Wednesday 24 July 2013

MAT: TMC 2013 Day 0 - Trivialities

Back in May 2013, I wrote blog posts per day for OAME 2013, the Ontario Association of Mathematics Educators annual conference in Toronto. So going to try this out with Twitter Math Camp 2013, the conference of Mathematics Educators in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.



Not much to say at this point, of course. Got to the Ottawa airport for 3pm, through security, bought an overpriced sandwich to be able to plug in my laptop, and subsequently gave up on the free WiFi. Seriously, it took over an hour just to LOAD THEIR SURVEY. Which disconnected on me as I was attempting to answer the question about 'any problems I might be experiencing'. Huh. I read some PDFs on statistics that I'd been meaning to get to instead.

Landed in Philadelphia just before 7:30pm. (It was the flight attendant's birthday, so that was cool.) Followed signs out of terminal F for 'Passenger Pickup', which disappeared as I hit terminal E, and I ended up in C... there are no maps. Fortunately, there was WiFi, so I was able to connect up with Lisa Henry (@lmhenry9) who is awesome and had offered to give a ride to the hotel. Checking twitter done by balancing my laptop in my arms, because we've seen my phone, yes? (If not, you have now.) Amy Gruen (@sqrt_1) had better luck finding Lisa than I did.


Pictured: The mathtans phone
Pretty much immediate turn around at the hotel to head out to Fado's Irish Pub for the trivia. Hooked up with Max and Mitzi in the process. Got there just after 9pm - the trivia was actually moved from 8pm because of a soccer game going on. Though those who were there early enough got to see a girl throw a guy through a cafe window across the street, or something... uh, missed that.

So I got dinner, and eavesdropped on the 'We Got Nothing' trivia group, offering exactly zilch. The categories through the evening were: 1) General Trivia; 2) Top 10 on Cover of Rolling Stone magazine; 3) Identify the Pictures; 4) Johnny Depp Movies; 5) Songs with 'Baby' in them.

Of more interest, tweeps. I actually recognized some right away from prior video chats (eg. Sean Sweeney), videos (Michael Pershan) and avatars (Heather Kohn). Notable chats with Christopher "Trianglemancsd" as one of the first I had a prolonged conversation with; Fawn "fawnpnguyen" and Sadie "wahedahbug" as I was spacing out for most of the encounter; and Edmund "Gelada" as the only one to reciprocate with a business card when I handed out one of mine. (Yeah, I printed off a bunch to toss around, since I look nothing like a parabola bunny, and want to subtly plug my web serial.)

There were MANY others, but if I start listing, I'm sure to forget some, so I'll wimp out and just say you know who you are. Got back to the hotel before midnight. I have no idea what the temperature of the room is (it's in Fahrenheit), and have realized that I'm also going to have to remember how to deal with pennies again. Tomorrow, it starts.

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