FIESTA Meeting

This past Thursday the FIESTA gang (includes, Leslie, Justin, Bill, Cindy, and myself) had a meeting down in Rocky Mountain House (RMH) on this year’s field season. For the past couple weeks we have been preparing the presentation, making it perfect. Bill and Cindy picked us up at my place at 7:00 am Thursday so that we could make our 10:00 am meeting. It was an early cold morning, and because their vehicle had seen better days, it didn’t maintain heat. Well this is what I believed. During the trip down, I sat in the middle, sandwiched between Leslie and Justin, and you would think that they alone would keep me warm, but they were selfish, keeping all the heat to themselves and my feet froze. The worst part was that my right butt cheek fell a sleep due to the uncomfortable middle seat. So on the way back I sat by the door thinking it would be more comfortable. In the end it was, but I still froze. However the cold may have been somehow heightened due to me being cold blooded. At least we had donuts to provide some energy.

The weather driving down wasn’t bad, but occasionally there would be whiteouts, caused by the strong winds or large trucks. Once we got to RMH, we met up with Corey, Steve, Rocky, Mike and some other new faces. When the meeting started, I got really nervous and my hands started shaking. The weird thing is that I love giving talks (it’s the excitement I love) but lately I have been really nervous and shaky. The shakes disappeared once I got up there and started talking. I believe my part of the presentation went well (I only think this because once I sat down I felt good). The only thing I can remember screwing up was how I explained a couple slides wrong, but I don’t think the ACA/SRD crowd knew. Leslie and Justin did a great job too. Both are naturals. During the question period Justin got nailed with a surplus of questions, mostly on his work (isotopes). However, Steve brought up the fact that Justin was keeping the fish that he caught, and that this act wasn’t on the fish permit. However, because Justin had a fishing license, he thought that he could keep them. Steve was a little upset with this because we didn’t tell him we were keeping the fish, and if someone saw that we were keeping them and told Steve, Steve wouldn’t have known, making him look bad. If he was told he would have modified our fish license. In the end, everything went well, and Corey, through ACA, treated us out to lunch.