women's lib and other adventures...

I have been terrible when it comes to blogging lately and for that I apologize. It's been a busy couple of weeks.



This week, I traveled to Scottsdale for a women's leadership conference for women in the energy industry. If you are familiar with the energy industry, you probably know that it is heavily dominated by males. That's why I was so excited by the invitation to join a group of women from my company.



We stayed at the Fire Sky resort and it was heaven. They brought a goldfish named Mimo to my room, I had my own patio...popsicles at two...sangria at five...



But back to the conference. It was small in size ~100 women and a few fabulous men looking to understand women better. A few of my favorite things included learning how to change my context, negotiation workshops and a panel of successful women leaders (including a vp from my company!). What I learned was that I work for a progressive company and that gender equality in 2009 is still a huge issue. One of the most interesting discussions centered around off-ramping when women have children and the dilemma of on-ramping (often way behind their male counterparts). That's a discussion for another day though.



They structured a lot of down time in the conference so we had time to actually get to know some of our fellow attendees. It was a great time.



The flight back was pretty entertaining. 73 businessmen were on standby and a battle of ego ensued. They managed to get a lot of them on. After they boarded first class and platinum/gold passengers, there were about 5 of us left to board. Very humbling. Good thing I checked my bag - the plane was 95% male. The most unusual flight I've ever been on.



Today I took the day off and went bridesmaid dress shopping with Ashleigh, Stacey and Caitlin. It was a lot of fun.



This weekend will be filled with yard work and getting my dad's router and DSL set up at the nursing home. He got a special laptop for his wheelchair so he can talk to us no matter where he is at in the nursing home. He just needs the wireless router for internet access all over the nursing home. Fun stuff!