
Back from Acapulco and perhaps in the nick of time...seems a possible hurricane is forming in a region very close to another of my research 'sites'...the Gulf of Tehuantepec (the bend in the coastline NE of the storm)...and is heading to Acapulco. Tropical storm Barbara is the second storm in the Eastern Tropical Pacifics storm season. We heard from hurricane researchers at the conference that storms in the region are on the rise...and two this early in the season is unusual.
I have to say that thanks to the 'Fly America' Act, getting to Acapulco was expensive and not fun. The flight there was supposed to be easy but severe weather over Houston shut down the airport so that my plane had to circle for an hour (I guess we were lucky it had fuel and wasn't diverted) and then I waited 5 hours for my next flight as that plane was in Lafayette and the crew in Arkansas or something to that effect. The flight home involved a 5 hour layover in Phoenix and a 3 hour red eye home...yuck!
I have no pictures of Acapulco to show you as I forgot to return the recharged battery to my camera before leaving. The conference was small and laid back...the most exciting science was my old advisors latest obsession. As I had 10 minutes worth of data to present that I don't really understand I gave a reasonable talk. A space physicist on my flight home complimented my talk saying it was one of the few ones in my session she understood...I guess while some people who hung out in the pool between their sessions, she attended sessions outside her field. Although this was a good conference for my Eastern Tropical Pacific research, I mostly attended so I could spend time with my Mexican collaborators. I had hoped to get the first draft of a paper written, but instead we planned the paper...things move slowly in Mexico.
In terms of knitting I finished the back of the Ogee Tunic and got 10 inches up the sleeves. Unfortunately as I was mostly separated from the pattern (in flight and in sessions) I missed 2 lines of instructions which create the bell shape of the sleeve so most of that knitting will be wasted.Yesterday I cut off 8 inches and picked up the sleeves where I missed the shaping. I may graft the 8 inches on later...we'll see.