"Official" ICoMST Photos....From JWS's Camera

U.S. Delegation

Clay & I with our posters

 

Group photo at the OVO

Jueves: segunda parte.

As promised, we went on a hunt for Savell's light house. It took what we think was about 45 minutes to get to it. Every corner we turned it disappeared, and I think collectively we nearly tripped and fell ten times. Nonetheless, we got some good photos of the marina, sunset, and some weird stone picnic table down a cat walk on the rocks....

And on the way back to the hotel we saw a whole mess of parrots....each green lump in the grass is a bird:

Just to give you an idea of what all of this site-seeing equates to:

It's a whole lot of walking.  

Now, during this conference, Thursday night is usually the closing gala....this year things were a little different. As in, no formal banquet but instead, booze, snacks, and dancing...in a nightclub.  So Latin. So different.

I have videos too, but options are limited when posting from non-computer devices....and it's funny how things come full circle.  Turns out the night club is part of a chain....created by a good friend of someone we all know well:

Tomorrow a shuttle picks us up at 2:45pm, and we fly-out for Miami at 7:45pm.  Weather seems to be improving, so God willing, we will be back in Aggieland before 10:00 m Saturday morning.  Say a prayer for us, we need getting home to be easier than getting here was.

Adíos from Uruguay.

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Thursday: sites and sessions.

While JWS went to Temple Grandin's session, KBG, Clay, and I started our day by going on a search for the ballenas de Punta del Este.  In other words, the whales that come near the coast in this area during this time of year. Yesterday Betty said morning was best, but Tommy Wheeler's wife, Robin, has seen them twice in the evenings.  Needless to say, we walked down 2mi down the beach with no sign of the whales.

Later today, we may go find a lighthouse that JWS wants to see, and if we are lucky, this fishing boats will be in the marina and the sealions will be there to catch a snack.

Something you might find interesting is how an international conference manages to conduct all presentations in English.  Each session, has a box of translators in the room:

The translators must be exhausted, but they sit in there and translate, their translations are transmitted to headsets that people wear while watching the presenter.

We also walked the poster room again today, and I took a couple pictures of the "poster maze."

This poster....

....had a photo of a pig being sent through a CT Scan, we felt it was photo-worthy:

And of course, there were ours:

This may be post 1 of 2 for today. If we go to the marina, hopefully I will have some pictures worth sharing. We also have the banquet, and the food is usually interesting, to say the least.

I looked at Buckingham Palace exhibits again this morning since next year's meeting is in France (a long way north of Paris). I wanted to go back to London in 2012, but that was unrealistic. Maybe we can make it happen in 2015. 

Other future destinations for this meeting are: 2016 = Bangkok, Thailand; 2017 = Cork, Ireland; 2018 = Australia; 2019 = Germany; 2020 = USA in conjunction with RMC. Right now, Nashville is a strong contender for 2020.

That's all I have for now.

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Wednesday = Tour Day.

¡Hóla!

While it will make for a less interesting post, I have good news, nothing catastrophic happened today. We are about 1.5 h from the hotel and the bus has wifi, so I thought I would post. 

We left early this morning for our 11 hour adventure:

And Betty, a very cute, very funny bilingual Uruguayan was our tour guide:

Our tour included visiting a meat plant. They had a blow up tent set-up outside that had enough chairs for all of us, and in each chair were disposable coveralls, informative brochures, and clipboards with a visitor form and policy list. They also had two tables of drinks and pastries. After a brief intro they started taking the groups back. Clay & JWS were in group 2, KBG & I in group 5. Clay and our new friend from the UK, Caroline Mitchell, had to help Savell suit up:

They did finally get it all worked out:

We weren't allowed to take cameras in but I will share a few interesting facts.  Almost everything you can think of is manually done. Think research pace. They stun the cattle electrically, on their heads. They have 500 employees and slaughter 1000 head of cattle per day. We were told that they are considered a medium sized plant in Uruguay.  After we were done, we took a group picture:

Second stop, a boutique winery. Even though it is winter here and the grapes are dormant it was very pretty. We saw the wine cellar/aging space:

And the owner also has a classic car museum on site:

From there we walked to the restaurant where they had the tables elaborately set with four wines for tasting and plenty of cheese, meat, & bread:

Then we received our entrees. The consensus has been that everyone's meat has been cooked to a crisp on this trip. In this case, we had varying degrees of doneness, but KBG's steak had actually curled as a result if over-cooking:

Not all of the steaks curled, but they were all pretty crispy:

The little guy even asked me why I didn't eat it all, "didn't like, or too much?" I said, "too much." Dessert was flan, not my thing but Clay said it was pretty good.

Let's see, what else.....after the winery we sat out in the sun for a bit before we left for the next leg of the race which was a meat museum and a few historical sites in downtown Montevideo.

The meat museum was not at all what we were expecting. There were four or five exhibits, all were interactive. So the technology was neat, but the content was a bit different. There are several organizations here for Uruguayan meat, and natural meat programs, this was a display of one of those organizations.  Anyway, after that we took a pedestrian walking street in between a few sites.

Now a funny. This sign was in front of the fountain:

I'm sure you can imagine what we thought it said....turns out we were wrong.

I think I am out of news. Temple Grandin speaks tomorrow, and we want to try and see some whales that come up to one of the piers this time of year, then the banquet is in the evening. It will be a long one, but of course, I will fill you in.

¡Adíos!

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Tuesday's News.

Guess what.....

They came! We are clean, and we have on fresh clothes! But. Items are missing from our bags. Talk about a complete bummer. A brand new $30 shirt, tags and all is gone from my bag, and a brand new $40 bra is gone from Clay's. So, I am officially pouting. Needless to say, I filed a second complaint with American and a claim with TSA, because I'm sure it was a TSA agent in Miami. I'm going to say one thing and move one....all of this is getting really old.

In other news, posters are up, KBG & JWS gave their talks today. And tonight was the "traditional" dinner.

After all the grief we gave JWS for hanging a creased fabric poster in Turkey, we are guilty of the same. In our defense, we have been through a lot, and there is no iron in the room.

Dinner Menu:

And then there was the after dinner entertainment.  First the background:

Then the dancers....

And then there is a very priceless reaction: 

We all got a good laugh :)

Tomorrow is tour day. We are on Tour#2 departing at 8am, on the docket is a slaughterhouse, winery, and museum. I guarantee something newsworthy will happen. Stay tuned.

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