging Plus

The last month was pretty busy. Among other things, I was focused on launching a new website at future-bnci.org. That website has a research blog where I posted something recently, and will use again. That blog is obviously a professional work blog, focused on details of research, and hence a different stly than this one.

After a really confusing two month period of erratic weather, we seem to now be in spring, and headed solidly toward summer. Last month, I noted that spring had struck the flora of Graz, with green trees and blooming flowers and much healthier-looking grass. It took about a month later to hit the populace. All the restaurants, coffee shops, pubs, and similar businesses busted out their outdoor seating, and Hauptplatz was thriving yesterday, with every seat full of Austrians watching the passing parade. We went out with a former colleague who was back in town for a visit, and it was quite a different scene from just a week ago, which was still rather forlorn and wintry unless you could see plants.

I doubt I will see all that much of it, though, since it's three weeks before a 39 day trip to California. The more work I do now, the less I have to do there. And on that note, off to the lab.
-Brendan

Sun Days

It has been getting warmer in Graz, along with chirping birds and bursting blossoms. To quote a recent editorial in the IHT, "Spring is its own metaphor." Still don't understand exactly what that means, but it sounds nice.

Sun is also forecast for late May and most of June, when I will be in California. Two weeks in San Francisco, and three weeks in San Diego. About one week of each phase of the trip is work, and the rest looks relatively free. Effectively, I had to trade Easter Break for one of the vacation weeks, but that is OK. I traded a week in the Pacific Ocean for a very long weekend when everyone else in traveling, clogging the hotels but leaving the laboratories quite peaceful.

When booking my flight to SFO and back from SAN, I came across an unprecedented option in my airline meal preference options. Preceding the more conventional choices, like "Kosher" or "vegetarian," was "bland:"


Click on this picture and look in the middle of the screen to see the "Bland" option.

No fooling!
This really changed my attitude about airlines. I mean, I thought they were trying to scrimp and save by being insensitive bastards, but this seems really thoughtful of them. They really care about all those overflavored customers. Or perhaps they thought I was a food critic, and we all know how much United wants that third star from Michelin. Indeed, I did complain to them, the last few times, that their meals were so bursting with flavor that I was nearly possessed by happy feet. I mean, we all know Duck a L'Orange should have only a couple tablespoons of FINELY minced shallots, and I thought they overdid it. I spoke to the head chef in the middle of the plane, running Kitchen Stadium there, and he said that I was right, one of the tablespoons had a few extra bits on it, and he and his crew were deeply sorry, and would order all team leaders to instruct their staffs to measure more carefully next time.

My personal culinary efforts have gone well lately, and I decided to go to the huge strip mall on the edge of town, Murpark, to try to find more enchilada sauce. Going to the big strip mall on the edge of town is an American tradition, and Sunday afternoon is a quite reasonable time for it. You don't have to work, and most businesses are open, except govt. offices like the Post Office. So, I boarded the portuentously numbered line 13 and headed to the end of the line.

Sadly, the quirky Germanspeaker obsession with resting on Sundays even overcame the capitalist impulses of a modern strip mall. Murpark was abandoned. One of the most potentially profitable times of the week, and they couldn't even round up a few high school students to take my money and support my cheerful and obedient consumerism. I wondered why they even ran the streetcar out there, since it required a human operator. I took the 13 back to Hauptbanhof. The Post Office was open.