Badges!

While we are all gearing up for our two-and-half day week and too much turkey, those of us (like me) who have procrastinated till now are panicking at the prospect that AU is just days away! Do I really have five classes to prepare???

Well, I happened to be rummaging through my closet the other day looking for something when I stumbled across a collection of old AU badges! There seem to be a few missing here unfortunately, but I have most of the last several years. What fun!

Back in 2001, (I think this is the first year I taught) I was signed up for a "VBA Primer for Architectural Desktop" and a couple "VIZ" classes. (Never did much with either of those unfortunately. What about 2002? Seems that was the year Revit came on the scene, because I was signed up for: "Autodesk Revit - Implementing Building Information Modeling in your Firm." Based on the number of holes in my schedule that year, I assume I taught three classes that year. For 2003, the theme was "See what's out there"... Hmmm... I don't know about that one. OK, let's see what we had....  I was teaching four classes: Curtain Walls, Schedules, Scale-dependent annotation and Project Navigator - all in ADT. I was still working at CFA at that time (at least for a little longer), so a few other badges slipped in there like the Autodesk One-Team Conference.

In 2004 I don't have my agenda anymore, but from the little booklet in the badge, I can see we were still at the MGM. In 2005 we went to Disney World! Most people complained about this AU, but I loved it. Mainly because we took the whole family the week before and the kids had a blast at Disney. They were the perfect ages then. My oldest was 9 and the twins were 7. What a nice time. Sure the Swan and Dolphin hotels are not the best place for an AU, but having AU in a spot where the kids could come too and have a great time was a nice switch for me. I will always remember that one fondly. This was also the time I was striking out on my own (March 2004 actually, but AU 2005 would have been my first AU as an "independent") As such, I found a bunch of old business cards in my AU 2005 badge.

I think the business card my designer made for me and that I use now is much nicer. What do you think?

In 2006, we were "Agents of Change". We were back in Vegas at the Venetian. I liked the Venetian better than the MGM. The rooms are nicer, and the conference center much closer. I think this was the year we had Blue Man Group at the party. Pretty cool except I couldn't get a seat it was SOOO crouded. But great show anyhow. I was teaching both ADT and Revit at this point and from my agenda, I appear to have been taking many classes on both as well.

Well, I appear to have misplaced the 2007 and 2008 badges. Last year I taught five classes! 3 ACA and 2 Revit. Probably similar in 2007. This year I have five as well. I have a previous post here on what I am teaching this year.

This was a nice little trip down memory lane. While attendance is sure to be lower this year at AU, we are in a new venue at the Mandalay Bay so it is sure to be exciting as new places often are. I'll get another badge for my collection and hopefully we'll all come away a little smarter. Hope to see many of you there!