Bitch took my drink

I'm on the last leg of my graduate school visitations here in Boulder, CO, so-named "P.Chem Mecca". It's very nice here. Beautiful landscape, beautiful lasers, beautiful city, beautiful lasers, beautiful people, beautiful lasers. Did I mention lasers enough times?

I can see why ultrafast laser spectroscopy would be big in Boulder. The high is dry. That's key. Nothing is more annoying than to get moisture in your vacuum chamber and gunk up your signal.

There are good theorists here, too, and the ample number of spectroscopists keep the theorists dealing with quantum problems more so than statistical thermodynamics. I now have the tough decision between CU-Boulder, UIUC, and Johns Hopkins since each have their own unique strengths and weaknesses.

So, what's the weakness of Boulder and why the title of my post? Everyone knows the main reason to go on graduate school visits is booze yourself up with strangers and talk solid science while inebriated. That's no secret. And when the night is still young and the professors are all nestled in their beds with visions of psi-squareds and lasers dancing in their head, the graduate students take the visitors out to town on the department dime. That's no secret either.

What pissed me off last night was finding out that either Colorado or Boulder itself has a rule about licenses and age verification. Apparently, bars cannot accept licenses that are expired on the front but have a sticker on the back. It probably deals with the ease of creating fake IDs in this manner, but I call bullshit.

So i was at the bar last night, and the first server came by checking IDs and gave me a frosted glass. So I poured myself a beer from the pitcher and chatted about science with those near me. Maybe 15 minutes later, another server comes by to check IDs and give stamps out. She saw the expiration date, told me about the (idiotic) law, and bitch took my drink. She then proceeded to hover around the area the rest of the night to make sure I didn't sneak a drink.

So, needless to say, this was the first night of a visit that I was sober. YARG! Being sober sucks. Hopefully, maybe, I'll be able to make up with Bacchus today and enjoy the sweet lager that was denied to me last night by a less obnoxious server? We will see.