Not (yet) my tribe (day 143)

It's odd to be surrounded by thousands of people and feel alone.  This is the second time I've attended this conference and I thought it would be different this year.  But I'm starting to realize that there is a fundamental mismatch between the average SD&A attendee and me.  I remember once sitting at  Tim Horton's waiting for someone to pick me up.  I wasn't eating the doughnuts but I was watching other people eat doughnuts.  The atmosphere was ok and I was enjoying reading the paper.  I think I might have been sipping coffee too.  Anyway.   At some point I looked around and I thought "If I hung out here all the time, eventually I would look like the people that come here regularly".  The thought was sobering and I looked for my friend's car.  I feel the same way about this conference.  I look around and I think "I don't want this to be me in 10 years."  Needless to say the feeling seems to be mutual.  They can't see me becoming like them so they don't bother engaging in more than superficial conversation.  The saving grace?  Some pretty great content.  And there are other sub-conferences happening so I can duck out and take in some other type of information when I've had enough.  I will keep coming here because of the content and because I think eventually it will change.  And if it doesn't, maybe I'll start my own regular stereo conference.

If I could change SD&A I would add some art tracks, change the venues to be smaller, and add some technical courses.  Maybe change the management team to proportionally include fewer engineers.

BTW, Disney is converting the original Beauty and The Beast to stereoscopic.  They showed a preview and it is beautiful.  They said they aim to have it done (start to finish) in a year.  

A song for this post.