A nothing blog about everything

I'm going to Nashville at the end of this week to present some more of my work. It's a poster presentation, so I have to have all of the graphics together and send them over to Kinko's in due time for them to print up a big poster of my work. So I'm drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes and updating the wedding website, catching up on blogs, and browsing through ebay for dresses to wear to the rehearsal dinner and events. And I thought I'd blog about nothing.

Another favorite thing I have about Sweden was that the proper way to greet people in Sweden is to say "Hey!" (but they spell it Hej). Once, when we were walking down the street, this guy asked us for directions. He asked if we spoke English, then he asked how to get (of all places) to the Scandic Opalen -- the very hotel we were staying at. So we told him we were going there and he could walk with us, but he was in a hurry, so he wanted directions, and he walked ahead of us. But at this strange angular intersection, when he should have gone right-ish, he went straight-ish. I called out to him, "Hey!" which would have been kind of rude, but since we were in Sweden, it was totally P.C., and I didn't even realize it until after the fact.

I had such a good time in Gothenburg. Every day, I would say, "WES, I'm so happy!!!" And I was so glad he was there to share it with me. When I went to Montreal, I was by myself, and it just wasn't too much fun. It was just work. This was an awesome vacation, plus the work part of it went incredibly well. I met quite a few people working on the same things as me, and exchanged emails and made some good connections. Plus I got to see some of the leading scientists in my field talk, and bask in all the glory of their brilliance! It was so fun!

And my birthday was a blast. The only thing was I was so sad when they took the fun jump down. Last year, they let us keep it overnight. This year, we weren't so lucky.