Coming Attractions

This is the month of the big conference for which a colleague and I are in charge of placing thousands of signs. I have traveled four times this year to the conference planning meetings, and gotten well acquainted with the Austin (Texas) Convention Center. It's a big place, so we're going to be doing a lot of walking in order to place all these signs.

This conference is the biggest conference in the high-performance computing field, with nearly 10,000 attendees. I think we have almost everything done. There are just a few signs we have to finish up. We've also ordered twenty blank signs, for things we might have missed.

I've managed to convince my better half to come along too, and help us place the signs. He (foolishly?) agreed to help. We're leaving Vinny with my dad again, this time for ten days. The conference is the week before the week of (American) Thanksgiving. We're leaving for Austin on the Friday before the conference, and coming back the Saturday after it's over. Luckily, we're flying in and out of Lexington, so that will make things easier for my dad in terms of dropping us off and picking us up. Unluckily, I had to make Jeff's flight arrangements separately from my own (which were made by my workplace), and by the time I went to do his, my return flight was sold out, so he's taking a different flight back to Lexington than I am. The good news for him is that he leaves an hour later than I do and gets in an hour earlier. The bad news is that we're not together.

In preparation for the walking we're going to do at the conference, Jeff and I purchased some (expensive) walking shoes this past weekend. We went to the New Balance store and were fitted for some shoes. Jeff declared that his shoes were heavenly, like walking on air. Mine are comfortable, but not quite that nice.

I think we should have a lot of fun. I may get the opportunity to meet up with a fellow blogger, and if I do and assuming it's okay with this person, I'll let you know all about it. But even if I don't get to do the meet-up, there are so many things to do and people to see that I know we won't be bored!