I flew from Washington to Florida today to attend the 53rd Southeastern International Conference on Combinatorics, Graph Theory , and Computing. It’s a hybrid conference with 242 attendees (at least according to the Whova app) of which about 100 are attending in person.
Arriving at Fort Lauderdale felt like another world. The airport was crowded. People were everywhere and mask discipline was low. I spied lots of nose-peakers. Outside the airport, few people were wearing masks at all.
It made me surprisingly uncomfortable. With the mask mandate in Washington, Oregon, and California being lifted March 11 at 11:59 pm, it’s going to take some getting used to.
I’m excited for the conference. Tomorrow I will give two plenary talks. I spent the last few hours reviewing, improving, and getting psyched. I changed the color scheme where I could. My favorite is the icon that shows up every time there is a sign-reversing involution.
One talk is an adaptation of a “performance art math talk” I have been giving for a decade–but modified to be appreciated by an expert audience. The other is entirely new for this conference and features work done in collaboration over the last two years with my COVID-buddy Naiomi Cameron.
It’s 11:34 pm local (eastern) time. I’m not tired but as I am scheduled to go on at 6:30 am in my home (pacific) time zone, I should probably hit the hay.
The cover image was taken after take-off as I departed Seattle. It was a beautiful clear day.
Math in the Time of Corona 