I am in Nottingham today, attending the eSciences All Hands Meeting until thursday. It's an interesting meeting, though the scope of it is not really my thing. Any conference that can gather archeologists, astronomers, social scientists, computer scientists and biologists under one roof is bound to be a bit ecclectic. There's some interesting tidbits, but most of it I find uninteresting. I'm here to give a demo on PRIDE/OLS, so basically I'm losing 3 days of useful work time to give a 25 minute presentation and waving the flag a lot. Ah well, thems the breaks.
Getting here was interesting. Taking the train is still a novel experience, especially when it's not a route I'm used to. I'm always worried I'm on the wrong train (this is especially confusing when the trains are identified by their final destination and it's not always obvious you need to take the Norwich train to get off at Ely to then take the Liverpool train to get off at Nottingham). Still, I made it in one piece on time, though at one point I had to disturb a One employee who was busy oogling a rather bust-enhanced page 3 girl.
The hotel I'm staying in is ok, but you'd think I'd be used to differences in classifications and ratings between Canada and the UK. You'd think a 4-star hotel would be a bit more posh than having plastic cups in the loo and small, lumpy beds. Still, it's clean and the food is good.
Speaking of, you'd think I'd know better by now to steer clear of the full english fry-up. But no. I'm stupid that way. I went a bit overboard with the bacon this morning and my body is now voicing a rather harsh opinion that this was indeed a very foolish thing to do. I'm going to be drinking a lot of green tea today to try and bring my GI system back in line. For now, I just hope that my subsonic gas releases aren't disrupting the keynote speakers.
In other news, we're seeing the light at the end of the wedding prep tunnel. We finally heard from our cake decorator last night, and the last things to do are getting Katy's hair cut, the music and the final fittings for the suit hire. yay!
Oh, man do I know what you mean about the full fry-up. I've taken to eating out a lot on account of never returning to my house; it's so bad that I basically restrict myself to sushi now. It's less-unhealthy.
(http://livejournal.com/users/pretentiousgit)
sushi is in fact excellent for you.
Today, I have eaten:
5 slices of bacon
2 eggs (scrambled with god knows how much milk or butter)
2 toast
fried mushrooms
1 chunky kitkat
4 shortbread biscuits
copious cups of green tea
This is the problem when I go away to conferences or places where I don't get to cook my own food or control how it's made. I tend to avoid the healthy stuff because it usually contains things that I can't eat or the staff just don't have a clue what's in it. Hence, my diet goes to hell and I feel like crap.
I'd kill for sushi right now.
(http://livejournal.com/users/talisker)
Yeah, and also, for an island, England has shit in terms of inexpensive fish. I mean, I live in Toronto. Eating the contents of the lake would be foolish in the extreme. I ate sushi a total of once over there, and it was, like, £13! For very little, too. Ridonkulous.
I sympathize heartily with the pain of your guts.
(http://livejournal.com/users/pretentiousgit)
my guts and I thank you :) You can get good cheap fish. So far, the best fish market I've seen is in Leicester, which ironically is the furthest point from most of the coastline and is generally considered to be the most landlocked place in the UK. There's also a kick-ass fish market in London, but I've not had time to go there yet.
(http://livejournal.com/users/talisker)