Tag: conference

I woke up yesterday morning with a scratch in my throat that only meant one thing. I went down for the whole day with fever and aches. We went to Summer’s before lunch and cleaned up some leftover pork chops, but she brought it to me in bed as I spiraled downhill.

I couldn’t ever really sleep, and didn’t want to, so I never donned my CPAP as she went about her day. She cleaned house and eventually went to an Eagle Scout ceremony for a past student, and to take the girls something. She came back with some egg drop soup from Linh, which along with a healthy handful of black pepper, helped me feel better for a bit. I think I ate too much though, and eventually felt a little sick to the stomach when I finally tried to go to sleep.

She girls eventually made it home and milled around finishing chores before bed while I passed out. At some point, I woke up and fetched Summer from the couch.

This morning, I arose to my hour-early alarm with relative ease. I coughed up a bit of the darkness, and then headed home without too much trouble. I met Ben at 7 to make our way to Arch Ford for the ARKSTE conference. I didn’t feel too bad, and I think the DayQuil helped. The drive did feel like it took a super long time, but it really could have just been me experiencing that drive at the speed limit.

We got there just a couple minutes before they unlocked the doors, then made our way in. I saw some familiar faces from other conferences, and had a little better time putting them to locations. Things kicked off a bit late, which seemed to set the tone for the rest of the day.

My first breakout session was a bust. There was literally nobody there to teach the class. Shane came in, said it was “Powered by Howard,” and then told us to talk amongst ourselves. I left and had a donut, eventually meeting up with Ben for a minute before splitting off to an 8-bit computer session. I was a bit late, but I didn’t seem to miss a whole lot. It was a neat project though, for at least a couple of kids.

Lunch was late. David’s Burgers flipped the date or something, so we were told it would be a few more minutes. We continued through an awards ceremony, and ultimately to our next sessions while food was promised in the vendor area. The session I attended was no more helpful than the others, but did seem useful for the teacher that spoke at my previous one, so at least one of the four of us in the room got something out of it. I eventually made it in to a Minecraft session lead by some hippie from DC that didn’t seem to have much of a clue about anything other than the pH of the water he was drinking. It wasn’t wholly unentertaining though, as we broke into conversation a couple times for the laffs.

Neither Ben nor I won anything at the closing raffle, so we made our way back home with handfuls of leftover burgers. I chatted with Gary for a bit until quitting time, and then went home for a bit. I started to feel pretty bad almost immediately, so I didn’t really get any of the cleaning done that I wanted. Instead, I gathered myself and headed to Summer’s for the evening and crawled into bed.

I started to feel better after laying in bed for a while, but this fever just keeps coming and going. I guess we’ll see what happens tomorrow.

Maybe I’ll die from it all.