1 - I'm back. Indianapolis turned out to be a not particularly big American city, full of big, polite, midwestern Americans (no surprises), and suddenly there isn't much more to say. Travelling there and back was uncomfortable and boring (I'm over airliner travel now), the city was hot and dull, but the conference was great (thank goodness) and well worth the discomforts. And, now that I'm back, I have a ghastly cold, and I've missed 3 days of work.
As for the AIB doctoral proposal prize I was all excited about, I was a runner up. Kindof like Team New Zealand, only less of a valiant effort.
2 - One disappointing aspect of the travel schedule was that I flew in the day of a Chiara's performance at a Belly dance 'hafla' (party). So after a few hours of sleep, I went along brimming with confidence that I could take photos in the dark and they would all turn out to be masterpieces. How wrong I was. In fact, I'd go so far as to say I put in my single worst photographic performance since the infamous Wellington Zombie walk. Of course, the Belly dance girls were spectacular (much hotter than zombies), which makes my misery complete. Looking at the photos, it looks like I managed about 7 simultaneous mistakes (and not the 'Ooh! That's creative!' mistakes, these are the 'Oh, [suck air through teeth] tschhhhhhh, yeah' type). Despite my best photoshop efforts it looks like most of them are unworthy of being let out into the world.
