I'm in Alaska, b*tch

And omg, is it cold.

I'm here for a conference.  A conference that is always held in January.  My only guess as to why is that the hotel costs a lot less in the winter.  That and many people aren't available in the summer due to fieldwork.  But whatever.  

I got here Sunday night and still wasn't done with my presentation that I had to give this morning.  So I spent a couple days holed up in my hotel room ordering room service... 

and working like mad to finish my presentation by Tuesday.  

This is what the sky up here looks like at 9:30 am.

Ah, finally some sun!  I'm not going out there, though.

So then Tuesday I spent most of the day practicing my presentation.  Oh boy, are the first few times you practice a presentation painful!  Then that evening I walked 4 blocks to the poster session.  In those 4 blocks my face went numb.  

Look, Bajabucky is here!

We're going to hang out later.  

So this morning I got up at 6:45 to have time to practice my talk and get downstairs by 8 am for the beginning of my session.  My talk went well but I was a little bit terrified.  The ratio of audience size to my comfort level with the topic was waaay higher than I'm used to.  This meeting has only one talk at a time in a large ballroom.  So there were probably over a hundred people in the room.  And up until, oh, about Monday, I didn't quite understand the subject in all the detail necessary to speak on it.  But I did ok.  Some people even said I did well, and that it was "well organized" and "accessible".  Phew.  

I'm glad that's over with.

Now I'm just hoping I can fly back Friday what with all the snow we've gotten on the home front.  

See?

Mr. Renaissance is keeping me updated on adorable Bubba photos.  Thank goodness. 

Over and out.