Greetings from Denver … at least the Denver International Airport. I’m currently subscribed to a 24-hr AT&T Wireless GoPort session here at the airport, where I’ll be spending the next 12 hours before my flight back to Boston tomorrow. I actually arrived in Aspen last Thursday with my classmate Savita for a 3-day National MD-PhD student conference in Snowmass Village. Though most of the posters and talks were unrelated to my work, there was a discussion panel on post-graduate opportunities led by residency directors which was pretty interesting, as was the keynote speech by Eric Kandel on his recent findings of a prion-like protein that appears to be involved in long-term potentiation. I actually spent most of my time reading papers in the hotel room, though I did make an effort to enjoy the great outdoors as well. On Sunday morning, I joined a whitewater rafting trip down the Colorado River, followed by a hike up the Maroon Bells and Crater Lake in the afternoon. This was my first rafting experience, which to my dismay turned out to be rather benign, with mostly class 2 and class 3 rapids. The view of Glenwood Canyon from the river, however, was absolutely stunning, as was the breathtaking scenery at Maroon Bells. I felt especially lucky when a pair of hikers approached us with a cell phone they’ve found along the trail, which I immediately realized was mine! Of course, our luck must’ve run out by this morning, when because of the high altitudes and unusual warm weather in Aspen, the planes could not take off with the weight of a full flight. We finally had to rent a car from Aspen and raced against the clock across Colorado along I-70 trying to catch the last flight out of Denver at 6:20pm. Despite our gallant attempt, by the time we returned the car and reached the check-in counter, it was 5:55pm, and the attendant refused to issue a boarding pass less than 30 minutes before departure. While Savita decided to head home with her parents in Colorado Springs for the night, I’ve chosen to stick around at the airport and get some work done before my early morning flight tomorrow. Though the events of the day have been pretty stressful, it actually turned out in retrospect to be a fun little adventure that I’ll certainly look back upon on.