AGU 2012. Day Four. Good things!


Didn't catch a single talk today, we were so busy; even missed an astronaut speaking at the NASA booth just meters away, something twelve-year-old Steve would be very upset about.

Today was full of magical collisions, all exciting and positive.

Meriam met with a couple of big French research institutions.  We will send a lot of models to France next year.

I'm able to say "Je suis desolee mais je ne parle pas française très bien," and get a laugh and some respect, but French is Meriam's first language.

We anticipate shipping to Norway, Belgium, Italy, and Germany.  The UK dial is past eleven already.  We talked to the Franklin Institute and The Smithsonian.  To dozens of faculty who want to use our models.

We met excited, funded,  likely collaborators who'll move us down our long, hard road to developing curriculum.  These scientist/educators were as excited as I am about our models and I wanted to hug these new friends as they left.  They're doing basic STEM education and see how well our Em2 models fill that role. 

I gave up on trying to get NSF to see this, but we knew it would happen; now, finally, progress.

On a visitor's name tag I saw "University of Missouri," and casually said "I did my Master's there,"  figuring he'd be another atmospheric chemist with only a passing interest. 

Turns out he holds the position of my beloved (long retired) MS advisor in Forest Hydrology there; we talked for nearly and hour, and our models are just what he needs.

With a half-day to go, this meeting has been absolutely wonderful for us.  Thanks to Alee, Christina, Jim, Nathan, and John Micheal, co-workers who took care of the complex logistics for AGU.  And to Meriam and Lily, the most awesome booth-mates ever. 

Speaking Chinese and Italian, French, Arabic.  And better English than me. 

Better English than I, than mine?  Je suis desolee.



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