Well – Friends, I haven’t visited the GSA Connected Community since my last blog of August 14, and there is a good reason for that. Some of you, having known me for many years, were perhaps startled to see me at the GSA Meeting in Vancouver, BC Canada dragging behind me an oxygen concentrator. Well – yes! I was ailing recently, but I am not out! To emphasize that I am still here, I wore two name tags at the Meeting two, one official GSA name-tag and one my own saying: “Don’t ask stupid questions. Getting old stinks.” I received quite a few approving smiles. The oxygen was a nuisance, but it did not prevent me from presenting my talk about the Vasyugan Mire of Western Siberia under the heading “IS CLIMATE CHANGE AFFECTING GROUND WATER CHEMISTRY IN THE LARGEST BOREAL WETLAND?” The session, on Groundwater in Cold Environments: Current Understanding and Challenges, was great, and the two conveners, Rene Therrien and Jean-Michel Lemieux, assembled great group of presentations. Thanks fellows!
However, while submitting my abstract for the Meeting, I was a bit perplexed about the question of my affiliation. I completed the work on this article with my two co-authors during my Fulbright Grant at the Tomsk Polytechnic University in Tomsk, Russia. But, that was only a temporary, 9-month appointment. After representing Kent State University faithfully for 37 years, I suddenly felt naked, unclothed, as it were, in the vestments of some institution. At the end, I decided to forego listing any affiliation and settled on my postal address. In retrospect, it was probably a silly and perhaps somewhat emotional decision. I should have listed myself as a “Consultant”, if not as “President and Chief Scientist, Eckstein & Associates, Inc.” Either of the two would be true. Oh – well… On to next GSA Annual Meeting, this time Baltimore in 2015…
But, before that, there will be “Back to the Future – AQUA 2015” IAH 42th Congress in Rome…! The 2-nd Circular can be found at www.iah2015.org. Deadline for abstracts: March 2015… very tempting… right now I am working on the data which my cohorts from Novosibirsk, Russia, collected over the last 2-3 years from the hot springs and fumaroles of the Kurile Islands. I also have an open invitation to go to the Kuriles in summer 2015… hmm – good timing…also tempting.
Well – let’s hope everything goes well. Until then - Yoram