Thursday Miscellaneous Notes

By Cheryl Heppner

People who read Cheryl's convention coverage often remark on the fact that she makes it seem almost as if they were there at the convention. One of the reasons is that she takes the time to note interesting facts outside of the convention's official activities. Here's one of those reports.

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- HLAA has given sponsors some new marketing opportunities. The key cards that open our doors have a front that says "Beyond Hearing Aids" with the MED-EL logo. The rear has a short paragraph followed by the MED-EL toll free number and website address, and information about MED-EL's booth number in the Exhibit Hall. Our convention badges are plastic, oversize like credit cards on steroids. They have attractive graphics of the Oklahoma City skyline, and the Ultratec logo is on the front and back. A nice touch is that the back has information about the hours and locations of the opening session, workshops, research symposium and exhibit hall. The badges are attached to lanyards covered with the Phonak logo.

- Spotted early Thursday coming in the door on ground level: King Jordan, clearly having enjoyed a good, long run about the city.

- Storms here seem to hit very suddenly here. One downed the Internet Cafe and possibly some other Internet connections.

- My first Virginia sighting was Marie di Mino, followed by HLAA Vice President Vic Matsui. Then I saw Sigrid Cerf. Gerry and Sheila Adams are here, Loudoun County transplants to Florida. They still count as honorary Virginians. NVRC Board member Mike Royer arrived, as did fellow Board member Scott Bally. Scott's from Maryland but we also claim him on the other side of the Potomac. Later I was happy to find Joan Goodmiller of Roanoke, one of those great presidents in the early days of SHHH-Nova One at NVRC.

- I had a wonderful chat with Denise Portis after the Opening Ceremony, talking dog. I think Chloe is warming up to Galaxy.

- I got the scoop from Wayne Roorda about his continuing cochlear implant adventure; it was failing at the last convention in Disney World. He's back and still a functioning bionic.

- The breakfast buffet has some wonderful fresh fruit. Can enough of that cancel out my discovery of the warm, flaky biscuits? It's Oklahoma, so the biscuits are in a covered silver server bordered by a heaping trough of creamy gravy.

- The Program Book design this year is really superb. It's well organized, has an attractive layout, and some handy features such as the grids showing "Schedules at a Glance" and "Program Quick View". Very professional job; kudos to the team!

- Our rooms have high speed Internet for $12.95 per day, which is how I am sending these reports. Donations are appreciated :) The fee starts at 3 pm and runs 24 hours. I found out the hard way that it will shut you down at 3 pm when the time runs out instead of automatically continuing to bill you until you tell it to stop. I got bumped off and my computer crashed. I hate do-overs!

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