Australia Day 4 - Good Friends, Good Times
Today I was on my feet at the convention center from 8:00am until 5:00pm with a couple of 1-hour breaks. The good part of it was the quiet moments in between helping attendees with their efforts in the lab. No, I'm not trying to knock the attendees but rather reflect on the quality conversations with other Technical Learning Guides (TLGs). As fellow instructors, the TLGs understand the challenges of the job and the thrill of helping someone learn. I have thoroughly enjoyed my interactions with the TLGs who have come here from places as far away as Italy, Canada, Holland, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa and all over Australia. I look forward to keeping in touch with my newly-made acquaintances.
The evening's activity was a party at DreamWorld, an amusement park located about 30 minutes from the convention center. We were bussed over there en masse, and let into the park for a private party. Dinner and refreshments were served there.
I was separated from the group of TLGs because I had forgotten my conference ID in my room. By the time I had retrieved it, several busses had left and I had to catch a later one. When I arrived at the park, there was a mass of people by the gate waiting to be let in. I made my way through the throng, found a pillar to stand on and I looked into the crowd. As I peered into the sea of faces, three arms waved back at me. Sarbjit and Kathy, both TLGs, were about ten rows back. And between them and me was Walter.
(Now some friends would give you the shirt off their backs. Not Walter. Instead, Walter taught me the skill of amassing lifetime supplies of shirts from vendors in the Exhibition Hall of any technical conference.)
As I made my way back to the TLGs, I stopped to say "Hi" to Walter. We've known each other for many years, back when we were both freelance Novell instructors. I have been blessed by his hospitality and generosity on numerous occasions. As the gates opened, we moved through and quickly found ourselves together as we walked through the park. The first ride we attempted, The Claw, was a bit disappointing. Neither of us fit safely into the seats as the restraints couldn't be secured. On the way out of the ride we killed ourselves laughing at the thought that we were "too big" for a thrill ride, and then proceeded to line up for dinner.
The rest of the evening we had an incredible heart-to-heart conversation about life, career directions and what the future might hold. We must have talked over 3 hours before we realized that the cool evening weather needed to be dealt with. We grabbed some coffee and stood in line for a laser tag game themed around Alien vs. Predator. At that point it was more about getting indoors than it was about playing laser tag with conference attendees nearly half our age and twice our ambition. After blowing up aliens and infected humans for a few minutes, we headed out and slowly made our way back to the busses for the ride back to the hotel.
For me, this night with Walter was definitely worth my flying 10,000 miles down here. Maybe next time I'll just head over to Virginia to see him and avoid the jetlag. I'm sure he wouldn't mind.
The evening's activity was a party at DreamWorld, an amusement park located about 30 minutes from the convention center. We were bussed over there en masse, and let into the park for a private party. Dinner and refreshments were served there.
I was separated from the group of TLGs because I had forgotten my conference ID in my room. By the time I had retrieved it, several busses had left and I had to catch a later one. When I arrived at the park, there was a mass of people by the gate waiting to be let in. I made my way through the throng, found a pillar to stand on and I looked into the crowd. As I peered into the sea of faces, three arms waved back at me. Sarbjit and Kathy, both TLGs, were about ten rows back. And between them and me was Walter.
(Now some friends would give you the shirt off their backs. Not Walter. Instead, Walter taught me the skill of amassing lifetime supplies of shirts from vendors in the Exhibition Hall of any technical conference.)
As I made my way back to the TLGs, I stopped to say "Hi" to Walter. We've known each other for many years, back when we were both freelance Novell instructors. I have been blessed by his hospitality and generosity on numerous occasions. As the gates opened, we moved through and quickly found ourselves together as we walked through the park. The first ride we attempted, The Claw, was a bit disappointing. Neither of us fit safely into the seats as the restraints couldn't be secured. On the way out of the ride we killed ourselves laughing at the thought that we were "too big" for a thrill ride, and then proceeded to line up for dinner.
The rest of the evening we had an incredible heart-to-heart conversation about life, career directions and what the future might hold. We must have talked over 3 hours before we realized that the cool evening weather needed to be dealt with. We grabbed some coffee and stood in line for a laser tag game themed around Alien vs. Predator. At that point it was more about getting indoors than it was about playing laser tag with conference attendees nearly half our age and twice our ambition. After blowing up aliens and infected humans for a few minutes, we headed out and slowly made our way back to the busses for the ride back to the hotel.
For me, this night with Walter was definitely worth my flying 10,000 miles down here. Maybe next time I'll just head over to Virginia to see him and avoid the jetlag. I'm sure he wouldn't mind.
