I’m currently at TMEA in San Antonio, Texas and am loving every minute! My session for the TI:ME Pre-Conference went well on Wednesday and I have enjoyed two days of fantastic sessions. My head is filled with ideas and I’ve (probably) walked 20,000 steps today. Time for a quiet corner to get those ideas out in some sort of order and also get some work done. I’m back in sessions tomorrow, flying back to Michigan on Sunday and we all know by now those lesson plans don’t write themselves. I also have to look for a few possibilities for my 3-5 spring concert. Fortunately, the convention center has plenty of seating just for this purpose and I have everything I need with me:

Believe it or not, this 64GB USB drive has all 27 volumes of Music K-8, the complete Music Connection, GamePlan K through 5 and other goodies!

I invested some time one summer to rip all the Music K-8 CDs to an external drive. At the same time I scanned all the magazines to pdf as well. My school owns all the originals and they are now safely stored in my room (we’re currently on the download subscription). Ditto for the Music Connection materials. I spent several snow days last year scanning all 6 GamePlan volumes and now they are always where they should be – on my desk at school ready for use. Not forgotten on my desk at home or breaking the shoulder strap on my briefcase. I have 95% of my materials always at the ready for planning purposes, anywhere. Even when I’m in my outdoor office over the summer:

I’m going to get back to my planning now so I can justify some excellent local food in a few hours. If you didn’t have enough reasons already to begin this task you should now, so get ripping!