Are you going to the ACS national meeting?

Question

What are you looking forward to the most at the meeting? Are you a ACS member or student affiliate? Do you have any interesting stories from other ACS meetings? The most enthusiastic/interesting gets ten points!

Even if you are not a member/ affiliate, feel free to tell me about any interesting experiences with chemistry/related feilds.
(Except for illegal drug experiences,..eww. No talk of that, please!)

Answer 1

I saw George Olah give a talk - what a gasbag. Also Albert Eschenmoser, who looks pretty good for being about 300 years old. Zzzzzz......
I also saw a session chair give a talk (the first of his own session) where he went way over time presenting work he did about 30 years ago and then told all the other speakers they would have to cut theirs short and not allow any questions. What an idiot.
To me, ACS national meetings are mostly a waste of time from the scientific perspective. Just a bunch of academics patting themselves on the back and publicly bragging, or some companies showing you their zillion different compound library. So what. If you want to learn about that stuff read about it in the journals. The only thing I would tell you is to use the Employment center and go to the poster sessions - it's a great chance to talk to the chemists who actually do the stuff instead of their profs who haven't done chemistry in 20 years. Small conferences, particularly ones tied with short courses (check out Scientific Update) are usually much better, but of course much more expensive ($1000+). It's a good experience for you if you have not been to one, but much later you will likely realize it's a giant masturbatory fest of people presenting work that they didn't do.

Answer 2

I used to go to ACS Meetings all the time at my last job. No real interesting stories...your average chemist isn't that exciting ;-)

But I always enjoyed the Medicinal Chemistry and Environmental talks. The Med Chem ones because you would see where the current state of pharmaceutical discovery was, and the environmental ones because you would see the discoveries that were improving our lives (and our health).

I was quite fond of the ACS in New Orleans (2003). The food there was amazing. We actually had the conference at the Convention Center, which is now - unfortunately - known for the chaos after Hurricane Katrina.

Answer 3

I have never been to a meeting but I'd be willing to bet there are no interesting stories that come out of those things.