apete's apage

A place for me to speak and be heard.

Sunday, May 21, 2006

Traveling again...

So now I am out in Chicagoland. I am out here working at the Managing Electronic Records conference as a student volunteer. I did it last year and they took me on again. I liked it. So far it is going much, much smoother. Last year, the set up of the conference binders took us until about 11 pm. It was a horrible experience. This year we were done at 5:30 or so. This year we also have to wear these yellow polo shirts. They are nicer than the CHI student volunteer shirts...and we get two that are different shades, with different color collars. I'm looking forward to the session which run tomorrow through Wednesday afternoon. The afterparties are fun too. Tomorrow, there is one on the top floor of the Hancock Building and then after that is another at the hotel featuring chocolate and martinis. Hopefully, there won't be any Yahootinis!

I'm here staying in Delaneystan in Exile. It's really nice except their puppy either is pals with me or goes Kujo on me. I never know what to expect from him. Also, when I showed up yesterday, I knew they had a birthday party to go to and I thought that I was going to be hanging out by myself in the condo, but they invited me to go along. I had a great time, it was at a Whirleyball place and they had a court for two hours. I scored about four times and think I did pretty well. Maybe I'll pick it up as a hobby. The other cool thing was after our time ran out we discovered that there was lasertag also so eight of us guys played for about a half an hour and walked out completely sweaty. Nothing like going to a birthday party for someone you don't know and getting all sweaty.

After the conference, I'll be heading up to Montreal for try number two at seeing the city this spring. Seeing that I don't have anything else to do there, I think there is a good chance. Stay tuned to flickr for photos, because there is a better chance for updates there, than here.

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Updates...smupdates

OK, so Fitster won 3rd place in the Student Design Competition at CHI.

As for Montreal, I really can't tell you much. I was so busy being a student volunteer, working with the Fitster team and keeping myself afloat that I didn't even walk the few blocks to even peak at Old Montreal.

Some thoughts that I did have on Montreal:
  • What is with the sesame bagel? Every bagel in town was sesame. There was no plain or any other type. I even went to a bagel store called New York Bagel and that was all they had.
  • The CHI site proudly states "English is spoken everywhere in Montreal." What they fail to tell you is that French is always spoken first.
  • I really didn't feel like I was in Canada. I didn't know where I felt that I was but it wasn't Canada. I've never been to France. I have been to several places in Ontario and British Columbia.