I taught all day. What was nice was I was teaching one of my favorite topics, a class dealing with professional development skills that includes a section on presentation skills. The classroom itself was unique. It was in downtown Dallas in the convention center area. North Pearl Street. This classroom had a nice view of the inside atrium of this complex, and in fact even had a balcony you could go out on to view the world inside the atrium. The large atrium itself includes shops, restaurants, the Westin Hotel and an ice skating rink. Yes, an ice skating rink. But wait, there’s more. At this said ice skating rink, there was a production of High School Musical that was to occur on Thursday night and Friday.
As you can imagine, my class had the bonus soundtrack of High School Musical as the kids (this was an ice skating show done by kids) practiced though out the day.
But, I did dig the view. More on that tomorrow…well, not the part I dig.
Now, back on Tuesday night, I also wound up in West Dallas (think East LA) at a Walmart to buy candy for my classes the next few days. One cannot say they have lived life until you can say you’ve been to the Walmart in West Dallas. I have now gained new appreciation for the Port Authority bus terminal after that little sojourn as the Port Authority Bus Terminal (in NY, by the way) looked like the Ritz Carlton in comparison.
Onwards to Thursday now.
Don't all these time jumps make you feel like you're watching Lost? For clarity, I'm so done with the Tuesday and Wednesday events now. So here's Thursday:
Did the same class, but this time, well, I teach a section in this class about how to deal with distractions while presenting, and in this class I had:
- The soundtrack from the High School Musical, only it was much louder and more often today.
- A warm training room. Warm training rooms are bad, people tend to fall unconscious, no matter how good the class may be. Unconscious = bad.
- Random software decided to install itself on my machine too, WHILE I was using it to show my PowerPoint for the class.
- A fire drill, at 2PM, right in the heart of the presentation skills portion of the class.
- Oh, and of course, the fact that two of the women in the class were mooned by a teenage girl. Yep, see, the atrium has the Westin Hotel, with rooms that face the atrium, and guests that either A) Have no concept of the fact that said windows are 2-way, or B) Want to give the world a show on purpose. In this case, it was the latter. I think I also mentioned previously, (but wasn’t completely sure as I’m writing this at the Dallas Fort-Worth Airport with no internet access) that the HOSA convention was happening. HOSA stands for Health Occupation Student Association. So, many thousands of teenaged future health professionals are staying in the area. And, it seems two of them decided to moon (although I was informed there was some coverage of the rear end, so I guess it wasn’t a full moon?) two of my students in the class.
So, needless to say, quite an interesting class.
For dinner, I met up with Cynthia and her two young ones. And we went to eat the natural choice for food in Texas. Pizza. At a place called New York Pizza in Arlington. Oddly, the food there was quite good. I had a stromboli and was duly impressed. A couple of firsts happened here too:
- I fed my first baby ever a bottle. Cynthia let me feed her 6-Month old daughter Meagan her bottles. It was a fascinating experience.
- I took her son to the rest room, who, luckily, is well versed in the ways of the restroom even though he is 3. He was even thoughtful enough to flush before (it needed it) and after he did what he did (to not get too graphic, luckily it was the uh, easier of the removal of waste things one could do, if that helps). The fact that Aidan knew to flush puts him ahead of about 98% of the male population.
- I also had Meagan using my finger as a teething ring.
See? Me. Actual child. Feeding. And all survived.
Here's one of Aidan and I:
After dinner, came back to the hotel, and didn’t do much except read and play the PSP (MLB the Show 2008 as usual).
Friday, I got up early, checked out, drove to the airport, and walked around a bit. The highlight of the airport must have been when I used one of those really cool Apple machines to buy a set of Apple headphones. You may have seen these machines; you can buy an ipod literally on the spot. Cool stuff. For once, I didn’t need an mp3 player, so I opted for a nicer set of headphones for the trip home today and the trip out to Phoenix next Tuesday(!). Really cool.
Yes, I get home Friday and head back out to Phoenix on Tuesday. I certainly can’t say that June is a dull month.
The truly weirdest thing to happen to me on Friday was this: I landed on TIME! At Newark airport! On a FRIDAY! There were higher odds of pod people randomly popping into existence than of me actually landing on time.
A nice way to end this trip.
Coming soon: Me + Phoenix = ????
