Justin and I just got back from a week long conference in Kansas City, MO. Last year it was called FACSS but they changed the name to SciX, short for Scientific Exchange. Last year FACSS was also our first conference to present at and Justin came away with the Innovation Award. Still proud of him for that :) Since the conference was farther away this year I was the only one from my group to go and only two other members of Justin's group went. This was probably the best/funnest conference I've been to. I have to say again how much I love being able to "work" with Justin.
Since the conference was in Kansas City, we had barbeque. A couple of times. My layover in Denver was extended so I had a nice talk with a KC resident who recommended some excellent restaurants. Unfortunately that delay meant I didn't get to the hotel until after 1 am. And I had to get up and volunteer (this is how students get free registration) for the plenary talk at 8 am! Ouch. Back to the topic- this tasty dish was dinner at Gates our first night. I seriously love pulled pork!
Since the conference was in Kansas City, we had barbeque. A couple of times. My layover in Denver was extended so I had a nice talk with a KC resident who recommended some excellent restaurants. Unfortunately that delay meant I didn't get to the hotel until after 1 am. And I had to get up and volunteer (this is how students get free registration) for the plenary talk at 8 am! Ouch. Back to the topic- this tasty dish was dinner at Gates our first night. I seriously love pulled pork!
We had to walk over a mile to the restaurant and on the way back Justin asked if this sign meant "no hula-hooping across the street."
We also went to Arthur Bryant's. A little more expensive but Oh. My. Gosh!
On the afternoon of the second day Justin, Jon and I walked a few blocks over to the WWI museum, the only museum in the country dedicated solely to WWI. I learned a lot, honestly didn't really know why the Great War started. It was unique, pretty, emotional, informative.
There are two Assyrian sphinxes (meaning they have wings) on the patio named Memory and Future. These guys are HUGE!
There is also a gigantic obelisk on the patio.
I mean gigantic.
This building houses pieces of a painting that multiple French painters started at the beginning of the war with important political/military figures. It started out like 40 feet tall and hundreds of feet long. The weird thing is it was forgotten in storage until a rich couple bought it and donated it to the museum. Then another artist was hired to "decorate" this building and he cut the painting apart! There are literally faces of people in the painting cut out and hung on the wall.
This is the view from an observation deck on the top of the obelisk.
That tall building on the right is the Sheraton where we stayed. That
round thing on top is actually a restaurant that rotates 360 degrees
every hour. Pretty cool.
The building in the bottom left is a train station. We actually watched a looong train come in. It made Justin happy.
Kansas City.
This was neat. They had an early edition of Darwin's Origin of Species. I don't really agree but as a scientist this was pretty cool.
Justin and the torpedo.
Despite all the pictures, most of the week we were attending talks and giving our own presentations. I love seeing our names on signs :)
On one of our walks back to the hotel I saw this weird, tube cloud. It was super long. Never seen anything like it before.
And this random castle. This is right outside of downtown and made me miss England. I have to look up what this building is.
One bad thing about KC, when walking around downtown you would randomly be assaulted by strong scents emanating from these:
Pew!
Oh yeah, funny thing we had separate beds. They were only doubles so we really did sleep in our own beds. Weird but kinda nice :)
