Bats! (And a really great hotel!)

Last week, my co-workers and I attended the IOL Conference down in Austin. It was a really great conference -- lots of geeky educational stuff. What was really nice was that it almost completely related to instructional design, which is what I do. Usually, when you go to a e-learning conference, there is one -- maybe two -- tracks that apply to design ... which is fine. But this conference, each time slot had 4 or 5 difference sessions that we wanted to go to, which was great. So, we all kind of spread out and got the most out of it.

To kick off the conference, Wednesday evening we spent a lovely evening on what my fellow attendees called "The Bat Boat". We floated along the narrow strip of the Lake Travis that stretches up into downtown Austin, and once dusk arrived, we watched as millions of bats took flight from underneath the Congress Street bridge. What I found truly amazing was how organized these creatures were in this. They began by coming out of the left side of the bridge, then gradually moved to those coming out from under the middle area, then from the right. Very organized. And of course, I had my camera in had to document the event.

Click HERE to see the entire set.












Oh, and my hotel room (at the Hyatt Regency) had a really great view overlooking the river and the Austin skyline. Of course, I snapped a few (dozen) photos of the view from my room.

Click HERE to see the entire set.