The next day dawned, as days are wont to do. As promised by the various weather bureaus, it had come down during the night, and was still proceeding to do so – acres and acres of virgin powder, gently falling to Copper and the surrounds. I immediately snapped a picture of the stage which just 12 hours earlier had been rocked by the Blue Oyster Cult and others, now blanketed in several inches of white. It was only around 6am, first light; the area was strangely quiet. Not that Copper is hugely urban like I am used to – in my neck of the woods, there is a hum of traffic between 6am and midnight pretty much regardless of season – but it was eerily quiet. I’m guessing that the winter and the snow mean not too many birds nesting in the conifers, so there was no squawking or flapping or anything, and the hotel was dead quiet at that time of day. I realised forty five minutes and another lighter photograph or so later when I went downstairs that the quiet is caused by the snow itself; much like fog, it tends to muffle all the sounds around it. It was dead quiet without the hum of the hotel geysers and radiators and air conditioning outside, surreally so. That sort of silence has a sound of its own – like in fog, you can sense that it is muffled and the air compressed and that whatever you might hear is going to sound like it is not where it is, nor where it should be. This is horror movie territory. The only unchanged sound was the crunching snow beneath my shoes. The air was crisp and cold and smelled unusual – I have mentioned before that this is my first experience with actual real snow falling down out of actual real snow clouds, and I have to tell you I was like a kid let loose in a toyshop. By the time I got to the conference venue, maybe a two minute walk away, I had already let a few flakes drop onto my fingers and raised my face to the sky and had it land on my beanie and run through a snowdrift and all other likewise things that you do in snow for shits and giggles. People who have grown up with snow probably don’t remember their first time in it; I was losing my virginity, as it were, and loving every second of it. I was ready for breakfast with a grin as wide as a very wide thing plastered all over my head, and Brandon and I seemed to be having a lot more fun just being in the snow than pretty much anyone else at the table. Had it not been as staid an event as the first morning of the conference, there is a very real chance that I would have done my party trick and gone streaking. Breakfast was good – scrambled eggs with some tomato and I think spinach bits in it, and some sort of gritty stuff that seems to be some stir-fried, hash-browny sort of spicy potato and sweet pepper mix. Not sure what the hell it was, but it hit the spot, along with the muesli and yoghurt and good strong coffee. And the pastries and breads and muffins and plenty more of those mini Philadelphia cheeses to go with them. I made a mental note to demand better breakfasts at home from now on. From there, it was conference time. First session of the morning was fairly uneventful, and with the time-zone difference still affecting many attendees we looked forward to the first coffee break. Everyone congregated outside drinking conference coffee while Paul and I made a mosey through the snow – the novelty still with me, it must be said – to the Starbucks which Copper has just down the main strip and next to one of the other hotel buildings. The resort is a village – just about everything you could possibly need is there We returned a few dollars lighter, but gigantic cappuccinos heavier, so it was a fair trade, I thought. Almost everyone was “Gah! Where’d you find that???” since the Yanks seem a little more addicted to the stuff than previously expected by me. We were the kinda unofficial men of the hour in the popularity poll in my mind, I thought. Well worth another walk in the snow, too – I was fast becoming a veteran of that. It seems it came down quite heavily all over the place, and DIA was snowed in. I was mildly concerned that the storm may prevent Wednesday’s planned sortie SoCal-wards when the news had footage of thousands of travelers sleeping in the chairs at the airport, but my spirits were not dampened too heavily at the thought of an extra day of snowboarding. Before that, though, I did have some business to attend to. One was meeting the chap from Georgetown, who had hosted me six days prior even though he’d not managed to make the meeting. He’d presented just before the coffee break, and I hijacked him as we headed out and we chatted for a bit. He is a hell of a guy, very warm and friendly, seemed genuinely excited about meeting me and really went out of his way to put me at ease. What may well have been a mini-interview, since first impressions last as we all know, ended up being nothing like it and any nervousness I had felt beforehand evaporated within about fifteen seconds. We chatted for a bit then both proceeded to head for the coffee. The conference itself is something which I will not give too many details of. Yeah, there was conference, there were proceedings and presentations and it was all hugely informative and far beyond worthwhile – snowstuff aside, I’d have been glad to just be there – but I’m sure the details need no mention in here. 11 o’clock rolled around and it was time for the big break, the “See everyone back here at 5” time-to-hit-the-snow break. Anyway, all that aside, I popped into a ski-hire place to get kitted out. Had planned to buy gloves in NY, DC and Denver, but had come up short on all three; luckily, said ski-hire place had one last pair of awesome Dakine snowboarding gloves going begging, just the right size, marked down to a mere $20 since the season was ending in a week. And they rented me a set of boots and a board with a blue bird on the bottom for the princely sum of $20 per day, with a full service guarantee. Anything goes wrong, anything you’re not happy with, anything need a fine tweak, bring it in and we’ll do it on the spot, they said. Nice one, chaps – appreciate it. Show us how you stand so we can set the bindings. Goofy or regular? Normal angles or do you have a preference? Goofy, normal please. Those of you who haven’t surfed/snowboarded/skated before may not appreciate the difference between regular – left foot forward – and goofy, which is right-foot forward. That’s all there is to it. I think there’s a fairly even mix of regular vs goofy out there in the big wide world; although I am the only oke I know who is goofy, so that may be completely wrong. Got back to my room, got well-kitted out – new Columbia snowboarding BurbRider pants, from Campmor in NJ which I’d ordered online in Cpt before leaving, to go with new Columbia SLV soft-shell parka, also from Campmor, same story. I’d been wearing my Billabong hard shell with a jersey beneath it up till now, but I was quite keen to try the soft-shell on the slopes. Went down with my board and boots and everything, with some cash for the slope tickets and my conference card to claim my conference ski-ticket discounts and got set up for a day pass up the slopes. Immediately headed out to the American Eagle, right in front of the ticket office and up, up and away we went. First mistake in the snow – the Eagle is primarily blue-run, or intermediate terrain. I have a mere four days of snowboarding under my belt, from five years prior up at Tiffindell, where I spent the whole of the first day out with a smashed ankle. Green-run, or beginner terrain, is where I should be. I came off on my ear up there. The lift is quick, but it’s a good seven or eight minutes up to the top, all the while swinging high over the tree canopies – many with Christmas decorations on them – watching the occasional squirrel bounding through the snow. I also saw something a little more Arctic-Foxy – perhaps a wolf or coyote of some sort, since I’m not sure there are Arctic, or other, foxes in the US, but I really don’t know. Anyway, upon falling out of the lift at the top – I’m not good at disembarking, it must be said – I got strapped up, boots into bindings, and endeavoured to remember what Nicole the hot Tiffindell snowboard-instructing minx had taught me in my youth while I was checking out her boobs and her bum. First up, I realised that, in fact, this blue terrain is sort of steep. I managed about fifteen feet before coming off face-first. I also realised that in fact snow is kinda chilly, especially when your head is caked in it. It’s like a giant ice-cream headache, perhaps even worse than the sort you get being macho and playing in the mighty Atlantic Ocean at Big Bay, which is always cock-shrinkingly freezing, regardless of season. I came off several times on my first run down the Eagle. If you know your way around Copper, though, you can tell where all the runs intersect, and can actually put together an entirely easy, or all-hard, or mix’n’match of both types, since there are intersections and junctions all over the place, all colour coded in blue, green, orange and others. It took a while to get down to the bottom; by the time I did, I was knackered. Both wrists – already dubious, mind – were stuffed, My strapped-up knee was also taking a bit of tap, and my legs were sore through the thighs and quadriceps. And I had taken a particularly nasty, high-speed, awesome, snow-flying-everywhere, spectacular wipe-out – undoubtedly saving a little kid, or a stricken squirrel, or something likewise heroic – and could feel that dull tingling which accompanies a graze. In this case, my backside, from my right hip to halfway down the back of my leg. I had left several yards of skin somewhere, it seemed. Yeah, it was awesome. Sometimes you need the war-wounds. Sometimes they just make you feel so accomplished, or if nothing else, just alive. And for the next four days, I would have a fairly sharp reminder of my first day in the snow, carving up the runs of Copper in a mild, beautiful snow-storm. It took a bit of time to get back to base, whereupon I picked up my board and consulted the trail map and headed for the American Flyer, a longer, more gentle, and – most importantly – green run, starting in front of the conference venue and heading upwards and to the right. My guess is that it went from west to south east; no idea if I am right, though. I still came off a couple times, but I strung together some good runs, and had a total blast. I went up and down the Flyer four times in all, I think, on the first day before calling it and deciding that I should probably go scrape the sweat and ice out of me, and that perhaps a visit to the Copper pool in the gym would not be a bad idea to hit the would-be stiffness before it got too bad. Alas, it was not to be. The pool was quite full by the time I got there, so I opted instead to spend some downtime in the hot-tub in the men’s locker room. Perhaps someone could shed some light on this – are you supposed to stay clothed in the tub there? It’s inside the locker room, which is definitely guys-only, so should you keep your kit on? Our gyms don’t have hot tubs here in .za, so this was a bit of a closed book to me. Unsure, and not wanting to get nailed or expelled from the venue, I opted to keep my black boardies on. The hot water worked wonders. It really hits the spot on sore and fatigued muscles, and, karate aside, these were muscles which hadn’t been used like this apart from four days five years ago, under much shorter, gentler circumstances. I was sore and stiff, and, I discovered, the graze wasn’t so much a graze as a mildly grazed bruise approaching the size of Texas across my butt. I sat in the bubbling water for fifteen minutes, then showered and dressed and went back to get ready for the late-afternoon and evening sessions. I could feel the stiffness as I climbed the slight uphill back to my room to put my bag down and get my conference gear. My thighs and quads had that awesome, satisfying, overworked feel to them, where the stiffness serves to remind more than to punish, and in a way to encourage further activity. It’s that sense of a job well done, like when you’ve cooked up a storm in the kitchen and there are no leftovers – yeah, it’s messy and you have to deal with it all, but hey, everyone really enjoyed it. It was with a certain determined smugness that I returned to the conference hall for the pre-session tea – coffee and biscuits and a few energy bars and stuff like that. The conference takes over again from 5pm till 7, when it is social/supper hour before the poster sessions. Again, more business to attend to. The lady whom I was meeting in San Diego had presented shortly before the dinner break and I made a plan to hijack her, too. It didn’t really go that well. The early warm fuzziness I had got from Prof Georgetown was nowhere in evidence with Prof Scripps. Firstly, I offered my hand, as one does when meeting people, and she put hers into her jacket pockets and sat down, leaving me standing there like a useless prick. I immediately put that aside thinking perhaps she has a thing about handshaking – benefit of the doubt, right? I realise she has no idea what I said, perhaps, because she is reading my conference name-tag. “Oh.. you’re that guy. The one who, you know, wants to come check out my lab.” Said kind of sarcastically, almost “who the hell does this guy think he is, demanding to come check out my lab?” I then went on the hoover trail, sucking up about how I enjoyed her presentation, even though I didn’t follow all of it. I think she took offence – what I meant, and what I had stressed while setting up the SD meeting, was that her interest in malarial genetics and my interest in antibiotic resistance may be related, but I am not familiar with her region of the field, so I got a little lost in some of the technical stuff. So there was balls-up #2. Then, realizing I may well be crashing and burning here, I checked to see if we were still on for Thursday morning. It was all in order, but when I asked for some vague directions to the lab, I was told to Google it and print out a map. Not “it’s quite complicated; I think it might be better to see if you can’t get a map. Perhaps use the conference computers upstairs and see if you can print one from Google?” None of that, no sir. Just “Google it. Print a map.” So I was beginning to sense a bit of an awkward vibe by now. Anyway, I figured short and not-sweet, I’ve made the introductions – no point in spending 4 days at a conference with the woman I am meeting on the 6th day without introducing myself; that would make me seem odd – get the fuck out of there before you tread on even more toes. So I said “excellent. I’m really pleased to have met you. I’ll see you around; otherwise Thursday at 9” and bailed. It kind of threw me, though; I was a bit bewildered by the whole thing. Perhaps she isn’t a people person; still, that’s where being polite but distant comes into play. This, I felt, was plain rude. My mom – impeccable timing, as always – phoned right about then, while I was stocking up on Life-savers for my presentation (Life-savers are another story for later on) to hear how things were going. We both found it odd; my mom, poor thing, even sounded righteously indignant and a little sad. Yeah, I love my mom. She came in handy later on, on day 16. The pattern was repeated over the course of the next few days. Early start, complete with moaning and groaning about the stiffness from the previous day, shave shower and shampoo, marvel at the snow, gigantic breakfast, conference, coffee, conference, snowboarding, hot-tubbery, conference. Mix and match with social hour and having drinks occasionally too. I was presenting my poster Monday night, so got my supply of Lifesavers ready, and even had a shave. The way the Lifesavers thing works is this: Step 1. Stand at poster 2. Eat Lifesavers, with a ready supply in your pocket. 2b: Make sure you have both single eg mint and multi-flavoured eg mixed fruit ones at the ready. Variety is in the mix, of course, and it gives it that whole “Which one will I get? Do I feel lucky?” aspect to anyone who enjoys the occasional gamble with the mixed fruit ones. 3. Offer them with a huge smile to anyone walking past near your poster who even hints at eye contact – 90% of people will take them and then stop to chat with you about your research. 4a. If you are lucky, a larney big-wig will fall into this cunning trap and take an interest in you and your research, like they did when you learned this trick in Tanzania using Polos (that last bit of part 4 may only apply to me) 4b. So might a hot chick/dude/both, depending on your preference(s). 5. Score! Either by meeting bigwig, or hot chick/dude, or both bigwig and hot chick/dude. Who says conferences are not awesome? 6: Repeat, repeatedly. I’ll say at this point that I was getting sort-of adequate on the board. Long runs aplenty, and falls much less painful all point to a general improvement, and although I came out with what I’m sure was mild concussion at least once, and almost frostbite – man, the snow gets everywhere, and I do mean everywhere – it was all good. It was with a heavy heart that I left the mountain for the last time on the Tuesday, knowing that I was a mere fourteen hours away from heading back to DIA on the CME, and that the winter wonderland which had so quickly become a part of me would soon yield to the perpetual summer of SoCal. I didn’t allow myself to dwell on it, though – marched right back to the ski-hire place as soon as I got off the piste and returned boots and board, paid the rental costs and thanked the guys there. Headed back down to the gym for my last bout of super hot-tubbedness and that was that. The last session of the conference was light, followed by an enormous banquet and, horror of horrors, old people dancing. Blue-eyed Nick was well in there with all the laydees, it seemed, while Paul and I opted to have many beers and annex one of the outside couches to just sit and chat and shoot the shit for a couple of hours. Nick even came out to ask me if we were going to streak in the snow after all – I must have mentioned it at some stage when we first met. He encouraged Paul and I to join in with the womenfolk but we did not want to view the carnage within the banquet hall – lots of the er… more mature scientists getting down to a selection of contemporary hits. Perhaps the idea is just a little too foreign to us, so we both declined. After that, there was a kind-of forced adjournment to the Irish pub near the Starbucks, where a lot of the younger crowd – under 40, basically – had spent a good many nights. Most of the DC crowd were now regulars there, and a large number of the more liberal older crowd arrived a little later and were well on their way to blottoed when I finally called it a night. At first I wasn’t going to go because of my planned early departure, but went along after someone twisted my rubber arm. I was leaving at 5am, after all, and still needed to pack and panic and go through my checklist – four pairs of thick socks, check, seven pairs of boxers, check et cetera – so that I wouldn’t miss the shuttle by having to do that in the morning. If you weren’t sure by now, yes – I am the supreme time-waster. Not so much a procrastinator, because even when I don’t leave things till the last minute, I still end up running short of time. It’s a gift. Anyway, had a few more items and eventually after many goodbyes crawled back into my room at sometime between 1 and 2am. Not fun when you’re on a 4am wake-up; but it was a fitting final night to the important mid-section of the tour. As usual, put my cell-phone far, far away from the bed so as to not turn the built-in alarm off without getting up – another trick from the Tanzania trip; something I do frequently when I am traveling alone without the luxury of someone else to wake me up should I fall back asleep – and then spent a fitful night not sleeping and panicking every ten minutes that I had missed the alarm. Even as tanked as I was, the alcohol couldn’t knock me out. In fact, it was all much the same as my last night in New York some days previously at the Malibu, but this time without the scalded fingertips. -d-