I’ve landed safely for Faculty Academy 2007 here at University of Mary Washington. For 2 years, I’ve watched and listened remotely to podcasts, secretly desiring to be a part of this amazing series of events (and still trying to figure out how the heck Gardner managed last year to get Jon Udell to be a keynote, which is on the par of getting Pete Townsend to play at your kids bar mitzvah).
Do you ever really know what to say when someone asks, “how was your flight?” – in nearly every case, I plan for mine to be un-eventful. This trip was an all day event form Phoenix- I thought I was early to the airport, but the lines at Continental (oops, forgot to print my passes last night) were slow and full of “special cases”. The TSA experience was certainly memorable- apparently, the units at Phoenix Terminal 2 are about 10 times as sensitive as the other terminals at the same airport, and my wallet and mostly plastic insulin pump dinged me and placed me in the plastic box for a pat down. The guy after me was zapped because he had a packet of gum in his pocket with foil wrappers.
So rather than having time for breakfast and to do some work using the lovely free wireless at the airport, I got to the gate with about 10 minutes to spare. I was blessed with a seat 2 rows from the back, with the fully reclined person in front and the parade of people to the rest rooms, I was like some contortionist trying to type sideways into my laptop. Not all that productive on the way to Cleveland, but I managed to chew through my battery.
The connection at Cleveland was only 45 minutes, but that went smoothly, and onto a puddle jumper to Richmond. I was met by Jim Groom (not to be confused with Groome Transport) who was a fantastic conversationalist driver all the way from Richmond to Fredericksburg- I got the quick tour, a drive through the lovely red brick UMW campus. Better yet, he took me to his home for a nice dinner with the family before depositing me back at the hotel where I am pecking away at my presentation stuff for the next 2 days.
Oh, that was the long way for saying I got here, and my attempt at blogging something with the proper tag to get nabbed to the Faculty Academy blog. I’m really excited to see all the action tomorrow- more so to meet and listen, then to gab my talk.
I’m in it for the CogDog gab and the Barbara Ganley blogging goodness, myself. 🙂
Very deeply cool to have two such superstars gracing Faculty Academy 2007! Welcome to the ‘burg, Alan.
And you were quite the navigator! It was a pleasure, onwards!
I worked at Mary Washington while I was in grad school back in the late nineties. When in Fredericksburg you must visit Carl’s Ice Cream on Princess Anne Street. One of the best ice cream/custard shops in the country in my humble opinion.