DRI Conference - Fun, Informative, Inspiring!!

I was one of the lucky people in the New York City area who was able to attend the Diabetes Research Institute's day-long conference, DIABETES 2.0 -Harnessing New Technologies in Research and Treatment. There is probably no way to actually sum up this experience in words. Although it was a very long day, starting with a 6 am train ride and ending with a 6:30 pm blogger dinner and a 9 pm train ride home, the hours flew by. The sessions were very informative and the first two took away some of my cynical doubting attitude about the chance of a cure in my life-time. (I do believe a cure for diabetes will be found.  I just sometimes doubt that it will be found in my life-time.  But the information I saw on Saturday made me more hopeful). Another session inspired me to get back on track with my exercising, and had me on the treadmill this morning before 7 am - and before the excuses for skipping my workout cropped up. The last session, about Diabetes Burn-Out, left us with lots of laughs and good tips.

Equally as important as the information was the social aspect of the day. I was fortunate enough to meet a whole gang of fellow diabetes bloggers. It was awesome to spend the day with a bunch of people who really get what I live with every day, because they do too. Some people I "knew" from their blogs, and it was great to put real-life faces and personalities to their on-line ones. Others were new friends who's blogs have quickly been added to my feed reader. All were delightful! I was battling high blood sugars all day, but my frustration was lessened when several others admitted theirs wouldn't come down either. I think maybe the conference center was pumping a sugar-mist into the air! (Just kidding.)

So, who did I meet? Well, it's easy to remember because my Event Photographer was on hand to take some group shots. In this first one, we are striking our best Rockette pose - but I obviously missed the announcement that our pumps were supposed to be on display.

We quickly realized we had left out a few key people and gathered again for another group shot.

From left to right: Scott (who it turns out I went to college with), Fran, Gina, me, Lee Ann,

Val, Kelly, Allison, Amy and Bernard (who Pea and I were fortunate to spend the train ride home with).

If you ever have the opportunity to attend an event like this, I would highly recommend it. As my post title stated, it was fun, it was informative and it was inspiring.

I thought I'd end this post with a little video that was mistakenly taken as we were lined up for pictures. It seems my camera was on the wrong setting, so we got some inadvertent video footage. There isn't much to it, but I think you can hear our laughter and the fun we were having.

So yeah, I guess the red light really means the camera is recording video!