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Typical Daily schedules...
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Weekends
We have traditionally scheduled one “play
day” during each conference, allowing those who are interested to drive to the
Elizabethan Gardens in Manteo or to the national park at Cape Hatteras, or to
plan biking or kayaking trips, or whatever. This year, with all participants
scheduled to arrive on Saturday, we are likely to schedule talks for Sunday
through Thursday, with Friday as the tentative play day. This will allow
people to relax and recreate after getting to know each other and doing much of
the hard work of the conference. However, if it looks like Friday may have
bad weather, we will likely shuffle the schedule around, taking our play day
earlier, when it is nice out.
Should we have a nasty weather day during
the week, we may opt to load up talks on that day, which would then allow us to
take fuller advantage of nicer weather when it comes along (which hopefully,
won’t be the week after we leave.) In other words, under some
circumstances we may end up with more than one “play day.”
Workdays
Unless we have had the
foresight (and the forecast) to set a schedule the night before, we will
typically decide on each day's schedule at around 8:30 AM in the main house. We
ordinarily expect to have about 3 hours of talks a day, and we need to decide
whether to have those from 9:30 to 12:30 (the default), from 2:30-5:30, or some
other creative schedule, depending on weather and other such considerations.
Weather on the Outer Banks is quite variable at this time of the year, and the
scheduling objective is to spend the least pleasant part of each day inside
having talks. Thus, on colder days, we tend to meet in the morning, freeing up
the warmer afternoons. But on very hot days, we often meet in the afternoon,
taking advantage of the more pleasant conditions in the morning. Those present
make the call each morning, unless we decide the night before. As noted, the
default in recent years has been to meet in the morning.
Consequently, given the
possibility of meeting at 9:30, those who want breakfast should probably arise
about 8:00. And those who want to go running or swimming early (see warning
about Rip Tides) will typically get up even earlier.
Lunch is sometime during the
interval from about noon to 2:00. We have sandwich makings and leftovers and
whatever else we have had the foresight to buy, and so lunch is typically
informal and self-served. Small groups may choose to walk over to Timbuk II to
have lunch at any of several reasonably good restaurants (and a few hard core
cases, such as myself, may choose to drive to the Blue Point Bar and Grill,
which is about 20 minutes away, but very good).
Afternoon activities (or
morning activities if we choose to meet in the afternoon) are self-organized (in
other words, we have no recreation director). Possibilities include the pool
(including pool volleyball, when I can get a game going), the beach, the
shopping area, biking, kayaking, miniature golf, tennis, etc. etc. etc. I do
request that participants who put together a group for any such activities do
their best to make everyone feel welcome rather than simply splitting up based
on pre-existing friendships.
Dinner is served when the
cooks say it is, which tends to be around 6:30 or so. This year, I hope to
again make nightly reservations for 6 people at the Blue Point, with a different
group going out each night, leaving a more manageable crowd of 19 at the
house. This group will need to assemble around 6:00 PM. Evening activities are
again self-organized, with games like Poker and Personal Preference, walks on
the beach, and hot-tubbing being traditional favorites. We want people to have a
good time, but also to keep in mind that this is communal living, and some of us
old folks may have turned in early; so noise levels should be contained.
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