Astroprof stuck it out till the bitter end at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle.
Apparently it did not end well. The Convention Center staff took down everbodies' posters at lunch and piled belongings in the lobby.
It was a fun, and exhausting meeting, but I have to say it was not run tightly - sessions were a bit more higgledy-piggledy in content than normal, and parallel schedules had clashing content overlap to a higher extent then normal.
And they put the NASA advisory meeting in a tiny room with no mikes for the panel, while the ballroom was being used by an AGN regular oral session with like 17 people attending.
So I guess I'm not surprised. But hey, at least the hotel didn't catch fire (Rochester '00) and no one tried to mug me (Phoenix '93) and no wars started (Philly '91 - bombing started just before the conference banquet, I had a cheese steak and CNN instead).
Glad I got out early.
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Mike Brown's talk at the end was really good. I'm glad I stuck it out. I agree, though, that some of the scheduling was rather off. And, there seemed to be more than normal room changes and double booked rooms. I really hate wanting to go to two or three very similar things happening at the same time. The committee doing the planning for the next meeting needs to think about that.
Thank you for the con reports. I was at the Planetary Science annual AAS con in Pasadena, a few months back, with Press credentials. Does your Science Blogging get you Press Credentials? Or was it my Caltech affiliation combined with occasional publication in Science, Scientific American, and ummmmm, Omni and Analog that worked for me?
Did they have any iPosters -- posters with iPods chained to the conventional vertical flat layout?
Really, I'm grateful for your coverage of the event.
I was one of the people who had posters up on Wednesday, and the way the room was `cleaned out' was very annoying to say the least. It is still unclear to me what actually happened (since I was out at lunch) when the boot came out. Overall a good meeting (lots of neat stuff presented), but no, it did not end well, and that `event' left a bad taste in my mouth.
I was also less than pleased with the way people were being denied entry (unless they were putting up posters) to the poster hall at 8:00-8:30 on Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday.
Does anyone know what the attendence was? Perhaps the meeting was just `too big'?
I was also less than pleased with the way people were being denied entry (unless they were putting up posters) to the poster hall at 8:00-8:30 on Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday.
Or even if they were putting up posters ... my student stepped out to grab me and bring me in to ask about something on Monday. Neither of us were allowed back in!
Ryan: "You just let me in 10 minutes ago to put up my poster; I stepped out to show him [motion to me] something."
Demon at the gate: "Who's he?"
Me: "His [motion to Ryan] advisor."
Demon at the gate: "No readmittance."
I think she then laughed and ate a kitten, though I might not be remembering all the details exactly right.
Mike Brown's talk at the end was really good.
So they say... I would really like to know what's going out there. Since the discovery of Dysnomia no new results about the large KBOs have been released, which a pity. On the other hand, it's good Mr. Brown doesn't release any speculations based on preliminary results.
Remember Sedna's moon? The object had an anomalously long rotation period, perhaps caused by a large satellite. Well, Hubble images revealed no satellites, which was a "mystery". Until better measurements revealed that Sedna rotates relatively fast. D'oh!