Conference Approaching

With January already having flown by it seems like 2007 is set to be yet another of those 'blink and you'll miss it' occasions or, perhaps, a 'drink and you'll miss it one' given the amount of parties that i seem to have been attending recently!! With my Dad's visit over and done, and the remainder of January been somewhat filled with work stuff - like seminars and the like, I was quite relieved when February came along, only to then realise today that the next big event on my scientific calendar is fast approaching - namely, the Charleston Ceramide Conference (aka CCC) which takes place on March 7th-11th. The timely reminder came with an e-mail confirming that my abstract had been accepted for a poster presentation (another one to add to the CV) and reminded me that i had actually better start putting something together - given that it's only three and a half weeks away now.

Of course, an added advantage of this conference is it's location. The CCC is so named because it originated here in Charleston in 2001 - and was spearheaded by my boss Dr. Hannun as a conference for discussing sphingolipids (my labs primary research area). Since then, the conference has been held every other year but has not been restricted to Charleston. In 2003, the second conference was held in Italy (I forget where, but the place began with 'C' to keep the CCC up), was back in Charleston in 2005 and so now for 2007 will be at another destination - namely, Carmel in California. Thus, along with the conference this will be giving me a chance to hop over the West Coast for a few days. Whilst my plans to spend a few days in San Francisco (the nearest major city) on the way had to be shelved (owing to a late decision to go back to the UK for a week at the end of April), it will still be a nice chance to see a little more of the country - and, hey, with no major trips back to the UK for 2008 planned, I think i may hop over that side again soon enough!! So, without much further do, i think i'm going to sign off and start preparing my poster - if i can find the abstract i wrote, that is!!