Saturday, September 23, 2006
What I Learned in Kansas
So, I spent the last few days in Kansas speaking to the folks at NEKLS. (Who, by the way, treat their speakers quite nicely, down to a little gift bag including chocolate -- yay!) While there, I learned a few things:
- You don't want to get stuck in the Kansas City airport. Trust me. You don't. Although they do offer free (albeit slow) wifi, so don't be like me and decide to pack the A/C adapter for your laptop in your checked bag. If your flight is delayed for 5+ hours due to bad weather at O'Hare, and your laptop dies 2 hours in, you will be sorry. Very sorry. Also, "Cinnabon Express" actually means "our stuff is prepackaged and really, really stale" and "we will confiscate the caps from all beverages you purchase so that you can't possibly take them on a plane, so there, nyah."
- ALA has a Member Blog. Who knew? This seems like something one might, I don't know, make an announcement about. (This, I actually found out last week when ALA's John Chrastka forwarded some information about travel awards for Annual 2007, but I didn't have time to look at it til Kansas. APPLY for these things, btw, folks -- EBSCO very nicely sent me to Orlando a couple of years ago, and they appear to get fewer applicants than they'd like.)
- Foxtrot can actually be funny. Who knew?
- When one catches up a little bit in Bloglines, one sees interesting things like this graph about attracting women to tech conferences (linking to this original post).
- If the power goes out in the room while you're talking, just keep talking, and someone will get it back on. I might follow up the previous posts about speaking with some tips for speakers -- but for now, for those of you who still use PowerPoint, take it as a reminder that slides are a supplement to what you're saying, not the end-all, be-all of your presentation.
- While I was being bemused by this Facebook RSS feed uproar, I was still oddly startled when three separate people in Kansas came up and asked about the results of the speaking survey posted here a couple weeks back. (Which I'm going to close within the next few days, since responses have slowed to almost nil -- so if you meant to fill it out but haven't gotten around to it, please do so soon.) But yes, I was somewhat surprised that people read something I posted publicly on the Internet. You'd think I'd have figured this out by now!
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Yeah, KCI (Kansas City International) is not my favorite airport. It's laid out so that walking anywhere is a pain, and there's not really much to do when you're stuck there.
Also, it's not, to the best of my knowledge, actually an international airport, despite the name. That amuses me.
Also, it's not, to the best of my knowledge, actually an international airport, despite the name. That amuses me.
Joshua - Well, they were making announcements about a delayed flight to Canada, so I guess that counts! :)
Ah yes, the packed cord. I also carry on the cord for my Treo, having once had to charge it in an airport garage in order to bring up the picture I had taken of my parking spot!
Artkids: Yes.. the 2 I brought didn't last me. Perhaps I should cultivate the art of reading more slowly :).
Kansas City International may not be big and it does not have a lot for the bored traveler to do, but it beats the heck out of the mega airports when it comes to waiting in lines for security checks. I seldom arrive more than 45 minutes before my flight and I always have plenty of time to check baggage and go through security. YEAH KCI!
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