Champions!

Maybe I'll actually get to see some games on tv next season!!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-17892570

Florida Fun

I spent 4 days in Florida for the 30th AMS hurricane and tropical meteorology conference last week. The conference was at the Sawgrass Marriot, in Ponte Vedra just outside of Jacksonville (i.e. the northeast of Florida close to Georgia). It is the golf course they use for the Players Championship for those that are into golf (not me, I didn't even see the golf course).

Anyway, aside from a slight detour on the trip down it was a great conference workwise and socialwise! I got to see a lot of friends from Texas and Colorado, some of which I hadn't seen since I left Colorado in 2007. It was awesome to hang out with everyone - and those Pina Colodas really were good!



View from my room



Most of the week was spent sitting in conference rooms and talking about science. I'm not going to talk about work here, but I'm pretty sure my talk went well and I spoke to a lot of great people. Anyway, even though we were only a few blocks from the beach I only managed to go down to the private beach club (part of the hotel) on my final evening. We walked down the beach and had some food. On our walk I noticed what I thought was either a jellyfish or a bit of plastic (it was all dried up). I poked at it with my shoe a bit and then moved on. Then I saw a couple more that weren't as dried up and were more brightly coloured. I still didn't touch them of course - I was taught well! Anyway, when I got home I looked them up in one of Matt's field guides. Turns out they were Portuguese Man-O-Wars!! For those that don't know, they are highly toxic jellyfish and can really give you bad burns. Glad I didn't touch them :-)

Beach

On the way home I flew through Washington D.C. I only had 38 minutes to make my flight to Albany so I was a little stressed but as we were taxiing to the terminal I noticed something out of my window. It was the space shuttle still on the back of the NASA 747 that had just transported it from Kennedy Space Center to D.C. to be an exhibit at the air and space museum. It was really amazing to see it just sitting there at the edge of the taxiways/runways. It would probably be even more crazy to see it being transported on the roads to the museum. Anyway, we got up pretty close on my second flight as we went to the runway. Definitely an unexpected perk of the trip.

Space shuttle

Despite the fun trip, it's always nice to come back home!

Ivy League

My first trip to Connecticut and my first Ivy league experience at Yale! I was invited to give a seminar in the atmo and climate at Yale by an old Worcester Sixth Form College and Worcester Swim Club alum who is currently working there - thanks Andy!

I drove down on Thursday morning (it's less than 3 hours away) through the beautiful Berkshires. I really wish I had stopped and taken some pictures but hopefully I'll get to go back sometime soon. After arriving, having lunch and doing sciency things like meeting with various people and giving a seminar (which went well I think) I took a walk through campus and had "New Haven" style pizza for dinner. This included pizza with mash potato as a topping. It wasn't bad actually, but it pretty much tasted exactly what you would think mash potato on top of pizza would taste like!

I didn't take all that many pictures of campus but here are a few highlights. Certainly a lot nicer than any other campus' that I've been at in the US! Here is the rare book library. The windows are marble so that the books don't get damaged.


Rare book library

This is the main library. It kinda looks like a big church and even has an alter like structure and paintings at one end. I was told that some scenes from the newest Indiana Jones movie were filmed here - Indie riding a motor bike through a library? - which I'm sure is true I just have zero recollections of it from the movie!


Library



Yale Law School

 Shhh... don't tell anyone, secret society building... no windows.



Secret Society Building!

 I can certainly see why people want to go to schools like Yale, assuming the other Ivy league schools have a similar feel. Even the new buildings are made to look like older buildings, not like the concrete campus' I've been working at! I drove back the next day although I took the quicker interstate way which was faster but not as pretty.

Check Connecticut off the list!

Sorry I didn't write a whole lot, my upstairs neighbours are stomping around like elephants and it's driving me crazy. I hope we don't sound like that to our downstairs neighbours!

I'm on my way to the AMS tropical conference in Jacksonville, Florida today. It would appear that my first flight to Newark was delayed enough that I would miss my connection so they automatically switched my to a different flight through DC. They decided to not actually tell me this though so was some confusion at the airport!!

Lets hope those 35 minutes I have to make my connection are enough.

p.s. All airports should have free wifi. I hate airports that make you pay.