Woohoo!

A fitting sight to see at the airport while all the support and helpdesk people are away at the conference.

Got a late night call from my manager asking if I wanted to go to Waffle House in the morning for breakfast since I had mentioned it before. Mmm bacon egg and cheese sandwich, a waffle, and a sweet tea. No better way to start the day!

Apparently I only remembered to get a few sidekick pics last night at the Wild Horse Saloon. We enjoyed watching people fall off the mechanical bull all night, while the Lo Cash Cowboys entertained us with a show. I don't even know how many buses it took to get all 2500 of us over there, but it was a good time!

I <3 this convention! Scored a Canon PowerShot SD450 Digital Elph today in the raffle drawing compliments of Service-Now.com! I can no longer say I never win anything. Hehe This was great icing on the cake for a convention I had low hopes for. It turned out to be a lot of fun, and I'm a little disappointed to have to fly home to Chicago tomorrow. Tonight we're all headed to the Wild Horse Saloon where my boss is going to try her hand at the "electric horse" (mechanical bull to the rest of us) so that should be fun.

Thanks to LANdesk, we took a break for some tasty oxygen at their booth at the HDI Conference.

The HDI Conference has officially started! Although we've been here in Nashville since Friday taking some certification courses. I took my test today, so the rest of the time here is stress free. Just gotta run around attending the different sessions, visiting the different booths, and collecting free random stuff. The first general session and opening session was this afternoon. We walked into the enourmous room, and sat down while a country band was playing a few songs. Before we knew it, Reba McIntyre was on stage performing! I'm not a big country music fan, but it was quite a surprise. After some introductory stuff, Chad Hymas came out and talked to the crowd. Chad is a 32 yr old guy who became a quadriplegic 5 years ago when a 1ton bale of hay landed on him. He talked about his life and how he's had to overcome the challenges and adapt to a completely new way of life. He told quite a few stories and touched on how he set a world record by wheeling himself 500 miles from Utah to Las Vegas. He also plays full contact quad rugby! Quite an impressive guy.

When Chad was done talking the opening session ended and the tech booths opened downstairs. We hit quite a few in the hour and a half we spent there, coming away with a backpack full of freebies from the different companies here. My favorites have got to be the keychain etch-a-sketch, the sticky dart men, and the blue LED pen. The Opryland hotel has been incredible, and I highly recommend it to anyone traveling around this area, or even for a weekend trip. It has just about everything. I've literally only been outside 3 times since I got here, but hardly even notice with all the indoor gardens around here. But now it's late, and my feet are sore from all the walking, so I'm heded to bed, so I can get up and walk all over again tomorrow!

I'm down in Tennessee for a conference at the Gaylord Opryland hotel this weekend and half of the week. This place is impressive! First of all it's enourmous. So big that it requires a map to get around! Second of all, it's all indoors including the 9 acres of gardens, the river with boat rides, and the 44ft waterfall! Here's a few sk pics. I wish I had brought my camera because the sk just doesn't do it justice.

Just what I needed, snow. It's really coming down now. I'm not looking forward to the drive home. :(

IL License: 354 0149 @ the Euclid Rd exit off 53 I saw that trash fly out the window. Make sure you leave your windows open, so we can throw our trash in your car.