Eschaton 2012 Night at the Museum Gala: I'll Be There!

They'll be no point in worrying whether you left your oven

before you left home on December 21, 2012.

So, everyone who's serious about knowing things knows that the world is going to end this December 21st, at 11:11 UTC.  This is good news for last-minute Christmas shoppers, but bad news for people like me who planned (to be post-apocalyptic) winter holidays.  Will there even be a winter 2013?

So to make up for all of this, I'm going to go down to Ottawa to attend the  "Night at the Museum" gala at the Eschaton 2012 Convention, the last freethought convention you'll ever need to attend.  Thanks to a good friend for the ticket to the gala!

The gala itself will feature a talk by biologist PZ Myers.  You may have heard of him as he runs a popular blog called Pharyngula (a very jarring eschatonic name).  He'll be doing a talk called Chance In Evolution, which sounds like just the thing that would come in handy when trying to dialogue with evolution deniers.  I'm sure I'll get some useful information both for myself and for those awkward conversations with people who have denied scientific reality.

PZ Myers.

I'll get to thank him personally for helping out with the chicken coop and maybe get a photo with him as well.

Hopefully I'll also get to meet some of the other guest-speakers at the conference:

Ophelia Benson, Chris DiCarlo, Ian Cromwell, Natalie Reed, Udo Schuklenk, Eugenie Scott, Jim Linville, Sara Mayhew, Larry Moran, Vyckie Garrison, Jeffrey Shallit, Eric MacDonald, Ania Bula, Heina Dadabhoy, The Reality Check, Annie Urban, Allan Daoust, Crystal Beauvais Daoust, Anila Asghar, Steven Tomlins, Hank Fox, Alex Demarsh, Paul Beckwith

You can find links to guest-speaker blogs and bios on the Eschaton 2012 website (left menu).

The whole conference runs from the last Friday in November to the first Sunday in December (November 30th - December 2nd).  I believe there could still be space, so check out the site!  Before it's too late for anything!

I just heard an interesting interview with Vyckie Garrison on The Good Atheist podcast, so I'm looking forward to meeting her.

This will be my very first (and, I guess, last) conference ever!  And the first time I may have a photo taken of myself at said conference.  I actually have a couple of people who are interested in a photo of me.  Sorry people, no soul to steal here.

So even though I'm just going to the gala event, I'm fairly nervous.  I'm not going to know anyone at the event, so this could be Junior High School Dance night all over again!  So be nice and feel free to introduce yourself - I'll try to make myself recognizable somehow, since nobody knows how the heck I look.  Maybe I'll dress up like fries and gravy?