After spending two days grinding out a poster for the SMI meeting, i passed out at 1am Wednesday night/Thursday morning, with the alarm set at 4:15am so i could make my 6am flight at SFO. When my eyes next opened, for some reason daylight was streaming in my bedroom ... not exactly what i expected pre-sunrise. A quick look at the clock ... 7:36am?!?! Aw s@$t, i missed my flight! A quick chat with an Expedia customer service rep told me i needed to contact United Airlines directly, so i got in their phone queue, meanwhile gawking at the $500+ it would cost me to buy a new ticket. Luckily, the United rep told me i could get on the 11am flight on standby. Having never flown standby, i was a bit unnerved by the fact that you have to wait until they're completely done boarding and ready to shut the gate doors before they call your name. But thankfully everything worked out, and by 7:30pm i was in St. Louis ... a bit later than my original 1:30pm arrival, but there nonetheless. After a twenty minute cab ride i arrived at the Adam's Mark, beautifully situated adjacent to the St. Louis Gateway Arch. I had a few drinks at the opening SMI reception with old friends from Boston, then headed up to my room and caught the second half of the opening game of the NFL season, the Indianapolis Colts visiting the defending champion New England Patriots.

Great game, and a fantastic way to ease into what i always eagerly anticipate, another season of football. I don't obsess over the game (not to the extent that i do over soccer and Chelsea), but i definitely enjoy whiling away Sundays watching the pigskin, and eating dinner on Mondays during the last game of the week. The Colts and Patriots didn't disappoint. Tom Brady is the real deal: not a flashy player but someone who gets the job done in crunch time. Peyton Manning is an excellent competitor too, but the last few games i've seen him in he's come up short and looks almost comically befuddled in the process. The Pats weren't show stoppers, and would've lost by two touchdowns if the Colts hadn't turned it over three times in the red zone (twice on the friggin goal line). Credit Belichick though, he got the W and is famous for making the adjustments to keep more W's coming. While waiting for my connection in Denver i dictated my picks for the week to Veronica, who entered them into Jeremy Popscene's online pool. Did fairly well this week (beat Gary and Jeremy at any rate), but was a good 20 points short of winning.

The SMI meeting was interesting, if not hugely exciting as in years past. There were several excellent talks, in particular one on applying somatic hypermutation (used in the generation of billions of different types of antibodies in our bodies) towards creating wavelength shifted fluorescent protein mutants, and another on using total internal reflection microscopy to study the kinetics of cellular exo- and endocytosis. However nothing mind boggling that was directly applicable to my work. I saw some posters and presentations related to the grant i'm preparing, which despite the initial reaction of "oh s@$t, they've scooped me!", encouraged me that the grant is novel, relevant, and fundable.

The SMI is very well funded and it generally shows at these meetings, with plenty of refreshments during and between sessions and extravagant nightly outings. This year we got a three hour dinner cruise on a riverboat on the Mississippi on Friday, and a gala reception at the Arch on Saturday evening. The dinner cruise was a fun opportunity to catch up with my CMIR chums from Boston. The boat left something to be desired ... it was a bit of a let down to notice that the paddlewheel wasn't turning, realizing that the boat was instead powered by a motor beneath it. Also, once you get a mile downriver from the Arch, there isn't a whole lot to see. Especially at night. Other than the big chemical refining plant we passed after a few miles, although i don't think that is the kind of scenery St. Louis wants to publicize.

The gala dinner was much more fun. After seeing the Arch for several days, Vasilis, Jan, Christophe, Jorge, myself, and co. had naturally discussed taking a trip up to the top, despite unanimous concerns that it had a generally unstable quality about it. We got our chance during the reception, with free trips available to all attendees. To get to the top you climb into a miniscule five-seat capsule, and hold your breath as it clanks its way up the structure to the top. There's a small viewing area at the apex, with tiny windows from which you can see the old courthouse, Busch Stadium, and the Mississippi (again, not so impressive after dark). I hung around for ten minutes, but Jorge, who came up on the tram after mine, took ten seconds and decided to leave, so we grabbed a capsule and headed down.

I spent much of Sunday with Stanford radiation biology colleague Martin Brown, heading off to the airport with him at 4pm to catch our 5:40 flight to Denver and then to SFO. V picked me up at the airport at 10pm, and after a late dinner we went home. I've struggled to get a decent night's sleep lately. I keep waking up in the night ... i'm not exactly an insomniac, i can fall asleep again fine, but i only get 3 hours or so of uninterrupted sleep at a time. Happened in St. Louis too, so it's nothing specific to my usual sleeping arrangements. Hrm. Anyhow, i'm back to cranking out this R21, interrupted temporarily this weekend by a jaunt down to LA so V can attend this year's Inland Invasion. Faithful readers will recall my account of last year's debacle, featuring three hours in the parking lot waiting to get out after the show, and two hours in line waiting for food. I am therefore opting to hang out with fellow abstainer Sean, playing Xbox and having a few beers. Much nicer.

Chelsea's Champions League campaign kicks off today in France against Paris St. Germain. Here's to surpassing our semifinal appearance last year ... go you Blues!