With my parents gone, I sent my wife and baby to stay with our in-laws while I attended ARVO in Seattle. This also gave us a chance to have painters come paint our family room and hallways while we vacate the house. Before driving to Stockton, Melody dropped me and my lab tech Eric at the airport for our short flight there. Upon arrival, an old friend picked us up from the airport to enjoy some cuban sandwiches at Paseo while we reminisced about lab life and beyond. After checking into my hotel, I went to an Alcon event where I received a Young Investigator Grant, followed by a Genentech reception nearby, before joining friends for dinner at Sitka & Spruce. On the way home, we noticed workers frantically boarding up the Starbucks Reserve Roastery, which reminded us of the upcoming May Day protests. Fortunately, despite the police presence, the violence did not get close to the convention center, and we were able to present our poster the next day. For lunch, I recruited some friends to go to the new Din Tai Fung, but ultimately opted for sushi to avoid the hour-long wait. I spent the afternoon at the inaugural Allergan FIRST (Fostering Innovative Retina Stars of Tomorrow) program meeting, where the agenda seemed as nebulous to the participants as they were to the organizers. I stopped briefly at the Harvard reception afterwards, before joining my Duke co-fellows for dinner at Lark. I successfully made it back to Din Tai Fung on Monday, but the soup dumplings were not as delicious as I remembered. I returned to the meeting in the afternoon, then met up with a friend for bistro food at Le Pichet and had dinner with the fellows at Japonessa. I stayed up late to prepare a few presentations, and luckily stayed awake at the follow-up FIRST meeting on Tuesday, where we listened to each other review interesting talks and posters from the meeting. Afterwards, I met with my Duke mentor to discuss research, attended a board meeting with a donor, before calling it a night. I was exhausted by Wednesday, but managed to grab some chicken gizzards and a salmon sandwich from Pike Place Market on the way to the airport for our flight home. The painters were not yet done by the time I returned, so I had to wait another day for Melody to come back. Despite enjoying my first few days of uninterrupted sleep since Westley’s birth, I was elated to see my family again.