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Tuesday, September 6, 2011

We're in Springfield, Illinois for the FGS Conference

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It was a long day, but the travel was easy - on time, no problems, and Lynda the Southwest Airline flight attendant was awesome - funny comments and even seat exercises!  We landed in Chicago at 1 p.m., got our rental car and headed for Springfield, where we are in the Abraham Lincoln Hotel.

I found myself trying to figure out where we were over Kansas and Iowa, and if some of my ancestral homesteads were going past the window.  Central Kansas has a regular pattern of square sections laid out nicely, but the roads don't always follow the section boundaries.  Once we got over northeastern Kansas and southern Iowa, it was difficult to discern the sections sometimes.  It's the end of summer, and the dendritic pattern of the creeks and rivers was amazing to see from the air.  Water runs downhill and creates fascinating patterns!  Living in a large city, I am always amazed by how unpopulated the Far West and the Midwest are, at least away from the population centers.  Many of the small towns in Kansas and Iowa dominate only one section of land, and then it;s one or two farms per section as you get further away from town.

We got to the hotel by 6:30 p.m., just enough time to get unpacked and check out dinner options.  I went over to the Hilton Hotel for the Blogger reception hosted by the FamilySearch team.  I met many bloggers that I had not met before in person, and enjoyed chatting with them and the bloggers I've met before.  It is almost instant bonding here, because we have a common interest and purpose, and our little community is very open and friendly.  FamilySearch provided an interesting presentation about their activities to the 30 or 40 bloggers present.  Ginger Smith has the best summary I've seen so far - check out her post Family Search Bloggers Reception at FGS.

I was intrigued by the mention of a consortium to index the 1940 U.S. Census.  That was the first I'd heard of it.  Jim Ericson would not talk about who is participating in the consortium.  I could guess, but I won't, because I'm usually wrong on things like this and don't want to ruin my accuracy average even more!

Then it was back to the hotel for dinner with Linda in the restaurant, and up to the room to see if the free wireless internet works.  It does, but it sure loads slowly!  I managed to read the 280 posts in my Google Reader (since last night) and the 60 emails since this morning, then wrote this post.

Wednesday morning is the start of the FGS Conference, and I look forward to holding up my end of the Official Blogger bargain.  The problem is, of course, if I write blog posts I don't get to go to a learning session, so I'll have to balance those needs out.

1 comment:

  1. Enjoy yourself and look forward to hearing more about the conference!

    ReplyDelete