It is good to be back home :) Both Marc & I returned to Chapel Hill yesterday from our respective travels to Chicago & Boston.

Marc shaved off over 7 mins from his debut run last year :) You can see Marc running in the last 60- 80% of this clip: http://cbs2chicago.com/video/?id=27044@wbbm.dayport.com

I was in Boston for a conference which I got to make a short presentation at. The presentation went smoothly (I think) , and there were a number of good talks and informative presentations. Some made me consider additional things I should think about when planning my analyses and studies.

Boston is a great city. I spent a good amount of time walking around town alone and with friends. A bunch of the people from the UNC contingent managed to catch part of the Head of the Charles rowing regatta on Saturday -- we grabbed lunch from Trader Joe's, walked over to the river and ate there. We managed to catch the Masters 8 Mens' & Womens' starts (UNC and Duke both had teams), but the finish was a good 2 mile walk along the river, so we didn't make it to see the results.

Boston decided to try to break the Guinness World Record for the most lit pumpkins on Sat PM. It succeeded at over 30,100 pumpkins on the Boston Commons. I ran by Boston Commons on Sunday morning and took a few cell phone pictures of the remains (many Bostonians took pumpkins back with them, and I saw plenty of smashed pumpkins). There were easily still a few thousand scattered around. I also attended 1/2 of the sunday service at the Trinity Church in downtown Boston before I had to run off to get ready for some conference sessions.

While in Boston, I also got to meet up with Vicky, who was one of my roommates from when I was living in DC. She is now in her 2nd year at the Kennedy School of Government. We met up for dinner at a great Ethiopian place on Saturday evening and for coffee at Harvard Square on Monday.

It is now catch up time! We have a busy weekend ahead as we have a play to catch tomorrow, have a dinner party to attend on Friday, are heading to Arden, NC (in the mountains) on Saturday for a wedding, and have a exhibit by Marc's advisor's wife to attend on Sunday! It is amazing we get any work (or running) done!

~ Shuwen