Chiiiiiina

Ok, so I'm here. Heh. I have a lot to say, but I'm posting this
entry during somebody's conference talk so this will be short.

Beijing is a huge, huge city full of huge, huge buildings. There are
some striking similarities between this city and Washington DC -
they're both completely dominated by strong government bureaucracies
and they both have terrible, terrible traffic problems.

The hotel is fine, everybody is friendly, the conference is
interesting, I'm eating well. Now I have to go pay attention.

The Out Of Doors

Nature walks! Here are pictures.

Perspective

I've had a bit of time in which to take deep breaths and relax since yesterday.

To clarify, this conference is a significant opportunity for me education-wise. There are going to be quite a few scientists there on whose work I plan to build, and the opportunity to actually talk with them about their research is something I can't really afford to miss. I'm also sort of informally competing with a few groups out there for some results, and this conference will give me an idea of where those folks are in their efforts. This is all even more significant since this opportunity really only comes along once every two years. Also: networking. This thing is going to be filled with people I'm going to ask for a job in a couple years. They need to know me and think I'm smart. Won't happen over email.

That being said, my last post wasn't a sympathy plea. (Well, maybe it was a little.) I think it makes for a good story, but I'm well aware that yesterday's problems are what my friend Andy Craver calls "first world problems". I'm thankful and also more than a little embarrassed that this is what gets me worked up, and not something like not knowing how I'm going to take care of my sick kid, or whether a band of janjaweed militia members are going to take an interest in my family.

Today on our run Anaïs and I saw a banana slug! I don't know whether you're aware, but UC Santa Cruz is "Home of the Fighting Banana Slugs". This is not a lie. Tomorrow we're both going to San Francisco so that once again, I've got plenty of time to get to the airport before my flight (2:50 pm, Friday afternoon).

Good night, blogo-webs.

It's a good thing I waited that extra 12 hours.

Let me tell you a story. Let me paint a picture for you with words.

I was in San Francisco yesterday morning with my cousin David. I'd stayed with him to make it easier to connect with my morning flight. This is the way I roll: I like to get to the airport hours and hours before my flight leaves so that I don't ever feel any sort of time pressure. Yesterday I got through security with roughly two hours before my flight left, which was great. I was drinking my little espresso and chatting with Anaïs on the phone when, less than an hour before my flight started boarding, I got a page.

Paging Daniel Bowring. Please pick up a white courtesy telephohne.

Switchboard Guy had a message for me "from a guy named Jeff ... Labs? He says do not board." End of message. Was there a number I could call? No. Did they leave a real, actual name? No. So with half an hour left before boarding I called the lab and found out that I was forbidden to get on the plane. Apparently, the trip hadn't ever been approved by the State Department, and everybody was grounded. Ten scientists prevented from going to an extremely important conference that only happens once every other year. Why wasn't our trip approved yet? Not clear. Could we expect approval soon? Nobody would say.

Seeing as how I had already checked in and was LOOKING AT THE PLANE I spent a bit of time trying to figure out exactly how much trouble I'd get in if I pretended I'd never heard the page and just boarded. What ultimately stopped me was the strong possibility that I would've had to reimburse the DOE for any unapproved travel expenses. You know, like my plane ticket and hotel bill. Despite what you may have seen on "MTV Cribs: Grad School Edition" I actually don't have that kind of ca$h mOn33Z.

Oh and by the way, three people from my lab had already left. That's right, the official no-go order came a day after some people were in China, at the conference.

The proximate cause of this whole mess is that the State Department hadn't yet granted trip approval to anybody at JLAB. We'd gotten trip approval all the way up the DOE food chain, but the last step was what's usually a rubber stamp sort of thing from State, and it just hadn't happened yet. I found out late yesterday, though, that the ultimate cause was not State Department bureaucracy issues, but some bizarre internal failing at the lab that I still don't completely understand. I'm just a lowly grad student. Don't nobody ever tell me nuthin.

Here is another thing I don't understand: If the approval process is something that can continue to happen even while you're checking in for a flight, then how is anybody supposed to make any long-term plans? Would it have been more responsible of me to wait for official approval before I made any other travel plans? Presumably I'd book my hotel using the in-flight phone? Overall this is a huge embarrassment for our lab - at least two people aren't going to be able to give their talks - and I think there are going to be some fairly angry phone calls happening in the near future.

And now the part of the story where things don't go terribly wrong at the last minute.

This morning I got a phone call telling me that everything has been sorted out and that I'm scheduled to leave on Friday morning, hence the title of this post. Last night I was entertaining the idea of missing the entire conference so I was feeling a little ... exercised. More prone to say cusses. And while I'm still going to miss the tutorial session, things seem to be moving in the right direction now. Yesterday morning I was mad, but I've since moved through disappointment into a weird post-bureaucratic liminal state in which I'm constantly amazed at the infinite variety and possibility of the universe. And in the intervening time I'm staying with Anaïs in Santa Cruz, so things could certainly be worse.

I guess we (i.e. my research group) can stop writing that letter to the VA senators, asking them to intercede on our behalf and slay some dragons at the State Department. You know, seeing as how it wasn't their fault in the first place! Ha ha ha hoooooooly crap.

We'll try this again on Friday.

Wo yao qu Beijing youyi binguan.

Rollin' with my cousin David in San Francisco. My flight leaves tomorrow from SFO at 11am. I want to say I don't feel ready to go, but I'm not sure what it is I need to feel ready for. I ain't afraid of no scientists.

I may feel less than fantastic about the idea of twelve hours on an airplane.

I went for a run with Anaïs today. In addition to being ten minutes from the beach, her house is a block away from hiking/running trails that lead through a beautiful redwood forest. There was a babbling brook and everything. With that for comparison, I'm likely to burst into tears when I finally make it back to Newport News, VA. The closest thing to a redwood there is this one really old Wendy's.

Bedtime, friends. My next post will be from Beijing.

Happy Birthday Anaïs!

I slogged away yesterday on an informal presentation for my group at the lab. They just wanted me to talk for a little bit about what I'm up to. I worked on this presentation to the exclusion of everything else, including a party (shame on me) and this blog (meh). I did this because today, October 7, is Anaïs's birthday and I wanted to spend it with her instead of her computer.

We wandered around the part of Santa Cruz that borders Monterey Bay and had a fantastic time. There were Sea Lions who perched themselves on the wharf at high tide and then got stranded as the water receded. They sounded like this: HURR HURR HURR. While we sat and ate lunch, I watched a seagull swallow five individually-wrapped pats of butter. Whole.

Fun Chinese Fact:
The Chinese word for problem is composed of the character for hair and the character for illness. That is fantastic.

Tomorrow I'm headed for San Francisco. I'll spend the night with my cousin David and then it's off to China in the morning. Yikes!

No permanent damage.

Now I'm in Santa Cruz. In this picture, can you guess which one of us had just gotten off a twelve-hour, three-part flight?

Here is what happened with the airline, ATA. Although none of the confirmation emails I got from them said so, I had to switch to Southwest at my layover in Chicago. Also they made me check my bag, even though it wasn't too big. Can you guess how those two things are related?

Actually, the layover in Chicago was fine. It was the secret, second layover in LA that caused problems. They didn't feel like telling me this, but between Chicago and San Jose (the closest airport to Santa Cruz) there was a second layover in LA. I didn't have to change planes and we were only there for fifteen minutes, but that was apparently enough time for an overzealous baggage handler to get my suitcase on the luggage carousel at LAX. Southwest got my bag on another LA-to-San Jose flight coming in right behind my own, so I only lost about an hour to that particular problem. Still, I did NOT want to be entertaining thoughts of a luggage-free trip to China.

My overall impression here is that ATA sucks because they seem to enjoy withholding information from their customers. For example, I didn't know about the switch to Southwest until after they'd wrested my bag away from me and put it on the Conveyor of Doom. Also, I feel like they should've said something in their confirmation emails about the LA stopover. Southwest, however, gets five gold stars and a grape scratch n' sniff sticker. Not because they handled my baggage mishap in a quick and professional way (although they did), but because they gave me Handi-Snacks (TM) in-flight. I haven't had that stuff since I was thirteen years old, but let me tell you: the cheese still tastes exactly the same.

I like being in the same town as my girlfriend, you guys.