One day

Back in the spring, I began putting my summer together, and perceived that I could just barely stitch together my plans, but that each thing was backed up right against another. So I made a point of adding one day between each trip: I had one day when I got back from Michigan and today is my one day between 4VA and STX. I'm now very glad I did that.

I had a great time in Virgina. It was a lot of driving, but the weather was nice and I had a nice, fresh rental car to drive. I wouldn't really want to own a Hyundai Sonata, but it was peppy and had a smooth ride -- and had a great sound system. (Although it claimed I could plug my iPod in via USB, that didn't work (with either my iphone or ipod), so I had to use the aux sound input. Still, good tunes -- very loud -- the whole way).

I left very early on Sunday morning to ensure I would arrive before the reception. I arrived with enough time to get checked in, rest for a bit, and get cleaned up before meeting everyone. My host, Joy Hughes, made sure I felt welcome -- indeed everyone did -- and I felt at home the whole time. (Special thanks to Dr. Beach whom I particularly enjoyed meeting.)

The conference was held at James Madison University in their brand new Bioscience building. Wow. It was beautiful and seemed well thought out. They were still working out some of the bugs with the projection system, however, and several presenters had difficulty making their slides work with the system. All in all, however, the earlier presentations went well and were well received. (Although several people commented privately to me that it was always tedious having people read their own slides to us.)

My talk was scheduled for 3:15 on Monday afternoon -- the doldrums. I was a bit worried that everyone would be asleep, but I had a plan. Before my talk, there was a break and while people were out of the room, I blanked the projectors and turned up the lights. When everyone came back in, they looked at the blank screens and looked wonderingly at me.

"I hope no-one will mind that I chose not to use PowerPoint," I said.

There was a raucous cheer from the audience. And that started the talk off on a good foot. I had spent a fair amount of time preparing my remarks and had generated a list with short prompts about each paragraph I wanted to speak about that I put on my tablet and used to keep myself on track. I missed a few minor points, but added a few as I went along. I began to run short on time, but was encouraged to just keep going. I cut the bit about Richard Stallman, but otherwise did the whole talk. At the end, everyone seemed pleased and I felt like the talk had gone over pretty well.

At the reception, someone asked about support for higher ed in Massachusetts and I pointed out that, like there, it seemed there was plenty of money to build new buildings, but that support for hiring new tenure-system faculty -- and paying them better -- was in short supply, although I did give the state -- and the Governor -- credit for funding our recent contracts, which provided raises on June 30 and then on July 1.

"We haven't had raises in four years," he said.

"It sounds to me like you need a union," I said.

"You in the south, boy!" he said wistfully. "Them's fightin' words down here."

After a delightful banquet of seared duck breast, I slept deeply, hopped in my car, and drove back to Amherst. Today, I have one, blessed day to get turned around, and then tomorrow at 6am, Daniel and I will start winging our way to the islands and on Friday, I hope to be on the beach blogging about another beautiful day in paradise.