A few notes from a conference

• Finding two other conference goers on the plane, we decided to share a cab to the hotel. The cabbie was a talkative sort of fellow who told us unbelievable tales of his past. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, offered us a deal. "You scam your boss, I scam mine." I won't say what happened, but I will say there seemed like only one way to get multiple receipts.^*
  
  
• The speaker giving one of the plenaries sounded a lot like Harry Shearer . This was especially evident when he used "Alright" as his verbal pause.
  
  
• I went to one session given by someone had developed a seminar course on the topic I am planning to run for a freshman seminar next year. He passed out a detailed schedule, with reading assignments, discussion topics and weekly short writing assignments. Given that I like what I heard, this simplifies next Fall considerably.
  
  
• With some time to kill after the end of a conference I went to the Borders in the very large mall next to the conference hotel. Something was odd, but I could not place my finger on it. Somehow, people in this Borders just looked a little different from what I expected. Soon the reason becomes clear: I had just walked into a Bill O'Reilly book signing.
  
  

^* I lost a shuttle receipt from my last trip, so I'm not going to lose any sleep over this.