I just finished adding up the steps walked at ASAE’s annual meeting, from Saturday when I left home until early this morning when I returned, and the total comes to more than 62,000 steps, or about 31 miles. No wonder I have blisters!

If you, like me, were a big fan of Eli Gorin’s MeetingsBabble blog, you’ll be as happy as I am to hear that Eli’s back a-blogging, this time at Blog2Meet.

I’m loving this one: Indecent Exposure, which is about a common complaint I hear from speakers and probably not the first thing that came to your mind: Being asked to speak for all the great exposure it will give the speaker (i.e., for free). Just one little snip, then go read the whole thing:

“We can offer you great exposure – This is the key phrase. Some amusing thoughts come to mind when I hear this being offered. Things like “My bank doesn’t accept exposure as a form of mortgage payment” and “If I get asked to expose myself anymore, I’m going to be arrested for indecency”. And what exactly is this exposure? Is there a guarantee that I will be getting more business as a result of doing it for free in this case? One colleague of mine even suggested that a fee be paid and it can be reimbursed in the case that new business is booked as a result of the free program.

Then of course, there’s his case for Edumacation…

Keep going, Eli! Can’t wait to see what you think up next.

It was sad having to leave ASAE and Toronto last night. I had such a wonderful time, though it was bittersweet, knowing that it was likely my last time at that show (since I’m moving on to Medical Meetings, the new editor of Association Meetings will be the lucky one going to future ASAE shows).

It took forever to get home, mainly because of some scary thunderstorms in the New York area last night. I was watching the lightning crashing down, seemingly on the runway itself, it was so close. The plane was shaking from the thunder, and the thought of launching up into all that was not very reassuring, especially to a weenie flier like me. So I was glad the first time the pilot came on the PA system to say he was shutting down the engines because they just closed our lane. Then he came on again to say our lane was opened up…wait, no, just closed it due to another cell moving in…open again…closed…now we’re 35th in line for takeoff…anyway, I didn’t quite see the sunrise driving home from Boston, but it was the latest night I’ve had in a long time.

And today I’m slam-dunked with production issues for my new magazine, so I don’t think I’m going to have much time to write up more of my ASAE notes until maybe tonight. The social media and meetings session I went to yesterday morning was much better than I had anticipated–I’ll definitely have more to say about that one when I get a chance.

For those flying home today, safe travels! And do let me know how BTO was last night. It kills me to have to have missed the closing party, but the air piece was so tricky, that was the only reasonable flight option I had when I booked. If I’d only known I was going to spend all night in the airport/on planes anyway, maybe I could have done it differently? Oh well, woulda, coulda, shoulda. I hope someone danced up a storm for me!