Here we go!
I'm 98.6% packed for the 8 day trip to San Francisco! The energy there can be felt this far away!
The flight on Southwest is a one-stop 'direct' to SFO, so no worries about lost luggage. It leaves at a decent 9:20am tomorrow, so no crack-of-dawn rousing for this one. I even remembered to do the online checkin bit.
I spent last weekend and off and on during the week reviewing notes for the caller school and prepping my hand outs. I was so monstrously tired all week that I couldn't concentrate on much of anything, so my final push started at 7 this morning. By 10:30, I was finally done with all the handouts, then spent another 4 hours printing them out, hole-punching, and stapling, labeling folders for them and just generally getting organized. This is going to be a fun adventure, thanks to the ENORMOUSLY appreciated efforts of bjarvis as the hard-working and underappreciated caller school coordinator (I remember him saying, "shoot me now, please!) and also Barry Clasper taking the lead on putting the final schedule together.
Since my stress levels were high that I wasn't all together yet, I opted to miss two events today: The Pride Parade at 10am and the Popejoy Hall Volunteer Social at 2pm. But I'm on vacation now, dammit, so Scott Amspoker can take the lead on calling from the truck this year!
9am to 9pm is a LONG day for a school of any sort, but I've done it before. As long as I don't have to stand up for 12 hours at a time, I'm good. However, not everyone can say they've co-taught a caller school with the Chair of Callerlab, so I'll count that as a bonus in my resume.
This is my 29th IAGSDC convention--in a row. Other than the 7/7 Sunday afternoon "Intro to Calling" session, I have ZERO time commitments for the convention, so it will be social and dancing deluxe. I'm not calling any of the specialty tips, either, so I can 'watch' for a change! And maybe even leave the convention hotel, the Marriott Marquis downtown.
Theoretically, the rumored BART strike won't affect me on the way in. I'm meeting up with Barry and Pam at the airport, then we'll be taking the train to the hotel together, maybe getting in a quality yak on the way. We'll see.
So, I'm all set internet-wise. Danny had bought me a nifty Google Nexus 7 tablet for my birthday, feeling bad that my little tablet he got at Big Lots a couple years back didn't do much of anything. It is just...WOW! And with the wifi hotspot on my phone, I'll be groovin' and movin'.
Danny doesn't come in until next Thursday, on July 4 proper, but we'll be flying back home together on July 8. He's been busy as a beaver on the IAGSDC website for weeks. This will be a thing of beauty. I know over the years, he's probably put in $100,000 of time into it, using current market rates, but he's been a stoic volunteer all this time.
Oh, and 1098 days till retirement, per my handy online calendar.
The flight on Southwest is a one-stop 'direct' to SFO, so no worries about lost luggage. It leaves at a decent 9:20am tomorrow, so no crack-of-dawn rousing for this one. I even remembered to do the online checkin bit.
I spent last weekend and off and on during the week reviewing notes for the caller school and prepping my hand outs. I was so monstrously tired all week that I couldn't concentrate on much of anything, so my final push started at 7 this morning. By 10:30, I was finally done with all the handouts, then spent another 4 hours printing them out, hole-punching, and stapling, labeling folders for them and just generally getting organized. This is going to be a fun adventure, thanks to the ENORMOUSLY appreciated efforts of bjarvis as the hard-working and underappreciated caller school coordinator (I remember him saying, "shoot me now, please!) and also Barry Clasper taking the lead on putting the final schedule together.
Since my stress levels were high that I wasn't all together yet, I opted to miss two events today: The Pride Parade at 10am and the Popejoy Hall Volunteer Social at 2pm. But I'm on vacation now, dammit, so Scott Amspoker can take the lead on calling from the truck this year!
9am to 9pm is a LONG day for a school of any sort, but I've done it before. As long as I don't have to stand up for 12 hours at a time, I'm good. However, not everyone can say they've co-taught a caller school with the Chair of Callerlab, so I'll count that as a bonus in my resume.
This is my 29th IAGSDC convention--in a row. Other than the 7/7 Sunday afternoon "Intro to Calling" session, I have ZERO time commitments for the convention, so it will be social and dancing deluxe. I'm not calling any of the specialty tips, either, so I can 'watch' for a change! And maybe even leave the convention hotel, the Marriott Marquis downtown.
Theoretically, the rumored BART strike won't affect me on the way in. I'm meeting up with Barry and Pam at the airport, then we'll be taking the train to the hotel together, maybe getting in a quality yak on the way. We'll see.
So, I'm all set internet-wise. Danny had bought me a nifty Google Nexus 7 tablet for my birthday, feeling bad that my little tablet he got at Big Lots a couple years back didn't do much of anything. It is just...WOW! And with the wifi hotspot on my phone, I'll be groovin' and movin'.
Danny doesn't come in until next Thursday, on July 4 proper, but we'll be flying back home together on July 8. He's been busy as a beaver on the IAGSDC website for weeks. This will be a thing of beauty. I know over the years, he's probably put in $100,000 of time into it, using current market rates, but he's been a stoic volunteer all this time.
Oh, and 1098 days till retirement, per my handy online calendar.