Sorry for all the not-posting (not calling, not texting, and generally not communicating). Much afoot and none of it postworthy. Continue reading “Delay of game”
Category: flotsam
In which I am my very worst self
I spent last week at a conference. I went last year too.
The content on the whole is great. They have amazing keynote addresses (which this year even managed to be on topic) and amazing tech presentations. The breakout sessions turned out not to be as relevant to our role but they set up a “garage” area that was more in our sphere and that was cool.
Don’t I sound positive, after the fact?
It was great… it’s great BIG. Estimates varied from 12-14000 attendees.
All in all the event is too big for me – I feel lost in conferences with several hundred attendees, let alone several thousand. And they had growing pains of their own, little nitty things that added up to not a great experience.
Things like asking the people who were in for Training the day before the conference to get there 1-2 hours before we needed to be there, and then not letting us into the training rooms on arrival because they were still being set up.
Things like simultaneously asking everyone to come in and register a day early to get better positions at the concert night, causing a huge rush during training registration and sessions.
Things like having that rush correspond with not just 1 registration line but also separate lines for swag and concert entry. The entire facility was just a sea of snaking lines, and that was just the prelude to the event itself.
Ostensibly the theme of the event was Breakthroughs but I would say the real theme was lines.
My second day (the first day of the event proper) didn’t go much better. The coffee reception didn’t exist because we all needed to queue up for keynote seating. (I didn’t grab the awful hotel coffee because I was headed over to the reception).
No. Coffee. For. Me.
That line:
- Had us standing on a concrete slab for over an hour (my back and feet in agony before we were done.
- Didn’t have any separators to keep people in queue, so later arrivers were able to swoop in and get ahead of people who’d been there longer, waiting.
- Didn’t guarantee a place in the keynotes because they had either oversold the conference or not set up enough seating inside. I got in, barely, and ended up in one of the farthest back rows, with easily hundreds of people still behind me. Some of them ended up in an overflow room, watching the event via streaming video. They were not pleased.
In which I fly. Or at least I try.
For Christmas, a friend of mine gave me an experience.
Actually she gave me a shareable experience, courtesy of iFly. Continue reading “In which I fly. Or at least I try.”
Disembarkation, Departure and Disease
We have to be out of our cabin by 8am so the stewards can prep for the next people.
Breakfast is a simple affair- half staff at the kitchen and dining because this is their crazy day.
I’m not that hungry, and just want a bit of protein and caffeine and some water for my slightly scratchy throat. Continue reading “Disembarkation, Departure and Disease”
Brief interlude
I promise to return soon to tell about the rest of our trip… but I have come down with the Cold To End All Colds so please bear with me. Hoping to be up to share more tomorrow…
Exit South
In the small hours I am already awake, in that way one does when there’s somewhere to be. So I am already showered and dressed and ready to do my Duolingo lesson by the time my alarm goes off.
It’s raining but not torrential en route to the airport. It’s still dark and early as Dad drops me off. Continue reading “Exit South”
Missteps
Apparently I can’t adequately navigate the stairs down to get coffee until I’ve HAD coffee.
Because this? This is not great:
4th toe is broken but since all they do for that is rest, ice, compression (eg tape it) elevation, that’s what I’m doing. Continue reading “Missteps”
555 days and counting
I wish I could say I really spoke Spanish by now — but alas, as in so many other ways, I am a work in progress.
A Christmas Eve moment
We come early but already the church is pretty full. Too full for our group of 8 to sit together. The girls and their guest sit in the middle of a row in the middle of the church. My parents and I are two rows ahead of them, next to the pastor and his wife. My sister and her husband are several rows ahead and to the right. Continue reading “A Christmas Eve moment”
Adjustments
Time zones and daylight savings, then Thanksgiving and the official start to Christmas shopping season. Seasonal decor to render things festive.
Leaf raking and the introduction of a sharp back pain that is all new. Oh Lord, have mercy.
And then the return to my early hours commute. The early rise not as much of a shock as I expect, though the drive feels longer today (heated seats a blessing for my still-sore back).
But the rain won’t come for hours and the temps will be above freezing then, and a lack of ice and snow is a bonus and a boon.
Fluorescent lighting in the office is sharp and stinging – especially juxtaposed against the dark of the morning – but the office is quiet and calm in these early hours, and my eyes have time to adjust to the unfamiliar brightness.
Things to do, a blessing for me and a way to bless my clients – even those that irk.
It’s official: I’m back.
