So the rest of my time in Orlando was great. I enjoyed the remaining workshops and talks. Maria Klawe gave a fantastic keynote on Friday, and I met and chatted with a lot of interesting people. I appreciate Maria's enthusiasm and optimism about increasing women's participation in the field. She really understands the issues and brings a lot of energy to finding solutions. I've heard her talk before, and I liked her previous idea of convincing Oprah to do a show on women in technology. I wish I'd had a chance to ask her if she's made any progress on this, because I think that would be so incredibly awesome.

I had a ton of fun with my roomie Mira, a friend I'd been out of touch with for a while. She liked watching dippy shows and movies at night, eating junk food, talking about boys, and playing at Epcot with me. We went Friday night for the International Wine and Food Festival and had a blast trying a bunch of different things from countries like Turkey and Chile. We watched the crazily gratuitous fireworks and light show, visited dinosaurs with Ellen Degeneres, enjoyed a 3D experience in Honey I Shrunk the Audience, went on a mission to Mars, and basically had an excellent time being little kids again...You get the picture. Love the Mira!

My word shortening powers started working on peeps I hung out with at the conference. At one point in Downtown Disney, one of the women said, "I say we ditch this and go get our souvs!" I felt so proud.

Today Trav called me to talk about things we did last time he was here. He got very wrapped up in the splashing in puddles, but neither Molly or I could tell what he was saying until he started demonstrating stomping through puddles to her. He also likes to tell me about the bear in the tree. Or monkeys. I guess there is a bear or two who like to sleep in a tree outside of their bank, and Zozo loves to see them. When they drove by this afternoon, they were up there again but he called them monkeys. Molly reminded him that they are bears, and he seemed to get it, but as they drove away he turned and shouted, "Bye Monkeys!"

I've been working on fixing a leaky kitchen faucet on my own, and tonight I finally decided to throw in the towel and call the landlord. I just can't figure it out, and I'm bummed since I really wanted to do this myself. I'm a faucet failure! Boo.

While typing this I watched Randy Pausch giving a condensed version of his last lecture on Oprah, and it is so amazing. He is amazing. He just gets it, and I love it. I adore the piece of advice he has for his baby daughter about what to do when she starts dating. He says when it comes to boys to not pay attention to what they say but to what they do, as that will help her avoid the big mistakes. From my own experience, all I can say is yes. This is exactly right.