Tomorrow at 4:00 am I'm flying off to Sedona, Arizona, to attend the International QuickTime Virtual Reality Association summit for three days. You can view the program in panorama format if you want to see what's going on. Shelley's coming along too but she will use the time as a writing retreat during the day.

My generous boss is allowing me to take the time off "on the clock" (at my own expense) and I've promised to give a presentation about how these technologies can be incorporated into online teaching and learning or used in the classroom. I'll show a few panos from the field and teach people how to go about making them some time later this term or early next.

But I am really nervous about this whole show. I reckon that some 95% of all the people in the world who shoot and create panoramas and virtual tours professionally will be attending. (This will be less than 100 people I believe.) While my panos themselves compare favorably to the best they can make, I'm nowhere near staking a claim to be a professional in this business and anticipate being intimidated by them. Not intentionally, just psychologically.

All the companies that make hardware or software related to panorama shooting or production will also have a presence there. The summit advertisements have been bragging about how many door prizes will be given away, so it's possible I'll end up with something useful that I didn't have to buy. It's even possible that I'll find some must-have new thing-ma-bob that's announced to the world there. That's what Shelley's along for as well -- general counsel.

I suppose that it's slightly possible that I'll make a good connection or two that will result in a paid gig sometime down the road. I hope that's the case. I'm on the verge here and feel like it's so easy to topple forward, backward, or over the edge. I'm nervous about that. I've invested a heck of a lot of dollars into this endeavour and don't want it to fail. It must not. But it hasn't moved forward in a long time.