GIS Day at the CDC - not!

I was hoping to attend a day-long series of presentations at the CDC in Atlanta today as part of GIS Day. The CDC have posters and some interesting looking presentations on public health and GIS.

The CDC however requires people to obtain a "sponsor," someone who will meet you and escort you in. However, if you're not an American citizen you have to fill out a form for security a week in advance with passport number, date and place of birth, employer and so on. Despite the best efforts of my CDC contacts, as of 8AM this morning we have not heard back.

So I will miss out, which is disappointing. While I should have contacted the CDC earlier it never occurred to me that a public event at the CDC was so hard to attend!