Conference

I’m sitting in the departure lounge at Las Vegas airport after attending an IBM internal conference for a week. Las Vegas is indeed as tacky as expected, and wouldn’t be first on my list of places to visit on holiday, although I’m thinking about making it part of my ‘road trip’ when I eventually get round to planning it (the short version is SF to Vegas across Death Valley, the long version is the length of Route 66 - I expect the result will be a mixture). The conference was useful, and I got to meet some folk I’d previously only interacted with online, such as the prolific blogger Dan Zrobok. The airport is also surprisingly pleasant, with fast and friendly check-in (surprising for American), short security queues, and free wi-fi (hence this post). Now all I have to do is endure the 10-hour flight (with a full plane) from LA to London. Yuck.

I returned from New York City at the weekend after having spent a week there, partly on holiday and partly attending Gel 2008. Highlights of Gel for me were:

• Attending the Sphereplay workshop - I learnt a new physical skill in about 3 hours, a concept quite novel for me! I will definitely be ordering a sphere (it’s **not **a ball, it’s **not **a ball) to keep this skill going.

• The presentations by Clay Shirky and Garrett Oliver.

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It’s a lot of palaver to travel these days - I started my journey to NYC yesterday, and as I write, I’ve still only reached the American lounge at T3 in Heathrow (although to be fair that’s mostly down to a combination of me being cheap - no chauffered transfer on my own money - and wanting to maximise my time today in the city). Still, in about 10 hours, I’ll be in Manhattan, and I can’t wait - my first trip abroad this year without work to do (unless you count Gel, which I don’t).