Alli's Blog

Phew, what a week. It started on Sunday for me (well, it started a year ago really). Rusty and I arrived late morning and started collecting speakers from the airport, checking out the venue and generally getting in pre-conferenece mayhem. Had dinner at our favourite Melbourne eatery and then crashed.

Monday was spent collecting speakers from the airport, with Pete and Rob helping out too. You guys were fantastic and prevented me collapsing with fatigue before things had even started with all your help! Thanks. I was at the airport most of the day greeting people, but was suffering from a tummy bug (which kept me up most of Sunday night) and struggled a bit. We had dinner with Marc Merlin and Jennifer, Paul McKenney and Dave and So-young. Unfortunately I had to leave quite abrubptly as lack of sleep and illness caught up with me at a great rate knots once seated.

Tuesday I was slightly recovered but Rusty insisted I try to rest a bit at the conference instead of going to and from the airport all day. I obeyed, and roped Pete and Rob in again. Speakers Dinner was that evening. The food was good, I had some really interesting chats with various people. I generally dont like catered food, but Peter Rowland Catering did a reasonable job. I had several speakers thank me personally for all my work for them, which was touching. I was told by several speakers that "LCA treats their speakers better than any other conference I have spoken at" , which is super feedback.

Wednesday we were up early and despite our taxi being involved in a car accident on the way, we managed to get to the conference in time to help out with a chair-related emergency at the keynote venue. My day was spent fighting small fires, and helping out. I enjoyed the Night Markets venue for the conference dinner, I'm a fussy eater and so choosing my own food was fantastic. I even had vouchers left over that I gave someone else to use before I left.

Thursday I had to come home as we could only get a farm / animal sitter until Wed evening. All in all I enjoyed the conference and wish I could have stayed longer. I may have even gone to a talk or two. There were a few that looked interesting to even a non-technical person like me. I had some really interesting chats with a bunch of people I had never met (Martin Sevior, Martin Krafft, as well as Stormy Peters and Amanda McPherson). I also got a chance to catch up (albeit very breifly) with some familiar faces too. Loved LCA08.

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