Friday, June 1, 2018

Randy at Jamboree 2018 - Day One

This was a fairly full day for me at the SCGS Genealogy Jamboree.  Thursday was the day for the JsmboFree, Genetic Genealogy and the Family History Writers Conferences.  I didn't sign up for the latter two, but do have access to the syllabus materials because I did sign up for the Genealogy Jsmboree Conference on Friday and Saturday.

Thursday started with an expensive and unsatisfying breakfast in The Daily Grill - scrambled eggs and tomato slices shouldn't cost $14.  Linda could 't eat the bagels in the blogger lounge so we ate at the restaurant.  Slow and expensive.  Did I mention expensive?  I thought so.

After breakfast, I walked over to the Pavilion where Barbara Randall was setting up her Genealogy Basics class.  They were still setting everything up when I got there.  I was one of the two room monitors for Barbara, and that went OK.  We had about 80 attendees, and my job was to hand out the Beginner's Kit and tell them to fill out the card for door prizes, and then Sheryl and I collected them.  I got to give the welcome talk and tell folks to turn off their cell phone ringers and the rest, and Sheryl introduced Barbara.  She did two sessions in 3 and a half hours, and we had a break in between.  She had eight door prizes to give out.  In the middle of the second session, the fire engine and ambulance drove up to the convention center, and took a fellow on a gurney who had a health problem.  Not the first time that's happened, I'm told.

At noon, I headed over to the room and picked up Linda and we went to the lunch area between the buildings.  I had a hamburger and chocolate chip cookies, and she had a turkey sandwich and chips.  We then went to the Exhibit Hall and walked around.  The 23andMe booth had a wheelspin for a chance at a DNA test, and other prizes.  We got a kids book on DNA.  I can use that!

During the afternoon, I had discussions with a number of friends and colleagues about many genealogy subjects;  I told several folks about my recent DNA match success.  I recall talking to Dallan Quass of RootsFinder, Steve Caguiat of FamilyTreeMaker, Daniel Horowitz and team of MyHeritage, Lisa Louise Cooke, Cynthia Richardson of Genlighten, Bruce Buzbee of RootsMagic, and Ray Raser of the Mayflower Society.  There are many more people to visit in the Exhibit Hall the next two days.

We got to meet James, the cute 10-month old son of Elyse and Jesse, and got a photo of them. He liked having his toes tickled.



At 3:30 p.m. I went back to the room and worked on the laptop, and convinced Linda to go swimming since the sun finally came out.  I went back to the room and took a na

At 6 p.m. I went down to help Linda out of the pool, and she took a shower and we went to dinner at 7:15 at the Daily Grill because it was late.  She can only eat salad for dinner there because of her allergies.  We both had a crappy Cobb salad - too much small lettuce bits and not enough of the goodies, for $22 each.  Plus a drink.  The sourdough bread was the best part of the dinner.  So another crappy meal at the Daily Grill for an exorbitant price.  Captive audience.  You' think we would learn.  Where to go tomorrow for dinner?  No clue.

Then it was back to the room and I'm blogging away before bed.

That's Day One - I enjoyed the discussions in the Exhibit Hall and seeing many geneabloggers and Genea-Musings readers during the day.

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Copyright (c) 2018, Randall J. Seaver

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2 comments:

Diane Gould Hall said...

I couldn’t agree more about the Daily Grill. Debby and I had some decent, if not good meals there two years ago. However, I ate breakfast there on Thursday and paid $14 for two scrambled eggs, a cup of cottage cheese and cofffee. Pretty ridiculous. The breakfast buffet was $23. Not a big selection either, so I chose the other alacarte items.
However, visiting with friends at Jamboree was great as I said in my blog yesterday.

Unknown said...

So glad we passed on the Daily Grill. Andy and I went over to Dennys. I tried eggs with spinach. It was gross, but that's my fault.