At the end of July, I took a quick trip to Tucson to attend the Botany 2019 conference. Well, to attend just a tiny bit of it: my dad was a prominent botanist, and my family is funding an award to help fund the work of graduate students in his name. That award was announced at the Botanical Society of America’s annual conference this year. My mother and brother weren’t able to attend, so I decided to head out there to represent the family.
The conference was at the JW Marriot Tucson Starr Pass Resort & Spa, and it was a pretty nice hotel. They even had a little lending library in the lobby, which I thought was neat. I had dinner in the hotel both nights, and those were both really nice. The first night, I actually was taken to dinner at the Italian restaurant, Primo, by a pair of my dad’s former students, Dr Ann Hirsch and Dr Stefan Kirchanski, which was very generous of them. I had a room service breakfast my first morning there, of tamales and eggs, which was a nice change from standard hotel fare. And my second night, I enjoyed some grilled pork chops at the other restaurant, the Signature Grill.
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| Me, Stefan Kirchanski, and Ann Hirsch |
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| Tamales and eggs for breakfast |
I also attended a mixer following the Kaplan Memorial Lecture, which this year was something to do with growing plants in space, and mentioned space broccoli in the title. Unfortunately, I missed the actual lecture; I literally checked into the hotel, parked my car, and ran up to the mixer. I spoke a couple of sentences about how dad would have been proud to see all the work that was being done, because the science was what was important to him.
The next evening, I attended the awards ceremony, where dad’s award was announced. They gave our family a nice plaque, which is really cool. Although it’s kind of weird being given an award to acknowledge the creation of an award; kind of an academic ouroboros, really.
I was again invited to say a few words, so I talked about how happy dad would have been to have had his work acknowledged, but also that it’s not something that he would have actively campaigned for. For him, the important thing was the research, the science, and the teaching. I told them I feel like we are living in a time where the work that all the botanists gathered there that day, and all the other scientists throughout the world, was being unappreciated and disregarded, and that would have driven dad nuts. (It drives me nuts, too.) So, in the spirit of that, we were happy to do what we could to help where the government won’t.
I told them that what would have been important to dad would have been teaching the next generation, and that generation teaching the next after that, and so on and so on. I thanked them for all the work that they do, and thanked them for giving our family the opportunity to help with that.
And, to my amazement, not only did they start clapping (I expected that, out of politeness, if nothing else), but one row after another, they all started standing up. I’ve never received a standing ovation before, but I feel like I earned it, because I spoke from the heart and honored my dad well. And it made me feel even better when Dr Chelsea Specht, who for all intents and purposes is the keeper of dad’s academic legacy, told me that the first ones to stand up were the graduate students.
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| Me and Dr Chelsea Specht |
It’s funny; I hadn’t really been looking forward to the trip all that much, because I didn’t really know anybody. I thought I would mostly be alone the whole trip. Instead, I had a really good time reacquainting myself with some of Dad’s old colleagues, including (but not limited to) Ann, Stefan, Chelsea, Dr Ned Friedman, and Dr Cindy Jones. And the response to my dad’s legacy was so heartening, I will never forget it.
While I was there, I also visited the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. I took a lot of photos, so I thought I would share those with you this week, with minimal commentary.
This cactus display stood outside the entrance to the museum.
I don’t take too many selfies, but I needed one of me in front of this weird-shaped cactus.
Gila monster.
This rattlesnake was so active, I had to take a video of him.
I think this is a chuckwalla drinking.
This frog was pretty active, too.
Here is a spotted skunk.
These frogs (two separate exhibits) were too gorgeous to not photograph.
My wife should skip this video, but I was fascinated by the image of this spider building a funnel web.
The museum is really a thing of beauty all on its own.
The geology exhibits are in an artificial cave, which is pretty neat.
I couldn’t get a good picture of myself with them, but these bat ears are part of a demonstration of how their shape amplifies sound.
More underground geology exhibits.
Artificial dinosaur fossils.
Deer.
Random lizard running around; not all the wildlife was on exhibit.
More deer
Black bear
Mexican Wolf
Coyote
A selection of cacti
A pair of javelina, napping in the shade
A bobcat grooming itself
More beautiful cacti
A sleeping beaver
Mountain goats
A random bird
Some quail, maybe?
Some water fowl
My wife was able to identify this bird, and I have forgotten what it’s called.
They had a pool of rays, and I got to feed them.
More cacti
A nice garden
Hummingbirds in the hummingbird aviary. I could get right up close to them!
For lunch, I just wanted a chicken sandwich and some fries. The “dirty fries,” with chili, cheese, and stuff, sounded more interesting than regular fries, so I ordered them, thinking it was just a side order of fries dressed up. Clearly, mistakes were made.
After lunch, the weather looked like it was turning bad, so I decided to head back to the hotel.
But not before purchasing a plush javelina for our collection! (Whenever we see a new animal at a zoo or whatever, we try to add a plush version to our collection.)
And that’s about it for my trip to the Desert Museum.
As you may recall, last week, I hadn’t received the then-current issue of 2000 AD, prog 2142. There were no stories either starting or ending this issue, so I am picking the Dredd story, Control, as the highlight for the second week in a row. It’s a great story by Rob Williams, with great art by Chris Weston.
I have to admit, I’m starting to feel a little guilty about enjoying Dredd lately. I know it’s intended as a satire, but when we have actual police officers actually shooting and killing unarmed citizens without due process in the streets, the satire is a bit more uncomfortable. It’s a bit of a dilemma I am going to have to work through.
Prog 2143 features the final episode of long-running series Absalom, itself a spin-off from another strip, Caballistics Inc. It’s been a great series, combining British tough-guy crime drama with the supernatural.
It’s always a little weird to see a successful strip in 2000 AD come to a conclusion, but that’s part of what makes the comic so great. Because it’s the weekly comic that sells, not individual series, the creators can choose to end a strip on their own terms, because the story is over, not necessarily because it isn’t selling. And they aren’t forced to continue the series beyond its natural end (or see other creators take it over, for the most part). It’s kind of cool knowing that when the next Absalom collection comes out this fall, collecting these final stories, I can sit down and read a complete series from beginning to end.
And that’s about it for this week. Not sure what I am going to write about next week, but I suspect it may be about Edward, the new baby rhino at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.
See you then!
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