Hmmm... it looks like the big 3-0 will occur in Maryland

Flights to the Maryland area have apparently become my thing lately. I will be going to Bethesda next week for a conference Dynamics Days that is being organized this year by University of Maryland's chaos group. (Which university organizes it changes every year, but the Maryland group does it pretty frequently and they always send a big group of people to the meeting.) I'm also going to Baltimore in late March for the APS March Meeting, and now I'll also be going to interview in the physics department at the University of Maryland in College Park for their theoretical nonlinear dynamics position. I'll be visiting campus on 2/9 and 2/10, so my job interview talk on 2/9 will be the last seminar I give in my 20s. This is the type of e-mail I really like to read when I wake up in the morning (where morning = 12:15 pm today; it's a good thing today is an Institute holiday). Anyway, this particular job is one of my top choices among the advertisements I've seen this year---it's very close to the top. Maryland's chaos group (and nonlinear dynamics is my field...they call their group the "chaos group" although 'chaos' really refers to a type of dynamics that can occur) is on the short list of the best in the world, NIST is nearby (and NIST has a large, promiment BEC group), and Washington DC is a 5-minute metro ride away (with the metro about a 5 minute walk from the physics building, if I am remembering correctly...maybe it's 10 minutes, but that doesn't change anything). Another thing that's really cool about Maryland (based on prior knowledge) is that there is a lot of interaction between the dynamics people in physics, math, and other departments. Academically, they are almost an ideal fit for me, so I was very pleased with this piece of news. I will be very happy if this works out. Now, my understanding is that the university as a whole doesn't have the broad-based strength of some others (at least by reputation; I don't know about reality here), but my area is among their major strengths and that is a big source of my interest in them. Their dynamics group is really awesome.

The other thing this means is that my 30th birthday celebration will have to occur either right before or right after. My flight back to town will be on Saturday 2/11, so I am tentatively going to think about Sunday 2/12 as a viable possibility.