Home from Conference.

I spent the last four days in New Orleans at the International Meeting for Simulation in Healthcare. It was a good meeting, though I am coming around to the feeling that it might not be my meeting. It’s very heavily focused on mannequin simulation, and I do discrete event simulation. There’s a couple of small groups interested in DES, and I presented twice to good receptions.

But overall, I don’t know that this is the right environment for me. Particularly considering there is a very strange person trying to hijack the systems modeling group into some kind of big data/number crunching agenda. He’s a very unpleasant single-mindtrack zealot. I don’t enjoy trying to participate in groups where he’s there, and no one else seems to either.

But it’s not my group, and I’m not calling the shots, and I don’t want to. So this is a case of, “When I’m uncomfortable, there’s a problem with me.” Whatever problems this man has, and however inappropriate his topics are to the group, it’s not really my business, because I’m not the one in charge of the group. So my only decision to make is if I’m going to participate or not. And I haven’t decided.

I probably should have gone to a meeting in New Orleans while I was there, but it honestly didn’t occur to me while I was. I thought about it before the conference. But during I had a lot of work to do and a lot of conference to attend and I simply never gave going to an AA meeting a single thought. That’s a little concerning. I don’t always go to AA meetings when I travel, but I often do, and I think I could have used one this week.

I got about 14 miles worth of runs in on the trip, along the brickwalks around the New Orleans convention center. It was nice to run in a little warmer temperatures. Though it wasn’t especially warm. I got in a 10K in a little under an hour, which always feels like an accomplishment. I won’t be able to run again until Saturday, but I’m planning a 10 miler then.

I’m tired. I was able to use the conference to catch up on a little bit of sleep by napping between sessions, etc., but I am feeling deeply tired. Headachey. The abdominal strain prevented me from doing the kind of workouts I really want to be doing for a couple of months, and now I feel a little slothful. I need to get myself into real shape if I’m going to run a full marathon this fall.

Things are going objectively very well. I’m just a little bleary today from travel. I should shut up. That’s good advice at almost any time.