Sunday, October 18, 2009

On Neuroscience (pt1)

Saturday: My day started out a little rough. I had a flight out of Richmond at 7:04 am so I set my alarm for 5:45. Alarm went off, I decided not to shower and go back to sleep for an extra 15 min, apparently I fell asleep while setting my alarm and the next thing I know my girlfriend invdes my sleep with the question "what time is your flight again?" I bolt up and see that it's 6:24. We rush getting dressed and she goes to drive me to the airport. I throw on a heavy sweater, heavy coat, hat and gloves. I get to the ticket check out on 3 hours of sleep, stressed about rushing and overdressed, some old guy in front of me looks back and chuckles "oh you goin to flordia a lulululululul" catching my breath from running I just say no. I get through security and sprint to my gate, B20. The terminal ends and all I see is B16 as the highest gate with no one to be seen any where. I ask somone if there is a B20 and they ask me where I was going, I tell them Chicago and they say yeah they were at B15, so I turn around and see the gate, but no one is there. It was 6:58 so I had "plenty" of time to get on. However apparently they finish boarding 10 min before the flight. I wanted for a united rep to come back and I got schedueled for a 9:30 flight.

Go home, get another hour of sleep, get a shower, get a better start to my morning. Get to the terminal with enough time and get on the plane. Watched venture bros and looked at the program on the flight, fairly uneventful. Dr. Porter told me to call him when I get into Chicago, so when I get off the plane I call him but his phone is off. I try to get online and find the confrence but there's no internet, that's fine. I get down to the metro stop, get a week pass, and decide to call Joe again; only to find out my phone's dead. Now those of you who know me and my phone you know that if it dies I'm basiclly out of a phone for about 24-48 hours. So I'm in O'hare with no phone, no internet, an extremely vauge idea of where the confrence is and no idea at all where my hotel is. I do however see alot of people with poster tubes, so I decide to take a chance and follow them, hopeing atleast one of them will lead me to the confrence. Of course there is work being done on part of the line that I'm on so we all have to get off and get on a bus. I miss the majority of the people I was following getting on the bus so I get on the of the busses that say blue line, no posters. I stay on and one bewildered looking kid gets on with a poster so I figrue I'm ok. When the bus let's off I see 3 people with posters they all go in 3 different directions, so I follow one set of girls and they stop to look at a map, I walk up to them and ask if they're going to the confrence and they say yeah but they're going to their hotel first. So great I'm in chicago, no one to follow, no idea of where I am or where to go. Find my way to a metro station and I'm able to find a map with the metro and major land marks. With some cross referencing with some docs on my laptop I'm able to find where the confrence is being held and get on the metro towards there.

I get there successfully and try to get my badge and stuff, there's express log in places all over and I try to register but my name's not in the database, I know that I am a member, and I know that I'm presenting a poster, so why can't I log in? Turns out in addition to paying to be a memeber and paying to present a poster you have to present to attend as well. Shelled out another $60 and get a badge. I find an outlet and try to charge my phone which involves finding the hyper specific way to let it chrage and letting it charge for 20 min so I can get a min of usage. Twice I get my phone to charge long enough to see the texts I got only to have it cut out in the middle of writing a text or making a call. Whatever. So I'm wondering around the confrence with both my bags, heavy sweater and coat, inside. I'm sure I looked horrible. Sleep deprived, haven't eatten all day, lost, sweaty and smelly. Finally I charge my phone enough and got some numbers. Called Jason and got the hotel and the metro stop and found my way to the hotel.

Long story short: I got into chicago at 10:30 local time, and didn't get to my hotel til 5:00. Great first day.

Today: Went saw some posters, got some Epic Burger really, really good, went to SSPD meeting and had my poster up but didn't talk to anyone. Plus while putting away posters, ripped my pants again. So it looks like I'll be going to HM tomorrow morning to get some new jeans. But overall the confrence has been fun, haven't gotten a chance to really explore the city but I'll try to get some of that in while I'm here. Give me suggestions on places to go!

2 comments:

  1. Go to "hot dougs"! never been, but seen pictures of some of the best hot dogs ever! Bring me back one.

    http://www.hotdougs.com/menu.htm
    3324 North California, Chicago, IL 60618
    (773) 279-9550

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  2. Snack. Just reading this is making my heart beat out of my chest and my anxiety level rise. I'm glad you got there safely and hopefully you get to enjoy Chicago while you're there!
    ps- girlfriend? What? WHY HAVEN'T I SEEN YOU IN LIKE FOUR MONTHS?!

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