Today started out cold and ended soggy. Once again, I arrived at the hotel at 8:00, just in time to get breakfast. I played the Vanna White of the technical team, starting presentations before each talk and handing off the tiny microphone, the clicker/pointer, and sometimes an extra laser pointer to each speaker. I actually enjoyed the interaction with the speakers in that fashion.

This morning's talks on gamma-ray bursts, supernovae, and pulsars were especially interesting to me. I loved the talk on using X-ray and radio observations to explore the sub-energetic long GRB SN Ibc connection. That will probably be my favorite talk of the symposium. I may end up pursuing something in that direction for my dissertation.

The rest of the day's talks included the topics of microquasars, globular clusters, X-ray binaries, active galactic nuclei, radio galaxies, jet physics, gravitational microlensing, and supermassive black holes. I understood some of it, but a lot of it went over my head, as expected.

At 6:00 was a reception at the Huntsville Museum of Art. We were able to walk around most of the museum. Unfortunately, my camera battery died after only a few minutes, so I'm lacking in photodocumentation.

At 7:00, we were allowed upstairs where the banquet was held. At each place setting sat cards with a Chandra X-ray image of space on one side an a very similar looking painting or photograph of Earth's nature on the back. I collected all five to hang in my office. Dinner was good, but dessert was fantastic. I ate some kind of fudge brownie that was amazing. It poured as we left the museum and ran to my car.

Tomorrow is another full day of talks in the morning and classes in the afternoon.