by Mark Petrash, PhD, FARVO
Each year, I come away from ARVO with new experiences to share with colleagues back home. I always get to talk about new collaborators I met at poster sessions, new places I found to meet up with friends to share some serious refreshments, new ideas and perspectives I got from the keynote speaker, and the list goes on.
This year, we had a new and unexpected treat—posters and presentations in the dark—or almost dark. Seems there was a power problem in the convention center neighborhood on Thursday morning that sent the lights and computer systems haywire. Not to worry, everything was back up and running soon enough, but this was a unique experience for us all. It’s funny how unexpected events bring people together. I hope others will write about where they were and what they did when the lights went out.
Mark Petrash
Lancey Cowan
Jeff Walline
Kirsten Lampi
Miller Ogidigben
Brian Gilger
Michael Boland
Mahsa Sohrab
Christine Curcio
Juan Gallo
Poonam Mudgil
Afsun Sahin
Mason Posner
Joe Carroll
Paul Kaufman
Zaher Sbeity
Yes, the electrical power outage was a completely new experience. I was in the lecture hall Floridian A, and was listening to a presentation. I had to give a presentation during this session as well, and so I was curious if and how quick all systems would be running again. Fortunately, it did not take a very long time.
The people in the hall stayed calm and humourously, and we used the time for some scientific discussions. When we were able to continue the session, I had the impression that all the people had come nearer to each other.
I just entered the Poster Hall. Fortunately some of the posters I was interested with were located close to the wall where the lights were on, so that I could still do my job
I was also in the poster hall as I had just finished putting up my poster. When the lights went out there was a loud “WOO” from everyone in the hall (myself not included). I knocked over a cup of pins and decided it was too dark to read anything so went to join the extraordinarily long queue for coffee!
I was on my way to put my poster up. Typically on the last day of the meeting there are not too many folks stay around. I was however surprised to see lots of people!
Lights were out for a relatively short time – A/C was back on and everything went uninterrupted.