Saturday, January 05, 2008

What happens in San Diego stays in San Diego

Well, this assumes that I actually get to San Diego. Plan A (hitch a ride from a collaborator) appears to be undergoing a last-minute cancellation to the storm that has hit Los Angeles. (Next we're going to have locusts --- or at least angry hornets.) It looks like I'll be heading down south by Amtrak instead tomorrow (via getting a ride to a Gold Line metro station in Pasadena and taking the metro to Union Station), though it's still feasible that that could change back to getting a ride.

Starting on Sunday, I will be attending the Joint Math Meetings.

On Monday, I am co-running a session on using technology for teaching. My interest in this is the use of blogs and wikis, but some other stuff will be discussed as well.

On Tuesday, I am giving a talk on wave propagation in phononic crystals. That is, you hit a one-dimensional chain of beads and study the properties of the ensuing wave.

On Wednesday, I am giving a talk on computational linear algebra and social networks. This talk is part of the "MAA Session on Innovative and Effective Ways to Teach Linear Algebra." My talk made it in under the 'innovative' rubric.

More than any other conference, this is the annual one in which I am invited to several receptions and parties---with multiple things that I would like to attend occurring simultaneously. I will also get to see some friends from other fields of mathematics who I don't see at other conferences.

As promised, I'll try to provide some snarky commentary in this very spot. (I also owe you some more year-end reviews and a discussion of Rock Band, but I'll get to that stuff later.)

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