Here I am again, typing a recap of my trip while on a plane. It just seems to work better to spend my time getting a bit more sleep during the conference, and running the risk of forgetting something for the sake of more rest! We left midday Tuesday, with a less than pleasant flight via Continental/United. Fortunately, we had a direct flight right into Orange County, and were renting a car, so once we had our bags, it was an easy drive over to the hotel, which was about five minutes away. Our home for the next few days would be the Island Hotel, just across the street from our hosts’ offices. Although the hotel wasn’t right on the water, and it was undergoing construction just next door for the duration, it was a really ... read more

Friday morning dawned EARLY. Despite being back in my room at a very reasonable time, I have trouble settling my brain when I’m out with a group of people until late at night. So I puttered around for a while, uploaded the photos I had taken of the group and posted them to various places, and played a computer game. I was well and truly exhausted, and finally fell asleep, but it felt like my alarm went off far too early the next morning. We had a very productive morning session, with my favorite part being the “speed-dating.” Since we have a networking group, we like to encourage different ways for them to get to know each other. So we set up the room like a speed dating session, and had the delegates sit in pairs ... read more

The next day, we were back at Heathrow again, this time, headed to Copenhagen. The flight wasn’t too long (fortunately, because the seats were SMALL!) and we were soon at the airport. The airport is quite beautiful, with these dark wood floors – how often do you see that at an airport? We got all of our luggage and found a taxi. And that’s when the trouble started. It turned out that there was a huge championship bike race holding their time trials in the center of Copenhagen (why, I don’t know). They’d blocked off most of the center of town…you know, where our hotel was. And with four big bags (hey, we had a lot of conference material!), there was no way we could walk a long distance to the hotel. So we drove. And ... read more

Normally, I would write these posts as I am traveling, but this time, I felt like I was more in need of the rest whenever I had a down moment, than I was in need of recording exactly how I felt at the time. So instead, I’m putting pen to paper, as it were, while flying home at the end of a week away. *** We left on a Saturday evening for London, planning to spend three days there to prepare for our conference in 2013. I had big plans to watch some of the television shows and movies offered on our Virgin Atlantic flight, but I was just so darned tired, so instead, I mostly slept. Arriving on Sunday morning, I was keeping my fingers crossed that our hotel rooms would be ready for us ... read more

So here we are, almost to the end of day two of the conference, and as usual, it's been a whirlwind. Last night, we headed to Wild Lotus. And so much for me saying that there are no accidents here - we saw one on the way to the restaurant, with two people on motorbikes injured. A bunch of other people on motorbikes had gotten off their bikes to surround them and keep them safe from other motorists while they were being attended too. The restaurant was really beautiful and peaceful. We were shown to a private room upstairs with one long table - that's one of the nice things about being in a small group. Often, we're small enough that we can all sit at the same table. It can make it a bit difficult ... read more