A week after the family reunion wrapped, we were off to Boston, Massachusetts for five days (and four nights) of geeking at the annual ACM SIGGRAPH convention. For whatever reason, I didn't make my employer's list for a sponsored, full conference pass this year, and I didn't find that out until after all of the pre-registration deadlines had passed. :( So, I got priced out of completely paying my own way (full registration with shuttle privileges alone was over a thousand dollars), but I was approved to go un-sponsored under one of their booth passes. Fortunately, my husband was sponsored and had been assigned a hotel reservation at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge, so I had the means to get there and a place to stay. I wouldn't be able to watch any of the presentations or sit in on any of the courses, but at least I would be able to walk the exhibition hall and network with others in the industry.
When I arrived at the Boston Convention Center, I was (erroneously) told by a SIGGRAPH registration associate that all of Blue Sky Studio's passes - including the booth passes - had already been distributed. I tried to explain how this wasn't possible, but I was assured that in fact it was true. So, I wound up springing for my own "exhibits plus" admission at the last minute. It was twenty-five dollars more than buying my own booth pass, but I could actually do a few things beyond the exhibition hall floor (so it worked out in my favor). With badge and member's ribbon in hand, I got to check out the teapot exhibit, emerging technology and art galleries, grab a few minutes of the animation theater, and watch a some booth presentations on the exhibition hall floor. I even managed to spectate "AJAX3D: The Open Platform for Rich 3D Web Applications", "X3D: The 3D Solution for Web, Documents, and Real-Time Applications", and "Production Tracking: Methods, Issues, and Challenges."
One week later, I decelerated from running around the exhibition floor to sitting in a classroom. Although school still hasn't officially started at Pace University, I had been encouraged to attend their pre-semester seminar on agile software engineering practices (with an emphasis in object-oriented Java). Since I knew nothing of either, I figured it was in my best interest to attend...not to mention that they were going to distribute our "summer reading" books and software. The seminar was held at the graduate center in eight-hour blocks with both Fred Grossman and Joe Bergin at the helm. Together, they had the challege of teaching a wide range of students with incredibly different qualifications from project management and business administration to software programming and computer science. I thought it was a great experience, albeit a major migraine cooker. Now I just need to get down to business with the books we were given - classes officially begin in three weeks!