field activity

So far as I can tell, Finland is composed entirely of the outlines of evergreen trees illuminated by the blush of their summer never-quite-night sky. At least, that is all I could see through the windows of the bus I took from Vantaa airport to Tampere, departing at 1:40am. Time, though, as measured by clocks, seems to have grown less relevant on this long travel day. Occasionally a fog laden meadow adds some relief. I'm sure the light of day will reveal a richly three dimensional country but, for now, my sleep deprived mind sees only elaborate parallel planes. 4:15am brings me to Tampere, a short walk to the hotel and I'm down for a quick nap. Back up at 6:30am, walk up to Tampere Hall , an interesting complex that bills itself as Scandinavia's largest concert and congress hall. That must mean there are larger concert halls and larger congress halls, but not in such a combination. I had a chance to make a lap of the facility and was drawn to the adjacent park by the call ...

I'm attending World Building Congress 2016  this year in Tampere, Finland to present the paper I wrote in the IDBE Program/Programme  and see how the international research establishment might relate to the work we do at GFF . I'm hoping to post here once a day to recap the happenings, but I'm off to a bit of a rough start. It wasn't the simplest itinerary to begin with. A flight from DFW to Chicago on Sunday evening, an overnight leg to Helsinki, and a two hour train trip from there to Tampere for a night's rest before my presentation at 11am on the 31st. It didn't get simpler when the flight to Chicago was delayed due to weather in Dallas for and hour and a half. That put me on the ground at Terminal 3 in Chicago 20 minutes before the flight to Helsinki was to leave, at Terminal 5. If you've been through O'Hare, you probably know that wasn't going to happen. Luckily, I thought, AA had already re-booked me on another flight. Instead of straight t...