Wing conference

First, a glossary:

Wing: State, as in, "There are 52 wings in the Civil Air Patrol, one for each state."
Conference: Gathering, as is, "I fell asleep at the gathering."
Lake George: a lake, named George. Probably it had some super long American Indian name, like Oskeetchgemaboranic, and the early explorers were like, "dude, we can't say that. We're naming it George." And thus it was named Lake George.
Volleyball: You "volley" a "ball" back and forth over a "net." Only for the very talented. The rest of us stand and try to look cool while getting sunburned.
Banquet: Where they serve food of the mediocre quality, everyone eats it, and then exclaims about how good it was, as in, "That chunk of uncooked meat was simply delicious! And that crusty roll upon which I broke 4 teeth on? Superb!"
Ceremony: It involves clapping.
Conference: It also involves clapping.
CAC: Cadet Advisory Council. They, um, do stuff. Like talk. And say "aye." (As in, "all in favor, say aye." Not the, "Aye, pirate! Arghhh!" kind of aye.)

So yeah. Vene, vedi, vici. Minus the vici part. The NYWG conference was held this year at a hotel place in Lake George. Lake George is located a long ways away, over in the lake-y, Adirondack-y part of the state. Lake George is touristy, drawing heavily on the Adirondack theme. You can eat an Adirondack waffle, look at multiple gift shops or small eating places that include the word "Adirondack" in their name, admire the Adirondack-themed decor, and in general, immerse yourself fully in the Adirondack-ness that is Lake George. There is also a lake there somewhere, involving (I hear) water.

I was picked up from work around 11 on Friday. My squadron commander drove me and another girl (Megan) from my squadron out there. It took us several hours, but the trip passed relatively uneventfully, and we arrived around 6. Let's just say that more than one route leads to lake George, and we discovered another route that wasn't the one sanctioned by whoever it was at wing headquarters that sent out directions and maps to all attendees. Luckily, Lake George, with all of its touristy-ness and Adirondacky-ness was fairly well marked, and following signs placed strategically along the road, we found it.

Friday evening was spent unpacking, eating supper, and then trying to get to know others there. I knew a few of the cadets there, and met some. I played volleyball that evening, and then...hmm...can't remember. Oh yeah, helped clean up the cadet room, and then hung out. Then we went to bed, because Saturday was going to be a Big Day.

So now in our chronological perusal of the 2011 NYWG conference, we come to Saturday. Waking up and eating breakfast happened first. Megan and I and another cadet walked to a cafe-type place, complete with the two local elderly ladies (and small dog) sitting at a table and visiting. This is where I ate the above mentioned Adirondack waffle. After breakfast, we hopped into our dress blues and went over to the conference room. the conference general assembly was from 9 to noon, and it involved some basic talks, and awards. The national commander wass upposed to be there, but something came up and she wasn't able to attend. Bummer. But we had a safety briefing, head from the wing commander, someone from national, and a special speaker from an organization with an incredibly long acronym. He didn't need the microphone...this is where sound system people need to turn mics down to compensate for the speaker's lung and diaphragm strength. But did they? No, they did not.

Then the awards. They were the achievement awards, like the squadron that had the most growth, group with the best aerospace program, stuff like that. Around award number 78, I began to suspect that they were just making it up. I mean, I can believe something like "The LaGuardia Award of Aerospace Development." But then they go on to like, "The Donald L. Kickenbasher Award of Outstanding Filling In Of Circles When Taking Multiple Choice Tests" and I'm going to get skeptical. At least all the clapping kept me awake, or not totally asleep anyhow.

Then we had lunch. The cadets segregated themselves from the seniors and went to the Cadet Tower (except...it was one floor, the ground floor, and did not have your typical tower accessories, such as Rapunzel) and ate pizza. Before/during/after lunch, we had some presentations directly for the cadets. One was a public affairs briefing (essentially, don't talk to the press unless you're authorized), one was a rather direct appeal to join the AFROTC, and...I...can't remember the rest. Oh, a safety briefing too. THEN, cadets who had signed up for the cadet olympics were free to go off and do that, while the rest of the cadets had more seminars or courses. Megan and I opted to go the cadet olympics route. There were 4 teams, and we did a few activities before starting volleyball. My team won the first round, lost the second, and then I'm not sure who won.

We played volleyball for pretty much the rest of the afternoon, and then hung out until it was time to get ready to go to the banquet. So then we got ready and headed over. The room was a little on the small side, and it was quite loud. We ate dinner, and then had the more interesting awards, like the cadet NCO of the year, and wing cadet officer of the year. Then, it was hang out/dancing time. I was standing watching the proceedings when Josh, a fellow homeschooled cadet walked over. "Having fun?" Honestly compelled me to say no. "That makes two of us, then," he said. Thus it was that I opted to head back over to my room and call Jessica and debrief her on the conference so far. Then I packed and talked to random people. I think we went to sleep around like 2.

Then...in the morning...I had to go to a CAC meeting. Essentially, I awoke, texted my squadron commander to see what she was doing for breakfast, hopped into my blues, and payed like 8 dollars to eat at the hotel buffet. Then we went over to the CAC meeting. I had hoped to run for an elected position on CAC, but I wasn't able to. So, I guess I'm just a representative for my group...I think?

After that, we had a couple minutes before we had to be checked out of the hotel. So I hastened back to my room, hopped into more comfortable clothing (haha, slingshots, ribbons, dress shoes, and a suit coat are not exactly my idea of comfort for a long ride), and then we departed. We drove a ways, stopped, drove a ways, stopped, drove a ways, stopped, and then drove some more. I got picked up shortly after 7 pm, went to our church for a baptismal service.

Okay, I'm sticking the pics down here, with captions.

Above: the cafe where we ate breakfast Saturday morning. Below: my breakfast.

The conference. This is the wing commander speaking.
The pizza that the cadets ate for lunch on Saturday
Volleyball. Photos courtesy...someone else :P


The scenic-ness that is Lake George
Me before going to the banquet thingy
The banquet thingy

Our aerospace display
okay...before I fall asleep here on my keyboard, I'm going to close this up! Goodnight to all and sundry :)