{"id":2601,"date":"2014-07-10T13:20:31","date_gmt":"2014-07-10T19:20:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/incongruentelements\/?p=2601"},"modified":"2014-07-10T13:23:07","modified_gmt":"2014-07-10T19:23:07","slug":"the-tam-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/incongruentelements\/2014\/07\/10\/the-tam-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"The TAM Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>So. I&#8217;m at The Amazing Meeting.<\/p>\n<p>Travel is always interesting. The lines were long at the airport, but Maury and I were randomly selected to go in the TSA fast lane. It was awesome, we didn&#8217;t have to take off our shoes, remove our liquids\/gels from the luggage&#8230; check in was super fast.<\/p>\n<p>However, we couldn&#8217;t sit together on the plane. According to the bold print on our tickets, we couldn&#8217;t swap seats either. I was holding my breath, hoping I wouldn&#8217;t get sick while traveling. Maury&#8217;s pretty good at helping me out when my newly redesigned digestive system runs amok, but I hoped I could manage to sitting many hours before I could stretch my sliced abdomen, walk, and get everything feeling OK.<\/p>\n<p>Luckily, Maury was able to chat with a kind Delta employee and she swapped seats. I was impressed. (Luckily my body handled the travel OK.)<\/p>\n<p>Lastly, we got totally lost in the Vegas airport, but somehow managed to find a shuttle to backtrack and get us to the hotel bus before we lost that reservation.<\/p>\n<p>The hotel is gold. Very, very gold. The decor is quite&#8230; boisterous. I figure the entire city of Kandiyohi would fit in the ground floor of the facility. At 25 floors, it&#8217;s definitely taller than any building anywhere near my home.<\/p>\n<p>Vegas is quite noisy. Everywhere I look, I find people&#8230; and even more fellow TAMmers arrive every minute.<\/p>\n<p>Ah, but we&#8217;re at TAM.<\/p>\n<p>If you recall, I had reservations (ha) about my skeptic conference experiences. They may have been unfounded.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve met a few Skeptic Ink writers. Rebecca Bradly is AWESOME; Wendy Hughs is a hoot; Vandy Beth Glenn is downright elegant. I feel like a hick next to these refined ladies, but I&#8217;m able to stumble through our conversations without too many crazy foibles. I&#8217;m looking forward to meeting Ed Clint and speaking to Jacques Rousseau a little more as the weekend unfolds. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>Crazy moment of the day: I was wandering the TAM reception area and James Randi greeted me. He just walked up to us and said, &#8220;Hello.&#8221; It was surreal. He&#8217;s quite handsome. We had a short conversation. Turns out, he&#8217;s quite awesome.<\/p>\n<p>I didn&#8217;t take a picture. I guess some moments aren&#8217;t meant to be captured on film&#8230; I didn&#8217;t want to cheapen the experience by turning it into a photo op. My memory of meeting him is enough for me.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, I haven&#8217;t broken out the camera yet. I&#8217;m not sure I will because I&#8217;m enjoying myself too much.<\/p>\n<p>While I&#8217;m truly enjoying myself, a part of me misses the crunch of gravel under my shoes. I miss my uncomplicated days. I miss open windows, cool breezes, and my dog&#8217;s cool nose. I miss silent solitude, allowing thoughts to roll around my noggin.<\/p>\n<p>But those days will return again. In the mean time, I&#8217;m polishing my portion of the Skeptic Ink presentation. My long suffering husband is probably tired of my talking shop, but I guess that&#8217;s his cross to bear&#8230; for now.<\/p>\n<p>Greetings from Vegas!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; So. I&#8217;m at The Amazing Meeting. Travel is always interesting. The lines were long at the airport, but Maury&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[27],"class_list":["post-2601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-opinion","tag-my-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/incongruentelements\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/incongruentelements\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/incongruentelements\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/incongruentelements\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/incongruentelements\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2601"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/incongruentelements\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2604,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/incongruentelements\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2601\/revisions\/2604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/incongruentelements\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/incongruentelements\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/incongruentelements\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}