i'm not a big conference-goer
In this instance, "conference" means "conferences in my industry, not academic conferences like those discussed by the majority of people who read my blog." Then again, I'd probably not go to many academic conferences, either. Basically, I'm not a big fan of large groups of people, especially when one has to "perform"—presenting a paper or book-signing or any sort of personal interaction. Yeah, that's it. Not a big fan of the personal interaction. Plus, those things are
really expensive. Really.
(Incidently, I agree with jo(e) who
said "That whole book signing thing is a tradition I'd like to see abandoned." Seriously. While I can understand wanting J.K. Rowling to sign a book, or Bill Clinton (or Hillary), etc I certainly don't understand why anyone would want my stupid scrawl in one of my books. All it does it degrade the resale value because it now looks "used" as opposed to the previous examples, wherein the books become "collector's items." But I digress.)
Anyway, this means I miss out on the cool things that
can be found at conferences, which amounts to meeting the zero-point-one percent of people who actually are truly cool and good folks. So, bummer on that. This week is another such occasion, when the
MySQL Users Conference comes to town. That's right, I don't even go to the things in my own damn town. See above re: "expensive."
But my publishers always have reps at these conferences, and there's often dinners and what not with all the other authors who are there. I've never met my acquistion/development/technical editors from Sams, and I've written five books for them over the last three years. We all agreed that's pretty pathetic, so I actually will be meeting up with them on Thursday for dinner: something like eight or ten people from Sams and one of me, because the actual author dinner is on a night that I have to attend class. I alternate between feeling special and the target of an inquisition. I hope it's the former.
