#GVRAT 1000K: The Curse of ASMS

I’ve attended the annual conference of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry 12 or 13 times over the last 25 years and every time I sustain an injury within 48 hours of arrival (drink and/or drugs may have been involved).

I once awoke next to a swimming pool the morning I was speaking in a polymer mass spec session wearing only my outer shirt, one sock, and some underwear; the security personnel demanding to know if I was resident at that hotel were nudging the swollen and quite broken toe on the unclad foot.

Eventually, they escorted me to the room I was sharing with my PhD adviser asking him, “do you know this man?”  “Yes,” he replied tiredly with the, “unfortunately,” implied but not uttered.  He never bothered to ask for details having seen worse the previous 3 years.

So, this year ASMS conference is online due to COVID-19.  What’s the worst that could happen?  Day 2 also happened to be Jackie’s birthday and all she wanted was tacos and margaritas.

D’oh.  Tequila…the broken toe incident also involved tequila.  I awoke this morning with a 3 inch gash on the opposite side of my forehead from the ones I just de-sutured (which I sustained, from the online receipt, the day I signed up for this virtual conference).  This new decoration came after J had already gone to bed and I was shifting some plants out in the garden from a usually sunny spot to one a little more protected from foul weather ahead.  My back seized and my knee collapsed and the tequila balance defined my trajectory toward a stack of paving stones.  Olé!

Before the fiesta, we jogged to the far side of Oldbury and back during my work-from-home lunch break.  The resulting GVRAT mileage now stands at 268.8 and my virtual position is here in the shadow of a “See Rock City” sign: