what do invisible aboriginal dart guns have to do with the tech conference?

well, it's been a long week-a good week, but i am still tired! we left on tuesday from school to go to a technology conference in austin. i was so relieved that one of my really good friends was able to take care of the boys. bruno and chaco felt very comfortable knowing that nika was caring for them-THANKS NIKA!!

i'm sure she didn't need all 3 pages of hand-written notes...

we piled into the minivan and off we went. it was a fairly light and easy ride down. a nice short stop in waco and then to our final destination with an eta of 5:50, just enough time to make it to the counter for our registration and specialty bags (with nothing super special...except the book-o-events). once we got back to the car (short for minivan...i guess van would be too, but that conjures up visions of the old white panel vans where kidnappers lurk)...anyhoo, we then went to z-tejas for dinner.

delicious and relaxing

 then when we had gorged ourselves....we went back to settle in at la quinta. i had checked my email and sent a text to nika to check on the dogs and finally closed my eyes to go to sleep-listening to ocean waves on my zune to fall asleep when all of a sudden, there were fog horns going off--strange, as i have listened to this every night for years, and there have never been fog warnings...a little confusing, then i finally fuddled my way to grab a jacket and go out for the fire alarm that had gone off...we looked out into the hall and maria and alisha were there looking around as well-none of us really wanted to go down 4 flights of stairs...then we got the call from olivia and lindsey saying that in fact, there was not an emergency; it was merely a laundry room thing. back to bed.

wednesday morning, we had an excellent keynote speaker- peter sheahan. i was impressed-it didn't hurt that he's hot. we got our tickets in for the door prizes, but we didn't come home with any doors.

i went to a few sessions-the one i was most impressed with was the ONE-EYE PATCH CLASSROOM...or maybe it was the one i-pad classroom...i was hoping for the previous...i mean how engaging would it be for the students to have a pirate environment type classroom! aaarrg! but the apps and application were very cool.

i did spend quite a bit of time in the exhibitors hall-the first day, dr. hughes showed me how to navigate the room and make the most of the experience! i walked away with an array of pens, mouse pads, candy, etc. i stopped at several booths to enter for ipads, ipad minis and a plethora of other fun items...so i am certain i will be deleting several emails over the next few months!

 then when a session i wanted to go to was full, i decided to go back down and learn more about several exhibitors and get pics with mobi, because my students are brainpop fans! i also found the booth that provided starbucks, and at another booth, i won a starbucks gift card-which i gave to maria, because she would appreciate it more than me.  i usually do not win things, so that was a surprise for me.

that evening we decided to do dinner out at the oasis (i liked the idea for the mere fact that it reminded me of a favorite song midnight at the oasis). so on the way out to travis lake when there was a lull in conversation, i mentioned the little know theory that approximately every 7 minutes, someone somewhere in the world is thinking about abraham lincoln-this was a theory that my old kamp friend joneel introduced me to several years ago, and it stuck with me.

once we got there, we missed the beautiful sunset, but it is still a beautiful resort! we had dinner, and truthfully, our waiter must've been having a rough evening, and we received the brunt of it. and when we finally received our check (which they could not divide),  and being the non-math person that i am, i went to task trying to divvy it up, but strangely i kept coming up short. then i finally realized that they had rung up olivia's twice, even though they were going to take it off entirely because it had been messed up and it arrived in an untimely fashion. so when we finally got that taken care of, we got home in time to go to sleep again. (long day)

then thursday i learned about mimio and i was in -educator-utopia. i liked. A LOT. in fact, i stayed through 2 different sessions hoping to win something. (i did in fact receive a great whiteboard eraser for wearing their bag around-and i gave it to lindsey-the shameless beggar-she'll use it more than i will anyway) and i had a great conversation with the presenter, who was her district IT tech. then i went to stand in a ridiculously long line for lunch and by the time i had waited halfway through the line, i realized that it was time to leave to get to the next session, or keynote.

i left in a huff, because i had not gotten lunch. people who know me well know that i am fairly easy-going until i get hungry. then i turn into a bitter human being. so i stopped at a little vending stop for a diet coke, and a snickers bar, hoping it would hold me over. then it got worse-the session i wanted was full, and by the time i got back to key note speaker, they weren't taking door prize tickets, so i didn't want to waste valuable time.

i decided it would be in the best interest of mankind if i went back to satisfy my hunger

 then i made my way back to the exhibit hall and sat through a few more interesting exhibitors and got more fun stuff. most of the time i was without cell phone because the convention center had sapped my juice! when i finally met up with the others, they wanted to go one way, and i decided to stick with the amx presentation (which really had nothing to do with me, it's just that i didn't want to get too far from mimio-i was watching their presentation, sitting in amx seats-just didn't want to seem like a mimio-stalker). the amx guy got one of the ladies to do dance dance revolution with him to dancing gangnam style and it was a hoot! i got some giant sunglasses AND i won the drawing for a $50 itunes card! woohoo!!

when we all met up again and took our stuff to the car, we then made our way to the cocktail party that we'd been invited to by knowvation. it was really nice, and it was good conversation-some interesting twists in conversation. then we made our way back to the convention center for the concert with the spazmatics good times-i enjoyed it more than i thought i would..thanks for wanting to go so badly, olivia!

i was informed that i walk too fast...i guess i walk with a mission...i fear that if i walk to slowly my blood might coagulate...

i believe it was at the concert that i may have opened a can of worms by introducing the invisible aborigine dart tranquilizer game...i  would have to say that lindsey probably took to this game the most. more about that in a later post.

Friday we went into a pinterest session, but it was a beginner session, so we walked out and went to the exhibitors booths again, this time we were on a mission to get to all in one learning. the most exciting part about this was that dr. hughes knows the gentleman that runs this booth, and he hooked us up with some clickers, a doc cam and an amazing system that i think will change the way we grade much of our stuff. i am very excited about this. it is a trial, but is is inexpensive enough that we might be able to actually get some! trial time starts now!! so each of us walked away with a box..everyone who saw us was asking if we won them, or where we got them, and what they were-we were free advertising!

AND lindsey and olivia got smart clickers! woah! needless to say, we were certainly packed into this minivan..it was cozy. and on the way home, we decided to wait until we were out of town to grab lunch. well, we passed the exit for macaroni grill-didn't get our mobile devices out and around in time...so we found a place called gepetto's pizza. we got there, and it was in a travel center..gas station. gas station pizza was not what we signed up for-got back in the car and went into salado and found a great little pizza place called...the pizza place. delicious! and it wasn't busy when we got there! we were all pleased!

when we got back in the car, we had a rough game of would you rather...i would rather be shot in the face with a tranquilizer dart. 

julie