It was after 3:00am Saturday when I finally got home to Farmington, ME. We left our hotel at 8:00am Friday. That is a L O N G trip. Of course, there is the 3 hour time difference, but even accounting for that, it was a long time to be in planes, airports, and cars.
As described earlier, when we got to the Vegas airport, we found out we were leaving on a flight to Atlanta that was leaving over an hour later than our original flight to JFK. The flight to Atlanta left on time but we got put in a holding pattern for 40 minutes over Atlanta. It was hard to hear the pilot over the intercom when he was explaining it, but it seemed it was weather related. The good news is, when there's a weather delay, it generally effects all flights and that was true for us. Our next flight was scheduled to leave at 8:10 which we would've missed, but it was now scheduled to leave at 9:30. [We timed our walk to the gate where we would've been leaving from. We got to that gate at exactly 8:10. We'll never know if they would've held the plane for us or not.]
It was closer to 10 when the direct flight to Portland finally left. We landed in Portland around 12:30am only to find out that though we made the transfer in Atlanta, our luggage didn't. Now add close to an hour to 1.) wait for all the luggage to get off the plane and find out yours isn't in the lot and 2.) fill out paperwork so that you can hopefully get reunited with your suitcase. That's what we did. All 5 of our suitcases between the 3 of us were enjoying their stay in Atlanta and wouldn't get back to Maine until Saturday.
We left the airport around 1:00am. I drove Beth home to New Sharon (about 12 miles away from Farmington). It was close to 3 when we got there. It was rainy but fortunately above freezing, so it was slow going but not too frightening. When we got to her house there was a light on and she recognized the silhouette of her son in the window. I later found out that the family had received a phone call from Beth's sister asking if she was home yet and that woke them up so they all just waited up. There were flowers and everything. :-) I was home by 3:15 and without any luggage to unpack, I was able to get to bed pretty quickly after that. Praise God for a safe and happy trip.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
3/7/08 another pet
Friday, March 7, 2008
3/7/08 great quote
Who knew you could find such wisdom at a fast food restaurant in the Las Vegas airport?!
3/7/08 breakfast at the Vegas airport
Who would've guessed that in the Las Vegas airport we would find such a "local" place? You can't find Prickly Pear Cactus in many places in the US much less a restaurant named after the plant. The decor was very southwest and the food was delicious. We'd been up since 5 and it was now close to 10 and we were just eating breakfast, so we were hungry, but that just made the food more delicious.
3/7/08 a touch of home in the Vegas airport
We were supposed to go home through JFK Airport in New York City but got re-routed through Atlanta. Delta had changed their flight schedule over three weeks ago which meant our original flight combination no longer worked. However, Orbitz forgot to tell us. (Actually, Orbitz did send an email that was dated 3/7/08 at 12:58 . . . our original flight was scheduled to leave at 10:50 and our new flight left at 12:10 . . . I think they blew it big time.)
Before we could start our new adventure, we had to take a train from the security area to our gate area in the Vegas airport. When the train doors opened, this is what I saw:
3/7/08 What we didn't get to see in Vegas
3/6/2008 Spending Maggy's Dollar
Maggy, who teaches math methods for both Secondary/Middle and Elementary Education gave Grace $1 and told her to play it in the slots for her until it was gone. So we all helped carry out the orders. We found this penny slot machine called "Lucky Larry's Lobstermania." How appropriate is that??!!! Grace got the winnings up to over $3 at one point but eventually spent all of the $1 and all of the winnings. It was a fun thing to do on the last night in Vegas.
3/6/2008 another incredible meal
Our last night in town, we decided to return to Kristofer's Steak House, the very nice restaurant in our hotel where we ate the first night. Grace had ordered the mixed grill the first night and raved so much about the lamb chops that both she and I ordered lamb chops (nothing mixed with them). We were not disappointed. Oh my. They just melted in your mouth. Delicious. Beth ordered seafood jambalaya and she said it was awesome, too. But we saved room for dessert! Well, I didn't, but Beth and Grace did. Grace ordered key lime pie and Beth ordered the hot fudge sundae. Check 'em out:
It's hard to get perspective on how big this hot fudge sundae really is. Here Beth is holding up a spoon next to the dish. Does that give you an idea? Just suffice it to say that it was B I G ! ! And it was delicious. :-)
3/6/08 Souvenirs we didn't buy
For everyone I know that loves pink and is a princess girl (MRM, Dana, Lizzie, . . . ) here's your new china and housewares collection.
a rhinestone tiara, no less!
To my family and former office mates to whom I always bring a pencil back from wherever I go (they're great souvenirs because they're inexpensive, useful, and don't take up much room in your suitcase going home), here are some of the Las Vegas souvenirs you won't be getting this year.
For Dr. Mari's cow collection, I did not add these piggy/cow banks to her collection.
For my own teammates, Beth and Grace, personalized tins to hold your mints in your purse. I should've indulged but I didn't.
For Dr. Mari, whose cat Rusty (an orange tabby) just had butt surgery twice in the last three months, I did not get these refrigerator magnets. There were also cat butt coasters (wouldn't you like to set your drink down on one of those?) and cat butt stickers. What I loved about the magnets was, in the lower right hand corner, you see a cat's head and the caption says, "Guess which one is mine." In the lower left corner is a magnet with an ugly mess on it. It's labeled "FREE!" and says, "Real hairball magnet with every set!" Don't you wish you could've been there to buy your own magnet set??
3/6/08 buying souvenirs
After lunch on our last full day we decided we better do the requisite souvenir shopping, especially Beth who has two boys at home. We'd been scouting stuff out all week, but it was all so expensive and not much fun. Denise showed us this place when we drove past it the other night. It was a few blocks away (more walking . . . we've done soooo much walking this week) and well worth it. You can only imagine what was in here. What a blast! I think this place has been here since before the first strip opened. So it was a blast from the past as well.
3/6/08 lunch
Today's keynote speaker at 8:00am was amazing. It was tempting to sleep in and not attend because we stayed out so late last night, but oh my! Was this worth it. These 2 presenters put together a talk and a PowerPoint like one I've never seen before. (I think they were using Apple's Keynote software . . . it had some features I haven't seen in PowerPoint and looked really sleek.) Most people I spoke with afterwards said the same thing. And remember that this is a conference for people who use technology every day and many of whom are on the cutting edge of using new technologies. We are a tough crowd to impress.
We've actually all been to a bunch of presentations (we're not the types to go to a conference just to present and then skip out on the conference to play). We've learned a lot, some presentations offering more new learning than others. We've seen every type of presenter from really bad to really great, and we've gotten a lot out of them. But for this blog, it seemed kind of boring to outsiders to write about the presentations. And in fact, it seems rather mean to talk about this one without giving more details. But you really had to be there to get the full effect of this presentation. But I couldn't help but brag on this one.
Anyway, we decided to go across the street to Circus Circus for lunch. By the time we left The Riviera, we had gathered a good-sized group picking up Lisa from UNT and Dana from University of Texas at Arlington and a colleague of hers at UTA, Ruth. We were headed to The Garden Grill but it took forever to find it. By the time we saw this banner, we really weren't sure we believed it. But we did find it . . . only to find out it was closed! We had seen that there was another restaurant nearby called Mexitalia, an Express Restaurant, but we all agreed it sounded pretty scary and we didn't want to go there. So guess where we ended up eating? But it actually was quite good! I guess you can't judge a book or a restaurant by its cover.
3/5-6/08 very very very very late dinner
After Mamma Mia, we went exploring. We were looking for a place to have dinner, but we were also just looking. We went through the Luxor (shaped like a pyramid with lots of Egyptian-looking stuff inside) and Excalibur (a giant castle). Those 3 are all connected to each other. Then we went outside and crossed the street to New York New York, then the MGM. Next we walked down the strip, stopping in at M&M World on our way to Paris. We crossed the strip again (they have escalators and sky bridges to keep pedestrians safe crossing the street) and went to The Bellagio. We caught one of the water shows (giant fountains that are choreographed to music) on the Paris side of the street and caught another one (The Star Spangled Banner . . . a hint that it was the last show of the night, like when television stations used to go off the air at night) as we were on the sky bridge. That was a great location to see the show. From inside The Bellagio we connected to Ceasar's Palace. Through all of this, we didn't really find any place to eat that appealed to us. At Ceasar's we thought we did, but it turned out it was closed. It was after midnight and most of the "real" restaurants close at 10 or 11. We called another one and even though someone answered, they were closed. The hotel coffee shops weren't appealing to us. We ended up taking a taxi home and eating in our own coffee shop at The Riviera. It was nearly 1:00am by now, so we ordered breakfast and yacked and yacked the night away (morning?). What a fabulously fun day!
3/5/08 Dancing Queens
The show was great!! Mamma Mia is a backwards musical where they started with the music (it's all music by ABBA) and then wrote a story to go around it. Magically, it was a great story and the production was sooo well done! We really had a blast. And afterwards, we decided to become our own "Dancing Queens".
3/5/2008 Mamma Mia at Mandalay Bay
Today we went to the half-price, day-of-show sales office which is right next door to our hotel. They had a long list of shows for which they had tickets available, most of which didn't appeal to us or were only offering discounted tickets or that at half-off were still too expensive. But they did have tickets for Mamma Mia and that was what we chose. The performance was at Mandalay Bay which is waaaaaaay at the end of the new strip and very far from our hotel. We took a cab ($17) and went straight to the box office because we were only guaranteed that we'd have seats on the main floor, but not where they would be or if they would be together. Turned out that we got there in time to get 3 seats together that were really good. Yea! Then we wandered around the hotel. This is the "Race and Sports Book" section. It almost looks like the control center at NASA, but it's really just a bunch of monitors displaying tons of different sporting events and a bunch of displays of the odds. There was some interesting people watching, too. (You can't go anywhere in Vegas without some interesting people watching.)
3/5/08 fellow conventioneers
The Riviera Convention Center is large enough that it can accommodate multiple conventions at the same time. During our stay here, we've had three other conferences: Contemporary Handcrafted American Made Products (CHAMP), University of Wisconsin Madison, and National Fire Prevention Association. We don't have any interactions with the other folks, but we do pass them in the hall, peek into their exhibit hall, see the names of their presentations on the wall outside the room as we walk by, etc. CHAMP has had the most interesting people participating. It seems the convention is just a sales convention with exhibitors having their products on display and buyers perusing the wares. We've seen a little of what the wares are and can only imagine the other handcrafted products. It has definitely provided for some interesting conversation.
3/5/2008 our SITE presentation
Today was our presentation, "Technology Integration for Tomorrow's Leader's in Education (TITLE): A Team-Taught Cohort Experience for Pre-Service Teachers." We were so glad that we went to a bunch of presentations yesterday because each of us had tweaks we wanted to add to our presentation based on a better knowledge of our audience. Also, some of the presentations made points or had features that we thought would be helpful to address in ours. So we spent about an hour together rehearsing, modifying, improving, and timing our presentation. Now it was fresh in our minds, too. The actual presentation went really well. We said all that we wanted to say and pretty much stayed on time. We were scheduled to have 3 talks in 1 hour (15 minutes to present and 5 minutes for questions) but at 2:30 (our start time), there was no moderator and only 2 presenters. So we kind of felt like we could split the time between us. So we spent 20 minutes talking instead of our alloted 15. When we finished, a new group walked up. It was the moderator and the middle presenter. Where did they come from?! Oh well. Fortunately, there was a break scheduled after our time slot, so the audience just encouraged the last presenter to not try to hurry but just go over and we all stayed until he finished.
So our presentation went really well and we are ready to take it on the road!! We also spent a lot of time afterwards (and over the remaining days here) discussing our plans for what we want to present next year. :-) Charleston, South Carolina here we come!
Thursday, March 6, 2008
3/4/2008 dinner with colleagues
We had a long wait for dinner but when you're a party of 10, I guess that's to be expected. Fortunately, this family-friendly restaurant had plenty of entertainment and good music.
Denise (AZ) and Lisa (TX)
Beth (ME) and Grace (ME)
Me (ME)
Jacque (NV) and Gerald (TX)
not pictured: Tandra (TX), Brenda (TX) and her aunt (Mexico).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The stilt walkers made this balloon hat (that's supposed to be a flower on her head) for Jacque.
It's my turn to wear the balloon hat.
Then they made "an apple for the teacher" for Brenda. oh wait, I said she wasn't pictured, but here she is. And that's her aunt's left forearm in the bottom right corner of the photo.
3/4/2008 It's a small world
This time it wasn't my small world experience. L to R is Beth, Denise, Anna, and Grace. Denise is a professor at Univ. of Arizona South. She used to teach at UMF in the Secondary/Middle Department. So it was old home week for Grace and Beth as they reunited with this colleague. So I'm not the only one who's enjoying time with colleagues from far away while at SITE. [Note: Anna is a friend of Denise's from when she used to live in Las Vegas.]
3/4/2006 SITE throws a really nice reception
They had a lovely welcome reception Tuesday night from 6:30-7:30. Look at all the great food. It was in the penthouse of one of the towers so there was a lovely view.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
3/4/2008 SITE Conference
at the Riviera Convention Center. The SITE conference is fabulous as
usual. The Riviera is one of my least favorite locations of all the
places I've attended SITE.
3/4/2008 old friends are new colleagues
at UNT when I did. We were in the "charter" cohort . . . the first
group of folks admitted to the new program in 2001. He's now a
professor at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana.
I saw his name in the program and surprised him by showing up at his
presentation. He's one of 3 other graduates of the program that are
here (Dr. Les Lunce is at Indiana State University in Terre Haute and
Dr. Becky Parton is also at Southeastern Louisiana after a year at
Texas Woman's University). Plus, folks who are still in the program
but will graduate soon are here at this conference: Rob Wright and
Mark Lucent that I've seen so far. How fun is this!?
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
3/5/2008 Indigenous Desert Creatures
the airplane. ;-)
In the Vegas airport, on the way to baggage claim, they had 3 cool
sculptures: a scorpion, a rattlesnake, and this gila monster. The
animals these statues represent are all indigenous to this area (and
poisonous). Welcome to the desert.
Las Vegas here we come!
for Information Technology and Teacher Education International
Conference in Las Vegas. We're presenting a paper at the conference
and we're staying for most of the conference to attend sessions and
learn new stuff in our field. To get from Farmington to Vegas we had
to drive 2 hours to Portland, catch a flight from Portland to Newark,
NJ, and change planes to catch a flight to Vegas. In the Newark
Airport we had to get from gate 108 to gate 72 which included
changing concourses. Grace hurt her knee a while back while skiing so
she's moving a little slower than usual (still at a faster pace than
me, but slow for her). When we were walking to gate 72, she stopped a
lady driving a cart and asked to confirm that we were headed in the
right direction. The lady confirmed that we were and then said, "Hop
on!" So we did! And we saved about 10 minutes of walking plus got to
ride a cart through the airport (I think I've only done that one
other time in all my travels). How fun is that?! We even had time to
stop at the ladies' room AND get lunch before they started boarding
our flight. Shwew!
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