GSA in Portland: Monday

Today was my first day at the 2009 GSA conference in Portland. I arrived yesterday (Sunday) afternoon and didn’t do much at all in terms of technical sessions. My PhD adviser invited a bunch of his former and current students all out to dinner — ended up being about 20 of us. It was a lot of fun — a diverse group of people spanning a couple of decades.

This morning I woke up early-ish and worked on my talk (which is Tues at 3:30pm) for about an hour in my hotel room. I then headed over to the convention center and met with a couple of fellow Patagonian researcher colleagues for about an hour about the various projects going on. I love the big round tables GSA set up between the posters and exhibit hall — they are perfect for sitting around data and talking about it.

After that it was already lunch! A couple of friends and I headed downtown and found a nice Italian restaurant, got some pizzas, and chatted about our careers in science at this point. It’s always nice to learn about what other people are doing.

I then went to a few talks in the Linking Shallow to Deep Crustal Processes in Arc and Collisional Orogens afternoon session. I only stayed for a few talks and then spent time finishing up my talk and got it uploaded to their servers. I still have time to change it I suppose but it’s nice to have it there ready to go.

It’s now nearly 5:30pm and after I finish this free beer I scored I’m going to head back to my hotel to drop my stuff off and then go to an alumni event, which is conveniently in my hotel. Finally, later on I will head downtown to meet up with a bunch of other folks from the geosocialnetworkosphere (see Callan’s post here for the details).

So, that’s the rundown for me so far. More socializing than science at this point. But, hey, that’s what conferences are all about — interacting. Plus, over the years I’ve learned to better pace myself and not go too science-crazy on the first day — sitting in dark rooms thinking can be exhausting. I don’t wanna burn out before I even present my own stuff.