Did I mention that I was going to Alaska? First time. I'm attending the American Fisheries Society Annual Meeting in Anchorage all week. Don't laugh. Fish econ is important work. Stop laughing.
I'm president of the Socioeconomics Section of AFS. We have about 100 members in an organization with thousands of biologists. The biologists don't know why we're here. Sometimes we don't either. A long time ago John Maiolo, former chair of Sociology at ECU, told me that if I joined the socioeconomic section of AFS the grant money would start rolling in. He didn't mention WHEN that money might happen. I'm still waiting and now I can't seem to get out of AFS. Thanks John.
We had the section business meeting today. We made a quorum of 10 members about half-way into the meeting. It didn't matter. We don't ever have anything important to vote on anyway. But there are big econ things going on in AFS. Remember this post? Stay tuned ....
And here are some random semi-econ-related thoughts:
- "Business hotels," in this case the Hilton, sure charge a lot of money for internet connections. Wouldn't it be profit maximizing to offer free WiFi like some of the less expensive hotel chains? WiFi prices are about $12/hour and ethernet prices are about $9/day. For something that has a very low marginal cost (about $0?). And free WiFi is not ubiqutous in Anchorage. I was told by the Starbucks barista that a coffee shop a few blocks away has it but no one else. I decided to go ahead and pay $25 for five days of ethernet access from my hotel room.
- I just ate about $50 of seafood (salmon, halibut, crab etc) at the opening reception. Biologists really know how to throw a conference. The best the Southern Econ Association can do is give out zero-priced (economists don't use the word free) bagels for breakfast. There are a lot of "free" events this week, covered, I think, somewhat by the $300 registration fee (much higher than an econ conference).
- The state of NC will cover $55, less than half, of your hotel bill. Thanks guys.
- I wear, pretty much, the same clothes to econ conferences and AFS. The AFS-ers think I dress up and the econ-ers that that I dress down.
- I enjoyed much consumer surplus during my morning walk on the urban park trails in Anchorage. I don't think there are any complaints about not having anywhere to run/bike/walk around town like there is in other same-sized cities that I'm familiar with (read: Wilmington, NC).
- I got on the plane and stowed my bag in the overhead compartment. A guy who had already gotten on the plane said "that's my space." I said "oh, that's your space?" Note that my bag was in the space and he had gotten on the plane before me. Finders keepers, right? Wrong. He said, "yea." I assumed that he "called" the space before me, smiled and put my small bag in a small space to the rear of my seat and shoved my big bag where my feet would have comfortably gone on a 6.5 hour flight. If I was with spine I would have forced the issue, caused a semi-ugly scene, and left my big bag in "his" space. But, alas, I am without spine.
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