Unforeseen Contingencies

Greetings from Denver, host to the 2011 meetings of the American Economics Association and Allied Social Sciences Association. I'm here for the full run of meetings. Much of the time I'll be conducting job candidate interviews for my current (top secret) employer, but also will sit in on some sessions, and will take the continuing education course on New Developments in Monetary and Fiscal Policy with Martin Eichenbaum and Sergio Rebelo, both of Northwestern University. Expect reports.

Getting to Denver has been quite fun, and worthy of a report itself. I spent New Years' Eve in Bozeman MT with friends, including some top ultrarunners. New Years Day training partner Fran Zelenitz and I did a one hour run on snowpacked trails in Bozeman, which felt great. The next day we made a summit attempt on Baldy, just north of Bozeman. Fran wasn't feeling 100% and turned back after an hour or so. I kept on, accompanied by canine companion Chaos, but gave up around the halfway point when I hit ice slopes that were too much for the snowshoe crampons -- real crampons would have worked, as would have stronger legs. I decided not to risk injury and turned back, doing an off trail leg that took us to a lower trail where we slogged up slopes and through timber, getting a total of 6 and a half hours of solid snowshoeing in. Another snowy run on the third, and then down to Cheyenne Wyoming, where I stayed with my longtime friend Jeff Ross and his lovely lady Terry.

On the 5th Jeff and I did a great snowshoe trip in the Snowies under somewhat tough conditions -- cold and extremely high winds. (On the way there Jeff saw a semi trailer twice tip on one set of wheels -- the other side was lifted off the ground by the wind.) It was a great high altitude trip (over 9,000 feet) and with luck I'll have a photo or two to post at some point.

Today Jeff, Terry, and I visited the Denver Museum of Art for the Tutankhamun exhibition plus quite a number of the regular exhibitions. This was certainly a much better way to get to the AEA/ASSA meetings than my usual flight, and best of all -- no TSA idiots were involved!

Next, the meetings...more news soon!