Sunday, November 2, 2008

Genea-cruiser Randy is on dry land again

Hi readers...I've missed the daily interaction and busy-ness of blogging. Seven days without blogging is like, well, an eternity, it seems. But I've been busy! We've had some fun times, some informative times, some wet times, and even some boring times.

While many on board the Caribbean Princess were having the time of their lives - eating (gluttony), drinking (debauchery), and making Mary, er, merry (lust!), er, fools of themselves (knaves that they are), most of the geneaholics attending the TMG Conference were:

* sitting in Club Fusion watching Bob Velke and John Cardinal manipulate TMG and its' utility programs; Club Fusion is a night club with many TV screens around - fairly ideal for watching someone manipulate his computer - even if you're sitting at the bar with your laptop (that was me...). The morning meetings were here.
* in the Palm Dining Room hearing John Titford and Megan Smolenyak make their presentations to about 80 of us gathered around a small screen and being right up close to the speakers; two of the noon lectures were here.
* in the Princess Theater (think 500 seats in three levels, typical for evening shows) with a big screen, the speaker on stage at a podium, and about 100 genealogists scattered around the seats - only one or two within eye contact. one noon lecture and the late afternoon lectures were here.

Then there were the:

* hosted breakfasts with one of the speakers - we had about 30 minutes with Barbara Vines Little on Thursday before we went off on our tour of St. Kitts by scenic railway.
* Several evening round tables with David Allen Lambert of NEHGS on Military Records, Atlantic Canada, and DNA Research. Dave is a really knowledgeable and funny guy.
* One-on-ones on Saturday night with David Lambert, Elizabeth Shown Mills and Sandra Hewlett. I brought some of my "elusive ancestor" research problems to get their take on my work and suggestions.
* Meals and table sharing with a number of the attendees. While it often revolved around them mundane, we also did some analysis of the lectures, discussed our own research, and just talked almost every day about our days and lives.
* The Sunday cocktail party and Saturday "last night" cocktail party - great times - in fact, almost the only time I saw many of the speakers. The end of the Saturday party was the assembled geneaholics singing "I'm My Own Grandpa" led by Jhn Titford. Apparently, this is a tradition.

I have posts prepared for every day's activities but I cannot post them until I get the San Juan hotel wireless to connect to my laptop. I'm in the Business Center now with several others waiting their turn for the one working computer. I need to post this and give it up but will come back later today and start putting some real content on the blog.

We are in San Juan until Wednesday, when we fly home. If I can make the laptop connect yo the Internet, I will post some pictures from the cruise and my journal entries for each day.

I need to burn down my email stack too - I had 368 emails on my regular account and 264 emails on my mailing list eddress. I also have 764 posts to read on Bloglines, since last Sunday. Then there's Facebook to catch up on.

2 comments:

Sheri Fenley said...

Welcome back to the blogosphere! I can't wait to hear all about your adventures. Will you be able to join Group D this Thursday night, the 6th, for our monthly chat? We can change the date if you like to accomodate your return to the genea-cave.

Sheri

lyn said...

The weather in San Diego hasn't changed since you left. Please bring some rain with you when you come home.