Hello, Milwaukee!

By Cheryl Heppner

June 2010

Editor: The convention is getting close now. Cheryl and Bonnie are in Milwaukee, and Char and I are on our way. Here's Cheryl's first report from Milwaukee.

Complete Convention Coverage

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Bonnie and I are now on the loose in Milwaukee. We and our bags got to National Airport without incident despite rush hour traffic, and there wasn't a long line at check-in. I haven't flown for a few months so this was my initiation to the new world where airlines charge for everything. Ouch! I remember the day when I didn't have to pay for my luggage to fly with me, regardless of whether the bags were going in the cabin or in the bowels of the plane.

On the positive side, the Midwest agent who checked us in was wonderful, and Margaret Johns with airport security gets my first and only four star rating for an airport security officer. She was helpful to both Bonnie and me as we went through in a way that I have never experienced before. It was inspiring to have the trip through security be pleasant instead of torture.

The skies were totally overcast as we waited in the terminal for our flight. We were definitely on the HLAA plane! Anne Girard of Hamilton, Barbara Kelley, HLAA Deputy Executive Director, Michael Stone, President of the Board of Trustees, and Ahme Stone were also on our flight. Unfortunately after boarding our plane sat on the tarmac for 50 minutes before takeoff, but we eventually arrived in Milwaukee and had a charming cab driver.

Bonnie passed time on the plane alternating between working on crosswords and reading a book. Some anagram puzzles she had in her purse, challenged me to solve them, and then I was read my Entertainment Weekly to get the scoop on new movies in theaters, the fall return of True Blood and Glee, and the July return of Mad Men. For right now, my heart belongs to So You Think You Can Dance. It's not often that I watch anything live, so praise be to the digital video recorder.

Upon arrival at the conference hotel Hilton Milwaukee, we spotted a face from home, Joe Duarte, and he immediately started us out with hugs. More followed from others during our short wait in line for our rooms. We were able to check in even though we were at least an hour in advance of the 4 pm advertised time. And wow, do I like my room! What a great layout with lots of space.

After doing some unpacking, Bonnie and I went downstairs to get something to eat. At the Miller Tim Pub. We had a pleasant chat with Linda Kozma-Spytek of Gallaudet University, who told us about the study she is doing here on cochlear implants and cell phones.

As Bonnie and I ate our enormous salads, we also watched some of the World Cup game between South Africa and Uruguay, where we witnessed the awesome goal that dashed South Africa's hopes. Many flat screen TVs were showing the game throughout the pub and we just happened to be in a booth midway between two of the TVs that had captions turned on. What puzzled me was that one TV had the old style captions with the white text on a black background, while the other had crisp yellow captions and no background. And one TV had captions that were two to six words behind the captions on the other. What do you think are my odds of finding a volunteer to study the caption mystery in exchange for free beer?

Our meal behind us, Bonnie and I found our way to the Frontier Conference Center across the street and thence to the registration desk. We are now fully armed with our badges, the official conference bag and program book, and the 398-page whopper of a convention workbook with copies of all the presenters' slides. While there we ran into Joe Duarte again. When I commented that he was beginning to sport a haggard look, he told me that he'd flown from National early this morning and had been drafted to help resolve some problems with the listening system setup. That's our hero.

We also ran into Lynn Rousseau an Flo Innes of Florida, the HLAA hostess-with-the-mostest duo and a lot of the great people that make this conference more than just education. My hug-o-meter is guaranteed to go berserk tomorrow when there's a whole day to reconnect with HLAA buddies of years past and meet exciting new people.

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