Mid-year conference trips
30 October 2024
This year Jay’s birthday fell during the SIGGRAPH conference in Los Angeles. I booked an early birthday dinner at Vue de Monde before he left the next day. While he was away I completed another third of the Titanic Lego model and also had a weekend at Sorrento with my sister. The weather was wintry but she was pleased to walk to the beach and have the wood heater lit. At the same time Jay went hiking on Pike’s Peak with Derek who was free to come to Denver after a family wedding. The Olympics also provided some entertainment while I was home alone.
After a very long delay in obtaining probate due to unfortunate legal advice, I was finally able to move forward with the administration of my mother’s estate. Fortunately the elements requiring legal assistance were completed around the first anniversary of her death with the property transfers completed. The remaining tasks require only accountancy advice and tax calculations and should take less than six months, I hope.
I had my own intimations of mortality when my routine FOB screening was positive and so I was treated to a colonoscopy. It was an interesting and useful experience to see this from a patient perspective. I learned not to blame patients for incomplete electronic admission paperwork as some of the delays in loading pop-up menus in the software used by the hospital were several minutes long. The preparation drink was breathtakingly effective. I had the procedure in a unit where I regularly work, so I was on my best behaviour with the staff. The result was a few polyps and an invitation to return in a year’s time.
We saw a number of performances in September and October: The Pharaoh exhibit at NGV, SIX the Musical, Tim Minchin in conversation and Olivia Rodrigo in concert. The tickets for Olivia Rodrigo I had bought for Jay’s birthday and we had a very good view of the stage. It was not the night when she fell down a hole in the stage: the performance was almost as energetic as the audience’s screaming.
We had not seen our friend Billy in person for a long time when he let us know he would be on his way back from a conference in Perth and hoped we could meet for a weekend. We had a lovely couple of days in Adelaide, staying at the same hotel and doing some wine-tasting in McLaren Vale. We also spent a surprising amount of time at the botanic gardens, especially for the fascinating Museum of Economic Botany.
The weekend in Adelaide was the first of four weekends away in a row for me. The following Friday I left for Philadelphia for the ASA Anesthesiology 2024 meeting. A few days before departure we had received an email from Joel, one of our oldest friends in San Francisco to let us know that he had come to the end of his cancer treatment options. I modified my itinerary to give me two nights in San Francisco after the conference rather than travelling directly home.
The conference was, as always, well-organised with lots of valuable sessions and I managed to get a lot of the CME credits I need to keep my California registration. Philadelphia was much more vibrant than I remembered from my last trip there in 2002, but I was also staying in a more lively neighbourhood: Midtown Village. The hotel at which I was staying had a proper kitchen in the room so I was able to cook my own breakfasts and dinners which made for a much more comfortable diet than most trips. There was a small but convenient gym opposite the hotel and my workout schedule was almost the same as at home.
I had some spare time outside of the conference, and walked around the Wanamaker Building where I was at the right time to hear the largest pipe organ being played. I also walked through the remarkable city hall building and toured the Independence Hall where the government of the early republic was convened after moving from New York and before Washington DC was built.
Our friend Charles, who had visited Melbourne in May, happened to be in Philadelphia for a work event while I was at the conference, so we went out in the evening for drinks and dinner and I got to meet some of his friends from when he used to live on the East Coast.
Because my flights had been changed at the last minute to accommodate the stop in San Francisco, I had to accept a very early flight out of Philadelphia on Wednesday morning, getting to San Francisco at 9:30am. Richelle and Scott had kindly agreed to let me stay with them in Palo Alto. I visited Joel and Sam for dinner on Wednesday night. I went again for dinner with them and other friends on Thursday night as well as dropping off groceries earlier on Thursday.
Joel was in the process of entering hospice care at home. I was very grateful for the opportunity to spend time with them and with some of their other friends. There were a host of neighbours, local friends and friends from outside California visiting and helping with food and shopping and other needs. It was difficult to say goodbye, knowing that it would most likely be for the last time with Joel.
On my last day I spent some time with Richelle and Scott before my flight home. I went to the Cantor Art Museum with Richelle and walked around old Palo Alto with Scott. My flight home turned out to be somewhat chaotic. What was supposed to be two legs in Air New Zealand business class to Melbourne via Auckland was instead a business class flight to Auckland via Nadi in Fiji followed by a long wait and then an economy seat on a completely full Qantas flight just to get home for work the next day. At least I had plenty of time to read.
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After a very long delay in obtaining probate due to unfortunate legal advice, I was finally able to move forward with the administration of my mother’s estate. Fortunately the elements requiring legal assistance were completed around the first anniversary of her death with the property transfers completed. The remaining tasks require only accountancy advice and tax calculations and should take less than six months, I hope.
I had my own intimations of mortality when my routine FOB screening was positive and so I was treated to a colonoscopy. It was an interesting and useful experience to see this from a patient perspective. I learned not to blame patients for incomplete electronic admission paperwork as some of the delays in loading pop-up menus in the software used by the hospital were several minutes long. The preparation drink was breathtakingly effective. I had the procedure in a unit where I regularly work, so I was on my best behaviour with the staff. The result was a few polyps and an invitation to return in a year’s time.
We saw a number of performances in September and October: The Pharaoh exhibit at NGV, SIX the Musical, Tim Minchin in conversation and Olivia Rodrigo in concert. The tickets for Olivia Rodrigo I had bought for Jay’s birthday and we had a very good view of the stage. It was not the night when she fell down a hole in the stage: the performance was almost as energetic as the audience’s screaming.
We had not seen our friend Billy in person for a long time when he let us know he would be on his way back from a conference in Perth and hoped we could meet for a weekend. We had a lovely couple of days in Adelaide, staying at the same hotel and doing some wine-tasting in McLaren Vale. We also spent a surprising amount of time at the botanic gardens, especially for the fascinating Museum of Economic Botany.
The weekend in Adelaide was the first of four weekends away in a row for me. The following Friday I left for Philadelphia for the ASA Anesthesiology 2024 meeting. A few days before departure we had received an email from Joel, one of our oldest friends in San Francisco to let us know that he had come to the end of his cancer treatment options. I modified my itinerary to give me two nights in San Francisco after the conference rather than travelling directly home.
The conference was, as always, well-organised with lots of valuable sessions and I managed to get a lot of the CME credits I need to keep my California registration. Philadelphia was much more vibrant than I remembered from my last trip there in 2002, but I was also staying in a more lively neighbourhood: Midtown Village. The hotel at which I was staying had a proper kitchen in the room so I was able to cook my own breakfasts and dinners which made for a much more comfortable diet than most trips. There was a small but convenient gym opposite the hotel and my workout schedule was almost the same as at home.
I had some spare time outside of the conference, and walked around the Wanamaker Building where I was at the right time to hear the largest pipe organ being played. I also walked through the remarkable city hall building and toured the Independence Hall where the government of the early republic was convened after moving from New York and before Washington DC was built.
Our friend Charles, who had visited Melbourne in May, happened to be in Philadelphia for a work event while I was at the conference, so we went out in the evening for drinks and dinner and I got to meet some of his friends from when he used to live on the East Coast.
Because my flights had been changed at the last minute to accommodate the stop in San Francisco, I had to accept a very early flight out of Philadelphia on Wednesday morning, getting to San Francisco at 9:30am. Richelle and Scott had kindly agreed to let me stay with them in Palo Alto. I visited Joel and Sam for dinner on Wednesday night. I went again for dinner with them and other friends on Thursday night as well as dropping off groceries earlier on Thursday.
Joel was in the process of entering hospice care at home. I was very grateful for the opportunity to spend time with them and with some of their other friends. There were a host of neighbours, local friends and friends from outside California visiting and helping with food and shopping and other needs. It was difficult to say goodbye, knowing that it would most likely be for the last time with Joel.
On my last day I spent some time with Richelle and Scott before my flight home. I went to the Cantor Art Museum with Richelle and walked around old Palo Alto with Scott. My flight home turned out to be somewhat chaotic. What was supposed to be two legs in Air New Zealand business class to Melbourne via Auckland was instead a business class flight to Auckland via Nadi in Fiji followed by a long wait and then an economy seat on a completely full Qantas flight just to get home for work the next day. At least I had plenty of time to read.
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