jay | Celebrity treatment

I'm not used to people I don't know well coming up and just wanting to hang out with me... but today that happened quite a bit. I was fed, taken around on tours, given whatever assistance or food or help I asked for... the visiting-rockstar treatment. ;-) Introduced to other VIPs by VS, who happily led me from group to group to group. Showing me off, it felt like, but in a good way. I was even asked for an autograph.

cyan_blue and I slept in a bit after a late arrival last night... we had had wine and fruit and cheese in the room waiting, which we consumed while cuddling on our balcony overlooking the Riverwalk. This morning, I ordered room service breakfast and then we took a walk, finding a virtual cache, before my lunch meeting with VS.

And then the pace quickened... VS took me to the exhibit floor, introduced me to her co-workers and management and various folks we met in transit. Then I set up the DAME drill, with help from local site staff. I got it up and running (with some phone support)and it checked out normally. SPE was excited to have it in place, and thrilled that it still had part of a Devon Island core sample left inside an (uncleaned, starting to rust) coring bit, and that it ran instead of being a static display.

I left my belt and most of my underwear at home, packing in a rush. Today Geri got me a belt in time for me to dress up to go to a SPE Board of Directors reception. There... lots of networking. I met and talked about drilling and our projects with the CEO of Marathon Oil, with the VP for R&D of Shell (based in the Netherlands) and his counterparts with BP and Chevron, talked with the SPE past and current and next year's presidents, other board members, media... then left the reception and spent 2 hours talking in front of the (live) DAME drill and accompanying posters. Lots of attention, lots of gee-whiz-effect. It is surprising to me how much cachet NASA has with folks in the petroleum industry.

Afterwards... changed back, grabbed reception food and joined

cyan_blue for a night loop around the Riverwalk. On one empty stretch, two alcohol-scented young guys suddenly jumped at us... and yelled! I reflexively went into a fighting stance and started to punch the closest... who then seemed to be teasing, so I held fire. They tried to make light of it and slowly backed away from us, making a racist joke about how the Asians they'd pranked likewise had jumped in the river... sigh. Geri and I took our time to get back, to de-stress.