sfn 2006

Atlanta, GA

0.1. conversation with the brother, several months ago.

me: so i'll probably be going to atlanta in october on this conference. anything exciting there?
the brother: there's the coke factory.
me: the coke factory?
the brother: yeah, the coke factory.
me: as in...where they make coke?
the brother: none other.
me: anything else?
the brother: not really.
me: that doesn't sound very exciting.
the brother: dude. people go on pilgrimages to see the coke factory.

0.2. again, skipping over the technobabble.

1.1. on the plane today, i realise that i've acquired the art of talking to caucasian strangers (a) of my own volition, and (b) without bile flooding my oesphagus. it is a giddy, vertiginous feeling. after all these years of having my privacy assaulted on american public transportation, i can finally turn the tables. i practice on the matronly woman sitting next to me, and go on the offensive so succesfully that i make it through the entire conversation without the word 'singapore' once passing my lips. this is cause for massive celebration.

1.2. we make it into georgia on time, and i hop onto the marta which brings me to the hotel. the train is packed solid with neuroscientists. it's surreal. l leave my suitcase at the hotel and get on a very pink shuttle bus.

1.3. atlanta is honest. there are hardly any suspicous back alleys, or roads that let you out somewhere other than you think you should be. the prominent landmarks keep you oriented. it's a prep school boarder with his pockets turned out and palms up: no contraband here. the sun sluices down as we turn into centennial park drive and up to the conference center, and we de-bus into a gorgeous fall day.

2. the BIRN project aims to improve the (pitiful) state of neuroinformatics by promoting multi-center sharing, improving data availability, so allowing studies far larger than what have previously been possible. some of my old duke profs from biac - most prominently greg mccarthy - have been the leaders in the parts of this project to do with fMRI, and the first data is beginning to be published. the collaborators are quite the who's who in fMRI research -- UC Irvine, Duke, U. Minnesota, Harvard, Chapel Hill, UCSD, UNM, UCLA, Stanford, Iowa and Yale -- and they have put together incredible projects requiring subjects to fly to each of these centers so that inter-site and inter-subject variation can be compared. i'm impressed, but waiting by the poster like a puppy dog for a treat does not cause any of the big names to materialise, so i skulk off to get coffee instead.

3. i run into harlan fitchenholtz, who was my TA for the fMRI lab at duke. he actually remembers me. i must have been a real nuisance back in the day.

4. by 4 my brain is throbbing, so i grab CNL-jiat, who had kindly agreed to share a room, and we go to explore the city a bit. the olympic park is rubbish, and i don't understand why people have fallen so much in love with it. we walk, and it's office bank office bank, and my laptop weighs heavier on my shoulder with each passing minute.

4.1. shall we look for the coke factory? i ask.
why? asks jiat
to get coca-cola, i say.
you can get coca-cola in singapore, says jiat.
but bottled in KL, not from the coca-cola yuan2, i say.

4.2. we go back to the hotel.

5.1. the hotel is tremendous. superlatives fail me when i first see the room. it's not even a room, it's a suite: it has a kitchen with stove, microwave and everything, a personal study room, 2 walk-in closets, a washing machine, a tumble dryer and medieval spanish art on the walls. for a while, i just stand there, like a manga character with the little trickle of drool working its way down from the corner of my mouth.

5.2. it feels like it has to be a joke, or a dream, but it's not. it must be karma. i've stored up so many points from staying in ratty dilapidated hellholes that finally, kismet just had no choice but to put me here, at least this once. i am going to enjoy every last second that the lush carpet is beneath my feet.