Buffalo NY: ASES 2009!

My God, things have been hectic!

Lion King finished up the 1st week of May. Been back and forth between that, and another (100% fucked) job that really...I don't know how a job could get any worse...plus more PV calls coming in so I'm really hoping that I'll be able to start installing solar arrays full time coming up soon.

In the meantime, I'm attending ASES 2009, a solar power conference put on by the American Solar Energy Society. It's my 2nd year here, and I've got classes and seminars up the yin-yang but I absolutely love it. (Except the flight in, but I'll get to that later.) This time last year so much of the industry was still foreign to me, and now I'm finding that some of it is actually a review for me. What's strange is that guys with 10 years field experience are just learning the theory I learned before I touch a module for the first time. It's ego-boosting and humbling at the same time.

I went to Niagara Falls, and got pics of the falls and of the Nicola Tesla statue (I'm a geek, I know)...gonna head to Anchor Bar later in the week, and see what there is to see. I'm actually staying with a friend in a small town right outside Buffalo, but it saves me tons of money, plus I get to see her little town after hearing about it for like 5 years. I forgot to bring the cord to connect the camera to my laptop to get my pics on here so I'll have to do it when I get back but still...some good ones. :)

Okay my flight: I left Friday morning, and it started getting really turbulent sometime after we passed the Rockies -- which were amazing by the way. And it went from regular turbulent to OMG turbulent, where the it felt like a roller coaster and the pilot was like, "Um...we just called Chicago O'Hare and they said it's even worse to Cleveland so we're going to divert." So we diverted. Then undiverted. Then diverted, then snuck over to Cleveland anyway (like the storm wouldn't see us??), then waited, then waited...and waited...then we were going to connect straight to Buffalo, then they decided against it and we went to Newark (what a shitty little airport!) and after running from one gate to the next I barely made it to my connection to Buffalo and landed only an hour after I was originally supposed to. I think. Time zones are a bitch. And I slept for about 15 straight hours and awakened to a supposed "springtime" that felt more like a "dead of winter in Vegas" to me, but aside from all that...I've had a blast so far. :)

Oh, but I will say that the airline food I had was seriously above par. Kudos to scientific advances in that area because honestly, I've never in my life had better raisin bran, and that really says something.