May and June were unusually busy months for me.  It all started mid-May with a work meeting in Maryland, then a six hour road trip with my father to the backwoods of Pennsylvania, finally finishing up with a conference for work in Atlanta, Georgia.  If you have never been to a scientific conference, here's how it works...you have a project, write an abstract, submit it, receive approval and then create a poster representing your abstract.  You go to the conference along with 10 thousand other people to display your poster and field questions about it and your project while standing next to it.  You also get to see vendors, new technologies and speakers after your poster presentation is completed.  I'm glad the remainder of this month and the next will be relatively quiet allowing me to get back into a routine, although my body did have a chance to heal up a bit.

My trip to Atlanta was a short junket, just four days, for the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) Microbe 2018 Conference.  Somehow I managed to come up with an abstract and poster to present at the meeting justifying my attendance.  My flight with Delta was just over two hours into Hartsfield–Jackson (ATL) where I collected my luggage and hopped on the MARTA (Atlanta's public train) for a 20 minute ride and 3 minute walk to my downtown hotel.  After checking in and settling into my room, I wandered in the vicinity of my hotel and ended up down the street in Centennial Olympic Park for a bit until the heat got to be too much.  Later In the evening I had planned on training, so I figured it'd be best to head back to my room to relax before jiu-jitsu (I'll save those details for a later post).

Day 1 of the conference started off with breakfast at Waffle House with a co-worker before heading over to the Georgia World Congress Center to set up my poster.  GWCC is huge, so it took me a bit to find my assigned spot for the poster display.  Once I found it, I was a bit annoyed because the spot I was assigned was literally behind a structural support beam.  After staring at my spot and muttering some expletives, I resigned myself to the position.  Once it was hung, you could only see it if you stood off to either side, not if you stood directly in front of it.  However if I stood to the left or right, I was squarely in front of the people next to me.  It made for an awkward situation, especially when they were answering questions on their project.  I ended up hovering near by and answered a few minor questions before heading off to see some posters I was interested in and checking out the vendors product displays.  The highlight of the day which totally redeemed the shitty poster display position was dinner at The Vortex Bar & Grill in midtown.  Check out the menu if you get a chance, there are some Interesting selections.  I had a "Black & Blue" burger which I washed down with a few pints of Laughing Skull Amber Ale, a local craft. 

Day 2 consisted of more vendor displays at the GWCC before heading back to the hotel to shower and then a side trip before dinner with my colleagues.  Today's side trip was to the Krog Street Tunnel, a pedestrian and automobile tunnel that runs under the Blue and Green MARTA Line.  The novel thing about this tunnel is that it is filled with graffiti, and unlike most places, it is encouraged.  There were actually people working on new art while I was there.  My Uber driver dropped me off at one end and met me at the other so I could walk through and look at all the graffiti.  From here it was off to the Krog Street Market for dinner.  KSM is a converted warehouse that is home to a variety of eateries, shops and even a bar.  We started at the bar with some craft beer to help decide what our meals would be.  I settled on sushi while my co-workers went with, dumplings, pizza, and southern BBQ.  The food we all got was outstanding along with the atmosphere.  Although somehow in the midst of dinner I had to run interference with a drunk guy who was trying to chat up my coworkers, so they could sneak out, with me catching up.  After dinner we walked on the Eastside Beltline Trail until we made it to the 4th Ward Skatepark where we watched some of the people skate for a bit before taking a Lyft back to the hotel and calling it an evening.

On our last full day, we decided to do the tourist thing and go to the World of Coca-Cola (disclaimer; I'm a Coke fan, not Pepsi).  The first thing that happens is you are handed an 8 oz Coke product of your choice while you wait for the opening presentation, which consisted of room full of Coca-Cola memorabilia and a bubbly young woman greeting us in multiple languages before rolling into her spiel.  She was quite good, giving us a run down of the facility, and history of Coke before ushering us into a theater for a 10 minute movie on how Coca-Cola makes life better.  After this we were turned loose to walk around.  The place had old bottles, vintage soda fountains, classic advertisements and a section on the secret recipe and the origins of Coke.  They had a good mix of interactive and conventional displays.  The best part of the whole thing in my opinion was the last room where they had sodas/Coca-Cola products on tap from all over the world.  99% of them were pretty good with only one or two exceptions, the Italian drink "Beverly" being one.  

The final stop of the day and trip was a visit to a Prohibition themed speakeasy.   First off you had to know where to go to find the place, which was hidden down a side street behind a red, English style phone-booth.  Then you had to have the number to use the phone which rang inside to the bar who would send someone to open the hidden door in the back of the phone booth.  You walk into a large room filled with cigar smoke, leather couches, a large old style wooden bar and a tv showing silent movies.  The bouncer asked me to put a sport coat on which they provided before we got our drinks.  We hung out for an hour or so before calling it a night.  It was the perfect way to end the meeting before having to get ready for our flight the next day.

Overall Atlanta was pretty fun and I would absolutely go back.  I know that the IBJJF usually has a winter tournament in Atlanta and we are looking for somewhere different to go for our winter escape, so I guess we will see...