Around the World in Two Hours

The real reason I attended AIChE. Just kidding/not really kidding. After some debate, we were going to go to the Magic Kingdom on our one free day in Orlando, but then found out they were closing early for Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, so we ended up at Epcot instead. It turned out to be a good decision, because the crowds were very manageable, and we were there in the middle of the food and wine festival. No, we did not drink around the world. Which is a thing that people do. 

Instead, we rode all the rides and visited all the countries in the World Showcase before ending the night with fireworks. The last time I was at Epcot was the summer after ninth grade, which was ten years ago. [Ten years. That’s crazy to think about. Also, the current college freshmen were born after 2000. They’re from a different century.] Anyway, Epcot hadn’t changed very much since 2009, which is why I think there’s construction going on there now. Animal Kingdom got blue people land and Hollywood Studios got Star Wars, so it was time to upgrade Epcot, maybe deal with any “outdated cultural depictions.” The entrance was a bit of a mess, but we found our way around eventually.

Spaceship Earth at night

The first place we ended up at was Mission: Space. I’ve been on both versions of the ride and can’t definitively say that I can tell the difference between them, but this time we rode the orange version. Somehow, without any actual training, we successfully landed on Mars. Next, we went on Test Track, which had changed since the last time I rode, though not significantly. The premise of testing a car design remains the same, but the setting was updated? futurized? – think neon lights and OnStar (it’s sponsored by Chevrolet).

Since we didn’t have a map, we then found ourselves circling the World Showcase. We didn’t spend much time in each country, mainly just looked at the architecture and what representative foods were being served. We did watch the animatronic American Adventure show about US history and get funnel cake along the way though. Because #America?

Back in Future World, we made the rounds though the rest of the rides [sadly(?) only missing Journey into Imagination with Figment]. First we walked on to the incredibly popular Living with the Land for a boat ride through some simulated biomes and actual greenhouses showcasing aquaponics, aeroponics, hydroponics, and pumpkins grown into the shape of Mickey’s head. But probably the main attraction in the Land pavilion is Soarin’, formerly Soarin’ Over California, now Soarin’ Around the World. The ride originated at Disneyland in 2001, hence California, and was brought to Epcot with the same film in 2005 before it was replaced by the current movie in 2016. So now, instead of the Golden Gate Bridge, redwoods, Half Dome, and vineyards, you soar over the Matterhorn, Kilimanjaro National Park, the Great Wall of China, and the Taj Mahal. Still a great ride.

We had time before the fireworks for the last two rides at Epcot – The Seas with Nemo and Friends and Spaceship Earth. The Nemo ride is a highly abbreviated based-on-the-movie affair probably most exciting to small children, but you get to ride in a clamobile. Spaceship Earth is inside the giant geodesic dome itself, and goes through scientific/cultural innovation through the years, from writing to the Internets. Thanks to the relatively short lines all night (I don’t think we waited more than fifteen or twenty minutes to get on anything), we rode Soarin’ again before our last event of the night – the fireworks. As part of the renovations, Epcot is transitioning from their fireworks show IllumiNations to something called Harmonious, and is temporarily showing Epcot Forever. I didn’t follow the storyline, if there was one, but there were fireworks. There were kites. We left happy.

Fireworks.  Taken without a tripod or any idea what my camera setting should have been.

Mainly, Epcot was similar to the park I visited ten years ago, except with more touchscreens, which is probably why they’re doing construction on it now. It was fun to be there during the food and wine festival, and even with that going on, the crowds were manageable, and the screeching children few. Like I said, we didn’t wait very long for anything. I think we avoided the one potential wait at Test Track by using the single rider line. We had funnel cake. We saw fireworks. We rode Soarin’ twice. It was a pretty good day.

#AIChEAnnual

I went to a conference and it had its own hashtag. And app. Welcome to the 21st century. I’ve been a ChemE for seven years now, and this was my first time attending the annual meeting of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE – most properly pronounced by spelling out A-I-C-H-E, often pronounced as “achy,” like “achy, breaky heart”). I figured I should at least go once, to experience it. Plus it was held in Orlando, Florida, this year. 

Well, after experiencing AIChE once, I can say that the best way to describe it is crazy. There are thousands of attendees, hundreds of talks and posters, and a couple dozen things going on at any given time. I’m glad I went, but it was five days of controlled madness. You can’t find anything in the program book, because it’s three hundred pages long. You can’t find anything in the app, because it’s horrible. You could search, verbatim, for the title of your talk on polymers, and the app would return talks on drug delivery, oil refining, and microfluidic devices. Even better, the app had the ability to be less helpful the more specific you were. You would search for the start of a talk and get lots of irrelevant results. To help the app out, you would then add more words . . . and get more results.

My coworker and I flew into Orlando on Saturday, in time for the opening festivities on Sunday. We spent the morning recovering from the previous day’s travel, then drove to the conference site in the afternoon. After collecting our name badges, we met up with some other lab members, ran into some Michigan people, and attended the welcome reception for the sake of free food. As a general rule, the bigger the conference, the less free food they’re likely to provide. It’s understandable, because the sheer amount of food required, and making sure everyone gets food, is a massive logistical and monetary undertaking. But as mostly destitute graduate students, at least some snacks would be appreciated.

Part of the conference center.  Poster sessions in the rooms on the left, vendors and attendees in the center, rooms for talks to the right, behind, and ahead left (out of the picture).

On Monday, the conference started in earnest. My labmates gave their talks bright and early, so we were there bright and early. Then lunch was a special event, held offsite with twenty-five years of our advisor’s graduate students. Some of his first students were there, all the way down to his current students. I’ve met former lab members before at info sessions or other conferences, but it was cool to see a bunch (there ended up being about a dozen of us) of them at once. After lunch, it was back to a somewhat random selection of talks and posters, though we did make it to a couple complex fluids talks, before the receptions that night. Most people who attend AIChE will admit that a decent percent of the reason you attend AIChE is to network and meet up with people you know. The first two nights, that’s accomplished by the receptions hosted by many of the larger universities in attendance. Basically, each university sets up in a ballroom or meeting room and gives out food and alcohol for a few hours. If you’re looking for an academic position, this is your time to go hunt down faculty; if you’re not, this is your time to wander around, eat, drink, and run into people you know.

Michigan’s reception (they had really good cake) was Monday night, but we also managed to make stops by MIT, Columbia, and UMass Amherst before calling it a night. Tuesday included more marginally tangentially related talks, plus Cornell’s reception. I saw former professors, classmates, and grad students, and got dessert, so I was pretty satisfied. The rest of the night involved crashing the Johns Hopkins, Stanford, and National University of Singapore receptions.

By Wednesday, we were tired and hungry, but the conference was only half over, and I hadn’t presented yet. We attended a lot of complex fluids talks, some of which were actually relevant to the work our lab does, before leaving at dinner time. On our way back to our lodgings, we stopped by Olive Garden, which ended up being one of the more palatable meals of the trip – i.e. not random appetizers on a plate or Americanized tourist-trap food. I managed to find the blandest item on the menu, pasta in a lemon herb sauce with grilled chicken. No cheese, no tomato sauce, nothing fried, and it even included vegetables.

Late afternoon outside the conference center

Finally, I presented on Thursday. In the afternoon. We attended a few talks earlier in the day before I reported to my session, heard about some projects involving similar systems to the one I work with, and gave my presentation. Being late in the day and late in the conference, you’re mainly just grateful anyone besides the session chair is there. And so we were done with any and all obligations at AIChE. We celebrated with Shake Shack.

After attending AIChE, I will say I’m glad I went, but it was a long week. Though there are constantly things going on, it’s hard to find the things that are most relevant to your research. Besides the actual content of the conference, the location was not the best. The conference center itself was fine, but the only places to get food inside it were the price-gouging hotel-owned restaurants/coffeeshops. Outside the conference center, it was tourist-trap central. All the restaurants were either places you’d take your date/business clients or bars/nightclubs. There wasn’t anywhere you could easily just get a piece of fruit, or a sandwich that wasn’t either grilled or soggy. And I’ll say it again, the app sucked. But I got to hang out with lab people, Michigan people, Cornell people, and other assorted friends, so I guess it was worth it.

Big Red Hockey

For the first time since graduation, I saw my favorite hockey team play live. It started when I got the Michigan athletics email offering staff discounts on select (i.e. out of conference, not popular) Michigan hockey games. That made me think about Cornell hockey, so I went to look up the team and see what they would be up to this season. In the back of my mind, I was wondering if any of the games in New England would be near when I was going home for Christmas, or if there was any way I could structure my break to see a Cornell hockey game. Instead, what I found out was that Cornell men’s hockey was coming to East Lansing, Michigan, to play Michigan State. East Lansing is a mere hour’s drive from Ann Arbor. 

One of my friends, a fellow Cornell graduate, didn’t take any convincing to agree that we should go to the game. I bought the tickets, we dragged along another friend (who had never seen a hockey game before), and headed out for Lansing on a Friday evening. Munn Ice Arena is the sixth hockey arena I’ve been to, after Lynah Rink (Cornell), Madison Square Garden, Thompson Arena (Dartmouth), the Bright-Landry Hockey Center (aka Lynah east) (Harvard), and Yost Ice Arena (Michigan). It was a lot like most of the other rinks I’ve visited – lots of plastic and metal, video screen, weird prize games during the period breaks. The band was pretty good though. They at least looked like they were having more fun than the Michigan hockey band, and I strongly approve of their second period break set – “Everybody’s Everything” (Santana, 1971), and “Sell Out” (Reel Big Fish, 2010). Nothing like some classic rock and ska to go with your hockey. And I played both of those songs regularly with the Cornell pep band, so I was happy to hear them.

Cornell hockey!

I was also happy with the final score. Based on the rankings, odds were that Cornell would probably win, but they were on the road for their first weekend of NCAA-counted play, versus MSU’s second or third. The rankings carrying over from the previous season also sometimes don’t mean that much, depending on the amount of team turnover from graduation. All of that is to say that Cornell started very shakily. The whole team kept giving up the puck directly in front of their own goal, they couldn’t pass out of their own half, and when they were in MSU’s half, they weren’t getting shots off.

End of game.  Final score: Cornell 3, MSU 2.

Shortly after the start of the game, MSU went on the power play, and before Cornell could get organized, scored. They got a goal back, also on the power play, to go into the first period break tied. In the second period, Cornell started looking a little better, but their penalty kill unit still looked questionable, and MSU scored on a 4-on-3 power play. Again, they managed to tie the game, this time by a lot of hacking and bashing in front of the net that somehow ended with the puck sneaking over the line. The next goal of the game came on another Cornell power play near the end of the second period. With that, Cornell went into the third period up a goal and had twenty minutes to either hold on to their lead or extend it. They didn’t score again that night, but neither did MSU, so they got the 3-2 win. During the rematch the next night, they picked up the scoring (final score, 6-2), leaving Michigan with a pair of wins and an encouraging start to the season. I can’t say Cornell ever looked great at their game Friday night, but they looked better as the night went on. The defense got themselves sorted out and the offence started to string passes together. Their goals were of the “puck is in the net” variety rather than the “great play/shot” kind, but in the end what matters is the number of goals, not the quality. They got the job done, and I got to see them do it. Until next time. Let’s go red.