I flew out to AGU on Saturday and have been constrained by a rigid schedule of meetings, dinners and events ever since arrival. I think I managed to make it to three science sessions, and was able to visit poster sessions a couple of times. I was engaged with recruitment efforts, two important meetings with excellent LDEO benefactors, an NSF oversight committee, a couple of meetings with NSF program managers, an OOI Advisory Committee - not to mention the LDEO Alumni Association reception, which was, as usual an unparalleled success. Barb Charbonnet and I had lunch with Oleg
Jardetsky on Wednesday at the Stanford Faculty Club and were amused by his stories of the planned return of Condoleeza Rice to the regular Stanford faculty in the Political Sciences Department. On Thursday afternoon I had a good meeting with Bruno Goffe - the Earth Sciences Director at INSU/CNRS in Paris and arranged a day long visit to LDEO in the spring. Apparently Sarkozy is pushing for more University-based research in France and encouraging international cooperation.
I was supposed to fly home Friday, but got spooked by the forecasts of snowstorms on the East Coast, so bailed out on Thursday night on a red-eye. It turned out to be a very good decision - we have a day-long visit at LDEO from a high-level Chinese delegation from the National Natural Science Foundation for which I had to prepare over the weekend - so getting stuck in San Francisco was not an option.
Rumors were rife that Jane Lubchenko (OSU) will be the Administrator of NOAA and John Holdren (Professor of Environmental Policy at Harvard) will be the Presidents science advisor. Both good appointments, I think, but the Lubchenko decision is somewhat surprising.
Be safe in the snow, and have a good weekend,
Mike