The continuing gastric crisis

Made it back from my trip, only slightly worse for the wear. The major points:

• Saw the Rev. Al Sharpton in the airport when I was leaving. Someone, a bodyguard or fan who wanted to shake his hand, rudely pushed me out of the way as I was just trying to get to the security line. I said, "EXCUSE YOU" really loudly. I don't care who it is, that's uncalled for. It took me a while to figure out who the celebrity was. At first, I admit I thought it was Johnny Cochrane (but my friend has since told me he died. How did I not know that?). I saw the guy and was like "well-known figure who shows up at controversial moments..." Sharpton was in town b/c people are protesting the various city parks named after Confederate generals. A cause worthy of protesting, but Sharpton is rather slimy in my opinion.
  
• I did get my hot stone massage. The whole pampering spa experience was something to behold. There was a fancy waiting room where, after you'd stripped and put on a big fluffy robe, you could sit in a massage chair while sipping juice and eating cashews. Unfortunately there was a loud couple sitting next to me. They hailed from the northeast, and the man was incredibly obnoxious and said some incredibly racist things. And they say Southerners are racist. Where's Rev. Al when you need him?
  
• Enjoyed the fancy pool, where pool boys set up towels for you. The whole time I kept thinking of David Foster Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. It's about a luxury cruise, but the fancy resort had a lot of similarities, like overly friendly staff who insisted on calling me MRS. Shorttina.
  
• Two biggest bummers: the hotel was not beachside and there wasn't a fried grouper filet to be had for as far as the eye could see.
  
• Not that I should have eaten it. I had continuing gastric distress--cramps, nausea, you name it. People are starting to suggest gently that I see a doctor for ulcers or tapeworms. I am refusing so far. At most, I'll be told I have IBS, which I think is a load of plain old BS.
  
• The conference was incredibly dorky, but not in the techy geek kind of way. As a person used to being on the underacheiving side of the tech world, I found it disconcerting to be among the upper 3% of tech-savvy attendants. There were a number of useless presentations and a lot of conclusions drawn from anecdotal evidence. There were also a lot of pasty people doing silly things.
  
• Met a lot of nice people from other schools and had interesting conversations. Grew very tired of smalltalk by the end of it. Actually, I wasn't tired of smalltalk. I was happy to chat with people about their fabulous new shoes or their vacation plans for the rest of the week. I was sick to death, though, of talking about my institution and your institution, etc. Did learn some good things, though.
  
• Was glad to get home. My house was way too hot and I had horrible stomach cramps, but it was home. Now I have a mountain of work, mostly in the form of random small-but-time-consuming tasks. However, I have a new student worker who is awesome in his awesomeness. It's going to be a good year.