St. Malo, Part 3

I could surf that! As long as my fins are smaller than 3 inches.

I (Bobby) have returned from St. Malo, and the awesome SPARS conference. This is the first time I have attended a conference just as a spectator and not a presenter, which provided me the opportunity to focus on the doings of leaders in the field of sparse representations, and concentrate on finding perspective on my life.

A particularly salient time came about two hours after attending the evening oyster tasting organized for the conference participants. Another salient time came about thirty minutes later, then five minutes after that. After a tense pause to let my roomate quickly brush his teeth before going to sleep, the salience continued through the night. At about 4 AM I was reminded of the Homeland Security colors.

Brittany is world-renown for its sea food, and oysters are a specialty of the region. I have never has oysters before, so I followed what my colleagues did: open the shell, squeeze some lemon juice on it and watch the oyster shrivel up (because it is still alive), scrape it off the shell with a fork, slurp it up, chew, swallow, repeat. Six times.

Several days after that episode, I have a new appreciation for oysters. They are not to be messed with. They are alive, they get angry when squirted with lemon juice, and they will hurt you.