Wayne and Erika Pfeiler

So I'm a bit slow to post this, but that's ok.

The weekend before Labor Day, we took a trip with Michelle and Phil to Carolina Beach State Park, just south of Wilmington, NC. It's about 2.5 hours from Raleigh along I-40. We got to experience the end of I-40, which was interesting... You're driving along and signs say the interstate is about to end, but the road doesn't. You just start to see traffic lights and the road become a four-lane highway.

Anyway, we got to the park and had a little confusion about how to rent a campsite. Erika and I had both separately called the park to get camping info, but we each were told a different story. The CORRECT way to do it is drive into the campgrounds, choose a site with a green numbered tag hanging on the post beside it, and bring that tag to the marina, where you can pay the $15/night fee. For the record, Erika was right, and I wasn't. We pay the fee, buy from firewood, and were probably the last customers before the marina shop closed for the night.

So of course, it's dark by now, and we need to set up the tents. I drive our car close to the campsite and leave the headlights turned on to give a little light. The tents go up, no problem. But it took a while to set up the tents, and I notice the beams from the headlights on the car look a bit more yellow than normal. So I try to start the engine, and sure enough, the battery's too low. Fine, we have jumper cables, we'll worry about it in the morning. We're all pretty tired so we get to sleep pretty early.

The next morning we load up the dogs and drinks and drive a little to the beach. They have lots of pay lots within easy walking distance. So we stop and pay $5 for one lot and walk out. Unfortunately, we should have read the sign first before paying to park, because this part of the beach doesn't allow dogs. Drat! So I talk to a lifeguard and find out there's another beach close by which does allow dogs. We drive over there and unload our stuff. This part of the beach was intended for car and trucks with a high ground clearance and four-wheel-drive. As we walk out there, we see a bunch of cars parked and people basically tailgating at the beach. It's kinda cool.

We get out in the water for a while, and give the dogs a chance to jump around in the water. Annie was at first interested, but I think the waved scared her. Erika carried her out once or twice and Annie just ran/jumped back ashore. I tried snorkling, but the water was way too murky green to see anything, and there were lots of kids surfing and not watching out for anybody else. I tried letting Annie walk up to the water on her own when Erika was wading. Annie got pretty far out (relative to her height) and then a lot of water came in and Annie was suddenly swimming. She seemed to do just fine - we'd never seen her swim before - and she headed back to the shore and proceeded to roll around in the sand.

It was pretty hot, so we didn't stay at the beach too long. We went back to the campsite, got some lunch and rested a while. Later we went on a short hike and saw some cool stuff, including a really big spider. We cooked dinner and stayed up late talking around the campfire.

The next day we cooked breakfast, packed up and headed home. It was a fun trip, but I'd suggest taking it when the weather's a bit cooler. Take a look at the rest of our pictures.

Posted by Wayne at 04:17 PM | Permalink

Wednesday was our last day in Mpls, and luckily, Erika had most of the day off. We walked out to the MN Sculpture Garden ann then to the Walker Art Center. Student admission was just $5, and it was pretty cool. They had tons of photographs from Diane Arbus. I can't say I've heard of her, but the pictures were really good. They look like they were taken in the 1970s, and showed a wide sampling of people from all walks of life. I kept wondering how she got so many people to let her into their houses to take such candid pictures. There was a lot of modern art, some found art, and several video pieces.

There was a cool interactive piece called the Dolphin Oracle, or something like that. It had a projector, showing a cartoon dolphin, and a couple seats with a wireless keyboard. Visitors are asked to type to the dolphin and ask it questions about life. Its answers was sort of like what you get from a fortune cookie, but it was still fun. I read more about it later, and they say the dophin's program adds to its database with each interaction, trying to become "smarter". It asked us a couple questions when it didn't understand what we meant, and after we explained ourselves, the dolphin would respond, "okay, I get it." Definately go talk to the dolphin if you get a chance to visit the museum.

After the museum, we walked back to the hotel. This was the hottest day in Mpls while we were up there, and it felt more like what we've been used to in Raleigh. We had already checked out of the hotel and had some time to kill, so we had a drink at the martini bar inside. Erika went to take down her poster and then it was time to go.

We took a taxi to the airport and had some dinner at Chilis in the airport before climbing on the plane back to Raleigh. It was a fun trip, and we had a great time. My impression of Minneapolis in July is great. But I'm not so sure how I'd feel about it in in the middle of winter :)

Posted by Wayne at 03:30 PM | Permalink

Tuesday was rainy, so Erika took the skyway to the convention center, and I hung around the hotel most of the day. We had lunch again at Staccato, this time with Adam. Then we walked around to the big Target store for fun. They have an escalator in the middle of the store made for shopping carts. I've seen one of these before at one of the Target stores in Raleigh, but they're still fun. Later that evening, the ADSA held a reception and fund raising auction at the Hilton. After that, we had some drinks with Erika's advisor and friends at the Hilton, then an English pub called Brits. Brits was fun. They had a big turf grass lawn on the roof made for lawn bowling. This was pretty popular, and they even had special beer pint holders made for people to use while bowling. We stayed for a few drinks and headed back to the hotel.

Posted by Wayne at 03:25 PM | Permalink

Monday Erika had most of the day off from the conference, so we decided to take the light rail train to the Mall of America (MOA). The train ride was great, but confused me a bit. They had a machine to take your $1.50/person fare and spit out a ticket, but there were no gates or turnstiles to make sure you had a ticket. All the train stops were like this. Later I learned from a friend that sometimes they have security people walk through the train and hand out $150 fines if you try to ride without a valid ticket.

We arrived at the MOA and found ourselves in what looks like any other mall in America, just much bigger and with a theme park in the center. The mall is shaped like a boxy donut, mostly three levels high. There's a small 4th floor with a movie theatre and a few other shops. There is also an aquarium or something in the basement, but we didn't see it. We ate at our perennial favorite, Johnny Rockets on the 3rd floor, and watched the rides in the park. There were at least a couple roller coasters and many other rides in the park. It was loosely themed after the Peanuts cartoons.

We walked laps around each level, stopping at stores the looked like fun. Erika was asked to do some market research for a company who got opinions on movie trailers. I was too old to fit into the demographic they wanted, but I got to watch with Erika. They showed her a trailer for a movie called The Killing Floor. They had some horrible LCD monitors at the booth, and the glare from the skylights made it impossible to see most of the trailer. The dialog wasn't much help either, so we really couldn't make much opinion of the movie, much less tell the polling people what we thought should be added or removed to make it better. HAHA. Erika found a couple pairs of fun shoes, and we finished our laps around the mall and took a ride on the ferris wheel in the park.

Next I wanted to check out the IKEA store, which is just across the parking lots from the MOA. I've heard good things (and a few jokes) about IKEA, so I wanted to see what all the hype was about. We were feeling a bit peckish, so we had a quick bite at the cafe in the store before shopping. We both discovered a Ligonberry soda on tap that was pretty good. I liked it mixed with Sierra Mist. Then we grabbed a "Big Yellow Bag", a shopping list, pencil, and tape measure (as instructed) and headed upstairs to the showroom. It was big...very big. It took me about 2 minutes to realize the IKEA appeal. It's crazy cheap. I'm used to the prices at stores like Wal*Mart, Target, and places like that. At those stores, you'll get acceptable-quality particle-board furniture with wood-looking laminates for decent prices, and you'll assemble it yourself. At IKEA, you'll find solid wood furniture, at much better prices, and you'll still assemble it yourself. We quickly learned the shopping list we grabbed earlier was to write down the items we wanted to buy so we could find them later; they keep most of their stock downstairs. Oddly, they had the exact same Whirlpool stainless steel stove and microwave in a few of the showroom kitchens that we just installed in our kitchen earlier this year, except their's said "IKEA, by Whirlpool". We wanted to buy a bunch of stuff, but we knew we couldn't fit much into our luggage, so we just got a few small things. We're definately planning a trip to IKEA in Atlanta or Virginia sometime soon :)

After shopping, we took the train back to Mpls, and walked back to the hotel.

Posted by Wayne at 02:54 PM | Permalink

Sunday Erika's ADSA/ASAS conference started, so I was on my own most of the day. I decided to walk around and explore a bit. I found a cool two-story Target store downtown. I expected the prices to be higher, reflecting the real estate the store was sitting on, but everything cost about as much as I'd expect in Raleigh. Some things were even cheaper. There was a little cafe downstairs with Jones soda and four kinds of Icees on tap.

Next I checked my map and decided to walk over to Loring park. There was a cool dandilion fountain near the entrance to the park, and a flower garden inside. Walking through the park, I came to a big pedestrian bridge that crossed a highway and came down into the MN Sculpture Garden.

This was a treat. I saw a bunch of cool sculptures and a greenhouse conservatory. Apparently, the cherry and spoon sculpture is an unofficial symbol of Minneapolis. If you have time in Mpls, definately check it out. The Walker Art Museum was right beside the sculpture garden, but I planned to go see that with Erika later on. I took a bunch of pictures and walked back to the hotel.

We met up with Adam, another NCSU student at the conference, for dinner and headed to the M&S Grill. The weather was awesome, so we ate on the street-side patio. The food was also great. I discovered Summit, a local beer from St Paul, and I'd recommend it.

Later, we met up with Adam again, and rode with him from the Convention Center to his hotel in St Paul to check out the area. He was staying at the Radisson on the UMN-TC campus. The shuttle driver recommended a club called Sally's Salloon. Their logo has a funny cartoon character that's supposed to be a girl gopher, but looks more like a squirrel. It wasn't too crazy, since it was a Sunday night, but the list of drinks included a 50-ounce "Volcano" for $27 or so that included lots of liquors. They said it had to be shared by two or more people, but none of us were feeling wild enough to try it.

After the bar, the shuttle had quit running, so we had to find a taxi. Trouble was, the streets were relatively taxi-free. So we decided to walk a little bit until we came to one. We walked through the UMN campus and across a cool pedestrian bridge. The bridge had an enclosed center walkway with all sorts of student organizations advertised by little paintings on the lower panels. Soon after the bridge, we found a taxi and rode back to our hotel.

Posted by Wayne at 02:35 PM | Permalink

We got a ride to the airport in Raleigh from Phil early saturday morning. We were flying NWA for the first time, so we didn't really know what to expect with them. When we checked our bags, they didn't print a boarding pass as most airlines usually do, they just told us to check in at the gate. So we walk the half mile or so down to the NWA gate and ask about our seats. The attendant was short with us, and told us to just sit down. That put us in a bad mood, but not for long. A few minutes later, the gate attendant printed the tickets and calls everyone up who doesn't have one yet. He finds and we go sit down again. When I look at the tickets, they say we're in first class. We didn't pay for first-class tickets, so we think maybe there's a mistake. After the families with little kids board the plane, he calls first class people up. I figure, why not try it, and sure enough, the attendant scans the ticket and waves us in. Still a little incredulous, we walk onto the plane, and I asked the flight attendane where my seat was. She checks the ticket and points me to the front row in first class. After we sit down, Erika and I keep thinking that somebody's going to come up and make us move back to the coach seats. But everybody else boards, we don't get bumped, and the plane takes off. Erika's mildly freaking out, thinking somehow she'd paid for a first-class ticket, so she checks her printed receipt about three times. But no, we just got upgraded from coach. Go figure. We both enjoyed a nice breakfast on the flight up and we had plenty of room to stretch out.

When we got to the airport in Minneapolis, the airport announcer's voice instantly let us know we were there. We shared a luggage carosel with a plane coming in from Alaska, and lots of people were bringing boxes and coolers full of fish back with them. That flight had been delayed, and the airport announcer was apologizing for it. At one point he said, "If you think this is bad folks, you should try working here."

We took a taxi into the city and arrived at our hotel, the Millennium. They checked us in, and when we got up to the room, it was the wrong kind, two tiny beds. So we called back down and they found another room, but we had to check our luggage and wait about 2 hours before we could check into the right room. Erika and I took the skyway to the convention center and she checked in with her conference. We had some lunch at a nice little place, Staccato, before checking into our correct room.

Erika desperately wanted to see the Fitzgerald Theatre (from Prarie Home Companion), so we worked out the Metro Transit bus system and found a route to take us to the right place in St Paul. The theatre was closed, but we still took some pictures.

Then we wandered around trying to find the diner in the movie, but couldn't. Apparently, we just walked the wrong way, since it's supposed to be about 2 blocks from the theatre. Instead, we found Rice Park where a wedding was being held, and a bunch of peanuts statues downtown.

We walked a little more and found the Minnesota Museum of Science. This was a big museum, and the offered student rates for admission, so we checked it out. They were hosting the travelling BodyWorlds exhibit. It's very interesting, but not for the squeamish. They also had some cool permanent exhibits that reminded me of the Oak Ridge Museum of Science and Industry, but a bit more fun.

After the museum, we walked along the riverfront until we found our bus stop. There were lots of homeless people on the streets in both cities, but nobody asked us for money, like people in every other city do. This really suprised me, in a good way. We took the bus back to Minneapolis and it was time for dinner, so we ate at The Local. It's a really big Irish pub, complete with a "Kissing Room" in the back. After dinner we were pretty tired, so we called it a day.

Posted by Wayne at 02:09 PM | Permalink

Maybe you've been wondering where we've been lately. The entries have been pretty sparce. In short, we took a trip to Chicago! It was fun. On Friday March 17th, I flew up to Chicago for the annual meeting of the Orthopaedic Research Society (ORS) to present a poster. And since she didn't have too much going on during that weekend, Erika came too. Check out all the pictures we took, there are over 200. I've put several entries below as a daily breakdown of our trip.

Posted by Wayne at 01:10 PM | Permalink

I checked out of the Allerton hotel, rode the bus to the conference and checked my luggage so I could walk around. This was the combined ORS/AAOS day, so the convention center was really hopping. The ORS conference is pretty big, but AAOS really dwarfs it by comparison. One cool thing about AAOS is they have companies come in to put together fancy booths for what's basically a trade show. I walked around and saw new versions of hip and knee implants, lots of operations on video, tons of medical products, full clinical MRI and fluoroscopy machines, and even some decorative doctors' office sculptures for sale. There were a -lot- of companies there, and many of them must have spent a mint to put together their booths and displays. I think things like this are one reason hospital operations are so expensive. Just imagine what it costs to truck an MRI machine all across the country.

I left the conference and walked a few blocks west to Chinatown for lunch. On the way I saw two men working with a small white remote control blimp. I think they may have been using it to take aerial pictures around a construction site.

Chinatown was pretty cool. There were lots of little shops and places to eat. After making a smal loop, I settled on a place to eat and the food and service were great. I picked up a couple things for Erika and headed back to the conference.

Soon it was time to leave, so I picked up my bags and took a taxi to the airport. Midway looks small compared to O'Hare, but both of them are much larger than RDU in Raleigh. So I flew on Southwest airlines, a short note on them. They don't assign specific seats like most airlines do. Instead, they give you a letter code: A,, B or C. Once you get to the gate, make sure to line up next to your letter code. The sooner you print your boarding pass online, the better letter code you get. Code A passengers get to board first, so they can pick out the best seats. Poor folks in C who are travelling together might have to sit apart. Luckily I'd printed my pass soon enough to get an A boarding pass and I grabbed an exit row seat. Overall it was a great trip. Check out Chicago if you ever get a chance.

Posted by Wayne at 12:20 AM | Permalink

Tuesday was windy and bitter cold. The news said the wind chill made it feel like negative 15. I was cold. Apparently it was also a municipal election day, and the media was concerned the cold would reduce voter turn-out. I thought Chicago natives would be used to the weather! I spent most of the day at the ORS conference, then I met up with my professor, Elizabeth Loboa, and her friend Elise for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. When we got there we met with Al Banes and his wife Beth. Dinner was good, but we had a wait a while to get a table. The AAOS conference was starting the next day and so there were orthopaedic surgeons everywhere.

Posted by Wayne at 12:13 AM | Permalink

Monday I spent nearly all day at the ORS conference in meeting sessions. Lots of interesting talks. I had lunch at the Mall from yesterday and I had dinner with prof. Peter Mente and a friend at Gino's Pizzeria. This was an old favorite of the pair when they both lived in Chicago. The pizza was good, lots of sauce. An interesting thing about the restaurant is they ask people to write on the walls. So there were names and phrases written pretty much everywhere people could reach.

Posted by Wayne at 12:08 AM | Permalink

Sunday morning I spent at the ORS conference in the McCormick Place while Erika explored the city a bit. We met up back at the hotel and then crossed Michgan Ave to the "Mall" which was pretty interesting. Since real estate is at such a premium in the city, the designers created an 8-story vertical mall, with a food court on top. We ate at a Japanese fast food place, then I had to head back to the conference.

A little later, Erika caught the bus to the conference and we met up for the poster reception. We ran into a few friends including my old professor from UTK, Mehran Kasra. Then I stood by my poster answering questions for a while and Erika headed to the airport to fly home. After the poster session I took the bus back to the hotel and crashed.

Posted by Wayne at 11:59 PM | Permalink

We got up and checked out of the Best Western - I'd be in a different hotel for the rest of the trip. I had to run over to UIC on the west side of town for a morning biomedical symposium. To get there, I walked a few blocks north and caught the Blue Line subway train, then walked a bit south. While I was in the meetings, Erika got to explore the city a bit. She braved the wind chill on the lake front and took a few pictures like this lighthouse.

Next Erika and I met up for lunch and sight-seeing. We grabbed a quick bite at Potbelly Sandwiches and walked up to the Chicago Public Library. It was beautiful - inside and out. I was very impressed, and Erika loves all libraries.

From the CPL, we walked a few blocks to the Sears Tower. This was something I had to see while in Chicago. It's one of the only things I knew about the city before getting there, and I love tall buildings. It was something like $13 each to wait in line for a long time, then see a 12-minute History Channel film before riding an elevator to the "skydeck" atop the building.

After the Sears Tower, I had to go hang my poster at the McCormick Place convention center. I chose to walk there and it ended up taking a lot longer than I expected. After being asked for money from people on the street two or three times, I got there and hung the poster and registered with the conference. On the way back I took a taxi and we moved our bags to the Allerton Crowne Plaza hotel and checked in. While we were in the room, we saw a parade of police and other city vehicles driving south on Michigan Ave. Later we learned this was part of an anti-war march.

Then we met up with two good friends who'd driven up from Urbana-Champaign to see us. We walked around the city a bit, looking for a good place to eat. Finally we came to Pizzeria Due, just down the street from Pizzeria Uno. Two places so close must be pretty good, right? The food was great. We split a large barbeque chicken deep-dish pizza. Then, after a few drinks we said goodbye to our friends and called it a day.

Posted by Wayne at 05:36 PM | Permalink

We flew into Midway airport around 5pm and took the Orange Line elevated train to the Roosevelt station close to the Best Western hotel we'd stay in that night. After checking in, we walked around to explore a bit and find dinner. The Sears Tower's white antennae were lit with green lights for St Patrick's Day - unfortunately I hadn't taken the camera on the walk. Erika really wanted to get a green beer in celebration of the holiday, but we couldn't find a bar that wasn't scary. Eventually we found Ronny's Original Steakhouse, near the corner of Randolph and Clark, and stopped in for some thick "Chicago Style" pizza. The food was great - I'd recommend it. Tired and getting late, we called it a day.

Posted by Wayne at 05:30 PM | Permalink

SRMUN is the Southern Regional Model United Nations conference. It's held annually in Atlanta, GA the week before Thanksgiving. It's also what we've been up to lately. We stopped to see Diane and Dave Tuesday night before the conference and had a great time with them. Then we headed to the Airport Marriott until Sunday. SRMUN is a conference run for college students mostly by college students. It's a really great way for getting an understanding of how the real UN works, and it's great to better understand negotiation and diplomatic writing.
Personally, I've been involved with model united nations since I was a freshman in highschool, so I've been steeped in it for a long time. Erika dabled a bit in highschool and then more in college. I could go on and on, but I'll spare you. Check out the pictures we took.

Posted by Wayne at 10:52 PM | Permalink

We just posted pictures of Erika's trip to Holland in the photo gallery. Go check them out.

Posted by Wayne at 08:19 PM | Permalink

Yay! Erika flew back to Raleigh this evening. Passing through customs was a hassle, maybe she was selected for a random check or something. Anyway, she's back safely and we'll post pictures she took over there soon.

Posted by Wayne at 10:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I snagged several pictures from Greg and Mary Beth's wedding and reception. You can check them out in the photo gallery.

Posted by Wayne at 12:41 AM | Permalink

Erika's been in the Netherlands since Friday last week for the 8th Lactic Acid Bacteria conference. It's held every 3 years close to Amsterdam. I'm not sure why they don't rotate the location, but the grad students who go seem to usually enjoy it. Erika's advisor is the keynote speaker, so they must think pretty highly of his lab and the work they do. They'll be back this Friday evening. We'll post pictures soon!

So I've been working on stuff around the house to stay busy, lots of little projects that needed to be done. Not too much else is new. We had a BME Dept picnic at Lake Crabtree Park which was fun. They had plenty of good food and we played volleyball until it got too hot. Yup... Pretty exciting stuff.

Posted by Wayne at 11:55 PM | Permalink

We ran back out to Knoxville this weekend for Greg and Mary Beth's wedding. The wedding was at 11am Saturday in Andersonville. It was held on the Lewis' farm in a grassy field. It was a bit warm, but it was nice. They offered guests bottled water and fans with the program printed on the back. The bride and her attendants rode up in a wagon pulled by her father driving a tractor. After the short ceremony, a reception was held at the Museum of Appalachia. They had bbq and food catered by Calhoun's and a bluegrass band playing music and sharing Hee-Haw style jokes. We didn't bring a camera with us, so no pictures to share.

We also got to see Nancy and Alex Detrana's new (3 week old) baby, Elizabeth. It'd been a while since we had seen such a young baby, and we almost forgot how small they start out.

After that, we went downtown with Michelle, Erik, and some of the Wisconsin people to the Downtown Grill & Brewery and Barley's.

On the way back Sunday, we stopped in Newport to meet Erika's family for lunch.

Posted by Wayne at 09:10 PM | Permalink

I've posted our Florida vacation pictures. We spent 5 nights in Fort Walton Beach with Erika's family. Tom's company had an annual managers' meeting there, and was nice enough to let us tag along with them. Thanks! We had a great time and enjoyed the beach, shopping, eating, mini-golf, etc while we were there.

Lucky for us, the resort managers were fast to repair the buildings and grounds after hurrican Dennis struck about 2 weeks before we came down. A few businesses around were still visibly under repair, but most everything looked great.

Posted by Wayne at 05:19 PM | Permalink

This evening I showed off my poster at the PhD student poster competition. The thing was supposed to take one and a half hours, and I talked to people almost non-stop for 2 hours, so hopefully that's a good sign. These things are supposed to be judged by at least 3 professors, who are incognito. So when asked, we're supposed to give a 5 minute talk about our poster and reasearch, and then have 5 minutes of questions. HAH. The judges don't take that very seriously. No one asked me directly to talk about the poster, but several took me up on my offer to explain it. Of those who did, many would stop me half way through, and start critiquing my methodology or something else, so I was rarely able to complete my 5 minute talk. I think some judges just walk by the poster to see if they like it, without even talking with us. Anyway, Ruwan's poster got a great reception, so that's cool. I took some more pictures and even a few of me by my poster. It's starting to feel like we've been here forever, and I'm glad we'll be heading home Sunday, desipite the beautiful hotel and scenery. I also got to hear a talk from Dr. Naderi, who was in charge of NASA's Mars rover missions. So that was pretty cool. That's all for now.

Posted by Wayne at 11:37 PM | Permalink

We trimmed the borders of our posters this morning and now they look pretty sharp. I also realized an important letter 'A' marking a picture on my poster didn't print. This is both annoying and bad, so I thought back to drafting class and I pencil and inked in a nice A that could pass for a machine-printed letter from 6 feet or more. After that, we had to check out of the house and move our stuff to the penthouse we'll be staying in for the rest of the trip. Crazy Boscov's travel agency didn't get us a continuous stay in one place. Anyway, it worked out. While we were waiting the 4 hours between check-out and chek-in, some of us walked along a bike bath that follows Gore Creek. It was pretty, and I took several pictures. I might have to slow down, it's up to 4 pages so far, heh. We also had brunch at one of the resort restaurants. We finally were able to move our stuff in, and we were pleasantly suprised with the "penthouse" condo we'll be staying in. It's 3 BR, 3 BA, about 2000 SF and very nicely furnished. Next we went grocery shopping to get enough food for 6 people over 5 days, total = $313. It should be cheaper than eating at restaurants all the time. There's a wine and cheese reception this evening, and I think we'll be cooking dinner after that.

Posted by Wayne at 07:18 PM | Permalink

I got in to Vail, Colorado tonight with my lab group. It's really pretty, even when there's not snow everywhere. We flew from Raleigh to Philadelphia to Denver and rented a minivan to drive to Vail. We're here for the ASME Summer Bioengineering Conference that runs tomorrow through Sunday. We're staying in a house tonight that someone owns and rents to tourists, tomorrow we'll move our stuff to a "penthouse" condo that we'll stay in fo rthe rest of the trip. The Vail Cascade Resort and Spa didn't have a place available for us the whole times, so we have to hop around a bit. I've uploaded lots of pictures, and I'll add more while I'm here.
Anyway, the trip's been nice so far, and hopefully we'll adjust to the 2-hour time change quickly.

Posted by Wayne at 10:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)