Finally up and moving. Just in time for a noon breakfast. Things have been a rush for the last couple of days and I should give you an update.
Tuesday night we went to Chicago so we would be close to the airport for the 7AM flight. Only got 3 hours of sleep before getting on plane and only managed one hour of sleep on the plane. Got to South Point hotel around 9:00 AM and had breakfast.

We hopped in a cab and went to the strip to do some sight seeing. Started at the Luxor and walked north for about 6 hours. Stopping if different casinos and seeing what was there. I won’t bore you with all of the details but we had a great time. We ended up at the Belllagio and watched their famous fountains!

Back at the hotel we started to meet many of our friend. I will list a few that you may know….
Captain Dissolution.

Sean Faircloth executive director of Secular Coalition for America.

Healthy Addict

There were so many more but I have to go.  More people to see.

I will try to do another update soon.

Another great talk from Tyson.  He was able to fit a 45 minute talk into just 90 minutes and it was great! 

Dr Neil DeGrasse Tyson – TAM6 from JREF on Vimeo.

Watch it and then share your thoughts.

Phil Plait – Don’t Be A Dick from JREF on Vimeo.

Previous TAM8 posts

The Amazing Meeting 8 – Day 1 Thursday Skepticism In The Classroom

The Amazing Meeting 8 – Day 1 Thursday Skepticism And Feminism

The Amazing Meeting 8 ( TAM8 )– Day 2 Friday Morning Summary

The Amazing Meeting 8 ( TAM8 )– Day 2 Friday Afternoon Summary

The Amazing Meeting 8 ( TAM8 )– Day 3 Saturday Morning Summary

The Amazing Meeting 8 ( TAM8 )– Day 3 Saturday Afternoon Summary

Saturday we met for our last supper together.  Lots of friends from or near to Illinois.

Then we went to the  Skepchick party…

It was only a mile away from the casino.  You could not find a better location and the house was amazing.  Here is a sample picture of some of the people at the party – It was packed.

There was also a costume contest.  The best costume was to be judged by the drunken hoard.  In the first round the biggest votes were collected by the women with the sexiest costumes.  The final was decided when two women started making out.  Not sure but, this may have set feminism back a few years.

During the party I gave Jen (Blaghag) a free psychic reading.  Looking on is a small crowd (Jeff, Robin and Mary).  Many people do not know that I have psychic ability.  Well, I do… but I only use it for good.  In less than 2 minutes I had the name of Jen’s former boyfriend and some secret details.

Sunday talks…  I think the Perfect Wife and I may have partied too hard.  It took alot of effort to get to the 3rd talk on Sunday.  It was Jen talking about boobquake.  Sadly we then had to go and catch our plane home.  I think next year we will try to get there sooner and stay longer.

Well, I think thats it for TAM8!  See you all at TAM9!

Too see more summaries of TAM8….

The Amazing Meeting 8 – Day 1 Thursday Skepticism In The Classroom

The Amazing Meeting 8 – Day 1 Thursday Skepticism And Feminism

The Amazing Meeting 8 ( TAM8 )– Day 2 Friday Morning Summary

The Amazing Meeting 8 ( TAM8 )– Day 2 Friday Afternoon Summary

The Amazing Meeting 8 ( TAM8 )– Day 3 Saturday Morning Summary

Saturday Afternoon….

After a slow morning we had a pretty good afternoon.

Above is David Javerbaum.  He has eleven Emmy Awards and is the former executive produce of The Daily Show.  He was a funny guy.  He started his talk with an opening prayer and later when asked questions called some girl an uppity chick.  Below is James McGaha.  He is a real astronomer and gave an informative if not dry presentation.  We found out later that he is also a global warming denier – don’t even get me started.

Above is Jennifer Michael Hecht.  After an apparently confused appearance on the feminism panel she hit a home run with this talk.  She mostly talked about religion and her book “Doubt” I may have to order a copy!  Next up is Paul Provenza.  He delivered adult content in a take no prisoners style.  He opens up with some great one liners…

“TAM is like a dog park and I just want to sniff everybody’s ass.”

and

“I can now say I’ve opened for Richard Fucking Dawkins.”

As I got to the front to take this picture he asked the AV guy to play a video clip.  After a few seconds he said something like, “are you going to play it or should I just fuck myself.”  Without thinking I shouted out, “Can we have both?”  He laughed and said yeah sure, I’m here to please…   He was so funny that we ran out to the JREF table and bought a copy of his book “Sataristas”.

Finally, Dawkins!

Wait what?  No presentation, No PowerPoint.  WTF???

 I have seen Dawkins live 3 times; University of Kansas – 10/30/06,  University of Wisconsin (Madison) – 3/11/08, and Indiana University – 10/12/09.  They were all GREAT!  Dawkins knows how to put together a presentation and work the crowd.  That is what I wanted to see again.  I was denied.  D.J. Grothe, I love you but this well uh… sucked.  It was such a bummer.

After that… I need a drink… Off to the Skepchick Party!

I think I will have to buy the DVD for this convention.  There was so much going on that it can be hard to keep track of it all.  If you just found this update here are the ones posted over the last few days….

The Amazing Meeting 8 – Day 1 Thursday Skepticism In The Classroom

The Amazing Meeting 8 – Day 1 Thursday Skepticism And Feminism

The Amazing Meeting 8 ( TAM8 )– Day 2 Friday Morning Summary

The Amazing Meeting 8 ( TAM8 )– Day 2 Friday Afternoon Summary

Now on to Saturday Morning. 

After another live recording of the Skeptics Guide To The Universe we heard from Massimo Pigliucci.  He talked about skepticism and how much we can do.  It was pointed out that some atheists are not skeptics, like Bill Maher.  Here is an example from Mr. Maher.

 “I would never get a swine flu vaccine or any vaccine. I don’t trust the government, especially with my health.”

This presentation was OK but not uplifting like some of the others.  At some point he talked how it takes a long time to be a scientist.  It kind of felt like he sees scientists as elite.  That is not the attitude I want to hear.

We also heard from Bruce Hood.

We then had a panel on skepticism and health care.  After all of this the Perfect Wife and I went off to have lunch with a good friend.

Tomorrow I will do a post about Saturday Afternoon.  See you then…

After our Friday morning sessions, it was time for lunch.  The Perfect Wife and I went to the special speakers lunch.  Several of the speakers were there and I got to sit close to two of them here is a photo….

I was really planning on standing between them but, it’s still a cool photo.

I also got a photo with Simon Singh.  If you don’t know who he is – you better read this.

This Is Joe Nickell.  Below of course is Adam Savage of the Mythbusters.

One of the best talks of TAM was delivered by Pamela Gay.  She is a real life astronomer and works in Illinois. 

Then we had “The Talk”  from Phil Plait.  Phil’s title could have been, “Don’t Be A Dick.”  It was about helping more people by being nice and not rude.  This seemed to get the most discussion at TAM.  Everyone had an opinion.  I’m not sure if he was talking about a specific person or blog but he sure was passionate.  I agree with most of what he said and I know from time to time I’m not as nice as I should be.  Maybe it is something we can all work on.  If I had to reply I guess I would say, “Don’t Be A Dick And Don’t Be A Pussy.”

Wrapping up the night we had Carol Tavris.

At the last minute we had a suprise visit by Eugenie Scott.  She is the Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education.

Later that night we had tickets to see Roy Zimmerman and the Talent Show.  However, we were having such a good time with friends at the Del Mar that we just decided to hang with them.  There was at least 7 former/current students from the U of I and Parkland.  It was great to visit and find out what they are all doing.

Before I get into the Friday morning summary I’m going to talk about the Thursday night reception.  Every year at TAM there is a Thursday reception where many of the speakers show up early and mingle with the common folk.  However, as TAM has grown this event has become more structured and has now lost some of its charm.  In past years I was able to talk to Neil deGrasse Tyson and Adam Savage.  This year there are over 1,300 people and is seems like many of them made the event.  The best you could do is to get a photo or a signature and then move out of the way for the next person to get their photo. 

Here is a Photo of Phil Plait and Adam Savage.

Here is a picture I got later in the bar….

Now to Friday……….

The day opened with a live recording of The Skeptic Guide To The Universe.  You need to check out this podcast. 

I also took a photo of the crowd. 

We then had introductions from Phil Plait

 and the new president of the JREF D.J. Grothe. 

We then had presentations from Michael Shermer the president of the Skeptic Society and

Sean Faircloth the director for Secular Coalition for America.

We topped this off with a panel on women in skepticism and an interview of James Randi

Tomorrow I will do a post for Friday afternoon and you will never guess who I had lunch with!

Well I was hoping to do these blog posts during the convention but we were so busy having a great time and joining all of our friends that they had to wait.  You can see the first post here.  We are in the airport now and the free wi-fi has allowed me to do this post.  I will have more over the next several days – so please check back.

On Thursday afternoon the Perfect Wife and I went to a session on Skepticism and Feminism.  This event was run by the Skepchicks.  The skepchick ring leader is Rebecca Watson (left).  We talked about feminism issues and how they relate to skepticism.  We divided into small groups of about 10 for further discussion and to do “arts and crafts”.  We were all asked to make…

Angry Vaginas!

They handed out red, pink and white felt and an assortment of crafty materials and asked us to get to work.  They showed us their sample – It had razor sharp teeth.  Yikes!

—

A little later in the session, I started talking about my blog to this lady next to me.  She seemed interested in the blog so I gave her the web address.  She continued to ask what topics I covered and said that I cover some of the same stuff as PZ Myers with some posts about investments from time to time.  I asked if she knew PZ.  She said something like, “know him? I’m his wife.”

DOH!

Must learn to read name tags! 

I wanted to crawl under a rock.  However, she was wonderful about it.  We were able to talk several times during the weekend and I can see why PZ calls her the Trophy Wife.  It was a great joy to meet here and have some amazing conversations.

The perfect wife and I arrived about 8:30AM local time and made our way to South Point.  We checked into our hotel and then signed in for the convention.  It was great to see so many friends here.  One person said it’s like the whole web showed up in one place.

Our first official event was Workshop 2B: Skepticism in the classroom.  This was started by Michael Blanford (right); he is the director of Education for the JREF.  We also heard from my good friend, Matt Lowry (The Skeptical Teacher) (left).  He shared some of his real world class experience with us.  He gave great examples of how to bring skepticism into the class room – how to make kids think.  We also heard from Daniel Loxton (right) he is the author of the new and awesome kid’s book called “Evolution“.  It has great graphics and is written in the Scooby Doo style.  That means that there are mysteries for the kids to solve.  Make it fun and they will learn.  To finish up we heard from Barbara Drescher (left).  She talked about how things are not always how they first look.  This presentation all went very well and Mr. Richard Dawkins dropped in to listen to some.  Whoo hoo.

I will talk about the Feminism workshop next – when I can find more time. Whew….