I think I might be finished with nearly anything that happens in convention centers. I'm not sure I've ever had a good time in one. Do they happen? They're so sterile they creep me out and make me want to run far away (to my sterile hotel room). My panel was OK, though the discussion was just getting going when we ran out of time. I also felt it was a bit too focused on far-off scenarios rather than practical stuff that might help musicians. I have a hard time caring about anything I have to imagine 5-10 years into the future to get. Probably my issue, but there it is.

Once again Boston tried to hang onto me by laying down a giant storm on my way out. Last time it was snow that cancelled every flight but mine. This time it was wind that cancelled every flight but mine. It's never cool when you see this much red on a departures screen when you walk up to your gate:

I got to fly in a 9-seat Cessna propeller airplane (the ninth seat is actually the co-pilot seat). I thought it would be scary especially with all the turbulence but I found it easy to accept the idea of dying after spending so many hours in an airport. Also it felt like being in a van in the sky. And whenever I was nervous the pilot was like three feet away from me so I could study his body language. "He's not sweating and trying to secretly phone his kids, so I think this is just normal turbulence."

I took this video of the landing:

Pretty sweet landing there. The other three I experienced weren't quite as slick.

Holy cow, Zap Your PRAM was great. It would take some sort of endless series of biographical novels to explain it all. Basically it was roughly 50 super interesting people (and me) in a beautiful historical Prince Edward Island cottage slash hotel. All passionate, all thoughtful, all interesting, no shills. Even (maybe especially) when I didn't think their fields of expertise were things I was interested in, I wound up being fascinated.

Thanks to the adorable silverorange team for all the hospitality and amazing dessert per day ratio. I don't know that there's a nicer group of people to have yell “bum sex” at you on the street.

I was nervous about giving my first ever talk/presentation but it seemed to go well and lots of people said nice things about it. It was both awesome and intimidating to be talking to such a knowledgeable crowd. Seems like it'd be easier to talk to dumbasses, but the feedback wouldn't be as rewarding.

For a general list of what went on, Stephen DesRoches has an excellent write-up and some beautiful photos.

My camera actually died as I sat in the Ottawa airport getting ready to go. So all I have is a crappy cell phone picture of the metal cow in the Charlottetown airport. Which is above.

I'm off to the Zap Your PRAM conference this weekend. It should be some awesome nerdy maritime fun and I'm really looking forward to it. Regular conferences have a little too much desperation going on and this one feels like it'll be more of a bunch of like-minded (but not too like-minded) folks hanging out.

Matt Haughey from Metafilter was supposed to be going but I guess he's not now which makes me sad. At least now I won't have to drunkenly confess about how many ideas I've stolen from him. So I can tell that to Daniel Burka (Digg designer), and Cal Henderson (Flickr architect) instead.

I'm giving a presentation on Friday I'm maybe calling “A Brief History of a Song” where I tell the story of one of my songs -- from the initial idea to its recording and release and to some of the crazy adventures it gets up to when it's out of my hands. It's been something that's been on my mind for a while so I'm looking forward to getting it out. of my system.

Welp, I'm off to the Waterloo show tonight. I have shown due diligence in making sure there are limited glitches in my laptop live show so now it's all up to my lord and saviour Jesus Christ who I have always believed in without wavering, amen, am I right guys.

And I guess maybe I'll visit City 7 on the way.