PodCamp AZ -Through my eyes…

Here I sit at 7:30 am in my hotel room, and I can’t believe PodCamp AZ 2007 is all over! Man was it a lot of work, but it was so well worth it. Brent and I met so many incredible people yesterday, and of course we worked with some of the coolest people in the ‘business’ - so to speak.

I pretty much worked on PodCamp AZ all last week, with Thursday and Friday being the two most insense day. Thursday was all about picking up things we had ordered… PodCamp banners, signs & t-shirts, as well as rounding up some volunteers. I had also sent some reminder emails on Wednesday & Thursday to our PodCamp AZ community

Friday we went down to UAT around noon-ish, maybe later, after running around all morning, doing last minute things. That afternoon, Brent and I got to have lunch with Clinuts McGintus, Justine, Micah G., & this really helpful guy from Texas named AJ. Afterwards, a few of us stuffed all the swag bags, assembled the name tag/lanyard things while Brent ran around figuring out the technical aspects for Saturday. Whew.

We finally got a chance to get out of UAT and went to dinner with even more PodCampers. Yea. We ate at a really good Mexican restaruant right by the First Fridays event. It was definitly a zoo down there. Jody Gnant was able to make dinner along with a Viddler friend (Jason Waldrip), Kent Nichols, Crispy Lettuce… Yikes the list goes on & on. So fun. Life casting -a-pleanty. Interesting & hilarious conversation. But seeing has how I’m pregnant, and knowing I’d have to get up early on Saturday, Brent & I bolted for the night after dinner.

We woke up early on Saturday in order to swing by the store before getting to UAT by 7 am. There were already a few people there ready to help. Wow! Brent’s job was to ensure that Chris Brogan’s live streaming “un”keynote would go off without a hitch (which it did… thanks Chris!), as well as setting up the Ustream stuff - We were on the home page of Ustream all day long. Oh dang, Brent threw in a little “Twitter Camp” which was projected on the wall all day long during PodCamp. [I think we might have broke twitter...] My job was to hook up the registration table (t-shirts, name tags, swag bags… yikes too much stuff), as well as set up my “green” room for a breakfast for our sponsors, speakers & volunteers. I’m pretty sure I walked up and down UAT’s stairs 150 times at least. :0)

9 am was our “un”keynote, which Brent managed well along with the help of Micah G. & iMatty. I had made the dumb mistake of putting out iBAM t-shirts without being around the table (or at least displaying a price), so… our t-shirts got wiped out, with no cash left in their place! My fault… all the other tables had free stuff on them. My friend Danielle sold her yummy bread, we had free coffee, the sponsors were rocking their tables… A lot was happening. So finally around 10:15 - life started getting a little bit more manageable, since everyone headed off to their classes.

The lunch time show was just so cool. Jack Mangan, Jody Gnant & Gilbert Martinez were troopers, playing in 90-ish degree weather. The BBQ Cuban Pete’s had going on was tasty. (So I was told… I actually went & got Wendy’s - I needed chicken! Hey & I’m pregnant, so shut up!) The 2-hour lunch was nice… some thought it should only be one hour. Oh well, next year we’ll know!

The afternoon sessions went well, so I was told. I was just making sure people were happy, knew how to get to their classrooms, and were having a good time. Our final closing session was so fun. We did a super-long raffle because we had so much to give away. And, we seemed to pull numbers that didn’t match anyone’s tickets! So, we just picked the ticket-winner by who was closest to the number pulled. Ha ha. Oh & I scored the most incredible cutting board from The Wood Whisperer!!! Yes! Sweet!! I am so happy about that. It smells so good. I call it my purple heart, because it’s made with both maple wood & this exotic wood called ‘purple heart’ - I think.

Anyway, after cleaning up UAT for a while, we headed off to Rustler’s Rooste to meet everyone there. Brent and I were so tired, that we basically just inhaled some food & took off. Oh yeah, we were in bed by 9:45 pm.

So here we are on Sunday. Clintus McGintus just twittered Brent saying that he was running home to shower because he smells like geeks. Oh what a freak. We’re all supposed to go to brunch this morning. Hmmm…

Until next year!

Filed under PodCamp AZ, Splendid Things |