TAM7 - Part 1

I arrived around 7pm on Wednesday night but Beth was forced, by weather, to take a later flight, so I headed over to the South Point Hotel, Casino & Spa and got us registered. I had a couple of hours to kill and I found myself at the Del Mar lounge in the hotel with a few dozen of TAM's early arrivers. A few fans of the show pulled me aside and we had a great time talking about TAM, The Atheist Experience, magic and a few other subjects. Daniel (Gizmo in the Non-Prophets chat) was there and graciously offered to drive me to the airport to pick up Beth (saving me a few dollars and making me a very happy man), and that was the end of the (public) Night One festivities.

We registered this morning (Thursday), a quick and painless process thanks to some hard work on the part of the organizers. We got our information packets, badges, tickets to events, a T-shirt and a JREF Sharpie. Some people might not be very excited about a Sharpie, but I was.

As I write this, Beth and I are sitting outside the Sonoma conference room, waiting for the doors to open so we can attend our first workshop: DJ Grothe and Jamy Ian Swiss discussing skepticism and magic. This was one of two workshops that I was really looking forward to...unfortunately, the other workshop that I was most looking forward to (Joe Nickell) was scheduled for the same timeslot.

I went back and forth on which event I was going to attend and finally decided that, despite the fact that I'd be seeing Jamy several times over the week, I'd go to that workshop. As it turns out, I waited too long, forgot to register us for the workshop ahead of time, the workshop with DJ and Jamy was sold out and so we're just starting the workshop with Joe Nickell.

I'm not disappointed, as I wanted to go to this workshop as well...but there's a lesson to be learned about planning, though I doubt I've actually learned it. :)

And now, I turn my attention to Joe...more later.