Viscoelastic in Vancouver

Viscoelastic was in Vancouver attending a conference on rheology. In case you didn't know, rheology is the study of material flow. Most often, it is used to describe the behavior of complex fluids, viscoelastic materials being a particular class within.

Vancouver is as dreary as I remember it. Cloudy and rainy. We did't have much time to explore the town anyway, for being a bunch of extreme slackers, we have left the preparation of our respective presentations to the very last minute. My own presentation is particularly weak, and I had this fear that I will be exposed as a fraud by the eminent professors and peers. However this fear was insufficient to push me into a work frenzy, and I spent most of the time consuming copious amounts of libations provided by the generous society of rheology. To my pleasant surprise (or perhaps in my drunken stupor), I thought my talk was not a complete disaster.

Since both Giorgia and I were away, Ali (Giorgia's boyfriend) was left in charge of the pigs. His position on the pigs remain unclear, but I have advised him that while we were away, he should start researching for a joint paper titled (Guinea Pigs Sustainability: temporal scaling of mortality rate amongst rodents under reduced nourishment and sustained abuse)... I was disappointed to find the pigs in good health when we returned.

Just before we hopped on the plane, the weather cleared enough for us to take a walk around Stanley park, a marvellously landscaped recreation area, pretty much next to downtown. There were curious looking black squirrels and raccoons. There were little birds that hopped in your path, squeakin loudly to demand for food. There were swans and other water fowls doing their strange mating dance around the lakes. There were trees with all sorts of vibrant fall colour. I imagine the garden of Eden to look something like this.

Special congratulations to the Rheologeewoldt on winning the poster competition.


Instead of a warm greeting from the pigs when I returned, I was treated to 2 pieces of pig crap on my DAQ board.