Atlanta: Day 2 - Murf meets David Pogue and a Jewish Badger

Today was the bulk of my education sessions at the conference (the next day and a half were a bit more scattered and gave me more time to peruse the city). I was pretty much at it from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m.

Since I knew this was a busy day, I went to one of the hotel's restaurants that served a breakfast buffet. Since I would be eating by myself I took along the courtesy newspaper that the hotel passed out every morning. I've only eaten by myself in a restaurant once and that was a McDonald's so I felt I had to bring something to occupy myself but since this restaurant was part of the lobby, it was just as entertaining to watch people coming and going at 7 a.m. as the newspaper was as I ate some really yummy watermelon and fluffy scrambled eggs (and having the strength to bypass the glazed Krispy Kreme donuts that they so kindly also offered).

At 10:00 the Keynote Address started. For me, this was the main event and one of the main reasons why I came to this conference - David Pogue was going to speak! I love David Pogue (and I have his blog linked in my sidebar)! I was first introduced to him when I purchased a Mac in 2001 and since they don't come with manuals, I purchased The Missing Manual for OS 9.1 that he wrote. I've never been entertained by a manual before and it was like at first read. Even today I hope to one day have the power to write a manual that includes humor.

I got to the conference room a bit early so I could make sure I got a good seat. When I peeked in, I spotted him immediately. He was trying to eat a quick breakfast while someone was tying his tie. Eventually I snuck in before all the sets of doors were officially opened and got a great seat about 8 rows from the stage and watched him from my peripheral vision. For this momentous occasion, I brought the Missing Manual for OS 9.1 on the off chance that I would be able to get his signature. I was trying to decide if I wanted to do it before but watching him trying to eat his breakfast while greeting people made me decide to wait until afterwards. As I was having this internal conversation with myself, I happened to notice that someone sat two chairs away from me and was saying hi. From yesterday, I was accustomed to people just coming up to me so I said hello back and we started chatting. Ben from Israel asked me where I worked and when I told him, he said "Oh, I went to the University of Wisconsin". I said that since it wasn't Ohio State or Michigan State, I'm allowed to talk to him. He then proceeded to tell me about the time that he and some friends came to where I work for a football game and how nice everyone was despite Wisconsin winning. We "shot the shit" a bit more about a variety of things such as last night's first timer session that he missed and I enlightened him as to who David Pogue is. Since he was not from around here, I cut him some slack for not knowing who he was.

About this time, the festivities began. After sitting through yet another speech from the President of the organization (thankfully he had an English accent so I wasn't completely bored), David Pogue came on and was just as funny and entertaining as I thought he would be. Completely worth the price of the conference. Afterwards, Ben from Israel was busy chatting up the guy next to him so I took the opportunity to sneak over to where David Pogue was standing. Shockingly there were only about 5 of us there. Everyone else was leaving. How could they not know who David Pogue is and not want to talk to him?!? For that, people should be banned from technical writing...but I digress..

Once the conversation that was taking place when I walked up ended, I made my move. I happened to have placed myself directly where he would look and I just asked him if he would mind signing this book. As he grabbed it, he looked down and saw what it was. "Oh my god, this was my first one!" (referring to his first Mac book, not the first one he's ever written) I told him that I swear I've updated my operating system since then but that this was the first book of his that I had bought. Since I had my name tag on, it was easy for him to a)get my name and b)spell it correctly (although for him, I would have been happy with however he chose to spell my name...or whatever he wanted my name to be for that matter). As he was writing on the front page, this other female standing next to him just had to throw her two cents in and say "Oh, I have that book and I was going to bring it too". Well, you didn't bizzle so shush it (I hate it when chicks do that and if you don't know what she did wrong, you're not a chick and probably wouldn't understand). Instead she had to settle for a picture of him...and then I kicked myself for not remembering I had a camera. For the rest of the week, I would peek under the cover and just giggle:


While still afterglowing, I headed back to the Expo for a quick presentation at one of the booths and then I grabbed a quick $10 lunch that consisted of a chicken salad sandwich on challah and a pop (it was good but not quite $10 good). From there, on to the educational sessions for the day which were: Screen Captures, e-Learning Development, and 7 Habits of Highly Successful Technical Communicators. Fascinating, I know.

By the end of the day what with all the classes, the rainy weather outside that prevented me from going out for even a minute, lack of real food, and sleeping in a new place, I was pretty cranky by 6. I just headed back to the room and vegetated.


Next: Day 3 - Murf meets the city.