the equality state

Well, we made it to Wyoming. It was quite a long drive, but it was actually pretty enjoyable. We seem to be pretty good roadtrippers. We listened to a lot of book on tape (only 1 book, but a lot of hours in it), Sharayah read a few books out loud (including Hank the Cowdog! Sharayah's Drover voice is great, though he seems sadder than I remember), and we rocked out to good music whenever we felt sleepy. Our little room has a nice view that gets a beautiful sunset each night, and we get breakfast in bed each morning (although I have to go get it from the lobby and bring it back, it's still very nice).

I was surprised to find out that the elevation of Laramie is over 7000 feet. By the way, if you find yourself in such a city, be careful when you open liquids that were originally closed in Delaware (average elevation 60 ft). Even at the local Walmart, everything that's sealed is puffy. You can tell none of it came from here. We got some hand sanitizer and somehow forgot what happens, and... well, my car is very sanitary now.

I was also surprised to learn that Wyoming is The Equality State. They named it a long time ago. As a certain little Korean noted, "I don't think 0.8% is equality." Apparently only 0.8% of the population is Asian here. This state is over 90% white. Maybe that's what they meant by equality? I still think it's silly that they even track such things, but it's a little funny.

The conference has been pretty interesting so far. It's a little tiring sitting and listening and trying to learn new things for so many hours a day (I was about to ask how we used to do it in high school, but then I remembered that you don't learn anything in high school...), but the talks have been good so far. It's a little funny putting 60 or 70 math people in a room and watching them interact. I can make fun of us because I am one of us. Most of us just aren't experts at being social, but then we all have a similar interest so we all try to talk to each other about it. Actually there are enough people who are good enough at it to carry the conversations and avoid awkwardness, but if we weeded out those 10%, man. That would be something.

Perhaps I will give more updates as it goes.