This was a triumph

I'm making a note here:
HUGE SUCCESS.

Ok, so that's not totally what the trip was, but that's how I felt thursday afternoon after my talk. I spent most of tuesday night working on it (again, I'd been working on it for nearly a week), and got a small amount of sleep. I went 3rd in the session, which we'd decided on because it made a nice transition from general biological (but non-DNA) systems to the DNA systems like mine and those in the fourth talk. The whole conference was on Decision and Controls, which is a much different area from mine, and the point of the session was to introduce problems in biology that were molecule-level which controls people might find interesting.

My talk itself was about 20 slides total, and we were scheduled for 20-25m each, plus some questions time. I caught myself speeding up talking early and managed to slow back down: one of the problems when giving a talk is usually speaking too fast, making it hard to understand. Somehow all the pieces I wasn't sure would flow together actually did, even in my practice an hour before the transitions just weren't working, but they did when I actually gave the talk. There were several points I wasn't sure were getting across, and it was really difficult to connect to the audience: we were in one of the grand ballrooms, which could easily seat several hundred, but there were only about 30-40 people in the audience (fairly typical for the biological controls track) and so it was really difficult to gauge how well people were following. I managed to reiterate the main points three different times in different ways, so I'm pretty sure it came across clear. Anyways, I managed to finish and get to the acknowledgments slide right at 23 minutes. Speaking of those, there's some people who I want to thank here, cause they couldn't see the presentation: Mylanda, M^2, Erik and L: Yall kept saying it would be fine and it was. Thank you again for the support. I thought of Mylanda's comment as I was walking up to start the talk and everything seemed easier: (paraphrasing): "You've GM'd tons of games, just think of them as players and you'll do fine".

So yeah. I got to the question section and thought I'd have maybe one or two, about normal for the other talks I'd seen. As one of the other guys who gave a talk in that session put it: "Yeah, when you finished your talk I went to the bathroom. When I came back you were still answering questions." And they weren't just confused questions, but a lot of very good insightful questions.

So the talk went very well (or so I've been assured by just about everyone who went), and the conference as a whole was very good. I didn't understand a lot of the subjects of the other talks, so I spent more time talking with people, working out new ideas on stuff to collaborate with them. I also met someone who I'd known as an undergrad (we'd worked on a learning systems project course together) who's now very well known in the decision/control field, and actually remembered me.

I finally understand!

I think it's been over twenty years, but I finally understand. Jazz is not something that should be experience passively, like listening to a CD without the context. It's meant to be heard live, when you're so close to the performers you can drop some bills in the hat and ask for a request, while they're still playing and no one else can hear you. It's music that you are a participant in, your enjoyment feeds back to the band and it makes you feel good.

That was my experience today, and my personal understanding what it is that I was missing about jazz which before now I've never really liked to listen to. I went out to dinner today with some of the people from the conference, and it was brought up that they were probably going to a jazz club afterwards. I figured I could go to dinner and then go my own way, but at dinner it was brought up that it was Preservation Hall that was being referred to. The only thing I could remember about that name (as I did have a memory associated with it) is that my mom would love to go there or hear the music there (or both). So I went. We got there around 7:20 and were first in line - the doors open at 8pm, it's 10$ to get in, and there's literally about 8 benches and some chairs around the edge of the room, and after that you can stand. No food, drinks etc are served there, and it's a very small space. It was a perfect venue for the music.

Thursday night is brass band night, and the group playing was the New Birth Brass Band. They were excellent the entire night, taking two breaks and playing for about three hours. They had a banjo, bass drum, snare drum, tuba, trombone, trumpet and sax, and all of them were excellent.

There were two things that stood out among the performances: the first was a request, by a couple who were celebrating their 15th wedding anniversary - Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World. The entire audience helped sing along while the couple held hands and the band played it for them. The second was something I noticed the entire night: there were many young ones there, babies and very young kids of tourist parents. The babies were super calm and appeared to love the music, and the same for the kids. What a neat experience for them, and what a relief compared to the craziness that is bourbon street.

Restaurant Review

Just a quick post tonight, for I still need to work on the presentation some (it's tomorrow at 1:30pm).

Tonight's dinner was at a restaurant called the Louisiana Bistro, a few blocks away from Canal and Bourbon streets in New Orleans. Pretty small place, wasn't crowded and the group I was with had made reservations. The menu was very simple: five entrees plus today's special (which I didn't notice until leaving, so I don't recall what it was), a few appetizers and salad choices, plus a pretty large drinks list. I can't speak much about the appetizers, salads or drinks, as I didn't have either of the first two, and while I did have a coke, it was pretty normal. Most of the rest of the table had a red wine which was apparently pretty good, I had a dash so as to not be without something to toast with, but was glad it was only two sips worth as it had a weird aftertaste in the throat (but maybe that's normal? I dunno).

I got the entree called "Surf & Turf", though many of the other options looked very good, I had decided that since I've had sausage/duck/etc gumbo for two earlier meals, it'd be good to have something different (though that only ruled out two entrees, the others were short ribs, which I generally don't like, and a lobster dish). This entree was listed as pan-seared filet mignon with crayfish tail scampi and served on garlic mashed potatoes. This listing did not do it justice, nor could my words, however I should still try.

I ordered the filet mignon medium rare and it was served perfectly. The presentation was elegant - the filet was served surrounded by the scampi, on top of the mashed potatoes, and there was a plentiful amount of the cook's special cajun sauce over everything. Very appealing without being spare or pretentious. The meat itself was perfect, probably the best I've had, and upon adding the sauce it was just heavenly. Spicy without being overpowering, complementary flavors in the garlic potatoes and the scampi, and just one of the best meals I've ever had.

Uncanny

There's something uncanny here. I finally placed what it is, but those reading probably need some context.

I'm in New Orleans for the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control. Some may recall me working like crazy on a paper/session proposal a few months back, it was for this conference. I'm doing part of a tutorial session on biomolecules and possible feedback/control problems relating to them. (Yes, several cool things, for one I'm actually giving a talk! two, part of it is a small paper that's being published in the proceedings, three, I get to meet other people here and possibly get some people interested in my field.)

Anyways, the uncanny thing since I got here (tuesday) has to do with race: A large percentage of the people I've seen who work here are black. But I don't think I've seen a single conference attendee who was. There's certainly many different races and countries represented here, but it's still a pretty glaring gap. I think what bothers me about it is my own projection of what the people who work in New Orleans think about the conference because of that skewed proportion.

Maybe I shouldn't be bothered though, the people I've met here (both conference attendees and people who live/work around here) don't seem to be bothered. I certainly like being here, there's something about the south and how friendly people are here that I like.