I hear the weather was pretty awful earlier this weekend. Harriet and I took an extra day on Friday and drove to Cape May, NJ to visit with friends for the weekend. The drive up on Friday was a nightmare – like driving for 5-plus hours in a monsoon. Speaking of monsoons it seems as if the poor folks on the S-level can’t seem to catch a break when it comes to water damage. Many people are working diligently to get this problem fixed. I certainly share in the frustration associated with the disruptions to the important work of our colleagues.
We got a bit of a late start on Friday because I had to complete a comprehensive review of grants for a major clinical trials program review panel I am sitting on for NCI. But after we got into Cape May the weather was actually beautiful. We went to dinner and a charming show at the Cape May Playhouse on Friday night. On Saturday I played golf (reasonably well, too, for the second straight weekend), and then we relaxed until dinner. We left at around noon on Sunday and stopped in Baltimore to spend some time with Elana, Ben and Isaac. All in all, a wonderful weekend that was preceded by a busy week.
My week was highlighted by two events – the NCI Board of Scientific Counselors’ meeting on Tuesday, and then a full day on Wednesday that started with an interim Lombardi Strategic Planning meeting, followed by an afternoon of CCSG site visit rehearsals. We have a lot of work to do in our site visit preparations, but we are off to a very good start. I will be working extensively with the program leaders and other presenters over the next few months and, like many of the attendees at this first prep session, am encouraged by what we all have accomplished and where we are headed. Thanks go out to Ellen McLaughlin and Carolyn Hurley for making the day run so smoothly, and for all the hard work they did to make the progress that was so evident on Wednesday afternoon.
The coming week promises to be very busy too, with a two-day study section meeting in Bethesda, admixed with lots of other Georgetown work. At least I’ll be a bit rested after that great weekend!
Have a productive and good week.