October 30 - November 4, 1999: Orlando, Florida

Day 3: Techlearn '99

7:30 am: Conference Center, Coronado Springs Resort

Day 3 of my trip to Orlando was the first full day of the TechLearn '99 conference, and therefore a day with no Spaceship Earth or watching the manatees get fed or eating Napoleons. (And, in case you're wondering: No, the manatees do not eat Napoleons.) I started the day by meeting Rick Sonnenberg at the entrance to the conference center at 7:32 (I don't really know exactly what time it was, but we were supposed to meet at 7:30, and Rick later pointed out that I had "kept him waiting." Well, my watch said 7:30, but anyone who knows Rick knows how cranky he gets when he's hungry.) for the breakfast that's included with the TechLearn registration fee. I had a creme filled donut and a croissant and about 100 cups of coffee; this coffee, I'm happy to report, was much better than the hot pencil shavings liquid I had the day before on leaving the Gainesville Econo Lodge, and the donut was quite good as well.

I spent the next three and a half hours in various technology and education-related sessions, such as MindQ's "Has the time arrived for learning objects?" and Brandon Hall's "Tools and Approaches to Authoring Content." At 11:00 I heard one of the keynote speakers, Michael Milken, but left part of the way through the CEO panel discussion to check my e-mail, go to the bathroom, and try to track down my other partner in crime, Kevin Eames. I found him right off the bat, sitting on a bench just outside the ASTD bookstore area, waiting for his wife Lisa.

12:15 pm: A Long Line, Then Lunch

Rick and I waited in line to get to the make-your- own-sandwich lunch station for what seemed like about eight days; once I got there, I took out my frustration on the catering company by making a ham sandwich that must have constituted most of the pig from which it had originally come. We ate at outside at a table with a bunch of people we didn't know, and one we did, a gentleman from my sordid past whose name is Kevin Brice.

4:15 pm: The Cos!

One of the keynote speakers this year was Bill Cosby, who I saw from quite a distance away in a huge conference room with about 3,000 other people. He was very funny, and warm, and even slightly educational (as he used to say in the opening to Fat Albert, "If you're not careful you might learn something..."). In the first few minutes of his talk/performance, he found a guy in the audience who had attended his old school back in Philly, Central. He got the guy up on stage with him, exchanged a little light banter about the old neighborhood, and tried to get him to sing the school song. When it became clear that the poor audience member didn't know the school song, Cos called for a phone and proceeded to call the man's mother to reprimand her! "Mom, you're not going to believe this," the poor ex-Central student began, "but I'm on stage in front of a few thousand people, and there's someone here who wants to talk to you."

I ended the day by having dinner at the Pepper Market with Rick and Kevin, hanging out for over an hour and talking, and then going back to my hotel room, calling Anna and talking for about forty five minutes, and then going to bed.

     <—Day Two  | Day Four —>

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