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Fun time in Traverse
Jun. 16th, 2006 07:21 amI had fun in Traverse. It was an interesting conference, and I met a lot of new people. It was also interesting, actually, to observe how outgoing I was in contrast to the rest of the team from work, and also other people at the conference. I had forgotten that the average person is much more shy than I am, and even more so the average software or mechanical engineer.
So I wandered around meeting people, which may admittedly have been made easier by the fact that I was one of perhaps ten women at a conference of about 200, two of whom were running the registration desk. The conference was on Intelligent Vehicle Systems and there aren't many women in the field, it's true. At dinner monday night with 6 of the guys who came with from Soartech, the waitress asked wasn't I outnumbered. I said no. Really, if I felt intimidated by being in mostly male company I'm not sure I would have made it through college and grad school. Still, it's nice that there are more women at Soar now than when I was hired.
Tuesday night Bill joined me up in Traverse and we had a nice dinner out. Wednesday we went over to my cousin's house for dinner and that was fun too. Yesterday before heading home we went up to my Uncle Tom's cabin on the north shore of the bay to have lunch wiht Tom and Karen and tour around seeing what's changed since the last time I was there. The choice location and view, overlooking the bay, still impress me, even if the receding waters have left the beaches up the Lake Michigan coast a bit swampy this year.
Today I leave for Seattle, to hang out with Caro and assist Neil for the Locus awards/SFM weekend, and visit Blade. Monday I'm headed south from there to Coronado for a conference on Command and Control Technologies. Be back Friday.
So I wandered around meeting people, which may admittedly have been made easier by the fact that I was one of perhaps ten women at a conference of about 200, two of whom were running the registration desk. The conference was on Intelligent Vehicle Systems and there aren't many women in the field, it's true. At dinner monday night with 6 of the guys who came with from Soartech, the waitress asked wasn't I outnumbered. I said no. Really, if I felt intimidated by being in mostly male company I'm not sure I would have made it through college and grad school. Still, it's nice that there are more women at Soar now than when I was hired.
Tuesday night Bill joined me up in Traverse and we had a nice dinner out. Wednesday we went over to my cousin's house for dinner and that was fun too. Yesterday before heading home we went up to my Uncle Tom's cabin on the north shore of the bay to have lunch wiht Tom and Karen and tour around seeing what's changed since the last time I was there. The choice location and view, overlooking the bay, still impress me, even if the receding waters have left the beaches up the Lake Michigan coast a bit swampy this year.
Today I leave for Seattle, to hang out with Caro and assist Neil for the Locus awards/SFM weekend, and visit Blade. Monday I'm headed south from there to Coronado for a conference on Command and Control Technologies. Be back Friday.
