The night before the last day of this year's annual SfN meeting marked a first in my 5 year blogging experience: I met a person who actually reads this blog regularly! Mary Petrosko, undegraduate student at Dominican University confessed and proved she actually reads a lot of what I post here. This means I now know 50% of my readership. A memorable evening indeed. Read the abstract of her poster here.
The last day at the meeting itself was even more memorable. My poster session was in the morning and it was a 4h non-stop presentation marathon. A ot of people showed up and some also asked very good questions. People were very enthusiastic, it was awesome! After the poster session, Jonathan Wolpaw came to me and asked me if I was interested in co-hosting a session at a workshop on motor control in Hawaii next year! The topic would be centered around behavior as spontaneous actions vs. responses to stimuli. I told him I'd be delighted to attend such a session if it were on the northpole or the Sahara desert. And Hawaii ain't no cold desert
After the meeting I teamed up with Steve de Belle (UNLV) and David Glanzman (of bullfight/paper writing fame) for a few post-meeting beverages in David's hotel bar. We were enjoying our great wine and cheese, when a few men in expensive suits sat down at a table next to us. We all agreed that one of them must be Kofi Annan. I didn't get a good look at the others, but according to David, they were "oozing political power".
After drinks, we met Michael Stebbins (of Sex, Drugs and DNA fame) for a Chinese dinner, which also was fantastic, especially when the appetizer was a flaming volcano for three. A few beers in the Rocket Bar rounded off the evening, so we went back to Steve's place for a night cap (excellent Portwine!). Thanks, Steve, for a legendary evening! (I'm at his house writing this about an hour before I have to get to the airport for the flight back to Berlin)