When I set up this blog a few months ago, I vowed to keep it up with frequent posts--my goal was an average of two posts a week. Looking over the blog now, I see I've only written three posts in almost four weeks! It isn't that I don't have anything to write about, but rather that I can't seem to find the time to write. With Adelaida, chemistry, work, rental properties, travel, visitors, cleaning, cooking, laundry, and so much more to keep me busy, taking ten minutes to write a blog post has been hard to justify. For that, I apologize to you, my faithful reader!
One of the things that has kept me so busy for the past month or so has been preparing for the American Chemical Society (ACS) national meeting. The ACS is the nation's largest society for chemists; they hold national meetings twice a year and generally attract 12 000 to 20 000 attendees for each meeting.
Not wanting to leave a three-month-old baby at home for a week, I took Adelaida with me, and my mom met us in Salt Lake City to babysit for Adelaida while I went to the conference. I won't bore you all with the chemistry details, but did have a fabulous time, including two great poster sessions and several discussions with people who were interested in the research I presented ("Computational Insights into Palladium-Hydride Bond Polarization and Molecular Oxygen Insertion").
Highlights of our time in Salt Lake City included:
Dinner on Saturday night with the entire group, at which our waiter Adam serenaded Rick with an impressive rendition of a song that wasn't "Happy Birthday."
Touring Temple Square. The weather wasn't the best (rainy-snowy, cold, and overcast), but the grounds were beautiful and the tour was interesting.
Driving out to Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake, where we tasted the water (yup, it's salty!) and had a close encounter with a group of American bison.
All in all, it was a great trip and made me much more confident that I can successfully travel to Indiana with Adelaida this weekend.