Went to Clocktower, had a pina colada smoothie and a cinnamon bun, and did some online research on the parental tax issue. Keep forgetting it is too warm inside and too bright outside. *$s wins. Went home still feeling drained, took a nap and woke up questioning whether getting dressed and out to Ellie's lecture was a better idea than staying in bed. Ellie won.
Tried to punch the venue up in the GPS, it was not there. Google maps on my phone found the place, but it did not have the address. I followed the phone's directions - turns out to be very close to Netflix. Wonder why I remembered it as being more downtown SJ?
Found the room no problem, Ellie gave a fascinating talk on Adaptive Optics, "Un-twinkling the stars", which is the work she does at Lick Observatory. The physics is similar to active noise-canceling acoustics but it is applied to flexible mirrors instead of headphone diaphragms. She's a superb presenter, knows her stuff, and the talk flew by quickly. I chuckled at the first line of her last slide - it said the advantages of Adaptive Optics was clear. She said the pun was not intentional. Dr. Ellie is a gamer and sci-fi fan and will be at Worldcon, and she mentioned she was looking for new filkers to listen to, so over on FB I pointed her to Mary Crowell, Kathy Mar and
lemmozine. She would probably also like Tricky Pixie and its individual members, but I suspect she already knows about them. Ditto Vixy & Tony. Both of us have about 4 items per time slot we want to attend. I won't know till I see the size of the rooms whether the con programming folks have scheduled way too many events or if the spaces are so small they had to do it that way. And when does anyone have time to see Reno?Late dinner again. Flying fish roe does not go well with wheat thins. It needs something not-crunchy to sit on. Reheated Chinese BBQ pork was a sufficient main course. Fudgesicle for dessert.
Plans for tomorrow:
Car wash
Coffee w/Janice
