Another terrific meeting last night. I did hear several comments to the effect that Dr. Zheng was difficult to understand due to his accent, but I understood close to everything he said. I have a knack for accents and dialects, fortunately, and have several friends with thick Asian accents (Chinese specifically) so I'm used to it. I noticed that many of the questions were on items that the speaker had already covered, sometimes just minutes before. I'll chalk this up to the accent. It was also interesting to hear a few questions from people who kept trying to understand dark matter and dark energy in terms of normal baryonic matter and the Standard Model of Physics. As far as I know, and I'm certainly no physicist, that's currently not possible. Sometimes even extreme abstraction comes up short and that can leave some people unsatisfied, but not everything in theoretical physics is easily analogized or reduced to simple terms. My head swims when trying to think about most of this stuff- one reason I took more chemistry than physics in school. Chemistry is completely describable by math I can wrap my simple brain around. Physics often left me feeling like an idiot once past the 200 series. I did have an additional question that I wanted to ask at the end of the lecture, but was encouraged by a board member to ask it after the meeting. Alas, the speaker darted-out before the business and announcement segment was completed, so I didn't ge a chance to ask it. I know a lot of people are anxious to get out quickly after the meeting but I would appreciate a few extra minutes to ask follow-up questions in case the speaker doesn't remain for the entire meeting. After he left, I ducked out a few minutes early myself since I knew my question would go unanswered. I didn't see the laser guy there last night. Did anyone see the "Dont Laze Me Bro" people? All in all, a great meeting. Many thanks to Rodger and the SLAS board for continuing to find knowledgeable, professional speakers for SLAS. My only real regret about last night was my choice of nachos at Denny's. I'm still paying the price this morning. Urp.