Back in Buffalo
Yes, as Amanda just mentioned, we were in Orlando last week. I went down for Lotusphere last Sunday and Amanda flew down Tuesday night to meet me so we could spend the latter part of the week and weekend vacationing. Both parts of the trip were a lot of fun!
This was my third trip to Lotusphere, having previously gone in 2002 and 2004. There’s always a great kickoff party Sunday night with tons of free food, drinks, music, and even [fake money] gambling this year! JamFest was a new addition this year, which I was able to be a part of (see link for photo). It was pretty cool, but it definitely has room for improvement. A few notes to the organizers next year – first, believe it or not… music can be enjoyed at levels beneath 135 decibels. Volume is no substitute for talent. Second, go with the sign-up sheet method so that we get more variety than “every tune that follows a 12-bar blues pattern.” I know there were some talented musicians out there that didn’t get much of a chance to play because of the format. If you leave something like that open-ended, some people are always going to get more than their fair share of stage time. On the plus side, overall I thought the talent level was pretty good and it did keep everyone up and dancing the whole night. I missed the second night due to a dinner with coworkers and Amanda flying in.
Post conference, we jammed as much as possible into a 2.5 day vacation as possible, including hitting all four Disney parks, Downtown Disney, and Pleasure Island. And that was with me hitting an early conference session Thursday morning and then switching hotels before heading off to the Magic Kingdom. Amanda introduced me to my new favorite Disney restaurant – Boma in the Animal Kingdom Lodge, I finally convinced her to ride BOTH Space Mountain and the Tower of Terror, and we had a blast at Pleasure Island before collapsing back at the room around 1:30am and needing to catch the bus back to the airport at 8:00am today.
I’ll have a more detailed geeky Lotusphere wrapup later in the week and will be back to normal blogging sometime shortly as well. Have a magical day!