I was lucky enough to present some ongoing work at Bill Rossow’s retirement symposium earlier this week.  It was a great chance to give an incredibly influential colleague (if I might be bold enough to call myself a colleague) a fun send off.  Bill was a student of Carl Sagan’s at Cornell and got his start studying the clouds of Venus, Mars, and Jupiter.  And, this is the thing that impressed me the most about Bill — his academic interests are truly eclectic.  My feeling is that more of us should study a variety of things.  It helps us makes connections that we couldn’t before.  I think Bill’s work, especially his early work, bears the imprint of someone who was thinking about several different problems.  Bill also taught me another valuable lesson: suspenders make the man.  Happy retirement, Bill.