Why Participate When you can PLAE?
My first real day at my new job started today. I was supposed to start November 30, but with that being the first day of Dead week with Finals week directly following, my new boss was amazing enough to let me take it easy until today. I did a couple of little things the past two weeks (email signatures, image manipulations, file downloads), but now…. it’s amazing what you’d find and be able to do after really being able to sink your teeth into it.
I’m really enjoying this job so far and I’m so glad for the opportunity. For those of you who don’t know, PLAE is a relatively new sports flooring company. Though they’ve only been around for eight months, they’ve already done lots of business and contributed to many sports facilities such as the new athletic training center for Woodbridge High School.
Video: Woodbridge High athletic facility opening ceremony. http://videos.nj.com/star-ledger/2009/11/richie_sambora_vis
For more information, visit our website at www.plaeusa.com.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/PLAEusa.
Why participate when you can PLAE?
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Home Sweet Home- Back to Atlanta
We’re going home! GHC, as usual, was absolutely amazing. I love all the new people you meet and stories you hear, the sessions you go to and and things that you learn. I love all the new places you get to go to, companies you get to talk to, and stuff you get to take back home with you (physically as well as mentally, haha). I love all the relationships you build and wonderful Women@CC members that you get to bond with while on the trip 
. But as fun as it was, I’m happy to be going back home to Atlanta and my sweetheart.
Although, next year, the GHC will be in Atlanta! The preview video shown as the last keynote made Atlanta look amaaazing (I really wanted to post the video on here… it was that awesome… but I can’t seem to find it). It makes me want to visit places in Atlanta that I didn’t want to go to before! lol. jk jk. I’m a little bummed we don’t get to travel anywhere new next year, but I’m SUPER excited we get to send a lot more Women@CC members to the conference! Whoo hoo!
Hiking Through the Desert
Yay for hiking through the desert! lol. It was a lot of fun and I wish we could have stayed longer. So it wasn’t actually “hiking through the desert” like you’d think in movies with dunes of sand. There actually wasn’t any sand at all. We were in Tucson, Arizona. It was strangely breathtakingly beautiful. 
The sun was in the perfect spot that day. When I was little, I wanted to be a professional photographer, but after getting a little older and realizing that that wasn’t really a practical career path, I settle for just enjoying the little moments I get to be artsy and take in the view .
There was so much cacti! And they were so big!! I had always thought cacti that big was rare and was only really seen in the movies. They were everywhere! It was amazing.
Yeah, so I really wanted to touch a cactus needle, lol. … it really was just like a sewing needle… smooth and long, but really really sharp on the end 
. Fun stuff. Also, apparently it only rains in Arizona a couple of weeks out of the year. It looked like rain on the last day we were there. I’m not sure whether to be flattered or bummed with our bad luck X_x, lol.
Grace Hopper Conference Day #4
This morning while on the bus from our hotel to the conference center, I met this really nice lady from the University of Connecticut (If you ever go to a conference, GHC or other, DEFINITELY take advantage of the fact that most of the people there don’t know most of the other people there. Try starting conversations with them. They expect it. You never know who you may meet). We talked about a lot of things… our interests, her research, our experiences. During one point in the conversation she recommended checking out the SIGGRAPH conference during the summer. The Grace Hopper Conference is a general conference focused mainly towards women in the fields of computer science. As a Computational Media major, it’s sometimes hard to find an aspect of the conference that focuses towards what I want to do. As it turns out, the SIGGRAPH conference is a huge conference directed towards computer graphics and animations!! I was so excited. I’m going to definetely check it out.
To find out more information for yourself, feel free to visit there website at http://www.siggraph.org/s2010/
Grace Hopper Conference Day #3
I absolutely love this conference. This is the third year I’ve attended and it’s just great. It’s always full of amazing people all with crazy experiences and stories. For example one of our keynote speakers was just indited as a Dame! There’s plenty of great advice for both your social life and your professional life. Not to mention, there’s always lots of corporate companies with job opportunities and SWAG! lol
The STARR Hotel and Spa is amazing. We’re staying in Doubletree, which is also amazing (they give you so much complimentary stuff including facewash, sunscreen, toothpaste… FREE freshly baked chocolate chip cookies), but Doubletree didn’t have the amazing view and pool area that STARR did.
Cacti are so amazingly entertaining. I never would have thought I would enjoy them so much. I guess it’s just the new experience or something, but Arizona is so cool! … and the dry air actually does wonders for my complexion and hair (as opposed to the overbearing humidity of Atlanta).
Grace Hopper Conference Day #2
Arizona is very uniquely beautiful. I’ve always loved the mountains. I grew up in the Ozarks (more hills than mountains, but that was before I knew any better ) and have always loved the green grass, colorful flowers, blue skies, and freckled nights of the natural state. Atlanta didn’t really have any of that. Don’t get me wrong. I love the resources and opportunities given by living in Atlanta, but I do miss the quiet peacefulness sometimes. When I finally came across some real mountains when going home with John, I think I fell in love with it. The Appalachian mountains are amazing and I really hope John and I can find jobs close by to where he grew up. You can take the small tow girl out of the small town, but you can’t completely take the small town out of the small town girl .
Pictured above to the left is just one day’s worth of swag ^_^ lol. Swag is definitely a fun perk of going to conferences. While the amazing experiences and opportunities offered at the GHC are definitely the main reason to go to conferences, free stuff is always a nice plus.
Grace Hopper Conference Day #1
The Plane Ride
Mental note to self: make sure to charge laptop before the 4 hour flight I plan to do work on. I could have swore I charged it last night, but I guess I forgot. I did go to bed really late… so I guess it could have just slipped my mind. It’s actually really weird sitting in between 4 different people, three of which are on a laptop… and I’m the computing major . These people are exceptionally interesting though… talked to each of them for a little while (it was a really long flight)… so I guess this is a special case. There’s teh fashion designer for Los Angelas in her long red dress watching a romantic comedy about a couple of dog lovers. There’s the middle aged guy just coming back from his first high school reunion playing solitaire. There’s the nice old couple from Mexico, the husband frantically typing away on some sort of proposal. Then there’s me.. my pen on paper, throwing words on a page because I don’t really know what else to do. I feel so lost without my computer, lol.
