Chris and I left work at lunchtime yesterday and came into Boston to see Tom defend his master's thesis. We drove to Alewife and caught the T into the city. We easily found the right building and arrived with 45 minutes to spare. After a bit of confusion (someone had checked out the key to the seminar room without checking to see if it was needed before Monday), Tom and Alex set up their laptops and a projector for the show.

Tom's approach to presenting is low key -- his slides are simple and spartan with as little text as possible (except for a single slide that illustrates the outline as he moves through the talk). All of the content slides, however, have images, graphs, animations, movies, or tables on them, so that the talk and the presentation support and complement one another. (As opposed to having lists of bullet points that simply restate the content of the talk). The very last slide had a live video feed of the audience (focused on his dad) to thank the audience for listening.

I learned a lot about muscle action attending the talk. The coolest thing was the idea that muscles are compartmentalized (having groups of fibers with separate ennervation). One idea presented was that different parts of the muscle might be optimized to contract at different times during the muscle action in order to use groups fibers at the points in the contraction cycle where they can produce the most force. Lots of other interesting bits too.

After the public talk and questions, everyone except the committee was asked to leave while the committee questioned the candidate in more detail. After 20 minutes, the candidate was excused while the committee met to decide his fate. He didn't have to wait long before they had signed off and his advisor came out to congratulate him. I pointed out to him that he now had a Master's Degree...In Science, but he didn't get it at all -- no one there had even heard of Doctor Science. I guess I'm getting old.

After the defense, many of us walked to the Top of the Hub, a fancy restaurant on the 52nd floor of the Prudential Tower. When I was in town for the MTA convention, the boys got a tour of the Prudential building, but I don't think I've ever been so high in a building before. The view of the surrounding city was impressive, though creepy. A ball game was going on in Fenway Park. Tom pointed out where they used to live and where they were living now. To be honest, I kept looking around half-expecting to see a plane flying into the building. I don't think I'll ever look at a tall building the same way after 9/11.

After a couple of hours, we said goodbye to Tom's advisor and colleagues and a smaller group of friends and family went to James Gate a small restaurant in Jamaica Plain. We sat outside under a little umbrella that had a small, rechargeable light on it, but the light was so faint, you could barely see the food. The food was delicious, however dim and colorless it appeared. We had a quiet dinner where, everytime Tom would begin trying to talk about his thesis work, people would remind him that he was under orders not to talk about it for the rest of the night.

Chris and I finally left the restaurant around 11, we got back to Alewife around 12, and got home around 2am. A great trip and a wonderful time. I can't wait to see what Tom does next. :-)

StevenBrewer