False advertising and a death wish

Here you are! As promised, the details of my trip to Florida.

Things were good, uneventful. I got up super early (4:45) to go to the airport on Wednesday. Neither of my flights were delayed, I did not miss my connection. I was a little leary of the layover in Houston, but this visit to the Bush airport, though it involved speed walking across half the state (the airport's that big), did not suffer from trauma like my last trip to Houston did...

So I got to Fort Lauderdale with no mishaps. I easily found the shuttle to take me to the resort housing the conference. We drove past the international fishing hall of fame and museum! Gosh, everything must have a hall of fame =). At the hotel, I uploaded my presentation onto my sesson's laptop, and everything was all set! So I took a taxi (my first taxi all by myself! and probably only the 2nd or 3rd I've ever ridden in) to the hotel where I was staying and tried to get fed (I'd only had one meal all day, and that was icky airplane food). I ended up having to order a pizza. The pizza place was nice. They ignored the $10 minimum order for delivery for me, because I definitely did not need $10 worth of food for just one meal. I practiced my presentation again, finished the book I was reading, and dozed off for a while. Then my roommate got in. She was really nice. She actually didn't want me to pay for my half of the room! (it didn't make much of a difference for her since her job was reimbursing her. Of course, I'd be reimbursed too, but hey, less hassle now). She had brought 2 stuffed animals with her. I was so happy to see them, since John made fun of me for bringing Kermit along. Of course I brought Kermit with me! This was a very scary trip! I definitely needed my Kermit. Also, it was an important trip for him. Fort Lauderdale is right next to the Everglades, which is where Kermit is from, according to The Muppet Movie. So it was a good opportunity to get near his roots, if not actually return to them.

On Thursday we got up early (6, though a resounding thunderclap awoke us at 5:45) to get ready to go to the meeting. Hal, one of my favorite professors from Stanford and a god in Invasion Biology, said hi to me. yay! There was a session of 3 speakers at the beginning that was kind of dull. Then (10:00) it was time to split up for presentations. Mine wasn't until 11:30, but I figured I'd go to the room my session was in and stay put, to minimize trouble. It probably wasn't the most interesting set of talks to sit through (mainly management oriented), but there were a couple interesting ones. I was so keyed up during the talk before mine. I started to feel a little queasy too. Towards the end people started flowing into the room. It had probably 220 chairs or so, and probably was 2/3 to 3/4 full by the time my talk began. I think they were lured there by false advertising. My name had never been added to the program, so they probably thought they were going to be treated to Susan talking. Nope. Just little Meg.

My talk went amazingly well. I actually didn't tremble throughout it like I expected to! And nobody asked me to speak up! Surprisingly, I calmed down during the first slide, and cruised for the rest of the talk. To be close to the laptop, and out of the way of the projector, I stood on a dais to give the talk. But I kept having to leap off of it to run over to the other side of the screen to point things out. Afterwards, someone commented that that's why I was wearing sneakers =). Actually, I was wearing sneakers because there was no way I was going to bring more than one pair of shoes with me, and no way that I was going to wear uncomfortable shoes. My talk was safely within the time limit, and when I finished, the moderator actually said that I did a great job covering a huge amount of information! She hadn't said anything after any of the other talks. There was time for a couple questions afterwards, and while I'm not sure I answered them, people seemed happy enough, and I didn't flounder for an answer. Afterwards people kept hunting me down to ask more questions. Most of them seemed to have become interested in remote sensing (whether previously or by my talk, I don't know), and wanted my opinion about its feasibility in their system. That's right! They were soliciting my advice!

A guy I know from Davis had come to see my talk, so I made him hang out with me during lunch. I didn't know hardly anyone there, so I was feeling very lonely in the morning. Crowds of strangers are very isolating. After lunch I went to half of a session about the genetics of invasions. This one was more interesting and much more academic than my session in the morning had been.

Then it was time to scoot to the airport. Both of the flights back went as scheduled. The last flight from Houston to Sacramento was one of the most miserable times I've ever experienced, however. I was so exhausted, and I can't sleep on planes, not for lack of trying. Seriously, I would have chosen almost anything, including possibly even a quick death, over those 4 hours on a plane. I was so, so happy when we flew over Lake Tahoe, since that indicated we were over California and would land within half an hour or so.

Promise you'll kill me if I ever plan to take another day trip to Florida.