Lori Blaine: Savannah in retrospect

Tuesday-Wednesday -Where to start? I did my own version of Grease at the Atlanta airport.........but instead of the drive-in it was stranded in the terminal. Nice airport to visit, but definitely didn't want to live there, arrived at about 9:30 AM finally left about midnight. Found myself falling exhausted into bed about 2:30AM. Got up and got myself around to rehearsal (for AESA conference) about noon. Love those guys with the stage crew.....Freeman AV, very nice and a pleasure to work with. Worked alot with a gentleman named Lee Warne also, he writes the scripts and keeps everything moving on time, a great guy. Anyway that day seemed to go off without a hitch except for the lack of sleep part. Went to dinner as a group that night at a place called Vic's on the River, had a great platter of fried shrimp. Let me go on record as saying as a person who doesn't really like seafood, Savannah is a tough place. The ones that do like seafood said the food can't be beat but I was hard pressed at times to find something that wasn't fishy.

Thursday - showed up to rehearsal to discover Ian Jukes, our keynote for Thursday had come down with food poisoning and wasn't going to make it to the conference. They moved our Friday keynote to Thursday and picked ESSDACK's own Kevin Honeycutt to step in for Friday. Thursday went fine and ended the evening going to Paula Deen's restaurant, Lady and Sons for dinner. Awesome, just awesome.

Friday - Kevin rocked the house with his keynote, I felt honored to be able to say he is one of the ESSDACK team. The day went great, then after the afternoon session we hosted a special Digital Jam and it went well. The temperature in the space was quite warm and all the windows made it a big challange to see the screens but we managed, as with everyone of these we do, we learn and grow and make adjustments for the next one. Then went to two receptions at the Westin and ended the night about 10ish.

Had a strange thing happen on Saturday morning about 5am, got up to go to the bathroom and before heading back to bed decided to get a drink of water. The last thing I remember was turning toward the sink in the bathroom and the next thing I know my room mate is standing over me saying my name and shaking me. I must have passed out and then hit my head on the vanity because I am sporting a pretty good bruise to the side of my head and later that day found another small knot on the back of my head. No blood, and I don't think I was out longer than about a minute but scary none-the-less. Went to the last session of the conference and then headed to the airport......uneventful and now home again safe and sound.

---a quick explanation of my duties and responsibilities at this conference. I am backstage with all the crew. I have keynote (powerpointish) slides that correspond with the program, I create those ahead of time and another person takes pictures of all the activities during the conference, each day I try to get some of those infused with the other slides, sometimes only having a few minutes to get that adjusted before people are walking in..... So I sit in the dark which I have affectionately starting referring to as the troll hole and listen on headphones to the cues being sent to make it all run like a well-oiled machine. Those guys (and girls) are amazing, the amount of expertise they have is mind-boggling. They also are a hoot, a fun group to work with for sure. I appreciated how they never make me feel like I'm in their way or don't roll their eyes when I ask a silly question (thanks Dan and Dave), I truly enjoy being back there in their domain. I also was responsible for a station at our digital jam - mine station in Second Life and a short demo on that. The other stations included, ipads, ipods and droids and applications, digital dumpster diving(free or nearly free apps that can used in the classroom), sing snap, wii and one other I can't remember. It's a kind of hands-on opportunity for people to come experience some things they may not have tried yet.

and now just a few random pics from the week: