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The Park City Paradox

Every August Jason and I head up to Park City for my chapter of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists’ annual seminar and golf outing. This event takes place at the Hotel Park City and we usually stay in one of their cottage suites while I attend. (We get a great deal so why not.) The cottage suites are definitely snooty with private Jacuzzis, patios, 3 fireplaces, and so forth and so on. Naturally you’d think that my snobbish slumber in their enormous beds, some or the most comfortable beds I’ve ever laid in, would be peaceful and perfect but no, that’s not how my night’s rest at this thing ever goes and therein lies my single grievance about our yearly Park City excursion. This event would almost feel like a retreat if it weren’t for the cruel scheduling. I have a great time but I come home feeling like a zombie in a golf skirt. Allow me to run through the proceedings at this function and explain while I complain.

The view from our cottage was, as always, beautiful.

The first bit of this outing is all about education through presentations. Yippee! Those who know me understand that I am hopelessly curious. I’m happy listening to lectures for hours while furiously scribbling notes so I was predictably engaged by this year’s talks. After a full afternoon of learning about preservatives and how to make nasty sunscreens taste sublime, our entire 50+ group headed downstairs to Ruth’s Chris for an excellent dinner. Jason decided to join us for this meal. He has always been hesitant to come to supper with this crowd even though he’s continually invited and the food at Ruth’s Chris is delicious. I think my particular brand of geek intimidates him a tad because the only circuits we care about are those generated by our evaporimeters but this year either he manned up or the thought of tasty food got the better of him. It turns out he was right to be wary of these chemists though. Our table had a 20 minute discussion about the fragrances used in Fabreze that forced Jason into the realm of cosmetic nerdery at a head-spinning pace. However, a tender fillet and big blob of mashed potatoes seemed to reduce the shock of it all on his system. Our feast wasn’t over until about 8:30 but that still left me and Jason ample time to pull out our books and relax for a few hours, something we are too occupied to do often at home.

Our golfers were numerous. It took nearly 50 carts to seat us all.

This all sounds like a rough experience, right? Lots of excellent food and unwinding with a good read in a fancy hotel room. We scientists have a tough life that is for certain. While this may sound like the lap of luxury, let me assure you that luxury knows no alarm clock. The golfing on the second day of our meeting starts absurdly early and that’s what always gets me. I’m up in Park City. I’m staying in a super nice room with a bed that’s feathery and soft but I never sleep well because I know I have to get up at 5:00 AM or thereabouts. The ease of it all is kind of lost when you wake up in the middle of the night and realize you have to be up for real in an hour.

My golf team was not lucky to have me among them but I did contribute a few good swings to our cause.

Despite my grumblings about its timing, the golfing is surprisingly enjoyable every year. I am a pretty horrendous golfer, make no mistake, but I don’t take myself too seriously so I can still enjoy that which I suck at. The lessons I took last summer and the couple visits Jason and I have made to the driving range this year have definitely helped me play less awfully. I know how to stand correctly now and grip my clubs but I am still a beginner with a capital B. Regardless, I always have fun with whatever team I am placed on and occasionally my shots do end up being useful.

The SCC summer outing in Park City is a strange mix of recreation, learning, leisure, and exhaustion. Instead of being cooped up in the office I get to practice my swing in the sweet sunshine but I don’t get to enjoy my fluffy bed like I would on a real break. It’s being on the brink of a vacation without actually getting all the perks of one that’s the killer. Sometime I’d like to stay at the Hotel Park City when I don’t have to rise before the sun’s even thinking about it. Until then, you can all keep rolling your eyes at my “hard” life.

Rachel August 29, 2012 No Comments

Viva la Vernal

When I was a kid a trip to “Dinosaurland” in Vernal was about the most exciting prospect for a Saturday imaginable. The sculpted dinosaur replicas at the museum there thrilled me as much as if they were originals.

Last weekend we decided to recapture some of that childhood dino magic with a group camping outing to Eastern Utah. Our friends the Bresees, Rowleys, and Ashleys all joined us. Now “camping” in this case shouldn’t conjure up images of a lean-to rigged together in some desolate wilderness 40 miles from anything. No, we weren’t exactly roughing it. We stayed at the Vernal KAO; the Rowleys brought their RV and Jason and I took advantage of the campground’s “cottage.” The cottage was an upgrade from the cabin that the Bresees and Ashleys shared because this baby had a small kitchen area and, most importantly, its own tiny bathroom. The plumbing alone convinced me that the extra cash for the cottage was a worthwhile investment even if that bathroom was so little I could only fit one of my butt cheeks in at a time. With a private restroom, microwave, fridge, stovetop, and TV, our accommodations may sound rather plush but, in my opinion, our plywood bed was practically worse than sleeping on the ground and definitely uncomfortable enough to justify that liberal camping classification.

Our cottage was basically a trailer. Its wheels were visible through the lattice around its base.
The stones of Red Fleet were stamped with 200 million-year-old remnants of a dino block party.

Our trip was packed with excitement, education, and educational excitement but also chaotic disorganization. Our group was a bit too large and kid-laden for schedules and rendezvous to really work, which made our museum expeditions a little tricky. Still, unraveling the ancient mysteries of this corner of Utah kept me generally satisfied with my situation even if our crew had to make more bathroom stops than a bus full of prune eating contest winners.

Impersonating our prehistoric predecessors, including the Utahraptor, required lots of teeth and vicious fingers.

Friday night we went to Red Fleet Reservoir with the Bresees to check out the trackway: hundreds of dinosaur footprints embedded in the sandstone near one area of the shore. Hunting around on the hillside for tracks was quite entertaining. It made me feel a bit like a paleontologist detective. (Note to self: you should never consider a career in paleontology. You can’t even tell the difference between a rock and an old acorn.)

I'm a squeaker so trying to be a squawker wasn't too difficult for me.
The quarry wall at Dinosaur National Monument was so unbelievably packed with fossils that it was hard for my brain to process it as reality.

Our Saturday was also filled with prehistoric intrigue. We started out at the Utah Field House of Natural History Museum. This is the place that dazzled me when I was a youngster. The museum had moved into a much nicer and bigger building since I’d last been there but they still had their life-size dino replicas outside, much to the delight of my youngish heart.

Here's most of our bulky group plus a bulky stegosaurus.

Next we were off to Dinosaur National Monument to check out their quarry wall filled with over 1,600 bones from hundreds of dinosaurs. Awesome! A hot hike on the Fossil Discovery Trail later we were more than ready to hit the murky waters of Steinaker Reservoir. Steinaker is located just a few miles out of Vernal and is touted for its nice sandy beaches. Despite optimistic accounts, we found more mud than sand on those shores but that didn’t stop us from jumping in. The kids quickly transformed themselves into filthy creatures and the adults willingly waded through sticky muck in order to hold cannonball contests off a floating platform. After all, a little lake slime never hurt anyone, at least not anyone outside a B-grade horror movie.

The kids were rather happy with the quantity of high quality mud they found at the reservoir.
The two Rowley boys, Milo and Silas, wasted no time sheathing themselves in a protective mud coating at Steinaker.

That evening our “camping” status compelled us to roast wieners and marshmallows around a roaring fire. Dang that camping for having such stringent terms of service! It was a yummy dinner and one of the highlights of the weekend. Chatting around flames + combusting marshmallows = one of life’s essential pyro delights.

No one can resist a good wiener roast, except maybe a self-preserving stick.

Hooray for Vernal! After a twenty-year absence, my dino buddies and I were able to get reacquainted. Our weekend was occasionally eye roll worthy but all in all we had a pretty great stay. In another 200 million years we’ll have to do it again.

Rachel August 24, 2012 1 Comment

The Return of the Con

Going to Comic-Con changes your perspective on life. You’ll never whine again about brief delays checking out at the grocery store when you’ve waited in line for hours and hours with literally thousands of people. Star sightings will seem mundane after you’ve been surrounded on all sides by celebrities. Sneaking ninjas and throngs of superheroes invading your personal space won’t even make you blink twice. Yes, once you have been to Comic-Con there is no going back to your pre-Con preconceptions.

The members of our large group went their separate ways for the most part during the day but we met up to share our daily tales over dinner.
I'm pretty sure that just being in Tim Burton's presence made my brother nervous. Watching Beetlejuice as a kid scarred him for life. I, however, enjoyed listening to crazy Tim.
Jason definitely belongs with these other scoundrels.

Last year Jason and I had our first stupefying Comic-Con experience. Our recount of its fabulousness must have bedazzled everyone because this year a group of friends joined us. My brother Drew, his wife Simone, Jeremy Rowley, his wife Amber, and Jason’s coworker Dan all decided to come and miraculously everyone managed to acquire those mythical tickets.

The streets outside the convention center were always congested with humanity.
All of the actual Batmobiles were on display at Comic-Con. Batastic! This is the 1966 version from the TV series.
This picture only represents about half of the Firefly panel members. I wouldn't want you to explode into fits of jealousy by showing you everyone that was there.

Comic-Con this time around felt very similar to last year. The eternal lines were everywhere, the elaborate costumes were as prolific as Mario’s mushrooms, and the smelly masses still hadn’t discovered deodorant. Once again we rose before the sun or the sane to claim our spots for the panels from our favorite shows. Yes, Comic-Con was the same mess of marketing and humanity but this time Jason and I had changed. We were no longer Padawans; we were the Comic-Con Masters. We weren’t awed and overwhelmed by the omnipresent famous. We knew better than to take volunteers’ conflicting directions as fact and we anticipated spending most of our time standing in line. With that said, it would be erroneous to assume that our Comic-Con familiarity led to letdowns. Just because we were Con veterans doesn’t mean we didn’t totally nerd-out from predawn to long after dusk. We expected chaotic awesomeness and that’s what we got.

Bumblebee and I were just little guys next to Optimus' massive trunks.

The most awesome of that awesomeness? Meeting Brent Spiner, AKA Mr. Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Lifetime dream fulfillment? Check. Brent was not disappointing in person; he was very witty and clever. Jason made me confess my teenage Data crush to him. (Thanks a lot for ratting me out Jason.) He took it quite well. My admission actually didn’t seem to surprise him one bit but he did appear a little stunned that I had followed up my taste for tasty androids with a marriage to a common earthman.

We traveled down 5th Avenue Flash style because we were just too fast to move any other way.
The exhibit floor at Comic-Con is full of surprises like meeting yourself.
The Bunker, South Park's art department, was full of friendly animators.
Our hotel room had a nice view of the bay. Not that we got to enjoy it much since we were never in our room.

Along with encountering celebrities up-close, we saw oodles of them on stage at the multitude of superb panels we attended: Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2, Frankenweenie, Oz, Wreck-it Ralph, Masquerade 101, History of the Modern Zombie, Legend of Korra, Spotlight on Ben Edlund, Designing for the Undead, and Minimates Turn 10. While I enjoyed learning about the psychology of the post-apocalyptic and hearing from Tim Burton, Sam Raimi, Mila Kunis, Sarah Silverman, and John C. Reilly, my favorite panel this time was Firefly: 10 Year Anniversary. Joss Whedon, Nathan Fillion, and a number of the other cast members were present. The audience was so appreciative and supportive of these stars that by the end our standing ovation had most, if not all, of them in tears. I was moved by them being moved so I ended up crying a bit myself. It was moving. What a fantastic panel! By the way, if you haven’t watched Firefly I would highly recommend it; then you will understand why the Fox network is run by morons.

Hasbro is launching a line of Star Trek toys soon. I'll be purchasing buckets of those no doubt.
A league of steam punkers? Now that's might misty.

While the panels were delightful, they didn’t monopolize our attention. We had to leave some time for the enormous and illustrious exhibit hall. The Comic-Con exhibit hall is as full of surprises as a Klingon in a barbershop. No matter how much time you spend wandering around the thousands of booths you’ll always discover more must-have geeky merchandise that you missed last time you wandered by. You’ll also stumble upon famous people left and right. That’s how we came across the members of The Bunker, which do animation work for South Park, and Max Brooks, the author of The Zombie Survival Guide. Needless to say, we purchased a lot of autographed wares on the exhibit floor. I even had an anime version of myself drawn by comic book artist Ashley Riot; I affectionately refer to it as “animeMe.”

Everyone needs a wooden moustache or two and the vendors at Comic-Con were happy to provide.
I never much cared for Sand People and their annoying vocals but I did appreciate this creative costuming.

Yes, our familiarity with Comic-Con led to less “wow” this year but not less enjoyment. We knew we were dumping ourselves into the stinky melting pot of nerd culture and that we might emerge with the white hand of Saruman painted across our chest but we wouldn’t regret it. And what about the noobs? They had a great time and are already plotting how to maximize their Comic-Con experience next year with less funds, less sleep, and less showering. Will Jason and I be there next year? If Picard’s crew can make it so we probably can too but I think we’ll stick with a Con plan that includes bathing.

Rachel July 20, 2012 1 Comment
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