One of the joys of being a scientist is attending meetings of other exceptionally nerdy people who also think what you are doing is interesting. A little over a week ago, I had the pleasure of participating in the ICE 2016 meetings in Orlando, Florida.

When asked, “Is September a nice time to go to Florida”, my only response was, “there is no good time to go to Florida” (especially in an election year). But it was a surprisingly nice time. Mind you, we got out before hurricane Matthew arrived.

One of the most amazing things about this meeting was that it was the largest EVER meeting of entomologists in the world! With 6000+ participants. While that made for an unmanageably large conference, it was still a really cool fact. I can tell I have been doing this a while because I actually knew a lot of people. (not all 6000- not even 60 but still…)

I did not get to talk about any fly work but I did get to talk about my PhD research with butterflies. And I got some nice feedback.