ISA 2018, Post-Conference Report

I had little time to provide daily updates, so I posted once and then reported the news from the Duckies.  Much happened on the last two days of the conference:

1. Heaps more conversations with new and old friends.
2. The Online Media Caucus business meeting.  The caucus is thriving--its membership is growing, it had eight panels (an allotment of three and then much co-sponsoring), and the new regime is ready to rock.  The incoming chair happens to be my first McGill phd student--Brent Sasley.
3. The Duckies!!!
4. The Poker Game!  We had to find an empty conference room as a very sensitive neighbor complained 5 minutes into our gathering.  The game ended when the power went out.  In between?  Many bad decisions, some good luck, and much mirth.
5. Saturday involved more conversations, including with an Oxford grad student who sought to talk about the international relations of ethnic conflict.  
6. The last panel for me was a roundtable on military deployments and parliamentary votes.  I kind of wore two hats--as the Canadian guy to talk about the Canadian experience (I mostly repeated what Phil Lagasse has told me/written over the years) and as the comparative civ-mil guy.
7. Dinner with Cullen Hendrix, who used to be the young hotshot from my old grad school.... and now the next director of the Sie Center at U of Denver, so I admired the gray in his beard stubble.  
8. A whiskey lesson from an expert:
   

Twas one of the best ISA's I can remember--lots of fruitful conversations, heaps of useful feedback, met many new people, saw most of my old friends.  Very much worth the trip.

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