In which nothing really exciting will happen.
Today I really wanted to go to a paper session, but as usual I ran into some people I knew, and we ended up talking for a while instead of going to the session. After that I thought I needed more hours, so I worked the Internet Room for some hours. Later it turned out I didn't need to work those hours...It sounds exciting, the Internet Room. It's just a bunch of tables filled with Mac's, each able to use telnet, Eudora, and Netscape. Most people just hop in to scan their e-mail. Occasionally somebody comes in who isn't familiar with Internet, and they are actually the most fun, because you can show them around, and get them enthused about it all. But other than that it's really a slow job.
Until the breaks. The breaks are a killer. All of a sudden many people show up, and they all want to use the computers. We quickly devised an intricate scheme with numbers to keep track of how long everybody was using those computers, and all of that made the job much more attractive.
Working the Internet Room certainly has its advantages also. For one you can read your own mail at the slow times. But more important is the fact that you can meet many people as they are waiting in line, or using the computers. I ran into several interesting people, one of which will probably turn out to be important to my research. Would never have met him otherwise.
During the lunch break I had to go to a Special Interest Group (SIG) on HCI and the Web. Since I'm maintaining my HCI Index I have a vested interest in the area. The crowd which showed up wasn't large, but well-informed and very interested. We coordinated some interesting stuff.