(1) The contingent of people associated with Ohio State was really large: Adam Podlaskowski, Eric Carter, Andrew Choi, William Melanson, me, David Merli, Joshua Smith, and Nick Jones.
(2) Mark Silcox was not there this year, which was a pretty major bummer.
When he was at Auburn we used to go to this conference every year and
it was a good chance for me and Emily to hang out with him and Heidi.
(3) The sheer ugliness of public architecture in the United States is overwhelming, and even more so when you contrast it to the natural beauty of the ocean. The generic thing in places like Orange Beach, Alabama and Destin, Florida is to have concentric layers from the ocean: beach, condos, pedestrian unfriendly highway, and then strip malls. The hideous strip malls are like a hundred yards from the beach, but you still have to combat traffic in your car to get to them. I wish the whole Seaside thing had caught on. . .
(4) This was my first philosophy conference as a non-drinker. It made taking in more papers during the day easier but socializing at night harder. I'm not really sure why. Maybe professors holding court about various things are just more tolerable when your mind is lubricated? Maybe the sugar in the alcohol just gives you an extra burst of energy after a tiring day of thinking.
(5) At least I am not a vegetarian. A big part of the socialization in these things is eating meals together. Actually a big part of socialization for human beings is eating meals together. [I don't mean to be criticizing other people's lifestyle choices here; I'm just noting that being able to enjoy the good seafood with other philosophy professors was a good-making feature of the conference.]
(6) Presenting a co-written paper is always weird. This time Jeff Roland read the paper and then ended up answering almost all the questions.
(7) I didn't like the format of 25 minutes for the paper, 15 minutes for questions/discussion. Several of the papers were good enough to where that was not enough time for questions/discussion. But I guess the fact that the discussions were that good is a good thing.
(8) Thomas no longer thinks that the beach is metaphysically unacceptable. The last few times we visited my folks in Naples, Florida he'd sometimes stare down at the sand with a kind of horror, as if the Earth's solidity was degenerating. He's much more confident with it now.
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