Day three at NACIS felt a bit more like a death march. I was exhausted from only getting about 8-9 hours of sleep the previous 72 hours. We also had an always-difficult “Future of Cartographic Perspectives” session in the morning (the international journal of NACIS that seems to always be trying to find its way…at least since I got involved with NACIS 4-5 years ago). Too many academics with too many opinions trying to make CP be too many things to too many people. Anyway, enough about that.
The “Interface Design and Tech” track (four sessions) was pretty good…though I had to spend a bit of time catching up on email while sitting in on those sessions. I skipped the early afternoon sessions on Friday to try and get a little rest. No nap for me (unfortunately), but the 90 minutes or so of rest did help. The last four sessions I sat in on were in the “New Tools for New Cartographies” track.
While sitting in on Stuart Miller’s “Producing quality mapping quickly and efficiently with Mercator” session, I got the interesting experience of hearing my words quoted within another session. I don’t remember ever sitting in on a session and having that happen before. I thought it was cool, but it was also a little embarrassing…as I don’t really think of myself as an “expert” in cartography. Rather, I have expertise at 2-3 interesting, peripheral tasks associated with cartography. It was very flattering though, to say the least!
The day ended with a closing banquet that was good, but lasted at LEAST 60-90 minutes longer than it should have. I felt really bad for Dennis McClendon in particular, as his Geodweeb Geopardy event (a spoof on the TV show Jeopardy, containing lots of mapping and geography/cartography topics) didn’t start for more than an hour after it was supposed to be finished. I didn’t have the stamina to make it that late (too little sleep), so I headed up to the hospitality suite for about 30 minutes, talked with a few individuals, then went to bed. All work and no sleep makes Derek a dull, tired boy.
All in all, a good conference! I wish the event wouldn’t have ended with a thud (having the banquet become a test of endurance)…but I still had a great time anyway!
