Getting off to a good start at AU

*yawn*stretch* Well, yesterday was, of course, a pretty busy travel day. We left early in the morning and had a fairly uneventful flight, no major holdups in the security lines. We did have some fun flight attendants slipping some entertaining commentary into the announcements which was pretty enjoyable. After a brief stop in Phoenix, we were heading into Vegas and passed over the Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam. I don't normally fly over those in my path from St. Louis (for some reason I've been routed a most times to Minneapolis for my layover, but, whatever). Unfortunately, the Dam was only visible from the other side of the plane, but, I got some lovely views and good shots of lake mead.We landed just ahead of Bill Adams (AUGI Board Secretary) from Australia. He was accompanied by Christine and Earl. Earl is an AUGI CWC'er, but, Bill met Christine on the flight when she saw his AU pin on his bag. They both happen to be from the same town but didn't know one another (she works for Imaginit on manufacturing products, whereas Bill is in Architecture). We headed to the hotel, checked in and got comfortable. The suites here are really nice, as I mentioned last year. We've moved up from the older tv's to have LCD's flatpanels in every room... yes, that's one in the bedroom, one in the sitting area and one in the bathroom with a clear view from the bathtub. I love the view from my room. Some green... AND some hvac equipment. Yeah, baby. Mike and I grabbed a snack with Bill and Christine and I also ran into another friend, Owen Wengerd. We caught up a bit and he ate with us until it was time for him to meet up with some business contacts. Now was time to schlep on down to AU registration. I got my bag, some of my class handouts and some nifty little pins that describe me. Very cool. We ran into many AUGI friends down there: The Raster Design Queen, Jane Smith. CADKitty (Jen Leamy) and her better half, Roy. My AutoCAD Community cohorts Greg Silva and Craig Black. ADT/ACA guru David Koch, AUGI member Paul Jordan and Larry Swinea President of the DFWAUG (Dallas/Fort Worth Autodesk User Group) and his lovely wife. I also finally got to meet David Kingsley in person. He was the Forum Manager who made me a moderator on AUGI. You can find his column 'On the Back Page' of AUGIWorld magazine. It was dinner time by now and we met up with Donnia Tabor-Hanson, Mark Kiker and Chris Lindner. I think about 13 of us ended up heading over to the Treasure Island buffet. Note for those who love to eat there... the cost almost doubles on a holiday weekend. And no, that didn't mesh with the price given during an email inquiry. Bogus. We had a great time, ate some good food and headed back to the Venetian in enough time to watch the volcano erupt at the Mirage. After some more great chatting with our brilliant and amusing friends, we all headed to bed. The AUGI Board is meeting today, so I breakfasted by myself in the main food court and enjoyed people-watching of all of the nerds. I've never seen so many women with laptops working over their coffee in my life. ~draining my own cup of joe~ My personal philosophy is to always find something in common with everyone I meet to better connect and empathize with them. But, there's a special kind of feeling here at AU, when a slightly oddball like myself can find so many people with so many many things in common with me. From love of computers, technology and engineering, to favorite types of music and movies, favorite vacation spots, friends and colleagues in common. Not that we all look totally alike or laugh at all of the same jokes, but, we all do share quite a few commonalities, not least of which is our love for learning and trying new things. Which is pretty much why we're all here at Autodesk University again.