Strange Loop

Somehow I finagled entry into a $800 per person tech conference in downtown St. Louis called Strange Loop.

I paid my way in with a little volunteering. One of our tasks was actually pretty fun: distributing the conference's free t-shirts.

Much of the festival was held at the Peabody Opera House.

Some smaller parts of it were at Union Station.

The preparty, which I also worked at, was held at the City Museum, and the t-shirt featured an element from that.

There were lots of cool giveaways. Stickers have a special place in nerds' hearts, as they display them on their laptops.

Meals and snacks were included. This one was on-topic: Strange Donuts.

Adam Savage of MythBusters fame gave the keynote address. His intro was a mashup video of explosions.

He had a couple of tool bags that he put stilts on so he wouldn't have to bend over to get a tool. When the tools got so heavy that the bags failed he remade them out of metal.

He did work as a model maker for Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones and The Matrix Reloaded.

My favorite part of his talk was when he spoke about his own depression and imposter syndrome. Like no matter how successful you become you always have a voice inside saying that you aren't good enough. It was nice to hear someone as big of a deal as Adam say that.

I made friends with a guy at the conference who was from Texas and I showed him around a little. It was fun.