I'm very sorry to say...I had to come home from Pittsburgh! I first off want to thank everybody that was there, I had the best time! I had the wonderful opportunity to meet so many wonderful people. I had been chatting online with some of them for almost 10 years now. I am not even going to begin to name all of the people I met because I will only forget twice as many.
I got the honor of meeting all (except for Papa who didn't attend) of the members of the Hump Night Chatters Club. Just as we do twice a week in the chatroom, we had a blast in person!
I also got to meet so many new people and make new friends.
Lastly, a HUGE THANKS to all of the HLCCA officers, the conference volunteers and everybody who made Pittsburgh 2009 such a huge success! I just hope Nashville knows what they are getting into next year! :)
The bad news was when I got home, I had no internet connection! After MANY, MANY hours on the phone with the phone company and 3 visits from the AT&T repair department, they finally diagnosed the problem. Sadly, it took 3 days to fix! That was 3 days of dialup (and 1 night of using Douglass's internet) of trying to catch up with the Post-Conference discussions and photo sharing. Tonight I will start adding my photos to the collection.
The bags are packed, the gas tank is filled up and I'm out of here! I am leaving today for the annual HLCCA (Homer Laughlin China Collectors Association) Conference.
Even though I have been chatting with some of these people for 10 years (first on MediumGreen and now CollectibleMediumGreen), I have never had the opportunity to meet any of them face-to-face. I have wanted to go to the last 3 conferences, but other circumstances have kept me home.
I am picking up my friend Val from the Indy Airport and we are driving the rest of the way to Pittsburgh. We will also be stopping at quite a few junk/antique shops/stores/malls along the way. During the conference we will be visiting the Homer Laughlin factory, where we will see our beloved Fiesta dishes being made. On Saturday, Val and I are going to be joined by 2 other CMG guys. We are going to take a little trip to go visit Fallingwater. Fallingwater is probably Frank Lloyd Wright's most famous design.
You can turn this world around
And bring back all of those happy days
Put your troubles down
It's time to celebrate
Let love shine
And we will find
A way to come together
And make things better We need a holiday
Check out this version of Toto's "Africa". This is done without any instruments or any synthesizers. And yes, it includes the rain and thunder. The thunderstorm is very well done! The song is done by Perpetuum Jazzile, a jazz choir from Slovenia.
