Filler and Fluff

As is becoming the norm with this blog, I have found myself quite busy recently and unable to update as much as I would like. So busy, actually, that I didn't even realize that I had forgotten to post last week until this morning. It was kind of like I forgot that I forgot, which is sort of paradoxical.

Anyways, my reason (not excuse; they're totally different. Duh.) for mismanaging my blog was that, firstly, I was working on a grant proposal late last week that ended up taking considerably more time than I had initially thought, and, secondly, that I am preparing to present at an upcoming conference. The conference that I will be attending is the International Symposium on Spectral Sensing Research (ISSSR), which is sponsored by the U.S. Army and is being hosted by Missouri State University, Jordan Valley Innovation Center, and Fort Leonard Wood. If you are familiar with Missouri geography, you might notice that, while MSU and JVIC are both located in Springfield, Fort Leonard Wood is something like 100 miles away. So their solution is to bus the entire conference to Fort Leonard Wood for the presentations that are taking place there.

While this certainly seems considerably troublesome, it certainly works out well for me. Here's why: my research was selected for a plenary talk. If, like me, you're not quite sure of what this means, the dictionary is a wonderful aid. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, plenary means 'attended by all qualified members.' This means that there will be no concurrent sessions with my presentation, and that all of the conference attendees will be present for my talk. Boil it down to brass tax, and you can conclude that this presentation is a pretty big deal. However, until I was informed that my abstract had been selected for a plenary talk, I had not planned on even attending the conference because of more pressing concerns here in Columbia. And so after a pow-wow with my advisors, it was decided that I would register and attend just long enough to give my talk and shake some hands and then return home. Luckily, the plenary talks are being given at Fort Leonard Wood, not in Springfield, and so the early morning pilgrimage that I will have to make will only be the two-hour trip from Columbia to Fort Leonard Wood, as opposed to the three-hour trip from Columbia to Springfield.

Although I'm not certain that I'll be sticking around for any of the other talks, I'm hoping to meet some big-time sort of people; military and national lab program directors and the like. And perhaps by keeping my ears open, I'll be able to post later this week or next week on some of the cool stuff going on in the field of spectroscopic sensing research.