Gospelcom Conference

This is my room at the hotel. One big room, with one big bed, just for me. Kinda a waste.

Another look at the room. The pillows at the hotel sucked! They were like really big marshmellows, and no matter what you did, you'd get no support. I had to roll them up liek Swiss Cake Rolls, then stack them up...

Here's the center of the hotel.. It's shaped like a big square, with rooms on the outside, and a high open-aired square in the center. There's this restaurant in the center.

And here's that tall ceiling I was talking about. Any clue what those things hanging down are?

Here's Joel leading a session on Mysql. It was good.

There were usually 3 sessions going on at the same time, in 3 different rooms.

Here's a video of Joel presenting. We end with a lovely look at Jay, working on his CWS presentation.

These lights were new.. We had a fun time trying to decide what they looked like. (If you guessed breasts, you win a prize.)

I don't know what was in my sink, but it smelled bad.. and it was not there the day before. I was frightened... it was gone the next day.

Here's another look at the center of the hotel.

Fanta! Remember?

Here we have Andy setting up for his session.

Andy's session was opposite a pretty big session in another room, so turnout was expected to be low...

I think it worked out pretty well though, as Andy was able to shift the presentation to be directly about those in attendance, and the people there were able to ask questions without fear of time constraints, or appearing foolish... I thought it went well, anyway. And Andy's just kinda funny. Here's Andy, and Blaine, helping him get a decent internet connection.

My Dad came up to the Hotel on Saturday night, and he took me out to Harry Caray's for dinner. It was great. We talked Church, my life, his life, Harry Potter, and a bunch of everything else. And we had big steaks and beer. It was wonderful hanging out with him.

This.. is the bar. I spend a lot of time in there during the evenings of conferences. There's a pool table, and we play a ton of pool. And have a drink or two.

Here's Alan Checking out.

The Cubs game is over, and we are on our way home. Joel is driving, with Dave in the navigator's seat. I'm in back. We're sailing through downtown Chicago, and it's gorgeous.

Here's Navy Pier.

Here's a fountain

Down the street is the Field's Museum. I like that place a lot. They're advertising Sue, the T-Rex. I used to read a lot about her back when I wanted to be a Paleo-Genetic Bio-engineer. I've also been on a kewl tour of the upper areas and storage vaults in the museum. That place is amazing.

I also love how the archetecture of the whole area matches so well, with a very Greco-Roman Classical feel to it. Fields Museum, Shedd's Aquarium, and Soldier Field. They all just look great together.

Only they just redid the stadium....

Only.. they changed Soldier Field... and not so much in a good way. They wanted to retain the same look, but instead of making it look good, they chose to make it look like "open ass".

Yeah.. it kinda looks like something they'd throw away at a Star Wars brainstorming session.. It just looks kinda weird from the outside. The inside might rule.. I dunno.

I fell asleep for a while, woke up, and shortly thereafter, we had some problems. The tire just completely shredded itself. We pulled off to the side, and Joel and I instantly grabbed our cameras. Funny how that's the first thing we worry about: "I've got to get pictures of this!"

You can see the tire is pretty much gone there. Joel hadn't changed a tire before, but he did a fine job, with Dave and I watching, and offering help if/when needed. (example: "yes.. they screw off that way.")

We had all our luggage on the side of the road, so we could get to the spare tire.

Here's a look around while the tire is getting changed. It was kinda dark out, but the flash pictures made it look brighter. An aside: The sunset looked amazing in the distance.

Joel and Dave, fixing up that tire.

And Joel puts on the spare.

Joel is tightening the spare. After it was on, he and I stepped back and looked at it. It was pretty flat. By "pretty flat" I mean it was flat... i.e .no air in tire. So we knew it would not last long.. certainly not the trip to Michigan.

So we went to the closest gas station, and filled it up with air. (Note the grey "rag" Joel has. We needed something to wipe all the grime off of our hands, so I volunteered one of my new Gospelcom conference shirts. It gave me a strange and perverse joy to see it dirtied.)

This is where the air came from.

This picture was taken to try to figure out what the numbers were for this particular tire.

Here's the spare tire in all its glory.

Walmart was open, and we were hoping their tire dealie was still open too.

I bought a DVD for $6 at Walmart. Joel and I then read The Star. Turns out, the writers of The Star are idiots.

There's Joel's car getting fixed.

And there's the new tire. And there was much rejoicing.

There's the dude that changed the tire. Wasn't much of a talker.

We went to steak and shake to get some food, and this guy was mopping floors, and joking around, and so Dave took a picture of him with these goofy glasses on. When we were leaving, the guy kept looking out the window to get our attention, then held his hands up to his eyes like they were glasses... I'm not sure what he was trying to say.. but I seem to get the impression he wanted money.

Here's where we payed. I pressed the wrong button, and ended up taking a picture.

I returned home late (prolly midnightish or so.) Said Hi to Robb, who was still sort of awake, which I found a little strange, but not all that out of the ordinary, then headed to my room. The first thing I saw when entering the room was this poster hanging over my bed. I laughed very hard.

I turned to see this poster.

Then I noticed this one. I had been zinged... and quite well. I went out, and tried to get the scoop from Robb, who feigned ignorance. Most impressive. Nicely done guys :)