Davis, CA in all its glory

While waiting for my shuttle from the Sacramento Airport to Davis, I met a guy wearing a tweed jacket. Since he was also heading to Davis, I thought it a natural question to ask if he was attending the Graduate Student Combinatorics Conference. So I asked, "Are you going to the conference as well?" He replies, "Why yes! You are too, how fascinating? What is your research area?" I respond "Graph theory and complexity!" Suddenly, his eyes go wide open and he says "My paper talks about graph theory, too!"

During this part of the discussion, he says a bunch of stuff very quickly that sounds sort of like math, but nothing I can understand. I find it odd that he was surprised that I do graph theory, though. My questions were resolved when I told him about my presentation, and he realized that I am going to a math conference, and he is going to a religion and media conference or something. He then begins to ramble about how some philosopher came up with a way to represent all existence in set theory, and worse yet, all understanding of relationships in category theory. Categories, of all things, do not help with the understanding of anything, not even math.

That strangeness aside, it has been a relaxing day off. The weather here is on par with a Minnesota summer day: that is, perfect. I was able to wander the expansive campus for a while, including the very diverse arboretum that inhabits the southern border of the campus. Pictures will follow, once I go home and retrieve my USB cable...

The conference starts tomorrow bright and early. My presentation is in the earliest time slot, and my abstract is the second shortest by only two words. Wish me luck! I'll need to talk extra slow to push 20 minutes!