San Jo highlights
I spent last week in San Jose for the annual Ecological Society of America conference. San Jose! Talk about getting the shaft on conference locations! Seriously... Let's list all of the conference destinations I've had as a grad student:
But really, it's nice to have an excuse to go to the Bay Area. It gives me a chance to see my Stanford friends who haven't left the area. I used to go back all the time, but now that 100 miles just seems very far to drive...
And though San Jose isn't very exciting, it turned out to be a very eventful week after all. Here are some of the highlights:
An extra challenge. To give my trip more of a challenge and the feel of a reality tv show, I lost my ATM card the Friday before the conference. Ok, it's not exactly lost. I know exactly where I left it. In the ATM machine... Yeah... I've been really out of it lately, what with all the Mitzi trauma and all.
Without an ATM card, I had a grand total of $30 in cash to get by on. This wouldn't have been a problem if I were at home in Davis. I probably could go a month here without using $30 cash. In San Jose, however, it was substantially more difficult. (And sure, though my bank says they'll do everything they can to help out while I wait for my new card to arrive, I somehow doubt it. Seeing as the conference was 8-6 every day, dominating banking hours, I had no recourse to "everything they can do".)
I found a great parking lot only a block away from the convention center that only cost $5 for all-day parking. Unfortunately, the machine only took cash. In contrast, the nearby convention center garage, which presumably took credit cards, cost $18 a day. I think the choice is pretty clear! But five days at $5 a day laid claim to pretty much all of my cash. Add to that the $8 I'd need for bridge fare for two trips back to Davis (why two? just wait!) and I'm beyond bankrupt. And then factor in that they weren't feeding us since the conference was so huge... I got the cheapest lunch I could find at the convention center on Monday, which turned out to be a $7 hot dog. Yeegods! That was cash-only too, of course. Every other day I stopped by a grocery store near my hotel on my way to the convention center to scrounge up something for lunch since I could use my credit card there. I kept trying various strategies to get cash out of the grocery store too. Eventually I succeeded. On Thursday they let me get $25 cash-back (the maximum) with a check. It was touch-and-go for a moment since my checks were out of town, but fortunately it worked and I got enough money for the last day's parking and to get me back to Davis. Phwew!
Marauder. The other good thing about the conference being just in San Jose is that it let me drive home to Davis to visit Mitzi in the hospital. I decided to go home on Tuesday evening so that she wouldn't have to go more than 2 days without seeing me. I planned on going back to San Jose that same evening so that I wouldn't have to get up extra early Wednesday morning to drive back, but I decided to wait and decide for real that night after seeing how tired I was. Since I wanted the option of staying at home if it seemed unsafe to drive another 100 miles, I brought my luggage with me to the conference. This had unexpected consequences...
I got back to my hotel at 11:30 Tuesday night, after having left it at 7:15 that morning to go to the conference and then straight to the hospital to visit Mitzi. Everything in my room seemed normal, except there was a wet towel on the floor of the bathroom and another one in the sink. I was a little weirded out, so I set the deadbolt. However, since there were no other signs of anything unusual, I assumed there must have been a flood and housekeeping had forgotten to finish cleaning up the towels they'd mopped it up with.
I was wrong. At 1:15 I was awoken by someone trying to open the door to my room with a key. I'm so glad I'd set the deadbolt! My hotel had assigned my room to someone else! I shouted out the door that it was my room and he went away, naturally to return 5 minutes later with management. I shouted for them to go away. They did. But it took me quite a while to go back to sleep as I was quite riled up and kept rehearsing angry things to say in the morning... How obnoxious! I wasn't going to get enough sleep that night (that week!) as it was; I definitely did not need to lose that extra hour because of my hotel double booking! I discussed the matter with the front desk when I went down for breakfast at 6:30 (too early!). I pointed out that my reservation was for 4 nights, that this had been confirmed to me when I checked in, that I had only been there for 1 night when they decided to give my room away... The clerk was very apologetic, though I think he really could have offered me remuneration of some sort. Apparently housekeeping and the clerks on duty Tuesday morning had been confused by my lack of luggage and decided to check me out. Um.... Ok.... If I'd intended to check out I would have checked out! Or at least left my key on the desk. I had done none of these things. I explained that I had various reasons for keeping my luggage with me and that now it definitely seemed like the safest thing to do since they seemed to like giving keys to my room to just anybody.
Great.
Interpretive dancing. The last highlight happened during my talk. Unfortunately, my presentation was scheduled for the last day of a very long week of a very large conference. As a result, absolutely nobody stuck around to attend it. Too bad, but at least that meant there weren't many people to witness my shame.
What shame?
I had been very good all week at staying glued to my cell phone. I needed to make sure that the veterinarians could reach me in case anything happened with Mitzi. Of course, I didn't want to be disruptive, so I set it on vibrate. As it turns out, vibrate can be much more disruptive than quacking.
I had meant to take my phone out of my pocket for my talk, but completely forgot those intentions during my general pre-talk anxiety. So wouldn't you know it that someone called me right as I was giving my talk. This didn't have to be bad since it was on vibrate. Nobody needed to know but me, right? Riiiiight... It's too bad that I've never gotten used to my phone vibrating in my pocket. At least it doesn't make me scream anymore, but I still jump every time it happens. So I interrupted my own talk with a very athletic leap and, "oh my god! my phone!"
And, of course, it wasn't even the veterinarian. It was Ed, wanting to coordinate for lunch. (I found this out later. I didn't answer the call or check the caller ID in the middle of my presentation.) Way to go, Ed!
Other than that, the talk went very well.
- Fort Lauderdale! (ok, that isn't so bad. But it was made very bad by me listening to my advisor and just going for one day...)
- Denver! (also not bad. And I got to see Colleenie!)
- Oakland!
- Sacramento!
- Pasadena! (day trips to Pasadena are almost as bad as day trips to Florida!)
- San Jose!
- and coming up in October, Oakland! (again)
But really, it's nice to have an excuse to go to the Bay Area. It gives me a chance to see my Stanford friends who haven't left the area. I used to go back all the time, but now that 100 miles just seems very far to drive...
And though San Jose isn't very exciting, it turned out to be a very eventful week after all. Here are some of the highlights:
An extra challenge. To give my trip more of a challenge and the feel of a reality tv show, I lost my ATM card the Friday before the conference. Ok, it's not exactly lost. I know exactly where I left it. In the ATM machine... Yeah... I've been really out of it lately, what with all the Mitzi trauma and all.
Without an ATM card, I had a grand total of $30 in cash to get by on. This wouldn't have been a problem if I were at home in Davis. I probably could go a month here without using $30 cash. In San Jose, however, it was substantially more difficult. (And sure, though my bank says they'll do everything they can to help out while I wait for my new card to arrive, I somehow doubt it. Seeing as the conference was 8-6 every day, dominating banking hours, I had no recourse to "everything they can do".)
I found a great parking lot only a block away from the convention center that only cost $5 for all-day parking. Unfortunately, the machine only took cash. In contrast, the nearby convention center garage, which presumably took credit cards, cost $18 a day. I think the choice is pretty clear! But five days at $5 a day laid claim to pretty much all of my cash. Add to that the $8 I'd need for bridge fare for two trips back to Davis (why two? just wait!) and I'm beyond bankrupt. And then factor in that they weren't feeding us since the conference was so huge... I got the cheapest lunch I could find at the convention center on Monday, which turned out to be a $7 hot dog. Yeegods! That was cash-only too, of course. Every other day I stopped by a grocery store near my hotel on my way to the convention center to scrounge up something for lunch since I could use my credit card there. I kept trying various strategies to get cash out of the grocery store too. Eventually I succeeded. On Thursday they let me get $25 cash-back (the maximum) with a check. It was touch-and-go for a moment since my checks were out of town, but fortunately it worked and I got enough money for the last day's parking and to get me back to Davis. Phwew!
Marauder. The other good thing about the conference being just in San Jose is that it let me drive home to Davis to visit Mitzi in the hospital. I decided to go home on Tuesday evening so that she wouldn't have to go more than 2 days without seeing me. I planned on going back to San Jose that same evening so that I wouldn't have to get up extra early Wednesday morning to drive back, but I decided to wait and decide for real that night after seeing how tired I was. Since I wanted the option of staying at home if it seemed unsafe to drive another 100 miles, I brought my luggage with me to the conference. This had unexpected consequences...
I got back to my hotel at 11:30 Tuesday night, after having left it at 7:15 that morning to go to the conference and then straight to the hospital to visit Mitzi. Everything in my room seemed normal, except there was a wet towel on the floor of the bathroom and another one in the sink. I was a little weirded out, so I set the deadbolt. However, since there were no other signs of anything unusual, I assumed there must have been a flood and housekeeping had forgotten to finish cleaning up the towels they'd mopped it up with.
I was wrong. At 1:15 I was awoken by someone trying to open the door to my room with a key. I'm so glad I'd set the deadbolt! My hotel had assigned my room to someone else! I shouted out the door that it was my room and he went away, naturally to return 5 minutes later with management. I shouted for them to go away. They did. But it took me quite a while to go back to sleep as I was quite riled up and kept rehearsing angry things to say in the morning... How obnoxious! I wasn't going to get enough sleep that night (that week!) as it was; I definitely did not need to lose that extra hour because of my hotel double booking! I discussed the matter with the front desk when I went down for breakfast at 6:30 (too early!). I pointed out that my reservation was for 4 nights, that this had been confirmed to me when I checked in, that I had only been there for 1 night when they decided to give my room away... The clerk was very apologetic, though I think he really could have offered me remuneration of some sort. Apparently housekeeping and the clerks on duty Tuesday morning had been confused by my lack of luggage and decided to check me out. Um.... Ok.... If I'd intended to check out I would have checked out! Or at least left my key on the desk. I had done none of these things. I explained that I had various reasons for keeping my luggage with me and that now it definitely seemed like the safest thing to do since they seemed to like giving keys to my room to just anybody.
Great.
Interpretive dancing. The last highlight happened during my talk. Unfortunately, my presentation was scheduled for the last day of a very long week of a very large conference. As a result, absolutely nobody stuck around to attend it. Too bad, but at least that meant there weren't many people to witness my shame.
What shame?
I had been very good all week at staying glued to my cell phone. I needed to make sure that the veterinarians could reach me in case anything happened with Mitzi. Of course, I didn't want to be disruptive, so I set it on vibrate. As it turns out, vibrate can be much more disruptive than quacking.
I had meant to take my phone out of my pocket for my talk, but completely forgot those intentions during my general pre-talk anxiety. So wouldn't you know it that someone called me right as I was giving my talk. This didn't have to be bad since it was on vibrate. Nobody needed to know but me, right? Riiiiight... It's too bad that I've never gotten used to my phone vibrating in my pocket. At least it doesn't make me scream anymore, but I still jump every time it happens. So I interrupted my own talk with a very athletic leap and, "oh my god! my phone!"
And, of course, it wasn't even the veterinarian. It was Ed, wanting to coordinate for lunch. (I found this out later. I didn't answer the call or check the caller ID in the middle of my presentation.) Way to go, Ed!
Other than that, the talk went very well.
posted by Meg at
2:05 PM
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