I am back!

Back to reality and to the blogosphere. I returned last night from the conference. This was the 13th Annual conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (or ISMB 2005, in short). We (from our lab) had a poster to present (among 600+ others!). The conference was in Detroit, MI. Some of the highlights of my trip:

1. American National Air carriers are really at the bottom of the barrel nowadays. Hardly was there a pleasant moment in the flight.
2. Detroit is huge. The hotel which we stayed (also the same venue for the conference) was the Renaisance center at the Detroit Marriot. This is also the world HQ of GM. Although Detroit is the automobile capital of the world, it was sad to hear that none of the big 3 companies (GM, Ford, Chrysler) are doing well.
3. Detroit is also one of the more polluted cities in the US. I was hardly able to see the sun in the 4-5 days of the conference.
4. It is truly multi-cultural. The cab driver said there were almost 1 million non-US folks living in Detroit. Not to mention the rich music culture here.
5. I had no idea that the Canadian border was just a stone's throw (a strong throw, that one) from Detroit. The nearest city - Windsor is a mere 5 miles from downtown Detroit.
6. I also realized that the world is so big. People had come from all corners. In fact, there were 3 groups from Madras alone!. Collaboration and Competition worldwide!. Ready or not, global economy is here. In all, around 3000 people turned up.
7. I met a few peers from Canada (desis, of course). I was surprised to hear that cell phones and credit cards are not that prevalent there. Hmm..
8. Normally, after returning from a conference, one of three things can happen. one) you would get so depressed looking at the competition and would probably take sanyaasam. two) you would get really motivated by the competition. three) you would safely ignore the hyped fields and do something different. I hope I don't fall in the first category.
9. Nowhere else have I seen so many cars with low frequency bass sounds in full blast. I was being sonic-boomed every step of my walk in the downtown area. So much so, I could even hear the sound from my room in the 17th floor. No speakers inside the car, all are outside.
10. Oh, yea - there was a casino near our hotel. I think I would have created the fastest record of losing 20 dollars (broken into four 5-dollar bills) in a 5-cent slot machine.

All in all, it was a welcome change for me. It gave me some new ideas about my field and has definitely increased my humility.

In my small hiatus, I missed blogging, reading blogs. There was a cyber cafe in the hotel lobby (had Macs though), and I was able to check email and peeked in my blogpage a little. So much to catch up!