Thursday, March 29, 2012

Closing tabs

Last weekend's conference was worthwhile but exhausting.  With regret but fortitude I announce that I have decided that I must attend the national ASECS conference every year as part of my core responsibilities: fortunately the coming three years will be easier to get to as well as probably rather less expensive (Cleveland, colonial Williamsburg and Minneapolis).  Had some great conversations with friends old and new, with older people I consider wise and with current and former students; meal venues included here and here.

The trip back was horrible and took fourteen hours door to door due to various delays; I got slightly lost in the Dallas airport (the SkyTrain shut down, and it's not well marked for pedestrians) and had significant anxiety that I was not going to make even the later flight I'd been rebooked on due to the initial delay, though all was fine in the end.  My bag turned out to have been on the earlier plane, but before I realized that, I spent a discouraged spell watching an increasingly empty carousel go round at LaGuardia: the sensation of relief when I realized my bag was actually in the luggage room is indescribable.

Closing tabs:

Norwegian larp!

How George Takei conquered Facebook.

The history of the O-U-I-J-A board.

The case for sleeping pills?

And last but not least, a highly archeological cake situation....

1 comment:

  1. The Ouija board post is awesome--thanks for sharing.

    Speaking of airport anxiety; when I was in Heathrow in January I learned a valuable lesson: don't try to go backwards at an airport. We got to our gate, which was way at the far end of Terminal 5--we had to take an internal shuttle part of the way--and all that was there was a Starbucks. Which meant crappy tea. So, remembering having seen another cafe a ways back, I dropped my bags with my wife and got on the shuttle heading back that way . . . only that dumps you out in the arrivals area, which meant I had to go all the way back through security. I had just enough time before our flight that it wasn't worth panicking, but not so much that I could be completely comfortable as I waited in line. But I got through--and with enough time left that I was able to at least get the tea, which at least made the stress worthwhile!

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