Getting closer

Written 6/13/06

It took a couple phone calls to France (one restaurant can't get its e-mail to work, and another has trouble with its fax machine), but all the reservations are squared away.

The friendly recorded voice at Travelocity calls occasionally to report small changes in our flight times, but so far nothing very drastic. David has arranged for his graduate students to watch the house, and good friend Trisha has offered to take us to the airport. I'm working my way down my pre-travel checklist: note and check for the house cleaner, note for the neighbors with dates and contact info, etc., etc.

Our friend Dan Simberloff, now at the University of Tennessee, will actually be in Paris when we pass through on Thurday morning, but the timing is exactly wrong. He'll fly in the day before, then when we arrive and have brunch during our four-hour layover, he'll be downtown grilling some unfortunate doctoral student, then he flies out the day after. Ships in the night, as it were.

We will get to see many colleagues and old friends on this trip, though, both at the two meetings and after the meeting in Southampton. Meeting organizer Paul Tyler (the same one we visited in Southampton during last year's sabbatical) is taking advantage of the presence in town of so many of his friends and is throwing himself a big 60th-birthday bash the day after the meetings end. We look forward to it!

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