I'm in Costa Mesa, California, for the first in my tripleheader of math education conferences, the Annual Meeting of the Association of State Supervisors of Mathematics. If you're not familiar with ASSM, that's okay. It's a small professional organization only open to people who have a job like mine, or to associate members who used to have a job like mine. For me, ASSM has the highest percentage of friendly faces and the most sympathetic ears of all the conferences I attend.
It was a challenging travel day. Security lines at Denver International Airport wrapped around the building, then our plane broke and we had to get a replacement crew. We finally were in the air after a 2.5-hour delay. Then I single-handedly battled California car culture by walking from the airport to the hotel. Navigating away from the airport on foot was a bit tricky and I admit there's not much beauty in walking alongside 10 lanes of traffic, but I'm glad I did it. If nothing else, it's a good way to get in lots of steps and it helped me deal with the carbon on my conscience after a flight.
With the delays, I missed the first half of the opening session of the ASSM meeting. When I got there, Steve Leinwand and Cathy Seeley were holding court, sharing stories from their many years of membership in ASSM, and sharing wisdom about what we can get from our time in ASSM and what opportunities we have to pay it forward. ASSM turns 60 this year and I enjoy math ed history, so I hope to hear more tales before the weekend is done.