Monday, August 12, 2013

Calgary!


I've been a bit off lately.

As you know I was in Calgary, Alberta for a few days.
I had been asked to speak.
What a great opportunity.
On Friday I'd spent the day learning about nutrition and dietary allergies.
Pretty interesting stuff at a dental conference.
Since I was to speak on Saturday, 
I made the choice to head to my hotel early Friday evening and run through my presentation.
When I finished at 10:30 p.m.,
I received the "wheel of death" and 
my hard drive crashed.
Yep!
Died. 
Right then.
Sooooooo
I had a decision to make,
I could go to the convention center and see if the evening party was still going,
find someone willing to lend me their computer
find a coffee shop that was still open
download my program from the web
download my presentation
and then go to bed . . .
and hope I would be well rested
OR
I could go to bed and pray the computer fairies came to visit.
I went to bed.
I had learned all about belly breathing as a way to help with anxiety that day in my nutrition class,
so I belly breathed away
and set my sleep cycle app,
'letting it know' I was going to bed crazy STRESSED.
And that was that.
The next morning I awoke to find the computer fairies hadn't shown up.
Wouldn't you know!
I dressed,
and prepared
my new presentation,
which would include my story of why I didn't have a presentation
just in case.

I ran into the woman, who was in charge of all the speakers, in the elevator,
she seemed to hyperventilate when she learned of my computer issues.
I assured her it would be fine.
We walked to the convention center together, where she told everyone we met
how my computer had died and I had no presentation.
I assured them all,
including the person who'd gone way out of his way to get me on the program at such an illustrious conference, that it would be fine. I would be fine. 
I found a computer guru and 
he hooked me up with a computer
the internet
and 
15 minutes later
I was ready to go
with my presentation.


There I am . . .


And there's the crowd. 
They were awesome!
The presentation went off without any more challenges.
And all I did was add to my presentation,
how to white water raft.
I'll tell you about that later.




Friday, August 2, 2013

Calgary!

I'm enjoying a weekend away.
This was my view from the air. Lovely clouds.

I'm staying in a wonderful hotel. The Fairmont Pallisier in Calgary. 

It is a very comfortable place! And everyone is so amazingly nice. 

Including my taxi driver, Naumen, who is working on his PHD in economics. 

View from the window of my room!

I'm actually here for work but was so pleased by the presentation given on gluten sensitivity and intolerance. Great speaker.
After the morning meeting I took a stroll. So much fun. 
Even had the opportunity to listen to rock and roll.