I spent a good portion of last week away at the Learning at School Conference in Rotorua. Actually that’s not strictly true. My body spent several days at the conference. My head and my heart stayed firmly at home.

We moved house over this last weekend and while I was away racing between some of Rotorua’s major hotels, the other members of the household packed and carted various boxes of my paraphenalia back to Te Atatu South. the removal truck arrived yesterday morning and three large men threw all of our furniture into the back. They drove the ten minutes and then proceeded to throw all of out furniture into the new house. Throw is the only word to use – I watched a super king size matress be tossed up to our two storey balcony. Impressive and efficient. The only breakage was a mirror that someone I dumped too many laptops onto.

My eldest daughter, Rebekah, had been due to deliver her second child on the weekend before the conference. I was very confident that she would have her son before I left for Rotorua as her first baby had been born on the day after her due date. Unfortunately, it was not to be. In the end Michael James decided to wait until the last day of the conference and make his appearance right while I was operating a laptop for someone else’s presentation.

I had already planned to leave Rotorua mid morning on Friday so when the phonecalls started to come I made arrangements to meet my passenger and to get back to Auckland quickly. We packed up my boot early in the day and after the first session of the day had only a laptop to put into the back. Unfortunately when I dropped my friend off we forgot about the laptop and it lay in the seatwell at the back of my car. I parked at the Waitakere Hospital Maternity Unit and went in to meet my new grandson. While I was cuddling the baby I heard an alarm and decided it didn’t sound like mine …

Some *&^%$# decided to do a smash and grab raid on my car. My passenger’s laptop was stolen and I also lost a small leather purse. The cover on the boot of my station wagon was moved but luckily none of my gear was stolen. I spent Friday night at the Henderson Police Station having my car dusted for fingerprints and being fingerprinted to eliminate my prints from the investigation. Not the best way to spend the evening of my grandson’s birth and the day before moving house. I just hope that the Police catch the *&^%$# that did it. Not only do we have to sort out the stolen laptop but I have a car that is missing a window. Not a good look whilst driving down State Highway 16.

And the conference? Check out Artichoke’s summary. She describes the whole thing with a great deal more humour than I can muster. One everlasting memory for me will be trying to show off some internet sites for teachers – without the internet working. Not a problem with a Nokia cellphone and  USB cable? Except for some reason my never fails connection just plain wouldn’t. I just about cheered when the internet finally started working again. My cheering turned to cursing when I got some access denied messages from the filtering software. Of course! You really shouldn’t be trying to access software or websites for learning from an ICT conference – should you? Nevermind that the same software is linked to from TKI?

Bah Humbug.