This week has been the busiest yet at the Chao Center. We hosted our first international conference. Between flying people in from China, India, Japan, Italy and a few US colleges we had to get them transported to the hotel and, well, everywhere all week. Not to mention providing meals, getting them around campus, rushing the schedule (academics are typically not known for their punctuality - that is why they have staff run the conferences), and just generally making everything look like it is effortlessly appearing and being perfect. I drove. I purchased power cords for profs who flew from China and forgot their laptop charges. I ordered food. I complained when the food was late. I praised when the food was early. I changed flight schedules. I figured out when the bathroom break would be on our bus tour of Houston. I boiled water. I recorded conferences. I read and edited papers. I maxed out my university credit card. I worked at least 12 hours a day. But it was a success.
The weekend before this madness my parents came for a visit. We had a fun weekend full of museums, movies, musicals, and a baseball game. They arrived late Friday night. We got up early and walked around Rice. I showed my parents the Baker Institute for Public Policy and all of the neat things on display then. Didn't go to my office since it was locked up for the weekend.
Then we went to the Houston Museum of Natural Science to see Terracotta Warrior exhibit. I have been looking forward to this for months and it didn't disappoint. After leaving the museum we hit up Angels and Demons. Liked the movie, need to read the book. That night Chris went to a friends wedding. My parents and I were supposed to go see "Happy Days the Musical" but dad got sick so it turned into a girls night.
Next day we went to watch the Astros get beaten by the Rangers. The stadium is beautiful. We hadn't been before.
Chris and I revisited the stadium this past Saturday to run in the Astros Race to the Pennant 5k. I was really glad Chris was willing to do the race with me although I think the free baseball tickets were the kicker more than anything. Our time was pretty bad but we had a lot of fun. The race course was a lot of fun. They shut down part of a high way so we could run on it. On the way back to the stadium we had wonderful views of downtown. The final tenth of a mile was a run into the stadium. After that they opened some of the food venues and had a band for the post race party. We finished the day with Terminator Salvation and a nap. Good day.
