It's been just about two months now that @iikrypticsii and I headed to a relatively large town in the Northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan called Traverse City. If you are familiar with the area, you know that Traverse City is the home of the National Cherry Festival each year. It's also considered one of the playgrounds for the rich and famous in Michigan.
Oh yeah, wineries, it's also pretty well known for the vineyards and wineries in the area. Traverse City is the gateway to the Leelanau Peninsulas which are well known for their wine. Probably nothing on the scale of the Napa Valley, but still pretty impressive.
Just a short distance to the East of Traverse City around the East Arm of the Grand Traverse Bay, there is a stretch of land that is owned by the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians. They have casino or two and a large resort. That resort has become the location for our annual conference and thus the reason for our trip.
MAEDS stands for Michigan Association for Educational Data Systems, and it basically consists of all the education technology professionals in the State. @mrsbozz loving refers to it as a "nerd fest", but there is actually a pretty diverse group of people that attend. Over the years we even seen the number of women attending grow. Which is great given the lack of women in the IT field pretty much globally. It's nice to see we might finally be catching up with the times.
The conference generally starts after noon on Wednesday and runs until about noon on Friday. The conference is filled with various one hour sessions on any manner of education technology topics. A couple of the big focuses this year were AI and Cyber Security. The number of ransomware attacks on public school districts has grown exponentially over the last couple of years.
@mrsbozz and I were still dealing with the aftermath of me hitting a deer with her new car, so @iikrypticsii graciously allowed me to ride up with him. The drive to Traverse City offers some pretty amazing views of the foliage this time of year. I know I have shared posts before about my travel up to this conference.
We were arriving a little early and instead of just stopping at a fast food joint for lunch, I wanted to treat my driver and assistant to something special. The school district was paying for it after all.
Unfortunately, we needed to stay close to the conference, so we couldn't run into Traverse City proper, but we had a nice lunch at one of the local bars inside the resort.
I got these hot honey chicken sliders and I have to admit, they were quite dang good. I know the lettuce looks a little sketch here and there, but the flavors and the chicken were fantastic.
They weren't too saucy, and all of the ingredients worked really well together to make a quite perfect bite. @iikrypticsii got the chicken quesadilla and he agreed it was quite good.
I also got an order of homemade potato chips and they were quite good. Thick and crispy, obviously hand cut and fried to perfection. The only thing they were missing was a thing of french onion dip to dip them in!
The rest of our meals for the conference are covered by the price of our registration. It's usually buffet style with a chicken and beef option as well as a bunch of salads and sides. I'm no foodie, but I find the food quite good here. Which is really too bad. I almost wish the food was horrible then I would have an excuse to head into Traverse City and eat at any of the world class establishments the city has to offer.
Instead, since my work is paying for it, I usually stay at the resort and eat the meal that is provided. I never regret it, and I am always satisfied.
The vendor area is always one of the coolest parts of the conference. Tons of businesses and consultants with booths giving away SWAG (Stuff We All Get), and trying to show off their latest and greatest new software and hardware. It's pretty cool and there is often a lot of canoodling going on. This year we were able to score a couple high capacity quick charge battery packs.
Usually we just get pens, mugs, coozies, and t-shirts.
Spouses are allowed to come to the conference, but since @mrsbozz is often quite busy with beginning of the school year stuff, she has never come with me. It's probably for the best because if she were on site we would likely be out enjoying Traverse City and I wouldn't attend any of the sessions.
Plus it would probably only prove to her just how big of a geek I am.
Unfortunately, this year the weather was a big crap, so what could have been amazing views from our rooms in the main tower ended up being pretty depressing and disappointing. Imagine how the colors on those trees would pop if the sun was out and shining on them.
One year I'd like to try and get a room on the top floor of the tower. I think this was the view from the seventh floor.
October is kind of an off season for the resort. That's probably why they do the conference then. They likely get a good deal on the facilities because it is right between golf season and skiing season.
I'm always a bit sad to head home from the MAEDS conference each year, but the good thing is, since it's an annual conference, I get to go back again next year. There are actually people who are retired that still come back to the conference simply because they like the atmosphere and the people.
Many times you get more from networking with your peers than you do from any of the formal sessions.
Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports
