Are you the gopher? (AIHce - Day +3)

last post read: ...second is David Michaels, author of Doubt Is Their Product. Damn, wish I had chosen his book to bring. Would it be toooo geeky to ask the Secretary of OSHA to autograph his book? Guess I'll never know.

Well, I do.

I'm standing in front of my poster, waiting for someone to ask me something about the fruit of the last 4 months of my life. Lo & behold, Dr. Michaels
(Hi, Dr. Michaels! I hope your trip home was nice.)
is chatting with the poster author next to me. As he wanders by, like Brownian motion, I take the opportunity and introduce myself, telling him that I am enjoying his book. It was something like:

Elizabeth: I'm enjoying your book.

Dr. M: something noncommittally bland, like 'thank you'.

Elizabeth: I hadn't realized you were the same person as the author. I wish I had brought it with me. Even if it would be soooooo geeky to ask the Director of OSHA to autograph his book.

At least he laughed. However, he then looked behind me at my poster. I had the microscopic terror that he was going to ask me something about it that I couldn't answer. He did ask, but it had nothing to do with differential mobility analyzers.

Dr. M: are you the gopher?

Elizabeth: smile, wave my hand nonchalantly at the U of M logo on my poster, and state, "Yes, I'm the only poster from the University of Minnesota this year."

Dr. M: no, not the poster. The blog.

huh?

Dr. M: the gopher blog?

uhhhhh

Elizabeth: yes, I have a blog, I guess I must be that gopher.


Apparently, like the fellow from DuPont who commented on my post about Teflon, Dr. Michaels has someone who regularly checks what people are saying about him. Needless to say, I promptly wondered what in the world I had written about him & hoped it was spelled right and wasn't professionally too embarrassing.


The rest of the day at the conference was ok. I went to the 'interesting investigations' hosted by US-OSHA. I was struck by how much an industrial hygienist needs to rely on her intuition. One audit was from a plating operation, where a maintenance worker - who wasn't considered to be a 'worker on the line' - had the highest exposure. He was included for the employee sampling only because the inspector thought 'oh, let's include him, too, it might be interesting to compare him to the other group'.

If you're in downtown Denver & need to eat:

Los Cabos, about 2 blocks NW from the Convention Center has really good Peruvian food. Fantastic citrusy cold fish salad and some melt-in-your-mouth beef dish.

Wild Bangkok has good Thai; I really wish I could remember the name of what I ate, because it was one of the few times I have taken so long to eat because I couldn't bring myself to rush through such good food. I'll have to ask the other fellow who ordered it as a favorite dish.

AIHce: Day -1

Still here in sunny, warm Denver.

• I walked at least 4 miles today. Guaranteed more than 2, since I walked to the end of the mile-long pseudo-pedestrian zone & back.
• My poster is hanging up in public.
• P from 3M walked into the brewery - where the student social was - and, after saying hello, my next sentence was
  "Hey, P, I need a job"
  P: "Sure, I've got two"
  Shock & awe: hot damn!
  P: "They're in Indianapolis & [some city]"
  Me: where is that?
  P: South Dakota
  sigh ...
• The reason you network at things like this is so you can call them and ask them to find the bag you left at the brewery & give it to someone heading back to your hotel.

I miss my husband.
I miss my children.

Tomorrow the conference gets into full swing. I've decided that I'm going to attend every single meeting/class that is involved in employment. Mock interviews, resume critiques, how to interview effectively.

Of course, I also plan to attend two of the big talks: First the president of UMW and second is David Michaels, author of Doubt Is Their Product. Damn, wish I had chosen his book to bring. Would it be toooo geeky to ask the Secretary of OSHA to autograph his book? Guess I'll never know.
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AIHce, Day -2

Items from Denver

• The more tan you get, the less natural your artificial blonde hair looks
• If you want to wear 2" spike heels ... you should first learn to walk in them
• It is possible for the ambient temperature to plummet 8-10F in 2 seconds with a single gust of wind
  
• A 3x3" piece of bread pudding with raisins should have more than 6 raisins. Although, since it was $6, perhaps it was being sold by the raisin.
  
• It is flat here
• Those crop circle looking things are irrigation circles
• You can't possibly look that much like Robert Downey, Jr. by accident
• Pedestrian zones should not have buses on them
• The beer at Rock Bottom brewery on 16th St. Mall is truly unimpressive. For $4.62/pt, I guess that's not so bad.
  

Items from Mpls

• When the entire purpose of going to a conference - and the only reason someone else is paying for it - is to give a poster session, it behooves one to actually bring the poster to the airport.
• When Southwest Airlines tells you that you can't have anything on your lap during take-off, they are serious about it.
• Southwest Airlines has the most efficient - bar none - boarding I've experienced in the past 20 years.
  

just another day

On April 16th I wrote:
I'm sitting in my lab again. I'm on the 3rd set of data for the week - running a bit behind. One of the other students needs my equipment next week. This is rather beneficial for me. I have a pile of data and haven't really had a chance to sit down and analyze it. What does it look like? Am I getting the "right" (read: expected) values? Are the graphs going to be the odd-ball looking things I got with the first part of the experiments?

I need to make a plan to get The Rest of The Data after I get the equipment back.

I'm waiting to hear from the IH conference organizers. I submitted an abstract for a poster; if it gets accepted, I'll be going to the conference. I'm not sure, but it will hopefully get subsidized from one of the department's grants. Well, that means that I need to have the data completely collected and analyzed and put into a poster. Which isn't going to happen the night before the conference.

On May 4th, I am writing:
I'm sitting in my lab again. I'm still trying to get my experiment working. No clue what happened ... but there's no joy in Mudville tonight (or yesterday; or Friday).

Too many particles. Let's check the laboratory room air to see what we have. Wow - look! The room air has fewer particles than my experiment. Which should have none.

I heard from the IH conference organizers. My abstract got accepted. I'm getting subsidized by my program, have the reservations & am looking to see if any other (female) IH needs a place to stay, since I'm willing to share the hotel room that I'm not paying for.

I still, however, need to have the data completely collected and analyzed and put into a poster. Which isn't going to happen the night before the conference. Nor is it going to happen tonight.

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