So I just stepped off an airplane and...

¡Hola, amigos! I'm posting this from sunny, tropical…Michigan??!? Wait a minute, I thought January trips were supposed to be to some place with warm beaches and drinks with umbrellas and bikinis, not Detroit. This is more of a lateral shift, a change in longitude, rather than latitude.

There must have been some terrible ConFusion in my travel plans…

Tags

More like this

"And you may find yourself in another part of the world. And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile. And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife. And you may ask yourself, 'Well, how did I get here?'" -Talking Heads What would you do if you woke up…
Overnight and up through this morning, Hurricane Flossie in the Northeast Pacific--having started out as a category 1 storm--rapidly intensified into a weak Category 4 with a well defined eye, as you can see in the infrared image below: I think it's fair to say Flossie's behavior took everyone by…
Today's post is by the fantastic and phenomenal Zen Faulkes. Be sure to check out his blog after you read it! Note; I'm writing this guest post because this week, I'll be a visitor in Christie's current stomping grounds, Hawaii, attending the summer meeting of The Crustacean Society. Christie,…
Not the book (which is good) but the thing. The storms, really. I may have mentioned the pilot whales I saw in San Diego the other day. You've heard about changes in shark distributions, and odd fish being caught in unusual places, etc. This is all about changes in the Pacific as increased global…

As Jimmy Buffet say, "Changes in longitude, changes in onngitude."

Or was it his brother Warren?

Intercratonic shift is just continental drift - that's just plain WRONGITUDE, dude! Of course, when the Yellowstone hotspot comes your way, look for some changes in the vertical dimension - see the January Scientific American article The Mississippi's Curious Origins.
(Alas, you must be a member to view the entire article, so if you want the more technical version, try this: The Mississippi Embayment, North America: a first order continental structure generated by the Cretaceous superplume mantle event. Who says the mid-continent has to be boring?

By Fred Levitan (not verified) on 18 Jan 2007 #permalink

Why would you wanna go somewhere tropical? We have snow and grey skies and wind chills....

Uh, never mind. Now I'm getting depressed. Oh well, in 6 months it'll be warm again.

Anyway, welcome to Michigan!

Any chance we'll get to see a PZ vs. Ed Brayton cage match?

By Kevin Klein (not verified) on 18 Jan 2007 #permalink

welcome to michigan, PZ. i grew up in the city that's hosting the convention, so i assure you that you're in for some boredom if you leave the safety of the hotel. unless you have a fondness of Legoland-style suburban houses or high-class shopping malls (which sounds a bit like an oxymoron, i know).

i couldn't tell you why, but i have a certain devout love for the detroit area. i hope you make it out of there with your wits intact. some people don't...

I can't believe the famous PZ Meyers is currently located within walking distance of my house! I hope you have a pleasant stay in the Winter Water Wonderland.

Oh, and don't complain about the weather. It's a full 12 degrees warmer here than it is in Morris, don't forget the sunscreen!

*mails PZ a drink with an umbrella in it* Sorry, you're outta luck on the beaches. And while I could also mail a bikini I'm not sure on your size. :P

And Detroit can sort of seem tropical, or at least the Detroit airport can. Find the corridor between the "A" gates and the "B" and "C" gates. Go about halfway in, get clear of the moving walkways and just stand there watching is walls.

At some point, you'll get bright colors and tropical birds.

I imagine it's the kind of experience that's even better high, but really that hallway doesn't need anything extra. It's sufficiently trippy already.

(This hallway completely outstrips the freakiness of O'Hare's undulating neon lights corridor)

"i couldn't tell you why, but i have a certain devout love for the detroit area."

-clockwork

as a fellow Michigander, I have to agree, there's nothing else like Michigan, with the fabulous ruins of Detroit, the economy in the toilet;we were forth last economically back in 2005, and that's only because Katrina made mincemeat out of Louisiana and Mississippi.We're still ahead of Washington D.C. though, yay!

In spite of all this, our state has an ennui and culture that is quite quirky and odd in it's own way and no amount of suburbanization or deindustrialization will ever take that away.

By HenryFord (not verified) on 19 Jan 2007 #permalink

Come to East Lansing! Cavort around with Dr. Pennock! Teach a few classes! :)

By Michael Saelim (not verified) on 19 Jan 2007 #permalink

I had so wanted to attend this Con, with PZ *and* Howard Waldrop, one of my favorite writers; I hoped to have my copy of Howard Who? autographed. Circumstances have conspired against me. Guess I'll just have to reread the book snuggled under a warm blanket. Have fun, all ye ConFused.

By Faithful Reader (not verified) on 19 Jan 2007 #permalink