Fire stairs at the Hyatt Regency, Cambridge

I am a big fan of the fire stairs in hotels. I always make sure I try them a couple of times during any hotel stay, in case I really need them. I also count the stairs between floors, to check if they are a consistent number, or if the number varies. I took this photo after a huge mob got out of the Rob Hand lunch keynote and there was not elevator capacity for 200. The steps were marked “Staff Only,” and I gave the break bar a push to see if an alarm would go off; it didn’t, and in a moment befitting a mock of a Stephen King novel, I led a posse to escape from the 16th floor of the Tower.

It was a fun day at the conference; I attended a talk that I will summarize and hopefully get the presenter in for an interview about the parallels between church dogma and astrology in the early 17th century — when the New World was being settled. As mentioned, I attended Rob’s talk on “why we do astrology” — truly fabulous as usual. My own presentation on using the minor planets was this afternoon at 4:15, and I’ve given Anatoly the MP3 to post — should be tonight or early tomorrow (check the database listed in links below — mine will be the bottom-most post, about 75 minutes long).

I am now sitting in a jacket, tie and proper dress pants, about to go to the banquet and awards dinner/graduation and Michael Lutin entertainment interlude. Back with more coverage of NCGR tomorrow.