so I just one day after spending a shit load of money on my shiny new video camera, I got to use it on a real job that I got paid real money for. A friend of one of my professors from journalism school, and author, was speaking in a panel discussion about immigrants in the workforce at a conference at the Marriott in Times Square and wanted me to film her so that she could use it as a demo tape for future speaking engagements. so I brought my camera and tripod over to the hotel, set up inside a fairly small room, about a hundred person capacity, and got ready to film. Of course the main concern I had was to make sure I had an audio feed from the microphones that were on the table for the discussion so that I could plug into my camera and get good sound. But being that it was my first job in a while I had to forget my headphones at home. It was pretty stupid. But no matter, because my camera is so awesome I was able to see the audio levels and know that there was audio coming through.

The discussion to itself was kind of interesting, but not really my cup of tea. Most of the people there were there because they deal with immigrants in the workforce, hence the name. But to me they all seemed pretty nerdy. I don't know, I think most conferences are usually filled with nerds. But at least I got to use the Marriott's awesome elevator system -- you simply press the number of the floor that you want to go to and it assigns an elevator for you to go to, rather than pressing up or down. Very efficient, and you know how I like efficiency.

They also have one of the nicest bathrooms in Times Square. And you don't have to use a hotel key card to get in. Just walk into the Marriott, go to any of the floors, and use their bathroom. Shiny, bathroom, goodness.