This afternoon I flew to Washington D.C., where the National Science Foundation (NSF) Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellows Symposium is taking place today and tomorrow at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel. This precedes the January 2006 American Astrophysical Society (AAS) Meeting. The symposium itself is supposed to draw in about 20 fellows, as well as various people from the astrophysics community who show up early to the AAS meeting and - good to know if you're interested and in the area - is free and open to the public. I'm here because I've been invited to sit on a panel on Exploring Non-Traditional Outreach Methods. This should be pretty interesting, since it's the first time I've been asked to take part in something like this, that is so far from my primary research area. Although I am involved in a wide variety of outreach efforts, including Saturday Morning Physics, Cafe Scientifique, public lectures, etc., the only thing that was explicitly mentioned when I was invited, was the blog! So we'll see. I'll let you know how it goes, what gets asked, and how my answers are treated. As far as I know, I'm not required to do any preparation, so it'll be a bit of a surprise to be on the panel, although I'll get to attend a different one earlier in the day, so that should help. I got here late afternoon and went out for dinner, where I ran into someone I knew and had dinner with, which was nice. I finished my early evening with a quick drink in the bar at my hotel and am now back in my room editing a paper (or rather avoiding editing the paper by writing this quick post). I'm staying in D.C. until Monday afternoon, and spending Monday morning at the NSF having a meeting with my grant manager. I'll post again either tomorrow evening or Monday, reporting on the panel.
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