Highlights from Aspen

Aspen was great. It was relaxing yet productive and challenging, both scientifically and physically.

I had a little difficulty with the altitude and dry air, but it was completely worth it. I went on two hikes, one up Hunter Creek trail and another up the Ute Trail. The Hunter creek trail is an easy but nice hike North of Aspen across the river. It goes up along Hunter Creek (which was pretty big for a crick), up over a ridge, and into a nice meadow. The Ute trail goes up Aspen Mountain South of the town. It was quite challenging; very steep and beautiful. It is true what they say about the thin air. At the top is the ski area, where they were having a bluegrass festival and hula hooping.

We pulled some late nights working but also spent some nights out having fun, eating and drinking.

Below is a short photo album of highlights from the trip. My next trip will be about my vacation in Germany!

Aspen Highlights

Quick Aspen Update

I'm going to do a real post on my time in Aspen soon, but for now I'll just say that it has been extremely productive and fun. Here is a picture as a preview. Peder Norberg and I hiked up the Ute Trail to the top of Aspen Mountain, where this picture was taken.

Zanetto | Calvin & Hobbes

Zanetto at Carnegie Hall
The Carnegie Hall performance was a good experience. I had reservations at first because the whole thing was such a big production and it seemed like it was going to be difficult to maintain any artistic integrity in that environment. But I was pleasantly surprised. What I learned was that the presence of a few real artists can offset a lot of distractions.

Writing
I'm writing a paper and so I've been thinking a lot about presentation. I've always felt that academic papers are too formalized, but it is hard to break out of that because the journals have very rigid rules about the writing. But maybe it doesn't really matter in the end, because it is difficult to really learn anything directly from a paper anyway. You only really learn from trying to repeat the work yourself. Maybe the point should be to give the information needed to reproduce the results.

Also there is the issue of writing style. I prefer to write in as straightforward a manner as possible, but inevitably jargon creeps in and can obscure things. I think this Calvin & Hobbes cartoon illustrates the point pretty well: