conference season

Long time no update: apologies. We're well into conference season, which is always a whirlwind, plus I've had other trips here and there to throw into the mix as well. Oh, and moving.

As always, Twitter's the best way to keep track of me: check out the running commentary on the right.

So in advance of moving, I whipped back to Wisconsin for a brief visit. I have many photos, audio, and fond memories of that quick trip, as well as some fantastic curtains. Long story. I intend to get to crunching and uploading those photos soon, hopefully.

Then there was the moving, which went about as well as a move can. Surprisingly well. There was an issue with my bed and the size of our generously-lent van, but other than that, I really can't complain. And complaining's what I do best when it comes to moving. I kid. I do know how to go about it, after so many moves in my past and such, but it's never fun.

There was one quick symposium which opened the run of conferences: the TLT Symposium, which was simply amazing. The community really came together and evolved online for this one, which was a fantastic experience. I really can't say enough about how relationships were created and strengthened and we continued to help and inform each other even afterwards.

Memorial Day got stuck in here somewhere, during which I ran from one event to another (three in all) and got terribly sunburned. Good times, though.

We started conference season proper with the Penn State Undergraduate Admissions Spring Conference, during which we traveled between Penn State DuBois and Penn State Altoona. Great to see both campuses. The one session I thought I was doing there turned into three--all went well enough, I think, and I hope I spread some of the social networking word in the original. I don't think it's news to any of them--at least I hope not--but I hope it provided some practical advice for starting/managing one.

A few weeks later was the Penn State Web Conference, which was potentially game-changing. More, perhaps, on that later. But there were excellent sessions by Steve Krug demonstrating the need for usability testing in our own backyard, by Mark Greenfield showing the hows and whys of social networking, and many others.

After that was a quick trip to Buffalo and one to the Hershey area. Both excellent visits. Yesterday was Dax's birthday party which, as always, was a trip and a half and left us all sleeping quite well. Dax likes to hold his birthday at a park, and there's always fun mucking about on the playground equipment, with gymnastics and jumping around and fake parkour and generally wearing ourselves out. Because that's what Daxes do, and we're obviously obliged to help on his birthday.

Today--in about an hour, in fact--I'm leaving for another conference, this one for all the admissions counselors and high school counselors that deal with the college search process in Pennsylvania. It'll be good to connect with folks I haven't seen in awhile--and heck, even those I haven't seen since our Spring Conference.

There's been talk about other trips: Hershey again for the usual monthly event, as well as other trips to visit the spa and Hersheypark. Possibly a visit to H. and K. in the fall, which is a longer endeavor. But I'm loath to schedule things right now: I'm experiencing a kind of limbo which I'll clarify later, but is making things difficult right now.

So that's the current state of things. More later.